Issue 3

THE AMHERST

THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER OF AMHERST COLLEGE SINCE 1868

STUDENT VOLUME CXLVI, ISSUE 3 l WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

Women’s Golf Sets School Record, Wins Wellesley Invite See Sports, Page 10 AMHERSTSTUDENT.AMHERST.EDU

Clery Disclosure Reveals Three-Year Crime Statistics Shawna Chen ’20 Staff Writer

Photo courtesy of Sarah Wishloff ‘19

A student checks out a bicycle from the Amherst College Bike Share rack on Monday, Sept. 19. The bike share program allows students to check out bicycles for personal transportation.

Student Bike Share Program Launches Kelly Chian ’20 and Caleigh Plaut ’19 Staff Writers Since its launch last Monday, Sept. 12., nearly forty students have checked out bicycles through the Amherst College Bike Share program, a largely student-run organization that allows Amherst College students to use bicycles for transportation at no cost. The bicycles can be used roughly within the same boundaries as those of the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority.

Over a hundred students have obtained their ID cards for the program after signing and submitting a waiver. Users can check out an available bicycle until 6 p.m the day after the check-out from the Campus Center Manager in Keefe Campus Center. The program will remain open throughout the fall, and bikes will be available until the weather no longer permits, or until Thanksgiving at the latest.

The bikes will then be stored until the spring.

“Bikes [provide] the opportunity for our students to experience nature with our beautiful bike paths without needing their own bikes,” Director of Sustainability and bike share program facilitator Laura Draucker said.

“While that isn’t cutting greenhouse gases, it’s important to the overall sustainability of the students here.”

The program received funding from the Association of Amherst Students and the Office of Environmental Sustainability primarily to purchase the bikes and bike rack. Student managers and mechanics manage the bicycles and monitor their use. According to Harry Shapiro ’18, the lead bike share manager, some of the bicycles are still in need of minor maintenance.

Shapiro described this program as more of a “quality of life enhancer” rather than a green project.

“I would like for everyone to ride a bike [for] going to UMass, shopping and [to] Puff-

er’s Pond,” Shapiro said. “I want more people to ride bikes. It’s a service for students and under that umbrella, it’s an alternative transportation.”

The idea of and initial planning for a bike share program began last October with Draucker, Alisa Bajramovic ’18, Becky Danning ’16 and John Michael ’19, but Five College liability concerns about the proposed program slowed their progress. By the time they revisited their plans, Hampshire College had already set a precedent by revamping its own bike share program, making it easier for Amherst College Bike Share to gain approval from the consortium.

Michael spearheaded a month-long pilot program during the summer to assess any potential problems and to gauge student interest.

Over that period, students in the program used the bike share program 67 total times to check

Continued on Page 3

The Amherst College Police Department (ACPD) released the annual Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistic Act Report in an email sent to the college community on Monday, Sept. 12, divulging information about campus security and crime statistics from 2013 through 2015.

The document, which can be accessed online on the Amherst website, contains police procedures in responding to crime and emergencies as well as legal definitions of specific crimes like sexual assault. Statistics for the report were collected from the police department as well as from the Office of Student Affairs, the college’s health services and the counseling center.

Sex offenses, which include rape, statutory rape and forcible fondling and generally occurred in residential buildings, increased slightly from nine in 2013 to 12 in both 2014 and 2015. The number of burglaries, meanwhile, remained low with little variance over the last three years. Incidents of stalking varied little in number, ranging from four to six in the last three years, but the college saw an increase in domestic violence, which includes dating violence under state law, from one in 2013 to six per year in 2014 and 2015.

Chief of Police John Carter cautioned against noting these changes as emerging patterns. “When reported crime statistics are as small as ours, any variance does not reflect a major change,” Carter said in an email interview. “It doesn’t reflect a trend as much as an anomaly.”

Overall, Carter said, there has been little change in crime on campus, with property crimes such as theft and vandalism remaining the most prevalent.

“Theft is almost always a crime of convenience — an unattended laptop or a wallet left in plain view,” he said. “Vandalism is mostly internal to our community and is often related to alcohol use.”

While the Clery Act does not require reporting of either of these crimes, the police department does include them in the Massa-

Continued on Page 3

New Health Center Director Addresses Old Challenges Jingwen Zhang ’18 and Audrey Cheng ’20 Managing News Editor and Staff Writer Emily Jones has been appointed as the new director of Keefe Health Center, as the retiring director, Warren Morgan, will be leaving his position at the end of September. Jones was selected to be the director of student health services in the spring and began her role in August.

A native of Amherst, Jones practiced family and sports medicine in New Hampshire prior to coming to the college.

Jones said she knew about the difficulties that the health center faced last year due to initial short-staffing and to the health center splitting from the UMass University Health Services, coming under full management of Amherst

College.

“In some ways, it’s nice to be a new person coming in because I can learn from the ways that things have been done, either successfully or unsuccessfully in the past,” Jones said, adding that she hopes to bring a “new approach” to the health center and its new independent system.

Jones said that during the six-week overlap between her and Morgan’s time at the health center, she has adjusted to the health center and learned from Morgan’s experiences. The fall tends to be busy for health centers on campuses, Jones said, with the start of the fall sports season and increased incidents of illness due to students coming together in close spaces again, and having two doctors in the health center

helped alleviate that strain.

According to Jones, the health center staff now include full-time nurse practitioner Alyssa Pawlowski and returning physician’s assistant Edward McGlynn.

“Students can have the option of seeing a male provider or seeing a female provider,” Jones said. “Not only do we have three providers, but we all have different areas of expertise.”

Jones said that there is also a full-time nurse and two medical assistants. All of the health center’s staff are relatively new, having come to the college during the last year.

“Although I was unable to get an appointment for the first week of school for the doctor to clear me for activity on my recent foot surgery, they were able to find an appointment

for me the following week,” said Ally Kido ’18, who recently visited the health center. “Overall, I think the health center has greatly improved to a faster and more efficient system.”

Going forward, Jones said that one goal is to increase student access to the health center.

Health center staff will participate in the Wellness Fair, which will be held this Friday.

Jones also said that she has plans for the college to “take more ownership” of the health center, now that it has been out of the UMass system for some time.

“I look forward to it being a back-and-forth between hearing what the needs are, of the students, and trying to implement them,” Jones said. “There’s a lot of unique things that go on at the Amherst campus.”

News

Taylor Hallowell ’17 Sept. 13, 2016 - Sept.18., 2016

>>Sept. 13, 2016 4:05 p.m., Tennis Barn/Caddy Shack Officers responded to a report of a small fuel spill at a Facilities gas tank. >>Sept. 14, 2016 6:15 a.m., Mead Art Museum Officers investigated an intrusion alarm and found it was accidentally set off by an employee. >>Sept. 15, 2016 7:15 p.m., Emily Dickinson House Officers investigated an intrusion alarm and found it was accidentally set off by an employee.

9:03 p.m., Other Lots and Roads An officer assisted the town police with a motor vehicle stop near Grosvenor House.

The operator was arrested for having a suspended driver’s license. >>Sept. 16, 2016 4:43 a.m., Tyler House Officers investigated a basement smoke detector sounding and found it was activated by cooking in the kitchen.

5:30 p.m., Morris Pratt Dormitory An officer and the Fire Department responded to a fire alarm and found it was caused by a dirty smoke detector on the first floor. At 10:57 p.m. a second alarm was received and Facilities was notified.

dent of a smashed window in a stairwell.

11:04 a.m., Newport House Officers investigated a smoke detector sounding in the basement and found it was activated by cooking.

11:54 a.m., Rice House An officer and the Fire Department responded to a fire alarm and found it was caused by cooking.

1:44 p.m., Newport House Officers investigated a smoke detector sounding in the basement and found it was activated by cooking.

2:35 p.m., Campus Grounds Officers responded to a report of a small fire in bark mulch near Webster Hall. It was extinguished.

10:34 p.m., Morris Pratt Dormitory A caller reported a registered party was “getting out of control”. After being unsuccessful in reaching the sponsors by phone, officers responded and found excessively loud music. The volume was lowered. >>Sept. 18, 2016 12:40 a.m., Chapman House While in Chapman, an officer discovered three thirty packs of beer unattended in a common room. They were disposed of.

10:10 p.m., Cohan Dormitory An officer responded to a complaint of loud music and found a small group of people in the basement common room with music. They decided to leave.

1:02 a.m., Campus Grounds An officer encountered two people outside Jenkins Dormitory and one was smoking marijuana from a pipe. They were identified as students from another institution. The pipe and marijuana were confiscated and the students left campus.

11:34 p.m., Campus Grounds While at a Powerhouse event, an officer observed two males smoking marijuana. They were identified and a pipe used for smoking was confiscated. The matter was referred to Student Affairs.

1:30 a.m., Hitchcock House An officer discovered that a second floor resident had covered the smoke detector in his room with a plastic bag. The resident was fined $100 for the fire safety violation.

11:54 p.m., College Street An officer encountered an underage student with alcohol.

It was disposed of and the matter was referred to Student Affairs.

1:42 a.m., Lipton House Officers responded to a complaint of loud music on the third floor and had the volume of music turned down.

>>Sept. 17, 2016 1:45 a.m., Greenway Building A Officers and the Fire Department responded to a fire alarm which was activated by a smoke detector on the fourth floor, possibly by the use of a microwave.

2:14 a.m., Moore Dormitory An officer investigated an inci-

7:45 p.m., College Street An officer assisted the town police by investigating an intrusion alarm at a local business.

10:52 p.m., Mayo-Smith House Officers responded to a noise complaint at a registered party and met with the party sponsors. A decision was made to end the event.

Thoughts on Theses Department of Biology

Taylor Hallowell ’17 majors in biology. Her thesis examines the sensory drive hypothesis in cichlid fish that express different retinal genes while living under different colors of light. Professor of Biology Ethan Clotfelter is her advisor.

Q: Can you describe your thesis?

A: The sensory drive hypothesis is essentially that there’s a difference in the environment, [which] leads to sensory divergences, like divergences in animals’ sensory systems. That leads to reproductive isolation, and that leads to speciation. There isn’t a ton of evidence for it right now, but there’s an increasing amount. People are starting to take more of an interest in it. I’m trying to get more data for it. I’m working with cichlid fish, which are really common fish to work with because they’re so easy to breed. I have hundreds of little babies already. I’m making them grow up in extreme light environments. A third of them are only getting red light, a third are only getting blue light, and a third are getting just white light. I’m trying to show that differences in light environment cause differences in the expression of the genes in the retina. That would contribute to the sensory drive hypothesis.

Q: Why did you choose that topic?

A: Ethan, my professor, works with cichlid fish.

He had gotten some a couple years ago from a lake in Nicaragua and they’ve just been in his lab. He alternates every four years or so between birds and fish, and he just finished up bird stuff this summer, so we’ve just started. He was looking for a thesis student to help him with his fish, and I thought it sounded cool … he told me that I could do any project with the cichlid fish that related to the sensory drive hypothesis.

Q: What were the different phases of your experiment?

A: I actually haven’t collected a whole lot of data yet. I took four females and four males from the fish that [Professor Clotfelter] had, and I put them in four different spawning tanks so there were a male and a female in each tank. It took five days for them to spawn. We had no idea if this was going to work or not, because we needed to figure out a way to get the one-day-old fish from the flower pots [in which they spawn]...up to the tanks one floor up. We ended up just taking the flower pots out and using a turkey baster to suck them all up and squirt them into the new tanks.

Ethan said, “You just need to be mentally prepared for the fact that this could kill all of them,” but they’re eight days old now and they’re all alive.

For the filters, it turns out that in Belchertown, the town over, there’s a store that sells filters for theaters … [We] just spent a day looking through all of the different wavelength spectra for their filters and picking out the ones we thought would be the best for the most extreme blue, red and white.

We went there and we tried to explain what we needed them for, and they thought we were crazy, but they helped us.

Q: Can you expand more on the sensory drive hypothesis?

A: Cichlids have seven opsin genes, which are the genes in their retina, but they only have three turned on at a time. Even though they’re the same species, [cichlids] in Africa living in really clear water have different genes turned on than ones living in really turbid water. My thesis is trying to show that it is the light environment, specifically, that’s causing the different genes to be turned on.

Q: Have you started collecting data yet?

A: I haven’t. I’m taking my first data point when they’re two weeks old, so I’ll do it next week. I’ll get the sequences for their opsin genes, and that will tell me which three they have turned on. Oth-

er papers in the past have shown that the three that they have turned on can change throughout their life, so I’m going to test the sequences at a few different times. It takes six months for them to become completely mature, so I will be collecting data right up until the thesis is due. I’m going to do it at two weeks, [and] this two week mark will show me the divergence that I’m looking for.

Q: How long have you spent so far planning or working?

A: I started working on it on August 10. For the first couple weeks, Ethan and I were just sitting down and trying to figure out how all of this could work out, and what exactly we wanted to look for.

Then we set up the tanks. Like I said, I paired the spawning pairs in late August and got the fry, the baby fish, a week ago.

Q: What’s been the hardest or the most difficult part so far?

A: I think it’s just handling the time. Since I’m working with live animals, I need to take care of them every day. I have to go even if I don’t have to do other lab work specifically on that day. I at least have to go in and feed them and make sure that the temperature of the tank is okay, that the salinity of the water is correct and that the tanks are clean.

Q: Have there been any particularly fun, funny, or exciting moments?

A: Ethan’s really fun to work with in general because he has a good sense of humor, but I think that the most exciting part was when the babies survived their first night after being moved with a turkey baster. We celebrated the next day.

Q: What are some things that you’re glad you did?

A: I committed to doing this thesis with Ethan last year in the spring semester before I went abroad mostly because I knew that he was a professor that I liked working with. Then I did my study abroad, which was SEA Semester, a marine biology program. I realized that I could really see myself doing marine biology and that I was really happy that I had the opportunity to do this project with fish. I feel like I became more interested in the topic after I decided that I wanted to do it.

Q: Do you think you’ll continue to do research after Amherst?

A: Definitely. I’m not a pre-med student. I’m a biology major because I want to go into research.

My field will probably be marine biology, but whatever it is, I want it to be some sort of biodiversity research that could potentially inform management decisions about conservation.

Q: Do you have any advice for potential thesis writers as you look back at your experience so far?

A: Definitely do a thesis. I recommend getting as much done over the summer as you can. Over the summer, when I wasn’t meeting with Ethan and trying to figure out how the experiment itself was going to play out, I was reading all of the background literature to understand what all of the previous research had said. And now, as I go to write my introduction, I’m happy I did all of that reading beforehand and I don’t have to deal with it while I also have to do all the reading for class.

Start early, and don’t get behind.

— Jacob Gendelman ’20

The Amherst Student • September 21, 2016

News

3

Writing Center Expands to Offer Public Speaking Emma Swislow ’20 Staff Writer The college’s Writing Center began to offer guidance and training in public speaking, along with its usual writing-related services, starting earlier this month. Associate of Public Speaking Susan Daniels, who was hired by the college this summer, is providing workshops, ongoing events and one-on-one training with students, faculty and staff at Amherst.

Daniels has already worked with professors, first-year students and students who were giving presentations on summer research in the sciences and humanities.

“I’ve worked with about 60 first-year students so far,” Daniels said. “I taught a class today in Greek Tragedy and I’ve worked with the admissions department already and there were quite a few people in that group. I’m also going to be working with the tour guides in the future.”

So far, Daniels has met with students in groups rather than in one-on-one appointments. She does hold office hours on Thursday, which she said will be most useful for students with presentations that they have been assigned to give for class.

Daniels came to Amherst after working at Mount Holyoke College as a professor of theater and in the Weissman Center for Leadership, where she taught public speaking to students and faculty.

“Like Amherst, Mount Holyoke has a very

diverse student population,” Daniels said.

“Women from all over the world come there, and to be able to help students whose voices have literally been silenced for a variety of reasons, it’s like I landed in the honey pot. I felt that this is where I’m meant to be and Amherst has given me the opportunity to concentrate all my energies on that, and I am grateful and excited to be working here.”

Daniels said that her previous work in theater transfers over to her work in public speaking.

“I’ve found that the same techniques and skills that actors have been trained to use, to relax and focus and engage with an audience, are the same skills that speakers should be using to bring that speech up from what I call loud reading and turn it into a dynamic performance,” Daniels said.

The idea to add a public speaking component to the Writing Center was shaped during strategic planning for the college, according to Director of the Writing Center and Professor of Philosophy Jyl Gentzler.

“We were noticing that a lot of our students were insecure in the classroom,” Gentzler said.

“They had difficulty giving presentations, and the faculty were trying to help students develop those skills, but they themselves didn’t have the expertise to give them the kind of advice they would need in order to succeed in that area.

With Susan, we recognized that most of the communication we’re doing is verbal and that

Photo courtesy of Takudzwa Tapfuma ‘17

A student meets with an advisor during a Writing Center appointment on Sunday, Sept. 18. The center now offers guidance with public speaking. we should pay as much attention to it as we do with writing.”

Beginning Tuesday, Sept. 20, Daniels will offer a six-week workshop with one meeting each week. According to Daniels, the classes will focus on improving students’ public speaking and their ability to evaluate each other on how they present, rather than what they present on.

Daniels hopes to create a community at Amherst that is more focused on public speaking and the evaluation of it.

“Even though we might assign an oral presentation, what we’re listening for and looking for is what they are saying, rather than how they are saying it,” Daniels said. “That’s something that will be critical in my success for working with everybody at Amherst. It’s teaching that particular skill on how to evaluate, so that not only will everyone have skills, but we will also go to each other in the community for help because there will be a common language. That’s my vision.”

Report Found Theft Crimes and Liquor Violations Common Campus crime numbers have dwindled since 2013 Number of drug law violations in 2015

0

Number of liquor law arrests in 2015

Number of drug law arrests in 2013

1

2

Number of drug law arrests in 2015

7 1 21

56

chusetts Open Police Log and Clery Log, available at the police office and published in The Amherst Student’s weekly Crime Log. The most common violations cited in the report remained those of liquor laws, though the 76 violations in 2013 have decreased to 56 in 2015. Drug law violations referred for disciplinary action also fluctuated from 17 in 2013 and 30 in 2014 to none in 2015 after the state changed possession of less than one ounce of marijuana from a crime to a civil infraction.

“The misuse of hard alcohol and its negative impact on the health and safety of our students remains a concern,” Carter said, adding that the police department seeks to partner with other offices on campus, including the Office of Student Affairs, Facilities, and student groups such as Student Security, ACEMS and the Peer Advocates of Sexual Respect, to educate students rather than to discipline.

The current Clery report included a caveat, which said that the police department “engaged in a new approach to underage drinking and marijuana usage. This resulted in a significant decrease in the number of arrests for both the alcohol and drug arrest categories.”

Carter said that a major component of addressing sex offenses was the department’s model of partnering and working with other offices as well as with students. The police department works with the Office of Student Affairs and Title IX to address campus safety as a whole. According to Carter, local partners such as the Amherst Town Police and Office of the District Attorney are also crucial in combatting crime.

The department also provides information on campus activity to those including the President, Chief Student Affairs Officer and Chief of Campus Operations.

Residential counselors are often a crucial link between the officers and residential life.

Anna Vuong ’18, who has been an RC for two years, said that each year, RCs are given instructions on how to report crime.

“We’re all mandated reporters,” Vuong said.

“So if it’s something to do with Title IX, for example, we have to report it.” To report a crime, RCs fill out an online form and describe the crime at hand, whether it had been dorm damage or sexual assault. Usually, Vuong said, RCs will receive an email from the relevant superiors, whether that is the Title IX coordinator or the Office of Student Affairs.

As an RC, Vuong has reported two instances of sexual harassment in which non-college people were catcalling her residents. In one case, ACPD stepped in, spoke with the offenders at hand and stopped the behavior.

Carter said that students should take the initiative in reaching out to the police in combating crime, especially the common crime of theft of personal property. “We can work together to minimize the opportunity for theft,” he said, adding that simply locking doors would reduce the chances of these crimes occurring.

The police cannot be everywhere at once, Carter said. “Reporting suspicious circumstances immediately allows us to intervene,” he said. “[We] rely on our community to be our eyes and report suspicious people and circumstances immediately.”

75 42

Continued from Page 1

Number of liquor law arrests in 2013

Number of drug law violations in 2013

Number of liquor law violations in 2015

Number of liquor law violations in 2013

Bike Share Program Provides New Transportation Method Continued from Page 1 out bikes, and incidents including late returns and losing the keys to the lock occurred twice.

“I don’t think we had any negative feedback,” Michael said. “The consensus was that it was nice to have the bike share and not purchase a bike. We learned a lot about how it would work on campus and reassessed for the fall.”

According to Michael, the largest changes

made between the end of the summer pilot program and the official launch were intended to accommodate the anticipated increase in users.

Shapiro said that he hopes to take a proactive approach to damaged, lost or late bikes.

Bike share managers check the bicycle rack every evening in order to assess potential lateness or damages.

According to Draucker, there are plans among various bike share programs in Am-

herst, Northampton, Holyoke and Springfield to create a regional bike share program in the coming years, providing residents in the area with an alternative way to travel between communities.

“We were talking about whether or not we wanted to pursue a bike share even with [plans for] the regional bike share,” Draucker said.

“However, we needed student data on whether students will use the bike share. In the future, we might discontinue our bike share program

if students prefer the regional one or run both bike share programs if they are used for different reasons.”

As of now, the program has 10 bicycles for the fall. However, if demand for the bikes increases, Shapiro anticipates that the program may add 20 to 40 more bicycles. For future expansions, he said that he also hopes to create an automated system using AC Dollars instead of cash to assess late fees and to provide bicycle-related programming.

Opinion

THE AMHERST

STUDENT

On an Institution’s Priorities

E X E C U T I V E B OA R D Editor-in-Chief Lauren Tuiskula

Editorial At Amherst and other similar elite institutions, there’s no question that money is a driving force. Wealthy alums have buildings named after them, the College spends thousands on coveted speakers and the AAS consistently touts its million dollar budget. The question of our endowment, and more importantly, its strong associations with powerful alumni have been brought to attention in a recent New York Times piece. The article features interviews with Amherst alums who have since retracted or reduced their gifts to the college in the wake of events such as Amherst Uprising. Furthermore, as the senior gift committee begins to solicit donations from the next graduating class, a crucial discussion regarding the importance of funding will inevitably arise.

Should we give to an institution that fails to accurately represent us and, if yes, how do we best ensure that our gift will be going toward improving the college?

As the Times article showed, many alums are making their opinions known by pulling out or reducing their donations. In the wake of Amherst Uprising and changes such as the official re-

moval of Lord Jeff, these few wealthy donors let the college know they were not happy with the changes. This influence of money is incontrovertible, but student voices have unique ability to exert their own sort of influence, in this historic moment of campus activism across the country. By pulling their money out of the College, these alums are merely silencing their own voices.

This debate begs the question of the role of alumni versus the role of current students. How do we balance the views of the students at the College today with years of past Amherst experience?

And how do we balance the diversity of perspectives among alumni themselves? As became apparent at Amherst Uprising, forcing current students into the boxes left by alumni will never end well. Alumni may have such a strong power base because of the wealth they can offer to the College, but current students will also soon be graduates. It is unsustainable to accommodate the views of an already ever-changing body. Better to act like an actual academic institution, than a corporation appealing to a wealthy minority.

Low-Income Students Need Greater Support Kathleen Isenegger ’20 Contributing Writer As one might assume, I am becoming incredibly familiar with certain places on campus as a first-year student: my dorm, Val, the first-year quad. However, there is one place that I frequently occupy that most might not think to put on this list: the Quantitative Reasoning Center. Spending a lot of time in the Q-Center still doesn’t seem that odd, except for the fact that I am enrolled exclusively in humanities courses this semester. No, I am not seeking calculus help, but instead the halfdead printer in the center.

One of Amherst’s most publicized selling points is its financial aid. The College claims to make it possible for every student offered admission to attend this institution. With this in mind, it seems incredibly contradictory that the social and academic cultures of Amherst assume wealth rather than limited income. The convenient printing of Frost Library is not an option for those who barely scraped together their tuition for this semester. Instead, we save our pennies and trek across campus, down to the second floor of Merrill.

Although pay printing is a seemingly trivial matter that has a simple alternative for low-income students, it is a side effect of a much larger issue. Transgressions occur all over campus that, in many ways, alienate a substantial population of students. The issue stems from professors and administrators whose ignorance towards the needs

of low-income students is in many ways adopted by the student body.

Many professors assume our ability to afford whatever we need when they emphasize the importance of purchasing our books from Amherst Books rather than online. I appreciate the value of supporting local businesses as much as anyone else, but when these books typically cost twice as much as used versions on Amazon, it is simply unrealistic. Not all professors acknowledge this reality. Many do not seem aware of any reason why we would not purchase our books locally except for that we are unaware millennials who complacently buy into the evils of big money. The expectation that students will have no difficulty meeting the costs associated with their classes, be it for a course packet or a field trip, is a perspective that ostracizes many of us.

Many low-income students must also take on the commitment of working one or more jobs both during the summer and the school year. This takes away their time for homework, participating in campus activities, building relationships with their professors, getting enough sleep and socializing with their peers, to name a few. In addition to this, Amherst emphasizes the importance of summer research and internships; it can be stressful to these students who know that money must always come first and their grad school application highlights second. Not enough support is offered for students who are required to commit so much time to working and must sacrifice many of the activities that administrators encourage be

part of our college experience.

Moreover, the institutional invisibility of financial need, directly influences the way that students view each other as being overly able to afford social expenses. Beyond the world of academics, many social commitments place an additional financial hardship on students. In whatever communities they are in, whether it be a club, their residency or, perhaps most of all, an athletic team, students are often expected to pay social dues. These might include hosting parties, purchasing costumes for mixers or buying alcohol.

Even if students aren’t partaking in such activities, simply hanging out with friends on a Friday night is likely to include costs for food or entertainment. If the administration pushed for broader awareness of the breadth and diversity of financial difficulties that many students face, student groups and social activities might also work to make themselves more conducive to these needs.

It’s not as if Amherst is unable to meet the needs of low-income students, but rather the way it distribute its funds assumes that these needs don’t even exist. Amherst offers funds for group outings, academic workshops and a myriad of other nonessential services. Sure, the explosion of free condoms in each first-year dorm is great, but I’d love to trade a few of those in for certain essential elements in student life like the ability to print required readings in Frost. It is imperative that Amherst strives to make this a community in which low-income students experience no additional hardships.

Why I’m Frustrated with the New Reporting System Bryan Doniger ’18 Contributing Writer Two Decembers ago, a University of Colorado Boulder Resident Administrator asked to enter the dorm room of a friend whom I was staying with over winter break. Seven or eight of my good friends from high school were drinking together in the room, and the RA had to investigate because she’d heard someone yell, “that shot was awful!” When the RA saw a can of beer sitting in the corner, she was required to get valid identification from each of us, call a police officer to the room,and pour the beer can out while the officer watched. My three University of Colorado friends, including one friend who wasn’t drinking, had to go through a lengthy, expensive alcohol safety training; the rest of us got off scot-free.

It’s unclear what would have happened had any of us been undocumented or without valid ID. Four weeks later, my first-year resident counselor caught two friends and me smoking weed in our dorm. It wasn’t hard to catch us: we were inexperienced smokers, and we had neglected to open any windows or doors. Unlike the administrator in Boulder, our RC didn’t have an exact protocol she was required to follow. She could have called campus police or reported us to the Dean of Students, but she chose instead to address us at an all-floor meeting. At the meeting, she told us that she felt profoundly disrespected because we had violated a previously agreed upon community standard and that she’d expected more from us.

We apologized and never smoked inside again.

I tell these two stories not to reminisce about what an idiot I was my first year, but to highlight

an important point about the unique structural position that resident counselors occupy at Amherst. As their name suggests, RAs at many other American universities are actually low-level administrators. The Boulder RA we met was primarily responsible for setting in motion a bureaucratic procedure: taking names, calling police, making sure the correct information was relayed up the administrative chain. However, unlike Boulder RAs, RCs at Amherst don’t have the power to demand identification, confiscate beer or issue fines. Our primary authority stems from the fact that we devote nine days to an elaborate training on how to establish fair community standards (training that includes, by the way, extensive sessions that directly address issues of

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Continued from previous page class, race, sexual preference, gender and ability).

Moreover, though we have bi-weekly meetings during which we update Amherst’s area coordinators on our community’s state of affairs, during these meetings we have a remarkable amount of freedom with regards to what we choose to disclose. RCs are not quite peers and not quite administrators: we have a host of communal responsibilities beyond those of a non-RC student, but we also have significant control over the degree to which we employ administrators in this process.

The resident counselor position, then, hollows out a middle space between administrator and peer from which to establish communities and mediate dorm-wide conflicts. Rather than putting an administrator in a living community and creating a series of procedures that must be fol-

lowed in all situations and at all times, Amherst’s approach to residential life offers RCs training in how to approach their residents as a unique, irreducible web of interpersonal relations and thus allows for meaningful community development beyond the purview of the administrative gaze.

This August, Amherst rolled-out its new reporting system, open to all members of the college community: “Amherst College strongly encourages all good-faith reports, and will respond to all reports based on the nature and quality of the information that is shared.” These good faith reports are divided into three categories: Community Standards Reports, which go directly to Dean Gendron, Care Reports, which go to Scott Howard and Sexual Misconduct Reports, which go to Laurie Frankl. Though Gendron, Howard and Frankl were all resources whom students could turn to in the past, someone in Amherst’s growing body of administrators has clearly put

Opinion

a lot of time and thought into this consolidated, streamlined reporting system: “report, report, report” quickly became a refrain during RC training. From an administrational perspective, the reporting system is an attractive response to a school year where it became clear that Amherst can be a threatening, unsafe place for many students. Enacting the new reporting system didn’t require any significant structural change; the system is essentially a justification of the work that several administrators have already been doing for years.

In this three-part article, I want to play out the logic of this injunction to “report” using an online form that goes directly to someone who is almost entirely cut off from day-to-day residential life. I will suggest that the Community Standards Report, if effective, would have drastically reduced residence counselors’ ability to establish and maintain dorm standards and thus wreaked

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untold damage on the quality of Amherst student life. Of course, up to this point the reporting forms have had no meaningful impact on campus life, positive or negative. I want to conclude by exploring why this attempt to establish a reporting culture has been ineffectual and suggest, through a close reading of the reporting website’s homepage, several possibilities for actually cultivating a more meaningful sense of community life.

In part two, I will begin with a discussion of how the RCs’ broad obligation to fill out the same reporting form for all instances of Sexual Misconduct actually inhibits us from effectively addressing sexual misconduct within our own communities. Though RCs have been mandatory reporters for a number of years, an analysis of why mandatory reporting actually hinders RCs from doing meaningful work surrounding issues of sexual respect will lead nicely into my broader argument.

Institutional Recognition for Non-Traditional Career Paths Katherine Stanton ’18 Contributing Writer Consulting season at Amherst came fast.

Open the “Career Columns” newsletter and you get the sinking feeling that if you’re not working for Parthenon, Bain or going to Harvard Law, you’re probably out of luck. Talk of an upcoming case interview workshop or a friend’s lucrative summer internship often slips into daily conversation. While Amherst offers consulting and finance opportunities throughout the year, fall is a particularly intense time of year for those hoping to land a summer internship or a pre-graduation job offer.

While I am not planning a career in consulting or finance, I understand that students have various reasons and past life experiences leading them to pursue work in these fields: interest or skill in the subject matter, the opportunity to lock down a financially-stable position, no small feat as a college graduate or the chance to contribute one’s skills to a team.

Thus, this article does not aim to condemn or exalt this process of case interview workshops and job offers.

Rather, in my discussions with other students who are also not interested in consulting or finance, the demanding interview process that many students are now tirelessly working through seems to bring into focus some realities of the culture of employment at Amherst.

Whether we’d like it or not, all of us class of 2018 students will be literally kicked out of our housing after the Commencement ceremony in two short years, and unless you are planning to take some unstructured time-off, many of us hope to make money in a way that aligns at least somewhat with the interests we have pursued both academically and through our extra-curricular activities over the past four years. As someone with many interests but no clear idea of how to turn those passions into some type of compensation-providing work, it is easy to feel for a brief second like I am somehow already falling behind. Sometimes after emerging from a great class discussion, I have wondered how this feeling of investment in my schoolwork could be translated into real work.

The distance between my current student self and the effective working adult I hope to be sometimes feel chasmically-large in a shityour-pants type of way.

While Amherst offers incredible amounts of resources and support to seniors in the job search process, I believe that there is a disparity in visibility between graduates going on to work in consulting and finance as opposed to fields that are in the process of fundamental transformation, or newly emerging and yet to be invented. While it is hard work, Amherst helps elucidates the process of moving from A (jobless student) to Z (employed graduate in the finance or consulting sector), educating students on the interview process and

providing clear deadlines. Additionally, while Amherst does offer many types of support for those interested in the health professions, as well as resources to those interested in the arts, communication, non-profit and government fields, the events that they host are often buried deep within the newsletter.

However, in a period of time generally characterized by extreme job uncertainty for recent graduates, what would it mean for Amherst to show its students that it fundamentally values work in the arts and other creative fields? I see many Amherst students who desire to take risks, yet who remain unsure of or who lack the skills to create work for oneself outside of the traditional business, law or health pathways.

There are many comforts and benefits in committing oneself to an institution; indeed, that is why many of us came to Amherst, and why we have grown deeply during our time here.

However, to be comfortable with the prospects of life outside of more traditional employment institutions is an orientation to the world that one must cultivate, a type of thinking that does not often emerge in discussions within the Career Center or among friends at dinner.

To be clear, I recognize the very urgent and understandable reasons that many students have for choosing a more-stable option straight out of college, and recognize that there are many factors affecting one’s ability to take career risks. But I believe that Amherst has a duty to equally encourage those students who

desire to embark on certain paths that many of us feel deeply moved to pursue, yet paths that often feel too risky, paths whose endpoints are difficult to imagine. While we will never fully exist outside of any institutions, I believe that Amherst could do more work bringing in living breathing human beings who may have struggled, who may have meandered, but who learned how to merge their deepest interests with their daily practice of living.

While having parents who write for a living has instilled in me the firm belief that creative work can be sustainable, I have not found that same message on Amherst’s campus. It is rare to hear speakers, professors or other community members discuss what it is to struggle in one’s work, to make no money for a period, to completely reinvent one’s self upon realizing that the way it was going was just not going to cut it. It feels ironic for me to demand more institutional support for students who wish to chart their own paths out of an institution.

However, one’s career choice is heavily determined by the examples and mentoring one is inspired by during these four years. If Amherst were to bring in more artists, writers and champions to talk not only about the themes within their work but the daily experience of building and continually building the foundation of one’s own work, I believe that many students, myself included, would see graduation day less as an anxiety-inducing blank space but as canvas of radical potential.

The Role and Importance of Asian Identites at Amherst Olivia Zheng ’20 Contributing Writer I grew up in a community that was a bubble.

Demographically, my school district was dominated by Asians. My family rarely left the area except to visit our relatives in China. I grew up thinking that it was normal to be surrounded by Asian people and Asian culture, and if not, to be surrounded by people who understood them. It was only when I was older, and I started paying attention to media and news, that I began to realize the difficulties Asian Americans face nationwide.

It was only when I traveled to the east coast for a summer program that I realized I have always subconsciously self-segregated into Asian friend groups — back at home, almost every student I knew was Asian, so having only Asian friends was the norm.

At Amherst, the first thing that struck me about the racial distribution was how white the campus seemed. When I looked around, I noticed groups of only white students walking together across the first-year quad, and tables filled with only white students at Val. One of the main reasons I chose to come to Amherst was because of its advertised diversity — why then, do I feel like an outsider on campus? Here, my race is one of the first things that a student will notice about me. Instead of helping me to blend in, my race sets me apart. I am a diversity statistic, an exception to the overwhelming rule. I am either “that

one Asian friend” or a member of “that one Asian group.” There is no in between. Here, I am seen as my race, rather than my ethnicity. My culture is something unfamiliar, and it gets grouped in with every other Asian culture on campus, despite our differences. When others do ask about it, I feel like I am being scrutinized rather than accepted.

Amherst boasts of its diversity, but diversity is not enough when students still feel alienated and out of place.

And yet, I have already met so many Asians who have had a completely opposite experience than me. They came from schools where Asians were vastly underrepresented. For them, Amherst has more Asian Americans than they have ever seen together in a community. Amherst is strange and different for them, too, but in a way I cannot even begin to imagine. All of our different experiences exist together, and though I do not want to generalize the feelings of every Asian student on campus, I have spoken with many people who share my feelings of confusion and alienation.

I have been told that Amherst is in an awkward transition period. Amherst Uprising happened nearly a year ago, and now the class of 2020 enters with no first-hand knowledge of what happened. Sure, we have all heard about it by now, but the unfortunate truth is that we will never be able to fully understand the magnitude of what happened. The class of 2020 will only ever experience Amherst in the aftermath of Amherst Uprising, without a personal experience of it. At

the first meeting of the Asian Student Association this year, I learned that the ASA had just been revived three semesters ago, and participation was iffy at best until Amherst Uprising, when membership surged. People have already been having conversations, but the class of 2020 does not know what has already been said and what has not been said. I do not know where my place to contribute is, and I do not know the extent of my ignorance on these issues.

Being at Amherst has made me so much more aware of the strange space that Asians occupy.

The model minority myth grants us certain privileges, but also holds us victim to other forms of discrimination. It is a confusing and complicated and nuanced identity to occupy. I keep trying to process what it means to be Asian in America and at Amherst, but every aspect seems contradictory and the pieces do not fit together into one smooth image.

We may face a different kind of systematic oppression than black communities do, but we still have our own distinct problems. We are plagued by mental illness, and we glorify stress culture. Yes, we should function as allies to black communities, but in order to do so fully we must also address the colorism and light skin privilege within our own groups. We need to talk about our absence in the media, lack of political representation, the Asian glass ceiling, the perpetual foreigner stereotype and exoticization. We need to discuss why, at the 2016 Oscars specifically

dedicated toward drawing attention to diversity, Asians are still boxed into stereotypes. We need to bring attention to diversity within the Asian community at Amherst and defy the idea that only East Asians are “true Asians.” For Asian Americans, there is an endless battle to not appear too “Asian” lest you be characterized as “fresh off the boat,” but also not too “white-washed” lest you be rejected by your own community. Audre Lorde expressed it best as, “there is no hierarchy of oppression.” Our issues are not petty, and they demand attention.

My experience of the Asian identity is complicated by the fact that political apathy was ingrained in my culture as I grew up. My mom has voted a total of two times, once this year and once eight years ago. My dad is still not registered to vote, and he has been a U.S. citizen for decades; he has spent more time in America than in China.

When the personal is political, but I have always been told not to be political, how am I supposed to still grapple with the personal? Especially now, at a time when race is the focus of so many conversations, on campus and in the nation as a whole? Asians are so often stereotyped as docile, submissive, and quiet. Many of us grew up within cultures where that image was encouraged even within our own communities. It is time for us to defy that stereotype and speak up about the real issues. The only thing I can think to do is write, talk, dance and declare my uncertainty and frustration.

Arts&Living

Photo kj courtesy of experimento42.com

“Stranger Things” stars award winning actress Winona Ryder and debut actors Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Natalaia Dyer and Noah Schnapp.

“Stranger Things” Evokes Spooky and Effective Nostalgia for the ’80s Simon Stracher ’18 Staff Writer Part Spielberg, part Stephen King, part George Lucas and all 80s, Netflix’s breakout show “Stranger Thing” is a triumph even though it falls into the occasional cliché.

Created by the Duffer Brothers, and starring Winona Ryder and David Harbour, “Stranger Things” tells the story of a sleepy Indiana town turned upside down by the mysterious disappearance of 12-year-old Will Byers (Noah Schnapp). Will’s mother, Joyce (Ryder) frantically searches for him and goes down the rabbit hole, soon discovering that a secret government lab may have something to do with the disappearance of her son. Meanwhile, Will’s friends Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Lucas (Caleb

McLaughlin) discover a psychokinetic girl named Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who may turn out to be the key to finding Will.

“Stranger Things” categorizes itself as a drama, but there are many Lovecraftian elements — most notably, the show’s monster. Without spoiling too much, “Stranger Things” keeps its monster at bay for several episodes, only showing split-second shots of it to increase the tension and horror for the viewer. The Duffer Brothers are not afraid to stick to their script, even though it makes for a relatively slow first few episodes. This is perhaps one of the show’s best qualities — it produces an intense fear of the unknown and creates suspense for viewers yearning to see what happens next.

Another major strength of the series is the soundtrack. Much like how “Guardians of the

Galaxy” tapped into 1970s nostalgia through its soundtrack, “Stranger Things” does the same thing with the 1980s. Drawing on bands like Joy Division, New Order, the Clash and Modern English, among many others, the Duffer Brothers use the soundtrack to effectively convey the time period and to establish the dark and enigmatic aesthetic of the show.

“Stranger Things” is not without its faults.

The show is steeped in Cold War clichés — for instance, the government lab (spoiler alert) uses Eleven as a “super weapon” against the Soviets. Moreover, the horror that the show’s protagonists face, an undeniably evil monster, is a traditional hallmark of simpler times.

The Duffer Brothers rid the show of ambiguity and shades of grey. Contrastingly, shows like “Game of Thrones”, “The Walking Dead” and “Breaking Bad” all portray evil as unclear

or uncertain. George R.R. Martin, author of “Game of Thrones”, has himself said, “In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which.

“There is something reassuring about knowing that the villain you are fighting against in “Stranger Things” is unambiguously evil.

There are no moral conundrums, no “should I or shouldn’t I” — just action.

In other shows, the simplicity of the villain would make for one-dimensional television. And, in a way, the supremely evil villain-monster is a little ridiculous and over the top. However, because “Stranger Things” makes us pine for the past, and has wonderfully relatable characters — especially the trio of Mike, Dustin and Lucas — the lack of ambiguity is charming, as it reminds us of how things (supposedly) used to be.

The Band ‘Joseph’ Provides an Introspective Concert Atmosphere Evan Paul ’18 Staff Writer Last spring I had the honor of accompanying one of my friends to a concert by a band called Joseph. I knew very little about the band beforehand, but I love concerts so I was excited to attend. In my excitement, I didn’t even think to say hello when I passed the band members unloading their gear from their tour van. All I could do was stare in awe as the women I’d seen on the posters plastered up against the windows of Iron Horse in Northampton walked past me one by one.

When we finally sat down at our table I realized this concert was going to be unlike any other I had been to before. Our “seats” were chairs at a table in the middle of a makeshift dance floor. A pair of older men asked to join us, one of whom promptly ordered a cup of coffee to enjoy while the band played their set. While I’m sure everyone there enjoyed Joseph and their opener, Liza Anne, in some capacity, I was shocked by not seeing any stereotypical “fangirls.” That is to say, no one was decked out in all Joseph gear, nor did anyone scream incessantly throughout the show. There were some other collegeage kids, but the crowd was mostly older.

Regardless, everyone gave off such a relaxed vibe that was unfamiliar to me. I’m more acquainted with the concert that makes you wonder if your hearing will be the same again — the concerts that leave your body pulsing hours after it has ended. But despite what I have come to think of as “true concert” attributes, I still think about the show that Joseph put on to this day, and probably will for many months, if not years to come. It was a new type of concert for me, one that left me far more introspective than the usual fare.

Most of the songs the band performed that night came from their most recent album, “I’m Alone No You’re Not.” The album was released on Aug. 26 of this year under ATO records (ATO is home to musical artists such as The Alabama Shakes, Kaiser Chiefs and Jessica Lea Mayfield). It is the first record label backed release from Joseph, but I’m sure it won’t be their last. In fact, even though The Alabama Shakes are the most recognizable band on ATO’s label, Joseph could very well be on their way to taking the second place spot. To date, they have performed on “Jimmy Fallon”, “CBS This Morning” and “CONAN”.

They have also completed a supporting stint on tour with indie-darling James Bay, as well as their own headlining world tour with the

aforementioned Liza Anne.

Comparatively, “I’m Alone No You’re Not” is not altogether different from the band’s first album, “Native Dreamer Kin.” In both, the sisters rely heavily on their interesting and delicate three part harmonies and deeply personal lyrics. However, having heard the explanation of many songs directly from the women’s mouths during the show, I feel as if “I’m Alone No You’re Not” is much more personal that “Native Dreamer Kin” proved to be.

One song in particular really wowed me during the show because of the way the sisters explained its meaning. In “Sweet Dreams,” the band sings: “Sweet dreams my love, I love you, goodnight.” This was a phrase their mother used to say to them every night before they went to sleep. Of course, many artists turn to their actual lives for inspiration, but the way in which Joseph blends their mother’s words with their haunting melodies and heavy use of string instruments creates a song that builds and fades back down in the most perfect way. As the last song on the album, it leaves you thinking long after its last note has played.

So too does the song in which the album takes its namesake, “Honest.” The album’s

title comes from the chorus of this song, in which the sisters attempt to dispel the negative thoughts that often creep up in everyone’s mind at least once. “There’s always two thoughts, one after the other. I’m alone. No you’re not. I’m alone, no you’re not,” they sing with essentially no background music behind them. They truly drive home the thought that no one is alone in the world, and even if they feel like they are, they should know that they aren’t. “Honest” is a very short song relative to the rest of the album — it comes in as second shortest at two minutes and 48 seconds. Even with the brevity of the song, anyone who listens is sure to feel better about life after listening.

Some readers might be thinking that they would rather just listen to the music without deeply analyzing the lyrics. Some may prefer not to have deep lyrics at all. To that, I say you might want to stray away from Joseph.

They aren’t really a band that you can dance to, nor are they a band that you can play in the background without thinking. Other than their signature harmonies, the band’s other mainstay is their ability to render their listener pensive. If you are interested in that type of music, then look no further. Joseph is the band for you.

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Arts & Living 7

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Arts & Living 8

The Amherst Student • September 21, 2016

Travis Scott’s Latest Release is a Slow-Paced Departure from “Rodeo”

Photo courtesy of wikimedia.org

Travis Scott’s last album was “Rodeo.”

Hugh Ford ’20 Contributing Writer After about a month’s delay, Travis Scott finally debuted his highly anticipated sophomore album “Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight.” Scott’s previous projects have included two mixtapes and the critically acclaimed “Rodeo,” which propelled Scott into stardom on the current hip-hop scene.

On “Birds,” Scott continues in his style of “southern trap.” Although, “Birds” does not necessarily distinguish itself immediately, featuring the same vocoding and auto-tune that Travis’ vocals experienced on “Rodeo,” fans expecting a sequel to “Rodeo” may be disappointed. As seen with the

cover art, depicting a winged-Travis Scott covered in shadow, “Birds” seems to be set up as an even gloomier album than “Rodeo,” which already has a dark tone in its own right.

Nevertheless, over the course of the album, “Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight” eventually comes into its own. “Rodeo” was known for the many hits such as “Nightcrawler” and “Antidote,” which are maximalist, feature-heavy songs. On the other hand, “Birds” seems to take a macro approach. Accordingly, often it is hard to determine where one song ends and the next one begins. Travis neglects to cite most guest features on the album; it’s often hard to distinguish who the guest is. This speaks to how well the features are integrated into the album, as the album features such stars as André 3000, Cudi, Kendrick Lamar, Bryson Tiller, Young Thug and The Weeknd, among others.

In fact, Travis seems to resurrect Kid Cudi from his latest musical disasters, which include possibly the worst album of 2015 (“Speeding Bullet to Heaven”). Cudi appears on the songs “way back” and “through the late night,” which are both

highlights of the album. His influence, however, is felt throughout the album, which has vague “Man on the Moon” undertones to it.

As a trap album, the beats are key. Travis and his production team (which includes the great Mike Dean), for the most part, successfully create sweeping melodies that add to the eerie tone.

Towards the middle of the album, however, the beats become almost too similar. This homogeneity and the slowness of the beats, lead to a boring middle section of the album. That is not to say that the songs are in anyway of lesser quality, rather the album as a whole suffers. In much the same way, the lyrics also become too repetitive.

There are some strong verses on “Birds in the Trap” from both Travis and his guests; however, most of them can’t compare to the more lyrically complex “Rodeo.”

“Birds” loosely reflects Travis’ early life in Houston before becoming a rapper. The darkness stems from his feeling of being trapped. The album holds true to this theme up until the 11th track, “pick up the phone,” which is a collaboration between Scott and Young Thug and also fea-

tures Quavo of Migos. “Pick up the phone” was released as a single earlier this year, and is actually a very strong song with a great performance

by Young Thug. However, in the context of the album, the song just does not fit. It disrupts the flow with its upbeat tone and catches the listener off guard. It really stands out as the album resumes its normal pacing with the next song “lose.”

The album does close strong with the song “wonderful” which features beautiful vocals from the Weeknd. “wonderful” succeeds where “pick up the phone fails.” The high-pitched beat with low undertones keeps the essence — the eerie tone — while the lyrics essentially celebrate Travis’ escape from the trap, which makes sense in the narrative to appear at the close of the album.

The album has a runtime of 54 minutes, made up of 14 tracks including 13 songs and one interlude. A few highlights include the more energetic “way back,” which may be the best track on the album, “through the late night,” the popular “Goosebumps” which features a standout lyrical moment from Kendrick Lamar, and “wonderful.”

Overall score: 7/10

Is Beefing with Kanye Over Twitter Kid Cudi’s Pursuit of Happiness?

Kevin Feeley ’19 Contributing Writer Let’s face it, a lot of rappers don’t like Drake.

From Kendrick Lamar to Meek Mill, the former “Degrassi” star has been catching beef with a lot of big names over the past few years. So nobody was terribly surprised when Kid Cudi, the pillar of stoner rap who has recently fallen from grace, named Drake in a Twitter rant about rappers not writing their own music.

What people did not expect was for the Man on the Moon to go after his mentor: Kanye West.

In a Twitter rant Wednesday afternoon, Sept.

14th, Cudi stated, “Everyone thinks they’re so great. Talkin top 5 and having 30 people write songs for them,” which he followed with “My tweets apply to who they apply. Ye [Kanye], Drake, whoever.” This came as a shock to many fans of both artists, and certainly seemed to

catch Kanye off guard, considering the two rappers’ long history of collaboration.

Cudi got his start eight years ago, with his 2008 mixtape “A Kid Named Cudi,” and teamed up with Kanye on the pop icons album “808’s and Heartbreak.” Kanye then signed Cudi as his first rapper to G.O.O.D. Music, and the two have since collaborated on and off each others’ projects. Kanye appeared on “The Man on the Moon: The End of Day” and “The Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager,” and Cudi has been seen on “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” and “The Life of Pablo.” With such a clear musical bond, what could have driven them apart?

One possible answer is simple: Their paths were wildly different from one another. Kanye’s fame as a pop culture icon only grew after “808’s and Heartbreak:” he’s released several albums to both critical and commercial success. He married Kim Kardashian, the symbol of fame itself

and even launched his own clothing brand.

Kanye’s name has become synonymous with success, while Cudi’s is just the opposite.

Rap fans from all walks of life respected “The Man on the Moon: The End of Day.” The lonely stoner image he put out appealed to everyone, and despite the sad boy mentality, people dug it. His follow-up, “The Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager,” was not as critically acclaimed, and his string of releases afterwards became less and less popular. As a result, Cudi has more or less fallen out of the celebrity limelight, and the buzz around his upcoming album is little to none.

The two appear to have grown apart since Cudi’s departure from G.O.O.D. Music in 2013.

Kanye has not appeared on any of Cudi’s three releases, and Cudi himself has been absent from both Ye’s tours and his albums, save for two minor vocal appearances on “Waves” and “Father

Stretch My Hands Pt. 1.” It appears that Cudi’s recent twitter rampage may have finally burned the bridge between the two artists.

Cudi’s Twitter rant also made several allusions to his upcoming album “Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’,” where he claimed “today, not only do I feel fantastic, I’m feelin’ like takin’ over,” and “these clowns know I’m bout to crush their entire existence.” This brings Cudi to a crossroads. He has threatened and attacked two of the most popular rappers in the music industry right now, while also claiming that his next release will destroy them permanently. Either he delivers on his promise, and releases what may be the greatest album in recent history, or he continues on his current trajectory, and is silenced forever.

“Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’” is reported to release later this month.

“Train to Busan” Surpasses Genre but Disappoints Sang-ho Fans

Photo courtesy of movienews.me

Sang-ho directed “Train to Busan.”

Youngkwang Shin ’19 Staff Writer “Train to Busan” is a zombie film that yet again explores our collective anxiety that, just maybe, the person sitting next to you who looks, smells and sounds nothing out of the ordinary may succumb to the universal violent impulse to bite your face off. And like many of its more socially conscious kin, it additionally wonders whether tearing off someone’s face is the preeminent moral standard to which we want to hold our species accountable.

It’s a film that understands its rails have been skidded to the point of erosion, and that only a vigilant, momentum-savvy scene-to-scene vigor can safeguard it from the pangs of forgettable mediocrity that have already gutted three-fourths of its genre.

Thankfully, director Yeon Sang-ho proves to be an able conductor, resulting in a cinematic journey that, despite tremendous luggage, grips and entertains at many turns and stations.

Our hero, Seok-woo, is a negligent father who divorced the mother to wed his work. He is primly clothed in an Arendtian disregard for those suffering from his company’s ruthless policy. But like in most corporate sociopaths living on the brink of Armageddon, a faint ember flickers in Seok-woo’s

stony bony heart, whose warmth and light he tirelessly directs toward his daughter, for whom he is even willing to purchase the same video game console twice, intention notwithstanding. In an effort to make up for his negligence, Seok-woo decides to accede to his daughter’s one genuine request: to catch a train to Busan and visit her mother there.

Seok-woo, anxious about his daughter’s safety, decides to accompany his daughter. The two board the train along with several genre stereotypes: the Jock armed with the ever useful bat, the Homeless Man, the Cool Man and his Pregnant Wife, the decidedly less pregnant Girl and the Authority Figure whose sense of human decency falls first victim to the apocalypse. Unfortunately, there too boards an infected stowaway, who tries with tears and torn cloth to suppress the disease in the train’s bathroom stall. One of the attendants pays her a concerned visit, and all predictable popcorn hell breaks loose.

There really is no reason to list the names of most of the cast; the characterization in the film leaves only Seok-woo to speak of. Only he possesses a tangible arc, which taken alone isn’t too terribly impressive. The plot unfolds the changes and continuities of his character at a digestible pace, but the issue is that Seok-woo substantially interacts with only one object in the narrative, that being his disembodied conscience masquerading as his daughter. In addition to providing the audience with a beacon of paternalistic empathy, she is the vulnerable but compassionate child in a world filled with adults weak and vile at heart, whose pleas and counsel trigger the imminent demarcated step of Seok-woo’s eventual redemption. The rest of the cast is furniture, whose lives and deaths enforce the thickest bullet points of the daughter’s admonitions, nudging and tugging our protagonist toward heroism.

This problem with the protagonist’s arc hemorrhages into a more disturbing kind that would

prick a longtime fan of Sang-ho when the zombie fiasco begins in earnest. Director Sang-ho first made his name as an animation director, who, equipped with meager resources, produced two obscure but impressive works of commentary on contemporary Korean society: “King of Pigs” and “The Fake.” What impressed about these movies were the interlocking inner worlds of their psychically ruined casts culminating in spectacularly violent twists that provide cathartic structural closure to the tragedies boiling beneath the surface texts. Here, in his first live action feature, Sang-ho has everything he did not — time, money, actors, recognition –— but the movie rings that much hollower. The awkward quarter-smiles of his complicated characters are replaced with Korea’s coolest man Ma Dong-Seok’s winning grin. Sang-ho’s once frenetic and at times frankly comical (in no small part due to his pittance of a budget) exertions of violence have become polished and accessible, at the loss of his poor man’s aesthetic that afforded the sense of psychological instability and unease that would have much more touchingly portrayed the occasional outpouring of shame and guilt on the part of the train’s survivors. And as if to officially declare the old Sang-ho dead, the conclusion of Seok-woo’s arc at the climax of the film is presented with every sin in mainstream Korean cinema’s maleficarum, from slow motion to sad music to saccharine monologue. Without a doubt, the film despite its fun, represents a regrettable deviance from the exciting trajectory suggested by his previous work.

But at least it’s fun. In the stead of Sang-ho’s old artistic vision, his general ability as a filmmaker and the personalities of its actors sufficiently animate this feature to leap several miles beyond most of its flick competitors. The aforementioned Ma Dong-Seok is a national treasure, an actor who oscillates between a runaway hare’s affability and the pursuant tiger’s ferocity without a moment’s reluc-

tance. Special props must additionally be given to the extras. At a distance, the red and gray functionally resemble the ashen mutilated flesh of the living dead, and the camera is wise to not linger too long among the zombie hordes. What’s more, the zombies cry, twitch and sprint in a way that defies second-to-second expectation; at every beat, the zombie moves in a way just slightly foreign to human behavior. This subtle, unjustly unappreciated physical acting found at every scene and in every underpaid extra, is the most accomplished aspect of the film. Together with Dong-Seok, the zombies expertly stage the flights and fights that constitute the central appeal of the movie. Each of these sequences makes full use of the setting’s unique, compartmentalized geography. The zombies are rushing from one end of the cart, and the heroes need to get to the other end, while warding off the nearest pursuers. It’s a set piece that clearly communicates its simple objectives (literally point A to point B) and mechanisms of tension (“there’s one coming from left under!”), corresponding neatly with the general accessibility that characterizes this movie.

The film was a colossal hit in Korea, and in overview and hindsight, it’s not difficult to see why. Like most mainstream successes, “Train to Busan” employs both spectacle and emotion with a child’s candor, and combined with the sheer novelty of a zombie apocalypse occurring in such familiar ecosystems, it was nigh impossible that the movie fail in its native market. Aside from the physical violence, it really is a family feature.

While it’s regrettable that Sang-ho’s traded in his signature sensibility for a fun flick that will probably be forgotten in time as one of the myriad influences that shaped Korean mainstream cinema of the 2050s, one hopes that the film at least sheds light on the rest of his more interesting filmography and gives commercial platform for his vision to return in force.

The Amherst Student • September 21, 2016

Sports 9

Men’s Soccer Defeats Pine Manor, Ties Middlebury Spotlight on Club Sports: Men’s Soccer

Photo courtesy of Mark Box of Clarus Studios

Chris Martin ’17 has proved to be an integral part of the Amherst offense, leading the team in shots taken and hitting the mark with two so far this seaon.

Delancey King ’18 Staff Writer The Amherst men’s soccer team traveled to Vermont on Saturday to take on NESCAC rival Middlebury. The purple and white went into the game with an underdog mentality, as the Panthers returned four all-NESCAC selections from the 2015 season.

Amherst seemed to be in trouble in the 21st minute, when Middlebury was awarded a penalty kick after the purple and white gave up a foul in the box. However, junior goalkeeper Lee Owen came up with a big save that kept the game scoreless.

Feeding off of Owen’s energy, Amherst responded with a goal in the 33rd minute. Kieran Bellew ’18 lofted a ball to Andrew Orozco ’17, who headed the ball decisively into the back of the net.

However, Amherst’s lead was short lived, as Middlebury got the equalizer a mere four minutes later, when Greg Conrad managed to put one past Owen.

Both teams looked dangerous throughout the second half, but neither was able to capitalize. Chris Martin ’17 had a quality chance

on a breakaway 10 minutes after the restart, but the Panthers’ keeper did well to get a hand on the shot.

Middlebury’s Tom Dils almost gave the Panthers the lead with a dangerous header, but his shot ricocheted off the left post. Regulation concluded with the score still tied, so the game headed into overtime. After two 10 minute periods of overtime, the final result was a tie.

“The game against Middlebury was a 110 minute battle,” junior Sam Malnik said.

“We’re proud of slivers of the game, but going forward, we have to execute aspects of game plan better.”

The purple and white then traveled to Pine Manor on Sunday for a non-conference matchup. While conversion seemed to be an issue on Saturday, Amherst looked to have no trouble putting away their opportunities on Sunday.

Although Amherst couldn’t find the net with their first five shots, the purple and white finally took the lead on a goal from Fikayo Ajayi ’19. After receiving a beautiful ball from Dane Lind ’20, Ajayi slotted the ball home for his first career goal.

The first half ended with the score holding at 1-0 in favor of Amherst, but the purple and white blew open the game in the first ten minutes of the second half. In the 54th and 55th minutes, Martin and Bryce Ciambella ’17 coolly put away penalty kicks to give Amherst a commanding 3-0 lead. Goals from Jimmy McMillian ’20 and Aidan Murray ’18 in the 78th and 84th minutes completed the rout.

“After a slower start in the first half, our team was able to pick up momentum and connect some passes to put away some chances on goal in the second half,” senior captain Cameron Bean said. “Pine Manor is a strong and well-coached team, and the 5-0 scoreline does not speak to how close the game really was. I certainly think Pine Manor will find success this season.”

With these two results, the purple and white advance to 3-0-1 on the season. Next up for Amherst is another non-conference matchup on Wednesday, Sept. 21 against Mount Ida. They return to NESCAC action on Saturday, Sept. 24 when they will try to maintain their undefeated record against archrival Williams, a team Amherst needed two overtimes to defeat last season in Williamstown.

Photo courtesy of Mark Box of Clarus Studios

Andrew Orozco ’17 has added one goal and one assist this season.

Jenny Mazzella ’20 Staff Writer After a long two-hour trip to Troy, New York, the Amherst men’s club soccer team suffered its first loss of the season by a 3-0 score to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on Saturday, Sept. 17. First-years Teddy Lane, Nate Johnson, Will Friedrichs, Yared Lingo, Hugh Ford, Dash Shulman and Larkin Reuter all made their club soccer debut. Although the game did not fall in Amherst’s favor, goalie Tim Offei-Addo ’19 made some key saves in his standout performance.

Amherst alum Stuart McKenzie ’16 is sacrificing some of his time in his first year out of college to help coach the club soccer team. He played on the team when he was a student last year, and continues to practice with the team Two junior captains also lead the team: Alex Frenett and Ben Rotner.

The team consists of 40 students of all skill levels and soccer backgrounds, including about 15 first-years.

Club soccer is perfect for students who wish to continue competing in athletics, but not quite on the varsity level. Lane shared that he wanted to either run cross country or play soccer on the varsity level, but when he found out how competitive the teams were, he turned to club soccer instead. The team has a busy but manageable schedule. They practice three days a week for about an hour and a half. Games are most weekends, and they are scheduled by the captains of the team against club soccer programs at other local schools.

On Wednesday last week, the team had its first scrimmage against the University of Massachusetts club team. For most of the game, the score was 1-0, with Amherst holding the slim lead thanks to a goal by first-year Bodhi Nguyen. However, in the last two minutes, UMass scored two goals to come back for the win, ending the game with a score of 2-1.

Although the team has suffered some early losses, it remains enthusiastic about the rest of the season. They still hope to make playoffs, even after a rough start.

10

Sports

The Amherst Student • September 21, 2016

Women’s Soccer Splits Weekend, Drops One Game to NESCAC Rival Middlebury

ATHLETE SPOTLIGHT

Fikayo Ajayi ’19

Photo courtesy of Amherst Athletics

Sophomore Megan Root continues to anchor the purple and white defense.

Hayes Honea ’19 Staff Writer The Amherst women’s soccer team ended a busy weekend with a 1-1-0 record, pushing its overall record to 3-2-0. On Saturday, the team trekked north to Vermont to take on NESCAC rival Middlebury, but were outscored 1-0 by the Panthers. On Sunday, however, they defeated Wentworth at home with a late goal from first-year Laura Greer.

On Saturday, Amherst boarded the bus to face NESCAC rival Middlebury. The game remained scoreless throughout the first half.

The two teams battled back and forth with Middlebury’s goalkeeper saving an impressive shot on goal by Emily Masten ’17 in the fifth minute and the Panthers hitting the crossbar in the 26th minute.

In the second half, Hannah Guzzi ’18, who led the team in shots on Saturday, took a shot from the left side that was blocked by the goalie, and though Sloan Askins ’20 was there to shoot it back, a Middlebury defender denied the purple and white goal. Just a few minutes later, the Panthers solidified the win with a one-touch pass off of a corner-kick that sailed just-wide of sophomore Chelsea Cutler for the final goal.

“Win or lose we come together after every game,” Tamen said. “After Tuesday’s game we decided we could either let it weigh us down or we could go to practice the next day and

work harder to be better. Although we definitely hate losing and the emotions that accompany a loss, I think it’s pushed us to be better as a team.”

Coming off of the tough loss, Amherst was able to rally and secure a 1-0 win at home against Wentworth on Sunday afternoon.

Though the first half went scoreless, the purple and white dominated the field on both ends. Caleigh Plaut ’19 and Delancey King ’18 each had solid scoring opportunities in the first minutes for the Amherst offense, missing the net by inches.

In fact, both King and Ashlyn Heller ’17 ripped shots off the goal posts — something rarely seen twice in one game. Finally, in the 78th minute, Megan Root ’19 cleared a ball to Askins who assisted Greer for the gamewinning goal.

“Everyone on the team wanted the same thing, which was to crush Midd., we were willing to leave everything out on that field to get a win,” Askins said. “With our long history battling Midd., there was no other option but to fight till the final whistle. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to put the ball in the back of the net, but we were creating opportunities.”

The purple and white return to action on Saturday, Sept. 24, when they host NESCAC rival Williams starting at noon. Amherst looks to make a statement, seeking an upset of the defending NCAA division III national champion Ephs.

Men’s Golf Finishes 11th at Weekend’s Duke Nelson Invite Jason Darell ’18 Managing Sports Editor

This past weekend, the Amherst men’s golf team traveled to Middlebury, Vermont to participate in the Duke Nelson Invitational. Over the two days, the team shot for a combined score of 624, good for 11th place in the tournament. The

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Men’s golf’s first-year players made a big impact this weekend for Amherst.

22-team field was composed of both familiar and unfamiliar opponents, with NESCAC rivals Middlebury, Williams and Trinity in the mix. Skidmore took home the title with a two-day score of 588, followed by Middlebury with a combined finish of 591.

The purple and white showed off their depth by featuring a lineup entirely comprised of firstyears. Cameron Clark ’20 led Amherst with scores of 72 and 80 on day one and day two, respectively. His final tally of 152 earned him 13th place among the field.

Just behind him were two first-years, Jack Klein and Cole Vissicchio who tied with a final score of 157. Klein shot a 77 on day one and an 80 on day two, while Vissicchio finished with a 76 and an 81. They finished in a tie for 51st place among the field. Rounding out the purple and white were first-years Nick Sullivan and Will Lonnquist. Sullivan tallied rounds of 77 and 83 to finish with a two-day score of 160. His finish was good for 71st place among the field. Lonnquist notched an 82 on the first day and followed it with an 83 on the second. This finish earned him 84th place.

The purple and white will travel to Williamstown this weekend to compete in the Williams Fall Invitational.

Favorite Team Memory: Easily winning the National Championship in Kansas City Favorite Pro Athlete: Zinedine Zidane or Thierry Henry Dream Job: Music artist, just waiting for a break Pet Peeve: When you hold a door for someone and they don’t say thank you Favorite Vacation Spot: Ayia Napa, Cyprus Something on Your Bucket List: Running a marathon Guilty Pleasure: Fruit Snacks Favorite Food: BBQ-based Pizza Favorite Thing About Amherst: It’s small so I don’t do too much walking How He Earned It: Ajayi led the men’s soccer team to a 5-0 win over Pine Manor on Sunday afternoon, firing home the purple and white’s first goal and eventual game-winner in the 33rd minute. Following a long throwin from Cameron Hardington ’18 to Dane Lind ’20, Lind gave the ball to Ajayi, who proceeded to find the net. The goal was the first of Ajayi’s collegiate career and his two shots on goal tied for the team lead against the Gators.

Morgan Yurosek ’20 Favorite Team Memory: Setting the new Amherst women’s golf record for lowest team score Favorite Pro Athlete: Mike Trout Dream Job: White House press secretary Pet Peeve: Obnoxiously loud chewing Favorite Vacation Spot: Pebble Beach, California Something on Your Bucket List: Play golf at Augusta National Guilty Pleasure: Playing Call of Duty Favorite Food: Nutella Crepes Favorite Thing About Amherst: The atmosphere of the student body — everyone rallies around each other whether it be in academics, athletics or socially How She Earned It: First-year Morgan Yurosek, took first place at the Ann S. Batchelder Invitational this past weekend.

Yurosek posted a first round score of 73, and proceeded to shoot a 76 on Sunday. Her twoday total of 149 left her three shots clear of the second place finisher. Yurosek also led Amherst to the team title as well, as the purple and white finished four strokes below archrival Williams.

Women’s Golf Wins Season-Opening Wellesley Invitational Tournament Scout Boynton ’20 Staff Writer Amherst women’s golf came out with a strong tournament win in its season opener this past weekend. The team competed in the Ann S. Batchelder Invitational, hosted by Wellesley College, and captured its first team title in the tournament’s nine years of operation. Amherst also took the top two spots on the podium with first-year Morgan Yurosek earning first place and senior captain Jamie Gracie coming in second.

The invitational was played on the par 72 Nehoiden Golf Course. As a team, Amherst posted a score of 307 on Saturday and 309 on Sunday to complete the weekend with a team score of 616. All five golfers for the College placed in the top-20.

In her first collegiate appearance, Yurosek shot one over par on day one with a score of 73 and followed with a 76 on day two. Her total score over the two days was 149. Gracie started out with a 78 on Saturday and improved by four strokes to finish with a 74 on Sunday, totaling 152 over the weekend. Kate Weiss ’19 placed 10th with a score of 158, Emily Yang

’20 came in 19th with 162 and Zoe Wong ’18 shot a 163 to take the 20th spot overall.

Williams, the winner at the invitational the past seven years, was finally bumped to second place. The Ephs shot 309 and 311 to finish the tournament with a score of 620, while New York University completed the podium in third with a final score of 628 (316, 312).

Middlebury, Wellesley, Mount Holyoke and Vassar were the remaining four teams competing in the invitational, finishing in that order.

The results from this weekend bode well for the purple and white’s expectations for the rest of the season under Coach Elizabeth Davis, who enters her inaugural season. The team’s performance was a great improvement from last year where they placed fourth in a field of nine with a score of 661, being beaten

by Williams, New York University and Middlebury.

This weekend, the team will be competing in the Mount Holyoke Invitational, where they placed third last year. They will be competing against many of the same NESCAC competitors and hope to find their way to the top once again.

Photo courtesy of Amherst Athletics

Senior captain Jamie Gracie earned second place overall this weekend.

The Amherst Student • September 21, 2016

Field Hockey Splits Weekend Games, Drops One to NESCAC Competition

Sports

11

Forest’s FastTake Forest Sisk ’17 Columnist Forest Sisk examines the culture of civil and human rights protests within athletics that have been prominent across all leagues this season and widely covered by media sources across the country.

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios, Inc.

Elizabeth Turnbull ’18 contributed two goals this weekend for the purple and white offense, leading the team to its victory over Keene State.

Meredith Manley ’18 Staff Writer The Amherst’s field hockey team went 1-1 in its second week of regular season play.

The purple and white took on Keene State on Wednesday, Sept. 14 scoring six goals and allowing none. On Saturday, Sept. 17 at Middlebury, the NESCAC game ended after double overtime as Amherst fell to the Panthers 3-2.

On Wednesday against Keene State, Amherst showed that it can bounce back after a tough loss. Leaving Bowdoin with a sour taste in their mouth last Saturday the purple and white had its foot on the gas pedal and were not about to let up.

In the 19th minute of the game, offensive powerhouse Sarah Culhane ’17 scored Amherst’s first goal of the match. Less than three minutes later, junior defender Caroline Fiore capitalized off of a penalty stroke to put the purple and white ahead by two goals.

Amherst would hold this lead going into the halftime intermission.

Continuing the offensive show from the first half, Laura Schwartzman ’20 increased the score to 3-0 at the 40:05 mark after the break. Continuing to press forward, Elizabeth Turnbull ’18 hit the ball past Keene’s goaltender on at corner.

The purple and white reached an impressive score of 5-0 when Mary Grace Cronin

’18 found the back of the net with 16 minutes remaining in the game. Turnbull scored her second and final goal of the match to secure the shutout win of 6-0.

Coming off of what seemed to be an effortless win against Keene State, the purple and white would have its hands full against Middlebury, the 2015 NCAA runner-ups.

The Panthers pounced early, scoring their first goal just over three minutes into the battle. Fighting back immediately, the purple and white tied up the game a few minutes later off of a loose ball at the top of the arch picked up by Mary Margaret Stoll ’17. Nearing the end of the first half, Middlebury took advantage of an Amherst foul inside the arc, scoring off of a penalty stroke.

Entering the second half with a score of 2-1 in Middlebury’s favor, the purple and white continued to fight. Amherst tied up the match at 2-2 just two minutes into the second half after Culhane picked up a loose ball in the arc.

The purple and white pressed the Panthers for the entirety of the half, holding on to the tie until the end of regulation. After two overtime periods to continue the excitement of the game, Middlebury snuck one into the back of the net at the 96:54 mark.

After a long week of competition the purple and white are gearing up for its next game on the road against Endicott College at 7:00 pm on Sept. 22.

Deliver Papers on Campus!

• Must be available Wednesday mornings • Must have access to a car Contact astudent@amherst.edu if interested

The last few years of social injustice, lack of reform and increased momentum within campaigns for equality have finally reached the sports world. There have been attempts by several teams and athletes to bring matters of social injustice out from behind closed doors and into the front row. The Phoenix Suns deemed one of their game nights “Noche Latina” in opposition to an immigration act back in 2010. Lebron and teammates wore “suspicious” hoodies as they walked out for a game in 2012 following the Trayvon Martin shooting. The Los Angeles Clippers wore their warm-up jerseys inside out in protest of their owner, Donald Sterling, and his bigoted remarks. All of these actions carried weight for a time, but none have garnered the media attention and general reaction that Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest has.

Kaepernick’s movement has recently gained momentum. Teammate Eric Reid was first to join him. Next, during a Seattle Seahawks game, cornerback Jeremy Lane sat on the bench behind his teammates as the anthem played. The protest spread through supporters and opponents like wildfire.

Eventually, the protest made its way into other sports. Megan Rapinoe, a decorated U.S. women’s soccer player, is an avid activist in the LGBT community. Rapinoe came out as gay in 2012 and has since been engaged to avantgarde drummer Sera Cahoone. She is also a spokesperson and leader for the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN). The point is, she is very involved. So when she saw Kaepernick protesting social injustice against black Americans, she felt that sentiment on behalf of the LGBT community. She told ESPN, “Quite honestly, being gay, I have stood with my hand over my heart during the national anthem and felt like I haven’t had my liberties protected, so I can absolutely sympathize with that feeling.”

For every American that understands the plight of the marginalized, there is another that stands firmly against it. Last week, Rapinoe’s Seattle Reign were on a road trip to play the Washington Spirit. Having seen Rapinoe’s method of protest in the news, Spirit owner Bill Lynch decided to play the national anthem before the teams took the field so as to avoid “the disrespect we feel such an act would represent.”

That quote is from a statement that the Spirit released minutes before the game.

They knew there would be backlash, so they preemptively responded to critics. They addressed Megan in the letter writing: “While we respect every individual’s right to express themselves, and believe Ms. Rapinoe to be an amazing individual with a huge heart; we respectfully disagree with her method of hijacking our organization’s event to draw attention to what is ultimately a personal — albeit worthy — cause.”

When I first heard about Lynch’s sneaky maneuvering, I thought he was just the next Sterling, another rich old white man with dated views. But then, after reading the statement, I realized he was making some points that I could understand. I can imagine the national anthem protests would rub a “veteran-owned” team’s front office the wrong way. I understand this form of protest goes against a “tradition of honoring our military and our patriotism” that has taken place in this country since World War II. I can even understand the more aggressive claims that the Kaepernicks and Rapinoes of the sports world are forgetting the basic protection from foreign forces and civil rights that this country’s heroes grant them.

However, what I do not understand, or even fathom, is a form of protest that will both catch the public eye while not upsetting certain groups of people. Social injustice is a byproduct of society, so when the injustices are in ques-

tion, of course parts of society are going to be disgruntled. Rapinoe called Lynch’s decision to move the anthem “… unbelievable” and his own Spirit players were upset with his decision as well. And you know what? She’s right.

She wasn’t hurting anyone by taking a knee as the anthem plays. Could some see it as disrespectful and unwarranted? Sure. But to move the anthem without alerting anyone is a direct obstruction of the First Amendment — the one we fought so hard to achieve two and a half centuries ago.

It’s sort of funny, but one of the best opinons on this touchy matter has come from Jesse Ventura. Yes, the same Jesse Ventura that crushed skulls in WWE (fake wrestling) and bad assed his way into a couple of blockbuster movies.

Ventura also happened to win an election, much like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and served as the governor of Minnesota for four years. He is a well-spoken and highly opinionated man. In a one-on-one with a camera, Ventura shed some light on the anthem protests. One sentence resonated with me above all the others (keep in mind, Ventura also served six years in Vietnam with the Navy): “Governments should not mandate patriotism, governments earn patriotism.

You earn that.” This is an important and crucial sentence that debunks the entire anti-protest argument. Although there is undoubted and unwavering sacrifice by countless volunteers that keep this country safe, if a person feels their country is not entirely living up to the billing of the holy mantra, the Constitution, they are not obliged to pay their respects to it in any significant manner — including standing for the anthem before a sporting event.

The other night, Rapinoe continued her protest, but this time while playing for the U.S. National Team. This marks an important transition in the protest. The stars and stripes on her jersey are the same ones she’s kneeling in the face of. The U.S. Soccer Federation did not take kindly to Rapinoe’s persistence: “In front of national and often global audiences, the playing of our national anthem is an opportunity for our men’s and women’s national team players and coaches to reflect upon the liberties and freedom we all appreciate in this country. As part of the privilege to represent your country, we have an expectation that our players and coaches will stand and honor our flag while the national anthem is played.”

Harsh and stern words from the federation.

Rapinoe assured everyone after the game that representing her country as a footballer is very special to her, but stood firm on her stance. She first supported the Black Lives Matter movement: “I think that we need to look at all the things that we say the flag and the anthem mean and everybody that it represents and all the liberties and the freedoms that we want it to mean to everybody, and ask ourselves, is it protecting everybody in the same way? Is it giving all the freedoms to everyone in the country the same way, or are there certain people that don’t feel as protected as I do every day?” And then proceeded to link the protest Kaepernick set in motion to her own experience: “Being a gay American, I know what it means to look at the flag and not have it protect all of your liberties.”

Nobody knows what will eventually come of this chapter within the growing social justice movement story that is being written around the country, but one thing is known. This national anthem protest shows that American citizens are either for change or against change; it shows that some people aren’t ready for the difficult conversations to come, but have at least been briefed; it shows, no matter how divided, that people are at least able to recognize an active domestic conflict. The road is unwritten, but the path is beginning to be paved.

Sports

Photo courtesy of Mark Box Photo courtesy of Peter Connolly ’18

Through six games this season, senior captain and outside hitter Maggie Danner has averaged 2.68 kills and 1.37 digs per set, leading the Amherst offense.

Volleyball Wins Two, but Drops One Game to Conference Rival Tufts Katie Bergamesca ’18 Staff Writer The Amherst volleyball team had a busy week with three matches including its first two conference games of the season. This past week’s action started with a midweek match against Western New England University.

The purple and white swept the Golden Bears (25-23, 25-13, 25-19) in the Wednesday night match-up.

Emily Kolsky ’20 led Amherst offensively with 12 kills. Maggie Danner ’17 followed close behind the first year outside hitter with 11 kills. The duo of Danner and Kolsky have provided the purple and white with a dangerous offensive threat, and the Firedogs look to utilize this offensive team moving forward this season.

Charlotte Duran ’20 also put up an impressive offensive performance with 16 assists. Four players, Danner, Mia Natsis ’18,

Claire Dennis ’20 and Lauren Reppert ’20 added a block each. Kate Bres ’17 and Hayes Honea ’19 had 10 digs apiece in the winning effort.

Following its Wednesday victory, the purple and white traveled to Brunswick, Maine on Friday to take on Bowdoin. The Amherst women topped Bowdoin 3-1 (25-16, 23-25, 25-18, 25-19) in their NESCAC opener. The one set that Amherst lost saw four lead changes, with the purple and white offense battling against an impressive Bowdoin defensive line.

However, it was not quite enough to hold the Polar Bears off and Bowdoin managed to take the win.

Despite the setback, the Firedogs bounced back and returned strong in the third set. In the victory over Bowdoin, Kolsky once again played a key offensive role with 12 kills. Honea had an equally impressive performance on the floor with 29 digs, while Natsis led the team with four blocks. Senior captain Bres

Photo courtesy of Peter Connolly ’18

Photo courtesy of Peter Connolly ’18

WED THU GAME SCHE DULE

Men’s Soccer @ Mount Ida, 7 p.m.

Volleyball vs. Colby-Sawyer, 7 p.m.

Field Hockey @ Endicott, 7 p.m.

continued to put up impressive stats with 18 assists, while Duran led the purple and white with 20 assists.

Amherst closed out the eventful week with a final match in Medford, Massachusetts where the Firedog women took on Tufts. Although all three sets were tightly contested, the purple and white dropped its second conference game against the Jumbos in a 3-0 (2125, 17-25, 27-29) sweep. While each set had spectators on the edge of their sets, the third and final set in particular was a thriller.

The Amherst women started out the set strong, quickly pulling ahead of Tufts 7-3. The purple and white held the lead for the majority of the match but the Jumbos stayed composed and slowly chipped away at the Firedog’s early lead. Tufts ultimately secured the win on an Amherst service error.

In the team’s last match of the week, Kolsky finished strong, pacing the offensive with 10 kills. Natsis’ five blocks led the Amherst

FRI

SUN

Women’s Tennis @ MIT, TBA

Women’s Golf Men’s Cross Coun@ Mount Holyoke Invita- try tional, 8:30 a.m. @ Purple Valley Invitational, 12:10 p.m.

Field Hockey vs. Williams, 11 a.m.

Men’s Golf @ Williams Fall InvitaWomen’s Soccer tional, 1 p.m. vs. Williams, noon

Volleyball vs. Williams, 7 p.m.

defense once again, and a consistently agile Honea continued to lead the team in digs, totaling 15. Duran and Bres worked in tandem offensively, providing 15 and 13 assists respectively.

“Coming off of a win at our home opener, we were super pumped to take on Bowdoin,” Honea said. “Though Williams is obviously our biggest rival, Bowdoin is a huge NESCAC enemy as well. Our enthusiasm translated into our play, and we are very proud of our win on Friday. Though we suffered a loss to Tufts on Saturday, we are optimistic as we continue to improve as a unit.”

The team will continue action at home against Colby-Sawyer on Wednesday, Sept.

21. On Friday, Sept. 23, the purple and white take on rival Williams at home in LeFrak.

Amherst will finish out this week’s play at an invitational at Clark University on Saturday, Sept. 24 where they will take on Babson University and host Clark.

Photo courtesy of Peter Connolly ’18

Women’s Cross Country @ Purple Valley Invitational, 1 p.m.

Volleyball vs. Babson @ Clark University, 1 p.m.

Football vs. Hamilton, 1 p.m.

Men’s Soccer vs. Williams, 2:30 p.m.

Volleyball @ Clark University, 3 p.m.