fall 2015 | issue 18
From the Editor Dear Reader, Medley existed without a constitution from 2007 until this September, when an advisor from the Office of Student Activities told me that I had less than three weeks to write one. I knew I couldn’t do it alone, so I asked several Medley staff members to meet in the basement of Bird (where all great group projects happen) to divide up the work. A week later we met again, with an apple pie, to review and submit the document. The process of writing the constitution mirrored how we produce Medley: some independent work, a lot of collaboration, and food.
EXECUTIVE EDITOR Victoria Rodriguez
Weeks later, when we needed to proofread every story in the magazine, the same group sat around a table in Newhouse and edited into the night, this time with pizza, ice cream and cookies. As we read and made changes, we also stopped to ask questions like: Is there a prefered order for listing the Six Nations (page 4)? Do we need to define imam (page 14)? How many apples does Upstate produce each year (page 28)? Together we figured out the answers. Our stories reflect the teamwork that we value as a staff. It took a partnership to open the Skä•noñh Center (page 17), a pair of friends to produce Destiny USA: The Movie (page 7), and another camp counselor to help editor Johnny Rosa avert a crisis on the Allagash (page 22). This issue tells stories about the human relationships that make communities and individuals thrive, like the students advocating for affordable housing for renters with disabilities (page 9) and the volunteers giving their time to Matthew 25 Farm (page 20). Next time you find yourself in a group setting, think about what you can contribute. Maybe it’s an awesome playlist to help everyone focus, a new perspective on a familiar topic, or a good joke for when everyone needs a break. And if your skill is cooking, you should definitely make one of Emily Malina’s favorite recipes from her home in Michigan (page 26). Because meetings are always better with food.
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Cover Photo: A camper wades through water in northern Maine. Taken by: Johnny Rosa
Catherine Ann Mazzocchi
ADVISOR Elane Granger, Ph.D
SENIOR EDITOR Anna Hodge EDITORS Jourdan Bennette-Begaye (Diné) Amanda Silvestri ASSISTANT EDITORS Paige Kelly Erica Petz WRITERS Natsumi Ajisaka Anjani Iman Emily Malina Kara McGrane
EXECUTIVE PHOTOGRAPHER Genevieve Pilch
Tory Russo Editor in Chief
Tory Russo
EDITOR AT LARGE Johnny Rosa
DESIGNERS Victoria Amoroso Kaelyn Dessena Bingzhu Luo
Cheers,
EDITOR IN CHIEF
MANAGING EDITOR Danielle Roth
Back Photo: Canoes on the shore of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway in Maine. Taken by: Johnny Rosa
PHOTOGRAPHER Victoria Amoroso PUBLIC RELATIONS DIRECTOR Emily Malina PUBLIC RELATIONS STAFF Joephy Fung Leslie Gomez
Contents
The Spirit of the Game 4 Learn about a Haudenosaunee healing tradition
Mass Migration 11 Trace the origins of the Syrian refugee crisis
Best ‘Cuse Restaurants You’ve Never Been To 5 Get in touch with your inner foodie
The College Faithful 14 Examine the convergence of Muslim and campus identities
Supersize My Shopping Center 7 Investigate the impact of Destiny USA
Native Narratives 17 Tour the Skä•noñh Center on Lake Onondaga
No Place Like (a Fully Accessible) Home 9 Navigate Syracuse’s housing options for renters with disabilities
Practice What You Preach 20 Dig into a farm serving CNY Into the Wild 22 Ignore internship protocol Simply Delicious 26 Try a quick and easy recipe fit for your busy schedule How ‘bout Them Apples? 28 Discover Upstate’s alternative to beer Abroad Mood Board 29 Get a snapshot of life abroad from SU students
Medley shares stories from our campus, our city, and our globe that explore the intersection of cultures from a socially conscious perspective. The magazine publishes once a semester with funding from your Syracuse University student fee. All contents of the publication are copyright Fall 2015 by their respective creators.
The Six Indigenous Nations of Upstate New York heal their minds with this winter sport WORDS Jourdan Bennett-Begaye (Diné)
Twin brothers were walking through the woods hungry and tired with a bad mind during the winter. They had experienced loss. The brothers walked up to the top of a great hill, sat with their thoughts, and wept. They noticed an old, rotted tree with strong bark. Clouds gathered above them and lightning from the clouds struck the tree, sending hundreds of splinters in different directions. They threw the splinters down the hill and across the snow. That’s the origin of the game of snow snake, according to the people of the Native American Haudenosaunee Confederacy: the Seneca, Tuscarora, Onondaga, Mohawk, Cayuga, and Oneida Nations. The winter sport requires enough snow to build three- to four-foot tracks with a three-inch wide groove on top where the “snake” can glide smoothly. Two or more people, or teams, throw the waxed sticks down the icy track. Whoever throws the farthest wins. Learning the best way to throw the snake is a major challenge for boys and men starting to play. The throws are marked over the day-long games with twigs or sticks as a reference point. The game is meant as a way to help and heal the community. “It was created during the time when man was struggling with dark magic and all this strife and war and stuff going on so the people needed a medicine,” says Honni David, a junior at Syracuse University and citizen of the Mohawk Nation. This medicine game was invented along with
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lacrosse as a way for people to keep their minds off the darkness around them. “You’re supposed to channel all your negative energy into the game to maintain the good mind,” David says. The Haudenosaunee play in an effort to relieve their bad minds and sadness, like that felt by the game’s mythical twin founders. Snow snake, like lacrosse, is only played by men. “Women are already made strong,” says Gabrielle Hill, a sophomore at Syracuse University and citizen of the Seneca Nation. “Men have these other games to make them strong.” Women don’t need the medicine. Women don’t help build the tracks either. They are made by men from multiple families as a community event. The track takes a week to build and can be hundreds of feet long. The groove is carved by hand or with tools. Sometimes a small light log is used. In the Onondaga Nation, the game is usually played on the softball fields next to the newly built Onondaga Arena on Route 11A. The snake is either three-feet or six-feet long and made of hickory or ash. The front of the stick is rounded and has a metal tipA groove on the back helps players control their throws. Haudenosaunee men carve their own stick, some choosing to add designs. Despite the harsh temperatures, players don’t wear gloves, giving them a good grip on the stick. The game is not meant to be a competition, even if it appears like one. It's about “the joining of minds and sharing that medicine,” David says.
Best ‘cuse s t n a r u a t s ReYou’ve never been to WORDS Tory Russo nevieve Pilch PHOTOGRAPHY Ge
The affordability of a quick Marshall Street meal and the convenience of ordering a buffalo chicken calzone to your couch means many students go an entire semester without leaving “the Hill” for food. But we all know the best lunch or dinner is about more than convenience. Pass on another slice of S’barro in Schine and indulge in a combination of food and culture at one of these local restaurants. You won’t find them anywhere besides the City of Syracuse.
Laci’s Tapas Bar
1 LACI’S TAPAS bar Motto: Eat Small, Live Large Locations: 304 Hawley Ave. in the Hawley-Green neighborhood in Syracuse’s Northside Cuisine: Tapas, small sharable dishes; variety of gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan options Best Sellers: Shrimp and Grits, Sliders, Bacon-wrapped Dates, Beef Wellington Expert tip: Look for Laci’s Luscious Sauce, their own creation, which appeared on Wegman’s shelves at the beginning of November.
Price: Tapas average $8 to $9 each, recommend 3 to 4 dishes per couple Hours: Tuesday to Thursday 4 p.m. to 10 p.m., Friday to Saturday 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. (kitchen closes at 10 pm) Closed Sunday and Monday
“Hospitality is key and great food is important,” says Laura Serway, the ‘La’ in Laci’s. You’ll find her bouncing around the dining room, constantly checking in with customers to ensure everyone enjoys their meal. The menu changes every season thanks to Serway’s partner Cindy Seymour, the ‘ci,’ who runs the kitchen. “I’m the steak and she’s the sizzle,” says Serway. The pair opened the restaurant five years ago, the most recent in a string of multiple business they’ve owned. The two treat their employees with respect and compassion to make sure those values are reflected in the service.
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creole soul cafÉ Motto: Savor that Louisiana Flavor Locations: 128 E. Jefferson St. in Downtown Syracuse and Shoppingtown Plaza Cuisine: New Orleans-style Creole, Cajun and Soul food Best Sellers: Vodka Swamp Sauce, Gumbo, Shrimp and Alligator Sausage Po’ Boys Price: Most meals range from $6 to $12 Hours: Monday to Friday 8 a.m to 8 p.m. Sunday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Closed Sunday
Creole Soul Cafe
2 EVA’S
EUROPEAN Sweets
Motto: Delicious Polish food since 1997 Locations: 1305 Milton Ave. Syracuse Cuisine: Traditional Polish dishes, like pierogi, potato pancakes and sauerkraut Best Sellers: Pierogi ruski, gołąbki, kielbasa, goulash Price: $8 to $14, option to choose small or large portions Hours: Tuesday to Thursday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. Closed Sunday and Monday
You can’t split the bill, so make sure you and your friends have cash or one person can put it 6 all on a card.
“We’re presenting the real Polish culture through the food,” says Eva Zaczynski, owner of Eva’s European Sweets. Walk through the restaurant and you’ll find tiny trinkets, like porcelain figurines and wooden toys, that would fit perfectly in your Polish grandma’s house. One wall is lined with newspaper clippings and awards, but the 2015 TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence sits on the bar. The army of regular customers sitting inside know the cozy restaurant is worth the trip down Erie Boulevard. “There’s no occupation that I don’t do,” says Zaczynski, who works every position at Eva’s, from cooking food and baking sweets to seating diners and manning the register.
Expert tip: The restaurant is on the same block as Gannon’s Ice Cream and Cafe Kubal, so make sure to leave enough room for ice cream or coffee. “We’re the best kept secret in Syracuse,” says Darren Chavis, a New Orleans native, chef, and owner of Creole Soul Café. Chavis and his wife Vinita opened the downtown cafe in May 2015 and expanded to a second location at Shoppingtown at the beginning of November. Although their cafe classifies as a “limited-service” restaurant, where the customer places an order at the counter, picks up the food and then self-seats, don’t assume that affects the quality. True Cajun cuisine, with all the spice you’d expect, meets a family atmosphere and leaves a long line during the lunch rush. “I love cooking and having people really enjoy their dishes,” Chavis says.
Eva’s European Treats
m y
s h o p p i n g
c e n t e r
WORDS Anjani Iman
Medley chats with a producer of Destiny USA: The Movie A man grows so obsessed with the country’s sixth largest mall that his girlfriend ends their relationship. He goes on a hunt to learn more about the mall and discovers the hidden controversy surrounding its impact on Syracuse. In real life, the man is named Nicolas Sessler, a 2015 television, radio, and film graduate from Syracuse University. Along with Caleb Rudge, a senior environmental studies major at SUNY-ESF, the pair produced an appropriately humorous criticism of the issues the shopping behemoth poses for the City of Syracuse. The film, part fictional adventure-part critical exposÊ, was published on YouTube in June 2015.
Medley: How did you and Nick meet? Caleb Rudge: Three years ago now, Nick and I were both on a Syracuse University Outing Club trip to West Virginia. There, we became fast friends and we both realized that we were interested in comedy and storytelling. I took my environmental studies major and he took his television, radio, and film major, and together I think we both created a documentary that used both of our strengths and hopefully made people laugh along the way. M: Why did you make the film? CR: Our goal wasn't to do a senior thesis. We weren't trying to make money. We were interested in it. We wanted to practice making a documentary, and both of us had all these ideas floating back and forth. We said, well why are we talking about it? Let’s just do it. M: Did you learn anything new? CR: I learned a tremendous amount, [like] the tactics of the mall developer. I had understood rumors and how people would say, “Oh, he’s not being taxed. He’s ripping off the city.” That is the rhetoric you hear all the time. The fact that the Pyramid Corporation, which just makes malls in the northeast, is the 20th largest subsidized corporation in the United States blew my mind. The fact that where the mall sits is the birthplace of the Haudenosaunee Native American tribe blew my mind. M: What was the significance of Destiny USA that led you to create a documentary about it? CR: Destiny USA is a very special little spot at the center of what people feel is the capital of Syracuse. Whether you like it or not, the first thing you see is the mall. [The] first place you go, especially if you're a college student, is the mall. It’s right next to this horrid brown field in a city that’s crumbling in post industrial recession. M: Where did you draw inspiration for Nick’s outrageous character? CR: He really wanted to act as this stereotypical suburbanite. He comes from inside of a city and I think the thing that drove him crazy about coming to college is [when] he’d ask people where they were from and they’d say Los Angeles, Denver, Boston, New York, he’d be excited. But then very quickly [he] realized they meant they lived 30 minutes outside. He was in this dominant suburban university where suburban interests and values were what was important and it drove him crazy.
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M: Why did you choose to make his character fictional? CR: I'm a huge The Office and Parks and Recreation fan. Nick wanted to have a Colbert-esque personality where he put people off their guard and is very confident and overbearing with his ignorance. A combination of the documentaries, comedies, personalities and Nick’s interest with suburban culture–that was our inspiration. M: When did production begin and end? CR: We started late December 2014 and we finished production June 2015, so six to seven months. It was pretty intense. We worked really hard for those six months doing a combination of research and filming at the same time, sort of figuring it out as we went along. M: What was the process of filming like and how did you meet these important people? CR: In terms of filming, the Cage in Newhouse was an excellent resource. We couldn't have done it without the incredible quality of the cameras or the sheer amount of equipment. In terms of production, our friends were a huge resource we pulled from. At any given shoot it was never just Nick and I. We had four to five friends in our back pockets that we would text two or three times a week and say “Hey are you doing anything right now? We could use a hand.” In terms of reaching out to people, it was a combination of knowing a few people. This documentary was an extension of a class we took together called Urban Civil Infrastructure here at ESF. We interviewed Emanuel Carter, [the] professor, and used him as a reference to talk to Bob Doucette, who is a developer of Armory Square. Further, it was a lot of cold calls. It sort of felt like Jim and Dwight going on a sales call to people they've never sold paper to. Sometimes we'd knock on people's doors, whatever it took. On the whole, it was email and crossed fingers. M: What political topics did you want to cover with the making of this film? CR: Nick and I really wanted to tackle investment in urban centers, or the lack of. Especially in the US, we have made it a priority to disenfranchise inner cities. Minorities within cities lose out on a lot. They were more likely to see chemical and physical pollutants, less likely to get good educations, good job employment, or loans for their homes. All of these social,
environmental, and economic hardships were placed on people inside of cities so that people outside don't have to deal with those issues in our society. Nick and I thought Destiny USA was a great example of that. Let’s take the burden of raising financial capital for a mall, which serves no one, and put it on the people of Syracuse--the people who are already in debt and impoverished--and make them pay for it so that people from the suburbs can shop in this clean, safe, fake environment and get back in their cars, drive away, and play with their toys. M: Did you learn anything new as cameraman? CR: The main plot point in the film is that Nick is trying to get his girlfriend back. Oftentimes, you can tell when people you interview don't care. However, the second Nick would break the barrier of telling the person that he was looking for his girlfriend, everything changed. That person became invested. I feel like I learned a lot about human behavior. M: What is in the future for Sessler & Rudge Enterprises? CR: Nick and I want to start making a film this coming summer. Later on in life, we’ll try to link up on as many projects as possible. Nick brings out the best in me. He’s a genius himself and really fun to work with. M: What is the impact of your film on the city of Syracuse, SU or SUNY-ESF? CR: The office of diversity at SUNY-ESF is using it and showing a ten minute clip in the middle that explains a little bit of history of Syracuse–I-81, white flight from the city, racist Federal Housing Authority loans–that's being shown to every freshman at ESF as part of their diversity seminar to explain the interesting factors that affect the Syracuse community. I’m very proud of that. I think that is a little legacy that Nick and I have. Answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
No place like home. WORDS Danielle Roth PHOTOGRAPHY Genevieve Pilch
“Holzthum plans for RALP to be a disability-owned nonprofit that is owned and controlled by the individuals living there” Syracuse University provides accessible housing and accommodations for students with disabilities. Once they search for housing off campus, they venture into a world of distasteful landlords, long commutes, and many, many stairs. One student started a new venture to help change this landscape.
“Can you get your own clothes on?” “Do you need an aide?” “You won’t be able to find a roommate.” This is how Nick Holzthum said Syracuse-area landlords reacted when he tried to tour apartments for this school year. Holzthum looked with at least 12 different landlords for an affordable and comfortable
home that would be able to fit his wheelchair. The narrow doorframes, small bathroom space, and steps excluded him from the older houses in the University Neighborhood. Newer apartment complexes like University Village and the dormitories on campus are better designed for his wheelchair, but come at a higher cost.
Without an affordable and liveable apartment for his senior year, Holzthum took a leave of absence from his last year of study as an information management and technology major. In response to the housing situation, Holzthum and the Coalition for a Livable and Accessible Syracuse started fundraising this fall to create the Radically Accessible Living Project (RALP). With enough funding, the group will purchase and renovate a house designed to include bodies of all ability levels. Outside of the realm of on-campus housing, Syracuse has a one- to four-year waiting list for accessible housing, according to Beata Karpinska-Prehn, manager of advocacy at ARISE, Inc., an agency that supports those with disabilities in Central New York. “There’s really no place that I am aware of in our state, or anywhere really, that has a surplus of accessible affordable units,” she says, “It’s a national problem.” Older applicants generally receive priority. The waitlist could overlook students who only need housing in Syracuse for a short period of time. Between 1,000 and 1,500 people with disabilities live in the region. The Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act helps ensure that housing on campus fits the needs of those with disabilities. On-campus housing, especially newer buildings like Ernie Davis Hall, provides accessible housing and accommodations for those with disabilities. Holzthum took the elevator right down to the dining hall when he lived in Ernie Davis. The showers in the fully accessible bathrooms didn’t have a step to enter. A voice in the elevator alerted the user to the floor number. Older dorms like Watson Hall, where Holzthum lived during a summer, have been renovated to be accessible, but the unit located near the first floor lobby isolated Holzthum from the rest of the students on the floor. SU provides additional accommodations when necessary. “The student may need a single room as an accommodation. They’re not going to pay the higher rate for a single room if they need it for an accommodation,” says Aaron Hodukavich, SU’s ADA/503/504 Coordinator, the administrator that ensures SU’s enforcement of disability law. However, the $3,755 per semester price tag for a regular open double (plus the required meal plan) deters many students from staying on campus past the two year minimum requirement. A national study published by the Department of Housing and Urban Development concluded that those who are Deaf or use wheelchairs face unfavorable treatment from landlords. According to the June 2015 study, landlords would deny well-qualified homeseekers who are Deaf or use wheelchairs from appointments more often than comparably qualified homeseekers without Deafness or wheelchair need. This study comes 30 years after Congress amended the Fair Housing Act to protect those with disabilities against discriminatory landlords. CNY Fair Housing, a nonprofit that enforces fair housing laws, continues to see landlords discriminate against those with disabilities. “About 60 percent of the folks that give us a call looking for help or offer a complaint are those with physical or mental disabilities,” Assistant Director Karen Schroeder says. The quirks of old homes pose serious mobility challenges for those with disabilities. About 80 percent of the homes in Syracuse were built before the 1950s. Small bathrooms do not allow for the ease of motion for a wheelchair. Even if a bedroom is on the first floor, most houses have steps going to the home’s entrance. The infrastructures of these old homes echo back to a 10
time when those with disabilities would live in a sanatorium or an asylum and be separated from society. Any housing that has four attached units built after 1991 legally must provide basic access, such as levered door handles and wide-enough doorways. Developers have not built a lot of new apartment complexes in Syracuse. The newer apartment complexes that have been built since 1991 are luxurious and expensive, averaging around $1,200 per month according to Karpinska-Prehn of ARISE. “You’d need like three students to live in one of those places, and share bedrooms. And one could live on the couch, maybe,” she says. RALP offers a more comfortable and affordable alternative for those with disabilities. After RALP raises enough funds during their planning period, Holzthum plans for it to become a disability-owned nonprofit that is controlled by the individuals living in the space. “Someone with Autism may have difficulty with organization or social skills while someone with physical disabilities may need help with physical things, moving stuff around when cooking and such,” says Holzthum. For now, Holzthum works as a freelance web developer in the Boston area where his family lives. “It’s going quite well actually. All of my profits go toward the Radically Accessible Living Project,” he says. The project raised nearly $3,000 of its $120,000 goal in a one-month Indiegogo campaign, which ended in September. Individuals with disabilities will own, operate, and live in the home. “[RALP is meant to be] a way for people to become empowered through each other and gain a sense of pride in themselves eventually maybe find their path and going on to a more expensive living situation,” Holzthum says.
MASS MIGRATION WORDS Emily Malina
One-third of the Syrian population has fled the country since conflict started five years ago. The exodus developed into the greatest displacement of peoples since World War II. Now the region struggles, torn apart by ISIS, opposition groups, and intervening world powers. Jordan, Lebanon and other countries neighboring Syria strain to support the tremendous influx of refugees while the United Nations tries to find a solution. This brief breakdown of events starts to answer the complicated question: How did we get here?
Amount of Displaced Persons in the Middle East and North Africa
Turkey
Lebanon
Iraq
KEY PLAYERS United Nations (U.N.): International organization of countries founded to combat world crises United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR): U.N. committee that provides aid for worldwide refugee crises al-Assad Regime: The dictatorship that controlled Syria since 1970 when Hafez al-Assad overthrew the previous president. He was elected in 1971 for a 7 year term and his family has been in control ever since. National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces: The opposition group that the U.S., U.K., France, Turkey and the Gulf states formally recognize as the “legitimate representative� of Syrian people. Russia: Supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad United States: Supports the National Coalition
Jordan
Islamic State (IS): Jihadist group from Iraq Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan: Neighboring countries that have received a majority of Syrian refugees
= 10, 000 persons
Egypt
Libya
AMOUNT OF DISPLACED PERSONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA (According to the latest data published by the UNHCR)
Turkey: Lebanon: Jordan: Iraq: Libya: Egypt:
2,181,293 1,075,637 633,644 244,765 26,772 127,681
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2012
DISPLACED AND KILLED By this time, Damascus rages with fighting. The U.N. reports that more than 90,000 people have been killed in the conflict. That number soon doubles. April 2012: U.N. calls for a cease-fire. October 2012: More than 11,000 Syrians flee to bordering countries in less than 24 hours.
2011 UPRISINGS Political uprisings in Egypt spark the Arab Spring across the Middle East and Northern Africa. President al-Assad violently reacts to public displays of opposition in Syria. Political unrest leads to nationwide protests by the opposition group, now called the National Coalition. This force wants President Assad’s resignation. March 2011: Syrian President Al-Assad fails to make promised reforms. Damascus, the capital city, is attacked in response to riots.
WAR WAGES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY War crimes, like torture, rape and use of chemical weapons, incur from all sides. Jihad extremists move in and seize land in northern Syria.
April 2011: 5,000 refugees flee to Lebanon.
January 2013: Lebanese government agrees to register refugees.
July 2011: Refugees continue to escape to Turkey and Jordan. Uprisings begin.
March 2013: Number of Syrian refugees reaches 1 million. September 2013: 2 million Syrian refugees seek asylum. Half are children.
2013
A HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IS BORN The U.N. accuses IS of waging a campaign of terror in northern and eastern Syria. IS inflicts severe punishments, in the form of public executions and amputations, on those who transgress or refuse to accept its rule.
PROXY WAR AND WESTERN POWERS
The U.N. demands that countries come to a standstill. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon calls for the Geneva II convention to be held in Geneva, Switzerland so all parties can come to a peaceful consensus. The Syrian government refuses to meet with the National Coalition, causing the war to wage on. Refugees continue to seek asylum in countries such as Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, and Egypt.
Some refugees seeking safety in Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon are turned away. These countries face economic crises and lack the proper resources to assist the refugees.
January 2014: The Geneva II conference is held to end conflict in Syria and come to a peaceful consensus. There is a call for European nations to accept refugees. February 2014: The U.K. announces it will take refugees. April 2014: More than 1 million refugees live in Lebanon. June 2014: IS refugee crisis begins. August 2014: IS gains control of Syrian territory.
A proxy war is born with Western powers supporting the National Coalition. Russia supports al-Assad, Syria’s current leader. Iraq continues to support Islamist extremists. March 2015: Total Syrian economic loss totals $202 billion. September 2015: Germany begins accepting refugees. October 2015: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urges international community to accept more refugees, respect humanitarian access, and stop armed attacks in civilian areas. November 2015: Number of refugees registered by the UNHCR totals 4,289,792. An estimated 3 million refugees are still unaccounted for.
The College Faithful A campus known for a party culture poses a difficult challenge for students holding to deeply rooted, conservative faiths. Fitting in prayer between classes and balancing social pressure with religious practices takes time to learn. ANNA HODGE discovers how some Muslim students sort out the ways their boundaries affect their lives on campus. PHOTOGRAPHY Shirley Chang
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s a 20-something male presses a cup of beer to his lips and guzzles down his fourth round, across Syracuse University’s campus, Khadija Abdulkadir returns to her dorm room on Mount Olympus to prepare for her second session of prayer. The thirty-degree weather and on-and-off snowfall fails to keep scores of SU students from attending Mayfest, a spring celebration at a school known for its frigid climate. Campus-wide, the annual event is known for its parties, alcohol and drug abuse, and concert series. For then-freshman Abdulkadir, it is Jumu’ah, the day of Islamic congregational prayer. Students like Abdulkadir live in the shadow of continuing violence in the Middle East and prejudices that are generated by the West’s unsettled relationship with the Arab world. As a result, many American Muslim college students struggle to balance university life, the temptations of 21st century college culture, their deeply rooted conservative faith, and the Islamophobia that continues in post-9/11 America. Abdulkadir is one of 300 registered Muslim students at a school of 20,000. And of the 21 million college students in America in the fall of 2014, Muslim students numbered 3.5 million members of the national student body.
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“I am just trying to give a safe space to my fellow people to be a Muslim.”
Islam is gaining a greater presence on college campuses. In 1999, Georgetown became the first university to hire a full-time imam. In recent years, Yale, Princeton, Northwestern University, and SU, among others, have brought Muslim chaplains to campus. Although only 1.7 percent of American college freshmen are Muslim, according to a 2014 Higher Education Research Institute survey, the religion is experiencing rapid growth. A 2015 Pew Research Center study predicts that for the first time in history the number of Muslims will be nearly equal to the number of Christians across the planet by 2050. Despite the religion’s increase in numbers, stereotypes and discrimination against the Islamic faith prevail. A 2014 Gallup poll found that Muslims are twice as likely as U.S. Jews, Catholics, and Protestants to have personally experienced racial or religious discrimination in the past year. While facing such discrimination, Muslim college students across the country share similar yet unique experiences as they continue to determine what it means to be young and Islamic in America today.
“My class schedule conflicted with my time of prayer.” Khadija Abdulkadir was born in a Somalian refugee camp and was raised in a Muslim family that moved to Syracuse in 2009. As one of nine children, Abdulkadir had to convince her parents to allow her to live on campus at SU, five miles from her family’s home. “In Islam, women or girls don’t traditionally leave their families unless she gets married,” Abdulkadir says. “But there is no way I would be able to focus on my school work at home with my siblings.” Abdulkadir says one of the biggest challenges of college life is finding time – and space – for prayer. Practicing Muslims pray five times per day: Sunrise prayer at 6 a.m., the Dhuhr prayer at 1 p.m., the Asr prayer at 5 p.m., the Maghrib prayer at 8 p.m., and Isha at 9 p.m. Abdulkadir prays at SU’s Hendricks Chapel for Dhuhr and Asr prayer. In between classes, she prays in an empty classroom on campus she found on her own earlier this year. Last semester, Abdulkadir’s 12:45 to 2:05 p.m. Arabic language course conflicted with Dhuhr. “My professor initially had a problem with me missing the first 10 minutes of each class to pray,” Abdulkadir says. “But it’s sort of like taking a bathroom break. I would just go to her office hours to catch up on what I missed.” While this faculty member became more understanding of her faith, Abdulkadir says she dropped a political science course because of the professor’s indifference towards her. “I assumed he was doing it because of my religion,” Abdulkadir says. “It was so horrible, I went to him directly and asked him to explain the grade and he was very closed-minded and did not help me.” At a university with 922 tenured and untenured faculty members, it is difficult to ensure all educators
are open to diversity, says Elane Granger, associate director of the Slutzker Center for International Services at SU. “Cultural ignorance is very common in the United States because we don’t value difference as we should, especially difference when it comes from abroad,” Granger says. “Faculty live in this country, they are educated in this country, and therefore they often reflect its values. It can be hard for faculty to understand why modeling an inclusive environment would be worthwhile.” When faced with discrimination on campus, Granger says marginalized students need to remember their voice.“We live in a socially rigid nation, and students need to remember the importance of finding allies on campus,” Granger says. “We need to have an open mind and understand one another. We need to value intercultural exchange.”
“It’s about finding your balance.” Mohamed Sahraoui, a sophomore, didn’t experience his first Mayfest. Mahdi Mere, a junior, also did not go to the Block Party concert and “Mayfestivities.” Mahdi studied in the library. Mohamed left class around two o’clock and headed back to his family’s house in Syracuse. As practicing Muslims, Mere, and Sahraoui do not indulge in the temptations of the 21st century college experience, including underage drinking, drug use, and the pervasive hook-up culture. For Sahraoui, this means making a point to avoid certain situations. “When friends ask me to go out with them to a party, I just say I have something with my family,” he says. This also pertains to situations with women. “Because I don’t live on campus I don’t consistently see the same people all of the time, so it is hard to build those types of relationships with girls in particular unless I put myself out there, which I don’t,” Mere adds. Islam says sexual urge should be fulfilled only through marriage, which can take place as soon as a boy and a girl reach the age of puberty. Students tend to maintain minimal relationships with classmates of the opposite sex to ensure there are no “misunderstandings,” says Richard “Abu Essa” Russell, SU’s Muslim Chaplain and the adviser of the campus’s Muslim Student Association. In their struggle to balance the etiquette of Islam with the values of American college life, some Muslim college students do give in to college temptations, Russell says. “Muslim college students often face an identity crisis of someone who is born and raised Muslim but weans away from the religion to fit in with their American classmates,” he says. “They need to understand that you can be American and Muslim at the same time. They shouldn’t have to run away from their culture to fit in with their friends.” Due to the culture of a college campus like SU, which was named the number one party school in America by the Princeton Review in 2014, students like Sahraoui and Mere choose to commute to school from home. “Some students just want to get away from the party environment,” Russell says. “Not having your beloved community so close can take a toll on your studies.
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for a minority demographic that still looks to understand its identity on campus. She represents a female leader in a religion that claims men have a God-given authority over women. “Her presidency is a great symbol of the change that is going on in Islam,” says Brian Calfano, associate professor of political science at Missouri State University and coordinator for the Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. “Islam tends to be male dominated and largely, there are less opportunities for women in leadership positions.”
ISLAMIC TERMS AND DEFINITIONS: Islamophobia: Dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force. Imam: The leader of prayer within a mosque. Hijab: A head covering worn in public by some Muslim women. Jumu’ah: A congregational prayer that Muslims hold every Friday, just after noon in the place of Dhuhr. Dhuhr: The second of the five daily Islamic prayers. This is the noon prayer in Islam, to take place just after midday. Asr: The third of the five daily Islamic prayers. Known as the middle day prayer, this is to be recited around 5 p.m. Maghrib: Prayed just after sunset, this is the fourth of five daily prayers, and is performed around 8 p.m. Isha: This is the fifth of the five daily prayers, and is the nighttime daily prayer recited around 9 p.m. 16
Rather than sitting in a residence hall while everyone on the floor is at a party, they can be home and be with their support system.” The terrorist attacks on September 11 signified a shift in the lives of Muslim college students in America. “College culture has always been about partying as well as academia, so that is nothing new,” Russell says. “However, Muslim students today are a post- 9/11 generation dealing with Islamophobia.” Russell explains that while hook-up culture presents its own issues, female students in hijabs have been called terrorists and members of the Taliban. Islamophobia is a facet of everyday life for Muslim students. “In this day and age,” Russell says, “Our students sit among people who make them feel like they are not accepted, like they are the actual enemy.”
“A great symbol of change.” Zainab Abdali claims she isn’t a politician. “I know I am now considered a politician, but I just want to be there for the students,” Abdali says. The 19year old sophomore is the president of the Muslim Student Association at SU for the 2015-2016 school year. Abdali, the third consecutively elected female president of MSA, serves as a figurehead
The MSA serves as the voice for Muslim students across the country and pushes for greater awareness of Islamic culture. The organization, founded in 1963, has more than 200 affiliated chapters in the United States and has pushed for greater awareness about Islamic culture. While there are currently 300 registered Muslim students at SU, Russell predicts there are more who fear what could happen if they identify their faith. “With MSA, we want to serve as a resource for students so students feel comfortable with their identities,” he says. In the past year, the organization’s Jumu’ah prayer service has grown in attendance by 40 members. While Abdali does not credit the female leadership of MSA for this growth, she says it is encouraging to see more students accepting their identities. “The organization is not any different because I am a woman,” Abdali says. “I am just trying to give a safe space to my fellow people to be Muslim.”
“We do not need to apologize for who we are.” While students recover from Mayfest, Khadija Abdulkadir attends a poetry slam as part of a fundraising event for the local Mosque, located several blocks from campus. “Students would stand up and read these verses about the discrimination they have faced on campus,” Abdulkadir says. “It’s very powerful to see your peers have the bravery to speak up.” Students wrote on topics including the shooting of three Islamic students at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in February, the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris in January, and what the meaning of growing up as Muslims in post-9/11 America. Abdali says that although SU presents its obstacles to Muslim students, she emphasizes the strength of her community and its unity. “We rely on each other as individuals who understand one another,” Abdali says. “On a campus like this, that is what you need.”
Native Narratives
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Skä·noñh Center PHOTOGRAPHY Victoria Amoroso
The history of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy has been retold and retouched countless times since European colonists first made contact with the indigenous nations of what is now Upstate New York. NATSUMI AJISAKA examines the community’s latest effort to give a voice to the forgotten stories and marginalized people of the longhouse.
The old Jesuit mission in Liverpool used to look like something out of Fort Apache, the 1948 black-and-white Western where Henry Fonda and Shirley Temple gallop on horses in front of a green-screen Wild West. Think history with a twist: A stockade of wooden spikes circled a plot of land with animal pens and costumed interpreters working weekends in 1657. Cannons poked through the palisade (the actual mission was unarmed). The site is iconic. At Onondaga Lake, six nations formed the Haudenosaunee Confederacy under the Great Law of Peace to protect themselves from violence. It was the sort of place everyone went to on school field trips. In 1995, something else opened in its place: an alien account of the Haudenosaunee, called the Iroquois by the Europeans. The European account fudged major details of Haudenosaunee life. This version overlooked the heavily polluted Onondaga Lake, for example. Yet yellow school busses still rolled into the parking lot. The mission renovation depended on Jesuit accounts. Known for assimilating themselves into indigenous cultures to convert from within, the Jesuits took copious notes and sent them to the French king as updates. The missionaries dutifully crammed these journals with details, but they sounded like out of touch explorers recording human behavior without understanding how things like spirituality, families, and love worked.
“You might pay attention to the language, you might dedicate yourself to observation techniques, but nevertheless, you’re going to get most things wrong. And so, as one of my colleagues puts it, there’s a kind of fantasy of knowledge, a fantasy of intimacy that is projected in these early texts,” says Phil Arnold, director of the Skä•noñh Great Law of Peace Center. And those notes, with as much as they left out, made their way into the restoration, along with taxidermied bears and wolves. Arnold and his wife Sandra Bigtree began thinking about alternatives. So did Greg Tripoli, the Onondaga Historical Association’s executive director. The OHA managed the site, but it remained a stagnant space after losing funding in 2011. After Arnold wrote an op-ed on the site that caught Tripoli’s eye, an unprecedented collaboration started to come together. The Skä•noñh Great Law of Peace Center opened on November 21 in the concrete building next to the old mission site after more than two years of work among Syracuse University, SUNY-ESF, Lemoyne College, Onondaga Community College, and the Onondaga Nation to present indigenous narratives and histories of the Haudenosaunee. The 20-member planning committee includes non-native and indigenous scholars and the Onondaga Nation, with Arnold directing the collaboration. The pollution of the lake is a point of contention between the Onondaga and the county, but the center is the one project they agree on, Arnold says.
Onondaga Nation School. “We’re sharing information that we value and care about and we want to protect it and see it done well.” Past traumas in some ways remain an open window. The federal government and New York State chewed up indigenous land (Gov. George Pataki would later offer land deals using casino building as solutions) and millions of acres turned into reservations and suburbs.
The committee designed the center as a place to present indigenous values to a non-native audience and let the Haudenosaunee reassemble their histories and traditions in the wake of a traumatic past. It’s also about acknowledging Haudenosaunee contributions to American democracy, the women’s rights movement included. Above all, it presents new possibilities based on Haudenosaunee values: shifting away from extractive economics, which values exploiting the environment, restoring respect for nature, and so on. The Jesuits will still have the back area, so to speak. The center’s job, in a way, is to bring together threads of trauma and survival, and remembrance and celebration of Haudenosaunee accomplishments. Six Nations land, named for the six indigenous nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy — the Oneida, Cayuga, Onondaga, Mohawk, Seneca, and Tuscarora — straddles the United States-Canadian border. The Haudenosaunee used to live on more than 31,000 square miles of land within current New York State borders. Today, that land includes a little over 16 square miles. The Onondaga are one of the last traditional indigenous governments in the world, emerging as an activist nation in the last decade on behalf of environmental issues. The core exhibit features 30 hours of interviews with Haudenosaunee leaders compressed into a series of six films. You can watch Haudenosaunee people tell the general contours of hundreds of years of oral history, like the Creation story, which takes five days to narrate in real-time. But there won’t be indigenous items sealed behind Plexiglass. Everything on display will be a reproduction. The center is also designed so you can take a quick tour through, with larger text panels that present the most important themes, or a more thorough visit with more descriptive “subtext” panels. The gift shop will sell work from local Native American artists, with a temporary exhibit space featuring indigenous artwork as well. The committee led walkthroughs with Onondaga representatives weeks before the opening to finalize the wording on the text panels. “It takes courage to go there,” says Freida Jacques, liaison at the
An entire generation of Haudenosaunee children were herded to military-style boarding schools where administrators plastered over their real names with English versions and forced them to march back and forth in military uniforms. “The boarding schools were a very traumatic time for our people,” Jacques says. “They used them to change us.” The schools tried to strip Onondaga children of their language and took their traditional clothing. Some children were sexually abused as well. One of the most damaging practices of the schools, Jacques says, was the harsh discipline. Children would often enter the schools as young adolescents and live for years in an environment that acclimated them to abuse and withheld human affection. When that generation came back, the effects took years to surface. Few people made the connection. But narratives about Native Americans already like to heave with tragedy or scary savage tropes, or both. They erase the fact that the Haudenosaunee are still alive, the Onondaga living on a reservation 10 minutes from SU’s campus. A final room, called the Contributions room, lists the various and unrecognized ways the Haudenosaunee contributed to American life. Ben Franklin got the idea of democracy from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Haudenosaunee government valued a matrilineal system and clan mothers as leaders, influencing the women’s rights movement and second-wave feminism. “The takeaway is going to be what came out of the lake, its influence on American society, on Western democracy,” Arnold says. “And that’s why I’m saying, much more important than the Jesuits coming in the 17th century is the influence that what happened at the lake had on the rest of the world.” There is still work to do. Land rights are still in contention and the Onondaga are working through hundreds of years of legal doctrine based on the doctrine of discovery, an edict of the Catholic Church entitling European colonists to indigenous land they “discovered.” Haudenosaunee passports and citizenship have no value internationally. And still, the effects of the boarding schools. The center sits on a lonely bend of the Onondaga Lake Parkway, across from the lake’s edge. The law of peace, a form of mutual need, lasted with great effort through the Jesuits, the repeated attempts at removal, the damage done by the boarding schools, even as a rogue company dumped tons of toxic waste into the lake water. At night, the waves snake across the inky water as a hazy moon watches overhead. The great expanse sends seagulls’ cries up into the crisp, empty sky. Loose rebar here and there lines the shore. A thick expanse of pine trees runs across the hill next to the center, their lush branches sweeping in the wind to hide the French mission.
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PHOTOGRAPHY Danielle Roth
The Matthew 25 Farm helps provide produce to the food insecure of Central New York. The Christian founders use their platform to live out their faith while teaching visitors about the fruits and vegetables they grow. DANIELLE ROTH learns what’s important to the farmers who donate everything they harvest to food pantries nearby. Farm manager Rick Rarick parked his wagon next to the red wooden farm stand with white, hand-painted lettering spelling out Matthew 25 Farm. A small group of teenagers unloaded freshly picked pumpkins from the wagon. The volunteers spent the autumn morning picking pumpkins on the farm’s expansive fields nestled in the rolling green hills between LaFayette and Tully, New York. Rick turned around to grab another pumpkin and a 15-year-old boy ripped an apple tree from the ground. He snapped it in half. “I was a little mad for half-asecond,” says Rick. The year-old sapling, leafless, about four feet tall and a few centimeters round, looked like a stick in the ground. The boy thought he had removed a weed. He thought he had helped. With the patience of a farmer and the understanding of a teacher, Rick turned this $60 mistake into an educational moment. Rick showed the group of young volunteers the parts of the apple tree sapling, how the roots form into the stem and how the sapling eventually bears fruit. Some of these young volunteers, the boy included, had never stepped foot on a farm before. Educating volunteers about the source of their food is only one aspect of the Matthew 25 Farm. This nonprofit farm donates its entire yield to local food pantries and the food bank. Sixteen percent of Central New Yorkers experience food insecurity. The farm has grown and donated more than 250,000 pounds of tomatoes, apples, potatoes, peppers, squash, and other fruits and vegetables since its founding in 2009. Food pantries 20
Farm Manager Rick Rarick
mostly receive canned and nonperishable goods, making the fresh produce even more vital.
Avoid stepping on the roots while in the field because this will hurt the plant in the future.
Unlike most farms, which traditionally get passed down from the previous generation and work to make a profit, Rick’s older brother Jeff founded this nonprofit farm to act out his Christian religion. In the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 25, Jesus tells his followers, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.”
Rick’s past in teaching shows through in the way he explains the farm to volunteers, says Syracuse University sophomore Maddie Lorang, who volunteered with the farm for this year’s fall harvest. The first time she volunteered on the farm, the group of five SU students helped harvest apples in the orchard. The group tastetested the ripeness of the apples, picking the fruit from the ripe trees. Rick taught them how to put stakes in the ground to make the trees stand taller. One person climbed the ladder, as the others held the ladder and prepared the rope. The person on the ladder lifted a 15-pound stake hammer, slamming it down until the stake sturdily dug into the ground. “Some people were so clearly bad at it. He’d be like, ‘Oh, I think you hit a rock.’ Lorang says. “He makes everyone really excited to be out there.”
The brothers grew up with the Christian faith influencing their lives. “I’m married to a minister. They were in church every Sunday. I made them memorize Bible passages and psalms,” says their mother Elizabeth Esmark. “Those poor kids,” she adds with a laugh. The farm acts out the meaning of Matthew 25 with a non-judgmental philosophy. “We don’t care who you are. We don’t care what your background is. If you’re hungry, we are here to help you,” says Esmark. Anyone in need of food can come to the farm and eat what they pick. Groups from Syracuse’s refugee community will visit on occasion to harvest for themselves. Mostly, volunteers work the fields and donate their goods. Esmark remembers a pleasant day when a singing group of volunteers bent over in the leafy rows to harvest peppers and eggplants on a fall day. Happy to share his farming knowledge, Rick explains the tricks of farming to volunteers. Butternut squashes have a tan outer layer when ready to pick. The white squashes need more time to grow. Twist an apple and it’ll come off when ripe.
A rare few volunteers have tested his patience. About five years ago, Rick and a woman were picking green beans for herself and for donation. Rick pulled a few plump green beans from the plant and tossed them in her bucket with the rest of the harvested beans. The woman refused, saying, “No, I don’t want those. They’re the big ones. They don’t taste as good. Give them to the poor people. They don’t care what they eat.” Rick says the insensitive comment angered him, but he let it slide at first. “She said she needed food so we don’t question people,” he says. At the end of the day when the woman weighed her harvest she repeated the
comment again, this time in front of Rick’s mother: “The poor people don’t care what they eat.” “She acted like the people she was trying to serve were beneath her. And no one is beneath anybody,” Rick says. He didn’t let it slide this time. Normally even-keeled and calm, Rick lividly told her that she was not welcome on the farm. “You might live in a different town. You might have been born in a different country, but it’s all the same home,” he says. “We all live on the same rock.”
Early morning scenes from the Matthew 25 Farm’s LaFayette location.
Rick became the manager during the farm’s second year. Being a college-educated man in his early thirties, he is not the stereotypical farmer. “We don’t all wear straw hats. We don’t wear coveralls. We don’t walk around with hay sticking out of our mouth,” he says. “Oh wait, I do. It is true I like chewing on the grass.” He wears a white, long-sleeved T-shirt with a picture of a tractor and the Matthew 25 Logo. Below this, basic lettering spells out: Rick Rarick, Farm Manager. Other than their mother growing up on a farm in Central New York, the family did not have much agricultural experience before starting the farm. “Jeff kept saying to us that he had this vision that we were supposed to start a farm,” says Esmark. He works in an older generation’s field, quite literally. The majority of farmers are growing older—about 600,000 farmers are between the ages of 55 and 64 years old, according to a 2014 Census of Agriculture Report. Their children do not want to replace them either. The formerly family-owned farms become consolidated into larger farms with fewer farmers. After peaking at 7 billion farms in 1935, the United States had around 2 billion farms in 2014. When Rick worked toward his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in education, he did not plan to become a farmer. He dreamed of becoming a teacher. He taught children with autism in Maryland until he decided to return home to Central New York with plans to start his own school. “My goal in life ever since I was 18 was to do something that gave back,” says Rick. “That was my very simple life goal: help people.” The Matthew 25 Farm is like an outdoor classroom where the weather dictates course selection and weeding is a core requirement. “I’ve crossed over the road basically. But I’m still going down the same path. Before, I was walking down the left side of it. Now I’m on the right side walking down it,” he says. “I’m riding a tractor half the time.”
Getting a job is essential for college seniors. The rising cost of American higher-education means mounting debt for thousands of soon-to-be graduates. Most prepare for the job hunt through internships in their field of study, especially students at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Journalism student JOHNNY ROSA chose to forgo an internship and venture into the wilderness instead. On The Water In the northernmost reaches of Maine, a calm flow of water spills into Chamberlain Lake, marking the beginning of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. The lake and the wilderness seem empty at first glance, but spend enough time there and you’ll see six-foot-tall moose wading through weeds at the water’s edge and bald eagles making their nests in the highest branches of the black pines towering above you. A meandering course of lakes, rivers, and whitewater carve through the trees, forming the 126-mile-long waterway. Every year, more than 4,000 people visit the remote state park. The campsites along the water’s edge sprawl with Boy Scouts, fishermen, and adventure seekers throughout the summer. If I only remember one thing from the Allagash and the aching arms, raucous laughter, and mosquito-filled nights that came with my journeys, it’s that sometimes things don’t go as planned, and maybe that’s okay. The park mandates adventurers traveling on the waterway stay in groups of no more than 10. To accommodate
this, the Leadership Development Program (LDP), an experiential learning and wilderness survival summer program I work with, divides into three groups of eight campers and two leaders for the trip. The division this summer meant another college senior and I were the only ones in charge of the safety and wellbeing of eight campers for the duration of the week we spent on the water. We both attended multiple trip leader trainings and have had experiences in the woods, so I was confident our group would be well taken care of. We thought we had everything under control, but halfway into our first full day of canoeing, we found ourselves underprepared for the trip of our lives. The route to the next section of the waterway should have brought us down the shore until we saw a small dam carefully emptying water into the next lake. We missed the dam.
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On My Resume I started as a camper in LDP — a four month program spread over two summers designed to teach 16- and 17-year-old high schoolers how to be leaders in their own lives through adventures outside. Those two summers I learned how to swim, survive in the woods on my own, and live and work with other people every day. Turning 19 and preparing to start my first year at SU, I signed up for what seemed a natural progression for me: a job as a counselor at Camp Brookwoods, the summer camp associated with the program. I didn’t know how to spend my summers anywhere other than the woods. I’d grown up going to camp every summer. Freshman year my thoughts started to shift. When I got to college the idea of working for free as an intern was on everyone’s mind. All around me, society said I needed a gig at a real magazine. Students tell stories of the time they met Wolf Blitzer at CNN or got to try all the free samples of makeup at Vanity Fair. When we trade war stories of summer jobs, I used to wrack my brain for ways to explain myself. I’m a senior graduating college in May and I’ve only ever had one internship. That solitary experience puts me far behind many of my peers, who often land multiple internships every summer of college. Instead of the skyscrapers and popular publications of New York City, I’ve spent the majority of my collegiate summers with towering pines and energetic children. Despite the push towards internships, I took the opportunity to lead the program I’d loved as a camper. I had dreamed of this job since I’d started working at summer camp. Having the chance to shape two dozen kids’ lives and show them the wonders of adventure and perseverance sounded amazing. It was a dream job, but it wasn’t an internship. I hesitated. It felt like a bad decision to spend another summer in the woods instead of “furthering my career.” Filling my resume with internship experience is a good thing, but every resume needs diversity. It turns out, surviving LDP and the Allagash prepared me for my career after college better than any internship in New York City could have. While my peers work hard to land jobs at magazines across the country, I’m spending my spare time as a senior building my own company. Together with another Newhouse senior (advertising major Erin Miller), I make short, viral-style explainer videos for anyone who needs help spreading the word about their awesome startup or idea. Surviving on our own is incredibly intimidating, but thanks to my
Everyone who spends outside needs to be prepared for wind and rain. The Ghost Lite comes with a hood and compresses to fit in any nook of a backpack for easy carrying. $100 mountainhardware.com MSR POCKETROCKET STOVE The tiny stove packs a powerful punch and can boil a liter of water in under 3.5 minutes. $39.95 rei.com NALGENE 32OZ WIDEMOUTH WATER BOTTLE Ask the majority of campers in the wilderness if they have any water, and they’ll bring out one of these. Staying hydrated is critical, and Nalgene is a tried and true classic. $10.99 nalgene.com SMARTWOOL HIKING SOCKS They’ll keep your feet warm even if you accidentally step in a stream or puddle. SmartWool socks are great for the wilderness, or just walking around Syracuse in the winter. $11.95 – $26.95 smartwool.com
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“Instead of the skyscrapers and popular publications of New York City, I’ve spent the majority of my collegiate summers with towering pines and energetic children.”
time in the woods, I know I can get by. Erin and I have a minor in entrepreneurship. We’ve been trained and taught how to organize a business and manage cash flow, and we’re lucky to have great mentors through Newhouse’s entrepreneurship program. As we work on our company, we’ll probably make mistakes. In all likelihood, we’ll miss a dam of our own, but I know we’ll survive. On My Future My training on the waterway taught me how to predict the weather from the clouds in the sky. I’d learned how to care for a hypothermic camper. I knew how to canoe. But I’d never learned what the dam that marked where we should cross Chamberlain Lake looked like. We’d missed it and made our way to a littlevisited campsite at the farthest corner of the lake. Only then did we realize our mistake. We’d passed the outlet to the next section of waterway about two hours prior. Our only option was a grueling crawl up the coast back to the dam. To make things worse, the weather had shifted. What began as a sunny day had grown windy. Vicious headwinds blew our faces and whipped up waves that buffeted our canoes and pushed us into the shore. We had failed as leaders. We found ourselves four hours of paddling behind
schedule. Our blunder meant we had to find a new, closer campsite to stay at that night, one we could reach before the sun went down. A closer campsite meant more paddling the next day. All in all, the mistake meant more work for everyone, but we survived. We made it to a new campsite, and the lessons of that trip were drilled into my mind. No matter how well-prepared I am for any job, there will always be things I can’t see, things I don’t know about, and mistakes that make things more difficult for everyone. Not giving up is the key. No one enjoys working unnecessarily hard. That isn’t an excuse to quit entirely. I can’t put Chamberlain Lake on my resume, but the lessons I learned from camp will stay with me through graduation and any job I have. I don’t have nearly as much internship experience as the peers I’m competing with, and that’s okay.
“In all likelihood, we’ll miss a dam of our own, but I know we’ll survive.”
Simply Delicious WORDS Emily Malina PHOTOGRAPHY Genevieve Pilch
Making a mouthwatering meal doesn’t have to be time consuming. Check out these easy-to-make recipes that are perfect for your college schedule . As a young girl in Michigan, I kept my grandma company while she cooked my favorite warm foods for the cold weather. As I have gotten older, and busier, I have adapted my grandma’s recipes so they taste just as good but with less prep time. I can have the same home-cooked goodness on a college schedule, using minimal ingredients and materials. It’s as if I’m a bit closer to home.
PEAR OATMEAL Time: 7 minutes ½ cup of steel cut quick oats ¾ cup whole milk (or soy milk) 1 pear 1 tablespoon of brown sugar A pinch of cinnamon Skin and cube pear. Combine oats, milk, brown sugar and ¾ pear cubes in blender. If you don’t have a blender, no worries. Smash the pear with a fork and mix everything together. Put the mix in a bowl and heat in a microwave for two minutes. Once finished, add remaining pear cubes. Sprinkle cinnamon to taste.
MY GRANDMA’S APPLESAUCE Time: 20 minutes
GREEN SMOOTHIE Time: 5 minutes ¾ Apple ½ cup orange juice 4 small cucumber slices Handful of spinach Chop ingredients and combine in mixer until well-blended. Serve room temperature.
6 whole apples 1/4 cup of brown sugar 1 tsp. lemon juice 1 cup of water 1/3 cinnamon stick Skin and halve the apples. Heat a large pan with water. Add brown sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon stick to the warm water and stir. Once sugar is dissolved, add apples. Cover with a lid and leave on medium heat for 15 minutes. Smash apples into small chunks and enjoy.
THE ULTIMATE HIBERNATION MEAL
Time: One hour, 40 minutes
BRUSSEL SPROUTS 20 brussel sprouts (about 10 ounces) ¾ cup of olive oil 1 tbsp. salt Dash of black pepper Combine brussel sprouts with olive oil, salt, and black pepper in a bowl. Spread sprouts on baking sheet. Put in the oven with the apricot squash for the rest of the hour. On to the chicken noodle soup!
CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP
APRICOT SQUASH 1 full apricot squash ½ tsp. butter 2 tbsp. brown sugar 2 tbsp. maple syrup A pinch of cinnamon Preheat oven to 425 °F. Cut apricot squash in half. Dig out the insides and save the seeds. Rub ¼ tsp. of butter on each side. Sprinkle 1 tsp. of brown sugar on each side of squash. Drizzle 1 tbsp. of maple syrup on each side. Spread seeds around inner circle. Bake for hour while preparing the brussel sprouts. Don’t forget to add the cinnamon after taking the squash out of the oven.
1 tbsp. olive oil 2 tsp. minced garlic ½ cup diced onions 2 medium carrots 1 to 2 large celery sticks 4 to 6 small chicken tenderloin strips 1 tbsp. thyme 6 cups chicken broth 8 oz. penne pasta 4 bay leafs (if you want to feel fancy) Dice onions, carrots, celery and onion. Heat 1 tbsp. olive oil and minced garlic in a large pot. Add vegetables and let simmer for 5 minutes, stirring often. While the vegetables are heating, cut 4 to 6 chicken tenderloins into cubes, rub with thyme and a dash of salt. Grab a small pan and add 1 tsp. of olive oil. Add in the chicken and cook until white throughout (no raw pieces). Add chicken and bay leaves to the vegetables. Stir and let sit for 2 minutes. Add 6 cups of broth. Simmer for 30 minutes. While broth simmers, cook the pasta in a separate pot. Once pasta is done, drain and add to simmering broth. When broth finishes simmering, remove from heat. Serve and enjoy.
TEA FROM SCRAPS Time: 3 minutes 2 cups water 1 reused cinnamon stick 1 tbsp. brown sugar Leftover apple peels Leftover pear peels Combine water, the cinnamon stick from the applesauce recipe, 1 tbsp. brown sugar and all of your leftover apple and pear peels in small pot. Cover and let simmer for 4 minutes. Once your tea is brewed, sip and warm your soul.
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How 'Bout Them Apples? Five locally-brewed ciders for your fridge this winter WORDS Kara McGrane PHOTOGRAPHY Victoria Amoroso
Falling leaves ushered in the advent of apple season, a vital time in Upstate’s agricultural calendar. New York ranks as the country’s second largest apple producer annually and every year more of those apples are ending up as hard cider. Although the alcohol has been a centuries-old favorite in the U.K., its spike in popularity in the states means more breweries and cideries are crafting new versions of the old drink. Add these local cider variations to your shopping list for an Upstate alternative to that craft IPA your friend keeps insisting you try. ORGANIC OAK BARREL Aged Dry Cider 6.7% ABV $10.49 for 750mL bottle
AWESTRUCK, HIBISCUS GINGER 6.8% ABV 9.99 for a 750 mL bottle
Blackbird Cider Works, Barker, NY
FOUR SCREW HARD CIDER WITH MAPLE SYRUP 6.25% ABV $6.99 for a 22 oz bottle
Gravity Ciders, Walton, NY
HAZLITT’S CIDER TREE, PREMIUM SPARKLING HARD CIDER 7.0% ABV $9.99 for 12oz fourpack Hazlitt 1852 Vineyards, Hector, NY
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1911, RASPBERRY HARD CIDER ABV 5.5% ABV $9.99 for a six pack Beak & Skiff Apple Orchard, LaFayette, NY
Harvest Moon Cidery, Critz Farms, Cazenovia, NY
ABROAD MOOD BOARD TRAVELING ABROAD CAN BE ONE THE MOST REWARDING EXPERIENCES IN COLLEGE. FROM THE JIUZHAIGOU RIVER TO THE EIFFEL TOWER, SU STUDENTS HAVE SEEN IT ALL. CHECK OUT THEIR ADVENTURES.
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Jiuzhaigou River in China.
Cannes, France
Salzberg, Austria
Historic Bridge Street in Chester, England
Llanddwyn Island in North Wales
Snowdonia National Park in North Wales. 30
Llanddwyn Island in North Wales
Brussels, France
The Berlin Wall in Berlin, Germany
Macaroons and the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France
The Colosseum in Rome, Italy
2015 31 Boats seen infall Amsterdam
your student fee
Balloons the shore of the Sea of Marmara in Kadiköy, Istanbul, Türkçe.