Misc.04.20.23

The Miscellany News

Rochelle Jordan headlines ViCE spring concert

Kathryn Carvel Copy Staff

On Saturday, April 15, Vassar College Entertainment (ViCE) held its annual Spring Music Festival at Main Drive. In the weeks leading up to the festival, Vassar students were buzzing in anticipation for headliner JPEGMAFIA. Unfortunately, he was not able to make it to Vassar after his flight was canceled due to poor weather conditions. Barrington DeVaughn Hendricks, professionally known as JPEGMAFIA, is an American rapper, singer and record producer. His music is often described as experimental hip hop, but it incorporates a wide range of music genres, such as R&B and noise rap. JPEGMAFIA has released a variety of albums and EPs. Some of the more well-known are “SCARING THE HOES” (2023), “LP!” (2021) and “Veteran” (2018). He has a loyal fanbase: In fact, two visitors came to Vassar for the explicit purpose of his performance. Anika Salem exclaimed, “JPEGMAFIA is one of the greatest minds of our time.” Echoing her statement, Nia Chetkovich described JPEGMAFIA’s style: “It’s not typical. He creates his own genre.”

Due to inclement weather, the show was delayed by an hour, with the concert beginning at 6 p.m. The night started out with a variety of student bands, artists and DJs playing, including Clementoon, Alouette Batteau, Team Mom and Serial Milf. The performers

played both covers and original work, mostly singing rock and indie rock. Along with music, there were food trucks and carnival games set up for students to enjoy.

Following the last-minute cancellation, Rochelle Jordan, originally the concert’s opener, became the headliner for the night. Jordan is a Canadian R&B artist who has released four albums to date, her first being “ROJO” (2011). After two more albums, Jordan released “Play With The Changes,” her most recent record. At the concert, in addition to playing fan-favorites, Jordan showcased some new music she will be releasing

this summer. Jordan was accompanied by DJ Chrysalis.

After last year’s controversy following Vassar students' inappropriate behavior at the Spring Music Festival with singer Indigo De Souza, there was additional pressure this year for the student body to be respectful to performers. Following JPEGMAFIA’s cancellation, ViCE wanted to ensure students would still attend and be attentive. ViCE Co-Chairs Gabi Epstein ’23 and Dora Levite ’24 said in light of the cancellation, “We found out at 2 p.m. and we had to come up with a battle plan

Spring Fest hosts local families

Emma Raff Reporter

Onthe afternoon of Friday, April 15, Vassar College and the Town of Poughkeepsie Recreation Department welcomed local families to Joss Beach, where they participated in a slew of spring-themed activities as part of a relatively new tradition: Spring Fest. Children hunted for candy-filled eggs, a local band played everything from “All About That Bass” to “I Will Survive” and student volunteers set up an intricate obstacle course across the lawn—even the Easter Bunny made an appearance.

The Recreation Department is responsible for maintaining the city’s parks, coordinating youth sports activities and running the Poughkeepsie Senior Center. The partnership between the College and the Department works to generate ideas that will benefit kids and elders in the Poughkeepsie area, occasionally utilizing Vassar’s campus for its beautiful open areas and dining options.

Executive Director of Vassar Education Collaboration John Bradley, who helped lead and plan the event, described the origins of Spring Fest in a written correspon-

Father Koi, Vassar alum, releases second album

Catherine Borthwick Live Events Chair

Last Friday, avid fans of indie-hyperpop artist Father Koi were elated following the release of her sophomore album, “everything is a dream, but it is your dream.”

Father Koi is the colorful musical persona of Kara Lu ’22, who just put out her first album since 2020. She describes it as written from her sophomore year up until right after she graduated Vassar, representing a varied collection of thoughts and realizations during that time period. The album is both musically and lyrically gorgeous, and

fully encompasses the Father Koi ethos of nostalgia and vibrancy.

I first met Lu in the fall of 2021, when both of us were seeking momentary sanctuary in the kitchen of a raucous house party on Fulton Avenue. She had just played her first live show at Vassar as Father Koi, exhilarated and gracious towards everyone who shyly came up to her afterwards to emphasize the success of her set. From her popular online presence on Instagram and Tiktok (Lu has garnered over 800,000 likes on the latter platform) to her several hundred thousand streams on Spotify, Lu is an intimidating presence from afar. Yet

up close, she is introspective and genuine, with an air of thoughtfulness that comes through in her music.

I asked Lu in advance of her latest album release about her experience at Vassar and how it has shaped her life and her career as a musician. She opened with a sentiment that most, if not all of us can relate to, which was that when she graduated, she was a drastically different person from when she first arrived at Vassar. “I had a lot of great experiences and a lot of learning experiences at Vassar,” Lu says. “Much of the content in this particular album details both types of experiences, and a few

of the songs on it, like ‘Dreamgirl’ or ‘Feel for You,’ have references to my relationship with myself, which is something I learned to cultivate during my time at Vassar.”

It’s undeniable that the album embodies a distinct feeling of nostalgia, punctuated by glittery synths and Lu’s yearning lyrics. On “New Years,” she repeats “Everything I do, I do for you,” in a melancholy yet powerful chorus. The verse of “soft spot” progresses with, “This morning I woke and you weren’t next to me/ Did my hair and ate breakfast and said it was a nice dream/ Do you know, there’s still residual you in

Vassar celebrates National Student Employment Week

Editors

Last week, the Student Employment Office and the VSA Student Labor Committee (SLC) celebrated National Student Employment Week (NSEW).

According to the Chair of the Student Labor Committee (SLC) Noon Elmostafa ’25, “NSEW is a week of recognition, appreciation and encouragement for student employees across colleges and universities celebrated the second week of April annually.” Linda Wessberg, the HRIS Analyst and

Manager for Student Employment, elaborated in an email correspondence, “The Student Employment Office has celebrated this week with daily giveaways for student employees as well as a daily raffle throughout the week for the past several years (at least), and this year VSA's SLC also held a kickoff event on Monday, April 10, 2023.”

The event included a dinner catered by Taste of India and speeches from several offices of the College. Wessberg wrote, “The Student Employment Office was honored to be invited to speak at this event to share its appreciation for the student employees,

to thank the Student Labor Committee for their work and the continued partnership we have had with them over the last few years, and to further get the word out about the giveaways the office would be offering throughout the week.” She continued, “We saw a significant increase in student visitors to our office after the kickoff event, which was fantastic!”

This year’s NSEW was particularly special, Elmostafa explained, as it was the first time SLC participated in the festivities. Charlie From ’25, VSA senator and See NSEW on page 3

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See FATHER KOI on page 7

Image courtesy of Tianchen Zhou '24.

Jacques Abou-Rizk, Charlotte Robertson News

Image courtesy of Benjamin Morgan ’25.

April

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Rochelle Jordan impresses at ViCE concert

as to how to tell everybody to make sure they would still show up and be respectful for the rest of the concert because we were concerned about that.” They also wanted to ensure that Jordan felt appreciated as the new headliner. Epstein and Levite commented on a statement from Jordan’s manager, “They were like, we play a lot of shows and this is some of the best hospitality we have ever been given.”

Although some students were disappointed by the change in events, many expressed support for Jordan’s performance: “I didn’t know what to expect because I didn’t know the artist that well,” shared Malia Weiss ’26. “But I was really impressed with her music and her stage presence. I think people were disappointed at first that JPEGMAFIA wouldn’t be performing, but everyone had a really good time and got into it.” Throughout her set, students danced, sang and cheered enthusiastically. Acadia LeQuire ’26 noted Jordan’s performance quality: “Her stage presence was incredible, along with her set.” Liam Wells ’23 also commented, “Her production was amazing.”

Jordan was reportedly an engaging entertainer, for which students were appreciative.

“I was standing in the front row, and she was interacting with the crowd, which was really fun. She gave us little heart hands, which was really cute,” said Weiss.

Despite the unforeseen circumstances, the night was a resounding success. Sadie Keesbury ’26 [Disclaimer: Keesbury is Crossword Editor for The Miscellany News], a member of ViCE who helped set up the concert, commented, “It was generally a very happy crowd fixated on Rochelle Jordan and loving the rain.”

Rain persisted throughout the concert, but many members of the student body embraced the weather, claiming it added to the atmosphere. Weiss said, “I was a little worried about the rain at first, but it added to the whole experience. I felt like I was in a music video.” LeQuire echoed this sentiment, saying, “The best part was the fine mist of rain all night.”

Even though JPEGMAFIA was not able to attend the Spring Music Festival, Epstein and Levite confirmed in an interview that he will return before the end of the school year: “We can’t tell you exactly yet, but JPEG will be confirmed coming soon, before the end of the year.”

Student-workers honored during appreciation week

co-founder of the Working Students Coalition (WSC), explained that the entire week was planned by SLC. They expressed the importance of the VSA’s support and care for Vassar student-workers: “Oftentimes student workers go underpaid and underappreciated, so we’re there to let them know we care. We also used the week to inform everyone of their rights as workers.”

Tables in the College Center provided informational posters and stickers about student labor rights, in addition to hundreds of goody bags, coffee from Crafted Kup and donuts from Dunkin’.

Elmostafa added, “Student workers are an integral part of campus life, and they often perform a variety of critical roles, including office work, research assistance, library services, food service and more.” Student workers provide such services while juggling school work and extracurricular activities. “NSEW can help raise awareness

of the importance of providing students with meaningful work experiences and opportunities for growth and development,” Elmostafa commented.

Elmostafa noted that there are over 1,500 student-employees at Vassar, and it’s vital we recognize their invaluable service and promote their well-being and development. She said, “Per the new restructure, the Student Labor Committee will be renamed Student Financial Affairs next academic year. We wish to make this an annual celebration that VSA Student Financial Affairs participates in.”

Wessberg emphasized, “NSEW is an incredibly important week because it gives us the ability to show our appreciation for our student employees who make an invaluable contribution to our community here at Vassar. We truly appreciate and value all the hard work our student employees perform here, and we want to ensure each year that it does not go unnoticed.”

Continued from NSEW on page 1

Images courtesy of Tianchen Zhou '24.

Image courtesy of Benjamin Morgan '25.

Spring Fest returns to campus after hiatus

dence, saying, “The Spring Festival was actually conceived by the former House Fellow (Collette Cann) and the house team of Davison House. They received a grant from the Good Neighbors Fund to hold a spring festival, and the Town of Poughkeepsie Parks and Rec Department publicized it.” When asked how this year’s activities were arranged, Bradley responded, “After the COVID closure of the campus and the new house teams feeling they could no longer manage the event, the Town Parks and Rec Department brought the festival back, and last year, the town held the event at Greenvale Park which is about a mile from campus. Some Vassar students volunteered, and the Town Parks and Rec Director inquired whether it could be held again on the Vassar campus, and that's how the current plan came about.”

First-year Julia Weinberg [Disclaimer: Weinberg is Assistant Copy Editor for The Miscellany News], who volunteers through Bradley’s Vassar English Language Learners Outreach Program, responded to a Sunday email advertising the event and offered to help out with the festivities. She and other volunteers assisted with the egg hunt, laying out hundreds of eggs over Joss Beach, and managed the Easter Bunny’s stand. “It’s cute because I think some of the little kids really don’t know what’s going on, but some of the older ones are helping them. It's really very sweet,” she said. Other forms of entertainment included a Picasso-themed arts and crafts booth run by the Loeb and a petting zoo.

Another student volunteer, Beatrice Mes-

saris ’26, signed up to facilitate the festival through an organization called Engage PK, which connects Vassar students to events that take place in neighboring areas. “I really like being around the kids. That’s probably been my highlight so far, being able to interact with the little guys. They’re just so excitable and it's finally warm out, and I get it. I'm excited too. You know it's not really ‘for’ anything for me. I just kinda wanted to [volunteer] so I did.”

The festival had a great turnout this year, with hundreds of happy kids playing together while their parents took pictures and talked amongst themselves. In regards to the significance of Vassar’s involvement in events such as Spring Fest, Bradley stated, “Vassar has a long-standing relationship with the town on many levels, and its presence in the town is a unique feature, so fostering a relationship opens up the campus to the community for everyone's benefit…we welcome those opportunities when we are able to do it.”

The number of student volunteers was also incredibly high this year, with students from dozens of different organizations, groups and teams coming together to set up and participate in the festival. Logan Scott ’24, a Vassar basketball player, spent his time at Spring Fest playing outdoor sports with his teammates and excited kids. When asked how he got involved with the festival activities, he responded, “Our coach, Ryan Mee of the men’s basketball team. He’s super into the community, likes to give back, likes to reach out and really involve kids of the Arlington/Poughkeepsie area in youth sports and just create an opportunity for

them to play basketball and get out of the house.” At their coach’s request, players on the team showed up to Spring Fest to teach and play with the kids on an outdoor basketball hoop. Scott appreciates that the festival allowed him to hang out with his teammates and interact with the kids. “I like

seeing their smiling faces—just laughing all over the place,” he said.

Following the success of Spring Fest 2023, it’s likely that the festival will become an official annual tradition, hopefully staying close to Vassar’s campus so that students and faculty can continue to take part in the fun.

Vassar students react to potential ban of mifepristone

OnApril 7, 2023, Texas U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled to suspend the FDA’s nearly 23-year approval of the medical abortion pill mifepristone. The judge sided with Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy group, supporting its claim that the drug is unsafe for consumption and was too hastily greenlit by the FDA. Texas then issued an injunction to block the FDA’s approval of mifepristone in one week. The ruling, which could drastically impact access to medical abortions across the country, drew uproar among pro-choice advocates and incited fear among abortion providers across America, according to a report by NPR.

Mifeprex (generically referred to as mifepristone) was approved by the FDA in 2000 after conclusions that the drug was effective in terminating pregnancy and safe to use. In 2007, the FDA re-validated the approval of Mifeprex under the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS). REMS sets the requirements necessary to safely prescribe the drug, namely that the pill may be taken to terminate a pregnancy through 10 weeks of gestation. Mifeprex’s REMS has since been amended several times, such as in 2019 to create a shared REMS for all Mifeprex products (including generic Mifepristone Tablets) and again in January 2023 to tighten safety regulations and approve sale by certified pharmacies, according to the FDA.

Almost immediately after the initial decision, U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice of Washington State issued a separate ruling to block Judge Kacsmaryk’s suspen-

sion, ordering the FDA to keep the drug on the market. Washington’s verdict made it possible for the temporary continued use of mifepristone in 17 states and Washington D.C. until the Texas decision was to take effect one week after the initial ruling. These conflicting cases paved the way for Supreme Court intervention. CNBC reported that on Friday, April 14, the Supreme Court decided to temporarily uphold the FDA’s ruling, protecting the abortion drug. The order, signed by Justice Samuel Alito, calls for the lower court’s rulings to be placed on hold until this Wednesday, April 19, at 11:59 p.m. Alito, who handles emergency filings from Texas, announced his decision mere hours before Kacsmaryk’s suspension was set to take effect. However, this temporary save should not be cause for celebration. According to NPR, Alito was part of the majority ruling in overturning Roe v. Wade last summer, writing a 78page opinion stating Roe’s arguments were weak. The Supreme Court currently holds a 6-3 conservative majority, meaning that when it decides whether to maintain broad availability of mifepristone, the court will likely vote in favor of limiting access.

With these rulings and the overwhelmingly conservative opinion of the Supreme Court, there is a feeling of great uncertainty among many abortion activists and left-leaning states. Several states have announced they are beginning to stockpile another abortion pill, misoprostol. Typically taken in tandem with mifepristone, misoprostol is significantly less effective when taken on its own, Planned Parenthood explains. However, with little options left, many are turning to the lesser pill for hope. According to NPR, in New York, Governor Kathy Hochul announced

last week that the state is purchasing a five-year supply of misoprostol, approximately 150,000 pills. And California has announced plans to acquire an emergency supply of nearly two million doses.

So, what does all this mean? Well, for now, mifepristone is still available for use and is the safest and most effective medical abortion pill. Restrictions rule that the pill is available from certified physicians by prescription-only in most U.S. states (including New York). According to the CDC, more than 50 percent of abortions are medical, as opposed to surgical. This means that half of all abortions require the use of mifepristone. Of course, there are alternative ways to terminate a pregnancy, but few are as safe and non-invasive as the pill. Ultimately, this legal battle could limit availability of the medication, even where abortion remains legal in the U.S.

Vassar Voices for Planned Parenthood (VVPP) president Hannah Oppenheim ’23 discussed the ways students at Vassar have been fighting for abortion rights.

“Last week, we tabled with Baldwin’s gynecologist and gender-affirming services provider to educate students about this battle,” said Oppenheim. “We also provided individuals with resources to take action, including petitions to demand the reversal of the ban and the impeachment of Judge Kacsmaryk.” Oppenheim noted that drug manufacturers advised the Supreme Court not to second-guess the FDA’s knowledge and expertise in approving mifepristone over 20 years ago. “VVPP urges students to research this issue further and join us in this fight.”

VVPP members Louisa Gear ’25 and Talia Yustein ’26 have some ideas on what students can do to help. “Right now, VVPP

is really focused on getting people the most updated information about what’s going on nationally and what’s available in our area and on our campus,” said Gear. Last week, the organization tabled in the College Center with information on mifepristone, even providing specific action items such as links to petitions for students to sign. Getting the word out is essential. “Most of the people who came over to our table had either not heard about the case and ban or seemed ambivalent,” says Yustein. “I think most people on campus support the right to have an abortion by pill, but there aren’t a lot of widespread conversations happening.” So, what can a Vassar student do to help? Yustein believes: “Staying informed and, as tired as it sounds, donating to Planned Parenthood, signing petitions, and holding elected officials accountable can be, in my opinion, some of the best ways to fight back against these kinds of anti-abortion measures.”

Emma Adams Reporter

Karen Mogami/The Miscellany News.

Emma Raff/The Miscellany News.

Journeying through comics and graphic novels

Allen Hale Assistant Arts Editor

Comics and graphic novels form a unique literary genre often overlooked by readers. The delicately constructed interplay between text and image requires multifaceted talent on the part of their creators. The works of the genre range from the simplest comic strips to sprawling works with intricate stories and themes. Although I grew up reading many books in these styles, my recent engagement with literature has involved them far less often. I wish to revisit comics and graphic novels and examine my personal history with them, in order to highlight their unique power as a storytelling medium and defend their artistic merit.

My introduction to comics was largely in the form of syndicated comic strips, like “Garfield,” “Foxtrot” and “Calvin and Hobbes.” As a kid, I would check these works out from the local library or buy used copies from book sales, amassing a solid collection of works which I would continuously read and re-read as casual enjoyment. These books provided me with laughs and supplemented the novels I found to be a bit more strenuous, forming a substantial chunk of the material I read. I continued to regularly read my favorite strips through middle school, which often introduced me to pop culture phenomena I would have otherwise been shut out from. For instance, after my parents got rid of cable in favor of Netflix, my introduction to “The Simpsons” came largely in the form of their comic publications. Favorites among my family members, like “The Far Side,” were a com-

mon source of connection through shared jokes and references; my grandmother still sends me images from “Far Side” Facebook groups. On this level, comics don’t resemble the masterworks of narrative found in literature, yet they still fill a role within our reading lives by giving us an outlet to enjoy something more digestible than the usual palette of novels and class readings. Although it's been many years since I actively read these strips, cracking open a collection in between my explorations of literature and philosophy would certainly make my passion for reading feel more continuously fresh and rewarding.

My interest in comics also led to me to create my own pieces when I was younger, both independently and through the help of howto books bought by my parents. As I grew older and became less interested in drawing, my passion for reading comics also waned. The two-sided artistic requirements of the genre—illustration and written word—felt interlocked, and aws my interest in one dissipated, the appreciation I held for comics did as well. By the time I was in high school, my interest in reading was limited mostly to works of literature and non-fiction; I saw my hobby less as one to enjoy and more as something that would “culture” me. Although I have since re-examined the way I pursue reading outside of the classroom, this period of time was noticeably barren compared to my previous interests in comics. Late elementary/ middle school favorites like “Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales” and “Bone” receded into the background of my mind, as I viewed them as something I had outgrown. Although this may have been true of the style and target au-

dience for something like “Hazardous Tales,” it seemed unlikely that I would abandon a genre that had been key to my reading interests for years, especially when the content was still suitable for my age.

The creative and narrative impact “Bone” had on my tastes followed me continually after my first completion of the series, and I have re-read the work in sections or its entire-

the page. This general principle holds true of any engaging graphic novel, the best of which equal the storytelling prowess of literature and the visual achievements of art combined. The notion that each frame itself should constitute an individual work of art is perhaps best exemplified by detailed manga like “Berserk” and “Vagabond.” Panels contain a stunning amount of work requiring endless hours of labor for dozens and dozens of volumes; their beauty as illustrations is admirable even outside of their use in the story. Within the context of the plot, these artworks elevate the emotions delivered by the narrative, forming a reciprocal relationship by which each artistic element reinforces and exalts the other. When combined the artistry and narrative mutually support one another in order to more completely command the narrative, yet their skill is still impressive enough to be enjoyed independently of each other.

ty multiple times since. However, I recently realized that this old habit had been absent for the past five years, even though the world of “Bone" still felt fresh within my mind. The series makes excellent use of its panel format to enable a seamless flow of action, accompanied by the emotive expressions of characters brimming with life. Readers work as active collaborators with the text in order to piece together each boxed moment through time and space, forming a continuous series of events with palpable motion that jumps from

At the time of writing, it has been around one and a half years since I have read any sort of comic or graphic novel due school and interest in other literature, despite my continued belief in their value as reading material. I would avoid concluding with mere nostalgia or advocating for a return to particular works that I have outgrown. Instead, I encourage all readers to open themselves up to the world of graphic novels and embrace the possibilities that lie beyond their usual representation as puerile works below literature. Whether it's something humorous and lighthearted or expansive and engrossing, comics and graphic novels deserve more attention from readers of all backgrounds and persuasions, myself included.

“Within the context of the plot, these artworks elevate the emotions delivered by the narrative, forming a reciprocal relationship by which each artistic element reinforces and exalts the other."

ARTS

'Workin' 9 to 5!': Reflecting on student theater

There’s nothing quite like taking the stage for the first time during the opening number. The rush of adrenaline and emotions is unmatched. Ever since I was young, I knew that I wanted to take part in a craft that is like no other. The idea of stepping onto a stage in front of all to see in an intimate atmosphere will never get old. Performing in “9 to 5” with FWA has been an experience I’ll cherish for the rest of my theater career.

As I walk into Rockefeller Hall, the sound of students’ singing voices fills my ears. This is the epicenter of theater production here at Vassar College. From basses to lyrical sopranos, a hodgepodge of different music echoes through the halls—if you’re looking for rehearsal, you’re in the right place. Ever since freshman year, I’ve enjoyed partaking in student theater. I have performed in three productions with musical theater club Future Waitstaff of America (FWA) and have enjoyed every single one of them— especially “9 to 5”.

“9 to 5” is a musical comedy that tells the satirical story of three women banding together to turn the tables on their sexist boss. Auditioning was quite the process, especially because the show title was ever-changing due to rights issues. After selecting “9 to 5,” character study began. I’ve been acting since I was five years old, so I understand the importance of understanding who your character is and why they act the way they do. Violet, Judy and Doralee all come from different walks of life, but unite under one common goal: bringing justice to women in an unfair work environment. Violet Newstead, portrayed by Kenza Squali-Houssaini ’24, has been working for 15 years and watches men receive their promotions year after year, yet she never received hers. Cameron Long ’23 plays Judy Bernly, a recent divorcee struggling to find her way in the workforce with no previous experience. I

portray Doralee Rhoades, Dolly Parton’s iconic role in the 1980 film. A beautiful, happily married country girl, Doralee faces office harassment from her misogynistic boss. He tells everyone that they’re having an affair, and although untrue, the other women despise her for it. However, despite being judged based on how she looks, Doralee remains positive and lighthearted. As the discriminatory and inappropriate treatment continues for all three women, they decide to join forces and become best friends in the process.

Rehearsals in Rockefeller Hall, the Aula and the Susan Stein Shiva Theater have been both grueling and exciting—as we approach opening night, we are only kicking it into high gear. Working with an incredible team of talented Vassar students—Sophie Wood ’23, Mrin Somani ’23, Chelsea Zak ’23, Kelly Hatfield ’23, and Evan Sweitzer ’25—we have been able to create a piece of theater that is not only comical, but inspires you to create change.

An enormous part of this production is Wood, my director. She has directed all of the performances that I have been in since my first year, and has focused on building community through art. Wood began her theater career in 2008. “I went through the whole ‘I’m going to be a Broadway STAR’ phase and then realized quickly that I didn’t see people who looked like me on Broadway. It’s sad, but the truth; the lack of representation really killed the Broadway performer dream for me. When I was a freshman in high school, my middle school drama teacher asked me and a friend to return to help students direct the show that was going up at the middle school that fall.” says Wood. The rest was history.

Wood has an interesting approach in starting her projects. “Each director will probably tell you something different but my process begins with reading the script and then watching other productions of the same show. I’m very much a visual learner, but I also like to get my initial thoughts written down before I see what others have done with the materi-

al. I think it’s important that you understand historically what’s been done so you get context,” she describes. She takes notes on what has been blocked before and searches for new meanings in the material to create an original approach. She asks herself, “What are lines that really stand out to me?” and, “What are visuals or set design or costume design I think would be interesting to incorporate?” But her ideas really flourish once she meets with the team and everyone contributes to the comprehensive artistic vision. Wood also makes it a priority to sit down and talk with her cast to understand nuanced character choices: “It’s an ongoing process, and I don’t think making

the production ‘your own’ ever stops, even when the curtain opens.” She adds, “Each performance is simply a capture in time of your vision, but that vision is always evolving and growing as you work with new people, have different audiences, and learn new things about your show, your cast, and yourself,” concludes Wood.

Creating this production has been a labor of love from everyone involved. The entire cast and crew are incredibly talented individuals that have made this musical charming. You can come see “9 to 5” Thursday, April 20 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, April 22 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Emma Lawrence Columnist

Emma Lawrence/The Miscellany News.

Step into the nostalgic world of Father Koi in new album

my sleep.” The songs on the album gush unexpressed feelings, and emphasize lost chances and the ones who got away. “If you were sitting beside here in my bed,” Lu sings in a sugary sweet melody on “bittersweet,” “Could I lay beside your pretty head?”

The nostalgic Father Koi universe that Lu has cultivated since her time at Vassar extends well past her music; Lu designs most of her own album covers, makes her own clothes and merchandise, creates popular online videos, and is hugely passionate

me I dress like I’m from this ’90s magazine called FRUiTS.”

Listening to Father Koi is a journey into an immersive and colorful world where plastering every surface of your bedroom wall with posters, stickers and letters is the norm. (Fans lovingly compare her music to eating Fruit Loops.) “I love mementos, nostalgia, and creating things, and when you combine those things, I guess you get my universe,” Lu says. “I think everyone has a universe of their own, but mine is just more visible because of the way I like to have my things around me, whether they’re worn on my body or hung around my environment.”

about fashion. “I think I’ve always been very interested in color and styling things in unconventional ways,” says Lu. “I went through a phase where I only dressed like I was from the sixties, and now people tell

“everything is a dream, but it is your dream” is an ode to being in touch with yourself and never letting anything— whether past lovers or college memories— be forgotten. When asked what advice she’d give to current Vassar students, Lu said with confidence: “Hang out with people you wouldn’t normally talk to. Push yourself to try new things and keep an open mind. Something important I recently learned seems like the most simple thing in the world: Figure out what you want and go from there. I didn’t know what I wanted for a while. I still kind of don’t, but at least I’m thinking about it more. Life isn’t linear, and neither is success.”

Embroidered samplers of the past transcend artistic boundaries

Julia Pippenger Guest Columnist

This weekend, the Loeb Art Center opened an exhibit in the Spotlight Gallery displaying artwork that has never before been hung on its walls. The installation, entitled “Between the Lines: Innovation and Expression in Women’s Sewing Samplers,” explores the cultural significance of embroidered samplers. Organized by Adjunct Assistant of Art History Caroline Culp and Ida-Rose Chabon ’24, the show aims to reconfigure public perception

of the art form. Embroidery, a decorative art dominated by women, has long been pigeonholed as a mere craft. Art historians often consider the decorative arts unworthy of the analysis and reverence ascribed to fine art. When a woman makes dinner, she is a dutiful wife. When a man makes dinner, he is an innovative chef. This incongruence is not limited to cuisine; it has long defined the relationship between women and the practice of making art. In particular, embroidered samplers have been continually dismissed as the formulaic, unremarkable work of upper-class women. The

new exhibit challenges these conventions and presents embroidered samplers as a legitimate, unique art form. A variety of samplers are juxtaposed on the walls of the Loeb, pointing out the sly deviations and personal touches each artist has included in her sampler. Examining these differences confirms the sampler as a legitimate art form beyond convention.

A young British student named Ann Hall took great care when creating her sampler in 1800. The floral border, geometric composition, and decorative symbols are consistent with other embroidered works at the time. As you look closer, you start to see details in color, subject matter, and composition that deviate from the others. For example, Hall riffs on the imagery of Adam and Eve in her sampler. Rather than a traditional portrayal of two nude figures, Hall costumes them as the Harlequin Jester and Colombina, which the piece’s label identifies as two very recognizable figures to British audiences at that time. Using intricate needlework, she crafts a leotard with a diamond motif for the jester and a patterned skirt for Colombina. By transforming Adam and Eve into the Harlequin Jester and Colombina, Hall uses biblical imagery to express her personal experiences at the theater. As the sampler states, Hall was only twelve years old when she stitched it.

“Between the Lines” contains several other samplers with backstories as unique as Hall’s. One piece, created in Mexico by student Feodora Cerón in 1857, shows a fusion of indigenous artistic traditions with Catholic imagery. The label informs the viewer that nuns taught embroidery in Mexico and Central America in Catholic schools. Ostensibly, students modified the European tradition with details of their own cultures and identities. Céron has formulated her sampler differently from its American and European counterparts, consisting of thin bands filled with individual patterns stretching across the length of the cotton. She chose to include songbirds, grapes, and a variety of flowers and vines. Many

small animals are tucked away between the bands of flora, including what seems to be a household pet next to a multicolored house. The house, the inclusion of text, and the decorative symbols are reminiscent of Hall’s piece, but the bright hues of violet, cornflower blue, pink, and crimson set Cerón’s work apart from Hall’s neutral tones.

“A variety of samplers are juxtaposed on the walls of the Loeb, pointing out the sly deviations and personal touches each artist has included in her sampler. Examining these differences confirms the sampler as a legitimate art form beyond convention.”

Although the sampler may have started as a practical exercise, it grew to reflect the quality of a woman’s education and contain religious and moral messages. By examining the work of a young teenage girl, we can nearly predict her future, for her literacy and suitability for homemaking could be easily judged by her embroidery. Despite the rigid association with social class and gender roles, women and girls found a way to express their personal beliefs, interests, and affiliations through subtle alterations and decorative additions. Perhaps these artistic choices could be considered a quiet rebellion, a reassertion of each woman’s personhood through the very work that was thought to strip it away. The first installment of “Between the Lines” is on view until June 1, and a second series of samplers will be viewable from June 24 to Sept. 3.

“'everything is a dream, but it is your dream' is an ode to being in touch with yourself and never letting anything— whether past lovers or college memories—be forgotten."

Image courtesy of Sonia Tsang.

Ganesh Pillai/The Miscellany News.

FEATURES

Detailing the histories of tree-planting festivities at Vassar

Emma Adams Columnist

As the spring semester draws to a close, Vassar’s campus reflects new beginnings. Blooming all around campus are more than 230 species of trees that call Vassar home. From elms to oaks, magnolias to maples, the arboretum is flooded in green. Campus did not always look this way, though. As hard as it may be for current students to imagine, Vassar was nearly treeless at its founding. But Matthew Vassar’s vision of campus was not a barren one, and thus, he devoted himself to transforming the landscape, one tree at a time. Beginning with the Class of 1868, a new tradition took hold to change the very ground Vassar rests upon. Each year, the sophomore class claims an existing tree or plants a new one, making their mark on the campus’s environment.

I dove deep down the rabbit hole that is Vassar’s Archives and Special Collections Library to better understand this century-old tradition. In 1959, reporter for The Poughkeepsie New Yorker, Helen Myers, detailed the history of tree planting festivities at Vassar. “The Class of 1867 did the first planting,” wrote Myers. Vassar’s first graduates commemorated their time at school by planting ivy on Main Building as a part of their Class Day activities (the Class Day tradition was sadly retired in 1954). The ivy promptly died, and thus the second graduating Class of 1868 planted the very first class tree, a swamp white oak that rested along Main Drive.

Previous tree ceremonies have seen students dressing up in costume, putting on plays, reading poems and singing class marching songs. There was an air of mischief and strangeness about many of the early ceremonies. Myers writes: “As early as 1884, ‘The Vassar Miscellany’ was saying that the sophomore tree ceremonies should be secret rites, observed only by the class concerned. They did become secret in the next decade, with the inevitable result. The freshman did their best to find out where the ceremonies were to be conducted and to break them up if possible.” Some other ceremonies were not so secret. “One morning, at 4 o’clock,” writes Myers, “the entire campus was aroused by a flash of red fire…” Members of the Class of 1902 were dancing around their tree in bright red robes, with flashing swords and gleaming helmets.

This disturbance caused quite the stir among faculty, who demanded the happenings of all future tree ceremonies be posted on college bulletins at least 24 hours prior to them occurring.

100 years ago in 1923, members of the Class of 1925 were preparing to plant their class tree. They claimed a Norway spruce located south of “students” (which I deciphered to be in front of the Deece). Unfortunately, the tree seems to have died sometime in the last 100 years. But thankfully the Class of 1925’s tree and ceremony were well-documented. One photo from special collections, pictured below (figure 1), shows a sophomore member of the Class of 1925 in front of the class tree. Notes written on the back of the photo describe the ceremony. “Harriet Taylor, our class president, read us a lovely poem written for us by Miss Potts. Miss Potts would rise early in the mornings to practice our marching song! Margaret Davidson designed the owl and Lita Garrison the seal.” I confirmed through “The Vassarion” (the Vassar yearbook) that Taylor and Davidson were members of the Class of 1925. Miss Potts was revealed to be Abbie Findlay Potts, to whom this edition of the Vassarion is dedicated, most likely an employee of the school.

Figure 2 gives more insight into what the ceremony looked like 100 years ago. Pictured in front of what is currently the Deece, the Class of 1925 is gathered in costume performing some sort of play. Written on the back of this photo were the names of the women in the photo, including mention that Margaret Davidson made the dragon costume pictured in the center. There is a brief written description of the events, including this remark: “Really the best ceremonies given in years!”

Figure 3 pictures the Class of 1907’s tree ceremony. Here, the class gathers in a circle around the tree, performing some sort of ritual with a wreath of flowers.

The Class of 2025’s tree is a flowering dog-

wood, chosen by the students themselves. Also known by its scientific name, cornus florida, the flowering dogwood is one of the most beautiful trees native to the northeast corner of the country. Blooming with delicate white or pink petals each spring, the tree showcases lush green leaves in the summer and striking scarlet foliage in autumn. Reaching nearly 25 feet in height, the tree is often planted for decoration due to its picturesque colors and attractive shape. The flowering dogwood is deciduous and will thus contribute to Vassar’s annual blanket of red, orange and yellow leaves in the fall. Students can find the species already populated across campus, such as near Pratt House or clustered in a WWII memorial in front of the Deece.

Now you may be wondering: What does the sophomore class have in store for this year’s ceremony? Well, the Class of 2025 have been hard at work planning for the festivities, which will take place on Friday, April 28 (which is Arbor Day, the national holiday for celebrating and planting trees). The Class of ’25’s flowering dogwood will be planted on Chapel lawn, a location chosen by the Class of ’25 Tree Planting Committee. Festivities will take place from 3 to 6 p.m. with the official planting ceremony commencing at 4 p.m. Matthew Vassar’s famous spade (used when laying the first cornerstone of Vassar’s foundation) will be used again this year, as per tra-

dition, to shovel dirt onto our tree. President Elizabeth Bradley will briefly share opening remarks followed by statements given by each member of the Class of ’25’s tree planting committee. To kickoff Founder’s Day weekend, enjoy an afternoon of lawn games, ice cream and a scavenger hunt, exploring previous class trees across campus.

Committee member Clio Maya-Johnson ’25 notes the significance of the scavenger hunt: “We thought of organizing a scavenger hunt among past class trees to give current students an opportunity to tap into this living piece of Vassar history, while paying homage to the playful side of it all.” The scavenger hunt will commence at 3 p.m. and end with the opening ceremonies at 4 p.m. “A trove of memories lie beneath our feet on Vassar’s campus,” says Maya-Johnson, referring to the time capsule that is buried under each class tree. This year’s ceremony will also give members of the Class of 2023 the opportunity to think about what mementos to include in their capsule, which is to be buried under their tree during Senior Week.

As reported by The Miscellany News, by 1915 the tree ceremonies had “increased in importance until now they are regarded as the most momentous and sacred ceremony in the life of a class.” This year’s ceremony has hopes of bringing back some of the mystery and excitement fostered by tree planting’s past.

Choose Peeta or Gale or flatbreads

There I was, a mere silhouette in the doorway of the Deece, staring down destiny. My hair blew back in an invisible wind, whipping in a glorious crescendo of light and color. My cheekbones gained another dimension, glistening with a sheen of sweat as I entered. I wasn’t exactly walking through the Deece, and my pace was far from a mere walk. I was trotting—if not galloping—past the packed booths. Before me, students—intimidating folk, standing haphazardly in line, necks craning towards the grilled cheeses before them. The roar of their stomachs’ churning rose up in a moblike cry. The sound wafted like a sickening scent, but I was not deterred. I was a hungry, husky Anderson Cooper, moving boldly, Voice Memos app in hand, with a question on my tongue… Peeta or Gale?

Why this question? “The Hunger Games”—which is celebrating its 15th anniversary of initial publication circa 2008—has

recently resurged in popularity online due to its month-long stint on Netflix in March. The series, adapted into four blockbuster movies starring Jennifer Lawrence, features Katniss, a teenager navigating a sadistic dystopian society, and the revolution of which she unexpectedly becomes the figurehead.

Katniss’ two love interests, Peeta Mellark and Gale Hawthorne, captivated and divided a fanbase in both the books and screen adaptations. Students had a lot to say on the honest merits of both. “Gale is rude, he’s phony and all he cares about is like nothing that Katniss cares about,” Kieran McByrne ’25 shares. “I hate Gale. He literally has no good qualities.” Sam Shelly ’26 had a slightly different opinion: “I think Peeta is a punk-ass bitch who is only good for painting himself and throwing bread. Gale could hunt, could survive, Peeta was just like born into a fucking bakery.”

Many students quickly brought up that Gale was responsible for the death of Katniss’ sister, Prim, and that their choice of Peeta was more because they were “Anti-Gale.” This didn’t deter Leo Valenti ’26.

“Team Gale,” he opened with. “I think he’s hotter than Peeta in the movie specifically.” Deece-goers often preferred Gale in their youth, only to mature and recant their support.

I had posed the same question to some latenight library goers, only for a different query to snowball. “Pita or naan?” Julia Colón ’25 repeated back to me when I prompted her with “Peeta or Gale?” An honest misunderstanding opened up a new and interesting deep dive into the world of flatbreads. Most students openly preferred naan, except one lone voice, Charlotte Sand ’26. “I really like pita chips!” No comment on her views towards naan.

Some souls sought to turn the dialogue away from the two main love interests. Erin Kaufman ’26 steered the conversation to District 4’s Finnick Odair: “I believe that I am actually team Finnick. He should have been the predominant male character that actually carried the series.” Once the topic of other characters in the franchise came up, people weren’t hesitant to pile on: “I also would like to add the tree bitch,” Ashley Hunt ’26 pro-

posed. “What's her name… Joanna.” Henryk Kessel ’25 singled out the actress who played Katniss as the center of his affection. “I think Jennifer Lawrence did a wonderful job.”

After successful trips to both the Deece and Library, I believed my work to be done. I closed my Voice Memos app and slipped off the extroverted mask that had been leeching on my face. The Pulitzer would be arriving momentarily. It was so entertaining to revisit what I had been so passionately invested in during my early teen years.

But little did I know the truth of what was to come. I would be shocked to find that the vast majority of my recordings would actually be garbled background noise, a direct result of my inability to use the Voice Memos app successfully. Student stories, anecdotes, a full-on friend group brawl had failed to be recorded as it happened. I took this loss in stride, however, because what better way to end the semester than with the promise to return in August, app in hand once again, to ask an even more pressing fandom question: Edward or Jacob? We surely will win the Pulitzer then.

Luke Jenkins Assistant Features Editor

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3.

Images courtesy of Vassar Special Collections.

Diving into Misc archives with Optical Character Recognition

Rose Golick Guest Columinst

Aftera stint of working as a phone-athon caller in the Office of Advancement last semester, I discovered a new work study opportunity that better suits my schedule and skillset—or, more specifically, doesn’t include me awkwardly trying to convince alumni to give money to Vassar. (Big shoutout to all of the phone-a-thon workers who are more skilled at that than I was!)

While some of my friends justifiably boast about being paid to play badminton or simply watch basketball and volleyball games for their work study, no one job can compare to mine: Digital Initiatives Assistant. My sole responsibilities can be described in two words: text correcting. Essentially, I look at old, archived newspapers and magazines and compare images of the original text to a computer generated copy of the text. The process in which a programmed software reads an image, for example one page of The Miscellany News, and converts it into a text file is referred to as Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The software is designed to recognize the shapes

of letters and symbols to copy into a digital text file. Most of the time, the program is fairly accurate, and my edits are limited to correcting miscapitalized letters or adding in missed punctuation. However, at times when, say, the font is slightly weird or a symbol is unrecognized, the translations can be completely incoherent. For example, a simple dotted line was once copied as “I!AI. QEXJJLiiiiMiTED^B.” This digital copy of the text allows old, pre-internet resources to be easily searchable online. At first description, this may seem like the most tedious job possible, but stick with me here.

The first major pro of this position is that I was able to set my own hours. The second is that it’s a remote job, and while the novelty of remote work may have worn off for most, I am happy to be able to work anywhere from the Old Bookstore to the sunny Nircle to my own cozy bed. And, finally, the third major pro is that it’s surprisingly interesting.

So far, I have only edited Vassar Miscellany News issues. The issues available for editing in the library’s digital archive range from 1914 to 2013. I initially started out with the oldest articles to take a look at Vassar’s older history. And while it was interesting to read about rules for visiting male guests, or how Founder’s Day originally consisted of lectures and speeches, as well as seeing names of potential nepo-babies of the past, I was particularly excited to check out more recent issues. I skipped forward nine decades and started looking at issues from 2004. The articles were nearly six times as long as the articles from 1914 and consisted of many of the same sections as the current Miscellany: News, Features, Opinions, Arts and Sports.

The most recent issue I have edited, Volume CXXXIX, Number 1, published on Sept. 10, 2004, has been one of my favorites. Some notable mentions from the issue include an article on changing fashion trends where the author, William Chang, wrote: “If you…wear leggings, velvet, tweed or corduroy blazers, vintage t-shirts, low-rise medium flared jeans, or large, gaudy, but not necessarily tacky, sunglasses, you might be a hipster.” I wholeheartedly second this statement and believe that at least half of Vassar’s population can still be categorized as hipsters. Another noteworthy mention is the discovery that condoms and other safe sex products have been available to students on the doors of Student Fellows for over two decades—however, I wonder if they were actually kept stocked back then. The Sports section, surprisingly, took up four whole pages, one of which consisted of an article I took particular offense to as a Brooklyn Nets fan. Gabe Mosca, guest writer for the “Out of Bounds” column (a column focused on important happenings in the greater sports

world outside of Vassar), disparaged former New Jersey Net player and current Brooklyn Nets announcer and analyst, Richard Jefferson, saying: “Richard Jefferson is perhaps the worst outside shooter I have ever seen in my life. In high school, we had a crosseyed kid who was 70 lbs overweight with a self-done tattoo on his arm (a girl’s name no less), and he was a better shooter than Richard Jefferson. Nice shooting, Dick.” And, finally, I saved the best mention for last: a short list of news briefs that could be pulled directly from any of today’s issues of The Miscellany News including headlines such as: “Beer keg found in Main,” “Bike seat stolen outside Main,” “Security responds to crowd at Town Houses” and “Students found on Chicago Hall roof.”

All of the old issues contain fun little looks into Vassar’s past that are at times shocking or right on target for a Vassar publication. If this sounds at all interesting to you ( and why wouldn’t it?), anyone can look at and even edit archived Vassar publications at newspaperarchives.vassar.edu.

'Politics of Desire' film series sparks dynamic conversations

Professor of English Hiram Perez recently ran a three-part film series entitled “The Politics of Desire: AIDS Activism & New Queer Cinema,” followed by a final roundtable discussion between Perez, video activist and educator Katherine “Kat” Cheairs and Distinguished Professor of Film at Brooklyn College CUNY Alexandra Juhasz (both panelists do so much incredible work, more than I can list here). The film series is an extension of the exhibit Perez co-curated with Elizabeth Nogrady, the Loeb’s Curator of Academic Programs until 2023, called “Apocalypse Sky: Art, AIDS, and Activism in New York City, 1982-1992,” which is still on display through the summer. The exhibition is wonderful—it boasts both an impressive selection of individual artworks and ephemera as well as a harmonic energy born through consistent themes woven throughout. I covered the exhibition in more detail when it opened in February. But Perez felt that some voices had been left out, and despite the vastness of the Loeb’s archives that he had access to for the curation, there were far fewer archives relating to the stories of queer people of color. Thus, Perez migrated to video art to highlight the legacies of feminist and queer of color film makers in relation to AIDS activism.

Prior to the roundtable discussion, I got to interview Juhasz about her work as well as the intersections of video-making and activism. Juhasz and Cheairs recently co-curated an online exhibition entitled “Metanoia”—an archival examination of community-based responses to the AIDS crisis. An entire virtu-

al section of the exhibit is entitled “Archive Activism,” a phrase that captured my attention. “Archive activism is a reanimation and purposeful reuse or new-use of things people have made before and have had the privilege to save,” Juhasz began. “Making, saving and reactivation are all both forms of activism so long as our understanding of activism is based on goal oriented activity—the work to change things in lived reality,” she continued. Many of the chosen ephemera for the exhibit seemed especially ripe for reactivation—specifically, the various maps of marches and lists of chants that helped animate the energy of activists working in the ’80s and ’90s. I could imagine their movements and voices. I could experience a kind of echo set off by the encounter with actually spoken chants and once-marched streets.

This recapitulation of energy and voice via the archives and deliberate preservation drew our conversation into the now—“AIDS is not simply a thing of the past…people have HIV/AIDS, communities are still affected by HIV/AIDS, people in prison have HIV/AIDS,” Juhasz emphasized. Sure, the contours of the crisis have shifted, perhaps away from the public eye which might look to AIDS and AIDS activism as something of the past, but this makes a reactivation of such archive material even more important. “Metanoia” allows archival material to leap from stasis and refuse to be taken as mute historical relic.

This discussion of reactivating archives bloomed in the roundtable discussion held at Vassar on Friday, April 14. The screening of these films was discussed as a sort of fight for cultural capital, and the panelists, with help from an audience that was well woven

into the conversation, tracked the successes of films like “Watermelon Woman” that have recently begun to breathe out into mainstream consciousness and affect public awareness of AIDS-related stories told by women and queer people of color. Conclusively, building queer media into the cannon is tough and has taken real persistence of archivists, activists and scholars. Such media must be constantly “reactivated” and, in the case of film, habitually rescreened for communities.

The roundtable discussion opened with the premier screening of a short film by Junita Mohammad Szczepanski entitled “I Want to Leave a Legacy.” Szcsepanski passed

Black life and voice beyond boundaries—in this case beyond the walls of a prison. The camera weaves through scenes of the bucolic landscape while archival and contemporary audio recordings of poems, essays and interviews produced by women of color are superimposed atop the visuals. Cheairs, who produced and directed the film, described it as an investigation into the practice of liberating Black women’s bodies from spaces of enclosure, which include spaces like prisons as well as spaces like one's own body (when it is limited and made a mere object of knowledge or desire). Cheairs explained her choice to not film human figures via a discussion of radical ecology which allowed for the polyphonic voices present in the film to permeate into the landscape, extending beyond the forces that enclose Black women’s bodies. “Landscape gives these stories (voices) a kind of transcendental power.” Cheairs said. “Many voices ring through the landscape, we hear about life and blooming, as well as death and passing.”

away in Nov. 2022, and the panel was devoted to her name. Szcsepanski requested that she be given the opportunity to speak to a camera before she passed in order to leave a legacy through the oral retelling of her life’s work. This profound articulation of one’s own life and memory while on their deathbed was deeply moving, and seemed to extend the presence of Szcsepanski beyond the end-all binary of life and death. “Voices Beyond the Gate,” the second film shown at the roundtable discussion, also extended

After the discussion, I asked Cheairs about her choice to use the term “community-artist” when describing herself. “My work is always for community, and aims to be ingrained in community space. Community space is intergenerational, and community art should be beyond one person, the maker.” Communities activate art, give it social purpose and ensure that art and archives are not lost to history, but habitually revisited. Not for the purpose of building a single voice in a propagandistic manner, nor for the reductive leveling of different forms of activism by simple analogy, but for something akin to Donna Harraway’s dream of an infidel heteroglossia.

Kai Speirs Features Editor

“This digital copy of the text allows old, preinternet resrouces to be easily searchable online."

Image courtesy of The Miscellany News.

"Communities activate art, give it social purpose and ensure that art and archives are not lost to history, but habitually revisited."

Breaking News

From the desk of Madi Donat,

Humor Editor

Scientists reveal brand new tip to beat the heat and put a stop to seasonal allergies: Sleep. All day.

Sping Concet ovecomes poblems with weathe and “R” key

Olive Stewat Humo Columnist

ViCE Music’s Sping Concet, which had been in the woks fo months, suffeed a last-minute setback on Satuday as inclement weathe pevented the headline, JPEGMAFIA, fom appeaing as planned. Howeve, the concet nevetheless poceeded, with planned opening act ochelle Jodan taking the lead and deliveing a ousing pefomance that was well eceived by the assembled students.

JPEGMAFIA’s absence was fist announced on ViCE’s Instagam account, which posted a stoy infoming followes that the ainy weathe made it impossible fo the Booklyn-bon singe and appe to make the tip to Poughkeepsie. The news spaked undestandable disappointment fom students, but the widely-held view was that the concet was a success egadless.

“I was petty upset when I found out that JPEGMAFIA wasn’t coming, but I thought Jodan was geat,” one student said. “Me and my fiends still had a eally fun night!”

“I do wish I could have seen Peggy,” anothe said, efeencing a popula nickname fo the

atist, “but ochelle Jodan pleasantly supised me. I’ll definitely be steaming some of he music on Spotify in the futue.”

The Sping Concet’s weathe issues wee not the only poblems on Vassa’s campus ove the weekend, howeve. Ealy on Sunday moning, the “R” key on The Miscellany News’ only compute—a 2004 Apple Powebook G4—pemanently and iepaably boke.

“I had to google ‘alphabet’ and copy and paste the symbol I wanted just to put one in this piece’s headline,” an anonymous columnist said. “And it took me eight attempts at typing this sentence until I managed to convey my intended meaning without using that detestable element of typeface.”

When asked why one of those solutions could not have been implemented fo the entie aticle, the columnist shugged.

“Just not eally botheed, fankly.”

Unfounaely, no long befoe he ime of publicaion, he “T” key had followed sui and boken beyond epai. A few minue lae, the “S” did likewie.

“hi i idiculou,” one Micellany New edio houed. “I can’ believe hi hi.”

The Nature Report: Watchin’ blooms and skunks

concert poster is unhelpful if there’s no JPEGMAFIA to watch.

Ah. ’Tis spring at Vassar College. The cheery robin and the squeaky starling have returned. The wasps and bumbles are awake, stalking me on the window screens daily. The bumbles are chill and bulbous, but the thin wasps I don’t care for at all. One might say I fear them. One might say they should take a hike. The most notable spring sign, though, is that the blooms have bloomed.

I was talking to my boss from the grounds greenhouse two weeks ago about the various flowering trees around campus, and he remarked on the magnolia and dogwood trees, and I was like, “How ’bout those cherry blossoms, boss?” and he said, “Oh we don’t have those.” My heart sank. Clearly my 2022 article “The Great Cherry Blossom Watch” wasn’t helpful if there were no cherry blossoms to watch, sort of like how a ViCE JPEGMAFIA

A week went by, and I talked to various people who very confidently contended that Vassar does in fact have cherry blossoms on campus. If the most knowledgeable plant dude on campus (my boss) tells me there’s no cherry blossoms, then I guess there are no cherry blossoms. Still, I investigated claims that Strong and Lathrop had such trees. Sure enough, the cherries were there, and actually quite visible when me and my boss had our original conversation. I confronted him about the trees a week later, and he was like, “Oh yeah, I was thinking about that. Those are definitely cherry blossoms.” This was quite the twist, sort of like when my brother drove six hours to campus last weekend to see JPEGMAFIA, and then JPEGMAFIA couldn’t make it. No bitterness here. To be fair to my boss, last year I sort of just thought of anything that had pink or white flowers in early spring as a cherry blossom, so I’ve been wrong too.

Now that I know where the cherry trees are, I kinda feel like cherry trees are overrated—they have small flowers, and the trees only seem to look nice if you have a mob’s worth of them together. Dogwoods and magnolias are way cooler than any one cherry tree. That being said, I still believe that NFL’s Washington Commanders should’ve been named the Washington Cherry Blossoms, a belief withheld in part because there are zero tree-themed NFL teams and far too many military-themed NFL teams (yes, one is too many). Trees have started zero wars.

In other news, it was brought to my attention recently that Vassar has a skunk problem. Dominic Matos ’25 first alerted me to the problem last Tuesday during a Misc production night. He shared his harrowing experience, doing so in rather technical terms.

“The skunk was walking southbound… and I was fortunate not to have a physical or gaseous interaction with the skunk. I just saw it from a distance.”

Next, I interviewed Jacques Abou-Rizk ’25 [Disclaimer: Abou-Rizk is News Editor for The Miscellany News. He simply could not contain his anger for the Vassar skunk as he loudly interjected during most of my interview with Matos]. Abou-Rizk has seen the skunk on many occasions, sharing one such instance.

“So everytime I walk to Noyes from Main, I walk into this black and white skunk that is literally following me. I was just walking down the path one day, and it was at night. And I see this kid next to me with their phone out, and I’m like ‘Oh, I wonder what they’re

recording.’ And it was the skunk like ten feet in front of me. So I jumped, and I had to follow the skunk back into Noyes Circle because that’s where I live.” Abou-Rizk also had some choice words regarding the skunks of the world.

“I feel like they are evil. They don’t deserve to be on this campus. We hunt deer every winter… Why isn’t the administration doing anything about the skunks?” Abou-Rizk isn’t playing around.

I haven’t had the good fortune to run into any skunk, but my day may soon come. I did take my time with the blooming trees this year, enjoying their momentary petals and identifying them properly. JPEGMAFIA, please come to campus. Vassar skunk, hit me up. We gotta chat.

Nicholas Tillinghast Skunkadelic

Nicholas Tillinghast/The Miscellany News.

Charlotte Robertson/The Miscellany News.

Nicholas Tillinghast/The Miscellany News.

HUMOR

Here's some self-care for the mentally unwell

Alyssa Willeford Unlicensed Therapist

Have you ever felt like you weren’t quite yourself? Is all that stress—of schoolwork, jobs, relationships and knowing that the mole people are soon to emerge from their burrows and wreak bloody vengeance on humanity–beginning to drag you down? You aren’t alone! Modern life has never been tougher than it is right now, and you would be in a real pickle if you weren’t reading this column. Fortunately, I am known far and wide as the sanest and most stable individual this side of Terre Haute, IN, and I can help you with all of your mental health problems. Get ready to save $500 a month on therapy!

First of all, make sure to put things in perspective. When you suffer from anxiety or depression, it can often seem as though your internal struggle is all that exists in the world,

which isn’t a healthy way to move through life. Snap yourself out of that destructive cycle using my patented Supremely Healthy Internal Tuning Technique, or SHIT-T! The requirements are very simple: Just wait until you enter a deep mental health spiral, and then bungee jump off the top of Jewett while juggling a minimum of three to five flaming chainsaws. If you survive, you’ll be sure to have some proper perspective, as well as a fascinating set of scars!

Second, try making some lifestyle improvements to strengthen your mental resilience. I just googled this, and it says right here that sunlight can improve your mental well-being, so you should probably get right on that! My suggestion is a simple one: Just get out a large piece of stainless steel, set it out on the quad in the sun, lie down and fry yourself like a Lil’ Smoky over a camp stove. Most qualified therapists recommend a me-

dium-rare cook time, but if you’re experiencing particularly acute mental distress, you can let yourself go until you develop a nice golden-brown sear on all sides. This treatment is particularly effective with A1 sauce!

Speaking of delicious eats, your diet can also have a large, splattering impact all over your mental health. Consider your food choices over the past 24 hours: a Wendy’s 4 for $4 with seven ketchup packets, a Deece muffin frosted with four ketchup packets, a bagful of dried fruit covered in eight ketchup packets and a plateful of plain, dry french fries. Is this really fueling the life you want to lead? I’m no nutritionist, though, and I understand that the concept of a healthy diet can be a little bit nebulous and hard to define. That’s why I’m going to ignore all the established research and just give you one simple piece of advice: Try switching to mustard!

If all else fails, you can always try drugs.

And no, I’m not talking about cocaine! Proper mental health medication can be a literal lifesaver, and it should absolutely not have the stigma attached to it that it does. That’s why I’m here to tell you that you should ignore your mental health professional’s advice and simply silence that pain in your soul by drinking gallons of NyQuil each and every day. Hey, if you aren’t awake, you can’t feel sad, right?

So there you have it: five paragraphs (and counting) of damaging and irresponsible lifestyle advice and mental health tips. Besides serving as my audition to be the next Gwyneth Paltrow, I hope this column helped you balance your qi with your chakra and get your karma in sync with the nearest ley line. And if all else fails, if you’re still feeling down in the dumps,well, hey, it’s never too late to join the mole people. Worms are tastier than you’d think!

DO NOT READ IF ON FRISBEE

Carly D'Antonio Discus Whoscus?

Many know me as a friend, a confidant, a humor writer. But, what many people don't know is that I am a student athlete. Yes, it's true… I am on the ultimate frisbee team. Now, I know that that seems like a bold statement considering that varsity athletes at this school have vigorous schedules and physically demanding student lives. But humor me while I live out my little athlete fantasy. Now, frisbee is a very interesting sport to say the least. I had no clue it even existed until I came to Vassar, and when it

was explained to me it sounded insane—I could not understand how flinging a piece of plastic around could be considered a sport. Then I did some more critical thinking and thought about the fact that most sports that have a ball are one way or another flinging a piece of plastic around. So that stigma didn't last long. After being on the team for two years, I can confidently say that I kinda get the rules of the game. Do I still run around like a chicken with its head cut off at the start of every point? Yes. Frisbee is my second sport in my athletic career. I played softball for 10 years and enjoyed

exactly three of them. I also dabbled in soccer; however, that did not last long due to my habit of pretending I had allergies so that the coach would not put me in. A $300 mistake my parents learned the hard way. And even though I had played sports before, nothing really prepared me for frisbee… in a very good and crazy way. Now, I know that to the outside world, a frisbee can look a little hippy and fratty… yeah, not much I can deny about that. But, the sense of community you gain from it and the guidance to learn the sport stayed with me.

I write this article to not only reflect on

my time at Vassar, but to also stress how I have no ideas on how to be funny. I have instead resorted to writing a sentimental and genuine article about frisbee. That is disgusting.

To wrap it up, I truly never would have thought that a group of crazy people throwing around a disc at Vassar would become some of my closest friends, but sadly that is the case. Of course I joke and if anyone on the team is reading, please never read anything I write because it is far too embarrassing. I only want to be taken as a serious athlete and nothing else.

Vassar installs tropical rainforest in Library

hours developing ideas to make the library’s structure more labyrinthine and unmanageable.

After facing backlash from complaints that the Library basement is too simple and easy to navigate, Vassar announced its three-year Joint Unilateral New Greener Library Experiment (JUNGLE) plan on Tuesday afternoon. Over the next few years the College will provide lasting solutions to the lack of confused library basementers, partnering with Facilities Operations, Special Collections, Amazon and the Amazon (Rainforest) to install a miniature jungle in the depths of the Library.

As a senior, Julienne Estrada ’23 has seen firsthand that it is too easy to navigate through the Library basement. “Just walk down the stairs, travel halfway through a set of bookcases, turn left, jump up and down three times, pull the lever directly above your head, wait for the puff of steam and then sit down. It couldn’t be easier!”

Even the original designers of the Library agree with Estrada. Historical documents show that with its hundreds of perpendicular shelves and dozens of rooms, the Library basement was designed to be easy to navigate.

In a letter to the class of 1908, Vassar library carpenter Phillip Rummell confided, “We thought that putting an elevator and two toilets in the middle of Room 97 would make things simple enough. But apparently we were wrong.”

Student responses to Estrada’s concerns were as Swift as Swift Hall. After Estrada posted her overly-simple basement navigation experiences on Instagram, hundreds of library proposals came flooding into her inbox, with more than 85 students spending

The competition for design proposals was fierce. Some of the most popular ideas involved installing randomly flashing lights, filling the basement with water so students must travel by boat and importing wild animals to provide a sense of urgency as students search for their books.

One unpopular student proposed a GPS system to make the library basement LESS confusing, but their proposal was rapidly withdrawn after the GPS gave up and got lost. We sat down with the GPS itself to tell us exactly what happened.

“I can never remember which bookcase is where! Each row of novels cascades out of another like an endless horizontal waterfall that flows interminably into the distance,” it said. “I asked my friends Google, Siri and Alexa what to do, and they all just gave me the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ emoticon,” asserted the GPS system.

But none of these proposals matched the audacity and practicality of the winning submission that was sent to the College’s JUNGLE Commission.

The plan occurred to Estrada in a midnight epiphany. “Why should I settle for hyenas OR howler monkeys when you could have both?” she told us. She decided to do just that.

Stage one of the plan begins next week. Over 25 different species of baobab trees, berry plants and tropical vines will be imported into the basement, followed by poisonous dart frogs, a giraffe or two, mosses and a river with piranhas – in addition to the hundreds of cockroaches already in our library.

Donald Craig, a contractor for Facilities Operations, told us what he thinks of the plan:

“I know Vassar students, and they’re always working hard. It might be a little difficult to get the fully-matured palm trees down the stairs, but I’m sure most people will be too absorbed in their reading to notice. The shrieking toucans might bother a couple of people, though.”

But while the plan is ambitious, the proposal is backed by hard data. After rainforest library basements were installed at eight other peer institutions, over 99.9983% of students stopped complaining that the basement was too easy to navigate. (The single opposing student happens to be named Tarzan.)

Another unexpected benefit of the rainforest is its improvement of printing services for students. While the occasional zombified piranha might emerge from the printer instead of your homework, paper shortages are now nonexistent; students can chop their own tree down and insert it into the printer if the paper tray becomes empty. You’ll have paper for your assignment AND the sense

of existential guilt that you, personally, are destroying the environment—it’s a win-win! Will it affect you on campus? While we’ve been warned that Library floor tiles may spontaneously combust in the next three years, students are advised not to worry. The genius in charge of the project told us that rainforests, fire and books usually mix well together. Besides the occasional inferno or plumbing explosion, students overall won’t notice much difference.

One Vassar parent summarized the development perfectly: “Students are all so worried, but college is a big transition for everyone. For many, it’s their first time away from home! Whether it’s a new class here or a MASSIVE TROPICAL RAINFOREST WITH FLOWING RIVERS AND LIVE PIRANHAS there, you’ll get used to it soon enough.”

Students are reminded of the usual regulations around College construction: Clear your cars from the area, stay alert at all times and beware of the piercing screeches of the maniacal chimpanzees.

Benjamin Savel Amazon Aficionado

Image courtesy of Benjamin Savel '26.

ARIES

March 21 |

April 19

HOROSCOPES

Madi Donat Astral Projector

Travel seems alluring this week. Maybe hop on a plane and jet over to Europe somewhere. I’ve heard Airbnb’s are cheap in Athens. Or perhaps experiment in Aviation. Everyone knows someone from elementary school who wanted to be a pilot; why not make that person you? Put on the little goggles and everything. Slay, Amelia Earheart.

LIBRA

Sept. 23 |

Oct. 22

TAURUS

April 20 |

May 20

Feeling handy this week? Grab your toolkit and fix things (NOT PEOPLE) to make yourself feel useful. Get a Screwdriver and some hammers working! Just be careful not to, like, saw your hand off or something. That would be really bad. Now that I think about it, maybe stick to the screwdriver. I will not be liable.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23 |

Nov. 21

Experiment with BRUNCH this week! There is something so, so special about a bottomless Mimosa and a bottom-full stack of pancakes. Brunch is where the purest form of the human condition is manifested for all to see. There is no better way to observe the human condition than over mediocre coffee and home fries.

The weather has been odd this week, and your emotions have likely been, as well. What to do when both you and Mother Nature are feeling Dark ’N Stormy? Have you considered screaming? No joke—I’ve been trying it, and it’s been quite healing. Shout like the thunder outside your window.

GEMINI

May 21 |

June 20

CANCER

June 21 |

July 22

Not sure what you’re doing this summer, or ever? Don’t worry; you’re not alone. The thing about living in the “real world” is that it seems impossible until you do it. You’re telling me I have to figure out what I want to do with my life, AND I have to be in Manhattan when I do it? Sounds fake. Maybe you’ll be luckier than I, though. This week, commit to the bit—or the aesthetic. Why not trick all your friends into thinking you’ve become an Old Fashioned railroad baron or something? Clip a pocket watch to your lapel (?) and adopt a fake transatlantic accent for kicks, too, and see how long you can go without everyone getting sick of you. Good luck!

LEO

July 23 |

Aug. 22

Doing things that are scary can be really good for you, but maybe don’t spend your time purposefully doing things that make you scream “Bloody Mary.” Still, try and put yourself into situations that are scary, because the only way to not be scared is to do things that are scary. Sucks, I know. Sorry.

Old movies are literally so good; when we forget about old movies we forget how to LIVE. Hays Code-era movies where people were afraid to touch hands are the peak of romance, actually. Live in their repression this week; or maybe just watch vintage videos of people, I don’t know, riding in the Sidecar of an old motorcycle. I don’t know how vehicles work.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22 |

Dec. 21

Tensions run high this week, and arguments may bubble to the surface. Avoid your tendency to need to get the Last Word—let the other person speak, and let them reveal themselves as incorrect. Fighting can be super fun, but it may be better to just let things work themselves out. You can always plan to fight later.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22 |

Jan. 19

Motivation can be low on these rainy, chilly days; when you feel most like a Zombie, remind yourself that it’s okay to have dips in energy! Don’t make yourself more upset by simply acknowledging your feelings. And remember—more sleep is good. It can be so freeing to feel like a toddler: Naps! Soup! Colors! Baths! Repeat!

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20 |

Feb. 18

Feeling fancy this week? Do a high tea, or connect with vintage fashion, or practice your Romance languages; anything to make yourself feel more connected and Cosmopolitan. Your high-end tastes could trick anyone into fulfilling your epic fantasy. Pull an Anna Delvey and trick them out of money, too; who cares?

PISCES

Feb. 19 |

March 20

We all do things that are maybe not the best things to do; we’re only human, and twenty. So maybe you got sloshed on your friend’s mom’s wine this weekend. Don’t let that get you down! There will be other weekends to not do that. You could try knitting next Saturday, or bake some wholesome bread. Or get sloshed again. Whatever. I’m not your mom.

Local real estate: Jewett House goes on sale

Nandini Likki Real Real Estate Agent

Have you just moved to the gorgeous town of Poughkeepsie, and you’re now looking for a place to stay? I’ve only been in the business for a couple of months, but I know the Queen City’s properties like the back of my own finely manicured hand. Hey, don’t touch my hand. We’re not friends—I’m just your agent. Anyway, let me introduce you to the finest real estate we have available: Jewett House.

This lovely, quaint, charming, little nine-story building has the capacity to accommodate either exactly 195 students or

exactly 235, depending on whether you read the Vassar Office of Residential Life webpage in 2015 or 2023. The beautiful exterior of Jewett House is decorated as if somebody slapped a vaguely Gothic Revival style onto a concerningly phallic building blueprint. Approximately 160 spacious rooms, with an average area of 95 square feet per room, are available to live in. Some colorful adjectives that the locals use to describe these rooms include “coffin-like,” “depressing” and “hikikomori-averse.”

Once you enter your new room in Jewett, you will be pleasantly surprised at the 90-degree heat emanating deliciously from your tight walls and stuffy windows; it will be as if

you never even went indoors! Have you ever wanted to know what it feels like to roast in an oven like a turkey on Thanksgiving? Well, now you can find out just by living in a Jewett room and recreating the greenhouse effect, all by yourself! Additional bonuses include a concerning heat rash and a newfound, carnal hatred of global warming.

And that’s not all! Jewett House has recently been equipped with hyper-sensitive fire alarms and door alarms. If you’re the type of person who finds a healthy and comforting sleep schedule way too boring, why not be awakened by the god-awful crow-like screech of a 3 a.m. fire alarm? You’ll NEVER figure out where it’s coming from, but you know

for sure that it’s never an actual fire! At least you’ll get to witness all your groggy housemates in their glorious pajamas. A fine sight to see.

But, of course, the crown jewel of Jewett House is its fine aroma. As soon as you pass the two gargoyle owls (gargowls, if you will) that stand guard of Jewett’s front door, you are greeted with the fine smell of what can only be described as…broccoli. That lush, juicy, jolly green broccoli. Of course, if you’ve never mowed the grass before, you might be disgusted and unflattered by what has become a signature of this fine establishment. But all of its idiosyncrasies make Jewett House one of the best places to live on campus.

Letter to the Editor: The case for a stronger NRO

As a Class Senator who sits on the VSA Academics Committee, I can say that we do important work in order to help the student body. This year, we introduced several new policies. In December, we passed the Overload Policy, which will provide students with two semesters in which they can register for five credits. This change will be codified in the upcoming year. Considering how hard it is to get overloads approved, this policy will clarify overload guidelines and expectations. This past week, we passed a policy in collaboration with the Equity Executive and the Office for Accessibility and Educational Opportunity to make it easier for students with chronic illnesses to get accommodations that modify attendance policies.

In my opinion, the strongest example of our academics-based advocacy in VSA is the new Non-Recorded-Option (NRO) policy. This year, we’ve been working really hard to extend the NRO option and help all the students at Vassar.

First, some background on the NRO. According to the Registrar’s page, once a class is NRO-ed and you’ve picked your minimum grade, there are three options, which is why I personally call NRO the Letter/Pass/Fail option. Either you get your letter grade (above the minimum you set), you pass or you fail. Letter and Fail get factored into your GPA. Pass does not. Currently on the table is the ENRO policy, or the Emergency NRO policy. To explain this, I’d like you all to cast your minds back about a year, to the spring outbreak of norovirus. If you were on campus and had

norovirus, you know how hard it was to catch up on missed classes after being sick. People went to the hospital and couldn’t go to classes. I went to the hospital and went to maybe three classes that whole week. That meant that people like me had a lot of catching up to do, especially if they had exams during the last week of classes. (I’m looking at some of the STEM departments here, but we love you, so it’s okay.) This new policy would help in these emergency cases, when the NRO deadline has passed but there are some extenuating circumstances.

Now we come to the project that I and others on the Academics Committee have been working on all year: the Language NRO Policy. This policy arose from the Annual Comprehensive Survey we sent out at the end of last year. Overwhelmingly, students said that they wanted to see the language requirement changed. Some wanted to abolish it, while others wanted to see reforms. As the VSA needed to get departments and administrators to agree with any changes, we took the approach of working toward more NRO options.

The basis of this policy would make all 100-level languages NRO-able while still fulfilling the language requirement. At the start of this past fall semester (Fall 2022), the following elementary language classes were NRO-able: Arabic, Hebrew, Korean, Latin and Spanish. This left quite a few language classes that were not NRO-able, like Chinese, French, Italian and Russian. But through emails and meetings with various departments, several of them acknowl-

edged our statement and made changes, or informed us that they had independently made these changes, based upon observations they had made and our continued advocacy. You will see that come Fall 2023, the following Elementary languages are NRO-able: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish.

It is worth pointing out that German was not marked as a language class last year, and that Elementary Greek starts in the spring term, making the Fall 2023 course the second half of Elementary Greek. Additionally, we met with the Italian Department to discuss this, but the Department said that making Elementary Italian NROable does not align with its pedagogical values and will not be feasible. The Department has said that this is a stance they will maintain in the near future.

We believe that this change supports a liberal arts pedagogy. Our open curriculum encourages students to try classes outside of their comfort zones, without fear of failure. NROs allow students to deeply immerse themselves in these new topics and experiences. Personally, I wanted to take Hebrew during my first semester here. After leaving the classroom on my first day, I was so overwhelmed that I decided to go back to Latin, which I had studied before. If I had NRO-ed the class, that would have lifted a weight off of my shoulders, and I would have been able to enjoy the class without feeling scared that it would have tanked my GPA.

In terms of equity, the new policy pro-

vides students with learning disabilities–and other challenges–more support than they would have without a language NRO. Many students come to Vassar without strong language experience. Since taking a language is a requirement to graduate, the Language NRO will make learning languages a better experience for these students.

The NRO exists to alleviate anxiety about classes. While this proposal doesn’t change the number of NROs allotted, it expands the NRO’s ability to alleviate students’ stress, particularly surrounding required classes they may not otherwise take.

Whether or not you choose to use the NRO towards the language requirement is up to you. All we want, as members of the Academics Committee, is to provide everyone with options to suit their academic journey. This policy will be made into a resolution soon, but for now, when you’re doing your pre-registration and see elementary languages as NRO-able, just think of your VSA senators who have your back and want you to succeed.

This opinion editorial is the private stance of a Class of 2025 Senator and does not express the official opinion of the Vassar Student Association, its membership or any of its bodies. Any references to our position titles in this editorial are made solely for the purpose of identification, not to suggest the VSA’s endorsement.

—Lydia Freeman, Class of 2025 Senator

Self-deprecating humor hurts women in comedy

Charlotte Robertson News Editor

In 2020, the online educational platform Lectera published a step-by-step guide to teach women how to be charismatic. According to the article, there are several components of the “charismatic woman,” most notably, the perfect balance between “male” and “female” personalities. “Sure, emotions are a very important part of any personality, but logic and rationality are some of the main friends of charisma,” the writers explain.

“Charisma” by its very definition implies an organicness that cannot be cultivated or rehearsed, making any “guidebook” null. All the same, no such article exists for men— charisma involves ego, something women are not meant to express. With “charisma” one of the most important qualities in a good comedian, and women supposedly “uncharismatic” unless they tap into a “masculine personality,” it is no surprise that the “women aren’t funny” stereotype exists.

Since the beginning of comedy, men have always been at the forefront. In fact, women were not allowed to perform on stage until the mid-17th century, according to the Women’s Museum of California—all roles, even those written for women, were performed by men. Pseudo-drag of this type would often be part of the joke; the play-within-a-play of “Pyramus and Thisbe” in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” for example, serves to mock “bad actors,” and the fact that the desperately devoted Thisbe is played by the male character Flute lends to the hilarity.

(Michael Hoffman’s 1999 film rendition captures this dynamic well, for reference.)

In the modern world of comedy, particularly stand-up, men share anecdotes about the expenses of college or the new millennium of music (as John Mulaney does in “Kid Gorgeous”), or bulldozers or food poisoning (as Seth Meyers does in “Lobby Baby”). Male comedians are storytellers. Women comedians, on the other hand, are self-deprecating. Men are granted different comedic permissions than women. In her essay “Self-deprecatory Humour and the Female Comic: Self-destruction or Comedic Construction?”

Danielle Russell reviewed a randomized selection of 150 comic routines in 2002. From the 113 male performers, she found that 4.4 percent used self-deprecating humor. From 37 female performers, 21.6 percent used self-deprecating humor.

While digesting these statistics, it is necessary to consider how self-deprecating humor is different between men and women. In his special “Little Big Boy,” Nick Kroll jokes about being a late bloomer: “Does anyone remember the first time they said I love you to someone?...I was 32.” He goes on to describe his awful first heartbreak. But Kroll performs this bit at the 1,900-seat Warner Theater in Washington D.C., standing proud—he’s “made it,” in spite of love-life adversities. Taylor Tomlinson, in her show “Look at You,” approaches dating drama very differently. She jokes, “[A]fter a really bad breakup a few years ago, I finally took a long hard look at myself and said, ‘Okay, Taylor, five out of five dudes all think that in fights, you behave like a raccoon trapped in a trash bag.’”

For women, self-deprecating humor serves to make them the object of the joke. They are laughed at more than they are

laughed with. Their embarrassment and self-hatred is in the present tense. And it is almost exclusively related to appearance.

Amy Schumer, the first woman to make Forbes’ “highest-paid comedians list,” is a perfect example of this type of humor. Her 2018 movie “I Feel Pretty” follows an insecure woman’s journey to self-love as a result of brain damage, every joke revolving around this awkward character’s newfound confidence. And her sketch “Compliments,” from the show “Inside Amy Schumer,” is about a group of young women deflecting praise, ending with a mass-suicide once one woman finally says thank you when told she has a nice jacket.

Schumer isn’t the only one. Ali Wong opens her stand-up special “Baby Cobra” talking about her resentment towards 18-year-old girls. “I’m jealous, first and foremost, of their metabolism…They got that beautiful inner thigh clearance where they put their feet together and there’s that huge gap here with the light of potential just radiating through,” she quips. Each episode of Nicole Byer’s podcast “Why Won’t You Date Me?” begins with an extremely explicit joke about her “decades-long” single status, despite her self-described low standards. In “I’m Your Girlfriend,” Whitney Cummings talks about how on dates she always mentions her career success, to justify her appearance: “I know I’m not adorable and coy, but I can pay all your bills.”

Why this obsession with appearance?

Marie Claire’s article “We’ll show you who’s FUNNY” opens with the sentence, “We ask the pros: can a pretty woman be funny?” While the premise of the article is ridiculous, the series of interviews with women

comedians strikes an important point: A performing woman is either the love interest or she is comic relief. “When I started, I had a broken nose, my teeth were crooked, and I was very skinny. And you know what? It all helped,” Marie Claire quotes the late comedian Phyllis Diller. When women are reduced to two mutually exclusive categories, “beautiful” or “funny,” the insistence for gendered humor grows—the humor of the “funny woman” is, in this way, contingent upon her unattractiveness and her awareness of her unattractiveness.

And somehow, this dynamic is spun as empowerment. In a review of “The Mindy Project,” Natalie Ryder, a reporter from Forest Lake Times, states, “[The TV show] speaks volumes to who Mindy Kaling is, because the confidence it takes to write your own character in a self-deprecating way is somewhat inspiring, especially because she is funny doing it.” But women are expected to be self-deprecating. It is easier for a woman to be self-deprecating than it is for her to be egotistical.

Of course, to say that all women comedians rely on self-deprecation is to make a massive generalization. Wanda Sykes devotes much of her special “Not Normal” to satirical remarks about American politics, and Iliza Shlesinger’s “Hot Forever” mocks men. But self-deprecation is the standard formula for women in comedy—a formula which, by nature, perpetuates misogyny. As stated by Australian stand-up comedian Hannah Gadsby in their Netflix special “Nanette”: “Because you do understand what self-deprecation means from somebody who already exists in the margins? It’s not humility. It’s humiliation.”

OPINIONS

Growing political divide needs a bridge

Britt Andrade Columnist

Thispast week, the Tennessee House of Representatives expelled two of three representatives for breaching the rules of decorum. Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson were both Democratic representatives whose violation of decorum included using a bullhorn on the House floor, speaking without being recognized and leading protests demanding gun restrictions. The third representative, Gloria Johnson, narrowly avoided expulsion by one vote, according to ABC News.

Already, there is discussion about the fact that the two representatives expelled were young, black men compared to their white colleague who remains a member of the TN House. Rep. Johnson has been quoted that she believes that this case was racially and politically motivated, according to Knoxville News. Personally, I think she's right. Reps. Jones and Pearson represented a terrifying demographic to TN and national-level Republicans. They represent young, passionate leaders who aren't

willing to compromise on their values. Both men are smart and well-spoken; their speeches will take you to church, a scary thing in a Bible Belt state. What happened to them should be a crime, and I hope they are reelected to their positions soon.

Unfortunately, this case is representative of a larger issue. Weaponizing legislative discipline like this is a massive sign of dysfunction and discordance between the two political parties. Mistrust like that will bleed into the average citizen’s life, and fear can be a powerful motivator. This is not the first sign of dysfunction between the parties. Former President Donald Trump's indictment has been a political buzzword over the last few weeks, with some political leaders speaking of conducting revenge investigations on current and former Democratic leaders, according to The New York Post. Again, I am of the opinion that no one is above the law, and if there's a case then there must be an investigation. However, this tit-for-tat model is reductive and distracting from the needs of American citizens. As a new generation continues to age into the political sphere, the old guard

should be taking on the roles of mentors and guides, instead of trying to push them out.

Our country needs a bridge, metaphorically and politically, so that we don't have to waste time reinventing procedures and can instead do the real work of helping the people of this country thrive. I'll be hon-

est—I don't have a solution. This is above my pay-grade and my political knowledge, but if I can see the problem that means everyone else can, too. Maybe it's time to demand more from our leaders and remind them of the playground rules; playing nice with others and showing compassion goes a long way.

Vassar's move-out timeline is not considerate to seniors

OnMay 21, members of the Vassar College Class of 2023, myself included, will walk across the grass on Commencement Hill, receive their diplomas and graduate college. Before 9 a.m. the very next day, all seniors are required to be fully moved out of campus housing.

This is an abrupt timeline and one that does not send a particularly kind message to the College’s graduating class: “Thank you for your hard work and hundreds of thousands of tuition dollars. Now get the hell out.”

The Vassar move-out timeline is publicized on the Office of Residential Life’s website. Next to May 22 is the descriptor: “All students expected to be completely moved out of all residential areas by 9 a.m.” This information was also shared in an email to students on April 3 from Associate Dean of the College Luis Inoa.

Notably, this policy of having seniors move out of their residences mere hours after graduating is not unique to Vassar; fellow liberal arts colleges have similar practices this academic year, according to their respective websites. Hamilton College has a 10 a.m. move-out deadline the day after its graduation. At Smith College and Bryn Mawr College, seniors must move out by noon the day after graduation. Wesleyan University seniors must move out by 4 p.m. that next day. Worse than Vassar is Williams’ 5 p.m. move-out deadline on graduation day itself.

The fact that Vassar follows this trend does not mean that the issue is absolved, though. In fact, it feels even more concerning that so many colleges do not find fault in essentially kicking its students off campus moments after they become alumni.

I reached out to the Office of Residential Life in order to gain insight into Vassar’s move-out timeline. Associate Dean of the College Luis Inoa wrote in an email correspondence: “Senior Week is intended to provide seniors with time to enjoy their final days at Vassar and begin packing and cleaning their living spaces. It is also worth noting that many families leave on

the Sunday of graduation, which can often leave the last person in a residence with the majority of the cleanup responsibilities. By requiring all seniors to move out by 9 a.m. the day after graduation, we aim to ensure that everyone has ample time to complete the necessary tasks and avoid any last-minute rush or undue burden on any individual.”

While I understand and appreciate the sentiment behind this decision, an individual student could still be left with the majority of the cleanup, just on an earlier and more stressful timeline. Moreover, most seniors living in houses or apartments have successfully co-existed for a full year; I would hope that the amount of people who would benefit from a little extra time to move-out would outweigh those who will be abandoned by their housemates.

The real problem with this abrupt moveout is that it forces seniors to prioritize packing over enjoying the last moments they get to call Vassar home. In order to successfully move out before 9 a.m. on May 22, there are two possible plans of action.

One: Pack up during Senior Week, a stretch of days meant for making final memories with friends and enjoying time on campus. While a slower move-out may be less stressful, it also means seniors will be living through their packing, spending their last few nights in progressively emptier bedrooms.

Or two: Wait until graduation weekend to pack, when family and friends are eager to spend time with soon-to-be alumni. Seniors can then either enlist their guests in the oh-so-fun sorting/boxing/schelping/ sweating ordeal or pack alone while their families enjoy their weekend at Vassar without them.

My family is flying from Seattle, WA, for my graduation. I haven’t seen them since winter break and would prefer to spend the weekend celebrating, rather than packing up my TH. However, I would also like to enjoy my senior week—on a campus that I am going to miss so much with people that I love so much—without having to juggle the immense amount of work that is moving.

What Vassar’s current policy also fails to

recognize is how emotional the end of college is and how packing our lives into boxes only exacerbates the overwhelmingness of graduation. Coupled with last moments with friends and the arrival of family, these last days are bittersweet.

Inoa recognized the inherent difficulties that moving can present, writing: “We understand that moving can be a challenging process, and we are committed to supporting our students and families during this time.” He also added that there may be leniency given to students on the 22: “While we expect students and families to be up and ideally packed by 9 a.m., we understand that it may take a little longer to complete the necessary tasks. We do afford families some flexibility on that day.”

Evidently, in this current model there is

no perfect solution. That is why I am arguing for a change in policy: Give seniors two extra days after Commencement to pack and move-out. Let us fully enjoy senior week with our friends and the weekend with our families and guests.

This change is small but, for me at least, would provide just a little bit of relief during a weird time in life. While I am ready for bigger things, I will miss Vassar immensely. It’s home for me. I want to leave, but I don’t want it to be over.

Moreover, per its name, Commencement is only the beginning. Once we leave Vassar, we will have real jobs and new cities and graduate school work to contend with. As a parting gift, at least give seniors a peaceful, less-stressful goodbye to the place we have called home for the past four years.

Nina Ajemian Editor-in-Chief

Nina Ajemian/The Miscellany News.

Image courtesy of Flickr Tom via Wikimedia Commons.

Vassar Brewers Sports Roundup: April 20, 2023

Men’s Volleyball Women’s Track and Field Silfen

Invitational

April 15-16

After its 3-0 sweep of MIT in the United Volleyball Conference (UVC) semifinals, Vassar captured the title with a 3-0 (25-16, 25-17, 25-18) sweep of St. John Fisher in the championship game at Kenyon Hall. This was the second conference title in program history, and it qualified the Brewers for their fourth NCAA tournament appearance. Jacob Kim ’24 was named tournament MVP. The beginning of the first set saw some back and forth between the teams, but eventually Vassar pulled away with a 19-11 lead, and the set was ended by Gavin Van Beveren ’23, clinching the winning point to give the Brewers the first set 2516. The second set was also close at the beginning, but with the Brewers clinging to an 11-10 lead, they rattled off six straight points to go up 17-10. St. John Fisher closed the gap down to 21-16 at one point, but Vassar pulled away once again by winning the final three points to take the set 25-17 and grab a commanding 2-0 set lead. In the third and final set, St. John Fisher got out to a 10-9 lead, but the Brewers responded by winning 10 of the next 13 points to take a 19-13 lead themselves. The Brewers never looked back, and Billy Fan ’25 buried the championship-winning kill to give Vassar the set 25-18 and the match 3-0. Fan led the Brewers in kills with 14 and digs with 7. Kim and Van Beveren both had three blocks apiece, and Kim led the team in assists with a staggering 41. The win improved Vassar to 24-1 overall. Up next for the Brewers is a matchup with Baruch College in the first round of the NCAA tournament on April 21 at Kenyon Hall.

Doug Cobb Sports Editor

Silfen Invitational

April 14-15

TheVassar women’s track and field team also traveled to New London, CT, this past weekend for the Silfen Invitational. On Friday night, Augusta Stockman ’23 won the elite 1500 meters with a time of 4:43.82, her fourth straight victory and second straight win in that event. Sophia Henderson ’25 ran a new personal best in the elite 800 meters with a time of 2:20.15, good for eighth overall. Anna Kaigle ’25 also finished eighth overall in the elite 3000-meter steeplechase with a time of 12:33.13. In the elite 5000 meters, the Brewers had two very strong performances from Noni Pattington ’25 and Anika Mueller-Hickler ’26 who finished in sixth and 15th place overall with times of 18:18.69 and 18:38.98 respectively, qualifying them both for the All Atlantic Region Track and Field Conference (AARTFC) championships. On Saturday, Lola Perez-Fry ’23 finished fourth overall in the long jump with a jump of 5.22 meters, and Sydney Passley-Harris ’26 finished sixth overall with a jump of 5.02 meters. Perez-Fry also finished ninth overall in the 100 meters with a time of 12.89. Jahmilia Dennis ’26 had another terrific day, finishing second overall in both the triple jump (with a jump of 11.50 meters) and the 100-meter hurdles (with a time of 15.12). Lila Miller ’26 had a strong day in the heptathlon, finishing fourth overall with a score of 3209, including personal bests in three of the seven events (17.45 in the 100-meter hurdles, 9.81 meters in the shot put and 2:46.94 in the 800 meters). Up next for the Brewers is the Williams College Farley Invitational on April 22.

Timberwolves-Lakers: Learning to embrace bad games

Nick Villamil Assistant Sports Editor

To fully understand what made the Los Angeles Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves play-in matchup excellent entertainment, even though the basketball was lackluster, one must go far beyond the game’s tipoff.

It all started more than three years ago with the touching of press-row microphones—that’s when the legend of Rudy Gobert’s questionable judgment was born. The day was March 9, 2020; the imminent crisis was COVID-19. Gobert had just completed a post-game press conference when he decided to act defiantly against the virus threatening the NBA’s season. As he walked out of the room, Gobert stopped as if he had forgotten something and went back to the podium only to run his hands across the microphones, grinning, amused with his antics. Two days later, Gobert became the first NBA player to test positive for the virus, catalyzing the league’s shutdown and turning himself into the poster child for failing to take COVID seriously.

At the time, Gobert was an All-Star for the Utah Jazz. But even as the humiliation faded with time, his career with the Jazz slowly deteriorated. The team had talent: Gobert and guard Donovan Mitchell were an ideal duo on paper. But the two never properly meshed. Utah would perform well in the regular season but disappoint in the playoffs without fail. Questions about Gobert and Mitchell’s shortcomings on the court were plentiful, some hinting at problems with their relationship off of the court. As times got tougher in Utah, these questions gained traction as the two stars’ relationship behind the scenes came to light. Eventually, the Jazz reached a breaking point. The team fired their head coach and accepted that the Gobert-Mitchell duo could no longer remain intact. Gobert, the older and seemingly more problematic of the two, was put on the trading block first.

And while far from the ideal franchise player, Gobert boasts the accolades—threetime defensive player of the year—to make some teams willing to deal with the trouble. The Minnesota Timberwolves, ready to escape irrelevance, were more than willing. In exchange for Gobert, Minnesota sent a monumental haul of assets to Utah: five first-round draft picks and five players. The deal was massive not just because of

its blockbuster nature in which the power structure of the Western Conference clearly changed, but also because of how seriously it committed the Timberwolves to the 30-year-old Gobert. Deals like these are like the NBA’s equivalent of a bank being “too big to fail.” They just have to work. To the team committing itself to one player, in this case the Timberwolves, the trade failing to meet expectations immediately becomes taboo. Because if it were to fail, Minnesota would pay dearly for mortgaging its future—all of its draft capital—on an aging, problematic Gobert.

With Minnesota all in on Gobert, he instantly became the elephant in the room. His notoriety took a steep dive for the worse as the season progressed and the too-scaryto-consider reality started to materialize. Often, Gobert looked like a shell of his Utah self and was benched in crucial moments as the Timberwolves found their most efficient lineups without him. With their newly-acquired franchise centerpiece regressing, the Timberwolves failed to meet expectations in a wide-open Western Conference, finding themselves fighting for a spot in the playoffs instead of one in the conference’s top spots like many anticipated they would be.

Having established Gobert’s character and the stakes of it all, we can fast forward to the last day of the 2023 NBA regular season. Minnesota was playing the New Orleans Pelicans in a game that would decide who earned the eighth seed in the Western Conference and who finished ninth—an important difference because the eighth seed gets two opportunities to win one game in the play-in tournament to qualify for the postseason, while the ninth seed must win two consecutive games to earn the final spot in the playoffs. With the stakes as high as ever, all were on edge.

During a timeout in the second quarter, Gobert and teammate Kyle Anderson got into a heated verbal exchange that ended with Gobert punching Anderson in the chest before the two were restrained by other players and staff. Gobert was sent home, and the Timberwolves were left to finish the most important game of their season without him.

And though Minnesota would win the game, matters worsened ahead of its now set matchup against the seventh seeded Los Angeles Lakers—forward and key contributor Jaden McDaniels was ruled out with a

broken right hand after swinging at a wall in frustration during the game.

With Gobert suspended, McDaniels injured and the whole team rattled by distractions, the Timberwolves went into Los Angeles with seemingly everything working against them. Yet the Timberwolves found themselves leading by as much as 15 and with an opportunity to put the higher-seeded and home-team Lakers away. In the final six minutes of regulation and then yes, overtime, they proceeded to do the exact opposite in a truly spectacular manner.

eran Conley got a lucky bounce on his first free throw—a missed free throw would have been too good to be true—and calmly swished the next two, sending the game into overtime. But for the Timberwolves, overtime was as far from a “new quarter, new us” reset as there can be: They scored four total points on two field goals, the furthest make coming from four feet away. Los Angeles continued to be just barely better and, more importantly, less stupid as the overtime period wore on.

Minnesota entered the fourth quarter leading by seven; a Mike Conley basket put the Timberwolves ahead 95-88 at the 6:01 mark, meaning the Timberwolves were halfway to successfully holding off the surging Lakers. The second half of the final quarter, however, was much less successful. Minnesota would not score again until only a tenth of a second remained and would not score another field goal until overtime. As Minnesota finished the quarter 0-8 from the field and turned the ball over four times in the same span, the Lakers just barely managed to be less worse. With 2:02 left, a LeBron James three-pointer tied the game at 95. (That’s seven points scored in four minutes. So impressive, I know.) The next two minutes featured four misses, three turnovers and zero points. And with only a second left in the game, James found Dennis Schröder open in the corner to surely seal the game for the Lakers. Somehow, someway, the Timberwolves had found a way to lose. That is, of course, until the Lakers’ Anthony Davis took the challenge of outdoing the Timberwolves hilarity to heart. With a 10th of a second to go, as Conley faded away from the court and clanked a three-point attempt that never had a chance off the backboard, Davis fouled him—the one thing the Lakers needed to avoid to secure a victory and a playoff spot.

So after six scoreless minutes, the Timberwolves weren’t dead quite yet. The vet-

The Lakers won, but I’d argue there is a greater, more important lesson to be taken from all of this. Yes, the basketball was terrible. Just plainly blasphemous to the beautiful game Dr. James Naismith invented a couple hundred years ago. But I’d argue that the entertainment was maximized. The storylines were abundant and fans were kept on the edge of their seats all the way into overtime. Does it matter that none of the shots were going in? That professional basketball players could not complete basic chest passes to each other? That some of the game’s most important players were sidelined because they thought they were in the WWE? Maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t. Maybe the best 48-minute basketball game ever will be the one that ends with a score of 9-7. We can only hope to one day find out for ourselves.

So as the playoffs ramp up, I’m here to encourage you to not judge a game by its score or a team by its shooting percentages. Just chase entertainment in blissful ignorance and have more fun watching sports than you ever have.

Image courtesy of Erik Drost via Wikimedia Commons.

“Just chase entertainment in blissful ignorance and have more fun watching sports than you ever have.”

The Miscellany Crosswords

By Sadie Keesbury

"Misc Mini 1"

ACROSS

1. Mai _____, rum cocktail

4. Heart-to-hearts

9.

DOWN

1. Soulmates

2. Org. for a tow

3 “That's not yours!”

4. Small river

5. French river

6. Talk endlessly

7. Floor cover

11. Dennis’s twin in “It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia”

"Misc Mini 2"

DOWN

ACROSS

1. Commercials

1. Solo

2. Loser

3. Pig’s place

4. Appropriate rhyme for “trip”

5. Scale where 4.0 is the goal (abbr.)

"Misc Mini 3"

DOWN

ACROSS

1. London apartment

5. “_____ you” (statement of debt)

6. Nike, Goldfish or Kleenex

Answers to last week’s puzzle:

"Happy Spring!"

By Sadie Keesbury

1. Lie

2. “Liability” and “Green Light”

3. Anticipate