Issue 18

THE AMHERST

THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER OF AMHERST COLLEGE SINCE 1868

STUDENT VOLUME CXLVI, ISSUE 18 l WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2017

Women’s Basketball Progresses to NESCAC Semifinals See Sports, Page 9 AMHERSTSTUDENT.AMHERST.EDU

Residential Life Announces Housing Changes Ariana Lee ’20 and Caleigh Plaut ’19 Staff Writers

Photo courtesy of Faith Wen ’20

Housing selection for the 2017-2018 academic year will feature changes that include time group formations, genderspecific rooms and earlier theme house admissions.

For Women’s Sports, Challenges Remain Kiana Herold ’17, Senior Adviser Sophie Murguia ’17 , Executive Adviser Isabel Tessier ’19, Managing News Editor In fall 1975, as the first women arrived on Amherst’s campus for orientation, the student coach for men’s crew was recruiting novices to join the team. In an effort to fill more boats, he decided to hang flyers in women’s dorms as well as men’s.

“That kind of kicked off the athletic program for women,” said Professor of Physical Education Michelle Morgan, who arrived at Amherst a few years later in 1978.

The next spring, a four-woman boat beat Syracuse in Amherst’s first women’s intercollegiate competition. In the fall of 1976, the first women’s teams in field hockey, basketball, squash and swimming were formed. As the women’s program grew, teams sometimes encountered obstacles in getting new equipment or practice times.

“For example, in the golf program, the women used to wear the men’s hand-me-down shirts,” Morgan said.

Much has changed over the past four decades, but some challenges remain for women athletes.

Fundraising for women’s teams is still more difficult than fundraising for men’s teams, and ensuring a fair distribution of resources is always a delicate balancing act for an athletic department that spends more than $600,000 a year on football. Women’s teams also tend to have smaller roster sizes, fewer assistant coaches and less money to spend on recruiting.

In interviews, Athletics Department staff said that the smaller size of women’s teams is often a result of complex national trends and differences in game play between similar sports — certain women’s teams tend to be smaller nationwide.

Some men’s sports have become more specialized than equivalent women’s sports, which means that they tend to have more players and specialized coaches.

The Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act requires federally-funded colleges to make public certain data about gender equity in sports, including roster sizes, coaching information and spending. The Amherst Student obtained most of the data in this article from those reports, which

are managed by the Department of Education.

Title IX, the law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally-funded educational institutions, has various requirements regulating participation opportunities and benefits for men’s and women’s sports. The law does not require Amherst to spend the same amount on men’s and women’s sports, and it does not necessarily require that resources for each team be exactly the same.

Laurie Frankl, the college’s full-time Title IX coordinator, said her job is mostly focused on sexual misconduct, but she addresses Title IX issues when they come up in sports.

“Anyone can come speak to me with the knowledge that they will not and shall not be retaliated against for having their concern brought to me,” Frankl said.

Director of Athletics Don Faulstick oversees gender equity issues on a day-to-day basis if they come up, whether or not they are related to Title IX. For instance, Faulstick recently spearheaded an effort to ensure that all the head coaches for women’s teams had their own offices.

Jen Hughes ’97, the women’s soccer coach, said she also acts as a Title IX liaison for the Athletic Department, but has had to do virtually nothing in that role so far.

President Biddy Martin announced in January that the college will be conducting a Title IX compliance review later this spring.

FUNDRAISING One of the biggest challenges for women’s teams is fundraising. “There doesn’t seem to be the quantity or magnitude of donations on the women’s side that there seem to be on the men’s side,” Hughes said.

“Many women’s programs have had a harder time being able to fundraise,” said Maria Rello, the Senior Woman Administrator and director of sports medicine. “That’s a frustration. That’s something the department absolutely recognizes, and so we’re trying to figure out ways to try to solve that problem.”

Team budgets are made up of an operations budget sourced from the department and a fundraising budget. Coaches submit their budget re-

quests for team operational expenses such as uniforms, travel and equipment to associate athletic director Gregg Dinardo ’01. Teams can fundraise by hosting clinics, working at other teams’ games, selling gear or soliciting money from parents and alumni. Fundraising differs by team, but can be used to pay for additional expenses such as trips, contributions to assistant coaches’ salaries and banquets.

Through the alumni organization Friends of Amherst Athletics, people can donate to a general fund for athletics or to individual teams. Money from the general fund can be used for women’s sports to even out fundraising discrepancies. Of the 15 alumni representatives on the executive board of Friends of Amherst Athletics, just three are women.

Women’s teams also have a much smaller alumni base to draw on for funds and generally have less success soliciting money from the alumni they have. “Unfortunately, there are still many more wealthy men than there are wealthy women, and so they have a wider network to pull from,” Rello said.

Women’s teams that were added to the athletic program more recently have an even smaller alumni base from which to solicit funds. For example, softball was added in 1996, while baseball began 30 years earlier.

“Baseball has such a huge history of giving … and they get money like that,” Morgan said.

“The softball team has only been a team since the mid ’90s. And so they have to make up that extra money by doing extra fundraising.”

“There’s not the same type of philanthropic giving by women as there are by men,” Morgan said. “That is changing, I think, and we are getting many more female alumni involved in that. Yes, that definitely is an area where we are behind, but that’s historical.”

The athletics department has expanded efforts to connect female athlete alumni with current players in the past few years, introducing mentorship opportunities and other alumnae events.

“Our alumni came to our spring games last year and always come up for Homecoming,” said

Continued on Page 3

The Residential Life Department has recently announced several changes to the housing selection and room draw process for the 2017-2018 academic year. Application forms and sign-ups for on-campus housing began on Monday, Feb. 13, and room draw this year will start on April 5.

The most significant change to the general room draw process is the redefinition of the groups that students form to enter the room draw process. In previous years, students were only able to form room groups, but the 2017 room draw will also offer the option to form “time groups.”

“This [is] to prevent some mishaps last year, when one person would enter a suite or double by themselves and block out other people from being able to take the suite or double,” Student Housing Advisory Committee member Justin Lee ’19 said.

Time groups, which can include up to six students, will all receive the same time slot to pick rooms, like room groups in previous years, but will be required to select rooms with occupancies matching the number of students in their group.

“For example, let’s say in a [time] group of six, two people were trying to live in a double and the other four were trying to live in a four-[person] suite,” Lee said. “They would have to break into two room groups of size two and size four and then enter the room[s that] they would like.”

Residential Life has also designated 75 percent of dorm rooms as single-gender in order to create a more balanced gender ratio in the dormitories.

All of these rooms will be assigned as either for women or for men. When students choose their rooms during room draw, they will only be able to choose from the rooms that are designated for their gender.

Because some students are gender-nonconforming or transgender, about 25 percent of the rooms will be coed and can be occupied by any student.

As with housing selection processes in previous years, students with housing accommodations and students over 25 years old will be placed into their rooms for next year prior to room draw.

“This way, we take everyone out who is not participating in the general room draw process so we can focus on the general group of students,” said Colonna.

Residential Life is also adding an extra night for room selection, making the room draw process four nights long, instead of three.

The first two nights of room draw will take place on April 5 and 6, and then the last two nights will take place a week later, on April 11 and 12. This will “[give Residential Life] the ability to spread people out more when choosing rooms and allows more time for assistance,” said Colonna.

Colonna said that last year’s housing selection data demonstrated a widespread demand for substance-free and quiet housing. In response, Residential Life has designated Morrow, Valentine Hall, Chapman, Seligman, Tyler and Wieland as “quiet halls.” Morrow and Valentine will also be substance-free dormitories.

“Quiet does not mean silent,” said Colonna.

“We are creating spaces where there would not be the ability to register a party on a weekend and that overall the people who are there are agreeing to keeping noise and disruption to a minimum for the community.”

News

Megan Adamo Feb. 14, 2017 - Feb. 20, 2017

>>Feb. 14, 2017 9:01 a.m., Valentine Dining Hall An officer and the Fire Department responded to an alarm and found it was activated by cooking smoke.

1:15 p.m., Morris Pratt Dormitory An officer assisted a Deputy Sheriff in serving legal paperwork to a resident of Morris Pratt.

6:49 p.m., The Octagon An officer responded to an animal complaint.

7:19 p.m., Tyler House An officer responded to an animal complaint. >>Feb. 15, 2017 2:33 p.m., Off Campus Locations An employee reported receiving unwanted messages via social media from an acquaintance.

6:34 p.m., Valentine Dining Hall Officers and the Fire Department responded to an alarm and discovered it was activated by cooking smoke.

10:14 p.m., James Dormitory Officers investigated a smoke detector sounding on the first floor and found it had activated when popcorn was burned in a microwave.

11:27 p.m., Pratt Pool Officers investigated an intrusion alarm but no cause could be found. >>Feb. 16, 2017 1:30 a.m., Hitchcock House Officers responded to a complaint of loud music and people yelling in the first-floor common room and spoke to a small group of students about the complaint.

9:21 p.m., Moore Dormitory A resident reported clothing stolen from the basement laundry room.

10:09 p.m., Converse Hall Officers and the Fire Department responded to an alarm and found it had activated when popcorn was burned in a third-floor kitchen.

11:20 p.m., Powerhouse An underage student was found in possession of alcohol for a second time while attending an event. He was required to leave the event and the matter was referred to Student Affairs. >>Feb. 18, 2017 12:57 a.m., Powerhouse An officer evaluated a student at an event who appeared to be under the influence of alcohol.

The man did not require any assistance and left the building.

1:17 a.m., Morris Pratt Dormitory While in the building, an officer found unattended alcohol in the basement common room. It was

disposed of.

1:28 a.m., Marsh House While in the building, an officer found unattended alcohol in the basement common room. It was disposed of.

1:59 a.m., Powerhouse A student reported the theft of a coat and ID during an event. The coat was returned to her the next day as another student had taken it by error.

9:11 a.m., Valentine Dining Hall An officer investigated a past physical incident between two employees. The matter was referred to the Human Resource office.

1:41 p.m., Hitchcock House A student reported receiving an IRS phone scam call where the caller tried to obtain nearly $7,000 from her. She did not send any money.

3:08 p.m., Seligman Parking Lot An officer investigated a car alarm sounding. No problem was found and the owner was notified.

5:31 p.m., Beneski Museum An officer investigated an intrusion alarm and found it was accidentally set off by an employee.

8:26 p.m., Seelye House An officer responded to a report of an unauthorized gathering in the first-floor common room and discovered a group of students playing beer pong. The activity was stopped.

9:46 p.m., Fayerweather Lot Road An officer encountered an underage male with a 30-pack of beer.

It was confiscated and the matter was referred to Student Affairs.

9:50 p.m., Fayerweather Lot Road An officer encountered two males outside of Moore Dormitory with an unlicensed keg. One student was fined $100.

10:24 p.m., Appleton Dormitory An officer discovered several people inside a first-floor room with alcohol. The matter was referred to Student Affairs. >>Feb. 19, 2017 12:16 a.m., Moore Dormitory Officers passing by Moore Dormitory intervened between two students who appeared to be having a verbal altercation. After speaking with them, no further assistance was needed. >>Feb. 20, 2017 1:41 a.m., Hitchcock House A caller complained about loud music and people yelling in the first-floor common room. An officer spoke to a group of students and their activity ended for the night.

Thoughts on Theses Department of Economics

Megan Adamo is an economics and math major researching mood swings and risk aversion for an economics thesis. Her adviser is Assistant Professor of Economics Collin Raymond.

Q: What are you researching?

A: I’m writing a thesis in economics about the relationship between magnitude of mood swings and risk aversion. In the fall, I ran an experiment and recruited a bunch of Amherst participants — 80 of you participated in it. The first week, I sent out texts three times a day, just asking for your mood on a one to eight scale, and tallied the responses to get a baseline mood rate. Then they ended up coming in to sessions in Val [Valentine Hall] common room for three weeks after that, and I would give them a 50/50 lottery to win three dollars or not depending on ... mood swing.

I also asked them a bunch of economic indicator questions. When you throw a bunch of variables together, you’re going to get a correlation of something. The main ones I was looking at were the mood swings, and … risk aversion, which is kind of like, I would ask them questions — “Would you rather have this amount of money for sure, or this gamble?” Obviously the gamble was the riskier choice. You would give them a series of those, and you would see where they would switch from the riskier choice to the “for sure” option. That would give me a proxy of their risk aversion. It’s fun. I have a lot of data. It’s a disgusting Excel sheet. …

With my regression, I can control for a ton of stuff, because I’d ask them about gender, year, major, income, political views and tons of other stuff. I did a lot of just raw correlations, between looking at even time discounting or risk aversion under loss — “Big Five” characteristics. A lot of this stuff is not very correlated, so I might not go much farther with it, except saying, “Look, existing literature also says that many of these indicators are not really correlated.” So I guess I found evidence supporting that as well.

Q: Have you gotten a conclusion yet?

A: There is a ... positive significant correlation that I found between your risk aversion switch point and your mood swing, which is nice to see. … With econ theses, you just refine, refine. I add more controls. I’m looking at theory behind it. I’m looking at weird pieces of my data ... even though we see this, why do we see it? I want to tease out the individual effects. The main conclusion is yes, positive significant result, but [I’m] still just going forward with it.

Q: When you say you’re controlling for something, what does that mean?

A: If I just look at a correlation, I’m just going to look at how mood swing is related to risk aversion.

Obviously ... there’s a million things that contribute to mood swings. … For example, gender …

I found that females have larger mood swings. I want to control for that … the more things you control for, the more that you see is just from your “risk aversion switch point.” So the more things [that] I control for potentially could make that correlation weaker. So far it hasn’t, which is a good thing. You want to tease out the main effect of the main variable that I’m looking at.

Q: How did you convince people to sign up for the study?

A: I started off and I think that [in] a lot of the intro econ classes, the professors were like, “Hey, sign up for this study.” I reached out to a lot of [sports] teams and they sent it to their listservs, a lot of major listservs like math [and] econ. ... I posted in [an Amherst Facebook group] “Free and For Sale” … and I got a ton of responses ... so people in need of thesis recruiting, do “Free and For

Sale” and word-of-mouth. I definitely harassed a lot of my friends to do it. I was like, “You’re taking my study,” even though my advisor was like, “Try not to get people who know what you’re doing.” I was like, “Yeah, that’s impossible — sorry. I already told everyone.”

Q: What would you say has been the hardest part of your thesis?

A: I was running the experiment for four weeks, and it was a lot of busy work that wasn’t necessarily hard, but it was the best way. … Data entry, and even sending out the texts ... Sometimes you don’t realize what’s going to go wrong until you actually do it, and then you’re scrambling, and the printer’s broken or the stapler’s broken. It’s dumb stuff like that. Now the hardest part is ... [that] it’s relatively unstructured. I know I need a draft done by probably spring break ... Experimental econ theses aren’t super common. I’m just kind of following what my advisor wants me to think about. He’ll be like, “Think about this,” and then I end up writing it up, and I’m kind of like, “Is this right?” … You don’t get a ton of feedback until a draft is in. So it’s like, “Okay, I have 23 pages of writing, but is it good writing?” That’s the hardest part for now.

Q: What advice do you have for future thesis writers?

A: Kind of the cliché advice … what I like to say is make sure you feel personally victimized by your topic and you’re super devoted to it, because you’re going to think about it a lot, you’re going to tell it to a million people and you’re going to get so invested in it that you get confused about it. You need to be willing to stick with it. … I’m a really moody person who’s really risk-averse, and so I think that’s kind of cool, right? Just make sure you’re really interested in it. ... It helps to like your advisor, because you’re going to have to spend a lot of time with him, and you should be comfortable with him. I feel comfortable enough to just be like, “Colin, you’re not helping me. Help me here.”

Q: Do you want to do anything like your thesis in the future, such as more economics research?

A: My advisor has definitely mentioned … the prospect of getting it published, which would be cool. … I’ve definitely had thoughts of maybe econ grad school, which would be more econ research. Not sure about that anymore, but I’m doing econ consulting next year so it’s a different type of research. I can always see it being part of my life, but I’m not sure I’ll explicitly go do econ research in the future. It’s been a good experience for sure, better than I expected.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

A: The thing that I thought was really fun was the experimentation process. So I guess another piece of advice would be do an experimentation if you can. You have to realize that working with people is tough, and dealing with missing data, but it was really nice. I say that through my thesis I got to make 80 new friends, which was kind of cool. To those that took it — thank you, and I swear you’ll get debriefed before the end of the year. Don’t be afraid to be passionate about a topic, because it’s really cool to have this topic and have it be your own. I’ve definitely bonded with the other thesis students in econ, and you end up learning the other econ thesis students’ topics so well as well, which is kind of cool.

— Jacob Gendelman ’20

The Amherst Student • February 22, 2017

News

3

After 40 Years, Challenges Remain For Women’s Sports Continued from Page 1

women’s tennis player Sofia Aisiks ’19. “We do team bonding with the alumni, which is something I always look forward to.”

Fundraising is particularly important for teams like baseball and softball to raise money for spring break trips. Such trips are a necessity due to cold and snowy New England weather and comprise a substantial portion of both team’s games. Both baseball and softball have to pay several hundred dollars out of pocket for their spring trips, and the rest is covered by fundraising.

Faulstick said he tries to make sure that all teams who go on spring break trips pay equitable amounts. Some teams try to ease the burden on players by decreasing travel.

“We work hard to solicit donations to help defray spring break costs so as not to have our athletes have to fundraise or pay too much out of pocket for our spring trip,” women’s lacrosse coach Chris Paradis wrote in an email. “We also only fly south every other year in order to not have this yearly financial burden.” This year, women’s lacrosse players will spend most of their spring break on campus.

Teams can also take international trips oriented towards education and cultural immersion, if they have the funds. In June 2014, the men’s soccer team toured France, and the baseball team traveled to Japan two months later. In August 2015, the men’s basketball team traveled to Italy.

However, women’s teams have not gone on as many comparable trips in recent years. The most recent was the women’s soccer trip to Spain and Monaco in 2008.

ROSTER SIZES According to Department of Education data from 2015, Amherst had 79 more male athletes than female athletes — 57 percent of athletes are male, and 43 percent are female.

With 76 players, far more than any women’s team, football accounts for the largest discrepancy in roster sizes between genders. In particular, high-profile men’s teams tend to have larger roster sizes than their women’s team counterparts.

Coaches have explained roster differences as stemming largely from differences in game play, different regulations on size and the size of a team’s impact on chemistry.

For example, the men’s lacrosse team has 46 players, while women’s lacrosse has 26. According to Faulstick, this is part of a nationwide trend in men’s lacrosse — increasing specialization and changing playing tactics have drastically increased roster sizes. In the 2016 report “The Place of Athletics at Amherst College,” the Department of Athletics also referenced a higher frequency of injuries in lacrosse as a reason for the larger roster sizes. Women’s lacrosse coach Christine Paradis cited NESCAC squad limits as the primary reason for the team’s smaller roster size.

The smaller roster size trend for women’s sports continues with soccer and basketball — sports that are comparable across genders.

In 2015, men’s soccer fielded 28 players to the women’s 25, and men’s basketball had 17 players to the women’s 12. Women’s soccer coach Hughes pointed to NCAA limits on how many players can suit up during the tournament as influencing roster sizes choices. Hughes said having too many players can cause problems for team chemistry. Women’s basketball coach G. P. Gromacki said that he did not prefer over 14 players on the roster.

The baseball roster exceeds softball with 33 players to softball’s 19. Softball coach Jessica Johnson said that softball teams are usually smaller than baseball teams because baseball is a different sport and requires more pitchers. Johnson also said that she prefers to keep her roster below 20 players, because the NCAA only allows 20 players to participate in the postseason.

Despite the addition of two women’s teams in the 1990s, softball and ice hockey, “[football] does throw off the participation numbers,” Faulstick said. There remain “certain things that we just [have to] continue to be aware of because of that,” he added.

Many of these disparities are symptomatic of larger nationwide trends and historical realities.

Most other NESCAC schools have similar gender proportions in athletics.

The college’s report on the state of Amherst athletics said that some sports, like men’s lacrosse and men’s and women’s track, have increased their roster sizes in recent years.

“It should be noted, however, that neither expansion led to greater gender equity among athletes, and thus did not accomplish the goal of bringing the college into closer alignment with Title IX requirements,” the report said. One way of assessing Title IX compliance is proportionality — that the ratio of women to men athletes is roughly in line with the gender ratio of the general student body.

The authors of the report made a strong recommendation that the college stop increasing roster sizes for sports teams.

ASSISTANT COACHES Women’s teams also tend to have fewer assistant coaches than men’s teams. Last year, men’s teams had 31 assistant coaches, while women’s teams had 20. Much of the difference can be explained by football, which has eight assistant coaches — three of whom are full-time employees.

Faulstick said that sports with larger rosters, like football, often have more coaches. Football is also one of several men’s sports that have specialized coaching positions — for instance, an offensive coordinator and a defensive coordinator.

Additionally, some assistant coach positions are funded with a combination of Athletic Department money and money from fundraising, which means that paying for assistant coaches is more challenging for certain teams.

“When you don’t have fully funded programs and you have to raise money to offset the budget stuff, that’s where it gets tricky,” Faulstick said.

“I do see some inconsistencies,” Rello said. “It’s not a matter of putting more importance on one program or the other. It’s just sometimes, we’ve had turnover that we haven’t been able to replace.”

Some differences are lingering products of historical differences between men’s and women’s teams. For example, six years ago, the college separated the men’s and women’s track and cross country programs, hiring a full-time head coach for the women’s team. But the result was that the women’s team had fewer assistant coaches. This year, the college hired another assistant coach for the women’s team, using funds from the dean of the faculty’s office intended to increase diversity among coaching staff.

“There’s progress,” Rello said. “We just need to finish it.”

Coaching has historically been a male-dominated field, and fewer than half of Amherst

coaches are women, although college data shows that a majority of the coaches for women’s teams are women. Women of color are especially underrepresented, and nearly three-quarters of Amherst athletes are white.

The average salary for women’s assistant coaches is also much lower than the average for men’s. Last year, women’s assistant coaches made an average of $12,826 per year, while men’s assistant coaches made an average of $17,880.

Faulstick said that football explains a large part of the discrepancy. The full-time football assistant coaches are benefited positions and make more than the average part-time assistant.

“And then you have certain assistant coaches — they’ve been here longer, they potentially could make more money,” Faulstick said.

One team, women’s golf, has a head coach who is considered a part-time employee. Michelle Morgan coached the team until spring 2015, when she entered phased retirement. After Morgan stopped coaching, there was no full-time position available to coach women’s golf, so the team had to look for applicants willing to take on the head coach position as a part-time job. Mike Valentine ’05 coached the team for a year before leaving the college, and in spring 2016 the team finally found Elizabeth Davis to fill the role.

“It felt ridiculous that men’s golf would have two coaches and we couldn’t find one,” said Sarah Ressler ’16, a former captain of the women’s team.

“I think we all felt, in the process of trying to hire a head coach last year, that we were being put in a position men’s golf would never have to be in.”

On the men’s side, Jack Arena ’83 does double duty as head coach of men’s golf and men’s ice hockey, while football coach E.J. Mills serves as an assistant.

“I think it’s unfair to suggest that that is entirely a gender issue,” Ressler added. “There’s definitely a hierarchy of sports within the Amherst athletic department, and golf is closer to the bottom of that hierarchy.”

“The college is determining hiring priorities, and has not yet determined if it will hire a head golf coach,” Faulstick wrote in an email. Adding full-time equivalent positions is a complex process that requires input from the board of trustees.

FOOTBALL Like many colleges, Amherst devotes more resources to football than to any other sport. In 2015 the college reported spending $2,547,342 in expenses for men’s sports and $2,032,187 for women’s — a half-million dollar difference. Virtually all of this difference can be explained by the $639,614 directed toward football.

That number is almost double the amount spent on the team with the second largest expenses, men’s basketball.

Amherst is not unique in pouring such a large proportion of its resources into football, but the college does spend more on football than the majority of other NESCAC schools.

Football also has a strong presence in the athletic department leadership. Friends of Amherst Athletics president Rick Murphy ’73 is a football alum, and Faulstick used to be an assistant football and head softball coach.

There has long been a nationwide debate about whether the disproportionate influence of football poses a problem for gender equity.

Pat Griffin, a professor emerita at UMass Amherst and advocate for LGBTQ and women athletes, argued that football does present an equity

issue. “If all alumni care about is men’s football … they put enormous pressure on the leadership of the college and the athletic department to fund those programs,” she said.

“I don’t see it as a problem,” Faulstick said.

“Schools that have football need to continue to really stay on track with everything else and make sure that all the students are getting exactly what they deserve.”

This means resizing budgets and allocating alumni donations to teams — often women’s — that receive fewer alumni donations. In the past, Faulstick has even cut off certain men’s teams from fundraising after they raised a large amount of money.

“Coaches know that just because you’re able to raise money, doesn’t mean that you can do whatever you want with the money,” he said.

RECRUITING Recruiting expenses also differ greatly between men’s and women’s teams. Department of Education data show that last year, the college spent $32,657 recruiting for men’s teams but only $14,506 on women’s teams.

Faulstick said some men’s teams use expensive recruiting services to find players, which makes up a large part of the difference. He did not respond to requests to specify which teams use recruiting services.

“Recruiting practices vary from sport to sport and coach to coach,” Faulstick said. “There is no ‘one size fits all’ model.”

Many teams recruit players with camps and clinics on Amherst’s campus, and coaches can also travel across the country to recruit players at major competitions. For example, Hughes said that women’s soccer will host four clinics each calendar year and that she typically travels to tournaments in places such as Florida, Virginia and New Jersey.

Each team has a separate recruiting budget, and coaches can request more funding on a caseby-case basis. Hughes said the department has never turned down her requests for additional recruiting money.

The most recent government data on college recruiting show that Williams, Colby and Hamilton all spent more on recruiting for women’s sports than men’s in 2014. Trinity spent about the same amount on men’s and women’s programs.

All other NESCAC schools spent more recruiting for men’s sports.

As of Tuesday evening, the athletic directors of Williams and Colby had not responded to inquiries from The Student about their recruitment spending.

Faulstick said the department has requested more money in its recruiting budget for next year to help offset the gender gap.

Although a few of the differences between men’s and women’s sports are especially pronounced at Amherst, most are part of nationwide trends in college athletics. Women’s teams have been playing catch-up ever since Title IX was passed in 1972, and the obstacles can be much greater at schools with fewer resources than Amherst.

“We are trying really hard to figure out all the little pieces that go into that and how we can help to work collaboratively and make things really equitable for everybody,” Rello said. “There aren’t easy answers, but it’s something that Don, Gregg and I are incredibly invested in.”

Speaker Discusses Power and Spirituality in Yoruba Art

Kathleen Maeder ’20 Staff Writer Nkiru Nzegwu, Professor of Africana Studies at Binghamton University, held a talk in Pruyne Lecture Hall on Thursday, Feb. 16 to discuss aspects of Yoruba artistic culture in relation to power, spirituality and gender.

The talk, free and open to members of the public, was hosted by the Art and the History of Art, Black Studies and Sexuality, Women and Gender Studies departments and supported by the Lurcy Lecture Fund. Amherst Professor of Art Rowland Abiodun introduced Nzegwu at

the start of the event.

Nzegwu explained that part of her lecture was drawn from a book she was currently writing. The book aims to “undermine the role of gender, not because I don’t see the utility and efficacy of gender … [but because] we need something ... to be able to undercut the logic of subordination that so permeates studies … of African women.”

Nzegwu then focused her attention on a Nigerian artist, Nike Davies-Okundaye. Before her discussion, she acknowledged that much of the academic writing on Davies-Okundaye’s artwork was completed by Western intellectuals.

She explained that, unlike Western academics at the time, prominent Yoruba artists did not focus their work and ideas around questions of identity.

“Questions about identity, name or authorship are typically raised by one who is unfamiliar with Yoruba artistic leadership,” said Nzegwu.

Nzegwu said that Davies-Okundaye’s art utilizes “beautiful patterns, complex symbols and expressive details … encoded into her art are messages in this indirect language as well as in the Yoruba language,” said Nzegwu.

This artwork, Nzegwu said, created a challenge for Western scholars “because of … philo-

sophic difference, and the fact [that] Yoruba art is not given to literal interpretation.”

Nzegwu also noted the spiritual aspect of Davies-Okundaye’s artwork, particularly “the influence of Osun, the most powerful and influential divinity of ownership in Yoruba.”

Osun, Nzegwu said, is “a conception of power … that is inherently female, a power that seems to be at the center of life.”

Following Nzegwu’s talk, several audience members were able to ask questions on topics that ranged from the power of symbols in art outside of a culture’s context to the significance of color.

Opinion

THE AMHERST

STUDENT

Humble Listening

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

Editorial Speaking and listening across political divide in these times is challenging. We are intent on bringing conservative ideas to liberal campuses, or bringing liberal ideas to conservative campuses. We are focused on pulling in thoughts beyond our standard lines of thinking.

We seek to break the assumed bubbles in which we exist. However, these efforts are often ineffective due to an absence of true listening.

An example from our campus is particularly salient to this conversation. Recently, AC Voice published a “guest post” that featured discussion regarding President Donald Trump’s executive order banning immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries. The article voiced a “different side” of the immigration ban, one that previously had not been discussed in the mainstream on our campus. Unlike their other pieces, AC Voice published a disclaimer to accompany this article: “The following was sent to AC Voice and has been reproduced exactly as received. The editorial staff does not affirm or endorse these views.” The article promptly received criticism both in the comments section and on the social media feeds on which it was shared. Some comments critiqued the article’s content, while others focused on misspellings and grammatical errors.

Not only did AC Voice’s readership respond to the piece, but a member of their editorial staff responded in a formal article. The response begins with the framework under which the article was accepted and published: “... our editorial staff made the decision to publish ‘“Still your president” — the other side of the immigration ban!” in order to communicate to our campus the intellectual quality of some of the arguments supporting President Trump’s actions, and to confront the alarming reality that there are individuals at institutions like Amherst who uncritically subscribe to these dogmas.”

The response article goes on to attack each of the arguments set out in the original guest post, not only attacking the content, but once again directly criticizing the author and making assumptions about her intelligence.

The Editorial Board takes many issues with the publication of both the original article and AC Voice’s subsequent response article.

First, at the heart of the matter is a problem of journalistic ethics.

By publishing a piece that explicitly and admittedly falls below their usual standards of publication, AC Voice failed to adhere to ethical journalistic standards. For other articles, their staff would have edited for basic grammar errors and clarity. Although they do explain their decision in the follow-up article, the reasoning behind their unethical publishing makes it all the more problematic. By stating that they intentionally published the original article without edits, AC Voice exploits the author, discounting her ideas in favor of asserting their assumed moral authority.

While the Editorial Board does not support or agree with the arguments set forth in the original guest post, we do wish to defend the right for these ideas to be voiced and critically engaged with. Had AC Voice actually committed to the journalistic standards they claim to hold, this could have proved a fruitful moment of debate on our

liberal campus. The Editorial Board wishes to reaffirm the journalistic flaws of the original article. The author’s arguments were illogical, sensationalist and failed to cite any legitimate sources. But had AC Voice applied its typical standards to the article, the piece could have inspired more critical conversation with her ideas, revealing the weaknesses and strengths within both liberal and conservative beliefs.

By publishing a piece that clearly fell below their usual standards, AC Voice foreclosed any chance of real engagement with unpopular beliefs on campus, dismissing them as inherently unintelligent.

Perhaps they are, but automatically dismissing them will not make them disappear.

Regardless of the response article’s arguments, the fact of its publication is troubling. It completely dismisses the student on the basis of her writing. While her article deserves criticism, there is a way to criticize it that does not simply dismiss or dispose of the author. AC Voice’s reaction is elitist and anti-relational. The response piece frames them as self-congratulatory allies, and as if they were operating from a condescending moral high ground. In an eerie way, the article replicates structures of bullying and intimidation. It uses the framework of the very president it seeks to criticize. Granted, its arguments are signficantly more nuanced and logical — but the premise remains damaging. To have meaningful dialogue, we must be conscious of the implicit power structures that exist within our language.

In trying to make sense of how Donald Trump became our president, the community must begin with listening. Listening does not mean simply allowing a person’s words to fill your ears while you wait to respond. Listening means suspending your sense of self for the sake of hearing another’s heart, and not hearing everything filtered through your own interests. In the discussion of present-day politics, this does not mean letting your core beliefs and values falter, but letting your mind be open, temporarily, to genuine contact.

The Editorial Board does not write this article with the intent to shame people of marginalized identities for not wishing to listen to bigotry. We do not seek to enforce respectability politics. Through the specific example of the AC Voice response article, we are speaking to the work of allies, in general. Those who hold positions of power should be doing their part in the activism work that is listening and arguing. Allies bear the responsibility of putting the work first and their egos second. Activism and allyship are not exercises of proving one’s knowledge. Instead, these are activities of deep thinking — conscious effort to dismantle oppressive systems.

It is obvious that there is a divide in political opinion on this campus and in the country as a whole. We keep talking about ways to overcome this divide and finding a way to work together, but few actually put these ideas into practice. The Editorial Board does not claim to know all the answers either. But perhaps suspending ourselves for a moment and actually listening to those with opinions that differ from ours is the place to start.

If I May: Late Night So White (and Male) Jake May ’19 Columnist Yesterday, “Variety” reported that Jimmy Kimmel, host and executive producer of ABC’s late-night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” was considering retiring from his position when his contract expires in 2019. He has hosted the show since its inception in 2003, which makes him the second-longest tenured late-night talk show host, trailing only Conan O’Brien.

Kimmel’s show is one of the five “main” late-night talk shows currently airing. The rest are: “The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon” (which airs on NBC), “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” (CBS), “Late Night with Seth Meyers” (CBS) and “The Late Late Show with James Corden” (CBS). I say “main” because these are the late-night shows that each air on one of the four main cable networks.

When Kimmel or any of the other hosts listed above retires, that host’s network will have to find a replacement. In my lifetime, there have been a great deal of late-night replacements. At NBC, Conan O’Brien replaced Jay Leno as host of “The Tonight Show,” and Jimmy Fallon took O’Brien’s old job as host of “Late Night.” Then, Jay Leno took back his job of hosting “Tonight,”

and O’Brien started his own show at TBS. Later, when Leno finally retired, Jimmy Fallon got his job at “Tonight,” and Seth Meyers took over “Late Night.” Over at CBS, when Craig Ferguson retired as host of “The Late Late Show,” James Corden stepped in as host. Most recently, when David Letterman retired, Stephen Colbert took over as host of “The Late Show.”

I call attention to this because every one of the hosts that I’ve listed above is white and male.

Every time there has been a late-night hosting job vacated by a white male, that job has been subsequently filled by a different white male. Now, there are late-night television show hosts that are not white and male. “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” is a weekly late-night talk and news satire show that airs on TBS. Bee is the only female latenight show host on any mainstream network.

Trevor Noah, a biracial South African man, is the (fairly new) host of “The Daily Show,” a nightly political late-night show on Comedy Central. He replaced Jon Stewart, who is, of course, a white male. However, this replacement is somewhat tainted, as “The Daily Show” hosting job would probably have gone to John Oliver, another white man, had Oliver not been given his own weekly show on HBO. While Bee’s and Noah’s late-night presence

is certainly not insignificant, it is also certainly not enough. With the rise of streaming and online content, the network on which a show airs is becoming less important. That being said, the “main” late-night shows are watched by far more people, both on television and online. Furthermore, there is also a symbolic notion to hosting one of the “main” shows — those jobs are four of the highest-profile gigs in American media.

While Bee’s and Noah’s shows are undoubtedly important and high-profile, they are in a very different category than the “main” shows.

The question is, why have networks continued to choose white, male hosts? I believe it is because they know it is a safe choice. Audiences are used to seeing a white man host these late-night shows, and so in choosing another one, the networks stick to the status quo. Choosing a female performer or a performer of color (or both) to host a late-night show should not be considered a risky choice, but unfortunately, it is. It is time for a network to take a risk. It is time for someone who is not white and male to host one of the “main” late-night shows. When Jimmy Kimmel retires, I hope that ABC makes the risky — but nonetheless correct — choice and chooses a host who adds some diversity to the faces of late-night television.

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, Sivian Yu

Letters Policy The opinion pages of The Amherst Student are intended as an open forum for the Amherst community.

The Student will print letters under 450 words in length if they are submitted to The Student offices in the Campus Center or to the paper’s email account (astudent@amherst.edu) by noon on Sunday, after which they will not be accepted.

The editors reserve the right to edit any letters exceeding the 450-word limit or to withhold any letter because of considerations of space or content.

Letters must bear the names of all contributors and a phone number where the author or authors may be reached.

Letters and columns may be edited for clarity and Student style.

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The Amherst Student • February 22, 2017

Opinion

5

Trump and the Activity of Thinking Geoffrey Sanborn Professor of English The following piece was first delivered as a paper presentation to senior English majors.

Everyone involved in the trial of Adolf Eichmann, philosopher Hannah Arendt writes in “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” seemed to find it impossible “to admit that an average, ‘normal’ person, neither feeble-minded nor indoctrinated nor cynical, could be perfectly incapable of telling right from wrong.” When the judges told Eichmann, who oversaw the deportation of Eastern European Jews to concentration camps, that “all he had said was ‘empty talk,’” what they meant was that his talk “cover[ed] up other thoughts, which were not empty but hideous.” In fact, Arendt argues, the emptiness of Eichmann’s talk covered up nothing at all; he was “genuinely incapable of uttering a single sentence that was not a cliché.” Despite having a “rather bad memory,” he “constantly repeated, word for word, the same stock phrases and self-invented clichés (when he did succeed in constructing a sentence of his own, he thereupon repeated it until it became a cliché) in referring to every event or incident that was of some importance to him.”

“The longer one listened to him,” she writes, [T]he more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think; that is, to think from the standpoint of somebody else. No communication with him was possible, not because he lied but because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against the words of others, or even the presence of others, and hence against reality as such.

The “absence of thinking” in Eichmann would ultimately lead Arendt to the following question, which she formulates in the opening pages of “The Life of the Mind”: “Could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining whatever happens to come to pass or to attract attention, regardless of results and specific content, could this activity be among the conditions that make men abstain from evil-doing or even actually ‘condition’ them against it?”

It depends, to begin with, on what one means by thinking. For Arendt, it is a “pondering reflection [that] does not produce definitions and in that sense is entirely without results.” It is not “a prerogative of the few

but an ever-present faculty in everybody” and although it can be “employed in the attempt to know,” it is at such times “never itself ... but the handmaiden of an altogether different enterprise.” As opposed to being a means of arriving at completed thoughts, thinking is, she argues, a means of “unfreez[ing], as it were, what language, the medium of thinking, has frozen into thought.” It is not, however, a ceaseless flux; neither is it, psychically speaking, “without results.” As she argues in “Some Questions Concerning Moral Philosophy,” it is a “way of striking roots, of taking one’s place in the world into which we all arrive as strangers.”

Those roots are not only external but internal — anyone who has done a lot of active, creative thinking, she writes, will be “rooted in his [or her] thoughts and remembrances,” will have both an orientation toward further thinking and a wealth of materials to think with. “[L] imitless, extreme evil is possible only where these self-grown roots ... are entirely absent,” she writes, only where people “skid ... over the surface of events,” only where they are “carried away without ever penetrating into whatever depth they may be capable of.” She puts the case more bluntly in a 1963 letter: “The more superficial someone is, the more likely will he be to yield to evil.”

The value of the thinking process, a process that operates throughout our species and beyond, is that it makes it possible to be something other than the same old self, to find oneself in new conjunctions with others. The more attuned we become to the thinking process, the more aware we become that each thought has, as William James argues, a “halo or penumbra that surrounds and escorts it,” a “fringe” that consists of “the sense of its relations, near and remote, the dying echo of whence it came to us, the dawning sense of whither it is to lead.” And the more aware we become of those vapory extensions beyond the body of the thought — the more we sense in ourselves the movement toward a thought and then past it — the more aware we become of each thought’s non-finality. “Really, universally, relations stop nowhere,” writes Henry James. Whatever one says or does creates the possibility of further saying or doing. Whatever one perceives creates the possibility of further perceptions.

Racism is, to say the least, a freezer of thoughts and a limiter of relations. In Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” the white storekeeper, Mr. Yacoboski, “urges his eyes out of his thoughts to encounter” the young girl who

has come up to the counter. “Somewhere between retina and object,” however, “his eyes draw back, hesitate, and hover.” Nothing to see here. Pecola “looks up at him and sees the vacuum where curiosity ought to lodge. And something more. The total absence of human recognition — the glazed separateness.” Racism suspends curiosity and hangs out, as the sign of that suspension, a glazed expression, the expression of someone who is either not looking at anything at all or is looking at something that can only be one thing. “All things in [Pecola] are flux and anticipation,” Morrison writes. “But her blackness,” in the eyes of white people, “is static and dread.” Nowhere to go.

Thinking is, by contrast, an unfreezer of thoughts and an expander of relations. If one not only knows but feels that each thought has a history and a future, that each thought — each perception, each statement — is a momentary crystallization of an endless distillate, one can allow oneself to move outward, onward, past each point of arrival, toward the perception beyond the first perception, the thought beyond the first thought, the statement beyond the first statement. Whatever someone else appears to be at first thought, or upon second thought, or upon third, is never all that he or she is.

Thinking about thinking in this way is, I think, valuable in general but especially valuable at the present moment. In the wake of Trump’s election, it would be very easy for professors, students and staff at American colleges and universities to conclude that this is not a time for thinking but for acting. And in certain contexts, like the context of an immigration ban, I would agree that swift collective action is absolutely necessary. But it would be a catastrophic error, I think, to yield to the popular characterization of the activity of thinking as such, thinking for its own sake, as a luxury, an irrelevance, a distraction, an obscurer of immediate concerns. “Emerging from embeddedness, finding and facing the unfamiliar, is the great task of life,” writes the psychoanalytic theorist Donnell Stern. “One must emerge from embeddedness, or more properly, always be in the process of struggling with it, in order to ‘directly encounter’ others and the world around one.”

The activity of thinking, as Arendt presents it, is our primary means of emerging from embeddedness and directly encountering others.

Fundamentally opposing Trump means fundamentally opposing a frighteningly banal style of evil, a style of evil that is capable of being

carried out by people who, like Eichmann, are capable of appearing to themselves and to others, as ordinary citizens. “Modernity did not make people more cruel,” the philosopher Zygmunt Bauman writes in an essay called “The Holocaust: Fifty Years Later.” “[I]t only invented a way in which cruel things can be done by non-cruel people. Evil does not need anymore evil people. Rational people, men and women well riveted into the impersonal ... network of modern organization, will do perfectly.”

Singling out certain people and calling them evil misses the point. Opponents of Trump should understand as one of their defining characteristics a relentless struggle to do what Trump himself seems never to do: to actively think, to think in conjunction with others, to not remain embedded in any particular structure of thought, no matter how true it might seem. They should do what they can to encourage, model and practice an ongoing thinking-with-others. They should resist the temptation to think about themselves as inherently right and righteous, as the experts on any given subject. “A class of experts is inevitably so removed from common interests as to become a class with private knowledge, which in social matters is not knowledge at all,” the philosopher John Dewey writes in “The Public and Its Problems.” Whenever possible, opponents of Trump should think and express ourselves in non-expert ways, which is to say with curiosity, with a profound interest in how what they say and think might interlock with what Trump voters might say or think, without assuming that they know in advance the form that that interlocking will take. They should do in their relations to people what English majors learn to do in relation to literature: stay with what is literally being said, heighten their awareness of undertones and attune themselves to the desires that are being obscurely expressed. They should ask good questions. They should listen closely to responses that will become, with any luck, increasingly complex.

This is, again, only one of the things that can and should be done to oppose Trump’s cultural influence and limit the damage that he is capable of doing. But it is, I think, an especially vital way of taking a stand against a man with “an inability ... to think from the standpoint of somebody else” — a man who is, for that reason, “surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against the words of others, or even the presence of others, and hence against reality as such.”

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Arts&Living

Photo courtesy of Amherst Theatre and Dance

Lauren Carter ‘17 (pictured center) chose Charles Mee’s Big Love for her thesis due to it’s relevance with current issues regarding refugee and women’s autonomy.

In Acting Thesis “Big Love,” Questions on Love and Justice Collide Brandon Medina ’19 Contributing Writer The Amherst College theater and dance department celebrated Valentine’s Day in an unorthodox way this past weekend. Theater and dance major Lauren Carter ’17 performed her senior acting thesis, Charles Mee’s “Big Love,” last Thursday through Saturday in Holden Theater. Directed by department professor Yagil Eliraz, “Big Love” follows three sisters who flee their home country to escape arranged marriages to three men. They ultimately take refuge in an Italian villa, where they convince its wealthy homeowner to take them in, despite his reservations toward refugees. The sisters’ would-be grooms eventually track them down, and through the sisters’ efforts to avoid marriage and the men’s efforts to marry, each characters’ perspectives on love, gender dynamics and justice are revealed.

As far as set design goes, “Big Love” was one of most ambitious shows that Amherst has done in the last few years. The show defied the rules of conventional staging by making the entire room the set. All of Holden Theater was painted bright pink and decorated with dozens of white balloons, while tuxedoes and white wedding dresses hung from the ceiling.

The show used its set dynamically, lowering the tuxes and dresses at certain points, while the cast played with the balloons at other moments. The constantly moving set pieces gave the actors freedom to make the show as kinetic as possible. There are many monologues in the show, but the actors made these moments engaging by interacting with the props, sometimes in a sexual and violent manner. Some of the main props included a microphone,

which the characters used whenever they entered a passionate monologue, and a tall purple couch shaped like a penis, on which each of the characters sit when reflecting on questions of wealth and gender dynamics. Through the festive set, complete with a piano, a swing and TVs that show media clips at some points in the play, “Big Love” shows that theater can be vast and energetic.

The cast was large and colorful, and all the actors clearly enjoyed their roles. Carter played Thyona, the sister who is most radically feminist, with a bitter and resolute nature. Clad in a black tank top and a loose demeanor, Carter portrayed a woman who has lost faith in society to protect her body and has resolved to protect it by any means necessary. Unsurprisingly, she is the one who eventually leads the revolution against the men. Since this is her thesis, this role gives Carter ample space to display her acting range. The other two sisters are Olympia, the most stereotypically feminine and submissive, played by Maki Ybarra Young ’20, and Lydia, the mediator of the three, played

by Noor Qasim ’18. Young played Olympia with youthful romanticism and lust while Qasim played Lydia with an intelligence and reasonableness, though the latter starts to crumble when confronted with harsh aspects of the men she encounters. Qasim also employed a rather sarcastic edge when interacting with her would-be partner, a relationship that leads to comedic moments.

As for the male characters, they follow the same pattern on the ideological spectrum as the women. There is Constantine, played by Denzel Wood ’18, partner of Thyona and an extreme misogynist. Wood dressed in a modern sports jacket, baseball cap and sunglasses, and infused

Photo courtesy of Amherst Theatre and Dance

Constantine with a scary passion for his abhorrent beliefs. His misogynistic rants truly never failed to take the air out of the room. There is Nikos, played by Benjamin Kissinger ’19, the partner of Lydia that longs for a real connection between them. Nikos is by far the most decent of the men but still clueless on how to build a proper relationship through respect and communication. I suspect many single people in the audience would regard him as relatable.

Finally, there is Oed, played by Brett Sokol ’19, the chain-smoking oddball whose idiosyncrasies almost defy description. Oed’s motivations are not at all clear, but Sokol played up his idiocy and crudeness in a way that put more discomfort into the play’s already awkwardly sexual tone. There are other characters, such as Piero, the villa owner, played by Wesley Guimaraes dos Santos ’19 in his fourth main stage production at Amherst, Bella, mother of Piero played by veteran actor Barbara Cotez-Greig, and Giuliano, Bella’s gay grandson, played by Michael Barnett ’18. The cast is as large and colorful as the set, and they all gave funny, creative performances.

“Big Love” is a fitting name. because the characters either love with every fiber of their being or not at all. This can cause some audience members to feel disoriented due to the frantic pace of the dialogue and chaotic nature of the monologues, but it is truly an acting thesis because much of the art revolves around the actors playing up their parts and playing around the set as if it were a playground. It often feels as though the set were an actor itself.

However, this is to say nothing of the content of the play’s script.

The characters interrogate the very concept of love in a world where there is no justice

and equality for women — a world much like our own, making audience members reevaluate their conception of love. Despite what the bright pink stage might have you believe, the play is ultimately unromantic. The play explores, through the three sisters, different ways to live under oppression and whether love is possible under such conditions. Olympia chooses to submit and see the good side to the men, Lydia is more skeptical but chooses to appeal to the good nature of those in power, while Thyona chooses militant resistance. The same is true for the men: they range from truly reprehensible, with Constantine, to somewhat understandable, like Nikos. Indeed, one of the true strengths of the play is that it clearly puts forth the perspectives and ideologies of each of the characters. By the end of the play, the audience empathizes with every one of them, even if some of them are beyond sympathy.

Oftentimes in contemporary theater, actors remain static and attempt performances that are overly psychological or narcissistic.

“Big Love” is a refreshing change of pace in that it treats the stage like a playground, while also unequivocally and grandiosely delivering ideological viewpoints in the hopes of raising awareness toward these topics. Although the play does not provide many answers to the philosophical questions that it raises about love, justice and moral responsibility toward refugees, it does make these themes hyper-visible and didactic, which works to the benefit of the actors’ performances. For those that were looking for a romantic story to escape into on Valentine’s Day, “Big Love” may not have been the show for you. Instead, “Big Love” delivered a creative, energetic and joyously chaotic theater experience.

Photo courtesy of Amherst Theatre and Dance

The Amherst Student • February 22, 2017

Arts & Living 7

Short Film Oscar Nominees Provide View of Human Condition

Photo by Justin Barry ’18

This year’s Oscar nominees for “Best Animated Short Film” include three American and two Canadian directors.

Sophie Currin ’17 Staff Writer Every year, the Oscar-nominated animated shorts present a pool of feelings.

Each piece accentuates and lingers on a certain aspect of the human condition, and watching all in succession leaves a lively feeling brimming in the viewer. The directors strategically use color, form of animation and voice to explore subjects that almost require deviation from real life to begin to adequately express what they want to portray in their work in such a short glimpse.

This year’s animated shorts include three American shorts: “Borrowed Time,” directed by Andre Coats and Lou Hamou-Lhadj; “Pearl,” directed by Patrick Osborne, and Pixar’s “Piper.” The nominees also include “Blind Vaysha,” a Canadian

short directed by Theodore Ushev; and “Pear Cider and Cigarettes,” a Canadian and English short directed by Robert Valley. Most pieces are around six or seven minutes long, but this year’s outlier, “Pear Cider and Cigarettes,” is 35 minutes long.

“Piper” presents the playful story of a baby bird learning the wonders and perils of life on the seashore. The young bird flits in and out of the gentle yet sometimes threatening waves while searching for food for the first time with a lovable, relentless enthusiasm for this new life. Nestled between shorts that explore heavier subjects, “Piper” provides a heartwarming respite from the less joyous sides of the human condition.

“Blind Vaysha” artfully tells the folklore of a girl whose left eye sees only the past and right sees eye only the future. In other words, Vaysha cannot perceive the

present. She is left more than blind. In her suitors, she sees a child and a dying man; in the world, she sees original creation and eventual destruction, so she is left tortured. The director, Theodore Ushev, leaves the audience with a rather heavyhanded question, prompting each viewer to examine the way in which s/he sees the world: Should she tear out one eye?

Which one?

In “Borrowed Time,” a lanky, weathered sheriff finds himself in the nowdeserted and dismal Grand Canyon subjected to the crux of life: a tormenting memory relentlessly muddies his reality.

He walks and limps on the same path, and the scene flickers between this memory and the present moment. After re-working through this tragedy, the dust settles, the sun brightens and the clay-earth reddens.

“Pear Cider and Cigarettes” delves into two of life’s most persistent features: true friendship and addiction. When our narrator finds his childhood friend — who lives off of pure adrenaline — as an expat in need of a liver transplant in China, he’s not surprised but still does all he can to help. The rushed, dangerous mood is reinforced by the animation, which is sketched together in fast red and blue strokes.

In “Pearl,” a papier-mâché-like animation, Patrick Osborne presents a comingof-age, life-cycle narrative of a troubadour and his daughter. A loving, enthusiastic child grows into a disinterested, angsty teenager, then a wide-eyed, adventurous young adult and finally a budding artist that has returned home to share her discoveries with her father. In old age, the father is grateful to realize that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

This year’s shorts that were not nominated, but nevertheless commendable, include “Asteria” by Alexandre Arpentinier, “The Head Vanishes” by Franck Dion and “Once Upon a Line” by Alicja Jasina.

“Asteria” comically portrays Americans as clueless and reckless colonizers.

Two astronauts die in a futuristic shootout with aliens, but importantly still manage to plant the American flag in the moon-like surface. Asteria sympathetically (and deprecatingly to Americans) takes the aliens’ side.

“The Head Vanishes” depicts the struggle of memory and identity in the midst of Alzheimer’s disease, bravely meditating on the patient’s perspective.

Finally, “Once Upon a Line” shows a banal life and what happens when love invades the daily routine.

The 2017 Oscar-nominated animated shorts are all worth seeing. The shorts are playing all week at Amherst Cinema, leading up to the Oscars this Sunday, Feb. 26. Each piece uniquely and artfully comments on a tender part of the human experience. Through these shorts the viewer can do as Piper does by experiencing both the wonders and the terrors of this world.

“Arrival,” Oscar’s Best Picture Nominee is Sci-Fi Done Right

Photo courtesy of raftulcuidei.ro

Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner star as Louise Banks and Ian Donnelly.

Mark Simonitis ’19 Staff Writer “Arrival,” based on the short story “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang, is an anomaly in today’s entertainment scene. It’s an alien “invasion” movie completely devoid of action; instead it opts for consistent tension and dra-

ma. Even more notable is that “Arrival” is undoubtedly a true science fiction movie, one that tackles its heavy subject matter in clever and entertaining ways. Thankfully, grounded performances from a cast led by Amy Adams keep the movie focused on the human element of the story.

“Arrival” opens with twelve alien ships entering Earth’s atmosphere, hovering a few feet off the ground in twelve seemingly random locations across the globe. Every eighteen hours, the ships open and humanity has access to these alien visitors for brief periods of time. However, the language barrier between the two species is insurmountable.

Amy Adams plays Louise Banks, a renowned linguist who is approached by the United States government to translate recordings of the aliens. However, she decides that she needs to be able to actually interact with the aliens in order to translate and convinces Colonel Weber (Forrest Whitaker) to grant her access to the ship that is hovering over a field in Wyoming. She’s also joined by theoretical physicist Ian Connely (Jeremy Renner), who hopes to be able to communicate with the aliens through mathematics and science.

As Banks and Connely prepare to enter the ship for the first time, director Denis Villeneuve proves once again his incredible ability to build tension. The two academics quickly don hazmat suits as alarms blare across the hastily constructed research facility/military base. The alien ship looms over them as they board an almost comically slow

scissor lift to access the opening. They have to contend with the warped gravity within the structure as they walk down a long dark hallway and wait for the aliens to arrive.

When they do, they do not disappoint. These aliens are not Klingons or Twi’leks, portrayed by actors wearing prosthetics. They look, feel and sound truly alien, leading you to wonder if we could ever build a connection with these unnerving creatures.

That thought is certainly shared by others in the film. Arrival quickly becomes a race against time as Banks and Connely attempt to communicate with the aliens while the world descends into chaos. Panicked citizens are looting entire cities, world leaders are hesitant to share their scientists’ breakthroughs with foreign rivals and military chiefs begin to wonder if a first strike is the only option in the face of a perceived extraterrestrial threat.

Besides serving as another way to build tension, this world-wide crisis heightens the stakes and does a disturbingly good job of hypothesizing how the world would react to such an event.

All of this tension builds to a boiling point in an absolutely incredible ending that takes an already fascinating movie and gives it a message that is powerful, hopeful and depressing all at the same time. It rides a very fine line of “surprising” and “completely out of the blue,” but subtle foreshadowing and exploration of certain themes make it feel completely earned by the time the credits roll.

Despite this grand story of humanity making first contact with an alien race, Vil-

leneuve makes the wise choice of keeping the focus on the intimate and personal conflicts Banks faces as she attempts to breach the language barrier. Adams is the emotional core of the movie and does an excellent job of portraying an increasingly exhausted and frazzled Banks. However, she manages to maintain the dogged strength that makes her a character worth supporting. Additionally, Connely proves to be a worthy partner for Banks, answering her dryness and professionalism with wit and emotion as they attempt to solve the crisis in front of them.

Finally, “Arrival” earns gold stars across the board from a technical standpoint. The cinematography focuses on clean, stark environments that imbue the movie with a classical sense of foreboding. The score manages to be ominous, joyous and moving as the script calls for it. As for the script itself, “Arrival” impressively communicates several heavy and complex concepts through clever analogies and turns of phrase, even though it does tend to oversimplify Banks’ linguistic breakthroughs.

A movie about language translation has no right to be as entertaining as this. “Arrival” is a crowning achievement in the sci-fi genre, bringing a cerebral and sophisticated story into the blockbuster scene. In true science fiction tradition, it tackles big concepts and manages to make them entertaining.

And like any great science fiction story, “Arrival” makes sure not to lose the heart of raw character and emotion in the form of Amy Adams’ terrific performance.

Arts & Living 8

The Amherst Student • February 22, 2017

Contradictions and Solutions: Kissinger ’19 on Directing a One-Act ence member who is responsible for paying attention. When we pause, we take a second to talk it over and clarify things together. I can’t simply make decisions and tell them what to do. If I have a vision, I have to get them on board. Otherwise it’s not going to work.

Photo courtesy of Amherst Theatre and Dance

Originally just a math major, Kissinger caught the acting bug from Prof. Bashford.

Julia Pretsfelder ’18 Managing Arts & Living Editor Ben Kissinger ’19 is directing a one-act play for his directing studio class with Ronald Bashford, who he worked under last year in his first production, “The Cherry Orchard.”

Q: How did you come to directing and theater? Do you do other arts?

A: I’ve loved musicals ever since I was in preschool, when my grandmother showed me Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man” with Robert Preston and Shirley Jones. I remember breaking sticks and pretending to conduct a band in the closing scene. Skip forward to college, I had no interest in focusing on anything other than math. My first-year seminar professor (Ronald Bashford) recruited me for “The Cherry Orchard” after seeing a silly skit where I gender-bended. I was hooked, and Ron is all to blame. He’s shown me a side of myself and the world I never would have

dreamt of. Since then, I have been involved in seven department shows and countless other performances of song, dance and acting.

Q: How does it feel directing your peers?

Does it come naturally, or is it uncomfortable?

A: Both of my actors are seniors. I’m a sophomore, and somehow they haven’t figured out that I don’t really know what I’m doing. All I have is my experience with phenomenal directors and dissuasions with Ron about what it takes to direct, but doing it yourself is an entirely new and frightening experience. Other than feeling uncomfortable here and there that they will figure out I’m a fraud, it isn’t strange at all to direct my peers. In no way am I telling them what to do or superior to them.

In the process we all have an equally important weight in bringing the text to life; we simply have different perspectives. They’re in the trenches dealing with character motivations and dramatic action, and I’m a glorified audi-

Q: What skills do you think it requires?

A: Listening. The most important skill a director has is presence. Every time a director watches rehearsal, they have to watch as if they haven’t ever seen that particular scene before.

A director must also be present with the actors as people, so that they can meet the actors where they are at. I can’t even count the times that, as an actor, I have run out of the rehearsal in tears. This can be due to catharsis from the text, a failure to accomplish a dramatic task, etc. The director should notice these states of being, respect and understand them and provide individual directions. Sometimes an actor stuck on a scene needs to understand what the character wants, sometimes they need to understand the text vocally and sometimes they need a quirky theater game that you just make up on the spot.

Q: What play are you directing? How and why did you choose it?

A: I’m directing “The Plumber’s Apprentice.”

It’s a little unknown play by Mark Stein. The title stood out to me, so I grabbed it from the library. In reading it, I realized that the author managed to write living, breathing craftsman like I have known them. My stepfather is a maintenance director, and Mark Stein has managed to imitate his quirks and speaking rhythm to a tee. The play also touches on toxic masculinity in the workplace, a topic I have become very interested in since working on Lauren Carter’s senior thesis, “Big Love.”

Q: How do you think about adapting a work for this environment and audience?

A: The play is about a woman named Sally trying to make her way into a male-dominated field. She’s set to work with Rog, a quiet, misogynistic, washed out man in his 40’s. By the end of the play, something almost impossible happens — Rog has a change of heart.

I live in a nation with a lot of bigoted people and some of them are in my family, some of them I love. How do you change someone’s heart? How can you make the people around you a little less shitty? It’s important to me to choose works that are relevant socially and politically, and then as a director I can make these things strange to emphasize contradictions and maybe even pose solutions.

Q: What role do you think theater plays on campus? What do you think we can do about having more art at Amherst?

A: I believe in a theater Bertolt Brecht envisioned: A social event where the community can sit back with a smoke and critically analyze the world they are watching as well as the world they are in. I’m no advocate for smoking, but I do think the theater should be a place of relaxation as well as a catalyst for change. As a performer, the theater can be a space of focus. It can be a place where someone takes a moment to really listen to their body and other people. It’s the best form of self-care I know of.

It doesn’t take a lot to create something.

At the very least, you need a group of people willing to collaborate and a space to do it in.

Often, I’ll be with a few of my friends in a studio, and we’ll end up making something really beautiful and powerful. Of course, this presupposes that we have the time to spare.

Most students are swamped with tons of classwork, extracurriculars and favors. All of these things are great, but tend to cause unhealthy amounts of stress and fatigue. Setting boundaries can free up time and lead to moments of reflection, play and performance.

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The Amherst Student • February 22, 2017

Sports 9

Men’s Track and Field Finishes 15th Overall at DIII New Englands Veronica Rocco ’19 Staff Writer The Amherst men’s track team returned to Tufts University to compete at the DIII New England Championships last weekend, Feb. 17-19. The meet required qualifying standards for all individual events, and the competitive races pitted the best DIII athletes in New England against each other. By the conclusion of the meet, the purple and white had earned 13 points for a 15th-place finish as a team.

Elijah Ngbokoli ’20 kicked off the meet for Amherst, placing 19th in the preliminary round of the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.21 seconds.

Theo Bates ’20 continued his stellar season in the hurdles, qualifying for the 60-meter hurdles final and placing fourth in a time of 8.52 seconds. Teammate Maxim Doiron ’19 placed 17th in the preliminary round with a time of 9.02 seconds.

Junior captain David Ingraham ran a time of 51.24 seconds in the 400-meter dash, placing 12th overall.

Vernon Espinoza ’19 was the sole competitor for the purple and white in the 800-meter run. The sophomore placed 16th with a time of 2:02.73 in the four-lap event.

Sophomore Kristian Sogaard placed fifth in the 1,000-meter run against a competitive field.

The mid-distance standout set a personal best in the event with a time of 2:30.94, and will continue his season next weekend at Open New Englands.

Ngbokoli continued his success in the short sprints, placing 20th in a time of 23.21 seconds.

Three Amherst runners competed in the 3,000-meter run, the most purple and white athletes in any individual event. Senior Kevin Connors led the contingent, securing the last scoring position by placing eighth in a time of 8:41.71. Shortly behind him was Cosmo Brossy ’19, who placed 10th in a time of 8:43.14. The

sophomore won the unseeded section. Ben Fiedler ’17 rounded out the Amherst athletes, placing 22nd in a time of 8:55.78.

The purple and white continued their success in the long-distance events, as Tucker Meijer ’19 ran a time of 15:26.47 in the 5,000 meters to place fourth in his heat and 14th overall. Justin Barry ’18 placed ninth in his heat and 19th overall with a time of 15:57.31.

Sam Amaka ’19 was the lone Amherst competitor in the field events, placing 13th in the weight throw with a throw of 15.04 meters (49’ 4.25”).

The meet ended with three relays, events in which the purple and white have historically experienced success.

The first relay of the day was the distance

medley relay, composed entirely of first years.

Ralph Skinner opened with the 1,200-meter leg, then handed off to Alex Mangiafico for the 400-meter leg. The sprinter then passed the baton to Estevan Velez for the 800-meter leg, who handed the baton to Spencer Ferguson-Dryden for the concluding 1,600-meter leg. The relay placed third in their heat to Little Three rivals Wesleyan and Williams.

The next relay to compete was the 4x400 meter relay, composed of juniors Harrison Haigood, Jeff Ewing, Ingraham and Bates. The team placed third in their heat and 13th overall with a time of 3:31.76.

The 4x800-meter relay concluded the day’s action for the purple and white, as the team of Connors, Espinoza, Sogaard and Jacob Sil-

verman ’19 ran a time of 8:06.88. Their eighth place finish earned the squad one point for the team.

“The team had several strong performances at the meet with great competition, even though we were hoping to score more points than we did,” Jeff Ewing ’18 said. “It’ll be exciting to watch some of our guys finish out the indoor championships season in the coming weeks.”

Next weekend, the team will return to Boston to compete at Open New Englands, which will be held at the famed Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center. The meet features athletes across all divisions, and only Amherst athletes who have achieved the qualifying standards for individual events or have been selected to run in a relay will compete.

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

The purple and white ran well in all three relay events at this weekend’s DIII New England Championship meet.

Women’s Swim and Dive Sends Three Women’s Basketball Swats Aside More to NCAA Championship Meet Bates in NESCAC Quarterfinals Katie Bergamesca ’18 Staff Writer This past Sunday, members of the Amherst women’s swim and dive team had one last chance to meet NCAA Division III qualifying standards at the February Invite hosted by Wesleyan in Middletown, Conn.

At the meet, three female swimmers for the purple and white managed to glide to national qualifying times. With a final time of 56.88 in the 100-meter fly, Geralyn Lam ’18 managed to extend her season and earn herself a spot on the Amherst squad headed to Texas for the national championship.

Joining Lam and the women that had already met qualifying marks at NESCAC championships were sophomores Jayne Vogelzang and Livia Domenig.

Vogelzang and Domenig both had qualifying performances in the 200-meter freestyle

event.

Vogelzang finished with a time of 1:54.38 and Domenig tapped the wall just behind her with an impressive 1:54.80. Lam, Vogelzang and Domenig join a talented crew of swimmers for the Amherst women’s team who hope to cap off their impressive season and either maintain or bolster their national ranking with a quality showing at the Division III NCAA championships.

“The team atmosphere at the meet was incredible,” junior Stephanie Moriarty, who will represent the team at nationals, said. “We went in with the mentality that we were going to give each race our all . . . Everyone stepped up and raced well. We all fed off each other’s positive energy, and saw the results that we had worked so hard for all year.”

The NCAA Division III Championships, held in Conroe, TX, will take place from Mar. 15 until Mar. 18.

Photo courtesy of Amherst Athletics

Geralyn Lam ‘18 garnered a spot at the NCAA championships in the 100 fly.

Talia Land ’20 Staff Writer Saturday marked the beginning of the NESCAC women’s basketball championships.

Amherst entered the game as the top seed in the tournament. The purple and white hosted eighth-seeded Bates in Lefrak Gymnasium just minutes after the Amherst men were upset by Williams in their first-round matchup. The last time the Bates and Amherst women met, several weeks ago, the purple and white beat the Bobcats 75-37.

Bates jumped to an early 4-0 lead in the first minutes of the game. After that, however, it was all Amherst. The purple and white held the Bobcats to only one point, while they scored 22 over a nine-minute span. Meredith Doswell ’17 netted eight points, in the process going four for six at the free throw line. Additionally, Madeline Eck ’20 poured in six points in the first quarter.

The second quarter was a more even affair, with Bates scoring 19 points. However, Emma McCarthy ’19 added 10 points for Amherst, shooting four for five from the field. Fellow sophomore Meghan Sullivan also contributed six points in the quarter. Going into halftime, Amherst led 43-24.

Moving into the second half, the purple and white again dominated, allowing Bates to only score four points in the third quarter. M. Doswell scored five points, while McCarthy and Jackie Nagle ’18 added four points each in the third.

In the last quarter, Maeve McNamara ‘19 helped Amherst seal the deal, scoring two three-point baskets. The final score was a solid 76-35 win for Amherst.

McCarthy had a game-high 19 points and nine rebounds. The purple and white’s impressive overall stat-line included 11 blocks, 16

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Maeve McNamara ‘19 hit two threes in limited action against Bates. steals and a total of 48 points in the paint compared with Bates’ zero.

“It’s really exciting to be moving forward in the NESCAC tournament, and we’re hoping to build on our momentum from last game to reach the championship,” said Eck, who has had a stellar first collegiate season thus far, averaging eight points and four rebounds per game.

Amherst continues their hunt for a second consecutive NESCAC championship next week.

The purple and white is set to host the NESCAC Semifinals next weekend on Saturday, Feb. 25, and Sunday, Feb. 26. Amherst will play fifth-ranked Colby at 2 p.m. on Saturday. No. 2 seed Tufts faces No. 3 seed Bowdoin in the other semifinal, with the winners of each game meeting for the NESCAC title on Sunday at noon.

10

Sports

The Amherst Student • February 22, 2017

Men’s Swimming and Diving Finishes Second at NESCAC Championship Meet

ATHLETE SPOTLIGHT

Elijah Spiro ’19E

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Greg Han ‘20 was part of a strong Amherst showing in breaststroke events.

Jenny Mazzella ’20 Staff Writer The Amherst men’s swimming and diving team returned to action this weekend, Feb 17-19, at the NESCAC championship tournament. Hosted by Wesleyan University, all eleven NESCAC schools faced off at this three-day meet.

Finishing the meet with 1,402 points, Amherst took second place out of the eleven teams, edged out by Williams, who ended with 1,671 points. Tufts (1,391), Connecticut College (1,331) and Bates (997.5) rounded out the top five teams.

Day one was highlighted by a number of top three finishes from the purple and white.

Both Elijah Spiro ’19E and Eric Wong ’20 captured NESCAC titles. Spiro won the 50-yard breaststroke in a pool record time of 24.95.

Wong took the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:33.15. Right behind him was teammate Connor Haley ’17, who claimed second in the event with a time of 4:34.84. Jack Koravos ’20 also claimed a runner-up finish by clocking 20.66 in the 50-yard freestyle. Amherst finished off the day with a strong third-place finish in the 400-yard medley relay (3:20.41) by the team of Craig Smith ’20, Sean Mebust ’20, Sam Spurrell ’18 and Alex Dreisbach ’17.

The purple and white continued their success on day two, and Spiro led Amherst with two more NESCAC titles on the day. Finishing in a time of 55.23, Spiro captured his second individual win in the 100-yard breaststroke.

The junior was also a part of the victorious

200-yard medley relay, along with Koravos, Spurrell and Dreisbach. The team finished in a pool record time of 1:30.12.

The 800-yard freestyle relay tallied another victory for the purple and white. Composed of Koravos, Wong, Haley and Charlie Seltzer ’19, Amherst finished in 6:44.83, just a one-hundredth of a second in front of the Williams relay team, thanks to Seltzer’s stretch to make it a photo finish. At the end of the day, however, Amherst remained in second place with 1,049 points, 96 points behind first-place Williams.

Amherst finished the three-day meet with more solid performances. Sean Mebust ’20 claimed his first NESCAC title in the 200yard breaststroke, coming in at 2:00.36. Wong placed fourth in the 1,650-yard freestyle with a final time of 16:03.59. The 400-yard relay team of Wong, Koravos, Seltzer and Dreisbach ended the NESCAC championships with a fifth-place finish (3:04.27).

Many members of the Amherst team posted NCAA “B” cut times, which means they have a chance of being invited to the NCAA Division III Championships.

Swimmers who achieve the “A” standard automatically qualify for the meet, and the remaining spots are filled by swimmers who hit the “B” standard. Individuals who met the “B” cut times include Wong, Koravos, Spiro, Mebust, Smith and Spurrell. The 200-, 400- and 800-yard medley relay teams also secured “B” cut marks.

Next up for Amherst is the NCAA Division III Championship meet, which will take place on March 15 in Greensboro, N.C.

Men’s Basketball Falls to Williams 76-69 in NESCAC Quarterfinals Delancey King ’18 Staff Writer The 2016-2017 season may have come to an end for the Amherst men’s basketball team this weekend. After defeating Williams twice during the regular season, the purple and white fell to the Ephs 76-69 in the NESCAC quarterfinals on Saturday, Feb. 18 in Lefrak Gymnasium. Amherst must now wait until Feb. 27 to find out if they will receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Division III Championships.

With their postseason runs on the line, both teams came out hard in the first half, and neither squad managed to secure a lead of more than six points. As the clock winded down, it seemed as though Amherst would head into halftime with the 30-28 lead. However, Williams’ Daniel Aronowitz drove to the hoop in the remaining 30 seconds and managed to get the equalizing bucket. A foul was called on the play, and Aronwitz converted his free throw to put the Ephs ahead 31-30 at the intermission.

The start of the second half was more of the same back-and-forth play, until Kyle Scadlock powered in a shot from underneath that sparked a 13-0 run for the Ephs. Williams held a 60-43 advantage with only 6:43 remaining in the

game, and the purple and white clearly started to lose confidence.

A comeback seemed possible late in the game, as Reid Berman ’17 knocked down backto-back threes and Jayde Dawson ’18 contributed a bucket to help Amherst come within seven of the Ephs. However, consistent performances from Aronowitz and James Heskett at the free-throw line helped preserve Williams’ lead. Aronowitz led all players with 22 points, while Johnny McCarthy ’18 and Dawson fueled the Amherst offense with 15 and 14 points, respectively.

The loss marks the first time in seven years that Amherst has been eliminated in the first round of the NESCAC tournament. The team is undoubtedly disappointed in the result, but they are eager for a shot at redemption through a bid to the NCAAs. “It would be easy to give up hope after such a tough loss,” junior guard Michael Riopel said.

“But with our high strength of schedule and key wins against top 25 teams, we still have a chance to receive an at-large bid. We are going to practice hard this week and hope for the best.”

If the purple and white do not receive a bid, they will finish the season with a respectable overall record of 17-7.

Favorite Team Memory: Defeating Williams at home last year in a close dual meet Favorite Pro Athlete: Kosuke Kitajima Dream Job: Astronaut Pet Peeve: Wasting water or electricity Favorite Vacation Spot: Anywhere near the ocean Something on Your Bucket List: Adopting every old dog in a shelter and giving them a home with lots of bacon Guilty Pleasure: Eating meat Favorite Food: Sushi Favorite Thing About Amherst: Pushes me to my limits physically and mentally How He Earned It: Spiro’s dominant weekend at the 2017 NESCAC Championship meet helped propel the men to a second-place finish overall. His first overall performance in both the 50-yard and 100-yard breaststroke events earned him All-NESCAC honors and a pool record time of 24.95 in the 50-yard breast. In the relays Spiro contributed to the record-setting performance in the 200-yard medley relay. Spiro’s domination in the breaststroke event will be tested as he advances to NCAA Division III championships in March.

Bailey Plaman ’18 Favorite Team Memory: Earning a comeback victory against St. Anselm’s this year Favorite Pro Athlete: Niklas Backstrom Dream Job: Chemist working towards developing sustainable energy solutions Pet Peeve: When people give less than their best effort Favorite Vacation Spot: Northern Minnesota in the summertime Something on Your Bucket List: To live in a Spanish-speaking country for some period of time Guilty Pleasure: The Spanish TV series Velvet Favorite Food: Val Huevos Rancheros Favorite Thing About Amherst: The people that I’ve had the opportunity to meet and become friends with — students, faculty & staff.

How She Earned It: Plaman improved her record to 6-3-2 this weekend with a 25-save effort to secure a win over Wesleyan for the purple and white. This was the junior’s tenth game in goal this season, and she has totaled 205 saves. Plaman is fifth in the NESCAC in goals allowed, averaging only 1.48 per game.

Men’s Hockey Finishes Regular Season With a Pair of Huge Conference Wins Mary Grace Cronin ’18 Staff Writer The Amherst men’s hockey team closed out their regular season on a high note this week, with wins against NESCAC rivals Williams and Middlebury.

They conclude their regular season with a record of 14-6-3.

The purple and white played in front of packed stands on Friday night, Feb. 17, when they took on NESCAC leader and rival Williams and prevailed 1-0.

Tested early in the first period, Amherst’s standout goalie, Connor Girard ’18, made two huge saves to keep the game knotted at zero goals apiece.

Taking this momentum and running with it, sophomore Phil Johansson connected with classmate Jack Fitzgerald with three minutes left in the first stanza for a snap shot from the right hash.

The shot was on target but rang off the post after a deflection from the Eph goaltender.

Johansson set up yet another purple and white scoring chance halfway through the second period, sending the puck to one of the team’s leading goal scorers, junior forward David White.

However, the Eph’s blocked White’s shot on goal, and the affair remained knotted at zero.

Amherst broke the stalemate with nine minutes left in the second period as Steven Mallory ’19 stepped out of the penalty box to collect a pass from White. The sophomore streaked into the offensive zone to send the puck to Thomas Lindstrom ’18, who fired a shot over the shoulder of the Williams goalie to find the back of the net.

Girard held onto the one goal advantage for the purple and white as the third period saw a 8-5 Eph shot advantage.

With one final deflection as the clock wound down, Girard deflected his 26th shot of the game to earn the win for the purple and

white.

Riding high from their triumph over Williams the night before, Amherst celebrated their Senior Day on Saturday, Feb. 18, honoring the graduating class of forward Chris Roll, defender Austin Ho and goaltender Adam Ellison.

When Amherst played Middlebury in December, two early goals in the first period from Patrick Daley ’20 took control of the game.

Additional goals from Johansson and Joey Lupo ’20 helped secure a 4-1 result. Amherst turned out to be equally prepared for the Panthers two months later as they cruised to an identical 4-1 win.

White struck first on an Amherst power play 11:31 into the game. Daly and Noah Gilreath ’20 provided the assists.

In a surprisingly back and forth affair, the remainder of the first period as well as the second saw nothing but penalties from both sides.

Middlebury appeared to make a nervewracking comeback with an equalizer from the Panther offense.

But Amherst was determined to cling to their lead, scoring just 14 seconds later.

Lupo collected a pass from Ho and careened it toward Fitzgerald for a quick one timer.

Ellison’s 18 saves in net helped squash Middlebury’s chances and keep the momentum with the purple and white.

Sophomore Stanley Brenner’s goal just a few minutes later from classmate John Festa gave Amherst the boost they needed, and a final individual effort by Daly safely put the game away.

Amherst will enter postseason play in the quarterfinals of the NESCAC tournament this Saturday, Feb. 25.

The purple and white will face off against archrival Williams in Williamstown, Mass. at 3 p.m.

The Amherst Student • February 22, 2017

Sports

Women’s Track and Field Continues to Impress in Postseason Competition

11

Forest’s Fast Take Forest Sisk ’17 Columnist In the dog days of the sporting world, Forest takes a look at two sports most Americans have never heard of and likely will never watch in their lives. Welcome to the world of curling and hurling!

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Leonie Rauls ‘18 competed in two events in this weekend’s meet, finishing seventh in the 1,000-meter run and running well in the relay events.

Laura Greer ’20 Staff Writer The Amherst women’s track and field team competed in the two-day Division III New England Championship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this weekend, finishing 11th out of a talented 29-team pool.

The squad showed well in the sprint and mid-distance events. Abbey Asare-Bediako ’18 clocked in a time of 8.09 seconds to claim ninth in the 60-meter dash. Sophmore Rubii Tamen finished 15th in the 400-meter dash with a time of 1:01.43 minutes. Julia Asin ’19 continued a strong season with her 11th place finish in the 600-meter run (1:41.97).

Leonie Rauls ’18 placed an impressive seventh in the 1000-meter run with a time of 3:05.19. Teammates Kristin Ratliff ’20 and Cat Lowdon ’17 finished back-to-back in the event, claiming 18th and 19th with marks of 3:14.71 and 3:14.88, respectively.

“We were all excited to be at such a competitive meet,” Ratliff said. “That excitement allowed us to be focused and work together as a team, which resulted in some good performances.”

Cross-country standout Katherine Treanor ’20 continued to impress in her short running career as she claimed first in the 5,000-meter run. Finishing in a time of 17:37.52, Treanor

beat out her closest competition, Emma Zener from Williams, by an impressive 10 seconds.

The purple and white enjoyed several more strong showings in the distance events.

Senior Savanna Gornisiewicz finishing 14th in the 3,000 meters with a time of 10:33.85.

Adding an 11th-place finish to the Amherst scorecard, senior Tess Frenzel crossed the finish line in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 18:34.15.

In the relays — one of Amherst’s strengths this season — the quartet of Tamen, Asin, Rauls and Katherine Hom ’19 placed 11th in the 4x400-meter relay with a time of 4:09.23. The purple and white also placed 12th in the 4x200meter relay with a time of 1:52.59, 13th in the 4x800-meter relay with a time of 13:05.02 and 11th again in the 4,000-meter distance medley relay in 13:05.02.

In the field events, Asare-Bediako continued to impress, placing fourth in the triple jump with a career-best leap of 11.82 meters. This propelled Asare-Bediako into sixth place in the national Division III rankings for the women’s triple jump. First-year Kaitlyn Siegel also impressed in the field events, placing sixth in the high jump with a mark of 1.61 meters.

Next up, Amherst will travel to Roxbury, Mass., to compete in the NEICAAA Championships on Feb. 24-25 at the Reggie Lewis Center.

Men’s Squash Ends Season Winless in Three Matches at CSA Championships Nate Quigley ’19 Managing Sports Editor This past weekend, the men’s squash team travelled to Cambridge, Mass. to participate in the CSA Team Championship, hosted by perennial powerhouse Harvard. Pitted against a trio of tough opponents, the purple and white failed to tally a victory, losing to NESCAC foes Middlebury and Colby as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Facing off against the 17th-ranked Panthers for the second time this season, Amherst again was swept 9-0. Although Amherst only suffered a trio of three-set defeats, the result of the match was never truly in doubt.

The closest any member of the purple and white came to nabbing a single match was first-year Mitch Ford, who fell in five sets on court nine.

After battling back twice to tie the match at two sets, Ford lost a heartbreaking fifth set by a score of 17-15.

Amherst improved on their Friday showing when the team took on MIT on Saturday.

The squad captured victories on courts one, four and nine in addition to the exhibition court, where sophomore Ian Petty won a tight

five-set affair. Harith Khawaja ’19 posted a dominant three-set victory on the first court, while Cameron Bahadori ’18 fought back from a two-set deficit to win 10-12, 6-11, 11-7, 11-9, 12-10.

Finally, Ford managed to make up for Friday’s loss by annihilating his Engineer foe in three sets.

The purple and white closed out their season with a loss to Bates, falling 5-4 for the second time this year. Ford was the lone member of the purple and white to notch a second win on the weekend, taking part in yet another five-setter.

David Merkel ’19 tallied his first win of the weekend on court three, providing a strong finish to what has been an impressive sophomore campaign.

Fellow underclassmen Lucas Sheiner ’19 and Chris Zimmerman ’20 posted Amherst’s two other wins with similar five-set victories on courts six and seven.

Amherst came close to nabbing the critical fifth victory on several courts, with Khawaja, Darian Ehsani ’17 and Mateen Mills ’20 all losing in five sets.

With the three losses, the purple and white finish the season with a record of 7-13 overall.

In the wake of one of the best Super Bowls of all time, there comes this lull in sport action.

The time between the end of the NFL season and the beginning of March Madness, also known as February, allows us sports fans to check out some of the lesser-known competitions.

The new hurling season is underway in Ireland! Cork got off to a great start with a comfortable win, but Dublin surprisingly dropped all points in their first game. So what even is hurling? It’s an outdoor game played on a grass field — comparable in size to a soccer field, but longer — that incorporates the rules and skills of baseball, hockey and lacrosse into one extreme sport. It is a high-speed, high-scoring, high-octane event that keeps spectators keyed in at all times.

Often referred to as “the fastest game on grass,” hurling abides by a few simple rules that keep it from devolving into violent chaos. The objective of the game is to score as many points as possible in the two 30- or 35-minute halves, depending on the competition.

There are goals at both ends, much like soccer goals, that give three points for a successful shot. On top of the goal, there are posts that run from the edges of the goal upwards, much like uprights in football. If a player hits the ball through that empty space above the crossbar, their team is awarded one point.

Both teams play 15 players at a given time, each equipped with a helmet and a hurley. A hurley resembles an odd mix between a field hockey stick and a baseball bat. And that’s exactly how it is used. The cylindrical handle gradually flattens into a pancaked area at its end, which is used as the hitting surface. Players hit the ball to either pass or shoot; throwing the ball is forbidden. The ball, officially called a sliotar, is almost identical to a baseball down to the last stitch. Its rock-hard consistency is a big part of why this sport is so dangerous.

When players ‘dribble’ the sliotar, they can only take a maximum of four steps with the ball in hand. If a player is to chew up some ground on foot, they run with the ball balanced on the flat end of the hurley.

This is particularly difficult because although the field is so large, the tackling rules are lax and allow for some rough physical play.

To ensure that the players don’t kill each other, referees are equipped with yellow and red cards: one for caution and one for ejection purposes.

As you can probably tell, hurling is an ancient sport — dating back to over 3,000 years ago — and it is still played all over the world.

However, it’s most popular in its birth country of Ireland.

Hurling was highly popular among firstgeneration Irish immigrants in the States, but their children rarely maintained the same passion as their parents Thus, the sport quietly faded away over time.

The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) has made several outreach programs since the turn of the century and took hold in some colleges across the country. Midwestern state schools like Indiana University and Purdue, as well as big schools on the west coast like UC Berkley and Stanford, have bought in to hurling and compete in the National Collegiate GAA Championships.

Here at Amherst, we make big efforts to appreciate cultures from all walks of life, so maybe the purple and white will make a bid at the competition. But, then again, I do enjoy having all my teeth and not being concussed.

Sports don’t have to be violent and physical to generate excitement. One of my personal favorite Olympic events is catching fire in America despite its cool icy surface.

Just recently, curling was added as an official sport at the local high school in Lakeville,

Minn. Coach John Anderson, Canadian born and raised, noted that curling is a popular high school sport north of the border.

He figured it would be a nice addition to the competitive realm of American high school sports, especially considering the proximity to Canada.

Joseph Finkel, one of Lakeview North’s players, agreed with Anderson. “It’s competitive, but also it’s really relaxed, like you don’t have to do a lot of physical activity, which I’m kind of happy about, it’s not strenuous,” said Finkel.

Curling is essentially shuffleboard on steroids — not that steroids would help any curler.

Two teams, each consisting of four players, take turns sliding bulbous granite stones along a long, rectangular ice surface toward a series of concentric circles serving as the target. The innermost circle, commonly referred to as “the button,” determines the scoring. After both teams have thrown their four stones, the team with their stone closest to the button is awarded a point.

They are also granted additional points for any other stones closer to the button than the other team’s closest stone. At the end of eight or 10 rounds, depending on the dominion of competition, whoever has the most points wins.

Curling retains its excitement not through physical dominance or vibrant action, but through its meticulous and varied strategy. Of course, there is an incredible amount of finesse required to be at the top level, but the essence of the game resides in the strategic battle between the two sides.

The only physically demanding part of the sport is carried out by the two sweepers that follow the stone down the ice from the skip, the team captain, to its final resting place at the other end of the curling sheet. Their sweeping reduces the friction that naturally slows the stone, allowing it to travel further. The strategic elements are great to watch, but it’s also hilarious to watch how fast these men and women scrub the ice while on the move. Amherst students have an appreciation for the cerebral, so this sport could be a hit on campus.

If the school continues to use soy sauce as the chief method of ice reduction, curling could be a fun activity on the walkways around campus.

Although it would be fun, not all of these whacky sports rhyme with each other. There’s chess boxing, oil wrestling and Segway polo to name a few. Though those seem to be more about the event than the competition itself, there are others with established leagues that captivate their local areas. Aussie Rules Football is Australia’s pride and joy. It combines soccer and rugby to create a wild, hard-hitting sport that only the bravest can play. Even the more slow-paced affairs, that some would argue aren’t even sports, have huge followings that miss the front and back pages of America’s papers. Darts captivates the United Kingdom and most of northeastern Europe. Some kids even shaved their heads to a shiny bald so as to look like their favorite darts player, Michael van Gerwen, who is currently the world’s best. These are just random samples to show that sport can manifest in many different forms if people are willing to worship them as we worship our favorite sports.

It seems that America is all set when it comes to sports. The “big four” (football, baseball, basketball and hockey) get a lot of media attention, while equally deserving sports like lacrosse, soccer and more exist, but only on the periphery.

It seems likely that the nation won’t deviate from this state of affairs soon. However, if a love of sport is truly a love of competition, then even the obscure should have their day.

Sports

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Forward Alex Toupal ‘18 continued to showcase her offensive prowess this weekend, tallying two assists to bring her season point tally to 26 in 17 games.

Women’s Hockey Ends Regular Season with Win and Draw Against Wesleyan

Scout Boynton ’20 Staff Writer

The Amherst women’s ice hockey team played its final regular season series last weekend, Feb. 17-19, with two games against NESCAC rival Wesleyan. The team came away with a 1-1 overtime tie on Friday and a 4-2 victory on Sunday.

On Friday, the purple and white traveled to Middletown, Connecticut, to face off against the Cardinals.

The first period ended scoreless, though Caitlyn Ryan ’17 almost broke the game open 16 minutes into the first with a low wrist shot on goal. However, Cardinal goalie Allegra Grant made the save, keeping the game scoreless.

Amherst then took the lead 10 minutes into the second period, capitalizing on the power play when Jocelyn Hunyadi ’19 deflected a pass from Alex Toupal ’18 over the goal line.

The score remained 1-0 until the final minute of the period. Wesleyan took advantage of their own power play and found the top shelf off a quick snap shot. The third period went back and forth, but neither team was able to find the back of the net. Amherst outshot the Cardinals 6-3 in the overtime period, but neither team could score, and the game finished in a 1-1 draw.

Sunday marked Amherst’s senior day and the last regular season home game for the purple and white. The purple and white celebrated seven graduating seniors: Ali Ahn, Camille Herzog, Audrey Duquette, Molly Connolly and Sara Culhane, as well as captains Lynndy Smith and Caitlin Ryan.

During their career, these seniors compiled a record of 63-22-17, won three Little Three titles, qualified for three consecutive NESCAC Championship tournaments and earned one NCAA postseason bid. “[It] was incredible; the team really put to-

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

GAME SCHE DULE

FRI Women’s Track & Field NEICAAA Championship @ Reggie Lewis Center, 10 a.m.

Men’s Track & Field NEICAAA Championship @ Reggie Lewis Center, 12 p.m.

gether a great atmosphere for our game,” Ryan said. “I think I can speak for all of the seniors when I say we really appreciated the support, not only from our team and families, but also from our Amherst peers.”

The energy from the Senior Day celebrations carried into the game, as Amherst captured a 1-0 lead in the first 28 seconds. Hunyadi one-timed a pass from Toupal into the net that was nearly identical to the pair’s goal on Friday.

With 1:22 left in the first period, Wesleyan evened the score at 1-1 with a shot to the top corner of the goal. However, the purple and white finished the period on top, leading 2-1, after a shot from Jamie McNamara ’19 found its way past Cardinal goalie Grant’s legs with 29 seconds on the clock.

Amherst widened their lead to 3-1 in the second period when Katelyn Pantera ’19 scored off of classmate Katie Savage’s pass.

Savage then scored Amherst’s fourth and final

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

goal off of Culhane’s rebound with three minutes left in the game.

Wesleyan maintained pressure until the final buzzer, finding the back of the net with 45 seconds remaining. The clock ran out with a 4-2 Amherst victory on the scoreboard. Purple and white goalie Bailey Plaman ’18 made 25 saves in her winning effort while Grant took the loss.

Amherst finished the regular season with a 12-7-5 record, going 6-5-5 in the NESCAC. Next weekend, they will face Trinity on the road for their first NESCAC postseason matchup. The Bantams finished their conference season with an 8-6-2 record, and they are seeded one spot above the purple and white at fourth.

“I believe it will make us more prepared when it comes time for playoffs,” Ryan said about the women’s up-and-down season.

“We’re very excited to take on Trinity this weekend, we’re looking to win it all.”

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

SAT Women’s Squash vs. St. Lawrence @ CSA Team Championships, 12 p.m.

Women’s Track & Field NEICAAA Championship @ Reggie Lewis Center, 10 a.m.

Men’s Track & Field NEICAAA Championship @ Reggie Lewis Center, 10 a.m.

Women’s Basketball vs. Colby @ NESCAC Tournament, 2 p.m.

Men’s Ice Hockey @ Williams @ NESCAC Tournament, 3 p.m.

Women’s Ice Hockey @ Trinity @ NESCAC Tournament, 4:30 p.m.