The Miscellany News
Vassar College’s student newspaper of record since 1866
May 24, 2020
miscellanynews.org
Volume 153 | Issue 12
Congratulations, Class of 2020! Vassar’s senior class completes college career despite unprecedented circumstances
Commencement and its varied, storied ceremonies digitize Frankie Knuckles, Lucy Leonard, Jessica Moss
Managing Editor, Senior Editor, Editor-in-Chief
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s online classes come to a close, students and administrators across the world move onto the next unprecedented challenge: online graduation. Commencement addresses, for example, can be moved to a virtual format with relative ease, as shown by former president Barack Obama’s televised commencement address to all 2020 graduates ceremony on May 16. Harder to adapt, though, are the graduation traditions involving personalized interaction. Despite the challenge before them, organizers of this year’s affinity ceremonies have risen to the task. The Office of Alumnae/i Affairs (OAAD) recently sent out an email detailing the graduation ceremonies to be held over Zoom on Friday, May 22 and Saturday, May 23. What follows describes some of
these traditions’ origins, meanings and ways of adapting to virtual Commencement. Baccalaureate This ceremony with historical roots dating back to 1432 at Oxford University was revived at Vassar in 1991 by the Council of ALANA Seniors. A Christian ceremony in origin, Vassar’s service today celebrates multiple faiths and is open to all graduates and their families. According to the Vassar Council of ALANA seniors and baccalaureate book of 1990-2018, Vassar’s ceremony originated with an emphasis on the African American church experience. Today, it continues to center spirituality and experiences of students of color (Council of ALANA Seniors 2018-2019, The Twenty-Eighth Annual BaccaSee Traditions on page 4
Julián Aguilar/The Miscellany News.
College launches gradual rebranding Olivia Watson News Editor
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he Vassar administration recently unveiled updated rebranding guidelines for the College. The new branding revolves around one concept: “Where Edges Meet.” Along with this central theme, the College has provided guidelines for changes to color, tone words for marketing material and specific regulations for graphics. Though the project is not yet heavily publicized, the planning
for this undertaking began nearly one year ago, in the fall of 2019. According to Vice President for Communications Amanita Duga-Carroll, the project aims for cohesive marketing that better conveys the authentic Vassar experience. “Vassar has a long history and vibrant culture and we want to communicate the story of who we are and what we believe in an honest and compelling way,” she explained. “We initiated the process to help provide all of the
communicators across the College with the tools to convey our unique identity.” The result is a guide for Vassar’s communication team with instructions on how to relate the Vassar experience in a consistent way. According to the rebranding guide, the phrase “Where Edges Meet” is the guiding principle of the new branding, and is supplemented by smaller phrases: “impassioned discourse,” “collective individualism,” “naturally cultiSee Rebranding on page 4
Inside this issue
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2019-2020 in review
Our editorial team has compiled all our most viewed stories of this academic year. Flip through the highlights reel or discover stories for the first time.
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Coaching, even under quarantine Dean Kopitsky Sports Editor
Courtesy of @vassar_strong via Instagram.
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he biggest fish that Head Strength and Conditioning Coach Alice Read has caught since quarantine began were several 20inch brown trout back in April. A long-time passion of hers since catching bull-trout back in Montana, fly-fishing in the Catskills waters offers Read a cooling reprieve from the uncertainty of COVID-19. “It’s kind of therapeutic…I’m getting some sunlight. I’m getting out in nature. It’s so quiet, you can kind of forget about the crazy world we’re in right now,” she said to me on an early Friday morning Zoom call. During a typical spring, Coach Read, or simply Alice to most Vassar athletes, would be found wrapping up the 9:20 a.m. lift, but like the rest of us, she’s adjusting to a much less structured schedule. During the academic year,
Read is responsible for training the roughly 20 percent of students that are athletes. She works with them to grind back to health from the pit of injury, to improve their bodies’ strength and build their capacity to perform and prevent injury. She even plays the bad guy when it’s time for conditioning and wind sprints (not for me, of course; my sport is your sport’s conditioning). It’s safe to say Alice is a deeply respected luminary of campus. There are few obligations that Vassar students would dream of waking up early for, but her 7 a.m. and 8:15 a.m. lifts are packed with dewy-eyed athletes who line up outside the Kenyon Varsity weight room. They dare not arrive late. Some unfortunate first-years and the occasional upperclassman know the shame of getting sent See Athletics on page 6
New in Arts
Though the ‘Parks and Recreation’ special and album ‘MDLO’ have very little in common, both came at the right time, according to two reviewers.
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RECIPE COLLECTION
To delight and inspire your culinary sensibilities, we have collected official recipes for some of the Deece’s greatest hits. Read and indulge!