The Miscellany News, Volume CXLVII, Issue 7 (Nov. 7, 2013)

The Miscellany News

Volume CXLVII | Issue 7

November 7, 2013

Since 1866 | miscellanynews.com

Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY

SLD fliers VC hosts Seven Sisters to drive to foster collaboration discussion F Anna Iovine and Maggie Jeffers RepoRteR And Guest RepoRteR

Palak Patel

desiGn editoR

n the past week, members of the Vassar community may have noticed an informational pamphlet, “What Vassar Doesn’t Want You To Know: A Guide to Labor on Campus,” cropping up in various locations. The Student-Labor Dialogue distributed 1,500 of these pamphlets early on Monday morning in an effort to inform students about workers’ issues on campus.

“The Student-Labor Dialogue (SLD) began in the Spring of 2013 to open a conversation between workers and students in order to create transparency around workers’ issues at Vassar” (“What Vassar Doesn’t Want You To Know: A Guide to Labor on Campus”).

The group serves as a compilation of students and workers on campus who are trying to create an open and safe space to meet and discuss issues surrounding better wages, benefits and working conditions on campus for Vassar workers. Even though SLD is fairly new, according to the group’s own estimations, their total participation ranges from 100150 campus workers with a similar See PAMPHLET on page 7

courtesy of Casey Hancock

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rom Nov. 1 to 3, students from the nation’s prominent women’s colleges visited Vassar’s campus for the Seven Sisters Conference.

“The Seven Sister’s Conference as a concept has happened several times throughout history,” explained Vassar Student Association (VSA) President Deb Steinberg ’14. “I was doing some research before putting on this conference and I think it was in the 1980’s that they went through and were doing conferences. Then it stopped for a while, just because when those students graduate it’s harder to keep it going if you don’t really motivate some of the under-

classmen,” Steinberg said.

She continued, “I know they did it again at Vassar in the year 2000.

I think in the year 2008 or 2009 it started up again, maybe in the year 2010, and Vassar wasn’t invited originally. Then two years ago we kind of pushed our way in and invited ourselves to Mt. Holyoke; we went to Mt. Holyoke, and they liked us.

They invited us back to Smith, and they were like, ‘I guess we can do it at Vassar’, and we were like, ‘Cool.’”

While the conference took place last weekend, Steinberg and other members of the VSA have been planning the event for months.

The main day of the conference, See SEVEN SISTERS on page 4

Students from the Seven Sisters joined at Vassar to focus on ways to improve relationships between the colleges. As host, Vassar chose the conference goals.

Schrock explains nuances of SAVP reporting Elizabeth Schrock Guest RepoRteR

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ou’ve heard the numbers: Nationally, about 1 in 5 women will experience rape or attempted rape during her undergraduate years in college, 1 in addition to undoubtedly high numbers of male and transgender survivors. Yet, rape and sexual assault continue to be vastly underreported, with school administrators, counselors, health care professionals and advocates

receiving relatively few reports of sexual violence. As an advocate for student survivors, I find myself often wondering how I can better reach students and provide them with the services that they may want or need.

One way that colleges have been attempting to improve their systems is by gaining a better understanding of what barriers students encounter when thinking about reporting, and addressing those barriers directly with policies and programs.

In a national study of sexual assault reporting on college campuses, researchers found that there were a number of barriers to seeking services: alcohol or other drug use, not believing that the incident was “serious” enough to report, fear of reprisal by the assailant or others, fear of other impacts and disbelief that the system will help them.1, 2 In addition, systems for reporting are often confusing processes, causing students to be unsure of what the outcome

might be or what the process might look like. These fears are valid considering the social climate that students live in, where media reports of the ramifications of reporting are in abundance. However, there are a number of ways that Vassar College addresses these barriers directly that students may not know about.

First, Vassar has a Good Samaritan Policy stating that no charges related to any involvement of drugs or alcoSee SAVP on page 6

Greek tragedy humanizes warfare Women’s soccer beats Union for playoff spot O Victoria Youngblood and Chris Gonzalez Guest RepoRteR And senioR editoR

ne Sunday, Nov. 3, the Chapel breathed with the life of ancient Greek theatre. “Theater of War,” a group dedicated to drawing attention to issues surrounding soldiers returning from war through the art of performance, staged a dramatic reading of Sophocles’ 2,500 year old tragedy, Ajax. But unlike most theatrical pieces, for “Theater

of War,” the script only accounted for a small fraction of the dialogue.

The dramatic reading facilitated a conversation about war, specifically the struggles of psychological injury, between a mix of veterans and civilians.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Greek and Roman Studies Curtis Dozier organized the 233rd performance of “Theater of War” in collaboration with Creative Director

Bryan Doerries and his company, Outside the Wire. The cast performed two selected scenes from Ajax, which preceded a panel discussion and Q&A. The cast, which consisted of two actors from Outside the Wire, Louis Cancelmi and Heidi Schreck, and two Vassar students, Sean Keller ’16 and Michael Moore ’15, performed the dramatic reading.

See THEATRE on page 14

Alec Ferretti/The Miscellany News

Alec Ferretti/The Miscellany News

Students Sean Keller ’16 and Michael Moore ’15 , along with actors Heidi Schreck and Louis Cancelmi, performed a dramatic reading of Sophocle’s Ajax in “Theater of War,” in order to highlight the struggles soldiers face in war.

Inside this issue

7

A trip to the Ben & Jerry’s capital of the FEATURES world

9

VSA funding controversy prompts OPINIONS needed reevaluation

Sophomore forward Kamaria Coley strikes ball in an attempt to score a goal.

The women’s soccer team moves on to postseason for the first time since 2010.

Chris Brown

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spoRts editoR

n a match against Union College, the Vassar women’s soccer team pulled out a season-changing win, earning a spot in the Liberty League playoffs week. This win earned the team their first berth into post season play since 2010.

The game took place on Vassar

16 ARTS

turf on November 2nd, and the two teams did not fail to deliver a game that kept the crowd on the edge of their seats. Freshman Kelsey Hamm scored the first goal for the Brewers, putting them in the lead. It looked as though the Brewers had the game won. However, with around ten minutes remaining on the clock, Union See SOCCER on page 20

Nebraska a forlorn father-son journey into the heartland

The Miscellany News

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November 7, 2013

Hangover playlist helps ease headaches Emily Dowling

mAin CiRCle BloGGeR

Bethan Johnson

Senior Editors

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Chris Gonzalez Steven Williams

Contributing Editors Ruth Bolster Adam Buchsbaum Jessica Tarantine

courtesy of The Weeknd

News Noble Ingram Features Aja Saalfeld Opinions Angela Della Croce Joshua Sherman Humor & Satire Lily Doyle Arts Jack Owen Sports Christopher Brown Tina Caso Photography Cassady Bergevin Spencer Davis Design Palak Patel Online Alessandra Seiter

courtesy of Lorde

’m guessing that more than a few of us woke up last Sunday with killer morning-after hangovers.

We know the symptoms: sensitivity to light and sound, exhaustion, and a general feeling of awfulness and regret. You may think that music is the worst possible remedy, but think again, my nauseous friend. I’m no doctor, but I’ve assembled a super chill hangover playlist guaranteed to take away your troubles—at least for half an hour). Grab your Advil, sunglasses, and headphones and check it out.

The Morning by The Weeknd I sense that I’m very late in jumping on The Weeknd’s bandwagon. For months now iTunes, Spotify, and Facebook have been reminding me that if I like Drake, I might like The Weeknd, too. Last week I finally gave in, listened to “The Trilogy,” and fell in love. “The Morning,” my favorite song of the album, contrasts a fast-paced subject matter with a slow and sweet melody. It’s a soft track with a great beat that won’t exacerbate your hangover headache.

Ribs by Lorde I know that everyone’s obsessed with Lorde right now, so there’s a good chance that you’ve already heard and gotten sick of this song. I’ll skip the background since you’ve almost definitely heard it and jump to why I chose the song. Lorde’s strippeddown song is perfect for hangover fatigue. “Ribs” is simplistically beautiful without the overwhelming production that overruns a lot of contemporary songs. In addition, the song fits perfectly into category of music that makes youth feel desperately, deeply important, making it a natural pick for a post-party playlist.

Read about the rest of the hangover playlist, and other blogs, on the Main Circle blog at miscellanynews.com

Editor-in-Chief

Songs from The Weeknd and Lorde are just a sampling of the choices available for a post-party playlist. These slower songs help steer you towards recovery.

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Create it!

We are always looking for creative, talented people interested in reporting, photography, graphic designing, copy-editing, videography and blogging.

Join us for Paper Critique on Sundays at 9 p.m. in the Rose Parlor.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Crossword Editor Assistant Features Assistant Arts Assistant Sports Assistant Photo

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 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.

The Miscellany News does not expressly endorse any of the opinions of the columnists featured within the pages of the paper, except for the staff editorial.

November 7, 2013

NEWS

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Conflicting information spurs debate on VSA Council floor Noble Ingram neWs editoR

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courtesy of Vassar College

n Sunday, Nov. 3, the Vassar Student Association (VSA) held a four-hour Council meeting, the majority of which focused on an issue relating to its fund allocation process. In the meeting, the VSA had originally approved funding to several student organizations that were on the Consent Agenda. Once the meeting had reached the final agenda item, concerns arose about the fund allocation to ACT OUT!. They promptly called a closed session to discuss the issue further.

This organization had applied to the conference fund of the VSA to allow for participation in the National Women’s Studies Association Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio this weekend.

As VP for Finance Mike Kaluzny ’14 explained, “The VSA conference fund is designed for non-annual low cost conferences that have a direct benefit to the student body and specifically student organizations. Finance Committee meets with organizations and makes a recommendation for council to approve.”

Many on Council doubted the legitimacy of the group as a real organization on campus.

Some VSA members questioned the existence of the organization’s general body and regular meeting times. Council decided to call in representatives from the ACT OUT! organization to the meeting. As VP of Activities Stephanie Goldberg ’13 explained in an emailed statement, “A member of the VSA Council removed the application from the consent agenda due to concerns they had about ACT OUT’s standing as an organization and their fund application.”

She went on, “To clarify some of the concerns of Activities Committee, activity and meetings have not been consistent with the organization.

It was unclear who leadership was for the organization due to a lack of communication from the organization.” After further discussion and questions directed at these representatives, the VSA ultimately decided not to fund the organization through the Conference Fund but rather to fund one of the individual representatives through the Discretionary Fund.

Kaluzny confirmed this decision. “Council decided to override the recommendation of

The VSA recently encountered a controversy involving fund allocation for the group ACT OUT. In compromise, they voted to give money through the discretionary fund to a single member of the group. the Finance Committee for a number of reasons. The main reason was that Council felt that ACT OUT was not an organization in good standing and that we could not justify allocating this money on the basis that this organization is inactive.”

One member of VSA Council, Terrace Apartments President Estello-Cisdre Raganit ’14, spoke to ACT OUT!’s application prior to the meeting. “After Finance Committee’s initial meeting with ACT OUT on Wednesday, October 30th, we came to the conclusion that, though the National Women’s Studies Association Conference was expensive for the number of people attending, it was still a conference worth funding,” he said. “Hours prior to our Council meeting on Sunday, we held a joint Finance and Activities meeting with the students requesting funding. Out of this joint meeting, we decided on an allocation of $952, which was less arbitrary. This allocation was passed via the consent agenda, but was rescinded.”

Raganit continued, revealing his own views on the VSA’s decision to rescind this fund allocation. “Speaking for myself, I understand the value of attending this conference, but was irked about sending students who did not have a consistent general body in ACT OUT to which they could relay the information extracted from the conference. Another concern was that ACT OUT’s new mission statement deviated so far from the mission statement that the VP of Activities had on file that it should have been considered a Pre-Organization; and with this, the maximum a Pre-Organization could receive was $200 per semester,” he said.

After further consideration, the VSA decided ACT OUT! qualified not as a full-on organization but instead as a Preliminary-Organization based upon changes made to their mission statement. Goldberg explained, “As well, the organization was taking on a new mission statement. Before an organization can proceed with a new mission statement, that statement

and an updated/new constitution must be presented to the Activities committee for review.”

She went on, “If a new mission statement differs enough from the original, it could be considered an entirely new mission of a new group that would have to apply to become a Preliminary-Organization. Preliminary-Organizations can only be funded through the Preliminary Organization fund up to $200/semester.”

Because ACT OUT! was then considered a Preliminary-Organization, the VSA thought it better to fund the conference through the Discretionary Fund, where more money was available, and to consider the application as from an individual instead of from an organization.

Raganit explained, “By majority vote, the VSA Council allocated $251 out of the Discretionary fund to Yanee Ferrari. On behalf of the Terrace Apartments, I voted in favor of this allocation because it meant that a student—who was a junior—could take what they learned from the conference and work towards establishing ACT OUT as an organization that takes an activist perspective in empowering marginalized communities.”

Raganit went on; listing the ways organizations can apply for funds most effectively.

He noted, “A good fund application contains a thorough event description and cost breakdown; a compelling argument for an event’s benefit to the organization and, in effect, to the campus; and a showing of the attempted search for other avenues of funding.”

He also encouraged bringing members from the organization to VSA meetings. “During the meeting with the Finance Committee, it is also helpful for those reviewing the application to have organization members who are wellversed in the club’s anticipated expenses speak on behalf of the club,” Raganit said.

Kaluzny echoed this idea and went further, hoping to underline the VSA’s commitment to transparency. He said, “Finance Committee has made an effort to reach out to organizations and individuals who are planning on applying for funds. I’ve met with many organizations so far this year and I can be reached at vsafinance@vassar.edu if folks are interested in discussing their specific fund app.”

Aikido masters instruct enthusiasts on latest techniques Emily Hoffman and Shelia Hu RepoRteR And Guest RepoRteR

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out of shape. This year, I wanted to turn that around and get involved in some sort of sport or exercise. Having a small amount of experience in karate, I also enjoy exploring the different emphasis and techniques of Aikido.”

Vice President of the Aikido Club, Peter Dau ‘14, spoke of his love for Aikido as well. He explained, “I love Aikido for a lot of reasons.

One is that it makes you feel great. Although one might not think it, Aikido is very relaxing, for the body as well as the mind. It is hard to practice effective martial arts when your mind is elsewhere, so there is an element of a kind of kinesthetic meditation and being present in the moment.

He continued, “There are times when I’m stressed about my workload and don’t think I have time to go to practice, but I go anyway,

and I always end up feeling so refreshed and ready to go back to my homework when I leave. I also like that Aikido builds confidence in one’s ability to defend themselves, and I like knowing that if I need to protect myself, I can.”

The weekend consisted of six sessions, each of which was taught by a different master practitioner. According to Dau, “The Aikido Club thinks that it is important to hold events like the Fall festival to bring the Aikido community closer together. We hope to continue with this tradition in the coming years. If people are interested in a fun, safe way to learn to defend themselves, make new friends, learn a new school and become more confident, they should come by practice. They are commitment free: Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday 8-10 in the Fitness MPR.”

Angelo Roman/The Miscellany News

n Saturday, Nov. 1 and Sunday, Nov. 2, the Aikido Club hosted the annual Vassar College Fall Aikido Festival in the Bays of the Walker Field House. Visitors to the Festival came from all over the country to attend the event. The Aikido Club has been hosting this event for the last eight years and the Vassar Fall Festival is one of the biggest Tomiki Aikido gatherings of its kind in the U.S. Aikido is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a combination of martial studies, philosophy and religious beliefs. Aikido literally means “way of blending energy” in Japanese. The point of Aikido is that practitioners can use the art to defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from injury. This is done by redirecting the force of the attack rather than opposing it head-on. There are no punches or kicks involved and Aikido fosters controlled relaxation, flexibility and endurance; it is a practice that is less focused on strength.

The Aikido Club practices a style of Aikido called Tomiki Aikido that differs from the main branch because it incorporates live-action sparring. Tomiki Aikido was developed by Kenji Tomiki and is often referred to as “Sport Aikido” because of their regular competitions between practitioners. In 1967, Tomiki built a dojo in Osaka, Japan to train practitioners for competition. During a competition, a pair of fighters are judged on how well they execute their kata, or choreographed movements. Depending on the competition, the practitioners either fight bare-handed or with a training rubber sword. Although there are generally no competitions in other styles of Aikido, practitioners of Tomiki Aikido feel it is necessary to develop their techniques in a physical way, which ultimately trains their mind as well.

Vassar Aikido Club is lead by Min Chen ’16 who commented on the event this weekend.

Speaking to her impressions of the festival, Chen said, “Our Aikido Fall Festival is one of the biggest Tomiki style Aikido conferences in the nation. We asked instructors from around the country to come and give a seminar of what new and exciting techniques they have been working on. From different dojos, we have not only senseis but also their students.”

She continued, expressing optimism. “I am very happy with how the festival went. We had an even better turnout than last year. Every sensei was on the same page with each other, and every seminar above par,” she said.

Aikido ‘s main purpose is to enhance your lifestyle and open your mind to different perspectives of protection. Chen wrote in an emailed statement, “One of the greatest and most amazing experiences I’ve had with Aikido is meeting the various people in the field. I’ve met World Champions (current and past) and even had the privilege to practice with a master from Japan and his students (at an event called Mansfield Mayhem in March, students were from Japan’s Waseda University).

She continued, “I often come away from Aikido with a sense of awe, because we focus more on redirection of energy rather than brute strength, it is amazing what can be done with so little effort. Of course, learning and remembering how is the slightly harder part.”

According to one member of the Aikido club, Ben Hoffman ’16, the club typically begins each week by warming up, he says “This is crucial because we each experience throws and holds from both sides—having a wrist lock done on you without proper stretching can be both painful and damaging. During warm-up, we tend to have informal discussions about any club events coming up. After this, we begin real practice—footwork, avoiding attacks, unbalancing the opponent and so on.”

Hoffman continued, expressing his happiness with joining the club. He said, “As freshmen year went on, I was feeling more and more

For the last eight years, Vassar’s Aikido Club has hosted its annual Aikido Festival. The Japanese martial art is aimed at enhancing one’s lifestyle and engaging in different modes of protection.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

NEWS

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Outside the Bubble Shooting in Los Angeles Airport

On Friday, Nov. 1, 23-year-old Paul Ciancia entered Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) with a .223-caliber assault rifle disguised in his luggage, according to CNN. After killing one man and wounding three others, Ciancia was shot four times by LAX police officers and remained hospitalized in critical condition on November 3 (CNN, “LAX shooting: Latest on suspect, victims and warning that may have come too late”, 11.4.13).

On the departure level of LAX’s Terminal 3, near the ticket counters, Ciancia removed his weapon and shot Transport Security Administration (TSA) Officer Gerardo Hernandez, 39, twice, killing him. Hernandez is the first TSA officer ever to die in the line of duty. The El Salvador native was known by friends as a family man and leaves behind a widow and two children (Associated Press, Gerardo Hernandez, slain TSA officer, remembered as a family man, 11.3.13).

Ciancia went upstairs, looking for TSA officers and asking the travelers who had not been able to run away, “Are you TSA?” (CNN, LAX shooting: Latest on suspect, victims and warning that may have come too late, 11.4.13). While TSA officers are unarmed, airport police officers responded in one minute, wounding and arresting Ciancia. A wounded traveler, Brian Ludmer, 29, was reported to be hospitalized in fair condition on November 3. Two wounded TSA officers (Tony Grigsby, 36, and James Speer, 54) have both been released from the hospital. (CBS News, The LAX shootings, as they happened, 11.4.13).

Although Ciancia has no history of mental illness, his family in New Jersey became concerned on the morning of the shooting after receiving vague but disturbing text messages from Ciancia. They contacted police, who did not arrive at Ciancia’s home until after he had left (CNN, LAX shooting: Latest on suspect, victims and warning that may have come too late, 11.4.13).

Investigators are still looking for a motive.

President of the American Federation of Government Employees, J. David Cox, stated that he was opposed to arming TSA officers who are not recruited or trained for firearms skills. TSA Administrator John Pistole says that the TSA will continue to evaluate their policies to prevent these violent incidents.

Healthcare Website Opens

On Oct. 1, HealthCare.gov opened to the public, allowing those from the 36 states which didn’t create their own online healthcare exchanges to shop for health insurance and take advantage of the Affordable Care Act, nicknamed “Obamacare”.

Since the website became available to the public, the federal government has faced criticism over the various glitches and malfunctions on the website. (Washington Post, What went wrong with HealthCare.gov, 10.24.13).

Problems in using the website may have stemmed from the use of so many contractors, as well as from its need to get information from the computer systems of a myriad of governmental and private agencies for purposes like identity verification and financial information.

The issues include the inability to shop for plans without creating an account, intermittent break downs, and incorrect information. These lapses in service have caused headaches for the Obama administration, which has received criticism from frustrated users and Republican opponents of the Affordable Care Act. The Department of Health and Human Services announced on November 3 that the website will go offline every night between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. to be repaired. (Time Magazine, Obamacare Website to go Offline Every Night for Fix, 11.4.13).

In the meantime, paper applications are available to consumers. However, the paper versions still require some use of the HealthCare.gov system and will not necessarily speed the process (Wall Street Journal, Obamacare Notes Show Worries About Pushing Paper Applications, 11.4.13). Despite the possible false sense of progress instilled by paper applications, HealthCare.gov seems to be becoming more vocal about the alternatives to the most troublesome parts of the website.

On Nov. 4, Health and Human Services spokeswoman Joanne Peters told the Wall Street Journal that significant progress has been made toward improving HealthCare.gov since its launch. Citizens across the nation continue to enroll via phone, paper and the internet.

—Elizabeth Dean, Guest Reporter

November 7, 2013

Lecturer illuminates the interdependence of early modern scholars and their work Debbie Altman Guest Reporter

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n Thursday, Oct. 31, Vassar hosted the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History at Harvard University, Ann Blair. Blair’s talk “In the Workshop of the Mind: Collaborative Relationships in Early Modern Europe” took place in the Class of 1951 Reading Room of the Library where students, faculty, and a handful of Poughkeepsie locals gathered to listen to the dynamic speaker. Her focus was on the collaborative relationships that marked early modern, 16th–17th century, intellectual work in Europe. In particular, she advertised her talk as an analysis of early modern paintings, manuscripts and printed books to illustrate that early modern collaboration was just as essential to scholarship as it is today.

The Media Studies Program, the History Department, the Library, and the Office of the Dean of Faculty sponsored the event. Student interest reflected the variety of departments involved. Tomas Guarnizo ’16 heard about it in his Media Studies class. “We are also reading a book by the lecturer and I thought it would be interesting to meet her,” he said.

Erin Leahy ’16 also attended, stating, “I tagged along with a friend who went for her history class. But I still love attending talks on topics that I’m unfamiliar with.”

After a familiar and warm introduction by Professor of English on the Henry Noble MacCracken Chair, Robert Demaria, Blair began with a quote from Roger Stoddard, “‘Authors don’t make books.’” The truth, according to Blair, is that behind most famous works are many unseen voices and hands; those of the author’s peers, patrons, and helpers—family members, secretaries. Blair complemented her talk with a prepared slideshow, which incorporated famous examples from the works of Pliny the Elder, Thomas Aquinas and Erasmus. Typically their published books do not credit their collaborative partners. Blair at-

tributes this to the way in which commercial printing emphasized the publicity of the author. Of the process of how books entice buyers, Blair argued, “[They] hide the process of making them.”

This might not be altogether too different from current publishing standards. “Today we still want to sell brands,” commented Demaria. “I believe that some authors—such as the late Norman Mailer and presidential historian Doris Kerns—employed many under-workers in making their books, but these people tend not to get much credit. In other arts—such as sculpture and architecture—I think the helpers may do even more than they do in literary work, and get even less credit.”

Blair also noted the importance of technology in the development of sales practices. The growth of the printing press set in motion a new emphasis on brand name, attribution notations, and where to place credit in order to give a work the best possible sales future. She additionally credits printing with the innovations common in our modern presentation of text; title page, indexes, pagination, and the white space that highlights section breaks.

Printing allowed, and encouraged, books to truly become best sellers with recurrent and extended new editions.

All the same, Blair points out this by no means limited collaboration. Authors continued to rely heavily on their note takers and glue-binders.

Leahy said, “I had never thought about the help authors had with the physical production of their books. I found it particularly interesting when she mentioned that wives or servants would assist authors by gluing pieces into their books. I’m not surprised they weren’t credited but it is a shame that they aren’t even remembered.”

Of the modern approach to collaboration Demaria adds, “[collaboration via letters and face-to-face encounters] is still going on,

though the ‘letter’ carrier is the internet rather than the penny post, and people from all over the world see each other more frequently at conferences than they used to do.”

She continued, “As for amanuenses, copyists, gluers, and note-takers, we mostly have our computers, though there are some famous and important writers who still have workshops full of assistants.”

Other topics brought up during the talk concerned the issues that manifested due to the distrust between authors and their secretaries and the importance of handwriting as an imprint of the author’s personality in the work they were writing.

The hour-long talk was followed by a short Q&A, in which questions regarding Blair’s own experience with collaboration were raised. After the event formally closed many in the audience stuck around to ask Demaria further questions.

Demaria said of the takeaway, “You really don’t know what happened historically—or, for that matter, in recent events—until you start looking closely… Ultimately, numerous small observations can generate entirely fresh ways of seeing artistic production.”

He added, “The big lesson that you learn over and over from ground-breaking scholars is that you must examine the evidence for yourself and let the evidence generate the answers to your questions.”

Students generally responded positively to the event and the speaker as well. “Nothing she said was particularly shocking or unexpected but I was definitely intrigued with some of the anecdotes she had about particular authors,” said Leahy.

She continued, “Like that story where Erasmus had to buy back his notes from his secretary who ran away and ransomed them, I don’t know if we value notes in the same way.

The speaker did a great job painting a picture of a completely different time.”

Conference engages student governments SEVEN SISTERS continued from page 1 Saturday, Nov. 2, was divided into four phases.

They focused on collaboration between the Seven Sisters and how each college could improve from its relationship with the other sister colleges.

“Benedict [Nguyen ‘15] and I have been meeting about once a week since the beginning of the year to plan out the conference itinerary and all of the logistics,” Steinberg revealed. “Then I worked with [Assistant Director of Residential Life/ Leadership and Development] Terry Hanlon and [Executive Director of Activities] Terry Quinn to plan the first phase of the conference; I worked with [VP of Activities] Stephanie Goldberg and the VSA Activities Committee to plan the second phase; [Nguyen] and I planned out the third phase; and Benedict worked with [Coordinator of the Sexual Assault Violence Prevention Program] Elizabeth Schrock to plan the fourth phase,” she said.

On her involvement in the conference, VSA VP for Activities Stephanie Goldberg ’14 said, “Members of the Activities Committee— [President of Strong] Carolina Gustafson [’15], Claire Grosel [’14], [President of Main House] Reuben Moncada [’15]—and I planned and presented one of the four phases of the conference. Specifically, we focused on Phase II—Intercollegiate Collaboration.”

Steinberg acknowledged that the goals of the conference change from year to year. “The host gets to decide,” she said, “So two years ago, it was very much geared at political action, last year it was all about individual leadership development, and this year we decided to focus on collaboration.”

One activity during the conference that encouraged discussion was participants breaking off into pairs. Later, they grouped themselves by school to discuss what they learned from those dialogues. A representative from each college then shared their overall findings to the whole conference.

“Our expectations for Phase II and the

conference were exceeded in the best ways,” Goldberg said on the exercise, “During Phase II, they were so engaged in discussion that we had to ask them to hold their thoughts and conversations for a later time so we could proceed with the next activities. [Gustafson], [Grosel], [Moncada] and I were all so happy and proud that the presentation for Phase II was so thought-provoking.”

Raymond House President Ramy Abbady ’16 commented, “The VP for Activities [Goldberg] identified four major areas that make a college run. So we’re breaking up into pairs and talking about each area at our colleges and what areas can be improved.”

“It’s easy to think that we’ve lost a lot of connections to the Seven Sisters because we’re co-ed now,” he said, “But, despite that difference, we are still a small liberal arts college with similar situations to the other Sisters in many ways. I think there’s a lot we can learn from each other.”

Other members of the VSA also weighed in on the experience. “As a member of VSA Council I was expected to attend the conference,” said Moncada, “However, even if I wasn’t expected to attend, I was interested in attending the conference anyway because of how interested I am in how our sister schools structure their student government.”

He continued, “Particularly, I’m interested in what kind of implications their student government has for the various aspects of campus life, like campus activities for example.”

Abbady agreed with this assessment. “I was really excited to be involved because I wanted to know how other schools’ student governments work, and what challenges their schools face. As I learned, a lot of us deal with the same problems on our campuses,” he said.

Students from Vassar’s sister colleges were also pleased with the discussion.“I got an idea of the ways other SGAs [student government associations] run at other schools. I got to see how their SGAs are more efficient that ours, and how our SGA is more efficient than theirs.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

So I got to pick up on some key ideas that we can possibly use to improve,” said Smith College student Shreeya Rajanarayanan.

“We often talk about all of the things we could be doing better, but we so rarely take the opportunity to think about all of the things we do well, especially compared to other schools,” said Steinberg, “This conference reminded me how wonderful Vassar is. We still have some things to fix here, but we should also make sure to take the time to appreciate everything that makes Vassar special.”

“Honestly, the conference was ten times better than I had expected,” Abbady concurred. “There wasn’t an overwhelming amount of students, allowing for all of the students to really get to know each other and share about their respective colleges in a more intimate way.”

“I learned a lot; not just about student government, but about broader campus issues that we all have in common,” he went on. “I also got to meet some very interesting people that I plan to stay in contact with.”

Goldberg affirmed, “I truly enjoyed the conference and meeting new individuals of the Seven Sisters. I also appreciated exchanging information with students holding similar positions to my own.”

“The implicit goal of the conference is to celebrate and strengthen the relationship between the historical Seven Sisters Colleges. I think everyone had a great time and had the opportunity to network, reinforce our similarities, and learn more about our differences,” Steinberg noted.

She echoed enthusiasm for the conference, concluding, “Beyond that, the explicit goal of the conference was to collaborate with one another. We addressed how to do that on our own campuses, with each other, as the ‘Seven Sisters’ and with the greater community. We started many important conversations about inclusion, accessibility, traditions, sustainability and more, and I hope everyone continues them throughout the year and beyond.”

November 7, 2013

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Nature-shy senior explores outdoors, sees new sights Jack Owen ARts editoR

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Jack Owen/The Miscellany News

hen my housemate asked me to go camping with him and a few friends in the Catksills over October break, I can’t deny that a pang of terror pulsed through me. No heat? No showers? No coffee? Can I bring my moisturizers? These were actual questions I asked him. Needless to say, he guffawed at all of them.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I’m not exactly the “nature” type. The closest thing I’d done to camping was sitting on my deck roasting marshmallows over an open grill. Sure, I’ll wear flannel and Bean boots, but not for any practical reasons.

Those boots were as pristine as the day I first bought them. The idea of going off the grid was entirely novel.

Perhaps the not-so-distant reality of graduation was sinking in now that I was beginning my last October break, but I decided to push myself outside of my comfort zone and ignore my apprehension.

Who knows when I would have this opportunity again? I was going to camp, and camp like a champ at that. Isn’t that what they say college is for—exploring new realms, taking on new challenges?

So the four of us—Niko, Kevin, Thomas and I—packed up our camping gear (all of mine was borrowed from the outing club) and hopped in Thomas’ suburban to venture into the wilderness.

I saw my phone service dwindle: Two bars – one bar – none. I was excited and spooked by my newfound disconnection from the civilized world. We were going to hike The Great Ledge trail, which ends at one of the Catskills’ highest peaks, and camp for a night at the campsite at the top. There would be no Facebook, Instagram, Gmail or iMessage. Just us and the great outdoors.

Thomas is an Eagle Scout, and Niko has camped in the Alps several times, so I knew I

was in good hands. Nothing á la Blair Witch was going to happen, or at least I assured myself of that. And we had a hearty supply of food—sausages, eggs, potatoes, liters upon liters of water, apples, cheese, and, most importantly, wine.

Stepping out of the car I saw my breath condense in the cold air. Apparently the weather forecast of 70 degrees was a lie. I shivered in my too-tight H&M jeans and light sweatshirt.

“You okay, buddy?” Niko asked me with a grin.

“Oh, yeah, totally,” I said. “Let’s do this.”

As we started the ascent I began warming up, and was able to take in the striking beauty that is the Catskills in the fall. Under a canopy of red, gold, amber and green we climbed.

The crisp air filled my lungs, more satisfying than the tepid air I swallow down on the stairmaster in Walker.

The trail was pleasantly empty—probably too cold for most campers. Once we reached the top we took in the view, red mountains undulating across the horizon. Evidently, the Great Ledge is actually made up of four different little ledges, all of which look out into the valley.

Ah, so this is why people put themselves through this, I thought.

After taking in the beauty until, frankly, it got boring, we headed back to the campsite to set up a fire and put up the tent. I was enlisted to search for sticks—varied sizes, good and dry. Other than that I was a pretty worthless camping companion.

Niko and Thomas assembled the fire, saying all the things you hear in movies that I, at least, didn’t think were said in real life: “This stick’s too young,” or “we need more embers, it’s choking out.” I found the whole thing comical and incredible.

Before I knew it, they had created a roaring fire that cooked our food—no hot pans necessary—and warmed our soar limbs. Sausag-

Seniors escaped the confines of campus by taking a week-long camping trip over October Break. The group soon understood the allure of nature, while also recognizing the challenges of outdoor living. es sizzled on the cast-iron pan, and the aroma of melting cheese filled our nostrils. The only cooking mishap was potato-related. We wrapped potatoes in foil and placed them in the fire, but as the flames grew they became hard to retrieve. Still, the resourceful Eagle scout salvaged them once the fire was all ash, and we saved them for breakfast the next day.

In a giggly wine-drunk haze, s’mores in hand, we swapped stories, squinting through the thick smoke that stung our eyes.

Camping—and maybe a little wine—I discovered, can really bring people together. I hadn’t spent much time with Thomas and Kevin before, but here we were sharing stories about our pasts.

Pardon the cheesiness, but there’s just something about removing yourself from

your normal life, taking in the natural elements, and really focusing on those with you that fosters friendship.

I slept like a log that night, too exhausted from the day to notice the near freezing temperatures, or that my sleeping bag allowed less mobility than a baby’s swaddle blanket.

Coyotes howled in the distance, but other than that it was dead quiet. Alas, no run-ins with the Blair Witch.

The next day we climbed down the Great Ledge and headed back to reality, back to homework and class on Monday.

One night was enough for this virgin camper’s first stint, but I would definitely like to do it again. So long as I’m accompanied by an Eagle Scout or Alpine hiker to help me along the way.

Chabad provides new outlet for Jewish self-exploration Bethany Terry stAFF desiGneR

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t 94 Fulton Avenue, just a 10 minute walk from campus, there is an ordinary Poughkeepsie house that most wouldn’t take a second look. Upon closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that it is not just a home, but a place of worship. Known as the Chabad on Fulton, the house, which the Sanoff family converted over the summer, is now open and serving the college community of Poughkeepsie.

Chabad is a practice that follows the principles of Orthodox Judaism. Chabad Houses, often just referred to as Chabads, provide a variety of services to the Jews in their community without a membership charge. Chabad is an acronym for the Hebrew words chochmah (wisdom), binah (comprehension) and da’at (knowledge), the three major components of intellect, according to the Chabad website, Chabad.org.

Chabad on Fulton is part of an international organization called Chabad on Campus which serves 150 colleges worldwide. Co-director of the Student Center Dalia Sanoff said, “As part of that organization the goal is to offer a place for college students to explore, enhance and delve into their Jewish identity. There is a stage in life where people are exploring their identity in general, and especially in today’s world, this is the time to ask ourselves, what does it mean that I am a Jew? What does it mean to me?”

The Sanoff family, which consists of Dalia Sanoff, her husband Rabbi Daniel Sanoff and their son David, live on the second floor of the Chabad, making it homier. It is typical for Chabads to be the homes of those who direct it.

Dalia Sanoff said she believes that this is what makes their Chabad so appealing to students.

Calling it a home away from home, she said that she believes a college Chabad is a place where students should feel comfortable to come and

Cassady Bergevin/The Miscellany News

The Chabad’s Sanoff family—Co-director of the Student Center Dalia Sanoff, Rabbi Daniel Sanoff and their son, David—serves to provide a space for Poughkeepsie’s Jewish students.

practice Judaism.

“Kids want home cooked chicken soup and matzo balls, and somewhere to sit on the couch where they don’t have to worry about laundry, so that’s us” she said.

According to some of the Vassar community, the Chabad has succeeded in creating a welcoming environment. Gavriella Kaplan ’14 is one Jewish student who has found the Chabad to be an excellent place of worship.

Said Kaplan, “I feel at home whenever I am with the Sanoffs because I attend a Chabad back home in New Jersey.” She said she feels connected to the Chabad on Fulton because it provides a similar experience to the one she grew up with and prefers Chabad services because they are more traditional than those practiced by some other sects of Judaism. Because of the way the Chabad is run, Kaplan feels that it does provide a taste of home. “I babysat their son one day, and when I walked into their home there was Israeli chocolate and honey cake for Rosh Hashana on their kitchen table; I felt like I was back at home.”

The Chabad, while it follows the principles of Orthodox Judaism, welcomes all Jews regardless of their level of spirituality, keeping in mind the audience of their services. Said Dalia Sanoff, “We work with a certain crowd and if your serving community is an average of 60 year old men and women with grown children, your approach is going to be very different. We offer a taste of traditional Judaism, which is different than certain things that exists on other campuses. In that sense, we don’t alter.”

Because of their own backgrounds with Judaism, the Sanoffs believe that they are wellequipped to serve a college community. Both come from fairly non-observant Jewish families and became more religious as they got older. Daniel Sanoff began with Chabads on Campus during his college years at the University of Vermont, while Dalia Sanoff worked with Chabad for Backpackers in Israel. Wrote Daniel Sanoff in an emailed statement“During my teenage years, I started to search for more meaning in my life and I came across Chassidic, mystical Judaism. While I was in college, I

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

was looking for a way to infuse lofty, spiritual ideals and values into a modern era.” This is when he came to focus on Chassidic Judaism.

The Sanoff family said they feel that their combined experiences are what really help them relate to the college community.

Realizing that college students are at a difficult point in their lives, the Sanoffs hope to provide a place where students can take a step back from their lives and look inward. Daniel Sanoff pointed out that this is often hard in the age of the smart phone, in a time where students are pulled every which way. He wrote, “Just like a businessman needs to make an evaluation of accounts to be sure that he is running a profitable, effective business; this also applies to who is striving for spirituality. They must make an account of where they want to be, where they are and how they are getting to their destined. This lack of time and energy to find one’s self indeed provides a strong barrier against spiritual development.”

The Chabad, although very new, offers weekly Shabbat services, services for the High Holidays and personal learning sessions. In the coming months they plan to host a Hanukkah party, plan Shabbats for sports teams, create group learning sessions and come into Vassar’s dorms to host hot soup study breaks in Vassar’s dorms.

And while the Chabad may be a “Chabad for Vassar,” the Sanoff family also works with other local colleges, such as the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), Marist and Dutchess Community College, which have smaller populations of Jewish students. Upcoming events can be found on their Facebook page, Chabad on Fulton.

“We provide an outlet for everyone to express their personal connection to Judaism. For some their connection is hot matzo ball soup, for others it’s a study session, for some a holiday event, for others it’s a social event and for some it’s a personal one on one talk about their views on life, morals, goals or whatever is on their mind and heart. Our address is one where every aspect of life is addressed, refined and celebrated,” wrote Daniel Sanoff.

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November 7, 2013

2016 Class Council aims to promote new voices, diversity Bethany Terry stAFF desiGneR

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tudent government is a central fixture of many, if not, most upper educational institutions, and students can occasionally wonder if their student government does an appropriate job of representing its constituents.

Despite the fact that Vassar students have the opportunity to run for a variety of positions to serve as representatives for the student body, the 2016 Class Council has recently decided that the elected officials do not entirely represent the wide range of diverse viewpoints on campus, and is currently working on ways to better improve representation.

In an effort to better embody the wide diversity of the entirety of the Vassar population, the elected council is currently working to add new and additional members with a variety of diverse viewpoints to their group. Adding new members is just the first of many steps in the ever continuing process toward creating a more representative student government for Vassar students.

This effort, while still a work in progress, is not a new project for the 2016 Class Council Vice President of the Class of 2016, Sino Esthappan, said that the council first noticed this problem sometime last year when they realized that the council members were agreeing on almost everything brought to the table, and began to see how this could potentially be a sign that ideologies on the council were too homogeneous.

Esthappan also addressed concerns that the

type of people who would run for elected positions in student government have the potential to not be the most accurate representation of student voices and concerns on Vassar’s campus “But too much agreement isn’t always necessarily a good thing,” Esthappan pointed out in an emailed statement.

Esthappan continued, “It just indicates that we’re all too similar. We were (a), the kind of people who are interested in and are confident enough to run for an elected position, and (b), in the case of the house representatives, the kind of people who are interested in being on house team.”

They soon realized that basing representation on house affiliation alone did not reflect the true array of differences of the student body.

“The problem with this is that campus issues more often than not transcend our living conditions and class year—it is rare that a truly pertinent issue brought up in VSA will only effect members of a certain house or class, whereas certain demographics at Vassar are affected more than others by certain issues, but have no official representation to our student government” wrote President of the Class of 2016, Max Moran, in an emailed statement.

To address these concerns, the 2016 representatives have invited five of the major Campus Life and Diversity Centers to sit on the class council, and to bring new voices to the council.

“Once we came to the conclusion that there

needed to be a more equitable way for including accurate representation of voices from all perspectives on campus, we needed a plan of implementation. We decided that ideally, accurate representation of different perspectives on campus comes from where difference primarily lies in our campus: organizations,” wrote Esthappan.

These representatives will be responsible for attending Class Council meetings to give input on the initiatives of the council and reporting back to their respective centers on what was discussed in these meetings. Representatives will also be given the choice to be a voting representative in any of the Standing Committees of the Vassar Student Association (VSA).

However, this is not a fix-all. Even with more representation, someone’s views are not going to be presented. It is an inescapable problem.

As Arisa Gereda, the 2016 representative that will be sitting on the Class Council for the Religious and Spiritual Life (RSL) Center points out, even with more members, the council will still not accurately represent everyone in the student body.

She wrote in an emailed statement, “Of course I, as one individual, cannot possibly represent the entire RSL community and their beliefs- whether religious, spiritual, secular, relating to social change, community-building, holistic lifestyles- all values that are integrated into the opportunities that RSL offers.”

Gereda went on, addressing her belief that her center has been overlooked in the general

student dialogue in the past.

“Personally, I can see how issues of religion/ spirituality/secularity are not as frequently discussed among students on campus as maybe other social issues might be, and I think that small steps like this one can help open up more opportunities for such change on a larger scale” she wrote.

At the time of this article, several groups have selected representatives already, including the Women’s Center and RSL, who have selected representatives already, the Office of International Services (OIS) and the LGBTQ Center have also decided to open a position to those who the center serves.

According to Moran, the African American/ Black, Latina/o, Asian/Asian American, Native American (ALANA) Center is still deciding whether or not it would like to send a representative to attend the Class of 2016 council meetings.

Adding more council members may not solve the problem of fair representation on campus, but Esthappan believes it is a good start.

He wrote, “I wouldn’t say that drawing from campus organizations is going to resolve the issue of representation altogether, because, let’s face it, some voices are always going to be marginalized on the basis of systemic oppression.

Esthappan wrote, “But I do think this is a solid first step in deconstructing that oppression and shedding light onto voices from the margins and letting campus wide concerns dictate the actions of class council.”

Resources available for survivors of personal violence SAVP continued from page 1

hol will be pursued against the alleged victim of any reported sexual assault” right in the Student Handbook (p. 133). Alcohol is a factor in the vast majority of sexual assaults on college campuses, and students should never worry about getting in trouble for alcohol use when they are also coping with a traumatic incident. It is never a student’s fault for using alcohol or other drugs and having a crime committed against them, and no blame is placed on the victim.

Second, Vassar takes as much of a victim-cen-

tered approach as legally possible when providing services to victims, meaning that victims are given control over decisions regarding reporting and services. As long as the student or community is not in immediate danger and there is no direct threat of harm, victims can choose whether or not they want to report, when to report, how to report and if they ever want to pull out of reporting. Students who are wrestling with whether or not to report an incident should not feel pushed to do something that they are not ready to do.

courtesty of Elizabeth Schrock

The above graphic describes the various steps survivors of sexual assault and dating violence at Vassar can take. The college provides survivors numerous options of reporting to choose from.

Additionally, Vassar has the ability to institute a no-contact order between the victim and perpetrator; this means that the victim and perpetrator will not be allowed to contact the other face-to-face or through Facebook, phone, email or their friends. Any violations of no-contact orders are taken very seriously and are seen as violations of Vassar’s policies. Often, conduct hearings and sanctions result from violations.

Students could also have a Do Not Contact Order instituted by the Town of Poughkeepsie Police, which is similar to a Restraining Order, which is also another option.

Being sexually assaulted is often traumatizing and confusing; trying to conceptualize what it would look like to report a sexual assault while also coping with it is often overwhelming. Students can always speak to, or sit down with, the Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) advocate, who are faculty/staff/administrators trained with sexual assault that can give you your options, provide support, and answer questions, or CARES—peer support for students affected by personal violation—to ask questions about the process by calling 845437-7333. In addition, as the Coordinator of the Sexual Assault and Violence Prevention (SAVP) Program, I often sit down with students and go through the various options for support, academic accommodations and reporting, as well as offer to accompany anyone through the process of reporting a personal violation.

Students can report a sexual assault through an advocate or directly to various campus officials, including Safety and Security or Title IX investigators (see infographic).. Once a student decides to report, they would first set up a time to sit down with two Title IX Investigators Kelly Grab, Rich Horowitz, or Kim Squillace and their support person or advocate of their choosing to talk through the incident. During the meeting, one investigator asks questions while the other takes notes, and survivors can take breaks or stop the conversation at any time. After talking through the incident, the investigators work with the survivor to see what order in which to do the next interviews to keep the survivor the safest, including interviews with any witnesses to the incident or people that the survivor may have talked to after the incident, as well as the alleged perpetrator. Before the perpetrator is asked to come in to talk with the investigators, a no-contact order is put in place that forbids the perpetrator from contacting the survivor in any way.

After all of the interviews are done, the investigators compile a report and the victim is given the opportunity to review it to confirm its ac-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

curacy. Then, a panel consisting of three people is convened: the default is two faculty/administrators and one student, but if either the victim or alleged perpetrator would like all faculty/ administrators, they have the right to make that choice. Typically, the victim and perpetrator are both present for a hearing, but there is a large wall dividing the room so they cannot see each other. However, if a victim chooses not to be in attendance, there could be other options for participation, including giving a written statement or Skyping/calling in to the panel hearing.

Victims can have an advocate or support person present at all points of the process including the interview with investigators, speak with various systems on campus, during the actual pane hearing and any meetings with town officials if they choose to report to the police.

They also have the option to say that they want to discontinue their participation in the process at any time, even if the college decides to move forward with the charges.

At the end of a panel hearing, the panel decides if the perpetrator is “responsible” or “not responsible” for violating one or more of Vassar’s policies (see “Sexual Misconduct” in the student handbook for more information). If the student is found responsible for sexual assault, sanctions can span from suspension to expulsion. These sanctions are decided on by the panel and explained to all parties within 48 hours of a “responsible” finding.

There are still many reasons that students may choose not to report sexual violence to the college or the police, and those reasons are valid. There is absolutely no time limit for reporting to Vassar, which means that a student can even report a sexual assault a few years after it occurred and can take the time that they need to make a decision to report or not. In addition, students are always given the opportunity to report to the police before, during or after reporting to Vassar if they choose to do so, and the Vassar administration will work with police to make the process as seamless as possible.

I hope that the system we have in place indicates clear consequences for actions that violate Vassar’s code of conduct, a clear process for reporting to that system and a multitude of support systems that students can access if they need assistance while reporting. I am always happy to sit down and discuss any issues that students perceive, and to provide support and information to students, whether or not they choose to report.

Those in need of assistance can contact Elizabeth Schrock at elschrock@vassar.edu and 845437-7863.

November 7, 2013

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Ben & Jerry’s factory inspires dreams of perfect sundaes Aja Saalfeld

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Aja Brady-Saalfeld/The Miscellany News

his weekend, one of my dreams came true—I got to go to tour the Ben & Jerry’s factory in Vermont with my teammates on the quidditch team. The tour was the dream, not the quidditch team, but, fortunately, I like them, too. And it was everything I could have hoped for, and more.

During the wait, I was afraid that the actual experience would never live up to the anticipation, but the Ben & Jerry’s factory tour was, if it’s even possible, better than the lead up. Cow related merchandise, fake spilled ice cream, free samples, educational videos, attractive cashiers—what more could I possibly want? Nothing. The answer is nothing.

We started the tour with an educational film that detailed Ben & Jerry’s history, and also outlined the production process. Because it was the weekend, no ice cream was actually in production, but we were able to view the facilities. Seeing the facilities where thousands of gallons of ice cream can be produced everyday was a borderline religious experience. At the very least, it was mild to moderately mind blowing.

After looking down on the factory floor, where giant vats of sweet cream and confections become the familiar pints of Ben & Jerry’s that can be found around the world, we moved onto the obviously most important part of the tour—free samples. On the day that we were there, the flavor of the day was Stephen Colbert’s AmeriCone Dream, which is vanilla ice cream with fudge-coated waffle cone bits and a caramel swirl. I may not like Stephen Colbert, but I loved the ice cream flavor named for him.

I considered fighting an 11-year-old for a second serving, but I was thwarted by the slow reaction time befitting someone of my advanced years.

19 is apparently a little old for the Ben & Jerry’s factory, but I will do pretty much anything for free samples, so I took it in stride.

After the tour ended, we headed back to the gift shop to bask in the presence of overpriced t-shirts and goofy Ben & Jerry’s related souvenirs, one of which, a Ben & Jerry’s Euro sticker, is currently stuck to the back of my laptop, and contemplate which pints of ice cream we should buy for the long ride back to Vassar. I considered changing it up, since I can get my fa-

vorite flavor, Mint Chocolate Cookie, anywhere I want to, but the only other option that looked appealing had a chocolate ice cream base, and I cannot stand chocolate ice cream, so I stuck with the status quo. I don’t regret it, though.

Before heading home, I left my ice cream to soften up in my coat pocket while my teammates and I wandered around the Flavor Graveyard, where retired flavors requiescat in peace forevermore. My personal favorite was Tennessee Mud, retired in 1999, a boozy ice cream consisting of a coffee base, amaretto, whiskey and almond slivers. It looked like it was the perfect comfort food—it consolidated drinking the problems away with stress eating, which, come to think of it, might have been why the flavor was ultimately retired. Regardless, I still wish I had gotten to try it before its untimely demise more than a decade ago.

On the ride home, I ate my entire pint of ice cream. Beforehand, I was excited. Afterward? I could not even look at ice cream without feeling twinges of pain. I do not regret eating that tub of ice cream, but I do regret that I had no means to keep my ice cream from melting on the five hour journey back to Poughkeepsie. Toward the end of the pint I do not think I was enjoying myself anymore, but I powered through.

If I did manage to get the ice cream back to Vassar, I would have most definitely made a sundae comprised of Mint Chocolate Cookie combined with two other flavors, since we had to get two pints to get one free. I have every intention of recreating the ideal Ben & Jerry’s sundae supreme. I have it all in my head, just waiting to be made—three scoops of three different flavors, chopped truffles, hot fudge and walnuts. Obviously, everyone’s ideal sundae will be different, but I know without a second thought what my flavors would be: Mint Chocolate Cookie, Cookie Dough and Half Baked. I’m a sucker for pretty much anything that touts itself as being full of cookies.

My Ben & Jerry’s experience lived up to my expectations and so much more. My only wish is that I had found a way to make my tub survive the five hour trip back, but, then again, there are always spare dining bucks to use up, and I know that my perfect sundae will, like the tour of the factory live up to my expectations and be just that, perfect.

Sundae Basics My Dream Sundae Ingredients: Ben & Jerry’s Mint Chocolate Cookie, Half Baked and Cookie Dough ice cream flavors Hot fudge Fresh whipped cream Candied walnuts Directions: Honestly, just throw everything in a bowl and eat it, and be happy.

SLD tries to improve working conditions for VC laborers SLD continued from page 1

number of students.

“The SLD came out of Vassar Young Democratic Socialists (YDS). We wanted to create a space that fostered community between students and workers, and members of YDS had relationships with workers who had made us aware of some of the workplace issues on campus,” stated Sarah Slichter ’15.

The conversation aims to create solidarity between students and workers who interact on a daily basis at Vassar in the hopes of mutual gain for both parties. SLD describes itself as a social justice group. “The SLD itself has also been point of convergence for students from different orgs,” said Slichter.

“I think some of the most active and engaged and supportive students are also involved in other orgs and our mission aligns really closely with the mission of a lot of other orgs,” mentioned SLD-member Will Blum ’15. According to SLD, the amalgamation of voices that make up SLD make it a diverse organization on campus.

The pamphlets distributed around campus were the first of many steps taken by the SLD in their effots to inform the College and help to support the workers on campus. They include workers’ testimonials about their time at the college, as well as information the administration at Vassar did not explicitly inform students of, including a reference to the last time there was a staff forum at Vassar.

In 2008, the College responded to the national financial crisis by creating a plan to cut more than 30 full-time jobs on campus. According to the pamphlet, this plan was met with opposition from Vassar employees and when the workers pushed back against the administration’s plan, President Catharine Hill left the discussion.

The following year, students also engaged in resistance to the labor policies of the college.

There were two instances of hunger strikes on

campus in 2009, one in which three students on campus went on a hunger strike until the administration ensured them that 13 employees, whose jobs were in danger, would be employed in the coming year.

“We met with the administration. The administration obviously has a different take on what happened there,” stated Blum in regard to the 2008 forum. “But no one disputes the facts that the administration shut down the forum and has refused to hold one up until now.”

Vassar has yet to conduct another staff forum and the issues surrounding workers’ rights have yet to be abated.

The continued tension between workers and administration has come to a head now, with President Hill and Vice President for Finance and Administration Robert Walton agreeing to hold another forum with the workers at the end of this semester. However, the administration has made the decision to keep the forum closed to all but three students from SLD chosen to attend. SLD cites this as progress in that the 2008 staff forums were barred from all students.

“There are three particular students who the administration has identified and said that they will be allowed to attend the forum,” Blum explained. “This is definitely a positive step forward, but to us it still indicates that there’s some apprehension on their part with actual transparency and with letting all students who care see what the relationship is between administration and workers.”

The SLD believes that this is where the pamphlets will come in handy for both students and workers on campus. Those who are unable to attend the forum, or were otherwise unaware of these issues, can look to the pamphlets for a brief review of the history of workers’ issues on campus and some examples of how Vassar has addressed this issue in the past.

“Our strategy of distributing pamphlets is

based on the administration’s indication that they do not want the forum to be open to students. The SLD want the issues that the workers would have brought up in the forum—that students could have been privy to had the forum been open—to be communicated to the students regardless of what the administration wants,” stated Slichter.

She continued, “The students have a right to know about what’s happening with the workers.

The workers have a right to communicate to the students. We posted the pamphlet and we distributed it widely. And it’s been read widely.”

The story of the 2008 staff forum was one of the first historical accounts student members of SLD learned about and they hope this forum will stand as an improvement in the relationship of the college to its workforce.

“It’s a story, I think, that was representative of general mode of relating to workers on the part of the administration,” said Blum. “And it’s nice because it ties together workers’ issues. What happened at the forum was really about layoffs.

Workers were getting squeezed really hard and spoke up about it, but the forum also became a thing in itself; its own instance of intense disrespect. That’s a story that we’ve heard over and over from workers.”

As the SLD hopes to change the way the administration and workers interact on campus, the group wants to have the forum open for all students to attend.

“The pressure we’re putting on the administration has resulted not in the actual staff forum, but in their inviting, arbitrarily, three students to the forum, and budging, however minutely, on the issue of getting students in the room,” said Slichter.

SLD also emphasizes the need for mutual respect between administrators, workers, and students on campus.

“Having a staff forum, in the true sense of

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

what having a forum means, that voices are heard and open discussion is had and solutions are come to, is what the workers who are part of the SLD feel is a necessary step for the administration to begin showing workers the respect they deserve,” Slichter explained. “That was from the outset, pretty much the first goal of the SLD.” With this goal partially achieved, SLD is now focusing on making sure the forum itself is fair for the workers.

“The forum is being presented to us by the administration,” said Slichter. “The fact that it is being presented, and designed by the same administration that did not hold a forum for five years and that has shown a huge lack of respect for the workers doesn’t do a lot in convincing me that this will be a true ‘forum.’ The fact that they are the ones deciding what the forum looks like, and not workers, does not align with the goals of the Student-Labor Dialogue.”

SLD will continue to work to have this forum open to any interested students.

Although the group’s name emphasizes the relationship between students and laborers, the group is meant to create a continuous discussion and relationship between not only workers and students, but also administrators.

“Historically, this type of treatment is not new from Vassar, nor is solidarity between workers and students and across workplaces,” explained Blum. “But they haven’t sustained that. There have been instances of student solidarity in the past and things have flamed up really fast and then sort of died away. We are trying to build something that will be a little longer lasting.”

When asked to comment on the pamphlet, President Hill provided an emailed statement.

She wrote, “I take the students’ concerns seriously and want to carefully read their pamphlet and consider the Misc’s questions in order to respond thoughtfully.”

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November 7, 2013

Editing services technically allowed, stifle creativity Eloy Bleifuss Prados

AssistAnt FeAtuRes editoR

“E

ssays edited in as little as 3 hours!” “Prices as low as $3/page!”

These are some of the advertisements occasionally seen on bulletin boards above printers in the Library or in the College Center, prompting private editors or math and science tutors.

They promise to do such things “improve your grades” and to “relieve your stress,” as well as to “be more successful in school & life.” But could these services be considered cheating?

College resources on the question are unclear. The Vassar College Student Handbook under the section about academic honesty states, “Each student’s work shall be the product of the student’s own effort.” But nowhere in the text is there explicit reference to private tutors or editors.

Meanwhile, a companion piece made available on the Dean of the College’ website, Originality and Attribution: A Guide for Student Writers at Vassar College, dictates that “no formal collaboration should take place in course work at Vassar unless its nature is set forth in advance and in detail by your instructor,” this restriction applies more specifically to cases of collaboration among students. Neither is it clear whether all work with a tutor or editor would fall under the definition of a collaboration. For instance, one professional editor who has advertisements on campus explained how

all she does with a student’s work would be to proofread it, leaving content alone.

Academic Support and Learning Resources Specialist Karen Getter said the college does not appear to have an official stance whether this would still be considered a breach of student integrity.

Getter, who works at the Learning, Teaching, and Resource Center (LTRC), cautioned students, however, against placing something so personal as one’s school work in the hands of a stranger, stressing that one flier is not necessarily proof of trustworthiness or legitimacy.

She said, “My concern would being seeing that it is an entity outside of campus, how would you verify the validity of what they do and how well they do it?”

According to Getter, there are alternatives within the college that students can consider before turning to outside help. Getter herself will often meet with students to discuss effective work habits. She said, “A majority, if not all, of Vassar students are very intelligent students, but sometimes they have to modify what they have done. And it doesn’t stop with time-management and a lot of times it doesn’t start with it either, but that’s where most student needs help with.”

Another internal resource, the Writing Center, offers to read students’ essays and at zero cost. Director of the Writing Center Matthew Schultz said he does not believe that private

editing services are aligned with the college’s Liberal Arts mission.

He wrote in an emailed statement, “Vassar College is an educational institution. What educational value is there in paying someone to edit one’s papers? What does one learn in that process? Campus resources–professors, colleagues, Writing Center consultants–are educational resources. We are educators, not editors, who help produce better writers, not simply better writing.”

Unlike some private editors, the writing center meet students face-to-face. Those looking for feedback on their writing can enter the Writing Center and sit down with a consultant to discuss an essay or assignment. According to the Center’s website, before becoming a consultant, students must first take the seminar Process, Prose, and Pedagogy taught by Schultz.

Private services, Schultz believes, leave no room for the process of writing. He wrote, “Vassar is a college of writers. As such, our students are interested in developing a range of written abilities. Paid editing is a myopic service focused solely on correctness. There is no dialogue about complex ideas, communicative structure, or the aesthetics of voice. Gone is the ambiguity and messiness of dialogue that we so highly value at a liberal arts college.”

He continued, “When students work with a professor, colleagues, or Writing Center con-

sultant, conversation is opened up, not shut down. The focus is on the student-as-writer, not merely the mechanics of her work.”

Getter also described her dealings with students as a collaborative process. What she says she tries to achieve isn’t to tell students how they are supposed to complete schoolwork or stay on top of their reading, but to instill within students a sense of confidence. “Most times it’s having conversations with student’s about things they already know and just helping them pull that out. I find that is very common for a Vassar student,” she said.

Another question surrounding private editors and tutors Getter was herself uncertain as to how widespread a practice is it for students to contract paid professionals for academic assistance.

Sam Smith ’14 works at the College Center Information Center desk, which reads and approves all signs and posters before giving them with the official stamp. Only fliers and signs bearing this stamp have the right to go up on campus bulletin boards. Smith reports that in the time she has never during one of her shift personally encountered anyone wishing to put up a flier for a private tutoring or editing service. The number of these types of outside parties like those coming to campus is low in her estimation. “I work everyday Monday through Friday” said Smith, and added, “I’ve never seen that here.”

Fair trade bazaar helps to support, protect laborers’ rights Kelsey Quinn

Guest RepoRteR

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la beans, vanilla sugar and powder.

Equal Exchange was represented at the fair selling fair trade coffee, chocolate, tea and other snacks.

The Bazaar also served as an opportunity to support Mid-Hudson Valley vendors. Along with the many trade products from overseas, several small businesses were present selling their local wares.

Earth to Table is a group that does a lot of work with colleges, including Vassar. This is the group behind Vassar’s recent Food Day. Their mission is to promote sustainability and eating locally grown food. They do a lot of work with community gardens, greenhouses, and helping to feed the needy. The group’s representative at the fair, Joe Baldwin, expressed excitement to continue educating Vassar students on eating local and healthy food when the farmer’s market moves indoors.

Our Lady of the Resurrection Monastery, a local church, was selling homemade soap, herbs, vinegar, salsa and other foods.

Back when Vassar was still a women’s college, the girls who attended the school would take their dates to the Kimlin Cider Mill in Poughkeepsie.

Though the mill has been closed since 1990, a private, non-profit group called The Cider Mill Friends of Open Space & Historic Preservation has since undertaken the task of restoring, preserving, and turning it into a historical site. The group was at the fair educating about their project and fundraising.

Sam Pianello/The Miscellany News

n Saturday, Nov. 2 and Sunday, Nov. 3, rows of tables filled with vendors lined the Aula, each filled with a hodgepodge of unique fair trade items. When something is fair trade, it means that no one involved in the trade gets a bad deal.

Often, those producing items in less industrialized countries are unable to make the profit they deserve. Fair trade ensures that these skilled farmers and artisans are paid and treated fairly.

The Duchess County Interfaith Council, Inc. and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Poughkeepsie sponsored the Fair Trade Bazaar in Ely Hall.. The purpose of the bazaar, as described on the DCIC’s website, is to make people socially and economically aware of the origins of their goods.

Throughout the two days of the bazaar, live music played as visitors shopped around the bustling room.

Many of the products being sold at the bazaar were made by artisans from all around the world with the intermediary party eliminated.

One such a group was Handcrafting Justice, which is run by Sisters of the Good Shepherd, a group of women who teach their religious values around the world. Through this mission, they meet the people who create the pieces sold by Handcrafting Justice.

Handcrafting Justice sells handmade items from over 20 countries around the world. Projects included stuffed animals, wallets, photo albums, headbands and earrings. As the organization states in its website, “HandCrafting Justice promotes human dignity by empowering women to overcome social and economic injustice.”

Another table sold jewelry made by teenage mothers in Uganda brought to the U.S. by the Child Care and Youth Empowerment Foundation. Meghan Miller is a member of Peace Corps currently volunteering in Uganda and working in conjunction with the foundation; her mother and sister were representing the foundation at the bazaar. All of the money from the sales of the beads provides the mothers with funds for childcare and help returning to school.

Vision of Tibet is a group that supports Tibetan exiles living in India without access to employment. The refugees make a variety of things including scarves, wallets, Tibetan prayer flags and a wide variety of jewelry.

Things are bought directly from the refugees, brought to the U.S. Vision of Tibet has a store in Rosendale and also sells at events such as the Fair Trade Bazaar.

One woman was at the bazaar for her project

SHONA Congo. After living in Congo for a few years teaching English, she developed a relationship with four differently-abled women.

SHONA Congo was created as a way to help these women receive regular and fair payment for their sewing.

According to the SHONA Congo website, “The opportunity to work independently, with dignity, has made an enormous difference in the lives of these 4 women, and their families.” There is no middleman or outsiders involved in their project, only the five women.

Each piece, whether it be a bag, an apron, or a bracelet, comes with a tag upon which is written the names of the women who made it and their story.

A group called Women’s Work was represented at the fair selling a variety of goods, particularly jewelry made from ostrich eggshell beads, one of the oldest known forms of art in the world.

Produced in Botswana, the jewelry is crafted using uncommonbead-making techniques. The fair trade items from around the world were not only art; a variety of fair trade foodstuffs had a noticeable presence as a part of the as well.

Lafaza, who had a table at the bazaar, is a company that buys vanilla directly from farmers in northern Madagascar and the only vanilla company in the U.S. that works directly with the growers they buy from. This allows them to control quality and ensure that growers are paid fairly. They produce vanilla extract, vanil-

Students gathered in the Aula to view and purchase items from the Fair Trade Bazaar over the weekend. The bazaar featured goods from across the globe, and all were sold without intermediaries.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Throughout the bazaar, there were many tables selling locally made jewelry. One of these was Lorelei Designs, a local small business that features jewelry made from natural gemstones such as amethyst and turquoise with wire-wrapping done by hand. A similar table was Vibrant Art, whose beaded jewelry made from many genuine stones was proudly described as fair trade, vintage, recycled and upcycled. “Upcycled”, as explained by the vendor, is a term meaning that many of the beads were taken from other pieces that have broken or were no longer used.

Other handmade, local items included intricate, handmade dolls made by Eto Kukhianidze. She was also selling Christmas ornaments, glasses cases, vests, belts and cookies.

One table was selling bar soap, lotion and soft soap all made from goat milk. Relay for Life was represented at the bazaar selling items made by volunteers to support their cause. Another table contained handmade beaded purses.

Ulana Salewycz is a local artist selling small pieces at the bazaar as well as spreading the word about her mandala workshops, art therapy and watercolor classes.

Another local artist was selling artwork as well as promoting her Peace Rocks project.

She has, over time, painted over 12,500 rocks with peace signs on them and spread them all around campus in order to promote peace and happiness. She was giving them out at the fair to anyone interested in participating in her project.

Towards the back corner of the Aula, a group called Sound Earth brought kittens to the bazaar in order to promote their adoption. Sound Earth partners with animal rescues, and profits go towards general animal welfare.

All of their cleaning products, pure essential oils, roll-on perfume and other products are made locally in Fishkill and are cruelty free.

Shea Ocean is a local business that sells organic shea butter made from ingredients from Ghana. They make their shea butter in a variety of scents that they like to call flavors because customers tell them their products smell and look good enough to eat. The business is owned by Mamadou Ndoye and Mark Cunningham, who are passionate and dedicated to their business and say they have dreams to one day expand to do more.

Aside from these, many other unique vendors were present at the Fair Trade Bazaar.

The event provided an opportunity for people to buy items that were high-quality and also helped support individuals who, though talented, are often not given payment and appreciation they deserve due to corporations and big business.

November 7, 2013

OPINIONS

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THE MISCELLANY NEWS STAFF EDITORIAL

Funding process must change to prevent misuse, confusion

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n the Nov. 3 meeting of the Vassar Student Association (VSA), 2015 Class President Casey Hancock called for a closed session, during which time the VSA reconsidered the fund allocation to the student organization Act Out!. The VSA called this closed session based on allegations that aspects of Act Out!’s fund application had been falsified. The VSA had already approved the Finance Committee’s recommendation for funding, as stated in the Consent Agenda, at the beginning of the meeting. However, the VSA waited until Open Discussion, and more than an hour after they had approved the funds, to reconsider the funding.

We at The Miscellany News feel that this series of events displays a serious lack of communication between the Finance Committee and members of the VSA council, and underscores issues of oversight in the fund allocation process. We at The Miscellany News are also concerned that VSA adopted the Consent Agenda without voicing the fund-related concerns finally expressed at the end of the meeting. If members of the VSA Council were troubled by aspects of this allocation, they should have removed it from the Consent Agenda and made it the last agenda item of the meeting. This would have prevented much of the confusion surrounding the funding process. This instance with Act Out! should serve as an example to the VSA Council of how to properly handle the screening and approval process of fund applications to the VSA. The Finance Committee reviews fund applications based upon a number of fac-

tors, including the standing of the student organization requesting funds, as well as the fund’s contribution to the betterment of the organization and the campus as a whole.

When an organization requests funds from the VSA, the Committee meets with representatives from the student organization in a closed meeting to determine the amount allocated. During these meetings, any member of the Committee has the opportunity to ask the representatives about their organization’s activity, why the requested funds are necessary for improving both their organization and the greater campus, and any other pertinent concerns that the Committee may have.

We at The Miscellany News feel that the Finance Committee meeting serves as the proper forum in which to express any concerns about funding, and that it is inappropriate to do so at the last moment of a VSA Council meeting. In order to ensure that the Finance Committee avoid waiting until the VSA Council meeting to resolve funding concerns, the Committee should thoroughly fact check all fund applications submitted by organizations. This would include reviewing the organization’s mission statement and confirming the size of the organization’s general and executive bodies with outside parties.

These fact checks by the Finance Committee should also include a thorough review of the organization’s programming history over the past three semesters. Any concerns that arise during this fact check should be voiced in the Committee meeting,

as they may influence the recommendation of the Committee, and before VSA Council formally approves the funding.

Even with this increased diligence from the Finance Committee, other members of the VSA Council should carefully consider the minutes of Finance Committee’s meetings and actively question the Committee’s recommendations before approving the Consent Agenda.

The Consent Agenda, while in practice is oftentimes adopted without question, should be viewed as a legitimate venue in which to express fund-related concerns.

VSA Council members should remember that fund allocations are merely recommended by the Finance Committee, and that members who do not sit on the Finance Committee have every right to question the Committee’s recommendation.

VSA Council members should also understand that by not questioning a Consent Agenda that includes suspicious fund allocations, they are passively allowing Vassar’s money to go toward potentially ineligible or unworthy causes. Members of VSA Council should take the responsibility of funding seriously, especially since a majority of these funds come from students via the Student Activities Fee. Instead of assuming that the Finance Committee always makes or can always make fully-informed fund allocation recommendations, VSA Council members should actively discuss their insights regarding a student organization before passing the Consent Agenda. Given the limited funds

controlled by the VSA, Council members should also remember that when approving fund allocations, they are choosing to fund certain causes at the expense of others. This gives the VSA Council a large amount of power over these organizations, and over the campus climate in general, and is therefore something Council members should not take lightly.

We understand that debating the Consent Agenda after it was approved is necessary in some cases, such as when representatives from student organizations appeal for more funding. However, the VSA should seek to minimize these instances by making fully informed decisions regarding the organization in question.

We at The Miscellany News recognize the overwhelming privilege that the VSA has in its ability to allocate large sums of money to student organizations. However, we demand that Finance Committee conducts more thorough investigations of the student organizations that apply for funding, and that the Committee relay any concerns to the rest of the VSA Council before approving funding through the Consent Agenda.

Moreover, we expect that VSA Council members who do not sit on Finance Committee articulate their concerns regarding the fund allocation recommendations while discussing the Consent Agenda. This will ensure that the VSA Council approves funds in a more active, informed manner.

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

Re-examining dorm norms ‘Designer babies’ initiate motivates new perspective debate over DNA control Lily Elbaum

T

Columnist

his past week, I was talking with someone who was curious about the housing situation at Vassar; this was an older person who wanted to know about Vassar in general.

When I mentioned that the dorms were co-ed, she seemed surprised, and then asked if they were co-ed by floor—male floors interspersed with female floors. I told her no. So her next question was if the floors were sectioned off with male sections and female sections. Again, I answered no. She seemed surprised, not necessarily unpleasantly, but there was hesitation.

It got me thinking how our perceptions of acceptability change over time. When I first heard about Vassar, which seems like so long ago, I knew almost nothing about it. It was just another small, liberal arts school in the Northeast. To be fair, this was at a time when I only had a vague notion of what college implied (ah, the innocent days of freshman year in high school!) and most of what I knew came from extremely idealistic movies. Basically, I knew nothing about anything about college. So when my sister got accepted here, I learned a little bit more about Vassar through her.

It seemed like an open and liberal place. On the other hand, she was placed in Strong, the only single-sex dorm on campus. So again, my perspective of what co-ed life would be like was limited. Then I finally got around to visiting colleges. Most of the schools I visited prided themselves on separating, in some way, men and women. Sometimes that meant male and female dorms, or separate floors (as the person I’d talked to suggested), and sometimes suites of rooms assigned to a gender. Back then, this seemed like a good idea. Who knew what sort of shenanigans people might get into if men and women lived near each other! And, without exception, none had gender-neutral bathrooms.

Then I got accepted here. And I found out that not only did I live next to guys, but I would be sharing a bathroom with them. The horror!

But slowly my perceptions changed. After that first awkward first week when you’re paranoid a guy will walk in the bathroom, things got better. I got less self-conscious about doing normal bodily functions, and it was perfectly fine

walking into a bathroom and seeing people of multiple genders there.

My grandparents came to visit; they remembered when my sister had moved in, and it had been an all-female dorm. They expected the same for me. “So do men live in a different dorm?” No.. “They live on different floors though, right?” It was the same questions. It was a standard belief that men and women shouldn’t live near each other. What is it about unmarried people of a certain age that it’s assumed men and women shouldn’t live together?

(I mean people of all gender, trans*, cis, etc.)

In other areas, we have left behind antiquated notions of chastity, innocence and segregation.

Yet it seems that this notion is harder to dispel.

I understand why, to some extent, we think the way we do about separation of gender. There is, after all, a biological difference between men and women. But why should that matter?

They’re just organs. Human society is based around ideas of propriety, and those ideas are hard to change when they’ve been around for centuries. Some things are slow to change.

Civil rights in all areas of life have been challenged for the last century or so and many important, necessary changes have occurred. But history cannot be completely reversed in so short a time. People cling to history and they like to see where they have been. The past is used as a guide for the future, and proving that ideas of the past are wrong or outdated is glacially slow. To be frank, history can never be completely rewritten or forgotten; it will always linger. And that isn’t a bad thing, but it does slow down change.

Nonetheless, in some way our perceptions can change. My perspective has changed just since my time at Vassar. I think when I talked to that woman, her perceptions changed too, even if only a little. Change isn’t a sweeping tide; it’s a river which slowly erodes away the landscape it flows through. One step is co-ed dorms and bathrooms; another might be staying up late talking about gender norms. It’s the big things that make headlines, but the little things that make a long-term difference.

—Lily Elbaum ’16 is a prospective independent major.

Delaney Fischer

A

Guest Columnist

re you looking to test your genes and design your ideal baby? Well, you might just be in luck. A company named 23andMe received a U.S. patent near the beginning of October that allows them to use software to help their clients find out if they were to have a child, what key genetic traits that child might have. Until this patent, 23andMe was known simply for DNA testing that allowed people to better understand their health.

A key example of why one might want to use their test-your-genes kit can be seen on their website through a YouTube video of a client who found out she had celiac disease after seeing a variety of doctors for 15 years who couldn’t figure out what was wrong. The kit could thus be beneficial for discovering any potential health concerns.

However, the company is expanding with this patent and now has a “family traits inheritance calculator” which predicts a few traits that your theoretical child would have such as eye color and muscle performance based on how parental DNA would most likely combine (ScienceMag, “Company’s ‘Designer Baby’ Patent Divides Bioethicists”, 10.03.2013) The company does point out that there is no guarantee that the predicted traits in a theoretical child will be the traits that occur in an actual child, but it does imply that there are certain lifestyle changes one can make to help better the odds of certain theoretical traits becoming real. Is this company about to eliminate the many flaws of people? This is certainly an uncomforting thought.

This patent has been in the works since 2008. Many believe that ethics may have been a large reason for why this patent was withheld for so long. Both a writer for Genetics in Medicine, Sigrid Sterckx, and the executive director for The Center for Genetics and Society, Marcy Darnovsky, have criticized 23andMe and have implied that this software is morally unacceptable.

To me, it sounds like they think something bad is about to happen and that parents may just go crazy trying to design ‘perfect’ children, or at least ‘better’ children, whatever

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

that means.

I read about Nita Farahany’s experience with 23andMe and wasn’t sure if I was still as scared. A bioethicist of Duke University, Farahany, and her husband are clients of 23andMe. She found from the system about her theoretical child’s bitter taste perception, chance of being lactose intolerant, eye color, alcohol flush reaction, and a few other traits. Simply put, she says she did this for pure entertainment value.

At this time she has no children, but she points out that while this system is risky in terms of the accuracy of its predictions, it is important for people to understand their genomes. It’s imperative to have access to information about themselves, especially pertaining to their health.

Personally, I agree with her… about her personal health. To predict if her child may or may not have a bitter taste perception. I don’t see the necessity of it. I think the real issue here is why would one really want to get the tests through 23andMe done.

In several medical tests, it is not always possible to gain accurate information, such as using 23andMe or other medical tests to see if your child might contract a life-threatening disease from you, such as HIV. And while yes, I know these tests are not very accurate, I still see it most justifiable to test to see if your child is likely to have HIV than to test to see if your child is going to have a bitter taste perception. But then again, I suppose to each their own. This software is legal and people are taking advantage.

I was talking with fellow classmate, and she asked me if I had ever seen the movie Gattaca, and indeed I had. In that futuristic movie, every one is essentially perfect due to being able to create the perfect kids. She pointed out that with this new 23andMe technology, the only place to go with it is to expand on it.

So what exactly does this mean for 10 years from now? Am I going to be able to determine everything about my child before they are even conceived? I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

—Delaney Fischer ’15 is a neuroscience major.

OPINIONS

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November 7, 2013

Sexual objectification of women must be eliminated Angela Della Croce opinions editoR

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t’s always interesting how insightful or enlightening realizations can originate from the most mundane settings. I was catching up with an old school friend of mine, updating each other about the most unspectacular aspects of our lives. I mentioned that I was now attending Vassar College, to which he replied, “Oh is it true what they say about Vassar?” I had a hunch about what he was referring to, but I decided to ask him what he had heard about Vassar instead. “I’ve heard that your school preaches lesbian ideology, like women refusing to shave their legs and stuff.”

If this conversation had occurred face-toface I would have gotten up and left at that moment; I was pretty appalled. Needless to say, our once innocuous conversation ended abruptly after that. What does lesbian ideology even mean? I had assumed he was referring to feminism, but what does a gay woman have to do with female rights? And refusing to shave their legs? He portrayed it as though women should be obligated to maintain in a state of hairlessness and not doing so demonstrated disobedience and defiance of what is ‘natural.’

His idiocy, which first provoked a mere sense of annoyance and eye-rolling, soon triggered a much larger realization: the association between women and objects of beauty (or sexual objectification) and just how deeply engrained it is in our society. Sexual objectification involves serving or fulfilling another’s sexual pleasures, where the sexual object is subordinate and acted upon instead of being the actor.

We see this concept applied to people—96% of whom are women (TED talks, “The Sexy Lie”,

01.20.2013)—and we’re seeing more of it than ever before. Since the 1980s, there have been significant increases in the sexual objectification of women in TV, magazines, music videos, advertisements, etc., catering to both men and women.

Men find these portrayals of women attractive, because it makes them the sexual subjects, the actors that are in command and control.

Women find these scantily-clad, objectified, beautiful female models appealing, because they associate physical attractiveness—a concept that has been largely governed by men— with the value of a person. If we women look a certain way, we will somehow become more valuable, more supposedly ideal. And we do become more ideal.

We become ideal subordinates, commodities, objects. Society has trained women so successfully in viewing our bodies as projects to be perpetually improved upon for the liking of men that we truly believe spending all that time, money, and effort on cosmetics, hair, skin, clothes and nails is actually empowering. We live in a society where women would be far, far more offended if someone called them ugly than if they were seen as incompetent, boring or uninteresting.

We have women telling themselves that they put on pounds of makeup and take an hour just to find an outfit for themselves, because somehow, some way, it’s supposed to be a gateway to increasing self-worth.

Yet decorating our physical bodies is in no way, shape, or form for ourselves. The way you dress on a Sunday, alone in your dorm and doing your homework, is how you look for yourself.

And I can almost guarantee your ‘homework

day look’ did not involve extensive primping and priming. Instead, we see male attention as some sort of precious, finite resource, where competition with other women is necessary to obtain as much it as possible, since it is through male approval and attention that we derive our false sense of value and worth.

When another woman is viewed as more highly-valued sex object, it makes other women feel bad about themselves. The pressure associated with trying to become the perfect sexualized subordinate has resulted in depression, eating disorders, reduced cognitive ability, noticeably lower GPA, and more (TED talks, “The Sexy Lie”, 01.20.2013).

This is clearly an issue. When a sizable portion of our population is preoccupied with their physical appearance, we lose this group’s ideas for growth, innovations for change and assistance for a brighter future. When women continually have to compare themselves with unrealistic perceptions of how a woman should be, they lose confidence in themselves and their ability to speak their minds. And if they deviate from the narrow confines of what is ‘womanly,’ they are stripped of their femininity or deemed as crazy or bitchy.

For example, women who are “too muscular” are seen as unfeminine; Celebrities, like Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears, who have/ had diverged from their perfectly-primped and well-behaved selves are immediately branded as crazy; and virtually any woman who is known to exert power and control is portrayed as a bitch.

The average woman is therefore constrained and uncertain of herself; she lives in a world where she almost feels apologetic when she

speaks out loud, where she constantly uses “you know?” or “right?” in her sentences because she feels like she needs reassurance from others to carry forth, and where she will often become passive because she lacks the confidence to feel comfortable around confrontation and possible judgment from her peers. Instead of treating this like the socially-constructed concern that it is, our patriarchal society has explained these behaviors as merely ‘natural’ to women; they are inherently less assertive, competitive, etc., making people doubt that there is even a problem to fix.

But there is a problem—a deeply-engrained, self-perpetuating problem—that needs to be destroyed. Right now, mainstream campaigns are advocating ideas like “confidence is sexy” and “you’re beautiful in the skin you’re in.”

While these notions are seemingly positive, they both still rest of the false perception that women ought to be sexy and beautiful to begin with. It further perpetuates that tie between being aesthetically pleasing and being valuable.

A breaking of this association needs to occur, and it involves much more than telling women is simply not care what other people think. Destroying this paradigm will take time and the effort of both sexes. There probably is no one solution but we can start by doing this: The next time you want to compliment a woman, don’t call her beautiful. Commend her on the things she has done, said, or achieved.

Hopefully, with time, we women will stop focusing on what we look like and start focusing on what we can accomplish.

—Angela Della Croce ’15 is an economics major.

Students and workers must create mutual discourse Jeremy Garza and Olivia May

T

Guest Columnists

he Student Labor Dialogue (SLD) is a collective of students and workers organizing in solidarity. There is an idea of the “Vassar Community,” a term which students frequently encounter, that conveys itself as a complete representation of the people that comprise Vassar College. But in practice, this “community” often excludes a vital group: Vassar’s employees. Instead, unionized and non-unionized staff and workers of the College have been made to bear the brunt of the college’s neoliberal strategy of cutting costs in the aftermath of the oftevoked “financial crisis.” Layoffs, spontaneous schedule changes, violations of union contracts and diminishing avenues of communication are part of a broad devalorization of workers and workers’ rights at Vassar. Custodial staff, dining staff, Buildings and Grounds workers, administrative assistants, security officers; their work is at the core of this institution and while the rhetoric that surrounds student existence at Vassar defers their importance, for people who earn a living here there is much more at stake.

The Student Labor Dialogue is committed to resisting the turn towards corporatization within the College’s culture and policy. A corporation by nature is an organization that thinks only in terms of profit and loss, rarely in terms of those who compose it. When Vassar’s vision and daily mechanics are guided by corporate tactics, it comes at the cost of justice in our community. The SLD hears over and over again that workers fear voicing their opinions and that criticism of the Administration leads to retribution. What we address in our collective organizing is a pragmatic issue. As more workers are laid off, the amount of work to be

done does not decrease. In fact, the opposite is true as the last fifteen years shows an increase in admitted students and an increase in the number of buildings needing to be serviced.

Furthermore, people who feel appreciated and are allowed to take satisfaction in their work do a better job. All of us on this campus comprise an interrelated group working towards the same goals of facilitating teaching and learning.

However, when any of us in this community are treated with disrespect we are all implicated.

As students, do we want to be in an environment where the people who work here feel pushed to the wall? We believe it is necessary for members of the Vassar community to understand the importance of how these people are being treated.

In 2009, President Catharine Hill held a staff forum, an institutional structure that facilitates communication between the college and its workers. The staff forum is a vital space for intra-institutional dialogue and explanation of college policy, but the Administration made it clear in 2009 that it was not intended as a place for workers to ask questions, express discontent, or raise concerns. What was labeled a “forum” was clearly intended by the Administration to be an “info session” instead.

When workers stood up against the college’s announcement of systematic layoffs, President Hill walked out of the forum and has refused to hold one since.

In the past two months, the SLD has been organizing a campaign to re-institute the staff forum and as a result of pressure from both workers and students, the Administration is committed to holding a forum before the end of this term. As of now, the Administration has suggested that three students attend the forum

to act as observers; this arbitrary number leads us to ask: what does the Administration risk by making the forum open to all students who care? While workers have shown repeatedly their ability to express and articulate their own concerns, as they did during the last staff forum in 2009, the College, too, has shown its capacity to broadly disempower and silence workers.

CWA (Communication Workers of America) and SEIU (Service Employees International Union) union leadership, with the support of their membership, have expressed an outstanding desire for students to be present at the forum.

The importance of student presence is multifaceted. Having students in the room will hold the Administration accountable for the conflicting stories they tell; the College presents an image of community values and progressive education but the reality for workers is very different. This is perpetuated as long as the avenues for dialogue with the Administration are kept separate for workers and students.

Student presence at the staff forum is a way of insisting on the importance of transparency, challenging the idea that we can reside in a community with an unwavering ethical core and a simultaneous contradicting neglect of these principles when it comes to its workers.

Additionally, the Administration has repeatedly used the well-being of the student body as an excuse to further an agenda of disciplining labor. When the college attempted to impose sudden schedule changes for Buildings and Grounds workers, demanding that they work weekends, the Administration reasoned that it was for the sake of students, who were inconvenienced by the sights and sounds of grounds maintenance. What is not being considered is

how the inconvenience shifted onto workers with families, responsibilities, and concerns outside of their work at Vassar. Similarly, cleaning staff have suffered a schedule change which brings them to work at 5 a.m. with the comfort of dorm residents used as a rationale of justification. As students, we must challenge the very idea that students’ and workers’ interests are at odds. Those of us that live and work on this campus share a united interest, and we must uphold respect, dialogue, and mutual reciprocity as the basis of our community.

We will not be held in conflict, although the College goes to great lengths to separate students and workers. At present Vassar’s successful “150 World Changing Campaign” has earned back the losses from the frequently-invoked “financial crisis.” However, the Administration continues to construct a dichotomy between need-blind admissions versus fair contracts for workers which is predicated on financial stress.

This either/or scenario paints a bleak picture for the future of the College and attempts to leverage need-blind financial aid as a moral imperative at the expense of workers’ rights.

There is no justification for the enormous discrepancy between the expressed value of giving working class young people a chance to go to Vassar and the continued squeezing of the people who work here. Workers’ interests cannot be de-legitimized; both need-blind admissions and the financial well-being of workers must be held as central imperatives at Vassar. It is not a question of balancing our interests; as the Student Labor Dialogue shows, our interests are shared.

—Jeremy Garza ’14 and Olivia May ’14 are members of the Vassar Student Labor Dialogue.

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Email us at misc@vassar.edu MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

November 7, 2013

OPINIONS

CARES resources for Vassar campus plentiful, available for students to utilize CARES Staff

Guest Columnist

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ounseling and Assistance in Response to Rape and Exploitive Sexual Activity (CARES) is a student-run, nonjudgmental, confidential, 24/7 peer-listening service. We originally formed as a response to the increasing recognition of climates of rape, sexual and gender based violence, stalking, and relationship abuse on college campuses, including Vassar. While our focus includes all types of gender-based violence and harassment, we also consider ourselves allies of the Women’s Center, the ALANA Center, the LGBTQ Center, the Sexual Assault and Violence Prevention Office (SAVP), and the Sexual Assault Response Team (SART).

In order to establish ourselves as a safe space for those affected by sexual assault, we host several campus-wide events each year dedicated to creating a community and showing support for anyone who has been affected by our issues. At CARES, we believe that absolutely no one should feel judged, silenced, or victimized and that everyone deserves to feel safe and accepted for who they are. When a person’s basic human rights are violated, they deserve an empathetic and attentive listener.

That’s why we’re on call.

No matter what happened, when it happened, or who it happened to, we’re here to listen. Simply put, we provide a forum for any student to share their thoughts and be heard.

Our goal is to validate callers and help them reach a conclusion about what solutions may work best for them. We don’t work magic, we aren’t trained therapists, but we are committed to giving students a voice.

In addition to being on-call, another way that we strive to create a safe, non-judgmental space on campus is through hosting the SPEAK-

OUT. SPEAKOUTs are forums for students to voice their experiences, thoughts, and feelings toward issues of sexual and gender-based violence. Ultimately, we hope that participating in a SPEAKOUT is an empowering experience for survivors, providing solidarity, support, and validation. We host three SPEAKOUTs a year: one in October, one in January when we accept new members, and one in April during Sexual Assault Awareness Week.

SPEAKOUTs take place in the Mug. If the Mug is a space associated with unwanted, awkward, or negative experiences, then the SPEAKOUT is an attempt to take back the Mug by creating a space where everyone feels safe and respected. To prepare for a SPEAKOUT, we arrange the chairs in a semi-circle around the “dance floor” and dim the lights (yes! the mug has lights!). In the center of the room, we put one small chair and one tall chair for people to use if they choose to share.

There is no mediator, which allows students to come up and speak if and when they feel comfortable. We encourage students to share any thoughts or experiences related to sexual and gender based violence or relationship abuse, but those who attend do not have to share. Everyone in the room, even those that choose not to speak, is a participant in the SPEAKOUT. In between speakers, there can be several minutes of silence. We think these moments of silence are especially important to a SPEAKOUT, because they give attendees a chance to reflect on what has been said, think critically about their own experiences, or go through their own process of becoming empowered in the space.

Although we would like to, we can’t guarantee that the space is confidential. We ask that attendees respect the people who choose to speak and help make sure that what is shared in

the Mug, stays in the Mug. To maintain confidentiality at the SPEAKOUT, we ask that those who share their thoughts do not include any identifying information about anyone that they mention, including organizations that they are involved with, sports affiliation or house.

Most of what is shared at a SPEAKOUT is very emotional and can be triggering so at each event we make sure to have listening members of CARES available for any participants that would like to speak to someone in person. Participants are also encouraged to call CARES after the event if they have any lingering feelings or reactions about what was said.

Before leaving a SPEAKOUT we encourage everyone to participate by sharing an experience or action that makes them feel strong and empowered. In addition to sharing an “I feel strong when…” statement, we encourage participants to take time to relax following the event. Our goal at SPEAKOUT is not to overwhelm people, but to empower them and get them thinking about these issues.. We are passionate about hosting the SPEAKOUT because we believe that when people are ready to share their experience, the SPEAKOUT can be a valuable step in the healing process.

We accept applications from students that would like to join CARES at the beginning of the spring semester. Once accepted, new members go through a training semester during which the group meets for weekly training sessions led by a qualified guest speaker. We train in a variety of issues and new members practice calls with listening members. New members must complete a certain amount of practice calls before becoming “listening members” in the fall.

You can reach CARES by calling the CRC and asking for the “CARES counselor on-call” or emailing us at cares@vassar.edu.

House President discusses his duties Ramy Abbady

Guest Columnist

I

t can be very challenging to be a member of the VSA Council, and even more so as a House President. I am the Raymond House President, and I would like to preface this article by saying that I can only definitively speak for myself. That being said, I do know that many of my opinions are shared by other House Presidents, based on the many conversations we’ve had through the year. I wrote this to help humanize the VSA and help other students understand the pressure we’re under and the thoughts behind some of our decision-making.

It is often very confusing to be a House President. Our position is a dual one—where we are split between being the leader of a House Team and being a representative to the VSA Council.

As HPs, we have so many different responsibilities that keep us stretched between these two very different roles. We all have six mandatory meetings every week: VSA Council meetings and two VSA standing committee meetings, a one-on-one with our House Advisor as well as our Student Advisor, a House Team Meeting, and a Board of House Presidents meeting.

This breaks down into three VSA-related commitments, two House-related commitments, and one that deals with both. Additionally, some of us have House Officer meetings, and many of our houses have policies requiring House Team members to attend Study Breaks and other House events.

“It is often very confusing to be a House President.”

This adds up to a significant amount of time each week. Once you factor in classes, homework time, meals, social interactions, a part-time job, other extracurriculars and sleep, there’s suddenly a lot less time.

I find it nearly impossible to give everything the energy and effort it deserves – managing five classes, six hours of work per week, and VSA and House Team commitments. I have to reprioritize almost every day to adapt to the situations going in these realms of my life.

Long problem set due for physics tomorrow?

Not the night to send an all-house e-mail, thereby negatively affecting advertising and dissemination of other information. Working on a major project in VSA or one of my committees that requires talking to constituents?

Gotta skip some of that reading for sociology, making me look less prepared for discussion.

There are always accommodations to be made to balance my student and leadership roles.

Being a member of the VSA Council can often feel like crossing Niagara Falls on a tight rope. In terms of dealing with issues on campus, there’s a constant struggle to maintain a very delicate balance that involves keeping both students and administrators satisfied, while simultaneously representing your constituency. Sometimes, it’s not even possible to do all of these things.

For me, I definitely prioritize the opinions of my constituency over my personal feelings and viewpoints, but things get a little more dicey when trying to manage the satisfaction of students and administrators.

I think that it is our job to, first and foremost, support the initiatives of the students here. That’s why we were elected. However, that being said, as a member of Council, I am privy to the opinions and feelings of many administrators. Hearing both sides of a controversial issue makes it so difficult to form my own opinions and also adhere to my value of being a representative first.

That being said, I also consider it very important to have an informed opinion, and hearing and understanding both sides is definitely a step towards doing that. At those moments, I simply have to trust my gut. Few students know both sides of some issues, and utilizing the information I have at hand is the best thing I can do.

To be clear, I do believe that we should be on the students’ side at all times. However, doing

that does not mean that we should be ignoring administrators, especially when they willingly let us know their position. The VSA has significant pull at Vassar, and, for the most part, administration will take our actions very seriously. It’s a delicate balance.

Page 11

Word

on the street

If you could establish any department at Vassar what would it be?

“Zander Mrlink Department.”

—Lauren Wiebe ’16

“The Food Department.”

—Daniel Gutowski ’16

“Television Department.”

—Doug Greer ’14

“I think that it is our job to, first and foremost, support the initiatives of the students here.

When constantly faced with this overly complicated choreography set forth by being a House President, it becomes very difficult to maintain healthy relationships. We’re elected for the whole year, which means we have to maintain working relationships with other Council members, our House Team members, House Advisors, and many other administrators. You can disagree with someone, but you still have to remain respectful and cordial, or risk causing a problem that continues for the entire year.

Being a House President, I’ve learned to not taking things personally and to agree to disagree. If I dislike someone’s ideas about something, it doesn’t mean I dislike them.

I want to end on a positive note. Being a House President is incredibly challenging, but can be so rewarding. My House Team successfully planned a new event this year. I’ve definitely improved my leadership ability. I’ve become more capable of thinking broadly about issues and forming a solid opinion that I can back up. It’s easy to become disillusioned, but when I realize that students here have the very real power to make change, it motivates me. I have many initiatives I want to work on this year. Even in those that fail, I will have learned from the process. Here’s to the rest of this year!

—Ramy Abbady ’16 is President of Raymond House. He is a physics major.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

“The Cool Accessories Dept.”

—Mira Villesvik ’17

“Department of Muggle Studies.”

—Kyle DeAngelis ’15

“TH Livin’ Dept.”

—Cat Fiore ’14

Lily Doyle Humor & Satire Editor Cassady Bergevin, Photo Editor

OPINIONS

Page 12

November 7, 2013

Attacks on religion and faith ignore benefit on society Luka Ladan

Assistant Sports Editor

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ritics of organized Christian religion— for our purposes, let’s call it a belief in a Christian God that is characterized by routine communal worship—often revert to the same repetitive arguments and age-old critiques repeated one generation after another.

Those without faith share the same doubt, and believers in God are expected to provide all of the answers and disprove all of the doubters out there. We are therefore afforded the daunting task of calming the storm and of meeting criticism with a limitless stream of information and understanding. That stark reality is also amplified by the steady rise of atheism and decline in Christian worship, especially among youth.

The questions are everywhere: if there is a God, then why is there so much violence in our world? Why is there so much death and destruction? If He is there, then why must we be susceptible to terrible tragedies on our shores?

Why does this all continue to happen? Surely, the God Above did not intend for things to be this way. Humankind is supposed to be created

by Him and in His image, constructed on the holy foundation of love and togetherness, respect and everlasting peace—the moral example of Jesus Christ paving the way for all human beings on this Earth, regardless of social standing, skin color, and so on. Well then if so, then why do we fall short at times?

The critics shift the debate in that direction. The doubters point to the shortcomings, the negatives, the death and the destruction as some sort of indication that God isn’t actually there. Their logic is pretty clear: this supposed God wouldn’t oversee a human race with so many flaws and deficits in character; that a world with so much bad present and not

“By Enlarge” ACROSS

1 Threatening words (2) 7 Like the president’s office 11 Gator or Power ender 14 One of the Twin Cities 15 Slangy denial 16 Suffix for an animated file (with a contested pronunciation) 17 Tennis legend 18 Big showcase 19 Information Services Group: Abbr.

20 Lucifer 22 1/12 of a ruler 23 *Lost artifact?

29 Boat propellor 30 Shocked 31 Dr. with several Grammys

nearly enough good He wouldn’t create. This supposed God could never create a world, ripe with sin and an endless stream of wrongdoing.

If He is perfect, then why wouldn’t His creation exhibit such perfection? It makes no sense, they say. These critics argue that a tragedy—whether it be in America or around the world—demonstrates that there is no such divine being. Alas, they demonstrate a shallow understanding, establishing an argument rooted in emotion rather than a deeper and more thorough thought process.

To sin is human nature. We are imperfect creatures too often ruled by our passions and basest desires, instead of reason and faith in the divine. God shrewdly intended for us to be so, understanding—in His infinite wisdom— that imperfection brings about teaching and learning and that the ability to respond and react to an adverse situation is important.

Imperfection enables us to identify a mistake, determine a plan of action, and respond with conviction. Because we do wrong, we are able to do right; because we sin, we are able to atone for our mistakes and correct them in the long run and bring us somewhat closer to perfection.

“We are imperfect creatures too often ruled by our passions and basest desires...”

I am a sinner, but I may strive to be a saint.

You are imperfect, but you may strive for perfection. We do wrong, but we may strive to do right. I will never be perfect, and neither will

must remember that, even when the going gets tough.

But, why not look at the same situation in a different light? Instead of blaming the God Above, there’s always the path of gratitude and thankfulness—appreciation that the good isn’t bad and that the bad isn’t worse.

“Instead of blaming the God Above, there’s always the path of gratitude and righteousness” That is my understanding, at least, as a devout Roman Catholic with a firm belief in the Divine. The critics question my belief by casting negativity into my life, into your life, into all of our lives.

But such are the workings of God. Why? To make us better as human beings; to point toward righteousness and steer us in that direction. He made me and you, and He made us flawed so that we may strive for more—that we may strive for being better.

I am a sinner, but I may strive to be a saint.

And so may you.

But, it requires us to change our outlook and look at the same adverse situations in an entirely different way and we must show gratitude, for the good isn’t bad and the bad could be worse. Remember that, and be grateful that He is watching over us.

Let us strive, for He allows us to do just that.

—Luka Ladan ‘15 is a political science major.

The Miscellany Crossword

32 Symbol of sanctity 33 *Avoid crashing into a deer?

40 Organic compounds 41 Name meaning “grace” 43 Captain Sparrow, e.g.

45 Member of the House: Abbr.

46 *TV show about subsidiary rules in the court?

50 Is in pain 52 Cheesy chip 53 Aussie hopper 54 “What ___ state of affairs!”

57 Howling critter 61 Start of D.C.’s ZIP or area codes 62 Pasta or potato, for short 63 Southwestern trees

Answers to last week’s puzzle

you. But, we may strive Even if we fall short, our distinctly human nature allows us to respond, change and correct over the long haul.

God created an imperfect world as a way of teaching. He created a little bit of bad, so that we may recognize the good and move ever closer in that direction. Imperfection allows for a proper measuring stick, and the Divine knew this in the beginning.

The critics of religion argue that the violence in this world—the death and the destruction, the immense tragedies, the endless flow of violence—point to the dearth of the Divine and the absence of a God Above. But, all of the criticism to organized religion is centered on the bad, and yet it’s this presence of bad that often brings out the goodness in the individual, in the community, in the nation. The tragedy receives the coverage, but what about the instances of a community rallying together as one and uniting in that tragedy’s wake? What about neighbors helping out neighbors, offering condolences and a comfortable shoulder to cry on? The bad tends to unearth the good—it’s made apparent, especially when it otherwise wouldn’t be there.

The worst of mankind often stirs up the very best hours, days and months down the road.

The terrorist attack on Sept. 11 may unite a nation, whose citizens come together in the name of hearty nationalism and a distinctly American togetherness, for weeks to come.

By no means am I condoning such a tragedy, but it may be beneficial to look beyond the desecration and search for some tangible answers—in order to get to the bottom of God’s reasoning.

An adverse situation may be bad in the short run, but the consequences may not necessarily be so down the road. Neighborly love and understanding may sprout from a tragedy—we

by Jack Mullan, Crossword Editor 64 Blue 65 Like Santa’s cheeks 66 Attribution at the bottom of a news article...or a hint to the answers of the starred clues

DOWN

in some case 26 Ruler deposed in 1979 27 Half−off event 28 Tears flow 34 17th−century diarist Samuel 35 Dye plant 36 Marsh bird

37 Cabbage salad 38 Check for ID, as at a bar 39 Thigh−calf connector 42 “Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me!” airer 44 Disney doe 46 Drink for Dracula 47 1983 Mr. T flick

1 Mama bear in Madrid 2 Electrical generator using radioactivity 3 Government org. monitoring air pollution 4 Rodeo rope 5 ___ B. Anthony 6 The 1% 7 *Plane ticket requiring a long wait time?

8 ___ populi 9 Like “Urban Spoon” or “Angry Birds” 10 Sign before Virgo 11 Getting up there in the years 12 The “D” in D.J. 13 Run after D 21 Docs’ org.

22 QB’s miscue 23 Physique, so to speak 24 “A very epic way of saying yes,” according to Urban Dictionary 25 Result of 11−down,

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

48 “___ Night” (Christmas carol) 49 Flush variety 50 Word with liberal or martial 51 Early caucus state 54 Down’s opposite: Abbr.

55 ___ Paulo, Brazil

56 Skill, in old Rome 58 Japan’s largest lake 59 Truck scale unit 60 Guadalajara−to− Mexico City dir.

November 7, 2013

HUMOR & SATIRE

Page 13

OPINIONS

Breaking News

From the desk of Lily Doyle, Humor & Satire Editor

Students pre-registering at very last possible moment considered by many to be marked by Beelzebub

If you don’t like mac and cheese VC Reporter hypothetically you are probably an alien “understands” relationships Sophie Dewil

Guest Columnist

I

am a food snob. I don’t eat store-bought cookies; I’d only eat cake from a mix if you made it for me for my birthday but I’d be secretly mad at you about that and it’s probably the end of our friendship. Don’t even try to pass off that canned abomination of watered down and artificially flavored dung as real tomato sauce—I can tell the difference. Put some work into your life, you lazy bum! Because of my snobbery, the transition into eating at college was tragic, but I have found a solution (hallelujah!). I go shopping about every week to pick up the necessities (improving town-gown relations one trip at a time) and now I pretty much never leave my room for food. Or at all. I’m a hermit. Anyways, here are my necessities: Microwaveable mac and cheese. This is of the utmost importance; it is a staple in my life. I highly recommend Annie’s mac and cheese because then you can pretend to be slightly healthy while you’re eating all 2.5 servings at one time. Otherwise you’re just giving in to the freshman fifteen, the sophomore sixteen, the junior jelly-belly, or the senior sixty. But make sure you get microwaveable, because who wants to trudge down the hall three doors down to boil water? That’s right, not me. I didn’t buy Annie’s so I could WALK places. I accidentally didn’t get microwaveable mac and cheese the first time I went shopping, but I was too lazy to boil water so I just microwaved it, making an extremely crunchy and watery mac and cheese that was still oddly satisfying. I think scientists are going to find whole pieces of the Arthur shaped mac and cheese in my stomach when I die. Oh yeah, get fun shapes—then you can feel like a child again.

Cheese and tortillas/tortilla chips. You know where I’m going with this—quesadillas and nachos! I’m too much of a champion (read: glutinous) to just eat one tiny quesadilla, so I just cover my plate with corn tortillas and then sprinkle cheese over those and then add another layer of tortillas to make one giant quesadilla. If that doesn’t sound like the most beautiful thing in the world to you then you can get out right now.

Chocolate chips and pretzels. Try to name something that will make you happier than chocolate covered pretzels? A puppy? Wrong. Winning the lottery? Incorrect. Getting all of your science textbooks for free? Not as good as this snack. For some odd reason whenever I make chocolate-covered pretzels it can never be in a

bowl or on a plate, it always has to be in my mug.

Just dump in the pretzels and then the chocolate chips and shake it up to make sure the chocolate is evenly distributed (there is nothing worse than the disappointment of when you pick up a pretzel and find out it has no chocolate on it) and then microwave and voilà, heaven in a mug.

Seriously, if I see you eating these off of a plate, I will fight you.

Peanut Butter. Just a spoonful of peanut butter helps the medicine go down, the medicine go dooooowwnnn the medicine go down, just a spoonful of peanut butter helps the medicine go down, in the most delightful way. I’ll just leave that there and wait for the urge to watch Mary Poppins ruin your productivity for the rest of the day. Peanut butter is perfect. I would take peanut butter home for Thanksgiving to meet my parents. If you judge me for sticking my spoon directly into the peanut butter jar then you are missing out on one of the great joys of life. Get the all-natural kind (preferably Smuckers), it’ll make you feel better about the fact you just consumed a 4,000 calorie jar in an hour while you were watching a Disney classic.

Ground beef. Mmmm, meat protein. Can’t beat it. Although you may want to hide it behind some conveniently placed tofu in case any angry vegans come over and inexplicably open your fridge searching for signs of animal by-products.

Yogurt. BREAKFAST IS THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY. I’m looking at you, kid in my 9 a.m. whose stomach ends up sounding like an angry wild animal by the end of the class. I’m having a falling out with oatmeal right now (it was too clingy), so yogurt and I sparked up a deep and meaningful friendship.

But if you prefer oatmeal then go for it, just get something that you wouldn’t hate eating for breakfast. If you’re one of those people that can eat pasta for breakfast then good for you, don’t even bother with the yogurt or oatmeal, but you should know that it’s weird and I don’t understand you.

Oreos. I am (unfortunately) a snacker, so I need to have something to snack on at all times and Oreos do the trick. If you don’t get double stuff you are living in the Dark Ages; they’re so much better. Better yet, just get an entire box of Oreos and take the stuffing out of all of them and put all of it in between two of the chocolate cookie parts of the Oreo and eat one giant Oreo.

Not that I’ve ever done that, like, for example, last night, or anything.

Lily Sloss Columnist

I

n between not writing an important paper, spending time as Iggy Azalea minus the cool hair and personality, and fielding questions about the baseball sized bruise on my arm, I’ve become frustrated. Not about any of the aforementioned topics, but about the status of relationships at Vassar. People here are so hip to “social constructs,” the mere mention of: “so what are we doing exactly?” to your hookup can induce severe anxiety. Conversations like: “I’m not a fan of the patriarchy,” can lead to the response: “Valid point, but can I tell my student fellow you’re my girlfriend?”

Let’s avoid this uncomfortable and socially inept type of conversation. Instead, I’ll field some questions from pals addressing relationship debacles they may or may not have asked me about over Happy Hour at Babycakes, and we’ll see what shakes out.

“I want week-day sex from my ‘special friend.’

Is that so much to ask?”

Um, yes. This is too much to ask. He’s got five classes and a thesis and he wants to join the Axies because Aidan’s so hot right now and no one’s cleaned their dishes in his Bro House TH in 45 days and he’s thinking he might want another pumpkin scone from React to Film, so...

Oh, you mean sex on the week days? He is “totes down.” He thought you meant like, “weak” sex that lasts all day. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

“She says I’m too good looking for her but I don’t think so.”

Take off the Vassar goggles. People claim they don’t exist—but they are fooling themselves.

When I attended Annapolis High School and wore Uggs and graphic tees, I never would have been attracted to a boy with a mostly shaved head but somehow still has a ponytail, who is a third of my weight and wears scarves ironically. Now, however, this is my ideal partner. Once you slip off the goggles, you might realize you are infinitely better looking than her. However, this should not prevent you from pursuing. She might be just the gal to close on that internship at Buzzfeed.

“He told me he has a fatalistic view of relationships. Can I call him my boyfriend?”

NO. He will head for the hills. Keep it casual. So casual, in fact, that you will probably stop seeing him, forget he attends Vassar, and discover two months later that he is engaged—thus proving he doesn’t have a fatalistic view of re-

lationships, he has a fatalistic view of your relationship. Sorry if that burns. Need some butter?* “We met at a Hip Hop 101 party but he/she is 17.”

Hmm, statutory. Not something I will explicitly encourage. Instead, use the following equation: how recently did he/she get their braces off? Find a picture of them with said braces. Use that as ammunition until they are no longer jailbait.

If you are experiencing none of the previous debacles but are concerned with how to “label” your current biddy, let’s make one thing clear.

Not discussing “what” you crazy kids are participating is the least ideal. Let’s look at the following situation: Say you’re at a party. Say you are dressed to the nines as Iggy Azalea because a friend of yours is hosting a “rapper-themed” party. Say you are feeling hella good about your choice of leotard because that s**t makes you feel TIGHT. Say you are overwhelmed with the influx of Freshmen/Sophomore biddies who may or may not be dressed up for the party, you honestly can’t tell because of the dearth of stylistic impulses in the underclassmen.** Say that the kid you’ve slept in a bed with for seven days straight shows up in a swell windbreaker. Say he takes your hand, because that’s just “the kind of guy he is.” Say your dear friend, the host, comes and asks, “Who’s this?” “This is...” you begin. Your mouth gapes. You stare at the floor. The kid starts blushing. Half the population of a room shotgun a beer in the time it takes for you to articulate: “...Antonio.”*** Cut To: DEMISE OF RELATIONSHIP. Don’t make my mistake, little biddies. Open up a healthy dialogue with you and your special someone(s). Toe the uncomfortable line of not being “friends.” Feel free to use my (universally appropriate) opening line: “So...frisbee, huh?” *Contrary to popular opinion, I have heard that butter soothes a deep burn in a way that ice cannot. You’re welcome. **This experience obviously is not my own because I have felt stylish approximately zero times and am willing to bet 10/10 freshmen have cooler pants than I do. ***Antonio Humphrey, coincidentally on the frisbee team, coincidentally single (unconfirmed). I apologize for this defamation of character as Antonio would never attend a TH party in a windbreaker.

Humor editor bets you are jealous that you didn’t document your entire Sunday too

by Lily Doyle, Humor & Satire Editor Sunday, 3:00 a.m.: I do my best to scrub the

sharpie-d tattoos off of my chest. I become extremely convinced that sharpie is some kind of magical ink that is never going to be able to be removed, and therefore that I now have tattoos. I snapchat my Mom a picture with the caption “brand new tattoo!” She is both a little off-put by receiving a snapchat of my chest area first thing in the morning, and also proud of me for representing my majestic inner jungle cat in the exact same manner as the rapper Eve. I mean, she didn’t exactly SAY as much, but I can read between the lines.

Sunday, 11:00 a.m.: I wake up, roll out of bed and head downstairs to stare at my housemate while she makes eggs until she catches my drift that I want her to be cooking me breakfast too. I could make myself eggs, but she can do that thing with the hole in the toast like the guy does in V for Vendetta and that is both a delicious way to eat eggs and also I try to

live my life as closely following that movie as I can minus the shaved head/time in prison/ exploding important buildings part of it. So, really, it’s pretty much just the eggs.

Sunday, 12:30 p.m.: My housemate and I head to the Vassar men’s rugby game at Marist.

Here’s a question for my readers: WHY DOES MARIST HAVE LIKE FOUR (THOUSAND) GATES? They all are really big and have these foxes on them (restraining myself from my fourth Yvlis reference in four articles) and we went through the wrong one and ended up at their boat house where instead of 30 men tackling each other we found a solitary girl who appeared to be trying to meditate. Oops.

Sunday, 12:55 p.m.: We get bored of heckling the meditating girl and my housemate goes back to driving in circles around the Marist campus, while I play a new game I invented where you find how many pairs of Ugg Boots I can spot within a minute. Good times!

Sunday, 1:00 p.m.: We find the field, where

there is no scoreboard and their goalposts appear to be drunk. We have that in common, except no one is trying to kick a ball at me.

Lily: 1, Marist goalposts: 0.

Sunday, 2:30 p.m.: The men win, I get a lot of really sweaty hugs, and I try to smuggle away some nice family’s massive Newfoundland dog by saying I hurt my leg and need a ride up to my car. I then try to saddle the dog and ride away. Not successful.

Sunday, 4:00 p.m.: I become extremely disturbed by the fact that the mudroom in our TH smells like feet. I get that we force everyone to take off their shoes before entering, but is there a way to also force people to have better smelling feet?

Sunday, 4:05 p.m.: After extensive googling, I am pretty sure that the only way to make people’s feet smell better is to sneak into their room at night and fill their shoes with potpourri.

Sunday, 4:10 p.m.: I start making some pot-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

pourri and use Stalk Banner to gather information on where everyone I know lives, because I bet their feet smell bad too.

Sunday, 4:30 p.m.: I go to work study, which is at UpC, and essentially consists of sitting at a desk and doing things like watching live streams of football and writing humor articles while I have the readings that I should be doing open next to me so I look “studious.”

This beats the crap out of my old work study, which was sitting in the basement (dungeon?) of Admissions and wondering what daylight is like while listening to the office workers discuss who cheated on who in Real Housewives of New Jersey. Oh, I also alphabetized stuff, which is hilarious in itself because I have no idea how the alphabet goes.

Sunday, 8 pm: I order Bacios to UpC, because it’s senior year and I have misplaced all of the f*cks I am supposed to give. You can’t tell what that word is because I put in the star right? Coolio!

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November 7, 2013

Bouchard discovers universality in music and writing Margaret Yap

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Jacob Gorski/The Miscellany News

y almost all standards, Jean-Luc Bouchard ’14 is a modern-day Renaissance man. An English major with Asian studies and music correlates, he plays the piano and melodica, composes his own music, has been an English Department research assistant for the past two years, performs in live comedy shows and has had three of his short stories published in literary magazines. “When the Holy Ruled the Middle Kingdom” was published in Eastlit, “Assisted Living” in Umbrella Factory, and “Daddy’s Little Angel” in Danse Macabre.

Bouchard is currently working on a creative thesis for his Senior Composition course, an epistolary novel entitled The Difference Between Me and Me. The novel–which, ideally, will contain 250 pages upon completion–features a 21-year-old man who wakes up every day in either the body of a man living in 1934 Japan or a Japanese-American living in the East Village, New York in 2010. The novel is told through a series of documents, such as emails and minutes from meetings. When living in the present day, the protagonist exchanges letters with a prisoner via a pen pal service, and while living in 1934 he writes to his fiancé.

“I’m really interested in what it means to live on the border,” said Bouchard. “And so the character lives between these two worlds of old and new and also explores what it means to be Asian-American. And because he’s bisexual, he explores what it means to be on the border between those two things as well.”

Bouchard is interested in perspective and garners inspiration from the consumption of anime, graphic novels, role-playing games, television and music. “I think a good piece of writing is like a concentrated dose of a new world,” he said. “It’s sort of injecting myself into…an entirely new situation that I can voluntarily take myself in and out. I’m very into this idea of inhabiting other people and looking at them from their perspective, whether the person is

Jean-Luc Bouchard ’14 exercises his creativity in Comedy Normative, his prior work as Humor and Satire editor of The Miscellany News, and his own writing. His thesis will be a full-length novel. a troll or a Japanese-American living in New York City.”

To accentuate showcasing a different viewpoint, Bouchard uses the first-person point of view. “It’s extremely powerful,” he said. “Most of the short stories I’ve written…have been in this first-person vein, because I think it’s marvelously fun when you are the narrator and when the reader is the narrator and they automatically have to insert themselves into the situation. I think it makes for [active] reading.

It forces them to get involved with it.”

A writer and a comedian, Bouchard studies the interplay between tragedy and comedy in his works. “I really love the dark comedy that comes out of a situation that’s horrible,” he said. “I always go for unsettling in my writing, because I love to be unsettled when I read.”

“I think [readers] should be able to find the tragedy in other people’s lives,” he continued.

“We talk a lot about empathy, but it’s actually really difficult for us to put ourselves in other people’s lives and find what’s tragic about it. I think comedy is just tragedy. In writing, music and comedy, what stands out…is just sadness in different veins.”

Bouchard believes that comedy is a medium in which major issues cannot be escaped. “Humor and satire are making controversial issues in tragedies and politics consumable,” he said.

“You can’t ignore it. I think when you laugh you drop your guard to an extraordinary [degree].

There’s a reason jokes carrying messages about abortion and women’s rights and race relations make a huge impact on popular culture and on people’s lives—because we accept it as a joke,

but that sort of lingering content stays with us for a very long time.”

Bouchard, who is the former editor of the Humor and Satire section of The Miscellany News, has performed as a stand-up comedian at Vassar and in New York City. He is also the president of Comedy Normative, a non-audition preliminary organization that encourages Vassar students to critique each other’s jokes and perform in a cabaret-esque series of performances.

A composer, Bouchard sometimes includes songs in his comedic routines. He has written other pieces for up to thirty instruments, but half of his works are for the solo piano.

While Bouchard enjoys his work in writing and comedy, he believes that there are certain emotions only music can communicate. “In that way,” he said, “music has a leg up on every other art. To me, the closest thing you can get to music is a graphic novel, because there are so many different streams of narrative going on at once. You can communicate through the melody, the harmony, the countermelody, but also timbre, pitch, rhythm, tempo—there are so many things you can manipulate to create such a specific emotion. It’s a perfectly controlled message.”

According to Bouchard, despite its singular ability to convey certain emotions, music still mixes with comedy and writing for Bouchard.

“I’ve written Asian Studies papers on Madame Butterfly and English papers on humor,” he said. “I really do think they feed each other, which is primarily why I came to Vassar. I feel like I have the freedom to explore these things.”

To those who are looking into pursuing the arts, Bouchard said, “People really want to be artists–they really want to create. But I think you have to make sure you’re having fun with it. I love the things I do, but if I stopped having fun writing music I would not do it. If you’re forcing yourself to do it, find something else you’re passionate about. And I would in a second—but I love these things.”

Condom Couture generates awareness of HIV/AIDS Samantha Kohl Guest RepoRteR

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arrying around a bag of 200 condoms gets people asking questions,” said Shivani Dave ’17, one of the organizers of this year’s Condom Couture Fashion and Jazz Show.

Getting people talking, talking about HIV/AIDS and safe sex, is exactly what the show aims to do.

ProHealth, a Vassar student organization committed to promoting health equity, will host their annual Condom Couture Fashion Show at Ferry House on Friday, November 8 at 7 p.m. As the runway show’s name may reveal, Condom Couture is by no means a typical fashion show.

Expect to see members of the Vassar community sauntering down a runway, clad in garments made entirely of condoms in order to raise HIV/AIDS awareness and promote safer sex practices.

“Students will be modeling and designing. In the past we’ve seen dress constructions using garbage bags and lots of duct tape,” explained Dave. “Every design is unique and mimics an ‘Anything But Clothes’ type of outfit.”

Secretary of ProHealth Sara Mincer ’15 spoke to the kinds of outfits one might see at the show. “Dresses are the most popular item that people make,” she said. “Some will make vests or shorts, but for the most part it’s dresses and skirts.” However, full outfits made entirely of condoms, as students designing for Condom Couture have produced, require a large number of the contraceptive, and ProHealth has decided to take several precautions to lower waste, a show of this nature may produce.

“We are very aware of how wasteful such an event can be. We are encouraging designers to keep condoms in their wrappers and use tape and other adhesives so that they can be donated to student fellow envelopes after. We

Jacob Gorski/The Miscellany News

Students prepare their outfits, consisting almost entirely of condoms, together in preparation for the Condom Couture show on November 8. The event, hosted by ProHealth, promotes safer sex practices.

have purchased un-lubricated, colored condoms that are generally in surplus from Trustex—though they are not expired,” said Dave.

“Condoms that are opened or punctured will be composted and all other materials that can be recycled, will.”

“Honestly, it’s a fun event,” attested Dave.

While the fashion show may be a fun way to encourage students to talk about safer sex practices and public, global health issues, as Dave asserted, the upbeat event carries undertones of a much darker and more serious issue.

ProHealth’s central purpose of the runway event is to educate students on the continuing epidemic of HIV/AIDS, in our communities and abroad.

Admission is free, but the club is hoping to raise $3000 in donations and plans to split the proceeds between two organizations: FaceAIDS, a group who works to inspire young people in Rwanda, the U.S. and other nations to rise up in their communities and schools to combat HIV/AIDS, and Poughkeepsie’s Catharine Street Community Center, which has an HIV medical support outreach program to provide education for eight HIV-positive individuals.

ProHealth chose FaceAIDS and the Catharine Street Community Center as recipients for the proceeds from the fashion and jazz show with a clear strategy, so Vassar students should know that their donations, if they choose to give, are going to what ProHealth believes are good organizations.

Dave said, “FaceAIDS is a Partners in Health organization that we have continuously worked with, as we really support its model for a good NGO. The organization is completely student-run and is focused on providing comprehensive medical care, including education, job support, food, shelter, transportation and medical care. Most importantly, we know where our money is going and it is an organization that works to empower the community and its people to provide lasting care, rather than a one-time donation.”

While FaceAIDS is an organization that seeks to address AIDS awareness on a global

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

scale, ProHealth would like to express the message that HIV/AIDS poses a problem on a more local level as well.

“We also really wanted to make sure that we acknowledge the public health issues that affect our own community and decided to work with the Catherine Street Community center.

It is important that we acknowledge that HIV/ AIDS is not a problem of the ‘others,’” said Dave.

While the Condom Couture Fashion Show is by no means a new event to the Vassar campus, this year’s show will be a little different from years past when the show was more low-key.

This year, the strutting will be held in Ferry House, as opposed to the show’s traditional setting in the Villard Room. It will be immediately followed by a jazz concert.

“We wanted to make it a more open and fun event,” said Mincer. “In the past it was held in the Villard Room, but it wasn’t as open for people to come to, and in some ways it wasn’t as casual. People might be more likely to come to the Ferry House because the atmosphere is less formal.”

“We are hoping to have as many jazz bands perform as possible,” said Dave. “In between sets we are planning on having students speak about our organization, HIV/AIDS awareness and how to get involved or stay educated,” she added. While the format of the show has changed, the ultimate goal to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS and safer sex remains the same. “[Condom Couture] will include a fashion show, educational blurbs about our club and campaign, and the announcement of a winner of the best outfit,” explained Dave. “The show will be DJed by a Vassar student to run for an hour, and then will be followed by performances from some of Vassar’s jazz bands,” she added. The jazz show is expected to run until 10 p.m.

Mincer reiterated the significance of the event, and how HIV/AIDS is an epidemic that does, in fact, affect college-aged people. “[HIV/AIDS] is something very real that can and does affect the lives of college students,” she said.

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November 7, 2013

Page 15

FWA’s Violet takes cast on internal, external journeys Charlacia Dent RepoRteR

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Sam Pianello/The Miscellany News

uture Waitstaff of America’s Violet, an exciting musical charged with rock and roll, soul and back-country twang with original songs by Jeanine Tesori, musical composer of Shrek the Musical, opens in the Susan Stein Shiva Theater this weekend. It will run from November 7 through 9.

“It’s really all over the top, and I’m all for it,”explained director Patrick Brady ’15.

The musical roller coaster, set in the deep South during the Civil Rights Movement, follows the tumultuous journey of Violet, a physically disfigured white woman who travels through the southern belt in search of emotional and physical healing. Violet leaves her hometown in North Carolina in an attempt to be healed of her physical ailment by a television evangelist. Seen as subtly reminiscent of Dorothy’s journey in the Wizard of Oz, Violet encounters numerous interesting figures who inform her quest that eventually culminates in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Violet was originally written in 1994 by Brian Crawley and composed by Jeanine Tesori, but was first performed three years later. In the subsequent years, numerous reviewers listed the musical as one of the best off-Broadway productions of the 1990’s. The play also won the 1997 Drama Critics’ Circle Award for best musical.

According to Brady, this is a musical that he has wanted to direct since he became acquainted with the show in high school. After arriving at Vassar, Brady eventually proposed the play to the Future Waitstaff of America.

The play with two full acts offers a lot to the audience—so much that, in addition to the six actors casted to play the main roles, the option arose for Brady to cast an ensemble for a gospel musical number, as well as a host of other secondary parts. In the end, Brady decided to stick with only six actors in order to challenge the actors’ performances and to make the show

more spectacular.

“I’m really lucky to have the actors that I have. Some of them play about five different characters. They’ve been wonderful in their versatility and flexibility,” Brady shared.

Multiple acting roles is not the only element of the show that the cast is juggling. Situated within an American southern locale and with the Civil Rights Movement embedded at the play’s center, discussions of race and identity were pertinent to challenge the actors’ interpretations about the function of the play in a post-millenial world.

“There are roles that specifically called for African-American actors, which sparked the question of how to honestly deal with race in the casting process,” the director explained.

“Musical theater is often written for and produced by white people, and so I was thankful that it brought up this whole other conversation of inclusivity in the musical theater scene at Vassar.”

In addition to thinking through these issues in casting, the production team also engaged in dialogue with the African American/Black Latino, Asian/Asian American, Native American (ALANA) Center on how to deal with some of the more racially charged scenes.

“We’ve really been working together as a group to talk about how we’re dealing with race as a cast. There have been some uncomfortable moments, but I think it is important to be sensitive about these issues and talk through it,” said Cheikh Athj ’16. Athj plays Flick, the African-American soldier in the play with whom Violet becomes romantically involved. Violet’s facial deformity and Flick’s identity as an African-American unite them and speak to the standards of physical beauty and otherness that run parallel to the play.

Further complicating the central tropes, the play also addresses familial loss. Harboring grief from the traumatic incident that permanently scarred her face, Violet interacts with her father’s ghost. As a small girl, Violet’s fa-

Violet, a 1997 musical analyzing the early Civil Rights Movement and an individual’s emotional and physical journey toward self-discovery, will be performed in the Shiva Theater from November 7 to 9. ther was chopping wood when the blade came loose and sliced open her face, leaving her with both a physical and emotional scar.

From this moment on, Violet travels with the scar, believing that it has crippled her identity.

The transformative work of the play comes to the forefront with Violet’s critical reckoning of her identity, as well as her relationship with her family. “I think the most beautiful moment is the reconciliation with her father in Act 2.

It’s a beautiful moment about forgiving and moving on,” explained Brady.

This final moment of acceptance and reconciliation with one’s physical appearance hearkens directly back to the questions of race that the play deeply confronts. The playwright manages to link physical deformity to America’s perceptions of skin color, which although

Arcade Fire’s double album Reflektor jolts between genres Steven Williams senioR editoR

Reflektor Arcade Fire Merge

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set in 1964, persists as a topical point of serious discussion in modern society.

“In working with this story, we’ve definitely grappled with the notion of racism existing less historically than we tend to think. We had to throw away the idea that we’re dealing with something in the past that no longer exists in the present,” Brady said. “I thought about how I could show something that’s not only a period piece.”

Still, Brady asserted that the Civil Rights Movement and family drama aside, Violet is a musical with substantial energy. The heavy content of the show does not dilute the dramatic intensity and excitement that the play has been lauded for.

“From a theatrical standpoint, it’s really very, very exciting,” said Brady.

alfway through listening to Arcade Fire’s double album Reflektor, I wandered upon the fact that the album was co-produced by James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem fame. And frankly, I was not surprised in the least. The album is Arcade Fire’s most danceable—well, the first half at least. But at no point is Reflektor not definitive Arcade Fire; still there are Win Butler’s panting howl, Régine Chassagne’s French whispers, and the instrumental variety that you would expect from a band their size. Make no mistake, however, that Reflektor is a indeed a radical sonic departure from the band’s first three albums.

One of the first things I noticed about the initial and title track was its electronic influences.

Win and Regine gasp over the top of the driving drums, bubbly synthesizers and bongos until powerful horns emerge. At this point in the song, the trumpets signal a style reminiscent of David Bowie and, lo and behold, the man himself comes in with his haunting vocals. Still, Bowie is a sidenote, and doesn’t lend anything special to an already special song. Following “Reflektor” is “We Exist,” which with its steady, driving bass line and heavily reverbed guitars is the kind of song you could strut down the street defiantly to.

“You’re down on your knees/ Begging us please/ Praying that we don’t exist/ We exist!”

Practically every song on the first half of the album is worth noting. “Flashbulb Eyes” starts with a messy, almost industrial feel, but pulls back to distorted guitar riffs, and a creeping xylophone. “Here Comes the Night Time” is itself a song to behold for having such stylistic diversity within a single track. It begins with a distorted

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

two chord synth verse peppered with muted guitar strumming (reminiscent of Indie darling Twin Shadow’s “Castles in the Snow”) and steel drums. Then the bridge makes a turn for minor-chord territory, before switching back and forth frantically. But the six-and-a-half minute song, isn’t nearly over. Out of nowhere is a coda of screaming guitars accompanied by Latin-inspired drums and horns. The song can’t seem to make up its mind and it’s for the best.

“Normal Person” is the weakest song on the first side, but is notable because of its Bob Segar-esque piano and howling riff-orientated chorus, much different than Arcade Fire’s normal formula (if in fact there is one). “You Already Know” is an upbeat selection with a walking bass line. Rounding out the first half is “Joan of Arc” which starts with the band trying their hand at hardcore punk. Think Win Butler impersonates Black Flag. And you know what, it sounds exactly how you would expect. But the song quickly descends into a slower tempo and Butler regains his signature melancholy vocals.

For the most part, the second half of the album isn’t anything to write home to Canada about.

The most interesting songs on it are “It’s Never Over (Hey Orpheus),” with a distinct soulful vibe, and “Supersymmetry,” the 11-minute epic, which descends into near-silence. The other tracks are unfortunately bland blips on an otherwise marvelously diverse soundscape. Perhaps it’s because the first half of Reflektor offers up such an interesting variety of sounds all under the umbrella of Arcade Fire’s established musical personality, that it makes the remainder of the album so monotonous. Simply, the album would have been much stronger had it been a standard length album instead of the seventy-five behemoth that it is.

Regardless, the first half of the album is so transcendently good, that the album as a whole should be considered a tremendous piece of work. Let’s just say that if you don’t make it all the way through, I won’t tell anybody.

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November 7, 2013

War story Gone Girl a thrilling, unpredictable ride tackles PTSD stigma Jack Owen Arts Editor

Gone Girl Gillian Flynn Crown Publishing

THEATRE continued from page 1

In an emailed statement, Keller described his experience working with Doerries and the professional actors from Outside the Wire. He wrote, “[Doerries] welcomed us immediately, saw how invested in the story we all were going into it, and that was that.

And I think having experienced actors read the two main roles of Ajax and Tecmessa was essential to bring out the sheer intensity of the play. Because if the audience can’t see the raw energy of these characters who are supposed to mirror their own struggles, then they won’t open up and tell their own stories.”

One of the project’s primary aims is to deepen understanding of psychological injury associated with war and clarify the reality behind the stigmas that surround conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder. The story of Ajax illuminates the timeless truth about these psychiatric experiences. Doerries said, “I believe that ancient Greek drama was a public health tool that was designed by the Athenian military more than 2,500 years ago doing the same thing we’re trying to do with it now.” He also emphasized that this piece is not meant to be entertainment. Of the piece’s aim, he said, [I want the show to] create a shared sense of discomfort.” Doerries said he often gives to his actors one piece of advice before the performance: “Make them wish they’d never come.”

“Theater of War” has traveled to many military bases and schools, as well as homeless shelters and even the Pentagon. As Dean of Faculty Jon Chennette mentioned in his opening remarks, the piece’s presence at Vassar coincides with two of the college’s initiatives to strengthen military-civilian relations—the Vassar-West Point Initiative, and the partnership with the Posse Foundation’s Veterans Posse Program.

In addition to the reading, the panel acted as a forum to discuss the trauma those who serve in the military may face. The panelists were made up of war veterans and scholars of the Posse Program Jonathan D. Wood ’17 and Anuradha Datta ’17, daughter of a veteran Lesli Vaughan ’14 and Clinical Psychologist Specializing in Veteran Support, Dr. Lori Arella.

Keller noted the importance of the panel.

He wrote, “The panel helps people in the audience who are dealing with PTSD and trauma to see that they’re not alone across space, and the performance helps them see that they’re not alone across time...Every former service member who spoke had a different take on the play, and on PTSD, and on the military, which would not have been heard if this event hadn’t drawn people out of their comfort zones.”

Another aspect of the project is its integration of art, academia and experience. Everyone who participates in “Theater of War” offers a unique lens through which these issues can be understood. Chennette brought attention to the relevance of this piece to Vassar’s educational mission, saying, “In our attempt to cultivate the capacity to see through the eyes of others, we strive to put what we learn in that process into action.” In his introduction, Dozier discussed the importance of the interplay between academia and emotional understanding. He said, “This is the aim of an education in the humanities—to humanize us.”

Keller concluded, “The way the veterans in the audience and on the panel spoke about the military was really eye-opening for me.

One veteran on the panel was almost in tears by the end of his opening remarks. It’s rare to see that kind of honesty in a public forum coming from people who ordinarily would be loath to talk about their terrible experiences. It’s even rarer to see an ancient Greek tragedy evoke that kind of response. It really speaks to how interconnected Greek tragedy and veterans issues are—then and now, it’s a kind of therapy.”

W

ith Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn has established herself as the master of creepy.

Her first two novels, Sharp Objects and Dark Places, both thrillers, were met with high critical acclaim. But Gone Girl, her most recent work, is her crowning achievement.

The novel was number one on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction Bestseller list for eight weeks and will be adapted into a film starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Park as Nick and Amy Dunne, the spiteful couple in a sordid marriage.

Over October break I figured I’d try to do some reading for pleasure to, well, avoid all of my academic reading. Seeking a fast-paced guilty pleasure, I came across Gone Girl after hearing from a friend that you “literally just won’t put it down.” Perhaps it’s the snooty Vassar English major in me, but I generally avoid thriller novels. Aren’t they all predictable and over-the-top? A little cheesy?

Apparently not. Gone Girl proved me wrong.

The novel has a fairly innocuous opening.

Nick, on the couple’s five-year wedding anniversary, describes how he and Amy, former reporters in Manhattan, have ended up living in a rented house in suburban Missouri. Both laid-off, Nick figures he can “bundle up [his] New York wife with her New York interests, her New York pride,” (6) and relocate her to his minuscule Missouri hometown.

After a curt anniversary breakfast over

crepes and coffee, Nick goes to work. When he comes back, Amy is gone.

What make Gone Girl so unique are its razor-sharp prose, inventive narrative structure and wily unpredictability. Nick and Amy both serve as narrators of the novel, and the lack of cohesion between their perspectives creates a case of the classic unreliable narrator, and leaves the reader entirely unsure of whose side to take.

Nick narrates in the present, detailing his search for Amy and the media attention surrounding her disappearance. Amy narrates, however, through diary entries, written from the beginning of their marriage up to the day she disappears. Flynn powerfully illustrates the miscommunications, resentment and ulterior motives of the two characters in this deteriorating marriage. For the reader, it illuminates not only how stressful situations— moving, being laid-off—can take a toll on a marriage, but also how deception pushes that strain over the edge.

As the reader learns early on, Nick has many secrets of his own that make him look a little too suspicious to the public. Nick is having an affair with a senior in college behind Amy’s back, recently upped his wife’s life insurance, and has a whole barn filled with superfluous items that have racked up his credit card debt.

Sure enough, the media grabs hold of this information and is quick to vilify Nick, and he scrambles to find his wife while under the constant threat of arrest.

However, Amy has some bizarre idiosyncrasies that unsettle the reader. Her parents are the authors of a successful line of books, the “Amazing Amy” series, which chronicles the life of an idealized version of their own daughter as the stories’ protagonist. In the books, Amy always does the right thing, and always

overcomes adversity. What’s spooky is that the real-life Amy doesn’t sway far from her fictionalized self. A furtively manic perfectionist, Amy manages to play the flawless, beautiful wife and socialite without ever conveying her inner exasperation and arrogance.

Doesn’t that all sound like a perfectly adequate base for a thriller novel? In Gone Girl, it is only the tip of the iceberg. Flynn kicks off the second half of the book with a shocking twist that, frankly, no one will see coming. If your friend says he knew it all along, he’s lying.

I, for one, threw the book across my bedroom in astonishment (don’t worry, it’s a hard-copy).

“Flynn kicks off the second half of the book with a shocking twist...”

The book only falters at the end. After being hurdled through a tornado of secrets and emotions, I was hoping for a more conclusive finale. Still, many readers will be pleased by Flynn’s audacity to end the story in the layered way that she does.

Flynn’s Gone Girl is an ambitious thriller.

It tackles current issues affecting American society—manipulation from the media, the heartache that comes with a broken economy—while illustrating the tragic story of a marriage gone terribly wrong. On top of that, Flynn keeps you guessing the whole way through, and the novel is so riddled with twists and turns that it will make your head spin. In a good way. As my friend insisted, you “literally just won’t be able to put it down.”

Payne rethinks classic American road movie Harris Gurny

Guest Columnist

Nebraska Alexander Payne Paramount Vantage

T

here’s something distinctly American about the road movie; the open spaces and plain vistas evoke a sense of freedom and mobility. The constant hunt for a destination, inherent to the genre, reflects the perpetual search for the American Dream. Nebraska—Alexander Payne’s new film—is a road movie at its core. Over the past decade, Payne, director of Election, Sideways and The Descendents, has emerged as the greatest American director to tell contemporary dramas following the mundane dreams of American citizens. He habitually expresses themes regarding the American Dream, which is inextricably tied to the road movie, in his films. Election illustrates political dreams, Sideways portrays artistic dreams and The Descendents displays ancestral dreams. In his darkly comedic form, Payne recounts in Nebraska a dream of a bygone America. With nostalgia emanating from the crisp black and white images, this poem to the past might be his most complex, poignant and best work to date.

The film opens with the white-haired Woody Grant (Bruce Dern), a dementia-ridden disappointment from Billings, Montana, wandering down a highway. When a policeman asks where he is headed, the senile Woody replies, “to Lincoln, Nebraska to collect my million dollars.”

Deluded into believing he has won $1 million in sweepstakes winnings through a scheming letter, Woody stubbornly refused to give up until he reaches his native state of Nebraska to collect his earnings. His entire family attempts to explain to him that the letter he received is a complete sham. When asked what he would do with the money, Woody announces that he will buy a new truck, even though he can’t drive. Kate (June Squibb), his hilarious, scene-stealing wife who is in herself a reason to see the film, sasses her “useless” husband with rude remarks: “I didn’t even know the son of a bitch wanted to be a millionaire. He should have thought about that years ago and

worked for it.” One son, successful and married news anchorman Ross (Bob Odenkirk), wants to put his father in a nursing home. The other son, David (Will Forte), is more empathetic and doesn’t see the harm in indulging his dad’s fantasy for the little time he has left. An unsuccessful bachelor who sells speaker systems, David doesn’t want to follow his dad’s path as an unemployed alcoholic.

Much to the chagrin of his family, David reluctantly agrees to drive his dad to Nebraska.

The pair, coping with an already strained relationship, stops in Woody’s rural birthplace of Hawthorne, Nebraska to visit relatives and long-lost friends. It doesn’t take long for word of Woody’s “fortune” to emerge, transforming him into a local celebrity. Despite David’s insistence that the prize is bogus, the town’s citizens believe Woody; each extend his or her own unfulfilled ambitions onto his newfound wealth. Old business partners and distant family members selfishly demand for a cut of the nonexistent cash. A personal and professional failure, Woody emits an apathetic attitude toward everything, seldom listening to the snide remarks towards him, due to his deteriorating mental state. His winnings thus act as gesture of redemption for this simpleton, because for once in his life people finally care about him.

Dern deserves an Academy Award win for his amazingly retrained performance in which he barely speaks but communicates multitudes.

Payne slowly yet masterfully reveals hidden information about Woody’s past life in Hawthorne: he was an emotionally scarred war hero, town drunk, and owner of a failed automobile garage business. As David learns more about his father and what led to his departure from Hawthorne, he begins to understand why Woody is so adamant about receiving his money. He sees that his father’s delusions aren’t a reflection of his ignorance, but rather indicate his determination to make something out of his life while he still has the chance. He believes his winnings might make up for his failure as a husband, father and friend. This is all very subtly hidden within the quiet skyline landscapes that frame the film; a lesser film would be much more overstated about Woody’s reasoning.

The film surprisingly incorporates many humorous moments of bucolic Mid-Western folk.

Nebraska, known to most as a flyover state, is

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

the childhood home of Payne, and the plainspoken individuals of his youth inspired the caricatures who people this film. Payne saturates the film with darkly hilarious examples of rural ennui: old men who lazily spend their nights at the same bar for decades, a delinquent pair of middle-aged cousins who speak only of fast cars, family reunions in which working-class men stare at the T.V. and grasp a bottle of beer— things stay stagnant in rural Middle America.

Cinematographer Phedon Papamichael inserts stunning montages of wide-open Middle-America prairie-land, deteriorated Main Streets and sweeping highways, all essential images to the road movie experience. Compared to Payne’s previous lackluster point-andshoot compositions, Nebraska substantially advances in visual sophistication. The black and white cinematography enhances the film’s muted tone; monochrome photography represents an aesthetic that is as stuck in the past as Woody’s troublesome past decisions.

The film’s father-and-son bonding aspect fits the “buddy movie” genre convention of the road movie. As the two drive across panoramic terrain in pursuit of a nonexistent prize, they learn things about each other and gain a newfound understanding that wasn’t possible during their previously distant relationship.

This isn’t to say that their relationship progresses into perfect understanding; nothing can change the fact that Woody was a bad father.

Woody’s concluding drive through Hawthorne—as his old companions curiously look on from the sidewalk—is an emotional drive through the past. Although Woody’s dream of receiving $1 million never transpires, his drive down Main Street is the manifestation of his American Dream—for once, he isn’t seen as a failure and can enjoy the spotlight. Like most road movies, Nebraska inevitably focuses more on what is learned during the drive than what is received from the destination.

Retaining the same sardonic wit that makes his films so successful, Payne creates a film much more down to earth than his other works. Nebraska’s melancholic, subdued vision effectively transports the viewer to a world of sadness and warmth, family and fortune, past and future—a future that is viewed out of a car windshield, manifested as a vanishing point in the horizon.

ARTS

November 7, 2013

Page 17

Binge watching a result of media milieu Taylor Thewes

Guest Columnist

I

am going to preface this piece of writing with not a spoiler warning but an assertion marred by bluntness. The television shows Lost and Breaking Bad are going to be utterly spoiled in the upcoming paragraphs. If that statement just made you quickly scramble to turn the page so you did not grab a glimpse at the rest of this article in a frenzy to shield yourself from any spoilers, I encourage you to keep reading and embrace the spoilage.

This past summer I, like seemingly every other mass media engulfed college kid, went on unhealthy rampages of binge watching television shows on my laptop. While maybe detrimental to my ability to socially operate amongst my peers, it was cussing fantastic. Wake up, turn on Breaking Bad. Lunch?

A perfect excuse to eat and be entertained by another episode of, yes, Breaking Bad. You know I would not dare go to bed without good ole Walt White doing something on screen to ensure that I would have nightmares all night. After just over a month of grueling, eye-straining monitor watching, I showed up to school with only a few episodes on which to get caught up. Finally, as the finale approached as the only episode left unaired, I said, “Homework...you’re taking a necessary backseat to something people actually care about.”

I could not believe how fortunate I was.

The first live episode I would get to see would be the crucial series finale. As I meandered my way down to the Joss MPR, the site was exquisitely wonderful. A group of thirty people gathered to communally experience a defining pop culture event together, and boy did we experience it. My unbelievably clutch friend, Sam, brought down huge speakers, to roaring applause, to make sure everyone in the dorm could hear that haunting theme song for one last time. People freaked out and said some of the most expletive laden demands that I have ever heard at anyone who simply opened the door, making the smallest of interrupting noises. It was everything that

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I seemed to have missed out on in my state of solitude. Then it ended. Walt White, the character I had spent hours following around, laughing at, being frightened by, died. To my surprise, my reaction was bland. Instead of sitting in a state of overwhelming breathlessness, I simply wiped my hands, sat up and had no problem with wobbly knees as I made my way back to my room. Even more shocking, everyone else appeared to be on the same wavelength. I could not help but take a step back and compare previous series finales, and I, sadly, noted our blunder.

“I...went on unhealthy rampages of binge watching television...”

People, we are doing it wrong. Breaking Bad is one of the greatest television shows of all time, but I believe that, while not the religious watchers who followed the show since its inception, most of us hindered our viewing experience. The comparison and contrast for me comes in the form of Lost. The number of seasons, absolute obsessive fan base and endless number of theories as to how they would end were some of the similar attributes that made these shows relatable. I remember watching the first episode of Lost. They played it twice in a row on opening night, and after coming home late from a night of playing baseball, I caught the encore. Every week after that I tuned into my dose of Lost. If a doctor checked my weekly heart rate, he or she would wonder why there was always a blip in my heart speed exponentially increasing on Wednesday nights. The thrills that would be built up were unsurmountable, and then just as something would be revealed, like most shows...commercial. I waited, watching those Tide ads closely just so I would not miss the smallest millisecond of my favorite show. Episodes were great, yes, but looking at the show in seasons provided a completely different

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joy. My high school freshman science teacher luckily happened to be just as big of a fan of the show as me. Wanting to know and unable to hold himself back, he put work aside during the last ten minutes of class, and he and I would gently force the class to indulge with us in Lost theories online. It was the perfect filler to create a tortuous dialogue between Lost fans when the show was not airing. Tortuous is putting it lightly, too. Besides that one breathtaking girl whom I fumbled my words to when I asked her out to coffee, I never wanted anything more than to know how Lost ended. May 23, 2010, I got my wish, (the finale, not the girl). Just like with Breaking Bad, I had to end this series by watching the main character die over a heart-aching score. However, unlike with Breaking Bad, what came to follow was a complete hurricane. I was sobbing as I let years of mesmerization and tantalization take over my body. I rewound the video twenty minutes back and repeated my process of weeping. Clips of people watching the finale followed the airing, and to no surprise, all of them were joining me in a therapeutic cry session.

Now, back to Breaking Bad. How many people were crying? Granted, it was a small pool, but there is still something to be had.

You would be hard-pressed to find anyone in that room who did not participate in the art of binge watching at some point. None of us had to wait through a commercial to find out the fate of Hank.

None of us had to wait months for the show to finally return. Heck, we even watched the majority of the show on a minuscule screen.

The show was handed to us on a smörgåsbord as a means of taking in the story without experiencing the emotion. Therefore, what is the point of binge watching anything now besides being able to assimilate into pop culture? The participation in binge watching has allowed the audience to become a drone of media excess and consumption as opposed to what any writer would want for their fans: someone who does not just view, but experience. submit to misc@vassar.edu

Excuse me, What would you title your autobiography?

“The Short Life.”

—Kea Moncada ’14

“Naked, Lonely, and Confused: the Jenny Nguyen Story.”

—Jenny Nguyen ’14

“The Person Inside.”

—AnnaRose Broome ’17

“The Lydiaries.”

—Lydia Ciaputa ’15

“On the Prowl: The Tail of Lukas and Lydia.”

—Lukas Sarnow ’17

“After years of knitting scarves, hats, and one unfinished sweater, I decided it was time to broaden my range of knitting skills. Colorwork, or using more than one color at a time, seemed like a good next step. It turned out this project also used steeking, a process where you knit the whole thing in a circle then take a large pair of scissors and slice it right down the middle. A scary prospect but ultimately satisfying. The blanket here is shown right after I cut it, so there’s no border yet and you can also see what stranded colorwork looks like from the back.

Like all my knitting projects, I insisted on “enhancing” the pattern (that unfinished sweater is the result of using two different designs). Here, the original pattern used only three different monkey faces. Fortunately I found a few more templates and modified a few to make my own. My personal favorite is Angry Monkey (you can tell by the eyebrows), although Chubby Monkey comes in a close second”.

—Helen Benton ’14

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“Going Rogue.”

—Rogin Farrer ’15

Jack Owen, Arts Editor Cassady Bergevin, Photo Editor

SPORTS

Page 18

November 7, 2013

Patriots Iverson worthy of Hall of Fame recognition more than F Tom Brady Zach Rippe Columnist

Maggie Brelis

Guest Columnist

L

ast week’s column about the “Patriot Way” had some excellent points. Yes, Tom Brady is an elite quarterback who deserves to go out in style with more than three rings on his hand. Yes, the “Patriot Way” has slipped in recent years. But it is important to remember why and how it started in the first place: Myra Kraft, team owner Bob Kraft’s wife. In the fifth round of the 1996 NFL Draft, Christian Peter, a defensive tackle, was picked up by the Patriots. A week later, they dropped him. Myra Kraft, in no uncertain terms, said he had to go. A month before the draft, Peter had been convicted of grabbing a woman by the throat in a bar, his eighth overall conviction at that point. Myra pioneered the “Patriot Way” and after she got sick with and died from cancer, that “Way” began to falter.

The worst and most public faltering has been represented by Aaron Hernandez’s “legal battles.” Let me be clear, Aaron Hernandez is not “facing incarceration.” He is incarcerated.

Facing trial—for murder. That is not a trivial lawsuit. To fail to mention the reason behind his “legal battles” is a disservice to the man he is accused of killing. It is also worth noting that Hernandez was picked in the fourth round of the 2010 Draft, 113th overall. He had first round talent, but no one wanted to touch him because of his history at the University of Florida. This would not have happened before the “Patriot Way.” The Patriots changed the way the league functioned, whether anyone wants to admit it or not.

Another “brittle” tight end was drafted in the second round the same year as Hernandez, 42nd overall. This was not an investment after the dust had cleared, this was an investment long before that. If anything, Hernandez was an investment after Rob Gronkowski got injured. Despite his injuries, Gronkowski has proven himself to be a valuable long term investment.

Speaking of investments — to critique the roster of receivers for the Patriots is fair.

They may not be doing so great now, but to critique the investment is not fair. You know who was a risky investment in 2000? Tom Brady. He went in the sixth round, 199th overall. Look how that panned out. Investments are risky no matter what you do. You could invest in someone that looks golden now, but could burn out in a year. Or you could invest in a 27 year-old receiver who has more years left to train up, to change and get rid of a 32 year-old receiver who maybe has reached his prime, and maybe is on the far side of the hill.

Conversely, maybe he’s still climbing and you shouldn’t have franchised him.

The Patriots are not having a 2007-caliber season right now. But how often does a season like that come along? Considering how the cards have been dealt, I’d say the Pats are doing pretty well. Sometimes the team is more important than any individual. The season ticket holders who have been coming to games for 20, 30, 40 years now don’t keep coming because of Tom Brady. Yeah, it’s great to win, but they come for the team. It’s because of the fans that the team exists at all.

The Patriots have a unique program when it comes to season ticket holders. If you get caught scalping your tickets for a game, then you’re gone. That’s it. If you want to hang on to those seats you’ve had for years, then you sell them at face value, back to the team so they can sell them to the fans who have been on the waiting list for 20 years, or the fans who can’t even dream of affording season tickets and just want to get to one game without selling their first born.

In 2001, when the Patriots won the Super Bowl for the first time, they did something surprising. They asked to be introduced as a team. They ran on to the field together, as the New England Patriots, because the team’s the thing, not the individual. Players sell jerseys.

Teams sell tickets. Players win awards. Teams win championships.

or those who are still unaware, Allen Iverson retired from professional basketball last week. Wait, what? I can hear some people: “But he hasn’t played in like four years....” This may be true, but the retirement has been put off until now. Yet, shouldn’t it be obvious to fans of the game at this point that Allen Iverson does not just concede? While his career may have ended with a whimper rather than with a bang, the fact cannot be ignored that “AI” is indeed one of the best players of our generation, and he more than deserves a trip to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Allen Iverson began his career as a Sixer in 1996. A six foot tall, 165 pound shooting guard, it is more than fair to say that Iverson was undersized. Yet what he lacked in size he more than made up for with his heart. The amount of times this little guy got banged and bruised is incomprehensible. Yet, whenever he fell, he not only got back up, but proceeded to break ankles and drop 30 points. There were countless commercials and in-game graphics that highlighted Iverson’s numerous injuries, yet no matter what, he just kept on chugging along. In 2001, he won the MVP award as he led a decent Sixers team to 56 wins and the NBA finals. The moment he crossed up Tyronn Lue, hit a jumper, and proceeded to stomp over Lue’s legs with a swagger that only he could produce, and that is still etched in my mind. That swagger will be forever engrained in NBA history too. And, oh yeah, he also scored 48 points that night. Although the Sixers lost and would never reach anywhere near where the 2001 team was, it was not his fault. Iverson has averaged 26.7 points per game throughout his career, good for the sixth highest average of all time. His 29.7 points per game playoff average is second only to Michael Jordan.

Iverson was instrumental in redefining his position. Being tremendously undersized for his position, he proved that size and strength are not essential to becoming an elite scoring guard. AI added flair to his game, not looking to imitate or build upon successes of past greats like Larry Bird and Michael Jordan, but instead create a unique style and identity on the court that would make him his own legend. Known for his crossover, Iverson could make even the league’s best defenders look like amateurs. He has crossed up everyone from Kobe Bryant to Michael Jordan, proving that he could score at will while not only making himself look good, but his defender silly. On the court he was a rogue and a bad boy all by himself as his confidence and style only aided his quick and destructive skillset.

While Iverson was one of the most dynamic and improbable scorers the NBA has ever seen, the tail end of Iverson’s career seemed to destroy his relevance and almost hinder his reputation. When AI was traded to the Denver Nuggets in December 2006, something felt off.

At first, the trade looked like it would do wonders for the Nuggets as they now had both the first and second leading scorers in the NBA in Anthony and Iverson, respectively. However, they were quickly eliminated in the playoffs by the San Antonio Spurs. Iverson would spend one more full year in Denver before bouncing around to Detroit, Memphis and, eventually, back to Philadelphia. Yet, by this point, he was a shadow of his former self. After returning to the Sixers in 2010 for several games and performing moderately, Iverson left the team to tend to his daughter’s health issues. He would never return to the NBA. For all of his accolades on the court, Iverson’s attitude and style on and off the court that helped define him and his generation in the NBA. Although he poured his heart out

on a nightly basis, Iverson may have carried an aura of nonchalance throughout portions of his career. After losing to the Celtics in the 2002 playoffs, Iverson was criticized for missing some team practices. But come on, Iverson said that, “I mean, listen, we’re talking about practice, not a game, not a game, not a game, we talking about practice.” Iverson brought a certain image to the game, that much is clear.

He was a pioneer who brought a certain bad boy image and edge to the league. When David Stern instituted a dress code before the 20052006 season, Iverson naturally protested. His image, which consisted of tattoos and baggy clothes was something that captivated fans and helped change the image of the league, yet it was something the NBA itself seemed to despise. They wanted their league to represent a squeaky clean image rather than a growing culture its players were helping define. Sure, Iverson was stubborn. But his conviction was what made him who he was.

When AI refused to come off the bench in Detroit at the end of his career, it was a statement to pride and the fact that Allen Iverson would not belittle himself. Yes, it was selfish, but in a strange way it only added to Iverson’s persona. He was not merely an all-star scorer; he was an identity — a figure who will withstand the test of time in the NBA. Hate him or love him, fans of basketball must respect Allen Iverson. They must respect him not only how he played, but for who he was, who he is, and what he contributed to the game both on and off the court. They must also respect him as one of the faces of his generation. Iverson should be a first ballot Hall of Famer, and he probably will be. If anything, his official announcement of retirement brought his name back to relevance.

A few years removed from the latter half of his career, fans can observe and reflect on his influential and dominating career.

Lebron balances athletics, philanthropy Clyff Young

Guest Columnist

A

fter three games, the Miami Heat are 1-2— not exactly the way the defending champs expected to start the season. Now, being the champs is hard. Everyone and every team is going to give the Heat their best shot, as nothing is sweeter than dethroning the kings.

This phenomenon seems all the more evident after the Miami lost a lowly Philadelphia 76ers team, which Vegas has projected to be the league’s worst team by the season’s end. The loss to the new-look Brooklyn Nets can also be explained with the previous logic. When Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce played for Boston before being traded to Brooklyn, they took great pride in beating LeBron James-led teams, both the Cavaliers and the Heat.

The Heat have holes, the most notable of which being the lack of a quality defensive big man that can bruise with the likes of a Roy Hibbert, Dwight Howard or Tim Duncan (as evidenced by last year’s Eastern Conference and NBA Finals). And no, Greg Oden does not count. But the targets on their backs are bigger than the few faults Miami has. People love seeing the Heat fail. Most of that has to do with LeBron James himself.

Something happened to me as a basketball fan during the summer of 2012. I’ll never forget it. It was right after Chris Bosh went down with a strained abdominal muscle in the Eastern Conference Semifinals, and it looked as if Miami was toast with the Heat trailing two games to one in the series. That was it. The experiment was over. Blow up the big three! I wanted nothing more than to see the Heat lose that series. But then the Heat won the series, made the finals and I had a realization.

I love LeBron James. Not necessarily the Miami Heat as a whole, but definitely LeBron.

The Decision really bothered me, even if the Heat as a team didn’t. In fact, I liked the 2006 Miami team that won the title — a team that, according to Shaq, spent more time partying than practicing.

I had a bad case of bandwagon syndrome.

Lots of people were rooting against LeBron, and I fell in with the stampede, coming out on the other side as a fan of the undisputed greatest basketball player on earth.

The Decision was a terrible marketing idea, on all counts. Everything from the pink gingham shirt, to the infamous “I’m taking my talents to South Beach” quote, which has become the butt of every LeBron joke, was not well executed.

It is almost always forgotten, though, that The Decision generated around $2 million in charitable dollars for Boy and Girls Clubs (LBJ’s favorite charity) across the country. So there’s that.

Then there’s this hypothetical: An Ohio boy with prodigious financial and economic talent grows up, is recruited by every college, only to stay in Ohio. This boy works with a local investment firm in Cleveland that is pretty good, but he is a superior talent, and the firm can’t surround the boy with the coworkers he needs to reach his full potential.

Even though the boy has to carry the entire firm by himself, he carries the enterprise to new heights of popularity and success. But he gets frustrated, ultimately due to the lack of elite success, and joins a larger firm with better economists where he is more likely to achieve at the highest level.

Maybe the boy wasn’t an economist. Maybe he’s a politician, doctor or musician. LeBron’s departure from Cleveland for Miami unfairly victimized him. What would any proud, ultra-competitive person in any field have done in LBJ’s position, regardless of profession?

They would have left.

LeBron made a logical choice, and I resented him for it. Remember the Tiger Woods’ and Nike’s controversial advertising campaign this year “Winning takes care of everything?” Tiger Woods’ public sex scandal and subsequent fall from grace precipitated the worst golf of his career.

But he’s winning again, and, according to these ads, his past transgressions don’t matter anymore. That’s how I felt about LeBron now, as fickle as that is. So the man is a two-time champion with supreme and heroic athletic gifts. Everyone loves a winner, but there are other reasons to love LeBron.

A lot is made of the comparison between James and Michael Jordan, firstly because ESPN stokes that fire every at chance it gets, but secondly because it’s viable. They are the

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

two most marketable stars the NBA has ever produced. Statistically, LeBron stacks up pretty well against Jordan so far, as well. But if we compare their personalities, I think it’s a wash.

Of course, LeBron has a team of very intelligent people shaping his image, but if he’s anything of the family man he purports to be in his ads, he’s a faithful husband, a supportive and active father and generally decent guy. Jordan is not, and was not, those things now, nor during his playing days.

“A lot is made of the comparison between James and Michael Jordan, firstly because ESPN stokes that fire every chance it gets...”

LeBron’s charitable work is also admirable.

He has done a great deal for his home town and community of Akron, Ohio. Just listen to James and Jordan talk. James is gregarious and approachable, while Jordan is cold and mechanical.

The knock of LeBron James is that he doesn’t have the killer instinct that Michael Jordan does, that he’s not as competitive as Jordan.

That might not be a bad thing. Jordan’s competitive nature borders on the pathological. From betting $1 million a hole in golf, to punching teammates during practices, Jordan couldn’t let anything go. Those are not desirable attributes.

LeBron has an emotional complexity that Jordan lacked, and it makes James more interesting.

The Heat are not going to continue losing games to weak teams like the 76ers. They will end up with one of the best records in the Eastern Conference and make it deep in playoffs all because of LeBron James. And all the while I’ll be rooting for James to succeed, because he’s a good guy--and because my team isn’t going to be good, so I have to take solace in something else. I feel like Dr. Strangelove. LeBron James is my atomic bomb. I learned to stop worrying about how I felt about him, and I love him.

November 7, 2013

SPORTS

Page 19

First-year Snider makes early mark with cross country Jonathan Safir Guest RepoRteR

I

Katie de Heras/The Miscellany News

n just a few short months at Vassar College, freshman Kate Snider has made her presence felt. Already once named a Liberty League Rookie of the Week for women’s cross country, Snider has placed two personal bests and eighth and fifth overall in two key races so far this season.

Snider is relatively new to the sport of cross country, only picking it up when she got to high school. Snider did not begin participating until she was a freshman in high school. In an emailed statement, Snider wrote, “I turned to running due to my lack of skill in, well, any other sport. I had previously been a part of my school’s tennis, volleyball and lacrosse teams, but never really got the hang of them. In fact, the only part about those sports that was easy to me was the running.”

Snider said that she did not fully realize her potential in the sport until one year later during her sophomore year of high school. “As a freshman, I was pretty new to the running world, so every workout and race was a different experience. I finally started to take it more seriously my sophomore year when I realized that if I focused and put in the work I could actually be a competitor in my schools conference,” she wrote. “Throughout my four years, I ended up being named All Division, All Conference and All County.”

So far, Snider says that she is very optimistic about what this year’s Vassar cross country season has produced thus far. “Our season has been going great! We’ve met and exceeded many of our individual and team goals,” she explained. “We’ve had great leadership and camaraderie this season, which has in turn created a wonderful work ethic, as well as an equally important, and equally wonderful, team chemistry.”

Teammate junior Harper Cleves had nothing but positive remarks when asked about Snider’s potential. In an emailed statement, she

wrote that, “[Snider] really is just beginning to tap into what she is capable of. She has had a great freshman year, and I think she will continue to be successful throughout the season and her entire career here at Vassar College.”

“Kate really puts in the work,” Cleves wrote.

“But she is also just a fun person to hang out with, which is the ideal combination for a teammate, in my opinion.”

According to Snider, the close-knit nature of the cross country squad has been one of the most enjoyable aspects of collegiate running for her so far. “I’d definitely have to say that the team here at Vassar has been the best part of running at the collegiate level. It is super helpful to have a group of committed women to run with,” she said.

“We’ve really come together to push each other and support each other all the way to the championship meets. I ran most of my workouts in high school alone, so having a close-knit team has made all the difference.”

Regarding work ethic, freshman Ava Farrell wrote in an emailed statement, “[Snider] is a very reliable runner — we can pretty much always count on her come race day.” She continued, “She’s always going above and beyond — getting in extra mileage when she can and she really pushes herself everyday in practice. She has upped her mileage from around 20 miles a week in high school, to about 50-55 miles per week now.” The praising of Snider’s work ethic was continued by Cleves, who added, “[Snider] is just one of those people who really loves running. She will put in extra miles because she just enjoys it, which is just a really cool thing to see.”

Before choosing Vassar, Snider also considered Brown University, Amherst College and Tufts University. Snider, explaining why she chose Vassar, wrote that, “At first, I decided to look at Vassar because of the great academics (small class sizes, lots of interesting courses), beautiful campus (we have a lake!), and location (mountains and city). After sitting in on

Freshman women’s cross country team member Kate Snider has made a strong first impressions during her premiere season here at Vassar College. She has placed in the top ten in two major races. some classes, and meeting with the team, my final decision was really based on the friendly student body and warm vibe. Vassar just seemed like an inviting place, and the student body seemed very excited and happy.”

According to Snider, adjusting to life at Vassar has not been a challenge. “So far, life at Vassar has been as expected. I have found it to be a pretty easy place to adjust to. Everyone is super helpful and the environment has felt comfortable.”

Academically, Snider remains undecided on what she eventually wants to study. “I’m currently undecided, and don’t plan on declaring until next fall. Right now, I’m considering a major in Cognitive Science, but my interests are definitely not limited to that.”

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MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

The season is still far from over, but all three players underscored their excitement for what the future has in store. Cleves wrote, “We are a really close team and all of the freshmen have been such great additions. I am really excited for these next couple years.”

Farrell echoed similar sentiments, and wrote that, “Kate has made a huge impact on our success this season. It will be awesome to see her growth as a runner and our growth as a team the rest of this season and beyond.”

Again, the runners harp on the promising potential moving forward. Snider said, “Of course, our season is anything but over, but if we continue to put in the work and race how we’ve been racing this entire fall, it looks like it will be an exciting one!”

SPORTS

Page 20

November 7, 2013

Jasso rejoins men’s tennis as assistant coach Tina Caso

spoRts editoR

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“It takes a little bit of time to realize that they’re now your peers, your colleagues. You’re their equal in a lot of sense, and at I first didn’t really realize that, but they’ve really helped me feel that way.”

Jasso has been impressed with the team so far, and looks forward to the rest of his time as assistant coach. “I’m really excited. The team’s really young and really motivated, really self-motivated,” he said.

“There’s a lot of talent, a lot of room for improvement. I think it’s going to be tough this year—conference is looking strong and we’re young, so we have to get a couple of matches under our belts. We have to get a lot of confidence. I think if we have that level of confidence we can be awesome.”

Nathan Tauger/The Miscellany News

fter playing four years of tennis at Vassar College and graduating last year as an English major, Nick Jasso ’13 is back on board as the assistant coach for men’s tennis. Jasso, who is from Olmito, Texas, has found that his status as a recent graduate has only helped him with his new career as a coach at Vassar.

When he graduated in 2013, Jasso was still in the Poughkeepsie area during the summer before returning to Texas, and was in contact with previous Head Coach Cox. Jasso originally intended to come back as a volunteer assistant, but was eventually offered a paid position. After he accepted the position, Cox called Jasso to tell him that he was resigning, which left Jasso with both Head and Assistant Coach responsibilities. “Obviously I was nervous,” Jasso explained. “But it was too big of an opportunity to pass up.”

Most of the current members of the men’s tennis team were freshmen or sophomores when Jasso was a senior captain. “They really have that built-in respect. I know what it’s like to be a student here. It’s really easy for me to know what student-athletes look for at our school which I think comes down to a full, holistic education,” he said.

“You can’t learn everything in the classroom.

On any court or field, you learn so many more things than you do in the classroom. I’d say that has been helpful, also from a recruiting standpoint. It’s been really easy to paint a picture of what it’s like here.”

Sophomore co-captain Daniel Cooper also commented on Jasso’s relationship to the team.

“A captain last year, [Jasso] was always someone to look up to. He has continued his excellent leadership as an Assistant Coach this year.

Always a role model, it felt natural for him to stay on as coach,” he wrote in an emailed statement. “He understands all aspects of being a student-athlete at Vassar and is always open to discussion. We have been able to maintain an extremely high level of communication since we have a close relationship. Having [Jasso] on the team is awesome because [he] is not just a coach; he’s a great friend.”

Sophomore co-captain Christian Phelps also reiterated that fact, “Not only has he stepped up in terms of management and recruiting, but his connection with the team has made him re-

ally successful as an assistant coach. I have considered [Jasso] one of my closest friends since I got to Vassar—originally, he was a teammate and a captain, and now he’s a coach, but in both settings he has been helpful, trustworthy and supportive.”

Phelps continued, “He understands our games and where we’re at athletically, but also what it means to be a member of the Vassar men’s tennis team socially. He does a great job of catering team events to the personalities and relationships on our team, which really operates as a family.”

As for his new role with other staff members, Jasso said that the transition has been smooth.

“A lot of them knew me as a student and I’ve felt very welcomed,” he explained.

Alum Nick Jasso ‘13 was a prominent member of the men’s tennis team during his time at Vassar College. Jasso now returns this year as an assistant coach for the men’s team, helping head coach Ferris.

Men’s soccer moves to post-season play Amreen Bhasin RepoRteR

Men’s Cross Country

The men’s cross country team competed at the Liberty League Championships this past weekend hosted at Bard College. The team was forced to compete shorthanded after scratching two runners. Then men managed to pull off a fourth place finish even without usual top performers sophomore Jonah Williams and freshman Jay Kepes. Freshman Alfredo Mazzuca earned First Team All-Liberty League accolades and was the top freshman finisher in

the race; he also beat his personal record by 13 seconds. Senior Harry Feigen came in 2nd for the Brewers and was 21st overall. Junior Eliot Gerson came 3rd for the Brewers and 25th overall. Junior Brian Deer was 4th and 44th overall.

Senior Carlisle Schaeffer placed 47th overall to round out the top five.

The men will next host the VC Late Season Invitational Friday November 8th at 4:00 p.m. on the Vassar Farm.

Women’s Cross Country

The Women harriers were also short-handed

during Liberty League Championships missing key performers freshman Lucy Balcezak and junior Cassidy Carpenter. The Brewers still managed to take home a 3rd place finish at the meet. Senior Aubree Piepmeier earned First Team All-Liberty League accolades posting a personal best time of 22:02 and finishing 4th overall. Freshman Jemma Howlett finished 12th overall and earned Second Team All-Liberty League accolades.

Freshman Kate Snider finished one second behind Howlett for a 13th place finish also earning her Second Team honors. Senior Emily Garber finished 17th overall while freshman Laura McDonald, finishing 5th for the Brewers, posted a collegiate best for 24th place. Junior Viviane Ford placed 30th.

Men’s Soccer

Alec Ferretti/The Miscellany News

Men’s Soccer secured a post-season position on Saturday with a 3-0 win over Bard College.

Goals came from freshman Stehpen Gennings, senior Rob Manukyan and junior Tom Wiechert.

The men’s soccer team has had an incredibly successful week. Not only was senior defender Evan Seltzer named to the College Sports Information Directors of America 2013-2014 Capital One Academic All-District Team, but the team also made Liberty League Playoffs once again.

On Wednesday the team traveled to Union and ended with a 2-2 tie. Junior Zach Nasipak and sophomore Gavin Jennings scored for Vassar and senior Ryan Grimme recorded three saves off of 14 shots. The men next played Bard College on Senior Day. Senior Rob Manukyan got the game-winning goal in the 3-0 victory for the Brewers. Freshman Stephen Gennings also scored as well as junior Tom Wiechert who had his 11th of the year. Grimme had five saves on the day and sophomore Sebastien Lasseur had two.

The team will next travel to St. Lawrence University on November 6 for the first Liberty League playoff game.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Soccer nets close win in overtime SOCCER continued from page 1

pulled out a corner kick that sailed into the back of the net. The match went into overtime, and in order to move on the Brewers could not tie the match, or their record would not be good enough to progress. They had to win. With the clock winding down, junior Chloe Wheeler, who has been a crucial player for the women’s team, shot in the game-winning goal, giving the Brewers the victory.

This game marked the creation of a monumental season for the women’s soccer team.

A long time rival, Union College faced the same fate as the Brewers in that if they won, they moved on, and if they lost, they were out. Head coach Laura Williamson had confidence that her team could pull off the win.

“From the start of the match we showed as the better side,” expressed Williamson. “We knew Union’s strengths and we knew where we could look to exploit them as well. The way we were connecting I never had a doubt that we were going to score more goals than them. The nerve-wracking part was how long it took to make that happen. I think we created more quality chances in that second half that we have all season. As a coach, I wish we put a few more away early, but being able to celebrate that golden goal is a moment that these players will never forget.”

Wheeler expressed the atmosphere of the match. “The Union game was the perfect scenario — winning would secure a spot in the playoffs, we were on our home field with all of our friends and family cheering us on, it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon — nothing gets much better than that. We had the right mentality even before going into the locker room to get ready for the game. We weren’t about to accept anything less than a win.”

Wheeler, who has received much praise for her efforts, attributes the majority of the team’s success to the amount of talent within each of the individual players. “We have so much talent individually and collectively,” Wheeler expressed. “Despite the ups and downs that we have faced throughout the season, we were motivated by the fact that we knew how capable we were of making the playoffs and beyond. We really were able to put that talent and heart together in the last half of our season, which is a pretty awesome feeling and accomplishment.”

However, according to some members of the team, the season has been a testament to how hard the team has had to work in order to pull off these wins. Williamson in particular described how this season has been an uphill battle for the team. “It’s been quite a bumpy ride this year,” Williamson stated.

“We’re finally showing some consistent quality throughout matches and game to game. I think what really kept this team moving forward was trust in one other. We’ve known all year that we’re a good squad, but we needed to believe that it would come to fruition in some big wins down the road.”

Williamson, along with assistant coach Pamela Monnier, make up the coaching squad for the women’s team. Many players expressed their belief that the coaches are the reason that they have been able to get so far in the season. “Our coaches have done so much this year to bring us together and keep us focused. They’re kind of like the glue that holds us together,” expressed junior Ariel Bridges, a team defender. “They’ve helped us to channel those energies in more productive ways and they’re also great communicators which I think has really contributed to our success.”

Going into post season play, the team will look to give their best match possible and pull off close wins against nationally ranked teams. “Going into post season, we’re really going to take it one game at a time and continue with what we have been focusing on in the past few weeks,” expressed Wheeler. “I have faith in us. We all need to give 100% effort to get the result we want this Wednesday, and I have no doubts that we can do that.”