Issue 15

THE AMHERST

THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER OF AMHERST COLLEGE SINCE 1868

STUDENT VOLUME CXLVI, ISSUE 15 l WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2017

Men’s Basketball Claims Two NESCAC Victories See Sports, Page 9 AMHERSTSTUDENT.AMHERST.EDU

MLK Symposium Focuses on Intersectionality Kathleen Maeder ’20 Staff Writer

Photo courtesy of Faith Wen ’20

Former Governor of Florida and 2016 Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush gave a talk to the Amherst community on Tuesday, Jan. 31 in Johnson Chapel.

Jeb Bush Speaks on Policy Issues and Reform Kathleen Maeder ’20 Staff Writer Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush addressed the Amherst community in Johnson Chapel on Tuesday, Jan. 31, covering issues such as immigration and education reform.

The talk was free and open to members of the public, and streamed online and in Stirn Auditorium for overflow audiences.

Bush served as the 43rd governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007 and is now the chairman of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, an organization that works on education reform throughout the United States of America. He was also a visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School last fall.

After an introduction by President Biddy Martin, Bush began his talk by discussing his personal relationship with the topic of immigration.

“The fact is, I come from an immigrant family,” said Bush, speaking about his wife, an immigrant from Mexico, as well as his children and grandchildren and their multiethnic

heritage.

Bush continued his talk by discussing the shifting views regarding the “American dream.”

“The right to rise in this country has always been a hallmark of … what the American experience has been defined by,” Bush said. “If you work hard, play by the rules, you can achieve anything you want to … A whole lot of people don’t think that’s the case anymore.”

Many Americans no longer believe that their children will have more opportunities than they did, which was unusual, he added.

He added that Americans are “deeply divided, and … don’t believe the future is one of great abundance and great possibilities for our country. And it can be, but we need to start fixing the problems that exist.”

Bush further emphasized the value of a strong K-12 education, noting that the U.S. spends more money on education per student than any other country except for Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, while only around a third of students meet benchmarks

for college and career readiness.

“In this country, we have not had a real command focus on early childhood literacy,” Bush said, which he believes should be a value for all Americans.

“We’re dooming kids in the world we’re moving towards … We need to have robust accountability around every child,” said Bush.

“It boggles my mind that … [there is] no marching in the street for kids on the behalf of our society, that are not learning.”

In addition, Bush talked about how many working-class Americans’ economic woes resulted from technological advancement replacing many jobs, rather than having those jobs leave the U.S. for other countries.

He also spoke on how the state of the American economy related to the issues of immigration and accepting refugees.

Bush emphasized the “increasing numbers of people ... being left behind … [which] will have an impact on all of us. We have a duty … to recognize that this is the great challenge of our time.”

Continued on Page 3

An event titled “Dr. MLK Jr. Symposium: Moving Toward Collective Liberation” brought together a panel of experts to speak on community, engagement and the role of masculinity in the current civil rights movement.

The talk was held in Johnson Chapel on Jan. 28 and was free and open to the public.

Bulaong Ramiz-Hall, director of the Multicultural Resource Center, introduced the four panelists — Bishop John Selders, Chris Crass, Caleb Stephens and Dylan Marron.

Ramiz-Hall also introduced Professor of English, Black Studies and Film and Media Studies Marisa Parham, the panel’s moderator.

Marron, a comedian and actor, spoke on the impact that comedy can have on the audience.

“Comedy, and all entertainment, really [needs] to be a vessel to illuminate something for the audience, rather than just a vessel for the audience to escape reality,” Marron said.

“This makes it important to ask what the purpose [is] behind every joke.”

“We’ve seen such great people use comedy, use entertainment, as a form to educate people, to illuminate people’s understanding of the world around them, just as much as we’ve seen comedy used as a weapon against minority communities, against marginalized communities,” Marron continued.

Selders spoke about his background as a bishop from St. Louis and how he was deeply influenced by the 2014 death of Michael Brown. He also discussed the need for quick responses in light of the political events of the past few weeks.

“We all have to respond ... now,” Selders said. “The pressure is on you to speak of the rapidness of how stuff is happening. Dr. King referred to the fierce urgency of ‘now,’ right?

Well, that thing has now moved up even exponentially from there.”

Another topic of discussion was the significance of community in activists’ movements. Stephens commented on the im-

Continued on Page 3

College Hires New Chief Communications Officer Caleigh Plaut ’19 Staff Writer President Biddy Martin announced the selection of Sandra Genelius as the college’s chief communications officer in an email to the college community on Tuesday, Jan. 4.

Genelius will replace Pete Mackey, who resigned from the position last August.

“We selected Sandy after an extensive national search, through which she emerged as the top choice for this important position,” wrote Martin in her announcement. Chief Finance and Administrative Officer Kevin Weinman chaired the search.

Genelius has considerable experience in the field of communications, having held positions in sports, news and corporate busi-

nesses. She started her career at CBS Sports, later becoming the vice president of communications at CBS News.

After working there for 14 years, she left the network to work as the vice president of corporate communications and public affairs at Sony Corporation of America. Most recently, she had been a strategic communications consultant.

“I’m a firm believer that each experience we have in our lives helps to prepare us for the next — that a career is a process and a progression,” said Genelius in an email interview. “[My job at CBS News] was wildly unpredictable, highly stressful and enormously varied in the subject matter, situations and people I dealt with … That made me feel I could manage just about anything

moving forward.”

As the college’s CCO, Genelius will create, supervise and execute a communications program for the college in collaboration with the communications team.

She will be in charge of the college’s public affairs, marketing, major event programming and all other communications projects.

“The world in which we live is constantly changing and increasingly complex, and I believe the liberal arts education … is one of the best ways to prepare young people to successfully navigate it,” Genelius said.

“Finding new, creative and effective ways of communicating that message and having it be understood and embraced is critically important for Amherst.”

Before this school year, Mackey over-

saw communications projects like creating the Daily Mail and a new college website and bringing well-known speakers and new communications team members to campus in his role as CCO. During the interlude between Mackey and Genelius, Martin, Chief Advancement Officer Megan Morey and a hired consultant presided over the role of chief communications officer, according to the college website.

“The people I’ve met so far at Amherst have been kind, welcoming, open, straightforward and passionate — qualities I regard highly — that I really can’t wait to get started,” Genelius said.

Genelius will officially take on her new role on Wednesday, March 1.

News

Manuela Picq Fresh Faculty

Jan. 24, 2016 - Jan. 29, 2017

>>Jan. 24, 2017 2:10 a.m., Chapman Parking Lot While on patrol, an officer discovered a door wide open on a student-registered car. The owner was notified. >>Jan. 25, 2017 2:44 a.m., Campus Grounds A security officer hired by the Science Center construction company reported suspicious activity. >>Jan. 26, 2017 12:29 a.m., Morris Pratt Dorm Officers responded to a complaint of a loud party in a fourth-floor room. The gathering was shut down.

12:52 a.m., Morris Pratt Dorm While investigating a noise complaint in a fourth-floor room, officers discovered that the occupants were in possession of alcohol while under the legal drinking age. The alcohol was disposed of and the matter was referred to Student Affairs.

12:53 a.m., Morris Pratt Dorm While investigating a noise complaint in a fourth-floor room, officers discovered the odor of marijuana and drug-related paraphernalia. The materials were confiscated and the matter was referred to Student Affairs.

8:26 p.m., Wilson Admissions An officer investigated an intrusion alarm and found it was accidentally set off by an employee. >>Jan. 27, 2017 1:06 a.m., James Dormitory An officer responded to a report of loud people on the third floor and spoke to several residents. No further action was necessary.

1:21 a.m., Amherst Police Department An officer assisted the town police with the booking of a person.

9:52 a .m., East Drive A Five-College student reported experiencing harassment from an Amherst student. The matter is under investigation.

4:46 p.m., Williston Hall Officers responded to a complaint of a loud party on the second floor.

No activity was found. >>Jan. 28, 2017 1:40 a.m., Valentine Dormitory While assisting at a medical call, an officer discovered drug paraphernalia in a room and the smoke detector covered. The matter was referred to Student Affairs and the resident was fined $100 for the fire safety violation.

1:59 a.m., Appleton Hall An officer detected the odor of marijuana coming from a third-floor room. After speaking with a resident and making observations, no further action was taken, and the matter was referred to Student Affairs.

12:42 p.m., Orr Rink Officers investigated an alarm from the defibrillator cabinet and found that it had been accidentally struck by a ball.

4:08 p.m., Jenkins Dormitory Officers responded to a report of a group of students drinking near the Keefe Health Center and found a beer pong table set up. The activity was stopped and the students left the area.

8:59 p.m., Cohan Dormitory An officer responded to a complaint of a group of students in the kitchen area with loud music. The music was turned off.

10:47 p.m., Greenway Building C A caller reported the odor of marijuana on the fourth floor. An officer investigated but nothing was found.

11:37 p.m., King Dormitory An officer discovered that hard alcohol was available and drinking games were played at a registered party. The sponsor was contacted and the matter was referred to Student Affairs. >>Jan. 29, 2017 12:04 a.m., Moore Dormitory While responding to a medical call, an officer found an unauthorized party with hard alcohol on the third floor. The participants left the area.

1:52 a.m., Plimpton House While in the building, an officer found unattended alcohol in the basement. It was disposed of.

2:02 a.m., Plimpton House A caller reported a group of males on the fire escape yelling obscenities. The men were located, identified and warned about their actions.

2:25 a.m., Plimpton House While at a third-floor room, an officer discovered drug paraphernalia and a small amount of marijuana, which were confiscated. The matter was referred to Student Affairs.

2:26 a.m., Plimpton House While at a third-floor room, an officer discovered the resident was using candles and the smoke detector was covered with a plastic bag. The resident was fined $200 for the fire safety violations.

2:26 a.m., Plimpton House While at a third-floor room, an officer discovered alcohol in the room of an underage resident. The alcohol was confiscated and the matter was referred to Student Affairs.

Correction: “Men’s Cross Country Program on Probation Through 2018 Season” in Issue 14 stated that “first-year athletes [would be] unable to participate in cross-country at Amherst until Fall 2019.” This was stated in error, as first-years, as well as other members of the team, will be able to compete in cross-country races. However, the team will remain on athletic probation until the end of fall 2018.

Department of Political Science

Manuela Picq is a Karl Loewenstein fellow and a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science. She attended Pierre Mendes-France University, where she received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history.

She received her doctorate degree in international studies from the University of Miami.

Q: What got you interested in Political Science?

A: I grew up in Brazil and there was a lot of inequality. I grew up in Rio de Janeiro seeing a lot of people living in the streets in very bad conditions. I always felt human indignation at the situation of poor people, so I started working in human rights. Then I started looking at the Andes in particular and indigenous rights because I moved to Ecuador.

The specificity of human rights from an indigenous perspective really connects nature and the land with people. From this lens, we stop seeing human rights just as humans but as nature too. Water rights become part of human rights, and it’s a very important approach now in times of climate crisis.

Q: Why did you decide to teach at Amherst?

A: This time, I came because I made very good friends here. I normally live and work in Ecuador … There’s an authoritarian government there right now, and I was detained during a protest, jailed and then expelled from the country in August of 2015. So for the first couple of months I kept thinking they would let me back into the country, but they did not. I have very good colleagues here, and I have a lot of institutional support here from the first time I taught here.

I was here [at Amherst] between 2008 and 2011 and [then] I went back to Ecuador … I came back now in September [of ] last year.

The president of the college did write a letter in my support when I was in jail to free me, and my other colleagues were very present in the process of freeing me and getting me out of Ecuador back then. They were able to give me a one-year position as a Scholar at Risk and a sign of academic support.

Q: What classes are you teaching this semester?

A: This semester I’m teaching Sexualities in International Relations, which is an introductory class to international relations and politics in the political science department.

I’m also teaching another one called States of Extraction, which is about politics and the rights of nature in world politics. It’s basically about climate change and extractive industries such as oil, mining, pipelines and hydropower plants that are destroying not only the land but especially indigenous land, which is where most biodiversity remains.

Q: What about Amherst do you enjoy the most?

A: I really enjoy living in the countryside.

I live by Puffer’s Pond, and I love being in nature yet having the amount of brains, professors, good cinema and talks through the Five Colleges. I have great and very supportive colleagues. The classes are really small and students end up being colleagues, too.

It’s a really ideal environment between living in the countryside with all of the high-end intellectual quality you’d have in a big intellectual center, except you have the woods around you at the same time.

Q: Why did you go to Ecuador?

A: This is the unexpected side of life because our lives never unfold the way we think they will. I graduated in the United States

with a Ph.D. in international relations and I couldn’t find a job anywhere. No one would give me a job except for a university in Ecuador, which a friend of a friend of a friend put me in touch with. I thought I’d go there for a year and learn Spanish. I went with that approach, but I really liked it, and I stayed a second year and a third year, and by the time it was time to leave I really had roots in the country. I started doing indigenous politics because I would go mountain climbing, and on the way to the glaciers I would meet indigenous women who looked 100 years old, except they were only 50 years old. So I started to think that there was a huge human rights problem there because they were aging way too fast, among other issues of poverty and violence. So then I started researching, and instead of studying nuclear weapons, the Cold War or the World Bank, I started studying indigenous peoples. For a while, it was not perceived by my colleagues as real politics, but nowadays it’s finally being recognized as part of world politics.

Q: Are you still engaged in human rights activism?

A: Part of why I was expelled from Ecuador is because I was a scholar but also an activist and a journalist. I remain a little bit of a journalist, but I don’t write as much as before.

I still write and I have my students writing.

They publish their finals online in an indigenous newspaper called Intercontinental Cry. I do a little bit of activism, but more behind the scenes than on the frontlines as before.

For example, I help indigenous organizations get funds, so I do a lot of grant applications for them so that they can travel to the UN. Since I was expelled from Ecuador, I presented my case and the case of indigenous rights violation at the UN in Geneva and the European Parliament in Brussels. My partner is still in Ecuador and is an indigenous rights lawyer. We are presenting the case that the government has denied us marriage, so we’re accusing the government of racial discrimination — in this case, ethnic discrimination for him being indigenous. We’re doing a lot of legal and institutional activism by trying to keep the indigenous movement afloat even when there’s less and less funds going to help them participate in the world.

Q: What do you hope to contribute during your time here?

A: I think what I can bring is my activism.

I hope to inspire students with the interface of scholarship activism because academia is an amazing space to practice activism … We have the freedom to think and [we have] access to ideas that are unique. The other thing that I really hope to contribute is the development of indigenous perspectives in the department of political science. There are a lot of great people here in political science, but there is no focus at all on indigenous politics, and it’s treated as a marginal topic. Yet in many areas of the world it’s a core of politics.

I hope that in the long term, the department of political science will keep offering classes related to indigenous politics and activism.

— Sylvia Frank ’20

The Amherst Student • February 1, 2017

News

3

Bush Covers Policy Issues on Immigration and Education Continued from Page 1 The talk was followed by a series of questions from the audience, which covered topics such as Bush’s unsuccessful 2016 presidential primary campaign, protection of voting rights and the death penalty.

Mayowa Tinubu ’20, who attended Bush’s talk, was “interested in hearing a conservative voice” on campus.

“I consider myself a liberal, but I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with being a conservative,” Tinubu continued.

“College is supposed to challenge people intellectually, and drowning out one side of political views is not conducive to intellectual growth.”

Before the talk, Bush held a special private class in the Alumni House with 25 students, who were randomly selected from a pool of online applicants.

Noah Elliott ’19 attended the private class, which consisted of an hour-long question and answer session, and said that he enjoyed the opportunity to hear from Bush in a smaller, more personal setting. “In a more large-scale setting … it’s kind of hard to really understand where he comes from and why he believes what he believes,” he said.

Fernando Garcia Toro ’20, who attended both the class and the main talk, said he felt people at Amherst “aren’t very open to ideas … that don’t reinforce the ones they already have.”

“So I think it’s important to have someone like Jeb,” Garcia-Toro added. “Even if they don’t accept them, at least they’ve heard them.”

Photo courtesy of Faith Wen ’20

Bush’s talk focused on topics such as race and affirmative action, immigration and education. In the question-andanswer session, he spoke on the death penalty and President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees.

MRC Hosts MLK Event to Honor Life and Legacy Continued from Page 1

portance of deferring to others within a community.

“Men — we have been a distraction for so long in these movements, and we have been the face of them, too — not because we deserve it … it’s been a facade,” Stephens said.

The panelists’ discussion was guided by written questions from the audience, who asked about a variety of topics that ranged from the rejection of political intellectualism and introspection to the importance of self-care.

One attendee’s question asked what it means to be an imperfect leader while advo-

cating for social change, prompting the panelists to discuss accepting the inevitability of mistakes.

“That’s part of our responsibility in leadership, is once you do make that mess … don’t let it immobilize you, but be a part of cleaning it up,” said Selders.

Anna Makar-Limanov ’20, a student who attended the panel, said in an email interview that she was “glad that the MRC organized this and is committed to bringing in outside voices and perspectives to share their valuable experience with us.”

“I hope that [the] college continues to support events like this and I know the resource centers will continue providing us

with resources to learn more and act out against oppression,” she continued.

Following the panel, a reception was held in the Multicultural Resource Center. Attendees were able to meet with the speakers and continue the discussion on topics covered in the panel.

Ramiz-Hall organized the event and reception and invited the four speakers. Regarding the selection of panelists, RamizHall noted that there were “a lot of different ways in which all the panelists have impacted [her] life” and that she “wanted to share that with the Amherst community.”

“I think community-building is so vitally important, not only for people’s understand-

ing of one another, but to develop a deeper understanding of ourselves,” Ramiz-Hall said. “With the current political climate, so many of us are feeling lost and alone and afraid, and I think having a conversation that’s about liberation … allows a space to focus on the possibility of hope and joy and love.”

Having this space “shifts the narrative,” said Ramiz-Hall. “People often feel they don’t know what to do, they don’t know how they’re going to get through,” Ramiz-Hall added. “This gives us space to say… at least I’m not alone, and here are some people that I have to look to, to be in community with, to guide me, to get inspiration from.”

Russian Journalist Speaks on Trump-Putin Similarities Jacob Gendelman ’20 Staff Writer In a talk titled “The Trump-Putin Connect: What We Imagine and Why,” prominent Russian journalist and activist Masha Gessen spoke of the similarities between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Johnson Chapel at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 26.

Gessen, who was invited by President Biddy Martin to speak at the college, was born to an Ashkenazi Jewish family in the former Soviet Union, and has moved several times between the United States and Moscow.

She has written books as well as articles for The New York Times and The Washington Post. Dean of the Faculty Catherine Epstein introduced Gessen and praised her as a leading journalist in Russia, a critic of Putin and an LGBT activist.

Gessen, Epstein said, is a controversial journalist who was dismissed from Russia’s oldest magazine and has criticized the American LGBT community and Trump.

Gessen began her talk by discussing the Syrian refugee crisis. Relating their situation to her own when immigrating as a refugee to the United States, she said that “the

situation we were escaping … was much less dire than most of the refugees in the world today are facing.”

She then discussed the similarities between Trump and Putin. Before describing them, she cautioned the audience that they are not completely alike and that Trump is “not Putin’s puppet.”

Gessen said that Trump, like Putin, lies in order to assert “his right to say whatever the hell he wants.”

Because Trump uses his lies to assert power, she said, the media’s extensive factchecking is not enough. Instead, she said the media should write about not only individual facts, but also “the bigger picture.”

Both men also live in their own reality, she added, consuming only the news that reflect their own beliefs. According to Gessen, Putin watches Putin TV, and Trump watches Fox News and other conservative media.

Gessen also worries that people will soon be drawn into a false sense of security.

“We will wake up one morning, probably next week, and there will not be a barrage of heartbreaking news, and that will feel like a relief,” she said.

Trump and Putin, Gessen said, have “interests rather than priorities.” She said their

actions did not consistently reflect goals for the country, but instead simply kept them happy.

In addition, both have “absolute, utter disdain for government.”

Because Trump’s agenda does not align with those of some of the departments within the federal government, he appointed cabinet members who opposed these departments’ goals, Gessen said.

Putin, too, had condemned his own government after a submarine was destroyed, according to Gessen.

Another similarity between Trump and Putin is their “disdain for moral authority.”

Gessen said Trump felt threatened instinctually by Representative John Lewis’ moral authority and attacked him for several days.

Both share a “disdain for the public sphere,” Gessen said. Conservatives tend not to hear ideas different from their own, while liberals do and the discussions in liberal media threatened Trump, Gessen said.

She said that now “media has become the opposition party,” while Trump threatens democracy and the health of the public sphere.

Gessen’s final comparison of Putin and Trump dealt with their belief in themselves as “chosen people.”

“While we see Putin as being less legitimate, he sees himself as more legitimate, because despite his lack of qualifications, he ended up being [the] Russian president,” Gessen said.

She compared Trump’s lack of experience in public office or the military to Putin’s experience before becoming president.

After her talk, Gessen answered questions from the audience and received a standing ovation at the end of the event.

Alex Gurvets ’18 attended the talk and said that he found Gessen’s analysis of the two men’s personalities interesting, particularly how Gessen “reminded us that Putin and Trump are more or less average people,” he said in an online interview.

“Her perspective on how each president has a worldview based on the media he consumes especially seemed to ground them as people,” he wrote.

Another attendee, Julian Brubaker ’20, especially appreciated Gessen’s insight into Trump’s character.

“She compared Trump and Putin in simple terms, but her analysis of their personalities was provocative, and made me think in a new and helpful way about my new president, however painful that is to say,” he said in an online interview.

Opinion Defending Facts is Defending Liberty

THE AMHERST

STUDENT E X E C U T I V E B OA R D

Editorial

In an interview on “Meet the Press,” presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway defended White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s false claims surrounding President Donald Trump’s inauguration. According to Conway, Spicer’s assertions that the 2017 presidential inauguration was the largest-attended in history are “alternative facts.” Rather than confronting the possibility that Spicer’s claims are false, Conway created a new philosophical realm of thought in which the truth can — or cannot — exist.

It is easy to dismiss the concept of “alternative facts” as another one of the Trump administration’s absurdities, especially with the lighthearted rise of trends like the “#alternativefacts” tag rampant on social media. But if there are two words that aptly characterize the past presidential election, the rise of Trump and his alarming policies since his inauguration, they would be “alternative facts.” The only alternative to the truth is falsehood, and it is precisely falsehood that has fueled Trump’s rise to the presidency. He has claimed that the public does not care about his tax returns, that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton laughed at a 12-year-old rape victim while defending her attacker in court, that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States, that he had been against the war in Iraq before it started, that Mexico would fund the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, that not many Syrian refugees are women or children and that excluding immigrants and refugees from the U.S. will reduce terrorism threats. The list goes on and on. We encourage you to examine these false claims more on Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-check resource PolitiFact.

The Editorial Board fully supports diversity of political thought. However, we encourage students to prevent political preference from clouding their judgement of what is true and what is false. If an event did not occur, or if a person did not make a specific comment, then claiming otherwise would be a lie. President Trump has consistently crafted and disseminated

baseless claims that have been proven incorrect with clear evidence; many are simply not true. And we, as Americans and defenders of this country, must distinguish the two more clearly than ever before.

The notion of “alternative facts” implies that anything can be a fact if one wants it to be. This concept is frightening in an age where the liberties of so many, including our peers, are being threatened. The vulnerable and dehumanizing positions of our Deferred Action for Childhood Americans (DACA), Muslim, LGBTQ, female, disabled and diverse peers — people that we eat, sleep and study with — are all rooted in “alternative facts.” “Facts” that claim that undocumented persons are detrimental to the economy, that Muslim communities pose a threat to our country’s security, that people of color are lazy and unproductive and that a woman running for president is “disgusting” for going to the bathroom not only perpetuate harmful stereotypes but also have real consequences for members of the Amherst community. Put your politics aside — we cannot accept these claims as realities because they manifest into our everyday lives, reaching their ugly fingers into our community.

We are living in a time where we must be cognizant of what is factual and what is simply untrue. More importantly, the Editorial Board encourages all students to commit to perpetuating the truth. Only the truth can set us free and allow us to see what is just. Read verified publications like The Amherst Student, The New York Times, Washington Post, which have a commitment and history to finding the truth, no matter how difficult that truth may be to process. Fact-check the articles that you find on social media through verified sources such as PolitiFact. Second-guess the statements that President Trump’s administration makes. We are living in a time where we can no longer take the truth for granted. Rather, we must actively seek out the truth and seek justice accordingly.

If I May: Beware of Normalization in the Trump Era Jake May ’19 Columnist Last week, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, one of the most respected and heralded voices of the Democratic party, voted for the confirmation of Dr. Ben Carson as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Predictably, this decision was met with a considerable amount of backlash from Senator Warren’s liberal constituents. Why would she vote for a candidate that is so clearly unequipped to run any government department, let alone the Department of Housing and Urban Development? In fact, in a November article from The Hill, Carson’s business manager, Armstrong Williams, said, “Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he’s never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency.”

On “Pod Save America,” a recently-created podcast aimed at providing commentary and analysis on President Donald Trump’s actions and ways to combat them, host Jon Favreau noted Carson’s undeniable lack of qualifications and argued that there was no political reason to vote for any of Trump’s nominees if

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one is a Democrat. Later on the same podcast, Democratic National Committee Chair candidate and former Secretary of Labor Tom Perez echoed this sentiment, claiming that Democrats in Congress should accord Donald Trump “the same level of courtesy that Mitch McConnell accorded to Barack Obama, which is no courtesy whatsoever.”

These reactions, with which I agree strongly, are in response to something that I believe could become a huge problem during the Trump administration. That problem is normalization.

Earlier in the episode, Mr. Perez articulated an important statement. “They’re in the process of normalizing things that never should get normalized,” he said.

Now, it is no surprise that Republicans were generally quick to support the nominations of Trump’s cabinet picks. However, to me, it is both surprising and troubling that most Democratic senators have largely voted “yea” on the majority of Trump’s nominees for cabinet positions.

The unfortunate truth — and likely the reason that so many liberals did not vote against some of the confirmations — is that Democrats do not have the votes to prevent these nominations. But the idea that voting “no” won’t

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accomplish anything still falls flat to me. It is not as if these are just typical conservative candidates for these positions put forth by a typical conservative president. If that were the case, then I would support the liberal senators voting to confirm and promote a peaceful transfer of power. After all, it is important that these departments are run properly.

However, this is not the case. Our president has shown that he is a megalomaniac who has absolutely no business running this country, and he has chosen a set of candidates that are nearly all vastly unfit to run their departments.

By voting to confirm these nominees, the Democratic senators are simply joining the Republicans in normalizing these candidates. Instead, they should have used their vote to show the president, the Republican Party and their constituents that these candidates are unacceptable.

Whenever Democrats have the opportunity to call out Trump’s decisions, I believe they must do so. They cannot let even relatively smaller things like cabinet picks slide, especially when they have an opportunity to publicly rebuff the terrible and dangerous decisions by President Trump.

If you want to write for us, email squong18@ amherst.edu

Editors-in-Chief Drew Kiley Jingwen Zhang Executive Advisers Lauren Tuiskula Sophie Murguia Managing News Shawna Chen, Isabel Tessier Managing Opinion Diane Lee, Spencer Quong Managing Arts and Living Julia Pretsfelder, Paola Garcia-Prieto Managing Sports Nathaniel Quigley, Julia Turner Managing Design Justin Barry S TA F F Head Publisher Tia Robinson Head Marketer Sophie Currin Design Editors Zehra Madhavan, Isabel Park, Chloe Tausk, Yrenly Yuan

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The Amherst Student • February 1, 2017

Opinion

5

The White Male Aesthetic of the English Discipline Jenna Peng ’18 Contributing Writer I read no literature by a white male author for one year, and it was beautiful. It was relatively easy to do, given that the English courses I enrolled in were Global Women’s Literature, Postcolonial Archipelagos and Transnational Literatures of the Chinese Diaspora. Through these classes, I learned the role of imperialist histories in personal and collective identity (re)formation. I learned how literary forms could both give voice to the subaltern and also contribute to its silencing. I learned how authors with marginal identities maintained their individual narrative and artistry in the face of the overwhelming burden of group representation.

I learned how to destabilize the nation as a colonial unit, position communities within a multiethnic context and challenge the conventional power structure between the mainland and the diaspora, the imperial center and the colonies. Through these classes, I also learned that the English major was predominantly comprised of women of color.

This lesson was refuted shortly after.

This semester, I enrolled in a 400-level seminar, designed “to teach students the vital intellectual skills of how to frame a research question and conduct independent research,” according to the course description. So this semester, when I attended classes to embark on a very serious and intensely theoretical study of the literary discipline, the demographics of the classroom and the contents of the syllabus abruptly shifted. Gone were the short story collections written by island authors, and conventional, canonical texts took their place. Postcolonial, critical race, feminist and queer authors and theorists, as though inconveniencing the contributions of their formalist predecessors, were relegated to a few weeks at the end of the semester.

Missing from these courses was a sustained

consideration of sociopolitical context in order to favor a consideration of the ‘literary.’

Questions that asked, “What is of aesthetic value?” overwhelmed those asking, “Who determines aesthetic value?”

If a primary role of literature is to challenge the ‘objectivity’ of language, the ‘singu-

and cultural studies” courses, while 400-level seminars utilize canonical text for “independent inquiry, critical and theoretical issues.”

In Naoki Sakai’s essay, “Dislocation of the West and the Status of the Humanities,” he writes about two distinct flows of knowledge: “The first is a centripetal flow from pe-

“This construction is relatively unchallenged by our English department, which places postcolonial, feminist, queer and racial texts in lower-level courses and reserves the realm of ‘pure’ theory and ‘pure’ aesthetic for the likes of Shakespeare or Keats. This course distribution suggests that certain texts are reserved for more superficial consumption while others deserve sustained conceptual engagement.” larity’ of narrative and the ‘inevitability’ of history, then there is room for improvement in our English department. The only content-based requirement for an English major is a pre-1800 requirement. This is a justifiable requirement, but there is no requirement that requires a single semester of study focused on non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual, non-cisgender or non-Western authors. Furthermore, courses that engage texts written by authors with marginal identities are often distributed as 200-level “foundation courses” or occasionally as 300-level “topics in film

ripheral sites to various metropolitan centers in Western Europe and North America … Such information is regarded as too raw or particularistic to be understood by a non-specialist metropolitan readership because of its dense empirical content … The second movement is a centrifugal flow of information about how to classify domains of knowledge, how to evaluate given empirical data … Academic information of this second kind is generally called ‘theory,’ and its production has largely occurred according to a historically specific division of intellectual

labor in which ‘theory’ is associated with that historical construct, ‘the West,’ and moves from there to the Rest of the World.”

This construction is relatively unchallenged by our English department, which places postcolonial, feminist, queer and racial texts in lower-level courses and reserves the realm of ‘pure’ theory and ‘pure’ aesthetic for the likes of Shakespeare or Keats. This course distribution suggests that certain texts are reserved for more superficial consumption while others deserve sustained conceptual engagement.

This problem of marginalization in the literary discipline is not purely economic and thus is not simply temporary. That is to say, even if there was enough funding to hire an English professor to teach Asian American, Latinx or global south literature, a significant proportion of English majors would not enroll. I would diagnose this fundamentally as an evaluation issue, both on the parts of students and faculty. If English majors do not recognize that postcolonial, critical race, gender and queer literary theory are not just niche approaches reserved for those who possess such identifications, then they will not attend those classes, regardless of how many or how few are offered. If college faculty does not view sociohistorical scholarly criticism as “English-y” enough to displace the comfortable position of formal abstraction, then those courses will not be taught, regardless of how many students demand them.

This “dilemma of diversity in higher education” undoubtedly extends far beyond the English department. We can do more than sit on our hands until the next influx of grant money flows in that allows for the token hiring of a visiting professor who will depart after a few years due to lack of institutional support. It begins now with a reevaluation of what we view as containing value. It begins by reconsidering what we view as central and what we view as peripheral.

Arts&Living

Photo courtesy of Tomal Hossain ‘17

Hossain’s thesis involved an eight-piece chorus and two laptops. Hossain electro-acoustic piece was largely inspired by the group “Room Full of Teeth.”

Tomal Hossain ’17 Presents His Music Thesis “Kundali Rising” Paola Garcia-Prieto ’18 Managing Arts & Living Editor Last Friday in Buckley Recital Hall, Tomal Hossain ’17 presented his original composition, “Kundalini Rising.” Comprising of voices and electronics, Hossain’s work involved seven movements of musical material that correspond with the ethical and psychological associations espoused by each of the seven chakras. Hossain talked about the process of creating this piece and how he combined his music background with the material he’s learned while at Amherst.

Q: How would you describe your thesis and the process of creating it?

A: I’m a music and computer science double major, and I’m doing a Five College certificate program in ethnomusicology, which is really cool.

I decided that I would do a thesis when I started hearing music at Amherst my first year here. I didn’t know what I wanted to do concretely until the beginning of my junior year, and I didn’t start writing my thesis until second semester junior year so it’s been exactly a year since I started. My thesis is not really a choral work, although it involves multiple voices. It consisted of a vocal ensemble and two laptops. Basically the parts for the music were between four and eight vocal lines, so there’s an entirely acoustic vocal part to the piece which can be performed just on it’s own. Initially I thought I would just do voices. I was mostly inspired by one group that came to Amherst my freshman year called “Room Full of Teeth,” which you can describe as contemporary classical music, and it’s purely a cappella. I guess it’s worth mentioning that I did a cappella my first three years at Amherst as well as choir, so all that stuff really persuaded me to do a piece that primarily featured voices. So the laptop component comes in as an added overlay of effects and samples and random clips that I compiled over the last several months. I also constructed some of them on a keyboard and patches and things like that. So all of that is meant to be subsidiary to the acoustic vocal work itself.

But I didn’t want it to be purely acoustic because I did take a course on electro-acoustic improvisa-

tion, and I really like all forms of electronic music. Popular dance music and scholarly academic electro-acoustic composition or electro-acoustic improv, all of that is really cool in my opinion. I want to have a little bit of that to make it — don’t want to say avant-garde — but less traditional choral music because that’s very often what happens in Buckley, where the work was presented. So it’s nice … engage in a synchronism of what I’ve learned in my classes because in one class I learned how to write music that sounds pleasant when harmonized vocally. There’s an entire class on that, called “harmony and counterpoint.” There’s an entire course on the electroacoustic stuff so I wanted the project to be a way of me drawing on all the little things that I’ve learned in my music classes and my ethnomusicology courses and also my computer science classes in such a way that was syncretic for my own learning experience and for the sake of doing something less traditional and unique.

Q: What was your experience working with your thesis advisors and pushing the boundaries with the music department?

A: The entire process was so smooth. I was given three different advisors for my thesis, which is kind of out of the ordinary because most people with music theses end up with just one advisor.

But I had one for choral conducting, Mallorie Chernin, one for composing, Eric Sawyer, and one for electronics and just general logistic stuff, Jayson Robinson. So I met with these three people pretty much on a weekly basis this past semester, not entirely in isolation. I would mention what I was doing with my other two advisors in any given meeting. For the most part, it was these watertight components that I could work on in isolation and then it all came together during the final stretch of rehearsals I held during interterm. So all the different avenues of input kind of came together then. It could have been done if I didn’t have all this guidance, but because of their guidance it turned out so much better. My advisors were super conducive to me, suggesting things that were out of the ordinary. They never stepped on anything I wanted to do but at the same time offered things that would help me in my own process. It was a perfect bal-

ance.

Q: What was the most challenging part of the process?

A: Conducting rehearsals was challenging for me.

It taught me how important rehearsal technique is and how important it is to have a goal and a plan.

Also, to be able to conduct rehearsals with multiple vocal parts it’s helpful to be able to plunk out parts on the piano, so you need to be an adept sightreader, which I’m not. So I came to Amherst College with basically no music reading experience because I had only done traditional South Asian music. I had no real familiarity with the western staff notation, which I used for my piece. But it’s one thing to be able to compose in a given notation system, and it’s another thing to be fluent in reading it. So that was tough for me, but luckily I had some good sight-readers in my group so they were able to help me out with directing and playing piano parts. My advisors also helped fill in the gap, especially Mallorie and Eric, who would help play parts while I conducted. The other difficulty with rehearsals was the use of my voice because my voice has actually been injured for about a year or so. I’m primarily a singer myself, but I haven’t sung in a year now. Even speaking can be very difficult for me so being able to project and have a commanding presence over a group of people with a compromised voice is not easy. But it worked out.

Q: How did your experience with music before coming to Amherst influence your thesis?

A: Before Amherst I mostly did traditional Bengali music and Hindustani classical music, which is prevalent throughout northern India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Afghanistan for the most part.

That’s the music I grew up with, which is entirely an oral tradition and an art form that emphasizes improvisation. I knew I wanted to do something that would challenge me and wasn’t entirely in line with my musical background. If I wanted to, I could have done something that was mostly improvisation and something that was in line with my Hindustani vocal experience, but instead I wanted to do something that was more composed. So all the vocal parts were written out, as well as one of the

laptop parts. The only thing that was improvised was my own laptop interludes. I interjected them between movements of the overall piece, which was just standard electro-acoustic improvisation.

Other than that it was all pre-composed. Nonetheless, I feel that because of my background as a Hindustani singer, a lot of my pieces include musical phrases that are characteristic of Hindustani classical music. Most obviously, every single movement of my piece is semi-modeled after a given melodic system in Hindustani music called “ragas.” I model each of my works on one of these melodic systemic identities or frameworks for improvisation; there are about seven ragas that I ended up working with and exploring. I also introduced elements of Hindustani music’s rhythm and meter in my piece as well, which is perhaps not as evident as my use of melodic material from Hindustani music. But the rhythmic stuff does crop up in my piece every now and then, and the rhythmic cycles or system’s identities are called “tala.”

Q: What do you hope the performers and the audience walked away from the experience with?

A: I was really keen on making sure the influence of Hindustani music in my work came out to the audience. I wanted to convey my musical background and I wanted to maybe pique people’s interest in that kind of music. Nonetheless, I still wanted to back away from just doing a strict Hindustani classical music performance, because that happens everywhere. I definitely wanted that to just be implied in the music, so that the audience has some sort of familiarity with the music when they leave the auditorium. I wanted to convince people of the power of the human voice, which I’m a huge fan of. I wanted people’s interests to be piqued in regards to meditation and spiritual thinking and practice, although my text was not overtly spiritual. They draw from the practice of a king of yoga called sahaja yoga which is primarily meditational. So I wanted people to be thinking about that and maybe spark their curiosity, because I believe meditation is a great thing and also consider spirituality, which is the more general umbrella term that meditations falls under.

Interview edited for clarity.

The Amherst Student • February 1, 2017

Arts & Living 7

Park Chan-Wook’s The Handmaiden Reignites South Korean Film

Photo courtesy of cine-asie.fr

Photo courtesy of rickchung.com

Renowned South Korean director Park Chan-Wook portrays the complexities of sexuality, imperialism, and class during Japan’s occupation of Korea.

Youngkwang Shin ’19 Staff Writer Acclaimed director Park Chan-Wook released “The Handmaiden” to great anticipation but somewhat lackluster enthusiasm. The film netted South Korea an invitation to compete in the prestigious Cannes film festival after a fouryear drought, and in both premise and presentation it fulfills the promise implied by such an honor. The film finds itself amid the destitution and deprivation of Korea under Japanese occupation in the 20th century, and it follows the ambitious and admirably conceived project of a pickpocket and a conman. The pickpocket, named Sook-hee, masquerades as the titular handmaiden to a mostly mysterious but wealthy Japanese heiress named Hideko. Her conman confidante and mastermind of the heist conceals his own origins as a manservant from Jeju Island and similarly postures as a cultured Japanese aristocrat who vies for Hideko’s hand in marriage. He plans to rob the lady blind and throw her confused into an asylum in Japan and split the earnings with Sook-hee. Sheltered Hideko knows nothing of this, so she continues to trust and open up to her new handmaiden. But as the fruits of sly labor ripen, Hideko’s warmth and Sook-hee’s reciprocation become colored with hints and hues of attraction, and the cogs of the

great scam begin to creak.

It is a bit difficult to talk about Park’s erotic spectacle based on the synopsis given above because the plot veers on and off this course across its 145 minutes. The initially straightforward heist takes edge-of-the seat twists and turns at moments when one is more than ready to lean complacently on their cushion, but by the epilogue, there is a dissatisfying sense that one has returned to the linear trajectory implied at the beginning of the film. That is not to say that the film itself is subpar or even dissatisfying. There is, in fact, much to adore about Park’s feature, particularly the scenes that exemplify the director’s powers. For a film that so restlessly moves from revelation to revelation, there lies a serenity in every walk through the garden and strand of wind that threads through the pink sakura leaves. This co-exists uneasily with an invisible smog of collusion that shrouds the mansion’s bookshelves and basement in unspeakable trauma and suspense. The film capitalizes on this enigma from beginning to end. When one is not curious about the next turn of affairs for the characters, they are peeling open another layer of the two leads’ states of mind. And as the extravagance of the mansion slowly loses its gloss and reveals the suffocating prison it has become for Hideko and Sook-hee, one feels the weight of cinematic wisdom Park has gleaned over his

long and landmark career.

So it feels like the master is cheating when one sees his name roll across the screen and the movie has lapped its gorgeous field only to return to its starting line. The synopsis, insofar as it accommodates the sinuous and unpredictable plot, is absolutely useless. But as shorthand for what the movie is trying to communicate within its runtime, it is more words than necessary. The film is about a heist, but both its perpetrator and victim have already been robbed by the times.

It is common knowledge to domestic audiences in Korea that Sook-hee’s choice of lifestyle is out of desperation instead of desire in the shade of the imperial sun. Without indulging in spoilers, Hideko possesses a history of suffering to render her character distrustful and leery of people in general. In a moment of expertly directed serendipity, the two have a romantic encounter amid dishonest circumstances and confront the truth of their mutual privation and desire for each other. This much is to be celebrated, especially given that South Korea today continues to treat queer relationships with storied suspicion.

But this Romeo and Juliet relationship between the scammer and the scammed experiences a wrenching turn at the film’s halfway mark. The perspective with which the audience has viewed the relationship inverts. This, for me, seemed the perfect moment for new thematic complica-

tions, where the imperialist realities and the climate of exploitation strike back with vengeance.

But the twist ultimately negates itself as our newfound perspective fails to change our interpretation of the events already witnessed. Needless to say, it is a regrettable loss of opportunity.

The aforementioned comparison with Romeo and Juliet is barely apt. When the movie focuses on Hideko and her Capulets, one can estimate the depth of her pit, and the reasoning behind her desperation to climb out. But what of the Montagues? Sook-hee’s own wants and needs do not relate to her social and political context.

They appear rather threadbare and uninteresting next to Hideko’s. Perhaps Park believed that the public knowledge of the horrors of the times could fill the gap left by the film. If so, he miscalculated.

In South Korea, the film is called “Agassi,” which refers to Hideko rather than her handmaiden. The different titles refer to the unfolding process of identification and unity between the two main leads, but it also unfortunately points to the movie’s imbalance when it comes to characterization. While it does not detract from the craft and beauty of Park’s newest outing, the aforementioned gap hurts the film, and the only thing that can satisfactorily plug it is the hope that the world has not yet scaled the mountain of Park’s talent.

“Sweeney Todd” Confronts Audience with Their Inner Demons

Photos courtesy of Andrea Sanchez ‘18

The Powerhouse proved to be an effective venue for the intimacy of the performance with cast performing on the floor space as well as the upstairs mezzanine.

Lorelei Dietz ’20 Contributing Writer Members of Amherst Musical’s “Sweeney Todd” slayed — both their performance and several of their characters. “Sweeney Todd” is the second musical since Amherst College’s revival of the annual musical, initiated with last year’s stellar outing, “Into the Woods.” After two years of successful performances, this resurrected tradition seems secure in its place.

“Sweeney Todd,” directed in this version by A. Scott Parry, follows the character Benjamin Barker, a barber who escaped from a 15-year imprisonment in Australia based on a false charge. He has returned to Victorian London under the name of Sweeney Todd to discover his wife dead and his daughter in the custody of the man who sexually assaulted his wife, Judge Turpin. In London, he meets hapless baker Mrs.

Lovett who informs him of this tragedy and offers him a taste of the “worst pies in London.”

However, after Sweeney reunites with his swift razor to take bloody revenge on Judge Turpin, Mrs. Lovett soon has access to an ingredient that quickly expunges her pies of such an epithet — human meat.

The ensemble, dressed in modern, black dress, dually served as a narrative frame and as the characters who filled the crowded, London streets, receiving their fair shares of pie, shaves and untimely ends. Ramona Celis ’19 played the part of Sweeney Todd fraught with anger and anguish to the fullest, most painful degree.

Her quick pivots between defeated murmur and snarling, unabated rage developed Sweeney’s character with all the complexity it needed for him to be both terrifying and vulnerably human.

While we did not endure attacks from her blade, she managed to cut out our hearts in this role.

Opposite the brooding Sweeney is Mrs. Lovett, played by Alina Burke ’17, whose bubbling, albeit morbid, energy and liveliness provided enough humor and laughter to make the weight of the show’s themes a little more bearable. Each line delivered and each note sung was done flawlessly and vivaciously. Sweet Johanna, the hopeless romantic Anthony Hope, and the vile Judge Turpin were played by the extraordinarily talented Anna Plummer ’20, Caleb Brooks ’18 and David Green ’18, respectively, all of whom are equipped with the most stunning voices. The young but surprisingly aware Tobias Ragg was played by Fernando Liu Lopez ’18, who helped to usher the musical from some of its most humorous moments to its most dramatic.

The story ends when Tobias turns the razor against Todd, the final victim in the musical’s string of murders. However, in a nuanced interpretation of Sweeney’s death, director Parry had

Sweeney loosen the collar of his shirt to expose his neck to Tobias, suggesting a willingness to die that added another layer of complexity to Sweeney’s tortuous character.

The Powerhouse offered an intimate event space that brought the audience in closer proximity to the stage and the actors than a traditional theater. There, the audience was confronted with rather than presented with the Tale of Sweeney Todd. It’s enough for one to take pause and question how far we ourselves would go to procure a desire or satisfy an obsession. The line between Sweeney and the audience was thin, delineated only by where and where not the actors chose to step. The same line separates us from our own demons. In this performance, we became cognizant of how thin that line is, how quickly our obsessions can consume us and defeat our hopes for happiness and how easy it is to take a step onto Fleet Street.

Arts & Living 8

The Amherst Student • February 1, 2017

RC Corner: Arts’ Living with Marsh House’s Bryan Doniger ’18

Photo by Justin Barry ‘18

Bryan Doniger ’18, a jazz musician who aspires to try frisbee one day, brings his energy and wisdom to Marsh Arts House and to A&L’s inaugural RC Corner.

Julia Pretsfelder ’18 Managing Arts & Living Editor Bryan Doniger ’18, who you may have spotted on the first floor of Frost in a camo baseball cap and Wilco t-shirt, embraces his job as Marsh Art’s House Resident Counselor wholeheartedly. The deep love he has expressed for the house shines through his varied contributions over the past two years, first as a resident and then as a resident counselor. From the free jazz segment at Coffee Haus to setting up a system where residents can leave notes for each other in envelopes on the door, Bryan’s seemingly tireless, and his borderline excessive generosity and quirky wisdom provide energy we could use on campus. At a school where differences can be hard to bridge and where the focus on individualism, academics and competition create unique challenges for creating an arts community, I thought that Bryan’s cool, uncle-like role in Marsh would give him a great deal of insight regarding the importance of artistic collaboration in this moment.

Q: What art(s) do you do?

A: I’m a musician, and my primary instrument is the tenor saxophone. I play jazz and rock music. When I was in middle school, I was

in a heavy metal band. We were called “Spaz in Eden” and we were sick. As a host of Coffee Haus last year, I also dabbled with comedy performance, which was really fun!

Q: How do you believe you can facilitate artistic collaboration in the Arts House as an RC? A: I continue to be really fascinated by the strange relationship students at this college seem to develop with work. I’ve never been at a place where work is so strongly attached to public morality, and I think the strange shame so many of us feel at our inability to be endlessly productive is implicitly there in so many of the conversations we have with one another.

As the RC at Marsh, work is at the forefront of my mind for two reasons.

The sort of work that artists do is severely undervalued compared with, let’s say, the work that consultants do at Bain or the work that corporate lawyers do passing pieces of paper back and forth among one another. Katherine Stanton has written beautifully about this in the opinion section, and I’m also really partial to David Graeber’s writing about this in his piece on “Bullshit Jobs” from 2013.

Meaningfully building community depends on people putting work into the place they live in that is profoundly different from

Photo courtesy of David Zhang ‘17

other sorts of labor. I think we are too quick to conflate all forms of labor together, or else too quick to forget. The end result is a student population that, in the name of “productive work” or “useful labor,” ends up devoting itself to profoundly useless or even harmful tasks: consulting, banking, and various other ways of screwing poor people over.

Being RC of Marsh and living there, it’s been really cool to work with residents who want to devote time and energy into precisely the forms of labor that it’s really easy to dismiss as useless, even when they may be among the most vital. Artistic work and activist work, in these days is the work of living in a community with other people. I see my job as an RC partly as an opportunity to provide spaces and times where work like this can happen.

Q: Has living in a creative community influenced you artistically? If so, how? Has this environment had different effects on you each year with different positions within the house?

A: I learned so much about how to perform in front of people hosting Coffee Haus last year. I pushed myself to do all sorts of acts I would never have done otherwise — the time machine skit, the “go fuck yourself ” song — and that was really cool. Also I began making

a bunch of weird videos with my friend Brian Zayatz last year, and that was fun.

Q: How do you think the arts communities on campus like Marsh can be more inclusive?

A: I’ve been testing out this year, as a hypothesis, that talking openly and honestly about politics in a face-to-face setting can work a powerful magic when it comes to making a community stronger. There are really meaningful political differences in the house; there always have been. It’s important for all genuine political communities to earnestly address irreconcilable difference. In past years, I think we kept to ourselves until suddenly we couldn’t talk to one another at all, which is really sad because Marsh always has really interesting activists and artists. My aim hasn’t been to create a politically neutral space. It has been instead to work with residents to make places where it feels good to live in a community that is actively negotiating difference.

Q: How do you think Amherst could become a more artistic campus?

A: Making Amherst a more artistic campus interests me precisely because it provides a way that we can meaningfully rethink our campus’ strange, punitive relationship with “useful work.”

Photo courtesy of Julia Pretsfelder ‘18

The Amherst Student • February 1, 2017

Sports 9

Women’s Swim Defeats MIT and Springfield to Finish Season 7-1

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

First-year Ingrid Shu garnered NESCAC performer of the week honors after logging a pair of individual victories and two relay wins this weekend at MIT. Katie Bergamesca ’18 Staff Writer The Amherst women’s swim and dive team had an eventful weekend, taking on the No. 9 Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Saturday, Jan. 28 in Cambridge, and then traveling to Springfield the following day to face the Springfield College Pride.

In their Saturday meet against the Engineers, the eighth-ranked purple and white topped the competition 171.5-128.5.

The 200-yard medley relay team comprised of Stephanie Moriarty ’18, Katie Smith ’19,

Geralyn Lam ’18 and Ingrid Shu ’20 collected the first points of the meet with a winning time of 1:47.88.

Amherst also swept the 200-yard freestyle with Natalie Rumpelt ’20 (1:54.80) in first, followed by Livia Domenig ’19 (1:56.75) and Dorit Song ’19 (1:57.03).

Following her victory in the 200-yard medley relay, Moriarty went on to swim to a first place finish in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 58.61.

Fellow members of the winning relay team Lam and Shu gathered two more individual victories each to help propel the purple and

white to victory.

Lam won the 200-yard and 100-yard butterfly with times of 2:08.22 and 57.68. Shu glided to a first place finish in the 100-yard freestyle (53.33) and tied for first in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 24.52.

Destin Groff ’17, Rumpelt, Moriarty and Shu made up the 200-yard freestyle relay team that secured their victory over MIT with a winning time of 1:37.38.

The Amherst women used the momentum from their impressive win over the competitive Engineers to push for a 2-0 weekend. With a final score of 157-131, the purple and white were able to down Springfield.

Moriarty, Smith, Lam and Rumpelt led Amherst to another first place finish in the 200yard medley relay with a time of 1:50.22.

Sophomores Bridgitte Kwong and Jayne Vogelzang finished first and second in the 400yard individual medley with times of 4:36.87 and 4:48.38, respectively.

The purple and white swept the 200-yard freestyle once again with Shu claiming first place in a time of 2:00.09, and Pappas and Sarah Wishloff ’19 taking second and third with times of 2:00.30 and 2:00.96.

Lam and Rumpelt collected first and second place finishes in the 50-yard freestyle with respective times of 24.65 and 25.23.

Amherst collected three more individual victories thanks to winning efforts by Domenig in the 100-yard freestyle (54.88), Lam in the 100-yard backstroke (1:00.60) and Jackie Palermo ’19 in the one-meter diving event with a score of 282.53.

Due to their impressive recent performances, Amherst has claimed the NESCAC performer of the week for two consecutive weeks.

Rumpelt garnered performer of the week honors in the Jan. 23 release, while Shu claimed the same accolade for the Jan. 30 release.

The team is gearing up for a two-week break as they prepare for the NESCAC championship meet hosted at Bowdoin, which will take place Friday-Sunday, Feb. 10-12. With high hopes for the NESCAC championships, the purple and white will continue to look forward towards the NCAA Division III championship meet. The national meet will take place March 15-18 in Conroe, Texas, where the Amherst women hope to continue their dominant season.

Mary Grace Cronin ’18 Staff Writer

Penalties were exchanged as, for the second night in a row, the game got chippy between NESCAC opponents. The purple and white clung to their tie, however, and Conor Girard ’18 anchored the defense with a career high 42 saves.

Amherst will hit the road this weekend, traveling to Bowdoin this Friday, Feb. 3 and Colby the next day. Currently tied for third in the NESCAC standings behind Hamilton and Williams, the purple and white will look to pull away from third-ranked Colby and eighth ranked Bowdoin this weekend.

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Sophomore Katie Smith earned a victory in the 50-yard breakstroke at Springfield College in a time of 30.88.

Women’s Squash Finishes Regular Men’s Hockey Ties NESCAC Season Play With Split at Little III’s Competition on Connecticut Trip Nate Quigley ’19 Managing Sports Editor This past weekend, the Amherst women’s squash team continued it’s up and down season at the Little III championships, first blowing out Wesleyan and then falling in a full-on sweep to archrival Williams.

Hosting the championships, the purple and white faced the Cardinals on Saturday morning. With Amherst ranked No. 17 nationally and Wesleyan being only No. 23 in the most recent polls, a victory for the purple and white seemed to be in the cards.

However, the ease with which Amherst swatted aside their opponents was unexpected, with Amherst only losing five sets total in an 8-1 win.

Apart from the straight-set loss Kimberly Krayacich ’18 suffered on court one, the purple and white trounced the Cardinals up and down the lineup with Rachael Ang ’19, Priya Sinha ’19, Haley McAtee ’18, Caroline Conway ’20, Jenna Finkelstein ’20 and Mae Cromwell ’18 tallying three-set victories.

On court eight, Jenni Bown ’20 managed to overcome a first-set loss, powering her way to a 10-12, 11-9, 11-5, 11-6 win. Likewise, fellow first-year Katy Sabina Correia also needed four sets to dispatch her Cardinal opponent,

posting a 11-6, 10-12, 11-8, 11-3 score line. On court ten, in the exhibition match, sophomore Emma Crowe easily handled her opponent, taking the sweep.

However, Amherst’s momentum stalled in the team’s afternoon match against the Ephs, with Williams taking each of the nine sets.

With the purple and white competitors falling in three sets on every court but the fourth, fifth and sixth, there was little consolation to be found in the resounding defeat.

The closest the purple and white came to stealing a match from Williams was on court five, where Conway lost a heart-breaking fiveset affair. Although she managed to force a fifth set after dropping the first two, Conway proved unable to overcome the final hurdle, falling 11-6 to her Ephs opponent in the final stanza.

The purple and white’s first-years continued their impressive campaign, as Correia and Finkelstein each claimed a set in losses on courts six and seven, respectively.

Crowe fought to a four set battle on the exhibition court before falling 11-8, 11-4, 3-11, 11-7.

The Amherst women will return to the court when they host Bates this Saturday, Feb. 4 at the Davenport Courts in NESCAC quarterfinal action.

Photo courtesy of Amherst Athletics

Priya Sinha ’19 managed a sweep over her Wesleyan opponent on court three.

The Amherst men’s ice hockey team hosted NESCAC rivals Trinity and Wesleyan on Friday, Jan. 27 and Saturday, Jan. 28, respectively. Following their 10-goal demolition of Assumption College last week on Jan. 21., the team battled to overtime ties against both of their conference foes this weekend.

In December, the Cardinals blanked Amherst in a 3-0 victory, but the tables were turned on Friday night when the purple and white opened up the scoreboard in the second period with a goal from Austin Ho ’17 assisted

by Joey Lupo ’20.

As Amherst continued to pick up momentum, Thomas Lindstrom ’18 put away another goal with help from David White ’18 and Patrick Daly ’20 to put the purple and white up by two.

Before the conclusion of the second period, however, Wesleyan responded with a goal of its own on a power play, which put the Cardinals within one goal heading into the locker room.

Wesleyan came out strong in the third, scoring just 30 seconds into the period. As tensions rose, the match became aggressive on both sides of the ice. The teams traded penalties beginning at the end of the second period.

Ultimately both squads registered five penalties each, spending 10 total minutes in their respective penalty boxes.

Despite the pugnacious nature of play, neither team was able to capitalize on power play opportunities for the remainder of game, and the teams would settle on a 2-2 draw after a scoreless overtime period.

The next day, Amherst returned to the ice against No. 14 Trinity, who also registered a win against the purple and white earlier in the season. A pass from Lindstrom would give White the first and only goal of the game for Amherst.

The purple and white held onto the lead until a goal from the Bantams evened up play.

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Tyler Granara ’18 has contributed seven assists to the offense this year.

10

Sports

The Amherst Student • February 1, 2017

Women’s Basketball Dominates NESCAC Foes Trinity and Williams To Reach 20-0 Talia Land ’20 Staff Writer On Jan. 25, the women’s basketball team clinched yet another win as well as the Little Three title by defeating NESCAC rival Williams.

Amherst got off to a strong start in Williamstown, boasting a 24-9 lead just 10 minutes into the game and shooting an impressive 61% from the field. Although the second quarter was a more balanced affair, with the purple and white only holding a slim 16-15 margin, the team reasserted its superiority over Williams with a 21-7 third quarter. Although the Ephs held a 12-6 scoring advantage in the fourth quarter, the end-result had long since been determined, with Amherst taking home a 67-43 win.

Meredith Doswell ’17 led the purple and white in scoring with 14 points, hitting two shots from behind the arc. Jamie Renner ’17,

Ali Doswell ’17 and Madeline Eck ’20 added ten points apiece to the effort.

At Trinity this past Saturday, the Amherst team continued their dominant play against NESCAC teams. With the help of 19 points from Meredith Doswell and a 28-point team effort in the third quarter, Amherst came away with a huge 85-44 win.

The purple and white finished with 44 points in the paint and a 56% overall shooting percentage. After these games, Ali Doswell ’17 has now totaled 1,408 points in her collegiate career and is just six points shy of breaking the all-time scoring record amongst Amherst women.

The senior captain is also just two threepoint shots away from breaking the school’s all-time three-point record.

The Trinity win increased Amherst’s total record to an impressive 20-0, and they look to stay undefeated when they travel to take on Bates College at 7 p.m. this Friday, Feb. 3.

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

First-year guard Madeline Eck has enjoyed a strong first campaign for the purple and white this year, averaging 8.6 points and 4.3 boards a game.

Men’s Basketball Win Streak Hits Four After Pair of Huge NESCAC Victories Delancey King ’18 Staff Writer The Amherst men’s basketball team continues to battle their way back to the top of both the NESCAC and national rankings. After two huge wins last week against rivals Williams and Trinity, things are certainly looking up for the squad.

With the wins, the purple and white improved to an overall record of 14-4 and a conference record of 4-2, second in the NESCAC behind Tufts.

Wednesday’s 72-64 victory over Little Three rival Williams was fueled by a breakout performance from unsung hero Reid Berman ’17.

Leading the purple and white in assists this season with 80, Berman has been a consistent playmaker throughout his time at Amherst. He recorded 12 points and four assists in Wednesday’s victory, and Amherst will continue to look to Berman to be an offensive spark as the postseason approaches.

Saturday marked Amherst’s fourth straight win, as they defeated Trinity College 66-53. The purple and white were up by nine at halftime, but the Bantams went on a run early in the second and managed to cut the deficit down to five.

Strong offensive performances from Jayde Dawson ’18 and Michael Riopel ’18, who put up 17 and 10 points respectively, helped Amherst stay composed and secure the win. Standout swingman Johnny McCarthy ’18 recorded a doubledouble with 11 points and 11 rebounds, and he is now a mere seven points shy of hitting the 1,000-point benchmark on his career.

With only two weeks remaining in the regular season, the purple and white are hitting their stride at just the right time.

“We’re pretty confident in the direction we’re heading coming off two big wins last week,” McCarthy said. “However, we still have some things

to iron out offensively and have to continue to be locked in for all 40 minutes from a mental standpoint. We have to take advantage of each game we have left to make sure we continue playing into late February and March.”

Amherst returns to action at 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 3 when they host Bates College in LeFrak Gymnasium. The purple and white face Tufts the next day at 3 p.m., as the team hopes to take the top spot in the NESCAC back from the Jumbos.

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Johnny McCarthy ‘18 has scored in double figures in all but two games.

ATHLETE SPOTLIGHT

Sam Spurrell ’18 Favorite Team Memory: Beating Williams as the heavy underdog last year Favorite Pro Athlete: Tom Brady Dream Job: Owner of the New England Patriots Pet Peeve: The New York Giants Favorite Vacation Spot: Martha’s Vineyard Something on Your Bucket List: Eating at a Michelin-starred restaurant Guilty Pleasure: Still drinking the tears of Seahawks fans Favorite Food: Lobster Favorite Thing About Amherst: That’s easy: being a member of the Men’s Swim Team How He Earned It: Spurrell performed well in both of the purple and white’s meets this weekend, scoring points for the team both individually and on relays.On Saturday, he managed to place second in the 200-yard butterfly and proceeded to touch third in the 100-yard butterfly. Spurrell’s best was yet to come, however, as he managed to post firstplace finishes in both the 50- and 100-yard backstroke events on Sunday, in addition to leading the team to second in the 200-yard indiviual medley.

Alex Toupal ’18 Favorite Team Memory: Sunrise hike up the notch Favorite Pro Athlete: Zach Parise Dream Job: Anything that I will enjoy doing for 40 hours a week Pet Peeve: Fake people Favorite Vacation Spot: California Something on Your Bucket List: Cage diving with sharks Guilty Pleasure: The Bachelor Favorite Food: All food is my favorite food Favorite Thing About Amherst: All the amazing people I’ve met How She Earned It: Continuing her magnificent season, Toupal scored three goals in the purple and white’s weekend series against the Ephs. Friday saw Toupal tally the sole Amherst goal in the 1-1 tie, slotting the puck home with less than five minutes remaining in the third period. She one-upped her Friday performance with a two-goal outing on Saturday, bringing her season mark to 16 goals and seven assists for 23 total points in just 18 games played, good for a 1.28 points per game average that easily leads the NESCAC.

Men’s Swim and Dive Splits Weekend Series to Close Out Regular Season Jenny Mazzella ’20 Staff Writer The Amherst men’s swimming and diving team finished their regular season with two meets last week. On Saturday, the No. 12 purple and white fell to No. 4 ranked Massachusetts Institute of Technology by a score of 197-102.

Although the team lost, many Amherst swimmers had strong races. In the 1000-yard freestyle, Connor Haley ’17 won in 9:51.50, closely followed by teammate Chris Quinones ’19, who took second with a time of 10:01.04.

In the 200-yard freestyle John Brody ’17 finished first (1:43.97) and Eric Wong ’20 finished second (1:44.20). Wong also posted a victory in the 500-yard freestyle, finishing in 4:40.59.

Craig Smith ’20 won the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 52.52 and placed second in the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 1:53.61.

Jack Koravos ’20 added two more secondplace finishes for Amherst in the 50-yard freestyle (21.35) and the 100-yard freestyle (47.08), while Elijah Spiro ’18 and Sam Spurrell ’18 also posted second places finishes for the team. Spiro finished the 100-yard breaststroke in 58.23 while Spurrell finished the 200yard butterfly in 1:55.20. Amherst took second in the 200-yard medley relay as well, with the team of Smith, Spiro, Koravos and Alex Dreisbach ’17 finishing in a time of 1:33.91.

On Sunday, the purple and white returned to the pool to face off against Springfield College. Amherst bounced back from its loss the previous day by defeating Springfield, 144115. The purple and white started off the meet strong, taking the top two spots in the 200-yard medley relay. The quartet of Smith, Josh Chen ’19, Spiro and Koravos took first in 1:37.44, while Spurrell, Sean Mebust ’20, John Janzich ’18 and John Brody ’17 comprised the second-place squad, touching the wall in 1:41.34. Additionally, Wong won the 400yard individual medley with a time of 4:11.48,

while Chen won the 50-yard freestyle in 22.73.

Amherst further proved its dominance with sweeps in many of the events. Dreisbach (1:46.89), Haley (1:47.65) and Nathan Ives ’18 (1:49.99) placed first, second, and third, respectively, in the 200-yard freestyle. Spiro (26.63), Quinones (27.95) and Noah Jacobs ’20 (29.10) took the top three spots in the 50-yard breaststroke. Three first-years, Koravos (48.29), Mebust (49.60) and Noah Aube (52.02), swept the 100-yard freestyle. In the 50-yard backstroke, Spurrell won in 25.20, closely followed by Jack Fergus ’20 (25.95) and Brandon Wang ’20 (26.10). Spurrell tallied another first-place finish (53.83), while Fergus took second again (56.34), in the 100-yard backstroke. Reed Patterson ’17 added another victory for Amherst in the 100-yard butterfly with a mark of 55.46.

The team will return to action later this month when they compete in the NESCAC championship, which will be hosted by Wesleyan on the weekend of Feb. 17-19.

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Elijah Spiro ‘20 took first in the 200yard medley and the 50-yard free.

The Amherst Student • February 1, 2017

Sports

11

Women’s Ice Hockey Takes on Rival Women’s Track and Field Puts Forth Strong Williams, Forces Two Overtime Draws Individual Efforts at Two Weekend Meets Scout Boynton ’20 Staff Writer The Amherst women’s ice hockey team had two tough matchups this week, playing twice against NECAC rival Williams. After seeing their five-game win streak broken last Tuesday, the purple and white found themselves with two overtime draws against Williams, 1-1 and 4-4.

Amherst came out ready to face archrival Williams on Friday. Midway through the first period, Williams put the first goal on the board when Sara Lehman tipped in Emily Eide’s wrist shot.

Purple and white goalie Sabrina Dobbins ’18 did not let the goal faze her, holding strong and making 27 stops to hold Williams to one goal. Amherst’s Alex Toupal ’18 struck back off of a pass from Smith with just four minutes left in regulation time, capitalizing on a power play.

In overtime, Amherst outshot the Ephs 7-0, but were unable to find the back of the net, leading to a 1-1 draw.

On Saturday, the purple and white successfully took advantage of their power play opportunities, going two for three.

The entirety of the first period and the beginning of the second were scoreless before

first-year Eliza Laycock tallied her first collegiate goal and gave Amherst a 1-0 lead. Taking advantage of both a five-on-three as well as a five-on-four power play, Toupal widened the purple and white’s lead to 3-0 with two goals in 35 seconds.

The Ephs began to find their own offensive success, scoring with four minutes left in the second period and bringing the score to 3-1.

Early in the third, Williams found themselves up a skater and capitalized on the advantage, cutting the deficit to one. With 9:16 left in regulation, Williams tied the game 3-3.

Amherst goalie Bailey Plaman ’18 made two great saves around the eight-minute mark, keeping the game knotted at three until Caitlyn Ryan ’17 broke the deadlock and put Amherst back on top with five minutes to play. However, Williams responded three minutes later, tying the game with a tally off a successful face off in their offensive end.

Neither team managed to score in the overtime period, leaving the result a hard-fought 4-4 tie.

This week, the purple and white will travel to take on Salem State on Wednesday, Feb. 1 at 7 p.m. The team will then face Trinity in another away matchup on Tuesday, Feb. 7.

Lauren Tuiskula ’17 Executive Adviser This past weekend, Amherst women’s indoor track and field competed at the Tufts University Invitational, a non-scoring meet. Senior Kiana Herold and junior Abbey Asare-Bediako led the team, with Herold taking first place finish in the high jump and Asare-Bediako claiming first in the triple jump.

Herold’s leap of 1.67 meters earned her a third consecutive first place finish in the event.

She has transitioned back in quickly after taking a season off last year.

Teammate Kaitlyn Siegel ’20 earned fourth place in the high jump, recording a jump of 1.57 meters.

Asare-Bediako’s jump of 10.91 meters earned her first place in the triple jump, her second consecutive first place showing. Her impressive performance this year has earned the athlete a 30th ranking among all division III triple-jumpers. She rounded out her impressive performance in the field event with another strong showing, this time on the track. Her time of 8.16 seconds was good for fourth place overall in the 60-meter dash.

Rubii Tamen ’19 notched another successful short distance performance, finishing 12th in the 400-meter dash. Her time of 1:02.14 shaved over a second off of her time from last week’s meet.

Junior Leonie Rauls led the charge for Amherst in the 800-meter run. Her time of 2:24 flat earned her fourth place overall. First-year teammate Sylvia Frank finished just over four seconds later, grabbing a ninth place finish.

In the 1000-meter run, two purple and white runners were separated by less than a second. First-year Kristin Ratliff nabbed fifth place with a time of 3:12.07 and senior Cat Lowdon followed on her heels, taking sixth place with a time of 3:12.93.

Two distance runners — first-year Katherine Treanor and senior Savanna Gornisiewicz —

Photo courtesy of Amherst Athletics

Yrenly Yuan ‘19 leaped 9.5 meters in the triple jump this weekend. competed away from their teammates that same day, racing at the Middlebury invitational and combining to earn 11 points as a pair. Treanor took second in the 5000-meter race with at time of 17:47.73. Gornisiewicz followed closely behind, finishing in 18:10.14, good for sixth place overall. Treanor is currently ranked 15th in the nation in the 5-kilometer distance.

The purple and white return to competition next Saturday, Feb. 4, at the Wesleyan University Invitational. This is the team’s penultimate meet before beginning regional playoff action at the NCAA Division III New England meet in two weeks.

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Through 15 games played this season, senior Sara Culhane has contributed eight points to the Amherst offfense with three goals and five assists.

Men’s Squash Squeaks By Wesleyan, Falls to Williams at Little III Championships Julia Turner ’19 Managing Sports Editor The Amherst men’s squash team hosted the Little III Championship meet at the Davenport squash courts this weekend. The No. 25 men’s squad split with rivals Wesleyan and Williams, bringing their overall record to a middling 5-6 on the season.

In Amherst’s close 5-4 victory over Wesleyan, the purple and white secured wins on the lower five courts while the Amherst competitors on courts one through four fell to their Cardinal opponents.

Lucas Sheiner ’19, Mateen Mills ’20 and Mitch Ford ’20 logged sweeps on courts six, eight and nine, respectively, while Darian Ehsani ’17 and Christopher Zimmerman ’20 both fought to four-set victories on courts five and seven.

On the exhibition court, sophomore Ian Petty defeated his opponent handily, earning a sweep 11-1, 11-0, 11-8.

On the first four courts, which have been constantly fluctuating this season for the purple and white, Harith Khawaja ’19, David Merkel ’19 and Cameron Bahadori ’18 each fell in four sets on courts one, three and four respectively.

The tightest match of the entire contest proved to be on the second court, where senior captain Michael Groot fought through five sets.

After losing the first set, Groot managed to win the next two frames, taking a two setsto-one lead. However, he proved unable to put away his Cardinal opponent, Daid Sneed, losing both the fourth and fifth sets by scores of 11-9 and 11-6 respectively.

In their second matches of the day, the purple and white of Amherst fell to a dominant, No. 17 Williams team 0-9.

The Ephs secured sweeps against all Amherst opponents except Groot and Merkel, who fell in four sets on courts two and three, respectively.

The closest Amherst-Williams matchup came on the exhibition court, where Petty battled to five sets before losing the match against Williams’ Jack McLean, 11-7, 5-11, 5-11, 11-6, 11-8.

With this split, Amherst holds onto its No. 25 national ranking and will host the NESCAC Championships this Friday to Sunday, Feb. 3-5, where they will get a second shot at Williams as well as No. 2-ranked Trinity and No. 16 Bates, among the rest of a talented NESCAC.

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Sports

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Justin Barry ‘18 (left) and Cosmo Brossy ‘19 (right) led a dominant Amherst effort in the 3000-meter run, with the team taking five of the first six places.

Men’s Track Impresses at Massasoit Classic with Victories in Seven Events Veronica Rocco ’19 Staff Writer This weekend, the Amherst men’s track and field team made the quick trip to Springfield College to compete at the Massasoit Classic, a non-scoring meet. With many members of the men’s cross country team now eligible for indoor competition following the conclusion of the investigation of the team’s emails, the team was at full strength.

Senior captain Kevin Connors kicked off the meet for the purple and white by earning a victory in his specialty event, the mile. After a spring track season stopped short due to injury, the miler returned to the oval, cruising to victory in a time of 4:22.75. The senior qualified for DIII New England Championships, while Amherst claimed a first through fourth sweep with first-years Ralph Skinner, Spencer Ferguson-Dryden and Estevan Velez finishing second through fourth.

First-year Theo Bates earned his first collegiate victory, running a time of 8.60 seconds in the 60-meter hurdles final. Bates follows in the footsteps of older sister Naomi Bates ’14, a two-time DIII National Champion in the long

jump for the purple and white. He led teammate Maxim Doiron ’19 who qualified for the hurdles final as well and placed fifth with a time of 8.95 seconds.

Bates translated this success on the track to the long jump pit, where he placed sixth with a jump of 5.57 meters. Classmate Yonas Shiferaw placed fourth in the triple jump with a leap of 11.36 meters.

First-years Elijah Ngbokoli and Mayowa Tinubu both qualified for the 60-meter dash finals for the second week in a row, where they placed fourth and seventh, respectively.

Kristian Sogaard ’19 led a string of impressive performances from the sophomore class when he posted a dominating victory in the 1,000-meter run in a time of 2:31.26, beating his nearest competitor by nearly three seconds.

With his victory, the sophomore also qualified for the DIII New England Championships.

Junior captain David Ingraham ran his specialty event, the 400-meter dash, for the first time this season where he placed a close second in a time of 52.38 seconds. With members of the cross country now able to compete, his 400-meter skills might play a critical role on a competitive distance medley relay team later in the sea-

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

GAME SCHE DULE

son. Harrison Haigood ’18 also competed in the 400-meters, where he placed fifth in a time of 53.09 seconds.

Sophomores Vernon Espinoza and Ermias Kebede led the 800-meter run, where the two placed first and second, running times of 1:58.01 and 1:58.37, respectively. Both ensured their postseason futures, qualifying for the DIII New England Championships.

Elijah Ngbokoli ’20 earned his first collegiate win in the 200-meter dash, where he secured a victory in a time of 23.43 seconds for the one-lap race. Classmate Biafra Okoronkwo ’20 placed eighth, finishing in 24.19 seconds.

Sophomore Sam Amaka led the field events for Amherst, as he threw the shot put a distance of 12.87 meters to place second in the event.

Amaka also placed third in the weight throw, while classmate Widsom Yevudza ‘19 who claimed seventh place in the event.

Cosmo Brossy ’19 won the 3,000-meter run with a time of 8:51.76, and teammate Ben Fiedler ’17 followed with a runner-up performance in a time of 8:52.98, with both qualifying for the DIII New England Championships.

Brossy’s victory was redeeming, as the all-NESCAC cross-country performer wasn’t able to

run to his full potential at the end of the cross country season due to injury. Teammates Tucker Meijer ’19, Justin Barry ’18 and Raymond Meijer ’17 placed fourth through sixth in the event, using their pack running experience to successfully navigate the 15-lap race together.

Despite being seeded last for the 4x400meter relay, the purple and white ran to a dominating victory by beating the relay team from Trinity by more than eight seconds. Sogaard followed up his 1,000-meter run victory by leading off the relay team in a split of 51.7 seconds, the fastest on the team.

“A lot of younger guys stepped up in a variety of events, with some first years and sophomores getting individual wins,” Connors said.

“It’ll be exciting to watch them and the rest of the team continue to progress as the season moves forward.”

This weekend, the purple and white travel to Tufts on Saturday, Feb. 4 to compete against a large field of teams in hopes of earning more victories and DIII New England Championship qualifying marks. With only two more regular season meets remaining, athletes must achieve these qualifying marks to compete at upcoming championship meets.

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

WED

FRI

SAT

Women’s Ice Hockey @ Salem State, 7 p.m.

Men’s Ice Hockey @ Bowdoin 7 p.m.

Men’s Track & Field @ Tufts Stampede, TBD

Women’s Squash vs Bates, 8 a.m.

Women’s Basketball @ Bates, 7 p.m.

Women’s Track & Field @ Wesleyan University Invitational, TBD

Men’s Ice Hockey @ Colby, 3 p.m.

Men’s Basketball vs. Bates, 7 p.m.

Men’s Basketball vs Tufts, 3 p.m.

Women’s Basketball @ Tufts, 3 p.m.