The Miscellany News
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Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY
Volume CL | Issue 9
November 9, 2017
Trustees reflect on a Art exhibition combats ableism decade of achievement I Matt Stein Arts Editor
Clark Xu
Assistant News Editor
T
Courtesy of John Abbott
he Vassar College Board of Trustees provides institutional continuity and stability to the campus community, but its inner workings are often left unexplained to the groups and people who benefit from its work. In its annual October meeting, the Board highlighted this concern and discussed possible avenues for increasing the transparency of its proceedings. Board of Trustees Chair William Plapinger ’74 P’10 reflected, “In looking back over the period since 2006 when I became Chair, I would place the following among the most important achievements of the Board, which during that time has included more than 70 different Trustees from seven different decades of College graduates—significantly expanding access and affordability to students from diverse socio-economic and other backgrounds [...] establishing the first Veterans posse in partnership with The Posse Foundation [and] funding and construction of the Bridge for Laboratory Sciences.” In achieving these goals, Vassar has remained committed to an admissions policy that meets students’ demonstrated financial need and has expanded the Posse program, which now serves as a model for similar programs in other institutions of higher education. Plapinger also noted that since 2006, the Board has selected two Vassar presidents and an interim president, super-
William Plapinger ’74 P’10 is Vassar’s current Chair of Board of Trustees.
n 1990, President George H. W. Bush signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act. The goal was to prohibit discrimination for the disabled community and provide accessibility accommodations. However, 27 years later, little change can be seen. Stigmas and misconceptions still impact members of the disabled community, with an assumptive belief that those who are disabled are limited in their actions and expressions. There is a severe lack of discussion about the topic of ableism, and the current dialogue around ableism often doesn’t include voices from the disabled community. Sponsored by the Office of Health Education, Office for Accessibility and
can’t do certain things. And that’s definitely not the case. For me, people say I need to work harder, but it isn’t about working harder; it’s about working differently and to do my best that I can.” As a wellness peer educator, Corleto came up with this event idea as his semester project, reaching out to the various centers on campus in the hopes of receiving submissions by the various members of the disabled community on campus. Post-Baccalaureate Fellow in the Office of Health Education Sam Hoher ’17 spoke via emailabout how the Office of Health Education helped Corleto develop his idea fully. “Since the beginning of the semester, Robin, [Director of Health Education] Renee [Pabst] and I have See EXHIBIT on page 14
Vassar soccer falls in LL finals Kelly Pushie
vised the growth in the endowment from $741 million to over $1 billion, refinanced $350 million in bond offerings and raised $430 millions in capital campaigns and updated the Governance of the College in collaboration with students, faculty and administrators in the Governance Review Steering Committee. The Board can vary between 22 and 35 members plus the President of the College. The current iteration is at the upper limit in terms of its number of members. Six members of the Board are nominated by the Alumnae and Alumni of VasSee TRUSTEES on page 3
the Disability Rights Coalition (DRC), “Unmasking Stigma: Ableism & Ability Through Student Art” will be exhibited in the Old Bookstore. The exhibit features artwork by students of differing abilities that express their experiences and raise awareness of the misconceptions and stigmas around the topic of ableism. An opening reception for the exhibitwas held on Nov. 8; “Unmasking Stigma” will be on display until Nov. 27. The main coordinator behind this exhibit was Wellness Peer Educator for the Office of Health Education and President of the DRC Robin Corleto ’19. Corleto addressed the biggest misunderstanding he hopes this event disproves: “I feel like there’s this huge stigma that once you are labeled with disabilities that you are limited, that you
Guest Reporter
Both the men’s and women’s soccer teams put up valiant fights in their Liberty League championship games, but both ultimately fell to the teams from Hobart and William Smith College, respectively. The men were up first, kicking off at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 5th. Vassar went into the game sitting at the number two seed, while Hobart secured the number one seed. Coming off a huge win against St. Lawrence University in the semifinal matchup, the men’s team was fired up to get a chance to defend the Liber-
ty League title. Facing off against the Statesmen of Hobart College, the Brewers played a statistically even game, but could not convert on any of their opportunities to score, which ultimately cost them the championship. Vassar outshot Hobart 15-14 throughout the game. Sophomore Mattie Mrlik took four shots with one of them on goal, senior Reid Smith took two shots and nine other players all had one opportunity to score. Hobart scored in the first half off a header from junior Alex Weisbein. At the half, the score was 1-0, but Weisbein soon scored again, putting
Hobart up 2-0. Vassar did not give up and finished out the game strong. Unfortunately, they still struggled to convert their shot opportunities they had at the end of the second half. Senior keeper Matt Marcelino posted five saves, and Mrlik led the team with four shots. Sophomore defender Henrik Olsson reflected on the performance of the team this past weekend. “I thought we played really well this past weekend. Looking back at the semi-finals, we came into the game very prepared and See LIBERTY LEAGUE on page 18
A cappella lights up Villard Room A full day in the life of ‘Fuddy Meers’ actor A Sasha Gopalakrishnan Assistant Arts Editor
Matt Stein Arts Editor
A
Courtesy of Hannah Benton
s Sam Smith’s “Writings on the Wall” rang out through the hallways of Main Building, a wave of uplifting energy reverberated throughout the packed Villard Room. Gracing the stage with a medley of sounds that left the audience breathless, the Nor’easters, Northeastern University’s premiere a cappella group, collaborated in a joint concert with Vassar’s very own Devils on Saturday, Nov. 4. The two acclaimed groups have both made a name for themselves among the country’s collegiate a cappella scene by competing at the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA), releasing albums of their own and receiving accolades at a number of different festivals and competitions. Both groups have also performed for former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama of the United States at the White House on separate occasions. The Nor’easters currently hold the title of the 2017 ICCA Champions and are recording a new album. While the Devils and the Nor’easters first met in 2015 on the set of PopTV’s docuseries “Sing It On,” their alliance began last spring when the Devils were on tour in Boston. After performing a joint concert at Northeastern, it seemed inevitable to the two contemporaries that they would collaborate once again, with the next time being for Vassar audiences. Human Resources Advisor for the Devils Olivia Keane ’20 illuminated on See A CAPPELLA on page 14
Prior to their joint on-campus concert, the Vassar Devils and Northeastern’s Nor’easters first met in 2015 on the set of PopTV’s docuseries “Sing It On.”
Inside this issue
8
Aikido Festival promotes comradery, FEATURES martial arts
15 ARTS
Spud Cannon on the rise, remembers campus roots
s a Senior Drama major who is involved with multiple orgs, balancing life as an actor while maintaining my responsibilites, both academic and extracurricular, can be a bit of a hastle. Most of the time, it requires napping when I can and drinking an obscene amount of tea. But Thursday, Oct. 2, was a special day for two reasons. One: My show, “Fuddy Meers” opened today in the Shiva. And two: After flying in from Chicago, my mom drove up from New Rochelle with my uncle to visit Vassar to see my performance. 7:45 a.m.: The alarm went off, first with Herb Alpert’s “Spanish Flea” and then with “We’re All in This Together” from the “High School Musical” soundtrack. 9:00 a.m.: I made myself some double-bag ginger tea to help my voice for the performance. 9:30 a.m.: After quickly grabbing breakfast from Express, I met two of my classmates outside the Powerhouse Theater for DRAM 304 The Art of Acting: Classics. We were rehearsing a scene from George Bernard Shaw’s play “Major Barbara.” In this class, we’ve studied various acting techniques, including Stanislavski’s Method and Laban’s Movement Analysis, and performed scenes from Shakespeare and the Commedia dell’Arte. 10:30 a.m.: Art of Acting begins. Be-
19 SPORTS
fore we started the Shaw scene, each of us performed a “Universe” project, where we created what the world of our character is like. We’ve done these for several scenes already. For the Shaw scene, I played Andrew Undershaft, Barbara’s ammunitions manufacturing father, so for my Universe I read the newspaper while Gustav Holst’s “Mars: The Bringer of War” and Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” played consecutively. After we each performed our Universes, we went straight into the scene. The professor, Shona Tucker, gave us notes and we restaged several parts. Then, Professor Tucker led us in a Michael Chekhov workshop. Chekhov created his own method of “Psychological Gestures,” where the actor uses external gestures to physicalize a character’s internal need. We performed several exercises that involved moving in a very expressive way. 1 p.m.: For DRAM 202 The Art of Theater Making, we were divided into groups with the intention of devising a presentation around various themes. Some people summarize Drama 202 as Drama 102 but on speed. In the past, we’ve looked at John Cage’s work, the Fluxus Movement, Bertolt Brecht’s concept of Gestus and the choreography of Pina Bausch. For this week’s presentation, we picked from a list of haiku and were supposed to explore See DAY IN THE LIFE on page 6
Spike in home runs sparks juiced baseball controversey