Issue 23

THE AMHERST

THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER OF AMHERST COLLEGE SINCE 1868

STUDENT VOLUME CXLV, ISSUE 23 l WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20, 2016

Gracie ’17 Leads Golf to Home Invitational Victory See Sports, Page 10 AMHERSTSTUDENT.AMHERST.EDU

Foundation Names College Finalist for $1 Million Prize Jingwen Zhang ’18 Managing News Editor

Photo courtesy of Sophia Salazar ‘18

EU Special Respresentative for Human Rights Stavros Lambrinidis ’84 spoke on the challenges facing human rights and strategies for supporting human rights in Fayerweather Hall on April 19.

EU Official Speaks on Human Rights

Kiana Herold ’17 Managing News Editor

The European Union Special Representative for Human Rights Stavros Lambrinidis ’84 gave a talk titled “Rights Without Borders? Foreign Policy and Human Rights in Today’s European Union” at Amherst College on April 19.

Lambrinidis was appointed in July 2012 as the EU’s first thematic special representative.

Before this position, he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, Vice President of the European Parliament and Director General of the International Olympic Truce Center. Lambrinidis graduated from Amherst as an economics and political science double major and went on to earn his juris doctor from Yale Law School.

The event was hosted by president Biddy Martin and organized by Director of Conferences and Special Events Patricia Allen. Lambrinidis’ lecture lasted approximately an hour and ended with a 30-minute question-and-

answer session with the audience. Lambrinidis opened by describing the challenges facing human rights today before delving into strategies the EU is using to help uphold human rights.

“Human rights work may be deeply frustrating because there is so much human suffering and so much repression, but it is not desperate work,” Lambrinidis said. “We can make a difference.”

Some of the challenges Lambrinidis laid out included the difficulty of promoting human rights to other countries and encouraging these countries to take ownership of the concept, especially when human rights are associated with the West. Lambrinidis said that one important goal was “to make sure that societies in each different region, in each different country, are empowered to make human rights their own business.”

Lambrinidis emphasized building human rights on the ground in each country through civil society and independent institutions such as judiciary systems. He expressed the difficulty

of speaking with countries that less supportive of human rights, but noted that simply having this discourse could lead to positive future developments.

He said he worked to “have them understand that they are not being told, they are being encouraged to change, and, if they are ready to do so, the European Union will support them … financially and with technical help.”

He said that international cooperation is the most effective strategy.

“The best way to address the attack on the universality of human rights is to ensure that it is not just us who are talking human rights,” Lambrinidis said. “It is, in fact, an international coalition of very different cultural, political or regional backgrounds that supports it.”

He spoke about a recent visit to China, mentioning an incident in which 300 lawyers had been arrested, noting how counterproductive

Continued on Page 3

Amherst College was named one of five finalists for the $1 million Cooke Prize for Equity in Educational Excellence on Tuesday, April 12. The college was listed alongside Davidson, Pomona, Stanford and Rice.

The Cooke Prize, sponsored by the Jack Kent Cooke foundation, is intended for an elite college or university that has demonstrated a large amount of support for highperforming low-income students. The goal of the prize is to allow the institution to further work against unequal barriers to admission.

The foundation invited the college to submit a proposal for the prize on Jan. 20, with a deadline of March 1, director of the grants office Lisa Stoffer said in an email interview.

The foundation requested further information from the college on April 1.

Stoffer said that she was the main writer of the proposal, and she sought input from other college administrators, including President Biddy Martin, dean of the faculty Catherine Epstein and staff in the offices of admission and financial aid, student affairs and institutional research.

“The proposal asked us to answer a series of questions about admissions, financial aid, academic programs and campus resources for low-income, first-generation and community college transfer students,” Stoffer said.

According to the Jack Kent Cooke foundation’s website, some factors that contributed to Amherst being chosen as a finalist were its generous need-blind financial aid, high number of transfer students and the availability of funds for students’ internships, travel and study abroad.

According to Stoffer, if Amherst receives the Cooke Prize, Martin and other leaders in the college’s administration will have the discretion to use the funds however they see fit, as long as the intended uses are in line with the foundation’s mission. Several possible goals for the administration are included in the college’s strategic plan, which was published in

Continued on Page 3

College Holds Events on Indigenous Women and Violence Ryan Cenek ’18 Assistant News Editor Students and community members attended a series of three events on April 14 and 15 that focused on sexual violence, disappearance and murder experienced by indigenous women.

The events focused on the difficulties faced by indigenous women in North America, including high levels of violence.

“Indigenous women and women of color are more likely to experience sexual violence or misconduct, and in both the U.S. and Canada, indigenous women and women of color have fewer legal channels available to them to address and redress such violence,” said Lisa Brooks, an associate professor of English and American Studies.

Event organizers set up a “Healing Fire for Survivors of Sexual Violence” on the first-year quad on both days of the event, allowing survivors and allies to gather, make offerings on wooden shims and bring letters and notes.

The nonprofit group, Sing Our Rivers Red, which aims to drawing attention to the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women, displayed an exhibit in memory of missing and murdered indigenous women in the Friendly Reading Room in Frost Library. The display consisted of single unpaired earrings which represented those left behind by the lost women.

A spoken word event featuring poems focused on violence against indigenous women by several indigenous artists was held on Thursday afternoon on the first floor of Frost Library. The spoken word event consisted of

poems and songs performed by Diné poet and Sing Our Rivers Red founder Hannabah Blue, Amherst and Hampshire College students, poets and community members. The poems discussed various aspects of the indigenous experience, including invisibility, cultural appropriation and queer experiences.

The event was co-sponsored by a variety of organizations, including the Sexual Respect Task Force, Peer Advocates of Sexual Respect, the Library Programming Committee, Student Activities, the college’s English department, the Five College Native American and Indigenous Studies program, the Native American Students Organization and Gedakina, a regional Native American nonprofit. Visiting lecturer Paulette Steeves at the University of Massachusetts Amherst initially proposed the event and took a leading role in

organizing it.

The healing fire event emerged from conversations between organizers and a regional nonprofit.

“We had been talking for some time about hosting a healing fire for survivors of sexual violence on campus with the non-profit, Native-led organization Gedakina, and this seemed the right time to do it, especially as so many student leaders had made clear the ways that racial and sexual violence are intertwined,” Steeves said.

“Hopefully these events helped us to think critically about the ways in which sexual and gender-based violence, colonialism and racial oppression are intimately linked,” Brooks said.

“But we also wanted to enable crucial space for witnessing, for allowing often-repressed stories and voices to be heard and for healing.”

News

Eugene Lee ’16 April 12, 2016 - April 17, 2016

>>April 12, 2016 11:28 a.m., Cooper House An officer investigated a motor vehicle accident.

11:41 a.m., Wilson Admissions Officers The Fire Department responded to an alarm and found it was caused by burnt food.

11:43 p.m., Charles Drew House Officers investigated a smoke detector sounding in a second-floor room and discovered it activated when the resident used an e-cigarette. >>April 13, 2016 7:28 p.m., Campus Grounds An officer responded to a complaint of a car parked in the handicapped space without a special permit. The car was ticketed.

11:34 p.m., Charles Pratt Dormitory Officers and the Fire Department responded to an alarm and found that a lit candle ignited papers on the a desk in a resident’s room. The resident was fined $100 for use of candles. The matter was also referred to the Student Affairs office.

>>April 14, 2016 12:04 p.m., Athletic Fields An officer responded to a complaint about loud music near Webster Hall. It was determined the music was coming from the baseball field.

The volume was lowered upon request. >>April 15, 2016 8:04 p.m., Tyler House Officers investigated a smoke detector sounding in the basement and found it was activated by cooking smoke.

8:04 p.m., First-Year Quad Two complaints of loud music from the Spring Formal were received from a town resident. The volume of music was lowered. >>April 16, 2016 1:05 a.m., Jenkins Dormitory An officer responded to a resident’s complaint of loud music on the second floor but nothing was found.

1:35 a.m., James Dormitory While on a medical call, an officer discovered alcohol in a resident’s room. It was disposed of as the resident was underage.

2:11 a.m., Plimpton House Officers and the Fire Department responded to an alarm and found it was activated by steam from a shower.

2:53 a.m., King Dormitory Officers investigated a smoke detector sounding in a thirdfloor room and found it was activated by use of a candle.

The resident was fined $100 for the violation.

11:02 a.m., Jenkins Dormitory An officer investigated vandalism in a suite where holes were punched in the wall.

7:25 p.m., 40 Dickinson Street An officer checked on a vehicle parked behind the building and discovered two Five-College students taking pictures in the area.

11:13 p.m., Seelye House An officer responded to a report of the odor of marijuana on the first floor and spoke to a resident.

11:39 p.m., Stone Dormitory A resident reported finding a smashed window in a common room of a third-floor suite.

>>April 17, 2016 12:29 a.m., James Dormitory An officer responded to a report that a basement emergency exit sign was vandalized and a hole punched in the wall.

2:25 a.m., Stearns Dormitory Officers responded to a complaint of several people yelling obscenities out a fourthfloor window. No activity was found upon arrival.

3:23 a.m., Mayo-Smith Dormitory While at Mayo-Smith Dormitory, an officer discovered evidence that a large amount of alcohol, including hard alcohol, was available at a registered party, in violation of the Option One party policy. The alcohol was disposed of and the matter was referred to Student Affairs.

4:14 a.m., Moore Dormitory An officer responded to a complaint of people being loud and issued a warning to a third-floor resident.

9:50 a.m., Stearns Dormitory An officer investigated a report of a vandalized emergency exit sign and a hole in the wall.

2:35 p.m., Tyler House An officer investigated a basement smoke detector sounding and discovered it was activated by cooking odors.

5:02 p.m., O’Connell Lot An officer investigated a motor vehicle accident.

Thoughts on Theses Department of English

Eugene Lee ‘16 is an English major writing a thesis on the relationship between allegory and characters in medieval plays. His advisor is English professor Ingrid Nelson.

Q: What is your thesis about?

A: On a very basic level, it’s rethinking character and allegory. Everyone knows what characters are, everyone knows what allegories are. I’m generally coming from the standpoint where most people would recognize there being flat and round characters. Those are E.M. Forster’s terms that have been popularized. Any character you think of today, like Harry Potter, are fully realized individuals. We can think of them as autonomous beings. Flat characters, on the other hand — we think of them as serving a narrative purpose and that’s it. There’s nothing more to them than that.

We see them as didactic and boring.

[My thesis] is going to challenge that notion and unpack it, seeing what it is that allegorical characters actually do. Are they all flat? Do we want to have just the terms “round” and “flat?”

How do we establish a vocabulary for talking about characters? That’s the general premise for my thesis.

The actual texts I use are more complicated.

I’m using two medieval Christian morality plays.

They’re removed from the modern novel. We are familiar with characters of the modern novel as being the standard for character. But the Christian morality play is an allegorical drama. In being medieval, allegorical and a drama, it has these three different traits from modern novels. My first chapter is dedicated to laying out all of this background information. I have a section that is dedicated to the history of allegory and of character.

Q: How did you get the idea for this thesis?

A: I was taking a one-on-one tutorial course on C.S. Lewis and Tolkien at Oxford. Eventually we started talking about allegory, because of Lewis, who was obsessed about allegory and wrote a lot about it. But Tolkien hated allegory, which is why “The Lord of the Rings” is not allegorical. Some could say it is, but Tolkien himself would say it is not.

That was a huge point of contention. I explored it a lot during my tutorial. I read a couple of short allegories that Lewis read, part of “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit.” I also read a lot of letters between the two.

I was trying to compare the medieval development of allegory to the modern-day reception of allegory, because “Lord of the Rings” and “The Chronicles of Narnia” are still popular today.

Tolkien and Lewis were part of a movement to revive medieval literature. They drew from it and made something new that was popular and accessible. What is the connection between the two things?

The English Department gave me money to go to Wheaton College, so I went and did research over the summer. Then, back at school, I met with Professor Nelson, my adviser. She said, “This is a lot of stuff. You’re comparing two time periods.” I don’t know if I had enough time in the year to do all of that stuff. She said, “Come back to me in a week and give me one question — one thing you are interested in.”

My question came from C.S. Lewis. Once you know that Aslan is Jesus, your reaction is violent because the character no longer exists as an independent being. The idea is superimposed on the character, so you no longer see it as an individual, but a tool. That was weird to me. Aslan was interesting, but there was an issue with how far he could develop character-wise because of his allegorical purposes. That was my question that I brought back.

My adviser told me to narrow my topic again and gave me two plays — “Every Man” and “Mankind.” That was good advising on her part because she was playing to my strengths, with language I already knew about drama. I was already thinking about drama all the time.

I read through “Every Man.” The concept of the “every man” was interesting to me because it’s allegorical, and yet we’re included in the allegory.

You are representative of something, and yet that thing itself is an individual person, or many individual persons. That kind of paradox is really interesting to me. In the end, I didn’t focus on Lewis or Tolkien at all.

Q: Were there any surprises in the thesis writing process?

A: I researched character theory and criticism on character. I unmasked all this information, but it was all about novels. I had a general preconception — “How am I going to bridge the gap?” — but when I started actually to think about plays in terms of the research, it started to make sense.

That was really surprising. When I moved onto the second play it worked even better. I guess the surprise is understanding that the way we work with a conception of character was the same in medieval times as it is now. I don’t want to say it’s universal, but it’s kind of universal. Just a very natural and human process to relate to different individuals that are represented in text.

Q: What makes your thesis important?

A: When I was researching the topics together, there was nothing addressing character and allegory to this degree. Proposing this kind of case study for cross-media and trans-historical conceptions of character and developing a wider vocabulary for character is a very important thing. I also want to think about character and allegory as genre and concepts unbounded from media. Why should I think about characters as solely bound to the novel? That was my hope — to lay the groundwork for future work on that question.

Personally, the important part is the question of the roles we play in our lives. This is pretty accessible to anyone. Right now, I’m playing the role of an interviewee. You are playing the role of an interviewer. Later, you will be playing a role of a friend, or when you’re at home, playing the role of a son. One kind of personal academic question I had was thinking about those roles and who we are beyond those roles. My third chapter is essentially grounded in this concept of roles and how characters present different kinds of roles we can play. I thought that was an interesting resolution to that question I’ve had for a long time. It’s not a full resolution, but I was glad that it came up from what I was researching.

Q: Do you have any advice for people writing a thesis in English?

A: Professor Sanborn’s big thing is essay topics where there isn’t an actual prompt, except to focus on what you care about. I think that’s good advice for writing a thesis — you should write about something you really care about. You might not even have a full grasp of why you care about it.

You never really know what is going to happen with your inquiry. If you knew the answer, you wouldn’t be doing it. Not being too attached to your initial inquiry is also important — knowing what your strengths are, and not trying to establishing something entirely new.

— Philip Yan ’18

The Amherst Student • April 20, 2016

News

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AAS Senate Election Candidate Statements 2016 Judiciary Council Chair Jacob Zeigler ’19 I may have been built for the judiciary council. My summer job had me reviewing Kentucky building codes, and I loved it (go ahead, ask me how many restrooms your hypothetical business would need.) I’m approachable and trustworthy, at least according to the multiple strangers who have asked me to watch their phones and bags in the train station. I’m excited to invest my time and judgement into the well-being of our campus. With your permission, I’d like a seat on the JC to step up the impact of all of our good life choices. Thanks!

Senators for Class of 2017 Paul Gramieri ’17 Hi! As your AAS treasurer for the past year, I had the privilege of funding events on campus while meeting with students and navigating Amherst’s bureaucratic administration. Next year, though, I am hoping to step away from funding to focus on the great class of 2017 to make our last year here the best one yet. I’ll continue the work I started this year to advocate for expanding student resources, especially the resource centers, the counseling center and the Q Center, and will work to reinstitute Mountain Day and ensure that our class has an on-campus Senior Week. Thank you!

Senators for Class of 2018 Mohamed Ramy ’18 Ahlan, all! Next year, I hope to be one of our class senators again, bringing engaging projects — such as Secret Letters — and dedication to tackling critical issues facing our campus. During this year, I have witnessed the problems of the senate as well as its initiatives and committees that help make our campus better. I am now in a bet-

ter position to participate in the senate. I will endeavor to cater to the needs of our campus and support the new vision of our electoral board. In collaboration with my fellow senators, I wish to italicize experiences at Amherst.

Natasha Kim ’18 I’m running for re-election to represent our class for a third year! I hope to continue serving on the curriculum committee and working to implement serious improvements to the advising process and facilitate more shared intellectual experiences in the student body. I want the curriculum to serve students better instead of being a source of stress and will continue advocating for more flexible academic policies.

Additionally, I hope to continue my work to improve the way reports of bias and discrimination are handled on campus by making the process more transparent and clear. Please reach out with questions or suggestions!

Areej Hasan ’18 Hello! I am running to represent the Class of 2018 in the AAS for a second year! I would love to continue my senate project of updating the online listing of clubs, to continue lobbying the board of brustees to add two seats for recent alumni, to continue trying to increase the credibility of senate as elections chair and to continue making orientation as inclusive as possible as part of the orientation committee. Most importantly, I would love to restructure the senate next year so that it actually helps students accomplish their own goals, not just financially, but also through institutional support.

Olivia Mastrangelo ’18 Having served on senate this year, I want to use what I have learned to create lasting change in the relationship between students and the AAS. I also plan to con-

EU Special Representative Speaks on Human Rights Continued from Page 1 this was for a country trying to build itself on the rule of law. During the trip, he spoke with officials regarding China’s position on human rights. The conversation focused on “whether or not human rights in the Chinese mind is something that the West has devised to cure … the communist system, to overthrow the government … or whether it is something that is more benign that maybe should be considered without having an existential breakdown hanging over their heads,” Lambrinidis said.

Another topic Lambrinidis spoke about was the common presumption of conflict between security and human rights. Instead, he advocated a model of sustainable security and seeking proactive conflict prevention. After stating the importance of civil society, Lambrinidis said that public opinion has become desensitized to human rights violations that are not as overtly dramatic as other parts of the news cycle such as decapitations by the terrorist group ISIS. The last challenge Lambrinidis spoke about was holding the United States and EU to a high standard of human rights, condemning the detainment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, drone strikes, xenophobia and racism as detrimental to the advancement of human rights.

“The biggest weapon we have when we go around the world and try to promote human rights is our credibility,” Lambrinidis said. “We have to make sure that our job in-house is done effectively in order for us to be able to work effectively with partners outside of our house for a more peaceful world.”

Lambrinidis said that human rights are not simply morally desirable but “extremely realistic and important in creating peace and security.”

The lecture then shifted its focus to the strategy the EU is implementing to support human rights globally, with education as a key component.

“People around the world can exercise human rights if they know about them, and in many cases they don’t,” Lambrinidis said. “A remarkable amount of our effort is placed and has to be placed in getting people to know those rights.”

He said it was important to change the minds and the hearts of people rather than the pure letter of the law.

“I am on a mission to discuss with people and explain that this is not a desperate business — that people do get released, that governments do change their policies, that repression does not always last,” Lambrinidis said.

“The European Union is at the forefront of this effort. Not as a leader … [that] would be the death of our effort, [but as] a convener of human rights powers around the world who can make a difference.”

A brief question-and-answer session followed, spanning topics such as the Syrian refugee crisis, the uniqueness of the U.S. death penalty and the relationship of businesses and human rights.

“How we can unite the powers of good around the world?” Lambrinidis asked, concluding the talk. “There are too many. Often isolated, often afraid, often intimidated. We

tinue the working that I have started this year, like restructuring the arts committee and providing free feminine hygiene products in residential bathrooms. The AAS has flaws, but there is so much potential here to make our student government accessible and beneficial to every student at Amherst.

I have a lot of hope for the AAS, and I hope you will vote for me so we can achieve these visions together.

Syed Abbas Shah ’18 Hey everyone. I have decided to launch a campaign for the senate as a honored representative of the Class of 2018. I hope to break the stifling hegemony of the top one percent over the electoral and governance processes of our esteemed institution. It’s time to return the power back to the 96 to 99 percent (90 percent confidence interval) of this country and break the stranglehold of political elitism, the political elite and the elite politicians. I hope, by being co-opted in the existing power structure, to return power to the disempowered and disempower the empowered, sending a powerful, empowering message of hope, resilience and inclusion.

Senators for Class of 2019 Will Zaubler ’19 Hello, Class of 2019. I would love to represent you all in the senate for a second term! Serving on the senate has given me invaluable experience, and I have followed through with the promises I made in my campaign platform and led many other initiatives — please see my Facebook page for further information! In a senate that can be bureaucratic, I am a senator you can trust who strives to have a meaningful impact on the Amherst community. To that end, if I am re-elected, I promise to continue to serve your interests and not the interests of my resume. #WhereTheresAWillTheresAWay

Jacob Silverman ’19 My name is Jacob Silverman and I’m running to continue representing the Class of 2019! I’m a member of the varsity cross country and track and field teams, budgetary committee and first-year life and orientation committee, and I am a current AAS senator. If re-elected, I plan to continue my promise of improving communication between the AAS and the student body as well as increasing the incentive for student involvement in the senate. We’ve done a lot of great work this year, and I hope we can continue the momentum into the next school year! Vote for Jacob Silverman for AAS senate!

Maeve McNamara ’19 My name is Maeve McNamara, and I would be honored to be a class senator for the second year in a row. During my time as a first-year senator, I served on the sexual respect task force and transportation committee. I organized “Everybody Has a Story Week,” a series of lunches between faculty, staff and students that facilitated “belowthe-surface” conversations. I promise to continue this event and support events that involve community engagement and campus activism. I know that I will work hard to represent and listen to this community!

Vote for Maeve, she’s still all the rave.

Kaelan McCone ’19 As a student at Amherst College, I’ve been a witness to a wide variety of changes in the last year. However, there is still an incredible amount left to do at this school. In lieu of all that has been done, my involvement in that and all that is left to do, I feel as if the next step in my involvement in the evolution of this campus is to run for the senate. As a senate for the rising sophomore class, I plan on using my position as a way to promote acceptance and tolerance on our campus.

Amherst College Named Finalist for Cooke Prize Continued from Page 1 June 2015 and outlines programs and initiatives geared toward low-income students.

“There are some purposes that have the support of multiple offices on campus — student affairs, admission and financial aid and the dean of the faculty, among others,” Stoffer said. “These include reducing financial barriers for low-income students so they can afford to accept summer internships or other summer opportunities.”

The foundation will announce the recipient of the Cooke Prize by the end of April.

This is the second year that the Jack Kent Cooke foundation has offered this prize, and the first year that the foundation has held a competition among institutions for it. Previously, Amherst was selected as one of eight colleges and universities to participate in the foundation’s Community College Transfer Initiative, which enabled the college to increase recruitment and enrollment of transfer students from 2006 to 2010.

Interested in getting the scoop on the latest developments on campus?

e h t n Joi s w e n ! ff a t s If you want to write for us, email dahn17@amherst.edu

Opinion Party Fouls and Dues Editorial

Amherst was treated with unseasonably high temperatures last weekend, and naturally many students took advantage of the beautiful weather, whether by reading on Memorial Hill or partying on the social quad. And while it’s understandable that many students would want to celebrate the warm weather, it’s troubling when the debris of weekend parties interfere with daily life on campus and exploit the hard work already carried out by college staff.

The events of this past weekend were particularly striking as they coincided with Admitted Students Weekend.

Prospective students were forced to bear witness to this destruction and trudge through a slew of beer cans and broken glass as they toured campus. And while current students shouldn’t actively cover up a normal weekend life at Amherst for these high school students, images of our campus covered with party trash perhaps sent the wrong message to some prospective students who may choose to not participate in the drinking culture at college.

The aftermath of last weekend was not an anomaly. We often see the social quad battered with Solo cups and emp-

ty beer cans after a weekend of parties, but we often forget about the hardworking staff members who end up picking up after us. While the facilities department works to upkeep the cleanliness of our campus, it is disrespectful for our adult students to expect the facilities staff to pick up excessive trash.

Even more troubling, it has become common to find shards of glass scattered over the social quad. Whether it’s accidental or not, breaking beer bottles is dangerous, and leaving broken bottles on the quad poses a hazard to everyone on this campus, including those who do not participate in the drinking culture at Amherst.

Amherst students are privileged to be living on this beautiful campus that is diligently maintained by the facilities department. And while we should enjoy our time here, whether it be through parties or not, we should also remember to act responsibly and respectfully. How can we be expected to be treated like adults when we can’t even clean up our own mess?

It’s crucial to maintain perspective and ensure that Amherst remains a place we all can equally enjoy and respect.

Keeping Secrets, Walking Home Spencer Quong ’18 Contributing Writer I left my first year expecting that the time of uncertainty would be pretty much over. Of course things would change, but I don’t think I fully realized what this change would look like. Or at least, I expected things to grow linearly — I knew that I wouldn’t hold on to every single relationship from my first year, but I thought that I would have felt like I was growing, not regressing. On the other side of sophomore year, I do feel like I’ve developed.

But there were parts of this semester that were hard in ways I didn’t expect them to be. In a high-pressure environment, most of us have a hard time coping with failure. It is stressful to feel like you might fail a class, like you lost a friendship, or suddenly, want to be alone. Perhaps the biggest stress about these things was not that they happened, but that I didn’t know they would happen.

Moving off the first-year quad is definitely part of this experience. I am living with some of my best friends, yet far away from others.

It’s not a crazy dramatic shift, but there is something different about not all living close together. Amherst is small, and I know it’s ridiculous to call any distance here truly far, but Marsh is pretty far from other dorms. Plus, being at a small school sometimes makes you expect that we will all be around each other constantly. Suddenly, one day when you didn’t see your friend becomes “ages.” I kind of love this about Amherst, but I think it also leads to an unhealthy anxiety about being alone — if you can always be with friends, why would you not be? I think we often mistake time, knowledge and secrets for intimacy. We think it is the number of secrets we share that binds us, though I would argue it has nothing to do with the secrets at all and much more to do with how we felt together when we shared that hidden part of ourselves. If we can remember the value of secret sharing over the secrets themselves, perhaps we will be more okay with spending time apart from each other, with not sharing everything with everyone all the time. The sudden, liberating realization that relationships can have these turns and are not a constant push of “now I know this and this about you” makes you remember that you actually can meet new people at Amherst. And

that has been one of the best parts of this year — growing closer with friends but finding new ones in unexpected places.

As I’ve been thinking about my relationships with others, I’ve found myself thinking about my past. I think about the time before I came out to my family, how it feels like I was an entirely different person before. Sexuality is not every part of my being, and though I was still myself, I could not truly be comfortable. Keeping a secret — especially a secret that scares you — engenders a sort of mental paralysis that permeates into daily life. I do not know how to feel about the years immediately preceding my coming out — years when I knew and actively shut other people out of certain parts of my identity. What did it mean that my friends and parents didn’t know me?

How to think about a person who no longer exists? Yet, I also find myself thinking about car rides from school with my parents. I remember walking them through my day in unnecessary detail. I don’t remember a single thing I told them, but I know we grew close from this repeated exposure.

With enough time, relationality becomes inevitable; I think most people have strong feelings about their family; whether positive or negative, it is difficult to not have any feelings at all. And when I think about these small memories I stop feeling bitter about those years. I learned about myself through living a certain kind of fiction. And the fictional me I presented was still a part of who I am. I did not tell my family or friends everything — I even told them complete lies — yet we love each other for the hard times, not in spite of them.

What I’m trying to say is that the value of relationality with something does not hinge on how well we know it. We will never know how to be ourselves perfectly or how to tell others exactly who we are. I was particularly bad at being myself at 14, but that did not make my relationship with myself worthless. So it matters far more how we approach other objects repeatedly and try and try again. Yet, our relationships are not defined by what we know but how we are around each other. “Knowing” implies an ending. After all, once you know, what else is left? So perhaps relationality, not just with yourself but with others, hinges on fiction. There is a never-ending quality to the best kind of loves, which bend in both difficult

and beautiful ways.

So how to at least continue trying to be myself? Unexpectedly, and because of spring burnout, I think I’ve chosen to spend a lot more time alone this semester. I’ve found myself withdrawing from things and friends.

Just wanting to take a night off from Val or walk home to Marsh alone. While at times I may have stretched this habit beyond healthy limits, this time has also been incredibly important for me. I’m not trying to come off as a cliché millennial sad boy, but I do genuinely think time alone is valuable, not selfish, and certainly nothing to be ashamed of. Retreating has given me time to think about what I really want to be doing; given me ideas for fiction writing; helped me listen better; helped me develop more confidence; helped me be okay with being alone. I’m not advocating isolation.

There have been times in my life when I’ve stopped doing things I loved, and perhaps this is a sign that you took things too far. I also try to remember that time alone also means time alone from myself — being in a place where I stop myself from ruminating and telling myself all that is wrong and ugly.

Virginia Woolf once wrote, “When they were alone, they said nothing. They looked at the view; they looked at what they knew, to see if what they knew might perhaps be different today. Most days it was the same.” I’d like to try looking at myself, and saying nothing — to be truly alone, and find out what might perhaps be new today. When was the last time I asked myself “how are you?” and didn’t know the answer? Allowed myself to think about it? Given myself the benefit of the doubt? I am trying not to rush. I am trying to learn to be myself by living alongside others and being okay with not knowing myself. It’s the end of sophomore year, and I had to decide on small things like my major, but I will not know what I want to do, where I want to end up, and I will be okay with that. Regardless of how uncertain we are about the far off future, most of us are uncertain about something in everyday life. No matter how many times we tell ourselves that “it’s okay,” we still worry about the unknown — some worrying is inevitable and likely healthy.

Perhaps we all need a gentle reminder to relax.

I hope to live far away, in a place where I find and treat myself with kindness, awake inhabiting the body of a stranger.

THE AMHERST

STUDENT E X E C U T I V E B OA R D Editors-in-Chief Elaine Jeon, Lauren Tuiskula Executive Adviser Sophie Murguia Managing News Dan Ahn, Kiana Herold, Jingwen Zhang Managing Opinion Diane Lee, Julia Pretsfelder Managing Arts and Living Gabby Edzie, Paola Garcia-Prieto, Alida Mitau Managing Sports Jason Darell, Drew Kiley, Julia Turner Managing Design Gabby Bishop S TA F F Head Publisher Emily Ratte Design Editors Justin Barry, Megan Do, Sunna Juhn, Adele Loomis, Monica Nimmagadda, Zavi Sheldon, Chloe Tausk, Yrenly Yuan Assistant News Editors Ryan Cenek, Carlos Rivero Photography Editor Kyra Gardner

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The Amherst Student • April 20, 2016

Opinion

5

Competent, Committed and Mildly Charismatic? Become a Senator!

Why the AAS Matters Shruthi Badri ’16 Contributing Writer There has been plenty of hand-wringing in the senate about whether the college’s student government, Association of Amherst Students, is a worthwhile institution.

There has always been hand-wringing, but lately it is astonishingly pervasive; all anyone affiliated with the student government can talk about is how “dysfunctional” it is.

The irony of course is that if senators chose to defer these conversations so they could actually do their jobs, they might not need to have them after all. The problem is a large number of senators this year simply did not understand what the job entailed. The AAS has historically been bad about communicating to the student body about what the institution actually does, but now it is in the more unfortunate situation of having most of its members share that ignorance.

My hope is that this article serves a dual purpose — a job advertisement and an informational piece about how student government works. The main takeaways are these: (a) if you would like to run, do not be demotivated by your lack of experience; simply being willing and able to do the things I describe below makes you more qualified than the average sitting member, and (b) don’t vote for an incumbent without first asking

them what they have already done for the student body.

A senator’s job is basically to represent and to act on behalf of students’ interest.

This is obviously quite broad — it could be defined as helping student activism, increasing and supporting student services or giving students more of a say. But ultimately, these responsibilities can be boiled down to thinking about the four things senators have access to. A senator’s job is to make the best of each of these things so they can do the most to advance student interest.

Votes Senators have various opportunities to cast important votes — during meetings and in committees. To be able to vote effectively, one must be well informed. This requires studying the context and institutional history that frame votes. Senators have been here for at most four years while members of faculty, administrators and the questions they consider have been here rather longer; this makes it crucial to do one’s homework. Once this is done, more often than not it is obvious what course of action is in student interest. Senators are from such different parts of campus that when well-informed, their opinions act as a good proxy for students in general.

Administrators and Faculty Faculty members and administrators make decisions all the time without first soliciting a student vote. Senators can influence these decisions, whether they are made within or outside of committee. A little time spent becoming acquainted with the various administrative structures and hierarchies at play allows one to have a disproportionately large impact. Doing this makes the administration seem less opaque, allowing you, the Amherst student, to understand who is responsible for what, and why things work as they do. Further, once you know who to talk to, the designation of a senator makes it easier to be listened to.

Money The Senate Fund is a pool of money subject to fewer constraints than regular discretionary funding and allows senators a degree of freedom to carry out projects. Lately, this has been a vastly underused resource, but the fund exists for good reason. In the past, senators have been able to do things ranging from giving out boxes to students for moving, having Bar Night at Keefe, instituting the smoothies station at Val, buying the AAS vans and — in one glorious instance — buying the electric car for ACEMS. However, money is only part of the battle. Although the fund relieves some financial legwork, it

still requires a considerable degree of initiative to think of and to execute a project that is both feasible and useful.

Community Perhaps most importantly, being in the AAS gives one access to the student government community. It is not easy to keep abreast of all the information needed to make good choices as a senator, but there is one great advantage to be had: inherited knowledge. Veteran senators are only too glad to share what they’ve seen and learned. Having been involved in the AAS for so long, they are usually very invested in its continuing success and will go of their way to help when asked. Passing knowledge down is the only way to preserve institutional memory because students are only here for four years. Unfortunately, the body, as it stands today, seems so impervious to advice that the majority of the most experienced senators either resigned (as I did) or stayed silent during meetings. Having been in the senate almost throughout my Amherst career, I can say that this is the worst it has ever been in this regard. There is a reason I am writing this here rather than saying it in the senate — if things are to become better for the student body as a whole, I hope those of you who have read this far will consider running.

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Arts&Living

Photo courtesy of Paola Garcia-Prieto

The cast, comprised of students from all corners of campus, has been working tirelessly since February to perfect the show before the opening on May 4.

The Amherst Musical Revives with Sondheim’s “Into theWoods” Paola Garcia-Prieto ’18 Managing Arts & Living Editor Three weeks away from the show’s grand opening, I talked with the directors and producer of “Into the Woods” which will be performed at Orr Rink, May 4-7. Producer Jayson Paul ’16, director A. Scott Parry, musical director Mark Swanson and orchestra liaison Sam Rosenblum ’16 were eager to discuss what this musical means to them and why they hope to revive the college’s tradition of putting on an annual musical.

Q: What does “Into the Woods” mean to you and what effect do you hope it has on this campus?

Scott Parry: Well I would say that “Into the Woods” is probably the most ubiquitous Stephen Sondheim show, and it’s seen in all levels of theatre. And people grow up with this show. It starts off speaking to the child in all of us and ends up affecting the adult in all of us. I think of it as Sondheim’s most successful/popular show.

Mark Swanson: I think “Into the Woods” is uniquely applicable to Amherst this year. It’s always applicable to Amherst because it’s a coming of age story — a story about assessing what your parents taught you and deciding what you want to take with you and how to make your own judgments and decisions. But it’s especially unique for this year with Amherst Uprising because, while Amherst has always been searching for community, the issues came to a head in a special way this year. So this show brings people together to talk about these issues of community in terms of being in a “chosen” place, but not necessarily choosing whom you’re with. Ultimately, the end of the story is about a community that finds itself after discovering a common goal and sharing a bond due to the trauma they’ve gone through to reach their goals.

And that’s what we have here, students from different backgrounds who have all chosen Amherst, but they haven’t necessarily chosen to be together, so they learn how to forge relationships. And Amherst students have common experiences of achievement and the hard work and sacrifice that it takes to get here. So, they all have a common base of intellectual capacity and academic achievement, but the differences in backgrounds — socioeconomic, cultural, racial and geographical — are what challenge this bond.

Jayson Paul: I encountered “ITW” on Amherst campus during my sophomore year. I had never listened to any of the music before, and when I watched it with all my friends, it got me thinking about community and what a musical could do for Amherst. There’s something about the chaos of it that’s really appealing because you come to Amherst and you’re a high-achieving, very intellectual, very driven individual. But, you didn’t choose your peers, and now you have to create a community out of what you’re presented with.

MS: The cool thing about musicals, specifically this one, is that a variety of people with different interests can all find something to like about the show.

There are many artistic points of reference. A classical person, like me, can be attracted to this kind of music because of the integrity and the organic nature of its composition. A poet can be attracted to the intricate rhymes and cleverness of the script.

Someone in the German department or in folklore might be attracted to it for the plot and setting.

There are many different points of reference, and musicals — especially the ones that Scott and I usually did — were all shows that could pull people in from all corners of campus. I think that’s great because it’s hard to get people excited about art a lot of the time.

SP: Art is about education, learning and developing. It’s about experience, elevation and communal catharsis. That’s ultimately what all theatrical endeavors are trying to achieve: a community coming together and having an experience or having a confusion of experience where we relate ourselves to the characters on the stage and feel the emotions they go through by proxy. As we walk away, we’ve all had an individual experience as well as a communal experience as the audience.

Q: Musicals used to be an annual thing here, correct?

MS: During my first two years, a lot of student demanded that there be a musical, which lead to the very first musical: “How to Succeed in Business.” It was an honors thesis that the theatre department produced, and I directed the music for it. The response to the play was so phenomenal. And then the next year the theatre department wasn’t interested in doing it again, but I realized there was nothing going on in the music department during January, so I decided to put a musical together during interterm and opened the show once all the students got back to campus. First, we did an easy one: “Funny thing happened on the way to” by Sondheim, a surefire hilarious play. It turned out pretty well and from there musicals became an annual thing. The next year I chose “La Cage,” knowing it would be a big popular success.

SP: Well the reason we chose “La Cage” was because of the gay marriage debate going on in Massachusetts.

MS: And we always did that kind of thing because the next one was “Candide,” which is about freedom of expression, and this was when the patriot act discussion was going on.

SP: And I set the play in Crawford, Texas, with Dick Chenney getting prisoners of Arab descent … it was really politically charged.

MS: We tried to choose the play based on relevant themes going on at that time.

SP: We agonized every year over what was applicable and what had substance.

MS: And “Into the Woods” fits into that right now

with the theme of community that is huge on our campus. While the community thing goes far beyond this one show; the show also forms a foundation to keep building community.

JP: And we will be talking about how to keep the musical going, hopefully as an annual thing. It’s a way for the community to decide on a project for a year — on something we want to talk about.

MS: It’s just such a great opportunity for the community to come together and work on a communal project. During our interterm musicals, we would put on three shows and 800 Amherst students would come see it — with another 60-80 students in it. That’s a huge percentage of the population all being a part of one thing. It’s one of the few times that the whole campus can unite around something artistic and intellectual, and do so completely voluntarily.

Q: So Jayson, what prompted you to be the one to bring this back?

JP: It was Mark that planted the seed last year we saw the production of “Sweeney Todd” at the end of spring semester, and then last semester there was the semi-staged “Les Mis” show that we got to be a part of. It was really heartening to see the musical theatre but, afterwards, everyone seemed disappointed that they didn’t have a connection to the people on the stage. They weren’t current members of the community.

MS: Yeah, I was so sad after the “Les Mis” show, not that it wasn’t good, it was great seeing a lot of musical alumni, but I felt so bad for all the kids who didn’t get to experience a musical on campus. That’s why, when you came to me with the idea for “Into the Woods,” the timing was perfect because I was thinking about the friendships we made during our on-campus projects. It’s so easy to have fun and build connections with other people in a musical theatre production.

SP: Over the nine years we did the musical we grew a bond with the kids, and they kept coming back.

It became this widening community that everyone wanted to be a part of. And even if they weren’t in the main cast, they were in the chorus or on the tech crew or they were in some way involved.

SR: I’m a tour guide, and every time I mention that we’re bringing back the annual musical and putting on “Into the Woods” in May, I see their eyes light up. Why? Because so many other liberal arts colleges do something like this every year.

Q: What has working with a cast with varying levels of experience been like?

JP: The blessing and curse of a school like Amherst is that everyone is involved in so many different things. We have cast members from all ends of campus, which is great, but it’s hard to get them all in one place at once. A lot of cast members have been in theatre and choir, but a good number of them have never sung before. There are so many

people that went out on a limb for this play, and everyone is going above and beyond to be involved and make sure it’s a success. Not only is there everything you see in front of the curtain, but people don’t quite realize the incredible amount of work that goes on behind the scenes — this is the work that really matters to me and really shows the quality of people we have in the group. That’s why I love our group so much.

MS: That’s another point I’d never thought of before, but these types of environments create an opportunity for kindness and generosity that you don’t always see. All of these things have ripples and repercussions in people’s lives that you don’t even see. It’s such a rich experience.

Q: Scott, how did you come up with your vision of the musical?

JP: We’re not recreating “Into the Woods,” we’re creating our own Amherst version of “Into the Woods.” And part of that is because we’re working within constraints, but that is also what allows us to create something new.

SP: In my opinion, restraints and parameters always cause greater creativity. When the sky’s the limit your creativity can sometimes be a little bit myopic. But, when you have restraints and try to get the communication of the piece through the constraints that you have, you are forced to be creative in a very unique and individual way. And that creates the fun of having to do the work in the most efficient way possible given the constraints that you have — it always makes for a better piece.

To decide on how to present a piece, I always familiarize myself with it and then ask: what’s the performance venue, what are the restrictions and parameters, who are we performing for, and who are we performing with? Constituency, resources and venue. Those things drive the decisions — always. So, I took all those things into account and thought of the culture of Amherst as being in this transitional point between youth and adulthood, which is what college is generally about. Thinking in this context, I wanted to play into the idea of the childlike nature of storytelling, and of these fairy tales in particular. When are these fairy tales usually told? At bedtime when a child is going to sleep.

Taking that as a jumping-off point and thinking of the environment that we’re performing in and the resources that we have, I thought the best way to approach this is with a childlike imagination. That’s why I went with the idea of “pajama-party/bedtime story-telling,” with a narrator actually reading a book to children who then, throughout the process of the play, grow up as they their childhood wishes are granted and they deal with the ramifications of those wishes. It’s a lot about the idea of loss and coming to terms with the difference between idealism and realism.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Arts & Living 7

The Amherst Student • April 20, 2016

Guilford’s “Film and Video Curation” Course Holds Exhibition Series Gabby Edzie ’17 Staff Writer This semester Professor Joshua Guilford — a professor of English and Film and Media Studies — offered a course titled “Film and Video Curation.” The seminar aimed to grant students an opportunity to both think critically about curation and to bring the resulting knowledge into practice. The course was divided into two components, and the first allowed students to attend several screenings, which were discussed in concert with critical and theoretical readings about curatorial practice.

“We critiqued the programs we saw,” Guilford explained. “We were thinking about how different curators approached their programs, and different elements of the programs — we looked at program notes, and discussed issues, like the sequence of some of the videos being presented, as a group.”

The second half of the course has been the application of the first part’s examination of curatorial work. “This portion has been working in a more practical register to develop ideas for programs and to work towards actualizing those programs,” Guilford said. The class has been working in groups towards final projects which consist of a series of public exhibitions. In encouraging students to curate their own programs, Guilford has sought to move beyond the typical seminar structure — “the main thing I wanted this course to do was give students some facility with the sort of critical material and critical conversations around curating, but also to encourage them to make the shift from thinking critically about curating to using that sort of conceptual register as a basis for producing curated program. So how to move from something like theory to something like practice. Or how to think of them as more integrated than you typically think of them in a seminar.”

Guilford’s ability to offer students an opportunity to become part of the very practices they are analytically discussing in part stems from his own curatorial experience.

While at graduate school at Brown University, Guilford partook in curatorial work on the side that existed in concert with his academic and research interests. Specifically, Guilford’s Film and Media studies research background focuses on American Avant Garde film of the ’60s. “I’ve been doing [curatorial work] since about 2009, but this is the first time I’ve developed a course around curation,” he said.

The final exhibitions have been a “long process,” as Guilford described it. Over six weeks the four student groups have carefully designed exhibitions — a process that has included building concepts, researching those concepts, drafting proposals, selecting screening locations, developing budgets and actually renting and obtaining films with appropriate exhibition rights. Guilford established parameters as a basis, but the groups have been able to depart in ways that have produced a diverse set of screenings.

Guilford has required that the groups submit a screening proposal, including a short description of primary ideas; design posters, with the options of working with outside artists or creating their posters on their own; produce program notes due at the screening in whatever form they chose, and create curatorial statements which draws on readings to establish conceptual frameworks for their events.

Absurdity On April 28 at 7 p.m., in Keefe Campus Theater a group consisting of Evgeniia Trufanova (Russian Department TA), Basil Fawaz ’16 and Keara Phillips (Smith ’17) will hold a program that will attempt to define the concept of absurdity and film. “Our project will attempt to bring attention to a subgenre of experimental film that, as we believe, is not only underrepresented in mainstream

media, but has not yet become a subject of intellectual discussion among film critics,” Trufanova said.

The program will feature a selection of films that varies in terms of production year, country of origin and utilized techniques which include collage animation, stop-motion animation, experimental film and found footage. The group was inspired by the very word “absurd,” and their inability to truly define it conceptually. “We are very interested in giving [absurdity] a shape,” Trufanova said. “Once we decided on our theme, quite a few interesting written works came our way.

It is definitely Albert Camus’ ‘The Myth of Sisyphis,’ Thomas Nagel’s ‘The Absurd’ and Soviety absurdist poetry of the 20s and 30s that I’ve been fascinated with for quite a long time and dint expect to find any traces of it in film, but some of the things that I was watching did remind me of it in terms of the rhythm and language,” she added.

In terms of assembling their program, Trufanova noted that the most interesting part was contacting artists directly, a process which at times resulted in having meaningful conversations with them. One Russian filmmaker was quick to grant the group usage rights, as he was “totally against the notion of artist’s intellectual property and any work that is considered complete by the artist himself should be accessible to everyone for whatever purposes.”

In addition to rental fees, the group plans to print publicity material and get refreshments for audience members.

“The major challenge we ran into is that each of us had a different understanding of what absurd and absurdist film is, and it took a while to bring our thoughts and ideas together to come to an agreement on what we are going to promote as our definition of absurd,” Trufanova concluded.

Race and Identity On April 28 beginning at 11 p.m., a group consisting of Dane Engelhart ’16, Alexandra James ’16, Maria Elena Marione ’16 and Jin Jin Xu ’17 will be screening a program surrounding race and identity that is in large part a tribute to Amherst Uprising.

“We’re generally looking to reopen spaces of dialogue surrounding experiences of people of color looking back at Amherst Uprising and trying to create a space, again, that feels organic where people can talk about those issues,” Marione said.

In highlighting the Amherst Uprising sit-in, the program will be on the first floor of Frost Library — “with sleeping bags and pizza,” Marione added. The program will work to emphasize the incredible manner in which Amherst Uprising gained supporters.

The group will be screening a series of short films in the periodical room of the library, and will encourage students in Frost to partake in the look at race.

“We’ll try to grab people who are in Frost,” Marione said. “ Just go through the floors and say ‘hey come down.’ Because I know to an extent that’s what happened with Amherst Uprising — people went around and said ‘ya know, you should be down here.’”

The group will also facilitate group discussions following the films. “We’ll start a dialogue about the films and how they made people feel,” James said. “And I think that’s rally the center of what we wanted to do.”

“We hope we’re giving something for people to talk about,” Marione said. The group was inspired by both coursework surround site specific screenings and cultural representation. “[We were interested in] what it’s like to screen something that’s not in a movie theater, that’s kind of a blank canvas in a way, and how to interact with the history of that space and the cultural components that come along with that,” James said.

“We’re also thinking about what it means to represent or screen something not of your

own race or culture,” Xu said. “Especially to do that without fetishizing filmmakers of color,” Marione added.

Because the group will be screening in the library, they have had the support of the library staff in procuring films that are available for general use on campus. “It’s been an interesting collaboration with the library in that way,” Engelhart said. In addition to the films gained through library usage rights, the group had to contact a distributor for one film and an artist — who was very excited that they were screening his work — for another.

In terms of budgeting, the library helped with the bulk of film costs so the group was left with only two film rentals to cover, leaving the bulk of their budget open. The remainder of their budget will be spent on their low publicity costs and food.

“I think it’s kind of cool and integral to our project that its sort of on the low, existing budget, even though we’re self imposing that [more funds were available if needed] to really show that you can make something in this way.”

A challenge the group faced was the actual process of finding the films they wanted — a process which involved a lot of sifting through and emailing. “We had a lot of potential films but it was hard to find contemporary works,” Engelhart said. “We’re working in short experimental films and very independently films mostly. Its not mainstream production or films that have been around for a longer time and have gained some kind of notability. We were looking for contemporary films that touched on race — we ended up turning to a short documentary.”

The group described the process of selecting the films as both “organic and less organic.” “Our program became more coherent as we found films we happened to stumble upon that happened to work together,” Xu said.

“The Net is Not a Joke” Matthew Buonaguro ’16, Rishi Kowalski ’16, Jax Reiff ’17 and Samual Wohlforth ’17 will show their program “The Net is Not a Joke” on May 1 at 9 p.m., in Keefe Campus Theater. Just as the title implies, the group will try to capture the diversity of material found on the internet.

“We want to take people to a more critical place with their internet use,” Wohlforth said. Screening the internet material in a traditional theatrical setting, the group is asking audiences to redefine content they see on a daily basis.

“You’re looking at images online, you’re watching videos online, you’re reading stuff online. And part of what we’re looking at is that these things are art objects,” Kowalski said.

“How often do you critically deliberate on something you saw on the internet,” Buonaguro said. “You have a hosrt attention span, you’re probably reading Wikipedia in another tab, you’re probably listening to music.

What happens when this is in a traditional screening setting.” The group will show material that includes an array in terms of both platforms — YouTube, Vimeo, etc. — and content, including camcorder videos, DVD rips from old media, art films and professionally produced go-pro footage.

The presentation itself will also reflect the internet experience. The group plans to transition between pieces by switching between different browser tabs or online platforms, keeping the projector on throughout.

“We should have a tech issue segment,” Reiff joked. While maintaining the feel of browsing the internet, the group also hopes to maintain a sense of organization and structure to keep the viewers engaged as participants in a traditional screening.

The sense of the traditional screening will in large part be secured by the location — “we want to connect strongly with the his-

torical tradition of using the group setting in a much more institution way with the gravitas that a cultural institution has,” Wohlforth said.

Additionally, the group is engaging with the notion of the traditional screening in simply utilizing pre-existing forms in a modern manner. “Using a screening to highlight the diverse possibilities of a form — that’s not new,” Wohlforth siad. “There are historical examples of very famous screenings that have an educational, documentary, experimental, and traditional narrative films in one setting in one night. So, I don’t see us as doing anything inherently different from that.”

The group also wants to reinvent the notion of the curator. “There’s been a heavy emphasis on the presence of the curator bringing these films to people,” Reiff explained. “A lot of the language is assuming that we’re not constantly surrounded by media. We have access to as much media as we want. There are pieces that felt a little weird or not updated because of that attribution of power to the curator.”

The group was fortunate in that YouTube public usage rights eliminated any rental costs, so most of their funds were put towards pricier advertising materials, and food. “I wanted an ice sculpture of a guy on a computer,” Buonoguro said, “but I looked into it and that’s like $500 and that’s the whole budget so that was shot down at a very early conceptual stage.”

A crucial element of the project has been assuring that audiences will understand the substance of the works they’re showing.

Audiences must recalibrate their notions of internet material, because, as the group suggests, the importance of the material is often overlooked.

“There’s a ton of stuff out there,” Kowalski said. “The Internet’s a big place.”

“Sweet 16: A Coming of Age Screening” The final screening, taking place on May 2 at 7 p.m. in Keefe Campus Center Theater, has been produced by Katy Rose O’Brien ’17, George Liang ’17 and Sarah Lanzillota (Hampshire ’13.)The screening “Sweet 16: A Coming of Age Screening” will showcase the filmmaking of five established filmmakers alongside the films of 11 students from Professor Adam Levine’s course “Experiments in 16 mm film.” In placing the two groups in concert, the group hopes to emphasize the notion that “every artist has to start somewhere,” as Lanzillota put it.

In maintaining the “coming of age” theme, the established filmmakers’ films will be selected from their early work. “In terms of picking the outside films for the screening we did some research on the early work of filmmakers we already knew about and liked, and decided on films that are not often shown or talked about and films that we thought would fit well with the student films,” O’Brien said.

In working with student films, the group has created an interesting curatorial experience. Because the student works won’t be done until the time of the screening, the interaction between the established filmmakers’ works and the students’ works wont be seen until the night of the screening.

The allocation of the group’s budget has been seamless — half has gone to renting films [funds were saved in using student films] and half has gone to paying an artist to make posters and to paying a projectionist who will run the screening.

“Professor Levine has told us that in the past, films made in his intro classes have appeared in festivals, won awards, and are essentially no different than films made by non students or seasoned film makers,” Lanzillota said. “We are aiming to investigate the prejudice against student artists by tricking the public into coming to an end of semester showcase, thinking they will only be experiencing famous works.”

Arts & Living 8

The Amherst Student • April 20, 2016

Vigée Le Brun: Revolutionizing Womanhood in Revolutionary France and the grace with which she painted created works unrivaled in artistic expression and stirred up controversy concerning propriety in art. Vigée Le Brun began her journey as an artist at a young age, mastering pastel portraits well before the end of her teenage

Photos courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art

“Self Portrait with Cerise Ribbon,” 1781 Madeline Bustos ’19 Contributing Writer If you find yourself in need of a day trip away from your final paper or your textbooks, the “Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France” gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is a must see.

Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun is one of the finest 18th-century French painters and among the most significant of all female artists. Her unique perception of womanhood

“Eugene de Montesquiou Fezensac Sleeping,” 1783

France in 1789 and to relocate to Italy. From then on she continued to work and paint women in Florence, Naples, Vienna, St. Petersburg and Berlin and to capture feline royalty, which distinguished her as a new kind of painter. Her portraits of royalty and the wealthy are breathtaking, giving the women of the age a playfulness and livelihood that was well overdue.

With dark walls and dim overhead lighting, each Vigée Le Brun painting hung a well-illuminated gem on the walls of the MET. The ladies preserved in the many fine portraits grinned with pleasure as dozens of other spectators and I sauntered through the gallery, observing their fine composition and compassionate craft. When first entering the Special Exhibition Gallery, visitors are greeted with two behemoth portraits; the first a self-portrait and the adjacent a portrait of the French queen. The immediate contrast in

“Marie Antoinette and Her Children,” 1787 years. Vigée Le Brun cultivated talent in portrait painting and began attracting wealthy clientele. Because she was one of the only woman painters in 18th-century France, Vigée le Brun garnered a lot of attention from the French elite, including Queen Marie Antoinette. Over the course of their lives, Vigée Le Brun maintained a close friendship with the queen, whom she painted frequently in a variety of attitudes, the most controversial being that of her in informal dress and another of her with her children. Though many considered these portrayals to be misaligned with the propriety of the age, Vigée Le Brun’s work continued to be heavily commissioned by aristocratic and royal women, as they favored and admired her style.

Vigée Le Brun rose to fame during a turbulent time in European history. Because of her close friendship with the French queen and much French aristocracy, the French Revolution forced Vigée Le Brun to flee

“En Galle,” 1783 formality between the two was only rivaled by their similarity in warm expression. In the first moments of touring the gallery, visitors get a taste of the kind of relationship Vigée Le Brun had with her sitters. Many of the faces radiate with passion and comfort.

A common characteristic of Vigée le Brun’s paintings is large, expressive water-

“Self Portrait,” 1789 brimmed eyes. All of her sitters maintain their playfulness and emotion through this technique. Vigée Le Brun portrayed both her sitters and herself in this manner. All of her portraits pay attention to the complexion of the subjects. Her work exhibits rosy cheeks, pumping life through the gallery.

Vigée Le Brun continued to use pastel throughout her travels. Midway through the gallery, I came across a series of pastels. A few of the portraits were ladies’ portraits as is most of her other work. However, what struck me the most were her pastels of sleeping babies. At the time of Vigée Le Brun’s artistry, portraits of babies were commonly captured with pastels because the compassion needed to be completed timely. Still, Vigée Le Brun’s understanding of her subject and the emotional states she rendered from them proved to transcend a confinement to medium.

Vigée le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France leaves the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 15, and I urge everyone to pay a visit and view Vigée Le Brun’s work.

Her remarkable talent and historic role as a female artist make this exhibit well worth the trip.

Wong Fu Productions’ First Feature Film, “Everything Before Us”

Photos courtesy of filmindipendenti.com

“Everything Before Us” revolutionizes Asian American representations on screen.

Sophia Salazar ’18 Staff Writer Phillip Wang, Wesley Chan and Ted Fu, the filmmaking trio behind the popular YouTube channel Wong Fu Productions, have been creating comedy sketches, short films and vlogs since they were first-year students at University of California San Diego in 2003.

After displaying their self-taught filmmaking talents on YouTube, Wang, Chan and Fu garnered an exceptionally large following of over 2.4 million YouTube subscribers. Wong Fu Productions creates online content that includes collaborations with Asian American actors, musicians and online personalities.

Since 2008, Wong Fu Productions has tirelessly attempted to get a script for a fulllength feature film starring Asian-American actors off the ground. Last year, Wang told “The Hollywood Reporter” that, after pitch-

ing their idea of a romantic sci-fi movie with Asian-American protagonists to film producers, they received feedback saying it’s “just not good business.” Luckily for Wong Fu Productions, technological innovations have allowed them to create and release the film titled “Everything Before Us” for what Hollywood considers “non-traditional audiences.”

Recent online trends in video streaming and crowd-funding allowed the trio to make their filmmaking dreams come true. In 2014, Wang, Chan and Fu called on their large YouTube following to promote their film project, and they raised over $350,000 on the online fundraising site Indiegogo. In combination with a $100,00 grant they received from a media nonprofit, Wong Fu Productions gained the means to produce “Everything Before Us,” starring actors Aaron Yoo (“Disturbia,”) Brittany Ishibashi (“Political Animals,”) Brandon Hoo Soo (“From Dusk Till Dawn: The

Series”) and newcomer Victoria Park. The film also features supporting performances from Randall Park (“Fresh Off the Boat”) and Ki Hong Lee (“The Maze Runner.”) “Everything Before Us” was released exclusively on Vimeo-On-Demand on June 3, 2015. However, the film was released this month on the popular movie-streaming service Netflix, allowing it to reach an even wider audience.

The film documents two couples’ tumultuous romances in a near-future society where relationships are tracked and bureaucratized by a government agency, the Department of Emotional Integrity (DEI for short.)

In a world where one’s Emotional Integrity (EI) score is dictated by the stability of past or current relationships and their integrity in them, EI scores become public records that people are judged upon. Ben (Aaron Yoo) and Sara (Brittany Ishibashi) are former lovers who ended their relationship on bad terms, causing Ben’s EI score to plummet. Because Ben is up for his dream job, and his low EI score has the possibility of disqualifying his candidacy, he reconnects with Sara and asks that she help him officially resolve their relationship at the DEI office. Meanwhile, Seth (Brandon Hoo Soo) and Haley (Victoria Park) are two young lovebirds about to graduate high school. Haley gets into her dream school in San Francisco, and Seth does not. Knowing that he is in love with her, and wanting to keep their long-distance relationship strong, he asks Haley to register their relationship together before she leaves for college. Both relationships are challenged by the nature of their circumstances — challenges that are exacerbated by the hierarchy created

by publicized EI scores.

Overall, I very much enjoyed watching “Everything Before Us,” and it is as cute and romantic as it is thought-provoking. Knowing the labor of love that went behind this film’s production made me appreciate the film’s beautiful cinematography, acting and writing even more. Watching the creative romantic storyline unfold also made me realize that “Everything Before Us” was probably one of the first instances where I’ve seen well-developed Asian-American characters in genuinely intimate relationships. Chan told “The Hollywood Reporter” last year: “We have a responsibility to our audience, who want us to perpetuate or strengthen Asian American [representation] in media.” By the numbers, the representations of people of color as characters in mainstream American film and television programs are bleak. The numbers of people of color in writing, directing and producing roles behind the camera are even bleaker. “Everything Before Us” is groundbreaking in its representation of Asian Americans both on and off the screen, and it is changing the narrative of how movies featuring people of color are made. My hope is that films such as these will continue to be made by talented filmmakers unwilling to let Hollywood’s archaic standards stop them, and that their success will influence mainstream media to transform its standards. With the evolution of communications technology and growing online video-streaming audiences, I believe that this hope is already in the process of being realized. Meanwhile, grab some popcorn and some friends and watch “Everything Before Us” on Netflix.

The Amherst Student • April 20, 2016

Sports 9

Baseball Wins Two, Drops Three Against Non-Conference Opponents

Photo courtesy of Amherst Athletics

Yanni Thanopolous ’17 currently leads the team in RBIs, with 23 total.

Hayes Honea ’19 Staff Writer The Amherst baseball team began a full week of games with success, beating Worcester State University, 3-0, on Wednesday.

Come Thursday, they defeated Eastern Connecticut State, 3-1. However, over the weekend, the purple and white suffered losses to Salve Regina (6-11) and Castelton (6-11).

In their Wednesday game, the men started strong with a 1-0 lead, thanks to an RBI from Nick Nardone ’19 in the top of the second.

Four innings later, Anthony Spina ’17 increased the lead to 2-0 when he launched a double to right center.

In the seventh, Amherst scored its final run when Harry Roberson ’18 recorded a single to score Max Steinhorn ’18. Wilson Taylor ’19 pitched a full game for the purple and white, allowing no runs for Worcester.

“Last Wednesday’s complete game was satisfying, but I can definitely learn from it as I try to build on that performance over the next couple of weeks,” Taylor said. “I think it was an important confidence boost for me.

It was a good team win, and hopefully it will give us momentum going forward.”

Taylor has had a standout season thus far, holding a 2.08 ERA, second only to junior Jackson Volle, whose 1.35 ERA stands second amongst all pitchers in the NESCAC conference.

On Thursday, Amherst returned to Memorial Field to take on Eastern Connecticut State. The men started down, 0-1, but rallied in the third and sixth innings to score three runs. Roberson and Ariel Kenney ’18 tallied back-to-back RBI’s to propel Amherst to a 2-1 lead.

To secure the win, Sam Ellinwood ’18 sent a single up the middle to score Conner Gunn

’16.

Volle started the game on the mound for the purple and white, allowing only one run on one hit in seven innings, before junior George Long and junior Mike Castiglle came in tandem for relief in the eighth. Andrew Ferrero ’19 came in to close the game in the ninth, earning the save for Amherst.

On the road again, the purple and white traveled to Salve Regina on Saturday. Though Amherst started strong with a 1-0 lead thanks to a single from Roberson that scored Yanni Thanopolous ’17, Salve Regina was able to answer.

After the Gulls went on a run in the fourth inning, the purple and white were unable to regain the lead. Despite the loss, the Amherst offense continued to impress: Six different purple and white players recorded an RBI during the game.

Looking to reclaim momentum, the men took their home field against Castleton on Sunday. Most of the action happened during the front half of the game, and although Amherst emerged from the first inning with the lead (3-2), they were unable to defeat this non-league opponent.

In the first inning, Gunn sent a double to right center with the bases loaded and scored three. Down 11-3, the purple and white worked to come back in the bottom of the fourth. After a Nardone walk and a Steinhorn single, Thanopolous doubled to secure two RBI’s. However, the men were never able to push past Castleton’s impressive 11 runs.

On Tuesday evening, the purple and white travelled to Nichols College, looking for a non-conference win to regain momentum.

Although the Amherst offense continued to produce — they rallied back to take a 6-5 lead in the top of the seventh — the pitching and defense couldn’t hold the Nichols offense, who went on to score eight runs in the final two innings to down the purple and white

13-6.

Mike Dow ’19 threw three full innings for the purple and white, allowing six hits and five runs before classmate John Vasiliu replaced him. Amherst used seven pitchers throughout the matchup, walking six and notching one strikeout. Nichols outhit the purple and white, 17-11.

Offensive highlights for the purple and white included doubles by Thanopoulos and Gunn, who went 2-4 and 2-5, respectively.

Amherst also utilized their pinch hitters successfully, when Sergio Rodriguez ’17 and Chris Collins ’19 came up clutch for singles late in the game.

The men remain on the road for a busy week of play, facing Curry College on Thursday and finishing their week off with a NESCAC series at Middlebury with a Friday evening matchup and a Saturday doubleheader.

Photo courtesy of Amherst Athletics

Senior Riley Streit started the Friday game on the mound at Salve Regina.

Men’s Track & Field Impresses Men’s Tennis Wins Two Nonat Back-to-Back Invitationals Conference, Falls to Weseleyan Julia Turner ’19 Managing Sports Editor The men’s track and field team had a busy weekend, competing on Friday afternoon in the non-scoring Silfen Invitational at Connecticut College and the next day in the nine-team UMassAmherst Minuteman Invitational.

On Friday, the impressive Amherst long-distance runners were on display, with junior Steven Lucey battling to a fourth place finish in the 1,500-meter run with a time of 3:57.87.

The 5,000-meter race was dominated by the purple and white, with four runners finishing within the top fourteen competitors. Sophomore Mohamed Hussein took seventh with an overall mark of 14:35.29, while teammate and classmate Craig Nelson ’18 placed 12th overall (14:57.90).

First-year Cosmo Brossy was the final Amherst runner to cross the finish line, placing 14th with a mark of 15:03.21. Leading the pack and setting a school record was senior Dan Crowley, who fin-

ished second in the 21-man race with a time of 14:29.98.

The next day, the team competed in the Division I dominated UMass-Amherst Minuteman Invitational, placing sixth out of nine teams. Senior Jeff Seelaus finished second of 48 runners in the 1,500-meter run with a time of 3:59.12. In the 5,000-meter run, sophomore Jack Wesley placed fourth with a time of 15:25.41. Rounding out the individual events, Jesse Fajnzylber ’17 posted a fifth-place mark in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a mark of 10:32.41.

To start off the relay events, the impressive group of Khalil Flemming ’16, Hasani Figueroa ’18, Aziz Khan ’18 and Thomas Matthew ’16 competed in the 4x100-meter relay, placing third overall with a time of 43.99. In the 4x400-meter relay, David Ingraham ’18, Kristian Sogaard ’16, Chris Butko ’18 and Brent Harrison ’16 finished third with a time of 3:23.46.

The purple and white will return to action this Saturday in the Tufts Sunshine Invitational.

Photo courtesy of Amherst Athletics

David Ingraham ’18 was a part of the third-place 4x400-meter relay team.

Kelly Karczewski ’18 Staff Writer The Amherst College men’s tennis team went 2-1 this week, taking down Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on Friday before winning and losing against Springfield College and Wesleyan, respectively, during their double header on Sunday.

The No. 14 purple and white started the week with a home win against MIT (7-4), beating the Beavers 6-3 in Friday’s non-conference matchup.

On the doubles courts, Aaron Revzin ’16 and Zach Bessette ’19 came up with an 8-6 victory at the first slot over their MIT opponents Kevin Wang and Tyler Barr. At the third slot, Andrew Yaraghi ’16 and first-year Jesse Levitin defeated a pair of Beavers 8-4 to bring the doubles tally to 2-1 in Amherst’s favor.

Bessette claimed a second victory in singles, winning in three sets over Wang with a score of 6-4, 4-6 and 6-2 on the first court. At the fourth spot, senior Ben Fife came out on top over Sean Ko by taking him down in two sets. Levitin added another point to Amherst’s side with a 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 win on court five.

Junior Andrew Arnaboldi ’17 came up with one more victory over the Beavers, putting Dennis Garcia away with a score of 6-3, 4-6 and 7-6.

Amherst split its doubleheader Sunday with a loss to No.11 Wesleyan and a decisive win over Springfield.

Against Wesleyan, Michael Solimano ’16 and Revzin picked up one of two Amherst victories in doubles play, crushing Zach Brint and Greg Lyon 8-1, while Yaraghi and Jon Heidenberg ’19 added another win on court three. Amherst headed into singles rounds up, 2-1.

Levitin and Revzin earned the only two singles wins of the matchup, with Revzin trumping ahead 6-4 and 6-2, and Levitin handedly taking

down Cameron Daniels in the fifth slot.

Amherst was more successful against Springfield, demolishing the Pride with a 9-0 victory.

Revzin crushed his opponent 6-0, 6-0 on the singles court, while Ben Birkenfeld put a similar score of 6-1, 6-0 in adding another point for the purple and white.

Over on the doubles courts, Revzin and Arnaboldi won on court one, while Birkenfeld and Cameron Raglin ’19 chipped in to the lead with a court two victory. Bessette and Carlos de Bracamonte ’16 defeated Kyle Beynor and Cameron Grant on court three.

Amherst will travel to Middlebury on Saturday, April 23 to take on their NESCAC rival Panthers.

Photo courtesy of Amherst Athletics

Carlos de Bracamonte ’16 combined with first-year Zach Bessette to win a doubles matchup on court three.

10

Sports

The Amherst Student • April 20, 2016

Women’s Golf Claims Win at Leaman Invitational, Gracie Top Individual Delancey King ’18 Staff Writer The Amherst women’s golf team found redemption this past weekend against rival Williams in the Jack Leaman Invitational at Hickory Ridge Golf Club. Finishing the tournament with a total score of 637, Amherst claimed first place, beating out the Ephs by a solid 18 strokes.

Having finished second behind Williams the weekend before in the Vassar College Invitational, the purple and white made a strong case for themselves as the best team in the NESCAC with this definitive win.

“We were really excited to put two good scores in a row together,” Gracie said. “We’ve had a couple of good tournaments where we have been close after day one but then fallen back on day two so to beat Williams was awesome.”

Amherst finished at the top of the pack after day one of the tournament with a combined score of 317. Jamie Gracie ’17 and Kate Weiss ’19 led the purple and white with impressive two-over-par 76 performances, which garnered them each a share of first place among individual scorers.

Zoe Wong ’18 was also a major contributor to Amherst’s day one success, as she finished a mere five strokes behind Gracie and Weiss. Maggie Schoeller ’19 finished the day with a score of 84 to help Amherst secure its first-place spot, and she was notably the only player on the course to shoot an eagle in the first round.

Gathering momentum from her stellar outing on Saturday, Gracie had a fantastic performance on day two of the tournament and finished five

strokes under par. Her day two score of 69 was seven strokes better than her score from the previous day, and it earned her the title of top individual scorer of the tournament.

“I played literally the best round of my life on Sunday,” Gracie said.

Over the two days, Gracie recorded nine birdies and 23 pars. Weiss had another strong showing on Sunday as well, scoring 85 and finishing fifth among the top individual scorers. Wong took eighth among individual scorers with a combined score of 164, and Schoeller shot a solid 83 to improve her previous day’s score by one stroke.

The purple and white will continue their impressive NESCAC campaign in the Williams College Invitational this weekend.

Photo courtesy of Geoff Bolte

Jamie Gracie ’17 shot a five-under 69 on day two to finish as the low individual scorer last weekend.

Women’s Tennis Splits Weekend Action Versus Little Three Rivals Nate Quigley ’19 Staff Writer Fresh off of two straight road victories against conference opponents and a move to No. 5 in the nation, the Amherst women’s tennis team returned home last weekend to face off against Little Three rivals Williams and Wesleyan. Saturday’s action saw Amherst drop a heartbreaking, 6-3 contest against Williams, the second-ranked team in the nation, before rallying back to defeat the No. 8 Cardinals, 6-3, on Sunday.

Amherst entered Saturday’s game against the Ephs looking for revenge for their loss last October, which saw the purple and white suffer a 9-0 shellacking in Williamstown, Massachusetts. However, Williams started strong on the doubles courts, taking each of the top two courts en route to a 2-1 lead.

Amherst’s doubles pairings, which had been the foundation for much of the team’s recent success, had trouble matching up against a William’s side that boasted the reigning national doubles’ champions. The lone bright spot for Amherst in the early action was the play of the third doubles pairing, Rebecca Pol ’16 and Avery Wagman ’18, who dominated their opponents in an 8-2 victory.

Singles action proved to be more successful for the purple and white, who managed to emerge victorious from two of the six matches and force a third set in two others. Vickie Ip ’18 and Jackie Calla ‘17E amassed two victories for Amherst on the second and third courts respectively. Calla’s 7-5, 3-6, 10-5 victory proved especially impressive as it came against Linda Shin of the Ephs, who had made it to the round of 16 in the single’s bracket for last spring’s national tournament.

Likewise, although in defeat, captain Suhasini Ghosh ’16 put up an incredible effort on court one in a match that pitted her against Juli Raventos, a national semifinalist in last year’s singles action. However, Ghosh’s defeat, along with three others in singles actions and the two in doubles play, doomed Amherst to its first defeat since returning from its spring

break trip, a month-long span.

Even after such a defeat, Ghosh was full of nothing but positivity.

“Every person fought their hardest, and I am really proud of our team for that,” the senior said. “The loss against Williams is only something that has simply motivated us to keep fighting and improving”.

The purple and white indeed seemed to be motivated after the loss, returning to the courts on Sunday to face Wesleyan with an aura of confidence. Even though Amherst had dug themselves an early hole against Williams in doubles play, the team started much stronger against Wesleyan. Both the second and third courts saw Amherst win by matching score lines of 8-2, with Ip and Kelsey Chen ’19 providing the victory on the second court and Wagman and Pol taking the third for Amherst. Even on the first court, the pairing of Ghosh and Sarah Monteagudo ’16 pushed the top Wesleyan pairing hard, only losing 8-6.

In singles action, Wesleyan wilted in the hot afternoon sun, and Amherst took four of the six matches on the four lower courts.

After the Cardinals’ reigning national singles champion Eudice Chong defeated Ghosh on the first court to even the overall match at 2-2, the action decisively tilted back in Amherst’s favor, with Calla prevailing 6-2, 6-2 on court three and both Chen and Wagman picking up 7-5, 6-4 on the fifth and sixth courts.

However, the most exciting action of the day proved to be on the second and fourth courts when the end result was in little doubt with Ip losing a tight three-set affair and Monteagudo coming back from a first set loss to vanquish her opponent 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 in a tense affair.

With the split, the purple and white moved to 10-5 on the season and an impressive 4-1 record in NESCAC action, good enough for third place in the conference trailing only Williams and Middlebury. The team looks to build on the Wesleyan victory in Wednesday’s home meeting with Tufts at 4 p.m., the penultimate match in Amherst’s already successful regular season.

ATHLETE SPOTLIGHT

Jeff Seelaus ’16 Favorite Team Memory: Cross country nationals 2015. I’m really proud of how the team competed Favorite Pro Athlete: Caleb Ndiku Dream Job: Judge on Chopped Pet Peeve: Sunday morning long runs Favorite Vacation Spot: Montreal Something on Your Bucket List: Skydiving Guilty Pleasure: Justin Bieber Favorite Food: Anything made by Tasty (Like it on Facebook) Favorite Thing About Amherst: The socials How He Earned It: Seelaus led Amherst at the UMass-Amherst Minuteman Invitational on Saturday, April 16 with a phenomenal performance in the 1,500-meter run. Competing in a 48-team field, the senior claimed second place by crossing the line in a time of 3:59.12. The Amherst team, meanwhile, finished sixth in the meet with 39 points.

This is Seelaus’ second straight top-two finish after he won the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 9:40.46 at Amherst Spring Fling the week prior.

Julia Crerend ’18 Favorite Team Memory: When one of our assistant coaches locked our head coach in the Peter Pan bus bathroom Favorite Pro Athlete: Michelle Kwan Dream Job: Michelin star chef that cooks exclusively with chocolate Pet Peeve: People who move slowly through the aisles at IKEA Favorite Vacation Spot: Muscar, Oman Something on Your Bucket List: Bench as much as Dakota Foster ’18 (160 lbs.)

Guilty Pleasure: Val Chinese night Favorite Food: Red Sour Punch straws Favorite Thing About Amherst: Farmer Pete How She Earned It: Crerend scored the game winner, her sixth of the season, with a mere seven seconds left against Tufts, lifting women’s lacrosse to a 7-6 victory their NESCAC rival Tufts on Saturday, April 16. After falling behind on Senior Day, the purple and white mounted a furious second half rally, tying the game with four minutes to play. When it appeared the tie was going to overtime, Crerend popped up on a feed from Hanna Krueger ’17 to steal the game.

Women’s Lacrosse Defeats Tufts 7-6 on Crerend Game Winner Katie Bergamesca ’18 Staff Writer The women’s lacrosse team continued its hot streak on Senior Day this past Saturday, April 16. A thrilling 7-6 triumph over Tufts marked the purple and white’s fourth consecutive win.

Hanna Krueger ’17 opened up the scoring with an unassisted goal less than five minutes into the first half. Tufts’ Caroline Ross provided the equalizer soon after. Rachel Passarelli ’16 netted the man-up goal less than a minute after Ross. The game remained tight with Kate Wyeth ’17 notching Amherst’s third and final goal of the half.

However, Tufts finished out the half strong with a two goal lead, with Ross scoring the Jumbos fifth goal with 36 seconds left. Tufts continued its offensive dominance in the start of the second half with Brigid Bowser netting her teams’ sixth goal. Despite the three-goal gap, the purple and white remained composed.

Three unanswered goals from Krueger, Mia Haughton ’16 and Passarelli brought the score to 6-6 with just 4:09 remaining in the half.

The Amherst women kept the ball in their offensive zone for the rest of the half. It looked like the Jumbos’ fate was sealed when Haughton put the ball past the Tufts goalie with a little over a minute left, but the goal was called back due to a defensive foul on Tufts. As seconds ticked off the clock, overtime seemed inevitable.

However, with only seven seconds remaining in the game, Krueger found Julia Crerend ’18 open in front of the net. Crerend rocketed a beautiful shot into the top corner of the net to give Amherst the lead. Katie Paolano ’16 ensured the purple and white’s victory by wining the following draw control. The win was a poetic finale to Amherst’s six seniors’ last game on Pratt Field.

“We weren’t able to carry the lead going

into halftime, but we definitely had momentum over Tufts and were confident going into the second half,” Paolano said. “We were strong on the draws and held them to just one goal.”

In terms of stats, goalie Christy Forrest ’16 led the team with six groundballs. Rowena Schenck ’18 finished out the game with a team high of four draw controls. Passarelli and Krueger were the offensive leaders for the day with two goals and one assist each.

With this win, the Amherst women improve to 9-2 on the season and 6-2 in conference play. The purple and white will look to continue its win streak with away games at Mount Holyoke on Wednesday, April 20 and Williams on Saturday, April 23.

Photo courtesy of Amherst Athletics

Rachel Passarelli ’16 logged two goals and an assist in Amherst’s win over NESCAC rival Tufts.

The Amherst Student • April 20, 2016

Sports

Men’s Lacrosse Looks for Consistency After Splitting NESCAC Matchups

11

Chris’ Corner Chris Rigas ’16 Columnist Chris Rigas laments the absence of St. Bonaventure in the NCAA tournament and explores the biases present in the Selection Sunday committee.

Photo courtesy of Amherst Athletics

Senior attacker Quinn Moroney has compiled an impressive 53 assists over the course of the season, including 34 against in-conference opponents.

Mary Grace Cronin ’18 Staff Writer The Amherst men’s lacrosse team experienced another dramatic week of NESCAC play. They began their week with an important win against Connecticut College last Tuesday.

The Camels scored their first and only goal of the starting quarter off of an assisted goal.

Quinn Moroney ’16 answered back with monstrous six assists to put the purple and white up 6-1.

They continued their dominance heading into the half with a strong 11-4 lead. Some highlights include two-goals efforts from both first-year Evan Wolf and senior Kane Haffey in the second quarter. Another tally from Charlie Gill ’16 gave Amherst ample momentum heading into the second half.

The purple and white maintained a strong lead for the remainder of the game and clinched a decisive win over the Camels on their home turf with a final score of 15-9. Next Amherst traveled to Waltham, Massachusetts to take on the top-ranked Tufts Jumbos.

This game was one of the most intense and anticipated matchups of the season. The NESCAC rivals arrived ready to go, both sides keenly aware of the tumultuous history between these two storied programs.

The Jumbos scored the first two goals off of unassisted efforts from Kyle HowardJohnson. Wolf then struck back off of an assist from senior Sam Lawlor. The excitement ended there, with Tufts putting up an impressive six-goal run to put the home team on top 8-1 in the first quarter.

Amherst tried to claw back in the second quarter with four different goal scorers getting on the board, including Haffey, Lawlor and senior Connor Crump. They still trailed 12-6 heading into halftime.

In the 3rd quarter, three straight goals from Quinn Moroney, Dylan Park ’16 and first-year Andrew Ford cut the lead to five.

Although they had been in this position before, Amherst was unable to complete the comeback, and the Jumbos held on to their lead in the fourth quarter to win 16-11.

Next, Amherst will play Williams at home on Saturday, April 23.

Women’s Track and Field Competes at UMass-Amherst Minuteman Invitational Caleb Winfrey ’19 Staff Writer The Amherst College women’s track and field team placed sixth overall at the eightteam UMass-Amherst Minuteman Invitational last Saturday afternoon.

Senior Victoria Hensley led Amherst on the day, sprinting to a fourth-place finish in the 400-meter run with a time of 59.22.

In the mid-distance events, Leonie Rauls ’18 ran the 1,500-meter run in a time of 4:54.31 to finish in eleventh place.

In the 5,000-meter run, Nicky Roberts ’18 and Betsy Black ’16 claimed first and second place finishes respectively with Roberts finishing in 18:12.29 and Black finishing in 18:22.37. Senior Lexi Sinclair claimed second in the 10,000-meter race with a time of 39:00.61.

The purple and white also showed success in relay events with the team of Rauls, Julia Asin ’19, Keelin Moehl ’16 and Hensley placing fourth in the 4x400-meter relay with a time of 4:02.97.

Moving from the track to the field events, Becki Golia ’18 jumped to a seventh-place mark in the high jump (1.56 m). First-year Emily Flaherty placed seventh in the triple jump for the purple and white with a jump of 10.32 m.

“Overall it was a good day,” Golia said.

“Several people had really great finishes and achieved college personal records.”

Next, Amherst will travel to Tufts on Saturday, April 23 to compete at the Tufts Sunshine Invitational.

Photo courtesy of Amherst Athletics

The women’s track and field team has impressed so far, and hopes to improve as the season progresses.

It’s a little late to be writing an outraged column about the mistakes of the NCAA selection committee; everyone has long forgotten the snubs while watching Villanova win the national championship in dramatic fashion. But even though Selection Sunday was over a month ago, the exclusion of St. Bonaventure, my favorite team, still stings. St. Bonaventure went 22-8, including 14-4 in the Atlantic 10, a conference, which, if not as elite as the ACC or the Big Ten, is certainly better than most in the NCAA. In fact, St. Bonaventure was the first team to win a share of the A-10 regular season championship and also be left out of the NCAA tournament. To make everything worse, St. Bonaventure was excluded in favor of their western New York rivals Syracuse, and their obnoxious, rule-breaking coach Jim Boeheim. While St. Bonaventure had put together their best regular season in years, Syracuse had compiled a mediocre 19-13 record, finishing near the middle of the pack in the ACC. Complaints about the selection committee aren’t new. When your job is to choose between teams with relatively comparable regular season records, the fans of the teams left out will be upset.

The head of the NCAA selection committee, Joe Castiglione, provided this defense of his choices: “Committees before and committees beyond are always going to face criticism. All that’s fine.

That’s part of it. To be passionate about somebody’s belief, to be supportive, to be disappointed, or disagree with the final decisions. But there’s been some implication that we haven’t followed our process. And that’s unconscionable, and completely outrageous and over the line.”

Embedded in Castiglione’s self-righteous defense is the assumption that the “process” that the selection committee uses is somehow infallible, that as long as they followed the process their decisions could not really be unfair. If you believe in the process, the committee might make small mistakes from year to year, but overall the right teams usually get in.

But it isn’t just that the committee made the wrong decision in this particular year, and left out one team that should have been in. It’s that the process the committee uses produces a systematic bias against teams like St. Bonaventure, and in favor of teams like Syracuse. Coincidentally, the systematic bias favors teams from big conferences, teams like Syracuse, which make the NCAA a lot more money when they are included in the tournament.

When Castiglione and former chairs explain the committee’s decisions, it comes down to who beat whom. They discuss how many top 50 wins a team had, how many top 100 wins a team had, and how many bad losses a team had. That is, they do not allow much room for subjective judgments or considerations, or worry about how much teams won or lost by.

The problem is, there is a computer metric, the RPI, that ranks teams based on who beat whom. The RPI formula is weighted 25 percent by a team’s winning percentage, 50 percent by a team’s strength of schedule, and 25 percent by the strength of schedule of a team’s opponents. In other words, the RPI does the same thing as Castiglione and his committee are doing when they talk about top 50 and top 100 wins: The difference is that the RPI does it in a rigorous, mathematical way. Castiglione and his pals make their decisions with isolated pieces of information (like top 50 wins, which by the way are top 50 RPI wins) and then cherry-pick arbitrary numbers in order to back up their decisions. And in the RPI, St. Bonaventure finished 30th, while Syracuse finished 68th. Castiglione, on the other hand, thought Syracuse had a better resume than St. Bonaventure.

So what explains the discrepancy between the RPI and the committee? Both make their judgments based on the quality of a team’s opponents and how many of those opponents the team beat,

and yet the RPI thought St. Bonaventure was 38 spots better than Syracuse, and the committee thought Syracuse was better than St. Bonaventure. If they are working with the same criteria, what accounts for the huge difference in results?

It seems unlikely that such a big difference could be explained by a slight blip in judgment. Rather, there must be a systematic difference between the way the committee evaluates teams and the way the RPI does, something that gives Syracuse an advantage over St. Bonaventure. Whatever it is, it’s fortunate for the committee that it exists. Teams like St. Bonaventure and fellow snub Monmouth are small schools, without the type of fan base that makes the NCAA a lot of money when they are included in the tournament. But when ACC teams like Syracuse make the tournament, the NCAA makes plenty of money.

The systematic bias is this: the committee does not give teams nearly enough credit for road wins.

In college basketball, road teams only win about 34 percent of the time. This means that road wins should be viewed as much more impressive than home wins. Somewhat counterintuitively, it is as impressive to beat a decent team, like Florida State, on the road, as it is to beat a very good team, like Duke, at home. The RPI accounts for this; road wins are weighted more heavily. The committee, when it talks about top 50 wins, does not.

Syracuse’s five wins against teams in the top 50 of the RPI was cited as impressive. But evaluating the quality of a team’s wins by considering only the strength of the opponent, and not the location of the game, does not make much sense. Only one of those top 50 wins for Syracuse was on the road. In fact, Syracuse only won three road games all year.

By contrast, St. Bonaventure won three games against the top 50, but two of those were on the road.

The committee’s bias against road wins would not be important if every team in college basketball played half their games at home and half their games away. But they don’t; major conference teams, with big athletic budgets, can pay minor conference teams to visit them during non-conference play. Syracuse played 11 road games and 17 home games this year. Among those 17 home games, Syracuse had plenty of chances to pick up wins against quality teams, and therefore look more impressive in terms of the committee’s favored top 50 and top 100 metrics.

This is how St. Bonaventure can be so much higher in the RPI than Syracuse and still not make the tournament. The selection committee refuses to recognize the Syracuse’s advantage of playing a disproportionate amount of home games. If it did not ignore the distinction between home and road wins, it would have had a much harder time justifying Syracuse’s inclusion at the expense of St. Bonaventure. Again, it does not seem like a coincidence that the NCAA ignores the importance of road wins, because that is the precise blind spot which allows them to disadvantage mid-major teams and favor major conference teams.

The elephant in the room here is the teams’ respective performances in the postseason tournaments. Syracuse went all the way to the final four of the NCAAs, while St. Bonaventure crashed out of the NIT in the first round. But this is not particularly relevant to my point. The selection committee claims that it makes its choices based on regular season performance, not on, for example, the overall talent level of a team. By any reasonable metric, St. Bonaventure had a better regular season than Syracuse. The fact is, Syracuse had a more talented team, with players that were more heavily recruited, which meant they had a better chance to make a run in the tournament. It may be that the selection committee just wants to admit the most talented teams, regardless of actual performance.

But if that is true, they should admit that, rather than pretending that regular season performance determines who makes the tournament.

Sports

Photo courtesy of Janna Joassainte ‘17

The team has had a strong season so far, winning four straight to earn a 17-5 overall record. They are also 4-1 against NESCAC opponents.

Softball Dominates En Route to Four Wins against Non-Conference Opponents Sarah Wagner ’19 Staff Writer The softball team heads into its next week of games coming off its strongest weekend yet. Winning four out of four games against non-conference foes Smith and Bates, they are looking to continue this winning streak through the final fortnight of their season.

Their record currently sits at 17-5 overall and 4-1 in NESCAC play. The first doubleheader of the weekend at Smith was marked by closer games — the first went into extra innings and the second ended in a 5-3 win for the purple and white. The contests with Bates on Saturday ended in decisive wins, especially the first, which finished when a run rule took effect after five innings.

The game against Smith, which ended as a 3-2 victory for Amherst, went scoreless until the bottom of the fifth inning when the Pioneers scored on a series of singles. Julia Turner ’19 hit a leadoff triple in the following inning and crossed the plate after a Sammy Salustri ’19 single to tie the game and eventually send

GAME SCHE DULE

it into extra innings. Each team earned a single run in the eighth inning, keeping the score knotted.

The visiting purple and white were finally able to win the game in the top of the ninth inning, when Bailey Plaman ’18 moved Lauren Tuiskula ’17 over due to a Smith error. The Pioneers came close to extending the game, with a runner on third, but sophomore pitcher Gina Pagan struck out the last two batters who were hoping to score their teammate.

In the next game, both teams had a breakout third inning after going scoreless for the first two. Amherst scored their three runs first — Alena Marovitz ’17 scored two runs off her double, and then crossed the plate herself thanks to Tuiskula’s drive up the middle.

Smith fought back later that inning with a two-run homerun by Allison Snyder.

The purple and white widened their lead by two in the fourth inning with hits from Nicolette Miranda ’16, Plaman and Turner, who added her second triple of the night. Amherst shut down Smith, who scored only a single run in the sixth inning, until the game was called

WED Men’s Golf @ Little Three Championship, TBD Softball @ Keene State, 3:30 p.m.

Women’s Tennis vs. Tufts, 4 p.m.

Baseball @ Curry, 4 p.m.

Softball @ Keene State, 5:30 p.m.

Women’s Lacrosse @ Mount Holyoke, 6:30 p.m.

due to darkness.

Amherst made a statement early in the first game against Bates on their home field when they coasted on for an easy 8-0 win. They only needed five hits to score all eight runs; four of these were singles, the last was a home-run by Marovitz. The high scoring game was aided by seven walks by the Bobcats pitcher. Marovitz totaled the first RBI when she brought Turner home with a sacrifice fly after the first-year’s leadoff single. Miranda stole a base in the second for the offensive effort and Brianna Cook ’16 added another sacrifice fly to score her.

Sara Buck ’19 was hit by a pitch to put her on base in the third. Junior Jackie Buechler excelled in the circle for the purple and white, allowing only one hit and no runs throughout the game.

The following game began similarly, with Amherst ahead 6-0 by the end of the third inning. However, this time around, the Bobcats were able to give the home team more of a challenge — the game ended 7-4.

Even with a somewhat stronger performance, the Bates team was unable to match

an impressive Amherst performance that included three home runs. Annie Apffel ’17 contributed two solo homers and Annie Murphy ’19 blasted another in the second inning that scored Plaman and Apffel. The score differential stayed large until the sixth inning, when Amherst let up enough to allow Bates to notch four runs that brought them within three. This score would last the game. The pitching staff contributed another impressive game; Lorena Ukanwa ’19 struck out eleven batters, a season-best for the young pitcher, and Pagan struck out two of the three batters she faced during the final inning of the game.

“I think this weekend really gave us an opportunity to tune up our skills before our big weekend against Williams”, Apffel said. “It has set us up in a position to be really successful with the rest of our season.”

The team continues its non-conference play on Wednesday at Keene State University.

They will then jump back into conference play, facing tough, Little Three rival Williams for a three-game series on Friday and Saturday this weekend.

FRI

SAT

Baseball @ Middlebury, 4 p.m.

Men’s Track & Field @ Tufts Sunshine Invitational, TBD

Women’s Golf @ Williams College Invitational, TBD

Women’s Track & Field @ Tufts Sunshine Invitational, TBD

Men’s Golf @ Williams Spring Opener, TBD

Softball @ Williams, 5 p.m.

Women’s Lacrosse @ Williams, noon

Softball vs. Williams, noon Men’s Tennis @ Middlebury, noon