The Miscellany News
Since 1866 | miscellanynews.org
Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY
Volume CLI | Issue 6
October 11, 2018
Vassar alum in media College to host Labyrinth Week reconnects with roots Charlotte Varcoe-Wolfson CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Meghan Hayfield GUEST REPORTER
E
T
he ringing of a Tibetan singing bowl echoes through Kenyon Club Room and signals to 10 students and Professor of Psychology Carolyn Palmer that CLCS 151: Introduction to Contemplative Studies is beginning. The first of its kind, this class invites students to study, as well as to partici-
opment in the emerging Contemplative Initiative, a collaborative effort of the Engaged Pluralism Initiative’s Capacity Building Working Group, the Carolyn Grant ’36 Committee and the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life and Contemplative Practices (RSLCP). The first of these groups’ mission is as follows: “We are committed to buildSee LABYRINTH on page 4
Dance company wows students Abby Tarwater
GUEST COLUMNIST
D
ance is a remarkably singular art form, unique both in its fusion of artistry and athleticism and in its ability to tell a story via movement. The striking quality of dance to evoke emotion and awe is exemplified by Doug Varone and Dancers, a venerated New York City contemporary dance company that is currently in its 32nd year. The group performed at the Frances Daly Fergusson Dance Theater in Kenyon Hall on Sunday, Oct. 7, at 7 p.m., in an event that was open to all Vassar students and the greater Poughkeepsie community. Doug Varone and Dancers is highly distinguished internationally, having See DANCE on page 7
Courtesy of Erin Baiano
rik Lief ’85 is currently the Director of Communications at the American Council on Science and Health. With previous experience at various prestigious presses, Lief shared his perspective on the media industry and how Vassar prepared him for a career in communications. The Miscellany News: How did your time at Vassar impact your life and career? Erik Lief: Being at Vassar exposed me to thoughts and ideas that I’d never had before. When you expand your education, you see things in a whole different way. Vassar was a real revelation in that regard. The second thing was diversity. I met so many people that I’d never think would be my friends. The diversity at Vassar was fantastic; it opened up a world of possibilities for me because I began to think that I could go in any direction. I didn’t have those thoughts in the beginning of college, but I definitely had them in the middle of college. The other thing that sticks with me to today is that I have a lifetime of friendship from people that I met at Vassar. It’s remarkable.
I’m still in touch with the school. I’m up [visiting Vassar] frequently. The people that I met then in 1981, ’82, are the people that I’m friends with today. The Misc: What setbacks did you face at the onset of or throughout your career, and what did you learn from them? Lief: When I finally settled on what I wanted to do, which was journalism and reporting, the idea was, how am I going to get into this and how am I going to do it in a meaningful way? I’m in the media capital of the world, but how am I really going to get a footing in there? And then I realized that what I had to do was try to set myself apart, try to break in and take chances. If you continue to try to play it safe, you may miss chances along the way. One moment came when I was referred to someone at CBS News, and he said, we have a job for you. We’re looking for someone to write the news, national news, but for the morning broadcast, CBS this morning. But in order to have the broadcast written for the morning, you have to be there all night long. I had to show up at 11 o’clock at night See ALUM on page 10
pate in, a wide variety of contemplative traditions and practices. As Palmer described in an email, “An interdisciplinary field, Contemplative Studies draws on humanities, arts, and sciences to understand contemplative traditions from critical third-person scholarship, second-person witnessing, and first-person immersive experience.” This course is a significant devel-
On Oct. 7, Vassar hosted a recital by acclaimed New York contemporary dance troupe Doug Varone and Dancers. The company inspired the audience and offered students a window into what constitutes professional dance.
Moten shares life, insights, poetry New men’s basketball coach makes his intro Mateusz Kasprowicz GUEST COLUMNIST
“R
evise, Revise, Revise.” Fred Moten thus began his
Myles Olmsted SPORTS EDITOR
On Oct. 3, Vassar welcomed esteemed poet Fred Moten to campus. Moten discussed everything from the impact other artists have had on his work to the significance of the personal experiences embedded in his poetry.
Inside this issue
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[Editor’s Note: This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity] n late May, Vassar Athletic Director Michelle Walsh announced the hiring of a new Head Men’s Basketball Coach, Ryan Mee, to fill the spot vacated in April by B.J. Dunne, who left Vassar for Gettysburg College. Mee had been working as an assistant under well-known coach Bob McKillop at Division I Davidson College since 2012. Prior to his role at Davidson, Mee was an associate head coach at the University of Rochester (where he also played from 2001-2005). Before returning to Rochester, Mee made assistant coaching stops at Hilbert College, Elmira College and Skidmore College. The Miscellany News recently had the chance to sit down with Mee and learn more about his professional past, his coaching philosophy and his goals for the program. The Miscellany News: When did you start coaching and what made you want to get into it? Coach Mee: I grew up in a coaching family—so my dad was my high school baseball and basketball coach at the varsity level. I thought I was going get
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Courtesy of Kari Orvik
talk on Wednesday, Oct. 3, quoting from Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “North Haven,” an elegy to her fellow poet and friend Robert Lowell (The New Yorker, “Works on Paper: The Letters of Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell,” 11.03.2008). Careful not to spend too much time on his personal relationship with Bishop’s work, Moten nevertheless found in “North Haven” a kernel of an idea which would animate the reading, manifesting his thoughtful reconsideration of academic work and inviting the audience to also see study as an “ongoing process of revision.” Professor of English and longtime friend of Moten Amitava Kumar introduced the talk with a similar theme in mind. He quoted from Moten’s most notable work “The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study,” reading aloud, “It cannot be denied that the university is a place of refuge, and it cannot be accepted that the university is a place of enlightenment” (Fred Moten, “The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study,” 2013). The diverse sampling of poetry, critique, music and theoretical rumination that followed these thoughts was illuminated See MOTEN on page 8
Trip to dairy farm gives prevet students FEATURES “paws”
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Don’t you “C”? This vitamin isn’t what it’s OPINIONS cracked up to be
16 HUMOR
away from that; I went to the University of Rochester, I was an economics major, tried life in real-world business and corporate things, and it wasn’t for me. I just wasn’t happy, so I got back and was volunteering at Hilbert College, and my next goal was to find somebody to pay for my masters and to get a graduate assistant position. I did that at Elmira College. I had two really good years there where I had every responsibility that you could imagine, and really developed the work ethic necessary for coaching. From there I went to Skidmore, and at Skidmore had a really great experience with a really young team ... But I would say the first glimpse of coaching I got was my senior year in college, because I tore my ACL in the fall. I was functional enough to play, so I played my senior year on a torn ACL, but I wasn’t able to play to the level that I was capable of, and I was mentoring the younger kids on the team. So that’s where I was like, “Hey, I get enjoyment out of this, it’s better for the team,” and we ended up losing in the national championship game. That experience was like, “I think I’m gonna do this,” even though I wanted to be different from my family and not depend on the See COACH on page 19
Proud pet owner claims nothing “fishy” about her love