Issue 5

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Green Amherst Project Encourages Administration to Divest Investments from Coal Siyu Shen ’15 News Section Editor On September 7, climate change activist Bill McKibben visited Amherst College and gave a speech in Johnson Chapel that addressed a crowd of over 800 people. It was a strong message that acted as the launching pad for Green Amherst Project’s divestment campaign on campus, a campaign advocating for the College to divest all of its direct investments from coal.

In the last year, the divestment movement has rapidly picked up speed, as students from college campuses across the nation begin to urge their schools to eliminate endowment investments in coal and oil companies. It was conceived as a way to move the United States, a country where university endowments comprise 4.9 million dollars of the economy, beyond fossil fuels and towards a new, renewable energy future.

In an effort to unify these collegebased movements, the Responsible Endowments Coalition (REC) was founded in 2004 and now has over 40 universities and colleges working on launching divestment campaigns.

It works to encourage social change through environmental change by starting with the investment of college campuses throughout the country, which will hopefully translate to a change in policies in the broader national and political spectrum.

Deidre Nelms ’13 decided to begin the effort in Amherst towards the end of August after working with the

REC over the summer. She began to discuss and plan the campaign with a group of Amherst seniors shortly before the new school year began. “We had our first meeting with the investment office to find out more about specific holdings and feasibility on September 11,� said Nelms.

Eight students gathered in Dawn Bate’s office to ask her questions about the endowment and launching a divestment campaign. The largest past divestment campaign at Amherst was in 2006, when a collection of students successfully proposed divestment from Sudan, taking two academic years to work with the investment office, collect research and present a proposal to the full investment committee. The Sudan divestment policy is one that the school continues to act on even now, and the investment office continues to hold its management on its restricted company list. Green Amherst Project’s campaign is relatively modest in comparison.

The goal of the campaign is to call attention to how Amherst manages its investment by urging the College to make a policy statement that would prevent future direct investment in coal. The students who form the campaign believe that the endowment is part of Amherst College’s values, which include sustainability and environmental support.

To them, the investment is part of who the school is as an institution. “We have an environment studies department that tells us climate

Photo Courtesy of Barry Scott ’11

On Sept. 7, Bill McKibben, a climate change activist, spoke with students at a divestment rally in Frost Library. change is a serious issue and if we don’t act in the next 15 years, the planet will suffer consequences,�

Nelms said. “If we are still invested in coal and fossil fuels, it’s almost as if we don’t believe in our own environmental message. The fact is that we don’t know what our investment

is. They say our endowment is transparent, but we only know percent — it’s definitely not.�

The campaign has already created an electronic and physical petition that is circulating the student body, while also conducting individual outreach and encouraging the fac-

ulty to write letters to the Board of Trustees. Four years ago, the College had passed the creation of an Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing (ACSRI), a student-run group composed of stuContinued on Page 3

College Explores Online Education Opportunities Amherst would be one of the first liberal arts colleges to join online education

Ethan Corey ’15 News Section Editor Amherst College may soon enter the brave new world of online education. Over the past few weeks, faculty and members of the administration have been in discussion with several consortia of colleges and universities wishing to include the College in their online courseware programs, including Coursera, a consortium founded by professors from Stanford University that offers free online courses to individuals around the world; edX, a similar program founded as a joint venture between Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and 2tor, a for-profit company that offers online courses for a fee to more limited audiences.

The College is exploring all of its options to determine which programs offer the College the best opportunities to further its academic mission and improve the education it offers to students. The Committee on Educational Policy, the Committee on Faculty Computing and the Information Technology Department

have all discussed the possibility of online courseware and have met with representatives from the various organizations wishing to work with the College. In addition, at the most recent faculty, President Carolyn Martin engaged with the faculty and sought their input on the issue of expanding the College into the online world. President Martin said that she saw online education as an opportunity for the College to experiment with innovative pedagogy and help shape the policy and direction of an online learning initiative.

Dean of Faculty Gregory Call also highlighted the potential of online resources to transform how professors interact with their students in the classroom. “One of the ideas that interests me as a math professor is what is called blended learning, or flipping the classroom, thinking about different ways to present the material so you can use the time in class most effectively,�

Dean Call said. “A number of groups have developed online materials for the technical scientific fields that use a blended approach,

with some materials prepared in advance, such as lectures to watch before class, and then students would come into class with questions ready to ask the professor.�

Joining one of these consortia would make the College one of the first liberal arts colleges to become involved in the world of online education. Until July, only large universities like Harvard and Berkeley had offered courses on the web, but this summer Wesleyan University became the first liberal arts college to join an online courseware program when it signed on to Coursera, offering courses such as “The Modern and The Postmodern� and “The Language of Hollywood: Storytelling, Sound, and Color.�

However, with the opportunities offered by online courseware come new challenges for the College. Chief Information Officer Gayle Barton said that effectively translating the essence of the Amherst classroom to the online setting will be the most important task in any attempts to involve the College in online courseware.

“How do we take what’s happening in a classroom and how do we transport that to outside sources? How can we take what’s best of an Amherst experience and put it online?

How do you create a good peer-to-peer discussion and how do promote engagement between people through the online medium?� said Barton.

In addition, some worry that online courseware has the potential to distract the faculty and divert resources away from the more important task of educating students who study on-campus. Professor Austin Sarat, of the LJST and Political Science departments, wondered about the College’s ability to adequately compensate faculty members who choose to offer online courses. “The day’s only got so many hours in it.

Is it a good use of my time? And one of the questions is how are professors going to be compensated? Is the College going to give them release time? Are we going to be engaging teaching assistants in this kind of work?� asked Professor Sarat.

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News

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Entries from Sept. 26 to Sept. 30, 2012 >>Sept. 26, 2012 8:16 a.m., The Cage An officer investigated an intrusion alarm and found it was accidentally set off by a contractor. The system was reset.

Snell Street and So. Pleasant Street. It was discovered the men, who are students at a local college, took the dumpster from Chapman House. They were identified and the dumpster was returned.

10:24 a.m., Campus Grounds Officers issued a written no-trespass order to a man.

10:00 a.m., Life Sciences Building Officers and the Fire Department responded to an alarm and found it was activated by steam from a washer. The system was reset.

>>Sept. 28, 2012 12:35 a.m., Crossett Dormitory An officer responded to a loud music complaint and located the disturbance in a thirdfloor suite. The people in the common room were not residents, and there was evidence of alcohol use. A beer pong table was set up and those present were underage. The people were asked to leave and the table was dismantled.

11:45 a.m., Kirby Drive An officer investigated a motor vehicle accident. Report filed.

1:27 p.m., Coolidge Parking Lot An officer investigated a motor vehicle accident. Report filed.

8:58 p.m., King Dormitory An officer discovered unattended alcohol in the fourth-floor common room. It was confiscated. >>Sept. 29, 2012 1:08 a.m., Keefe Campus Center An officer stopped a student who was leaving the building with a mirror. It was discovered the mirror was the property of the Program Board and it was confiscated. The matter was referred to the Dean’s Office.

1:49 a.m., Off-Campus Locations An officer on patrol observed several men pushing a dumpster near the intersection of

11:24 p.m., Waldorf-Astoria While in the building, an officer discovered an underage resident had several bottles of beer and hard alcohol. It was confiscated and the matter was referred to the Dean’s Office. >>Sept. 30, 2012 12:03 a.m., Marsh House Officers responded to a complaint about the odor of marijuana on the second floor and found four students in a room with evidence of marijuana use. An amount of marijuana, and devices related to weighing, grinding, and smoking marijuana were confiscated. The matter was referred to the Dean’s Office.

12:16 a.m., Marsh House While in a second-floor room, an officer confiscated alcohol for an underage resident.

12:31 a.m., East Drive An officer on patrol encountered a man urinating on East Drive. He was fined $100 for the offensive behavior.

3:04 a.m., Newport House An officer responded to a complaint about noise in the basement. Nothing was found.

11:56 a.m., The Evergreens An officer investigated an intrusion alarm and found it was accidentally set off. The system was reset.

Thoughts on Theses: Nguyen Ha

Major: Biology Thesis Advisor: Patrick Williamson

What is your thesis about?

Two layers of phospholipids make up the membrane. There are different proportions of phospholipids exist in each layer. This asymmetry, important for many biological phenomenon, exists because of enzymes that use energy to selectively move phospholipids in one direction. These enzymes belong to the P4 ATPase family. Prior research established that proteins of another family, the cdc50 family, work as subunits or “assistants” of P4 ATPase to move phospholipids.

We know the subunits are required, but we do not know how subunits work with the transporter. To probe that question, we must investigate when does the subunit bind. There is a reaction cycle that transporters and subunits go through in order to move phospholipids. Where in this cycle does the subunit bind? During this cycle, does it dissociate completely from the transporter and reassociate at other times? Or maybe the subunit is bound to transporter at all time, but just that sometimes subunit binds loosely, other times tightly.

How did this idea come about?

The field is small and has been around for a while. The lab, much like its revered PI, have existed forever. What is novel is that my thesis will use some flourescence tagging and some laser stuffs (For details, please hunt me down). Professor Williamson came up with scheme of using protein tags that change color upon laser excitation. The rest of the experimental details we have to figure out. But they are all ideas in the air.

What are the high and low points so far?

I have been having quite a lot of fun. I really wanted to spend my last year here out of the classroom and I have engineered my curriculum nicely to enable that. Instead, now I spend just a little bit of time each day in lab working on this.

Sometimes, though, things just don’t work — and it could be logistics. Maybe you forget to add some reagents. Maybe you did not mix.

Maybe the protocol needs optimization. Or maybe there is some real underlying biological thing that the experiment is trying to tell you. For you, just not knowing when it is the one trivial case and when it is the other case prove somewhat frustrating. But I am making progress.

What advice do you have for students who are considering writing a thesis?

You better enjoy it or it will be a long year.

-by Eirene Wang ’13

Photo courtesy of coursekart.com

Amherst Classes May Go Digital Continued from Page 1 While the College is still in the early stages of exploration — it is unlikely that online courseware would arrive at the College until after next semester — the faculty and administration will continue to meet with various organizations to gather information about online education, including an open meeting Wednesday with representatives from edX. President Martin said that any final decisions would be made on the basis of “interest, input and confidence that participation would be valuable to the College.”

Professor Sarat stressed the need for open-

ness and conversation in the decision-making process.

“I think the College needs to make a decision. Do we make this opportunity available to our faculty? The institution has to make a decision about whether it wants to lend its brand to this experiment in education. I think having faculty members go to these meetings and hearing the voice of the community is the right way to decide. President Martin was very open about it in the faculty meeting. She didn’t just sit in her office and decide to do this. She opened a conversation on campus, and I think that’s the right way to do this,” said Professor Sarat.

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News

Administrators Attend AAS Senate Meeting, Talk with Students Siyu Shen ’15 News Section Editor During this Monday’s Senate meeting, AAS President Tania Diaz, ‘13, invited President Martin, Dean Charri Boykin-East and Dean Hannah Fatemi to answer questions or address concerns from the entire student body.

The meeting began with a public comment period, a practice that was started this year, where non-senators are given an opportunity to talk about anything they want at the beginning of the Senate meeting. In the past, students would have to wait until the end of the meeting to bring up comments. It was during this period that anyone in the room had the opportunity to approach any of the three members of administration present with their questions.

Matthew DeButts, ’14, asked President Martin and Dean Boykin-East about the timeline and proposal process regarding recent discussions about moving the MRC into the game room, and who was in charge of the decision-making process.

Currently, the MRC is located in the basement of Keefe, an area most students do not visit.

Though Amherst’s peer institutions have multiple full-time members working at the MRC, Amherst has only one. These are issues President Martin felt were important to address. “I will take responsibility for having said that, for now, almost a year, that having a MRC in the basement, tucked away in a spot of the sort where it is now, is deeply problematic in my opinion— actually, symbolically and in a host of other ways,�

President Martin said. “I think Amherst should be the multicultural center, as opposed to just having one. But until we get to a place where people feel it really is a multicultural center, we also need some place that’s celebratory and recognizes the differences among us. So we cannot be tucked away in a space in the basement, that says all the wrong things about who we are,� President Martin said.

In last week’s Senate meeting, the topic of joining an online consortium of other colleges had been discussed. JJ Hoffstein, a Senator for the class of 2014, asked about President Martin’s general thoughts on this process. “What we’re doing right now is learning more.

We’re trying to figure out what value it would bring to Amherst. Our top priority is to find a consortium we might want to join that would help think about pedagogy on campus,� President Martin said.

Most of the rest of the questions of the night revolved around recent rumors regarding the school’s alcohol policy. Noah Gordan ’14, the AAS Secretary, asked about the lapse of communication between the administration and student body that has been shown through rumors about changes in the alcohol enforcement policy. “There’s no change to the alcohol policy at all.

What I did see is that there has been more focus on the issues around Title IX and that part of the training that goes on in Title IX also talks about being on notice,� Dean Boykin-East.

She also addressed the Facebook page invitation to an on-campus 1000 Beers party that supposedly went out to around 500 students. A student informed Dean Boykin-East about this party, prompting her to contact the students who had organized the party. “I had a choice to either let the event go on and campus police would perhaps break it up ... or to get in touch with the individuals, as we have done a couple of other times this semester, and say, ‘I’m going to remind you of what the alcohol policy is, and this is how you would go about hosting an event.’ That’s the truth of how we address these concerns this year, but there’s been no change in the alcohol policy,� Dean Boykin-East said.

In regards to party policies in general, Diaz added that the AAS is planning an all-student conversation inviting members of administration that deal with this issue.

“We’re also engaging in conversations to revamp the party policies at Amherst, and that will go through College Council, so we can tweak it and streamline it and make it more appropriate to what happens currently,� she said.

Daniel Pastel ’13 continued the discussion on this topic, asking about the rumors that drinking games have been banned, which have increased since the instances in recent weeks of drinking games being broken up on campus. He explained that he knew that although there was not a change in the administration, “experientially� there was a change. “I approached a group of college police officers who told me that this [the ban] was true and that if they see students participating — playing beer pong, which is a very commonly played game on this campus, where you throw ping pong balls at cups — that that’s not allowed,� he said.

Dean Boykin-East replied that, in her under-

standing, the student handbook has always prohibited drinking games. “I can’t pay attention to one set of rules and regulations and completely ignore the other. I do think that we need to be working with Dean Fatemi and the rest of you to really look at ways of having more activities that go beyond people just drinking,� she said.

Dean Fatemi added that one of the discussions among the AAS last year regarding alcohol had been the idea that the Social Council should work to organize more events for students who are 2121 years or older. “When that organization can host 21-plus events for students of age to get together in the way that complies with our policies, it creates more community building for students. Those events are being planned [and] there will be one at the end of the semester. If students work within the policies to host those events, it is doable,� she said.

Photo Courtesy of amherst.edu

The AAS Senate meetings are held in the Cole Assembly Room every MonEBZ BU Q N BOE BSF PQFO UP UIF QVCMJD

Start Your Career in Accounting.

Photo courtesy of Barry Scott ’11

GAP Creates Petition for Divestment Continued from Page 1

dents, faculty, alumni and staff, which meant to ensure that the College was being more proactive as a shareholder in areas where it does own direct investments. “The ACSRI was the result of students wanting to be more involved in a broader way in thinking about the endowment and what investments are in the endowment,� said Mauricia Geissler, Chief Investment Officer. We’re not here to tell the student base what is important to them and how to affect change that way.

This group provided input and recommendations via staff that ultimately were shared with the investment committee when we voted our proxies for the shares we own. Most of the input was around social issues.�

Gessler also added that, “We hold zero direct equity exposure to coal companies.�

In the last two years, the ACSRI has fallen inactive, and part of Green Amherst Project’s goal is to revive this committee. Nelms has been working towards reaching out to all parts of the campus; she presented to the AAS on Sept. 24 and met with President Martin on September 28. “Biddy said that it is doubtful that our re-

quest could be put to a vote by October, but that it might be possible for Green Amherst Project to speak with a handful of Trustees in October and that the Board might vote on it spring of this year. She says that she personally supports our proposal and will talk to the chair of the Board, Cullen Murphy, about it,� said Nelms. “Amherst was one of the last colleges to divest from South Africa — we shouldn’t make this mistake again when it comes to investments in dirty energies.�

Though the Amherst movement is still at its beginnings, Lauren Ressler, the national organizer for the REC, is confident that it, and the broader national movement, will only grow larger.

Ressler said, “One of the biggest things is that universities are now aware that there is student pressure to move into socially responsible investment practices. The university is a microcosm of everything that is happening in the broader world. We really need to have a statement as young people that risking the stake of our future of our universities leads to a broader trend of how other companies invest.

Why are we putting so much at risk? Don’t you want to know where your money is?�

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Opinion

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Editorial

Letters to the Editor

A Case for Journalism

Catherine A. Sanderson is a professor of Psychology at Amherst College.

T

his newspaper has serviced the College since 1868 and is proud to be the oldest independent weekly student publication in the country. Yet despite this tremendous history, Amherst lags behind its peers in recognizing the value of journalism. The College takes a hands-off approach to its student newspaper, thus insuring The Student’s independent credibility; but by the same token, it views the student newspaper as just another club activity. Therein lies the problem.

Journalism is, and must be, so much more than just another campus group.

Journalism is a cornerstone of a functioning civil society, and with media distrust at an all time high, clearly something to be desired in America. Conscientious reporting and investigative curiosity are not only hobbies, they are the embodiment of the pursuits we value. Our right to discover truth is every bit as self-evident as the rights of life and liberty.

Journalism is a barometer of a campus’ intellectual and political vibrancy.

Campus publications represent open forums of discussion and expression, and student journalism is a direct exercise of our agency.

What does it say about Amherst, then, that journalism is not recognized here as a vital practice and valid field of study?

Faculty, administration, alumni and staff rarely engage with students interested in or involved with journalism beyond the cursory encounter with The Student through casual skimming or interview giving. There is no active promotion, infrastructure or publicization of activities or avenues through which students can

learn about journalism and get involved with not only campus-wide but also community wide and city-wide publications.

Even the decision of the administration to leave the provision of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal to the AAS, and to work out the details of online access when the time had come to do so, is telling.

The most important source of administrative support, however, must be the provision of academic resources for students seriously interested in journalism.

Through the College’s forays into the fields of engineering and architecture, it has already demonstrated a willingness to lax its rigid definition of what constitutes a liberal arts education. This is obviously not to say that the ethics and objective writing of journalism detract from the liberal arts enrichment in any way. Journalism should be one of the subjects in which students can take classes for credit. The College should look into welcoming faculty who are interested in exploring the field and possibly work towards introducing some sort of Five-College certificate or program for students interested in making a career out of this crucial field.

How can we claim to promote open dialogue, democratic debate and clear presentation of student issues on campus, when the College refuses to seriously consider the importance of journalism and its ethics, and to instill those values into its academic programs? There can be no true commitment to the democratic process when an institution of higher learning closes off the routes to learning about and participating meaningfully in journalism.

The lengthy article in last week’s Student on Carleen Basler’s resignation thoroughly conveyed the range of reactions, including shock, disappointment and sadness, that students, faculty and administrators have had to learning of the apparently widespread plagiarism in Basler’s scholarly work. The reasons attributed for such mistakes, at least by some students and faculty, focused on the pressures of the Amherst (and presumably Yale) environments as well as on Basler’s personal insecurities regarding her writing. But I believe there are two essential points that were not conveyed in this article.

First, most faculty members, just like most students, at times struggle with writing. I’ve had articles I’ve slaved over for months rejected by prestigious journals, just like students have received bad grades on papers they’ve slaved over for days. The struggle with writing for many of us, perhaps even for most of us, is simply part of the (sometimes painful) writing pro-

cess. And we handle this difficult struggle by recognizing that good writing (and revising) takes considerable time and accepting that receiving criticism about our writing from colleagues and editors is simply a part of this process; we never consider improperly using the writing of others.

Second, no one enjoys the consequences of having an article or book manuscript rejected, or failing to receive tenure or getting a bad grade on a paper or in a class. But the consequences of academic dishonesty are far, far greater. Basler, who was clearly a dedicated teacher, will likely no longer be able to teach at a college or university anywhere in the country. Students who commit academic dishonesty may have such acts permanently noted on their college transcript and receive a suspension from Amherst College, and thus must explain such transgressions for the rest of their lives on applications to graduate schools and for jobs.

Cheating, in whatever form it takes, is a short-term choice that may seem appealing to some in a moment of panic. But it can have substantial long-term consequences. Cheating just isn’t worth it.

Refereeing Referendums

James Liu ’16 Opinion Section Editor

“The addition of the Dean of Student’s ability to establish standards in furtherance of principles embodied by the Honor Code and/or to comply with legal requirements and to modify the Student Conduct Process as appropriate to comply with applicable legal requirements and best practices.”

Sound familiar? Probably not, but it should.

Last Thursday, the administration presented the student body a referendum to approve a set of revisions to the Honor Code. The referendum passed with a decisive margin; 66.47 percent of respondents voted yes, 27.87 percent voted no and 5.66 percent abstained. The administration, I assume, has invested significant time and thought into the wording and implications of the revisions, and it is not within the scope of this article to critique the

content of the referendum. However, it is valuable to discuss and evaluate the effectiveness as well as fairness of the presentation and administration of referendums by the College.

In order to deliver a valid decision on a referendum, the voters must, at the very least, read the text and ideally also understand its meaning and implications. The presentation of the revisions to the Honor Code was conducive to neither reading nor comprehension. Reviewing the revisions of Honor Code quoted in the first paragraph produces some daunting readability statistics; the passage scores an intimidating 5.1 on the Flesch Reading Ease test. The Flesh Reading Ease test is employed by a myriad of organizations: for example, the U.S. Department of Defense uses the test to check the readability of its documents and the state Continued on Page 5

The Trouble with Unassailable Belief

Daniel Diner ’14 Contributing Writer

Much outrage has erupted in the Middle East in these past weeks in response to Innocence of Muslims, a low-budget internet movie trailer that portrayed Muslims as mindlessly violent and easily drawn to anger. This outrage quickly grew into protest, where the offended Muslim parties tried to fight these unfair allegations by storming the streets with violent protests, flag burnings and rioting.

Several dozens of people have died in these protests, including Christopher Stevens, U.S. Ambassador to Libya.

Religion is uncommonly invasive for an ideology. It locks itself into the believer’s identity, branding itself as a label onto his character. This way it manages to transcend the usual limits placed on creeds: instead of just

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acting as a belief, it stamps the believer as some certain type of person.

While this might be helpful in building community, it is also notoriously dangerous in provoking otherwise unfounded attacks. When French vandals desecrated Jewish graves in Nice earlier this year, it is unlikely that their motivation was a disagreement with the Jews’ rejection of a certain rabbi’s claims of divinity. When Wade Michael Page, a noted white supremacist, attacked the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., it wasn’t because he had theological misgivings about Prophet Mohammed’s claimed revelations (he thought it was a mosque). No, the only motivation for such attacks is sheer racially-based hatred. It is common, at this point in the argument, for fellow secularists to point out that it is the ideology of the group that has been attacked, not necessarily the

group itself. While I would love to see a situation where such a separation

how useful “theImagine ego-invading nature of religion is to the blind nationalist or to the skinhead brought up to think that he follows the word of Christ.

”

could be realized, I fear that it is not currently the case. Religious branding paves the way for discrimination used both by and for the religious in-group.

Adding theological claims into the attack is nothing but a rationalizing afterword.

Imagine how useful the ego-invading nature of religion is to the blind nationalist or to the skinhead brought

up to think that he follows the word of Christ. The psychological difficulty with disassociating oneself from one’s birth-branded religion gives the racist opportunity to claim that his “grievances” rest on ideological grounds, grounds that our society finds more palatable than it would the alternative.

Consider just how little religious labeling actually pertains to personal ideology. Jesus Christ was a Jewish socialist with strong moral intuitions.

He wanted his followers to surrender themselves to improving the lives of those around them. He taught that charity and modesty were the virtues his disciples would do best to adopt, not wealth and political power.

Matthew 5:38-48 reads: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the

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right cheek, turn to him the other also.

And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.”

What’s concerning is that political rhetoric actually invokes religious arguments in defense of actions that the religious founders specifically stood against. Is it even intelligible, no less sensible, to premise a call to violence on the teachings of a rabbi who taught us that we should “turn the other cheek” to our enemies? Is it any less paradoxical that the GOP, our “Christian values” party, stigmatizes the poor while still venerating the text that reads, “Give to the one who begs Continued on Page 5

Letters Policy

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

The Student will print letters under 450 words in length if they are submitted to The Student offices in the Campus Center or to the paper’s e-mail account (astudent@amherst.edu) by 12 p.m. on Sunday, after which they will not be accepted.

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

Letters must bear the names of all contributors and a phone number where the author or authors may be reached. Letters and columns may be edited for clarity and Student style.

The Student will not print personal or group defamation.

Publication Standards

The Amherst Student is published weekly except during College vacations. The subscription rate is $75 per year or $40 per semester. Subscription requests and address changes should be sent to: Subscriptions, The Amherst Student; Box 1912, Amherst College: Amherst, MA 01002-5000. The offices of The Student are located on the second floor of the Keefe Campus Center, Amherst College. Phone: (413) 542-2304. All contents copyright © 2011 by The Amherst Student, Inc. All rights reserved. The Amherst Student logo is a trademark of The Amherst Student, Inc. Additionally, The Amherst Student does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or age.

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0QJOJPO 5

Unreadable Referendums Shouldn’t Make the Last Call Continued from “ Refereeing� of Florida requires that life insurance policies have a minimum score of 45.

The test assesses the comprehension difficulty of English texts by evaluating a formula that accounts for both word and sentence length. Lower marks indicate higher difficulty. For example, passages with scores of 90 or higher are readily understood,

The purpose of refer“endums is to ensure that changes especially relevant and impactful to the student body are in line with the general opinion and sentiments of the students. Obviously, this cannot be accomplished if the students fail to read or understand the text.

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even by children, while scores of 30 or lower are difficult to read, even for graduate students. While the Harvard Law Journal’s average score of 35 indicates a high level of difficulty and this article’s score of 38 reveals that I am an excessively verbose and pretentious writer, the Honor Code revisions’ score of 5.1 can essentially be translated into “makes absolutely no sense.�

Besides the difficult syntax and diction, many of the terms in the re-

visions are ambiguous. What exactly are the “principles embodied by the honor code� and what constitutes “best practices?� Conscientious voters who do make the effort to read the text still have to deal with the lack of convenient resources to help clarify these ambiguities.

The purpose of referendums is to ensure that changes especially relevant and impactful to the student body are in line with the general opinion and sentiments of the students. Obviously, this cannot be accomplished if students fail to read or understand the text. Therefore, the College ought to consider some realistic improvements in the presentation and administration of referendums.

While few texts have a Flesch Reading ease score as low as the 5.1 of the Honor Code Revisions, enduser license agreements come close.

End-user license agreements are notoriously lengthy — the average agreement contains over 7,000 words — and ubiquitous: every college student who has installed some software or another is familiar with the pesky blobs of text that accompany the final “agree� button. Curiously, more than half of users spend less than eight seconds on the license page, which corresponds to a reading speed of almost 1,000 words per second!

In response, some user license agreements require that users spend a minimum amount of time on the license page before proceeding. While

users can always avoid reading the text by minimizing the page, such measures prevent users from blindly and automatically hitting “agree.�

Similarly, the College should consider timing how long voters stay on the voting page. Voters who submit in too short a time that indicates an impossible reading speed, should be required to resubmit their votes. In regards to comprehension, it may be beneficial to provide some context and overview of the terms of the referendum in addition to the actual changes. In addition, to encourage discussion and clarification, the voting page should contain a comment section or link to a discussion forum.

If some voters do not read or fully understand the content of the referendum, on what basis do they make their decision? A study titled “First is Best,� coauthored by Dana R. Carney, assistant professor of management at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and Mahzarin R. Banaji, professor of psychology at Harvard University, analyzed how order affects people’s preferences and choices when given a set of options. The study concluded, “Especially in circumstances under which decisions must be made quickly or without much deliberation, preferences are unconsciously and immediately guided to those options presented first.� While the conditions and cases analyzed in the study differ from the issue of voting, the conclusions are still applicable. For students who are not inclined

to invest much time or effort into selecting their choice, the first choice may receive a boost of bias. When the

Referendums, like ref“erees, make the last call.

However, just as referees are fallible...referendums, where improperly presented or administrated, may not reflect the actual overall opinion of the students.

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first listed option happens to be “yes� — as was the case with the recent referendum — or “no,� the overall result may be skewed.

An Ego-Based Argument #WAASUP Continued from “ The Trouble�

from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you�? I should think that American Sikhs and Hindus actually follow Christ’s teachings far closer than do Christians, both in creed and behavior. And I think that the implications from this are far more serious than just leading us to chastise Christians. There exist millions of Christians who share no ideological connections to their religion — only a wholesale acceptance of a text that they hold only a heavily inflated familiarity with. Studies continue to demonstrate that atheists are more familiar with Christian teachings than are Christians themselves. But we don’t dissociate those birth-labeled as Christian from their religion even if they don’t know anything about it.

Similarly, we don’t term self-professed atheists, Taoists and Buddhists Christians even if their opinions coincide best with the metaphysical, nonspiritual arguments of Christ. Why do we still refer to religions as “belief systems� when there are so little ideological connections between the so-called believers? I suspect some might reject this religion-belief disconnect, claiming that the central ideology tying labeled Christians is the belief in the divinity of Christ.

But is that sensible? Jesus is presented primarily as a humanitarian. Are we to believe that the son of God cared more about the acceptance of his claims of divinity than he did about the virtue and behavior of his followers? I should doubt, in fact, that a god who takes such care to hide himself from his creations would care at all about whether or not they consider him a deity.

In response to the Innocence of Muslims video, Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pevez Ashraf has announced that he will ask the United Nations to approve the passage of international blasphemy laws. President Obama immediately objected, calling upon the need to uphold free expression. But I think this understates the significance of the proposed violation. Blasphemy

laws present an absolute challenge to free speech: they propose that there exist some statements, some group of beliefs that lie beyond criticism.

Can there be a surer step towards tyranny? Political and religious opinions are inherently flawed. Believing and legislating the alternative is how despots, both religious and political, seize power.

The attitude that brings one to support blasphemy is exactly the one that allows for harmful, outdated and otherwise absolutely implausible theologies to remain so secure in a society that is otherwise relatively sophisticated. An element of our psychology makes us liable to accept things unquestionably taught in early childhood that if learned later we would consider under greater scrutiny. In general, this element is evolutionarily beneficial. Toddlers are faced with many situations that present serious danger if approached with ignorance. It might be paramount that a child knows not to go swimming alone, for instance, even if he isn’t old enough to understand why. These initial lessons usually stay with us through adulthood, often without ever being questioned. The phenomenon of harmful or non-objectively useful beliefs getting in alongside the beneficial ones is referred to by Richard Dawkins as a “natural misfire� of an otherwise useful phenomenon, and I believe that we must be very aware of it if we are to take our own opinions seriously.

It’s through this loophole of human rationality that misguided parents manage to get viewpoints accepted by their children without them ever facing any critical examination. And it’s through this loophole that conceptions like blasphemy are even brought about – our minds are trained from early on to give an overabundance of reverence to these concepts and to ignore their imperfections. Unless we learn to objectively analyze our own intuitions, we will never be able to depersonalize our opinions and treat the important issues with the rational analysis they require.

The simple solution is place neither “yes� nor “no� as the first option, but rather “abstain�. Placing “abstain� as the top choice not only mitigates this first-choice bias but also conveys that it is acceptable and encouraged, when the voter lacks a defined and informed opinion, to abstain.

Referendums, like referees, make the last call. However, just as referees are fallible and do end up making wrong calls (case in point: PackersSeahawks), referendums, when improperly presented or administrated, may not reflect the actual overall opinion of the students. Nonetheless, while Packers fans still remain livid over last week’s game, to the students of the College, last week’s referendum is a distant, inconsequential and largely forgotten memory.

AAS Senate weekly updates, in 140 characters or fewer

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The AAS Treasurer’s Report Recent Discretionary Funding

"CJHBJM 9V A AAS Treasurer A wide range of items were funded this week!

Funded items include canoes and kayaks for Amherst College Outing Club (ACOC), honorarium to bring a Joey Bada$$ concert to campus for WAMH, Shabat dinner for Hillel, tools for Amherst Electronics Club, and much more.

The much more includes funding for Late Night Val! That’s right, Late Night Val is back.

Get excited! The Budgetary Committee will meet this Wednesday at 9pm in the Barker Room as always. Due to Fall Break, however, Senate cannot approve BC’s funding recommendations on Monday. No worries though. Requests will be approved through emergency funding instead.

Have a great Fall Break everyone!

Arts&Living

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“Looper:� For Once, Time Travel Done Right

+BLF 8BMUFST Staff Writer

There’s a lot to be said about “Looper,� but perhaps the most important speaks less to the successes of the film than to the dreary state of the pseudo-genre “time travel� movie and the larger science fiction genre

Film Review i-PPQFSw Directed by Rian Johnson Written by Rian Johnson Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt

as a whole. Simply put, time travel in film is usually a gimmick, and most science fiction movies that use the trope are not interested in exploring the intellectual, emotional or ethical quandaries presented by these subjects, but instead pay lip service to complicated themes so that they can move on to blowing up stuff and hoping the 30-year-old white male budding action hero lead actor will land a role as the lead in a superhero movie next and boost DVD sales of the film.

Thus is life.

Instead, “Looper� genuinely attempts to use time travel to tell a compelling, emotionally invested and ethically ambiguous story. The film isn’t above an explosion or two, but “Looper� has a lot more on its mind than simply audience pleasing. And if “Looper� ends a little too easily, Johnson succeeds in two key areas:

avoiding the frequent sci-fi flaw of presenting characters that seem to bounce between too smart and too dumb depending upon the needs of the script and genuinely surprising the audience. Too many science fiction films are all concept, no execution. “Looper� manages to follow through on its ideas and present a narrative that is simultaneously surprising and completely grounded in its characters.

Their motivations make sense, and this is important for a film that rests so heavily on the question of how far people are willing to go in order to ensure they complete a goal.

In 2074, time travel exists, albeit not legally. Instead, crime bosses use it to send people they want disposed of to the past, where they are killed by hit men called Loopers, and one of the best is Joseph Simmons (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Unfortunately for him, at some point every Looper’s Loop is closed when they are sent back in time

“

...the sound of the bullets is downright painful in its impact.

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to be killed by their younger self, at which point they have 30 years left to live. This is exacerbated for Joe when he fails to kill his elder self (Bruce Willis) and must chase him down before he is killed. In doing so, he learns about his future self ’s own desire to have gone back in time, something which involves killing innocents for a potentially greater good in the future. As the elder Joe nears his goal, younger Joe becomes increasingly conflicted as to his own motivations as he finds himself protecting someone

who could potentially cause him great harm in the future. “Looper’s� chief success is its willingness to tread into dark territory. In order to save someone he loves in the future, as well as to save his own life and the lives of many others (albeit, many of those people being killers), the elder Joe has to do some disturbing things to people who are completely innocent. “Looper’s� characters aren’t conflicted and pained enough to be the backbone of a modern classic, and the younger Joe never truly feels the moment of desperation that could have really driven home how difficult his situation is for him. Even if you feel “Looper� could have done more philosophically, however, it’s also surprisingly successful as a drama; the complex character motivations allow us to empathize with characters we might otherwise dislike (after all, both versions of Joe are hardened killers), and the reality that at least one of them will suffer from their actions creates more tension than any action scene and a genuine emotional investment in the film’s outcome. “Looper’s� intelligence extends beyond high-brow philosophy in this regard, and it hits home in immediate, tangible ways as you watch characters do bad things for good reasons.

Technically, “Looper� gets top marks almost across the board. Excepting the questionable make-up on JGL to make him look more like Willis, the film looks great, with a great realistic, grimy future aesthetic and fantastic sound design that really excels during the action scenes, where the sound of the bullets is downright painful in its impact. All of this helps the world of “Looper� feel real, which

Image courtesy of brightestyoungthings.com

+PTFQI (PSEPO -FWJUU T TVQFSC BDUJOH CSJOH IVNBOJUZ BOE DPIFTJWFOFTT UP UIJT HSJNZ GVUVSJTUJD m MN goes a long way in suspending disbelief. And all of this isn’t even speaks to the acting, which is without a weak link. Willis bucks his trend of sleepwalking through parts to provide a complex, emotionally tormented figure trying to in-part condone for his past mistakes and save the one person who reminded him of his humanity.

It’s easy to dislike his character for his actions throughout the film, but Willis brings out the humanity in him.

Gordon-Levitt meanwhile continues to prove he’s one of the finest up-andcoming actors, essaying a similarly tormented figure and astonishingly recreating many of Willis’s physical and vocal tendencies. Ultimately, it isn’t the make-up which allows us to buy that these two are the same person: it’s Gordon-Levitt’s performance.

Like many films dealing in subjects this abstract, Looper struggles

to maintain its weight during the final act, but thankfully Johnson, the director, doesn’t drop the ball even when Johnson, the writer, rushes things to a conclusion that feels rushed, bordering on neat, with an ending that feels like a minor cop-out. As it is, while it doesn’t hit with the emotional impact of a world-class drama, taken on its own terms its quite effective at inciting pangs of empathy. It’s not a masterpiece, but Looper puts most movies in any genre to shame and should be applauded as entertainment of the highest caliber. Furthermore, in Rian Johnson it signals the rise of a talent who had until now been relatively unnoticed. Despite my relative (some would say) restraint in praise for “Looper,� I for one will be watching to see where Johnson chooses to take us in the coming years. Science fiction needs people like him.

The Art of Our Sister Colleges: An Overview

Photo by Annalise Nurme ’15

5IF 8BMLJOH .BO JT POF PG 3PEJO T NPTU BSSFTUJOH BOE DPOUSPWFSTJBM TDVMQUVSFT BOE SFn FDUT UIF QSFT UJHF PG 4NJUI $PMMFHF T DPMMFDUJPO "OOBMJTF /VSNF A&L Section Editor When your aesthetic appetite has exhausted the 18,000 works available in Amherst’s own Mead Art Museum or when you’re just looking to get off campus for an afternoon, hop in a car and head to Smith or Mount Holyoke, or both.

The Smith College Museum of Art, as part

of the Brown Fine Arts Center, is reminiscent of our own Beneski building – brick red, with lots of glass, metal, and lateral slatting. After earning free admission at the door via your five-college ID, you’ll pass (or not) through a beautiful gift shop, with a huge selection of local jewelry and not-so-local silk scarves. Past multiple glass doors and lobby attendants, you’ll enter the firstfloor gallery. Its current exhibition is “Drawn to Excellence: Renaissance to Romantic Drawings,� a Smith alum’s privately donated collection, showing through Jan. 6, 2013. The exhibition features delicate graphite, chalk and ink renderings from some of the most accomplished artists of the Renaissance to Romantic periods — Bronzino, Carraci, Delacroix, Fragonard, Tiepolo and Vasari included — and anyone who has ever wielded a pencil, let alone heard of those names, will appreciate the masterful assortment of figure studies, portraits and compositional drawings.

The gallery also contains a small “info nook� complete with samples and information regarding the drawing materials and processes used by the artists. Similar “info nooks� may be found in all of the museum’s galleries, providing factual distraction for the weary critic.

A quick flight of stairs leads directly down from the first-floor visiting collection to the permanent contemporary collection. Warmly lit, with white walls and high ceilings, this basement space allows you to drink in the striking compositions and bold colors. You might find a flowery glass Chihuly sculpture, an equally glassy and glowing still life by Janet Fish, a richly patterned Gottlieb or a strikingly empathetic portrait by

Alice Neel. It’s a collection that lacks any wildly uncomfortable or controversial work, and thus is a good place for the new or skeptical modern art viewer.

One potential downside of Smith’s museum is its verticality — four floors, including the basement. However, the stairs are gently sloped and offer views of Riff ’s CafÊ, located in an adjacent glass atrium with a large overhead mural.

As of Sept. 30, you won’t make it in time to the second floor for “Outside the [Box]�, a (Surprise!) box-themed mini-exhibit drawn from Smith’s permanent collection. But you’ll always be able to enjoy the adjoining permanent collection of German, Dutch and Italian Renaissance paintings, in addition to a small but brilliant corner filled with ancient coins, busts, and vessels. The third floor includes mostly French, American, African and English works, along with a few sculptures, including Rodin’s famous “The Walking Man,� which originally caused controversy for its headless-ness and its oddly distorted, seemingly unfinished surface. Other highlights include: a rare and arresting full-length child portrait by Gilbert Stuart, artist of the Washington portrait featured on the dollar bill; a wide expressionistic selection including Kandinsky, Munch and Kirchner; and some fabulous African textiles.

Smith’s museum is laid out in a slightly more cramped style than Amherst or Holyoke’s, without many benches for sitting and contemplating.

However, the quality of work, friendly attendants, helpful “info nooks� and killer gift shop make for a satisfying, cosmopolitan experience.

The Mount Holyoke College Art Museum is

housed within one of the least attractive buildings on campus — a modern, concrete structure that contrasts with the otherwise gorgeous brick and gothic architecture. However, the experience within lacks no charm. You’ll stow your bag in a locked wooden cubby and then enter a singlestory, interconnected gallery, very similar to that of the Mead, but with four collections clearly labeled. Currently on display are two visiting collections of prints, one of which is Kara Walker’s “Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated),� with large, black, artful silhouettes silkscreened over enlarged lithographs of Harper’s famous engravings. Compiled from their vast permanent collection are “Against the Wall,� featuring a variety of inventive contemporary wall sculptures and reliefs, and “Encounters: Faces of the Ancient Americas,� a small and brilliantly blue gallery punctuated by the earthy, geometric forms of stirrup-spouted vessels and charming human figurines.

Mount Holyoke’s is an especially brief museum, but its >17,000-piece collection rivals Amherst’s own, and its high-ceilinged, well-lit and creatively organized layout, filled with beautiful custom benches, makes it just as grand.

It’s very possible to enjoy both museums within a day. One of the benefits shared by our three-out-of-five-college art museums is a manageably small size, meaning that they don’t contain too much to overwhelm the casual visitor, and the content varies vastly from floor-to-floor, room-to-room. Smith and Mount Holyoke are both roughly 20 minutes away by car, and have free visitor parking.

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The World, Seen: On Beauty and Bedrooms ;BDI #MFFNFS Contributing Writer

Slowly, but as surely as ever, the outdoors fade from glorious summer to tired winter.

Sleeves that only just covered the shoulders begin to cover elbows, and soon will cover wrists.

The occasional evergreen stands in ever-increasing contrast to its surroundings. But instead of monotonic thermal decline, the natural world offers one last burst of vibrancy, a burst that makes autumn the loveliest time of year to live in the Pioneer Valley. For the next month, gusts of red and gold and green leaves will draw our eyes upwards to contemplate the polychromatic canopies blanketing our world, and will elicit what must be one of the most-often-heard phrases on this campus: “Memorial Hill is so beautiful!�

With that image in mind, I now ask you now to consider a very different landscape. Most of us, myself included, moved into Amherst College dormitories about a month ago. People not only set up their rooms just as they like them, but try to anticipate all of their life’s variation in the year to come and prepare their room accordingly.

They leave space on bookshelves for textbooks; their hamper is aptly placed to hold all dirty clothes in a convenient but out-of-sight location; their desk is filled with pencil jars and organizers and containers of all sizes. Nevertheless, one month later, what do you find? In most cases, and certainly in my own, you find a terrible mess.

Here is the question that I want to ask: why, if we find the arboreal horizon of Memorial Hill so beautiful, do we not find similar beauty in a messy bedroom?

After all, the two situations have significant abstract similarities. They both offer a wide variety of color splayed over a large portion of the visual field, and often the various colors are bright and compelling, be they changing leaves or crumpled clothes and scattered papers and books. They both strongly symbolize aspects

of our worlds: Memorial Hill reminds us of the greater outdoors and the high vantage point that grounds Amherst College’s academic philosophy, while our bedroom symbolizes hominess and comfort, filled with the physical objects that define our identities. So, what is the difference?

An obvious way to approach this question is to break the concept of beauty into its components by asking what makes beautiful objects beautiful. Defining beauty’s components was the central goal of aestheticians in the British Enlightenment, best exemplified by the work of Edmund Burke. Following the Third Earl of Shaftesbury’s definition of beauty as “unity in multiplicity,� Burke goes even further by broadly claiming that beauty is the summation of qualities such as smallness, smoothness, delicacy, and “clean and fair� color. Rather than tying myself to Burke, I would like to look at what I think would be a more modern set of qualities of beauty: symmetry, balance and harmony.

Symmetry, in the context that I intend it, refers to spatial identity across an axis. It refers not to colors, but to shapes and forms themselves; after all, an unsolved Rubik’s Cube displays symmetry without any color alignment. In our example, symmetry offers a clear advantage to Memorial Hill, which offers a wide expanse of trees that are approximately the same across a central axis; while some two-person bedrooms might offer similar symmetry when clean, they are almost never symmetrically messy.

By balance I mean a property similar to symmetry, but instead of referring to form, it refers to color-intensity. A balanced photograph, in this sense, would be one that, for every strong color on the left, has a similarly strong color on the right. Monet’s paintings of water lilies exemplify this balance, as do many of the Hudson River School paintings hanging in the Mead Art Museum. Here again, Memorial Hill wins out; its relative uniformity of intensity is almost assuredly more balanced than the random color field

Image courtesy of Zach Bleemer ’13

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Harmony is the most difficult of these three qualities of beauty to define, but it has something to do with colors’ relationships to each other.

In music, a major chord harmonizes with itself, while four consecutive notes do not do so; colors have similar properties, as anyone with a fashion sense necessarily knows. It seems unfair to say that Memorial Hill is such a harmonic image, because the changing colors of autumn leaves likely contribute greatly to what we think of as “harmonizing colors� in the first place, but the superiority is obvious nevertheless.

This strategy of breaking up the qualities of beauty, then, effectively explains what anyone would find immediately obvious: that Memorial Hill is more beautiful than a messy bedroom.

However, something seems woefully insufficient. After all, this kind of “definition� of beauty implies that, while Memorial Hill may be more beautiful than a messy bedroom, a perfect pentagon would be more beautiful than Memorial Hill, with its ideal symmetry and balance. You might believe that my breakdown of beauty is

under-identified or incomplete, but I think that is the wrong moral for this story. The strain in the belief that beauty is a composite of well-defined property-components is not in the components themselves, but rather that beauty is effectively modeled as a composite in the first place.

Here is what we know: something about seeing Memorial Hill makes us want to see it repeatedly, to linger over it and to show it to others.

Noticing similarities between beautiful objects is helpful, and can help divide objects that we find beautiful from those we do not, but it can also lead to confusion about the relationship between experience and language. Language may model experience, but the two are distinct; no explanation is equivalent to the thing that it explains. The reason that we do not call messy bedrooms beautiful is not that they lack symmetry or harmony or balance, but that we do not find them to be beautiful; they don’t give us the beauty-feeling.

Ultimately, if we want to break beauty down and talk about it, it is that beauty-feeling, not beautiful objects, that we need to examine. My next column will pivot in that direction.

A Sequel That Surpasses Its Predecessor

present. Brutish beasts swing their oversized axes in massively muscled arms, while weak cannon-fodder rat men slink with hunched backs to try and outnumber you. Attacking these monsters causes them to reel back and a particularly powerful swing of your weapon will send enemies flying. These touches make moving and fighting very visceral and satisfying, as you can almost feel the weight of your movement in every click. The floating third person perspective allows you to really appreciate both Image courtesy of www.vg247.com the creatures and the environments.

5PSDIMJHIU JNQSFTTFT XJUI JUT TMFFL HSBQIJDT BOE TNBSU These environments include much of the standard RPG fare — crypts, TUSBUFHZ IFBWZ BQQSPBDI UP NPOTUFS TMBZJOH underground cities, forests, deserts — but the unique visuals, coupled with only; the game features online multi.JLF #VDLMFS player, but that’s an entirely different some steampunk-inspired twists, Staff Writer make Torchlight’s world stand apart beast. from a lot of other fantasy settings.

In contrast to the gritty realism After fighting my way through a Similar to many other action horde of armored war-beasts, greed- that many games strive for, the colily snatching fallen gold and weapons orful art direction in Torchlight 2 RPGs, Torchlight’s core game play and narrowly avoiding death, I looked immediately arrests your attention involves clicking where you want to to my clock and realized with surprise upon from the moment you start the go and then clicking the monsters that two hours had passed. That sums game. The entire world has a soft, you want to attack. While the basics up my experience with Torchlight 2, painted quality to it, with vibrant, may be familiar to fans of the genre, an action role-playing game and the cleanly separated colors that give it Torchlight 2 draws you in with its desequel to Runic Games’ Torchlight. an animated look. The incredibly di- ceptively complex interplay of stratWhile you don’t need to have played verse assortment of characters, mon- egy and tactics. To start the game, the original to enjoy this sequel, sters, items and environments share you choose a class, which defines the Torchlight 2 dramatically improves a sleek, comic style. The characters upgrade options that will available to just about every aspect of its prede- are all created with clean, smooth de- you through the game. Specifically, cessor. It expands on a playful pulp- signs as if they stepped out of a Pixar each class has three sets of skills that comic visual style and satisfyingly animation and give the impression outline a way to play your character, frenetic, yet subtly strategic, combat of motion even while standing still. though you can mix and match skills of the original game, while offering Likewise, each monster’s distinct and from all three sets. This set up means some new twists and polishing a lot exaggerated appearance immediately you have no less than nine different of the clunkier mechanics. I will be conveys not only a ton of personality, ways to tackle the game’s challenges. reviewing the single player campaign but also, what kind of challenge they’ll You can face enemies directly in me-

lee combat, build robots to help you in battle, focus on ranged weapons to keep enemies at a safe distance, cast spells to blast large crowds and more.

At the same time, you’ll need tactical thinking to adapt to all the impressively varied enemies in Torchlight 2.

For example, some creatures will require you to keep your distance, while others will summon allies and thus need to be taken out immediately.

Finally, your equipment plays a vital role in ensuring your survival. Weapons come in different varieties that confer different advantages — damage, range, speed, etc. — and further expand your choices. Likewise, armor not only protects you from harm, but may also improve your health or your skill with weaponry. Choosing your equipment becomes a balancing act of trying to maximize the use of your class skills while also leaving options open for unforeseen circumstances.

Because enemies will often drop equipment, strategy (how you plan to fight) flows into tactics (how you handle the unexpected), which then flows back into strategy (how you improve). It’s a deceptively smart approach to the mindless fun of monster slaying that keeps you on your toes.

To anyone who played the original game, improvements include more customization options, more classes and pets, more inventory space, even more secret treasures and equipment and, overall, a more satisfying level of difficulty. A feature called the Mapworks also allows you to play through randomly generated levels, offering

countless new challenges.

One thing I cannot recommend Torchlight 2 for is the storyline, which is mostly told by a small cast of characters who tell you where to slay bad guys and give you rewards. It begins with the aftermath of the events of the original game, wherein an alchemist, possessed by a powerful creature, destroys the titular town of Torchlight and goes on a rampage. You awaken in a military camp that has just narrowly survived an encounter with the alchemist. Of course, they need you to head out and warn a nearby city, and eventually defeat this great evil.

It would be at least an hour until I met someone who could tell me more about what was happening, and then they pointed me in another direction to swing my sword. In the end, the story exists mostly as a framework for the gameplay. You likely will want to replay the game at least once or twice, so it’s not so bad that the story doesn’t assert itself. Starting New Game + after finishing the first time allows you to start with all your skills and equipment against more difficult enemies.

A particularly involved story would not lend itself to this style of multiple replays with a single character. While it doesn’t tread new ground for the genre, Torchlight presents itself with an extreme amount of polish, and satisfies my expectations for gameplay on every level. Finally, at $19.99, it offers a ton of content compared to AAA titles. You can download a demo or purchase the game, DRMfree, at www.torchlight2game.com.

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“Channel Orange:� A Glimpse into Unrequited Love +BOJUB $IBMBN A&L Section Editor In mid-July of this year, rising R&B artist Frank Ocean released his new album “Channel Orange.�

The album was heavily anticipated by R&B lovers, especially in the wake of several popular songs released by Ocean in 2011 such as “Thinkin Bout You,� “Novacane� and “We All Try.� Ocean’s style of songwriting gained a following because it offered a new depth and a well-needed break from mainstream music’s debasement of R&B. The anticipation of the album was furthered by Ocean’s release of a heartfelt letter in early July, which detailed his first and passionate, yet one-sided love for another man.

Ocean is a narrator. Within the context of the album, we can see that he offers us something deeply personal, but he presents it through stories in an imagined universe of disillusioned individuals lost in a drug-filled haze. The album begins with the track “Start,� which simulates a video game starting. With this we enter Ocean’s reality.

He begins with “Thinkin About You� and “Sierra Leone,� two songs similar in their washed-down beats.

Ocean shows off his refined falsetto and even slips into rap in “Sierra Leone, changing the key near the end as he is singing a lullaby to his imagined baby girl. It seems as though he is searching for something, both in the musical and metaphorical sense, but he is not sure

what. “Sweet Life� has a more concrete theme. Ocean sings about the privileged life of those living in Ladera Heights, Los Angeles. The track is a bit more up-tempo, and Ocean adds a few more piano chords to the background. This is the first track in which he really delves into the topic of drugs, a theme common in his songs. He sings, “The water’s blue, swallow the pill/Keepin’ it surreal.�

The mellow background creates a lazy atmosphere, and we are almost caught up in the sweet life ourselves. But between the muted bass and the way Ocean sings the chorus with a hint of contempt, there is yet a note of dissatisfaction. “Super Rich Kids� changes the tempo of the album, although the theme continues from the previous song. The song begins with a heavy, pounding piano riff and the refrain, a rap about the drugged and weary lives of the “Super Rich Kids.� From the first verse, Ocean becomes one of these kids, caught up in the whirl of high-living and hedonism. As the piano continues its languid thunk, Ocean proclaims, “Too many white lies and white lines/Super rich kids with nothing but loose ends/Super rich kids with nothing but fake friends.�

In the bridge, however, Ocean offers a pearl of true sentiment: “Real love, I’m searching for a real love.�

Odd Future’s Earl Sweatshirt is featured and raps in his usual drawl, which seems perfect for the tempo of this song.

Then comes “Pilot Jones,� in which Ocean complains about a lover who is too distant. “I just don’t know why I keep on trying to keep a grown woman sober,� sings Ocean.

Yet he is wistful as he describes their passionate relationship: “She took me high, then she took me home/Pilot Jones, Pilot Jones.� The chords in the background echo this sentiment as they drone out a major progression.

With “Crack Rock,� scattered piano riffs and an uptempo rhythm are the setting for a story about an individual who goes through the deteriorating experience of using cocaine. Ocean sings, “You’re shucking and jiving/stealing and robbing/to get the fixing that you’re itching for/your family stopped inviting you to things.�

The individual eventually recedes into a state of perpetual high — “Don’t no one disrupt nirvana/ Don’t know one wanna blow the high/Crack rock, crack rock.� Like in his other songs with a similar theme, Ocean does not offer any relief from drugs and materialism, but rather, takes us deeper into his smoke-filled world.

The second half of the album takes a turn. Ocean focuses more on love and the pain that accompanies it. “Bad Religion� takes us to the emotional climax of the album, in which Ocean imagines a conversation with a taxi driver about his unrequited love. Above the somber lull of an organ he sings, “Taxi driver, be my shrink for the hour...

This Week in Amherst History: Oct. 5, 1984

Image courtesy of cdn.stereogum.com

$PVDIFE JO EJTJMMVTJPONFOU BOE B ESVH m MMFE IB[F 'SBOL 0DFBO T GSFTINBO BMCVN JT B EFFQMZ QFSTPOBM OBSSBUJWF UIBU ESBXT UIF MJTUFOFS JOUP IJT IFBSUCSFBL It’s a bad religion, this unrequited love...I can never make him love me.� This is the most directly Ocean expresses his emotions in the entire album. Without the cover of his stories, he is emotionally bare. He offers us his raw pain, hoping for some solace, but instead reaches a bitter conclusion: “I can’t trust no one.�

Ocean ends his story with his second to last track, “Forrest Gump.� Over a wistful and mellowed beat, Ocean declares his deep passion for his lover “Forrest Gump� one last time. He resigns

Five College Events Wednesday, October 3

“Austrian Rubble Literature: Robert Neumann’s Children of Vienna,�

Smith College, 4:30 p.m.

Neumann’s novel represents one of the most radical books of Austrian postwar literary culture in confronting themes that were taboo in Austria following World War II. Professor Stocker will discuss Neumann’s book in the historical, political and aesthetic contexts of the time.

Wednesday, October 3

Image courtesy of Office of Public Affairs

“Exhibition of work by CĂŠleste BoursierMougenot,â€?UMass, 5:00—7:30 p.m.

Come to the opening reception of a solo exhibition of work by CÊleste Boursier-Mougenot, the internationally acclaimed French artist whose innovative work merges the realms of the musical and the visual. Boursier-Mougenot’s work is also understood as that of a musician and composer. He uses various unexpected objects from which he extracts a musical potential to create situations where sonic events take on visual form or where visual information is expressed acoustically. At the opening reception, critic and theorist of art and music, Christoph Cox and multi-media artist Joshua Selman will conduct an informal conversation with the artist during the opening reception. The exhibition will run until December 2.

The Amherst Student QVCMJTIFE BO BSUJDMF DPODFSOJOH UIF UI %BMBJ -BNB 5FO[JO (ZBUTP WJTJUJOH "NIFSTU $PMMFHF GPS UISFF EBZT GPS B IFBWJMZ BUUFOEFE BOE BOUJDJQBUFE TFSJFT PG EJTDVTTJPOT PO UIF OVBODFT PG 8FTUFSO BOE &BTUFSO QTZDIPMPHZ BOE BUUFNQUT UP VOEFSTUBOE #VE EIJTU UFBDIJOHT SFHBSEJOH UIF NJOE "NIFSTU $PMMFHF 1SPGFTTPS 3PCFSU 5IVSNBO XPSLFE NPTU IFBWJMZ XJUI UIF %BMBJ -BNB CVU UIF DPOGFS FODF LOPXO BT UIF *OOFS 4DJFODF $POGFSFODF BUUSBDUFE B XJEF WBSJFUZ PG TDIPMBST GSPN NBOZ EJGGFSFOU m FMET 6MUJNBUFMZ NBOZ BUUFOEJOH UIF DPOGFSFODFT GPVOE UIFN TVSQSJTJOHMZ EJGm DVMU UP GVMMZ DPNQSFIFOE BT UIF EJTDVTTJPO XBT BJNFE QSJNBSJMZ BU B IJHI MFWFM NPTUMZ GPS UIPTF n VFOU JO QTZDIPMPHZ PS UIF #VEEIJTU SFMJHJPO )PXFWFS NBOZ TUJMM DPOTJEFSFE JU BO FOSJDIJOH FYQFSJFODF BOE GFMU UIFZ IBE MFBSOFE GSPN JU JO TPNF DBQBDJUZ XIJMF NBOZ TDIPMBST TQFOU UIF QFSJPE XPSLJOH TQFDJm DBMMZ UP TFF JG 8FTUFSO UFBDIJOHT DPVME CF SFDPODJMFE XJUI #VE Thursday, October 4 EIJTU QIJMPTPQIJFT 4PNF CFMJFWJOH UIBU 8FTUFSO QIJMPTPQIFST UFOEFE “Rich Sneider Lecture,� Hampshire ColUP IBWF EJGm DVMUZ DPNJOH UP UFSNT XJUI CFMJFGT UIFZ XFSF OPU GBNJMJBS lege, 5:30 p.m.

XJUI TBX UIJT BT B NFBOT GPS 8FTUFSO QIJMPTPQIFST UP FYQBOE UIFJS Dr. Rich Schneider’s lecture, entitled WJFX PG UIF XPSME BOE RVFTUJPO UIF EPNJOBODF PG 8FTUFSO QIJMPTPQIZ “Making Faces: Developmental Mechanisms of Craniofacial Evolution,� is free JO "NFSJDBO DVMUVSF Jake Walters ’14 Staff Writer

himself to the fact that his love will never be returned, but rejoices in his memories through the simple lyric: “I won’t forget you.� The song fades out with a sweet yet melancholic whistling.

In this album, Ocean allows us to peer into the depths of his emotion, and there we find a dulled but unquenched yearning. We feel the pain of his unrequited love, but by the end we share his disillusionment and weary numbness. And so we are left with a bitter aftertaste: love hurts, and life isn’t that great either.

and open to the public. Rich’s research

focuses on understanding how individual components of the head achieve their proper size, shape, and functional integration during development, using duck and quail as model organisms. He strives to devise therapies for repair and regeneration of musculoskeletal tissues affected by congenital defects, disease, and trauma. His work has also helped elucidate the important role of development in evolution.

Thursday, October 4

“Judith Helgen ’61: Peril in the Ponds,�

Mount Holyoke, 7:00 p.m.

Judith Helgen, a graduate from Mount Holyoke, will be speaking about her new book, “Peril in the Ponds: Deformed Frogs, Politics, and a Biologist’s Quest.� The book tells the story of a government biologist’s investigation into the mystery of deformed frogs, an epidemic that grew during the 1990s and continues today. It provides an inside view of a highly charged environmental issue that aroused the public and the media and sparked controversies among scientists, politicians, and government agencies.

Thursday, October 4

“Judith Helgen ’61: Peril in the Ponds,�

Mount Holyoke, 6:00 — 8:00 p.m.

In his first solo exhibition, photographer Kevin Kunstadt offers a series of images depicting the grandeur of the Dolomites, a section of the Alps located in northeastern Italy, and the myriad ways in which people interact with and experience the majestic peaks.

by Nicole Chi ’15

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Second-Ranked Jeffs Firing on All Cylinders

Men’s Soccer Cruises by Tufts, Lesley, to Move to 8-0-0, 4-0-0 in the NESCAC

Megan Robertson ’15 Public Affairs Office

3PPLJF LFFQFS 5IPNBT #VMM IBT BMMPXFE KVTU POF HPBM JO IJT mSTU FJHIU HBNFT GPS UIF +FGGT #SFOUPO "SOBCPMEJ Staff Writer The juggernaut men’s soccer team continued its perfect start to the season last weekend, grinding out a 2-0 victory at Tufts to spoil the Jumbos’ homecoming on Saturday. This week, the Jeffs, ranked No. 2 in the nation, improved their record to 8-0-0 (4-0-0 NESCAC).

During the seven-match winning streak, Amherst has outscored opponents by a staggering 24-1 margin.

Furthermore, the Jeffs have won each game by at least two goals, avoiding the stressful one-goal contests that are so common in soccer. (Six of 16 of Amherst’s wins last year were onegoal affairs).

The Jeffs knew they faced a steep challenge at Tufts (5-1-2, 3-1-2 NE-

SCAC), the fifth-ranked team in New England. The resurgent, upand-coming Jumbos looked to make a statement in front of a raucous homecoming crowd. (Traditionally regarded as one of the NESCAC’s weaker soccer programs, Tufts has not secured a top-four finish in the conference standings since 2001).

The undaunted Jeffs, however, came out flying in the opening minutes, surging ahead to a 2-0 lead in the first half. Amherst stunned the crowd with an unorthodox goal in the eighth minute; Chris Lerner ’13 hurled a massive throw-in into the box, catching the Tufts’ defense by surprise. The ball bounced once in the box before Jae Heo ’14 sprinted toward the near post and tapped a header past the goalkeeper for his NESCAC-leading sixth goal of the season. “Jae did a great job finding the ball, and Fede and Ale Sucre did a great job as they always do of creating havoc in the box and allowing Jae to get on the end of the throw,� Lerner said. Six-foot-five twins Federico and Alejandro Sucre ’13 often pose a nightmare matchup for defenses on set pieces (free kicks and long throwins). “We always try to play to our strengths, and set pieces are definitely one of our main weapons when it comes to scoring goals,� Alejandro Sucre ’13 said.

Continuing to exert offensive pressure late in the first half, the Jeffs

doubled their lead to 2-0 with a penalty kick goal in the 37th minute. After drawing a foul in a collision near the top right corner of the box, Julien Aoyama ’14 slotted the penalty shot into the lower right side of the net.

Tufts had a glorious chance to trim the deficit to 2-1 just before the half, earning a penalty kick in the 40th minute. The subsequent penalty shot, however, rattled off the right post, giving Amherst a fortuitous bounce heading into intermission.

The Jeffs sustained their high intensity into the second half, disrupting the Jumbos’ short-passing game with tenacious ball-hawking across the field. Apart from a diving header attempt in the 68th minute, Tufts enjoyed very few scoring chances against the disciplined Amherst backline. “I thought our team defense was excellent on Saturday,� head coach Justin Serpone said. “We limited a high-powered Tufts offense to five shots, although we can’t give away PK’s in NESCAC games. We were fortunate it didn’t hurt us on Saturday.�

Goalkeeper Thomas Bull ’16 needed to make just one save for his fifth shutout victory of the season.

The Jeffs out-shot Tufts 11-5, including a 7-1 advantage in shots on goal. “We didn’t have our ‘A’ game but battled and competed for 90 minutes,� Serpone said. “I couldn’t be more proud of our effort. Tufts is a great team, and it wouldn’t be surprised if we saw them again in the

Women’s Soccer Beats Trinity, Tufts to Stay Atop NESCAC Standings "OESFX ,VS[XFJM Staff Writer The women’s soccer team continued their winning ways this week, remaining undefeated with a 3-1 victory over Trinity and a 2-0 triumph over Tufts. Both were key NESCAC wins that earned the team top spot in the con-

Niahlah Hope ’15 Public Affairs Office

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ference standings.

The Jeffs struggled in the early going against the Trinity Bantams in what will be their only Thursday game of the season. The Bantams had the better of the chances in the beginning stages of the contest, but solid goalkeeping from first-year goalkeeper Holly Burwick kept the Jeffs level.

The team settled down at about the 20-miunute mark and was able to control possession and generate the vast majority of scoring opportunities for the rest of the game. “Leading up to the Trinity game, we worked on moving off the ball and playing to feet,� Coach Jen Hughes said. “This enabled us to control possession for much of the Trinity game. We certainly have room to improve in this area, but it’s getting better.�

Despite the advantage in ball control, the Jeffs didn’t break through until the 38th minute when first-year sensation Megan Kim won and converted an aerial cross from Jessy Hale ’16.

From there, things fell into place according to captain Kathryn Nathan ’13. “Our team did take a while to score against Trinity,� she said. “Once we put a goal away, we began to relax and keep possession of the ball. In the future, we are looking to come into games on fire from the starting whistle and get on the scoreboard early.�

The College found the net again in the 51st minute, when Alex Hart ’15 headed in her first collegiate goal off a cross from Nathan.

Trinity responded less than four minutes later when first-year Alexa Menard headed in a goal. The score ended the Jeffs’ opponents’ scoreless streak at 524 minutes. It was the first goal the team has surrendered all season. Sarah Duffy ’14 capped off the scoring for the Jeffs in the 78th minute, netting a through ball from

Amanda Brisco ’14 for the insurance tally.

Unfortunately for the Jeffs, their slow start repeated in their next game at Tufts. The first half would have been scoreless were it not for a Jumbo own goal. “We struggled in the first half against Tufts,� Coach Hughes said. “[We] were lucky to come away with a 1-0 lead at the half on an own goal.�

In the second half, the Jeffs came out much stronger form, led by first-year phenom Megan Kim. Kim scored in the 60th minute for her second goal in as many games.

Kim is one of the fastest players on the team and seems to have found her footing and broken her way into the starting lineup for good. Barring injury, she should be a stalwart on the Jeffs’ front line for years to come.

Captain Kate Sisk ’14 thinks the first-year is like a fine wine that will continue to improve with age. “I think Megan’s success is a great thing,� she said. “I believe she will improve throughout the rest of the season as she gains more and more game experience.�

Kim seems to have turned a corner over the last two games. “I definitely think that this past weekend was a major breakthrough for me because it gave me whole new level of confidence,� she said. “College soccer was definitely a change of pace and intensity compared to any other level of soccer that I’ve played.�

Kim and the Jeffs next opponent play next Saturday against Wlliams, who is undefeated in NESCAC play. The game is not only a rivalry contest, but it will help determine who will host the year-end NESCAC Championship. “I am so completely excited,� Sisk said. “It’s always an honor to compete for Amherst in this great rivalry. As with any other game against any other opponent, we are playing to win.�

playoffs.� “I was proud of the way guys fought out there. It was a physical game against a very good team and guys responded,� Lerner said. “Every single one of my teammates brought great energy. We certainly still have areas to improve as a team but overall it was a good win against a really good team.�

After their big win, the Jeffs had little trouble dispatching Lesley Univ. on Tuesday, Oct. 2. Bubba Van Wie ’15 and Gab Wirz ’15 had two goals apiece, while the Jeffs held Lesley to just eight shots in the rout.

The Jeffs have their biggest match of the season against unbeaten Williams (6-0-1, 4-0-1 NESCAC) at home this Saturday. This year’s rivalry clash is particularly crucial, given that the winner will gain the upper hand in the race for the NESCAC’s No. 1 seed.

In last year’s encounter in Williamstown, the Jeffs rallied from a 2-0 deficit in the final 12 minutes to stun the Ephs, as the match ended in a 2-2 draw.

Amherst, however, has not beaten Williams since 2008, going 0-1-2 in the last three meetings with their archrivals. “I expect a high intensity game through 90 minutes,� Sucre said. “We haven’t played Williams at home since my freshman year so this is an opportunity for us to play our best soccer and make a statement at our home field.�

Men’s XC Competes at Paul Shore Run &NNFUU ,OPXMUPO Managing Sports Editor The men’s cross country team traveled to Bethlehem, Penn. to compete in the Paul Shore Run. One of the largest collegiate cross country meets in the country, the race featured over 5,000 runners from nationally and regionally-ranked Div. I, II and III programs.

Greg Turrisinni ’15 led the Jeffs with a time of 25:20 in the five-miler, while Andrew Erskine ’13 was the second Amherst runner to finish, crossing the finish line at 26:06. KC Fussell ’15 and Alvaro Morales ’14 posted times of 26:45 and 26:50, respectiviely, while Adron Pitman ’13 rounded out the Jeffs’ scoring runners with a time of 27:15.

The team’s 882 points put them 32nd overall in a field of 37, while Villanova — ranked no. 22 in the country from Div. I — won the meet with a score of 69 and an average time of 24:26.

The men’s and women’s teams will travel to Westfield State this weekend to compete in the James Earley Invitational.

Sports writers needed

astudent@amherst.edu

10 Sports

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Schedule

Players of the Week

FRIDAY Volleyball vs. Wesleyan, 7 p.m.

SATURDAY Men’s Cross Country James Earley Invit. (@ Westfield State), 11 a.m.

Women’s Cross Country James Earley Invit. (@ Westfield State), 12 p.m.

Field Hockey vs. Williams, 11 a.m.

Women’s Soccer vs. Williams, 12 p.m.

Men’s Tennis @ John’s Hopkins, 12 p.m.

Women’s Tennis vs. Williams, 1 p.m.

Men’s Soccer vs. Williams, 1 p.m.

Football @ Middlebury, 1:30 p.m.

Volleyball vs. Conn. College, 2 p.m.

Women’s Golf @ Williams Fall Classic, Day 1 of 2 SUNDAY Men’s Tennis @ Carnegie Mellon, 1 p.m.

Game of the Week MEN’S SOCCER vs. WILLIAMS When and Where: Saturday, Oct. 6 Hitchcock Field Key Players: Williams Mohammad Rashid User Kushaina Amherst Jae Heo ’14 Federico Sucre ’13

It wasn’t pretty, but the Jeffs earned a 22-10 victory over Bowdoin thanks in large part to Max Lippe ’15. In his second career collegiate start, Lippe completed 18 of 22 passes while throwing for a touchdown and rushing for two more. Leading by just five points in the waning minutes of the game, the Jeffs needed insurance, and they received it courtesy of Lippe’s eight-yard end-zone strike to Wade McNamara ’14. Things will not get any easier: Middlebury, the Jeffs’ next opponent, has been winning big so far. Still, look for the sophomore quarterback to lead the charge once again. —Karl Greenblatt ’15

The Jeffs look to push their winning streak to eight as they take on their archrival Williams over fall break. Having allowed exactly one goal thus far this season, the Jeffs have featured lock-down defense, and, more often than not, their offense has been every bit as good. In the Jeffs’ most recent, 2-0 victory over Tufts, Jae Heo ’14, who has been red-hot from the season’s outset, contributed his sixth goal of the year.

Despite the Jeffs’ uniform dominance, they will have their hands full with Williams. The Ephs are also unbeaten this year, their only blemish in the standings being a 0-0 draw with Wesleyan. The Williams defense has been almost as airtight as that of the Jeffs, as the Ephs have allowed only three goals on the year. Expect a battle. —Karl Greenblatt ’15

No Jeff played a bigger role in women’s soccer’s critical victories over Trinity and Tufts than surprise sensation Megan Kim ’16. Her two scores were each extremely well-timed: first, against Trinity she headed in a 39th-minute goal that gave her team a lead it would not relinquish. Kim scored again the following Saturday against Tufts, Amherst’s only offensive tally of the game (Tufts also gave up an own goal in an eventual 2-0 Jeff victory). Kim looks to remain an offensive threat as the Lady Jeffs, who are undefeated thus far, face Williams on Saturday, Oct. 6. —Karl Greenblatt ’15

Men’s, Women’s Golf Firedogs Top Hamilton, Continue Tournament Play Fall to New Paltz ,BSM (SFFOCMBUU Managing Sports Editor It was another 1-1 Saturday for the Lady Jeffs, but, as was the case last weekend, the win came when it counted most. This time, the Jeffs defeated NESCAC rival Hamilton in impressive fashion before falling to a talented New Paltz squad.

The victory pulled the Jeffs back up to an even 2-2 in conference play.

On the road in Clinton, N.Y., the Lady Jeffs took on the Continentals, who came into the match at 6-7, in the first of two contests on Saturday, Sept. 29.

The Amherst squad responded by recording a clean sweep, giving a glimpse of its ability to play to its full potential. The Jeffs had to work relatively hard throughout the match — they won the first set 25-23 and the final set by a similarly small margin, 25-22 — but their dominance shone through in the second set, which they took in overwhelming fashion, 25-16.

Emily Waterhouse ’13 was the player of the game in every respect, registering 15 digs to go along with a match-high 11 kills. First-years Nicole Carter and Katie Warshaw continued their outstanding play, with Carter tallying a matchhigh 26 assists and Warshaw contributing 15 digs of her own. Abigail Hunter ’13 also turned a strong effort, pacing the Jeffs with a .292 attack rate.

Despite her team’s loss, Hamilton’s Anna Brown was an offensive threat, finishing with 26

assists.

The victory put the Jeffs in a good position to post a two-for-two weekend, but, once again, the Amherst team ran into a tough opponent that simply overwhelmed it. The New Paltz, N.Y. Hawks entered the match at 15-3, and the Jeffs quickly learned that their record was indeed reflective of their prowess.

To its credit, the visiting team kept the match close, even avoiding a sweep by winning the fourth set, 25-23. Still, even Carter’s stellar performance (36 assists and 16 digs) wasn’t enough to propel the Jeffs, who ultimately fell, 3-1.

For New Paltz, Marissa King totaled an astounding 47 assists (no other Hawk had more than one), while three different players, including King, each had at least 24 digs. Later that same day, the Hawks would also go on to sweep the crosstown Continentals, pushing their winning streak to six.

Fighting to stay in the hunt with two conference losses already under their belts, the Lady Jeffs will need to bring their A-game this weekend when they take on both Wesleyan and Conn. College over fall break.

The Cardinals enter the week at just 4-8, so the first game (Friday, Oct. 5) should be winnable.

Conn. College is a different story: so far, they are a formidable 11-2, most notably having ended Bowdoin’s 40-match home winning streak with a 3-0 victory. It is not beyond the Jeffs to go 2-0, but they will certainly have to earn their keep if they intend to pull off the upset.

Mark Idleman Public Affairs Office

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,BSM (SFFOCMBUU Managing Sports Editor Men The Jeffs finished a respectable fifth out of 10 over the weekend at the NESCAC Fall Qualifier against the league’s stiffest competition.

It was Trinity, however, who stole the show; the Bantams cruised to the top spot with a two-day total of 587, and each Trinity player also earned a top-10 individual finish. Leading the way for the Trinity squad was Greg Palmer, the overall individual champion with a twoday score of 147. In second place — just one stroke behind Palmer — were Bantams Billy Burchill and Nick Buenaventura. Jack Palley and Don Hunt were also close behind, tying for seventh overall.

With their dominant performance, the Bantams have earned the right to host the NESCAC Championship in April. The victory was the Bantam’s second of the fall in just four events: the team also won its own Trinity Invitational at the beginning of September.

Rounding out the top five were Williams (602), Hamilton (611) and Middlebury (613).

At weekend’s end, the Jeffs found themselves 15 strokes off the Panthers’ pace (628), marking the second consecutive season the Amherst squad has narrowly missed the top four at the Fall Qualifier.

Nicholas Koh ’14 set the pace for the Jeffs with a two-day total of 149, which was also good for fifth place overall. Behind him were teammates Ben Johnston ’13 (160, including an impressive 75 on Day 2) and Jarvis Sill ’15 (161).

The Jeffs have just one event remaining this fall: they will take part in the Mountain-Valley Cup Challenge on Oct. 13, where, among others, they will face off against Williams.

Women Over the weekend, the Lady Jeffs took home fourth place out of 10 at the Middlebury Invitational, beating out conference rivals Bowdoin, Bates and Hamilton.

Unfortunately for the Jeffs, the dominant showing at the event came from Williams; the Ephs took home the number one spot and also featured the top overall finisher, Georgiana Salant, who posted a two-day total of 153. For the Ephs, Shelby Shote, Victoria Student and

Mark Idleman Public Affairs Office

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The success is nothing new for the Ephs; they have won every event of the fall so far, including the Mount Holyoke Invitational in which they also faced the Jeffs.

Middlebury and Vassar were the other two teams to finish ahead of the Jeffs, though the Amherst team missed the number three spot by just a single stroke (694 to Vassar’s 693).

The Lady Jeffs’ best individual performance came from senior Liz Monty, who totaled 161 to tie for fourth overall. Sooji Choi ’14 also turned in a solid effort, carding a 175 and tying with Vassar’s Caitlin Bell for 13th.

Irene Hickey ‘13 shot a 180, while Katherine Britt ‘15 posted a 188.

The Amherst women will head back to the course again over fall break, when they compete at the Williams Fall Classic and look to exact some revenge on their rivals.

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Field Hockey Drops Pair, Moves to 5-3

Niahlah Hope ’15 Public Affairs Office

5IF +FGGT GBDF 8JMMJBNT UIJT XFFLFOE JO B NVTU XJO /&4$"$ NBUDI VQ ,FWJO )PPHTUSBUFO Staff Writer Field hockey dropped two contests this week, falling 13th-ranked Tufts 4-3 in an overtime thriller on Saturday before dropping a 1-0 overtime heartbreaker to Trinity.

On Saturday, the team gave up two early second-half goals before battling back to tie the game and force overtime, only to fall short when Tufts scored off of a penalty corner four minutes into the extra period.

The 12th-ranked Jeffs knew they were going to face a stiff away test going into the game, as Tufts had only lost to undefeated Middlebury on the season.

The team started off on the offensive, narrowly missing a breakaway before winning a penalty corner seven minutes in. Tufts’ Brianna Keenan saved the initial shot but couldn’t keep out Katie McMahon ’13, who put home the rebound for her eighth goal of the season.

Tufts’ Kelsey Perkins began what would turn out to be a big day for her midway through the half, ripping a low shot that beat Rachel Tannen-

baum ’15 to tie things up. The stalemate lasted until late in the first half, when Ellie Andersen ’15 scored from in front of the cage off a rebound.

Tufts came out of the break firing on all cylinders, and within seven minutes Perkins had dragged the Jumbos into the lead. She scored off a Lia Sagerman assist before firing another shot just over 90 seconds later. Tannenbaum made the initial save, but Perkins found her own rebound and completed her hat trick, giving the Jumbos their first lead of the day at 3-2.

That lead lasted for less than 15 minutes, as the Lord Jeffs pushed for the equalizer. The team had four penalty corners in the second half and eventually capitalized on their chances, as Alex Philie ’14 deflected Andersen’s shot past Perkins.

The score remained deadlocked at the final whistle, and the game headed to overtime. The Lord Jeffs recorded the first shot of the period off of a penalty corner, but the Jumbos made no mistake with their first penalty corner of the extra period. Co-captain Lia Sagerman got her stick on the initial shot, sending it into the net for the game-winning goal.

Tufts finished with a 21-10 advantage in shots and a 16-9 advantage in penalty corners. Tannenbaum made eight stops in goal, while Perkins had three saves to record the win.

On Tuesday, Oct. 2, the Jeffs looked to rebound against a 6-1 Trinity squad. Instead, they found themselves locked in a defensive battle in which they managed no shot attempts over the final 18 minutes of regulation.

To their credit, the Jeffs took the Bantams to overtime tied at 0-0, where, in the waning seconds, Trinity was awarded a penalty stroke following a scrum in front of the Amherst goal.

Jeff goalie Rachel Tannenbaum ’15, who had held her own throughout the game, was unable to stop Sarah Duncan’s penalty shot, and the Amherst squad fell by a 1-0 score. The victory was Trinity head coach Anne Parmenter’s 100th in her career, Currently sitting at 2-3 in conference play, the Amherst team faces a must-win game on Saturday, Oct. 6 against Williams.

Despite the setbacks, however, head coach Carol Knerr maintains her team is “focused and determined.�

Rookie Jeffs Set to Face Off in ITA Regional Singles Final &NNFUU ,OPXMUPO Managing Sports Editor Men The men’s tennis team journeyed to a rainy Williams on Saturday to play in the ITA Regional Tennis Tournament. In what proved to be their first taste of collegiate singles, first-years Ben Fife and Andrew Yaraghi did not disappoint. Fife, unseeded, and Yaraghi, seeded 16th, both battled their way through the 64-player field and eventually met in the final.

Fife faced his first test in his first match of the tournament, dropping the first set 1-6 to Ben DeLuca of Nichols. The first-year seemed to shake off the nerves, taking the second set 6-0 before winning the third-set super-tiebreaker, 10-4.

Winning his next three matches in more convincing style, Fife found himself matched up against the tournament’s top seed, Jeffs captain Mark Kahan ’13. Kahan needed three grueling sets in the quarters, and wouldn’t go down to Fife without a fight. Fife, clearly unfazed by his teammate, topped Kahan, 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 to book a spot in the finals.

Meanwhile, on the otherside of the bracket, Yaraghi made quick work of his opponents in the early rounds. In fact, the Oyster Bay, N.Y. native didn’t drop a set en route to an appearance in the final.

Because of the inclement weather over the weekend, the final will take place tomorrow afternoon at

either Amherst, or Hampshire if the rain persists.

Led by their breakout rookies, the Jeffs will travel south to Johns Hopkins Univ. on October 6.

Women The Lady Jeffs traveled east to Cambridge over the weekend to compete in the ITA New England Regional Championship, hosted at MIT. Although no individual or doubles tandem took home gold, it was still an impressive outing for the team as many players advanced deep into their draws.

Most notably, juniors Jen Newman and Zoe Pangalos reached the finals of the doubles bracket before falling to the tournament’s top-seeded tandem: Rebecca Curran and Kara Shoemaker of Williams. The Ephs duo prevented what would have been a thirdstraight Lady Jeffs’ victory in the doubles bracket.

In singles, Jordan Brewer ’14 reached the semifinals of the singles bracket. Dominating her opening match against Babson’s Sarah Whitaker, 6-0, 6-0, the Woodland Hills, Calif. native then topped Williams’ Riqui McCoy, 6-3, 6-4. Facing Tufts’ Lindsay Katz in the next round, Brewer cruised to a 6-2, 6-0 win.

In the quarters, topped third-seeded Nancy Worley, another Eph, 6-2, 6-4. Booking herself a trip to the semifinals, Brewer met top-seeded LokSze Leung of Middlebury, ultimately falling in straight sets, 6-4, 6-1.

Amherst squares off with Williams this Saturday in their only duel-match of the fall season.

Sports 11

Fourth and Inches

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"NSP &M "EMF Winning a game in the NFL is as much a function of making the right game management decisions as it is of making the right plays. With so many close games in the NFL decided by who makes a final stand with the ball, Amro wonders if there’s an optimal approach to late-game strategy in the NFL.

I always regret looking up reviews for a new movie because I inevitably find out how long it is. The twists and turns just aren’t as moving knowing that the ending is still 20 minutes off. Watching close NFL games, I tend to have the same problem.

Make no mistake; there are few sporting spectacles consistently as exciting as the last two minutes of a tight football game, precisely because unpredictability runs rampant on every play. Nevertheless, knowing how much time is left in the game leaves me expectant, knowing that no matter what the teams will switch possession of the ball eventually and begin the fourth quarter comeback anew. Exciting as that seems, predictable unpredictability adds something of a “doomed-ifyou-do-doomed-if-you-don’t� element to the NFL head coaching equation.

This all comes to a head in the popular practice among NFL head coaches of calling a timeout just as a kicker lines up for a late-game field goal. I suppose the idea behind “icing� a kicker, as it’s known, is that a kicker is more likely to crumple in the all-important moment given some extra time to think about what he’s about to do.

Alternatively, maybe just the threat of an impending timeout actually takes off the edge, sapping kickers of a little testosterone and lulling them into taking a practice kick the first time around.

Whatever the logic behind icing, the numbers don’t seem to bear it out. Citing Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim’s book Scorecasting on Grantland, Bill Barnwell writes that icing has a spotty record. Scorecasting examined data on field goals from 2001 through 2009, and after controlling for distance, showed that icing had its most marked effect on kickers inside with anywhere between 120 to 61 seconds remaining in the game. In that interval, kickers who were iced connected on 74.2 percent of attempts, while those that weren’t successfully launched 77.6 percent of their kicks. A significantly less pronounced trend holds for kicks taken between 60 to 31 seconds and 30 to 16 seconds remaining in a game. Moreover, as the game wound down, icing kickers backfired. Inside of 15 seconds left in the game, iced kickers had an accuracy of 77.5 percent, as opposed to the 75.4 percent put up by those who were not iced.

So for all the hoopla, icing doesn’t seem to amount to much, if anything.

But the icing issue also raises questions about the change in strategy coaches employ as the game progresses. It may seem obvious, for instance, that icing has only taken hold in late-game situations. Perhaps rightfully so, as I suppose the logic doesn’t pan out in situations when a field goal isn’t deemed imminently important enough to merit pressure or a burnt timeout. But the impact of strategic changes on the other parts of the game might be more subversive. Knowing that the game may come down to a last-second field goal, might a coach opt to hang onto a timeout he might have otherwise used? Or might the opposing coach run more time-consuming plays to deplete his counterpart’s timeouts and prevent icing altogether?

For starters, I’ve seen Peyton Manning and Tom Brady (I suppose I would be remiss if Eli Manning didn’t get a shoutout here) go to work often enough in the fourth quarter to know that picking up a

late lead can prove inconsequential if your team hands the ball back with time on the clock. As an Indiannoplis Colts fan, I remember watching the 2009 AFC Championship in fear, as Bill Belichick decided to go for a fourth-and-two from his own 28 with the New England Patriots up by six.

The Pats came up short on fourth down, Manning got a short field with two minutes left in the game, and the rest is history.

As Belichick explained to reporters after the game, had he elected to punt, his defense would have had to keep the Colts from gaining 70 yards to win the game.

National pundits made quick work of his logic, but 70 yards isn’t so formidable a distance on the comeback trail. Punting the ball away may very well have only delayed the inevitable.

Belichick knows better than anyone that the name of the game in the fourth quarter is keep away. All other things equal, in a one-possession game the losing team might prefer to start their final drive with say five minutes left in the game, rather than eight. Of course there are a lot of qualifiers there. You have to ultimately be able to score. You have to churn out positive plays that also eat up clock in the meantime. But you have to do all of this unpredictably, so that the other team never knows what hit them. Assuming that simple set of assumptions holds, in general the idea is to give yourself the best chance of winning while simultaneously foreclosing on the opportunity the other team has of making a comeback.

Unfortunately, there is surprisingly little data available about the duration of an average NFL drive (cross-sectional data by quarter would be most useful, if anybody out there is feeling bored this week). In theory, with enough data, it could be possible to determine what the ideal length of a second-half drive should be, if you’re aiming to get the ball back with five minutes left in the game. At the very least, this kind of study should provide insight as to whether a team should accept the kickoff or defer at the start of a game.

Consider a scenario where letting the other team score is the right call. Again, I don’t have numbers, but I suspect that if the other team is closer than your 10-yard line, and there’s anywhere between two to four minutes left in a one-possession game, these scenarios are plausible. They are tough to imagine though, because hard-nosed football head coaches don’t concede anything. But really it’s akin to a basketball team intentionally fouling its opponent to limit them to a maximum of two points, while it takes three-pointers on the other end — it’s all about hedging your bets.

Not to say that any of this should be on a linebacker’s mind when he’s trying to make plays. Much like icing a kicker, forcing players to think about what should come naturally seems to unnecessarily increase the complexity of the situation.

Much in the same way, NFL head coaches might be creatures of habit when it comes to game management. They may not have the time to explore whether the winning strategy in football games can be boiled down to a science, and the last two minutes of a close game don’t seem like a good time to start. But this is why they play the preseason games, right?

Sports

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Rob Mattson Public Affairs Office

Trailing at Half, Jeffs Rally to 22-10 Win at Bowdoin QB Max Lippe Throws for TD, Rushes for Two More Varun Iyengar ’14 Sports Section Editor Coming off a resounding victory in their season opener two weeks ago, the Amherst football team traveled to Bowdoin College on Saturday for their first road contest of the year.

The Jeffs were looking for their seventh consecutive victory against the Polar Bears, and they earned it in impressive fashion, coming from behind for a 22-10 victory.

It was Amherst’s tenth straight win overall, a streak dating back to the beginning of last season and kept the Jeffs undefeated on the year, 2-0.

The 12-point margin of victory certainly does not reflect how tough this win truly was.

Amherst looked to be in serious trouble in the first half as they fell behind early and could not quite find their offensive rhythm.

On the game’s opening possession, the Jeffs moved into Bowdoin territory behind a couple strong runs from Ryan Silva ’14, but they could not capitalize on their opportunities. Amherst was stopped short of a touchdown at the 21-yard line and kicker Jake Schmidt ’14 was unable to convert the 38-yard field goal attempt.

While Amherst continued to struggle, Bowdoin was able to strike first. Attacking along the ground, the Polar Bears put together a series of impressive runs, capped by a 17yard gain that put Bowdoin inside the Amherst 20.

Slowing wearing the Jeffs down, Bowdoin continued to pound the running game, finding the end zone on a one-yard rush with 2:36 left in the first quarter. Amherst, though, was finally able to respond in the second period.

Quarterback Max Lippe ’15 found his rhythm, demoralizing the Bowdoin defense with a series of timely passes. Facing third-and-eight early in the drive, he found Wade McNamara

’14 for a momentum-building first down. Amherst faced another big third down later in the drive, but Lippe stepped up once again, finding McNamara with a 15-yard pass that put Amherst at the Bowdoin 5. Lippe, himself, ran it in from there, sneaking in for a touchdown that cut the deficit to a single point. However, Schmidt was unable to convert the extra point, so Bowdoin retained their one-point advantage, 7-6.

The Jeffs, though, kept the pressure on Bowdoin on the ensuing possession, forcing the Polar Bears into a quick three-and-out.

Amherst’s offense had a shot at taking the lead but was unable to take advantage of the opportunity, as they coughed up a fumble that was recovered by the defense.

Now with great field position, Bowdoin appeared primed to stretch their lead. It was dangerous moment for Amherst, but the defense made an impressive goal-line stand, stopping three attempts at the end zone from inside their ten-yard line and holding Bowdoin to a mere field goal.

Although the Jeffs did not respond with a score, the stop was a huge boost of momentum for the Jeffs, keeping the deficit manageable. Bowdoin did get one more shot at a score before halftime, but their field goal, as time ran out, missed wide left and kept the score at 10-6.

Facing an uphill battle, Amherst coaches certainly did their job in the locker room, because the Jeffs came out of the half looking like an entirely different team. The team began clicking on all cylinders, on both sides of the ball, locking down defensively and executing on offense.

After a defensive stand to start out the quarter, the Jeffs turned to the ground game on their first drive. Running back Silva took over, as Amherst handed him the ball on eight of their first nine plays for a total of 45

yards, putting the Jeffs at the Bowdoin 16-yard line. An eight-yard pass from Lippe to Jake O’Malley ’14 and a Bowdoin personal foul moved the Jeffs inside the ten-yard line, where Lippe ran it in himself for his second touchdown of the day.

However, Amherst was thwarted on the extra point, as the kick was blocked, leaving the score at 12-10 in favor of the visitors.

However, the Jeffs were not about to let that small blip get in their way. After an uneventful finish to the third quarter, Amherst began the fourth by tacking on a 37-yard field

Rob Mattson Public Affairs Office

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goal from Schmidt. The kick capped a 15-play, 55-yard drive and pushed the lead to 15-10.

Looking to put the game away, Amherst’s defense clamped down, as linebacker Sam Clark stepped in front of a pass to notch his first interception of the season.

The pick led to one last scoring drive, as Amherst methodically marched down the field behind 34 more rushing yards from Silva. Finishing the drive off, Lippe found McNamara for an eight-yard end-zone strike that put the game out of reach at 22-10.

The victory moved Amherst to 71-17-2 all-time against the Polar Bears. Although they started slowly, the Jeffs’ offense certainly had its way with Bowdoin, as they amassed an impressive 241 yards on the ground, led by Silva’s 143. Lippe was incredibly efficient as well, finishing 18-22 for 141 yards and scrambling for 33 yards.

Amherst’s defense stepped up impressively as well, shutting out Bowdoin in the second half. In fact, the Jeffs have yet to concede any points after halftime this season, after blanking Hamilton in the third and fourth quarters of their first game.

Travis Dickenson ’13 led the Jeffs’ effort with nine tackles, including 2.5 for loss, while fellow defensive tackle Lou Jacobs ’13 made seven stops and was responsible for one of two Amherst sacks on the afternoon.

The Jeffs return to the field this Saturday against Middlebury. The Panthers, also entering the game at 2-0, have picked up two monster wins, topping Bowdoin 42-18 and Colby 42-13.

Amherst will be on the road once again and will look to continue building momentum, as they get into the heart of their season.

They have shown an incredible ability to close out games with flourish and will be hoping to bring that same intensity to the start of this next contest.