The Miscellany News, Volume CXLVII, Issue 5 (Oct. 24, 2013)

The Miscellany News

Volume CXLVII | Issue 5

October 24, 2013

Since 1866 | miscellanynews.com

Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY

Community Works pinpoints local non-profits Students combat O classism Anna Iovine & Elizabeth Dean reporter & Guest reporter

n Sunday, October 6, the 2014 Vassar Community Works Campaign recipients were announced. The campaign works to provide financial assistance to non-profit groups in the Poughkeepsie area.

Many former beneficiaries will continue to receive Community Works grants: Hudson River Housing; REAL Skills; Domestic Violence Services Program at Family Services; Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN); Dutchess Outreach; Poughkeepsie Farm Project; Dutchess County SPCA; Celebrating Community—John Flowers; and Children’s Media Project.

A new non-profit to receive aid in 2014 will be Community Family Development. According to ComSee COMMUNITY on page 4

Aja Saalfeld, Andrew Eslich & Ziwen Wang Features editor and Guest reporters

S courtesy of Vassar College

Brian Riddell is the Director of Dutchess Outreach, which feeds over 1,000 people in Poughkeepsie every month. Dutchess Outreach is one of numerous non-profit organizations Vassar Community Works aids with continuous grants each year.

Shutdown has tangible effects on campus Eloy Bleifuss Prados

the shutdown. Government offices were emptied and national parks and museums were closed.

The third-longest shutdown in U.S. history was lifted when Democrat and Republican leaders in the Senate settled on a plan to fund the government through mid-January.

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives voted to pass the bill, which President Obama signed shortly after midnight on Oct. 17.

At Vassar, the impact that the Col-

to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (known commonly as Obamacare), failed to reach an accord to pass a spending bill. This put a cork in the flow of government funding and triggered a shutdown beginning Oct. 1.

Seeing their budgets frozen, federal, agencies ceased all services and work considered non-emergency. Unable to pay their employees, roughly 800,000 federal workers were furloughed for at least part of

assistant Features editor

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allout from the federal government shutdown in October has touched Vassar College in small but discernible ways. That 16-day period brought to light all the instances students and the College—despite being a private institution—rely on a functioning federal government.

In the final days of September, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, demanding a delay

lege experienced was either minimal or only temporary.

A recruiter for the Peace Corps was scheduled to visit the college on Oct. 3 to meet with students considering joining the federal organization after graduation. Assistant Director for Employer Relations at the Vassar College Career Development Office (CDO), Susan Smith, said she got a call from the Peace Corps the very first day of the shutdown. A See SHUTDOWN on page 6

everal student organizations are working to bring to the forefront an issue which they believe doesn’t receive sufficient attention: class and classism.

On September 28, about 25 students from different socioeconomic backgrounds engaged in a Class Action workshop held at the College Center MPR, which was mainly organized by Students’ Class Issues Alliance (SCIA) with support from Feminist Alliance, Grassroots Alliance for Alternative Politics (GAAP) and VSA Social Consciousness Fund.

Ian Cark ’17, one of the workshop organizers, during a follow-up dinner held by SCIA in the Aula on the following Wednesday, October 2 said he has been trying to spread the word around to get more people involved weeks before the actual workshop.

“To be frank,” he said, “it was hard for many students to speak up about socioeconomic issues at the beginning, but by the end of the workshop, they had a good sense of how classes affect Vassar and groups around the world.

During the workshop, participants interacted with each other by having activities and conversations in groups See CLASS on page 7

Cockyboys execs to Quidditch takes flight in Northeast demystify gay porn Q Amreen Bhasin reporter

Discussion to compliment student adaptation of founder’s polyamorous relationship Jack Owen arts editor

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Inside this issue

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Praising the VSA for increasing OPINIONS transparency

As for the game itself, Quidditch keeps close to the magical version played on flying broomsticks in the Harry Potter series. The Muggle version of the game was summed up in an emailed statement by senior Co-captain Rebecca Weir. (Disclaimer: Rebecca Weir serves as a copy-editor for The Miscellany News) Weir said, “[The team includes] three chasers who try to score against the keeper, two beaters who throw bludgers at opposing players and See QUIDDITCH on page 19

courtesy of Daniel Bilaer

orn: the word tends to elicit laughter. It draws to mind tired dialogue, poor acting and spray tans. But can porn—so prevalent in the modern age—promote important political messages? Can it have artistic merit? English major Jack Levinson ’14 believes it can. Levinson, writer and director of Gay Sex: Two Fairytales, a play produced by Unbound that goes up in two weeks, will lead a discussion panel with the three men who run Cockyboys, a popular gay porn website. Levinson’s play is a fictionalized adaptation of the Cockyboys’ story, and the trio’s visit on Thursday, October 24 at 5:30 p.m. in Sanders 212 is in anticipation of his production.

Levinson has directed two other plays during his time at Vassar. When deciding what to write for his next project, knew that he wanted to develop a play that addresses issues of sexuality. After reading Molly Young’s article “He & He & He,” which appeared

in New York Magazine’s The Sex Issue in July 2012 and details the Cockyboys’ story, he decided to tell a fictionalized adaptation of their success and unconventional three-partner relationship.

“I realized when I decided I wanted to write about queer issues that this was a perfect story about obviously not all issues of queer identity, but I think in terms of the white gay male identity that really pushes the boundaries,” Levinson said. “It’s also just a really hilarious and crazy story that is unbelievable when you read it for the first time.”

As Levinson began doing research, he found that the “throuple,” as they call themselves, create porn that has an ulterior motive. “I started seeing a lot of overlaps between their lifestyles and between the messages they’re trying to put forward with their porn, because they are making very political porn and I really believe that they have sort of an agenda behind what they’re doSee COCKYBOYS on page 16

uidditch was originally a sport exclusively played in the magical, wizarding world of Harry Potter. But over the past few years it has become a more popular part of the collegiate world as well. Students started playing the sport at Middlebury College, and has since branched out.

Now, the sport of Quidditch has become a staple on many college campuses, particularly in the Northeast.

The Vassar College Quidditch team, or

the “Butterbeer Broooers” as they’re more commonly known, have been a powerhouse in the Quidditch world since their inception. In fact, the team has become a strong draw for students looking to apply to Vassar. It was one of the few things junior Co-Captain and President Jordan “Brookshanks” Brooker had heard about the school when she was applying to college. She said, “All I knew about Vassar when I applied was that they had a Quidditch team and a strong emphasis on academics.”

Nate Nichols-Fleming ’16 and Daniel Bilaer ’15 square off as seeker and snitch at a Quidditch tournament last weekend.

Vassar’s team, the Butterbeer Broooers, hold an annual tournament each year where schools from the Northeast come to compete.

13 HUMOR

A guide to winning during Vassar’s Halloweekend

18 SPORTS

The difficulties of maintaining a healthy body during breaks

The Miscellany News

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October 24, 2013

Language enchants Choi in City of Love Lily Choi

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Far and aWaY BloGGer

t’s hard to avoid the French language when in France. Yes, I am fully aware of how idiotically obvious this sounds.

What I mean to say is, it’s hard to commit to learning and speaking French all the time while in France—and you must commit, because everything is all French, all the time.

But in order to commit, you have to want to commit. And thus far, in my study-abroad experience, the wanting (which conversely means giving up the English) has been the hardest part.

About two weeks ago, when we were just getting our footing in Paris, the VWPP (Vassar-Wesleyan Program in Paris) directors made us sign a contract of sorts, promising that we wouldn’t speak English—not in the VWPP building, not at school, and most importantly, not with each other. For the most part, this request seemed pretty unreasonable, and therefore not at all feasible.

How could we be expected to speak only French with each other when that meant our conversations would be frustratingly impaired and restrained?

It became a running joke. We would speak

English in whispers, in tucked away corners of the VWPP building, stashing away our contraband language when a professor or adult walked by. We joked around when, on the bus ride back from Claude Monet’s house in Giverny, Pierre, one of the assistants at VWPP, took over the speakers to formally reprimand us for speaking English. I imagine that he and the directors have to deal with the same situation every year.

But after a few weeks, I realized that speaking English was, in fact, diminishing my study-abroad experience. Walking around with my VWPP friends and speaking in English made me feel like I was in a safe little English-speaking bubble rolling around Paris. The thing about that bubble, though, was that Paris couldn’t penetrate it. I could feel that I wasn’t taking away as much as I could from living and being in Paris, all because I was refusing to immerse myself fully in the experience that studying abroad is supposed to offer. I think that most people would agree that that’s a horrible shame.

The thing is, you do get tired of hearing French all the time. During the first few weeks in Paris (and this is embarrassing), I

was hooked on Gilmore Girls. I was so tired of hearing a language that was too fast and impossible to understand and simultaneously everywhere, that as soon as I got home, I just wanted to hear as much quick, verbose, garrulous English as I could, and everyone knows that Gilmore Girls serves that up on a piping-hot platter.

But last night, I was sitting in my Contre-Utopie (Dystopia) literature class listening to the professor analyze Nous Autres (We) by Eugène Zamiatine and its critique on Soviet Russia in beautiful, flowing, witty French. Though I could only understand about 85 percent of it, I realized that I love this language. I love the way fluent French speakers speak French like it’s completely natural to have this gorgeous language—full of breathy r’s and slippery s’s—fall off the tongue so easily. I imagined what it would be like if I were to be fluent in a few months.

That’s the thing about studying abroad— maybe you won’t be ready to open yourself up to the experience right away.

Read the rest of Lily’s adventure, as well as other accounts of studying abroad, in our Far and Away blogs at miscellanynews.com

photo credit: Lily Choi

Lily Choi ’15, Gabby Scher ’15, Max Owen-Dunow ’15, and other Vassar students find time to explore many Parisian sites as they struggle with the French-only language requirement. One of the group’s first trips, pictured above, was a bateau-mouche on the Seine.

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Editor-in-Chief Bethan Johnson

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Contributing Editors Ruth Bolster Adam Buchsbaum Jessica Tarantine

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Jack Mullan Eloy Bleifuss Prados Margaret Yap Luka Laden Jacob Heydorn Gorski Jiajing Sun Assistant Online Youngeun “Ellis” Kim Victoria Bachurska Business Manager David Rosenkranz Reporters Emma Daniels Emily Hoffman Anna Iovine Maggie Jeffers Columnists Natasha Bertrand Zach Rippe Max Rook Lily Sloss Eli J. Vargas I Design Bethany Terry Kelly Yu Online Rachel Dorn Copy Alex Bue Elizabeth Dean Sophie Kosmacher Christian Lewis Maxélle Neufville Tori Madway Macall McQueen Ashley Pecorelli Marya Pasciuto Camilla Pfeiffer Emma Roellke Rebecca Weir LETTERS POLICY The Miscellany News is Vassar College’s weekly open forum for discussion of campus, local and national issues, and welcomes letters and opinions submissions from all readers.

Letters to the Editor should not exceed 450 words, and they usually respond to a particular item or debate from the previous week’s issue. Opinions articles are longer pieces, up to 800 words, and take the form of a longer column. No letter or opinions article may be printed anonymously. If you are interested in contributing, e-mail misc@vassar.edu.

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MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

October 24, 2013

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Lecture highlights women’s issues in Congolese society Debbie Altman & Maggie Jeffers Guest reporters

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to learn a little more on Congo.”

For other students it was their interest in the global development of the Congo that led them to the lecture. One such student said, Kate Langdon ’17 expressed, “I was curious as to how the state’s past manifests itself in present day politics and society.” Andrew Jdaydani ’14 added, “It discussed the role of development from a perspective that is often avoided, the perspective of women.”

Although Congo is one of the largest and populous countries in the world, discussions surrounding its current affairs are typically plagued with misrepresentations and stereotypes. “Congo, one of Africa’s most dynamic countries, sadly remains little more than a caricature in the Western imagination,” explained Mampilly. “Start with the fact that almost every article ever written in the Western media cannot avoid the tired ‘heart of darkness’ reference and you begin to see the depth of the problem.”

This is not unexpected as the Congo rarely

finds itself headlining news except for occurrences of major violence or government corruption. Munchick explained, “I haven’t really heard much talk about the Congo at all, but what I have heard usually leans toward how dangerous or violent it is there, which [Putnam] argued against. There’s violence but it’s limited to a certain number of people and areas.” Often the area is addressed as though similar to the rest of Africa, generalizations Putnam challenged.

The audience asked a variety of questions ranging from the government’s corruption to the future role of Congolese women in politics.

Throughout the lecture and discussion Putnam focused on the importance for all forms of aid in the area. Concerning the role of Americans, Professor Mampilly elaborates, “I do hope that our students are sophisticated enough to situate [Putnam’s] lecture within a broader critique of American foreign policy behavior, particularly in relation to the continent.”

Sam Pianello/The Miscellany News

n Monday October 21, the USAID Mission Director of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Diane Putnam, gave a talk in Rockefeller Hall about the role of women in Congo. Though Putnam’s program focuses on bettering the entire country, specifically through creating peace and stability, protection for civilians, stronger government institutions, economic success and more effective social services, the talk pertained specially to the women living in Congo and the part that they play in the country’s complex situation.

To begin the talk, Putnam announced her plan for the evening: to take the audience through some background information on the DRC, talk about the status of women, mention ways in which US organizations and the government have helped and will help in Congo, then offer her concluding thoughts.

Putnam began by referring to the DRC as the invisible state. She said, “The DRC is a state not only failed, but non-existent.” She explained that 65-75 million people inhabit the country, and that it is consistently at the very bottom of socioeconomic indicator lists. Additionally, she stated that although the country has a great amount of arable land, it actually imports food and relies on exports such as copper, tin, gold, diamonds and oil.

Putnam then narrowed in on Congolese women’s jobs and experiences. She told the audience that women perform 80 percent of the country’s agricultural work, and that the Congo was the worst place in the world to be a mother. She referenced laws that required women’s submission to men, as well as laws that prevented women from traveling about without the permission of the significant men in their lives and that ruled non-relocation, refusal to move with a husband, as grounds for divorce.

She also told the crowd that only half of young Congolese girls complete school, as opposed to the 74 percent of boys who do so, and attributed this disparity to a high rate of sexual assault, as well as the schools’ unwillingness to accommodate the needs of girls who have begun experiencing menses.

Putnam remained optimistic, however, pointing out slow but steady progress in population growth, maternal death rates, and the completion of primary school for young girls.

She then voiced her belief that it would be young women who would determine the future of the DRC, and it would be females who would create plans for the future.

Putnam was brought to campus by The World Affair Council of the Mid-Hudson Valley, which expressed interest in the Vassar Africana Studies Department hosting the event on campus. When asked what encouraged him to bring Putnam to campus, Vassar Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of Africana Studies Zachariah Mampilly replied, “Initially, I was not aware of her work. But I did ask around and heard that she was an outspoken figure who had gained a reputation for challenging the increasing tendency to militarize humanitarian aid within USAID and AFRICOM. So I thought she would be an interesting person to bring to campus.”

He continued, “Diane is an undeniably important figure in the American aid community in charge of a massive aid program. She is also an important figure within America’s military establishment, especially within the problematic Africa Command. So students benefit from interacting with figures like her.”

Mampilly explained his appreciation for the points made in the talk, but also his hope that students would be able to contextualize it. He said, “Personally, I found her lecture illuminating for several reasons. While I thought she did a good job outlining the challenges facing Congolese women, I found it more interesting for what she didn’t address directly in her discussion, namely the political context of Congo’s woes and America’s role within it.”

Mamphilly continued, “I do hope that our students are sophisticated enough to situate Diana’s lecture within a broader critique of American foreign policy behavior, particularly in relation to the continent.”

Many students were enthusiastic about the talk. Caitlin Munchick ’17 explained, “I’m from South Africa, but I never really learned about other African countries in school, so I wanted

USAID Mission Director Diana Putnam lectured students on the role of women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on October 21. Her lecture was sponsored by the Africana Studies Department.

Response to Westboro inspires new social justice fund Noble Ingram neWs editor

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through other sources.”

The first project that was funded actually took place over the summer. This program was called “The Vassar LGBTQ Oral History Project” and focused on stories of LGBTQ struggles against oppression and discrimination through the medium of oral history.

The Chair of the Committee and Dean of Campus Life and Diversity Ed Pittman spoke to the many opportunities that this fund offers to members of the Vassar community. One thing Pittman emphasized was the student-focused approach the committee was taking in its decision-making processes. Pittman noted, “We’re trying to ground this as much as we can in the experience of students. That’s the idea with having this many students on the committee

Cassady Bergevin/The Miscellany News

n October 10, the newly formed Social Justice and Inclusion Fund Committee released the application to the fund of the same name to the general Vassar community.

The committee, which is comprised of nine students, two administrators and one faculty member began working during the spring to establish a fund for projects committed to furthering the goals of social justice and inclusion.

The first deadline for applications for the fund is November 1. The fund will hold several more application periods over the course of the year for interested groups and individuals.

The fund was established as an additional resource for groups trying to support or facilitate social justice causes. Director for the Campus Life LGBTQ and Women’s Centers Judy Jarvis explained. “The short term goal is to fund projects of all kinds that focus on some social justice issue,” she said.

The money came out of fundraising and movements that took place last year as a response to the Westboro Baptist Church’s protest of the college. The fund, therefore, aims to empower specific groups that were targeted by the Westboro Baptist Church protests.

The fund organizers said in an emailed statement, “Whatever happened to the energy following Westboro’s visit to Vassar last February? Among other things, one of the great developments was the establishment of the Social Justice and Inclusion Fund through the donations of the immediate Vassar community and alumni.”

One member of the committee, VP of Student Life, Genesis Hernandez ’15, spoke to his views of the future of the fund, expressing optimism for the opportunity groups now have to pursue programming specific to social justice issues. “I hope that through this fund we can see more diversity in programming on campus, not so much the structures of events but also

the mission statements behind events,” he said in an emailed statement.

Hernandez continued, “While I think that the Social Consciousness Fund can also help promote diversity of thought, the great thing about the Social Justice and Inclusion Fund is that students don’t have to be affiliated with a VSA organization. This, thus, means that the fund is much more accessible, and it means that we can see events put on from all students on campus, not just those involved in affinity based organizations.”

Jarvis went further, outlining the aims the fund. She said, “We want to empower students and Vassar employees to realize projects or initiatives that they’ve been wanting to do or think the campus needs but haven’t been able to fund

Vassar students joined with the Hudson Valley community to protest the Westboro Baptist Church in February. The campus response has prompted the administration to create a new social justice fund.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

who can inform us.”

Pittman also described how the particular fund fits into the context of Vassar in general.

He recognized that discussions and efforts to improve the campus climate at Vassar happen often and that this fund is less groundbreaking as it is contributing to a larger sense of social justice. As Pittman stated, “I think that there are so many groups and communities within Vassar that live and try to carry out social justice. These initiatives are always happening.”

He continued, “This is a fund that gives life to many of those initiatives. I don’t think it’s new to anything Vassar has been doing. This is a way of affirming the value and importance of that work.”

Jarvis echoed this idea. She explained the possibilities of the fund, highlighting the fact that the committee is open to funding a wide variety of events and programs organized by a variety of groups and individuals. “The Committee is interested in funding projects that range from pilots like that to conference attendance to hosting dinner dialogues to research and presentation on a topic,” Jarvis explained.

She also noted, “The beauty of the fund is that there are few limitations—we want applicants to get creative and propose projects that they think could benefit the campus and increase knowledge of and education on various social justice issues.”

Hernandez agreed with this idea. “Essentially, there is no ideal structure to a potential event, the only actual requirement is that the event be focused on social justice and inclusion,” he said.

Pittman also spoke to his hopes for the fund in the future. He recognized that the fund currently is a finite amount of money that can easily run out at the end of the year. He hopes for a more sustainable future for the fund. As he said, “Right now it’s a limited amount. Our goal is to work with others on campus to keep the fund going.”

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Outside the Bubble

October 24, 2013

VSA to fill vacant leadership positions

Obama addresses Obamacare website problems

Shelia Hu

Guest reporter

Report surfaces that U.S. intercepted more than 70 million French phone calls

The U.S. Ambassador to France Charles Rivkin met with French diplomats Monday over allegations that the United States National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted more than 70 million phone calls in France over a three-week period.

These allegations all came from leaks by former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden. The report shows that an average of three million data intercepts occurred a day. The report explained, “When a telephone number is used in France, it activates a signal which automatically triggers the recording of the call.” (CNN, “Report: U.S. intercepts French phone calls on a ‘massive scale,’” 10.21.13) “These kinds of practices between partners, that violate privacy, are totally unacceptable,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters. (CNN) These reports also came out the day after German news magazine, Der Spiegal, said that the NSA “systematically” eavesdropped on Mexico by hacking the email account of the former President Felipe Calderon.

In Paris, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with the Qatari foreign minister and would not address the specifics of the report but said that “lots of countries engage in intelligence activities to prevent terrorist attacks,” and added that France is one of the US’s closest allies. (CNN) “Our goal is always to try to find the right balance between protecting the security and privacy of our citizens,” said Kerry. (CNN) President Obama assured the French President Francois Hollande that a White House was conducting a review of intelligence practices and findings are expected in December (The Washington Post, “Report that NSA collected French phone records causing diplomatic headache for U.S.,” 10.21.13).

The report has also angered Brazil, Germany and Mexico. The President of Brazil canceled a visit to Washington DC and publicly denounced the U.S. for a “violation of human rights and civil liberties” (The Huffington Post, “NSA France: U.S. Conducted Large-Scale Spying on French Citizens: Report,” 10.21.13). It is unlikely that the US will pledge to never spy on an ally again because it is a common practice. It is unclear whether France intends to take any actions but prosecutors have already opened a preliminary into Prism, one of the NSA’s collection programs.

—Emily Hoffman, Reporter

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or weeks the Vassar Student Association (VSA) was in search for a Jewett House Vice President, a Jewett House secretary, a Davison House Vice President and Founder’s Day Co-chairs.

A House VP is in charge of social events that their House sponsors, which includes study breaks and all-campus parties. A House secretary records minutes at meetings, and is responsible for House communication. The Founder’s Day Co-chairs-usually two or three people-are in charge of all things that goes on during Founder’s Day, including food, music and alcohol. House officer positions are typically elected during the spring, but for various reasons the spots are occasionally vacant when the new school year starts.

Class of 2016 President Max Moran explained that the reasoning behind this process, as opposed to the regular general voting, is mainly for time purposes. Moran said, “The general body voting usually takes three to four weeks to process. This method cuts down the time to one to two weeks, so we can fill up the spots as soon as possible. Missing spots in House Team need to be filled in as soon as possible as each member plays an important role within the House.”

Those interested first fill out an application which consists of questions that asks about leadership ability, communication skills and experience in the position they are applying for. The applicants are then all asked to meet with the Operations Committee. Once the committee has received adequate information about what the house teams are looking for and who the applicants are, they make a recommendation to the VSA Council, who then make the final vote. As the VSA website states, “One of their main purposes as a

Spencer Davis/The Miscellany News

Obama gave a speech from the White House on Monday to address concerns about his new health care website. Obama acknowledged the login problems, long waits, and repeated failures with the website and assured the public that the best technology industry experts in the country were being brought in to help fix the site. “Nobody’s madder than me about the website not working as well as it should, which means it’s going to get fixed,” said President Obama (CNN, “Obama: No ‘sugarcoating’ problems with health website,” 10.21.13).

The Washington Post/ABC post released showed that 56 percent of respondents considered the current problems to be foreshadowing of broader problems with the Affordable Care Act. However, 46 percent said that they support the law now, as opposed to 42 percent last month. The government shutdown last week overshadowed the website but now the issue is at the center of public concern (The Huffington Post, “Obama vows fixes to health care website,” 10.21.13).

Republicans have called for the firing of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius over this problem. After Obama’s address, Speaker John Boehner said, “Americans didn’t get any answers from the President today, but the House’s oversight of this failure is just beginning” (The Washington Post, “Obama on health-care site: ‘There’s no excuse for the problems, and they are being fixed,’” 10.21.13).

Obama urged the public to support the law and be patient. “It’s time for folks to stop rooting for its failure, because hardworking middle class families are rooting for its success,” said Obama. (CNN) The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) expects 7 million Americans to enroll by April. President Obama maintained an optimistic view and said, “in some cases, actually, it’s exceeding expectations. The prices are lower than expected, and the choice is greater than we expected.” (CNN)

Jewett House Team members sit in discussion led by House President Tewa Kpulun. House Teams meet weekly to discuss issues of House importance, a category broader than just event planning. committee is to review applications to vacant VSA positions and make recommendations to the VSA Council for approval.”

During this process, the Operations Committee also meets in the house the position is vacant for and receives input from that House Team. Main 2016 Representative and member of Operations Committee Joshua Tempro noted, “House teams have to work very closely together, so it’s important when appointing a new member to not only consider how well they are qualified for a position, but also how well they will fit in with and work with the other members. That being said, we very much take the house team’s input into con-

sideration. For any body position, the leaders are usually very close to the process, suggesting questions and qualifications to look for.”

Tempro also commented on what they look for specifically in applicants. “Availability, experience, team-mindset. Appointments usually happen after the majority of the body has been elected, and sometimes that means a new person will have to adapt to the new groove, so again, that’s very important to consider,” he said.

The appointment process for these vacant positions is quite extensive in the hopes of ensuring that the best candidate inevitably holds the position on House Team or VSA.

House teams to fundraise for community COMMUNITY continued from page 1 munity Works Chair and Associate Professor of Computer Science Tom Ellman, “The organization is primarily a day care service for low-income people who are not low enough income to qualify for state support, but still low enough so that it’s hard for them to afford day care.”

Ellman continued,“The Community Family Development has a tremendous amount of demand, but not enough money to let serve everybody.”

Ellman, a member of Community Works for the past two years and its new chair, explained how the program functions. “The president’s office sent out a letter to the whole community, students, staff, faculty, administration— basically asking for nominations for organizations in the Hudson Valley who do various kinds of philanthropic work, so people were invited to send us recommendations,” he said.

He continued, “In the letter that I sent out, I tried to emphasize the fact that, although the main focus of Community Works is to raise money that we can give to directly help people in the community on things like hunger relief and homelessness, domestic violence, environmental protection, preventing animal abuse, the arts, things like that, also LGBTQ rights as well. We tried to mention a bunch of target areas we’d like to cover so that we can do a broad range of things.”

Ellman went on to say, “I tried to emphasize that our primary goal is to contribute money directly to these organizations so that they can do good work, but at the same time I tried to make it clear that we get a lot back from this process.”

According to Ellman, the Community Works Committee started with between 15 and 20 nominations that the committee then assessed for eligibility and other factors before narrowing the list down to the select number of organizations.

Grants to the non-profits are in the range of $7,000 to $9,000. “One good thing is that 100 percent of the money raised goes to the agencies,” Ellman confirmed.

All levels of the Vassar campus are involved in raising money for Community Works.

“There’s various kinds of fundraising going

on, by far the biggest is the faculty, staff and administration who set up an automated deduction from their salary each month which the college facilitates,” Ellman said.

As for student participation, Ellman noted, “In the past, students have done different things like auctions and stuff like that. This year, I met with the Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council a few weeks ago, explaining that I hoped every house would have some kind of fundraising event.”

One student contributor to fundraising is Josselyn House President, Iyana Shelby ’16.

She explained, “Basically the way that Community Works works is that the organizations raise money for it and it goes to Community Works; Community Works takes that money and they divide among whatever non-profits that they’re funding.”

She said, “Last year what we did [for fundraising] was we had an auction [in Josselyn House]. People were selling things like, ‘Oh, for this much money I’ll make you a sweater, and for this much money I’ll play tic-tac-toe with you.’”

Shelby already has a house team fundraising plan. She noted, “This year our plan was to try and do some auction or gala, something high-class like you would see in a movie. We’re going to try to get the Aula and we thought we’d have an auction there with food and music. Hopefully it’ll go well this year.”

She continued, “Community Works and the auction really go hand in hand and I really see Josselyn working its hardest to put some money in to that so that more stuff can be done in the Poughkeepsie community.”

One such project benefiting from Community Works is the Poughkeepsie Farm Project.

The Interim Executive Director of the project Russ Moore explained its mission. “The Poughkeepsie Farm Project includes a community-supported agriculture membership of over 400 people; they are able to gain access to fresh, healthy produce and also participate in the farm through shares,” he said.

Moore further noted, “The focus of our activities [is] a sustainable farm that’s committed to increasing food access to the people of Poughkeepsie.”

Vassar also has a relationship with the

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Poughkeepsie Farm Project beyond Community Works grants, according to Moore.

Students have been a part of their farmer apprenticeship program, and they have served as volunteers.

“Those donations are very much appreciated as part of our overall fundraising. On behalf of our volunteers and staff, I’d like to convey a real appreciation to Community Works program and hope to work with them in the future,” Moore said.

Another organization with a multifaceted relationship with Vassar is Dutchess Outreach, which provides assistance for those in need and strives to prevent eviction and homelessness in the Poughkeepsie area. Like the Poughkeepsie Farm Project, Vassar students have been involved with Dutchess Outreach as interns and volunteers.

Dutchess Outreach Executive Director Brian Riddell said of the grants, “The Vassar Community Works funds are unrestricted, which means we can use them where we need them the most. In the past we have used these funds to make up for government funding shortfall for emergency assistance grants.”

Shelby said on Community Works’ place at Vassar, “I think it’s well-needed. I feel like— and maybe I don’t know much about it—but I feel like Vassar has a lot of money and there’s this big distinction between Vassar and the rest of the Poughkeepsie community, especially in the mindset of the students.”

“There’s a lot of money in this school and I wish that sometimes Vassar would reach out more into the Poughkeepsie community, so I really admire that Community Works attempts to do that,” she added.

Ellman agreed on the importance of Community Works, saying, “Even though I live in Poughkeepsie, it wasn’t until I was on Community Works that I knew about what these philanthropic organizations are. So, I really try to emphasize that it’s a two-way street, we’re getting and we’re giving.”

Those who wish to volunteer for the Poughkeepsie Farm Project are encouraged to visit farmproject.org. Those who wish to get involved with Dutchess Outreach should contact the volunteer coordinator Carol Beck or visit dutchessoutreach.org.

October 24, 2013

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Weekly religious dinner facilitates new conversations Shannon Liao Guest reporter

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very week, a small group of people gathers in the Jade Parlor in Main Building for a free meal and a bit of spiritual growth. Fare can range anywhere from Kentucky Fried Chicken to fluffy cheesecakes.

“Everybody else was serving pizza,” explained Reverend Jennifer Barrows, a priest across the river, who provides the food and facilitates conversation. “So we decided to do something different.”

On a recent Tuesday evening, Barrows served New Orleans style macaroni and cheese, seltzer water, apples and mini orange cranberry tea scones from Trader Joe’s.

The Episcopalian Church at Vassar College (ECVC) hosts the weekly dinners that last

about an hour each. After the dinner, the Christian Fellowship meets on the same floor in Main Building. Although many Christians show up to the dinners to eat and talk, the meals are open to everyone, according to Barrows.

“It’s a good hang out time,” said Sarah King ’13, who recently graduated from Vassar as a psychology major.

“It’s something ECVC offers to the wider community just to come and take a break.

And that’s all it’s intended to be,” said Barrows, lounging in a comfortable parlor chair. “In fact, there aren’t many Episcopalians at the dinner.”

Barrows joked, “We fiddle around every once in a while for what the E in ECVC could stand for. Everyone’s, Enquirers...”

Several students talked about the government shutdown, French authors, late night talk

Nathan Tauger/The Miscellany News

Students gather in the Jade Parlor each week for food and conversation. These dinners are sponsored by the Episcopalian Church at Vassar College, but the conversations are open to students of all beliefs.

show hosts, NASA and a passing septic tank with a funny slogan.

“Last week, we were all over the place,” said King. “We talked about everything.”

“It was cool,” Barrows added. “Sometimes the discussions get, depending on what’s going on in the outside world or here at Vassar, discussions can get fairly serious, but most of the time, they’re not.”

Japanese and economics major Maxélle Neufville ’14, helped outline the conversation flow. (Disclaimer: Neufville serves as a copy editor for The Miscellany News) She said, “Last time we were talking a bit about communication and veered off into about spirituality which veered off into priests who refuse to speak in anything except Latin in certain denominations and that veered off into Babe and Miss Piggy. So yeah, anything can crop up.”

Seth Warner ’14, a frequent attendee at the free dinners, said, “The conversation is great.

Reverend Jennifer knows everything.”

Barrows said if her title, “[It is] resident expert, period. Not of what. A little bit of everything. Expert of nothing.”

Neufville spoke to the atmosphere of the dinners compared to other religious events that are hosted, such as the Sunday worship and Christian fellowship meetings she attends although all are hosted by the Episcopalian Church at Vassar. “[The ambiance is] a little more relaxed, a little more upbeat,” she said.

After dinner, lingering students walked around and looked at the Jade Parlor’s décor.

Of Main Building’s parlors, the Jade Parlor has an Asian theme which Barrows said was popular in the era in which it was built. Furniture in the room is often rotated out, making each dinner a slightly different dining experience.

“You see, it’s kind of falling apart,” said Barrows as she surveyed the room. “The panels weren’t put together right, it’s a bit out of order.

There are all kinds of little odd quirks about the room which makes it kind of charming.”

She pointed out painted wood, untarnished silverware and china. “Here’s some china that people used to drink from.”

Neufville, King and Warner are all regulars at the dinners but King and Barrows agreed that it takes a while for people to find out about the event. Currently dinner attendees are a fair mix of two post-graduates, and several seniors and juniors. Barrows estimated that around four to twelve people show up every week.

“Sometimes it takes a while for people to find us. Unless it’s a big dinner, like at Mardi Gras, we have pancakes and sausages and those tend to draw more people,” added King.

“Exactly. Just anyone can drop by. It’s totally open,” said Barrows. “Grab something to eat or have a seat. It’s mostly to be a break.”

King laughed and chimed in, “That’s why I’m here this week! I needed a break. And I didn’t want to make dinner.”

“That’s always a big reason,” agreed Barrows. She noted that casual passersby often become regulars.

For Neufville, free food was one of the initial draws to the event. “A full belly does go pretty far into putting in a full night of studying.”

For those with dietary concerns, Barrows stated that she can make vegan or vegetarian cuisine if she is given notice. She explained, “First time it might not be available, but the next time it will be.”

And although the dishes may vary at the dinners, Barrows said she always brings a heated main course, a dessert and a beverage.

“There were burgers one time, made with different fillings inside the patties themselves.

Very delicious,” said Neufville. “There’s been like pies and various breads and cheesecakes.”

“Sometimes it’s, you know, really exquisite stuff. The diversity is magnificent,” explained Warner.

Barrows also noted, “On Sunday, we served dessert after worship—garlic chocolate chip cookies.”

The dinners are every Tuesday at 6:00 p.m.

Mindfulness workshops help to allay student stresses Bethany Terry staFF desiGner

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workshop is being aware of the experience of eating and non-judgmentally noticing what is happening inside and around while one eats.

The second workshop is being held in conjunction with the Sexual Assault and Violence Prevention (SAVP) program. SAVP Coordinator Elizabeth Schrock said she is excited for this new four-week mindfulness series starting Wednesday, October 23 entitled, “Mindfulness Tools for Empowerment: A Self-Help Guide.”

Of this she said, “Traumatizing events can sometimes cause increased anxiety, and mindfulness techniques such as meditation, deep breathing and focused relaxation may help students to decrease anxiety symptoms. Mindfulness techniques can help students who are dealing with incredibly difficult events to feel empowered through awareness and regulation of distressing emotions.”

For those who cannot attend Balderrama’s workshops, but are interested in the concept of

them, mindfulness can be done anywhere. For those who feel overwhelmed during the day or restless before bed, guided mediation tracks may be a step in the right direction. The Apple application Simply Being, and online tracks from the Mindfulness Awareness Research Center are two recommendations for guided meditation programs.

For others who want to use mindfulness in their own personal way, sitting down and closing the eyes is a good start. Focus on just being, and redirect your thoughts back if they start to run away.

Ultimately, mindfulness can be used in many ways in different parts of life and, as Schrock and Balderrama have suggested, has the potential to help with the many stressors that college students often face. Even if an entire lifestyle change is not feasible for many people, there are many options on campus to put the skills of mindfulness to the test.

Sam Pianello/The Miscellany News

t 12:30 p.m., the Retreat is busy and the hum of the diners can be heard upstairs. It is thus very fitting when the second floor conference room closes and it becomes quiet. Staff and students sit on couches and arm chairs, all gathered for the same purpose: to take time for themselves during an otherwise hectic day.

Seeking to reduce stress and anxiety, the participants are engaged in a weekly mindfulness workshop.

Every Thursday in room 237 of the College Center, Facilitator of Integrated Health Sylvia Balderrama leads a mindfulness workshop. But what is mindfulness? While it may be a simple word, it can be difficult to characterize. When defining mindfulness, Balderrama said her definition is in constant flux.

“I think if you ask me that 10 minutes from now, I’ll have a different answer, because it can mean so many different things. But I try to limit it, too, so that I can get my point across.

Mindfulness is a practice of being aware and paying attention to our life as it is right now,” she explained.

Mindfulness works by focusing on the here and now, and can include anything from focusing on the breath to the body moving in a purposeful way. As most students can attest, it can be easy to become frustrated by the mistakes of the past and potential problems that lie ahead. By diverting attention away from these racing thoughts and focusing on the present, people allow themselves to slow down and become more mindful of the current moment in time they are occupying.

In her weekly Thursday sessions, open to all on a drop-in basis, Balderrama tries to focus on a different technique each week. In hopes to provide members of the community with many different resources, each session will try to explore a different mindfulness technique.

“So far I’ve focused more on the breathing technique, because I think that is what a lot of people think about when they think about mindfulness. And I think that is one of the most widely used techniques, but there are a

number of them.”

Stress and anxiety are problems everyone faces and they can be difficult to deal with.

With many students juggling internships, jobs, classes, clubs and other commitments, becoming overwhelmed can be all too easy. For Priscilla Yevoo ’16, the responsibilities of class, work and being a student fellow are taking a toll. “I am currently quite stressed” she wrote in an emailed statement, as she was coming back from October Break. “The idea of coming back to all the studying and midterms is terrifying.”

However, as time has passed, Yevoo has, like many students, developed ways to de-stress. “I take a mental break. I have some chocolate, lay in my bed and listen to One Republic. Most importantly, though, I call and talk to my mom. It makes me feel much better.”

Balderrama, who has had a lot of experience with student stress and anxiety as Vassar’s previous Director of Counseling Services, suggested that there are three things key to managing stress and anxiety. She said she believes that getting good sleep, good nutrition and working on healthy relationships are all integral to one’s well being. But she also suggested that it may not just be stress that can throw people out of whack.

She explained, “We’re not just stressed out. We are also overstimulated, so that we’re pulled in 50 million different ways to go throughout the day. And we may start out being very mindful about what we’re doing , but it is very easy to become distracted.”

She continued, “It’s very possible to go through the day doing what we think we’re supposed to be doing, as opposed to what is really in our best interest.”

For those who would like to try mindfulness in a real-life setting, there are many more opportunities in the coming months. Of course there is the drop-in lunch-time mindfulness program, which actually has little to do with eating. Then there are two different workshops coming up. The first is a mindful eating workshop, which will meet Tuesdays from 3:004:00 p.m. until November 12. The focus of this

Sylvia Balderrama, Facilitator of Integrated Health, leads the weekly mindfulness workshop in the College Center. Balderrama feels the weekly exercises help focus students and relieve overall stress.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

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October 24, 2013

Government shutdown has wide reaching campus impact SHUTDOWN continued from page 1

recruiter from the New York Regional Peace Corps offices told her that he could not attend as his organization had gone into automatic shutdown.

“We sent an email blast to all juniors and seniors as soon as we received the news on Oct. 1 and posted signs on the Faculty Commons doors on Oct. 3 in case anyone missed the email,” wrote Smith in an emailed statement.

After the shutdown ended and the Peace Corps resumed its full operations, Smith was able to reschedule a new meeting with the recruiter now slated for Thursday, Nov. 7;Vassar students Director of Financial Aid For other offices on campus, an extended shutdown at the wrong time of the year has the potential to be catastrophic. Director of Financial Aid Jessica Bernier said those who receive financial aid in form of Federal Pell Grants and Federal Student Loans were not affected by the shutdown. Those programs are financed through the end of the academic year, [June 2014] and the day-to-day operations in Vassar’s Financial Aid Office did not change during the 16-day shutdown.

This was welcome news for Bernier. She wrote in an emailed statement, “Though we all hate to see the government shutdown, I have to admit that it was a relief to see that the processing of federal aid was not affected by the shutdown, as this may have impacted the ability of millions of students from attending college.”

In addition to the funds for student financial aid, the college also receives federal grants for research and institutional projects. According to Director of Corporate, Foundation and Government Relations in the Grants Office Gary Hohenberger, Vassar maintains $6.5 million in

active government awards from various federal agencies.

During the shutdown these grants remained funded, but the services that supported the recipients vanished, causing uncertainty and many hanging questions. The National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and other agencies that support the college furloughed employees, put operations on hold and switched websites off.

“We couldn’t call anyone for questions, we couldn’t refer to any documentation,” explained Hohenberger.

Federal awards are subject to a long list of statutes and rules. Professors normally would turn to federal resources to check if the allocations of their awards are in accordance with regulation. The shutdown, however, made these guidelines inaccessible, and some professors chose to delay their projects because of this.

For others, the full extent of the shutdown was not visible until later. Head of Access Services Barbara Durniak, along with the team of Research Librarians at the Vassar College Main Library help students find the sources they need for their papers and projects. Several of the online resources students commonly use in their research for class or their senior theses were suspended, casualties of the shutdown.

Federal agency-run websites like the United States Census Bureau website , the Bureau of Economic Analysis website and all the sites sponsored by the Library of Congress were shut down with the rest of the federal government. Their servers, which like a federal office or national park need public funding to be maintained, were turned off.

Durniak described how in a research consultation one day during the shutdown she

was searching online for some bibliographical information on the Handbook of Latin American-Studies website and was surprised to find the information unavailable. The Library of Congress sponsors the Handbook of Latin-American-Studies Online Catalog.

She said, “I was working with a thesis student and there was a ‘Sorry We’re Closed’ message on the website. It brought home the impact of the shutdown.”

However, every time they encountered a problem working with a student, the research librarians said they found the data and sources they needed by turning to private companies.

“There are a lot of alternative sources of information in the commercial world,” said Durniak.

Although the effects of the shutdown never became catastrophic for the librarians, they told how they were glad when it ended. Said Research Librarian Gretchen Lieb, “I think we were all delayed, and thankfully it’s over so there weren’t any disasters for libraries, but there was growing anxiety about what to do.”

While the shutdown has ended, it is possible that some inconveniences surrounding the availability of federal data may persist in the future.

During the 16 days of shutdown, no federal agencies were unable to collect new data. This backlog could delay the release of certain information such as state and national unemployment numbers for the month of September.

Still, the Research librarians believe these delays won’t hinder any student projects. “I don’t think that’s probably going to impact any student at Vassar. I don’t think they are looking at the data in that much detail,” said Durniak.

Durniak and Lieb also said it was lucky too that the dates of the shutdown fell partly during

October Break when the library quiets down and when it is months before many Senior projects are due.

Elizabeth Ruiz ’14 was one such student relying on data from federal agency websites for her senior project. A biology major, Ruiz is developing a management plan for dealing with invasive species on Vassar’s Farm and Ecological Preserve. Her project follows the models created by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), a sub-agency of the Department of the Interior.

This information became unavailable all the FWS servers and their sponsored websites shutdown went dark. It wasn’t just a matter of missing the right guides or spreadsheets. According to Ruiz, she was also unable to get a hold of the people she needed at the United States Department of Agriculture “[T]he real problem came with moving forward with some other groundwork details. Part of my project is to establish a cohesive list of contacts for this project and future work on the preserve. Of course, they were furloughed, so that getting in touch with these outside parties was stalled,” wrote Ruiz in an email.

What did catch Ruiz off-guard were the shutdown’s rippling consequences. An office being closed in D.C. can lead to a dozen more office being closed in cities across the country. The Department of the Interior is comprised of 16 branch bureaus or offices, all which experienced complete or partial closure. 81% of their over 72,000 employees were furloughed during the shutdown according to CNN. “I hadn’t considered the more localized implications of these resources being suspended,” Ruiz wrote, adding “I was startled at how far reaching the shutdown was.”

Millionaire shortbread brings back memories from abroad Juliet Simon

Guest reporter

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courtesy of butterygoodness

ike many students, I studied abroad in London my junior year. Although London is a popular JYA destination, and most students that go there generally love every minute of the experience, it is not the food that one normally hears rave reviews about upon students’ return.

I however, did enjoy the food. Well, one food in particular—millionaire shortbread.

Therefore, it was only natural that I would try to recreate this snack once I had returned to the United States.

This delectable dessert seems simple enough. It is composed of three layers: shortbread on the bottom, caramel in the middle, chocolate on top, delicious through and through. While in the United Kingdom last fall, I ate these things whenever the opportunity presented itself—at Starbucks, in the British Museum, and at every bakery and coffee shop I passed on the street. Therefore, I consider myself something of a connoisseur of millionaire shortbread.

As I had previously never made this particular dessert, I decided to consult the internet to find a recipe. Initially, I wanted to use the recipe from the British Broadcasting Company (BBC).

However, I soon found that the measurements were, obviously, in the metric system.

So I looked elsewhere. However, I was in luck; the Food Network had a recipe which closely resembled the one from the BBC and I settled on using that one.

Anyone who intends to undertake baking millionaire shortbread using The Food Network’s recipe should be warned that the alleged one hour and fifteen minute “total time” is woefully inaccurate. These shortbread desserts actually took me five hours. Literally five hours. And I’m not using “literally” to mean figuratively.

In spite of this, however the end result made it worth it.

First of all: the shortbread. This may quite possibly be the easiest of the three layers, as well as the tastiest. This seemed like a good start to my British baking adventure.

I just mixed the flour, sugar, and salt in the food processor and tried not to eat all of the dough before I baked it, because it tasted that delicious.

While I waited for the shortbread to finish baking, I began my struggles with the caramel.

Truth be told, I found the “caramel”—composed of sweetened condensed milk and butter—to be rather disappointing. The process described by The Food Network lead to an end result that tasted suspiciously like sweetened condensed milk and nothing else. That being said, when it is eaten with the other layers of the dessert, it is actually quite passable.

This caramel making process took far longer than the supposed fifteen minutes suggested by the Food Network, and I found myself frantically wondering what exactly qualifies as “thick and amber in color” around the thirty-minute mark of stirring the mixture. Eventually, I gave up on the caramel. It had certainly changed colors and gotten thicker so I decided to move on and pour it over the now cooled shortbread.

After three-and-a-half hours of food preparation, I had reached the final stage: the chocolate. All I had to do was melt the chocolate.

This part seemed like it would be easy enough.

Anyone can melt chocolate. In fact, chocolate practically melts itself.

After finding a glass bowl that would fit in the pot I was using to boil the water for heat, I broke the milk chocolate bars into tiny pieces and got to work. After about an hour of melting the chocolate, it was far from smooth. I would have had better luck if I had carried it in my pocket for the rest of the evening until it was soft enough, rubbed it across the top of the caramel, and called it a day.

Finally, and again, I gave up. The directions suggested that I should “pour the chocolate over the cooled caramel layer”.

This seemed outrageous as I stared at the chunky mess I had created but, although what I did next was not so much pouring as scooping, the chocolate was warm enough that it spread easily across the two tins of shortbread.

At last, I could enjoy the fruits of my labor.

The millionaire shortbreads I created were rather tasty (although they were not, admittedly, the best that I have ever had) and my family quite enjoyed them, finally understanding what I had been going on about for the past eight months since I had been in London.

I would make them again, with the stipulation that I would take a different approach to making the caramel. I even caught my chia seed and quinoa-obsessed father eating more than one of these buttery, sugary treats at once, which basically means I consider them to have been a success.

Ingredients:

The Recipe Caramel Layer:

Shortbread 2 sticks butter, cut into small pieces, plus more for preparing pans 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for preparing pans 2/3 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt Caramel Layer: 2 (14-ounce) cans sweetened condensed milk 2 tablespoons butter Chocolate Topping: 3/4 pound good-quality milk chocolate Shortbread:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter 2 (8-inch) square nonstick pans and coat with flour, tapping off excess. Place the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse once. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles peas.

Press the shortbread mixture into prepared pans and bake until golden brown around the edges, about 20 minutes.

Remove the pans from the oven and let them cool completely.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-low heat, combine the condensed milk and 2 tablespoons of butter. Slowly bring the mixture to a boil, stirring continuously.

Continue stirring over the heat until mixture becomes thick and amber in color, about 15 minutes. Pour the caramel over the cooked shortbread and spread evenly using an offset spatula. Cool to room temperature.

Chocolate Topping:

In a glass bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, melt the chocolate. Once chocolate has melted, pour it over the cooled caramel layer.

Cool at room temperature for about 10 minutes, and then place in the refrigerator to cool completely, allowing chocolate to slightly harden but not get hard. Cut into 2-inch squares and enjoy, or store in an airtight container, at room temperature, or my favorite - keep in the refrigerator for a yummy sweet and cool treat!

Read more at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/ recipes/claire-robinson/millionaires-shortbread-recipe/index.html

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October 24, 2013

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Students convene to discuss classically ignored issues CLASS continued from page 1

unexpected conversations about class on campus and in the broader Poughkeepsie area” One of SCIA’s major goals is to create a an on-campus center designated for students who are first-generation and come from a low-income background to discuss their experiences.

The workshop is one such outlet for these students.

Schenk also spoke about the group’s aim for a “working class student center” for which SCIA proposed a resolution to Vassar Student Association (VSA) last December as part of SCIA’s ongoing goal. The group aims at “providing a space not found elsewhere on campus in which students can comfortably discuss issues of socioeconomic class at Vassar and in the larger community.”

The center, as SCIA members envisioned, would have a structure similar to those of the ALANA, LGBTQ and Women’s Centers.

Nguyen spoke to how, just as other marginalized groups can be silenced on campus, class is another issue that can easily be ignored at elite schools. He said, “Though it can be difficult to overcome the silence around class on campus, I believe that this component of our identity has more of an impact on student experiences than campus climate discourses sometimes give voice to.”

Schenk attested to the hidden nature of class issues at Vassar. “I love talking about class issues with my peers, because they are typically made so invisible here. Class is a subject that people at Vassar are usually extremely uncomfortable talking about, yet it deeply impacts everyone and intersects with so many other issues of identity and social justice,” Schenk wrote in an emailed statement. “I enjoy discovering the shared experiences relating to class that are lurking under the surface of almost everyone’s mind.”

As for how these lurking issues can change, people had similar thoughts for effecting change both on campus and off. One of Schenk’s plans

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Spencer Davis/The Miscellany News

of varying scales. At first, all attendants stood in the same big circle for an activity called common ground. Each time the trainer identified a certain circumstance regarding class or class issues, everyone who identified with that statement stepped into the circle.

Later on, people with similar backgrounds aligned with each other in smaller circles to further discuss common problems they faced.

The workshop organizers hoped by opening a safe space for exchanging individual experiences, everybody could realize that class issues exist in various forms, and that nobody who is a part of a specific class was ever alone.

Willow Carter ’15 saw the workshop as a particular opportunity to increase the awareness of diversity on campus.

“It’s important to make people realize that differences do exist,” she said. “Classes and class issues aren’t often discussed at Vassar.

Since it’s a premier liberal art school, there’s often the assumption that people are coming from similar socioeconomic backgrounds, which is not true.”

During the brief speech SCIA President Rocky Schwartz ’15 gave during the follow-up dinner, she reiterated SCIA’s mission.

“We are constantly striving for fostering campus conversations about class and the way it affects students, and create a space for low-income and first-generation students to discuss their issues and collaborate,” she said.

Class Action intern and SCIA member Hannah Schenk ’14 was interested in how this particular workshop, which had never happened before, could be a fresh start to future progresses for Vassar in the way of classism discussions.

Based on expectations, group believed that the dinner was well attended. SCIA Treasurer and Co-Facilitator Benedict Nguyen ’15 wrote in an emailed statement, “About 40 people attended the dinner. It was a productive discussion that saw some familiar and new faces in

The first of many class consciousness workshops and discussions met at the end of September in the College Center Multi-purpose Room. Here, chairs are used to illustrate income disparity in America. was simply to encourage discussion—getting people to talk about class means that they are at least thinking about it—and to make spaces available to discuss class and classism.

“Just talking and creating space to talk about class is a huge step towards reducing classism.

We all have something to contribute to conversations about class, we just need the space to have these conversations. These conversations can then generate concrete action steps towards fighting inequality,” said Schenk.

Nguyen, on the other hand, encouraged students to feel uncomfortable, emphasizing that discomfort is not necessarily a negative when it comes to enacting change.

“Continuing to challenge instances of inter-

personal classism to encourage students to lean into the discomfort this issue causes would help our student body begin to acknowledge class as a form of difference and thus, work to bridge gaps across class divides,” Nguyen went on to explain.

Looking to the future, SCIA plans to continue hosting activities that focus on improving class-related discourse at Vassar.

Said Nguyen, “We hope to plan monthly discussion dinners collaborating with other [organizations’ to address intersectionality and class. In addition, we hope to include more professors in our discussions this year to provide an academic and institutional perspective of Vassar.”

‘Caveman’ diet not for the typical 21st-century student Chris Brown sports editor

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s the wannabe health nut who actually loves fast food, I have searched far and wide for the elusive perfect diet. The diet where I could eat anything I wanted and magically lose weight, because that’s totally how biology works.

My most recent adventure was the Paleo diet. Essentially, the diet centers around the idea that you have to eat what the cavemen ate, giving it the colloquial nickname “the caveman diet.” Fresh meats that were raised naturally, fresh fruits and veggies, nuts and fungi consist of 99% of the diet. This diet pushes the body to entirely new places, and I have very mixed opinions on its effects on one’s health.

My first day of Paleo left me in a truly sad state of desperation and loneliness, in the most pathetic way possible. I couldn’t stop thinking about the burger station at the Deece. Really, the Deece. That’s how bad it was. You don’t really realize how much you don’t like vegetables until all you have on your plate are vegetables.

And growing up in a family that didn’t eat a lot of them, I was quite annoyed. By the end of day one, I was sitting in my Jewett common room, complaining about the world to my freshmen and just making everyone who had the misfortune of coming into contact with me and my new diet mad with my whining. It certainly was not the best day I have ever had.

The second day brought out the best part of the adventure. The amount of energy I had was outstanding, and the feeling was extremely foreign to my body. I felt really healthy, and was very alert and plugged in during my classes. And the eating began to become a little bit easier too. I experimented with new vegetables and fruits, and started to add all different colors to my plate, a stark contrast to my previous 50 shades of brown.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

I felt on top of world, and that I could do Paleo forever.

That feeling lasted for about three days.

And then came the darkest part of my dietary journey.

I started to feel so tired. It was due to a lack of nutrition, the result of a lack of knowledge on my part. Although my consumption of healthier foods had definitely expanded, I still was not getting the basic nutrients and vitamins that I got when I was eating a wider variety of foods, unhealthy though they were, before the Paleo diet. My body was starting to function at a significantly slower rate, trying to conserve all of the pitifully small amount of energy it had left in it.

I was confused how my body could go from feeling so good to feeling like I could collapse within two minutes of walking. I tried to continue the diet, but I knew I was doing myself a lot more harm then good.

I stopped Paleo at that moment. Time of death, three week later.

Paleo is certainly and clearly not for the faint of heart. If you are planning on doing Paleo, or something like it, you need to put yourself into it 100%. You have to research your foods and know healthy yet nutritional alternatives.

Eating a salad everyday with only lettuce on it is not going to cut it in the slightest. And even then, I would stray away from suggesting it to anyone. Paleo will put your body in a completely different state, and that does not mean good state for a lot of people.

I found that the fatigue I got by eating less than 1000 calories a day outweighed the joy I got from feeling healthy. More importantly, however, I learned that diets are not for me, and that’s perfectly fine.

Anyone can maintain a healthy and happy lifestyle without feeling like they need to be the skinniest person in the room. It’s about how comfortable you feel with the choices you make with your body and spirit.

FEATURES

Page 8

October 24, 2013

UNICEF raises funds, awareness on child mortality Nicole Javorsky Guest reporter

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courtesy of the United Nations

ach day people absentmindedly amble across the sidewalk in front of the College Center. On Tuesday, Oct. 1, many people paused at this location with puzzled looks on their faces because coins and cash were scattered on the ground. While money did not exactly fall from the sky, but Vassar United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) held the “Mile for Change” event to help reduce avoidable deaths in children.

The money raised from the fundraising event will benefit UNICEF’s “Believe in Zero” campaign. According to Publicity Chair Jonathan Stark ’16, the campaign aims to eliminate mortalities in children under 5 due to preventable causes, such as starvation. Approximately 18,000 children die every day, without even reaching their fifth birthday.

Stark said, “I love that this campaign is giving children . . . a much better chance at life.”

The purpose of the “Mile for Change” event was twofold. In addition to encouraging onlookers to contribute their pocket change to the UNICEF “Believe in Zero” campaign, the event raised awareness about excessive mortality in children throughout the world. Stark said that many people stopped to give change when passing by the chalk lines where the money was placed. Stark continued, “I think that the people passing by could sense our dedication and our strong positive feelings about the cause, and I think those feelings rubbed off on many of the students.”

The event also promoted the organization on campus by prompting spectators to ask questions about UNICEF and its general cause.

Co-President of the Vassar UNICEF chapter, Aleya Romero ’15 said, “There are always going to be people who don’t know what UNICEF is or what we stand for. Some people were confused and didn’t know what we were

The Vassar United Nations Fund and UNICEF help provide money for resources for children in need around the world. Vassar UNICEF is trying to raise awareness about their organization daily. doing, but that was great because we were able to share with them what we were trying to do. Overall, I think the response was positive and the community seemed happy to have the chance to donate.”

This year marked the second time that UNICEF held the event, though last year rain interrupted the “Mile for Change.” Although the coins from this week’s event have not yet been counted, UNICEF received $68 in paper money donations alone. The UNICEF organization will transform the money donated into vaccines, clean drinking water, mosquito nets and other resources to help more children have a fighting chance at survival.

Stark is passionate about the UNICEF cause because he feels that the group does more than

Copyright violations lead to legal troubles for students Erik Halberg

Guest reporter

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nternet pirates have been known to be fined hundreds of dollars for each song or movie that they allegedly downloaded illegally. In addition to the fine, they’ve also had to suffer through lengthy legal battles with the companies whose rights they are accused of violating. At Vassar too, students can face consequences for obtaining copyrighted media for free off the internet.

The college has a policy of preventing media torrenting on campus. While using Peer to Peer (P2P) software, such as the popular client uTorrent, is not in-and-of-itself an offense, it is monitored by Vassar Computing and Information Services (CIS). CIS can track what is being downloaded and sent back and forth across the network on campus. Only the type of data and not the specific content, the CIS website makes a point to say, is ever screened.

When a copyright-holder wishes to take action against internet piraters, a letter is sent to Vassar containing a cease-and-desist order to the student in violation. Unless specifically ordered to through a court subpoena, Vassar withholds the name of the offending student. Also, if the student refuses to cooperate and delete the stolen media from their computer, this could lead to further legal action being taken.

Aaron Hill ’16 said, “I appreciate Vassar’s heuristic approach toward discouraging piracy, because it stays in line with the College’s mentality that students have agency over their decisions, without resorting to limiting net access, which could have consequences on the general student body’s ability to work and study.”

As an email sent by the Dean of Students D.B. Brown to the student body stated, “It doesn’t matter if you downloaded it somewhere else. It doesn’t matter if someone else used your computer to download it.”

The email went on to say that simply being in possession of pirated material can result in fines or legal troubles. Students who are caught with a large amount of stolen media can be fined by the college or given community service. Some students who have been caught pirating data have had to meet with counselors several times and do community service for several weeks as consequences of using torrents.

Anything from movies to music to games to comic book covers is considered copyrighted material and is the intellectual property of someone else.

There is an ongoing debate as to how traditional copyright laws should apply to the Internet and new, digital media. Some people claim that the current laws, which were developed originally for print media, are outdated and are inapplicable to these new forms of media and methods of sharing.

They say that pirating can actually be helpful to the creative minds whose work is being downloaded.

As Isaiah Hale ’16 puts it, “While torrenting is illegal, a lot of unknown or indie musicians actually get a lot of exposure when their music is torrented because of the chance that their songs go viral. People who don’t usually torrent will hear about the song from their friends and buy it on iTunes.”

These advocates of piracy will also point out the various gray areas that exist. Whenever there is no company with legal ownership of the rights to a media product it becomes part of the public domain, and it is free for download. Thus, the download of that product does not have much potential to harm someone’s livelihood.

Others still maintain that intellectual property is intellectual property, no matter what medium through which it is delivered.

CIS’s P2P Sharing Policy stresses that the U.S. Government still holds that any kind of pirating is a crime.

just directly benefit those in need.

“It [UNICEF] helps the people who...should get first priority when it comes to aid – children,” he said.

Romero also elaborated on why she feels connected to UNICEF’s cause of helping children. “There are children around the world, including the United States and the Hudson Valley area, that are struggling to survive,” Romero said.

She continued, “I saw that growing up in my neighborhood, and children should not have to advocate for their own right to survive.”

UNICEF provides children around the globe with a greater chance of survival through multiple avenues. According to Romero, the organization does more than just fundraising.

“We advocate and raise awareness as well,” she said.

Furthermore Romero said she is confident that “Mile for Change” improves the livelihood of children. She said she believes that a fundamental aspect of the event is that many UNICEF clubs throughout the country participate.

“Other UNICEF campus initiative clubs around the United States are doing this fund raiser as well at around the same time. Between all of us, there is no doubt that ‘Mile for Change’ makes a difference for children,” Romero said.

According to the general UNICEF organization website, the “Believe in Zero” campaign has saved 90 million lives since 1990. In the 2013 UNICEF Progress Report, the organization reported that the global rate of under-five mortality has been reduced by about half since 1990. Despite the efforts of UNICEF and other projects, 216 million children have died before turning five from 1990 to 2013. Most of these deaths resulted from diseases that could be treated easily, including pneumonia, diarrhea or malaria.

Stark explained, “It’s ridiculous that...kids die each day of causes we have the means to easily prevent.”

The “Mile for Change” event enabled the Vassar community to take a stand against unnecessary child mortalities by contributing to the organization monetarily and by learning more about the situation that so many children are born into.

Many members of the Vassar community pass by the College Center at least once a day.

Romero said, “If we can’t secure the future of children, how can we even think to secure our own?” As UNICEF fights for the lives of children, people will continue to pass by the College Center. Some of the onlookers will remember the event with hopes of more children surviving that day.

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MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

October 24, 2013

OPINIONS

Page 9

THE MISCELLANY NEWS STAFF EDITORIAL

VSA deserves recognition for work toward transparency

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n recent years, the Vassar Student Association (VSA) set a goal to increase the amount of transparency between itself and the Vassar student body. The VSA has already made significant changes to its operations in the name of transparency so far. Because of these progressions, The Miscellany News recognizes and applauds the VSA’s efforts toward promoting a more informed constituency; Standing Committees now have liaisons, the body’s procedure is more friendly to students inserting their voices into Council meetings and the VSA has begun contributing to The Miscellany News’s Opinions Section as another form of communication outlet.

We encourage the VSA to maintain their efforts to widen transparency with their activities. However, the VSA could still improve how it broadcasts information on committee meeting times, how to contact Joint Committee representatives and how it employs its Twitter feed and website.

The VSA has implemented a few new and helpful programs to increase transparency between itself and the Vassar community. Although all VSA Standing Committees, with the exception of the Finance Committee, are open to the public, very few students have the time or ability to attend these meetings regularly and use them as a resource to stay informed.

The VSA, however, is working to make these Standing Committees and the resources they offer more accessible—even for those who cannot physically attend. For example, the Academic and Finance Committees now have Committee Liaisons assigned to VSA organi-

zations. Academic liaisons help student organizations with maintaining their certification status on campus. For preliminary organizations, the liaisons assist with the process to become a certified VSA organization.

Finance Committee liaisons, meanwhile, allow organizations to discuss applying for funds in a more casual, one-on-one environment. This will help clarify financing procedures and practices for organizations.

In addition, VSA members are working hard to make their weekly council meetings more accessible to any students who attend them. While the VSA operates runs itself in a style of Roberts Rules of Order, a rulebook which designates official procedures for discussion and debate, they have changed some of their rules to promote clarity and accessibility. Moreover, the rules are explained by the President at the opening of each meeting.

Now, students who attend the VSA meetings will have a better understanding of how the student government at Vassar is run—how and who to approach should students have any questions, comments or concerns. Beyond this, students who attend VSA meetings are now pushed to the front of the speaker’s list and designated as “at-large” members.

Discussion begins with their concerns and questions, bringing them to the forefront.

The VSA has also engaged with The Miscellany News to further distribute information to students on what happens during open council meetings. VSA President Deb Steinberg and the VSA Executive Board have published updates on the VSA in The Misc Opinions Sec-

tion. We encourage more members of the VSA Council to write for The Miscellany News and keep their constituents informed on projects, ideas and goals for the community Despite the VSA’s progress in expanding transparency, more improvements remain.

Though the meeting times for Council and Standing Committees are set in stone—and viewable on the VSA website and the window outside of the College Center—the times are not widely distributed to the student body.

The VSA must constantly disseminate this information to students, even though it is regularly visible as students enter the College Center. Students forget and the VSA must engage them. Special meetings, such as those held when the Operations Committee is reviewing applications for an appointment, meanwhile, are set at the discretion of the Committee chair. On some occasions, this leaves short notice for at-large members to schedule time or be available for special meetings they’re interested in. The VSA should offer a communal web calendar, such as a Google calendar, to make all its public meeting times more accessible and clear. This would be especially helpful for meetings that come on short notice.

Another issue is how few students know how to contact their representatives to the College’s various Joint Committees to express any concerns or questions. Joint Committees, which operate outside of the VSA Council, are collectively comprised of Vassar students, faculty and administrators. These committees govern important decisions regarding topics such as admissions, financial aid, college pol-

icy and sustainability. Joint Committees then relay their important decisions to the Council—decisions that impact not only students, but the Vassar community at large.

Despite both the Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid and the Committee on College Life having elected representatives from each class, their visibility is limited as the VSA does not mandate policies for these elected committee members to communicate with constituents about activities such as holding office hours. After election season ends, these students are, unfortunately, often forgotten by their constituents. The VSA must better publicize their contact information for the general body’s use. If the VSA hopes to increase transparency, it must better broadcast these positions and their importance to the campus. In addition, consistent use of the Council’s Twitter account and website—rather than relying on outlets like The Miscellany News—will direct important information to constituents in a more timely, clear manner.

Nurturing a more informed Vassar community is important; the VSA must be more accessible and less daunting to approach in the eyes of its roughly 2,400 constituents. The VSA Council’s efforts to expand transparency in recent months have been effective, but their remains untapped potential for more successful two-way communication. We look forward to seeing the VSA continue to foster transparency in the months to come.

—The Staff Editorial represents the opinion of at least 2/3 of the Editorial Board.

Media reaction to Cyrus Comprehension of STIs shows industry hypocrisy imperative for well-being Natasha Bertrand Columnist

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rom wardrobe malfunctions to Britney-Madonna make-out sessions, from jerking to twerking to everything in between, Americans are rarely shocked by anything the music industry throws at us anymore. And yet, we felt deeply affronted by Miley Cyrus’ performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, and seemed to be personally scandalized by her Wrecking Ball music video, as if it were the viewer she was licking in her underwear rather than a sledgehammer. Outcry over the implications of Miley’s behavior has ranged from the sexual exploitation and degradation of women on the one hand, to the setback of the entire feminist movement on the other. Add to this debate complaints about cultural appropriation and racism, and it becomes clear that we have actively searched for reasons to be offended by Miley’s newfound persona.

For Sinead O’Connor, Miley’s offense lays in her nudity and sexually suggestive behavior– both onstage and in her music videos–that has allegedly sent a message to women around the world that to be “pimped out” and exploited by the male-dominated music industry is somehow desirable. So it was in the “spirit of motherliness and love” that she wrote an open letter to Cyrus, pleading with her to maintain her artistic integrity and self-respect while she still has any.

(ABC News, “Sinead O’Connor Demands Apology From Miley Cyrus” 10.08.13) Meanwhile, Gloria Steinem took some of the blame off of Miley – placing it instead on a culture that encourages women to “play the game” and surrender to manufactured sexuality – she, like Sinead, however still made her disapproval of Miley’s behavior publicly, and pointedly, known. (Huffington Post, “Gloria Steinem Speaks Out About Miley Cyrus, Ends The Debate Forever” 10.14.13) But why the sudden backlash over a celebrity’s very public display of sexual liberation? Surely by now we cannot feign shock over the images of half-naked women dancing provocatively on stage and in music videos; the “twerking” dance craze–defined (yes, defined) by the Oxford English Dictionary as a “dance to popular music in

a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance” – was introduced into mainstream American hip hop culture over twenty years ago by New Orleans-based DJ Jubilee. Popularized since then by backup dancers and superstars alike, hyper-sexualized dancing marketed for public enjoyment has never received a fraction of the protest that has followed Miley around like a cloud of holier-than-thou angel dust.

So if it was not the dance moves that so accosted us–and really, unless we have been living under a rock, they really could not have been–it must have been Miley herself. Was it that we just did not expect this kind of behavior from the innocent little southern girl who had, only a few years earlier, captured our hearts as bubblegum pop star Hannah Montana?

This certainly gets closer to the source of our discomfort, which goes far deeper than we are willing to admit. But if our protests have stemmed from the fact that we simply did not expect such behavior from Miley, wouldn’t our lack of protest to the ‘twerking’ of artists such as Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj imply that from them, we somehow expect it?

Our exaggerated outcry over Miley’s behavior has only accentuated our silence when watching black women behave in virtually the same way, performing the same dance moves that turned Miley into a harlot overnight to a chorus not of slut-shaming or judgment but pursed lips and tacit acceptance. Where was Sinead O’Connor’s open letter to Rihanna or Ciara, or to each and every one of the backup dancers in the performances and music videos of other prominent hip hop artists, feigning concern over their loss of artistic integrity?

The double standard we have internalized is clear, but we have made every effort to mask it as a feminist cause that we apparently only fight in the name of oversexed white girls. The backlash Miley has received cannot be taken at face value; we must confront the true root of our vexation and begin to recognize our own hypocrisy at work.

—Natasha Bertrand ’14 is a political science & philosophy double major.

Delaney Fischer Guest Columnist

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PV, the human papillomavirus, is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections (STI) throughout the world. In the United States, approximately 79 million people are currently infected with at least one type of HPV. If you have been/currently are/ or are thinking about being sexually active, you might just want to read on.

Recently, I was talking with a friend about my experiences as a Planned Parenthood intern, and I was telling him about how uninformed I had been on STDs/STIs before interning there. I was sharing some not very appealing facts when it came to my attention that, while many know the basics about a lot of STDs/STIs, the specific details of these conditions are often overlooked. For instance, when I asked my friend if he knew about a certain STI, HPV, his response was, “sort of”.

Let me fill you in: HPV is an STI that most sexually-active men and women will be infected with during their lives. It tends to live on the skin. You can get infected with HPV through genital-to-genital contact (i.e. vaginal and/or anal sex) or through mouth-to-genital contact (i.e. oral sex). HPV can affect the genitals, throat and mouth.

Recently, an epidemiologist named Marc Brisson from Laval University in Quebec hypothesized that kissing may even be a way to transfer HPV, but for now, transfer via kissing is just a theory.

Most people infected with HPV don’t even know it. This is because approximately ninety-percent of the time, HPV will actually go away by itself within two years of being infected before any notable health problems arise. There are over 100 types of HPV and only around twelve types are known to cause ‘serious issues.’ And yes, you can have more than one type at a time.

A lot of the types of HPV produce minimal symptoms or none at all, but others can cause some serious health issues. The big symptom that is often talked about is cervical cancer, which is cancer on a woman’s cer-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

vix, generally due to abnormal cell growth.

HPV type 16 and 18 are generally responsible for cervical cancer, and it could take years for symptoms to present themselves. According to Centers for Disease Control, each year, approximately 4,000 women in the U.S. die due to cervical cancer. Other cancers from HPV that can occur in both sexes include genital cancers, and pharyngeal cancer. Genital warts can also be a symptom, as well as recurrent respiratory papillomatosis (RRP), where in which warts grow inside the throat.

Additionally, if a woman becomes pregnant, she can pass RRP onto her child. It should also be known that treatment options are available for these symptoms but not for the virus itself.

How can HPV be prevented? One way is using condoms, whic have been shown to help prevent transfer. Vaccinations are also available for both men and women. For women, two vaccines are available: Cervarix and Gardasil. The vaccine comes in three doses of shots and the recommended age for vaccination is nine through 26. For men, only one vaccine is available: Gardasil. The vaccine comes in three doses of shots and the recommended age for vaccination is 11 through 26. Keep in mind that these vaccines do not work with people who have an active HPV infection, and it’s hard to tell if one has active HPV. If you are interested in vaccinations, please consult your doctor about side effects and if the vaccination is right for you. The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) will eventually require all insurance plans to cover all recommended vaccines, including the HPV vaccines. (Note: This is not propaganda to suggest one needs to be vaccinated, I am just trying to provide basic information.)

So this article may not make one an expert on HPV, but hopefully this information will be helpful in some shape or form. General knowledge of STIs and STDs is important, especially for those who are sexually active.

Know your risks.

—Delaney Fischer ’15 is a neuroscience major.

OPINIONS

Page 10

October 24, 2013

VSA continues projects into second half of semester Deb Steinberg

Guest Columnist

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elcome back from October Break! I wanted to take this opportunity to update the Vassar community on some of the projects that the Vassar Student Association (VSA) has been working on this year. So, the VSA Executive Board and I put together a summary of some of our main initiatives to date.

STUDENT SPACE: While the bookstore will not be moving off campus, the VSA has been working with the Campus Activities Office to begin to address the demand for a more versatile student space on campus. We have returned the upper floor of the All Campus Dining Center to a space where students can hold events in the evenings, and now the East Wing of the lower floor will be open from 10:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. for students to meet, do homework, play games and more.

While the kitchen is closed during these hours, students still have access to the café on the upper level of the space for beverages and light snacks. In the future, we would like to consider the possibility of serving food in this space, since that was one of the major findings of the VSA student space initiative from last year. In case you were wondering, the Board of Trustees is currently exploring potential uses for the Juliet property off-campus.

COLLABORATING WITH PEER INSTITUTIONS: One of our main initiatives for this year is to strengthen our relationship with our peer institutions. Despite our differences, we all have similar goals and face similar challenges, and we could benefit greatly from working together. After participating in the Seven Sisters Student Government Conference the past few years, Vassar College will be hosting the 2013 Conference the first weekend in November. The theme of the conference will be collaboration. We will be exploring the ways our organizations collaborate within our schools,

how our schools can better collaborate with one another, and how we can collaborate as the Seven Sisters to take action in support of our core values. Beyond this conference, we are also looking forward to working more closely with the other colleges in the Poughkeepsie area throughout the year.

VSA FUNDING: Last year, the VSA established a Social Consciousness Fund to better support events and programs on campus that raise awareness and celebrate the diversity of our community. We are looking forward to continuing to utilize and expand this fund throughout this year and in the years to come.

The VSA Finance Committee will also be engaging in more outreach efforts in the weeks to come to make sure all students and organizations are more aware of what funds are available and how we can be more supportive and helpful in the application process. We are hoping to promote the Collaboration Fund more strongly this year, because we would really like to challenge ourselves more to put on events that can reach the full range of students on campus.

SAVP: The Student Life Committee hopes to analyze the process and the language used in regards to the procedure that students undergo when reporting an instance of sexual assault or interpersonal violence. This would involve improving the language that details the process, as well as creating multiple avenues in which this information could be more accessible. One possible avenue is re-orientation, and that would involve creating a panel/Q&A discussion where the administrators involved in the reporting process could inform students of their role in the process as well as answer any questions for the students.

GENDER NEUTRAL BATHROOMS: The Student Life Committee also hopes to promote inclusivity by installing more gender neutral bathrooms in academic buildings. Currently,

there are gender neutral bathrooms in some of the academic buildings, but those bathrooms are typically less accessible. Students on campus do not all feel perfectly comfortable entering gendered spaces. In addition, this move to adding more gender neutral bathrooms in academic buildings would extend our institutional commitment as we already have gender neutral restrooms in our residential halls.

PEER ADVISORS: Over the past few years, the VSA has created and maintained a network of Peer Advisors to complement the faculty pre-major advising system. The stated intent is to register interested juniors and seniors in a searchable database, by means of which anyone with an academic, scheduling, or curricular questions can find someone with the precise expertise to answer it.

In practice, this provides a flexible, user-driven advising resource that collectively can handle almost any question of almost any complexity. The main goal for us this year is to increase student usage of this resource. We have started by ensuring that our advisors come from varied academic backgrounds while also having many important extracurricular experiences. There has also been a distinct focus to ensure a wide array of study abroad programs, sports teams and double majors are represented in the Peer Advising database.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH: The VSA is continuing its efforts to support and expand on programs that engage Vassar students with the Arlington/Poughkeepsie community. On October 5 we held the 6th annual “Meet Me in Poughkeepsie,” where VSA organizations and groups of students planned 17 events that brought students off-campus, ranging from apple picking and go-carts to a trip to Inisfree Garden and an animal sanctuary. We also helped plan the Arlington Street Fair, an all-day festival on Raymond Avenue on September 21 filled with food, performances and representa-

tives from local businesses in addition to Vassar student groups.

In addition, we are continuing to host Tasty Tuesdays, a program where the VSA brings in a variety of restaurants and vendors from the community to sell food in the College Center each week to members of the Vassar community. The event provides a great opportunity for vendors to introduce their products to new customers, and offers students, faculty and staff the opportunity to support local businesses and vary their dining. Finally, the VSA funds a shuttle every Saturday from 3:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. to help transport students to popular destinations in Poughkeepsie including the train station and the Galleria.

VSA REVIEW: Over the past few years a number of students have shown discontent with how they interact with and are represented by the VSA. Last year, a group of concerned students came together and created a list of demands including one that asked that the VSA structure and how different student groups or differentially effected by the VSA be reviewed.

In response, the 28th council of the VSA passed a charter for the “Vassar Student Association Review Committee,” an open ad-hoc research committee tasked with collecting qualitative and quantitative data about student’s experiences with the VSA. The committee aims to have a set of concrete recommendations for improvements later in the year.

It has been wonderful working with so many of you over the past few weeks, and I’m so excited to continue the work we have been doing.

If you have any questions, ideas, concerns, or would like to get more involved in any of these initiatives, please contact me at vsa@@@vassar. edu!

—Deborah Steinberg ’14 is President of the Vassar Student Association. She is a psychology major.

Stress important to manage, balance for healthy life Angela Della Croce Opinions Editor

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tress. It’s now commonly seen as the silent killer. Study after study have come out, emphasizing the negative health effects of a stressful lifestyle, which is perfectly logical if you look at it from an evolutionary perspective: stress is perceived as a signal that one is not thriving in their environment, and if this is so, then perhaps their existence would not be beneficial to the persistence of the species. Thus, their health wanes and they perish.

It sounds a bit morbid, but it certainly makes sense. MedicineNet.com states that approximately 80% of diseases and abnormal conditions can be attributed to or worsened by stress. According to Mayo Clinic’s website, the common effects of stress are broad and numerous.

They include symptoms such as headache, sleeping problems, depression, fatigue, anxiety, stomach problems, hair loss, social withdrawal, a weakened immune system, and even birth defects or a miscarriage for those who are pregnant.

A study conducted by researchers at the University of South Florida and published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (“Stress-Related Protein Speeds Progression of Alzheimer’s Disease”, 09.04.2013), concluded that a protein, which is activated under stress, is genetically linked to psychiatric disorders like anxiety and depression. The protein, called Hsp90, has also shown to accelerate the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

It’s thus pretty obvious that stress is insidious and an unhealthy state. Stress contributes to such mental and physical strife yet with today’s ever-accelerating and increasingly complex world, a stressful lifestyle has never been more prevalent or easy to acquire. Attending college or just having a wage-earning job is simply not enough to even be deemed adequate anymore.

This society has effectively put the quality and extent of one’s happiness and well-being on the back burner while our jobs, “obligations” and duties have swallowed up our time and energy. We’re encouraged to get a college degree and work simultaneously, while intern-

ing, running a blog, starting a family and playing a sport on the side too.

We have various meetings to go to, social media accounts to run, exams to study for, and dozens of organizations to join. We put ourselves through so much for the goal of future happiness and success, but we are suffering in the meantime.

“Is living this increasingly complex, involved and stressful life really worth the health effects...”

And if we’re not stressing over school, we’re stressing over securing a career. After finding work, we find ourselves stressing over our jobs. If it’s not our careers, then we’re stressing over the lives and futures of our children, or securing enough funds for our retirement or simply fighting the clock of time. The list of life’s stresses is endless. Thus, do we even reach this objective of future happiness? It doesn’t seem so.

Is living this increasingly complex, involved, and stressful life really worth the health effects and loss in enjoyment? Given the enduring presence of stress and the extent of its implications, the constant exposure to stress for the sake of some intangible future objective is simply not a balanced trade-off.

Instead of spending of our days worrying over the completion of this or the status of that, we should be diverting some of our time to self-care attitudes and actions that emphasize the promotion of personal well-being, happiness, health and development.

Actions geared towards self-appreciation boost immunity to disease, facilitate positive thinking, put stress-related anxiety and depression at bay, and much more. You look and feel better, both internally and externally. The Association of the European Self-Medication Industry (AESGP) calls self-care a “winning

solution” to maintaining one’s health and overall happiness.

For instance, an article featured in the Journal of Clinical Psychology (“Compassion fatigue: Psychotherapists’ chronic lack of self care”, 10.29.2002), a study found that psychotherapists would deal with the chronically ill often ignore their own personal needs for the stress-inducing, emotionally-taxing needs of their clients.

This chronic lack of self-care paired with their very busy and stressful job could lead to compassion fatigue, a severe form of caregiver burnout. Symptoms of compassion fatigue include hopelessness, persistent anxiety and stress, a negative attitude, sleeplessness and a decrease in experiences in pleasure. This could be detrimental to the therapist, both professionally and personally.

The article advises attempting to separate work from home life and, more importantly, developing methods to enhance satisfaction and well-being to avoid and/or alleviate compassion fatigue. It is thus an incredibly important yet often overlooked component of our lives; ignoring our personal needs should be a pattern of the past.

Of course, everything is a trade-off: If you’re sleeping then you’re not writing your paper due tomorrow. If you’re enjoying your vacation then you’re not taking care of your household duties. But we should value self-care enough to feel comfortable with this sacrifice.

By going to college, we have already taken the first step to a life that can incorporate selfcare. Instead of going straight into the labor market, which would likely not result in a job that maximizes life-long happiness, we are taking the time to investigate our passions and interests in order to find an area of study that truly makes us tick. Then, one day, we would hopefully have the opportunity to work somewhere where we both gain satisfaction and a stable income.

But this isn’t enough. The college route is a stressful one, as we all know. Putting time aside to appreciate yourself—especially at our young and very capable age—is crucial and will probably make our goal of an ideal career much easier.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

For instance, if you are working hard every night with no breaks, you may become disenchanted with your collegiate education and your field of concentration. But if your well-being is higher via self-care, you’ll likely appreciate your education more and thus be more productive.

And contrary to what we think, it doesn’t take much to incorporate a little self-love in your day. You can still be hard-working, ambitious and studious while appreciating yourself. Taking yoga or a Pilates class only takes an hour a few days a week and creates a world of a difference.

“Of course, everything is a trade-off: If you’re sleeping then you’re not writing your paper due tomorrow.”

A 30-minute morning jog is a great way to incorporate physical activity and “feel-good” endorphins into your agenda. Meditation or even a short evening walk for fresh air is effective for relaxation and wouldn’t take more than an hour of your time.

Finding ways to indulge or reward yourself for your accomplishments is also an effective way to treat yourself with care and incentivize hard work. It is therefore very possible to have a both healthy and productive lifestyle.

As I like to half-jokingly say, treat yourself as you would your most precious electronic gadget: You treat it with care, ensure that it’s fully-charged, protect it from damage, and invest your time and money into preserving its condition so that it lives a long and malfunction-free life.

This is how we act towards your iPad; let’s start treating our bodies and minds the same way.

—Angela Della Croce ’15 is an economics major.

October 24, 2013

OPINIONS

Anti-feminism remains prevalent online Lily Elbaum

Guest Columnist

I

was browsing SayAnything, one of the blogs frequented by Vassar students that provides a space for anonymous posting, which isn’t usually a good thing to do if you want to retain your faith in the general goodness of Vassar and humanity.

It’s a good site because it allows people to air their opinions without fear of being individually and personally targeted, however, many people use it to post hurtful or bigoted points of view.

Lately it’s been full of posts on cultural appropriation, feminism and white privilege; I admit I cringed on the inside when someone posted that they’d gotten into Vassar basically because they had money.

Vassar has a need-blind admission policy (aside from the transfer and international students), so this was quite surprising to say the least. But for the most part, I like to think that students at Vassar are the smart, talented people they seem to be.

As I was scrolling, one post in particular caught my eye; it was about having to defend yourself when saying you are a feminist, especially if you’re a female-identified person.

As a female, this seems really unfortunate and frustrating.

The post mentioned that often times, women feel the need to separate themselves from extreme feminists- the ones that go out and rally, burn bras, that type of thing. But why is it necessary to distinguish what “type” of feminist you are?

Standing up for your much-deserved rights isn’t something to be ashamed of, and it is an absolute fact that women still don’t have equal rights or equal opportunity.

Even if the fight for women’s rights has been less dramatic than the civil rights’ fight,

that doesn’t make it less important.

I read an article on some guy’s blog. He was the sort of typical bro- polo shirts, beer and all judging by the pictures on the website- and he had several articles dealing with women. One of them had been posted on SayAnything, and it was about the telltale signs of a slut. (Return of Kings, “24 signs she’s a slut” 09.04.13) The article was basically a lesson for guys on how to tell whether they’re going to get laid, based on how slutty a girl acts.

Additionally, there’s the email from a Georgia Tech fraternity, detailing how to hook up as well as instructing every guy to constantly be attempting to hook up, or they’ll be thrown out of the party and possibly out of the frat. (The Huffington Post, “Georgia Tech frat email about ‘Luring your Rapebait’ condemned by everyone”, 10.08.13) It’s things like this that perpetuate the idea that it’s okay for women to be objectified.

Women as the weaker sex, as being unable to make their own decisions: these are ideas which should have been left in the dust long ago. Instead, they invade modern times in the form of rape culture and slut-shaming, covering up and baring it all.

Women are criticized for adhering to the media’s idea of beauty, but shamed for not meeting those same, skewed ideas. If a woman chooses to dress modestly and/or not have sex, she’s called a prude, if she dresses and acts more provocatively, then she’s slammed for being a slut or a whore.

And even if a girl manages to strike a healthy balance and find a happy medium, they still can’t escape the rampant sexism exhibited by all the random men one meets in day. It’s impossible to leave behind the chains of misogyny and patriarchy that dominate society worldwide.

So where does that leave us? To give up the

fight is unimaginable—no, the fight must continue- but is it a fight that can be won? There has been progress, mostly in the last century or so, but things are a long way from being equal. Every gain that has been made has been strongly and bitterly contested as long-held beliefs are forced to give way to social change and efforts for equality and progress.

“It’s impossible to leave behind the chains of misogyny and patriarchy that dominate society...”

However, as everyone knows, equality under the law does not necessarily guarantee equality in practice.

There are countries which are more advanced that the United States, and some which are far behind. But truth is, there is no truly equal country in the entire world. And what does that say about humanity?

Feminism isn’t, and should not be, a religion. It is a way of life. It’s people standing up and saying that women have the right to be paid the same and treated the same as men.

It’s saying that possession of different organs is not a way to determine superiority or dominance. Feminism isn’t about being a woman or a man, it’s about equal rights for everyone, and that is nothing to be ashamed of.

Noah Rocklin

Within ten minutes of meeting Seth Warner, I got into an argument with him. It was freshman orientation and something he said struck me as naïve, so I summoned all of my seventeen-year old sophistication and, I’m sure, made a total fool of myself. I was on the debate team throughout high school and was used to having intense arguments with people who knew a lot about the issues, and I recognized that in Seth. But debate didn’t prepare me to talk to Seth, because he wasn’t trying to win our argument, and he wasn’t trying to bring me down either. The most surprising thing about Seth, and one of the reasons I’m proud to call him my best friend today, is that Seth listens.

Because he thinks he might be wrong, and more importantly, because he cares about what other people have to say.

Seth is running for Dutchess County Legislator. It’s a decision he didn’t take lightly, and he moved off of Vassar’s campus in order to feel more a part of the community that he wants to represent. Seth is a smart, motivated guy who genuinely cares about the issues, and about us, the voters. I understand if that sounds hokey, or unbelievable.

Often when people who don’t know Seth very well are talking to me about him, they’ll mention that he came off strangely, very enthusiastic and friendly to a fault. They think he must have been being insincere, and that’s when I get to correct them. The reason Seth seems enthusiastic every single time he meets someone (and as a politician he meets tons of people each week) is because he is actually enthusiastic to meet everyone. He isn’t pretending, and there isn’t a difference between “Campaign Seth” and “Regular Seth.” He’s actually interested, engaged and motivated to help other people. If this all sounds sounds hokey that’s because we’re used to politicians who don’t really care, and get into politics for the wrong reasons. If it sounds unbelievable, it’s because Seth is unbelievable.

I’m not really the most political person. I have strong opinions on many issues, sure, but

when it comes to actually taking action, I have a spotty track record. I’ve never worked for a campaign, I’ve only voted in one election, and when it came to the local issues, I had no idea what I was voting on. I wouldn’t be writing this column for any Democrat running for County Legislator, or necessarily even for any friend of mine running for office.

“Seth is running for Dutchess County Legislator. It’s a decision he didn’t take lightly...”

Seeing the passion that drives Seth to make a difference and make a change for the better in our county has forced me to take an interest.

And I’ve realized that it matters to me what happens here, where I’ve been living for the past three years.

Seth understood it from the get-go; if we want to make a better world, like so many Vassar students do, there’s no better place to do it than right here. Seth wants to focus on a couple issues in particular. If we’re going to change our world, we need someone we can trust working in our government. Seth is that person for me, and he’s that person for everyone else in Dutchess.

It’s good that we’ve got him, because right now is a pivotal moment for Dutchess County.

The Republican-controlled County Legislature has proposed a massive expansion of the county jail, which will end up costing our community $200 million. Seth thinks that we can do more with that kind of money than build a large box for people to spend their lives in.

Instead of expanding the county jail, Seth favors expanding programs and initiatives that can aid communities and help prevent people from going down the sorts of paths that lead them into the criminal justice system in the

Word

on the street

Which Halloween costume do you most regret?

“Yo mama’s house.”

—Aiden Kahn ’14

“Big Momma’s House.”

—Aiden Kahn ’14

—Lily Elbaum ’16 is a prospective independent major.

Seth Warner campaign provides a fresh, sincere voice in Dutchess County politics Guest Columnist

Page 11

first place. This will help to prevent incarceration by helping the community as opposed to simply increasing the prison capacity.

Seth also favors an increase in recycling, and revolutionizing the way we deal with waste in our county. Right now most of the waste in Dutchess County is incinerated, which is environmentally suspect and prevents us from unlocking waste’s full potential. An increase in funding for composting and recycling can make us into a greener, more cost-effective community, something that Seth will work hard to accomplish.

Seth once told me that he liked riding on airplanes because it gave him a few hours when he could relax and didn’t have to do any work.

When I said he could do that on the ground too, he seemed incredulous.

Why would he stop working to help people unless he were floating in sky and unable to do anything else?

When Seth gets something in his head, he doesn’t quit. If you vote for him on November 5th, I can promise he’ll work for you and he won’t quit. It’s actually one of his more irritating qualities as a friend, to be honest.

I’ve wanted to do something related to comedy since I was in high school, but I never had the courage. When I mentioned this off-hand to Seth at the beginning of last year, he insisted that I audition for the campus comedy groups.

In fact, he wouldn’t shut up about it. He got me to attend the comedy preview show, and when I wanted to slip out without signing up, he wouldn’t let me leave. I signed up and now I’m doing stand-up comedy with ComedyNormative, which has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

Seth wouldn’t let me leave Sanders Auditorium that night because, even when I didn’t believe in myself, Seth believed in me. He has a long track record of supporting his friends and family just like he supported me, and I know he’ll do the same as Legislator. Seth Warner believes in Dutchess County. And I believe in Seth Warner.

—Noah Rocklin ’14 is an English major.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

“The Actual House.”

—Aiden Kahn ’14

“Wait, can I change that?”

—Aiden Kahn ’14

“Soup.”

—Aiden Kahn ’14

“A prison inmate.

They don’t have Halloween in prison. I regret that one.”

—Aiden Kahn ’14

Lily Doyle Humor & Satire Editor Spencer Davis, Photo Editor

OPINIONS

Page 12

October 24, 2013

Efforts in campus discourse at odds with new issues Joshua Sherman Opinions Editor

H

aving good campus discourse remains one of the hurdles the Vassar community has yet to successfully throw itself over. I hope October break has given everyone here—students, faculty, and administrators alike­­—an opportunity to reflect on the moments of success and failure we’ve had on campus in the first few weeks of the school year. It’s imperative that we continue to look for ways to improve campus discourse in order to maximize our potential to improve our campus as a space for us all.

First I will applaud the efforts of several groups, notably the Campus Life Resources Group (CLRG), and the Vassar Student Association (VSA). The CLRG, part of the Campus Life and Diversity Office and under Associate Dean Ed Pittman, has recently undergone an internal restructuring to focus on supporting the ideas and efforts of students within the group. The group’s focus allows it to, at the grassroots level, listen to the concerns, ideas, and thoughts of students and be able to provide the resources necessary to help great ideas or initiatives take hold on campus. I couldn’t be more happy for this transition and the efforts of the students and administrators that make up the CLRG. The CLRG is meeting once again on October 30th at 3PM in the Faculty Commons and I urge students interested in supporting the efforts of the CLRG to come to the next meeting.

The VSA also deserves credit as of late for their efforts to try to create more good discourse within Vassar’s own student government. The VSA has been working on a number of projects to increase not just the transparency of its governing, but also increase the accessibility of elected individuals and standing committees to at-large members. The creation of an internal review committee is also com-

mendable, as it demonstrates sincerity in the VSA’s efforts to try to improve upon its errors and try to offer a government that is, if necessary, restructured to improve its ability to govern our student population.

While there is a general discontent among students about what is wrong with the VSA, the proactivity to create an internal review committee, increase visibility of appointment meetings, and to increase general transparency are going to help immensely with the nature of discourse on this campus, as students will feel more comfortable utilizing the structural channels that exist.

“The VSA also deserves credit as of late for their efforts to try to create more good discourse...”

As for an example in recent memory that demonstrates a poor instance of campus discourse, the one that seems most striking to me occurred on the anonymous message board SayAnything. I don’t like to talk about SayAnything as I feel it isn’t a space that should be acknowledged in discourse, but it’s this exact issue of acknowledgment that has unfortunately come up and complicated the relationship of this space with campus discourse.

Sometime in September, an anonymous individual posted a message that spoke ill of the veterans who had arrived on campus this year as part of the new Posse Program. In response to this negative speech, a representative of Vassar’s administration reached out to the moderator of SayAnything and requested the post be taken down.

This is startling for a number of reasons.

For one, it’s ridiculous to expect an authority like Vassar’s Administration to acknowledge or respect the statements made in an anonymous space like SayAnything, and it reflects a lapse in judgment that only encourages further negative speech on SayAnything, since it’s the sort of conversations that will get Administration to pay attention to the space. Second, this is the first time Vassar’s Administration has intervened in a space like SayAnything, asking for the moderators to take a post down. This is problematic because this is not the first instance that individuals have posted negative commentary on the website.

In fact, there had been acts of full-blown hate speech committed on SayAnything in the past, but only now has Administration decided to step in and make a statement toward anonymous discussion boards on out college campus.

While it’s debatable whether or not students should take advantage of anonymous spaces, it’s without a doubt that they are not the place for administrative officials to make a stand for good or bad discourse.

The problem here has to do with more than just SayAnything, or even with just trying to create more spaces capable of good discourse.

The problem is that you cannot expect the efforts of any campus administration—Vassar or elsewhere­—to legitimately affect campus discourse by simply forcing action upon the spaces (anonymous or not) that already exist.

I don’t think hate speech or unproductive criticism is a good form of discourse, but it is certainly bad for discourse when administrations selectively decide when hate speech is unacceptable in an anonymous space that has self-determined rules already in place.

The ability to ensure good discourse and discussions on our campus begins with setting specific channels that will respect the discussions that take place, and only using those as an effective means to carry out the discussions

students, faculty, and administrators are then interested in.

If Administration wants to make a stand against hateful speech on campus, it should do so through its own channels by trying to help fight the hateful speech, not simply have it removed on a case-by-case basis. Selective action comes across as selective caring, and it doesn’t positively affect the causes of hateful speech on campus either.

“If Administration wants to make a stand against hateful speech on campus, they should do it through its own channels....”

Vassar College remains a space that I feel is in need of better avenues for discourse. Sure, it isn’t terrible, but I think we know better, and we could certainly do better too. I will admit I don’t exactly know what these better avenues are, and I don’t have many suggestions yet. What I do feel is that better discourse will come as a product of collective efforts from not just student organizations but also administrative offices, and it will certainly help if discourse is approached with more motivations than mere censorship.

Regardless, I am hopeful for the future and look forward to the accomplishments our Vassar community will make in the months to come to bring better discourse to our campus.

—Joshua Sherman ’16 is an English major.

The Miscellany Crossword

by Jack Mullan, Crossword Editor

ACROSS 1 Glass of NPR 4 Flying saucer 7 “New World” Symphony composer 13 Pants part 14 Japanese drama 15 Native on the Horn of Africa 16 Erykah Badu song title 18 Break 19 −____− or >:O 22 Color specialists 23 Isl. south of Corsica 24 Hatfield adversary 26 Cheerleader’s chant 28 :D or 8−) 34 Punk rock subgenre 36 Hearing organ 37 Radio feature 38 In the 90s, perhaps 39 :/ ...

43 Airport search org.

44 Glow

46 “So ___ me!”

47 Cash in Kyoto 48 </3 53 Mobile phone producer with the slogan “Life’s Good” 54 Late crocodile hunter Steve 55 Works in a gallery 58 ___ car (2 wds.)

61 Faces conveyed through text, or the clues for 19−, 28−, 39−, and 48− across & 12− and 58− down 66 Bluffers words 68 Sea cow 69 More kempt 70 Stuff to dig up 71 Subj. for bilinguals 72 Put the ___ on (squelch) 73 Reveal, in poetry 74 Org. in charge

Answers to last week’s puzzle

of the train from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central DOWN 1 Breakfast chain 2 Italian painter Guido 3 Stockpile 4 Like the Titanic 5 Stomach filler 6 Speed skater Apolo Anton 7 Medicaid reimbursement payment: Abbr.

8 Lacking (2 wds.)

9 Ruling dynasty in early Damascus 10 Give a score 11 Ethnic group native to Uganda 12 :* 17 Email−snooping gov’t org.

20 Popular online melancholy acronym 21 Certificate for graduates of some 71−across programs 25 First name of a prestigious baseball award 26 Place to get clean 27 Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie ___” 29 Big mouth 30 Get on one’s nerves 31 The “C” in N.Y.C. 32 Sitting stand 33 Bad, for good 35 Spanish alternative?

40 Happy ___ clam 41 1921 play that

introduced the word “robot” 42 Guantanamo prisoner 45 Emperor beginning in 1989 49 Clears an Etch A

Sketch, e.g.

50 2012 Zadie Smith novel 51 Rush 52 File extension abbr.

56 Sony rival 57 Image on an Indian

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

pole 58 ;) 59 “Whose woods these ___ think I know”: Frost 60 Volvo rival 62 Melville work set in

Tahiti 63 Notorious 2008 bailout acronym 64 Egg−hatching spot 65 Actress Ward 67 Wells Fargo Stock Abbr.

October 24, 2013

HUMOR & SATIRE

Page 13

OPINIONS

Breaking News From the desk of Lily Doyle, Humor & Satire Editor Vassar students celebrate 150th-ish anniversary of totally forgetting that doing work is “a thing” over October Break How to win at Halloweekend: Fall Break quest for “cool”: Great The Miscellany News Guide Cuts weirdly not the answer Lily Doyle

Humor & Satire Editor

G

uys, Cappy has declared it to be Halloweekend. This makes less than zero sense, given that Halloween is on a Thursday the week after, and I know for a fact that Cappy celebrates Thirsty Thursday because she always wears a scarf on Friday. We all know what a scarf means. Hickeys. Or that it’s a bit breezy outside. But mostly hickeys.

Anyways, despite the fact that Halloweekend is a week early, Vassar will obviously still be going hard in the metaphorical paint. In case you are looking for a reason to be offended, I am referring to the paint that small children use to decorate pumpkins sometimes. (Nothing else. Stop it. I’m not Waka Flocka Flame, don’t rub it in).

For those of you that don’t know what happens during Halloweekend because you are 1) a freshman or 2) like everyone else and don’t read the pamphlet that the VSA sends out, I have highlighted within this article the most important points of how to succeed at Vassar Halloween.

The best part of Halloweekend, other than small children running around in adorable costumes, is the Villard Room party. No, don’t argue with me. I’m a little sister, so I’m always right.

It’s the best. Everyone is there, even the seniors, because the college gives them alcohol. Those three drinks will be a delightful accompaniment to the whiskey that you smuggled in by dressing as a member of the mob and insisting that the flask is a necessary part of your costume.

Not only is the place packed, but everyone looks GREAT (read: super weird), and you will leave with stories that you couldn’t get from any other night. Some of my personal favorites include “Bane from Batman stepped on my toe and I wasn’t wearing shoes so I lost my toenail but he was really sweet about it”, or “I was dancing with Luigi but he was really freaking me out so I pretended I had to go to the bathroom, and I ran into a shark outside so we ended up leaving together; he just made me feel safe you know?”

Even better, if you are feeling really ambitious, or were raised in a competitive family like I was, you can take the Villard Room party as a school-sponsored competition to set some personal records. Everyone knows things aren’t fun unless you’re winning. Momma always said

second place is first loser. She might have been joking but she also might not have been and I wasn’t going to risk my delicate child psyche on that thin line. Personal records I have set on Halloween include falling on the TH path twice (it had snowed all day, OK?), pinching the butt of someone I thought was my close friend but was really a guy on the lacrosse team, and eating four slices of Bacio’s in one night. Also every year I have managed to forget at least one crucial aspect of my costume, so that no one can really tell who I am, and I just look like a girl in a tight American Apparel dress, which is what I dress up as every other weekend night. It’s pretty clear that I’m a winner.

My goal for this year is to not dress up like myself, and to see how many glasses of mystery jungle juice I can drink and still run the 5k the next morning. I also wouldn’t mind things like getting a job offer based solely off of the creativity of my costume, or maybe carving a pumpkin so beautiful that it sells for millions to a person who doesn’t understand the concept of mold so that I never have to work again in my life. But I like to aim low (which, oddly enough, my professors don’t always react well to when I tell them that during office hours).

If you’re not the “goal setting” type of person, don’t worry. You can still win Halloweekend.

You’ve got some pretty basic achievements to conquer.

Don’t get EMS-ed. That’s an automatic loss.

You WERE a sexy pizza (real costume, look it up) but now you are a sad vomit-flavored pizza that no one wants a bite of. If that sentence right there doesn’t immediately give you a frowny-face reaction you are heartless and a possible sociopath and you don’t appreciate a good pun.

DO have a cool costume (see above, sans vomit) that both intrigues and repulses people at the same time. The more modern art you are, the better. I read that the other day in The New Yorker while sipping on some San Pellegrino and eating a fair trade scone. Yeah, those exist. It was only 27 dollars and came with free pretension. If you aren’t sure of a costume that qualifies, think “Taylor Swift mixed with Ludwig van Beethoven mixed with a literal beet”.

OK, Taylor van Beet was pretty much my best advice. You’re ready.

Chris Gonzalez Senior Editor

E

ver since I was a youngin’ I’ve always tried to keep my thumb on what the cool kids were up to (note: using “cool kids” was never one of those things). This either-you’re-in-oryou’re-out mentality, which began when I ignored my kindergarten teacher by following my classmate Kendrick’s lead to continue playing well after playtime had ended (I needed a friend and he, too, was a rebel, used words like “damn” and “hell,” and was much cooler then than I ever will be in this lifetime), has stuck to the fibers of my brain.

So while October Break is a time for students to catch up on sleep, enjoy some time off from classes and ignore any and all assigned reading and papers, I’m always inappropriately and unnecessarily excited to participate in one of the more ritualistic, almost spiritual experiences of break: haircuts. If you don’t get a haircut over break then what was the point?

Loser. Ha. Yes, the mid-semester break is filled with the buzzing of clippers and snipping of scissors as they hack away at mounds of hair that for the last six weeks have presumably been washed with Natty Light and Crystal Palace Vodka, conditioned with the tears and drool that accompany all-nighters, and dried by a moldy, unwashed towel, because you probably haven’t done laundry since the first week of classes. If you think about it, the six week mark is the perfect time to get a haircut. It allows our winter coats the opportunity to grow into something that looks more like a choice and less like Tom Hanks in Cast Away.

Originally I had planned to get my haircut the first weekend of break, before I embarked on my car and bus ride back to Ohio. Much to my chagrin, however, the barbershop on Raymond Avenue was closed for the entire weekend, leaving me haircutless. I had two options: Find another barbershop in Poughkeepsie or wait until I was back home. I would have chosen option number one, but I have this weird thing when it comes to going to barbershops I’ve never been to before—I don’t. It took me two years to muster up the courage to enter the one on Raymond Avenue and I only went

because if I had waited any longer my facial hair and my head hair would have merged into one mass of fur; I would have looked like something a cat yaks up on the carpet. Or worse, a Furbee. Had it been winter I probably could have passed it off as a new type of face hat.

So I waited until I returned back to the good old Midwest—an awful decision. Partly because it was a horrible experience, mainly because it was in the Midwest.

You see, it had been a whopping seven months since I had stepped foot in my house last. I kind of forgot that my “usual” barber wasn’t my “usual” because he was good, but because I have been going to him since I was old enough to realize bald fades weren’t a good look for me but young enough not to tell my mommy I didn’t like them. Such is life. In recent years this barber has taken on a new approach to running a business. I haven’t exactly figured out what his tactic is, but I’m pretty sure only being open for three days out of the year is one of them (none of those days fell within the break).

With seemingly no options left, I went to the only other barber shop in Cleveland that I knew. I arrived about ten minutes before noon and sat there until 1:30 p.m. In that time the barber managed to finish up with two guys, let some old man from off the street jump in front of two of us, all the while yapping on his phone and talking for an interesting, if not frightening amount of time about finding a place that delivers lasagna (I don’t think he ever found one).

At some point I left the barbershop and went to a dental appointment, found out that I need a root canal and a crown, got a cleaning and was out the door in forty minutes. When I returned to the barbershop, a crowd had formed around the lone barber. Still, I was determined.

My rough look was fine when I was traveling, but I needed this haircut. I couldn’t be the only person on campus not to get a haircut. What would my one friend and two acquaintances think? But in the hour it took to watch the barber shave strange designs into a customer’s hair, I decided that life is indeed too short. So I left and went to Great Clips for a haircut.

Great Clips.

I guess I’ll never be cool.

Misc reporter actually going to hunt you down if you don’t shut up in the library immediately

by Lily Sloss, Reporter

I

’ve never written a hate letter before. A sensuous love letter, sure. A pseudo-sext post-Mug a lá Freshmen year. The occasional passive aggressive e-mail to “group project” members. But never an in your face, caution to the wind, here are the things that make me want to defile everything that you hold dear.

However, my first library visit following October Break induced such vitriol (yeah, I took the SAT, what of it?) that I can only articulate my feelings in a hate letter. I’m looking at you, noisy kids in the library.

The cacophony of chatter reached such deafening heights that I asked my table-mates whether I should shout, “Snitches get stitches” over the balcony at my inconsiderate classmates. I decided not to since kids at Vassar don’t typically “get” such references.

Also, no one was “snitching,” per se.

In case you are wondering whether my anger is directed at you, ask yourself the following questions: Do I come to the library and find/join a

gang of my friends?

Do I frequently leave the libz feeling as though I “didn’t get that much done?”

Do I love my voice so much that I feel it necessary to shout?

Does my version of flirting involve raucous laughter at any/all things anyone in my presence says?

Am I so immune to my effect on other people that the entire room could be glaring at me, but I’m so delighted that the attractive swimmer* over there is finally giving me the time of day that I don’t even notice?

You, yes, you. The one with your feet on the table, looking at Facebook, and cackling wildly. I don’t mind if you want to come to the library and then peruse social media, BUT when your deviant behavior leads to raucous revelations with the students around you, I take offense.

In simple terms, stop F*CKING talking in the library. If you want to rock your leggings as pants and dirty hair** and laugh uproar-

iously at the lewd and/or incomprehensible jokes of your peers because they simply are just too funny - do it in the comfort of your Lathrop dorm.

I get it. The idea of a “work break” is not foreign to me. I am not Mrs. Trunchbull. Every hour or so I leave my cubicle, walk to the media room pretending to “check” something while really copping a gaze at the dimes working at the Reserve desk, or have an uncomfortable chat with the kids in Matthew’s Bean while waiting for a boring tea. There is a distinct difference between my low key minibreaks and you talking for 45 minutes about the new jorts you just bought and how FUNNY Billy Bob is and how you think that last text from her means she is really, really into you. This unfiltered, idiotic nonsense makes me want to jump over the balcony and smash your laptop to bits; it also makes me question why you are so interested in a girl named after our local BBQ shack.

Overreaction? Yeah, I bet you think so. You

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

probably also think that the people in your hallway who ask you to stop shouting at 2 am are “unreasonable.”

Whatever, call me a crazed Senior (I don’t even have a thesis, btdubs-I just like to get offended), but don’t say I didn’t warn you. The next time you get all snazzy in a long skirt and hunter boots and go to the library to “see and be seen,” remember how many truly crazy people are sitting around you. People who have a shit-ton of reading, essays, projects, thesis proposals, emails, applications, photoshopping, hacking, hijacking, blackmailing and all those needs also known as STUDYING. I would suggest instead that you display your goods at UpC with all of the other time-wasters.*** *Lily Doyle. **This would be a case of the pot calling the kettle black—guilty as charged. ***I have been informed that people “do work” at UpC but I don’t believe it.

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October 24, 2013

Woodshed’s production, Hot Mess, explores youth culture Margaret Yap

assistant arts editor

“H

Cassady Bergevin/The Miscellany News

ot mess” has become a buzz-phrase used on college campuses all over the country, epitomizing the youth party culture of our present day in age. To explore this subject not often covered in theater, Woodshed Theater Ensemble, one of Vassar College’s student-run theatrical organizations, is putting up the lyrical story of award-winning British playwright and theatrical director Ella Hickson’s 2010 play, Hot Mess.

The ensemble will be producing three performances of the play this coming Friday, October 25 at 10:30 p.m. and Saturday, October 26 at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m..

The productions will run for approximately eighty to ninety minutes and they will be performed in the Susan Stein Shiva Theater. Tickets can be reserved at the Information Desk in the College Center of Main Building and are free of charge.

Hot Mess is set on the United Kingdom’s Hayling Island and features the reunion of the warmhearted Twitch (played by Olivia McGiff ’14) with her colder twin, Polo (Logan Woodruff ’14), on their 25th birthday after a year of separation. The siblings are joined by Twitch’s American lover, Billy (Devin McDuffee ’14), and Polo’s best friend, the love ‘em and leave ‘em Jacks (Sammi Katz ’14); from there, the play follows the foursome on one very hot mess of a night.

Hot Mess focuses on the friendship and loss that comes with the romantic and sexual endeavors of lovers in their twenties.

“We were drawn to it because it speaks to our present party/youth social culture,” wrote Katz in an emailed statement. “It’s a facet of our lives, especially here at Vassar, which we don’t usually portray in our art. It forces us to evaluate our own habits and perceptions of love, hooking-up and social interactions. It’s a play written for our generation.”

The Woodshed members as a cohesive group began the process of electing a show early on in the semester. “We began the pro-

cess the first week of school by reading plays and deciding what kind of show we were interested in doing this semester,” wrote McGiff in an emailed statement.

Hot Mess was selected by Woodshed as a whole, guided by Woodruff. Its members, who met approximately four times a week for two to three hour rehearsal periods in preparation for the performances, were attracted to the vibrancy of the text and the subject matter the play explores.

“We just picked it because…we all thought we could play fun characters and have fun lights,” wrote Woodshed member James Kelly ’16 in an emailed statement.

With imaginative characters who are intriguing to interpret, the play is very much an interactive experience for its actors and production crew. “Hot Mess is not just a play; it is an immersive theatrical experience that blurs the line of reality and meta-theatricality,” wrote Woodruff.

Members of Woodshed found the play both stimulating and challenging to work with.

“The first time we all read [the script of the play], we didn’t really know what was happening.” Nevertheless, the complexity of the script provided the opportunity for the group to explore the intricate relations between its characters. “The fluidity between reality, memory scape and dream was challenging but also makes Hot Mess that much better of a play,” wrote Woodshed member Nora Kaye ’16 in an emailed statement.

Recalling her own experience with the production, Katz wrote in an emailed statement, “The four of us actors have been working with each other for numerous Woodshed productions so there is a level of trust and comfort. I felt free to make really big choices and I wasn’t afraid to make a really big fool of myself while exploring my crazy character.”

Woodshed was founded in 2001 as a student-run collaborative theater ensemble that focuses on encouraging its individual members to use their personal attitudes toward, and experiences with, theater to create dynamic

Woodshed members Logan Woodruff ’14 and Olivia McGiff ’14 rehearse a scene from Hot Mess, which they will perform in the Susan Stein Shiva Theater Friday and twice on Saturday. combinations of thought that result in memorable full-length productions. The ensemble’s work varies greatly with each semester, as its members tend to pursue their own preexisting theatrical interests as well as forms of theatrical expression and theatrical roles they may not be as familiar with.

Woodshed is a non-hierarchical organization that currently has six members, but the number of individuals involved in the group fluctuates, changing the desires of the group as it strives to work with the experiences and needs of its members.

Members experiment with various roles as dramaturges, actors, designers, directors and the like. As such, the ensemble has produced various forms of theater, ranging from Shakespearean comedies to contemporary dramas, over the years.

“Woodshed is a great opportunity to try

all aspects of theater and collaborating to create really innovative and exciting works of theater,” wrote its members in a collective emailed statement.

Students interested in joining the ensemble should be aware that tryouts are held at the beginning of each spring semester and that students of all levels of theatrical experience are more than welcome to audition.

An innovative and dynamic group, Woodshed provides Vassar students an opportunity to explore their interests in theater. When asked for the advice it could give to aspiring directors and actors, the ensemble wrote in a collective emailed statement: “Try it all! There are so many exciting aspects of theater to explore. See as much theater as possible! Read plays that you don’t know because without being open-minded we never would have found this show.”

Genre-defying DaFunq? draws on eclectic backgrounds Samantha Kohl Guest reporter

F

or lovers of groove and funk, a new student band is here to get you dancing. At 9:00 p.m. on Friday, October 25, DaFunq? will be having their second official performance at Vassar, live in the Villard Room and hosted by ViCE Student Music.

The group promises a feel-good, soulful concert that will be impossible not to dance along to. DaFunq?’s singer, keyboardist and band organizer Steve Xie ’15 describes DaFunq?’s signature sound as high-energy and funky.

The group is Vassar’s own rhythm and blues band that has a repertoire that spans decades.

“We play songs from as far back as the ’60s all the way till yesterday, and we perform our own renditions of these songs,” said Xie. But the band is not bound to the world of cov-

ers and plans to expand their playlist. “Soon enough, you’ll hear some originals from us,” Xie divulged.

DaFunq? was born last semester when Xie and Jon Walker ’15 decided to host an event entitled “A Night of Soul” at Ferry House where Vassar students could listen and dance to Motown, R&B and soul classics.

After the show, the two came together and concluded that they should form a band to continue playing similar concerts.

Today, DaFunq?’s repertoire includes everything from well-known classics to lesser known pieces.

Including Walker, who is currently taking the semester off, and Xie, DaFunq? is made up of eight band members. Many of the members are new to the band this semester.

Xie, a self-proclaimed R&B and soul lover,

courtesy of DaFunq?

DaFunq?, a student band formed last semester, will perform October 25 in the Villard Room. This will be the group’s second performance on campus, and their show is hosted by ViCE Student Music.

leads the band in performance as the organizer, keyboardist and singer.

“I enjoy producing music, as well as performing live,” said Xie. The band organizer is also able to perform with the Vastards, one of Vassar’s co-ed a capella groups, along with fellow DaFunq? members Evan Schlaich ’14 and Emily Wexler ’14.

Max Baumbach ’15, an English major, is the band’s bassist and also happens to be a self-professed hip-hop aficionado. Baumbach produces his own hip-hop tracks and raps. In addition to this musical repertoire, Baumbach frequently reads and writes about the greater hip-hop culture.

While DaFunq? is not a hip-hop band, Baumbach’s talents certainly do not going to waste. “[Baumbach] has perfect pitch… a fantastic feel for music, and can play the shit out of a bass guitar,” stated Xie. “He knows so much about music—it’s crazy.”

Sam Fritschel ’15, a math major, is DaFunq?’s drummer. Fritschel will be performing with DaFunq? for the first time this Friday. While Fritschel may be DaFunq?’s drummer, he also plays the guitar and has his own band called Vishnu Basement. “[Vishnu Basement] is an absolutely killer progressive rock band that nobody at Vassar should ever miss out on,” stated Xie. Vishnu Basement, who performed in the Mug last semester as part of the programming planned by ViCE Jazz, is currently recording an album. Apart from DaFunq? and Vishnu Basement, Fritschel works as a member of a jazz combo.

Evan Schlaich ’14 serves as the band’s percussionist. “[Schlaich] has got a great feel for rhythm”, added Xie. He does everything from playing the bongos to beatboxing and drumming for DaFunq?. Schlaich is currently also a member of the Vastards.

A drama major, Schlaich is currently working on writing a musical, which he hopes will be produced and performed sometime during the spring 2014 semester.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Brendan Blendell ’15 is a music major and the guitarist of DaFunq?. Blendell, having joined the band this semester, will be making his debut performance with DaFunq? on October 25.

Blendell has also used his musical talent in his capacity as a member of a jazz combo.

“Brendan is a virtuoso that has an immense amount of knowledge about music, from classical to rock, to R&B/soul. A very dedicated musician, Brendan picks up stuff really quickly and is a very technical guitar player,” Xie revealed.

John Winton ’16 is the band’s saxophonist and, like Blendell, also joined DaFunq? this semester. Apart from his involvement in jazz and other music groups, Winton plays tight head prop on Vassar’s rugby team. “He can probably be known as the toughest guy in our band,” Xie observed.

Working alongside Xie, much of DaFunq’s vocals can be attributed to fellow singer Emily Wexler ’14 . “She’s got one of the most powerful and at the same time crafted voices in this school,” said Xie. Wexler is a drama major and a member of the Vastards. When not singing lead, Wexler is in charge of the back up vocals for DaFunq?.

“Expect to dance. Dance, dance. Not Fall out Boy style; actually dance,” said ViCE’s Sam Plotkin ’15, who organized the event. “I’ve played before with, I think, everyone in DaFunq?, and they’re all great musicians. I would imagine that there will be plenty of recognizable funk and soul classics that will be plenty of fun.” “[The Villard Room] has a huge dance floor, but it can still feel for the audience like you’re getting up close and personal with the band,” Plotkin explained.

And, because of its central location, Plotkin said that people are sure to hear the loud music and come dance.

Plotkin also extended his apologies to those residents of Main who prefer to study on Friday nights, as he believed that this may prove impossible when DaFunq? is performing.

October 24, 2013

ARTS

Laughs are hard to find in fall comedy lineup Max Rook Columnist

I

t’s that time of year, when all of the TV networks debut their new shows, half of which will be completely forgotten within a year. This has been a particularly rough year, with quality shows few and far between. This week, I’ll be focusing on some of the notable comedies.

We’ve already had a couple of cancellations, and more shows are teetering on the edge, so I tried to cover shows that seem like they have a shot at survival. I also ignored this season’s truly terrible shows—I’m looking at you, Dads. All of these shows are only a few episodes into their runs, so you can catch up easily on Hulu or on the networks’ websites.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine (FOX, Tues., 8:30 p.m.)

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is this season’s most assured comedy out of the gate, although that doesn’t exactly mean it’s hilarious. The early episodes of comedies are rarely very strong, but this show at least has its tone and sense of style figured out. Andy Samberg stars as a detective in Brooklyn’s 99th district, who clashes with a new captain played by Andre Braughre.

Samberg plays a variation on his normal shtick, albeit toned down to create a believable character, but the real attraction here is Braughre, who gets most of the episode’s biggest laughs with a clever variation on the standard straight-laced authority figure. The show is still figuring out what to do with the rest of the cast, but is filled with talented comic actors like Terry Crews, Joe La Truglio, and Chelsea Peretti, who are versatile enough to handle whatever they’re given.

The writing team is largely drawn from NBC’s Parks & Recreation, which was a show that took a little while to find itself, but once it did, it became one of the funniest shows on TV. Hopefully, Brooklyn Nine-Nine will follow the same path.

The Crazy Ones (CBS, Thurs., 9 p.m.)

I imagine people who still find everything

Robin Williams does hilarious will enjoy The Crazy Ones. Williams plays an ad executive working with his daughter, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar. The show allows Williams to play a typical Robin Williams character in exactly the manner you would expect—cheap impressions, exaggerated mannerisms, the whole deal. Personally, I find him insufferable, but I recognize that others disagree, and will probably find him entertaining here.

More troubling is the fact the show doesn’t really have anything else going for it. Gellar is horribly underserved in a role that forces her to be an uptight killjoy. In fact, the strongest part of the early episodes has been James Wolk’s turn as a gleefully callous playboy-type. Troublingly, the pilot features the characters pitching an ad to McDonald’s, and while the result, featuring a fun guest spot from Kelly Clarkson, is the funniest moment the show has had yet, it feels uncomfortably like The Crazy Ones itself is actually an ad for the company. With some retooling, this show could settle into a nice groove, but for now it is difficult to recommend.

Michael J. Fox Show (NBC, Thurs., 9:30 p.m.)

Michael J. Fox is a national treasure, one who has been largely absent from the public view since he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 1991. The Michael J. Fox Show marks his return to television in a family sitcom designed around him. Fox plays a beloved news anchor sidelined by a similar disorder making his triumphant return to TV. It’s a thin premise, and his work life is only a small portion of the show’s focus. In reality, this is basically a gentler version of Modern Family, complete with cut-aways to confessional interviews. Thankfully, Fox has retained his impeccable comic timing, and the supporting cast includes Breaking Bad’s Betsy Brandt as his wife and The Wire’s Wendell Pierce as his best friend. Even his children are a little more clearly defined than the rest of this year’s crop of sitcom kids. The writing isn’t quite there yet, but the show’s goals aren’t exactly lofty. It prob-

ably won’t ever be a great comedy, but you could do worse than this show’s pleasant atmosphere.

Mom (CBS, Mon., 9:30 p.m.)

The latest show from prolific sitcom creator Chuck Lorre, whose previous work includes Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory, Mom suggests he may have moved on from his typical formula. Anna Faris plays a single mom whose life is upended when her long-absent mother, played by Allison Janney, comes back into her life. It’s certainly clichéd, but Faris and Janney are great together, both in the comic moments and in the more serious scenes. Both characters are recovering alcoholics, and when Faris’ daughter discovers she is pregnant, the show handles it with surprising restraint. The comedy is still hit-or-miss, with the scenes of Faris working as a waitress being especially grating, but the core relationships are good enough to make it worth sticking with.

Trophy Wife (ABC, Tues., 9:30 p.m.)

Trophy Wife is probably the season’s funniest debut. It’s the rare comedy with a pilot that is both consistently funny and presents a path forward, and the show has maintained its momentum in subsequent episodes. Malin Akerman plays a young woman who falls for an older man, played by Bradley Whitford, who happens to have three children from two ex-wives. With a title like Trophy Wife, it sounds like it’s probably cynical and mean-spirited, but this is actually a charming, pleasant show. Akerman has struggled with some of her recent dramatic roles, but she is a gifted comic actress, particularly when the show requires physical comedy. Whitford is also excellent, creating three distinct relationships with his female counterparts. The show’s only problem is that its plots have been rooted in the clichés of family sitcoms. Thankfully, it seems to be pulling from the genre’s long history rather than simply stealing from Modern Family like so many shows do today, but it still drags the show down a notch.

ADVERTISEMENT

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Page 15

Hudson Valley

Arts

Bradford Graves Sculpture Park Through Oct. 31 Off route 209, Kerhonkson, N.Y. Sculpture park features over 600 works by Graves. Pieces are mostly in stone, and smaller pieces and bronze works in the gallery.

Free admission. By appointment.

Sublimation

Through Nov. 29 Gallery 45, Mill Street Loft, 45 Pershing Ave., Poughkeepsie The art of Amanda Lee Buhller.

Free admission.

Boscobel House and Gardens

Through Nov. 1601 Route 9D, Garrison, N.Y. “Robert W. Weir and the Poetry of Art” displays works loaned from West Point.

Hours: Wed.-Sun., 9:30 a.m.- 5 p.m. 9:30 a.m.- 4 p.m. through Nov.

Bridge Music, Waryas Park

Through the year.

Main St., Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Music by Joseph Bertolozzi. Using just sounds from the Mid Hudson Bridge, Bertolozzi’s music can be heard at listening stations at each tower along the pedestrian walkway. Free.

ARTS

Page 16

October 24, 2013

Owls departs Panel to reveal the politics of porn industry from Sedaris’ absurd past Emma Daniels Columnist

D

courtesy of Jack Levinson

The student cast of Gay Sex: Two Fairytales pose together. Their play, which adapts the polyamorous relationship of the executives of gay porn site Cockyboys, goes up on November 2 at 8:00 p.m. throuple are in a rather unconventional relationship, they seem strikingly average.

“In many surface ways it’s extremely unconventional, but what they’re pursuing is in fact a not at all unconventional American family model, sort of, which is to me really provocative,” he said. “They live a very lowkey life, where they come home and watch T.V. and play with their dogs and make lasagna.”

Gay Sex: Two Fairytales stars Robbie Trocchia ’14, Rob Madden ’14 and Evan Schlaich ’14 as the throuple. Trocchia spoke to the importance of depicting an untraditional relationship.

“I think this production offers the Vassar community the opportunity to really think about not only the possibility of such a relationship but also what it says about relationships, romantic and otherwise, and what they mean for us as individuals,” Trocchia wrote in an emailed statement.

He continued, “Yes, this relationship is an unconventional one but what does it say about society to find this sort of relationship strange when it happens to work well for these three men.”

Trocchia is also excited to see the Cockyboys at the panel and when they attend the play the following week. He hopes to see how his interpretation of Teddy mirrors the real-life Benny.

“I’m really hoping to get a sense of who they are as people,” he wrote. “It has been interesting to continue developing Teddy as a character, so I’m very curious to see what his real-life counterpart is like! The story is fictionalized of course but I wonder if Benny will see pieces of himself in Teddy.”

Levinson will lead Thursday’s panel, but he encourages attendees to ask questions once the Q&A is over. “It’ll be really interesting to see what people will ask,” he said.

Baldeck’s photos investigate early medicine Charlacia Dent reporter

M

edicine and art may seem entirely unrelated, but photographer Andrea Baldeck ’72 manages to combine both. Her exhibit “Bones, Books and Bell Jars” will be in the Palmer Gallery October 24 through November 14, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. The exhibit, a series of photographs based on Baldeck’s book of the same name, offers a look at medicine and art as it exists historically and in her life; she practiced as a medical doctor for many years before becoming a professional photographer.

“My subject matter reflects my eclectic interests and the opportunities I’ve had to take my camera afar and make the most of the subject matter at hand. I’ve been fascinated with the botanical world and portraiture for a long time. The camera was a way of exploring and recording all of these interests,” Baldeck said.

The still-life photographs in “Bones, Books and Bell Jars” arose from an opportunity to explore the collection of specimens, old textbooks, medical instruments and other 19th-century relics of the Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Baldeck believes it is the closest collaboration between her medical and artistic experiences.

“I thought it would be fun to tell the history of western medicine through still life. I didn’t try to do it pedantically or chronologically, but to incorporate different views that would stimulate the lay viewer. What I wanted to do was catch the eye,” she said.

To do this, Baldeck built upon the books she found in the Mutter library for two years.

The library houses resources containing images of anatomical models, diagrams and photographs that would form the basis of her series. “They were amazing illustrated books that tell us a lot about how the body was approached in the earlier days of medicine,” “I found that our present attitudes toward medicine contain great expectations and that the role of the doctor has changed. In the

early 18th century, a doctor’s role wasn’t to necessarily offer a cure but to provide succor.

To offer, in the absence of a cure, reassurance and mediation of pain. Today, I think we expect incredible insight and rapid relief. Doctors in the 19th century readily admitted their limitations and worked more closely with the clergy,” she said.

Baldeck’s findings show that for centuries art, medicine and technology worked hand in hand. Many believe that the rise of technology in medicine occurred with the advent of antibiotics. On the contrary, as Baldeck’s collection shows through photos of early surgical instruments, technology drove medicine earlier. A physician approached the body in the way an artist would approach an abstract sculpture. There were early traditions of trade

likened to the art world, and this revealed how physicians utilized art to treat disease and for information. These findings got Baldeck interested in how early doctor-patient relationships existed.

“Bones, Books and Bell Jars” is Baldeck’s third photography exhibit at Vassar. “This should be a great way to appeal to a varied audience. I’m not too concerned that some of the images will take people aback. The images come from a teaching collection used to instruct medical students since 1987. Some of the specimens in formaldehyde are unnerving. The images date from an era before the science of genetics, ultrasound and congenial abnormality. They were the best method for exploring abnormality and human development,” said Baldeck.

courtesy of Andrea Baldeck

avid Sedaris is the queen, so to speak, of the personal essay. Sedaris has written seven collections of essays to critical acclaim—chronicling his idiosyncrasies, upbringing, absurd life experiences, drug use and more, in a compellingly relatable way. Over seven million copies of his books have been sold, and his most recent work, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, debuted as number one on the New York Times Bestseller List.

I read the collection primarily out loud, on a road trip with my mom. We should have sprang for the book on tape—Sedaris’ nasal drone is just as alluring as his prose. But armed with a solid acting repertoire–i.e., playing male servants in three different plays throughout high school and college, and an unnaturally loud voice, I managed to do the trick.

As I read, my mom and I laughed together; Sedaris is pretty damn funny. Similar to his other collections, the book contains many autobiographical stories, in which the reader is privy to Sedaris’ trademark self-deprecation and wry humor. It is in these essays that Sedaris is at his best.

Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls marks Sedaris’ return to the personal essay format. In 2011, he published Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, an illustrated collection of stories from the perspective of personified animals. While I admired his creativity, I missed his autobiographical slant; I enjoyed his vision of animals commenting on everyday human life, but I really just wanted to know more about the awesomely absurd stories of his past—his time working as an elf at Macy’s, a visit to a Nudist colony, his experience as a gay man with a lisp growing up in the South—all told in his unique voice. I had a similar experience with parts of Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls: interspersed between his personal essays are satirical narrative essays.

The narrators are primarily ignorant, uninformed Americans, and although at some points it is funny, it is also at other moments contrived. It mostly made me miss him as a character in his own work, craving a story where he is at the center.

Although Sedaris has previously written fictional narratives, his shift towards more stories from the perspective of made-up people is not surprising. Before Squirrel Meets Chipmunk, he wrote When You are Engulfed in Flames.

I really enjoyed When You are Engulfed in Flames, but it definitely marked a departure in Sedaris’ work, a departure that Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls also follows.

This departure could be verbalized as follows: When You are Engulfed in Flames could also be titled “I think I’m running out of material from my crazy past to write about.” And although the content of the book is pretty rich—in the primary story, he travels to Japan in a quest to quit smoking; separating Sedaris from his cigarette habit is like separating Cappy from her scarf obsession, marking his changing persona. In other words, at this point in time, Sedaris is no longer an aspiring artist hopping between minimum wage jobs. He no longer experiments with drugs or alcohol, and his OCD seems to be under control. He is self-aware of the fact that he is now a successful upper-middle class expat whose stories reflect his current existence. For example, in Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, he writes about his briefcase being stolen on a tropical vacation, and mourns the loss of his laptop and visa.

Although Sedaris’ source material is not quite as queer or absurd as it has been in the past, his travel stories are at points uproarious, at points poignant.

Especially humorous stories include a visit to the taxidermist to buy a stuffed owl, an account of roadside trash pickup in rural England, a comparison of China and Japan, a speaking tour bookended by trips to the Costco megastore, and admittedly, even the whole saga of his missing briefcase.

One of the best essays in the collection perfectly eclipses his current condition while also commenting on his past. He writes about process, specifically, about his daily journaling. He notes that he has kept a journal for the past 35 years, chronicling his daily existence and fleshing out small moments of humor, sadness and joy. And it is to this documentation that we owe many of his personal essays, essays that have caused many Americans—like me and my mom—to laugh, cry, and let’s be real, wish we had David as our best friend.

COCKYBOYS continued from page 1 ing that is a very serious message behind an industry that isn’t taken very seriously,” said Levinson.

After contacting Young, Levinson was able to meet the Cockyboys and find out first-hand just what that message is. “I think they really believe that pornography is an inescapable reality of American society right now and it’s sort of a formative part of sexuality in this day in age. It’s sort of romantic to think of banishing it all together, but the more practical approach to dealing with the fact that porn is so prevalent right now is having people promote messages of responsibility in pornography,” he explained. Levinson stressed that the Cockyboys videos promote consent and respect between partners. “There’s something about their movies that I think is really important in that they always show people being respectful to one another.”

On the main page of the website, users can find the “Cockyboys Manifesto,” a list of empowering statements that encourage self-love and respect for others. The manifesto includes, “Gay sex is not shameful. It is a blessing like a fine wine, a great meal, or a roller coaster ride. It is part of life and should be enjoyed,” and “Mutual respect is the path to true power. Power = pride. Pride = loving yourself. Love yourself and you can love another,” among other statements.

Levinson believes that Cockyboys’ promotion of self-love combats key societal issues that are relevant to any sexual orientation. “I think I see [their work] as responding to a culture within pornography and coming out of the closet and things like that as addressing something that can involve so much self-persecution,” Levinson said.

“I think people, regardless of their sexual orientation, have so much trouble finding models of self respect within sexuality, so in that sense I see what they’re doing as a really vital conversation.”

Levinson met with the throuple—Benny, Jason and Adrian—at their mansion in upstate New York. According to Levinson, though the

“Bones, Books, and Bell Jars,” an exibit from the Müller Museum, showcases photographer Andrea Baldeck ’72’s work, which explores the intersection of art and medicine throughout history.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

ARTS

October 24, 2013

Page 17

As I Lay Dying faithful to Faulkner’s classic Victoria Youngblood Guest Columnist

As I Lay Dying James Franco Lee Caplin

I

n The Miscellany News’s October 2 issue, Lily Sloss ’14 published “Gordon-Levitt script looks at vice, morality,” a great review of Joseph Gordon Levitt’s “Don Jon” by outlining the film in what she called “classic Intro to Screenwriting film analysis format.” Her point-by-point plot summary not only primes her subsequent criticisms, but is itself infused with wit and opinion. It totally works. I reference this piece because it calls attention to an important quality of the subject of my review, director James Franco’s adaptation of William Faulkner’s literary classic As I Lay Dying. If I wanted to steal Lily’s approach for my present task, I would be met with a struggle. It would be heavy-handed and perhaps ignorant to argue that textbook-style screenplay structure is totally absent from the film. Many sticklers would contend, reasonably so, that a screenplay would not have reached the production stage if it did follow the “rules,” even if it is not immediately discernible which scenes satisfy each checkpoint. I can buy it. I can also say this: The industry standard narrative structure is at most a distant blur behind Franco’s As I Lay Dying, and Faulkner would have had it no other way.

One of the film’s many strengths is that its composition is inchoate rather than logical, liquid rather than solid, if you will. Although this quality alone is not necessarily Franco making a good decision—he did not really have a choice, working with Faulkner’s novel. To deny plot structure and narrative logic their usual authority is to show a basic but essential understanding of the novel. Luckily for us, it does not stop there. The film is an impressively convincing adaptation, suc-

Campus Canvas

cessfully communicating the novel’s deeper themes and bringing its characters to life.

Adaptations are often seen as objective-based tasks rather than independent works of creativity, as an attempt at direct translation, and the translator as one who either gets it right or wrong. This is especially the case with film versions of high-brow literature. I think those of us who are familiar with the original work when viewing an adaptation are compelled to assert a kind of superiority by pointing out ways in which the celebrities got it wrong, and believe me, I have been guilty of this. But we would do well for ourselves to loosen up, and not lower our standards for adaptations, accepting that a book is a book and a movie is a movie. One is not a prerequisite for the other, and each has its own experience to offer.

With that disclaimer out of the way, I will admit that the most productive way to discuss Franco’s adaptation is to analyze the artistic correlations between book and film.

It is difficult to picture what the film would be like for a viewer new to the story. Does it work without having read the book? All I can offer is: yes, I believe so.

It is a challenge, no doubt, to make the film medium work for a piece of literature like As I Lay Dying, and so it is impressive that Franco has not shied away from the challenge, but taken advantage of his medium. In the novel, Faulkner achieves multiple perspectives by switching the narrator from chapter to chapter. Franco adapts this method by making use of the split screen, which is not used from beginning to end (thank goodness), but appears in artistically appropriate scenes, depicting the back of a character’s head on one side and his face on the other, for example. Sometimes the difference in perspective of the two screens is a matter of five feet, sometimes it is a matter of major location or time. This is the obvious method for achieving simultaneous perspective differences in film , but that does not keep it from succeeding as a persuasive and respectful reinvention of Faulkner’s storytelling mode .

Frequently a character looks directly into the camera and recites lines lifted straight from the page. This confessional-style monologuing is jarring at first, but you can learn to love it for its awkwardness, with the novel’s help. Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying has a large meta-fictional element, in its contemplation of language as a successful tool for communication and its attention to the absurdity of human reliance on words. As the novel tries to achieve streams of consciousness chapter by chapter, it questions its own success.

It brings attention to its own weaknesses in accurately representing human thought with the only tool at its disposal: the written word. In turn, Franco brings attention to the awkwardness of his medium, also feeding consciousness through a bulky, distorting filter. Both Faulkner and Franco find the opportunity for beauty in this artistic problem, embracing the form of expression that gave them trouble—Faulkner in his brilliant lyricism, and Franco in his well-composed closeups.

It was a joy to see each of Faulkner’s somewhat mysterious characters materialize in the way movie characters tend to do: with the human body and all its mannerisms, with the speaking voice and all its intonations.

The cast is overall up to task, barring the occasional unneeded melodrama of Dewey Dell (Ahna O’Reilly) and the strain in divorcing the character of Darl from James Franco’s celebrity (that’s a difficult task for an actor with such a flood of external associations).

Jewel (Logan Marshall-Green) is a successful, silent introvert. Cash (Jim Parrack) is the perfect embodiment of a young and already broken carpenter, and Anse (Tim Blake Nelson), the father of the group, is a delightfully repulsive, with his rotting slack-jaw and disingenuous invocations of faith. As for the backdrop of this tragic family, the dirty, hot, earth-toned world of the poor South takes on a new vividness through its cinematic portrayal. There is nothing like watching a movie that thrusts you into a world you wouldn’t otherwise understand.

A weekly space highlighting the creative pursuits of student-artists

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Excuse me, What horror movie will you be (re)watching this weekend?

“Carrie (the original).”

—Nicole Wong ’15

“Invasion of the Body Snatchers (50s version).”

—Malinda Kathleen Reese ’16

“Insidious.”

—Julia Martin ’14

“I don’t watch horror movies.”

—Raph Korine ’16

“The original Exorcist.”

—Nick Johnson ’16

A CALL TO VISION The sun falls on covered eyes.

The wind blows on shrouded skin.

What are the shapes of these things?

“The Skeleton Key.” —Kain Smith ’16

Look up from your screens, beyond the flatness of a life half-lived, half-relived.

Exercise your vision daily.

For it is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.

—Alden Rose ’14

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Jack Owen, Arts Editor Cassady Bergevin, Photo Editor

SPORTS

Page 18

October 24, 2013

Healthy routine during breaks smooths return to campus Chris Brown sports editor

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Spencer Davis/The Miscellany News

f you are a member of the Vassar community, then you are privy to the wonderful anomaly that this school likes to call “October Break.” A wonderful yet abstract phenomenon, October Break is a time to escape the hard curriculum of Vassar at least for a little bit, rejuvenating your body and soul. It feels as though you are in a nice limbo, and time has stopped. Nothing in the world can affect you. And then you get to the Saturday before you go back to school.

You are lethargic, and your clothes are starting to feel a little bit tighter. It’s a common trap that many fall into. Striving to avoid the freshman 15, students start the year off well, going to the gym regularly, getting into a routine. Yet when breaks hit, all motivation is lost, as the prospects of a real bed and mom’s home cooking call your name. You run for twenty minutes on Sunday, fifteen on Monday, and by Tuesday, you’re waking up at 2:00 p.m.

I fell into the trap last year, and coming back to Vassar after each break left me struggling to get back into my fitness routine. However, all hope is not lost. This past October Break, I made it a goal to maintain my schedule, and the effects have been marvelous. And as one struggling college student to another, I am here to say that maintaining fitness levels during breaks takes diligence, dedication and determination, but is a very attainable goal for all.

The first thing everyone wants to do when they start break is sleep. Just collapse on the bed and not wake up for a total of four days.

But don’t do it! Yes, you have been emotionally drained by the woes of midterms or finals, but rule one to maintaining an exercising routine is to not let up at the start of break. Give yourself a little time to process all of the academic craziness that you just endured, but don’t use this as an excuse to sit in front of the television for five hours the first day you get back.

Running can be very therapeutic and more effective at bringing your body back to homeostasis compared to an ice cream binge fest. If

Sophomore Christopher Brown catches his breath after a long workout. Brown, along with many other Vassar students, deals with maintaining a steady fitness level during a number of school breaks. you tell your body that it’s okay to take that long of a break, it makes it that much more difficult to get back into the swing of things. Yet, if you happen to go into break with the mindset that nothing has changed, at least in a physical sense, then you can be mentally prepared to stay on a casual exercise cycle right at the start and make falling back into things back at school a lot easier.

The next step to keeping up your fitness away from Vassar is to switch it up! By day three or four of break, many of us have started to feel what I like to call “the perennial fatigue.” You are getting tired of your third day doing the same exact thing, and you’re starting to lose motivation to continue to do anything productive. One way you can change up your daily routine is to do something completely different physically. Go on a hike with friends

or take a swim at the local pool. Sitting at the gray, dull gym can sometimes add to your monotone experience. If you do different activities throughout the break, you are more likely to continue to look for new ways to push your body and have a good time as well.

Group activities are also a great way to enhance this process. Let’s face it, everything is better with a group of good, nice friends. Instead of taking your nightly run to the local McDonald’s for some soft serve ice cream, challenge your friends to do something completely different. It will help maintain your sanity at home and your overall fitness level within yourself.

Another important rule is to try and stay away from all the delicious food that will be offered to you. At Vassar, it can be easy to maintain a healthy diet with all the options on

campus. However, everyone knows that when nana offers you a slice of that apple pie, it’s hard to turn down. Just moderate what you eat.

You don’t have to go all health nutty in order to maintain a certain level of health. Just try your best not to pig out the first day back.

Next, you have to keep a schedule that you follow. If you set aside a time everyday of your break to go do something outside or go to the gym, you are much more likely to follow it.

Many, including myself, have used the “I’ll go when I have time” excuse far too often times.

You find that unless you give yourself a definite time to go exercise, other parts of your life begin to take priority. You keep pushing back your workout hours until you find yourself not doing anything physical at all. Maintaining a schedule can sound a bit tedious and tiresome, but it is a sure fire way to make sure you stay true to yourself and really keep on a fitness track during those breaks.

The final, and most important, step of this process is to have fun! Exercising can be the most boring thing in the world if you want it to be. If you attempt to force yourself to wake up at 6:00 a.m. everyday, have a negative attitude about the situation and want to be anywhere else, then what’s the point?

First, you will be affecting your emotional well-being, and maintaining a strong mental state of health is extremely important when it comes to physical well-being. Studies have shown that your body is much more likely to respond to physical activity when you are happy and energetic compared to an unhappy and annoyed attitude. Second, if you are annoyed at the prospect of exercising over break, then that feeling will transfer back to Vassar and continue throughout your time here. You will come back finding that you are much less motivated to make that long trek to the gym.

Having fun and being positive about exercise and fitness will help you come back to Vassar refreshed and happy, making your transition to college after breaks an overall easier and more pleasant experience for your mind, body and soul.

Clutch-hitting, relief pitching key factors in World Series Zach Rippe Columnist

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he year was 2004 and the Boston Red Sox had just completed perhaps the greatest comeback in Major League history when they came back from an 0-3 deficit to defeat the New York Yankees in the ALCS. They then met up against the St. Louis Cardinals who had dominated the National League that year, but struggled in the NLCS. The Red Sox used their newfound momentum and the weight of their franchise’s 86 year “curse” to wash away the Cardinals in four straight games. Now, nine years later, these two teams meet again in the current season.

Much has changed for the Red Sox since that fateful October. With the weight of the “curse” lifted, the Sox have remained perennial contenders, winning another World Series in 2007.

David Ortiz remains perhaps the only prominent face from the magical 2004 squad, yet the spirit of Boston’s team seems oddly similar. The 2013 beards are reminiscent of the ‘04 squad’s rough, rag-tag appearance and demeanor and the fight and drive seem to be there as well.

St. Louis has been equally, if not more dominant since their last matchup with Boston.

They have won two championships and have built a model of strength and consistency that refused to fade even with the departure of Albert Pujols two seasons ago. The question remains though. Which league powerhouse will take the 2013 World Series crown?

Offensively, the Boston Red Sox dominated 2013, scoring the most runs, as well as posting the best on base and slugging percentages.

Their pitching, on the other hand, was slightly more average, although Lester, Buchholz, and Lackey are all capable starters in their own right. The dichotomy of these two teams is astounding. The Red Sox were fourth in the majors in stolen bases, sixth in home runs, and eighth in strikeouts. Conversely, the Cardinals were twenty-ninth in steals, twenty-seventh in home runs, and twenty-sixth in strikeouts. In terms of rotations, the Cardinals have the sec-

ond youngest and Boston has the third oldest.

Although the stolen base and home run stats seem to favor Boston, St. Louis’s pitching has been dominant to the point where those statistics may become obsolete. Adam Wainwright went a dominant 19-9 and pitchers Lance Lynn, Shelby Miller, Joe Kelly, and Michael Wacha were all superb as well throughout the baseball season.

The collective energy of the Sox, however, has proven to overcome just about anything this season. Grizzled veterans growing beards have forged a relentless bond of unity and determination. Boston seemed eager from the get-go to prove itself after an abysmal 69-93 campaign last season and, while they were the only team in baseball to score over 800 runs this year, their heart and will may render these numbers useless.

“With the weight of the ‘curse’ lifted, the Sox have remained perennial contenders...”

The Cardinals were just about as dominant offensively and their pitching remained consistent, yet like they always say, once you enter the playoffs, it is not necessarily the best, but the hottest team that will take the title.

Both teams have faced somewhat difficult roads to the World Series. The Red Sox took care of the Rays fairly easily, winning the series 3-1, yet faced a roaring Tigers team that nearly took them to the brink. If it were not for Shane Victorino’s clutch grand slam in the seventh inning of game 6, the Sox would have had to face a rejuvenated Justin Verlander in game 7. Despite his slightly off season, it is fair to say that Verlander can still be considered one of the most feared pitchers in the game today. With the Red

Sox, the case this postseason has not necessarily been how well they were hitting throughout the series, but instead when they got their hits.

While Jacoby Ellsbury has been nothing short of terrific, the rest of the team has been batting under .260. It has been clutch hits that have won the Sox many of their games. In game 2 it was who else but David Ortiz who smacked a grand slam in the bottom of the eighth to tie the game at 5 and help even the series at 1-1 before going off to Detroit. Mike Napoli then provided a key solo home run to propel Boston to a 1-0 win in game 3. Aside from clutch hitting, the Red Sox bullpen has been unstoppable of late.

Series MVP and closer Koji Uehara has been lights out and as Tigers manager Jim Leyland exclaimed “The way I would sum it up is that I thought their starters were good. I thought their bullpen was great.”

St. Louis has faced an equally as difficult road in their journey to the championship. Beginning with their tight 5 game series with the Pirates, the Cards seemed as if they were in for a long and challenging post season. In similar fashion, they began the NLCS with a 13 inning win over the Dodgers.

After a stellar performance from youngster Michael Wacha in game 2, they were shut-out in game 3. Yet after the Dodgers managed to win game 5, the Cardinals made sure that they would be heading to the fall classic with a convincing 9-0 shutout win pitched by none other than rookie Michael Wacha. The Cardinals offense has been stagnant at times this postseason, coming through in bunches at times, yet also faltering completely in certain games. Yet like the Red Sox and their main man in October, David Ortiz, St. Louis has their own postseason monster. Carlos Beltran has made a living out of coming up big during playoff time. With the exception of his last at bat of 2006 (although to be fair that was the nastiest pitch of Adam Wainwright’s career), Beltran has solidified himself as one of the best and most clutch postseason hitters of his generation. His 13th inning single gave the Cardinals game 1 of the NLCS and

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

helped set the tone for the entire series. Also, where Boston’s bullpen has been stellar, the Cardinals starters have been dominant. Adam Wainwright has been as strong as ever, winning both starts against Pittsburgh. The real story so far, however, has been Michael Wacha, who is 3-0 with a disturbing 0.43 era this postseason. Against the Pirates in 7.1 innings pitched, he gave up one run. Even more devastating, however was what he did to the Dodgers. In two games against Los Angeles, Wacha gave up 0 runs. In his first appearance, he out-dueled former Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw for a 1-0 victory. His second outing was far less stressful, however it was equally as impressive.

He only seems to be getting better.

“The real story so far, however, has been Michael Wacha, who is 3-0 with a disturbing 0.43 era this postseason” Judging by these two teams’ postseasons and the way they’ve played out so far, it is fair to say that this series will be hard-fought. It seems to be that the pitching match-ups will play a pivotal role in the outcome of this series. Can anyone hit Michael Wacha? Will Clay Buchholz return to form? Will lacking a DH in St. Louis and having Ortiz play first base effect Boston’s chances in any way? If the Red Sox can secure some early runs throughout the series, their bullpen should be able to carry them. Their clutch hitting as an x-factor will come up big in at least a couple of situations. Regardless of who wins, this will be a battle for both teams.

Based on a stranger I saw in Cooperstown this past Saturday, I say Red Sox in 7. However, I really have no idea. I’m just ready to watch.

October 24, 2013

SPORTS

Professional athletics in need of humility Luka Ladan

Assistant Sports Editor

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arlier in the semester, I came across a brief quotation–or a saying, if you will–that truly struck me, one that resonated with me on a much deeper level than most sayings. When asked by some members of the Boston media about his definition of humility, the newly christened NBA head coach Brad Stevens repeated the renowned C.S. Lewis in his response: “True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.”

When I encountered that saying, I stopped what I was doing for a minute and got to thinking about the power of those words. I took a moment, gathered myself, and replayed what I had just heard from one of my favorite basketball coaches.

“True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.”

It was succinct, yet simplistically brilliant. A sign of respect to one of the most influential thinkers of the past two centuries, Stevens’ answer struck a chord for so many reasons, but perhaps no more so than for its applicability to the hyper-competitive world of sports. As I compare athletes of all kinds, I look for humility first and foremost as the telling indicator of good character.

Merriam-Webster defines humility as the quality or state of being humble, or thinking that you are not better than those around you.

This definition implies a sense of unselfishness and an air of modesty and the decision to seek out a lower profile instead of craving attention.

In far too many cases, humility escapes the world of sports. It escapes the high-profile athlete, be it in high school or the collegiate and professional ranks. It perturbs me deeply that so many athletes succumb to the temptations of self-glorification and chronic attention-hoarding behavior, while so few remember the virtues of unselfishness and modesty, the value in thankfulness and an unassuming demeanor.

The inflated ego runs rampant in the realms of basketball and football, two cutthroat competitions always in need of star power–when one

sensational competitor separates himself from the pack with outstanding play and undeniable charisma.

Much has been said about showboating, and there’s been constant disagreement over the thickness of that line of celebration–the point at which an athlete goes too far with his acts of self-glorification. Amidst the flexing and the sideline dancing, the puff of the jersey and the wag of the finger, it is too easy to get lost in the commemoration of individual accomplishment–when the individual decides to mark his accomplishment with extreme celebration, the situation spirals out of control ever so quickly.

At least, it does in my eyes, since I still put a lot of weight on humility. It means a lot to me.

There are countless examples, and more are added to the list with each passing day. LeBron James’ dance routines on the sidelines of a blowout in Miami, Johnny Manziel’s unprompted taunts in the face of an inferior opponent, the sack dances of every defensive lineman from Jacksonville to San Francisco–they all make the count, a nefarious list of self-obsessed athletes lacking a firm dose of humbleness.

All of these athletes, and the many more that avoided mention, forget that there’s something to be said for a modest, unadorned approach to the game.

Sometimes, it’s best to ignore the temptation of self-adornment in favor of selfless decency–when the common fist pump takes the place of the Dougie, when hugging a teammate takes the place of flexing a muscle. There’s something to be said about the recognition of the other instead of the self, when an athlete congratulates a teammate on the pinpoint pass instead of honoring his highlight reel catch. In my mind, that is the ideal–the simplicity of the fist pump and the humility of the hug. And the athlete should strive for that ideal because humility is always the ideal. I believe that is inarguable, and I commend any and all athletes who recognize the importance of modesty and selflessness.

I obviously praise Michael Jordan, my favorite athlete to ever play any sport, for his ex-

traordinary play and rare ability to eloquently articulate his thoughts. But, I praise him even more for his straightforward celebrations and unadorned acts of self-recognition. He never danced, and he never flexed. He never held a celebratory fist pump for any longer than he truly had to, and was the definition of a respectable player and human being. I appreciate the simplicity of his approach as well as the humbleness.

With the exception of his actual play, Michael Jordan never went the extra mile. He kept it simple. His confidence never suffered as a result that much is certain. Even though his celebrations were anything but elaborate, Michael Jordan never thought less of his skills or his mindset or his place among the game’s greats.

The celebrations exuded a good measure of humility, and he never thought less of himself as a result. He maintained his character, his integrity and his values while still dominating on the court in every aspect. In the end, that is the definition of true humility.

To possess an inordinate amount of confidence in the self without reverting to needless self-glorification is the ideal, for which each and every athlete should strive. There’s no need to perform the Dougie and hurl an unprovoked taunt, at the same time disrespecting the opponent and forgetting the teammate who made it all possible.

Let us remember the wise words of C.S. Lewis and Brad Stevens after him. Let us remember the virtue of humility. Let us remember the other instead of the self.

“True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.”

Those words resonated with me quite deeply, and they ring true to this day. That quotation is a beautiful display of deeper wisdom and intelligent simplicity, and we would be wise to take it to heart. We are consumed by ourselves on far too many occasions.

Do not think less of yourself, by any stretch.

Think of yourself less. That should be the ideal for each and every one of us. There should be no exceptions.

Giants’ decline rooted in Coughlin’s hubris Clyff Young

Guest Columnist

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he New York Giants were not a particularly good team last year, but they were not terrible, either. Although the Giants missed the postseason en route to a 9-7 regular season campaign, they defeated two solid playoff teams in the Green Bay Packers and the San Francisco 49ers, who went on to make the Super Bowl. Now the G-Men are 1-6, one of three winless teams left in the NFL along with the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And assuming that the Jaguars continue to play like the worst team since the defeated 2008 Detroit Lions, the Buccaneers lose to a far more talented, albeit injured Atlanta team, and the Giants live up to their second-to-last ranking, per ESPN, none of these three teams are going to win anytime in the coming weeks.

But if the past eight years are any indication of which of the defeated teams should pick up its first win, it’s the Giants. But the Giants are only narrow favorites going into their Sunday night match-up at home against a weak, onewin Minnesota Vikings team whose only win came in London. So basically the Giants are awful, and barring a ten-game win streak, they will be worse than they have been in the eight years since Eli Manning’s rookie season. So what does every cliché American football fan do at this moment in order to justify this horrific performance? Blame Eli, right?

“If the past eight years are any indication of which of the defeated teams should pick up its first win, it’s the Giants.”

Eli Manning has set a historically bad pace.

His 15 interceptions through six games lead to a projection of 45 picks on the season, which would break Bears legend George Blanda’s already horrific record of 42 picks in a single season. Manning has had turnover problems before, most notably in 2010 when the Giants won the division despite Eli throwing a career-high 25 interceptions in the regular season. But 40plus interceptions? Is it even possible that Eli would remain the stater if he approached that figure? Curtis Painter, one of the quarterbacks who helped the Indianapolis Colts to a sterling 2-14 record in 2011, is second on the Giants’ depth chart, followed by rookie Ryan Nassib.

Any football fan can see the fundamental flaw in this setup.

To express in a single phrase, this is gruesome.

Even if Manning can’t stop throwing the ball to the other team, he still gives New York the best shot at winning games. There is only one way this can end—with Eli throwing 45 picks and getting traded in the offseason, while old brother Peyton throws 45 touchdowns, wins his fifth MVP award and his second Super Bowl ring. As fun as that confluence of numbers and circumstances would be, it’s not going to happen. Eli Manning is too good.

He has started 141 of 143 games he has been active for (he’s tougher than everyone thinks), thrown for 33,248 yards and 220 touchdowns (he’s more prolific passer than everyone thinks), and is one of eleven men in the history of the world to win multiple Super Bowls as a starting quarterback (Peyton is not in that company). You can’t spell elite without Eli. All that is true, and yet the New York Giants are still really, really bad.

Look back to March 5, 2013. That is the date when longtime Giants head coach Tom Coughlin’s book Earn the Right to Win: How Success in any Field Starts with Superior Preparation hit the shelves. Now this is not Coughlin’s first book. He also wrote one about his 2007 Giants team, which beat the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. X’s and O’s, game tape, and metrics can

explain the Giants’ two Super Bowls wins over the Patriots, as they can the Giants’ woes this season.

Tom Brady was under too much pressure; New England’s timing-based offense, great during the regular season, was too soft for the postseason. Eli Manning has been under tremendous duress, because his offensive line is so porous; the Giants can’t run the ball; what happened to Hakeem Nicks? All valid explanations for the Giants’ futility. Yet still, everyone seems to look at Eli as the big bad wolf in this situation.

“You can’t spell elite without Eli. All that is true, and yet the New York Giants are still really, really bad.”

Don’t overlook the underlying metaphysical reasons, though. The Football Gods don’t like it when coaches do hubristic things like publish books with pretentious titles, guarantee championships á la Jets head coach Rex Ryan, or engineer Spy Gate, a 2007 incident when the New England Patriots were caught videotaping New York Jets’ defensive signals to gain an offensive edge. Bill Belichick and the Pats haven’t won a title post-espionage, just as Coughlin won’t win another title post Earn the Right to Win. Never has a lesser coach won as many titles as Coughlin; never has a coach with such limited vision, style, or leadership (he throws his players under the bus all the time) won as many titles as Coughlin. Giants fans, next time you are commiserating about your lost season, don’t blame Eli. Blame Coughlin, the best bad coach of all-time, for angering higher powers by publishing erroneous books.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Page 19

Broooers to host annual tournament QUIDDITCH continued from page 1

force them to get off their brooms and return to their hoops, and one seeker. The snitch is a neutral part, a cross country runner dressed in all yellow from whose shorts hangs a tennis ball that the seeker tries to grab.”

The team so far has competed in one tournament this year. It played on October 20, at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY as a part of the Battle of Saratoga Tournament.

The Butterbeer Brewers worked hard during their first tournament at Saratoga Springs and came out of the day exhausted and successful, according to chaser and beater as well as former co-captain Nate Calvert. He said, “I was really tired, but it was really fun.”

Weir seemed impressed by the talent and teamwork exhibited at the Saratoga Classic.

“I’m really pleased with how this year’s team is coming together. We lost a lot of upperclassmen talent from last year, but we still managed to get to the semifinals at Skidmore.

We lost to the [Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute] Rememberalls, who went on to win the tournament.”

The next tournament that the Broooers plan to take part in will be hosted at the University of Vermont, and finally the Quidditch team will be hosting their own tournament on Joss Beach called the Butterbeer Classic.

The team prides itself on bringing together both intensity of play and a fun attitude. The Broooers are known throughout the league for their long history in the sport as well. They’ve been a constant on the collegiate Quidditch circuit for as long as it’s been around. Weir explained the reputation the team has earned in their years of play. She said, “We’re known throughout the league for our sportsmanship and our history. We played Middlebury in the first ever World Cup, and we’ve been playing clean, honest games ever since. The team at Vassar is just classy.”

Sophomore Co-Captain Aidan Wilcox agrees with the sense of whimsicality that Weir described and stressed the importance of the Quidditch community. “The Quidditch team is a great group of people, who know how to have fun together and aren’t afraid to be a bit silly. The community I’ve found with this team is really quite special.”

The team is open to all players and generally takes in players of no experience. They pride themselves on their inclusivity to the whole Vassar community. That’s how Wilcox became involved in the team. “The team invited me to join their practice at the beginning of last year and I decided to give it a go.”

The novelty of the sport has ensured that the majority of incoming players have never tried it out before coming to Vassar. Yet that has been one of the draws and benefits of joining the team according to Freshman Macall MaQueen ’17. “It’s so awesome. It’s taught me to not be afraid to try new sports even if I’m not sure I’ll be good at them.”

The team currently has club status within the Vassar community. They practice and workout throughout the entire week. Normal practices are held on Joss Beach on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays from 3-5 pm and they have various gym days interspersed throughout.

Despite the loss of many upperclassmen this year, Weir has faith in the newcomers, particularly the freshmen. “They’re absolutely amazing!” Weir herself has also been a solid contributor to the team in years past. Normally she plays as one of the chasers aiming to score goals; however, is willing to play wherever the team needs her. “I usually chase, but at Skidmore, it turned out we were down a seeker, so I ended up doing that.”

Overall the team is a close community of Vassar students who aim to create not only a fun and whimsical experience reminiscent of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter but also an intense environment for the sport to thrive and grow. When asked to describe how the game works overall Weir had just one word to describe it. “Magic.”

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October 24, 2013

First-year Hallewell a valuable addition to women’s tennis Jonathan Safir Guest reporter

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Jacob Gorski/The Miscellany News

rowing up, freshman Emily Hallewell of women’s tennis almost never picked up a racket. If not for feeling burnt out, Hallewell could very well be playing on the soccer pitch on a daily basis instead of on the tennis courts, because soccer was her first love. But finally, at age thirteen, she gave tennis a shot, participating in a youth summer camp.

Her skills steadily progressed. In high school, Hallewell won three Independent School League (ISL) individual and team championships and was named as a Washington Post Honorable Mention. For the United States Tennis Association (USTA), she was ranked number one in the DC area and number eight in the Mid-Atlantic Region.

Nationally, Hallewell’s highest ranking was in the low 200s.

When the time came to choose a college, Hallewell had many options. Academically noted Division I schools pursued her, such as Georgetown University and George Washington University. However, Hallewell was not interested in playing for a Division I school.

“The coaches were so intense and the commitment was too much,” she explained. “There is essentially no life outside of tennis and I did not want that. I want to use college as a chance to grow academically, intellectually and athletically.”

Hallewell also looked at other high-academic Division III institutions, including all of the New England Small College Athletic Conference. “I really liked the campus and the small class sizes; how the professors were a part of the community and not as a separate entity.

That’s really what sold me. The community feel of the entire campus is incredible.” Now that Hallewell is part of the Vassar College women’s tennis team, her teammates are impressed with her performance thus far. “Emi-

ly was our highest ranked recruit coming into this year,” senior captain Lindsay Kantor in an emailed statement. “ [She] has certainly proven herself on the court, especially with her recent success at the New York State Championships.”

Thus far collegiately, Hallewell has been named Liberty League Rookie of the Week three times (9/23, 9/30, 10/14), has a record of 8-4 in both singles and doubles, and recently won her bracket at the New York State Tennis Championships hosted by Ithaca College during this fall season.

Despite attaining so much success so early in her collegiate athletic career, Hallewell says the part she enjoys the most is being part of a team. “I like the team aspect; USTA was all individual and I traveled with my parents,” Hallwell explained. “Now I travel with a team and it is a lot of fun. I love the team, and couldn’t ask for better teammates.”

Kantor has been impressed with Hallewell’s incorporation into the team, and wrote that, “[She] is an extremely kind, caring, and genuine person. She is a great friend and teammate.”

As for the overall team chemistry, Hallewell noted that, “There are only eight of us, seven underclassmen consisting of four freshman and three sophomores. It makes it even easier to be such a tight-knit group, since we are all pretty much either new to campus or have been here for only one year, which is cool and adds a different youthful dynamic.”

Hallewell further noted that the spring season is more important than the fall season and that there remains a lot of work to be done.

“The season is going a lot better than I expected, everyone can compete with one another.

There are high level practices that keep me motivated every day,” Hallewell said.

She also added, “I didn’t know what to expect coming from high school where I was relatively unchallenged to college, but it is so competitive. My teammates are all really good

Freshman Emily Hallewell of women’s tennis has earned Libertyt League Rookie of the Week three times this year. The freshman chose Vassar over Division I schools so she could grow academically. and skilled; we have a really good team. I’m so excited for what the future has in store.”

In an emailed statement, Kantor added, “I feel that Emily has handled her success extremely well. She is very humble, as was the case after her New York State Championship win. She just came off the court with a big smile on her face.” As for Hallewell’s playing style, Kantor explained that, “[She] is a tenacious player. She has a big serve and plays a really smart game.”

Outside of tennis, Hallewell is undeclared and not certain at this moment what particular subjects interest her. She enjoys the arts and ceramics and the color and the studio art class that she is currently enrolled in. Hallewell loves the beautiful campus of Vassar College. “I

love the green space here. Coming from a city, this (living in New York, at Vassar College) is very different. I love how you can walk around without people being everywhere and its proximity to New York City,” she said.

Overall, coming into Vassar Hallewell had many expectations of Vassar. She reiterated how the college has not disappointed her: “I have loved all aspects so far: academically, athletically, and socially. I could not be happier with all Vassar has to offer.” She realizes that accomplishing all her goals while at Vassar will not be easy and looks forward to sustained success. “I hope to build on this early success,” she noted. “I have really enjoyed Vassar so far, and I look forward to making many memories with my teammates.”

Wheeler a dominant force in women’s soccer victories Tina Caso and Chris Brown

In the October edition of the Women’s Division III News, senior guard Cydni Matsuoka of the women’s basketball team was named as a 2013-2014 Preseason All-American. Only 24 players in the nation gain this title, and Matsuoka was the only underclassman to earn a spot on the list.

the second day of the tournament, Dubois tied for fourth place and brought the team to a fifth place finish overall. Her total for the two-day tournament was 158, and the final score for the Brewers was 703. Based on her performance, the Liberty League named Dubois the Performer of the Week. This is the second time in her career that the league has recognized her.

The women’s golf team’s tournament will take place in mid-April at the Vassar College Invitational.

Women’s Field Hockey

Women’s Tennis

In the Brewers’ first October break match of the week, field hockey beat No. 13 ranked Skidmore College in Liberty League play for the first time in the team’s history 2-1. Sophomore midfielder Bianca Zarrella and senior forward Tina Caso scored goals. (Disclaimer: Tina Caso serves as the Sports Editor for The Miscellany News) The next day, Caso scored two more versus the St. Lawrence University Saints, and one more goal by Zarrella brought the score 3-1.

Over break, Caso was named Liberty League Offensive Performer of the Week, while senior goalkeeper Maggie Brelis earned Defensive Performer of the Week. The two seniors also garnered Eastern College Athletic Conference recognition by being named Player of the Week.

Last Saturday, the team competed against Union College for its annual Senior Day and beat the Dutchmen 2-0 with sophomore forward Lauren Wiebe scoring both goals. Senior midfielder Anna Schroeder and freshman defender Lauren Schumate assisted Wiebe’s goals. The win marked Brelis’ fourth shutout of the season, and the Brewers’ will now officially proceed into postseason Liberty League play.

Field Hockey will next compete against Ramapo College on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. in Mahwah, NJ.

Saturday, October 19, women’s tennis competed in the New York State Championships at Ithaca College. Both doubles teams of senior Lindsay Kantor, sophomore Kelsey Van Noy, freshman Shayna Becker and freshman Emily Hallewell won matches versus the University of Rochester and St. Lawrence University.

Freshman Connie Yoo also defeated William Smith in the finals of singles matches. On the

sports editors

Women’s Basketball

second day of the tournament, Hallewell and Becker won their brackets, while Van Noy and Yoo fell in the final round to Skidmore College.

The Liberty League named Hallewell Rookie of the Week for the third time this season.

This marks the end of the 2013 section, and women’s tennis will next host Muhlenberg College in February.

Men’s Soccer

On October 18, the men’s soccer team suffered a loss versus No. 10 ranked St. Lawrence University with a final score of 3-0. Both the Brewers and the Saints had 14 shots overall, while the Brewers only had nine fouls compared to the St. Lawrence’s 20. In their next match versus Clarkson University, the team won 2-0 from an early goal by senior forward Rob Manukyan, which was his first game-winning goal of the season. Junior forward Tom Wiechert scored the second goal, his 11th goal this season. Clarkson did not score once, mak-

Women’s Soccer

Women’s soccer won a match versus Rutgars-Newark on October 12 in a 2-0 victory.

Chloe Wheeler scored both goals, which earned her a third game-winning goal for this season.

Sophomore Kamaria Coley assisted Wheeler’s second goal. On October 18, the Brewers suffered a hard loss versus St. Lawrence University after outshooting the Saints, who scored at the last minute of the first half. The next day versus Clarkson University, Wheeler and sophomore midfielder Lucy Brainerd scored for the Brewers, and the final score was 2-0. Wheeler’s goal marked her 11th career game-winning goal.

Women’s soccer next plays against Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute at home at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday.

Women’s Volleyball

Jacob Gorksi/The Miscellany News

Women’s Golf

On day one of the Ann S. Batchelder Invitational at Wellesley College, sophomore Aimee Dubois lead the team and earned a sixth place tie with June Conti of Mt. Holyoke College. On

ing it sophomore goalkeeper Sebastien Lasseur’s first shutout.

Men’s soccer will next play in an away game against Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute on Saturday at 2:00 p.m.

Sophomore Yaniv Yaffe of men’s soccer dribbles the ball down the field in a match with a rival opponent. Men’s soccer’s current record stands at 7-4-3 as they will head deeper into Liberty League play.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

At this year’s Seven Sisters Volleyball Tournament at Mt. Holyoke College last Saturday, the women’s volleyball team lost two 3-0 matches against Smith College and Wellesley College on the first day, while bringing home two victories on the second. The team won both matches versus Bryn Mawr College and Mount Holyoke. Two women, freshman Gabby Miller and junior Taylor Mosley, were named to the Seven Sisters All-Tournament Team.

In the team’s next match versus Stevens Institute of Technology, the Brewers fell with a final score of 3-1. On October 18, the team moved back into Liberty League play, losing the match versus Union 3-1. However, the team earned a pair of wins over both the Rochester Institute of Technology and Skidmore College in four games later that week. In matches against Skidmore, senior Rose Carman has 52 assists and 15 digs—a career high.

Women’s Volleyball will next meet with Connecticut College on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. in New London, CT.