Misc 2.7.19

The Miscellany News

Since 1866 | miscellanynews.org

Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY

Volume CLI | Issue 14

February 7, 2019

Meghan Hayfield Guest Reporter

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n Friday, Feb. 1, Vassar’s Africana Studies Program celebrated its 50th anniversary by showcasing a variety of creative student endeavors, including spoken word, poetry, dance, live music and visual arts. Like many educational institutions, Vassar’s history features discriminatory policies. Until the 1940s, any Black students present at Vassar were accepted unknowingly, having been presumed to be white.

Acknowledging this legacy, the packed event showcased students of colors’ talent to celebrate the progress the college has made in its diversity and recognition of students of color on campus.

The Africana Studies Program, which is the longest-running multidisciplinary program at Vassar, was started in 1969 by a group of student activists. “Africana Studies grows out of the student protest movements in the late 1960s, where students across the country formed Black studies

programs at the time,” Associate Professor of History and Director of Africana Studies Quincy Mills explained. “Africana Studies at Vassar started in the City of Poughkeepsie, where students were taking a bus from campus to the City of Poughkeepsie to take classes and attend lectures.”

These classes took place at the Urban Center for Black Studies. It was only after four years that the program moved to campus, and students no longer had to commute to attend their classes.

Vassar’s Africana Studies Program offers over 40 courses, with themes ranging from the political to the artistic, as courses are taught by professors from a variety of disciplines. According to the program’s website, “Its educational mission is to promote a focused and critical study of the people, cultures, and institutions of Africa and the African Diaspora drawing from nearly all of the disciplines at Vassar College” (Africana Studies, “Home,” 01.21.2019).

See AFRICANA STUDIES on page 5

Courtesy of Pat Mazzera via Flickr

Africana Studies’ 50th celebrates POC talent

This year marks the 17th Modfest festival, Vassar’s annual commemoration of 20th- and 21st-century art of various media. This year’s theme, “In Motion,” explores movement in performance, music and film.

Modfest features artistic diversity Madeline Seibel Dean Copy Staffer

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hile the bright colors of Marsden Hartley’s “Indian Composition” swirled behind them, the voices of the Vassar Women’s Choir lifted up to the high ceiling of the Frances Lehman Loeb Arts Center on Thursday, Jan. 31. The performance was a fitting kick-off for Modfest, as it demonstrated how the annual music festival can help bring different arts disciplines together and engage a community outside of Vassar and

maybe even the art world.

They performed “Its Motion Keeps” by Pulitzer-Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw.

Afterward, event organizers encouraged the audience, which was comprised largely of Vassar students and Poughkeepsie community members, to look around the Loeb. One of the exhibits on display was another Modfest endeavor entitled Flip Side, which opened last week. Flip Side shows off art created by members of the Vassar community, ranging from

color-pencil drawings representing patterns of mathematical formulas to more traditional portraits and photographs.

The second Modfest visual art exhibit, featuring Inez Nathaniel Walker’s drawings, opened on Friday, Feb. 1. The collection consists of drawings completed over a twenty-year period, from the early seventies up to the artist’s death in 1990. Walker’s drawings are so colorful and richly patterned that they are hypnotic. Her work is characSee MODFEST on page 6

Students all ears for ‘Baby Driver’ Men’s tennis program welcomes new coach Holly Shulman

Assistant Arts Editor

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n the era of Netflix and Hulu, the idea of leaving the comfort of home and watching a movie with a room full of strangers can feel daunting and unnecessary.

On Friday, Feb. 1, however, Vassar students found themselves doing just that, having been lured out of the online-streaming havens of their dorm rooms for a screening of “Baby Driver” in the Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film.

The event was part of Vassar’s

annual music and film festival, Modfest, which, this year, centers around the concept “In Motion.”

It was that theme which prompted one of the series’ organizers, Interdisciplinary Arts Coordinator for the Creative Arts Across Disciplines Initiative Tom Pacio, to include a movie screening in the festival’s lineup: “It felt like, when we decided on ‘In Motion,’ that maybe [we should extend] an invitation to the film department or incorporate film in some way.”

Pacio began by reaching out to

Assistant Professor of Music Tahirih Motazedian, whose area of expertise includes movie soundtracks.

He explained, “Through some conversations she picked ‘Baby Driver’ because it both has the theme of a journey in it, and also the music is really important to the plot.”

In an email interview, Motazedian reiterated this sentiment: “Music is the driving force in this film, quite literally. Baby (the main character) is an inert shell without music, and he relies on music to See BABY DRIVER on page 7

Semester abroad sparks ‘shear’ joy Lindsay Craig

Guest Columnist

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Inside this issue

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Courtesy of Lindsay Craig

y first hour back at Vassar had me feeling perturbed by the Deece’s new name (GoCo? Geece?) and slapped in the face with the arctic conditions. I studied in Edinburgh, Scotland for the fall semester, and returning left me in a state of perpetual surprise. What struck me most upon returning to Vassar—aside from the deficiency in Scottish brogue, quality tea and free health care— was the insane hustle: a phenomenon so normal to me for two See SCOTLAND on page 10

Above, sheep congregate near a fence among tall grasses. Their easygoing attitudes echo those of the nearby residents of this idyllic setting.

JYA-er reveals discrimination, sexual FAR AND harassment AWAY abroad

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New Netflix series glorifies OPINIONS white, male serial killers

Kelly Pushie

Guest Reporter

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reparing itself to kick off another season, the Vassar men’s tennis program has a new addition to the team. Coach Tina McDermott moved from the sunny shores of Hawai’i to the beautiful Hudson Valley to take over at the helm for men’s tennis.

Previously, McDermott was the head coach at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo for both the men’s and women’s teams. Last season, she left her mark in the record books at UH Hilo, guiding the men’s team to the winningest season in school history.

The team went 17-3 and reached a high of No. 5 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) poll. For her success, McDermott was honored as the 2018 Pacific West Men’s Coach of the Year and for the second straight year as the ITA West Region Men’s Coach of the Year.

In terms of what attracted the award-winning coach to Vassar, McDermott expressed her admiration for the value that the Athletics Department places on success both inside and outside the classroom. “Vassar is a place

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that aligns well with my longterm career goals,” McDermott noted. “It is an absolutely beautiful campus and prestigious institution that supports excellence in both academics and athletics.”

McDermott also explained that, after meeting and speaking with some of the current players, she had an auspicious feeling that she would fit in well with and enjoy coaching the team.

This sentiment is not one sided. Senior captain Jamie Anderson and other teammates reciprocated the feeling of excitement for the new leadership. “[McDermott] has instituted a litany of new things for us—new warmup, cool-down, and match-day routines, new drills, her vision and tenets of ‘championship culture’—in the first two weeks,” Anderson explained. “Our practices are longer, more demanding.

I think that her positivity, transparency and consistency have made us all willing to put forth the extra effort.”

He remarked at how smooth the transition into this season has been, especially considering the fact that McDermott was a See McDERMOTT on page 19

Vet views “NoTalent Talent Show” at Posse HUMOR retreat, debunks bald eagle myths

The Miscellany News

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Thao Williams Bologna, Italy

[TW: This article makes mention of racial discrimination and sexual harassment]

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felt nervous about my arrival abroad, but “terrified” was never in my vocabulary.

I had prepared mentally for changes, and I obviously knew it wouldn’t be “The Lizzie McGuire Movie.” But the culture really set in when it came to my POC identity and consent.

Adjusting to Bologna has been fine for the most part. Euros make more sense as a currency. Food is just better in Italy and, surprisingly, it’s easier to be a vegan here than it is at Vassar (or in the U.S. in general). Markets, open-air or indoors, are the way to go for fresh produce, meats, pastas and dairy products. And BIO, the Italian version of saying “organic,” is pretty cheap. The Bolognese enjoy their products fresh and local.

For most locals, days begin with a caffè and brioche (aka croissants). Lunches are inexpensive, especially since Bologna hosts 80,000 students among its population of 500,000. Ironically, my favorite spot is a falafel joint—yes, pizza and pasta do in fact get old. Bread is also an integral part of the Italian diet, and boy have I eaten a lot of it.

Much like the food, the scenery is fricking awesome. It’s a combination of architecturally magnificent medieval buildings usually covered by contemporary street art and graffiti. Walking is the preferred navigational mode, especially for that Insta-worthy pic.

Walking Vassar could never compare to this leg burn. Bikes are HUGE here, and there’s a citibike-esque company that I’ll try on these rough cobblestone streets, if I’m thinking of playing Russian roulette, but Thao vs. Car/ Bus/Scooter/Other Bike instead.

Also, DOGS. Like traffic, the rules are just different. The locals love walking their very fashionably-coated (and yes, I mean miniature dog coats by designer brands) pets on the Portici sidewalks. However, cleaning up

The Miscellany News

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February

Thursday

after the dogs just…doesn’t happen. Also, don’t try to pet or approach dogs here. Unless you have a dog with you. You will be stared at, shamed and given the biggest “Come (what)?” face you’ve ever received.

These lighthearted, trivial matters do shy in comparison to the two topics I mentioned earlier.

Bologna is predominantly white, and while there are tons of people from other European backgrounds, it’s pretty rare to see a person of color here. Unfortunately, local views of POCs are very narrow. With the immigration issues that are unfolding and the rise of neo-fascism in Italy, there’s also been a surge in racialized debate. North and Central African immigrants are heavily stereotyped. During a mandatory meeting with local police, the Police Captain generalized African immigrants as the crime-causers of Bologna. I was obviously disgusted but, more importantly, it directly impacted two of my Black peers in the program. Even my roommate, someone remarkably close to my age, expressed racial prejudices. She warned me to keep my distance from all POCs here, especially the ones near our dormitory. Unfortunately, we’re treated differently. When in stores, we’re often followed by attendants, and the very offensive questions we receive are just “normal.” Yes, this takes place in the U.S. as well, but I’m still just unpleasantly surprised by how overt it is here. I can’t speak to how my peers feel, because I am privileged in my lighter color. Nonetheless, the atmosphere is very uncomfortable.

The other issue is consent.

Italy is indeed a very touchy country— cheek-kisses and hugs are standard greetings among friends, and casual shoulder touches occur without a second thought. But the masc/fem relations are starkly different here.

And that’s where my kind of difficult story of adjusting begins.

Originally, I lived in a 12-person apartment.

The kitchen and living space were shared by all, and then the bedrooms were single gen-

der with a private bathroom. This should’ve been fine, especially since that’s pretty much the norm at Vassar. The key difference is, at Vassar I felt safe in my gender neutral surroundings. Here I did not.

I’m not going to recount the details of how I was harassed by male housemates to the point of moving housing three weeks in, but yes, it did happen. And it unfortunately culminated in one night where something did occur, something that I will remember forever in the most negative of ways. My blossoming sense of security in my home was taken away by the actions of someone, someone who I thought I could trust as a housemate, changing the tone of my stay very abruptly.

The fact is that I said no, I explained no AND why not, and this person continued their actions with no remorse. And then I had to live with it and him for a week before I was finally permitted to leave my residence.

Consent doesn’t really exist in the Italian conscience. The previously mentioned police captain told all the femmes in my program that rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment just don’t happen here. He, plus my program’s staff, said we needed to dress appropriately, travel in groups and that our safety was basically of our own accord, not the prospective perpetrator’s. Moving was a retraumatizing event. I was forced to recount gritty details of the incident to every single person with whom I dealt in the process, from my program director to the dormitory security. Dormitory security wouldn’t let me move until I told them everything, down to the name of my attacker, which I truly did not want to do because I have to continue living in the same building complex. My program director even told me that perhaps my attacker was a nice person?????? The support for victims is not here, and unfortunately I’ll have to look stateside for what I need.

This all being said, the things that have unfolded here have made me realize that there are pros and cons to my choice. Stay tuned for more soon.

Weekender_ 8

February

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Friday

February

Saturday

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February

Sunday

A Celebration of Kathy Brown

Students of Sobriety Group

Tennis (M) vs. RIT

5:30 p.m. | RH 200 | Dean of the Faculty

3:00 p.m. | Alumnae/i House Living Room | Communications

9:30 a.m. | RH 211 | AA Pougkeepsie

11:00 a.m. | Walker Field House Bays | Athletics

Late Night at the Lehman Loeb: Asian Student Alliance Publication Launch

MODFEST - Vassar Repertory Dance Theater

Volleyball (M) vs. Trimatch vs. Bard/Johnson & Wales

Joshua Roman & JACK Quartet

7:00 p.m. | KH Dance Theater | Dance Dept.

11:00 a.m. | KH Gymnasium | Athletics

3:00 p.m. | SH Martel Recital Hall | Music Dept.

Open Feldenkrais Session

Paper Critique

12:00 p.m. | KH 120 | Dance Dept.

9:00 p.m. | Rose Parlor | The Miscellany News

6:30 p.m. | The Loeb Atrium | The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center

Women’s Center Community Dinner 6:30 p.m. | Women’s Center | The Women’s Center

ASC Magazine Portrait Launch 7:00 p.m. | The Loeb | Asian Student Alliance (ASA)

Lecture: Music and Silent Film 8:00 p.m. | SH 400 | Music Dept.

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Joshua Dubler Lecture

Vanessa Sau Mui Cheung will hold two workshops on “The Feldenkrais Method” on Feb. 9.

February 7, 2019

Editor-in-Chief Leah Cates

Senior Editors

Sasha Gopalakrishnan Mack Liederman

Contributing Editors

Talya Phelps Noah Purdy Charlotte Varcoe-Wolfson Laila Volpe Features Opinions Humor and Satire Sports Design Copy

Frankie Knuckles Steven Park Hannah Gaven Myles Olmsted Rose Parker Teddy Chmyz

Assistant News Jessica Moss Assistant Arts Holly Shulman Abby Tarwater Assistant Design Lilly Tipton Assistant Social Media Patrick Tanella Assistant Online Chris Allen Reporters Duncan Aronson Ariana Gravinese Aena Khan Columnists Catherine Bither Jimmy Christon Christian Flemm Jesser Horowitz Dean Kopitsky Izzy Migani Emmett O’Malley Sylvan Perlmutter Taylor Stewart Blair Webber Copy Anna Blake Natalie Bober Samantha Cavagnolo Madeline Seibel Dean Amanda Herring Phoebe Jacoby Anastasia Koutavas Lucy Leonard Caitlin Patterson Gillian Redstone Mina Turunc Photo Yijia Hu Cartoonist Frank

Tennis (M) vs. University of Rochester 1:00 p.m. | Walker Field House Bays | Athletics

CORRECTION POLICY The Miscellany News will only accept corrections for any misquotes, misrepresentations or factual errors for an article within the semester it is printed.

Ensemble Mik Nawooj Panel 4:00 p.m. | SH Martel Recital Hall | Music Dept.

Ensemble Mik Nawooj Concert 9:00 p.m. | The Trolley Barn | Music Dept.

Courtesy of Vassar College Junior Allen Soklov, pictured above, will face off with RIT on Sunday, Feb. 10, along with the rest of the men’s tennis team.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented within its Opinions pages. The weekly staff editorial is the only article which reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board.

l Roun a c i d lit

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February 7, 2019

Ae n a K h a n In our headlines...

Protestors gathered outside the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center in response to reports revealing that more than 1,600 inmates and workers had been left to work in the dark and freezing cold after a partial power outage. According to attorney Deirdre von Dornum, inmates are not allowed to leave their powerless and cold cells for common areas in the prison. Additionally, videos surfaced on Friday night in which prisoners shared reading lights and banged on windows and walls to receive attention from those outside. New York State Representative and City officials joined the protest of the gross mistreatment of those working and residing in the federal facility, and a tweet from New York State Senator Julia Salazar stated that—aside from a lack of power and inadequate heat—the jail’s warden, Herman Quay, denied inmates medical care and the New York City Office of Emergency Management’s attempts

NEWS to provide blankets. Mayor Bill de Blasio stated that city officials would deliver generators and other supplies in spite of the jail’s lack of cooperation, and these were finally delivered late Saturday night (Huffington Post, “Protesters Rally Into The Night For Brooklyn Inmates In Freezing Jail Cells,” 02.02.2019).

With Cory Booker’s entrance into the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary on Friday, the playing field within the party has rarely been as large and diverse.

Additional hopefuls, such as former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke, former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-O.H), will likely push back any announcement for candidacy in the hope that the high profile front-runners such as Booker, Senator Kamala Harris (D-C.A), Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y) and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-M.A) stumble and lose traction. The race positions legislative themes such as Medicare for All and a tax on the ultra-rich as popular among all candidates, but those pondering runs may take time to further craft their campaign promises (Politico, “2020 Democratic holdouts wait for Harris, Warren to trip,” 02.03.2019).

Around the world...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has come under fire just months before a general election after accessions

against his government for suppressing an official report revealing that national unemployment had reached a 45-year high of 6.1 percent in 2017. Commissioners who advocated sharing the report with the public have since resigned in protest.

Modi was elected in a landslide victory five years ago, as his campaign promised to launch India into an age of economic prosperity and job creation, which is why the report’s findings would complicate his standing with the public. While the index seems low, it was triple the rate of half a decade earlier and meant that as many as thirty million people could not find a job. The unemployment rate does not include those who work irregularly. Taken in conjunction with Modi’s November 2016 decision to demonetize and eliminate several forms of cash currency—a policy that proved detrimental to India’s economy—the report seriously undercuts the premise of Modi’s 2014 campaign and may return to hurt him in the next election (The New York Times, India’s Leader Is Accused of Hiding Unemployment Data Before Vote,” 02.03.2019).

The British Foreign Minister’s office released a joint press statement with France and Germany announcing the creation of the Instrument for Supporting Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) mechanism as a means of reiterating the three nations’ commitment to preserving the

Page 3 Iran Nuclear Deal in the wake of American withdrawal. INSTEX is meant to focus on exporting goods such as pharmaceutical medical devices and agriculture to Iran, and will reinforce anti-terrorism initiatives with the expected cooperation of the Iranian government. The press release ends with the statement: “The E3 underline their commitment to pursue the further development of INSTEX” (Foreign and Commonwealth Office Press Release, “New mechanism to facilitate trade with Iran: joint statement,” 01.31.2019) Pope Francis became the first pontiff to ever visit the Arabian Peninsula in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he sought to improve Christian-Muslim relations as a guest of Al-Azhar Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb. Prior to boarding a plane from the Vatican, he made an appeal to UAE ally and chief perpetrator of the war in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, to allow aid to enter the region and assuage the worst humanitarian crisis currently in the world. Al Azhar described the “Human Fraternity Meeting,” which included representatives of other faiths as well, as deeply historic. The meeting, organized by the Muslim Council of Elders, has another purpose: to counter religious fanaticism and popular misconceptions by promoting a moderate Islam (Associated Press, “Pope calls for Yemen relief as he heads to the UAE,” 02.03.2019).

News Briefs Governor appears in racist photo Ralph Northam, the Democratic Governor of Virginia, has come under fire recently after news surfaced that he allegedly appeared in a racist photograph in his medical school yearbook. The 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook section displays Northam’s full name across the top, with three images: a portrait of him, a picture of him leaning against a car and a photo of him in a cowboy hat.

The controversy arises from the image at the right of the page, which depicts a man in blackface standing next to a person who is wearing the full garb of the Ku Klux Klan (New York Times, “Governor Admits He Was in Racist Yearbook Photo,” 02.01.2019). On Feb. 1, Governor Northam issued an apology in which he confirmed it was him in the racist photograph, and that it was his decision to appear that way. During his apology, Northam confirmed that he would not resign, but he did not disclose whether he was the one in the blackface or if he was the one in the KKK hood (Twitter, [at] [MikevWUSA,] 02.01.2019).

On Feb. 2, Northam retracted his apology, denying that it was him in the photograph that appeared under his name beside three pictures of himself. He also denied having ever seen the photo prior to Feb. 1 of this year (NBC News, “Special Report: Virginia Gov. holds press conference after racist yearbook photo surfaces,” 02.02.2019). It is unclear if any of his medical school peers attempted to inform him about the clearly racist photo on his yearbook page in the 35 years between then and now. Northam did admit to using blackface in the past, specifically recalling a Michael Jackson dance contest in which he applied shoe polish to his face (C-Span, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam News Conference, 02.02.2019).

Governor Northam’s yearbook malignity did not end there. His 1981 Virginia Military Institute yearbook reveals that

one of his two nicknames was “coonman,” “coon” being a racist slur for people of color (Virginia Military Institute, “The Bomb,” 1981). When asked about this nickname, Northam said that he was aware of it but did not know why his classmates called him that (C-Span).

He again confirmed that he would not resign, even in the face of rare oppositional political unity between both the Virginia GOP and the Virginia Democrats. Northam has also faced calls for his resignation from presidential hopefuls Cory Booker, Julián Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, as well as Speaker of House Nancy Pelosi, Senators Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) and Mark Warner (D-Virginia) and former Vice-President Joe Biden (RollingStone, “A Partial List of Top Democrats and Progressives Demanding Ralph Northam’s Resignation, 01.05.2019).

Northam is unlikely to face electoral consequences, since the Virginia Constitution bars candidates from running for consecutive terms as Governor and because he has only served one year of his four-year term. If he were to resign, Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax would finish the term. Were he to assume the office of Governor, Fairfax would be only the fifth Black Governor in U.S. history, and the only one in the United States at this time. Fairfax has notably not called for Northam’s resignation (Richmond Times-Dispatch, “Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax releases statement after Northam’s press conference,” 02.02.2019).

-Jonas Trostle, Guest Reporter Prof. criticizes Chinese speakers On Jan. 25, 2018, Director of Graduate Studies for Duke University’s Master of Biostatistics program Megan Neely sent an email to a group of international students criticizing their native language usage in the presence of other faculty members. Two faculty members’ com-

plaints regarding supposedly loud Chinese-speaking preceded the email, which stated, “[The faculty members] were disappointed that these [Chinese] students were not taking the opportunity to improve their English.” These two members also inquired over the students’ identities for later consideration, should the students seek an internship or ask to work with them for a master’s project (TWP, “Duke professor apologizes for telling Chinese students to speak English on campus,” 01.28.2019).

Titled “Something to think about…,” in capitalization, Neely’s message exhorted, “To international students, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep these unintended consequences in mind when you choose to speak Chinese in the building.” Soon after its reception, image captions of Neely’s message permeated social media platforms, inciting strong reactions among international students and other readers.

One Twitter user replied: “Reread this, even angrier now. The language is incredibly menacing: “unintended consequences” for simply speaking Chinese during free time indicates there’s no end to the Othering of international students to make them feel inadequate and unwelcome.” (Twitter, [at]ourobororoboruo,]01.26.2019). Another commented, “I speak Spanish to native speakers all the time and I’m not one. It’s fun to speak other languages. This is ridiculous.” (Twitter, [at]SusieusMaximus, 01.27.2019).

This was not the first time that Neely propagandized a disfavor of international students conversing in their native tongues. According to Duke’s independent student newspaper The Chronicle, Neely also sent a group of international students a caution email with the title, “To speak English or not to speak English,” with similar contents on Feb. 2, 2018. The 2018 mail has not been confirmed for authenticity, but will be included in further review (The Chronicle Sunday, “Grad

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

program director who stepped down also sent email in Feb. 2018 telling students to speak English,” 01.27.2019).

Neely’s blatant threats regarding future employment opportunity and skepticism of international students’ linguistic capacity aggravated the trend of microaggressions directed at Asians and Asian-Americans in academia. Incidents such as a UCLA students’ 2011 YouTube tirade about “hordes” of Asian people on campus and Harvard’s low ratings of Asian students’ personal traits, such as likability and kindness, are only a few in the chain of events originating from multilayered social segregation (The Guardian, “Harvard sued for alleged discrimination against Asian American applicants,” 06.15.2018).

The controversial email prompted profuse apologies from both Neely and Dean of Duke School of Medicine Dr. Mary E. Klotman. “There is absolutely no restriction or limitation on the language you use to converse and communicate with each other,” Klotman wrote in her Saturday email to Duke biostatistic students. “Your career opportunities and recommendations will not in any way be influenced by the language you use outside the classroom” (The Chronicle Sunday, “Neely Apologized,” 2019). Neely also filed for resignation as Director of Graduates Studies but remained an assistant professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics, as confirmed by Duke Vice President of Public Affairs and Government Relations Michael Schoenfeld.

Duke students have since issued a petition for thorough investigation into both incidents. The petition reminds the university of its commitment to inclusivity, reading, “The University has the responsibility to invest in the personal growth of all of its members, regardless of their race, ethnicity, and national origin.” (Petition to investigate professor Megan Neely’s discriminatory emails, 01.26.2019).

- Ha Bui, Guest Reporter

NEWS

Page 4

VSA Updates

February 7, 2019

Vassar mourns Howard Fink Kimberly Nguyen Guest Reporter

Courtesy of VSA via Twitter Updates from the VSA meeting of Feb. 3, 2019 Consensus Agenda – Passed

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Pre-Approved Allocations: 31.98/31.98 from Capital to Quidditch 150/150 from Discretionary to Chess Club Allocations: 1000/1320 from Conference to Tech Conglomerate 3000/3000 from Discretionary to Senior Class 2053.14/3089.67 from Capital to Student Musician’s Union 2000/2500 from Speakers t0 No Such Organization

Equity and Inclusion Committee Chair of Equity and Inclusion Eloudia Odamy ’21 met with the College’s Committee on Inclusion and Excellence (CIE)

to discuss amendments to the College’s affinity space policy.

The Engaged Pluralism Initiative (EPI) will be hosting a screening of the film “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” on Feb. 25 at 5 p.m, including a workshop and discussion of issues related to the film.

Residential Affairs Committee Chair of Residential Affairs Jenny Luo ’20 met with CIS to brainstorm possible alternatives to current computer access in residential houses.

Finance Committee The committee will hold a forum on Wednesday, Feb. 13, in Rocky 200 to deal with the process of working with VSA Finance. The forum will include a presentation on applying for VSA funding and a Q-and-A session with the committee.

President President Tamar Ballard ’19 is in the process of selecting College administrators to attend VSA Senate meetings for this semester’s Administrator Forums.

When these dates are finalized, they will be made public so that students can attend.

Ballard also met with representatives of the Alumnae/i Affairs Office to discuss converting the Senior Gift Co-Chairs from appointed to elected positions.

—Julian Corbett, VSA General Intern

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djunct Instructor of Hispanic Studies Professor Howard Fink came to Vassar from Marist in 2012, and he quickly immersed himself into Hispanic Studies at Vassar. He was most likely one of the first professors a Hispanic Studies student might encounter—almost a gateway into a love of the language—as he taught, primarily, Elementary Spanish. On Saturday, Jan. 26, he passed away at his home after battling a heart attack, a coma and, ultimately, a stroke.

As a professor in the Hispanic Studies Department, Fink honed a fervent passion for Spanish language, literature and culture, and he spread this passion to those who knew him. His spouse of 45 years, Richard Harr, wrote in an email correspondence, “He was so moved by his study abroad year in Spain, in 1968, that he has continued his relationship with the family in Seville.” Professor of Hispanic Studies Andrew Bush further commented on Fink’s fondness of Spain. “His love of the Spain and the Spanish language was profound,” he wrote in an email. “He was always so happy to go to class and share his enthusiasm with his students.”

Fink’s love for Spanish culture extended outside academia. Professor and Chair of Hispanic Studies on the Randolph Distinguished Professor Chair Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert reminisced on some of her more personal moments with Fink. “Some of my best memories of Howard revolved around good food, a nice glass of wine, and opera,”she wrote. “There was a beautiful after-

noon in Madrid where we sat over wine and Tapas in a cozy bar on Cava Baja and he told me countless stories about his trips to the opera—and a recent trip to NYC for the new production of Carmen to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Lovely occasions that I thought we would have a chance to repeat many times.”

His colleagues and students also remember his passion for teaching and acknowledge the impact his time at Vassar, although relatively short, has had on them.

Professor of Hispanic Studies Eva Woods Peiró wrote, “I will always remember Howard for his wonderful sense of humor, his love for his students, and the support and friendship that he so generously gave. He was a model of inclusivity and empathy.”

Adya Goyal ’19, a former student of Fink, reflected these sentiments. “I really appreciated how much he cared about his students,” she said. “He especially checked in on me one time via email when he thought that I was upset in his class. I will really miss his quirky and lively presence around.”

Matthew Au ’19, who knew Fink while working both as a drill instructor and later as a Chicago Hall Office Assistant, said, “I will miss his remarkable zest for life, his incomparable passion for opera, and his love of gossip; and, I suppose, I will never again hear his signature ‘Adios, chicos.’”

Throughout his time at Vassar, Fink was a teacher, colleague, coworker, boss and more. His relationships with those who knew him make clear he was a professor devoted to the Spanish language and those with whom he shared it.

Lecture assesses impact of violent conflict on mental health Aena Khan Reporter

[Content Warning: This article discusses violent conflict and forced displacement.] n Monday, Jan. 29, Yale School of Public Health Associate Professor of Epidemiology Kaveh Khoshnood spoke on violence and population displacement as issues of public health. Rachel Chernet ’19, a biochemistry major and President of the Vassar Foundation for International Medical Relief for Children (FIMRC), organized the evening’s event. Early arrivers gathered around a box of munchkins beneath the projector while Chernet conversed with Khoshnood, preparing the presentation. Attendees took their seats as Chernet walked to the podium in the room’s center to introduce the guest speaker.

Khoshnood began his lecture by explaining how his interest in public health emerged when he was a teenager, after having witnessed first-hand the effects of chemical warfare on civilian populations in Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. Unprecedented quantities of chemical agents were used against civilians, which resulted in approximately 60,000 casualties. For those who survived, the effects of blister and nerve agents lingered mentally and physically. Khoshnood’s research today focuses on violent conflict as the origin of public health issues, such as increased drug use. Khoshnood related, “I had a sabbatical in 2013, and I did not have any teaching obligations, so I decided to study that. In fact, one of the projects I’m working on right now in Lebanon is to what extent [those] in displaced populations turn to drug use and become infected with HIV/AIDs resulting from people sharing infected syringes.”

The lecture considered the ethical concerns associated with studying public health

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in post-conflict regions. How does one study the spread of HIV/AIDs in the tented settlements in Lebanon, when doing so could negatively impact many people’s ability to seek asylum? How does one offer preventative services and treatment without reinforcing negative stigmas about those receiving it? The way in which public health officials operate matters and history tells stories from which we should learn. Chernet later shared: “Something that really struck me from [Khoshnood’s] presentation was the statistics he presented on the ten deadliest conflicts in the 1990s. Their estimated deaths had a range as large as half a million people, likely due to the numerous indirect results of conflict. For instance, a family may be displaced to a neighboring country due to a conflict and therefore lose access to a medication needed for survival.”

Khoshnood also discussed the implications of The World Health Organization (WHO)’s vague definition of violence, which leaves room for individual interpretation of terms such as “intention” and “likelihood of harm.” Khoshnood elaborated on these nuances, saying, “[V]iolence is such a broad issue. It includes everything from self-directed violence like suicide, which is harm against oneself; it can be interpersonal, such as domestic violence; and then, it can be collective violence against groups of people.”

Likewise, structural violence, rooted in existing institutions that fail to protect people, is also ambiguous in its culpability. For example, when an infant dies because of a disease otherwise preventable by vaccination, there is no clear culprit. According to Khoshnood, this was the case during the various Central American Civil Wars that took place in the 1980s, when the infant mortality rate was 80 per 1000 live births in El Salvador, Guatema-

la, Honduras and Nicaragua—compared to 25 per 1000 live births in neighboring countries.

Only when warring factions brokered a temporary ceasefire were The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) able to administer immunizations and humanitarian aid, after which the infant mortality rate dramatically decreased. However, providing such intervention has proven difficult in many of today’s active combat areas, such as those in Syria, because there are too many groups at war for safe-zones to be securely negotiated.

In an interview following the lecture, Khoshnood further commented on similarities and differences in violence between regions such as the United States, the Middle East and Central America. “One of the things I would say is that there are social determinants of violence, and there are deep socio-political causes that no one pays attention to,” he said. “This is one thing that is the same everywhere. Dealing with it at a superficial level won’t solve the problem.”

At the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, the Assad regime diverted funds from services such as vaccinations to reinforce the military state. A phenomenon referred to as brain drain crippled the previously robust health system as thousands of public health officials, including doctors, fled the violence.

Sophie Schoenbrun ’22 remarked, “I had totally overlooked how displacement could cause a lack of access to vaccinations. It was also really concerning to learn that doctors and other professionals are the first to leave when there is a conflict, even though they are needed the most.”

The bombing of remaining health institutions became the new norm, as sites where medical aid is administered were purposeful-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

ly targeted. Medical schools were shut down due to a lack of staff and resources. Syria’s future doctors turned to the United States for aid, and Khoshnood recounted how the faculty of Free Aleppo University restarted operations in 2015 with 500 students. Students attended classes in undisclosed locations and reached out to several American institutions to create online classes for medical specialization. In 2017, a former faculty member helped launch the Collaboration for Health in Conflict initiative with Harvard, Yale and the University of South Carolina. Despite attempts to undermine healthcare in a setting devoid of humanitarianism, these Syrian doctors show resistance and resilience. Schoenbrun observed, “Public health is, to me, a means of protecting already vulnerable populations, such as the displaced populations in the Middle East … There is so much complexity that comes with war that still needs to be studied and understood.”

Khoshnood ended the lecture with a quote, “You have to understand, that no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land,” from the poem “Home” by British writer Warsan Shire. The lecture pointed out the painful ramifications of violence and forced displacement in both the short and long term. Rehabilitation is a treatment that public health officials and civilians alike contend for even years after a conflict. Chernet reflected, “[I feel] Vassar FIMRC…is a culmination of a lot of the hard work we have put into something we are all very passionate about. To see other people, and especially those from the younger classes here at Vassar, excited about global health and FIMRC’s mission makes me optimistic … I believe we will start thinking more about events we can do to really challenge the way we think about health.”

February 7, 2019

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Africana Studies marks anniversary through performance AFRICANA STUDIES continued

On Friday, Feb. 1, UJIMA featured Bryan Smith ’21 in a performance of “Ella’s Song” at the Fergusson Dance Theatre in front of a standing-room-only audience.

Courtesy of Monericka Semeran

ciety. The show also took a step back to acknowledge the steps Vassar has taken to be more inclusive of various identity groups.

The collaboration between a variety of creative endeavors, from heartbreaking spoken word poetry to energetic, uplifting dance performances, offered a wide take on the multifaceted experience of being a person of color.

“It was such an honor to see everybody doing what they’re passionate about,” said dancer Emily Lesorogol ’22. “It was so cool to have that collaboration, and I really hope that we do more collaborations between all the arts.”

Mills explained that the Africana Studies Program chose to celebrate its 50th anniversary with an arts program because creativity is the foundation from which intellectual curiosity and activism are spawned. “What better way to celebrate social justice than to have students create, imagine, explore? At the end of the day, questions of freedom and liberation are about questions of the future and what’s possible,” he said. “I think that’s reflected through the arts.”

After the stage performance, there was a catered visual arts performance in the Kenyon Club Room, which students filled with their energy and conversations about Africana Studies’ legacy, the performances they had just witnessed and the visual art on display. “There’s a sense of pride in being blessed to be at a school that celebrates an anniversary like this,” Lersoregol reflected. “It was packed and everybody came out and loved it.”

Considering the significance of the Africana Studies Program having existed for 50 years at Vassar, Mills concluded that the anniversary reflects the increasing diversity of the college itself. “Students have raised their voices to encourage the college and its curriculum to look like them—to be inclusive, diverse, transformative, liberating,” He said. “50 years of Africana Studies at Vassar is a representation of what Vassar should be and should look like, of creativity and intellectual rigor, of excitement, of activism.”

Courtesy of Monericka Semeran

from page 1 That the Africana Studies Program is celebrating 50 years at Vassar is no small feat—Anita Florence Hemmings, Class of 1897, was the first Black woman to graduate from Vassar and was only able to do so by passing as white. It was not for another 40 years that Black students were knowingly admitted.

Camryn Casey ’21, a member of Ujima, Vassar’s all-POC arts group, reflected on this: “It’s kind of a roller coaster that this school started out where Black people couldn’t attend, and the first Black woman was under wraps, pretending to be white,” she said. “Now, to not only have Black people come to this school but to have that education be centered around that and have funding go towards that is amazing.”

Once the Africana Studies Program arrived on campus, its roots in activism and community-engaged learning began to encourage other multidisciplinary programs.

“The early innovations of what community and campus could look like comes out of Africana Studies at Vassar, so other multidisciplinary programs that were developed took a look at what Africana Studies was doing and formed around it,” Mills explained. “I would argue that Africana Studies comes out of student activism, and that means there were other areas of study that looked at Black Studies as a model for what community-engaged learning could look like.” Simply put, Vassar’s tradition of community-based learning is forever intertwined with the birth of the Africana Studies program.

The anniversary event was eclectic in its showcase of students’ creative pursuits.

On the stage of Kenyon Hall, students performed acapella songs, spoken word poetry and dances. Cheers reverberated throughout the packed theater, encouraging and appreciating the talent present. There was a sense of excitement and agreement in the relevance of what the night meant—the performances did not shy away from facing some of the bigger questions about what it means to be a person of color on campus and in today’s so-

“Freedom: To the 34 Black Women who took over Main Building,” choreographed by Savannah Smith ’19, featured performers Athena Davis ’20 and Abrianna Harris ’21.

LAVA talk inspires student pursuit of public health careers Dollar Zhu

Guest Reporter

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n Friday, Feb. 1, Vassar alumna Lauren Shiman ’10 returned to campus as a guest speaker for a talk on Life After Vassar (LAVA). According to its official description, LAVA is a series of informal conversations with Vassar alums and others that guide mathematics and statistics students toward math-related careers following graduation. According to Associate Professor of Mathematics and Statistics Ming-Wen An, the official organizer of LAVA, Shiman’s talk is the first of a series this semester to be held on the first Friday of every month. “The main goal [for LAVA talks] is to introduce students and expose them [to the many opportunities out there],” she explained.

Shiman’s experiences during and after her time at Vassar reflect the type of career path toward which LAVA attempts to direct its attendees. At Vassar, Shiman was a math major on a pre-med track. After working at a hospital, she attended University of California, Berkeley, to earn her Master of Public Health (MPH). Now, she is a researcher and evaluator at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Shiman entered the talk brimming with energy. “It has been ages since the last time I was in this room,” she reminisced.

In fact, the talk took place in Rockefeller Hall 310—the very room in which she presented her senior project.

Shiman started her presentation by introducing the concept of public health.

According to Shiman, it is a broad subject that includes Epidemiology, Housing, Health Care, Education and many other disciplines pertaining to human welfare.

She then introduced public health’s historical background, discussing the importance of John Snow’s evolutionary studies in 1854, which discovered that the Broad Street cholera outbreak was a result of contaminated water rather than infected air particles.

Shiman continued on to talk about her present work, which focuses on primary, human sources as opposed to data-driven ones. In her recent project “LGBTQ and Sex Education,” Shiman spoke with 26 LGBTQ centers in New York City, and shared their insights with the The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to advocate for structural changes in sexual health education.

She was also involved in an exhibit titled

“Undesign the Redline,” which took place in various cities throughout the winter of 2018 and will continue into 2019. Redlining was a policy in the 1930s that portrayed certain neighborhoods, particularly those inhabited by immigrants and people of color, as too dangerous for mortgages or loans. The exhibit demonstrates the historical development of the Redline policy, and how the community is working to “undesign” it. Shiman summarized part of her work, saying, “[I was] helping people understand what’s going on and representing the people.”

Although Shiman primarily works in communication with others, her mathematics education was critical to her career.

The statistics class she took at Vassar, in fact, became one of her most useful tools.

She said, “I have to be able to talk about what came out of the stats.”

For Will Kyle ’19, who recently secured a job creating software for hospitals, the talk proved a great opportunity to learn more about the work he will be doing in public health. “I need to learn as much as possible about the field, and the talk gave me the information I needed,” reflected Kyle.

The lecture transitioned into a conversation between Shiman and student attend-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

ees. In response to students’ questions, Shiman disclosed that she neither knew what public health was when she graduated from Vassar, nor did she enjoy the work she did at the hospital. In order to find a personally fulfilling career, she advised students, “[You should] write down the things that you actually like and the things you don’t, and check them off when you are looking at a job.” At Vassar, she took interesting classes that did not ostensibly relate to her career, such as Introduction to Psychology. At the time, she said, “[I thought it was just] one of the liberal arts thing you’re supposed to do.” However, Shiman frequently uses what she learned in Psychology when, for example, she analyzes how people think and from whence fear comes.

Shiman concluded with emphasis on the value of a liberal arts education, despite the perception that they fail to cater to analytical career paths. Her years at Vassar taught her vital skills such as problem solving and strong verbal and written communication.

The opportunity to take classes in an assortment of disciplines exposes students to the various distinct applications of their particular majors. in other words, the liberal arts vision aligns with that of LAVA.

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February 7, 2019

‘Freehand’ exhibit raises questions about self-taught art Taylor Stewart Columnist

s a young man, Henri Matisse went to Paris to study law, passing his bar exam with distinction. From there, his grain merchant father secured a clerk position for him. Matisse did not like law.

At 21, he contracted appendicitis, and his mother gifted him art supplies to keep him occupied while he was bedridden. “From the moment I held the box of colors in my hands, I knew this was my life,” said the artist. “I threw myself into it like a beast that plunges towards the thing it loves” (Spurling, “Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse, the Conquest of Colour, 1909-1954,” 2007). Two years later, he went to Paris again—this time to study art. (Matisse: Life and Painting, “The Personal Life of Henri Matisse,” 2001).

As a young woman, Inez Nathaniel Walker went to Philadelphia to escape the “muck” of farm work in her native Sumter, NC. Born into poverty, orphaned early and married with four children before age 20, she had already lived lifetimes before migrating North.

In the 1970s, she was charged with killing her abuser and imprisoned in Westchester County, NY. There, she attended classes with the prison’s English teacher, Elizabeth Bayley. One day, Bayley noticed that Walker had left a pile of drawings in the classroom. The teacher started buying pieces, which Walker produced prolifically. Usually her subjects were “bad girls”—fellow inmates, some posed, others candid, but all capturing banal prison interactions. She drew on the backs of newsletters and mimeographed forms until

Courtesy of Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center

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her “discovery” by the Bedford Hills teachers, when she started filling up sketchbooks and construction paper with the vigor of a blossoming artist.

Pat O’Brien Parsons, an art dealer and Class of 1951 Vassar graduate, saw Walker’s art and met with her at Bedford Hills. This was to be their only face-to-face meeting, but the beginning of a long partnership, as well as Parsons’s career in collecting self-taught art. Parsons left Walker art supplies, and the latter promised to send her work. The two exchanged letters, in which Walker affectionately referred to Parsons as “Mrs. Pat.” The collector later donated 15 pieces to Vassar, comprising 25 percent of Walker’s first one-person museum exhibition, “Freehand: Drawings by Inez Nathaniel Walker.”

On Friday, Feb. 1, the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center hosted the exhibit’s opening reception, which included a lecture by Curator of the Loeb Mary-Kay Lombino. Lombino described Walker and her art as “primitive,” “outsider” and “self-taught.” She compared the artist to others who share these labels, including Martin Ramirez (diagnosed with schizophrenia and institutionalized), who started drawing in his sixties and sometimes binded pieces with mashed potatoes and saliva; Dwight Mackintosh (institutionalized for over 50 years), who exhibited an “obsessive need to fill the blankness of the paper” with pattern and swirling loose lines; and Lee Godie (homeless, diagnosed with dementia), who sold portraits in Chicago. Lombino said that self-taught art is often a product of trauma, coming from people with “unconventional” lifestyles. Details of these artists’ lives

Inez Nathaniel Walker’s first one-person museum exhibit, “Freehand,” opened on Friday, Feb. 1 with a reception and lecture by Loeb curator Mary-Kay Lombino. proved inseparable from their work.

I wondered if that was offensive to their artistry. Walker had an incredible eye for detail, a hand that not only reproduced her surroundings but also invigorated them with pattern, personality and elements of her imagination. Her unfinished sketches are evidence of process and a consistent stylistic approach. The furniture, teacups and dollar bills in her interiors are small relative to the people, highlighting gestures, stances, faces, clothing and jewelry (as a seamstress, she meticulously captured her subjects’ outfits).

Consequently, her drawings depict social structure and status. Is it underplaying her graphic sensibilities to treat her art solely as products of trauma, as a means of coping

with prison? Self-taught art is often stigmatized, as much of it comes from stigmatized people: the mentally ill, the old, the incarcerated. To tragedize the lives of these artists evokes the idea that their art is less valuable than the works of formal trainees—that it is shaped by trauma rather than skill.

However, discussing Walker in biographical context compels me to further appreciate outsider art. Lombino pointed out that she never drew for commercial purposes; she drew to cope, capture and fulfill her fantasies. “Freehand” feels like a diary rather than a portfolio. The dissatisfied lawyer Matisse was passionate about art before any formal training. Walker’s own ardor and openness enliven her portraits.

Eclectic mix of performances take center stage at Modfest MODFEST continued from page 1 terized by figures whose proportionally large faces take up much of the composition and backgrounds of horror vacui patterns that transcend the limits of the page.

The Emily Hargroves Fisher ‘57 and Richard B. Fisher Curator and Assistant Director for Strategic Planning Mary-Kay Lombino delivered the exhibit’s opening lecture. Walker’s work certainly embodies what Parsons called, “Works of mysterious power, produced in the face of formidable obstacle. Work that testifies elegantly to an innate creative urge.”

Directly following the show’s opening, a screening of the film “Baby Driver” began in the Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film. Event organizers selected this film be-

cause it actively incorporates music into the visual medium of film.

On Saturday, Feb. 2, Modfest continued with a workshop in the Aula entitled Viewpoints: Gesture, Music and Performance.

The session focused on how different arts disciplines can inform music, and ended with a vibrant chorus of Vassar students singing along with a live accompanist. It seemed to embody what Interdisciplinary Arts Coordinator for the Creative Arts Across Disciplines Initiative Tom Pacio, a Modfest organizer and lecturer, described as one of the purposes of the festival, stating: “Something that’s important to me is having a balance of programming that is accessible to our community…that can also challenge them.”

Courtesy of Katherine Wildberger Modfest will continue through Sunday, Feb. 10. As a staple of the festival, Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre (VRDT) will take center stage in Kenyon on Friday, Feb 8.

That night at 8 p.m., the annual concert in honor of Professor Emeritus Richard Wilson, one of the founders of Modfest, took place at Skinner Hall of Music. The first acts, composed and performed by soprano Susan Botti and harpist Ashley Jackson, used poetry to cross over from music into other artistic disciplines.

The event also included the world premier of Wilson’s own “String Quartet No. 6,” performed by the internationally acclaimed Attacca Quartet. Before the performance, Wilson joked that, although as composers grow older their music becomes “clearer, simpler, more transparent, [he decided to] go in exactly the opposite direction, [becoming] impenetrable, complex.”

The composition certainly was multilayered, with high and low tones. Even while playing different rhythms, all four members of the quartet remained in sync with each other.

Sunday, Feb. 3 saw Modfest return to the intersection of film and music with the student “Cabaret ‘In Motion’ Pictures,” directed by songwriter Jennie Litt. Skinner Hall was transformed into an early 20th century movie theater as performers sang songs from early cinema while wearing black velvet, pearls and stiletto heels.

On Wednesday, Feb. 6 Saski Plum Globig ’19 staged an art installation in the Old Bookstore. Her project intersected the visual arts, dance, music and novels, incorporating soundscapes of different kinds and projection to represent the weather in Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights”—weather that, like her show, is complex, always in motion and ambiguous.

Modfest will continue into this next week. On Thursday, Feb. 7, the festival will once again examine the interactions of mu-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

sic and film with a lecture on music in silent film by Ben Model, an accompanist who has worked in silent film for 35 years. Model, who currently plays music for the MoMA and Library of Congress, will hold his lecture at 8 p.m. in Skinner Hall.

The Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre (VRDT) is scheduled to perform in the Frances Daly Fergusson Dance Theater on Friday, Feb. 8. Students and faculty will showcase a collection assembled by students, professors and professional choreographers at 7 p.m.

On Saturday, Feb. 9, a panel discussion on the technique of sampling music is set to take place in Skinner Hall at 4 p.m. The topic of discussion is the process of incorporating classical music into hip-hop songs. Panel members include Ensemble Mik Nawooj, a group known for this technique, as well as Assistant Professor of Music Justin Patch.

That night at 8 p.m., the Ensemble will perform at the Trolley Barn in Poughkeepsie, marking the first time a Modfest event has been held off campus and representing an initial attempt to use the arts to help bridge gaps between the school and the surrounding community.

Modfest will conclude on Sunday, Feb. 10.

The last event will be Joshua Roman and the JACK string quartet performing in Skinner Hall. This event will center on the Tornado as a beautiful and powerful force. The show also marks the beginning of Skinner’s regular season of music, which features at least two concerts every weekend—usually one on Saturday at 8 p.m. and one on Sunday at 3 p.m.—and extends through May. In closing out Modfest and opening the rest of Vassar’s music semester, this event in itself encapsulates the festival’s devotion to the exploration of borders and intersections.

February 7, 2019

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With new album, Blake ‘assume(s) form’ of versatile artist Jimmy Christon Columnist

Assume Form

James Blake Polydor Records

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of Frank Ocean’s “Blond,” and completely misses the vulnerability and ambiguity that makes Ocean’s great. Like, if I wanted to look at a white guy making a disdainful face at the camera, I’d go watch “Mad Men” again.

The titular track “Assume Form” is an alright opening, but it really feels like a drag.

Blake’s vocals on this cut are very weird— something that continues throughout “Assume Form,” but here they feel particularly unpolished. Next are two collaboration tracks with Metro Boomin, “Mile High” and “Tell Them,” and they are both pretty iffy.

The Travis Scott feature on “Mile High” is probably the highlight—except maybe that

Courtesy of Thomas Hawk via Flickr

ne of my favorite games to play throughout high school was called “Listen To James Blake and Dissociate.”

I still play this game, but it’s usually with other artists. However, James Blake is still a tried-and-true example of peak dissociation music. There is nothing like coming back from New York City when it’s raining, listening to the dull distortion of “The Wilhelm Scream” while the train pulls out of Yonkers and you leave the city behind.

But in high school, there was something more going on. James Blake was a new sound. His 2011 self-titled debut was a bold statement of musical originality, and his follow-up, “Overgrown,” was just as inventive.

While people had created music in the same vein as Blake’s, his self- titled debut album was original in its impeccable pairing of R&B with underground UK-based electronic.

I was a bit cold to his last album, “The Colour in Anything,” which I found to be bloated. The best thing I can say about the record is that some of Blake’s finest songs are on it (“I Need a Forest Fire, My Willing Heart” and “Meet You in the Maze”). If you like Blake, then go and listen to this album— you might find something to obsess over.

After a couple of years more of silence from Blake, listeners got their first release leading up to the new album, “Assume Form.” The

track, titled “If The Car Beside You Moves Ahead,” was fantastic, and I think it serves as a nice intro to some of the sounds found on this record—especially with the next single released, “Don’t Miss It.” The track is a downright perfect blend of traditional ballad writing and experimentation, and it made me so excited for the new LP. Talk about setting expectations high. Now that we have the full album, I think I can confidently say that it mostly reaches the bar that “Don’t Miss It” sets—at least after the first three songs.

The beginning of this album is a little rocky for me. First of all, the album art sucks. It feels like a gentrified version of that

English singer-songwriter James Blake released his fourth studio album, “Assume Form,” on Jan. 18. The record features guest performances by Travis Scott and Rosalía.

track’s production, which is admittedly great.

Honestly, looking at the tracklist here, just skip the first three songs. The more I listen to “Assume Form,” the more this opening feels out of place. Immediately afterward, the quality of the album just spins around in the other direction. “Into the Red,” “Barefoot in the Park” and “Can’t Believe the Way We Flow” are all exuberant, uplifting and magnificent songs that reach the bar set by “Don’t Miss It.” Even better, these cuts are more uplifting than Blake’s usual retinue.

“Into the Red” is a fantastic ballad with this swooning hook that I could listen to on repeat forever. “Barefoot in the Park” is somehow even better and is probably the most effective song on the album. This collaboration with Spanish singer-songwriter Rosalía sees both performers in tip-top shape. It conveys a sort of infectious chemistry that I haven’t heard in such a long time. Rosalía hasn’t made a bad album yet, and the Latin Grammy award-winning artist is someone you should check out if you hadn’t heard of her before Blake’s endorsement. The rest of the tracks do sound similar a little samey, but they are all pretty excellent, especially the collab track with Andre 3000, “Where’s the Catch?”

What solidifies this album as a solid release is the ending. “Don’t Miss It” and “Lullaby for my Insomniac” are two strong closing tracks.

This album is lighter than most of Blake’s material, but ending on the slower cuts such as “Don’t Miss It” and “Lullaby” feels very fitting to his artistry. Like its title, Blake takes up form on this new album—a new form for a career that felt a little stagnant. This is a solid release and well worth your time. Just skip the first three tracks.

Motazedian reframes ‘Baby Driver’ for Vassar community BABY DRIVER continued

For the protagonist of 2017 hit “Baby Driver,” music is central to existence; it allows him to drown out the omnipresent ringing in his ears that results from tinnitus.

Courtesy of junaidrao via Flickr

characters on a deeper level.” Essentially, the world is Baby’s music just as much as music is Baby’s world.

Event attendee Elizabeth Johnson ’21 related to this aspect of the film: “Music can be a really individual or universal experience, and the movie emphasized the universalness.”

This observation rings true when Baby partially loses his hearing and must rely on feeling the vibrations of speakers with his hands (a skill he learned from his deaf foster dad), meaning he can no longer listen to music in isolation; he must play it out loud and allow others to share in his experience.

On Friday, Baby’s new method was mirrored in the public screening format. Rather than watching the film alone or with a few people at home, Modfest attendees were afforded the opportunity to do so while sitting in a luxurious theater, gasping and laughing at the on-screen antics with approximately 100 other people. Pacio described this effect as a key reason why this event was important: “There’s not really a place in Poughkeepsie to see a movie unless you go to the Galleria or to Hyde Park, so why not see a movie here? … I think if it’s successful…there are so many places on campus for screenings to happen … it’s such an easy way to build community.”

That community extends beyond the screening’s attendees to its organizers. As Pacio recounted, “[Modfest] really became an opportunity to connect parts of campus that don’t normally work together or aren’t aware of each other’s work.”

This event fell squarely at the intersection of Vassar’s music and film departments, and, just like the movie itself, raised questions of where one discipline ends and the other begins. For Baby, they overlap in vibrations; for Vassar students, in The Rosenwald Theater.

Courtesy of BagoGames via Flickr

from page 1 animate and orchestrate his life. He must remain in constant motion to feel calm, so being behind the wheel of a car with an iPod is Baby’s ideal state.”

The film received critical acclaim for precisely this reason. Baby makes his living by driving criminals to and from heists. He suffers from tinnitus, a common symptom of aural conditions in which a person perceives constant ringing in their ear. In order to drown out the hum, he plays music loudly and constantly, timing his life so perfectly that the world around him almost melds into the soundtrack that plays in his ears.

In her introduction to the film, Motazedian referenced several prime examples of instances that exhibit this effect. In one scene, Baby starts playing a song at precisely the right time so that the brass solo will hit while he passes a music store, creating the perfect opportunity for him to play air trumpet with the instrument in the window. Later, Baby commands several armed criminals to wait for a certain part of a song before he allows them to leave the car to rob a bank, just so the music will have reached a crescendo by the time they return.

This obsession with timing extends past Baby and into the world around him. Honking car horns and screeching wheels are impeccably rhythmic throughout the film, falling at just the right time to accentuate the beat of whatever song is playing. Motazedian commented, “You’ve never heard such melodic gunfire,” because the shoot-outs blend seamlessly with the soundtrack. She continued: “The sound effects in this film interact with the music to form a rich sonic tapestry.

Paying attention to the music-sound interaction reveals fascinating insights in the narrative and allows you to understand the

Modfest featured a screening of “Baby Driver, introduced by Assistant Professor of Music Tahirih Motazedian, who described the key role of the film’s soundscape.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

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February 7, 2019

Debut album highlights Maggie Rogers’ relatability Holly Shulman

Assistant Arts Editor

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Courtesy of Wikipedia

t’s every college student’s dream: attend a networking opportunity on campus, meet an icon in your field of interest and impress them so much that they snap you up into a cloud of lifelong success. Needless to say, that is not the way life usually goes. But for Maggie Rogers, it was.

In 2016, Rogers was studying at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music when she was invited to attend a music masterclass hosted by both her Grammy-winning professor Robert Power and an anonymous industry expert, who turned out to be Pharrell Williams. He had dropped in to listen to students’ songs and offer feedback.

Upon hearing Rogers’ track “Alaska,” written only eight days earlier, Williams unleashed a five-minute-long soliloquy which was equal parts glowing review and ode to musical individuality. Beginning with “I have zero, zero, zero notes for that,” the artist went on to make comparisons between Rogers’ music and everything from the Wu-Tang Clan to Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (YouTube, iamOTHER, “Pharrell Williams Masterclass with Students at NYU Clive Davis Institute,” March 21, 2016).

The recording of their interaction went viral on YouTube, prompting Rogers to later tell Apple Music’s Beats 1 channel that if she had known, “I would’ve maybe, like, worn clean clothes.” Dirty shirt or not, the video skyrocketed Rogers’ career, landing her a record deal with Williams’ label, Capitol Records. Three years later, on Friday, Jan. 18, 2019, she released her first full studio album, “Heard it in a Past Life.”

Musician and singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers rose to almost overnight success after Pharrell Williams heard her song “Alaska.” Rogers released her first record on Jan. 18.

The 12-track collection clearly embodies the unique style Williams recognized in the artist years ago, which Rogers (who had once earned the moniker “banjo girl”) described that day: “All I want to do is...combine that folk imagery and harmony and natural samples that I’ve been picking up while hiking... with the sort of background and energy of dance music.” Each of those components are evident throughout the album, from the pulsating beat of the opening track “Give a Little” to the soft, steady synth of the final song, “Back in My Body.”

Even more remarkable, however, is the ease with which Rogers mixes the audible

aspects described above with emotional and relatable coming-of-age lyrics. The collection listens almost like a musical bildungsroman, tracking Rogers on her journey from dramatic adolescent moments in which she recalls, “I remember way back/Late night, throwback/Sitting on the front lawn when I lost it,” to deeply reflective, self-exploratory experiences like, “Moving slowly through westward water/Over glacial planes/And walked off you/And walked off an old me.” This verse seems to describe shedding the youthful, reactionary version of Rogers who would have “lost it” in tense moments.

Within only the context of that first con-

versation back at NYU, it is not difficult to understand why Rogers’ music rings powerfully personal and resonant. She talked about how she grew up playing folk-banjo music in rural Maryland and moved to New York City to continue down that path. Rogers added, “I stopped making music for a couple years in the middle of school and just went through some things and developed and learned some more about myself and I studied abroad in France and had a really spiritual experience with dance music there” (“Pharrell Williams Masterclass”). She went on to say, “I just started making music again a couple months ago and I can’t make enough.”

This seems to echo a quintessential facet of many truly great artists’ work: The most heightened moments of creativity coincide with the greatest growth periods in life. It makes sense, then, that armed with the tools of newly-discovered personal clarity and stylistic vision, Rogers is able to produce truly exceptional art.

These elements shine perhaps most brightly on the record’s ninth track, “Fallingwater.” Rogers sings, “Hold on, I thought that I could take it from here/Oh, I thought that I was coming clear/Now it’s getting harder.”

This serves to remind the listener about the ups and downs of self-discovery and development—she is telling her own story and refusing to stop or care if anyone relates, which inherently renders her message profoundly relatable.

Rogers serves as a reminder that even people who stumble upon almost overnight success face challenges and uncertainty; not everything in life becomes clear even after one achieves the college student dream.

Nostalgic showtunes delight, cabaret engages audience Delila Ames

Guest Reporter

C

Courtesy of Delila Ames On Sunday, Feb. 3, the Music Department presented a cabaret as part of Modfest, Vassar’s annual arts festival. The show explored the festival’s theme, “In Motion.”

with fun facts about Marilyn Monroe’s sexuality and Judy Garland’s acting career. Additionally, all of the performers presented a brief piece of context before their act. By using risqué patter, they created a sense of continuity that proved to be a punchy addendum to the show. The engagement with the audience further contributed to the zestful spirit in the room.

One of the featured performers, Helen Johnson ’21, who appeared within a quartet in a lively rendition of “Some Other Time” from “On the Town” (1949), stated that, “Unlike a concert, where it’s just a sing-clapsit-down pattern, a cabaret is interactive and engaging for performer and audience member alike.” Performers wrote their own patter after choosing their songs from a master list. Johnson continued, “Cabarets are cohesive; unlike concerts, they all fit together.”

Drew Canning ’21’s rendition of “Cabaret” was a common favorite among audience members and cast alike. Charles Mangan ’22, a first-time cabaret participant who sang “Get Happy” from “Summer Stock” (1950), described Canning’s performance: “[It was] emotive and entertaining the entire time, she just has an incredible belt.” Helen Johnson echoed this sentiment: “[It was] just phenomenal.”

This show has been in the works for months now, and the finished product reflects the countless hours of rehearsal. Vassar Staff Accompanist David Alpher and his wife, vocalist and lyricist Jennie Litt, organized the event. Alpher, an internationally recognized composer, accompanied each performer enthusiastically on the piano while Litt directed the event, which began as early as Dec. 2018. From private sessions months ago with Litt to dress rehearsal the day of, the performers were steadily com-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Courtesy of Delila Ames

abaret is a unique style of entertainment in which performers interact more heavily with their material than a performer might in a typical concert. A technique called “patter” breaks up the show tune variety music by adding spoken monologues and audience interactions between songs. Vassar’s cabaret on Sunday, Feb. 3, was no different from these cherished norms. The grand, carved wood backdrop of the Mary Anna Fox Martel Recital Hall in Skinner Hall provided an ambiance for the production, which was complete with a dapperly dressed accompanist, a striking cast and music from the first fifty or so years of “talkies.”

Modfest’s cabaret performance opened with a dynamic rendition of the titular song from the film “Hollywood Party” (1934) and took the audience from the early thirties to the mid-fifties in a vibrato-filled choreographed whirl. The cast’s commitment to the era was exemplified in their costumes, which featured an abundance of pearls and suspenders. Numbers like “Serenade in Blue” from “Orchestra Wives” (1942) and “Over the Rainbow” from “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) diversified the setlist.

In accordance with the theme of Modfest, “In Motion,” each song originated from a motion picture from Hollywood’s Golden Age. This amusing play on words exhibited the subtle cleverness of the cabaret’s creators, who also sprinkled each performance

The cabaret featured an Old Hollywood aesthetic. The theme was evident through its setlist, which consisted of movie songs from the first 50 years of “talkies,” as well as the performers’ vintage wardrobes. mitted.

The Cabaret is a recurring occasion in Vassar’s artful history, as is Modfest. Jennie put together an extensive list of show tunes from Hollywood-era musicals from which the performers then picked. There were many homages to Judy Garland, from “The Wizard of Oz” to “A Star is Born.” The effort of the organization was evident, and according to audience member Gracie Nayman ’22, “[It was a] thrilling and satisfying experience [with voices that were] smooth like butter” and costumes that took the spectators back to a glittery era of gossip and drama.

February 7, 2019

Campus Canvas

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

Page 9 submit to misc@vassar.edu

Excuse me, If you were to start a cult, what would it be like?

“We’re anti-jeans.

We only wear sweatpants. We burn jeans and use the ashes to decorate our sweatpants.”

— Jailyn Lopez ’21 “It would be an attempt at a perfect society. Like ‘Walden Two’ where everyone’s decisions can be predetermined by probabilities, but less fucked up.”

— Paige Anschutz ’21 “The practices are for the greater good even if we don’t use the best means.

There’s undying loyalty. And we have cake on Thursday.”

— Delaney Sears ’21

“A nerd cult where only nerds are allowed. But lowkey a sex cult.”

— Kevin Arce ’20

“It would be freaky.”

— Evelyn Frick ’19

Luka Carlsen Studio Art Major he/him/his Class of 2019 “While my work has changed over the past few years, fluctuating from chaotic compositions to simplified forms, it continues to be a conversation about space and about play. Some things I keep in mind while I work are the following: balancing organic and inorganic shapes/forms, referencing gravity and other forces, celebrating play, and remembering embodied experience.”

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

“It would happen in a different world where there are dragons. I ride them because they let me because they know I’m nice.

We are all a bunch of dragon people.”

— Katia Galambos ’21 Hannah Gaven, Humor & Satire Hannah Benton, Photography

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Quite Frankly Frankie Knuckles

Features Editor Quality Advice-Giver

Have a question you want answered? Submit your quandaries at http://bit.ly/2RFnXfk Hey Frankie,

Sincerely, Shocked and Confused Dear Shocked,

Q

SCOTLAND continued from page 1 years, but now utterly shocking coming back. Sure, the resources on campus are abundant and professors incredible, but there’s a reason our breaks last so long.

Vassar life falls prey to the productivity narrative widespread in the Northeast, particularly concentrated in the New York City working world. It says you are what you produce, and that’s exhausting. Campus dining is unlimited, and so are things to do in a given 18-hour period spent awake: class, homework, org leadership, work-study, socializing and finally (maybe) sleep. So here I am, gazing out my sunny window in Strong, wrestling with this new quasi-Scottish self, trying to figure out how to reconcile the playful person I became abroad with the over-scheduled one I am at Vassar.

We’ve been raised to rush. Slowness isn’t just boring; it’s painful. For us metropolitan Americans, waiting is reserved for stoplights and food lines. Forced breaks are occupied by furious scrolling through the daily news and rapid replies to friends who are probably accustomed to your delayed responses. Our walking isn’t strolling, but rigorous and intentional. If the pedestrian in front is too slow for your liking, you pass and avoid eye contact. Cars tailgate to suck out every inch of road space. Runners and cyclists zoom about, spending energy they can’t afford to waste. For most Americans from around here, myself included, slowness is terrifying. I think it makes us feel more alone and irrelevant. Action hints at a life of purpose.

And so does routine. After three years on the premises, it’s easy to become an automaton bound to work and regiments.

Maybe it’s more comfortable living in a fully-stocked bubble. My mom calls campus a nursery school for adults. Like a friend joked at dinner on Wednesday, Vassar would be a great setting for a dystopian novel where students work and don’t play, not knowing there’s more to life outside.

Removed from my usual environment, I learned the art of wandering and the pursuit of intentional unproductivity. At Vassar, I bolt directly to Rocky 200 for a lecture or rocket to the AFC to work out with the vigor of an Olympic speed walker. I rarely leave campus, except for the occasional excursion to Crafted, which packs more caffeine in their drinks than the Deece ever could in its coffee.

In Edinburgh, however, wandering became my always anticipated quotidien time of aimless adventure. The nooks and crannies I stumbled upon became the most endearing parts of the city’s character. These gems were quirks beyond the tourist’s gaze which I joyfully (and unexpectedly) embraced.

Wandering led to me to a cat café,

The author poses with a friendly ewe in Cumbria. These lovable and docile creatures are quite pleased to provide visitors to the farm with a slower-paced experience. where I de-stressed by spending time with purring cats after my last final of the semester. I even ran into a friend from high school while walking along a new path up Blackford Hill, one of three scenic overlooks of the city. I discovered a fish market with the best salmon in Scotland by taking an alternate route home from class. I came across my favorite village in Scotland—North Berwick—by arriving at the train station and choosing a random destination with a friend willing to do the same. We didn’t see puffins, but now I know where to find them.

Meandering made me feel whimsical and open. It helped me to realize how little I know about the world. I now know that letting the universe unfold as it has for thousands of years is better than asserting myself. One of my favorite times of the day was making the short trek to the heart of the city to walk around the Princes Street Gardens, simply to be there. It felt significant to gaze at the Edinburgh Castle, knowing that it existed hundreds of years before I did and would continue to exist for many years without me. It really reminded me of my place in time.

Part of my “letting go” education came from a homestay with a couple who owned an education center and sheep farm in the Lake District of Northern England. In Cumbria, England there are more sheep than people, and the population is aging. The old people and sheep infuse the region with a quiet wisdom. Five other university students studying abroad with me were hosted by a long-married couple, far removed from the bustle of Edinburgh and London.

The WiFi password didn’t work, but I

Best Wishes, Frankie P.S. Good intentions don’t equate to non-harmful actions. If interacting with him stresses you out, there’s nothing wrong with taking a step back.

think they secretly miswrote it to force us to disconnect from the outside world for a weekend. I wish I could say it was just what I needed, to sit back, reflect and enjoy the beauty, but in reality I spent three days fighting withdrawal symptoms from the drug of activity. Our hosts were experts at living slowly—a lifestyle many at Vassar, myself included, purposely avoid.

The couple let this easeful pace structure their farm, which is fashioned for individuals with physical differences in strength and motor skills. Feeding the flock took a bit longer with these crowds, but the sheep were apathetic to the rate of sustenance distribution. We might count sheep for our insomnia, but they just nap and graze all day, to avoid the exhaustion of doing too much at once.

For these sheep keepers, excessive action equated to exhaustion. They were experts at letting life unfold. The mayor of a seven-hundred-year-old English town called Appleby-in-Westmorland told us that running into a friend on the street would result in hours of talking and laughing. I barely stop to say hi to a friend on my way to lunch, but the residents of Appleby-in-Westmorland make those interactions the focal points of the day. Yes, they are retired, but I think they are onto something with their priorities.

Like wandering, there is a distinct beauty in intentional slowness—it made Cumbrians non-anxious and available. There’s a humanness in being unimportant enough to let the world unfold without superintending its unfolding. I’m trying to elicit those lessons for the remainder of my time here. Be patient with me though; I have to run to class.

Courtesy of Lindsay Craig

uite frankly, most people with marginalized identities wrestle with this issue, so your conflicted feelings are totally valid. Before I get to my advice, I want to emphasize that I’m not a POC, so I can’t speak directly to your experience. Listen to your intuition if it differs from what I tell you. I do know a fair bit about emotional labor, so hopefully I’ll be helpful.

In this kind of situation, remember that you are, above all, a person and not a token of lived experience. If you have the mental energy and knowledge to educate someone who’s ignorant on POC issues (or any issue), you should.

Having a given identity qualifies you to comment on the experience of that identity, but it doesn’t obligate you to educate any ignorant person you come across. You’re not a museum curio; you’re a human being.

Because he’s open to learning more, he would likely appreciate any time you take to educate him, but you shouldn’t do that at the expense of your own mental health or happiness. Ultimately, the energy you put into this interaction is up to you. There’s no right amount of effort for which you’re responsible. As long as your new off-campus compatriot remains receptive, and interacting with him doesn’t overtly drain you, you’ll be doing the right thing.

If he actually is “literally the nicest man,” he should be accepting of the knowledge you want to impart and of your need to be seen not as a representative for your social identities, but as a holistic person with an experience just as valid as his own.

You might consider looking for resources for him to educate himself. Providing links to online resources and stories from other people with experiences like yours can be just as effective as your first-hand experience—with less emotional labor for you.

Many people have already devoted time to this project. Curating a few of these that resonate with you and sharing them with your new friend might be a good step. You could even help him unpack what he’s learned if you want to lend more of your personal perspective.

Student learns ‘intentional unproductivity’

Courtesy of Lindsay Craig

I met a boy from a different college in Poughkeepsie, and he’s literally the nicest man, but as I’m learning more about him, I’m realizing he’s pretty ignorant about the world, though very open to learning more. That’s hard because I don’t want to push someone away for not being as socially aware when I could instead educate them, but it’s also a lot of emotional labor for me, as a POC who doesn’t really want to explain the entire history of their identity. What should I do?

February 7, 2019

Featured above are a few members of the fold, veritably striking poses in their majestic sheeply splendor as they graze. The beautiful English countryside setting of the farm serves as an outstanding backdrop for the study of intentional unproductivity.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

February 7, 2019

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International Office creates new home for old friends Kaiqing Annabell Su Guest Reporter

W

Courtesy of Laura (Ruoxi) Yang

hile Poughkeepsie was windy, cold and a mess outdoors on Jan. 30, the Office of International Services (OIS) was having an open house for its new office—complete with hot chocolate, tea and brownies. On the same day, I got to see a lot of international friends after break. We hugged, chatted and hugged again, as per usual. This time, however, the reunion did not happen on the way to class or at rush hour in the Deece, but in CC237, the beautiful new space for OIS. I remember being in an intern meeting at the beginning of last semester, when Assistant Dean of the College for Campus Life and Director of International Services Andrew Meade proudly announced, “We are going to have a new space!” For a long time, Meade had been asking (if not fighting) for a space for internationals—not only for interns to work in, but also for the general international student body to spend time with each other. With the capacity to host more events in our own designated space and the chance to create a more accessible environment for students to simply step into, OIS’s new office is likely to help internationals solidify their presence on campus. So this was definitely an exciting piece of news.

However, euphoric excitement often comes with some degree of disappointment. As all of us took a trip to CC237, we quickly realized that we had a lot of work to do: come up with a floor plan, brainstorm ideas for furniture and engage in a great deal of heavy lifting and moving (from the old office at Main South 185) before we could call the space our own. Facing this empty expanse, I simply couldn’t envision a new office.

My second time in CC237, it had officially become the new space for international students. A week before the semester started, Meade sent an email, subject-lined “OIS past, present, and future.” With the

help of two students over winter break— Ivy Chen ’21 and Anne-Marie Abban ’21— everything from the old office got boxed up and moved into the new one. “Moving was not super stressful,” Abban later informed me, “but what was stressful was packing and finding boxes to use.”

After winter break, all the interns were responsible for unpacking the boxes and figuring out where the stuff should go. So there we were, with the past memories of OIS settled in boxes filled with various trinkets—from fairy lights and files to sharpies and photo albums—lying in front of us. As we tried to decide where to begin, scattered and disoriented questions flew across the room: “Should we start with stationery?” “Wow, we should put up these nice posters on the wall!” “Why do we have 10 file stands? They should go away.” “I am going to put this Romanian doll here!”

Going through one box after another, wiping off the dust and occasionally throwing items away, we found ourselves reminiscing over the history of our office and the nostalgic time spent with the many faces of the international student body. The colorful posters took me on a world tour of the successful Around-the-World series we’ve done, featuring food and culture in different parts of the world. The four extra packages of graham crackers transported me to international orientation nights with s’mores. The files of people that have already graduated made me wonder: Where were they from? How did they like Vassar?

How was OIS back then?

Picking up, organizing or throwing away belongings is itself a process of remembering and forgetting. It was then that I realized that the “stuff” was not only stuff, and “moving” was not merely moving— but transforming, changing and growing.

In this process of dealing with the past, I also started to think: what do we want the future to be like? With a larger space that is more well-connected to students, what do we want to create?

Pictured above is the brand new Office of International Services, which will provide administrative space, as well as room for event hosting and community gatherings.

For international students, “home” is always the answer—not only in the sense of where we are from, but also in the sense of where we are connected and rooted, where we feel comfortable and safe. One of OIS’s goals is to create such a home for internationals. Currently, we are in the midst of conceptualizing a community bookshelf that welcomes literature in a variety of languages. We have cultural artifacts on display from all over the world (a lot of them donated by internationals in the past) and there will be a picture and postcard wall filled with students’ experiences from across the globe.

Other than creating a sense of home by adding our own touches, we want all internationals to be part of building this “home.” So we welcome cultural organizations to hold meetings here, we hope to hold various kinds of events and we look

forward to exploring other possibilities.

Overall, this new center is a space that welcomes international students to spend time with each other, to escape from stress and to bond over good music, good snacks and most importantly, good conversations.

Day by day, the new space feels increasingly like home. Interns no longer work in the rarely-visited, arguably less welcoming office we had prior to this one; people come in to study and chat on the couch while drinking hot chocolate. Meade sometimes walks in from his office next door and catches up with students he might’ve met only once during events. As of now, we are still deciding on new furniture, a better layout of the room and some operational rules for the common space.

Meanwhile, even though it will be a while until the next official “open house,” OIS is always open.

Job seeker discovers summer-saving resources from CDO Aidan Zola

Guest Reporter

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yes wide open, I count the cracks on my ceiling for what feels like the millionth time that night. I check the time on my phone screen—it’s 3:42 a.m. What will I do this summer? Why didn’t I start looking for internships earlier? Why does it seem like everyone I know is posting on LinkedIn? All of these questions and more race through my mind, making it utterly impossible to fall asleep.

Now, I don’t exactly know if this is a common experience among Vassar students, but what I do know is that I’m not alone. After all, the anxiety surrounding post-grad plans and summer internship searches is very real. Whether you’ve just scheduled that big interview, sent in about 50 different applications without hearing anything back or simply feel like it’s too late to even start looking, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

With that being said, I have some exciting news: there is help out there. Vassar students enjoy a wealth of resources and opportunities at our fingertips via the Career Development Office (CDO). From online databases and professional networks to one-on-one guidance, there is no shortage of career support on campus.

To better understand all the CDO has to offer, I sat down with Stacy Bingham,

Director of Career Development and Assistant Dean of Studies. To start off, Bingham explained one of the most important resources available. “Within the office, we have folks who are trained counselors and advisors who meet with students. At a small liberal arts institution, one of the ways in which students really benefit is the opportunity to create close relationships with faculty, and I see that playing out in the Career Development Office as well,” said Bingham. “There’s a lot of years of expertise here, so it’s really something students can and should take advantage of.”

In addition to emphasizing the value of the CDO’s staff, Bingham stressed the importance of connecting with graduates. From Vassar’s alumnae/i network to regular career panels and workshops and events like Sophomore Career Connections, Bingham stated, “There is no better inspiration for life beyond Vassar than to look at the career paths and talk to the people who have paved the way.”

The third and equally important career resource provided by the CDO is access to online databases and networks. Handshake, in particular, acts as a great place for students to kick off their internship or job search, all without scheduling an appointment with one of the CDO’s staff. Bingham noted the value of this online resource, elaborating, “Last year’s graduating class

was the first to have had Handshake as their job search database, and the number of students who actually found their jobs on Handshake doubled or tripled from the previous database.”

Another way in which the Career Development Office supports its students is through funding opportunities. Even if you’ve already secured a summer gig, you might still be worried about how to finance it, especially if it’s an unpaid opportunity.

However, by doing a quick search on the CDO’s website, students are able to learn about the numerous ways in which the office can offer them financial support. One of the most well-known financial resources is that of the Internship Grant Fund (IGF).

From this funding pool, the CDO may allot between $250 to $2500 to each student applicant, provided they’ve already secured an internship or job.

Besides the IGF, the CDO provides additional avenues of funding. According to the CDO’s website, “Career Development grants are intended to help offset the costs of expenses related to career preparation, job and internship search, and graduate/ professional school applications.”

Although alumnae/i may not access the CDO’s funding opportunities, many return time and time again in order to take advantage of the office staff’s expertise.

Bingham explained, “It’s important to

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

note that within the office, of course our primary constituents are students, but we also serve alumni as well. In a given year, they comprise about 15% of our counseling base. So it’s fairly significant—most are graduates of the last five years, but we also have alumni at all ages and stages coming back to seek advice and counsel.”

Besides those searching for career advice, many alumnae/i also return in order to participate in some of the career events hosted by the CDO. As many students know, one of the most important alumnae/i events is the above-mentioned Sophomore Career Connections. Bingham cited this event as one of her favorites, due to the sheer volume of students and alumnae/i who come together for a exciting, productive weekend.

To close out our time together, I asked Bingham about the most common question that she receives from students. She jumped right in: “‘Do I need to know what I want to do to come in and talk to somebody at the CDO?’ And of course, the answer is not at all!” So, whether you’re a first-year just beginning to think about what you may want to do someday, or a senior, terrified by the prospect of graduating in a few months, the Career Development Office is always ready to help.

Say goodbye to sleepless nights, and start sending those exploratory emails!

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February 7, 2019

Nine methods to defend against sickness this semester Ariana Gravinese

normal conscious hours. When you are drinks or food with friends.Your friend ready to go to bed for the night, remem- may feel fine, but that does not mean that fter coming back from a long break, ber to disconnect from electronics to reap you cannot get sick. It might be in your best college life resumes quickly. Between peak benefits from your allotted recharg- interest to have your own water bottle and classes, friends, social events and work, ing time. Remember, “Sleep deprivation even snacks, especially during the winter many concerns demand your attention. can lead to reduced brain function, fatigue, months. The Rutgers Student Health site This sudden re-emergence onto the col- headaches and weight loss or gain. College emphasizes that “Germs are easily spread lege scene can cause a great shock to your students need between seven and nine through the sharing of drinks, alcoholic or body, especially your immune system. hours of sleep and getting this amount otherwise, so get your own and avoid sharHopefully, your winter break was filled can improve overall health” (Huffington ing with friends” (Rutgers). Getting your with relaxation and fun, but when you re- Post, “10 Tips to Stay Healthy in College,” own lip balm is also helpful. sume normal college life you likely become 06.21.2011). Do not work in bed. You want Cut back on the caffeine. more stressed, get less sleep and overall to condition your body to associate your Tea and coffee are staples in the colyour body is weaker—thus rendering your bed with sleep so that when you hit the lege student diet, but these drinks contain personal temple less effective at fighting mattress, falling asleep will be significant- caffeine, which is a diuretic. Hydration is off illnesses. Here are some ideas to keep ly easier. even more important for caffeine lovers. in mind and some tricks to stay healthy for Go exercise.

If you are one of those people that cannot a great semester.

Exercise increases your heart rate, en- survive without daily caffeine, consider Drink water. courages your blood to flow and enables switching out the coffee for green tea, as Water is not only essential to life, but you to have a better night’s sleep. By ex- it has immune-boosting antioxidants. In it also allows your body to flush out your ercising, you are rewarding your body and fact, “Green tea is loaded with polyphenol system. When you are dehydrated, you your immune system. But don’t take my antioxidants, including a catechin called generally feel fatigued. This fatigue weak- word for it: “According to a study published EGCG. These antioxidants can have varens your immune system. According to in the journal Neurologic Clinicians, regu- ious beneficial effects on health,” such as A Pirate's Life For Me Rutgers’ Student Health Services, “Drink- lar exercise also keeps inflammation and fighting free radicals that cause cellular ing enough water can help boost your chronic disease at bay, reduces stress and damage (Healthline, “10 Proven Benefits concentration as well as keep you from the release of stress-related hormones, and of Green Tea,” 01.17.2018). Your whole body DOWN ACROSS overeating. Make sure to keep hydrated accelerates the circulation of disease-fight- will thank you.

1. Area a chain byyour a furlong 1. Syrian capital, its river as you go through your day by bringing ing white blood minus cells (WBCs), which helps Wash sheets. water with you” (Rutgers Student Health the body fight the common cold” (HealthYou and should wash your sheets and pil2. Tibia fibula blocker Services, “101 Health and Wellness Tips for line, “The Secrets to Never Getting Sick,” lowcase at least every two weeks, or even 3. 1512 Kyats, in America 6. Have sex, in Britain College Students,” 04.25.2008).

11.16.2017). If you go to the gym, remem- every week. Your bed is home to lots of 4. Russia, an edit Get a good night’s sleep. 10. Ignore ber to wash your hands after touching the different formerly germs, so frequently washing Most people have heard this repeated14. ad Place equipment.

If you64 areacross not a gym lover, ask your bedding 5. Brewed tea can help to keep your body to store nauseum but sleep is very important 15. for Aa hip friend to go for a walk around campus or healthy. One article tells us, “Over time, 6. Roman shields joint your mental and physical well-being. Since the farm and take in the fresh air. bacteria from human sources like sweat dwellers 16. FastDo food college life can be unpredictable and busy, not 'drive' share drinks amd utensils7. Pueblo and spit—and a few grosser ones that don’t 8. Neuron stem 17. and repeat (or lip balm). consider scheduling your day and blocking need to be mentioned—join forces with off time for sleep, or even a nap(!) during Most people those from foreign such as pollen, 9. Organized crimebodies territory 18. Placed abovedon’t second guess sharing Reporter

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MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

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2019

February 7, 2019

OPINIONS

Page 13

The Miscellany News Staff Editorial

College should add school days to promote safety in snow

W

ith the balmy spring breezes of the past few days, it is easy to forget the polar vortex that swept the eastern United States last week, marking the beginning of February in Poughkeepsie with sub-zero temperatures. This unprecedented cold snap kept many Vassar students holed up in their rooms, apprehensive about facing weather advertised as capable of bringing on frostbite in mere minutes. Even as we experienced temperatures low enough to warrant emails titled “Hazardous Weather Alert” from the Security Office and levels of snowfall sufficient for local school delays, the College did not declare a campus-wide closure or delay. Trekking to class in chilling conditions prompted some students to wonder: Would everyone be warmer, cozier and—most important—safer if the school were to keep days on reserve in the case of severe weather or dangerous travel conditions?

According to an emailed statement by Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Music Jonathan Chenette, cancelling all classes when administrative offices close is a decision up to his sole discretion, but some professors do not appreciate it when he does so.

Chenette recalled the one time he cancelled classes during his 10 years as dean, relating: “[A] number of faculty members complained because they lived nearby, could get to class fairly easily, and did not want to have their course schedules disrupted.” If he were to cancel classes, Chenette continued, it would only be in severely hazardous conditions, such as falling trees or power

outages. Ultimately, faculty members who choose to cancel class are responsible both for notifying their students directly and for making up the missed instruction time.

We suggest that faculty members’ resistance to mandated snow days comes as no surprise considering Vassar’s condensed schedule. According to Chenette, “[Vassar is] in accordance with New York State regulations, federal regulations, and the practices of most of our peers,” specifically with the College’s 15-week semester length; nevertheless, many students consider courses to feel rushed, and professors frequently seem hard-pressed to allocate adequate time to each topic while also allowing for in-class discussion and questions. Given the challenge of covering the material, professors may feel pressure to hold classes in risky weather conditions lest their decision to cancel come at the expense of their own syllabi.

Indeed, as Chenette noted, some professors might find it easy to get to campus, but others live farther away and thus have to navigate dangerous roads after nights of heavy snowfall. Such a situation is not only nerve-wracking but also potentially life-threatening: From 2011 to 2015, New York State was one of only six states with annual rates of deadly car accidents at 40 or above (USA Today, “Winter car accidents are a deadly weather hazard,” 02.06.2017).

Given these concerns, we urge the Office of the Dean of the Faculty to more rigorously collect data on faculty opinions toward mandated snow days and, if responses

suggest it would be beneficial to professor well-being, consider putting into effect a policy of student and faculty review. One such example may be seen at Cornell University, which implemented a campus-wide shutdown from March 13 to 15, 2017 (Cornell Faculty and Students, “What Staff and Faculty Have to Say,” 03.24.2017). Dean of the Faculty Charlie Van Loan solicited input from students and faculty afterward, and responses were conflicting. Many of the complaints stemmed from the late notice, as the school notified the campus at noon; others felt that closing was well-advised, as the roads were not safely navigable. Ultimately, the school ruled that the conditions were dangerous enough to warrant closure. While Vassar may not experience the same hazardous lake-effect snow seen “up North” in Ithaca, the College might still do well to consider longer-term shutdowns— or shutdowns in the first place.

Even barring a change in snow-day legislation, problems presented by dangerous conditions could be mitigated if the College provided professors and students with more instructional days. If professors had increased leeway to cover the same amount of material, they could better space out topics in their syllabi, allowing for more indepth class discussions—as well as for the possibility of cancellations without significant curricular description. Similarly, assignments could be less densely distributed over the semester, allowing students even slightly more time to focus on extracurriculars, self-care and professional devel-

opment, all aspects of college life that too often seem to fall by the wayside in the face of encroaching deadlines.

One untapped avenue for extra instruction time is Vassar’s winter break, often considered by students to be notoriously lengthy. If the College were to trim winter break and implement, say, an extra week of instruction on either end, professors could cancel classes in the face of unexpected circumstances without guilt—and as an added benefit, students with campus jobs would be able to continue earning. Undoubtedly, there are a myriad of factors to be taken into account with any curricular or scheduling change, particularly one as drastic as tacking on extra weeks at the expense of vacation time. While more space in which to spread out their curricula could benefit professors, pushing back the dates of study week and final examinations could also cut into the time allotted to grade finals and submit final evaluations, potentially causing undue added stress. Given such considerations, robust and intentional data collection from both students and professors is necessary to determine the drawbacks and advantages offered by mandating snow days, adding extra teaching days or both.

Given Vassar’s upcoming curricular changes, now is an apt time to conduct such a self-study—preferably before the next polar vortex hits.

—The Staff Editorial expresses the opinion of at least 2/3 of The Miscellany News Editorial Board.

Oxford comma too vital for Miscellany News to ignore Jesser Horowitz Columnist

I

n March 2017, a Maine judge made a rather alarming decision, one that cost the dairy industry $5 million. A group of delivery drivers had filed a lawsuit against their employers in order to seek payment for working overtime. However, their employers had claimed that Maine’s labor laws exempted the drivers from overtime pay due to the nature of their job. According to the law, the following tasks were exempted from overtime pay: “[t]he canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of agricultural produce, meat and fish products, and perishable foods.” The key here is punctuation: The drivers argued that “packing for shipment or distribution” was a single act, and thus that the law exempts overtime pay for those tasked with “packing for shipment or distribution” but not with just “distribution.”

And because the drivers only distributed the items and had no role in shipment, what they did was not covered as a legally recognized exemption (CNN, “A lack of an Oxford comma cost dairy $5 million,” 02.09.2018).

The judge agreed. If there was an Oxford comma before the “or” in “packing for shipment or distribution,” the employers would have won. But because the law forgot to include that comma, the drivers won instead.

This simple grammatical oversight resulted in a major legal decision, prompting Maine lawmakers to quickly revise their labor laws to include the Oxford comma. If this seems irrelevant to the daily life of a college student, then you are sadly mistaken. The Oxford comma is essential for clarity, and it should be used by everyone in every circumstance.

The target of my specific ire today are my

editors at The Miscellany News. While I love and defend the paper that has been home to my writing for four years, I find the editors’ opposition to the Oxford comma inexcusable.

So, as break to my usual spotlight on disability rights and anti-Semitism, I will tackle a loftier and—I assume you’ll all agree—more important issue: the beloved Oxford comma.

Really, this has been a long time coming.

To start, it’s important to understand what the Oxford comma is. According to Grammarly, the Oxford comma is simply the last comma in a list. Here’s an example of a sentence that incorporates its use: “I’d like to thank my parents, Elizabeth Bradley, and Stanley Kubrick.” In short, it’s mostly used for clarity. (Grammarly, “What Is the Oxford Comma and Why Do People Care So Much About It?”). Consider my example sentence without the Oxford comma. It would look like this: “I’d like to thank my parents, Elizabeth Bradley and Stanley Kubrick.” See the problem? This sentence could accidentally convey that Stanley Kubrick and Elizabeth Bradley are my parents, rather than two separate people whom I want to thank.

To be fair to The Miscellany News, the Oxford comma would indeed be used in this circumstance. The official policy is as follows: “Do not put a comma before the concluding conjunction in a simple series. Put a comma before the concluding conjunction in a series, however, if an integral element of the series requires a conjunction. If the elements of the series are full independent clauses, put a comma before the concluding conjunction” (Miscellany News Style Guide, last updated 2018). The idea behind this rule is to clean up clutter; it’s better to save ink and space. So, we only use the Oxford comma if we feel that it’s absolutely key for the purpose of clarity.

While this is not an unreasonable position, it is ultimately an unwise one. The Miscellany News’ position here marks an error in values. By supporting the regular use of the Oxford comma, the editors would signal to their readers that they value clarity above all else. By not doing so, they put our newspaper at risk—the writers and editors are much more likely to make the mistake of not using it in a situation even when it helps make their points clearer. I would argue that it is better to overuse the Oxford comma than to underuse it. The worst the former could bring is a little wasted ink; the worst the latter could bring is an embarrassing semantic mistake.

In Judaism, there is a concept known as “building a fence around the Torah,” or in Hebrew, “asu s’yag latorah.” According to Reform Rabbi David E. Ostrich, “Just as a fence around a yard or house protects it, many of the Rabbinic innovations were designed to protect the commandments in the Torah. These developments were not seen as additions of subtractions, but rather as aids in maintaining the integrity of the mitzvot” (Union of Reform Judaism, “Making Fences Around the Torah,” 11.20.2017).

Essentially, in order to prevent Jewish people from breaking the law handed down by God, the rabbis would go a little further than necessary in the form of rabbinic prohibitions. Think of it like building a large fence around a tree—that way, if a driver ran offroad, the driver would only damage the fence and not the tree. An example of this for Jews is chicken parmesan. In Judaism, there is a ban on cooking a cow in its mother’s milk.

This essentially means that you can’t eat beef with cheese or any other kind of dairy.

According to Professor David Kraemer of the Jewish Theological Seminary of Amer-

ica, chicken was largely considered meat the same way beef was, and thus, the rabbis classified all meat as one (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “Ask the Expert: Why is chicken parmesan not kosher,” 09.11.2009). Therefore, even though birds don’t give milk, they are classified alongside cows so that Jewish people would be less likely to make a mistake.

I suggest that, much like how the Jewish people have built a fence around the Torah, The Miscellany News should build a fence around the Oxford comma. It is safer for the editors to require the use of the Oxford comma so as to avoid confusion and prevent mistakes that could muddle one’s message.

I would also argue that the current guidelines leave out important occasions when the use of the Oxford comma is necessary.

Consider my previous example: “I would like to thank my parents, Elizabeth Bradley, and Stanley Kubrick.” Here, it is essential that the Oxford comma be used for clarity, but this is not covered by the style guide. Kubrick does not require a conjunction in his name, and he is not an independent clause. Therefore, if we follow current guidelines, the Oxford comma remains absent even when needed for clarity.

While The Miscellany News could decide to simply open up their standards and give writers more freedom to determine when it is necessary, I believe the better route is to require it always. That way, writers will fall into the habit of using the Oxford comma and will be far less likely to make a silly mistake. This is an opportunity for The Miscellany News to embrace common sense grammar rules.

Through this change, we can send a signal to our readers that we care about eliminating any possible sources of confusion in our writing. It’d be a real shame to let this opportunity pass by.

The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented within its Opinions pages. The weekly staff editorial is the only article which reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

OPINIONS

Page 14

February 7, 2019

Scientist vs. publisher: Sci-Hub reveals flaws in academia Steven Park

Opinions Editor

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Elsevier have issued multiple copyright takedown notices to thousands of researchers who released their work to the public without the company’s permission.

“We can’t allow published journal articles to be freely accessible on a large scale...What library will continue to subscribe if a growing proportion of articles is available for free elsewhere?” asked Elsevier’s Head of Global Corporate Relations Tom Reller (TechCrunch).

Unfortunately, science’s current relationship with the academic publishing industry inherently holds back scientific progress.

Advancements in research cannot occur without the exchange of ideas, theories and practices. With access to essential scientific information available only to those who can stomach the high costs, science is effectively chained to the corporate whims of companies like Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Springer and Wiley. If left unchecked, prices will continue to soar, and the end result will be a scientific community that cannot keep up with the distribution costs of its own research.

trol 50 percent of all the journal articles that are published, compared to just 20 percent in 1973 (Science Alert, “These Five Companies Control More Than Half of Academic Publishing,” 06.12.2015). Among them, Elsevier remains the world’s largest academic publisher, with control over 16 percent of a global market worth $25.2 billion (Medium; Financial Times, “Elsevier leads the business the internet could not kill,” 11.15.2015).

The cruel irony is that academic publishing companies profit largely by selling back the content that researchers gave them for free. In most cases, scientists sign over the copyright and give their tax-funded research to academic journals just to fulfill the “publish-or-perish” quota. The publishers then proceed to sell that same content back to the scientists and the general public for a hefty fee. This effectively means that both the researchers and the general public are double-paying for scientific knowledge: Once to pay for the research and again to read the results (The Washington Post).

It doesn’t end there. Once scientists’ research is locked behind a journal’s paywall, they must pay an additional, exorbitant fee if they want the publisher to lift that paywall so that the general public can read it (The Atlantic, “Academics Want You to Read Their Work for Free,” 01.26.2016). How exorbitant?

Consider Cognition, one of Elsevier’s 1,800 hybrid open-access journals, as an example.

Researchers who submit their papers to Cognition must either publish their paper behind the journal’s paywall or pay a whopping $2,150 article-processing charge to make their paper freely available to the public (The Atlantic).

Additionally, academic publishing companies have recently started cracking down on scientists who have been distributing their submitted papers on their own personal websites or research-sharing platforms like ResearchGate and Academia.edu (TechCrunch, “Elsevier’s Research Takedown Notices Fan Out To Startups, Harvard, Individual Academics,” 12.13.2013). So far, companies like

In 2012, Harvard University, one of the wealthiest institutions in the world, announced that it can no longer afford to keep paying for the rising costs of academic journals, which amounted to around $3.5 million per year (The Guardian, “Harvard University says it can’t afford journal publishers’ prices,” 04.24.2012). “The prices have been rising twice as fast as the price of health care over the past 20 years, so there’s a real scandal there to be exposed. It’s important that Harvard is suffering when it has the largest budget of any academic library in the world,” stated Harvard’s Director of the Office of Scholarly Communication Peter Suber (The New York Times).

Now enter Sci-Hub. First created by Elbakyan while attending graduate school, Sci-Hub was an angry response to the large number of research papers locked behind expensive paywalls. Frustrated with the greedy practices of academic publishing companies, Elbakyan wanted her website to help other students and scientists by distributing scientific knowledge that she believes belongs to everyone. When a Sci-Hub user requests a research paper, the site logs into the online portals of university libraries and individual scientists using passwords that were reportedly donated to Elbakyan. The website then makes a copy of the paper for its servers so that it doesn’t have to go through the portal again for that paper. And whenever the academic publishing industry successfully shuts down the website, Elbakyan simply reuploads Sci-Hub onto the Internet using a new overseas domain. Her goal: to collect all of the research papers ever published and make them free for everyone online (Vox).

“The UN article says that a person cannot be excluded from participating in culture and scientific progress. I think that paywalls are doing just that, effectively excluding many people,” stated Elbakyan, now 30 years old.

“As a devout pirate, I think that copyright should be abolished. At least some corrections to the laws should be made that pro-

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

t first glance, 23-year-old Alexandra Elbakyan seems like a typical science graduate student. Born and raised in Kazakhstan, Elbakyan spent her childhood reading books about dinosaurs and evolution and later studied neurotechnology at Kazakh National Technical University, where she discovered her knack for computer hacking. In between homework assignments, she wrote blog posts, participated in multiple online feminist groups and designed science-based T-shirts for fun. On the internet, however, Elbakyan is known by the global scientific community under several infamous titles: the modern-day Robin Hood, Science’s Pirate Queen and the fugitive creator of SciHub, the world’s largest pirate website for academic papers (Science, “The frustrated science student behind Sci-Hub,” 04.28.2016; The Verge, “Science’s Pirate Queen,” 02.08.2018).

Ever since its creation in 2011, Sci-Hub has repeatedly demonstrated its influence as a force to be reckoned with. Now, with more than 50 million scientific papers in its database, the website has exploded with popularity in recent years as countless students, scientists and members of the general public rely on its service to access research papers that are normally locked behind expensive paywalls. According to an analysis of SciHub’s web traffic, more than three million unique IP addresses downloaded a total of 28 million documents between September 2015 and March 2016. While many of these users came from the United States, a significant portion came from poorer countries like Tunisia, Morocco and India (Vox, “Why one woman stole 50 million academic papers — and made them all free to read,” 04.28.2016).

Naturally, Sci-Hub and Elbakyan quickly became the academic publishing industry’s most despised enemy. In December 2015, the billionaire publishing giant Elsevier filed a $15 million lawsuit against Sci-Hub for copyright infringement after numerous attempts to shut down the site for good (Nature, “US court grants Elsevier millions in damages from Sci-Hub,” 06.22.2017). Yet, despite its status as an illegal enterprise, Sci-Hub resides in a curious ethical grey area in the eyes of the public. Admired by many as a symbol against censorship and corporate greed, SciHub represents a natural response to a fundamental crisis in the modern science era: the war between scientists and the academic publishing industry.

To say that the current state of science has flaws is an understatement. Plagued by cutthroat competition and inadequate funding, the world of academia perpetuates a “publish-or-perish” culture that demands researchers to mass-produce scientific papers—or else lose their careers. In short, it serves as the perfect environment for the academic publishing industry to swoop in and capitalize on.

Due to the current structure of science research, billion-dollar corporations like Elsevier are almost guaranteed to make large sums of profit, because the market for academic journals is practically bottomless— university libraries, research labs and individual scientists must obey their demands or else risk their livelihood. As a result, academic publishing companies have little to fear when they hike up prices to astronomical heights. According to the Association of Research Libraries, the cost of journals and other subscriptions has skyrocketed by 456 percent since 1986 (The Washington Post,

“This student put 50 million stolen research articles online. And they’re free,” 03.20.2016).

Today, the cost of a typical subscription to a well-known scientific publication can range from $2,000 to $35,000 a year (The New York Times, “Should All Research Papers Be Free?” 03.12.2016). If users can’t afford to pay for the subscription plan, then they must face a $40 paywall, behind which are more than 114 million papers, or 75 pecent of all articles (Wired, “It’s Gonna Get a Lot Easier to Break Science Journal Paywalls,” 12.03.2017).

“Academic publishing is the perfect business model to make a lot of money. You have the producer and consumer as the same person: the researcher,” stated Brian Nosek, a professor at the University of Virginia and Director of the Center for Open Science (Medium, “Can’t Disrupt This: Elsevier and the 25.2 Billion Dollar A Year Academic Publishing Business,” 12.22.2015).

It’s little wonder, then, that the academic publishing industry has become incredibly bloated with revenue. According to a 2015 study, a total of five corporations now con-

hibit prosecutions or injunctions against free distribution of scientific knowledge and educational resources” (Vox).

While academic publishers see Sci-Hub as a force of evil, many scientists have expressed their support for Elbakyan’s efforts, mainly because the academic publishing industry has squashed so many of their own attempts to fix the system. In the past, researchers have tried petitions, boycotts and large-scale protests to enact change, only to crumble in the face of Elsevier’s overwhelming influence and expert team of lawyers (Enago Academy, “Elsevier’s Open Access Controversy: German Researchers Resign to Register Protest,” 05.21.2018; The Atlantic). So when news of Sci-Hub’s success spread, several scientists couldn’t help but feel optimistic.

“I never felt people were pirating my work,” stated Yale medical Ph.D. student Parwiz Abrahimi, who considers it an honor that his research paper on CRISPR gene editing was one of the most frequently downloaded documents on Sci-Hub (The Chronicle of Higher Education, “What Do the Authors of Sci-Hub’s Most-Downloaded Articles Think About Sci-Hub?” 05.13.2016).

According to Associate Professor in Medicine at Université Laval Dr. Holly Witteman, academic authors are generally more than happy to share their research papers with interested readers, because they usually want the world to know the results of their studies.

She tweeted, “That $35 that scientific journals charge you to read a paper goes 100% to the publisher, 0% to the authors. If you just email us to ask for our papers, we are allowed to send them to you for free, and we will be genuinely delighted to do so” (Twitter, @ hwitteman, 07.05.2018). And it’s not just researchers who feel this way. When Elsevier tried to force Swedish internet service provider Bahnhof to block access to Sci-Hub, the ISP retaliated by blocking access to Elsevier’s website in protest of the publisher’s censorship efforts (The Wire, “Elsevier Forces ISP to Block Access to Sci-Hub, ISP Blocks Elsevier as Well,” 11.05.2018).

However, the bottom line is that websites like Sci-Hub are illegal, and their practices can genuinely lead to online security risks.

According to intellectual property expert Andrew Pitts, Sci-Hub likely amassed its large collection of passwords through phishing, leaving breached online portals vulnerable to intruders and thieves (The Scholarly Kitchen, “Guest Post: Think Sci-Hub is Just Downloading PDFs? Think Again,” 09.18.2018).

In addition, the scientific community’s bitter anger toward academic publishers does not change the fact that the root of the problem lies with science’s venomous “publish-or-perish” culture. The reason why so many scientists fall victim to the academic publishing industry’s practices is because their entire careers depend on how many articles they can publish in esteemed, globally-recognized journals. In a way, scientists are stuck in the same broken system as college students. Just like how uber-prestigious colleges like Harvard make billions of dollars off of students looking for success and financial stability, publishing companies like Elsevier have made a fortune preying on scientists trying to survive in academia. This bloodthirsty, overly-competitive nature of our current society has caused both groups to suffer immensely in an insanely flawed system in need of serious repair.

So, while its methods may be suspect, SciHub is merely a symptom of a much larger problem in science. Until the scientific community restructures its priorities, this illegal website will only serve as a temporary fix.

The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented within its Opinions pages. The weekly staff editorial is the only article which reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

OPINIONS

February 7, 2019

Page 15

Please stop giving Ted Bundy your attention Alice Woo

Guest Columnist

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ersonal confession: I really enjoy true crime documentaries. The intrigue, the chase, the many twists and turns along the way—there is no denying the appeal of these shows and movies. It’s what’s made the genre popular: “The Staircase,” “Tickled” and “Evil Genius” are just a few that have kept me on the edge of my seat this past year.

As avid fans of true crime and docu-drama, my friends and I decided to watch “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes,” which Netflix released Jan. 24. The show was a combination of present-day interviews and archival footage.

Netflix’s description of the show is as follows: “Two journalists set out to get the definitive story of infamous serial killer Ted Bundy, as told by the man himself” (Netflix, “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes,” 2019).

The first episode of the Netflix original series, “Handsome Devil,” focuses on Bundy discussing his childhood, young adulthood, family and friends, essentially giving us his own narrative. As the show progressed, I found myself plagued with questions that wouldn’t go away: Why are we having a conversation with a killer?

Why are we giving him a voice? Why is he given both the stage and the audience to normalize himself? Perhaps a forensic psychologist would benefit from his testimonies, but when we find ourselves gawking at these criminals in a practically pornographic way, I have to wonder what the point is and ultimately ask—who benefits from this?

Indeed, as the series continues, it becomes clear that Bundy has no intention of ever admitting to committing the crimes on tape, nor discussing why or how he was able to perpetrate them. The best we get from the series are non-definitive hints as Bundy talks about the murders hypothetically, expressing possible reasons one might commit serial rape. There is hardly a mention of his affinity for keeping corpses around for days after the murder, performing necrophilia and further mutilating them. The docu-series completely sidesteps the actual crimes and victims and instead lets Bundy glisten in the spotlight (San Francisco Chronicle, “Netflix’s Ted Bundy documentary is almost everything that’s wrong with the true crime genre,” 01.28.2019).

One day after the series came to Netflix, the first trailer for “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile,” an upcoming movie also about Bundy, was released for popular consumption. Or, as my friends introduced it to me, “the new Zac Efron

movie.” This trailer has already incited backlash as audiences question the upbeat music and romcom-esque tone of the preview. I cannot fault Netflix and Hollywood for wanting to make money by cashing in on the fans who enjoy true crime drama.

Casting a heartthrob actor as a serial killer is nothing new. In 2017, Ross Lynch—a former Disney star like Efron—starred in “My Friend Dahmer,” yet another film that humanizes the white, male serial killer.

Joe Berlinger, the director of both the movie and the Netflix show, explained that he wanted to focus on how Bundy deceived not only the American media but also the people closest to him. He stated, “Bundy challenges all of our beliefs of what a serial killer should look like because he used his good looks and intelligence to hide his double life for far too long” (Buzzfeed, “The Director Of The Ted Bundy Biopic Says The Notorious Serial Killer Won’t Be Romanticized,” 01.30.2019). With this in mind, I actually think Efron is an appropriate choice for the role, as Bundy was notoriously handsome. His courtroom audience was famously packed with precisely the type of young woman on which he preyed; some even slipped notes to him during the trial. However, by casting Efron, Berlinger ensured that movie theatres will be similarly packed with the same demographic.

By telling the story through the eyes of Bundy’s long-term girlfriend Liz Kloepfer (played by Lily Collins), Berlinger ensured that Bundy will be considered an object of attraction. It seems the director is dead set on us forgetting the horrific acts that Bundy committed and instead impressing upon us with how fantastic he was at eluding detection. Kathy Kleiner Rubin, who survived an attack by Bundy in 1978, says of the film, “That’s who Bundy wanted you to see” (Nylon, “Ted Bundy Survivor Says Zac Efron’s Portrayal Is ‘Who Bundy Wanted You To See,’” 01.29.2019).

Ted Bundy raped, physically mutilated and murdered over 30 young women, aged 12 to 22. He escaped custody once, returned as if to flaunt his abilities and then escaped again. His attitude in the courtroom and toward reporters was always smug, calm and satisfied. One might argue that his desire to speak on these tapes was solely motivated by his need to have some control over his story. This is a valid desire. But Ted Bundy raped, physically mutilated and murdered over 30 young women, aged 12 to 22. Therefore, I challenge the idea that he deserves any control over his story and his image, or that his crimes deserve to be told over and over again. All he has done to earn it was perform especially gruesome atrocities over and over with a cavalier attitude, a notoriously charming personality

and a typically handsome face.

As a viewer, I think one of the biggest hooks of the true crime series genre is the unsettling concept that anyone you know could be hiding a secret life of brutality.

If the Netflix show is any indication, it sounds as if the upcoming biopic will emphasize that a handsome face does not ensure trustworthiness by any means.

However, I think one of the hidden takeaways from the genre of true crime is that it’s important to consider criminals as people with friends, hobbies, careers and lives outside of their serial murders. But according to Netflix, only certain people fall under this category: those who are particularly clever, especially creepy, extremely wicked, shockingly evil...and only those that are white, male and often conventionally attractive. Even within the genre of fictional crime television, the antiheroes we hold dearly are more often white males than not: Folks like Walter White, Tony Soprano, Dexter and Hannibal Lecter may commit crimes but stay above the law and control their stories. Therefore, they become heroes.

“Dexter” brought in 2.8 million viewers (The Hollywood Reporter, “TV Ratings: ‘Dexter’ Series Finale Brings Record 2.8 Million Viewers,” 09.23.2013). “Hannibal” often averaged more than 3 million viewers per episode (TV Series Finale, “Hannibal: Season One Ratings,” 06.17.2013). The series finale of “Breaking Bad” brought in a record number of 10.3 million viewers (Entertainment Weekly, “‘Breaking Bad’ series finale ratings smash all records,” 09.30.2013). Altogether, these antiheroes’ shows garnered over 20 million viewers.

From the standpoint of a fan, I have fun watching crime shows. However, I can’t help but examine the interplay of race, sex and the criminal justice system which so systematically discriminates against a demographic that is never represented in true crime. It seems Americans are perfectly willing to turn a blind eye to the problems within our justice system, yet they are simultaneously captivated by the intricacies of murder cases from decades ago. I have no problem with media that makes us listen to those who have been systematically silenced, but I would argue that white male serial killers are not necessarily part of that group, nor do they deserve our consideration. Until we reexamine the school-to-prison pipeline, stop criminalizing black boys and girls and reform our justice system, Ted Bundy does not deserve our attention. Unfortunately, it saddens me that he has received exactly what he always desired: validation, glorification and permanent status as a legend in the serial killer hall of fame.

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Word on the street Which emoji do you dislike the most?

— Harold Golick ’22

— Maisha Lakri ’21

— Parvaneh Jefferson ’21

— Bryan Smith ’21

— Solenne Steelberg ’21

Opinions.

Submit an article to the opinions section by emailing eupark@vassar.edu. We look forward to hearing from you!

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Opinions?

­­— Miranda Cornell ‘19

Hannah Gaven, Humor & Satire Hannah Benton, Photography

The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented within its Opinions pages. The weekly staff editorial is the only article which reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

HUMOR & SATIRE

Page 16

February 7, 2019

Breaking News

From the desk of Hannah Gaven, Humor & Satire Editor

Galactic Rodeo reigns supreme despite Traditions Committee’s confusion over what it actually means Frostbitten student searches for lost ring finger in tundra Blair Webber

Lord Of The Ring Finger

T

Frank/The Miscellany News

he polar vortex swirled over Vassar last week with a vengeance, layering the ground with patches of ice and then coating people in snow to fool anyone who might think, “Oh, look, that soft patch of snow won’t be slippery at all.”

The subzero temperatures proved a challenge for even the frostiest students on campus; the monumental tasks of bundling up and leaving your windows closed overwhelmed many.

One student, Fred Lazarus ‘19, found himself in extra peril on his walk to The Building Formerly Known As The Deece one frigid morning.

“I forgot my gloves, and I was going all the way from Lathrop to the Deece. My fingers never even stood a chance,” said Lazarus.

Lazarus, failing to pull his phalanges inside his sleeves, succumbed to frostbite after about half an hour of walking back and forth from the edge of the building to the door, trying to decide if it was worth it to walk all the way back to his room to get gloves.

“I guess hindsight is 20/20, but in the moment I couldn’t make a decision: I had to eat, but my fingers were cold and I had class at 10:30. I probably shouldn’t have paced outside for so long, but it’s not worth going over the ‘shoulds’ and ‘coulds.’ What happened happened, and now all I can do is try to fix it,” Lazarus glumly sighed to himself.

Lazarus has gained some attention lately after posting on VC Lost and Found about losing his left ring finger.

“Well, when I first got frostbite, I went straight to Baldwin. They gave me some ibuprofen, so it was kind of up to me to try and keep my fingers on my body until I could restore circulation,” Lazarus shared.

“But one snapped off somewhere on the quad, and I don’t know where it is. I’m starting to panic.”

As the temperatures are starting to rise, Lazarus is eagerly waiting for the snow to melt so his search for his missing finger can begin. He feels extremely concerned for his future now that he doesn’t have his left ring finger.

“What if I get married, and she doesn’t have anywhere to put the ring?” Lazarus said, despairing at the notion that a wedding ring might have to go on any of his other fingers.

“It just wouldn’t be the same,” he loudly complained. “How would I know I was married if it’s on the wrong finger? My life is over!”

A development on Vassar Free & For Sale gave Lazarus a little hope of reuniting himself with his missing digit. A post appeared late on Monday night advertising a left ring finger for “$20,000 OBO (or best offer),” but the hefty price tag dismayed struggling Lazarus.

“The seller said he had some pretty serious offers, I don’t think mine could be the best. Also, he says it’s not my finger. He won’t say where he got it, but he insists it’s not mine. Even if it were, I shouldn’t have to pay for my finger back.”

In the meantime, Lazarus is asking all students to keep an eye out for his missing finger. He would really like it back. Please help.

Womp-Womp World

I heard Punxsutawney Phil is a mean, cheating liar. Whoever gave him the job of predicting spring is going to be in for a surprise when it snows two feet.

Faux gamer girl discloses secret steps for securing your own lady lover @Izzy Migani #gamergirl

H

ey, guys! It’s me, your favorite TikTok star wannabe and faux gamer girl. I was browsing Quora and Wikihow the other day for strictly academic reasons when I stumbled across MULTIPLE threads regarding the conquest of gamer girls and the how-to’s of getting your very own gamer girl. The advice was not in any sensical order, so I thought I’d do everyone a favor. I present to you a compiled list of how to attract your very own gamer girl from the opinions of Quora, Wikihow and men. Yes, real men still follow this advice.

Step 1: Join a gaming guild or a gaming community. Maybe you’ll find some ladies there whom you like who will end up liking you back. Get into social media. There’s a large population of female gamers on Twitter (hopefully they have #gamergirl in their bio). Follow them, chat with them and get to know them. Join their private Discord network. Check out Twitch streams for your potential lady lover. Try some online

dating sites and look for potential partners with shared interests—games! Hangout at places that sell games and gamer gear: Gamestop, Hot Topic, Spencers, etc. Play an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game), focus and git gud on it, be a leader of a Guild or a Clan.

Arrange a meetup in real life, and organize your members! Although unlikely, there might be a girl that shows up. Find a way to involve her in the arrangement of the next meetings. Get to know her by working together. Maybe ask her on a date when you have gained some trust. I know it’s especially hard for PC and console gamers to balance gaming with somehow getting out there to meet gamer girls. You can do what most hardcore gamer boys do—become a moderator in her Twitch chat. Donate those bits. The more you donate the more likely it is that she’ll notice you, so you better have some big bucks lining that wallet!

Step 2: If you’ve gotten this far, you

now have the gamer girl’s attention. Great!

Make sure your Steam library is vast. Ensure that your Xbox game collection is hefty and your living room walls are covered in posters. Talk about the many activities you’ll do together once you’ve become a couple IRL. Discuss how hot she is, or how much you think about her during the day. It seems like every guy gamer wants a perfect girl gamer companion.

With all that testosterone building up in all these gamer guys, you’d better bet that the gamer girl you just met has already been “sweet-talked” (harassed) by many other guys. If you try to pull anything, she will likely shrug you off and move on with her game. So, instead, I recommend showing her that you’re different from the others and that you actually care about her and will treat her right. But, be wary. Giving a girl gamer too much help and buying her in-game gifts (hoping that she will like you) will backfire. Some girls do not want

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

to be burdened by an expectation that they should repay your kindness. Worse case, she will slowly avoid you because she thinks you’re trying a romantic approach.

Step 3: Once you have your gamer girl, you need to be aware of the delicate dynamic of your relationship. Say you have your raid nights with your guild from Tuesday to Thursday. Your gamer girl should understand this. She should see why it’s important to you, and she should understand the fact that you have dozens of people relying on you being there and doing your part. She shouldn’t shame you or get angry about this time commitment.There’s simply no greater feeling than cuddling with a woman and then, in the post-cuddle phase, chatting about what you’re going to raid that week. Always take care to encourage her to play, not just sit and watch. Even more important: play together. Whenever a game has a co-op mode, play it. With any luck, she might become your gamer wife.

February 7, 2019

HUMOR & SATIRE

Page 17

Myth busted: Posse Retreat isn’t for training Bald Eagles Francisco Andrade

Avid Watcher Of American Flag Videos

assar College: a bustling melting pot of various ideas, backgrounds and Retreat sushi (take the “retreat” as a warning, trust me). Amongst all of Vassar’s many different groups and organizations, there exists one much like the others (except with more facial hair and worse knees)—the Vassar Posse Vets. I know what you may be thinking: “Woah, Vassar has military vets? Who are they? And are the military stereotypes true?

Do they really train bald eagles and only watch “Black Hawk Down” on an endless loop? And Posse? Is that a female Possum?”

Well folks, I, as a Vet myself, must come forward and lay down the truth: Posse is not a female possum (though great name idea if you have a possum). It’s a scholarship program that selects Vets from around the country and provides us with an opportunity to attend fine institutions like Vassar.

Oh, also, the eagles are actually not trained, they just flock to us, and it’s not a movie we watch on loop, but actually a live feed of an American flag factory. These questions and more could have been answered this past weekend at the Posse Plus Retreat (PPR), an annual event where all the Posse Vets currently attending Vassar, along with faculty members and regular students, go away for a weekend in the nice zero-degree weather to bond—which proved easy to do when we were all cuddling together by the fireplace.

The retreat began Friday afternoon at the Stony Point Center in Stony Point, NY, a beautiful New York getaway nested near

Courtesy of Wikipedia

V

Thanks to Francisco’s suggestion, I adopted a female Possum to name Posse. It’s the perfect name! I bring her to my classes so she can get in her daily belly rubs. many Native American settlements. This is particularly important to acknowledge because, the same week that the President delivers the State of the Union speech, the President of the National Congress of American Indians presents a yearly address named “The State of Indian Nations.” Jokes aside, I seriously encourage watching this important address.

At the retreat, we had Vassar professors and staff, as well as Posse facilitators, who led the activities and group exercises. So if you wanted to get to know more about a professor you admire, or you simply wanted a good excuse for them to extend a deadline on an overdue homework assignment, then inviting them was the way to go! After introductions and warm-up exercises, the group jumped right into the topic of discussion for this year’s retreat, “The State of Our Union.”

It was then that I understood the decision to host the retreat near a campground— when discussing the current administration, breaks to shout into the woods are a must.

As one would expect, the state of the union is a difficult topic to speak about, and there are many approaches by which to go about it. However, Posse staff nailed it: They broke down the core pillars of our country’s foundation into organized topics. Staff provided all attendees with a chance to speak their minds in an accepting environment and for others to politely challenge or even disagree with their ideas—all the while maintaining a peaceful conversation. I am actually hoping I can have the Posse organization to come to my house for Thanksgiving this year and lead discussion there as well, as this past year got a little…violent, to say the least. Although my grandma did use her one phone call to tell me she loved my mashed potatoes, so that was a high note.

On Saturday we had the bulk of the activities, all centered around group discussion.

We spoke on topics of race, education, gentrification, gender and many other issues that currently dominate the political climate of our country. Needless to say, we were able

HOROSCOPES

to fix all of the issues and solve all the problems, all in the nick of time for dinner. Okay, maybe not all the issues were solved (that would have taken two weekends), but I can say that I left many activities feeling more involved in several topics, and even more interested in ones that didn’t directly affect me, which is really the point of all of this—to encourage discussion on how to make our community and our nation better.

Saturday night there was a lighter side to things, and we got to witness a “No-Talent Talent Show,” which is good because that is exactly my talent. The acts, however, did include many talents, such as reading bad Yelp reviews, scaring Michelle Obama (and then trying to fight Barack), performing standup comedy, dancing better than Beyoncé and even mind reading! What an amazing opportunity not only to see another side of your teachers and friends, but also to obtain blackmail material. It was a fantastic wrap-up to quite an eye-opening weekend.

I know I personally forged some friendships, learned many lessons, used the time for self-reflection and pushed a few people in order to desperately get to a picture of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez <3 that was hanging in the portrait gallery in the meeting room we were using. I highly recommend attending the PPR next year if you can, as I believe that it is an amazing weekend of self-reflection, free food and learning more about a community that lives amongst you at school. And who knows? At the end of the trip, if us Vets really like you, we may even let you borrow a bald eagle or two.

Hannah Gaven

amateur astrologist

ARIES

March 21 | April 19

TAURUS

April 20 | May 20

GEMINI

May 21 | June 20

CANCER

June 21 | July 22

LEO

July 23 | August 22

VIRGO

August 23 | September 22

I am a saucy gurl. But are you saucy?

The stars suggest that you need to up your slimey quotient this week. One way to do this is to bathe in sauce to become the saucy child you always wished you were.

If you feel like a social outcast this week, don’t try and start the wave. Odds are people will not continue your wave. This will make you look like the loser you are, and everyone else will know too. Sucks.

Cats are so cute. It’s very hard to cuddle with them though because they are small, and I always have to be the big spoon. I decided to make a Tinder just to find someone to be my big spoon. Unfortunately I got a lot of creepy messages. Either way, I learned that Tinder is the answer to life.

I’ve started going to the gym. On the first day I loitered outside for about 20 minutes to scope out the scene. The next day I walked in and then walked out. The next day, I peered into the place with the ellipticals. Face your fears this week and loiter outside the gym.

Slurp slurp. Gulp gulp. Drink drink. There goes that tomato juice down your throat.

Drinking tomato juice will be your only option this week after a skunk sprays down your throat while you were trying to kiss it.

Do you ever lick your own tongue? It’s good to know yourself, and I feel normally that includes people feeling themselves all over, but everyone forgets about the tongue.

Also, have other people lick your tongue, so if you’re ever in a crunch, you can differentiate your tongue from someone else’s.

LIBRA

September 23 | October 22

SCORPIO

October 23 | November 21

SAGITTARIUS

November 22 | December 21

Now is the time to start listening to country music. There seems to be a general hatred of the genre, but there are some severely underappreciated lines from Toby Keith like, “I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.” “As Good as I Once Was” is a great song. The music video is even better.

It’s so sad that I don’t have my mommy to sing me lullabies anymore, so I’ve made my friends start taking shifts singing me to sleep.

They actually love it so much that I have a two-month waitlist. Email me for the experience of your life.

It’s okay to be a sad little seed. As long as you keep watering yourself, you’ll grow into a little sapling. Eventually you’ll become a full grown apple and will live in the Deece until you’re smushed into applesauce. Hydrate or die-drate.

Show other people pictures of your feet.

CAPRICORN It’s a guaranteed way to make friends. If

December 22 | they think your feet are gross, don’t fret!

January 19 You can suggest that they treat you to a nice pedicure, so your toes will look cuter!

AQUARIUS

January 20 | February 18

PISCES

February 19 | March 20

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Do you ever get a song stuck in your head that you can’t get out? The star alignment predicts that you will get “Gangnam Style” stuck in your head. If you want to get it out, hit your head hard on a wall to induce a concussion.

As spring approaches (it was 60 degrees this week), it’s time to start your spring cleaning. Sweep your floors, donate your clothes and ditch the dead body that’s under your bed before it starts to really smell.

SPORTS

Page 18

February 7, 2019

As Pats secure Super Bowl LIII trophy, nobody wins Emmett O’Malley Columnist

This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but with a whimper —T.S. Eliot

E

liot’s canonical final stanza in his poem “The Hollow Men” echoed through my hollow noggin during the final moments of Sunday’s Super Bowl LIII. I was not alone.

Immediately following the game, Los Angeles Rams offensive-linemen and human mountain Andrew Whitworth responded to a question in similarly philosophical terms: “You’re not going to get me to pout and feel sorry for myself...At the end of the day, we’re all gonna die...And who you are, how you carry yourself...is the only thing that’s going to matter. Because that’s what people are going to remember about you” (Twitter, [at]robertmays, 02.05.2019).

I think that Whitworth’s response fits well within the broader context of the game itself, because his response coheres with Eliot’s ever-relevant poem. Further, his response fits with the three existentially-angsty robot commercials released by Michelob Ultra, Pringles and TurboTax. It fits with Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post ad built to embolden the Post’s new “Democracy Dies in Darkness” slogan.

It fits with the tenor of the game more generally, as well. Indeed, in the highest-scoring season in NFL history, the final game was decided by a duel between two defensive masterminds, Wade Phillips and Bill Belichick, who have been in the league a combined 87 years. The offenses whimpered.

More than anything, Super Bowl LIII was a game defined by entropy. So when the clock hit zero, and confetti poured blandly down from the roof of Atlanta’s Mercedes Benz Stadium, it felt like there was nothing worth celebrating. Because there wasn’t. Because on the biggest stages, there rarely is.

By now, you may know that the New England Patriots beat the Rams, 13-3. You may know that this is the sixth championship the Patriots have won in the past 18 years. You may know that Tom Brady and Belichick have cemented their status as the greatest player-coach combination in the history of sports.

If you see yourself as a politically conscious liberal, you hopefully also know that the NFL is a morally indefensible entity, that Belichick has been outspoken in his support of Donald Trump and that the Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft went from praising the White House to dancing with Cardi B in the span of 24 hours this past week.

But parsing the problematic nature of the Patriots to justify rooting for the Not-Patriots is, at its heart, silly. Of course, I understand the attraction of rooting against the team that Barstool Sports’ neanderthals root for, and I understand rooting against Boston sports more generally. Indeed, if you read my column last semester, “As Red Sox win Series, remember race and the Yawkey Way,” then you’d know my thoughts on Boston’s extraordinary history of racism. For the sake of cogency, I’ll reproduce one particularly astounding statistic here, from the author Matthew Stewart: “A 2015 study in Boston found that the wealth of the median white family there was $247,500, while the wealth of

the median African American family was $8.

That is not a typo” (The Atlantic, “The Birth of a New American Aristocracy,” 06.2018).

But throwing your support behind the Los Angeles Rams, a team owned by Stan Kroenke—the husband of Walmart heiress Ann Walton and a contributor of $1 million to Donald Trump’s inaugural committee— seems as politically backwards as anything else. Alas, the only politically responsible way to root for an NFL team is to not root for an NFL team.

Despite the fact that an increasing number of courageous individuals have begun to publically boycott the NFL, it is still the most popular sports league in the United States by all measures. And even though ratings for this Super Bowl were at their lowest since 2009, it is hard to attribute much of that to the impact of a Kaepernick-inspired protest of all things NFL. The sport is just too popular.

But at some point down the road, it won’t be. And at some point down the road, the Patriots will no longer rule the NFL like a sports version of Cersei Lannister. Their reign will end because, as Andrew Whitworth and T.S. Eliot both knew, everything ends as unceremoniously as it begins. And I think that there is both hope and darkness to be taken from this vision of reality. Excuse the pedantic philosophical nature of the following paragraphs...

The hope brought by an awareness of entropy comes when we can look at terrible things—terrible systems, the terrible ideas from which they grow, and the terrible consequences of their supremacy—and know that they will never stay the same. The same reason that anything beautiful brings a cer-

tain sadness can also justify optimism regarding actionable, system-shifting ideals. With a cognizance of the very necessity of change, we can know of the never-ending potential for growth and progress.

The darkness in an awareness of entropy comes from the fact that the victory of progress is as likely as the reinvention of injustice. It is hard here not to think of Colin Kaepernick, a Black man socially persecuted and barred from his profession for the simple reason of being Black and challenging the invidious status quo.

In this way, Kaepernick’s expulsion is just another example of the means by which post-apartheid America continues to silence Black voices. As the formative intellectual Derrick Bell wrote, “‘We have made progress in everything, yet nothing has changed.’ Despite the racial progress we have made in this nation, the Black Body continues to be used as a valued commodity to generate revenue for capitalist endeavors” (Derrick Bell, “And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice,” 1987).

The ability of oppressive powers to adapt to the ever-changing nature of any society has been the defining characteristic in America’s long search for justice. The ability of the New England Patriots to adapt to the ever-changing nature of football is the defining characteristic of their dynastic success.

To disrupt the supremacy of both deleterious systems of oppression and the dominant success of the New England Patriots, structural change is necessary. Without structural change, retrenchment is inevitable. 2020, here we come (I’m talking about Super Bowl LIV, of course).

NBA’s player-power revolution threatens its chief architect Dean Kopitsky Columnist

B

y most accounts, the NBA has never seen a talent like LeBron James. But this may be a reduction of the King’s greatness, because the NBA has also never seen someone of his intellect, determination and less-acclaimed stewardship.

LeBron came into the NBA at a mercurial crossroads. Just months before draft day, 2003, Michael Jordan bowed out for the final time. The void left by his hoop earring-shaped legacy created a problem for the league. Long buttressed by the popularity of Jordan, the NBA’s reputation would suffer after his exit. What’s more, in losing the star who’d been the face of the league for 15 years, the players lost a big chunk of their collective power.

The current narrative of the NBA contends that it is more equitable, safe and transparent than any other American sports league. Nonetheless, from time to time, evidence of the power dynamics that permeate all owner-player relations flare up.

In 1996, Nuggets guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf chose to sit for the national anthem because he viewed the American flag as a symbol of racism and oppression. The league suspended Rauf and two years later, he was out of the league (The Undefeated, “Still no anthem, still no regrets for Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf,” 09.01.2016). In 2005, the NBA instituted a dress code that forbade many items including T-shirts, jerseys, sports apparel, “headgear” and sunglasses while indoors. The fashion prohibition proved controversial, and to many carried a racist subtext. In this decade, the wounds of Donald Sterling’s egregious tenure as owner of the Los Angeles Clippers linger, fresh and painful. The fact remains that out of 30

owners, only one is Black, a former player— Michael Jordan.

In the aftermath of Jordan—as the league punished dissent and regulated player expression, and as racist owners like Donald Sterling reigned—the power of the NBA player arguably reached its nadir.

The 2003 draft class is one of the greatest ever. It produced at least four future Hall of Famers and numerous other players still scattered across the league’s starting lineups.

Seven years after that draft, three of those Hall of Famers, in an operation orchestrated

by LeBron, teamed up in Miami to form the first “Super Team” of the 2010s. The rest is history.

But LeBron’s infamous televised “Decision,” as it turned out, was the decision that launched a thousand more moves. When his contract was up in Miami, Lebron changed teams for the second time in four years—an unprecedented maneuver for a superstar at the very apex of his career. Upon his subsequent return to Cleveland, LeBron penned a letter expressing his excitement to play with the team’s young players. The Cavaliers’ first overall pick, Andrew Wiggins, was notably absent in the letter. A week later, LeBron voiced his interest in playing with Minnesota Timberwolves’ forward Kevin Love. In August, Love was in Cleveland, Wiggins was in Minnesota and the myth of “LeGM” was born. LeBron’s influence grew.

Since the Decision 2.0, the traditional constitution of a superstar has fallen apart.

So many of the NBA’s best have changed teams that the phrase “franchise player” has gone the way of the mid-range jumper and the sleeved jersey. The year that LeBron returned to Cleveland, the 2014-2015 season, 12 of the 15 members of the All-NBA teams played for the team that drafted them.

What’s more, of the three exceptions, none had ever demanded trades and only two had traded uniforms in free agency: LeBron and Pau Gasol.

Seven of those 15 players now play on different teams. Soon, Anthony Davis, who recently requested a trade from the Pelicans, will make eight.

In 2016, Kevin Durant, arguably a top-3 player in the NBA, rocked the league when he signed with the 73-win Warriors. Such a move by a player of his status hadn’t occurred since the ’70s. Yet while the move harkened back to the Decision, the precedent set by LeBron is no longer the paradigm of player empowerment.

Since 2016, All-NBA members Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, Chris Paul, Kyrie Irving and Jimmy Butler have demanded, and received, trades. The trend has infiltrated the lower rungs of NBA stardom as well. In the last week alone, Kristaps Porzingis and Dennis Smith Jr. were dealt after demanding to be moved. Star migration of this magnitude is unprecedented, but trade demands are nothing new. What is new is how players are calibrating their landing spots. Players near the end of their contract are now expressing their desire, or lack thereof, to re-sign with the team to which they are dealt. And the ransom teams give up to obtain superstars is not worth a season-long rental. Players can decide where they want to play, even while under contract.

When LeBron left the Cavs the first time, owner Dan Gilbert called him a coward and a narcissist. Instead of departing Cleveland via free agency, envision if James had hamstrung the Cavs’ options by curating a list of viable suitors. One can imagine Gilbert would have used more colorful vocabulary.

LeBron is now the NBA’s hegemonic pow-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

er, on and off the court. Many of his elite contemporaries were either his friends (Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul), or his teammates (Chris Bosh and, twice, Dwyane Wade). Last summer, however, the King relinquished some of his power.

LeBron gave a multi-year commitment to the Los Angeles Lakers, a pledge he never made to Cleveland the second time around.

He demonstrated patience and a willingness to look towards the future rather than the present. Conventional wisdom suggests the process shouldn’t take long. Anthony Davis, Paul George and Kawhi Leonard have all expressed interest in moving to LA. However, in committing, LeBron may have ignored another NBA trend. It seems NBA players no longer need the spotlight to make names for themselves and find success, a strategy first executed by James himself.

George signed a lucrative extension with Oklahoma City last summer, and Leonard may very well stay in Toronto. Despite the best efforts of his agent, Davis may find himself on a team that can offer a better package than can the Lakers. In his final maneuver, it seems possible that LeBron overplayed his cards, and discounted the ability of players to make stars of themselves in teams and cities where they yield more control.

There is a world in which neither Davis nor Leonard head west to LA, where the young Lakers—Brandon Ingram, Kyle Kuzma, Lonzo Ball and Josh Hart—become adequate, but not champion players. In this case, the 34-year-old LeBron places himself in a very unusual position, a position in which he is weighed down by a lengthy contract in a market that no one seems to need, an athletic non-shooter speeding past his prime.

LeBron created this world; now he has to survive it.

February 7, 2019

SPORTS

Page 19

Men’s tennis enters spring season with high expectations McDERMOTT continued

dards and a strong team chemistry. Tennis is an individual sport, but in college it is necessary to put team first.”

Implementing this mentality will prove particularly important for the Brewers, especially considering the high standards they have set for themselves. “We have one overarching goal for this season: win Liberty Leagues and get to Nationals,” Anderson spelled out. To accomplish this, Anderson plans on nurturing a culture of accountability, mutual respect and prioritization of group interests. The senior captain also explained that the group is

Courtesy of Joe Clifford Junior Jeremy Auh prepares to hit in a match last year. The team feels hopeful as they enter their season, excited about the arrival of new coach Tina McDermott.

working hard to take that next step and come out victorious against those who have beaten them in tight matches the past few years.

Junior Jeremy Auh echoed Anderson’s sentiment that the primary goal of the team this year is to win Liberty Leagues and qualify for the NCAA Championship.

Auh feels that the group has already shown promise this year with the completion of a successful fall season. “Some things the team did well this fall season was that we started off 2-0 and got a big revenge win against Coast Guard,” Auh explained.

He hopes that this momentum will carry into the spring season, and in order for this to happen, Auh is focusing on fitness. “In the spring, we need to continue to work hard on our conditioning as the season is long and we all need to be in the best shape we can be in in order to compete at our highest level,” he commented.

While the installation of a new coaching staff tends to entail a bit of an adjustment phase, Auh believes the Brewers have taken it in stride and are fully behind the fresh philosophies of McDermott.

Vassar men’s tennis starts off their spring season with two matches this upcoming weekend at home against the University of Rochester and RIT. The Brewers have been preparing both physically and mentally for these matches, which they know will set the tone for the rest of the season. “I think we’re all preparing very intentionally. We aren’t doing drills just to hit balls, or doing conditioning just to sweat: We’re doing these things on and off court so that we’re prepared to win, this weekend, and all the way through to Liberty Leagues in May,” Anderson said.

Courtesy of Joe Clifford

from page 1 mid-season hire. The senior attributed this to her “distinct set of philosophies, practices, and resources.”

What is McDermott’s vision? She outlined that, first and foremost, creating a team that trusts and respects one another, keeping the collective goals paramount, is a top priority. She preaches a “we over me” attitude to foster an environment in which the betterment of the group takes precedence over that of the individual.

McDermott continued: “As a coach, I emphasize our vision, core values, high stan-

Pictured above is the new head coach of men’s tennis, Tina McDermott, who accepted the position in early January.

It seems as though everyone senses the heightened expectations. The upperclassmen, in particular, are doing their best to keep everyone excited to play every day. Auh disclosed that he makes sure he shows up to practice with intensity and stays positive in order to set the tone and help keep the group focused and working hard.

With the addition of a new head coach and more than enough talent to achieve their goals, there is an air of confidence around the Vassar men’s tennis team.

Their leader demands it. “My expectations,” announced McDermott, “are that we strive for excellence.”

Roundup: as semester begins, VC winter sports wind down Myles Olmsted Sports Editor

T

he beginning of the spring semester is a peculiar time, not only for seniors awash in the existential angst of impending graduation but also for followers of Division III collegiate sports.

Even though most Vassar students only recently returned to campus, some teams (basketball, squash, fencing and swimming & diving) are nearing the end of their regular seasons. Meanwhile, men’s volleyball just kicked off their campaign, and, despite the winter weather, tennis is just a few days away from the start of their spring season.

This stretch of the athletic calendar is tough to get a feel for, kind of like the passing of time is for those seniors awash in the existential angst of impending graduation.

But don’t worry folks, I am here. No, not to solve seniors’ existential angst of impending graduation, but to update you on the latest news for VC teams.

Women’s basketball Will the streak ever end?! Coach Candace Signor-Brown’s team hasn’t lost since Nov. 30. Their 16-game winning streak has vaulted the Brewers to 19-2 overall, 13-1 in conference, good enough for first in the Liberty League, though not yet attracting enough votes to jump in the DIII top 25.

The Brewers haven’t just been winning games, they’ve been dominating them.

The team averaging wins by greater than a 12-point margin. Junior wing Jackie Cenan junior forward Sophie Nick lead the team in scoring, each at 15.1 points per game, while junior Isa Pezcuh puts up 12.3 a game and sophomore Ryan DeOrio tacks on 10.1.

Nick also leads the team in rebounding, at

over nine a game.

The red-hot Brewers will hit the road to face two Liberty League opponents this weekend: Rochester Institute of Technology and Rensselaer Polytechnic Insitute.

The following weekend, they’ll close out the regular season with home games versus William Smith and Ithaca, the latter being the only Liberty League side to defeat the Brewers this season. Come Liberty League Tournament time, expect Vassar to be hosting. One of the big questions is whether they’ve done enough to earn an atlarge bid, should they not win the League.

Men’s basketball Under the leadership of new head coach Ryan Mee, the men’s basketball team has won just two of their last six games. They sit at 9-12 overall, 5-9 in conference. Senior guard Alex Seff has been a bright spot, leading the way for the Brewers at 15.6 points per game. Senior Paul Grinde and sophomore Zach Bromfeld (averaging 14 and 11.3 points per game, respectively) can be a dominant tandem in the paint for the Brewers.

But the team is perhaps too reliant on Seff as a perimeter playmaker and shot getter; he’s averaging nearly twice as many field goal attempts as any other guard on the team and nearly twice as many made three-pointers as any other player. Mee’s squad will travel with the women’s team to face RPI and RIT this weekend.

Men’s volleyball The men’s volleyball team nearly made a weekend pilgrimage to the birthplace of volleyball, Holyoke, MA, but instead traveled to neighboring Springfield, MA to play in the International Volleyball Hall of

Fame Morgan Classic. On Friday, Feb. 1, the Brewers narrowly held off an NYU comeback, winning the fifth set 16-14. Sophomore Jefferson Waters paced the Brewers with 18 kills.

On Saturday, Vassar took on defending national champion and host Springfield College. After a 25-10 first-set thumping, Vassar won an exhilarating second set, 2826. But top-ranked Springfield regained control to close out the final two sets.

There are probably no “good” losses, but if there were, then this would be one of them. For the Brewers, senior George Diehl led the way with 11 kills, while sophomore Kevin Ros and first-year Jake Kaplan racked up 10 a piece. Vassar now sits at 4-2 on the season.

Women’s squash The Brewers in cages with racquets sit at 8-10, after the Liberty League Championships last weekend in which the team fell to Saint Lawrence and William Smith before squashing Bard in squash, 9-0. Senior Julia Pollak, usually playing at the third position, has won 10 of 15 matches this year to lead the Brewers. Vassar travels to the Seven Sisters Championship in South Hadley, MA this weekend. The following weekend’s CSA nationals in Hartford, CT is the season’s final event.

Men’s squash The men’s squash team fell to No. 4 University of Rochester, No. 11 Saint Lawrence, Hobart and Bard in the Liberty League Championships in Canton, NY last weekend. The team’s record now stands at 3-13.

They’ll play this coming weekend in Hamilton, NY at the Colgate Round Robin, and then ultimately close out their season the

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

following weekend at the CSA Nationals in New Haven, CT. Men’s swimming & diving The men’s swimming and diving team has lost its last three dual meets, taking them to 3-5 on the season.In their last competition, however, the Sprint Invitational at Skidmore College, the team listened to the directive in the meet’s name, taking first place with 495 points. Impressive 1-23 showings in both butterfly events helped the Brewer cause. Sophomore standout Max White took first in the 100 fly and the 100 freestyle. First-year Anthony Tobin earned the Brewers first-place points in 1-meter and 3-meter diving. Vassar won’t compete again until the Liberty League Championships in Ithaca, NY, which begin on Feb. 20.

Women’s swimming & diving Like the men’s team, the women’s swimming and diving team (6-2 in dual meet competition this season) won the Skidmore Sprint Invitational meet. The Brewers dominated the individual events, taking first in 10 of 14. First-year Jesse Ecklund stole the headlines: she set pool records in both the 100 backstroke and 50 backstroke, as well as winning the 500 yard freestyle and swimming the first leg of the winning 200 medley.

Sophomore Brynn Lautenbacher also tore up the pool, winning all four of her events: the 50 fly and 100 fly, the 100 individual medley and the 200 freestyle relay.

Senior Hayley Schultz also won two individual events, the 50 and 100 yard breaststrokes. The Vassar women will now set their sights on the Liberty League Championships as well.

SPORTS

Page 20

Why

I

February 7, 2019

Vidal Gutierrez

Run

Vidal Gutierrez

Guest Contributor

W

Courtesy of Joe Cilfford

hen I was in middle school I didn’t understand what competitive running was. I just did it when my P.E. teacher told me to. It felt good. I was good at it.

One might even say I was the best in my eighth-grade gym class. But I never thought I’d keep on running.

My entire life had been about another sport: soccer. My dad loved it. I loved it; ever since I was four years old, I’d been playing on high level travelling teams. I played for two years with the L.A. Galaxy youth squad. I was damn good at it. My future high school coach even knew me by name and told me I didn’t have to try out. I remember after our first conversation him telling me, “I think you’ll be a good influence on our team.” I didn’t know what that meant. I knew I was a good passer and decision-maker, so maybe that was it. But then I met the team.

I was born and raised in South Central L.A., a pretty rough place to grow up.

However, I was sheltered. My parents didn’t allow me to play with the kids on my street—I couldn’t even play soccer with them. I was in the Magnet programs at my elementary and middle schools, so I was only around nerds. For high school, I went to a big school that had a lot of rough kids.

Most of those rough kids were on the soccer team. As a 14-year-old, I couldn’t handle it, so I quit.

I needed to play something, at least that’s what my dad said. I knew I liked running, and I knew I was at least decent at it. So when the cross-country coach asked if I would be interested in joining the team, I said sure, why not.

“Why we play” is a weekly installment in which athletes write about what their sports mean to them. This week, we feature men’s cross country runner Vidal Gutierrez, above.

I hated the first few practices. Running in 90-degree weather was not pleasant.

I got into a lot of fights with my coach about making us run in terrible breathing conditions. I have asthma. His motto was, “If you’re not dead, you’re not trying hard enough.”

That was my mindset for high school, and it made me fast in a short period of time. As a first-year I nearly qualified for Nationals.

I was excited—I now loved running. Long runs through the forest were beautiful. I made so many great friends along the way and even met my (now ex) girlfriend of four years through the team. I loved it more than I ever loved soccer. I was really good for my age. Four years and eight injuries later, I’m

Men’s Volleyball

Women’s Basketball

Vassar College 3, NYU 2

Vassar College 57, Union College 51

February 1, 2019

February 2, 2019

Vassar College

Vassar College

NYU #

15

5

Borg

29 5-10

7

3

11

3

12

4

Raisner

22 3-7

1

0

9

5

2

10

25 Conley

22 3-9

4

1

7

27 1-9

3

0

5

12

Vaughan

26 3-7

6

0

6

14 Leong

22 1-1

7

3

2

21

Santos

28 1-8

5

2

2

1

3

Douglas

25 2-5

2

0

6

15

Metcalf

14 2-4

1

1

6

0

4

4

Gillooly

14 2-3

1

2

4

23 Leid

27 2-8

1

0

4

0

0

0

22 Schmid

4

1-2

1

0

2

20 Ferguson

20 2-3

1

1

4

0

0

0

0

34 Pettirossi

5

0-0

0

0

1

30 Vinton

8

1-2

1

0

2

0

0

1

0

15

Mousley

8 0-0

1

0

0

2

4

0-0

0

0

0

21

Roellke

3

0

0

0

Li

7

1

0

16

Lee

6

0

9

19

Bikdeli

3

2

11

21

Flood

1

4

6

22

Hendrickson 2

0

5

1

Usui

0

1

0

4

Hsu

0

0

2

Verdeflor

0

6

Hoppenjans

11 18

# Player

M

2

32 Nick

30 6-14 14

2

0

3

12

36 5-14

1

32

0

6

30 DeOrio

26 4-11

3

0

2

3

20 Peczuh

Lindley

14

2

5

8

23

Ferraro

6

0

4

8

6

Keowen

0

2

0

0

3

Ho

0

0

0

0

24

Talkov

0

1

0

0

25

Lagochniak

Olstad

0

1

0

0

Auerbach

0

0

0

0

Totals.......

47

44

20

42

K

A BA

1

Duchemin

5

0

4

1

13

7

Diehl

9

2

3

6

8

Ros

4

36

2

12

Waters

18 2

17

Kaplan

9

19 10

Set:

Player

M

A B A DIG

Player

1

2

3

4

18

25

25

17

DIG

39 37

Totals.......

5 16

Set:

Union College # Player

K

#

not anymore, and that’s okay with me. I did what made me happy, and the results are insignificant to me.

My time at Vassar so far has been quite turbulent. I’ve sustained two major injuries that sidelined me for much of first year and the beginning of sophomore year. My only real competitive experiences have come over the last few months. I started the cross-country season very poorly and was pretty upset with myself, even though the reasons were out of my control. But I started getting better, and that made me really excited. And for the first time at Vassar, I felt like I mattered to my team.

But I’m not going to sugarcoat it. I haven’t been able to adjust to the team. May-

be it’s my fault, and it’s just too different a group from my high school one, and I never figured it out. While I can connect with individuals and have developed truly great friendships on the team, I can’t help but feel excluded from the group as a whole. When I’ve looked for belonging and comradery is when, at times, I have most felt like an outsider.

There’s very little that a coach can do in these circumstances. At times, I feel ashamed for feeling different, and that maybe it’s all in my head. Whether or not it’s real, it seems as though very few of my teammates are willing to do anything to help me feel better. I can’t help but feel that they believe that everything I’m feeling is crazy. I feel that since I joined the team, I have been assumed the worst of in most contentious situations. Maybe some of it is warranted, maybe some of it is not.

And maybe this isn’t the venue to share my thoughts, but maybe it is.

This has been a really hard year for me, and I don’t know if I can continue surviving in a space that brings me such anxiety and sadness. I still love being part of a team, and running for that matter, but my running career may be drawing to a close soon.

And I’m okay with that. Although there’s a part of me that feels like if I quit, I’m letting “them” win. That I’m letting others’ shortcomings dictate my actions and plans, and I feel like I should be stronger than that.

Nevertheless, I truly hope that everyone on the team has successful athletic and academic lives, and whether or not I continue on the team, I will always be my friends’ number one fan. And team or no team, South Central or Poughkeepsie, I’m always going to be a runner.

12

27

Cenan

Totals.......

1

2

3

4

5

25

19

13

25

14

Quarter:

FG REB A PTS

0-0

200 22-59 39 12 57

1

2

3

4

20

12

12

13

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Lindsay

FG REB A PTS

Totals....... 200 22-58 35 8

Quarter:

51

1

2

3

4

13

16

9

13