Issue 25

Women’s Tennis Primed for PostSeason Play

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THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER OF AMHERST COLLEGE SINCE 1868

VOLUME CXLIII, ISSUE 25 • WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2014

Students and Staff Discuss New Party Policy Sophie Murguia ’17 Managing News Editor

Olivia Tarantino ’15 Photography Editor

Students gathered on the King and Wieland lawn this Sunday for the college’s annual Spring Carnival, which featured live music, food and outdoor games.

College Searches for Dean of Students Joyce Wamala ’18E Contributing Writer The search committee charged with replacing former Dean of Students Jim Larimore has identified a few promising candidates and hopes to bring the finalists to campus to meet with students, faculty and staff before the end of the academic year, Chief Student Affairs Officer Suzanne Coffey said.

The search for the new Dean of Students has changed to reflect the new role the Student Affairs office will play on campus. This year’s search, which features a slightly altered job description, will include greater student input in the search process, Coffey said.

“The approach to the search for the perfect candidate for the position has dramatically changed this year,” said Coffey, who deemed the search one of her main objectives this semester.

The committee has decided not to use an outside firm to facilitate the job search like it did with the Larimore search. Instead, the search will be done entirely in-house in order to expedite the process and receive valuable

student input, Coffey said.

Coffey and Professor Nicola Courtright are serving as the co-chairs on the search committee, which includes members Amani Ahmed ’15, Julian Boykins ’15, Kat Dominguez ’16, Professor Maria Heim, Student Affairs Case Manager Scott Howard and Professor Paul Rockwell.

“I was definitely pleasantly surprised to note that my voice bears equal weight on this committee to that of any other faculty member,” Boykins said. “We all have the same information about the steps being taken and I definitely feel that student involvement in the search has been given more emphasis.”

Courtright said that Jim Larimore’s departure was pivotal for her in realizing that changes needed to be made to the structure of the Student Affairs office.

“This is too much of an overwhelming position as it is,” Courtright said. “We are looking for a partner for the chief of Student Affairs.”

The college is looking to hire a Dean of Students who will focus on the transformation of student life to complement Coffey’s role as strategic planner overseeing organizational,

personnel and management changes.

“The two key goals in mind are to ensure that the students have the support they need to succeed academically and to build a community that allows every student to take advantage of the talent and diversity of the student body as a whole,” Coffey said. “We are looking for a candidate that has a passion for encouraging students to seek and take advantage of all the resources and opportunities at Amherst, who also has an authentic appreciation for the college’s history and traditions as well as a vision for its potential. ” Dividing the role of Dean of Students into two positions has played an integral role in defining the search process.

“Essentially a lot of different things fall under the jurisdiction of a single dean and what we have found is that in order to maximize our efficiency as an office, we need to divide some of these roles up between two or more people,” Coffey said. “When we have one person purely focused on strategic planning and another on student life projects, then we can really begin to see creative juices flowing, and concentrated efforts blossoming.”

Three months after the introduction of Amherst’s new party policy, college staff members say that the policy has made some progress in creating safer and cleaner party conditions. Interim Dean of Student Conduct Suzie Mitton Shannon will meet with a group of students today to discuss possible next steps for encouraging a safer social scene at the college.

“I think that many of the goals that we set out to achieve with the party policy are being accomplished,” Mitton Shannon said.

The new policy was introduced on January 22, largely as a response to December’s Crossett Christmas parties. In an email to the student body in January, former Dean of Students Jim Larimore said that the party policy was in part a response to the “dangerous levels of overcrowding” and “unruly behavior” that occurred when an estimated 2,000 people converged on the social quad.

In an effort to promote safer party conditions and respond to student concerns about Amherst’s social environment, administrators introduced a pilot program that aimed to combat overcrowding and push parties into spaces other than the social dorms.

The new policy aims to make it easier for students to register parties in common spaces. It includes an option for students to register BYOB parties with fewer than 99 guests, in which the College permits students of age to bring their own beer and wine.

Association of Amherst Students President George Tepe ’14 said that the new options for party registration have encouraged students to look beyond the social dorms and host more parties on the Triangle and other campus dorms.

“We aren’t seeing the overcrowding in the socials like we used to,” Tepe said. “I think that’s attributed to the fact that you can have parties now in these bigger, brighter, safer, honestly more fun spaces on campus.”

Mitton Shannon said that she also saw the greater diversity of party spaces as one of the policy’s positive effects.

“Students were saying to me that they felt like the social scene at Amherst was not what they wanted it to be,” Mitton Shannon said.

“In particular, parties were happening in the social residence halls, and they were in small spaces and didn’t provide a great opportunity for people to get to know one another. So one of the goals for the party policy was to have more party space spread out throughout campus.”

In discouraging crowding in the social dorms, Mitton Shannon said that administrators hoped not only to encourage better social interactions, but also to reduce safety issues that were occurring in the social dorms.

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News

“According to custodial staff, the new party policy has been successful at encouraging students to clean up after events.”

Party Policy Page 3

April 21, 2014 - April 28, 2014

>>Apr. 21, 2014 10:59 a.m., Merrill Science A student reported the theft of an iPad from Merrill Science. It is valued at $500.

An officer responded to a report of a vehicle stuck in mud. The officer found a large Ryder truck had damaged grass as well as a granite pillar.

Restitution is pending.

>>Apr. 23, 2014 10:31 a.m., Moore Dormitory A student reported two phone calls from a man attempting to get credit card information from her.

11:00 a.m., Frost Library An officer responded to a report of a person who had been wandering around . When the officer arrived the person left the area.

>>Apr. 24, 2014 10:11 a.m., Valentine Loading Dock An officer investigated a motor vehicle accident.

8:19 p.m., LeFrak Gym An officer assigned to a concert encountered a visitor who possessed pepper spray. The pepper spray, which is not legal to possess on a college campus, was confiscated.

10:44 p.m., South College Dormitory Officers responded to a smoke detector sounding. The cause was found to be a blow dryer that was being used. The alarm was reset. >>Apr. 25, 2014 12:03 a.m., East Drive An officer on patrol encountered a student with alcohol who was under age. The matter was referred to the Dean’s Office.

4:26 p.m., King Dormitory An officer responded to a noise complaint. A group of students was advised to lower the music volume.

9:12 p.m., South Pleasant Street An officer investigated a motor vehicle accident.

10:13 p.m., Lipton House Officers responded to a report of a disturbance. Upon arrival, nothing was found. >>Apr. 26, 2014 12:04 a.m., Marsh House A noise complaint was received for the building. The “Early Warning” procedure was used.

12:16 a.m., Waldorf-Astoria An officer found that the latch on an exterior door had been tampered with to prevent it from locking properly.

2:11 a.m., Garman House An officer responded to a noise complaint. The group was advised to lower their volume.

2:21 a.m., Garman While addressing a noise complaint, officers discovered that a smoke detector had been intentionally covered in an effort to disable it. Two devices used for smoking marijuana were also confiscated.

2:23 a.m., Morrow Dormitory An officer responded to a report that the area had been vandalized . They found that trash and magazines had been thrown around and the area trashed. Case open.

7:51 a.m., Valentine Quad

8:24 p.m., Waldorf-Astoria An officer on patrol located an unlicensed keg. The keg was confiscated.

8:20 p.m., Dickinson Street An officer assisted the town police with a motor vehicle accident.

8:58 p.m., LeFrak Gym An officer assigned to a concert located a student who possessed a marijuana grinder and a small amount of marijuana. The grinder and marijuana were confiscated and the matter was referred to the Dean’ s Office.

11:54 p.m., Fayerweather Hall An officer was dispatched to a report of water coming into the building. The officer found that an emergency shower had been intentionally turned on causing large amounts of water to flow throughout the building. Case open. >>Apr. 27, 2014 12:58 a.m., Converse Hall An officer responded to a report that two people were in an area they were not authorized to be. The two left the area prior to the officers arrival.

1:50 p.m., King Dormitory An officer responded to a report that two people were smoking marijuana outside and the smoke was entering a person’s room. When the officer arrived no one was found.

4:38 p.m., Charles Pratt Dormitory An officer investigated a report of a larceny. An amount of money had been taken from a residents room.

Case open.

11:34 p.m., Coolidge Dormitory An officer responded to a noise complaint. A group of students were told to disperse from the area. >>Apr. 28, 2014 1:12 a.m., Stone Dormitory Officers were dispatched to a noise complaint. Upon arrival they found loud music and bass. The music was shut down and the group dis-

Goldwater Scholarship Program Honors Donna Leet and Xiaoling Yu Sophie Murguia ’17 Managing News Editor Juniors Donna Leet and Xiaoling Yu have been honored by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship program, which supports undergraduate students studying mathematics, science and engineering.

Leet, a biology and French double major, has received one of this year’s Goldwater Scholarships.

Yu, a biochemistry and biophysics major, received an honorable mention.

Both come from families of scientists, and both are pre-med students interested in conducting biomedical research.

Leet said her passion for the sciences started young, and was kindled by her geologist father and engineer mother.

“My interest in biomedical research began as a simple desire to understand why our bodies ail and how ailments can be mitigated,” she wrote in her application.

Leet said her interest in biology solidified over the past two summers, when she interned with biologist Jesse Bloom at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in her hometown of Seattle.

In the Bloom Lab, Leet studied the molecular biology and evolution of HIV and influenza.

“Now looking back on my two summers in the Bloom Lab, one of the most important things I’ve learned is that research often results in failure,” she wrote. “But the small success that come occasionally have the potential to fundamentally alter the ways we diagnose, treat and cure disease.”

Although the internship at the Bloom Lab stoked her interest in HIV research, Leet said that her coursework at Amherst has also led her to discover other academic passions.

“I’m taking genetic analysis right now with Professor Goutte, and learning how little mutations and genes that seem benign can lead to cancer, so I could also see myself going into oncology research,” she said.

Leet also discovered her interest in French while at Amherst, and decided to declare a second major after spending her fall semester abroad in Paris.

“Spending an extended period of time outside the United States gave me more insight into the potential of international collaboration and research, which I will apply to my future endeavors in the sciences,” she wrote in her application.

When not in the lab, Leet spends her time playing for the college’s varsity softball team.

“Softball is definitely a big part of my life here, and it’s definitely challenging to balance being on a team, being on the pre-med track, having two majors and going abroad,” she said. “But I realized by doing it that it’s definitely possible.”

After Amherst, Leet says she is thinking of applying to an M.D.-Ph.D. program and continuing to conduct biomedical research.

As a Goldwater Scholar, Leet is one of 283 un-

Photo Courtesy of Office of Public Affairs

dergraduates who have been selected to receive the scholarship for the coming academic year. The winners were selected from a field of 1,166 nominees nationwide, and will receive up to $7,500 per year to help cover the costs of tuition, fees, books and room and board for one to two years.

Like Leet, Yu said she has also been interested in the sciences since childhood. Yu’s father is also a geologist, and she recalled discovering an interest in science while visiting him in his lab.

“It’s really cool to think about how the smallest things, like genes and molecules, can have such a large effect on everyday life,” she said.

Yu said that after high school, she was eager to combine her interests in biology and chemistry in the biochemistry and biophysics major.

“I’ve always been interested in biochemistry, but then I also have a particular interest in genetics, so I some day hope to be able to combine the two,” she said.

Yu has spent her summers conducting research at Amherst and UMass. Last summer, she received the Howard Hughes Fellowship to work in the lab of Associate Professor of Chemistry Anthony Bishop.

“To me, research is a gateway to further scientific understanding and better the world,” she wrote in her application.

At Amherst, Yu has worked as a teaching assistant in a variety of science classes, including biology and chemistry. She is also the co-president of the Asian Culture House and co-president of the badminton club.

Next year, she plans to write an honors thesis in a biochemistry lab and work on applying to medical school. She says that eventually she is interested in pursuing an M.D.-Ph.D.

The Amherst Student • April 30, 2014

News 3

Ben Boatwright

Thoughts on Theses Department of Geology

Ben Boatwright is a senior double majoring in geology and music. His geology thesis focuses on Martian terrestrial valley networks. His thesis advisors are Mt. Holyoke’s Visiting Assitant Professor of Astronomy Caleb Fassett and Amherst College Geology and Environmental Studies Professor Anna Martini.

Q: What is your thesis about?

A: I have been using a computer model called MARSSIM to simulate the erosion of valley networks on Mars. I have been trying to figure out why Martian and terrestrial valleys have different morphologies, such as various dimensional properties, by simulating changes in discharge (amount of water flowing per unit time) and impact cratering.

Q: Why did you choose this topic?

A: I only declared a geology major last academic year — originally, I was just a music major. I talked to Professor Tekla Harms about writing a thesis and told her I was interested in pursuing a planetary science thesis. She then directed me to talk to someone at Mt. Holyoke and got in contact with my eventual advisor, Caleb Fassett, who is [Mt. Holyoke’s] Visiting Assistant Professor of Astronomy and also the Five College Fellow of Astronomy. I first talked to him back in May of my junior year.

He explained to me that he had a project on Mars and asked if I would be interested in that.

I did not necessarily choose a topic myself, but I was very fascinated because I wanted to write about anything planetary science related.

Q: Could you explain the computer model you used?

A: This computer model is written in Fortran, which is an extremely early and fundamental computer programming language. Alan Howard from University of Virginia came up with this twenty years ago. Howard wrote this code that somehow mathematically models different physical processes. Everything is based on basic physical principles. On the user end, there is a parameter file that I can open using Terminal on Mac. Everything is in a text file and the user goes through a big list of variables that could be changed. For example, you can control the amount of discharge to model certain scenarios. I could also observe impact

cratering through this computer model and alter sizes of craters, for instance.

Q: What was the research process like?

A: In the past, scientists have measured scaling laws of fluvial features where they looked at ratios of different dimensional properties, such as widths and lengths of streams. Something I specifically looked into was Hack’s law, which denotes the relationship between length of streams and the area of their watershed. If rain were to fall onto the surrounding area, the water within the watershed would be the part that would flow into the stream. This is really defined by the particular topography. There have been a lot of studies in the past ten to fifteen years that have found that watersheds on Mars are smaller than those on Earth for a given stream length.

Hack’s Law is a power function, where stream length is equal to the watershed area proportionally raised to some exponent. You can use this exponent (Hack’s exponent) to describe the relationship between to the two variables. High Hack’s exponent is more characteristic of Mars, where there was low discharge, while a lower Hack’s exponent is more characteristic of Earth. During our data collection, we would change the level of discharge. As the discharge increased, the Hack’s exponent would decrease, meaning the watersheds grew wider.

The other thing we did was impact cratering. The valleys we are looking at have been aged to 3.7 billion years old. Earlier in the history of the solar system, there were a lot more debris floating around. The rate at which the craters were impacting surfaces was much higher. We were investigating whether these impact cratering rates affected how the Mars surface was formed. Erosion on Earth happens so fast that it erases craters that form on the surface.

What we found is that despite the cratering rates being higher at the time, it is very un-

likely that there would have been any impacts at all. When we simulated impacts at a very high rate (one every ten years, for instance), valleys didn’t have enough time to form. All of this relates back to how the valleys formed in the first place on Mars, where it is very dry and cold. Was there a climate three billion years ago that could have supported liquid water on the surface? The big argument has been frozen water could have melted, but the other side of the discussion is that it had to be water flowing over the surface, which requires a warmer climate. Our simulation was run on the basis that it was flowing water over the surface, which is tied in to the latter argument of the debate.

Q: Has there been extensive research on your topic in the past?

A: What we are specifically doing is fairly novel, but studies started once technology was advanced enough to take global satellite images of Mars. That has been feasible since the late 70s. There was the Mars Global Surveyor that was launched in 1996, which was able to produce high-resolution images of the surface of Mars. That is the best satellite image data available now on a global scale.

Q: What has been the general timeline for your thesis?

A: While everyone was proposing his or her topics to advisors, I didn’t really have to.

Rather, the proposal was a declaration of what I was going to do with the project Professor Fassett introduced to me. Starting this academic year, I traveled to Mt. Holyoke once a week to meet with Fassett for a few hours at a time. I really liked the topic, so I never minded the commute.

Over the summer, I did background reading. Once the semester started, we started right away with the basic configurations with the computer part. Simultaneously, I was doing the background reading. I definitely needed to wait to write the methods section until I knew for sure what was going on, so I waited to do that until Winter Break. Spring semester was spent on collecting the data that we were going to use. Generally, it was mostly writing in the fall and data collection in the spring, but I had to do both at the same to a certain extent.

I turned in the final draft that I will be graded on last Wednesday. The geology Faculty will go through my paper and recommend changes. After that, I will make my final corrections and turn that into the department and

the registrar. I could potentially continue the research because it doesn’t seem like there is a designated endpoint.

Q: What has been some of the difficult things about writing a thesis?

A: I spent the whole fall semester trying to debug the computer model because there are so many things you can do right or wrong.

Professor Fassett and I spent a lot of time playing around with the model in order to have it give the outputs we wanted and were accurate.

Sometimes, you could change just one number and the result would be completely different. It would be extremely frustrating when I could not find an explanation to justify why something had happened.

Q: Do you think you will be taking away valuable lessons from thesis writing that you can apply to your graduate school education?

A: This hydrology-related topic is not necessarily the field that I am interested in, but having completed an extensive research process will definitely help me in graduate school.

The specific topic of my thesis is something I want to continue on my own, but in graduate school, I am more interested in the surfaces of outer planet moons. But my topic and my interest are still interlinked — for instance, Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, has an atmosphere that is made of mostly hydrocarbons. Based on the radar reflectivity, scientists have observed that there are lakes and basins on Titan. My thesis on hydrology on Mars could definitely be applied to that. Everything is all related.

Q: Do you have any advice for future thesis writers?

A: It is good to plan ahead. I did and I got a lot done well in advance, but even then, I spent the last three days before the due date staying up until five in the morning. Also, collaboration is key. It is important to be self-sufficient, but you also have to be able to talk to your advisors and take what they have to offer.

Along that line, it was very beneficial to utilize resources within the Five College Consortium.

Having a primary advisor who is not an Amherst faculty was feasible and I got to make the best of my resources through a Mt. Holyoke professor.

— Elaine Jeon ‘17

College Discusses Next Steps for New Party Policy Continued from Page 1 “Unsafe parties were parties where overcrowding was occurring and the stairwells were packed, so that it would make it problematic for any sort of emergency services to get out through the stairwells,” Mitton Shannon said.

Administrators and police officers were also concerned about the potential hazards of students dancing on windowsills, a frequent practice in the social dorms.

Mitton Shannon also said that since the policy was introduced, students who register parties have been doing a better job of monitoring the number of attendees at their events.

“I think for the most part the numbers are being contained, although there are certainly some examples where the numbers have grown too large and the party has been broken up,” she said.

According to custodial staff, the new party policy has also been successful at encouraging students to clean up after events.

“No question, the clean-up has worked great,” said Mick Koldy, who supervises the college’s custodial office. “I think when you empower students to take responsibility for themselves, it works. It’s a marked improvement over the way it’s been in the past, and

we’re very supportive.”

The policy requires that students clean up after their parties by noon the following day, and Koldy said that students have been mostly observing this deadline.

However, administrators and police officers say that not all of the policy’s goals are being met.

“Opportunities for significant improvement remain in managing the presence of alcohol in accordance with college policy,” said Amherst College Police Chief John Carter.

Mitton Shannon agreed and said that she still hopes to reduce the amount of hard alcohol available at parties, because hard alcohol is responsible for many alcohol-related hospitalizations.

Although the party officially prohibits students from bringing hard alcohol to BYOB parties, hard liquor continues to be widely available at these events.

Hard liquor will be one of the issues Mitton Shannon hopes to address today, when she meets with a group of close to 30 students who have been involved with the college’s attempts to improve the student social experience. The group will discuss ideas for improving the party policy going forward, as well as the possibility of creating some type of student alcohol task force or peer education group.

“I think next year we should be talking more about beer pong and drinking games,” said Tepe, who is one of these students. He said that he hoped officially permitting beer pong would shift the focus away from hard alcohol consumption.

Tepe also said that going forward, he would like to see the option for students to register parties with less advance notice. Currently, students must register BYOB parties by 9 a.m.

Thursday for a party over the weekend, or two business days in advance for a party during the week.

Connor Sholtis ’15 is another one of the students who will be giving Mitton Shannon feedback on the party policy’s progress.

“I think that the party policy has great advantages, and I think it’s on the right track, but I think that there are other steps that need to be taken in order to bridge the gap between the expectations of the students and expectations of the administrators,” he said.

He named the college’s hard alcohol policy as one of the areas in which he believes that students need to adjust their expectation.

“I think that refraining from hard alcohol use is a very small compromise in exchange for the freedom that the administration has given us in being able to have these sorts of parties,” he said.

For her part, Mitton Shannon said that she would like to see more students take advantage of the early warning system. Under this system, party sponsors can call the Amherst College Police Department in advance of their party to request an early alert if their party receives any noise complaints. If sponsors request an early alert, they will receive one warning from college police before the police intervene.

“I think about 50 percent of students who are registering parties are using the early alert system,” Mitton Shannon said. “So we need to do a better job of educating people.”

Mitton Shannon said that at today’s meeting, she hopes to think of more strategies for helping to educate students about the new policy. She said that some ideas that have already been discussed include training students to act as bystanders at parties, or organizing a group of students who can meet with hosts before a party in order to clarify any questions their peers might have.

Despite the policy’s unresolved issues, both administrators and student leaders say that the many aspects of the new policy have been receiving a positive response.

“I think that we should definitely keep the party policy, and I think we will,” Tepe said.

“And I think we should keep working to improve it.”

Opinion Editorial

Summer is Coming

Summer is coming. In about two weeks, we will all be celebrating the end of another semester in our own ecstatic ways. This endof-the-year celebration may be loud, quiet, public, private, creative or even self-destructive depending on the individual, and it will definitely be a well-deserved occasion for all parties involved. After all, it marks the end of something dreadful, or so we feel.

But what exactly will have ended then?

It’s interesting to think about the way we, as students of a prestigious higher education institution, think about education. A professor, whose name kind of rhymes with carrot, once observed that students shouldn’t flee their classes like a crime scene. However, it seems that’s what a lot of students end up doing at the end of the semester. We, sometimes literally, run away from our classes.

We discard reading materials with a passion, and sometimes we don’t even recycle.

Some of us even take pride in claiming that our brains have a special feature that deletes everything we had learned from classes immediately after the final examination. After that, we don’t ever look back.

It’s all fun and games until we seriously think about our education in the Amherst

context. We shouldn’t equate it with classes, although some classes do contribute a lot to it. We shouldn’t reduce it to this annual cycle of obligation from which we have to flee occasionally in order to feel all better.

Education is a perpetual, ongoing phenomenon. It can be painful, and it can be rewarding. It is what largely defines who we are and who we become. With that in mind, the impending celebrations should be for our perseverance and hard work, not for the end of another arbitrary period of our education. It continues onward.

The summer, then, should be a time for further learning and reflection, a break from the rigor of schoolwork, but not a break from education. Amherst students will be spending their summer all over the world, including at Amherst. Regardless of the physical location, we will all be in environments different from the one we are currently in, and we will all be engaging in tasks different from those we engage in during school year. So, in the spirit of the Amherst education, we should immerse ourselves in whatever we do, wherever we are, with the intention of becoming a different, better person.

“Remember: You’re a student 12 months a year.”

E X E C U T I V E B OA R D Editors-in-Chief Brendan Hsu, Emmett Knowlton Executive Advisor Brianda Reyes Managing News Sophie Murguia Managing Opinion James Liu, David Chang Managing Arts and Living Meghan McCullough, Elizabeth Paul Managing Sports Andrew Knox, Nicole Yang

“This graduation, let’s toast not to the winners, or the leaders, or the paychecks, or the honors — let’s toast to the fighters.”

Graduation.. Page 5

Admitting Our Legacy

James Liu ’16 Managing Opinion Editor

The U.S. Supreme Court last week issued a 6-2 ruling, upholding a Michigan constitutional amendment that prohibits state universities from considering race as part of their admissions process. The ruling in the case, Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, represents the second time that the Court has ruled on affirmative action in college admissions in the past year, the prior being its ruling in Fisher v. University of Texas last June. The frequency with which the Court has considered such cases suggests that it is eager to discuss the issue of preferential treatment in college admissions, that is, so long as it just concerns race.

In terms of other forms of special treatment, in particular the preferential treatment given to the children of alumni, the Court has been reticent.

This should come as no surprise for a Court, which earlier this month removed the aggregate limit on the total amount a donor may contribute to all candidates, parties and committees. If the Court has no qualms about how elections campaigns are financed, no one should expect it to be interested in how colleges go about their fundraising, and the issue of legacy admissions is after all an issue of college finances. One would be hard pressed to find a compelling reason for legacy admissions aside from its potential help in soliciting alumni donations. While the Court, since Grutter v. Bollinger, has justified the use of race in college admissions with the educational benefits that diversity provides, it is not clear what, if any, educational benefits are offered by legacy admissions. Some might argue that legacy admissions are important in preserving traditions or reinforcing intergenerational bonds — such as Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, former president of George Washington University, who wrote in defense of legacy admissions in The New York Times, that “... careful accommodation of a limited number of youngsters whose parents, grandparents and great-grandparents have helped to lay the foundation on which the institution stands shows a respect for tradition and honors those without whom the contemporary university might not even exist.” I, however, seriously doubt that this careful accommodation of applicants with “excellent pedigrees” helps preserve any traditions that are at all worth keeping.

While the Court’s reticence on the issue is to be expected, it is, however, strange and unfortunate that the public and colleges themselves are similarly reticent. The amendment under fire in Schuette was a ballot initiative that was approved by direct vote of the people of Michigan. A similar amendment to the California state constitution, Proposition 209, was also a ballot proposition approved by direct vote.

Despite popular opposition in some states to affirmative action in college admissions, no commensurate public outcry over legacy admissions has ever materialized. Even at a place as politically active as Amherst, administrators

S TA F F Design Editor Brian Beaty News Section Editors Andrew Kim, Judd Liebman Opinion Section Editors Darya Barshak, Ashley Montgomery Sports Section Editors Sam Javit, Jason Stein, Jeremy Kesselhaut Publishers Nazir Khan, Diana Lopez, Syeda Malliha, Tia Robinson, Valerie Salcido Photography Editor Olivia Tarantino

and students rarely make legacy admissions a point of contention, but we should take time to critically evaluate how the policy privileges us as individuals, defines us as a college and burdens society at large.

As prospective graduates of Amherst, we have obvious reasons to support legacy admissions. In the future when we are alumni of the College, if our children apply to Amherst, they will have an advantage in the admissions process, and this advantage can be substantial.

Thomas J. Espenshade and Chang Y. Chung of Princeton University found in a 2005 study that “preference for legacy candidates is worth 160 points” (on a 1600-point scale). In a more recent 2011 study, Michael Hurwitz, a researcher at Harvard University, found an even greater impact: legacy candidates of all kinds received a 23.3 percentage point increase in admissions probability, and “primary legacy” candidates (sons and daughters) see a 45.1 percentage point increase.

Given the inexorable rise in tuition rates and educational costs, many view a sizable endowment as essential to maintaining a high level of academics and financial aid and see legacy admissions as an indispensable tool in supporting the fiscal vitality of a college. While these assumptions may be valid to a partial extent, they ought to be examined more critically. While a college’s endowment is important, once a college is able to afford certain core expenses, such as attracting a top faculty and providing generous financial aid, there is a point of diminishing returns, after which a larger endowment does not translate into a superior educational experience. The assumption that legacy admissions increase alumni donations is also problematic because it implies that alumni donations are made contingent upon the acceptance of their children. While it may be naïve to assume that all alumni donate to Amherst simply because of how much they love their alma mater, it is excessively cynical to assume that most alumni would withhold a donation they had originally intended to make if their child were rejected by the college. Colleges take for granted that legacy admissions are a necessary tool for fundraising, but empirical research suggests otherwise.

According to a study by Winnemac Consulting, “after inclusion of appropriate controls, including wealth, there is no statistically significant evidence of a causal relationship between legacy-preference policies and total alumni giving at top universities.”

The only tenable benefits for supporting legacy admissions are increased alumni donations, but even that is tenuous. The costs of legacy admissions are less tangible, more insidious but far greater. Legacy admissions should not be a question of finances, but rather one of values.

We should not be asking whether legacy admissions are necessary to support the financial vitality of the College — and I argue they are not — but rather are they consistent with our values, as a nation and as an institution.

Continued on Page 5

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The Amherst Student • April 30, 2014

Hereditary Privilege Continued from Page 4

Race-based preferences in college admissions have been scrutinized by the U.S. Supreme Court because of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It seems that legacy admissions should face similar, if not greater scrutiny, but based on judicial precedent, the Court only applies the highest level of scrutiny to cases in which a government action discriminates based on a “suspect classification,” such as race or religion. Legacy vs. non-legacy is obviously not a suspect classification and the practice does not violate the Equal Protection Clause; nonetheless, it certainly does seem to contradict the spirit.

Carlton Larson of the Univ. of California, Davis School of Law argues that legacy admissions are indeed unconstitutional, not because of the Equal Protection Clause, but rather because of the Constitution’s prohibition on titles of nobility. The Title of Nobility clause did not only intend to avoid tacky European titles, such as “earl” or “marquis,” but more substantively — as Larson argues by examining evidence from the late eighteenth century — it was designed to prohibit all hereditary privileges with respect to state institutions. Legacy preferences are a substantial privilege (as demonstrated by Hurwitz’s and Espenshade’s research) inherited based on one’s lineage (as emphasized by Trachtenberg) and granted by institutions that receive significant federal funding, and Larson concludes that they are blatantly inconsistent with the Constitution’s prohibition on hereditary privilege.

I bring this up not so that people may sue colleges that practice legacy preferences as they have against colleges with race-based preferences. I doubt the U.S. Supreme Court would place any such case on its docket, and even if it did, I doubt that it would base its ruling on an obscure clause of the Constitution that probably has not been cited by the Court for at least century. Nonetheless, by articulating in writing certain American principles, the Constitution can serve as a powerful didactic tool. The issue of legacy admissions, however, is not for the Court, but rather for colleges themselves, to decide.

To this end, we should recognize that college admissions are not a zero-sum game. There are certainly a limited number of spots at selective colleges, but attending a selective college offers different benefits to different people. Graduates of selective colleges tend to have higher earnings, but this comparison is problematic

because selective colleges admit stronger high school applicants to begin with. To correct for this selection bias, Alan Krueger of Princeton University and Stacey Dale of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation matched students into different cohorts based on which colleges they were admitted and rejected and found that earnings were unrelated to the selectivity of the college that students attended within the same cohort. The one caveat was that students from lower-income families did clearly benefit from attending a highly selective college. The children of alumni, however, are least likely to come from lower-income families and in terms of future earnings lose little to nothing from having to attend a less selective college. Therefore, in terms of social welfare, providing them with preferential treatment in admissions is not Pareto efficient.

As income inequality in the U.S. has increased tremendously in the past 30 years, social mobility has stagnated. While colleges are widely regarded to play an important role in promoting social equality and mobility, they have not delivered on that promise. Despite efforts of colleges’ to increase financial aid and attract lower and middle-income students, according to the College Board, two-thirds of students at the nation’s 193 most selective colleges come from the top income quartile, and just 6 percent from the bottom quartile. It is hypocritical how elite private colleges, who are most outspoken in their demands for social justice, are most willing to ignore the social context in which they operate when pursuing their own interests. Amherst College has excelled in its providing full-need financial aid, but if the college is earnest in its efforts to admit more lower and middle-income students, then it should seriously reconsider legacy admissions and whether the two policies are consistent in principle and practice.

When we graduate and become alumni of the college, our children will benefit from legacy preferences, but we will also be responsible for its costs. As Amherst retains and strengthens its commitment in the admissions process to addressing broader social inequities, perhaps one day it will join the ranks of MIT, Caltech, Oxford and Cambridge, who all demonstrate that legacy admissions are completely unnecessary in building a world-class academic institution. Otherwise, we will be complicit in a system of hereditary privilege that runs contrary to the nation’s and the college’s values; and that will be our legacy whether we would like to admit or not.

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Opinion 5

Graduation: A Time of Silence Writing from the Left

Meghna Sridhar ’14 Meghna Sridhar ‘14 is a Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought major with a penchant for coherent incoherency.

She writes from a leftist perspective on global and local politics and political theory.

This is a slightly modified version of a speech given at the senior-speak off and intended to be a shortened version of a graduation speech.

A character in some obscure British film I watched once said something that really stuck with me: the best way to forget something, he said, is to commemorate it.

What does it mean to go out into the world with the experiences of four years at Amherst — and what does it mean to hold an Amherst degree? Graduation should be a time where that question presses against us with all its weight and force; where the implications of that question burn within us with constant, raw, energy. Graduation is a time where the meaning of our place in the world must unsettle us — not just personally, but collectively, as a graduating class, as a body of students representative of Amherst and its supposed values. Graduation is a time to ask ourselves what these four years have meant to us, how they have changed us, broken us, questioned us and made us question Amherst; how much our education may have coopted us in structures of power, and how much it has enabled us to challenge these structures when we face “the real world.” (And what does that mean, too? Why is Amherst unreal, isolated, distant?

Why is it that our education and experiences here must count for nothing except a degree credential and a leg up to the capitalist job network?)

Yet, too often, we let the institution answer this question for us — we let these answers be foreclosed, predetermined. What does graduation from Amherst mean? Easy. We’re all in this together. Best four years of our lives. Lives of consequences, investment banking jobs, the ability to talk about Plato over drinks in a meeting with a client or at a dinner party, to rave about your “diverse” classmates and “free curriculum,” terras irradiant. We’ve won. We did it.

But for some of us — for many of us, graduation is a time of silence, a time where our experiences are wiped under the purple carpet of institutional glorification and clichéd celebrations. Graduation is a time when we forget that graduating with and amongst us are survivors. Students with anxiety, students who’ve had isolating and alienating experiences at Amherst, students who’ve barely made it through, students who have survived despite, and not because, of the college. Graduation is a time when we forget the microaggressions and the macroagressions we’ve faced here — particularly if we’re women, students of colour, queer, disabled. Graduation is a time when we forget we hold not just a degree affirming four years of outstanding scholarship, but also four years of association with an institution that has its flaws, many of them — a questionable mascot, a history of administrative controversies, a culture of exclusion and elitism.

Graduation is a time when we’re told that if this wasn’t the best four years of our lives, we are outliers, freaks, malcontents, dissidents, menaces, problems that should never be named. Graduation is a time of such pointed celebration, that any message of discontentment is shamed into silence. Graduation is a time when we honour David Brooks uncritically, even as we’ve all taken classes on social justice and the horrors of income inequality and capitalism. Graduation is a time when a smile is a compulsory uniform; when “getting over it” is institutionally demanded.

Graduation is a time when we forget that

Angie should have graduated with us right now.

It is against everything we claim to represent as an institution — the seeking, valuing and advancing of knowledge; the engagement with the world around us; the leading of lives of consequence — and I’m quoting all of this from the mission statement here — to allow for such a forgetting, for such a silence. If we are told to ask uncomfortable questions in the classroom, why can’t we ask them now? We must not let graduation represent one more victory of the status quo over the marginalized and the silenced. We must not let graduation be a celebration of complicity and power. We must not let graduation have the final word on our Amherst experience — tell us that it was all “worth” it, for some Latin degree, some image of the perfect liberal arts major, some idea of an elite degree making you a better person in and for the world. We must not let graduation abbreviate, summarize, talk over or cast aside our experiences, for everything they are — good and bad; traumatizing and invigorating; suffocating and liberating; isolating and unifying — into a neat and prepackaged message.

If we were to celebrate anything this graduation — let us celebrate the dissidents amongst us. Let us celebrate our resistance, our capacity to care for each other and for the issues we are passionate about so much we butt heads with the institution, our bonds of solidarity that we have formed with our fellow students, with professors and with staff, that have helped us survive these four years. Let us celebrate our sleepless nights holding a friend and comforting them when life gets too much, and saying, to hell with papers and academia, my humanity and my love matters more. Let us celebrate the times we have sacrificed our classes for our education, rejected our busywork and our grades in favor of really learning. Let us celebrate the times we stood up, with signs and microphones and our disruptively loud voices; the times we walked out of classes; the times we called out administrators and deans and lawyers and professors because our solidarity with each other incapacitated our fear; every protest, every challenge, every push towards making this place better for our friends and our peers.

Let us celebrate all of us on the margins, all of us who don’t fit into the boxes of successful liberal arts college graduates with fat paychecks, all of us who fought the networks of elitism and cultures of oppression that the Amherst bubble isn’t immune from. Let us celebrate an education that allows us to articulate our own complicity with power, and question and destroy it: not an education that helps us perpetuate it. Let us celebrate those of us who’ve faithfully tried to follow the tradition that’s always lived on at Amherst despite every attempt to suppress it: the tradition of those who sat in at Converse until a Black Studies department was formed; the tradition of those that pushed the college to divest from apartheid despite the backlash; the tradition of those who battled the administrators till their voices were hoarse to include women at this college. Let us celebrate those of us who don’t ask, but demand; who don’t stand by, but push: let us celebrate the spirit of Amherst that lives on despite and not because of the institution.

Let’s not let graduation represent our silence any more. This graduation, let’s toast not to the winners, or the leaders, or the paychecks or the honors — let’s toast to the fighters.

Arts&Living

“The Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival ... gives sports films the opportunity to shine.”

“City Sports”...Page 8

Wes Anderson’s “Grand Budapest Hotel” Image courtesy of newswatch.nationalgeographic.com

In Wes Anderson’s latest film, the Grand Budapest Hotel is a widely esteemed and respected hotel for Europe’s wealthiest during the early 30s.

Jake Walters ‘14 Staff Writer Wes Anderson is back at it again, this time with the shockingly successful money-maker that is “Grand Budapest Hotel.” Three years after the endearing and quietly affecting “Moonrise Kingdom,” a film which highlighted the best aspects of Anderson’s work (visual composition, off-beat dialogue, whimsiness) while

Film Review “The Grand Budapest Hotel” Directed by: Wes Anderson Starring: Ralph Fiennes and Tony Revolori moving away from his sometimes stuffy pretentiousness in favor of a story which favored thoughtful emotion over dry intellect. Nonetheless, these were tweeks, not overhauls; it was still quintessentially a Wes Anderson film. “Grand Budapest Hotel” continues in the same vein, although it sacrifices some of the childlike sense of whimsy which highlighted his last two films, “Moonrise Kingdom” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” for a more openly comedic farce that still maintains a deceptively sweet center.

It’s fun and enjoyable on the surface but bears multiple viewings which reveal more about Anderson’s intent and the complexities lying within the dense yet cavernous hotel of the film’s title. This may not be Anderson at his finest, but it’s both a strong example of his filmmaking prowess which lies comfortably within his canon and suitably different enough to deserve its existence this late into Anderson’s career. Around the mid2000s, it seemed as if Anderson was simply content repeating himself, but this late career renaissance has proven not only that he won’t rest on his laurels but that he still has much left to say.

On the surface, the plot is simple, even trite. Essentially it goes something like this: the Grand Budapest Hotel is a widely esteemed and respected hotel for Europe’s wealthiest during the early 30s, a period caught between the lasting decay of one world war and the foreboding doom

of another. It’s chiefest attraction? It’s supremely dedicated concierge, M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), who tends to his guests every whim, seemingly no matter what they entail, albeit with the help of a young, new apprentice, Zero (Tony Revolori). When an elderly guest passes on and leaves Gustave a priceless painting, he finds himself a victim of foul play when the deceased’s heir Dmitri (Adrien Brody) and his unhinged and only questionably human sidekick Jopling (Willem Dafoe) accuse Gustave of murder and have him thrown in jail, willing to stop at nothing to get the painting. From there things get Anderson-esque as Gustave and Zero plot an escape, bond a little, and, of course, engage in numerous lengthy conversations, the subjects of which most would normally pass off as small talk, but which Anderson imbues with a sense of dry wit and subtle majesty. Naturally, general silliness ensues.

But most of Anderson’s greatest stalwarts don’t go to his movies for the narrative. Above all, they’re there to see one of cinema’s foremost

never seems “to Anderson lose sight of how his visuals define his characters, and above all the setting and tone of the film.

”

visual artists at work. And on that note, Anderson’s film is a rousing success. Simply put, this is a stunning film, perhaps the most opulent from a director known for his usually more subtle visual prowess. The hotel is immaculate. Its bright pink aesthetic is most apparent, but more compelling is the structural composition within the hotel. As Gustave and others run around, going from room to room in continuous shots, we really get a sense of just how much work they put into the hyperbolically large and, well, grand hotel.

The highlight of the film, however, is a mid-movie chase scene through a museum where the shadow work is simply awe-inspiring. One scene where a character’s glasses reflect light toward the camera in a pitch dark frame is as masterful an image as I’ve seen in years.

While he works up a visual feast

for the imagination here, Anderson never seems to lose sight of how his visuals define his characters, and above all the setting and tone of the film. Gustave, ever concerned with his appearance, is a literal manifestation of Anderson’s sensibility as a filmmaker. The film, like its main character, deceptively favors style over substance, only to reveal hidden depth beneath Gustave’s desire to control himself through his appearance. The relationship between the quiet, reserved Gustave and Zero is touching. Throughout the film, Gustave loses control over a life he likes to keep thoroughly ordered, and his attempts to control and order Zero around reveal themselves to be more than simply a blind commitment to his position and the hotel. For Gustave, the titular hotel is his life, and without it he’s lost.

Anderson’s visuals, however, also reflect the mentality of the film’s he is clearly emulating. Watching, it’s hard not to think of the films being made in the early 30s of the film’s setting; Anderson himself has discussed his inspiration in Ernst Lubitsch’s timeless, yet entirely of its time, betweenthe-wars humor. I see a lot of Renoir’s supremely studied yet always-indanger-of-going-off-the-rails comedy of manners efforts as well, most notably “Rules of the Game.” Numerous obvious references to the films of the late 20s and early 30s are present.

For instance, Jopling is an overt nod to “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and

“Nosferatu” (Dafoe comes full circle here after playing an actual vampire hired to play Nosferatu in “Shadow of a Vampire”). But the magic is that it isn’t all specific references, it’s more of a vibe permeating the film. Toward the end, when the film seems right at the sublime point between the danger of constantly careening out of control and immaculate, carefully constructed restraint, it’s hard not to think of Graucho Marx simultaneously serving as distanced social critic, unassuming voice of the masses and devious puppet-master of Freedonia. Anderson’s film is made for the time it depicts. This, above all, is Anderson’s greatest trick.

“Grand Budapest Hotel” isn’t going to change anyone’s opinion of Anderson. If anything, it’s the quintessential Anderson film. Immaculate

Simply put, this is a “stunning film, perhaps the most opulent from a director known for his usually more subtle visual prowess.

”

and professionally constructed, this is the work of a man who both has a vision and knows enough of a studied, film-school approach to master that vision. For all its wackiness, one could be forgiven for feeling a distance and even a sterility to Anderson’s carefully sequenced framing and mise-en-scéne, as though he

is always in control and is perhaps too afraid to let go and have the film speak for itself. We’re always aware that he’s the one making the film, not the other way around. As such, it may seem a bit more satisfying to the eyes and the brain than to the heart.

For all its beauty, this is after all a relatively light-hearted affair that deals in smirks and chuckles rather than gut-busting, barbed satire. And its emotional impact is more quiet and respectable than a punch to the gut or an effervescent joy. One would be excused for referring to the film as a pleasant diversion and nothing else.

But there’s a deceptive longing here for a different time and place that belays the film’s bittersweet nature. There’s real pain here, surrounding the film as if it’s dreading to overtake it and Anderson just has to control his comedy that much more to keep it at bay. It’s fitting then that this is a tribute to the intermission between the world wars, with the lasting trauma of one and the impending rise of another ensuring an always overhanging anxiety and dread in Europe, and indeed the world. Many of the great comedies of that time were products, implicitly if not explicitly, of this dread. Even when they couldn’t address it headon, as much due to the mental and emotional devastation caused to individual and communal psyches as any governmental censoring body, it was all around, threatening to overtake society. In the rising medium of film, individuals sought an escape, but an escape which mirrored, in transmuted and contorted ways, the real world, contortions which allowed them to interpret and address their own world without having to confront it head-on. The comedies of that period were often a means not only to hide trauma, but to relate to it. It would be decades, until the rise of growing inequality throughout the world in the 80s, when comedy would be as fruitful a market for filmmaking again. In his tribute to this deeply humanist form of film-making, Anderson has learned well. Periods of inequality and depression have always led to a flourishing of such films. And in the bruised, cynical world we live in, not entirely dissimilar in some respects from the aforementioned periods of strife, “Grand Budapest Hotel” is perhaps more fitting than many will acknowledge.

Image courtesy of www.theguardian.com

Zero (Tony Revolori), pictured center, plays a quirky young apprentice to M. Gustave, the Ralph Fiennes character.

The Amherst Student • April 30, 2014

Arts & Living 7

Taking the Time to Read The Common

Johnathan Appel ’15 Staff Writer I’m being completely honest when I say that I believed I wouldn’t have the time or the will to read the latest issue (Issue 07) of The Common in time for this review. The Common, a print and online literary magazine based at Amherst College, publishes fiction, essays, poetry and images that focus on a modern sense of place. Issue 07, which was released this Monday, April 29, promised to be an enriching read, but I doubted how much time I’d have to devote to reading it. Drowning in my research, papers, presentations and labs, I worried constantly about budgeting what little time I had. Between our work, our extracurricular activities and the constant need to overextend ourselves, Amherst students generally don’t make time to step back and reflect. We don’t think we have the time or the motivation to find the “extraordinary in the common,” an idea that The Common’s mission statement confronts us with.

As I began drearily reading in anticipation of writing these words on this very column, I found myself inadvertently swept up in The Common’s ideal. With its simple design and magnificent typeface, The Common reels in the reader’s attention almost instantly. Indeed, this is its purpose: to create a common space for the articulation of change. Its content aims to tackle themes of space across distances and time in all senses. These stories, poems and im-

ages all rest upon a common theme: change and space.

“The Common Statement,” a piece by Editor in Chief and Amherst alum Jennifer Acker ’00, relays these themes and sets the stage for the rest of the pieces as she asks, “When do we start to have a past, a self we recognize not only as prior but as inaccessible except by memory?”

Acker confronts her present and her past through the theme of walking, first acknowledging the natural differences in her path between her past and her present in Montague.

Indeed, she says that her nightly walks remind her of the past and tether her to the present while her mind and words look towards the future.

In “Without,” a quintessential essay that also reflects upon these themes, essayist Marisa Silver remembers her move from Cleveland to New York City as grounding moment for defining her relationship and view of her father. Her father losing and retrieving stolen bikes in an unfamiliar city had become folklore for her family, a reminder of their collective memories and a definition of the man they recently lost. As she recounts her father’s fatal accident, she remembers that she has never seen a photo of herself as a child in her father’s arms. This past and this place have both become inaccessible except through the collective memory of the story and myth of her father.

Many of the stories and po-

ems in Issue 07 feature these same themes of remembering the past, and feeling tethered to the present by a physical place while being able to look towards the future. In “Little Chapel,” Richie Hofmann wonders aloud whether the chapel he finds himself in is “a place you recognize” and how memory and time has distorted the space itself. In “Erasure,” David Livewell depicts schoolgirls and boys playing with and writing their names in chalk and fearing that “the dead might clench [the children’s] ankles till they pulled [them] down into their moss-furred crypts.”

Yet, he ends the poem by admitting that this defeat had already come as their chalked names disappeared to dust. The chalk disappears just as the bodies that the children feared did, and time goes on. Finally, in “Your Parents’ House,” Zeina Hashem Beck reminds us that of the simultaneous certainty and uncertainty of space and time. We know yet deny that we and our parents will grow old, safe in the repetition of our relationships, our furnishings and our homes.

Amherst students don’t often confront these seemingly obscure concepts of space and time. Unless we’re writing a paper about the subject, we seem to float through daily processes, desperately pleading with time to slow down so that we won’t face a due date, so we won’t face moving and, especially pertinent, so that we won’t face leaving this place. Yet, the themes of change are all around us, slowly encroaching

Image courtesy of thecommononline.org

The Common, a literary magazine based at Amherst College, publishes poetry, images, fiction, and essays. onto our daily lives, into our common space.

I didn’t think I’d have time to even enjoy reading The Common. I am so scared of time escaping me and the transitions that are soon to come that I’ve forgotten how to anchor myself to the present and imag-

ine the future in a positive light.

Ultimately, this is why The Common exists in my mind: to remind me of the “extraordinary in the common” that is literature and to remind us all that that which we ignore or even fear in our ordinary lives can be beautiful.

8

Arts & Living

The Amherst Student • April 30, 2014

Image courtesy of www.live.drjays.com

City Sports: Tribeca Film/ESPN

Liz Mardeusz ‘16 Staff Writer

The 12th annual Tribeca Film Festival has come and gone. New York’s most famous celebration of movies began on April 17 and ended this past Sunday after showing hundreds of feature films, documentaries, and shorts in various cinemas throughout the city. The festival was founded in 2002 by actor Robert De Niro, film producer Jane Rosenthal and real estate investor and philanthropist Craig Hatkoff in an attempt to revitalize Lower Manhattan after the September 11, 2001 attacks. More than a decade later, the event draws over three million filmgoers and features not only movie screenings but also speaking panels of both Alist and up-and-coming writing, directing and acting talent.

The festival certainly attracts its fair share of cerebral films, political features and comedies, but did you know that the 11-day event also presents a wealth of well-made sports films, both documentaries and fiction narratives? Since 2006, ESPN and the Tribeca Film Festival have partnered to explore the ways that independent movies and athletics intersect. The Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival runs concurrently with the rest of the TFF program, but gives sports films the opportunity to shine as their own genre. The event highlights 10 wonderfully different features and accompanies them with special presentations and conversations with the writers, directors and athletes behind the films. Here’s the breakdown of the stars of last week’s festival: “When the Garden Was Eden:” “Eden,” a documentary film by native New Yorker and actor-director Michael Rapaport, was the undeniable centerpiece of the TFF/ ESPN event. The 2012 best-selling book of the

same name written by Harvey Araton inspired the movie. It tells the tale of the Knicks in the 1960s and 1970s — a time of volatility and change for both the city of New York and its NBA team. The film features interviews with Knicks players of the era, including Jerry Lucas, Clyde Frazier, Earl Monroe, Willis Reed, Bill Bradley, Phil Jackson and more. The film is especially relevant considering Phil Jackson’s recent emergence from retirement to helm the Knicks as franchise president. Official press from the festival calls the movie “a testament to the breathless energy that defines the city and its sporting heroes” and the positive reviews it has been garnering suggests that “When the Garden Was Eden” is exactly that and more. It will air on ESPN in the fall.

“Slaying the Badger:” If hoops aren’t your thing, keep an eye out for “Slaying the Badger,” a British documentary written and directed by John Dower. It profiles American cyclist Greg LeMond, who became the first non-European athlete to win the Tour de France in 1986. He won the event twice more in ’89 and ’90 and can count himself amongst the elite (and small — there are only seven) group of athletes to have won the Tour three times. “Slaying the Badger” follows Lemond’s Tour experience in 1986 with a special focus on his rivalry with friend, mentor and fellow cyclist Bernard Hinault. Footage from the Tour de France and exclusive interviews make John Dower’s 78-minute film a must-see for sports enthusiasts.

“Intramural:” “Intramural,” a 100-minute comedy directed by NYU graduate Andrew Disney and written by Bradley Jackson was a welcome change from the multitude of documentaries.

TFF/ESPN press for the film calls it a “fullthrottle and hilarious sendup of inspirational

sports movies” that “harnesses every cliché and overused trope to tell one of the greatest intramural sports movies of all time.” “Intramural” follows fifth-year college senior Caleb Fuller as he seeks redemption for his flag football team. It stars Massachusetts native Jake Lacy, Kate McKinnon, Nikki Reed, Jay Pharaoh and Beck Bennett. “Intramural” is to be released in conjunction with the beginning of the 2014 NFL season.

The aforementioned three films certainly weren’t the only ones to grace the silver screen last week. Soccer movies were also heavily featured; a special event during the festival called “30 for 30: Soccer Stories” showcased a series of ESPN shorts and was accompanied with talks led by filmmakers Ezra Edelman, Daniel

Battsek and ESPN representatives to discuss “30 for 30” and the impending World Cup. Included in the “30 for 30” series were: “Next Goal Wins,” a British film following the experiences of the American Samoan national team and their struggles to win an official match after being labeled “the worst team in the world” and “Maradona ’86,” which takes on the soccer world, profiling Argentinian athlete Diego Maradona and his accomplishments at the ’86 World Cup. The Tribeca/ESPN Film Festival celebrates the competitive spirit and the excitement inherent in athletics with its 2014 selection of films. Watch out for these titles as they become more widely distributed to theatres countrywide.

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KenKen

The numbers you use in a KenKen puzzle depend on the size of the grid you choose. A 3 x 3 grid (3 squares across, 3 squares down) means you use the numbers 1, 2, and 3. In a 4 x 4 grid, use numbers 1 to 4. A 5x5 grid requires you use the numbers 1 to 5, and so on.

The numbers in each heavily outlined set of squares, called cages, must combine (in any order) to produce the target number in the top corner using the mathematic operation indicated (+, -, ×, ÷).

Here's how you play: • Use each number only once per row, once per column.

• Cages with just one square should be filled in with the target number in the top corner.

• A number can be repeated within a cage as long as it is not in the same row or column.

KenKen® is a registered trademark of Nextoy, LLC. Puzzle content ©2014 KenKen Puzzle LLC. All rights reserved.

For more KenKen puzzles, visit www.kenken.com

The Amherst Student • April 30, 2014

Sports 9

Baseball Avoids Wesleyan Sweep Blake, Herold, Bates All Bring with 5-3 Win in Extra Innings Home NESCAC Crowns Devin O’Connor ’16 and Karl Greenblatt ’15 Staff Writers

The Amherst baseball team faced NESCAC opponents Hamilton and Wesleyan last week and split their four games 2-2, ending their chances at a Little Three title and the top seed in the NESCAC West. With the past four games in the books, the Jeffs stand at 23-7 overall record and finished their conference play with a 9-3 mark in the NESCAC West.

On Wednesday, April 23, the Jeffs traveled to Clinton, N.Y. to take on the Continentals and complete the rubber match of the threegame series that was postponed from late March. Amherst defeated Hamilton 8-2, putting numbers on the board early in the matchup. The Jeffs scored all eight runs in the first four innings, and the Continentals could not recover from the deficit.

Keenan Szulik ’16 earned the win for the Jeffs with a quality performance, efficiently allowing just one hit over five shutout innings. On the offensive end, the Jeffs tallied a run in the first inning when sophomore Andrew Vandini singled to center field to bring in Yanni Thanopoulos ’17. Amherst put up five more runs in the second and third, capitalizing on a few bad pitches and errors in the field, and scored its final two in the bottom of the fourth. Hamilton was able to score two runs between the sixth and the eighth, but could not complete the comeback.

The Amherst offense was led by Alex Hero ’14, who went 2-for-4 with two doubles, an RBI and a run scored. Dave Cunningham ’16 also went 2-for-4 with a run scored, while Thanopoulos had three RBIs and Vandini added two more.

The Jeffs hosted the Wesleyan Cardinals last Friday, April 25, in what turned out to be a devastating loss. Amherst started slowly and was unable to reclaim the game after Wesleyan took a 5-0 lead by the top of the fourth. The Jeffs answered in the bottom of the inning on a home run by Mike Odenwaelder ’16. In the fifth inning, the Cardinals put two more runs on the board, but the Amherst squad responded once more with four runs of its own.

With the help of a few walks and a string of singles, the Jeffs managed to cut the deficit to two. Wesleyan brought in its final run in the top of the seventh, and the Jeffs responded when Thanopoulos singled to bring in Anthony Spina ’17. Amherst had a chance at a win in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded, but the Cardinals’ Sam Goodwin-Boyd put out the fire by striking out two Jeff batters to close the game. Dylan Driscoll ’14 took the loss, his first of the year.

On Saturday, Amherst traveled to face Wesleyan and finish the three-game series. In

a nine-inning game that was originally slated to be seven innings, the Jeffs fell in a 2-1 loss to the Cards despite putting up a hard-fought defensive battle. On the mound, John Cook ’15 pitched another gem, surrendering only four hits over eight innings while striking out six.

Hero scored for Amherst in the top of the second when Tyler Jacobs ’15 hit an RBI single to right field. However, Cardinal pitcher Jeff Blout stymied the Jeffs’ offense from there despite five walks, and the Cardinals tied the score at one in the bottom of the seventh on a Goodwin-Boyd home run. Wesleyan then put the winning run on the board in the bottom of the ninth when Goodwin-Boyd — again the hero — led off with a double and crossed the plate on a squeeze bunt. With the pair of victories, the Cardinals clinched the Little Three and NESCAC West titles.

The Jeffs were finally able to defeat Wesleyan on Sunday with a 5-3 win in 11 innings.

Amherst put the first run on the board in the top of the fifth on back-to-back doubles by Cunningham and Spina, but the Cardinals retaliated by scoring three runs in the bottom of the inning. The Jeffs tied it up in the top of the sixth on a two-run homer by Odenwaelder, and the score remained even at three until the top of the 11th.

Taiki Kasuga ’14 singled and came around to score with the help of some rare sloppy defensive play by the Cardinals, highlighted by a throwing error and a passed ball. Odenwaelder was able to sneak in with another run on a first-and-third steal, and the Jeffs finished the weekend with a victory. Quinn Saunders-Kolberg ’14 scattered seven hits in a strong 7.2 innings of work on the mound, while Szulik earned the win for Amherst in his second consecutive pitching appearance.

With their hopes for a top seed in the NESCAC West gone, the Jeffs will look to finish out the regular season in the best possible position when they host Colby for a doubleheader on May 3 in a series that will not count towards the NESCAC West standings.

Before that, they will play a non-league tuneup at home against a strong Wheaton College squad (27-13-1) on Thursday, May 1 at 4 p.m.

“Even though last weekend didn’t go as planned, we are excited to play Wheaton this week because they are a big regional rival,” Thanopoulos said. “We want to prove we are still one of the best teams in the Northeast.”

Although they did not lock up the topseed of the NESCAC West, the Jeffs will still likely qualify for the NESCAC tournament as the second-seed and are slated to face the top-seed of the NESCAC East Tufts in the first round of the NESCAC Championship beginning on Friday, May 9.

Photo courtesy of Rob Mattson

Co-captain Taiki Kasuga ’14 is batting .389 this season and has 16 RBI. The senior also has made significant defensive contributions with a .957 fielding percentage.

Andrew Knox ’16 Managing Sports Editor

Men The men’s track and field team traveled to Colby this past weekend to compete in the NESCAC championships. Battling the elements, the Jeffs struggled to maintain the momentum they had gained the previous week at the Little Three Championships and took eighth place out of 11 teams with 31 points.

Tufts took the conference crown by winning the meet with a score of 178.90.

The top performance on the day came from junior Mark Cort, who took second place in the long jump with a leap of 6.63 meters. Stephen Hetterich ’15 also performed well in the triple jump by finishing in sixth place with a jump of 12.71 meters.

In the sprints, senior Matt Melton turned in a solid effort in the 400 meters, running a time of 49.91 seconds. Jamie Sandel ’17 continued a very strong first-year outdoor campaign by finishing ninth in the 400-meter hurdles.

In the 800 meters, Brent Harrison finished seventh place, and Romey Sklar ’15 ran 4:00.54 in the 1500 meters beating fellow Jeff Kevin Connors ’17 by less than a second. KC Fussell ’15 finished in third place in the 10,000-meter race with a time of 31:05.56 and was barely edged out by Williams’ Colin Cotton.

Up next for Amherst is the Div. III New Englands hosted by Springfield this weekend.

Women The Amherst women were buoyed by a number of stellar individual performances to finish eighth out of 11 in the NESCAC championships.

Karen Blake ’17 continued her incredible first outdoor season by winning the 100 meters with a time of 12.30 seconds — the third fastest in outdoor program history. Blake also placed fourth in the 200 meters.

Fellow first-year Kiana Herold also claimed a NESCAC title, winning the high jump. Her jump of 1.62 meters is a first-year

Photo courtesy of Rob Mattson

Kiana Herold ’17 won a NESCAC title in high jump this past weekend. record and the second-best in program history.

All-American Naomi Bates ’14 won the long jump crown to add to the team’s stellar performances. Already owning the top two leaps in Amherst history, Bates jumped 5.69 meters for a first-place finish. In a second place effort in the 200 meters, Bates claimed the fourth fastest time in Amherst history, crossing the finish line in a time of 25.45 seconds. She also scored points for the Jeffs in the 100 meter dash, finishing fourth, and ran a leg on the Jeffs fourth-place 4x100 meter relay team.

“Eighth place obviously wasn’t what we were shooting for, but I’m satisfied with the fact that I did my best to score points for our team,” Bates remarked. “In retrospect, there are things that I could have done better, but it’s best to look forward to next weekend.”

The women will also compete at the Div. III New England Championships this weekend at Springfield.

Women’s Tennis Sweeps 10th-Ranked Middlebury

Chris Rigas ’16 Staff Writer

Fourth-ranked Amherst women’s tennis wrapped up an undefeated NESCAC season with a dominating 9-0 victory over 10th-ranked Middlebury. The win was the Jeffs’ seventh in a row, moving them to 16-3 on the year and 8-0 in the NESCAC. Coach Jackie Bagwell’s team will look to maintain their momentum at the NESCAC Championships, beginning on this Friday, May 2 at Bowdoin.

Saturday, April 26 was senior day for the Jeffs, and the team honored ten members from the Class of 2014: Jordan Brewer, Alex Budd, Isabel Camacho, Gabby Devlin, Claire DiMario, Jen Newman, Zoe Pangalos, Maggie Seaver, Lauren Slutsky and Mary Soyster.

“I am going to miss our seniors so much. The team will not be the same without them not just because of how awesome they are but also because they make up half our team,” Sue Ghosh ’16 said.

Against the Panthers, Brewer shined in the rout for Amherst. The senior combined with Devlin to collect an 8-2 doubles victory over Kaysee Orozco and Ria Gerger, and she also coasted to a 6-0, 6-1 singles victory over Gerger.

On the No. 2 doubles court, Newman and Pangalos picked up another convincing doubles win over Lily Bondy and Alexandra Fields, winning 8-3. Safi Aly ’15 and Sarah Monteagudo ’16 completed the Jeffs’ sweep of the doubles matches by defeating Dorrie Paradies and Katie Paradies 8-2 on the No. 3 court.

In the day’s only three-set match, Devlin

edged Fields, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (3), 10-5, in the second singles spot.

“I try to stay focused on my court, but it’s hard once you know your team has won,” remarked Devlin, who earned NESCAC CoPlayer of the Week Honors for her performance this past week. “I just kept thinking my team is depending on me, and I have to deliver. Our assistant coach Mollie was so great because she reminded me it was senior day and to just enjoy the moment and keep fighting until the end. So it was a tough match but turned out to be a pretty great day.”

Newman cruised past Orozco, 6-1,6-2 in the third slot, while Ghosh knocked off Bondy, 6-2, 7-6 (8), in the fourth slot. In the fifth spot, Pangalos beat Paradies 6-2, 7-5, and Monteagudo rolled past Katie Paradies, 6-0, 6-4 on the No. 6 court to finish off the Panthers.

The Jeffs, who won the NESCAC title in 2012 but lost in the finals last year to archrival Williams, will look to reclaim the title this weekend at Bowdoin. Amherst and Williams are the only two NESCAC teams to claim conference titles since 2001 — the Jeff leading with seven.

“These last two weekends have been really high energy and great tennis. In my four years we’ve never beaten Middlebury 9-0,” Devlin noted. “We’ve got so much confidence going into NESCACs this week.”

Amherst will likely earn the No. 1 seed, giving them a bye for the first round of NESCACs. The Jeffs will be in action on Saturday morning against the winner of the No. 4 and No. 5 seed match. Should they advance, the Jeffs will play for the NESCAC championship on Sunday.

10 Sports

Schedule WEDNESDAY Baseball vs. Wheaton, 4 p.m.

FRIDAY Men’s & Women’s Outdoor @ DIII New England Championships, All Day SATURDAY Baseball vs. Colby (DH), 1 p.m.

Women’s Lacrosse vs. Williams (NESCAC Semifinals @ Trinity), 2:30 p.m.

Men’s Lacrosse vs. Wesleyan (NESCAC Semifinals @ Tufts), 3 p.m.

Men’s Tennis @ NESCAC Semifinals (@ Bowdoin), TBD

The Amherst Student • April 30, 2014 Women’s Tennis @ NESCAC Semifinals (@ Bowdoin), 8 a.m.

Men’s & Women’s Outdoor @ DIII New England Championships, All Day SUNDAY Women’s Lacrosse @ NESCAC Championship (@ Trinity), 12 p.m.

Men’s Lacrosse @ NESCAC Championship (@ Tufts), 12 p.m.

Men’s Tennis @ NESCAC Championships (@ Bowdoin), 1 p.m.

Women’s Tennis @ NESCAC Championships (@ Bowdoin), 9 a.m.

Softball Closes Season With 21-11 Record Virginia Hassell ’16 Staff Writer The Amherst softball team finished their 2014 season this week, going 4-2 on the week.

After knocking off Elms College and winning their Hamilton series, the team split a doubleheader with WPI to finish the season 21-11.

The Jeffs end the year in third place in the NESCAC West behind Williams and Middlebury — just short of qualifying for the NESCAC tournament.

Against non-conference opponent Elms College (11-14) on Wednesday, April 23, Jackie Buechler ’17 had a phenomenal showing on the mound, tossing a one-hit shutout and amassing 10 strikeouts as Amherst topped the Bolts 5-0.

Junior Donna Leet ’15 generated a successful offensive outing in the top of the first with a single. Brianna Cook ’16 followed with a double to right center to drive in the junior.

In the third inning, senior captain Kaitlin Silkowitz led off with a single and stole second. Kelsey Ayers ’15 then stepped up to the plate and singled to left field. Again, Leet rose to the occasion, tripling to right field to clean the bases. First-year Alena Marovitz drove in Leet with an infield single, putting Amherst up 4-0. Another Jeff score wouldn’t come until the top of the sixth when Marovitz connected on a solo home run.

Next up for Amherst was a three-game series against fellow NESCAC West team, Hamilton.

“Going into Hamilton, we knew we weren’t going to make it to post season, but in a way that made us more determined to prove we weren’t quitters and go at Hamilton with all that we had,” Leet remarked.

Amherst snagged the first win of the series on Friday, April 25, triumphing the Continentals 5-2.

Nicolette Miranda ’16 and Ayers scored runs in the third to push the Jeffs to a 2-1 lead.

Miranda led off the lineup with a double, only to score on a Silkowitz single. Ayers then beat out a bunt to reach first, and Cook drove her home on a single.

Hamilton tied the game in the third, but Amherst responded in composed fashion. In the fifth inning, Marovitz tripled to drive in the go-ahead run. Ayers helped the Jeffs to victory, driving home Miranda and Apffel for a 5-2 final score.

Three Jeffs, Miranda, Silkowitz and Marovitz finished with two hits on the day. Buechler tallied a win from the mound, surrendering only two runs on eight hits, while striking out four.

In the first game of the doubleheader on Saturday, Amherst escaped with a 6-5 victory, as both teams drove in all 11 runs in the sixth

and seventh innings.

Taking advantage of two Hamilton errors, Amherst posted four runs in the top of the seventh to go ahead 6-3. The Continentals rallied in the bottom of the inning to score twice before Amherst secured the win.

Tuiskula saw the minimum 15 batters over the first five innings, which were a scoreless battle. Leet once again sparked an Amherst run after being walked. Cook doubled, followed by a Marovitz single that drove in both Leet and Cook. In the seventh, pinch-hitter Carolyn Miller ’14 and Silkowitz started the inning with two singles. A series of errors following an Ayers bunt allowed the tying run to score. Leet tallied Amherst’s final run on a Cook grounder.

“The first two games had energy that drove both our offense and our defense, and our pitching was dominant too,” said Leet.

In the third and final game of the series, Amherst’s three-game winning streak skidded to a halt, as Hamilton downed the Jeffs 8-5.

Posting four runs in a two-out rally in the second inning, Amherst jumped out to a 4-1 lead. Sophomore Sarah McKay started an surge for the Jeffs, fouling off six pitches before singling to left. Miranda then singled, which was followed by a Silkowitz single and RBI. Ayers chipped in with another single, while Leet contributed an RBI single of her own. Hamilton responded, however, scoring five runs to erase Amherst’s two run lead. The 13 Jeff hits were not enough to defeat the Continentals.

“In the last game, the Hamilton offense started to come alive, and they got a few good hits in a crucial inning, but despite the score at the end, we were generally happy with the hitting and fielding,” Leet said. “We were hitting the ball hard, but unfortunately right at people, so the numbers really don’t show how well we were playing.”

On Tuesday, the Jeffs faced off against former Amherst head coach Whitney Goldstein and the WPI Goats in what would be their final two games of the 2014 season.

“Going into those games, we knew as long as we stayed confident and played like the team we can be, we would dominate,” Leet said.

“As we closed out the season, we knew we had to remember that we are each other’s strongest motivation,” Miranda added. “Each of us has that natural competitive nature, but our goal was to win for each other, and especially for our seniors. We owed it to them to make this season memorable.”

Against WPI, the Jeffs lost the first game of the doubleheader 6-5 in eight innings, as the Goats had a walk-off single in the bottom of the eighth to bring home the winning run. Amherst bounced back to win the second game 7-3, ending their season with a 21-11 overall record.

ATHLETE SPOTLIGHT

Kane Haffey ’16

Donna Leet ’15

Favorite Team Memory: Ryan Cassidy’s first and only career goal Favorite Pro Athlete: Torey Krug Dream Job: Fishing guide Pet Peeve: Google glasses Favorite Vacation Spot: 5 and 7 Something on Your Bucket List: Toss the pigskin with Tom Brady Guilty Pleasure: Birdwatching Favorite Food: Pulled pork Favorite Thing About Amherst: Sam Lawlor

Favorite Team Memory: Hosting NESCACs and Regionals my freshman year Favorite Pro Athlete: Russell Wilson Dream Job: Food critic ... Or a doctor, realistically Pet Peeve: Dirty Val cups, girl drama, slow walkers Favorite Vacation Spot: Hawaii Something on Your Bucket List: Ski the Swiss Alps Guilty Pleasure: Friday Night Lights Favorite Food: Sushi and ice cream Favorite Thing About Amherst: Stone

Men’s Tennis Suffers First NESCAC Loss of the Season Nicole Yang ’16 Managing Sports Editor The third-ranked Amherst men’s tennis team had their 17-match win streak snapped on Saturday by eighth-ranked NESCAC foe Middlebury. With both teams previously undefeated in the NESCAC and the top-seed of the conference at stake, the Panthers edged the Jeffs 5-4.

Amherst got on the board first with a win the top doubles spot, as senior co-captains Joey Fritz and Justin Reindel defeated Alex Johnston and Andrew Lebovitz 8-6. However, Middlebury answered with a win in the second spot, as Bratner Jones and Palmer Campbell topped sophomores Aaron Revzin and Andrew Yaraghi 8-3.

The Panthers claimed the doubles advantage with another victory in the third spot over Michael Solimano ’16 and Anton Zykov ’17.

With the Jeff duo up 7-4, Peter Heidrich and Ari Smolyar came back to even the score at eightall, pushing the match to a tiebreaker. The Midd. pair came out on top 7-5 to take the match and the lead.

Johnston extended the Panthers’ lead to 3-1 with a 7-6, 6-0 win in the top singles spot over Fritz. Solimano defeated Campbell 6-4, 6-3 in the third spot to close the deficit to 3-2, but Middlebury notched another victory in the fourth spot, as Smolyar took down first-year Anton Zykov 6-4, 6-1. Up 4-2, the Panthers only needed one more win to seal the victory.

In the second singles spot, senior co-captain Chris Dale prevailed 7-5 in the first set against Jones after digging himself out of a 2-5 hole.

Jones evened the set score by winning the second 6-4 and followed with a 6-4 third set win to clinch both the individual and overall match.

Yaraghi defeated his opponent, Courtney Mountfield, in the No. 5 spot, 6-1, 6-3, while Justin Reindel ’14 won his match by the same score in the No. 6 spot to bring the final score to 5-4.

With the loss, Amherst falls to 8-1 in the NESCAC, while Middlebury improves to 7-0.

On the season, the Jeffs still flaunt an impressive 29-3 record and hope to bounce back this weekend at Bowdoin in the NESCAC Championships. As the No. 2 seed, Amherst received a first round bye and will face the winner of the Williams-Tufts match on Saturday at 3:30 p.m.

When asked if he finds that the team’s mentality changes heading into the post season, Garner responded, “Yes, you can tell the end of school is getting closer. Guys become more focused on closing out their classes in strong fashion. If the team makes the post season, it’s a lot of fun because they get a chance to compete against a strong opponent.”

Amherst has a history of making both conference and national title runs in recent years, as the team brought home both the NESCAC and NCAA Championship in 2011 as well as another conference title in 2012.

“Every team would love to play in the national championship game, but you can only play the match in front of you, which is this Saturday,” Garner remarked. “Every match has keys to winning, and the national championship is no different except they give a trophy to both teams after the match.”

For now, the Jeffs will await their opponent for their NESCAC semifinal match-up. When asked if there was anything the team should improve on for upcoming weekend, Garner responded, “Top secret ... just kidding. Winning the last point of the match seems to always work.”

Photo courtesy of Niahlah Hope ’15

This weekend, senior co-captain Joey Fritz and the Jeffs look to reclaim the back-to-back NESCAC titles they won in 2011 and 2012.

The Amherst Student • April 30, 2014

The Dangers Of Specialization Moneyball: Efficient?

Dave Cunningham ’16 Columnist In 1989, the Harvard men’s ice hockey team won the national championship. The extraordinary amount of hockey-specific preparation allowed the Ivy League university to stand alone above some of the most storied collegiate hockey programs in the country. Harvard head coach Bill Cleary, former three-sport athlete and U.S. Olympic hockey gold medalist, had a unique perspective regarding how his players should train. He believed that by participating in different sports, the athletes would have a better, more diverse understanding of what it took to be successful on the ice. In the off-season, his athletes were forced to take a break from hockey and would instead participate in another sport.

Nowadays, Cleary’s ideas have fallen under the wayside, as the nature of sport has forced athletes to devote all of their energy towards one area of expertise. Many believe if you do not specialize, you will find yourself far behind other athletes who do.

Youth hockey seasons push into the summer and baseball players hit up the batting cages during the winter. While it’s understandable that people naturally would want to exert all their energy into a sport they love, dangers come with such a notion.

As a two-sport athlete at Amherst, I am well aware of this phenomenon. The structure of athletics at Amherst and in the NESCAC allows many students to participate in multiple sports. I play both baseball and hockey, and as a result, I have found that I have sharpened instincts and a better understanding of what it takes to be a successful team. With these traits and themes in mind, one can provide more to each of their sports without losing skill for either team.

Dual athletes can take positives from one sport and incorporate them into the other. Although baseball is a team sport, it is very individualized at its core. If you don’t record any hits or strike-out at every at-bat, you’re not directly helping the team win. One player hits, one player fields the ball and another pitches, so there is a sense of separation.

On the other hand, hockey is a brotherhood like I’ve never experienced before. A player can score no goals and still be a crucial piece of success.

I have incorporated both of these dynamics into the opposing sports. I pride myself on my individual work during the hockey season because I know if I’m the best I can be as a goaltender, my team will be the best it can be too. During baseball season, I attempt to incorporate the intensity and camaraderie I have learned from hockey to help the team bond, which aids in our goal of winning a championship.

By participating in numerous sports, athletes develop a unique athletic instinct. People who play the same sport day after day tend to become robotic and lack the ability to think outside the box. They are only prepared for a finite number of outcomes,

and when a situation does not progress accordingly, the athlete may find themselves unprepared.

However, by participating in different sports, you train your body to handle a variety of unrelated circumstances. For example, fielding thousands of softballs at third base will prepare you well for that exact scenario, but if the ball takes a bad hop, your lack of instincts could force you back on your heels. The game will ultimately control you. Dual sport athletes have a tendency to dictate the game, while specialized players have a way of becoming victimized by its unpredictable nature.

The strenuous mental impact of sport can sometimes be too much for an athlete to bear: players often get trapped inside their own heads instead of trusting their abilities during periods of adversity. If you focus on one sport, day in and day out, it becomes very easy to overanalyze. I have regularly seen teammates over-thinking every aspect of their swing, constantly thinking of new ways in which they should change their style, as opposed to staying relaxed, reverting back to the basics and believing in what they know how to do. The break I get from baseball during hockey season allows me to completely remove baseball from my mind, and I am not burdened by the tiring mental aspects of the game. I simply try to focus on the game in the same way I had been taught for many years.

The main knock on two-sport athletes is that their bodies do not hold up. I’m only 21 years old, and my knees and hips are already shot from playing catcher and goalie. However, there is more to gain from playing two sports than there is to lose.

When I expressed my concern of injury last year to my high school baseball coach, another former dual sport athlete at Amherst, he chuckled and told me, “You may not be able to walk by the time you are forty. Who cares? We will buy you a cane.

Dave, it’s not about possibly getting hurt, or even how well you do in either sport that’s important.

It about the memories you will have 30 years from now. You can replace a hip, but you can’t replace the memories you will lose if you only play hockey,” The friendships and character traits one can develop from participating in different sports are incomparable, and the memories will last a lifetime. The people you meet and places you go are not confined to one group, so your outlook on life is ultimately diversified.

I was devastated when my hockey team lost a 3-2 OT heartbreaker to Bowdoin in the NESCAC Championship this past season. Opportunities like that don’t come around every year. It was disheartening to think that all the work that went into the season was simply not enough.

While the anger from the loss still fuels me, I sometimes wonder if I will get another chance to at NESCAC title. I then laugh to myself and remember I have already accomplished such a goal. I get two chances every year. Good thing I played baseball last season.

Golf Teams Wrap Up Spring Competition Katie Paolano ’16 and Lauren Tuiskula ’17 Staff Writers Men The Amherst men’s golf team finished off its spring season this week with two tournaments: the Little Three Championship on Wednesday and the NESCAC Championship this past weekend.

At Little Three’s hosted by Williams, the Jeffs beat Wesleyan 10-2 but fell short of the title after losing Williams by the same score. Playing under an alternate shot format in the morning, Amherst went a perfect 4-0 against Wesleyan but lost to the Ephs 2.5-1.5 — the only win coming from the duo of Brandon Brown ’15 and Nick Kafker ’17.

In single match play that afternoon, the Jeffs went 6-2 against Wesleyan with wins from Brown, Kafker, Liam Fine ’17, James Line ’16, Josh Moser ’15 and Jarvis Sill ’15. However, against Williams, Fine earned the lone half point for a 0.5-7.5 loss.

On Saturday, the Jeffs traveled to Middlebury for the NESCAC Championship. After day one of tournament play, the Jeffs were in last place behind all teams. Heading into the final round, the Amherst looked to place higher, but failed to

beat out the 2014 NESCAC Champs Middlebury (625), Williams (626) and Trinity (629), recording a 660 stroke total. Koh (163) led the team with a 12th place finish out of twenty golfers. Line (164) finished 14th, and Moser (167), Marick (168) and Sill (169) finished 17th, 18th and 19th, respecitvely.

Women The Amherst women’s golf wrapped up their spring season this past weekend at the Northeast Elite Invitational, hosted by Williams. The team finished fifth out of six teams with a 691 combined team score on the weekend, while two Jeffs placed in the Top 25 individually. Leading the team, Jamie Gracie ’17 finishing tied for 13th overall with a twoday score of 164.

Senior captain Sooji Choi placed 24th overall with a 172 combined score and fellow captain Kristin Lee ’14 finished with a 177, improving from 91 to 86 over the two days. Sophomores Devyn Gardner and Jenny Xu also reduced their stroke counts, as Gardner managed to take off five strokes for 9186 finish. Xu saw the biggest day-to-day improvement, shaving off 17 strokes on day two in order to finish with a 189 two-day total.

Sports 11

Questions? Patrick Can Field Them Patrick Canfield ’16 The Oscar-nominated film, “Moneyball”, showcased the story of Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane and his decision to rely on stats from computer-generated analysis to build a talented and successful baseball team. Because of the quantifiable nature of the sport, in-depth statistical information, like Beane’s, has begun to replace traditional scouting reports. Patrick discusses how teams are adjusting to the developing technology and explores the impact it will have on both the players and the front office.

Individual superstars matter less in baseball than in most other team sports. As opposed to basketball, where the addition of a single star player can alter the fortunes of an entire franchise, stud ballplayers impact their teams’ title chances much less.

Teams feel pressure from players, coaches, fans and the media to retain and obtain superstars, who are often overpriced or past their prime. The Detroit Tigers recently extended Miguel Cabrera’s contract for eight additional years and $248 million — with two years remaining on the eight-year $152 million contract he signed in 2008. The Tigers will be paying Cabrera into his late-thirties, and big, heavy players such as Cabrera almost universally age poorly.

The Tigers wanted to prevent Cabrera from reaching open market free agency and, in doing so, cost themselves two years of data that would better indicate Cabrera’s future performance down the road. However, booming income from new broadcast deals is leading to price inflation across the league — meaning that the value of Cabrera’s deal should increase as the average contract becomes more expensive. Nonetheless, as good as Cabrera curently is, the back end of his contract will be a substantial burden on the Tigers.

Baseball is littered with examples of teams overpaying for players. For teams without financial means approaching the level of the Tigers, Yankees and Dodgers (who are quickly out-Yankeeing the Yankees), the effects of these decisions can be crippling. Teams with a lot of money invested in aging players are restricted in trades and free agency.

Smart smaller market teams thus turn to other means of building a competitive roster. The most effective of these is the process of identifying market inefficiencies. After years of decrepitude, the Tampa Bay Rays became successful through the development and signing of young players to cheap, long-term deals. The Rays found that the baseball market overvalued established veteran production over unproven youngsters. However, despite lacking intangible experience, rookies often were able to replicate or exceed the performance of veterans at a fraction of the cost.

Today, players who provide league-average production are termed replacement-level. Any amount of production above replacement level (measured by Wins Above Replacement (WAR)) has a certain value dictated by the free agent market. While free agents receive X for a certain amount of production, young players are paid a much lower fixed salary.

The Rays found inefficiency in the way the market valued experienced and inexperienced players. Now, cost-controlled young players are coveted and recoup a lot of value in trades. In order to gain an advantage on the rest of the league, franchises can find and exploit inefficiencies before other teams begin to catch on.

Billy Beane, made famous by Michael Lewis’s “Moneyball” (and Brad Pitt), is the most obvious example of taking advantage of inefficiency.

Beane was the first general manager in baseball to adopt statistical analysis as a means for determining player value. At the time, teams judged players based on scouts’ reports, and Beane discovered that scouts favored certain traits and overlooked others. He then targeted these characteristics — such as the ability to draw a walk or even just looking unathletic — and cheaply acquired players who exhibited them and were thus shunted by the baseball world.

The buttoned-up Ivy League stats guys contrasted heavily with the “baseball men” who made up a club of former players and managers. The Ivy Leaguers’ findings often contradicted baseball convention and miffed baseball purists. There was a constant clash between the two groups, but the effectiveness of Beane’s methods eventually won out.

Baseball is unique in that almost every aspect is quantifiable. Every pitch can be mapped, every ball off the bat categorized and every out charted.

The individual player’s independent impact on a game can be identified quite easily — much more so than in most team sports. The most useful statistics describe this impact while ignoring white noise. For example, runs scored is helpful in telling how often a player scores. Runs batted in (RBI) shows how often a player drives in runs.

However, it is important to remember that players need someone to drive them in. An inferior player at the top of a stacked lineup will score more runs than a better player in a worse offense. If there is no one to get on base in front him, a player’s RBI will be artificially low. Similarly, earned runs average (ERA) benefits pitchers in favorable ballparks with good defenses.

It’s important for the statistics to describe what the player is controlling, not what he benefits from. On-base percentage measures how often a player reaches base (including walks), which is more useful in normalizing runs scored than the actual number of runs scored is. The ISO stat isolates power by measuring the difference between slugging percentage and batting average. Fielding independent pitching (FIP) improves on ERA by attempting to neutralize ballpark factors and other variables outside the pitcher’s control. Some of these stats use simple formulas, while others ­— such as FIP — are more complex.

Most baseball insiders now believe that a true measure of player performance derives from a combination of statistical analysis and player scouting. In order to gain insight into a player’s less quantifiable facets, such as defense and base running, the data often needs more context.

Recent developments in the tools used to measure player performance reflect this. Every major league ballpark tracks every pitch thrown in every game. These pitches are stored and labeled for analysis. Balls in play are labeled by hit type (fly ball, line drive, ground ball, etc.).

Earlier this year, MLB’s Advanced Media department unveiled a new player tracking system.

Cameras were to be installed in every ballpark measure speed and distance covered. The cameras plot player routes to balls in play as well as the most optimal (direct) route. They can also record movement around the base paths. Teams will have a sea of information to further inform their personnel decisions.

It seems as though the biggest market inefficiency currently lies in each franchise’s front office.

General managers are relatively inexpensive (Theo Epstein, considered one of the brightest young GMs, signed with the Cubs for five years at $3 million per year) but have a massive impact on their franchise’s direction. A wave of young and analytical GMs has permeated baseball — a wave that includes several Amherst alums. These GMs are often able to take advantage of the less advanced front offices.

Front offices should be constantly seeking out and exploiting new inefficiencies, which requires unconventional and often controversial thinking.

Teams such as the Pirates and Rays have shown how effective defensive shifts can be. In the future, with better tracking data, teams could look to position their best defenders in areas most likely to see action. A defensive star might play one at-bat in right field against a pull-heavy lefty and the next in left against a pull-hitting righty. When implementing a defensive shift, why not put your Gold Glove shortstop in the hole and hide your slow second baseman where the ball is unlikely to be hit?

The knowledge of how a defender reacts to different plays should impact how a team is set up.

Diminishing the rigidity of positions would meet with heavy criticism from baseball purists, but could have a large impact on a team’s chances of winning.

Sports

“Fourth-ranked Amherst women’s tennis wrapped up an undefeated NESCAC season...”

Women’s Tennis Sweeps... Page 9

Photo courtesy of Office of Public Affairs

Quinn Moroney ’16 earned NESCAC Player of the Week Honors for the second week in a row for his stellar performance against Bowdoin in the NESCAC Quarterfinals. Moroney scored or assisted on 10 of his team’s first 11 scores to lead the Jeffs to victory and bring his season totals to 24 goals and a team-high 72 assists.

Lacrosse Teams Advance to NESCAC Semifinals Men Set to Face Wesleyan; Women Ready for Williams

Greg Williams ’16 and Holly Burwick ’16 Staff Writers Men The 14th-ranked Amherst men’s lacrosse team picked up a pair of NESCAC wins this past week, including their first NESCAC quarterfinal win in nine years. On Wednesday, April 23, the Jeffs defeated Trinity 18-8, and they followed this performance with a 13-6 win against Bowdoin on Saturday, April 26, avenging their 17-15 regular season loss against the Polar Bears.

On Wednesday, Trinity came out hot, scoring the first two goals of the game, but seniors Devin Acton and Aaron Mathias responded quickly with three goals for the Jeffs.

After the first period, the game was tied at four all, but Amherst opened the floodgates in the second. Kane Haffey ’16 racked up a hat trick in the period, while a trio of seniors, Acton, Mathias and Patrick Moroney, all added a goal of their own to give Amherst a 10-6 lead entering halftime.

The Bantams scored the first goal of the second half, but Amherst once again went on big run, scoring seven goals in a row — a streak that ran into the fourth quarter. Trinity scored three goals in the fourth, and Mike Litner ’16 added another tally for the Jeffs, who finished the game off handily.

Haffey and Mathias each finished with five goals, and Acton recorded four of his own. Quinn Moroney ’16 had a game-high five assists and currently leads the nation in assists. Acton also had a notable achievement as he recorded the 200th point of his Jeff career, just the second Jeff to accomplish this feat in program history.

In goal, senior Greg Majno finished with six saves, and first-year Cody Tranbarger recorded one save at the end of the game.

With a win over the Bantams, Amherst secured home field advantage for the first round of the NESCAC tournament, where the third-seeded

Jeffs would play sixth-seeded Bowdoin.

The Polar Bears got on the board first, but Amherst rattled off four straight goals to take control of the game. In the second, Bowdoin scored once more, but Dylan Park ’16 and Mathias struck back with goals of their own to put their team up 6-2 at the half.

Conor O’Toole of Bowdoin scored two goals to try and close the gap for the Polar Bears, but the second half was taken over by the sophomores Q. Moroney and Haffey.

Haffey racked up five more goals to bring his total to a game-high six, while Q. Moroney recorded four more assists to bring his game total to seven. He also had three goals on the day for the first ten-point game of his career.

“Kane scored 11 goals in the two games, which is pretty special,” head coach Jon Thompson remarked. “His development as of late has been exponential. He now has 45 goals on the year, and somehow he goes under the radar, which just amazes me.”

“Quinn played like a first team All-American on Saturday versus Bowdoin,” Thompson continued. “10 Points in a single game is like hitting four home runs in game in baseball or scoring 50 points in a game in basketball. That just doesn’t happen, and Quinn has two games with 9 points this season and now a game with 10. He is just on another planet right now.”

Acton and Mathias accounted for the rest of the Jeff scoring in the game. The Jeffs high-octane offense was fueled by their 53-31 shot advantage over the Polar Bears, as well as a 45-30 advantage in ground balls. The Jeffs’ special teams continued its excellence, as their man-down unit allowed zero scores for the second straight game.

“The defense played the best game of the year versus Bowdoin. Each man on that side of the ball won his individual match-up — exactly what we needed to do in order to win,” Thompson contin-

ued.

The Jeffs will travel to top-seed Tufts next Saturday to play second-seeded Wesleyan at 3 p.m.

The winner of this match-up will face the winner of the Tufts-Williams game on Sunday for the NESCAC Championship.

“Saturday versus Wesleyan is going to be a great game. They compete as hard as any team we have seen all year, and we will need to match their sheer competitive nature in order to win. They will have the revenge factor in their favor, but we’ll find our own motivating factor as the week progresses.

Perhaps it could be the fact that Amherst men’s lacrosse has never won a NESCAC semifinal game?

Time for another first if you ask me,” Thompson said.

Women The fifth-ranked Amherst women’s lacrosse team nearly made it through the regular season with a pristine record. However, in their last conference match-up this past Wednesday, Trinity handed the Jeffs their first loss of 2014. Amherst was quick to bounce back with a NESCAC quarterfinal win over Bowdoin on Saturday.

On April 23, the Bantams and Jeffs were neckand-neck entering the second half, but Trinity would ultimately pull away to defeat Amherst 7-4, giving them the top-seed of the conference.

Thanks to a Rachel Passarelli ’16 pass, Mia Haughton ’16 got the Jeffs on the board early, but the Bantams retaliated and the score remained deadlocked at 1-1. At the close of the half, Alex Philie ’14 broke the stalemate off a Haughton assist.

To start the second half, the Bantams ramped up the scoring, putting away two tallies to garnish the 3-2 lead. Elizabeth Ludlow ’14 successfully converted a free position opportunity to tie the game up at three, but within the next six minutes, the Bantams doubled their score, amassing three more goals. Passarelli converted a free position shot to

bring the Jeffs back within two, but Trinity converted a successful free position of their own to cap off the scoring at 7-4. The Bantams boasted an 18-13 shot advantage and a 14-11 edge in ground balls.

Christy Forrest ’16 finished with seven saves in goal for the Jeffs.

“Trinity is a top team like us, and we didn’t put together our A game. We had too many turnovers and played tentative, which gave them momentum and more opportunities on attack. We are confident that if we get another chance at them it will be a different story,” head coach Chris Paradis commented. “The silver lining is that the pressure of being undefeated is off now, and losing gave us an opportunity to reboot and find that fire again.”

As the second-seed in the NESCAC tournament, the Jeffs took on the seventh seeded Bowdoin at home on April 26 in the NESCAC quarterfinals.

Just two minutes into the start of the half, Caroline Holliday ’14 put the Jeffs ahead with a wraparound goal. After Bowdoin evened the score, Holliday ripped a shot to the inside post, but yet again, the Polar Bears tied the score. Just a minute later, the Jeffs pulled away with a 6-2 lead. Priscilla Tyler ’15 scored off a Ludlow feed, and Krista Zsitvay ’14 put away an additional two tallies before Passarelli closed off the half with one of her own.

Bowdoin hoped to regain the momentum after scoring the opening tally in the second half. However, the Jeffs retaliated with a goal from Haughton, a second tally from Tyler and three goals from Meghan Mills ’15. The Polar Bears managed to bury a couple more shots, but Amherst cruised to an 11-5 victory. The Jeffs outshot Bowdoin 27-8 and had a 14-5 advantage in ground balls.

Amherst will return to action next Saturday, May 3 for a NESCAC semifinal match-up against archrival and fourth-seeded Williams hosted at Trinity at 2:30 p.m. The winner will advance to play the victor of the Trinity-Colby game for a chance to bring home the NESCAC title on Sunday at noon.