The Miscellany News April 2, 2020
miscellanynews.org
Vassar College’s student newspaper of record since 1866 Volume 153 | Issue 7
COVID-19 causes abrupt, chaotic end to semester abroad Holly Shulman
Guest Columnist
O
n the northern edge of central Havana, there is a waisthigh wall called the Malecón, which separates a bustling, sixlane highway from the ocean. This wall, flat and low enough to sit on, forms a quirky sort of cultural hub, home to a cast of characters ranging from motionless fishermen to dancing guitar players fond of serenading unassuming pedestrians. The evening of Monday, March 16 saw a new population join the constant rotation: 25 study abroad students mourning the end of their semester, two months early. We sat with our backs to the traffic, facing the water and (somewhere off in the invisible distance) the Florida shoreline, to where increasingly empty airplanes would carry us far too soon. From a distance, it must
have been picturesque. Up close, it wasn’t quite so ideal. Stressed and anxious after weeks of speculation about the potential impact of the coronavirus, we were at last facing the harsh reality that the pandemic would spell our premature departure. “I really thought we would make it to May,” someone said for the millionth time. Students around the world echoed the same disbelief. As the new coronavirus disease, COVID-19, spreads across the globe, study abroad programs and their university partners have been faced with the task of deciding if, when and how to extract students from their foreign destinations. By the time we sat on the Malecón that day, our peers in Europe and Asia had, for the most part, been unceremoniously shipped home days or weeks before, while universities See ABROAD on page 6
A Havana cityscape from the roof of my homestay. Courtesy of Holly Shulman.
Seasons end, but eligibility continues Emma Tanner
O
Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News.
Guest Reporter
n March 12, the NCAA announced that all remaining winter and spring NCAA championships would be canceled in wake of the growing COVID-19 pandemic. Within 24 hours, the Liberty League and Vassar College Athletics followed suit, suspending all regular-season and championship contests. Though this decision prioritized the safety of student-athletes and their communities, it left most confused, disappointed and heartbroken. “I, along with my whole team, was devastated,” recalled Vassar
men’s lacrosse sophomore Logan Hyde. “At that point the implications hadn’t really set in.” Like all spring sports, men’s lacrosse trained throughout the fall and winter to prepare for their season. Hyde had hoped that his team’s hard work and dedication would make them “strong contenders in the Liberty League.” Despite a hot start, the Brewers were only able to complete a fraction of their scheduled matches before competition was halted. “I was most disappointed that we weren’t able to see all of our hard work come to fruition,” said Hyde. “We had only played five of our 15 regular-season games.”
The entire Vassar Athletics community—coaches, administrators, trainers—expressed similar sentiments. “I went through some of the normal stages of grief, denial, bargaining, anger—back to denial,” said men’s volleyball head coach Richard Gary. Brewers volleyball, once ranked second in the nation, was cut short of reaching its ultimate goal: a national championship. To Gary, the most difficult time came when thinking of each individual “[from] seniors, losing their chance to finish what they started, down to freshmen who were only beginning to have the See REDSHIRT on page 8
Upbeat, steady, mournful: Longing for the harvest moon Noa Rosenberg
W
Guest Columnist
hen I started writing this, I had a whole lot more to say about coronavirus than I do now. I sat in my bedroom, converted into a quasi office for coming Zoom misadventures, and wrote sentence after lamenting sentence about Vassar’s cancellation, what an influx of disgruntled college students would mean for my home in Chicago, and and and and and—only to check Twitter in fits of distraction and find that everything I could possibly say had already been said. I’ve started over and over and over again. I keep returning to one moment that seems stuck in my mind. One night in September I was walking back to Joss from the THs, and I was moody. (We’ve all done a moody walk from the THs.) The night was so clear, and I can remember how it smelled like fading grass meeting burgeoning cold. I played Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” as I passed Chicago
Hall, feeling snide and clever for my impeccable timing. The real harvest moon was bright above me, lighting my hands as I threw them out to my sides and reached upwards, stretching. I danced in front of Chicago Hall to Neil Young until I started to cry. Then I danced and cried until I became self aware again and stopped. I could see the purple light of my room waiting to welcome me from where I stood outside, but I wasn’t ready to go in yet. I took a lap instead. Young’s sounds were like a train chugging endlessly to quench the thirst of an unrequited something. Upbeat and steady and mournful. That’s how I feel now. Give or take steady. Give or take upbeat. I won’t be at Vassar for the next harvest moon, but I’m grateful to have another one coming down the line and a spring in between. I can’t wait to see the leaves change and see my breath spiraling in front of me as I crane my head out my window, getting one last crisp gulp of outside air before bed. I
have to choose to believe that there will be some universal justice for the unrequited then. Between now and then is a crisis unbelievable in scope. I have found myself over the last few weeks humbled time and time again by how impossibly big and hard to grasp contagion is. How it can reach, snarling into every crevice of a day. How something unforgiving and inhuman can take everything away so personally. I repeat to myself that this is bigger than me, bigger than my family, than my college or my city, but I can’t help but ache solipsistically. In my dim room at 4 a.m., I feel sorry for myself. I white-knuckle my comforter and squeeze my eyes shut until I see my veins, trying to reconcile crushes unrealized, friends that I didn’t get to say goodbye to, shows undone, and how a year in which I finally felt comfortable at college could end in such a blaze of un-glory. But then I open my eyes, the light filters back in honeycombs, and I feel grateful. I think about
my last night in New York, staying in Queens with my best friend from Vassar. We ate Indian food and stayed up late talking about family. It wasn’t such a bad way to end the year at all. I think about the homes and families I have there and in Pittsburgh, Texas and London, England and Chicago, Illinois and Poughkeepsie, New York. Those families and their families are who this is happening for. We are protecting each other. Because we love
each other. There are things I could have done; times I could have been braver or more present. I wish I could have trusted myself more to cry outside of Chicago Hall alone at night instead of just inside of it in class during the day. But I am lucky enough to have time for all of that. I can’t wait to be happy and giddy and bleary and frustrated and to see my friends dance again. So, upbeat and steady and mournful. Give or take, it is.
Courtesy of theodora.lumi via Flickr. Edited by Jessica Moss/The Miscellany News.
Page 2
April 2, 2020
THE MISCELLANY NEWS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF MANAGING EDITOR SENIOR EDITORS
“Songs to listen to in isolation,” a playlist
Jessica Moss
Frankie Knuckles Duncan Aronson Lucy Leonard Isabel Braham CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Leah Cates Sasha Gopalakrishnan Mack Liederman Tiana Headley Aena Khan Olivia Watson ASSISTANT FEATURES EDITORS Gillian Redstone Janet Song Jonas Trostle OPINIONS EDITOR Abram Gregory ASSISTANT OPINIONS EDITOR Taylor Stewart ARTS EDITOR Francisco Andrade HUMOR EDITOR Izzy Migani ASSISTANT HUMOR EDITOR Jonah Frere-Holmes SPORTS EDITORS Dean Kopitsky Jackie Molloy ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR Natalie Bober SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR Mohtad Allwalla ASSISTANT DESIGN EDITORS Rose Parker Yvette Hu PHOTO EDITOR Grace Rousell ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Julián Aguilar GRAPHICS EDITORS Ciara Murray-Jordan Jacqueline Gill ASSISTANT COPY EDITORS Phoebe Jacoby Caitlin Patterson Alexis Cerritos VIDEO PRODUCTION MANAGER Alex Barnard AUDIO EDITORS Kyle Chung Julian Lindenmaier ASSISTANT AUDIO EDITOR Robert Pinataro BUSINESS MANAGER NEWS EDITORS
LIVE EVENTS CHAIRPERSON REPORTERS
COLUMNISTS
PHOTOGRAPHER GRAPHIC DESIGNER COPY STAFF
CROSSWORD
Ben Scharf Delila Ames Carissa Clough Olivia Diallo Rayan El Amine Meghan Hayfield Sara Lawler Sawyer Bush Madison Caress Doug Cobb Lindsay Craig Rohan Dutta Xin Rui Ong Alice Woo Sherry Liao Juliette Pope Nina Ajemian Taylor Gee Jason Han Jake Johnson Emma Kahn Tiffany Trumble Frank
CORRECTION POLICY The Miscellany News will only accept corrections for any misquotes, misrepresentations or factual errors for an article within the semester it is printed.
The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented within its Opinions pages. Staff editorials are the only articles that reflect the opinion of a two-thirds majority of the Editorial Board.
10 ways to occupy your time
by Linds
W
ith the pandemic raging at full force, trips have been canceled, our favorite restaurants have been shut down and events have been postponed. It’s easy to feel disoriented—and at a loss for what to do. We are suddenly left with all these hours we didn’t have two weeks ago. How do we spend all our time at home? How do we not let anxiety and disappointment dominate the day? What’s the cure for cabin fever? Here are 10 ideas for passing the time constructively with some uplifting content mixed throughout. Get Outside. The outdoors are the one thing that hasn’t been locked down yet. Take full advantage of the fresh air and go on a hike, ride your bike on that path you’ve been wanting to check out or go for a jog around the neighborhood. Stay outside all morning, there’s no rush to come home (which is where you’ll stay). For added benefit, take a parent or sibling with you, have a great conversation and bond. This extended, uninterrupted time outside with loved ones might never happen again. Read. If you’re anything like me, you have a stack of books on your nightstand you haven’t had the mental power or time to delve into. Well, this is your moment to break out the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and get reading. Don’t just skim summaries online, read the whole thing. Sometimes I forget how long this takes. Go to Mount Doom with Frodo, it might be more satisfying than binge-watching the movies (maybe). If reading feels like too much of a burden, listen to an audiobook instead while you bake cookies or run outside. Call Your Grandma. Or that friend from high school you haven’t talked to in a year. This is the time to catch up with everyone you haven’t had the time for, or courage to reach out to. One of my goals is to catch up with two friends a day. Even a simple, “How are you holding up?” text means a lot to our confused and anxious friends. For me, texting fellow senior friends who are also disappointed about our last semester has been cathartic. Checking in on loved ones is a great way to give back, and feel less alone. Limit Your Screen Time. While this might not be an option for people who need to work on laptops, or need their phones on all day in case of emergencies, try taking intentional breaks from devices to alleviate technology fatigue. With classes online, news updates happening by the minute and all entertainment digital, it’s easy to spend the whole day glued to screens. This can get exhausting and depressing pretty quickly. Over the next few days, try ignoring the urge to spend your whole day with a phone or laptop on. If possible, make “technology hours” where you turn on your phone three times a day to answer calls, texts or emails during specified periods of time. Try putting a screen time limit on your media apps cut down use. Most importantly, listen to your body when it tells you enough is enough. If your eyes are burning, your head is throbbing or achy and exhaustion is kicking in, it’s time
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
to put your phone down. Get more comfortable with being disconnected and establish these healthy digital disciplines early on. Try New Hobbies. Have you been wanting to break out those knitting needles to finally learn how to make those mittens? Watch some how-to videos and do it! Now’s the time to try painting with watercolors, or bust out the adult coloring books that have been dormant in your bottom desk drawer for three years. Try your pen at creative writing, or outline a story you want to write
some day. Make som crane, a funny face. Yo develop into a deeper p ful memories. Learn How to Coo chance to learn how to from scratch. With am and grocery stores bein shop, this is the prime tial cooking skills. If y time, I suggest startin
0
April 2, 2020
Page 3
HOROSCOPES Madi Donat
Astral Projector
ARIES
You won’t have much time this week, so here’s a song rec to lift your spirits! Try “Half Love” by Red Hearse: It’s upbeat and energetic, and full of passion—just like you!! TAURUS
by Taylor Stewart, Arts Editor
ok (Finally). Now is your o make that penne vodka mple time near a kitchen ng the only place you can time to learn those essenyou are trying for the first ng small. Chop up some
Julián Aguilar/The Miscellany News
May 21 | Jun 20
Maisie Peters is an underrated legend, and plus, she’s an absolute Gemini icon. “April Showers” is a bop for the centuries, so stream that and then everything else she’s ever written.
say Craig
sweet potatoes into thick slices, add a tablespoon or two of olive oil, a dash of salt, and place in the oven for an hour at 400 degrees. Chopping and prepping is half the process—waiting is the other half. Once you open your oven—voila—roasted sweet potatoes. These would pair nicely with some roasted chicken (or chickpeas for my vegetarian friends) and pesto quinoa. Bake. Baking is one of the most satisfying activities out there. It’s so hard to mess up when there’s flour, sweetness, and butter involved. The
Apr 20 | May 20
If you want good music to help you hunker down and study, try classical composer Chopin’s “Ballade in G Minor” for piano. It’s a beautiful piece, and long enough to do a small assignment to! GEMINI
e during the COVID-19 crisis
mething—a poem, a paper ou never know what might passion, or evoke some joy-
Mar 21 | Apr 19
worst thing you can do is leave the baked goods in the oven too long. So on your homebound days, do some experimental baking. I’m a huge proponent of scones and muffins, so I’ve been tinkering with my favorite recipes lately. Recently, I adapted my favorite pumpkin chocolate chip recipe to work in some healthier ingredients. I subbed in Bob’s Gluten Free 1:1 Flour, cut the sugar amount in half, and added an extra ripe banana for moisture (the GF flour makes things drier). I made these last week and my family loved them. Give these a try (they’re quick). The recipe is below. Consume Wholesome Content. Now is the time to consume some uplifting news when the rest seems so bleak. A Chicago aquarium that recently shut down is letting its penguins roam the grounds and tour the facility (cue the viral video here). While we’re panicking, these penguins are flapping their flappers as they waddle among fish tanks and bright marine life. They are completely unaware of what’s happening and this pandemic may be a dream come true for zoo dwellers. It’s good to know that some are thriving amid the shutdown. Get Nostalgic. Sort through old family photos in that bin in the basement, or read through old journals from sixth grade. Frame a few precious pieces or reflect on where you were at two years old versus now. What’s changed? What hasn’t changed? Call a friend and reminisce about that unforgettable trip to Portugal last summer and have a good hard laugh. You need one. Reprioritize. It’s hard to dream when the future is so uncertain, but this could be the perfect time to delve deeper into what’s important to you, and what your core strengths are. Get to know yourself! I recently bought Tom Rath’s Strengthsfinder 2.0 book and took the online assessment to get some feedback about myself. After receiving my results, I’ve been trying to understand my top five strengths to inform my job search. Now could be the time to consider your superpowers and dream a little bigger. At the end of the day, you might try a few items from this list, but the same questions about the future linger: Will Vassar hold a graduation ceremony? Will my brother’s wedding in June get canceled? Will I ever be on campus as a student again? If you’re feeling inundated with the sheer amount of pandemic content and uncertainties, I’m with you. You are not alone. While there’s a lot out of our control right now, we still have daily decisions of how to spend our time. Make yourself a cup of hot peppermint tea, take a few deep breaths and get dreaming. Drive around that cool town you’ve been wanting to check out along the Hudson. Finish that trilogy you promised your uncle you would read. While this situation is anything but ideal, especially without the privilege of a safe home space and access to technology, this could be the forced break you’ve never given yourself permission to take. Get baking, and tell me how those pumpkin muffins turn out!
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
CANCER
Jun 21 | Jul 22
Isolation has you more down than you might have expected. Lift your spirits with Dolly Parton’s cover of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.” Country might not be for you, but Dolly is for everyone. LEO
Jul 23 | Aug 22
Don’t be surprised if you find yourself going back to middle school music in these uncertain times. Can we talk about how good “Break Your Heart” by Taio Cruz is? Because it’s really, really good. VIRGO
Aug 23 | Sep 22
A lack of structure has you in your feelings, so maybe it’s time to settle into those sad boy hours with Mitski’s “First Love/Late Spring.” Beautiful, poetic and oh-so-emotional. Embrace it! LIBRA
Sep 23 | Oct 22
You’re a lot more romantic than people give you credit for, almost—though I resent the term—hopelessly so. For a taste of the love you yearn for, listen to Maggie Rogers’ “Love You for a Long Time.” SCORPIO
Oct 23 | Nov 21
There’s nothing moodier than a good old Vampire Weekend ballad, and nothing beats “Hannah Hunt.” Something about dreamy reverb and ambiguous lyrics just does something to the brain! SAGITTARIUS
Nov 22 | Dec 21
Upbeat bops will help you pass the time, and nobody writes an upbeat bop like Kim Petras. Listen to “Heart to Break,” but only if you want to ascend onto a higher plane of existence. CAPRICORN
Dec 22 | Jan 19
For a song as beloved as you are, and something that’s quick and to the point at cheering you up, try a classic: “Mamma Mia” by ABBA. It’s tried and true, and eternally danceable. AQUARIUS
Jan 20 | Feb 18
It’s okay to not be okay! If you want a good cry, turn to the queen of emotion herself, and put “Ribs” by Lorde on full blast. If only we were all reeling through the midnight streets. PISCES
Feb 19 | Mar 20
I wish more people talked about Sara Bareilles. If you’re looking for something other than her more popular singles, try “Cassiopeia.” I have nothing to say about this other than that it is PERFECT.
OPINION
Page 4
April 2, 2020
Coronavirus reveals how ableist we have been all along Frankie Knuckles Managing Editor
S
ince people started to realize that American exceptionalism does not apply to infectious disease, I’ve seen a lot of social media posts, news articles and infographics that say some version of the following: “Coronavirus is most dangerous for the elderly and those with underlying health conditions.” It must be nice to read that sentence and think, “Wow, I’m all good then. Guess I’ll go about my usual business.” Many people have that mindset, and I would just like to point out: I can hear you. I can hear you as I stockpile as much insulin and insulin pump supplies as I can. As I worry whether I’ll be able to keep enough
food with simple carbs on hand if the panic-buying continues. As I sit in self-quarantine, wondering whether I’ll be able to live without fear of contracting an illness that has an elevated mortality rate for me, but equally, the fear that if I experience a health crisis unrelated to COVID-19, I will not be able to be seen by any medical professionals, and I will die alone. Or that, if I do get in to be seen, the overcrowding of our healthcare system and the lack of resources will expose me to the novel coronavirus while at the hospital. Every time you feel relief that you’re not in a high risk group, every time you think it’s okay to come back to campus even though every administrator has told you not to, every time you think the world is overreacting, every time you go out anyway, I hear
Diagnosis: Xenophobia Sawyer Bush Columnist
T
here is only one pandemic spreading faster than COVID-19—the anti-Asian prejudice and racism stirred up by it. This prejudice has grown beyond bias against China to ethnophobic characterizations of all Asian countries as disease-infested cultures. As The Economist stated, “Ethnophobia triggered by the virus is sometimes subtle, and hard to separate from overblown fears of the pathogen itself.” Highly contagious viruses often cause widespread panic, but the coronavirus has moved one step further. The line between fears of the illness and fears of the cultures first afflicted by it must be clear. In February, a high school friend of mine reported that a host family with whom she was supposed to stay over spring break declined to host her out of fear of the virus. It ought to be noted that (a) she is Japanese, not Chinese; (b) she had not even traveled home or any place in Asia since the outbreak was first detected in December; and (c) this occurred before the virus had reached Japan. This host family associated this disease with her Asian identity. They assumed that because she is from Asia, she is more likely to carry the virus, despite having not come into contact with it. In a social media post about “managing fears and anxiety” regarding the virus, University of California Berkeley’s health services center listed xenophobia toward Asian people as a “normal reaction.” We cannot normalize these mentalities. It is one thing to have anxiety around the illness, but it is another thing entirely to create ignorant biases against entire cultures based on this outbreak. To have this sentiment coming from an elite educational institution is even
In fact, in the face of this crisis, Director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Dr. Nancy Messonnier warned, “Do not assume that if someone is of Asian descent, they have coronavirus.” Still, people have created assumptions and fears not based in medical fact. Before schools were forced to shut down nationwide, Asian students on campuses across the country reported receiving suspicious looks any time they coughed or sneezed. When we spread racist fears instead of medical realities, we put everyone, including ourselves, at greater risk. Leaders at the highest levels of government have already crossed the line into sheer racism. On March 8, Secretary of State Mark Pompeo referred to the strain as the “Wuhan Virus” during a news conference. China’s foreign ministry condemned this as “highly irresponsible.” On March 16, shortly after announcing nationwide guidelines regarding business closures and congregating in groups of 10 or more, President Trump tweeted that “The United States will be powerfully supporting those industries, like Airlines and others, that are particularly affected by the Chinese Virus.” After being criticized for these racist remarks, Trump responded, “It’s not racist at all. No, not at all. It comes from China, that’s why. It comes from China. I want to be accurate.” Trump has never cared for accuracy before; no, this is just an excuse to let his racist biases fly. If you want to be accurate, President Trump, call it COVID-19, not your stylized “CoronaVirus,” and certainly not “the Chinese Virus.” We cannot let our fears dictate the way we treat each other. We cannot allow this outbreak to serve as an excuse to kindle fears we have of other cultures or of immi-
“This host family associated this disease with her Asian identity. They assumed that because she is from Asia, she is more likely to carry the virus, despite having not come into contact with it.” worse as it lends credibility for those with biases against Asian cultures. The virus has not created these racist thoughts, however; it has simply brought them to light. As Los Angeles resident Katherine Lu stated to the Los Angeles Times, “The coronavirus is an opportunity for them to safely express their racist thoughts in a way that can be excused.” But we can’t let this be an excuse. If anything, an outbreak such as the coronavirus ought to provoke global solidarity, not cultural enmity.
grants in this country living all around us. Rather than making base judgements off of xenophobic fears, let’s all strive to understand this disease. Let’s understand how we can coexist while using preventative measures to keep it from spreading. Let’s understand the symptoms and know what it looks like so that we aren’t suspicious of any Asian person who coughs in our vicinity. The solution lies in education and joint eradication efforts, not in discrimination and division.
you. I know you don’t care if I die. In fact, it’s comforting to you that I might die. If you think that COVID-19 is just a worse version of the flu, please know that getting the flu could lead me to sepsis, coma, brain damage or death. My underlying condition has nothing to do with my respiratory tract and I’m relatively healthy, but there’s still a very real chance that if I touch the wrong surface or stand within coughing distance of another human, it’s a death sentence. Maybe you’re just now starting to panic as you realize that maybe this thing won’t blow over, maybe it will affect your life financially, or maybe it will at least inconvenience you. But I and millions of others whose “underlying health conditions” are just one clause in a sentence meant to calm
your panic? We’ve been trying to figure out how to survive this for months already, and you’re not helping. This isn’t just about not being selfish, or about staying home (although those are important steps). It’s about the fact that, because those of us who are immunocompromised or have underlying health conditions constitute a relatively small portion of the population, millions of people have decided to take comfort in the fact that we are the ones most likely to die. I get it—you care more about checking up on Betty White (who representatives say is fine, because I know those of you who just read that name are now worried about her) and Tom Hanks and Idris Elba and the 58 people associated with the Utah Jazz plus Kevin Durant.
Unlimited NRO model preserves socioeconomic disparity Abram Gregory
Assistant Opinions Editor
I
f there is one word that can encapsulate the feeling of the present moment, it is anxiety; if there is a phrase, dreadful hysteria. In addition to significant and painful matters being weighed by college students, such as the health of themselves and their loved ones, one of the latest waves of consternation among college students regards the grading system to be used during distance learning this semester and beyond. Students worldwide have been evicted from their campuses. Students’ grades during this period of distance learning are at the mercy of socioeconomic inequality, given that online classes demand constant and reliable
in a competitive market for job and graduate school applicants, we know that anything labeled as optional isn’t really optional at all. Let’s say that two applicants with near-identical resumes apply for the same position or for the same graduate school. For the spring semester of 2020, one has grades impacting their GPA, and the other one, well, has a pass. If both applicants attended institutions that used the optional NRO policy, the student with grades is invariably going to have an advantage over the student with none. I’ll repeat myself: In the context of the dog-eatdog world of applications, anything optional isn’t really optional at all. To make matters murkier, for me, there is no clear answer who gains the advantage between an applicant from an UP institution and one from
“They get to dally and weigh whether or not they feel like trying in school this semester.” access to the internet, not to mention functional hardware and software. In response to this crisis, many petitions written by students are circulating online, each demanding an alternative form of grading. There are several models for how grading ought to be adjusted to combat the accentuation of unequal access to education caused by the COVID-19 pandemic being pushed. Despite Vassar’s faculty opting for a different grading model, one that has nonetheless garnered support from Vassar students is the Universal Pass model, in which all enrolled students would receive a grade of “pass” on their transcript. As the petition to “Implement Universal Pass at Vassar” puts it, for many students, especially underprivileged students, “completing the rigorous workload of a Vassar semester is not possible without the resources that being on campus provides.” Others have advocated for the unlimited Non-Recorded Option (NRO) solution that faculty ratified last week. Under this system, students can opt for a Non-Recorded Option for all classes taken this semester, even for classes that would normally be ineligible for the NRO. The line of thinking goes like this: If a student doesn’t want to be negatively impacted by the inaccessibility of online classes and meetings with professors, those students can opt to not be penalized for their circumstances; however, students hoping to raise their GPAs can opt for a letter grade. Though it wouldn’t alter a GPA, an NRO can conversely be used to keep a GPA high, as well. There is an unfortunate truth, though—
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
an NRO institution with grades, though I have a hunch that admissions folk may opt for grades rather than a lack thereof. I am sympathetic to the idea that the semester NRO policy “gives students agency in a time of uncertainty.” Plus, as somebody planning to apply to graduate schools myself, I would ostensibly benefit from such a plan, and seeking letter grades would be preferable to me given that I’m in the eastern time zone and have access to all of the physical and virtual tools needed to seamlessly continue my education. However, the only students who would be granted any agency are those with the socioeconomic tools conducive to effective online learning; they get to dally and weigh whether or not they feel like trying in school this semester. Those at any disadvantage, technological or otherwise, are instead given a different choice: a choice between risking a damaging letter grade or accepting an NRO that risks damage to a resume. This is not to oversimplify the significance or difficulty of overhauling a grading scale for a semester. There are no easy choices, but the only incorrect choice is to allow a grading system in which some students may benefit from external factors over other students needlessly. This is in tension with the pitfall of the UP, that low-effort students can be bailed out at the expense of their higher-effort peers. That’s not to say that these aren’t problems that have plagued learning institutions already, but it is exacerbated by the present pandemic, and to opt for any option besides the Universal Pass is leaving underprivileged students behind.
April 2, 2020
OPINION
Page 5
Ciara Murray-Jordan/The Miscellany News
High-risk individuals are begging you to stay home Jonas Trostle
Opinions Editor
P
lease, stay home. As you know, we are in a pandemic, and to make sure we’re all on the same page, we should start with some facts: COVID-19 is an incredibly deadly disease that can kill one out of every seven people over the age of 80, one out of every 13 people between 70 and 80, one out of every 28 people between 60 and 70 and one out of every 77 people between 50 and 60. Even for young healthy people, it is thousands of times more dangerous than speeding down the road at 100 miles per hour for a short distance. COVID-19 is highly infectious, with each case expected to pass the disease onto just over two other people. We have no immunity, no vaccine, no known treatment and will continue to not have any of these things for at least several months. The federal government’s response has been lackluster and individual states don’t have the powers necessary to deal with a crisis of this scale. The United States has approximately 170,000 ventilators, but a pandemic on the scale of COVID-19 may require over 700,000. We don’t have that capacity, so if this is the case, people who would otherwise survive if given access to a ventilator will die. Interventions are needed, and they are not going to come from on high. That’s why I’m asking you, begging you, to please stay home. A virus only dies out if
its reproduction number (R0) is less than one. COVID-19 currently has an estimated R0 of around 3.3, which suggests exponential growth among the population. It’s possible to reduce R0, and for most diseases it’s easy: Get vaccinated. Influenza, smallpox, measles— these all have their R0 reduced by vaccines, which make it less likely that the disease passes from a sick person to a healthy person. But because there is no vaccine for the novel coronavirus, more drastic measures have to be taken.
this if you’re young, old, high-risk, low-risk, healthy or already infected. It doesn’t matter what you are; what matters is reducing R0. Hopefully this will limit the total number of cases, and fewer cases means fewer deaths. But even if it doesn’t, it still will slow the spread, allowing turnover among those that need medical care and creating less of a bottleneck for medical care. In other words, even if we have the same number of cases, the cases could be spread out over time so that everybody can get a ventilator, or get a bed in
“I leave my room only to use the bathroom and to boil water for food twice a day. This is my foreseeable future. I am a high-risk individual, and until there is a vaccine, my life is in constant danger.” That measure is physically distancing yourself from other people. If you can, don’t leave your home. If you have to leave your home, maintain a minimum of six (but preferably 10) feet between you and anybody else. No hugging, kissing, handshakes, elbow bumps, nothing. You should be doing
an intensive care unit. Physically distancing yourself doesn’t mean that you have to isolate yourself socially, however, which is part of the reason I’m not using the more common term “social distancing.” You can call friends, family, loved ones. If you know someone that has also
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
been self-isolating for at least 14 days, then you can actually hang out and form what is called an isolation cell. This isolation cell is just a group of people who are only around each other, and so have an extremely low risk of infecting each other, while still being able to interact. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media platforms actually do have a use after all. If you don’t want to interact with others online, there are still plenty of options: Read a book (I have recommendations), make a playlist, learn a new recipe, take an online course, play a video game or care for a plant. Of course, I would never ask anyone to do something that I would be unwilling to do. I have been self-isolating since March 13. I leave my room only to use the bathroom and to boil water for food twice a day. This is my foreseeable future. I am a high-risk individual, and until there is a vaccine, my life is in constant danger. I do not get to see any of my closest friends, my partner or any other person I know. I do this not just to decrease my own risk, but because I feel it’s my moral duty to others as well. Nobody is going to save us. This is our new normal for months at the least. We have to preserve ourselves and each other. For the love of God, for my life, for the life of your loved ones, your parents and grandparents, for the sake of anybody who is a high-risk individual or who knows one, please stay home.
Page 6
April 2, 2020
Closed borders, canceled flights: Students abroad journey home Continued from ABROAD on page 1 and study abroad companies were instructing students studying in other parts of the world to start planning their trips home. My study abroad program, run by Brown University through the Consortium for Advanced Studies Abroad (CASA), had been resistant to the tide; they cited the renowned Cuban public health system and its focus on preventative medicine to explain that we were safer staying put. But as nations closed borders with little to no warning each day, CASA finally decided to send us home. We were far from the first. Back in early February, universities and abroad companies began to cancel programs in China, South Korea, and Italy. This established a common story arc throughout the semester: All colleges and abroad programs seemed to insist that everything was fine and we would all be able to finish the semester as planned, until some logistical or political flip switched, most often related to increased travel restrictions. Suddenly, students had a matter of days to communicate with families, pack all their belongings and find a flight that wouldn’t be spontaneously canceled due to heightened restrictions or low passenger demand. In a global landscape changing by the hour, getting home ASAP is no small feat. For most programs in Europe, the final straw was President Trump’s March 11 proclamation that suspended entry from the Schengen Area to all non-citizens (programs in Italy, including the Vassar-sponsored Bologna trip, had been canceled weeks earlier). Hannah Broholm-Vail ’21 was participating in the Vassar-Wesleyan Madrid program at the time. In the days leading up to the announcement, she said, the program’s directors had assured students that the semester would continue, despite Madrid’s city-wide suspension of all school and university classes, which had been announced March 9. With Trump’s proclamation, however, everything changed: “The minute he announced it, everyone went crazy and started booking flights and it was insane. I would click on a flight and by the time I clicked ‘buy’ it would be sold out,” Broholm-Vail recounted. Her program wasn’t officially canceled until the next morning, when a director sent all participants a bare-bones email stating that everyone was to depart Madrid and providing contact information to help book flights. According to Broholm-Vail, this last-minute decision-making was a source of frustration and confusion: “I know that they didn’t want to preemptively cancel the program, but the program was going to be canceled. It was all ok in the end, but we all had to freak out about it, and it just felt like communication was not at its best.” In Stockholm, Sweden, Georgia Hahn ’21 also faced difficulty getting home on extremely short notice. Soon after Trump sus-
pended travel from the EU, her program was officially canceled and students devolved into parent-calling, flight-booking mayhem. Originally, Hahn booked a flight for Monday, March 16, but she ended up changing her ticket to a Sunday morning trip: “I knew it would get harder and harder to get home.” She was right. Even having moved her flight up a day, Hahn’s trip was rerouted due to new complications. While she was en route to a layover in Montreal, her final destination, LaGuardia Airport in New York, announced that it would no longer be accepting passengers traveling from Europe. When she landed in Canada, Hahn learned that she would be flying into Newark instead, and was forced to re-check her luggage and obtain a new boarding pass. While waiting to board her next flight, she was pulled aside by an agent. He took her passport and proceeded to question her, asking if she had experienced any symptoms or had any contact with the virus, as well as how she planned to get home from the airport once she landed. Hahn’s family would be picking her up in their car. The sentiment that an extra day might mean the difference between a safe flight home and a canceled trip rang true for other students, like Tessa Kirtzman ’21, who left Buenos Aires, Argentina just in time. She had booked a flight for Thursday, March 19, which took off hours before the government announced a full lockdown of the city. Of the 70 people on Kirtzman’s program, the last nine had planned to leave on Friday; they were forced to pack their belongings and rush to the airport Thursday night, to await their flights there for over 20 hours. Any later, and they would have run the risk of detainment in Argentina as punishment for having left their houses during lockdown. On a School for International Training (SIT) program in Santiago, Chile, Emma Kang-Rosenthal ’21 also experienced the stress of last-minute changes due to revised government policies. On Sunday, March 15, after a week of relative silence from her program’s directors regarding possible cancellation, she was finally instructed to purchase a ticket home. She chose a flight scheduled for Wednesday, March 18. On Monday, however, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera announced that the nation’s borders would close starting Wednesday. Kang-Rosenthal and her peers were forced to rebook their flights to leave before the restrictions began. The change cost Kang-Rosenthal $1,500, which SIT will reimburse in full. Still, the price of a flight alteration in the eleventh hour can be inhibiting. As Kang-Rosenthal said, “It just went from 0 to 100 so fast.” In Cuba, my set of concerns was slightly different. As Americans, we found ourselves in a unique position in terms of border re-
A sunset over the Malecón. Courtesy of Holly Shulman.
strictions, given that the U.S. government already—to put it euphemistically—discourages citizens from traveling between the two countries. Given the United States’ historic and continuing hostility toward the island nation, I was worried that politicians would push for the cancellation of flights from Cuba earlier than they might for other countries. This was not entirely misguided. On the same day that Trump announced his suspension of European entry, Cuba publicly reported its first cases of COVID-19. Three Italian tourists tested positive and were isolated immediately, along with everyone they had touched since entering the country (one thing about an authoritarian regime in a pandemic: the government knows where everyone is at all times, and has no trouble tracking people down). Less than a day later, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez publicly encouraged Trump to ban travel between the United States and Cuba, despite the apparently small scale of the problem in the island nation relative to other countries worldwide—for example, the United Kingdom was mysteriously left out of Trump’s original European travel suspension proclamation. On top of this, I was worried that the Cuban government would not be entirely forthcoming regarding the number of cases or the country’s response. There are only two newspapers in Cuba, the Granma and Juventud Rebelde, and both are state-run. All television is also public and closely monitored, and censorship is a fact of life. On top of this, I knew that foreigners were being watched closely, and anyone deemed suspicious of carrying the virus would be held in state quarantine. Adding insult to injury, material resources are seriously lacking in Cuba, in large part due to the incredibly harmful 50-plus year trade embargo by the United States. There is nearly always a soap shortage, and hand sanitizer is practically nonexistent, let alone masks and other vital forms of personal protective equipment. If you were shocked by photos of empty American supermarket shelves as a result of COVID-19, you’ve probably never been in a Cuban store, on any normal calendar day. Still, as I asked my Cuban friends, professors and peers about their thoughts regarding the virus, I consistently heard the same answers: We have the best preventative healthcare system in the world, viruses don’t like warm climates and the only cases we’ve seen have been brought in by tourists. There was a blind faith in the government that made me skeptical but simultaneously (as I continued to read about the United States’ slow response) envious. Even so, my program was suspended, and I left the country on Tuesday, March 17. As of Sunday, March 22, the number of cases in Cuba has swelled to 35. On Thursday, March 19, as the U.S. State Department raised its global travel advisory to Level 4, the Vassar Junior Year Abroad office announced via email: “Vassar is now requiring the immediate return to your home residence for all students participating in study abroad in any location.” This statement is in keeping with a COVID-19 specific policy statement dated Feb. 28, 2020, which warned that students would be instructed to return home should U.S. State Department or CDC warning levels increase. This is consistent with Vassar’s regular policy, which states that the College does not fund travel to countries designated Level 3 or 4 by the U.S. State Department, or CDC-designated Level 3 locations. Despite this, a small number of students are currently stuck in their abroad locations due to border closings or other logistical complications. A still smaller number have elected to stay in their study abroad destinations indefinitely, bargaining that the pandemic will be controlled before the summer or else preferring to remain abroad regard-
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE
less. In the former case, Vassar has committed to providing any support possible and guaranteed continued healthcare coverage; in the latter scenario, students will lose their foreign healthcare as they are no longer participating in Vassar-sanctioned travel. For those of us who have returned to our home countries, however, the question arises: What do we do now? Most study abroad programs are following the model set forth by universities and transitioning to remote learning models. In my case, this is a bit more complicated, as WiFi in Cuba is not strong enough to facilitate video conferences—instead, we’ll be attempting to complete coursework via email. Many other programs have implemented remote learning through platforms like Zoom. For study abroad programs, however, this comes with an added challenge: Class times must be rescheduled to accommodate time differences. Hahn explained that her teachers did not seem to consult one another when rescheduling their classes, so their chosen times often conflict. She expressed frustration: “One of my teachers was like, if it conflicts I’ll record them so you can watch them back and then do a quiz or something. I don’t know, it all makes me wonder if I’m going to learn anything from here on out.” In addition to academic uncertainties, reconciling an incomplete experience like this inevitably gives rise to emotional challenges. I was lucky to have spent seven weeks in Cuba (on top of a full semester in Madrid in the fall), but many other Latin American nations begin their spring semesters much later. Kang-Rosenthal, for example, arrived in Chile on Feb. 15 and left on March 17—for a grand total of three weeks abroad. She said of the disappointment, “I know this just sucks for everyone—seniors, study abroad people— but I’m seeing people post ‘the best 10 weeks!’ and I only had 3 weeks. But now I know I want to go back post-grad.” Kirtzman, who had even less time on her program in Argentina, shares this desire to use grants and scholarships like Fulbright to fund her way back abroad. She arrived in Buenos Aires on March 1 and left on March 19. Those 2.5 weeks, though, were far from the typical abroad experience: “The first four days were really fun, but then all we talked about ever was coronavirus. Like, I made friends by talking about coronavirus.” Twelve days after the program began, the Argentine government announced that anyone who had arrived in the country from the United States after Feb. 26 would have to quarantine in their homes for 14 days. Having already been in the country for 12 days, Kirtzman refrained from leaving her host mother’s home for four more days. She described the experience as “just sad and frustrating.” By the time she and her peers were allowed to leave the house on March 14, some were already booking flights home. On top of this, Kirtzman, an education major, is now worried about the academic strain this cancellation will put on her senior year. Her classes had not yet started when she left Argentina, and she was scheduled to be in school there until July. Now, she’ll be completing remote learning well into the summer, and the course options are limited: “They’re only offering things like ‘Literature in Argentina,’ which is really interesting, but I was supposed to take a research methods class and an education class. I’m going to have to work so much next year. Like, so much.” Though interruptions and altered plans are universal this semester, those of us who are healthy and safe must count ourselves lucky. For now, as Kirtzman said, “It’s sad to be home, but I’m happy that I’m home during this time. I’d rather be with my family.” Like all other abroad locations, the Malecón, with its eccentric characters and crashing waves, will still be there in a year should we choose to return.
April 2, 2020
Page 7
Photos by Diana Liu ’22. Interested in having your photos featured on Through the Lens? Send all submissions to yijiahu@vassar.edu with your name, class year and photos with one caption.
Page 8
April 2, 2020
Amid season cancellations, NCAA extends eligibility: Continued from REDSHIRT on page 1 breakthroughs and see their potential.” While all Brewers mourned the loss of their season, many seniors, forced to end their athletic careers in an abrupt and untimely fashion, were stuck in a state of disbelief. There would be no final practices, senior days or last-chance efforts at a Liberty League championship. “I was heartbroken when I heard my last season was cut short,” said senior men’s volleyball captain Ghali “G” Khalil. “This wasn’t an ending we could have ever imagined.” Athletes across all sports shared similar experiences of shock. “As a senior I knew my time on the field was coming to an end,” reflected senior baseball player Jake Silver, “but this all happened so quickly that it felt like a nightmare.” Silver and the Vassar base-
ball team were just halfway through their spring break training trip in Florida when the news hit. “Having it end as abruptly as it did was unimaginable … It really all came and went in the blink of an eye.” For underclassmen, rushing to say goodbye to graduating captains, leaders and friends was just as upsetting. “We lost the ability to truly send off and say goodbye to our seniors. Both on and off the court, they have been my friends and my role models. They have made me a better player and a better person,” said sophomore men’s volleyball player Jake Kaplan. Sophomore baseball player Sam Brinster felt similar remorse, noting that “not getting the chance to finish this year with the seniors is a shame.” He too, however, is grateful for the time he was able to spend with his
team: “Within that group I can name some very good friends, some I hope to have for a lifetime. This season just can’t be replaced.” In an unexpected turn of events just days later, the NCAA made an unprecedented announcement: spring athletes would be granted another year of eligibility. Per NCAA regulations, single-sport athletes are granted four years of athletic eligibility at the collegiate level. Generally, these are exhausted during one’s time as an undergraduate. However, in the event that an athlete “redshirts” or misses an undergraduate season due to injury, he or she is able to take a fifth year to make up for the missed season. This is uncommon at the Division III level, but not unheard of. Just this year, Class of 2019 graduate Paul Grinde, who missed his sophomore basketball season due to an ACL
injury, used his fifth year of eligibility at Clemson University. A 1000 point scorer for the Brewers, Grinde appeared in nine games for the Tigers and recorded a 62.5 percent field goal percentage. “The experiences I had this year alone will last me a lifetime. I got to compete at the highest level against some of the best players in the country,” Grinde explained. “That being said, I think kids at the [Division III] level tend to get burnt out from school. It’s hard to stick with something for so long, and four years of college can take its toll.” Grinde’s point rings true—at Division III schools, most athletes do not plan to continue their collegiate athletic careers after graduation. However, in light of the NCAA’s decision, this may change. Sophomore Zach Magee always wanted to
I live in New Rochelle. Here’s what it’s like in the containment zone. Liliana Conroy
Guest Columnist
O
n the Tuesday before spring break, I walked out of my education class and into a family group chat storm, sparked by my sister’s text from the middle of her school day: “Coronavirus is in New Rochelle.” The news felt surreal at the time: Up until this point I’d only been aware of COVID-19 cases in Washington state, which I knew to be disastrous for locals but which still felt far enough away from me that the situation wasn’t yet personal. By the time I packed to go home for spring break on Friday, I had a feeling that I might not come back in two weeks. Only a day after New Rochelle’s first case was confirmed, the patient’s synagogue, Young Israel, had been shut down, and everyone who’d gone to recent services with him was told to quarantine in their homes for two weeks. At the rate things were escalating in New Rochelle, I knew I too could end up quarantined at home due to some random exposure. Just in case, I brought home a book for my women’s studies class that I didn’t yet need but would get to soon after break. At the time, I assumed my return wouldn’t be delayed longer than a week or two. But on Thursday, March 12, shortly after I arrived home, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo created the country’s first containment zone, a one-mile radius around the synagogue. Residents were still free to enter and leave the containment zone, but the order closed down schools within that one-mile radius and banned large gatherings, such as religious services. The National Guard was deployed to New Rochelle to help distribute food to students who relied on free or reduced-price school meals. Many of my high school friends whose colleges had shut down opted to live with relatives elsewhere instead of coming home. For the first time ever, I saw my hometown’s name in the top news headline on my phone. My dispersed Vassar friends were living largely normal lives for that first week of spring break. They ate at restaurants and went to the gym and spent time with their friends while I was living under a set of norms that would become their future. A recent robocall from Noam Bramson, the mayor of New Rochelle, reminded my household that the containment zone is technically over. He went on to tell us that this changes nothing: The restrictions imposed by Governor Cuomo’s “New York State on PAUSE” executive order mirror those from the initial containment zone. New Rochelle, in terms of the pandemic, is not unusual anymore. Now communities across the state are following the same or stricter mitigation measures: Non-essential businesses are closed, public gatherings are banned, and residents are mostly staying in
their homes until the worst of the outbreak has passed. But for a few weeks, New Rochelle occupied an unfamiliar media spotlight. On March 15, the Buzzfeed News Instagram account posted a slideshow of photos headlined “This Is What Life Looks Like Inside The New Rochelle Containment Zone.” The cover photo showed a group of people in masks and gloves and protective clothing. Next, a driver wearing a poorly fitted mask inside her car. Empty restaurants between Young Israel and my neighborhood. National Guard members mid-task. Initially I was shocked. I lived in the containment zone, and these pictures didn’t match what I saw around me. I sent the post to a friend from Vassar. “This is not what it looks like at all,” I told her. At the time, I had only seen one person wearing a mask in public. The restaurant photographed had rarely been full before the virus, and I hadn’t yet seen anyone from the National Guard. The comments on the post echoed my reaction. People I vaguely knew in high school flooded the comments section: “Delete this. It’s fake news. I went to the supermarket/the bagel store/a party today. You’re dragging it. It’s not that bad.” Some people tried to turn the narrative around, talking about how they were bonding with their families and spending time outside, tagging their comments with #NewRoStrong. My experience was closer to the latter group’s: I wasn’t thrilled about being stuck at home with no friends around, but I also wasn’t that concerned. Most of the small businesses around me were still open and accessible. I’ve always been obsessive about hand sani-
tizer, so unlike some of my family I had no new habit to form. I baked bread and read books and FaceTimed my friends. My life felt relatively normal. Because of this, I understood the urge to deny what the post depicted. That’s not what it’s like for me, people were saying, so that can’t be what it’s like. But dramatic as the selection may have been, those photos were real. They were all taken in New Rochelle, though not all technically within the containment zone. There really are empty businesses, food distribution sites and a drive-through coronavirus testing site at Glen Island Park, just as there are families out riding bikes together and high school students parking their cars in a circle and sitting in their trunks to socialize. If I did not live in New Rochelle, I would have looked at those photos on March 15 and imagined a city falling into a dystopia. Since I do live here, my urge was to dismiss them. Neither reaction is completely right. These scenes don’t represent my privileged reality. My family members are healthy, my parents’ income is relatively unaffected, and we don’t rely on food from the school district. But the scenes that these photos show are happening here. New Rochelle’s situation is no longer unique, and cities across the country are featured in major news stories, empty streets and all. But New Rochelle has continued to make the news, now with a focus on how an early virus hot spot has progressed through this crisis. On Saturday, March 21, in one of his daily press briefings, Governor Cuomo brought us up again. “You see the Westchester number is slowing,” he said. “We did a
Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News.
New Rochelle containment area. The numbers would suggest that that has been helpful. So I feel good about that.” If I lived outside New Rochelle I might take comfort in this. I might assume that the containment area had successfully stemmed the spread of the virus by limiting transmission in the area where cases originated, and that New Rochelle residents who lived outside that one-mile area were safe. It seemed that only people within New Rochelle understood how nonsensical the initial containment area truly was. The policy seemed to operate on a false assumption that no one had ventured in or out of that one-mile bubble since the virus began to spread. The original plan shut down all large gatherings within one mile of Young Israel. This included three of New Rochelle’s 10 public schools: the high school, one middle school and one elementary school. Another middle school and six elementary schools remained open. Many families were left with one child at home and others still going to school. For the days before all New Rochelle schools were closed, there was no actual containment taking place. It was only a fortunate coincidence that both of my younger siblings’ schools happened to close at the same time with the initial order. My mother was incensed. She left a message on the governor’s public voicemail and wrote angry comments on local Facebook groups, urging her friends to call the governor’s office and ask him to talk to locals who would understand the reality of how the schools functioned. What blew her away even more than the absurd policy was the public response from people outside of New Rochelle. She was disgusted by the praisefilled comment sections on national outlets’ articles about the situation. “How can they think this makes sense?” she marveled. It’s normal to read a report from a source we trust or a politician from our party and take it as fact, despite not being in the middle of what’s going on. I’m not sure there’s any way around that—it’s impossible to go everywhere and know everything. But living here in the containment area (that technically is no more) is giving me questions. I’m wondering what stories I’ve read and accepted as fact that have actually been at odds with the reality on the ground. At the same time, I’m questioning how it’s even possible to present objective truth. Is New Rochelle a vision of the viral disaster in our future, or is it a community relearning the value of spending time with our families and coming together in spirit to face a physical threat? If I was a journalist coming in from outside, would I take pictures of the people out walking in the woods to take in the sun, or of the latex gloves and face masks strewn all over the sidewalks? I’m not sure what the right answer is, but I think it’s crucial to represent both realities.
0
April 2, 2020
Page 9
: Brewers face possibility of continuing athletic careers play professional baseball, but he assumed his college career would start and end at Vassar. However, after this spring, his mindset has shifted. While Magee plans to complete his junior and senior seasons as a Brewer, his final year of eligibility presents an unexpected opportunity: “Now with the chance to play [another] year, I’ll hopefully continue to develop and get exposure.” This fifth year may help Magee “make the jump to play at the next level.” While underclassmen like Magee may see this additional year of eligibility as time to prepare for their future athletic careers, many retiring seniors see it as a chance to stay on the field, court or track for just a little while longer. This is the case for senior baseball captain Matt Martino, who, after also missing his
sophomore season, now has two remaining years of athletic eligibility. With this in mind, he is seriously considering playing baseball in graduate school: “[Baseball] has been such a big part of my life up to this point…I’d like to play as long as I am healthy and have the opportunity to do so.” Though Martino would ideally continue his career beyond Vassar, he says that finding an academically suitable and affordable graduate school with a strong baseball program is easier said than done: “I’m not sure what the future holds, but whatever decision I come to, I know it will be what’s best for me and my family.” While some seniors like Martino are excited by the prospect of continuing their careers, others understand that this is not a possibility for them. Khalil, who plans
to attend medical school in the fall, has accepted this unfortunate reality. “As much as I love volleyball, it’s almost impossible to play during medical school,” he said. “That means my extra year of eligibility has gone to waste.” Senior Jake Silver, similarly, will not be able to capitalize on his bonus year. Starting this summer, he will work for Cohen & Steers, a New York City asset management firm. Though his baseball career is ending, Silver hopes that others will come away from this situation with a greater appreciation of the game: “I’d like to urge every student-athlete to enjoy every moment they have playing the sport they love…it’s important to play every game like it’s your last.” Silver’s message weighs heavy on the hearts of many underclassmen, including
The Miscellany Crossword by Frank
ACROSS 1. pirate sound 4. era or period 9. monarch of Iran’s title 13. raw fat used for deep-frying and puddings 15. relating to meal 16. hot winter beverage 17. obsolete or old-fashioned 19. describing a maximum amount (2 words) 20. green Italian sauce 21. HDD, a data storage device (2 words) 23. school org for involved parents 26. formal neck accessory 27. exclamation of contempt or impatience 29. what wounds initially do to heal, past tense
34. to leave out 36. cow sound 38. rope shape that kills 39. the worst thing to step on 40. “walk the -!” 43. fertile soil containing humus 44. demobilize, abbr 46. the darkening of skin under direct sunlight 47. French for ‘case’ 48. director of one’s appearance 51. covered with slippery green growth 53. often the highest card in a suit 54. female sheep 55. arrogantly confident 60. a narrow bump or protrusion 65. exposed or accessible 66. Taylor Swift’s 2017 album 69. father in baby-speak
men’s volleyball first-year Andrew Kim who, like many others, has been forced to recognize the finite nature of his athletic career. Despite the premature end to his freshman season, Kim remains grateful for his experiences: “Vassar Athletics is incredibly special because it is a tight-knit community with the greatest people you could ever befriend. Beyond the athletics, you get to appreciate not only your teammates, but the other amazing athletes on campus.” Many, like Kim, recognize the uniqueness of Vassar Athletics. “Playing anywhere else just wouldn’t be the same,” said sophomore women’s lacrosse player Maya Barrett-Tzannes, who will voluntarily forego her additional year of eligibility. “Nothing compares to the experience of being a Brewer.”
“It’s the Pirate’s Life”
70. between a u-signal and a w-mark 71. Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, abbr 72. pirate vessel 73. a very rich, privately owned version of 72 across 74. turf
DOWN 1. immediately acronym 2. a magical letter or symbol 3. receives 4. an Australian ostrich 5. tiny round green veggie 6. a dutiful promise 7. athlete shoes 8. containing moisture 9. to move quickly or by the wind 10. Native American tribe located in Arizona whose name means “The
Peaceful People” 11. book of Bible after John 12. infamous Disney pirate 14. a bird and a female body part 18. nineteenth letter of the Semitic abjad 22. the head of an academic administrative department 24. to pack down 25. Absent Without Official Leave, acronym 27. in anthropology, an ethnic group whose average height is unusually short 28. chair without a back 30. tree trunks 31. pirate’s treasure 32. biblical older brother of Jacob 33. prefix meaning half 34. antonym of news 35. to gather with others 37. alternative milk 41. what people call each other by 42. to have information or understand 45. an inherent prejudice 49. pirate disease 50. most famous maternal nun 52. “Que ----, ----” 55. big fishes 56. moonfish, sunfish, kingfish 57. Study of the Earth’s Deep Interior, abbr 58. like a backpack or rucksack 59. long, poetic, legendary saga 61. Steven King clown movie, plural 62. perishes 63. to journey towards (2 words) 64. Neville Longbottom’s great-aunt 67. exclamation of frustration 68. explosive, acronym
Answers to previous puzzle
MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE