The Miscellany News | Mar 24, 2011

The Miscellany News Since 1866 | miscellanynews.com

March 24, 2011

Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY

Volume CXLIV | Issue 17

VSA CONSIDERS RESTRUCTURE Revisions introduced at meeting

VSA, peers share many concerns

Caitlin Clevenger

Angela Aiuto

he Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council will very likely vote on major changes to its constitution and bylaws this Sunday, March 27. If passed, the changes will alter the Council’s structure and representative configuration next year.

Under the current constitution, every class president and house president sits on VSA Council along with an Executive Board, which includes the VSA president and five vice presidents. The proposed constitution will create a Council in which the Executive Board remains, but the rest of the body’s composition will change, including more representatives from classes and fewer from houses sitting directly on the Council and working, rather, from a new Residence Council.

The VSA’s Operations and Student Life Committees have written the amended constitution and bylaws this semester, and hope to pass See REVISIONS on page 4

ccording to Vassar Student Association (VSA) Vice President for Academics Laura Riker ’11, a main purpose of the recently introduced revisions to the VSA constitution is “to work on inclusion,” speaking to a perennial problem for not only the VSA Council, but also student government in general: engaging students.

Similar to the VSA in recent years, student governments at peer institutions have struggled to close the divide between elected representatives and their constituents by increasing transparency and access, as well as energizing apathetic students. While the revisions to the VSA constitution address the issue of access by increasing the representation of each student, there are no specific provisions addressing the problem of student apathy, which is manifested not only in VSA Council meetings poorly attended by the See PEERS on page 7

Senior Editor

News Editor

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A

Corey Cohn

Sports Editor

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Courtesy of Sports Information

Vassar’s women’s basketball team faced off against and eventually lost to Kean University in the program’s first-ever trip to the NCAA Division III Championships.

Inside this issue

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FEATURES

Ford Project aspires to Queer Studies majoy

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OPINIONS

Correspondent Chip Reid ’77 to speak at Commencement Molly Turpin

Editor in Chief

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he College has announced that CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Chip Reid ’77 will address the Class of 2011 at Vassar’s 147th Commencement. According to Assistant to the President John Feroe, Reid is “excited and honored to have been asked.”

Feroe continued that the choice of Reid as commencement speaker is notable not only because he is a Vassar alumus—“I’m particularly pleased we will have one of Vassar’s own as the speaker at the sesquicentennial address”— but he will be the first Vassar alumnus ever to give a commencement address.

Class of 2011 President Moe

Byrne agrees that Reid’s speech will appropriately mark this significant moment for both the Class of 2011 and the College. “This choice is a great way to highlight Vassar’s history and journey towards the dynamic co-educational institution we know and love today,” she wrote in an emailed statement.

See REID on page 4

Hill hosts first “Vassar Today” panels Aashim Usgaonkar & Caitlin Clevenger

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News Editors

resident of the College Catharine Bond Hill hosted the first two of a series of panel discussions, the first titled “Vassar Today” on the state of the College, this week.

Hill, along with Director of Financial Aid Michael Fraher and Assistant Professors of English Eve Dunbar and Kiese Laymon, hosted the inaugural panel devoted to financial aid and access, on Monday, March 21.

Fraher began the discussion by reporting, “Between the Class of 2014 and the Class of 2009, there has been a 13 percent increase in socioeconomic diversity due to overtures in the Office of Admissions and broadcasting of [Vassar’s] need-blind policy.” He even cited instances in which the school has gone over-budget in assisting students and their families, citing this as evidence for the fact that Vassar is “an institution totally committed to educational access.”

Dunbar was next to speak, and explained that she is “very connected to issues of financial aid” on campus for two reasons.

Firstly, Dunbar related her own

The Miscellany editorializes on VSA revisions

Olivia Hunter/The Miscellany News

n the program’s first-ever trip to the NCAA Division III Championships, after capturing the program’s first Liberty League title, the Vassar women’s basketball team fell to No. 7 nationally ranked Kean University, 80-49. But the opening round loss, which knocked them out of the tournament, does nothing to detract from the Brewers’ remarkable season,

which saw them capitalize on their gritty determination, inner cohesion and group strength.

The team as a whole endured a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions heading into the 8 p.m. tip-off on Friday, March 4. Captain Carolyn Crampton ’11 wrote in an emailed statement that she “was just so ecstatic for the experience, but at the same time it was almost surreal.”

See BASKETBALL on page 18

Courtesy of CBS News

Basketball achieves first conference title

CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Chip Reid ’77, pictured above, will address the Class of 2011 at Vassar’s 147th Commencement on Sunday, May 22. He is the first Vassar alumnus to ever give a commencement address.

The first in a series of “Vassar Today” panels was held in the Students’ Building last Monday, March 21, on the subject of financial aid and access. experience as an undergraduate facing financial concerns about getting through her years at college. Secondly, Dunbar co-chairs the Committee on Inclusion and Excellence, a joint governance committee “that has been historically committed to questions of access around campus and in particular around the issue of needblind admissions.”

Speaking of the benefits that ac-

14 ARTS

crue to Vassar as a result of this commitment to financial aid, Laymon commented that when he “first started at Vassar, [he] realized that financial aid not only benefits students but also the institution.” Laymon can “see a marked difference in the quality of students after we went need-blind. There is just an improved pool of students” that the school admits, he said.

See PANELS on page 3

No dead air in WVKR’s Dead Hare Radio Hour

Page 2

The Miscellany News

March 24, 2011

Editor in Chief Molly Turpin Senior Editor Angela Aiuto

Contributing Editors Matthew Brock Lila Teeters

News Caitlin Clevenger Aashim Usgaonkar Features Mitchell Gilburne Jillian Scharr Opinions Joshua Rosen Humor & Satire Alanna Okun Arts Rachael Borné Sports Corey Cohn Andy Marmer Copy Katharine Austin Design Eric Estes Photography Juliana Halpert Online Erik Lorenzsonn Social Media Marie Dugo

At its centennial, Vassar hosted a five-day, international conference on “Emerging values and new directions of present-day societies—their implications for education.” Accomplished women headlined the events, including a greeting from Eleanor Roosevelt and keynote speech from ecconomist Barbara Ward.

This Week in Vassar History

By Dean Emeritus Colton Johnson

1879, Spring “The Lawn Tennis has arrived, but at present the devotees exhibit more energy than grace in the game.”

Vassar Miscellany.

ics, psychology, and zoology and “better accommodations for the music department,” he said this campaign would be for educational endowment.

The New York Times

1895, March 27 The students petitioned the faculty for permission, “in view of the great interest in athletic games which is prevalent in the College,” to organize the teams and clubs into an Athletic Association.

1917. March 21 The college announced that it was in a state of “practical readiness” for war, should it come, “with nearly all of its 1,120 girl students signed for war service in the National League for Women’s Services as nurses, wireless telegraphers and clerks. Hospital classes of the American Red Cross are ready to be graduated at once. Sewing and knitting classes have been at work for months.” Wellesley and Smith reported similar preparations. The New York Times

1896, March The senior class petitioned the faculty and trustees for a change in Commencement format. Instead of the reading of essays by a number of honors graduates, they asked for an address by some prominent educator.

1898, March 25 After several weeks of discussion among themselves and with the faculty, students were told that the “10 o’clock rule” for turning out all lights—in force since the college opened—was suspended indefinitely.

Students had argued that the rule forced those behind in their work for whatever reason to fall further behind or to become, instead, lawbreakers.

1915, March 27 Speaking to alumnae in Philadelphia, President MacCracken announced a campaign for a $1million endowment fund, to be raised by October 1916 as a 50th birthday present to the college. Outlining “hope” for an alumnae house, laboratories for phys-

1937, Spring A new non-credit course of twelve lectures on marriage drew public attention to the college. Students attended voluntarily, and most chose to stay after the hour’s talk to ask questions. Mary Stewart Hooke, physician’s assistant at the college said the course “will help [students] face facts realistically when they get engaged, and not go thoughtlessly to the altar in a cloud of white and orange blossoms.” The board of The Miscellany concurred; “We approve,” it stated, “the intellectual and frank approach there has been to these problems.”

1944, March 26 In a survey of the approaches taken by colleges and universities to questions of postwar reconstruction and rehabilitation, The New York Times described

Vassar’s interdepartmental approach: “An interdepartmental major field in problems and principles of reconstruction is offered at Vassar College. The aim is to increase understanding of the rehabilitation problem, to prepare students for service in agencies which administer foreign relief, and to provide a foundation for those who wish to participate in the post-war reconstruction work in Europe.”

1969, March 18 The New York State Board of Regents amended Vassar College’s charter so that the college could matriculate men.

1970, March 28 The Committee on IBM’s Corporate Responsibility, a group of Vassar students and faculty, attempted to introduce an anti-war resolution at IBM’s April 27th joint-stockholders’ meeting.

1971, March 19 Vassar reported a 9% increase in applications compared to 1970. This increase followed the 1969 move to coeducation and at a time when many other private colleges were experiencing declines in numbers of applications.

1973, March 15 Anticipating the opening at the end of spring break of the remodeled and expanded Students’ Building as the All Campus Dining Center, Main Building’s dining hall, the original dining hall on campus, offered its last meal to students.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Assistant Features Matthew Bock Danielle Bukowski Mary Huber Assistant Opinions Hannah Blume Assistant Arts Adam Buchsbaum Connor O’Neill Assistant Copy Katie Cornish Stephen Loder Gretchen Maslin Assistant Photo Madeline Zappala Crossword Editor Jonathan Garfinkel Reporters Vee Benard Ruth Bolster Adam Buchsbaum Emma Daniels Shruti Manian Kristine Olson Connor O’Neill Chelsea Peterson- Salahuddin Joseph Rearick Dave Rosenkranz Nathan Tauger Columnists Hannah Blume Brittany Hunt Michael Mestitz Tom Renjilian Andy Sussman Nik Trkulja Photographers Christie Chea Katie de Heras Carlos Hernandez Jared Saunders Eric Schuman LETTERS POLICY

The Miscellany News is Vassar College’s weekly open forum for discussion of campus, local and national issues, and welcomes letters and opinions submissions from all readers. Letters to the Editor should not exceed 450 words, and they usually respond to a particular item or debate from the previous week’s issue.

Opinions articles are longer pieces, up to 800 words, and take the form of a longer column. No letter or opinions article may be printed anonymously. If you are interested in contributing, e-mail misc@vassar.edu.

The Editorial Board holds weekly meetings every Sunday at 9 p.m. in the Rose Parlor. All members of the Vassar community interested in joining the newspaper’s staff or in a critique of the current issue are welcome. The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented in the Opinions pages.

The weekly staff editorial is the only article which reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board. The Miscellany News is published weekly by the students of Vassar College. The Miscellany News office is located in College Center Room 303, Vassar College.

NEWS

March 24, 2011

Page 3

New Transitions program Tate lectures on Colombian extended into next year violence, peace movements Dave Rosenkranz Reporter

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ransitions, Vassar’s pilot orientation program, was implemented to help ease low-income or first-generation college students into campus life. It was recently extended into next year, and although its participants valued the experience on the whole, some believe that small changes should be made.

The program, as explained by Lotto, is meant to support students by “providing academic expectations before beginning the regular school year, alleviating possible culture shock and easing the cultural transition, rendering awareness of campus resources and support opportunities, facilitating peerto-peer/administrator-to-peer networking and mentoring relationships, fostering community ties and relationships, and helping students build confidence in themselves.”

The need for a Transitions program was felt as early as 2007, when, according to Dean of Freshmen Benjamin Lotto, “several Vassar students formed the Class Issues Alliance as a way for first-generation, low-income and working-class students to come together to talk about the issues they faced at Vassar.”

Two years later Vassar faculty, administrators and students formed an independent group called Transitions to Vassar and began work, which culminated in last fall’s pre-matriculation program.

To achieve these goals, students were divided into small groups and each group was assigned a faculty, administrative and student mentor. This trio’s purpose was to guide students through the intricacies of Vassar’s academic and residential resources throughout the summer, freshmen orientation and the academic year. The Transitions trio was similar to a student fellow group in that, in Lotto’s words, it also “provided a smaller, more intimate setting...and opportunities to share their stories with each other and with the student member of the trio about their experience of coming to Vassar.” Unfortunately, these pairings, particularly their fac-

ulty and administrative components, were sometimes lackluster.

Christian Romero ’14 wrote in an emailed statement that “the trio concept was much better on paper than in reality,” and that the expectation of faculty participation was “a bit too ambitious.” He understood its purpose, but felt that the trio’s usefulness was limited to the first day. Ian Edwards, ‘14, held similar views, commenting in an emailed statement that Only the senior advisor in my group... actually interacted with the group.” Both students, however, appreciated their student mentors. “The senior advisor in my group... interacted with the group both before our arrival on campus and throughout the time since then. She was and still is a great resource for my ‘trio group’ to go to,” wrote Edwards.

Several events similar to those held during orientation were held during Transitions Weekend to facilitate bonding and spread information. Transitions freshmen attended financial aid lectures, course previews, introductions to campus resources (including the Learning, Teaching and Research Center), open-mic performances and dinner at Juliet Billiard Cafe.

Romero praised the social benefits of these events, writing that they helped him “meet new people, many of whom I still hang out with now, and establish a friend base early on.” Edwards, however, considered some events to be redundant, and wrote, “we were shepherded around through some programs that I thought were simply a repeat of information found during orientation.”

Some changes for next year’s program have already been planned. Among other things, Transitions will last for an extra day, for a total of three days. Other changes to the trios or activities will be based on surveys circulated among currently participating students, their families and trio members. “[Transitions] definitely still had an air of first-year pilot program about it,” wrote Edwards, adding, “but it was helpful because it gave me more time to adjust to the campus and a couple of familiar faces to say ‘hey’ to.”

Matthew Brock

Contributing Editor

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tudents crowded into Rockefeller Hall on Tuesday, March 22 to hear Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Colby College Winifred Tate lecture on violence in Colombia and the ongoing women’s movement to bring peace.

Tate previously published her research on Colombia in her book, Counting the Dead: The Culture and Politics of Human Rights Activism in Colombia, but Tuesday’s lecture was the first presentation of her new research which focuses on Putumayo, a state in southern Colombia.

Putumayo is mainly comprised of peasant farmers, explained Tate, who have gotten involved in the drug trade by farming coca, the key ingredient in cocaine. “It is a poor region despite its emergence in what has generated the most wealth in Colombian exports: cocaine,” she said.

For decades the region has been under the control of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—Colombia’s most prominent guerilla movement. FARC funds its troops by taxing the coca farmers—forcing them to pay tribute to the movement.

However, in the early 20th century, Putumayo was thrown into chaos when paramilitary groups, working in collaboration with the Colombian government, invaded and began trying to wrest control of the drug trade from FARC. The paramilitaries eventually demobilized in response to pressure from the government after murdering thousands of civilians, but according to Tate, the government’s response was inadequate.

The government did attempt to prosecute some of the paramilitary leaders initially, but again Tate said that these attempts did not prove to be enough. “The government set up a legal framework so paramilitaries can give legal testimony and receive a reduced sentence,” she explained. Even those cases that did go to trial were rarely met with what Tate would consider a satisfactory outcome. Colombia started the process with only 20 prosecutors and although they now have approximately 100, the system

is still incredibly slow and has made very little headway in actually trying anyone.

However, the worst problem, according to Tate, is that the government is handling this legal process as if the problem has ended, when in reality it is still ongoing.

“The paramilitaries were never dismantled,” Tate continued. “They passed through this demobilization process but the power structures still exist … Now the paramilitary structures focus on the drug trade instead of political violence.”

Part of the problem, said Tate, is that the victims of these crimes are often overlooked because they are criminals—growing coca is illegal in Colombia. “Local residents had to face not only their sense of responsibility but the way the media, government and the United States accused them of being criminals,” said Tate. “There’s been really insufficient attention to the ways these ideas of criminality affect people’s perceptions of themselves and whether they can access transitional justice,” she said.

Fortunately, said Tate, there is a growing protest movement in Colombia that seeks to rectify these problems and achieve true justice in the country. Her research focused on La Ruta Pacífica de Las Mujeres, or the Women’s Route to Peace. Her research focused on La Ruta Pacífica de Las Mujeres, or the Women’s Rout to Peace.

This organization urges those responsible to accept their culpability in the atrocities carried out by the warring paramilitaries and guerillas, and are willing to accept their share of the blame for farming coca in the first place.

“They talked about coca as a cursed leaf and described a Faustian bargain that they had made…a narrative not of external responsibility but of diffuse community culpability,” said Tate, who urged American consumers of cocaine to admit some responsibility for the violence as well.

However, according to Tate, these protestors are not trying to change the system. “They see themselves as part of the trajectory of political change through the electoral system,” she said.

Panelists discussed financial aid, Vassar and the economy increased tuition levels—the comprehensive fee for students will rise by $1,865 for the 2011/12 year—Hill said, “If tax-rates go up and aftertax incomes are compressed, it may put some constraint on us in terms of tuition increases. If we can’t raise tuition we will have to constrain expenditure.”

The College’s greatest expenditure is compensation; two-thirds of the annual budget goes towards salaries and benefits for about 1,000 employees. “Education is a very labor-intensive activity,” explained panelist and Associate Professor of Economics Bob Rebelein. While corporations in the manufacturing sector have been able to cut costs replacing workers with machinery, effectively increasing the productive output per employee, professors can only increase their productive output by teaching larger classes. The average class at Vassar has 17 students; Hill said that to increase that number would be to lose quality, and as such she does not expect Vassar either to expand its student body or to diminish significantly the number of faculty employed. Vassar cut its compensation expenditures last year by eliminating 13 positions; while this decision was not ideal, Hill felt it was necessary to maintain the financial integrity of the institution.

The College will also avoid cutting its expenditures towards sustainability. Panelist and Professor of Economics Paul Ruud said that environmental efforts on a national

scale have been sacrificed due to the economic crisis, mentioning the bill passed by the House of Representatives that will remove the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases. “Universities and colleges are sometimes at the forefront of good environmental practices”, said Rebelein, but environmental expenditures have been cut by many institutions in the United States. Vassar has instead reconfirmed its commitment to sustainability by adding a sustainability designation for gifts to the Annual Fund. “We are not taking on large additional costs, but we are striving nevertheless to reduce our pollution footprint. The Sustainability Committee and the President’s Office have been working energetically [toward this goal] over the past several years,” said Rebelein.

Asked why the College was beginning a large building project in a time of economic turmoil, Hill defended the construction of the Integrated Science Center, which will begin in 2013. “We feel very strongly that the sciences are an important part of what we do here,” said Hill, noting that 90 percent of Vassar students take at least one science course in their four years here. “We’re in the middle of this [Vassar 150: World Changing] campaign, and sciences are a piece of that campaign,” said Hill, adding, “People will give us money for the sciences and this exciting project,

Olivia Hunter/The Miscellany News

PANELS continued from page 1 Hill concluded the discussion of the panelists by first explaining the the difference between “need-blind” and “full-need” institutions. “Vassar is both,” she said, which means that Vassar does not consider applicants’ ability to finance their education while considering the application, and, once admitted, Vassar commits itself to meeting 100 percent of demonstrated need as calculated by the Office of Financial Aid. “We have a mission as an institution” to educate the community at large, said Hill, and listed various tax-relief services and subsidies offered to Vassar by the government so that the College can have more funds to support efforts that encourage access.

“We have all these advantages so that we can uphold equal opportunity in the United States. We also have an obligation, therefore, to make what we do here available to talented students across the country.”

Though Hill takes pride in Vassar’s need-blind and full-need policies, the increasing number of students receiving financial aid has resulted in a drop in the College’s revenue intake.

“We’re an institution that receives two-thirds of our revenue from tuition,” said Hill at a second panel on Vassar and the current economy on March 22.

Returns on the College’s $1.3 billion endowment and gifts to the College make up the remaining third of revenue. Though the trustees have

At Monday’s panel, President Catharine Bond Hill, pictured left, explained that Vassar’s commitment to financial aid has resulted in a drop in revenue intake. but we wouldn’t necessarily be able to raise that money without it.” Panelist and Vice President for Finance and Administration Betsy Eismeier also explained that the burden of the cost of the project would not be felt all at once, but that rather the cost would be spread out over the next 40 years.

The panelists agreed that this project and other capital projects, including the renovations of Josselyn Hall and Rockefeller Hall this summer,

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

will have lasting economic benefits, so they should not be delayed because of financial hardship.

The panelists were unable to predict how long the economic downturn might last, but stressed that the College would not overreact. “There is a real attempt not to be too responsive in the short term. We don’t want to underfund things that will then affect the College, or we will look back and say what a mistake that was,” said Rebelein.

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NEWS

March 24, 2011

Under revisions, house presidents to sit on new Residence Council

Eric Estes/The Miscellany News

REVISIONS continued from page 1 it in time to enact the new structure in the 2011/12 school year.

Under the new constitution, each class will vote for a class president and two class senators to sit on Council. Each house, as well as Ferry House, Town Houses, Terrace Apartments, South Commons and students living off-campus, or Town Students, will elect a president who will sit on a Residence Council.

The Residence Council, according to the proposed revisions, “shall represent and advocate for the interests of the student body in matters relating to Residential Life, Safety and Security, and Buildings and Grounds.” The Residence Council will remove these issues from VSA Council meetings, and give the house presidents, who already meet weekly as the Board of House Presidents (BHP)—which this Residence Council will replace—a greater focus on house issues.

The Residence Council will “have the autonomy to deal with those issues by themselves, but if it speaks to a larger campus issue they can bring it to Council at large,” said VSA Vice President for Student Life Samin Shehab ’11.

At the beginning of the year, the Residence Council would internally appoint a chair and two senators, all three of whom would serve on VSA Council. Other house presidents would not vote in VSA Council meetings or serve on the VSA’s internal committees.

The VSA Council discussed the proposed amendments in a meeting on Sunday, March 20. Council members shared both support and concerns for the structural changes. “If you look at the current setup of VSA Council, every student is represented eight times, but under this setup every student is represented 12 times,” said Shehab. Each student would be represented by his or her three class senators, the three Residence Council senators and the six members of the Executive Board.

“One of the main purposes of this is to work on inclusion,” said VSA Vice President for Academics Laura Riker ’11.

VSA Vice President for Operations Ruby Cra-

mer ’12 argued that the Residence Council would encourage those students interested in contributing to their houses to run for house president in annual VSA elections, and those interested in Council issues to run for senator. “The point of these revisions is to have people who are seriously committed to VSA Council,” said Cramer.

However, other Council members were uneasy about increasing the representation of classes relative to houses on Council.

Class of 2011 President Moe Byrne ’11 noted that House Teams include some of the most

dedicated and active students on campus, and under a class-based VSA, “that voice is being not lost but muffled a little bit”. She added that choosing just three house presidents to sit on VSA Council would be “giving an unfair voice to three residence halls that is not being extended to the others.”

President of Raymond House Lita Sacks ’12 agreed, saying that because students identify more strongly with their houses than their classes, “even though we would have more representatives per student on Council, actual represen-

tation would diminish.” President of Main House Boyd Gardner ’12 was concerned that the changes were coming too fast, saying “other Councils have used this system and have gotten stuff done. It seems like we’re rushing into a complete change of system before we’ve asked ourselves what’s wrong.” Cramer responded that none of the structural changes was arbitrary; rather, they were designed to counter problems the VSA has encountered in this and in prior years.

In addition to structural changes, the Council has proposed a constitutional amendment stating, “The Council shall appoint its own VSA Council members to all student vacancies on College committees as they occur throughout the course of the academic year.” Currently, any student may apply to fill an open committee position. Shehab said that this change would be “a move towards efficiency” that would also ensure that the “Council is more connected.”

The VSA has also proposed a bylaw change in reaction to the increased amount of time spent this year discussing fund applications from student organizations. The proposed bylaw states, “The Finance Committee’s recommendations for all fund applications shall be placed on the Consent Agenda at the start of each VSA Council Meeting.

If a member of the VSA Council wishes to discuss a Fund Application further before voting, he or she can remove it from the Consent Agenda onto the general Council Agenda for full discussion.” Because fund applications are already determined by the Finance Committee and all items on the Consent Agenda are voted on at once, this change could shorten the time that fund applications take.

Council members are collecting feedback from their constituencies this week before they vote. If the amendments are passed, the student body will have two weeks to petition against them before they are finalized. If they are finalized, the new positions created by the structural changes will be open for elections this spring.

VSA President Mat Leonard ’11 announced that the new roles would be explained at a mandatory meeting for candidates prior to elections.

Reid will be first alumnus Rapp delivers lecture on to address Vassar graduates war crimes, international law REID continued from page 1 “I also think it’s especially important that the College chose someone with a global perspective, considering the current state of the world,” she continued. “With graduation quickly approaching, seniors feel the real world drawing nearer and hopefully Mr. Reid will give us some unique insight into how we can use our Vassar education to strive for change in the world.”

Since beginning his journalism career in 1988, Reid has covered many of the major events in American politics, including the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign and the recount in Florida.

Reid’s attentions turned overseas after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He reported from both Ground Zero and the Pentagon and then traveled to countries such as Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Israel and Egypt while covering the War on Terror.

When war began in Iraq, Reid was sent as an “embedded” reporter—a journalist connected to one military unit in a conflict—to cover the march of U.S. troops from Kuwait to Baghdad.

Reid reported one of the very first scenes of the war on NBC. “Before I hung up, I heard the anchor say: ‘As we just heard, the war has begun.’ Those words jarred me. It brought home the fact that the home front was utterly dependent on me to tell them what was happening in my corner of the war,” wrote Reid in 2004 in a retrospective article about his time covering Iraq.

He continued, “There was no journalistic ‘pack’ to back me up—I was the only reporter for miles. I can’t remember a time in my career when I felt such a heavy weight of responsibility to get the facts, get them right and get them fast.”

After reporting in Iraq, Reid returned to Washington as a political reporter on Capitol Hill. He covered Senator John McCain’s 2008 run for president. As Chief White House Correspondent for CBS News, a job Reid has held since the start of the Obama administration,

Reid covers the president by frequently attending White House press briefings and press conferences and by traveling with President Barack Obama. This week, Reid traveled to report on Obama’s first trip to Central and South America.

After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar, Reid did not immediately begin in journalism, though his career, both academically and professionally, was impressive from the start.

In 1982 Reid earned both a Masters in Public Affairs from Princeton University and a Juris Doctor through a joint-degree program. He first practiced law by serving Counsel to Senator Joe Biden on the Senate Judiciary Committee and then with the Washington law firm Kirkpatrick and Lockhart. In 1988, he joined ABC News in Washington as a field reporter and radio correspondent.

Reid is no stranger to addressing a student audience. In addition to his professional experiences in law and journalism, he has taught a course on the White House and the Press at Georgetown University. In an interview with American University student reporter Noah Gray before a lecture at the school, Reid said that he believes it is essential for students to keep up with public affairs, though he admitted it was something he did not do as a student. “I was somebody who would much rather go play Frisbee on the football field than pay attention to current affairs when I was that age,” he said.

“And I had to catch up.”

In the same interview, he also emphasized the importance of coursework outside of technical studies in the field. “Learn the substance.

That’s where you’re going to make a difference,” he said. “Have a real emphasis on writing and English, and history especially, and political science.”

Reid will be returning the institution that continues to instill these liberal arts values on May 22 when the Class of 2011 will join him as Vassar alumnae/i.

Breanna Amorde

U

Guest Reporter

.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues Stephen J. Rapp spoke on Tuesday, March 1 in Sanders Classroom about his experience advocating for victims of genocide all throughout the world.

Rapp’s presentation was the annual Mildred C. Thompson History Lecture, which honors a Vassar alumna from the class of 1903 who went on be a professor of history and a dean at Vassar.

The importance of the victims was emphasized throughout Rapp’s lecture. He began speaking by stating that the main focus of his office is to achieve justice for the victims, saying, “If justice doesn’t have meaning to them, then it’s just an obscure concept.”

He was so deeply disturbed by crimes against humanity because its victims suffered not by acts of nature, but by acts of men. He went on to describe the encounters he has had since taking his position as Ambassador-at-Large.

Rapp explained that the Nuremberg trials served as a template for prosecuting war crimes; however, he noted that it was not until the 1990s that international courts took up the challenge of prosecuting such crimes. Rapp explained that the power struggles and arms races of the Cold War prevented the advancement of global peacekeeping movements.

In 1994, following the Rwandan genocide, another tribunal was established. There weren’t many high expectations. But, as Ambassador Rapp stated, it offered some hope.

Though it was difficult to get these countries to cooperate, Rapp explained that influential countries made it a point to refuse aid to those that did not comply with the UN tribunals, and so there were results. The Rwandan tribunal, with Rapp’s help, brought over 200 people to trial for their actions during the genocide.

Ambassador Rapp went on to work in the

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Special Court for Sierra Leone, where, he said, “the courts exceeded expectations in regards to how people were charged.” He also stated that the law, in regards to war and genocide actions, was changing. The ambassador was able to set precedents for charges that were still undefined in international law.

For example, the Special Court set a charge for conscripting child soldiers, then convicted five offenders. The Court also worked on defining rape, as well as forced marriage and sexual slavery, as crimes against humanity.

Rapp returned to the victims. “What does it mean to the victims? Did it [justice] mean anything?” The ambassador recalled the words of a Rwandan man who had lost most of his family in the genocide: “I never thought that those who were so far [referring to status] and put this hate forth, that they would face justice. This is the greatest day of my life.”

Concluding his lecture, Rapp asked, “Where are we in international justice?”

Is the International Criminal Court (ICC) the future for international justice? Rapp believes—from the United States’ point of view—it is, especially under the current administration in the White House.

Though the United States is not a member, it has assisted the courts and Rapp believes it has made them more effective. Rapp pointed to Libya as an example of the possible circumstances in which the courts will exert influence, with the continued help of the United States.

The ambassador was quick to warn that the ICC is not the only answer. It is the national justice system in each and every country as well as the ICC that is meant to work together for international justice. Ambassador Rapp’s final comment again referenced the important role of the victims: “We owe it to these victims ... and fundamentally, we owe it to all humankind to seek justice.”

March 24, 2011

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Ford project aspires to queer studies program Jessica Tarantine Guest Reporter

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Courtesy of frontrowreviews.co.uk

mong the Ford Scholar projects that will be conducted this coming summer, “Queer Futures: Toward a Pedagogy of Sexuality,” headed by Assistant Professor of English Hiram Perez and Ford Scholar Jeremy Garza ’14 will focus not only on research in queer pedagogy, but also work towards paving the way for a formal curriculum for a queer studies program at Vassar.

To confront critiques of queer studies as “abstruse,” Perez said it is necessary to accompany theory with action. “Part of what I appreciate most about queer studies is its symbiotic relationship with activism,” he said.

“Queer theory emerged from the confrontational AIDS activism of the Reagan era, with the political actions of groups like Act Up and Queer Nation directly informing scholarship and ultimately vice versa.”

For Garza, Perez’s student assistant in the project, queer studies activism hits close to home. “I was thrown out of my home and completely disowned by my family for being gay at the end of my sophomore year of high school,” he wrote in an emailed statement. “I was homeless for several months and worked multiple jobs in order to keep myself financially independent in order to afford basic survival necessities.”

It was this experience that made him realize how the mainstream LGBTQ movement ignored many concerns of the community, and pushed him to become involved in activism. As a result he enrolled in Perez’s Queer of Color Critique class, of which he stated, “The class literally changed the way I see the world and my entire educational career at Vassar.

Instead of wanting to become a political science major, I yearned to become a queer studies major.”

“Queer theory is often accused of being unnecessarily abstruse and even elitist,” said Perez about some of the challenges that this new field faces. Perez explained how he handled this criticism in regard to writing in his own classroom: “I encourage my students to write prose that is clear and accessible, and most importantly to find their own voices rather than imitating the abstraction they encounter in poststructuralist critique.”

And indeed it appeared that that the criticism that faces queer studies stems from larger issues. “I worry sometimes that it becomes too easy to dismiss valuable work on the grounds that it is too laborious to read. I encourage students to resist the anti-intellectualism such criticisms serve. Ironically, the criticism against queer theory’s elitism operates its own kind of elitism, assuming that working class people can’t access challenging scholarship or that sophisticated theorizing doesn’t occur across all socioeconomic classes.”

Intertwined with this research on the issue of queer studies at large, the project will also focus on crafting a Vassar specific queer studies program.

Considering many of Vassar’s progressive policies, some might find it odd that Vassar does not already have a queer studies program. But looking just a few decades back in Vassar history, women’s studies was also slow to become an official major. First instituted at San Diego State University and SUNY-Buffalo in 1970, the Women’s Studies Department at Vassar trailed the nation’s first programs by almost 10 years.

“I did find [the lack of a queer studies major] peculiar when I first arrived,” said Perez. “One of the things that attracted me to Vassar was how politically engaged and active I found the student body here. My recollection is that, at the time, there were at least three different student groups focused on sexuality and gender

identity, each articulating and advancing its own well-defined agenda. This is remarkable for a school as small as Vassar, and I was definitely surprised to discover that the same level of organization did not exist at the curricular level. ” While one could apply for an independent major in gender studies, Garza felt that it is burdensome to do so and that many students are discouraged because of it. He stressed the potential impact of a College-recognized program, saying, “Just like the fight for the formation of the Africana Studies [Department] took place during the civil rights movement, it is happening again for the LGBTQ movement, and Vassar is in a position (like several other elite institutions) to stake a step outside what is normally accepted, in order to produce [alumnae/i] that are critical enough to be influential and make real change outside these academic walls.”

This Ford Scholars project will focus on developing a hypothetical queer studies program that would best suit Vassar’s needs. While the project will conduct research on fellow universities’ queer studies programs, Perez stressed that it was essential that Vassar construct its own model.

“In the spirit of the sesquicentennial, we want to investigate Vassar’s LGBTQ history in order to design curriculum and programming attentive and sensitive to the sexual cultures that emerged specifically at the College and surrounding communities,” said Perez.

He went on to state that one program might not even meet all of Vassar’s needs.

“Some sexuality studies programs are more geared toward preparing students for careers in medicine, counseling and social work, while others are more focused on cultural studies and social science approaches that prepare students for activism, policy-making and careers in education. Maybe it’s not feasible to ask one program to do all that work—that’s something Garza, my Ford Scholar, and I will be thinking about this summer.”

It is this attention to the past that will help to ensure that the “Queer Future” at Vassar will be uniquely suited to the school. But for those looking for a preview of what a future queer studies program might look like, no spoiler alerts are needed.

When asked about his predictions, Perez responded, “the question remains open-ended. I am part of a Faculty Conversation group, ‘This Is How We Teach Sex At Vassar,’ and I am hopeful that we might be able to arrive at some consensus about what kind of program would work best at Vassar.”

It appears that if a queer studies program were to be formally proposed, it would not only have the necessary activism component on the part of the student body, but also many of the other components needed for a successful major. “We have the resources, the student interest and the faculty; in my opinion, it’s mostly a matter of developing a plan of action and coordinating all those resources.

Courses on sexuality and/or queer studies have been offered for many years out of Women’s Studies, Philosophy, Psychology and various departments across the divisions.”

The project builds and extends from Perez’s work both inside and outside of the classroom. In the world of queer studies, Perez’s articles “Three Spectacular Mulatas” and “The Queer Pleasures of Overidentification” appeared in Camera Obscura, Duke Unversity’s journal on feminism, culture and media studies.

While additionally displaying his experience in queer studies pedagogy in his seminar Gay Harlem and class Queer of Color Critique, Perez also wrote for the “What’s Queer about Queer Studies Now,” issue of Social Text, another Duke academic journal.

Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black—best known for penning the 2008 biopic Milk, based on the life of gay rights activist Harvey Milk—delivered a lecture in the Students’ Building on March 2.

An exclusive interview with screenwriter Dustin Lance Black Mitchell Gilburne

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Features Editor

n Wednesday, March 2, Academy-Awardwinning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (his friends just call him Lance) was invited by Vassar College Entertainment’s (ViCE) Special Events Committee to speak on the second floor of the Students’ Building where he inspired a predictably sympathetic and thoroughly enrapt audience of Vassar students as he discussed how the circumstances of his youth and career culminated in the acceptance of a mantel of leadership in the gay rights movement. Black, an inherently charming and unassumingly captivating figure, used his experiences to provide a conceptual foundation for the soon-to-be leaders that will emerge from within our midst. Surprising even himself with the magnitude of his success and subsequent status as an activist, a champion of civil rights and a global inspiration for gay youth, Black insisted that anyone has the capacity to lead in the sphere of their passions.

Having little prior exposure to Vassar College, Black was unfamiliar with Vassar’s reputation as a school that boasts a disproportionately large LGBTQ presence, though he was quick to commend the College’s commitment to all forms of diversity.

“If I were going back into the process of picking schools, I would want to go to a school that was diverse in many ways.”

“I think it’s worth campuses looking into the value of having LGBT people equally represented on their campus,” Black told The Miscellany News during an exclusive telephone interview from the set of his latest film project, a biopic focusing on the early life of J. Edgar Hoover as portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio. The film will, at least in part, focus on Hoover’s well evidenced homosexuality and will feature a kiss that plays into Black’s self-professed goal of “getting all the cute boys in Hollywood to make out.”

As part of the opening gambit of his lecture, Black shared, “The early words I learned about myself were ‘unholy,’ ‘unworthy’ and ‘unnatural.’” These epithets accompanied a lesson that homosexuality was a sin akin to murder given to a five-year-old Black, who, before he could process the horrible weight of the words, recalls thinking, “Wow! That’s fantastic, ho-mo-sexual.” In his southern, religious community where gay slurs were being traded as a common colloquial currency, it was only a matter of time before Black let one slip in front of the

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

wrong person—in this case, his priest. As with most deplorable language, such slurs could not be taken lightly when slipping forth from the mouths of babes, resulting in an early lecture for the one-day Academy-Award-winning activist. Black explained, “I was sat down and given an explanation [about homosexuality]. I was very interested,” he added slyly, earning a few chuckles from the audience, “but from the tone of his voice,” Black continued, “I knew that they [homosexuals] were not the ‘cool kids.’”

After developing his first crush along with the doubts and uncertainties that alerted him to something being different, Black “knew those words were about me, and I was going to Hell with all those sinners, murderers and rapists.” In examining his formative years, Black presents the unrelenting, omnipresent intolerance that colored his perceptions of the world before he could even define his own place within it. “I caved, and I shrunk and I pretended and I tried not to stand out.” With hope defined in his mind as “delayed disappointment” Black recognizes that the leadership of his youth bred timidity and encouraged defeat, explaining, “My leaders, my principal, my government, the church were all telling me that I was going to Hell.” He concludes, “They were leading with fear!”

Black first heard about Harvey Milk, the eponymous man who inspired his Oscar-winning screenplay, at the age of 14 when a theater teacher “told a story of an out gay man and said that this man was celebrated by his city and was beloved”—a novel concept for a boy who was born and raised as a Mormon in Texas. Of Milk, Black asserted, “He was not leading with fear. He was leading with hope, and his brand of hope included me.” He added, “Hope to the hopeless. That is what leadership is!”

Having discovered his muse along with a palatable worldview, Black came into prominence by following his passions. Knowing that he needed to tell the story of Harvey Milk, Black followed the advice of an old algebra teacher and “just started moving his pencil on the page.” After a grueling process of pitches, denials,and independently financed and motivated research, Black was able to produce an unforeseen commercial and critical hit and snag an Oscar by refusing to take “no” for an answer.

Though a relatively accomplished screenwriter, Black started with a decidedly blank slate in regards to knowledge of and connections to the life of Harvey Milk. Black asserted, however, that his lack of See BLACK on page 7

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March 24, 2011

The Writing Center’s annual Council members weigh series gets thematic upgrade in on latest VSA revisions Ruth Bolster

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Reporter

s any professor, language connoisseur or middle school English teacher will note, writing is a process that requires careful planning, thoughtful execution and multiple revisions. The writing center will be hosting a series of hour-long workshops to improve the writing of students for whom this rhetorical dogma has become difficult and monotonous.

Centering on the theme “Process in Progress,” the Writing Center’s workshops promise to demystify the writing process by delineating the step-by-step procedures writers undertake.

Writing not only includes the planning and implementation involved with producing a written work, but also the relentless revisions a piece of writing must undergo before being submitted for publication or evaluation. The workshops hope to neutralize the overwhelming aspects of writing by demonstrating that even workshop leaders—often professors—have grappled with these issues.

“There is a lot of anxiety about writing these days,” noted Writing Center Consultant Aaron Colton ’12 in an e-mailed statement. “We hope that showing that professors go through many of the same processes as students do should help to make writing less scary, or even help students to build their own unique approaches to the writing process.”

Often discussion-based, each professor’s workshop intends to provide an intimate look at how he or she approaches the writing process.

Yet perhaps the most engaging aspect of these workshops is that they will feature speakers from a wide spectrum of disciplines: Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics Curtis Dozier on March 25, the Writing Center consultants on April 1, Assistant Professor of English Molly McGlennen on April 8, Assistant Professor of Philosophy Jamie Kelly on April 15 and Associate Professor of Earth Science Kristen Menking on April 22, all held in the Library’s Writing Center.

With such breadth of academic representation, students in every field of study will undoubtedly find workshops that are both informative and pertinent to their interests. However, while

an individual workshop may focus on writing through the lens of a specific area of study, the skills taught are applicable to a variety of disciplines. Ultimately, the Writing Center hopes that by highlighting these differing approaches to writing, students will discover what works best for them and apply the skills that they learn in the workshop to their own papers.

“I know from teaching Freshman Writing Seminars in Greek and Roman Studies, and from working a little bit with the Writing Center, that Vassar students and faculty have a serious commitment to good writing. In my view ancient rhetorical theory gives us a vocabulary for thinking about what makes good writing,” stated Dozier. Dozier’s workshop on March 25 will be resolutely classical, focusing on how the teachings of Aristotle can be applied to the writing process.

“I’m going to introduce participants to Aristotle’s three virtues of style—Correctness, Clarity and Appropriateness—and ask them to think about what these mean within their discipline and how they would rank the three in order of priority,” noted Dozier in an e-mailed statement.

In addition to brainstorming how to best apply these three virtues of style to modern writing, Dozier also hopes to broaden the discussion to include Greek rhetoric. Specifically, the opportunity to facilitate such discourse played an integral part in his decision to participate in the workshop.

“From what I’ve gathered, a lot of Vassar students are interested in ‘rhetoric.’ We often hear this word used in many different ways— sometimes it means ‘lies,’ other times it means ‘ornate language,’ still other times it means ‘persuasion’—but most people don’t realize that the ancient Greeks had a very sophisticated theory of how persuasion works. I’m always looking for opportunities to share the ancient perspective on rhetoric with students.”

Beginning on March 25, these hour-long workshops boast a wide range of topics in a variety of disciplines, these workshops promise to be informative and interesting for students majoring in any course of study.

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Danielle Bukowski

Assistant Features Editor

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he first gathering of what would become a proto-Vassar Student Association (VSA) was held in 1868. Just as Vassar College was not modeled after any specific college of the time, the VSA was a system that operated not quite like any other. Since 1868 the structure of the student association has been tweaked, altered and sometimes overhauled altogether, and 2011 looks like it will see another big change to the VSA, as students strive for the most efficient government possible. The proposed changes, (see “Revisions Introduced at Meeting,” page 1), which seek to restructure the VSA Council, if passed will surely leave an indelible mark on the history of Vassar’s student government.

In the second semester of it’s 25th year of session, the effectiveness of the VSA Council has come under fire. Critiques lobbied against the current Council have pointed a finger at time management, productivity, transparency and inclusivity. Recognizing a need for self-assessment, VSA President Mathew Leonard ’11 concedes, “There is a critique of the VSA, that it is not an inclusive body. This is really problematic.” Leonard continues to express his concern for the current function of the Council, noting, “the Executive Board sets the agenda, and it is these six people with the information. Ideally, we want the Council itself to be center of the information.” Though Leonard proposes the distribution of Council members amongst VSA committees as a possible remedy for the perceived monopoly on information, he, and other Council members, have engaged with a desire for greater reform.

Council mebers’ current schedules are seen as prohibitive to efficiency and broadest possibly representation prompting Leonard to turn towards dramatic restructuring of its current system in order “to make it as efficient as possible.”

“Our decision to restructure the VSA came to be after many frustrating meetings where we realized that we were not using our time and resources in an efficient and effective way for what we were trying to accomplish as student leaders,” wrote Noyes House President Jenna Konstantine ’13 in an e-mailed statement. Raymond House President Lita Sacks ’12 cites discussions surrounding fund applications as an element of reform that has unanimous support from all Council members. “Giving the Finance Committee the authority to determine the outcome of fund applications will allow the Committee to serve its proper purpose,” said Sacks. Leonard contextualizes, “the past few Councils, an hour to an hour-and-a-half have been spent debating fund [applications].” He concludes, “This needs to be fixed.”

Despite the excitement surrounding the current proposed VSA overhaul, the Vassar Encyclopedia is quick to point out that reconstruction is not such a foreign concept the the students’ governing body. The first student government convened to organize Founder’s Day for 1868. There were apparently no goals or duties outlined in the original student association’s constitution, and the students were under the guidance of College administrators. This fledgling student government was achieved limited self-governance in 1889, with a new charter drawn up in 1901-02 that further increased its impact and independence. Unsurprisingly, Vassar students wanted an opportunity to focus on the issues they cared about and to have the ability to make the changes that they saw as important. Despite its ambitions, Vassar’s student government did not manage to shake a faculty presence until the 1913 revision of the charter. At this time, students became responsible for the regulation of all non-academic student activities.

It wasn’t until 1947 that the so-called College Government Association underwent significant reforms. A new constitution clearly delineated students’ duties and powers, and with this independence came the first outpouring of student-run organiza-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

tions; notably Philaletheis and the Debate Society. By 1969, newly christened Student Government Association (SGA) finally claimed full autonomy. Recall, initiative and referendum were put in place; a Student Activities Committee was established; and the SGA gained seats on the Curriculum Committee, a big step in placing the students in greater control of their classroom education. Despite a history of constitutional tweaks, Leonard believes that this Council’s revisions are unique, explaining “What’s different this year is that we are admitting fully that [the current structure] doesn’t work, and are starting from scratch.”

Much of the VSA Council, including the entirety of its Executive Board, is optimistic about the proposal that looks to reinstate the position of class senators on Council in place of the entire cadre of residential representatives. “In theory,” said Leonard, “[candidates for class senator] would completely run on issues. Sustainability, for example, and then, if elected, the Council member would make sustainability a major issue and sit in on every relevant committee.” Josselyn House President Dan Flynn ’13 supports the notion of relieving house presidents from their Council duties in an e-mailed statement, offering “Hopefully, student leaders will be able to use their time to focus on more specific issues, rather than being divided between duties.”

However, not all Council members are convinced that the proposed changes represent an ideal structure for a representative government at Vassar. “The VSA already has a problem with seeming unapproachable and I feel that having the Vassar student body be represented primarily by class representatives would increase the divide between the VSA and the students,” says Sacks. She does, however, concede that the proposed changes to the VSA regarding the elimination of redundant and circular conversation via the revised consent agenda will make the organization run more smoothly. But her concern rests largely and with the greatest weight on the potential consequences of “shifting the representation from a residential basis to a class basis.” Sacks purports that such a system “has worked at other institutions,” but opines that “students at those schools don’t have the same connection to their houses as we do.”

Main House President Boyd Gardner ’12 has similar misgivings, citing the familiarity of students with their house presidents as tantamount to the successful implementation of a representative student government. “In my view,” says Gardner, “the proposed changes significantly undermine and disempower the house system, to the detriment of campus life … The proposed system relegates house presidents to a ‘Residence Council,’ which will also include Ferry, all of the senior housing areas and town students—another mistake, in my view, as it would further dilute the house voice. The house presidents play an outsized and highly visible role in student life, and I would contend that most Vassar students at least know who their [house president] is.”

Regardless of Council opinion, it is often forgotten that every member of Vassar’s student body is a member of the VSA by nature of their matriculation, and as such are entitled to a voice via their representatives on Council. In an e-mailed statement, Junior Class President Pamela Vogel ’12 emphasizes this point, “I would encourage every member of the student body to carefully read over the new changes that were sent out, and to talk to any member of Council if they have questions or concerns.” Leonard, however, does not expect there to be much disapproval from the student body, boasting, “The proposal will make the VSA into a body that can do things much more efficiently, instead of being too backlogged in day-to-day duties.” Leonard is confident, whatever the outcome of Sunday’s vote, that the VSA is in good hands, citing how great the school’s history of self-governance is, concluding, “Students here make a difference.”

March 24, 2011

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Transparency, apathy common concerns Black discusses Hollywood, LGBTQ issues

PEERS continued from page 1 general student body, but also a consistent inability to fill vacancies on Council itself.

Following the election of the 25th VSA Council, for example, several vacant positions remained, including House Team positions and class representatives to the Judicial Board and Joint Committees. The recently released revisions to the VSA constitution include a particular provision that seems to address the inability of the VSA to fill vacancies: “The Council shall appoint its own VSA Council members to all student vacancies on College committees as they occur throughout the course of the academic year.”

Student apathy is not unique to Vassar’s student government, however. Consider a Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) election held in December 2009, in which a nonexistent write-in candidate named Giant Joint won a seat on the WSA with 416 votes. While some students wrote off Giant Joint’s victory as a joke, others claimed that it signaled student disillusionment with the WSA. “It’s a vote of no confidence for the WSA when an imaginary thing wins an election,” then-senior Max Lavine ’10 told The Wesleyan Argus.

“There is a big disconnect in what the WSA finds important and what people on campus think is important.”

Lavine’s statement provides some insight into how transparency and access can be considered fundamental to fostering enthusiasm for student government. Indeed, a lack of transparency is seemingly a constant problem for the VSA Council. The 24th VSA Council, for example, revamped the VSA website in an effort to make it more accessible for students; nevertheless, at the conclusion of the 2009-10 school year, outgoing VSA President Caitlin Ly ’10 ex-

pressed disappointment in Council’s failure to increase transparency. Candidates in the spring 2010 elections campaigned on the issue of transparency, which became a central goal of the 25th VSA Council. Nevertheless, the new “VSA Today” blog and Twitter account developed by this Council have been updated infrequently.

Struggles with transparency are also not unique to the VSA. A poll conducted in the fall by Smith College’s Student Government Association (SGA), for example, demonstrated that transparency was a top concern among students. A glance at past candidate statements at Bryn Mawr University and Carleton College will turn up many appeals to greater transparency.

At Williams College, however, former College Council (CC) co-presidents Ifiok Inyang ’11 and Emanuel Yekutiel ’11, whose term ended in February, used technology to increase the transparency of student government with some success. According to The Williams Record, the efforts of Inyang and Yekutiel included updating the CC website, making the minutes of their weekly meetings available online, and, most notably, penning a monthly “State of the Union” email to the student body describing the accomplishments and ongoing work of the CC, and welcoming feedback from constituents. The CC co-presidents would receive between 60 and 100 email responses after each monthly email message.

Inyang told the Record that communication was facilitated largely through heightened efforts by the CC to engage students, noting, “I think students really felt comfortable seeking us out with a lot of their concerns because we more than met them halfway.”

Inyang’s and Yekutiel’s CC also demonstrated a concerted effort to address those issues that

were highly salient and relevant to students, a task with which VSA Council has struggled in recent years. After receiving several reports of homophobic language on Williams’ campus in the fall, the CC sent out an all-campus email in February with the subject line, “This e-mail is NOT gay.” The content of the email, according to the Record, “warned students of the offensive connotations that homophobic language often elicits” and “encouraged students not to use such slurs in any context.”

Vassar students are unaccustomed to such bold action on the part of their elected representatives. Coming off the controversey surrounding last spring’s Free Weezy Mug Night and Davison Luau, candidates for the 25th VSA Council stressed the need for the VSA Council to engage in and guide such discussions; however, progress on that front has been limited this year. In the fall, for example, the VSA Council announced plans for a VSA Advisory Council—which would consist of students outside of the existing VSA Council structure—whose input would ensure that the VSA Council is “able to engage all of the voices across campus,” as Vice President for Student Life Samin Shehab ’11 said in an October interview. The proposal was expected to be presented at VSA Council during the spring semester, but has not been mentioned at a Council meeting since the fall. It remains unclear how the current attempt to restructure the VSA Council will affect the implementation of the VSA Advisory Council.

Nevertheless, Williams’ success in addressing the dual problems of lack of transparency and student interest appears to be an anomaly.

While the VSA has not been able to bridge the divide between representatives and constituents just yet, it remains in good company.

VARC vouches for veganism on campus Jillian Scharr

Features Editor

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Courtesy of Candle Café

he All Campus Dining Center (ACDC) welcomed students back to campus this Monday night with a vegan dinner co-sponsored by the Vassar Animal Rights Coalition (VARC).

“The vegan project has grown slowly over the years to where it has its own station,” said Senior Director of Campus Dining Maureen King at the dinner. “We’ve had a few vegan dinners but nothing like this. It’s been a well-organized effort, starting with tofu and leading up to this.”

“We want to show that it’s easy to eat a plant-based diet,” said VARC president Lauren O’Laughlin ’11. “Food is definitely a focus of our organization.”

The three-course meal included salad with vegan dressing, a pasta stir-fry with vegetables, and two dishes from the cookbook of Candle Café, a vegan restaurant in New York City. The first, “Paradise Casserole,” consisted of millet with black beans and kombu, a type of seaweed, topped with cinnamon, cumin and sweet potatoes. And for dessert, a delicious vegan carrot cake made with soy milk and maple syrup, topped with icing made from sugar, tofu, safflower oil and Tofutti cream cheese, a product also derived from soy.

To attend the dinner, students swiped into ACDC as usual, and instead of taking food from the stations in the center room, they went to the buffet set up in the Dodge Room. The chefs from ACDC prepared all of the dishes, following the Candle Café recipes. Because students still had to pay one meal point to attend, VARC did not have to fund the dinner.

O’Laughlin and other members of VARC meet with Campus Dining and the Food Committee on a regular basis. “Students have to be vocal about what they want because [Campus Dining] doesn’t know,” said O’Laughlin. This dialogue has lead to increased vegan options on campus. In fact, added O’Laughlin, Monday’s vegan dinner was King’s suggestion.

Food is one of the central issues that VARC addresses. “Our primary focus is on raising student awareness, consistently trying to improve [Campus Dining] vegan options, and fundraising for local animal shelters,” said O’Laughlin.

“A lot of people [who go vegan] do have a transition period where they miss meat,” admitted O’Laughlin. “[But] there are so many reasons to go vegan.” Aside from animal

The All Campus Dining Center and the Vassar Animal Rights Coalition co-hosted a vegan dinner on Monday night. The three-course meal included recipes pulled from the cookbook of Candle Café. rights issues, she pointed to a study released in 2009 by the American Dietetic Association which affirmed that well-balanced vegetarian diets are healthy for infants, children and adults, and can prevent diseases such as heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes.

“There are also environmental reasons,” O’Laughlin added, mentioning the amount of methane and excrement produced by dairy cows, and the amount of water and plant-based food put into raising meat. “That’s why the Office of Health at Vassar is pushing Meatless Mondays,” she added.

Interest in vegan options on campus began in the mid-’90s. “I remember in 1993 fresh vegetables being a popular item,” said King. “That was when we really started looking at vegetarian options … the vegan station was established shortly after in early 2000.”

At that time, ACDC began to offer soymilk and rice milk, several vegan desserts, and vegan burgers. The Retreat also offered a Tofuttibased vegan ice cream, which Campus Dining hopes to bring back in the near future.

“The vegan window evolved in the last few years, working with students—most recently [O’Laughlin],” said King. “ Even though we had vegan options available sort of scattered

throughout, there was a request to pull those items together.”

It’s difficult to estimate the number of vegetarians and vegans on the Vassar campus. Certainly, the population has been vocal enough to instigate changes to the meal plan that lad to the vegan dinner. But going by the amount of vegan food ACDC and the Retreat produce does not reveal an accurate figure.

Residents of Ferry House cook their own vegan food, as well as others in the apartment complexes. And some who are on the meal plan may choose a vegan meal once in a while. As an estimate, O’Laughlin offered that 150 people are on the VARC mailing list.

King agreed, suggesting, “I think people who are not vegan will sometimes still eat the vegan entrée because it looks healthy or tasty.”

VARC is not the only organization to work closely with Campus Dining. “This year we’ve tried to reach out to different groups of students,” said King; “Meeting with the [Vassar Student Association (VSA)], having a dinner with them [to talk] about VSA goals and how Campus Dining can align with them. We met with the house presidents to talk about what they’re hearing and how we can support them.”

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

BLACK continued from page 5 knowledge could not handicap his investment in his project. Black, who is hesitant to describe himself as a natural public speaker (though you wouldn’t know it from listening to him) insisted, “You don’t have to be all that good at your passion to be a leader in the field. The passion will get you there.”

Transcending the silver screen, Black’s passion continues to drive him to be proactive as an LGBTQ activist in what he describes as “the civil rights fight of the 21st century.” When describing the current state of queer America, Black opined, “Unlike other minorities in this country, LGBT people are not always immediately identifiable …

We are already there. We are already integrated, we are just not accepted and that’s the change that has to happen so we can live openly and honestly as who we are.”

And while Black is optimistic for the future of LGBTQ Americans, noting, “I think we’re at a time where we understand the equal contributions of the minorities of this country,” recent, disarming challenges such as Proposition 8 have confirmed his notion that Harvey Milk’s style of leadership through hope, openness, visibility and outreach is the only way to combat influences that work against equality.

When considering the general silence on LGBTQ issues in 2008’s Democratic and Republican primaries, not to mention during the Reagan administration, Black lamented, “They found a sure way to kill the LGBT movement, they’ll just make us disappear, they’ll just make us invisible.” With invisibility being tantamount to death, Black felt himself vanishing, and thus looked towards Harvey Milk’s teachings to galvanize the resurgence of a productive LGBTQ movement. “Masturbation,” Black began in the immortal words of his hero and to the great delight of his audience, “can be fun, but it cannot beat the real thing. It’s time for the gay community to stop playing with themselves and go after the real thing.”

Warning that inactive allies and stagnant leadership can be just as harmful to a movement as direct opposition, Black urged anyone who sees a need for change to follow the words of advice he once received from the eminent Julian Bond; “Lance,” Bond said, “good things do not come to those who wait, they come to those who agitate.”

Black pushed for action against the hateful and destructive credo of Proposition 8 despite constant counsel to lay low and bide his time. One lawsuit against the state of California later, and the unconstitutionality of Proposition 8 was declared, propelling the LGBTQ movement into the stratosphere where it continues to push the civil rights inequalities plaguing the LGBTQ community continually closer to the Supreme Court every day. Black looks back upon the earlier moments of his activism, “So much of the resistance that I was talking about came up in 2008,” explained Black, “Much of that resistance has waned. After our success, people who had been leaders in the movement are now following along.” It is this turn of events which has allowed Black to add his own stamp to the paradigms laid out by his mentors.

Black is confident in his strategy of unrelenting pursuit of his goals, asserting, “If at first you’re agitating and at first you ruffle feathers, with success many feathers are smoothed and people see the wisdom of what you’ve done.”

For those who are interested in furthering the cause, Black has a three-step plan that is elegant in its simplicity, accessibility and effectiveness. First he encourages openness, urging LGBTQ individuals and their allies to come out not only for themselves, but also to bring a tangibility to homosexuality in many more living rooms across the country.

Secondly, Black emphasizes outreach, citing the gay community’s recent, and harmful, disposition towards exclusivity. He, like Milk, believes that a united minority front will always stand strongest at the ballots. Finally, Black insists that a leader “think outside of the box,” and consistently challenge the expectations of their activism. While the LGBTQ movement is dear to his heart, and surely the hearts of many of Vassar’s students, Black’s message is conducive to strong leadership regardless of the venue. “Whenever you change course,” said Black, “you’re going to have resistance, and my point is to not be afraid of that. That means you are leading.”

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March 24, 2011

Miscellany News Staff Editorial

Revisions to VSA constitution require greater consideration T

he Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council discussed several amendments to the VSA constitution and bylaws at its March 20 meeting. The Miscellany News Editorial Board unanimously opposes the adoption of many of these revisions at this time.

The revisions are to be voted on at the Council’s next meeting on March 27.

The proposed revisions would significantly change the VSA’s internal structure.

Among the major changes, the amendments will create the position of senator. Each class will have two senators who would sit alongside the class presidents on the VSA Council as voting members. House presidents would no longer sit on Council, but would instead sit on the Residence Council, which will replace of the Board of House Presidents. Three senators would be elected from among the house presidents by the Residence Council to represent the houses as a whole.

There are certain proposals that appear to be commonsense solutions to some of the VSA’s major problems, such as the decision to move fund applications to the Consent Agenda. This year’s Council has devoted a considerable amount of time in its meetings to the discussion of fund applications, despite the fact that these applications are vetted by the Finance Committee before they are presented to the entire Council. Moving the consideration of fund applications to the Consent Agenda, which would allow all fund applications to be adopted as a group at the start of the meeting—although Council members could still invoke discussion when they find it necessary—will free up time for the Council to discuss issues that are more important to the student body.

Furthermore, the creation of a Residence Council addresses several concerns regarding the dual role of house presidents. A separate Residence Council will allocate responsibilities more efficiently among house presidents, with those most interested in residential life issues serving solely on the Residence Council and those interested in larger campus issues serving as senators. Furthermore, not serving on the VSA Council will give House Presidents more time to plan events such as all-campus parties and to focus on the campus life concerns of their consituents.

But while the VSA’s proposals contain

many positive elements and overall good intentions, it is also highly problematic. When the Editorial Board discussed the proposal for the restructuring of Council, our dialogue became a protracted, complicated and circular examination of the revisions that failed to lead to a consensus. We did, however, unanimously agree that the very nature of our discussion illuminates the breadth of issues that the current proposal raises, especially with regard to student accessibility to VSA Council and effective representation. Though an effective restructuring may be possible, the speed and urgency with which these changes are being introduced makes it impossible to address these issues.

Consider the loss of house representation on Council. While it is admirable of the VSA to acknowledge the burden of dual responsibilities that house presidents shoulder, they also need to acknowledge that the most immediate connection to Council for many students is through their house. After all, the very foundation of student life at Vassar is to a great extent one’s house; it is simply how the College is structured. Students may be familiar with their class representatives, but most often their most direct connection to the VSA Council is the representative from their house who they are more likely see and interact with on a regular basis. If house representation is diminished on Council, it also diminishes the most accessible link through which students can communicate with their government.

The new structure also raises questions regarding the representation of Ferry House, senior housing and Town Students on VSA Council. Their needs and concerns are often very different from those of the residence halls, and they merit unique representation.

Yet under the proposed system, the only representation they have would be the three Residence Council members on the VSA Council; this means that their unique needs and concerns would be potentially be lumped together with issues pertaining to exclusively to the residence halls.

Beyond diminishing the direct representation houses on Council, the proposed structure is both ambiguous and confusing. The shift in the role of house president, for example, means that some of those elected will serve on Council instead of all of them. This

change is hardly intuitive as the purpose of the shift is to attract leaders devoted to serving their houses. The new senatorial position is also problematic in that the role of a senator is not clearly defined. Moreover, elections are in approximately five weeks, which does not give the student body much time to acclimate to a new structure before having to choose which positions to run for. This could very well serve as a deterrent for those interested in running for a Council position this spring.

Considering that every year several races are very competitive in the first place, we are concernced that these changes could result in many positions being left unfulfilled.

The Editorial Board’s objections to these revisions extend beyond the technical. According to members of the VSA Executive Board, the aforementioned revisions are intended to increase inclusion in the VSA. However, we feel that the revisions may limit inclusion in a number of ways: By eliminating students’ most immediate connection to student government through the removal of house presidents from Council; by compromising the representation of senior housing, Ferry House and off-campus students on Council; and by ushering in a new governing structure too soon for students to become familiar with the intricacies of new positions before spring elections. Another new provision puts direct limits on the ability of students to join College committees: “The Council shall appoint its own VSA Council members to all student vacancies on College committees as they occur throughout the course of the academic year.” This is a difficult case that has the potential to increase efficiency, but also limits general student access to positions.

Related to inclusion are issues of transparency. Council has repeatedly identified transparency as one of its top priorities; however, their actions have yet to live up to their rhetoric. This is clearer than ever in the wake of these proposed constitutional revisions, which were discussed behind closed doors for weeks but introduced to the student only a week before they are to be voted on by Council. Now that the revisions are public, Council has made little effort to engage the student body in discussion, save for an email from VSA President Mat Leonard that vaguely referred to “several constitutional changes” as

well as ad-hoc e-mails from other representatives. Despite their significance, there has been no discussion of the revisions outside of the weekly Council meeting, which many students were unable to attend due to Spring Break travel schedules. There has also been no effort by Council to explain these revisions in detail to those students who are unfamiliar with how Council currently operates. Finally, it is worth noting that the revisions have been introduced so late in the semester that, if they are passed at the upcoming Council meeting, any student effort to petition the changes may complicate filing for spring elections. While these revisions are meant to make Council a more effective and efficient body, they have seemingly been crafted and introduced with little regard for those whom Council is meant to represent: The students.

The Editorial Board would like to stress its support of Council’s attempt to identify and address its own ineffectiveness as a representative body—an endeavor that speaks to its desire to serve students. While we agree with the sentiment of the revisions, we oppose its current form and hasty process. The proposed revisions are too significant to be passed so quickly, and too underdeveloped to serve as a convincing correction to Council’s ineffectiveness. Furthermore, the VSA Council has functioned successfully in recent years under the current system; members of the Council should examine their own behavior before attempting to change what has generally proven to be a functional system. We urge Council to reconsider these revisions before next Sunday’s Council meeting. We believe that change can benefit the VSA, but that it is more likely to do so if accompanied by hard thought; great care; and ongoing, consistent engagement with students.

Students, meanwhile, should be mindful that their relationship with the VSA is not a one-way street. Each of us has a responsibility to take an active role in student government; this is especially true now, given the significance of these changes. We urge all students to review the revisions carefully and contact their representatives on Council before Sunday’s meeting.

—The Staff Editorial represents the opinion of at least two thirds of the 18-member Miscellany News Editorial Board.

Vassar community must contribute to Japan relief effort Toru Momii and Emi Wang

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Guest Columnists

n March 11 at 2:46 p.m., the most powerful earthquake in Japan’s history hit the northeast coast of the country. Recorded at 9.0 on the Richter scale, this earthquake then triggered a devastating tsunami that swept the coastal areas, leveling entire cities and isolating many communities.

Together, this crisis ranks as Japan’s worst natural disaster since 1923. At the epicenter, it is estimated that 10,000 people may be dead from the town of Minamisanriku alone. The most recent estimates

by The New York Times indicate that overall, the official death toll has surpassed 9,000, with over 12,000 missing and 500,000 homeless. These numbers are slowly increasing by the day.

As if that were not enough, Japan has had to deal with another crisis: a potential nuclear meltdown. Although the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant withstood the earthquake, the tsunami critically damaged the cooling systems of the nuclear reactors, exposing the nuclear rods and releasing radiation into the atmosphere as a result. Out of the six nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi, four have been at risk for leaking radiation. Since then, the Tokyo Electric Power Company has been attempting to cool these reactors in an effort to stop the release of radioactive materials and avert a nuclear meltdown. Although Japanese officials have reported progress in gaining control over these reactors, radiation levels continue to rise and fall daily, and abnormal levels of radiation have been detected in locally produced foods and surrounding seawater. The Japanese government has ordered the

evacuation of all residents living within 20 km of the plant and warned residents living within 30 km to stay indoors.

Japan is widely considered to be the bestprepared nation in the world for an earthquake: The country has strict building codes, and conducts earthquake and tsunami drills starting in elementary school. According to The Yomiuri Shimbun, the government completed a 25-foot tall tsunami barrier in Kamaishi two years ago to protect the region against further tsunamis. Among the world’s stongest, the barrier was four miles long and 200 feet in depth. This year’s tsunami easily toppled the barrier. The scale of the Tohoku earthquake was unprecedented: Japan had thought they had prepared for the worst-case scenario, yet the catastrophe eclipsed any natural disaster Japan had been expecting. Even with a high level of preparation, the earthquake proved once again that mother nature is uncontrollable.

Unlike the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the quake narrowly avoided large cities and industrial centers. However, the earthquake hit an extremely vulnerable region of Japan, mostly consisting of rural fishing towns and small cities.

This meant that the majority of the population was aging and physically unable to evacuate their homes. Although Japan utilizes an early-warning system that automatically alerts residents of an incoming earthquake and tsunami via television and radio, many simply did not have enough time to evacuate to a safe location. This problem carries over to the evacuation centers: The elderly are especially vulnerable to cold weather, and medical equipment as well as medication are

lacking in most areas. With many of the roads inaccessible or blocked, relief efforts are stalling and not enough aid supplies are reaching evacuation centers. There is a desperate need for food, clean water, blankets, clothing and medical attention in regions near the epicenter.

Beyond Japan, this disaster has had consequences in affecting the global supply chain: The earthquake shut down several production facilities for firms such as Toyota, Honda and Sony, and ensuing rolling blackouts have made it difficult for functioning factories to operate at full capacity.

According to The New York Times, General Motors is temporarily halting operations at its factory in Shreveport, La. due to a shortage of Japanesemade parts, and Hino Motors is experiencing similar difficulties in its Arkansas manufacturing plant.

As the current stock of Japanese supplies runs out, the Tohoku earthquake could have a significant effect on our lives in the United States as well.

Closer to home, the ripples of the Tohoku earthquake were felt among several members of the Vassar community, including students, alumnae/i and faculty members. Assistant Professor of History Hiraku Shimoda ’95 was in Tokyo when the quake struck. The Office of Alumnae/i Affairs and Development set up an online message board, where members were able to contact other members of the Vassar community and report their own safety. Many alumnae/i felt the earthquake hundreds of miles away from the epicenter in Tokyo, shaking buildings, starting fires and causing power outages. Former Vassar exchange students from Ochanomizu University, an all-female college, have also experienced

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

the earthquake. Although the overall damage in Japan’s capital was minimal, residents have had to deal with rolling blackouts, food shortages and increased risk of radiation exposure. The start of the baseball season has been delayed, and commencement ceremonies in several prominent universities have been cancelled. Even here, it will take significant time to restore the patterns of everyday life.

Immediately after the quake struck northeast Japan, numerous organizations have started collecting donations for the disaster. Although Japan is the world’s third largest economy and has a developed infrastructure, the disaster obliterated entire cities, and the recovery process is only beginning. Many have been separated from their families, and there is a constant shortage of supplies. In the words of Prime Minister Naoto Kan, this is Japan’s “worst crisis since World War II.” A small group of students, including myself, have organized a relief effort out of our deepest concern for the victims of the earthquake. When I experienced the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995, I witnessed the brutal ability of an earthquake to instantly transform people’s lives and engulf an entire nation in tragedy. Japan has a successful history of emerging from devastating crises, as shown by the incredible restoration of Kobe since the Hanshin earthquake. The struggle for recovery is expected to be tough, but I believe Sendai will follow a similar path. I’ve always been impressed by the Vassar community’s willingness to reach out to victims of natural disasters, and it is our turn to step up and do what we can to help.

March 24, 2011

OPINIONS

Page 9

Activists effect greater change Recent protests make this through actions, not elections native Wisconsonite proud William Crane

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Guest Columnist

he events in Wisconsin contain much inspiration for the workers of the United States as they fight back against state-imposed austerity programs, and for myself and other activists seeking to learn from and generalize that fight.

To briefly sum up the events so far: Gov. Scott Walker, recently elected as a far-right Republican, announced his budget-repair bill on Feb. 11 to balance Wisconsin’s budget. The bill’s most notorious provisions included the elimination of collective-bargaining rights for public-sector unions and required yearly recertification elections for those unions; however, other provisions included forcing state employees to pay 12.6 percent of their heath-insurance premiums and contribute 5.8 percent of their paychecks towards their pensions, among many other wage reductions and contract cancellations.

The bill was immediately denounced by the unions and activists on the ground. Among other things, it was pointed out that ending collective-bargaining rights would do nothing to solve Wisconsin’s budget deficit, and that the bill was therefore a brazen attack on the working class. Furthermore, opponents of the bill pointed out that Gov. Walker himself had created the deficit by enacting a further corporate tax cut at the very start of his term, which left only a third of corporations in Wisconsin paying any taxes at all.

The action of state workers in response to the bill was swift and in the best traditions of American working-class struggle. Thousands of workers and activists occupied the Capitol. Among them in the first four days were public school teachers, who first in Madison then across the state called in to work as sick to descend on the Capitol. Madison saw up to 20,000 people at the rally of the first weekend after the bill was passed, the largest labor rally seen by the state in decades. In the heat of the action, the state Senate’s 14 Democratic members departed for Illinois, which halted the bill temporarily as budgetary bills require a quorum to be voted on.

The Capitol remained occupied for three weeks. My friends who were there for the occupation all agreed that it was one of the best experiences of their lives. It showed how ordinary people could organize resistance effectively and at the spur of the moment. The Capitol, kept open around the clock, was festooned with signs opposing the bill and comparing Gov. Walker to the recently departed Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. Groups were organized to clean up trash, and cellphone-charger and computer stations as well as lost-and-founds were organized to keep the occupation running smoothly. The rest of Madison and the nation rallied to keep it going: Ian’s Pizza on State St., for instance, received so many calls for delivery to the Capitol that it was forced to turn over its business entirely to providing free slices for the protesters. Meanwhile rallies through the successive weeks grew larger and larger, the one on March 12, which I attended, packing as many as 150,000 people in and around Capitol Square. This was the most recent large rally held to date. Even when rallies were not going on, however, solidarity was in the air of Madison. As I walked the streets, I heard cars honking, and the protest chant from the ’60s: “Tell me what democracy looks like? This is what democracy looks like!” to raised fists of pedestrians.

At a certain point, however, differences in the movement against the bill emerged as to how best to carry the struggle forward. These first came into the open the weekend of Feb. 25, when the police finally ordered the Capitol to be cleared. The Democratic legislators and leadership of the unions urged the occupiers to leave the capitol calmly on the 27. In contrast, some activists pointed out that the occupation of the Capitol had been the most visible rallying point for the movement, and maintained the momentum of protests week to week. My friend Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, was one of those who took part in the debate. As she

tried to reach the microphone to argue for the occupation to be continued, however, she was shoved away by members of the University of Wisconsin College Democrats shouting, ironically, “Be peaceful!” Finally, on March 3, the Democrats led by State Senator Brett Hulsey succeeded in leading enough protestors out of the building so that it could be cleared, in accordance with Gov. Walker’s illegal restrictions on access to the buildings.

I arrived in Wisconsin the day of the movement’s greatest setback since Walker had proposed the bill. On March 9, Republicans in the State Senate passed the portion of the bill dealing with collective bargaining by separating it from the rest of the bill. As a non-budgetary matter, it did not require the presence of the Senate Democrats. The Assembly passed the bill, and Walker signed it the next day. At the rally outside the Capitol that day, speakers including Rev. Jesse Jackson, the State Senate Democrats and union leaders, all said that our movement had been victorious. This was slightly disorienting to my activist friends and myself—it seemed to us like we had just suffered a huge defeat. These speakers claimed that all we had to do to cement our victory was to vote to recall Senate Republicans and Gov. Walker. A Democratic state legislature, they said, would restore collective bargaining.

Certainly no one who had been involved in the movement would be sad to see the Republicans be kicked out of office for what they had done. There are, however, some problems with the electoral strategy proposed by the leaderships of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations and the Service Employees International Union. Obviously, a recall election takes time both to get the required number of signatures and to schedule the election. It will be difficult for the Democrats to win all the elections without very high grassroots support and voter turnouts. Walker himself cannot be recalled until a year from now, making the time until collective bargaining is potentially restored a full two years.

However, even assuming the Democrats do win, there is reason to be concerned. It is likely that the other cuts, on workers’ pensions and salaries will remain in place. The Democratic legislators repeatedly offered to Walker to pass the bill (despite the artificial nature of the budget shortfall) as long as collective bargaining was left intact, and there is no reason to believe that they would repeal these cuts if they regain control of Wisconsin. Dick Danehrt, a worker in the Jefferson County Highway Department, estimated that it would cost him and his fellow workers at least 20% of their take-home pay. Therefore it can be seen that these provisions are in the end just as damaging to public sector workers as ending collective bargaining is, and both must be fought with the same fervor.

In any case, the entire original bill, including collective bargaining, has been passed.

These are immediate attacks on publicsector workers, which require an immediate response rather than a delayed and unsure strategy. The teachers’ sick-ins, and the occupation of the Capitol at the beginning of the movement were examples of such an effective and militant reaction, and they kept the bill from passing for three weeks. That it finally did pass does not mean that those methods of struggle were ineffective, but rather than even larger and more militant actions are called for, such as more job actions and even a general strike if the rank and file of the unions can be successfully mobilized.

Wisconsin is a most inspiring experience of popular, class-based resistance to attacks on workers. It represents the potential of working people to provide an alternative to political business as usual. Just as much, however, it demonstrates the futility of an electoral strategy based on the Democratic Party as a solution to the problems of workers in this country. It is clear that the direct struggles by Wisconsin’s workers, rather than elections, are what democracy really looks like.

Erik Lorenzsonn

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Online Editor

n the evening of Sunday, Feb. 6 the people of Madison, Wis. took to the streets donning green and gold, with a cheesehead as the chapeau of choice. The Green Bay Packers were Super Bowl champions, and judging from the calls and texts I received that night from my hometown, the state was en route to nursing a collective hangover Monday morning. As a lifelong fan of the Pack, I didn’t think I could possibly be prouder to be a Wisconsinite. But a week later, the people of Madison took to the streets once again, and proved just how wrong I was.

This time, the chapeau du jour was a badger head-shaped stocking cap covered with Recall Scott Walker buttons, and in lieu of green and gold jerseys people wore sandwich boards with rabid pro-democracy slogans. I got first wind of these protestors from Facebook, when I began to notice photo albums of them marching downtown, stocking caps and slogans abound. But soon I was staring in disbelief at video footage on CNN, web articles from the BBC and a front page photo on The New York Times of furious protestors swarming the Capitol rotunda, some carrying sleeping bags for an overnight stay. For the coming weeks, my hometown would be the focus of news outlets from around the world. “Surreal” doesn’t begin to describe it.

The Madison protests are slowly losing the world’s attention, now that Scott Walker’s budget plan, which eliminates public unions’ ability to bargain collectively, has passed in the state legislature. There are still small victories for the defeated dissent: a county judge recently blocked enforcement of the bill as it violated an open meetings law. If the ruling is successfully appealed or if the legislature re-passes the bill legally, public unions could still bank on

—William Crane ’12 is an Asian Studies major.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

a victory in the Supreme Court if an April election affects a Democratic majority. And though for now it’s just a liberal wet dream, a recall of Walker is possible in a year if his disapproval ratings continue to climb in the polls. (They are nearing 60 percent, according to Rasmussen.)

It nevertheless seems as though the protestors have effectively been defeated.

Personally, I find this disturbing, and according to a recent Gallup poll, so do the majority of Americans. Yes, a state deficit is a problem, but why should stripping collective-bargaining rights be a solution?

It is not only drastic and unnecessary, but it is an insult to Wisconsin history. True to the spirit of our celebrated governor Fighting Bob LaFollete, my state was the first to allow public unions to bargain collectively with landmark legislation in 1959. Now in the face of overwhelming dissent, a stubborn governor and a Republican majority have eradicated in a month a right that the Wisconsin labor movement fought for years to attain.

But even without using a historical perspective, it is clear that stripping collective bargaining is a bad decision. There is no direct correlation between collective bargaining and a state’s budget. Moreover, people far more intelligent than me have come up with alternative solutions to the deficit. Consider author Ellen Brown’s proposal published in YES! Magazine: A public banking system could be created, similar to what exists in North Dakota. Their stateowned franchise stimulated credit flow in 1919 during a time of crisis; there is no reason that state-owned enterprise in Wisconsin wouldn’t do the same.

So if it is an illogical measure, why strip collective bargaining? In the words of my former boss, University of Wisconsin (UW) professor and activist Joel Rogers, “People see See PROTESTS on page 12

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March 24, 2011

OPINIONS

Page 11

US involvement a dangerous path in Libya Nik Goldberg

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Guest Columnist

ll empires fall. The British Empire, whose flag never saw a sunset, crumbled from problematic economic foundations and anticolonial-pseudo-nationalist movements that developed after the Second World War. Rome was not built in a day and it took almost three centuries to fall. America reached the apex of its power after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, when it became the only superpower left in the world. Every military operation that the United States has undertaken in the post-Cold War era have been under the “liberal” auspices of spreading democracy to the rest of the world.

The burgeoning Libyan expedition is no different and Obama’s foreign policy is eerily reminiscent of George W. Bush’s.

Let me clarify one thing: Liberal foreign policy developed out of Wilson’s conception of self-determination, the idea that people should be able make political decisions for themselves, and that it is the responsibility of the Western powers to make sure the rest of the world is able to do so. This is a development of the colonialist ideal of the White Man’s burden. The point that I am trying to make is this is the root of the neoconservative “liberal foreign policy,” which has been getting the United States involved where it should not be. This neoconservative school of foreign policy was developed during the Reagan and first Bush administrations by individuals such as former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. These men were vital in developing the foreign policy that the second Bush administration followed and the Obama administration has taken ownership of.

Do not get me wrong, self-determination is extremely important, but coming from the real-

ist perspective—prioritizing national security above all else—I don’t believe that it is the place of a faltering superpower such as the United States to get involved in fighting regimes that we have previously supported, directly or indirectly, namely Egypt’s Mubarak regime. Civil wars are horrible; there are no doubts about that.

The American Civil War crippled the United States, though the nation that developed from the conflict became the most economically and politically powerful country in the world today, its development was slowed by the bloody, fiveyear conflict. Still, the Libyan revolution won’t really change the power structure in the country, much as the Egyptian protests did not. It takes a proper revolution and civil war much like that which occurred in Russia in which the czar was overthrown to do that. Such a revolution would be of the scale that there could be a rapid overthrow of a tyrant by force, rather than through pacific means. Even if the rebels we are now supporting win, the elites will exchange power with new elites. It is what happened in our war for independence from the United Kingdom and is evident in the contemporary example of the interim Egyptian Constitution, which, according to many leaders of the protests that removed Mubarak, may lead to dominance by the new elites: the Muslim Brotherhood, as the Reuters news agency reported. . In this case, the main opposition to the Mubarak government prior to the rioting that led to Mubarak’s fall, the Muslim Brotherhood, stands to inherit political power as a consequence of the fact that they are the largest organized political group in Egyptian society.

The only feasible reason that the United States should get involved in Libya and similar situations is to get increasingly bloodied affairs to end. However, the United States’ track record of involvement in the past half-century does not

suggest that this end-state is likely in Libya, or other areas where the United States becomes involved. We began the Vietnam conflict as advisors and rescuers of the French, and transitioned to employing hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and airmen in direct contact with North Vietnamese forces. We have been involved in two other Middle Eastern countries— Iraq and Afghanistan—for nearly a decade now.

And our conflicts in these countries do not look like they will end in during the Obama administration. Though the Persian Gulf War of 1991 could be drawn on as a counterexample to my claims, the distinguishing factors is that in the situations where the United States has failed to bring a desirable end-state—the fall of a dictator or otherwise undemocratic regime—are where it has intended to set up a democracy. During the Persian Gulf War, however, it was expressly beyond American and coalition goals to bring about the downfall of Saddam Hussein.

Involvement that is spurred on by idealistic notions that stem from liberal theory and are the basis of the neoconservative-influenced foreign policy that is now pervasive in Washington are built on half-truths from a revisionist perspective on history. Libya is not our fight. Col. Moammar Gadhafi will be in power in a year’s time, and there is nothing short of a Western invasion of Libya that will change that. Airstrikes are one thing, but tanks and boots on the ground is too much and too far. We cannot afford to attempt to colonize a third Middle Eastern country. At this point, we are charging blindly down the path that has lead us astray in the past and will do so again. We cannot get involved, especially if we don’t want our great empire to collapse any sooner than it is on target to.

What’s the best thing you did on Spring Break?

“Surfed on four different couches.”

Alli Tilden ’12

“Got drunk on a boat and swam with stingrays.”

Taylor Self ’11

–Nikolas Goldberg ’12 is a history major.

Libyan conflict requires US assistance Joshua Rosen

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Opinions Editor

he crisis in Libya that started on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2011 with protests in major Libyan cites, according to The New York Times, has expanded in scale to now involve a multinational no-fly zone in Libyan airspace, as a result of a March 17, 2011 United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an end to the fighting in Libya and a no-fly zone to protect civilians throughout the country from the forces of the regime of Col. Moammar Gadhafi, according to a Security Council press release.

This situation augurs the fall of Gadhafi, a totalitarian dictator, an event that would speak to the ferocity of the protests that have wracked the Middle East and North Africa in recent months. Of course, it is not without the implicit backing of Western Europe, and, more importantly, the military forces of the United States, that there is a chance of the freedom fighters in Libya toppling Gadhafi. If anything, the situation in Libya speaks volumes about the necessity of brute force in international relations, a tool that the United States is, among all the nations of the free world, best able to provide, especially in a situation like that in Libya where it is “U.S. policy that Gadhafi needs to go,” as President Barack Obama stated on March 21 at a news conference during a South American junket .

In dealing with dictators, there is nothing quite as important as “carrying a big stick,” as President Theodore Roosevelt so succinctly stated. However, despite the willingness of President Obama to use force against Gadhafi and his regime, the open-ended commitment that President John F. Kennedy made to the nations of the world that the United States will

“pay any price” to defend liberty seems to be eroding. If anything, today’s commitment to the friends of freedom, particularly in the postGeorge W. Bush era, is that the United States will protect freedom only when there is international will to do so and limited repercussions for acting militarily. This is made particularly evident by the statements of the usually moderate Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, at the United States Military Academy at West Point on Feb. 25, where Secretary Gates claimed that it would be tantamount to insanity for “any future defense secretary [to advise] the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa.” In a very real sense, coupled with the negligible increases in the defense budget for this coming fiscal year, the United States is abandoning its rightful role as guarantor of freedom throughout the globe. After all, the United States has stood up for freedom for the peoples of nations as diverse as Kosovo, South Korea and France, among others, without any consideration other than that the liberties of a people are being threatened by tyrants.

As history and current events in Libya, Iraq and even humanitarian operations in Japan suggest, there is a demonstrable need for American military force—force that must remain unmatched by that of our potential adversaries— throughout the globe, and this ought to remain true in perpetuity. After all, in a scenario where no United Nations resolution was achieved, and the nations of the world did not step up and offer assistance to the people of Libya, it would fall to the United States to act unilaterally to prevent a disaster—the slaughter of innocents and freedom fighters by Gadhafi’s regime. Without

an expansive array of military tools on the air, sea and land, and a surplus of forces, it would be difficult if not impossible for any nation to commit forces while already engaged in major operations throughout the world.

At no time in the near future does there appear to be less of a need for overwhelming American military force. Abandoning the unchallenged military superiority of the United States—and just as importantly, refusing to use it—would be a catastrophic moral and national security failure.

Despite the state of the national debt, which is over $14 trillion, there is no need to cut defense spending, as some politicians, such as Representative Ron Paul and Governor Hailey Barbour of Mississippi, have suggested. The proposed cut in the Department of Defense budget of $78 billion over a five-year period, and the lack of a defense budget for 2011—because Congress hasn’t yet passed a budget for 2011—which prevents funding of any new weapons programs, unnecessarily constrain the military. After all, as Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus remarked to reporters on March 21, 2011, cuts in defense spending have the potential to impact the readiness of America’s armed forces. In a world where the military might of the United States is necessary to maintain security for the nations of the free world and global commerce as well, there is no case for cutting defense spending. If anything, it is imperative to increase defense spending markedly and look towards cutting non-productive entitlement programs to reduce the nation’s fiscal burdens.

–Joshua Rosen ’13 is opinions editor of The Miscellany News. He is an economics major.

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MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

“Read Foucault’s The Order of Things.”

Remy Canario ’12

“Flashed for beads in New Orleans.”

Aidan Kahn ’14

“Visited Vassar as an alum.”

Josh Miller ’10 —Juliana Halpert, Photography Editor

OPINIONS

Page 12

Gov. Walker undermining Dems’ base PROTESTS continued from page 9 this correctly as a quite organized, nationwide attack on an important part of the organizational base for opposition to Republican national politics.” Scott Walker and the Republican legislative majority will never answer to public demand.

The short and long of it is they have a political agenda to pursue: undermining organizations that provide funds to candidates endorsed by the Democratic Party.

I went home for Spring Break, and finally had the opportunity to join my fellow Madisonians in protest. When I found out that the State Senate passed the bill on the evening of March 9, I brewed some coffee to store in a thermos and took a stroll down to the Capitol. Despite the late hour a slew of cars were practically Tokyo drifting around the building, honking their horns and shouting out of windows to decry the bill’s passing. Inside the Capitol, a bevy of protestors had converged for an angry and impromptu rally. A UW student on a megaphone in the center of the rotunda promised that he would not give up. To resounding applause, he asked that the protest on Saturday be the biggest yet.

100,000 ended up converging on the Capitol that weekend to answer his call. I was among them, and as I think about walking amongst a crowd rife with badger stocking caps and sandwich boards, I don’t think I could possibly feel more proud to be a Wisconsinite. ­­ —Erik Lorenzsonn ’12 is a political science major and is the Online Editor of The Miscellany News.

March 24, 2011

GOP’s fiscal austerity measures favor the rich Democrats should cut taxes on the middle class Steve Keller

I

Guest Columnist

am a fiscal conservative. I am also a deficit hawk. No, no, rich people, don’t get excited.

I didn’t just pull a Mitt Romney and turn from being a liberal to a reactionary just in time for 2012.

No, instead I’m coming to take back the mantle of “fiscal conservativism,” “deficit reduction” and “mathematics” away from you and the rest of the Republican Party.

Mathematics, you say? Yes. See, I did some arithmetic the other day, and all I needed was a pen and paper—public school teachers taught me well. Here’s what I discovered: You can’t cut the deficit and cut taxes. That’s not how math works. If you take away revenue from the federal budget, the federal deficit increases.

“Huh?” you say. I’ll make this easy for you: Negative two minus one doesn’t equal three.

So let’s wake up from this Koch-brothersfinanced delusion of Republican mathematics.

Cutting taxes doesn’t reduce the deficit.

“Well,” you might say, “If you give money to the upper classes, won’t it trickle down to the lower classes and then increase the tax base and then decrease the deficit?”

You’re right, it’s not really that simple. Money can create more money if you invest it right.

So, did we invest it right? We’ve been engaging in the theory of trickle-down for the last three decades, and I’m still waiting for something other than John Boehner’s crocodile tears to trickle down to my bank account.

That’s right, letting the super-wealthy have free reign over the economy for 30 years didn’t really work out too well. Cutting taxes may have paid off in the short run for the upper class, and yes, I suppose a lot of yacht-makers managed to make off splendidly since the days of the Gipper.

But it wasn’t education spending (read: investment) that caused the 2008 recession. Nor was it food stamps and unemployment subsidies (read: survival). It was the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, and the transformation of Wall Street into an insane casino. Not teachers’ salaries. Not breakfast for underprivileged children. Not Click and Clack on National Public Radio. It was pure, unadulterated greed and lunacy by a select few.

Now of course, I’m not blaming the small business owners. I’m not even talking about doctors making $300,000 a year. Or lawyers making $400,000 a year. They work hard. They provide a good service to the country, and deserve to be able to pay off their school loans while being rewarded for hard work.

No, I’m talking about the 400 people at the top who own as much as the 155 million at the bottom. I’m talking about the handful of people who make billions of dollars.

Yes, there are many rich people who would be glad to pay more in taxes. But until there is a progressive tax policy in place, our schools will suffer, our infrastructure will suffer, our middle class will shrink and you can forget about recovery.

Fortunately Democrats are finally waking up to the idea that maybe differentiating between millionaires and regular people is the way to go.

Maybe they’ll stop the false choice between hiding their tax policy away, or giving into Republican demands of more money for the top.

Believe it or not, Democrats have realized that there has been class warfare being waged on the middle class for decades. And what do you know?

All it took was the American people expressing their voice for them to figure it out. In fact, 81 percent of Americans support a millionaire’s tax.

That’s more than the one third of Americans that support cutting Medicare and Social Security to pay for the deficit.

Perhaps it would be wise for Democrats to go further, and make the case that if taxes go up on the upper 10 percent of Americans that control two-thirds of the nation’s wealth, then they will not have to see their schools suffer and they will not have to see federal programs like meat inspection go away. (I’m not kidding, House Republicans want to cut meat-inspection funds.)

And most importantly we regular Americans won’t have to see our taxes go up—if the rich are taxed their fair share.

Thus, you sap the main reason why any poor person should want to vote Republican. If you tie tax hikes for the wealthy in with tax cuts for the lower class, suddenly you remove the talking point that keeps conservatism alive.

Recently, I watched Congressman Anthony Weiner debate Sean Hannity on FOX News. When

Weiner pointed out that all Hannity wants is tax cuts for the millionaires, Hannity responded with, “Congressman, I want tax cuts for everyone!”

Which is technically true. So if Democrats want to win these debates, they have to go further than Republicans. Their plan must include lowering taxes on the middle class even further than the Republican proposal. So when Hannity proclaims that he wants to cut everyone’s taxes, Weiner could, in this scenario, say something along the lines of, “But we want more money in the pockets of you, the middle class, and in your communities, instead of being spent on those who don’t need to worry about balancing their checkbook.”

We’re seeing this in my local community. As a result of Governor Cuomo’s vow to not increase taxes “on anybody,” we are going to see massive cuts in education in my local school district.

Teachers will be laid off, and the quality of education and quality of my community will suffer.

Fortunately, New York State Assembly Democrats are proposing renewal of the “Millionaire’s Tax.” They’re pushing hard, despite a Republican Senate and a Republican—oops, “Democratic” Governor. And even better, Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Jeanne Schakowsky are proposing raising the tax share on the $250,000 earners—even taxing billionaires at a rate of 49 percent! This should send $50 to 76 billion dollars into the Treasury—far more than what cutting National Public Radio would provide.

In the short-term, we should raise the amount of money in regular folks’ pockets. Then, as they grow the economy by spending at a larger and more frequent rate than the rich, the tax base will grow. Trickle-down economics does not work. But planting the seeds for an economic recovery does.

And once we have our economic engine running again, we’ll be able to tackle the deficit.

A lot is said about “shared sacrifice.” And the Republican plan is clear—the teachers, the public employees, the children and the middle class need to share the sacrifice. The Democrats need to get on board with Sanders and Schakowsky and lessen the tax burden on the middle class, and get serious about deficit reduction.

—Steve Keller ’11 is a political science major. He is Editor-in-Chief of The Vassar Chronicle.

Crossword by Jack Mullan ACROSS 1. H.S. junior’s test 5. Internet location 9. Office Skills Assessment Battery: Abbr.

13. Annual athletic award 14. Oodles 15. Holy ___ 16. *Influential; inducing awe 18. Prefix with mural 19. Muscat resident

20. Novices, in gamer lexicon 21. Everything 24. Cheese and crackers, maybe 26. Walk proudly 27. “See ya!”

29. Time out?

31. Bouncers check them, briefly 32. Where to find a piece of Turkey, perhaps 35. Fret 37. Vernal vacation... or

Answers to last week’s puzzle

what’s seen literally in the starred clues 40. Ambulance wail 41. Tranquilize 44. Univ. body 47. Jacqueline Kennedy ___ Bouvier 48. Una dÈcada has 10 49. Cake topper 51. Interior design 56. Spasm 57. Up (to) 58. Large-eyed lemur 60. Peep show flick 61. *Do as Pavarotti does 65. Dashboard display 66. Fizzy drink 67. ____ Mountains, Russia 68. Affliction for the promiscuous 69. Egyptian solar diety 70. Ceremony DOWN 1. Louvre pyramid architect 2. Nine-digit datum 3. Tests for college credit, briefly 4. Printing goof 5. Clear wrap

6. 1986 Turner autobiography 7. G in G major, e.g.

8. Manchester’s land (abbr.)

9. It can precede or follow “to be” 10. Zen illumination 11. 1997 basketball film 12. Plays music really loud 15. *Go on a martini binge 17. Sends an OMG or LOL, say 21. Starting pitcher 22. Actress Lucy of “Charlie’s Angels” 23. 2007 film “___ and the Real Girl” 25. Door feature 28. Word from a klutz 30. LAX info: Abbr.

33. *Chip brand with the slogan “Once you pop, the fun don’t stop” 34. The Emerald Isle 35. Chicago cable network 36. When tripled, a “Seinfeld” catchphrase 38. Requirement

39. “Perpetual Peace” thinker 42. French pronoun 43. Emergency PC key 44. Maniacs 45. Find not guilty

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

46. ___ Real, Spain 50. Get exactly right 52. Governor-turnedCNN anchor Spitzer 53. Publisher ___ Nast 54. Bach instrument

55. Brazilian hot spot 59. San Antonio baller 61. Agcy. for 2-down 62. Verdi’s “___ tu” 63. Squealer 64. Pub offering

HUMOR & SATIRE

March 24, 2011

Page 13

OPINIONS

A typical Vassar student’s Puppy school lands this Spring Break: A blow by blow canine in the doghouse Brittany Hunt Columnist

March 13

10:30 a.m. Arrive home. Dad is on couch watching Deal or No Deal. Mom tells me I’ve gotten fat and forces me to apply her anti-wrinkle cream as a preventive measure.

12:30 p.m. Lunch with family to welcome me home. I order a veggie burger. Dad asks if I’m a lesbian.

5 p.m. Law & Order: SVU marathon. Detective Olivia Benson’s sweet voice and bangin’ bod lull me to sleep. Dad might be right about the lesbian thing.

3 p.m. Back at his apartment. His cat appears to have mange and he tries to touch my leg. I let it happen and hope ex-boyfriend has good leftovers.

March 17

11 a.m. Thrifting with Mom. I buy some used shoes. Mom tries to discuss sex on the car drive home.

2 p.m. Find two-inch hair growing out of my belly button. Is that even possible?

3 p.m. Check Heidi Montag’s Twitter.

5 p.m. Look at Facebook profiles of the girls from high school who have had babies. Determine that their babies aren’t cute. Wonder if they are unhappy in their loveless marriages. Consider reproducing to keep up with the Joneses. Can’t think of anyone I would want to reproduce with.

6 p.m. Check Heidi Montag’s Twitter.

11 a.m. Wake-up in ex-boyfriend’s bed. Cat is sitting on my hair so I am forced to wait until he gets off to sneak away, carrying my shame and the JV field hockey sweatshirt ex-boyfriend borrowed from me in 2005.

6 p.m. Mom forces me into a green shirt and takes us to the local racially insensitive Irish pub for corned beef and cabbage. Dad has five beers and starts calling the waiter “a darkie.”

Being Irish is hard.

8 p.m. Remain at pub. Drink with high school friends and reminisce about AP U.S. History.

Remind everyone how I got a 5 and how I was student body president. Mistake their glares for looks of misplaced affection. Hug them all and tell them I miss them.

10 p.m. Who invited the leather vest brigade?

Looks like the Hells Angels really know how to party.

11 p.m. Dance with overweight man who is sporting a ponytail and Confederate-flag doo-rag to Enrique’s “Tonight I’m Loving You” (edited version). Hells Angels are fun.

March 15

March 18

12 p.m. Wake up. Feet itch. Tell Mom and eat a bagel.

3 p.m. Mom forces me to go to my pediatrician, Dr. Pedrotti, to check out my feet.

4 p.m. Read Highlights Magazine in the waiting room. I’m bomb at word searches. Get into staring match with six-year-old playing with an abacus. I hate that bitch.

4:05 p.m. Consider going to big kid doctor next time.

4:06 p.m. Get lollipop from receptionist. Forget previous consideration.

4:10 p.m. Dr. Pedrotti has hairy hands and calls me “little lady.” Diagnosed with rare foot fungus.

Decide never to buy thrift store shoes again.

1 a.m. Eat Pringles and cry when Tamra talks about her divorce on the rerun of The Real Housewives of Orange County reunion special.

12 p.m. Wake up. Yell at Mom for not understanding my liberal politics. Watch Family Feud.

2 p.m. Nap. 5 p.m. Read Feminism, Knowledge, and Praxis assignment and tell Dad that I’m joining a lesbian commune in Vermont.

6 p.m. Steal Mom’s Ped-Egg. 8 p.m. Start The King’s Speech but get bored and watch Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 instead.

11 p.m. Pack for imminent departure. Remember to pack extensive collection of jorts for the upcoming spring weather. Cry thinking about how much I’m going to miss my parents.

March 14

March 16 1 p.m. Meet high-school boyfriend for lunch. He tells me about the new gun he just bought and how community college just wasn’t for him. He says that he misses my breasts.

March 19

2 p.m. Arrive back at Vassar. Tell everyone that I went on a backpacking trip through Peru and it changed my life.

Tom Renjilian Columnist

O

ver Spring Break, I learned to appreciate Vassar. Knowing that I love education, my mother generously suggested that I take her place in accompanying our dog to her weekly classes at Puppy School, claiming she couldn’t “deal with those freaks and their bullshit anymore.” I was thrilled! Of course I couldn’t turn down an opportunity to enrich myself academically over break!

But while Puppy School seemed great at first, I was quickly dragged into the sordid world of canine academia—a strange, seamy culture of backstabbing and deceit.

I’ll start by explaining what Puppy School is for anyone who is unable to understand self-explanatory phrases. A truly unique institution of higher learning, Puppy School imparts vital life lessons to man’s best friend. The school boasts a picturesque 20-square-foot campus in the center of scenic PetSmart, and offers a wide range of challenging courses such as “Not Licking Your Genitals,” “Pooping Outside” and “Intro to Psychology.” The most intriguing aspect of the university may be the quirky and bohemian students, who are best described as very hairy, opposed to bathing and perpetually covered in fleas and urine. (It’s like that time you visited Bard, but without the tour guide who kept trying to explain how fuckin’ high he was.)

Eager to begin our studies, my dog and I arrived at school early only to find the rest of the class already in attendance. While we waited for the professor, the other dog owners began bragging about their pets’ amazing talents in an attempt at intimidation: “Sparky used to be a police dog,” “Princess killed a trespasser last week,” “Last month Maurice neutered himself.”

I was terrified. Surely, my talentless dog would feel intimidated by her over-achieving peers, fall behind in class, get rejected from Puppy Brown, and end up at a second-rate community college for women—a downward spiral with which I was all too familiar.

I knew the only way we could survive the hyper-competitive environment of Puppy School was to get in with the right crowd.

Our first potential friend was wearing a

Weekly Calendar: 3/24 - 3/30

Harley Davidson leather jacket. Her owner sported a black t-shirt that revealed a tattoo on his left bicep, which read, simply and eloquently, “Bitch.”

“Is that Bitch?” I asked, pointing to his salivating German Shepherd.

“No,” he corrected me, “Her name’s Psychobitch. She’s training to be a Seeing Eye dog.”

“Oh,” I told him.

My confidence returned when the professor handed out the day’s syllabus, which included lessons on “Walking,” “Shaking Hands” and “Coming,” all of which I had mastered with little instruction by mid-puberty. However, what were simple every day tasks for me proved more difficult for the school’s pupils. Sparky kept peeing on the professor’s shoes, Princess couldn’t walk and when asked to come, Maurice scampered to the corner and began whimpering. I began to feel a sick sense of joy as I watched the other puppies struggle.

I even took pleasure in the failures of my closest friend. After the third time Psychobitch confused the command for “Shake hands” with “Lick another dog’s penis,” I tapped the professor on the shoulder and suggested, “Perhaps the admissions committee sent the acceptance letter to the wrong Psychobitch?”

When it was my dog’s turn to demonstrate her abilities, I felt confident. “Shake hands,” I told her, holding out an inviting palm. But she merely glared at me, her beady eyes watering with tears of shame. As I stood there looking at my reflection in her oddly reflective pupils, I was struck by a harsh reality. “What have I become!?” I screeched as I ran from the school, dragging my dog behind me.

Puppy School turned me into a monster willing to betray anyone to get ahead. I had forgotten about learning for the sake of learning, and education became just a petty competition. Needless to say, I’m relieved to trade the hostile world of Puppy School for Vassar’s cushy academic environment where I can sit around a table drinking tea from a jar, discussing how I feel about hegemony or composting or whatever, and enjoying the benefits of cooperative learning and rampant grade inflation.

by Alanna Okun, Humor & Satire Editor

Thursday, 3/24

Saturday, 3/26

Tuesday, 3/29

11 a.m. John Iyoya Children’s Art Exhibit. “Oh my sweet

9 p.m. The Limit Show. My Limit limit is however long it

baby Jesus, is that the newly discovered Pollock I read about in Art Forum last week?” “No, that’s SpaghettiOs vommed up by a four-and-a-half-year-old girl.” Palmer Gallery.

takes me to finish the contents of the Sierra Mist bottle I sneak in using that canvas tote bag Vassar gave us the first week of freshman year. Sanders Auditorium.

11 a.m. Shuler Scholar Program. Shuler scholar shuler scholar shuler scholar shuleroyhjaetjhilaketjdfhkafhdkaejfkjtklhjlyrs. Shut it down. Faculty Parlor.

3 p.m. Tea. Spring Break translations: What people say they

Sunday, 3/27

did versus what they actually did. Rose Parlor.

3 p.m. The Donald and Kathleen Pearson Memorial Organ

opening night performance of “Knockoff Ugg Slippers and a Snuggie.” Mug.

Recital. PRO TIP: Next time you want to subtly and tastefully seduce a music major, just ask her if she wants to attend your Donald and Kathleen Pearson Memorial Organ Recital.

Works 60 percent of the time, every time. Skinner.

Friday, 3/25

Monday, 3/28

3 p.m. Tea. “I went to Guatemala to help build an orphanage

3 p.m. Tea. “I visited my friend who’s studying abroad in Europe.

for underprivileged kids with cleft palates.” = “I hung out at my dad’s friend’s shady business associate’s mansion and had my feet rubbed by tweenage servants while I sipped on double mai tais.” Rose Parlor.

We went to soooo many museums and shows and other seats of culture!” = “I clumsily tried to hook up with my friend’s hot Italian roommate, only to discover that said friend has had a crush on me forever and just invited me to get in my pants, and that said Italian roommate isn’t interested in my gender.” Rose Parlor.

6 p.m. “Spike Heels.” Sorry, I already made plans to be at the

10 p.m. 50 Nights: Blackout. I mean, after all, it IS Friday.

Friday. Gonna get down on Friday. We we we so excited. We so excited. I could keep going, but it would mean the death of music as we know it. College Center/ Mug.

6:30 p.m. Oliver Wang Lecture. Apparently, this week’s calendar is brought to you by the letter “dick jokes.” Sanders Auditorium.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

3 p.m. Tea. “I stayed at home so I could spend valuable time

with my family and work on job applications, because I’m SUCH a good kid.” = “I wore underwear maybe 30 percent of break, if we’re rounding up, and I beat the Elite Four.

Twice.” Rose Parlor.

7 p.m. Panel: Who is the Vassar criminal? Whoever it is on

my hall that listens to “Heaven is a Place on Earth” at full blast on repeat every single morning. Oh shit that’s me.

Sanders Auditorium.

Wednesday, 3/30 3 p.m. Tea. “I spent time relaxing, sleeping; you know, just

getting recharged for the second half of the semester.” = “I would have given my left ball for SayAnything to post updates.” Rose Parlor.

6:15 p.m. LSAT Test-Taking Strategies Seminar. PRO TIP:

Fuck it and be a Victorian Studies major instead. Rocky 301.

ARTS

Page 14

March 24, 2011

Dead Hare Radio Hour fosters Hudson arts community Emma Daniels

M

Reporter

Rachael Borné/The Miscellany News

ost Vassar students can say they have felt the constricting nature of Vassar’s extremely close-knit campus. A new radioshow airing at 5 pm on Tuesday nights on 91.3 WVKR FM offers everyone a chance to escape the claustrophobia of campus.

From 5 to 6 p.m., community members Matthew Slaats and Christopher Albert will host Dead Hare Radio Hour, a show centered on the art scene in the Hudson Valley.

The radio show’s primary purpose is to spread information about visual art in the Hudson Valley—to highlight the artists, the museums, the galleries and the projects that are created in the area in a far reaching, in depth way.

Albert said, “It’s a lot about visual culture, since there is very little of that represented in the mainstream media. A lot of the conversation that happens is about promotion versus talking and sharing ideas.”

Academic Computing Consultant at Vassar College, Slaats works specifically with technology in the Art Department. He is also an artist, activist and community organizer. In 2010 he began PAUSE (People Art Urban Space Exchange), a non-profit organization that uses art as a catalyst for community engagement and development. He is also organizing a panel talk about art in the Hudson Valley with the support of Vassar’s Media Studies Department on April 20 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Cunneen Hackett Arts Center in downtown Poughkeepsie.

Albert is a visual artist based in Beacon, N.Y., and works—through blogging and public media—to spread information about arts and artists in Beacon and beyond. He has worked at Bard College, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and from 2005 to 2010, Albert kept a blog (maykr.com) about the art community in Beacon specifically, but also the greater Hudson Valley area. The duo has been working on the show for the last three months, recording and gathering material, and just began to broadcast.

Community members Matthew Slaats and Christopher Albert host Dead Hare Radio Hour, a new show on WVKR FM devoted to the Hudson Valley art scene. The show airs on Tuesday nights at 5 p.m.

The idea for the show came out of conversations the two artists had about the different art communities up and down the Hudson Valley.

Albert said, “We are both very interested in tapping into this network effect of really getting to know what’s going on in various communities because they are rather separate. They’re not that far from one another but I look at them like little feudal states, medieval communities that are very isolated from one another,” he said, adding, “You have a few people who cross over but by and large something happening in Woodstock or Saugherties might go completely unnoticed to someone in Poughkeepsie or Beacon.” Albert hopes the show will widen the scope of Hudson Valley arts, providing an outlet for the spread of creative information and a way for artists to connect and collabo-

rate: “Part of the idea of doing the radio show is to try to explore that phenomena and also try to coalesce the activities of all the artists in the area, to put people in touch with one another about what they are doing,” he said.

The many meanings behind the show’s title say a lot about the show itself and the men who host it. Dead Hare Radio Hour primarily references Joseph Beuys and his 1965 performance “How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare.” It was also chosen because hare could be interpreted as hair, and Slaats and Albert claim that there’s a strong relationship between the genre of radio station one listens to and the hairstyle one sports on one’s head. They also like the fact that Dead Hare bears a lovely semblance to the radio term “dead air.”

As well as providing numerous explanations

for the show’s name, Slaats and Albert discussed the wide-ranging mission they intend the show to serve. Slaats, an experimental artist himself, stressed that the show is about promoting unconventional ways of making art. “Mainly because I work in alternative ways, I see the show as part of my art practice. It’s about teasing out alternative ways of art,” he said.

Slaats mentioned that he and Albert have known each other for four years. He said, “We’ve always had these really great conversations so I had this desire to see these conversations happen more and more about connecting these disparate spaces. We want to look at what’s in the area and produce a place where people can start referencing what’s going on and get to know the Valley in a greater way.”

One segment of the show is what the pair are currently calling “Threads,” where they do a short interview with an artist and then ask that person to recommend another person for them to interview.

“We want to follow these connections between people, start them at different places and see how they connect or move away from each other,” said Slaats.

As well as highlighting the creative processes of different people and focusing on artistic exhibits and events happening in the Hudson Valley, the show will also function as somewhat of an art itself--the hosts will use sound and music creatively to set the backdrop for their content.

The first show this past Tuesday focused on, according to Slaats, “taking the cultural temperature of the Valley”--essentially surveying the artistic goings on of the area. The next show is on an exhibit about Vassar’s Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, and another show will be about an exhibition at SUNY New Paltz.

They both commented on the experience working together. “We both bring different perspectives, and it’s been a great collaboration so far,” said Slaats. “We’re not polar opposites,” said Albert, “but we’re bringing a full picture of the way people are working in the art world.”

Iyoya Children’s Art Show returns for 26th colorful year Adam Buchsbaum

T

Assistant Arts Editor

Carlos Hernandez/The Miscellany News

he Palmer Gallery will look quite unusual this week, as vibrantly colorful, textured, three dimensional, and endless creative art packs each wall almost entirely, from ceiling to floor. Even more pieces spill over to three tables and two display cases. The art media varies from the more traditional, like pastels and watercolor, to the more experimental, like metal wiring, recycled paper products and decorated t-shirts.

Such is the scene of the 26th annual Children’s Art Show, an exhibition that packs in just about as much creativity as the Palmer Gallery has lived to house. The event is fittingly entitled the John Iyoya Children’s Art Show. Fellow students began it in memoriam of John Iyoya ’83, a senior student-teacher of children who prized creativity and was working on his education degree. His students also began the John Iyoya Prize in his honor, which supports exemplary students with endowed funds who employ creative skills in teaching.

The format of the show has remained consistent since its inception, with only participating schools and artists changing. This year, Elizabeth Straus, an 11-year-old fifth grader enrolled at Hamburg Elementary, is one particularly enthusiastic participant. She was in the exhibition last year, but this year did an Impressionist--her own description, not mine--painting of the Hudson River.

In it, fall-colored trees blur together, lining the riverbank and reflecting off its blue, with an open sky above.

“I got to have my artwork on display,” she said, “and that was fun because I really enjoy art.” Bill Strauss, her dad and an Associate Professor

The 26th annual John Iyoya Children’s Art Show, an exhibit featuring artwork created by local children and held in memoriam of John Iyoya ’83, a senior student-teacher, went on display in the Palmer Gallery on March 20. The exhibit will remain on display in the gallery, where it can be viewed from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., until March 26. of Biology at Vassar, is happy with the art show as well. “A lot of it is really good!” he said. “I like the fact that they have a venue for the kids to display their art for everybody to enjoy it.” However, he was also quick to credit Elizabeth’s art teacher, Sharon Ciccone, for giving the kids an outlet for artistic expression.

“In school I really like my teacher,” Elizabeth said, adding, “We do our projects but she’ll help us with it and if we’re stuck with something then she’ll help us with that too,” Elizabeth said. “She makes examples that help a lot but we’re allowed to do our own thing.” Assistant Professor of Education Erin McCloseky, the event organizer, praised the hard work of

the art teachers. “The children’s art is wonderful but they can only really create with the direction of the art teachers. And they are really just so fabulous,” she said. “They spend their own time coming to set up.

It’s really over and above anything they need to do for their job.” Near Elizabeth’s work in the gallery space is a group of hanging t-shirt art. On the shirts are simple messages like “No Smoking” or “No Shooting” with accompanying images. A clown with a decorated, papier-mâché face and plain paper arms wears each tshirt. The art teacher, Pat Solomon, brought a historical element to her teaching, discussing with her students that WWII Polish circus art

carried political and social messages through symbols and imagery. She then prompted students to answer: “What needs to be changed in the world?” The clowns are their artbased answer.

“The horse and Cyrk clown lessons were designed to empower the children, giving them a visual voice in activist art,” Solomon said in an emailed statement. “I know my kids at school watch programs about how kids their age change the world. I wanted to give them a venue for that.” But the Cyrk clowns are utterly different works of art. Some are but abstract paintings, while elsewhere wire sculptures, embellished clay coil pots, aluminum-foil African

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

masks, textured tiles, papier-mâché castles and ceramic penguins are on display. No doubt there is a huge variety of work, all refreshingly bright, quintessentially innocent and childlike, yet still impressively artistic.

Amidst the full, long wall visible immediately upon entering the gallery is Elizabeth Straus’ painting. She is but one of the many children who have had the chance to enjoy putting up their art for public display. And she has a simple, concise opinion of the exhibition: “I liked it a lot,” she said. “It was fun.”

The Children’s Art Show exhibition is on view at the Palmer Gallery for this week only from March 20-26, open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

March 24, 2011

ARTS

Page 15

Of Montreal to open tour at Vassar Griffin to speak

on life of female jazz musician

Erik Lorenzsonn

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Online Editor

Jack Owen

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Courtesy of wsum.com

n the morning of Wednesday, March 2 students awoke to find posters taped up in residence halls, announcing the musical act that will headline Vassar College Entertainment’s (ViCE) Spring Concert: Of Montreal, a troupe of indie-pop rockers hailing from Athens, Georgia. The psychedelic and soul-infused ensemble will perform in the Walker Field House on Saturday, April 23.

Of Montreal will open with a set by the electronic duo The Knocks, an up-andcoming New York City collaboration that is deeply characterized by its perky and discoinspired singles.

The morning’s announcement also gave a taste of what sort of fare to expect from the band; some posters used images of frontman Kevin Barnes riffing on the microphone in a blue jumpsuit, backed up by dancers dressed as golden Incan idols. The band is well known for their bizarre showmanship, which has merited them a spot on the cultural website Flavorwire’s recent list of 25 musical acts to see live. “Vassar is the beginning of their new tour this year,” said ViCE Music Chair Alejandro Calcano ’11. “The premise is that they are the crew of a ship lost in a different dimension.”

The spectacle-to-be recalls last year’s Spring Concert, which featured a different psychedelic indie-pop band: The Flaming Lips. Last year’s act included a giant video screen, a human-sized hamster ball, lasers

The Athens-based indie-pop troupe Of Montreal will headline Vassar College Entertainment’s annual spring concert, which will be held in the Walker Field House on Saturday, April 23. and confetti galore. Of Montreal’s onstage repertoire could be even more bizarre: Think live horses, full-frontal nudity and even the actress Susan Sarandon spanking a pig.

“The trend of the Spring Concert being a huge, mind-blowing event is recent,” explained Pam Vogel ’12, who sits on the ViCE Music Committee. “Flaming Lips is great live, and Of Montreal is similar in that they

are super engaging and high energy.”

The choice of Of Montreal aligns with ViCE’s goal of bringing high-energy acts to campus as part of their programming. It also reflects the results of an online poll conducted by the organization in January to gauge what musical acts the student body would prefer to see in concert. Of Montreal was See OF MONTREAL on page 16

Loeb creates new, interdisciplinary space Rachael Borné

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Arts Editor

Christie Chea/The Miscellany News

assar’s Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center (FLLAC) has long maintained ties with both the Visual Arts and Art History Departments; however, with the creation of a new art space called the Focus Gallery, the Loeb hopes to extend its resources to every department—from Biology to Anthropology and everything in between. The Focus Gallery’s upcoming exhibition entitled “From Tombs to Households: Ancient Figures from Central Mexico,” will showcase the research done by students enrolled in an Anthropology course called Mesoamerica Worlds. The exhibit opens tonight, Thursday, March 24 at 6 p.m. during Late Night at the Lehman Loeb and will run for six weeks.

Diane Butler, the Andrew W. Mellon Coordinator of Academic Programs, explained of the gallery, “We wanted to create a space that would have some flexibility, but that would also have an identity, a curated quality to it and could be used in a variety of ways.”

The gallery currently serves mainly academic purposes; however, the space will also be used to highlight recent acquisitions, artwork covered in present-day scholarship and portfolios put together by curators not necessarily large enough to fill a big gallery exhibition.

Butler acts as a liaison between the collection and the faculty on campus. Before her position was created several years ago, professors interested in using objects from the FLLAC in their curriculum would have to inquire with their own initiative. Now, Butler works closely with a broad spectrum of departments, looking closely through the course catalogue each semester for subject matter relevant to the collection’s offerings.

According to Associate Professor of Anthropology David Tavárez, instructor for the Mesoamerican Worlds course, the physical objects provided by the Loeb offered an experience to which few students have access: “Scrutinizing a piece from all angles and at close quarters allows students to perceive minor details that cannot be observed otherwise, and to take stock of the piece as an actual three-dimensional object.”

For the class project, students were assigned a ceramic figure from the Loeb’s collection, given direct access to the piece for careful analysis, and then asked to conduct research to supplement their visual findings.

In the end, students developed ideas about the function of the ceramic figurines in the social framework of Mesoamerican civiliza-

“From Tombs to Households: Ancient Figures from Central Mexico,” an exhibit featuring research done by anthropology students, will be on display at the Lehman Loeb for the next six weeks. tions. In the Focus Gallery, the figures are on display alongside informational labels written by each member of the class.

“The exercise allow[ed] students to unleash their archaeological and ethnohistorical imagination—that is, [they] began locating, through visual inspection and library research, the actual social and cultural contexts in which a specific piece was produced and employed by its makers,” explained Tavárez.

This collaboration between students, faculty and the Loeb’s collection is a learning experience for everyone, simply because it gives all involved an opportunity to look at art objects from a different perspective, one rooted in a specific academic discipline. Tavarez attested to this, saying, “I believe that such strategic use of unique archaeological and artistic resources allows both students and faculty to create new connections— through research, exhibits, and plain old sightseeing—with an essential part of Vassar’s cultural and artistic heritage.”

One other Focus Gallery exhibition on view right after the Loeb’s grand reopening in late January was a display focusing on two Ethiopian paintings from the collection. The two works were mislabeled and essentially devoid of information before Associate Professor of History Ismail Rashid’s African History class got involved.

“Professor Rashid was able to look at the paintings and identify the principal figures immediately. A few students in his class

then studied these paintings and two others to put them in a larger context of Ethiopian painting,” Butler explained. In addition to providing the students an outlet for interdisciplinary research, the Focus Gallery project also added a considerable amount of information to the Loeb’s knowledge of the pieces.

In the future, Butler hopes to work with Associate Professor of Chemistry Joe Tansky to look at the aging process of chrome in yellow pigments. If exposed to lead, chrome yellow darkens over time, a phenomenon that can be seen in Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers.” Tansky has an X-Ray Fluorescent Spectrometer, XFC for short, capable of generating a read on the composition of objects. “It detects the inorganic elements of an object without touching or harming it at all,” explained Butler. Chemistry and Art History is certainly an unlikely pair, but certainly a testament to the power of combining forces for the sake of information and learning.

With over 18,000 art objects, there is no denying that the Loeb is always looking for new ways to show off its collection. The new Focus Gallery not only gives students and faculty a special opportunity to take advantage of the Loeb’s extensive offerings, but it also paves the way for unexpected connections and brings academic pursuits outside of the classroom setting, keeping the Vassar community updated on all projects ongoing in a wide array of departments.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Guest Reporter

azz and the blues have undoubtedly left their stamp on American music today, as well as the American cultural landscape in general. Fortunately for the Vassar community, Columbia University’s Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African-American Studies Farah Griffin will be shedding light on “the genre’s far-reaching effects in her upcoming lecture.

Titled “Soul on Soul: Imagining Mary Lou Williams,” Professor Griffin will speak on Tuesday, March 29, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in Taylor Hall 203.

Griffin’s lecture will delve into the life and career of Mary Lou Williams, a successful composer, arranger and jazz piano musician during the 1920s and ’30s. Griffin will be discussing films, paintings and fiction that convey Williams’ life and her effect on the jazz movement as a whole.

“Williams was exceptional because her talent eclipsed the dual oppressions of sexism and racism, which together have limited the life options of many black women and women of color throughout the 20th century. She was a black woman composing when women were nearly non-existent in that realm of musical production,” said Vassar’s Assistant Professor of English Eve Dunbar, who is helping to organize the event.

Unlike many other black women involved with jazz, Williams was able to assert herself as a jazz musician rather than as a jazz vocalist. “In some sense, she was exceptional because she had complete control over the music she played because she created it,” Dunbar continued, and “she produced over 100 records, played for decades and was able to stay relevant because she wrote and arranged her own music.” Williams worked with and arranged alongside musicians like Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and was a mentor, friend and teacher to Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

While Williams has been extremely inspiring for other musicians, her work has definitely affected artistic expression outside of the music world as well. Griffin’s lecture will depict Williams’ status in contemporary American history as iconic beyond the scope of musicianship.

“Professor Griffin will no doubt multi-disciplinarily and multi-textually explore the ways in which art and artists speak to one another through various forms. And I think Williams provides an interesting entry point for exploring creativity in a dynamic way, a way that acknowledges how intersecting the world is,” said Dunbar.

“Even though Williams was a jazz musician, what might it mean that she influenced others to paint and write and create other texts? It speaks not only to the power of music to inspire, but also to the role of genius in all of our creative lives,” Dunbar furthered.

According to Dunbar, the lecture will be extremely relevant to the Vassar community because it “will speak to a variety of topics: fiction, film, painting, racial and gender politics, history, music history and music.” “I imagine a great cross-section of the campus will find something to sink their teeth into with this lecture topic, especially since it’s being presented by a dynamic thinker like Farah Griffin,” she added. Williams’ career is inspiring to anyone who has ever felt like an outsider within society, and has worked to overcome their otherness and dismantle a rigid social order.

While Williams’ career is specifically representative of the jazz movement, it also speaks to proclivities of greater black musical tradition. “I think she was someone who had a long career because she refused to be pigeonholed, she allowed her music to develop and change as the times and her interests developed and changed,” said Dunbar. “In that sense, her career might be said to fall in line with a black musical tradition that is best characterized by the ability to change and grow.

Griffin’s lecture will, in many ways, parallel some of Vassar’s most significant values. Vassar has long encouraged and celebrated women’s history and artistic expression, an inclination that is clearly evident within the student body. The lecture has clear potential to inspire audiences as Griffin is obviously a powerful and dynamic figure. It will no doubt be a great way for students and faculty to hear about the life of an individual who embodies these values, and how she managed to succeed while maintaining them.

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March 24, 2011

The Knocks to open ViCE spring show Rovner shines with light, graphic design Lacy Dent

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Guest Reporter

hile many of us were vegging out on our couches devouring junk food and watching too many re-runs of Jersey Shore or spending quality time with the family over Spring Break, Andrew Rovner ’13 was lucky enough to find himself attending a SXSW line-up in Austin, Texas featuring artists Eruka Badu, Wu-Tang and Fishbone, to name a few. As an enthusiastic lighting and sound designer for theater productions at Vassar, the artist was truly in his element at the festival.

He agreed to an interview bright and early one morning with plans to attend concerts all day and night afterwards.

The hardworking drama and philosophy double major discovered his passion for theater production very early in life. He shared, “Around when I was 12 or 13, I loved music but never really had that much musical talent. However, I wanted to get experience with production and so I jumped right into musical theater. I began to realize all the different opportunities that theater had to offer.” Here at Vassar, Rovner has done both lighting and sound design for a number of Shiva productions as well as department shows. Most recently, he worked on the special sesquicentennial showing of “Playground: the Hallie Flanagan Project” that went up on March 1 in the Martel Theater.

He is also involved and heavily invested in graphic design. He is the guy responsible for the recent “Joss is Boss” t-shirt logo featuring Olyvia Josselyn in wayfarers and a blingin’ chain, he has designed many VC Punx flyers, and has created several drama department posters.

When Rovner was just a kid his father told him, “Promise to me that you will never work a desk job.” Given his prospective plans and aspirations for life after Vassar, it is clear that Rovner is trying to make good on that promise. “I want to be involved in theater in Boston, New York, or Seattle where things are happening, but also where things are small and intimate.” The versatile Rovner added, “I want to develop as a cross-trained artist.”

Though Rovner is attracted to the hustling and bustling feel of city life, he believes that more intimate settings facilitate the production of experimental theater and foster relationships between the audience and the artists. His work at Vassar is a real testament to this belief: “I want to create exciting theater that people can talk about and connect to and believe that this is achieved more significantly in a smaller learning environment. Here

Alex Schlesinger/The Miscellany News

OF MONTREAL continued from page 15 one of the choices on the poll, and finished behind Wiz Khalifa, Robyn and Ratatat with 10 percent of the vote. Although the results were marred by the possibility of cheating (people could easily vote multiple times), ViCE took the poll results into account.

“Even though we knew the poll was flawed, we knew the top choices were the ones people wanted the most,” said Calcano. “We inquired about getting the top artists.”

The poll was an anomaly in ViCE’s history of signing artists to perform; the organization even gave a presentation at a Vassar Student Association Council meeting last year addressing why they do not regularly poll the student body.

This aversion to polling, for which ViCE has often been criticized, stems from the difficulty in signing the most popular bands. The Music Committee also regularly holds open meetings during which anyone can come to express their opinions.

Due to different circumstances this semester, ViCE decided to give polling a shot. “I think that there were pressures to do a poll and since the Committee didn’t have an act at the time, we decided to do it,” said ViCE Assistant Director Sarah Morrison ’11. “And even though there was cheating, we felt that a lot of students were genuine in their responses.”

ViCE is also making minor changes to its method of ticket distribution, a process that commenced yesterday. Students can purchase tickets for $18 in the College Center today and tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. They can also purchase tickets for their friends if they present a corresponding V-card; unlike previous concerts, there will be no limit to the number of tickets one can purchase. ViCE will continue to sell tickets in the College Center in the coming weeks; tickets are also available for the general public online for $30 on ticketweb.com, and will be sold at the concert itself.

ViCE is also collaborating with Pro Health on the concert, the student group responsible for organization annual American Cancer Society Relay for Life. ViCE will contribute a percentage of ticket sales towards the event’s cancerresearch fundraising; the relay will also end before 9 p.m., enabling those at the relay to attend the concert as well.

This concert will mark the first time that a concert will be held in the bays of the Walker Field House since Wyclef Jean came to Vassar for a February concert in 2006. The venue was chosen based on its capacity for large crowds, and because it is more “dance-able” than the Chapel.

Andrew Rovner ’13, pictured above, promised his father as a child that he would never work a desk job. Now, he aspires to produce experimental theater in Boston, New York or Seattle. you have the same group of people creating art together and you have your hand in all aspects of theater-making. I can make a suggestion about costume design and know that I will be taken seriously,” Rovner explained.

Rovner enjoys the way in which experimental theater is able to effectively transform abstract ideas—many times bizarre­—on stage, commenting, “This is a real world in front of you.” It is no wonder he is also drawn to Richard Foreman, one of America’s greatest playwrights who pioneered avant-garde theater and founded the Ontological-Hysteric Theater. “It’s extremely weird, but I like his cerebral philosophical work. He writes for three or four hours each day and then assigns plots. There is usually no conflict in his work, just a philosophical consciousness at its raw-

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MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

est form. He takes everything that is inside of us and makes it outside,” Rovner shared.

The Florida native was at Disney World one day where he began to think about the different people that design rides and theme parks and all the possibilities. “If I design a show that is successful people will see it and then afterwards it is gone and no one talks about it again, but what if I designed a theme park?”

Rovner thought. Clearly the artist maintains an open mind, always looking for ways to make his mark in a powerful and memorable way. Whether we will one day wear clothes designed by Rovner, visit an amusement park designed by him, or see him perform in an experimental theater productions, there’s no denying that his work will strike a chord with everyone it touches.

ARTS

March 24, 2011

Page 17

Raekwon’s latest opens 37th chamber Shaolin vs. Wu Tang Raekwon [Ice H2o Records]

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here’s a curious connection between “Molasses,” the second single from Chef Raekwon’s new album Shaolin vs. Wu Tang and the classic cut from another Wu-Tang member, the GZA’s “Shadowboxin’.” More than just posse cuts in the early ’90s idiom, they share the same sample: Ann Peeble’s southern fried soul “Trouble, Heartache, and Sadness.” The difference is that the latter was produced by Wu founder the RZA, while the former, a leaner, more stuttering loop, comes courtesy of producer Xtreme and appears on an album where the pater familias’ beats are conspicuously absent.

Far from detracting from the album’s sound, the fresh approach seems to have coaxed Raekwon out of his coke-rap comfort zone and into full-on storyteller mode.

As Rae described in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, “It’s like me just going back to my history of being an emcee first, before I actually became part of Wu-Tang .”

Take, for example, “Snake Pond,” a tightly wound crime narrative about betrayal and revenge. A day in the life of the young swordsman Rae, he raps, “Just got things to touch on, then he up walked up weird/ Walked in frail as stale, his eyes were soft/ His face was pale, I looked at him kneel/‘Just wanna talk’ you a deer, started chasing him/ He jumped in a tree, had grass in his ear.”

He is fantastically vivid and odd in his attention to detail on this album, transcribing his flashbacks over a twanging zither warped into a sort of soulful yelp.

The album’s production takes a more literal approach to the Wu-Tang’s kung-fu-

Campus Canvas

inflected source material. Of course there are the requisite movie samples—the album starts with a mission statement: “You’ve mixed the Shaolin and the Wu-Tang/No, we have not, it’s just that they’re the same/ That’s right now Lord/You misunderstand our kung-fu work/It doesn’t belong to anybody, it evolves!”—but the songs also give prominence to sounds that furnish a more Asian-inflected production. For all the WuTang point to and relate to in the land where kung-fu began, they fail to make use of in the actual instrumentals. Not every song on the album succeeds in its more literal approach to martial-arts rap. While “Snake Pond” and “Silver Rings” triumph for the mix of zither with the Wu-thump of the percussion, “Crane Style” meanders a bit too far, the drums not heavy enough to hold Rae and a typically certifiable Busta Rhymes. It’s as if a battle scene crashed through the wall of the meditation room in the temple.

“Crane Style,” as track number seven, at the heart of the album, signals the beginning of a sag in an otherwise svelte, crisp record.

The descent continues into “Rich and Black” featuring Nas, the former heavyweight champion of detail, but who settles for a glossed-over run down of success and boast.

But, as one might expect, the phoenix rises, with late tracks “Last Trip to Scotland,” “Molasses” and “From the Hills,” containing features from rappers ready to go toe-to-toe with Shallah. Lloyd Banks spins a complex yarn about delusions of success on “Scotland”: “Apartment full of party powder outside a stakeout for hours/Click clacks from big gats and rags/Soon as the door squeaks they runnin’ up on the grass/Bang flash, shots right on the path, broken glass/Comedy of laughs while they haul ass with the bags/Legends in my hood play back.”

Rick Ross also came with nunchucks drawn, with another classic eating line:

“Sparking purple once a nigga done spaghetti slurping/Fly away in my new Scabetti surfing.” And while Method Man’s verses are typical victory lap boasts, he still manages some impressive assonance heavy flows on “From the Hills”: “This is the W, the Clan don’t lose, you putting hands on who?/Hands down I can handle you, you half man, half animals.”

But the day belongs to Raekwon. No one matches his penetrating eye—“With the big pimple on her temple”—or boastful characters: “Baggin hop up in the backseat, your packages walk/Holding my girl wedding ring, she Meddellin/Name is Coretta King, live in Alpharettea and she never leave me/ Flow freely this is all graffiti, cloth I’m cut from/Is straight from a rich nigga genie.”

And he is able to pack all of his wonderful worlds into songs that clock in around two minutes. While 2009’s Only Built 4 Cuban Links II was hailed as a return to form, matching his solo debut from 1995, Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang is able to look back on Raekwon’s ascent without becoming trapped in the tried and true mafioso rap, and is more successful for it. It is pushing forward instead of measuring up.

And it couldn’t come at a better time. The Philaflava blog, a purveyor of 1990s nostalgia for hip-hop heads, recently took a poll of the best record labels of that decade, and Wu’s imprint Loud Records won convincingly over other ’90s behemoths No Limit, Bad Boy and Death Row. And keep in mind this happened in the wake of Nate Dogg’s passing. While recognizing the brilliance of past accomplishments does no damage, it is encouraging to see an artist late in his career still willing to test the elasticity of his sound and expand an already major catalogue of classic records. The celebratory Wu-Tang chant at the end of the record is well earned.

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Garrison Keillor Sunday, April 3, 5 p.m.

UPAC Theater, Kingston $50 - $85 Still in an NPR state of mind after Ira Glass charmed us all? Well, you’re in luck. Garrison Keillor, the host and writer of A Prairie Home Companion will give a talk at UPAC in Kingston.

Keillor is known for his dry, tongue-in-cheek sense of humor and his knack for good ole’ storytelling. Some have even called him the voice of Minnesota. The talk is especially topical, simply because Keillor will be retiring from his famous radio show in the Spring of 2013.

Graphic Design: Get the Message!

February 5 - June 12, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Albany Institute of History and Art $8 For all those interested in media studies, visual arts, and propaganda throughout the years, the Albany Institute of History and Art’s current gallery show Graphic Design: Get the Message! is the perfect treat. The exhibition chronicles the history of graphic design in the Hudson Valley, looking specifically at the medium in consumerbased social contexts. Posters, broadsides, paintings, photos, and computer generated works will all be included to illustrate the influence of the graphic arts on a receptive American public.

The Landscape of Memory On view until September 18 9:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

New York State Museum Albany, New York Considered one of American’s most accomplished printmakers, Frank C. Eckmair is renowned in the US and abroad for his wood engravings of outdoor and country scenes. With over 80 landscape prints on display, the New York State Museum will showcase depictions of farm fields, old barns, and other rural. As an avid outdoorsman, Eckmair makes clear connections between his love of canoeing, fishing, and camping through his visual art. For many years, Eckmair served as Chairman as the Fine Arts Department at Buffalo State College, his wood gravings have appeared in dozens of books, and prints are housed in museums around the world, including the New York Public Library and the Smithsonian Museum.

Made in Woodstock V On view until March 27 12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

New York State Museum Albany, New York

I shot this photo last summer during an excavation of a Civil War POW camp. It was a hot, muggy day and I’d been working for four weeks so dirt was becoming a second skin. I took my work gloves off for a water break and set them down by a tree near my unit and when I returned, ten little white moths had settled on

one thumb of my muddy, crusty, gloves. I ran for my camera and caught them right before they flew away, but their congregation must have lasted for at least five minutes. I liked the contrast between the delicate little wings on my filthy work gear, bright and dark, nature and labor.

—Zoe Van Buren

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Since 1999, The Center for Photography at Woodstock has sponsored an artist-in-residence program called WOODSOCK A-I-R that offers a group of artists a chance to live at the Byrdcliffe art colony while honing their skill. The Center’s current exhibit highlights works created by photographers who took part in the program between 2007 and 2008. Through the program, they all participated in an intense and deeply self-aware dialogue with history, representation, and politics. Artists involved photographed a wide range of subject matter, ranging from racial imagery to familial relationships to depictions of farming, and land and city-scapes.

SPORTS

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March 24, 2011

Team’s historic run ends in NCAA game considered herself very fortunate to have had the chance to end her collegiate career on the national stage.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better senior season,” she wrote. “I’m so grateful to have had this experience and even more so to play a hand in turning this program around for an extremely bright future.” Crampton attributed her rewarding send-off to her coaches and teammates.

Few players have seen the program ascend as dramatically as Crampton. Between her freshman and senior seasons, the Brewers have experienced an 11-win jump and moved from the Liberty League cellar to playoff contention. “I wanted to leave this program in a much different way than I came into it,” Crampton wrote for the 2.24.11 issue of The Miscellany News (“Women’s basketball reaches playoffs”).

Brown and Kraft look back on this season with similar satisfaction.

Both described it as “an amazing journey” and Brown wrote that the history made this year is “a testament to what can be done when a group of people put their mind to it.” Kraft added that both the coaches and players experienced growth as a collective group, and that a year like this will hopefully serve as a building block for the future.

The immediate future, at least, should feature several familiar faces, considering the relative youth of the Brewers’ roster, which includes three freshmen and four sophomores.

Parks, who at the moment would be the lone senior next season, believes this year will pay huge dividends for her teammates. “[Making it] to the NCAA Division III tournament this year was a great experience to have going into next year, especially with such a young team,” she wrote in an emailed statement. “And [it] ultimately instilled a desire within each one of us to make sure that we will make it back next year.”

One of the standout freshmen this year was Matsuoka, who was recently recognized as the Liberty League Rookie of the Year, D3Hoops. com All-East Rookie of the Year and D3Hoops.com National Rookie of the Year. The point guard led the Liberty League in three-point shooting percentage (45.6 percent) and three-point field goals made (2.79 per game).

Also receiving awards were Parks and Brown. Parks was named the Liberty League Offensive Player of the Year and earned a spot on the D3Hoops.com All-East First Team as well as the D3Hoops.com AllAmerican Fourth Team. She led the league in scoring (20.3 points per game) and assists (4.18 per game).

Brown was honored as the Liberty League Coach of the Year and the D3Hoops.com East Region Coach of the Year. Matsuoka and Parks were also named to the Liberty League First Team, while Matsuoka and Senftleber were named to the Liberty League All-Rookie Team.

Awards and recognitions are certainly worthy of praise and acknowledgement, but it seems clear that the Brewers value team unity over individual accolades. With a roster that faced and overcame injury, size disadvantages and low outside expectations, the intangibles—perseverance, hard work and teamwork— proved to be the deciding factors.

Crampton put it best, writing, “I don’t think any other group could have done what we did. We’re truly a family who made each others’ dreams come true.”

Madeline Zappala/The Miscellany News

BASKETBALL continued from page 1 Everyone was aware of their heavy underdog status, but the players and coaches alike approached the game with the same assertive attitude that had brought them this far. “We were looking to prove what we try to prove every time we step on the court,” wrote Assistant Coach Melissa Kraft in an emailed statement.

“Go ahead and underestimate us, because we are eight strong, but we are here for a reason.”

The Brewers were firing on all cylinders in the first half, turning an initial 7-0 deficit into a 16-14 lead in the span of the opening eight minutes. Their typical three-point shooting prowess was on display, as they sunk five of 12 shots from long distance. Head Coach Candice Brown said the team’s hot start could be attributed to their confidence and readiness. “We were prepared and our players were up for the challenge,” she wrote in an emailed statement. Crampton suggested they caught Kean a bit off-guard. She wrote, “we were more prepared for them than they were for us … They clearly didn’t expect much out of us, but we came out ready to prove that we didn’t just show up to show up.

We wanted to win.”

Still, the Cougars came back strong in the remainder of the half, going on a 10-0 run at one point and entering halftime with a 36-29 lead.

The second half saw things quickly unravel for the Brewers, due to a combination of fatigue and a characteristically intense defensive presence from their opponents.

Vassar entered the game, as they had for the majority of the season, undermanned. The Brewers’ usual eight-player rotation became seven, as guard Olivia Westbrook-Gold ’13 was injured the day before the opening-round game. WestbrookGold played only one minute in the contest against Kean. “It is hard to compete on the national level with our lack of depth,” Kraft wrote.

“They just had more gas in the tank than we did.”

Crampton and Brown agreed that the full court defensive press the Cougars employed hampered the Brewers’ offensive attack. Crampton noted the high number of times they had the ball stolen—22 for the entire game—while Brown stated, “Kean is a very athletic team and their pressure in the back court caused us some difficulty.” The numbers tell the story; Vassar was successful on only five of 22 field-goal attempts in the second half (22.7 percent), while Kean shot 19-37 (51.4 percent).

The ending may not have been ideal, but Kraft said she and Brown told their players to be proud of what they had achieved. “[There is] no reason to even bow your head for a moment,” she wrote. “They have accomplished something that has never been seen done with this program.” Crampton agreed that there was no reason for disappointment.

“My teammates and I left everything we had on the court, without a doubt, and that’s all you can ask for at the end of the day,” she wrote.

Captain Brittany Parks ’12 led the Brewers with 18 points, while freshmen Hannah Senftleber and Cydni Matsuoka each added 11. Kean University senior forward Tiffany Patrick led all scorers with 20 points.

In her final game in a Vassar uniform, Crampton was held to three points but displayed a strong defensive presence with six rebounds and a team-high two steals. She

Above, members of the Vassar women’s lacrosse team go for a run across the Walkway Over the Hudson. Team members visited the Walkway as part of an initative by Sarah Warner ’11 to get her team out into the community.

Vassar athletes train off-campus on Walkway Over the Hudson Andy Marmer

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Sports Editor

assar athletics took to the streets of Poughkeepsie as the women’s lacrosse team ran across the Walkway Over the Hudson on Saturday, Feb. 26. The run was part of a campaign by Sarah Warner ’11 to get her team off Vassar’s campus and into the community.

Warner is enrolled in the Senior Colloquium in American Culture, the topic for which is the Walkway.

The class is investigating issues of what the Walkway means for Poughkeepsie, Vassar students and other communities who might be affected by the structure.

Opened in 2009, the Walkway is available for public use by walkers, runners, bikers and rollerbladers.

“As our theme [for the class] is the Walkway, I was trying to think about how I could bring ‘me’ into the project,” Warner said. “Since I

love running and sports, I figured I would somehow incorporate that.”

After her coach approved the run, 22 members of the team traveled to the Walkway. They ran out and back over the length of the bridge—a little over 2.5 miles in total—and then ate lunch at the Palace Diner, itself a local institution. For most of the team, it was their first time visiting the Walkway.

“It was nice watching the ships come through … It was a very observational afternoon,” said Maura McCarthy ’12.

Other team members cited the bridge pedestrians as a point of interest. “[We saw] a lot of couples, older couples, a lot of Poughkeepsie natives,” said Marissa Reilly ’13. Cat Fiore ’14 agreed, “There were a lot of families. It was cute.”

For the most part, Poughkeepsie welcomed the team. “Some people smiled at us and seemed to enjoy

our presence, and welcomed our pats to their dogs,” Warner said.

“But some people seemed annoyed by us being a big group and being decently loud.”

Warner believes that having these events off campus should be an important part of the Vassar experience. “Last year was really the first time I got out of Vassar a decent amount. I finally ventured into Poughkeepsie and the surrounding area and found it not only eye-opening, but also fun,” Warner said. “I wanted to show other people how great and interesting Poughkeepsie is [while] somehow combining an athletic aspect into the project.”

Most of all, Warner was pleased that she could share this part of Poughkeepsie with her teammates.

“I think everyone really enjoyed themselves and got a good taste of Poughkeepsie,” she said.

Athletes spend Spring Break away Nathan Tauger Reporter

S

pring Break for most Vassar students means relaxing and enjoying a trip back home, but for the women’s lacrosse team and men’s tennis team, the relaxation was supplemented with a healthy dose of their respective sports and some very warm weather. From exploring the tropical fauna of Florida to California’s cuisines, both of these teams enjoyed a restful as well as productive Spring Break.

Many teams spend part of their Winter and Spring Breaks traveling to compete in warmer climates.

These trips are financed primarily by the athletes who fundraise throughout the year and are arranged by coaches who schedule games or tournament participation in the various destinations.

The women’s lacrosse team spent part of the vacation in Palm Beach, Fla. experiencing the wildlife of the tropical climate. “On Tuesday a bunch of people went on a safari down here. The first half was spent in the van driving through

and checking out the lions, zebras, giraffes and wildebeests. The second half was spent at the zoo where people got to feed the giraffes!” explained Sarah Warner ’11 in an emailed statement.

“Other than that we [did] a lot of eating, swimming, putting on sunscreen and playing lacrosse,” wrote Warner. But just as there is no “I” in team, there is no “I” in beach, either.

She explained, “We’ve been doing a lot of team-building activities, including the freshman putting on a skit and the juniors re-performing a dance they made up from freshman year.”

While the lacrosse team enjoyed the warm weather of the East Coast, the men’s tennis team found rays on the other side of the country. But first came a trip to Maryland. Josh Jasso ’11 described the trip, where the team played two matches: “It was a lot of time spent in a bus with quite a character of a driver (think of a Northeastern Yosemite Sam). That was followed by an almost all-day excursion (beginning at 4 in the

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morning Eastern time) to Southern California. Everyone was tired but the weather lifted our spirits,” he wrote in an emailed statement. And while good weather can improve anyone’s mood, for tennis players it carries extra meaning. “We were playing outside for the first time this semester and loving it.”

Making the men’s tennis team’s trip even more exciting was the opportunity to bond with John Cox, their new head coach. Jasso explained the fresh start: “We’re figuring out what makes each other tick, and I must say that I’ve been having some fun getting to know him. But between eating and playing tennis, there hasn’t been much down time.”

The eating, in fact, was a highlight of the trip. “[We tried] out some Zagatrated restaurants for dinner,” Jasso wrote in an emailed statement. And after winning a match over Whittier College, the team, especially Jasso, enjoyed another happy occasion.

“I celebrated my 22nd birthday on March 7 with a win over Occidental [College] and some great Mexican food.”

March 24, 2011

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Page 19

Baseball looks to build on prior success Financial

hypocrisy rife in NCAA

Andy Marmer

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Sports Editor

Nik Trkulja Columnist

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Dana Harris/The Miscellany News

ith an influx of new talent and just two players graduated from last year’s sixthplace squad—which finished with 10 wins, the program’s most in five years—the Vassar baseball team believes it is poised to expand on last year’s gains. Explained senior Captain Joe Castilla in an emailed statement, “I would say we expect to make the playoffs. Anything less would probably be a disappointment.”

Last season, the Brewers’ offense was key to the squad’s success. As a team, Vassar hit .292 on the season, fourth in the Liberty League and barely behind Clarkson University, which hit .297 on the year. Instrumental in the Vassar attack was Mike Perrone ’13, who led the league with a .434 average, 66 hits and 36 steals in just 37 games. Perrone’s success led to him earning Liberty League Rookie of the Year and East Coast Athletic Conference Upstate Division III Rookie of the Year honors among numerous other accomplishments.

In addition to Perrone, senior Devon Luongo (.339 batting average, 55 total bases), senior Captain David Ringold (.315 batting average, .461 slugging percentage), junior Liam Lee (.281 batting average, 31 runs scored) and junior Sal Costanzo (28 RBIs, 55 total bases) will all be asked to pick up where they left off last year, keying the Vassar onslaught.

The Brewers will also return their entire pitching staff from last year, led by junior Captain John MacGregor, Lawrence Flicker ’13 and Zander Mrlk ’13.

However, the Brewers will still be faced with replacing key contributors, particularly Ari Glantz ’10, who departed with his name littering the program’s record book.

While returning players will fill some of the void left by the departures, Lee in particular will be asked to transition from infield to centerfield, where he will be replacing Glantz. A number of key newcomers are also expected to step into important roles. Wrote Head Coach Jon Martin in an emailed statement, “We expect our recruited freshmen to step up and play at a high level from day one.” He continued, “As far as position players go ... [Freshmen] Dave Robbins, Brett Zaziski and Parker Werline should add some depth and pop to our lineup. On the mound, [Freshmen] Joe Lovizio and Harrison Remler will be relied on [to] throw strikes and get outs.” Martin has high expectations for the

The Vassar men’s baseball team, building off of last year’s success, won its first four games of the RussMatt Central Florida Invitational over Spring Break. They will begin Liberty League play this weekend. rookies, “I think our freshman class is a strong one and they expect to push this team into the playoffs their first college season.”

The Brewers wasted little time building off of last year’s gains as the Brewers spent part of their Spring Break competing in the RussMatt Central Florida Invitational. Vassar started the year white-hot, winning its first four games before dropping its final two contests of the event. Throughout the week, the Brewers proved to be no stranger to excitement, eking out numerous close victories including an 11-7 win over Fitchberg State University, which saw Vassar score six runs in the top of the ninth inning. Perrone, Luongo, Castilla and Robbins all had two hits, as Luongo recorded five RBIs in the effort.

In addition to their potent offensive arsenal, the Vassar squad has another entity working in their favor: team chemistry. MacGregor wrote in an e-mailed statement, “The team meshes very well and we all try to play and win for each other. We play very good ‘team baseball’ and push each other to perform.” Martin, too, notices the team dynamic, “Our biggest

strength in my opinion, is the team unity. We are a very tight-knit ball club.” He continued, “We push each other, support each other, and challenge each other every single day we step on the diamond. I have never been around a group of guys that love this game as a whole, as this team does.”

The Brewers will begin Liberty League play this weekend, hosting Clarkson University for a pair of weekend doubleheaders, the first of 24 total league contests. Summarized Martin in an emailed statement, “Obviously, the Liberty League games are vital for our chance at postseason play, but we are going to put our best lineup out there every game and play to win.”

Vassar has never finished among the topfour teams in the Liberty League, but that does not discourage the Brewers. MacGregor noted in an emailed statement, “We feel like we have a great team and the ability to not only make the Liberty League Playoffs, but to contend for the conference title.”

When asked about his expectations for the season, Martin responded with just three words, “Postseason baseball. Period.”

Fab Five’s impact impossible to replicate Andy Sussman

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Columnist

ast week, ESPN premiered the heavily anticipated documentary, “The Fab Five,” about the University of Michigan basketball team in the early 1990s. Nicknamed the “Fab Five,” five highly-regarded high school seniors from Detroit who were friends with one another chose to attend Michigan together in 1991.

Though they made it to two consecutive championship games (losing both), the Fab Five are not so much remembered for their on-court play as their off-court personalities. They openly loved hip-hop at a time when the genre was not yet fully emerged, wore baggy shorts when every other team continued to wear the painfully short shorts and carried themselves with the cockiness that one wouldn’t expect from an NCAA athlete.

In short, if you grew up watching the Fab Five, you definitely had an opinion about them, whether you loved or loathed them. It wasn’t just Michigan’s basketball team that was polarizing in the early 1990s. The basketball program at the University of Nevada–Las Vegas (UNLV) was an exceptionally talented one that won a national title, but quickly fizzled into irrelevance because of corruption scandals. Under Head Coach John Thompson, Georgetown University was willing to take on perceived troublemakers, such as Allen Iverson, to maintain the impeccably high standards the University had for the team.

And of course, throughout the 1980s and 1990s stood Duke University, who represented the “old guard” in basketball: The players were known for being fundamentally sound, mostly middle-class and largely Caucasian. More than

any other team, Duke was the foil to Michigan and UNLV not just because they were a great team, but also because they symbolized the complete opposite lifestyle of the players from those schools. When Jalen Rose of the “Fab Five” reminisced about his hatred of Duke in the documentary, he meant it because he viewed the school as a place that was not willing to accept a young, poor black man like him into its community.

20 years later, how many college basketball teams can we say are compelling enough to have a real opinion about them? Sure, it is easy enough to analyze a team’s strengths and weaknesses on the court, but it is an entirely different thing to actually care about the players, and to have a passion about the team. For example, Ohio State University and the University of Kansas may be the two best teams in college basketball this season, but they do not compel me, an avid basketball fan, as personalities. Frankly, when it comes to supporting a team in any given college basketball game, I rarely make a distinction between any bigname program and the next.

There are two primary reasons why this is true. First of all, ever since the NBA instituted the one-and-done rule in 2005 (which mandated that prospective NBA players had to be at least one year removed from high school), the most talented basketball players tend to only stay in college for one year. As a result, there is a much greater turnover in the top programs than there was 10 or 20 years ago. For instance, the University of Kentucky Wildcats last year had four freshmen selected in the first round of the NBA draft. And it was not as if Kentucky had won the championship; they had only made

the Elite Eight. Now the Wildcats are back into the tournament with more talented freshmen that will inevitably leave for the professional game before we even got to know their identities as collegiate players. In 2007, Greg Oden became the first-ever college freshman selected first overall. The next year, however, another freshman was selected first. The same thing happened in 2010, and the most likely number one pick for this year, Duke point guard Kyrie Irving, is also a freshman. How are we supposed to find a team compelling if we can only watch them in action for one year?

Also, because the NCAA has clamped down significantly more on players’ actions both on and off the court, most collegiate teams have essentially devolved into basketball factories.

A team like the UNLV squad of the early ‘90s would never be let onto the basketball court nowadays because of former Head Coach Jerry Tarkanian’s numerous scandals, including accusations of paying players. Now, on the surface, this appears to be an entirely appropriate measure, but corruption still exists in the NCAA just deeper in the shadows than before.

In the process, the voice of the player has been taken away. There is no “us vs. them” team mentality anymore, except for perhaps the smallest programs against the most successful ones. All the best collegiate players are simply biding their time before they can get paid out in the open by an NBA team. Whether you liked them or not, the Fab Five brought attention and legitimacy to the hip-hop, urban culture. They truly transcended basketball, and it is for that reason that they are remembered today. I just cannot see any team now that can contribute nearly as much to our society.

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his spring marks the first time every game of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament—also known as March Madness—will be televised. It was all guaranteed last year in the NCAA’s 14-year, $10.8-billion deal with CBS and Turner Sports. To say times are good for the NCAA would be an understatement. However, in the run-up to the annual basketball festivities, critics have spoken out against the NCAA and college revenues from amateur sports, as well as the NCAA’s harsh penalties on athletes who come across any cash. It’s a hypocritical state of affairs that becomes more indefensible with every passing day.

This year, the NCAA handed out a major suspension against five Ohio State University football players for improperly receiving tattoos from a local tattoo artist. Their “crime” was that they exchanged NCAA and Ohio State memorabilia, belonging to them, for tattoos ranging in value from $1,500 to a staggering $2,500, less than the price of many a ticket to the 2012 Bowl Championship Series (BCS) National Championship game.

Their crime was so grave that the players were suspended for five games each, of course only after they played in Ohio State’s Sugar Bowl game. That game paid out over $14 million, the equivalent of around 5,600 of the most expensive tattoos.

By suspending the players, the NCAA made a clear statement: Improper benefits will not be tolerated unless we receive them. After all, these players have scholarships; how dare they go out and exchange something that belongs to them for a service? It’s improper and it’s indecent. You don’t see coaches peddling their wares.

No wait, you do. Rick Pitino, Head Coach of Louisville University’s men’s basketball team, was on CBS the day after his team lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

He also appears in advertisements, on billboards, on radio and of course commands a salary of a mere $1.6 million, enough for him to pay tuition for his entire team and still have $1,000,000 left.

Financial hypocrisy is common within the NCAA. Coaches earn huge salaries, do as they please in terms of selling their names or image, while their players are expected to remain pure amateurs. While a given college sells a player’s jersey for $85, it expects him or her to behave like the purest of humans, immune to the draw of money.

The most frustrating part of all this is that even the NCAA is aware of its image, but instead of changing its policies, it attempts to defend them. As it does every year, the NCAA has begun to run its “Where does the money go?” commercials during March Madness games. The ads boast that 96 percent of the money is used to fund 88 national championships and help fund 1,055 member colleges and universities that contribute over $2 billion dollars to studentathlete scholarships. It’s a wonderful play on words that makes it seem as if the NCAA is actually funding student-athlete scholarships. In reality, all that is happening is that the NCAA is pocketing over $740 million annually off of March Madness, and using it to fund events which bring in more revenue like the BCS bowls, which are notorious for misappropriating funds, and allowing other sports to fade more into obscurity every year. For their part, the colleges pay out multi-million-dollar salaries to coaches, build new arenas with corporate sponsors and then claim a lack of funds for lesserrevenue sports, proceeding to cut those.

At the end of everything, the colleges might find some money on the side to throw at students. Through it all, they punish the students who, tired of sleeping in rickety dorms and eating in the cafeteria, want to experience some of the high life to which their own coaches, athletic staff and boosters have become so accustomed.

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March 24, 2011

Fencing concludes record-breaking, triumphant season Corey Cohn

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Sports Editor

Courtesy of Sports Information

omorrow marks the beginning of the NCAA Fencing Championships, a three-day tournament taking place at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Two Vassar fencers, Andrew Fischl ’11 and Brian Rouse ’12, will be competing, thereby putting the finishing touches on what has been the most successful season for the program.

Both the men’s and women’s teams have made history in 2010-11, leaving Head Coach Bruce Gillman tremendously proud—and a bit surprised— in his sixth year at Vassar. Speaking of the women’s final 31-7 record, he wrote in an emailed statement, “[It] is something we really couldn’t ever have imagined before this season …

We knew it would be a great year, but this has been something special.” The women’s team finished at the top of the Northeast Conference, a first for the program. The men’s team had quite an impressive season as well, finishing second in the conference, also a school-best.

Both teams performed admirably at the New England Intercollegiate Fencing Championships, which took place on Feb. 27 at Mount Holyoke College. The women’s epee squad captured its third consecutive championship, thanks to a 33-7 record on the day. Sophie Courser ’11 finished off a three-peat of her own, taking home gold in the individual epee championship for the third straight year. Caitlin Clevenger ’13 won the bronze in that event. (Disclosure: Caitlin Clevenger is a news editor for The Miscellany News.) The women came out of the tournament with an overall record of 82-39, good for fifth place among three-weapon teams.

The epeeists stood out on the men’s side as well. The squad earned a third-place finish with a 23-9 record, while Tavish Pegram ’13 claimed the silver in the individual epee competition. The men’s team finished 55-30

Sabreur Andrew Fischl ’11, pictured left, qualified for the NCAA Championships, which will begin tomorrow in Columbus, Ohio. Fischl’s goal is to be named an All-America, which he can do by finishing in the top 12 at the tournament. overall, resulting in fifth place among three-weapon teams.

As remarkable as the teams were as a whole this season, there were equally magnificent performances on several individual levels.

Senior Sophie Courser made the most of her final year at Vassar, though as Gillman points out, she has had her presence felt since her freshman season. “Sophie has been a strong competitor and the heart and soul of this team for all four years that she has been here,” he wrote. “I think her hard work and determination pushed her over the top even more this season.” Indeed it did, as Courser finished with an individual record of 81-12 and was the first Vassar fencer to be named the Northeast Conference Fencer of the Year.

Courser hoped to follow up her terrific showing at the New England Championships with a strong performance at the NCAA Northeast Regionals on March 13. She fenced

well, finishing 16th overall out of 49 epeeists, but she ran into trouble during the semifinals and ultimately did not qualify for the NCAA Championships. Gillman was disappointed that Courser could not capitalize on her last chance to make her first appearance at the national competition.

“She has been close for four years, but it just wasn’t her day,” he wrote.

Fischl did qualify for the NCAA Championships, finishing fifth at the Northeast Regionals, but not without overcoming significant adversity.

The Captain sabreur suffered a knee injury at the end of January, straining his patella tendon. Fischl wrote in an emailed statement that he initially underestimated the extent of the injury, did not take off enough time and hurt the knee again upon his return to action. Following intense physical therapy and an extended absence from practice—a break that nagged at him—Fischl wasn’t even sure he’d compete on the morning of

the regionals. But the trainers taped up his knee and, as Fischl wrote, it “was extremely effective and, despite fencing only two or three times over the [previous] five weeks, I fenced the best I [had] in almost a year.”

Gillman admitted he didn’t know what to expect from Fischl that day, but, once he began competing, it became clear that the time off benefited more than just his knee. As Gillman put it, Fischl “immediately released over a month of pent-up frustration on his opponents and didn’t just qualify, but did so in impressive fashion.”

Fischl is the first four-time qualifier for the NCAA Championships in school history. (Last year, he became the first to qualify three times.) His goal in his last go-around is to be named an All-American, which he can accomplish by finishing in the top 12 of the competition. His best finish there was 16th, but he is prepared to meet the self-imposed chal-

lenge. “In my opinion, you should set very high goals that push you to work extra hard to achieve,” he wrote, leading him to declare that this year, he is “aiming for a top-four [finish] at least.”

Rouse, meanwhile, is a first-time qualifier. The junior, who spent most of the season as the No. 3 epeeist on the squad, finished ninth at the regionals and earned the eighth and final qualifying spot, defeating top fencers from St. John’s University and Harvard University along the way. Gillman wasn’t terribly surprised at his performance, however. He recalled, “[Rouse] had been tearing up the strip in practice all week.”

Rouse is excited to both represent Vassar and to showcase his skills against some of the toughest competition. In an emailed statement he wrote, “Being a part of the Championships means that, at least for this one event, I’m being counted amongst some of the nation’s elite fencers, and that’s an incredible privilege.” He brings a very relaxed approach to the tournament, adding, “With a field this difficult I could just as easily win a number of bouts as lose them all, so there’s no point in getting hung up beforehand on how many wins I want to get.”

No matter how Fischl and Rouse perform this weekend, their very presence will mark a fitting end to the program’s historic year. This is the first time Vassar has ever had two fencers qualify for the NCAA Championships in one season. Fischl says he is excited that he will be able to share the experience with someone for the first time, and Rouse is proud to accompany a seasoned veteran. Hopefully, their coexistence will result in the same success the program celebrated throughout the year. “Both teams came together as teams and supported each other this season,” Gillman wrote, “better than any time before.”

Womens lacrosse seeks to return to League playoffs Kristine Olson

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Reporter

Courtesy of Sports Information

he Vassar College women’s lacrosse team spent their first week of Spring Break and started the 2011 season in West Palm Beach, Fla., where they faced Bridgewater State University, Colby-Sawyer College and State University of New York (SUNY) Fredonia in the Spring Fling contest. Bridgewater State claimed the first victory against the Brewers, 20-12. The Brewers then came back and won 14-6 against Colby-Sawyer, before falling to SUNY Fredonia 17-8 in their final contest.

Win or lose, the Spring Break trip to Florida is an annual ritual that “gives everyone an opportunity to play and see what they can contribute,” said Assistant Coach Cara Dunn. The trip also provides coaches the opportunity to assess the competitive level of the team and to establish a starting lineup for the season.

“It’s one week with no distractions—all lacrosse,” said senior goalkeeper Nicole Englehardt about the highlight of the trip. “It’s also a great bonding time,” added Englehardt, “on and off the field.”

With 25 players, eight of whom are freshmen, the team is one of the largest that Head Coach Judy Finerghty has encountered in her 17 years at Vassar. In spite of its size, both coaches and players note how tight-knit the team is.

“Everyone is competitive, friendly and supportive,” notes Dunn. “And everyone feels confident and ready for non-conference play. The Brewers’ goal is to go 5-0 in the first five games of the season. So far, the team has lived up to the challenge with a 12-2 victory over Bard College on March 17 at Weinberg Field.

With this goal in mind, the Brewers put in heavy training during the pre-season. “They

ran a lot this winter,” said Dunn. “They did sprints with sledge hammers; they’ve weightlifted. We’ve covered all our bases.”

The main challenge for Finerghty and Dunn this season is a positive one: allotting playing time to a team of capable, qualified players. “In lacrosse you need diverse physical abilities, and one of the advantages of such a large team is having that depth and range of ability,” said Dunn. Finerghty noted that the seniors are the backbone of the team this season by leading captain practices and setting team goals. Englehardt shared that the seniors’ goal is: “whenever we play we’re going to play our hardest because we want to qualify for Liberty League finals. We haven’t gotten there since freshman year [2007].”

2-2, the Brewers may be well underway. Their obvious strength lies in their sheer numbers, however the experience of returning players, and the continuous practice and memorization of plays and attacks across the different positions, will also be key factors to their success.

“We need to integrate our offense and defense,” noted Dunn. “We need to make sure everyone knows all the plays, and it’s important that players have the plays memorized before games.”

The coaches are focused on the team’s speed more than anything else. “They’re fast,” Finerghty and Dunn said in unison. “It’ll be a team effort to keep up that pace,” said Finerghty, in reference to individual games as the duration of the season. “They move the ball well, they’re talented, they’re fun to watch, they’re vocal and each player contributes a lot,” said Finerghty.

“Fun, talented and fast,” as Finerghty summarized them, the Brewers will continue to work toward their goal, visiting SUNY Oneonta tomorrow evening.

Women’s lacrosse captain Moe Byrne ’11 is pictured above in a game against Rochester University. The women’s lacrosse team recently spent Spring Break training in West Palm Beach, Fla.

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