Misc commencement

The Miscellany News

Faculty propose curriculum changes Eilis Donohue News Editor

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s another semester draws to a close, faculty and students alike find themselves ready to embrace a change that would reduce the intense workload they all face each semester.

In light of this, a group of dedicated professors and a student liaison, VSA Vice President for Academics Logan

Volume CXLVII | Issue 22

May 29, 2016

Since 1866 | miscellanynews.com

Hill ’16, recently drafted a “Proposal on rebalancing the curriculum and the teaching load (2-2-1).”

The proposal will go to vote at one of the first faculty meetings of the Fall 2016 semester. It would change the standard teaching load from 3-2 to 2-2-1. That is, professors would no longer teach three courses one semester and two the next, but rather

Emma Jones/The Miscellany News

Faculty members recently proposed a rebalancing of the academic curriculum that will allow students to personalize their studies and diversify their schedule.

two courses each semester and an additional “dash-1” course, which is defined in the document as “something for which students receive Vassar academic credit.”

The language is intentionally vague about the dash-1. Dean of Studies and proposal contributor Ben Lotto explained, “We didn’t want to create a list for fear of unintentionally boxing in these possibilities.”

Instead, departments and programs will be able to define these alternative learning options as they see fit, allowing students and professors alike more freedom to individualize their course of study. As Associate Professor and Chair of Anthropology Candice Lowe Swift described it, “[T]he dash-1 is that dynamic component to the curriculum, to the Vassar curriculum, which would always allow us to be responsive to student needs.”

The rebalancing will include a reduction in the number of classroom courses offered. The proposal document reads, “At the core of this plan is a paired reduction of the average number of classroom units elected by students per year and reduction the number of classroom units offered per year.”

This will mean certain programs and departments will likely have to restructure their major sequences and carefully consider which courses they will continue to offer. Assistant Professor of Chemistry Alison Keimowitz Keimowitz commented, “This is really an opportunity for departments and programs across the campus to take a really deep look at their curriculum and make some See CURRICULUM on page 3

Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY

Trip links climate to urban expansion Zander Bashaw Senior Editor

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s the most populous country in the world, China’s rapid industrialization has had massive effects on both the global economy and the environment. This past spring break, a group of students and faculty embarked on a 12-day trip in China to study the environmental consequences of the rapid economic growth that has occurred there in recent years. The trip was part of Vassar’s International Study Trav­el class, which is offered yearly in con­junction with a trip to the area of study. This year, Professor of

Geography Yu Zhou and Associate Professor of Political Science Fubing Su, organized the trip and the course together.

Zhou explained that this faculty collaboration is an inherent part of the Vassar International Study Travel course. “The international study trip has always been team taught because we understand the trip as multidisciplinary,” she stated. Since this trip had an environmental focus, six faculty members from the Environmental Studies and Biology Departments also attended, in addition to Dean of the Faculty Jon See TRIP on page 4

Search commences for next president Talya Phelps

Design Editor

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pring is a time of change at Vassar: leaves and flowers pop, executive boards turn over, and another crop of seniors takes their last finals and moves out for the last time. This year, change is going on higher up as well: Stephen Dahnert is stepping in as Acting Vice President for Finance and Administration to replace Robert Walton, and Dr. Adriana Karapetian di Bartolo has been named the new Dean of Students. Meanwhile, the search for President Catharine Bond Hill’s replacement is already well underway

after the announcement on March 29 that Hill will be concluding her presidency after the 2017 academic year.

The Presidential Search Committee is composed of Committee Co-Chairs Geraldine Laybourne ’69 and Anthony Friscia ’78 and Trustees Karen Ackman ’88, Maryellen Herringer ’65, Philip Jefferson ’83, Susan Mandel ’78, and William Plapinger ’74; Vassar Professors Teresa Garrett, Jamie Kelly, Mia Mask, Peipei Qiu, and Paul Ruud; and current students Conor Flanagan ’17 and Ellie Winter ’18. This 14-person group See PRESIDENT on page 3

Graduating Brewers Thesis reinterprets Chinese work leave lasting legacy W Elena Schultz Arts Editor

Hanna McGuire Sports Editor

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Inside this issue

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Loeb exhibit showcases beauty FEATURE of outer space

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ritten in 1934, Cao Yu’s “Thunderstorm,” has become a staple in Chinese dramatic literature. The plot grapples with unsettling themes of revenge, incest and class disparity, and continues to captivate modern readers, Simeon Busano ’16 being one in particular.

Having read “Thunderstorm” while studying abroad in China, Busano was struck by the classic story, and was inspired to adapt it for a senior thesis project, which was performed on May 7 in the Alumnae/i House. He wrote in an emailed statement, “It’s a story of survival, it’s a story of moving on after you have had your heart broken, it’s a story of healing [and] it’s a story about redemption, and I think that was so attractive to me ... How do you move forward from a really really negative episode and how do you use that to make you stronger and better rather than bitter?”

While “Thunderstorm” is a classic throughout China, it remains virtually unknown in America. Cast member Jaimeson Bukacek Frazier ’19 remarked, “In China, it’s pretty much universally required reading in high school, but your average American has never heard of it.”

For this reason, Busano was convinced that the story deserved to be told on an American stage.

Simeon Busano’s ’16 thesis was performed on May 7 in the Alumni House. The See THESIS on page 6 performance reimagined a Chinese piece and made a space for new voices.

Grads contribute to unique Vassar HUMOR traditions

Courtesy of Simeon Busano

nother year at Vassar, and another sports season has passed.

Although many athletes will return to the burgundy and gray next fall, 84 players will hang up their uniforms and say goodbye to Vassar athletics.

The Senior Brewers have certainly left their mark not only on their respective teams, but also on Vassar athletics in its entirety.

This 2015-2016 seaso,n Vassar saw notable achievements from many of its sports teams. Each team’s success came in large part from these 84 seniors. These athletes have worked tirelessly for their respective sports for four years and have helped build each individual program, in addition to Vassar athletics as a whole, to what it is today.

On Wednesday, May 11, the entirety of Vassar’s athletics community came together to honor Vassar sports and the numerous standout senior athletes at the Annual Vassar Athletics Banquet. While a number of seniors were nominated for their exceptional performances over their tenure, six specific seniors received top honors.

The banquet featured nomination videos for the top contenders for each award, and the awards themselves were presented by members of the Vassar Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC).

At this year’s banquet, the athletics department also instituted a new award, the Vassar Athletics Student-Worker of the Year award.

Men’s basketball player Erikson Wasyl earned the AFAVC Annual Award, which is centered on overall grade-point average, leadership, team spirit and athletic ability.

During his career, Wasyl became only the 14th Brewer to score 1,000 points.

The two-time captain started 76 of 103 games and this season was voted to the Liberty League Second Team. This year he also received the CoSIDA Academic All-District award, as well as Liberty League All-Academic Honors with a 3.76 GPA. Later in the evening, Wasyl’s teammate Johnny Mrlik and women’s lacrosse player Isabelle Goldstein were honored with the Frances Fergusson Coaches Award. The accolade is given to one male and See SPORTS on page 7

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Seniors look back at four years of Vassar

2012 -2016

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The Miscellany News

May 29, 2016

Students vote against BDS resolution Christopher Kremer & Nick Barone Guest Columnist & Opinions Editor

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n April 28, the Vassar student body failed to pass the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolution and amendment, after a highly controversial, multi-month campaign. The resolution would have affirmed a statement of political support for the BDS movement, while the amendment would have required restriction of student government funds. The resolution received 573 “no” votes and 503 “yes” votes, while the amendment garnered 601 “no” votes and 475 “yes” votes, according to a campus-wide email sent by VSA Elections. The referenda signified a tenuous conclusion to the most controversial campus issue of the 2015-2016 academic year.

The documents were put to student referendum after the Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council originally passed the resolution and failed to pass the amendment via secret vote in March. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), J Street U and Students for Open Dialogue campaigned heavily on the issue, with the former two calling for the adoption of the documents and the latter two calling for their failure.

The spike of anti-occupation activism this year did not begin with BDS this spring, however. While the Vassar BDS campaign was officially launched on Feb. 1, 2016, actions earlier in the academic year prefaced the initial writing of the controversial resolution and amendment. In September, SJP and JVP unsuccessfully campaigned Campus Dining to remove Sabra hummus from the Retreat. In an article for Boilerplate Magazine, SJP argued, “With the recognition that it is impossible for the administration to be distinct from the political sphere, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace will continue to resist Vassar’s participation in Israeli apartheid–through education, civil disobedience and coalition building–until it is economically bound to subscribe to BDS in all aspects of the institution” (Boilerplate Magazine, “Hummus is Political: Choose a Side: The Sabra Boycott, False Promises, and the Road Ahead,” 11.02.2015).

The resolution and amendment functioned as part of a larger consumer boycott campaign launched by the Palestinian BDS Na­tional Committee. The BDS Movement targets Israel-affiliated companies which they consider complicit in the occupation, arguing that reinforcement of the economy supports Israel’s violations of

News Briefs One of Six Police Officers Implicated in Freddie Gray Case Acquitted of Charges On Monday, May 23, Officer Edward M. Nero, one of six police officers implicated in the arrest of Freddie Gray, was acquitted of all charges. By the end of the trial, protesters had already gathered outside of the courthouse to express their discontent with the verdict. However, some protesters feel as though Nero’s trial is not as important as those of the other officers and are not as disappointed by the verdict.

Gray was arrested on April 12, 2015 for supposed possession of an illegal knife (The New York Times, “Freddie Gray in Baltimore: Another City, Another Death in the Public Eye,” 04.21.15). During the ride in the police van, Gray suffered a spinal injury and ultimately died a week later. His death has since become the subject of debates surrounding civil rights and police brutality.

Following Freddie Gray’s death in April of 2015, State Attorney for Baltimore City Marilyn J. Moseby brought charges in May of 2015 against the six officers, with the most serious levied against Officer William G. Porter Goodson, who was charged with involuntary manslaughter, among other charges. Some immediately felt that the charges were apt, given that the coroner’s report ruled Gray’s death a homicide, while others felt the charges were brought too quickly and without sufficiently thorough consideration.

As one of the three officers present during Gray’s arrest, Nero’s charges included second-degree assault, which is punishable by up to 10 years, and two counts of misconduct in office and reckless endangerment, which is punishable by up to five years (The New York

international law. The BDS Movement website explains that a boycott generates awareness of issues while simulataneously applying economic pressure to those companies complicit in the occupation of Palestinian territories (BDS Movement, “Consumer Boy­cott”). Critics, such as the Anti-Defamation League, denounce the movement as antisemitic for its perpetuation of a double standard by explicitly targeting Israeli policies over those of other nations.

While the voter turnout of 1076 students was higher than usual, it still constitutes less than half of the student body. Co-Chair of Students for Open Dialogue Samuel Lehn ’18 interpreted this phenomenon as evidence of a general indifference. He asserted, “[T]he results of the BDS vote indicate that for a large portion of the student body, the BDS vote was not a concern.” For Lehn, this signified apathy. He continued, “More than half of the student population was either unaffected by the orgs pushing both sides on this topic or were dissuaded from participating in the conversation.”

The intensifying BDS debate prompted several lectures and events on campus relating to the conflict, including an SJP/JVP-sponsored lecture by queer theorist Jasbir Puar and a J Street U-sponsored lecture by journalist Peter Beinart.

Discourse relating to the resolution and amendment was often tenuous and rife with emotion, leading to palpable tension on campus. Co-Chair of J Street U Vassar Matthew Kolbert ’17 emphasized the effectiveness of consistent programming in the wake of the BDS campaign, saying, “The numerous events and meetings we’ve put on this semester have helped students to develop informed opinions on the subject.”

However, he suggested that students could have benefitted further from the collective information that organizations provide. “I think even our more general meetings, talking about things like the green line (which is the line that separates Israel and the West Bank) or settlement expansion could have made an impact on students,” he said. Clarifying J Street U’s particular stance, he continued, “[A] lot of the discourse around this issue put things in the framework of pro-BDS, pro-Palestinian vs. anti-BDS, anti-Palestinian. For J Street U Vassar, that simply isn’t the case. We are explicitly pro-Palestinian and explicitly anti-BDS, and that stems from the fact that we believe a two-state solution is the only viable solution to the conflict. The BDS movement fails to endorse a two-state solution and its effects would impede our work towards that goal.”

When asked about future anti-occupation activism on campus, Kolbert felt that the BDS movement wouldn’t be going away anytime soon.

“BDS is a result of the occupation of the West Bank, and so long as that persists, I don’t see a reason why it would go away,” Kolbert remarked.

“People are outraged at what is happening in the region and they have every reason to be.”

Lehn argued that the continued presence of BDS on campus would depend on how effectively orgs were able to campaign on the issue. “If one side of the BDS vote spends time and energy promoting their perspective, while the other side remains silent, the vote will sway in the active side’s favor,” he explained. “However, if both movements successfully promote their perspectives and narratives on the issue to the Vassar student body then the vote results will rest in the hands of a well-informed student body—which is, for me, the correct results regardless of the turnout.”

An anonymous representative from the BDS Coalition said in an emailed statement after being asked about if the BDS vote reflected student opinion, “The point is that at the beginning of the year, we would never have made it this close.

People didn’t know about it. People may have opposed it because they weren’t sure about it and were afraid to rock the boat.”

The representative highlighted influence of the administration and outside entities on the results of the vote. They said, “We should not ignore the impact of outside organizations and how they made people feel worried about the impact of a BDS vote on their everyday life...The moves by these organizations and the administration clearly impacted the decisions of VSA members and students.” It is important to note that President Hill has stated on numerous occasions that Vassar as an institution would not endorse BDS or any boycotts of Israeli institutions.

The representative remnains hopeful about the future of BDS, both at Vassar and internationally. When asked if they think BDS could be reintroduced and eventually passed at Vassar, they wrote, “Yes. I believe that Palestine will be free within my lifetime.”

The long-term significances of the BDS vote are still unclear as the academic year winds down. Though the student body ultimately rejected BDS, the sheer breadth of activism and passion on both sides of the debate highlight the power of student discourse and democracy in grappling with complex, contentious issues on college campuses.

Times, “6 Officers Accused: Status Report on the Baltimore Cases,” 05.09.16).

Nero’s trial focused on the beginning of the Gray’s arrest rather than his death, unlike some of the other officers charged. Despite his acquittal, Nero’s role in the trial is not yet complete. He is set to be an important witness when Officer Goodson takes the stand.

Nero’s trial was not the first action taken by the City of Baltimore after the death of Freddie Gray. It follows the declaration of a mistrial at the trial of Officer William H. Murphy Jr. in December of 2015. The trial is rescheduled for Sept. 6, 2016. Then, the City reached a $6.4 billion settlement with the Gray family (The New York Times, “Police Officer in Freddie Gray Case is Acquitted of All Charges,” 05.23.16).

The other five officers involved in the arrest of Gray are still awaiting trial.

The release of a 2005 deposition from Cosby in which he admits to procuring drugs in order to have sex with women also played a role in the reopening of the case.

The Constand case was also addressed in a 2006 civil suit. Cosby has since sued Constand this past February, claiming that she violated the terms of the settlement by reopening the case. The case was reopened by Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele after he took office in January 2016.

Steele established conditions for the trial to occur: “The prosecution had only to show that there was enough evidence to establish a case that a crime had been committed and that the defendant had been connected to it,” (The New York Times, “Bill Cosby Sexual Assault Trial Can Proceed, Judge Rules,” 05.24.16). Ultimately, Cosby faces three counts of aggravated assault in the Constand case (CNN, “Bill Cosby to Stand Trial for Assault Charges, Judge Rules,” 05.25.16).

Cosby waived his right to arraignment, meaning that he will ultimately plead not guilty when the case goes to trial. According to The New York Times, “The case now moves back up to the state’s trial court level, where another judge will be assigned. That judge will set a trial date,” (“Bill Cosby Sexual Assault Trial Can Proceed, Judge Rules,” 05.24.16).

So far, Constand’s accusations of Cosby are the only ones that have resulted in legal recourse for the comedian. Many of the women who have come forward are unable to file charges against Cosby due to the statute of limitations. If convicted, Cosby could face up to 10 years in prison for the charges brought by Constand.

Sexual Assault Charges Against Comedian Bill Cosby Will Go to Trial [Trigger warning: sexual assault] After a ruling this past Wednesday, Bill Cosby will stand trial for sexual assault accusations brought over 10 years ago by Andrea Constand.

In 2005, when Constand initially accused Cosby, the case was dismissed by the prosecutor due to a lack of credible evidence.

Cosby’s alleged crimes have returned to popular attention due to a number of different factors, primarily that over 50 women have come forward to accuse Cosby of sexual assault, all at different times in his career. Temporally, the accusations range from 1965 to 2008, and detail the ways in which Cosby allegedly gave drugs and alcohol to women before forcing himself upon them (The Atlantic, “The Sad Irony of Bill Cosby Finally Being Prosecuted,” 05.25.16).

—Anika Lanser, Outgoing Senior Editor

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Editor-in-Chief Rhys Johnson

Senior Editors Zander Bashaw Emma Jones

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CORRECTION POLICY The Miscellany News will only corrections for any misquotes, resentations or factual errors for ticle within the semester it is

accept misrepan arprinted.

May 29, 2016

COMMENCEMENT

Page 3

Student voices crucial in choosing capable candidate PRESIDENT continued from page 1

is joined by Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Art Rodriguez as Non-Voting Observer, AAVC President Missie Taylor ’68 as Advisor to the Co-Chairs and Professor of Mathematics and Statistics John Feroe as Secretary.

The committee has just completed its first major milestone: hiring a search firm to scour the nation for Vassar’s next leading executive.

After presentations from the top three search firms associated with liberal arts colleges and a process of evaluation and reference checking, the committee selected Isaacson, Miller, a firm with headquarters in Boston that has recently worked with Amherst, Spelman, Wellesley and Bowdoin Colleges. This decision was made by unanimous vote.

On May 26, the first full meeting of the committee formally kicked off the search process, and a preceding open session that morning included introductions, general information about the search process, and smaller discussion groups between the committee and interested members of the Vassar community. At the meeting, committee members cited a range of reasons for their involvement in the search process. Friscia said, “I was a first-generation student. Vassar gave me an education, so I will do anything for this college.” Garrett noted the impact Vassar has had on her, saying, “I test out things all the time to make my classroom as inclusive as possible...Vassar has inspired me to be that kind of educator.”

Going forward, the committee will be focused for the next two months on creating a position statement that describes what Vassar is looking for. According to Laybourne, some traits highlighted during the search for Hill included an appreciation for the importance of access and a commitment to valuing the sciences.

Describing the goals of the position statement, Laybourne said, “We will try to make a document that is truly Vassar...we want to be sure that we represent Vassar in its fullness.” After Isaacson, Miller brings back a list of candidates, the committee can whittle it down to a smaller pool; they will then examine each of these candidates in more depth, invite a few to interview,

and gradually pare down until they have a single candidate to nominate. At this point, the Board of Trustees will have the final say.

Laybourne noted that, relative to the 2005 search, the committee is behind in the process— an issue exacerbated by the fact that the majority of students, and many faculty members, are no longer on campus. Stressing the importance of community voices, Friscia asserted, “One of the things that’s very important to us is that this is as inclusive a process as possible.” In order to solve part of this problem, faculty members are meeting to work toward finding a faculty representative, and a member of Isaacson, Morris was on campus on May 27 to speak with senior officers. Also, a survey was sent out to the community by Feroe, and Flanagan and Winter have connected with students via a survey emailed to students by incoming VSA President Calvin Lamothe ’17.

Flanagan and Winter were chosen as student representatives by the VSA Executive Board in conjunction with the Board of Elections and Appointments. Describing why he chose to apply, Flanagan said, “I really, really love Vassar and I’ve just felt for a long time like it’s not doing a good enough job for a lot of its students. I really appreciate it here...but there’s clearly a lot of unhappiness and downright misery on the campus for a lot of people.”

Flanagan feels that despite the progress Hill has helped orchestrate in financial accessibility, Vassar still fails many marginalized students on matters of both aid and visibility. “[Vassar] hasn’t done enough with support structures within the school, for first-generation students, or students of color, or anyone who’s not the classic privileged middle-to-upper-class white kid,” he said. “We are a much more diverse school than even a lot of the student body perceives it to be, but it still feels like that elite white institution, even as we move away from that.”

Flanagan noted that privilege vs. marginalization is not the only conflict Vassar officers could handle better. He added, “More broadly, the administration is just not addressing student concerns well. Last year there was a rally around

Main Building to protest...racism and sexual assault and mental health issues, and...there’s been some progress on mental health issues, but on the other things, it doesn’t seem like anything has changed. That’s not okay.”

So far, Flanagan says, his and Winter’s role in the committee has been limited to collecting student input. “That’s our main responsibility right now: to keep track of what the students want from the next president,” he explained.

“I don’t know that we’ll get assigned anything specific other than that.” In preparation for the meeting on May 26, the two met and coordinated their priorities. “We’re pretty much on the same page so far,” Flanagan said. In terms of aligning his and Winter’s goals with those of the committee, Flanagan noted that the latter agreed that maintaining financial accessibility and need-blind is an essential concern in the coming conversations.

There are still some disparities between student and committee outlooks, though. “They still seem very disconnected from actual student life in a lot of ways,” said Flanagan, “and that’ll be a tough gap to bridge.” Attention to student life is one of Flanagan’s main considerations in choosing the new president: “I think the most important thing is that they’re a person who really prioritizes the student body’s needs and wants,” he said. “Cappy has done some really good stuff with financial accessibility and the Posse program, but it doesn’t feel like she’s in tune with the student body, and that’s the most important thing. So we really want a president who gets it insofar as they can.”

Some survey responses suggested that a younger president would be better able to reach these goals. Flanagan agreed and said, “I think someone who has experience with accessibility issues and marginalization issues would be good. They can’t be coming into that without any prior knowledge...You can’t learn that on the job well enough.”

Flanagan emphasized the importance of student participation, encouraging everyone to fill out the survey Lamothe emailed. “We can always use more input on that,” he noted. He also encouraged any students with concerns to

reach out to him or Winter. “We’re doing this so that students can be heard in a way they haven’t been under Cappy,” he said. “And obviously the president that gets selected is essential to that, but it doesn’t matter if students aren’t engaged.”

Student participation will allow the Vassar community to add their visions of the ideal president to what Flanagan expressed: “Someone who understands that Vassar is a school, but it’s also our home, and treats it that way.”

The Presidential search may be the most publicized change in administration, but leadership is changing in other departments as well.

In the Finance and Administration department, Associate Vice President for Financial Services and Treasurer Stephen Dahnert is taking on the role of Acting Vice President for the next two years, effective July 1. Dahnert is replacing Robert Walton, who will leave Vassar this year to become CEO of the National Association of College Stores, headquartered in Oberlin, Ohio.

“I will oversee the work and personnel of the Finance and Administration division of the College,” said Dahnert in an emailed statement. “In my present role I oversee Accounting Services as well as treasury functions; to this I will add Facilities Operations, Human Resources, and Budgeting.”

Most recently, on May 26, Dean of the College Christopher Roellke announced the appointment of Dr. Adriana Karapetian di Bartolo as the new Dean of Students. Di Bartolo’s position will begin on July 5, 2016. She has served at Pomona College and the Claremont Colleges in several roles, including founding director of the Claremont Colleges’ Queer Resource Center of the Claremont Colleges and Acting Associate Dean of Students for Personal Success and Wellness.

At Pomona, she has served as Interim Associate Dean of Students and as a member of Pomona’s Title IX Advisory Committee.

As graduates leave campus and face an expansive new future, Vassar also faces a new chapter in its administrative history. Throughout the summer, faculty and students will be hard at work building this new era, and when students return in September, they will be faced with a different Vassar.

Faculty suggest offering additional academic alternatives CURRICULUM continued from page 1

decisions.” Lotto agreed, “[T]hat’s an exciting conversation because then you aren’t just doing what you’ve been doing. It brings a certain amount of intentionality about what we’re doing into each department and program and major.”

While most faculty members are appreciative of the proposal, there is some criticism of the justice of reducing classroom offerings.

“There is much support among the faculty for the 2-2-1 proposal simply because they see it as the only way that they can reduce their somewhat burdensome teaching load relative to our peer institutions,” Professor of English Donald Foster expressed. “But there’s also the recognition that it’s once again being done at the expense of the students and classroom instruction, which is why I and many others feel that it’s the wrong way to solve our problem.”

He elaborated, “I would say it’s been well thought out, how to try to get the faculty workload lighter, but...there’s no way to conceal the fact that it’s a diminishment of what we’re offering the students and it coerces students to go along with it by limiting how much classroom instruction they’re going to get for their tuition dollar.”

That said, fewer traditional courses does not equate to a reduction in total instructional offerings, per se. Swift explained, “[W]e don’t see this as a reduction in the curriculum, we see it as acknowledging some of the work that we already do and also raising the standards of some of the work that we claim to be doing, and also really asking professors to think outside of the box with regard to some of the courses that they’re offering.”

In fact, lessening the credit requirements could be beneficial for overall academic experiences. Keimowitz asserted, “[B]y reducing the size of some of the very large majors, in that way it gets back to some of what a liberal arts education is to be, which is not necessarily [having] half or more than half of your courses

in one area of study.” The requirements under the proposal would likely still be rigorous, but would also allow for more exploration outside of the major sequence, undoubtedly a key feature of liberal arts study.

At the heart of the need for rebalancing is the fact that both students and faculty are continually oversubscribing. “If you compare our faculty to student ratio to that of our peer institutions, we have one of the best ratios, we’re close to the top of that list. And yet, at almost all of those institutions, faculty teach two classroom courses each semester, whereas here we’ve been working at a 2-3 load,” Keimowitz noted.

“So what’s the difference? And the difference is that our students are taking five or more classroom courses a semester, which is effectively like having 25 percent more students, in terms of demand on classes.”

While applying to overload, that is, take more credits in a semester than is permitted by the general procedure, would still be feasible under the new proposal, it would perhaps be less sought-after. The committee that drafted the proposal hope that by reducing both the required credits and the offered courses, students will consider their options more carefully and pursue what truly interests them. Swift asserted, “[W]e’re trying to de-emphasize quantity and put a heavier emphasis on the quality of the academic experience.”

Many faculty have expressed frustration that they can’t offer students as much support or engage as fully on an individual level as they would ideally like to do. Keimowitz voiced that frustration, saying, “[C]oming out of a semester now where I was teaching three classroom courses, I think classroom courses suffer and I think my research students suffer because I’m less available. So I think in that way, there will be this subtle change to how everybody’s work flow is operating, and I think it would really change those interactions.”

Lotto furthered, “[Professors] want to engage with students in their courses beyond that.

They want to give them good and careful feedback. They want to give them robust sets of assignments. And when you’re doing three courses, there’s only so much room for you to do that for all your students in all your courses.” By dropping the faculty workload to teaching two classroom courses per semester, as most peer institutions do, the proposal would allow faculty more time to work with students on projects they are passionate about.

In his recent article “When the Vassar Bubble Pops, What Then?” for Boilerplate Magazine, Foster argued that the faculty at Vassar is overworked due to overspending on administration. His proposed solution to this issue includes hiring additional faculty.

However, faculty hiring is the prerogative of the Board of Trustees and the Office of the Dean of the Faculty, and as such is naturally out of the hands of the faculty members themselves. Therefore, they decided to approach the issue of overloading, both on the student and faculty ends, from an angle over which they do have jurisdiction: curriculum. Swift clarified, “[The proposal] is not an argument for or against increasing the size of the faculty. I think some of us on the committee would love to see the size of the faculty increase, but that’s not within our power...[We thought about] what sorts of things are within our power to create greater opportunities for deeper engagement.

More faculty would help with that, but I think the dash-1 would also help with that.”

Such a proposal has long been in the works.

Foster explained that a similar 2-2 proposal was almost considered in 2007, but was put off when the recession hit. Now there is a renewed drive to rebalance the workload and rethink curricula that are perhaps outdated. Swift noted, “[M] any programs and departments, especially departments, have been operating on tradition, traditions that we have not revisited for a very long time.”

She continued, ”[The curriculum proposal] is an opportunity for us to get creative and to

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

reestablish a connection between what students are interested in doing now and what we think might be important in terms of continuity of the field.” Lotto corroborated, “[A]ny time we create opportunities to really talk deeply about what our curriculum is, it’s going to benefit students. It’s when we feel too busy to really have those conversations or if we go on autopilot for too long that we’re not necessarily doing as well as we can by students.”

A transition to a more open definition of what a college learning experience looks like could allow Vassar students and faculty to explore their academic passions in alternative ways. “[One of the main goals is] revisiting tradition and revitalizing certain things and giving up others so that we can make room for newer things, and things that are happening today that are more relevant,” noted Swift.

Vassar students and professors have already demonstrated their interest in temporally and regionally relevant studies by designing courses such as the International Studies class offered this past spring, “The Twenty-First Century Worldwide Refugee Crisis,” or taking not-for-credit courses involved with community engagement. The proposal seeks to recognize those efforts at creative and conscious learning as well as open up channels for further exploration and the sharing of new ideas.

According to its website, “[Vassar is] a highly selective, residential, coeducational liberal arts college.” This proposal is aimed at helping students make the most of their time here and reap the full benefits of a liberal arts education. “[F] or most people, it’s the only opportunity that you’re going to have, these four years, to engage so fully in political life, social life, academic life, all on these fronts at once,” Swift noted. By opening up the curriculum to alternative educational practices and simultaneously reducing the intense workload on faculty and students, the creators of the proposal aim to restore some of the academic fluidity and curiosity that a liberal arts college ought to foster.

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May 29, 2016

Refugee solidarity transcends global, local activism Jackson Ingram Copy Editor

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seeks to strengthen the local community not only to help mobilize support for refugees overseas but also to prepare a network of support in Poughkeepsie for the incoming families. Rabbi Leah Berkowitz of Vassar Temple is happy to welcome Christ Episcopal Church and Mid Hudson Islamic Association for the June 5 meeting to discuss the resettlement of refugees together with Vassar College. “Many of those in our community have parents and grandparents who came to America for a better life and thrived here because citizens of this country provided the support they needed to succeed,” she said. “We are committed to continuing that proud tradition of welcoming refugees and giving those who flee persecution the opportunity to build better lives here in the United States. It’s our turn to welcome the stranger.”

Vassar Refugee Solidarity and the local com-

munities of faith hope their work will set a precedent for future activism. Höhn explained her outlook on the project: “Refugee Solidarity does not just talk about social justice, we do it. And we do it locally. There are a lot of local needs as well, and I think we can really help the refugees and at the same time support people in the local community who have needs,” she said. “I want this initiative to sort of reinvigorate our other community commitments. ... This is as way for us to rethink...How can we make a difference?”

The presentations at Vassar Temple will take place on June 5 from 2 to 4 p.m., followed by the Solidarity Walk and Community Iftar. Vassar Refugee Solidarity would like to encourage all students staying on campus or in the local area to attend and also visit their site, refugeesolidarity.vassar.edu to learn more about how to get involved.

Courtesy of Wikipedia

ince the global refugee crisis began to dominate the news in the summer of 2015, discussions have ignited across the U.S. over proposed responses. Over the past school year, Vassar Refugee Solidarity started putting their ideas into action. On Saturday, June 5, the organization invites students and local residents to join them and several communities of faith at Vassar Temple to learn about refugee resettlement efforts. Vassar Refugee Solidarity, in collaboration with local groups, is hoping to bring three families of refugees to Poughkeepsie late this fall or early 2017.

Faculty adviser for Vassar Refugee Solidarity and Chair of the History Department Maria Höhn explained that although there has been significant interest in the local community, most groups did not know how to get the process started. “The resettlement project for refugee families grew organically, but that’s not how we started,” she explained. “Our initiative was initially focused completely on education, scholarships and thinking about ways [Vassar College] could connect with colleagues in Europe who are right there on the frontlines of the refugee crisis.”

Working closely with Vassar Refugee Solidarity’s Leadership Team, Höhn led a six-week course in the International Studies Department on the refugee crisis called “The 21st Century Worldwide Refugee Crisis.” The course, along with a variety of on-campus lectures and workshops, encouraged students to engage in meaningful, productive conversations both inside and outside the classroom. Höhn remarked, “We’re working together with a number of other colleges. We co-founded a consortium of like-minded colleges on forced migration and displacement education.

We’re all thinking together how we can integrate this into our curriculum...Lots of people are doing aspects of this already, but I think we need to coordinate our efforts.”

Education is just the first step of a collaborative response to the refugee crisis, however.

Co-founder and Student Leader of Vassar Refugee Solidarity Anish Kanoria ’18 explained how

awareness on campus will begin translating to actions more broadly. “This crisis and initiative is a stark reminder that there is so much going on in the ‘outside’ world that we, at Vassar, are insulated from,” he said in an emailed statement. “We cannot and must not choose to turn a blind eye.

By immersing ourselves in these global phenomenons, we emerge stronger and hopefully after having made a small difference.”

The refugee crisis marks the largest displacement of people since World War II. While Syrian refugees make up one of the largest refugee groups, the 59.5 million forcibly-displaced people hail from many nations. Kanoria describes how those who can respond must do so, and do so quickly. “At Vassar, we have the imperative and means to help. We must act, in a responsible and thoughtful way, now,” he explained. “There are so many opportunities to be involved. One can volunteer at the Rural Migrant Ministry to help undocumented migrants in the local community; donate clothes, furniture, food and/or money; work with the resettlement office in their own communities; or simply help us with organizing and spreading the word.”

Refugee Solidarity plans to engage the Hudson Valley area through both the upcoming event at Vassar Temple and the Solidarity Walk held June 5 on the Walkway Over the Hudson. The Walk was being organized by the Social Action Committee at Vassar Temple to promote interfaith solidarity when Vassar Refugee Solidarity approached them about possibly co-sponsoring a family. Social Action Chairman of the Vassar Temple, Marian Schwartz, described her wishes for the event. “It is my hope and expectation that the Solidarity Walk and Community Iftar will bring together many diverse elements of the community in a setting where we are all meeting face-to-face, hand-in-hand, breaking bread together, joining together in discussion, learning and song,” she said in an emailed statement.

“Through this kind of contact we can break down barriers of fear of the ‘other’ and build bridges of understanding.”

The Solidarity Walk and Community Iftar

On June 5, Vassar Temple, Christ Episcopal Church and Mid Hudson Islamic Association will walk over the Hudson River to mobilize support and raise awareness for global refugees.

Class trip to China challenges global misconceptions TRIP continued from page 1 Chenette and Sustainability Coordinator Alistair Hall. Zhou noted, “They really brought in a lot of aspects of the environmental part of the trip.”

The interdisciplinary diversity of the faculty included was supported by the Luce Grant that Vassar received for the trip in 2015, which provided funding for the faculty members from the Environmental Studies discipline. The Henry Luce Foundation in general seeks to strengthen international understanding and collaboration, especially relations between East Asian countries and America. The foundation’s mission statement explains these goals more clearly.

“The Henry Luce Foundation seeks to bring important ideas to the center of American life, strengthen international understanding, and foster innovation and leadership in academic, policy, religious and art communities” (Henry Luce Foundation, “Mission & History”).

The inclusion of the Environmental Studies faculty seems to fit strongly with this mission, but is also indicative of change within the foundation. Zhou noted, “The Luce Foundation historically has been working with China on humanities and social sciences, but what they discovered is that a lot of science students and faculty do not have access to more international experiments and collaboration, so they want to push for more science.”

This integration of environmental perspectives is part of what set this years trip apart from 2006, the most recent time in which Vassar students and faculty went to China. “Some context is that in 2006-7 is when China really emerged as a globalized economy, it was almost the peak of the growth time,” Zhou explained. “The major difference is this time, we’re not just talking about growth, we’re looking far deeper into the consequences of growth. For example, last time,

Courtesy of the Vassar College Office of Communications

Over the past spring break, students and faculty visited China to study the environmental consequences of the country’s rapid industrial development and explore potential solutions.

we looked at a post-colonial city in Shanghai, but this time we also looked at how Shanghai is changing from industrial to post-industrial.”

In the course, Zhou wanted to make it clear to students that China’s rapid economic and infrastructural development did not suddenly materialize, but is actually the result of a complex history of global industrialization. “What we’re trying to do is trying to understand why China is going through this kind of growth by really unpacking China’s historical evolution of interacting with other regions of the world.”

In conjunction with this historical perspective, Zhou also emphasized how these developments are ongoing, and thus need to be experienced in person. “It’s still happening, and you can see how the city expanded and the countryside being replaced just in front of your eyes. The students really see that quite up close.”

For the students, what they saw might have been different than what their expectations for what the environment in China were. The American media has built up an image of perennially smoggy Chinese cities, and Americans may think that the pollution in China is therefore not being dealt with.

James Gibson ’18 went on the trip and reflected in an emailed statement on the expectations he had before the trip. “I feel people, at least me certainly, are not as aware of how much effort China puts in towards remediating a lot of its pollution,” he mused. “A rapid period of industrialization and economic development has caused China to accumulate a lot of pollution, but it’s not like the country is completely ignoring the problem.”

Zhou further explained why China is taking action to combat environmental problems. “One thing [the students] learned when they traveled in China is that in fact, the Chinese people and government have suffered as a result of the environment. The pollution is affecting them, health-wise. We met a lot of people who are really trying to address environmental problems, and the other side is the government is spending enormous amounts of money.”

One of these projects is the “aeration boat”

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

project in Shanghai, which is making boats that re-aerate water around the city, including the heavily-polluted Suzhou creek. In Beijing, where air pollution is a large concern, policies have been set up so that only cars with certain license plates can be driven on certain days. “You need a government who is willing to spend, you also need people participating,” Zhou emphasized.

According to Gibson, one of the primary goals of the trip and of the class was to emphasize learning and international cooperation and collaboration related to climate issues. He noted, “The trip also taught me something about America. The U.S.A. has so many environmental issues but we do a better job of hiding them. Instead of drawing awareness to our environmental issues, the U.S.A. through the media tells its citizens to look at other people’s environmental problems. The U.S. distracts us with China’s pollution problems, rather than bring up our own.

Issues like Flint, MI’s water pollution took a year before the story was released to the public, yet we constantly hearing about China’s air pollution.”

For environmental issues with global consequences, collaboration, rather than competition, will be of the utmost importance. Grant Funds like the one offered by the Luce Foundation acknowledge the importance of international learning and research, especially between leading global powers like the United States and China.

With any luck, the trip to China this spring was a positive step toward global energy solutions and international cooperation. Zhou also hopes that the trip can be the start of a long Vassar legacy of research and study in China. “We’re applying for a more substantial grant from the Luce Foundation in the hope to develop more research and teaching opportunities with Chinese universities,” she explained. “I’m hoping to bring students and faculty there who are interested in doing more in-depth research.”

“We have a good start,” Zhou went on to say. “Also we have people who went who teach courses here, and they will impart their knowledge and what they learned.”

May 29, 2016

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Loeb multimedia showcase bridges art to astronomy Matt Stein

Assistant Arts Editor

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n the warmer months of the year, stars fill the night sky. An endless cluster of twinkling lights, these celestial bodies bring wonder to all those gazing below. It’s no wonder, then, that the night sky has inspired artists throughout history, from Van Gogh painting “Starry Night” to the Hubble Space Telescope’s enhanced photograph “The Pillars of Creation.” And currently there’s an entire exhibit at Vassar in the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center devoted to the sky above and beyond.

“Touch the Sky” features 50 astronomy-inspired works by 18 artists in celebration of the new Bridge for Laboratory Sciences opening. The exhibit began on April 29 and will be ongoing throughout the summer until August 21. “Touch the Sky” is a multimedia exhibition featuring a wide range of contemporary pieces that explore

the beauty and vastness of outer space. The Loeb is open every day except Monday and is free to the public. Specific hours can be found on the museum’s website, as well as information on additional current exhibits.

“Touch the Sky” Curator and Assistant Director for Strategic Planning Mary-Kay Lombino elaborated on why the exhibit is so relevant to Vassar’s science-rich community. “I came up with idea for ‘Touch the Sky’ because the campus is celebrating the sciences in honor of the dedication of the Bridge Building,” she explained. “I chose Astronomy for a few reasons. One, is the strong tradition of teaching observational astronomy at Vassar dating back to our first professor Maria Mitchell who was also the first female American astronomer. Another is that I noticed many artists working today are interested in the cosmos and several are engaged in sky gazing themselves.”

Courtesy of Vassar College

From April 29 to August 21, visitors have the chance to “Touch the Sky” in the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, where artwork exploring humanity’s relationship to space will be on display.

She reflected on the inherent human desire to conceive of the cosmos. “I have found that we all have felt the impulse to gaze up at the sky and wonder what’s out there but we can’t truly grasp the vastness of the universe or what its really like.

We have to use our imaginations, which is what most of these artists are doing to create their work.”

Since the exhibit opened, other events have concurrently promoted astronomy and other sciences at Vassar. Michael Benson, a leading authority in astronomical imagery and one of the artists featured in “Touch the Sky,” gave a lecture on April 29 in Taylor Hall on how he mixes the subjects of art and science within his work. On April 13, Late Night at the Loeb included several student artists performing and then an outdoor screening of the George Méliès 1902 silent film “A Trip to the Moon.”

Professor of Astronomy Debra Elmegreen spoke on why events like “Touch the Sky” are enjoyable for everyone: “Since the exploration of the universe is tied to our roots as sentient beings, it is important to bring today’s scientific understanding to the public while at the same time acknowledging and celebrating the powerful visceral connection to the sky that we all feel. So I love the interweaving of science and art.”

She continued, “I look forward to the ‘Touch the Sky’ exhibit as a wonderful combination of astronomical images with astronomical art, as we all appreciate that part of what makes us human is being able to explore and appreciate both sides of that interplay.”

The artwork of the exhibit appears in many styles and from many sources. Nancy Graves ’61 created 10 lithographs of the moon’s surface and a film called “Reflections on the Moon’s Surface,” based on her studies with NASA in the midst of their lunar space missions. German Photographer Thomas Ruff made three chromogenic prints of Saturn that are reimagined compositions of NASA images. The oldest work featured in the exhibit is Lewis Rutherford’s “Moon in First Quarter,” dating back to 1865 and one of the earliest spectroscopic images of the moon.

“Whether you remember the exhilaration of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and ’60s or you follow NASA on Instagram, you’ve witnessed the continued human fascination with space exploration in the 21st century as evidenced by the continuous quest for a deeper understanding of the universe,” Lombardo wrote in an essay for the exhibit’s brochure. “Many of the artists in the exhibition pose questions about the possibility of truly envisioning the realm of space.”

Drama major and prospective astronomy major Phil Macaluso ’19 visited the exhibit, intrigued by the mixture of astronomy and fine art: “I hope to embrace both art and science in whatever I pursue after college, so seeing an entire exhibit dedicated to that was really quite inspiring. I think it’s important for artists to draw from science and the natural world because it’s full of both amazing patterns and intricate randomness which are instantly recognizable to us as a species.”

Throughout the last semester, astronomy has flourished. The Thompson Library featured an exhibit devoted to Maria Mitchell and her observations of sunspots. The exhibit runs through June 12. The Class of 1951 Observatory has also been studying data with its two telescopes. “Touch the Sky” visitors will have the opportunity on June 2 and 23 to visit the Observatory afterwards, possibly seeing Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

Lombino hopes visitors will appreciate the same universal fascinations of outer space that these artists strived to capture. She commented, “The exhibition presents various attempts, from the purely scientific to the entirely interpretive, to discover, imagine and reveal the universe in all its vastness. Each of the artists in the exhibition brings a different perspective to the idea of the sky, whether stars, planets, the moon, the sun, a comet, a galaxy or the entire solar system. Collectively, the works on view are an expression of the natural human desire to fully understand the world in which we live. In the end, what is revealed by the works is the universal wish to achieve the unattainable—the ability to ‘Touch the Sky.’”

Missed moderator posts before graduating, passing baton Connor McIlwain

Outgoing Arts Editor

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ith more than 1,600 Facebook friends and 3,000 posts, Vassar Missed has solidified its presence on campus this year. The anonymous founder of the page recently spoke with The Miscellany News about their time as moderator, before officially handing over the reigns to next year’s Vassar Missed.

Q: Can you explain the timeline of Missed? When you came up with the idea, when you created the page, etc.?

So, I basically came up with the idea the same day that I created the page (Sept. 6, if you want exact date). The first post, Missed Connection #1, was the next day and then it grew from there.

Q: What kind of space or purpose do you think Missed fills on campus?

I think Missed–it’s funny that everyone calls it that, Facebook wouldn’t let me put the name Vassar Missed Connections so Vassar Missed was the next best option–fills a niche that was previously filled at various times by like me maybe, say anything, Vassar compliments, and even yik yak. I think it’s a way for people to anonymously post things about other people on a platform that isn’t anonymous. On say anything or Yik Yak, for example, everything is anonymous.

The posters are anonymous, the commenters are anonymous, and often the people about whom the posters write are either anonymous or only referred to by initials and class year. Integrating a page like this within facebook does a couple of things for its purpose on campus.

First off, it takes away that anonymity that yik yak or say anything have. Anyone who likes (or reacts, lol) or comments on something does so with their name attached–their own name, not a made-up handle like yik yak. Also, the fact that people can be tagged on Missed posts brings it into “the real world” realm more so than an app like yik yak or a wordpress site like say anything or like me maybe. Since people check facebook often, it becomes just another part of daily life, which I think helps it fulfill its main purpose– the purpose that I had in mind when creating

it–to spread good thoughts/happiness/hope/ whatever you want to call it around the Vassar community. I wanted to create a space that would make people happy, a space where someone you didn’t know could tell you how great you looked in that outfit last night or where the kid that had been sitting next to you in class all semester could anonymously hint at how awesome they think you are or where friends could compliment each other publicly. And I think, for the most part, that’s what Vassar Missed Connections is about–documenting these “missed connections” and in doing so bringing good feelings to the Vassar campus, feelings that are already there, but that didn’t previously have an outlet to be heard.

Q: Have you heard of any Missed success stories? Have people found each other in real life because of the page?

I have heard of a couple Missed success stories, though I cannot attest to the validity of these stories. However, assuming that they were in fact true and that there are others out there who have met each other in real life because of the page, I’m excited to think that Vassar Missed could do such a thing. When I first created the page, I had no idea that it would or even could actually physically bring people together, but I am so happy to hear that it has!

Q: What would you like to see changed about the page or people’s submissions in the future?

Honestly, nothing really. I think each submission is important and valid because each submission is someone’s feelings, whether they have an actual missed connection or a joke or are complimenting their friends or have a grievance or just want their voice to be heard. I think the page may change over time naturally because the Vassar community will change, which I think is a good thing, but I’m not sure if I would like to see any specific changes. Perhaps the new mod will change the page in some way or another, but that’s completely up to them.

Q: What aspects of the page do you hope the next moderator maintains?

I do hope that the next moderator maintains

their anonymity, I think that’s pretty integral to the page. I don’t think there should be a “face behind Vassar Missed” or anything like that (unless it’s the womp womp that’s the current profile picture). I also hope that they post everything, as long as they think it’s appropriate–even the silly, trolly things. I think those round out the page and are important in the schema of Vassar Missed being a place to make one’s voice heard.

Q: How do you determine which posts are appropriate to post? Do you have a rule of thumb?

I think there are actually maybe only 15 or so submissions (out of the 3140 that have been posted as of the moment that I’m writing this) that I have deemed “inappropriate” to post. I normally don’t post anything that seems to be directly aimed at harming a particular, easily identifiable person. Other than that, I post everything...like I said before, I want Vassar Missed to be a space that’s representative of all the voices that choose to speak out through it.

Q: Which post(s) stand out to you or are most memorable?

My absolute favorite post (still!) is Missed Connection #18: I was taking my usual 11:15 walk after my Friday class to engage in a likely disappointing deece meal, but you caught my eye on the way there and I can only describe that as far from disappointing. It was near the trees on the path at the far end of Noyes circle, one of the more underrated and beautiful spots on campus. You were on the bench, and I simply passing. It was first the sheen of your brown hair that caused me to glance over. Brown. A cocoa-colored collection of the softest styled coiffure I could hope to one day run my fingers down. It was hard to catch full sight of your eyes, as your head was fleeting back and forth, likely taking in sights of the alluring pines that line the path. What I could so briefly see was a deep iris on two perfect orbs that seemed warmer than the coffee I hope to share on one of the upcoming bitter winter days. If I had a longer look, I can’t even begin to imagine what more they may reveal. I did not think of your body in terms of its size and shape. These qualities mean nothing,

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

which I understand may be a paradoxical statement given that I have just described the beauty of your appearance. Nevertheless, you seemed so huggable and soft to the touch, though I wouldn’t dare come anywhere too close without your permission. I wanted to approach you, and I contemplated this some time in the few moments I had to look at you, but just as I considered taking one step closer, you walked away through the trees, briskly, as if you had another purpose that was much more important than what I had to offer. Of course it was. I can’t imagine that anything you do is without necessary and good intention. Maybe if I return one day to that one spot, you will be there again, with the same curious looks and wondrous appeal.

Perhaps I will bring berries next time. I hear you like those.

You are, after all, a womp womp.

Q: What do you make of some of the criticisms of the page–especially that it publicly acknowledges people’s gender identities, sexualities, etc?

I definitely am not trying to out anyone, and have specifically tried to not tag anyone in a post that might out their gender identities, sexuality, etc. I understand that since Vassar Missed is on facebook and enters into that “real world,” even just tagging someone in a post that asks if they’re into girls or something like that can create problems for them outside of facebook. So, I try to ensure, to the best of my ability, that I’m not doing that to anyone. I hope the new mod will continue to do so as well.

Q: How has being the page moderator affected your time at Vassar?

It’s definitely been a time commitment to say the least. And there have been some days when I get super tired of it and don’t feel like posting. But for the most part, I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve enjoyed hearing about the good experiences that people have had due to its existence. That definitely makes it worthwhile.

Q: Did you ever post any missed connections yourself?

Only one, actually… Missed Connection #254: Student Secure.

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May 29, 2016

Vassar proud Mac to give 12-hour musical performance of customs, and grads too “I Noah Purdy Arts Editor

Evelyn Frick

Humor & Satire Editor

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ple together on stage to represent immigrants in crowded tenements, marches with others wearing sequined Nazi armbands and separates white audience members to simulate white flight. The narratives are set to campy musical renditions performed in over-the-top costumes, such as a 1950’s A-line dress made of miniature white picket fences topped with a 3D-glasses headdress, nods to the rise of suburbia and the drive-in movie.

One may think that the whimsy of drag would clash with these serious historical truths, many of which still have ramifications to this day. However, Mac’s tongue-in-cheek delivery bridges this gap, enabling a bedecked and bedazzled performer to effectively guide an audience through the history of the plights of people treated as less than human. As The New York Times put it, “He may look like a diva from another planet, but his spike heels are firmly planted on earth” (“An Epic, Sequined Hit Parade,” 01.14.15).

It’s quite fitting that such an intellectual and cultural powerhouse will be visiting a theater with that same name, and Mac will certainly be bringing a unique voice to this summer’s lineup.

But standing out and standing up for our beliefs are what kicked off the great American experiment after all. And who knows? Maybe the city on a hill is not too far out of reach, if we just listen to the man in sequins and feathers, belting out the popular music of yesterday in search of a better tomorrow.

Courtesy of ispa.org

he night before spring finals, the cool air tickled my exposed limbs on the walk to the library.

By the time I arrived in front of the grandiose gothic architecture, a mass of people had already started to mingle on the steps. It was nearly midnight.

Hushed, anticipating chatter hummed throughout the crowd and suddenly a cheer erupted. Clapping.

And in the midst of it, a large throng of naked bodies ran towards us, like fearless Spartan warriors sprinting into battle. Except drunk and somehow more naked. In awe, I watched all of them, more naked people than I had ever seen in my entire life, streak into the library and out again, celebrating their near graduation in the ballsy-est of fashions.

After a while, staring at all the energetic and mismatched body parts made me feel like I were in the Picasso that I should have been studying for my art history final. And then I saw him: that guy with whom I had gone to high school, looked up to, and whose younger brother I mentored. All of these nostalgic remembrances of years past entered my mind as I saw his bare ass running back towards the quad. The magic of the night was gone.

For they weren’t simply faceless marauders of the night or the nymphs you read about in texts you horribly mistranslated for Latin. They were just seniors, other students of Vassar College who did not become too jaded to participate in the Skinner-to-Kenyon length list of things you must do at Vassar before graduating. Starting when students arrive as nooby freshmen, the idea that true Vassarians must be a part of every tradition before they graduate and go their separate ways, aka to a studio apartment in Brooklyn with college friends, is impressed upon us.

In the same vein as the Senior Run, the Primal Scream is a highly anticipated event to blow off some steam and alienate ourselves from the Poughkeepsie community. A girl in my fellow group who did not attend this past fall’s Scream but heard it said it sounded “like a thousand people simultaneously getting hit by a train and also the train itself.”

I don’t know how this event started happening, yet being described in a way tantamount to an experimental music composition surely wouldn’t bother any Vassar student. Except maybe those who are noise pollution activists; Lord knows if that isn’t already an org on campus, it will be soon.

Other traditions require much less cynicism to describe, like taking Art 105 and 106. Alumnae/i and professors rave that Introduction to the History of Art should be a hallmark of anyone’s time at Vassar.

And they’re not wrong. As a student sits in lecture, completely perplexed by Modern Art or fangirling over Andrew Tallon, or as a student takes the final, having no idea of any of the dates, they become a part of the legacy. (But seriously, if you’re not a senior, I recommend taking a class with Andrew Tallon. He’s a delight, plus he has a PBS Nova special about cathedrals!)

The most notable of all traditions at Vassar is obviously Founder’s Day, a celebration which originated to honor Matthew Vassar and now would probably shock him out of his tiny frock. The day starts with students casting off their inhibitions, and most of their clothes, and pretending that getting day drunk is totally fine. A few hours and an assortment of illegal substances later (and also some accidentally-ingested body glitter, oops), students proceed to Ballantine, dancing to performers as irrelevant as their impending finals. For most, the day ends when they wake up from their post Drunk Deece nap and watch the fireworks by the lake, as if loud explosions of light are the secret cure to any hangover which started at 5 p.m.

But as much as they shape a graduate’s experience at Vassar, the real joke’s on you for reading this entire article, because these traditions are red herrings. When seniors pack up their TH, TA, SoCo, suite or hopefully not single, and leave Vassar, having contributed to the many traditions is not their story. Sure, that’s a part of Vassar’s history, but that omits the growth students undergo and the kind of people they become while here. And sure, not every Vassar grad is going to be a Meryl Streep or a Lisa Kudrow, but with the morals and integrity of our liberal arts education we can all probably at least be an Ethan Slater (’14), star of the new and unanticipated “SpongeBob Musical.” And what more could you ask for, really?

’m tellin’ the truth now / We’re all born naked and the rest is drag,” belts out RuPaul in his song “Born Naked.” RuPaul is not a philosopher, but here he may as well be endorsing John Locke’s theory of the tabula rasa, the blank slate of human identity at birth. Locke’s thoughts inspired the United States and the Declaration of Independence, but can a vivacious drag queen and an Enlightenment philosopher really be getting at the same the idea? Can the fundamentals of American society really be explained just as well by an of-the-moment, norm-defying performer extraordinaire?

Yes, says playwright, singer-songwriter and drag artist Taylor Mac. He will be coming to the Powerhouse Theater for its summer season, to perform the debut 12-hour piece of his “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music.” The ultimate goal is a production that will run a full 24 hours, charting the 24 decades of American history from 1776 to the present through 246 popular songs from each era. This halfway benchmark performance at the Powerhouse will take place one time only on July 30, from noon to midnight.

Performing history seems to be in vogue right now (think of the current “Hamilton” craze), but Mac has been crafting this magnum opus for a number of years, workshopping abridged versions focusing on two or three decades at a time at venues around the country. In the spring, he performed a three-hour excerpt of the 20th century section at UCLA’s Royce Hall, but this summer’s Powerhouse event will be his longest performance to date.

“Powerhouse is a great place to come and try something new,” wrote Co-Producing Director of the Powerhouse Theater Michael Sheehan in an emailed statement. “So for Taylor Mac, the 12-hour performance of this material, which he’s been working on for several years, is a great next step in achieving his ultimate goal of presenting all 24 hours in one continuous performance.”

Mac has many goals with the project, but challenging and queering history—broadening the accepted ideas of the American experience to include marginalized groups—is front and center. Formally, the performance features highlights from the full span of American music.

However, Mac often subverts the songs, reinterpreting them to fit under-explored narratives and interspersing them with personal anecdotes of his own experience as a gay man and artist.

“The whole show is about what are the things that we’re holding onto that aren’t serving us now,” Mac explained in a recent interview (The Los Angeles Times, “For Taylor Mac, the stage show is just part of the fight for the LGBT com-

munity,” 03.11.16).

“He is brutally but impishly honest, and I think people respond to that,” affirmed Director of Education and Special Initiatives at the Center for the Art of Performance Meryl Friedman, part of the group at UCLA that brought Mac to Royce Hall and co-commissioned the entire project. “He has insights that you don’t expect from a guy in an outrageous dress and thick make-up,” she continued.

“He is not unlike Eddie Izzard in his social commentary. Both of these guys force you to re-evaluate who they are on the inside because of what they ‘put on’ on the outside, both literally and figuratively.”

Combining drag, performance art, music history and durational performance, he brazenly defies genre. As the other Co-Producing Director of the Powerhouse Ed Cheetham stated, “Taylor Mac is creating work, both as a playwright and performer, unlike any of his contemporaries or predecessors.”

Audience participation is crucial to a Mac event, as immersion is unavoidable at such a marathon performance. As Friedman described the UCLA event in March, “[P]eople felt both exhilarated and exhausted by the end; you definitely go with him on the journey. I think it’s hard to be a passive audience member at a Taylor Mac performance.”

In fact, Mac often makes passivity impossible, employing the audience to help tell the story. At various points in the concert, he squishes peo-

Taylor Mac will perform a continuous 24-hour piece for the Powerhouse’s summer season.

The piece is a history of American music, spanning 24 decades, meant to invoke introspection.

Performance sheds light on global voices THESIS continued from page 1

Busano explained, “I chose to do a play because I have a very therapeutic relationship with theater at Vassar. I came into the theater tradition when I was a sophomore and I have been doing theater in order to heal and cope with things that have been a part of my growing experience at Vassar. It seemed only natural that I would do a play and anyway, the original work was a play so it was very much in my comfort zone.”

Busano’s adaptation of “Thunderstorm” remained true to the play’s plot. However, Busano was captivated by the character Fanyi, who was an originally a minor character but became the fulcrum of his adaptation. He wrote, “I was really struck by how in the original work there was an effort to vilify her and make her the...antithesis of virtue and really the impetus for the downfall of both of these families.”

Esther Xu ’18, an international student from China who was cast as Fanyi, grew up familiar with the story of “Thunderstorm” and appreciated Fanyi’s character in particular, and this motivated her to audition. She remarked, “It’s a very interesting play. The original play was focused on mostly class conflicts...it’s pretty melodramatic. But what Simeon wanted to do was retell the story from the perspective of one of the characters who’s typically considered the villain of the story.” Xu continued, “I really like the idea of retelling the story from her perspective and I really think they thought that I understood it

so they wanted to cast me...My understanding of her and the whole play changed through the process.”

The adaptation of “Thunderstorm” was centered largely around retelling Fanyi’s historically misunderstood story and recasting her as a sympathetic character. Bukacek Frazier explained, “Simeon and the writing team essentially rewrote the script. We adapted the play and centered the focus on Fanyi, the matriarch of the Zhou family. In the original story, she ends up in a mental institution as a result of the suffering and pain she’s experienced. We wanted to bring that suffering to the forefront and really analyze the story from her point of view, as sort of a feminist retelling. We wanted to give her a closure and a legitimacy that didn’t exist in the original script.”

By retelling “Thunderstorm” from a modern feminist perspective, the play’s reimagining not only gave prominence to Fanyi’s character, but allowed each cast member to have a voice as well. Xu explained, “I kind of always wanted to act, but it’s really hard to for non-native English speakers to get a role here or someone without theater experience, which most people in this theater production don’t have any.”

In spite of the cast’s collective newness to theater, the undertaking of adapting the script was a group effort. Xu remarked, “It was definitely very collaborative, because each acting person contributed a lot to the script and also we would kind of modify the lines into our own ways, too.”

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

She continued, “I think the play turned out to be very personal for each [member] of the cast. We feel like it’s a story that needs to be told, because there are always voices that are not heard and people usually view history in those set ways...

When people retell the story, they either leave them out or blame them.”

Xu continued, “I think a lot of us can relate the stories back to our lives or experiences in China...China, to this day, is still very patriarchal.

Feminism in China is kind of depressed, socially and politically, and as I was growing up people would tell you to not run because you wouldn’t look like a girl that way, or to wear dresses ...

Chinese international students, there are so many of us, but I don’t think that the majority of us feel that we have a voice on campus. We are trying, though.”

Busano saw the collaborative nature of his thesis as a way to work toward giving a voice to underrepresented students and characters alike.

He remarked, however, “I wanted to be cognizant of the fact that as a Westerner it’s not my story to tell and that in order to accurately represent something on stage, I need to understand people with the more intimate knowledge of the cultural environment.”

He affirmed, “It was the most rewarding thing in the world, because it’s nice for people who are a part of our community and whose native language is Mandarin to be able to claim the space in a way that I don’t think until now they’ve been able to.”

May 29, 2016

Campus Canvas

COMMENCEMENT A weekly space highlighting the creative pursuits of student-artists

Page 7 submit to misc@vassar.edu

I view my work as an exploration of space, form, and design through a myriad of mediums, but primarily painting and photography. I’m incredibly influenced by architecture and design, and aim to capture this by building a definite and precise frame of space in my paintings, and then adding volume through brushwork and color.

When I paint, I don’t usually sketch my ideas on paper first, and instead linearly paint my concept directly onto the surface. This creates a collision of drawing and painting that lends itself to my desired vocabulary of space, and also informs my process for the rest of the piece.

-Isabel Larrow ’16

Senior athletes recognized for talent and leadership SPORTS continued from page 1

Award is the most prestigious honor given at the yearly banquet. The award is presented to athletes who have improved over the course of their own individual career and who have shown unparalleled performance in league, conference, regional and potentially national competition.

This year, three athletes earned the coveted title: track star Taylor Vann, basketball leader Caitlin Drakeley and lacrosse sensation Noah Parson.

Many know Vann to be one of the best male track athletes the program has ever seen. The two-time captain holds the school record in nine different categories, including the 100-meter dash, high jump, discus, long jump, javelin, shot put, pole vault, 110 high hurdles and the decathlon. He qualified for the ECAC Championships in the decathlon, often considered to be the most physically and mentally taxing event, three times over the course of his career and has consistently been ranked in the top 50 for the event.

This year Vann is also ranked third in the 2016 NCAA decathlon and will compete in the event at the NCAA Championships. In the 2014-2015 season, Vann was honored as the Betty Richey Performer of the Year.

Furthermore, he is a three-time All-Academic Liberty League member, has been named to the First Team All-Liberty League twice in the 110 hurdles and earned All-ECAC accolades his two previous seasons.

“Taylor has had the best season out of any male track athlete in the history of the program. He has worked extremely hard behind the scenes to be ready for practice every day and operates at a very high level consistently,” interim head men’s and women’s track and field coach Justin Harris mused. “He has been a tremendous competitor and leader on our team since day one. Even though most of his training is on his own, he always connects with his teammates about their workouts. When he doesn’t return to practice in the fall, his teammates and coaches will have to work double-time to fill the void.”

Drakeley also held her own with these impressive Vassar athletes, and is proudly regarded as one of the most talented basketball players in the program’s history. In her four years, the senior scored a total of 1330 points, finishing sixth All-Time.

After her sophomore, junior and senior year seasons, Drakeley was given All-Liberty League honors. During her third season, she was named a First Team All-Liberty League member and earned d3hoops.com All-Region Second Team, averaging 17.5 points per game.

The two-time captain is in the top 10 in 16 statistical categories at Vassar, including sec-

ond All-Time in rebounding. Drakeley also holds the single-game record for field goals in a single game with a terrific 15. Moreover, in her sophomore season, Drakeley helped capture the team’s first NCAA win over Williams College, and later posted a hefty 30 points in another NCAA game against Scranton.

Women’s head basketball coach Candice Brown thinks Drakeley is very deserving of this esteemed award. “Caitlin has been a tremendous asset to our program her entire career,” Brown said. “Each year she has improved her game to become the best athlete that she could possibly be. Not only has she worked extremely hard on the hardwood but she has been a true pleasure to coach.”

Parson has been an unwavering offensive threat for Brewers lacrosse throughout his Vassar career, helping to steadily improve the program each year. During his freshman year, Parson was named a Second Team All-Liberty League player and received Honorable Mention honors as well, which was just the beginning of his success.

He is the all-time record holder for points, goals and assists. The senior set the single-season goals record during three different seasons, most notably this season when he scored 42 goals and 57 points.

The 2013 Liberty League Rookie of the Year–the first one in Vassar men’s lacrosse history–carries the program with goals per game and points per game, and he also has

finished in the top 10 in goals in the conference all four years. Parson holds eight individual records, and this year helped the men’s lacrosse team to its best season finish yet: they recorded a solid eight wins.

Men’s head lacrosse coach Marc Graham explains how Parson will be difficult to replace. “Noah has been a tremendous part of the growth of the program here at Vassar, and he has been a pleasure to coach. On the field, he will graduate as the most prolific scorer in the history of the program. Noah’s impact will be felt for years to come and his records will stand as benchmarks for future Brewers to work to attain.”

As some of these awards recognize, balancing academics and athletics is an incredible feat. In spite of this challenging combination, a majority of Vassar athletes still manage to maintain a high GPA. This year 182 Brewers were named to the Liberty League All-Academic team, including 58 seniors.

Vassar’s high academic rigor combined with the extreme commitment college athletics requires proves how well rounded these student-athletes are. Maintaining such excellence all four years of college is an accomplishment in and of itself.

In only a short time these 84 seniors will pack up and leave Vassar one last time. Although next year they will be off in the real world, their achievements and contributions to Vassar’s athletic department will always be remembered.

Zach Rippe/The Miscellany News

one female athlete who embody sportsmanship, leadership, dedication and character.

The award is intended to recognize heart more so than statistics.

Mrlik, a basketball and baseball player, extended his Vassar career to five years after struggling through multiple knee injuries and surgeries. The senior still, however, helped to take the basketball team to its first-ever Liberty League tournament appearance in the 2013-2014 season. He nabbed All-Region honors, including All-Liberty League First Team.

Although unable to play basketball this past season, he still offered a valuable contribution to the team as a student-assistant. As a pitcher, he ranks seventh all-time at Vassar in earned run average.

Men’s head basketball coach Brian Dunne is sad to see his two seniors go, but is extremely proud of everything they have accomplished.

“Johnny Mrlik and Erikson Wasyl have been incredibly valuable to us over the past four years,” Dunne remarked. “Their effort, determination and grit have helped progress our program. They are the DNA of our program and I am so very proud to have had the pleasure and opportunity to coach them.

They have made a lasting impact on our program.”

Goldstein’s career on the lacrosse field for the brewers is just as decorated as. Throughout her four years on the team, the senior totaled 63 points with 37 goals and 26 assists.

She has the second most career points with 234, and also holds the most career assists in program history with 108.

This season alone, Goldstein won 31 draw controls, grabbed 26 ground balls, and forced 19 turnovers.

In every year of play, Goldstein has earned an All-Liberty League award, including All-Liberty League First team in this past season. The two-time captain stands in the top 10 in eight different statistical categories, which helped her earn a spot on the Liberty League Honor Roll three times.

“Izzy came to Vassar with a high lacrosse IQ and terrific skills,” women’s lacrosse head coach Judy Finerghty commented. “Izzy’s game awareness, self-confidence and desire put her in many situations where she had possession of the ball when the game was on the line, and when she was able to score or set up another player. She is one of the very best lacrosse players to ever wear a Vassar jersey and her career assist record is set very high.”

The Matthew Vassar Outstanding Career

Graduating senior Zach Rippe played varsity rugby in his time at Vassar. Rippe was a captain of the men’s team this year and also served as Sports Editor for The Miscellany News.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

SENIOR RETROSPECTIVES “Ta-ta Box” The Retrospective Crossword

Page 8

May 29, 2016

by York Chen

ACROSS

1 Last train car 8 Find 14 Like Storm King Art Center, or many a sculpture garden 15 Silly String, technically 16 Dry runs 18 Consultation costs 19 Flub 20 PalmPilot, e.g.

21 Brook Lopez or Rondae Hollis−Jefferson 22 Windows addition?

25 Former Celtic Len (R.I.P) 26 White Sox ace Chris 27 “___ the ramparts we watched...”

29 SAT alternative 30 Mom of Mars 31 “To ___, from Prison” (Lovelace, 1642) 34 1953 Raymond Chandler novel about the drunkard Terry Lennox 36 1939 James Hilton novel about a long−time school teacher 37 Summed sequence, mathematically 38 Modern British museum 39 “Tuck” counterpart 40 Proverbial limit for graduates 41 Elisabeth who played Peggy on “Mad Men” 42 A few moments, for short 43 Montaigne writings 45 Oil company with holiday trucks 46 Hubbub 49 Former amateur 50 Fascinated 51 Word heard a lot today 57 Auditions for athletes 58 Polity always at war with Eurasia 59 Germanic tribe that settled Britain, with

the Angles 60 Pithily

Ta−ta Box

45 Critic, casually 46 Plays the fool, perhaps 47 Probably the most famous explorer of our time 48 Queens rap group of “Slam” (1993) 50 5K, for one 2 3 4 5 6 7

52 Sludge 53 5K, for one 54 Parking area 55 Zilch 56 Economist Jean−Baptiste who names a law of markets 8 9 10 11 12 13

York Chen, Alycia Beattie, and Collin Knopp−Schwyn DOWN 1 Atlantic Ocean fare 2 Mo. of Matthew Vassar’s birth ACROSS 3 London 1 Last traingins car 4 Beginnings of illnesses, say 8 Find Unexpected 14 5Like Stormwaters King Art or and many a Newton 6Center, Elton John Isaac 7sculpture “Able was Igarden ___ I saw Elba” 15 8Silly String, Hit the books technically 16 9Dry runs Legendary defenseman Bobby 18 10Consultation costs sin / tan 19 Flub This instant 20 11PalmPilot, e.g.

12 “Somebody once ___ me...”

21 Brook Lopez or Rondae 13 Frozen queen Hollis−Jefferson Eagle’s nestaddition?

22 15Windows 1967 Beatles single 25 17Former Celtic Lenopposite “I Am (R.I.P) the Walrus” 26 21White Sox ace Chris Building recess 27 22"___ ramparts we Wildthe West card game watched..."

23 Word with “Vita” and “Gabbana” 29 24 SAT alternative Author Vikram of “A Suitable Boy” 30 25Mom of Mars Swings at 31 "To ___, from Prison" 26 Tyson Chandler and Devin Booker (Lovelace, 1642) KindRaymond of cowboy Glen Campbell is 34 28 1953 Chandler 30 Kangaroo babies novel about the drunkard 31 TimesLennox section Terry “Shahnahmeh” or “Kalevala” 36 321939 James Hilton novel about a long−time 33 Venomous snakes school teacher 35 Enjoy 37 36 Summed Net forcesequence, / acceleration mathematically 38 1982 song by Scandal and Patty Smyth 38 41Modern British museum Shops 39 "Tuck" counterpart Reddish−brown filters 40 42 Proverbial limit for 44 Tiffs graduates

41 Elizabeth who played

ADVERTISEMENT Peggy on "Mad Men"

42 A few moments, for short 43 Montaigne writings 45 Oil company with holiday trucks 46 Hubbub 49 Former amateur 50 Fascinated 51 Word heard a lot today 57 Auditions for athletes 58 Polity always at war with Eurasia 59 Germanic tribe that settled Britain, with the Angles 60 Pithily

DOWN

1 Atlantic Ocean fare 2 Mo. of Matthew Vassar’s birth 3 London gins 4 Beginnings of illnesses, say

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William Shakespeare Congratulations Sam Rebelein!

We are so proud of you.

Much Love, Mom and Dad

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5 Unexpected waters 6 Elton John and Isaac Newton 7 "Able was I ___ I saw Elba" 8 Hit the books 9 Legendary defenseman Bobby 10 sin / tan 11 This instant 12 "Somebody once ___ me..."

13 Frozen queen 15 Eagle’s nest 17 1967 Beatles single opposite "I Am the Walrus" 21 Building recess 22 Wild West card game 23 Word with "Vita" and "Gabbana" 24 Author Vikram of "A Suitable Boy" 25 Swings at

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.

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ADVERTISEMENT 53 5K, for one

26 Tyson Chandler and Devin Booker 28 Kind of cowboy Glen Campbell is 30 Kangaroo babies 31 Times section 32 "Shahnahmeh" or "Kalevala" 33 Venomous snakes 35 Enjoy 36 Net force / acceleration 38 1982 song by Scandal and Patty Smyth 41 Shops 42 Reddish−brown filters 44 Tiffs 45 Critic, casually 46 Plays the fool, perhaps 47 Probably the most famous explorer of our time 48 Queens rap group of "Slam" (1993) 50 5K, for one 52 Sludge

54 Parking area 55 Zilch 56 Economist Jean−Baptiste who names a law of markets

Congrats Ariana, BA Physics Paid for by the Society of Acousticians with a fever for More Cowbell

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SENIOR ADS

May 29, 2016

Page 9

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Congratulations Kyle

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Love Mom, Dad, Jordan, Cary, the Grandma Lilas and Tommy ADVERTISEMENT

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May 29, 2016

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So proud!

We love you!

Mom, Dad, sibs and animals

ADVERTISEMENT At the age of five Rose decided to hide from her family under the deck at the back of her house. Her parents and the whole neighborhood searched frantically for her for an hour. When she was found she laughed uncontrollably. She has always had a demonic sense of humor. At the age of eight she was left alone in a suite for three minutes at the Sherman hotel - a well appointed small hotel in the Pacific Heights section of San Francisco. In that three minutes she ordered the sixty dollar cheese plate on silver and had it delivered tout suite. She demands prompt service. Upon entering her teens Rose discovered boys. Like Superman with kryptonite, Rose finally demonstrated a buying her new clothes. She loves a new wardrobe. Upon entering Vassar

a hipster persona. Her Greater Swiss Mountain

with the Vassar hipsters. Animals agree

weakness but she realized every breakup resulted in her father Rose activated the Canadian chameleon ability and adopted Dog would have none of it but agreed not to blow her cover to be on the DL with her.

Congratulations to the most interesting Graduate in the world.

Love Mom, Dad, Anna, Grandma and Papa, Grandma Mary Jane, and Marlowe.

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May 29, 2016

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From Bell Ringers to Groundbreakers, You’re about to change the world for the better!

Congratulations, Mary Talbot, Emma Roellke, Jackie Krass, Molly Barth, Julianne Johnson Love to you all, Heather and Bruce Johnson MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

SENIOR RETROSPECTIVES

Page 12

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Marty Ascher T

he last four years have both allowed me to do things I already knew I loved and challenged me in ways that I could have never imagined. If you had told me in 2012 that by the time I graduated college that I would have worked for the White House, recorded an EP with original songs by a rock band, toured the Northeast with a singing group, and gotten to know my college President on a personal basis, I would have never believed you, yet all of this has happened and so much more. While Vassar has obviously been a frustrating place to be for so many reasons at times, taken as a whole I am truly grateful for the knowledge and skills that I have gained during my time here.

“Thank you for your trust, support, and respect; and best of luck with your next steps!”

To the members of the College Dems: keep fighting for what you believe in and thinking about real ways in which it can get done. Don’t get discouraged by extreme voices and don’t give up. It has been great working, venting, and celebrating with you all over the last few years and I look forward to working with you all sometime soon in Washington!

To the Axies past and present: Although I can honestly say that I do not like a capella, I love all of you. This group has been invaluable to my time at Vassar, and I cannot imagine the

last four years without it. From our concerts to bowling to simply blowing off steam, we have had some hilarious times together and I hope that will continue after we are all graduates. You are some of my favorite people in the world, and I hope that we can all meet up in the future.

To the rest of my friends: You are all great.

We have had many amazing times and I hope we can continue chilling long into the future.

Thank you for coming to see Stitched in Blue, retreating, memorable conversations and so much more. May the year of roasts extend to 2017 and beyond.

I’d like to thank my parents, my brother Jake, my Bubbe, my Tante, my Grandpa Alex and Grandma Jane for their unwavering support over the last four years. I would not have been able to do any of this without the advice, guitar lessons, stimulating conversations, and of course financial support you have given me over the past several years.

I’d like to thank all of my professors but especially Professors Richard Born, Sidney Plotkin, Justin Patch, Miriam Cohen, and Tim Koechlin for encouraging me to follow my passions and indulging in my curiosity over so many courses over the last four years. Whether it was through lecture or office hours I have learned so much from you all and hope we can remain in touch in the future.

Finally, I’d like to thank Cappy and the rest of the President’s Office. You’ve had to put up with a lot over my time here, and it was a true privilege to be in the trenches with you this year.

Thank you for your trust, support, and respect; and best of luck with your next steps!

May the next four years be even better than the last, and I hope to keep in touch with as many people as possible.

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May 29, 2016

May 29, 2016

SENIOR RETROSPECTIVES

Page 13

Sam Rebelein I

know this very smart woman named Carol.

Carol is not her real name. I’m pretty sure you don’t know her, so don’t worry about what her real name is. But imagine that it’s Carol.

Carol’s intelligence is amplified in my mind, perhaps arbitrarily, because she has a very old dog. The dog’s name is George.

George is not the dog’s real name.

George’s sagacity and old age is amplified in my mind, perhaps arbitrarily, because he farts constantly. Like, all the freaking time. Because of George’s unself-conscious farting, he seems older and wiser. Consequently, Carol seems older and wiser as well. Which is why the following sentences, when she said them to me, seemed like the smartest thing in the world: “Anxiety is a floating cloud. It attaches itself quickly, completely and indiscriminately to any small trifle it can find. Whatever question or piece of doubt you have hiding in you, however small. It clings to that and it grows and grows until you can’t even recognize it anymore. Until it just seems like who you are. But that’s the trick because then who you are is a lie. Because then who you are is just a floating cloud of anxiety. Nobody is just a floating cloud of anxiety.”

She told me this. And George farted. Carol and I laughed. That’s the ultimate blessing—to have something to break the tension of a life-altering moment and turn it into something com-

plete, lasting, and light-hearted.

For my first two years at Vassar, I struggled with severe anxiety. When it was at its worst, I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t pay attention in class.

I had to leave class, actually, a few times to go hyperventilate in the bathroom. I didn’t go out that much. I didn’t try things. Didn’t really try to meet people. Mostly, I bummed around my floor in Jewett. I was scared. I was afraid of venturing out of my immediate zone of comfort.

It seems like a miracle to me that I even knew what The Limit was, and that I got in. I’m still surprised I got into Vassar College Vassar Improv. I still almost faint before every show. I’m shocked I’ve never thrown up during a show or that no one has seen my knees shaking. I leave every performance thinking about how much I suck. You can tell me the opposite is true but I’ll warn you, I won’t hear you. I won’t listen.

I’ll nod or whatever. But deep down, I will not believe you.

Because that’s how anxiety works. It is a voice inside your head that isn’t yours that is telling you fake things so confidently and loudly you can’t hear anyone else, including yourself.

For me, at least. I can’t and shouldn’t pretend to know other people’s experiences with it, but this is the way it’s affected me.

There were a lot of things I didn’t do during those first two years because I was scared. I’d

have a hard time telling you now what exactly I was scared of. Rejection? Death? I honestly don’t know because it doesn’t really make sense.

I went to therapy for a long time. I made that voice go away and I exchanged it for a voice that sounded like mine, which told me I was allowed to do things and meet people and…climb…stuff?

I didn’t have a third thing. But the thing is, it took me until my senior year. And by that time, it was too late to try a lot of the things I think I would have liked. By that time, I had to play catch-up to try a lot of those things. I packed a lot into a year and it was amazing. I can only imagine what I would have done with four.

So this is what I want you to take away from my ~retrospective~. Never let your brain stop you from doing something you want to do. Say you want to play the digeridoo professionally. You feel pulled towards the digeridoo. But. The digeridoo is an odd instrument. People will probably laugh at you. People will probably doubt you and your concerts will probably be poorly attended. These are things that make you shrink back from the digeridoo and think, “No, that isn’t me. I can’t play the digeridoo.

I’m not talented enough to play the digeridoo. I don’t have the lung capacity to play the digeridoo. It is easier to just sit here and watch other people play the digeridoo on YouTube.”

This is stupid. It is also foolish.

You felt pulled to try the digeridoo and, because of anxiety and because of doubt, you convinced yourself not to try it. You shrank back and allowed your mind to lie to you. And no one, including you, will now know how freaking good at the digeridoo you are. Now, there will be no videos of you playing digeridoo on Youtube.

And isn’t that sad?

So my message is: Try. Try everything. Try doing nothing. Try, try, try. Go out of your way to find things to try. Try out people. Try food.

Try new TV shows and books you’ve never heard of. Go to parties you think you might hate. Try things you know you’ll hate. Try out for comedy groups. Try out for student theater.

Try out for a capella. Try, try, try. And never let any part of you, floating or otherwise, tell you not to. Because if you do, you will be lying to yourself. You will be doing the opposite of what you are here to do, which is to try things. You will not be who you really are because who you will be is a floating cloud and that is stupid and also foolish and also a lie.

I regret not trying more. And the best I can do now is tell you to do the opposite. Try for all four years, not just the one like I did. Try, try, try.

If I farted right now, would you listen to me?

Julian Plovnick W

hen I was accepted to Vassar, I was sure it was a mistake. In my mind, Vassar was more than a reach for me. I was just your average, schlubby kid from Massachusetts who sent out his application as a last minute Hail Mary after doing medium-well on his SAT’s and ACT’s. Nothing about my transcript screamed Vassar. If anything, it probably screamed, “Take a year off! You need it!” due to my serious case of senior slump. As the hour after my acceptance passed, I refreshed the page over and over again, utterly convinced that it was all a fluke. Therefore, it came as no surprise when I later received an email from Vassar saying that they had accidentally sent acceptance letters to some rejected ED2 applicants. For me, that was it. There was no way in hell that I wasn’t one of the unlucky few that would be selling their Vassar sweatshirts on eBay. After all, my YourSpace application was a ten-line poem I had written about a sponge during a Nor’easter blackout that spring. Nevertheless, when I checked my application page my acceptance stood strong, and I left for Vas-

sar that fall.

The first few months at Vassar were spent in a whirlwind of panic. From the very beginning, I had convinced myself that Vassar was never a logical reality for me. I couldn’t play any instruments, I wasn’t fluent in any languages, and I had only been out of the country once to go to Montreal for three days. If I somehow made it through orientation without being thrown off of Jewett tower I knew that the first day of class would be the death of me, because if there was one thing I had convinced myself, it was that there was no way in hell I was smart enough for Vassar. I sucked at reading, I didn’t know shit about politics, and I only learned what “indifferent” meant during my senior year of high school. In short, I was fucked. Once the first day of classes rolled around, I made the optimistic guesstimation that I would last two, maybe three weeks before being run out of New York with my tail tucked tightly between my legs.

As my time at Vassar went on, the same feelings of unworthiness held on nice and tight to

my every action. I would watch as my classmates would stay up late reading fifty-page articles for class, all the while struggling to convince myself that I had the ability to read and remember a ten-pager. I would purposefully shrink into the background of my comedy shows so as not to embarrass my group with my lack of comedic ability. When a group of friends would invite me to go out, I’d lie about having plans so as to avoid another night of draining social encounters. Slowly but surely, I began to undervalue every aspect of myself that Vassar consistently tried to assure me was valuable. However, things finally began to turn around during my junior year when someone helped me realize that in order to love my time here, I had to get out of my own way.

In many cases, it can be hard to admit that you’re the cause of your own problems, but it can often be even harder to realize that those problems can be fixed. For me, my greatest challenge at Vassar was working up the confidence to believe that I was here for a reason.

This quickly proved to be a challenge for the

ages, as everywhere I looked I saw people who seemed to thrive at everything they did, whether it was singing, writing, comedy, or even drinking. During my time here, I have met some of who I’m sure are the smartest, funniest, and most creative people on Earth, and in a place that is filled to the capacity with stars, it can be super easy to feel outshined.

My biggest take away from Vassar is the importance of loving yourself. This is by no means an easy task, but it is what I believe to be the most essential tool for getting your money’s worth at college. In order to connect with people, you must trust that the connections you make will be real. In order to learn, you must believe that you already have the ability to learn. In order to grow, you must know that you will, whether you want to or not. Four years later, I still have moments of believing that I didn’t belong here at Vassar, however, the people I’ve been lucky to surround myself with have worked tirelessly every day to help me realize that this was where I was meant to be, and for that I can’t thank them enough.

Sarah Zimmerman F

or the past week, I’ve thought a lot about what I should say in this article. I know I was probably asked to write something for this issue because I’ve been a part of the comedy community here at Vassar. I considered writing an article to reflect that—something kooky to sum up my comedy career during my time here. But then I realized that this issue will probably be read by a lot of parents. And that’s when I decided I should use this opportunity to actually say something.

First of all, I should say that I have enjoyed the time I’ve spent on campus, the students I’ve met here, and the opportunities I’ve had to explore my interests. I know that if I had gone to any other school, I might not have even discovered my love of improv and sketch comedy, nor had the confidence to start writing and producing my own content. I have Vassar Improv and No Offense to thank for that. I love you guys.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s be honest. During my time here, I’ve often been made to feel powerless by the Vassar administration.

I say this because these four years have been a big lesson on the fact that the administration does not care if students are unhappy. They care if parents and alumni are unhappy, because they’re the ones paying the bills. If parents pay tuition, who is the customer? Because it certainly doesn’t seem like it’s the students.

First, there is the administration’s shameful mismanagement of several different cases of sexual assault. This year, a number of sexual

assault survivors came forward to reveal how thoroughly the administration had mishandled their cases. Parents, I encourage you to ask your kids about these cases. I’m sure they’ve heard about them. These survivors had reported being assaulted, and never received any sort of justice. In fact, many of the survivors said that their experience with the administration was actively traumatizing, and made it harder to heal after the assault. As a woman on this campus, I can tell you I would not feel comfortable reporting an assault to this administration. They have proven time and again that they do not stand for the survivors.

Thankfully, there have been options for survivors outside of the administration. These have included peer-to-peer listening services like CARES and The Listening Center. Survivors have been able to call these organizations and speak with fellow students trained to listen and support them. These organizations have been truly amazing additions to the community here, and this month the administration announced it will be shutting them down because of the liability risk. What can we do about it? Nothing. We are powerless to stop it.

So now survivors have truly nowhere to turn to.

Need another example? Check out Professor Don Foster’s article “When the Vassar Bubble Pops, What Then?” It’s a powerful analysis of how Vassar has mismanaged its money during Cappy’s tenure as president. Parents, did you know that Vassar’s spending on administration

has increased dramatically, while spending on teaching has decreased? If you didn’t, ask your kid to show you the article. The statistics will shock you. And it’s not like these changes have gone unnoticed by students. I have experienced many different course-selection periods when I’ve noticed that departments have very few classes offered. Ask any student and they’ll tell you they wish there were more classes. With more professors, we get more classes.

Parents, ask your kid about when the administration announced a new head of the LGBTQ center without any student input. The result?

A letter from the heads of eight different student administrations denouncing their choice, because the professor was known to disrespect and misgender trans students in their classes.

Ask your kid about the lack of sufficient mental health services on campus, or the several different times the Office of Residential Life has made serious mistakes in room draws, or how the new bridge building has gendered bathrooms. Ask them how long it took the administration to admit that security on this campus uses racial profiling. Or simply ask them about their personal interactions with administrators. I know several people who have walked out of meetings with certain deans crying. I have had my own run-ins with the administration that have been dissatisfactory at best, and ridiculous at worst.

I want to be clear—I am not the first student to speak about the failings of the administra-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

tion. The articles I’ve cited have been amazing at pointing out exactly how this administration has failed students. But these articles (and the discussions we have amongst ourselves) are directed at our fellow students. They do not alert the “true customers” to the issues. Parents, if the administration sees you as the real customers, I want to tell you you’re not getting your money’s worth.

I also want to be clear that I don’t necessarily think Vassar is unique. The problems found in this administration could probably be found at other schools. But I don’t have any personal knowledge of the experiences of other schools.

I can only speak to Vassar’s problems.

I think part of graduating is seeing the good of a place like this, and everything it’s done for you. And it can be hard to criticize a place that existed long before you got there, and will remain after I leave. That’s why it’s so easy for these problems to persist—dissatisfied students will leave, while administrators remain. That’s why I didn’t want to brush over the problems I’ve seen here in the interest of positivity.

So Vassar, I’m sick of feeling like nothing will change because I’m “just a student.” I’m sick of knowing that the administration can get away with pure mediocrity because the people paying the bills aren’t even here to witness their failings. So here I am, letting you know, I am not a satisfied customer. My love of this school is tied only to the students I’ve met here—I have no love for the administration.

SENIOR RETROSPECTIVES Zach Rippe

Page 14

I

learned a lot at Vassar. Perhaps that’s a pretty bland way to kick things off as I start this retrospective in typical Vassar fashion (aka last minute). Whatever. I work best under pressure.

As simple as it sounds, that’s really what everything really comes back to. Whether we’re taking an incredible class, an incredibly underwhelming class, cursing the administration and picking apart the systemic faults of this crazy College, arguing with our friends, blah, blah, blah, we are learning things. Over the course of our four years here, we have constantly been challenged to think and learn in ways that make us feel angry, frustrated, insecure and at times hopeless. But that’s what’s so great about a place like Vassar. It provides us the tools and opportunity to think critically and defiantly to the best of our abilities.

After school, people may ask me what my favorite class was and how it changed me. Sure I could answer that question. But for me it’s always been more about everything else; the experiences I’ve had, the way I’ve shaped my view of the world, and most importantly, the people I’ve surrounded myself with. That is by far my favorite part of Vassar: the people.

It’s not just that everyone I’ve met here is insanely smart, because they are. But it’s the type of passionate, caring, interesting, weird individual that is drawn to this place that keeps it going. Sure, I’ll remember the class-

es I took. But I’ll also remember the first day of school when I wanted to hang out with my new neighbor but was so awkward that I instead asked if he could help me set up my Xbox because I didn’t know how. I’ll remember the late nights sitting at the bench on top of the hill at the Alumni house talking about things that seemed important at the time. I’ll remember dollar beer nights, midnight movie premiers at the mall, riding bikes in the middle of the night, sitting out on the picnic table under our tree, blasting “See You Again” and drinking Coronas. I’ll remember all of the head-trips my friends and I gave each other and the three layers of irony we’d throw onto every conversation as we laughed about how ridiculous we all were. I mean, we call our house “Blockbuster Total Access.” Oh, and you can definitely be sure that I’ll remember tons of other things that I am not at liberty to discuss in this silly little piece.

I, someone who incessantly apologizes and is afraid to hurt a fly, played four years of rugby and smashed countless amounts of kids my age into the dirt. That’s not to say the same didn’t happen to me twice as often. We were gifted with brilliant, caring coaches who not only taught my friends and I a sport we knew literally nothing about and actually got our scrawny little butts to win a bunch of games, but also cared deeply about us as people. As much as I loved giving myself scrapes and bruises, it was

just as much the bus rides singing “Country Roads” and “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the awkward (and not so awkward) TH parties that always gave us plenty of stories, the trips to Spain and Trinidad and Tobago, and again, the special people I was lucky enough to meet and bond with that kept me going back.

Vassar taught me to surround myself with good people who cared about me just as much as I cared about them. Obviously there will be bad eggs. But there’s never any harm in putting yourself out there and showing that you care.

After my sophomore year, I had good friends.

But I hadn’t really branched out at all. I was petrified to go abroad and meet new people.

These were “cool” Vassar people that I definitely would never get along with. Obviously I was wrong.

I wrote for The Miscellany News all four years here and got to say pretty much whatever the heck I wanted (as long as it had to do with sports). When I took over as sports editor after coming back from abroad, I had no idea I would again meet even more amazing people who have continued to shape my college experience, even as I sit here rushing to finish what will most definitely be my last piece ever for the Misc.

Sure I’ve “made connections.” I got myself a degree and a job, again partially due to the many wonderful people I’ve met during my time here. But much more important than

Ramy Abbady I

n the week and a half leading up to movein day at Vassar, I experienced many early mornings. I had said goodbye to nearly all of my best friends from high school and watched them drive away as they left for college. When August 28th, 2012 rolled around, only Lexie and Carol were still around to come see me off. My parents and I drove off a little after 5AM, leaving behind my sister and some of my very best friends. That was the beginning of my Vassar journey.

We arrived at 7:30 AM, and Raymond House Team didn’t even have my key yet because my parents and I were way too early. We spent the day fighting as they tried to unpack my stuff and I refused to let them. Part of why I hadn’t wanted to let them unpack my stuff was because I had smuggled a bottle of Kahlua in my luggage and I knew they would have flipped out. However, our fighting had a lot more to do with the fact that everything was about to change. I am the youngest of my siblings and my parents had both just retired, so they were about to become empty-nesters. Saying goodbye to my parents was so incredibly difficult, even though I knew they’d be back in a few weeks for Freshmen Families Weekend.

New beginnings are hard for so many reasons. Perhaps the biggest reason is because they come immediately after something ends.

The end of my time living on Long Island was hard because I had watched all of the friends I had known since childhood venture out into many different directions. The end of my time at Vassar is just as difficult, though the circumstances are so different. I’m incredibly fortunate to have met some of my best friends on my very first day at Vassar. Sarah, Jenna, and Kaden have been there right from the beginning, in our Fellow Group in Raymond, and living together as seniors has been absolutely joyful. Despite the typical housemate issues that everyone goes through, I feel closer to them now than ever before, and having to let go of our wonderful home in SoCo 5 is so hard. While we did not go through adolescence together, we did become adults together, ready to take on the world.

My first home away from Long Island was Raymond House, and it will always hold a special place in my heart. I stumbled into House Team as Freshmen Rep after running on a whim and was met by open arms. Raymond House Team and our House Advisor Mariyah helped me feel at home even as I experienced a very difficult transition to college. Raymond House was the first place on campus where I first had deep, critical conversations at late hours. It was the place where I participated in my first Super Bowl “party” (if eating Domino’s and not actually watching the football part counts). It was a place that I gave my heart and soul to as House

May 29, 2016

those things is the fact that I feel ready for the next stage of my life. Obviously I’m not. But who really is? I guess we’re all just going to dive in.

Vassar taught me to keep my head up, put on a smile whenever I could muster it, and most importantly, be the best person I can be.

It taught me to appreciate things I thought I couldn’t stand and let others’ enthusiasm and passion for what they love fuel my own. I don’t ever like to take things too seriously. Perhaps that’s still a major fault. But amidst all of my hard work, my slacking and over-analyzing, my adventurous but indecisive tendencies that affect my relationships and life decisions, I’ve realized that most things in life can be pretty hilarious.

We’ve all experienced tremendous highs and lows in every facet of our lives while here. It’s a weird time. But I guess it’s always a “weird time” in some sense of the phrase. I’m more than ready to be done with Vassar. It is by no means a perfect place. In fact, it is far from it.

I think that most, if not all of us know that. But I’m happy and thankful, because in many ways, Vassar can really be special. The relationships I’ve forged here mean more to me than very few other things in my life (hi mom and dad!).

So yes, I’ve learned a lot. I hope to carry these memories, experiences and people with me for as long as I possibly can, because frankly, I’m really going to miss this. All of it.

Chris Brown

President. It was home, and leaving at the end of sophomore year was more difficult than I had ever imagined it could be.

As I said, I ended up as Raymond Freshmen Rep practically by accident. And yet here I am, at the end of May 2016, having just spent two years of the VSA Executive Board, including this past year as VSA President. “Roller coaster” barely begins to describe my experience on the VSA. I’ve been through the good, the bad, the really really good, and the bitter ugly. I’m forever thankful to the people who helped me through it, especially Ruby and Tyler. Even through the hardest times, their support kept me going. I also truly believed that the work I was doing was important, and I wouldn’t have kept doing it otherwise.

As difficult as it things have been, I don’t believe I could have had such a truly powerful educational experience anywhere else. I participated in URSI right after my freshmen year with the amazing Jenny Magnes, and I’m so glad I had that opportunity. Even though my physics major didn’t work out, the experiences I had are so important to who I am now. My first Education professor, Maria Hantzopolous, helped awaken a passion I didn’t even realize I had, so much so that I immediately declared a correlate after finishing her class. The following semester, I made it my major after taking classes with Tracey Holland Erendira Rueda.

Erin McCloskey was an incredibly supportive and helpful advisor, and her class helped me think about things I had never considered before. Finally, Colette Cann, as my thesis advisor, pushed me to make my research better than I thought possible, and believed in me when I was ready to give up.

The last group of people I want to thank are my friends that I made after founding the Middle Eastern Students Collective with Essie last spring. Before Vassar, I was unsure of what my racial and cultural identities meant to me, but MESC helped me find something I had been looking for for a long time. Yasmeen, Parisa, Nora, Yasmine, Soraya, Ethan, Karam, and everyone else who has been in and out have been a family to me at times when it felt like Vassar didn’t care about us. Additionally, my Arabic professor, Mootacem Mhiri, was a role model I could look up to as I begin a career in higher education.

On the booze cruise, a friend asked me what my reflections on the last four years were. After some thought, I said, “Vassar is good and bad at the same time”. I want to remember both. The good and the bad made me who I am today. I will be the first in my family to get a Bachelor’s degree in the U.S., and in two years I’ll be the first in my family to get a Master’s degree at all.

I’m ready.

I

t’s currently 1 a.m. on a Tuesday, and I’m sitting in my room alone in the dark listening to “All These Things That I’ve Done” by The Killers while I’m writing this. Sometimes trying to incite emotional feelings with a song works. Gotta get all of the cliches out of the way first. I can’t believe it’s ending, it’s been a wild four years, I will cherish these memories forever. I think that covers it? Good.

I really didn’t know what I wanted this little diddy to be about when I was asked to write one.

So apologies if it’s just a miss mosh of thoughts and incomprehensible blabber, I really don’t do well with goodbyes. Before I get into the things I loved about this weird place–and trust me, I do have things I loved–I have to get some thoughts off of my chest. Vassar College is not everything and a bag of chips. There are many problems with this institution. Not that there aren’t enormous problems with I’m sure every other liberal arts college out there, or problems with everything in this world honestly, but I can only speak to my personal experiences. I came into Vassar as a green little first-generation college student. My father was a member of the armed forces and my mother was an immigrant from the Philippines. I applied to Vassar on a whim, and didn’t learn how to pronounce its name until the summer before my first year here. Needless to say, I had no clue what I was doing. But I had a constructed idea what a college was supposed to be like.

Then I went here. I thrived enough to inject myself into student publication and student government, and eventually became one of the Vice Presidents of the VSA this year. That’s when I truly began to question why things just seemed to be the way they were at Vassar. This campus is not safe for everyone that goes here all the time, and that to me is a fundamental flaw in the system.

Members of the trans community are constantly being misgendered in and outside of the classroom. Our affinity resources like the ALANA Center are severely underfunded. But nothing was, and nothing is, being done about these huge, huge issues. Learning just how much of a political game everything truly was at a top tier level was super disheartening. Which I guess I should get used to, because I’m going to law school, and I best be able to deal with bureaucracy there.

Vassar does not do everything for its students.

And yet, I am so grateful that I was able to go here.

Not only so I could first hand see how bureaucracy really just messes up a lot of things for a lot of people. But I’m grateful that I was surrounded by so many people who were able to invoke a discourse within myself that I didn’t know existed.

When I first got to Vassar, I remember walking in on my floor to a conversation between two strangers about the intricacies of South African politics. Shouts out to Maya and Matias for giving me my very first truly Vassar moment. I im-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

mediately felt in over my head. Then I started to figure out how stuff worked around here. For any random parents reading this that are trying to understand the Vassar experience, when your child says there really is no place just like Vassar and no people just like Vassar students, believe them.

Being here was eye opening. I learned so much from my peers, and I truly am so thankful to everyone who helped me figure out who I was.

Corny, right?

“I’m grateful that I was surrounded by so many people who were able to invoke a discourse within myself that I didn’t know existed.”

Being here was exhausting. I have never gone through more moments of just complete and utter frustration and anger. I’ve cried over the stupidest things, and this place has a weird way of taking whatever emotion you’re feeling, especially the bad ones, and magnifying it by ten.

Even this week, I’m seeing the senior class in this warped reality that is Vassar act out in very odd ways. It’s not a horrible feeling. I think I’m just all burnt out. I’m tired.

Being here was the best thing that could have happened to me. In my limited amount of life, and my even limited amount of time I’ve spent here at Vassar, I’ve learned what it truly means to learn from real life experiences. I have messed up so hard on a lot of things since coming to Vassar.

I’ve lost people who I thought I would call best friends for life over stupid stuff. I’ve seen so many people here, students and administrators alike, who I know I DO NOT want to be become or be like in my normal, post-Vassar life. I’ve learned a lot of what not to do in order to be a good person.

I know myself, I know what makes me happy, and I can take that information into my life and move forward. Thank you so much Vassar, sincerely.

I don’t want this to come off as a “Vassar sucks” rant, because it doesn’t. I truly love this place, and I have made friends and memories that will bring me comfort for the rest of my life. But I’ve learned to question my environment here, and I’ve learned that however perfect a place seems on paper, there are always a few things wrong with it that after being in that environment for an extended period of time, they start to drive you a little bit kookoo. But I guess it’s all part of the journey. Vassar has made me resilient, Vassar has made me strong, and Vassar had made me grateful.

SENIOR RETROSPECTIVES Noble Ingram

May 29, 2016

W

hen I tried on a high-school-era blazer I was hoping would still fit me for Formal, I found three pink packing peanuts in an interior pocket. I was standing in front of a mirror at the time and now I can say that I know exactly what nostalgia looks like. The peanuts were from an admittedly brilliant prank I fell victim to in my first semester on campus. But it was their familiar feeling in my hands that was most startling. Standing there in my too-small suit I realized just how tangibly this school has changed me.

For one, I haven’t worn the suit in four years.

But I’ve been more hungry for the kinds of accomplishments that would demand it. I’m not afraid of being a leader, or of challenging the status quo or of taking the kinds of risks that sometimes result in a feat of styrofoam ingenuity.

I could go on. For every packing peanut that lined my bedding, filled my shoes and spilled out from my closet (it was a complete job- no cut corners) I could give a thank you or acknowledgement. But there are four years of words to say and even though the Miscellany News has honed my ability to make 1400 words look like 900, I think I’ll take a different route here. Suffice it to say, Vassar has been a space of immense change for me. This college has loaded me with questions that I don’t always have an answer for. All I can say for sure is that I needed this place in order to become who I am. It isn’t perfect and the road to graduation hill hasn’t always been smooth but there is power, I’ve realized, in imperfection. To the Misc, thanks for being the kind of friendly gen-

tle nudging force that pushed me toward a very real passion for journalism. The paper and the people who willingly work nonstop to produce it have offered me so much. And though I have devoted myself to writing and editing, I still feel so, so grateful for what I’ve gotten back.

To my many remarkable friends, thanks for being the people you are. Y’all are wonderful and weird and each of you deserve the good things coming your way.

It’s easy sometimes, for me to forget that although I’ve afforded Vassar a kind of meta-physical presence in my life, it is also a real place. Vassar is learning and struggle and transformation but it is also a collection of mostly brick and glass buildings that sit just south of the City of Poughkeepsie along Raymond Avenue. Chalk it up to my Urban Studies correlate, but I feel now that it is important to consider how this place works as a space. We may attend Vassar but we also live here. As a way to cope with the implications of impending adulthood, I’ve taken to watching a TV show called House Hunters in which picky people try to shop for a forever home. Viewers can follow along and make their own choices about which southern Italian villa, for example, is right for the newlyweds from Ohio. Don’t worry: they will always, always make the wrong choice.

But in the spirit of those property buyers, and in accordance with my own reluctance to find permanent housing after I graduate, I offer my own take on this classic model. Below is a real estate evaluation of every place I’ve ever lived from Hooker Ave to Collegeview.

ROOM A: Third-floor dusty double. Creaky

floors and a tilted mirror to talk yourself out of nerves on the first day of class. A straight shot to the bathroom after you’ve gone on a morning run and heavy blinds for extra sleep when you stop going on morning runs. Roommate goes home on the weekends so there’s extra space for a few solid friends. Lock needs special attention and don’t be surprised if you wake up to an open door of people cutting/ dying hair, buying and selling drugs and ritually kicking over trashcans. It’s the third floor of Joss. Just far enough from Main Building to make late-night walks from the Misc offices that much more thrilling. Closets are small.

Fixer-Upper.

ROOM B: Student fellow room. Veritable coffin. Short, speckled walls serve as effective echo chambers for worries about being a student leader. Cardboard decorations on the front door offer an aggressively, intentionally friendly atmosphere. Cramped conditions but plenty of shelves for an indecisive, reluctantly-declared English major. Perfect for general disillusionment with college/ structures/ the future. Be prepared for a new understanding of the term ‘sophomore slump’ but also for the ready helping hands of more than a few amazing friends. Bathrooms in acceptable condition. Vending machines just around the corner.

Excellent location.

ROOM C (Temporary) : Newly available due to the Res Life housing crisis. A two-week stay in a well-lit, airy double in Davison. Fourth floor, not too far from the elevator. Breathtaking view of the quad and prime spot for poststudy abroad sadness. Good place to solidify

nd with this, I can check “write for The Miscellany News” off my bucket list.

I’m sure that by the time this issue is published, however, there will be plenty of items I failed to accomplish from said bucket list. After all, there is only so much time during Senior Week and so many challenging decisions to make (AM or PM Booze Cruise?). What I do know from my four years of attending this esteemed institution is that, regardless of the choices I make, I always end up regretting what I did not do, rather than what I did during my time here.

So let’s talk a little bit about what I did do here.

I lived in Strong House. My fellow group lived in the Strong 2nd floor North hallway, but we met on the MPR balcony. Everyone was a little too nauseatingly friendly, so I made it a point to shoot my new “mandatory friends” with Nerf darts on Friday afternoons. When not being bombarded with small foam darts, we bonded over movies, baked goods, and our mutual yearning to destroy all the other houses for the Brewer House Cup (we did). My roommate was an international student from India who thought I was snooty because I said I would share my mini fridge with her (I thought I was being nice). I would tell you all about how our relationship has evolved since then, but she would probably give me the sideeye and call me disgustingly sentimental, so I won’t. But here’s to us, Richa Gautam, for getting out of that tiny room that they eventually turned into an electrical closet.

Strong House meant a lot to me. Sometimes we had a bad reputation, as cited by our Serenading cover of Neon Tree’s “Everybody Talks”: “rumor has it that we don’t go out (but we got out of the kitchen!)” But those rumors are unsubstantiated. After all, I went out A LOT… as a member of Vassar College Emergency Medical Services.

VCEMS is an organization to which I devoted a majority of both my waking and sleeping hours.

York Chen (no relation) convinced me to take this little interdepartmental course where we learned how to “catch babies” and “package people for transport.” INTD150/151 is where I learned just how much a committed group of students could contribute to the wellbeing of their peers.

It also meant I attended a ton of parties uninvited. So here’s a huge shoutout to Farah Aziz, York Chen, and Ronald Yu for spending four hours every Tuesday and Thursday of freshman year in a little room in Olmsted where we only received two half-credits for our time. It was thanks to those credits that this year, I could serve as the Captain of VCEMS, which to this day remains my crowning achievement (I hope I haven’t peaked in college). To my (eme)sister Renata Mukai,

belief that kindness and understanding help even in the most frustrating circumstances.

Tall ceilings allow for slightly higher ambitions. Room comes with a creeping realization that English major, interest in journalism, possibility of student leadership are all right for you. Lofted bed with space for all of your worldly possessions underneath. Memorable spot to visit.

ROOM D: Single in a Terrace Apartment by the dumpsters. Already furnished with dirty dishes and empty bottles. Once visited by a stray cat when the door was left open. Short walk to Sunset Lake, long walk to the Deece.

Note to tenants: patience and an active social and academic life back on campus are a plus.

Walks to the Miscellany News become more thrilling that walks back. Terrific spot for self-improvement, challenging spot for interior design. Possible tear-down.

ROOM E: Another TA. Full of incredible, supportive people. Kitchen stocked with avocados, a shockingly resilient microwave and good, good friends. Spacious, sunny and already inhabited by a plant that refuses to suffer despite mild neglect. Room partially sponsored by Stop + Shop. Running water is sometimes spotty but calling the ROC is easy enough. Great view of the dorms, the academic buildings, and four years of tremendous growth. Worth-while investment.

—Noble Ingram is an English major with an Urban Studies correlate. He has worked on the Misc in multiple positions and served as Editor-in-Chief in the spring of 2016.

Ben Glasner

Fiona Chen A

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and flawless human beings, Maggie Ginoza, Nick Page, and Mark Derasmo, I could not have served without you and your hemorrhage, diaphoresis, and lacrimation.

Speaking of bodily fluids, I am (hopefully) graduating with a major in Biology. I did manage to submit my thesis, all about proteomics in Tetrahymena thermophila, which is now my least favorite protozoa in the domain Eukaryota.

While T. thermophila may have lost the award for most beloved model organism, Professor J. William Straus without a doubt deserves the award for most beloved research advisor. Thank you so much for all the conversations we’ve shared: I wouldn’t have learned nearly as much about proteolytic enzymes without you. I think that it is also important to mention that the Biology Department faculty contains some of the most intelligent mentors I could have possibly asked for: Dr. Kennell, Dr. Collins, and Dr. Proudfoot, thank you for teaching me how to be a mad (good) scientist.

“There’s nothing like coming home to more baked goods than a single human being should ever consume in a single sitting. ” Madness reigns supreme at Rabies House, the Terrace Apartment I currently call home. My housemates, Cady Cirbes, Cari Goldfine, Richa Gautam, and Rachel Messbauer, have done an incredible job of keeping me well fed and well rested. There’s nothing like coming home to more baked goods than a single human being should ever consume in a single sitting. Thank you all for weathering all those fire alarms with me: I am truly sorry for all the time lost because I could not boil water properly. I’ll know better for the future. But really, I’ve learned so much from our co-habitation, and I will always hold that little Old Norse proverb close to my bosom.

And… the last thing I will cross off my Vassar College bucket list is “graduating with the Class of 2016.” I feel truly #blessed to be receiving a degree alongside all of you as a part of the 152nd Commencement. I didn’t have the chance to meet all of you, so consider this my Vassar Missed to those I did not get to know. Go into the real word, beautiful people, and I will see you all again soon at our five year reunion, where surely, we will finally meet Meryl Streep.

I

t seems in many ways to me, that asking a senior to write a retrospective on the eve of graduation is remarkably cruel. This is a job that would have much better suited one of my many former selves. It should be a task for those not yet ingrained in the emotions of this change, as arbitrary of a change as it may be for some. I find myself now looking back, thinking on the actions and events to include and which must now be left out in such a small space. It is as if I must now not only move on from this undergraduate experience, but also decide the work of aging for it, and pick what must be forgotten. This is the root of the cruelty, and yet, here I write all the same. So with this in mind, I write the following self-inflated, egotistic, and solipsistic analysis of the previous four years.

Clearly the natural starting place should be back in 2012. I was a bushy-tailed freshman straight from a town of 600 people, and held an enthusiasm not only to learn from professors, but also to expand my understanding of the world through my peers. As surprising as it may be, rural upstate New York is not the most diverse location in the world. I am certain that the long lost soul of freshman year Ben would have produced a wonderfully optimistic piece on the process of adapting to college were he given the chance. Though I hold no memories, Facebook photos tell a clear story of a very confused boy with a big red robe. Between the bubble pipe, the makeshift beer pong, and the ample posts to the 2016 group page, freshman year showed a great deal of room for improvement.

On the plus side, from freshman year was born the sophomore slump. Wait, that was wrong. That was very wrong. If freshman year demonstrates room for growth, sophomore year was certainly the proverbial fire with which much of my spirit was cast. I felt after the numerous shenanigans, late night jam sessions, and absolute madness accompanied with being on a team with Elias Kim (going to Harvard Law) I participated in throughout the previous year that being a student fellow, and participating in house team, would be a joyful employment.

What I soon realized was how diverse the problems of my peers could be, and how many of my own I needed to address. College is certainly not meant to be a stress free environment, but the troubles rooted throughout this campus were revealed to be beyond the scope of any reasonable expec-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

tation. I met some of the most caring and magnanimous people I have ever known on the Cushing house team. Their commitment to one another, and to the student body in general was well above the job description.

The entirety of sophomore year was a blur, and before I knew it my junior year had begun. The summer had done me good, and I entered with a rejuvenated spirit for trouble making. Between my suitemates, the soccer team, and those remaining population of friends not abroad, I was remarkably ready to do as many whimsical and unproductive activities as possible. Though, Vassar never truly lets go of its stressors, I convinced myself of the importance of building “my network”. Though it was clearly an excuse, it seemed that the safest bet for my future was to firmly build friendships by going out regularly, and enjoying a good drink with those caring people around me. After all, what is a GPA in comparison to loving friends?

After having discovered this excuse for myself, I found myself going abroad as well.

I landed in Stockholm, Sweden, and my academic priorities quickly melded with my need to go out and explore the world.

The combination was a great success. After finding myself dipping into open bars that were build around LinkedIn meet and greets, and start up parties combined with live music shows, I had ample fodder to support my procrastinating tendencies. As my adventures increased in regularity my academics improved as well. While my statistical background may have taught me that an individual observation, myself, cannot be a convincing case, I stand by the conclusion.

A focus on the relationships here at Vassar is the most effective and productive use of one’s time.

Taking this as my hypothesis, senior year became an experimental ground to both improve and build on. Between skinny-dipping in sunset lake, climbing on roofs, drinking on my porch with my housemates at 2pm, and inviting Cappy to our winter-shindig, I can attest that few things feel as rewarding as embracing relationships. In the end, and with a complete avoidance of talking about my actual academic experience, I have found myself fully prepared to move forward with my academic career as a result of Vassar College. I am now moving on to pursue a PhD in Public Policy, and am remarkably thankful for the opportunities which Vassar has supplied me.

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SENIOR RETROSPECTIVES

May 29, 2016

Farah Aziz I

’m in denial about leaving Vassar. Denial is convenient. I pretend that I still have classes to attend, meetings to schedule, events to plan and friends to spend time with. I imagine senior week as a reinforced vacation for the seniors. I like to preface statements with, “I’ll see you next week!” I guess I pretend that I’m still a college student next week.

I know this may sound too real and morbid for many people. I know that for others, I am sugarcoating the Vassar experience. But I think I’m just being nostalgic. For me, nostalgia is a form of grief. I should probably preface this. I wrote my senior thesis in Religion on death denial attitudes and mortality literatures. One of my chapters was on grief. This week, I realize how certain parts of my writing have spilled into reality. I recognize grief for its diverse manifestations. Grief is coping with any form of loss. Grief is strangely complicated. And grief is in constant flux.

I say this because I witness grief in many of my own interactions. I am beginning to understand why I hold people a little longer while hugging them. I get why I walk through Main or the well-traveled pathway between Olmsted and Blodgett and there’s a large lump in my throat. I realize why I blame “allergies” for my watery eyes when I hand off my office keys or sign off for my last EMS shift or perform for my last concert or write my last email for a student org. I feel a certain unspoken weight around my friends when we are together.

Leaving Vassar is a form of loss. And I think it’s valuable to acknowledge that. I grieve be-

cause Vassar was and is a critical part of my existence. I cared profoundly about this institution with its flaws and all. And without acknowledging the loss, I cannot appreciate what Vassar gave me. Vassar gave me both exhilarating moments of joy and crushing experiences of despair. Vassar introduced me to some of the most incredible people I could ever hope to meet. Vassar nurtured, broke, and shaped me. I couldn’t be more grateful.

Here’s what four years have taught me: I learned how to fall down and stumble back up.

I learned when it was okay and necessary to be vulnerable.

I learned how to juggle diverse commitments and found that time was a construct.

I learned when to bite my tongue and listen.

I learned about authentic friendship. The friends who fed and made you tea and watched you cry and listened and gave you hugs when you needed them are worth having for life.

I learned to relish the beauty of midnight conversations and pots of tea.

I learned that people were their most vulnerable when they became a patient.

I learned that you could help someone feel better just by stepping into a room in EMS uniform.

I learned that people share their stories when you let them speak.

I learned that community can be as simple and profound as taking off your shoes, sitting on the floor, and listening to each other’s childhoods.

I learned that sleep is not always possible but it makes smiling easier.

I learned that my family cared tremendously about my health and well-being. Not all my friends and people I knew had families who did the same.

I learned that elderly people often share the loveliest and sincerest advice.

I learned that some of the best people shine from the most unexpected places.

I learned how to become comfortable with the feared and despised. Religion and medicine fall under these categories.

I learned that food really does bring people together.

I learned to appreciate my drives between Vassar and home. The lines between these worlds were both distinctive and blurred.

I learned that professors come in different shapes and flavors. Some change you unimaginably.

I learned how to quietly fight.

I learned that people consciously and unconsciously made assumptions about me.

I learned that I loved proving them wrong.

I learned to embrace my social status as a mother bear.

I learned how much I enjoyed running between the sciences and humanities. I could not have one without the other.

I learned that religion scares people because they don’t know how to talk or approach it.

I learned that pain is a part of life. But so is joy.

I learned to acknowledge my immense priv-

Joshua Sherman I

n almost any essay, short story, or news story I’ve ever written, it’s always been really hard for me to begin the ending. This right here is an ending, of course. I’m ending my college career after four years of living and working on this campus, and it’s hard to try and compile everything into a single feeling, thought, idea, or emotion. I’m ending my career as a fouryear editor and columnist to The Misc. I’m ending an extensive rivalry with our amazing food service provider Aramark. I’m ending this phase of life that, according to a lot of people I talk to, condenses into the “best” or “most important” years of my life.

And I chose those four years to be at Vassar: A quaint, strange campus full of geniuses 90 minutes north of New York City. I came in thinking about a pre-law track, a solid setup for law school, and ended up declaring as an English major before my first year was out. I learned what “womp womps” are. I wrote a hypertext novel. I interned in our Financial Aid Office and worked on stuff i’d never get to do anywhere else. I got a chance to intern in our library for our summer before heading off to some other, amazing places. I ate (a lot) of Vassar Devils. I complained (a lot) about the condition of Raymond Hall. I learned (a lot) of things I don’t think I’d get a chance to learn at any of the other schools I considered as this pre-college former self: a weird 17-year old on Long Island who really wasn’t all that qualified to be deciding what collegiate institution to attend for the next four years. I also remember making a lot of posts on Facebook and that apparently becoming “Facebook Famous” over the summer is a thing.

And now, after getting an e-mail from The Misc, I’m being asked to condense down and reflect on those four years. Give a few people some shout outs, share some wise words and be on my merry way. This is being handed out at commencement, so I’m sure there’s quite a few curious parents glossing over this, or trying to use it to shield themselves from the rain, depending on the weather. I really hope it’s the former.

So, with that all on my mind, I guess i should start talking about what I worked on and all the friends I made in that time. I started writing a column for The Misc the first week in, thinking it was the one thing I knew I wanted to do during my time here, and then doing a whole lot of other stuff too during my four years. I worked as an Opinions Editor for three semesters, in between heading off to London and see what it’s like learning in a room with 200 other students for a change. I have a lot

of friends I’ve gotten to know from The Misc over these years, such as Lane, my mentor, Jean Luc, Chris, Zach, Palak, Noble, and Rhys, spending way too many hours in a tiny floor on the third floor of the College Center, enduring a paper with too few reporters and too many pages to fill.

And meanwhile, some of my best friends, like Ramy, decided to go into the chaos that is our student government. Somehow I ended up tagging along, getting to work on very important, insane, why-are-students-allowedto-do-this sort of stuff, like our annual budget of $900,000 and help support the creation of a student vending machine of essential products. And one day I hope someone doing work for the VSA or college historian notices this article and renames the vending machine, if it’s still around, in my honor. I also got to work on this sort of stuff with amazing friends like Ruby, Lauren, Kaden, Apoorva, and all of the Senior Class Council.

I got to learn amazing things from folks like Professors Antelyes, Wallace, Joyce, Hsu, Kumar, DeMaria, Armborst, and probably too many others to count. I got to live with amazing housemates and neighbors, who also beared with living under my domain as the South Commons President, and asked very nicely for shout-outs: Hannah, Jenna, Josh, Phe, Liz, and Sarah.

Vassar was swell, but it’s also great to be taking all I learned from and grown through in these four years and start something else in an entirely different place. There’s an immense feeling of freedom knowing, as you go through college, it’s both an extremely valuable place to be in, but also a simultaneously ephemeral space that I get to eventually leave behind too. I don’t know if this was the “best” or “most important” place to be in my entire life, I still have a lot of that “entire life” to get through, but I’m very grateful for having the chance to stick around and make friends, learn a lot, and having a (mostly) good time. But I have no words of wisdom to share or Hamilton song lyrics to relate to like some other retrospectives may share about their time at Vassar. It isn’t like college is some kind of transcendental experience. Instead it’s mostly just a chance to drink, make mistakes, and get a chance to prove your willingness to care about something a lot and (hopefully) become a caring human being. Maybe that’s what the $60,000-a-year, “highly selective, residential, coeducational liberal arts college in the Hudson Valley” thing is all about. But overall: A++ would Vassar again.

ilege. I learned that I could be ashamed of such privilege or I could try using it productively.

I learned that laughter, chocolate and good company made everything feel better.

I learned that the days were long but semesters were eerily short.

I learned that looking people in the eye when you talk to them can change the turnout of a conversation.

I learned how to appreciate tea that wasn’t my traditional chai.

I learned that I have so much left to learn.

Vassar is an institution. And institutions are comprised of people. I know I will still grieve the community that touched and changed me in innumerable ways. But I know that the people who made Vassar so much of a second home will always stay with me in the future.

To all of those I had the privilege of meeting and working with, thank you. To my closest circle of family and friends, I can’t imagine these past four years without you all by my side. It’s hard to express the extent of my gratitude. To the class of 2016: I don’t know all of you but I want to say just how proud I am of all of us and how far we’ve come. Here’s to moving forward in the next chapter. And to Vassar: thank you. ­­—Farah Aziz is a religion major heading to medical school this fall. She was involved in Generation, VCEMS (Vassar College Emergency Medical Services), VMSU (Vassar Muslim Student Union), RSL Forum, Ujima, and the Religion Department.

Palak Patel I

’ve thought about writing a senior retrospective ever since my sophomore year.

I’ve written this retrospective a million times in the past two years, thinking and rethinking the different ways that I could reflect back on my four years at Vassar. Recently, though, the more I’ve thought about it, the more I realized that it is absolutely impossible to try to encapsulate every aspect of my Vassar career in under 1000 words.

I remember when I first came to Vassar as a freshman. My parents had come with me from Wyoming to visit a few months earlier after I had already paid the deposit. Walking around Vassar in June when the campus is almost completely empty and then coming back at the end of August for freshman orientation are two completely different experiences. It was jarring to drive through Main Gate and to meet my roommate in person, as well as my fellow group. Those first few weeks were difficult, the adjustment is hard and I remember telling myself that this had to work out. I was not going to be the type of person who left college without really trying.

Then I joined the Misc. I had little newspaper experience, but for some reason they liked my design work and kept asking me if I wanted to come back. My first semester with the Misc consisted of about an hour of work on Sunday or Monday night, and then ripping through the paper on Thursday to see what had changed. My role was so small, and I remember trying to figure out a way to start writing so I could have my name in a byline.

When I first joined the Misc I never thought I would become an editor. I thought I was going to lay out some of the paper, maybe one day write an article or two. I was so happy when they asked me to apply for Design Editor, and then ecstatic when I was voted in.

Sophomore year was the year that I fell in love with the Misc, and with Vassar. Now I had a place that I belonged, a group of friends who were always there for me. I’ve learned a lot at Vassar, and I’ve loved most of my classes here. But my favorite memories are almost all from spending time with Misc staff members.

Everyone was so kind and caring; they were funny and smart. When life was difficult, they were always there. Even at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday night when all of the computers were broken and we all had class in the morning.

Ever since sophomore year I’ve invested so much of my life at Vassar to the newspaper.

Many of my non-Misc friends didn’t get it, and many of them still don’t understand my undying commitment to the Misc. It didn’t matter

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

to me, though. I had a group of like-minded people on campus to commiserate with when life was difficult. I could always count on the newspaper to come out on Thursday.

I gave the Misc my soul when I was voted in as Editor-in-Chief second semester junior year. People said it was going to be difficult, and they were sugarcoating it. Never have I been so challenged. Never have I slept so little. Never have I doubted my abilities more or cried so much. Never have I loved my work at Vassar more than the three semesters I was Editor-in-Chief of The Miscellany News. So much of my identity at Vassar is wrapped up in the work I’ve done for this newspaper, and I’m so proud of everything I’ve done with it, not only for myself, but also for all of the other members of the newspaper. You all mean the world to me, and I love each of you dearly.

The thought of leaving the Misc is daunting, but I know I’m leaving it in extremely capable hands.

I’m sad to be leaving Vassar now. But I’m also so ready to move on to a different part of my life. Senior year has been hard. Between an extremely heavy course load, writing a thesis for Religion, being Editor-in-Chief of the Misc and reviving the Vassar Review, I’ve learned that we are really only meant to stay at Vassar for a finite amount of time. I’ve learned how to fight for what I believe in, not only in the classroom but also in my everyday life. Vassar has taught me persistence and resilience. It has taught me that sometimes friends aren’t meant to be around forever.

Sometimes we need to let things, and people, go. As much as I love the security of Vassar, it’s now time for me to let it go. I’ve left my mark here, done the work I needed to do. I’ve made a difference in the lives of my fellow students.

I want to thank everyone at the Misc, past, present and future, for everything you’ve taught me. Thank you for working with me, respecting me, loving me, and allowing me to lead a good number of you. Thank you to the Vassar Review, and my best friend there who trusted me enough to let me join him on a whim. It’s been a difficult year for us both, but we know that we’ve started something that will last for years to come. Thank you to the English and Religion Departments for giving me the tools I need to continue my education next year and into the future. And thank you Vassar for believing in me. Vassar isn’t perfect, but the people here are doing so much work to make it better. I’ve done my part for now. It’s time for me to let you go.

May 29, 2016

SENIOR RETROSPECTIVES

Congratulations to our Miscellany News seniors!

We can’t wait to see what you all accomplish in the future.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

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FOUR YEARS AT VASSAR

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

May 29, 2016

May 29, 2016

FOUR YEARS AT VASSAR

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

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CAMPUS MAP

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Walker Field House

Chapel Library “The Sex Tree”

Loeb Art Center

New Bridge Building

Important locations circled!

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

May 29, 2016