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The Miscellany News

Volume CXLVII | Issue 21

April 30, 2015

Since 1866 | miscellanynews.org

Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY

Abbady elected VSA President Philosophy dept. event sparks controversy Eilís Donohue Guest Reporter

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n April 22, the Vassar Student Association (VSA) released the results of its elections for the 201516 academic year, which will usher in a new Executive Board with both experienced members and those entirely new to VSA Council.

The winning candidates, now under the leadership of newly-elected VSA President Ramy Abbady ’16, ran on platforms of considerable structural changes to the way Vassar’s representative body operates.

Along with Abbady, next year’s Executive Board will feature Christopher Brown ’16 as VP for Student Life; Ruby Pierce ’16 as VP for Operations; Logan Hill ’16 as VP for Academics; Kevin Pham ’18 as VP for Activities and Josh Tempro ’16 as VP for Finance.

Several of the winning candidates agreed that it can often be difficult to present themselves to the public during the campaigning period, and that posters and outreach on social media are not necessarily effective in convincing voters. Hill remarked, “I simply put my ideas out there in my

candidate statement and the Exec debate and hoped for the best.”

Abbady, however, felt that the best way to make himself known to voters was to visit dorms and to walk around the quad talking to individuals. He wished other candidates would try the same tactic, since it allowed him to familiarize himself with students and gauge how their ideas related to his own.

Both incumbent and newly elected Executive Board members are eager to work with their fellow house and See VSA on page 4

Marie Solis

Contributing Editor

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n April 20, two students posted a Facebook event announcing that Peter Singer, a philosopher best known for his views on utilitarianism and altruism, would be Skyping into Vassar for a discussion on his TED Talk, “The Why and How of Effective Altruism,” the following week. Just minutes after the announcement, Willow Carter ’15 posted on the page with a quote from Singer, reading, “When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater

if the disabled infant is killed.”

“Ok cool,” she wrote. “Glad to see we’re bringing a eugenicist.”

Her post sparked a flurry of 38 comments, weighing the merits of bringing someone to campus, albeit only virtually, whose views devalue the lives of disabled people. Some pointed out that the College wasn’t paying Singer—only selling his books, the profits of which would go to charity in accordance with his beliefs. But discussions on Facebook can only be so fruitful.

In hopes to open up a broader discussion about ableism in academia, Feminist Alliance and ACCESS See SINGER on page 7

Alum sparks debate on global terrorism Shelia Hu

O Sam Pianello/The Miscellany News

Under the leadership of President Ramy Abbady ’16, the new Vassar Student Association Executive Board has pledged to bring significant change to students’ representative body on campus through efforts to be more receptive and transparent.

Guest Reporter

n April 24, Vassar alumnus Marc Thiessen ’89 gave a lecture to a packed room, entitled, “America’s Failed Response to Radical Islam,” hosted by the Vassar Conservative Libertarian Union (VCLU).

Thiessen was set to discuss the Obama administration’s record on counterterrorism efforts and radical Islam in the Middle East. The event inspired serious debates amongst the student body about both the decision to invite the alum as well as the content of the lecture itself. The VSA did not provide additional funds for the event.

After graduating from Vassar, Thiessen earned significant notoriety as a conservative author, columnist and political commentator. He previously served as chief speechwriter to former President George W. Bush and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He has also a been frequent columnist to The Washington Post, and is author to the 2010 bestselling book “Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama is Inviting the Next Attack.” In 2011, Thiessen was ranked 97th on the Daily Telegraph’s “100 Most Influential Conservatives in America” list (The Washington Post, See THIESSEN on page 3

MVP course offers Loeb brings Buddhist art to fore annual SAVP training W Yifan Wang Reporter

Amreen Bhasin Reporter

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Inside this issue

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Unions negotiate grievances with FEATURES campus dining

14 ARTS

hat could attract a crowd large enough to fill the spacious lecture hall of Taylor 102? One such event was “Many Faces, Many Names: The Bodhisattva of Compassion,” a special symposium on Buddhist art that took place last Thursday. Moderated

by Professor of Art Karen Lucic, the symposium featured three speakers including Professor of Art History at University of Kansas, Sherry Fowler, Associate Professor of Religion, Michael Walsh and Assistant Professor of Art, Karen Hwang-Gold.

The symposium was held as the opening ceremony of the most recent exhibition at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, “Embodying Compassion in Buddhist Art: Image, Pilgrimage, Practice.” Open from April 23 to June 28, the show is the first transcultural exhibition in America solely devoted to the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, who emerged in India two thousand years ago and subsequently became a venerated deity throughout Asia. The exhibition presents more than 30 examples of Indian, Nepalese, Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese art from prominent institutions such as the Metropolitan See LOEB on page 17

White Walls of the Palmer are exposed to student photos

Sam Pianello/The Miscellany News

pril was Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) and the 2015 campaign was built around the slogan “It’s time to act.” While SAAM’s campaign emphasizes something different each year, two of its goals remain constant. The first is the provision of resources for every individual in a community. As this year’s focus has been on creating informed communities on college campuses that work to prevent sexual violence, many resources tied explicitly to the 2015 campaign engage campuses in discussions of healthy sexuality and consent. The second goal is that sexual assault affects us all but is preventable. Combating violence requires communities working together to recognize and solve problems and create safer environments.

SAAM’s campaigns provide resources for these communities and highlight individuals’ abilities to help prevent violence.

Here at Vassar College, some members of the community, primarily student-athletes, participated in a program with parallel aims to SAAM’s, called Mentors in Violence Prevention

(MVP). Both basketball teams participated earlier this year and in April, another group of students did as well.

Assistant Director of Residential Life, Leadership and Professional Development as well as House Advisor for Cushing and Noyes, Anders van Minter along with SAVP coordinator Charlotte Strauss Swanson facilitated the training. The training sessions were broken up over 3 days for a total of 14 hours over one weekend.

One of the students involved was men’s volleyball captain and senior Colin White-Dzuro. White-Dzuro’s reasons for choosing to participate in the program echoed SAAM’s call to action. “I think talk is cheap, and while it’s important to recognize that certain social inequalities exist, the best way to actually fight them is to take tangible action. MVP seemed like a great opportunity to fight some of these inequalities head-on.”

According to the mission statement on the MVP website (mvpnational. org), the program looks to give individuals the tools to combat sexism and sexual violence in their own spheres of influence. “MVP provides the leadSee MVP on page 18

Professor of Art, Karen Lucic culminates five years of research in the new Loeb exhibit. “Embodying Compassion in Buddhist Art: Image, Pilgrimage, Practice”

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Two brothers throw, run and catch their SPORTS way to success

The Miscellany News

Page 2

April 30, 2015

Photo of the Week

Editor-in-Chief Palak Patel

Senior Editor Noble Ingram

Contributing Editors Bethan Johnson Meaghan Hughes Marie Solis

Sam Pianello/The Miscellany News

Harp ends semester abroad with travel Hannah Harp JYA Blogger

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ith just two weeks of class left, the semester is winding down already, and I am about to depart on my last week-long adventure to Scotland, with the Misc-famous Chris Brown! This adventure begins the last month of my semester here in Copenhagen, which is turning out to be a little more bittersweet than I would have expected. Mostly because I really didn’t think I would miss being abroad, but I can feel myself beginning to

miss it as I mentally prepare for returning to the States.

When I arrived here three months ago, it was cold. Not Vassar cold, but incessantly cold. And never sunny. Every time I returned from a week away, the sun emerged a little more, warming up the hearts and souls of Danes and Americans alike. Energy suddenly exploded in the city, and it became more bearable to be outside all day.

I recently returned from a class trip to Berlin, which would have been perfect, if not for

courtesy of Hannah Harp

six days of downpours. I don’t mind, though, as I returned to Copenhagen in the full swing of spring, and spent the long weekend of Easter exploring the city and anticipating even more beautiful weather.

My friend and I spent the day after getting back walking through the city, enjoying the new sounds and sights of spring. The walk got even better halfway through when we discovered a restaurant that makes milkshakes from Ben & Jerry’s flavors. My whole shake was a cookie dough pint. It was…divine.

On our agenda for the long weekend was a day trip to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. The trip is about thirty minutes up the coast of the sea on a train, during which I stared out the window at the countryside, soaking in the greenery. I love living in a city, but it can be exhausting, especially without taking a break for a breath of sea air once in a while. We didn’t have a lot of expectations for the museum, which is why we enjoyed it so much, I think. The museum is full of beautiful art and surrounded by it, too, in the sculpture gardens. Beyond comprehension, however, was the “Gleaming Lights of the Souls” installation by Yayoi Kusama. You enter a room that is full of hanging lights, alternating colors.

The ceiling and walls are mirrors, and you stand on a platform because the floor is covered in water. It feels like infinity. The lights continue forever, reflecting over and over again, across different surfaces.

To read more about Hannah’s travels, visit farandaway.miscellanynews.org!

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

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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.

April 30, 2015

NEWS

Page 3

Williams officially announces departure from Vassar Rhys Johnson News Editor

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Excellence,” he remarked. “I think the vacancy that my position will create might give the institution some flexibility to think more strategically about what that restructuring might look like.”

Williams also spoke to his personal hopes for how the College will approach his resignation.

“I’d like to see the College take a look at thinking about splitting the Title IX-related responsibilities from the Equal Opportunity [and] Affirmative Action-related responsibilities because they are two very, very important roles,” he went on to say. “They can be time-consuming, where one can sort of eat the other depending on what’s going on. They each require a lot of attention.”

Although the coming vacancy hints at new solutions to administrative problems regarding campus safety and diversity, many remain skeptical that these administrative changes will spark positive change. Sexual Assault and Violence

Prevention Committee member Elena Riecke ’16 remarked, “We would need a lot more than just a different person in [Williams’] job to fix the parts of Title IX that are impacting campus climate right now. We’d need a new look at the entire way we look at and into Title IX violations.”

“I’m pretty distrustful of the administration right now,” she went on to say. “At the end of the day, the person’s going to be a lawyer and the experience that I have with this school is basically just Vassar trying to avoid getting sued…It’s a really awful system based on a really flawed code of conduct.”

Williams’ last day will be on June 5, by which point the College will have appointed an interim director for EOAA and Title IX-related issues, as legally required. How the College will handle diversity and inclusion activities on campus beyond that remains to be seen.

courtesy of Vassar Media Relations

n April 15, the College’s Director of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action (EOAA) and Title IX Officer Julian Williams announced that he will be leaving Vassar at the end of the semester to become the Vice President for Compliance, Diversity and Ethics at George Mason University.

Before his time at Vassar, Williams worked as a civil trial attorney on cases relating to discrimination and harassment, specifically with regards to the Family and Medical Leave Act, a federal labor law requiring large employers to provide unpaid leave for employees facing serious health conditions. After translating his legal background as a practicing attorney into a collegiate context as the director of Monmouth University’s Office of Equity and Diversity, Williams was hired by Vassar in 2012 to promote and oversee diversity and inclusion activities on campus.

Upon taking his position in Metcalf House, Williams saw great potential in his responsibilities to strengthen Vassar’s commitments to diversity and against discrimination. “Diversity is all-encompassing,” Williams remarked at the time. “It includes everyone. We have to make sure we’re not alienating anyone...I just want to be a resource for our students and everyone here at the College” (The Miscellany News, “VS hires new EOAA director,” 02.25.12).

To many community members, Williams has stood out among his fellow colleagues for his ongoing efforts in that regard. “Julian is very smart, prepares well for hearings and cases under his supervision, is extremely precise and articulate about the legal and policy areas that are, to many, very complicated and mysterious,” commented Vice President for Finance and Administration Bob Walton. “He and I work together on a number of legal matters and Julian’s training as a lawyer, in addition to his open and warm personal style and rapport has made him extremely effective, the most effective person in his role of the 8 I have worked with in different institutions.”

Vice President for Student Life Hannah

Matsunaga ’16 noted, in an emailed statement, “My experiences working with Julian both as a Title IX Coordinator and as a person have all been positive. He was a great resource when constructing the Vassar Sexual Misconduct Survey. He also gave me a lot of grad school and career guidance because I’m applying to law school next year. It will be hard to find someone as qualified as him.” Dean of the College Christopher Roellke echoed, in an emailed statement, “Working so closely with Julian Williams over the last couple of years has been truly wonderful. He [has handled] difficult and often controversial issues addressed with objectivity, fairness and with the best interest of our community in mind.”

Others on campus, however, maintain that Williams and other adjudicators have failed to properly address sexual and racial violence on campus, and that the College has been actively disobliging in many instances. “Vassar College has a problem of victimizing its students, and then not helping them heal from the trauma it inflicted. Anti-blackness and negligence of sexual violence is evident at every level of this institution, from administrators to faculty to staff to students, and when black and brown bodies on this campus are racially-profiled, dehumanized, made to feel unwelcome and inferior, the institution turns around and expects them to report and educate the racists. There is no allowance for healing,” said Anveshi Guha ’15 (The Miscellany News, “Hundreds surround, occupy Main to demand administrative changes,” 12.06.14).

As the College moves forward to combat such concerns, Williams explained, the Administration may use his resignation as an opportunity to more realistically entertain new ideas for structural changes surrounding diversity and Title IX-related issues on campus. “The institution is engaging in conversations around taking a strong look at how it supports students, faculty members and employees around diversity, equity and inclusion with the possibility of adding a chief diversity officer position or looking at ways to bolster the Committee on Inclusion and

After serving as Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Director and Title IX Coordinator since 2012, Julian Williams will be leaving Vassar in June, opening up opportunities for structural changes in the Administration.

VCLU event stirs controversy among student groups

Sam Pianello/The Miscellany News

THIESSEN continued from page 1 “Marc Thiessen”).

His return to Vassar to speak from a distinctly conservative and libertarian point of view was expected to provoke heated debate amongst students. Incoming President of VCLU Pietro Geraci ’18 explained the purpose of bringing Thiessen to campus, despite the College’s liberal reputation. He remarked, “VCLU invited Mr. Thiessen to speak about a topic not really talked about at Vassar, or at least a topic where both sides of the story are not given. I believe he made it a point to give the right-wing side of the story-his conclusion as to how the War on Terror went wrong.”

During the talk, Thiessen touched on what he believes are the dangers of radical Islam and how, in order to stop terrorism, the United States needed to deploy more troops.

Editor-in-Chief of Tertium Quids, a VCLU publication, Luka Ladan ’15 commented, “Marc was trying to bring home the point that ISIL poses a grave threat to the United States, one comparable to the Nazis in the 1920s and 1930s.

As such, he argued forcefully against any form of passive appeasement, which seems to be the Obama administration’s approach right now, and instead proposed a more forceful response to deal with the problem and protect our own borders moving forward.”

Geraci noted, “Essentially, Marc Thiessen was conveying that the Obama administration is at fault for the rise of ISIS. He easily sparked a response from the Vassar left, not simply because he criticized Obama and praised Bush, but also because he supports waterboarding, and many see America’s War on Terror as meddling in Middle Eastern affairs, while terror is widespread in other places as well.”

He continued, “Many people in the audience are understandably war-weary, but they fail to realize that even as late as 2011 we had the terrorists subjugated, and that Obama made a huge foreign policy blunder.”

Both supporters and critics alike acknowledge the controversial nature of the lecture and the campus’ somewhat varied responses. Ladan ex-

Vassar alumnus Marc Thiessen ’89, a renowned conservative speech-writer and political commentator, provoked heated discussion among various groups on campus surrounding his views on terrorism. plained, “The lecture sparked a strong response because of the reference to the Islamic religion, even though he clearly distinguished between most Muslims and the small, yet dangerous, extremist minority that too often resorts to chaos and terrorism to advance its own interests. His support for enhanced interrogation techniques, which he distinguishes from torture, also caused quite a stir.”

Critics of the lecture stated that the discord with the lecturer arose for a variety of reasons.

Dushyant Naresh ’17 commented, “There were quite a few veterans at the talk who had combat experience in the regions Thiessen was referring to—they didn’t have too many positive things to say about deploying more troops to Iraq. Others brought up how U.S. intervention has only resulted in further chaos within the Middle East, as well as splinter cell organizations affecting other countries in Asia...He was

adamant that the U.S. would correct the mistakes made in previous years—though he never explained how this new plan would be different.

Thiessen also went as far as to say that the Iraqi surge was successful, to which many students loudly countered.”

Although unable to attend, President of the Vassar Muslim Student Union Farah Aziz ’16 stated that she has discussed the lecture and its implications with fellow students. She wrote, in an emailed statement, “What I’ve heard from others is that it was a very one-sided lecture which was all Thiessen giving a specific take on what he saw as political problems without either head on acknowledging the layers beneath the problems he was bringing up.”

Many students have accused Thiessen of being Islamophobic. Upon the announcement of the event, several students took to social media to decry Vassar’s choice to extend an invitation

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

to Thiessen. Naresh also explained, “His basic premise shattered once you put forward the belief that an American life is equivalent to a Muslim one, and not superior. I can definitely see how this came off as Islamophobic, and I think it really doesn’t help to have people like this come onto campus.”

The event also sparked larger debates on both sides about the state of larger campus climate issues. Geraci said, “There are several students here who equate anything remotely having to do with conservatism with all things bad, and so shut their minds to opposing ideas…Students here need more exposure to the right side of the fence, so that they can have presented to them a clear picture of both the right and left, and then be able to develop informed and logical political beliefs. Those who shun conservatism here are doing themselves a disservice and are not thinking realistically.”

Ladan added, “Having Marc speak, as a traditional conservative with loads of political experience, provided this campus with the kind of alternative voice that’s sorely lacking. It breaks from the liberal groupthink so common at the College, which prompts students to think a little bit differently and step outside of their original comfort zones...He challenged the status quo that has developed here over time, proving that there are indeed other perspectives out there and ones worth taking in.”

President of the Middle Eastern Students Collective Ramy Abbady ’16, speaking for his organization, which found the lecture highly offensive, has submitted a response to the VCLU’s event that can be found on page 9 of this edition of The Miscellany News.

Naresh also noted, “While I do understand that conservatives are a minority on campus and they have every right to defend their political beliefs, this overstepped the boundaries of respect.

I don’t know if this is what the VCLU planned to happen, but Marc Thiessen coming was not a good idea. All in all, the majority of the people (including me) left the lecture feeling angry, frustrated and completely dissatisfied with what should have been an educational experience.”

NEWS

Page 4 Outside the Bubble US Drone Strike Kills American Citizen On April 23, President Obama announced that a U.S. counterterrorism operation targeting an al Qaeda compound in January accidentally killed two hostages. Officials confirmed that the hostages, Warren Weinstein, an American kidnapped in 2011, and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian national seized in 2012, were killed by a U.S. military drone strike in Pakistan (The New York Times, “Obama Apologizes After Drone Kills American and Italian Held by Al Qaeda, 04.13.15).

In addition to the hostage casualties, officials confirmed the death of two targets through similar methods. The White House disclosed on Thursday that two American al Qaeda leaders, Ahmed Farouq and Adam Gadahn, were also killed by U.S. counterterrorism operations in the same region.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that prior to the strike, U.S. officials felt confident that there were no hostages at the target site and that the strike was carried out after hundreds of hours of surveillance on the al Qaeda compound and near continuous surveillance in the days leading up to the operation. U.S. officials also did not know that Farouq or Gadahn were present at the targeted sites and neither had been specifically targeted (CNN, “U.S. drone strike accidentally killed 2 hostages,” 04.23.15).

The inaccuracy of drone strikes is not unprecedented, though rarely publicized. According to a recent analysis by human rights group Reprieve, it was estimated that U.S. drone strikes intending to kill 41 men had killed 1,147 people as of November 2014. In Pakistan specifically, around 24 specific targets resulted in the death of 874 people. An estimated 142 children were killed in the course of pursuing those 24, only 6 of whom died from the drone strikes (The Guardian, “41 men targeted by 1,147 people killed: US drone strikes—the facts on the ground,” 11.24.14).

Although Earnest said there was no evidence that these most recent strikes deviated from normal practice, the death of the hostages has led some to question the protocol of counterterrorism operations. “To put it more bluntly,” Earnest said, “we have national security professionals who diligently followed those national security protocols...and yet it still resulted in this unintended but very tragic consequence and that’s why the President has directed his team to conduct a review to see if there are lessons learned, reforms that we can implement to this process” (CNN).

Obama said that the full review would identify any changes that should be made to avoid similar errors. “We will do our utmost to ensure it is not repeated,” he said (The New York Times).

Earthquake in Nepal Kills Thousands On April 25, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake hit Nepal, and officials have reported a death toll rising to more than 4,000. Current reports place the number of injured at more than 6,500, and another 56 people are reported dead in India, 25 in Tibet and 20 in China (CNN, “Nepal earthquake: Death toll passes 3,200 as nation struggles with devastation,” 04.27.15).

The earthquake stands as the most deadly in Nepalese history over the last 80 years.

On Sunday, the situation worsened due to rainfall and aftershocks that forced more residents from their homes. Post-disaster rescue efforts face challenges as well -the government’s chief secretary and the rescue coordinator Lila Mani Poudyal said recovery was being slowed because many key workers had all gone home to be with their families (The Guardian, “Nepal earthquake: what the thousands of victims share is that they are poor,” 04.27.15).

“In my neighborhood, the police are conspicuous by their absence,” said Sridhar Khatri of the South Asia Center for Policy Studies in Katmandu.

“There is not even a show of force to deter vandalism, which some reports say is on the rise” (The New York Times, “Nepal Terrorized by Aftershocks, Hampering Relief Efforts,” 04.26.15).

While some rescue efforts have been successful, it has proven to be challenging given the level of damage wrought by the earthquake. Lack of constant electricity obstructs communication across the country, and aftershocks remain fatal to those residing within the same areas as the initial shock (The New York Times).

With limited economic capacity and existing political discord, many in the international community believe that Nepal will require significant foreign aid. Yet although international efforts are in full swing, the mountains that define Nepal make it difficult to deliver relief, with aftershocks complicating operations.

—Yifan Wang, Reporter

April 30, 2015

Misconduct survey distributed to students Emily Hoffman Reporter

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n early April, an anonymous survey was sent out to the Vassar community entitled “Vassar College Survey Exploring Sexual Misconduct, Dating Violence, and Stalking on Campus 2015,” also nicknamed “What Happens Here.” All Vassar students were invited to participate through email. The survey was organized by a small design team consisting of Director of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action and the College’s Title IX officer Julian Williams; Director of Institutional Research David Davis-Van Atta; House Advisor to Lathrop and Jewett House, Assistant Director of Residential Life, Student Conduct, & Housing and Title IX Investigator Kelly Grab; Vassar Student Association VP for Student Life Hannah Matsunaga ’16; Director of Health Education Renee Pabst and Sexual Assault and Violence Prevention (SAVP) Coordinator Charlotte Strauss Swanson.

In response to popular outcry about sexual assault, dating violence and stalking on college campuses, the Federal Department of Education, the Office of Civil Rights and the White House have recently urged colleges and universities across the United States to formally survey their student bodies about what goes on their campuses with regards to such issues.

Although many institutions, including some of Vassar’s peer institutions, have not yet collected detailed student-based data on these sorts of behaviors and experiences, Vassar began working to develop and administer such a survey in July 2014. Pabst explained, “The survey is part of the ‘Not Alone’ and SaVe Act requirements from the federal government. Though this is not a mandate from the government, Vassar SAVP has talked about conducting a more extensive survey for the last few years, so with the push from the government it seemed like the perfect time to move forward with the survey.”

Vassar, alongside a set of its peer institutions, including Amherst College, Tufts University, Williams College, Middlebury College and Connecticut College, among others, convened at Wesleyan University in Connecticut to discuss options for designing a survey collectively.

The group worked through late November to finalize a survey instrument, of which Davis-Van Atta expressed his satisfaction. He stated, “I could not have designed this survey myself. The Wesleyan participants, and our local campus team, have all been invaluable to me in enabling me to be able to do my parts of this project.

They are universally superb. And sine qua non to this project at every stage.”

After the groups settled on a general structure to the survey, each school was given the chance to confirm the language to their campus-specific parlance and organizations, and some schools crafted additional questions on topics not covered in the main, collective body of the survey.

According to Pabst, the survey is based on different evidence-based surveying instruments designed to measure rates of sexual misconduct, dating and domestic violence, stalking and bystander intervention. Grab, who helped to design the survey discussed the process. “Before launching the survey we did pilot it with several test groups,” she wrote in an emailed statement; “I think having groups of students provide feedback throughout the creation helped to make this a strong assessment.”

She continued, “Although difficult content matter, the reactions I have received were mostly excitement at the opportunity to give Vassar’s response to sexual and gender-based violence this kind of platform for reflection and critique.”

Davis-Van Atta spoke about the plans for possible future uses of the results of the survey.

“Over this summer, Institutional Research (IR) will study the data, in cooperation with other members of the team in order to ultimately respond to questions and suggestions from the campus,” he explained in an emailed statement.

“IR will produce some form of a report, and/or set of presentations, and perhaps other methods of informing the campus, distributing the findings, and facilitating discussion.”

Matsunaga spoke about the particular significance the survey has to her and many other students on campus. She commented, “Firstly, we have literally no idea what happens here. We have general numbers and anecdotal evidence

but because the vast majority of people who are sexually assaulted don’t report to the College or structures outside the College, our information is very limited. Therefore, people in policy making roles don’t have any sense of the magnitude of what we’re dealing with.”

She continued, “Getting accurate data of what happens on campus is a valuable tool in moving forward. Also, we hope that this survey will help students who have experienced traumatic things on campus to realize that they are not alone.”

Davis-Van Atta noted the importance of past surveys, like ones specific to certain class years or one directed at the faculty: “The Senior Survey has been excellent in revealing student satisfactions and dissatisfactions with myriad aspects Vassar. The Freshman Survey is invaluable in knowing who comes to Vassar—it’s very self-descriptive in ways and areas no other survey captures. The Faculty Survey has been quite revealing of faculty lives: satisfaction levels with various aspects of teaching and working at Vassar, sources of stress, attitudes toward many campus issues and conditions, etc.”

He went on to say, “We have some informative alumni survey data as well, including now (thanks to CDO efforts) excellent knowledge about the first year after Vassar. All of these projects provide great variety of data and findings that various offices have used to inform and develop initiatives, evaluate and tweak earlier initiatives and services.”

Matsunaga expressed her excitement at the progress that Vassar has made, emphasizing the importance of such efforts to raising awareness about, and working to end, sexual assault and violence on campus. She commented, “As traumatic as campus is for many people, and I am not trying to minimize their experiences, I really do think we’re ahead of the curve in terms of the response to sexual assault which is scary because we’re definitely not perfect but in comparison with other institutions we are doing well. For example, within our consortium I was the only student who was allowed to work on and change the survey, at all other schools its was strictly the administration.”

New VSA Exec. promises transparency VSA continued from page 1

class officers. Two of the 2015-16 board officers have been on the Executive Board before, and most have been involved in some way with the VSA in the past. Abbady said, “[The Executive Board] ha[s] some newer people, which I think is very good also because you don’t want the same voices there year after year.”

As the face of the Vassar student body, the board is supposed to represent a wide range of student backgrounds, something Pierce suggested may have been more successfully achieved in this upcoming iteration of the VSA than in recent years. She commented, “I’m really excited about the fact that we are mostly of color, I think that’s… definitely a valuable shift at this point in time. I am disappointed that I’m the only woman on exec board, but that’s okay. It just means that I’ll have to learn to be louder than I already have to be. Fight a little harder maybe.”

Although they will frequently meet and operate as a unit, the VSA’s new executives have separate visions for their roles. As VP for Activities, Pham wants to help students enjoy the wide range of organizations. He said, “[C]oming into Vassar, it was hard for me to find community in the first place…and I started to find community [through student organizations], and I realized how important orgs and pre-orgs are to a Vassar student’s college experience.”

Other budding plans for the coming academic year include more effective use of funds. Pham stated, “I want to put the student activities fee to good use. I want to put the money into the hands of more orgs so that the student body can benefit as a whole.” Tempro agreed, in an emailed statement, “The funds are disproportionately used.”

Although not specifically tasked to address one issue, as the new VSA President Abbady—having participated in VSA for two years, first as Raymond House President and subsequently as VP for Operations—hopes to employ his experience to help the rest of the Council communicate effectively and improve its transparency to the general student body. He said, “The position of the VSA

president is very open-ended, which I think is a good thing because I’m gonna have a lot more flexibility than I’ve had the last few years. So I think now I’m going to really be able to get creative with what I’m doing.”

Abbady also plans to be a support mechanism for his fellow Council members. “In relation to the other VSA members, I think my role is very much to support their initiatives, and support the things that they want to do,” he said. “It’s not my job to tell someone not to do a project.” In regards to the general student body, Abbady hopes to give more power back to the students and hear their voices consistently.

As the student body’s official representative voice, the new VSA executives will be tasked with maintaining positive relations with various administrative offices. Dean of the College Christopher Roellke wrote, in an emailed statement, “I have been very fortunate to have a very positive and collegial relationship with the VSA. Of course, we do not always agree on particular issues, but I have long been impressed with the time, energy and devotion to VC that our VSA councils have provided over the years.”

Despite their expressed commitment to the students, the consensus among the new Executive Board is that students are generally not well-informed about the VSA, a fact they aim to change next year. Abbady admitted, “I don’t think most of the student body really knows what the VSA is doing. And I think that speaks to the fact that, a) the VSA probably isn’t doing things that students care about right now, and that should change, and b) the VSA has a huge communication issue, so even when we are doing things, people don’t really know we’re doing things.”

The College has invested heavily into improving the VSA, as an external audit of the organization was recently performed for the new Council to consider when assessing its operating procedures. Roellke said, “[It] will prove helpful to the council as it seeks to be as accessible and responsive as possible to the needs of its constituents.”

The newly-elected VSA Executive Board en-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

courages students to participate in VSA meetings and be familiar with their elected officers as another method of addressing this issue. Abbady said, “I just want people to know that they can and should talk to their VSA representatives. [D] on’t be afraid to talk to any of the VPs or me. Our job is just to deal with student concerns. So talk to us, and we’ll help.”

Pierce corroborated, “I’m really hoping that I can get as many people involved as possible. I don’t want this to be an internal project, I don’t want the VSA to be reforming itself, I want the whole student body to have input because the students are the ones who’ll be most affected by this.

[U]ltimately I would like student government to be a megaphone for activism.”

Tempro added, “A good student government relies on student participation, and we can make better decisions when there’s a wide scope of interests and org backgrounds and lived experiences in the room.”

The new elects to the Executive Board are all committed to changing the VSA to make it a more accessible and helpful space for all students. “There needs to be greater improvement on this campus in regards to everyone feeling safe and like this institution cares about them,” said Brown, in an emailed statement. However, they ask for students’ patience along the way.

Pierce said, “The process of changing the VSA is going to be a year-long process, and so by the end of next year we’ll have something that’s radically different from this year. But that said, it’s not going to be one climactic moment of change, it’s going to be gradual throughout the year.”

Above all, the new VSA officers have pledged to listen to student voices. “I want people to understand that I am still a person, so even if I disagree with someone it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t do what they’re doing,” affirmed Abbady.

Pierce echoed the sentiment, positing, “I’m a person first, and a student second, and a political representative third maybe. I am committed to making changes but I’m also a person, and I am approachable, hopefully.”

April 30, 2015

FEATURES

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Staffing and work grievances define ongoing dining woes Joshua Sherman and Noble Ingram Opinions Editor and Senior Editor

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Joshua Sherman/The Miscellany News

Service Employees International Union (SEIU) representative and ACDC chef helper Cathy Bradford has issued several grievances on behalf of SEIU concerning fair pay and accurate job descriptions. nated the position altogether.

As Spencer explained, “The cook position was eliminated in ACDC because the person who had been in the cook’s classification was doing the work of a chef helper based on operational need for many years prior to retiring.”

She continued, “Once he retired, the cook classification was not needed for the ACDC operation. He was the most senior cook.”

Bradford and numerous other ACDC staff, however, disagree. They believe that the College had instead incorporated the work involved with being a cook into the chef helper position over time. This is concerning to SEIU, because the chef helper position is at a lower pay grade compared to the cook position. Removing the cook position makes it difficult for chef helpers to fulfill the supportive role written into their job description.

Bradford’s and others’ disagreement over these issues has led to an ongoing grievance between SEIU and Aramark. Grievances are processes through which unions can formally express concerns about the policies of the College. They come as a formal action when all alternative methods are exhausted. Grievances first come to supervisors at Vassar. If both parties cannot come to an agreement, the grievance will go to arbitration by a third party until resolved.

President of SEIU and building painter Joe Maio sat at a gray dining table wringing his calloused hands. Though he supports the grievance, he recognized the many steps in this process. “If we’re not happy with the decision made at the manager’s level, then it goes to HR. And then after HR, if we are not happy with the decision, we can go to arbitration,” he said.

According to Bradford, this grievance in particular emerged as a dispute concerning Aramark managers assigning tasks outside of the job descriptions for certain staff. Though it isn’t always

clear to a student grabbing a bowl of soup, when a chef helper sorts spoons they are in fact violating their contract. This also applies to tasks that demand more time and energy from employees, like working a shift on the grill alone.

As part of the grievance, Spencer and HR agreed with SEIU to propose new job descriptions further clarifying the difference between the kitchen worker, chef helper, assistant chef and head chef positions. “The updated job descriptions reflect the tasks that each classification currently completes. Those classifications that were eliminated in ACDC were no longer needed due to changes in operations some time ago,” she reported. On March 23, the union was sent the new job descriptions for feedback. These descriptions, among numerous other changes, remove the statement that chef helpers explicitly assist cooks, assistant chefs and other ACDC staff.

ACDC employee TC Weaver is a familiar face that Vassar students know well. Weaver has personal rapports with many of the people he serves every day. His charismatic, outgoing personality makes him a staple on campus; he recently introduced the headlining act at the Spring Concert.

He wears a smile wider than the crowded grill he often operates alone. His usual bubbly attitude sank however, discussing the proposed job descriptions. “They’re not eliminating the cook position, they’re actually eliminating the chef helper position,” Weaver explained. “Everything that the cook had to do is just getting tacked on to the chef helper position. Since day one chef helpers have been in fact doing the bulk of the cook’s job.”

Beyond Weaver, other staff members have similar sentiments. Seven different employees who hold the chef helper position at the ACDC criticized the new job description proposals.

These employees suggested that administrators fail to recognize the additional work chef help-

Joshua Sherman/The Miscellany News

n any given day, a hungry student walking through the All Campus Dining Center (ACDC) will encounter a number of familiar images: long lines for the salad bar, big tables stocked with condiments and a staff buzzing from one task to the next. Though they all appear to be part of the same process, these staffers actually play several different roles in the dining hall.

Kitchen workers, chef helpers, assistant chefs and a head chef all work to prepare the food offered in the dining center, reporting to Aramark managers along the way.

Each employee plays their part to make up the theater of daily campus dining. In the wake of efforts to improve campus operations on an ever-changing campus, however, Vassar administrators are looking to consolidate the system, risking blending together these job descriptions.

These initiatives sparked grievances in Dec. 2014 against the College by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents the ACDC workers.

Since the recession, the College’s staffing levels have generally decreased. Associate VP for Human Resources Ruth Spencer explained in an emailed statement that the College’s staff size has decreased by nine percent since peaking at 400 employees in Fall 2012. One primary cause for this decline is the voluntary retirement program, or “buyout program” initiated by the College last December.

Sitting in the College Center, in a forum with the VSA on March 2, VP for Finance and Administration Bob Walton detailed the process of this buyout program. Walton speaks with a Texan drawl and his words have the tendency to quietly usher in unexpected facts without much fanfare.

As he explained to council members, employees with a certain number of years of service were offered a lump sum of money to retire voluntarily this past year. At that meeting, many students sat up in surprise at Walton’s report. In total, 68 staff members ended up taking the buyout program that ended last December.

The buyout intended to reduce labor costs and help offset the College’s current draw on the endowment. According to Walton at the VSA forum, the College hopes to soon reach a lower spending rate on the endowment while reducing its staff compared to peer institutions. Right now, Walton said, Vassar is still spending too much.

“I looked at how we spend our money and how other schools spend their money. What we found is that we have a lot more employees in service areas than our peer institutions,” he explained to the council members.

In an emailed statement, Walton offered additional insight into how Vassar’s staffing compares to its peers after the buyout. In general, the College’s staffing is now near the median among its peers, save for a few supervisory positions in Buildings and Grounds. With cleaning staff, the College is still among the top four schools in our peer group, and with skill trades like carpenters and plumbers we are tied with the most staff per square foot of facilities. With dining, Walton diplomatically offered a particular explanation to the list of statistics.

“The data says we are at the median, but my feeling is that due to many of the special improvements that we need to make in dining, we are slightly understaffed,” he explained.

But not all staff at Vassar buy Walton’s plan.

ACDC worker and SEIU union representative Cathy Bradford believes campus dining is more than slightly understaffed and has a serious need for full-time employees. Pausing among the tables and chairs of the dining center, Bradford’s usual optimism gave way to a flash of frustration.

“We are understaffed because we are still missing spots in the workflow,” said Bradford in response to Walton’s analysis of the ACDC staffing situation. “The prep that needs to be done for tomorrow, I don’t have time to do,” she added.

Another issue Bradford expressed has to do with the various tasks ACDC employees complete when working. Before the buyout was finished, there used to be a cook position at the ACDC responsible for short order cooking and recipes at the grill and other tasks. Bradford and numerous other staff hold the position of chef helper, which according to their job description, involves assisting the positions of cook and assistant chef. The number of cooks in the dining center has been steadily declining for years. Last semester, the last one retired and Vassar elimi-

ers currently go above and beyond to do. Some of this extra labor used to include filling in for absent cooks. Though the ACDC cook has now retired and the position has been eliminated, the summer cook position he worked is still vacant and being filled by the Retreat’s cook.

Spencer stated, “There is only one other cook on campus; she is in the Retreat. The person in the Retreat could never work summers because if we used one cook in the summer the [former] ACDC cook would always get the job based on seniority. To my knowledge we never used more than one person in that classification.”

Spencer also clarified that neither Bradford nor any other SEIU representatives have yet given direct feedback about the new job descriptions.

SEIU remains hopeful that the grievances will give it a chance to tell Vassar that the work chef helpers do deserves more pay if it incorporates the work of the cook position. One potential solution Bradford described relates to new levels for advancement within the chef helper position. At this time only two levels exist differentiating position. Adding respective positions and different pay would give recognition to employees with decades of experience.

“I think it would be reasonable to increase the pay if [Human Resources] is giving us an expanded job description,” said Weaver.

Bradford’s eyes held a serious solidity as she argued for more varied job positions that respected employees’ experience. “I think that would be more fair,” she said.

Spencer’s response revealed an openness to compromise. As she explained, “Normally, we do not change the rate for a single classification during negotiations, unless there is a real problem recruiting persons in that classification, but it is not out of the realm of possibility.”

Bradford also believes senior administration should see the amount of work the staff does in a given week firsthand. “[Bob Walton] needs to come over here for one day and be in our shoes,” she said.

Though he may not frequent the ACDC kitchen, Walton noted his acknowledgment of concerns coming from staff on campus. In his year and a half on campus, he has held more than 90 small group meetings with staff and administrators. “The types of issues that most commonly are mentioned are the need for more communications about what is going on at Vassar...and [community members] feel slightly out of the information loop,” he wrote in an emailed statement.

On top of the need for further communication, Walton made clear that he understands the concern many have for staffing levels and the expectation to do more with less. He acknowledged the frustration many seem to feel about the rigidity of the system that sets bargaining contracts and restricts work so that some can’t do the work they expect to.

Even so, Bradford saw major issues with the current state of dining. In a moment of reflection, she said, “It used to be better here six or seven years ago.”

Long lines at the ACDC are one sympton of what employees view as an ongoing issue of staffing. According to ACDC chef helper TC Weaver, many ACDC workers already go above and beyond their current job descriptions. This opinion is disputed by Associate VP for Human Resources Ruth Spencer.

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April 30, 2015

Seniors shed dorm-room baggage for postgrad pursuits Eloy Bleifuss Prados Reporter

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their possessions to their younger peers who are moving into apartments next semester.

One popular venue for donating gently used items is the SWAPR program. An acronym for Stopping Waste And Promoting Reuse, SWAPR is spearheaded by the Sustainability Coordinator Alistair Hall ’11 in conjunction with the College Committee for Sustainability. Since 2002, SWAPR accepts used clothing, furniture and other miscellaneous items at drop-off points located across campus. “I think it’s kind of a winwin. I don’t think people intend to throw away stuff. We’re just kind of providing a positive outlet for it,” said Hall.

He went on to explain how last year alone, SWAPR saved upwards of 120 garbage bags or more than 3000 pounds of clothing from ending up in the trash. Additionally, SWAPR partners

Sam Pianello/The Miscellany News

our years at Vassar can leave seniors with a wealth of experiences to sort through—and a pile of unwanted possessions to get rid of. With only a month before commencement, the Class of 2015 is looking to unburden themselves of the material detritus of their undergraduate career.

Seniors face a mix of bookshelves, fans, kitchen equipment, carpets and laundry hampers that they either do not want anymore or cannot be bothered to transport hundreds of miles away.

“I have more stuff than I know what to do with and it’s because I like things,” said Maddie Oldfield ’15. Planning on traveling across the country and relocating in Seattle, Oldfield has to pare down all of her possessions into what can fit into her car. She explained how she is using the time as an opportunity to reevaluate how she sees herself living in her post-grad life. “I think I am going to have to take a step back from my life because I can’t be carrying around that much stuff,” she said.

Kayla Abe ’15 brought a lighter load to campus and has only a few things she is trying to sell or donate before the end of the semester. Said Abe, “I live far away, and knowing that I would have to lug everything back, I didn’t want to get rid of too much at the end of the year. I’m very, very conscious of how much I consume and try not to have anything in excess.” This habit has been successful in keeping Abe’s room free of burdensome clutter. “My walls are so barren,” she reported.

Still, there are a few miscellaneous possessions that Abe has been trying to vend on the Free & For Sale Facebook Page. Already, she has been able to sell a rotating fan and a running armband to interested buyers.

Abe and Oldfield’s housemate Noah Johnson ‘15 is trying to cut a larger deal on Facebook.

Johnson will be selling his car, a 1996 Honda Accord, on Free & For Sale, where the typical price for an item is between $5-10. “It will probably be like the biggest ticket item up there. I don’t

know anyone who’s ever put something over like twenty bucks up there yet,” he said.

Johnson regrets having to sell or donate his college possessions only to have to start over again when he moves to the West Coast after graduation. His housemates worked hard to furnish their kitchen and rooms and now they are working hard to strip them down again.

“We’ve accumulated so much stuff even in the past year, not counting all the stuff from the past three years. Then all the sudden you have to get rid of all of that,” said Johnson.

He offered the following advice to underclassmen: “I would say get as few things as possible. It’s way easier not to have that much.”

He added that what isn’t sold or donated will probably be passed down to their junior housemate. Indeed, many seniors choose to bequeath

Noah Johnson ‘15 is preparing to move to the West Coast after graduation. In order to make the move, he is taking on difficult decisions about which belongings to take with him and which to leave behind.

with over a dozen community organizations, like Dutchess Outreach and Hudson River Housing, to make sure that the used items are matched with the right recipients.

What’s left over in past years was offered to returning students at heavily discounted prices.

Hall graduated Vassar in 2011, but, when he returned in August of 2013, he found a couch that had been in his apartment back when he was a senior. “It’s kind of an interesting way of community heritage or reuse,” he said.

After he graduates, Jeremy Burke ’15 plans on donating his coffee table but taking his collection of books with him as he moves to New York City. Burke explained how he considers the books he’s bought and read during his time at Vassar to be important enough to hold onto past graduation. Said Burke, “I’ve been cautioned by my parents a lot about buying too many books.”

He then added, “But I don’t really care. I think it’s worthwhile.”

Oldfield also plans on keeping a few of the textbooks she read in the course of her studies as a drama major. She also said she feels like she should hold onto essentials like her bedding. However, the lamps, carpets, bookshelves, black-out curtains, storage containers and a Cuisinart food blender all need to go.

Deciding to get rid of something like a vacuum cleaner may seem inconsequential, but these are the first decisions seniors make as they transition out of college and into the postgrad world where certainties are scarce. According to Oldfield, tied together with the act of shedding away her old belongings is the dream of a more independent life in the future.

She said, “I think it’s also an idealized notion of “Okay, I’ve collected all this baggage through college, and now I can sort of let it go and go on new adventures.’ I want to be able to travel and move to different places and be working in different cities.” The prospect of starting over with fewer material comforts can be daunting.

Oldfield joked, “It’s like I want to be a hoarder and a free spirit. Can I do that?”

Logging out for life: students abstain from social media Claire Standaert

Assistant Features Editor

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ocial media can go two ways, like ivy: at times growing around us pleasurably and, at others, becoming dangerously invasive. In an age where technology is flourishing, social media has interwoven with everyday life. But for Vassar students who have deleted or abstained from social media, an aversion to distortion and clutter makes unplugging from the social media world easier.

Still, the very thought of checking out of the cyber world seems unthinkable to most. In The New York Times, Nick Bilton takes this to the level of hyperbole, writing, “Social media is entwined in daily life, and abandoning Facebook and Twitter would be like trying to quit driving in protest of oil companies, or giving up electricity as a way of objecting to Con Edison’s environmental policies” (The New York Times, “Reclaiming Our (Real) Lives From Social Media,” 07.16.14). But all is not so dramatic for those

who see withdrawing from social media as a much-needed vacation.

Like cleaning out an attic, Clyfford Young ’16 cleansed, and then deleted his Facebook last year.

He said, “When the end finally came, I had just gone on a spree of just deleting all of the Facebook friends that I had amassed and I was left with the 40 somewhat people in my life that I keep in contact with and I don’t need Facebook in any shape or form to keep in contact with.”

While those like Young might delete their accounts simply because they don’t wish to know the intimate lives of people they’re no longer acquainted with in real life, others are pushed to the brink purely for reasons of distraction. Justin Mitchell ’15 said, “I was mindlessly going through people’s profiles and being an idiot. There is just not enough time to do that with school. So I cut it out.” This is understandable, because social media is a labyrinth of links and videos. So for Mitchell, like many, wasting time on social media

Sam Pianello/The Miscellany News

Social media is having an increasing chokehold on some students’ daily lives. Forgoing the constant updates and photo streams, some students have opted to abstain from these services altogether.

was a serious problem. He explained, “There’s always a link. Then I click on it and it takes me on a 15 minute tangent and then I come back and start again.”

Others are troubled by more substantive questions of how social media encourages people to represent themselves. Andrew Willett ’17, who rarely checks his Facebook, said, “With the news feed on Facebook, for example, most people put up the highlights of their life. You’re sort of trying to maintain an image online, but that is not necessarily representative of you as a person.” This slight bending of reality makes Willett question the best avenue for having meaningful interactions. He continued, “I don’t use social media on a daily basis because I feel like it gets me out of person to person interactions and that’s what I’m interested in. Some people think that digital, textbased communication is just as meaningful of an interaction, but it doesn’t work for me.”

For some, social media interactions are bitter.

Young said, “I honestly think social media is ruining the world. Things like Yik Yak, Facebook and Twitter and the immortalization of people’s thoughts online. You can take any of that out of context and use it in any way, shape or form.”

But for Professor of English on the Hellen D. Lockwood Chair Amitava Kumar, social media can be exploited to convey stories differently. “I have an Instagram account because I have an iPhone. I see something interesting and I take pictures. I always add the hashtag ‘Vassar’ because I work here. Just to report about it. I am a documentarian of what happens on Vassar.” On his Instagram account are photos of the Shakespeare Garden, visiting writer George Saunders, campus flora and fauna­­­­—Kumar’s way of reporting and storytelling through images.

For journalists like Kumar, social media is crucial. It’s a part of his job not written in the description. He said, “I often use Twitter to tell my followers what I’m teaching the next day. Sometimes I link them to articles. I think of it almost as my role in public education. Especially in journalism, for example.”

Kumar is also aware of the many risks of public social media. He said, “I’m aware of that danger. And I think of it when I’m posting. And I’m

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

afraid that some day I’ll make a mistake and pay for it. But so be it. To live, and certainly to live as a public intellectual, is to provoke danger in some measure.”

Herein lies a point of concern for students who hope to soon enter the workforce.

Mitchell said, “I can see how it could be a problem, but I think it’s silly that it is a problem…Your Facebook is you. So if your employer doesn’t like what they find on Facebook, then you probably don’t want to work for them anyways because you’d be stifled as a person.”

Many jobs are now looking for applicants with social media experience. Young asserted, “Frankly, I don’t ever want to apply to a job that has social media experience as a requirement. I don’t want a job where you have to be in the public like that. I don’t want to be tweeting out shit. If I wanted to be a journalist or marketer, then that might be a problem. But I don’t.”

While worries about employers may be more distant, in the meantime, students who abstain from social media have concerns about keeping their finger on the pulse of campus happenings.

Without a constant flood of Facebook invites, they must rely on word of mouth.

Mitchell commented on this concern, “It’s harder to say no to things when a friend says, ‘Hey this is happening. Do you want to come?’ whereas on Facebook, the options are ‘going, not going, or maybe.’ There is almost more pressure when you get invited in-person. There is more pressure to be involved, but then again, there is less pressure because you are not always being asked to go to things on Facebook.”

Sometimes, social media can be complicated, but it doesn’t have to be: It can be as simple as Kumar dropping off his child at the bus stop and stopping to take a picture of magnolias blooming against Vassar’s walls. Even so, in its wake some find a breath of fresh air and authenticity.

Mitchell finished, “My friends know me well and they won’t invite me to everything and anything. They only invite me to things that they think I want to participate in.” Willett uses the same strategy: “I’ve gotten to the point where if somebody matters to me, they are going to get in contact with me without needing social media.”

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SCIA workshop examines questions of class on campus Julia Cunningham

Assistant Features Editor

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Courtesy of Vassar Media Relations

here is a stigma associated with socioeconomic background at Vassar, and I’d like for this to be a safe space to be able to open up that discussion,” President of Students’ Class Issues Alliance (SCIA) Leela Stalzer ‘17 said. The statement was met with silence.

While there are classes in sociology offered to make people aware of the dynamic between class and class background, the discussion falls short when it comes to the specifics of that dynamic on campus. SCIA organized “CLA$$AR: A Student-Led Workshop on Socioeconomic Identity at Vassar” on April 25 to address socioeconomic disparities and the tensions they produce at Vassar.

The event, Stalzer explained, was a way to get the student body more involved in the conversation regarding the range of backgrounds that students at Vassar come from. “There have been workshops that SCIA has led before, but this was the first student-led,” Stalzer said. “The workshop in the fall went well, but it focused more on general issues. It was only towards the end that it went more into Vassar-specific issues, which is why I thought there was a need for this workshop today,” she went on to say.

While Vassar is counted as the most socioeconomically diverse school in America, students feel pressure to shed those backgrounds upon entering the school. Just a few weeks ago, Vassar was rewarded for its diversity with the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation for Supporting High-Performing Low-Income Students.

Founded this year, this scholarship grants a nostrings-attached sum of one million dollars as an award for colleges with the highest number of low-income students.

As the recipient of the inaugural reward, Vassar was featured in The New York Times, which announced, “Among colleges with a fouryear graduation rate of at least 75 percent, none has done more than Vassar to enroll low-income students and give them large scholarships, according to an Upshot analysis last year that Cooke Foundation officials said influenced their decision” (“New Prize Rewards Economic Diversity at Colleges,” 04.07.15). When Stalzer

asked the group, “Do you think Vassar deserves this scholarship?” the overwhelming response was only if the money is put towards helping those low-income students continue to succeed once they arrive on campus.

Michael Fracentese ’16 mentioned that the Transitions program, a program offered to alleviate students’ “culture shock” coming from lower-class backgrounds, is only available to 20 or 30 incoming freshmen. Along with this more social supplement, 24 percent of students qualify for the Pell Grant. The Pell Grant is awarded to students who usually come from families who make less than 50,000 dollars a year. In addition, Transitions is not consistent throughout the year. The New York Times article mentioned that the College’s president was planning to put the money toward Transitions.

The article said, “Catharine Hill, Vassar’s president, told me that the college would use some of the prize money to expand an orientation program that has shown early promise in helping students adjust to Vassar.”

Transitions wasn’t the only concern that students attending the workshop brought up. The difficulty for students to connect with their peers on every level may stem from the Administration. One student mentioned that the Administration at Vassar keeps very specialized financial portfolios on parents. On Parents’ Weekend, then, parents with a higher income who have more money that they have donated, or have the potential to donate, are given a different program of activities at Vassar than those who are less able to donate.

“Those parents got a behind-the-scenes tour of the new science building,” she said. In visiting Vassar, a couple of students mentioned that their parents wanted to know how to dress like the “typical” Vassar parents. Vassar may tout a certain amount of diversity, but it mainly caters towards the 20 percent of the school that pays full tuition, she noted.

For her work-study job, this student works as a phone-a-thon caller, and she explained, “Vassar creates personalized ‘suggested donation’ amounts. I think the idea is so ridiculous that I don’t usually ask.” Not only is she being put in the uncomfortable position of asking cur-

On April 25, the Students’ Class Issues Alliance hosted a workshop to discuss class tensions on campus, ranging from issues of diversity to social pressures motivated by classism and socioeconomic differences. rent students’ parents for more money, but she is in a position to be attacked for daring to ask for a specific amount. She went on to say, “It also depends on where the money is coming from. Maybe the student has a guardian situation where one parent refuses to pay, but that’s where the money would come from? Vassar doesn’t take those things into consideration.”

These issues extend beyond the reaches of Vassar’s campus. Fracentese commented, “The Salvation Army near Vassar doesn’t appreciate when the rich kids from Vassar come in to fulfill the latest fashion.” Where Salvation Armies are a necessity for some members of the community, Vassar students trivialize the need for them by using up resources when they have enough money to buy clothing at more expensive stores. When it comes to being a college student, however, finances are always an issue.

Sonia Inam ’18 brought up the idea of merely being fiscally responsible by doing her shopping at the Salvation Army instead of the mall.

“There is always the issue of fashion,” Fracentese agreed. “If a ‘rich’ Vassar student buys the last pair of nice jeans at the Salvation Army, whose to say I can’t just buy the ripped jeans?

Clothing shouldn’t be a class indicator.”

Inam went on to say, “I’ve heard of more wealthy students trying to dress down for that reason.”

Whether students have the option to ask their parents for money or not, opting out of going out to eat or heading to the mall to save money is always an excuse. For bigger issues— even going to college in the first place, finding an unpaid internship in the summer, going abroad—the politics of class tend to get in the way. The SCIA student-led workshop was meant to open people’s eyes about these differences, and how to begin fixing them on Vassar’s campus.

Stalzer said, “There were so many topics that we weren’t able to get to. I think we were able to accomplish what we set out to do, though.”

Feminist Alliance, ACCESS host talkback after Singer Q&A SINGER continued from page 1

Sam Pianello/The Miscellany News

hosted a talkback immediately following the Philosophy Department’s Singer event. In an open letter that the two organizations penned in protest, they write, “By sponsoring this event, the Philosophy Department is legitimizing Mr. Singer’s eugenicist ideals, which cannot and should not be separated from his utilitarian ideology as a whole. ‘Controversial’ or downright bigoted statements should not be brushed aside when considering a potential speaker, but rather weighed heavily in the College’s decisions about who to endorse.”

Similar feelings filled Rocky 210 at 8 p.m. this past Tuesday at the talkback. After the Singer event ended just down the hall and the last few students petered in, ACCESS President Charles Callejo ’17 opened the discussion with a simple question: “How are some voices privileged over others in academia?” he asked.

Philosophy major Spencer Davis ’16 was the first to answer, stating, “…In a philosophy classroom there are norms that are enforced and those norms are expected from a body like mine. But if you don’t have a body like mine or don’t come from a background like mine you’ll have a hard time finding success in that space.”

Earlier, in an emailed statement, Davis wrote that, though he recognizes ableism in philosophy and other fields, he doesn’t believe Singer’s views reflect ableist beliefs. “[But] I also think that we can converse with Singer in the context of shaping the world such that it welcomes disabled bodies more fully.”

Some students agreed, clarifying that Singer’s view is such that he doesn’t believe allocating funds toward assistance for disabled people is the most effective altruism. That money, he asserts, would be more effective if it went toward curing blindness caused by glaucoma in third-world countries, for example.

For many students, this fact doesn’t make them look any more favorably on Singer. Ellie Vamos ’17 responded, “To say that he doesn’t

Fem Alliance and ACCESS hosted a talkback following the lecture by Peter Singer. Many who attended both events found the constructive dialogues to be helpful in understanding Singer’s point of view. hate disabled people but he doesn’t want them to receive services or care—” People in the room laughed at the idea that these two could be mutually exclusive.

Diego Encarnación ’18, however, suggested that having these controversial views doesn’t make Singer special: He represents just one of many philosophical perspectives. “If you disagree with Singer, that’s good because it confirms your views...I feel like at Vassar—although I agree that Singer’s wrong,” he said, referring to Singer’s stance on people with disabilities, “I think we’re a bit too fast to jump.”

Encarnación insisted that there’s value in engaging with oppositional opinions.

Tanya Madrigal ’18 expressed her frustration with this sentiment. Having gone to the

Singer event, she felt that questions of ableism and eugenics weren’t addressed. “I think Singer’s worth hearing, but my problem was that there was an elephant in the room that wasn’t acknowledged,” she said.

Others pointed out that if the Philosophy Department hadn’t hosted the talk with Singer, the talkback wouldn’t be happening either.

“There’s a lot of people that say a lot of things and write a lot of books, but there are only some speakers departments bring to campus and in doing so they value certain voices,” said Westin Sibley ’17. “It confirms a belief system.” Vamos agreed, noting, “We could be having a similar discussion in the context of a disabled speaker’s talk rather than as a student-organized response.” Another student

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

added that the process of suggesting Singer and the event itself was beneficial in that it sparked productive dialogue overlooks the fact that many organizations on campus, like Feminist Alliance and ACCESS, are always having these conversations.

Phoebe Shalloway ’18 agreed with this sentiment, “There is a line somewhere where everyone would agree you shouldn’t bring a speaker here...The fact that people are protesting this event shows that they believe Peter Singer has crossed that line. But the Philosophy Department bringing him shows that they don’t think he has, which exposes how deeply ingrained ableism is in our institution.”

At times, the discussion became tense: Some students posited hypothetical scenarios in attempts to explain Singer’s beliefs with more nuance. Philosophy students contributed points of interest they discussed in class.

But some of the tensions that had arisen on the event’s Facebook page manifested themselves in real life. When students voiced their criticism of Singer, others pointed out weak points in their arguments.

“What I’m hearing is academic discussion that’s making value judgments about disabled people’s lives. Why are we asking, ‘If we can have a genocide—philosophically—then let’s have a genocide?’” asked Marisa Tomaino ’17.

“Our problem isn’t with a singular view,” she continued, noting that Singer never questions valuing other lives in his ethics. “Down the line, he’s deciding at every single point that the lives of disabled people aren’t worth as much. He continually focuses on disabled people because that’s the group he has it out for.”

Though not everyone was swayed, for students who went to both discussions, the talkback had a meaningful impact.

A student ended, “I went to both events and I’m grateful for it, because I would have left the Singer talk without the grain of salt I clearly needed.”

FEATURES

Page 8

April 30, 2015

A veggie burger so good it’ll solve the carnivore’s dilemma Penina Remler columnist

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courtesy of SweetOmVeg via flickr

am not a vegetarian, yet I’m a huge fan of the veggie burger. It’s not that I don’t like regular beef burgers or even the occasional turkey burger, but, when cooked correctly, a veggie burger can provide the same satisfactory burger experience with a subtle health kick at the same time.

The perfect veggie burger is hard to come by, which is why so many people often overlook this staple. Too many times, a standard veggie burger turns to mush when the mix of vegetables, beans and tofu overpower each other in flavor and turn into a bland and aggressively moist concoction.

However, all of the appealing aspects of a classic burger, such as the beefy texture and smoke from the grill, can also be found in a veggie burger. The trick to veggie burgers is mastering the perfect texture, while still maintaining a delicious taste. This goal is easily attainable when you choose to roast your veggies rather than steam them. By doing so, the vegetables will rid themselves of their excess water and simultaneously enhance their flavors.

In addition to the vegetables, the secret of this recipe relies upon not only dehydrating the vegetables, but also reducing the moisture content of the roasted beans before they are added into the mix. Then take the extra step by choosing kidney beans to guarantee a safe, but satisfactory flavor, not to mention the added dose of fiber and protein. By adding tempeh and ground nuts into the mix, the burger achieves a dynamic texture in every bite. As for appearance, incorporating roasted beets gives the burger a rosy shade which some people may be pleasantly surprised by because it looks—but doesn’t taste—like beef. The final touch which brings this veggie burger from standard to superior is the hint of collective spices.

Wait for your oven to heat up to 425 degrees, then begin the recipe by slicing your tofu into quarter-inch “sticks” and be sure that they are dry (pat them down with a paper towel). Next, arrange your tofu slices on a baking sheet so that

you can brush both sides with oil, combine them with mushrooms and season the tray with two tablespoons of oil, salt and pepper.

Following this step, gather a second baking sheet where you will spread the beans and grated red beet. Once the produce is distributed onto the pan, cover the ingredients with one tablespoon of oil, salt and pepper. After preparing both trays, put both baking sheets in the oven for about 15 minutes. Be sure to toss the trays around occasionally or until the beans begin to split and the beets tenderize and take on a golden shade. Using this same process, roast the mushrooms and tofu until they appear golden brown and have rid all liquid (this will take a bit longer, up to 25 minutes).

Once the tofu, beans and vegetables are ready, let them cool as you prepare the nuts to be mixed in. Put the nuts into a food processor and allow them to pulse until they appear to be coarsely grounded. Later, add your cooled beets, mushrooms, tofu, panko, cheese, eggs, mayonnaise, scallion, garlic, pimento and salt into the mix.

Next, add in the tempeh and rice, but be sure not to leave the food processor on for too long (stop at small chunks, not a single mixture). Finally, gather the new combination from the food processor into a bowl and allow it to chill for a minimum of two hours.

Once it is time to prepare the burgers, divide your mix into six portions which should be approximately one inch thick. Return the distributed mix to the fridge and allow it to chill before cooking (the mix grills better when cold). Lastly, heat up the grill and cook the burgers over low heat, or until they appear to be well smoked on both sides (this should be no more than four to six minutes on each side).

For some, this procedure might sound extensive and require a bit more attention to detail, but the actual cooking procedure is simple and most certainly worth it. Moreover, save time and freeze some of the batch for a later date—somehow, I don’t think the veggie burger fad will be going out of style any time soon.

The Ingredients 4 ounces of extra-firm tofu (drained) Olive oil 1/2 pound of cremini mushrooms (sliced) 3/4 teaspoon of kosher salt Black pepper 1 (15 ounce) can of kidney beans (drained) 1 medium red beet (peeled and grated into 3/4 cup) 3/4 cup of tamari almonds and/or cashews

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MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

1/3 of panko bread crumbs 2 ounces of Cotija cheese (crumbled or grated into 1/2 cup) 2 eggs 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise 2 scallions (sliced) 3 garlic cloves (chopped) 3/4 teaspoon of dulce pimentón or smoked paprika 4 ounces of tempeh (crumbled) 1/2 cup of cooked brown rice

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April 30, 2015

OPINIONS

Page 9

The Miscellany News Staff Editorial

Incoming VSA council should respect, represent students

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he Constitution of the Vassar Student Association (VSA) makes it clear that the organization is meant to work for the student body. It reads, “VSA shall serve, represent, and promote the interests and welfare of the students of Vassar College. It shall encourage student representation and involvement in college decision making and shall strive to enhance the quality of life and education for the students of Vassar College.

The VSA shall represent the opinions of the student body.” Last week, the VSA announced the results of its 2015-2016 election, and reported that less than half of students voted. We at The Miscellany News wonder whether this diminutive voter turnout is linked to VSA’s consistent inability to communicate with students.

It is the job of student representatives to communicate to the student body the policy changes coming up in VSA council meetings, but too often students are either notified too late or not at all. The VSA has failed to adequately announce several constitutional amendments. One of its arguably most egregious failures to communicate with its constituents was the question of VSA Executive Board compensation. On the day of discussion, fewer than half of Council admitted to informing their constituents. While the rule was subsequently passed during the spring election, the fact remains that when it was first brought before Council, members generally failed to do their due diligence by contacting the people they swore to represent.

This pattern continued on April 12 when the VSA passed a Vassar Animal Rights Coalition (VARC) resolution that permanently banned

any events that receive VSA funds from relying on non-human animals for entertainment, such as petting zoos or adoption drives, without even half of class and house representatives polling constituents for their feelings on the resolution.

The motives of the resolution were not questioned by the assembly, who instead focused on how this related to emotional support animals or teachers’ dogs were excluded from these provisions. After less than 10 minutes of debate, the amendment passed, with only one representative in opposition.

The failure to seriously debate the issue transcends the importance of this individual resolution. Normally it would have to be written into the constitution with the understanding that one week of debate occurred before voting. By skipping this process the VSA did not allow time to seek out student input. “This means VSA would be taking [the] stance of VARC, which the student body would have to be behind,” one constituent present noted. Given the popularity of these events and the reality that the VSA almost never institutes blanket bans, we at The Miscellany News are concerned that the Council members passed a resolution that banned a previously popular event without student input. This serves as yet another violation of the already limited trust the student body places in the VSA. When observed as discrete incidents none of these may appear particularly harmful. However, these failures to communicate with constituents reveal a pattern of unacceptable behavior on the part of many in the VSA. To date, Council members have categorically failed to inform

their constituents about other resolutions and risk entering into discussions without requisite information and opinions from their constituencies. Although not all members are failing to communicate with their constituents, many are and this cannot continue.

Without information about these and other actions, the student body has been unable to contact its representatives to let them know how it felt on the issues. What the student representatives need to understand in these situations is that it is not just their opinions on these issues that matter but their constituents as well. Even one failure to inform students about the debates and actions of the VSA, let alone a pattern, means that the VSA violates its own pledge to increase student representation in campus decision-making.

We do not feel that it would be difficult to increase the transparency of the VSA’s dealings.

A newsletter sent out at the beginning of every week, notifying the student body of what Council will be deciding upon in that week, would be one simple step towards making the workings of student government more accessible to everyone on campus. As the system stands currently, students need to request to be on the email list that receives the agenda. It seems self-evident that every student should receive that email, requested or not.

The VSA follows the Robert’s Rule of Order, which is a common for boardrooms and politics alike. This structure lays out the format for meetings and debates and contains strict procedures. It is a system built for efficiency so that

meetings will move along fluidly; however, it takes skill and previous knowledge to navigate around discussions that run in this fashion, which makes the representative body appear out-of-touch and has proven difficult for current members of Council. Division between Council members and the student body is only extended with the VSA’s frequent decision to violate their own rules or suspend their bylaws. We at The Miscellany News encourage the new Council to seriously consider its execution of Robert’s Rules in favor of more accessible methods.

Moreover, we argue that the VSA Council itself requires better training in its operating procedures.

While little can be done to solve the problems that have plagued this iteration of the VSA, the newly-elected Council has the opportunity to improve upon their predecessors. Students consistently argue that the VSA fails to represent them and many candidates espouse firm beliefs in making the organization more representative and transparent. We believe that the new Council can achieve these aims if they better acquaint themselves with their operating procedures, devote more time to their training, and establish clear and constant methods of communicating with their constituencies. A student government can only be representative if it listens to the voices of the students it seeks to represent and earn their trust, and we believe serious and concrete work must be done even now to do this.

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

New tech helps to mitigate Islamophobia alive and well fears when drawing blood after VCLU campus lecture Delaney Fischer Columnist

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or many, visiting the doctor is a stressful experience especially when one has to get blood drawn. The fear of needles, known as trypanophobia (the fear of injections, specifically), is surprisingly common in the United States. Approximately 20 percent of people in the U.S. have a fear of needles, which can have some serious consequences (Healthline, “Needle Phobia Facts,” 2015). It is not uncommon for those afraid of needles to skip routine doctor visits or even skip prescribed medications that involve injections or drawing blood. An example can be seen with diabetics who skip glucose monitoring and insulin injections.

Without proper care, diabetics put themselves at serious risk for complications. In the larger scope, the general fear of needles has led to greater risk of illness and death.

Doctors and medical researchers are well aware of trypanophobia and researchers at the National Institutes of Health have been working on gathering more precise data regarding the prevalence of fear of needles as well as trying to find ways to manage this fear. In a 2009 study, Wright et al. suggested health professionals need to step up not only with recognizing when patients have trypanophobia but also managing symptoms by recognizing the underlying causes of the fear, which often stem from vasovagal symptoms, involving the vagus nerve, or past traumatic experiences (“Fear of needles nature and prevalence in general practice,” 2009).

While doctors should actively be engaging with patients with any sort of medical concern, including the fear of needles, a new device has been created that will hopefully eliminate some issues with the use of needles in medical offices.

Graduates of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, have recently formed a company called Tasso that developed a device that does away with using a needle to draw blood. Instead, the device, called the HemoLink blood sampler, uses vacuum suction to draw blood from open channels in the capillaries (Gizmag, “New sampling device promises to make blood tests needle-free,” 04.21.15). Vice President and Co-Founder of Tasso Inc. Ben Casavant said in a press release, “The technology relies on the forces that govern the flow of tiny fluid stream.

At these scales, surface tension dominates over

gravity, and that keeps the blood in the channel no matter how you hold the device” (Science Alert, “This new painless and self-administered blood test could replace needles,” 04.20.15).

The current model of the device only takes two minutes for extraction and is set to collect approximately 0.15 cubic centimeters of blood the amount that is needed for most routine lab analyses. However, there are still many questions regarding the HemoLink. One article I found suggested that researchers are still trying to figure out how to keep the blood at an optimal temperature for the trip to the lab, which has been difficult since the sample can’t be submerged in ice. With that being said, another article suggested that the HemoLink can keep the extracted blood for more than ten days and it can accommodate more than one sample.

This article also suggested that the blood sample is transferred to the laboratory at low temperatures to help avoid spoilage (Real Tech Today, “New device will replace needles in the process of extracting blood,” 04.21.15). It isn’t clear if there are limitations given the mixed reports.

Nonetheless, the possibility of technical issues has not stopped Tasso from promoting their new device. Tasso is hoping to get HemoLink approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration later this year, with an overall goal of getting the device on the market in 2016.

While I am very excited for the HemoLink, I am concerned with some of the logistics involving sample transfer since there are conflicting reports. However, I also acknowledge that reporting on this product is still in the early stage, and I shouldn’t get too caught up in technicalities. I suspect if they are seeking approval from the FDA that there is a way to store the blood for transfer in some capacity.

I suppose my real concern is, what about actual injections? This device doesn’t get rid of the fear; instead, it just dances circles around it. While I do believe this is innovative and will help many feel more comfortable getting blood drawn for medical tests, it is not a be-all and endall solution to trypanophobia. For the movement of ending the fear to be considered successful, scientists must continue to find ways to manage this phobia or find a way to be able to eliminate needles all together.

—Delaney Fischer ’15 is a neuroscience major.

Ramy Abbady

Guest Columnist

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attended Marc Thiessen’s lecture on April 24, and I have several thoughts I’d like to share.

On one hand, I understand that the VCLU represents a point of view that is often unheard of on this campus. Two years ago, you brought Alex Epstein here to speak on fossil fuels. Though he presented a view that many students disagreed with, his lecture was not particularly offensive to the student body. On the other hand, I question the value in bringing certain viewpoints to this campus. There seems to be this notion that students here are sheltered from the “real world” and try to leave here without engaging with views different than their own. Most students often go home in their four years here and are faced with views that may be drastically different from what is common on campus. Even students who stay and work here during breaks have outlets for engaging with these alternative views.

In any case, Marc Thiessen is not simply an “alternative viewpoint.” Though he repeatedly claimed that he opposed Islamophobia, it is very clear that this is not the case. He uses the same rhetoric that causes mass Islamophobia in America. In particular, he repeatedly said that in order to defeat the “enemy,” we need to name it. For Marc Thiessen, that name is “radical Islam.” For so many people, “radical Islam” has become a standin for Islam in general.

Last year, a woman in Arkansas got attention for banning Muslims from her shooting range. She said, “We are dealing in lethal firearms. I’m not going to let a Nazi shoot in here, or a Ku Klux Klan member in here, either.” The difference between Muslims and the other groups she mentioned is that she singles out Muslims by their names and their skin color. While she is supposedly anti-“radical Islam” in much the same way that Marc Thiessen claims to be, she resorts to simple stereotypes and clear Islamophobia to back her claims (Fox News, “Gun range’s ban on Muslims draws fire,” 01.29.15).

This woman could be anyone in the U.S. Since Sept. 11, Islamophobia has led to discrimination against so many brown bodies that are not even Muslim. In particular, Sikh men have been singled out for their turbans, which have nothing at all to do with Islam. The very notion of Islamophobia, in many ways, is a form of racism against brown bodies from all over the Middle East, North Africa

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

and South Asia.

One particular scare tactic used by the media is to quote Arabic terms in negative contexts, the most common of which is jihad. In the Qur’an, jihad most often refers to the internal process of struggling with faith, and is often translated as “striving.” Though it can refer to armed conflict, which the mass media often does, it is a personal endeavor. Similarly, Thiessen claimed that Osama bin Laden released several fatwas when he was leading a branch of al Qaeda. A fatwa is not a proclamation of war, or whatever Marc Thiessen intended it to mean. A fatwa is a legal opinion crafted by someone who has intensively studied Islam in at least one of its legal schools. A fatwa can only be made by a mufti, a type of judge, which bin Laden was not. During his lecture, Thiessen admitted that he is not a religious scholar, which revealed him as nothing more than someone who abuses rhetoric to make his point.

It is people like Marc Thiessen who allow this racism to take hold and spread. It is groups like VCLU who, whether consciously or not, want this hate to exist. By bringing this man to Vassar, there has been a very direct attack of Muslim students and many other brown bodies. This is completely unacceptable.

The most disturbing part of this whole situation is how unapologetic Marc Thiessen was.

Though he was so troubled by the deaths of white people in both the Holocaust and the Sept. 11 attacks, he was utterly unfazed by the millions of deaths caused in the Middle East and South Asia by the U.S. When students in the lecture repeatedly tried to bring up this fact, Thiessen brushed them off and justified each situation. In particular, students brought up situations in Pakistan and Sri Lanka in which U.S. intervention served only to escalate the situation, but Thiessen insisted that the U.S. had made the situation better.

This is Islamophobia. This is racism. Presenting a contrary viewpoint is not justification for these things. This man has only served to further perpetuate an existing environment of hostility. At one point in the lecture, Marc Thiessen said that the views presented by students in the room, and at Vassar in general, are not reflective of greater American society. What I have to say to that is: Thank Allah.

—Ramy Abbady ’16 is an education major. He is President of the Middle Eastern Students Collective.

OPINIONS

Page 10

April 30, 2015

Developers neglect millennials’ interests by replacing malls Sophia Burns

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Columnist

his past winter, I noticed a surge in the number of articles appearing in various online publications about a certain endangered species. This species is the mall, something familiar to most young Americans. According to The Washington Post, “As many as half of America’s malls will be torn down or reconfigured” (“The fall–and overhaul–of the American mall,” 01.30.15). This mass extinction poses a unique problem for millennials.

Any young adult, from older teenagers to budding 30-year-olds, and especially those from suburbia, recognizes the image the mall represents in their lives. Most can recall memories of hiding in department store clothing racks while parents panic, those greasy, salty soft pretzels and begging mom and dad to go alone and essentially wander aimlessly with a group of middle school friends.

For many, the mall has been something that was always there, and something that has had many different meanings throughout different stages of life. As a result, the news that the American mall is “dying” not only dredges up nostalgia for this generation, but also raises questions about the causes of this phenomenon and the new proposals for this surplus of giant empty spaces.

Taking a look at the website deadmalls.

“For many, the mall has been something that was always there.” com can be a bit creepy. These enormous structures, complete with faded store logos, crumbling fountains and endless, vacant halls can trigger a reaction that is different from the feelings evoked by an empty supermarket

or school. For me, looking at dead malls elicited the same response as when I saw a movie about an abandoned amusement park, and I suppose that for many other millennials these malls look more abandoned than dead.

Going to the mall as a child and preteen was a special trip—even if it was such a familiar place, it was a fun atmosphere with games, rides and cool stuff to bug your parents with.

A dead mall does not have the same appearance as an abandoned mill or factory because of all of the familiarity embedded within the space. The sight of a dilapidated KB Toys logo is a bit sad, as many remember shopping there with parents, choosing birthday gifts for friends and drooling over Bratz dolls and Power Rangers.

This is unarguably a result of over-commercialized American upbringings and constant exposure to consumerism, but nonetheless, it is an inextricable part of many of our childhoods. Making a purchase is exciting, especially when it is made with one’s tooth fairy or birthday money, and the mall is where a lot of us became consumers and exercised buying power for the first time; and in a capitalist nation, we cannot help but view this as a memorable growing-up experience.

The mall has another function in the coming of age experience as a place of socialization; it provides a safe environment for kids to explore their community, forming their first experiences with friends free of parental supervision or adult control.

In many suburban towns like mine, people are spread out and parents deny their children the freedom to visit friends alone due to dangerous roads and a lack of sidewalks.

In this context, the mall was a place for preteens and young teens to hang out Without parental supervision or the constraints of the school environment, there was no dress code, no bells, no strict class schedule and no one watching over our shoulders. From six to nine on a Friday or Saturday night, the mall would

be clogged with 12 to 15-year-olds, some from your own school and some from neighboring towns, with whom you could mingle, flirt and eat Burger King.

“...the town center seems to be the ultimate solution for dead malls.”

This sense of freedom, I remember, sent chills down my spine the first time I went to the mall with my friends without our parents.

At this point, actual shopping became a mere tertiary function.

Though our parents may view the mall as a place to buy overpriced junk, millennials remember it as a space of valuable social growth. Walking past an empty Hot Topic or Claire’s is like seeing a decaying jungle gym or public park—these are places that were always full of people, where we played pretend, tried on new identities and perceived ourselves as grown-ups.

With this sentiment in mind, one might think that in the plans to repurpose these “dead malls,” developers would want to cater to these connections. While it may seem easy to say “good riddance” to these once-crowded meccas of gross capitalism and turn them into something more appealing, it seems as though no one is working on these plans for this generation’s desires.

In the aforementioned Washington Post article, mall owners discuss plans to give the mall new life as a “town center” with a “’small-town, urban environment’ aimed largely at baby boomers...who grew up in cities and then raised kids in the suburbs.” This sentiment is echoed in several other news pieces on the subject in towns across Amer-

ica, and the idea of the town center seems to be the ultimate solution for dead malls.

Marketing the future of the mall to baby boomers seems counterproductive and overall nonsensical seeing as the youngest of those boomers are well over 50. Although this generation has all the buying power, especially those past retirement, what will happen when millennials are in those prime buying years and feel no connection to these areas that hearken back to their parents’ youth?

Will there be a crisis for “town centers,” forcing them to rebuild the walls and add some kitschy haute décor?

It would seem that this move toward the town center is both misguided and fixed in the idea that millennials will forever remain broke and unproductive, when just the opposite is true. If retailers wish to give these spaces new life, they must accept that millennials will soon enough be the top consumers in the nation, and that if they want to convince this generation to come to a mall rather than to shop online, they must update these spaces in ways that are relevant and appealing to their intended audience.

Integrating technology rather than running from it, incorporating independent stores rather than focusing on chains and including outdoor spaces would likely be more effective in attracting the business of this generation rather than that of its parents, and given the significance and size of the reconstruction investments, for developers, this would be the most advisable route.

In 20 years, it is likely that millennials will prefer to see these familiar spaces become the inviting hubs of their youth, where they can bring their families and not just socialize, but also shop, just as they used to in years past.

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

All-freshmen housing develops, supports intra-class unity Emma Rosenthal Arts Editor

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any students are attracted to Vassar for its values and its distinctions that set it apart from other liberal arts colleges in the Northeast. Vassar’s commitment to gender neutral bathrooms and an open curriculum are special qualities of the College that draw students here and to which we are lucky to have access.

However, I think there are some foundations in place on our campus that make it stand out, but not in necessarily good or productive ways. While this might seem like an unpopular opinion, I believe that Vassar should adopt an all-freshman housing policy for the benefit of the campus community as a whole.

My argument stems from not only personal experience, but also through conversations with many other students on campus and a general sense I have gotten from living on campus for a year. I think many students would agree that the feeling of a strong campus community is heavily lacking at Vassar.

While this can be attributed to many aspects and issues on our campus, I think one root of the problem is the lack of class unity.

Without strong cohesion and mutual support for each class year starting freshmen year, the school builds on itself with less and less of a tight-knit community. I believe that one way to help build back that energy and cohesion would be to have freshmen live together not all separate, spread out among nine different dorms. Instead of having the “Joss kids” or the “Cushing crew” within the freshman class, we would just be the Class of 2018. And while each class will always break off into groups and cliques, where you live wouldn’t affect with whom you were most likely going to be friends.

Of course, many people, including myself, have friends who live in dorms other than their own; however, designating a few dorms to the class as a whole makes it easier to meet the people with whom you will be spending four years of college. Along those lines, there also is something problematic

about how Vassar pushes the idea that each house has a theme or a personality. First, how accurate really is this notion of houses with different characters? And if it is correct, should the house you happen to be placed in have more of a “personality” than your class who will graduate with you?

Though houses like Cushing do have a cozier community feel, I argue that most houses don’t have those “personality” quirks that the College claims they do. Further, each student, especially during their freshmen year and transition into college, should be able to have the at-home feel within their dorm.

This supportive atmosphere is definitely missing in a dorm like Main, for example, and all the other dorms fall between the two extremes of Cushing and Main.

In relation to difference between the houses, it’s no secret that there are some pretty big disparities in the quality of the many dorms on campus. It seems unfair that some freshmen get to live in big singles in the nicer houses, while some sophomores and juniors are in smaller, lower quality rooms and have to use worse facilities.

“The feeling of a strong campus community is heavily lacking at Vassar.”

Obviously, students are spread throughout each house, and the quality of each dorm affects students from each class year, so that is not to say that most or all freshmen have better living situations than upperclassmen.

However, I think that students should be able to have the option to move to better quality housing and not have to be stuck with the house where they got randomly placed before they even arrived here.

For example, putting all freshmen in dorms

like Raymond, Noyes and Cushing (not that all of those are necessarily low quality, but other dorms are considered more desirable) would then leave room for upperclassmen to get rooms in dorms like Main and Davison. This way, more students would have the ability to live in the nicer dorms during their time here, instead of staying in the same dorm (e.g. seniors who live in Raymond all four years).

Granted, some dorms have more of a community feel than others do, prompting students to want to stay there for three years.

However, not all dorms are equal in that respect, and it shouldn’t be expected that students stay in the same house if they all can’t promise that standard of community.

I want to question why this housing system is even in place when the freshman-only housing model is used and works well for many of our peer institutions (Williams, Amherst, Hamilton and many more) and other colleges around the country.

According to the Vassar Residential Life website, the residential system “...obliges students to master the art of living cooperatively in a diverse community.” As well, the College claims that “Diversity of perspective is honored as well in the college’s system of shared governance.”

These sentiments don’t make sense to me as a strong argument for mixed-class housing for a few reasons. First, Vassar’s commitment to admitting a diverse freshman class already gives students a diverse residential experience without the integration of different class years. Within the freshman class, there are already students with such various and differing backgrounds that the reasoning for having sophomores and juniors living among freshmen for a variety of purposes isn’t actually convincing.

Additionally, I think that students find more multiplicity of thought and point of view in classes with students of other class years and not simply by living next to them.

While freshmen do find friendships with sophomores and juniors who live on their

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

hall or in their dorm, the switch to all-freshman housing would not precipitate the loss of those friendships. On a campus of only 2400 students, freshmen have the opportunity to find those perspectives and relationships with older students whether they live in the same dorm or not. So, this begs the question: Why not give freshmen a better chance to find people with whom to connect in their own year first, by creating a living space for freshmen only?

“Students find more variety... in classes with students of other class years.”

In my personal experience, living next to students of other class years, especially during the beginning of freshman year when making those connections to other students is crucial, has not helped me “master the art of living cooperatively in a diverse community” nor gain a “diversity of perspective” as the College claims it would.

I have instead found myself wishing that I was surrounded by freshmen, to give me a better chance of developing more relationships and a stronger community within the Class of 2018. I wouldn’t want to see the end of fellow groups or a total overhaul of Vassar’s residential system.

If just freshmen lived together in the dorms, student fellows would still be on the halls to do their jobs in assisting the transition into college, it would just be without the presence of other upperclassmen in the houses. I believe that grouping freshmen together as a class would not only improve the community within each class year, but also in the whole school.

— Emma Rosenthal ’18 is a political science major.

OPINIONS

April 30, 2015

Page 11

Federal dietary guidelines remain outdated Sarah Sandler Columnist

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ebates over nutrition are always rampant in newspapers, magazines and on television.

There are entire sections in bookstores devoted to healthy eating and weight loss cookbooks, and there are hundreds of diets that claim to be the best for you and your body. Whether it is a Paleo, gluten-free, vegan or low-fat diet, each has its own horde of followers. Entire careers of chefs, writers and personal trainers are based on convincing consumers that a certain way of eating is best.

To decide which type of diet is truly best, some people may turn to the federal government’s guidelines as an ultimate authority.

Unfortunately, recent findings have shown that these guidelines may be in fact outdated and underresearched.

While I am really interested in learning about healthy eating and strive to maintain a healthy diet, balance is the most important thing to me. Rather than trying to eat fewer than a certain number of calories per day or completely cutting out certain foods, I like to focus on getting in a variety of important nutrients. Even though the majority of my diet is healthy, I will never pass up really good chocolate chip cookies or a slice of pepperoni pizza. Unfortunately, our society is made to believe that certain foods or things like salt and cholesterol must be avoided as frequently as possible.

The 2010 Dietary Guidelines on The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion’s website health.gov dictate that one should consume less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium, less than ten percent of their calories from saturated fats and fewer than 300 milligrams of cholesterol per day. However, as more and more research is conducted, it has been revealed that some of this advice is not correct.

Sodium, for example, is an essential nutrient that the human body needs to survive, and a diet extremely low in salt can be bad for one’s health. Cholesterol has always been feared, but the majority of people don’t respond negatively to dietary cholesterol, which is highly concentrated in foods like egg

yolks, red meat, butter and cheese. A study in which people were told to consume three whole eggs per day for 30 days showed that their cholesterol levels barely changed, suggesting that dietary cholesterol intake does not have much of an effect on cholesterol levels for most people (Harvard School of Public Health, “Eggs and Heart Disease“).

“Unfortunately, our society is made to believe that certain foods... must be avoided” People have long avoided eating egg yolks and red meat because of the stigma against cholesterol, missing out on beneficial nutrients like protein, vitamin A, calcium and omega-3s. Because it is becoming increasingly apparent that the amount of cholesterol consumed does not have a significant impact on the levels in your body, a government committee is now encouraging the repeal of the guideline that declares that we should consume less than 300 milligrams of the substance per day.

The root of these unsound guidelines is epidemiological studies, or the branch of medicine that deals with the possible control of diseases. More useful, however, than epidemiology are randomized controlled studies, such as the one in which participants ate three eggs everyday. For some research topics, like cigarette or drug use, randomized controlled experiments are unethical because these subjects are actually detrimental to one’s health, but for food-related questions this is not an issue.

When randomized controlled studies have been done, the results that prompted the instatement of dietary guidelines from the government were not all that powerful. In a study on a low-fat diet in which one group ate a low-fat diet and was compared to a control group, cholesterol was shown to have de-

creased for both groups, indicating that the diet was not actually a huge factor in the cholesterol levels of these individuals. In only one of the experimental trials were the participants completely free of any known health issues. Therefore, the less healthy groups showed exaggerated results with a change in diet (The New York Times, “Behind New Dietary Guidelines, Better Science,” 02.23.15).

Instead of looking at what we should specifically avoid in our diets, amended dietary guidelines should lean more towards teaching Americans moderation. If you eat too much of any one thing, be it spinach or French fries, it can lead to negative health effects. Aaron E. Carroll, a writer for The New York Times, recently published an article including his rules for eating healthy, and he does not exclude any food group.

Rather than telling us not to eat too much salt and cholesterol, Carroll urges his readers to stay away from highly processed foods and eat more foods in their original state. He doesn’t say to avoid all processed foods completely, but instead suggests that we eat processed foods much less.

The tip I appreciate most is to use salt and fats as needed in food preparation. Without these cooking components, it is very difficult to make foods such as vegetables more appetizing. Carroll says, “Things like fat and salt are not the enemy,” and I wholeheartedly agree. While people have tried to abstain from these things for many years, incorporating them into your diet makes it more likely that you’ll include nutrient dense foods like vegetables (The New York Times, “Simple Rules for Healthy Eating,” 02.23.15).

The only reason people should cut out entire food groups is if they have an allergy or taste aversion. After being told for so many years to avoid sinful things like fat, salt and sugar, it is sort of a mental game for people to learn to accept back into their diets. Hopefully as government dietary guidelines improve, Americans will realize that balance is much more healthy and realistic than exclusion.

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

Word on the street What is the best spring cocktail?

“Shrimp cocktail?”

—Samantha Kohl ’17

“Manhattan.”

— Fernando Braga ’17

“Deece sangria.”

— Alex Masters ’16

By The Numbers VSA Election Voter Turnout 3000

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“Caipirinha. Its made of sugar, lime and cachaça which is kind of like a Brazilian rum” — Yanee Ferrari ’15

“Deece cranberry juice and shitty vodka.”

—Nick Ginsburg ’18

“A protein shake.” ­­— Jacob Kaminer ’18

Voter Turnout

This graph depicts voter turnout for the Spring 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 VSA elections. Voter turnout is based on the total number of qualified voters, meaning all current students, divided by the number of students who vote for the all-campus position of VSA President.

This information is published with permission from the Board of Elections and Appointments.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Chris Gonzalez, Humor & Satire Editor Zander Bashaw, Guest Columnist Sam Pianello, Photo Editor

OPINIONS

Page 12

April 30, 2015

Baltimore riots pose tough questions about peace, justice Emily Sayer Columnist

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altimore is a scene of chaos as rioters converge on the city’s streets, attacking police officers and looting stores in a frenzied state of unrest rivaling that of last year’s demonstrations in Ferguson. What began as a protest of police violence in the name of Freddie Gray, an African-American man who died from a severe spinal injury sustained during his April 12 arrest, has quickly escalated into an ongoing brawl between the overpowered local law enforcement groups and enraged masses. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan declared a state of emergency on Monday, imposing a city-wide curfew and mobilizing the National Guard in hopes of preventing further damage to the area and aiding the police, 15 of whom are currently wounded, in curtailing the rampant violence. To add to the turbulence of the situation, threats of a systematic gang annihilation of the police force are breathing a sense of paranoia into not only the crisis in Baltimore, but also the prospects for continued reactions to racial tensions in the U.S. in general. It seems, over the course of this decade, that with each act of police brutality aimed at the black community, public responses grow increasingly volatile—is the country, then, spiraling into a place of Civil Rights era conflict? Can the underlying social injustices that are to blame for this outburst be weeded out before irreparable cultural divisions are drawn?

Deemed a “senseless act of violence” by U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the Obama Administration, the riots stemmed from harmless peaceful protests over the weekend and morphed into destructive mobs on Monday, the day of Gray’s funeral service; Lynch, who is encountering this incident just after being

“Harry Potater” ACROSS 1 Watch out for 117-Across when you’re on this stovetop device 14 Obscenity in speech 19 Combat diver, or amphibious superhero 20 Like a volcano, rash, or applause 21 Fly the friendly skies!

23 Book studies (abbr.)

24 Powder facilitating travel 26 η, or t - 7 seconds 27 Pomeranian or pug (or St. Bernard if you have strong legs) 29 R U ___?

31 Phone home 32 Detectives looking for Carmen Sandiego 33 Christmas hater’s catchphrase 35 One of a six-pack?

37 Frustration: head___ 40 PC version of AD 41 Boil ’em, mash ’em, put ’em in a stew 43 Wilders or recessive 45 Society to protect Dobby 46 Hermione, or mercury 47 Prof of Pokémon 48 This crossword’s protagonist (abbr.)

49 What Voldemort lacks 50 Amiss 51 How should we telephone ’em?

54 What the moon hits 57 Compete 59 Books about people (abbr.)

60 48-Across’s teary first kiss 63 Pygmy or power 66 Fin. 67 Copper 68 Sixth-year fried breakfast taters who snog

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sworn into office on Monday, also noted in her official statement on the crisis that rioters are doing a “disservice to his [Gray’s] family, to his loved ones, and to legitimate peaceful protesters who are working to improve their community for all its residents.” It’s true that the riots are proving detrimental to the health, seemingly, of every involved party—the police are attacked with rocks and bricks, the protesters with pepper spray and tear gas—and that this sudden “war zone” is crippling the functioning of the troubled community, one fraught with crime, poverty and hazardous racial conflicts, that these protests were originally seeking to protect. Children, whose ability to go to school is jeopardized by the unsafe conditions, are being forced to remain at home, and the University of Maryland has shut down its campus. The Mary Harvin Transformation Center, a neighborhood building currently under construction that was supposed to, as its website states, provide “...a community based organization that supports youth and families with the goal of assisting them in their quest to move towards quality living,” was set ablaze by juveniles, along with a nearby CVS and smaller stores in the downtown Mondawmin Mall. A local business owner was dragged from his store and beaten by looters in the midst of the riots. Bemoaning the needless carnage, Baltimore City Council President Bernard C. Young said, “These are thugs who are seizing upon an opportunity to show their anger and distrust and frustration with the police department, and this is not the way to do it.”

What is the “way to do it,” exactly, when “it” covers such an expansive problem? If these riots are simply a physical manifestation of the frustrations pent up within the city’s Black community, then it is evident that the flaws in Balti-

more’s law enforcement system, which have led to this explosive outpouring of animosity and rebellion, have been left festering for too long.

Over the course of the past 10 years, Americans have been spectators to a relentless series of horrific acts of discrimination against minority individuals, accepting the continued deprivation of Black bodies as an aspect of 21st century life embedded into the fiber of our social structures. The recurring instances of police brutality that resulted in the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant, Sean Bell and others have been laid out for the public to evaluate and contest, and yet, despite the rallying cry that “Black lives matter,” hopes for the eradication of police abuse are shown continuously to be powerless against deep-rooted institutional prejudices; increased pressure on the government to address and resolve these problems has inspired solutions such as body cameras for law enforcement officers, but ultimately, this is an issue of attitude, not execution, and an easier means of convicting unjust policemen, though necessary, will not reverse the tradition of mistreatment. After all, in many cases, the startling behavior of the officers in question have been captured by witnesses and spread through the media without any real consequence other than popular outrage.

And with the outbreak of these riots in particular, the attempts at calmly protesting the circumstances surrounding Gray’s death have been undermined by the fruitlessness of recent fights for equality. While the destruction inflicted on the community by rioters and vandals is, without question, hurting the efforts of protesters and inhibiting any form of recovery or peace within the city, the mobs can hardly be criticized for cracking beneath the stress of years of hope-

lessness and oppression. The population that is directly influenced by an issue cannot be expected to mirror the rationality of those who are detached from it; in this vein, the clashing 1960’s principles of civil disobedience and defensive violence are reappearing in the spectrum of reactions displayed on the scene in Baltimore.

While some supporters of the riots sympathize with the hardships placed on African Americans and recognize the violence as an apt response to this, most officials are decrying the situation as absurd, immature, rash and totally avoidable— Governor Hogan said, “Look, people have the right to protest and express their frustration, but Baltimore city families deserve peace and safety in their community, and these acts of violence and destruction of property cannot and will not be tolerated.” But what about the acts of violence occurring at the hands of racially biased police departments? Do they not pose a long term threat to the wellbeing of families in affected communities?

In April 1968, similar riots erupted in Baltimore and throughout the nation as a response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and historians claim that the city has yet to truly recover from the consequent devastation. Almost 50 years later, the same process is playing itself out. Although the country has evolved in the decades since, is enough being done to quell the hatred and discrimination that are the root causes of racial conflict? Or has the nation become too complacent to create meaningful reform, accepting that, over the course of the next 50 years, prejudice and abuse will retain their bloody place in society?

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

The Miscellany Crossword by the Vassar Quidditch Team

Ron? 73 “Alright, you’re ___ ___ proceed.”

75 Traditional Middle Eastern alcohol 76 There’s one on a Grecian urn 77 Anger over lemon meringue (2 words) 78 Spanish for “no” 79 City, Hunter, or Baruch 80 Kanye’s baby 81 Reddish-brown ’tater 82 Smidge 83 @ 85 Make at A440hz 86 With “lady,” type of butterfly 88 “Killer” cetacean 89 Snape in vulture hat?

92 Plz leggo of mine 93 Doctor’s degree 95 Orange potato, or chocolate frog 96 Leisurely promenade 97 L × w of rectangle, say 99 Winner of WC (loser of famine) 102 Fish eagle 103 Get rid of Dolores? (2 words) 106 Fleshy, underground ’tater stem 107 Middle Brady daughter 108 Iceberg or romaine 110 Firm, lustrous fabric with patterns 114 Broke Harry’s arm 115 Stiffen pants 116 Hufflepuffs?

DOWN 1 French fried charms prof 2 Potato begins to decompose 3 Rapper of “Toot It and Boot It” (2009) 4 Bretton Woods financial agency (abbr.)

5 Simba’s love 6 Pasta shape to fit this quiz 7 Second musical syllable 8 Rock to be smelted 9 Surpass, eclipse, upstage 10 Degree for a public administrator 11 Street, or saint (abbr.)

12 Where potatoes were first grown in North America 13 In my heart I do jump like the ___ 14 Oversized Franklin?

15 Email middle 16 Segments of ’tater 17 Rachel Carson’s not a fan 18 I in Caracas 19 Skedaddled 22 Super slangy JFC antonym?

25 Greek finale

27 Hannukah ’tater 28 Acidity scale 30 Fourth musical syllable 33 What the sheep say?

34 Pizza near Acrop 36 Starchy stoned metamorphmagus 38 Emergent professor 39 Florida, piano, or winged 41 Type of hole to shut 42 Fro’s counterpart 44 Voldy’s horcrux quantity 48 ... Who Must Not Be Named 50 Tummy muscle 51 Fleur’s twirly fries 52 With “Cauldron”, pub with onion-like name?

53 Prof of the Golden Arches 55 Senator’s agreement 56 Potatoes don’t come in this square shape 58 roczula’s ___-the-pink 61 Owl that Harry likes 62 Paydirt 63 Φ, Φ, Φ, Φ, Φ, Φ, Φ 64 Curly, waffle, or disco 65 Worth, Myers, or Wayne 69 One of the tiny pigs (2 words) 70 Romilda

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

71 Broomsport with ’taters instead 72 You and I 74 Pokém___ 78 “___ is different than good” 81 Band behind “Imitation of Life” (2001) 82 What your cat did before you spayed it 83 Take up water 84 Small, cylindrical faves @ ACDC 85 One of Beedle’s, maybe 86 Potato, orange, or pizza 87 “Greek salad, please, but ___ ___” 88 “A League of Their ___” 90 Collection (abbr.)

91 Impaled or Al’ed 94 49-Across, slangily 95 Plastic wrap 97 Sometimes called... (abbr.)

98 Zamboni site 100 “You’ll ___ the day you were born!”

101 Spanish for “I gave to him” 104 Cop one rank below Sgt. 105 Effective Tax Rate (abbr.)

107 Child of 116-Down 109 Berkeley, Irvine, Davis 111 Old Line State (abbr.)

112 Old-time letter once in “encyclopedia” 113 Señor or Senior (abbr.)

HUMOR & SATIRE

April 30, 2015

Page 13

Breaking News From the desk of Chris Gonzalez, Humor & Satire Editor Distinction, Departmental Honors awarded to student who accumulates most Facebook likes on thesis selfie The next five years of your Pre-registration demystified: life plotted in Yelp reviews genomics, falconry involved Chris Gonzalez

Zander Bashaw

Checking Account

Amateur Yelper

Captain Falcon

A

Your First Apartment

A little cramped, but gets the job done. Perfect for hosting approximately three quarters of one friend. The stove works only occasionally, about every three days a week and for maybe 30 minutes at a time, to be exact. But, hey, it’s only 15 minutes from the city, if that’s your thing. Totally un-robbable, as it’s on the seventh floor of a nine-floor walk-up. And the landlord, Felix, who is also my roommate, sometimes offers up his cocaine. Not the worst.

Employment

OK, so you were an art history major, and it’s an entry-level position at a staple-making factory, but hear me out! The fluorescent lighting is to die for, and you’re literally never without someone breathing down your neck! It helps that they pay you on a regular basis, so you no longer have to bathe feral kitties in your neighborhood for petty change! Forty hours a week for just enough to pay rent and live on hot dogs and Kraft American singles? Yes, please!

Dating and Sex Life

Normally not my scene, but I thought I’d break out of my shell and try a one-night stand. Uh, BAD DECISION! Service was mediocre at best, and that’s me being generous!!! It took forever before we got to the main course, which left me unsatisfied and alarmingly cold. Don’t even get me started on the spillage. The only reason I’m not slapping a one star on this baby is because I GUESS it was nice to lay in bed next to someone else. MAYBE. 3/10 would probably do again.

Drinks with Friends

All of my friends refuse to meet up at any place that does not serve alcohol. Because they’re smart. Had a friend who suggested we get coffee instead of drinks once. HAD! LOL!!!

A little tip from a drinking veteran: The quicker you down your booze, the less likely you are to think about how much you want to cry.

Rock Bottom

So, I went in thinking I wasn’t the type of person for this, or you know, this could never be me.

But son of a gun, it happened! How amazing it is to completely lose control of your life! So freedom! Much carefree!

Visiting Home

Sometimes all you want is that hometown nostalgia, and man does this place really deliver!

If you ever felt the need to relive the sensation of hiding from the world beneath your covers and eating soggy cereal for dinner, then this place is a must! Gets kinda crowded though (lots of personal demons, lol), so I’d say check it out once a year.

Trying to Settle Down

Maybe I’m a bit biased, but I met someone here :) And I think they’re the one. We locked eyes across the napkin dispenser. We hit it off so fast that I barely noticed how emotionally damaged they were, and they clearly know nothing about my casual drug use.

Balancing Finances

Cooking for ourselves has become a staple for my friend group. We love it so much we literally do it five out of seven weeknights because our broke asses love to splurge on weekend brunches. The last time we had this, my partner and I shared a big succulent bowl of creamed corn and chicken nuggets. That’s right—the ones that look like little dinosaurs! The creamed corn was served at a delicious lukewarm temperature, and the nuggets only contained two hard bits! We can’t get enough!

Moving in Together

No reservations needed. Just show up unannounced with your shit and you’ll be fine! No regrets guaranteed.

part from the admissions process that we all went through to be accepted here, there is no system less understood than Pre-Registration. Though many argue that ResLife’s decision to implement imaginary numbers into Room Draw is more complex (for all 12 of you math majors out there: That use of complex was entirely intentional), nothing makes less sense then how we all end up with a full course load before every semester. Today, I will recount the detective work I did to truly understand the way that Pre-Reg works.

It started with an email, a single buzz in my pocket, that announced the arrival of unimportant campus-wide news. Praying that it was not another black ice alert, I tentatively opened my phone to see a name I know well.

A crisp name, a hard hitting name, like a hit on the head with a croquet mallet: Colleen Mallet. A warm rush of familiarity surged over me.

Colleen and I are tight. Even though we have never met, I know that Colleen, Luis, Roman and I could drive across the country together, eating soft pretzels and debating which is the best Radiohead album.

I reluctantly returned to reality. These people are not my friends, they are emissaries that deliver news to campus, about the gyms, the dorms, the fucking black ice and, of course, Pre-Registration.

Colleen’s campus-wide email instructed us to go to our advisors, receive our PINs to access the Pre-Reg system and then to choose classes for which we wanted to get put on the waitlist. This time, however, I decided that I didn’t just want to subscribe to the system, I wanted to understand it. I had no idea how deep the rabbit hole went.

I visited my pre-major advisor, eager to learn about how this system actually worked. My advisor had my PIN, which supposedly leads to a draw number which then determines whether you won’t get two, three or any of your classes. This number seemed to be written down hastily on a small scrap of paper. I was about to ask my advisor where the number had come from when a pure white dove swooped into her office, bearing another similar paper. Just as the dove was leaving, and another student was entering my advisor’s office, I dove out

the window and followed the pure bird.

The snow-white dove led me to a humble treehouse on the Vassar farm, where an ancient man lives with hundreds of falcons. I ascended the rope ladder to his abode and began to chat with this wise, Yoda-like being. He explained to me that since there is no way for a computer program to generate truly random numbers for PINs, Vassar had to turn to another more natural method. When I told him that Pre-Registration makes no sense and is often unfair, he seemed unphased. “Life is unfair, and Pre-Registration stems from life and the natural world.” Soon I would understand what he meant.

This man told me that before every semester, all of the academic advisors meet up with him and participate in a “Fantasy Falcon” draft where they each pick one of his falcons to release into campus. The falcon then captures a mouse for every student that the advisor oversees, and returns the dead rodent to the advisor. The entire genome of each mouse (which now corresponds to an individual student) is then sequenced and compared to Vassar’s very own genetically optimal mouse, which is on display in the Loeb Arts Center.

It is harder for the falcons to catch harder, better, faster and stronger mice. Therefore, if your mouse is genetically closer to the optimal mouse, the better draw number you receive.

This, he said, is the most efficient way to generate legitimately random numbers.

Understandably, I had a lot of questions, most of them about the identity of this man who delivers messages by dove and owns the falcons that got me a terrible draw number. He told me to call him Matt, and offered no further explanation, making it clear my time with him was up.

As I left I looked back towards the treehouse and saw no house, no Matt and no falcons. Was it all just a dream?

I am thoroughly convinced that Matthew Vassar lives on the outskirts of campus, and uses a combination of falconry and genomics to help the students pre-register. Now I finally understand why they say to develop a relationship with your major advisor: After all, they pick the falcon that determines your draw number.

Biking leaves you breathless, and with some nasty scars

by Divya Pathak, Enamored with the Inanimate

W

hen we met three weeks ago, it was love at first sight. I had seen a picture online, but nothing compared to the real thing.

A subtle beauty, bathed in matte teal, with adjustments from Sam at the bike shop, my aluminum friend and I were ready for acquainting. I gripped the handlebars and delivered a downward force on the pedal. Gears turned, wheels moved and sparks flew. I rode through the quad, and down that first hill to the THs. As I coasted, the sound of the clicking pawls was like a love song.

I’ll have you know this isn’t my first time around the block. I’ve been playing the field since I was five. My wooing style is pretty classy, but also adventurous. When I was seven, I tried to see how fast I could ride around in a small circle. I learned that my enthusiasm was unrequited once my bike abruptly slid out from under me, giving me my first ankle sprain. Ah, to be young.

Before that, when I was maybe four, I want-

ed to ride my uncle’s bike with him—yes, the two of us, together, on an old single-person bike, in rural India. This displeased the machine. The next thing I know, the pedal is somehow gashed into the side of my ankle, there’s blood on the earth and turmeric paste smeared all over my foot. Ask to see my scar, it’s pretty (and once you see it, you can decide which way to take this word:) sick.

You’d think I’d work out my balance issues and try to be less pushy in these bike relationships, I should have had it figured out by age 14 or 15? No, no. I’m 18, freshly adult and feeling feisty, speeding atop the thrilling flat land in suburban Indiana. I go for the turn...aaand, fetal position on the concrete. My bike sits calmly by on its side, the back wheel still moving in mockery. I defeatedly walk home and tell my mom I fell off my bike. She reaches for the turmeric and the memories come flooding back, just like my blood!

I met a new bike last year. For a mere 20

dollars at my neighbor’s garage sale, I got a gorgeous green cruiser with a basket. I could finally put my iPod somewhere instead of between my thumb and the handlebar break. I’d take it on long evening rides. We discovered a new, secluded path together. One with lush greenery and rolling hills, manicured to please the Holiday Inn residents and Corporate Plaza workers. I’d put on some nice medieval harp music and feel like I was riding past all the happy fairies in the forest, dancing among the ‘shrooms and caring for feral children.

I had to bid this bike adieu when I left for college. My new teal friend isn’t satisfying my basket yearnings, but I guess a cup holder comes close. After all, love is about sacrifice.

I haven’t ventured too far with it just yet. Instead, I just end up riding around campus, over and over again, past the same groups of friends on the quad. Often I get that look that says, “Didn’t I just see you 10 minutes ago? And 10 minutes before that? Are you lost? Don’t you

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

have homework? Or friends?”

I do have homework, I’d just rather be reading about bike maintenance and repair. I also have friends; I’ve almost fallen waving to them.

I’ve also had those interactions with people I pass going up the TH hill, trying to smile casually while I struggle against the hill but then realize I just can’t and must dismount to walk it the rest of the way. I know that they think, “Ha ha weakling.”

I’m eager to see where this bike relationship takes me. We’ll grow together, laugh together, eat dirt together. I wonder where my next bike scar will be? Don’t worry, I have turmeric in the kitchen. Worse than my scars are the puns my bike-driven life provides. I asked my housemate, “Graham, what’s funny about a bike?” His response? “You can train to be a bicyclist, but you can’t bike to be a train conductor.” He soon thought of another: “I thought about bike jokes for a while, but then I got too tired.” Hopefully, you didn’t get too tired of this article.

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April 30, 2015

Community exposition revitalizes Queer Womens’ spaces Connor McIlwain Reporter

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courtesy of The Revolting Hags

ew events can fully display the full range of talent on campus. But this Friday, students have the opportunity to see several talented students perform under the same roof at the second annual Queer Lady Music Expo.

The Women’s Center and the LGBTQ Center, which will be hosting the expo, both host events throughout the year to engage the campus through a variety of events and programs.

Both centers recently helped put on the Privilege Campaign II, which featured photos of students and administrators reflecting on issues regarding privilege. The shots were displayed in the Villard Room and accompanied speakers and discussions surrounding class and privilege-related issues on campus.

The two centers have a history of collaboration. According to one of the student interns working on the event, Erin Boss ’16, “The two centers have been collaborating for a number of years and last year, when we had our first meeting for the spring semester, us interns wondered what we could do differently to revitalize Queer Womens’ spaces.”

The result was the decision to host another music exposition. Boss explained, “One of us kind of just spit it out, like ‘what if we had a music expo?’ and so then we did it. The idea of the event is that queer women students have a chance to show any kind of musical skills they have and that can mean opera or singer/ songwriter, DJ, music bands, spoken word…”

The content is extremely diverse and just about anyone can perform in th expo. The purpose of the exposition is to create a safe, supportive place for performers. Boss said, “it’s very loose and they can… [perform] in a supportive atmosphere where you don’t have to compete against anyone. We particularly want people to feel empowered. Especially when it can be intimidating as a female artist in music circles to kind of get going when it’s very male-dominated.”

The Revolting Hags, a student band, performed in this past year’s Queer Lady Music Expo. This year, the Women’s Center and LGBTQ Center will host the event, a space for queer women and students.

The audience, according to Boss, plays an important part in creating this accepting atmosphere. Bringing together a diverse group of people to celebrate musical talent helps encourage performers and spread these organizations’ messages on campus. Of last year’s exposition, Boss said, “A really cool thing in the community happened where a lot of people of all genders came together to watch the event and support people who were queer and female. It was really awesome. We had about 50 people attend.”

According to Boss, last year’s event was a huge success. “We probably had about 15 performers total last year. The event was emceed

by Yanee Ferrari ‘15. We had everything from singer / songwriter, the band The Revolting Hags, spoken word poetry, just like singers

getting up and singing, whistling, violin, dance, and I think it was an incredible atmosphere,” she says.

Ferrari kept the audience entertained with funky costume changes throughout the show.

“Yanee did a great job in creating a welcoming atmosphere where anyone could just come up and do something off the top of their heads… [she] really engaged the audience. She stood out to me because she would have some sort of costume change before each act and was really charismatic as an emcee and I think helped everyone feel comfortable,” said Boss.

This year, Priya Nair ’15 and Shivani Davé ’15 will be hosting the exposition. Nair commented on her anticipation of the event, “It’s going to be a great show–we have some amazing queer women and femmes on this campus do-

ing beautiful and thoughtful music. I’m not really sure what hosting entails. I’ve never done something like this before. Last year, Yanee Ferrari hosted and she changed outfits between every set. It was great. I’m just hoping to make some people laugh.”

The event is already generating buzz among prospective attendees. One student attending the event, Ally Fernandez ’18, notes the fun and importance of these kinds of events on campus.

“I’m just a fan of good music, plus I love what it represents. I think events like this play such an important role. For me personally, I’m going as a way to get more involved with the LGBTQ community without a lot of pressure,“ she said.

Another attendee, Emily Bender ’17, reiteratesd the importance of holding these kinds of events on campus. She wrote, “As a queer identified person myself, I think it’s important to bring together members of the queer community— especially queer women.”

To Fernandez, the exposition is a nice balance of activism and fun, seriousness and relaxation. She elaborated, “Most queer events on campus are either super heavy or parties, I think this is a nice kind of in between. I definitely think that’s significant.” Bender agreed that the music offers a unique way to reach the student body without pressure. “I think it’s really cool to center these events through creative outlets, such as through music. I always love to go and see the tons of talent the student body possesses,” she said.

The Queer Lady Music Expo brings together many different kinds of artists to perform in a safe, relaxed space. According to Boss, some audience members were so moved by certain performances that they got up in the spur of the moment to sing themselves. This kind of environment is what attracts people like Fernandez to the event. “I think a bunch of people should come…I just think it’s awesome, and I’m excited to go. Hopefully I’ll hear some good music, have some fun, [and] smash the heteropatriarchy,” she says.

Palmer Gallery show focuses in on student photography Sieu Nguyen Reporter

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ne hundred and seventy photographs, in both color and black-and-white, taken with both digital and analog cameras, are 170 “moments” currently on display at the Palmer Gallery in the College Center. “The Interminable Pleasure of the Gaze” is an exhibition of student photography from ART 212, 213 and 214 this year—three photography classes offered by the Art Department.

“The Interminable Pleasure of the Gaze” had its opening on April 24, 2015. Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art Judith Linn, an organizer of the show, is also the instructor of the classes. On the motivation behind the exhibition, she said, “This show is a part of the educational experience. Exhibiting a student’s work on the wall, in a gallery space, is very different from hanging them up in the class or in their own room.”

With Linn’s advisory, the photography students set up the exhibition by themselves.

They were encouraged to bring six-10 photographs each, depending on how many classes they have taken, and decide the order of display all on their own.

Speaking about the photography exhibition, Olga Voyazides ’16 commented, “There is a lot of variety in subject matter and aesthetic in the show this year, showing a broad range of the photographic talent we have at Vassar. It is so satisfying to see my classmates’ work all up in one space, and exciting to know the larger Vassar community—students, parents, professors and visitors—is seeing your work.”

Voyazides is also one of the students that have taken all three Photography classes at Vassar. She said, “Judy’s class is my favorite I’ve taken so far at Vassar. I love the community aspect of the class, producing work

Sam Pianello/The Miscellany News

“The Interminable Pleasure of the Gaze,” a new exhibition in the Palmer Gallery, features photographs from students in different art and photography classes, was organized by Art Professor Judy Linn.

at the same time and comfortably critiquing one another’s photographs.”

Kevin Gish ’16, another student whose photographs are on display, commented, “Judy’s class is a real treat. Her relaxed yet informative mentoring inspires confidence and creativity. Working with film for the first time, I was apprehensive about understanding the process, but she explained every step with grace and aplomb.”

Gish continued with how he progressed as a student in Linn’s course, “Having crossed the threshold into some relative skill, I’m now infatuated with perfecting the photographic print. As someone who was always afraid of attempting visual art, this class has given me the chance to create tangible reflections of my singular perspective, which I am very grateful for.”

ART 212 and 213 are respectively named “Photography I” and “Photography II,” along with ART 214, which is “Color Digital Photography.” In ART 212 and 213, students work with 35mm film camera to take black and white photographs. They also learn how to develop film and produce analog prints with fiber papers and photo chemicals in the dark room, a hands-on skill not many learn.

Scanning the negatives and printing digitally is an additional feature of ART 213.

Linn explained, “Students figure out how photographs work in ART 212; then in ART 213, they learn how to start a dialogue with them. In ART 214, students shoot color photographs in raw, then use Bridge and Photoshop to make prints.”

Joseph DeGrand ’17, a student who took ART 214 last semester, commented on his experience in the course, saying, “I loved Judy’s class—the sheer amount of prints it makes you produce really allows you to experiment a lot with style and content. I took photos in places that I never would have thought would be so fruitful. I loved the critique aspect of it as well.”

DeGrand continued, “The mood of critiques is almost entirely dependent on the professor teaching the class and I’ve had bad

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

experiences in the past where it turned into a toxic environment that ended up stifling creativity rather than providing a space for constructive criticism. But Judy approaches it with such a casual yet critical air and the stakes were so low that we were able to have actual conversations and discussions of photography that helped me grow as a photographer.”

On the most satisfying work that he hung up for “The Interminable Pleasure of the Gaze,” DeGrand remarked, “The photos I am most proud of all came over fall break. One of them is the underside of a fire tower on top of a mountain in Woodstock.”

Continuing, DeGrand commented, “It was so foggy up there that when my friends and I were on top of the tower, we couldn’t see anything. The wind was howling so hard that we couldn’t hear much of anything either. It was something straight out of Wordsworth’s wet dreams.”

Some students, DeGrand being one of which, take pleasure in architectural photos, while others adore portraits. Regarding her most satisfying work at the exhibition, Voyazides said, “It is a picture of my dad standing in a towel by a pool! I love taking portraits and it just made it more special for me that it was of my father.”

Isabel Larrow ’16, a student in ART 213, also commented on her own work, “I like the photos I take of my friends because I feel I can capture our relationship on film.”

Commenting on her classes and the show, Linn remarked, “I think my students are brilliant. It is amazing that even those who are just beginning can make incredible photographs. Their works at the show are very energetic.”

On the criterion that she uses to define a good photograph, Linn continued, “It should make you think about what’s in front of you, be aware of the differences between the subjects on the photograph and in reality. It should create a dialogue with one’s perception of the world. It stays in your head; you remember it.”

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April 30, 2015

Page 15

Alums strike chord with VC through musical performance Emma Rosenthal Arts Editor

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said Goldberg.

Kleederman also had a fruitful musical career while at Vassar and said, “I played a lot of music at Vassar. I did...play in the jazz program all 4 years, which is also where I met most of the musicians that were in my primary college musical project at the time, The Body Electric. That band was an incredibly formative musical experience that I am very thankful for.”

Once Goldberg graduated, his move to New York City led him to meet Ortiz and Cheek, who had already been working together. He described the conception and launch of Throw Vision, “Throw Vision was born in that practice room in Queens...I helped synthesize the music they’d been working on, and we ultimately decided on the name Throw Vision. Dan joined, and brought

courtesy of Alex Goldberg

hen most alums picture coming back to visit Vassar, it probably isn’t performing on a stage in front of an audience of current students. For Alex Goldberg ’11 and Dan Kleederman ’12, however, trips to campus mean their band, Throw Vision, will be performing at a concert. Along with the two other, non-alum members of Throw Vision, Tiffany Ortiz and Taja Cheek, the band will be performing in the Villard Room on Friday, May 1 at 9:30 pm.

Goldberg, who joined Ortiz and Cheek with Kleederman, wrote in an emailed statement about the beginnings of the band, “I met Tiff & Taja back in 2012 through a mutual music friend.

They had written and demo’d a collection of songs (they’ve been writing music together for over 10 years), and we all met up in a small practice space in Queens and arranged the first album. My friend Dan joined soon after on guitar, bass & vox, which completed our lineup.”

While Goldberg and Kleederman met and worked together at Vassar, Ortiz and Cheek also had a history of making music together, ever since high school. Ortiz commented on her beginnings with Cheek and the other band members, “I met Taja back in high school in Brooklyn and we naturally gravitated towards writing music together; that was sort of the seed that would blossom into various musical projects. Throughout college we played a few DIY venues in NY with friends/past bands but post college we were sitting on a number of demos that we wanted to record.”

She continued, “We worked with Alex on arranging the demos...and ultimately recorded our first record with Lappin as a trio. But it was a real challenge to fully honor the songs as a trio and Alex invited Dan to join, who is also an amazing musician/guitarist and bassist. It was an amazing musical community that was forming amongst us at the time.”

Kleederman, who was the last to join Throw Vision, reflected about his first exposure to the

band when it was just a trio. He wrote in an emailed statement, “I saw them play as a trio at Sullivan Hall in NYC the summer after I graduated and their sound and style really blew me away.

I remember having my hands on my head during a lot of that show.”

All four artists have experimented with different genres and styles throughout their years as musicians. At Vassar, the two alums were able to further their musical ability and experimentation through many different mediums. “I played in the jazz combos on vibraphone & drums, played in orchestra & Mahagonny, and later played in the Body Electric, an ‘afrobeat’ band that later went

by Yes Noyes. I also took a bunch of classes in the music department, though I wasn’t a music major, and studied percussion with Frank Cassara,”

Two Vassar alums, Alex Goldberg ’11 and Dan Kleederman ’12, join with Tiffany Ortiz and Taja Cheek to form Throw Vision, and will perform their eclectic music on Friday in the Villard Room.

his voice to the music, as well as many added layers of depth & complexity. For the past couple of years we’ve been working as a democratically run quartet–there is no leader, and we all contribute material to the band.”

As the band members have grown and progressed together, they have had different struggles and hurdles in the music-making process.

Kleederman noted some of those challenges, “The band has grown and changed through our struggles and successes in trying to come up with material that everybody is generally happy with...

We are definitely still trying to hone our process and the fact that we now know each other really well makes it easier at times but also more challenging other times. Either way, we like to think that something real and unique comes out of putting our diverse musical brains together.”

Although working with three other musicians in a non-hierarchical setting has its difficulties, Ortiz commented on the rewarding aspects of the creative process. “Alex and Dan both bring really incredible talent, backgrounds and perspectives to the project and now that we are approaching songwriting in a fully democratic way, we are finding ourselves in new musical spaces,” she said.

As for their musical genre, Goldberg attempted a description of the band’s eclectic style, “We have a difficult time with this, but we often say something like ‘Rock & soul & experimental,’ though we don’t feel like we are really the sum of those parts, or a precise mixture. A couple quotes we’ve liked are ‘soul-inspired take on shoegaze’ & ‘If you told Sun Ra he had to write a record with the Dirty Projectors, you might get something out of it that sounds similar to Brooklyn’s Throw Vision.’”

Although Vassar isn’t Ortiz’s alma mater, she expressed her excitement about the performance, “We love playing at Vassar! We’ve performed there a couple times now and the student body is undeniably the warmest and most receptive to us and our music.”

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April 30, 2015

‘Daredevil’ Young Thug’s minimalist album impresses fights crime, earns acclaim Charles Lyons-Burt Columnist

Barter 6 Young Thug 300 Entertainment

Saachi Jain

Guest Columnist

Daredevil Drew Goddard Netflix

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n April 10, Netflix released the first season of “Daredevil,” a series created by Drew Goddard, who has worked on shows like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Lost” and “Angel.” It’s based on the Marvel Comics character Daredevil, and is set in the same universe as the Marvel films. The first season has thirteen episodes. The show stars Charlie Cox as the titular character, Matt Murdock, along with Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page and Eiden Hensen as Froggy Nelson.

People may know Charlie Cox from movies “Stardust” and “The Theory of Everything,” and Deborah Ann Woll from “True Blood.” I wasn’t too familiar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the only Marvel movie I had seen being “The Avengers,” so I was hesitant to start the show.

However, upon hearing all the critical acclaim it received as well as praise from people who I knew also didn’t know much about the MCU, I decided to give it a shot. I am very happy that I did, because it has become one of my favorite shows.

The first episode starts off with a flashback scene of a nine-year-old Matthew Murdock becoming blind from a chemical accident. In present day, Matt and his friend and partner Froggy are starting a new law firm just after getting out of law school.

They have no funds and no clients, but an opportunity comes their way in the form of Karen Page, who has just been framed for murder. Karen wakes up in an apartment covered in her coworker’s blood and is immediately arrested. She is skeptical when Matt and Froggy approach her, who were told about her case through bribes, but since she has no other options, she lets them take her case.

As I was watching, the show actually reminded me a lot of “Arrow” on the CW; though much better quality, it has the same dark, gritty atmosphere.

The last scene in the pilot is one of my favorites.

It is a powerful scene and sets up the plot points for the rest of the season very well. The show gets better as the episodes go on, and more interesting characters are introduced, such as Claire Temple, played by Rosario Dawson, and Wilson Fisk, played

by Wilson D’Onofrio. All the characters thus far are very well-written. Matt is definitely my favorite, and it is especially great that the main character is a blind man. His disability and the way it affects him is constantly emphasized, as are his heightened senses and how they contribute to his being a powerful superhero. Karen and Claire are both great female characters who are radically different in some ways, but both are strong-willed, interesting and well-developed. Karen’s character took a few episodes to come into her own, but I eventually ended up loving her. Froggy is also an endearing character, though I do wish that he was treated as more than just comic relief at times.

The dynamics between the characters are also fleshed-out and fascinating. The friendship and partnership between Matt, Froggy and Karen is great, and so are the romantic dynamics between Matt and Karen as well as Matt and Claire. The interactions between the villains are also well done.

The antagonists are three dimensional, though the various schemes can get hard to follow at times.

I did find myself bored at times. Some scenes drag on and can be extremely confusing and difficult to follow. The pilot was strong overall, but it did take me a couple episodes to truly get invested in the show. I did end up really loving it though, and the widespread acclaim is certainly earned. The plot is interesting and engaging, the characters are well written, and the acting is especially strong. I think Matt’s character is definitely one of the best parts of the show, as are the characters of Karen and Claire. I didn’t expect to enjoy “Daredevil” as much as I did considering my unfamiliarity with Marvel, but it’s something anyone would love, regardless of their knowledge of Marvel or their genre preferences. The Netflix model can be frustrating since it will definitely be difficult waiting a year for the next season, but I know the wait will be worth it.

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oung Thug’s “Barter 6” emerges out of the fumes of competitive inter-rapper gossip-drama, same as Kanye West’s 2007 “Graduation,” released, on none other than September 11, alongside yet clearly in counter to 50 Cent’s “Curtis,” or his “Yeezus” premiere in 2013 challenging J. Cole’s dropping “Born Sinner.” In agreement with his twisty, elusive nature, Young Thug’s new release challenges something not altogether real—and, does it really challenge it?

Thug (née Jeffrey Williams), who is 22, announced this year that his debut album would be called “Carter 6” and act as a continuation of fellow hip-hop artist Lil Wayne’s self-titled “Carter” series. Wayne’s all-too-predictable outrage is an indication of nothing but the self-aggrandizing melodrama of the modern rap game, its least interesting component.

Thug’s move could be seen as meaningless chauvinism, but this artist is distinct in that, bestowed with an oddball, delighting sense of humor, he’s nonetheless refreshingly earnest. Ignore the banter as always, and skip right to the text, a lively, thrilling, impressively polished work that indeed recalls Weezy while taking ten steps more toward beguiling the tenderly expressive.

Surprising with all of its prerelease bombast, what strikes the ears first about “Barter 6,” hastily, barely renamed in response to its reception, is its minimalism. When I first heard lead single “Check,” a kind of modern, subdued banger version of “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket,” I was admittedly underwhelmed.

The song’s initially tiresome-seeming, repetitive hook, “Got me a check, I got a check,” doesn’t seem to illuminate much beyond the obvious innocuous celebration of the accumulation of wealth. It’s nothing new. However, on repeat listens, both the deceptive emptiness and Thug’s ebullient commitment in the face of such vapidity shine their way through.

The rapper’s enlivened delivery brings to bear the joys of societal and economic upward mobility, and the fearlessness of the song’s lyrics pitting personal discomfort and pain against the small, relieving saving grace of having earned a bit of money is poignant—“Geeked out my mind, man I’m tripping out, I don’t know none of these people…/ Yes, I got threats, I’m not worried bout that…/ Got me a check, I got a check.”

Like several songs on the album, including the later “Dome,” it mixes a slightly sad and threatening sound with an irresistible southern-fried melodic groove, a vibe that’s well-represented by the album’s beautifully moody cover art.

A less-is-more style approach may seem antithetical to an artist like Thug. With such a discernibly huge personality, but as colorful as his persona is, he’s also boldly opaque: as was also established on his excellent 2014 mixtape with Bloody Jay, “Black Portland,” Thugger is prone to nonsensical, almost dadaist lyrical content, rife with jokes both stupid-obvious and dastardly. It’s interested less in outlining and exploring organized themes and narratives than staking out and idiosyncratically defining a unique persona and personality via music.

The artist hangs on to certain phrases and concepts, using repetition and presentational flair to morph and alter their meanings.

Thug will squawk, caw, screech and holler over his beats to pronounced effect, and his flow and verbal rhythm often reaches new realms of organizational originality and in-

genuity on “Barter 6.” This makes mediocre words seem revolutionary based solely on delivery and tonal modulation, quite an artistic and expressive feat for a kid barely older than ourselves. In a way, this is his most loving tribute to his beloved Lil Weezy: shaping a wholly new self in a vat of hip-hop weirdnesses.

Though his new 13-track album is primarily concerned with defining to the audience who Young Thug is as a sonic presence, he still plays remarkably well with others (“Yeah I show love for my partner” goes a verse on “Od”), a skill carried over from past teamed-up efforts with Jay and the Rich Gang collective, including Rich Homie Quan and Birdman, who appears twice on “Barter 6.”

A collaborative standout is “Amazing,” which employs constant sonic rug-pulls to shift its beats and form to match the tenor of the given verse. Featured (and equally prodigious) singer Jacquees and Thug have a contrasting interplay, with the former crooning extendedly over generous beats and the latter shattering his co-star’s progress with staccato rhymes and anxious spitting.

Not all of the collaborative voices on “Barter 6” jive so harmoniously, however; the guest-list favors pulse-deadening heavy baritones like Duke and Young Dolph, who halt the pace of their respective tracks with awkward or dull contributed verses.

Similarly, despite its definite highlights, “Dream” boasts soporific production, as does “Halftime,” but to less redemptive ends, cementing the former as the weakest point of the record in its repetitiveness and cynicism. “Never Had It” has a snake charmer beat that I find intoxicating, a topshelf work broadly indicative that “Barter 6” is one stop along the way of the slow reveal of Young Thug. And he never gives away too much.

Indie rapper blends politics and perversion Christian Prince Guest Columnist

Cherry Bomb Tyler, the Creator Odd Future Records

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ith “Cherry Bomb,” Tyler, the Creator crafts a sonic cornucopia that cartwheels from blearing static to jazzy interludes while still retaining the synth-heavy melodies Odd Future is known for. However, “Cherry Bomb” represents an artistic step back for Tyler, lacking the self-revealing introspection and provocativeness that made Goblin and Wolf unmissable works of indie rap.

Tyler strove for a broader and more eclectic soundscape in “Cherry Bomb,” a laudable ambition that works in some places, yet the intervals of longueur and unintelligibility obstruct Tyler’s fiery energy.

The most salient trope threading through “Cherry Bomb” is a desire for ascendancy, embodied in the metaphor of careless, thoughtless flight. In “PILOT”, Tyler raps “I don’t want to crash anymore/ I just want to soar through space and let the wind hit my face.”

And “PILOT” beautifully represents the scabrous ways Tyler presents his thematics, for in the midst of self-actualizations like “The boy’s a fucking problem like turbulence boy, get used to it,” he incorporates references to the shoe-bomber and crashing planes into buildings. Then the song concludes with Tyler lapsing into self-doubt: “You in first class class but you feel like coach.”

“RUN” finds Tyler denouncing gang culture, injecting didacticism and political undertones, which he usually shies away from or leaves implicit. The sequencing of the song is effective: after a little over a minute of amphetiminic delivery with lines like “They got a homie called karma he gon meet you/ Better look the other way if he ever see you,” the listener is soothed and consoled with

“FLY YOUR WINGS”, a jazzy interlude with dreamy xylophones and piano riffs.

“FLY YOUR WINGS” continues the flight trope, which is subsequently inverted on “CHERRY BOMB” when Tyler raps “Tie the knot/ Kick the chair/ Float in the air.” In typical Odd Future fashion, self-destruction haunts attempts at escape.

“BLOW MY LOAD” and “FUCKING YOUNG/PERFECT” feature libidinous pining after women, although Tyler has jettisoned the masochistic eroticism that fueled songs like “Tron Cat.” Neither song is romantic: in “BLOW MY LOAD”, the ultimate end of Tyler pursuing the girl is his orgasm, and “FUCKING YOUNG/PERFECT”, Tyler grapples playfully with his attraction to an underage girl.

“‘RUN’ finds Tyler denouncing gang culture, injecting... political undertones” The latter is creative and poppy, yet both sexual paeans fail thematically; Tyler comes off as perverted (“I’m a pervert with a purpose”) and onanistic and forgoes the sensuous details and evocative samples that made Kanye’s “Hell Of A Life” and “I’m In It” work as sex songs.

“Cherry Bomb” tires in the intervals where the album becomes overly distorted. In the title track, a wall of overbearing static is unpleasant to listen to and makes Tyler hard to understand. “CHERRY BOMB” draws heavily on the brash, anti-melodies of “Yeezus” (he even raps “I am a god”), which can be cacophonous. But Tyler often rewards the listener after taxing them, and it remains obvious that Tyler is making music that sounds exactly like he wants it to.

“DEATH CAMP” is heavily rock-inspired in the style of Lil Wayne’s Rebirth and Eminem songs like “Berzerk,” but the melding

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

of genres doesn’t justify itself. Nevertheless, on long songs like “2SEATER” and “SMUCKERS,” Tyler shows his virtuosity in being able to transform songs within themselves, seamlessly patching together divergent melodies.

Accordingly, there is more of an emphasis on instrumentation and orchestration and less on drawn-out verses, a fact Tyler acknowledges on “2SEATER”: “[Fans] Hoping that I ditch the chords and go pick up the pen again.”

In “Cherry Bomb,” Tyler is less prone to self-doubt and loathing tracks like “Bastard” and “Goblin”. The new confidence is likely a function of Tyler’s success, and he communicates it through his new affinity for his reflection.

In “BUFFALO,” Tyler raps “How many leaders in the house?/ Well can somebody bring the mirrors out? I’m getting lonely” and, in “THE BROWN STAINS OF DARKEESE,” “See I look in the mirror and he said, ‘You are the man.’” Whereas Tyler was once the insular, subversive misanthrope, “Cherry Bomb” finds him transitioning into the role of unbridled leader, and the music has a corollary upbeat tempo.

Notable in “Cherry Bomb” is Tyler lapsing into some of the materialism and braggadocio that he largely eschewed in earlier works.

But rather than bringing Tyler any real satiety, these asides to his wealth seem to function mostly as rebuttals to his persistent detractors (“And now I pay a mortgage and they stuck in tuition”). “2SEATER” features Tyler’s first foray into luxury rap. Indeed, he wanted to have Rick Ross on the song, wherein he rhapsodizes his two-seater and waxes on about garages full of cars.

Cherry Bomb displays depressive thoughts, although they seem to haunt Tyler less than they did in previous works. While “Bastard” and “Goblin” sounded like necessary bloodlettings for Tyler’s darkest thoughts, in “Cherry Bomb,” Tyler is more comfortable in his own skin. He is just as indifferent to what other people think and more willing to experiment with different sounds and orchestral arrangements, for better and for worse.

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April 30, 2015

Page 17

Exhibit illustrates Lucic’s travel, research Excuse me, LOEB continued from page 1

Museum of Art and Princeton University Art Museum, augmented with objects from the Loeb’s permanent collection and other sources.

Demonstrating the diverse artistic depictions of Avalokiteshvara, the show provides a rare opportunity to compare these differences.

Before its opening, Lucic had been working on the exhibition for five years. In 2011, she went on research leave in order to explore the subject more in depth and to prepare for the exhibition at Vassar.

As an art historian and a Buddhist for eight years, Lucic was motivated to dive deeper into the issue of the artistic representation of Avalokiteshvara because of the many scholarly difficulties posed to her by the subject. She said, “[C]hallenges came from the fact that the Mahayana Buddhist pantheon is complex and there are difficulties in distinguishing an Avalokiteshvara from a Buddha…There are other challenges in coming to terms with Avalokiteshvara as well, such as its many names. To pronounce its Indian name is uneasy enough.”

She continued, “I’ve always found Buddhist art fascinating, and I’ve done a fair amount of travel in Asia. The more I learned about the artistic tradition of Asia, the more fascinated I became.”

Besides her personal and academic interest, Lucic also decided to organize an exhibition that focuses on Avalokiteshvara because she saw a necessity to educate western audiences about the particular religious figure.

“I discovered in my initial research that although the scholarship on the bodhisattva’s compassion is vast, there had never been a panAsian exhibition featuring Avalokiteshvara in this country. A gap existed and needed to be filled, especially by a project aimed at an audience of non-specialists,” Lucic explained.

She continued, “The Buddha is now almost universally recognized and frequently encountered in the western world, but the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara remains largely undiscovered and unexamined, especially outside of Asia.”

The exhibition also had an educational aspect as Lucic worked to involve students in the process throughout. Four student research assistants worked together with Lucic on her early-stage research. She also had help from a Ford

Campus Canvas

student scholar with obtaining reproductions and rights to reproduce many of the objects and images on display.

Last semester, Lucic offered a seminar in the Art History Department, in which students had the opportunity to work with her on the exhibition and gain first-hand curating experience.

One of the students in the class, Mengna Da ’15 talked about her roles and experiences in the seminar. “Each of us was responsible for writing the interpretative texts and audio guides for three exhibited works. We also recorded the audio guides ourselves.”

She continued, “The most challenging bit for me was to transform a large amount of scholarly research into concise words that are accessible to the public. And I realized that there is a much larger amount of research and information behind the contents displayed in an exhibition.”

Her learning experience also went beyond the domain of art and curating. Da said, “I also learned from the experience that nothing can ever be perfect–it is part of the Buddhist philosophy too. Due to the tight schedule, we had to give up some of the features and information.”

For non-expert audiences, Lucic hopes to communicate the universal value expressed and embodied by Avalokiteshvara, the sole figure explored by the exhibition in the Loeb. She said, “I’m very interested in the universal values that are expressed in Avalokiteshvara…One of the things about this exhibit is how specific is to Buddhist culture, but I really think there’s a more general humanist and religious value.

I’m hoping that people would go the show and absorb through the arts some sense of how it would be to be calm, serene and loving toward others…to leave the gallery with an understanding of the competency of compassion as a principle and practice.”

Moreover, Lucic points out that Avalokiteshvara as a central figure in Asian culture, should be known about in the U.S. “Since this bodhisattva is so important in Asian Buddhism, I think Americans need to know more about this figure. I think in general Americans need to know more about Asia. We’re not very schooled in Asian history, let alone art. In organizing this pan-Asian show, I’m trying to overcome boundaries that keep us from knowing about other

aspects of the world and objects of study.”

As a scholar on Asian religions, Walsh shared his view on art exhibitions that involve religious issues such as this one. He said, “Religious communities are first and foremost, social communities, and as such will always express themselves artistically through images, symbols, rituals, mythological narratives, and so forth. Museum exhibits of, for instance Buddhist statuary, are interesting because they are presenting these objects out of context.”

Walsh continued, “A statue of Guanyin [the Chinese name of Avalokiteshvara], for instance, is meant to be engaged and negotiated with, bowed down before, prayed too, worshipped…

The viewer is engaging with the statue as a visual phenomenon to be appreciated but not worshipped. The statue has been ‘museumified.’”

Nonetheless, he acknowledged the significance and value of these exhibits, “Still, it is important for people to see them. The non-religious viewer, say a Euro-American unfamiliar with Buddhist practices, is challenged to negotiate with the other and must confront an image or figure that hopefully begins a new dialogue of exchange for them.”

Continuing, he commented, “A Guanyin statue in a museum may not be ‘alive’ in the same way as she would be in a temple, but she can nonetheless still teach the viewer something.”

For Lucic, the experience of exploring Avalokiteshvara and organizing the exhibition was a journey that led her to a deeper understanding of the religious figure. She said at the opening symposium, “My favorite way to think of bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara is as an agent who activates our own inherent wisdom and compassion…The formal features express an outwardly manifested magnificence based on an inwardly established wisdom. That’s why Avalokiteshvara as an embodiment of such qualities has served as such a beacon for Mahayana Buddhism over the centuries and into our own time.”

She continued, “Perhaps some of these questions will occur to you as you visit the galleries. No doubt others would arise as well. I suspect that following the path of bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara is a journey that will never end.”

A weekly space highlighting the creative pursuits of student-artists

Do your best Kylie Jenner lips.

Matt Knigge ’18

Amy Lieber ’18

Elizabeth Snyderman ’17

submit to misc@vassar.edu

Hallie Ayres ’18

Nick Dynin ’18

Joel Johnson ’18

This is a project that required me to draw 20 hands and 20 feet in order to re-create a famous work by another artist, in this case Giorgio De Chirico. I used mixed media, including charcoal, powdered graphite, and ink. The hands and feet were all drawn from life, and we were required to mimic the lighting conditions of the original composition.

-Greg Suplinskas ‘18

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Emma Rosenthal Arts Editor Sam Pianello, Photo Editor

SPORTS

Page 18

April 30, 2015

A family affair: ‘Scorlinsky’ brothers in sync on field Winnie Yeates Guest Reporter

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Palak Patel/The Miscellany News

f you’ve ever noticed the sweaty group of students out on Noyes Circle, then you have stumbled across Vassar’s Ultimate Frisbee team. The players do it purely for fun and dedicate time and energy each week for their own enjoyment and passion for their sport. No one can quite attest to this other than Vassar’s very own Frisbee super-siblings, sophomore Ezra and senior Benno Orlinsky.

Frisbee has been a huge part of their lives and was popular in the town where they grew up.

Benno began playing the sport at a young age: “I started playing Ultimate Frisbee in elementary school. Ezra and I grew up in Amherst, Mass., a strange town where Frisbee is the most popular sport, and you start playing much earlier than most places.” Like Benno, Ezra also began playing Frisbee when he was in elementary school along with other sports such as soccer and basketball.

Ezra spoke about the how the two brothers got started with the sport, “There were lots of opportunities to play from an early age—at recess, in summer leagues, etc. It’s also a varsity sport at our high school as opposed to a club, which is super rare, so we both played very seriously at home.

The high school program was pretty rigorous - we practiced every day, flew to tournaments around the country, and had an intense, professional coaching staff.”

The Frisbee team is a cohesive group of people that support one another on and off the field as fierce competitors and as friends, but the atmosphere associated with the Frisbee team is perhaps even more easy-going and mellow than the majority of varsity sports teams at Vassar. Ezra echoed these statements, “Probably my favorite thing about the Vassar team is that we manage to work hard and care about the Frisbee without taking ourselves too seriously or losing the fun.

Even if we’re in an intense game, it never stops being a chill environment for long, which is a huge contrast from our ultra-serious high school team.

Its less structured, more laid back, but the compe-

Benno and Ezra Orlinsky have played Ultimate Frisbee since elemantary school. The brothers have spent years on the same team and have an unmatchable feeling for each others movement on the field. tition itself is still good. Everybody’s welcome at practices and we often do things as a whole team together, so your relationship to the team can pretty much be whatever you want it to be.”

Playing on a team with a sibling adds a whole other dimension to the sport for Benno and Ezra.

Benno spoke about playing on a team with his younger brother, “Playing with Ezra has been incredibly fun and rewarding. We’ve been playing together for so many years now that I know what he’s going to do on the field before he does it. We have a pretty harmonious relationship, although things do get a little heated when we guard each other in practice.” Ezra felt the same way, but also mentioned how the two brothers have never been ones to compete with one another. “I don’t know if it’s a brother thing or because we learned the sport in the same system or a little of both, but

Benno and I are on the same page on the field almost all the time. We score a lot of goals thrown from me to him. It’s also cool because we get to hang out at practice and Frisbee parties. I feel like we’re not really the type of personalities to have sibling rivalry—even when we were growing up, we never really fought like a lot of siblings do.”

This harmonious relationship could be due to the fact that these brothers have different respective skills on the field. Benno commented, “I’d say we’re both better at different aspects of the game (although I still beat him one-on-one because I’m the big brother).” Ezra rebutted, “In terms of ‘who’s the better player?’ it’s not exactly comparable because we have different roles on the field. Benno’s more athletic than I am, and I have better throws. It’s like comparing a QB and a wide receiver.”

Both siblings have pushed each other to become better players as well as helped each other with various aspects of college life. Benno spoke about what he has learned from his younger brother, “In Frisbee, Ezra’s helped me to develop myself as a receiver, and has always impressed me with how hard he works every point. In life, he’s taught me a lot about Facebook rebranding, and has always impressed me with how scrubby he is all the time.” Ezra appreciates his brother’s calm and level-headed nature, “In everything he does, but especially on the field, Benno is super laid back. As a captain this year, he’s definitely a voice of reason and mental toughness, a voice of calm in intense moments. If I’m in a bad headspace in a game, Benno can chill me out. That sort of relaxed intensity is tough to have, but I think it’s super important in any competition.” Senior teammate Kiran Chapman affirmed this, saying, “I think they are very much in sync. They both understand how one another plays and are very aware of developments taking place on the field.

I think they’re both great players individually, but together their awareness of one another’s playing styles really allows them to see plays unfold.”

They will both leave Vassar with more than just a continued love for the game. Benno explained what he will take away from his experience of playing at Vassar: “Vassar Frisbee has taught me so much, especially this last year as a captain. I’ve learned that post-practice Deece is the best Deece (especially when it’s on Ezra’s guest-swipe), and that practicing at 6 a.m. isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I’ve learned a lot about Drake (almost too much), and that safety always comes first.

Mostly, I’m just happy to take away the friendships of all the wonderful people I’ve met through this team.” Ezra maintained similar feelings, “I think what I will take away more than anything are the relationships that I’ve formed on the team.

Last year’s Frisbee seniors were a huge influence socially on my freshman year, and I have really close, deep friendships with kids on this team.

Those relationships are more important to me than the Frisbee.”

SAAM brings ‘It’s time to act’ campaign to VC athletics MVP continued from page 1

female identifying, sophomore rugby player Nathalie Freeman found the openness of the group, especially from the male-identifying members, as a positive takeaway from the program. “I think that the biggest thing I took away from this experience is an even deeper feeling of respect for my peers. The group of students that I took this training with were so open and intelligent that I was in awe of them and their responses. I was especially moved by how receptive the men in my group were to everything that we learned, and how interested they were in hearing about these issues from the point of view of female identifying people.“ Looking back at the program’s overall rationale as described on its website, the MVP model does not treat acts of sexual and gender-based violence as isolated incidents but rather treats violence against women as a deeper, socio-cultural problem and thus the model aims to expose these underlying issues.

Freeman explained the logistics of the specific MVP bystander intervention-training program she was involved with. “I would say that the program is a young-adult friendly way to talk about important issues in a small group setting. While we are actively learning during the entirety of the training, it feels more like a forum of peers discussing their experiences and how they can work together to create a campus environment that is safer for everyone.”

This is where the specific bystander intervention training undergone by Vassar College students comes into play. A good portion of the training involved examining various scenarios and discussing their nuances and contexts before coming up with different intervention options that are effective and maintain the safety of the bystander. In this way the program helps students learn to recognize the signs of sexual and gender-based violence as well as ways to help prevent its occurrence. But much of the training was also spent discussing the ways in which incidents of violence and objectification are accepted and normalized in society such as in advertisements and even everyday, normal speech.

Participants discussed and explored the ways that things like gender and stereotypes seem to

courtesy of Anders van Minter

ership necessary, within sport and beyond, to address the global issues of sexism—especially men’s violence against women. In our advocacy efforts and training programs, we educate, inspire and empower men & women to prevent, interrupt and respond to sexist abuse.”

For another April training participant, sophomore Field Hockey standout Sophie Arnold, MVP’s mission statement was applicable to her experience within the program, particularly the idea of interrupting sexist abuse. “[Undergoing the training] really made me examine the little things I let slip by—especially the gendered and sexist language that has been so normalized in our society—this type of language is so often used by those around me and I am not always thinking about the implications of these words and how it perpetuates our sexist society. This is something I hope to begin interrupting.”

The history provided on the MVP website explains the creation of the MVP model and its broad, overarching goals from the beginning. “[The] MVP Model is an approach to gender violence and bullying prevention that was first developed in 1993 at Northeastern University’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society and the National Consortium for Academics & Sports… [the] MVP Program was designed to train male college and high school student-athletes and other student leaders to use their status to speak out against rape, battering, sexual harassment, gay-bashing and all forms of sexist abuse and violence. A female component was added in the second year with the complementary principle of training female student-athletes and others to be leaders on these issues.”

Dzuro-White felt that the model and training had a definite impact on the way in which he sees sexist abuse and gender violence and inequality in his every day life. “I was never really aware of all my privilege as a cis-gendered male, but the MVP training has definitely opened my eyes to the social disparities between men and women.

I’ve learned that by making some changes in the way I act every day, I can make a big difference in promoting gender equality.”

While the group in April was predominantly

Student athletes stand on the quad after taking part in the MVP training course, which focuses on sexual assault and violence prevention. All athletes are encouraged to take the course. promulgate normalized attitudes surrounding violence. Examining these cultural contexts they were able to develop a deeper understanding of how smaller things like unwanted catcallers are connected to more serious instances of sexual and gender-based violence; they’re all included on a spectrum which condones and continues this corrosive culture.

For Freeman, recognition of this fact as well as in-depth discussion of the scenarios has helped her discover ways she can take action against sexual and gender-based violence. “Going through the training made me feel more secure with my knowledge and allowed me to reach a point where I feel like I could actually make a difference and help someone if I needed to…as I move forward in my daily life I will be able to use intervention skills that I learned in MVP training and I will also be more aware of the language that I use and the language that is used around me,” she said.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

As the prevalence of sexual assault and gender-based violence on college campuses continues to be recognized and brought out into the open after generations of media and institutional silence, bystander intervention training is one way student leaders and activists can continue to step up. MVP provides a space in which students and community members can explore and begin to understand and unpack the problem of sexual assault and violence. One reason MVP has been so successful throughout its history as well as an important experience for Vassar students is because it looks to treat the problem as a whole rather than a few isolated instances. By giving students the tools and information to enact positive change and create a safer environment on campuses, programs like MVP that help them to see how to create positive change on a daily basis such as through avoiding certain word choices or pointing out problematic representations, creates a more empowered and powerful community.

April 30, 2015

SPORTS

Page 19

Tanking fad compromises NBA integrity Sam Hammer Columnist

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y the time you read this, the Boston Celtics will have likely been swept in four games by the Cleveland Cavaliers. Most people would have expected this to happen, considering that the Cavaliers have arguably the two best players in the Eastern Conference, and are the favorites to win the Eastern Conference Finals. Even so, the Celtics and their incredible coach Brad Stevens deserve praise for even making it this far. Last season, the Celtics completely bottomed out, finishing with 25 wins and 57 losses. People criticized the team that year for tanking, and that criticism was pretty legitimate.

Tanking, as it is referred to in basketball, is the practice by which a team that knows it will not be able to make a successful run in the playoffs decides to lose as many games as possible that season. The rationale for this behavior is that the teams with the worst records have the best odds of getting a high pick in the NBA Draft Lottery. The ownership for these teams feels that the best way to create a powerhouse team is to gradually draft future superstars out of college, and develop these players until they end up with a team like Oklahoma City Thunder. Over a period of several years, the Thunder acquired Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka and James Harden—Harden has since been traded.

Kevin Durant has already won an MVP award, Harden and Westbrook are both in contention to win one this year, and before his injury, Ibaka was a defensive beast who has developed his offensive game and three-point shooting more in recent years. Since 2010, the Thunder have made it to the playoffs every year where they have reached three Western Conference Finals and made it to the NBA Finals in 2012 where they lost to the Miami Heat in five games. Teams such as the Philadelphia 76ers are currently trying to emulate the Thunder model by tanking during the regular season.

The issue with all-out tanking is that there is little guarantee that the practice will actually be successful. Last year, the 76ers had a win-loss record of nineteen and sixty three.

This year, the team’s record was an abysmal eighteen and sixty four, proving the method doesn’t always work. There are two methods to tanking, one is by having the players on the floor actually attempt to lose games. Former Minnesota Timberwolves power forward Mark Madsen has become the poster child for in-game tanking. At the final game of the 2006 regular season, the Timberwolves would have been in danger of losing a first-round protected pick if they had beat the Memphis Grizzlies that night. In order to ensure their defeat, Madsen was encouraged to take seven threepoint shots in a span of nine minutes. Madsen, who had not made a three-point attempt one hundred and thirty five games prior missed all seven shots and the Timberwolves would go on to lose the game.

The second way teams can tank is by filling their roster with bad personnel, such as what the 76ers have done. Philadelphia’s roster currently consists of these players: Ish Smith, Thomas Robinson and Henry Sims. These players are NBA unknowns, but they play for cheap contracts and render the 76ers uncompetitive. So far under this strategy of losing, the 76ers have acquired numerous draft picks from other teams, and they have drafted Nerlens Noel, Michael Carter-Williams and Joel Embiid. Embiid, the third pick in the draft last year, has been out all season due to injury. Scouting reports last year said he would be the next superstar big man, but without having seen him play it is hard to tell. Also, tall guys who suffer injuries in the beginning of their career tend to never recover. Greg Oden is an example of this; he was the first overall pick in the 2007 draft, yet he was plagued by injuries to his knees and has barely been seen in the league over the last six or so years. Noel is a defensive juggernaut and is actually quite

promising for the 76ers. The team traded Carter-Williams after his first season where he won the Rookie of the Year award. Now the 76ers hope to draft a future star this year.

The issue is that the 76ers have no guarantee that the strategy will work. Both the draft and NBA free-agency are highly unpredictable and teams frequently stumble into good situations. The Thunder more than anything else were lucky to draft all of those stars.

The Cleveland Cavaliers lucked out by getting three first-overall draft picks over a span of four years. One of those picks turned into Kyrie Irving, while the other two were traded to Minnesota for superstar Kevin Love. Of course the Cavaliers were incredibly lucky back in the summer when LeBron James decided to leave Miami and return to Cleveland.

NBA teams can be unlucky as well. After becoming the youngest league MVP in history in 2011, Derrick Rose was supposed to lead a Chicago Bull’s team that included stars Luol Deng, Joakim Noah and Carlos Boozer to the finals.

Unfortunately, Rose suffered multiple knee injuries and missed two season of basketball, and has never been quite the same since.

Tanking is risky, and the only results you can expect from it are alienating the fan base and causing fans and players to lose interest in your team. For these reasons I am glad that the Celtics decided to abandon tanking after only one season. At this year’s trade deadline, Boston acquired Isaiah Thomas from the Phoenix Suns. Thomas was the favorite to win sixth-man of the year honors for his scoring off the bench. On the Celtics he has been able to emerge as a scoring leader, and the team has gone nineteen and ten since the trade. Even if the Celtics are swept by Cleveland in the first round, playoff experience is good for young players who can build their confidence as they play under high stakes. Playing for a competitive team teaches young players good habits, whereas playing for a team such as Philadelphia does not force young players to grow.

Uncertainty looms heavy over NFL Draft Rob Carpenter

Guest Columnist

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he NFL Draft is similar to the New York Stock Exchange; football franchises select talent to add to their team in the same way stockbrokers invest in shares of companies.

The energy at both events is exciting, serious and anxious all at the same time.

In both cases experts invest in prospects that they deem valuable and for both the results are never certain, frequently leading to huge let downs and in other cases unexpected successes. But unlike the New York Stock Exchange, this year the NFL draft will take place in Chicago.

The decision to switch locations breaks the 50-year old NFL tradition of hosting the draft in New York. Instead of its usual location of New York City’s Radio City Music Hall, the draft will take in Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre at Roosevelt University, starting Thursday, April 30 at 8 p.m. ET. Yet for the players eligible for the draft, Chicago may not be as popular of a location as New York. This year, two of the year’s top prospects at the quarterback positions, Marcus Mariota of The University of Oregon and Jameis Winston of Florida State University (FSU), have decided not to attend the draft. A choice that could lead to some very awkward moments as the two NFL-bound talents will be selected but will not be present to be acknowledged on stage.

The NFL asks all players predicted to be drafted in the first round of 32 selections to attend the event. Then at the draft, players sit at tables with their family as they wait for their name to be called on stage. Considering the way the draft is presented as a spectator event and the fact that it is nationally televised ensures that the absence of college football’s two biggest stars will certainly be noticed.

For many NFL prospects, coming on stage and accepting the jersey of their new team is the proudest moment of their lives, it is the instance when they have officially made it to the NFL, a dream of thousands of student athletes who play NCAA football but a reality for only

a handful. Yet for some athletes the draft can quickly go from a joyous time to a very painful one, when they are not selected as early on as they anticipated.

This was the case for Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers at the 2005 NFL Draft when he was forced to wait for hours as his stock was passed over for other talents. Rodgers had an excellent college career at University of California, Berkeley and was predicted to be a taken in the draft early on based on his immense playing value. Instead, Rodgers was selected 24th overall as the nation watched his draft stock drop in value from the top to near the bottom of the first round.

Ultimately, Rodgers would have the final word as he quickly reached prominence in the NFL leading the Packers to a Super Bowl Championship in 2010 and winning the league’s Most Valuable Player Award for the 2011 and 2014 seasons. Aaron Rodgers’ fall in the draft did not influence the success he would later have in his playing career and could have acted as a source of motivation to beat all of the teams that decided not to draft him in 2005.

But Rodgers’ draft story does reveal that attending the draft can be embarrassing if one is not drafted early on and the individual’s disappointment will inevitably be projected across the country as ESPN cameras capture the emotions of all players in attendance. Nearly all football media projects Marcus Mariota to be selected second in tonight’s draft, making every other outcome seem like a let down in comparison and partly justifying his decision to watch the draft at homefar from the action, with his family in Hawaii.

Few players have a better combination of college football accomplishments than quarterback Jameis Winston. Florida State’s former play caller lead the Seminoles to a 2014 BSC National Championships and 26-1 record over the two years that he started at the position.

Individually, Winston won the 2013 Heisman trophy awarded each year to the county’s most outstanding college football players. These outstanding accomplishments may make it

hard to believe that Winston garners more attention for his unacceptable behavior off the field than his excellence play on it. From getting caught stealing crab legs at a restaurant to yelling obscenities in the middle of Florida State University’s student union, Winston became known for bad behavior. Bad behavior that is dwarfed when compared to a 2013 sexual assault charge that was eventually dropped

by Florida courts.

In the eyes of NFL scouts, Winston must be considered innocent until proven guilty, but his affinity to get in trouble and high likelihood that he could poorly represent his future NFL team and the league in general should be considered when evaluating his draft value.

The NFL’s public image was hurt last year by severe cases of domestic abuse committed by players such as Greg Hardy of the Dallas Cowboys and free agent Ray Rice, and with this in mind Winston’s value in the NFL should be considered based on what he can do on the field and what he can do off it.

Over the last month, Erica Kinsman, the woman and former FSU student who accused Winston of rape in 2012, filed a suit against Winston for his alleged actions in addition to a Title IX suit against FSU for holding biased disciplinary hearings over the case. These updates reveal that Winston’s sexual assault case is still firmly open and should be taken seriously by NFL scouts.

Many sources speculate that Winston chose not to attend the draft in order to avoid attaching controversy to the event. Yet being selected as the first overall in the pick, as Winston is widely projected to do, would reveal an even larger controversy for the NFL. That they value on field perception above all else, even at the cost of their public perception.

It is likely that Winston will be selected first by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, an event that would reveal just how low the NFL has stooped, ignoring the character and conduct of players and instead focusing only on their production. Only time will tell if this production and potential will translate to the demanding world of the NFL.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

But what even is NASCAR? Zach Rippe

Sports Editor

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mean no disrespect when I say this, but I have no idea why people like NASCAR. If I wanted to sit down and watch people drive cars around in a circle for hours on end I’d… actually, I wouldn’t. To be fair, I have never watched a race and I know very little about the sport outside of some of its biggest names. I don’t usually like to write scathing, ignorant observations about things I blindly dislike, but NASCAR has always irked me. Determined to change my opinion, I turned to the wise voices of the Internet to help me better understand this quintessentially American pastime.

Car crashes. No matter how gruesome they are, people can’t help but look. I mean, they’ve caused their fair share of traffic on the highway.

Why wouldn’t people go to watch them in a controlled setting? Naturally, a 400-lap race that has a history of accidents proves another enticing venue for such “spectacles.” And I hate to use that word, but that’s really what they are. When you’re watching a sport that requires you to wait for something to go wrong to get excited, you know there’s something wrong.

Desperate to understand, I pulled up a fine article by Spencer Hall from 2012 on SB Nation.

Spencer posted a “How-To Guide for the Uninitiated” for people like me. Unfortunately, this guide did little to help my case. Before Spencer begins his piece, he admits that all people do in NASCAR is turn left. He concedes that Formula 1 racing is filled with much more beauty and finesse and is “undeniably superior” as a sport.

Not a great start, Spence.

Spencer then moves to his seven “convincing” points. Among these is the advice to “feel free to take a breather.” No disrespect, but isn’t the point of watching a sport to watch it? If Spencer’s advice to me is to stop watching NASCAR while I’m watching NASCAR then he doesn’t really make a very compelling argument. Granted, Spencer did hit on some interesting points, like the fact that you should observe the intricacies like racers running to the bathroom. Spencer also pointed out that “not all tracks are created equal.” I’m sure certain surfaces are tougher to race on than others. I know that certain hair-pin turns may evoke fear and excitement from the crowd as danger is literally around every corner.

I also know how weather can impact road conditions. I did see “Rush,” after all (not NASCAR, but you know what I mean).

Still, I needed some more compelling arguments to sway me over to the “dark side.”

Naturally, I turned to bleacherreport.com correspondant Richard Deveau, whose 2009 article “10 Things You Must Do When Attending a NASCAR Race” would hopefully enlighten me.

Point 10: “Shop ‘till you drop.” Really? Point 9: “It’s party time!” Okay… But I could have a beer or two at a baseball game. This kind of incentive is hardly unique. Let’s skip down a bit. Point 5: “Oh, the pretty girls.” C’mon Richard...You’re better than that.

To be fair, I am nitpicking. Richard made some good points. His best point was perhaps his number 1: “Feel the rush!” Richard instructs fans to find the fastest spot on the track and wait for cars to come by. These are indeed powerful machines traveling at very fast speeds. I’m sure I too would “feel the rush.”

For those not already aware, this article is meant to be tongue-in-cheek. I obviously know nothing about NASCAR and don’t seriously mean to belittle it (well, maybe that’s not entirely true). Despite dips in attendance, major races tend to draw over 100,000 fans. To each his own, I guess. The bottom line is that these drivers are professional athletes. Racing requires a tremendous amount of strategy. Try driving 200+ miles an hour along with 40-something other cars while simultaneously shifting gears, checking your mirrors and trying to pass people. Extend these nerves, this skill over a 4+ hour period. It’s tough. I see nothing but people driving around because I don’t understand the intricate facets of the sport and the culture it creates. But does that mean I ever will understand these complexities, the “beauty” of the game? No, probably not.

SPORTS

Page 20

April 30, 2015

VC Lax waves bittersweet goodbye to innovative seniors Ashley Hoyle Reporter

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enior day is a tradition that most Vassar teams participate in annually. It is a moment of mixed emotion as teams take the time to recognize all the work that a graduating class has done for a program. This year, the Vassar women’s lacrosse team will say goodbye to eight graduating seniors: Kate Pula, Katherine Stegmann, Leigh Ann Baldwin, Evie Toland, Enya Cunningham, Dara Davis, Jackie Palma and Hilary McDonnell.

The seniors currently hold a 10-5 winning record overall and 6-3 record in the conference. They are on a five-game winning streak, continuing it with a big victory over Clarkson to clinch their third place spot in the Liberty League playoffs on their senior day. This is the

best finish to a season in team history, and the girls took the time to honor their eight departing teammates in a pregame ceremony.

Palma, a defender, described their season going into the weekend, “As far as the rest of our season has gone, we’ve been doing really well overall and this weekend will solidify our third place spot in playoffs if we win—and we will win.” They did win, and now are seeded third going into Liberty League Championships.

Junior attacker Izzy Goldstein has also been satisfied with the outstanding season VC lacrosse has had, saying, “I think our season has so far showcased how talented we are but we’ve also had a lot of ups and downs so this weekend will be an opportunity to show how it’s going to go. We have a balanced team of young and old, we have a lot of strong seniors but a lot of real-

courtesy of Vassar Athletics

The Vassar women’s lacrosse team celebrated its senior day this past weekend prior to their game against Clarkson University. The team finished third in Liberty League playoffs with a 6-3 record.

ly talented fresh freshmen—fresh like rude. It’s been a real test for us, because the league is so competitive this year.”

Goldstein described the importance of the ceremony, “I think senior day is really important to us because it’s a time to celebrate all that this senior class has done for us. We make it a really big deal. We get really excited to decorate for it, we do a lot and just really have the mentality that this game will not be the seniors’ last game of the season. For all of us it’s really important, but for them—this is everything. Because they mean so much to us this game means so much to us.”

“Senior day is always scary but awesome at the same time. Each year, even when you’re not a senior, because you know you’re losing a class within a couple weeks so that’s just a scary thought—to think the girls who you’ve been playing with for the last three months are leaving. But, I think as far as my senior class as a whole is concerned, I couldn’t be more proud of what we have accomplished this season. And in the last three years, we went from having a really horrible losing record my freshman year to being one of the top competitors in the league. I appreciate my senior class for helping me bring that change to our program,” gushed Palma.

One of the biggest contributions the Class of 2015 has made to the lacrosse team had been an increased sense of equality on the field. Palma explained, “Our team is so dynamic, from the freshmen up to us, we all are so different, but we are more skilled and our senior class has really allowed us to change the dynamic of this team.

In that, while there is some sort of a hierarchy, there really isn’t on the field—we want the freshmen to kick our butts in practice, we want them to make us better. We wanted to change that, to bring that sort of culture to our team...

It’s not like only seniors get to start or only seniors get to play - whoever works hard at practice should earn that spot, and that’s what I think our class has really tried to enforce over the past three years.”

Goldstein thinks the seniors’ impact can be felt in the mental aspects of the team, elaborating, “In terms of my position as a junior, this senior class could not be any better or any more important to my experience. Coming in, establishing a winning mentality—I think we’re really seeing a new era of Vassar Lacrosse—and that I completely credit to all the work that these eight seniors have done. They are a really diverse group of individuals, but together they come together to make really such an amazing class.

They really set the tone this season and allowed us to have some big wins.”

Another big focus for the seniors has been making practice as productive an exercise as possible. “We really have the work hard play hard mentality. We know that every day at practice if we can work hard as a group, as a senior class, then that will trickle down to everyone else putting in maximum efficiency at practice,” explained Palma. Goldstein noticed the same thing, “One of the most important experiences has been facing Jackie every day at practice. We always talk to each other about how we have to make each other better - I mean, she checks the shit out of me, and I lose the ball, and I know it’s because I’m getting better every day.”

Another player that made a lasting impression was Cunningham. Goldstein commented on what Cunningham has brought to the team, “What Enya has done for our team is something that really strikes me. She didn’t play lacrosse in high school, she picked it up her freshman year and started on our team her sophomore year. But she’s just the most tremendous athlete.

Now that she’s a senior, her lacrosse skills have caught up and she plays almost every minute of every game....But, beyond that, just getting to hold her pinkie before the game—because she’s six and I’m eight—and I just feel how strong she is and how much she cares. She wouldn’t have even have had the opportunity to play anywhere but here, and that is so special because just her presence and her athletic mindset makes us as a team so much better.

Track teams shatter previous PRs in packed weekend Erik Quinson Sports Editor

Women’s Track

The women competed at the Yale Springtime Invitational on Sunday, April 26. Senior Heather Ingraham was at it again, setting yet another school record, this time in the 200m. In the 8000m, the team had a great showing, with all three runners posting personal bests in their heat. Senior Taylor Quinn had a great showing in the 1500m, posting her first time under five minutes, with a time of 4:57.80, while fellow senior Cassidy Carpenter managed to take sixth place with a time of 4:50.73. In the 3000m freshman Olivia Martin was able to walk away with a solid fifth place, posting a time of 11:01.82. The women will host the Matthew Vassar Twilight Meet at the Weinberg Track on Friday, May 1.

Men’s Track

Women’s Tennis

It was a sad and joyous occasion for the women’s team on Sunday, April 26, as they topped St. Lawrence University 8-1 for their final home match of the season. The women took a quick lead over the visitors, winning all three doubles matches. Freshman Kate Christensen took her victory at no.1, which was followed by seniors

Men’s Tennis

The men had two matches over the weekend, the first against St. Lawrence University on Saturday, April 25, which like the women was their final home game. Senior William Zhu was honored in a pre-match ceremony. The Brewers didn’t let Zhu down in their final home game, taking the match 8-1. The team took all three doubles matches, and like the women they lost the final singles match. In their final match of the season, the men traveled to Hobart College on Sunday, April 26. It was a different story heading out of the doubles competition, with the hosts up 1-2. However, the men redeemed themselves in singles, winning five of the six matches to take the day 6-3. The men will be heading to the Liberty League Championships on Saturday, May 2.

10. McElduff had an outstanding day setting a new school record for number of conversions scored in a season. The Brewers cruised past Bard in their next game, 69-0, and then defeated New Paltz in the final. The women will be sending a team to West Point’s 7s tournament, on Saturday, May 2. On Sunday, May 3, another team of 15 will head to Hofstra University.

Men’s Rugby

The men had their final game of the season on Saturday, April 25. They hosted Drew University, and set a new school record beating the visitors 105-17. Two hat-tricks were scored in this blow-out game, junior Zach Rippe was able to find his way over the line three times. Rippe had a fantastic game, and will be an exciting player to watch come next season. The other hat-trick came from the unlikely hero freshman Nick Olkovsky, who had a stellar game first at outside center and then at fly half, showing real

promise as the Brewers look for new talent to replace nine graduating seniors, who are all regular starters. The men are not finished, as they qualified for a spot in the national 7s tournament held in Denver, Colo. on May 23 and 24.

Men’s Lacrosse

The men had their final Liberty League game of the season on Saturday, April 25 against Clarkson University at Clarkson. It was a hard-fought game, which ended with the Brewers losing 11-15. After the Golden Knights took the lead 6-3 heading into the second half, and with three quick goals to start things off in the second, they had solidified a strong lead.

With things winding down, and the Knights up 15-8, the Brewers were able to shorten the margin with three late goals. The Brewers end their Liberty League run at 1-6. The Brewers play Swarthmore College on Wednesday, April 29.

Women’s Rugby

The ladies headed to a tournament hosted

by SUNY New Paltz on Sunday, April 26. The women played three games, beating the hosts SUNY New Paltz in the final by a hefty margin of 74-0. However, the women had to defeat two other teams before they could take the tournament title. In their toughest game of the day, the Brewers kicked off against University at Albany, missing seniors and captains Meg Slattery and Yael Schwartz, so junior Darienne Jones led from the front. She earned three tries on the day. Although the women took a quick lead in the beginning, Albany was bale to haul themselves back in it and the score was 17-10 Vassar, but with a try from sophomore Mary-Margaret McElduff the Brewers took their first game 22-

courtesy of Vassar Athletics

The men also competed at the Yale Springtime Invitational on Sunday. It was a day for personal bests as freshman Joel Johnson achieved a new one for himself in the 100m sprint, gaining ninth place in the process, while his classmates Peter Winkeller and Kyle Estrada were able to do the same. Junior Morrie Lam posted a personal best in the 200m with a time of 22.87, and took tenth place. In the 3000m steeplechase, freshman Noah Trueblood shaved ten seconds of his personal best scoring a time of 9:48.77. There must have been something in the water because the personal bests didn’t stop there, with yet two more Brewers also posting personal bests; sophomore Gabe Fishman and freshman Michael Scarlett both set new records for themselves in the 1500m.

The men will also be hosting the Matthew Vassar Twilight Meet on Friday.

Samantha Schapiro and Ava Sadeghi taking their matches in straight sets. Sophomore Emily Hallewell just took both sets, winning each 7-5. The lone loss came from a strong performance by the Lawrence lady at no.5, who was able to knock junior Winnie Yeates out, 6-3 and 7-6. The senior pair of Schapiro and Sadeghi received an emotional farewell ceremony at the end of the day. The women will be heading to the Liberty League Championships on Saturday, May 2, to compete for the league title.

Coach Alex Wong and Assistant Coach Nick Jasso stand with junior William Zhu in front of the Joss tennis courts. The Men’s Tennis team are headed to the Liberty League Championships this weekend.

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