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The Miscellany News

Volume CXLVII | Issue 16

March 5, 2015

Since 1866 | miscellanynews.org

Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY

Protesting professor faces charges Community demands officer reinstatement A Bethan Johnson

Contributing Editor

djunct professor of Earth Science and Geography Cindy Gorn currently faces two misdemeanor charges in New York Criminal Court stemming from alleged actions at a Dec. 13 protest on the Brooklyn Bridge. Teaching two courses in her department while released on bail, Gorn’s case has been in court twice, once during the semester, and will return to court in early April as the case against her proceeds. If convicted, Gorn faces

a maximum of one year in jail for each of her Class A misdemeanor charges. According to multiple sources within the Administration, the College’s leadership has so far been unaware of the charges against the professor. As Dean of the Faculty Jonathan Chenette expressed, professors are permitted to continue teaching while facing such charges as long as the case does not impinge upon their professorial duties or negatively affect their ability to fulfill them.

The charges against Gorn have

been linked to her alleged participation in a series of events that include assaults on two New York City police lieutenants during the Millions March NYC protest.

The protest, which was attended by approximately 30,000 people, was organized around the issue of police brutality towards Black and brown people, specifically the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. The Millions March NYC website wrote, “Every 28 hours, a black person in the United States is See PROFESSOR on page 3

Rhys Johnson

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News Editor

n Thursday, Feb. 26, students led by the newly-formed Student Organizing Team (SOT) of the Student/ Labor Dialogue (SLD) held a short demonstration during a Student Affairs Committee dinner held in MidC of the All College Dining Center.

The dinner, attended by members of the Board of Trustees, administrators, the Vassar Student Association (VSA) Executive Board and other community members, was organized for those who had taken part in the National Coalition Building Institute training, which was intended to promote dialogue and inclusion sur-

rounding diversity on campus.

Thirty minutes into the dinner, over 30 students, holding signs saying “Reinstate Kemar” and “Kemar spoke, now listen,” walked onto the balconies of UpC surrounding MidC in silent protest while one of the students at the dinner, Bailey Miller ’17, spoke about Williams’ situation.

The demonstration was held in protest of what many community members have called the unjust, and possibly racially motivated, termination of Safety and Security officer Kemar Williams last Thursday. Upon hearing of Williams’ termination and speaking to Williams directly, memSee OFFICER on page 4

Men’s Squash ends season in triumph Amreen Bhasin and Zach Rippe

T courtesy of Jacqueline Goossens

Adjunct Professor of Earth Science Cindy Gorn faces charges for allegedly obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest during a protest in December. Although hearings in the case have occurred, the College claims no knowledge of the charges.

Reporter and Sports Editor

he weekend of Feb 20-22, the Vassar College men’s squash team capped off their season by winning a National Title during the Collegiate Squash Association Team Championships. To prepare for the Championships, head coach Jane Parker used a number of unique situational strategies, many of which allowed the group to retain its intense, yet comfortable demeanor. “We played a number of conditioned games to develop strategies and handicap matches to gain confidence in dealing with a range of match scenarios, [e.g.] making a comeback, maintaining a lead and

successfully game finishing. Additionally, we had discussions about getting ourselves in the zone and sharing our own experiences of this, at most times with humor!” explained coach Parker.

The Brewers entered the weekend as the top seed of the H Division. They went undefeated in their pool after picking up 8-1 wins against Ithaca College and the University of Notre Dame. While these matches were somewhat one-sided, they proved beneficial to the Brewers nonetheless. Junior Tim Boycott added some insight into how these matches helped further prepare the Brewers for the championship, “The See SQUASH on page 18

Grads enter Kondabolu comedically confronts racism nonprofits A in town Connor McIlwain Reporter

Megan Forster

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Guest Reporter

Inside this issue

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Squirm’s silent market of personal FEATURES pleasure

14 ARTS

courtesy of The New York Times

ith spring break and the class of 2015’s graduation approaching quickly, the job search is on for the soonto-be alumnae. Many will find opportunities near home and in New York City, but some will likely choose to put down roots in the Hudson River Valley.

In recent years, many graduates have chosen to stay in or around Poughkeepsie. Two generations of these trailblazers were willing to speak about their experiences as permanent resident of upstate New York, and how they decided to stay here after Vassar.

Natalie Ward ’14 is a recent graduate who takes pride in her activist root at Vassar, which led her to her current position as Orange County Organizer for Community Voices Heard, based in Newburgh, N.Y.. Before settling in Newburgh as a Vassar grad, though, Ward had a “transformative experience” when she reconnected with her mother in Togo, West See POSTGRADS on page 7

fter Jessica Williams’ sold out performance in the Chapel, it seems fitting that Vassar would bring Hari Kondabolu to campus. Like Williams, Kondabolu is known for mixing the serious and the satirical. The New York Times recently named him “one of the most exciting political comics in standup today,” and he surely delivers high doses of both politics and comedy in every routine.

Raised in Queens, N.Y., Kondabolu attended Wesleyan University but graduated from Bowdoin College. Just three years after graduating from Bowdoin, Kondabolu was set to perform at HBO’s U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colo.. A regular in Seattle comedy clubs, Kondabolu was rapidly gaining mainstream popularity.

He has since appeared on the “Late Show with David Letterman,” “Conan” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” In 2014, he released his debut standup album titled “Waiting for 2042” and became NYU’s “Artist in Residence” for the year. Kondabolu is a frequent guest on public radio shows including “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered” among others He has solidified his presence in the See KONDABOLU on page 15

Kondabolu, who comes from a liberal arts background similar to VC, explores racism and sexism in his comedy.

He began exploring comedy in college and has grown to be nationally acclaimed political comedian.

The Bardavon hosts VC’s premier dancers

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Drakeley scores herself a spot in the SPORTS over-1000 club.

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The Miscellany News

March 5, 2015

Off to the far reaches of the globe for Spring Break?

Ready to set your eyes on the sights?

Editor-in-Chief Palak Patel

Senior Editor Noble Ingram

Contributing Editors Bethan Johnson Meaghan Hughes Marie Solis

Sam Pianello/The Miscellany News

Contribute to our travel section! Email masolis@vassar.edu for more information!

Rhys Johnson Joshua Sherman Emma Rosenthal Chris Gonzalez Zach Rippe Samantha Pianello Gwendolyn Frenzel Maddy Vogel Ashley Pecorelli

Crossword Editors Collin Knopp-Schwyn York Chen Alycia Beattie Assistant Features Julia Cunningham Claire Standaert Assistant Sports Erik Quinson Assistant Design Sarah Dolan Assistant Social Media Hannah Nice Reporters Amreen Bhasin Eloy Bleifuss Prados Emily Hoffman Ashley Hoyle Charles Lyons-Burt Connor McIllwain Yifan Wang Columnists Sophia Burns Delaney Fischer Sam Hammer Penina Remler Sarah Sandler Emily Sayer Design Sixing Xu Photography Cassady Bergevin Alec Ferretti Emily Lavieri-Scull Copy Hallie Ayres Claire Baker Antigone Delton Christa Guild Shelia Hu Anika Lanser Macall McQueen Alessandra Muccio Marya Pasciuto Kelsey Quinn Jessica Roden Emma Roellke Sophia Slater Rebecca Weir Laura Wigginton

Sam Pianello/The Miscellany News

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News Opinions Arts Humor & Satire Sports Photography Online Social Media Copy

LETTERS POLICY The Miscellany News is Vassar College’s weekly open forum for discussion of campus, local and national issues, and welcomes letters and opinions submissions from all readers.

Letters to the Editor should not exceed 350 words, and they usually respond to a particular item or debate from the previous week’s issue. Opinions articles are longer pieces, up to 800 words, and take the form of a longer column. No letter or opinions article may be printed anonymously. If you are interested in contributing, e-mail misc@vassar.edu.

March 5, 2015

NEWS

Page 3

Dutchess County political figures illuminate voting issues Chris Pompetzki Guest Reporter

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courtesy of WRVO

n Sunday, March 1, Vassar’s chapter of Democracy Matters invited several local political figures to speak to members of the Vassar community and Poughkeepsie residents about the issues related to electioneering and voter registration, topics of serious national debate in recent years due to the consistent contesting of student votes in the Hudson Valley.

Speakers included Director of the Dutchess County League of Women Voters Dare Thompson, Green Party member and former candidate for the recent New York Gubernatorial election Howie Hawkins and Dutchess County legislator Joel Tyner. The panel viewed and discussed the need for change in the local electoral system in regards to voter registration in order to foster and encourage more open and thus more democratic, elections. “[W]e wanted to get perspective from all levels of the political process (local and statewide) as well as from a non-partisan entity/political observer,” President of the Vassar chapter of Democracy Matters Adam Eichen ’15 commented in an emailed statement. “We thought that having a couple politicians would be worthwhile, as they can provide an insider’s perspective and having someone from the League of Women Voters would be an excellent counter to any partisanship.”

As a student organization tasked with fostering greater democratization of the American political system, the Vassar chapter of Democracy Matters invited these three speakers to campus in order to benefit from their unique perspectives on voting issues at the local level.

The speakers placed particular emphasis on the importance of keeping large amounts of money out of politics, which tends to rig elections in favor of certain candidates.

Among the issues discussed was that of proportional representation, an electoral system that panelists felt most accurately reflects constituencies and improves general voter regis-

tration for students and residents of Dutchess County. Speaking at the panel, Hawkins touched on possible ways to combat this development.

He said, “It’s really hard to gerrymander a proportional system.”

Hawkins has long been a critic of the current system of political representation and, he noted, uses his website as a method of informing potential supporters and other voters to discuss his beliefs on appropriate forms of electoral representation.

He shared his vision: “Replace the two-party system of corporate rule with multi-party democracy. End single-member-district, winnertake-all system that creates one-party district and a two-party legislature. Adopt proportional representation for the state Assembly and Senate in order to give every party legislative representation in proportion to the vote it receives.”

Eichen remarked, “If Vassar students chose to show up for some of these issues, then we really can actually change things.” He added, “Every year you have to re register to vote at Vassar because there are three different districts.”

Eichen also mentioned, “The registration process is difficult in Dutchess County, especially for Vassar students.” He explained the way in which voting districts work on campus, which essentially have been gerrymandered.

The school is divided into three different voting wards based on which dorm a student lives in, which Democracy Matters considers to be suspect from a non-partisan perspective, and some believe results in the suppression of the student vote.

A common theme at the panel was the importance of students as a voting block. Discussed by the speakers was the possibility of incorporating Vassar into a singular district, which would make the student vote more vocal and organized. It seems that the current voting districts, drawn up by an outside consultant, hinder Vassar’s participation in the electoral process rather than encourage it.

Eichen said, “If you stay within the same

Former New York Gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins spoke to Vassar students on Mar. 1 as part of a panel discussing concerns regarding accessibility and engagement in regional politics. dorm, it’s ambiguous, but certainly if you move from say Joss to Noyes, then you actually have to sign an affidavit because you’d actually be going to different voting places.”

As a possible solution to many of these problems, instant runoff voting was a prominent topic at the panel. Essentially, this refers to a preferential voting system in which people are allowed to select multiple candidates, ranked in order of preference. If enough votes do not accrue to a voter’s first-choice candidate such that there is a possibility of victory, then the vote moves on to the next candidate.

Tyner emphasized the value of such a system, which he feels would improve the state of democracy especially at the local level. Speaking at the panel, Tyner said, “There is just so much cynicism and apathy.” He added, “So just

have hope.” At the event, he announced his new Change.org petition, which he encouraged Vassar students interested in making changes to sign. He will be circulating it online as well as on campus for those who wish to see an instant runoff voting system implemented around Dutchess County.

Thompson, a longtime member of the League of Women Voters said, “redistricting has made the elections a foregone conclusion.” She added, “The most effective thing you can do is get to know the people who represent you. You can be a part of your government.” As issues of democratization continue to gain notoriety around Vassar, her remarks and indeed those of all the panelists conveyed a positive message of hope and progress for the future of the American political system.

Admin. unaware of new adjunct’s alleged misdemeanors PROFESSOR continued from page 1

killed by someone employed or protected by the government of the United States. Other communities are also criminalized, targeted, attacked and brutalized. We want an immediate end to state sanctioned violence against our communities.”

According to police and media reports, Gorn and a group of five other academics who were participating in the protest allegedly interfered with attempts by Lieutenants Phillip Chan and Patrick Sullivan to arrest Baruch College adjunct professor Eric Linsker.

Accounts of what prompted this arrest differ. As the Daily News states, “[Linkser] attempted to throw a garbage can over the bridge railing” (The New York Daily News, “Woman surrenders in assault of two cops during Brooklyn Bridge protest,” 12.21.14).

The New York Post, however, wrote of a different sequence of events, writing that as protesters marched across the bridge, Linsker attacked the police officers. They wrote, “[Linkser] had thrown a garbage can at two lieutenants during the mayhem” (The New York Post, “Fourth Suspect Surrenders in Cop-Bashing,” 12.20.14).

Although the circumstances surrounding the assault on these officers feature some degree of conflicting reports, all of them confirm that both officers received lacerations and bruising from the incident, and Lieutenant Chan suffered a broken nose.

When asked about the particulars of the incident on the bridge and the allegations against her, Gorn declined to comment.

In the days following the alleged incidents on the Brooklyn Bridge, the New York City Police Department offered a $12,000 reward for information leading to Gorn’s, there identified as “Female Suspect #2,” arrest and subsequent conviction.

The reward bulletin, which featured a photograph of the six suspects taken from a video of the alleged incident, reads, “The suspects shown below are being sought by the NYPD for questioning regarding the events that led to the Assaults of two NYPD Lieutenants on

the Brooklyn Bridge during a protest on Saturday, December 13, 2014.”

According to reports by The Daily News, on Dec. 20, Gorn voluntarily surrendered at the Manhattan 5th Precinct station house with her attorney and was quickly arraigned on one count of resisting arrest and on one count of obstructing governmental administration.

The New York Post has claimed that Gorn was the second of the six suspects that opted to turn themselves in.

In accordance with the procedure of an arraignment, Gorn was allegedly informed of the charges against her, and the court released her on bail the same day. Information from the New York Unified Court System states that Gorn was released on promises to appear on $1,500 bond or $1,000 cash. This bail amount was continued again when Gorn appeared in court on Feb. 17.

Although the police lieutenants have asserted that they were assaulted as they moved to arrest Linsker, Gorn has not been charged with assault. Rather, Gorn only faces two charges related to her alleged participation in preventing Linsker’s arrest and then resisting her own arrest.

The New York State penal code states, “A person is guilty of obstructing governmental administration when he intentionally obstructs, impairs or perverts the administration of law or other governmental functions or prevents or attempts to prevent a public servant from performing an official function.”

Meanwhile, the New York penal code notes that, “A person is guilty of resisting arrest when he intentionally prevents or attempts to prevent a police officer or peace officer from effecting an authorized arrest of himself or another person.”

According to an emailed statement by a former New York City criminal lawyer who is unaffiliated with Gorn’s case or any specific details of the case, “During my time...the resisting arrest count was usually added at the request of the arresting officer when the defendant had been ‘nicked up a little’ (by the arresting officer) during the apprehension.”

Both of these counts are Class A misdemeanors, meaning that conviction may potentially result in a period of imprisonment. The penal code reads, “[Conviction could result in] a sentence to a term of imprisonment in excess of fifteen days may be imposed, but for which a sentence to a term of imprisonment in excess of one year cannot be imposed.”

The variance in potential sentencing, the legal professional noted, can be partially accounted for when factoring in the arrest record of the defendant. According to reports, Gorn has no prior arrests.

Although arrested and arraigned prior to being hired by Vassar, thus allowing for her current affiliation with the College to remain unreported by the media, this case has proceeded as Gorn continues to work as an adjunct professor this semester within the Earth Science and Geography Department.

On Feb. 17, the case against Gorn continued in the New York Criminal Court and a future court date has been scheduled during Vassar’s academic year.

According to multiple sources within the Administration, Gorn’s arrest and case have not been reported to the office of the Dean of the Faculty. While Gorn stated that she had informed her department and department chair of the impending case, the Chair of the Earth Science and Geography Department Joseph Nevins would neither confirm nor deny that he was aware of such charges against this member of his department.

In an emailed statement, Dean Chenette explained, “According to the Faculty Handbook, anticipated faculty absences from a scheduled class must be approved by the department chair. Absences of more than two days require my approval. Otherwise I would see no need for a faculty member in the situation you describe, or the department chair, to notify me.”

Although the Administration claims that it is not currently aware of the charges Gorn faces, the College’s policy on permitting faculty members facing criminal charges to continue teaching remains education-focused.

In a written statement from Chenette given

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

to The Miscellany News by Director of Media Relations and Public Affairs Jeff Kosmacher, Chenette explains, “Vassar supports the right of individuals to free speech, including peaceful protest. If the college were to learn that a faculty member is under criminal investigation, we would weigh the circumstances to determine whether the alleged activity or its investigation interferes with the faculty member’s fitness to teach.”

He also noted in his emailed statement, “If the professor is able to make it for classes and teaching-related duties, the situation you describe would not impinge on the individual’s fitness to teach.”

Gorn’s statements also reveal her belief that her current legal situation falls into the parameters laid out by Chenette. She explained in an emailed statement, “[T]his [case] has had no impact on anything...My department knows, but since it has no bearing on my teaching there is no reason for them to have a perspective.”

Several of Gorn’s students stated that they had not noticed the case impacting their professor’s teaching ability or general availability to students, even after learning about the case from Gorn herself. A student in one of Gorn’s classes wrote in an emailed statement, “I don’t think it’s impacting her ability to teach, mostly because of the situation revolving her arrest. Most of the geography classes I’ve taken at Vassar encourage students to think critically about capitalism, racism, government and authority. We’re encouraged to think critically about the world and be part of a process that makes it better.”

The student continued, “She got arrested during an Eric Garner protest because she stands by her beliefs. I think she’s setting an example for students. Obviously she’s not telling us to get arrested too, but the grounds of her arrest are admirable if you ask me.”

Gorn will continue to teach her courses as scheduled as her case proceeds into the rest of the semester. On April 7, another hearing in Gorn’s case is scheduled to take place in New York City.

NEWS

Page 4 Outside the Bubble Video Shows LAPD Officers Shooting Man

Video has emerged of an altercation between four Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers and an allegedly homeless man that resulted in the fatal shooting of the man. While the Chief of Police, Charlie Beck, has publicly stated his belief that the officers involved followed the necessary procedural steps to avoid use of deadly force and argued that the man’s actions precipitated the use of such measures, others remain critical of the officers’ actions.

According to Commander Andrew Smith, who leads the city’s task force in “Skid Row,” the incident began after the police officers had received a call about a potential robbery in the area. The Los Angeles Times reports that Smith described how, following the initial contact with the man, he “began fighting and physically resisting the officers” (“LAPD fatal shooting of man caught on tape,” 03.01.15). Police reports state that officers then attempted to take the man into custody and, when unable to restrain him through other methods, sought to subdue him using a taser, which Commander Smith said was “ineffective” (LA Times).

Both LAPD reports and the witness video show that following attempts to restrain the man, multiple officers and the victim struggled to the ground. At this point, officers claim, the man tried to take one of the officer’s guns. After this, The LA Times reports, officers shot at least five times, killing the victim. Two of the officers sought treatment for injuries stemming from the altercation.

The police have tentatively identified the individual as a man who went by the street name “Africa” and are investigating claims that he was homeless. Witnesses have confirmed their belief that the victim lived with mental health issues. Further investigation is underway to determine whether the officers followed procedure by both the police department and the Los Angeles district attorney’s office.

According to NPR, LAPD Chief Charlie Burke has refused to release the officers’ body camera videos to the public. The video in wide circulation on the Internet is that of a witness who stated he turned on the camera after officers threatened to taser the victim. The police investigation will also utilize witness testimony, as investigators have stated that many people saw the incident transpire.

Beck said in a press conference, “I think that this is an awful tragedy, but the officers took— on the face of it—reasonable steps to avoid it.

Had the individual not grabbed the officer’s pistol, certainly we would not be having this discussion” (CNN, “Witness who took video: Man killed by LAPD didn’t reach for officer’s gun,” 03.02.15). On Monday, after reviewing the footage, Burke said, “It appears to me the officers acted compassionately up until the time when force was required” (NPR).

Among the most contested aspects of this shooting was that of the allegation that the man struggled for an officer’s gun, which the police say elicited the use of deadly force. In evidence presented in a press conference on Sunday night, Beck showed pictures of the alleged weapon and stated that it showed that the slide had been partially engaged and the magazine had been dislodged. However, some witnesses to the shooting reject this narrative. A friend of the victim told CNN that the man was never known to be violent, nor would he have reason to try to harm the officers.

This case has also gained notoriety because of its links to the treatment of those with diagnosed and undiagnosed mental health issues.

According to witnesses, the victim lived with severe depression; witness and acquaintance of the man Tonya Edwards told local reports, “[He had] a lot of mental issues,” while a friend said, “He was very depressed, very very depressed, very depressed. But he had a good side to him, a good heart” (CNN).

In the aftermath of the shooting, local organizers held a nighttime protest in Pershing Square to highlight their belief in the unnecessary nature of the bloodshed. General Jeff Page, a man identified by the Los Angeles Times as the “mayor” of the neighborhood, said “The heavens are crying right now…[Africa was] one of our loved ones” (LA Times).

– Bethan Johnson, Contributing Editor

March 5, 2015

Students see race as factor in security firing OFFICER continued from page 1 bers of the SOT planned the banquet dinner’s protest to demand that he be reinstated.

Although Safety and Security management reportedly told Williams that he was being fired because many believed he did not work well with others and because he did not take constructive criticism well, many students have expressed skepticism of the validity of those claims, as well as whether they or not they are actual reasonable grounds for termination.

According to SOT member Alexandra Deane ’15, Williams had been the target of a racist comment made within his earshot by another security guard in November, and, despite Director of Safety and Security Kim Squillace’s alleged desire to keep the matter within the department, soon after sought to voice his concerns to the College’s Title IX officer, Julian Williams, who is of no relation to Kemar Williams.

After meeting with Julian Williams about the incident, Kemar Williams was reportedly told to watch out, and that his actions were garnering negative attention from his superiors, despite the fact that his coworker was found guilty of having made a racially discriminatory comment to him.

Several weeks later, Deane reported, an evaluation of Williams was written by one of the same supervisors who had been involved in the handling of the incident. Although previous reports had supposedly had few critical things to say about his job performance, the evaluation allegedly described Williams as having a bad attitude, being unable to take direction well and failing to get along with his coworkers.

Deane, among others, question the motives of such an assessment. She commented, “[Williams’] fellow officers, who were involved in training him and who had worked with him for that six-month period, were not consulted for that evaluation, and upon [the SLD] consulting them, have said that these claims are outrageous, that Kemar is a good officer who is professional and hardworking and has always demonstrated willingness to improve.”

Williams, who had reached the last week of the six-month probationary period of employment

with Safety and Security, during which time recently hired officers have no union protection, was fired late last Thursday night. That day, the head of Safety and Security’s union Zakiyyah Salahuddin, who has been known to rally workers around such things as unjust terminations, was out of town on vacation, a fact many members have called attention to as not coincidental.

Deane, speaking for the SLD, posited that Williams’ only offenses were two missed days of work, for one of which he had a doctor’s note, and an instance of tardiness, when he had simply overslept. The SLD argues that the Safety and Security’s claims about his ability to work with others were, according to some of Williams’ trainers and coworkers, with whom SLD members had been in contact, unfounded.

The students involved in the protest assert that the firing was instead the result of Williams’ readiness to speak up about racial issues within the Department of Safety and Security, and is thus itself a racial issue. A flyer distributed by the SLD said, “We’ve been told that this campus is a place where we can speak out for justice and against violence, and that we will be supported. But when Kemar spoke out against the racism he experienced on campus, he was punished. The firing of Kemar is an injustice that the College cannot let go unchecked.”

Deane commented, “Kemar used these official legal channels to stand up for himself and then was fired in the middle of the night when the person who would be most likely to stand with him was out of town. Something feels really fishy there, and ultimately he was punished for standing up for himself in his workplace, and for standing up against the kind of everyday racist stuff that happens when you’re a Black person working in a primarily white workplace.”

Some within the Administration, despite staunch criticism from students on the issue, have generally reacted positively to Thursday’s protest. At a VSA Council meeting on March 1, Vice President for Finance and Administration Robert Walton said, “I think the overwhelming reaction of the whole board was that they were very impressed with the protest. It was respective

[sic] and well-intentioned. Many members were moved by the speeches that were made. It was the best of what Vassar does.”

Kim Squillace declined to comment on this particular subject.

The Board of Trustees even opted to respond directly to the SLD and the student protesters.

Their response, published on The Miscellany News website on March 2, however, reaffirmed their confidence in the Administration’s decision regarding Williams’ employment status.

“We would like to thank you [the SOT] for your respectful and passionate expressions of concern to members of the Board of Trustees regarding the recent termination of employment of a member of the campus Safety and Security Department following his probationary period, and for your deep concern for how individual members of Vassar’s staff are treated,” the letter read. “[I]n order to assure ourselves and our community that respect, fairness, and justice were all part of this personnel decision, we have looked into the decision and discussed it with members of the senior administration of the college, including the Director of the college’s Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action.”

The message continued, “Based on our inquiries and review of the individual’s 90-day probationary period, we confirm that this termination was based on performance issues only, was not retaliatory in nature, and that the administration acted with respect, fairness, judiciousness, and without bias of any kind.”

The Board’s response did not come as a surprise to many students who view it as a typical move from the College’s leadership to try to shy from responsibility for critical administrative decisions. “What we are saying is that it’s very clear that the Administration, the Department of Safety and Security is not handling this in a just way,” Deane asserted.

As of now, the fate of Williams’ future at Vassar remains unclear, although the College has announced no intentions of reviewing the matter further. The SLD, however, will continue to press for his reinstatement as an issue of the rights of employees on campus to fair, equitable treatment.

MEChA calls for inclusivity in admissions Emily Hoffman Reporter

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n Monday, March 2, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlan (M.E.Ch.A.) de Vassar, a cultural organization on campus, sent a letter of demands to President Catharine Hill regarding the College’s enrollment and financial policies when admitting undocumented students. The letter was also sent to Dean of the College Chris Roellke, Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Art Rodriguez and Chair of the Committee on Inclusion and Excellence Zachariah Mampilly.

M.E.Ch.A. de Vassar is a chapter of a national organization that formed out of the struggles of the Chicana/o activist movement in California during the 1960s. At Vassar, the organization has been in existence since 1999, and as of 2008 it has operated non-hierarchically, under a consensus-based decision-making model.

According to its website, M.E.Ch.A. de Vassar rejects all forms of oppression, such as racism and white supremacy, classism and imperialism, homophobia and heteronormativity, and sexism and patriarchy.

Specifically, it seeks to intervene in these structural forms of oppression as they are manifested within the multiple Chicana/o, Mexican and other Latina/o ethnicities, and Native American communities. The group conceptualizes this motivation, then, as the liberation of Aztlan.

Furthermore, M.E.Ch.A. sees education as an integral part of this process; thus, it is committed to increasing the presence of affinity groups on campus, and also creating an open and autonomous space wherein thought and action can be united in praxis.

The letter began by commending Vassar’s commitment to increasing the accessibility of higher education through its need-blind policy and generous financial aid. It points out that despite this commitment, however, both Vassar and the state of New York have limited access to a particular population in the United States: undocumented students. An estimated

146,000 youth in New York who have been educated in New York State public schools are currently ineligible to receive financial aid under federal and state law. Of the more than 4,500 undocumented students who graduate from New York high schools every year, only 5-10 percent pursue a college degree due to tremendous financial obstacles.

Those who would benefit from the bill must meet specific requirements, including having attended a New York State high school for at least two years and graduated, or obtained a New York State GED, and having enrolled in a college or university in the state of New York within five years of graduating. Also required of the bill’s targets is affirmation of the intent to apply for legal status upon their ability to do so and fulfillment of the Higher Education Services Corporation’s requirements for the Tuition Assistance Program (New York State Youth Leadership Council, “New York DREAM Act [A.2597 / S.2378] Information Sheet”).

The letter requests that Vassar commit to not only accepting undocumented students, but to support the New York State Dream Act and to change Vassar’s existing policies in regards to undocumented college applicants.

The New York State Dream Act would allow undocumented students, who meet in-state tuition requirements, access to more financial aid and scholarship opportunities. The Dream Act would grant undocumented students eligibility for the New York State Tuition Assistance Program.

The passing of the Dream Act, which has been supported by school officials at a number of Vassar’s sister institutions, would not only allow undocumented Vassar students to receive state funding, but it would allow private funds to be legally and transparently raised for undocumented students who choose to attend private institutions of higher learning. Furthermore, the letter attests that support for the Dream Act would exemplify Vassar’s strong commitment to increasing and sustaining diversity and working toward a more egalitarian

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

and inclusive community.

The letter specifies a list of requests that M.E.Ch.A. would like to be implemented following a letter of support. The list includes requests for a public press release from the President’s Office detailing Vassar College’s support for the New York State Dream Act, a campus-wide e-mail announcing the College’s commitment to increasing access to undocumented students and a change in admissions policies to evaluate the applications of undocumented students as domestic students, following a need-blind admissions policy.

Among the requests were a commitment to provide the full financial need for undocumented students to attend Vassar and the creation of a fund that would allow financial assistance for undocumented students who wish to apply for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which is a memorandum that allows for a two-year work permit and access to a driver’s license for undocumented immigrants that have arrived to the United States as children.

Also mentioned was the desire for the provision of a College administrator, who would be required to understand current immigration policies and would have to be able to advise students on how to navigate the United States legal system without being a documented citizen, as a resource for undocumented students, and the desire for a more transparent policy regarding undocumented students at Vassar.

This would include more specific information concerning the policy on the admissions website and having the information available to current students, trustees, alumni and other members of the community.

M.E.Ch.A. member and supporter of the letter Guillermo Valdez ’15 commented in an emailed statement, “Art [Rodriguez] and Cappy expressed their interest in changing the college’s policies and making them more inclusive towards undocumented students, so hopefully this can be the start of some real positive changes to the campus climate.”

March 5, 2015

FEATURES

Page 5

Keeping up with Vassar: Kutner blogs like mad post-grad Julia Cunningham

Assistant Features Editor

I

courtesy of Max Kutner

t’s hard, as students, to lift our noses out of our textbooks and stay interested in the world around us. There often is enough drama around campus to keep us satisfied that the world is indeed, still spinning. The Vassar Bubble was not an issue for Max Kutner, who graduated in 2011. Since his humble beginnings as a campus blogger, Kutner has spent his life digging for more information on topics ranging from Lana Del Ray to archaeology, captive tigers, railroads and derailments, or farm labor camps, purely for the sake of knowledge.

Kutner’s earliest work came in the form of mere 100-word posts on his blog, Mads Vassar.

Kutner started the blog out of his dorm just two weeks into his freshman year. “It was 2007, and blogging was sort of the thing to do then. Paris Hilton had just gotten big, as funny as that sounds now, Twitter wasn’t around, people were using Facebook differently, and at Vassar, the Misc only updated every two weeks with the biggest stories from the issue on a Thursday,” Kutner said. “And so to get campus news, you kind of had to wait for the physical Misc to come out every week, and then that was it.”

Mads Vassar was an idea Kutner and some of his friends came up with on a bored afternoon.

There was a void on campus when it came to getting information around, and, using Perez Hilton as their inspiration, Mads Vassar took off. “It is the, you might want to fact check this, but it is the Danish form of Matthew,” Kutner explained about the “Mads.” He wanted something with both an ethnic sounding name and the Vassar name, like “Perez Hilton.” A brief inspection of Google Translate confirmed that Mads was, indeed, Danish.

Kutner continued, “And then, as the semesters went on, probably three semesters into doing this blog, it became clear that people were interested and people started getting in touch with tips, and it really improved.”

In 2010, Mads Vassar Blog went on to receive eCollegeFinder.org’s Freshmen Advisor Award, recognizing it as the one of the top 50 Internet-based resources offering young students advice toward advancing their college life.

“That [blog] was, I think, my first experience.

And then, after college, into university, it kind of made it more into journalism,” Kutner went on to say.

Mads Vassar offered everything from the latest campus gossip among students to more serious topics of speakers coming to campus or even off-campus news. In 2008, Kutner wrote pieces both on the vanishing Class of 2013 Facebook Page and kept a live update of the presidential election. The only post that was more popular than Obama’s victory was a debate about removing Coca-Cola products from campus. In May of 2011, Kutner’s senior year, the blog was filled with senior bucket lists and “The Top 10 Things Only Seniors Remember.”

With Mads Vassar, Kutner created a personalized social media, now with an archive of nearly 3,000 posts, to keep the Vassar student body in the loop.

Even two years out of Vassar, Kutner was still drawn back periodically. “It took awhile to get comfortable with not blogging anymore,” Kutner said. “Every time there’s a national news

story about Vassar, I want to blog about it again, and I’ve had to get out of the habit of doing so.”

Two years ago, Kutner had the chance to create another blog when the incident with the Westboro Baptist Church prompted his creation of the Tumblr, MadsAfterVassar.

“Everyone was talking about it, it went viral, and I thought, well, I need to do something,” Kutner said of the church protesting the gay population at Vassar. “So I started a Tumblr called Mads After Vassar. It would be similar to how I blogged, but kind of, a little bit different. And then I kept that going until I started at Columbia.”

While at Vassar, Kutner was a film major with a focus on documentary films. He never saw much connection between his blogging and his documentaries, however. “I never really thought of myself as a journalist until after school,” Kutner said.

After working freelance jobs, he went back to school at Columbia journalism school to study documentary-making. “It definitely felt like a weird time to be going to journalism school, and it’s something that came up every day,” Kutner said. “You’ll find magazines are closing, magazines are downsizing.”

He ended up taking a course on magazine writing while at Columbia, however, that changed his life forever. After Columbia, he went back to writing freelance. “Until about a year ago, I just wrote for wherever I could.

So that’s Buzzfeed, Thought Catalog, so many different places. I wrote for this one called The Gate Report, which now I don’t even think exists anymore,” Kutner said. “I had a feature in Boston Magazine, also. I guess in my early years of doing this it was just about getting my work out there.”

In the end, his strategy worked. Kutner explained that, even writing for free, you can still exhibit your work. “I find, first of all, its much easier to see your work pay off, or the fruits of your labor, in magazines,” Kutner said.

“Because even if you’re just freelancing, you can just write this story, and within a couple of weeks you can see it on newsstands.”

He continued, “Which is what I found with my first Newsweek cover story, which was “Death on a Farm,” which I wrote when I was still a student as a freelancer. And I got very, very lucky and I’m very gracious for having that piece out there.”

“Death on a Farm” was a story inspired by a documentary Kutner worked on the summer of 2009 before his junior year. “Farmer’s markets were becoming more popular, now obviously they’re everywhere, but five or six years ago it was still kind of a new, interesting thing. And there was this really wet summer and the recession had just happened, and I thought, I wonder how all these things all affected farmers? So I just drove out east on Long Island, where I’m from, and just spent a couple of days with them and did this documentary,” Kutner said.

The piece became something that Kutner found himself returning to time and time again.

“And then, I think, a few months later at Vassar when I read about this farmer’s suicide, which was he killed fifty-two of his cows before killing himself, which is a really traumatic incident, that story stuck with me,” Kutner said.

Four years later, he was able to write “Death on

Max Kutner ’11, creator of Mads Vassar, started blogging about Vassar two weeks into his freshman year.

He never realized how big the blog would get and that it would be a hub of VC information far into the future. a Farm” while at Columbia, which was the first of his many Newsweek cover stories.

“And now, kind of, what I’m finding in journalism, is that once you do one story, especially one big feature, then you always go to that subject area again,” Kutner said. “So I’m now the agriculture guy at Newsweek.” Just three weeks ago, he wrote another Newsweek cover article about sex trafficking on farms and farm labor camps as a follow-up to his “Death on a Farm” piece.

Kutner writes about topics that he is interested in knowing more about himself. “The stories I do now, some are assigned by editors, especially if its a breaking news story, but a lot of it is just what I would want to know about, and just what isn’t being covered,” he explained.

“My favorite thing is when I have a story idea and then I go to Google it, and no one’s ever done it before.”

Many of the topics he picks up come from snippets from his own previous articles. “So there’s always a moment when you Google it and see no results and think, there’s no story there. But, maybe you’ll see a line in another story or source that tells you a tip that you have to follow up on that lets you know that it is out there somewhere.”

Creating the types of features that Kutner does is an extended process, but not one without its rewards. “This sex trafficking story that just came out, I spent seven months working on it. For a typical feature like that, like “Death on a Farm,” I’ll talk to a hundred people and spend just months and months and months working on it and traveling around,” Kutner said.

“There’s a fun moment that I’ve come to as a magazine writer that, when you’re interviewing experts, once you interview a certain number,

courtesy of Mads Vassar Blog

‘Mads at Vassar’, a blog run by Max Kutner ‘11 during his time as a student informally documented life at Vassar. Kutner decided to extend this journalistic pursuit with a tumblr called ‘Mads after Vassar’ that makes an effort to chronicle some of the contemporary issues that play out on campus today.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

then you start to realize that you know more than they do.”

“And then, after the story comes out, people will have you as an expert on NPR, or I just did a radio interview last week that’s going to be on seventy stations or something,” Kutner eaborated on this role reversal. “MSNBC had me on a few weeks ago to talk about tigers, so it’s fun. You become the expert.”

Kutner has put all of this focus on magazine writing, and has not gone back to his blogs since he left school. “Blogging now is kind of thought of as something. I learned academically while in journalism school that blogging was very much tied to the 2008 election,” he said with a touch of irony. “You had these sites like Blogspot, which is what I used for Mads Vassar coming up, whereas in the years after, it became more about microblogging, and more about Twitter and Tumblr.”

He added, “And now, its even more micro than that. And what I hear from my current Vassar student friends, that you’re all, I’m going to sound like an old man when I say this, but you’re all on all these apps and stuff now.

And even just four or five years ago when I was in school, very few people even had iPhones.”

For all that the forms reporting has taken have changed, Kutner feels comfortable where he is. “But pretty much for the first time since graduating in 2011, I feel like I’m at the start of my career. Whereas until now, its felt like I’m working towards that start,” He said.

He still finds himself back where he started, though. “Some people have emailed me in recent years, the SEO [for Mads Vassar] as they call it is very good, so it always comes up on the search website,” Kutner said, “So some of the posts will come up from its very early days when it was a little more gossipy, and people are asking me still now to take those down because if someone Googles their name, it’ll be a post about them at a Noyes party, and we’re all trying to be adults now.”

Kutner also reported on the Wesleyan MDMA scare. He easily could have covered this same piece at Vassar, he said. “I immediately thought, that would’ve been a story that I covered six or seven years ago at Vassar, and now I was able to cover it for millions of online readers,” Kutner said. “I even hit up some of my old Wesleyan sources that I had used when I was at Mads Vassar, and they remembered me.

So still doing that same sort of news.”

Despite the ever-changing and always uncertain industry in which he works, Kutner isn’t worried. “But I had a professor, and now a mentor, who told me that, and told us that, you can’t really think about the industry at large, or even your company at large. You just have to think about writing good stories and doing good work,” Kutner said. With a long list of achievements already behind him, Kutner certainly has compiled some good work.

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March 5, 2015

Seniors ‘kick the bucket’ with list of goals for final semester Marie Solis

Contributing Editor

T

he countdown to graduation has begun.

With 100 Nights come and gone, now is as good a time as any for seniors to start getting serious about their bucket lists, or wish lists for experiences—ranging from the adventurous to the mundane—for their final semester at Vassar.

And, as VC Senior Scramble is officially in business, a rudimentary version of Tinder to match Vassar students, many seniors have sex on the brain.

When I sent out an email to over 50 seniors asking that they share their bucket list items, Alix Masters ’15 was the first to respond.

“Have sex under the sex tree!” she wrote, alluding to the weeping willow tree outside Chicago Hall, the branches of which could easily conceal a couple coupling. It seems like a less-than-ideal spot for any activity, given the possibilities of grass and dirt, but it still endures in the Vassar imagination as an icon for campus deviancy.

“I heard about it freshman year,” Masters wrote. “Hasn’t everyone had sex there?”

(With a different kind of appreciation for nature in mind, she added she would also like to visit the Walkway Over The Hudson.)

Another senior lady, who wished to remain anonymous, said, “[I’d like to] have sex in the circle couches near the Art Library for the thrill.” Thinking about the logistics, she added, “I have to observe the space and then make a plan on how to do it, but I guess I’m just too paranoid.” Lorena Lomeli ’15 chimed in: “Sex in the meditation room or the roof of the library.”

Many have tried and many have failed— and students should tread lightly if they want to avoid finding a report of their sexual exploits on Yik Yak or, of course, in Safety & Security’s records.

Lomeli and Jesslyn Mitchell ’15 dream of

passing a J to a professor. “I just realized something on my bucket list is to smoke with a teacher,” wrote Mitchell. “I have a particular teacher in mind but we don’t have to go that far,” she teased.

For one anonymous student, the taboo of including a professor is unnecessary. Their bucket-list item was to “smoke in every building on campus.” Next time you dismiss the faint smell of weed in your Rocky classroom, you might have to think again: The student said she was close to clinching this goal.

Senior Class President Zoe Fullerton’s ’15 number-two bucket list item, however, isn’t so much prohibited as it might be frowned upon. “[I want to] steal a home fry off of someone else’s plate in the Retreat,” she wrote, specifying that it would be from someone she doesn’t know. Fullerton had some other food aspirations: “1. Eat one thing from the top row of the vending machine…3. Try everything at Tasty Tuesday.”

Chili Wednesday, another weekly campus dining staple, made Rachel Garbade’s ’15 anti-bucket list, among things she decidedly would like to continue avoiding for the rest of her time at Vassar. “I’ve never had chili Wednesday and I honestly don’t intend to, I’m not a big chili fan. My friends find this absolutely heretical,” she admitted.

Garbade has also managed to bypass two other staples of not only the Vassar experience but the college experience in general: all-nighters and coffee, the only way to sustain this state of sleeplessness. “I’ve also never pulled an all-nighter nor have I consumed any coffee, and I also don’t intend to do either of these, especially with my thesis out of the way!” Garbade said.

Guillermo Valdez ’15, however, is still in the throes of his thesis on the denationalization of the Mexican oil industry for Latino/a Studies. “The thesis has been stopping me from sleeping, so no night terrors yet, but I feel like

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they’re coming,” said Valdez when he shared that the second item on his reverse bucket list is “suffer from thesis-related nightmares.”

On Lomeli’s anti-bucket list was bathing in a Cushing bathtub; Mitchell said she hopes to never set foot into a party in sports houses.

Looking to the future, another reverse bucket list item for Valdez was being homeless in Brooklyn after graduation.

For Nathan Bazan ’15, freshman year looms in the back of the mind, try as he might to push it out.

“Bucket list entry: Finally unsubscribe from the email list for every org I added at the Activities fair freshman year, but never attended a meeting of. Anti bucket list: Never let the phrase ‘I wish I could go back to freshman year and start all over’ come out of my mouth, drunk or not,” he explained in an emailed statement.

At the student activities fair freshman year, Bazan signed up for at least 20 orgs and has never attempted to unsubscribe. “I think about doing it every week and then I just say, ‘Fuck it, I’ll do it tomorrow,’” he wrote.

As far as lamenting first-year missteps: “I’m just very satisfied with my time at Vassar and ready to move on. I don’t want to taint my enjoyment of my senior year by reminiscing on things I can’t get back.”

Alumna Ruth Bolster ’14 felt similarly, joking in a tweet that her senior year she kept only a “failed bucket list filled with regret and impossible dreams.” During her final months at Vassar, she and her housemates learned to take the concept of the Vassar bucket list with a grain of salt.

“Throughout my four years, the ‘bucket list’ was often the crux of jokes between me and my friends: You wanted to have sex in the library basement? After frolicking among the squirrels? And after smashing the server that houses Moodle with an aluminum bat?

Put it on the bucket list! And we’d all have

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

a good laugh,” wrote Bolster in an emailed statement.

When Bolster’s senior class president began sending out emails counting down the days to graduation with accompanying suggestions for students’ bucket lists, she was irked. She didn’t want to be reminded of how many days she had left until she was forced out into the unforgiving “real world,” decidedly without sex trees and Chili Wednesdays.

Nonetheless, it gave Bolster room to reflect on her time at Vassar, and she realized there were a few things she wanted to accomplish before it came to a close.

“Unfortunately, having sex in the library basement never made my real list, which instead included more wholesome activities like visiting the observatory and venturing out to DIA Beacon. But as my thesis picked up, I couldn’t even manage to do half of what I said I would do (I chalk that up to poor planning on my part),” she wrote.

Bolster said she took solace in the fact that, still living in the Northeast, she could return to the Hudson Valley and retroactively knock these things off of her bucket list. In spite of her shortcomings, Bolster said her senior year still proved memorable. As she put it, she chose to spend her time with her friends as a Vassar student, doing Vassar student things—something she won’t get a second chance to experience.

“With the exception of never making it to the observatory, I don’t have any regrets, though. I instead spent that time making memories with my friends—baking cookies and watching Netflix with Adam, having snack dates with Michael, staying up late and drinking wine with Jennifer—which I guess is the entire point of the bucket list,” Bolster reflected.

Bolster ended, “Flashy things can be fun, but sometimes the more lasting memories come from the things you do every day.”

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March 5, 2015

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Page 7

All writers reJoyce: a composition class for the non-major Eloy Bleifuss Prados Reporter

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t takes all kinds of people to make English 307. The Senior Creative Writing seminar is a 300-level, 12-person class open to all seniors.

In its six-year history, the class has attracted students who, despite not being English majors, are still passionate about producing innovative works of literature.

According to the course’s current instructor Professor of English Michael Joyce, nine out of the 12 students this term are non-majors, from fields as diverse as geography, German, biology, sociology and more. This is a departure from the other senior creative writing course Senior Creative Writing, which is a yearlong and open to only majors.

Joyce explained how all the different perspectives vitalize the classroom’s dynamics. A stu-

dent studying psychology will react differently to a piece of literature than a student studying geology, for example. “They come from a range of other disciplines and bring a kind of remarkable ferment to the seminar,” he said, adding, “People come to the course with a broader worldview: a view of the environment, a view of the makeup of the human being that is a little different.”

If it hadn’t been for a hurt shoulder, Brooke Robinson ’15 may never have taken Senior Creative Writing. The past summer, while Robinson was getting treatment for issues with her left shoulder, she got some unusual advice.

“My massage therapists said that my left side of my body was weaker than my right and she thought that meant that my right side of my brain [was] basically like weaker than my left and I needed to do more creative things in my life,” said Robinson.

courtesy of YouTube

Professor of English Michael Joyce is currently teaching the Senior Creative Writing seminar. The course is similar to senior comp., but is open to non-majors and doesn’t require a thesis-sized final product.

Although she wasn’t completely sold on her therapist’s medical diagnosis, it did get her curious. “I don’t know if taking creative writing classes helped my shoulder very much,” said Robinson. “But it was an interesting idea and made me think about why I don’t do more creative things.”

Robinson is a geography major, currently working on her thesis about agro-tourism and its effects on farmers in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. In her four years at Vassar, she had never taken a single creative writing class or even a single English class. Nonetheless, the fall of her senior year Robinson decided to apply to Senior Creative Writing.

The piece Robinson submitted in her application was a story set in the California-Nevada desert. She shared how her background in geography holds a subtle influence over her work as a creative writer. Her stories, for instance, tend to dwell on the power of place. “I think a lot of my writing connects characters to setting in a really emotional way,” said Robinson.

Simon Patané ’15, a physics and astronomy double major, convinced Robinson to send in an application. He is also enrolled in the class this term, though he focuses mainly on poetry. He said, “I think the reason I’m not an English major or a creative writing correlate is that I like to keep my writing separate from everything else.

I felt like if I had majored in English I wouldn’t have held onto writing as my hobby or passion.”

Joyce was one of the original forces behind the Senior Creative Writing seminar inception about six years ago. It began when he co-chaired the department with Associate Professor of English Peter Antelyes. Both were concerned by the lack of creative writing classes that were open to students, regardless of academic major. At that time, the English Department was only offering five creative writing classes, one short of the six required for a Creative Writing correlate.

The 2009/2010 College Course Catalog announced the new class: “Experimental first offering of an advanced writing course in parallel

with the long-established senior composition sequence…that represents the diversity of a contemporary writing.” The description acknowledges new course’s similarities to senior composition: Students had to submit an application and writing sample the prior semester; the class would be capped at 12 students. Yet its structure would be very different. Senior composition is a yearlong course; at its end, students present, say, a novel or a collection of short stories, and this finished submission counts as an English thesis.

Senior Creative Writing, however, is only one semester and the final is not a thesis-length work.

There are also subtler differences, ones concerned with the atmosphere and weekly writing prompts. Joyce prefers the term “salon” over a writing workshop. In designing the course he tries to use a model that can be easily replicated outside the classroom—even outside of Vassar.

“The joke I try to make, is ‘What is going to happen to you once you leave here? How do you keep up with your writing life when you move to Brooklyn or Portland or whichever place Vassar grads go?’” said Joyce.

Six years later, it is precisely the type of casual, multidisciplinary character to the classroom that the students found so enriching. A discussion about a piece of writing can lead to wildly disparate directions, from the dessert black pudding to human colonization of the desert planet Mars.

Looking towards postgraduation, both Patané and Robinson said they planned on continuing with their writing as a personal passion, even if not a career. Despite more than half the term remaining, Patané considers the Senior Creative seminar as one of the most fulfilling parts of his time at Vassar.

“I think it’s probably one of the best classes that I’ve taken so far. I really like science but you don’t get to talk about and explore the same things as you would in a creative writing class,” he said. “I chose this because I knew I had one last chance to talk about something that I probably wouldn’t be able to do in awhile and with a great group of people.”

After graduation, alums return to revitalize community DANCE continued from page 1

Africa, after 17 years apart.

“At the time, I saw my mother, who is poor and deals with mental illness, as a burden,” Ward recalled. “I was ashamed of her because I blamed her for her situation. By the end of my two months in Togo, I knew that harboring resentment toward her was hurting both of us.”

Ward learned how deeply she had internalized racist narratives and learned to redirect her experiences toward growth in her personal and academic life, as well as activist work. “I tried to intellectualize my experiences in sociology classes on colonialism in Africa and racial formations in the Americas,” she said. Ward added that she sought out family and friends; she talked through her experience with other biracial and multiracial students; she learned; she unlearned.

“I visited Cuba and started to learn more about liberation struggles of people of color. I got involved in more activism on campus and then, finally, off campus,” Ward explained.

“I’m still working through my experience, but the process led me to start taking more responsibility for my position in the world.”

Ward threw herself into the efforts of Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson, an anti-displacement organization. Most recently, the org succeeded in pushing through legislation that would hold big banks accountable for questionable loaning practices that often lead to evictions and foreclosures, a statute that is the first of its kind for the Hudson Valley.

Initiatives like this one decreases the number of “homes without people and people without homes,” as Sarah Slichter ’15 put it in a Miscellany News article from last semester (“NLMH combats city foreclosures.” 11.12.14).

Of the “the personal is the political,” “the political is the personal camp,” Ward’s work with the group not only helped spur meaningful change for community members, but also helped her make sense of some of her own experiences.

She elaborated, “Getting involved in Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson was a response to a

process of being politicized; growing up biracial in a white family, going to Togo, sorting through the contradictions at Vassar.”

Ward used networks created through her involvement with Nobody Leaves to garner her job with Community Voices Heard. She said, “I happily took the position because I knew folks who needed and rode the bus and I was becoming more committed to staying and working in the region.” She continued, saying that she became proactive with Community Voices Heard during the spring semester of her senior year as a fellow, riding buses throughout the county and simply talking to residents and hearing their stories.

“I talked to people about...what they wanted to see change,” said Ward. “I enjoyed it and I was learning a lot about the politics in the region. I also realized that organizing full time was a possibility.”

When the fellowship ended, Ward applied to work with the organization in Newburgh.

Now, as an organizer, she helps build power in low-income community through building and fighting for policy changes, funding shifts, and new programs that would positively impact the lives of those involved.

Much of her job involves advocating for Working in Newburgh, a program that connects training for residents directly to employment. “Day to day, I do outreach and conduct one-to-one relational meetings, member meetings, provide training on organizing and work on campaign development,” Ward said.

The world of community organizing also called out to Elizabeth Celaya ’02. Celaya is currently employed as the Director of Organizational & Community Development for Hudson River Housing. Over the last few years, Celaya’s primary focus has been on revitalizing Middle Main. Spearheading this project, Celaya worked on cleanup campaigns, facilitated community forums and applied for government funds.

“I oversee our Community Building & Engagement Department, and also help chart the course for future growth at the agency through strategic planning, partnership

development, and fundraising,” Celaya explained. Unlike Ward, though, Celaya grew up in the Dutchess County area, which she said was definitely a contributing factor to her postgraduation destination.

But while she was already familiar with the Hudson Valley, Celaya still had much to learn about the nonprofit landscape. She was first inspired to pursue a career in community development through her fieldwork experiences at Vassar and in the surrounding Poughkeepsie community.

“I did field work for a year and a half at Grace Smith House, and had a Burnam Fellowship there between my junior and senior year. That helped me get to know the local nonprofit community,” she said.

Now her Vassar education is working in reverse: Graduating as a Latin American studies major, Celaya said her studies at Vassar have proved invaluable when working in the community. She mentioned, “Understanding the culture and speaking Spanish have been huge assets in my position.” Celaya explained that in the neighborhood where they are focusing their efforts, Latino immigrants comprise 50 percent of it.

“Understanding the culture and speaking Spanish have been huge assets in my position,” emphasized Celaya. “It’s also great to realize that a degree like Latin American Studies can be put to use locally. Poughkeepsie is a very diverse city—when we are in Middle Main we often say it’s like travelling without a passport!”

Both Celaya and Ward have continued to make use of their Vassar network to collaborate and further their organizations’ goals.

Current students often seek out internships with Hudson River Housing, some probably beginning what will become a postgrad career for them as well.

Celaya said, “I like having the dual perspective of having been a student and working in the local nonprofit world.” Part of this, she emphasized, is acknowledging Vassar’s potential to impact the community it occupies.

Celaya has realized in her 14 years out of

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Vassar that Vassar is an important anchor institution for Poughkeepsie and has heard the community express pride in the college.

Though, there is work that could be done by the school.

“It would be great to see the college invest in the revitalization of downtown,” she explained, “and the impact that having students active living and learning downtown would make could really be a game-changer for Poughkeepsie.”

Ward said that her transition from Vassar student to area resident has helped her realize that Vassar students shouldn’t ask if they should become involved in the Poughkeepsie community, but rather how.

“I think its been important in my development as an organizer to be honest and self-critical while at the same time,” she said.

Ward noted that some steps have been made, and working with the organization for the long term has allowed her to see it grow.

“At the time I was working with Nobody Leaves, it was mostly student run with local homeowner participation. We were able to do community building, political education and direct action to fight to keep people in their homes. But there were many issues too,” she admitted. “The leadership was mostly white, middle class and mostly students from Vassar. Through self critique, external critique and training, the group evolved.”

In the future, Community Voices Heard seeks to expand county-wide. For now though, Ward relies on her cohort of colleagues to help her through the obstacles that come along with the job.

“The work is really difficult and I am very lucky because I have a network of organizers around me who are committed to the region and this type of work for the time being,” she said. “While I am committed to building a strong project in Orange County, I also realize that feeling connected to a support system is extremely important to me.”

Ward finished, “My advice to Vassar students, especially POC would be, don’t be afraid to dig in even if it’s messy at times.”

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March 5, 2015

Silent sex toy auction brings good vibrations to Rose Parlor Claire Standaert

Assistant Features Editor

A

three intense speeds of vibration and an easy push button control, its purpose is to—well, the toy’s title should give you an idea.

There were also homemade items at the auction. Williams made different lipsticks and soaps. For the lipstick, she used Shea butter, beeswax, essential oil, caster oil, and mica. All of these things combined created three different colored lipsticks—all with minty scents.

The soaps were called Lavender Chocolate Massage Bars. The name embodied the smell, a surprising odor of sweetness and nature in one. In fact, these body bars melt on your skin and turn into lotion.

It’s important to note, however, that none of the sex toys at the auction had been used.

On top of being donated by established companies, Squirm took an extra precaution and screened all the sex toys to make sure they were safe. Morgan Williams said, “My former co-president, who is taking this semester off, and I Skyped and we went through everything in the box and looked at the materials that everything was made with.”

All the products were high-end alternatives

to the synthetic and plastic materials, often toxic, commonly used in mass-produced gear.

For this reason, the original prices were very high. But, as doctors say when it comes to safe sex practices, better safe than sorry.

Squirm was also careful with what items they auctioned off. Williams said, “We had a couple things we were debating—what sort of image that we wanted to be portraying.” For example, they decided not to auction off a donated porn DVD because they weren’t able to know how it was made or the contracts involved in its production. Williams giggled, “Also, we had a sex doll of Sasha Grey and we were like ‘that’s a little weird…’” So they didn’t auction it off.

And to add the final touch, condoms were strewn around the sex toys on top of the furniture like sparkles litter a birthday bash table.

This sexy, provocative scene in Vassar’s Rose Parlor was so unusual and openly sexual that you couldn’t help but realize that regarding sex, the world is progressing, perspectives are changing, and kinky is in. Williams said, “I think sex is taken very seriously and it doesn’t have to be a serious thing. It can be fun.”

The Miscellany News

t 7 p.m. this past Saturday, there were things in the Vassar Rose Parlor not entirely rosy or parlorish. Sex toys sat atop the old, antique furniture. Vassar students walked around the dimly lit room, some just looking, some bidding on the different items: dildos, collars, bed restraints, anal beads, vibrators, harnesses, homemade lipstick and soap, a cock ring, a cane and a sleeve.

Vassar’s Squirm magazine, a literary and artistic magazine that explores unconventional perspectives on sex, was auctioning off these sex toys to raise money for their next issue.

Morgan Williams ’17, Squirm’s president, suggests the importance of their mission, “It [the magazine] showcases how Vassar students express sexuality and it’s free and available to everyone so people are able to have access to sexuality in a way that isn’t considered shameful.”

But there was no auctioneer at a podium calling out prices for this dildo or that vibrator to a crowd of eager, kinky students. No, instead there was a sheet of paper in front of each sex toy that a student could quietly and discreetly bid on.

The auction was set up so that all the sex toys and antique furniture were arranged in a large semi-circle around the Rose Parlor entrance that students could easily follow. As if in church, there wasn’t much talking. There were only occasional giggles, whispers, or questions.

Indeed, how nonconformist it was to house a sex toy auction in such a prim and proper place as the Vassar Rose Parlor. An overall sense of privacy and rebelliousness filled the room.

There were never more than 15 people in the Parlor at once. Some people went solo, some in groups, some in couples, with the male to female ratio slightly more tilted towards the women’s side.

At the first table was an impressive collection of dildos. The color choices were brown, marble, hot pink and beige. The size choices were “ouch,” “oh yeah” and “ooh-la-la.” Looking back, a first-time Vassar attendee giggled, “The dildos were like huge! I don’t know how…

how people use that.” The “state of erectness” ranged from squishy to hard to steel. Some dildos were eerily realistic, with veins running along the shaft and spongy testicles hanging at the bottom. Every dildo was 100 percent silicone, making the quality top notch. For some dildos, the original price was worth nearly 100 dollars. Students saying, “Wow, that’s expensive” was not at all uncommon to hear at the dildo table.

Moving along, you start to see BDSM toys.

It was an unusual sight seeing bed restraints, collars and a cane lying on the light blue sofa that so many Vassar students use as a place to study during the week. The bed restraints were made especially for Vassar beds by Vassar alum Gene Mercury, founder of Mercury BDSM Design. Resting on one of the couch’s armrests was a wooden cane, not at all the size of a cane used for walking. Rather, it was thin and about the length of an arm. The harnesses were made of leather, some stiff, some pliable. Not unexpectedly, many students altogether avoided this part of the auction. Expectedly, however, many students were intrigued by it.

If you ask Morgan Williams what she thinks of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” she’ll roll her eyes and say, “That book is about an abusive relationship.” She’ll talk about the trap people fall into when looking to this book as an example of what BDSM is. In reality, she suggested, BDSM is about partners mutually exploring their sexuality in a healthy way. At the auction, many students weren’t turned off by the idea of restraint, for the bidding sheet wasn’t devoid of offers.

The “Doc Johnson’s XTend It Kit,” was the star of the penis enhancement toys, offering three different extension options to increase pleasure through a thicker and longer length, with a touch nearly identical to a real penis (or so the box said). Other toys at the auction included such items as 100 percent stainless steel balls and a vibrating Double C Ring. As for how to use these items, you’d have to consult the box instructions.

For women, the “Flickering Tongue” was an uncommon toy available at the auction. With

On Saturday, Feb. 28, Squirm held a silent sex-toy auction to raise funds for the next issue of their magazine. The auction’s wares ranged from sex toys themselves to a variety of sex accessories.

Crumbling under stress? With this pie, all is peachy keen Penina Remler

D

columnist

Courtesy of dishmap.com

esserts that incorporate fruit are a winwin. Have you ever heard of anyone turn down apple pie, blueberry crumble, raspberry tart? Look at it this way, such dishes are not only juicy and flavorful, but they also promise to make you feel a bit better about yourself due to the fact that they incorporate more than one food group (even if it is just a few sliced strawberries on top of a decidedly fruitless dish—it still counts).

Peach crumble slab pie is a prime example of a recipe which serves as ideal comfort food and also includes some nutritious value into the mix. Moreover, this recipe can even get away with being served for breakfast, which isn’t such a bad way to start off your day.

If you can’t decide whether you’re more in the mood for a pie or a crumble, peach crumble slab pie is the perfect solution. Together, the flaky crust and sugary crumble top make a perfect foundation for fresh peaches topped with a cinnamon spice mix.

Moreover, the recipe produces a substantial portion that will feed a hungry crowd, relieving the fear of having to settle for minuscule portions. While served best at the peak of peach season, this dish is just as delicious when made with plums, blueberries, cherries or sweet pears.

Peach crumble slab pies are best baked in a shallow pan, particularly a 9-x-13 inch baking dish. The taller the sides of the pan, the deeper the pie (this means more room to stuff in crucial ingredients).

The best way to go about this recipe is preparation. Start by making your pie dough and crumble first so you can store them in the fridge while you prepare the rest of the dish. For the crust, hunt down a food processor to integrate the flour and salt. Next, add butter into the processor for around six-eight “one second pulses,” or until the mixture transforms into small pea-sized pieces. After

reaching this consistency, gradually add one tablespoon of ice water so that the mixture becomes moist enough to stay together. Lastly, combine the dough pieces into one large ball which at last, should be wrapped in plastic, flattened into a disk and refrigerated for at least one hour.

Following this procedure, use a rolling pin (lightly floored) and roll out the dough into approximately a 11-x-15 inch rectangle. If the dough feels sticky, dust it with flour as needed. Once rolled out completely, fold the dough in half so it can be transported into the 9-x-13 inch baking dish. With your hands, press the crust into the bottom of the pan and be sure to completely cover the edges so that is equally distributed to the top of the pan. Lastly, return the crust back to the refrigerator in its baking dish so you can begin to prepare the filling and crumble topping.

The filling will require a large bowl containing peaches, sugar, tapioca, lemon zest, juice, nutmeg, vanilla and salt. Let this combination sit together for 20-30 minutes after being tossed around and feel free to add a bit more sugar if need be. As you allow the ingredients to sit, preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

As the oven heats up, it is time to conduct the final step: the crumble topping. Mix together flour, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, salt and add butter with your fingertips until the group of ingredients is completely mixed together in moist clumps.

Lastly, spoon the prepared filling into the crust and top it off with your homemade crumble. On the lowest rack in your oven, bake the slab pie for 15 minutes and then reduce the heat to 375 degrees.

Once the temperature has gone down, switch the baking sheet to the center rack of the oven where the pie will continue to bake for about an hour, or until it appears golden brown and bubbling. At last, transport your baking dish to a wire rack so it can cool before handed out.

The Ingredients

Crust: 2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour 3/4 teaspoon of sea salt 2 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter (cut into 1/2 inch pieces) 4 to 6 tablespoons of ice water Filling: 6 pounds of ripe peaches (or whatever fruit you chose to bake with) 1 1/4 cups of light brown sugar 1/3 cup of instant tapioca Zest of 3 lemons 3 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice 1 1/2 teaspoons of grated nutmeg 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract 1 teaspoon of sea salt Crumble Topping: 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour 1 cup of dark brown sugar 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon 1 1/2 teaspoons of ground ginger 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt 1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter (cubed)

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

March 5, 2015

OPINIONS

Page 9

The Miscellany News Staff Editorial

VSA Exec. payment fails to address issues of exclusivity The Vassar Student Association (VSA) recently proposed a constitutional amendment which allows for the VSA Executive Board to collect pay per hour of all VSA-related work—the receival of this stipend would be mandatory for every member of the Executive Board, without any exceptions, In years past, the VSA has asked the Administration for said stipend, and last year a letter recommending such a proposal was drafted and addressed to President Catharine Hill. Hill wrote back and referred the council to Dean of the College Christopher Roellke, who then brought the proposal to the Senior Administration. The Senior Administration then told Roellke that the VSA could be paid. but only if the money to pay them came out of the student association’s own funds.

As a result, the VSA has now drafted an amendment allowing the Executive Board to collect a per-hour allowance. The money for this stipend would come out of the Discretionary Fund.

The initial reason the VSA Executive Board asked for a stipend for their positions was to help make the VSA more accessible to students on work study. The stipend would open up the position to those on campus who have work study jobs and need to generate income throughout the school year. In doing so, those who have drafted the letter felt that students with work study jobs would not have to choose between holding their position and serving as an Exec. Board member—a position that requires as many, if not more hours per week as a work study position.

While this is a valid argument, we at The Miscellany News feel that this original reason for VSA Exec. to get paid has been veered away from issues related to accessibility in this new amendment.

What’s more, if the VSA is going to pay themselves, it shouldn’t be coming out of the Discretionary Fund, a fund built from the money from the Student Activities Fee that every student must pay in order to attend Vassar. All of this is to say that the VSA would be paying themselves with the money from the student body.

We feel that the VSA has gone about writing and proposing this amendment in a misguided way. Instead of viewing the amendment as a way to help open the VSA up to the larger VC community, the drafted amendment now comes off with ulterior motives. It was stated in VSA Council on Feb. 15 that the passage of this amendment would be a foot in the door for house presidents to also be paid for the work they do, regardless of work study status.

By allowing the entire Council to be paid, the VSA will be trivializing actual student financial need by blanketing this funding across the VSA. As elected officials, VSA members should want to represent their constituency, regardless of compensation. We at The Miscellany News feel that money might actually bring people into the VSA who are driven by the desire to receive said compensation. It will not actually diversify the VSA, which consistently struggles with adequately representing people of color and lower socioeconomic background. The stipend no longer seems to be about accessibility, especially since no information about the stipend has been circulated around campus, meaning students at large don’t know that this is now an option for them.

There is a valid argument about paying these students for the work they are doing.

We recognize that their work study positions can be prohibitive. Still, there comes the question of where to draw the line. There

are other campus organizations that require similar amounts of time including WVKR, Vassar EMS, CARES etc. Should they then be paid to do their job as well, even though we all volunteer for our orgs?

There needs to be a valid reason behind what could make the VSA a worthier choice over other organizations on campus.

One clause of the current bill states that everyone who is elected to Executive Board must take the stipend, and must forfeit any current work study position. If the VSA is talking about accessibility, it should not be cutting off student availability to pursue interests at Vassar and still maintain a job.

Vassar is an institution that pushes us as students to manage our time effectively.

We have opportunities to try everything but must learn to find our niche, make commitments and find balance. People pursue what they are passionate about.

Learning to juggle everything is part of the Vassar experience. If students are on work study, they should be able to pursue that as well. Students should not have to see these opportunities as an either/or situation.

Those elected to serve on the VSA are presumably there because they want to be there. The student body rightfully assumes that participation is voluntary, and making these positions paid would actually create a further divide on campus. Those on the VSA know what they are getting into when they run for those positions, and we believe that expecting compensation for something voluntary is not valid.

Furthermore, monetary compensation would only reveal a greater conflict of interest within the current VSA. Due the the history of the VSA, where members tend to remain in power but move to different positions from year to year, means that every member of the current VSA faces a conflict of interest in voting for the

amendment. It would only be proper for every voting member to abstain from the vote on this amendment.

We at The Miscellany News believe the VSA should do something like polling the student body to gain information on Vassar students’ collective stance on the issue. The question is not simply whether we think this action is valid, but also the nature with which it has been proposed and discussed.

If the VSA does not properly inform the student body of this policy, there is a chance that no more people will apply. This further calls into question the reasoning for this decision. We would recommend holding a referendum on this issue open to the student body.

We believe the VSA should make this issue known by attaching a poll about it to their spring election ballots, which would increase the response rate of student input.

All students voting in these elections could then vote on whether they agree with the decision to make Executive Board positions paid. Though this would delay the VSA’s ability to adopt the amendment into their constitution, the opinion of the student body is ultimately important to those who are supposed to represent them.

It is worth noting that VSA does make most of its decisions public. There are various venues for open groups and forums around campus detailing the current discussions the Council has, and students should be aware of how to access such information. Still there is an ongoing disparity between this public decision making and making said decisions as open and accessible as possible to the rest of the student body.

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

Walmart’s wage increase mediocre against living costs Emily Sayer Columnist

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almart, the multinational retail corporation popularly credited with the degradation of American culture and infamous for its pitifully low wages, announced on Feb. 19 that it would implement an entry-level wage increase from $7.25 to $9 an hour. Throughout the past decade, America’s largest private employer has become the target of pro-labor activist campaigns, and while the company’s latest efforts to placate calls for reform are noteworthy, fast food workers and groups such as OUR Walmart, which advocate a $15 per hour wage hike, denounce the move as unsubstantial. Demands for livable wages address the deep-rooted complications that post-recession America has yet to mend–rising wealth inequality has set upper-income households at a median net worth almost seven times higher than that of middle-income households, the most profound disparity in the Federal Reserve’s recorded data. With a $9 minimum wage only racking up to a sub-$19,000 annual salary, one that would drag a family of four below the poverty line, the $1.25 bump is hardly a solution.

The U.S. is complicating the task of correcting income inequality first by using an outdated poverty level measurement as a tool for determining living standards. Currently, poverty is based on data from the 1960s that miscalculates healthcare, transportation and housing costs, while neglecting to include child care and other expenses too. In order to maintain an income above the “poverty wage” as dictated by this outdated benchmark, an individual would have to earn at least $9.55 an hour, about $3 an hour below the current approximated value for a poverty wage adjusted to recent data on living costs, and half of what would be considered a living wage.

How can the country be striving for, and still failing to instate, a $9.55 per hour minimum wage—a number meanwhile proven to be unsustainable for the average household, not in-

dexed for inflation and that reverts low-wage workers to the living standards of the 20th, rather than 21st, century?

Meanwhile, President Obama declared in his 2014 State of the Union Address that until Congress can reform existing regulations, small businesses, state and local governments, and larger corporations must take the initiative and boost the wage floor. “Say yes. Give America a raise,” he urged. Soon after the State of the Union, Obama also issued an executive order to raise the national minimum wage to $10.10 for those working on new federal service contracts, a move that affects less than half a million individuals but might, as the president hopes, incite Congress to act. Fortunately, in 2015, 20 states—Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia—will pass legislation to raise their individual minimum wage floors, benefiting an estimated 3.1 million workers in these areas (Economic Policy Institute, “20 States Raise Their Minimum Wages While the Federal Minimum Continues to Erode,” 12.18.14).

“The U.S. is complicating the task of correcting income inequality.”

It’s glaringly obvious that the country is collectively lagging in its efforts to keep families afloat. The news of Walmart’s pay increase seems to be a step towards progress, yet the alignment of the timing of the corporation’s announcement with the president’s appeal is questionable; could the discount chain retailer be undermining pro-labor reforms by manip-

ulating the market before federal policies can take hold? As the most influential employer in the private sector, Walmart is poised to set precedents for the remainder of America’s low-wage businesses, including employers in the fast food, dollar store, home health care, hotel and food service industries. While it can be argued that a widespread shift towards higher wages is beneficial, a shift towards mediocre wages is not. A recent study by professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows that, based on country, wages that can support the basic cost of living in a given area range from at least $12 to even $25 per hour, a significant leap even from the $10.10 minimum to which Congress has yet to agree.

Instituting a pattern of payment that remains insufficient in improving the lives of millions of workers is, essentially, a cheap form of pacification. Furthermore, in the case of Walmart’s new policies, the company is also undergoing scheduling changes that will compromise employees’ ability to pick up extra hours or even attain a guaranteed number of weekly hours; currently, only 40 percent of Walmart workers report that they have an ensured set of hours each week.

So what was the immediate cause for the policy change? Can this small victory for the workforce even be called a victory, or is the company’s sudden altruism simply an act of catch-up? The repercussions of the raise are already problematic, but the true motives behind the decision may prove dubious as well.

With the post-recession economic recovery finally ushering in a period of GDP growth and increased job creation, the lag in wage increases is incentivizing workers to seek employment elsewhere; when unemployment rates reached 10 percent in 2008 and 2009, the workforce scrambled to take jobs no matter the pay, but now unemployment has fallen nearly by half, and in order to maintain a regular source of labor, employers must start sweetening the deal to retain their staff.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Yes, this is a natural reaction to the changing market and Walmart can’t be demonized for adapting to the economy, but in the same vein Walmart can’t be praised as a magnanimous forerunner in corporate humanitarian efforts when its aims are not necessarily, or at least not singularly, geared towards the betterment of its employees’ lives. CEO Doug McMillon recently said of the change, “Our people make the difference. When we take a step back, it’s clear to me that one of our highest priorities must be to invest more in our people this year.” Is it really plausible that the company is for the first time realizing the value of its many associates?

If McMillon and Walmart truly believed in this statement, why is this the first time that the protests of millions are being acknowledged?

(Walmart, “In Letter to Associates, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon Announces Higher Pay,” 02.19.15)

“ ...Walmart can’t be praised as a magnanimous forerunner in corporate humanitarian efforts...”

Though we can appreciate Walmart’s long-awaited, extremely delayed recognition of the crisis endured by its labor force, it’s imperative that the national demand for better wages not be satiated by the employer’s meager concession. Income disparity is generating socioeconomic divides too drastic to be repaired by a mere $1.25 an hour solution, and until legislators and retailers alike can start to give credence to the protests of groups like OUR Walmart, the position of American households will remain stagnant at best.

—Emily Sayer ’18 is a student at Vassar College.

OPINIONS

Page 10

Letter to the Editor Last week’s staff editorial on the student-faculty relationship policy bravely lambasted the College Administration for its lack of transparency about Vassar College’s policies and operations. “This act by the Administration,” the drafting of a policy change that would ban student-faculty relationships, that is, “only worsens the lack of transparency that many students feel is affecting the Administration’s ability to enact meaningful discussion with the student body,” wrote the Misc’s Editorial Board. I think that meaningful discussion between students and administrators is essential, given the current campus climate. However, I would like to point out that the Administration did not, in fact, craft this policy.

Members of the faculty—not Cappy nor Dean Roellke—proposed, debated and crafted this policy. To blame the Administration for the unilateral action of the College faculty is absurd. Moreover, faculty members control the terms of their employment, and students should not be allowed to control what norms the faculty sets for its membership. The Misc’s call for transparency and student participation is admirable, but just as it would be absurd to argue that the College’s administrators ought to have input at VSA meetings, it is absurd to assert that students should be allowed to stick their noses into the affairs of the faculty. As for the affairs of the faculty, I hold a different view. I believe that this policy denies students their sexual agency, and represents the paternalism and infantilization of the neoliberal university at its worst. The current policy strikes the right balance between autonomy and limiting abuse of power; if I want to sleep with a professor who does not directly supervise me, or who is not in my department, I should be allowed to do so. Vassar has a history of being open to sexuality (and student-faculty relationships), especially sexual orientations that have been stigmatized in American culture and politics. Before the vote on this policy, I have these words to say to the Vassar faculty: Don’t pull out, keep “smashing” away.

—Zack Struver ’15

Letter to the Editor Last Thursday, students disrupted a Trustee dinner and confronted the college about the racist termination of Kemar Williams, a Vassar security guard.

We demanded that the Trustees show accountability to the community by reinstating Kemar, who was fired in retaliation for speaking up against the racism he was experiencing in his workplace. After deliberating with “members of the senior administration of the college,” the Trustees issued a response, claiming that Kemar’s “termination was based on performance issues only” and that “the administration acted…without bias of any kind.” Kemar is a young, Black officer who used the College’s official channels to file a report after he heard another guard make a racist comment to one of Kemar’s supervisors. Though the guard was found guilty of making a racist remark after an official investigation, they experienced no consequences. There were, however, consequences for Kemar. Several weeks later, the same supervisor, who is friends with the guard, wrote Kemar’s evaluation, stating that he had a bad attitude and didn’t get along with his co-workers. This “unbiased report” was then used to justify Kemar’s termination. After speaking with Kemar, as well as guards who worked with him and who trained him, it is clear that Kemar was fired for taking action against the racism he experienced on our campus. His termination is an injustice that not only robbed an individual of his job, but also challenges the commitment to change Vassar administrators promised. Last semester, President Hill outlined the measures the College was going to take to address the needs of the Vassar community, highlighting “our deep commitment to inclusion and equity on campus.” What does this commitment mean when a member of the Vassar community speaks up against the racism he is experiencing and is ultimately punished? What does it mean when charges of administrative hypocrisy are raised by students and are met with indifference?

The College’s executive officials and members of Vassar’s Trustees can no longer claim ignorance of the very real racism that students, faculty and staff face on campus everyday. They can, however, begin to demonstrate institutional will and an authentic commitment to change by reinstating Kemar Williams immediately.

—The Vassar Student/Labor Dialogue

March 5, 2015

Media attitudes toward hair reveal racism Sophia Burns

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Columnist

his week, the Internet has been ablaze regarding Giuliana Rancic’s comment on E!’s “Fashion Police” about actress Zendaya Coleman’s dreadlocks at the Oscars. Rancic remarked that Coleman’s hair looked like it smelled like patchouli oil, which was followed by another remark: “or weed.” While celebrity drama is usually baseless noise, this incident brings glaring issue in our society to the forefront regarding beauty standards for women of color, especially those of mixed ethnicity.

As a multiracial woman, reading this news caused a resurgence of painful memories. It reminded me of being ridiculed at my predominantly white Catholic school, where, from first grade on, girls would point out how “frizzy” and “poofy” and “big” my hair was. Even when I got older and entered a much more diverse public school in fourth grade, the boys joined in on the jokes about my hair, which did unthinkable damage to my self-esteem. From the ages of seven to 14, the idea of anyone seeing my hair in its natural state terrified me. I blew it out weekly and flat ironed it daily, spending hours trying to make my hair as straight as possible. When my aunt would blow out my hair for me, pulling it tight around a huge round brush, she would answer my “Ow!”s with “Beauty is pain. Do you want your hair to be straight or not?” I cried countless tears over my hair and wondered why I could not have inherited my father’s wavy, German locks rather than my mother’s thick, curly mess. It took an unsolicited chop from my aunt, who deemed my hair too damaged to go on, for me to begin to accept my hair in its natural state.

Being another multiracial woman, I am almost certain that Coleman has endured similar struggles with her natural hair, especially as a person in the public eye.

For women, hair is one of the largest determinants of beauty, and we are made well

aware of this from a young age. In the media that girls consume, it is extremely rare to see an actress or pop singer wearing her hair naturally curly, kinky or anywhere in between.

Instead, these child stars, including Coleman herself, are consistently shown with straightened hair. This could be the fault of the industry and its style standards, but I am convinced that many of these girls were probably unopposed to wearing their hair straight. By the time they reach school age, minority girls have already been exposed to words like “kinky,” “nappy” and “wild,” and have been inundated with images of beautiful women with long, flowing, straight hair. Why wouldn’t they want to embody what everyone around them insists is beautiful? From blowouts to expensive products and dangerous chemicals, girls and women of color go to great lengths to achieve what is unnatural and to fit white standards.

If you go into any salon with “mixed” or “ethnic” hair, as they’ll call it, hairdressers will assume that you want your hair blown out in the end. I have had numerous hairdressers suggest hairstyles for me that are simply unattainable for my natural texture, such as bangs and choppy layers; when I reminded them of this, they said “Well, you can just straighten it.”

The lack of education in non-white hair that hairdressers receive is alarming, considering the fact that women of color spend so much more time and money on their hair. I was informed last week that in beauty schools, students are instructed on basic technique which is usually practiced on straight hair and that optional additional education is still needed to learn how to style ethnic hair. Because this requires extra time and money, most do not take these courses and are incapable of working with hair that is not straight. Inspiration for natural styles is also scarce, especially for girls of mixed ethnicity: Just Google “naturally curly hairstyles.” The results are mainly not even natural hair, but hair that has been styled

curly and therefore lacks the volume, weight and unpredictability of natural hair. Because ethnic and multiracial hair is so diverse, it can seem difficult to represent all variations, but unrealistic representations do not help in the least. When it comes to maintaining a natural style, it can become quite expensive when you have to pay for a cut, exorbitantly priced products (such as JessiCurl, Ouidad and Mixed Chicks), diffusers and other special tools, making heat or chemical straightening seem more economical and alluring.

Fortunately, twist outs and braided styles are more practical and gaining popularity thanks to websites supporting these “niche” styles. However, some mixed hair cannot sustain these methods, and finding easy styles can still be tedious for those whose hair does not fit a certain definition. Coleman’s decision to wear dreadlocks should not have even been a point of conversation—after all, does anyone remark when Rancic wears her hair in a ponytail?—but because of the prejudices within American beauty standards, something must be done both in the media and in homes to halt the discrimination that women face when they decide to “go natural,” which should not have to be as big of a decision as it currently is.

In Coleman’s very astute response to this incident, she said that “[her] wearing [her] hair in locs on an Oscar red carpet was to showcase them in a positive light, to remind people of color that our hair is good enough.” More people in the public eye should follow Coleman’s example and help spread this message to the POC community. Perhaps more importantly, role models in the home should follow suit: It is also up to mothers, aunties, sisters, brothers and fathers to instill in our youth that they can ignore and break down the norm—starting with their hair.

—Sophia Burns ’18 is a student at Vassar College.

Race, rhetoric from across the Atlantic Christopher Brown Guest Columnist

We all know the world is messed up. At least the self-aware people do. Inequalities regarding race, gender, sexuality and other identities exist in all forms and in every country. As a U.S. citizen who has lived in America his whole life, I have grown up into a system that is inherently racist and perpetuates a disturbing sense of nationalism that seeks to either assimilate the other into the norm or eliminate the other all together. Needless to say, I needed a break from America’s mess.

So when I found out I would be spending the spring term of my junior year in England, I was both excited and relieved. I was ready to be a part of a new system and get an international perspective on all of the recent yet sadly common acts of racism against people of color in America that had made headlines worldwide. After talking to peers who came from all over Europe, the general consensus was, yup, the American people have a tendency to be really racist.

Yet, I started wondering: Is America the only country with such rampant forms of racism? Does England have some secret formula that eliminates structural inequality, or at least diminishes it? As an academic passionate about racial studies, I always feel it necessary to critically analyze the different systems that humans live in and how institutional oppression emerges. England is no exception.

The first thing I noticed quickly was that structural inequalities definitely still exist in this country. London is laid out in a unique way. A few decades ago, the city planners changed the layout of the city so that so-called “ghettos,” places where housing was much cheaper and of lower quality, were spread intermittently throughout the main parts of the city. The purpose behind this choice was to eliminate geographical barriers between classes so as to promote a more diverse and metropolitan layout. It was an interesting fact to learn about, but whether or not I thought it was a good idea

mattered little in the face of the data that shows the majority of the people living in those areas are of either African or Eastern European descent.

So that was a little discouraging, yet not unexpected. There did seem to be a greater sense of inclusion for people of color, especially at my university, the University of Brighton. I made this conclusion through observations of big things, like the extremely large, diverse international student population at Sussex, and observations of little things, like seeing friend groups not be segregated by race as often as they tend to be in America.

Then I heard about the latest controversial news involving race in England. A Muslim student group at Goldsmiths, University of London, was hosting a screening of “Dear White People” that was advertised as an event open only to students of color. The event was known as the first of its kind at any university in the U.K. and was met by heavy protest from a lot of students, as well as a few members of the administration at this university.

“Is America the only country with such rampant forms of racism?”

Two things shocked me about this news.

First, the fact that this screening was the first of its kind at a U.K. university was surprising. Why had there been no push for more student-of-color-centric programming in the past? Of course, it should never be the burden of people of color to come up with this programming, but why had no one ever been critically pushed to think of this idea before? Maybe it is because I go to an institution like Vassar, where I’m blessed to be around people who constantly push institutions, but there seems

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

to be less urgency here to fight back. The identity-based organizations at Sussex are relatively inactive, which was extremely discouraging.

Given all of that, I was most surprised by the heavy pushback at Goldsmiths. To me, this could mean one of two significant things. Either a large proportion of the English population is just straight-up blatantly racist, which I truly do not believe, or, instead, there is a fundamental ignorance of the structures that give white residents in the U.K. a significantly greater amount of power in society.

What I’ve noticed about race in England after being here for a month is that people are quick to point out all the flaws regarding American racism. And trust me, I’m right there with them. I’m angry about the lack of coverage on the Chapel Hill hate crime and murder. I’m scared that state governments are trying to eliminate whole portions of our history from primary school textbooks. It’s all, as I said earlier, seriously messed up. But before one can criticize others, one must have the ability to criticize oneself. I still struggle with acknowledging that my place in society as a half-white male inherently makes me oppressive. It doesn’t make me feel good. But it is a necessary and crucial step towards being able to fight for what is right.

Racism exists everywhere, but it manifests itself in different forms. I’ve been privileged enough to study in two different countries and learn about what role race plays in the attitudes of those in each respective society. Yet the conclusion is the same. Students of color face daily marginalization and fight an uphill battle towards equality every day.

We all need to realize that even though we come from different countries and cultures, we each have the same duty to use our place in the hierarchy of the world to better the lives of those oppressed.

—Christopher Brown ’16 is a political science and math double major.

March 5, 2015

OPINIONS

One student’s call for more time in school Sarah Sandler Columnist

For some reason, it seems as if the more you pay for college, the less time you actually spend there. The majority of colleges and universities in the United States have a month-long winter break, about a week off in the spring—not to mention a long weekend in October and another for Thanksgiving.

Vassar students, however, have much more time off. Instead of a long weekend in October, we have about ten days off. Rather than just a month over the holidays, some students’ breaks are up to six weeks long depending on when their exams end. Our spring break extends for two entire weeks.

As a result of these lengthy breaks, and depending on someone’s final exam schedules, some students are unable to leave campus for the year until May 22, and graduation isn’t until May 31 this year. While the time off from class is nice, it is unnecessary and often inconvenient to have such long breaks.

Because our breaks throughout the school year are so long, summer begins a few weeks later for us than for students at other schools.

For example, final exams at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. end May 8 at the latest, and at Brown University in Providence, R.I., exams are finished by May 15. These dates may only be a week or two earlier than Vassar’s calendar, but that time can inhibit various summer plans.

I happen to have my only final examination on the last day of finals, May 22. There is a summer study abroad program in London I am considering, but the only issue is that it begins on May 18.

“Rather than just a month over the holidays, some students’ breaks are up to six weeks long...”

If students are looking into internships, their employers may request earlier start

dates than students are able to accommodate with their final exam schedules. Some professors are lenient and flexible in accommodating predicaments such as this, but some aren’t—and this could be a roadblock in summer plans.

For students who aren’t pursuing study abroad or unpaid internship opportunities, they may be working to save up money over the summer. Having to stay on campus for a few extra weeks means that students are forced to give up those useful wages they could be earning if they were able to commit summer hours sooner.

Vassar is one of the only schools I know of that has a week-long break in the fall. Most schools have a long weekend for Columbus Day in October and for Thanksgiving—and those are there only times off until the semester ends. While I appreciate having a lot of time off from classes after midterms, I think the length of October break is not essential. Many students who live far away from Vassar don’t want to waste the time and money to go home for a little over a week, but that also means remaining stuck on campus with not much else to do.

For students who do go home and don’t have the opportunity to travel, this break does not coincide with other schools, so there aren’t friends home with which they can hang out, either. Personally, a long weekend starting around Columbus Day would be much more convenient and valuable for my lifestyle and travel plans.

Unless a school has a winter term, such as Colby College in Waterville, Maine, or Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt., it is customary for students to have about a month off after first semester’s end. Depending on when their final exams are over, Vassar students can have about six weeks of time off from school.

Unlike with October break, since this break is between semesters, there isn’t even any schoolwork for students to get done over break. Some students are lucky enough to find short internships over winter break to get real world experience, but these are often only about a month long rather than the full six weeks we get because students at other schools are, at best, getting just a month off.

I am lucky enough to live within a few hours of most of my friends at Vassar, so I was able to see them a few times over the winter break. For students who live across the country or abroad, they aren’t able to see their friends for over a month. Most of my friends and I agreed that we would’ve rather been back on campus much sooner than have more time off.

Also, much of winter break can be unproductive for many students. It is a great time to spend researching internships and other coming summer opportunities, but this does not usually require six weeks of our time. If other schools do have as long of a break as we do, they often have a winter or January term where students have the opportunity to take classes and earn credits in lieu of going home, making the time vastly more productive for those who choose to take that option.

“...a Columbus Day-long weekend would be much more convenient and valuable for my lifestyle.”

If Vassar chose not to shorten its winter break period, this alternative would be very useful for students who aren’t able to travel home or for students who just want to be more productive and get an edge on some of their requirements.

For the amount of money we are spending to attend an institution like Vassar, personally, I would rather spend more of my time here than at home. If October break, winter break and spring break were made shorter, we would have a few more weeks to spend learning and studying, rather than feeling obligated to condense material into a few short, incredibly stressful months with long breaks in between. It is almost midterm time here at Vassar, and it feels to me like the semester has only just begun.

—Sarah Sandler ’18 is a student at Vassar College.

Page 11

Word on the street What would you want to do for spring break?

“Live inside a pizza for two weeks, because it’s hot in there.”

—Carlie Silva ’16

“We’re doing what we’d want: going to South Carolina with Frisbee team.”

— Sam Plotkin ’15 and David Newman ’15

“Spend more time with him.”

— Nick Vargish ’16

Letter to the Editor Last week, I and more than 15 other members of the Vassar College Board of Trustees, in small groups, met with a number of student groups. While members of the Board routinely meet with students, this was an unusually wide set of meetings, occasioned by our interest in hearing directly from students about various campus climate issues. We had no agenda other than to listen.

On behalf of every Board member, I would like to thank the almost 100 students who participated for making the time to meet with us. It was invaluable for Trustees to hear directly from students about their issues and concerns, and to discuss their numerous constructive suggestions about how those concerns could be addressed.

These meetings were arranged on relatively short notice, and we know, and appreciate, that a number of the students had to miss scheduled classes or other important activities.

While we recognize that many of the issues discussed are interrelated, we felt that the only way to fully understand the overall campus climate was to try to grasp the details of each important issue; in this regard, we decided to meet with small, focused groups rather than hold one public forum, which served us well.

Trustees met with groups of individual students, as well as students who are members or leaders of the following organizations: Act Out!, many of the organizations supported by the ALANA Center (including, among others, the Asian Students Alliance, the Black Students Union, the Caribbean Students Alliance, and the Multi-Racial/Biracial Students’ Alliance),

CARES, Chabad, the Class Presidents, the Feminist Alliance, the Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign, the Gender Neutral Bathroom Initiative, the House Presidents, the LGBTQ Center, participants in the National Coalition Building Institute program held earlier this academic year, the Posse Veterans Program, the Queer Coalition of Vassar College (QCVC), Squirm, the Student Athletic Advisory Council, The Listening Center (TLC), TransMission, the Vassar Jewish Union, the Vassar Student Association, and the Women’s Center.

In general, the students we met with were impressive, thoughtful, and intensely dedicated to their various causes and concerns. A number of students were very upset, even angry, about several issues, and made that clear to the Trustees with whom they met—this too was valuable for us to understand and experience.

We received more than 40 student recommendations on ways to improve Vassar and the Vassar experience. We have discussed many of those suggestions with the Board, and passed them on to the administration for consideration.

Many of them were already being addressed, as demonstrated by the email sent this past Monday by Dean of Students D.B. Brown about the increase in counseling resources and the establishment of a mental health and wellness fund to support students with financial need in accessing off-campus care.

No doubt, there is much to be done to make Vassar the best it can be, and some of those changes will take time. That said, we can all take pride in the successful efforts under President Hill to increase diversity

substantially at Vassar, to foster access to marginalized communities, and to ensure that the Vassar experience is affirming and empowering for all our students. These efforts have been widely recognized from The New York Times to the White House.

The Trustees and the administration understand that a wide range of students in the diverse community that has been created need additional support mechanisms to ensure that Vassar and they fulfill their potential. We are all committed to meeting those needs.

The Board of Trustees has a policy and oversight role at the College, but does not have responsibility for the day-to-day management issues to which many of the student recommendations relate. Nonetheless, to support Vassar in achieving these goals, the Board will continue to discuss these issues with the administration and monitor progress on the fulsome agenda that President Hill and her senior officers have set to create the kind of culture we want at Vassar, and with which the Board heartily agrees.

Again, I would like to thank those students who met with Trustees for their time, their thoughts, and their dedication to making Vassar a better place. Together, students, faculty, administrators, staff, alumnae/i, and the Board of Trustees can face the College’s challenges with originality and commitment, to help make Vassar into a place where all feel welcome and cherished, and I urge students to consider how they can contribute to that effort.

—Bill Plapinger ’74 P’10 is Chairman of the Vassar College Board of Trustees

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

“I’d like to escape all my demons.”

— Jackson Martel ’16

“Escape this freezing cold, be anywhere warm.”

—Sarah Oliver ’15

“I’ve always wanted to go to Niagara Falls.” ­­— Soraya Perry ’17

Chris Gonzalez, Humor & Satire Editor Sam Pianello, Photo Editor

OPINIONS

Page 12

March 5, 2015

Resources few, far between for undocumented students Gulliermo Valdez Guest Columnist

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s a predominantly-white institution, Vassar has historically excluded a great deal of oppressed bodies, including people of color, women and LGBTQ students. Lately, there have been some incredible efforts to alleviate the tensions that oppressed students suffer from, but there is one group of students who has not received much attention in recent years: undocumented students.

According to Pew Research, there are over 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., although this number continues to fluctuate due to mass deportations initiated by the Obama administration. Undocumented immigrants belong to all races, and represent several nationalities. Many of these immigrants come to the United States from countries devastated by U.S. foreign policies, thus forcing them to immigrate in order to escape violence or starvation. They come here to seek a better life, but xenophobic immigration policies do not allow the majority of those who need to migrate the right to enter the country lawfully. Due to restrictions on immigration, a great deal of people have to go through great lengths in order to arrive in the United States only to then live in fear of deportation. A great deal of those who immigrate are young children, who later grow up in the United States, identify with American culture and have little recollection of their lives in their natal countries. By any other definition of the word, they’re American.

Structures exist in this country to oppress immigrant bodies and continuously endorse white supremacy in U.S. society. Undocumented immigrants do not have access to many

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tional support that many undocumented students need, but no such support center exists for undocumented students here. Vassar is an unsafe place for undocumented students, considering the general apathy or ignorance concerning immigration at this campus. Although we often create spaces where privilege and oppression can be discussed, albeit imperfectly, there are very few spaces that attempt to cope with the issue of citizenship, and how that is a privilege that often goes overlooked.

Here at Vassar, many of us have been brainstorming ways to make this space more accessible and inclusive to marginalized people, but in the struggle for inclusivity, we instead create more spaces that exclude undocumented students. We talk about the intersections between class, race, gender and sexual orientation, but how often is the idea of citizenship included in these conversations? Inclusivity towards undocumented students needs to be conducted at multiple levels. On the administrative side, Vassar needs to evaluate undocumented applicants on a need-blind basis, just like other students who live in the U.S. A team of administrators need to be better educated on immigration policy, and be available to assist any undocumented student who feels unsafe in this country. Additionally, students need to be more proactive in creating a space where undocumented students do not feel alienated or in danger. All initiatives to create inclusivity without addressing issues of immigration and citizenship critically will ultimately remain flawed and marginalizing.

—Guillermo Valdez ’15 is a geography and Latin America and Latina@ Studies double major.

by Collin Knopp−-Schwyn, York Chen and Alycia Beattie

ACROSS 1 Diddly-___ 6 Fight scrimmage 10 Where the Hmong spend kip 14 Eight eighths?

15 Dead end (2 words) 16 Shield boss 17 Birth-y 18 “___ car!” (The Price is Right) (2 words) 19 Daytime’s midnight 20 Hold tightly 21 What Collin’s room looks like 22 Shrek and Fiona 23 Doubter 25 “Wonderfilled” cookie 26 Every 27 It’s me! (Sad) 28 Package handlers 31 It makes the tall taller and the short taller 34 Thigh space 35 Marooned in the flotsam. Also the jetsam.

36 Sweep a rock across the ice for points 37 Soul hole 39 “Tickets to the gun show, anyone?”

40 Small Indonesian buffalo 41 CD-___ 42 Aesthetic 43 Kingsley or Bernanke 44 Electric guitar accessory 45 First Nations group

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ates undocumented immigrants. Vassar does accept undocumented students and allow them to enroll. Their applications, however, are considered by Vassar Admissions as international students and not as domestic students, despite the fact that they’ve attended American high school and may even identify as American. As international students, undocumented applicants to Vassar are evaluated on a need-sensitive basis, putting them at an incredible disadvantage, as many immigrants need significant financial aid in order to attend Vassar.

Additionally, undocumented students, who are often disadvantaged within U.S. academic systems, are put in the same application pool as international students who frequently come from far more privileged, elite schools abroad.

Aside from maneuvering the institutional barriers that the American public school system has against undocumented students, they are still expected to outperform their competitors when applying to an “elite” liberal arts college like Vassar.

Initiatives do exist to attempt to alleviate the tension between the marginalized and make the certain students on campus feel more at ease. Affinity spaces like the ALANA Center, the Women’s Center, the LGBTQ Center and the various faculty members tasked to assist Posse Foundation fellows help students transition into life at Vassar, and give them the resources that they may need. Although many would argue that these initiatives are imperfect, they at least exist. Several University of California campuses also have centers to aid students while attending colleges that privilege U.S. citizens. These centers provide legal, academic, financial, medical and emo-

The Miscellany Crossword

“Misery Loves Gluttony”

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government services such as welfare and food stamps even though they do pay sales, property, and in some cases, even income taxes. Additionally, a lot of undocumented immigrants cannot work in this country legally, putting them at risk of exploitation in the workforce, and thus are often victims of human rights violations that often go unreported and unheard in order to avoid deportation. The United States government, meanwhile, prioritizes citizenship to millionaires, celebrities and those who just happen to be born in the country.

In many cases, citizenship is determined by pure circumstance, yet the government has created barriers for working class immigrants and immigrants of color to be considered for citizenship. Our country is built in a way that privileges and idealizes citizenship, and those who are not citizens are marginalized and dehumanized. We ultimately live in an environment that gives citizens the right to exist, and those who don’t fit are forced into hiding.

They are also forced to become invisible in order to escape incarceration, criminalization deportation and even death.

The oppression towards undocumented students manifests itself differently than for non-student immigrants. Aside from living in a country where being non-white and being a non-native English speaker is already an incredible disadvantage in academia, a person’s status as undocumented can deny them of many educational benefits, too, regardless of academic ability and merit. A person’s immigrant status can be enough to deny them a livable salary, acceptance to a college or a financial aid package that would make higher education more accessible.

Vassar is a school that continuously alien-

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MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

54 NATO phonetic alphabet’s “K” 55 Stupid chicken of the sea 58 Soar 59 Parliamentary yes 60 Switch between windows, say59 Care for, as a garden 60 Cookie baker 61 Skeeve 65 Unit of sunshine

HUMOR & SATIRE

March 5, 2015

Page 13

Breaking News From the desk of Chris Gonzalez, Humor & Satire Editor Ferry Haus fire inspections reveal shocking horrors Reslife uncovers weekly underground cock-fighting ring Maddy’s Misc-adventurous Romancing the Deece: middle school midterm jams a Miscellaneous interview Maddy Vogel

released in 2005? I can’t. I’m going to lose my shit. This album in general is perfection: Brenden Urie with eyeliner, the dawn of Brenden/ Ryan shippers, top hats! And this song stands out as my favorite because 13-year-old Maddy probably thought she was being really badass for liking a song about fucking.

Now, if you weren’t listening to “Face Down”

by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, you were not cool.

At least in my very white, suburban town you weren’t. Unfortunately, the deeper meaning of the song—domestic violence—went unnoticed by our middle school selfs cuz that wasn’t cool, so we just screamed the lyrics and headbanged a lot. I know nothing else by this band, but this song is actually still a jam.

Let’s go even further back: Bowling for Soup’s one-hit wonder “1985.” I still know all the lyrics and this came out 10 years ago.

Gross. Also, I’m currently watching the music video as I write this and I highly recommend you all do as well—it’s a gem.

Next, Metro Station’s “Shake it.” Oh yes, Miley Cyrus’s brother? I think? God this song is awful, but also awesome and adds a fun, upbeat tone to the pervasive emo we’ve got going on here. It keeps me on my toes.

Back to unnecessary angst and adding some girl power, we’ve got Paramore’s “Misery Business.” Now, I’ll admit I really hated Paramore most of the time, probably because of internalized misogyny, but for a short period between 13 and 14 I wanted to dye my hair orange and be Hayley Williams, and I think this song was the epitome of that time.

And last, but not least, we have the classic “Dirty Little Secret” by The All-American Rejects. This song will forever be the anthem of bad movies about teenage love, and at 13 I remember wishing I had a dirty little secret that no one knew because I am terrible at keeping secrets and really didn’t do anything bad ever. An alternative to this is “Swing, Swing,” because that’s a great song too, and I like the poetry of starting and ending this playlist with songs about swinging.

Other highlights of this playlist: “The Great Escape” by Boys Like Girls, “Sk8r Boy” by Avril Lavigne, and “Dear Maria, Count Me In” by All Time Low. They’re all classics that should never ever be forgotten.

Emo Chic

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hirteen was my last year of innocence, my last year of childhood, my last year of wearing jeans that were two inches too short and those pink and black cat-eye glasses I swore were cool but really just weren’t at all.

So many regrets. Kinda. It was my last year for many important things, but it was also my first year of “emo.”

Now, “emo” in middle school is a very ambivalent term and can mean just about anything, but my teenage angst swayed more toward “like, ugh, my parents just don’t GET IT and there’s, like, nothing to do in this town,” rather than anything serious that some teenagers actually have to deal with. Because I’m awful. Anyway, 13 was also the year my music tastes went from Radio Disney Top 40, of which I was a frequent caller-in, to more altrock. Radio 104.5 was my jam. Very few people will get that reference, but, hey, I’m going to make it anyway. Google it.

My life changed the first time the musical stylings of Fall Out Boy wafted through my junior high ears. I have this distinct memory of downloading “Infinity on High” off Limewire (let’s have a moment of silence), and then changing my entire personality overnight.

FOB was my gateway drug, my first taste of true pop-punk angst. And I fell in love. They opened a whole new world to me that has laid the foundation for who I am as a person today, and basically for all time. So important, in fact, that the only thing that gets me through most midterms and finals weeks is my “Middle School Emo” playlist. Which I will now share with you, so that you too can remember a time that might be better forgotten.

“Sugar We’re Going Down” by Fall Out Boy is a classic. Nothing can ever top this. I’m a big believer that Fall Out Boy kind of sucked after their second album, but not enough to stop loving them. So please, put on your old band tees and sing with me: “WE’RE GOING DOWN, DOWN IN AN EARLIER ROUND/ AND SUGAR WE’RE GOING DOWN SWINGING!” We’re going !-era PATD for this next one—“Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off” by Panic!

At the Disco. Can you believe this album was

Zander Bashaw Deece Whisperer

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s a social hub and “food” place on campus, the Deece is as mysterious as it is frustrating. When we sit down for an interview, the Deece welcomes me in warmly, offering a steaming cup of Ethiopian Sidamo. I politely decline—I much prefer the Café Kilimanjaro—and we begin to chat about the changes that have taken place in Big D this semester.

ZB: During winter break, when you had a long

time alone to reflect, what was the first thing you thought about?

ACDC: I made up my mind to improve our water.

I thought back to my years studying abroad in other parts of New York and remembered how country clubs suspended different fruits and vegetables in their water. I wanted to offer customers a chance to sample many different kinds of water, because it is the most important part of a meal.

dine on my dark side look forlorn, subdued and lonely. I figured putting a fro-yo machine over there might cheer them up.

ZB: Talk to me a bit more about the cloudy and

sunny sides of the deece. What do they mean to you?

ACDC: Every person has a balance inside them,

a yin and yang, light and dark, sunny and cloudy, Drake and Lil Wayne. For me, the two sides help me channel and compartmentalize both of these feelings. Meals tend to have a mood, whether you are having a carefree meal with your friends, or rage-eating because you lost your intramural volleyball game, and I wanted to offer the facilities for a whole range of dining experiences. I do this better than any other dining facility on campus.

ZB: How do you feel about the other dining cen-

ters on campus? Are they friends of yours?

ACDC: The Retreat and I don’t really see win-

ZB: Some critics have likened your concoctions

to “bong-water.” How do you respond?

ACDC: I’ve been a haven for stoned kids for

years, and that demographic will always be on my side. I’m just going to shake it off.

ZB: Going off of your pop culture reference, tell

me about the decision to play music.

dow to window, and we never have. Like, why wouldn’t you let a hungry student eat as much as they want? Just because you have Nilda’s doesn’t mean you have to be so elitist. As for my older brother, UpC, we’re close in proximity but not so much in personality. Sure, I’m not allowed to stay up as late as him, but that doesn’t make me any lamer, okay? I am dedicated to being a haven for people at their lowest points: postMug Night Saturday mornings.

ACDC: Sometimes the students here at Vassar

seem so downtrodden. I’m trying to liven up the spirit by playing some carnival music that elicits thoughts of clowns and ring toss.

ZB: Which reminds me, I would like to person-

ally thank you for welcoming me into your arms after Halloween and letting me get an omelette even though it was 1:45 p.m.

ZB: Did you ever consider that people are down-

trodden because they are at the Deece? Or that people don’t want to have thoughts of clowns?

ACDC: Anytime, bro! I’m looking to extend om-

elette hours well into the evening because in college, breakfast is a social construct!

ACDC: Here, why don’t you have some coffee?

ZB: Look, a lot of things have moved around

here. The utensils, the ketchup, the chocolate milk, the fro-yo station. Why? ACDC: A lot of them I can’t explain; however,

the fro-yo move is a simple one: the people who

Before I go, the Deece insists I take five or six cookies and some sickly bananas. I smile, knowing these cookies will sit on my desk until they are as hard as hockey pucks. I realize, now, we on campus often curse the Deece when there are no cups, or hate on the cornflake-infused water, but the Deece is only human. They have feels.

7 Spring Break Locations for the Poughkeepsie Stuck

by Chris Gonzalez, Travel Planner

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ow, look at all this warm, tropical snow still on campus. If we’re lucky, it’ll be gone by July. But don’t let the cold get you down. As the resident hermit of Vassar College who never goes anywhere ever, I’ve got you Vassar spring breakers covered with seven destinations. I’m pretty sure they’re all affordable, and only one or two may be hazardous to your health. Let’s do this.

2. Hurricane Grill’s Outdoor “Beach”

4. The Dentist’s Office

6. Smokes 4 Less near Palace Dumplings

Sunset Lake not have enough sand for you?

I get it, I get it. Nothing says spring break like the feeling of itchy, critter-infested sand between your toes and every ungodly crevice of your body. Luckily, the sand outside Hurricane is free for the taking if you can shovel it out. Working up a sweat will give you that socially-constructed “warmth” you so crave.

You’re welcome.

What’s spring break without a little intimacy? Well, for me it’s called the last 22 years of existence, but I’m guessing that’s not your situation. If you’re opposed to an imaginary significant other, making an appointment with your dentist over break—as all college kids do—is the easiest way to make sure you’re getting some mouth action. Nothing is sexier than having someone root around in your cavities. Now, excuse me while I swoon.

Now that you’ve had your carnal fill, nothing would be better than a pleasurable smoke.

Smokes 4 Less offers a lounge for all your chain-smoking needs. Sit back, inhale the tar, choke a little on the sadness and claw away at some scratch-off tickets. Maybe you’ll get lucky and win big. Maybe not. At least you don’t have to worry about midterms.

1. Sunset Lake

I know what you’re thinking: Um, where’s the warmth? I think we all know at this point that “warmth” is a social construct. Florida is “warm” and “humid” and “hot,” and I think we can all agree it’s an overall shitty state. Envision the warmth, and so it will be.

The same could be said about romantic relationships. I don’t have a “relationship” in the societal eye, but tell that to my imaginary girlfriend, Fiona, and you’ll probably break her heart.

3. The (New) McDonald’s on Main Street

Maybe you crave some distance from the campus. That’s reasonable, I guess, but times are tough and distance is most affordably achieved on foot. McDonald’s has free WiFi, and the stench of “hamburgers” and “fries” will make you feel like you’re chilling at a cook-out. This is especially appealing for students who consider walking to Acrop and back “getting out” into Poughkeepsie. Look at you, being cultured and shit.

5. The Cloud 9 Hotel on Route 9

You and your lover are bound to need some privacy for a little loving session, and when your dentist turns you down, you can check into a room for one. Masturbating in a hotel room might seem icky, but hear me out: Everyone has done it, and this way, you’ll be able to leave your mark on someone else’s next lover’s getaway. Because the gift that keeps on giving is a questionable wet spot.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

7. Your Campus/ Off-Campus Housing

Wow, you must be exhausted! It’s been a long week...or less than 24 hours. But now you can head back home. Tired, sad, masked by cigarette smoke—you have successfully done spring break right! Or not. The point is you broke away from the campus. See? Staying on campus for two weeks isn’t the worst thing that could happen to you, not by a long shot. Now all that’s left to do is sit back in your bed and think about your unwritten thesis or your friends having “actual” fun.

ARTS

Page 14

March 5, 2015

Seasoned dancers reflect on first positions in VRDT Yifan Wang Reporter

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Katie de Heras/The MiscellanyJournal News courtesy of The Poughkeepsie

ust like every writer likes to imagine her name appear on the front cover of a book, every dancer probably has pictured a day when her performance is announced at the marquee of a renowned theater. This Saturday will be one of those days; Vassar Repertory Dance Theater (VRDT) will hold its Annual Gala performances at the Bardavon Opera House this Saturday, March 7. The performance will be open to the public and reservations can be made through the Vassar Box Office, Bardavon Box Office and Ticketmaster online.

Since its founding in 1869, the Bardavon Opera Theater has held performances from all artistic, musical and theatric eras in its almost 150 year history. The stage has held productions by major artists ranging from Mark Twain and Frank Sinatra, to Dizzy Gillespie and James Earl Jones. This March marks the 33rd Annual Bardavon Gala performances by Vassar students in the VRDT. In 1980, VRDT was created so that the students of Vassar Dance Department studying modern, jazz and ballet techniques had an opportunity to perform brand new repertoire.

Student choreographers were also given opportunities to create works for their colleagues.

Ray Cook was the first director of the company and was followed by Stephen Rooks, Paul D. Mosley, Maureen Mansfield Kaddar and John Meehan, the present Artistic Director.

Now, the VRDT recruits dancers through an audition that takes place every year on the first Saturday of the fall semester. All members of VRDT are required to attend the two-hour rehearsals on Mondays and Wednesdays. During these hours, dancers work on two of the faculty pieces and the company piece, a single dance performed by all the members of VRDT at the end of each stage performance.

Besides official rehearsals, members also need to work on the student pieces and smaller projects outside those hours. A VRDT dancer for three years, Nathaniel Wulff ’15 commented on his experience in this group.

“I have basically lived in Kenyon since joining VRDT. On top of the mandatory two-hour rehearsals on Monday and Wednesday, I rehearse at least 5 hours a week for student and smaller pieces. VRDT members also have to attend at least one of the dance classes offered, and many students choose to take 2,” he wrote

in an emailed statement.

Despite many challenges, most members still find it a rewarding experience to dance at VRDT. Wulff, who joined the group his sophomore year, found a new relationship between his mind and body through three years of dancing. “The group is filled with talented dancers, and the hours spent rehearsing encourages a tight knit community, so depending on the group, finding your own place and personality within VRDT both as a person and a dancer can sometimes be a challenge...The experience has pretty dramatically shaped my understanding of anatomy and kinesthetics as a personal science, and by that, I mean, that I learned about these scientific concepts as they applied to my own body and as they connected to my own thoughts and sensory experiences,” he said.

Another dancer at VRDT, Kerri-Anne Bell ’17 enjoys the group’s professional way of working. “I joined VRDT in my freshman year, that is, fall 2013. I decided to join VRDT because I am a member of The Company Dance Theatre in Jamaica and when I began college I knew I wanted to continue dancing and the fact that VRDT is run very similarly to a professional company I saw it as a perfect fit...It’s great to be able to work with a faculty that has had such a reputable background in dance and also with a diverse set of students that share their varying experiences with dance prior to VRDT.” She also pointed out that her favorite part about VRDT is that students are given the opportunity to choreograph their own pieces, which allows them to explore their creative ability and exercise complete control over their own productions.

The annual performances tradition started three years after the group was founded.

In 1983, the Annual VRDT Gala Performances were first held at the Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Poughkeepsie. Director of VRDT and Chair of Dance Department John Meehan explained how the tradition began.

“The first Director of Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre, Ray Cook, could not find a suitable space for VRDT to perform on campus, so he arranged for the company to appear at the Bardavon Opera House 33 years ago. Since then, the college has renovated the old indoor pool facility in Kenyon to create the beautiful Frances Daly Fergusson Dance Theater, however the tradition continues at the Bardavon. Originally there was just one performance, but now

The 146-year-old Bardavon Opera House has a rich history with famous artists from past decades.

The renown theater will host Vassar dance students in VRDT in their 33rd Annual Bardavon Gala. we hold 2 shows there. Last year we played to over 1200 people.” Meehan explained through an emailed statement.

Running for 90 minutes, the performances this year will include both existing pieces and faculty and student choreography, and the whole company will be performing.

“This year, we will perform excerpts from two existing works; George Balanchine’s ballet masterpiece ‘Divertimento No. 15’ and Doug Varone’s modern classic ‘Chapters from a Broken Novel.’ Steve Rooks, our resident choreographer has created the dramatic work ‘Mosul’ and Kathy Wildberger, Assistant Director of VRDT has made the poetic ‘Shimmer.’ Finally Abby Saxon, our jazz instructor has choreographed the upbeat and fun work, ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’.’ Nine student choreographers, Ally Hamilton ’15, Katy Walter ’15, Nate Wulff ’15, Alaina Wilson ’16, Carmen Kloer ’17, Oriana Catton ’17, Kerri-Anne Bell ’17, Zerlina Panush ’17 [and] Ana Sheehan ’17, have also made works,” Meehan explained.

Specifically, Meehan also noted that the ballet piece “Divertimento No. 15” would be worth expectation. “We have never had as many tal-

courtesy of Vassar College Media Relations

VRDT dancers have been rehearsing “Chapters of a Broken Novel,” “Divertimento No. 15” and “Mosul” among other pieces directed by students in early March. Students from each class year and many different dance backgrounds will be performing on the Bardavon stage.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

ented ballet dancers in VRDT before and consequently ‘Divertimento No. 15’ will feature 16 dancers performing very challenging choreography,” he commented.

Moreover, “Chapters of a Broken Novel” is a work Meehan has always been hoping to bring to VRDT. “Doug Varone is a wonderful choreographer and I had him on my list to invite at some point...This year was the year that world out for this invitation,” he explained. He also described the piece as “compelling to watch.”

Some of the dancers shared their experiences performing these works. Bell stated, “As a dancer, my favorite piece to perform is ‘Big Feelings’

by Carmen Kloer ’17. It’s about identity, how we perceive ourselves, how others see us and how we really are. It’s an emotionally driven piece that has a cast of 11 dancers and to say the least, the piece is absolutely beautiful and is a tremendous pleasure to perform. Carmen is a beautiful soul and goes above and beyond to work with each dancer to ensure their comfort with the choreography and emotion behind the piece.”

Another dancer who will be performing in “Divertimento No. 15,” “Mosul” and two student pieces, Katherine Taylor ’15 found it challenging to perform in a modern work. “I’ve always been a bunhead, so being cast in a more modern based solo in Steve Rooks’ ‘Mosul’ has pushed me artistically. Classical ballet teaches you to internalize feelings, and learning to express myself emotionally onstage has been challenging, but also very rewarding,” Taylor wrote in an emailed statement.

Dancing since she was three years old, Taylor think this may be her last chance to dance on stage and expressed her expectations for this gala performance. “Since I’m graduating in May, and not pursuing a career in dance, I think this may be one of my last performances. In light of that, and I think I can speak for all the seniors in VRDT when I say this, I hope I can remember to simply enjoy every second on that stage.”

Wulff added, “My goal with most performances is to dance my fullest, to immerse myself in the performance so that I lose my ego and merge myself and my body. To me, that allows me to have a greater sense of my movement and to dance generously, so that I can invite the audience into the performance. The talking in the mind kind of quiets down, the analysis starts happening in the nerves of your body rather than the voice of your head.”

Also, Bell emphasized the advantages of performing at the Bardavon. “It’s always nice to perform at different theatres. More members of the Poughkeepsie community tend to attend this performance so it’s also refreshing to perform for a different audience.”

Eventually, Meehan hopes the performance will not only be enjoyable for the audience, but also leave the performers with a sense of excitement and accomplishment.

He concluded, “I am hoping that as usual a large cross section of the folks on the Vassar campus will attend the performances, enjoy the show and leave with a feeling of excitement and pride that such talented dancers and choreographers are part of their community.”

ARTS

March 5, 2015

Page 15

Sketch comedy blends with sounds of No-ViCE bands Emma Rosenthal Arts Editor

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his past weekend, the Mug held a dual-genre event for audiences to laugh and jam out, in that order. No-ViCE and Special Events collaborated to host comedians and musical guests on Feb. 28 as a combined performance event.

As a member of No-ViCE and Special Events, Tatiana Esposito von Mueffling ’17 helped organize the earlier comedic portion of the night.

She wrote in an emailed statement, “The double header was... really just an attempt to combine two different forms of entertainment and performance. The audiences for plays, concerts, improv shows and so on can be self-selecting and insular so I wanted to deliberately broaden and overlap the crowds to expose people to things they might not go out of their way to see.”

Director of No-ViCE Zack Wilks ’17 noted his involvement in the process, lending the idea to Esposito von Mueffling and commenting, “It was actually mostly Tati’s idea to do a combined comedy/music show, so she handled the comedy portion of it and we worked together to pick bands for the show. I contacted and booked the bands...So the bands were Lost Boy ?, Mannequin Pussy, and The Spirit Of The Beehive. We actually didn’t do a “specific” sound for this one–instead, there was a pretty good smattering of styles.”

He continued, “I’ve been booking bands through No-ViCE all year and The Spirit of the Beehive is probably my favorite band right now, so getting them to come was pretty cool.”

Aside from working with Wilks, Esposito von Mueffling also collaborated with the co-heads of Special Events to round out the preparation for the comedy-concert event. She said, “I am in the general bodies of both NoViCE and Special Events. No-ViCE as a whole worked to put together the bands and the co-

heads of Special Events, Reuben Moncada [’15] and Sarah King [’16], allowed me to head up the comedy side of things.”

While Esposito von Mueffling worked on the comedy side, Wilks was more involved with the bands and gave much thought to coordinating the energies of each set. “Lost Boy ? have the whole West Coast, Burger Records-esque psych/pop/rock thing going for them—their lead singer Davey Jones writes really bouncy jams that seemed to go well with the ‘upbeat’ tone of My Privacy (not in the optimistic sense­­—more in the ‘let’s just keep on going and keep the energy up’ sense).”

He continued, “Mannequin Pussy are ‘punk’ of the highest order: just super loud guitars and screaming vocals, but they also have some pretty cool textural stuff going on. Truly passionate and visceral live show, too. The Spirit Of The Beehive are...painfully loud and abrasive at times, but they make amazing use of My Bloody Valentine guitar motifs to create these amazing textures. They also don’t pigeonhole themselves into the shoegaze aesthetic.”

Esposito von Mueffling wrote, “I’d been wanting to bring off-campus comedy groups to Vassar for a while, so I reached out to a New York-based improv team called My Privacy, who I saw over winter break at the Upright Citizens Brigade.”

Co-head of Special Events Sarah King ’16 also attested to Esposito von Mueffling’s involvement in and engagement with the event and how much she added to it’s organization.

King wrote in an emailed statement, “It was an idea to combine two very popular programs on campus into a fun night of variety and give people an evening of activities...I enjoyed the show and was very proud of how amazing Tati was at managing this event and coming up with a great idea that can be developed in the future!”

Two of the organizers, King and Esposito von Mueffling, commented on aspects that

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proved to be difficult when planning an event with both a comedy feature and a musical one.

King wrote, “It seemed to flow really well, as comedy and music are a similar audience of people, most are usually interested in both.

The hardest part was simply making the transition between the two acts not feel long.”

Esposito von Mueffling commented on a different side of the planning, which she worked on with Wilks to create a harmonious transition between two seemingly distinct genres of art. She said in an emailed statement, “The only difficulty was figuring out what kind of music should follow comedy. We originally wanted something upbeat and dance-y but we ended up with heavier music.”

She continued, “In retrospect, I think most any music, except very slow and sad stuff, works with comedy. Comedy does not always stay in the realm of the upbeat or lighthearted.

It can get dark and weird and goofy all at once.

Same with music, which is why we could put them together in one show.”

A performer in the comedy portion and member of The Limit, a comedy group on campus, Peter Galer ’16 wrote in an emailed statement, “The Limit was only involved in choosing and performing our own material. We focused on sketches and videos that were more non-traditional. For instance, we performed a sketch about two very sexual dancing bears that turn out to be human brother and sister.”

He continued, “My favorite part was having the opportunity to share Limit material to and audience that appreciates the abstract and unusual...I have heard great responses from other Vassar students about the show. They really appreciated the non-traditional conglomeration of atypical performers.”

With the difficulties worked out, the event was a success for both organizations and inspired both No-ViCE and Special Events to think about creating more shows and collabo-

rations like this in the future. As the planners think about future events, they also noted the elements of the night that could have been improved this time around.

Wilks related his opinion of the night in terms of the drawbacks. He said, “Overall, it did go pretty well but there was a mass exodus after the comedy portion and not that many people were there for the music, but all the bands were amazing so people missed out on an amazing show!... Hopefully more people show up next time, though.”

King also recognized the issues with attendance, but remained positive about the event as a whole, “Saturday nights are hard to fill, so the attendance could have been better, but those who did go really enjoyed the event and it was encouraging to hear the good feedback.”

Esposito von Mueffling commented on the performers as well as the audience and the organizers. She said, “Members of the bands said they appreciated being part of an event that showcased different kinds of performance and I hope the audience did, too.”

Galer also commented on the potential possibility of another show like this, “The performance went very well. The audience was very receptive [to] our sketches. The Limit loved being able to perform some of our more unusual material again...I think it was a terrific idea and would love No-ViCE to throw something similar in the future.”

While definite plans for another multimedia night are not in motion yet, Wilks remained optimistic that this will not be the last performance of its kind.

Commenting on his upbeat experience at the show, Wilks said, “Spirit of the Beehive [was] the loudest band that’s played here this year so far and they just ripped. Also My Privacy are the funniest dudes I’ve seen in the Mug... All the bands ruled and all the comedy ruled and the whole thing just ruled.”

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ARTS

Page 16

March 5, 2015

Film’s super-power cinematography soars with success Sieu Nguyen

Guest Columnist

Birdman Alejandro González Iñárritu Regency Enterprises

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eading the Academy Awards this year with nine nominations, it was no surprise that “Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance),” directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, brought home four prestigious awards for Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Director and Best Picture. The film reaches an admirable balance between content and aesthetics, between reality and symbolism, serving as an in-depth exploration into the concept of artistry and a witty criticism of present-day commercial Hollywood blockbusters.

The protagonist of the film is Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton), who used to be famous for his role in the Hollywood blockbuster trilogy, “Birdman.” Riggan is trying to rebuild his career with a Broadway play, an adaptation from Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.”

Unsatisfied with one of his cast members, Riggan made an accident in replacing him, whose role is later filled in by Mike (Edward Norton), a volatile method actor. Although it seems to be the perfect choice at first, Riggan realizes that the pretentious Mike is stealing his spotlight. At the same time, he finds out that Mike and his daughter, Sam (Emma Stone), are flirting, and a well-known critic, Tabitha Dickinson (Lindsay Duncan), is more than willing to “kill” his artwork.

The central theme of “Birdman” is artistry, which Iñárritu chooses to explore in depth instead of breadth. The film revolves around the tension between film and theater, two visual art forms, which have been going on for decades, and

the artist’s desire for fame and recognition. The representative of film—or more specifically, Hollywood films—is the voice inside Riggan’s head, that of his inner “Birdman.” This imaginary character talks Riggan into making another blockbuster, giving him superpower, flying him over New York City, injecting into his subconscious a sense of self-superiority over ordinary people. It serves as a symbol for Riggan’s pride. The typography of the poster, which places the “I” in “BIRDMAN” slightly higher than others, also signifies the ego.

Furthermore, “Birdman” functions as a subtle criticism of the star system in Hollywood, who are revered as gods but, in essence, normal human beings. The magnificent scene in which Riggan hovers in the sky also refers to the overuse of special effects in blockbusters, a tactic commercial filmmakers use to attract young theater-goers in this age of the “world picture,” the domination of the image. The specific choice of the character “Birdman” also echoes “Batman,” “Spiderman,” “Superman” and “Ironman,” a criticism of countless superhero blockbusters that are known more for visual pleasure than creative content. Riggan, widely known for playing “Birdman,” dazzled by the ephemeral spotlight, is now struggling with life and on the verge of losing his career. Easy come, easy go. The short-lived memory of celebration is fading.

On the other side of the frontline is theater– Riggan’s attempt to relive “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” The reference to Constantin Stanislavski’s method acting, which is based on improvisation, is a sharp contrast to Riggan’s controlling personality. This controlling, perfectionist personality is also expressed in Iñárritu’s aesthetic choice of filming in one seemingly long take. The camera moves constantly, but we always find ourselves in the same house or just around the corner of Times Square.

The overwhelming sense of claustrophobia haunts the film from the beginning to the very end. Is it just the architecture of the theater or

the complications of Riggan’s mind, trying to transform his “Hollywood mindset” into “theater sensibilities”? The (seemingly) long take, bearing influence from “The Russian Ark,” is also a rebellious move against the cut, the signature characteristic of cinema.

I would call Riggan’s shot at his nose in the end, the climax of the film, a masterpiece. It was definitely foreshadowed, given Mike’s prior suggestion to use a real gun instead of a fake one. However, it still comes as a shock to the audience, both in the diegetic world and in our real theater space.

Throughout the movie, it is apparent that Riggan’s sole purpose in producing the play is to regain the spotlight. Evidence is found in his envy for Mike, his quarrel with Sam, his superhero fantasy and his over-obsession with critic Tabitha Dickinson.

Riggan’s decision to use a real gun, to sacrifice himself for the act, is a revolution. He disregards the superficial value of fame and truly immerses himself in the play, blending his body and spirit into the flesh of the story. He has finally achieved it: becoming the character. The tremendous number of positive reviews Riggan receives afterwards, I believe, are not in his plan. Fame, now, becomes the effect of an excellent performance, not the motivation for a good act.

Shot from behind, the film also does not immediately reveal which body part gets shot. We viewers are left questioning–did he die or did he not? I sighed with relief realizing that he is still alive. But the funny part comes in–his nose is broken. This is no coincidence, since the nose is a prominent feature of Birdman. Riggan sets himself free from the temptation to go back to superhero film, to superficial acclamation.

At the very end of the movie, the viewers now have two options: going with reality or joining the fantasy world. In a reality perspective, Riggan might have killed himself by jumping out of the window, freeing his spirit from the superficial material world. However, his daughter’s smile invites us into the fantasy world. This surrealist taste im-

plies that Riggan has become a true “Birdman,” instead of merely playing a role in a Hollywood movie.

There are a lot of remarkable elements being used in “Birdman.” The drumbeats in the background music really create a singular ambience of the theater–everyone is a rush, everything is at stake. They complement Riggan’s tangled psychological world. The use of dark colors–green and black–in the theater space, compared to the warm yellow of New York City fantasy, visually draws the contrast between elements of reality and imagination.

However, in my opinion, the film also possesses certain weaknesses. First, I would question the character Tabitha Dickinson. She wants to destroy his Broadway career with an article, before even seeing the play. Her sole motivation comes from her contempt for Hollywood actors. Despite its justifiability, how can a prejudiced critic succeed in the world of journalism? She is portrayed as an extremely powerful writer, but her action in the film proves the opposite—she is rather narrow-minded.

The whole “Ratatouille” motif of a demanding critic who has the power to deny people’s efforts is quite clichéd. Second, the alternation between reality and fantasy throughout the plotline is excellently seamless, until the taxi driver is shown asking Riggan for money. This detail crosses the line and destroys the subtlety of this bridge, providing overt proof that Riggan has been dreaming the entire time. Indulging the ambiguity, from my viewpoint, would be a better choice.

Despite a number of weaknesses, I find “Birdman” an excellent fit for Best Picture. It embraces both content and style, and does not let one triumph the other.

At the end, it seems as if Riggan has escaped from Iñárritu’s film itself–we never see him afterwards. He has escaped the widescreen of the cinema and perhaps, is hovering in glee out there in another world that we can only fantasize about.

Comedian of color recalls ‘House of Cards’ waits too negotiating white campuses long to get things moving KONDABOLU continued from page 1 United States with various other festival appearances and started to branch out into the international market through many shows in the U.K. Several organizations worked together to bring Kondabolu to campus. A concerted effort between the South Asian Students’ Alliance (SASA), Asian Student Alliance (ASA) and Poder Latin@ (PL) helped prepare the event through a committee of members from each of these collaborating ALANA organizations. Co-president of ASA Michelle Zhao ’16 explained, “ASA wanted to collab[orate] with SASA and PL because Hari is pretty well known in the POC community and it was a great opportunity to collaborate with them since these three orgs haven’t before.”

“We’ve made it our goal this year to bring as many relevant speakers to campus as we can and to have diverse programming for everyone,” continued Zhao. ASA had actually tried to bring Kondabolu to campus last year, but a scheduling conflict put the plan on hold.

According to SASA member Maya Khatri ‘15, “PL and ASA separately approached Hari about coming, and our three orgs, plus Improv, have been working on bringing him since early last semester.” Community chair of PL Dalia Griñan ‘17 approached the executive board earlier in the semester about bringing Kondabolu to campus and found that ASA had already begun the process.

“We offered to collab[orate] with ASA and SASA to make it possible,” she said.

Khatri explained that to prepare for the event SASA had a general body meeting about South Asian representation in the media, specifically comedy. All groups seem to agree that Kondabolu’s political messages are what truly resonate in his performances. Khatri continued, “Hari is one of many comedians directly addressing stereotypes, racism, and sexism, and we think he fits in to the narrative of South Asian comedians brought to the Vassar community, following Vijay Nathan who SASA brought three years ago.”

SASA Co-President Manrose Singh ‘15 elaborated, “Hari’s comedy focuses a lot on the social experiences and narratives of people of color in white-dominated spaces using anecdotes. His

humor includes themes of colonialism and such, which aren’t usually touched upon by other comedians.”

Griñan added, “Hari Kondabolu’s political comedy addresses issues of systemic inequality in the U.S. and his own experiences as a South Asian American. As ALANA center organizations whose work focuses on issues faced by students of color on campus and in the larger world, much of the themes and questions raised in Hari Kondabolu’s comedy routines are relevant to discussions and other events we hold on campus.”

Griñan discovered Kondabolu when she came across a YouTube video of his performance on “John Oliver’s New York Stand Up Show.” His character on and off the stage impressed her. She took particular note of his presence on social media, the discussions he inspired outside of his routines and his ability to politicize without reducing to stereotypes or tropes.

His message resonates with many of those responsible for bringing him to campus. According to Griñan, “part of the perspective Hari Kondabolu brings to his comedy comes from being a person of color who went to private liberal arts colleges for undergrad, which is something many students of color at Vassar can relate to.”

Singh echoed this sentiment, reflecting on Kondabolu’s relevance on campus, “As students, it’s important to see comedy styles that challenge traditional norms and can subvert stereotypes, especially by comedians of color.” According to Zhao, a member of ASA recently watched Kondabolu perform at a conference and had nothing but positive feedback.

Hari Kondabolu is a decorated comedian with a rapidly growing presence. His political commentary is gaining as much attention as his standup acts. His hybrid of these two mediums is a perfect fit for Vassar, and his personal experiences as a minority at a liberal arts school give his message extra weight. An enthusiastic Zhao remarked, “I believe his words will resonate with a lot of people on campus and I hope everyone is looking forward to it!” Vassar Improv opens for Kondabolu in this night of comedy. He performs Friday, March 6 at 8 p.m. in Taylor Hall, 102.

Joshua Sherman Opinions Editor

House of Cards Beau Willimon Media Rights Capital

W

henever a new season of “House of Cards” comes along, what begins is less of a television experience and more of a total binge.

Every day, I’m checking with friends to find out what episode they’re on, and to remind them not to spoil anything if they’re ahead. As I write this, I’ve made it through five episodes, and from what I gather so far this isn’t the “House of Cards” I remember from over the last two years.

In many ways, “House of Cards” is and will always be Netflix’s great experiment. Unlike traditional television, it remains a buffet-style smorgasbord of episodes. Originally, Netflix ordered just two seasons, but given the runaway success (and several Emmys), the show was quickly renewed. This third season, from which I won’t spoil too much, is one I’d characterize as far slower and calculating than its two previous seasons.

There’s a perfectly justifiable reason for this too: It’s a lot more important to pace yourself when you’re leader of the free world.

But here is where the problem lies with “House of Cards.” As we saw Underwood climb his way through hell and high water, deep down, I wanted some sort of foil character to emerge. As he made enemies, burnt bridges and turned America’s government inside out, all along it felt like we deserved someone to emerge as a grand foe to his ethos. But in the land of “House of Cards,” frankly, there’s no one to root for except Frank Underwood. Sure, along the way we’ve had (and still have) characters in Underwood’s way, but such characters either remain minor voices or end up getting literally written off the show. If anything, “House of Cards” is instead a revelation in how potent, sexy and successful Underwood’s corruptibility is in Washington.

What this leaves us with is one of two plateaus

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

in season three. At last, after two seasons, Underwood has gotten his presidency, and can at best move laterally. To address this first plateau, the writers try to twist it by pulling out the rug from under him, forcing him to fight as he tries to consolidate his political gains. I can understand why, too: Kevin Spacey’s character really only works as a fighter in the front lines. Still, without a grand foe or some counterpart trying to single-handedly destroy Underwood, nothing feels like a true threat to him or his authority as President of the United States. There is one person in this season as a possible contender, but I’m not sure how long the writers will let her last.

This season the writers also chose to trade in fist-to-cuff fights with union bosses for state dinners with international boogeymen. There’s nothing wrong with this, but what “House of Cards” is renowned for is that grittiness it’s fearless to share. This is where the second plateau emerges in “House of Cards.” I don’t think, after season two, things are going to feel any more intense or gritty.

I think the writers were well aware of this. Season three, by nature, is that necessary transition to a more seasoned, calculating character and space.

To do this, “House of Cards” ought to take some lessons from Aaron Sorkin’s “The West Wing” to figure out these growing pains. The show should spend more time showing how characters figure out ideas and balance this with the edginess we already know and love. Spacey’s character is ruler of the free world–yet his White House feels like it’s being run by a skeleton crew, rather than the world’s finest politicians and diplomats. At least by episode five we see the puzzle pieces come together, but this moment was far too late for a show with this many accolades.

In the end, I enjoy watching “House of Cards” for many reasons. Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright and Michael Kelly continue to outperform themselves. It’s fun, it’s entertaining, and most of all, it’s still an experiment in progress. Does “House of Cards” leave us with an experience worth remembering? Yes. Absolutely yes. What it needs is to move with more grace and figure itself out far sooner than episode five, where everything begins to click.

ARTS

March 5, 2015

Page 17

Dynamic directing duo struggles with high expectations, ‘Focus’ doesn’t cut it Excuse me, Charles Lyons-Burt Columnist

Focus Glenn Ficarra and John Requa Zaftig Films

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ike Glenn Ficarra and John Requa’s last film as directors, 2011’s “Crazy, Stupid, Love.,” their 2015 Will Smith-starring “Focus” begins with dinner at an uptown restaurant.

The previous film fixated on the footwear of the establishment’s patrons in order to characterize their privilege and standing in the movie’s sitcom-ish but nonetheless genuine social strata.

In “Focus,” though, relationships are established through transactions and calculated movements expressed through body and tongue. We don’t hear them; we drift from afar like our seemingly off-the-job hero, but then are thrust into action with the haphazard introduction of a woman .

Though their interaction is by chance, it is imperative that we accept Nicky Spurgeon (Smith) and Jess Barrett (Margot Robbie) as having undeniable chemistry, and I don’t. Regardless, “Focus” is about the shifting layers of identity constructed through our jobs, love lives and interpersonal dynamics, but, more than any other of Ficarra and Requa’s almost exclusively-con job films, the revealing of its final hand amounts to nothing.

The film is the summation of paths crossed by the central pair of lovers/competitors through a rotating series of locations: New York City, New Orleans, Buenos Aires and then back to the United States. The couple’s shady motivations presumably are teased out over the course of the years-long journey.

“Focus” is a serious disappointment to this critic because Ficarra and Requa do consistently good work, be it their screenplay—aided by the Coen brothers—for Terry Zwigoff’s excellent “Bad Santa,” or scripting for Richard Linklater on his undervalued 2005 “Bad

Campus Canvas

News Bears” remake.

The pair came into their own with their directing debut, 2010’s “I Love You Phillip Morris,” which firmly established themes of fakery, embezzlement and fraud that persist (and precede) that defining work.

“Focus[’s]” plot indeed revolves around professional liars in much the same way as “Phillip Morris,” but the new film doesn’t provide the contextualizing details to link Nicky’s need to fake and steal with intimate or internal access to the multifaceted lead character.

“The revealing of its final hand amounts to nothing.... ‘Focus’ is a serious disappointment to this critic.”

In “Phillip Morris,” the relative naïveté and earnestness of Ewan McGregor’s titular object of affection created a sweet moral conflict between Jim Carrey’s protagonist’s incessant scheming and need for transgression. This sorrowfully links addiction and substance abuse in a manner “Focus” merely gestures to in a scene where Smith mimics alcoholism on the job.

However, because all of Smith’s behaviors are veiled performances angling toward the acquisition of something, the scene registers as a surface-level grappling with many weighty implications.

The directing pair’s new effort also draws comparison to the past, “I Love You Phillip Morris” in a cafe conversation between Jess and Farhad (Adrian Martinez), an associate of Nicky. In the sequence, the woman jokes that she’s now a lesbian and only interested in women, a line that shows the gay themes and queer relationships present in the filmmakers’ 2010 film, which used con-jobs and their perpetuation in one’s life as a metaphor for deceptive identity and cloaked truths of

sexual exposure.

“Focus” tosses the subject off, never to bring it up again, thus describing itself as only superficially concerned with the existential dilemmas of love, addiction and identity which manifest in atmospheric, moody imagery. In several scenes, the directors stylistically overstay their welcome with murky, yellow-greenish medium close-ups of Smith as he stews in his regrets and, I inferred, the suffocating anonymity and transience of a life of crime.

It isn’t inhabited by the underlying humanity of “Morris” or “Love,” but the filmmakers’ slick camera coyly turns in and around visual illusions that track one person’s path only to swipe with a pane of glass into an image of another figure altogether. This prismatic aesthetic, along with the shiftiness of the locations inhabited by the characters, evinces a deceptive, deeply human drive to conceal oneself. But Smith and Robbie’s characters are, in addition to con-people, bland cyphers in their own right, bringing very little to the table in terms of backstory or compelling character detail.

They exhume a cold artifice of deceit that’s inherent to particularly Smith’s character, whose role necessarily interrogates the actor’s massive celebrity as a charismatic movie star; Nicky is putting on faces and inhabiting roles as much as Smith is in his own real-life artistic pursuits.

In “Focus,” the worlds of con artistry/ gambling and athletic competition are likened, suggesting the hollow competition and one-upmanship of both pursuits. Ficarra and Requa don’t go beyond setting up the aesthetic likeness, and as a result, the film’s attempts at making any kind of serious statements about competition and professionalism are cursory at best. While “Focus” doesn’t announce itself as a vanity project quite as directly as “After Earth,” “Seven Pounds” or even “Hancock,” “Focus” is decidedly not a film with the gall to kill its star’s character, but toys with the idea only to uphold his cyclical, immortal reign.

A weekly space highlighting the creative pursuits of student-artists

What’s your spring break anthem?

“Sorry For Party Rocking by LMFAO.” ­­— Alix Masters ’15

“Margaritaville” — Yasmeen Silva ’15

“The Best Is Yet To Come by Michael Buble.”

— Saul Ulloa ’15

submit to misc@vassar.edu

“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper.”

— Delphine Douglas ’18

“Breathe by Michelle Branch.”

— Robert Harvey ’16

“The National Anthem.”

— Alice Fracchiolla ’18 I’m allergic to cats. But runny noses and swollen lips are entirely worth the joy of seeing my sweet baby sprawled out on what is supposed to be my side of the bed, sleeping to meet her quota of an average of fifteen hours per day of rest. For my painting class in senior year, we were assigned to create a duo of paintings identical in subject matter but contrasting in regards to the emotion they conveyed. I didn’t know what to make my subject matter at first, but my cat offered her resting, nestled body as muse. I decided to play around with realistic color schemes and unrealistic, fantastical color schemes in order to convey opposing emotions of peace and discomfort without having to change the actual composition of the painting. In retrospect, there was no way I could have portrayed a sleeping kitten as grotesque or disturbing.

-Jonathan Chung ’18

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Emma Rosenthal Humor & Satire Editor Sam Pianello, Photo Editor

SPORTS

Page 18

March 5, 2015

Drakeley’s presence as valuable as her scoring ability Ashley Hoyle

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Reporter

aitlin Drakeley, a junior guard from Woodbury, Conn., has been tearing apart the Liberty League this season. So far, she has been selected as the Liberty League Player of the Week twice and made Liberty League Honor Roll five times this season. She is the Brewers’ leading scorer, shooting 42.8 percent and averaging 17.5 points per game: the fifth highest ever, in Brewers’ history. She started all 25 games this year, averaging 34.6 minutes per game which puts her fourth highest in the Liberty League.

Averaging 6.7 rebounds an appearance, she came in as the 15th best rebounder in the league. This year she also hit her career high, 32 points, twice: once against Williams College in mid-November, and then again facing Union College in early January.

“I mean, Caitlin was our go-to player all year long,” said Assistant Coach Carolyn Crampton, “She really was consistent. She was the leading scorer in the LL. She never really had a bad day. We asked a lot of her. She really did a great job of facilitating the offense for other players, where she wasn’t just scoring, she was helping every other player on the floor to score as well.

In my opinion, she was unguardable. And she’s going to make that much of a difference for us next year as well.”

Senior guard Allyson Pemberton from Weston, Mass., said, “Caitlin is a great player because she is both strong and quick. Guard players usually only have one of those traits, so that makes her very hard to guard as she can exploit the weaknesses of her opponent. She is an exceptional scorer, and always makes a play when we need her to.”

courtesy of Vassar College Athletics

Junior scoring sensation Caitlin Drakeley drives strong to the hoop. Drakeley recently scored her 1,000 point against Bard College. Her leadership on and off the court have been vital to her team.

As freshman guard/forward Ariella Rosenthal stressed, Drakeley’s determination is contagious, “I think [her best asset is] just her competitiveness and her drive to be the best that she can be. That transfers to everyone else on the team, so that’s what makes her the best player, because seeing her want to get better makes everyone else want to get better and it just creates a better dynamic for the team. She goes 110% all the time and it’s just really nice to have an upperclassman like that who you can look up to. She sets the tone constantly. It makes everyone better.”

Drakeley’s impact on her team goes way beyond her on-court performance. She stressed how important the team was to her. “We are like one big family and the memories that we make together on and off the court are ones that I will always cherish,” explained Drakeley.

“She’s always trying to make you better,” said Rosenthal. “I remember when I first came in, in the beginning of the year, I had no idea what to expect and she kind of just brought me under her wing and brought me to lifts and pushed me at lifts so much and on the court we would work out together. She would be giving me tips on everything so that I could succeed. It wasn’t a competition between us, yes there was competitiveness, but she wanted the best for me.

It wasn’t always about her. I think that’s what makes her the best teammate.”

Although the season has been tough, Drakeley found some positive moments to look back on. “My favorite memory of the season came when we were able to give the previously undefeated Skidmore College their first loss on our home court. Throughout the course of the season we had a lot of ups and down but that was definitely one highlight that sticks out to me.

During this game it felt like everything finally clicked and we played extremely well together.

I think everyone truly enjoyed just playing together when they were on the court and the energy and excitement that everyone played with made the night special to be a part of.”

Crampton also agreed that Drakeley’s con-

tributions are leadership-related. “She’s one of the nicest kids you could meet. As a captain this year, I think she learned a lot about leadership and what it means, if you’re going to work so hard, to make sure your teammates are going to work just as hard as you are. She’s always there for her teammates. She’s not quite as loud as the rest of them are, but she’s really a stabling voice for them to have in the locker room. She’s approachable, and like I said, a really nice kid who I think they know they can always rely on her. Whether it’s on the court or off the court.

And I think that makes a big difference for her as a teammate.”

One of the biggest moments in Caitlin’s 2015 campaign came when she reached an enormous career landmark in the women’s 24th game, played against Bard on February 18th at the Annandale-on-the-Hudson. She became the 11th member of the 1,000 point club. Drakeley ultimately finished the season with 1,012 career total points.

“It was awesome because I don’t even know if Caitlin knew or cared that she was going to score her 1000th point,” said Crampton, “So I know she had to be told that she was only 17 points away going into Bard, which is about her average. But I don’t think she was thinking about it or was nervous, because for her she hit it on a free throw. And everyone else was probably more excited or showed more excitement, because she’s just like ‘whatever it takes to win the game and help my team’ She’s the hardest working kid, so she definitely deserves it. Her parents were there and they were really excited. It was really nice for her to have that moment. But, like I said, for her it’s just about whatever it takes for the team to win. So she was really humble about it, which is really fun to watch.” Rosenthal’s reaction was a testament to the selflessness that Drakeley plays with.

“That’s how she is. She’s so set on the game, she goes into the zone, and she just didn’t even care basically. That just shows her character, it’s not about individual achievements or her, it’s about the team’s.”

Men win nailbiter final over Bard, Mencotti advances SQUASH continued from page 1

underestimated his opponent: “My match against Bard last weekend was the most intense match I’ve ever played. My opponent had previously lost in straight sets to players below me on our ladder, so I was overconfident in my ability to win. Towards the end of my match, I realized that mine was the deciding match of the tournament, which increased the pressure I felt not to let my team down. It ended up being very close at the end, but thankfully, we were able to come home with the title.”

Vincent Mencotti advanced to the CSA Championships where he faced Ibrahim Bakir of Drexel University and Sam Ezratty of Princeton. Mencotti fell 3-0 in both matches.

He finished his season 12-8, having won seven of his last nine matches. Mencotti was filled with pride talking about his team’s success. “[It was the] best feeling on earth to finish off with a natty [national] title!” He looks back at the

Bard match as one of his favorite memories as a squash player at Vassar. “The moment we won [was a] very emotional moment for everyone.”

On a personal note, his own performance that match is what he recalled when asked about the best moment of his squash career overall. “[My favorite squash moment was] making a huge comeback win in the No. 1 spot to keep us in it [against Bard]!.”

Sophomore Sam Hammer [full disclosure: Hammer is a columnist for the Miscellany News] agreed with Mencotti: “[The] best moment of the weekend was watching Vince come back from being down 8-1 in the fourth game to win that game and then the match in the fifth.

The best moment in my squash career was coming back from two games down against the Bard Number 9 to win the match in five games.”

Junior Juan Pablo Fernandez was also an impact player as soon as he came back. Being

courtesy of Vincent Mencotti

matches leading up to the final weren’t too taxing on the team, but they did help us get familiar with the courts and general setting. Squash courts play differently and so spending time on a particular set of them, and becoming habituated, is definitely important.

The Brewers then moved on to face the winner of the other pool in the title match. The final match was against a familiar foe, Bard College.

This was the fourth time this season the Brewers have faced the Raptors and coming into the title match, the series was 2-1 in favor of Vassar.

Boycott, who joined the squash team just this year, gave his perspective on Bard: “Bard are a great team to play against; they display good sportsmanship and always bring their best to the court. This semester, they got a few players back who were studying abroad in the fall, and that strengthened their lineup and made the competitions that more competitive. I personally think though that familiarity with their team was an aid for us.” The Brewers were able to come out on top with a come from behind 5-4 victory.

Entering into the final flight of matches, the Brewers were tied 3-3 with Bard. Sophomore Vincent Mencotti, playing at the No.1 spot in the ladder, had a difficult start to his match. He was down 2-0 to Bard’s John Levering. Mencotti came back from the 16-14 and 11-9 defeats with an 11-6 and 11-9 win. In his final set, he responded with a decisive 11-2 victory, putting the Brewers up 4-3. After the No. 5 match, the Raptors tied it up once again 4-4, so the No. 7 spot decided the victory. Junior Ben Kurchin faced off against Olivia Cornali. Cornali took the first set 11-6 before Kurchin took the next. Cornali picked up the third victory, putting Bard a set away from a national title. Kurchin didn’t bat an eye and had a resounding 11-3 win in the fourth set. During the fifth set, Cornali led for most of it but Kurchin came from behind, showcasing his “inner calm,” as coach Parker put it, and came away with an 11-9 victory, winning Vassar’s first national title in school history.

Kurchin, reminiscing, felt as if he may have

Men’s squash poses for a victory photo after their thrilling championship match against Bard College. This is Vassar’s first ever division title. The men look to carry this success into next season.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

abroad and missing part of the season left him with mixed feelings. “When I returned home [from South Africa], I trained over break back in Mexico and was really excited and really looking forward to joining the team again. Going abroad has its pros and cons because you don’t get to play all that much but I think coming back it was a big plus because I was more devoted and excited about being a part of the team. It gave me something to work harder for and look forward to. I was proud of everything we accomplished and am really looking forward to next season.

As soon as it ended I just felt myself left wanting more. Being abroad and coming back I only had 4 weeks with this amazing team and I really wish that my time competing as a part of them this year could have been extended.”

Last year, Fernandez started off playing No. 9 on the ladder; however, this year he played one match at the No. 6 spot, two at the No. 4 and four at the No. 3. Kurchin, too was, of course, a huge impact player on his return. The return of these players certainly helped the Brewers in their end of season push and looking ahead to next year, the future looks just as, if not even brighter. The return of junior Daniel Doctor and a strong incoming class will hopefully keep the Brewers on top. That being said, the leadership and skills of senior captains Ryan Kurtzman and David Garfinkel as well as fellow senior Noah Kulick, will be sorely missed.

This year’s squad, one that contributed to what coach Parker called her most enjoyable season since arriving at Vassar in 2000, will retain the legacy of Vassar’s most successful male squash team to date. This all began with leadership. Said Coach Parker, “Following the examples set by the captains, the team has shown the best commitment, communication and time management to date and we’ve had fun sharing many enjoyable experiences as well as a c’est la vie attitude toward bumps in the road.” Hammer, too had nothing but positivity and gratitude regarding the graduating class. “I wish them the best of luck. The seniors were fantastic and I am glad to have had the privilege of playing with them over these last two years.”

March 5, 2015

SPORTS

Big East removal brings basketball blues Sam Hammer

A

Columnist

s we approach March Madness and the conference tournaments leading up to it, I am saddened by the fact that there is no longer a Big East Tournament in Madison Square Garden. Although it has been a while since the Big East broke up in 2013, it is hard to get over the destruction of what was once the greatest conference in college basketball.

Before its collapse, the former Big East was comprised of Cincinnati, UConn, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, University of South Florida, Syracuse, Depaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Notre Dame, Providence College, St. John’s, Seton Hall, Villanova and West Virginia. With the exceptions of West Virginia, Rutgers, Pittsburgh and Louisville, the Big East never had much success with regard to football.

The lack of football competition is what ultimately led to the conference breaking up since the schools with strong programs wanted to play in better football conferences such as the ACC in the case of Louisville or the Big 12 in the case of West Virginia. Football creates more revenue than basketball does due to television contracts, so it was worth it for these schools to leave the Big East.

Yet before its downfall, the Big East was the premier basketball conference in the NCAA Division I. Legendary teams, coaches and players were all part of the Big East over the several decades it existed. Some of the most famous former Big East players include Chris Mullin of St. John’s, Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning of Georgetown, and Ray Allen and Kemba Walker from UConn. The list goes on and many of these players had great success at both the college and NBA levels. Coaches such as Jim Calhoun for UConn, Rick Pitino for Louisville and Jim Boeheim for Syracuse were all legendary coaches who were able to lead some of the most successful college basketball programs in history.

Even greater than the caliber of the coaches

and players who made up the Big East was the iron grip the conference used to have over the NCAA tournament.

There were some years such as 2011 when the conference sent over half of its members to the NCAA tournament. For one conference to send ten teams to the NCAA tournament is an incredible feat.

For those who do not know, in order to qualify for March Madness, teams can either win their conference for an automatic bid, or they will receive an at-large bid based on their performance during the regular season. This is determined based on factors such as win-loss record and strength of opponents.

“For one conference to send ten teams to the NCAA tournament is an incredible feat.”

So in 2011, UConn qualified because they won the Big East conference tournament that year, but then nine other programs received atlarge bids from the tournament committee. In the 2009 tournament, three out of the four oneseeds on the bracket were UConn, Louisville and Pittsburgh, all of whom were members of the Big East.

In the thirty-four year lifespan of the Big East from 1979 to 2013, teams from the conference won the NCAA tournament ten times. In other words, almost a third of the NCAA tournaments during that era were won by teams from the Big East. By comparison, the Big Ten Conference, a conference that many consider to be exceptional for basketball, produced a meager four national champions during that same timespan.

In some years, the Big East tournament that took place at the end of the college regular sea-

son was more exciting than the NCAA tournament itself. In years where several of the teams from the Big East were in contention for the national title, the Big East tournament provided an accurate preview for what was to come in March Madness.

The tournament used to be held at Madison Square Garden in New York City, a location many consider to be the premier basketball arena in the nation. Games would be sold out and there was always a massive television audience as well.

The tournament provided an opportunity for the teams who have had a worse regular season record due to the high level of competition among Big East teams to compete on a national stage for a bid to March Madness.

Although there have been many fantastic moments throughout the history of the Big East tournament, few compare to the run made by UConn in 2011.

The Huskies finished the 2010-2011 regular season with a win-loss record of 21-9 and an in-conference record of 9-9. With a record like this, the Huskies were the ninth seed for the Big East Tournament and were hoping that an impressive showing in Madison Square Garden might get them a bid for March Madness.

Led by Kemba Walker, the UConn team won five games in five days and received an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament for winning the Big East conference. The Huskies’ fourth win was a thriller against Pittsburgh.

With only a few seconds left in the game and the score tied at 74, Kemba Walker hit an amazing buzzer beater to win the game and advance to the finals of the tournament. Kemba Walker would go on to lead the Huskies to victory in the NCAA tournament.

Since 1999, UConn has won four national titles and has become one of the most successful Division I programs in history. It is a shame we can no longer watch them compete against the likes of Syracuse and Georgetown in Madison Square Garden.

Get down and nerdy: why analytics matter Rob Carpenter

Guest Columnist

I

t is difficult to contest the recent success of analytics in American sports. This is true particularly in the way analytics have allowed teams to better evaluate talent and uncover players that are skilled but off the radar, leading to cheaper and more efficient contracts.

In the last decade, sport analytics have infiltrated nearly every professional sports league in a multitude of ways. This is especially true for the MLB, where nearly every team employs a full-time sabremetrics analyst. This trend proves that when it comes a competitive advantage, jocks are not afraid to get nerdy.

But analytics’ recent rise to prominence didn’t stop TNT’s basketball commentator and NBA Hall of Famer, Charles Barkley, from denouncing sports data on TNT’s studio show “Inside the NBA” early last month. Barkley called out the Houston Rockets’ General Manager Daryl Morey, a champion of data analysis.

Barkley stated that he “always believed analytics was crap,” and that those who practice it are just a “bunch of guys who have never played the game, and they never got the girls in high school.” Barkley’s comments were extremely short sighted considering that analytics are so much a part of modern professional sports.

Paradoxically, they are easily overlooked.

“This trend proves that when it comes to any type of competitive advantage, jocks are not afraid to get nerdy.”

Last weekend, the ninth annual Sports Analytics Conference at the Sloan Business School at MIT crushed the validity of Barkley’s comments and proved that analytics are a viable and essential strategy in modern sports.

Speakers ranging from the commissioner of the NBA Adam Silver to Harvard geography professor turned NBA data wizard Kirk Golds-

berry made up a diverse coalition of innovators meeting at the intersection of sports and science. The conference resembled an All Star sporting event. Yet it was for sports management and media instead of players. MIT Sloan 2015 combined the excitement of a sold-out game with the research and intellect of a true academic convention.

The conference’s intellectual side was displayed prominently during the award segment when the Alpha Award for best research paper on sports analytics and a $15,000 prize was split between “Who is Responsible for a Called Strike” and “Counterpoints: Advanced Defense Metrics for NBA Basketball.”

The first paper, written by Joe Rosales and Scott Spratt of Baseball Info Solutions, utilized computerized strike zone film from the past MLB season in order to create a system to analyze the ability of MLB catchers to influence umpires’ calls. The other winner, created by Harvard academics Kirk Goldsberry, Alexander Franks and Andrew Miller, ventured into a new frontier of NBA statistical analysis and measured calculated players’ defensive ability.

Both papers were well written and researched, furthering the discipline of sports analytics and creating new perspectives.

The research presented from the Harvard delegation was particularly fascinating in the way it created a format for defensive play to be evaluated at the NBA level. “Counterpoints: Advanced Defense Metrics for NBA Basketball” represents groundbreaking progress considering how much of basketball stats focus on offensive achievement that hosts a myriad of measurements while defense has traditionally been restricted to steals and blocked shots.

Depending heavily on player tracking technology the NBA implemented for the 2013-2014 season, the study examined defensive matchups between individual players to calculate counterpoints. Counterpoints measure the defensive efficiency of a single player that is collected by comparing how many points a player allows for every 100 points they score.

Yet what might be the most enlightening aspect of the paper is the defensive data dis-

played on a shot chart that reveals how a certain player’s defensive skills influence how accurately, frequently and from where his opponent shoots on the basketball court. The shot charts highlight sports analytics’ ability to display complex trends and in this case, the charts reveal how a player’s defensive skills interact in a team’s scheme. The charts show tall players like Dwight Howard and Tim Duncan allowing mid range and three point shots while expertly defending the interior and bringing their opponents’ close range efficiency way down. The conference presented a thought provoking counter to the success of analytics in sports with former Miami Heat small forward Shane Battier’s interview and explanation of his role in the success of the two-time champion Heat. Battier’s stats were never top notch but that doesn’t mean his role in his teams success should be overlooked. Instead of scoring tons of baskets or catching dozens of rebounds, Battier excelled in areas that the statistician doesn’t record, like using his 6’8” frame to create productive offensive spacing.

According to Bleacherreport.com, during the conference Battier claimed that “the extra foot of space I gave LeBron was critical to him completing the play or not” (Bleacher Report, “7 NBA Takeaways from 2015 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference,” 02.28.15). His role on the Heat was not as one dimensional as his averages display. Battier’s success stands as an example of where sports analytics falls short in completely encompassing the many complexities of basketball.

Like most things, there is no completely right answer in the fight between sports stats enthusiasts and those who consider analytics to be “crap.” Testimony from former players such as Battier show that stats never show the entire picture but the research presented at MIT’s Sloan Sports Analytics Conferences shows that every year the numbers become stronger, more insightful and more revealing.

And in a time when fantasy sports and video games immerse fans in the competitive nature of sports, I don’t predict analytics are going anywhere anytime soon.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Page 19

Sportsman psyche linked to crime?

Elaina Peterkin

J

Guest Columnist

ameis Winston, star quarterback of the Florida State University Seminoles football team, is the projected first draft pick for NFL. There is no denying his talent and skill on the football field.

He was the winner of the Heisman Trophy in 2013 and led his team to a national title. Every pass, catch and play Winston completes on the field is an indicator of his talent and reminder of his potential. His aggression and decision-making in games are darn-near incomparable; however, in other environments these attributes don’t translate well. Jameis Winston has a record—several incidents have put his character in question.

According to a timeline via foxsports.com, Winston’s history is filled with incidents involving misuse of pellet guns, $4,000 in damages to his apartment building, stealing crab legs from a supermarket and, worst of all, accusations of rape (Fox Sports, “Jameis Winston incidents timeline,” 09.17.14). But unfortunately, this is a common theme among college athletes, particularly males.

As George Orwell observed, “Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence; in other words, it is war minus the shooting.”

According to Jeff Benedict and Todd Crosset via an article concerning violence statistics from ncava.org, 20% of college football recruits in the Top 25 Division I teams have criminal records.

Further, a new incident of athlete crime emerges once every two days—that does not include crimes that were unreported in the media. In the three years preceding 1998, around 1000 charges were brought against athletes. While the general population has a conviction rate of 80%, the conviction rate of an athlete is 38% (NCAVA, “The stats tell the story,” 2012). This shows a very obvious correlation between athletes and general crime. Too many athletes are falling prey to the negative effects that, unfortunately, often result in violent and sexual crimes.

In another three-year study of male athletes

by Benedict and Crosset, who at the time of the study compromised about 3.3% of population, they were 19% of sexual assault perpetrators and 35% of domestic violence perpetrators. In 1995, while only 8.5% of the general population was charged with assault, 36.8% of athletes were charged with assault. One in three college rapists are athletes and a college rapist will have raped seven times before being caught (Sports Illustrated, “An alarming number of college athletes charged with serious crime,” 09.08.10). Is this a direct consequence of the socialization of the cyclical aggression and “must-win” attitude being integrated into larger social circles and society as a whole? It can easily be argued that taking part in a sport in its simplest form is a contract to pursue aggression in the face of opposing teams. Excluding games and practices, does this behavior continue as an intrinsic response? Is it a conditioned set of actions that affects only a select few within the population of student athletes?

More importantly, what is being done about this? Given the immense amount of information that is readily accessible on athletes—specifically college athletes—and crime, the trend is not difficult to determine. Athletes are committing crimes at maddeningly high rates, but the lack of discussion and reprobation for these actions affectively make them acceptable among the athletic community. So often, as seen with Jameis Winston and many others, there is a disregard for their transgressions.

So regularly are athletes left punished improperly for their crimes, but also chosen for elite teams and awarded for their athleticism. What message does this send to their peers, as well as those that look to them as role models? A stronger punishment system would be preferable to take action against these kinds of problems. Along with more sensitivity education and services for those struggling with their aggression could lessen the prevalence of this, greatly decreasing the percentages of these crimes in the future. Moreover, there should be no discussion on light punishment in the place of proper punishment. If a crime is committed, it should be treated as such.

SPORTS

Page 20

March 5, 2015

Like a broken record, swimmers best themselves at States Winnie Yeates

T

Guest Reporter

courtesy of Vassar College Athletics

he Vassar men and women’s swimming and diving teams have performed tremendously in what has certainly been one of their most successful seasons in recent years. They trained long and hard and set their sights high as a team. After recently returning from most of the team’s final meet of the season, States in Rochester, N.Y. this past weekend, many of the players and coaches reflected on the success and strength of the team throughout the year.

Coach Lisl Prater-lee discussed how hard the team worked and prepared for such a busy end to their season. “On Sunday, January 4, our first day of practice for second semester, I noted to the team that we had 6 weeks left of the season. With 3 weeks of winter training before classes started we had considerable training time and a lot of time together. During the early part of that time, we traveled to San Diego and trained at San Diego State.” Senior Olivia Harries spoke of the Brewer’s practices, explaining, “Everyone performed phenomenally at meets, but I was most impressed by the momentum and enthusiasm that we had during practices.”

The Brewer’s hard work paid off as it has yielded tremendous success.

Prater-Lee described the training regimen, “Through much of January we swim trained four hours a day and lifted twice per week with Coach Cam. At the point that classes resumed, we were two weeks out from leaving for UNYSCSA championships.”

On the women’s side, after defeating Skidmore, Bard, Eastern Connecticut State and even managing to edge out Trinity this season, the team was still able to deliver strong performances, shattering several personal and school records at States.

Co-captain senior Lizzie Balter elaborated on her team’s success, “Obviously, States is our biggest meet of the year and we saw a lot of great swims there, as we always do. However, what really stands out about the season is the spirit and positive, cohesive team dynamic we were able to maintain for the entire 19 weeks.

Often times we’ll come into the season really strong and then fade a little bit. This year, coming off a record-fast 2014 season, we had a lot of forward momentum coming in and were able to maintain that excitement through the entirety of this season.”

As Balter stated, the team’s performances at States were something to be proud of after maintaining such strong results throughout such a lengthy season. Harries broke a 20-year Vassar College swimming record in the 500 freestyle in addition to topping her personal best time with a time of 5:08:30.

Harries said of her performance, “I definite-

ly surprised myself by [doing] the times that I did at States, but since the records that I broke were already my own, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal. Breaking the 500 record was definitely the highlight.” Harries was not alone, juniors Milee Nelson and Marie Schmidt swam season times of 5:17.42 and 5:18.10 respectively.

The 200 yard medley team of Nelson, junior Anna Kuo, sophomore Julia Cunningham and Balter topped Vassar’s school record and finished first in the B final with at time of 1:51:71.

Kuo also finished first in the 200 individual medley besting her previously set personal best, as did Balter in the 50 free.

Senior Kelley Wilkinson, competed for the final time as a Brewer on the second day of the NCAA Region III Diving Championships at Springfield College. Wilkinson took 24th in the 11-dive 3-meter event, finishing with a score of 336.00. In the one-meter 11-dive event she posted a mark of 390.35, also finishing 24th.

Prater-lee spoke of how rewarding it was for her to witness the success of her seniors, “I find it really rewarding to see how far our seniors have come with the program, what they have accomplished as student-athletes and the brilliant young mentors they have become. Seniors have seen the team change over time and they have been an important part of that change.”

Perhaps one of the most exciting performances of the season was by sophomore Julia Cunningham, who posted a time of 2:03:56, breaking her previous school record in the 200 yard butterfly and allowing her to come in second in the event at States. Her performances qualified her for a bid to the 2015 DIII NCAA Championships March 18-21 in Shenandoah, Texas. Cunningham will swim the 200 yard butterfly and the 400 yard individual medley relay at the championships, and she will be one of five Brewers, and only the third swimmer, to qualify for the event.

Sophomore Anthony Walker said of teammate Cunningham, “Since Julia Cunningham swims both of my events and the women swim first, I get to watch her races from behind the blocks about 5 minutes before my own races. I definitely feed off her energy. She’s super inspirational all round and watching her swim that NCAA qualifying time in finals made me especially excited to get up for my own race.”

On the Men’s side, there was equal success throughout the season with the besting of Bard, Skidmore and Trinity College. The men also were able to break multiple school records and personal bests.

Walker said of his team’s performance this season, “We put together some great dual meets, winning three and making another two very close. Although we finished in the same place at our final meet as last year, we scored

Sophomore Julia Cunningham was dominant, breaking her own school record at states last week.

Cunningham looks to build on her performance at nationals in Shenandoah, Texas from March 18-21. a lot more points than last year. Plus, we had a ton of individual season and lifetime bests which is always fantastic to see.”

In addition to having success as a team, Walker has had individual success at the State meet as well, topping his own school record in the 100 butterfly, finishing at a career best of 51.47 and in the 200 butterfly with a time of 1.54.33. Walker says of his performance, “I just barely beat my 100 fly record by a tenth of a second the day before so it felt really amazing when I crushed my 200 time from last year by over two and a half seconds. I would call that my proudest personal achievement of the year—I felt really accomplished when all that fly training finally paid off.”

Walker was not alone in his individual accomplishments. Junior Greg Cristina, senior Chuck Herrmann and sophomore Ian Quinn all finished with personal bests at States, as did the Brewer 400 medley relay squad of Cristina, Walker, Quinn and senior Luc Amodio.

The four broke Vassar’s program’s record with a time of 3:30:67. The same men’s team took eighth in the 200 freestyle relay, finishing with a time of 1:27:46.

Other than Cunningham who will compete at the NCAA tournament in March, the Brewers are finished competing for the year. As a team with such strong camaraderie and leadership, it is easy to see a positive future ahead for the Vassar men and women’s swimming and diving teams.

Prater-lee said, “I’m really proud of the te-

Frozen roads slip up spring team schedules Erik Quinson

Assistant Editor Men’s Lacrosse

The Brewers opened their season on Wednesday, Feb. 25 at Tenney Stadium on Marist College’s campus with a landslide victory against Manhattanville. The men ended the day with a convincing score line of 18-2. Senior Sean Brazier led the Brewers in points with four goals off of six shots. Junior Noah Parson followed Brazier with a hat trick off of three shots. Senior and captain Scott Brekne scored two goals, but led the team in assists, racking up three. All in all, ten Brewers scored, paving the way for a very successful season. They will be playing Montclaire State University on Wednesday, March 4 at Marist College’s Tenney Stadium and will be traveling to Swarthmore College on Saturday, March 7. The game against Montclaire State was originally supposed to be played at 6:30 p.m. but has been moved back to 7:30 p.m. due to inclement weather. This issue has also promoted a scheduling change for Marist’s men’s lacrosse team.

Men’s Tennis

The Men’s Tennis team had an outstanding weekend against U.S. Coast Guard Academy, who traveled to Vassar to compete against the Brewers on Saturday, Feb. 28. The Brewers swept the board, winning all nine match ups to go 9-0 in total for the day. Beginning with

doubles, the Brewers were able to keep a 3-0 streak, despite a tough match that eventually saw sophomores Nick Litsky and Juan Felipe Laso triumph with an 8-4 win. Juniors Christian Phelps and Evan Udine also won convincingly 8-2 in second doubles.

The team brought the momentum from the doubles matches right into the singles match ups, the entire team only dropping one set in all six matches. Phelps fell 5-7 in the first set but battled back with a 6-1 win in the second. He closed out the victory with a 10-6 win in the super tiebreak. The Brewers go 4-3 in season play with the victory. They will travel to Cambridge, Mass. on Friday, March 6 to take on Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Men’s Volleyball

The Brewers traveled to New York, N.Y. to take on Baruch College at home. The Brewers lost in straight sets. However, not one went uncontested as Vassar won each 28-26, 25-22, 25-21 respectively. Each frame only set the teams a few points apart.

Sophomore Quinn Rutledge posted a career high of ten kills off of 22 swings. Sophomore Trey Cimorelli achieved a team best of eight kills, while Freshman Matthew Knigge accomplished an impressive eight terminations and three kills. The Brewers will be traveling back to New York City to play Hunter College on Wednesday, March 4.

Women’s Squash

Although the regular season is over, this weekend saw one Brewer compete at the College Squash Associations Individual Championships. On Friday, Feb. 27, Freshman Hannah Nice traveled to Princeton, N.J. to face off against some of the best players from the region. Nice, ranked No.77 going into the tournament, played her first match against Trinity College’s Karolina Holkova, ranked No. 53. Nice lost in straight sets. In the first set, Holkova ran away with it, finishing the set 11-2. Nice put up more of a fight in the second, going three points up in the beginning, but Holkova rallied, drawing the set up at 6-6 and then putting the set away 11-7. The final set was more of a rerun of the first, Holkova winning comfortably, 11-4. In the consolation bracket, Nice played Maddie Tomlinson of Yale University, once again losing in straight sets. It will be exciting to see how Nice fairs next year, with another year of experience under her belt.

She ends her first season 12-2.

Men’s Baseball

The baseball team’s openers against New Paltz and Plymouth State University this upcoming weekend have been canceled due to already accumulated snow, along with an expected storm later this week. No makeup dates have been announced. The men now look to Hope College of Michigan on March 14 at 11 a.m. at Lake Myrtle Park in Auburndale, Fla.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

nacity and resilience that the group had. We were out there to win; everyone sensed it and figured out how to contribute to the bigger whole. If a win wasn’t in the cards that day, no doubt we would put our best efforts forward.

When we lost a close meet, I sensed that we all shared in that loss. As coaches we sometimes think about losses more than we do victories.

I could tell that team members were using especially close losses as motivation to improve.”

The team certainly displayed their ability to be a cohesive unit, and support group for one another. Walker added, “After states I felt a lot of energy, especially from the underclassmen who are already getting excited for next year.

I think one thing that could really help us improve is to get in the weight room and the water this spring and this summer. That way we can come into next year with a good starting point. If we can make that happen, it will definitely pay off.”

For Balter who has just completed her last season at Vassar, she leaves the Brewers with a positive experience and proud memories, “The thing I am most proud of is the little family Zoe (co-captain) and I were able to foster. The family we cultivated this season had a spirit all its own, and allowed us to reach unforeseeable heights and win unknowable victories. Leading our team of amazing, strong women through one of the most impressive seasons Vassar swimming and diving has had to date is definitely one of the most rewarding and shaping experiences I’ve ever had.”

Weekend Scoreboard MEN’S VOLLEYBALL VASSAR

3

VS

BARUCH COLLEGE

0

MEN’S LACROSSE VASSAR

18

VS MANHATTANVILLE

2