Issue 9

Skyfall Opened, Receiving High Critical Praise See A&L, Page 7

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AMHERST BEATS WILLIAMS

See Full Story in Sports, Page 10

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Photos Courtesy of Risalat Khan ’13

T-Shirts Create Alumni Weigh in on Sexual Misconduct Issues Conversation on Campus Jisoo Lee ’13 Contributing Writer

Ethan Corey ’15 Managing News Editor Homecoming weekend brought alumni from all different classes and genders back to the College to connect with old friends, watch the football team demolish Williams and see how their alma mater has changed since their time as students.

This year, however, alumni also confronted the recent revelations about sexual misconduct and gender discrimination on campus, attending multiple events about sexual respect in addition to their traditional Homecoming itineraries.

On Saturday, President Carolyn Martin held meeting in Johnson Chapel — similar in format to previous meetings held for students, faculty and parents — where she described the College’s response to the current sexual assault crisis and answered questions posed by alums. Gina Smith, the national expert from law firm Ballard Spahr hired this summer by the College to review its policies and procedures for dealing with sexual misconduct, explained the College’s obligations under Title IX and discussed the issue of reporting sexual misconduct to legal authorities in depth.

While the meeting touched on many of the same issues as previous events held for other members of the College community, the discussion with alumni was unique in allowing some of the alumni who attended the College before the arrival of women or the abolition of fraternities to share their opinions. Several of these alums used the forum as an opportunity to advocate for the return of on-campus fraternities, while others ac-

cused the College of blaming fraternities or athletics for sexual assault.

Scott Smith ’09, who attended the conversation, felt that President Martin handled these objections effectively and helped reduce tensions between older alumni and more recent graduates. “A number of older, largely male alumni wanted to talk about the position of the off-campus fraternities in the ongoing conversation, and used the forum as an opportunity to voice their long-held opinion that fraternity life should never have left campus. I think President Martin was extremely tactful in diffusing any concerns that the College was going to place blame for sexual violence on any one group of students, and was extremely clear on the point that she is still in a review period when it comes to the role the off-campus fraternities play in the issue,� said Smith. “Biddy is right — no one group is responsible for sexual violence or encouraging a misogynistic culture, and this conversation is not the place to either vilify one group of students or turn prickly and defensive of your own peer group.�

Despite these challenges, many alumni felt the meeting was productive. Daniel Cluchey ’08 viewed the conversation as evidence that President Martin was committed to changing the College’s approach to sexual misconduct. “President Martin was clear, eloquent and almost superhumanly thoughtful in addressing the questions posed to her at the morning meeting.

I cannot imagine anybody attending that meetContinued on Page 2

A provocative t-shirt distributed at the Homecoming game to keep sexual assault at the forefront proved divisive and polarized the opinions of the student body.

The front of the shirt featured Lord Jeff gripping a broom in his right hand and lifting up a rug with his left, accompanied by the words “Amherst: Sweeping Sexual Assault Under the Rug since 1821.� The image mirrored the original Homecoming t-shirt, which depicts Lord Jeff spearing a piece of meat. The back read, ‘Silence has the rusty taste of shame. We will be silent no more. Demand zero tolerance for sexual violence now.’ The t-shirts were distributed outside Johnson Chapel following alumni’s Conversation with the President and outside the gates of Pratt Field during the Homecoming game. Organizers hoped to communicate directly with alumni the ways in which some students were dissatisfied with the College’s handling of sexual violence. An alumnus who wished to remain anonymous funded the printing of 1,000 t-shirts. “Leading up to the weekend, many students expressed a desire to stop talking about sexual assault in order to relax and have fun,� said Catherine Bryars ’12, who designed the image on the front of the t-shirt. “[This] perpetuates a campus culture of forgetting serious matters in the interest of ‘comfort,’ ‘convenience’ or ‘appropriateness.’ We decided to take a visible stance to make sure that the reality and pervasiveness of sexual assault not be invisibilized this weekend.�

A petition was circulated along with the shirts at the Homecoming game. It included the following demands: approval of sexual assault policy and procedure by the student body; the hiring of at least three trained sexual assault counselors and a part-time lawyer; expansion of the Women’s Center; replacement of students and faculty by permanent, trained staff members on the disciplinary hearing committee; training for faculty and staff on sexual assault; a requirement that students take one Women and Gender Studies or Black Studies class, potentially through the firstyear seminar; and summer reading requirements that address gender, race and class.

Students created the shirt in the hopes that history would not repeat itself, fearing that meaningful progress would cease as soon as media coverage died down and students stopped putting pressure on the College. “While I’m encouraged by the way Biddy has been responding since Angie’s article, her recent language urging students to ‘take their foot off the pedal,’ and let the administration handle things, worries me,� said Dana Bolger ’14E. “After all, students told the administration about many of these things last year — and 10 years ago and 20 years ago — and the College still chose to do little about it until bad publicity forced some initial change. Students have always been the ones pushing this issue to the forefront. When we weren’t heard, we wrote articles, we went to the media. Every step of the way we were told by other students and some administrators that what we were doing was inappropriate and unfair.�

Continued on Page 3

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News

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Entries from Oct. 30 to Nov. 12, 2012 >>Oct. 30, 2012 10:32 a.m., Stearns Dormitory An employee reported someone made an unauthorized drawing on a practice room wall in the basement. Facilities was notified.

9:52 p.m., Frost Library An officer responded to a third person report of a man who had been in the building acting in a suspicious manner. Report taken. >>Nov. 1, 2012 7:40 p.m., King Dormitory An officer assisted a student who became stuck in a malfunctioning elevator. >>Nov. 2, 2012 1:23 a.m., Hitchcock House Officers responded to a noise complaint and found a group of people being loud on the second floor. They were advised of the complaint and ended their activity.

10:50 p.m., Coolidge An officer encountered a student outside the building smoking marijuana. The remaining amount of marijuana was confiscated and the matter was referred to the Dean’s Office.

11:42 p.m., Taplin House A caller reported that approximately 15 minutes before she heard someone screaming between Taplin and College St. Officers checked the area but nothing unusual was found. >>Nov. 3, 2012 12:14 a.m., Seelye House An officer discovered the lock on an exterior door was jammed with paper preventing it from locking. The paper was removed and the residents were fined $100 for tampering with a safety device.

12:58 a.m., Stone Dormitory While in a third-floor suite, an officer discovered an unlicensed keg. It was confiscated, and one student was fined $100.

2:08 a.m., Chapman Officers and the Fire Department responded to an alarm and found that it was activated by smoke from cooking. The system was reset. Six students were fined $100 each for failing to evacuate the building during the alarm.

5:43 p.m., Mayo Smith House A caller reported a group of males playing football in the parking lot and they were bumping into cars. No one was found when officers arrived. >>Nov. 4, 2012 12:48 a.m., James Dormitory A caller reported a smashed bottle on the sidewalk in front of the building. It was cleared.

1:01 a.m., Morris Pratt Dormitory An officer responded to a report of an intoxicated man about to drive away from Webster Circle.

The officer spoke to the man and he left in a cab.

2:03 a.m., Stone An officer discovered a smashed

window at an entrance to Stone.

Case open.

authorized party in a first-floor suite.

>>Nov. 5, 2012 12:29 a.m., Crossett Dormitory Officers responded to a noise complaint at a first-floor suite and found 10 people present. None of them lived in the suite. They were directed to leave.

2:33 a.m., Temporary Parking Lot An officer discovered a man, who was identified as a visitor, sleeping in a car. He was woken up and transported to his host’s room.

>>Nov. 9, 2012 10:59 p.m., Stone An officer confiscated alcohol and a funnel found unattended after a gathering in the basement.

2:46 a.m., Hitchcock An officer responded to a complaint of loud music and issued a warning at a first-floor room.

Nov. 10, 2012 1:24 a.m., Stone Officers responded to a complaint of loud music and issued a warning at a third-floor suite.

1:36 a.m., Stone An officer discovered a lock on an emergency exit tampered with.

The room group was fined $100 for tampering with a safety device.

1:56 a.m., Stone Officers responded to a noise complaint and found a group of people leaving a first-floor suite.

The music was shut off and an unlicensed keg was confiscated.

2:10 a.m., Stone While in a first-floor suite, an officer located an unlicensed keg. The room group was fined $100.

6:28 p.m., Appleton A small amount of money was turned into lost and found.

10:28 p.m., Hitchcock Amherst Police reported receiving a complaint about loud music in the area of Hitchcock House.

It was determined the music was coming from an offcampus location.

10:37 p.m., Hitchcock An officer working at TAP observed a student kick open an exterior door while leaving the building. He was identified and warned about his activity.

10:50 p.m., Hitchcock While at TAP, an officer confiscated a Williams College football helmet from a woman.

11:13 p.m., Morris Pratt An officer responded to a complaint of a loud party in the firstfloor common room. A group of students were found cleaning up after a party that ended. >>Nov 11, 2012 12:41 a.m., Stone Officers shut down a large party of over 300 people which was originating from a first-floor suite and third-floor suite.

12:59 a.m., Coolidge Officers shut down a large unauthorized party of over 150 people which was originating from a firstfloor suite.

1:32 a.m., Stone While shutting down an unauthorized party, officers confiscated an unlicensed keg. The room group was fined $100.

2:15 a.m, Stone Officers shut down a large un-

2:54 a.m., Morris Pratt An officer responded to a complaint of loud people in the firstfloor common room. The people were directed to leave the area.

3:21 a.m., King An officer responded to a complaint of noise coming from the basement common room but found nothing upon arrival.

3:28 a.m., King While responding to a noise complaint, an officer encountered a resident with marijuana and a smoking device. The items were confiscated and the matter was referred to the Dean’s Office.

4:17 a.m., Hitchcock An officer responded to a complaint of loud music and people yelling and issued a warning at a first-floor room.

4:51 a.m., Hitchcock While responding to a noise complaint at a first-floor room, an officer discovered the odor of marijuana. Two items used for smoking marijuana were confiscated. The matter was referred to the Dean’s Office.

11:10 a.m., The Cage A visitor reported the theft of a jacket and sunglasses during an event in the Cage yesterday.

The items are valued at $375.00.

Case open.

1:42 p.m., Stone A first-floor resident reported his room door was found forced open. Nothing is missing from the room. Case open.

11:00 p.m, Hitchcock An officer responded to a complaint of loud people in the firstfloor common room and found about 15 students present. They were advised of the complaint and left the area.

Alumni Offer Suggestions and New Perspectives Continued from Page 1 ing, or speaking with her personally that day, leaving with the impression that she is anything less than wholly serious in her commitment to make sexual violence at Amherst a thing of the past. All told, I went in skeptically and left feeling as though the meeting had been an enormous success,” said Cluchey.

Following the event, Center for Community Engagement (CCE) Director Molly led a facilitated discussion in the Red Room to elicit suggestions from alums about possible changes to College policy, procedure and culture that could help promote sexual respect. Gina Smith and several counselors from the McLean Center also attended the meeting to offer their own perspectives and guidance for the discussion. While the meeting was mainly attended by younger alumni, Robert Howard ’76 offered his perspective as an older alumnus with a background in psychoanalysis and management consulting, advocating the importance of changing students’ visceral understandings of sexual assault.

“An event that focuses on the psychodynamics of sexual assault could be an effective method of getting the learning out of the head and a little more in the gut, in a way where students can’t just dismiss why we have to do this. In the end, it’s going to be the culture; it’s going to be the students themselves that make this change. The College can do everything in the world, but if this isn’t something that’s owned by the student body, it’s only going to be reactive,” said Howard.

Howard argued that organizing educational events such as group discussions or theater productions that dealt with sexual misconduct on a more emotional level could supplement policy changes to create a safer and more respectful environment at the College. On the other end of the alumni spectrum, Rebecca Eppler-Epstein ’12 agreed that education was important and suggested programming that dealt with issues of masculinity and sexual assault, as well as increased information for victims post-assault.

“I think the College needs to do a huge education push both for men on what it means to be a man and respect others — particularly women but also other men; we need to not forget the cases of same-sex rape — and on what to do if you experience as-

sault. This has been suggested by others, but putting a page of information on who to call, what your rights are, and what you need to do if you want to have a chance of prosecuting in bathroom stalls could be really helpful,” said Eppler-Epstein.

Eppler-Epstein also suggested improving police training for handling sexual misconduct cases, a concern echoed by several other alumni, who were concerned that the current police practice of interviewing both parties simultaneously could discourage victims from speaking out. Gina Smith responded to the concerns, informing alumni about a program recently established by Hampshire County District Attorney to help train police departments at the Five Colleges on best practices for handling sexual misconduct cases.

Scott Smith felt that the discussion showed a commitment on the part of the alumni to promoting serious change on the issue of sexual respect and emphasized the need to improve support networks for women on campus, especially by expanding the Women’s Center, which is currently confined to a small space in the basement of Keefe Campus Center.

“One suggestion that was widely agreed upon was to move the Women’s Center and the Multicultural Resource Center out of the basement of Keefe as soon as possible. I understand that The Student has agreed to give the Women’s Center some space upstairs, and I’m glad to hear that. Anyone on AAS who is involved with these decisions should know that the alumni present strongly support moving these two offices to more accessible locations ASAP,” said Smith.

Overall, many alumni were optimistic about the College’s progress on sexual respect. Smith also praised President Martin’s leadership on the issue and expressed hope for the future.

“I was extremely heartened to see the level of seriousness with which President Martin has taken on this issue, and the rigor with which she is engaged in fact-finding, listening and pursuing a better campus culture. I think cultural shift is hard, but Biddy is looking at the issue from all angles, and that’s really encouraging. I came away believing that the administration is committed to making change real, and that President Martin has the sensitivity, drive, and intelligence to effectively pursue a safer, healthier campus,” said Smith.

o: d o T

11:12 p.m., Hitchcock An officer found unattended alcohol in the first-floor common room. It was confiscated.

Nov. 12, 2012 1:52 a.m., Newport Parking Lot A caller complained about a vehicle running with the headlights shining into a room for over 20 minutes. An officer spoke to the operator and resolved the matter.

6:30 a.m., Tyler House An officer responded to a report of a candle burning in a window and had it extinguished. The resident was fined $100 for creating an endangering condition.

Apply to the accelerated Master of Public Policy program at UMass Amherst.

Earn a master’s just one year after finishing your bachelor’s.

Center for Public Policy & Administration www.masspolicy.org

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Fresh Faculty: Vanessa Fong

Anthropology Prof.

Vanessa Fong received her B.A. at Amherst College, where she majored in Anthropology and graduated summa cum laude in 1996. She completed her M.A. and Ph.D. at Harvard Univ. She worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor and as an associate professor at Harvard Univ. before returning to the College.

Q: How did begin studying anthropology and what made you decide to pursue it?

A: I grew up in the United States, but had a strong personal desire to spend time living in China and learn more about the society my parents and many of my childhood friends came from, and the more I learned about China in classes I took at Amherst College, the more fascinated and curious I became from an intellectual perspective. When I took my first anthropology class, “Introduction to Social Anthropology,” with Deborah Gewertz, I decided right then that I wanted to be her when I grew up. The anthropological perspectives I learned opened my eyes to how the world really worked, and anthropology seemed like the ideal discipline to help me learn about China, help the world to understand China and help people in China understand themselves and each other. I knew

then that I had found my calling.

Q: Why did you decide to teach at Amherst?

A: I wanted to come “home” to Amherst, to work with the professors who inspired me to become a professor and guide students going through experiences that I and the Amherst College alumni who are still among my closest friends also went through. I loved my time as an Amherst College student, so coming back as a professor is very appealing.

Q: What is you research on and how did you become interested in it?

A: My doctoral dissertation grew out of my Amherst College thesis about gender in China. I learned during my senior thesis research that a lot of the previous scholarship attributed gender inequality in China to the fact that parents favored sons over daughters.

That made me wonder what would happen to daughters with no brothers. So I decided to focus my doctoral dissertation research on gender roles among adolescents born under China’s one-child policy. I began my longitudinal research by teaching English at a junior high school, a college prep high school, and a vocational high school in China, surveying 2,273 of the students at those schools, and doing participant observation in their schools and some of their homes. I found that urban girls were much more empowered than their mothers and grandmothers, and could compete on a fairly level playing field with boys in the educational system, but also that the big-

gest concerns of boys, girls and their parents were not about gender inequalities, but about educational and socioeconomic inequalities and inequalities between China and the developed world. So then I studied those issues as well, and I’m still studying all these issues and other issues of childbearing, childrearing, education, consumption, transportation and transnational migration that have come up as those I first surveyed in 1999, when they were age 13-20, move through the life course and raise children of their own.

Q: Are you currently working on publishing anything, or have you published anything before?

A: You can find the list of my previous publications here: http://www.vanessafong. blogspot.com/ I’m currently working on publishing my most recent findings from my longitudinal study about childrearing in China.

Q: What aspects of Amherst do you like so far?

A: I was looking forward to teaching students who could engage in the kinds of intense and exciting class discussions I remember from my undergrad days, and my students have done that, but also surpassed my expectations. My students are as smart and curious as I remember my own Amherst College classmates were 16 years ago, but now they are more diverse in so many ways — ethnically, culturally, socioeconomically, linguis-

/FXT 3

tically, internationally, intellectually and in terms of knowledge, lifestyles and life experiences. They have a lot to teach each other and me, and that’s wonderful for anthropology classes, where we talk about how to make sense of similarities and differences between diverse experiences.

Q: What do you hope to contribute to Amherst during your time here?

A: I hope to inspire a lot of students to learn more about China, anthropology and processes of education and human development, and teach them research, analysis, writing, speaking and collaboration skills that will help them do well in other classes, in whatever professions and fields they go into, and in their efforts to understand the meaning of life for them and for others. I plan to continue working on my longitudinal research project in China for the rest of my life, and I hope findings from my project will help people in China and worldwide improve their lives. I hope to integrate my research and teaching, and do collaborative and comparative work with students and colleagues.

Q: What do you like to do in your spare time?

A: I don’t have a lot of spare time! On the rare occasions when I have spare time, I like to surf the internet and take walks if the weather is nice.

-by Alissa Rothman ’15

Student Opinion Split on Homecoming T-shirts Continued from Page 1 Bryars and Bolger cited a letter written to The Student two weeks ago by alumna Annann Hong ’92 about her rape at the College as a key motivating force for creating the shirt. In 1991, Hong’s case had also made the news in the Daily Hampshire Gazette and Amherst Bulletin, leading the College to evaluate its handling of Hong’s complaint and its campus disciplinary hearing proceedings.

“I learned last month from the President’s email that nothing had really changed after all,” Hong wrote to The Student. “The campus judicial system as described by Angie remains just as flawed, both at the front end of handling reported cases and at the heart of the judicial process itself.”

Upon exiting Johnson Chapel after her conversation with alumni, President Carolyn Martin said, “The shirt is indicative of our students’ and my own insistence that we get on top of this, and not allow things to be swept under the rug.

You’re trying to raise awareness and what you’re doing is absolutely fine. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.”

The t-shirt drew criticism from students and alumni, many of whom pointed out that the administration had been making changes since the summer and that President Martin had taken unprecedented steps to address the issue of sexual violence.

“That’s not a fair statement,” said Dave Blackburn ’53, referring to the front of the t-shirt. “We don’t know if that’s happened or not. This is a problem all over the country and not just Amherst, but what’s different about this is the way [President Martin] is handling it.”

“She’s taking an issue that borders on catastrophe and turning it into a positive response that I think will endure and make this community a much better community,” said former trustee Alan Bernstein ’63. “She’s setting new ground in policy at colleges and universities.”

Bolger acknowledged that the president had wasted no time changing College policies.

However, she added, “President Martin is just one person in an institution that has been traditionally patriarchal. She heads an administration that has changed little, both in terms of person-

nel and attitudes. She’s also responsible to Trustees and powerful alumni, some of whom may be more interested in saving face than actually changing the reality for survivors here.”

While most students sympathized with the t-shirt’s cause, many felt uncomfortable with what they perceived to be a strong, negative message, and believed that changes are best enabled through conversation with an administration that is now willing to listen. They were also concerned that survivors or potential allies would be alienated, and that Homecoming — a time for fun and gathering as a community — was not the appropriate forum for dissent.

“I respect the message, and I absolutely think it’s something we need to address,” David Vitale ’13 said. “I’m just afraid that wearing this shirt will make people otherwise willing to confront this in a constructive manner say this has gone too far and that people are being too extreme.”

“If the shirt had to have this image, I wish instead it had said something like: ‘Amherst: Sweeping sexual assault under the rug until 2012,’” said Tian Buzbee ’13 in a Facebook comment. “That message would have acknowledged the faults of the past while making a break with it. However, I think a better concept would have been a shirt with some image that encouraged us to change our culture as a community. Something more like the ‘I support love’ shirts, which have a more accessible and positive message.”

Others felt that the shirt was factually inaccurate and even offensive.

“The idea that we haven’t grappled with this in a way that’s at least as open as any other college is insulting to all of the people that spent a lot of time organizing events,” said Henrik Onarheim ’13.

“It’s inflammatory, it’s attacking the wrong thing,” Brittny Chong ’13E said. “It removes too much of the onus from the individual by saying the institution’s f***ed up.”

Emily Joyce Nussbaum, one of several Five College students who attended Homecoming to help distribute shirts, was surprised at the negative reactions to her advocacy work.

“People turned their heads, people wouldn’t listen, people would snicker,” Nussbaum said. “[An Amherst student] said that this was disre-

spectful to Amherst College and told me I was offensive. My reply to him was that rape culture is offensive, and he told me that I was more offensive than rape culture.”

Others indicated that activists are few and far between at the College, where there is little precedent for dissent. Many students are uncomfortable and dismissive of dissent, which is associated with aggression.

“It is that very dissent that opens up space for critical questions, and it should be embraced,” Briana Hanny ’13 said. “It’s important that we have spaces for people to openly disagree without being villainized. People have been hurt here and we should examine that as a community, even if it goes against the typical Amherst narrative.”

“We’re absolutely the least socially critical campus [among the Five Colleges],” Alexa Hettwer ’13 said. “Students who do speak up get ostracized as ‘angry’ or ‘crazy.’ Some were upset about the fact that they felt that recent policy changes meant that we were ‘over’ rape culture. First off, there’s no guarantee that policy changes will lead to proper handling of cases by the administration, but furthermore, I don’t think there is a pervasive understanding of the extent to which rape culture is tied into much larger, deep-rooted social architecture. Seeming ‘change’ in policy and thought can and will lead us right back into the same cycles of institutional behavior unless it is coupled with actual culture change, which, in my opinion, requires nothing short of revolution.”

Photo by Jisoo Lee ’13

$BU #SZBST UBMLT UP PUIFS BMVNOJ PVUTJEF PG +PIOTPO $IBQFM SFHBSEJOH the t-shirts and campus sexual assault issues.

Opinion

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Editorial

Anticipating Thanksgiving

A

week of Thanksgiving break comes as welcome respite in the middle of a very busy and heavy time on campus. For some students, Thanksgiving isn’t a time of family reunion but a time for students to catch much needed rest and reorient themselves for the upcoming final push for work — it’s a short period of celebration with their other friends who remain on campus wedged between a time of incredible stress. In addition to the academic stresses, it’s a time when students not fortunate enough to return home must plan to purchase a week’s meals, manage the loneliness of the empty campus and figure out how to keep entertained during the week.

Such concerns weigh heavily on the minds of many students, as the staggering number of students planning to attend Thanksgiving campus events indicates.

The Student raised the concern a year ago at this time, and the College finally pulled through in a big way this semester to reduce some of the stresses for students staying here over break. One monumental improvement this year is the continued provision of meals at Valentine to all students residing on campus over break, not just those with high financial need. While Valentine meal options will be limited and dining hours reduced over break compared to normal operations, the opening of Valentine comes as a huge relief to those who must budget for their meals over Thanksgiving, or quickly grow weary of microwaveable or instant meal options.

In another novel move, the College is helping to bring students staying campus with faculty, staff and local alumni in a host-family arrangement for a day over Thanksgiving break. The President’s Office organized a Thanksgiving dinner at the Lord

E X E C U T I V E B OA R D Editor-in-Chief Brianda Reyes Managing News Ethan Corey, Alissa Rothman Managing Opinion Erik Christianson, James Liu, Meghna Sridhar Managing Arts and Living Nicole Chi, Annalise Nurme , Clara Yoon Managing Sports Emmett Knowlton, Karl Greenblatt

Jeffery Inn that will too harness a sense of family with those remaining on campus, something that is particularly important given the many critiques of the campus social culture in recent weeks.

The hosting of the event at the Inn also adds a level of formality to campus events that will be novel and exciting, especially as many students look for some variation in their daily routine.

To further break the monotony, the also College took the initiative to reach out to students and inform students of events on campus and surrounding areas. It is also supporting student activities on campus, AAS vans for students, promising to host student events every day over break.

This will similarly improve the quality of student living over break. The school also reached out to students with funding for student-created events, as well as asking student coordinators to organize thanksgiving festivities with the Dean of Students Office — a sign that the College is looking to meet students’ needs and interests over break.

The Student believes that these programs will be met with much student appreciation, both towards the administration, and the students, faculty, staff and alumni that generously offered their time and home to students unable to be with their own families. For those new to Thanksgiving celebrations, such as international students, this new Thanksgiving experience offers an insightful glimpse into American culture and holiday spirit that would otherwise have been forgone without College support.

The Student is pleased that the College updated their plans to make some of these needed changes in recent weeks, and we hope that the success of the many efforts over break will help make the case for a permanent change in the way Amherst does Thanksgiving.

Letters to the Editor Professors Catherine Sanderson, Lisa Raskin, Amy Demorest, Matt Schulkind, Buffy Aries, JP Baird and Sarah Turgeon write in from the Psychology department regarding recent campus events.

The College has been addressing a very difficult issue these past few weeks; we appreciate the work of students, staff and administration who have come forward to bring matters of sexual violence and its aftermath to light. As senior members of the Psychology Department we want to add our voices to the concern of the community regarding this disturbing matter.

We also feel it important at this time to acknowledge colleagues in the Dean of Students’ office, the Counseling Center and the Health Education office who have provided professional wisdom and sensitive help to us and our students over the years.

These colleagues have played a crucial role in enabling many students to succeed at this college by helping them cope with difficult academic, personal and family issues. We look forward to the community’s continuing work to improve policies and procedures concerning sexual violence on campus.

Kyle Ferendo ’15 writes in a commentary of academic life at the College.

For a number of weeks, I have been feeling a puzzling hostility towards Amherst’s administration. I call it puzzling because it has been so general (as a result of my inability to identify its source) and because I had previously been so smitten by my college. Naturally, I felt outrage with the rest of the student body when I learned about the college’s abysmal treatment of cases of sexual assault, but my frustration predated that controversy, and the controversy itself has increased my own willingness to give a name to my dissatisfaction.

With preregistration period approaching, I’ve been spending plenty of time reading course descriptions, and I’ve finally identified the source of my frustration.

For me, the problem is how conservative Amherst is as an institution. I don’t mean in the sense of domestic politics (it’s true, the student body is pervasively “democratic”).

But the course offerings have a strong bias toward the study of established systems of power rather than challenges and alternatives to it, either historical or particularly, modern.

Take the prominence of classical liberalism in our political science and philosophy course offerings. Are there courses in these departments that focus on Marxism?

Anarchism? At best, Marx gets a passing mention. Bakunin? Flores Magón? Who are these? Neither do we have the opportunity to study the philosophy underlying fascism, for example, in these departments.

I was far more readily exposed to the writings of Alfred Rosenberg when I was in my high school history electives than I am here.

Surely we at Amherst understand that to study is not necessarily to endorse.

Letters Policy

S TA F F Design Editor Brendan Hsu News Section Editor Ethan Corey, Siyu Shen Opinion Section Editors Diana Babineau, Julia Milmed Sports Section Editors Varun Iyengar Publishers Mary Byrne, Chris Friend, Nazir Khan, Mike Osorio, David Walchak

The only political science course that focuses on any sort of radicalism is based around describing the “threat” that political “fanaticism” poses to democracy. On the other hand, we certainly don’t lack courses that explore debates within liberalism, and Locke features prominently in our political science and philosophy departments. These courses may expose students to criticism of aspects of hegemonic systems, but that criticism typically comes from a place within the hegemonic order itself.

There are history and black studies courses that engage some of these topics in more depth (although it should be noted that the professor who teaches several of these will be permanently leaving the college next year), but the departmental placement of these courses is significant. I think that history is among the most essential fields we use to understand humanity. But studying an ideology through the lens of history almost necessarily focuses on that ideology’s impact on historical events rather than directly engaging the ideology itself on a philosophical or political level.

And compare that with the fact that Amherst offers majors in American studies, European studies and Asian studies, but not Middle Eastern studies, Latin American studies or African studies. This is another manifestation of the same trend: regions of central importance to the global political and economic order are favored over the global periphery in the same way that hegemonic ideologies are favored over counterhegemonic or subaltern ones.

Courses on counterhegemonic ideologies and peripheral geographic regions are important not just for the study of these things in themselves, but because they also offer an important new perspective for those who wish to study the established order. They elucidate through contrast and they tell the other half of the story. The college’s Black Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies departments are valuable deviations from this trend, but they are insufficient.

Ultimately, the problem with Amherst for me is that, while it trumpets the (mediocre to poor, but that is a discussion for another time) demographic diversity of its students, it suffers from a much more severe lack of intellectual diversity.

I think we have to acknowledge that for as long as Amherst has existed, it has been an institution largely serving — and to some degree serving by conscious design — to educate the elite and to qualify them to go on participating in already-existing power structures. And I believe that we have an obligation to change that.

None of this is to criticize the excellent academic integrity of Amherst’s faculty, or even to suggest that Amherst entirely fails to offer courses of study that could lead to perfectly fulfilling careers removed from the pursuit of power for many of its students. But I nevertheless believe that Amherst suffers from a serious lack of intellectual diversity, and that this needs to be addressed.

Copy Editors Rebecca Boorstein, Marisa Dolmatch, June Pan Photographers Janita Chalam, Jennifer Lee, Peter Mack, Olivia Tarantino Senior Editor Amro El-Adle

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.

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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.

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Why I Still Love, and Will Continue to Love, Amherst College 4BSBI /ZJSKFTZ Contributing Writer Right now Amherst College is on a precipice. As criticisms run rampant about our administration and students, the school’s reputation itself is suffering.

I understand the anger and pain being expressed by many, but I would also like to point out that Amherst is still a place that I love. Humans are highly imperfect, and Amherst is an institution run by humans. Additionally, the all-male history has added to the issues of our college struggling to deal properly with women’s issues. I am not making excuses, I am not saying that Amherst is perfect, I am writing this article to express my love of Amherst and to share with others some of its amazing qualities.

In the words of my roommate Gina Ringelberg, “Without Amherst, I don’t know who I would have become. I would be lost.� She felt that Amherst saved her from going down a much different path.

Coming from public school in Utah, she was an anomaly for going to a prestigious college on the East Coast. When she thinks about what her life would be like if she had not gone to Amherst, Gina sees a different person, with few ambitions, few opportunities in life and a narrow scope of the world. After three

years here, the world is her oyster. Gina runs Big Brothers Big Sisters, has several jobs on campus, worked for non-profit organizations, studied abroad in Africa, and has nothing but potential in life.

I also cannot imagine my life without Amherst. Nowhere else have I found such an opportunity to express who I am as a person, to pursue my academic interests in ways beyond the classroom, and to be around people who accept me unconditionally. When I first visited Amherst, it felt like home. Five years later I can still say the same thing. I have a family here that is made up of friends, roommates, teammates, professors, coaches, co-workers and classmates.

Amherst has allowed me to double major, study abroad, play sports year round, maintain four jobs and still find time to be passionate about my academics and have a social life. When I sit on memorial hill and look at the mountains, I often think to myself that I will never find another place like Amherst.

While those two anecdotes may be applicable to anyone who loves their college, I want to mention some of the unique qualities of Amherst that make it the wonderful place it is. Amherst students receive an immense opportunity when we are given jobs to work over commencement and reunion. It is defi-

nitely beneficial financially, and a great way to spend more time with friends, not everyone realizes the importance of the relationships formed throughout these two weeks. By working commencement and reunion for the past two years I have befriended many of the maintenance workers and custodians at this school. I have learned their life stories, and heard other students recount stories of their supervisors. These two weeks give students the chance to gain huge respect for these individuals who we may not interact with otherwise. It is amazing to learn of the atrocities some of these workers have survived, the obstacles they have overcome, and the joy they find in life, especially working somewhere like Amherst.

Another unique quality of Amherst is the support for students. We have numerous entirely free academic resources, which few schools can say. When I struggle with a paper, the easy solution is to go to the writing center. When I could not understand concepts in a class I got a peer tutor. When I wanted to write the best essay possible, I had professors spend hours editing my papers, discussing my ideas and when I get discouraged, reminding me that I have potential. The deans here perpetuate this idea of support. Last year I struggled with un-

Norwegian Terrorist Breivik, Music, and Ideological Affiliation Changes in the Sound of Scandinavian Radical Nationalism

Benjamin Teitelbaum

University of Colorado Boulder

Date: Monday, November 19 Time: 5:30pm Location: Herter Hall 601

Sponsored by: German and Scandinavian Studies Program, funded by the Nordic Council

Career Columns: #WAASUP Interviewing Strategies &TUIFS 'FWSJFS .JMMJDFOU (PSEPO Eirene Wang Peer Career Advisers You’ve just successfully revised your resume and uploaded it onto Quest. The worst part is over — for now, anyway. A couple weeks later, you hear back from the employer: they want an interview!

You feel happy and excited, though you are also nervous and a bit intimidated.

Don’t worry. Your friendly PCAs are here to go over a few tips we hope you’ll find useful to nail that interview and get the position.

1. Prepare for your interview by researching the company, industry, and interviewers/employees. Although this is typically done before applying, it never hurts to become better versed. In addition to familiarizing yourself with the company’s website and the job description, your research should thoroughly investigate the company’s industry and its role within that industry. Do background research on the company’s history and mission statement. Has the company been in the news lately? What is currently going on in the industry? As you research, ask yourself how you see yourself contributing to this company’s mission and prepare answers for such a question during your interview. Write down any questions you have as you research. These will be useful during your interview. Use resources like LinkedIn and the Alumni Directory/Career Network to find people in your network who can give you further insight.

2. Be conscious of how anxiety may affect your body language and confidence. Practice interview-style speaking by holding mock interviews with your friends, our awesome career counselors or recording yourself on your webcam so that you may become aware of what you need to work on, such as excessive hand gesturing, lack of eye contact or fidgeting.

Think your involuntary knee shaking may cause you to suddenly break into a dance?

Try redirecting that energy by pressing your spine firmly against your seat, crossing your legs and folding your hands over your knees. Feel uncomfortable locking eyes with your interviewer? Find an object directly past his or her head to look at, or try shifting your attention to the nose from time to time. Also remember to keep your speaking at a good pace; this can minimize rambling or stuttering.

3. Find a balance between talking too much and too little. If the employer poses a curveball question, it’s okay to politely reply, “I’m going to have to give some more thought to that question. Would you mind if I took a moment?� Keep in mind that your response should be concise and pertinent to the question at hand. To avoid immediately diving into a response or rambling, give yourself extra time to think about how to approach that question. One way to gauge how you are doing during your interview is to look for cues from the interviewer. Is the interviewer consistently asking you specifically targeted follow-up questions to your answers? This may indicate that you are not giving enough detail or using answers specific to your experiences. If the interviewer seems to be cutting you off, it’s time to be more concise.

4. Prepare questions beforehand. You may have already compiled a list of questions that guided your initial research on the company. Did anything tug at your curiosity? Make sure the answers to your questions aren’t easily tracked on the company’s website or Google. Asking thoughtful questions not only shows that you did your research, but it shows your interviewer that you are a committed and genuinely interested candidate.

5. Follow up on your interview, no matter how the interview itself went. Send a thank you note to the interviewer(s) to thank them for their time and reaffirm your interest in the position and in the company in one or two sentences.

Good luck with all your applications and interviews!

healthiest response is to remember the benefits you have gained from being a student here. I believe that Amherst as an institution has more positive things to offer than anywhere else; it is just up to the students to explore these opportunities. Though Amherst is going through a storm, literally and figuratively, it is still a place I love that has brought so many positive changes to my life that I can forgive mistakes that have been made and other mistakes that will be made in the future. I feel that we all owe that type of consideration to this place.

treated narcolepsy. Dean Hart met with me, gave me options to help with my academic load, contacted my professors and checked up on me to make sure that everything was still going okay.

I could write infinite examples of why Amherst is unique and wonderful, but then people would become bored reading this article. I just urge students to think as they read; of all the little great things that Amherst has contributed to your life. When times are hard, it is easy to turn your back on the thing that seems to be causing you pain, but the

AAS Senate weekly updates, in 140 characters or fewer

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The AAS Treasurer’s Report "CJHBJM 9V AAS Treasurer I am very excited to announce that the AAS, by unanimous vote, has passed a new transportation funding policy. When creating the new policy, I took into serious account the current transportation problems faced by groups and students. In the previous policy, transportation was funded for speakers but it was generally not funded for students. Instead, students were encouraged to use the AAS vans to travel to events; gas for the vans was funded.

However, there was sometimes a shortage of AAS vans due to high demand. Furthermore, transportation and gas costs were at times too much of a heavy burden for students to pay out

of pocket. The combination of unavailability of AAS vans and expensive transportation costs prevented some clubs from attending off-campus events.

The new policy addresses the shortage of AAS vans and aims to lessen the monetary burden of transportation for clubs and students. The amended policy in a nutshell is as follows: 1) AASrecognized groups that need to commute daily will be funded transportation within reason; 2) groups that commute on a weekly basis will receive up to $500 per semester for gas costs, buses, etc.; 3) transportation for speakers or guests of the college will funded within reason; and 4) in other cases not stated above, transportation will not be funded.

The AAS has a limited amount

Discretionary Funding: Nov. 6

of money and innumerous clubs, events and programs to support.

It would fiscally unwise and impossible to open up our policy to fund all transportation.

This policy, however, does expand our current guidelines to fund the groups who need to travel the most. By reducing the demand for the AAS vans by the groups who usually use them the most, it will make the vans more available for other clubs and students.

I believe this new funding policy will improve the status quo. The feedback I have received so far has been overwhelmingly positive. If your club qualifies for transportation funding, be sure to include the funding in the club’s semester budget for spring 2013. Happy Thanksgiving!

Discretionary Funding: Nov. 13

Arts&Living

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Assassin’s Creed III Fails to Flaunt its Assets

Noah Gordon ’14 Staff Writer I haven’t yet finished Assassin’s Creed III, and I haven’t even touched its multiplayer side. Yet this game, which I’ve anticipated since it was announced eight months ago, is already worth the buy. That said, I’m something of an idiosyncratic gamer, and what has always sold the Assassin’s Creed series to me is its varied environments, breathtaking cityscapes and thoroughly-imagined environments. This game brings back everything we have come to expect from an Assassin’s Creed game and improved on a number of areas. In particular,

counter famous faces like Ben Franklin, George Washington and Paul Revere, and you will witness and be involved in any great historical event that you can fit into. This trope, when juxtaposed with the relatively serious tone of this installment in the series, can at times feel hokey and out of place. At other times, when executed correctly, interacting with history in this way can be exhilarating.

The story has much more depth this time around. In Assassin’s Creed II, you played as the assassin Ezio against the corrupt and power-hungry Borgia family. The conflict was put in a black-and-white frame. Ezio and the Assassins were pure good,

at the time, and given that assassination is not exactly lawful, most of the casualties on the end of your blade will be wearing red coats. But there are Templars on both sides, and as the revolution progresses you will find yourself fighting Yankees more and more often.

Mechanically, there’s no doubting that this is an Assassin’s Creed game.

You will free-run, you will climb up the sides of buildings, and of course, you will assassinate people. All the usual tools of the trade are there — the hidden blade, the smoke bomb, the poison dart. There are even a few new toys — a bow for long-ranged stealth kills, a flintlock pistol for not-

Image courtesy of gamefront.com

5IF )PNFGSPOU BOE 'SPOUJFS BSF UIF KFXFMT PG "TTBTTJO T $SFFE *** CVU NPTU XPO U PQU UP TFF BMM UIFZ IBWF UP PGGFS the story has far more depth, and the environment is more authentic and engrossing than it has ever been. But the game suffers from serious issues of disjointedness; its various elements don’t form a coherent whole, and the average gamer will find it overwhelming and chaotic. On the whole Assassin’s Creed III is a fantastic game, but it loses out because the developers made it too big without figuring out a way to glue it together.

You play as Connor, a half-English half-Mohawk assassin living in the Thirteen Colonies in the second half of the 18th century. In the classic Forrest-Gumpian fashion that should now be familiar to players of previous Assassin’s Creed games, Connor’s destiny is intertwined with the fate of the burgeoning United States: you will en-

believing in freedom and liberty. The Templars, their mortal enemies, were pure evil, believing in exploitation and control. Assassin’s Creed III, on the other hand, presents more moral ambiguity. Connor is often characterized as naïve and closed-minded, believing in ideals of freedom that have no basis in the real world. The Templars are shown often to have purely good intentions, wanting not so much control as order and stability. They figure that with the right leadership (i.e. them) the world will remain peaceful and happy.

With their respective priorities, it is easy to see that Connor would back the colonists and the Templars would back the British. It is not all so simple, though. Given that the British were the primary source of law and order

so-stealthy kills, rope-darts and more.

There are also a couple of completely new game mechanics. It is now possible, for example, to climb up trees and jump from limb to limb, allowing you to traverse the game’s forested regions without ever touching the ground. This feature is a nifty addition and controls nicely, but it doesn’t change the overall gameplay: you will still climb stuff and stab dudes. Another addition is naval combat, which is tremendously fun and satisfying if given a chance.

I don’t want to linger for too long on the gameplay, though. I enjoyed it, but it’s not what makes this game unique and worth the buy. Eight months ago, after Assassin’s Creed III was first revealed, I wrote that I hoped the game would “remind me of why

I fell in love with the series when it first came out.� I was talking about the unique sense of place and atmosphere that these games create, and I’ve been very pleased with what I’ve seen. A great deal of emphasis in this game is placed on reconstructing 18th century America and plopping you down in the middle of it. The streets of Boston would be familiar to the modern-day Bostonian, and they are full of all sorts of characters: town criers, tax-weary businessmen and noisy orphan boys to name a few. In pubs and at sea, men sing period-specific English drinking songs. For the segments wherein Connor interacts with members of his home tribe, the developer hired Mohawk consultants and voice actors to add a sense of authenticity to the experience.

On the Frontier (the name for the region in between the two major cities of Boston and New York) the game comes alive. It was speculated that this region would just be a showcase for the game’s new tree-climbing mechanics, but it turns out to be that much and more. The landscape is truly beautiful and alternates between summer sunshine and winter snows, giving it two different aesthetic charms depending on when it is visited. The wilderness is also rife with activity. Animals scurry about, and you can hunt them with a variety of tools to collect their hides or purely for sport. The terrain is dotted with small camps and settlements, and often they will have short side-quests for you to complete. You can also discover seven forts — infiltrating them, killing the commander, burning the powder reserves and raising the Stars and Stripes will surrender the forts to Patriot control and lower the tax rate for your trading activities. This sort of incentive is indirect and relatively minor, which reveals the game’s biggest and most fundamental problem.

The best parts of this game are tucked away to the side. They are in plain sight, but most players will glaze over them without giving it a second thought. They take the form of small icons on the game’s map—side-quests for which there is little incentive to complete. I’ll offer an example.

The part of the game that I enjoyed the most, by far, is called the Homefront. This is Connor’s home base, a large tract of land in Eastern New Hampshire on which initially stands nothing but a single manorhouse and a wrecked man-o-war.

As the game progresses, there are a series of side-quests called “Homefront Missions� — small icons on the minimap — which have Connor aid in some way a down-on-his/her-luck settler with nowhere to call home.

Connor offers the settler a new home on his Homefront, and before you know it they set up shop. In this way a diverse community springs up on the Homefront and sets down roots.

You watch the community grow, and help it along the way. When Prudence, a freedwoman farmer living on the Homefront, goes missing, you help her husband find her; when the French-Canadian miner falls for the colonial huntress, you help him court her. What was once an expanse of wilderness is now a happy frontier town.

The Homefront is an essential part of the game’s narrative: it gives you a concrete symbol of what it is you and the colonists are fighting for. However unrealistic, it is a touching reminder of our country’s founding ideals.

Unfortunately, most players will never see the Homefront dream imagined. There is hardly a gameplay incentive for completing the Homefront missions. By building your town you increase the productivity of its residents, allowing you to craft a few useful items and send out trade caravans.

It is tedious, though, to navigate all of these trading/crafting menus, and the game is easy to complete without the rewards you get from doing it.

The same goes for many of the game’s other bells and whistles: naval combat is fun but almost entirely unnecessary.

Exploration of the Frontier’s nooks and crannies is wonderful, but almost nothing in the game’s core narrative drives you to it. Assassin’s Creed III is packed with content, but it suffers from a severe case of segmentation.

It’s a shame that only completionists like myself will end up seeing the best of it.

Comic by Eirene Wang ’13

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James Bond is Back and Better than Ever

Image courtesy of filmfare.com

*DPOJD NBTDVMJOF BOE TPQIJTUJDBUFE UIF mMN NVDI MJLF +BNFT #POE EFMJWFST B TFMG WBMJEBUJOH CVU TBUJTGZJOH QSPEVDU "OESF 8BOH Staff Writer The 23rd and latest installment of the iconic spy film series by Ian Fleming, “Skyfall� is slick, sexy, exciting and above all, classic James Bond. Its loyalty to the franchise is rivaled only by that of Bond to MI6, the British intelligence agency that falls under attack both from an unexpected enemy and from the Parliament. Either side of the challenge presents a face-off: villain Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) brings a bitter reunion of kinship and betrayal, and the government brings up doubt over MI6’s relevance in the present-day world.

The heroes shall triumph, per Hollywood dictation. Yet what sacrifice must MI6 or Bond pay in return?

How do they reinvent themselves when faith is shaken? For nearly two hours and half, “Skyfall� wrestles with these questions with remarkable

Film Review i4LZGBMMw Directed by Sam Mendes Written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan Starring: Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem and Judi Dench

strength and deft footwork not unlike what Bond (Daniel Craig) manages to pull off even after struggling through his comeback training after

a three-month absence. And, just like the almost obnoxiously suave Britishman, the film does not even pretend to hide its exquisite taste and dazzling new actions, which gain momentum as the story unfolds.

The film and its leading man share far more in common. “Skyfall� stays true to the core of James Bond tradition, never hesitating to highlight his masculine charm and sophistication. The first shot of the film reminds us of the iconic gun barrel sequence (which was shown at the end of this film, as well as in “Casino Royale� and “Quantum of Solace�): the agent appears, the music blares, the air thickens and the suspense rises. He glides into a room of murder, finds clues, then speeds out of the hotel and blasts his motorcycle through a Turkish bazaar, an exotic, bustling location that is perfect for the cool chase that ensues as the crowds somehow makes way.

Even after a fight on that omnipresent moving train, he has the time to fix his cuff as a compartment tears off from the tail. And there is the mandatory post-coital scene — the first time we learn of his survival after a sniper shot that causes his official death — the scene when he gazes deeply at the horizon as a woman wraps around his body. News flash one: James Bond is as womanizing as ever. News flash two: all his gadgets are, as Q (Ben Whishaw) the Quartermaster puts it, personal statements, be it the gun that uniquely recognizes his palm print or the oldfashioned razor blade that his partner Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris)

seductively uses to shave him. Even with Judi Dench’s hard-bitten and perhaps most defensive and vulnerable M of the franchise, the universe of espionage has been and still is a man’s world, and “Skyfall� hardly misses a beat as it interprets the spirit of a legend by reinforcing his idol status.

...just like the almost “ obnoxiously suave Britishman, the film does not even pretend to hide its exquisite taste and dazzling new actions...

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Classic doesn’t necessarily mean good, but classic sells. For a series that is celebrating its 50th birthday this year, a return to classic appeals more than ever to the box office. For Bond, a comeback — or, in his words, the hobby of “resurrection� — means going back to his roots. As the significance of the movie title “Skyfall� is revealed, so begins a long ascension into the grand finale. There, the film feels less like an action movie renewed dozens of times with new technology, bikinis and terrorists, but closer to an epic where the hero pauses to lick his wounds before heading back to battle. The emotional weight might still be minimal, but the intention is there. When you have a huge fan base to please and a smooth, exciting plot that easily consumes the audience, a dab of theatrics is enough. Bardem’s Silva illustrates this point, as he swings between calculated plotting and a loose cannon

of florid speeches and is at times seriously funny and at times seriously diabolical. Such a balanced tone is attributed to Director Sam Mendes, who, after quintessential American works such as “Revolutionary Road� and “American Beauty� reminds us here of his British roots and his ability to brush in some narratives and homoerotic humor to the film’s complexion. Therefore, we have the heavier silence when Bond sees the physical trauma of Silva’s suffered torture and the rambunctious laughter when the Craig and Bardem coldly deliver lines that double as threat and flirtation.

Image courtesy of launchgram.com

$SBJH SFMJWFT T HMPSZ “Skyfall� delivers the multilayered package that a successful commercial action film can nowadays: hot-blood actions, tight story, gorgeous photography (lit by Gal Roiter and shot by Roger Deakins), wellrounded characters and some good hard laughs. It hits all the right spots so that now, finally, I can call myself a James Bond fan.

The World, Seen: On Beauty and A Cappella ;BDI #MFFNFS Staff Writer Some people watch the Olympics for the sports.

Don’t get me wrong: the sports are great.

The Olympics offer unbelievable athletic performances; top-quality athletes achieve feats on the limit of physical possibility, overwhelming every proclaimed constraint and their display of human spirit is electrifying and internationally meaningful. Still, it was not national pride or individual strength that excited me for the Summer Olympic Games a few months ago. My excitement was derived from the opening act of the Opening Ceremonies.

Four years ago, Beijing provided a spellbinding history of Chinese civilization to open the Olympic Games with music, dance, and grand performance. This past summer, London answered with a history of the British Isles, the centerpiece of which was a transformation of a massive pastoral landscape filling Olympic Stadium into an industrial hotbed of water wheels, smokestacks, and ash-stained workingmen. The worker-actors symbolically forged a gigantic iron ring that soon formed the center of a large Olympic five-ring insignia hanging over the stadium.

Quality cinema and television, like their story-telling forebears, have the virtue of transporting their viewers into the world of their own artistic creation, but the Olympic opening ceremonies evoked emotion above mere transportation. Maybe the right word is “spectacular.�

Maybe it’s “masterpiece.� One word is certainly “transcendent,� but I can’t identify what they transcended. Watching the deconstruction of the agrarian world, with hundreds of bodies destroying idyllic simplicity and bringing on the modern age, invoked awe of human potency and tremen-

dous aesthetic feeling at the scene’s grandeur and complexity.

I was reminded of that tremendous feeling while listening to the Zumbyes’ rendition of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, performed at the Family Weekend A Cappella Show a few weeks ago. Led by senior Jake Samuels, the Zumbyes transported the listener into a musical space that not only juxtaposed eeriness with fantastic hilarity, but also evoked a loftiness rarely associated with collegiate performance, displaying artistry that, on a smaller stage, mirrored whatever it was that made the Olympics awe-inspiring. Despite the fact that the first minute of DQ’s rendition of Fun’s Some Nights, arranged by senior Jeremy Simon, was my favorite moment of the enjoyable show, something about Thriller stood beyond any comparison.

My goal, then, is to distinguish between these alternative experiences, with great a cappella on the one hand and masterpiece (theatrical masterpiece?) on the other. What qualitatively distinguishes one from the other?

Immanuel Kant answers this question by distinguishing between free and dependent beauty.

Free beauty, Kant says, adheres to objects that are beautiful independent of what objects they are, or what function or role they serve; dependent beauty, on the other hand, adheres to objects that are beautiful in part because of what they are or what function or role they serve. In the case of a cappella, then, many of the performances were beautiful for a cappella songs, while Thriller was just beautiful, without the restriction to a cappella. The notion is that the artistic medium (a cappella in this case) limits the possibilities of works within its form, but the transcendence of those limits is not only possible, but also highly valuable, the result being a special sort of unconditioned beauty.

The distinction between free and dependent

beauty may be surprising because of the strictness of the “freedom� required by free beauty. In order for a work to manifest free beauty, it must evoke aesthetic emotion completely independent of what it is. In fact, the evaluation of free beauty cannot rely on any factual knowledge about the artwork (the fact that it is a song, or that “something evil’s lurking in the dark,� or that you know some of the singers); such knowledge would restrict the object’s aesthetic to objects of those types. Free beauty, then, relies only on perception, not knowledge at all.

Three weeks ago in this newspaper, sophomore Owen Marschall wrote an article discussing the question of free and dependent beauty in classical music. Marschall argued that the only way to experience the “catchiness� of Mahler’s 5th Symphony is to build a knowledge base of that musical work; in particular, he asks his readers to “listen to it over and over again,� presumably because the possible payoffs of competent musical experience exceed the time-cost of listening in preparation.

Jerrold Levinson identifies this payoff differential as the distinction between “beautiful� works and what he calls “meautiful� works, or works that are “gratifying to a group of middling appreciators.� Think of Marschall’s example of Mahler’s 5th Symphony. I don’t know anything about Mahler or symphonies, but I’d probably enjoy listening to it if I attended it in concert. Still, I would only experience the song’s “meauty;� I’d be missing out on something fundamental and valuable in the music (namely, the music’s “beauty�) without first investing in a set of knowledge about the music.

For reasons outside of this column, Kant would reject Levinson’s notion of “meauty� as a mischaracterization of aesthetic experience, but for our purposes, the case of a cappella is helpfully

Image courtesy of youtube.com

#MFFNFS T FYQFSJFODF PG UIF ;VNCZFT DPODFSU XBT BFTUIFUJ DBMMZ VOQBSBMMFMFE FWFO XJUIPVU LOPXMFEHF PG B DBQQFMMB explained by a combination of Kant’s and Levinson’s distinctions. After all, there is a lot of important information about a cappella that would have improved my experience of last month’s concert.

I do not know anything about song arrangement or choreography, and in a room as big as Johnson Chapel, a significant degree of nuance was likely lost on me as an innocent listener. In other words, all I got was the meauty of a cappella.

But the case of the Zumbyes’ Thriller is different. Pure beauty is not conditioned on what the artwork is; my appreciation for Thriller was independent of the happenchance fact that Thriller was a cappella. As a result, I could not possibly have experienced the mere meauty of Thriller, because there is no knowledge that could have changed my experience. The Zumbyes’ performance, perhaps in its unified complexity or perhaps in its awe-inspiring grandeur, allowed its listeners access to an aesthetic experience otherwise available only to the a cappella “in crowd,� and established itself as an unparalleled artistic event, one that can be equaled but not superseded.

8 "SUT -JWJOH

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Introducing Queeriosity -JZB 3FDIUNBO Contributing Writer Oh, hey there! My name is Liya Rechtman and I’m the Junior Co-Chair of Amherst’s Pride Alliance and the Co-President of Queer Women at Amherst College (QWAAC — Yes, we know, the name is kind of dumb; let’s just call it endearing and move on.) Queeriosity is a new bi-weekly column where members of Pride Alliance will be discussing sexuality, sexual orientation, gender, allyship and queer life at Amherst College.

You may be asking yourself: “What is Pride Alliance?”

Pride Alliance is a group for LGBTQQIAA students and their allies interested in getting together to meet new people and to talk about politics, sex and sexuality, healthy relationships and current community concerns. We also do all kinds of different educational, academic and political programming. Did you see the big colorful posters in Keefe this week with information about Two Spirit and Transgender identities? That was us, celebrating and honoring Transgender Awareness Month & American Indian Heritage Month. Do you remember when cake was randomly being handed out outside of Val earlier this year? Pride Alliance was celebrating National Coming Out Day. If you attended orientation events, you may remember a session called Gay Voices (if you’re a first-year currently, you may remember me explaining what “bisexuality” meant).

Pride Alliance meets once a week every Thursday at 8 p.m. for a group discussion in the Rainbow Room in the basement of Morrow Dormitory. During Pride meetings, topics of discussion range from the ethics of “outing” someone (publicizing someone’s sexuality where it was previously private) to anecdotes about flirting. Angie Tissi, the Coordinator for LGBTQQIAA Student Support and Services and Advisor for Pride Alliance, also holds open hours for the Rainbow Room from 1–4 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. During open hours, anyone and everyone is welcome into the Rainbow Room to check out the library of queer movies and books, have a cup of coffee, or even print for free. Angie can also meet with students about concerns or topics of interest in a confidential setting. When Frost gets too crowded and noisy, I head over to the Rainbow Room just to do my work.

It is possible that you (like most people) don’t know exactly what LGBTTQQIAA stands for. Well, I’m glad you asked because it’s not really that complicated. We use that really long acronym so as to try and include all the sexualities, genders and sexual orientations that we can think of, because they all belong in Pride Alliance. Often, as shorthand, you may see us use the term “gay community” “queer community” or just LGBT. So, let’s break this down: Lesbian — women who like women only.

Gay — men who like men only. This term actually has a second, broader meaning and can be used to encompass both gay men and lesbian women or the community at large.

Bisexual — a person who is attracted to both men and women.

Transgender — an umbrella term for people whose gender identity, expression or behavior is different from those typically associated with their assigned sex at birth, including but not

limited to transsexuals, cross-dressers, androgynous people, genderqueers and gender non-conforming people. Transgender is a broad term and is good for non-transgender people to use. “Trans” is shorthand for “transgender.”

Transgender Man — a term for a transgender individual who currently identifies as a man.

Transgender Woman — a term for a transgender individual who currently identifies as a woman.

Transsexual — a term for people whose gender identity is different from their assigned sex at birth. Often transsexual people alter or wish to alter their bodies through hormones or surgery in order to make it match their gender identity.

Queer — a person who is not straight but doesn’t necessarily want a label like “bisexual,” “lesbian” or “gay.” All of those terms are also limited in their scope to being attracted to people who are of one or the other binary gender. Queer people may be attracted to people of more than two genders and or gender nonconforming.

Questioning — a person who isn’t sure which genders they are attracted to or what they’re sexual orientation is. This one can be a little tricky because it acknowledges the fluidity of sexuality. For a while, a person may simply not know if they are straight, bisexual or lesbian. The process of discovering one’s personal sexuality is a complicated one, so “questioning” can be a useful term for people who aren’t ready or don’t want to use a specific label.

Intersex — people who naturally (that is, without any medical interventions) develop primary and/or secondary sex characteristics that do not fit neatly into society’s definitions of male or female. Many visibly intersex babies/children are surgically altered by doctors to make their sex characteristics conform to societal binary norm expectations. Intersex people are relatively common, although society’s denial of their existence has allowed very little room for intersex issues to be discussed publicly.

Asexual — people who are generally characterized by not feeling sexual attraction or a desire for partnered sexuality.

Asexuality is distinct from celibacy, which is the deliberate abstention from sexual activity.

Ally — a person who confronts heterosexism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, heterosexual privilege and so on, in themselves and others out of self-interest and a concern for the well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other queer-related people and who believes that heterosexism is a social injustice. Allies can never be left out of a definition of the gay community because we need and love the support from our straight friends, families, boyfriends and girlfriends.

Okay, that’s the acronym, but here are two other useful terms to remember: Gender Identity — an individual’s internal sense of being male, female, or something else. Since gender identity is internal, one’s gender identity is not necessarily visible to others.

Gender Expression — how a person represents or expresses one’s gender identity to others, often through behavior, clothing, hairstyles, voice or body characteristics.

And there you have it, ladies, gentlemen and otherly-gendered readers. Welcome to Pride Alliance and the LGBTQQIAA spectrum. Not so complicated, is it?

Five College Events Wednesday, November 14

“Annual Fall Chrysanthemum Show,” Smith College, Nov. 3 - Nov. 18 Smith’s annual Chrysanthemum show features majestic plants in full bloom, splatters of colors and a wave of beckoning blossoms.

Thursday, November 15

“Security in the Digital Age: Are Women at Greater Risk? Building Resilience for Challenging Circumstances,” Mount Holyoke, 4:15p.m. - 9:15 p.m.

A panel of distinguished speakers from the fields of journalism, security, and leadership development will discuss the ways in which questions of physical and virtual security play out for women who use media for public engagement, social networking and journalism.

“Patrick Tighe ’89: An Architectural Trajectory,” UMass, 5:00 p.m.

Internationally recognized architect Patrick Tighe will trade the development of his award-winning firm over eight years. Hear how he combines new technologies, fabrication methods, construction techniques and building materials to yield relevant, forward-thinking architecture. His diverse work ranges from hand-crafted masonry structures to robotically carved interiors, affordable housing projects in L.A. and ultra-luxurious villas in Morocco, to name only a few.

Friday, November 16

“Faculty Dance Concert,” Smith College, 8:00 p.m.

This annual dance concert is always an exhilarating and sold-out evening of contemporary dance.

This year’s concert presents choreography by Colleen Thomas and will also include premieres of new works

by Angie Hauser and Rodger Blum. Featured is preeminent contemporary choreographer Ohad Naharin’s acclaimed Echad Mi Yodea restaged by Batsheva Dance Co. member Ariel Freedman and performed by a cast of 16 dancers.

Friday, November 16 to Saturday, November 17

“Fall Orchestra Concert,” Smith College, 8:00 p.m.

The concert features Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major. The event is free.

Saturday, November 17

“Daughters of Zion,” Mount Holyoke, 7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

At the third annual spoken word event, the members of Daughters of Zion express their faith, their doubts or any other topic of interest through poetry. This year they feature talented poets from the Five Colleges and Carvens Lissaint. There is a suggested donation of $3.

#makebetterhappen with City Year as a tutor, mentor, and role model to students that need you in low-performing schools.

Help students excel in their education and earn money towards furthering your own.

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For more information, email bostonrecruitment@cityyear.org

by Annalise Nurme ’15

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Photos courtesy of /JBIMBI )PQF Public Affairs Office

10 Sports

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Schedule

FRIDAY Men’s Basketball vs. Newbury, 6 p.m. (Ken Wright ’52 Memorial Invitational, Day 1 of 2) Men’s Hockey @ Hamilton, 7 p.m Women’s Hockey vs. Hamilton, 7 p.m SATURDAY Men’s & Women’s Cross Country @ NCAA Championships (Rose Hulman, Ind.), 11 a.m.

Men’s & Women’s Swimming vs. Colby, 2 p.m.

Women’s Hockey @ Hamilton, 4 p.m.

Men’s Hockey vs. Hamilton, 7 p.m.

Women’s Basketball vs. Brooklyn College (Amherst Tip-Off Tournament, Day 1 of 2), 8 p.m.

Men’s Soccer vs. TBD (NCAA Sectional Semifinals) Women’s Soccer vs. TBD (NCAA Sectional Semifinals)

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Sean Wilson ’16 was an unsung hero for the Jeffs in their dramatic victory over their archrivals. Filling in for the injured Ryan Silva ’14, the first-year picked up 127 yards on the ground. Although Wilson didn’t reach the end zone, his average of six yards per carry topped even that of Williams’ stalwart runner Alex Scyocurka. This wasn’t Wilson’s first outstanding game: in the Jeffs’ earlier blowout of Tufts, Wilson ran for a similarly impressive average of 7.2 yards per carry. Thanks to Wilson’s efforts, Pratt Field can rest in peace after 121 years. —Karl Greenblatt ’15

Game of the Week MEN’S HOCKEY vs. HAMILTON When and Where: Saturday, Nov. 17 Orr Rink 7 p.m.

Thanksgiving break is upon us, but those remaining on campus will want to catch the start of the winter season, one of the highlights of which will be men’s hockey’s Saturday matchup against Hamilton. The Jeffs have a home-andhome with the Continentals, traveling to Clinton, N.Y. on Friday before returning to Amherst the following day.

It would be an understatement to

say that, after a NESCAC title run last year, the Jeffs enter 2012-2013 with high hopes. Seniors Johnny Van Siclen and Mike Moher are sure to make an impact, but the Jeffs will also rely on a talented crop of sophomores to contribute, among whom are Aaron Deutsch, Mike Rowbotham and Andrew Fenwick. In addition to the two games against the Continentals, the Jeffs will face a slew of other earlyseason NESCAC twests, including matchups with Trinity, Williams and Middlebury in early December. The Amherst squad has its sights set on an NCAA Championship after falling just short in the NCAA Semifinals last year. —Karl Greenblatt ‘15

It seems as if Keri Lambert ’13 has been mentioned in just about every issue this fall, and, this week, she managed to outdo herself yet again. As if her previous accomplishments hadn’t been enough, (she won the NESCAC individual title two weeks ago), the senior proceeded to win the Division III New England Regional Championship, leading her team to a fifthplace finish in the process. With a time of 20:48.94 for the 6K course, Lambert also qualified automatically for the NCAA National Championships next Saturday in Terre Haute, Ind. —Karl Greenblatt ’15

All’s Well That Ends Well For Jeffs Victory Over Williams Marks End of an Era

Niahlah Hope ‘15 Public Affairs Office

4FOJPS DBQUBJOT +PIO $FDDJP 4BN $MBSL -BOES VT -FXJT +BDL 3FZOPMET BOE -PV +BDPVCT IFBE UP NJEGJFME GPS UIF DPJO UPTT BU UIF GJOBM HBNF JO 1SBUU 'JFME T JMMVTUSJPVT IJTUPS Z 7BSVO *ZFOHBS A Sports Section Editor In front of a packed Homecoming crowd at Pratt Field, the Lord Jeffs finished their season with a victory over archrival Williams this past Saturday. Led by a solid performance from sophomore quarterback Max Lippe, Amherst mounted a thrilling fourth quarter comeback to squeeze out the 23-20 win and send alumni home happy. Amherst has now won three of the last four contests against their archrivals, though the overall headto-head record still lies in favors of the Ephs, 7151-3.

Early in this game, it looked as though Williams might add to that head-to-head advantage.

Amherst got off to a slow start, sputtering on offense as they were forced into a three-and-out on their first possession. Taking advantage of great field position, Williams scored on the first play from scrimmage, as quarterback Tom Murphy found Darren Hartwell with a 39-yard touchdown

pass. Incredibly, the drive lasted a mere eight seconds and gave the Ephs an early 7-0 lead.

Amherst, though, responded with a strong defensive stand of their own. Still trailing midway through the first quarter, defensive tackle Travis Dickenson ’13 forced and recovered a fumble to give the Jeffs another possession.

Capitalizing on the Williams miscue, Amherst’s offense finally came to life, building on the momentum from the turnover. First-year running back Sean Wilson began finding seams in the defense, which, in turn, opened up the passing game. After methodically working their way downfield in small gains, Lippe eventually found Jake O’Malley ’14 for a big play, connecting on a 17-yard pass that moved Amherst inside the 10yard line. From there, Lippe chose to keep the ball himself, scoring from two yards out on the quarterback keeper and knotting up the score at seven apiece.

Keeping with the first quarter scoring barrage, Williams came right back to regain the lead. Aided by a 33-yard punt return after another Amherst

three-and-out, Williams began their drive at the Jeffs’ 28-yard line. A pair of six-yard rushes set up an unorthodox 16-yard touchdown strike, thrown by running back Marco Hernandez on a fake rush, that put the Ephs up 14-7.

That score held through the end of the first, as both defenses began to lock down. The defensive effort continued through the second period as well, as each team was only able to muster a field goal. Williams nearly tacked on another score as the half came to a close, but a timely interception by senior cornerback Robbie Heflin ended the threat with less than 10 seconds left in the quarter.

Amherst ran out the clock with their last possession and the score remain at 17-10, in favor of the Ephs, heading into the second half.

Making up for their turnover at the end of the second quarter, Williams came out of the half determined to execute more cleanly on offense.

A pair of long runs put them deep into Amherst territory, looking for a touchdown. However, Amherst’s defense came up big once again, as Dickenson forced his second fumble of the afternoon.

Williams running back Alex Scyocurka ’14 managed to recover the ball, but the near-turnover killed the Ephs’ momentum, forcing them to settle for a field goal. The kick gave Williams a 10-point advantage, 20-10, and that margin would hold through the end of the period.

Facing a 10-point deficit to start their final quarter of the season, the Jeffs knew they would have to dig deep to pull off a comeback. Fortunately for Amherst, Lippe made that job a lot easier by throwing a touchdown strike on the first play of the period. Capping a drive that began near the end of the third quarter, he found James Durham ’13 for an eight-yard pass that cut the deficit to three points.

Building off the renewed energy of the home crowd, Amherst’s defense stepped up, forcing a Williams three-and-out on the ensuing possession. With a chance to take the lead, the Jeffs’ offense got back to work. However, it appeared that the Ephs would get the stop they needed, as Amherst was forced to punt on fourth-and-nine early in the drive.

Fortunately for the Jeffs though, Williams committed a costly penalty on the play, roughing the kicker and giving Amherst new life with an automatic first down. Capitalizing on Williams’ mistake, Lippe found first-year wide receiver Brian Ragone with a 39-yard reception on third-and-13 that kept the chains moving and put Amherst deep inside the Ephs’ redzone. On the ensuing play, Lippe kept the ball himself, rushing in for his second touchdown of the day and sixth of the season. Fortunately for Williams though, kicker Jake Schmidt ’14 was unable to convert the extra point, allowing the Ephs to stay within a field goal of tying the game at 23-20.

That miscue, though, would not make a difference, as Williams’ two remaining offensive possession were fruitless. A missed field goal from 47 yards out and an interception would end up costing the Ephs and allow Amherst to escape with the victory.

The win marks a successful end to what has been a trying, but rewarding season for Amherst.

Suffering through an injury to their top running back, Ryan Silva ’14, and an agonizing loss to Trinity, this team certainly played with a lot of heart.

With a long offseason ahead of them, they will be looking to build on their successes in the hopes of competing for the NESCAC championship next year.

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Sports 11

Women’s Soccer Falls, Brain Teasers The Green Monster Bounced Out of NCAAs ,BSM (SFFOCMBUU

Niahlah Hope ’15 Public Affairs Office

#SJTDP T UI NJOVUF HPBM XBT UPP MJUUMF UPP MBUF GPS UIF +FGGT "OESFX ,VS[XFJM Staff Writer The season ended earlier than anyone expected. The women’s soccer team, seeded number one in the New England region, was upset in the first round by unseeded Lasell College.

Having earned the right to host at least the first four rounds, the Jeffs fell 3-1 to the Lasers. Molly Masiero ’16 struck in the 22nd minute. Perhaps more importantly, center back Sandy Shepherd ’13 was injured on the play and would not return to the game. The College’s other center back, Emily Little ’13, was suspended for her now-infamous throw-in.

Looking to compensate for the absence of both center backs, the Jeffs nearly equalized. Kathryn Nathan ’13 found Brisco in space, but her touch was parried by Lasell keeper Ashley Parrelli ’13.

Nathan nearly scored herself in the 32nd, but Par-

relli denied the effort once again.

Nathan garnered another opportunity in the final seconds of the first half, but her shot caromed of the Laser wall and right post to send the Jeffs into halftime with a 1-0 deficit despite a 9-4 advantage in shots.

Coming out of the half, the Lasers looked to be the aggressor. They extended their lead in the 52nd minute, when Bridget Lynch ’15 combined with Kayla Lynch ’15 to get the better of the Jeff defense and double the Lasalle lead.

Following the goal, Amherst attacked with a vengeance, knowing their season could soon be over. In the 62nd minute, Amanda Brisco ’14 found Chloe McKenzie ’14 in space, but McKenzie’s effort flew just over the bar. Five minutes later, Jessy Hale ’16 headed Nathan’s corner for what looked to be a sure goal, but Parrelli made an acrobatic save to preserve her clean sheet.

Just a minute later, Bridget Lynch caught the Jeffs’ defense pushed too far up the field and capitalized with her second goal of the game. The score gave the Lasers a 3-0 win and effectively ended the game.

The Jeffs attacked in the final minutes of the game, but it was too little too late. Brisco’s goal in the 84th minute was more a consolation than anything else. The offensive fury gave the Jeffs a 21-10 shot advantage, but a combination of stellar goalkeeping by Parelli and poor finishing proved to be the Jeffs’ nemesis. “In our final game against Lasell, we were unable to finish our scoring opportunities. Lasell capitalized on the chances they were given, and we were unable to catch their three goal lead,� Nathan said.

The College finished the season with a 13-22 record, but will consider their playoff performance a disappointment.

The senior class of Nathan, Shepherd, Little, Drew Douglas-Steele, and Bridget Keller compiled a record of 54-14-5 and will be sorely missed.

There is hope for the future, however, and Nathan is optimistic that her team will meet the expectations they have set for themselves.

She said, “The high standard for success being held by Amherst Women’s Soccer makes for a very promising future.�

Keri Lambert Wins Regionals, On to Nationals &NNFUU ,OPXMUPO Managing Sports Editor Women Keri Lambert broke from the pack Saturday to win her second-straight NCAA New England Regional Championship and fifth-consecutive race of the season. In what has already proved to be a grand finale to her collegiate career, Lambert has now earned herself a spot at NCAA Nationals, held in Terre Haute, Ind., where she will look to improve on her fifth-place finish last year.

Led by their All-American captain, the women’s cross country team took fifth place overall in the team competition, good enough for an at-large bid to Nationals where they will join Lambert.

Lambert won the 6K race in 20:48.94, 18 seconds better than rival Addie Tousley of Middlebury, who took second in 21:07.13. Next for Amherst, Lizzy Briskin ’15 took 28th with a time of 22:19.26, good enough for All-New England recognition. Just behind, first-year Caroline Rose and junior Lauren Almeida finished nearly side-by-side with times of 22:48.13 and 22:50.17, respectively.

Rounding out the scoring for the Lady Jeffs, Elodie Reed took 58th place in 22:56.71.

MIT — ranked no. 1 nationally — dominated the women’s team race with just 58 points, while NESCAC foes Williams (75), Middlebury (89) and Bates (145) all bested the Lady Jeffs 170 points. Still,

after a strong season with consistently high results, Amherst has booked its ticket to Terre Haute, IN – one of just 32 Division III teams.

For Lambert, the National Championship (held this Saturday, Nov. 17) will be icing on the cake of a record-breaking and trophy-collecting season. After winning NESCACs and now Regionals, Lambert has already asserted herself as one of the nation’s best, and a solid performance this weekend would cement her place among Amherst’s greatest-ever athletes.

Men The men’s cross country team wrapped up their season at Regionals last weekend, taking 11th place in the 50-team field. Andrew Erskine ’13 led the Jeffs, finishing 29th overall with a time of 25:32.76 in the eight-kilometer course. Although the senior’s time was good enough for All-New England honors, it wasn’t quite enough to qualify him for Nationals for the second year in a row.

Behind Erskine, sophomore Greg Turissini finished 54th overall (26:04.81) to conclude what began as a promising season but ended somewhat disappointingly in his last two contests. Next for the Jeffs were KC Fussell ’15 (26:24.15) and Gus Greenstein ’16 (26:40.74), finishing 68th and 81st, respectively. Rounding out the Jeffs runners was sophomore Romey Sklar, finishing with a time of 26:48.07.

Few issues in sports are more contentious than that of head injuries in football. On the heels of assertions by Dr. Paul Butler ’66 that youth football should be banned because it is dangerous, Karl examines the question of whether football is safe — and how to make it safer.

If you play or have played football at any level, chances are you at least know of someone who has experienced severe and/ or long-lasting sequelae from a head injury. Followers of this year’s Amherst football team know the story of Ryan Silva ’14, and, unfortunately, his saga is not unique.

A few years ago, this issue hit close to home when a now-19-year-old man, previously a middle school football teammate of mine, was involved in a head-injury horror story.

In the fall of 2008, as a high school sophomore, this young player — we’ll call him “Chris� — suffered a catastrophic subdural hematoma as a result of an in-game impact.

Thanks to the efforts of his surgeons, Chris survived, but, to spare you the details, his life will never again be anything close to normal.

Even if you are a casual football fan who has never personally witnessed an ordeal of this kind, you probably know what happened to Junior Seau last spring; if you watched ESPN around that time, you undoubtedly heard about the emerging findings of abnormally prevalent brain trauma, early-onset dementia and suicide among former professional football players. Most recently, the College came into the national spotlight this October when Paul Butler ’66, a retired surgeon who was my father’s classmate and football teammate here, proposed banning the youth football program in the town of Dover, N.H. Although it was largely overshadowed by other events at the time, Mr. Buter was soon afterward profiled in The New York Times as part of the larger question of the safety of football.

At the Homecoming game this past Saturday, another family friend and class of ’66 alumnus (who happens to be an M.D. specializing in neuroregenerative therapies) struck up a friendly conversation with me.

It wasn’t long before he asked me, “So, what do you think of the whole Paul Butler situation?�

I was a little surprised that, as a sports fan with a burgeoning interest in neuropsychiatry and public health, I wasn’t able to come up with a better response to that question.

In fairness to myself, though, I have to admit that this is not a straightforward problem.

After all, football is as close to an American cultural icon as it gets. Even the most safetyminded among us have a hard time accepting the fact that one of our most beloved pastimes might be flat-out dangerous.

Yet, in making his claim, Dr. Butler cites “overwhelming evidence� in the literature that football — not just at the professional level, but going down as far as Pop Warner — endangers the brain to an unacceptable extent.

On one level, this shouldn’t really be news to us, since football is a collisionbased sport: there’s necessarily going to be some bashing of heads, and injuries are going to result from that. Someday, I will get a chance to do a more thorough review of the literature to which Dr. Butler refers, but, just having played in high school, I know that it’s very difficult to avoid getting “banged up� during a football game: why would the head be exempt from that? Opponents of the idea that football is too dangerous, particularly those of an older generation, often point to the fact that, twenty, thirty or more years ago, severe head injuries were far less common.

Naturally, this is partially attributable to the collective level of awareness — back then, nobody knew what a concussion was or how to spot it, so such injuries were diagnosed

less often. But we also have to face the stark reality that the game has changed. Even if we can’t fully explain the phenomenon, we have mountains of data to support the fact that today’s game of football — at every level — is faster-moving and more violent than it used to be. So, it’s pretty safe to say, even if our awareness of concussions were “modern,� that we wouldn’t be having this conversation if it were 1980.

Could it be, then, that Dr. Butler is right and that, given the increased size and strength of athletes, football really isn’t safe anymore? But what about the overwhelming majority of kids, teenagers and adults who emerge from their football careers completely unscathed? It’s not as if anybody coerced them into playing in the first place — most kids, I would think, play football because they want to — and it seems more than a little unfair to deprive them of a valuable athletic and human experience with the goal of trying to minimize risk. If we were to have a moral obligation to discourage young athletes from playing football, then we would definitely also have a moral obligation to deter our young men and women from serving in the military, right? Of course, that proposition dictates a whole array of deeper questions, the answers to which, upon closer examination, aren’t always what we’d like them to be. And, moving to the higher-profile cases of brain-damaged NFL linebackers: how many of them repeatedly played through obviously worrisome symptoms like headaches and dizziness and made a manageable injury into a permanent scar by their own doing?

Of course, there’s really no data that can tell us this. So, to the idea that football is dangerous enough to enough kids and young men that it should be a social concern, I say: not so fast.

But that’s certainly not to minimize the clinically significant risk that we know does exist. And the good news is: there are solutions to this problem. Newer and safer helmets have already been designed to minimize the force of in-game impact. My high school team used one of these helmets, the Xenith brand, and, anecdotally, I can report that we sustained fewer total concussions in my junior and senior years — when we used the Xeniths — than in my first two years, when we used the more traditional Riddell helmet. Of course, Riddell, who is under contract with the NFL through the end of next season, disputes the idea that its product is substandard, but several major studies have shown otherwise. Additionally, many NFL players who have tried the Xenith (with the brand name blacked out!) swear by them, insisting that the helmets have reduced the post-collision wooziness that they used to think was just part of the game.

So, if technology really exists that is at worst the same as and at best much better than the industry norm, why not standardize better-designed helmets before considering banning the game? In the next five years, it will also interest me to see what kind of effect the NFL rules changes regarding helmet-tohelmet contact have on the head injury rate. I have heard more than one Sunday announcer lament that “you just can’t play the game the right way� if you’re worried about being penalized for an unsafe hit. Well, if we were to take Dr. Butler’s suggestion, you couldn’t play the game at all — you be the judge.

As much as stories like Chris’ have a strong emotional impact on all of us, common sense needs to prevail.

Sports

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Rob Mattson Public Affairs Office

Rookie Sensation Greg Singer Sends Jeffs to Sweet 16 Men’s Soccer Tops Dickinson 4-0, Stays Unbeaten Brenton Arnaboldi ’14 Staff Writer Fresh off an emotional NESCAC title over Williams last weekend, the men’s soccer team advanced to the NCAA Tournament Round of 16 with a 4-0 victory over Dickinson (Pa.) on Sunday.

Clinging to a 1-0 lead after 60 tense minutes, the Jeffs (16-0-2) exploded for three goals in an eight-minute span in the second half to bury Dickinson (13-4-2).

In the process, the Jeffs secured their third consecutive NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearance, and fifth in six years under head coach Justin Serpone. Amherst, seeded No. 2 in the NCAA Tournament, will host No. 19 Swarthmore (16-22) in the Round of 16 this Saturday.

In a match that was tighter than the final score indicated, the Jeffs found themselves in a dogfight with Dickinson through the first 60 minutes. However, a rapid succession of brilliant, outrageous goals in the second half propelled the Jeffs to a 4-0 margin of victory. “I thought overall we brought good energy to the game, but that at times we weren’t able to connect like we have in the past few games,� co-captain Chris Lerner ’13 said. “And that’s what happens in tournament games. It’s not always going to be pretty soccer because both teams are fighting for their season. Fortunately we were able to have some great finishes from our guys up top.�

Backed by a supportive homecoming crowd on a warm, sunny afternoon, the Jeffs immediately exerted offensive pressure in the Dickinson half, creating a slew of scoring chances early in the contest.

In the fifth minute, Spencer Noon ’13 found space on the left flank before sending a cross to Jae Heo ’14, but the junior’s header flew just over the crossbar.

One minute later, Noon unleashed an acrobatic bicycle kick from the right side of the box, but Dickinson goalkeeper Cody Hickok made a

diving save to keep the game scoreless.

The Red Devils had their first good look in the 10th minute, when a long ball into the box was headed out to Dickinson’s Shepherd Waldenberger, whose 20-yard shot attempt forced Amherst goalkeeper Thomas Bull ’16 to move to his right for the save.

After narrowly missing on several set pieces, the Jeffs finally broke the deadlock in the 32nd minute. Collecting the ball by the left sideline after a Dickinson clearance, Julien Aoyama ’14 lofted a high cross back into the box. Hickok tried to punch the ball away, but the cross sailed over his outstretched arms to Max Fikke ’14, who nodded his header into the empty net. Fikke, normally a substitute off the bench, has now scored in three of the past four games.

Dickinson nearly responded on the ensuing

Rob Mattson Public Affairs Office Julien Aoyama ’14 and the Jeffs defense IBWF DPODFEFE UXP HPBMT UIJT ZFBS

possession, as Javier Mena curled a 30-yard free kick toward the upper right corner of the net. In an impressive display of athleticism, Bull leapt high to his left to snare the attempt.

In the 43rd minute, Fikke almost doubled his goal total in spectacular fashion, but his swinging volley rocketed straight into the hands of the goalkeeper. The Red Devils then had a last-gasp opportunity seconds before the halftime whistle, when Bull bobbled a long free-kick in a crowded 18-yard box, but the Jeffs cleared the ball out of danger.

Pushing forward for the equalizer, Dickinson started to control possession early in the second half, and the Jeffs began to find themselves chasing after the ball in the defensive half of the field.

The Red Devils missed a fantastic opportunity to tie the game at 1-1 in the 57th minute. Dickinson’s Jamie Martin slid a pass into the box from the right side, springing Nicolas Tierno onto a partial breakaway. With Bull closing fast, Tierno poked his shot just wide of the right post, allowing the home crowd to exhale a sigh of relief.

Regrouping after the close call, the Jeffs stormed back with a goal in the 64th minute to regain the momentum.

After James Mooney ’13E sent a searching through-ball to the right side of the box, substitute Greg Singer ’16 shook off a defender and beat Hickok in a footrace to the ball before centering a pass to Noon, who outmaneuvered his defender to bury the opportunity. “The second goal was huge because it came right after they missed a great chance that would have made it 1-1,� Serpone said.

Emboldened after his gritty assist, Singer extended the Amherst lead to 3-0 with a highlightreel goal in the 67th minute.

Gathering the ball near the top left corner of the 18-yard box, Singer took a few touches to his right before deftly bending a shot into the top right-corner of the net, just above the arms of the leaping goalkeeper.

Just five minutes later, Noon capped the

scoring with another ridiculous, eye-popping goal. Surging with the ball into the left side of the box, Noon rifled a sharp-angle toe shot against the bottom of the crossbar to give the Jeffs a 4-0 cushion.

Amherst’s tenacious backline delivered another strong performance, limiting Dickinson to just two shots on net. Securing their 16th shutout of the season, the Jeffs have conceded just two goals in 18 games this season.

Overall, Amherst outshot Dickinson by an 18-7 margin, including an 8-2 edge in shots on net. “There are still things that we need to work on, and there were pieces of the game that I didn’t think we were great on, but we made plays in both halves and it made for a memorable day,�

Serpone said.

Seeking their first Final Four appearance since 2008, the Jeffs will face a tough test against Swarthmore on Saturday. Swarthmore looked impressive in last weekend’s early-round action, earning a pair of 3-0 wins over Albertus Magnus and Rensselaer. “Swarthmore is going to be a real tough test,�

Lerner said. “We’re going to need all 30 guys to work and grind and play for each other for 90 minutes.� “Swarthmore is a perennial soccer power.

They are well coached and have some very good players,� Serpone said. “I am sure it will be a huge test for us and I’m hopeful that we will be up for it.�

If the Jeffs manage to defeat Swarthmore, they would face the winner of Brandeis (18-2-1) and Williams (15-1-3) in the NCAA quarterfinals on Sunday.

Kickoff time for the Amherst/Swarthmore contest is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Hitchcock Field. “It’s an honor to be playing in the Sweet 16 and as a program we are grateful for the opportunity. It’s a great opportunity for our team on Saturday,� Serpone said.