Issue 6

Men’s Soccer Fights Hamilton to Draw See Sports, Page 11 5)& */%&1&/%&/5 /&841"1&3 0' ".)&345 $0--&(& 4*/$&

70-6.& $9-*** *446& r 8&%/&4%": 0$50#&3

Amherst Students Compete for Opportunity to Speak at TEDx Event

President Martin Begins to Hold Office Hours Sophie Murguia ’17 Managing News Editor

Photo Courtesy of Office of Public Affairs

One of five speaker candidates, Yilin Andre Wang ’14 presents his ideas on the science and public perception of lie detection.

Clara Yoon ’15 Contributing Writer Come Nov. 10, one lucky student will stand on stage with seven to eight of the Amherst community’s most disruptive innovators — alumni, faculty and staff — and give a TEDx talk on a topic of their choice in front of an audience of 350 people. Students competed for the coveted spot this Sunday in front of the TEDxAmherstCollege team and a panel of judges.

Five speaker candidates and two MC candidates showed up to display their verbal talent, although organizer John He ’16 stated that a few more students had initially applied. “We were surprised by the range of innovative ideas that all the applicants had, though it was disappointing that a few could not

make it to the contest because of other commitments,� He said.

Elson Browne-Low ’15, an international student from Guyana who is passionate about nonprofit work, was first to present on his idea to “facilitate the realization of young people’s socially-minded ideas through a radical redefinition of the ‘consultant.’� The goal was to rethink the world of socially-minded organizations to the audience, envisioning a new type of organization that would be defined by the nature of its staff and its goal of efficiency rather than by any particular field of focus.

Feynman Liang ’14, who has taken over fifty online courses, gave his talk on Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) providers and how they are shaping the classrooms of the future. As someone who is well-known within

the MOOC community, Liang was able to give an insider account regarding the current state of MOOCs, and described the kind of innovation that he expected to occur as a result of using technology not only to increase accessibility, but, student productivity.

Following Liang was Richard Altieri ’15, who was also competing for an MC position.

He gave his talk on how exposure to different cultures can help young people find and reconsider perspectives, allowing them to develop a way of thinking that can spark innovative ideas and progress. “I want to argue that innovation can mean much more than a ‘Eureka’ moment or the production of new technology: it can change the way we conceptualize the world around Continued on Page 3

Students clamoring to have their voices heard by the administration now have a new channel to express their concerns. Starting this month, President Carolyn “Biddy� Martin is holding regular office hours, available to all interested students.

The new program allows students to sign up for one of several twenty-minute time slots each month in order to meet with President Martin in her office. President Martin explained that the idea for the program came about last year, when Tania Dias ’13 discovered that former Amherst President Peter Pouncey had held regular office hours for students. “I had been doing research in the Special Archives on the history of the Women’s and Gender Center at Amherst, and I believe I found a reference to President Pouncey’s student office hours then,� said Dias, who made this discovery while serving as AAS president.

She now works as a strategic planning assistant in the Provost’s Office.

Dias explained that Pouncey become president in 1984, just before the College’s tenyear coeducation anniversary. “[As a result] students who were very involved with the Women’s and Gender Center had reached out to him through his office hours,� Dias said. “I thought the student office hours had been a wonderful idea, that could still be relevant now in 2013, and shared this with Biddy.�

President Martin shared Dias’s enthusiasm. “I enjoy meeting with students one-onone, and have done a fair amount of it over my first two years, but it requires that students take the initiative to contact my office and make an appointment,� President Martin said. “I thought regular office hours would create more opportunity for students who may not realize it is possible to get an appointment with me.�

The program, which debuted last week, has already proved popular with stuContinued on Page 3

Women’s and Gender Center Renews Presence

Elaine Vilorio ’17 Managing News Editor

When the College became coeducational in 1975, women immediately sought to make their presence known on campus. As per research conducted under the Provost’s Office by Tania Dias ’13, women began organizing for the creation of a women’s center within a few weeks of arriving at Amherst.

But, 38 years later, female students still struggle to make their voices heard. Last school year unearthed a messy administrative policy concerning the handling of sexual assault, a trauma experienced by 1 in 4 college women. Currently, only one third of the Association of Amherst Students (AAS) is comprised of women, and it was only in the mid-2000s that the College began achieving a student body with gender parity. This academic year, the newly-named and newly-positioned Women’s and Gender Studies Center (WGC) is steering the College to-

ward a more inclusive and interactive future.

Like the Multicultural Resource Center (MRC), the WGC recently underwent a complete makeover. Last semester (specifically, in March), the Center was relocated from the basement to the first floor within Keefe Campus Center. Correspondingly, its name was changed, as it was originally called the Women’s Center.

The name change caused divide among the student body.

Some claimed the old name would restrict the center’s purpose to women. The more popular alternative name was Gender Center. In the end, both names were combined to form the current “Women’s and Gender Studies� designation.

Gender Justice Collective Chair Gina Faldetta ’16 said, “I don’t disagree with the name. I appreciate the focus on women that the space provides. Some people might say it’s divisive and alienating, but the truth of the matter is ours is a very masculine school, and there are extremely few spaces designed with

women in mind.�

Student activism inarguably played a tremendous role in the WGC’s flowering. This past spring, a group of student leaders (namely, Salena Budinger ’15, Dana Bolger ’14E , Sonum Dixit ’13, Kinjal Patel ’13, Larissa Davis ’13, Abigail Bereola ’15, Paula Escobar ’13, Ruodi Duan ’14, Chelsea Michta ’13, and Nancy Yun Tang ’14) sent a letter to President Biddy Martin outlining their requests for the new women’s center. These included a connection but not a strict affiliation with the Sexuality, Women’s and Gender Studies (SWAGS) department, an acceptance of substantial student input and involvement, a reasonable budget, and the hiring of a full-time director. Until this school year, the WGC had never had a subscribed budget and had always been student-run. In fact, it had never been an autonomous body, serving solely as a support system for genderContinued on Page 3

$0//&$5 50 64 ".)&345456%&/5 ".)&345 &%6 r !".)&345456%&/5 r -*,& THE AMHERST STUDENT 0/ '"$&#00,

News

5IF "NIFSTU 4UVEFOU t 0DUPCFS

Oct. 2 to Oct. 6, 2013

>>Oct. 2, 2013 11:26 a.m., Kirby Drive An officer investigated a motor vehicle accident which resulted in damage to a light pole.

Restitution will be made.

2:08 p.m., Frost Library An officer checked on a man who was reported as acting in an unusual manner. After speaking with the man, who has not association with the college, he left the property. >>Oct. 3, 2013 8:21 a.m., Service Building Lots Officers and the Fire Department were dispatched to a vehicle fire.

2:48 p.m., Campus Grounds A member of the Title IX Committee took a report of a sexual assault that occurred in the spring of 2013. The incident is under review.

7:41 p.m., Valentine Dormitory An officer investigated a smoke detector sounding in a third-floor room but no problem was found.

8:58 p.m., Plimpton House An officer responded to a report of a smoke detector sounding in an unattended room on the second floor and discovered smoke. The building alarm was sounded and the Fire Department responded.

It was discovered that smoke from a first-floor fireplace accumulated in the attic of the building. The Facilities Department addressed the issue that caused that condition. >>Oct. 4, 2013 2:19 a.m., Morris Pratt An officer responded to a noise complaint and issued a warning at a first-floor room.

2:34 a.m., Plaza An officer responded to a noise complaint and issued a warning to a resident.

6:13 p.m., College St. An officer assisted the town police at the scene of a motor vehicle accident on College Street.

9:27 p.m., South Pleasant St. A caller reported a bear in the vicinity of 482 South Pleasant St. The bear was not located.

The town police were also advised of the report.

10:27 p.m., Garman House Officers responded to a report of several people arguing in

front of the building. No one was found. >>Oct. 5, 2013 2:03 a.m., Morris Pratt An officer responded to a noise complaint and found several loud people in the common area on the third-floor. They were advised of the complaint, and they left the building.

7:10 p.m., Charles Drew House An officer investigated a smoke detector sounding in the kitchen and found it was caused by cooking odors. The system was reset.

9:41 p.m., East Dr. An officer encountered an underage student with alcohol. It was confiscated, and the matter was referred to the Dean’s Office.

9:57 p.m., Coolidge An officer encountered an unauthorized party in the basement with alcohol. The event was shut down. >>Oct. 6, 2013 12:04 a.m., Seelye House An officer responded to a complaint of a loud party in the area of Seelye. A large party was located at a non-college house on Northampton Road.

The town police addressed the issue there.

1:38 a.m., Keefe Campus Center An officer responded to a report that a student urinated on the floor inside the snack bar. The student was located outside the building and identified. He will be fined $100 for the offensive behavior. The matter was also referred to the Dean’s Office.

2:06 a.m., Alumni Lot Officers responded to a report of a male and female arguing inside a vehicle in the Alumni Parking lot. The people, who have no association with the college, were identified and interviewed. No further assistance was needed.

3:24 a.m., Barrett Hill Dr. An officer responded to a report of a group of people, who were identified as being students from a neighboring college, near Jenkins being rowdy by pushing each other and throwing empty beer cans.

The group was located as they passed by Frost Library and they boarded a bus at the bus stop.

Thoughts on Theses: Liya Rechtman before. It was really cool.

Department: Religion Thesis Advisor: David Wills Q: What is your thesis about?

A: My thesis is about evangelical Christian American political identity in relationship to Israel. I found that there was this very big conservative right wing Israel lobby — that wasn’t Jewish, which is sort of what you would think of as the American Israel lobby — but that actually there was a much larger one that was Christian. I started doing some research on who they were and why they cared about Israel, and a lot of the reasons they care about Israel have to do with specifically evangelical Christian biblical beliefs. The tenets of their faith, like biblical literalism, lend themselves to caring about the nation of Israel as it’s been established since 1948. Then I did some ethnographic work. My thesis is historical and also ethnographic-sociological. I spent some time at a campus — not Amherst College, but a different campus’s Christian coalition group for students, and I did some interviews there, thinking about how evangelical Christians interact with being political individuals, so like having voting rights, and thinking about how the Bible relates to politics and how their religious views relate to politics. And then I also spent some time in New York City over the summer doing ethnographic work with a church and interviewing different congregants and pastors. I found that there was actually this whole other world that I hadn’t even thought about of evangelical Christians who didn’t have this very strict right-wing view on politics, but who had taken from their biblical interpretation a whole variety of other kinds of political views. I’m arguing that this sort of stereotypical right-wing evangelical Christian pro-Israel view is actually a generational trend that is ending in the Obama era.

Q: How did you come up with this idea?

A: I was president of Hillel, which is the Jewish student group, as a sophomore, and I was given a free trip to the AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] Conference. It’s this huge conference, and it’s kind of expensive to go to, so I was like, okay, I’m going to go, even though I wasn’t sure that I was really supportive of it. I went and I discovered that there was a huge evangelical Christian presence. I just assumed that it would be a bunch of angry conservative older Jews, and it wasn’t like that at all. There were a lot of very young Christian people there, and especially in the campus leadership group there were a lot of Christians. In the conference you could do different tracks, and I did the evangelical track. I was supposed to do the campus leadership track, but I went to all the evangelical Christian activities instead. I met a lot of very high up evangelical Christian leadership people, and I was totally fascinated by this world outside of anything I’d ever seen

Q: What have been some of the high points so far in the process?

A: I love my thesis advisor. He’s awesome. I’ve been working with him for two years now.

I did a special topics with him for all of last year that was basically reading on all of this stuff in preparation to write my thesis. Also, the two ethnographic projects that I did, the campus project and the church. Being in ethnographic work is so cool. You can just be like, “Hi, I want to know everything about you!” And so the interviews and spending time with the church was really, really cool.

I grew up in a predominantly Jewish community, and I hadn’t really interacted people outside of my faith group before I came to college or people who even had strong religious beliefs. So I’m really attracted to this sort of novel community that’s very unlike my own but also, in certain ways, incredibly similar to my own.

Q: What are some of the challenges you’ve faced so far?

A: Well, it’s hard ... and it’s slow work. The workload is hard, and it’s stressful. I want to do something really, really good, and I want to be able to represent the people I’ve met. I guess some of the biggest technical problems I’ve had are questions about anonymity. The church I worked with is connected to — I’m going to be a little bit vague — but the church I worked with in New York is connected to a much bigger church elsewhere in the country, and I want to talk about that connection, because it’s pretty important to why I went to that church. I’m having trouble figuring out how to protect the people that I spoke to and maintain their anonymity.

Q: What have you done on your thesis so far, and what do you still need to accomplish?

A: I’m actually not on a typical track, because after I got home from this conference as a sophomore, I was really impatient to get started. I was kind of deciding between dropping out of college and staying here, and the only way I could convince myself to stay in college would be if I started working on my thesis right away. So I started doing reading for it first semester of junior year. Most people start thinking about it junior year, and I was already doing work. It was kind of amorphous.

I wasn’t sure what my project was exactly, other than that it was on Christian Zionism, which isn’t even the term I would use anymore for what I’m talking about — so clearly it’s progressed a lot. I’d been working on it for a year when this year started. With typical theses, you do one credit in the first semester, and two credits in the second semester, but I’m doing two credits this semester, and I’m hoping not to do any in the spring. I’m hoping to be done with my whole thesis basically in a month. We’ll see if that really happens. I have three chapters left to write, so I’m maybe 30 percent done.

Q: Do you have any advice for students considering writing a thesis?

A: Get to know professors early and take a special topics course beforehand. Special topics are the key to education at Amherst.

I’ve taken two now. One was called Christian America and the other was called Christian Zionism. They were a lot of reading and a lot of talking. It was an incredibly important way for me to learn.

—Sophie Murguia ’17

5IF "NIFSTU 4UVEFOU t 0DUPCFS

News

Five Students Compete for President Martin Initiates TEDx Speaker Spot Office Hour Program Continued from Page 1 us,” Altieri said.

Yilin Andre Wang ’14 was next with a talk that aimed to challenge the public’s imagination of lies and lie detection. As a psychology major, he planned to draw on many studies to explain why the average person was accurate in lie detection only slightly above chance, and how lying and lie detection was far more complex and difficult than popular media made people believe.

The youngest speaker candidate, Siyu Feng ’17E, followed Wang’s talk on lie detection with a speech about how her parents’ views on traditional Chinese medicine differed from Western ideas towards medicine. She brought a large model of an ear that her parents had given her before she left for college, explaining that different parts of the ear corresponded with different parts of the body.

Finally, Eric Grein ’15 presented for Blaine Werner ’15, who was unable to make the event due to other obligations. Grein read Werner’s two talk proposals, one on behavioral finance and the other on pop music or Southern hip hop. All of the talks were introduced by the MC candidates, Altieri and Laurence Pevsner ’14.

The judges were CCE director Molly Mead, Dean of Students Jim Larimore, and Economics professor Prakarsh Singh, who were all given rubrics at the beginning of the event with which to score both speaker and

MC candidates.

Larimore, in particular, was impressed by the quality of the speakers and the organization of the event.

“I commend the students who participated in the speaker contest last Sunday. They spoke on a variety of interesting and compelling topics, and their enthusiasm and knowledge made it a pleasure to serve as a judge,” Larimore said.

For the TEDxAmherstCollege team, comments such as these reaffirmed their decision to include a student speaker.

“We know that many Amherst students have innovative and disruptive ideas and some of them are actually making their ideas happen. TEDxAmherstCollege should provide a platform for Amherst student innovators to spread their ideas,” said Xiangyu Zhao ’14, one of the student organizers of the event.

The event was only one of the many steps leading up to their large speaker conference, however.

“We hope we can get advantage of the momentum we got from the event and get even more people involved and excited about our event in the coming weeks,” said organizer Diego Recinos ’14. He stated that the results of the competition would be announced within the next two weeks.

The actual TEDxAmherstCollege conference will be held in Kirby Theater on Nov. 10, and host eight to nine speakers in a range of diverse fields.

Continued from Page 1 dents.

“The available slots are filling up quickly, and we will add more times,” President Martin said.

The President’s Office website currently lists two remaining time slots in October, two in November, and six in December.

Multiple students applauded the president’s greater attempts at accessibility.

“I think it’s great that she’s opening it up to student interaction,” said senior Ashley Hall, who noted that she often sees President Martin walking around campus, and appreciates having a more organized opportunity for students to talk to the president. Hall said that she doesn’t have any concerns to address with President Martin at the moment, but “if I did have an issue I’d consider going.”

Peter Crane ’15 agreed that the program is “really great,” saying, “I know Tony Marx was known to have a bit more contact with students when he was president — he taught a first year seminar for example — but Biddy hasn’t had too much formal exposure to ordinary students. So doing it this way is an easy way to get to the top of the food chain if you have a concern or anything — it isn’t like there is a merit system based on how important you are.”

Crane plans to attend office hours on Oct. 24. He and two other students plan to discuss concerns that Amherst’s mascot, the Lord Jeff, “does not represent the values of the school.”

They also hope to start a conversation about resurrecting lost Amherst traditions, such as Mountain Day, a day during which classes would be cancelled and students would enjoy activities outdoors.

As of Monday, President Martin said that she has already met with one office hours visitor, who had some suggestions for orientation programming. She predicted that students would be eager to discuss a wide array of concerns.

“Given the concerns with which students have visited me over the past few years, I would say that support for student-led initiatives, including speakers, is high on the list, as are student social life, alcohol policy, cultural change and efforts to invent new or reshape older traditions,” President Martin said.

Though the program is still in its infancy, students and staff alike expressed optimism about its future.

“What I love about Amherst is that if a student has an idea and wants to pursue it, you (the student) can generally make it happen,” Dias said. “These office hours remind us how special it is to be a student at Amherst — we not only can voice our ideas, but our own president of the school tells us, ‘Here, sit down with me, what shall we talk about today? How can Amherst be better?’”

Students may sign up for office hours with President Martin on the President’s Office website at https://www.amherst.edu/aboutamherst/president/student-open-hours.

Student Advocacy Revitalizes WGC Continued from Page 1 relevant student organizations. When these student organizations wanted to hold events through the WGC, they requested funding from the AAS. Now, however, the College has given the WGC a budget of $20,000, excluding staff salary. Additionally, the Center has found a full-time director in Danielle Hussey, who had previously been working with Residential Life as an Area Coordinator.

The WGC’s new location and full-time director are considered milestones in its development.

Liya Rechtman ’14, who was strongly involved in last school year’s initiative to change the WGC, elaborated.

“When we were reviewing changes that the school needed to go through to live up to the Title IX best standards of practice and to make the campus culture more gender-equal/ aware, I spoke at an open forum held by President Martin and asked for funding for a fulltime gender center advisor and a relocation of the women’s center itself. When I spoke to the trustees along with several other Amherst students, we re-iterated that funding needed to be put aside for a person in that position and for renovations to the campus center. I am a member of the Sexual Misconduct Oversight Committee, and in our review of campus culture and climate, we recommended the same things. So, I advocated for a new women’s center over the past year and I am incredibly excited that we now have a beautiful women’s center and Danielle as the center director,” Rechtman said.

Hussey is, however, an interim director.

The directors of the Queer Resource Center (QRC) and MRC are also temporary.

“As I understand it, the WGC, MRC and QRC have interim directors because there was a need to provide staff support in these areas as soon as possible. Students were clear that this need was urgent and, through their advocacy, were able to convince the senior staff to take action. A national search can take many weeks to complete, and there were well-qualified staff members at Amherst who were able to take on these roles so that the centers could open in time for the fall semester,” Hussey said. “I was excited to take on this role, as I did my graduate work in Gender and Social Policy and have experience in student affairs and program management. Similarly, Mariana Cruz [MRC director] and Angie Tissi [QRC director] have academic credentials and years of professional experience that make them well-suited for their roles. The current strategic planning process will help determine the future of the three resource centers, including plans for permanent staff, organization and budgets.”

Hussey began working towards the development of the WGC last semester. Along with CCE Director Molly Mead, she oversaw the Sexual Respect Taskforce and worked with Dean Charri Boykin-East to push the need for a WGC director into the administrative spotlight. Hussey cited the Provost’s Office (to which the WGC, QRC and MRC answer) and Dean of Students Office as significant supporters in the move to redefine the WGC. During the summer months, Hussey worked with the Gender and Sexuality Net-

work (GSN), a coalition of student leaders from Gender Justice Collective, Women of Amherst, Amherst Women’s Network, The Men’s Project, The Pride Alliance, It Happens Here, AC Voice and the Student Health Educators. GSN members helped assess the mission statements and goals of other collegiate women’s centers. Hussey then proceeded to travel to other schools (among them Tufts Univ., Vassar College, Harvard Univ., and Brown Univ.) to speak with their women’s centers and their staff. From the information gathered, Hussey and GSN members were able to lay out a framework for the WGC. In addition to Hussey, the WGC staffs Outreach Student Coordinator Allyson Leach ’14 and Programming Student Coordinator Grace Brotsker ’16. A third student position is expected to be created, particularly one that focuses on the academic facet of gender studies.

The WGC’s regular programming includes weekly coffee hours wherein students can chat with WGC staff over coffee and snacks.

This week, a new event, Grab & Go “Purple Bag” Lunch, was introduced. Students are invited to bring their Grab & Go into the WGC to have an informal conversation with a chosen faculty member. Students have the capability of recommending any faculty member.

The WGC’s major, upcoming events include a lecture on Oct. 17 by Smith College professor Tina Takemoto on her film Looking for Gyro and a workshop and performance on Oct. 25

by Janani Balasubramanian, one of the editors of Black Girl Dangerous. A presentation by the editors of Feministing is also projected to occur in the near future.

In terms of what type of influence she wants the WGC to have, Hussey shared, “My hope is that the center will foster a curricular awareness of gender and create a space to talk about gender … There are issues specific to women that need attention on our campus.

There’s a history of marginalization. First, it occurred when women were not allowed to attend Amherst and then it happened when they were admitted. I don’t think we’ve fully resolved that which is why I think the name expresses the effort to specifically reach out to women. That being said, work around gender and campus culture can’t happen in the context of only some members of the community.

We need to engage everyone and that’s men, women, everyone.”

The WGC is open on weekdays between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Regular evening hours will soon be implemented by the two student coordinators. Updates on the WGC’s programming and overall status can be found on their Facebook page (facebook.com/ACWGC) and their Twitter (@AmherstWGC). A WGC website is forthcoming.

President Martin is eager to hear from students and has set aside time each week for meetings in her office. If you wish to schedule an appointment with her, please visit the President’s web page at: https://www.amherst.edu/mm/389491 to access the registration form. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the President’s office at president@amherst.edu, or call 413-542-2234.

Want to write for news?

Email smurguia17@amherst.edu or evilorio17@amherst.edu

Opinion

5IF "NIFSTU 4UVEFOU t 0DUPCFS

Editorial

Interesting Ways to Spend the Break Most of us are eagerly looking forward to the rest and relaxation we hope to enjoy over fall break. But for students who are not going home over the long weekend, those anticipated days of freedom can turn into long hours of boredom. To preempt this unfortunate turn of events, we are providing you with a list of exciting activities taking place in the town of Amherst over the long weekend.

On Saturday, come support our local scholars at the annual ABC (A Better Chance) Fall Foliage Walk! ABC is a program that draws students out of underserved public schools and brings them to great public and private high schools (like Amherst Regional High School) around the country. Their Fall Foliage Walk is the most significant fundraiser they have all year — you can get involved by signing up to walk or run, or else just stop by to participate in some fun activities and see some awesome performances. The Walk takes place in Amherst Common and lasts all day. While you’re at Amherst Common, don’t forget to stop by the weekly Farmer’s market (from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.) for some delicious local treats.

On Sunday, you can drop by The Black Sheep to grab some lunch and listen to the Gypsy Wranglers. This group puts a special twist on jazz, blending the music of the Gypsy Jazz, Cowboy Swing, French Musette, Big

Band and New Orleans Jazz traditions. The Gypsy Wranglers will be playing from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m..

Get back into your academic mindset on Monday by attending a keynote address at UMass on biochar. The keynote will be delivered by Frances Moore Lappé, an environmentalist and author of 18 books including the popular Diet for a Small Planet. Lappé will be discussing the soil conditioner “biochar” and its role as a local carbon negative energy source. There will also be a delicious dinner available, featuring local ingredients.

The dinner and keynote take place from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Student Union Ballroom and the Campus Center Auditorium, respectively.

Treat yourself to a relaxing Tuesday before heading back to class with a visit to the Mead Art Museum. The museum has recently expanded, placing many pieces on view for the first time, including an ancient Roman sarcophagus, prints by Dürer, Delacroix and Hopper and contemporary pieces by Will Barnet, Vik Muniz and Michael Huey. The Mead special exhibition “To Be at the Farther Edge: Photographs Along the New England Trail,” by Barbara Bosworth, is still on display, as well! The Mead’s hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., so you have plenty of chances to stop by.

Enjoy your break everyone!

Shining Light on Dark Words 5JUP $SBJHF Contributing Writer Tito Craige (etacraige@mindspring.com) is a retired history teacher from North Carolina. In midcareer, he quit teaching so as to investigate massacres of civilians for the Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace in the Philippines. Four years ago, he wrote about ecology v. tourism for the Darwin Station in the Galapagos. On Sept. 13 he and five of his classmates met with President Martin concerning the writings of Hadley Arkes.

As an older alumnus, I guess I should be musing about the good old days at Amherst and making payments on a cemetery plot, but, honestly, I find myself distracted about something that I have to get off my chest. It bothers me so much that, for the first time in my life, I have written something for The Student. You see, I get angry when I read that Professor Hadley Arkes compares same-sex marriage to bestiality. To be honest, I don’t like a whole bunch of things that Arkes has written and then he makes things worse by attaching “Ney Professor of Jurisprudence at Amherst College” to his name.

Arkes’s words are circulated nationally (see below) and they affect people I care about. For my sister, her partner of 30 years and their daughter, I need to stand up. For the gay students in my high school’s Queer Club, I need to stand. For my gay Amherst classmates, I need to stand. Until now, many have been silent about Arkes’s words, and now I think it is time to speak.

Don’t get me wrong. I cherish academic freedom and I value the chance to hear opposing ideas. I will

never forget the wild arguments we had about the Vietnam War. I oppose any effort to censor Arkes or anyone else. However, as the Faculty Handbook states, academic freedom carries responsibilities.

To put it another way, acting irresponsibly can be destructive: “Respect for the rights, dignity and integrity of others is essential for the well-being of a community. Actions by any person which do not reflect such respect for others are damaging to each member of the community and hence damaging to Amherst College.” I think Arkes’s comments are “damaging to each member of the community.” If you agree, say so. If not, I respect your point of view and you should speak out, as well.

In the 1960s, when I was a student at Amherst, I knew nothing about the oppression my gay classmates were experiencing. I had no idea that, in 1952, the American Psychiatric Association had labeled homosexuality a “personality disturbance.”

I was oblivious of the fact that, for decades, the FBI had kept lists of well-known Americans who were thought to be homosexuals.

However, at the end of the ’60s a rumble occurred and nothing since has been the same. It was after my junior year, on June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village that gay men drove away the Mafia, who owned the bar, and the police, who’d come for a group arrest. Word of the six-day Stonewall uprising reached Amherst during my senior year. One by one, we students realized that gays and lesbians were fighting for their rights.

Today, we see that, ultimately, they were fighting for Continued on Page 5

What Does a Government Shutdown Mean Anyway?

"TIMFZ .POUHPNFSZ Section Editor Calling all Economics and Political Science majors! This issue is for you.

Last week, on Tuesday, Oct. 1, the United States government shut down.

With all the hoopla surrounding the impending doom, I was expecting something akin to an apocalyptic scene from 2012 or The Day After Tomorrow.

Instead, Tuesday was a calm, typical day in the Amherst bubble if you ignored the New York Times front-page headline: “Government Near Broad Shutdown in Budget Impasse.” Perhaps the various reports would have had more of an effect if we knew exactly what a government shutdown was and who it affects.

Fortunately, one Amherst alumna, Mattea Kramer ’07, is more than capable of explaining the circumstances of the shutdown. Kramer, Director of Research at the National Priorities Project, stopped by Amherst on Tuesday to discuss the effects of the government shutdown in an event titled “#ShutItDown: The Federal Budget and Why It Matters to You.” If you happened to miss this event, a trip to the National Priorities Project web page is well worth the visit.

Kramer and other Project associates do a fantastic job of providing excellent, unbiased explanations of the fiscal budgetary process, providing a glossary of

E X E C U T I V E B OA R D Editor-in-Chief Alissa Rothman Managing News Elaine Vilorio, Sophie Murguia Managing Opinion James Liu, Julia Milmed Managing Arts and Living Meghan McCullough, Annalise Nurme Managing Sports Nicole Yang, Karl Greenblatt, Andrew Knox

terms and definitions.

The first thing we learned is that the action “shut down” is two words (as in “shutting down”) but the noun of the instance is one word, such as “government shutdown.”

As explained by Kramer, the U.S. government shut down is due to the House of Representatives and Senate’s failure to pass a continuing resolution (CR), which is “legislation that permits a government agency to continue to operate at existing funding levels if a new appropriations bill to fund its operations has not been adopted by the start of the fiscal year (Oct. 1)” according to the handy dandy National Priorities Project glossary. Although the House did propose a CR, their proposal would not allow funding of the health care reform law, Obamacare.

Suddenly, the issue of economy turned into one of politics. The majority of the Democratic leaders in the House would not approve this new proposal.

According to a recent New York Times article by correspondents Jackie Calmes and Jeremy W. Peters, Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, stated that the House and Senate Democrats had been “blocked by Republicans 18 times in the last six months” when pressed for a conference committee to re-negotiate the 2014 fiscal budget. As the fiscal budget deadline drew closer and closer, the Republicans stood firm, the Democrats

remained stubborn and tensions between the two parties grew. The result?

For the first time in 17 years, Congress’s actions (or rather, inaction) led to the shut down of the U.S. government.

At the moment, there seems to be much finger-pointing and bickering in Washington. President Obama is calling the House Republican shut down of the government an “ideological crusade” in opposition of his health care reform, Obamacare (AP), and is refusing to negotiate the debt ceiling. Mr. Obama is pleading GOP to open the government, stating that “[…] the last time Republicans shut down the government in 1996, it hurt our economy. And unlike 1996, our economy is still recovering from the worst recession in generations” (Calmes and Peters). The Congressional Republican party is torn between those like Representative Scott Rigell of Virginia, who believes the Republicans should let go of the target on the health care law in favor of approving a budget, and those like Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, who believe that it if the Democrats who are not willing to negotiate, that there is “no one on the other side of the table” (Calmes and Peters).

The Congressional Democrats may not be totally blameless in this matter.

Every year, both the Democratic and Republican parties in each house are required to pass twelve appropriations bills (legal documents that allocate

funding for individual agencies) in order to properly fund the government.

This year, the Democrats in the House have passed only four, while the Democrats in the Senate have passed none!

A government shutdown could have been avoided. In the event that the two chambers need more time to agree on a CR, the two houses can approve a shortterm bill to keep the government running (as was the case in 2011), but this year, both parties could not even agree on that.

So where does this leave the American people? The government shutdown affects many “non-essential” federal departments across the country. According to New York Daily News, government services that have ceases during the shutdown include Small Business Loan, Medicare and Social Security Benefits applications, visitation of National Parks, Museums and monuments, as well as IRS auditing. In addition, an estimated 800,000 federal workers have been furloughed, costing the U.S. almost 1 billion dollars a week in lost pay, according to CNN correspondents Holly Yan and Tom Cohen.

Fortunately, essential federal services that continue to be funded include the U.S. Postal Service, 911, existing social security payments, enrollment in health care, air travel, U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection of meat, patents, unemployment checks, food

Letters Policy

S TA F F Design Editor Brendan Hsu, Emy Kelty, Andrew Kim, Brian Beaty News Section Editors David Kang, Noah Morton Opinion Section Editors David Chang, Cheryl Lim, Ashley Montgomery Sports Section Editors Dori Atkins, Jason Stein, Patrick Yang

stamps and the military. Both chambers were able to put their differences aside long enough, hours before the fiscal budget deadline, to approve legalization of paying troops in the event of a shutdown. Ironically enough, since health care is considered an essential federal service with much of the money coming from new taxes, the government shutdown could not halt Obamacare.

On the surface all appears calm, but the longer the shutdown lasts, the worse off the U.S. economy will be. According to Secretary of the Treasury, Jacob Lew, the U.S. government is predicted to run out of borrowing authority (our money) “as soon as Oct. 17,” just a little over a week from now (USA Today).

Furthermore, according to NBCNews contributor, Steve James, the cost of the government shutdown is “about $1.6 billion a week, $300 million a day, or $12.5 million an hour.” Officials in Washington will receive their paychecks regardless of a government stall (this includes the president’s “mandatory spending” salary of $400,000), while many of the American federal workers’ are delayed.

While we wait for leaders in Washington to reach an agreement, Kramer offers the advice of contacting your legislators and demanding “better.” I recommend that we keep this all in mind in November, when it is time for elections.

Publishers Mary Byrne, Nazir Khan, Michael Osorio, David Walchak Copy Editors Darya Barshak, Lauren Benjamin, Claire Drolen, Jasmine Green Photography Editor Olivia Tarantino Senior Editor Brianda Reyes

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.

The views expressed in this publication do not reflect the views of The Amherst Student.

5IF "NIFSTU 4UVEFOU t 0DUPCFS

Standing for Something Continued from “Shining” all of us who have gay and lesbian relatives, friends and colleagues. That is why, in 2013, I am fired up to hear that the gay and lesbian students at Amherst thrive with the love and encouragement of their peers, faculty and administrators. Hats off!

I wish that Amherst’s policy of inclusion was adopted throughout the USA, but, unfortunately, that is far from the case. My state is one of several that outlawed same-sex marriage. Throughout the USA, there are professors, judges and politicians who vilify same-gender couples. And this brings us back to Arkes. He asserts arguments that have been used in the U.S. (and in Uganda) to denigrate homosexuals and victims of rape. For example, in the passage that follows, he is talking about sexual orientation. In his peculiar Arkes-speak, he claims that acceptance of homosexual love will lead us down an “unstable” path: “...[T]he key abstraction, settling [sic] off ripples of self-deception, is that term ‘sexual orientation.’

The term is broad enough to encompass sex with animals, pedophilia, even necrophilia ...[T]he notion of ‘sexual orientation’ is quite unstable: Many people shift back and forth across a spectrum that may now include the bisexual, fetishistic, transvestic, zoophiliac (sex with animals.) … How is anyone’s marriage affected if two men or women are allowed to marry? A while back, a 42-year old woman was barred from living in Stafford, VA with her 19-year old son as man and wife. And Philip Buble in Maine was denied a marriage license for himself and his 37 pound dog Lady. Now how would anyone’s mar-

riage be impaired if these people were allowed to marry as they wished?” (“The Supreme Court Hears the Cases on Marriage”, www.thecatholicthing.org, March 26, 2013, by Hadley Arkes the Ney Professor of Jurisprudence at Amherst College) Imagine if you were a gay teenager and you read the following lies about death and conversions: “Do liberals want to break through conventions with ‘sex education’? Then education it should be: The life-shortening hazards of homosexual behavior should be conveyed, along with information about the other hazards of incautious sex; the record of conversions from homosexual life should be put in texts along with the inconclusive arguments over the ‘gay gene.’” (Arkes in The Weekly Standard, May 23, 2005) Some of Arkes’s earlier contentions are just plain ridiculous. Here is an assertion he made in 1986, but it is still paraphrased by politicians: “... the number of pregnancies resulting from rape in this country is miniscule ... (since) ... the fear induced by rape may interrupt the normal operation of hormones in the body of the woman which in turn may prevent ovulation and conception.” (Arkes, “First Things: An Inquiry into First Principles of Morals and Justice,” 1986.)

I defend Arkes’s right to speak and I reject censorship. However, his comments that are racist, sexist or hateful should be criticized. If the writings are damaging to the College, then let’s say so. If Amherst stands for something better than bigotry, then it needs to separate itself from Arkes’s destructive claims. Amherst’s motto is Terras Irradient. Let us cast the light of truth on dark words.

Life’s Too Short to Work at a Boring Company $ISJTUPQIFS #VSOPS Contributing Writer Chris Burnor ’06 is a professional nerd. He confounded GroupTie in 2012 and currently a curator at StartupDigest and a host on The Drill Down podcast.

This is the time of year when I miss Amherst the most. The few orange or yellow trees I see along the road are a sad imitation of the colors that radiate in the hills of the Pioneer Valley. I am now far from that place, here in a different valley — one known more for silicon and software than puritans and poets. I recall my last autumn in Amherst, when I wondered what I was going to do with this liberal arts education in the dreaded “real world.” There were all sorts of companies, schools, fellowships and internships wooing seniors throughout the year, but the path I chose did not have any career fairs or pamphlets promoting it. I would like to advocate the “unpath” of entrepreneurship, for which, I believe, Amherst grads are uniquely suited.

At the time, I thought that I wanted to go into non-profits. After four years of classes, I had no desire to go on to yet more schooling, and I was suspicious of the business world. Wasn’t that all just greed and, um, more greed? During the financial crisis, I ended up spending several months in Sierra Leone, volunteering with a non-profit (OneVillage Partners) that used microloans to help bring selfsufficiency to rural farmers. With a microloan, a farmer could sell his cocoa for a better price and send his kids to school. With wealthier farmers, the government would be able to raise enough taxes to pay for roads and police and clamp down on bribes and corruption.

It was there, in the midst of the biggest meltdown of capitalism in a generation, that I came to a shocking realization: business can be a social good.

Fundamentally, businesses are supposed to create value — for the owners, for the employees and for the customers.

This totally changed my perspective. Since that trip, I have embedded myself deeply in the startup culture in the Silicon Valley. I’ve seen start-ups and met people, who use businesses as powerful tools to make a huge, positive impact on the world.

Undoubtedly, entrepreneurship is something that Amherst uniquely prepares its graduates to do.

From orientation until commencement, we were told that the liberal arts education was not just about learning, but learning how to learn. Amherst

doesn’t just teach facts, but how to synthesize ideas and think creatively about problems. This is exactly the challenge that a founder or early start-up employee faces every day! Almost by definition, every problem a fledgling company faces has never been dealt with before. How can ScienceExchange better connect researchers with labs? How can OpenGov promote more efficient municipal governments?

How does Minerva Project bring the college into the 21st century? No one really knows the answers to these questions, including the founders and employees of the aforementioned companies themselves. However, they are continually in the process of discovering those answers and figuring out how to create that value they see lacking in the world.

I can hear the question through your head, through the page in your hand and back to my computer: Is entrepreneurship worth a try?

Statistically, most companies fail. With a little bit of seed-funding, a founder can make enough of a salary to live on, but it still seems that for all the work involved, there is a lot of risk in playing the start-up game. For most people, start-ups are, quite honestly, not a particularly good way to get rich.

Start-ups are much better suited for people who want to do them for their own sake. Aside from the value created by the business, start-ups continue the learning experience beyond the classroom. You learn planning, leadership and communication skills. You also learn how industries, people and organizations work. Perhaps, most importantly, you learn that those industries, practices and organizations can be affected and changed. You also learn to work with people firsthand and in-depth.

Your co-founders and co-workers are a unique sort of family, strongly bonded together by experience.

So what’s next? How does one actually explore this career path? The best way to get involved is to get plugged into a community of like-minded people. I hear that Amherst has an entrepreneurship club now. Go join! Also, go to a StartupWeekend and make a startup in a 52 hour period. Sign up for StartupDigest in your area and find start-up events in your hometown (full disclosure: I am a StartupDigest curator). If you have a great idea, apply to YCombinator or 500Startups.

The most important thing you can do to prepare for the start-up world is something that is not limited to this or any career path: don’t be satisfied with how the world is. Change it. Mold it. Make it better.

0QJOJPO 5

On the Question of Sabrina

.BSJB ,JSJHJO Contributing Writer

Dear Amherst Community, Following recent discussions on the lack of Amherst traditions and school spirit, I’m writing today to speak with you candidly on the question of one of the oldest pieces of Amherst folklore, the Sabrina, and on what she means (and what she could mean) to Amherst.

For those among you unaware of this history, Sabrina is a 300 lb. bronze statue of a nymph donated to Amherst College in 1857.

Left undisturbed for only a few years, the then all-male campus began playing pranks on the nude statue, eventually causing the administration to remove her from her repose behind the Octagon and hide her in a nearby barn. It wasn’t until 1891, when students discovered her hiding spot, that a long period of interclass rivalry began, as the odd- and even- classes competed for her possession. Over the years, the tradition has prompted much commotion among the students, though usually at the cost of Sabrina herself. Among these include being thrown down the college well, a car chase where gun fire left her (as well as a number of students) wounded, a decapitation by rival Williams students, being dangled out of a helicopter over a football game, and even a rescue from a glass case in Converse by students who enlisted the help of Prince Albert Grimaldi ’77 at the last minute so they could claim diplomatic immunity if necessary.

In the 1990s, the statue was returned to the college until the Class of 2008 liberated her from a campus basement. While in their care, the statue was completely recast and reattached to a new hand and foot. Her first public appearance in five years was during last year’s Reunion activities, where she was promptly transferred into the care of the Class of 2014.

Having worked in Archives & Special Collections for three years now, I’ve come across my fair share of material depicting the misogynistic attitudes towards Sabrina; she is traditionally treated as a poor, defenseless nymph who suffers various damages and is the prize of whoever has her in their possession. The heyday of the Sabrina tradition (1880s-1930s) reeks of this attitude, and perhaps it may even remain among some of the older Amherst alumni. However, from the perspective of current students, I believe there is another side to this story.

Over the past ten years, Sabrina has made very few appearances on our campus. Knowledge of the statue and its history has diminished significantly, with few students even aware of Sabrina’s existence today. In this context, current students no longer harbor the same sentiments towards the statue as our predecessors. In addition, the Class of 2008’s recent efforts in restoring the statue to its full original glory (she looks as good as new!) means any traces of her previous mistreatments are now literally healed; she has been completely recast. I believe we can do something similar in our beholding of her. Sabrina’s cultural meaning at this moment is malleable and ripe for re-imagination.

Seizing this opportunity to remake the Sabrina tradition is of the greatest importance.

Well-endowed with resources, reputation and quick minds, Amherst College nonetheless suffers from an acute sense of social dislocation.

Our sports teams and a cappella groups do not command universal support from the students, and our mascot (rightly) divides the community. Reaching to the College’s past for common meaning, students find it tainted by racism and misogyny. In short, students today lack a shared cultural connection to their college.

This dislocation entails bracing consequences for Amherst. Social mixing across established groups is perceived as a rarity, and we often do not look each other in the eye. Students are leaving Amherst expressing skepticism that social cohesion is compatible with diversity. I’ve heard several of my fellow seniors already declaring an aversion to “giving back” based on their lack of identification with this place. Left unchecked, these attitudes will do untold damage to this in-

stitution and, by extension, the commitment to diversity it has adopted.

Though no panacea, re-establishing a shared Sabrina tradition is a small step in the right direction — but only if orchestrated carefully and appropriately. The statue is deeply rooted in Amherst’s history and objectionable only for the reactions she once elicited in the students, not for what she actually is. Largely forgotten by recent students, her meaning is now poised for rearticulation. Rather than “sweeping it under the rug” or bringing it to light only for public castigation, we have a chance to reclaim this history for our collective good. Were Sabrina to present herself again — this time speaking in her own voice, and degraded by none — she could become a vital cultural touchstone for our college.

Connecting us with the past in a form adapted and updated to the present, the shared cultural experiences she could foster would be of inestimable value. As a woman who has also endured Amherst male misogyny and sexual misconduct, I can say that seeing Sabrina herself rise up as a survivor of the same would only be refreshing and empowering. Lord Jeff, sadly, is in no position to receive this kind of rehabilitation.

I am not proposing that we change our mascot to Sabrina — that would only degrade her further. But I do think Amherst students desperately need something to rally around. I believe that — again, only if re-introduced carefully and appropriately — Sabrina can become an important part of our college’s future, rather than an anachronism incompatible with what we wish Amherst to be. To continue hiding her from the students and from our history would only be doing her (and the Amherst community) more injustice. But if we take this chance to reclaim and re-imagine our image of Sabrina into a strong and independent female, I could only see it benefiting the campus with a new, (literally) recast tradition and a new female role model for Amherst (of which there are sadly historically few) appropriate and relevant to recent campus issues. In Craig Campbell’s Sept. 3 article for AC Voice, he claims that the “Amherst Apathy” we keep referencing is a myth because our school spirit takes the form of being deeply involved with issues inherent to our campus and history.

In that line of thought, I would add that to continue sweeping Sabrina and her history under the rug would be to perpetuate campus apathy, but to re-imagine her as a strong independent woman takes the dedication to current issues reflective of our school spirit.

In order to do this re-imagining, we will need to update the way we think and speak of the Sabrina. Many have asked me if I “have” the Sabrina statue — no, I don’t “have” her. I do not want to claim “possession” of her. She stands on her own right — it is merely an honor to provide housing for her powerful presence. Instead of “stealing” her from each other, it should rather work something like this: When it is time for the Class of 2014 to pass it on to the next class, she will be left in a neutral place so that the honor of housing and caring for her next is equally available to both odds and evens. Competing for the honor of caring for Sabrina, rather than taking her hostage as a “prize”, grants her the respect she needs and deserves after decades of mistreatment. Furthermore, whenever she makes an appearance, she will not be dragged around back and forth or ridiculed by being clothed or decorated — she will be celebrated for standing up on her own and gracing the students with her presence.

Ultimately, it is up to the students to create a sense of shared meaning here. I hope that you will join me in updating how we think of the Sabrina, and that if she is to make an appearance again, that you will see her with the due respect to which she has a right. The way we regard our traditions is reflective of the way we regard each other — if we think and speak of Sabrina with care and respect, I would hope the same would translate into the way we interact with one another on campus.

Yours, Maria Kirigin ’14

Arts&Living

0DUPCFS t 5IF "NIFSTU 4UVEFOU

“Gravity� Touted as the Future of Cinema

Image courtesy of IUUQ DEO UIFBUMBOUJD DPN

4BOESB #VMMPDL BOE (FPSHF $MPPOFZ EFMJWFS UPQ OPUDI QFSGPSNBODFT UIBU BSF CPUI QIZTJDBMMZ BOE FNPUJPOBMMZ EFNBOEJOH +BLF 8BMUFST Staff Writer I’ve never seen a film quite like “Gravity�.

It’s a thrill ride to end all thrill rides, never letting up in subjecting its characters to situations from bad to worse during its 90-minute running length. “Gravity� is, for those who want a no-frills blockbuster, nerve-wracking in a way that few films are. This is a true edge-of-yourseat motion picture. In fact, it’s much more than that. “Gravity� is a film about mankind trying to control that which they may have no business controlling, an existentialist examination of sur-

Film Review i(SBWJUZw Directed by Alfonso Cuaron Starring: George Clooney and Sandra Bullock

vival in which every choice could mean life or death and an eerie, dread-inducing humanist exploration of what survival against impossible odds entails. “Gravity� is a film that tries to challenge what film can be on a technical level. More than that, it is a film that tries to transform our visual understanding and appreciation of Earth and the outer galaxies. The film plays to populist sensibilities and attempts to earn its large budget back by showcasing destruction and visual splendor to an extent that no film has this year. It’s “2001: A Space Odyssey� meets “Star Wars.� It’s not as eerie as it could have been, but

for all its ambition, “Gravity� is almost entirely successful. It’s the rare film that will likely be both nominated for Best Picture and skyrocket into the hundreds of millions at the box office. “Gravity� has been touted as the future of filmmaking, and while I have reservations about the idea of all future films being as CG-infested as this one, this bold, singular, un-compromising film will be remembered as a game-changer many years in the future.

The story of director Alfonso Cuaron’s labor of love (it’s taken him over seven years to make), is actually pretty simple. Astronauts Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) find themselves stranded in space with little chance of survival after debris from a satellite explosion sends them hurtling into deep space. The meat of the piece is a survival story in a long line of literary and filmic works that attempt to capture the essence of knowing one’s imminent death and fighting to survive regardless. The major difference between that tradition and “Gravity� is of location. “Gravity� gives the final frontier new life. This is the type of film the word “visionary� is coined for. It captures director-writer Alfonso Cuaron’s continuation of his unbroken track record as well as claiming new territory for not only himself but also film as a visual medium. Not since “Avatar� has CG technology enhanced a film’s quality this much. Unlike Cameron’s film, Cuaron is wise enough to let his visuals do the talking: he doesn’t have much of a plot, because it isn’t necessary. The film’s story is its setting. And if film is a medium in which the doctrine “show, not tell� reigns supreme, this is its modern manifesto. With “Gravity,� “show� means something entirely new.

Despite being, nominally, a two-person show, the real star of “Gravity� is the environ-

ment itself: space. Expansive and distant yet immediate and personal, Cuaron’s depiction of space is equaled only by the depiction in “2001: A Space Odyssey�. Cuaron’s commitment to his vision of space as a frightening unknown that humans desire to control is beyond commendable. His subjective camera conveys everything we need to know. The unbroken opening 20-minute take is a highlight as the camera spins around our main characters, at first leisurely and later with force and desperation, to mimic their emotions. At one point, before the take ends, the camera slowly, deliberately and exhaustingly moves within a character’s helmet and then smoothly transitions to the character’s viewpoint, to present space from their perspective.

We aren’t just watching a location in “Gravity� — we are transported to it. And Cuaron’s skill isn’t purely visual; the sounds of silence permeate the film and fill it with a sense of majesty and dread. Everything we do hear is all the more piercing and jarring because of this. It’s often hard to believe “Gravity� wasn’t really filmed in space.

Speaking of sound design, dialogue is at a premium in “Gravity.� Cuaron’s screenplay isn’t the defining feature of the film, but it’s no hindrance either. The first 20 minutes are suitably playful, but after things go awry, the presence or absence of dialogue literally becomes a matter of life and death. On one hand, speaking consumes oxygen, which becomes a precious resource, but as Bullock’s Stone and Clooney’s Kowalski continue to talk with one another even while physically separated, we begin to see that sometimes what they lose in oxygen they make up for in sanity. Everything, including hearing a dog bark over an intercom, takes on greater meaning than it would otherwise.

One moment in particular stands out: Stone, simultaneously resigning herself to death and continuing to fight for survival, delivers a monologue to herself about survival, spirituality, life after death and human interaction. In any other film, this would be cringe-inducing.

Here, however, Bullock’s resigned facial expression and uncommitted tone and Cuaron’s framing transform the speech into something far more disquieting. As she continues to speak lines we’ve heard movie characters say all too often, we begin to realize that she doesn’t necessarily believe anything she’s saying, but it gives her something to say, to hear a voice for one second longer, even if it is her own. She’s telling herself what she wants to hear even though she knows she’s probably wrong.

And, of course, it’s impossible to write about “Gravity� without discussing Clooney’s, and in particular, Bullock’s contribution. Clooney is actually mostly out of the film by the halfway point, allowing Bullock to take center stage, and therefore it’s telling that one of the biggest strengths of “Gravity� is its acting. Don’t get me wrong, Clooney gives a strong, admirable per-

formance, but this is really Bullock’s picture. It’s not a masterful performance, but it comes close, conveying doubt, tension, dread, hope and numerous other emotions, sometimes within seconds of each other. It’s not only a demanding physical performance, but also an emotionally rigorous one, as Bullock uses her eyes and face to convey what she often cannot with words.

Gravity is a singular experience for most of its running length. More than any other film, it makes us feel “space,� even as it acknowledges that we can never understand it. Every breath the characters take is one we take with them, and the sense of verisimilitude is as high as that within any film released this year. That is, for

More than any other film, it “makes us feel “space,� even as it acknowledges that we can never understand it.

�

most of its running length. Toward the end of the film, we start to gain an understanding of its rhythms and motions and begin to understand where it’s heading. The air of existential dread which permeates much of the film doesn’t dissipate entirely, but it is somewhat lessened as the film hurtles (literally) toward its conclusion.

The final ten minutes retain the tension, but it’s more due to the quality of the filmmaking than the plot. If “Gravity� has a misstep, it lies in its final scene. I won’t explicitly spoil anything, but it’s the only moment when the film feels selfindulgent. There’s even a choir. But, for most of its running length, “Gravity� is the most thrilling experience I’ve had in a theater in a long, long time and blows any would-be blockbuster from this summer out of the water. Is it the future of filmmaking? That’s a conversation to be had later on, but right now, in 2013, you should definitely see “Gravity.�

Image via NFEJB OFXJOEJBOFYQSFTT DPN

5IF SFBM TUBS PG i(SBWJUZw JT UIF FO WJSPONFOU JUTFMG

5IF "NIFSTU 4UVEFOU t 0DUPCFS

"SUT -JWJOH 7

Breakfast With “The Breakfast Club�

Image courtesy of TPJDBOLJTTZPVBOZUJNFJXBOU DPN

5FFOT JO i5IF #SFBLGBTU $MVCw TPSU PVU UIFJS QSPCMFNT BOE JOTQJSF UFFOT PG UPEBZ QSPWJOH UIBU UIF T DMBTTJD SFNBJOT SFMFWBOU "TIMFZ . .POUHPNFSZ Staff Writer Friday night, the Friedmann room of Keefe Campus Center took a trip to the eighties. The room’s furniture, although still modern, consisted of comfy arm chairs, high-backed stools, patterned blue-and-white pillows dotting the dance floor and small round tables with chairs surrounding the main wooden floor, was decorated to aid in the viewing of one of the most iconic movies of all time — “The Breakfast Club.�

The movie viewing, dually-sponsored by Amherst Women’s Network and AC After Dark, served various breakfast foods catered

by The Lone Wolf before the movie began (hence the first “breakfast� in the “Breakfast with the Breakfast Club� event title). A wide array of warm and delicious foods were self-serve on tables near the Friedmann room entrance, allowing students to help themselves to crisply-cooked bacon and sausage patties, scrambled eggs with a mixture of bell peppers, cooked and diced potatoes, French toast with syrup, quiche with black beans and a sparkling fruit juice. Although the event was scheduled to begin at 9 p.m., the room was filled and buzzing by 8:58 p.m. and most of the food supply had dwindled.

Twenty minutes after the hour, coordinator of the event, Meghan McCafferty ’14, stepped to the front of the room and introduced the feature presentation. McCafferty enthusiastically expressed her hopes that everyone was enjoying the food and was sure to mention that the Amherst Women’s Network and AC After Dark

had sponsored the event. And how did she come up with the idea to present breakfast with a showing of The Breakfast Club at night? “At one of our [Amherst Women’s Network] meetings, we wanted to come up with an alternative Friday night activity and enjoy some food,� McCafferty said.

This goal was well accomplished. The line for food stretched out the door and partially down the stairs, and many groupings of friends sat and chatted whilst munching on the variety of breakfast foods. Two such friends, Clara “Rizelâ€? Dewitt ’16 and Emily Bai ’16, arrived early enough to grab the cushy pillows on the floor near the projector. They came for both the food and the movie. “Although I’ve seen The Breakfast Club, we usually go the Keefe events, not the socials[‌]I also came to convince my friend to see it,â€? Dewitt said with a look at Bai. Sheepish, Bai clarified, “No, I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I’ve heard about it and probably seen a few parts so I am very excited.â€?

There seemed to be an equal mixture of participants who had seen the movie and who had not. Yasmina Martin ’14, who had seen The Breakfast Club “plenty of times�, came for both the food and because she enjoys many “Brat Pack� (the nickname given to a group of young actors who frequently appeared in movies in the 1980s films). “I just really like [John Hughes’s] films, like ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off ’ and ‘Sixteen Candles,’� Martin said. “They make me a bit nostalgic.�

The room was still loud with laughter and an indistinct hum of dialogue when the lights dimmed and the DVD screen appeared

on the projector. Even when the opening credit of the film (a David Bowie quote: “And these children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds; are immune to your consultations, they’re quite aware of what they’re going through�) came on-screen, the chatting was still eager. However, when Sherman High School came into view, all talking ceased.

I won’t spoil the entire movie for those who have not seen it, but the next 97 minutes were enjoyable for everyone present. Cast favorites among the audience were Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall), also known as the “brain� of the group, as well as “basket case�

Allison Reynolds (Ally Sheedy) and “criminal� John Bender (Judd Nelson). Although many laughs were had in response to antiquated lingo (“Eat my shorts,� “wastoid,� “sporto,� etc.), quiet moments during the film came during the character’s realizations that their outward appearances didn’t necessarily reflect their personalities, that there is every bit of “a brain, and an athlete [Andrew Clark (Emilio Estevez)], and a basket case, a princess [Claire Standish (Molly Ringwald)] and a criminal� in all of us.

When the ending credits rolled and the lights went up, chairs and tables were moved back to their respective locations, but the atmosphere was still that of an ’80s high school. Students laughed and quoted their favorite parts and characters. Like much of the audience, Bai’s favorite character was Brian, and she enthusiastically stated that she would “definitely watch the movie again.� Whether or not you have Lone Wolf catering for you, this ’80s classic is definitely worth seeing again and again!

Image courtesy of TFMmTIMZIBQQZ CMPHTQPU DPN

$BUFSJOH GSPN 5IF -POF 8PMG QSPWJEFE B TBWPSZ DPNQBOJPO UP UIF NPWJF

Musical Renaissance Girl Makes Impact 3BDIFM +PIOTPO Contributing Writer

Who doesn’t get that high when the passion someone has for what you’re doing flows into you? Especially when they are just beginning their journey to reach their aspirations. It is hard not to wish them the best of luck. That is the kind of excitement that rubs off when speaking with musician and entrepreneur Ravahn Duval (aka DUVV).

This promising hip-hop artist and founder the online music magazine, Turntable Mag, is what most people strive to be: easy going, funny and always with a positive outlook on life. A friend once described her as “Ambitious, fun, caring, independent and inspirational.� When you meet her, her “fun� and “caring� sides are immediately apparent.

Once you begin speaking with her about her music and plans, you realize the extent of her drive and the strength of her independence.

Though Ravahn is just starting off, this nineteen-year-old native New Yorker is already becoming an inspiration. “I want people to feel something special when they hear my music.� DUVV describes herself as a hip-hop artist and singer.

Her music, however, does not fall into one genre. Her sound is more experimental; she blends trillwave, hip-hop, R&B and indie to-

gether. She raps and sings above trill beats saying exactly what she wants to say with a no-nonsense kind of toughness. She succeeds at pulling the listener in by enhancing and sometimes contrasting her lyrics with her sultry, sometimes even innocent, voice.

Her first EP, which was released Aug. 28, “pillowtalk,� features five songs: “Tonight,� “Windows,� “Skits,� “Hush� and “Drive.� In “Tonight,� she sings with an artificial echo,

above a contrasting and distorted deeper version of her voice. In the song she sings about rising up and ending a stressed relationship.

In her song “Skits,� she takes control again.

She raps, and makes it known that she knows better than to follow the fakers. In “Windows,� she reminds us that everything will be fine in the end, so stop worrying about the future and take a break from work. A message everyone, especially college students,

Image courtesy of thefourohfive.com

3BWBIO %VWBM BLB %677 JT B NPEFSO SFOBJTTBODF HJSM XIP CMFOET USJMM XBWF IJQ IPQ 3 # BOE JOEJF BMM UPHFUIFS

needs to hear.

It’s hard to believe that despite her hectic schedule, she gets to take breaks. In addition to working on her music and finishing her education, she also runs the digital Turntable Magazine. Based in New York, it is one of those websites that is impossible to get off of, no matter how many times you tell yourself to. This site features an array of talented artists in and outside of the underground music scene. The magazine’s motto stands true, as “Real People. Real Music.� is what visitors find. Turntable Magazine is a place to browse, discover and become inspired not only by music but by individuals too. A secondary feature to the website, Rebel Engine features the creative, positive and inspirational minds of today. Ravahn frankly proclaims, “There are no gimmicks with us. Good music is good music. This is a magazine that’s just as much about the listeners as it is about the musicians.� She follows a similar motto in her music. The name DUVV is not only a clever mix of her last name and the bird but in her own words “is a way to represent my music as a sign of good things to come.�

Check out DUVV on soundcloud at www.soundcloud.com/duvvofficial Discover new music and new people on Turntable Magazine at http://turntablemag. com.

"SUT -JWJOH

5IF "NIFSTU 4UVEFOU t 0DUPCFS

The Not-So-Solitary Breakfast Spot

&MMJF "OEFSTFO Staff Writer

Party playlists are difficult. Sometimes you pick that song that makes the girls stop, stare in wonder, scream a bit and then dance wildly while belting out the lyrics. At other times, everyone boos you away from the speakers and asks how you could possibly have chosen that song while frantically scrolling through the iPod for one they think people will actually enjoy. I’ve been there. It’s rough. Sometimes I would love to have a 5-minute dance party by myself and then return to reality.

Now, you’re probably wondering how this experience pertains to food. While I wouldn’t say that I generally get booed out of decisions regarding restaurants or dining parties, I do sometimes find myself toying with the prospect of eating alone, off campus and away from the confines of a small college like Amherst, in the same way that I sometimes wish I could escape into my own bubble of personally-chosen music at parties. Don’t get me wrong, I love Amherst, but there are times‌ This Friday would fall into that category, so I got away. I left Amherst and visited Cushman Market and CafÊ. If you have ever used Delivery Express, then you have probably noticed Cushman Market and CafÊ on the list, and you have probably skipped over it because you have never heard of it. However, Cushman is not too far away, just near Puffer’s Pond, and it always seems to be bustling with locals.

The market portion offers a selection of wine, beer, snacks and silly trinkets, while the cafĂŠ serves breakfast until 11 a.m. and lunch until 3 p.m. On Sundays, the kitchen serves brunch from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. with specials like the Hefty, which is two blueberry pancakes, two eggs and two slices of bacon.

This past Friday morning, I parked behind

Image courtesy of VSCBOTQPPO DPN

*G ZPV SF MPPLJOH GPS B CSFBL GSPN "NIFSTU BOE TPNF HSFBU GPPE $VTINBO .BSLFU BOE $BGF JT UIF TQPU Cushman, scooted through the rain and rushed into the bustling cafĂŠ by way of the back door.

I maneuvered past the various tables that lined the walls and peppered the interior and made my way to the counter, where I spent the next few minutes struggling to choose my breakfast.

The breakfast menu includes such entrees as the Morning Glory ($6.77), a breakfast classic consisting of local Sidehill Farm yogurt, homemade granola and fresh fruit; the Mariner ($8.27), a bagel with smoked salmon, cream cheese, lettuce, onion and tomato; and the Jolly Rabbit ($8.27), an omelette containing goat cheese, spinach and roasted red peppers, all accompanied by rosemary roasted potatoes and multigrain toast with jam.

Cushman also has a menu entitled “Egg on a Roll,� meaning they serve delectable breakfast sandwiches all day! (Or until the kitchen closes at 3 p.m.). None of these sandwiches exceeds

Start Your Career in Accounting.

$5.25 and all are sure to satisfy your taste buds and stomach. Two of my favorites are the Boss ($5.25), an egg with avocado, bacon and cheddar, and the Top Dog ($5.25), an egg with caramelized onions, tomato, cheddar and bacon. However, if I find myself in a minimalist mood, I can always resort to the one egg on a roll ($2.50) or one egg with cheese ($2.99). The final decision arrives in the choice of bread. I usually pick multigrain, although Cushman also offers white, whole wheat and gluten-free. Speaking of dietary restrictions, I hate to say that I have not seen many options for vegans, but I think that vegetarians could survive quite contentedly at Cushman.

Finally, I arrived at decision, stepped up to the counter and ordered the Hurdy Gurdy ($8.27), an omelet filled with caramelized onions, sautÊed mushrooms and Gruyere and served with rosemary roasted potatoes and multigrain toast. I will admit that I also ordered a Maple Speckled Hen, otherwise known as steamed milk with a shot of maple syrup—what could be tastier? And, if you find yourself to be a beverage lover, then you are sure to love Cushman for the various coffee concoctions, smoothies and teas, as well as Italian sodas.

Toting my second beverage, the classic college student’s large coffee, I turned from the counter to face the main room. Along the back

wall, I spotted two free tables among those occupied by grown ups busily typing on laptops plugged into the convenient extension cords provided. I plopped down at a table, nudged my hat a bit lower, pulled out my readings and learned about the beginnings of American foreign relations as I listened to the low, happy jazz playing in the background. Soon enough, I heard someone call “Ellie!� and looked up to see the woman who had taken my order walking my way with my Hurdy Gurdy.

I almost burnt my tongue on the steaming omelette, but caught myself. I enjoyed piling the toast with the fluffy eggs, savory mushrooms, slightly sweet onions and tangy, melted Gruyere, but I now know I’m partial to Cushman’s breakfast sandwiches, particularly when I realize that there is no way I could finish the Hurdy Gurdy by myself.

At the end of the meal, I can conclude that Cushman is a great spot for any size of party and a good choice when I want to get away from campus but not as far as Northampton. Furthermore, I love the local feel of Cushman as everyone seems to know one another and the atmosphere becomes that of a friendly community of supportive people. I consider Cushman to be my go to for awesome breakfast sandwiches and a great atmosphere.

Five College Events Thursday, September 12

The D’Amore-McKim MS in Accounting/MBA for non-accounting majors: t &BSO UXP EFHSFFT JO KVTU NPOUIT t $PNQMFUF B NPOUI QBJE SFTJEFODZ BU B MFBEJOH BDDPVOUJOH mSN t )JTUPSZ PG KPC QMBDFNFOU

Take the first step.

7JTJU VT POMJOF PS BU BO JOGPSNBUJPO TFTTJPO OFBS ZPV -FBSO NPSF BCPVU UIF QSPHSBN BOE VQDPNJOH FWFOUT BU msamba.northeastern.edu

Become our fan on Facebook. facebook.com/northeasternuniversitymsamba

NTBNCB OPSUIFBTUFSO FEV

HTQB!OFV FEV

“5-College Clothesline Project,â€? 9 a.m.—2 p.m., Amherst College The Clothesline gives women and men an opportunity to break the silence about violence by creating shirts that give voice to their personal experience(s). The shirts are then hung shoulder to shoulder on a clothesline for public viewing. The Clothesline Project bears witness to victims and survivors of violence, aids and supports in the healing process of those who have lost a loved one or who have themselves been victims/survivors of violence and breaks the silence and unites local people with those around the country and the world in a demonstration of solidarity against physical, verbal, sexual, psychological and social abuse. “Feminist Technologies and the Tech Workplace,â€? 4:30 p.m.—6 p.m., Mount Holyoke College In her talk, artist-technologist Annina RĂźst will outline how she thinks through the lack of women in tech spaces. The talk will start with an overview of how researchers from different disciplines explain the gender imbalance in the technology workplace. Based on this, she will explain her approach to creating feminist technologies. Specifically, she will talk about her project “A Piece of the Pie Chartâ€?, a machine that puts pie chart visualizations gender data onto (edible) pies. She will conclude with an

outlook on other ongoing and future projects. Free and open to the public. “Word Becomes Flesh,� 7:30 p.m., UMass Word Becomes Flesh integrates spoken word, hip-hop theatre, contemporary dance and live music to document nine months of pregnancy from a young single father’s perspective. The play fuses tender stories, playful wit and at times, purposeful rage to give voice to complexities and contradictions surrounding race, gender and the black male identity in the 21st century. Post-show discussion/reception with the artists immediately following the performance until 10 p.m., Campus Center Reading Room.

Friday, September 13

“Community Class: Perspectives on Language and Theater’ with Marie Roche,� 1 p.m. – 3 p.m., UMass This class investigates the stage as a place of linguistic and philosophical questioning; contemporary philosophical debates. Explore the dramatizations on stage of the profound early modern preoccupation on the nature of language.

First meeting will be on the play The Taming of the Shrew. No specific background is required. Free. Call to register by October 3. Contact: Vince 413-577-3600 or renaissance@english.umass.edu.

by Meghan McCullough ’15

5IF "NIFSTU 4UVEFOU t 0DUPCFS

4QPSUT

Field Hockey Improves to 7-2 with Seventh Straight Win Culhane Notches Hat Trick In Victory Over Hamilton

Megan Robertson, ‘15 Public Affairs Office .BEFMJOF 5BOL "OOJLB /ZHSFO BOE 4BSBI $BOOJOH DFMFCSBUF POF UIF +FGGT FJHIU HPBMT PO UIF EBZ BU )BNJMUPO -BVSFO 5VJTLVMB Staff Writer Heading into their final stretch of regular season games, the No. 11-ranked Jeffs looked to keep their winning streak alive. They did just that, defeating both Keene State and Hamilton this past week.

The first win, over the Owls (9-2), came on Thursday, Oct. 3. The Jeffs played host in the match and dealt the Keene State squad just their second loss of the year.

Annika Nygren ’16 got the scoring started for Amherst. After a pair of shots by midfielder Alex Phillie ’14 and forward Krista Zsitvay, ’14

NESCAC ROUNDUP Football

Wesleyan 41, Colby 0 Bowdoin 13, Tufts 10 Trinity 48, Hamilton 13 Bates 14, Williams 10

Men’s Soccer

Bowdoin 1, Trinity 1 Wesleyan 1, Colby 0 Conn. College 2, Bates 0 Tufts 1, Middlebury 0 Bowdoin 4, Bates 1

Women’s Soccer

Colby 1, Wesleyan 0 Conn. College 2, Bates 1 Bowdoin 3, Trinity 0 Middlebury 2, Tufts 1 Williams 2, Springfield 0

Field Hocky

Bowdoin 2, Trinity 1 Bates 2, Conn. College 1 Wesleyan 2, Colby 1 Tufts 4, Middlebury 2

Volleyball

Bowdoin 3, Colby 0 Williams 3, Tufts 0 Wesleyan 3, Middlebury 1 Trinity 3, Hamilton 0 Middlebury 3, Trinity 0 Williams 3, Conn. College 1 Wesleyan 3, Hamilton 1 Bates 3, Colby 2

Nygren was able to gain control of the rebound and find the back of the net just over three and a half minutes into play.

Keene State answered ten minutes later as Sami Smith found Haylie Dolan in front of the net to knot things at one.

Just as the first half was ending, the Jeffs put together a strong offensive drive to take the lead heading into the half.

The opportunity came off a corner, one of four won by Amherst in the half. Nygren had her second of the day as she tucked a rebound off of a Madeline Tank ’15 shot into the right corner.

The Jeffs took their goal lead into the intermission and came out of the break strong, looking to supplement their one goal cushion.

Tank and Phillie both put on good efforts, having consecutive shots on goal, but the attempts were turned away by Keene State goalie Chloe Audesse.

Amherst keeper Rachel Tannenbaum ’15 responded to her counterparts saves and made a diving stop to shut down the attack of Keene’s Leddy Gallagher.

Katie Paolano ’16 added an insurance goal for Amherst in the 53rd minute. She took the assist from Tank and pocketed it to the left side of the

cage.

Keene State did not go quietly as they cut the deficit in half with just under five minutes remaining in the game. Marisa Lemoine gathered the assist from Smith and beat Tannenbaum to her left to make the score 3-2.

The Jeffs would ensure that the decision fell their way however, as Tank gained control of the ball and cleared it out of Amherst’s defense half during the Owls’ final offensive push.

Paolano acknowledged the back and forth nature of the game. “Both teams were fast and athletic,� Paolano said. “But we took care of the ball while maintaining our composure throughout the game.�

This composure reflected in the numbers as the Jeffs had a total of 12 corners on the day, a 12-2 advantage over Keene and also held the advantage in shots, 23-4.

They carried this high offensive power with them as they travelled to Hamilton for a NESCAC contest on Saturday, Oct. 5.

Six different Jeffs scored in their 8-0 rout of the Continentals.

Tank began the scoring frenzy for the Jeffs, scoring her eighth goal on the year off an assist from Zsitvay.

Nygren found the back of the net fifteen minutes later as she finished Paolano’s first assist on the day.

Paolano’s second assist came as she fed Kerry Fusco ’15 with just over eleven minutes remaining in the first half.

The Jeffs had offensive control for the majority of the first half and went into the break with a 3-0 lead.

Sara Culhane ’17 was the story of the second half. She earned a hat trick over just a twenty minute span scoring off two assists from fellow forward Zsitvay and a third from Nygren.

Paolano got involved in the scoring action with nine minutes remaining in the game as she netted a rebound that bounced off the pads of Hamilton keeper Hannah Keohane.

Zsitvay would provide the final blow as she blasted a shot from just inside the shooting arc, an opportunity that stemmed from an Amherst penalty corner.

Tannenbaum made six saves and split the shut out with Emily Horwitz ’17, the Jeffs fourth shutout on the year.

The win allowed Amherst to maintain their spot atop the NESCAC standings, a spot they now share with Tufts, the defending national champions.

With only four NESCAC contests remaining in the regular season, the Jeffs will travel to Colby (5-2-1) on Saturday, Oct. 12 for a crucial conference battle.

Volleyball Sweeps NESCAC Matches Against Conn. and Tufts "OEZ ,OPY Managing Sports Editor The Amherst volleyball team had a very successful weekend after sweeping both Conn. College and Tufts in a pair of NESCAC matches. “This was a huge weekend for the team in that we needed to win these two matches to put ourselves at the top of the NESCAC standings,� said Sammy Newby ’16.

Entering the weekend the Firedogs were 1-2 and in seventh place, but emerged from the weekend 3-2 and tied for fourth place in hot pursuit of NESCAC leader Williams.

Amherst started the weekend on the right foot with a sweep of Conn. College. The Firedogs continued their stingy defense, limiting the Camels to a .045 hitting percentage for the match.

Amherst had 14 blocks, led by junior captain Lauren Antion ’15 with six. First-year Jackie Buechler also contributed three blocks to the team effort. “I think overall our blocking and serve receive were what we did best, and it is always rewarding to see what we practice every week translate so well into game time situations,�

Newby said.

The Amherst offense was paced by the trio of first-year Maggie Danner, who led the team with 12 kills, and Antion and Newby, who each recorded eight kills. Setter Nicole Carter ’16 continued her strong play with 31 assists.

The offense was firing on all cylinders in the first set, hitting .419 before cooling off the rest of the match. However, the defense maintained the momentum and the Jeffs were able to sweep the Camels 25-14, 25-20 and 25-18. “We set the pace right off the bat and kept it the whole weekend, which is what ultimately put us on top,� Newby said.

The momentum from the first match carried into their match against Tufts the next day. The Jumbos came into the weekend tied for first place in the NESCAC and looking to stay perfect in league play. After dropping a straight set loss to Williams, Tufts looked to rebound against Amherst.

However, the Firedogs refused to let the Jumbos rebound Saturday. “Most importantly we played with a sense of urgency and even though we lost the second game in the Tufts match, we never gave up and fought for every point,� Newby said.

The Firedogs continued their tough defense with 14

blocks on the match. Amherst held Tufts to .154 hitting percentage on the afternoon and stifled the Jumbos attack for much of the match.

After winning the first set 25-23, the Firedogs dropped the second 15-25. However, Amherst wouldn’t be stopped and won the next two games 25-18 and 25-19 respectively.

Four Firedogs notched double digit kills on the match, led by Danner with 16 kills. Nicole Gould ’17 continued her strong campaign with 14 kills. Carter notched 50 assists on the match to drive the Amherst offense. Katie Warshaw ’16 continued her impressive defensive play with 26 digs on the match and moved into third place in the NESCAC in digs per set.

After three weeks of NESCAC play, the Firedogs are 10-7 overall and 3-2 in the NESCAC. “Based on the past couple of weeks I am extremely proud and excited to see where the rest of the season goes because I think we will only continue to get better,� Newby said.

Amherst will look to continue their level of play with a non-conference match against a strong Westfield State squad Wednesday at 7 p.m. in LeFrak Gymnasium. League play will resume Friday night with a match at second place Middlebury and then a match at last place Hamilton on Saturday.

Megan Robertson, ’15 Public Affairs Office ,BUJF 8BSTIBX DFMFCSBUFT XJOOJOH B CJH QPJOU BHBJOTU $POO $PMMFHF

10 Sports

5IF "NIFSTU 4UVEFOU t 0DUPCFS

Schedule WEDNESDAY Volleyball vs. Westfield State, 7 p.m.

FRIDAY Volleyball @ Middlebury, 8 p.m.

SATURDAY Men’s Tennis @ Johns Hopkins, 1 p.m. @ Wallach Invitational, All Day Women’s Cross Country @ NEICAAA, 11 a.m.

Men’s Cross Country @ NEICAAA, 1:15 p.m.

Women’s Golf @ Wellesley Invitational (Day 1 of 2), All Day Men’s Golf @ ECAC Championships (Day 1 of 2), All Day

Volleyball @ Hamilton 2 p.m.

Field Hockey @ Colby, 11 a.m.

Men’s Soccer @ Colby, 1:30 p.m.

Women’s Soccer @ Colby, 11 a.m.

Football @ Colby, 1 p.m SUNDAY Women’s Golf @ Wellesley Invitational (Day 2 of 2), All Day Men’s Golf @ ECAC Championships (Day 2 of 2), All Day Men’s Tennis @ Carnegie Mellon, 1 p.m. @ Wallach Invitational, All Day Men’s Soccer @ Husson, 2:30 p.m.

Women’s Soccer Shuts Out Pair of Opponents Chris Rigas ’16 Staff Writer Amherst women’s soccer, lifted by their sixth and seventh shutouts of the year, collected two away wins this week, defeating Mount Holyoke 4-0 and Hamilton 2-0.

The Jeffs owned a 2-1-2 NESCAC record entering Saturday’s clash with Hamilton, a mark that reflected the tense nature of their previous conference games; only one of which failed to go to overtime.

Hamilton entered the game with a 1-2-1 conference record.

Amherst threatened early when the Hamilton defense misplayed a back pass, leading to a shot on Continental goalkeeper Liza Gergenti.

The visitors broke through in the 17th minute, when Hannah Cooper ’14 deflected a corner kick to Jessy Hale ’16, who tapped it in from in front of the net. Amherst carried the 1-0 lead into halftime.

After being outshot 7-5 in the first half, Hamilton stepped up its pressure in the second half. The Continentals manufactured a couple one-on-one opportunities on keeper Holly Burwick ’16: first they fired wide from the left side, then Burwick came off her line to thwart a breakaway attempt from Continental Kendall Daly.

When asked to comment, Burwick commended the defense. “So far, our back line hasn’t allowed the other teams too many opportunities, so I haven’t had nearly as much work to do as I could easily have had at this point in the season. We’ve done a great job at cover defending, so we’ve really denied teams a lot of dangerous opportunities,” Burwick said.

Hamilton continued to press the issue, as a cross bounced through the box to Becca Rees at the back post, but her header went wide. Amherst finally put the game away with just over six minutes remaining.

Sarah Duffy ’14 made a nice run down the end line, shaking off a defender and finishing with a close-range shot from a tough angle. The Jeff ’s two-goal victory came despite a 15-12 edge in shots for Hamilton.

“Hamilton played a great game,” head Coach Jen Hughes said. “To be honest, they outplayed us. That said, we capitalized on our chances and stayed composed at the end

of the game.”

Last Wednesday, in a rematch from earlier this season, Amherst beat Mount Holyoke 4-0.

In the first game, Amherst had a 6-0 lead on the Lyons until the game was cut short by lightning. This time, they were in control from the beginning.

They finished with a 34-5 advantage in shots, and, despite 14 saves from Holyoke keeper Zoe Marshall, the Jeffs scored twice in each half. Cooper opened the scoring in the 14th minute with an unassisted goal, then Megan Kim ’16 scored once on both sides of halftime, in the 21st minute on a Duffy assist and in the 58th from an Ariana Twomey ’15 pass. Sarah Frohman ’17 added the fourth marker, and her first collegiate goal, when she tucked a corner into the right side of the net in the 87th minute.

With the result, Amherst increased its winning streak against Mount Holyoke to 14 games.

Considering this week’s victories and last Sunday’s 3-0 win over Bates, the Jeff offense has scored at a more consistent pace than earlier in the season.

“I would attribute our recent goal scoring to creating better chances,” Hughes said. “I don’t think we created a lot of high percentage chances at the beginning of the season. We lacked an attacking mentality in our final third. We’ve really focused on cultivating a more attacking mentality — our strength over the past couple of seasons — in practices and it’s started to pay off in games.

In short, we’re being more aggressive in our attack.”

Meanwhile, the team continues to impress defensively: the shutouts of Mount Holyoke and Hamilton mean that Tufts remains the only team to solve the Jeff back line.

“In general, our defense — all over the field — has been playing lights out and that has enabled us to weather pressure from our opponents,” Hughes said.

The wins bring Amherst to 5-1-2 overall and 3-1-2 in the NESCAC. Their conference record puts them in third place, within striking distance (4 points) of first-place Trinity.

The Jeffs beat Eastern Conn. State 4-1 Tuesday and travel to Colby (1-4 NESCAC, 3-4 overall) on Saturday.

players of the week

Landrus Lewis ’14E

Jessy Hale ‘16

Favorite Team Memory: Winning the 2010

Favorite Team Memory: Synchronized swimming competition If you didn’t play soccer, which sport would you want to play?: Tennis Pet Peeve: When people are late Celebrity Crush: Matt Damon Favorite Movie: “The Blind Side” Favorite Book: The Chronicles of Narnia Favorite Food: My mom’s mashed potatoes Favorite Thing About Amherst: The people you meet

NESCAC title on Williams’ field If you didn’t play football, which sport would you want to play?: Basketball Pet Peeve: Sloppy eating Celebrity Crush: Sanaa Lathan Favorite Movie: “Love and Basketball” Favorite Book: The Power of One Favorite Food: Asian Cusine Favorite Thing About Amherst: The relationships you form

Men’s Tennis Blanks MIT Women Fall to Archrival Williams Nicole Yang ’16 Managing Sports Editor Men The Amherst men’s tennis team had an excellent day on Saturday, shutting out MIT, 9-0. Nine different players represented Amherst in their three doubles and six singles matches on the day. Overall, the Jeffs performed very well, outscoring MIT 92-45 in total games.

The team started off the afternoon strong by sweeping all three of the doubles matches.

Senior captains Joey Fritz and Justin Reindel led the team in the number one spot and defeated their opponents easily, 8-1. Sophomores Aaron Revzin and Michael Solimano had similar success in the second spot, winning 8-3.

When asked to reflect on his partner’s day, Revzin noted, “Mike had a great performance on and off the court. We’re hoping to see that more as the year progresses”.

In the third spot Andrew Yaraghi ’16 and Anton Zykov ’17 were able to beat their opponents, 8-4, to close the doubles action on the day.

In the singles action, Andrew Arnaboldi ’17 made his collegiate debut in the sixth spot. After winning the first set, 6-4, Arnaboldi dropped the second set by the same score before coming back to win an extremely competitive third set tiebreak 10-8.

Fellow first-year Myles Tang continued his consistent play and routed his opponent, Dennis Garcia, 6-0, 6-3.

Zykov made quick work of his opponent as well, winning in the third spot, 6-3, 6-2.

Yaraghi also recorded another win in the number two spot, defeating Kevin Wang in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4.

Senior Justin Hendrix saw the court for the first time this fall by playing in the fourth singles spot, where he had no trouble against his opponent, Curtis Wu, overpowering him by a score of 6-1, 6-2.

Leading the team in the first singles spot, Fritz had a tough match, as he couldn’t capture the first set, losing 4-6. However, the veteran player was able to bounce back and win the second set, 6-2, as well as the third set tiebreak 10-3.

After a successful day of tennis for the Jeffs, Revzin commented, “Seems like every-

one on the team is starting to play really well headed into the most important weekend of the fall season”.

The Jeffs will split squads this weekend to close their fall season. Part of the team will travel to Bates for the two-day Wallach Invitational, while others will travel to compete in dual matches against Johns Hopkins on Saturday and Carnegie Mellon on Sunday.

Women The Amherst women’s tennis team did not have the same success this past weekend as they fell to their archrivals Williams in their only dual match of the fall season.

The day started off slowly as Williams won two of the three doubles matches. Jordan Brewer ’14 and Gabby Devlin ’14 continued their dominance as a pair, notching the team’s only doubles win, 8-3, in the number one spot.

Zoe Pangalos ’14 and Jen Newman ’14 fell in the two spot, 8-6, in a closely contested match. Safi Aly ’15 and Sue Ghosh ’16 weren’t able to figure out their opponents in the third spot, losing 8-3.

Unfortunately, the Jeffs did not achieve much more success in the singles matches, as they only were able to record two wins.

Devlin won her match in the number two spot, 6-3, 6-4 and number three Newman was able to win her match as well in a competitive three set match, 6-4, 1-6, 6-1.

In the third spot, Ghosh and her opponent couldn’t have been more evenly matched as they battled to two tiebreaks. Sadly, she ultimately wasn’t able to come out victorious in either set, losing 6-7, 6-7 with tiebreak scores of 1-7 and 4-7. Regardless, Ghosh played some excellent tennis and fought hard.

In fifth and sixth spots, Pangalos and first-year Amanda Zalameda proved to be no match for their Williams opponents and they both lost in straight sets. Pangalos by a score of 3-6, 1-6, and Zalameda by a score of 1-6, 1-6.

In the number one spot, Brewer gave her opponent her best effort and lost a cutthroat first set, 5-7, before getting blanked in the second set, 0-6.

The Jeffs have two weeks to regroup before their next series of matches at the three day tournament, NEWITT, which is the weekend of Friday, Oct. 18.

5IF "NIFSTU 4UVEFOU t 0DUPCFS

Sports 11

Men’s Soccer Struggles in Firing Lane Kiffin Hard Knox 1-1 Tie at Hamilton Andy Knox ’16

Jason Stein ’16 Sports Section Editor On Saturday, Oct. 5, Amherst Men’s Soccer took on the Hamilton Continentals at Love Field in Clinton, New York. Although Amherst did not manage to come away with the victory, the Jeffs salvaged a 1-1 tie with Hamilton and extended their unbeaten streak to 29 games.

The Jeffs entered play at 7-0-1 overall (50-1 in the NESCAC) and the third-ranked team in the nation, while Hamilton came in at 2-2-2 overall (1-1-2 in the NESCAC). Amherst had won its past three matches, while Hamilton just came off a big 1-0 win the previous week against Wesleyan.

The two teams headed to halftime in a scoreless tie, but not without scoring opportunities for both squads. The Jeffs held a slight 6-5 edge in shots in the first 45 minutes of play, while also holding a 4-1 corner kick advantage over the Continentals.

Hamilton moved ahead quickly in the second half, as they scored less than two minutes into the half. Hamilton took the lead on a goal from Dan Kraynak, who struck the ball to the right of a diving goalkeeper Thomas Bull ’16. Kraynak’s goal, his second score of the season, was assisted by Griffin Abbott.

Amherst managed to come from behind to tie the game in the 76th minute of action.

Following a strong throw-in from striker Christopher Martin ’17, sophomore forward Nico Pascual-Leone executed a diving header that found the back of the net.

Pascual-Leone grabbed his third goal of the season and Martin picked up his teamleading fourth assist on the key play.

When asked to comment on his goal, Pascual-Leone remarked, “We had been getting a lot of chances in the second half but hadn’t put any away yet. Justin Aoyama put in a great cross, and Elliot drew a pair of defenders toward him, so I just made a run in front of my defender and got a head on it”.

To date, Pascual-Leone leads the team in points with nine (three goals and three assists), while Martin follows with eight total points (two goals and four assists).

After tying the game in regulation and forcing overtime, Amherst would not go down without a fight. Amherst had already posted 17 shots by the end of regulation and put six more shots on goal in the second pe-

riod of overtime alone.

With just under five minutes to go in the second overtime, Julien Aoyama ’14 nearly scored off a header, but Hamilton goalie Fred Porges was there to make the save. Off a corner kick sent in by Pascual-Leone shortly after Aoyama’s effort, first-year midfielder Andrew Orozco’s ’17 dangerous scoring attempt was denied by Porges, who notched a career-high 11 saves against the Jeffs.

The final whistle blew at the end of double overtime to mark a 1-1 tie between the Jeffs and Continentals. The Jeffs had a 23-10 shot advantage during the course of the game and a 10-6 corner kick advantage.

While the result might not have been as good as anticipated, Amherst was forced to play from behind for the first time since their matchup with Middlebury four weeks ago.

“I certainly don’t like playing from behind but I was happy with how we kept our composure and found a way to score,” said Coach Justin Serpone. “We outshot Hamilton after the goal was scored 17-5, so we responded well, but we can’t count on that. We easily could have lost that game on Saturday.”

Pascual-Leon added, “We came out flat.

We were outworked in the first half and the first few minutes of the second half. We ended up turning things around, but it’s hard to win a game only playing half of it”.

After the tie, Amherst moved to 7-0-2 (5-0-2 in the NESCAC) on the season, while Hamilton pushed their overall record to 2-23 (1-1-3 in the NESCAC).

In their first nine games in 2013, Amherst has scored four times as many goals as they have allowed; they have netted 20 goals and only allowed five scores through their game against Hamilton. Amherst continues to sit atop the NESCAC standings, as they have accumulated 17 total conference points, with five NESCAC victories and two draws, and remain the only unbeaten team in the NESCAC. Amherst will head to Maine this weekend for a pair of games. The Jeffs take on NESCAC-opponent Colby at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday and then will face Husson Univ. at 2:30 p.m. in a non-conference game on Sunday.

Colby will be looking for their first NESCAC victory, as the Mules currently stand at 3-5 overall (0-5 in the NESCAC) after their 1-0 loss to Wesleyan in double overtime this past Saturday.

Women’s Golf Places Fourth at Williams Invitational Dori Atkins ’16 Sports Section Editor Men Two Jeffs received individual honors while the men’s golf team had a week off ahead of the ECAC Championships this weekend.

Sophomore James Line and junior Josh Moser were both named to NESCAC AllConference Teams for their performances at the conference championshi p qualifier.

Line finished fifth overall at the tournament, earning him a spot on the first team, while Moser finished tied for 12th overall and received second team honors.

Women The women’s golf team placed fourth of fifteen at the Williams Fall Invitational this past weekend.

Ending day one in third place, the Jeffs unfortunately dropped ten strokes collectively on day two to earn the fourth place finish.

The tournament went to the host Williams, while Middlebury and Ithaca College took

second and third respectively.

First-year Jamie Gracie ’17 had her best showing of the season and had the lowest score on the tournament with a two-round score of 150. Her first place finish earned her medalist honors.

“I felt like I played my most consistent golf of the season, and it was exciting to win,” Gracie said.

“I think everyone is looking forward to our last tournament and I feel like we are in a good position to play really well.”

Helping lead the Jeffs to the finish were Sooji Choi ’14, Kristen Lee ’14, and Devyn Gardner ’16 who posted scores of 164, 165, and 165 respectively.

The senior co-captains and the sophomore have posted consistent, solid play throughout the season.

In addition to the team competition, Sarah Ressler ’16 finished in a tie for 29th in individual play. She posted a two-day score of 171.

The Jeffs will return to action this weekend at the Wellesley Invitational.

Football fever is in full swing this fall, and no coach is immune from getting the axe if their team isn’t performing out on the field. But what kind of a message does it send when a coach is fired midway through the season? Lane Kiffin deserved to get fired, but it is painful for me as a UCLA fan to admit that firing him in the wee hours of the morning after a loss is inexcusable.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of Lane Kiffin, but the way he was treated by USC athletic director Pat Haden is flat wrong.

Getting fired after a 3-2 start at a football powerhouse is understandable, but not at 3 a.m., and not just after the team plane had landed at LAX. At least show some decency to a man who has dedicated so much time and effort guiding the Trojans through scholarship reductions and a postseason ban for Reggie Bush’s misgivings. Saying something like this at my house (a Bruin household) would be heresy, but for some strange reason I feel the need to defend the man who has had the honor of leading some of the most well-known and revered football teams in the nation.

In today’s football-crazed society, the pressure to win right away has never been greater. Increasingly, the pressure has resulted in “arms races” that have produced football facilities costing hundreds of millions of dollars and coaches that command salaries of many millions more. It is that immense pressure that broke Kiffin, like it broke many before him and will break many after.

Kiffin is an enigma. He has held some of the most prestigious head coaching positions in the NFL and college football, and he has managed to bungle all of them.

Interestingly enough, he continued to score prized head coaching jobs. He took jobs that are the pinnacle of most football coaches’ careers, and he failed each time. Yet, he kept on smirking and always seemed to have answers to all of the tough questions. Is he someone that was just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or was he someone that was just in way over his head? Only Kiffin really knows the answer to that question.

As the youngest head coach in NFL history at age 31, he took my beloved Oakland Raiders to a new low. Unfortunately for him, the Raiders drafted one of the biggest busts in NFL history, JaMarcus Russell, with the first overall selection in the 2007 NFL draft.

Thus, Kiffin’s fate was largely tied to Russell’s, and we all know how that ended. Russell showed up to camp late due to a holdout and never found a rhythm. After a 4-12 first season in Oakland, Kiffin entered the season on the preverbal hot seat and couldn’t handle it. After a 1-3 start to his second season, Al Davis, the Raider’s beloved owner, fired Kiffin in one of the most bizarre and disturbing circumstances in recent history.

Davis accused Kiffin of being a “flat-out liar” and was guilty of “bringing disgrace to the organization.” For Al Davis to say something like that I am sure that Kiffin really messed up. And to go from the NFL’s next great young coach to gone in a year and a half speaks volumes to how quickly Lane Kiffin wears out his welcome.

Yet somehow he was viewed as an ideal candidate to revive a once very proud Univ. of Tennessee program. Once again, the youngest coach in Division I, Kiffin was viewed as the savior of Volunteer football and quickly earned praise for his prowess on the recruiting trail. His recruiting classes are the embodiment of Kiffin’s coaching tenure.

His classes were filled with promising talent, but they never lived up to their potential.

That in a nutshell defines Lane Kiffin’s coaching career thus far. An offensive guru who could never translate his football knowledge into wins of the field. So after one, yes one, season at the helm of Univ.

Tennessee he decided to take his talents to South Beach. And by that, I mean the Univ.

of Southern California.

But why would one of the most storied programs in the nation hire a coach who had won a combined 12 of his previous 33 games? Coming on the heels of two disgraceful exits from his prior two head coaching gigs, it seems like a very questionable decision. Oh and did I mention that there was rioting in Knoxville after Kiffin quit as head football coach of Univ. of Tennessee? That is one detail that he may want to forget, but is just another chapter in his illustrious coaching career.

Former USC athletic director Mike Garrett is probably wondering what possessed him when he decided to pull the trigger and hire Lane Kiffin. He put all of his eggs in the Kiffin basket, and guess what? He got burned, and because of it, he got fired. Garrett got the axe within months of his hiring of Kiffin. Coincidence? I think not.

Coaching Pete Carroll’s players, Kiffin went a respectable 8-5 his first season in 2010. But at USC, eight wins isn’t reason to celebrate. His 10-2 2011 season, highlighted by a 50-0 drubbing of rival UCLA at the Coliseum, looked like an inflection point in the Trojans’ history. Coming off of the first season marred by sanctions, USC looked like it hadn’t lost a beat.

In a season that defines Kiffin’s coaching career, the Trojans entered the 2012 season ranked No. 1 in the country. Pundits were proclaiming USC to be one of the best teams this century, and that they would be a dominant offensive team behind the duo of Kiffin calling plays and senior quarterback Matt Barkley throwing the ball to a talented receiving core.

I am still baffled by that 2012 season. I don’t understand how a coach can have all the talent that money can buy and go from the top-ranked team in the preseason poll to unranked by season’s end and a loss to Georgia Tech in the Sun Bowl.

USC and Georgia Tech should never be mentioned in the same breath in a football context, lest it be something like “USC beats Georgia Tech 49-10.” But losing games to teams like Georgia Tech and UCLA (yes, I am not ashamed to admit that UCLA hasn’t been great in recent history) is unacceptable.

But since we are talking about UCLA, how about the Bruins? 4-0 and No. 11 in the AP poll, I think there is a new team running Los Angeles! I digress. This article is about Lane Kiffin and not about UCLA’s rise to the top program in LA. Or is it? Kiffin’s hiring coincided the Bruin football program’s resurgence and coupled with dwindling attendance at home games, Pat Haden had enough. But who can blame the fans? No one wants to watch a 10-7 loss to Washington State.

Again I still go back to the treatment of Lane Kiffin and what it says about the USC football program. Like every other football program in the nation, USC is in the business of winning football games and making money. But at what cost? What kind of a message does it send to the young men on the Trojan football team that their coach was fired mid-season in the manner that he was? I could imagine a dejected feeling and a sense that the institution had given up on this season and on them.

That is a feeling that no one deserves.

And as much as it pains me to say this, I wish them the best of luck. Of course, not against my Bruins, but luck wouldn’t help them much anyways.

Sports

5IF "NIFSTU 4UVEFOU t 0DUPCFS

1IPUP $PVSUFTZ PG Public Affairs Office

+BZNJF 4QFBST SFUVSOT IJT TFDPOE QJDL PG UIF TFBTPO ZBSET GPS B UPVDIEPXO QSPWJEJOH TPNF JOTVSBODF QPJOUT BT QBSU PG UIF +FGGT WJDUPSZ

Football Throttles Midd. To Avenge Last Season’s Loss Defense Records Five Interceptions Against McCallum Foote

Varun Iyengar ’14 Senior Staff Writer Behind another strong defensive performance Saturday, Amherst Football steamrolled Middlebury to earn their third victory of the season and improve to 3-0 on the season. Avenging a 24-3 loss to the Panthers last year, the Lord Jeffs got off to a slow start, but quickly recovered to run away with an easy victory, 37-16.

Having won 11 of their past 12 games dating back to the 2011 season, Middlebury arrived at Amherst with no shortage of confidence. That did not last long though, as Amherst’s defense nabbed five interceptions on the afternoon to frustrate the Panthers’ offense.

Cornerback Landrus Lewis ’14E led the defensive effort, making two of those picks and recovering a blocked Panthers field goal attempt in the first quarter. Max Dietz ’14, Christopher Gow ’16 and Jaymie Spears ’16 followed his example and accounted for the other three interceptions.

With those defensive standouts, Amherst now has a league-high 12 picks on the season, an average of four interceptions per game.

Incredibly, last year’s team, which was a solid defensive unit in their own right, had 13 interceptions.

Yet, despite that defensive strength, Amherst gave up a score to begin this game. Panthers quarterback McCallum Foote ’14 led a strong offensive attack on Middlebury’s opening drive, as the senior completed six of 13 passes to lead his team into the red zone.

He was unable to capitalize on the scoring opportunity, however, as the Jeffs’ defense

buckled down, forcing three consecutive incomplete passes and a field goal.

Looking to respond with a score of their own, Amherst instead turned the ball over.

A fumble on the Jeffs’ opening drive gave the Panthers an early opportunity to add to their lead. Fortunately, Amherst’s defense held tough, forcing the Panthers to attempt another field goal.

That attempt, though, was blocked by strong safety Jimmy Fairfield-Sonn ’16. The sophomore made an impressive effort, coming around the left edge to make the deflection.

Lewis recovered the ball at the Amherst 24yard line, and the Jeffs were back in business.

Building on that momentum, Amherst’s offense finally got in rhythm. The Jeffs took to the air, as Amherst quarterback Max Lippe ’15 looked to throw on seven consecutive plays.

He completed five of those passes to jump start a solid 17-play, 76-yard drive that concluded with a 12-yard touchdown strike to Jake O’Malley ’14.

With Amherst taking the lead, it was Middlebury’s turn to respond. Like the Jeffs, the Panthers looked to their passing game to try and pick up some quick yards.

Unfortunately for Middlebury, Amherst’s defense was keyed in to that plan and forced their second turnover of the day. Lewis stepped in front of a McCallum pass at the 50-yard line, returning the ball 45 yards to set Amherst up with outstanding field position.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Amherst’s offense came right back out on the field and found the end zone with their first play.

Lippe kept the ball himself, rushing five yards to give Amherst its second score in under two minutes. Unfortunately, senior kicker Phil-

lip Nwosu ’14 was unable to convert the extra point, but the Jeffs still maintained a 13-3 lead heading into the second period.

Relative to the offensive outburst in the first quarter, the next 15 minutes were much sloppier. Both offenses suffered through threeand-outs, but it was Amherst’s defense that, once again, turned the tide.

Another interception by Landrus Lewis, this time at the Middlebury 37-yard line, gave the Jeffs offense a short field to work with as they attempted to add to their lead. Amherst did just that, as Lippe needed only four plays to put six more points on the board. A 19-yard strike to O’Malley, his second touchdown of the game, gave Amherst a 20-3 advantage that held up through the end of the half.

Following the intermission, the Jeffs lost their rhythm. On their second possession of the quarter, they appeared to be in some trouble facing a third-and-five at their own 43-yard line.

Fortunately, a 13-yard pass to O’Malley saved the drive and drove into Panthers territory. Middlebury’s defense, though, held tough and forced two incomplete passes, setting up a long field goal attempt from Nwosu.

The senior was up to the task, putting a careerhigh 46-yarder through the uprights to give Amherst a 23-3 lead.

The Panthers, to their credit, continued to fight. Their offense finally responded with a score of their own. Perhaps taking advantage of Amherst complacency, Middlebury covered 64 yards in less than three minutes to trim the deficit to 13 points. Foote completed six of seven pass attempts on the drive and put the pressure back on Amherst.

The Jeffs, though, were not fazed by the

comeback effort. Rather than becoming tentative, the offense continued to look strong.

On the first possession of the fourth quarter, Lippe found Gene Garay ’15 for a 28-yard reception that got Amherst into the red zone.

Three plays later running back Kenny Adinkra ’16 was given the green light inside the fiveyard line and found the end zone for his first score of the game.

The touchdown effectively iced the game for the Jeffs, giving the team a three possession lead, 30-10, with less than 13 minutes remaining in the contest.

Just for good measure, Amherst’s defense tacked on an additional score later in the quarter. Marking their fifth interception on the afternoon, Jaymie Spears picked off Foote at the Amherst 26-yard line, taking the ball back 74 yards for his first score of the season.

In garbage time, Middlebury responded with a final touchdown. A botched extra point left the score at 37-16, and the game ended without any further drama.

On the afternoon, Lippe put together his most impressive outing of the season. The junior threw for 215 yards and two touchdowns, while completing 21 of 35 passes. O’Malley was his favorite target and had six catches for 77 yards and two touchdowns.

The Jeffs will look to build on this offensive rhythm next weekend as the team travels to Colby. The Mules are 1-2 on the season but were victorious in their only previous home game against Williams.

In order to keep their undefeated record intact, the Jeffs cannot underestimate this Colby team. They will look to execute effectively once again as they continue working toward their goal of a NESCAC Championship.