THE AMHERST
THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER OF AMHERST COLLEGE SINCE 1868
STUDENT VOLUME CXLVII, ISSUE 17 l WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2017
Women’s Squash Win Streak Reaches Four See Sports, Page 9 AMHERSTSTUDENT.AMHERST.EDU
Sociologist Links Environmentalism and Race in Talk Audrey Cheng ’20 and Emma Wilfert ’20 Staff Writers
Photo courtesy of Faith Wen ’20
In a talk titled “Race, Space and Social Justice” on Feb. 9, Dr. Dorceta Taylor spoke on environmentalism’s historical bases in racism. Her talk was part of a two-day event on race and environmental inequalities.
College Holds Open Meeting on ICE Raids Shawna Chen ’20 Managing News Editor Students, faculty and staff gathered for a meeting on Monday, Feb. 13, to discuss the recent upsurge in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, which have arrested nearly 700 undocumented people in the last week. Held in the Powerhouse and open to members of the college community, the meeting provided information about the ICE raids and facilitated conversation about how to mobilize in response. The Trump administration carried out nationwide ICE raids last week in a “a series of targeted enforcement operations,” according to Department of Homeland Security Secretary
John Kelly in a statement on Monday, Feb. 13. The raids swept through regions of the country including Los Angeles, New York, Texas, the Baltimore and D.C. metro area, Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin, according to The New York Times. The meeting was publicized by President Biddy Martin in a community-wide email on Saturday, Feb. 11. In the email, Martin said that Chief Student Affairs Officer Suzanne Coffey had contacted students who are undocumented or have DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) status” and that “Amherst will do everything we can using the fullest extent of the law to protect members of our community who could be affected by changes in immigra-
tion policy and enforcement and to be a relentless voice in opposition to the threats faced by members of our community.” At the meeting, Professor of Sociology Leah Schmalzbauer gave a brief history on ICE, a federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Created in 2003, ICE is responsible for enforcing “federal laws governing border control, customs, trade and immigration to promote homeland security and public safety,” according to the ICE website. Schmalzbauer said enforcement by ICE has been increasing recently. ICE carries out two kinds of deportations, “returns” and “removals.” “Returns” occur when an undocumented
Continued on Page 3
Dr. Dorceta Taylor gave a talk at Amherst on Feb. 9 titled “Race, Space and Social Justice.” The talk, which was over an hour long and held in the Greenway A Event Space, was followed by half an hour of questions at the end. The talk was part of Taylor’s two-day event, “Race, Space and Environmental Inequalities,” which also included a student workshop on campus social justice on Feb. 9, a breakfast Q&A session on careers in activism on Feb. 10 and a lunch Q&A session for students of color on Feb. 10. The two Q&A events were available with advance sign-up only. Born and raised in Jamaica, Taylor graduated from the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale. She is currently a professor of environmental sociology at the University of Michigan. Her research includes food access, analysis of the composition of the environmental workforce, environmental justice, ethnic relations and poverty, race and gender. Taylor said that as a young student, she felt constrained by the specialization required by the Jamaican education system. “I decided to be very defiant and get out of that box and start connecting, and it wasn’t long until I started to read sociology and history … and I was able to start to ask really weird and strange questions,” she said. Taylor began the talk by focusing on the lack of racial diversity in the American environmental movement. She said that for decades, environmental agencies have not broken a 12 to 16 percent racial composition of people of color, despite the increase of racial diversity in the United States. The problem, Taylor said, is due to “un-
Continued on Page 3
Gun Control Expert Speaks on Future of Movement
Claire Dennis ’20 Staff Writer
Carl Bogus, a research professor at the Roger Williams University School of Law, addressed a group of students, fellows and faculty on the topic of gun control on Monday, Feb. 13. The talk was the fourth part in a speaker series hosted by the Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought department titled “Guns in Law.” Bogus’ lecture centered around his recently published essay, “The Simple Truth about Gun Control.” In his paper and subsequent talk, Bogus provided a straightforward answer to the question of gun control. “There is only one kind of gun control that is effective,” Bogus said. “That’s the hard, simple truth. And it is whatever reduces handguns in general circulation.” Bogus argued that the U.S. subscribes to “model one” of gun control. “Model one,” he said, is a policy in which “everyone can have a gun except those who can’t — convicted felons [and] people who are ‘mentally defective.’” According to Bogus, all other “affluent nations” similar to the U.S. adhere to “model two” of gun control, in which “nobody can have a handgun
except those who can — law enforcement people [and] people who have a special need for a handgun.” “‘Model one’ will never work, because we can’t divide people up into good guys and bad guys,” Bogus said. “The world is too complicated for that, and we can’t tell the difference.” Bogus walked attendees through his analysis of gun control, tackling the contentious issue from political, historical, constitutional and cultural perspectives. He addressed several factors in the debate over gun control, from the growing political power of the National Rifle Association to the importance of the right to bear arms in the 1788 debates over Constitutional ratification. With guns so ingrained in American culture, Bogus argued that a national campaign to stigmatize gun ownership, similar to campaigns against cigarette consumption and drunk driving, could offer one solution to catalyze gun control reform. However, Bogus warned the audience not to focus too much on short-term goals, citing his own work in enacting the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which established a waiting period after buying a firearm and bolstered background checks. Bogus later realized the ad-
verse effect its passage had on the gun control movement. By offering a false sense of success to gun control advocates, the bill inadvertently reduced motivation to strive for more comprehensive reform. “The idea is that we needed a political win,” Bogus said. “The gun control movement has never recovered from that pyrrhic victory. Because when you frame something [like], ‘Should we do nothing or have a seven-day waiting period [before finalizing a gun purchase]?’ you persuade people that we can’t do any better.” After Bogus’ lecture, the talk turned into a discussion, with students speaking on various aspects and perspectives on gun control. “I was interested in going to the talk because I just started taking LJST classes and I find the topic very interesting,” Adelaide Shunk ’20 said. “I think gun control is a very prevalent issue, and so I thought it was really cool that we had a scholar who was at the forefront of gun control coming to talk.” “I think [I chose to attend the talk] primarily because I’m from Chicago, and it’s sort of a very interesting notion, particularly now with the political climate and everyone talking about that sort of thing, and it’s a discussion that I
have with my parents a lot,” Will Jackson ’18 said. Bogus said that his solution to gun violence, while simple in nature, would be far less simple to implement. “What I’m telling you is, the only form of gun control that is effective is unconstitutional today,” Bogus said. “That’s the hard, simple truth. Does that mean that all of us who want to do something about this throw our hands up and go home? … I say no. But we have to first confront the hard reality and take a long-term view, because what is unconstitutional today is not necessarily unconstitutional tomorrow.” Despite recognizing that promoting gun control would take extensive effort and work, Shunk said that he left feeling motivated to take measures that could ensure effective gun regulation in the future. “I felt really empowered to figure out ways to reshape public opinion, because I think one of the big things that we stressed in our discussion after the talk was the whole idea that the statistics and the talk and the article, we all agreed with ... but there’s a disconnect with the general public,” Shunk said. “The general public doesn’t care about statistics. They care about feelings.”
News
Katherine Follette Fresh Faculty
Feb. 6, 2017 - Feb. 13, 2017
>>Feb. 6, 2017 3:08 p.m., Mill Lane An employee reported that a vehicle had damaged a field of carrots. 3:41 p.m., Frost Library An officer responded to a report of a male acting in an unusual manner on level A. After speaking to the man, who has no association with the college, he was issued a written “no trespass order”. 4:41 p.m., Seelye House A student reported to Student Affairs that they were assaulted while at a party on Jan. 26, 2017. 5:24 p.m., Campus Grounds A student reported to the Title IX office that they were assaulted during an event in October 2016. >>Feb. 7, 2017 10:25 a.m., Campus Grounds The Student Affairs office notified ACPD that a third party reported a student was pushed by another student while attending a party on Jan. 28, 2017. 11:28 a.m., Alumni Gym A visitor reported the theft of a Canada Goose coat from a hallway during a squash tournament. 11:49 a.m., Campus Grounds A student reported that a pair of sunglasses was stolen from her backpack while it was in the coat room at Valentine Hall. An officer checked the video recording and found her bag was not disturbed by anyone. >>Feb. 8, 2017 8:41 a.m., Greenway Building D Officers investigated a smoke detector sounding and found it had been activated when a hair dryer was used too close to it. 7:46 p.m., James Dormitory A caller reported someone screaming on an upper floor. An officer checked the building but nothing of concern was found. >>Feb. 9, 2017 12:03 a.m., Morris Pratt Dormitory An officer discovered an unauthorized party on the first floor and shut it down. 1:17 a.m., Hitchcock House A student reported the theft of a Michael Kors coat which was left unattended in a common room during a party. It is valued at $150. 1:23 a.m., Lord Jeffery Inn An officer encountered a student with a sign stolen from the Lord Jeffery Inn. The sign was confiscated and the matter was referred to Student Affairs. 1:24 a.m., Jenkins Dormitory While at a suite investigating the theft of a sign, an officer discovered drug paraphernalia in a common room. It was confiscated and the matter was referred to Student Affairs.
8:27 p.m., Amherst Police Department An officer assisted the town police with the booking of a person. >>Feb. 10, 2017 8:22 p.m., Mead Drive An officer investigated a motor vehicle accident. >>Feb. 11, 2017 12:28 a.m., Spring Street Lot An officer assisted the town police in locating a car involved in an incident in town. 1:09 a.m., Snell Street An officer assisted the driver of a vehicle that was stuck in the snow. 3:14 a.m., 79 South Pleasant Lot A vehicle parked in violation of the winter parking ban was towed. 1:00 p.m., North Dormitory A student reported the theft of an iPhone valued at $800. 4:33 p.m., North Dormitory Student Affairs notified ACPD that they received a report that an underage resident of North had alcohol in her room on Feb. 8 and that a drinking game was played. 10:18 p.m., Morrow Dormitory A resident reported that an unknown person knocked on her door, asked to be let in and eventually left when the door was not opened. 11:42 p.m., Mayo Smith House A town resident complained about loud music and the responding officer located an unauthorized party. It was shut down. >>Feb. 12, 2017 12:44 a.m., Moore Dormitory An officer discovered evidence of an unauthorized party on the third floor of Moore. 1:15 a.m., Jenkins Dormitory An officer assisted a student who lost her coat at Jenkins. It was found. 4:10 a.m., Mayo Smith House While in the building, an officer discovered unattended alcohol. It was disposed of. 10:41 p.m., Pontypool An officer investigated an intrusion alarm but no cause could be found. >>Feb. 13, 2017 01:45 a.m., Garman Lot An officer assisted the driver of a car that was stuck in the snow. Correction: In last week’s issue, Thoughts on Theses omitted Nancy Nzeyimana Cyizere’s last name and referred to her as Nancy Nzeyimana only. The article further misquoted Cyizere as saying “deregulation of civil same-sex marriage” instead of “legalization of civil same-sex marriage.” The online version of the article has corrected her name and the quote.
Department of Astronomy
Katherine Follette is an assistant professor of astronomy. She earned a B.A. in physics and Japanese at Middlebury College, and an M.S. and Ph.D., both in astronomy, at the University of Arizona.
Q: Where are you from? A: It’s a complicated question. I’m originally from Minnesota. I grew up there ... I went to college at Middlebury in Vermont. And then I lived in Japan for a few years, moved back to Minnesota to take classes to fulfill pre-med requirements, because I thought I was going to go to med school … then moved to San Diego and taught high school for a while, then did graduate school in Arizona for six years, and then moved to San Francisco. So, most recently from San Francisco, but I’ve kind of lived all over. But originally from Minnesota, and now here. Q: How’d you choose to study astronomy? A: It’s a funny story ... I chose Middlebury and went there because I wanted to study languages and go into the Foreign Service. I took a general education astronomy course in my first semester in college in order to fulfill a distribution requirement and because I thought it was interesting — I mean, we all kind of maintain this interest in astronomy from when we were kids. I just completely fell in love with it ... and ended up deciding that that was what I wanted to do for my career. But it wasn’t a straight path. I didn’t know when I left college that I wanted to become a full-time astronomer. I think I mentioned I thought I wanted go to med school, and then I thought I wanted to be … a high school teacher. In the course of teaching high school physics, I realized that all of the examples I was using were astronomy examples, and I taught an elective in astronomy and just loved it. I realized that if I wanted to teach astronomy and not physics I would have to go to the college level, get a graduate degree and go back to school. Q: What did you do right before you came to Amherst? A: I was doing a post[doctorate] at Stanford. I worked for a group at Stanford that is called the Gemini Planet Imager Team ... Gemini is a big telescope in Chile, and it has ... a dedicated instrument that is designed to try and find planets. There are a bunch of ways that we find planets these days, but ... [Gemini] directly detect[s] the planets rather than infer[s] their existence based on observations of the star, which is kind of the other way that we find planets. So it’s a neat technological challenge ... it’s very new and it hasn’t been as successful as some of the other methods yet, but the technology is moving forward. Particularly with the next generation of space-based telescope missions, I think we’ll be making big strides in this area. It was a really exciting group and an exciting time to be there. We [had] about 100 nights of telescope time over the course of the last three years and [we] just systematically [looked] at all the young stars that are near the sun and … planets around them. We’ve had a couple of exciting discoveries in the course of doing this. Q: Why did you decide to come to Amherst? A: Well, it’s kind of my dream job. The students are very bright [and] they come from very diverse backgrounds. There’s an emphasis on teaching, but at the same time it’s an institution that values research, and I wanted a blend. I didn’t want to just teach or just do research. I wanted to work with undergrads on my research ... although I’m the only astrono-
mer here on campus, there’s this Five College Consortium of astronomers, [which] makes it less isolating. And so it was a really exciting opportunity. Q: What classes are you teaching right now? A: I’m teaching one class. It’s called practical astronomy … It’s essentially a class about how … to think like a scientist. So it’s how to look at data, how to do … some quantitative skills that you don’t generally learn in a formal mathematics education, like how to make an estimate from incomplete data … The other big piece of the course is learning how to program in Python. So the students are doing labs where they’re using real data and designing visualizations in Python … it’s [a] class that’s meant to get everyone up to speed before the first big astrophysics course in the sequence. Q: What research are you doing now? A: As a postdoc, I focused a little more on detecting the planets around young stars, so usually after the disk has mostly dispersed ... What I’ve always been interested in are the particular systems, the handful of systems that have both disks and planets. There’s a class of disk that we call a transitional disk. The disk of gas and dust has a big hole in the middle, and actually most of what I spent my graduate work doing was trying to prove that … the existence of those holes is most compatible with the idea that there are planets actively forming in the inner part of that solar system and they’re clearing out the material closest to the star … What I’m doing now, moving forward, is studying these disks and … [asking] can you see the planet and the disk at the same time? And in particular, can you see the planet interacting with the disk, like material from the disk falling onto the planet, or the planet causing structures in the disk? … There are lots of exciting prospects there with current generation instruments. I’m involved in some efforts to design next-generation instruments … by sending these same kind of technologies to space, we’re able to image even fainter things next to bright things ... The goal, 20 years down the line, is to have some kind of instrument that’s capable of directly detecting not just giant planets — the ones we’re detecting now are several times the mass of Jupiter — but earth-like planets around nearby stars … The reason this method of detecting planets is interesting is that if I can detect the light from the planet directly, I can break it into its component colors, and then I can start to understand things about its atmosphere, even potentially — I wouldn’t say 20 years down the line, but 30 or 40 years down the line — being able to spread out its light finely enough that I could detect things like biosignatures in the atmospheres, like certain gas species that aren’t in equilibrium that indicate the presence of life, which would obviously be very cool. Q: What kind of things do you do outside of classes and research? A: I have a 3-year-old that takes a lot of my time these days, but back in the day when I had hobbies, and to some extent still, I like to ski, read, run [and] play with my dog — those are the big ones.
— Jacob Gendelman ’20
The Amherst Student • February 15, 2017
News
AAS Senator Candidate Statements
3
On Friday, Feb. 17, the AAS will hold elections for four senators from the Class of 2017, two senators from the class of 2018, one senator from the class of 2020 and a Judiciary Council Chair from any class. The students below have announced their candidacies for these elections. Students who are interested in hearing from these candidates, or interested in running but were unable to submit a candidate statement, should attend Speech Night on Thursday, Feb. 16 at 6:30 p.m. in Merrill 1. Cole Vissicchio — 2020 Senator
Cosette Lias — JC Chair
Maya Bhandari — 2020 Senator
Sarah Weintraub — 2020 Senator
I am interested in running for Senate because I have always been motivated to improve the community that I am a part of. While I love Amherst, I have heard a variety of complaints from students on a diverse number of topics and feel ready to address these issues. I will focus on working to make the social scene more inclusive and trying to address some of the frustrations students have with the lack of food options on campus. Most importantly, I plan on always acting as a bridge between students and the administration, regardless of the issue at hand.
Hi all, my name is Cosette and I would be honored to serve as your Judiciary Council Chair. I am deeply committed to the wellbeing of the student body and believe that I have much to offer. I have served on the Title IX Review Committee and have helped revise the trial system to be more just for survivors of sexual assault. As your JC Chair I hope to revise and update the constitution to be more in line with our values of inclusion and to also destroy eurocentric policies. Thank you for your consideration and I hope for your vote!
I want to become a senator for the Class of 2020 because I want to help every member of our community enjoy Amherst as much as I have thus far. One of our college’s best qualities, in my opinion, is the diversity of interests and opinions its students harbor. I am interested in hearing my peers’ concerns and suggestions and would like to have the ability to turn those ideas into realities. From social functions to suggestions for President Martin, I am ready to advocate for my class on all matters.
I’m Sarah Weintraub and I’m interested in being a senator for the class of 2020. I learned a lot about Amherst during my first semester, and I think that I am well equipped to address the needs of my class. I’m an approachable person who is open to suggestions and critique. One goal as a senator would be to increase transparency among the school administration, the AAS and the student body. I would also like to specifically address social life on campus because I think that’s something that will only improve if changes come from students.
College Discusses ICE Raids and Deportation in Open Meeting Continued from Page 1 person is caught at the border and returned without entering the United States. “Removals” target and deport undocumented people who have lived in the U.S. for varying lengths of time. Former President Barack Obama and his administration deported four million people during his presidency, the most deportations since the Eisenhower administration. Obama’s administration, however, prioritized returns and mostly targeted “convicted criminals” for removals — “those who were deemed a threat to national security, those who had convictions or those who had been charged to leave the country and had avoided leaving the country,” Schmalzbauer said. The Obama administration mostly stopped conducting workplace raids, which Schmalzbauer said were more common during the Bush administration. What they did instead was utilize a program called Secure Communities that relied on partnerships between federal, state and local law enforcement. “What the Secure Communities did was whenever someone was arrested, on whatever offense — driving over the speed limit is a big one, or a traffic violation that ended in arrest — someone is brought in to [the] county jail,” Schmalzbauer said. “[Then] every name is run through a national database, and when someone is found to have a deportation order, the local police are charged to notify ICE that they have that person in custody.”
The program then requests that the local jail keep the individual in detention for 48 hours longer than it typically would, so that instead of letting the individual walk on bail the next day, the jail would detain the individual so ICE can start deporting the individual. Cities that have designated themselves as “sanctuary cities” direct the county sheriff office not to follow the 48-hour rule. During the Obama administration, Operation Cross-Check coordinated immigration sweeps that resulted in 7,400 arrests and deportations. The raids in the last few days, Schmalzbauer said, are believed to be a continuation of Operation Cross-Check and not random raids. She added that the raids’ targets for arrest and deportation have changed. Under the Obama administration, these raids focused on convicted criminals on a list maintained by ICE. The Trump administration has expanded the definition of “criminal,” said Schmalzbauer, so that anyone who has been “charged, convicted or suspected” of criminal activity can be arrested. This includes possessing a false security card and returning to the United States after being previously deported. The increase and expansion of deportations is a “moral issue,” said Schmalzbauer, because the majority of deportees returning to the U.S. are doing so to reunite with children. Schmalzbauer said it is unlikely that the Trump administration will follow through with the promise to deport all undocumented immigrants. Mass deportation would strain the economy and many of the industries with
workforces comprising largely of these individuals. ICE and the country’s judicial system also do not have enough agents and resources to carry out every single deportation, she said. “Even though practically, mass deportations would be impossible, what they’re doing is causing fear and anxiety, which is an exertion of social control,” Schmalzbauer said. This would discourage workers from demanding higher wages and immigrants from reporting crimes, which in turn weakens community ties and identities, she added. The college does not ask about immigration status on campus, Schmalzbauer said. The town police department also does not inquire after immigration status or “use the threat of immigration status/deportation as leverage with victims, witnesses or suspects,” according to its website. Schmalzbauer advised students directly or indirectly affected by these raids and changes to have the name of a trusted immigration lawyer and, if detained, to stay silent and never sign anything until the lawyer is present. If a detainee signs a document attesting to their presence in the country without documentation, ICE is able to begin expedited deportation, which foregoes a regular court hearing and the right to an attorney. Professor of History and American Studies Frank Couvares noted that anti-immigration sentiment like that of today is not unique, citing anti-Catholic, anti-Irish and anti-Chinese forces in American history. Many of these antiimmigrant periods were rooted in the fear of
jobs being taken away by immigrants, he said. “The good news is that there is political opportunity on the national level, on the state level [and] on a local level,” he added. “Coalitions shift and change. [Anti-immigration sentiment] comes up, we beat it down … This isn’t going to go away, but it doesn’t mean it’ll be like this forever.” During times of uncertainty, “we must adapt,” said Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought Adam Sitze. “Our game is to graduate the best, diverse leaders of the country,” he said. “Government by chaos throws us into fear, so we can’t do our work and see ourselves in 2030. So my question is, how can we establish communications and networks and ties in the community to absorb the shock and unpredictable events?” Look to the future, he said, so that “when we look back at ourselves in 20, 30 years, we can say that we followed our principles and morals.” After the three professors’ statements, the meeting opened up into a discussion, and topics ranged from private detention centers to approaches to engaging with individuals who hold different beliefs and opinions. “Immigration organizations are rallying like never before, and they’re being led by youth — college youth,” Schmalzbauer said near the end of the meeting. “It was college youth that convinced the Obama administration to sign Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, and there are allies in Congress who are bipartisan, believe it or not ... There are reasons to be hopeful, even in this time.”
‘Race and Space’ Event Emphasizes Student Activism Continued from Page 1 conscious bias, discrimination and insular recruiting, [which] hamper the recruitment and retention of talented people of color.” This is a problem, she said, because environmentalism is and has always been closely connected with racism, naming Europeans’ buffalo-hunting practices endangering Native American tribes as an example. “It was definitely a political movement to kill off the buffalo,” she said, because by controlling the Native American food source, Europeans could round up and corral the Native American tribes in the West. Even today, she added, the control of food sources still happens, and it pits the environmental movement against minorities, such as a Wisconsin ban on salmon fisheries that restricts tribes’ access to fish. Taylor said that activists who fight this ban “sometimes run up against environmentalists who are saying, ‘This is not sustainable, how can you be fishing?’” Taylor said. “But the tribes are saying, ‘This is all we have left. You took all our land, so we have rights to the fish.’” Taylor also pointed out the contributions of people of color to American society and environment. “Not only does slavery dehumanize Afri-
can Americans, it puts them in a condition of thinking that they were simply all ignorant,” she said. “No — they had skills, they were targeted for those skills and they were brought to the plantations here … Those plantations that got those slaves were the ones that were most prosperous because they have the skilled labor.” People of color also made central contributions to national parks. Buffalo soldiers, an all-African-American regiment in the U.S. Army, helped build early trails and guarded parks, while Chinese laborers helped build the railroad and road systems running through the continental United States. Environmental history, however, does not include their roles, Taylor said. Taylor also spoke about the environmental injustices that African Americans faced in recent decades, such as the burial of toxic waste in a predominantly African American community in 1982. She said the resulting protests against dumping of toxic waste launched the environmental justice movement. David Green ’18 said that the connections Taylor made resonated with him. “It was interesting to look at the interactions between environmentalism and social justice because if you’re thinking about environmentalism, you’re thinking, ‘How do you
save a bird?’ as opposed to ‘How do you save a human?’” he said. “It all comes down to how we use the environment to impact each other,” said Sade Green ’20. “We look at Flint and we see how the city affected communities of color by switching the water supply,” Green added. “If we see what’s happening at Standing Rock today, people don’t realize that water is a human right. So you have the government going ahead and building the pipeline and the tribe there will be affected.” During the workshop on social justice, Taylor focused on aspects of campus life that block the growth of activism. Students split into groups to brainstorm factors that are obstacles in mounting campus-wide movements. Later, Taylor asked groups to share their top concerns. Some students expressed concern about busy schedules and conflicting priorities, which felt isolating, said Tacia Diaz ’19. “We’re here to prioritize school ... That’s a struggle I do deal with a lot. How much should I prioritize activism over school?” Esperanza Chairez ’19 said. In response, Taylor encouraged students to see activism as an integral part of their learning experience in and of itself. “Ninety percent of what you learn, you’re
not learning in the classroom,” she said. Students also addressed the challenges presented by the environmentalist movement itself. The conversation centered around the intangible nature of many environmentalist concerns. During a discussion of the trayless movement at Valentine Hall, Carlos Rivero ’18 said that “a lot of environmental issues are very hard to physically or visually realize” because the trayless initiative aimed to reduce water usage while there was not a visible lack of water on campus. “There’s a general apathy [on campus],” said Annabelle Gary ’20. Other students echoed this observation and pointed to the generally short lifespan of campuswide movements to support the claim. Chairez also said that she thought there was apathy on campus. “It’s a one-time thing,” Chairez said, “[Students are] not really looking to reach out to their peers.” To avoid running into this apathy, Taylor said that students should not “underestimate the resources you have” and should take advantage of social media as a way to spread awareness. “Don’t despair,” Taylor said at the conclusion of the workshop. “You are not the first group of folks to run into this, and you won’t be the last. You’ll be amazed what you can do.”
Opinion
THE AMHERST
STUDENT
Love, Love, Love
E X E C U T I V E B OA R D
Editorial Valentine’s Day has come and gone, and however you feel about the holiday, it’s hard not to have an opinion about it. Tackling conversations about love can be difficult. They run the risk of falling into sentimentality; we might worry about annoying others or drawing ourselves into pits of rumination. Especially on Valentine’s, it can feel as if there is a concrete hierarchy of love, with romantic love reigning supreme. Whether you find yourself in a relationship or not at this time of year, Valentine’s can come with a lot of pressure, either to be more or to be different than who you currently are. Love talks also have the tendency to fall into exclusive terms — sometimes tending towards heteronormativity or conflating love and sexual desire, excluding asexual identities. The Editorial Board wishes to embrace the broadest definitions of love and explore how it takes shape at Amherst. People constantly have conversations about romantic love culture on campus. Some people might say Amherst has a hook-up culture, but others will say that a lot more people go on dates than you would think. Some people complain that Amherst students are either in an all-out committed relationship or completely uncommitted, with no inbetween. However you might theorize the state of romance at Amherst, there’s a tendency for many of us, at some point during our college lives, to obsess over pinning down just what our dating culture (or lack thereof ) is. Statistically, there is likely a way to explain or define Amherst’s culture in somewhat objective terms. But on this front, perhaps our community is also more diverse than we give it credit for. Different segments of the population all have different conceptions of what their norm is, and people hold varying assumptions about the norms of other social groups that they observe from the outside. It’s easy to fall into our heads and imagine that Amherst has only one predefined love culture. To some extent, this may be true. Specifically, there are certainly many damaging, problematic aspects to this culture that enforces male privilege, the power of which should not be minimized. But it is also true that there are certain ways in which we do still have choices, and that we do not have to let the dating culture define how we move through Amherst campus. There are ways in which we can disrupt perceived norms and make choices for ourselves, in spite of what it
might feel like Amherst is telling us to do. These discussions about love are unresolvable, in the sense that they will never reach a concrete conclusion, just like the people on whom they focus. Our friends, including those we feel closest to, constantly reveal themselves to us in different ways again and again. The moments in which we share secrets or even the most ordinary facts about ourselves give rise to a relation between bodies that is something more precious and alive than our individual selves. Psychoanalytic theory inspires us to imagine our conception of selves as entirely constructed by such relationality. The Editorial Board believes that this turn leaves space for radical growth and intimacy. As we move to disrupt relational norms, let us do so in a way that is expansive. With the first round of midterms rolling in and evergrowing symptoms of “spring angst,” it also helps to find a love for place, to remember to think about ourselves and how we relate to our physical surroundings. It’s been snowing heavily, and the temperature has dropped down again from our unseasonably warm January. While many of us might be thinking back to the sunny days on the firstyear quad, there’s also something special about the winter weather. On the evening of that first snow-day email, you could hear the sounds of people reading and responding across Frost and a growing buzz of release, as we all reveled in our kid-like selves for a moment. Perhaps, at a place like Amherst, where our time is so excessively managed and structured, the best gift is unstructured, unexpected time, which feels like it is truly meant to be spent on yourself. Even without more days off, the ongoing snowfall might still be worth some loving. It’s satisfying to see the snow build up and know that it will sit there undisturbed until it is pushed away come morning. There’s something about walking quickly out of a warm dorm into the cool air, and suddenly stopping to catch your breath because it’s dark and cold, but the security lights are shining through the flakes, and it feels like you’re diving underwater. There’s sledding on Memorial Hill and the accidental destruction of dining hall trays. In Valentine, we complain how much we hate the weather with our red faces and windburn. But there’s something beautiful to be had in loving these moments for what they are.
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, Evan Paul 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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If I May: In Defense of Phish Jake May ’19 Columnist Phish, a four-piece improvisational rock band hailing from Vermont, is my favorite band of all time. In my dorm room right now, there are no fewer than four Phish-related posters. I have nearly 5,000 Phish recordings in my iTunes library, and I’ve listened to nearly all of them. I’ve also seen the band in concert 37 times. One could say I am obsessed with the band. However, I am not alone in my obsession. Phish is one of the most popular touring acts in the United States. They routinely sell out Madison Square Garden every winter for their New Year’s Eve shows. They’ve toured all around the country nearly every year since 1983, and at each tier of venue type — small bars and clubs, college shows, larger amphitheaters and massive arenas — they’ve been able to garner crowds that fill the room. Unfortunately for me, while Phish does have millions of devoted fans, the band’s reputation in American popular culture is not a good one. Phish routinely plays improvised sections of songs that can last ten, twenty or sometimes thirty minutes. While I, and most Phish fanatics, consider these improvised jams the most thrilling part of the
Phish experience, the average music fan considers these aimless and self-congratulatory. This negative connotation of Phish’s music has rubbed off on the less-informed masses. I’ve had many conversations where I reveal that I’m a Phish fan and the response I get is something like, “How can you like Phish? They suck.” I then ask if that person has ever listened to a Phish song before. The answer is almost always no. Further adding to Phish’s bad reputation in American culture are the fans of the band litany of negative stereotypes associated with them. Many people believe that they — or, I should say, we — are just a bunch of drug-addicted hippies who live out of their cars and do nothing but follow around the band. Now, I will not try and argue that there is not truth in these criticisms of the band. In terms of the music, of course, listening to an improvised jam for twenty minutes is not for everyone, nor should it be. Even I’ll admit that at times, Phish’s music can seem a little bit aimless and disjointed. However, I’d urge anyone to give the band a chance. Not all of their songs are thirty minutes — they have many very catchy and undeniably fun rock and roll songs. Check out “Sample in a Jar” or “Julius” or “Wilson.” Furthermore, some of their jams are really amazing displays of mu-
sicianship, showcasing brilliant communication between members and powerful group improvisations. Check out the Oct. 13, 1994 recording of “Reba” or the June 18, 1994 recording of “David Bowie.” In terms of fans, the band does have some that are not the most well-behaved people in the world. There is certainly a great deal of Phish fans that are in fact addicted to drugs or are jobless and homeless. However, there is no archetype of a Phish fan. There are young fans, old fans, people who have been going to shows for years and people who are just attending their first. There are fans who love Phish for the incredible music that they have been producing for over thirty years, and unfortunately, there are those fans who love going to shows just to do drugs. But then again, at any concert, you will probably be able to find people there who only attended as an excuse to party. I don’t want to suggest that everyone should be a Phish fan; of course, music preference is subjective and whatever you like is what you like. However, I hope that this article will convince some to give the band a chance, and I sincerely hope that it will convince all to disassociate the band Phish from the negative stereotypes that plague its reputation.
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The Amherst Student • February 15, 2017
Opinion
5
Reflections on Accessibility to Healthcare in America Mohamed Ramy ’18 Staff Writer Who has access to good healthcare? Who finds it difficult to go to the emergency department? Why? Who has found the lack of representation in a hospital a deterrent to pursuing treatment? These questions puzzled me for so long. Only this summer, through the volunteer program Project Healthcare (PHC) at Bellevue Hospital, did I finally have the opportunity to observe the treatment of a diverse patient population in a major city. Let me begin this by saying that the previous year witnessed the death of many African-Americans at the hands of police in the States. However, this racial inequity extends beyond the streets. It cannot be denied that racism has driven health inequities amongst historically underserved and marginalized populations. According to the Harvard Public Health Review Editorial Board, it has done so through “inequities in environmental exposures, limitations in access to health care and other factors that affect optimal health and well-being.” I can attest to cultural differences becoming barriers to healthcare using several examples of doctor-patient interactions from my shifts in the Adult Emergency Service (AES) sector of Bellevue’s Emergency Department (ED). On an evening AES shift in late July, I met an Indian man, Tariq (not his real name), who had come in with a stomachache. I wondered if he had a pancreatic problem or if he was suffering from constipation. I did not know much, except that he was a taxi
driver who had come to the States a couple of months previously. When the resident, a white man, approached him to start the process of diagnosis, I noticed that the resident seemed worn-out and not ready to have long-winded questions from his patient. He wanted the patient to be concise and laconic. When we learned that the taxi driver had recently ate a lot of spices, the resident giggled a little and said, “You’ll get a big bill for this, you know that, right?” Tariq had feared for his life because he was unaware that he had only a stomachache. Back home, in Egypt, he would have been sent away with no bill to pay. He was poor and did not know the American health system, and not knowing how it works is exactly how he suffered discrimination. The community surrounding him did not help him understand the system. Tariq had mistakenly thought that he would be treated, or seen, for a small fee. For that reason, there needs to be an outreach program by New York hospitals to reach the underserved communities to combat institutional racism. If each hospital does so, individuals of underprivileged backgrounds can feel more confident in pursuing treatment and not grow fearful of “big bill[s].” These outreach programs could illustrate the different types of insurances and provide a list of free health services offered by institutions or organizations as well as a list of common diseases and their symptoms. Another trend I noticed was that some physicians treat patients differently because of their race or income. In other words, physicians can discriminate against other
individuals. In a hospital, physicians have power, and thus, are actually in a position to oppress others when they don’t provide the best healthcare possible. I remember my first overnight shift distinctly because it was the first time I met an Arab in the AES. Her name was Hafiza (not her real name), and everyone pronounced her name incorrectly, as they do with my name. (I looked at all the boards to see if there were any Arabs in the ED. I had promised myself that I would help the underserved and knew the sense of shame Arabs were known for when it came to treatment.) It was 7 a.m., and she walked in wearing a hijab. As a white-passing Arab, like many of us, she did not recognize that the fellow in the red shirt could be from the same region as her. I asked her what her name was and if she knew what it meant. I heard the “H” pronounced like I pronounce it. I asked her if she spoke Arabic, and she smiled profusely. She was there because of an ear infection and a minor issue. She spoke very little English, and so I helped Dr. Jackson (not his real name), the resident, in his questions. Translating was the purest form of bridging worlds, and a bridge is a position of power. I used this to help someone I formed instant rapport with because of my identity. She had had several surgeries to make her look better. I was actually shocked because in our culture, it is “eib” (shameful, roughly translated) to change the way you look, as God created you the way you are. She told me before I left that she would have been ashamed to tell the resident about those surgeries, lest he judged her. From this in-
teraction, I learned emergency departments could improve doctor-patient interactions by bringing people from different cultures into the residency program. In other words, the internal structure of the emergency department must meet the external need of the community. This restricts racism and makes patients more willing to disclose information important for treatment. In a New York Times article distributed among volunteers during our public health course with Dr. Erin Hultgren at Bellevue Hospital, I read that “earlier in the 20th century, trends in life spans were of declining disparities ... because improvements [such as] sanitation benefited [the] rich and poor alike.” Moreover, Dr. Dana P. Goldman, the Director of the University of Southern California’s Leonard D. Schaeffer Cneter for Health Policy and Economics noted that the adoption of medication for high blood pressure in the 1950s led to a major improvement for black men, erasing a big part of the gap with whites. How can we revive these trends? How can we stop health inequities? Through the topics taught in the summer course, Dr. Hultgren ensured that volunteers understood the disadvantages of living in certain geographic regions or communities. I learned that racism comes in different forms, but debilitates the advance of the community as a whole. Now, I find that the most important issue to address is the institutional racism present in health institutions. It would be a step in the right direction to provide the best healthcare possible.
After Abroad: Leaving, Returning and Staying Put Julia Pretsfelder ’18 Managing Arts and Living Editor When I think about the sometimes-beautiful intersections between settling down and disappointment, Middlemarch by George Eliot comes to mind. It was the first book I read for an English class at Amherst, and it has so much to say about time because it spans many years of a life in a town. The narrator often makes observations about time and describes how the characters observe their own lives and their own time. “For a while she had been oppressed by the indefiniteness which hung in her mind, like a thick summer haze, over all her desire to make her life greatly effective,” Eliot writes. “What could she do…?” In my freshman fall, I got frustrated with a happy-go-lucky acquaintance at a table in Valentine because when I said how nothing was exciting me at Amherst, they said my perspective or my lack of effort was the problem. That bothered me, because there was truth to it, and also because I was at a point in my life where it was hard to believe I could make myself happy with the wave of a wand. I’m kind of alarmed that after spending about seven months away from Amherst, I already feel a dread similar to the one I felt in December 2014. However, instead of this boredom being tied to a lack of self-worth and a constant sadness about a dead love life, as it was then, I think my problem now is an apathy that masks a reluctant, lingering unease I have about the same old things at Amherst. I sometimes felt yogic about the distance from my worries when I was travelling around Argentina. I was working through a particularly bad bout of anxiety before I left over the summer, when I had too much time to think too far ahead about all sorts of things that are irrelevant now, but now I lack a rudder guiding me to seek anything at all. This lull is kind of lovely, but why, then, does everything seem so bleak? Or, if not bleak, then lacking in excitement. It’s a feeling many of my junior friends have expressed and a state that seems self-indulgent when some of us live in a bubble of safety in this violent moment.
It feels silly and redundant to comment on Amherst’s size, and it feels pretentious to echo, “Oh! How I miss study abroad! It was so cosmopolitan! Amherst is so blasé!” I guess returning and undergoing an “adjustment period” — whatever that is — shows me how concrete my life can be here. Being a junior and returning to Amherst in the middle of the year, I see most clearly what strikes me as traditional to this environment. L.L. Bean boots squeaking, walking in circles around the same floor on Frost to try and find a place to sit according to my mood, browsing the Val menu for the next two weeks and forming visceral opinions we have about other people that we can bolster with our politics. Then, there are other times I am literally doing something new — spending Saturdays in the Zu or Greenway instead of Pond or Crossett, avoiding Jenkins now instead of avoiding Stone, and I still feel jaded. I think what’s stranger is leaving and finding everything just where you left it, but not, especially with certain emotional vacancies. I live in Marsh again, in a beautiful, bigger room with a cute fake fireplace and its own bathroom, which is wonderful and oddly isolating. Some of my friends are abroad, some have graduated and some are not in my life anymore. Unconsciously, I residually and anxiously care about stupid things and look back on how I thought, and bitterly wish I had been more guarded. I am unsettled being temporarily settled, and I know a part of that is my usual neurotic emotional rollercoaster, but maybe it’s the certainty of Amherst when all other aspects of my life are so uncertain. I grew so comfortable with moving around abroad, dizzy and floating, that the slightly downward-sloping flat line here surprises me. Returning from a place where I missed my friends so much that life seemed pointless, I expected constant company and comfort on campus. I still find myself feeling alone, most glaringly and elderly on some Friday nights when I’ve stayed in and watched movies for my Holocaust Literature class while embroidering. On a hike in Argentina, my friend said that
sometimes you need to travel to remember that you can be interesting. Crying on a sidewalk and being passionate in a more uninhibited way feels cooler than crying in Frost. It’s easier to perk up about The New York Times alerts about more things in the the U.S. going to shit when it’s summer in Buenos Aires, and bright purple flowers are blooming in the park. And it’s easier to find comfort from briefly chatting with a stranger when you constantly feel foreign. I’ve largely given up on expecting to draw out meaning, given up on being entirely at peace and, fortunately, given up on the depression-induced belief that all my life and all my most significant passing relationships are temporary and going to end terribly. I think I’m terrified of trying to just be happy and do whatever the fuck I want, because in the past, I’ve had such clear pursuits: Finding Myself and Trying to Like Myself — realizing that was impossible, Looking for Love — risky and confusing and exhausting and painful but also great, and now I Don’t Know — and I’m potentially okay with that, too. Time is weird, and I’m starting to see how weird it is to view things as a hop from one major event to the next. Time was stranger and more fluid last semester. The time I wast-
ed thinking about things that were kind of a waste. The valuable time-wastes I spent looking at memes on Instagram. The times I waited on Buenos Aires’ erratic bus schedule. Recently, I disagreed with a student at a career center workshop who said he wanted to “be married by 27” because I want to believe things just happen when they happen. I am comfortable with ambiguity because I have seen too clearly what happens when I am not. Yet, in deciding to make things fluid, I wonder if I’m leaving everything up to the other people in my life or the shy underachiever within me. I think about aging, and I think about compromising, in the diplomatic sense — ideology, dreams and my life steadily cooling. I guess in that sense, life gets easier, yet it doesn’t at all. I used to wish I could fall asleep until I was 30 because I was so afraid of losing people and not knowing who would be there, but now I’m afraid of viewing people like investments. My dad constantly reminds me to suck the marrow out of my life right now because college is a special time, but he also tells me I have this belief that at some point the worries will evaporate into peace, and that that’s just wrong. That sounds bleak, but there must be some nice rhythm to moving in and out of bleakness.
Hitchcock Fellowship The Department of Physical Education and Athletics invites applications for the Hitchcock Fellowship for the 2017-2018 academic year. The Hitchcock Fellowship is awarded to a graduating senior who wishes to pursue a career in the field of athletics, primarily teaching and coaching. The Hitchcock Fellow will be an Assistant Coach in at least two intercollegiate programs and may be assigned/elect other duties. Individuals interested in the position should send a letter of application and current resume no later than February 17, 2017 to: Jen Hughes Assistant Athletic Director Women’s Soccer Coach jhughes@amherst.edu
Arts&Living
Photo courtesy of Alura Chung-Medhi ‘18
“Coffee Haus” is a bi-weekly tradition in the Marsh Arts House where students can perform anything ranging from stand-up to funk music for an audience.
Marsh Holds Auction at Coffee Haus to Raise Funds for ACLU Paola Garcia-Prieto ’18 Managing Arts & Living Editor
Photo courtesy of Alura Chung-Medhi ‘18
Photo courtesy of Ella Yarmo-Gray ‘19
Last Friday’s traditional, bi-weekly “Coffee Haus,” which almost always takes place in Marsh Ballroom, had a special twist. The members of Marsh Arts House decided to hold an auction in order to raise funds to donate to the American Civil Liberties Union. The house members organized and each volunteered what they could auction off. Some offered material things, such as a painting of a cantaloupe (in the form of an antelope) and an 80’s style tracksuit, and others offered to give lessons on musical instruments, languages and even improvisational theatre. A group of Marsh residents volunteered to do door-to-door serenades for bidders. A particular favorite of mine was one girl’s offer to write an erotica piece starring the winning bidder and their significant other — a prize that, if I remember correctly, sold for $121.69. The assorted pieces up for auction were displayed on a table in the Marsh library where some items were up for silent auction while others were to be announced during the show. The library also included some more PG-13 items, such as a sultry love poem, hidden in corners and announced at the end of the night. The night proceeded as usual coffee hauses do, with students showing off their talents in improvisational acting, stand-up comedy, simultaneous magic tricks with cards and drumming from Josh Harmon ’18 as well as presenting original songs from groups such as “Radical Enthusiasts” and solo artists such as Hannah Herrera ’17 and Anthony Narag ’17. After every couple of sets, Bryan Doniger ’18 would step up to the microphone and announce the next item up for bid. With the vibrato of a professional auctioneer, he gave a starting price and then managed the crowd as they shouted out competing bids. The competition was heated, and some items sold for tripledigit prices. This was particularly true at the end of the night during the “X-rated” part of the bidding when the erotica was up for grabs as well as a “sexy” calendar made by everyone’s favorite
Marsh boys. The audience laughed as bidders screamed ridiculously high numbers and the next band warmed up. After a particularly energetic performance that ended with Siraj Sindhu ’17, frontman of a band whose current name is some variation of “Scrungo Beepis,” spinning on the ground while belting. The night ended more traditionally with dancing and an enthusiastic sing-along to “Wagon Wheel.” Coming off the high of a (much-needed) snow day, everyone there had trekked to Marsh in the middle of a snowstorm to enjoy their friends’ talents and donate to a good cause. In reaction to the recent executive orders passed by Trump, the ACLU has challenged Trump in court in defense of immigration and human rights. The need to take action has been felt on campus, and students have organized marches and phone-banks to call political representatives. I was impressed by how Marsh members were able to combine activism with fun and art, providing a sense of a community of people fighting for the same cause while also enjoying a Friday night. Ella Yarmo-Gray ’19, one of the MCs of the night, commented that the energy was very distinct from other Coffee Hauses, “There was a different crowd of people, and the social atmosphere was different with activism mixed in.” In the future, Marsh House hopes to establish a relationship with local organizations that have received less national attention and donations. It was a particularly special Friday night in Marsh; it reminded me of the time Coffee Haus was held in Frost Library during Amherst Uprising on the second day of student’s occupying the library. Speakers, microphones, a drum set and a keyboard were transported from Marsh to Frost Café, where regular performers played for a new audience and newcomers shared the microphone to creatively represent all the feelings the uprising was inciting. These moments where the arts and activism collide create a community where everyone can share their mindset, be witnesses to the same cause and celebrate — either directly or indirectly — the principle of giving back, at least for that moment in time.
Photo courtesy of Alura Chung-Medhi ‘18
Photo courtesy of Ella Yarmo-Gray ‘19
Photo courtesy of Alura Chung-Medhi ‘18
The Amherst Student • February 15, 2017
Arts & Living 7
In Case You Missed It: Jim Jamusch’s Latest Film, “Paterson”
Photos courtesy of sonovivoenonhopiupaura.blogspot.com
“Paterson,” the story of a poet bus-driver from New Jersey stars Adam Driver as Paterson and Golshifteh Farahani as Paterson’s eccentric and art-obssessed wife. Gabby Edzie ’17 Former Managing Arts & Living Editor Although the Oscar buzz around it was not quite loud enough, “Paterson” — coming away with no nominations this year — is a film worth seeing. The film, nominated for Cannes Film Festival’s highest honor, the Palme d’Or, is written and directed by Jim Jarmusch (known for “Stranger Than Paradise,” “Broken Flowers”). It is a mediation on the life, or rather the week, of a poet. Paterson, played by Adam Driver, lives in the city of Paterson, New Jersey with his wife Laura, played by Golshifteh Farahani. Paterson is tied not only to the poetic line, but the bus line. He drives the bus throughout the city, listening to the conversations of various passengers. The words spoken by young boys, elderly women and construction-worker-bachelor types fill the diegetic field as Driver smirks, nodding his head along to their conversational rhythms. At home, Paterson’s interactions with his bizarrely charming wife Laura are intimate. There is an intimacy that blooms not only between Paterson and Laura but also between the viewer and Paterson. We have the privileged view of his face as it analyzes Laura’s
bizarre fascination with black-and-white patterns or her constantly changing career ambitions. Driver’s quiet performance delivers the charmingly complex feelings Paterson has of his wife — she is his muse: delightfully flawed and utterly lovable. In addition to the relationship between Paterson and his wife, the film focuses on his reactions to the characters that fall into his routine throughout the week. He studies the characters, perhaps for his next poem, but never seems to judge them. He simply recognizes and appreciates them as part of the landscapes he frequents — the chess-loving Doc is always in the comfortable bar that remains unstained by a TV set, while carping co-worker Donny is always seen through the doorway of Paterson’s bus. The way the film approaches the poems themselves is simultaneously upfront and light-handed. The text of the poems is seen scrawled across the screen, often layered on top of the landscape of the New Jersey city of Paterson. I’m a horrible poet and therefore in no place to remark on the poetry itself, but I will say that I found it perfectly aligned with Driver’s performance. It is unobtrusive and sincere. Through much of the film, he works
on a love poem for Laura that centers on the various brands of matches that they find in their house. Staying true to the delicate tone of Paterson’s poems, the film stays slow and pensive. The most obvious analysis of the film is that the form of it mirrors a poem. Following Paterson’s week as a poem-spewing bus-driver, the film is very rhythmic. The sequences repeat themselves, with slight departures that keep the film refreshing and, well, poetic. In particular, I loved the slight variations on the wake-up scenes. The sequences essentially consist of Paterson waking up, looking at his watch, sleepily sharing an affectionate moment with his wife, grabbing his uniform and then departing the bedroom for a bowl of cereal. Each element of the rhythm is up for variation, and I never grew tired of watching. One variation I particularly liked was when the camera looks up from the bed, taking on Paterson’s point of view. Symbolism throughout contributes to the self-reflexivity of the film. The symbols repeat so often that it doesn’t take a keen eye to recognize them, but, impressively, the repetition doesn’t render them cliché or tiring. Paterson continually sees twins around his city, and, I’m
probably missing some other significance, but they seem to point a blaring finger to couplet and rhyme or maybe the tortured, delusionfilled mind of an artist? Perhaps more loosely up for interpretation, Paterson’s dog pushes his mailbox into a slant on a daily basis. I took this as an allusion to slant rhyme. (The dog, Nellie, is a star that won the Palm Dog Award at Cannes, by the way). Finally, there is the constant mention of literary and art figures, with special attention paid to those who grew up in Paterson, New Jersey. And there’s a random “Moonrise Kingdom” reference that I won’t spoil for you, because it’s a surprise worth living to the fullest. In the end, Paterson is tested in a way that eases the tension surrounding artistic disaster. It is sad, yet lighthearted. He is far from the solitary poet in a minefield of downfalls. As Richard Brody writes in his “New Yorker” review, the film excels in combatting the stereotype of the solitary artist. Paterson and his poetry rely on the people around him, and he doesn’t just use them and spit them out — he loves them. Despite Laura’s stylistic choices, the artist’s mind is not so black-and-white. Paterson is now screening at Amherst Cinema.
Shizimu’s “The Aesthetic of Fall” Art Exhibit Features Eerie Dolls
Photos courtesy of vintagepri.blogspot.com
Shizimu’s work is primarily exhibited in Japan and Italy, but during the month of March they will be displayed in Los Angeles, California at the Hive Gallery. Lorelei Dietz ’20 Contributing Writer In the times of our childhood, dolls were often objects of comfort. Yet somehow as we age, these items never arouse the sentimentality and nostalgia of other childhood treasures. Instead, in our older age we associate them with a vague sense of discomfort and uneasiness. Countless artists through an array of different mediums have expounded upon this fear or discomfort, whether to confront us with an issue or just simply to scare us. This discomfort is instantaneous when
one looks at the artwork of Mari Shizimu, a dollmaker hailing from Kumamoto prefecture in Japan. She taught herself how to make ball jointed dolls, a form of dollmaking that dates back to Ancient Rome and Greece. However, the first Asian-based ball jointed doll was called Super Dollfie, created by the company Volks. These dolls are often collected, custom-made, hand painted and extraordinarily ornamental. Shizimu continues this tradition with her painstakingly detailed pieces, while simultaneously pushing the traditional concept of a doll as a plaything to fine art contemplating the exterior and interior identity.
Uncomfortably juxtaposing the eerie serenity of a doll’s face with clutter bursting from their porcelain torsos, many of Shizimu’s dolls focus on the doll from the waist up. The dolls are cut open, their resin edges framing delicately a scene that often invokes the dioramas school children make. The internal scenes often play upon familiar Christian iconography, from Adam and Eve to angels to a figure reminiscent of the Virgin Mary. Other common scenes include asylum inmates, anthromorphic rabbit people indicative of Alice and Wonderland’s white rabbit, freak shows and organs that seem peeled out of an antiquated medical textbook. We associate this conglomeration of motifs encased by the calm, emotionless doll-body with that of the Victorian era, an era notorious for the outward appearance of grandeur and purity masking a horribly corrupted political and social system. Through her dolls and the associations they provoke, Shizimu reminds us that the appearance of ‘serenity’ often masks a deeper turmoil. In fact, the façade of serenity is actually the countenance of defeat and surrender. The juxtaposition she confronts viewers with plays at that general anxiety we often associate with the expressionless faces of dolls. When we look at a doll, we consciously know there is nothing dangerous about it, and yet
it can still conjure a slight sensation of fear. By peeling away the layers of the figures she creates to reveal the creepy and unsettling inner workings, she hints at the root of the fear — that there could be something behind that hollowed mask. Her dolls operate in the ‘uncanny valley’ — they are extraordinarily realistic and identifiable as humanoid but lack some of the familiar details that put us at ease. They remind us of empty bodies, hollow shells of us ourselves, just by their neutral expression and their inhabitation of the uncanny valley. They fact that they are neutral is terrifying, for the certainty of their innocuousness cannot be guaranteed. In revealing horror within the bodies of the dolls, Shizimu confirms our fears of dolls to be true — that evil can take up residence in these neutral vessels. Many say that toymakers paint neutral expressions on the faces of their toys, so that children may project whatever emotion they want onto the object. As we get older and become more adept at reading facial and bodily expressions, perhaps we lose this ability to project emotion onto the dolls. We lose the comfort of making the dolls into what we need it to be. Instead, we see it as a relic of childhood, memories trapped inside the hollow mask of the doll that is rendered to us now as utterly indifferent.
Arts & Living 8
The Amherst Student • February 15, 2017
13 Songs to Help Us Bitter People Get Through Valentine’s Day
Photo by Justin Barry ‘18
If you lack an outlet for your bitterness during this capitalist holiday, crank up these tunes and sing along dramatically, like you used to before your heart was broken. Alina Burke ’17 Contributing Writer Tired of spending Valentine’s Day sitting alone in silence? Fear no more: with my help, you’ll be able to sit alone on Valentine’s Day listening to the voices of other super bitter single people. Let us launch our attack on this sickeningly sweet holiday like a passive-aggressive couple middivorce. Presented to you in no particularly good order, some songs to get you through the week: 1. Love Stinks – The J. Geils Band This one goes without saying. A classic, absolutely required listen for us bitter people on this holiday. It’s essential to remind oneself of the simple truth when being bombarded with the heterosexual romantic agenda: love stinks. 2. Lipstick Covered Magnet – The Front Bottoms There’s nothing better to do on Valentine’s Day than screaming over and over, “I’m scared I’m gonna die as lonely as I feel right now.” And that’s just the bridge; the true gem is the chorus, which includes the festive imagery of teeth being knocked out. Overall it is a self-deprecating masterpiece, perfect for wallowing in self-pity. 3. Gives You Hell – The All-American Rejects A great one if you have a specific target for your bitterness. It allows you to express your anger and hopes for their bright — one could even say fiery — future.
can feel better that it wasn’t you. Unless it did happen to you — in which case I pour one out for you. 6. I Want Your Girlfriend to be My Girlfriend – Reel Big Fish I enjoy the variety of solutions he offers to the problem stated in the title; “Maybe I should kill you” is the best line by far. It’s basically everything you wanted the song “Jessie’s Girl” to be. 7. Miserable – Lit You’ve got to love that early 2000’s pop punk. Notice how beautifully arranged the first line is, “You make me come / You make me complete / You make me completely miserable.” So clever, so subtle, so deliciously bitter. 8. My Happy Ending – Avril Lavigne Here to remind you how that stupid sappy movie your friends are watching really ends. Don’t you miss the days when you could sing Avril Lavigne songs without having ever felt the horrors of a teenage breakup? Ah, to be a youth. 9. You Oughta Know – Alanis Morissette Alanis Morissette is a really weird person. However, that does not mean we can’t relate to her problems anyway. She starts out saying she’s happy for her ex and ends up in what is essentially a one-sided screaming match, cursing him for the way he ended things with her.
4. Before He Cheats – Carrie Underwood Say all you want about country music. Sure, I don’t like it either. But this song culturally does not count as country. Since the revenge narrative is so relatable, even the most militant haters can’t help but sing along. Also, girl power! You slash those tires, Carrie! Do it for those of us who can’t!
10. Goodbye Earl – The Dixie Chicks Now here’s a song that you might just not have to cry to. There really isn’t anything more heartwarming than this story of two best friends killing a horrible man named Earl and continuing to live happily ever after. It is set to these perfectly lovely “na na-na na nas” that foster a sense of community surrounding this murder. So take a short break from your screams of misery and smile a little, because sometimes truly evil people get what they deserve.
5. Song for the Dumped – Ben Folds Five What a sad story is relayed to us here. If you plan on breaking up with someone, at least have the common decency to pay for the dinner you’re breaking up with them over. This is one of those songs where you
11. All I Wanted – Paramore Back to our regular scheduled programming of music to which you can lie on the floor in romantic angst. I think the guitar in this song sounds like pain. The agony of rejection.
12. Divorce Song – Liz Phair I personally don’t know how it feels to be in the middle of a divorce, but this song is a level of petty that must be award-winning. Honestly, it reminds us of how awful a relationship can be, and will therefore help strengthen us as we defend ourselves from the ongoing insistence of our families that we ought to have found someone by now. Isn’t that what college is for? To find your spouse? Damn, I missed the boat on that whole husband thing. Oh well, now I won’t have to get divorced!
13. Foundations – Kate Nash This is definitely the cutest song of the bunch and a great sing along. It’s a little bit sad, but mostly conveys annoyance at someone who seems like a pretty useless man. It includes one of my favorite insults ever: “You say I must eat so many lemons, ’cause I am so bitter.” Over the weekend, as you brave encounters with all the insufferable people in love, take heart in the fact that you are not alone by yourself. We are all by ourselves.
The Amherst Student • February 15, 2017
Sports 9
Women’s Track and Field Sends Women’s Squash Dominates Pair Several Runners to BU Invite of Non-Conference Opponents Nicole Frontero ’20 Staff Writer This past weekend the Amherst women’s indoor track and field team traveled to Boston to compete in the Valentine Invitational on Friday, Feb. 10. In its final regular season meet, the purple and white posted some impressive results against a field of runners from colleges and universities across all three NCAA Divisions. In the 200-meter dash for the track events, Rubii Tamen ’19 finished 116th with a time of 26.96, and Anna Buford ’20 placed second on the team in the event, finishing 143rd overall (27.41). In the 400-meter dash, Tamen finished 70th with a time of 59.69, while Julia Asin ’19 finished in 87th place with a time of 1:00.48. Meanwhile, Amherst’s Katherine Hom ’19 posted a 1:03.87 to finish 136th overall. In the slightly longer 500-meter dash, junior Danielle Griffin posted a mark of 1:21.04, placing 29th overall. In the middle distance, Leonie Rauls ’18 finished 59th overall in the 800-meter dash with a strong time of 2:19.50. In the 1,000-meter run, sophomore Lela Walter posted a time of 3:08.27 to finish 42nd and Adele Loomis ’18 ran a 3:19.28 to finish 62nd. Representing Amherst in the long-distance events was Kristin Ratliff ’20, who ran an impressive race in the mile to finish 184th with a time of 5:32.67. Katherine Treanor ’20 posted an impressive time in the 3,000-meter run, running a 10:02.48, good for a 54th place finish. Amherst also showed strongly in the field events. In the high jump, senior Kiana Herold continued her season-long dominance, jumping 1.65 meters to a three-way tie for sixth place, while first-year Kaitlyn Siegel tied for
ninth after jumping a height of 1.60 meters. In the long jump, Abbey Asare-Bediako ’18 earned a place of 21st overall, jumping 11.01 meters. Emily Flaherty ’19 also put forth a strong performance for Amherst with a distance of 10.13 meters. In addition to the college events, the meet featured a number of events for the world’s best professional athletes. First-year Annabelle Gary was awed seeing elite running heavyweights like Shelby Houlihan and Colleen Quigley post the first and second fastest mile times run in 2017 by females. Gary expressed how rewarding and “inspiring” it was to see “incredibly talented people run … because running is their lives and it’s clear that hard work that they put in pays off.” “It was really cool to see people who competed in Rio only feet away from us racing on the track,” sophomore Veronica Rocco noted. The purple and white’s next contest is NCAA DIII New England Championships, hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from Friday, Feb. 17th to Saturday, Feb. 18th. The meet is set to begin on Friday at 3 p.m.
Photo courtesy of Amherst Athletics
Junior Leonie Rauls finished 59th overall in the 800-meter run at BU.
Nate Quigley ’19 Managing Sports Editor After a successful NESCAC tournament that saw the Amherst women’s squash team finish fifth out of the 11 participating programs, the purple and white continued their recent run of success in a pair of non-conference matches. Against Mount Holyoke and St. Lawrence, Amherst posted matching victories by scores of 8-1. The two programs were a chance for the purple and white to recover from a long NESCAC tournament, where they faced some of the toughest competition in the country. Last Wednesday, the purple and white made the short trip to South Hadley to take on Mt. Holyoke in this year’s edition of the local rivalry, one which Amherst has dominated in recent seasons. With the purple and white entering the match ranked 18th in the country, 13 spots higher than the Lyons, the dominance that occurred was expected. With sweeps on six of the nine courts, Amherst quickly made sure that the final result would be in its favor. On court one, junior Kimberly Krayacich allowed her Mt. Holyoke opponent to hang around in each of the three sets that were played, before pulling away at the end of each for a 11-6, 12-10, 11-6. Courts four through nine featured more unbalanced results, with the first-year trio of Caroline Conway, Katy Sabrina Correia and Jenna Finkelstein posting three-set victories, a feat that was matched by Mae Cromwell ’18 and Emma Crowe ’19. Meanwhile, on the second court, sophomore Rachael Ang recovered from a first-set loss, winning the next three sets for a four-set 12-14, 11-7, 11-7, 12-10 win.
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Sabrina Dobbins ’18 saved 34 shots in the overtime win against Bowdoin.
The purple and white suffered its lone loss of the day when Priya Sinha ’19 fell to her Lyon opponent in a five-set heartbreaker. Amherst returned home to the Davenport Squash Courts for the last time this season on Friday in a matchup against No. 23 St. Lawrence. Before the match, Amherst reinstituted Haley McAtee ’18 and Jenni Brown ’20 in the lineup, in the fourth and eighth spots respectively. Even with these changes, the purple and white justified the difference in rankings from the outset, outdoing their previous performance against Mt. Holyoke by managing sweeps on seven of the nine competitive courts, as well as in the exhibition match. For the second straight match, Conway, Correia, Finkelstein, Cromwell and Crowe all posted three set victories. Brown also managed a matching win in her return, and Sinha, only two days after suffering a tough defeat against Mt. Holyoke, bounced back with an eighth three-setter. With Krayacich losing in three sets on court one, the only truly competitive action of the afternoon took place on the second court, where Ang found herself locked in a tight battle with the Saints’ Zoe Kagan. After losing the first and third sets and finding herself on the brink of a loss, Ang steeled her nerves and closed out the match strong, winning in five sets by a 11-13, 11-6, 8-11, 11-9, 11-6 margin. With the regular season over, the purple and white have only the CSA Team Championships left to play. This year’s edition will be hosted by Princeton on the weekend of Feb. 24-26. Amherst has just over a week to prepare for the last matches of the season against a yet-to-be-determined foe.
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Sports
The Amherst Student • February 15, 2017
Men’s Squash Falls to Pair of NonConference Foes in St. Lawrence, MIT
ATHLETE SPOTLIGHT
Jayde Dawson ’18
Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios, Inc.
Sophomore David Merkel claimed one of just two Amherst wins this weekend, defeating his MIT opponent and forcing four sets against St. Lawrence. Nate Quigley ’19 Managing Sports Editor After finishing sixth at last weekend’s NESCAC tournament, the Amherst men’s squash team returned home to close out the regular season with matches against two non-conference foes. However, the team’s recent run of poor form continued, with the purple and white falling to both Saint Lawrence and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. On Friday, the 24th-ranked Amherst squad took on national powerhouse St. Lawrence, who entered the matchup ranked seventh in the country. The vast disparity in rankings would play itself out on the Davenport Squash Courts, where the purple and white were swept 9-0, taking only two sets total from the Saints. On court three, sophomore David Merkel continued his impressive season, battling hard but falling in four sets 11-3, 11-8, 4-11, 11-3. Likewise, Mitch Ford ’20 was able to take a set off his St. Lawrence opponent, but lost 11-5, 11-4, 7-11, 11-7 on the ninth court. The purple and white did manage more success on Saturday, when the team played host to the 21st-ranked Engineers. As opposed to Friday’s affair, where only two courts required more than the minimum three sets, Saturday’s contest saw seven of the nine courts, as well as the exhibition court, go four or five sets. The lone pair of victories for Amherst came on the third and eighth courts. Merkel picked
up the four-set win on court three, cementing his status as a guaranteed top-court player for the purple and white. Meanwhile, on court eight, Mateen Mills ’20 picked up his first win since Amherst’s 9-0 beat down of Connecticut College on Feb. 3. Impressively, Mills was able to battle back from losing the first set to take a 2-1 lead after three sets, and although his opponent managed to knot the affair at two sets apiece, Mills perservered for the 5-11, 11-5, 11-7, 8-11, 11-4 win. The purple and white, however, were on the receiving end of three similarly heart breaking losses. Senior captain Darian Ehsani and Cameron Bahadori ’18 lost in five sets on the fourth and fifth courts respectively. In both cases, the Amherst player was able to battle back from a two-set deficit to tie the match at 2-2, but neither Ehsani nor Bahadori could fully complete the comeback. Similarly, Ford, still reeling from his tough defeat the previous day at the hands of St. Lawrence, was unable to eke out the five-set victory on court nine. With the regular season now over, the purple and white turn to postseason action. First on the docket for Amherst is the CSA Team Championship, otherwise known as the Summers Cup, which will be held this weekend, Feb. 17-19, on the Harvard campus. The purple and white will first take on NESCAC rival Middlebury at 10 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 17, a foe Amherst fell to 9-0 already in early January.
Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios, Inc.
Men’s squash will compete in the CSA Team Championship this weekend.
Favorite Team Memory: Italy Favorite Pro Athlete: Damian Lillard Dream Job: Business owner Pet Peeve: When people step on my shoes Favorite Vacation Spot: Jamaica Something on Your Bucket List: Skydiving Guilty Pleasure: Watching “Love and Hip Hop” Favorite Food: Poutine Favorite thing about Amherst: Valentine dining hall How He Earned It: Just one week after teammate Johnny McCarthy ’18 tallied his 1,000th career point, Dawson matched the achievement by reaching the 1,000-point mark in the purple and white’s close loss to Middlebury. Although the team lost the game, Dawson shined, tallying 24 points total, with 14 coming in the second half during Amherst’s furious comeback attempt. Dawson managed to outdo the previous night’s effort against Hamilton, when he scored 30 points on only 16 shots, with six made threes and a perfect 8-8 mark from the stripe.
Jenna Finkelstein ’20 Favorite Team Memory: Going to a haunted corn maze in the fall Favorite Pro Athlete: Tom Brady Dream Job: Travel blogger Pet Peeve: People clapping at the end of a flight Favorite Vacation Spot: The Caribbean Something on Your Bucket List: Seeing penguins in Antarctica Guilty Pleasure: Herrell’s ice cream Favorite Food: Thanksgiving dinner Favorite thing about Amherst: Being a part of the Amherst women’s squash team How She Earned It: Part of an immensely talented group of first-years, Finkelstein has shone in recent weeks for the purple and white. The only member of the Amherst squad to go undefeated with a 3-0 mark in NESCAC Championship play, Finkelstein carried over that dominance to last weekend’s action. In competetive matches against St. Lawrence and Mount Holyoke, Finkelstein trounced both of her opponents, sweeping each match 3-0, with the closest set in any match being 11-8.
Women’s Basketball Finishes Perfect Regular Season With Two More Wins Talia Land ’20 Staff Writer The Amherst women’s basketball team had a successful week, competing as the topranked team in the nation during the last week of regular season play. After a pair of tough road matchups the previous weekend, the purple and white hosted games on both Friday and Saturday in Lefrak Gymnasium. On Friday night, Amherst hosted conference foe Middlebury. The game seemed evenly matched in the first few minutes. At the end of the quarter, Amherst held a slight 11-7 lead courtesy of three pointers by Meghan Sullivan ’19 and Meredith Doswell ’17. The purple and white proceeded to destroy the Panthers in the second quarter, tallying 24 points and allowing Middlebury to score only two. Entering halftime, the score was 35-9, favoring Amherst. Amherst continued this dominance to start the second half, with Ali Doswell ’17 scoring the first seven points of the third quarter. The purple and white also maintained their strong defensive effort, widening the lead to 40 points. Off the bench, Hannah Fox ’20 impressed, scoring a career high 14 points, including four three-point plays. Emma McCarthy ’19 added nine rebounds, while JJ Daniell ’19 secured six boards. The final score was 67-33 in favor of the purple and white. On Saturday, Amherst hosted Hamilton in the team’s last regular season game. The purple and white got off to a fast start, scoring the first 14 points of the game and leading 23-5 after one quarter of play. Buckets from Meredith Doswell, McCarthy and Madeline Eck ’20 added to the Amherst lead that reached 31-10 at the intermission. For the second straight game, Amherst roared out of the gates at the start of the third
quarter, holding Hamilton scoreless for the first 8:40 of the frame. Eck hit a pair of threes and McCarthy shot 4-5 from the field in the quarter. In the fourth period, Natalie Nardella ’20 scored seven of Amherst’s 10 points while fellow first-year Cam Hendricks added three points. Amherst finished off Hamilton by a score of 67-21. With the win, Amherst finished the regular season at 24-0, giving the team the top seed in the NESCAC tournament. This is the third time the team has finished a regular season undefeated, with the other two marks coming in 2009-10 and 2011-12. Amherst will play Bates at home starting at 4 p.m. next Saturday, Feb. 18, in the NESCAC tournament quarterfinals.
Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios Inc.
Madeline Eck ‘20 poured in 10 points on Saturday against Hamilton.
The Amherst Student • February 15, 2017
Sports
11
Men’s Basketball Closes Out Regular Season with Split of NESCAC Games
Men’s Track Qualifies Several Athletes for Postseason with Strong Individual Showings
Delancey King ’18 Staff Writer
Veronica Rocco ’19 Staff Writer
This week concluded regular season action for the Amherst men’s basketball team. The purple and white finished with an overall record of 17-6 and a conference record of 7-3, which sets them up as the third seed for this weekend’s NESCAC tournament. Unfortunately, Amherst heads into the postseason coming off of two devastating losses to Wesleyan and Middlebury. The team has to make some quick adjustments if they are going to progress far into the postseason. After a 73-72 overtime loss to Wesleyan last Tuesday, Feb. 7 in Lefrak Gymnasium, Amherst traveled to Middlebury on Friday, Feb. 10 for another competitive conference matchup. The purple and white had a solid first half, shooting a respectable 40.5 percent from the floor and 37.5 percent from three-point range, but the Panthers were simply the better team on the day. Shooting 61.1 percent from the field, Middlebury went on two 8-0 runs in the first half and entered the intermission with a comfortable 21-point lead. After the break, the purple and white came out and scored eight of the first 10 points of the second half. A huge trey from Berman cut the Panthers’ lead to 12, and Amherst looked ready to make a comeback. However, despite several quality runs from the purple and white, Middlebury maintained their composure and had an answer for each
of Amherst’s efforts. An impressive 31-point performance from Panthers’ senior standout Matt St. Amour propelled Middlebury to the 106-91 win. Recording a team-high 24 points against Middlebury, Dawson surpassed the 1,000 point milestone . He is only the 30th player in program history to reach the benchmark. The purple and white wrapped things up on Saturday when they traveled to Hamilton, New York for their final conference tilt. The first half started out as a battle, with each team matching the other run for run. However, on the back of threes from Jacob Nabatoff ’17 and Riopel, Amherst pulled away from the Continentals and headed into halftime with a solid 44-36 lead. Hamilton managed to come within six points of the purple and white after a 7-0 run in the second half, but Dawson helped Amherst reestablish a comfortable lead with three treys and 4-for-4 shooting from the free throw line. Dawson led all players with 30 points, while Riopel and Johnny McCarthy ’18 contributed 18 and 13 points, respectively. Amherst was able to end their regular season on a high note, as they came away with the 86-75 conference victory. The purple and white will attempt to build on Saturday’s win when they take on sixthseeded Williams this weekend at home in the first round of the NESCAC tournament. This will be the rivals’ third meeting on the season, and Amherst will attempt to go 3-0 against the Ephs.
Women’s Ice Hockey Drops Two One-Goal Games to Conference Rival Hamilton Scout Boynton ’20 Staff Writer The Amherst women’s ice hockey team travelled to Clinton, New York for a two-game series against NESCAC foe Hamilton this past weekend. They fell twice to the Continentals with a 3-2 overtime loss on Friday and a 1-0 loss on Saturday. With these losses, Amherst falls to 11-7-4 on the season. On Friday, Amherst came out strong and went up 1-0 just 12 minutes into the game. Jamie McNamara ’19 beat a Hamilton defender in a footrace and deflected the loose puck between the legs of Hamilton goalie Sam Walther. In the third, the purple and white widened their lead to 2-0 as Alex Toupal ’18 scored her NESCAC-leading 17th goal of the season. With two minutes left in regulation, the Continentals pulled Walther to give themselves an extra skater. In the final 1:46, Hamilton netted two goals, sending the game into overtime. In the extra period, Pantera and Sara Culhane ’17 took hard shots on frame, but Walther was able to make the saves. Hamilton earned a power play off of a roughing call and with 49.9 seconds to play, the Continentals found the back of the net, securing the overtime win. The final score was 3-2 in favor of the Continentals, despite Amherst outshooting Hamilton 43-36. However, Amherst failed to capitalize on its one power play opportunity, while Hamilton did. Amherst’s offense was unable to finish on Saturday, despite a 32-20 shot advantage on the game. The first two periods were scoreless for both teams. The purple and white had two power plays in the second period, but were unable to convert. With six minutes remaining in the second, Miriam Eickhoff ’19 took a shot from the point, but Hamilton’s goalie made a nice save, smothering the puck. Hamilton scored the game winner with 7:13 left in the game as the Continentals de-
flected a shot from the point. With 52 seconds remaining, Caitlyn Ryan ’17 fired a snapshot on goal but the Continental goalie pulled off a kick save to cement their 1-0 victory. “It was frustrating this weekend because the outcomes didn’t reflect our performance,” McNamara said. “We controlled the play overall but we need to make sure we push through all 60 minutes. We had a lot of grade-A scoring but couldn’t capitalize when we needed to most.” The purple and white will play their final regular season weekend Feb. 18-19, away at Wesleyan on Saturday and home against the Cardinals on Sunday. Puck drop is at 3 p.m. for both games.
Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios
Emma Griese ‘18 helped Amherst limit Hamilton to only three goals.
This weekend, the Amherst men’s track and field team traveled to Boston University to compete at the David Hemery Valentine Invitational, one of the largest meets in the nation during the indoor season. With athletes from all divisions of the NCAA, as well as post-collegiate and professional runners competing at the banked BU track, the purple and white finished off the regular season with fast times. The purple and white did not race the entire team, as several long-distance runners decided to skip the meet in favor of training for upcoming postseason races, or ended their indoor season to get ready for the outdoor campaign. First-year Theo Bates started off the day by winning his heat of the 60-meter hurdles in a time of 8.53 seconds, a new personal best. Maxim Doiron ’19 and Yonas Shiferaw ’20 also competed in the event, running times of 9.22 and 9.26 seconds, respectively. Vernon Espinoza ’19 was the lone Amherst competitor in the 800-meter run and had a great race, placing fourth in his heat with a time of 1:54, just shy of his personal best. His stellar run qualified him for Open New Englands in the 800-meter run and showed that the sophomore is ready for the postseason. First-year Elijah Ngbokoli continued his success in the short sprints, placing fifth in his heat for the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.23 seconds. Classmates Mayowa Tinubu and Biafra Okoronkwo ran times of 7.37 and 7.45 seconds, respectively, in the short sprint. Junior David Ingraham had an excellent day in the 400-meter run, sprinting to a new lifetime personal best in the two-lap event with a time of 50.45 seconds. With his stellar run, Ingraham qualified for next weekend’s DIII New England Championships at Tufts. Classmate Harrison Haigood ’18 also ran a lifetime personal best in the 400 with a time of 51.38 seconds. Alex Mangiafico ’20 and Jeff Ewing ’18 competed in the 500-meter run, running times of 1:09
and 1:11, respectively. In the 200-meter dash, Ngbokoli placed fourth in his heat in 22.64 seconds, setting a personal best and qualifying him in the event for the DIII New England Championship next weekend. Ingraham and Haigood followed their teammate by running times of 23.09 and 23.18 seconds, respectively. Okoronkwo and Tinubu also snuck under 24 seconds, running times of 23.76 and 23.63 seconds, respectively. In the one-mile run, senior Kevin Connors placed fifth in his heat with a time of 4:14, qualifying him for Open New Englands. The miler came up just short of breaking his personal best that he set on this track just one year ago. Sophomore Kristian Sogaard continued his success in the mile, running a new personal best time of 4:16. Spencer Ferguson-Dryden ’20 set a personal best in the mile, running a time of 4:19, which qualified him for the DIII New England Championships. Fellow first-years Ralph Skinner and Estevan Velez had excellent races as well, running 4:23 and 4:24, respectively. Newcomer Clark Ricciardelli ’20E started his Amherst career in a positive way, winning his heat in a time of 4:27. Sam Amaka ’19 was the lone Amherst competitor in the field events, reaching a mark of 14.27m (46’ 10”) in the weight throw. “The team had some great performances all around, with a lot of guys hitting season PR [personal records],” Ingraham said. “We’re looking very strong heading into the DIII New England Championship meet, and I think we have a great shot at finishing as one of the highest scoring teams.” With the conclusion of the regular season, only purple and white athletes who have qualified in individual events or relays will be competing in postseason meets. The first meet of the postseason is the New England DIII Championships which will be hosted by Tufts, followed by the Open New Englands which will be held at the famed Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center the following weekend.
Women’s Swim and Dive Finishes Second Overall at NESCAC Championship Meet Katie Bergamesca ’18 Staff Writer After the grueling, three-day long NESCAC Championship at Bowdoin in Brunswick, Maine, the Amherst women’s swim team claimed second in the conference with a total of 1,367 points. The purple and white finished behind archrival Williams, who captured their fourth consecutive conference title with a total of 1,856 points. First-year Ingrid Shu was sole swimmer for Amherst to claim an individual title. Nearly breaking the NESCAC meet record of 23.27, Shu glided into first in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 23.62. The decorated rookie also aided in the 200-yard freestyle relay team’s third place finish. In addition to Shu, the relay team was comprised of Geralyn Lam ’18, Natalie Rumpelt ’20 and Destin Groff ’17. Lam also collected a fourth place finish in the 50-yard butterfly, clocking in at 25.60. During the second day of competition, Amherst’s 200-yard medley relay team of junior Stephanie Moriarty, Lam, Groff and Shu claimed third in a time of 1:44.96. Bridgette Kwong ’19 swam to a third place finish for the purple and white in the 400-yard IM (4:26.01). Moriarty also finished fourth in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 57.07. In diving, Jackie Palermo ’19 added another fourth place finish in the one-meter diving (416.75). Going into the third day of competition, Amherst maintained their second-place standing and Williams was in position to keep their lead and claim yet another championship. Although the Ephs were ultimately out of
Photo courtesy of Amherst Athletics
First-year Ingrid Shu finished first in the NESCAC in the 50-yard freestyle. reach, the purple and white put on an impressive performance for the final day of the meet. Kwong and Moriarty took third and fourth place, respectively, in the 200-yard backstroke with times of 2:02.34 and 2:02.42. In one of the most exciting events of the day, Rumpelt, Shu, Lam and Moriarty secured a second place finish in the 400-yard freestyle, clocking a time of 3:27.42. While the purple and white were unable to claim the title, several Amherst swimmers recorded times that qualified them for the NCAA Division III Championships in March. Before the Amherst women go on a nearly month-long hiatus, the team will travel to Wesleyan this Sunday, Feb. 19 for their February Invite.
Sports
Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios, Inc.
Sophomore defender Phil Johansson has contributed 10 total points to the purple and white offense this season with three goals and seven total assists.
Men’s Hockey Snaps Three Game Losing Streak, Defeats Connecticut College Julia Turner ’19 Managing Sports Editor The Amherst men’s hockey team split this weekend’s conference matchups, falling to Tufts and pulling off a 4-0 win against the Camels of Connecticut College to solidify the purple and white as the sixth-ranked team in the NESCAC. Amherst started its weekend on the road in Medford, Massachusetts, facing Tufts on Friday, Feb. 10. The purple and white were off to a strong start, with a quick attempt on goal by David White ’18 just two minutes into the first period. Unfortunately, the low, hard shot on frame was deflected by the Camel goalie, his first of 27 saves for the Jumbos. The remainder of the first period was scoreless, as both teams struggled to capitalize on power plays. Tufts managed to take control after the break, however, finding the back of the net just 11 seconds into the second period. The purple and white clung on until halfway
through the third period when, with twelve minutes left to play, the Jumbos logged three goals in under three minutes to set the score at 4-0. Connor Girard ’18 made 21 stops for the purple and white for the first 50 minutes of the game, before senior Adam Ellison came in for relief to save the final five goals. The next day, the purple and white traveled to Conn. College to end their three-game losing streak on the road. The Camels tried to gain the advantage early, as they looked to capitalize on a 3 vs. 2 situation just four minutes into the first period. The shot from the left dot and the rebound by the Camels were both stonewalled by Girard, allowing Patrick Daly ’20 to net the first score of the game five minutes later for his 11th goal of the season. The first-year has impressed this season for the purple and white. Daly has 11 goals on the season, the most among a very talented Amherst offense. With his nine assists, Daly has chipped in for 20 goals total.
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GAME SCHE DULE
Rebounding a blocked shot, Daly fired of a high shot that, although initially gloved down by the Camel goalie, managed to sneak over the goal line to put Amherst up 1-0. The second period brought a wave of pressure from the Camels as they tied up the game with just over a minute remaining. Entering the third period with the game knotted at one, sophomore Max Roche netted the game-winner right through the legs of the Camel goalkeeper for his first score of the season. Girard’s 22-save performance makes him 7-6-3 on the season, with an impressive 368 saves on the year. Girard’s outstanding performance thus far has made him a contender for the Joe Concannon Award. The prize, for which Girard was recently named a semifinalist, honors the best American-born college hockey player in New England. The 26 NCAA Division II and III semifinalists span five conferences. Girard is one of only four goalies being considered for the award, and would be the first purple and white
skater to take home the award since Jeff Landers ’09 in 2009. By splitting the weekend, Amherst improves to 12-6-3 on the season and 7-6-3 in league play. This record is enough to qualify the purple and white for NESCAC post-season play, as they are currently ranked sixth in the conference. Amherst returns to Orr Rink on Friday, Feb. 17 when they host archrival Williams for a 7 p.m. conference battle. The purple and white have not claimed a victory against the Ephs yet this year, though have come close, falling to the top ranked NESCAC team 4-3 in December. The next day, Feb. 18, the team will face Middlebury at home to conclude their regular season with a 3 p.m. matchup. The purple and white have the opportunity to add to their win total facing the Panthers, who currently sit at the bottom of the NESCAC rankings with a record of (3-13-0). Amherst took on Middlebury at home earlier this season, where they earned a 4-1 victory.
Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios, Inc.
FRI
Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios, Inc.
SAT
Men’s Track & Field @ NCAA DIII New England’s, 4 p.m.
Men’s Swimming & Diving @ NESCAC Championships
Women’s Track & Field @ NCAA DIII New England’s, 4 p.m.
Men’s Squash vs. Middlebury @ CSA Team Championship
Men’s Ice Hockey vs. Williams, 7 p.m.
Men’s Track & Field @ NCAA DIII New England’s, 10 a.m. Women’s Track & Field @ NCAA DIII New England’s, 10:30 a.m.
TUE Men’s Swimming & Diving @ NESCAC Championships Men’s Basketball vs. Williams, 2 p.m.
Men’s Ice Hockey vs. Middlebury, 3 p.m. Women’s Ice Hockey @ Wesleyan, 3 p.m. Women’s Basketball vs. Bates, 4 p.m.