The Miscellany News, Volume CXLVII, Issue 20 (April 17, 2014)

The Miscellany News

Volume CXLVII | Issue 20

April 17, 2014

Since 1866 | miscellanynews.com

Holi celebration explodes with flying colors

Bio prof has bird’s eye view

Shannon Liao reporter

O

Eloy Bleifuss Prados Features editor

I

courtesy of Debbie Altman

n the Quad, billowing pink clouds of smoke encased students. Friends and strangers alike grabbed handfuls of green and red powder, decorating each other’s faces and clothes with a spatter of vivid colors.

Last Sunday, April 13 was Vassar’s first large-scale Holi festival.

Organized by the South Asian Student Alliance (SASA) and the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, the celebration was an opportunity to bring South Asian culture to the student body.

Holi holds different meanings depending on where it is celebrated. However, according to SASA co-president Saumya Bhutani ‘14, the festival’s name comes from the demoness Holika who was slain by the Lord Vishnu in order to save her devout nephew Prahlad.

The ancient Hindu festival usually begins with a bonfire the day before to celebrate this victory. Students burned away any items with negative associations, such as bad test papers.

While Vassar’s take on Holi lacked the intensity of traditional celebrations that include throwing eggs and tar, the core meaning of See HOLI on page 8

Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY

Holi is a Hindu holiday celebrating the approach of the vernal equinox. In anticipation of the coming spring, participants throw colored powder at each other and engage in other festivities. SASA hosted this event on April 13 on the quad.

n only her first year at Vassar, Assistant Professor of Biology Megan Gall is researching local songbirds in the emerging field of sensory ecology, which studies how an organism senses and interprets its environment.

It’s the same basic question philosophers from Plato to Descartes have posed, only now focused on animal and not human perception.

Gall explained, “The way animals perceive the world, or more accurately their sensor information, is affected by the kinds of environment they live in.”

Gall cited the following examples as ways in which one can think about the relationship between environment and sensation.

Sound has a difficult time traveling far in heavily wooded areas, where hard surfaces bounce off noises and the thick foliage swallows up any high frequency tones.

Due to this interference, organisms, like certain songbirds living in thick woods, See BIRDS on page 6

Golf team Fulbright awarded to five Vassar students plays at T Casperkill Justine Woods Guest reporter

Amreen Bhasin reporter

T

Inside this issue

6

Students quit jobs at UpC due to late FEATURES hours, low wages

This year’s Fulbright recipients have a myriad of goals that are for their journeys. Edwards, who says he has always been taught to value and respect languages, is a German and International Studies student and hopes to share his own culture in a country that he says has already taught him so much.

“I’m also thrilled that three people from the German Department will be on a Fulbright,” Ian said in an emailed statement. “I’ve so enjoyed being the Department Intern this past year, and this is definitely a high note to leave on.”

Macrakis is excited to start up some after-school programs in Malaysia. She hopes to create science clubs for girls, where they could create simple and fun experiments.

In an emailed statement, Eleni said, “We had a science club for girls at my elementary school which was free and was really my first exposure to science as a fun activity. I may want to work in science education in the future, so I think this would be a great way to see how community outreach can help get kids excited about science.”

See FULBRIGHT on page 3

‘Seven Sisters Style’ revisits fashion history Samantha Kohl arts editor

W

alking around Vassar’s campus, one might observe students wearing everything from the avant-garde to sportswear. But historically, Vassar students helped establish what today is referred to as classic prep. Fashion journalist Rebecca Tuite breathes life into the preppy tradition of the colleges known as the Seven Sister Schools in her new book, “Seven Sisters Style,” which was released on April 8.

Tuite attended Vassar in 2006 as an exchange student from the University of Exeter. Before getting to the school, Tuite’s perception of Vassar was channled through a 20th century pop-culture perspective.

“I knew about style-icons and writers—Sylvia Plath, Jackie Kennedy, and Meryl Streep—but I didn’t know too much about the college See FASHION on page 15

13

courtesy of Seven Sisters Style

he Vassar College women’s golf team, the only varsity golf team on the Vassar campus, just began their spring season by playing host to the 2014 Vassar College Golf Invitational this past weekend on April 12 and 13. The Invitational took place at Casperkill Golf Club.

The women’s golf team placed 9th out of 12 schools, being narrowly bested by four strokes by the St. Lawrence University Saints. The Brewers finished the first day with a team total of 355 in 8th place, sitting 13 strokes behind 7th place, the Mount Holyoke Lyons.

Sophomore Aimee Dubois carded seven over 79 and was tied for 5th, just one stroke behind four players tied at six over. Fellow sophomore Angela Mentel totaled 84 on the day and was one of just eight players with two or more birdies and finished in 15th place.

Senior Paloma Jimenez was tied for 41st with 91, freshman Diana Howland finished with a 101. Freshman Storm Vonhundley posted a 123. However, this was Storm Vonhundley’s first collegiate tournament.

On the second day, Dubois was the top finisher for the Brewers. She carded an 81 with a total of 160 on the two days. She finished tied for 7th place overall. This was in fact Dubois second-lowest tournament score of the season, just two above her 158 from the Ann S. Batchhelder Invitational.

Mentel tied for 31st overall with a 173 See GOLF on page 18

his past Monday, Vassar announced the five Fulbright Fellowship recipients for studying abroad during the 2015-2016 period.

Ian Edwards ’14, Carrie Perkins ’14 and Victoria Qiu ’14 will be teaching English in Germany, and Eleni Macrakis ’14 will be teaching in Malaysia. Sophia Wasserman ’13 will be traveling to Iceland with a grant as well as studying the fisheries and development of the country.

The Fulbright Scholarship pro-

gram provides grants sponsored by the US government to graduating seniors and recent bachelor’s-degree recipients for either an individualized study/research project, or for English Teaching Assistant Programs. According to the Fulbright website, “The program facilitates cultural exchange through direct interaction on an individual basis in the classroom, field, home, and in routine tasks, allowing the grantee to gain an appreciation of others’ viewpoints and beliefs, the way they do things, and the way they think.”

Rebecca Tuite’s newly released book, “Seven Sister Style,” traces the satorial tradition of the Seven Sister colleges throughout the early to twentieth-century. Tuite’s book examines vintage images of the stylish Seven Sister students.

Are you a #basic Vassar student? Quiz HUMOR reveals all

14 ARTS

Danny Brown and Lunice to play Spring Concert this weekend

The Miscellany News

Page 2

April 17, 2014

Editor-in-Chief Chris Gonzalez

Senior Editors

Meaghan Hughes Marie Solis

Contributing Editors Ruth Bolster Jessica Tarantine

News Features Opinions Arts Humor & Satire Sports Photography Design Online Social Media Copy

The Miscellany News is electing its new Editorial Board for Fall 2014. Apply online at miscellanynews.org by April 21, 5 p.m.

News Features Opinions Humor & Satire Arts Sports Design Online Social Media Copy Photo

Message from the Editor-in-Chief:

While we at The Miscellany News hold our Editorial Board to high standards, we do not monitor or endorse the personal social media accounts of any individual editor. Only posts found on our Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr officially represent The Miscellany News.

Correction: In last week’s article “Off the beaten thesis track, Rowland pens series of poems,” we incorrectly stated that neither the Helicon nor Wordsmiths host workshops.

Wordsmiths do, in fact, host weekly poetry workshops open to all Vassar students.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Noble Ingram Eloy Bleifuss Prados Joshua Sherman Samantha Kohl Lily Doyle Christopher Brown Tina Caso Spencer Davis Palak Patel Gwendolyn Frenzel Maddy Vogel Ashley Pecorelli

Crossword Editor Assistant News Assistant Opinions Assistant Photo

Jack Mullan Anna Iovine Natasha Bertrand Jacob Heydorn Gorski Jiajing Sun Assistant Design Elizabeth Dean Assistant Online Victoria Bachurska Reporters Julia Cunningham Emma Daniels Isabella DeLeo Erik Halberg Sam Hammer Emily Hoffman Maggie Jeffers Shannon Liao Jonathan Safir Columnists Delaney Fischer Luka Ladan Zach Rippe Max Rook Lily Sloss Eli J. Vargas I Photography Alec Feretti Samantha Pianello Design Bethany Terry Online Rachel Dorn Copy Daniel Foley Sophie Kosmacher Christian Lewis Macall McQueen Marya Pasciuto Camilla Pfeiffer Emma Roellke Rebecca Weir

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.

LETTERS POLICY The Miscellany News is Vassar College’s weekly open forum for discussion of campus, local and national issues, and welcomes letters and opinions submissions from all readers.

Letters to the Editor should not exceed 350 words, and they usually respond to a particular item or debate from the previous week’s issue. Opinions articles are longer pieces, up to 800 words, and take the form of a longer column. No letter or opinions article may be printed anonymously. If you are interested in contributing, e-mail misc@vassar.edu.

April 17, 2014

NEWS

Page 3

SLD, Security organize ‘Call-in Day’ for unionization Noble Ingram

O

neWs editor

courtesy of the Vassar Student-Labor Dialogue

n Tuesday, April 15, the Vassar Student/ Labor Dialogue (SLD) organized an event called “Call-in Day to Demand a Fair and Speedy Election for Security.” According to the SLD Facebook page, the idea behind the initiative was to organize a system through which students could call the office of VP for Finance and Administration Robert Walton and demand faster progress in the College’s security workers’ ongoing process to organize a union.

As the Facebook page said, SLD organized the event to advocate for an efficient union election for security workers. “We are asking all supporters to call in to the office of Robert Walton, Vice President of Finance and Administration, to demand a fair and speedy election,” it read.

Member of SLD Alexandra Deane ’15 also spoke to the idea behind the call-in day. “We’re asking that the College agree to fair terms of the election, meaning a time and a place that encourages members of the department to vote and an environment free of anti-union pressure in the lead-up to an election,” she said.

Deane also explained the idea behind calling Walton, saying, “The security officers haven’t begun negotiating over terms of employment or working conditions yet, and they won’t until they win their union and negotiate for a contract. However, as the VP of Finance and Administration, Bob Walton is responsible for helping to set and carry out the administration’s policies towards its workers on issues like unionization.”

She continued, “[Walton] refused to recognize the security officers’ bargaining unit despite the overwhelming majority of officers demonstrating their desire to form a union, which forced them to seek recognition through a binding NLRB election.”

According to the event page, over 30 people planned to participate in the call-in day and several people confirmed that they had called Walton’s office. As the script read, “My Name is (YOUR NAME) and I’m a (Student at Vassar, Vassar parent, Worker at Vassar, etc).

The Student/Labor Dialgoue (SLD) is currently supporting security workers who are in the process of negotiating to form a union. The two groups collaborated in a call-in directed at the administration.

I’m calling today to demand that the college administration agree to a fair and fast election for Vassar Security officers through the National Labor Relations Board. The officers have shown an overwhelming majority desire to form a union, and I’m calling to say that the community stands behind them. We want to see the administration agree to a fair speedy election and we’re prepared to make our voices heard on this issue.”

Walton himself responded to many of the demands made by security workers and aided

by SLD. He introduced the issue, saying in a written statement, “During the past two weeks, I attended a meeting at my office including a few students (self identified as SLD members), faculty, and staff, where I was told that some members of the Vassar Safety and Security Department wanted to join a union (unspecified).

It was a very calm and civil meeting where the community members gathered expressed their

views to me about the importance of Security Department employees being part of a union.”

He continued, jumping to the present. “Last week, a few Security Department employees, accompanied by several students, faculty and other community members, appeared in my office to ‘demand’ that I accept their list of names and the card check process to form a union. I politely met with them and declined their request, and stated that if a union was desired, this would need to conform to the secret ballot rules and procedures of a NLRB administered election. Shortly thereafter, I was officially notified by the Regional Director of the National Labor Relations Board that a petition had been received by the NLRB seeking a union election and that a hearing is scheduled to review the petition,” he said.

Director of Safety and Security Don Marsala also commented on security’s unionization process and negotiations with the administra-

tion, saying, “Now, some of the officers, many having never been represented by a union, feel that they might be better represented by a union and have started the process to do so.

There has never been any effort by my office or the College to deny, thwart or in any way inhibit that process. In fact, if the officers so choose, they have my blessing to do so.”

Marsala and Walton also both acknowledged the role of the SLD in the exchange between security workers and the administration. Marsala noted, “With the support of a well-meaning students group, the issue has taken on a life of its own.”

Deane, however, was quick to clarify SLD’s position as a student group in the negotiations between security and the administration. “Negotiations are between workers and the administration; the SLD doesn’t determine what it is that workers care about or what they want to fight for. But to the extent that workers here are struggling for justice in their working lives and in their compensation, the SLD is going to support them and put pressure on the administration,” she said.

As for the future of the security-administration negotiations, the outcome remains unclear. Though the call-in event was successful in getting a specific message communicated to Walton, the security workers’ unionization is still very much a work in progress.

Walton clarified his own position. “Clearly the SLD, by their own admission, wants a union to be formed and they are presenting only those facts and anecdotes that support that conclusion. I am neutral and as long as Security Officers can vote confidentially and independently, I am happy to honor the outcome of an election if held,” he said.

Walton also recognized the role of the SLD, recalling, “While I may disagree with some of the SLD statements, conclusions or attributions of what SLD members portray as typical working conditions of employees of Vassar College or attitudes of the administration, I strongly support open dialogue and the freedom of the SLD to speak their minds and express their passions.”

College comedy groups organize first annual festival Anna Iovine

assistant neWs editor

O

perform it for a different audience,” she said.

“It’s really great as a comedian to know for certain that your audience is laughing because they honestly think you’re funny, and not just because they’re your friends.”

“I just want to thank everyone who came to support it—everyone who comes to comedy shows at Vassar, period,” Pearl said about ComFest. He discussed his role in the campus comedy community, saying, “It’s just my life at this school, it’s what I’ve done for the last four years and I wouldn’t do it if people didn’t come and see and love watching it. All of us that do comedy do it…because we love doing it and we love entertaining people and making people laugh.”

He hopes that ComFest continues after he graduates. “That’s my intention. It’s a tonguein-cheek joke that it says ‘first annual’ on the

poster, but it’s legitimate to me. I’m going come back to and probably perform.”

While Snyderman had a good experience at ComFest, she admits that it was not perfect.

One fault she saw was in the lack of diversity of the festival’s offerings. “There are definitely some improvements I would like to make in the future: I would like to have panels and workshops during the day, and change how the actual performances are scheduled,” she said.

Like the others, though, she does hope ComFest will become an actual annual event—and that the joke on the poster will not continue to be a joke. “I would love for ComFest to be an annual event. I think this event has a lot of potential and this was a good start. I can’t wait to grow it into something even better in future years,” she said.

courtesy of The Limit

n Friday, April 11 and Saturday, April 12, Vassar hosted its first College Comedy Festival, also known as ComFest. The two-day event featured 24 acts, including both college and professional groups.

“It’s an idea that’s been floating around since before my time at this school, but it just never happened,” said President of both HEL and Vassar Improv Nick Pearl ’14. “This idea came back up at other college comedy festivals, too, and it’s always a lot of fun and also because we have seven comedy groups on campus—it just makes sense to have a festival.”

Pearl, who has been involved with comedy his entire time at Vassar, volunteered to lead the planning an execution of the event. “I was the most free, and I had a lot of ideas for it that I wanted to implement—and almost all of them got implemented,” he explained.

“I heard about the festival about two weeks before the show when Nick pitched the idea to us. It was introduced as the biggest college comedy festival in the world, so I got pretty excited,” said member of HEL Kyle Whelan ‘16.

ComFest turned out to be the overall largest comedy festival in terms of amateur performances. Pearl said, “It accidentally became the largest amateur comedy festival in the world— the largest festival with the largest number of unpaid performers…they did it out of the love of doing comedy.”

Pearl elaborated, saying, “We got a bunch of no’s but we also got a lot of yes’s. It wasn’t my intention to make it the biggest, it just happened that way.”

Whelan was at first hesitant with the amount of acts. “I honestly held modest expectations,” he said. “Organizing large events with that many guests can be very difficult, and there was no guarantee that the groups we invited would bring their best.”

There were some setbacks that occurred the second night, Saturday, however. Some audio

and video wouldn’t play during groups’ sets, and one group’s car broke down on the way to Vassar. Ultimately, the group wasn’t able to perform in the festival.

After ComFest concluded, however, Whelan was happy with how the event unfolded. “I was impressed by how the show went. I was especially impressed by the semi-pro acts that we brought in,” he affirmed.

Pearl echoed Whelan’s enthusiasm, “I’m so thrilled, I’m beyond ecstatic. It all ended up working out in the end. The most important thing is that everyone that attended and everyone that performed had a really fun time.”

Every comedy group from Vassar performed at ComFest, including Vassar’s only all-female comedy troupe, Indecent Exposure, on Saturday night. Caitlan Moore ’16, a member of the troupe, said, “I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I had never been to a college comedy festival before and I was excited to see what it would be like.”

Moore also shared the excitement about the event, saying, “I had a great time. It was amazing to meet so many people from different schools and it was interesting to see what they all brought to the table.”

Another member of Indecent Exposure, however, hoped for more interactions with groups from other colleges—and for more sketch comedy as opposed to improv. “I expected there to be more opportunities for the different comedy groups to socialize and network with each other,” said Elizabeth Snyderman ’17.

She continued, “I certainly didn’t expect there to be as many improv groups as there were, but I think that’s less a reflection of this event and more a reflection on the nature of college comedy. I think there are just a lot more improv groups than sketch or stand-up groups.”

Despite this, Snyderman enjoyed doing her part. “The performance was really fun. It gave me a chance to revisit and rework a sketch I had written for our last sketch show, and to

Posters advertised several comedy groups, including the Limit (poster pictured above) as part of the college’s first annual comedy festival this past weekend. All eight of Vassar’s comedy groups performed.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

NEWS

Page 4

Vassar Briefs

VSA Elections Elections for next year’s VSA began on Tuesday, April 15. Voting began at noon as was expected, according to an email released a day earlier by the Board of Elections. This also marked the time at which all campaigning for VSA positions by candidates had to end.

Voting closed 53 minutes later, after the Board of Elections circulated another email explaining that the voting system was experiencing technical difficulties.

At 1:40 pm, voting opened again after all previous votes had been cleared. Students who had already voted now had to re-enter their selections into the system.

According to an email from the Board of Elections, “The system was overloaded with write-ins from previous elections that were never cleared, which resulted [in] many candidates’ names and statements [not showing] up in the initial voting form. For this reason, we decided the only way to ensure a fair election would be to clear the system and begin again.”

—Noble Ingram, News Editor

Outside the Bubble Controversial NYC Police Unit Disbanded A controversial New York Police Department surveillance unit that collected data on Muslim communities has been disbanded, according to the department. The decision by the nation’s largest force to close the surveillance program presents the first sign that the department’s commissioner, William J. Bratton, is pulling away from some post-9/11 intelligence-gathering policies.

“The Zone Assessment Unit, previously referred to as the demographics unit, has been largely inactive since January,” the department said in a statement Tuesday.

“Recently, as part of an ongoing assessment of Intelligence Bureau operations, personnel assigned to the Zone Assessment Unit were reassigned to other duties...”

To many Muslims, the squad, known as the Demographics Unit, was a sign that the police viewed their every action with suspicion. The police mapped communities inside and outside the city, logging where customers in traditional Islamic clothes ate meals and documenting their lunch-counter conversations (KSPR, “NYPD disbands unit that spied on Muslims,” 04.15.14).

“The Demographics Unit created psychological warfare in our community,” said member of the Arab American Association of New York Linda Sarsour. “Those documents, they showed where we live. That’s the cafe where I eat. That’s where I pray. That’s where I buy my groceries. They were able to see their entire lives on those maps. And it completely messed with the psyche of the community” (The New York Times, “New York Drops Unit That Spied on Muslims,” 04.15.14).

“Our administration has promised the people of New York a police force that keeps our city safe, but that is also respectful and fair. This reform is a critical step forward in easing tensions between the police and the communities they serve, so that our cops and our citizens can help one another go after the real bad guys,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday (CNN, “New York Police Department disbands unit that spied on Muslims,” 04.15.14).

The future of those programs remains unclear. The former police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, has said his efforts helped protect the city from terrorist attacks.

Last month, a federal judge in New Jersey dismissed a lawsuit over the department’s surveillance, saying Muslims could not prove they were harmed by the tactics.

Two other federal lawsuits continue to challenge the department’s tactics. Martin Stolar, one of the lawyers who brought that claim, maintains that the post-9/11 surveillance programs violate the court order in that case.

A judge has not yet ruled on that question (NYT).

—Noble Ingram, News Editor

Fellowship winners to teach abroad FULBRIGHT continued from page 1

For the past four years, Vassar has been listed among the top ten producers of Fulbright grants. Last year, 11 out of the 40 applicants received the award, putting Vassar in the top five.

Vassar supports both current students and recent alumni in their application process. Recipients are chosen by the National Screening Committee after completing an application consisting of academic transcripts, letters of recommendation, language report forms and a personal statement. The personal statement gives applicants the opportunity to explain to the committee what they are interested in accomplishing while they are abroad, as well as how they plan to apply what they learn and experience to their professional ambitions.

Students wishing to apply for a Fulbright grant typically contact Lisa Kooperman or the Office for Fellowships and Pre-Health advising. Applications are due in the beginning of fall semester.

According to the Fulbright website, “It is important also that the Personal Statement be completed carefully, since it is through this essay that committee members obtain a picture of the student as a person…The committee takes into consideration the nature of the project, its originality…and the interest of the student as evidenced by any advance research he/she may have done to determine that the resources he/she will need to accomplish his/her proposed project are in fact available in the potential host country.”

Although a long and competitive process, the program is well worth the effort for those who apply. Anna Frumkin ’12, who received the award last year and is

courtesy of Fulbright

ALANA Leadership Awards This year marks the first ever ALANA Leadership Awards Ceremony. According to the event’s Facebook page, “The Inaugural ALANA Leadership Awards is designed to recognize contributions made by student leaders, organizations and staff all across campus.”

The awards ceremony will take place at 6 p.m. on Thursday in the Aula.

Nominations for the Awards were due on Monday and were presented to Director of the ALANA Center Luz Bergos-Lopez. Any student involved in the ALANA Center or any of the race-affinity student organizations could be nominated. One award, the ALANA Distinguished Service Award, will be given only to a senior and a Vassar employee.

The awards ceremony will include a catered dinner and will feature keynote speaker Assistant General Counsel (Vice President) at Johnson & Johnson Tracy Elise Poole ‘82. The event is co-sponsored by several student organizations including MEChA and ASA.

April 17, 2014

Fulbright Fellowships offer recipients the opportunity to travel abroad and teach in any number of subjects in which they are interested. This year, five Vassar students won the fellowship. currently teaching in Germany, wrote in an emailed statement, “I work at a secondary school with kids from 5th through 12th grade…our latest project was to make a film about our German school for American students and teachers…I’m lucky enough to be pretty centrally located in Europe and have gotten opportunities to travel to new places and meet lots of great people.”

Christine Marisco ’13, who is currently teaching on a Taiwanese island, said in an emailed statement, “The experience has provided me with a new lens through which to examine and reflect upon both my experiences and the education system

of another part of the world. I am called a teacher, but really, I feel more like a learner.

I have learned tons not only about my own strengths and weaknesses, but also about intercultural communication and the politics of education. I have seen much of the educational theory we read about at Vassar in practice in my everyday life.” Marisco advises all Vassar graduates to travel wherever they can. “Go outside your comfort zone,” she suggests, “embarrass yourself, surprise yourself and scare yourself. If you are in a new country, you will be surrounded by newness everyday. Approach it and grow from it!”

Conference discusses military reform Shelia Hu

Guest reporter

O

n Saturday, April 12, the College hosted a conference of student world affairs sponsored by the Hudson Valley World Affairs Council. The all-day conference allowed members of the general public and students from nearby Poughkeepsie schools to discuss topics including “Global Governance, Democratization, Human Rights, Sustainable Development, Education, and International Security” (hvworldaffiairscouncil.org).

The Council is a forum to stimulate interest in international world affairs and to raise public understanding of important issues affecting the country and the world.

It worked alongside the Vassar College International Studies Program, Political Science Department, Office of the President, Office of Residential Life, Office of Alumnae/i Affairs and Development, Career Development Office and the Handel Family Foundation to organize and successfully execute the event this year.

The conference started with a keynote speaker, Ambassador Robert Gosende, who has had extensive experience in the Foreign Service of the United States in the U.S. Information Agency and the Department of State. Gosende’s main point focused on how to develop a better relationship with the rest of the world, starting with our youth.

According to the Yale Undergraduate Journal of Politics, “Gosende served 36 years in the US Information Agency, and went on tours of duty as a Cultural Affairs Officer in Libya, Somalia and Poland and as Minister-Counselor for Public Affairs in South Africa and the Russian Federation.”

He also served as the Special Envoy for Somalia for Bill Clinton from 1992 to 1993.

After leaving the Foreign Service, Gosende worked at SUNY as the Associate Vice Chancellor for International Programs and at SUNY Albany as the John W. Ryan Fellow in Public Diplomacy.

In his opening statement, Ambassador Gosende decided to start with the conclusions of how to create these better re-

lationships with foreign countries, the main one being that it is the responsibility of today’s youth to lead the movement. According to Gosende, “One of the failings we have had is not calling out on [the youth] on doing what [they] need to accomplish in this world.”

He went on to suggest that the US should have a national service obligation for two years for everyone. During times of war (Gosende added that we need to hold the government responsible for engaging in war only when necessary), everyone should be called upon to serve in the military, and during times of peace, people would serve at a more regionalized level.

Gosende also claimed that what we are doing right now in the military is immoral, because we have created a situation where is it optional to not be involved in international affairs. He suggested that the responsibility to be internationally politically involved should be on all of us. A West Point cadet in the audience questioned the budgetary issues for training and equipment that would arise from that service obligation, and Gosende stated that all kinds of decisions would be made to justify it and that any type of strong administration needs a military.

Gosende continued with his speech talking about intelligence service, national privacy and the need to adjust some of the Amendments to the US Constitution to fit the needs of the nation as it exists today. Although he promoted the idea of involvement of the people in our own government, Gosende raised critical questions about the military or otherwise involvement of the US in international affairs. Regarding the intelligence service, wondered whether it should be the rule that if we can get it, we should get it. In the age of great technological advancements, our capability to attain foreign information is increasing just as fast.

Laura Webber ’15 commented on Ambassador Gosende’s address, saying, “I agreed with Ambassador Gosende’s comment about the need to be critical about decision making in the US. Power is not

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

necessarily evenly distributed, and this impacts policy decisions. This is especially pertinent in regards to the bureaucratization of the foreign service, wherein foreign policy agents are appointed internally. The result is to privilege some views over others, depending upon who is appointing the positions.”

She continued, speaking to her reactions of Gosende’s remarks, and presenting her own ideas about solutions to the issues the conference brought up. “I thought Ambassador Gosende’s proposal of a 2-year mandatory military service involvement for all young people in the US was extreme.

However, I do not reject the idea outright.

I think it is reasonable to ask that young people devote 2 years to the service of their country, but not necessarily in the military.

To provide a space/time for young people to contribute to their communities could prove to be very powerful to mobilize agents of change,” she said.

After the keynote speaker, attendees went to one of two seminars on International Security and Global Governance, followed by a luncheon, and finished the conference with one of three seminars on Human Rights, Democratization and Sustainable Development. Each of the seminars had a moderator, student panelists and discussants. The panel consisted of discussion of the students’ papers on one of the topics, for which they had to submit an abstract in advance) and critique of their works by experts in the field. The discussants included professors from Marist College, SUNY Dutchess, Bard College, Vassar College and Major Rosol from US Military Academy.

Webber again commented on the seminars, speaking to her specific interests and by what she was most excited. “I attended the sessions on National Security and Human Rights. I personally am interested in conflict studies and abuse of human rights.

I am also interested in national security, but in a broad sense. I am interested in the demands posed by the nation-state system and how this construction may be flawed,” she said.

April 17, 2014

FEATURES

Page 5

Orgs, Houses clean out closets for inaugural VSA yard sale Gabby Miller

Guest reporter

O

Spencer Davis/The Miscellany News

ne person’s trash is another person’s treasure. This age-old adage was brought to life last Saturday afternoon with the debut of the first ever VSA Organization Yard Sale.

Eight campus organizations lined the walls of the College Center with a wide array of knickknacks and clothing merchandise perched atop their tables.

South Commons President Rebecca Bauer ’14 took the initiative to contact all student organizations on campus and organize the event The idea was originally conceived when VSA rolled out their storage space project, which is supposed to clean out storage closets to make room for new organizations .

“When we saw these storage spaces, we realized that there’s a lot of stuff from years past just sort of gathering dust and one good way to clean out the closets and make money in the process would be by having a yard sale,” said Bauer.

Many of the items for sale were leftover merchandise from years past. Houses like Jewett and Strong both had various tanks, tees, sweatshirts and lanyards from years before that they couldn’t get rid of.

Cari Goldfine ’16 from Strong points out, “We’re selling merchandise severely discounted from what the price was last year.” Strong’s tank tops from years past originally sold for $8 but were being sold for $3 on Saturday, a discount of a little more than 50 percent off.

She continued, saying, “I think it’s convenient to sell them here too so people can buy them with VCash.”

According to Goldfine, most of the residential houses on campus sell their merchandise for cash. The thought was that selling these items at the yard sale could provide more revenue for houses, since students are more likely to have VCash.

Other tables, like the Senior Class Council’s, had a more eclectic list of items for sale. Next to their clothing merchandise was a stack of Tinkerbell megaphones, VC iron-on patches, a Class of ’11 bottle opener and some plastic wayfarer sunglasses.

When asked what those objects were possi-

The College Center was the site of the VSA’s first-annual yard sale this past Saturday, April 12. Eight campus orgs capitlized on the opportunity to sell left over merch and create interest in their clubs. bly used for in years past, Connor Martini ’14 replied, “Those were just decorations, I think, for some event and they were in one of these boxes that we brought down, and we thought ‘Maybe someone will buy them?’ but who knows.”

Among other odds and ends found at the yard sale were a ceramic piggy bank and a champagne flute being held up by a skeleton’s hand, found at Hunger Action’s table.

These random items were donated to Hunger Action for the local clothing drive they hold each semester in the City of Poughkeepsie, but since they aren’t of much practical use, they never found a proper home in the past years.

Co-president of Hunger Action Hillary Frame ’14 emphasized the importance fund-raising has for their organizations. She said, “We cook at local soup kitchens…we run a very large clothing drive, we buy toiletries and make lunches for a couple of transitional living places around here and give them out, so this is kind of raising money for that.”

Removing some of the dust from these items is not just a way for organizations to clear space in their storage closets and cardboard boxes. Saturday’s event gave organizations the opportunity to also raise a little money for the social causes they care about.

Hunger Action has high hopes for the money they raise at events like the yard sale, according to Frame.

“We have two possibilities: one is to go to our toiletries fund, since you can’t just buy things and give them away, you have to raise money for them yourselves, and our other option is a lady that we work with in the community who runs a food pantry out of her own home, so we often buy donations for her,” she said.

Hunger action is not the only organization putting their money towards a good cause. Tap That, the Vassar Greens campaign to eliminate bottled water on campus, also has a similar vision for the money they raise.

Katie Chen ’14 said, “We’re selling reusable water bottles, which kind of goes along with

our idea to promote water bottle use, like to refill water bottles and use tap water, and we want to reduce plastic obviously.”

The Tap That campaign has had a presence on campus for the past two years, working to spread the word about misconceptions and myths of tap water.

Said Chen, “There’s no evidence that people can actually distinguish the difference so I guess that’s more of a visual thing where if you see it [from the tap], people suddenly have this idea that it’s not going to taste as well or it’s dirty but the thing is that we don’t actually regularly test bottled water as much as we do tap water.”

Tap That plans to use the money they raised at the yard sale to continue purchasing merchandise for the years ahead and to continue spreading their message for the new students that come in every year.

Not all organizations at the yard sale were looking to clear out their closets for the sake of spreading a message either. Freshman Representative of Jewett House Calvin Lamothe ’17 was selling both current and vintage t-shirts for a low price of $5 each. “I think we’re trying to have a little cushion for next year’s budget,” said Lamothe.

A lot of the traffic on Saturday was from the masses of prospective students visiting campus this weekend, which not only provided these organizations with the opportunity to raise money from old items but to also advertise themselves to possible students of the Class of 2018.

There are a lot of possibilities for the direction the yard sale has to go in future years and all the organizations have big expectations, including Bauer.

For a trial run, however, Bauer was satisfied.

“I’d say the yard sale was a success. It wasn’t as big as I would have liked it to be but all of the organizations were really enthusiastic about participating and were thankful for another opportunity to sell their merchandise,” she said.

“I’m really hoping in future years it will get a lot bigger, but since we had to do it very last minute we were only able to get this many organizations...hopefully in the future the VSA will build on it,” concluded Bauer.

Action advances to represent Asian women in curriculum Julia Cunningham reporter

T

wo months ago, Michelle Zhang ’15 and Grace Sparapani ’16 launched an online petition calling for more Asian and Asian American women’s perspectives in the Women’s Studies program.

An article previously published in The Miscellany News explained the push behind the petition.

“Ultimately, the petition called for more discussions of race and intersectionality and the instatement of an Asian or Asian American woman on the steering committee of the Women’s Studies Program. The petition also states that if the administration can’t find a person for this committee, then the committee should collaborate with Asian and Asian American students” (“Petition seeks Asian inclusion,” 2.12.14).

Last week, Zhang met with the program’s Steering Committee to discuss potential revisions to current and future curricula.

“Changes are forthcoming in the Women’s Studies Department,” wrote Zhang in an emailed statement.

She continued, “The Department has added a few more Asian and Asian American feminist readings to the Intro curriculum, augmenting two pieces total from Vandana Shiva and Uma Narayan, and promises to review the greater departmental curriculum with the same goal.”

The petition states in part, “We believe in the power of academics to shape social conversations and would thus like to challenge the Women’s Studies program to accept the responsibility of initiating this change. As Asian and Asian American women, we do not see our voices in the literature we read.”

Elsa Stoff ’17 was one of the 356 students who have signed the petition, which she heard about through an emailed link.

She said she signed the petition because of her personal beliefs. “I think considering and learning about every intersection of feminism is important,” she wrote in an emailed statement.

Women’s Studies major Elena Riecke ’16 agreed with the sentiments expressed in the petition.

Riecke wrote in an emailed statement, “I haven’t really been in the department long enough to say if we needed a petition, but the syllabus for Intro could definitely use revision and I think it was a valuable way to talk about how a lot of people weren’t happy with it.”

She went on to explain that the department still has room to grow and its curriculum could be stronger. “I love the department, but I’d like to see them come through more with listening to student input and applying intersectionality!”

Along with lobbying for more female Asian authors, the petition also voiced concern about what it saw as a lack of Asian women faculty on the Steering Committee.

Professor of Chinese and Japanese Peipei Qiu explained that she temporarily took time off the Steering Committee to focus on directing the Asian Studies Program. However, she decided to return early due to the arrival of the petition.

Qiu names some of the Asian women faculty members who have taught women’s studies courses in previous years.

“As for the representation of Asian Women’s voices in Women’s Studies curriculum, Professors Uma Narayan and Seungsook Moon teach regularly in the WMST program.

My course, ‘Women in Japanese and Chinese Literature,’ has been part of the WMST curriculum, too,” she wrote in an emailed statement.

According to Qiu, the faculty has taken

note of the petition and are moving forward to address the concerns it presents.

She wrote, “To address the issues raised by the students, [the women’s studies] faculty will conduct a more thorough review of our entire curriculum at the end of the academic year so that we could achieve a fuller representation of Asian women.”

Qiu further noted that she and Associate Professor of English and Director of Women’s Studies Leslie Dunn have sat down with students to discuss the future of the Women’s Studies program. “[W]e had a wonderful conversation. We mainly talked about how to enhance the existing representation of Asian women in [the women’s studies program],” wrote Qiu. She continued, explaining how the involved parties came away with a shared conclusion. “[W]e all agreed that the communication between students and faculty is very important and should be kept regularly in the future,” she wrote.

Stoff is currently enrolled in the introductory women’s studies class, which provides a survey of past and contemporary feminist theory and figures. The class often considers these in the frame of other social issues like sexuality, disability and race. Her class recently read Grace Tsao’s “Growing Up Asian American with a Disability.”

Riecke described how she never planned on becoming a women’s studies major.

She wrote in an emailed statement, “My introduction to Vassar Women’s Studies was Rebecca Edwards’ Sex and Reproduction in 19th Century America, and she and Lydia Murdoch converted me from Neuroscience and Behavior right when I was about to declare.”

Riecke wrote, “I love Women’s Studies at Vassar because it doesn’t just take a single

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

approach—Intro opens up the entire course talking about intersectionality, which is basically talking about how different hierarchies, power structures, systems, etc interact.”

The program’s multidisciplinary nature attracted Riecke and prompted her to become a major.

She wrote, “I chose Women’s Studies because everyone who teaches in the department is really passionate and the topics really resonated with experiences I have in everyday life.”

Although Riecke enjoys what the program has to offer, she added that she did notice a shortcoming on behalf of the department when it came to the inclusion of alternative feminist perspectives.

She continued, explaining that there are more issues to think about.

“I think we’re also really guilty, especially in the choice of readings, of establishing white feminism as ‘feminism,’ and then talking about feminist pieces by non-white authors as ___ feminism, like feminism with some kind of adjective for it to define it as different,” she wrote.

Riecke commented on the idea of defining feminism from a specific approach. She said, “I think...it is really important, but it can definitely feel like we’re doing token non-white readings sometimes.”

Architects of the petition hope that the call for revisions to the Women’s Studies curriculum will provide an impetus for future dialogue around issues of inclusivity within academic settings.

As the petition states, “We believe that change initiated by the Women’s Studies department can incite a campus wide shift for greater recognition of Asian feminism and to create a place in which Asians and Asian Americans are allowed to voice the grievances of their own oppressions.”

Page 6

FEATURES

April 17, 2014

UpC baristas bemoan late-night hours, insufficient wages Bethany Terry and Samantha Levy

M

staFF desiGn and Guest reporter

Alec Feretti/The Miscellany News

ost students see UpC as a convenient place to go for a late snack, but for its student workers, it means difficult hours at minimum wage.

The popular late-night destination for smoothies and Nilda’s Cookies has a new set of open hours this semester due to a shortage of baristas.

Working at UpC is one of the most labor-intensive student jobs. Since employees are always on their feet, making drinks or taking orders, student baristas have little time to rest.

This year, UpC has experienced a drop in workers; many of the student employees quit either at the end of last semester or in the middle of this current one.

According to Senior Director of Campus Dining Maureen King, there is no specific reasoning behind these students’ departures.

Maureen King wrote in an emailed statement, “I am not sure, but I know students have told me that they were often short staffed and the late hours were difficult. I will say we were busier than in years past. This might have had something to do with their decisions.”

In response, campus dining has increased the number of workers per shift, and due to the prevailing small number of workers, has had to cut UpC’s hours as a result. UpC is currently only open from 8 p.m. to midnight, Tuesday through Saturday.

The pay has been one major factor in why the job has had difficulties in attracting workers. According to JobX, the job pays $8.00 an hour, the lowest a student can be paid on campus.

Though the amount has been increased due to the rise in minimum wage standards, many students feel the wage is not enough for the position.

According to King, campus dining made this move in an effort to maintain a better working and less stressful environment for

the staff members.

Student Co-Chair of the Food Committee and a former barista at UpC Sarah King ’16 agrees that the hours can be difficult for college students to handle.

Sarah King wrote in an emailed statement, “I do not know the specifics but having been an employee there last year and having heard some things from people, here are some reasonings: The hours are very challenging for college students to work at, working from midnight to 2:30 a.m. is rough on a weekend or weeknight for anyone.”

King continued, “[W]ithout that many people staffing one shift it makes the shift even more miserable and difficult, having to deal with giant masses of people and not being able to refill things nor provide the quality of service one would like.”

Depending on the shift, an UpC barista’s tasks can range from stacking shelves to mopping floors to making drinks.

One sophomore currently working at UpC agreed, saying, “This job already has the disadvantage of hours that no one wants to work; combined with a complete lack of consultation or communication from the people in charge of the schedules, it’s flat out not worth it for minimum wage.”

The student went on to describe a recent staff meeting where UPC student workers asked for an increase in the number of baristas or an increase the pay. Otherwise, they feel there is no incentive for others to work there.

“I don’t really mind the hours or the pay, because I knew about those when I signed on,” said the student. “I’m not stressed out by being up late and I’m not stressed out by doing things I was paid for. I’m stressed out when shenanigans apparate from thin air because look, it’s a barista job, I only have so many [expletive] to give. I think a little bit of basic organization would go a long way toward keeping everyone happy.”

Stress is a common occurrence for those who work at UpC. With a constant stream of

Recently many UpC student employees have quit their jobs due to the late hours and low wages. Given this decrease in workers, the smoothie and snack stop has had to cut back on their hours of operation. customers, workers there are never bored.

Former UpC barista Amanda Ma ’17 stated, “I actually left the job at UpC because it was too stressful. It wasn’t that I was really against serving people—because it was fun to see friends and I’m used to it due to the fact that I have worked as a waitress, but it was really taxing on my body and school work.”

She continued, “I would be on my feet almost every hour and it was usually order after order, while in the back of my mind, I would remember the huge amount of homework I hadn’t done.”

Though she herself has gone to UpC, only to find it closed, rather than be upset over the change, Ma understands the staffing issues. Said Ma, “It’s great to keep in mind a smoothie five days out of the week is better than none.”

Campus Dining implemented a trial run of

“Late Night at the Deece,” which was held in the right dining room of the All Campus Dining Center. For three weekends, UpC closed while its workers moved downstairs to offer a variety of hot and fried foods, alongside the more traditional UpC fare like smoothies, microwaveable meals and chips.

According to Maureen King, the move was a success. However, the future of the program is unclear.

Sarah King said that a complete move of UpC to downstairs has been discussed, but it seems unlikely that it will be implemented anytime soon.

Unless more workers are hired, UpC will continue to operate under its current schedule. It does not seem likely that the hours will expand soon. Until then, students will just have to find somewhere else to give them that late-night fuel.

Gall’s fledgling studies of avian auditory systems take flight BIRDS continued from page 1

tants, Ali Ehrlich ‘15, Tymon Dickson ‘15, Jacob Damsky ‘15 and Aaron Kim ‘16.

Gall obtained her Ph.D. at Purdue and her M.S. at California State University Long Beach.

Her early research with sensory ecology began with organism’s visual systems. Later, however, she turned to the realm of acoustics. A percussionist, Gall expressed the importance music has had in her life. In graduate school, she was a member of a band called “Boo Radley and Tequila Mockingbirds.”

While Gall focuses mainly on the auditory systems, sensory ecology is broadly interested in all the different ways animals perceive their surroundings.

Scientists have studied the traditional senses that we rely on like sight and hearing, but also sensory systems completely foreign to humans.

Compared to other animals, our sensory sys-

tems can seem rather limited in scope. Certain birds can perceive ultraviolet light, while some fish can sense electrical currents in the water.

Other species can even intuit the earth’s magnetic fields, which acts as a sort of internal compass during seasonal migration. These gaps in the human sensory experience can lead to the false assumption that organisms must necessarily perceive the same world we do.

“We’ve been very biased for a very long time that what we see another animal sees, what we hear another animal hears,” said Gall, “but they may be producing things that we have no perception of.”

Wong explained how biologists can construct an understanding of an organism’s world through the concept of the umwelt, a German word meaning literally “self-centered world.”

Wrote Wong, “[Umwelt] refers to an animal’s

Jacob Gorski/The Miscellany News

are evolutionarily adapted to sing in long, pure low-frequency registers that travel farther.

But these same songs would not necessarily work for a group of birds living outside of a forest in grassland. In an open space like a prairie, blowing winds will distort long low-frequency notes. So birds in these environments have evolved to sing in shorter, staccato-like highpitched trills.

Alongside a team of five student lab assistants, Gall works in the lab and on the Vassar Farm and Ecological Preserve collecting data precisely on the auditory systems of different organisms.

As part of one project, student assistants set up cages baited with sunflower seeds around the farm. They will then capture birds and take them back to Olmsted Hall for research.

In the lab, Gall and her team can use electrophysiology, a noninvasive technology, to determine the exact the range of sounds a bird is capable of hearing.

After no more than typically 24 hours in the lab, the bird is tagged with an identifying aluminum band on its foot and released back to the farm.

Stationed at one of the four seed feeders distributed on the Farm, Arick Wong ‘14 and his fellow assistants will then observe the birds in their natural habitat.

Gall and her assistants are investigating whether or not birds hear and sing in different frequencies.

Strapping on snowshoes, they sometimes even go into the farm during the cold months.

Not that this bothers Wong, who journeys into the farm once a week.

“I actually prefer working in the winter because due to snow and cold temperatures, birds spend more time foraging and eat more for energy,” said Wong, adding, “In the winter, I can refill a feeder and two minutes later be surrounded by a million chickadees literally two feet away from me.”

Wong is joined by four other team assis-

Ali Ehrlich ’15 and Arick Wong ’14, pictured above, use auditory recording equipment to document birdcalls.

They will then take the recordings back to the sensory lab with Professor Gall to analyze their frequencies.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

worldview based on their surroundings and sensory systems. Studying hearing, I think a lot about how birds hear and respond to each other and what implications this can draw for their behavior and their ‘umwelt.’”

Introduced in the early nineties, sensory ecology borrows elements of various different scientific fields and disciplines.

“Sensory ecology is a very integrative field, so we take a little bit from lots of different places and integrate theories that don’t often talk to each other,” said Gall.

She maintains a Wordpress blog where she, her assistants and the students in her classes contribute original content about exciting developments in sensory ecology.

The blog is designed to train students to write about science in a language that is accessible to a general audience.

“I think it is very important, especially going forward, that we are able to communicate science to people who are not scientists. I think there is a trend in this country for scientists and the public to be very divided,” said Gall.

Recent posts have talked about new research on snake navigation, chemical signals used by ants during foraging, and the mating calls of crickets.

Sensory ecology is particularly well-suited for Vassar’s liberal arts model, according to Gall.

She said, “It’s great for someplace like Vassar because I can take students from Science, Technology and Society, I have Neuroscience and Behavior, people who are interested in these different things, I think, can find a project here that will fit with their interests.”

Gall hopes to build on her lab’s work and expand into new territory outside the Farm. She said that they had captured about 40 birds thus far, mainly black-capped chickadees, tufted titmice and white-breasted nuthatches.

Gall is not interested in every bird song, however.

“We’ve also caught a number of woodpeckers and sparrows, but we let those go right away,” she said.

April 17, 2014

FEATURES

Page 7

Retiree continues fourty years of service to VC community Erik Halberg reporter

F

courtesy of Don Marsala

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

or 40 years, twice as long as a large portion of the student body has been alive, Sgt. Jim Lawless of Vassar Security has worked to keep campus safe not only for current students, but also for the College’s feline inhabitants, the stray cats.

Indeed, he has donated a significant amount of his own time and money to build and maintain the Cat Shacks scattered around campus to protect the stray cats and other animals that roam Vassar’s environs.

Mary Griffith ’75, who has worked with Lawless for years on the Cat Shacks, said, “Jim is one of the kindest people I know, and has always gone the distance to help any animal.”

Lawless began his career with Vassar Security in 1969. At the time, Security was run out of a small office next to Main Gate and, according to Lawless, was a much smaller organization with only a director and a mere handful of officers.

Before coming to Vassar, Lawless served in the United States Navy during the Vietnam War. He said he worked closely with the Navy’s elite Special Forces units, the Navy SEALs, on their missions. It was on one of these expeditions when Lawless’ gunboat was hit by rockets fired by the Vietcong and heavily damaged. “I’m very lucky,” Lawless said about the incident, as the force from the blast caused serious injury to his legs and knees, in addition to permanently damaging his hearing.

After the attack, he and his comrades managed to make it off their crippled ship; but, while Lawless was recovering from injuries at a nearby base, the Vietcong struck again with another missile attack. Injured as he was and unable to walk, Lawless had to rely on his comrades to clear away the rubble the enemy rockets had caused and carry him out of their barracks to safety.

“People say to me, ‘Boy, you’re lucky. You have Purple Hearts.’ But I say to them, ‘I don’t need those,’” Lawless said with a chuckle.

A Purple Heart is the United States Military’s award to soldiers who have been wounded in the line of duty. Lawless has two.

He was also awarded a Bronze Star, which is one of the highest honors the military can

bestow upon someone; it is only awarded to soldiers who have acted with particular valor and heroism on the battlefield.

Lawless’ hearing never fully recovered after his service.

“I’ve lost all upper tones,” he said. “You need to talk to me in a quiet area and yell at me. I tell people that several times and they still don’t want to yell at me. I can’t hear 80 percent of a [television], would you believe that?”

While not completely deaf, he does have trouble following speech when in a crowded or noisy area. For this reason, he asked to meet with me down at Sunset Lake, mainly for the quiet but also for the spectacular spring view.

To overcome his hearing loss, Lawless has become proficient at lip-reading and makes it a habit to both listen to and read the lips of whomever he is conversing with.

At Vassar, Lawless has found a quieter career helping and protecting the students and animals of Vassar’s community.

“I’m here to defend people and make sure they have a safe environment. I’m here for the safety of the College community. Period.

That’s the bottom line,” he stated.

He continued, “That’s why I came here.

Not everyone cares, but I do. We [Security] have a lot of guys out here that do care.”

Even though he is retired, Lawless will often take extra shifts for Security when another guard needs some time off.

Lawless summed up the reason why he has stayed with the College for so many years, pointing to the students who make up the community. He said,“The students make me feel young.”

In addition to his work on Security and for the cats, Lawless also helped found the student-led Campus Patrol. The idea behind Campus Patrol was to provide students with another layer of safety and protection.

“They were extra sets of eyes and ears for Security, which really helped, everyone will agree. We don’t want students to get hurt,” he said.

To foster community between the patrollers and the officers, Lawless helped organize softball games that take place in the spring.

The games pit the Campus Patrollers against Security Officers in a friendly match. Lawless

Retired Navy veteran Sgt. Jim Lawless has spent much of his own time and money tending to stray cats at Vassar. He finds home for as many cats as possible and creates temporary shelters for the rest. commented that he hoped these games would help build a strong connection between students and Security officers.

Most recently, Lawless has devoted his time and energy to the stray cat population.

He became involved with the stray cats in the 1980s, when Vassar’s stray cat population began to grow.

“The idea was to keep cats out of dumpsters and out of trouble, and to find homes for them.” Lawless said.

He continued, “I’ve taken some cats home for the wife to take care of while I’m at work.

We always try and get them adopted. Unfortunately, some cats just aren’t suitable to go home.”

For those cats who would not make good pets Lawless designed Cat Shacks, safe shelters that were supplied with food and water on a regular basis to help keep the cats out of trouble.

For Lawless, the stray felines are as much a member of Vassar as its students and employees. “The cats are part of our family. We love animals. Plain and simple,” he said.

Almost all of the money and time devoted

towards helping the cats and other animals has come entirely out of the pockets of Lawless and the other members of the Vassar community who help out.

According to Lawless, this fact never once bothered him.

“You don’t think about that. It’s about making a safe place for the animals,” he said, adding, “It’s just enjoyable working with animals on campus.”

For the safety of the cats and the community, he tries to catch new strays as they find their way to Vassar and take them to veterinarians to get them spayed or neutered and have shots and vaccines administered.

After the trip to the vets, he will try to find a home for them or, if none can be found, will release them back onto campus and continue to care for them.

Balancing caring for the cats with his job has been time-consuming and hectic at times, but Lawless considers it to have been worthwhile.

“We have a community like a family,” he stated. “We’re trying to help out cats. That’s the bottom line.”

A chocolatey Easter dessert that scrambles the competition Meaghan Hughes senior editor

E

Spencer Davis/ The Miscellany News

aster has long been one of my favorite holidays, and mostly for the food. After piling into a crowded church service, my whole extended family would feast on delicious ham, potatoes, my mom’s amazing broccoli and cheese casserole and some form of dessert—often a pie. There would also be the lamb-shaped butter that drew in all the cousins who would fight to decapitate it. Which is amusing, given that the holiday itself is about life after death.

Since Vassar gives us our spring break in the beginning of March when spring is arguably very far away, I haven’t been home for Easter for a while. I’m lucky enough that my kind family sends me an amazing care package around this time filled with too many chocolate eggs for me to eat in one sitting. It works well for me, since I have neither the time, the motivation, nor the courage to cook a ham in the Raymond kitchen.

But what I miss the most, apart from the food, is the eggs. Not eating them, as I detest the smell and taste of eggs, but the decorating process. My mom would buy the decorating kits for my sister and me, and the house would reek of that sulfur smell of eggs and the strong odor of vinegar. Over the years, we grew more independent and were able to make the dye and hard-boil the eggs with minimal parental supervision. At times, it was competitive—trying to see who could make the prettiest design—but mostly we enjoyed spending an entire day making a really cool form of art.

My mom would then hide them in the yard, as we crossed our fingers, hoping that the dogs wouldn’t find them before we did.

Though decorating eggs at Vassar might be easier than cooking a meal, I haven’t felt in-

clined to do so. It wouldn’t be fun to do without my sister, and I know they would end up sitting in my room taking up the valuable space usually reserved for library books I hope to find the time to read for a paper. Recently, I had settled on making nail art to resemble pastel-colored eggs—it’s still smelly but takes less time.

But this year, I decided it was time to make an Easter dessert. I pored longingly over delicious-looking pastries on the Internet, trying to find something tasty and feasible for my basic baking ability. I thought I had found a winner with a homemade Cadbury egg—another sacred Easter tradition—but upon further reflection, I realized I could easily settle on the storebought version.

Finally, I found exactly what I had been looking for: an edible design unlikely to start any fires that, unlike the eggs, I would actually eat.

Though chocolate covered strawberries are far from traditional, they satisfy my desire for something sweet, simple and pretty. This way, I don’t have to boil any eggs or place different color tablets in cups, but I can still have a nice treat that gives off the impression that I have rudimentary artistic skills.

I made the chocolate the recipe called for, but I’m sure one could use dark or white chocolate if preferred, or possibly dipping chocolate to save time. Bigger strawberries provide more space for designs, of course, so go for those mutant-like strawberries that you know couldn’t possibly be organic.

If you want to get really fancy, you could use a piping bag to give you more control, but plastic bags with the tips cut off is what I use for gingerbread houses, so it works just fine here.

Other variations would include hulling the strawberries, then filling them with Amaretto cream—it’s more complicated but very tasty.

Ingredients:

The Recipe

1 container strawberries 1 cup chocolate chips 1 tablespoon cooking oil 3 tablespoons heavy cream 1 tablespoon Bailey’s 4 tablespoons powdered sugar (per color) 2 teaspoons water (per color) Combine chocolate, cream and Bailey’s, microwave one minute. Dip strawberries and place in fridge for one hour, then frost.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

FEATURES

Page 8

April 17, 2014

Concerns of appropriation arise amid holiday festivities HOLI continued from page 1

the celebration remained intact. Despite procuring 100 pounds of starch-based color powder, SASA still ran out of color an hour earlier than expected.

SASA Freshman Rep Saisha Srivastava ’17 compared how the day’s festivities to how it is celebrated back home.

“The spirit of how people engaged and celebrated with each other was exactly the same, because it was the same child-like excitement and enthusiasm,” she said.

Though some students maintain that the spirit of Vassar’s Holi celebration was a positive one, others voiced concerns surrounding the event’s promotion and charges of cultural appropriation.

Former member of SASA executive board Shivani Dave ’15 expressed that she was wary of the event’s implications on a predominantly white campus.

She wrote in an emailed statement, “I am thrilled that SASA has put this event together, despite much pushback from the college. My critique is not of SASA, but rather the majority white space that is Vassar College.”

Dave went on to cite concern over the celebration’s poster, which featured a white man covered in colored powder.

She wrote, “I do not want to see a white face with color on it advertising for Holi, that just reminds me of how much power and privilege whiteness has. Every space is already a white space; we don’t need to make South Asian culture more appealing or applicable for white bodies.”

She continued, “Though I know that this was not SASA’s intention at all...As students trying to bring awareness and appreciation of South Asian culture, we need to make sure we are disrupting that narrative.”

Bhutani explained how the poster’s image was screened and unanimously approved by the SASA executive board.

While she admitted she could not definitively perceive the subject’s ethnicity, what mattered more to them was making the event as welcoming as possible to all of the campus.

“The intention behind the poster was never to ‘white-wash’ Holi or make it appealing specifically to whites or non-South Asians. The intention was also never to exclude or include

ADVERTISEMENT

certain students from the event,” Bhutani wrote. “The intention was to make an appealing poster that would attract people to event, as most posters hope to do.”

SASA Public Relations Chair Adit Vaddi ‘16 pointed to the problems with events like Color Runs that appropriate elements of Holi.

He wrote in an email, “These individuals do not know the historical and cultural significance of the Indian festival of Holi.”

Dave explained the problems of assuming Holi practices without educating oneself.

“This is not about intellectual or cultural property; this is about respect. When you exotify and commodify my culture by never once attending a SASA meeting, never bothering to learn about the religious or cultural significance of Holi, and never caring about South Asian lives until it seems fun for you, I feel disrespected and hurt,” she wrote.

Srivastava added, “Anyone can participate in [Holi], provided they do it from a place of respect and mindfulness.”

SASA encouraged participants to learn about the event through the links on the Facebook event page or by visiting the information table

ADVERTISEMENT

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

set up on the quad.

Vaddi spoke of how he hoped Holi at Vassar could transcend individual differences, just as it does in India.

“The throwing of color serves to eliminate barriers within a community by blanketing everyone in a multitude of colors,” he said.

While Bhutani conceded that SASA perhaps could have chosen a more authentic image for the poster, she still felt that Sunday’s celebration spoke for itself.

She wrote, “I don’t think our poster gave up too much ownership of event because the image was used within the context of Holi, a South Asian festival being organized by the South Asian Students Alliance; an event that we chose to share with the entire campus.”

Meanwhile, Dave shared how she grew up celebrating Holi in her temple with friends and also being teased and subjected to racial slurs She wrote, “If you want to come and celebrate Holi, by all means do. Google what it is, spend more than five minutes implicating yourself in the oppression of brown bodies and then join us for some fun. Nonetheless, I am thankful to SASA for putting on this event.”

ADVERTISEMENT

OPINIONS

April 17, 2014

Page 9

Preference VSA Exec. debate must be reformatted for athletes L inappropriate THE MISCELLANY NEWS STAFF EDITORIAL

ast Wednesday was the annual Executive Board debate for the Vassar Student Association (VSA). All candidates running for an Executive Board position, including VSA President, Vice President for Operations, Vice President for Student Life, Vice President for Academics, Vice President for Activities and Vice President for Finance, were required to attend the debate. The debate was put together by the Board of Elections committee and was moderated by The Miscellany News’ Editor-in-Chief. However, the structure of the debate was inadequate to support the number of candidates, failing to give the candidates the necessary time to discuss their platforms. As a result, the debate became confusing, unproductive and uninformative for many attending the event, ultimately falling short of fulfilling its intention.

While we at The Miscellany News approve of the boost in the number of candidates in comparison to recent years, we find fault with the debate process and feel that the Board of Elections should restructure it in order to foster a more informative environment. We hope that by clarifying the function and structure of the debate, all future elections will continue to see an increase in the number of candidates, thus fostering a more diverse VSA. The purpose of the Executive Board debate is to place the candidates in conversation with their opposition in order for students to gain a better understanding of each candidate’s platform and ability to perform the position. However, last week’s debate was poorly structured and ultimately failed to achieve its goal. The placing of all of the candidates for every Executive Board position, a total of 14 students, on one panel created a series of problems for those attending the debate. Due to the sheer number of people on the panel, at points it was unclear who was running for which position.

Furthermore, each candidate’s similar answers failed to help distinguish any of the candidates in terms of their platforms and the positions for which they were running.

This is troublesome for the student body because students cannot make their decision for the election when they cannot differentiate the candidates and their platforms from each other. The cultivation of such confusion ultimately undermined the entire purpose of the debate.

The time the candidates are given to speak during the debate is meant to give the voters more information about each candidate. It also gives the candidates an opportunity to prove to the student body that they deserve to be voted into their positions. However, instead of debating in conversation with each other, many of the candidates simply repeated their written opening statements. Furthermore, many of the candidates merely echoed and affirmed each others’ statements. While it is good that all candidates care equally about the student body and agree about their duty to serve it, this constant reaffirming of the same statements and ideas nevertheless left many attendees with the idea that all of the candidates were running on nearly the exact same platform.

In addition to this, not every candidate was given an equal amount of speaking time, further illustrating the debate’s poor organization. Notably, the candidates running for the VP of Operations position were only asked one question during the entire 90-minute debate, thus giving them the least amount of time to speak, a clear disadvantage to those candidates running in the election. Furthermore, the construction of the debate only provided enough time for the candidates to repeat their statements for the audience, information that was easily accessible through the VSA’s website. In the end, the entire 90-minute debate functioned as a formality and wasted the time of the people who chose to attend, failing to help them make a decision about the election.

In order to facilitate a better debate, The Miscellany News proposes that all candidates be required to attend a workshop prior to the debate, perhaps with the President of the Debate Society. The purpose of this workshop

would be to familiarize candidates with the structure of the debate and to familiarize them with basic debate techniques. By preparing the candidates with this workshop, students would attend a more lively and interesting debate, in which candidates actually engage in productive discourse with their opponents.

Further, The Miscellany News proposes that the Board of Elections completely restructure all future debates so as to avoid the confusion that resulted this year. Instead of putting all of the candidates for the entire Executive Board on one panel, each position should be given 20 minutes and have their own separate debate in order to put the candidates in conversation with each other and ultimately provide students with the information they need to vote. This solution eliminates the problem of uneven speaking times as well. By putting each Executive Board candidate in direct conversation with their competitors, voters will be able to see more of each candidate individually and thus learn what makes each candidate qualified for their respective desired position.

Creating separate debates for each position also gives people the opportunity to attend the debates they wish to attend, thus allowing them to target the issues and positions that they are most interested in.

For those candidates running unopposed, The Miscellany News suggests they receive a reduced debate time and instead participate in an open question and answer session, in order to put those candidates in conversation with their constituency.

The overall restructuring of the debate will give candidates more time to better explain their platform and put their ideas in dialog with each other. By breaking the candidates up into smaller groups, the debate would lead to an easier flow of conversation between the candidates and ultimately allow students to make more informed choices when voting.

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

New app helps with tiring effects of jet lag Delaney Fischer Columnist

B

eing from right outside of Pittsburgh, I have never had to fly to Vassar after breaks. I have always taken a bus or driven a car here. Traveling to or from school is a long seven or eight hours, but it has always been manageable and I’ve never had to worry about shifting through different time zones. For a lot of my friends here, this is not the case. My roommate for the last three years is from outside Dallas, and traveling home for her seems like a hassle. From getting into the city, taking a bus to the airport, shifting through thousands of people and making it to her gate to fly hours home, I don’t know how she does it.

On top of that, Dallas is an hour behind New York time, so she has to adjust a little to the time zone. This time zone shift may be small, but it can really take a toll on the body and fatigue her.

With students here being from all over the world, traveling during breaks, particularly short breaks such as Thanksgiving, can be a real hassle. Besides the trouble as it is making arrangements to get to an airport and fly home, they also have to deal with these different time zones. New York to California takes you back three hours, and New York to Hawaii takes you back six hours. Internationally, we have even bigger gaps in time; New York to Hong Kong brings you a whole 12 hours ahead, turning night into day. A research team at the University of Michigan has noted that many people don’t realize how drastic even a onehour time shift is on a person’s ability to adjust. “The conventional wisdom is for every hour you’re shifting, it’s about a day of adjustment. So Washington D.C. travelers going to Hong Kong—a 12-hour time difference—could take up to 12 days to adjust” (NPR, “This jet lag app does the math so you’ll feel better faster,” 04.11.2014).

With students already feeling wiped out from the many tests and papers that usually occur right before a break, traveling with an added time zone shift certainly makes it even harder to enjoy some rest and relaxation once finally off campus. It’s shocking that it can take almost two weeks for some students to adjust.

This all ultimately has to do with the internal “clock” in our bodies known as their circadian rhythm. Danny Forger, Professor of Mathematics and Computational Medicine at the University of Michigan, elaborates, saying, “In your brain, you have a central circadian clock...[that] sends signals all throughout the body, and that central clock controls all of the body’s biological functions.”

“It’s shocking that it can take almost two weeks for some students to adjust.”

So how can one get back on track? Olivia Walch, a graduate student at the University of Michigan, has created an app for the iPhone that helps people adjust to the fatigue from timezone shifts. By using mathematical analyses of human’s daily rhythms, Walch’s app calculates the quickest way to adjust to new time zones (Science News, “App could cut jet lag short,” 04.10.14). The app, Entrain, does all the calculations before your flight even occurs. You simply put in your flight information and the app with provide you with a schedule to help you get back on track. Walch goes into great detail on her app and its scheduling system, saying, “Users plug in the time zone they’re traveling to, and the app will do

the calculations before spitting out a schedule specifying when the user should stay in bright light, low light or be in the dark.” These changes in light are what help make the transition process a little easier for the jet-lagged.

In reviewing the app Entrain, which can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store, I have to say that this app looks promising, but is still in need of a bit more advancement. I do like the app; the app in itself is very professional-looking and the math behind it is backed by top-notch research published in the scientific journal PLoS Computational Biology. The scheduling system is also fairly simple—you just input where you are going and what time you will arrive, and the app provides a schedule of when you should be in the light or dark and when you should be sleeping.

You are able to make alterations to their provided schedule, and it shows how it will affect the amount of time needed to get your regular circadian rhythm back.

The really surprising part of the app is seeing how long it truly takes ones to fully get back into sync with their cycle. As stated earlier by the research team, it talks about a day for each hour in the time zone shift, and if one were to alter their provided schedule, it prolongs the process of fixing the skewed circadian rhythm. Ideally, this app is to be used for multiple days when one travels such a far distance. I am not sure if it will really help Vassar students when they travel into drastically different time zones for short amounts of time, but it may be very helpful when students return to Vassar.

Overall, though, it is a really cool, scientifically-based app that I suggest travelers check out. It’s just a quick download and is worth at least giving it a try.

—Delaney Fischer ’16 is a neuroscience major.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Meaghan Hughes, Christopher Brown & Tina Caso senior editor & sports editors

I

n last week’s issue, sports columnist Luka Ladan published a column in Sports favoring preferential treatment for athletes during the senior housing draw. Ladan argued that student-athletes should be designated to live in housing closer to where they practice each day. We would like to respectfully disagree with the argument presented in his article.

Ladan notes in his piece that his idea is a “common-sense” reform meant to make his life, and the lives of other student-athletes, easier. We, however, see this as creating a divide between those who participate in varsity athletics and those who do not.

There are many students on campus who utilize the AFC, including but not limited to intramural and club sports teams, students who take fitness classes there and students who have made going to the gym a regular routine. Shouldn’t senior housing make their lives easier as well?

The walk from the TH’s to the AFC, or from the TA’s to the sports fields, takes 15 to 20 minutes at most. Some students may have the option of bicycling, while others choose to carpool if a nearby teammate has a car. Even without these options, a 15 to 20 minute walk shouldn’t seem laborious to any student-athlete who chooses to dedicate part of their life to running laps, timing miles and working on sprints. The longer walk may eliminate 40 minutes of studying time, but student-athletes—who are already juggling a varsity sport and academics— should know how to budget this into their schedules.

Even during pre-season and school break double and triple sessions (where athletes have two to three practices a day), classes would not even be in session at all.

Ladan’s flawed argument is not representative of all student-athletes on this campus. Many student-athletes readily choose to live at the opposite end of campus, knowing that the 15 to 20 minute walk to the field, gym or court each day will provide them with extra time to themselves to listen to music and mentally prepare before a tough practice or game.

Other student-athletes like to feel that they have a life outside of their sport, so they choose to live far away from where they practice. Others do not even consider the walk in choosing where to live. Most importantly, not all student-athletes feel that they should be treated preferentially when it comes to senior housing. Even more importantly, not all student-athletes feel that they should receive any type of preferential treatment whatsoever. Ladan’s proposal cannot be “common sense” if it is not even common.

Yet perhaps the most flawed portion of Ladan’s argument lies in the implied notion that athletes and non-athletes on this campus have completely separate experiences. Although we are not disagreeing that athletes and non-athletes do have unique Vassar experiences during their time at Vassar College, what Ladan is effectively doing is creating an “us verses them” mentality by implying that athletes and non-athletes require completely different resources and accommodations while they attend Vassar.

There is currently an ongoing movement by many members of the athletic community to bridge the existing gap between members of the athletic community and other students on Vassar’s campus. By claiming that playing a sport allows one access to privileged housing, Ladan only creates tension between the athletic community and rest of campus.

We feel that Ladan’s intentions were not misguided. Athletes on this campus devote a lot of time to the sport that they love. They sacrifice free time and socializing for early practices and long weekend trips. Their dedication to their extracurricular activity should be commended. However, this does not mean that their time or needs should be placed above any other person at Vassar College with commitments just as time-consuming. As we live on a small campus already in Vassar, we should feel lucky that we have the privilege of being within reasonable walking distance from all the resources on this campus. By claiming that certain groups and organizations require treatment, we fall into a slippery slope of self righteousness and greed, while simultaneously creating many divides within our community.

—Meaghan Hughes ’15 is a psychology major.

Christopher Brown ’16 is a political science major.

Tina Caso ’14 is an art history major.

OPINIONS

Page 10

April 17, 2014

Latest Supreme Court ruling lets wealthy engulf politics Chris Dietz

Guest Columnist

I

walked out one unexpectedly chilly morning last week and I was greeted with a bit of particularly bad news—as if the terrifyingly cold weather hadn’t already been bad enough.

Flipping through The New York Times’ stellar and new pocket-news app, NYTimes Now, one of the top stories caught my eye. The headline read, “Supreme Court greenlights bid to rip out frail heart of American democracy.” Well, it might as well have.

The real April 2 headline read “Supreme Court Strikes Down Overall Political Donation Cap” and it detailed the final decision in the recent Supreme Court decision McCutcheon vs.

Federal Election Commission (The New York Times, 04.02.14). The verdict of the conservative majority was to overturn all campaign finance regulation since the post-Watergate era by removing the biennial limits on donation.

There are myriad reasons why the specific decision in the McCutcheon case signals doom and gloom across the American civil landscape, but one of the main issues I see with the decision was how it, like the Citizens United case before it, had served as a major springboard toward the conservative justices’ agendas; their ideologies are imposing themselves beyond the scope of the cases they review. With a 5-4 conservative-liberal split, and only that simple majority needed to decide any case, it’s no surprise that the conservative legal agenda is being advanced with great speed.

With the landmark Citizens United case of 2010, the court had already determined that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent political expenditures by large associations like corporations and labor unions (which it had restricted in the past). What was most surprising about the

case was that, as pointed out by Justice Stevens in his dissent, Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion contained a claim of unconstitutionality that hadn’t been raised by the litigants themselves! By pointing to the First Amendment in order to protect political donations of all kinds, the majority not only pulled an argument out of thin air, but pulled out an argument that had far-reaching, foundational implications. According to Stevens, the Court’s majority decision had entirely discredited the definition of corruption in anything but the strictest, tit-for-tat terms; denying Congress the power to safeguard “the improper use of money to influence the result [of an election] is to deny the nation in a vital particular the power of self protection,” said Stevens. In other words, giving political donation of any amount complete protection under constitutional law might lead to less than favorable results for our election process.

Emily Bazelon, Truman Capote Fellow at Yale Law School and a Slate Magazine Senior Editor, argues that the Chief Justice Roberts in particular has long been a master of creating sweeping legal change in mild rhetoric.

In the McCutcheon case: “Chief Justice Roberts declares that Congress may still ‘regulate campaign contributions to protect against corruption or the appearance of corruption,’” and then proceeds to “whittle [down] the definition of corruption down to a little nub that has nothing to do with how donors actually buy influence” (Slate, “The Devastating, Sneaky Genius of John Roberts’ Opinions,” 04.02.14).

Influence is not bought in tit-for-tat transactions, as the Roberts decision holds (and as Kennedy’s majority opinion in Citizens United hinted at, and Stevens rebuked), it is bought in access to top party officials and “friends.” Access becomes available as millions of dollars

are funneled into a wide set of candidates, in reality then manifesting as donations to the party treasuries, and so transforming into invitations to dinners at party leaders’ houses, lunches with key candidates, a voice in the war rooms. Essentially, Roberts and the other conservative Justices (Alito, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas) are placing the onus on Congress to pass legislation to reform voting law. A similar call came in 2013, as Roberts urged Congress to pass a new version of the Voting Rights Act. Much to the surprise of no one, Congress failed to pass the new bill, and the changes to voting law remained the same—in a deadlocked Congress, Roberts could count on their general inaction.

While the 1971 and 2002 amendments limited individual spending to a sum for each twoyear election cycle ($5,200, up to $48,600 total), Todd McCutcheon and his lawyer group could quickly dispatch the limit by using the same constitutional framework established in Citizens United. McCutcheon did Citizens United one better and questioned whether or not there could even be a biennial limit on political donation, under the Constitution (i.e. First Amendment). The decision, of course, was that there couldn’t.

I doubt that the court, although conservative, will fall on the wrong side of history in granting full civil rights to gay citizens, or anything of a more social nature. However, their willingness to dissolve any and all campaign finance reform and regulation might hint at future de-regulating decisions. Perhaps kneecapping Obamacare under pretense of the 10th Amendment, or taking another look, with a conservative eye, at a Wall Street practice begging to be deregulated (the cyber trading that Michael Lewis elucidates in his new book, “Fly Boys”).

The reason to fight the Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions is twofold: First, that people vote for whoever is on the ballot. If you don’t have money, you won’t have a successful campaign to get on the ballot. Instead, everyone else in the race could be potentially handpicked by a single interest, say, a Todd McCutcheon, and those candidates, first and foremost, will be beholden to that interest.

When all Democrats and Republicans alike become, truly, nothing more than mouthpieces for the opinions of billionaires, the individual vote means nothing. Less than nothing, even, because the vote would give the illusion of supporting your own interest when in fact there is only another, entirely separate set of interests at stake.

Second, protesting the decision is a protest against the business of the Court. Although nothing will change regarding the 5-4 split until a Justice retires, what can change is the pressure on the court from the public. There is a conscience even among those who are undemocratically appointed for life, I might hope.

Right now they have the highest approval ratings of any branch of government—in 2013, a Gallup poll gave them a whopping 46 percent, a far cry from Congress’s 13 percent. When the public unanimously lambastes their decision in the case, as it should, the President (current or future) is pressured to appoint a justice that might conform more closely to public opinion and public interest, while the Senate is pressured to confirm the choice. It’s not a change that happens quickly, but interrogating the reason that we condemn Congress and the President, while leaving the Court relatively unscathed, might be a start.

—Chris Dietz ’17 is a student at Vassar College.

Equal Pay Day a year-round issue that affects millions Bethan Johnson Contributor

A

pril 8 is the date on which the League of Nations assembled, the Senate passed the Civil Rights Bill, and “Twin Peaks” premiered on television, and this year, it also marked Equal Pay Day in the United States. The rhyming date in fact marks a far less amusing reality: Men and women continue to earn different wages for the same job. Although it is clear that wage inequality does happen and must be stopped, I find myself among a small minority of the people whom this date is supposed to “help” who takes issue with some of the principles of Equal Pay Day and vocalizes a desire for a more fruitful discussion of wage inequality in America; I ask that in the future, others do the same.

Equal Pay Day espouses a belief entirely in keeping with my own philosophy: That all people should be compensated equally for doing the same job. Supporters of the day use the press coverage to highlight the discrepancy in wages based on gender, pointing to a continued and substantial difference in salaries for women despite the continued passage of equal pay legislation. Currently, the most popular statistic circulated on daytime television and economic blogs alike states that the average woman makes the 77 cents for every dollar the average man makes.

However, this commonly cited statistic marks the first flaw of Equal Pay Day: It over-generalizes the problem of unjust compensation. While acknowledging that men and women are not compensated equally in the workplace, this reliance on “average” fails to recognize the full extent of wage inequality.

The first problem is that the average wage of a man used by those organizing Equal Pay Day is actually only the standard wage of a white male, thus failing to recognize that white males are commonly privileged in terms of compensation over men of color. Secondly, the 77 cent figure fails to acknowledge the pay shortfall for women of color. African-American women receive approximately 64 cents for every dollar earned by a white male, while Latinas earn 55 cents per dollar (The Huffington Post, “Today is Equal Pay Day—No One’s Favorite Holiday,” 04.08.2014). Equal Pay Day overlooks race-based discrimination

in the workplace, an injustice that is just as harmful as gender-based inequality. It is a sad truth that not all women are paid equally and that women are not paid the same amount as men; we should not allow injustice in one area entirely disguise the other injustices. What would be more just for all parties involved— both the women whom the day is supposed to help and the men whose privileges are criticized—would be to select a date without the connection to the so-called “average” wage of a woman.

Equal Pay Day focuses on those moments when supposedly equal male and female employees are compensated differently. While this does occur and requires redress, my question is: Why stop criticizing workplace inequality there? The problems of imbalanced compensation are more complex than the artificial “equal candidate” scenario. For example, a White House statistic shows that more than half of women have reported “that they are either discouraged or forbidden from discussing their wages” (International Business Times, “Equal Pay Day 2014: Wage Gap Debate Hits Fever Pitch, Sparks Backlash, As White House Pushes Fairness Act,” 04.08.2014). While fairly recent changes in the law allow women to discuss their compensation—a victory for equal pay advocates—it is disappointing to see that this number remains so high. Such a concerted effort to stifle women from learning about their financial situation and potentially from petitioning for increased benefits.

Another issue excluded from criticisms rendered on Equal Pay Day is that over their lifetimes, women have significantly lower earning potential than men due to preferential treatment for men in promotion deliberations, and when considering potential career paths.

According to the Pew Research Center: “Even though women have increased their presence in higher-paying jobs traditionally dominated by men, such as professional and managerial positions, women as a whole continue to work in lower-paying occupations than men do” (“On Equal Pay Day, key facts about the gender pay gap,” 04.08.2014). Additionally, due to the societal pressure and cultural norm of women staying home to nurture offspring, nearly 40 percent of women take significant time off of work to care for children as compared to less

than one-quarter of men who admitted to doing the same (The Academy of Management, “The Gender Pay Gap Have Women Gone as Far as They Can?,” 02.02.2007). This practice disproportionately hinders women’s salary prospects directly and indirectly through the promotion process. Failing to incorporate these issues into the discussion reduced the effectiveness of Equal Pay day, rendering it more of a gimmick to temporarily appease the 66 million women, or 47 percent of America’s workforce, rather than an effective tool for change.

“Equal Pay Day focuses on those moments when supposedly are compensated differently.”

Finally, why are we seemingly content to talk about this issue on a single day? Shouldn’t we, as supporters of equal pay, be doing as much as possible to continue making this a headline story instead of harnessing all the attention on a 24-hour cycle? While Senate Democrats have tried to use hype from Equal Pay Day to launch the latest iteration of equal pay legislation—The Paycheck Fairness Act of 2014—the many other political actions of the day serve to limit rather than expand the influence of Equal Pay Day. President Obama announced two executive orders on April 8 related to the gender wage gap, each of which deserve praise and attention in their own right. Why limit public discourse of their potential benefits by saddling them to this single day?

Instead of devoting so much attention to this single, statistically arbitrary date, politicians who pledge allegiance to closing the wage gap need to wake up and realize that paying attention to this issue for one day or one week each year is not enough, and we as constituents need to demand better of our representatives. 72 percent of women and 61 percent of men believed that “this country needs to continue making changes to give men and women equality in the workplace,” so we

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

should insist on more progress (Pew Research Center, “On Equal Pay Day, key facts about the gender pay gap,” 04.08.2014).

We should also demand improvement from both sides of the aisles in terms of their actions every day of the year. Although more fiscally conservative leaders and think tanks comprise the largest critics of government intervention in this business practice, the ignorant or condescending tones are still bipartisan. Countless Democrats have bemoaned the state of the gender gap and the president has coupled several steps to ensure equal pay in the workforce with forceful words, and yet, according to the American Enterprise Institute, his White House still only pays female staffers approximately 88 cents compared to similarly employed male workers (no racial breakdown was included in this study) (“Gender wage gap at the White House: Female staffers are paid only 88 cents for every dollar paid to men,” 04.13.2014). Advocates for change should look to changing the rhetoric of both parties if they really want to improve women’s financial realities.

Equal Pay Day has been an American institution for almost twenty years, and if nothing changes, then we will see Equal Pay Days until at least 2058. So, however critical discussing the gender wage gap is, I propose we demand some serious changes to Equal Pay Day for the good of all involved. Advocating for equal compensation should not shy away from discussing issues of racial inequality, or be separate from tackling the deeper institutional biases harming women; instead, activists and politicians alike should continue to speak about these problems often and demand that action happens 365 days a year instead of just one.

While its history is long-standing and its effectiveness is at least somewhat substantial, I can proudly say that as a feminist and a future employee, for many reasons, I do not want to be marking Equal Pay Day through to my retirement and nor should I have to do so; women deserve better and we should all demand more of ourselves, our politicians, and the other 364 days of the year.

—Bethan Johnson ’15 is an English and history double major.

April 17, 2014

OPINIONS

New CARES policy detailed to student body CARES

Guest Columnists

S

ince 1989, CARES has served Vassar as a confidential peer-listening resource for students affected by any type of personal violation issue. Personal violation includes sexual assault, relationship abuse, domestic violence, child abuse, stalking or anything else that makes someone feel uncomfortable in a relationship, romantic or otherwise. We are also available as a resource for friends and family members of people who are experiencing or have experienced personal violation issues.

CARES has always prided itself as an organization that other students can turn to for resources and for support. We are not professionals; we are not counselors. We are your peers who have vast knowledge about the resources the College can offer, training in empathic listening, and a commitment to keeping your experiences confidential. We believe that our callers themselves are the experts of their experiences, and that they can determine what they need better than we can.

CARES is a resource of the College, housed within the Sexual Assault and Violence Prevention (SAVP) office. We are grateful to the College for their generous support of CARES both in funding and in our operating with significant autonomy. The College respects CARES as an organization and includes us in conversations about policy and praxis by giving us a seat at the table on the SAVP committee.

As a result of working under the umbrella

of the College, we are bound by the College’s policies. On rare occasion, there is a shift in a policy that requires CARES to change our protocol. We feel it is important to make these shifts aware to the Vassar community, so the student body can know what to expect when they call us. Recent changes in policy have led CARES to adjust its protocol about breaking confidentiality.

The following is CARES’ updated policy that outlines when CARES is obligated to break confidentiality by notifying the Metcalf Counselor on Call or Vassar Safety and Security: 1.) CARES is obligated to break confidentiality if a student is in imminent physical danger.

This includes, but is not necessarily limited to, circumstances in which a caller discloses that a. they have a plan to commit suicide or to self-harm b. they have self-harmed within the past 48 hours c. they are aware of a weapon on campus d. they have been assaulted by someone whose identity they do not know e. another person has threatened to harm them 2.) CARES is obligated to break confidentiality if a caller discloses that child abuse is currently taking place.

As individual CARES listeners, we recognize that these circumstances are not ideal.

We have the utmost concern for our callers’

safety, and we recognize that breaking confidentiality and cueing an institutional response may not be the safest course of action for every student that calls us, particularly for those students who are members of groups that are historically and currently marginalized or who may not be safe in a situation in which the College may notify parents or guardians.

A fundamental principle that CARES holds is that callers should be able to determine the course of action in their individual situation.

Vassar’s liability requires us to disclose certain information if we have it. In light of this, CARES thinks it is important that students know that they are not obligated to offer identifying information if they do not wish to give it when contacting CARES. We would specifically like to note that if a security officer asks for your name when you call the Campus Response Center to ask for the CARES listener, you do not have to give it.

As a campus resource, we are committed to providing our peers with a non-judgemental person who will listen, and provide options so our peers can decide what is their best course of action. In making this information public and our policies transparent, we hope to let our peers maintain their autonomy and independence in utilizing CARES as a resource and in making their experience at Vassar what they need it to be.

As always, we are available 24/7 during the academic year. Reach us by calling the CRC at 845-437-5221 and asking to speak to the CARES listener on call.

Page 11

Word on the street What are you doing on Sunday, April 20?

“I don’t think that far ahead.”

—Ben Chin ’15

“Smoking weed.”

—Messi ’15

Political principles on campus, around world require more romance, dedication Julian Hassan

Guest Columnist

I

owe some of you an explanation, or even an apology. I realize that my efforts over the past few years, as the president of the Moderate, Independent, Conservative Alliance (MICA), could have seemed jarring or unprecedented. Under my leadership, we received contradictory labels, from a “circus” to both “basic” and “pretentious.” I never really knew how to address these types of criticisms, so I have not publicly considered them until now.

My purpose here is not to address any personal criticism; it is simpler and more earnest. I imagine potential friends and allies could have been sincerely perplexed at times, so I want to unpack what turns out to be a complex puzzle.

My more controversial articles have been heavily edited, which potentially misdirected some of the criticism. If we were all reduced to an article, especially one which others have the privilege to change, we would all be “basic.” I appreciate the platform and patience that The Miscellany News continues to provide us and accept that we have different visions for campus life.

That all aside, I realize now why no one fully got what I have been trying to accomplish.

I can imagine why some may have even felt hurt or bewildered by my genuine overall approach. Why do I do the things I do and why do I talk the way I talk?

“My purpose here is not to address any personal criticism; it is simpler and more earnest.”

I have been hurt by the misunderstandings, too, so I want to answer this question.

It was certainly not obvious to me, and I’ve been a libertarian activist for seven years. Yet if I could strip down my defenses, I would say that my goal is to bring romance back into politics.

Yes, I know, it sounds peculiar. That couldn’t possibly be my motivation. Having grown up in a culture where romance is not taken seriously anymore, I can see how my actions or speech could be mistaken for pre-

tense, show or some kind of performance. We live in a gritty “House of Cards” age. Politics being the way it is now, how could we make it romantic? Am I out of my mind? Yet, what animates me is the promise of politics with romance.

Politics with romance is something no one is deliberately trying to achieve these days, let alone from the Center-Right side of the spectrum, and I’m sure I’ve made my share of mistakes here as a secret campus purveyor of it. There are also huge, theoretical objections.

Hasn’t the romance ended? Won’t it always have to end? Isn’t the post-modern world also a post-romantic void? Isn’t it pie in the sky?

This is the generally accepted wisdom.

Yet these were not always the preconceived notions. Politics with romance was part of the 1930s on campus, a time, I am sure, that would have inspired many of us. For modern liberals, “romance” either conveys the worst of the bourgeois or the best of the early Progressives. Take this how you want to, but I’m really trying to appeal to the best use of the term here.

The political center at Vassar is unique in several ways today. It has shaken things up, but romance has always upset authority and social conventions. What’s different is that the romance has been reborn in the Center between the political Left and Right.

Secondly, most libertarian-conservatives today are pushing for “Politics Without Romance,” to which we reply, “Politics With Romance!” Romance is not the cause of our problems; It is actually the way to get out of them. It is the way to become a relevant and an inspirational force in this world. We can’t get rid of the police-state before we get rid of the Lady Gaga state. We’re caught in a bad romance.

Victor Hugo, the author of “Les Miserables,” was a Romantic writer and politician who knew these went hand in hand. He pushed for the rights of everyone, including the workers and oppressed. He wrote a manifesto on Romanticism in literature that has never seen its counterpart in politics. What we have taken away from his treatise is that politics with romance should address both the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the bad, the “sublime” and the “grotesque” (in Hugo’s dramatic language) of every issue. If this be a “circus,” then nature is a circus. In the real world, the awesome exists alongside the terri-

ble; cute dogs have bad breath.

In this sense, politics with romance can be the opposite of fascism and all forms of statism. It is not a Pollyanna for leaders or special interest groups. It would not shy away from showing both the good and the bad in our public figures and demagogues. In a famous Soviet-era novel, a communist cautioned: “Comrades! A grave new danger has been growing among us in this last year. I call it the danger of over-idealism. We’ve all heard the accusations of its deluded victims…Such is the whining of cowards who cannot face practical reality.” Big Brother’s bodyguards know that romance stands in their way. Now, we are realizing that police-states around the world are an impractical construct, not a practical reality.

“Going green.”

—Fred Bosoy ’15

“Minding my mind.”

—David McConnell ’16

“In this sense, politics with romance can be the opposite of facism and all forms of statism.”

How has romance with politics infused MICA? Fossil fuels can be both loved and feared. Sometimes there are spills, but it keeps the electricity on for hospitals and food kitchens. Israel is both a beacon and a shipwreck. Wall Street has some of the sublime as well as the grotesque. Politics with romance is nuanced and dynamic, not a comic book version of the world. We also need a trigger warning for the beautiful, not just for the ugly and harming. Will you spread the romance outward from the Center and make love the trigger of audacity?

As Victor Hugo began his manifesto, the best way to introduce your work is “naked and friendless, like the infirm man of the Gospel.” I also believe that’s the best way to conclude here. Last week, Paul Krugman wrote an article in The New York Times, titled, “Obamacare, the Unknown Ideal.” That would be a good place to start rethinking romance, too.

—Julian Hassan ’14 is a cognitive science major. He is President of the Conservative-Libertarian Union.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

“Spreading the good word.”

—Jake Spies ’16

“Just gonna dream.”

—Aaron Bendich ’16

Lily Doyle, Humor & Satire Editor Spencer Davis, Photo Editor

OPINIONS

Page 12

April 17, 2014

Vassar community expresses support for Security union Spencer Resnick Guest Columnist

T

he following are two public letters created by the Vassar Student/Labor Dialogue, the first of which signed of by more than 750 members of the Vassar community, including students, faculty, alumnae/i and members of the two unions with members on campus: SEIU 200 and CWA 1120 at Vassar. The second letter is signed by a number of organizations and individuals in the Poughkeepsie community. We launched this support campaign to let the administration know that the community expects and demands that Vassar as an institution upholds a commitment to respecting the democratic representation of workers on this campus.

On April 7, a group of around a dozen security guards, backed by student supporters delivered these letters below to Robert Walton, the Vice President for Administration and Finance, and to President Catharine Bond Hill’s office. After some time, Mr. Walton came out of his office and met with the guards, who asked him to recognize a union based on the 96 percent majority of their signatures. Mr. Walton refused to do so. With the support of over 750 Vassar community members, the guards vowed to fight on and win in spite of the bureaucratic hurdles put up by the administration.

Students and workers joined hands outside Walton’s office, renewing their fight and preparing for their next steps toward winning a union for the Safety and Security staff. On Friday, April 11, workers filed for a binding election administered by the National Labor Relations Board. With continued community support for a fair election process, workers will seek to vote their way into a union. They

are continuing to call on students, faculty, and other workers to stand up for democracy and for Vassar Security Staff.

—Spencer Resnick ’15 is a member of the Vassar Student/Labor Dialogue. Below are the two letters, the first on behalf of members of the Vassar community and the second on behalf of members of the Vassar and greater Poughkeepsie community.

Dear President Hill, As you know, workers in the Vassar College security department have begun organizing a union to create a more democratic working environment. With this effort, they will join their co-workers in CWA 1120 and SEIU 200 as union members. Having a union will allow these community members to have collective voice, along with their co-workers in CWA 1120 and SEIU 200, which all members of the Vassar community deserve.

When all workers’ voices are represented and given collective expression, it makes for a better college—not only for these workers, but for all us. Better working conditions mean better living conditions. Greater institutional democracy for workers makes for a stronger community. And a campus where all voices are respected reaffirms the College’s collective commitment to inclusion and excellence.

For these reasons, we the undersigned, write in support of the security workers who are organizing for a better future.

A free and fair opportunity to form a union is a fundamental right of every worker. Vassar prides itself on its ability to foster open, fair, and respectful dialogue. The College can realize that commitment by respecting the right of workers to organize in an environment free

from pressure or coercion. If workers desire to form a union to make their voices heard, it is incumbent on the entire Vassar community to listen carefully and respectfully. Many institutions similar to Vassar have tried to squelch workers’ voices when they attempt to unionize. In such cases, workers have been met with threats, legal action, and bullying. Dialogue can only flourish when such silencing practices are rejected.

During this union campaign, we believe the College administration has the power to publicly stand for a democratic process and open dialogue. We call on the College to respect a democratic decision of security workers, if indeed, the majority petitions this administration for recognition of a union. The College can set a positive example of how a respectful workplace operates by refraining from engaging in activities aimed at limiting workers’ rights to form a union.

We hope that we can all agree that workers should be free to choose their path forward in a neutral environment where their voices are heard. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on the security workers’ efforts to unionize.

Sincerely, The Undersigned —The above letter was signed by 553 Vassar students, 63 Vassar faculty, 98 Vassar alumnae/i, 14 members of SEIU 200, 18 members of CWA 1120 and 34 other individuals.

Dear President Hill, It has come to our attention that workers in the Vassar College security department are in the process of organizing a union. The undersigned organizations, as members of

The Miscellany Crossword

by Jack Mullan, Crossword Editor

ACROSS 1 Young drawer’s plaything 12 Apple promo?

15 Empirebuilding and exploitation of land 16 Anti-fraud org.

17 Crown material 18 Young newt 19 What cavities can do to 17-across 20 European Investment Bank: Abbr.

21 Raison d’___ 22 Aquatics brand 24 French emporer 27 Nike rival 29 Political symbol 30 Aim for 31 Luau dish 33 Virtuoso 34 Pals of Olaf and Lars 35 Wither away 40 Sábado or domingo 42 Wee, to a Scot

45 “Happy” singer 47 Polar bear’s domain 49 Car air freshener shape 50 Bullwinkle, e.g.

51 Using the bow, in music 52 “That hit the spot!”

54 Nat’l Resource Dir. 55 Hasty; reckless 56 Apartheid 61 Season after printemps 62 Classic track from “Kind of Blue” 63 Fleur-de-___ 64 Western mountain range

DOWN 1 Outside: Prefix 2 Customized (2 wds.)

3 “Michael Clayton” star 4 Jacuzzi 5 Stock index: Abbr.

6 “Sprechen ___

Answers to last week’s puzzle

Deutsch?”

7 Welles’s “Citizen” 8 “Seinfeld” gal 9 Hip-hop producer for Jay-Z, LL Cool J and Missy Elliott 10 Comp. Sci. & Engineering major abbr.

11 Alternative to “FML” 12 Newmans or Arizonas 13 Insult 14 Nixon policy 21 K-12, in education 22 The “A” in MoMA 23 Uncorking noise 25 Home to the Qajar dynasty 26 Choose 28 Like some Jewish delis 32 Yale or Penn, but not Vassar 35 Clothing 36 In need of a drink 37 Cattle locales 38 Nabisco cookie 39 Trotskyist workers’ party in Mexico: Abbr.

41 Branch 42 Celebrated in the past 43 Rascal 44 It can be 1 or 11 46 News hosts Jim or Brian 48 In opposition to 53 Child of fortune?

56 Football games with roman

numerals, for short 57 Manning who has played in 56-downs 58 KoreanCanadian singer 59 Apollo Global Mgmt: Abbr.

60 Poughkeepsieto-Boston dir.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

the Poughkeepsie community in which these workers are embedded, wish to express our support for their efforts and our request for the College to respect their right to organize for collective representation.

As a prominent institution in the region, Vassar College has a responsibility to set an example as an employer that respects the democratic representation of their staff. This respect includes a stance of neutrality during the organizing process so that security staff may freely demonstrate their majority will in the question of forming a union. By recognizing security staff ’s choice to enter into a union based on their majority will, Vassar College can realize a commitment to these values.

An institution in which free, democratic process is respected and cultivated is the kind of institution that we want to build our community around. We hope that you share that vision with us.

Sincerely, The Undersigned —Communications Workers of America, Local 1120 —Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation —Worker’s Justice Center of New York —Bard College Safety and Security Officer’s Union —SEIU Local 200 United at Marist —SEIU Local 200 United at Bard —Francena Amparo, Dutchess County Legislator —Joel Tyner, Dutchess County Legislator —Ann Perry, Poughkeepsie City Council —Sharon McClinton, Poughkeepsie City Council —Blair Goodman, Chapter Organizer for Community Voices Heard.

HUMOR & SATIRE

April 17, 2014

Page 13

Breaking News

From the desk of Lily Doyle, Humor & Satire Editor

Seniors still on pre-registration email list, Colleen Mallet reports receiving ‘envelopes full of tears’ daily

Weekly Misc Quiz: How to That yellow orb in the sky know if you’re VC #basic is the sun, don’t be afraid Lily Sloss & Michael Cadenas Quiz Master/Lovebirds

#B

asic is a biddie who is extraordinarily ordinary; the opposite of being “hip” or a relation of Meryl Streep. How #basic are you? The following quiz lists Vassar-specific symptoms of being #basic. Check them off and discover how #basic of a VC biddie you are.

1. You’ve had a profile picture in front of a tapestry, definitely taken in a dorm room.

2. You’ve hosted a “pre-game” and publicized it on Facebook.

3. You’ve always wanted to have sex in the library but you never have.

4. You go to the gym, just to go on the elliptical.

5. You don’t go fast enough to sweat.

6. You own a Neff beanie.

7. You’ve attended a weeknight Mug night, after your freshman year.

8. You’ve taken an Econ class to scam on the eye candy.

9. You’ve complained about the food at the Deece while you lived in the dorms, but you beg to be swiped in as a Senior.

10. You mobbed the buses at 50 nights.

11. You’ve never read the Misc.

12. You’ve lamented/bragged about hookups over Deece brunch.

13. You’ve gone to Seven Deadly Sins just for the food.

14. You go to anything catered by Twisted Soul.

15. You abhor Crystal Palace but you always buy it for pre-game shots.

16. You’ve taken a class because you heard the teacher was hot.

17. You refer to minors as correlates.

18. You’ve bought a chaser from the vending machines.

19. You need a chaser.

20. You rented the micro-fridge combo from Vassar.

21. You joined Ultimate Frisbee just for the parties.

22. You’ve committed hallcest.

23. You’ve “thrifted” expensive shit.

24. You order a cheeseburger at the Deece.

25. You’ve thrown up in a Joss bathroom.

26. You’ve specifically hung out in the Retreat to be featured in “Word on the Street.”

27. You own a crop top that doesn’t “go” with any of your clothes.

28. You want/ed to hook up with your Student Fellow.

29. You’re SO PUMPED for Founder’s Day but you’ve never been.

30. You’ve snuck beer into an a capella concert.

31. You’ve hijacked the playlist at a party (not your own).

32. Every weekend, you complain about how far the TH’s are. But you always go.

33. You’ve gotten lost on the way to an off-campus party that is approximately two minutes from campus.

34. You want Juliet’s to turn into a Chipotle.

35. When drunk, you’re “the friend” who begs everyone to go to Bacio’s.

36. You’ve gone home with someone from Bacio’s.

37. You’ve quoted Freud in an essay for an Econ class.

38. You hadn’t heard of Danny Brown until ViCE announced the spring concert.

39. You’ve ranted on Say Anything about the lack of “real” relationship opportunities.

40. You’ve stared at Ferry people eating dinner and thought they couldn’t see you.

41. You’ve played Candy Crush on your phone while at a party.

42. You’ve said that TA parties are “classier.”

43. You were dancing on the stage at 50 Nights because you were “VIP.” 44. You’ve laid out on the quad in 50 degree weather, claiming “it’s sooo nice out!”

45. You use hashtags on FaceBook #ironically.

46. When you smoke at parties, you stand directly in front of the house.

47. You’ve cried directly outside a party.

48. You’ve puked directly outside a party.

49. You go to the library and socialize incessantly.

50. You scoff at this list, but secretly, you are perturbed because you fulfill too many of these qualities.

Scoring System: (1-9): You don’t actually go to Vassar. ~ (Mi-

chael) (10-25): You are #basic, but you are #basic in

the same way that everyone else is.

(26-40): You are so #basic that it’s your friends

mean secret nickname for you.

(41-50): I pity you, but also, I am you. Add me on FB!? ~ (Lily)

Eliot Marcus

Guest Columnist/Sunshine Enthusiast

T

his past Saturday, the god of sun decided to bless us with some of those rare vitamin D rays. The weather was perfect, the weekend was in full swing, and one of my friends decided to celebrate by drinking Bacardi 151 alone at eleven in the morning. Despite the fact that this is obviously socially acceptable because it was the first beautiful day of the year, he will remain anonymous, although I’ll give you a hint. He’s from the middle of nowhere in Maine and once crocheted his own recorder case*, an instrument which he plays at the level of “maestro.” After lounging on my lawn and working on burning my pasty Russian thighs, I decided to take a walk to the main quad. It was around noon and, much to my chagrin, the quad was essentially empty.

I get that you had a tough night at the Mug, but come on, folks; it’s seventy and sunny! I later heard tales of people partaking in illicit activities such as “going to the library” and “doing homework in my room.” At that point, I realized I needed to write a how-to guide on the topic of nice days at Vassar.

Side-bar: Due to fear of inciting a Reign of Terror-type mania on campus, I must clarify that if you were in the library working on your senior thesis, I love and support you fully.

Okay first off, listen up, underclassmen. I know you rationalize your indoor behavior by telling yourself you have two or three more years at this place. While that may be technically true, the fact of the matter is that in three years, you’ll probably get like sixteen nice days. Thirteen of them will be during finals.

On to more general advice for nice days.

Wake up early, burst into your friends’ rooms, jump on their sleeping bodies and scream “It’s mother*cking Christmas, wake the f*ck up.” It doesn’t matter if they celebrate Christmas, the idea is to get adrenaline pumping.

Next step, pick an outfit that shows some skin. Before Saturday, I’d forgotten how much I enjoy a good kneecap or elbow. While exposed joints could lead to your grandmother calling you “a broad,” we here at Vassar are a sexually-liberated folk. Let your freak flag fly and expose that wenis!

Start drinking early. If you’re not into alcohol, or you’re not yet twenty one (wink wink), do not fear. The point of drinking early is to

set the scene rather than *gasp* get inebriated. Choose your most bedazzled cup and your craziest straw and flaunt what your mother (impulse decision to purchase personalized cups) gave you.

Throw a football around with your friends.

Do your best to conceal the fact that every time someone walks by, you’re checking them out to see if they saw you throw that tight spiral, bro. Smile and laugh a lot so no one knows that this is actually the peak of your current athletic ability.

Side-bar: I think the hipster equivalent of the above situation is making a big show of rolling your own cigarettes on some isolated bench on campus. Tell everyone you only do it because it’s so much cheaper than buying packs at the store. Know deep down you love the way the tobacco matches your beanie which is currently causing you to sweat bullets because, you know, it’s seventy and sunny.

Bring speakers outside and play music.

Does anything scream “I’m in college and loving life” like bringing music outdoors? Nope.

How are people going to know how f*cking chill you are if they can’t hear you playing Bob Marley? Answer: no one will know how f*cking chill you are if they can’t hear you playing Bob Marley. Be f*cking chill. Play Bob Marley.

If you’re in the THs, start grilling early. I would definitely recommend an ironic apron.

When your friends ask you for food, make sure you ask them how they like their meat cooked.

Cook everything well-done anyways because, let’s be honest, you are not the grill master you claim to be. Tell everyone your grandpa taught you how to grill when you were seven. This will add a hint of romance to your hot dogs.

Take some time to close your eyes and lay out in the sun. Embrace the fact you’re borderline sexually aroused by sunlight at this point. We all feel it. It’s only natural. Pretend to read something by Faulkner or Nabokov while you’re lying down just so you can be so college. Do not even consider reading a single line of the book in your hands. Work can wait, there’s weather to be enjoyed.

Last, but not least, make sure you enjoy these few nice days with your friends. Awwwwww. *No, ladies, he is not single. I know, I know, only at Vassar.

2048 is probably the year that the world will end

by Lily Doyle, Humor & Satire Editor

T

he other night, attempting to get some semblance of research done for a research paper that I absolutely should have started work on two months ago, but Netflix, I realized that there was yet another way I could be procrastinating. This hip new game, 2048.

Okay, maybe not that new, because approximately half of my Facebook friends have posted pictures of their winning scores like proud parents of someone who just got into Harvard Law. I, naive and innocent as the day I was born, began to play.

This was the worst mistake I have ever made in my life. Goodbye, GPA. Goodbye, spending time with my friends. Goodbye, staying caught up on “Game of Thrones.” You are all second now. Second to 2048, the most terrible and wonderful game I have ever laid my eyes upon.

I have yet to get my tiles to reach the desired multiple of 2, but my housemate got there in less than two hours. Since then, I have serious-

ly questioned my worth as a human, and decided that since I clearly need to take a break from playing, I should get my feelings out in writing.

Reasons why 2048 is probably the end of the world: 1) It is literally so addicting that when I am not playing it, I am thinking about how to play it. I’m writing a goddamn article about it, after all.

2) It tricks you into thinking it involves math, but it doesn’t. It really just does some pretty basic addition. This is mean and terrible, because when you inevitably fail repeatedly at winning, you start to question your math skills.

At this point, you WILL cry under a table for at least 30 minutes.

3) Once you realize it doesn’t involve math, you start believing in luck. You’ll start muttering to yourself under your breath while you binge eat peanut butter pretzels, “the odds are in my favor…I must win eventually…I don’t

need to sleep…” These mutterings will continue to spiral into the until-now unexplored depths of your consciousness. Crazy places.

Places that will make you do weird things like create a massive 2048 grid on your bedroom floor out of ketchup and then roll around in it, yelling “AM I GOOD ENOUGH YET!? WILL YOU TAKE PITY ON ME NOW, OH CRUEL MISTRESS!?”

4) After you recover from what most people would call a “psychotic break,” you will talk to your housemate about the game, trying to seem casual. She mentions that she recently won. You will secretly plot your revenge, while smiling and congratulating her. She looks a little off-put by your unusually high pitched laughter and the way you are stroking your eyebrow with a butter knife, but she knows you love her.

5) Instead of turning in any more papers for the rest of the year, you will turn in print outs

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

of your 2048 score. Because, of course, reaching 2048 isn’t good enough. Then you have to reach 4096. You give up on the idea of ever having children or getting married. Nobody has time for that.

I would like to take this time to note that if anyone comes up to me after reading this article and says, “Hey, Lily, after reading this I played 2048 and I won my FIRST TIME EVER PLAYING!” I reserve the right to punch you in the left ear and then tar and feather you, just like in the good old days, before anyone knew what 2048 was.

Editor’s note: Aforementioned housemate, Eliana Catsworth, has since realized that she was not, in fact, playing 2048, but a much larger scale version of the game where instead of 16 tiles there are 25. She therefore has not actually beaten the game. On a totally unrelated note, she has recently reported feeling “much safer sleeping at night.”

ARTS

Page 14

April 17, 2014

Exhibit embodies students’ search for individualized style Jake Solomon Guest reporter

M

any artists dream of seeing their work exhibited in a formal gallery setting, but not all of them get the chance to do so. Painting is a long and arduous process, so when these types of artistic endeavors culminate in exhibits, it is extremely rewarding for the artist. Recently, a handful of lucky Vassar students were awarded this opportunity, and their artwork is currently adorning the walls of the James W. Palmer Gallery.

The James W. Palmer Gallery hosts about eight major shows a year. Although oftentimes exhibits include the work of highly acclaimed and established artists, the Palmer is known for bringing together the work of artists of all different backgrounds, levels of experience and styles. The Palmer’s April 10th to 15th exhibit featured an eclectic collection of paintings by

Vassar students working in the studio art program, with subject matter as varied as the styles employed by the students.

Each student enrolled in Art Professor Peter Charlap’s Painting I class was able to exhibit three pieces, voted upon by fellow Painting I students, from their larger bodies of work. The exhibit is thus truly a student exhibit: The students dictated the show’s content in entirety.

The students are all grateful to get the chance to display their artwork to the Vassar community, and agreed that this publicity can be very beneficial in enriching their artistic development. Having people view one’s art, said Nicole Schonitzer ’16, is not only gratifying just by virtue of attracting an audience, but also in the new perspectives these viewers can offer.

Schonitzer, whose work is being shown in the gallery, said, “Having my work on public display has definitely made me consider in more depth

courtesy of OlgaVoyazides

Olga Voyazides’ paintings were among those featured at the Palmer Gallery April 10 through 15. Next week photography students’ work will adorn the walls, followed by pieces from the Painting II class.

what people take away from it when they look at it. It’s made me put more consideration into the role of the viewer and how they interact with the art. It feels good just to know that it’s getting out there and producing some kind of reaction from people, whatever that may be.”

The artists featured in the show are enrolled in studio art classes at Vassar, but much of their previous experiences along with their collegiate training informed their current styles. “I’ve been doing art since I was a kid and have been taking art classes in school and in the summer since I was very young. I’ve also always done art on my own and experimented with many different mediums,” said Schonitzer.

Even though many of the artists with work being shown in the Palmer are experienced, many of them are still finding their own individual artistic style. This adds to the allure of this exhibit because while viewers can appreciate the pieces as finished products, the learning process also remains a visible component.

Olga Voyazides ’16, another artist featured in the show, said, “I don’t know if I have a style yet. That’s a great part of Painting I for me— experimenting with different style to see what you like, and what suits you. I’ve always loved Lucien Freud’s style, and I tried to emulate it in my self-portrait.”

Voyazides is certainly not alone in her search for an individual style. Angela Brown ’16 is also a member of the Painting I class and had the opportunity to show her work in the Palmer Gallery. She said, “[My artistic style is] confused, definitely. There is something undeniably satisfying for me about color relationships and the fact that paint is just a material on a surface. I don’t think I’ve ever made a great painting, but the fact that paint is an object and canvas is an object and the things around me are objects is beautiful enough to try.”

The Painting I class has not only helped these artists fine-tune the way that they paint, but it also makes them think about their works in a more in-depth manner. Brown said, “I think this year in Painting I has been about trying not to let what you’re painting take over the fact that

what you’re creating is a painting first, and maybe a representation of something after.”

Although these artists are taking the same course at Vassar, they fascinated by seeing how they have each developed their own personal way of creating art. Brown said, “It’s been really interesting to see people develop their own ‘style.’ Progress is different for everyone, so what’s different in all of our work is due to the fact that we’re all seeing different things every day, speaking to different people, thinking different things. I like to think that every brushstroke is the product of a lifetime of experiences, but I realize how overly-romantic that sounds.”

Many of these contrasting styles came about due to the different inspirations that these artists had while painting. Schonitzer said, “The inspiration for my art depends a lot on the context in which I’m making it. When I’m doing art on my own or am given an assignment that allows me to have more control over the situation, I would say inspiration plays more of a role, although it’s still very much a response to my environment. Other works of art, music and design I come across, nature, dreams and the personalities of my friends have all served as sources of inspiration.”

Many of the student artists gather inspiration from other classes in which they are enrolled, outside of the field of studio art. Voyazides said, “Being in Intro to Art History at the same time as being in Painting I definitely helped keep me inspired while doing my paintings. Seeing amazing, famous pieces of art before going to do a painting constantly gave me ideas to try new techniques and styles.”

This exhibit is especially exciting for some of the students because this is the first time that some of them have had the chance to display their work.

Voyazides said, “It’s my first time having my work exhibited, and it’s so exciting to see it up!

It’s a satisfying feeling to see the best of my class’s work displayed so nicely on the walls.

So far, our work hasn’t been looked at outside of the classroom, so it’s great to know we have another audience.”

Up-and-comers Brown, Lunice promise energized concert Nathan Bazan Guest reporter

A

courtesy of booking.com

t a small liberal arts college, having a major artist come to campus always creates a buzz and calls for students from all corners of campus to unite at a single venue.

Solange’s performance last semester made for a huge turnout from students of all four years. The spring concert, however, will host not just one major name, but two: Lunice and Danny Brown.

In years past, the annual Spring Concert has featured artists such as Le1f, Titus Andronicus and Das Racist, but this year’s lineup calls for a level of exhilaration previously unattained.

Rather than having a single main artist, the Spring Concert will feature Danny Brown and Lunice co-headlining with MC Grizzz, who will start off the show. All three artists brings their own approach to entertainment, and the Vassar community is already abuzz.

Rolling Stone recently named Danny Brown’s album “Old” as being one of the 50 best albums of the year, proving that Brown’s appeal expanded beyond being that of a purely niche artist. Due to recent and frequent media coverage, Brown has become mainstream within the hip-hop community.

Known for his tongue-twisting wit and unflinchingly honest portrayal of life in Detroit, Brown seems to have matured and come into his own stylistically with the release of his latest album “Old.” His latest album sets its focus on the challenge of balancing the duality of playful absurdity and crushing reality. Brown has been acclaimed as a recording artist many times over, but his onstage persona may be what has brought him the most fame. Beyond the onstage antics and controversy, he is known for consistently bringing an unrivaled energy to his live performances. Brown’s performance at Vassar is a part of “The Old Danny Brown Tour”, and is sure to maintain the energy that Danny Brown brings to larger venues in a more intimate setting.

Hailing from Montréal, Lunice is a produc-

er and DJ who proves himself to be a talented collaborator time and time again, but his solo endeavors prove to be the best expression of his creativity. Well-known for being half of the production duo TNGHT with Hudson Mohawk, Lunice has also worked with artists such as Kanye West and Azealia Banks. He is an artist whose style can be described, at its best, as infectiously energizing and, at worst, as grimy beyond belief in terms of his lyrics and sound.

Within the electronic music scene, Lunice has paid his dues with the release of 11 mixtapes in the last 8 years and multiple EPs by himself, as well as with TNGHT. Beyond the quality of the set Lunice will be playing, the venue itself will further ensure that attendees enjoy the event to the fullest extent. The Spring Concert will combine the jam-packed attendance of Mug nights with the palatial space of the Villard Room.

MC Grizzz is a hip-hop artist who mirrors Danny Brown in his ability to have fun with his music while possessing the lyrical chops to maintain a laser-like focus on serious subject-matter. MC Grizzz also happens to be a Vassar alum, so it’s undoubtable that he’ll be able to bring his best performance to a venue to which he has such a significant and direct connection. Aggressively real at times and immeasurably fun always, MC Grizzz’s set will showcase his distinct and individualized lyrical flow and avant-garde beats.

For a period, it seemed that concerts at Vassar did not feature very much diversity in terms of genre or style, but anyone who looks at recent lineups can see this has been the subject of significant change in recent years. This change is attributed to both a conscious effort to expand the focus of concerts and a natural shift resulting from the influence of new members within ViCE. Director of ViCE Maya Toler ’16 summarized this point of view by saying, “It just didn’t make sense to have an unknown headliner with such a large budget…students want to go see concerts by artists they’ve heard of.” This attitude is invaluable when one realiz-

ViCE and Hip Hop 101 are bringing Danny Brown and Lunice to campus for this year’s spring concert on Saturday, April 19 in Ballentine Field. MC Grizzz will also be performing a special set for the show. es that the ultimate goal of the Spring Concert is to provide the Vassar community with entertainment that it’ll enjoy. Because the budget doesn’t allow for artists like Kanye West and Drake, artists featured in the Spring Concert are oftentimes starting on their rise to fame, which makes for an incredible opportunity to see world-class artists in a comfortable, intimate environment.

An important thing to consider when picking the artists for the Spring Concert is the fact that not everyone on campus will enjoy the lineup, no matter the genre or individual artist. To combat this, the ViCE general body instilled certain goals when brainstorming which bands to have perform. Maya Toler said, “[We chose] artists [that] we knew would put on a great show whether [attendees] were familiar with hip-hop or not.” It seems that this endeav-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

or has been successful, for WVKR DJ of Planet Tropicalia Gordon Schmidt ’17, said, “I never really heard of Danny Brown or Lunice before the concert announcement… [but I] imagine having fun dancing to and vibing out to [them] with friends in the moment.”

The artists featured in this year’s Spring Concert are all lauded in both the media and on campus as incredibly talented and more than capable of putting on an electrifying performance. According to Brian O’Connor ’16, “A walk through the Retreat can’t be completed without hearing someone talking about whether or not they’ll bring a blanket to Ballantine or seeing someone watching the video for ‘Dip.’” The overall attitude toward this coming weekend can best be summed up by O’Connor’s succinct statement: “Honestly, the concert is gonna be dope.”

April 17, 2014

ARTS

Page 15

Experimentation crescendos at showcases Samantha Kohl arts editor

W

Daniel Bogran Columnist

Dazed and Confused Richard Linklater Gramercy Pictures courtesy of ViCE Student Music

ith student bands like Vishnu Basement and SUPERTEEN recording albums and going on tour this summer, student music has been thriving as of late. In keeping with the particularly vibrant campus music scene, ViCE Student Music ensures campus singer-songwriters with the ability to perform for their fellow students on Wednesday Mug nights.

Student music at Vassar did not always have a constructive place to thrive. “When I was a freshman, Student Music was still kind of an undefined combination between Vassar Student Band Union, Vassar Singer-Songwriters, and ViCE After Hours,” said Sam Plotkin ’15, ViCE’s Student Music Chair.

Last year, ViCE Student Music evolved from an entertainment-based organization to a venue where students can perform original pieces.

“My job as Student Music Chair within ViCE is essentially to give student musicians the opportunity to play for their friends and peers in real actual live concerts, and not just quick guitar jams on the quad—not that those aren’t the best,” said Plotkin. “Everyone who wants a chance to play should have one. As someone who was denied the opportunity to play a showcase freshman year, I think I understand the value of that.”

ViCE Student Music assists campus artists in a number of ways. The organization’s main order of business is to give students the chance to perform their music live. In addition, ViCE Student Music has been recording these showcases for campus singer songwriters to use in order to promote their own artistry. Eventually, Student Music intends to produce a compilation album of these recordings.

These showcases also allow for a range of artists, from the experienced sort to the novices, to perform in an inclusive and open environment. “To be fair, I’ve never actually played with student music before but I’ve been to maybe two of the showcases this year,” said Owen Harrang ’16, who will perform in this

ViCE Student Music has been holding singer songwriter showcases in the Mug all year. This week’s showcase will feature artists Sophie Hessekiel, Shira Idris and Owen Harrang at 8 p.m. Wednesday.

Wednesday’s showcase. “It just seemed like a really casual group of people who are just showing off their stuff. There were all types of music: singer-songwriters, pop, country, folk. If nothing else, it’s interesting to see what kind of music other people are listening to and playing.”

Student Music provides campus musicians with entirely new and different experiences that ultimately allow them to grow as artists.

“Writing a song in your room is different than playing it in a show, but all the people that go to it are all pretty much in the same boat so it’s a very relaxed environment,” said Harrang.

“I think anyone who plays music should come and perform, because secretly it’s what everyone who picks up a guitar wants to do.”

The casual nature of the series also allow for artists to have an experimental approach to their performances.

Sam Diffenbaugh ’14 said, “This last showcase I made the set list a few hours beforehand and played a bunch of stuff I had never played in public and just written. It was really liberating (not to be too cliché) to just play songs without having any idea where they are going or how I’m going to wrap them up. It’s a fun challenge to realize halfway through a song that you’ve never played the whole thing and you haven’t Googled the tabs for the ending.”

Apart from gaining performance confidence and skill, the series encourages students to develop their sets and collaborate with other musicians.

“Everyone was having so much fun, and it was the best kind of atmosphere for making music,” Plotkin said. “It was the kind of environment where enough friends are there making you laugh and cheering you on that you just forget how to be nervous.”

Vassar trends inspired classic preppy style FASHION continued from page 1

itself,” Tuite said.

After graduating from Exeter, Tuite went into fashion journalism, a profession which required her to observe current style fads. Tuite quickly noticed a trend that harkens back to where she spent a year abroad. She said, “It was pretty easy to see just how influential a lot of these classic preppy styles are in contemporary fashion.”

From there, Tuite’s interest in Vassar and the other Seven Sister schools—Mount Holyoke, Bryn Mawr, Barnard, Smith and Wellesley—peaked. “I began working on a manuscript called ‘The Cultural History of Vassar in the Fifties’, which was wonderful and really Vassar-centric,” Tuite said. “In my research, I compiled so many incredible images from this one point in history that I decided to write a book in order to round up archival fashion, popular-culture images and trace the influence of style from the campuses into the fashion industry from the 19th century to present times.”

Tuite’s research, which entailed compiling vintage images of Seven Sister student life,included going through personal images from Seven Sisters students and college newspapers and yearbooks, as well as archival images from various fashion magazines, publishing companies, designer collections and advertisements.

By the time she finished combing through these materials, Tuite had nearly a thousand images that, for her, reflected the classic “Seven Sisters style” she set off to investigate. She then began to put the photos and clippings in conversation with each other, and began to notice a collective ebb and flow of collegiate fashion.

“As the look became bigger than the colleges themselves, it was really reflected in these fashion editorials and in the movies,” said Tuite.

“I started with collecting as many images as I possibly could and then fit them to show a progression.”

The book itself is divided into two sections.

The first focuses exclusively on the campus culture and style of the Seven Sisters schools.

‘Dazed’ continues to hold sway

In her first section, Tuite maps out the evolution of this style from the beginning of the century through the sixties and how these women went from wearing petticoats to bermudas and, eventually, to denim. “There’s this one image of Mount Holyoke girls blowing bubbles and wearing these wonderfully classic styles of riding boots and kilts and crewnecks,” said Tuite.

“It fully captures both what’s special at Mount Holyoke and the whole spirit of the Seven Sisters—the idea that these women really were changing American culture and ground-breakers for the rest of us.”

The second section explores how the Seven Sisters look manifested into American popular culture, fashion and even advertisements. “I look at how brands picked up on the style from menswear brands like Brooks Brothers. There is an entire chapter on Perry Ellis, who is an incredibly fascinating designer who regularly called on trends that you could find on Seven Sisters campuses,” said Tuite. “He actually named his garments after the Seven Sisters. He had a Mount Holyoke polo coat and a Vassar skirt-suit. He really found so much inspiration in the more classic side of the style but played with it to make it a bit more modern.”

Tuite then goes on to explore how the style influenced avant-garde to preppy designers, such as Marc Jacobs and J. Crew, who made the classic style accessible to larger audiences.

Tuite also observes the Seven Sisters style in today’s culture. Tuite said, “You see the inspiration of the trends in everything from ‘Mad Men’ to ‘Dirty Dancing,’ all through popular culture references and seeing where these references came through.”

While the book is titled “Seven Sisters Style,” Tuite stresses that the photos comment upon a lot more than clothing.

“It really is a lifestyle and is as much a part of women’s history and in defining 20th century femininity as it is with defining traditional American style,” said Tuite.

And certainly many things have changed since the inception of the Seven Sisters. To

start, Vassar is no longer solely a women’s college, and most of the photos Tuite researched were taken before the second-wave feminist movement. Isabel Marvel ’17 noted, “The style used to be Bermuda shorts and a blazer with knee socks and loafers, especially during the 50s, when women were starting the women’s liberation movement and taking on more powerful and ‘masculine’ roles. [This] contributed to their style and the way they carried themselves.”

Currently, students admit that there is no singular style that is characteristic of Vassar, Smith or Wellesley. “Trends are constantly changing, and I don’t think there is one style for today’s Vassar students. I think people dress in a wide spectrum of styles and that’s how it should be,” continued Marvel. “Finding one’s personal style is very important, and conforming to trends is a waste of money and time. Vassar students are known for their confidence, and it shows in the way they dress.”

And with campus fashion publications, such as the College Catalogue and Contrast, existing to celebrate personal style, students today cannot be sartorially categorized. “I think the Vassar style now a days is very individualistic,” said Paulina Vigoreaux ’17, who describes her style as trendy with a nod to the classic. “People express who they are through their clothes in a very open and welcoming environment.

Before, I guess it used to be very traditional and lady-like, whereas now it is sometimes that but also sometimes the total opposite.”

In tune with current Vassar students, Tuite acknowledges the limitations of Seven Sister style.

“In many ways, the book is trying to rehabilitate this idea of preppy as something that is cliché or non-inclusive,” said Tuite. “There are a lot of negative connotations with preppy. But for me, the Seven Sisters look is something that is really special and is very tied to achievement and these ground-breaking women. It’s that spirit that you can still find in the whole idea of campus dressing today.”

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

M

ovies are a medium which relies on youth. Precisely because of this, countless youth-centered entertainments fill up screens across America each year. But these aren’t really about youth so much as they are about what some Hollywood executive’s shaky vision of youth is. With very few recent movies treating their subject with the care it deserves, we are forced to look back.

Richard Linklater’s “Dazed and Confused” is some of the most fun you’ll have watching a movie. From start to finish, the characters in the film, penned by the gifted writer/director, act like friends you’ve never had before. There’s none of the trepidation of being the new guy—they welcome you, an outsider, into their weird little lives; their slavish self-perpetuated purgatories, their dreams, their hopes, their focus on becoming what they already are.

Though “Dazed” works in the “high school” film genre, it should, perhaps more appropriately, be thought of as a great “youth” film. Better yet, it should be thought of as art, something which movies rarely are. The film has an obscure structure. If you pay attention, you’ll see the film is segmented into three basic parts: day, night and the moon tower sequence. The film works as something with various peaks and valleys rather than something which reaches a grand climax at the end.

The film has some terrific moments. From a group of senior girls hazing soon-to-be freshmen to the beat of “Why Can’t We Be Friends” to a young Ben Affleck being humiliated by a set of young misfits, the film is made up of some of the most quotable dialogue, bouncy tone and memorable characters in recent film history.

Practically everyone in the film had a career after it was released. And though most everyone in the film is great, Parker Posey’s performance is a standout. Linklater knows how to get good performances out of actors. He even keeps their nervous tics and gestures (be sure to take a drink every time Wiley Wiggins touches his nose), knowing full well that this is now part of the character. It is the naturalness he chooses to celebrate rather than deprecate that gives his characters such life.

The lingo of the characters is as sporadic as their personalities. Conversations range from a rudimentary feminist reading of “Gilligan’s Island” to loquacious girls discussing rumors. Linklater is interested in the strange and out of the ordinary. By extension, so are his characters.

Many have commented on the anthropological nature of the film, but it goes beyond that. Linklater is attempting to capture and celebrate a certain set of spirits. The characters in the film embody the playful curiosity usually reserved for small children and philosophers; not yet stifled by ways of thinking, they remain open to possibilities.

Yet, many of the characters in the film seem fundamentally unhappy. “If I have to refer to these as the best years of my life, then I need to kill myself,” says Pink (Jason London), the film’s central character. Why should he feel this way? After all, we’ve had such a blast watching the events of the day unfold.

But we know what Linklater is up to. Illuminating the constant ‘Wow’ that breathes in every moment and his character’s inability to see it. We know all too well what Linklater is up to.

One of the frequently unsung heroes of the Generation X filmmakers as well as one of the most intelligent, Linklater eschewed being fully understood. His career and projects are eclectic and make his voice in cinema one of the most original around.

“Dazed and Confused” might just be his finest moment. It is a yes-saying film filled with Dionysian energy that’ll make you want to get drunk, get high, screw around, dance and ultimately participate in the ludicrous activity of life. Don’t be fooled into thinking that just because it’s a “high school movie” means it isn’t one of the better films produced in the last 20 years.

ARTS

Page 16

April 17, 2014

AMC’s ‘Turn’ fails to construct revolutionary spy saga Max Rook Columnist

Turn Craig Silverstein AMC Studios

A

MC’s new drama, “Turn,” based on the novel “Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring” by Alexander Rose, has one of the best opening credits sequences in recent memory. In 45 seconds of stark, highly stylized animation, the show presents a vision of a new type of Revolutionary War story: a rollicking piece of espionage and intrigue, one which finds a good measure of fun in the beginnings of modern spycraft.

Unfortunately, those opening credits are utterly mismatched to the content of the show itself, which is more tedious than thrilling.

“Turn” stars Jamie Bell as Abe Woodhull, a humble cabbage farmer who gets caught up in the conflict between rebels and redcoats when he is recruited by the Continental Army to spy on the British soldiers occupying the small New York town he calls home. Series creator Craig Silverstein is perhaps best known for creating the CW’s “Nikita,” another spy drama, but “Turn” misses out entirely on everything that makes a spy story interesting.

The show’s problems begin with its central character, Abe Woodhull, who is the type of protagonist willing to go to great lengths in order to avoid committing himself to any particular cause.

The show’s extra-long pilot spends a good chunk of its time setting up a preposterously complex scenario that basically forces Woodhull into his position as a spy. It’s a bizarre choice to devote so much time and energy to making it clear how much the show’s hero absolutely does not want to participate in any of the action that will drive the show forward.

Presumably, this was a choice made to create a

dramatic arc for the character.

The season will likely revolve around Woodhull becoming more ideologically aligned with the cause of the rebels, but in the pilot it just makes him a difficult character to understand.

Bell does his best to give the character consistency, but there simply isn’t enough there for him to work with.

Part of the reason for Woodhull’s inaccessibility as a protagonist is that the pilot relies far too heavily on expositional backstory. We learn how Woodhull was previously engaged to his childhood sweetheart, but the engagement was broken when he was unwilling to support the Patriot cause. That sweetheart instead married the local tavern owner and became Anna Strong, while Woodhull also found himself an alternative wife. That may sound callous, but it’s about all the information the show presents about Woodhull’s wife, Mary. We know they have a small child together, but that’s about it, as the show is much more interested in Woodhull’s not-so-secret love for his ex-fiancée, whom he quickly enlists to help him in his spy work. This entire romance subplot feels unnecessary, despite the amount of screen time devoted to it, but is helped by the excellent Heather Lind, who gives the pilot’s best performance as Strong.

Most of the problems I’ve mentioned are rooted in character, but the pilot also suggests some structural issues with the series going forward, chief among them being the way the show depicts the British army. One would hope that a modern, morally complex drama would treat the British with some degree of depth, but “Turn” instead paints them as disappointingly straightforward villains, gleefully exploiting and dismissing the people they are ostensibly protecting.

The two principal British characters in the cast are both oddly campy villains: Burn Gorman plays Major Howlett as a fussy, uptight officer more interesting in proving his intelligence than in controlling his men, and Samuel Roukin’s John Graves Simcoe is just absurdly

creepy. Making the British comic figures could work, but the show never displays a sense of humor in any other aspect, making these characters feel out-of-place. This also makes Woodhull’s moral dilemma about whether to join up with the Patriot cause seem even sillier, as it is enormously clear who are the bad guys in this situation.

All that being said, I’m hesitant to judge “Turn” too harshly based solely on the pilot.

Some of the character problems could well be ironed out over the next few episodes, when the show will be able to spend more time developing its relationships rather than simply explaining them. The pilot does do a decent job of establishing a visual style, albeit one that doesn’t do much to stand out from the look of most well-shot cable shows.

The most promising moment of the episode comes in the final ten minutes, which feature a small-scale battle scene that packs in more excitement than the rest of the episode combined. Hopefully, the show will make those types of scenes a constant feature, and not just because they’re more interesting than the standard two-person dialogue scenes that make up the rest of the episode.

This story is set during a time of war, after all, a fact which is easy to forget for much of the episode. That final battle scene is a reminder of gruesome violence going on all around these characters, and of the consequences should Woodhull’s deception be discovered.

That seems like the best possible avenue for “Turn” to explore going forward. The show is based on actual events—look up the Culper Ring if you’re curious about the historical basis—but those events are obscure enough that the show’s writers can easily revise anything that doesn’t fit their storyline. Normally I’d avoid calling for more violence in a television show, since there’s certainly enough of that to go around, but in this case it’s more that the show needs to fully explore the implications of its setting.

“Turn” clearly aspires to be a modern pres-

Epic ‘Rise’ pushes limits of stylized subject matter Isabella DeLeo

A

Reporter

ccording to playwright Bertolt Brecht, “murderers command too much respect from us.” Embracing this concept, Brecht wrote the play “The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui,” a story that allegorically examines Hitler’s rise to power through the lens of a fictional 1930s Chicago gangster involved in the green-grocery trade. Director and Vassar alumna Ianthe Demos ’00 will stage the production on April 17, 18 and 19 in the Martel Theater. Demos said, “My hope is that audiences will leave thinking about the relationship between violence and power in today’s world.”

Demos, who is the founder and current Artistic Director of New York City-based theater company One Year Lease (OYL), has stripped down the performance to its essence in order to best immerse audiences in the dramatic nature of the show. “His play is one of Brecht’s epic theater pieces, and the vocabulary of movement we’ve been working with can only be described as epic. The highly stylized nature of movement in this piece has been challenging because I’ve never done anything quite like this before as a performer,” wrote Aubrey Hays ’15. “I’m used to a different style of acting and performing; this epic movement has pushed me beyond my performance comfort zone, but the push was very welcomed and much needed.”

Tackling a show as rich as “The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui” certainly posed its challenges. “Bertolt Brecht as a playwright has been known for his ‘epic theater.’ Some of the challenges have come from trying to create this ‘epicness’ under the time constraints for a drama department show. We’ve been able to do it, but logistically it proved difficult at times. I think another challenge was trying to find the middle ground between a bombastic comedy and a horrifying interpretation of Hitler’s rise to power,” wrote stage manager Sar-

ah Freedman. Demos cites another challenge: trying to simplify grand, sweeping images to their core. “The challenge is always to make sure that the ‘less’ you are working on is so distinct, so crystal clear that it can support the story-telling.”

The raw energy of “The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui” is characteristic of Demos’ directorial work. She founded One Year Lease, which promotes physically charged and poetic ensemble-based theater, with fellow alumnae directly after graduating. In founding OYL, Demos and fellow alumnae sought to create as many directing opportunities for themselves as quickly as possible. Demos credits her Vassar experience for her love of theatre and for her artistic success. “[Vassar] was a wonderful time to be both brave and irreverent with the art form,” wrote Demos. “It gave me the space and the tools to keep growing artistically.”

Demos continues to grow as an artist and seeks to remain faithful to her artistic vision.

“We share stories with our audience that are at once simple in their starkness and complex in how they move through emotional landscapes and space. In these stripped down worlds we examine the human condition at its core.

We deliberately eliminate distraction,” wrote Demos.

Many of the actors appreciate the unique directing style of Ianthe Demos. “Working with Ianthe has been wonderful as she has provided us with a clear vision of what the world of this play is from the very first rehearsal,” wrote Hays. Despite the play’s heavy subject matter and raw physicality, Demos has still managed to maintain an element of lighthearted humor throughout the process.

To keep the experience positive, she focuses on the interchange occurring throughout the play. “The present is amplified and we are asked to exist only in the now,” wrote Demos.

“What makes live performance so beautiful is that we practice being present collectively.”

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

tige drama, as it shares surface-level stylistic traits with fellow AMC shows like “Breaking Bad” or “The Walking Dead,” but it misses out on the moral complexity that makes those shows so compelling.

The Revolutionary War setting seems like the perfect opportunity for that brand of story, considering most popular American fiction set in the period depicts that conflict as a simplistic battle between good and evil. It’s hard to imagine a TV show depicting, say, George Washington as anything other than a hero. In actuality, the war was not a simple battle between the heroic rebels and the villainous occupying forces. American families had to decide whom to side with, and it was by no means an easy choice.

“Turn” relies on the same old tired binary of good against evil, and as a result misses out on much of its potential complexity. Woodhull’s father is the one representative the show has of the Loyalist faction, colonists who sided with the British, and he comes across as a boringly stern authority figure.

Of course, it’s still very early going for the show, but even if it manages to adjust its moral landscape, there are still other problems to deal with. In addition to everything I’ve talked about here, the show’s writers also have historical fidelity to consider, as the story is based on actual events—look up the Culper Ring if you’re curious about the historical basis. Those events are obscure enough that absolute accuracy isn’t a necessity, but this is the type of show viewers can easily spoil for themselves on Wikipedia.

Other shows, such as HBO’s western “Deadwood,” have avoided this problem by introducing fictitious characters alongside those based in reality, and “Turn’s” writers would do well to follow that example.

It seems unlikely the show will ever adopt the whimsical tone suggested by the opening credits, but if the future episodes can do a better job of grounding the personal drama of this pilot, “Turn” could become a show with which it’s worth spending more time.

ADVERTISEMENT

ARTS

April 17, 2014

Page 17

‘Veep’ comedic, absurd spin on DC politics Harris Gurney Columnist

Veep Armando Iannucci HBO

“D

emocracy is so overrated” remarks the shrewd Frank Underwood in the Washington D.C thriller “House of Cards.”

While Netflix’s most popular drama satirizes the corrupt world of Washington D.C through the use of suspense and drama, another political show, “Veep,” demonstrates the same thesis on the futility of democracy in the completely opposite way using comedy and absurdity. The HBO show sharply uncovers the comedy in the inherent corruptness of American politics, as it demonstrates that politicians are inept narcissists and never determined reformers. Few comedy shows–I think the only other one is “Louie”–can tread the line between potent significance and hilarity as well as “Veep.”

In the wake of Colbert, Stewart and Underwood shedding light upon the often ludicrous nature of Washington, “Veep” follows female Vice-President Selina Meyer as she and her dedicated staff commit media faux-pas, make snide remarks to constituents and scheme to take power away from an unseen president, only referred to as “POTUS.” Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays Selina, fantastic in the role that has given her two Emmys. Selina is practically a clone of Elaine Benes, Louis-Dreyfus’s earlier career-making role on the 90’s mega-hit sitcom “Seinfeld” (also my favorite TV show).

As anyone who watches Seinfeld knows, Elaine is superficial, neurotic, bad-tempered and totally self-absorbed; her Selina is the same, but now the second most powerful person in the free world.

Unlike “House of Cards’” Frank Underwood, Selina’s corruption does not come from anything like murdering her enemies or manipulating politicians. Instead, she is corrupt in her political incorrectness, self-absorption and sarcasm. As an avid fan of both shows, I find myself rooting for Frank Underwood more than Selina Meyer. He is obviously a worse human

Campus Canvas

being, but he is also a better politician. I would prefer him as president to Selina because he is smart and capable while she is a spoiled narcissist.

As the April 6 season three premiere demonstrated, the new season will follow Selina’s presidential campaign, as the current President is not running for a second term. Selina will leave Washington and hit the campaign trail, giving her even more chances to express her gaffe-prone, foul-mouthed and impatient tendencies to potential voters. Now that the job of president is involved, we can be sure that the level of self-centeredness that the characters already exhibit will intensify in the coming season. I’m dubious of the long-term prospects of this storyline, since the show’s premise places her as the disgruntled VP, not as the powerful president.

“‘VEEP’ demonstrated the same thesis on the futility of democracy...”

In the season premiere, Selina is cut off from her staff on a book tour—a book her staff wrote for her—in Iowa. Now as any follower of politics knows, Iowa is the first state in the presidential primary and thus the most important campaigning state for any potential candidate.

We watch her as she mutters curses at the public, childishly rotates in a swivel chair and pokes fun of her new naïve aide.

During Selina’s absence, her staff attends the wedding of Mike, the apathetic director of communications. In order to avoid distraction, every wedding guest must place their cell phone in a box during the party. For a group of Washington officials, this is akin to solitary confinement, satirizing their dependence on a constant flow of information. Dan, the ambitious smooth talker, and his rival Amy, the pedantic chief of staff, both conceal a second phone in case of an emergency.

The focus of season three’s second episode, which premiered April 13, revolves around Se-

A weekly space highlighting the creative pursuits of student-artists

lina’s position on abortion. When POTUS suddenly switches his stance on abortion, Selina and the team must scramble to figure out her opinion on the hot button issue. It is apparent that Selina has no belief of her own and is looking to say whatever necessary to get elected. In the real world, the issue of abortion is usually tied to one’s political party—pro-life for Republicans and pro-choice for Democrats. But, the show never reveals her political party affiliation.

“Veep” tries very hard to be apolitical in order to be uncontroversial. This centrist approach makes sense in that the show is not actually about political issues, but the trade off is that the show can feel unnatural when it mentions a controversial issue such as abortion without actually addressing it in a political manner. Clarity in the show’s political inner workings would make the satire appear more real. Then again, the show’s comedy comes not from its political roots but from its witty writing and funny characters. In fact, the content matter of the politics, or the lack thereof, allows for the show’s focus to remain upon the absurdity of politics. The officials we elect are not focusing on their beliefs—which remain unclear to us as audience members—but are tied into the “game” of procuring their public image.

The reason you should watch “Veep” is because it is the best and smartest comedy writing currently on television; the off-the-cuff one-liners and witty disses make the show worth watching. In this sense, “Veep” is the comedic offspring of “The Office;” both shows focus on character relationships. Indeed, both shows are shot with a handheld camera in an improvised style. “Veep’s” depiction of office politics is much better than its depiction of real politics.

This is quite unfortunate for season three, which focuses mainly on the latter. But, it’s not politics that keeps me watching, it’s the characters. We laugh, while perhaps hiding our disgust, at the show’s characters’ clumsy and ridiculous antics. We are not annoyed with the ridiculous nature of D.C. politics because we are constantly reminded the show is not grounded in reality.

Nevertheless, the brunt of the joke isn’t the foolish characters themselves—we are the foolish ones for electing them.

Excuse me, Which famous artist would you like to do a nude portrait of you?

“Leonardo di Caprio in ‘Titanic.’”

—Nick Vargish ’16

“Alfred Stieglitz.”

—Ethan Cohen ’16

“Danny Brown,” —Sean Blaise ’17

submit to misc@vassar.edu

w

“Van Gogh or something.”

—Owen Harrang ’16

“Samantha Kohl.”

—Paul Younger ’17

This is a still taken from the end of a whirling tracking sequence, after the hero, Jake (Jake Namaroff ’16) circumambulates his way through a room full of swing dancers. More than just revealing his physical disorientation, Namaroff’s backwards glance expresses his psychological disintegration. His whole world has collapsed onto a single point of obsession. In this short film, titled “Allison, Everywhere,” Jake struggles to “pierce the veil of m�y�;” to solve the riddle of the sphinx; and to break the spell of his enigmatic ex-lover, Allison (Brittani Skyers-White ’16) whose essence inextricably entwines onto an incomprehensible new student at Vassar College. Cinematography credit to the illustrious Daniel “Rick” Bogran.

—Karam Anthony ’16

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

“Mark Bradford.”

—Emma Rose ’16

Spencer Davis, Photo Editor Samantha Kohl, Arts Editor

SPORTS

Page 18

April 17, 2014

Game, set, match: Cooper brings winning spirit to team Jonathan Safir reporter

M

Sam Pianello/The Miscellany News

en’s tennis player Daniel Cooper was only 12 years-old when he realized that he loved tennis. Even though he first picked up the racquet at age eight, it was not until he took lessons and played in tournaments where he developed a true passion for the game. Fast-forwarding to the present, Cooper is now a sophomore and a team captain for the Brewers.

Originally, Cooper only realized that he loved tennis after he quit playing basketball. This lead him to take sports much more seriously, and his high school team was able to achieve quite a bit of success during his time there.

“My team won league all four years, won sectionals my freshman and senior years, and lost in sectionals finals my sophomore and junior years,” he wrote in an emailed statement. “I was named All League for four years, All Section my junior and senior years, named MVP freshman year, and won the league and section doubles championship my senior year.”

Cooper has continued with this level of success into his collegiate career. So far during his sophomore year, Cooper is 7-6 in singles play, and 7-8 in doubles play, including currently-held records of 3-1 in singles and 4-1 in doubles during Liberty League play. Cooper is currently on a three-game winning streak for singles and is on a four-game win streak in doubles play with partner Alexander Luckmann.

This includes going against the other team’s top opponent in both the singles and doubles matches, including being 1-0 against regionally ranked players. Those numbers are extremely strong for third on the Vassar College men’s tennis team in wins in singles play, and the first on the team in doubles. “Individually, I started off the season slow as I adjusted from playing four last year to one this year, but have recently been doing very well, winning over regionally-ranked opponents in my most recent singles match and doubles match,” wrote Cooper. As for the rest of his team, Cooper is impressed.

“Our season is going very well, considering that we only had two returning starters,” remarked Cooper. “I think we have exceeded expecta-

tions.” The team currently has an overall record of 9-8 and is 4-1 in the Liberty League.

According to teammate Christian Lyon, a junior, Cooper is a dependable and consistent teammate. “Cooper is the type of teammate that everyone hopes they have—he really does it all. He is always working hard in practice and is a leaser on and off the court.”

Lyon continued, “During matches, Coop is the guy you can count on to get the win, but he also provides a lot of energy that helps everyone else too. Even last week when Coop was hurt he was a big influence on the match, supporting everyone during their matches. I think Dan’s expectations are the same as the team’s goals, we want to win Liberty Leagues and win a round at nationals.”

Lyon also wrote that, “I don’t think Coop would be satisfied with only individual success as for him its all about the team.”

Sophomore Evan Udine also agreed with Lyon’s statements about Cooper’s energy and dedication to his team.

“Cooper is a great teammate. He always brings high energy to practice and matches, and does everything he can to support us,” Udine wrote in an emailed statement. “After our win against RPI, we can really say that our team goal is to win the Liberty League. I know Cooper had wanted to achieve an individual regional ranking, and that was accomplished after our RPI victory.”

Udine also wrote that, “As a player, Cooper is a fighter. He leaves everything on the court whether he is playing an easy match, or against one of the top players in the country. He plays every match like it is going to be the deciding point.”

On both March 31 and April 7, Cooper was named Liberty League Performer of the Week, and on April 3, he was named Eastern College Athletic Conference Division III Upstate Men’s Tennis Player of the Week.

“What I enjoy the most about tennis at the collegiate level is the team aspect—in high school, tennis was primarily an individual sport,” explained Cooper. “There is great chemistry and camaraderie amongst the team, I’ve

Daniel Cooper is a co-captain of the Vassar College men’s tennis team. Cooper plays as one of the top seeded singles and doubles players for the team. Men’s tennis aims to reclaim the Liberty League title. really loved bonding with the guys and being a part of something so special this season.” As a freshman last season, Cooper went 13-11 in singles and 15-8 in doubles, including 3-1 in conference play for both singles and doubles while spending the majority of his time in the four hole.

Hailing from Piedmont, California, Cooper was actually not a complete stranger to snow and the east coast, as he has family in both New York City and Connecticut whom he visited on occasion.

Still, he claimed that it was “tough to adjust to New York winters.” Still, the New York winters would not turn Cooper away from choosing Vassar College. “I chose Vassar because I had an awesome overnight, loved the coach and all the guys on the team and the campus vibe,” he wrote. “Other schools that accepted me were Wesleyan, Tufts, Colorado College, Colgate and Hamilton.”

Cooper is now a Biology major, and is interested in evolution and development. Cooper’s main hobby outside of competitive tennis is to casually play other sports. In his spare time, Cooper practices intramural volleyball and fire tennis, in which the tennis ball is set on fire.

Cooper is furthermore a fan of his home town sports teams: in particular, the Golden State Warriors.

Coopers has some superstition to his game: “Between every point, I readjust my hat, shorts, and shirt and go to my towel.”

The men’s tennis team’s final home match will take place on Saturday, April 19 against Hobart College at 9 a.m. The Liberty League Championships will take place during the following weekend, from Friday, May 2nd to Sunday, May 4th at a location to be determined.

The team will need Cooper to continue to come up big if they are going to make a run in the Liberty League tournament and beyond.

Women’s golf looks ahead after difficult tournament GOLF continued from page 1

freshmen to make up the team.

Next year, they will welcome back junior Caitlin Bell, who is currently spending a year studying at Dartmouth University.

Despite the youth, the team has a solid group of talent. This season has been all about improving whatever each individual can in order to help make the team better.

According to Dubois, the golf team’s focus during the practices of this year has been improvement and focus. This has not been an issue for the Brewers, who constantly strive for excellence. “We’re continuing to focus on improvement, experience and practicing as much as we can. With golf the cycle of improvement never ends, so golfers are always trying to get to the ‘next level,’” she explained in an emailed statement.

“While our levels are all slightly different, we’re encouraging and challenging each other and making each other better players because of it,” she wrote.

“We’re optimistic about the rest of the season, but not getting ahead of ourselves. For instance, this week, we’re just thinking about next weekend’s tournament. The next week we can focus on the one after that—the Liberty League Championship,” she continued.

The team’s relative youth excites Dubois, especially as she is looking forward into the Varsity golf program’s future. “This year’s team is young and already really close,” wrote Dubois.

“That means that looking forward to the future of the team is really exciting because we’re only going to improve — both as individual players and as a team.”

courtesy of Vassar College Athletics

on the two days. Jimenez lowered her score from 91 to 90 on the second day to give her 181 and tied her for 42nd place. Howland chalked up a 93 to finish tied for 53rd. This was five shots better than her personal best from back in October. Vonhundley improved for her second collegiate round by carding a 117 and shaving off six shots from her total the previous day.

Mentel was incredibly proud of her team’s spirit and intensity this weekend, allowing for one of her favorite memories of golf at Vassar thus far.

“This weekend is fresh in my mind, and I remember all of our team members exchanging fist bumps and getting really pumped for day one,” she wrote in an emailed statement. “The weather was beautiful, our team was in great spirits, and some great golf was played. Overall, Saturday was one of the greatest days of golf I remember of my Vassar career.”

However, Mentel was not only impressed with her team’s spirit, but also their play on the course. “The Vassar Invitational this past weekend was our last match. I am incredibly proud of Aimee Dubois, who scored 169 for the two days and managed an amazing ranking within the field against some very challenging opponents,” she explained.

She continued, “Storm posted her first score as a Golfing Brewer, and I was so proud of her spirit and desire to score well. She posted a good total for her first collegiate match. Our senior, Paloma, had two solid rounds this weekend and helped us on day one to finish about St. Lawrence.”

She continued, “Diana also had a stellar day two, and I am so glad to see her reaching her potential. She has a very powerful swing and her short game is always getting better. I can’t wait to see the amazing rounds in her future.”

This year’s team is young but focused. The team is small, boasting just one senior. It graduated two seniors last year and is currently made up of only one senior, two sophomores and two

Sophomore women’s golf player Aimee Dubois hits her driver off the tee on one of the holes of the course. The women’s golf team placed 9th out of 12 teams at a two-day tournament over the weekend.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

She continued, “The cohesiveness of the team, coupled with the evolving talent, will only lead to good things from the Vassar women’s golf team.”

Between a variety of factors, including the many changes they’ve faced starting this Fall and their overall youth, it’s been a unique year for the Brewers according to Howland. “I think there are a lot of changes, a new coach, a new home course, it’s definitely an interesting year,” wrote Howland.

Despite all these changes and the long winter break from tournament play during the fall, Dubois is incredibly optimistic about her team’s remaining two tournaments for the spring season. “This fall, we went through some big changes — a new coach, a new home course and adjusting to a small team with one senior, two sophomores and a couple of freshmen,” explained Dubois.

She continued to say that, “The fall was definitely an adjustment, which I’m sure affected all of our play. With that said, the spring is going well. The long winter set us back a bit for practicing, but our first tournament showing went pretty well for all our players, and we’re looking forward to competing in our next two tournaments!”

Mentel is focused on the team’s potential and is ready for it to really shine in the upcoming Liberty League Championships in two weeks. ”Our team has potential to succeed this season,” she wrote.

“I’m excited to see some really good rounds from Aimee, and some more solid scores from Paloma, Diana and Storm,” she wrote. “I feel that all of us had a new personal best in us somewhere, and I’m really hoping to see those rounds come out during the Liberty League Championships.”

The women’s golf team is back in action April 19-20 in Amherst, Mass. at the Jack Leaman Invitational. They will then compete at the Liberty League Championships April 26-27 in Albany, N.Y.

April 17, 2014

SPORTS

NBA star rivalry sparks debate among fans Eli J. Vargas Columnist

T

he Lebron James-Kevin Durant rivalry that has been developing for the past few years is the closest thing that many of us will ever be able to see comparable to that of the great 80s Magic Johnson-Larry Bird rivalry. The two feuds are completely different, considering that the rivalry between Magic and Bird extended back even into their college years, including a larger team rivalry associated with the Laker for life, Magic Johnson, and the Celtic for life, Larry Bird.

But the situation is similar in regards to the level of excitement that many of us receive while watching the two players go at each other. What would make this rivalry all the better would be for Durant’s Oklahoma City Thunder to face off against James’ Miami Heat.

There are no guarantees that this will happen because there are many great teams in this year’s playoff race, which is good for basketball as a whole, but bad for those looking for an exciting storyline.

As of this year, however, forgetting that both players have teams that can affect the outcome of their championship aspirations (which we sometimes forget because they are both capable of completely taking over games at times), the rivalry has intensified in recent history.

“There are many great teams in this year’s playoff race, which is good for basketball as a whole...”

What may be the biggest reason for the intensification of this rivalry is that Kevin Durant has seemingly been on equal footing with, or perhaps even higher footing than, Lebron James with his play this year.

Lebron James has won the NBA Most Valuable Player award the past four out of five years, and one of the only reasons that he didn’t win it all of those years was because of voter fatigue in the 2010-2011 season, since his greatness on the basketball court had become quite boring because it was almost automatic.

This year, however, it appears that Kevin Durant will win by a landslide—and it has nothing to do with the panel of voters being tired of Lebron James, even though he has still been quite good this year in his matches.

Even Lebron James has been quoted to abdicate the MVP throne to the towering Kevin Durant.

Kevin Durant has averaged a ridiculous 31.9 ppg with 5.5 apg and 7.5 rpg, compared to Lebron’s 27.1 ppg, 6.4 apg and 6.9 rpg, but what may have clinched the MVP for him this year is the fact that the other primary threat on the Thunder, Russell Westbrook (21. 9 ppg, 6.9 apg), has been injured for a decent part of the season.

Despite this, Durant not only kept his team winning games, but they won games against good teams in that time span and made it look effortless.

What James always seemed to have over Durant was better defense, but Durant, who is not an imposing presence on the floor whatsoever, has begun to use his height to his advantage and establish himself as a defensive presence, or at least not a liability, while James’ defense has seemed to wane this season.

Durant just finished a stretch of 41 games in which he scored at least 25 ppg, which passed the almighty Michael Jordan’s mark for second most games of at least 25 ppg, only trailing Wilt Chamberlain, who averaged 50 ppg back when television was black and white.

All of this may make it appear like Kevin Durant has passed the great Lebron James, but that is definitely not the case in a year in which it seems that James has coasted, despite putting up yet another year of impres-

sive numbers. It may be that James understands that the season is long, and as he ages, his health is becoming more important for the playoffs, because Most Valuable Player awards aren’t the goal; NBA Championships are.

For a player who has been said to be the best player in the game for the past five years, this is good for the rivalry, and, more importantly, for basketball. With all of these super teams that have begun to form as of late, let’s be thankful that Durant and James haven’t found themselves on the same team—and hopefully never will—because it is no fun seeing the same team win ten years in a row.

The debate of who is better between the two players in the league has been raging for the past two seasons, and now it is reaching new heights.

“The debate of who is better between the two players has been raging for the past two season...”

Something tells me that this question won’t be answered for a few more years, as Durant is still four years younger than Lebron and, unbelievably enough, might still be developing and growing as a player in the sport of basketball.

Lebron James of the Miami Heat is a competitor, and losing the MVP to Kevin Durant, someone who is four year his junior in the sport, will only add more fuel to the flame.

So, expect Lebron James to come back even better than this year, and let’s all hope that Kevin Durant’s Thunder and Lebron James’ Miami Heat meet in the NBA Finals this year, because both will have something to prove to the other on the big stage in what has become one of the greatest rivalries in the NBA in years.

Spurs players hold top spot in spite of age Zach Rippe Columnist

D

espite having a 37-year-old Tim Duncan, a 36-year-old Manu Ginobili and a 31-year-old Tony Parker, the San Antonio Spurs have won over 60 games this season.

In fact, they also will have the best record of any team in the NBA this year. But to the Spurs, this success has become commonplace. While the Spurs nurse their fourth 60-win season since 2003, 29 teams look on envious, but no longer surprised.

Since Greg Popovich took over the head-coaching job way back in late 1997, the Spurs have only finished under .500 once and have won 50 or more games an astonishing 16 times. During Pop’s first year as coach, the team finished 20-62, yet their poor record allowed them to select Tim Duncan with the first overall pick in the NBA draft and the rest has been history.

As a matter of fact, the Spurs have made the playoffs every year for the past 17 years, winning the NBA championship four times.

The only season they did not win 50 or more games during this run was a strike-shortened season where the season itself was 50 games long. The Spurs won the NBA championship that year.

What San Antonio has is perhaps the perfect combination of talent, veteran leadership and coaching. There is no doubt that Greg Popovich deserves a spot amongst the all-time great head coaches. His winning percentage is third all time, trailing only Billy Cunningham and Phil Jackson.

Perhaps what makes Popovich truly unique, especially for this age, is that he has done all of his winning with the same core group (Duncan, Ginobili and Parker) for the entirety of his coaching career. Duncan alone is a surefire hall-of-famer, while the other two are all-stars who just happened to be the perfect fit for the perfect system.

The Spurs are quiet, refined and dignified.

They are rarely flashy, yet rely on teamwork

and efficiency to consistently dismantle opponents.

Perhaps what is truly a testament to Popovich’s coaching skills, however, is the fact that other than their core three, San Antonio can throw any combination of random players out on the floor and turn them into winners. Due to their success, the Spurs have not had many early first round draft picks, yet they always manage to find steals in the season draft.

“San Antonio has...the perfect nucleus of talent, veteran leadership, and coaching.”

Players like Kawhi Leonard, George Hill, Gary Neal and Tiago Splitter have all been productive in recent years for the Spurs, despite being later first-round picks. This, too, is a testament to Pops, as he is able to juggle the development of young players while winning games. When Danny Green entered the league, he sat the bench for the Cleveland Cavaliers, yet just a few years later with the Spurs he was transformed, breaking the record for most three point field goals made in a finals series for the season by an individual player.

Despite the tremendous success of San Antonio Spurs, everyone knows that their dominance in the game of basketball cannot last forever. Manu Ginobili is getting older, and is production is slipping (albeit slowly). Tim Duncan is also human, and his age will eventually catch up to him. Tony Parker, while only 31, will most probably be the last Spur left of this dynamic trio; however, bar-

ring a few amazing drafts and signings, his final days will not be as glorious as these.

That begs the question, how long will the Spurs be this good?

If this season has been any indication, they are not done yet. Tim Duncan seemed to be slowing down during the 2010-2011 season, when he averaged 13.4 ppg and 8.9 rebounds per game in 28 minutes per night; yet despite a reduction in minutes, his averages have slightly risen the past few years.

Obviously he is not nearly as durable as he was during his younger years, but he and Ginobili make the Spurs as dangerous as ever for this year.

The loss of Duncan and Ginobili will impact the Spurs franchise just as much off the court as they would on it. Their veteran presence, knowledge and image have no doubt helped Popovich maintain his image and poise during his tenure as coach. Duncan, one of the greatest power forwards of all time is calm, kind, soft spoken and has an extremely high basketball IQ. Perhaps he could work his way into the Spurs front office or coaching staff upon retirement and ease the inevitable transition process?

Regardless of who the Spurs have, they will remain a winning team, as long as Greg Popovich is their coach. How much they win is still undetermined, however. As fans of the game, we should appreciate just what Pops has done for this generation of the NBA. We must acknowledge that we are witnessing the sunset of the golden age of the San Antonio Spurs. They are truly an amazing team in the league and are up there with some of the best teams of today. They may not be as powerful as the Heat’s big 3 and their championships, or as dominant as the Thunder with their high powered duo of Durant and Westbrook, yet they know how to win, sustain success and play like a team better than any other team this century. They deserve to be recognized for that.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Page 19

Masters ushers golf’s best to green Clyff Young

Guest Columnist

T

he Masters, the first major golf tournament of the year played at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, is the single best event of the PGA Tour season. It is truly special. Of the four major tournaments, the other three being the U.S. Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship, the Masters is the only one that is played at the same golf course every year—the same supremely spectacular golf course. And whereas the trophies for the other three majors are silver jugs, the winner of the Masters gets a green sports coat with three gold buttons and the Augusta National logo over the heart.

This year, like every year, the course was resplendent, the drama and emotion running high.

What was is it that George W. Bush said? “Fool me once…shame on…shame on you. Fool me once can’t get fooled again.” That is indeed the quote. Ironically, a golfer from Bagdad (no “h”), Florida had many golf fans stumbling over that same bit of laconic wisdom at sundown in Georgia as the Masters drew to a close. Gerry Lester Watson Jr., popularly known as Bubba Watson, won his second Green Jacket today, leaving his naysayers again with their tongues tied.

Although Bubba had previously won on the PGA tour, he cemented his presence by improbably winning the Masters two years ago in a playoff against South African golfer Louis Ooshuizen. Fool me once.

It had to have been a fluke. Here’s a left-handed guy who taught himself how to play golf. He hits the ball a mile and takes unnecessary risks, but is enormously creative with his play, creating shots that others simply couldn’t. His swing isn’t the perfectly balanced, rhythmic stroke of Masters winners past. After every shot he takes, Watson leans dramatically, further affecting his off kilter look. In other words, Watson is as unconventional as golfers come. And he just won golf’s most conventional tournament for the second time in three years. Because of his natural talent, few doubted that Watson could win a tournament here or there on the PGA Tour, but for him to be a multiple major winner defies all logic. Did the golf world get fooled again this evening? Maybe.

Or maybe Bubba Watson is actually a great golfer.

All signs point to the latter after today. The final three holes on the front nine prove as much. Watson began the day in the final pairing with 20-year-old phenom Jordan Spieth, both of them at five under par.

On the par-three sixth hole, Spieth holed a near-impossible bunker shot to get him to seven under par, then followed that up with a birdie on the seventh to get him to eight under par and two shots clear of Watson. Bubba also birdied the sixth, albeit in less fabulous fashion, but after a par on the seventh, it seemed like momentum had shifted irreversibly in Spieth’s favor. Over the course of the next two holes, though, Watson would his mettle as a physically and psychologically gifted golfer. He could have collapsed; his will could have been broken following the furious charge of his young playing partner. The par five eighth and par four ninth both yielded birdies for Watson. Meanwhile, Spieth misplayed a chip that lead to a bogey on the eighth and followed that up with a bogey on the ninth. Where once Spieth had lead by two, he was now trailing by two. It was a four-shot swing in two holes. Finally, it was clear who was mentally ready to win the Masters. Watson wouldn’t relinquish the lead after that point, eventually winning by a comfortable three strokes.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this year’s Masters tournament is that Tiger Woods missed playing in the event for the first time since 1996. Perhaps more remarkable still is that the tournament didn’t need him. No one has done more for golf than Woods. He brought bigger money, more exposure, and a new level of fitness and physical preparedness to the game. And after winning the tournament four times, he is one of Augusta National’s greatest champions. Regardless of his absence, the Masters seemed just as big and majestic as ever. And that’s because it was. Jordan Spieth, all 20 years of him, could be the game’s next mega star. Although there was no playoff like the previous two Masters, there was no shortage of excitement this year, thanks largely to the volatility of Watson’s game. Bubba may never win another major. He will never be great consistently because his style dictates otherwise. Who knows, though? At this point, golf fans the world over might now want to count Bubba Watson out.

He’s won a major twice, and he could do it again.

SPORTS

Page 20

April 17, 2014

Men’s lacrosse loses crucial Liberty League game to RIT Tina Caso

sports editor Ultimate Frisbee

On April 19 and 20, the ultimate Frisbee team will be hosting sectionals on home turf beginning at 9 a.m. each day and running to about 3 p.m. The ultimate Frisbee team would appreciate crowd support from Vassar students: “We want to utilize ‘home field advantage’ as much as possible,” wrote senior co-captain Noah Edelstein in an emailed statement. The games will take place on the practice soccer fields, and this is the first time in program history that Vassar will host ultimate Frisbee sectionals.

Men’s Basketball

On April 14, Kim Culligan, Interim Director of Athletics and Physical Education, announced that BJ Dunne will continue working in his position as Head Coach to the men’s basketball team. Dunne served as the Interim Head Coach for 2013/2014, and led the team to a winning 19-8 record.

Men’s Lacrosse

Women’s Lacrosse

On April 11, the women’s lacrosse team competed against Liberty League opponent

man Emily Hallewell and sophomore Winnie Yeats all went 6-0, 6-0 in their singles matches.

In doubles, senior captain Lindsay Kantor and sophomore Lauren Stauffer went 6-2, 6-2 in the No. 1 spot and freshmen Shayna Becker and Connie Yoo went 6-0, 6-1 in the No. 2 spot. On the second day of the tournament, the Brewers faced the Bryn Mawr Owls and Wellesley College. The team went 5-0 over host Bryn Mawr, but fell 3-2 to nationally ranked Wellesley in the championship match. On April 14, Becker was named Liberty League Rookie of the week for her performance. The women’s tennis team will take on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Engineers on April 19. The match will be Kantor’s senior day, and will take place at noon on the Josselyn tennis courts.

reporter

T

his year, the annual celebration of Division III week ran from April 7 to April 13. The NCAA bills Division III Week as an “opportunity for all individuals associated with a Division III institution to observe and celebrate the impact of athletics and of student-athletes on the campus and surrounding community.”

Participating institutions are encouraged to conduct an outreach activity that involves either academic accomplishment, athletic experience or community service. The celebration of Division III’s 40th anniversary started back on August 6, 2013, and has continued throughout the academic year. Division III places an emphasis on the idea that the academic performance of student-athletes should be consistent with those of the normal student body. Vassar has certainly adhered to that mantra, since, unlike many other academic institutions, Vassar only recruits athletes whose high school academic performances are at a similar level to

The men’s track team traveled to Troy, N.Y. on April 12 for the Upstate Classic at RPI to participate in a tournament. Senior Abe Gatling broke the school record in the 200 meter dash, running it in 22.50 and placing fifth overall and third in DIII runners. Sophomore Taylor Vann broke his personal record on three of his five javelin throws, while also breaking the school record four times over. He placed second overall with 50.76m. In the 1500 meter, junior Eliot Gerson had a personal best with a time of 4:06.47, placing him eighth overall and fifth in DIII runners. On April 19, the Brewers will travel to Rochester, N.Y. to compete in Liberty League Championships.

Men’s Tennis

On April 12, the men’s tennis team lost 9-0 against nationally ranked William Smith, who is placed third in the nation and second in the region. In doubles, sophomore Evan Udine and freshman Alexander Luckmann fell 9-8 (10-5) in No. 2 doubles while freshman Nick Litsky and junior Christian Lyon went 8-6 at the No. 1 spot. The Brewers will next compete in a re-scheduled game vs. New York University, a match that was originally postponed by NYU due to rain. The next officially scheduled game will take place on April 26 at 9 a.m. vs. Hobart College on the Josselyn tennis courts.

Women’s Tennis

From April 12 to 13, the women’s tennis team competed in the annual Seven Sisters Tournament. On day one, the Brewers took on Mt. Holyoke and Smith College, and went 5-0 in both matches. Junior Samantha Schapiro, fresh-

Freshman lacrosse goalkeeper Brandon Crecco blocks a goal from the opposing team. The men’s lacrosse team lost a match against Rochester Institute of Technology over the weekend on April 12.

Division III week celebrates VC athletics Sam Hammer

Men’s Track

courtesy of Vassar College Athletics

In its fourth Liberty League game of the season, the men’s lacrosse team fell to Rochester Institute of Technology 24-2. The game took place at home on Saturday, April 12, with Rochester standing as the #1 team in the nation.

Junior Scott Brekne and freshman Sam Houston-Read scored the two goals. The Brewers will next travel to Schenectady, N.Y. on April 19 for its penultimate Liberty League game against No. 7 Union College at 1 p.m.

William Smith and fell with a final score of 1813. Senior Malena Harang, junior Dara Davis, sophomore Isabelle Goldstein and freshman Julia Trudell all had two goals. Senior Phoebe Tzannes had a hat trick, and senior Zoe Ripecky and sophomore Kim Mulvehill each had one goal. Davis had two assists. On April 12, the team traveled to Schenectady for a game against in Union, and ultimately lost 16-11. Davis had four of Vassar’s goals, while Tzannes had two. Goldstein had three assists. Junior goalkeeper Kate Pula had a game-high 12 saves.

Although the two teams were tied at halftime, Union sophomore Emily McGrail scored the leading goal in the second half. Two days later, Davis was named to the Liberty League Honor Roll. She stands number one on the team for points with 38. Women’s lacrosse will next play Clarkson University on April 18 at 4 p.m. in Potsdam, N.Y.

other applicants.

With a greater emphasis on having a normal college experience for student-athletes and the lack of a presence from advertisers and professional sports, the money in Division III is significantly less than in Division I or II. In fact, Division III athletics receive only 3.18 percent of the NCAA’s yearly operating budget ($26,000,000 in 2013-14), despite the fact that Division III is the NCAA’s largest division with 40 percent of total membership. That 40 percent includes 106,725 male and 76,775 female student-athletes. There are currently 448 member institutions in Division III that make up forty-three athletic conferences. 80% of all the active Division III member institutions are private schools such as Vassar, with an average enrollment of 2,620 students.

Division III week began in 2010 as part of the NCAA’s Division III Identity Initiative. The purpose was to solidify the identity of Division III as a place where “student athletes can ‘follow [their] passions and develop [their] poten-

courtesy of Vassar College Athletics

From the week of April 7 to April 13, many colleges across the country celebrated Division III week.

The week aims to highlight the work that Division III athletes at various campuses put into their sport.

tial’ within an approach that combines rigorous academics, competitive sports and an opportunity to pursue other interests.”

Over the last few years, Vassar has adhered to the NCAA’s recommendations for Division III Week activities. Vassar’s Athletic Communications Director Jamie Chagnon wrote in an emailed statement, “it [Division III Week] focuses on athletic experience, academic excellence and campus outreach and community service. In past years, we have had student-athlete day and also done a cookout where we give away stickers, barbecue, t-shirts.”

Vassar coaches and student-athletes have enjoyed the Division III Week activities in past years. Men’s and women’s fencing Head Coach and Assistant Director of Athletics Bruce Gillman wrote that, “Div 3 week is a good school and team spirit program. We really enjoyed it last year and the rally towels and temporary tattoos were a big hit.”

Women’s tennis Head Coach Kathy Campbell shares Coach Gillman’s enthusiasm for the week. “The D. III week celebration of student-athletes is a nice recognition for the largest division of the NCAA membership,” she wrote in an emailed statement. “It celebrates the priority of academics first and playing for the love of the sport which is an important reminder for all of college athletics. Vassar’s student-athletes certainly deserve this wellearned praise for their tremendous efforts and accomplishments in the classroom, on the courts/fields and for their broad range of extracurricular endeavors that contribute to the college community.”

Chagnon writes that for this year’s event, “We are planning on doing another student-athlete day this year, just not sure when quite yet. Probably on the 26th though. Also, we had some people help with Habitat For Humanity yesterday [April 12] to tie in with the community service aspect.”

Vassar students are encouraged to help celebrate the 40th anniversary of Division III and Vassar Athletics on Saturday, April 26th by watching the men’s lacrosse team play Clarkson University at 1 p.m., and the women’s team plays Rochester Institute of Technology.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Weekend Scoreboard WOMEN’S TENNIS VASSAR

VS

5

BRYN MAWR

0

WOMEN’S RUGBY VASSAR

VS

58

FAIRFIELD

5

MEN’S LACROSSE VASSAR

2

AT

RIT

24