The Miscellany News
Since 1866 | miscellanynews.org
Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY
Volume CLI | Issue 23
May 2, 2019
After delay, VSA Holi festival of color kicks off spring elects take office Delila Ames Reporter
Mack Liederman Editor-in-Chief
wo Sundays ago, VSA President Tamar Ballard ’19 and Vice President Rori Chuck ’19 addressed a packed senate meeting. The decision long awaited by students across campus came swiftly and unceremoniously: The VSA would not hold a re-election for Executive Board positions. The resolution concluded weeks of uncertainty surrounding the elections. The original confusion resulted from technical glitches in the voting portal, which ultimately forced VSA to reopen all constituent-based elections. According to Chuck, Computing & Information Services’ statistical analysis on the results found that despite the voting portal being available to over 6,000 accounts, no illegitimate votes were submitted. VSA Executive Board electees had rightfully won their seats. However, a new challenge to the election’s legitimacy has surfaced. In an online petition,
V
ibrant colors swirled through the air, blowing with gusts of wind and landing in rainbow smatterings upon revelers at the Holi celebration on April 27. Clouds of dust settled, coloring sweaters and jeans vivid shades of blue, green, red, pink and purple. Participants giggled, sprinting across the quad lawn while flinging handfuls of powder, all to the soundtrack of bouncy Bollywood music. The colored powder, called gulal, plays a role in many Hindu rituals, including Holi, also known as the Festival of Colors. Holi is celebrated primarily in India, but in other South See HOLI on page 3
Courtesy of Diana Weina Liu
T
anonymous organizers called for a re-election of all VSA positions, writing, “[W]e can implement a re-election for VSA All-Campus positions by gathering signatures.” There is further confusion surrounding the legitimacy of the petition itself, as it may be based upon a misinterpretation of VSA bylaws. Article XI, Section 12 reads in part, “Any constituency shall have the power to recall any officers elected by that constituency ... If the constituency is campus-wide, the petition to recall must contain the signatures of at least 15% of the VSA,” as opposed to 15 percent of the student body. However, Ballard stated in an email that the petition is considered legitimate by the present Executive Board. The petition—now closed— further suggested that other nebulous influences could have swayed election results. It read, “[S]o many confusing emails...said: ‘not to vote.’ This could have negatively affected See VSA ELECTS on page 4
Tossing colorful dust into the air, students celebrate the forthcoming of spring and triumph of good over evil in Vassar’s Holi celebration. Although rooted in Hinduism, the festival transcends cultural and territorial borders.
Tallon’s legacy emerges from flames Taylor Stewart
Assistant Arts Editor
“N
ice to have an apartment across the street there, to watch the building as it changes,” muttered Andrew Tallon in a 2017 video, guiding a camera along the roof of Notre-Dame. He looks disconcerted as he points out the disrepair: a broken pinnacle, the remains of a gargoyle (a lead pipe sticks out
of what used to be its head), a flying buttress with water damage. Little did Tallon know that years later, he would represent all hopes for a newly restored Notre-Dame. Now back to that cloudless day in Paris; we can hear construction work and sirens at street level, the sounds of the city. Tallon, who was an Associate Professor of Art at Vassar, discusses the structures and material of
Notre-Dame intimately: the oxidized limestone and the structural importance of pinnacles. He worries over the damage like a parent. “What I hope you can see by walking through this forest of stones is that they’re suffering,” he says. “That through exposure to water, through exposure to atmospheric pollution, they need some attention. And they’re gonna See NOTRE DAME on page 7
Survival stories take center stage Peek behind AFC ‘bar’ with Antonia Sweet Kelly Vinett
Guest Reporter
W
eaving between reality and memories of coping and longing, playwright Melisa Tien and director June Prager’s developing production “Broken Dolls” made its debut in the Aula this weekend in the form of a staged reading. Set in a shelter for human trafficking survivors in the United States, the play was developed in collaboration with the New York City-based Mirage Theatre
Company and the Vassar Underground. The Underground is a student-based coalition that aims to spread awareness about human trafficking, or those that have “fallen through the cracks of society,” as expressed by founder Grace Roebuck ’20. So, what does trafficking in the post-modern, 21st century world look like? To provide insight about human trafficking in the United States and abroad, co-founders of the Maya Gold Foundation Elise Gold and Matthew Swerdloff host-
ed a panel before the play. Swerdloff said the foundation has visited Nepal four times now. He spoke about how the statuses of girls and women in Nepal are much lower than those of boys and men, and how girls are seen as burdensome. Sometimes, parents will sell their girls to traffickers, and due to the deeply entrenched religious and cultural customs tied to gender inequality, this is extremely difficult to combat. Yet, there are ways to take acSee BROKEN DOLLS on page 6
Abby Tarwater/The Miscellany News The Vassar Underground collaborated with the New York City-based Mirage Theater Company to present the developing production “Broken Dolls” on April 26 and 27. The performance was supplemented by a panel discussion that concerned the modern, global systems of human trafficking.
Inside this issue
11
Deece chef dishes out life story through carefully FEATURES curated fruit carvings
14
Work-Study proves inaccessible to OPINIONS students in need of employment
Jonah Frere-Holmes Reporter
S
ome Vassar students, faculty and staff know Antonia Sweet well. Some know her name, and say hello to her on a daily or near-daily basis. Some people might not know her name, but would still recognize the “woman at the Athletics and Fitness Center (AFC) desk” if they saw her. Undoubtedly, some residents of Vassar’s campus have no idea Sweet exists, and would not be able to recognize her even if she were standing right in front of them. During my first-year orientation week, I belonged to the final category. I was trying to shoot around in the gym one morning, and, peering up at the retracted main baskets with obvious longing, I was confronted by a woman in a Vassar hoodie and sweatpants. After an occasionally rocky back-and-forth in which she told me only varsity basketball players had access to the main hoops, I explained that I wasn’t one of those but I might be. Sweet lowered the main basket. That inter-
18
action feels far older than nine months ago. Similarly outdated was my understanding that day of the AFC’s oculus and self-titled bartender. I sat down with Sweet to access a perspective that, while visible to thousands of people daily, is shared by only a select few. Sweet sees, coordinates, advises, sees, greets, chats and still sees. Every day, the flow of students heading for the weight room, gym, pool and trainer’s room passes right by her desk. So too does the less populous procession of coaches, administrators and building staff. After-school programs chock-full of younger kids from Poughkeepsie and its environs also make their way past Sweet’s desk. It is perhaps this group that presents her with the most frequent opportunity to direct the geographically confused and correct the itinerantly misled. As I sat with her for a little more than an hour, no fewer than seven families, anxious about the absence of their children’s See AFC on page 19
Lack of support for women’s basketball points SPORTS to larger sports misogyny