Misc 11.07.19

The Miscellany News

Since 1866 | miscellanynews.org

Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY

Volume CLII | Issue 8

November 7, 2019

Halloween crimes School district history recounted shock THs, campus Tiana Headley

Assistant News Editor

Mack Liederman Editor-in-Chief

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idnight, Halloween, Thursday, Oct. 31. After a long day of classes, show rehearsals and the accumulated sleep depravity that typically accompanies just-another-week at Vassar, Zamir Birnbach ’20 had settled into his Town

House for bed.

“I didn’t hear anything, but my sixth sense kicked in, and my eyes opened,” Birnbach said of his sudden awakening at 2:30 a.m. A young man wearing a black hoodie and black jeans loitered in Birnbach’s dark bedroom, standing by See BURGLARY on page 3

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athrooms out-of-service for months. A sole safe water fountain in the high school. Toilets clogged with sanitary napkins.

Teachers over-assertive of authority in the classroom. Mismanaged funds.

On the flip side, a cash-strapped school district with teachers and administrators doing the best with

what they have in a high-poverty city.

These are the combined opinions of Poughkeepsie High School (PHS) senior, Kiara, and PHS grad and current Dutchess Community College student Jacqueline Jones of the Poughkeepsie City School District. “The environments of the schools are toxic,” Kiara divulged.

“Many staff members make it clear they don’t want to be there.”

Newly appointed Superintendent of Schools Dr. Eric Rosser also recognizes that this is a struggling district. But he also believes that untapped potential abounds.

“As with all urban school districts, the Poughkeepsie City School District struggles with meeting the evolving academic, social, emotional and wellness needs of its students,” Dr. Ross, who took the reins See SCHOOLS on page 4

Lebanon’s youth take to the streets Rayan El Amine Reporter

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Photo courtesy of Clara Pitt, edited by Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News

The THs, near the edge of campus, experienced a series of crimes in the 24-hour span around Halloween, including multiple break-ins and an armed burglary.

choed by nearly two million people, this chant, a quite literal “fuck your mom” to Lebanese Parliament member Gebran Bassil, captures the very core of a united revolution. See, most revolutions are not carried by the sound of parliamentary insults. Most revolutions are not as frequently documented for their fun as they are for their impact. Most revolutions do not call for the total ousting of all members of government.

But the Lebanese revolution is no ordinary revolution.

Before the seas of Lebanese flags

and deafening chants swept across my small Mediterranean country, there was a tax. A tax on texting.

Presented by Minister of Telecommunications Mohamed Choucair, the tax would impose a 20 percent increase on the data prices of all calls through the widely used texting application WhatsApp. While the ridiculous greed associated with taxing free applications should and would be enough to put people on the streets, the WhatsApp tax would have a catastrophic impact on the Lebanese proletariat.

Composed of mostly young Lebanese laborers and Syrian immigrants, members of the working class in Lebanon struggle to

afford basic data bills necessary to make use of a cell phone. Basic data is made unaffordable as a consequence of a technology sector monopolized by two major cell phone companies. This then makes WhatsApp, a free application, an essential tool in the day-to-day developments of these people.

To put it simply, no more WhatsApp means no more calls home for the young Syrian fathers who leave their children back in Damascus. It was a greedy move by a politician known more for his chocolate company, Patchi, than his contributions to government.

Choucair’s WhatsApp tax was See LEBANON on page 8

Womxn groups take back the Mug NCAA honors Vassar grad Monica Feeley Delila Ames Reporter

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On Nov. 1, the Mug was aglow with candles and adorned with watercolor art as women and GNC individuals performed poems and songs to foster solidarity.

Knitwits weave community, stress relief, FEATURES creativity in fluffy projects

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Life after camo: Vassar Veterans share stories of VETERANS’ VOICES service, civilian life

Alessandra Fable, Jackie Molloy Guest Reporters

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hree-time All-Liberty League. 2018 All-Region.

LL Defensive Player of the Year.

Vassar field hockey’s first ever All-American. During her Vassar career, former field hockey player Monica Feeley ’19 established an unforgettable legacy on the field. Even after graduation, Vassar’s defensive star continues to add to her ever-impressive trophy case. On Oct. 20, Feeley was honored as a Top 9 finalist for the NCAA Woman of the Year award.

The NCAA Woman of the Year ceremony rewards excellence in academics, athletics, community service and leadership for graduating female student-athletes across all three divisions of competition.

Initially, 585 student-athletes submitted applications for the award.

From there, the pool was narrowed down to 151 hopefuls. Next, the selection committee picked 10 student-athletes from each division in the NCAA, who became the Top 30 finalists. On Sept. 10, Feeley was announced as one of these finalists. Then, on Oct. 20, she was

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revealed as a Top 9 finalist—Vassar’s second-ever student-athlete to receive that recognition. “I was honestly so shocked [that] I don’t even think I have the words to express how I felt. I didn’t think I had a shot at Top 30, let alone Top 9, so it was quite a surprise,” said Feeley See FEELEY on page 15

Courtesy of Timothy Nwachukwu/NCAA Photos

Inside this issue

witches. “We have been talking a lot about empowerment, and specifically the idea of witches being associated with the night, and, more generally, the idea of women and other marginalized genders reclaiming the nighttime, which was super in line with the Take Back the Night mission,” said Julianna DeAngelis ’20 of Idlewild.

Both the timing and venue of the event was intentional: October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, as well as RelationSee TBTN on page 5

Yvette Hu/The Miscellany News

[CW: This article mentions sexual and domestic violence.] own a spiral staircase and into a dimmed, (electronic) candle-lit room, dozens of people gathered on Friday, Nov. 1 to enjoy an evening meant for listening.

Vibrant watercolor pieces depicting genitalia and baby heads adorned the walls. Hot apple cider, brownies and pumpkin bread were served in the back.

The event was a collaboration between Vassar theater group Idlewild (a cohort comprised of women/femmes/GNC individuals who have aligning goals of anti-violence activism), the Women’s Center and the Sexual Assault Violence Prevention Office (SAVP). The three groups aimed to create a space inside the Mug for survivors and supporters alike to share their art across mediums. Dubbed “Take Back the Night,” everything about this evening was purposeful, from the date to the location.

Take Back the Night (TBTN) is an international movement to end sexual, relationship and domestic violence. It began in the 1970s when mainstream media started

to discuss sexual violence more openly. Darci Siegel ’20, a Women’s Center intern, passionately elaborated: “It is a movement for people to come together and share experiences, find community and work for a safer world for everyone.”

This is TBTN’s fourth consecutive year at Vassar. It began as a way to demonstrate solidarity with survivors and create communal spaces for those impacted by violence. The idea for this event was based on Idlewild’s upcoming show, themed around

Field hockey stand-out and community activist Monica Feeley ’19 (above) trekked to Indianapolis on Oct. 20 to accept her award as a Top 9 finalist for the NCAA Woman of the Year.

Look on the bright side! Your OPINIONS existence is meaningless!

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The Miscellany News

November 7, 2019

Editor-in-Chief Mack Liederman

Senior Editors

Frankie Knuckles Jessica Moss

Contributing Editors Isabel Braham Leah Cates Sasha Gopalakrishnan

News Aena Khan Olivia Watson Features Duncan Aronson Opinions Jonas Trostle Arts Abby Tarwater Humor Francisco Andrade Sports Teddy Chmyz Design Lilly Tipton Copy Lucy Leonard Social Media Natalie Bober Photo Yvette Hu Managing Robert Pinataro Online Mohamad Safadieh Graphics Juliette Pope Video Production Alexis Cerritos Audio Alex Barnard Emerita Laurel Hennen Vigil Assistant News Tiana Headley Assistant Opinions Abram Gregory Assistant Arts Dean Kopitsky Taylor Stewart Assistant Design Mohtad Allawala “I can honestly say that living in an unfamiliar environment comes with dealing with high levels of uncertainty. Although the pathway to feeling comfortable in a new place is bumpy, trusting your own abilities and using the resources you have to adapt will allow you to cultivate lifelong skills you need to survive,” writes Tammy Wang ’21, who is currently studying abroad in Glasgow, Scotland. Wang recounts a nail-biting weekend trip to Berlin, where she experiences firsthand the complications of international travel.

Reporters Delila Ames Jonah Frere-Holmes Rayan El Amine Columnists Rohan Dutta Lindsay Craig Copy Jacqueline Gill Jason Han Amanda Herring Phoebe Jacoby Caitlin Patterson Tiffany Trumble Crossword Frank

Correction (Nov. 6, 2019): An earlier version of this article misnamed the organization that gave the consortium the grant. The organization’s correct name is the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, not the “Mellon Fund.”

Additionally, one counselor’s name was misspelled. His last name is “Wiswell,” not “Winswell.”

Correction (Nov. 4, 2019): Last week’s Sports Updates listed the wrong score for the men’s soccer games. The score was Vassar College 1, Ithaca 0, not Vassar College 1, Ithaca 3.

CORRECTION POLICY The Miscellany News will only accept corrections for any misquotes, misrepresentations or factual errors for an article within the semester it is printed.

Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented within its Opinions pages. The staff editorial is the only article which reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board.

November 7, 2019

NEWS

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“Dear Carlos”: exhibit illuminates hope in detention Aena Khan

News Editor

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ver 40 million people born outside the United States now call the nation home. This statistic accounted for a fifth of the world’s total migrants in 2017 and is four times greater than it was in 1965, when immigration laws replaced quotas based on national origin. Of that 40 million, approximately 10.5 million immigrants, or 3.2 percent of the nation’s total population, were “unauthorized” to exist in the United States (Pew Research Center, “Key findings about U.S. immigrants,” 06.19.2019).

Mexico remains the country from which most unauthorized immigrants come to the United States, and the decrease in Mexican immigrants coincides with the decrease in the total population of illegal immigrants since 2007 (Pew Research Center). Instead, there are increased migrant populations from Central America and Asia, regions experiencing upticks in political instability and violence. Since Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration in 2017, his administration has initiated a series of immigration policies that are not only much harsher his predecessors’, but that were decried as “massive and systemic human rights violations” to the UN Human Rights Council (International Association of Democratic Lawyers, “Human Rights violations in the United States of America: Emergency at the Southern Border,” 04.13.2019). Namely, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a “zero-tolerance” policy in April 2018 that resulted in the apprehension of 8,000 families along the southwest border, their referral to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution and

the separation of thousands of children from their parents by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE (Catholic Legal Immigration Network, “Timeline: Family separations under the ‘zero-tolerance’ policy,” 2018).

In response to the rhetoric dehumanizing migrants, Carlos Eduardo Espina ’20 began to write to migrants detained by ICE. These letters were organized into an exhibit entitled “Dear Carlos: Mail from a Detention Complex” by the Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement and Education. It was part of a larger exhibition funded by the Mellon Foundation called “Walls, Borders, Fences,” the purpose of which is to commemorate the three decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall and to bring attention to the dehumanization of immigrants in centers along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Espina credited the Consortium with making the exhibit come to life, and in particular Professor Maria Höhn, Rick Jones from the Geography Department, Matthew Brill-Carlat ’19 and Ava McElhone Yates ’21.

“Dear Carlos” is simple in its setup: A desk and chair are enframed on one side by a glass window, through which the trees outside the College Center dominate the view. To the other side, a wall is covered with photocopies of correspondences between Carlos and ICE detainees along the southern border. On the desk are coloring pencils, printer paper to leave short messages, and a list on which individuals can sign up to write letters. Espina reflected on the power these messages have in providing hope: “Although people may not realize it, a short message of encouragement can be a huge boost to someone who is detained and feeling helpless.”

The letters tell their authors’ stories and are unique in voice. Espina recognized this, sharing, “The people I write to are from all over the world and speak many different languages. Each of their individual stories is powerful, saddening and highlights the inhumanity of our current asylum process.”

The recipients—who come from countries around the world such as Honduras, Venezuela, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Ethiopia— express their gratitude to the support, both with words and in art.

“Hello Carlos Espina, it is a pleasure to greet you. It makes me happy that you liked the drawing of the rose that I sent you. I like to draw a lot. I sent you two more drawings that I hope you like,” one letter from Sept. 21 stated in Spanish. Another writer described how they are in their sixth month of detention after arriving from Venezuela with three children.

“It is a pleasure to greet you. It makes me happy that you liked the drawing of the rose that I sent you. I like to draw a lot.”

For Espina, who moved to Texas from his native Uruguay at the age of five, the process of writing letters to individuals detained by ICE began on a painfully personal note: “In April of 2019, a good friend of mine who is from Belize was detained by ICE and sent to

a detention facility in Pearsall, Texas. In the three months that he was detained (he is currently out on bail), I communicated with him constantly.”

It was through his friend that Espina first learned of the hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers within the facility who had no support systems in the United States. At his friend’s request, he began writing letters to offer emotional support. As of Nov. 5, Espina has raised $3,800 through a GoFundMe page and communicated with hundreds of detained refugees. The support does not end there, as Espina also connects the detainees with lawyers and family members in the United States to aid their cases.

The exhibit does not limit its impact to members of the Vassar community. Students have visited from Poughkeepsie schools and details of the exhibit have been shared with the migrants. Espina related this to the goal of writing letters at all: “Far too often, we talk about refugees and migrants in the abstract without acknowledging that they are real people…when discussing immigration policy, you almost always hear the voices of politicians, pundits and experts, but it is very rare to hear the voices of those people who are most affected by our draconian system.”

Texas currently houses 15,852 individuals in detention centers each day, more than any other state. The current state of apprehension and detention by ICE not only costs over $2 billion in taxpayers’ money, but the state of isolation many detainees expressed in their letters should be concerning.

“Walls, Borders, Fences” will be on exhibit on the second floor of the College Center until Nov. 25.

Students question safety after break-ins, armed burglary BURGLARY continued from page 1 his dresser.

“My adrenaline is going, and I’m like, ‘Yo, what the fuck,’” recounted Birnbach. “I turn on the light and I see this guy, and I was like, ‘What’s going on,’ and he was confused, and he kept asking about [another] house.”

Birnbach asked for the intruder’s name, and was given one he believed to be fake.

The intruder tried to explain his presence by claiming that he was high. Birnbach asked him to empty the contents of his drawstring bag, confirming that the individual had not stolen anything from the TH. According to Birnbach, the intruder was non-aggressive; in fact, he appeared “pretty coherent” and “pretty laid back.” The man simply put his shoes back on, and upon Birnbach’s request, exited the house.

“It seems surreal. It could’ve gone a lot worse, that’s for sure,” Birnbach added.

“Even now, when I’m recreating that situation, waking up from the vantage point of seeing that guy, it’s scary. Nobody should have to go through that.”

While a combination of confusion and shock kept Birnbach from reporting the incident immediately, it would later surface that his encounter was only the first or second in a 24-hour wave of crimes on campus.

In one instance, a student awoke to find a college-aged female in their room in Noyes, shared Safety and Security Director Arlene Sabo in an email sent to students. In another occurrence around 10:30 that morning, Mojan Farid ’20 walked into her TH to find an elderly man sitting down on her living room couch.

A third email by Sabo indicated the most severe crime: Two intruders, one holding what appeared to be a handgun, entered a

TH. They bound the students, searched the house and fled the scene. No arrests have been made in connection with any of the incidents, and all break-ins occurred in residences with unlocked doors.

The survivors of the armed burglary declined to comment for this article, citing respect for their privacy and safety. Farid and Birnbach went on record with The Miscellany News to share their encounters.

According to Farid, a red SUV sat outside her house, watching her walk by as she exited. “I didn’t think much about it,” Farid recalled. “I was gone for five or six minutes, realized that I had forgotten something, and when I came back, he was just sitting there on the couch in my room, not on his phone or anything, just sitting there.” Farid asked the intruder what he was doing, and he responded that he was waiting for his granddaughter to change. When asked what his granddaughter’s name was, Farid told him that nobody by that name lived nearby.

“He left pretty easily, but it was just weird because he probably would have come in with his granddaughter if she was going to change,” Farid conjectured. “It was just weird that he couldn’t answer me.”

Following the incidents in Birnbach’s and Farid’s residences, and prior to the armed burglary, Safety and Security increased campus patrols and sent out campus-wide emails reminding people to lock their doors and windows. Campus patrols are unarmed, leaving them primarily tasked with spotting incidents and calling the police if a crime becomes visible.

“Sometimes you prevent, and that’s the idea. Patrol is a backbone of any safety, security, law enforcement department, in that there is prevention just by presence,” Sabo

indicated, highlighting that Safety and Security primarily serves to deter.

But some students see the patrols differently. “I mean, besides just, like, parking out there, I don’t know what [Safety and Security] is doing,” said Farid. “Maybe that brings a sense of security, but I don’t think that’s necessarily an active way of protecting, and in a way that makes many students nervous.”

Many TH residents and students remain on edge about their safety on campus. “I have been feeling very uneasy since this incident happened. Right now we have no trust in safety conditions,” said one TH resident, who lives in a house near the site of the armed burglary, and asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons. “I’m losing sleep thinking about it. At the very least they need to put a security outpost by the THs.” In a recent survey of 101 students conducted by The Miscellany News, 28.7 percent of respondents answered “no” to the question “Do you feel safe on campus right now?”

The College has been quick to consider new security measures following the incidents. The morning of the armed robbery, a group of senior administrators formed a new safety task force, according to Vice President of Communications Amanita Duga-Carroll. So far, the task force has conducted a site visit of the THs and put into motion a plan for temporary lighting enhancements in the area. “Both are top priorities and will be completed as soon as possible,” added Duga-Carroll. Longer-term plans include installing self-locking doors on all THs. In the past, the College has employed visibly stronger security measures, like a security outpost near the THs and a closed campus. But optical security in several forms has

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

not prevented similar violent crimes from occurring. In January of 2005, an assault and mugging took place on the path of the THs (The Miscellany News, “Student assaulted on path to Town House,” 02.11.2005).

On Nov. 15, 2008, students outside Chicago Hall were lined up “execution style” during an armed robbery (The Miscellany News, “Four students robbed at gunpoint on campus,” 11.20.2008).

“Guarding has been associated with increases in violence, too,” President Bradley explained when asked about possibly returning to stronger deterrence methods.

“There are all kinds of unintended effects.”

Regardless of how the College, student body and victims move forward from this incident, it marks a departure from the campus’ prior relationship with safety.

“We kind of live in this Vassar utopia.

Well, that existed until last week,” added Birnbach, who said that he is now keeping his tennis racquets within arm’s reach of his bed. “It was like, oh yeah, everyone’s friends here and we can leave our doors unlocked and we can just walk around and go into houses … It’s literally a wake-up call in the worst possible way.”

President Bradley expressed a similar sentiment. “I think that people on campus do get into the mode that they don’t have to lock their doors, that they don’t have to lock the car, that they could leave their laptop for six or seven hours in the lounge and it’ll be there when they get back. And, usually, when you’re home, you kind of feel that way, because it’s home,” she concluded. “But the truth is, that’s not really realistic in today’s world.”

Additional reporting by Jessica Moss, Olivia Watson, Noah Siderhurst and Eli Hurwitz.

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November 7, 2019

A tale of two districts: history of Poughkeepsie schools

The Road to Desegregating Public Education for Black Poughkeepsie youth The Poughkeepsie City School District opened its doors in 1843, providing schooling only for white children in the City. The school district’s Board of Education created a separate school for Black children in 1844.

The elementary school was then called the Poughkeepsie Colored School No. 1. An average of 20 kids attended class, but up to 70 kids were registered.

Public outrage over nonexistent secondary and higher education opportunities for Black Poughkeepsie youth arose in public discourse around the late 1860s and early 1870s.

There is no record of a Black student attending Poughkeepsie High School before 1870. Neither Vassar College nor the nowclosed Eastman Business College admitted Black students in the 1860s. Vassar admitted its first openly Black student, Beatrix McCleary, in 1940 (The Miscellany News, “A brief history of race at Vassar,” 11.14.1997).

In the absence of higher education opportunities for Black students, the Poughkeepsie community decided to make its own. The idea to establish a Black college in Poughkeepsie was first vocalized in September 1870 during a Mid-Hudson education conference. In the preceding decade, other historically Black colleges like Fisk, Howard and Hampton came into existence.

But Toussaint L’Ouverture College, the proposed name for Poughkeepsie’s iteration, was never realized. Lack of finances, dwindling moral support and a rising anti-segregation movement in New York State spelled failure for the project. The Black community leaders and members alike made it clear—they wanted to desegregate public education, not set up their own schools.

Textile dyeing company owner Joseph Rhodes and wife led this struggle in Poughkeepsie when they attempted to enroll their daughters Marietta, 9, and Josephine, 15, in the white Fifth Ward School. On their first day, Marietta was sent home by her teacher after lunch when another student hit her.

After further pressure from Black advocacy groups across New York State, the New York State legislature passed in 1874 a law to abolish segregation in public education.

Poughkeepsie schools were completely desegregated in 1875.

(Lawrence H. Mamiya and Lorraine M.

Roberts, “Invisible People, Untold Stories: A Historical Overview of the Black Community in Poughkeepsie,” 1986.)

A Fight Against Shared Educational Excellence Everything changed when tech giant IBM came to town—that is, the Town of Poughkeepsie. IBM opened a plant in the Spackenkill part of the Town of Poughkeepsie in 1942. The company recruited wealthy and highly educated professionals who could afford the expensive homes and property taxes that flowed into Spackenkill schools.

In the years to come, more people, more jobs and more money flooded the neighborhood.

In the meantime, the City of Poughkeepsie witnessed its land values plummet and its population decline. Very little of IBM’s wealth production touched the City. They were powerless in seeing their neighborhood’s metamorphosis into “the old city.”

Five years after IBM opened its Poughkeepsie plant, the New York State Education Department published a Master Plan calling for the consolidation of the Spackenkill Union Free School District and the Poughkeepsie City School District.

But in defiance of the Department, Spackenkill district residents overwhelmingly backed a plan in 1956 for the district to build a high school of its own. At the time, the district shared Poughkeepsie High School with the primarily Black and lower-income Poughkeepsie City School District. Spackenkill now wanted its own high school, and its own independent district.

To sway residents away from this plan, the State Education Department offered a 10 percent increase in operating funds for the combined district for five years. The Spackenkill Board of Education was not interested. For the next 15 years, parents and the School Board of the largely white and relatively wealthy district fought to ensure exclusive benefits of IBM’s presence.

In a public hearing two days before Spackenkill district residents voted to approve the high school’s construction, community members in the Town and City of Poughkeepsie spoke out against the new high school.

“If we build our own high school, all we are doing is creating a middle-class ghetto high school,” declared the son of a Methodist minister Kenneth Park. “I see no other word for it than racism with the result of leaving Poughkeepsie to rot.”

A senior at Poughkeepsie High School at the time from the Spackenkill district highlighted how attending school with Poughkeepsie City students broke down barriers between the Town and the City. “When we went [to Poughkeepsie], they thought of us as snobs,” noted Will. “I think their opinion of us has changed as us of them.”

Despite public outcry, despite firm disapproval from the State Department of Education and despite having no promise of building aid from the state, residents approved construction of the school on Sept. 20, 1971 by a vote of roughly two to one. Construction began the following spring. The State Commissioner of Education, who had previously refused to provide building funds for the school, was later forced to do so in the 1971 Saslaw v. Nyquist case.

The Spackenkill Board of Education president during the early years of the case, Norman Carter, stated during a 2005 interview that it was not the Spackenkill district’s responsibility to carry Poughkeepsie. Toward the end of the battle, the district was asked by the state appellate court in the 1971 Sa-

Alexis Cerritos/The Miscellany News

SCHOOLS continued from page 1 of the district this past July, expressed over email. He noted that the complex needs of students make it difficult for teachers to provide quality education for them.

But as Kiara, Jones and students like them move through the Poughkeepsie City schools with a subpar view of their education, two thriving school districts neighbor theirs—the majority white and wealthy Spackenkill Union Free School District and Arlington Central School District.

The Spackenkill and Poughkeepsie districts have a special relationship. What hangs in the air between them is a bitter battle for their separation fought and won 48 years ago, and a missed opportunity to share educational excellence and resources: a chance to become a unified school district.

Despite this distinction in the quality of the two school districts, prospects for education of Black students have still increased over centuries. Back in the early 1800s, the 645 Black Poughkeepsie High students in the 2017-18 year could not have made it past elementary school.

Pictured above, a teacher leads a class at the Smith Early Learning Center, part of the Poughkeepsie School District. The facility serves preschool and kindergarten students. In recent years, increasing numbers of students of Latinx descent have been enrolled at the Center.

slaw v. Board of Regents case to prove how Spackenkill’s independence would benefit students in both Poughkeepsie and Spackenkill. Spackenkill School Board officials had never visited Poughkeepsie High School.

“We took the position that with the growing population [in Spackenkill] Poughkeepsie High School wasn’t big enough,” Carter said. The state pointed out that the property taxes that would flow into a combined district because of IBM could expand the Poughkeepsie High School building. Carter rebutted with the district’s desires for singular success for its own children. “I like the idea of local control,” he shared in the interview. “We could get our own teachers and look for the best.”

Spackenkill’s advocates rejoiced their long-fought victory in achieving their vision of local control. They lauded themsleves as a determined community that achieved independence and community control of its own school system. This is how they would ensure the educational excellence of their own children.

(Educational Foundations, Summer-Fall 2006, “The Politics of School Districting: A Case Study in Upstate New York.”)

The Spackenkill and Poughkeepsie districts today Advocates of Spackenkill’s independence got what they wanted—a superior high school and school district. They abandoned the Poughkeepsie City School District and took their tax base and resources with them.

Today, Spackenkill High School boasts a National Blue Ribbon award for academic excellence (Poughkeepsie Journal, “Spackenkill High School named National Blue Ribbon School,” 11.23.2018). Only 62 schools in the country hold the distinction. Students can choose from 14 Advanced Placement classes. A total of 95 percent of the Class of 2018 attended colleges and universities such as Boston University, Wellesley College and Yale University, according to the school’s 2018 class profile (Spackenkill High School 2018-2019). The district was 67 percent white by 2017, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. IBM is still located in the Town of Poughkeepsie.On the other hand, Spackenkill’s separation deteriorated the Poughkeepsie City School District. The Poughkeepsie district, still primarily comprised of students of color, remains majority low-income and low-resourced. Of the high school’s 1,127 students in 2017-18, 87 percent

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

were either Black or Hispanic (645 Black and 340 Latinx), according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The district is majority Title I, which means most if not all students are low-income.

The school district has seen a myriad of scandals over the years regarding its high school graduation rates, integrity of its former Superintendent of Schools Nicole Williams, and aging infrastructure.

Poughkeepsie High School’s graduation rate plummeted to 47.7 percent in 2018, declining from the 68 percent touted by Superintendent Williams in the previous year. An investigation by the Dutchess County Board of Education and the state found that nine students were improperly graduated last year due to excessive absences (Poughkeepsie Journal, “Poughkeepsie: Graduation rate fell 20 percentage points,” 06.22.2018).

These improper graduations, combined with inadequate services with the School Board, culminated in Williams accepting a $433,000 buyout to resign (Poughkeepsie Journal, “BUYOUT: $433,000 for ex-Poughkeepsie school chief,” 07.05.2019).

The schools’ infrastructure issues—heating issues due to failing boiler systems, aging buildings, rodents and mold in the middle school and elementary schools and more— burden the small district. Its property values are the lowest and rates of school-age poverty are the highest in the region (Poughkeepsie Journal, “Air quality, fire safety concerns plague Poughkeepsie schools,” 12.14.2018).

This is not to say that the current struggles of the Poughkeepsie school district are a direct result of the Spackenkill victory. Like many urban centers in the United States, Poughkeepsie has seen its fair share of white flight as more Black families arrived in its neighborhoods. The City of Poughkeepsie is physically segregated by Route 9 and the east-west arterial (US-44/ NY-55) running through its center. Majority white and higher-income neighborhoods exist in the North and majority Black and lower-income neighborhoods exist on the South side (Geospatial Mapping at Vassar, “Poughkeepsie: A City Divided,” 06.01.2017).

Kiara, who is graduating early to leave the Poughkeepsie City School District as quickly as possible, views the districts’ problems as exhaustive. But what she finds most egregious is the lack of a voice students have in the future of their schools. “The adults that choose what happens to us and what changes are made in schools have no idea what students need,” Kiara shared. “I would love to see students given a chance to speak up for themselves.”

November 7, 2019

ARTS

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‘Two Hands’ grants Big Thief humanity, divine powers Meghan Hayfield Guest Columnist

Two Hands

Big Thief 4AD Courtesy of Martin Schumann via Wikimedia Commons

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ig Thief’s “Two Hands,” released on Oct. 11, is a soft form of electricity, buzzing without having to blare its magnificence. The album, which was recorded completely live, is organic and raw, placing the intimate connection between Big Thief’s members at the forefront.

The album’s sometimes disturbing lyrics create a psychological investigation similar to past albums. In the opening song, “Rock and Sing,” Adrienne Lenker, the group’s frontwoman, sings, “Without his body/ Naked and bare/Quiet and obviously not there/I am that naked thing/Swimming in air.” The lyrics are rooted in physical realities yet layered on dreamlike images, lending for an individualized interpretation.

None of Big Thief’s lyrics are ever concrete, instead allowing for imaginations to roam free. Lenker’s voice mirrors these images, ghostly and crooning from above.

Lenker’s angelic, crawling vocals cut through every song, each word heavy in her mouth. Lyrics throughout reference our own inability to find answers, catharsis, relief. Lenker sings of mysteries lurking in the air we breathe, the creatures of the sky and beings we imagine.

The album contrasts bloody and fearful images with playful magic. In “Wolf,” which begins with the soft strum of an acoustic guitar that mirrors Lenker’s creeping voice, she sings, “Mermaids don’t kill/That’s the way they sing so fine,” and, “The wolf is howling for me.” Yet she contrasts this whimsicality with foreboding and gruesome imagery: “When she holds me in her jaw/All my blood dripping/Will I be free/ To cease gripping?” This juxtaposition cultivates in an eerie and nightmarish song.

On Oct. 11, indie folk band Big Thief released their second critically acclaimed album of 2019, titled “Two Hands.” Guest Columnist Meghan Hayfield deemed the record “a visual, visceral listen.”

This delicately touched upon, barely noticeable violence builds around much of the album. “Shoulders” sounds nearly upbeat; a steady pulse from the guitar and percussion almost hides the lyrics Lenker is singing: “They found you in the morning/The blood was on your shoulders/They found you at the corner/Your head was doubled over/ And the blood of the man who killed my mother with his hands/Is in me/It’s in me/ In my veins.” This dark imagery, while not always heard, is felt.

“Two Hands” surrounds Lenker’s voice in steady percussion, so that you can feel the sound moving around band members, circling an orbit that is otherworldly. Lenker’s lyrics embrace the unknown, the mystical questions we will never know the answers to: “Somehow we exist/In the folds/And now we’ll kiss/Both hands/The mystery before us/She’s reaching.” The track harnesses the full energy of the band, so that every instrument is chanting.

You can hear the band members com-

municating with each other throughout, dancing together as their individual contributions hum in unflinching harmony. Much of the album sounds like a forgotten dream, like sparse images returning in vivid pieces.

You can hear Lenker’s sharp and soft voice, but you’re reaching to fill in the empty space between poetic lyrics and the sounds coming not only from instruments but also the people behind them. This creates a visual, visceral listen.

“Forgotten Eyes,” the second song on the album, showcases this relationship between the band and the visual sound. The song is folky, with a simple beat that allows Lenker’s voice to dive into emotion. She wonders, “Is it me who is more hollow as I’m quickly passing by?/And the poison is killing them, but then so am I/As I turn away,” before repeating, “Forgotten tongue is the language of love.” Lyrics throughout the album evoke deep sadness without giving into it.

One of the strongest songs on the album, “Not,” builds powerfully, telling a story that

begins with Lenker’s voice and then incorporates an unrelenting guitar solo that seeks catharsis. The band is working to communicate something greater than any individual member. Its anger can only be told as a live take, humming with energy that cannot be harnessed in a polished, clean track. The guitar screams in the center of the song, and swirling around it are Lenker’s words: “Not to die/Not dying/Not to laugh/Not lying/ Not the vacant wilderness vying.” What is it then? “Not” never seems to find its answer. These unanswered yearnings grant Big Thief both humanity and divine powers.

While some songs buzz with so much energy that the sound seems to shiver, others hum along in a softer, easier vibration.

“Replaced” is a folk song, its simple lyrics speaking to the band’s reliance on one another: “’Cause the unlit moon would rather hide/And be replaced by the mystery of the stars/’Cause in your room we gather/ To be replaced by the mystery of the heart.”

While at other points lyrics paint surreal images, alluding to celestial bodies grants a softness to the song.

The album finishes by continuing the physical and violent imagery of the earlier tracks. “Cut My Hair” is an eerie song with a slow and repetitive beat behind mellow vocals. “Please cut my hair/Take me to the kitchen/What are the chances/You have a scissor?/Maybe a pair/It’s longer than I can even bear.” The song alludes to finality, cutting your hair or attempting to end a relationship, but is never completely allowed conclusion. “Annie reminds me/ The diamond mines are burning/I push her around/But she keeps returning.” Can we ever cut off these dead ends?

The stories Big Thief tells throughout its enchanting fourth album, “Two Hands,” are as haunting as they are easy to listen to. The album’s candid nature allows each instrument freedom, building a layered sound. The band feels at once close by and far above the earth, a force of wisdom that knows not all questions can be answered.

Take Back the Night forges space for survivors, supporters Similarly, Siegel noted her personal connection to the themes of the evening: “As a survivor of sexual assault, seeking community has always been an important part of my own healing process. I wanted to provide that space for other people, and give people the opportunity to share their stories, learn about ways they can contribute to ending sexual violence and stand as allies.”

The performance portion of the evening opened with Julia Rioux ’23 reading aloud two original poems and performing a haunting Regina Spektor song on the keyboard. One of the works questioned whether a sexual interaction had been consensual; another was a calm, yet powerful middle finger to people who make others feel dehumanized: “And an even bigger fuck you to the ones who called me disposable,” Rioux exclaimed.

“Things are going to get corny and queer up in here!” Alive with energy, student performer Sara Inoa ’20 stood still, assuming a sultry persona as they performed their original songs to homemade YouTube beats. The performances that filled the rest of the night included covers of empowering anthems like “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga and “Warrior”

by Demi Lovato, as well as original pieces puzzling to make sense of sexual encoun-

ters.

The three groups set out to create solidarity, and in that, the evening was a great success, according to Siegel. “Developing trust and a true sense of safety is a huge first step towards creating a culture of accountability. We want to make sure that students know that their voices are

heard,” Siegel noted.

Students opened up about personal details of their lives through song, film, watercolor and poetry. The intimacy of the content translated to the warm environment. The atmosphere was warm and the cider was hot. Consider the Mug reclaimed.

Yvette Hu/The Miscellany News

TBTN continued from page 1 ship Abuse Awareness Month, and the Mug was chosen as a location because of its seedy reputation. “The Mug is somewhere where there’s been sexual violence [and] uncomfortable moments,” Siegel expounded.

This gathering was meant as a way to reclaim a space, literally. Sarah Berry Pierce ’22 of Idlewild commented, “We thought it was important to have a space on Halloweekend in particular that celebrates those who aren’t often celebrated.

Halloweekend on campus is fun, but we think it could also be safer!”

Those involved in the organization of the event emphasized the importance of reclaiming spaces and creating a community environment where people can feel comfortable. Pierce stated, “As a queer woman, I think it is important that we make spaces on campus where we can celebrate the voices of women and femmes, women and femmes of color, queer, trans and nonbinary people. I wanted to work to create a space on campus where anyone could be involved and proud of themselves and their work, so we did.”

Anyone who wanted to perform could sign up via Google Form, and thus the evening involved a diverse array of talents and performers.

Theater group Idlewild, the Women’s Center and the Sexual Assault Violence Prevention (SAVP) Office collaborated on Nov. 1 in order to transform the Mug into a safe and inclusive space during Halloweekend. The night was filled with musical performances, art exhibitions and warm apple cider.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

ARTS

Page 6

November 7, 2019

‘Big Mouth’ season 3: comedy is irreverence, not insolence Taylor Stewart

Assistant Arts Editor

D

id being nice kill our humor? In an interview with the Daily Beast, comedian Nick Kroll discussed comedy in the age of political correctness, saying, “I think you can still talk about anything and be crazy and not feel too censored…[W]e have this ability to listen and communicate with the audience and hear what they have to say. And sometimes, I’m like, I don’t agree with you. And other times I’m like yeah, I hear you, we didn’t get that exactly right. We’ll do better. I’m here to evolve and adapt” (Daily Beast, “‘Big Mouth’ Creator Nick Kroll: We Get Away With ‘Crazy Shit’ Despite ‘Woke Culture,’” 10.22.2019).

A Fox article suggested it was an affront for Kroll not to condemn “woke culture,” which involves “canceling”—usually just duly criticizing—famous people for saying offensive things. Devoted readers weighed in: user AlGoresPrivateJet commented on the Fox piece, “Comedy is mostly dead, just another victim of Political Correctness/Communism” (Fox News, “Comedian Nick Kroll dismisses concerns that ‘woke culture’ is hurting comedy,” 10.22.2019).

Some comedians find it trickier to be funny now, with our excessive concern for systemic inequality. But comedy is not dead—at least according to Kroll. He disputed claims from “Joker” director Todd Phillips, who challenged contemporary comedians in a Vanity Fair interview: “Go try to be funny nowadays with this woke culture.” As the first “Hangover” movie (also directed by Phillips) and its famous baby turn 10, it has become more problematic than enduringly funny. And viewers have considered his second “Hangover” installation cheap and depraved since its release. Shedding any artistic obligations to political correctness, Phillips aban-

doned comedies altogether and chose to practice the “irreverence” of the genre in “Joker” (Vanity Fair, “‘I Fucking Love My Life’: Joaquin Phoenix on Joker, Why River Is His Rosebud, His Rooney Research, and His “Prenatal” Gift for Dark Characters,” 10.01.2019).

His disputant Kroll is a co-creator of and voice actor on “Big Mouth,” a Netflix cartoon about a group of seventh graders and their raging, monstrous hormones.

“Big Mouth” is funny because it practices irreverence the right way—not through homophobia, racism or mindless dick jokes.

Season three was recently released after a triple-season renewal in the summer.

Despite its popularity, a scene in the episode “Rankings” has been criticized for inaccurate explanations of bisexuality and pansexuality. In the episode, the new girl in school, Ali (voiced by Ali Wong), comes to class and declares she is pansexual. Ali stands in front of the class and explains, “It’s, like, some of you borings like tacos and some of you like burritos. And if you’re bisexual, you like tacos and burritos…But I’m saying I like tacos and burritos, and I could be into a taco that was born a burrito, sure, ’kay, or a burrito that is transitioning into a taco.” First, this analogy suggests that bisexual people are only attracted to cisgender people; Ali rolls her eyes a bit and calls bisexuality “so binary.” This is a gross misrepresentation. Second, by suggesting that a bisexual person cannot be attracted to, say, “a taco that was born a burrito,” it presents transgender men and women as different from “real” men and women. The burrito-taco comparison also excludes nonbinary and genderqueer people.

Three days after season three’s release, co-creator Andrew Goldberg apologized on Twitter for “making people feel mis-

represented.” He wrote, “Thank you to the trans, bi, and pan communities for further opening our eyes to these important and complicated issues of representation” (Twitter, @BigMouthAndrew, 10.07.2019).

Yes, “Big Mouth” has a ways to go. If they don’t want to get it wrong in the future, the cast of voices and the writer’s room need greater representation. While those who miss offensive comedy may consider this another case of woke culture’s stifling effect, the show simply “missed the mark” because it was trying to be educational and it was wrong.

“The Hangover,” on the other hand, tries to be funny, but ends up being mean and gross. Zach Galifianakis’ Alan is a sex offender, in a funny way: “I’m not supposed to be within 200 feet of a school…or a Chuck E. Cheese.” Convicted rapist Mike Tyson makes a little cameo. The only other Black character is a drug dealer, and Ken Jeong’s Mr. Chow is a mincing, lisping gangster. It’s not that the movie is objectively unfunny— there is no such thing—but it chooses to be “irreverent” by being offensive rather than, for example, using the calculated randomness of “Big Mouth.”

The sixth episode of season three, “Duke,” shines with absurd humor and crafty invention. The ghost of American composer, jazz singer and pianist Duke Ellington recounts how he lost his virginity. Naturally, Duke’s ghost lives in the attic of the protagonist, Nick Birch. Duke is promiscuous and wise and sometimes even invites the ghosts of Whitney Houston, Freddie Mercury and Prince over for dinner. Not only does the episode contain a reenactment of World War I with furry penises (and the assassination of Archdick Franz Ferdinand), but it also has some pretty scenes and clever storytelling to temper the lewdness.

Duke’s account veers into the whimsical when, as a child, he sees pianist Harvey Brooks play at a nightclub in Atlantic City, a “spiritual experience” that involves a musical number with bubbly materialized melodic notes. The whole backstory is in sepia tones, and designers even antiquate the theme song to match. After meeting Brooks, little Duke learns piano in what would otherwise be a stereotypical montage training scene, if it were not for World War Cum raging all the while—a juvenile and delightfully whacky subversion of the famous entertainment trope. With its absurdism, lurid humor and obscure pop culture references, “Big Mouth” has always evaded etiquette—in fact, it dances on its grave. It shows no reverence for adults or their ideas of decency. The show also practices irreverence by highjacking cartoon and entertainment structures, like through the World War Cum sequence, fourth-wallbreaking and scenes about sex and sex education (which evidently need more work and perhaps less food metaphors, but are valuable when done right).

Phillips is right when he says edginess and subversion are important to comedy, but rape jokes or racial stereotypes as we see in “The Hangover” are tired forms, and crude. Woke culture doesn’t stifle comedy; in fact, it is invariably tied to the comedic arts. Subversive humor has to consider current standards of decency and normalcy in order to subvert something thoughtfully, creatively. What is offensive or insolent in current times? What has been, or should be, joked about? What have cartoons depicted? Good comedians are creatives, and the creative irreverence of “Big Mouth” makes for many laughs. Even Duke, ever the philanderer, says at the end of his account, “A gentleman never tells.” A lively story need not be grossly offensive.

‘The Lighthouse’ fuses humor, horror, homoeroticism Massimo Tarridas Guest Columnist

T

homas Wake (Willem Dafoe) stands in the lantern room, feeding his addiction to the brilliant white light as Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) stares from below. Painted on Ephraim’s face are clear allusions to Kubrick’s stare, but his intentions are less transparent...

Robert Eggers’ “The Lighthouse” advertised itself as more or less as a horror movie, albeit one with an unexpectedly high-profile cast list and unusual aspect ratio. Yet, “The Lighthouse” is not traditional horror. The film manages to defy that categorization despite the seemingly straightforward premise: Two men are stranded on an island in the late 19th century, tasked with operating the eponymous lighthouse, with tensions between them running high upon arrival as personalities clash and rations deplete. Their inevitable sink into delirium is the film’s way of representing the power dynamics between a captain and his slavish treatment of the cabin boy.

What is so remarkably strange about the film is its masterful control of tone. For a monochromatic tale of depravity, it is surprisingly funny—and not necessarily in an elevated way. Eggers is as comfortable with a fart joke as he is with Lovecraftian imagery, and there’s something about the vulgar banter from old-world sailors that makes it all cohere, as if the only way to cope with hallucinations of many-tentacled beasts is through an appreciation of the absurd.

Still, the film’s versatility goes beyond its mixture of comedy and suspense, as there are countless themes woven throughout: that of repressed homoeroticism, Greek mythologies, German expressionism, surrealism, post-traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism…

“The Lighthouse” is a remarkably rare instance in which the technical aspects are married so beautifully to the narrative elements that they enhance one another.

The film’s form and its story become concurrently invisible and noticeable, stylized and organic. No other film on the market looks or moves the way this one does, with the camerawork lurking, prodding, soaring and shying away from the action, at times showing too much, at other times too little.

The slow-burn editing then melts away any sense of temporal reality within the plot, heightening the sense of the characters’ progressive dementia. The monaural sound design is both relatively period-accurate and experimental­ —for example, how the blare of the incessant siren mimics the call of a whale and the scream of a man. Even the aspect ratio contributes to the effect, with the nearly-square 1.19:1 producing a sense of visual claustrophobia that simulates the oppressive confines of the isle. At the same time, “The Lighthouse” replicates the aesthetic of films made in the 1890s. None of these characteristics ever become gimmicks or distractions, and only serve to further the immersion.

The final nugget of pure gold is the

Robert Eggers’ “The Lighthouse” departs from conventions of the horror genre, as seen in its highprofile cast (including Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, above) and its unusual aspect ratio.

The risk paid off, with Guest Columnist Massimo Tarridas calling the fim “impeccable cinema.”

acting. Dafoe and Pattinson are simultaneously delivering possibly the best performances of either one of their careers (granted, this is a compliment of a much higher order for Dafoe than for Pattinson).

Pattinson is an excellent actor, executing his job with a dexterity that is uncommon for actors even twice his age. That said, as Dafoe climbs through each and every one of his folkloric tirades, the derangement

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

in his unblinking eyes swells to ecstatic proportions and lashes out into a delivery so impassioned, with a transformation so complete, that the only appropriate reaction to it is pure joy. There is a special kind of giddiness that comes about from seeing such an idiosyncratic vision so fully realized.

“The Lighthouse” (2019) is impeccable cinema.

November 7, 2019

ARTS

Page 7

Campus Canvas A weekly space highlighting the creative pursuits of student-artists

submit to misc@vassar.edu

Clay Rountree Class of 2023

Excuse me, Who would cater your orgy?

“Chick-fil-A” — Bryan Hawkins ’23

“Golden Corral, allyou-can-eat.”

—Michael Cardenas ’21

Rountree posits world through surrealism Carissa Clough

A

mous artist.

As opposed to his other mediums, Rountree finds painting completely personal. Whereas a cappella and theater often require collaboration, painting allows him to exist purely in his own expression.

For Rountree, surrealism is particularly empowering bWecause it enables him to explore his own techniques and complex ideas while also alluding to some of the great works by other surrealist artists such as Salvador Dalí and M.C. Escher.

Rountree incorporates his own ideas into techniques and motifs pulled from those who inspire him, and he hopes that his creations can inspire others in the same way.

Painting is not just a hobby for Rountree; it’s a point of view. After working on

Courtesy of Andrea Bredeal

a surrealist piece, Rountree begins to see the world differently; he begins to notice fter living across the hall from Clay its contrasts, like the contrast in the colors Rountree for three weeks, I began to on his canvas. His technique allows him to feel like I really knew him. I knew that he see the inherent absurdity in all objects. is an amazing singer and that the Vassar “We can learn to see the same thing in difDevils think so, too. I knew that he’s a talferent ways regardless if it’s a tangible obented performer who has played the lead ject or intangible thought,” he explained. in shows like “Big Fish.” I knew that he Rountree has been recognized for his loves avocado and always manages to find art, having acquired one gold key and two the time to make himself avocado toast. I silver keys from the Scholastic Art and knew that he’s from Colorado and that it Writing Awards. Although the recognition freaks him out to not be above the treeline. flatters him, it does not constitute his priI knew that he loves his plants and takes mary artistic motivation. Such pressure care of them like they’re his own children. actually deters Rountree from creating. He But it wasn’t until four weeks into knowexplained, “I never really enjoyed taking ing Clay that I discovered his incredible art classes because I never liked having a gift for creating surrealist art. grade associated with my work and being As we embarked on the long walk back forced to abide by deadlines. If I’m being from the gym back to forced to do it, then Lathrop one night, we it’s no longer art.” struck up a conversaAs far as the future tion about art, and he is concerned, Rouncasually mentioned tree has not written that he paints. Thinkoff art as a profession. ing he meant the amIn fact, he is drawn to ateur way of combinthe media studies maing colors on a canvas jor because it would to vaguely resemble allow him to continue something of impursuing his passions portance, I told him in all media fields, I painted, too, and including visual art. suggested we paint When asked about together sometime. I what role art will then discovered that play later in his life, the surrealist piece on Rountree responded, his wall in his room “However it is that I that I had admired so communicate myself often is in fact a piece at any given moment he painted­ —not, as might rely on visual I assumed, a profesRountree has numerous passions, from a capella to acting to making top-notch avocado art, even in my casional piece by a fatoast. Yet perhaps his most impressive talent lies in his skillful surrealist paintings. reer.”

Guest Columnist

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

“Tokyo Express.”

— Jeff Montoya ’21

“Godiva chocolates and California strawberries.”

— Romario Ortiz ’21

“Chinese food samples from the mall food court.”

— Alexis Cerritos ’22, Video Production Manager

“Crafted Kup.” — Zsa Zsa Toms ’21

Francisco Andrade, Humor & Satire Yvette Hu, Photography

FEATURES

Page 8

November 7, 2019

Students with Type 1 diabetes make the invisible visible Frankie Knuckles Senior Editor

“H

Frankie Knuckles/The Miscellany News

e’s so fat. He’s going to get diabetes.” The person at the Deece table next to me talking about their overweight pet doesn’t know I’m right there, checking my Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) and bolusing for my breakfast.

In a tent full of becostumed revelry, elbows and shoulders brush against my infusion set; bodies press around me. I wake up with a bruise that only I’m aware of; it’s under my Omnipod.

In a group of friends, the conversation centers on the relationship between humans and technology; someone questions whether machines hooked to our bodies make us less human. My adhesive patches itch.

My CGM beeps like a fire alarm; heads meerkat up around me. It’s just my blood sugar.

Vignettes like these heighten my awareness of my Type 1 diabetes, but only some of them make others aware. And those that are visible often go unnoticed. People who do notice my diabetes keep these moments disjointed from the continuum of my experience, or else make their awareness of my disease known to me in an upsetting way. To them, these are isolated blips on the screen of their everyday experience, as distant and unimportant to them as a push notification—except that they’d do something about that, actually.

In a previous reflection marking the beginning of November (Diabetes Awareness Month), I wrote, “Sometimes I manage to forget this ritual anxiety for a few minutes or hours, but it always comes crashing back” (The Miscellany News, “Living with diabetes: daily routine,” 11.15.2017). I set aside November as a time to educate others about the disease I live with every day, but also to dwell on the set of emotions that come with “crashing back.” If someone else learns about my experiences as a result, that’s even better.

Diabetes is an invisible disease, and that’s a source of many of the frustrating phenomena that accompany living with it. Unless I’m actively messing with my insulin pump, testing my blood sugar, or treating hypoglycemia, it’s easy for everyone around me to forget that I have diabetes. Unlike what most people think of when they hear the term “disability,” there’s nothing visibly different

about me compared to someone without a disability.

Sometimes, going into disease incognito mode is a good thing. When people do notice, they tend to ask questions—usually well-intentioned, but often abrasive or otherwise draining. “What’s that on your arm?” for instance, is a question I get almost every time my infusion set is visible. Also a common response: “My [insert relative here] has diabetes, so I get what you’re going through.”

The human gesture of kindness (empathy) is, here, misplaced. While I appreciate people trying to make me feel accepted or normalized, it often feels like erasure of my experience, or an easy way to change the topic of conversation.

Increasingly, people see my pump and ask my take on insulin pricing. As a buzz-anecdote that easily illustrates what liberal Democrats think is wrong with the health care system and to demonstrate the evils of Big Pharma., young people who have died because of the cost of insulin could hardly be a more effective rhetorical device. While I am glad that skyrocketing insulin costs have been so widely discussed in such a visible venue as the Democratic presidential debates, I am not a rhetorical device.

The rising cost of insulin has recently gained visibility, but it’s just one way the health care system fails people with diabetes. Founder of Vassar’s chapter of the College Diabetes Network Erik Spangenberg ’21 shared with me, “For the past three months, I’ve called my insurance company every business day, sometimes two or three times in a single day. Each of these calls can range from 30 minutes to two hours. Don’t even get me started on the instrumental rendition of ‘California Dreamin’ they recycle when on hold.”

He continued, “It’s especially frustrating to know that better treatment exists, and there’s nothing I can do about it but deal with the inept system of health care today …

It can begin to feel like not a single person cares about my life in the company whose job it is to insure my health.” Clearly, such an ongoing battle, even if it seems like a small annoyance, takes an emotional toll, as well as the practical one. “At the end of each call, I will feel hope, despair, rage or something in between,” Spangenberg described. “I have to remind myself that they are a company with

Above, an array of the author’s diabetes supplies, including an insulin pump and CGM system, insulin, blood glucose testing supplies and emergency treatment for severe hypoglycemia.

each individual doing what they can, and that my situation could be much worse.”

True visibility doesn’t come from a condition’s use-value in furthering a given agenda.

It comes from a true interest in listening to the life experiences of people with a condition, and being willing to advocate for those people—whether that’s in everyday life or as an insurance company representative.

In an emailed statement, Rachel Sipress ’21 distinguished between self-awareness and the awareness that others have about their disease—both, they shared, are tough in different ways. Commenting on the external factor, they explained, “I think a lot of the time, people forget that I have a disability.

Forget that in almost all moments, it is in the back of my mind because with Type 1 diabetes, at all times, you have to be thinking about it just a bit. And people don’t see that, or even if they do see it a bit, they have difficulty comprehending what that actually means.”

Even reading about what having Type 1 is like can’t transmit a full understanding of the experience and the burnout associated with so much work required just to stay alive.

And, as Spangenberg’s anecdote illustrates, sometimes even people whose job is to pay attention specifically to a person’s diabetes care fall short. But ultimately, his persistence paid off: “Those reading may be glad to know I was finally approved for a new continuous glucose monitor yesterday,” he said.

Sipress also spoke about the impact of the

constant self-awareness that having Type 1 requires: “Because it is a condition that kind of exists on the inside, I have trouble remembering that I have to be more considerate about things. And that this condition is real and does have real consequences if I don’t treat it with respect. And because other people don’t really act as if I have a disability, it’s often pretty easy to forget that I have to be more considerate of my health than the average person.”

Even as a new CGM will hopefully improve Spangenberg’s management, emerging technology comes with its own set of issues surrounding visibility. “While this technology will make my diabetes more visible, it will also make me feel one step closer to a cure, a.k.a. ‘the norm.’”

Spangenberg, Sipress and I share certain aspects of our experiences with diabetes—among them, that we are comfortable discussing the condition and its effects on us publicly. But not everyone feels this way about their own experiences, and even when someone opens up once, that doesn’t mean they want to become your personal diabetes educator. This article and the broader project of Diabetes Awareness Month provide a way for those without diabetes to educate themselves, but avoid placing even greater responsibility on those with diabetes. We need more than political buzzwords and the attention we get when a loud beep goes off in class.

Protesters frustrated with text tax, lack of basic public goods

LEBANON continued from page 1 quickly reversed, but the man so affectionately called hmar, or “ass,” could not have possibly predicted the revolutionary consequences of his greed.

The protesters flocked to the country’s center, Riyad Al Solh, by the hundreds of thousands. Ironically organized through a series of WhatsApp groups and broadcast messages, close to a million young men and women marched. Their demands were simple: Get rid of everybody.

They are frustrated—frustrated by the long-standing lack of hot water and electricity, along with the continuously spiking tax and the stagnant employment rate. This revolution, led first and foremost by the youth of the country, tired of years of unwavering and unfair policies, ask not for tangible change, but for a complete obliteration of the established governmental order.

A chant that began nearly a decade ago with the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and eventually Syria has now found its way to the Paris of the Middle East. “The people demand the fall of government,” the Leba-

nese people screamed. The pessimism that had blanketed the nation for so long seemed, if just for a second, lifted.

Revolutions are not uncommon in Lebanon. Conflict over the nation’s leadership had long been ingrained into its people. But this felt different. There was no anger, no violence. It was as if every familiar childhood story came to fruition all at once. Muslim, Christian, Druze, hand-in-hand in Lebanon’s streets. The music, the dancing, the singing that filled your childhood living room now filled the heart of the country. This isn’t the revolution the Western media usually conjures up for you—this was a party with a purpose.

For Jawad, a young university student and dear childhood friend from the city’s capital that I spoke to via WhatsApp, this movement finally meant he could fight for the home he dreamed of: “This is for three hours of electricity, this is for no running hot water, this is for the years of money taken from us, and the years of life taken from our grandparents and their grandparents.”

Part of what makes this movement so unique is its central demographic. The faces of the crowd—comprised mostly of individuals between 18 and 25 years of age—represent a drastically different upbringing and worldview from those who tore the country apart for decades.

These youth came of age in a post-civil war society, holding only onto stories and photographs of what the country used to be.

How beautiful the country once was. Their lived reality has always been frustrating, always been grounded in corruption. For them, this gap–between the burned-down buildings and the expensive skyscrapers, between a war-torn past and a gentrified future not built for them–was patched by their unmoving unity. Yes, they did not know Beirut when it was affectionately known as the Paris of the Middle East, but as another young university student sarcastically put it, “Who wants to go to Paris when you have Beirut?”

Existing in this limbo between war and what was has never been easy. But it’s that

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

gray area, that blur, that drives this movement forward. The Lebanese youth have nothing to look back to, so they continuously look ahead, and their demands remain unchanged. They do this in spite of the resignation of the prime minister. Despite the removal of the WhatsApp tax. Despite two weeks of ongoing protest. “Get rid of everybody,” they continue to chant.

Perhaps this revolution means more to me, stuck in Poughkeepsie, because I am still included in that youth. I too grew up stuck in the limbo of what Lebanon once was and is now, and I too was frustrated with my present, but this revolution has given me new life.

Even if the blanket of pessimism returns, and even if the greed creeps its dastardly head back into our vision, the revolution was a success. The revolution brought hope.

The hope brought tears into my mother’s eyes, a hope that I hadn’t seen since her old photographs. That hope will persist. That hope is forever, and until forever comes:

November 7, 2019

FEATURES

Page 9

From naked to nude: Art student finds now-confident model Hindley Wang

Guest Columnist

I

often joke that I know Ben Kheyfets ’21 way too well. Aside from the two years we’ve shared on the same crew team, I really took the extra liberty to know him—his form, his facial structure, his poses.

You see, Ben was one of the nude models for my Drawing I class. Seeing nude models was nothing short of excitement for a college first-year; there was a moment in the first session where I thought to myself, “Wow, I am in college and we are drawing a real-life nude person,” with much of that high school residue of naïvety and enthusiasm about everything. Nude modeling is a work-study option that entails students modeling for other students in formal drawing classes and informal sketch sessions at the requests of art professors. As you might expect, it is unlike any other work-study option on campus; one must stay still for long periods of time and have a willingness to disrobe before others.

Artists and models don’t really talk about this unique work relationship, with respect to the unspoken agreement among them.

I’ve always been fascinated with the psychological exchange and the artistic interaction with body image and presentation, so I approached Ben with my curiosities, and he gladly agreed to sit with me for an animated conversation about his experience.

“How did you take up this job?” I asked.

“Well, I first heard about it on Facebook before I came here. There was an article called ‘Fifteen Weird Jobs at Vassar’ and one of them was nude modeling,” replied Ben with ease. “I applied to 15 jobs for work-study and that was the only one that responded to me that was like: ‘Okay, we will hire you!’

and I desperately needed money to pay for my books, so I took the job!” Fair enough. But I don’t know if I would personally have the nerve to accept this job—even if it were the only way to get paid. Having your body in full exposure to be looked at, examined formally, deciphered figuratively and depicted pictorially takes more than self-acceptance.

It had been a long time since I last studied Ben’s face this carefully. The accent lighting in the Retreat cast different angles on his freckled skin and ginger curls than the fluorescence in the Ely drawing room. I still remember the awkwardness when our eyes met the first time Ben walked in for our first nude drawing session as the model. I don’t know if I was feeling embarrassed on his behalf for being exposed entirely in front of a friend for intense observation, or if I was baffled by my own position in this setting under which I was obligated to look at him intensively and technically, if not too excessively.

I was required to figure him out, so to speak: his fingers, his hands, his joints, his torso, his shins, all while he remained in his state of optic vulnerability.

I wondered what that experience was like on his part: “How did you get through the first time doing it?”

“The first time was hard,” Ben admitted.

He remembered waiting in the corner with a robe on, watching his co-worker undress and walk up with confidence. “I walked up, taking the robe off and tried to hold it in front to cover myself…and then eventually you just put it down and you’re just naked. And you’re just embarrassed...but then every time afterwards was easy.” For Ben, he went from accepting the job, to undressing, to confronting the self-conscious instinct to cover up,

to eventually owning his nudity. He started naked, a body without clothing, then became nude, more confident of his body as presented.

Vacillating between the dimensions of nudity and nakedness, the sitter and the sketcher share a sense of ambivalence, at least for their first time. Both parties agreed on the terms of the sketching exchange before entering the room—that one is to accept the plain nudity of the other, and the other in turn is to approve of their own exposure as the object of gaze.

As the sketcher, to accept the nudity of the model is to treat the body with a discerning eye. It’s more comfortable for the sketcher to take the sitter as a nude, as a posed figure displaying human form, corporeal features, as they are, without feelings about their state of undress. You want the models to come to terms with their nakedness for you, disengaging it, making it easier for you to engage in a kind of looking that demands technicality and objectivity. Nevertheless, you catch the eyes of the models from time to time. The model is suddenly not an inanimate object, but a living being staring back at you. This brief exchange often ends with you panicking, apologizing internally, shifting your eyes precipitously to your gigantic sketchpad for justification, showing that you are only looking because of the task at hand. You, too, are conscious of the model’s awareness of your gaze, as they are. These instances make you wonder who is more naked, to reconsider the act of looking entirely.

This led to my next question.“Do you look at them?” I asked.

“What?”

“Do you look at the students drawing you?”

“Well yeah…you look around and then you make eye contact and then you look away… it’s okay. It happens.”

Maybe I was the one who was more naked after all.

“What have you observed from sitting up there for people to draw you?”

“Nothing really came across my mind, because I was busy keeping myself distracted. I noticed the pictures more than the people, to be honest. Some of them liked to draw me in cubes, some had my limbs look all disproportionate, some made me look skinny; others, chubbier. Some would include a lot of muscles in places where I knew there was barely anything there,” he giggled. He liked how he could perceive different versions of himself through the artists’ eyes. He embraced his body as an open site for creative possibilities.

“How has this experience changed your relationship with your body?”

“I came in very self-conscious as many probably do, because I was always like, ‘Oh, I am kinda chubby...it forces you [to adapt to situations when] people have to look at you... but I guess it gave me a confidence boost, being used to people looking at me but more me being comfortable knowing people are looking at me. When you reveal yourself to other people in that way, you might not feel so great about it.”

Regardless of any confidence boost, I still don’t think I could possibly do Ben’s modeling job, which makes me appreciate him all the more for his modeling that instrumentally facilitated my personal drawing education.

But being able to walk away with fascinating renderings of and a relationship with your body makes nude modeling ever so tempting.

For now, I’ll stay behind the easel.

Tight-knit Knitwits interweave community with charity Janet Song

K

Guest Columnist

you’re also doing a thing that’s for the greater good than making things for yourself.”

The Knitwits are implementing that idea through some charitable projects. Claire Tracey ’22 mentioned a project known as Project Linus, “where you donate baby blankets that you knit to your local chapter.”

Schoenbrun elaborated that those blankets then go to children in need at the NICU. There are also organizations nearby that crochet octopuses for babies, as well as hats for adults.

In addition to mentioning the charitable work that knitting can contribute to the community, Iadanza remarked on the sustainability of the practice. A lot of yarn is manufactured from small companies, she explained.

Small farms have their own sheep, so their can be shorn, spun into yarn, and then dyed, all through the same operation.

“It’s all natural,” Iadanza said. “There is acrylic yarn, which is plastic, but traditionally, it’s not plastic, it’s wool. It’s a renewable

resource. People often joke that when the apocalypse comes, you’ll have a skill—” “Like when we can’t get a pack of socks,” Schoenbrun interjected, snickering. “You need to know how to make a pack of socks!

Like you need to keep your feet warm, you need to keep your ears warm.”

Such a post-apocalyptic advantage can be picked up quickly. Once a person learns the basic stitches and the abbreviations that go with knitting, they can learn any pattern they want.

As Elaina Karpenko ’22 described, “It’s like taking loops and making other loops. There’s just two different stitches, and you can do pretty much anything with the two different stitches.”

The Knitwits meetings are an escape from the stress of academics, as anyone is welcome to join and discover a relaxing, yet productive hands-on skill. And what says tightknit, idiosyncratic community more than post-apocalyptic SpongeBob.

Courtesy of Diana Liu

nitting needles clink against each other in the quiet ambience of Joss Parlor.

Among others comfortably slouched around a circle of couches, two girls, dressed as Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, sit together.

Mermaid Man’s orange sweater boasts two purple knitted seashells.

“Yes I did [make] my crochet seashell bra,” Mermaid Man, also known as Emma Iadanza ’22, said. Her comrade Barnacle Boy—Sophie Schoenbrun ’22—laughed amicably with her other parlor companions.

The Knitwits are a club that started last year as an interest group and recently gained preorganization status on campus; Iadanza and Schoenbrun are its co-presidents.

When I met them on Saturday, Schoenbrun explained,“There was no, like, knitting club, but we also knew a lot of friends who did crochet and embroidery and we wanted to be inclusive of them. So we made it like [a] fiber crafts club! Everyone can come and bring their art, and we’re open to new forms of art too. So yeah, it was just me and our vice president Ceci Villaseñor over there with the music—” “Hello!” Ceci Villaseñor ’22 exclaimed from behind a laptop. “I’m the vice president!”

As Schoenbrun recalled, she and Villaseñor were the “ones who knew how to knit” when the club began to blossom. Their group eventually developed as they began teaching their friends how to knit, and since then, they’ve been continuing to teach new people this therapeutic craft.

“We just really wanted a space to de-stress on the weekends but also be productive

when we’re procrastinating,” Schoenbrun admitted. While she spoke, a chorus of needles tapping created a soothing jingle in the parlor.

At their meetings, the Knitwits all sit in a circle, diligently working on projects from baby blankets to flower embroidery. “We have a stash of yarn materials, crochet hooks, knitting needles—we also share supplies just for things we don’t quite have yet which we’re gonna try to get in the next coming weeks, so, like, embroidery stuff,” Schoenbrun elaborated. As well as the materials, the members share their projects among each other. “We share our projects; we get inspired by other people’s projects; there’s some patterns for inspiration so you can flip through if you don’t have anything to work on yet.”

“And you can get help from people and talk about your projects and be inspired by other people’s projects,” Iadanza added.

Besides being a relaxing and interactive pastime, Knitwits allows them to think about their choice to make clothes over purchasing them. “I’ve been thinking more about fast fashion and how my clothing purchasing fits into that. The cool thing about knitting and making and crocheting and sewing and a lot of these fiber crafts we do is that you literally are doing the opposite of fast fashion,” asserted Villaseñor, referring to the designs that are transient trends that are mass-produced quickly and thrown away equally as fast. Villaseñor continued, “Because what is more slow than going through the process of making clothes yourself? So I think that knitting and these crafts in general are really nice because ... it’s also a way to kind of be more mindful about your consumption … like

The Knitwits gather in the Joss Parlor to work on their own fiber arts projects, such as baby blankets, flower embroidery and crochet seashell bras. For them, crafting is both recreational and charitable.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

VETERANS’ VOICES

Page 10

And you wonder is it love or war Jana Clavenger U.S. Army

You close your eyes See casket flowers Hear the saying in your head ‘All is fair in love and war’ But what is not We do not talk about We only tighten our laces tighter Fill our sacks to the brim Weighty with the hopes and dreams Of all of those who ‘Wouldn’t dare’ But ‘Thank you for your service’ One more body to soften the blow Atlas shifts The earth feels heavy The weight of all you have had to leave behind And from now on You continue to Try and fit yourself (a square peg) Into society (a round hole) And from now on As often as you return Or don’t It will always feel like Oil trying to mix with water And you wonder Is it Love or War that keeps you going back.

November 7, 2019

Dedicating space to stories of service Francisco Andrade U.S. Army

V

eteran’s Day: a day to remember and acknowledge those who have served. But what does it mean to have served? Is military service a boastful memory that we all look back on with pride? Is it a bloodstained blemish on our conscience? Is it recounted in medals and ribbons? Or perhaps in scars? Well, that depends.

Every veteran has their own story. We are composed of a wide range of people from all walks of life who enlisted for all sorts of reasons. Some of us were chasing collegiate opportunity, some felt a familial obligation. Others wanted money, felt patriotism or just needed to

get away from a bad situation.

The nature of enlistment itself varies from person to person. Deployments, assignments, your military job, even gender and race affect how your service may go. Some truly enjoyed their time in the military, while others avoid even thinking about it. There is no one way to experience service, and the experiences themselves are varied and complex.

Vassar’s veteran population is also complex. Vassar boasts a large veteran population, with over 30 vets currently attending campus, as well as claiming the spot for No. 1 Liberal Arts School for Veterans (U.S News, “Best Colleges For Veterans,” 2019). This is largely in

part due to Posse, a scholarship program that assists vets into getting into this institution, though Vassar does have non-Posse veterans as well.

So for Veteran’s Day, to showcase some of the various voices of veterans on campus, The Miscellany News is transforming the Humor Section to allow Vassar Vets to speak up about their own service. The stories included in this section are individual experiences and therefore do not speak for all veterans. Some may be light-hearted, while others can include difficult topics that will always be difficult to talk about.

But we hope they can show our individual and group voices to a non-veteran audience.

Special thanks to Colleen Mallet O

n behalf of the Vassar Veterans, I would like to give a special thanks to Vassar Registrar Colleen Mallet. On top of her responsibilities as Registrar, Colleen is also the Advisor for Veterans and Military Affiliated students, a position that tasks her to assist vets with funding, grants and overall betterment of life at Vassar.

Colleen, the following is addressed to you. Do you remember when you helped us find out where to get clothing and furniture donations after moving 1,700 miles by ourselves? Or the information you found for us regarding the Middlebury Language School when we needed help? Do you recall how you

provided us with everything we needed for our campus visit to relieve any stress? Or all of those times you offered guidance and counsel when we felt we had nowhere else to turn? What about the dozens of other memories not mentioned here? I don’t know if you remember, but we certainly do.

It’s nowhere near enough, but thank you, Colleen, for your dedication to veterans. Your work is truly appreciated, and your positive impact and commitment is felt unanimously.

Yours truly, Francisco Andrade, Tiffany Trumble and all Vassar Veterans

Yvette Hu/The Miscellany News

Pride, shame and stereotypes Nicholas West U.S. Air Force

V

Courtesy of Sarah Bresnahan via Flickr

Heroes Anonymous

Women often pay the price of war What couldn’t happen to her just opened the door His hands, his weight, his rage His power and assertion over her All his nightmares become her shame The stolen man returns over the sea His shadow passes through security In the shadow, sorrow grows into rage Into entitlement Into dominance Into her debt to pay Her voice falls to the floor as soon as it leaves her mouth Not an ear hears her cries Should she say it, he would be right Should she speak it, she would walk in shame Should she act on it, it is she who is painted in blame Her dignity, her character, her clothes consented to the

broken hero

eterans Day brings up many contradictory emotions for me.

At the forefront is pride: I am proud to have served my country alongside some of the best people I have ever met. I am proud to have followed in the footsteps of my parents—both of whom served 20year careers in the U.S. Air Force—with a four-year enlistment in the Air Force of my own. I am proud of the things I accomplished during my service: the friends I made, the skills I developed, and the college courses I excelled in while on active duty that led to me receiving a Posse Foundation Veterans Program scholarship to study sociology at Vassar.

It was a long, challenging, exhausting four years, but it was a rewarding and fulfilling experience. I can’t help but be proud of myself and my fellow veterans on the holiday made to celebrate us.

But at the same time, I feel a deep sense of shame over the actions carried out in our name and resulting from our labor.

As a Security Forces Airman, I spent two six-month deployments in Qatar, where most of the U.S. operations in the Middle East are headquartered. There, one of our tasks was to secure the flightline from which hundreds, if not thousands, of bombing operations were carried out during my deployments. On Oct. 3, 2015, a U.S. Air Force AC-130U attacked a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz Province, Afghanistan, killing at least 42 people and injuring over 30 more. I was on post when the plane took off that day.

I am deeply ashamed to have contributed even in the slightest to this war crime.

I can’t speak for all veterans, but from my

conversations with hundreds of them, I know that I’m not the only one who feels shame at the things our service in the military contributed to.

The contradiction between the pride I feel for my service and the shame I feel for what it contributed to is a confusing emotional conflict that continues to anger me. But this Veterans Day, I think it is important for us to distinguish between servicemembers and the military itself. I understand the anger directed at the U.S. military, and I share the same frustrations that most of us feel. However, I am troubled by the way some people treat veterans in their critiques of the military.

While the old adage of “I was just doing my job” is not sufficient to justify our roles in American imperialism and its global criminal atrocities, it is unfair to stereotype veterans as joyful participants in these endeavours.

All of us joined the military for different reasons. Some of us joined because the public education system had failed us and we had nowhere else to go. Some of us joined to escape violent or otherwise unpleasant homes. Some of us joined to escape poverty and support our families. I joined so that I could afford to go to college without acquiring a crippling amount of student debt, and because I didn’t know what else to do with my life.

We all have different reasons for joining, but we all have at least one thing in common: We were all exploited. Our recruiters preyed upon us and manipulated us; we were emotionally abused in basic training in order to forcibly conform to the military mindset (though many of us do not recognize this as abuse); we were worked well beyond the 40-hour work

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

week and compensated significantly below the minimum wage; and our souls were burdened by the growing awareness of exactly what our labor was contributing to.

Ultimately, I hope my story will contribute to dispelling the unfair stereotypes that are placed on veterans. The stereotype of the brainwashed rightwing nationalist veteran, while true for a small (though significant) percentage of veterans, is not an accurate portrayal of the veteran community as a whole. I hope that our presence on campus has helped dispel this stereotype.

The veterans you may interact with on campus—all of us deeply thoughtful and intellectually qualified to be at Vassar—are not an exception to the norm.

This country is full of veterans with the potential to do great things in this world, and all they need is a chance to prove themselves. Harmful stereotypes about veterans are nothing more than attempts to humiliate a vulnerable, exploited group of mostly decent people.

So on this Veterans Day, I ask that you take the time to reach out to the veterans and servicemembers in your life, such as us Posse students. or people you went to high school with, and connect with them on a personal level. You’ll quickly find out that we are more than just pawns in the game of American imperialism. We are deeply complex, just like everyone else, and when we separate from the military, we all deserve a second chance at life.

I am eternally grateful to the Posse Foundation and Vassar College for providing me with my second chance. Happy Veterans Day, everyone.

VETERANS’ VOICES

November 7, 2019

Speaking silently

Martial musings Mark Savarese U.S. Marines

righteous path. How disdainful of my desperation does it appear. To be coy in chaos, yet still bashful in bliss…”

It’s always been a matter of discovering who we are, yeah? This ain’t unique to veterans, I realize. In fact, it’s been a comforting thing supposing fellow vagabonds floating about. “You’re not alone.” While heartfelt, this can be an impotent thought until that fateful encounter. Is validation from others important to self-discovery? I don’t know. I do know I have a talent for soiling my chance at it—companionship, that is.

March 8, 2019, “There was a time I’d have dared anyone to save me from myself. To bring me down from the standard I’d worked my whole life to surmount. A semblance of that disposition endures still. Have I made martyrdom my cause? Suffering for the sake of suffering? I’ve gotten better at accepting people for who they are, for choosing what they choose, for loving who they love. There are still things I cannot do. I can’t enjoy bars. I can’t witness people surrendering themselves to a stupor rather than confronting themselves. I can’t be part of the mass vulnerability: the incoherent pleas to be liberated by chance, circumstance, or someone else…”

Reading this, it’s no wonder why I struggle with the empathy piece. I can’t convince myself I’m entirely wrong on this score, however. I’ve been raised, taught, and trained to operate from a “higher” nature. That is, JJDIDTIEBUCKLE: Justice, Judgement, Dependability, Initiative, Decisiveness, Tact, Integrity, Enthusiasm, Bearing, Unselfishness, Courage, Knowledge, Loyalty and Endurance. Couple that with Catholicism and a Sicilian mama and I’m what you’ll get. Does Vassar’s pluralism have any room for such a character, I wonder…

T

Tes Moulton U.S. Air Force

he sun erupts from the east over the tiny culde-sac in South Glens Falls, New York. The air fills with the sounds of children playing and coffee having been brewed long before dawn. Michael Gagne, Vietnam veteran, chases his granddaughter around an Adirondack-style living room, trying to convince her to wear socks. Like so many other parents, Mike allows his son, his daughter-in-law and their three children to live with him. Since his retirement he has acted as the primary caregiver of a 5-year-old, a 6-year-old and a 13-year-old.

At 17, Mike was drafted to Vietnam. Growing up in a small Adirondack town did not prepare him for the ostensible horrors that lay ahead of him. War memories are intertwined into every fiber of his daily life. Veterans try to compartmentalize the lingering violence the best they can, though Vietnam vets are a unique group of people who I feel have been overlooked and mistreated.

At the time, little was known about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I would argue that remains true today. However, these particular veterans were denied the acknowledgement of its existence and

therefore were never properly treated, Mike included.

Mike, and many other veterans, are expected to come home and return to the normal cycle of everyday civilian life. That expectation is omnipresent in all military separations. Go out into the real world, be viewed as a hero and live a “normal,” happy life.

Don’t talk about your pain; that’s weak. Don’t ask for help; that’s also weak. Don’t tell people about your real experience; it makes them uncomfortable. They just want to see you as a hero. They do not want to gain a true understanding of what you experienced in the name of American exceptionalism.

Mike was shot during his tour in Vietnam. His pride hides his limp the best it can, but his gait will forever be altered by that single moment. He tries to stay busy all day, sweeping his driveway to stay in motion.

There is freedom in mobility after one is threatened with the loss of limb. There is also a certain kind of freedom in a job that does not require a reason, just an action. Mike keeps moving all day and never stops. Perhaps he is freeing himself from the grip the war still has on him, or perhaps he just likes to have the cleanest driveway in the cul-de-sac.

Courtesy of Tes Moulton

The following is a selection of entries from my personal journal illustrating my transition from the Marine Corps to Vassar’s campus.

December 13, 2016, “In memory, the months that ensued exist only as vague monotony of trials: belligerent Drill Instructors, a cacophony of cadence, and sandpits teeming with loathsome, but instrumental, sand fleas. My ego was shattered, the meticulously inculcated disciplines of Honor, Courage, and Commitment feverishly refining the insipid chaff of adolescence from my faculties. I miss it—sort of; it was an exotic time. One of self-discovery that galvanized a waning audacity to manifest destiny, while also instilling a sensibility that’s kept me humble ever since…”

Vassar has been a challenging place. My private moments are often spent reaffirming the merit preceding my admission. Impostor syndrome and associated notions of “not belonging” are staples in veteran discourse, especially as it concerns higher education. In my worst moments, it’s easy to believe that the culmination of my military deeds has been reduced to a novelty: a picturesque sentiment of heroism meant to delight an audience. I’m quick to consider myself an ingrate after a thought like this, which simply perpetuates the self-loathing piece. I should lighten up.

September 20, 2017, “It’s pitter-patter, no? The hums of hymns, of which the senses dim. This song of feel, conceding to whims of ‘real.’ A palpable flow disrupted by our copious details. Oh—too much; please return the gift...How to reside in the recluse’s repose? To evoke enlightenment? To touch ‘God’? Granted in glimmers, the road sparsely reveals itself: inspiration teasing a faint familiarity with the

Page 11

Generations apart Brittany Andrade U.S. Army

I

Yvette Hu/The Miscellany News

A few of Vassar’s Posse Veterans gathered for a dinner with Dean of the College Alamo and Associate Dean of the College Maragh Taylor to speak about issues veterans face on campus.

grew up as the only girl in a large family and my grandfather’s obvious favorite.

In my childhood memories, he was a giant of a man: tall, lean and always smelling of sawdust. He learned to be a carpenter in his 20s after returning to his small town from a three-year “tour” (as he called it) in the United States Army. He, like so many of his generation, had been drafted into the Vietnam War effort. My grandfather never really talked about his service: We knew he served and had been stationed in Hawaii, but little else. Sometimes he would tell us training stories while we waited for the school bus, but they were always light-hearted—he glossed over the grim details.

When I was 20, I decided to enlist in the Army. I wanted to travel, to see the world

and to help people. I didn’t tell anyone until I had already completed my physical and signed my contract. My parents reacted the way I expected. My mom cried, my dad was proud and scared for me, but my grandpa was livid. He was so angry that he didn’t speak to me for two weeks. When I left for basic training he was still angry, but he told me to keep my head on straight and he loved me. When I graduated training, he was there in the stands. As my career continued my grandfather became ill. He started to tell me stories of his time in the service. Stories no one else had ever heard. He told me about his infantry unit, his marksmanship records and the friends he lost in Vietnam. He died in February 2017. Of all the things I have cherished and loved from my military experience, getting to know him was second to none.

Do combat boots come in size small?

Tiffany Trumble U.S. Army

W

hen most people think of combat uniforms, motherhood doesn’t immediately come to mind. To accommodate this life experience, the United States Army finally made uniform adjustments suitable for new moms. Undershirts with an opening in the middle are now authorized for postpartum wear, greatly decreasing the amount of exposure we undergo during the feeding process. I am fairly certain most of the readers here have not experienced the wonderful pleasure (half-sarcastic) of breastfeeding before, but trust me when I say that having to pull your tucked-in shirt all the way up while

in a stiff camo uniform is not ideal. Never mind having to unclasp your bra while your child wiggles ferociously in your arms, screaming hysterically because you are moving too slow. If you ever wondered why I don’t typically wear a bra, this is it.

Being a woman in the military is like accidentally walking into the men’s locker room: It smells really bad and everyone stares at you like you don’t belong. Finishing your service and leaving the locker room is another story. You fit in just fine— almost like you didn’t serve at all.

Wearing a shirt with the words “Operation Enduring Freedom,” Roberta Samples, 20-year Air Force veteran, walks into a restaurant on Veterans Day. The host

looks at her, then at her shirt, and asks, “Is your husband a veteran?” Roberta retired 12 years ago and is asked that question to this day, regardless of the fact that the first female to enlist did so in 1917.

This could be complete bias here, but all veterans deserve recognition. Despite your view on the ongoing war(s), and those of the past, vets voluntarily leave their families and friends to defend our nation. They make this sacrifice regardless of gender.

To further demonstrate what that entails, picture this: seven months pregnant, still waking up at 6 a.m. to make it to physical training, working until 5 p.m. and then watching your husband load up on a bus to deploy. You agonize in 23 hours of

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

labor, alone, spend six weeks raising that child, alone, then find a daycare because you have to go back to work, again, alone.

Then, while at work, you have to pump your breast milk because breast is best, right? You sit in your car and try to quickly eat your lunch while a machine sucks your sore, cracked nipples into a little tube to give you one measly ounce of milk. One year later, it’s your turn to deploy.

This is not, by any means, everyone’s story…but this heart-wrenching story does belong to someone. When we make assumptions regarding gender roles in the military, we are doing a disservice to the women who sacrifice(d) just as much as the men, if not more.

OPINIONS

Page 12

November 7, 2019

Quite Frankly Infinite soccer? More like infinite nonsense Abram Gregory

Frankie Knuckles

Senior Editor Quality Advice-Giver

Hey Frankie, I swiped right on a boy in my class and we matched but then I messaged him and he DIDN’T REPLY and now I have to see him in class every Tuesday and Thursday with both of us knowing he didn’t reply!

What do I do?

Sincerely, Swiper no Swiping Dear Swiper,

Q

Best Wishes, Frankie P.S. Classes will be over soon. Hang in there.

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omewhere in Romania, a career bureaucrat clocks out after a day of pencil-pushing and goes home to spend countless hours theorizing his ideal reformulation of the world’s most popular sport: soccer.

That man is Laurentiu Ginghina, and he is the subject of Corneliu Porumboiu’s 2018 documentary “Infinite Football.” The film focuses in on the motivations and theories behind Ginghina’s envisioning of a safer, more spectator-friendly game of soccer. I want to bring to the front the metaphysical implication of Ginghina’s project, namely that of challenging the seemingly unshakable norms in pursuit of an existential utopia. But this challenge comes at the cost that renders the project futile and Sisyphean.

That is, there is an unavoidable conflict in which it is unlikely that our goals, and by analog utopia, will ever be accomplished; however, to add more and more restrictive rules both to soccer and society only assures us that harmony of either institution will never be achieved.

So, what actually are Ginghina’s proposed revisions to soccer? And what do they have to do with utopia or existential improvement? As Harvard Crimson reviewer, Cassandra Luca, writes, the list “include[s] his ideas to remove the corners of the field to streamline the area of play, to restrict players’ motion in order to emphasize passing and reduce the chance of collisions, and to do away with offside” (Harvard Crimson, “Yearning for a Revolution in ‘Infinite Football,’” 03.12.2019). As Richard Brody of The New Yorker puts it, “[Ginghina] imagines dividing each team into [four] sub-teams,” with each pair of sub-teams having to stay in its quadrant. The idea is to keep the ball moving quickly, as Ginghina considers it to be the centerpiece of the game. Without the dynamic ball, “The supposed star players are only ‘the star of a shampoo commercial.’”

First, I must confess—the film was released in limited locations as part of a 2018 film festival, and the only version I could find online was a 20-minute portion of the 70-minute whole. However, those 20 minutes, combined with a plethora of reviews, string together the following picture: After sustaining a career-ending injury on the soccer pitch, Ginghina was motivated to imagine a style of soccer where injuries (like his own tibia fracture) would not happen. Over time it becomes evident that Ginghina’s theorizing is an allegory for the idea of a less violent and more harmonious world. (The New Yorker, “An Astounding Romanian Documentary About One Man’s Quest to Change the Rules of Soccer,” 04.26.2018). As evidenced by the increased division of physical space on the field, this harmony comes at the cost of freedom. Ginghina would disagree with me, as he mysteriously said, “It only seems [restrictive] to those who refuse to give themselves a certain freedom.”

OK, we’ve got enough in front of us to get philosophical. There are a few buzzwords here that intimate the metaphysical implications of Ginghina’s work, and I’m here to make the implicit explicit. There is a reason that I, someone who knows next to nothing about soccer, bothered to spend so much time on what most view as a nonsensical series of proposed changes to the sport. It was because Ginghina’s machinations exemplify the individual’s temptation to subconsciously acknowledge the likelihood that they will never accomplish their dreams, and accordingly choose to take on the yoke of hopelessness, an act which only ends up

insuring their own defeat. This is shown in his attempt to subdivide the soccer pitch into quarters, as a result of which the game becomes fundamentally fractured but with the ball moving more efficiently through the four sectors (at least in theory). This is where the easily misunderstood, confusingly simply shot film transcends being just a documentary and becomes a true philosophical endeavor.

Courtesy of Mike via Pexels

uite frankly, this is pretty damn awkward and I’m sorry that you have to experience this. I do have some thoughts that may be of comfort.

First of all, when a Vassar student opens Tinder, they do so understanding that we go to a small, private, liberal arts college. That comes with an accompanying set of tacit agreements—namely, that by swiping through fellow Vassarians on Tinder, you’re accepting the reality that you’re absolutely going to run into someone you ghosted in the Deece.

Also, not to roast you or anything, but I’m assuming you knew this guy was in your class when you swiped right, so to a certain extent, you took a risk and it didn’t pay off.

But the good news is that technically, he didn’t ghost you. I don’t know if he saw the message (you do, sadly), but there are a lot of reasons he might have failed to respond, either voluntarily or due to neglect.

For example, maybe you swiped on him around break, and he was swiping casually through without realizing that he forgot to change his location settings back. Maybe he just doesn’t get on Tinder all that often, and hasn’t gotten around to checking his messages for awhile. Maybe he changed his mind after swiping because he realized you have a class together and thought messaging you would be weirder than letting this awkward, unresponded message hang in the ether, now tangible in a classroom setting for you.

If you’re still feeling like employing a “high risk, high reward” strategy as concerns your sex life, confront him. At the very least, you’ll make him feel just as uncomfortable as you feel now, so the playing field will be leveled once more.

Either he already realizes that he’s done this to you and is uncomfy about it, or he’s oblivious. In either case, you’ve already hit maximum self-discomfort here, so you really have nothing to lose.

Assistant Opinions Editor

Ginghina’s proposed rule changes would divide the field into four sectors and would clip its corners. These changes would lead to an increase in ball movement and reduce player injuries, but it would also reduce player freedom and make it impossible for 75 percent of players to score.

In proposing to streamline play at the expense of player mobility, Ginghini risks alienating the individual from their labor.

That is, mathematically speaking, in an evenly matched game, the ball is likely to circulate the three sectors adjacent to the player’s own. This means that 75 percent of the game would be spent with the object of focus outside of the power of each player. This echoes Marx’s characterization of the capitalist alienation of the worker from their labor, foreshadowed in the Communist Manifesto as “Labor [becoming] more and more divided among the individual workers so that the worker who had previously done a complete piece of work now only did a part of that piece… It reduced the activity of the individual worker to simple, endlessly repeated mechanical motions” (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” 1848). Think of every goal a defender has ever scored, whether it be by Crystal Dunn or Virgil van Dijk. All defenders—and all field players, for that matter—would sit back to watch the ball from afar, never able to score themselves.

This brings me to the object of focus itself: the soccer ball. Ginghina’s assertion that the ball is the star of the game, rather than the players, reflects the inescapable separation between God and humanity affected by Ginghina’s Christianity (a hot take, I know).

What do I mean by that? To Christians and many religious folk, people are infinitely insignificant particles in comparison to the infinite power and sublime substance that is God Himself. This sentiment is not unique to Christianity or religion in general, though; it’s inherent in the widespread idea that a person is or ought to be part of something bigger than one’s self. The general payoff of sacrificing one’s liberty and free will is that something greater than the self may be accomplished. In the case of soccer, this is scoring a goal; in the case of life, it is anything from the attainment of heaven upon

death to something as earthly as raising a nuclear family.

Filmmaker Porumboiu refers to Ginghina’s vision as “Football as utopia.” But there are two problems with Ginghina’s approach to the revision of soccer and his implied revision of life. The first is the wrong-headed idea that something larger than one’s self can only be attained by the sacrifice of individual selfhood and liberty. The second is that, in truth, the willing sacrifice of one’s own liberty is only a means of justifying the distance that the individual has with the object they obsess over. To unpack: 1) One needn’t give oneself up to achieve something, and 2) to suggest otherwise is an explanation for the likelihood that one will never reach their goal.

When considering the first problem I turn to individual sports such as my own, fencing.

First of all, individual sports undermine the moral claim that one needs to work as a team of any size to achieve anything meaningful (another hot take). Concerning revisions and rule changes in particular, sabre fencing itself encountered an attempt to redefine the boundaries of the playing field (which is already a comically narrow rectangle with a length of only 14 meters). Like Ginghina’s soccer reform, the attempt to move fencers’ starting positions was partially intended to make the sport more streamlined and action-packed. We fencers nihilistically nicknamed this short-lived pipe dream of international bigwigs “the Russian box of Death,” and any fencer active from 2016-2017 can tell you that it was, plainly, bullshit: The rate of injuries increased and the watchability of the sport decreased. This is where the second problem comes in. Simply put, I fear the futile reforms to soccer—and life—would bring about the pursuit of instant gratification, a method to stave off the realization of existence’s meaninglessness. This pursuit is merely a distraction never to be fulfilled.

So what can we learn from all of this? To revisit the two problems I mentioned earlier, Ginghina aims to use soccer as a mirror for everyday philosophical escapism. At one level, we’re afraid to get hurt, whether it be on or off the field. Therefore, we try to make regulations that really just encase our kids’ tricycles in bubble wrap. We’re robbing ourselves of the opportunity to learn from our mistakes.

“Regulating a soccer field to keep players in sectors largely away from the soccer ball is the same as purposely restricting someone from pursuing their dreams...”

Regulating a soccer field to keep players in sectors largely away from the soccer ball is the same as purposely restricting someone from pursuing their dreams, an act that comes in forms from tyrannical authoritarianism or self-imposed Joycean resignation.

That is, it creates defeat before there’s any attempt to resist defeat. The name “Infinite Football” stems from the sardonic quip that Porumboiu makes about the endless reform that Ginghina’s soccer would necessitate, intimating that the utopic goal would never be reified. Likewise, we cannot throw up our hands and isolate ourselves from the objects of our desires, lest we condemn ourselves to be content with never attaining them.

The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented within its Opinions pages. The staff editorial is the only article which reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

November 7, 2019

OPINIONS

Page 13

I’m going to die. We are all going to die (but it’s fun) Jonas Trostle

Opinions Editor

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’m going to die one day. I’m relatively certain you’re going to as well. There’s worse things I guess; just don’t ask me what. I’m not a philosopher, and you don’t have to examine my writing closely to see that every other word I write doesn’t end in “-ology” or “-ogical,” so I’m probably underqualified to ramble on about life and death. On the other hand, death is almost certainly going to be a “lived experience” for me, so I might have some authority on the subject. I was given some advice about the inevitability of death recently, so I might as well have a little fun. Pass (it) on, so to speak.

I found myself just standing in a greenhouse, soaking in the beauty around me, wondering whether The Miscellany News office would look less like purgatory if it featured a fern or a nice large hanging plant. Out of the blue, the shopkeeper offered some wisdom that probably only comes from being around fading beauty— the wilting flowers, dying plants, the indelible fragility of nurturing life—for long periods of time: “Don’t take [yourself] too seriously. You’re going to die one day.”

As much as I don’t like being reminded of the mortality of someone I actually like, the

shopkeeper is dead right. I’m not going to pretend to know enough about nihilism to cite Nietzsche (I have enough trouble just spelling it) or have any great insights about life as a mortal, but there is great comfort in the idea of your own death, of finality. The late-night comedian Conan O’Brien—who’s actually remarkably well-educated and graduated from Harvard University magna cum laude—recalled a conversation with Albert Brooks where Brooks said, “In 1940, people said Clark Gable is the face of the 20th Century. Who [expletive] thinks about Clark Gable? It doesn’t matter. You’ll be forgotten. I’ll be forgotten. We’ll all be forgotten.” (New York Times, “Conan O’Brien Wants to Scare Himself With the New, Shorter ‘Conan,’” 01.14.2019). I think about that quote a lot. It makes you think about what’s actually important. Is it personal or organizational success? Do you want to be the best? Are you driven by the envy of others? All motives are fine if that’s what you want to do, but don’t do anything just because you think you’ll be remembered for it.

What you should take away from that quote isn’t that nothing we do matters. Instead, understand that if nothing you do will be remembered in the long run, you should

try to do the right thing in each and every moment. If you promised to do something, you should do it. Not because it matters but because nothing else matters either. Maybe it’s because I’m poor and not exceptionally successful, but all I have is my word, and if I don’t have that, then I have nothing left at all. If you have no reason to do wrong, if you have nothing to gain because you’re going to die and nothing matters, why not just do the right thing?

I honestly think Vassar would be a better place if more people thought this way.

Forget about your legacy, what you’ll leave behind. Help some people, bite off more than you can chew, make mistakes and try again. Live life to the fullest because this life might be all you get. Stop worrying that you’ll look silly or if someone will think you’re unserious. Listen: You can still be successful, competent and reliable without taking yourself too seriously. You can still be a good student even while realizing that it’s absurd that you’re trading pieces of paper (tuition) that you don’t have (student debt) for words (lectures) from people who write fan fiction about the gay brother of a Russian émigré. This is a real thing that happens, and it’s hilarious on so many different levels. If you can’t be a little unseri-

ous, a little silly, you’re wasting the humor that surrounds us all the time. You’re wasting your own life, and do you have a resource any more precious? I certainly don’t.

This isn’t the only reaction that you can have to the news that you’ll die. You could also go down the route of burning, looting and pillaging, being evil for evil’s sake. That’s a reaction, I will admit, but I hardly think that’s a good way to go about things. For one, it’s not universally applicable. Screwing over everybody else to get ahead might work in the short run, but I can’t advise you to do that because then it’s just detrimental to everybody. Closing the elevator door on somebody can really give you a strong feeling of satisfaction, but if we all start to do that, then everybody is now taking solo elevator rides and everybody’s waiting longer too. The whole thing backfires.

So again, to bring it back to the beginning: I’m going to die one day. So for now, I’m going to enjoy time with people who are important to me. I’m going to lie in the sun listening to “Eight Days a Week” because in the long run, nothing really matters. There’s no reason not to sit back and relax, or even not to try, and I’m only going to get older.

Case study: Harrisonburg embodies small-town education Noah Siderhurst Guest Columnist

I

t’s October break, and I’m headed home.

Interstate 81 takes me through Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and, finally, the Blue Ridge Mountains rise up on either side of the highway. I’m home.

Harrisonburg, Virginia embodies smalltown America. The population is 50,000, but when James Madison University is in session, that number jumps to 70,000, according to the most recent census. There’s a strong immigrant and refugee community; we’re a Church World Service refugee resettlement city. We leaned Republican in the past, but Obama won the city by 16 percent in 2008 (U.S. House Clerk’s Office, “Statistics of The Presidential and Congressional Election” 07.10.2009). Since then, Harrisonburg has been a blue dot in a sea of red surrounding the county.

So readers, why should you care about my little town? Well, if you’re at Vassar, chances are you care about education (or at least your own education), and Harrisonburg is a great example of what’s right and wrong with American education. Pardon me for being self-centered and only talking about my home school district, but it’s the one I know the most about. I still think there are conclusions to be drawn about the entire American education system, just by taking a microcosmic view at my little town.

Harrisonburg City Public Schools (HCPS) serves about 6,000 students. There’s a private high school in the city, Eastern Mennonite High School, but it only serves 340 students, so I’ll focus on the public schools.

First of all, let’s look at spending. Like almost all public schools, HCPS splits its budgeting about equally between state and local funding sources. This means that to spend more on education (barring an unlikely state funding increase), the city has to raise property taxes. Property tax increases are widely unpopular for obvious reasons.

Despite this, HCPS is currently in the process of building a new high school, a decision that was opposed by many of the city’s

wealthy landowners. There was even a Political Action Committee (PAC) created to oppose the new school. It was called, I kid you not, “Students Over Structures.”

These impediments have had a negative impact. In 2018, Harrisonburg spent $12,827 per student, (Harrisonburg City Public Schools, “Per Pupil Expenditure,” 2018). By the National Center for Education Statistics data, that’s slightly below the national per student average of $13,440. When it comes to teacher salaries, the news isn’t any better. In a state that pays its teachers an average salary of $50,834— almost $8,000 below the national average—Harrisonburg doles out only $46,175 to its teachers on average, per the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE).

This illustrates the first issue I see with American public education: We simply do not spend enough on it. For localities, it’s difficult to balance local taxes and better education. The City Council can keep property taxes low and stimulate the local economy right now, or they can raise taxes and invest in the city’s future: There’s a tradeoff.

In Harrisonburg, the Census estimates that median household income is about $14,000 below the national average, and around 23 percent of the population lives in poverty.

Many localities, including Harrisonburg, simply lack a tax base to draw from.

However, spending isn’t the only metric by which to judge schools. I’d like to highlight several programs that make a Harrisonburg education stand out. First of all, there’s a Spanish language immersion program that starts in elementary school and continues until high school graduation. There’s also a state-sponsored STEM academy within Harrisonburg High School (HHS), as well as an off-campus, application-based Governor’s STEM Academy for students to attend part-time. AP classes are offered, with about 13 percent of HHS students enrolled in at least one.

Another exemplary piece of a Harrisonburg education is the English language learner’s program, which helps those new

to the English language get up to speed and comfortable in traditional classrooms. This is especially important because 35 percent of Harrisonburg students were considered English learners as of 2017, according to HCPS demographic data. A further 3.5 percent of students were in their first year of U.S. schooling. Besides English classes for students, adult English classes are offered at one of the middle schools. According to the VDOE, Harrisonburg English language learners perform almost twice as well on standardized writing tests compared to others in the state.

This is where I think HCPS does well and should be emulated. At every turn, their focus is on decreasing achievement gaps.

Summit Academy, located within HHS, helps struggling students by providing an alternative learning option. On the Road Collaborative focuses on low-income students, providing college and career prep. The WiSTEM club encourages women to pursue math and science careers. There’s even a restorative justice program that replaces much of the school’s disciplinary system.

Sal Romero, City Council member and Coordinator of Family and Community Engagement for HCPS, noted this as an HCPS strongpoint. “I think one of the things we do well [in the school system] is that we recognize that diversity is our strength, and we build up on that,” Romero said when I interviewed him last year. “We not only find ways to learn from each other, but we also find ways to connect with the broader community.”

The VDOE has several indicators for school quality as part of their accreditation process. HHS performed at or above state average on all academic achievement indicators (Virginia Department of Education, “School Quality Profiles: Harrisonburg City,” 2019). However, the dropout rate is nearly four percent above the state average, and the VDOE labels chronic absenteeism as an issue.

When it comes to postsecondary education enrollment, HCPS is behind the state

by four percentage points, according to the VDOE. However, compared to the rest of the state, HCPS sends off five percent more economically disadvantaged students (meaning eligible for free/reduced meals, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and/or Medicaid) to college.

If you’re going to college from HHS, you’re probably going to a state university like the one actually in Harrisonburg: James Madison University. Data collected by the HHS newspaper showed that last year 25 students (out of a class of 450) headed to JMU, 11 went to Virginia Commonwealth University (another large state school), 66 went to Blue Ridge Community College and 20 went out of state. Because so many students decide to stay close, much of the human capital generated from the local school system goes right back into the community.

HHS is only one example of a public school. Across the country, public schools bear the weight of limited budgets, achievement gaps and unique local challenges. Because public schools are largely controlled by local school boards and city councils, each district tackles these challenges in its own way with its own priorities.

Harrisonburg’s priorities are its most disadvantaged students, which is laudable.

And based on the data, its approach seems to be working. I think other school systems should strive to center the same commitment that HCPS focuses on.

Furthermore, I don’t think HCPS sacrifices academic rigor in the pursuit of this goal.

For my part, I can say I was challenged academically. I wouldn’t be at Vassar without the opportunities HCPS offered me.

Sal Romero summed up my argument pretty nicely. “I was on the State Board of Education, and … I had the opportunity to visit different school systems around the state,” Romero said. “One of the things that was always interesting to see was the support [systems] that different schools have in place for their students. Very few school systems come close to what we do. We put our money where we think is important.”

The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented within its Opinions pages. The staff editorial is the only article which reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

SPORTS

Page 14

November 7, 2019

Sports swearing survey shows suspicious sex-separation Jonah Frere-Holmes Reporter

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e are told by the Studies™ That Show that swearing when you stub your toe or bang your knee on a coffee table actually helps ease the pain. Per BBC, “swearing helps us downplay being hurt in favour of a more pain-tolerant machismo.”

(BBC News, “Swearing ‘helps to reduce pain,’” 07.13.2009).

We also know that competitive sports are stressful. Committing an error or a turnover in a situation in which you’ve poured many hours practicing not making errors, in a situation where other people have invested time and money to ensure you don’t screw up, is, well, painful. Conversely, hitting a clutch shot, making a game-saving defensive play or putting a defender on skates feels like sitting triumphantly on a very high mountain. Both pain and joy merit vocal reactions; the more sensational the experience, the more extreme the expression. Swearing helps with pain, and sports sometimes = pain. What, then, is the relationship between swearing and sports?

I surveyed 134 athletes from 13 of Vassar’s varsity teams to see how they expressed themselves on the field, court or diamond.

I was interested in the use of swearing in games, but also the discipline players had faced as a result of their language, and how they felt about referees’ power to censor expression in the heat of the moment. The three relevant questions were, in order: Do you swear on the field/court (out of frustration, excitement, pain, etc.)? Has a referee ever disciplined you or given you

a warning for what you said on the court/ field? Do you think referees should be able to discipline players for swearing?

The responses were illuminating, particularly across gender and sport lines. Overall, 75 percent of the athletes surveyed said they swear in games. Seventy-one percent, though, said they have never been disciplined for anything they said in a game. 59 percent said that referees should be able Fifty-nine discipline players for swearing. (It bears mentioning that the answer choices were limited to yes/no despite the appearance of “depends on the situation” in the question itself.)

Taking a closer look at the responses highlights more interesting trends. Of the 134 respondents, 54 percent play for a men’s team, 46 percent for a women’s team. Of the male respondents, 89 percent said they swear in games. Only 58 percent of the women said they do the same.

The response to disciplinary history also displayed a striking gender contrast: 35 percent of the men’s players have been disciplined for their verbal expression; just 19 percent of women said they have been flagged.

Given the gender-based discrepancies in players’ experiences with swearing, the response to the question of whether referees should be able to discipline players for swearing is perhaps not surprising: 46 percent of men said yes, compared to 75 percent of women. Men in the survey swear over 50 percent more often than women, and are disciplined nearly twice as often.

That women are over 60 percent more

likely than men to endorse referees penalizing a player for swearing is correlated to their respective experiences with swearing in games.

Other interesting nuances emerged across sport lines as well as gender divides. The team with the most common disciplinary history was men’s basketball, with a notable 90 percent of respondents saying they had been disciplined. This is notable, though it may speak more to the nature of the sport than the respondents: With only 10 players on the court, all of whom are in close proximity to at least one referee, it’s essentially impossible to say something explicit without an official overhearing.

Not one member of women’s lacrosse or field hockey responded that they had been disciplined, which may speak to the fact that play stops less often than in basketball, where ample opportunity is provided to flex on, taunt or otherwise address an opponent (or teammate or official). Also relevant is the fact that just 28 percent of respondents from the aforementioned women’s teams swear in games, compared to 100 percent of men’s basketball players.

So, what do these numbers mean? The players’ responses are rooted in personal experience. Men swear a lot more than women, get disciplined for it more often and are less supportive of referees’ ability to levy that discipline. A simple question emerges, then: Why do women swear so much less in competition?

Answering this question is a job that, if done correctly and sensitively, would take

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

a lot more than the 300-odd words I have left for this article. Maybe an article that highlights the difference in boundaries for men and women is redundant at Vassar.

That said, the most obvious explanation, in broad terms, is about the difference in societal expectations across gender. Swearing is understood to be assertive and expressive of frustration and anger, emotions and qualities associated with masculinity.

On the other hand, I expect that a survey about crying in sports would probably find women to be the more common practitioners; the connection would not be hard to find from those results to gender roles as they have been defined in this time and place.

The more interesting question, then, is whether this matters. If male and female athletes swore just as often as each other, would that point to a more equitable society? If women swore as often as men, would it mean that the strain of gender-based expectations was relaxed? And if equalizing matters, should it go down or up? Should men be taught to swear less in competition, or should women be encouraged to express themselves more fully?

Why not both?

The issue of swearing in games is a vanilla proxy for the very real, foundational question of how we dismantle the gender-based expectations that have constricted humanity since its inception. This article is not supposed to or trying to answer that question. What is undeniable, though, is that gender matters when it comes to self-expression in Vassar athletics.

SPORTS

November 7, 2019

Page 15

Feeley earns Top 9 spot for NCAA Woman of the Year FEELEY continued from page 1 on her reaction to the honor. While this was certainly an impressive accomplishment, it’s no secret that Feeley’s long list of credentials set her up for this type of success.

Along with balancing field hockey and her academics, Feeley was involved with numerous volunteer efforts. With the rest of the field hockey team, she worked as a volunteer coach for a local field hockey league for young girls. Feeley also founded her own student organization with fellow former student-athlete Rachel Chernet ’19, called the Vassar Chapter of Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children.

The Chapter helped out with the children’s emergency section at the Children’s Home

of Poughkeepsie and also worked with Dutchess Outreach to distribute produce to individuals in need in the Poughkeepsie area. Through the Chapter, Feeley volunteered with local Hawk Meadow School to teach children about nutrition and farm-totable eating. There was no question Feeley fit the high standard of community involvement that is looked for to be a NCAA Woman of the Year finalist.

Along with her hours of countless community outreach, Feeley maintained a stellar GPA while managing a grueling biology-psychology double major. She was a biology student researcher for three years, and a student intern for biology and neuroscience classes and labs. Her great academic merit

Courtesy of Carlisle Stockton

Monica Feeley ’19 had an outstanding career as a defender for Vassar’s field hockey team. Her recent selection as a finalist for the NCAA Woman of the Year honored her efforts both on and off the field.

did not go unnoticed in the sports world, as she accumulated All-Academic league honors all three years she was eligible, along with the 2018-19 Liberty League Scholar-Athlete of the Year award, 2018-19 CoSIDA All-Academic At-Large All-District First Team and 2018-19 CoSIDA All-Academic AtLarge All-American Second Team honors.

Post-graduation, Feeley is taking a gap year working at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital doing HIV vaccine clinical trial research as she prepares for medical school.

Feeley’s mark extends beyond her graduation, as she continues to be a role model for Vassar’s current field hockey players and those in the years to come. Field hockey Head Coach Michael Warari explained, “[I] couldn’t have asked for a more committed, dedicated, consistently driven, passionate and caring human being to represent Vassar Field Hockey and show true character on and off the field. She surpassed anything and everything we could have asked of her, and she helped this program be the best it could be, and her legacy is one she and the team is proud of.”

Warari gushed, explaining how Feeley exemplified all the characteristics he looks for in a successful player and teammate, “We recruit hardworking, team focused-players, who are determined, passionate and resilient. We want players who can overcome challenges under immense and challenging circumstances, who love the game and show great character on and off the field. [Feeley] and the rest of the team all embody these characteristics.” Her former teammates sang similar praise for Feeley, as junior defender Ally Aquilina-Piscitello commended her leadership: “Monica embodied what it means to be a VCFH player and teammate

Men’s Squash

Women’s Rugby

Vassar College 8, Lafayette College 1

Vassar College 33, RPI 12

November 2, 2019

November 3, 2019

Tiffany Trumble/The Miscellany News

Men’s squash concluded their opening weekend with their first win, soundly defeating Lafayette College 8-1. Vassar’s only loss on the day came in a close 3-2 match at the first position, as they swept positions two through nine. Excluding the tight loss at the one spot, Vassar downright dominated the ladder, not dropping a single game in any of their victories. The Brewers hope to maintain momentum from their first victory in their first away contests of the season as they travel to Bard for matchups with Siena, Swarthmore and Colgate.

Tiffany Trumble/The Miscellany News

both on the field and off. She was a fantastic leader and role model, and someone that all of us looked up to … we are so happy for her and know firsthand how she deserves this award.”

From talking to Feeley, it is evident that the sport of field hockey had as much of an impact on her as she left on it. During the selection process for the NCAA Woman of the Year, athletes are asked to write a letter “thanking” their respective sport. “I detailed how field hockey has had one of the deepest impacts on me out of any experience in my life. It taught me adaptability, resilience, patience, hard work, dedication, time management, etc., more so than any other experience could have,” explained Feeley. She continued: “In order to succeed in this sport you had to figure all of these things out on the go. Field hockey has shown me how to handle both success and failure, has shown me that I am strong enough to overcome any obstacle placed in my path, and has also given me a family for life. I am eternally thankful that I played this sport and that I was able to play my last four years at Vassar.”

While Feeley was not ultimately selected as the NCAA Woman of the Year, she came away with more than hardware, as she very much enjoyed the award weekend, which this year took place in Indianapolis.

“First, getting to meet the other finalists was definitely the best part. They were all such amazing, unique and powerful women and I left the weekend feeling so incredibly inspired,” she recalled. During the weekend, Feeley also participated in a community service activity with local girls. She finished her student-athlete career in true Monica Feeley fashion: winning awards and serving those around her.

Fencing

Vassar women’s rugby looks to be on the way to their fourth straight TriState Conference Championship title, as they took a fairly comfortable victory over Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the semifinals on Sunday. Although they didn’t score their first points until close to the half, once they had the lead, Vassar never looked back. The Brewers scored five tries on the day, leading to a final score of 33-12. They will look to defend their title this Saturday in the championship match, as they square off against Marist College, whom they defeated 24-7 earlier in the season.

Cross Country

The Big One Invitational

Liberty League Championships

November 2, 2019

November 2, 2019

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Courtesy of Sarah Newman

Tiffany Trumble/The Miscellany News

Last Saturday, both men’s and women’s fencing competed in their first event of the season the Big One Invitational.

Vassar fielded multiple fencers in all six events, as there were competitions in foil, epee and sabre for both women’s and men’s divisions. Four Brewers finished in the top 10 of their field, as sophomore Zoe Tolbert took fifth in foil, freshman Conor Travaglione took third in sabre and juniors Nicoletta Dinelli and Abram Gregory took seventh in sabre and sixth in epee, respectively. Vassar hosts their second tournament of the season, the Vassar Invitational, this Sunday.

Vassar’s cross country teams ran the Liberty League Championships at Bard last Saturday, as the women’s team finished third while the men took fifth. The outstanding performance of the day came from sophomore Keara Ginell, who came in second overall and earned an All-Liberty League First Team spot. Earning 72 points, she headlined a women’s team that placed all runners in the top 30. On the men’s side of the track, first-year Miles Takiguchi set the pace for the Brewers with his 26th-place finish. Both teams next have NCAA regionals to look forward to, coming up on Nov. 16.

SPORTS

Page 16

Why we coach

James McCowan ’99, Cross Country and Track and Field

H

Courtesy of Stockton Photo

ave you ever taken one of those personality/skill assessment tests aimed at helping you figure out what kind of career you should pursue? I vividly remember taking them in high school and getting feedback along the lines of clergy, teacher, counselor, doctor. It all seemed preposterous. None of those things felt authentically interesting to me—I didn’t see myself as religious in a traditional sense; the idea of standing in front of a classroom felt painfully extroverted; I still couldn’t quite figure out what my school counselor did aside from direct us towards college applications; and...med school? I mean, interesting, but no thanks. Strangely, I look at those same suggestions now as conveniently interwoven with my career. All those vocations are about guiding fellow humans to become their best selves: more complete, more capable, and more vigorous in body, mind and spirit. These are the people in our lives who help us get what we want and need out of ourselves. As Cross Country and Track and Field Coach, I find I’ve become all these things and more.

As a student at Vassar in the ’90s, I still hadn’t much clue where I was heading in terms of a career, but one thing was certainly true: Running cross country and track and field was as essential to my liberal arts education as any course I took. While I studied anthropology and followed my intellectual passions eagerly (though not without the occasional smear of collegiate procrastination), I also devoted myself to the relentless perfection of my craft: racing. I ran 100-mile weeks and relished joyful and strenuous practice

McCowan, himself a former Vassar runner, now coaches the Vassar cross country and track and field teams. While these sports can sometimes be brutally objective, he stresses the importance of winning in multiple ways, not just on the clock.

sessions with teammates, many of whom remain dear friends 20 years later. I had lots of great races, laughters, highs, lows, failures, injuries, frustrations and redemptive efforts.

Running helped me understand myself and make sense of the world. I discovered how to be brave, to cultivate relentlessness, to persevere, to foster and inspire discipline and to find freedom within that discipline. Most of all, I realized how all of this is constantly

“Yellow Things” ACROSS

l. absorbent material used to test for strep 5. to make ready beforehand, abbr 9. baby chickens’ are yellow 14. leaning tower’s location 15. magical or mysterious symbol 16. relating to the kidneys 17. capital of Mongolia, anglicized 19. more than necessary 20. to leave 21. basic monetary unit of Turkey (and Italy, formerly) 23. even, but the v is silent 24. hazel, pea, wal (plural) 26. a form of tag 28. made a sudden, violent verbal or physical attack 32. outer rim of a wheel 35. our big yellow star 36. to choose 38. a short period of time or an onset of illness 39. to bicker playfully 41. -ket, -malade, -tyr 42. distance downwards 43. Thor’s father 44. river running through Austria and Germany

Answer to last week’s puzzle

November 7, 2019

shifting, and how it has to be practiced and learned again and again to stay relevant.

It wasn’t immediately obvious to me that coaching could be my vocation, and I shifted my trajectory among several potential paths after college. Eventually I realized that what seemed the most meaningful to me was to give back to the sport that has given me so much. I went to graduate school for sport performance, and took every coaching opportunity I could get. When the opportunity to return to my alma mater surfaced several years later, I couldn’t refuse.

Often I’ll let recruits know—“I didn’t get into coaching because I like losing.” The thrill of victory and the joy of seeing students surpass their goals and dreams is certainly a cornerstone of why I coach. There is the obvious win of crossing the line first or leaping higher or throwing farther than the competition. That is a particularly sweet taste, for the sport can be brutally numeric. We know exactly where we stand against not only our competitors of the day, but also how we stack up against anyone who has run that distance, that course or competed in that field event across space and throughout time. We also know how we stack up against our own past performances as we compete with ourselves to improve. There are a lot of layers to winning in cross country and track and field. Indeed, all the way through the result sheet, you can find wins and losses for each student-athlete, both in watching how they compete, and even more in knowing what it takes to get them to the start of the event. Of course the winning is fun, but it is the drive

to do our best, to improve, to succeed and in many ways struggle that creates a journey that inspires meaningful growth.

No student-athlete can be reduced to isolated parts: the student, the athlete, the friend, the daughter or son, or the myriad of other identities and experiences too numerous to name. In programming training, coaches may try to streamline our curriculum to maximize a facet of performance, but neglecting the whole won’t get us far.

Humans are social creatures, and our relationships and identities are a part of our performing selves as well. In coaching a team to achieve, or any particular student to perform, what I am really doing is fostering an environment for individual, as well as collective, growth. I am providing a space to explore and expand the physical and emotional side of our human potential. It requires dreaming and aspiring to achieve greatness. It demands fortitude, resilience and the knowledge that failure is an important part of growing and learning. It takes integrity to see it through, because while training and competing with friends is fun, growing often hurts.

So why do I coach? I coach for the exaltation of helping students achieve their goals and dreams. I coach to shepherd students through the highs and the lows, to help them discover their strength and potential as they figure out how to get what they want. I coach in gratitude for the power of sport as a vehicle of self-expression and discovery, and to cultivate an environment that facilitates that experience for others. I coach to win—and there are a lot of facets to that winning.

The Miscellany Crossword

by Frank

46. ear homonym 47. to connect or identify with 49. someone who lives and works on the ocean 51. a rant, soapbox, or pitch 53. ruler of Russia, formerly 54. to soak up 56. Greek god of war 58. yellow app, except ‘ch’ is silent 62. when one is broadcasted live, they are...

64. a highly specialized written study 66. capital of Ghana 67. milk’s favorite cookie, allegedly 68. length x width 69. smells strongly of a bad odor 70. inverse of pastel 71. yellow car for hire

Parliament 29. fuzzy leather 30. slug-with-shell gait 31. heads of academic/faculty departments 33. French, “outraged” 34. used as anaesthetic 37. a small container for salt and pepper at table 40. how Thanos applauds poetry 42. to pull teeth from a vampire 44. in headlights 45. deepest woodwind

DOWN

1. golden potato 2. devious manipulation tactic, colloquially utilized by women 3. immediately, abbr 4. yellow fruit that is dying out 5. to babble or ramble 6. a deep groove made by wheels 7. compound containing the OH group bound to a carbon involved in a double bond 8. extreme and immediate danger 9. a permanent fold or wrinkle 10. a targeted spell or curse 11. an intruder or trespasser 12. famous group of colorful bears 13. BlacKkK----sman 18. discolored skin caused by an impact 22. rubber or plastic boat 25. in Alabama, known for protest marches in 1965 27. river that flows through Czechoslovakia and Germany 28. first female member of British

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

48. toddlers and 50. supposed resting place of Noah’s ark in Turkey 52. yellow and sour 54. to fly freely 55. atop a moment 57. homonym of 54 down, pain of physical exertion 59. -bola, -metric, -lympics 60. peak 61. pad dish 63. to annoy or irritate 65. new or contemporary, prefix