October 2018

the Coordinate System

the

But as

learns, grows, and

must

to

“Students, faculty, staff, and administration need to be coming together to understand how the system is affecting people, and brainstorm about how to move forward. Apathy is no longer an option.”

people can

“Why do I feel like I’m suddenly invisible to everyone here?”

Future of

is uniquely positioned to discuss, to queer, to undermine and reconstruct, gender.” “I am not a he, she, or they. I am me.”

“Every day, I feel the pressure to fit into the mold...”

“I am not a woman, and I am not a man, and for that I am truly living a life of consequence...”

The Herald

Established 1879

By and for the Students of Hobart and William Smith Colleges

www.HWSHerald.com

Alex Kerai, Editor-in-Chief

Wren Andrews, Arts & Entertainment Editor

Wren Andrews, Social Media

Albright Dwarka & Alex Kerai, Podcast Editors

Abigail Frederick, Design Editor

Ani Freedman, Photography Editor

Alex Kerai, Web Editor

Olivia Rowland, Copy Editor

Grace Ruble, News Editor

Contributors

Abigail Frederick

Ani Freedman

Will Fuller Olivia Rowland

Reed Herter

Layout

Alex Kerai

Abbey Frederick

Copy Editing Olivia Rowland Alex Kerai Charlie Wilson

Alex Kerai

Makayla Pydych

Grace Ruble

Nicola Russell Jackie Steinman

Distribution Alex Kerai

Wren Andrews Grace Ruble Abbey Frederick

Submission Guidelines

The Herald is currently accepting submissions for our upcom ing issue. The deadline is Monday at 5 p.m.

Must include the:

1. Name and Class Year

2. Individual phone number or e-mail E-mail submissions must be made via file attachment.

If criteria are not met , The Herald may not be able to print the submission.

A Note on This Issue

Some of the content included in this issue is provided by people who wish to remain anonymous due to fears of safety and well-being. Due to the sensitive nature of what they have written, the Herald has provided anonymity for all five writers who asked for it with their pieces. As such, they are identified using “tags” –short descriptions that provide context as to who the writer is –instead of using a name or class year.

The Herald stands by its writers and the Viewpoints they have produced for this issue. Their identities have been verified by the Editor-in-Chief and all procuedres relating the Herald’s ethics and journalism policies were followed. If you have any questions or concerns, email herald@hws.edu.

Dear Readers of the Herald,

At this moment in our Colleges’ history, we are at a unique juncture of change, where reform is possible and we – as students, faculty, staff, and alums – can lead it. This edition is a step in that direction.

Student newspaper must function as an agent for student discussion. 139 years ago, we stated our purpose as a means of communication on “matters that need reform” and a call to action for students to take charge. That has not changed today. I will continuously reference that statement of purpose because it is remarkably prescient but also shows how Hobart and William Smith has always been a place for change – an institution that thrives on student involvement and activity. Again: that has not changed today. The Herald is still “A Voice for the Students” and works to put forth student voices as a means to educate and inform the whole community.

Which brings us to today.

Over a month ago, in mid-September, we began work on the coordinate system. Instead of embarking on an investigation of the system, I decided it would not be right for me – as Editor-in-Chief and a cisgender man – to explore the system when the majority of discussion recently has centered around trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming students; I cannot speak for those students, and their voices need to be heard.

When I knew that I could not be the one telling their story, I began emailing students and alums that I knew to ask if they would be interested. I noted that I do not have a full understanding of how the coordinate system impacts transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming identifying / questioning students and alums; I would be the wrong person to write about it because I do not have those experiences. Instead, we asked students and alums to write their own and send them to us.

Since the current discussion focuses primarily on “the voices of transgender and non-binary students and graduates” within the coordinate system, as a letter signed by forty-members of the faculty said, we wanted to highlight those voices. Each perspective was written solely by a transgender, non-binary, and/or gender non-conforming identifying / questioning student or alum and represents their viewpoint; we have not edited, for content or length, any of the viewpoints published. They are incredibly powerful and diverse in their range of opinions and feelings towards the coordinate system.

In addition to the viewpoints, we have a piece on the context and history of the coordinate system at HWS. We endeavour to answer many questions posed to us by current students, and have reached out to many sources to find the most accurate information possible. In doing so, we have received a statement from Interim President Patrick A. McGuire, who addresses questions we posed to the administration. We also met with William Smith Dean Lisa Kaenzig and Hobart Dean Khuram Hussain to discuss the coordinate system and their roles as Deans of coordinate colleges.

We have an incredible cover, designed specially for this issue by our Design Editor Abigail Frederick. Her work is incredible and elevates this edition of the Herald to something special. She took a concept and created something extraordinary for our front cover.

I want to thank all of the people who submitted viewpoints to this issue. There are eight incredible pieces of writing (beginning on page 5 in our “Coordinate System” section) from writers who are both brave and pioneers in this renewed discussion on campus life, campus climate, and the coordinate system.

Our goal, as the Herald, is to not take a stand on this issue; instead, we want the voices of these students in their viewpoints to discuss the coordinate system. We want to provide information so that students, faculty, staff, and alums can have informed conversations on next steps. These pages contain only a small amount of viewpoints – particularly from transgender, non-binary, and/or gender nonconforming identifying / questioning community – but it is a start. These voices are speaking to us and trying to be heard.

It is time to listen.

Sincerely, Alex Kerai Editor-in-Chief of the Herald

William Smith Congress Reaching Out

By Grace Ruble ’21

“We never really leave our roles,” says Eva Catanzariti ‘21, vice president of William Smith Congress. “What we want to do is take issues that students care about on campus and take them out of just conversations with friends, and bring them to the next level where we can figure out how can we support you going forward and advocating on this issue.”

Support, inclusion and fostering communication were the reoccurring themes in the Herald’s conversation with WSC VP Catanzariti and President Sophie Ritter ‘21. The two, along with the rest of student government, are spearheading several initiatives this semester to make student government a more inclusive space for students to voice their concerns.

Both joined student government in the hopes of having conversations with fellow students and helping those students make the changes they want to see. Ritter said, “I liked being able to feel like I was making a change on campus … even if it’s a small change, I liked feeling like I was part of the process of making a change.” Catanzariti echoed those sentiments, saying, “There are definitely a lot of issues I hear people talking about on campus, but they weren’t really taking those issues to the next step where we actually really discuss them formally and decide to go forward with solutions. It’s a good space for evaluating what the problems are and how to go forward in a place where I feel like a lot of the times we tend more to just like vent about issues than actually game plan around them.”

The first step to making WSC more inclusive will be a re-examination of one of its guiding documents, the WSC Constitution, which Ritter is in the process of revising. She said, “Our constitution hasn’t been rewritten in a few years and it’s due to be rewritten so that’s something that’s been in the works since last semester. You have to go through every piece of it and it has to all be voted on by the student body once it’s been revised. We’re going to start hosting meetings probably within the next few weeks for people to put their input in to what they want changed in the constitution.”

The two, in conjunction with the rest of WSC and Hobart Student Government, had a suggestion box installed in Scandling Center so students can leave comments for their

representatives if they can’t attend the meeting or want to remain anonymous.

Inclusion is extremely important to Catanzariti, who emphasized student government’s role as a link between their peers and the administration, saying, “A lot of the student body doesn’t participate either because of the inconvenience of the meeting times or the reputation of us not being a safe space, so we want to make sure that because we have

are addressed is bringing in speakers to answer students’ questions. Catanzariti elaborated on this program, saying, “That is one thing that’s awesome is having speakers come in to actually address students’ concerns. We’ve had Marty [Corbett] (Director of Campus Safety) come in to talk about the blue lights. We’ve had David McCandless from Sodexo come in and talk about food problems. Title IX came in to talk about Title IX issues.” Catanzariti says this is helpful for figuring out how big an issue is and whether WSC can solve it.

“When people bring things up we try and go directly to the source,” agreed Ritter.

Catanzariti’s role as vice president also includes semesterly meetings with the alumnae network where she updates them about the issues facing students on campus. She anticipates her next meeting with them will include a conversation about the coordinate system and said, “The main thing I’m trying to convey to the alumnae is that they need to be with students more, listen to students more … They don’t like that they’re out of the loop.”

been elected to represent all student voices, we should be listening to all students’ voices and bringing that forward when we have our meetings with administrative officials.”

The largest program that WSC is spearheading is organizing regular meetings with cultural clubs to address the historical whiteness of student government and ensure that the voices of students of color are heard. Catanzariti said, “We’re aware that when you enter the [current student government] room it’s not a diverse room and we’re entering with that knowledge and trying to figure out how to fix it.” She continued, “We don’t just want to be an inclusive space in the meetings. We want to use those meetings to make campus as a whole a more inclusive space, and the way we do that is to promote these conversations about race, gender, et cetera, issues that are still prevalent on campus but are becoming less discussed.”

Something else student government has been doing to make sure students’ concerns

Just as Catanzariti’s role as VP allows her to communicate between students and alumnae, Ritter’s role as president allows her to form a similar relationship with the deans. She meets regularly with Dean Salter to plan events such as Founder’s Day and other events that might benefit the student body. Ritter is also using her role to bring more awareness to the coordinate system conversation to the deans, saying, “We’re working on co-sponsoring a coordinate conversation with the Dean’s Office, so that’s something that’s in the works. We’re just figuring out a time when we could have a meeting open to students to come and discuss their opinions on the coordinate system.”

Despite the unique challenge of working with a coordinate student government, the two see joint student government as an opportunity rather than an obstacle. Catanzariti says, “I don’t really think you can go to those meetings thinking WSC represents just William Smith students and HSG is just Hobart. We have an understanding that we collectively represent the whole school.” Ritter agreed, saying, “If anything it gives more people opportunities to have their voice heard, because if you have more people in positions where they’re out and speaking to people, then it gives more people opportunities.” She continued: “We’re constantly collaborating with [Hobart].

Student Voter Engagement

By Olivia Rowland ’21 Copy Editor

The Herald’s coverage of Hobart class president elections in last month’s issue revealed that most students were apathetic when it came to voting. With the midterm elections coming up in less than a month, students have another, arguably more important, chance to let their voices be heard. But will they vote?

In short, the data is not promising. Young people have been the age group the least likely to vote in all recent elections. Their low turnout at the polls is especially pronounced in midterm election years, like this one.

Any student who checks his or her email regularly will recognize the following statistics, but they are worth repeating. According to Associate Director of the Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning (CCESL) Jeremy Wattles, “In 2012, only 40 percent of 18-29 year-olds voted nationwide, but 55 percent of 30-44 year-olds, 65 percent of 45-60 year-olds, and 70 percent of 60+ year-olds voted.” For midterm elections, the turnout for 18-29 year-olds is cut in half to around 20 percent.

At HWS, student voter turnout has recently been even lower. In his regular TurboVote emails, Wattles notes that in 2014, the last midterm election year, 58.3 percent of HWS students were registered to vote but only 5 percent ended up casting their ballots.

This is important because who votes in an election affects its outcome. When older adults vote at significantly higher rates than young adults do, it means the views of those older adults are disproportionately taken into account in campaigns and in the government.

For this reason, there have been many efforts across campus by students and faculty alike to encourage students to vote

HWS Votes, a student-run organization dedicated to increasing voter registration and political participation on campus, has been at the forefront of voter engagement efforts this semester.

Along with CCESL, HWS Votes partners with TurboVote to help students get registered to vote and take them through the voting process. TurboVote is a nonpartisan online service that guides students through registering to vote and requesting their absentee ballots.

As of Oct. 15, 654 students had used TurboVote. This is a significant increase from the 244 students who used TurboVote for the last midterm election in 2014, and it broke HWS Votes’ goal of 600 users.

Bart Lahiff ’20, one of the Civic Leaders of Political Activism with CCESL, says that they “have the highest number of people registered to vote in terms of proportion of the population since working with TurboVote.”

According to Lahiff, the goal this year is to get students who register to vote to finish the process and vote on or before Election Day. “There’s a huge gulf between registered voters and people who actually vote,” says Lahiff.

The problem? “There are barriers to voter registration that are not necessarily clear to people. It’s a multi-staged process to get the absentee ballot, and people don’t recognize that it’s going to take a longer amount of time.”

Many students will register to vote and think they have completed the process, but in order to get their absentee ballots they must send a request form to their local board of elections. The absentee ballot must then be completed and mailed back.

“The way we’re trying to combat that is impressing upon people the deadlines they need to fill and trying to get people to have

us pay for the postage,” Lahiff says.

Additionally, some students may feel as though they’ve done enough just by registering to vote. Lahiff notes that in some circles, “there is this weird disconnect where you can get all of the social value of voting with the TurboVote registration but you don’t actually have to do the work.”

This is where HWS Votes’ voter education work comes in. So far this semester, the organization has worked with RAs to boost voter engagement and is planning to hold a party on Election Day to watch the results come in.

They have also organized a voter registration mail drive. Students who still need to register to vote or request their absentee ballots can go to the post office in Scandling to send their materials with prepaid postage.

Supporting HWS Votes’ work, Interim President Patrick A. McGuire has also contributed to the effort to motivate student voters. In an email sent to all students on Oct.v 5, President McGuire encouraged students to use TurboVote and assured them that their votes count.

“There are many ways to participate in a healthy democracy; one way is voting,” wrote McGuire. “In case you’re unsure whether your vote counts, Jeremy and Katie in CCESL have shared with me that in 2015

News Campus Connections

By Reed Herter ’22 Herald Contributor

The Campus Connections Program is a newly instituted service for first-year students. It takes all first-year students and pairs them up with a mentor on campus. These mentors are staff members who volunteered, and they “are the people not interacting with students on a daily basis,” as John Young, the Dean of Admissions, put it.

The purpose of the mentors is to act as a more personal resource on campus, especially for new students, and, of course, to make connections with those students. MaryAnn Rolfe, Assistant Director for Campus Initiatives in Alumni and Alumnae Relations, described it by saying that it “doesn’t have to be about academics.” The point is to have a

resource — to “have a person to ask questions to.” The program allows a staff member on campus to provide support for students, who will be able to know another person on campus.

By creating such connections, students have another friendly face and another type of resource for a variety of situations. Mentors can help students with projects, find other resources, act as a sounding board for homesick students and simply be another person to help them. As Vice President for Campus Life Robb Flowers quoted William Smith Dean Lisa Kaenzig, “the more adults students connect with, the better they become.” He also made it clear that this program is set in place to help the students, as the Hobart and William Smith institutions “don’t rely on size to assume

connections will happen.”

The staff mentors involved are all volunteers for the program who responded to the call. About 60 staff members are involved from all over campus. Each staff member is paired with about 10 first-year students. These pairings are randomly assigned based on reference numbers. As some of the staff is from outreach, any staff members who may have already had a relationship were asked to switch students, so the expansion of connections was ensured.

This relationship is also very much up to

Congress

from page 3

There are things that we do individually if it’s something that only William Smith students want to talk about, like in the coming weeks we’re going to have a meeting with Title IX that’s just WSC because some students expressed they didn’t feel comfortable with Hobart students in the room, so that’s an opportunity that we have to make a safe space for women.”

Both women emphasized their willingness to speak to and help all students achieve the change they want to see on campus. “I think that’s

Come and visit our Quaker community

What do Quakers believe?

We believe all people can have a direct experience of the Divine, individually and in shared worship. We believe everyone is equal. We look for the Divine in every person we meet. Our guiding principle is love

the student, as they can meet with their mentor once or twice with the result of simply having met another staff member. Other students take it a step further and use their mentor more as a tool, though the relationship is completely up to the student and how much time he or she has to meet with the mentor.

The staff involved wanted to be sure that it was understood that this is not a program to replace any existing relationships and programs, but is another one to extend the relationships on campus and to help students who are new to the school. Rolfe said that the relationship formed “doesn’t rise to the level of academic advisor.” Instead, it is made to work in conjunction with the rest of the school’s pre-existing connections.

This is similar to a program used last year that connected families of students and prospective students with a liaison. The old program worked, but it focused more on the families and not on the students, so it was replaced with the new program, which focuses on students individually instead.

Overall, the staff who worked on this program seemed excited about the new program and its implementation, since they “get to meet the first-year class.” As a new resource open to first-year students, this program was made to make the transition to life at Hobart and William Smith easier, and to give students another resource for any help they may need.

really our main goal, being the voice of all students on campus, because that’s our mission statement, that’s what we’re about,” asserts Ritter.

Some upcoming events where students can connect with WSC include Founder’s Day in November, their tabling events in Scandling Center and upcoming meetings they will host with President McGuire, Title IX and the cultural clubs.

If William Smith students want to get involved with WSC or have a comment or concern, they are encouraged to leave a comment in the new student government suggestion box, visit the WSC table in Scandling Center or follow and reach out to @williamsmithcongress on Instagram.

Vote

continued from page 3

the mayoral race in Geneva was decided by a mere 12 ballots.”

McGuire’s email also stressed the importance of the upcoming elections for any students who are wondering why they should vote.

A third of the Senate is up for re-election, as well as the entire House. This means that control of Congress is up for grabs, with the potential for the Senate, the House, or both to be flipped.

Also on the ballot this November are many state and local elections, which have just as much importance in students’ lives as the national elections.

Any students who want to learn more about what will be on their ballot can go to online resources such as Vote411.org or Ballotpedia. org. For those who would like to stay politically informed beyond the elections, HWS offers a free online subscription to The New York Times. Copies of the newspaper and others can also be picked up around campus.

It is too late to register to vote in many states, but students from certain states have a few days to register and request their absentee ballots. These states include California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Students from New York who still need to request an absentee ballot should mail the request by Oct. 22.

Any students who want to get involved with HWS Votes can contact Lahiff or his partner, Cassidy DiPaola ‘18. The Herald encourages all students who are able to vote to do so on (or before) Nov. 6.

What happens in a Quaker meeting?

We come together in a circle for worship and sit quietly. We listen to the small still voice of the Divine within us.

We speak only if we feel led to do so. We join hands when worship ends and greet those around us.

Come join us: Sundays at 10:30am in the Fisher Center

2nd Floor of Demarest Hall

For further information contact:

John (607) 243-7077

Cherry (315) 789-8792 Chester (315) 781-1251 www.quakerwny.com

“this program was made … to give students another resource for any help they may need. ”

Coordinate System

Viewpoint 1 Viewpoint 2

By Noah D. R. Feeman Class of 2016

“What does Coordinate mean to you?”

How many HWS students (alums, staff, faculty, passers-by, families, friends, neighbors, invested local businessmen, the stranger on the street) come and gone, have been asked this question? How many different pieces of school promotional material have contained some version of this phrase; how many of us have had it sprung on us by Deans or other students?

I’ve been asked it more than I could count, and every time it comes up, I always feel blindsided, unsure of how to respond. What does Coordinate mean to me? This is rarely simply a question, a hypothetical gauging my interest—not in my case.

In January of 2016, the WS in my PeopleSoft changed to H, and that question ceased to be something that gauged my feelings on the Coordinate system and instead became a question on my lived experience at the schools. For the first (official) time ever, someone whose birth certificate read F had swapped from William Smith to Hobart, and it had taken eight (or more) years of hard work and teeth-pulling to get there.

Just like when gay marriage was legalized in the States, when I was able to graduate from Hobart there was a certain sigh of relief that everyone breathed. An unstated “We did it, we climbed the mountain, well done” sort of back-patting as the trans problem was shelved. And the trans problem? Not shelved. Still very much an issue.

What does the Coordinate system mean to me? It’s two things. The first is the party line, the marketing package: the three statues on campus. Our binary is so much less binary than we like to talk about, because Elizabeth Blackwell oversees the Hobart Quadrangle and William Smith strides down the William Smith Hill, startling students and passersby alike on dark winter nights. Between the two, the scissors sit, at the spot where the campuses combine, a reminder that we are severing connections; working better together; joined in one; cutting the binary histories and making something new.

By Kels Veeder Current Student

Though it occurred well over a year now, my most prominent memory at HWS is still the first day of Orientation. Walking through the Hobart matriculation tent alone was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life; being ignored by the Alumni Association and having to endure questioning side glances made it immediately clear that I did not belong here. The anxiety and isolation I experienced that first day has only increased tenfold over the past year.

When I enrolled, I had no idea what a coordinate system was. It was not brought up in my interview or during the one tour I had taken on Scholar’s Day. I assumed it mostly had to do with athletics, which I had no intention of participating in. Imagine my surprise stepping on to this campus and immediately being defined solely by an incorrect gender. However, that surprise was very quickly replaced with stress, anger, and isolation as I realized what the coordinate system meant for a student like me.

The coordinate system creates several issues, starting with its imposition of a false gender binary. Gender is not limited to men and women, nor has it ever been. Gender is a social construct. However, by purposely setting up a system that only recognizes men and women, HWS sends a clear message to gender non-conforming people that they will not be recognized here, and even more so that they do not deserve to be recognized here.

The system also sets up gendered expectations, in the forms of the strong Hobart man and the empowered William Smith woman. Both of these figures are typically white, cisgender, and financially privileged. Both are picture-perfect versions of the ideals of HWS. Anyone who does not fit these molds loses connection with the Colleges; in a place where tradition is so heavily prioritized, how does the system deal with students whose very existences defies traditional expectations? From my experience, exclusion and isolation are common effects.

What I find the most amusing about the coordinate system is how much it lies about itself. The biggest lie of the coordinate system is that we have a men’s college and a women’s college. The importance of women’s colleges derived most often from a lack of access for women to higher education, or rampant sexism in higher educational practices. The entire point of a women’s college is getting an education solely with other women, which is not happening at HWS. Everyone has the same classes, the same professors, the same academic honors; what HWS does in reality is set up gendered traditions that seep into academic life where they don’t belong. I’m in classes with Hobart and William Smith students. There is no reason why my academic diploma should falsely label me as a Hobart College student when I have never and will never be in classes solely with other Hobart students.

Viewpoint 1 … continued page 8

The second is not the party line. The second is Orientation for the Classes of 2016 and standing in front of Coxe Hall with the sun in my eyes as I’m being told I have to go through William Smith matriculation, be given a colored band for Moving Up Day and a tote bag, and eating a meal seated with the Deans because I’m not really a William Smith student. It’s sitting in the Hobart Dean’s office with my brother Druids and having to ask Dean Mapstone, was I picked last because everyone was scared of the politics? It’s sitting on the steps of Smith Hall and reading death threats on an online petition because I wanted to get emails from Hobart. It’s being in a classroom and being told as a Junior that I own male privilege on HWS campus because I’m a Hobart student, even though it would be another year before I was made a Hobart student. It’s the Herald running a photo of me, my best friend, and my husband on the cover without our permission, outing both of them to the entire HWS community as trans. It’s one of my friends transferring because he couldn’t stand another day of being a William Smith student, having to walk into a Dean’s Office of only women, an oddity, an other. It’s someone saying to me, as I ask for a friend to take part in Hobart

By Alex Kerai ’19 Editor-in-Chief

When, William Smith gave about $475,000 to the Trustees of Hobart for the founding of William Smith College for women on December 13, 1906, the college was to be coordinate with the “men's department” and under Hobart’s Board of Trustees. The coordinate agreement is unique among American colleges; it is touted by the Colleges as being in place for exploration and discovery among students with its separate student governments, deans, traditions, and athletic departments. However, as conversations have begun on campus about the continuation of the coordinate system in its current form, it is necessary to understand the context and history in which the system was implemented.

In the October 22, 1942 issue of the Herald, page 2 noted Dr. John Milton Potter as “president of the coordinate colleges” in “Campus Briefs.” It is one of the first instances of that phrase being used. Dr. Potter would unite the Colleges under one corporate name in 1943 as The Colleges of the Seneca. This elevated William Smith to an independent college, still in a coordinate agreement with Hobart, from its original status as a part of Hobart. It created Hobart and William Smith Colleges as a collective institution.

The two colleges had slowly combined after the first joint commencement ceremony was held in 1922, after coeducational classes were becoming more prominent across campus. In the early days of the agreement, at the start of the 20th century, classes and professors would be the same, except the classes would be taught twice with men and women being taught separately. Class duplication was one of the many binding rules and traditions at the Colleges in the middle of the 20th century. However, after joining together under the umbrella of The Colleges of the Seneca, the Colleges began to chart a path forward together.

With the beginning of the 21st century, societal changes led to campus changes: transgender students advocated for their right to switch Colleges and the Colleges added an LGBTQ+ Resource Center. The Culture of Respect report, presented in Summer 2015 by now Interim President Patrick A. McGuire L.H.D. ’12 and retired Assistant Vice President, Director of Admissions Mara O’Laughlin ’66, L.H.D. ’13, also brought more attention to the

This leads me to my biggest critique of the coordinate system — it makes gender, not education, the basis of an HWS college experience. Instead of starting with academics, the system divides everything and everyone into a false binary and focuses on academics as a secondary experience of college. I should not be talking about my gender and how college will make me into an ideal man before getting a chance to sit in some classes and get my first homework assignment, but that is what is currently happening here

Viewpoint 2 … continued page 9

The Coordinate System: History & Context

coordinate college structure.

According to the Culture of Respect report, “Each college is chartered separately as a degree granting institution in the State of New York.” The Colleges are, however, according to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, legally and corporately identified as “Hobart and William Smith Colleges.” (An email to the New York State Department of Education about the Articles of Incorporation was unanswered by the time we went to print.)

However, the most important thing, at a student-centered institution like HWS, Hobart Dean Khuram Hussain notes, is “creating opportunities for students to understand what their power is, and then to engage in the kinds of changes that are meaningful – whether it’s traditions or the entire system itself. It’s to empower students with knowledge and information; to empower them with a sense of their efficacy and agency: this is your school.”

When discussing how people feel represented within the system, William Smith Dean Lisa Kaenzig noted: “We have a way of making sure that everybody voice is heard here.” We value “the voices of those who have been more disenfranchised – women, LBGTQ people – that’s really the fundamental core values of this place and I think coordinate supports that so well,” she said. Honor societies and awards from the individual colleges were brought up as an issue that people who do not identify with either college face, however Kaenzig said that no student has spoken with her about accepting honors while not identifying as that gender. “We would probably deal with it like we do most things: talking to the student and saying, ‘What would you like to apply for? What feels like the right fit for you?’”

Dean Hussain notes that the emergence of William Smith Colleges was “an embodied move to rectify something that was not whole – these institutions were not built for everyone, let’s build them differently.” He continued by saying that it is an ongoing conversation that “opens up one of the ways in which the institution wasn’t built to really address gender identities more broadly, and so now what? What does that mean?”

“I have always felt, in the fifteen-plus years I’ve worked here, like I’m talking to an individual person,” Dean Kaenzig said. “I’m working with each individual student, so all the parts of your identity are important to me, as you choose to express them or change them

while you’re a student here.” Dean Kaenzig emphasized that the deans were here for all students, and that no matter what a student identified as, they could go meet with any dean, it is not exclusively determined by college assignment.

There was also discussion of Orientation and how first-years spend time in groups with “a Hobart mentor and a William Smith mentor – and I just love that,” Dean Kaenzig said. “I love that on all of our committees we’ve got a William Smith student and a Hobart student, and on the Board of Trustees we’ve got two Hobart and two William Smith students…I think that’s fantastic! And I really think that makes…all of us better at learning how to work and live together.”

“What I think is fascinating is that [this conversation] is still, in terms of really moving things forward, students. Whether it’s alums… student governments, student organizations – It’s still students that are moving this conversation forward. They are the ones that are so invested in this,” Dean Hussain said. This notion led to a project with the William Smith Dean’s office.

The Deans’ Offices and the two student governments – Hobart Student Government and William Smith Congress – are going to be working together on a dialogue series, beginning in late November. Although in its early stages, the goal is to bring in many different offices and people, along with student organizations and students to discuss campus culture and the coordinate system on campus. “Right now, we have a unique opportunity to elevate marginalized voices,” Dean Hussain said. “It would be unfortunate if a decision was made about coordinate without engaging in campus-wide conversations about gender and culture with particular attention to the needs of trans students.”

The Herald also reached out to members of senior staff – Vice President for Campus Life Robb Flowers, Vice President for Marketing & Communications Cathy Williams, Vice President for Admissions & Dean of Enrollment John Young, Vice President for Advancement Bob O’Connor, Associate Vice President for Advancement & Alumnae Relations Kathy Regan ’82, and Associate Vice President for Advancement & Alumni Relations Jared Weeden ’91 – for comment on various issues pertaining to the coordinate system and their

Coordinate System

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This piece was written by a student at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

I walk across campus alongside 5-10 other families on my first tour as a prospective student of Hobart and William Smith Colleges. In the first few steps the coordinate system and the “four main differences of The Colleges” are mentioned. It sounds really cool that women have unique opportunities, but for some reason I find myself deeply unnerved. At this point in my life I cannot quite put my finger on why. My admissions officer knows I am slightly nervous about being on this campus as I do not identify as straight. So once my tour concludes, I eat lunch with my admissions officer and an LGBTQ+ identifying community member. They express how accepting the community has been towards them. On my next visit, I meet professors and students involved in the LGBT studies program. I am put at some sort of ease that there is some form of LGBTQ+-related education here on campus.

Do I forgo an education and mentorships from some of the top scientists in this country to attend another institution that allows me to feel comfortable in my own skin? At this point, I am not sure of how I identify; should I ignore this piece of my developing identity for my education? How would my trans/non-binary friends and counterparts feel, knowing that I am indirectly supporting the binary and gender roles?

I receive a letter in my Scandling mailbox stating that I have been nominated for multiple awards/recognition which will be presented on Moving Up Day. I nearly scream of excitement as I had never been recognized for academic achievement before. It is finally my turn to be appreciated. I quickly realize that these awards are not meant for me. They are meant for the female analog of my existence. I now realize I am not a woman in science. I am a non-binary person in science. What does that mean in the present and for my future?

Can I be okay with myself if I accept an award meant for a William Smith student in my particular field of science? Should I just accept the awards and move on with my life? Should I wear a dress- a piece of clothing that I feel comfortable in, but one that is extremely gendered- to hide my hesitation and distain for the situation in which I have been placed? I do not feel comfortable being a part of Hobart ceremonies either as I present, in a physical way and in my fashion sense, as female. So how do I come to terms that neither ceremony is meant for me? If I do attend, do I decline the William Smith Moving Up Day bracelet as a small rejection of the situation?

A current O’Laughlin Ambassador (the new name for Admissions student workers) tells me about a tour they gave the other day. (The pronoun “they” or other information has been used to address all people mentioned in this piece in order to protect the identity of each person mentioned.) A parent asked, “What do we do if my student identifies as non-binary?” The tour guide described how they were taken aback and eventually responded with something along the lines of, “The Colleges are working hard to take these issues into account and find a solution to this pressing issue.” They went on to say that they went to one of the professional staff members to ask what the options were. In short, the response stated that the student must apply to either Hobart or William Smith. If they could not choose and feel comfortable with that, then this school may not be right for them.

In another conversation, an O’Laughlin Ambassador pointed me to the tour guide manual. The only place where trans/non-binary applicants are mentioned is in a section called the Tough Questions which provides tour guides with hard questions

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This piece was written by a sophomore non-binary student currently enrolled at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

When I decided to come here, I was in the process of accepting my identity as a non-binary person. I struggled with the idea that I was not, in fact, a woman, despite knowing deep-down that I did not fit into the binary idea of gender. Being a William Smith student has made this process exponentially harder.

Every day, I feel the pressure to fit into the mold of “William Smith Woman” despite knowing that I never will. I get emails addressed to “ladies” and “William Smith women” and I feel that pressure double every time I read those words. The institutions of the Colleges aren’t set up for me and other trans students. The binary nature of Hobart and William Smith enforces the exclusion of everyone who doesn’t perfectly fit into that gender binary, whether trans and not.

The biggest hurdle that being at a coordinate college like HWS has placed in my path, however, is whether I feel safe coming out and whether it is worth it to be myself. I see the way that trans people who are out are treated and I question whether being myself is worth it. I see trans students repeatedly mis-gendered, not just by other students, but by professors and staff who either don’t know or don’t care about what it means to be trans. I know that my alienation from William Smith will be much worse if I am open about my nonbinary gender and I doubt that I could ever feel safe or comfortable as a non-binary Hobart student.

HWS needs to do more to support the students alienated by the coordinate system. Ideally, the coordinate system would be abolished, but if that can’t happen just yet, important steps need to be taken for the health and safety of the students of Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

First, more education needs to be given to potential students about the coordinate system. I don’t know if I would still have come if I had known more about the coordinate system, but I certainly would have been more prepared. Admissions needs to do a better job advertising the realities of the coordinate system, instead of either minimizing its importance, ignoring it completely, or touting an idealized, false version of the coordinate system. There needs to be more information given about the support systems for trans student given on tours, not just “you get to choose your college!” as my tour guide told me.

Second, all professors, staff, and administrators need to go through training about the coordinate system, its effects on students, and what it means to be trans, both here and in general. Classes need to start with everyone introducing themselves with name and pronouns. I had one professor who had us all turn in a paper with a bit about ourselves, including chosen name and pronouns. This simple step made me feel a million times more welcome in that class. The trick to asking pronouns, however is that you need to remember and use the correct ones, or at the very least correct yourself if you slip up.

In short, the coordinate system and its binary nature makes me feel unsafe, unable to by myself, and unwelcome on this campus. I know I’m not alone. There are ways to help it, but it has to start now.

This piece was written by an upper-class Hobart and William Smith student.

I am a non-binary student.

“Genderqueer, also known as non-binary, is a catch-all category for gender identities that are not exclusively masculine or feminine—identities which are outside the gender binary and cisnormativity. Genderqueer people may express a combination of masculinity and femininity, or neither, in their gender expression.” (Wikipedia, 2018)

I am strong — not strong like a man but strong like a strong person. I am nurturing — not nurturing like a woman but nurturing like a nurturing person. I am all-encompassing. I am divine masculinity and divine femininity. I am the sun and the moon. Gender is a social construct and I’ve denounced it from my life, therefore I am non-binary. Intrinsically, we are all non-binary but cishet people care too much about labels.

I have a vagina. I’ve always had a vagina and no one questioned my pussy power last year when I identified as a queer woman. My clit still works and you still can’t touch it.

I’m afraid to hand in my Preferred Primary Name, Gender, College Affiliation, and Chosen Pronoun Selection Form, which gives me the option to list my gender as “non-binary” and choose my pronouns to be just my name. I’m all about playing this broken system, but there’s a certain level of conforming to the institution in order to benefit from it. The scholarship funding my enrollment here is for a William Smith student. If I list myself as non-binary, will they take away my scholarship? You can say no, because my college affiliation would still be William Smith. Okay but what if I want to change my college affiliation to Hobart? Because I do. Wait, what? What kind of feminist are you? Turning your back on an all women’s college to graduate from an all men’s institution? Sounds like another woman I mean “person” sucking the patriarchy dry.

For starters, fuck you. Second, fuck the coordinate system. Fuck your traditions and fuck your transphobic alumni. I’ve been going to “Coordinate System Chats” since my first-year, for what? To prove that the Colleges realize that the coordinate system is problematic and pretend to be progressive about it? Talk is cheap and tuition is not. Give me the (HWS) degree I’m paying for and stop wasting my time. I think that’s what separates our current generation from those that preceded us: when we see a problem, we are open and eager to change. We are comfortable with taking genuine and productive steps to contemporize and update our understandings and practices. But this campus has proven time and time again that it’s conscious of how it hypermargianalizes POC, Queer and international students and STILL DOESN’T DO ANYTHING REAL ABOUT IT.

Okay so realistic action items? Here’s a few. *First, the Preferred Primary Name… selection form needs to have the option to be submitted electronically. Nice try but what genderqueer student wants to walk up to the Registrar’s front desk and hand in this form to a student worker who will then have to look at it and with a confused face have to ask the professional staff about what to do with it? *Second, train administration, faculty and staff on proper trans/genderqueer etiquette such as: not treating them differently from anyone else; not acting surprised/confused/disappointed because you didn’t expect it from a particular student; using the right pronouns; not making a huge deal in front of the class about messing up the right pronouns; and not demonizing “woman-passing” individuals who want to be affiliated with Hobart because why should I have to graduate with the less recognized degree because you think I’m a woman. I am not a woman, and I am not a man, and for that I am truly living a life of consequence at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

Coordinate System

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By Cameron Gaynor William Smith ’14

When I was looking at colleges back in 2008-9, I wasn’t out to myself as transgender and non-binary, let alone queer at all. I’d grown up in simultaneously a very gendered and non-gendered world. I am an only child, assigned female at birth, and grew up competitively horseback riding. I was a Rhetoric and English enthusiast and so many things about Hobart & William Smith Colleges appealed to me—their Writing & Rhetoric undergraduate program, their English department and the small class sizes, the cold weather and beautiful campus, the club equestrian team, and the traditions the Colleges celebrated were among some top factors. I’d grown up with what I now know was gender dysphoria without the language to understand the disconnect I felt from my body, mind, and world around me. I was expected to adhere to feminine gender norms, but the barn where I spent almost my entire time outside of school was a place to escape. Horseback riding, and in particular growing up on a working farm, took me away from the strictly gendered world around me. Horseback riding remains the only Olympic sport where gender does not serve as a basis to categorize competitors.

Though I spent my years at Hobart & William Smith Colleges coming to terms with my gender identity and queerness silently, I still wholeheartedly identify as a William Smith alumni. When I got my legal name change in May of this year and subsequently requested a new diploma, the presidential signatory on the diploma was surprised that I decided to keep William Smith on the name. For me, this wasn’t even a question.

I don’t identify with William Smith as a “women’s college” but rather a liberal arts college rooted in community, resiliency, strength, academic rigor, and empowerment. I do recognize that the things I love most about William Smith may have come to fruition due to the gendered coordinate system dynamics. However, I’d love to see a future where we can move beyond a strictly (binary) gendered system to account for the increased fluidity in gender identity and expression as we continue to challenge cultural hegemony. I believe there remains something unique and special about the coordinate system that I would be saddened to see lost. I believe two separate student governments working together teaches collaboration. I believe that many prospective students gravitate towards and identify with deep rooted traditions of the Colleges separately and as a whole. I also notice cultural differences between the colleges that, again, were likely once rooted in gender that are no longer necessary. When I think of Greek Life and quintessential college sports culture, Hobart College comes to mind. This is the same for the small, more lecture style courses I have sat in. When I think of critical cultural studies and peer-review based seminars that are at the heart of typical Northeast liberal arts colleges’ education styles, I think of William Smith College. This is not to say that William Smith athletics are not equally as rigorous—they deserve the many accolades they have fought for in their own right. And academic experience for Hobart students is equally as outstanding. Both Colleges teach impeccable critical thinking skills together.

However, this is not to say that I think the system should remain the same. I believe that my experience and relation to the Colleges is one blimp in a galaxy of unique individuals—some of whom have a troubled relationship to the binary that the coordinate system presents. I am an advocate for HWS to move toward a more fluid understanding of the present system with greater ability for movement between the two. I often think of what a non-gendered coordinate system would look and operate like. In fact, I was one of the captains of the equestrian team when we were pushing for the team to be recognized as a varsity sport, which was not possible since the team was co-ed. The issue was dropped when the team was unwilling to move to be a women’s team. The team was founded eleven years ago by a Hobart College student. In addition, to go to a single-gender team would go against what the equestrian sport stands for. This presents another issue I faced with a strictly gendered system.

I believe that while the focus is on transgender and gender non-conforming inclusion and affirmation at the Colleges, this issue extends far beyond this one marginalized community. I have cisgender and heterosexual friends whose college experience was strongly imbedded in the college of the “opposite” gender for a myriad of different reasons. I say this to suggest that a more fluid movability and less staunchly gendered system may benefit the Colleges and their students in many unique and promising ways.

There is so much rich, wonderful, and celebratory history embedded in the coordinate system. But as society evolves, learns, grows, and expands, institutions must adapt to accommodate. I look forward to actively engaging with Hobart & William Smith Colleges as an alumni of William Smith, and am excited for what the future brings for the campus and community as a whole. José Esteban Muñoz, a scholar, author, and queer theorist, posits the notion of “queer utopia” through an ever-expanding horizon we continuously strive towards yet never reach as we push boundaries beyond what was thought to be possible. In his book Cruising Utopia: The Then and Now of Queer Futurity, he writes, “The here and now is a prison house. We must strive, in the face of the here and now’s totalizing rendering of reality, to think and feel a then and there. Some will say that all we have are the pleasures of this moment, but we must never settle for that minimal transport; we must dream and enact new and better pleasures, other ways of being in the world, and ultimately new worlds.” Let us work towards a coordinate system that imagines and enacts new ways of being with the world, in a sense a new world for the future of Hobart & William Smith stemming from the foundation of our cherished traditions.

This piece is written by a senior Hobart and William Smith student.

The Coordinate System and Beyond: What HWS can do Better

As a transgender student, I despise the coordinate system. That is not to say that I do not recognize why it exists, nor am I ignorant of the struggle it would take to remove it. So, this article shall be separated into two parts: The Issues with a Coordinate System, and Beyond the Coordinate System. So often when trans issues are mentioned, they are reduced to one issue. At this school that issue has become the coordinate system. While it is certainly flawed, and should be changed, my goal is to raise an awareness of many issues transgender people on campus face so we may chip away at what problems we can. I will not in this essay argue for why trans students deserve to be happier here, nor that they deserve to have their genders respected. I would encourage a reader who does not agree with these sentiments to seek out further information before continuing to read.

The Issues with a Coordinate System

The first issue with the coordinate system comes from how structure informs conversation. This is not always an issue, as many of my cis female classmates have pointed out. By framing our school as a school for men and a school for women, women are more present in the minds of their peers, and have more access to their own spaces. That all said, the coordinate system’s feminism is trans exclusionary. Firstly, students who do not ascribe to the male or female gender are put in a confusing position. There has been some push to change diction like “Hobart men” and “William Smith women,” since neither school is comprised entirely of men or women respectively. This is an important push, and does aid slightly in making transgender students feel more included. That said, the idea that Hobart and William Smith can ever be torn from their gendered roots is too idealistic, especially when people who are assigned male at birth are put into Hobart, and people assigned female at birth are put into William Smith. The structure of HWS focuses our conversations around how men and women interact, which excludes not only transgender people, but also intersex people. So, either the claim that the structure of HWS’ ability to support conversations about women and men is right, which implies that structure has an important impact on the conversations we have, and the coordinate system discourages conversations about transgender people, or the claim that structure has an impact is false, and this system does not benefit women, and is a worthless symbol of the transphobic view that only men and women exist.

The second issue with the coordinate system is the pressure and focus on gender that it creates. Some have argued that this system is good for trans people who identify as men or women because it allows them to be themselves and be supported in a same-gender community. I fully acknowledge here that my viewpoint alone is not sufficient to cover this argument, as I am not a man or a woman. That said, from my many conversations with my transgender friends both at HWS and elsewhere, the response has not been positive. The issue is that the system then places a dichotomy on students. They must be perceived as male or female, a Hobart student or a William Smith student. This disallows the existence that many trans people visually take, which blurs gender, and forces them to assert their gender immediately, lest they be pegged as “from the wrong school.”

The third issue with the coordinate system is degrees. If a transgender person goes to school here, they are forced to get a degree from Hobart or from William Smith. Not only does this present problems for people who write “Hobart and William Smith” as the college they went to, which does not legally exist, and could cause problems with applications to jobs or graduate school, but this also presents a major issue for transgender people. Which degree do I get? The idea that one can just receive a degree from the college closest to their gender assumes several things which are not always true. Firstly, it assumes that transgender people are out as transgender to their parents and community, and that those groups will be supportive. Someone who was assigned female at birth and decides to graduate from Hobart risks the Hobart community or their family finding out. This risks great violence against them if their parents are unsupportive. A friendly reminder: transgender homelessness is common, conversion therapy still exists in America, and transgender people are often victims of violence. The other option, taking the degree of the gender one has been assigned at birth, could cause great mental suffering for the transgender person themselves, who would have to pretend to be cisgender in order to graduate, instead of not having to deal with gender at graduation at all. There does, so I have been told, exist a system in which people can change their school of graduation after they graduate, which, while not a fix, is helpful. I have heard rumors of a possibility for graduation with a joint degree from Hobart and William Smith. I have heard these rumors the entire time I have been a student here, though, and have yet to see a friend be able to graduate with a joint degree, so if this possibility does exist, I love and support it, but as of this moment, I remain skeptical of its existence, and still take issue with the fact that a student has to out themselves to whoever would be able to change their degree in order to get the degree they want.

Beyond the Coordinate System

As promised, this article will not only cover the coordinate system. I understand that for many, other than expressing their discontent, there is not a way to make actionable change to this system (while all are able to support change, not everyone has the power to make it). There are other ways the campus can make transgender students feel more safe, though, and I would suggest that these actions be taken to the extent to which we are able, in order to make this

Coordinate System Viewpoint 8

look?

This piece was written by a recent graduate of Hobart and William Smith.

The following list of questions is the best way that I’ve found to express my experience, and that is all I have to contribute right now. Questions I asked myself on a daily basis when I came out as transgender on the HWS campus:

Do I have to leave William Smith if I’m not a woman?

Would an attempt to change colleges out me as trans to my family?

What if I’m not exactly a Hobart man either?

Where do I go? Do I even belong here?

Should I compromise my own comfort and sense of self to blend in with my peers?

Will I out myself if I go to my school’s events dressed in a way that makes me feel okay in my body?

Would it be easier to just stop going to my school’s events altogether?

Am I a bad feminist if I don’t identify with William Smith?

Am I a bad feminist if I don’t want to educate my peers about gender on a daily basis?

Am I a bad transgender person if I don’t want to educate my peers about my gender on a daily basis?

Am I feeling up to explaining and defending the validity of my gender identity today?

Should I call this professor out for misgendering me repeatedly in front of the whole class?

Should I call out my classmates for following his example?

Should I expect them to learn to get it right? Is singular “they” really as hard to use as they make it out to be?

Should I just pick my battles?

Would I rather feel comfortable or make everyone around me feel comfortable?

How much eye contact do I need from straight cisgender people on campus to feel like a person today?

Why does everyone go quiet when I wear more masculine clothing and bind my chest?

Why do I feel like I’m suddenly invisible to everyone here?

A frat boy yelled “FAG” at me from his porch. Another one yelled the same thing out his car window. Does that mean he sees me as a man? Is that what it means to be part of the Hobart brotherhood?

Is that guy giving me extra room on the sidewalk because of how I

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Am I as crazy as the media says trans people are?

Why should I make a big deal about this?

I mean, this only impacts me, right?

Why should the system change for me?

Am I going to be seen as demanding if I ask for space?

Will people feel threatened?

The single stall restroom in the basement is accessible enough, right?

Am I going to spend the rest of my life being asked what it was like to go to a women’s college as a transgender person?

Am I going to spend the rest of my life being asked what it was like to be the wrong gender for both Hobart and William Smith?

How many more people are going to ask me to share my feelings about the coordinate system?

Will it even matter what I tell them?

However, I also feel like I need to say that I find it reductive that this debate has had such a strong focus on trans and nonbinary students. Yes, we are (or were) part of the HWS community and were systematically erased by the coordinate system. At the same time, I think it’s incredibly important to acknowledge that trans and nonbinary students are not the only ones impacted by the culture surrounding the coordinate system. The coordinate system upholds the standard picture of a specific type of Hobart Statesman and William Smith woman. They are white, cisgender, heterosexual, and upper-middle class. I can’t define the way that I felt I didn’t fit that mold only based on my transgender identity. I often didn’t feel like part of the William Smith “sisterhood” because I was on scholarship, consistently had 2-3 jobs my last couple of years, had worn holes in all of my clothes, and still couldn’t afford to be there. I didn’t feel like part of the William Smith “sisterhood” when I was the only visibly queer person in the room and had been taught by experience that being out wasn’t safe. I know that many of my Black and Latinx classmates found more community with one another when neither Hobart nor William Smith made them feel particularly welcomed or acknowledged. If we’re going to have a serious discussion about the coordinate system, then we have to look at it intersectionally. Hobart and William Smith cannot move forward until we acknowledge that neither college is a homogeneous population of men or women.

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matriculation, that matriculation is only for the incoming classes, and they can sit in the back line, because they’re still really just a William Smith student. It’s sitting in a tiny basement room in Smith hall and having to explain, haltingly, as an eighteen-year-old, facing down a table of senior staff, why a graduate who has changed their legal sex could be outed by their diploma and not be hired, be fired, be denied housing, be killed

It’s the shame of knowing, now and forever, that students at Hobart and William Smith just before me were never allowed to transfer schools because maybe they just weren’t out enough. They weren’t men or women enough—and neither am I. I lived my life for four years as a binary transgender man, because if I had so much as breathed a hint of my actual identity, whispered that I wasn’t really A Man, the all-seeing eye of Coordinate would have turned on me and I would have had to hear it said:

“Well, she’s not really living as a man now, is she?”

I’ve told all these anecdotes before. I will, I am afraid, have to tell them all again, because institutional memory cycles in four year washes, and fades out as soon as it’s become indelible. On the plaque outside the Hobart Dean’s office, Noah Feeman as a Druid in the Class of 2016 doesn’t mean a lot. It’s just a name.

Until you know.

So, then, what does Coordinate mean to me?

Coordinate means to me being seventeen and out, yes, but struggling in an identity I don’t know how to wear, insisting on he/him pronouns and a name that stuck from online chats, in shapeless, baggy clothes that I fear may give away my dysphoria on a chilly, rainy November day in Geneva, New York—weather I did not dress for, coming from Austin, Texas, clutching a thick Hobart sweatshirt to my chest, purple and orange, standing atop the De Cordova Hill and looking out over the Comstock Pond and the football field, listening to one of the Admissions Tour Guides talking about the Coordinate system, how it lets people discover themselves in the community, and thinking there is nowhere I better want to be than here. Coordinate means to me sitting at the front of the Classes of 2016 at the Bozzuto Boathouse, wearing the (horrendously delightful!) bright violet Druid jacket, surrounded by men who accepted and welcomed me into arms of fraternity for the first time in my life, truly, deeply at home.

————

What does Coordinate mean to us?

That is the question being asked here. What does Coordinate mean to us? What has it meant, what can it mean?

It can mean a lot of things. It can mean anything above; it can mean worse things. But the real question people ask me—what does Coordinate mean to me, an agender semi-transmasculine person reclaiming a cultural and indigenous gender identity construction, speaking in words half

my readers do not understand, as a trans person who graduated from a binary school, that the Coordinate system still commits microagressions (at best!) against its transgender members? It means to me what I knew two years ago: that the trans problem is only beginning. HWS is about to undergo a period of painful, transformative rebirth, and either we will rise to the occasion with aplomb and panache, or we’ll fall utterly short and see a future where the system decays and shatters from within or transgender students are a segregated minority population, looked upon with fear and loathing.

How to do the former? Make sure admitted transgender students are placed in the right school, for one basic. Allow students to graduate from Hobart and William Smith and have a Hobart and William Smith Dean’s Office that can give Dean’s List honors and an Honor Society. Allow any graduate to go back and get the diploma of the school that matches their gender presentation. Change campus climate; require training or retraining for inclusion of transgender students in classrooms for all faculty, incoming or tenured. Commit to hiring transgender members of the faculty and staff, and make every building on campus have an accessible gender-neutral restroom, including one for every dorm with a shower. Create space in senior staff and the Board of Trustees for transgender inclusion. Make an LGBT Alumni Affinity Society; make it so that students can go to both sets of Matriculation; both Commencement events; both Moving Up and Charter Days. Put preferred pronouns on every faculty and staff bio on the website. Recruit transgender students, and let young adults, many of whom will have spent their entire lives so far living in spaces where they can’t be themselves, be part of a samegender community for the first time in their lives. To stand alongside brothers of Hobart, sisters of William Smith, and siblings of Hobart and William Smith, and feel they belong rather than that they are being allowed

How to do the latter?

Well, we’ve been doing a real bang-up job of it so far. Pretty much a one to one ratio of trans HWS student to a significant period of misery on campus.

We commit. We hold to it. We hold one another accountable. And the cisgender allies stop speaking for the transgender community—and start listening

The Trustee meeting is coming up. Remind them, students of HWS. Hold them accountable. Make them see; make yourselves see. No voice is more powerful than that of the students, and use it; carry change atop your shoulders and lift up those among you struggling and falling and let them not fight alone. Hear their needs. Hear their wishes.

Change Starts Here: that was what the first transgender teach-in on campus was called in 2014. HWS is uniquely positioned to discuss, to queer, to undermine and reconstruct, gender. It was true then, and it’s true now.

It’s high time we used it.

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that have been asked in the past, but it does not provide answers. Some questions include, “Is HWS too small of a school? What would you change about HWS? How much do you pay, doesn’t the price tag seem steep? Do you have a lot of loans?” I am addressed in the last question on the list which states, “What college do nonbinary students belong to?” The tour guide mentioned how they have been instructed to note that students must apply to one of the Colleges, but this is not formally written anywhere in the manual. Otherwise, there is no overt mention of trans/non-binary students.

Am I only a tough question? Can I remain at a school that doesn’t find value in making me more than an unanswered question?

I look at the preferred pronoun page on the registrar’s website. I see options from “he/him/ his,” and “she/her/hers,” to “they/them/theirs, Ze/Zie/Hir, or use name only.” I decide to hold off on filling out this sheet, but I decide to have my close friends use my name instead of any form of a pronoun. I finally feel at ease. I never identified as a woman or as a man, but I never felt comfortable using “they.” I am not a he, she, or they. I am me.

How can the Colleges offer such diverse

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school a safer place.

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options for gender identity, but by nature inadvertently enforce the binary? Would I out myself by filling out this form?

I fill out the Common Application planning on sending out transfer applications. I do not want to leave, but I am not comfortable staying. Over my time here I have been able to discover a more complex identity, but this environment has not made this discovery process an easy one. For there are days I debate whether or not I should transfer.

Do I leave and make myself feel comfortable despite the fact that I would lose mentorships from some of the top scientists and mathematicians in the country? Do I leave a place where I have the opportunity to complete career-changing research for my emotional wellbeing? Or do I stay and feel uncomfortable to try and facilitate change? Do I stay in a place where I am nearly fearful of my peers’ reactions to try to make the future better for the next cohort of HWS students? Do I put my physical safety and emotional wellbeing at risk for HWS?

We first must work to gain truth about what being two separate institutions means for our funding, accreditation, etc. Only then can we discuss possible solutions. This does not mean

Firstly, there is an issue of curriculum. There is a lack of transgender scholarship read in classes. This is not limited to just scholarship about being transgender, but scholarship by transgender authors in general. In my experience, to say that no scholarship by transgender authors exists in one’s field is to avoid looking. Transgender scholars do not only work in LGBTQ theory, they are also present in Physics, English, Biology, Mathematics, Anthropology, Media, and many other fields. The lack of discussion of transgender texts in classes perpetuates the lack of conversation around transgender issues, and the invisibility of transgender people. If we are never able to be seen holding the power of being able to be scholars who can use our knowledge, people will not think of us as important, if they think of us at all.

Secondly, there is a lack of information about transgender people in general. This issue is partially related to the lack of discussion we have, but also informs the discussions we do have. If we had more discussions about transgender issues on campus, specifically in our classrooms, but beyond as well, we would know more about transgender people. Our current conversations often contain deadnaming (the process of referring to a transgender person by the name they were assigned at birth and have since changed, unless it is explicitly for their safety or by their own request), improper use of grammar or terminology when referring to transgender people (i.e. transgenders, transgendered, “the surgery,” “became a man,” “wants to be a woman,” etc.), use of “he or she” as the non-gender specific pronoun, and too much focus on the body and its changes instead of identity. This list is not exhaustive, but

at HWS. Gender should not be the basis for an education; there is a big difference between having nuanced conversations about gender in higher academia and having gender dominate the academic experience. We aren’t talking about gender at HWS; the system is just imposing it as the most important feature of college while students suffer the consequences in and out of their classrooms.

I want to make something very clear in all of this. The coordinate system is not just a “transgender issue.” Though I am writing this from the perspective of a nonbinary, trans masculine student, I do not want to reduce this conversation to just the way the system negatively impacts trans students. The way binary gender is prioritized at HWS damages any student who does not fulfill the stereotypes of the strong Hobart man or the empowered William Smith woman. The coordinate system is an issue requiring an intersectional analysis, and any take on the coordinate system is incomplete without looking toward marginalized cisgender students as well as trans students.

I am no fool. I understand that the coordinate system will not disappear anytime soon, not while alums are fighting so strongly for it and not while the administration and members of the Board of Trustees are not actively engaging with current students about this issue. Because of this, I think it is important to look at what can be done moving forward to support students that the system is leaving out. To that end, I propose some suggestions. Most of these suggestions support trans students specifically but are overall aimed at creating much needed support for all students that the system leaves out.

First, Admissions and the HWS website need to be advertising the coordinate system heavily from here on out. If I had known what the coordinate system was like, I would not have chosen to attend HWS. I quite honestly feel tricked; at every turn, the coordinate

we must completely rid the institution of all things coordinate, nor does it mean we must keep the coordinate system in any capacity. It simply means we must entertain the possibility of all solutions, the extremes as well as the inbetweens.

I sit now writing this article realizing that the issue of the coordinate system is one that impacts me deeply as a closeted/questioning non-binary person. However, my identity is not the only issue that should be entertained when discussing the binary nature of the coordinate system. We are using my identity as a cover for all the other issues resulting from a binary system. What about racial relations on campus? What about the reinforced gender roles that people who identify as male/female, man/women are expected to live up to by their peers? What about the achievement gap between genders? What about the socioeconomic implications and disparities of the system? What about how our admissions pool is affected? Could we be a more successful or higher-ranking institution?

My identity may be the place to start this conversation, but it is not where we should end.

serves to provide examples. The issues in our conversations about being trans seldom come from any malicious intent, but often from a lack of information.

Thirdly, we need to have a transgender person (or even better, multiple people) in a position of power. While I cannot and would never claim to speak for everyone who works at HWS, I can say that I am not aware of any out transgender people who have a position of power here. A transgender person with power would be able to represent and address student concerns to the administration, as well as be a person whom transgender students could feel safe around. One of the largest issues for transgender people is being able to feel safe.

Primarily, transgender people want to feel safe and welcomed at the Colleges. Our current system, while it has taken some steps in the right direction, still needs to continue to move forward in order to create a place where transgender people can feel safe. There are a myriad of issues I did not discuss here: bathrooms, healthcare, housing, college placement/registration, name changes, social stigma, intersectional issues, etc. I do not want this article to be seen or thought of as a list of instructions. Let this, and the other articles here, be the start of our conversation about how we can make HWS a better place. Coordinate system or no, let’s do what we can to make a difference. I think the best place to start is to ask transgender students. But it is also important to ask faculty and staff, too. Their day to day lives are different. They see the Colleges from different angles, and thus see different possibilities for change. We all need to work together to make HWS feel like home.

system was played down or ignored by staff I dealt with, and it is not prominently featured on the website. Some will say that we will receive fewer applicants if we heavily advertise the coordinate system. I quite frankly do not care if we receive fewer applicants, and that argument makes it clear that some at HWS care more about students as numbers than as people. No one should feel confused or tricked, which seems to be a common theme among students dissatisfied with system. We are being sold an incomplete picture, and it is damaging students who would otherwise be happy at an institution that does not put them in boxes. The coordinate system is extremely important in deciding to come here, and if HWS intends to keep it for the time being, it needs to do right by its students and advertise the truth of the Colleges.

Second, we need to change the language anywhere possible to be more inclusive. Gendered language (Hobart man, William Smith woman) should not be the official language of the Colleges. It leaves out students who are not men or women. I am not a Hobart man — I’m a nonbinary person who happens to be enrolled in a “men’s college.” Such language furthers the false idea of a gender binary and prevents HWS from having nuanced conversations about gender. HWS markets itself as diverse and inclusive; if it wants to live up to those claims, its official language should reflect a contemporary view of gender. He/she can easily be replaced by they, and man/woman can easily be replaced by student in all of our advertising and materials.

need training to learn how to handle the students that HWS seemingly wants to recruit; in a system designed without diversity in mind, it is unacceptable that there are not measures in place to make sure that students are being treated with basic respect as human beings in the classroom.

Fourth, supports for trans students need to be seriously evaluated. Currently, trans students do not have access to an all-gender bathroom with a shower in every residence hall. Not every building has an all-gender bathroom. Trans healthcare is not covered under the student health insurance plan. The application for all gender housing is confusing and doesn’t provide enough information on who students can live with and where. This is just a short list of some problems, but hopefully highlights the need to look at support more closely. Being trans at HWS in a unique challenge, and without support, students are left feeling isolated and are exposed to numerous difficulties their cisgender peers do not have to navigate. HWS has failed trans students in many ways, and has failed me personally in many ways. It needs to make a commitment to figuring out what trans students need and how to provide them with those resources.

Finally, and most importantly, we need to be having campus-wide conversations about this issue. The yearly dialogues around commencement seating are not enough. Students, faculty, staff, and the administration need to be coming together to understand how the system is affecting people, and brainstorm about how to move forward. Apathy is no longer an option. If HWS is genuinely committed to supporting students in their quests to “lead lives of consequence,” then this campus needs to start engaging in dialogue and listening. Students will not be silenced on this matter. Neither will faculty, staff, or alums. The time is now to deal with this.

“If not now, when?”

Faculty

Third, faculty training is crucial, both for current and new faculty. I have been misgendered in almost every class I have been in, and my attempts to correct my professors have been most often met by defensive arguments and excuses. I have been treated like a fascinating specimen by some, called out as the only visible trans person in the room to be an expert, to be an example, to be anything other than just a student trying to learn.

Opinions

Tackled by School Administration

By Nicola Russell ’19 and Makayla Pydych ’19 Herald Contributors

On March 30 this year, Hobart and William Smith Colleges officially announced the building of a new indoor turf field for the school’s varsity sports teams, funded through Hobart Lacrosse Alumni donations. The development would create an additional winter space for varsity athletes to practice.

However, this indoor turf field is being built on what was once the Odell’s grass fields, historically inhabited by William Smith Club Rugby, Hobart Club Rugby, and William Smith Club Soccer. While this indoor turf will be convenient for the varsity sports and the varsity athletes living in Odell’s Village, it has been a huge obstacle for club rugby in efforts to play and recruit. It was on June 19 (in President McGuire’s June 2018 update under Advancements) that the HWS community was informed of the development and its location via email — nearly four months after the ideological conception of the indoor turf field. This left the leadership of the Hobart and William Smith rugby teams in the dark until the summer that our teams were without a field space, which effectively marked the demise of the rugby teams on campus.

In June, team presidents emailed Tyler Wilke, per the suggestion of the previous team leaders, regarding field space and were told to check back for field reservation the second week of August. When the time came to ask again, the club rugby team leaders were told again to wait until Hobart Football had solidified its practice and home game schedule before we could start scheduling games and practices. It wasn’t until the first week of September that the teams were allowed to practice on the ill-maintained North Cozzens field, riddled with beer cans and dangerous inconsistencies such as holes, mounds, and manholes. While this location was manageable for practices, it was too unsafe for games and was also unable to accommodate the dimensions of a rugby field.

On top of all this, rugby leaders were told by the school that the team’s uprights (an important part of the scoring process in rugby) from the old field were gone and could not be installed elsewhere, even on our new practice field. It later became apparent the old Hobart rugby coach was given the uprights and they were at his home. This was only the beginning of many problems for club rugby in the coming semester.

The next immediate issue faced by the teams was the impossibility of finding a new space to host games and tournaments. Both rugby teams have been forbidden from playing on any fields such as Cozzens or the field behind the first-year parking lot. This is because the school claims the use of cleats and the roughness of the sport will allegedly destroy the field for varsity sports’ use. The teams were also informed that they could not use many of the other fields because they do not have lighting for night games. This claim came as a surprise to rugby leadership, as the school had been having them play on the Odell’s field for years and the field remained in fine condition. The only field option the teams had

was the turf field, Boswell. However, trying to book Boswell came with much difficulty because it is continuously in high demand for varsity and junior varsity teams as well as their club sports. Nonetheless, club rugby continued to communicate with the school, booking field time as far in advance as possible for upcoming rugby games.

How little regard the school’s administration has for its club teams became hugely apparent when the Hobart rugby team’s first home game came around. A mere 30 minutes before their scheduled regular season game on Boswell Field, the team was told it had to leave the field because JV soccer players decided they wanted to have a scrimmage. Despite the rugby team’s booking the space well in advance, the team was still kicked off the field for JV’s spontaneous scrimmage. Hobart was forced to move its game to the practice field, which, again, is too small to accommodate for the dimensions of a proper rugby field and has no uprights — not to mention the dangers of the manholes and uneven ground. It took the Ithaca rugby team over an hour to get to HWS, only to find out that Hobart players were forced from their booked field space and thus forced to forfeit because they could not attain a proper field with the correct equipment.

Additionally, when William Smith Rugby worked on booking the field for a Saturday game, USA Rugby asked on short notice for William Smith to switch the match from Saturday to Sunday due to a mix-up on USA Rugby’s behalf and an overbooking of the available referees. However, again, there was no space on campus to accommodate the shift in schedule and the school was unhelpful in trying to fix our problem. If the team did not want to have to forfeit the match, the only option was then to move the match to Seneca Lake State Park in Geneva. Unfortunately, this meant that the game would have to be played without uprights. Worse still, the school refused to provide EMS for an off-campus game for liability reasons. Rugby cannot officially be played (and shouldn’t be played) without a trained medical professional. The team had a medically trained friend of the team agree to be at the match to provide EMS, but the friend unfortunately canceled for personal reasons the night before the game. The game was thus forced to be officially canceled. The team did get to have a practice with Alfred’s rugby team, who drove an hour and a half only to find out the game had to be canceled, but could not sanction a scrimmage because of the lack of a medical professional. At this point, after this final event, both the Hobart and William Smith club rugby teams gave up completely on expecting the school to help or even care at all.

Rugby is a small club, but we’re proud and love our sport. Rugby provides a safe space for men and women to develop their skills, grow as people, make lasting friendships and have a supportive team cheering them on through their college careers. This fall, over the summer, and at the Involvement Expo, the Hobart team received over 30 signups of interested players, while the William Smith team received more than 50. Yet with the loss of our field and unwillingness of the school to compensate us or even help, we are without the capabilities to hold on to recruits. Overall, the actions the school has taken in the past eight months have proved how little value they hold in their club teams; the school has made it clear they don’t want to help us. It feels like they hope we will simply disappear. Their actions have affirmed how little the school’s leadership cares about club sports, rugby in particular, and created an overarching sense of perceived disdain from the school towards club rugby — a team of powerful, intelligent individuals supporting their peers and creating a fun, engaged, socially active, and athletic space for students to have a positive HWS experience.

The fall season ends this weekend, with a final William Smith Rugby home game. Maybe next semester will be better, but most likely, with this lack of support from the school, the end of rugby on campus approaches.

Intercultural Affairs Center News

By Will Fuller ’22 Herald Staff

Exciting times are upon the International Affairs Center. The center, which creates a supportive place for international students, will soon be under renovation.

Ideas and plans for the new renovations have already began. “The process is following the timeline,” says Alejandra Molina, one of the directors of the International Affairs Center. This timeline started in the spring of last year when representatives from Ithaca College and Colgate University reviewed the IC programs, structure and space.

So far, a lot of this process has been heavily student-led, with student focus groups looking at what students want with these renovations. The IC has also informed its renovations focus by surveying alumni who have been affiliated with the center. The goal, the director has said, is to add more space for reception, meetings, and study space that can increase collaboration with the office and give students a chance

to flourish. This is also a way to increase our cultural understandings of each other.

This year, architect Frank Delucca visited the IC to get a visual concept for the future of the center, to be created with the renovations that are set to start production soon. This fall he has been meeting with students to review sketches of the renovations and to chat about the center.

The extent of construction and expansion hasn’t been determined, but planning is coming closer to completion and all that is left to do is present the program and raise funds.

Still, it’s a bit unclear how exactly funds will be raised because the IC isn’t in charge of gathering funds — that’s done by part of the school. Most students and employees at the IC didn’t have much to say about the renovations.

It was hard to get an idea of what the final renovation of the center will be like, and even the date of the construction is mysterious because it depends on the fundraising. Also, the general information from meetings isn’t as well-known as believed because it was mostly

a small group that has been working on the renovations and meeting with students.

However, the project seems like it’s under control even if the timing is unclear. The renovations should make the IC even better for students who’ve come from other nations or from many states away to get to Hobart and William Smith. The center means a lot to people, who especially appreciate the many events it hosts to raise cultural awareness and the academic help it offers. Unfortunately, there’s only one International Affairs Center, but with the renovations and management it’s on right path.

The project wouldn’t have been possible without the hard work of the students and Alexandra Molina. By about 2019, you can expect to see construction work on the center. But depending on how long it takes, some students won’t get to see the new place. In the meantime, there are still weekly events at the IC to go to!

Construction on the indoor field at O’Dell’s. Ani Freedman

Computer games are played in the new E-Scape house on campus. Office of Communications

Competitive Gaming Starts on Campus

By Jackie Steinman ’20 Herald Contributor

The new E-Sports Gaming House opened on Pulteney Street with its ribbon-cutting ceremony just a few weeks ago. E-Sports refers to video gaming competitions in which individuals or teams can play against one another at the amateur, collegiate, or professional level. Overwatch and League of Legends are two games that have their own professional leagues and have led the pack in popularity in the United States. States and even countries have their own teams that compete on the international stage.

The E-Sports program at HWS was pioneered by several residents of the Levels gaming theme house ¬¬¬¬— located right next door. The director of E-Sports, Aaron Donahue — with whom the writer has a personal relationship — worked closely alongside Dante Herrera and Jamie Kaewwanna, co-presidents of E-Scape, the casual gaming club that was started last year, to build E-Sports from scratch. The board helped to get the necessary funding and build the beautiful and complex computers they have now. Donahue, Kaewanna, and Herrera all worked with Robb Flowers to apply for funding to buy all the necessary parts to build the six high-capacity computers necessary for an advanced gaming team. Dante Herrera became the resident technician as he personally designed and constructed the computers. Brad Markowski was also instrumental in the creation of the new group and is preparing for his new position as an E-Sports Analyst for SMITE and League of Legends. Being an E-Sports analyst includes understanding and manipulating the overall strategy for each game, the individual positions and responsibilities of each player, and how team dynamics affect game play.

E-Sports and E-Scape have built a fruitful, intertwined partnership

continued from page 5

to develop HWS into a modern and progressive collegiate community. These groups have two separate goals but people who are interested in gaming often participate in both. E-Scape is focused on casual gaming and bringing students together on campus, while E-Sports was created for gaming at the collegiate level in a few specific areas such as Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. The focus of E-Sports teams is on League of Legends, Overwatch, and CS-GO but there is room for growth as interest increases in the program from students, faculty, and staff.

E-Sports is growing rapidly throughout the world and HWS is looking to compete with teams around the country later this semester. Many other colleges and universities around the country have gaming teams, including Dartmouth, Boston College, Illinois State University, Keuka College, and the University of California-Irvine. Even major sports outlets such as ESPN have begun to report on E-Sports competitions, as they draw hundreds of thousands of viewers and readers. Donahue attended Worlds Semi-Finals in 2016 and was inspired by how “excited [people are] to invest time and be part of it all. I want to bring that aspect of the competition to HWS.”

Donahue has high hopes for the program and wants to “start recruiting students to play at HWS and to build a better and stronger team each semester.” Now that the arduous process of setting the foundation is over, the team can begin tryouts and practices. The research that these students did on each computer part as well as running league tryouts and building the computers by hand shows that their dedication and hard work over the last several months has paid off. Donahue also thanked Robb Flowers and Professor Newby for their extensive support. And as the gamers say: GLHF (good luck, have fun!)

History & Context

specific roles within the Administration. The goal was to gather more information on the coordinate system and answer questions about procedures and policies. Interim President Patrick A. McGuire L.H.D. ’12 wrote back to the Herald with a statement from the administration as a whole.

“As observed in the Culture of Respect report,” the statement begins. “The Colleges have work to do to realize a contemporary definition of our coordinate heritage and structure. We are clearly committed to this effort and recognize that we have work ahead of us to realize our goals. In our efforts, we remain committed to ensuring that our students have an educational environment that gives them access to the support and resources they need to thrive. We look forward to working collaboratively with our students, faculty, staff and alums to do so.”

McGuire noted that “policies and resources regarding students who identify as transgender or non-binary can be found on the LGBT page of the Student Life section of the Colleges’ website and in our Community Standards Handbook.” He also noted that HWS is ensuring that every residence hall will have an all-gender bathroom and that the Colleges offer fully gender inclusive housing.

When discussing Campus Life, headed by Robb Flowers, McGuire noted that Campus Life staff “engage first-year students in a dialogue around gender, pronouns and contributing to a culture of respect on the first day of their arrival. The Kaleidoscope program further explores these issues with a session dedicated to introducing new students to the Colleges’ coordinate heritage and traditions.” That heritage is also announced on tours and information sessions, and also can be found in admissions print materials. Admissions recently surveyed the firstyear class and found that “90% of students know about our coordinate structure.”

In September, Campus Life also began “a dialogue series on the coordinate system with Campus Life staff and the Deans of Hobart and William Smith.” In the meeting, there was conversation about “safe spaces on-campus and how gender differences are perceived.” This dialogue series will hopefully be continued, but can also be supplemented with the project that the deans and student governments are working on.

McGuire also said that “the Office of Advancement serves all alumni and alumnae, as does the Board of Trustees.” There are currently two alum associations – “one for Hobart and one for William Smith with the majority of initiatives and programming designed to serve the entire constituency” – and “alums who identify as transgender or non-binary are welcome as part of either Association or both.” There have been conversations “regarding our coordinate heritage and structure” led by the Alumni / Alumnae Associations, including one webinar in the middle of September, that will continue this weekend with the Board of Trustees and Alumni / Alumnae Associations meeting.

President McGuire concluded that “we are pleased that so many of

our alums are engaged in discussions about the Colleges and remain committed to fostering these productive conversations.”

In March 2018, the social justice theatre group at HWS, Mosaic NY, began an online video campaign: #OneHWS. The campaign primarily focused on videos, with select members of the company. A statement about the project online reads, “Mosaic NY believes that the coordinate system is a social injustice, standing in the way of the Colleges achieving its desired goal of inclusive excellence by denying full rights to trans and gender non-binary/nonconforming students.”

The campaign was created as a way to, according to the same online statement, “begin a conversation about the real, lived experiences of students under the coordinate system and to generate public pressure on the Colleges to reconsider their commitment to it.” In recent weeks, Mosaic NY has continued to work on the #OneHWS campaign. In addition to the three videos produced, all released in March 2017, Mosaic has a performance scheduled for the Alumni / Alumnae Association meetings on campus this weekend.

Additionally, a letter was sent by members of the faculty to President McGuire and members of the Board of Trustees. It was a group letter, signed by forty-two members, that said they “believe it is time to move toward uniting the Colleges and ending the coordinate system.” The letter wanted a “community-wide conversation” about the coordinate system with emphasis on “The voices of transgender and non-binary students and graduates…Respect for the dedicated work of staff and administrators whose jobs are tied to the coordinate system” and “Celebration of the rich history of the Colleges and an optimistic vision for the future.”

It is that first point – “the voices of transgender and non-binary students and graduates” – that has led to this issue of the Herald

We have collected viewpoints from eight transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming identifying / questioning students and alums on the coordinate system. Beginning in mid-September, the Herald emailed and reached out to students on campus and recent graduates to ask if they would share their perspectives. We chose to ask transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming identifying / questioning students and alums because they were specifically mentioned in the HWS faculty letter. Because their voices deserve to be heard.

Our goal at the Herald is to be a Voice for the Students, to provide an outlet for students to voice a wide range of opinions and ideas. We, as a newspaper, are not taking a stand but rather providing a way for these viewpoints to reach a wider audience.

There are eight viewpoints on within this section. They have not been edited for content and length. They represent a diverse range of opinions from current students and alums – all of whom have a stake in this conversation. We are proud to publish them here in the pages of the Herald

News

Kavanaugh Walkout

By Grace Ruble

On Oct. 4, the voices of HWS students chanting “Kavawhat? Kava-no!” over the South Main Street overpass joined the voices of those across the country who participated in the #CancelKavenaugh Walkout Against Patriarchy. The walkout protested Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court in the wake of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault allegations and offered support for Dr. Ford and other survivors. The march started at the South Main overpass for a banner drop and continued through downtown Geneva, stopping outside U.S. Rep. Tom Reed’s office and the police station for speeches. The walkout was organized in less than a week by Geneva Women’s Assembly to coincide with walkouts happening around the country.

“I don’t believe in having rapists in the Supreme Court,” said Cameron Miguel ‘22 when asked why he chose to attend. Catie Britt ‘22 connected her attendance to discontent with the Trump administration as a whole, saying, “I just really am not okay with where America has been for the past two years.” Hannan Issa ‘21 agreed, saying, “Lately I’ve been feeling like stuff is just kind of happening and we have no say in it.”

Several members of HWS’ social justice theatre company Mosaic New York attended the walkout, citing the importance of taking action in addition to social theatre to create societal change. Mosaic member Jessica Hariprasad ‘21 said, “As members of a theatre group that promotes social change, we promote all forms of social change and we want to make a difference in all different social groups for all oppressed people including women, including women of color, including trans people, and this falls under what we stand for and what we work for.” Fellow member Emily Briggs cited similarities between social theatre and protest, saying, “Protest is also another form of what we do anyway. It’s just a different form. Protesting and theatre, guerilla theatre ... kind of all ties together so that’s why we’re here as a group.”

As with the majority of events relating to sexual assault, most of the participants were female-identifying. However, the male-identifying students who did attend expressed a wish for more of their peers to participate. Israel Oyedapo ‘20 said, “We have a say. We should use our voice to make change. I mean if no one is speaking up, there’s no change.” Matt Hogan ’19 said, “I walked out today because I have a personal vendetta against patriarchy. Being a white male on this campus, being literally the walking physical symbol of patriarchy, I feel kind of embarrassed to have any kind of ethnic or racial association with the white men I saw on those hearings defending someone who is accused of sexual assault in a way that was so heinous ... It’s such a problem that we don’t get more Hobart students.” Connor McDermott ‘22 thought increased awareness would bring more male-identifying students to events, saying, “I think just make them more aware … If we could just make more men aware of what they’re doing and what’s going on in actual politics that would make more people come out.” Eros Cabrera ‘19 put the emphasis on men to step up and be allies, saying, “I feel like a lot of the men who don’t participate in events like these they find ways to exclude themselves and not identify with the cause.” He warned men that by not being “an active participant in support for [survivors’] rights to extinguish this culture of rape ... then we’re not only doing a disservice to our friends and family but also to ourselves.” Linden Bascolm ‘20 echoed the sentiment that women close to him inspired him to come to the walkout, saying, “Every man has an important woman in their life, a woman who deserves respectful treatment and they deserve agency. Women’s agency is important and that’s a very unspoken truth that needs to be addressed.”

Many students who attended connected Dr. Ford’s experience while coming forward to their own experiences on campus. Pauline Lafosse ‘19 came to the event because of her role managing the Writing House, saying, “This is an issue that is prevalent on all college campuses. I have a lot of people at risk in my house. I take their safety very personally, and while I’ve not been a victim, I do know people who have been and I think it’s completely unreasonable that this is still an issue today.” Sydney Ferry ‘18 said she liked seeing HWS students stand up against injustice. Sydney Hummel ‘21 wanted her presence to be a message to survivors to know that there are people who support and believe them. She said, “I

think it’s very important in the wake of the events and the response that many people have had after Dr. Ford’s testimony that people on this campus in Geneva and all over understand that we believe them, that their stories are important and that that is their truth and that they should not be denied that and that there is going to be change because we’re going to make it happen and we’re here to make that be known in the streets of Geneva.”

The Herald followed up with several students who attended the walkout after the Senate’s confirmation vote. Though many students were disappointed at the results of the confirmation vote, many still emphasized the importance of keeping the momentum alive. Chloe Brown ‘21 urged disappointed students to vote in the upcoming midterm elections on Nov. 6, saying, “It’s just another thing that really hurts, but also adds to the fuel, hopefully so that we can channel all the anger and the motivation into midterm elections.”

Meredith Grimes ‘21 agreed, saying, “Every vote counts.”

Dominique Marshall ‘22 called for a change in the attitudes of elected officials, saying, “He’s in power, but everyone knows what he did and just won’t do anything about it, so if people that are in the justice system are showing that they don’t care, in a sense they’re showing that they don’t care about sexual assault ... It’s really up there that needs some serious change within there and it needs to go from the ground up ’cause this is a really deep-rooted problem.” Gianna DeVita ‘21 encouraged those upset to “keep up the fight.” Morgan Nellis ’21 encouraged female-identifying students on campus to check in with each other in the wake of these national events, saying, “I feel like a lot of women’s work is listening to other women and that’s something that I personally want to work on because I feel like I don’t hear enough women, so I welcome any other woman to come up to me and talk to me about what they’re doing, how they’re doing. I try to check in with anyone I know who has experienced something like this or just anyone I know in general.” Bailey DiSanto ‘21, however, let the participation at the walkout inspire her to keep moving forward, saying, “It’s so easy to feel defeated and to feel like you can’t do anything, but there’s like 50 people here right now who all felt the same way about it and got out of bed and decided to be here today, so that’s some place to start.”

Students who are interested in getting involved with the Geneva Women’s Assembly can like the group on Facebook for information about upcoming events.

Resources for survivors of sexual assault at HWS and in Geneva include Hubbs Health Center, the Deans’ Offices, Campus Safety, the HWS Counseling Center, the Chaplain, the Title IX Office and Safe Harbors, which has a 24/7 crisis hotline.

Ani Freedman

Ani Freedman

Ani Freedman