The Miscellany News | April 15

The Miscellany News Since 1866 | miscellanynews.com

April 15, 2010

Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY

Volume CXLIII | Issue 20

Students push to reinstate old SAVP position Elizabeth Jordan

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Online Editor

“So much surrounds the venue, and we have gotten so much positive feedback from local businesses who are excited to have so many Vassar students in the area.”

—Peter

Denny ’10, Director of ViCE

Civic Center to host legendary Flaming Lips Erik Lorenzsonn uipit ing exer sequamc ortion el ut wis nostis exerit, sequatum vulla con utatue magnibh ent nos eum quat. Cumsandit illa alisisisisit la commodigna

A family protests the proposed closing of Arthur S. May Elementary School on the afternoon of Monday, April 12. Although closing the school would save the Arlington School District an estimated $1 million each year, many local community members are opposed to such an action.

Local school in danger of closing Sarah Begley

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Guest Reporter

n Monday afternoon, April 12, members of the Arlington community, including some Vassar students and professors, rallied in front of Arthur S. May Elementary School in response to recent concerns that the school may be in dan-

ger of closing. Because state aid has decreased significantly this year, the Arlington School Board of Education must find a way to balance its budget, and closing one of its nine elementary schools could save the district $1 million per year.

According to the Arlington Communicator, a newsletter

sent out by the school district The budget for the 2010-2011 school year, as proposed on April 13, has to accommodate a 9.9 percent cut to state aid for the school district, amounting to $5.5 million. The Board of Education chose to call for the close of the school in lieu of a tax increase to make up for this

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Up-and-coming rapper J. Cole performs at a Jay-Z concert in January 2010. He and old-school rapper Big Daddy Kane will be coming on Saturday, April 17, in Hip Hop 101’s Throwback Jam.

J. Cole, Big Daddy Kane to emcee Thea Ballard

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flickr.com

Lead singer for The Flaming Lips Wayne Coyne, pictured above, will perform at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center on April 17,

Inside this issue

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FEATURES

Vassar’s Educational Outreach programs grow in community

deficit. They want to cut this particular school because it is the oldest building in the school system and contains asbestos, which can prove hazardous to children.

The school board will make the final decision in a vote on May 18, but in the meantime, See SCHOOL on page 4

VC to form center for QA courses youheardthatnew.com

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Arts Editor

Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News

n Sunday, April 11, the Vassar Student Association (VSA) heard from representatives of Counseling and Assistance in Response to Rape and Exploitive Sexual Activity (CARES) and the Office of Health Education regarding a proposal to reinstate the position of a Sexual Assault Violence Prevention Coordinator. Members of the VSA voiced support for the proposal, but the final vote will not take place until next week’s meeting.

The proposal comes on the heels of Sexual Assault Awareness Week, an annual event during which CARES and other organi-

zations spread knowledge and awareness about sexual abuse and violence with Tshirts, tabling in the College Center and various other events.

Many members of the VSA acknowledged that sexual violence and awareness is an important issue, and that creating this position would reassure students who have dealt with sexual assault in any way that they are not being ignored or forgotten. “It’s great to see students taking this kind of initiative,” said VSA Vice President for Academics Stephanie Damon-Moore ’11, referring to the primary role of student CARES rep See SAVP on page 4

Reporter

espite the varied tastes on campus, an eerily specific image comes to mind when one conceptualizes the Vassar music scene: a waif-thin, disaffected skinny-jean clad Brooklyn 20-something slouching behind a guitar or a set of knobs, producing sounds that are painfully inaccessible, if frequently hip.

For those looking for a break, this weekend’s Hip Hop 101 Throwback Jam

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FEATURES

offers six solid hours of hip-hop, inviting rappers, DJs, dancers and graffiti artists to the quad to perform. Free and open to the public, the Throwback Jam, running from 12:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 17, will feature artists ranging from old-school (Big Daddy Kane) to up-and-coming (J.Cole) to those from the community, with free beer and barbecue to boot.

“This is something we’ve done every year since the start of Hip Hop 101,” said

Students turn dorm room into Turkish tea room

President Emma Carmichael ’10. “Essentially, it’s an outdoor concert modeled after a block party barbecue. We try to model it after how hip-hop started out in the Bronx, and I wasn’t there, so this is only [based] on what I’ve heard, but there’s a lot of outdoor music, with turntables plugged into the street lamp connections.”

An emphasis on the origins of hip-hop is key to the feel of the event. Said Hip See HIP HOP on page 17

18 SPORTS

Jillian Scharr

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News Editor

assar College has plans to establish a new Quantitative Reasoning Center, to be run under the Learning, Teaching and Research Center (LTRC). The new center would be “a quantitative parallel to the Writing Center,” explained Dean of the College Christopher Roellke in an e-mailed statement.

The LTRC is an “umbrella” institution, explained Director of the LTRC Molly Shanley; it encompasses faculty teaching development, faculty research development, a learning specialist who offers classes in developing study and time management skills, the Writing Center and the Supplemental Instruction (SI) program.

The Quantitative Reasoning Center will serve as a parallel to the Writing Center and incorporate the SI program, which will continue into the fall, said Assistant Director of the LTRC and acting SI Coordinator Natalie Friedmann, but may change or re See CENTER on page 3

An update on the crew program from its rowers

The Miscellany News

Page 2

April 15, 2010

Editor in Chief Ruby Cramer Juliana Halpert/The Miscellany News

Photo of the Week: Community members stand in line at the ice cream truck during last weeken’s Brewer Bash, sponsered by the VSA.

Miscellany News Staff Editorials

Closing Arthur S. May must be last resort T

o compensate for a $5.5 million budget reduction for the 2010-2011 academic year, the Arlington Central School District is considering closing Arthur S. May Elementary School, which is located just a few blocks from Vassar’s campus on Raymond Avenue. Community members and parents of Arthur S. May students—many of them Vassar staff and faculty members—are strongly against the school’s closing (See “Parents, students rally to protest potential school close,” page 1).

While we at The Miscellany News fully understand the massive challenge the budget cuts present to the Arlington Central School District, we urge the School Board to carefully consider the effects closing the school will have on the local community, and to make an effort to keep Arthur S. May Elementary School open.

The Arlington School Board has cited the state of the school’s building—which is in disrepair and contains asbestos—as a reason to close Arthur S. May rather than one of the eight other elementary schools in the district. Keeping all nine schools open, meanwhile, would lead either to increased property taxes for residents of the district, or to a reduction of resources for each individual school. All of these concerns are extremely valid, but the Editorial Board would like to emphasize that closing the school could take a negative toll to the Arlington community that would outweigh the budgetary relief that the school’s closing would bring.

Arthur S. May third, fourth and fifth graders scored in the 72nd percentile of New York

State schools on their 2009 standardized tests; such results make the school the third-highestranked out of the nine elementary schools in the Arlington District. In addition to being one of the highest-achieving schools in the district, Arthur S. May is also the Arlington District’s most socioeconomically and racially diverse. It qualifies for Title I benefits under the U.S. government’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act, meaning that approximately 40 percent of the student population is considered low income by the U.S. census.

The school’s Title I funding means that it receives additional federal academic funding. It is unclear, at this point, whether any other schools in the district will qualify for Title I funding if Arthur S. May is closed and if its students are dispersed to other schools across the district, and the potential loss of this funding is an important factor to consider in the discussion surrounding the school’s closing.

The Editorial Board recognizes that a school closing is a difficult decision for a school board to make, a decision that tends to be made only as a last resort in budget crises like this one. Still, the negative impacts of a school closing like this one cannot be overstated; the larger class sizes that will likely result will be detrimental to children, as will the displacement of Arthur S. May’s students into a new school environment. Many of the school’s teachers and staff members, meanwhile, may lose their jobs, which would have a negative impact on the local economy.

The School Board has not yet publicized any specifics about the school’s closing, so it is still uncertain how exactly a closing would affect class sizes, job losses and the retention of Title I funding in the district. Before this information is known to the School Board and made public to the community, it is essential that the board take this into account when making their decision.

While the potential negative effects on the Arlington School District and the local community are the strongest and most important arguments against closing Arthur S. May School, the closing would also have negative effects on Vassar. Many potential staff and faculty members choose to take jobs at Vassar in part because there is such a strong elementary school within walking distance, and a handful of Vassar students do fieldwork at the nearby school. Arthur S. May’s students are also near enough to take advantage of Vassar’s resources, including our library, art gallery and swimming pool, resources that are not available at other schools in the district.

Closing Arthur S. May Elementary School may be the only way the Arlington School Board can find to solve their budget problems. It is important, however, for the school closing to be a true last resort for the School Board. It is also important for the school board to anticipate as much as possible the negative effects a school closing could have on the district and the community.

—The Staff Editorial reflects the opinion of at least two-thirds of the 20-member Editorial Board.

SAVP, CARES should be commended for campaign The Miscellany endorses proposal for Coordinator A

ccording to the American Association of University Women, between 20 and 25 percent of women will experience rape or attempted rape during college, and 95 percent of sexual assaults of college women go unreported to the police. Meanwhile, according to Vassar’s Sexual Assault Violence Prevention (SAVP), a division of the Office of Health Education, one in seven college men are sexually assaulted, a statistic that tends to go unacknowledged in discussions of sexual assault on college campuses.

Vassar is certainly not immune to the sexual assault of both male and female students, but our campus is also lucky to have organizations committed to educating Vassar about sexual assault, combating the frequency with which it occurs, and providing the necessary services to individuals who have been through such a trying ordeal.

These organizations include SAVP and CARES, both of which sponsored a campaign to spread awareness of campus sexual assault last week for Sexual Assault Prevention Week.

The Miscellany News wishes to applaud these organizations for their work during Sexual Assault

Prevention Week. The yellow “1 in 4” T-shirts that students across campus wore last Thursday, April 8, effectively continued Vassar’s annual tradition of raising awareness of the staggering numbers of college women that are sexually assaulted. And this year, for the first time, Vassar’s male students also wore green “1 in 7” T-shirts, raising awareness of the sexual assault of college men.

While this event is always a welcome campuswide wake-up call, this year the event’s power was reinforced by the inclusion of statistics for male victims. It is important to remember that sexual assault is a problem that can affect anybody, and that we must work together to raise awareness of it and prevent it.

In addition to the awareness raised during Sexual Assault Prevention Week, SAVP and the Sexual Assault Response Committee took a step towards preventing assault on campus on Sunday, April 11, with a proposal they before the Vassar Student Association (VSA). The proposal urges the College to reinstate the now-defunct position of SAVP Coordinator. The VSA will vote on the proposal during their meeting next

Sunday, April 18.

The Miscellany News endorses this proposal, and believes that this position would be an invaluable addition to the preventative programming that already exists on campus. An SAVP Coordinator would have the experience, knowledge and investment necessary to refine our approach to combating sexual assault and violence while enriching existing resources.

While the current economic climate does not bode well for the formation of a new paid position within the near future, we at The Miscellany News would like to stress the importance of supporting the continued health and safety of Vassar students. Every countermeasure against sexual assault is a step in the right direction, and as such The Miscellany News is in full support of the proposal to bring on a Sexual Assault Violence Protection Coordinator as soon as the instatement of the position is feasible.

—The Staff Editorial reflects the opinion of at least two-thirds of the 20-member Editorial Board.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Senior Editor Molly Turpin

Contributing Editors Caitlin Halasz Chloe McConnell Elizabeth Pacheco

News Matthew Brock Jillian Scharr Features Kelly Stout Opinions Angela Aiuto Kelly Shortridge Arts Carrie Hojnicki Erik Lorenzsonn Sports Mitchell Gilburne Andy Marmer Design Eric Estes Copy Katie Cornish Lila Teeters Photography Kathleen Mehocic Online Elizabeth Jordan Managing Eliza Hartley Assistant News Caitlin Clevenger Aashim Usgaonkar Assistant Features Daniel Combs Danielle Gensburg Assistant Opinions Alanna Okun Joshua Rosen Assistant Online Kara Voght Assistant Copy Katharine Austin Sammy Creath Sarah Marco Gretchen Maslin Assistant Photo Juliana Halpert Crossword Editor Jonathan Garfinkel Reporters Thea Ballard Matthew Bock Rachael Borné Esther Clowney David Lopez Christie Musket Danielle Nedivi Xiaoyuan Ren Alexandra Sarrigeorgiou Columnists Martin Bergman Steve Keller Nate Silver Nik Trkulja Photographers Patricia Cruz Gabriel Kelly-Ramirez Jared Saunders 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.

April 15, 2010

NEWS

Vassar to create Quantitative Reasoning Center CENTER continued from page 1 structure as it becomes part of the proposed Quantitative Reasoning Center.

Applicants for the director position of the Center will be interviewing over the next two weeks. “We hope to make a hire this month and for this person to begin in the fall,” said Friedman in an e-mailed statement, “but like all hiring searches, we don’t yet know if it will be successful or not—we’re keeping our fingers crossed.”

The director’s duties, as listed on the Higher Education Recruitment Consortium website, will include overseeing a system of student peer tutors based on the existing SI program and consulting with faculty members who teach courses applicable to the College’s quantitative reasoning requirement.

However, “what exactly this Quantitative Reasoning Center looks like will depend on the vision also of the person who’s hired,” explained Shanley. “We do have a vision or an understanding. We do want the Writing Center and the Quantitative Reasoning Center to be equal and parallel structures.”

Both the Writing Center and the Quantitative Reasoning Center, explained Shanley, will incorporate peer-to-peer mentoring and workshops. Both writing and quantitative analysis are core requirements at Vassar.

And both centers’ focuses extend beyond the English and Math Departments respectively.

“The freshman writing course requirement is across the curriculum; it’s not just offered by the English Department…[because of] our belief that good writing is important in every department,” said Shanley. “Similarly, with this Quantitative Resource Center, it’s not simply to support the quantitative analysis courses. It’s to encourage facility with quantitative reasoning across the curriculum.”

Aside from this, the director will also teach one or two classes per year. “Probably the courses [to be taught by the director] will have a multidisciplinary aspect to them,” she said, but declined to speculate, emphasizing

Page 3

News Briefs Lost his V-Card Security officers received a report that a student’s V-Card was reported stolen from his bag after leaving it unattended for 10 minutes on April 9.

—Aashim Usgaonkar, Caitlin Clevenger Assistant News Editors

Flying off the shelves Library staff members reported “suspicious male individuals” in the Thompson Memorial Library on April 9. The individuals, who reportedly carried empty backpacks and are suspected of larceny, were escorted off campus by Poughkeepsie police officers.

—A.U. and C.C.

Hipster heist A student reported his Ray Ban sunglasses stolen from his bag on April 10.

The sunglasses are valued at $80.

—A.U. and C.C that the courses’ topic and content will be at the director’s discretion.

The director will be an administrator, not a faculty member, and therefore these are not tenure track appointments and will not affect other faculty employment decisions, explained Shanley.

Plans to create the Quantitative Reasoning Center have been underway until Fall 2008, when the economic downturn forced the LTRC to halt the planning process. However, in the fall of 2009, the then-Director of the SI program, Doris Haas, took the retirement incentive that the administration offered. Although most positions vacated by those who took this retirement incentive were left empty to reduce budgetary costs, the administration, said Shanley, “[did]n’t want to shrink the LTRC… [or] lose support for quantitative reasoning.”

So, instead of replacing Haan as SI director, planning for the Quantitative Reasoning Center and a director for the new institution were renewed. “Our goal,” wrote Friedmann,

“is to find someone to do more than simply fill in for [Haan].”

“We are asking the director to engage in curriculum development and faculty teaching development,” said Shanley, “so our experience is that it’s very important that they be teachers.”

“Several years ago a task force was created to assess the short term and long term needs of the Learning Teaching and Research Center,” wrote Roellke, in part because “the Committee on Curricular Policies has been discussing the quantitative reasoning requirement at Vassar and also supported enhancing what the College has to offer in terms of assisting students in quantitative areas of the curriculum.”

“I am very pleased that the continued development of the Learning Teaching and Research Center has included Supplemental Instruction... Our quantitative reasoning center holds much promise in supporting students and faculty in important intellectual pursuits,” wrote Roellke.

Gone phishing The theft of a laptop was reported to Security on April 11. Valued at $1,000, the laptop was left unattended in an unlocked car. —A.U. and C.C.

Game over A student resident of Main House reported a stolen Xbox on April 11. The console was allegedly stolen from the student’s room while he or she was sleeping and left the room unlocked.

—A.U. and C.C.

We didn’t start the fire A small fire was reported in the Blodgett Hall parking lot at 8:38 p.m. on April 11. Dried pine cones were set on fire, which prompted a faculty member to call Security.

—A.U.and C.C.

Teachers focus on new media Vassar plans carbon analysis Caitlin Clevenger

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Assistant News Editor

his weekend, Vassar College hosted the third annual Teachers, Teaching and the Movies, a multi-disciplinary conference focusing on the use of new media as educational tools. The conference included workshops on Hip-Hop Theater and The Power of Facebook and Powerpoint in Teaching, as well as screenings of youth-produced films. Assistant Professor of Education Colette Cann, who helped to coordinate the conference, said in an emailed statement, “I asked that we host the conference here at Vassar College so that undergraduates and their families could be involved in an academic conference that overlapped with the interests of students in Media Studies, Film, and Education.”

The highlight of the conference was the keynote address, “Cosmopolitan Imaginings of Self and Other: Global Youth Go Online,” given by New York University Professor of English Education Dr. Glynda Hull. Hull discussed her ongoing projects on using digital media and social networking as a pedagogical tool. She is one of the creators of SPACE2CRE8, an international program that connects middle school children across cultures.

Hull was adamant that even early education needs to include media literacy, saying, “There’s a revolution going on around the Internet and information and globalization. We don’t just read and write anymore.” Social networking in particular has changed the way that people are connected, and children have not been untouched by the movement.

According to Hull, most children that use the Internet regularly have a profile on Facebook or MySpace. The question remains: how can social networking be used in a safe and educational way?

Hull and a team from the University of California at Berkeley are attempting to answer that question with SPACE2CRE8, the after-school program centered on a private social networking site of the same name. Designed as both an educational tool and a research project, the program connects children in drastically different situations from four locations.

The first location is an urban school in Oakland, Calif. Children there connect with children from a rural town in South Africa who have had no prior ex-

perience with computers, with girls at an afternoon school in India who work as domestic servants in the mornings and with the children of North African and Middle Eastern immigrants at a school in Oslo, Norway. Plans are underway for sites in New York City and Australia as well.

The students in the program, under the supervision of teachers and undergraduate interns, learn to represent themselves by building profile pages and creating digital stories that juxtapose text with music, video and pictures. The students comment on posts and participate in discussions that address cultural differences. The site records all the actions of its members so that researchers working on the project can better understand how children communicate with each other in online settings.

Many of the researcher’s insights have come from miscommunications, which were often resolved by the students themselves. Adults were concerned when one of the girls from Oakland used a Sketchers ad featuring a scantily clad nurse as her profile picture. However, one of the students in India commented, “I think she wants to be a nurse and a model,” correctly identifying the girl’s motive for using the picture.

Online interactions that use slang or unclear English often seem rude to the recipients, but are met with diplomatic attempts to find a mutual understanding and build a respectful rapport.

One of the most influential stories on the site has been that of Bakhti, a student at the India site who works cleaning seven houses each morning before school to support her sister and father. Bakhti’s digital story, which shows photographs of her daily life, has inspired students at the other sites to share their own lives. Bakhti enjoys her popularity, saying, “You get happiness when you share your life experience with others. I want to keep on making friends until I make the whole world my friend.”

Hull is happy with the progress that the program has made so far and hopes to expand it. She thinks that it effectively “illustrates the process of learning how to be hospitable readers and writers.” According to Hull, “To be literate in today’s world, you have to know how to read the testimonies of others whose lives are very different from yours.”

Matthew Brock, Jillian Scharr News Editors Aashim Usgaonkar Assistant News Editor

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arah Gyory ’10, a student intern for the Vassar College Sustainability Committee, brought a proposal to the Environmental Research Institute before the Vassar Student Association (VSA) on April 11 for its endorsement, designed to make the school more sustainable.

Last year, Vassar hired Sightlines, a company that specializes in analyzing colleges and universities’ carbon footprints, to assess Vassar’s current greenhouse gas emissions and make suggestions as to how they could be reduced, as reported in The Miscellany News (“CSS to measure sustainability of Vassar buildings,” 2.25.10).

Two weeks ago, Sightlines Director of Business Development and Vassar graduate Jay Pearlman ’98 returned to campus to train students in Professor of Economics Paul Ruud’s Environmental and Natural Resource Economics class to perform the carbon footprint analysis in the future. The training took one full day and cost the College $4,000.

These students will perform the analysis for the 2009 year this spring, and will continue to do so “from here on out,” said Walker in a telephone interview. “There are several people in that class who will probably be continuing with the Sustainability Committee.” They will, in turn, train further members of the Committee who “will coordinate [the carbon footprint analysis] from now on.”

Vassar has managed to reduce its emissions by 15 percent in the past five years, said Chair of the Sustainability Committee and Professor of Geology Jeffrey Walker. This is in part because, said Walker, Vassar “[has] made our buildings and our steam heat system more efficient, so we use less fuel, so we emit less carbon.”

This saves the College money as well as reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Doing the carbon footprint analysis entails gathering data from the campus’ utility costs for each building, as well as gas consumption for transportation such as fieldwork cars, student abroad programs and faculty travel.“It’s actually knowing what to ask for in terms of sustainability data,” said Walker of the training process.

However, according to Gyory, the Sustainability Committee wants to rehire Sightlines to perform a second analysis to find the College’s emissions levels for the year 1996. “We want to do a baseline for 1996, so we know how low to aim for,” she said. This date has been chosen as the baseline by which to set goals because it is the farthest back that the College has reliable utility data, said Walker in a Feb. 23 telephone interview. Previously, Sightlines had done analysis going back as far as 2005.

Although the proposal will not come to a vote until next Sunday, it was met with widespread support from the Council, and VSA President Caitlin Ly ’10 predicted that it should pass.

Environmentalism at Vassar continues with a lecture by Vassar alumnus and Chief Scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) Steve Hamburg ’75, will deliver a lecture, entitled “Getting the Science Right in a Highly Politicized World: Bioenergy, Carbon Offsets, Geoengineering, and Anthropogenic N” on Thursday, April 15.

Educated at Vassar (B.A. Biology) and Yale (Ph. D. and M.F.S.), Hamburg has published widely on topics that include, C biogeochemistry, climate change impacts on forests and land-use history.

He has been awarded the Environmental Merit Award by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency twice for his pioneering work in the field of environmental change.

NEWS

Page 4

April 15, 2010

Economist addresses intellectual property rights Chelsea Peterson-Salahuddin

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Guest Reporter

Arthur S. May Elementary School faces risk of closing SCHOOL continued from page 1 parents, students and teachers protested the potential closing, converging on the sidewalk in front of the school in red shirts and carrying signs.

For former Davison House Fellow Lisa Kaul, parent of a first grader and a leader of the rally who compiled an open letter to the Board of Education, commented that Superintendent of the Arlington Central School District Frank Pepe had been opposed to the protest and “tried his best not to have this happen.” As it was, the protesters were instructed to temporarily put their signs down when the school buses drove by at the end of the day, so as to not put the students “in the middle” of the problem, explained Kaul. However, as soon as the buses left, many of the schoolchildren joined in to rally with their parents and community members.

Parents are upset for a number of reasons, not least because the school has been very successful academically with the third-highest test scores of the nine elementary schools in the district and scoring in the 72nd percentile in the state. Arthur S. May is also a Title I school, which means that at least 40 percent of students are from low-income families, and it is the most socio-economically diverse elementary school in its district. As a Title I school, it receives extra funding to be used at the school’s discretion for such purposes as extra academic counseling and free breakfasts for students.

The parents and children celebrate this fact; at one point in the rally, the crowd chanted, “A-BC-D, celebrate diversity!” Should the children be dispersed to other schools, they may lose their Title I benefits.

If Arthur S. May is closed and students are bused to other schools in the district, low-income families without independent means of transportation will no longer be within walking distance of their children’s schools, and will have a difficult time picking up sick children or attending parent-teacher conferences. The school is located in one of the most densely populated areas in the district, and Gunnar

Danell, one of the fathers at the rally, noted, “If our kids go to school far away, there will be extra cost.”

Parent Teacher Association Member and Vassar Academic Computing Consultant Baynard Bailey’s ’90 family “moved to this neighborhood because we wanted our children to attend this school…With all the changes that are happening, it makes us think about leaving the neighborhood.” Vassar Assistant Professor of Political Science Fubing Su observed that the school’s proximity to Vassar is convenient for College employees.

A number of Vassar students were also at the rally in solidarity with the students, parents and teachers. Elsie Raymer ’12 does field work in one of the kindergarten classrooms and feels that “this school seems to be a really good staple here.”

If the school closes and 500 children are relocated, parents are concerned that overcrowding at the other elementary schools will become an issue. In addition, closing the school would mean that many teachers and administrators would lose their jobs, and as “shoppers, home-owners and tax-payers,” wrote Kaul in an open letter to the board, “their job loss will only increase the economic distress of the community as a whole.” One of her suggestions to the Board of Education is to initiate a salary and benefits freeze for faculty and administrative members. At present, 70 percent of the budget goes to payroll, benefits and pensions, and as Su pointed out, “There may be a salary issue.”

No formal decision will be made about the school’s fate until the community votes on May 18. As this date approaches, the parents and teachers behind Monday’s rally plan to canvas the community to inform people about how, where and when to vote. Until then, they will continue to present their demands to the Board of Education and to spread awareness about the issue.

scape of patenting before Jefferson even took on the issue. In the U.S. patent-granting system, a monopoly on certain knowledge has been established. Here, it was Henry’s intent to show how said monopolies can have a detrimental effect on the continuation of innovation.

Henry began by highlighting that the original creator of the thing that is being patented may not be the person granted the patent, and this could lead to an upset among the inventors. In another point, Henry focused on the patenting of biological gene sequences that, if deprivatized, could have serious medical impacts on finding the cure of terminal ailments such as cancer. If these biological discoveries were not patented to a single source, various researchers could study the gene in hopes of finding a cure to these illnesses. In this instance, the lecturer elaborated on the fact that the current system of overarching patents could lead to the hindrance of innovation as opposed to encouraging it.

Henry then moved to talking about the ineffectiveness of the patent system in use by various systems of government. In his lecture, Henry showed that a unified system of patenting would be unable to fit the interest of all countries, because of the diversity in economic size and strength, especially with regard to developed versus developing countries. Rather, Henry suggested that various countries should choose their degrees of investment in new technologies according to their government.

In addition, Henry believes a reform should be established that will help developing countries create a more sustainable system of development.

In the closing part of his lecture, Henry recommended four lines of reform to the existing U.S. patent system which would help deprivatize intellectually property. His first suggestion was to put into place more restrictions on those things which could be patented. His second point was that if an individual thinks that he has a valid reason for contesting a patent, he should be able to sue for the re-examination of said patent. He advocated for this opposition to take place preferably during, as opposed to after, the granting of the patent.

In regards to the tribunal established by the international community to assess whether or not an opposing claim was valid, Henry did not feel those who grant patents are well versed enough in certain areas to decide the legitimacy of these claims, and therefore also advocated that these claims be assessed by a panel constructed of experts in the field of the subject for which each patent is being granted.

His third reform stated that within a certain period of time after something is first patent-

flickr.com/vassarcollegemedia

f I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” With this single declarative line, from a letter written in 1676

by Sir Isaac Newton, economist and Professor of Sustainable Development at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris Claude Henry began his lecture on April 7. The lecture, entitled “Intellectual Property and Innovation for Sustainable Development,” was this year’s Martin H. Crego lecture, which is presented annually by the Economics Department.

The Martin H. Crego lecture, established in 1956, is an annual economics lecture given as a part of the Crego Endowment. The Crego Endowment was established by Jean Crego, Class of 1932, given in honor of her father Martin Crego. The purpose of the endowment, as stated by Professor of Economics and Department Chair Shirley Johnson-Lans, is to annually bring to campus “a distinguished academic congress...who could share his or her academic experience [and] who talks to the students in particular, but the community as well.”

Henry, who is a quantum physicist turned economist, was the advisor to former Prime Minister of France Lionel Jospin on matters pertaining to public utilities and environmental policies until 2002 and is currently an advisor to the director of the European Environmental Agency Jacqueline McGlade.

In his lecture, Henry discussed whether or not intellectual property promotes or inhibits development, and presented possible alternatives to the current system of patents currently in place. Henry’s use of Newton’s message in the opening of this lecture was clear: One should not privatize the shoulders of giants.

This relates back to the idea that knowledge is a public good and therefore should be handled publicly not privately.

However, the current system of patents that exists throughout today’s world opposes this idea and privatizes knowledge. Henry presented the opposing idea by looking at Joseph Schumpeter’s book on the etchings of development that linked profits to innovation, which stated “that there will be no innovation if the products of the invention are not protected.”

This is based upon the idea that inventors must put in a large amount of energy and funds towards innovation and therefore need to be offered something in return in order for innovation to continue. Yet, Henry made the point that this is a superficial reading of the text, for a closer reading of Schumpeter’s text expresses the idea that the products, but not necessarily the knowledge behind the products, should be protected. It is with these ideas that Henry began to state his opinions on the dissemination of intellectual property.

Henry organized his lecture into three sections, stating as his intention that he would “try to show that what happened since the 1800s [in regards to patenting] has had so serious and detrimental consequences that a deep reform is necessary.”

The first section of this lecture discussed the basic principles established, mainly by Thomas Jefferson, regarding patenting. This section was also intended to show that economic analysis tends to vindicate traditional principles.

According to Jefferson, the government should only patent things of practical use, not those of marginal usefulness. In addition, Jefferson said that the length of patents should be restricted, depending upon the breadth and scope of the invention. Finally, Jefferson believed that there should not be a patent put on intellectual property.

In the second part of the lecture, Henry spoke about events that occurred at the beginning of the 18th century that began to change the land-

Professor of Sustainable Development Claude Henry, pictured above, spoke at Vassar on April 7. ed, other inventors asking for the same patent should be granted a patent as well, establishing a joint patent. One specific incident which Henry used to exemplify this point was in regards to Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison.

Alexander Graham Bell was the first inventor to patent the invention of the telephone; however, Thomas Edison developed his own model of the telephone at the same time and asked for the patent a mere few days after Bell. If Edison had been granted a joint patent on this invention instead of being denied a patent, according to Henry, an earlier flux of innovation and technological advancement could have been seen in regards to the telephone.

Finally, Henry’s last point of reform was to go to an open source of knowledge, meaning that patents should protect inventions. Yet, as Schumpeter said, the knowledge behind said inventions should not be patented, which greatly complicates the situation. In addition, any knowledge regarding technological advancement on the product should be released to anyone willing to pay for it. These reforms all aim at helping to disseminate knowledge, while conserving some form of patenting to serve as an incentive for innovation, for as Henry said, “If a monopoly freezes a technique on which it has a patent, it can be very serious.”

VSA to vote on SAVP proposal SAVP continued from page 1 resentatives in drafting this proposal. “This is an incredibly important position [and] I think it is really valuable for this council to support things that are a little more meaningful to the student experience.”

The position of Sexual Assault Violence Prevention Coordinator was dissolved for the first time in the 2009-2010 academic year; it had been financially supported by the Department of Justice Grant for the Prevention of Violence Against Women. When this grant was not renewed, the Department of Health Education came to house the program, and the Director of Health Education was given the responsibilities previously assigned to the coordinator. Director of Health Education Renee Pabst states in the proposal, “I believe that as Director of Health Education, I have done as much as I could to sustain the [Sexual Assault Violence Prevention] program, but there is still a huge gap in services for our students who are survivors of interpersonal violence.”

The proposal also notes a marked decline in the number of cases of sexual assault being reported, and warns that “we would love to believe that this is due to a lower rate of interpersonal violence occurring on our campus, which would be naïve and a dangerous assumption.” In the 2008-2009 academic year, 40 students sought out services and support; this

—Additional reporting by Matthew Brock, News Editor

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

year there were 10.

According to the proposal, the Coordinator would be in charge of “proactive programming,” “training for different areas of the campus community,” and “addressing policy issues and judicial procedures,” as well as support and counseling for victims.

Pabst said at the VSA meeting that many members of the Sexual Assault Response Team have been incredibly helpful with aiding individual victims by accompanying them to therapy and support group sessions, but that this seriously inconveniences these individuals, who are usually staff, administrators and faculty members who must take time off their normal work to take on these roles within the Response Team.

The position would require a large financial investment of $35,000 per year. Vice President for Operations Brian Farkas ’10 said at the VSA meeting, “Obviously we’re concerned about the cost of the position…but this is still an important student priority.” Farkas continued on to suggest further discussion of the position despite the cost and proposed the possibility of a part-time position if the $35,000 is too much for the College to handle in the current economy.

The VSA Council will formally vote on whether or not to support this proposal at their April 18 meeting.

April 15, 2010

FEATURES

Page 5

Poughkeepsie schools and Vassar: a two-way street Molly Turpin

A

Senior Editor

s public schools in local districts face severe budget cuts for next year—including the potential closure of Raymond Avenue’s Arthur S. May School—Vassar’s programming in educational outreach in the community is growing. While the College cannot solve—and does not attempt to solve—the challenges facing the school districts, several of its programs aim to fill needs otherwise unmet in the community while also providing Vassar students with experience in education.

On April 15, 2009 Education Outreach Coordinator Leslie Williams stepped into his new post at Vassar College, a position that was as new for the College as was for him. The Education Outreach Coordinator position was added to act as a locus for Vassar’s variety of educational programs. The variety of educational outreach programs operating between the College and Poughkeepsie schools were “all terrific, but seemed to lack coordination and collaboration to maximize the potential of these partnerships,” wrote Dean of the College Christopher Roellke in an e-mailed statement.

Under the auspices of the College’s Urban Education Initiative, Williams is also in charge of both Vassar After School Tutoring (VAST), which has grown considerably in the last year, and the College’s newest program, Exploring College, which along with Williams’ position was made possible by a $600,000 grant from the Dyson Foundation to create a three-year pilot program.

The Urban Education Initiative began in 2003, and the VAST program was added in 2006. “Initially, our work in urban education outreach stemmed from student interest in the classroom in several of my courses on urban education reform and policy,” wrote Roellke, also a former chair of the Department of Education.

Director of Media Relations and Public Affairs and co-Chair of the Campus Community Advisory Committee Jeffrey Kosmacher explained that Vassar’s most recent grant for work in educational outreach came from the 2003 grant from the Dyson Foundation that approved Vassar’s proposal to create the Exploring College program.

“The Dyson Foundation was aware of our

early success in urban education outreach as well as our long and productive collaborations with community colleges in the Exploring Transfer program,” wrote Roellke. Exploring College was modeled on Vassar’s Exploring Transfer program, which prepares community college students for transferring to Vassar or a similar school.

The Exploring College program matches freshmen and sophomores at Vassar with freshmen and sophomore students at the Poughkeepsie High School so that mentor and mentee are on track to graduate in the same year.

The program prepares both students and their families by also matching them with a Vassar faculty member from the College.

Williams described his goals for the Exploring College program as particularly bold, predicting that every student in the program will graduate and attend a four-year college or university. He also believes that VAST, which brings Vassar students to tutor students at the Poughkeepsie Middle School will eventually link with Exploring College so that Poughkeepsie students have the support to achieve a fouryear college education beginning in the sixth grade.

According to Williams, the focus of his position is to ensure that Vassar’s educational outreach programs through the Urban Education

Initiative are as effective in the community as they can be. He has been working to reach out to parents as well as students to make this possible. “To try to work with one without the other is disingenuous,” he said. “They need to be a part of the decision-making process of what is best for that child.” Both Education Outreach Fellow Karishma Chanda and Exploring College Fellow Adalake Barnwell noted that this is the first year that Vassar students have worked with parents as well as students.

Williams described adapting programs to suit the needs of the community as a top priority, but the question of who is serving whom through educational outreach programs remains. While Williams does his best to mold Vassar’s programs to the needs of the community, Williams is sure to tap into what he called the “greatest underutilized resource on the planet:” Vassar students. He described Vassar student work in the Poughkeepsie schools as mutually beneficial to both Vassar and Poughkeepsie students.

Director of Field Work Peter Leonard described field work positions in education in similar terms, and said that when schools allow Vassar students to do field work through classroom observation or other work during the school day, “The local schools are welcoming our students and are providing a service to us.”

Williams agreed that the work was beneficial to both sides, but he was also adamant that the perception that Vassar gained more from this relationship than Poughkeepsie did should be avoided. “We don’t want folks in the community to perceive or misperceive that Vassar is doing this just so that Vassar students have field work,” he said.

As Poughkeepsie schools face budgetary challenges for next year, the effects can be seen not only in the classroom, but in Vassar outreach programs as well. The Exploring Science program at the Vassar Farm, which has been hosting second and third grade classes from local schools since 1982, has increasingly hosted larger groups of children, a sure sign of budget cuts. According to Director of Exploring Sciences Lynn Capozzoli, more and more often two classes are coming at the same time so that the school can save on transportation costs, which makes the work of Vassar student teachers in the program more challenging.

The Arthur S. May Elementary School, which will possibly face closure due to budget cuts, also provides a convenient location on Raymond Avenue for Vassar students to do field work. At a rally in support of keeping the Elementary School open, Lisa Kaul, a former Vassar house fellow who compiled an open letter to the Arlington School Board of Education, said that the School gives students advantages beyond convenience in field work opportunities.

“A lot of Vassar faculty, staff and administration send their children here, so this is really part of the Vassar community,” she said. “And from a pedagogical point of view, you won’t find a more diverse school anywhere in this area—diverse in terms of backgrounds of students, diverse in terms of ethnicities—and a diverse school that is highly functioning, so if you’re somebody who is studying education I think this is a fantastic model to come and learn from.”

While the Poughkeepsie schools face severe cuts in the next year, the relationship between Vassar and Poughkeepsie schools will continue to evolve. According to Roellke, “I very much see this as a two-way street. Our students benefit from profound experiential learning opportunities while at the same time providing much needed resources within the Poughkeepsie school system.”

Inhaling a delicious controversy at Zorona Hookah Lounge Daniel Combs

D

Assistant Features Editor

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MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

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FEATURES

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April 15, 2010

A taste of Ellerbe steps up the competition at PHS Turkey in Raymond T Poughkeepsie Community Profile

Erica Licht

Guest Columnist

Danielle Gensburg

Assistant Features Editor

I

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Juliana Halpert/The Miscellany News

n an average-sized single in Raymond House, Jeremy Bloom ’12 has converted what he refers to as the “aesthetic monotony of dorm life,” into the “relaxed, comfortable atmosphere of a Central Asian tea room.”

Bloom’s room provides the opportunity to escape from the work and stress of Vassar life.

Uzbek tapestries cover the walls of the room, multiple plump and soft pillows lie along the floor, lights stream across the ceiling, an old tea-pot sits next to an assortment of teas and traditional Turkish tea glasses, and a Turkish “no smoking” sign, stolen from a rural bus station during Bloom’s travels, mutters in a corner.

Bloom, a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., has played the violin since he was four and grew up with the sounds of Klezmer, a traditional form of Ashkenazi Jewish music, in his home.

Later, after hearing music of the Balkans and Turkey, he began playing music, on both the violin and accordion, from Bulgaria, Albania, Macedonia and Turkey. In the summer of 2007, Bloom took part in an exchange program with 15 other students in which he traveled to a remote village in a rural area of Turkey called Hocaköy. He stayed with a widow and her son, and worked with the other students to build a playground for the children of the community. Bloom describes the time spent with the children on the playground and the overall experience of an atmosphere defined by its close-knit ties and community to have sparked his initial interest in Turkey. Part of the program involved community service, but Bloom stressed that it was “much more of a cultural exchange” than anything. Since his experience, Bloom has been back to Turkey twice, always with the intent to visit the village where he lived.

Upon his return home, Bloom decided to make his interest in Turkey a reality. Through the Berlitz language instruction program, Bloom hired a tutor to teach him Turkish, for which he received high school credit. Since traveling to the small village of Hocaköy, Bloom has had the opportunity to visit Bulgaria, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Serbia, recording his travels on a blog filled with descriptive stories and telling snapshots.

From a village with a 300-year-old tradition of washing rugs in a nearby natural spring, to the image of a young Roma boy wearing a shirt promoting a Serbian radical politician, Bloom’s website is filled with vivid, oftentimes amusing and light-spirited, descriptions of life in these diverse places. While traveling throughout the Balkans, Bloom met local politicians and learned about the rights of the Roma people, sometimes called by the derogatory name “Gypsies,” individuals living throughout Central and Eastern Europe.

While there, Bloom wrote a research paper he described as “an ethnographic investigation of alternative music scenes in Kosovo and the way in which this music reflects the changes in the Kosovo/Albanian identity.”

From grand tapestries to tiny, intricate mementos of his trip, visitors to Bloom’s dorm and tea room can spot the influence of his travels in every corner. Despite its attention to detail, the room took only one day to arrange.

Bloom describes the origins of the different tapestries hanging along the walls, specifically referring, with enthusiasm, to one that came wrapped in Uzbek newspaper and another in which he bartered with a young Uzbek boy in the depths of a Turkish bazaar.

The tapestries, known as “Suzani,” are an example of the national Uzbek textile style.

Visitors are met with a variety of teas, including mint and black, as well as traditional tea glasses, which, according to Bloom, are a ubiquitous ware in Turkish homes. The tea glasses, which Bloom acquired in a Turkish village, are different from the teacups you might see at a traditional English tea party. Resembling See ROOM on page 7

wenty-two years ago, when Poughkeepsie High School step team coach Stephen Ellerbe started coaching stepping, a dance style that combines clapping, stomping and song in which the steps are more important than the movements of the dancers’ upper bodies, he never could have envisioned filling the High School with 4,000 spectators to watch his team. Yet in 2000 he did, when the community came together to witness the performance of Poughkeepsie High School’s inaugural team: Steppers with Class.

Ellerbe developed his love for coaching step in Virginia in 1978. Girls at the high school in Powhatan complained of having nothing substantial to do after school. When they saw step at the local colleges, they asked Ellerbe to be their coach. He matched their enthusiasm and saw step as the perfect outlet for their energy. Collaborating with the local colleges, he learned to step from the students there, and created the structure for his eventually championship-level team to thrive.

In 2000, Ellerbe brought step and this same compassionate energy to Poughkeepsie.

While there had been drill teams in Poughkeepsie prior to his arrival, Ellerbe brought “a different type of drill team,” one where “we could make our own music, using our bodies like percussion.” The team averages about 60 students at any given time, but its peak participation is usually during basketball season, when Ellerbe often coaches as many as 80 steppers on the court. Comprised of three smaller teams, Steppers with Class includes a core of veterans who have been involved for three to four years, rookie newcomers and a troop of young men. Students that are veteran dancers know as many as 60 different steps and five diverse routines, with 12 to 14 different steps in each routine.

Ellerbe cites the support of parents, the High School and community groups as critical to the success of Steppers with Class. Ellerbe remembered one parent’s remark to him that, “When you first got here, we thought you were crazy. But then you went and got everyone at all of these events.” Through collaboration with various groups and organizations from the Poughkeepsie community, Dutchess County and nationally, Ellerbe’s team would eventually compete in major competitions and performances around the country.

When Ellerbe began coaching step he never could have imagined that he would bring his students to places as far as the Bahamas, Disney World and the WNBA. Yet, in his 10 years as coach of the Poughkeepsie High School step team, Ellerbe has developed a strong after school program at Poughkeepsie High School. Stressing college readiness and self-expression, Ellerbe leads one of the closest families at the Poughkeepsie High School.

Local collaborations too, have provided Steppers with Class the opportunity to expand beyond the walls of the High School. Ellerbe has partnered with Kingston, N.Y.’s ENERGY dance troupe for the last seven years, as well as Vassar College, Beulah Baptist Church, the R.E.A.L. Skills Program, M*POWER Dance Team and many others. Ellerbe emphasizes, “We try to be involved in the community as much as possible…[and] reaching out to other entities is very important to us.” Nationally, Steppers with Class has made its mark in all sorts of places including the House of Blues in California, Walt Disney World, and as a feature act on a Royal Caribbean Cruise, and throughout the East Coast from Connecticut to Virginia.

In May, the step team is traveling to Atlanta to compete in the Atlanta Stomp Fest Regional at the Georgia World Congress Center. The trip embodies much of the spirit of Ellerbe’s program, which aims to promote pride among its students to take their art form beyond New York and to incorporate college planning into the schedule. While in Atlanta, the students will also visit with an alumnus of the Steppers with Class team and Poughkeepsie High School who currently attends Spellman University. Students will be able to glimpse college life. Says Ellerbe, “A lot of times they just don’t know [they can attend college] because

they haven’t been out of Poughkeepsie.”

Ellerbe compares himself to an English teacher cultivating student creativity. He says, “[I’m] directing their format and their form.

I show them that this has to flow like this, or this has to go like this. We need to have a comma here, or a period here…They’re doing their own writing, but the writing is in step.

And then they’ll come to me and ask, ‘How does this sound?’…How we put our show together is just like an English paper in terms of developing what we want to say.”

Ellerbe believes it is the students’ drive that has propelled the energy of the step team to what it is today: “The big drive is really from [the students],” says Ellerbe, who believes that students recognize that stepping is “a good way to be supervised and have a positive influence on what you’re doing, and it gives you a new sense of yourself and self– confidence. The balance between the two is helping them to mature and be able to manage time, responsibility and the things they have to get done.”

When asked about his proudest moment with the step team, Ellerbe pauses, finding it difficult to choose one moment over the course of his 10 years. Finally, Ellerbe expressed his pride in the fact that, “Kids choose to be with me and be a part of the program. It’s a choice that they make, and every year that they choose to be with me, that more than anything else is rewarding for me. It’s more important than anything we might do or win.

No single event is a turning point.” Ellerbe’s relationship with Poughkeepsie High School students continues to be one of his most meaningful experiences. He remarks that students who are involved in extracurricular activities typically have a higher GPA and better time management skills than students who are not involved in any activities. Members of the team are not permitted to fail more than two classes and are expected to attend all practice sessions, which in competition season can be almost every day. He underscores, “Any extracurricular we can get them involved in is going to be positive as long as they allow that activity to be helpful to them.”

Poughkeepsie High School step team coach Stephen Ellerbe poses at a practice on April 13.

Says Ellerbe, “Our show is different because the theme is ourselves...In our show, we project who we are. Our thesis statement when we first come out is ‘We Are.’ Each show we try to write a paper, and we try to tell a story about us.” He continues, “We’ve evolved to the point where we have our own identity. We don’t learn steps from anybody else, all we do now we come up with on our own.”

Coach Ellerbe has built an empowered community of steppers dedicated to their own success and pride. Says Ellerbe, “I keep the canvas flowing, but they put what’s on the canvas.”

If you are interested in contacts or opportunities in the Poughkeepsie community such as this please contact Erica Licht, Community Action Coordinator, at erlicht@vassar.edu.

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FEATURES

April 15, 2010

Page 7

Souvlaki: It’s time to meet an easier meat Nate Silver Columnist

T

Vassar in pictures

Exposure is the photojournalism blog of The Miscellany News, featuring the work of our own photographers, as well as Vassar community members producing outstanding work in the medium. The blog aims to capture the visual culture of the Vassar College campus.

blogs.miscellanynews.com/exposure

Souvlaki

Warm Orzo Salad

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2 lb. pork tenderloin, cut into 10, 2-inch pieces 1/3 c. + 2 T olive oil Juice from 1 lemon 3 cloves garlic, chopped 2 shallots, chopped 1 T dried oregano 1 T fresh mint Salt and pepper, to taste 5 Wooden or metal skewers Greek yogurt, for serving Lemon wedges, for serving

Combine 1/3 c. olive oil, the lemon juice, oregano, mint, garlic, shallots, salt and pepper in a small bowl. In the same bowl or in a Ziploc bag, combine the pork with the marinade. Cover and let sit at least three hours, but preferably overnight.

When it has finished marinating, place two pieces of meat on each skewer and set aside. Heat the remaining olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat (you could also do this in a grill pan or on an outdoor grill). Sear each skewer for two to three minutes a side, until the pork has a golden-brown crust. Place all the skewers in a roasting pan/sheet tray and roast in a 400 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until the pork reaches an internal temperature of 155 degrees. Remove from the oven and let rest five to 10 minutes.Serve alongside some Greek yogurt and lemon wedges.

16 oz. orzo 2 T olive oil 1 large onion, chopped 2 gloves garlic, chopped 3 T pine nuts (optional) 2 c. baby spinach 1 c. packed fresh mint leaves, chopped »» Salt and pepper, to taste »» Juice from 1 lemon »» 1/2 c. crumbled feta cheese Cook the orzo according to the directions on the package (usually boiling them in water for four to six minutes) and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a medium pot over medium heat and sauté the onion and garlic for 10 minutes, until soft and light brown. Add the pine nuts and cook one minute more. Add the orzo to the onion mixture and add the baby spinach, mint, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. Stir to combine and cook for a couple of minutes, until the spinach has just begun to wilt. Toss in the feta cheese right before serving.

Grocery List Baby Spinach Fresh Mint Lemons Greek Yogurt Pork Tenderloin Shallots Orzo Feta Total

$2.69 $1.69 $0.80 $1.50 $9.33 $0.22 $1.99 $1.74

Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News

Exposure

Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News

Follow recipes in photoessays on

Kelley Van Dilla/The Miscellany News

here still seems to be a misconception that cooking meat is inherently expensive and overwhelmingly difficult. So many people have approached me and told me that, while they’re not a vegetarian, they basically eat that way in college because it’s so much easier on the wallet and requires far fewer culinary skills. This week, I have prepared a meat dish that is both satisfying and light, delicious and inexpensive. Souvlaki is a type of traditional Greek street food: small pieces of meat on a skewer, marinated with olive oil, lemon, garlic and fresh herbs. To round out this week’s meal I prepared a warm salad of orzo, spinach, toasted pine nuts and mint. As I said in a previous column, the food of Greece and the Mediterranean is hands-down my favorite to prepare.

The bright, fresh flavors of that region perfectly compliment the emergence of springtime, and the simplicity of the preparation really works well for those of us in college.

Souvlaki is traditionally made with pork, but you could easily substitute lamb, beef or chicken. You could even take some of your favorite vegetarian ingredients—tofu, mushrooms, peppers, squash—and use the same marinade; it would still be simply scrumptious.

The trick to this dish, because of its simplicity, is packing the meat with as much flavor as possible. It’s essential to marinate the meat for a few hours—at the very least—and overnight would be ideal. Pork tenderloin works especially well for this dish because it’s tender and delicious, but also holds up well to strong flavors and intense marinades. It’s also quite inexpensive, only $4.99 per a pound at Adams Fairacre Farms.

One of my favorite ingredients to use is Greek yogurt. Greek yogurt is gaining quite a following in the snack food and cooking worlds alike, and has a much higher milk fat content than regular American yogurt, making it especially creamy and perfect for providing a cooling compliment to spiced meats.

You can mix it with some lemon juice, mint, parsley or cucumber to boost its flavor, but it’s also perfect as is, left alone by itself. The orzo could also go just about a million ways in this dish, but I settled on pulling some of the mint and lemon from the marinade and incorporating them in a new way with the side dish. I also could have used couscous or bulgur, but something about the rice-shaped pasta was calling to me as I perused the grain aisle.

Part of the reason home cooks are afraid of cooking meat is a fear of over-cooking or under-cooking. In case you haven’t picked up on this already, I am a strong advocate for the preparation of meats by employing a dualcooking technique: searing at a very high temperature to seal in juices and create a golden brown exterior, and finishing in the oven to bring the internal temperature to a consumable level. Invest in a meat thermometer: It will take the guesswork out of meat preparation and ensure that each piece of meat you serve to your guests will be perfectly cooked. In this case, roast your pork until it reaches an internal temperature of 155 degrees and then let it rest so that it will rise another five degrees to the desired (and safe) temperature of 160.

The last piece of advice for this week is to make extra; nothing is better than leftover souvlaki, sliced thin and eaten on a pita. Dinner easily becomes tomorrow’s lunch, and the smile on your face from eating this meal will last a bit longer.

$19.96

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Bloom ’13 turns dorm room to tea room ROOM continued from page 6 small vases, the glasses are round and wide at the bottom, narrow in the middle and open wide at the mouth. The tradition, after pouring the tea, is to drink by holding the glass at the very top, where the temperature remains cool. The room contains reminders from his travels and presents the aesthetic of a Central Asian yurt, or nomadic tent, and transports those who enter into a world of comfort and hospitality.

Bloom stresses that, “[My room is] not

about collecting exotic patterns from distant places. It’s more about creating a room as a comfortable place where anyone is welcome.”

Many times, he has invited random individuals from the quad into his room for tea and relaxed conversation. Bloom does not wish to exoticize the cultures he experienced in the Balkans and Central Asia, but rather aims to integrate elements of a culture he found interesting into his everyday life at Vassar. Bloom’s Central Asian tea room, which evokes those tokens of hospitality found in

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

the regions of his interest, is, according to Bloom, “much more about creating a sense of welcome and comfort as opposed to exoticism.”

Matt Hammel ’13 enthusiastically describes his experience in Bloom’s tea room: “I was invited up there with a couple of friends late on some weekend night this winter. I had a really wonderful time hanging out and listening to him and his friends speak Turkish. The tea and music were great, and the rugs covering the walls are absolutely incredible.”

OPINIONS

Page 8

April 15, 2010

Am I offended? Why, yes, I am and thanks for asking Kendra Carlton

“A

Guest Columnist

nd out of the ashes springs a new fire.”

This was the first thought that came to my mind when I saw the latest response to the past events on campus (Free Weezy, Water Walk, etc.). Liz Ilechko ’12 created a Facebook group—aptly titled Offended?—not too long ago that has had its fair share of thoughts and battles. I have stayed out of this group, keeping myself on the quiet side. I thought I had said enough of my opinions via the comments pages of Facebook and The Miscellany News, but it is here that I can’t keep quiet any longer. I’d like to speak to Ilechko, and any other reader who’s interested, directly about just a fraction of how the group is presented.

“It seems like nowadays, everyone is getting offended over every little thing.”

There are too many things that could be said, written and argued over this statement. Today, there appears to be a growing population of students of color on Vassar’s campus. Vassar has many student groups that express this diversity, and there are many students from the world over. Now, let’s rewind through Vassar’s history just a bit. As a member of this year’s Vassarion staff, it’s very interesting to see in the pages of the yearbook how much growth

has occurred. Although I am not well versed in history, I can give a pretty good history of what has become a staple in mine and many a student’s life on campus: the ALANA Center.

The ALANA Center began as the AfroAmerican Cultural Center in Kendrick House, a building right outside of the gates of Vassar. Without delving further, as much of this information is public knowledge on Vassar’s website, one can argue that the students who moved into this building were separating themselves from other students. However, this is not the case. For whatever reasons, these were students who were not comfortable in the Vassar environment in which they were placed. One instance, as recorded by Claudia Lynn Thomas ’71, describes an extreme situation in which a girl’s roommate studied her habits because she was black! At that point, the black roommate was the one who was “dealt” with.

This is all to say that what may be little to you can really affect a person. Just because something does not affect you does not mean that it is invalid and should be discounted as a “little thing.”

“But are we really upset over the concepts, or just looking for an excuse to start a fight?”

Maybe it’s just the person I am, but does

anyone purposely go out to start fights here at Vassar? I feel like no one wakes up in the morning wanting to cause trouble, especially knowing all of the backlash they will receive for it for weeks and months to come. I think if we are attending this institution and have made it as far as we have, we had to have been doing some critical thinking somewhere. As educated individuals who are presenting coherent arguments in each case that comes up, how could we not have been upset over the “concepts”?

I also feel that this line insults the intelligence of the many parties who have taken it upon themselves to address the issues that have been coming up this spring, and seemingly every spring for that matter. Is there a problem if I feel offended by this statement too?

“At this point, everyone’s offense is just making things more fractured and less pleasant to be on Vassar campus.”

However, I can easily argue that the creation of this group threatens the way I feel and express myself in Vassar’s community. Ilechko goes on to say that the students who were offended have some sort of point, but in the end, we should “relax and think of these things in a positive light.” If anything, the creation of this group is rather slanted. It makes me feel

Privilege: Misconception & misuse Anne-Marie Alcantara

P

Guest Columnist

rivilege. We have all heard it, used it in some way and perhaps have also experienced it in many different ways. Usually, when this terms comes to mind, most people think of socio-economic privilege, in which an individual has experienced a sort of life in which money, status, class and the like have come very easily to them. But here at Vassar, in light of recent racial tensions surrounding recent campus events like Free Weezy: A Mug Night and the Davison Luau, the word privilege is used in a different manner deemed “white privilege.” This term is used to describe the socioeconomic-racial privilege that whites experience versus the disadvantages that minority groups experience. With this, there is a common misconception among whites that minority groups are disadvantaged and should be brought up to the “normal” standards of those of white people. The use of the term white privilege is the slippery slope of racial discourse and action, for most people believe that racial inequalities should be resolved not by excluding whites and elevating minority groups to an acceptable “normal” standard of living, but rather to also help whites understand that they are socially advantaged compared to minority groups.

The problem of white privilege is real and exists in everyday matters, from education to social rights and so on. However, here on the Vassar campus, the word privilege, along with the term white privilege, is thrown around a lot, especially when events such as Free Weezy: A Mug Night and the Davison Luau occur. What should bother everyone is not that these events occur and these discussions happen, but that there is a sort of nuance in throwing this word around every time there is a racial discussion to be held.

As humans and more so as people, we are bound to our first impressions of others. Everyone has an initial reaction and judgment of a person, whether they know them or not. And even if they do know them, there is still an unprecedented judgment. Here at Vassar, though we are a relatively small campus, we still do not know the circumstances and details of every single person’s life. Thus, when we throw around the word privilege to describe those who we think are privileged simply because they are white, it does not necessarily mean that they are privileged. Unless one specifies that they mean exactly “white privilege,” one cannot know that a person really is privileged. In trying to initiate discourse about sensitive matters, especially racial tensions on campus, we cannot continue to throw around this word and simply put blame on people for this single reason. If we want to get anywhere with trying to help everyone understand different perspectives on why some things said could be offensive, there is more importance in discussing the matter in a less-accusatory nature. Even if it may be true, calling someone privileged will not help him or her better understand why what this person said or did may have been offensive. It will not help this per-

son realize that his or her actions were wrong and, thus, this person should do something to correct it.

In fact, if anything, it sounds as if it were an accusation. It is not anyone’s fault, regardless of racial background, if you are privileged and do experience a lifestyle in which money, status and class were never issues for you. What is most important, especially in today’s world where racial tensions seem to be almost erased on the surface but internally are not, is to help those who are at an advantage in life to see the disadvantages that people of all racial backgrounds experience, and see why some things are more offensive to them than to others. This applies to those who are not of color also. Though statistically, minority groups are more likely to experience poverty, have less access to quality education and so on, whites can also share these experiences.

But, because they are white, are they not allowed to openly discuss their opinions on issues regarding socio-economic privilege and tension?

In relation to Free Weezy: A Mug Night, should the organizers and supporters of the event not be allowed to relate to the lyrics of Lil’ Wayne? I am not excusing the actions or words used to advertise that event, but many of those individuals and people who were not part of planning the event at all did voice their opinion in saying that they were able to relate to the lyrics concerning poverty and social justice, and so, they were excited about the event and did not see the problem.

My ultimate point is that we, as a community, should find other ways of discussing racial and socio-economic tensions in which we use the word privilege and similar terms as sparingly as possible and in a more understandable manner. The key is to help everyone comprehend all different types of perspectives, especially those who have never been exposed to or experienced the varying voices on this campus.

We have to understand that we are all privileged in attending Vassar—whether we want to or not accept the notion of being a privileged student. We are not attending public or state universities. Yes, some of us may be burrowing our way into debt through student loans, but we are able to still go to a private college. Each student’s story is different on why they came here and why they were able to afford to. When we decide to post comments, whether with our names or anonymously on The Miscellany News’ website or Facebook, we need to take a second and think. Think and know that we are privileged and we all have some mental capacity to understand social issues going on.

What needs to happen on this campus in relation to the resolution of these discussions is to stop the labeling, the name-calling, the anonymous comments. Instead we should initiate conversations from all perspectives, with each person stating their own experiences and circumstances. Only then can we begin to help each other understand and see through the scope of different viewpoints and create a more understanding campus in which similarly offensive events need not to occur.

as if my opinion, my “being offended” is not welcomed because it upsets you. I’m upset too, Ilechko. I’m upset that when I voice my opinion, because it doesn’t ebb and flow with the majority opinion, people make me out to be the bad person. I’m upset that every spring, there’s something that happens that makes a lot of the students of color on campus speak up only to feel shut down by our peers. And I’m upset that so many people have made it seem that the creation of this group is a fair way to create dialogue. Honestly, it is not. It, as stated above, creates fire.

Lastly, I will address the following: reaffirming your identity through what you seem to identify as cultural relativity—Kool-Aid, a vat of oil and baby mamas—should not affirm your identity as a black individual. You are identifying yourself through stereotypes, and the appropriations of stereotypes are what began this rift in the first place, long before Weezy. Please realize that racial and cultural spaces are sensitive areas and should be respected by both parties. If anything, this passive way of creating a forum has deterred what you have set out to do since it gives very little credibility to the parties who disagree with your ideas. Life isn’t always positive; sometimes, we need to address the negative.

Silence due to revictimization Renee Pabst

Guest Columnist

A

s I walked around campus last Thursday, which was the designated day to wear the 1-in-4 and 1-in-7 shirts to raise awareness of the number of victims/survivors of sexual assault (women and men respectively), I couldn’t help but consider what those numbers mean and how they relate to the survivors within the Vassar College community.

As the Director of Health Education and Coordinator of the Sexual Assault Violence Prevention (SAVP) program, I have had the honor to work with survivors on this campus, but also know that many more victims/ survivors do not come forward. Why? Two themes continued to emerge throughout the week: how society blames our victims and how many times when courageously coming forward victims are re-victimized—a process that may shame survivors into silence.

This article is not about pushing survivors to come forward, though I want them to know there are safe places on campus that offer support. Instead my goal is to help people understand why so many survivors do not come forward and to create a community in which survivors are not re-victimized.

How does society blame victims? In most rapes, particularly those on college campuses, the perpetrator knows the victim and alcohol is usually involved. We look at the actions of the victims and blame them, because they shouldn’t have drank so much, flirted, gone with the perpetrator to their rooms, let them walk them home, and the list goes on. But why don’t we blame the perpetrators? When will we ask: Why did the perpetrators take advantage of someone, why didn’t they stop when told no, why did they encourage excessive drinking, why didn’t they get consent, why did they use coercion? When will we start holding the perpetrators responsible for their behavior?

And how do we re-victimize a survivor?

When we tell a friend, “Well, you were drunk, what did you expect? You were flirting with him/her the whole night, you have a crush on him/her anyway,” or any other blaming remark, we re-victimized the survivor. If survivors feel guilty or shameful and then are led to believe that what happened to them is their fault, they will most likely never come forward and internalize the shame.

The shame and silence do not only come from re-victimization, but also from the lenses through which we conceptualize sexual assault. Even sexual assault has gender biases. Consider a male sexual assault survivor. Many of us think only females can be sexually assaulted, but this is not the case. Many of our male sexual

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

assault survivors were assaulted as children or as teens, by someone they trusted or by an ex-partner; maybe they never told anyone and feel embarrassed to come forward, maybe when they did tell someone they were not believed, or maybe they told someone but that person did nothing about the abuse. For any survivor it can be scary to come forward for many reasons: fear of being judged, dismissed, embarrassed by telling the story, and possibly re-victimized.

We need to remember that we have to cast the net even wider when we talk about our Vassar community of survivors in order to include interpersonal violence (interpersonal partner violence, domestic violence, stalking, harassment, and so on). In the same sense, many of these students are revictimized and blamed when seeking support from peers and shunned into silence.

When we see rape as something the victim should have done differently, when we see sexual assault as a women’s only crime, when we see interpersonal violence in only heterosexual relationships—we re-victimize the survivors and support the silence.

When I first started writing this piece, I thought it would address the need of our campus community to break the silence around these issues, by addressing a community approach that needs to create a climate focused on the prevention of these assaults and incidents of interpersonal violence through policy changes, judicial hearings, and the implementation of bystander training, all of which I still believe needs to happen. But what I realized is that it might be better to use this article to help the community understand why there is such silence around these issues.

I know by working with survivors that the longer they are silenced the harder it is for them to heal. Students at Vassar need to know that we take a victim’s centered approach to working with survivors. What does this mean? You can come forward confidentially, without being judged or told what to do. We will be there to support you, help give you resources and walk you through your options. What you decide to do is up to you.

Where can you get help?

You can reach CARES (24 hour peer listening service) or SAVP/SART (24 hour administrative on-call support services) through the CRC at 437-7333 or cares@vassar.edu or savp@vassar.edu. In addition, the Vassar Counseling Center can be reached at 437-5700 or the 24 hour Rape Crisis Hotline can be reached at (845)452-7272.

—Renee Pabst is the Director of Health Education and Coordinator of the Sexual Assault Violence Prevention program.

OPINIONS

April 15, 2010

Page 9

Manbox a practical jumble but promising concept Kelly Shortridge Opinions Editor

W

hen I walked into the College Center and first saw the “manbox” erected by Counseling and Assistance in Response to Rape and Exploitive Sexual Activity (CARES), I felt a mixture of curiosity and admiration. Curiosity, because very few times have I seen a public display like this just for men, and admiration because many of the responses at that point in time gave fascinating insight into the pressures that men face—pressures which are often ignored in favor of talking about the very real inequities that women still face.

I think that many Vassar men do not feel as much pressure to fit neatly into the box of stereotypes of “real” men—such as stoicism, sexism and physical dominance—as men outside of Vassar’s community, but many still do even in an environment which exudes much more tolerance and understanding than most of society. The pressures on men to fit a masculine ideal are no less legitimate than the pressures that women feel to be perfectly-coiffed trophies exuding fabulous femininity.

Many Vassar students, including my co-editor Angela Aiuto, feel that men do not need a “safe

space” on campus. While I agree that programs like last year’s Language of Ladies debacle were very offensive attempts at a safe space for men, I think that it is extremely unjust to say that while almost all minority groups on campus have safe spaces, men do not “deserve” one; they are, after all, a minority. All people, regardless of sex or race, feel the weight of societal expectations press down upon them; the degree to which they do is important, but does not make any group less or more deserving of a “safe space.”

I would like to think that Vassar’s community is one of equality and respect. I feel that the comments on and debate about the manbox, much like the debate about recent controversial events such as the Free Weezy Mug night, has been lacking both of these attributes. The Miscellany News articles online that featured content relating to these events have had comments that ranged from insulting to extremely inappropriate and disrespectful.

There are clearly misunderstandings on both sides, but very few people seem willing to be civil and open to debate. Insults about “privilege” or being “overly sensitive” have been thrown about consistently, without either side

seeing the other’s opinions. The manbox, its critics and defenders have not had a debate much more respectful or productive. I personally think that men deserve equal treatment—that is, equal understanding that men can also be victims of sexual assault, can feel just as slighted by society, and are sufferers of sexism, and thus equal opportunity for expression of these ills.

However, that is not to say that the manbox is necessarily the right way to go about it. The main issue with the manbox itself was comments clearly written by women either de-legitimizing the box or men who decided—perhaps, again, out of societal pressure—to make a joke out of the box. I argue that some comments are purposefully comical to make fun of the ridiculous stereotypes that men face, but many of the comments show a clear lack of respect for what CARES was trying to accomplish with this box.

I think that the shock effect of having an object of expression just for men created a lot of the mess. If efforts were put into place to consistently, like with other groups, have dialogues about societal pressures of masculinity, the shock effect would wear off and comments would perhaps be more serious and fruitful.

Manbox meant to foster discussion T

hough rarely discussed both on this campus and in the world, sexual assault happens. It is an issue that silences people daily: Victims, perpetrators, bystanders and loved ones of all are involved. Despite the fact that ideally one would not need to devote a special week of the year to raise awareness about issues of personal violation, we are glad that some of our events have begun to create dialogue.

Unfortunately, most of the time the typical dialogue surrounding sexual assault is victim-blaming, reversediscriminatory and comes from a viewpoint of ignorance. Though we cannot always guide the content of discussions spurred by our events, we regard it as necessary that any conversation should take place, and we hope that the Vassar community will be moved to action and take the opportunity to speak up when these conversations occur. Although our goal has always been to foster constructive conversation, some of our events have elicited the typical reactions that are not necessarily productive. These types of reactions convey exactly why we need to be having sexual assault awareness events: Despite Vassar’s openness to learn as a community, we still lack some of the basic language and knowledge to discuss the different factors that construct and complicate personal violation.

As April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Counseling and Assistance in Response to Rape and Exploitive Sexual Activity (CARES) decided to dedicate a week in April to several events dealing with these issues.

Collaborating with some of the men’s athletic teams, we tabled on Monday for the White Ribbon Campaign and celebrated the efforts of men to end domestic violence.

Our dinner and conversation on Tuesday night raised awareness about the responsibilities and opportunities we all have as bystanders in preventing personal violation and recognizing when a potential problem could occur. On Wednesday we invited Aishah Simmons, a black, lesbian, feminist activist and filmmaker, to present her documentary to raise the issue of intra-race violence in communities of African descent. Thursday’s events focused on raising awareness about the often-overlooked prevalence of sexual assault. The 1-in-4 T-shirts that we distributed represent the ratio of college-aged women who will experience attempted or completed sexual assault. For the first time this year we also brought male victims into the conversation with the 1-in-7 T-shirts that represent the ratio of men who are sexually assaulted in their lifetime. The statistics of men and women have different scopes: While sexual assault has an immense impact on someone’s life no matter when it happens, the majority of men who are victims are assaulted before the age of 18, whereas the majority of women who are sexually assaulted experience this violation at collegeage. The study break in the Retreat on Friday worked to combat the stereotypes that many students have about sexual assault. Last but not least, throughout the week, members of the Vassar community had the opportunity

to write comments on the manbox.

CARES built the manbox as a manifestation of the societal construction of masculinity. The activity was inspired by Tony Porter, an activist speaker who gave a lecture at Vassar in 2007 and talked about how men can take responsibility for sexual violence, but how cultural expectations often make this difficult. After the lecture, which took place three years ago, it was a common experience to overhear someone gently chastising their male friend by saying, “Dude, you’re so in the manbox” when he was perceived to be performing the stereotypical role of the man, and we hoped to bring this conversation back to Vassar. The inside of the box was a space for the community to write comments about attributes that describe hegemonic masculinity. The outside, on the other hand, was intended for comments about attributes that contradict or complicate the qualities written on the inside. CARES also hoped for a discussion to take place on whether, how and why this construction of masculinity lets abusers off the hook and allows other men to remain silent. As society constructs the manbox, it is often difficult for men to actively speak out against other men who commit these crimes. As a coed organization, CARES’s ambition in building the manbox is not to place blame on men, but to grant men agency to take the responsibility to break out of this box and stop personal violations from occurring. More often than not, sexual assault is raised as a women’s issue, and men choose to remain silent or are excluded from this discussion. CARES was pleased to find that some of the conversation taking place inside of the manbox highlighted the healthy aspects of manhood that already exist in our society. We agree with the student who wrote on the outside of the manbox, “a spectrum,” as we know that the inside and the outside of the manbox are not as sharply delineated as the edge of the plywood suggests. While the manbox specifically addressed men, it is important to keep in mind that we are all implicated in this culture that allows violence against women and intimate-partner abuse, and therefore we all have the responsibility to stop it from occurring. It is our hope that together we will be able to construct a healthier concept of manhood that empowers both men and women.

Overall, Sexual Assault Awareness Week was a success as it fostered a range of conversations. As with all of the events, CARES’s aim in building the manbox was to place the discussion into a larger context and to provoke members of the community to examine and challenge their individual assumptions. Sexual violence will not end until men become part of the solution to end it and for this reason we sought to engage the men in the Vassar community. We hope that the manbox joins the rest of our efforts to promote a cultural and social shift towards a community where sexual violence is not tolerated.

—This column was written by Counseling and Assistance in Response to Rape & Exploitive Sexual Activity (CARES).

However, it saddens me that this discourse will undoubtedly not happen on a broad scale on campus, as the overwhelming sentiment seems to be that men don’t “deserve” such treatment.

Perhaps Vassar men would not need a safe space if they were not blamed for the repression of women, for supporting “the patriarchy,” for ills that many of these men do not want to play a part of and don’t support, no more than Vassar women support the classic masculine ideal. Arguments like Aiuto’s only serve to impose further pressures of stoicism onto men, that their feelings should be kept inside and not expressed. Whether with the manbox and Vassar men or with other conflicts, the blame game only divides us and creates resentment. If we are to be understanding of all types of people, equally, we must be civil in dialogue and open to multiple perspectives, even if we don’t agree with them.

Commentary on the recent Sexual Assault Violence Prevention Week and its events, hosted by the Office of Health Education and C.A.R.E.S.

Manbox ineffective Kelly Stout Features Editor Mandana Nakhai Guest Columnist

L

ast week’s erection of the socalled manbox in the College Center North Atrium was neither all good nor all bad. As far as erections go, some are wanted, some are not, and this one falls somewhere in between (is that possible?). We’ll start with what, as female feminists, we found productive and thoughtful about the manbox.

One of the things the manbox does very well is that it suggests that there are multiple ways of understanding what it means to be a man, and that these many perceptions circulate within our own community. This is good because we believe that polarized conceptions of gender identity limit how people express their humanity. Sometimes we all need a reminder that masculinity need not subscribe to a singular relationship to power.

We want to believe that the manbox questioned the implications of gender categorizations, but we simply don’t see evidence that it successfully or adequately does that. Our primary qualm with the manbox is that it carved out space for people to articulate stereotypes without refuting them in a way that is anything other than superficial.

Do we really need more space on this campus to express stereotypes?

Ever been to the Town Houses on a Friday night? As a community that values individuality, we constantly ask our peers to evaluate us based on our palpable qualities; why embrace such a simplistic way of understanding one another?

There was no physical space on the manbox’s canvas to articulate why exactly stereotypes are harmful or inadequate. Instead, the manbox served to suggest equally constraining versions of masculinity. Imagine if we had a similar space to problematize other categories into which we group people. Plenty of people would find it deeply offensive. We submit that it is inadequate to merely problematize categorization without suggesting alternative ways of thinking about identities.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Of equal importance is the fact that the manbox did nothing to upend the value system of a society that privileges one gender over another in nearly every imaginable realm. Structural sexism amounts to more than a collection of isolated instances of gender violence. Violence against women by their male partners has a specific politics of gender subordination attached to it. When individual men perpetrate violence against their female partners, they are doing it with the entire structure of male power behind them.

What’s missing from the entire manbox endeavor is a discussion about the connection between gender stereotypes and the system that perpetuates this type of violence. We want to refute the idea that the man who decides to knit as a result of the manbox is somehow upending systems that allow for gender-based violence.

On what planet would that count as a subversion of the systematic subjugation of people based on gender?

We reject building structures that empower men when we are confronted by systems and environments that empower them every day of our lives.

And although we are glad that feminism exists in many different forms, above all, our particular version of feminism values empowering women to eliminate structures that oppress them. Moreover, the manbox was primarily a physical manifestation of retrogressive ways of thinking about feminism. That is, a feminism that submits that we need to further empower men to destabilize sexism. Not only did the manbox achieve none of this; the manbox did not exalt female power.

This may not have been the goal, but we submit that it should have been.

We thank Counseling and Assistance in Response to Rape and Exploitive Sexual Activity (CARES) for reminding us every year of the presence of intimate partner abuse in all communities, and fully support the objectives of Sexual Assault Awareness Week. However, we suggest an alternative title for the thing in the College Center: the manstructure—a physical reminder of the problematic power of men in the heart of our community.

OPINIONS

Page 10

Why the Manbox isn’t helping From a male perspective Bobby Benjamin

I

Guest Columnist

f you walked through the College Center last week, you probably noticed a large wooden structure labeled the manbox.

Perhaps you laughed at the awkwardness of the phrasing. Maybe you sighed in exasperation at the missed opportunity for a pun like “male box.” Maybe you stood there thoughtfully for an extended period of time thinking about what to write on it. From the quality of the graffiti on the manbox, I can guess that the latter situation was not the case. You might ask why this is; I have a few ideas.

First off, I have some serious issues with the way in which Counseling and Assistance in Response to Rape and Exploitive Sexual Activity (CARES) presented the exercise.

While I have no problem with discourse about gender norms and stereotypes— many of which were repeated, some rather obscenely—I do find it particularly insulting when my gender is immediately villainized. I do not think that a good strategy for discourse about gender is to begin with an accusation: It just leads to people getting defensive or not taking the discussion seriously. If you need any evidence of this, just look at what people wrote. It simply does not make men like me feel open to discourse about our gender when the implication is that merely by assuming a particular gender, we are immediately more prone to committing sexual assault.

Let me illustrate my point with an example: Let’s talk about terrorism. There are a few terrorists who happen to be Muslim who perform suicide bombings, a very violent act, who believe they are carrying out jihad. Do we tell Muslims that they have to

break out of the “Islam box” and speak out against these suicide bombers? No. That would be insulting, because that would be characterizing a whole religion by the few extremists who misconstrue some aspects of that religion to further violent ends. I think you see my point: It is logically fallacious to characterize one whole group by the false actions of a few of its members.

Similarly, I take issue with the characterization of my race and gender implicated in the Language of the Ladies mini-course controversy of last year. Just because I am a white male does not mean I am sexist. I am as much limited by the societal constraints of my upbringing as anyone who has been “victimized” by it. The only difference is that the societal constraints on my behavior restrict me to a position of relatively higher status. But this higher status carries with it consequences, such as the understanding that any number of insulting things can be said about my race and gender without repercussions because being in the position of relative higher status means one has to give up one’s right to be offended.

At the same time, in an environment like Vassar, where men are not only in the minority, but also very much wary of the antimale sentiment that seems to propagate itself throughout this campus, I find that Ms. Aiuto’s disregard of the difficulties in “stepping out of the manbox” to be callous and unhelpful. (“Manbox does not think outside the proverbial box,” 04.08.10) I agree that we shouldn’t have to “pat men on the back for being respectful to women...in other words, for being decent human beings,” but yet we have to do this. As any man who has tried to stand up for a woman’s right to be respected in the company of other men—and I’m

speaking from personal experience—a man faces emasculation and ostracism, in a way that is considered acceptable by society.

While I agree with Ms. Aiuto’s statement that the manbox is not likely to be helpful in terms of furthering the struggle against sexual violence, I disagree as to the solution. First, simply exhorting men to be more comfortable when talking about sexual assault isn’t helpful when they are told to do so under the implication that they are the villains in this situation. Second, and perhaps the most salient point, reducing sexual violence is not just up to the men, because society also inadvertently supports sexual assault by discouraging women from having agency in the sexual relationship.

I’ll give an example: As a heterosexual woman, try just saying “no” to a man who wants to have sex with you. I don’t mean indicate that you are unreceptive; I mean just say a plain “no.” In fact, as observed by noted language and gender researchers Deborah Cameron and Don Kulick in their book Language and Sexuality, it is socially unacceptable for women to just say “no,” but, however, there are many ways for women to indicate “no” without saying it, the most popular being “I’m feeling tired. I think I’ll go to bed.” These utterances are completely unambiguous in context. The problem becomes when a man justifies sexual assault with, “She never said ‘no,’” and a jury of his peers believes him.

I hope the above example has shown that it is not only the recognition of male agency and privilege that is important in the altering of society’s gender norms, but also in the recognition of the importance of female agency and involvement in cooperating to enact social change.

Confederate History Month is a celebration of racism and slavery Juan Thompson Guest Columnist

A

pril was formerly designated Confederate History Month in just five American states—Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida and Louisiana—until recently, when Republican Governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell decided to make Virginia the sixth member of this amazingly patriotic group.

In the governor’s statement proclaiming Confederate History Month, he stated, “It’s important for all Virginians to reflect upon our commonwealth’s shared history, to understand the sacrifices of Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens during the period of the Civil War.” McDonnell was elected last November with the support of many prominent black Virginians who saw him as a moderate conservative. I doubt, or at least hope, that many of them did not think that their candidate would, during his first few months in office, salute the old Confederacy by making April Confederate History Month.

According to news reports on McDonnell’s decision, an organization known as the Sons of the Confederate Veterans had been pushing McDonnell to celebrate the Confederacy. On their website, the Sons of the Confederate Veterans describes their organization as one that believes that “the citizen-soldiers who fought for the Confederacy personified the best qualities of America. The preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor in the South’s decision to fight the Second American Revolution.”

When I read that statement it struck me how radical and detached the language was. It is absolutely amazing how one person can read a passage and see something entirely different than another person. For instance, I read the mission statement as:

“Terrorists who fought for the Confederacy personified the worst qualities of America. The preservation of white capitalism and racism were the motivating factors in the South’s attempt to destroy the United States of America.”

The governor’s assertion that Virginians should understand the sacrifices of these citizen-soldiers is offensive and absurd. There is nothing to understand.

Those people they are honoring fought a war to enslave people! They tortured, maimed, lynched, broke up families, raped and murdered thousands upon thousands of human beings. They did not fight for liberty. They fought to prevent millions of other humans from gaining liberty. The Civil War was a war to maintain a system of slavery and racism that today is seen by most Americans as one of the darkest chapters in the nation’s history.

People from the South often like to portray themselves as the most patriotic Americans. They are the ones with the bumper stickers that instruct people to leave America if you don’t agree with certain policies. But how can you be patriotic, how can you love this country, when you support people who tried to destroy it? How can you wave the “stars and bars” when hundreds of thousands of Americans were killed because of it?

McDonnell did not even mention slavery in the proclamation. He later claimed a mention of slavery was omitted because “there were a number of aspects to that conflict between the states. Obviously, it involved slavery. It involved other issues.

But I focused on the ones I thought were most significant for Virginia.” Notice he calls the Civil War a conflict, and then proceeds to offer up nonsense about slavery not being significant to Virginia, even

though the commonwealth was home to a half a million slaves at the start of the “conflict,” and Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy.

Open racism always surprises me, until I come to my senses. It’s not surprising that McDonnell is able to do this. In the past two years we’ve seen a rise in racism and anti-immigration fervor. McDonnell, the group and their ilk are the last vestiges of a rapidly changing nation.

These people are extremists. They listen to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. They are the ones who spat on black members of Congress and called them slurs during the health care debate. They think Latino immigrants are taking their jobs. They call the Civil War the Second American Revolution. They blame affirmative action for their kid not getting into a specific school.

They believe the president is an illegal African immigrant and depict him as a monkey on their protest signs. These are the people who yell, “I want my country back” at the Tea Party rallies. And these are the Americans who talk about seceding from the union, once again. Often we sensible people try to excuse this behavior by labeling it as ignorant. But that’s going easy on these troglodytes. Their beliefs, simply put, are racist and vile.

The proclamation by McDonnell is hateful and racist as well, and not just to the 20 percent of Virginia’s population that is black, but to all Americans. It is an attack on progress and change. It encourages antiquated thinking that harms our already fragile social fabric. It signifies this disgusting attempt to hold onto an America that hopefully will never return.

And it’s a power structure in its last stages lashing out and trying to maintain the system as it is.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

April 15, 2010

Letter: Buildings

and Grounds doing its duty A

s representatives of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 200 at Vassar College, we’d like to respond to the April 8, 2010 article in The Miscellany News, titled “Buildings and Grounds to be re-evaluated.”

The article discussed the Vassar Student Association (VSA) Board of House Presidents’ plans to submit a list of grievances to Buildings and Grounds regarding the departments’ “alleged untimeliness and ineffectiveness.” Since we have not seen the list yet, it’s impossible to address each of the specific problems, but the article mentioned “problems with Buildings and Grounds not responding to damage requests on time, un-emptied rubbish bins and insects.” The article goes on further to mention that “miscommunication between Buildings and Grounds and the Residential Operations Center is a possible contributing factor to the inefficiency,” and that “Vassar is restructuring in response to the current economic crisis.”

The majority of Buildings and Grounds’ employees are SEIU members who spend their days working hard to maintain and improve the conditions that we all live and work in, often under difficult conditions and with limited resources.

In the past year, we’ve had positions cut, many of whom were directly responsible for emptying garbages and responding to maintenance problems, to name just a few things. We, too, are extremely frustrated by the conditions we see around us, and our inability to respond as quickly and efficiently as we’d like. While we understand Vassar’s need to cut costs and increase efficiency, we disagree that downsizing the number of service employees is the best way to achieve those goals.

We join the VSA Board of House Presidents in their quest to improve the communication between all departments and organizations on campus, and ask that SEIU representatives be included in any upcoming Board of House Presidents meetings that address these concerns. We welcome any opportunity that will allow us to be a positive contributor to this continuing dialogue.

—Michael Lonigro is the Secretary and Treasurer of SEIU Local 200. He can be reached at mlonigro@local200united.org.

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April 15, 2010

OPINIONS

Karzai must be an ally to America D

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Oil politics: it’s all about our future

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Page 11

What would your Word on the Street question be?

“If you could have any two professors duel, who would they be?”

Benny Witkovsky ’12

“What is your favorite bathroom on campus?”

Eli Berns-Zieve ’13

“Credit card number and billing address, please.”

Emily Bernstein ’13 and Janosz Dewberry ’13

“What are you doing on Founder’s Day”

Ethan Buckner Guest Columnist

O

n March 31, 2010, President of the United States Barack Obama announced a comprehensive proposal to open vast expanses of coastline along the East Coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and northern Alaska to offshore oil drilling for the first time. This controversial decision has sparked a wide range of responses from environmentalists to oil executives. Yet the question remains, what does this proposal mean for us?

On the surface, very little. Under Obama’s plan, actual drilling for oil will unlikely happen within the next 10 years. In 2009, the U.S. Energy Administration conducted a survey analyzing the effects that the full expansion of offshore drilling would have on oil prices in the next 30 years.

The results are astounding. By 2020, under Obama’s new oil drilling plan, gas prices will not have changed a penny. And, if we are lucky, gas prices may drop a whopping three cents by 2030! So why impose the detrimental health and environmental hazards of offshore exploration and drilling on our fragile coastlines?

The answer lies within the deeper meaning behind the Obama administration’s decision, one that extends far beyond the fluctuation of gas prices in the distant future. Obama’s plan is but one of numerous recent See DRILLING on page 12

Josh Miller ’10

“How could you improve Vassar?”

James Baker ’13

“Why?”

Brian Farkas ’10 —Joshua Rosen Assistant Opinions Editor

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

OPINIONS

Page 13

April 15, 2010

Obama’s offshore oil drilling is a misguided policy Mandana Nakhai

T

Guest Columnist

he news that President of the United States Barack Obama plans to open previously protected areas off East Coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to exploration for oil and natural gas drilling caused an explosion of varying analyses and reactions across the news and the blogosphere. There seems to be a great deal of confusion as to whether or not the proposed drilling indicates a softening of Obama’s stance on environmental policy. Is this another case of Obama going soft on the issues that the people who voted him into office care most deeply about? It quickly becomes clear that while Obama claims to have plowed a straight line on offshore drilling all along, this policy is anything but consistent with his overall approach to climate change and environmental issues, which highlights investments in alternative energy and making fossil fuels more expensive, which is in direct opposition to the intention of the drilling proposal. In fact, it is much more consistent with the Republican desire to “drill, baby, drill,” regardless of the actual results. Many environmentalists and liberals are disappointed by Obama’s apparent willingness to go against previous statements that he would not open up new areas to exploration in the face of pressure from oil companies and Republicans, who consider creating domestic sources of oil an important

part of national security efforts.

However, the debate in Washington, D.C. surrounding offshore drilling and climate change legislation more generally has been characterized by a fascinating and unexpected mix of demands and opinions, which reflects the way environmental issues, so important to people’s fundamental qualities of life, often confound expectations of traditional politic responses. For example, bipartisan officials from southeastern states are concerned about the proposed drilling’s impact on already stressed coastal ecosystems, coastlines and beaches, which are all important to these states’ incomes and even identities.

Obama’s efforts can largely be placed in the context of his desire to decrease America’s dependence on foreign oil, which he sees as part of the framework of national “energy security.”

The drilling proposal also demonstrates Obama’s prioritization of providing ever-cheaper fossil fuel resources for the American people over fully investing in alternative energy. When will policymakers realize that there will never be cheap oil for all Americans without the explicit compromise of our national security? Furthermore, the sensibility of Obama’s proposed drilling plan just doesn’t hold up to close scrutiny. Because many of the new areas to be explored were formerly protected, extensive studies will be undertaken in order to assess the feasibility and environmental impact of drilling. According to The New

Unpaid internships discriminate against low-income students Patricia Cruz

T

Guest Columnist

he article entitled “The Unpaid Intern, Legal or Not,” published in The New York Times last Friday, April 2, brings to light the recent worry by regulators that some unpaid internships being offered by companies might be illegal. Companies are taking advantage of the high value currently placed on internship experience by employers. Some are replacing paid positions with unpaid internships to save money.

This article brings to light not only the issue of illegal unpaid internships, but, more importantly, the consequences or effects of the importance that future employers place on internships. In recent years, internships have become a much more significant asset when entering the workforce, such that sending in a resumé without one often places one in the minority of applicants and at a disadvantage.

In other words, working as an unpaid intern for a big influential company looks better on a resumé than a summer job at a fast-food restaurant, for example, even if the latter does pay better.

So the resulting choice is a summer unpaid internship for experience, or a part-time job for money.

Few students nowadays are lucky enough to get both. This means that students doing an unpaid internship have to either get a parttime paying job to sustain themselves in the meantime, or already have enough money to work for no pay. This is complicated by the fact that a job listed in a resumé doesn’t have a back story attached to it; for example, a student who works in a paying fast-food job in order to pay for college or help with family expenses will probably look worse than a student who gains experience in an unpaid internship while being supported by his parents.

Experience is the essential value of an internship. But when these internships are unpaid, it marginalizes students who cannot

afford working for the whole summer without pay. While students coming from wealthier families can afford to do these internships, students whose parents don’t have the same resources or who are on their own cannot. As a result, this situation encourages established class structures, such that a person belonging to a lower social class has a diminished opportunity to obtain that desired future job and move upward on the career ladder.

Another issue exposed by the article is that students, particularly from other schools, are actually paying to work in these unpaid internships as most of them require students to receive academic credit for the experience. But what does this mean for us? We barely have a choice; we still need the experience, as it is a gateway to our chosen careers and something to put on our resumés. We need the experience so much that we’re almost willing to sacrifice our rights to a salary for it. But fortunately for us Vassar students, the Career Development Office (CDO) offers the Internship Grant Fund (IGF), which assists students with financial need on their career-related summer experiences. This is an alternate resource for students in need of financial assistance while doing a summer internship. These circumstances present in the workforce today kind of make things difficult for us, especially since we’re just starting out. If you’re not lucky enough to secure an internship at the beginning of the year, things get complicated; some have to apply for the IGF at the CDO without knowing whether they have an internship secured or not, as well as sign up for a summer job on campus as a back-up plan. I just hope we can all survive this balancing act and if not, the best thing to do would be to keep trying.

—Patricia Cruz ’12 is a Career Assistant at the Career Development Office.

York Times, there could be, for all areas newly opened to exploration, a three-year economically recoverable supply of oil and two year supply of natural gas. However, these estimates are based on seismic data that at least 30 years old, according to an article titled, “Obama to Open Offshore Areas to Oil Drilling for First Time” published in the March 30 issue of The New York Times.

It’s not that this approach to our already existing environmental crises is unexpected— while many environmentalists are rightly disappointed in this announcement, they shouldn’t be surprised, because Obama has often seemed willing to compromise his ideals for the sake of avoiding gridlock. However, instead of calling a foul on Obama’s campaign promises, environmental groups should focus on the opportunity this proposal misses to retrain the dialogue about energy security. Energy security should move from its embrace of the same old, largely fruitless path of fossil fuel intensive energy to one that overtly connects alternative energy and energy security. Even in the best of scenarios, the oil recovered from these projects, which will all be hugely cost-intensive, would be extremely limited compared with America’s energy needs.

Americans wouldn’t save at the gas pump for years to come, even if recoverable oil is found— why not invest massively in our existing and up-and-coming alternative energy technologies to reduce energy prices in the long term, with-

out continuing to pump fossil fuels into an already taxed atmosphere. Of course, the goal of reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil is a laudable one. But this approach is retrogressive, demonstrating not only that oil companies have the nation in an unacceptable stranglehold but also that America has truly lost any sense of global leadership in innovation it may have held.

Obama claims that his softening on the issue of off-shore drilling is part of an effort to generate support for the climate bill, but so far it looks as though Obama is no closer to this goal. This proposal has the ability to alienate just about everyone—from Republicans who don’t think it does enough, or who are looking for revenue sharing, to centrist and leftist Democrats who fear backlash from liberal constituents. Why wouldn’t Obama have waited to dangle this issue in front of Republicans in exchange for support on the climate bill, rather than giving it up now and hoping for support later? Obama’s administration would have a much easier time passing good environmental legislation if it was able to blow open to the public the connection between national security and moving away from fossil fuels. How better to support the troops than to eliminate the need for them to put their lives on the line so that Americans can fill up their gas tanks for the lowest price?

—Mandana Nakhai ’10 is the intern for the Sustainability Committee.

Offshore drilling must be protested DRILLING continued from page 11 happenings in our nation’s political discourse that imposes the subliminal yet foundational challenge to our democracy; that of who wields the real power in this country. It is extraordinarily evident that our government no longer acts under the mandate of the American people. A system crafted to produce policy in the best interest for the welfare of the people is clouded by the ever-commanding influence of multi-national corporate superpowers. The oil drilling decision was not made with the interest of American prosperity in mind; the studies I previously mentioned show that expanded drilling will do nothing but pad the pockets of oil interests. It was a not-so-gentle reminder that big money will fight to maintain the status quo until the last of our resources are ravaged and our planet is on the brink of literal self-destruction.

Don’t believe me? Take a hard look at the January 21, 2010 Supreme Court ruling, in the case Citizens United v.

Federal Election Commission, a decision that gives corporations more rights than people in the election process. We vote, yet our ability to truly understand the candidates, issues and policies of which are so elemental to our decisions is being constrained by the skewing bombardment of corporate money into the electoral process.

And let’s get this much straight: Oil companies have no interest in the welfare of our planet or the people who inhabit it. It has been, and will always be, about profit. I welcome a rebuttal that would enlighten me with information that points otherwise.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Chief Climate Scientist James Hanson, in collaboration with many of the world’s top climate scientists, tells us that we have five years—let me repeat, five years—to hit peak CO2 emissions in the atmosphere or risk a catastrophic situation where climate change is no longer within our control. The disastrous implications of such a scenario renders the political squabbling over who gets what meaningless. If politics continues to be business-as-usual, we should expect the worst.

I was a U.S. Youth Delegate at the UN Climate Negotiations this past December, and had the opportunity to attend a private meeting between 10 U.S. youths and the U.S. Special Envoy on Climate Change, Todd Stern and Jonathan Pershing. Although I cannot release direct quotes from this meeting, it was evident from our discussion that the Obama administration willingly recognizes that it is bound to the dominating interests and the “loudest voices” that push their policies in Washington, D.C. This was obvious during the proceeds of the negotiations.

The Obama administration boasted pathetically weak emissions cuts, non-existent “clean coal” technology and financial mechanisms that will do very little to ignite the massive transformations in our energy economy necessary to restore social and environmental justice to our nation and our world. Does that not reflect the overwhelming presence of the fossil fuel lobby in Washington today?

The Obama administration continues to project a powerful political rhetoric that, if put into practice, could transform the United States into a healthier, wealthier and more sustainable nation. A 2008 campaign advertisement, paid for by Obama for America, reads,

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

“I registered because the future won’t run on oil,” yet he supports this new plan for offshore drilling. He has demanded an “end [to] the outsized influence of lobbyists,” yet it is clear that the fossil fuel lobby maintains its stranglehold on federal energy politics. It’s time for us to hold our administration accountable. As youth, our generation will undoubtedly inherit the greatest environmental, health, social, economic and geopolitical challenges imposed by global climate change. In Copenhagen, the 2,000 youth delegates from around the globe posed the challenge to our leaders, “How old will YOU be in 2050?” That’s the amount of time that scientific consensus tells us we have to stabilize carbon in the atmosphere to below 350 parts per million to avoid irreversible, potentially catastrophic impacts on the world we live in—and most of today’s leaders won’t even be around by then. Mother Nature will not wait for us to settle our differences. We are bound to a collective fate that won’t compromise with us and won’t forgive us for our inaction. Our stake is the highest, so it’s time that our voices become the loudest. We know that the technological capacity exists for a clean energy revolution.

We know that a transformed energy economy means more jobs for us when we graduate. And we know that inaction will result in catastrophic consequences in the years to come. It’s about our future, and no one else’s.

I voted for Obama and still believe true systems change is possible in this country, change that has been dramatically pronounced in speeches but has yet to be translated into action. In 2008, we were promised that “now is the time to end this addiction [to oil], and to understand that drilling...is not a long-term solution.”

Obama was quoted saying, “Our energy problem has become an energy crisis because no matter how wellintentioned the promise, they all fall victim to the same Washington politics that has only become more divided and dishonest; more beholden to the powerful interests that have the biggest stake in the status quo.” What we were promised is not what is being delivered, and it’s time to demand accountability from our leadership.

So what do we need? First and foremost, we need to clean up Washington and uphold our rights as citizens to determine our future. We need to end the subsidization of big oil and the fossil fuel industry, and a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants. We need massive investment in cutting-edge alternative energy technology that will spawn new industries and lift millions of Americans out of poverty and into safe, well-paying and carbon-reducing jobs. And we need to demand this from our leaders, now. In the upcoming weeks, comprehensive climate legislation (Kerry-Lieberman-Graham Energy Plan) is set to be introduced in Congress. We need to ensure that the content of this legislation demands full accountability from the fossil fuel industry, and includes emissions reductions targets that reflect our nation’s historic responsibility for the climate crisis.

We need to be calling and writing our senators, storming the halls of Congress and calling out big oil for its injustices. I’ll be in the front lines—are you with me?

—Ethan Buckner ’13 is a member of the Vassar Greens.

HUMOR & SATIRE

April 15, 2010

Page 13

OPINIONS

Awk-appella a central facet of Vassar College culture Alanna Okun

I

Assistant Opinions Editor

sing a lot. Between Women’s Chorus and the Night Owls*, my entire life is basically comprised of singing chicks in black dresses. It’s like that first scene with all the harmonizing nuns in The Sound of Music, only you can never turn it off. Outside of rehearsals, I can usually be found crooning my way through the A*Teens’ entire catalogue in the privacy of my own thin-walled bedroom; my hallmates find me delightful.

And I’m not alone—on this campus, it feels like everyone and their lab partner is desperate to display their singing chops to the unwitting audience that is the Vassar student body.

If you’re in it for the academic credit or are just plain fancy, there are multiple Music Department choirs you can audition for.

Women’s Chorus, or “WoCo,” as the sexy popular kids say, has traveled across the globe, to Spain and Prague and other unimaginably exotic locales. Since I’ve been a member, we’ve gone to Boston and Philadelphia. The recession is the best! We sing songs about our lady parts, our gowns are ample enough to house an entire homeless family, and our Soprano I section is so adorable you just want to pinch its cheeks and carry it around in a pouch. But while I love WoCo dearly, it’s a cappella that will always occupy a special place in my heart.

I didn’t realize before coming to Vassar that a cappella, like ultimate frisbee**, being offended by things and free dental dams, is an absolute craze at college. According to my meticulous scientific research, Vassar is home to roughly 1.5 a cappella groups per capita. We have something called the A Cappella Alliance, for God’s sake—it sounds like it could take down the VSA without even trying. Even if you’ve never voluntarily attended an a cappella concert, you’ve definitely been aurally assaulted if you’ve spent any time in or around the Rose Parlor, a dorm multi-purpose room or the great outdoors. We may be frail, unathletic

and pasty, but we cover a lot of ground.

This pervasiveness makes perfect sense.

A cappella features Vassar’s favorite things: bad wordplay, semi-ironic enthusiasm and a safe forum in which straight girls can objectify gay boys. Besides, we don’t have Greek life here (damn, maybe I should make a Facebook group about that...) so we need another drunken, vaguely cultish system to fill the void. And there are seemingly infinite groups for you to choose from. There’s BAM!, the greatest onomatopoetic Broadway a cappella group Vassar has ever seen.

There’s the Vastards. (Get it? Do you get it?

It’s like a pun.) And of course there’s my own beloved group, the Night Owls. Who has 28 thumbs and likes to talk about birth control and paint its nails during rehearsal time? This guy.

For real, though, I love a cappella. Only a heartless troll couldn’t be moved by the Axies’ bright red faces as they strain to reach the highest notes of U2’s oeuvre.

And sometimes I get so excited at the prospect of hearing Matthew Vassar’s finest co-ed group, I suffer from Pre-Minstrel Syndrome. Because whether you’re singing goofy songs onstage or just watching the ‘nads who do, there’s this sense of pure fun and unity that can only be found otherwise through the use of heavy narcotics. Who hasn’t dreamed of a utopian world where all communication takes place in the form of “doo”s and “bah”s? After hours spent incarcerated in the library or fighting with your klepto roommate or explaining to your parents why you charged over $2,000 worth of Red Bull at the Bookstore, sometimes it’s nice just to hear a few power ballads. We could all use an escape now and then, and the roughly 2,400 singers of Vassar College are only too happy to provide one, free of charge and volume control.

By the way, if the Vassar administrators ever decide to get together and sing some of Poison’s greatest hits sans instruments, I’d like to suggest “A Cappyella” as a potential name. Just sayin’.

My Sunday in the Library Michael Mestitz

E

Guest Columnist

ight-thirty a.m.: Wake up bright and early.

Turn off my alarm, then go back to sleep.

11 a.m.: Wake up again and skip breakfast (lunch?), opting to just get coffee #1 instead.

Head to the Thompson Memorial Library. Hipster sitting at my favorite table. Wish her harm.

Sit under the stained glass window instead.

11:06 a.m.: Make “to-do list;” first item is “finish to-do list.” Cross that one off. What a productive morning!

11:07 a.m.: Log on to Facebook. Update status, like random stuff and wall posts that I don’t even actually like that much.

11:20 to 11:44 a.m.: Facebook stalk the 562 photos of the hottie in my Colonial America class.

11:48 a.m.: Go to the Retreat for coffee #2.

12:09 to 12:50 p.m.: Do reading for Monday class. Consider writing Blackboard post.

12:51 to 1:13 p.m.: Episode of Scrubs on Hulu.

1:13 to 1:35 p.m.: Episode of The Simpsons on Hulu.

1:35 to 2:12 p.m.: Facebook again, and Facebook chat with friends from high school.

2:13 p.m.: Embark on trip to get coffee #3 and check my mailbox.

2:32 p.m.: Return to the Library and down coffee #3. Lady Cornaro is watching me and it makes me nervous, so I move to a reading room and listen to the person next to me cough every 20 to 30 seconds. Put in earbuds and listen to “Single Ladies.”

2:38 to 3 p.m.: Sloppily-written Blackboard post complete. Cross that off to-do list.

3:02 to 3:46 p.m.: Episode of The West Wing streamed online. God, Allison Janney is awesome. Start second episode in the background while I do philosophy reading.

3:55 p.m.: Stop philosophy reading, keep watching West Wing.

4:30 p.m.: West Wing ends. Back to philosophy reading, for real.

4:34 to 4:49 p.m.: Facebook again!

5:03 p.m.: Finish philosophy reading, head over to the Retreat to get coffee #4. I don’t have the Retreat points or VCash to buy real food there, but I seem to be subsisting fine off coffee so far; not hungry at all, though my foot now twitches constantly.

5:40 p.m.: Return to the Library and secure table near the Media Cloisters. Take that, hipsters.

5:41 to 7 p.m.: Write research paper proposal. Cross that off the to-do list and feel good about myself for a while. Decide to reward my diligent work with YouTube videos.

7:03 to 7:26 p.m.: Videos of small animals.

7:27 to 7:39 p.m.: Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” video, then the parody video.

7:45 p.m.: Coffee #5 acquired! Thanks, Matthew’s Bean!

7:47 p.m.: Get dizzy on the spiral stairs and have to sit down, terrifying a freshman that almost trips over me on her way down. Sorry.

7:50 p.m.: Return to the Bean and buy a muffin for sustenance, then head back to my table.

7:51 to 9:40 p.m.: Reading for classes. I discover multiple times that I haven’t been actually reading the words so much as looking at them for a while and flipping to the next page.

Problematic.

9:44 p.m.: Would coffee #6 be a good idea at this point? Probably not.

9:45 p.m.: Get coffee #6 anyway.

9:46 to 9:58 p.m.: Catch up on Texts From Last Night while downing coffee #6.

1:15 a.m.: Wake up when the Library “get the hell out” bell rings. No recollection of the past three hours, but surrounded by books from the Art Library on Surrealist painting with a note in my handwriting that reads, “But it IS a pipe.” I suspect a coffee overdose shut down my higher brain functions for a while. Something tells me I’m done for the night.

1:16 a.m.: ...But not before I fit in last week’s Private Practice on Hulu.

ADVERTISEMENT

*

Fun fact! The Night Owls are allegedly the longest running all-female collegiate a cappella group in the country. (Say that five times fast. Now stop, you look like a fool.) Except that over the summer, I met a former member of the Smith College Smithereens who made the exact same claim about her group. Clearly the only solution in this matter is a fight to the mofuckin’ death.

** Vassar should have a Penultimate Frisbee team, where the game never quite ends and nobody wins.

Weekly Calendar: 4/8 - 4/14

by Kelly Stout, Features Editor

THURSDAY, 4/15

10 p.m. Middle School Mug Night. I’m a genie in a bottle baby, you

5:30 p.m. “Living Within the Borderlands of Gender” Lecture.

12 p.m. Admissions Open House. This is a perfect opportunity

gotta rub me the right way. (Or at all! Am I right, ladies?) The Mug.

SATURDAY, 4/17

The first in the Surviving the Metropolis-Wasteland of Identity lecture series. Next week’s iteration: “Subsisting on a Diet of Gender Normativity.” Taylor Hall 201.

12 p.m. Hip Hop 101 Throwback Jam. Chase it with Peanut Butter if it burns your throat. The Quad.

TUESDAY, 4/20

for drunken heckling, junior boys! Martel Theater.

3 p.m. Tea. With senior theses due left and right, it’s truly a

party in the li-brar-ay. But that means it’s time for a brief list of LIBE PARTAYY FOULS on this PG-13 rated version of the weekly calendar! Rose Parlor.

7 p.m. Improv Show. Alternative title considered: your English

presentation you didn’t realize you had to give until after class started. “I’d really like to discuss the title of this work. I mean, what does Moby Dick really mean?” Rocky 300.

2 p.m. Tie-Dye Tuesday. Tuesday is clearly going to be a pro7 p.m. ViCE Concert: Flaming Lips. The real show happens

on Monday during the snack break at your urban studies seminar when everyone deconstructs in a casual but analytical way why this was a problematic event. Mid-Hudson Civic Center.

SUNDAY, 4/18

FRIDAY, 4/16

11:30 a.m. Squirm 10 year Anniversary. A reminder that

3 p.m. Tea. Libez libido: Take that petting elsewhere, girl in the

Squirm, the bedrock of campus porn culture, has been around for longer than you’ve been able to make anyone’s bed rock.

Kenyon Hall 217.

romper and Keds last Wednesday night! Honestly. If I have to write a thesis on “The Diminishment of the Self in Suburban Spaces of the 1940s and ’50s” and submit to an involuntary oath of celibacy, I’d rather not have to watch you and your NoViCEey boy toy cuddle in special collections. Rose Parlor.

8 p.m. Indecent Exposure Spring Show. Wait, didn’t this already happen at the THs this weekend? Or was that the unsanctioned lax bro version? Ely Hall Aula.

MONDAY, 4/19 3 p.m. Tea. Reserve desk covetousness: Thank you to the kind

soul who kept the reserve desk’s only copy of The Bridge on the River Kwai for four days. No really, thank you so much. I felt totally prepared for my film seminar and my Moodle post based only on the film’s Wikipedia entry rocked. Rose Parlor.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

ductive day for everyone! Library Lawn.

3 p.m. Tea. 24-hour hold shelf hegemony: To he or she who is writing an obviously extensive paper on infrastructure and civil society in postwar Monrovia, I commend your (thorough!) research, but all I wanted was to put my solitary book on the shelf.

Can’t there be room for my paper on Darwin too? Rose Parlor.

WEDNESDAY, 4/21 11 a.m. Blood Drive. Hosted by Edward Cullen and friends.

Don’t act like you haven’t read Twilight, person at the table pretending not to get this lame joke. Villard Room.

3 p.m. Tea. The Movie Move: It’s a Thursday night. I’m really thrilled that you’re waltzing over to the reserve desk to check out Annie Hall to watch in your dorm room with your baby hipster friends, but my history thesis is due in ONE WEEEK!!@!@!@!@!! GET OUT OF HERE!!!!! Rose Parlor.

ARTS

Page 14

April 15, 2010

The Hood Internet mashes disparate elements Esther Clowney

W

Reporter

flickr.com

flickr.com

hen Steve Reidell bought the domain name thehoodinternet.com in 2007, he intended to use the page to show his friends the mashups he’d started making with bandmate Aaron Brinks.

“Aaron and I started listening to mashups by artists like Sammy Bananas and Them Jeans when we were both living in Chicago,” Reidell said. “It was also around the same time that Girl Talk released Night Ripper. We thought, ‘Hey, we could do this.’”

But unlike the countless others who have listened to Girl Talk and thought, “Hey, I could do this,” Reidell actually did it. The Hood Internet took off almost immediately, bolstered by buzz on influential music blogs like Gorilla vs. Bear. “The Internet caught hold of it, and we got a following right off the bat,” said Reidell, who quit his day job earlier this year to focus more on touring, including a stop in Poughkeepsie this week to open for The Flaming Lips at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center.

Christine Yu ’10, chair of Vassar College Entertainment (ViCE) Music, said that the Music Committee has been interested in booking The Hood Internet all year, but were waiting for the right time.

“It will be great to have an opener playing recognizable songs, to get people hyped up,” said Yu. Brinks and Reidell generally stick to the same infectious formula, pairing popular indie instrumentals with the vocals from popular rap songs.

“We try to keep our live sets really fun and dancey,” Reidell said.

The Hood Internet capitalize on the popularity of the songs they remix. “People respond to things that

Members of the group The Hood Internet Steve Reidell and Aaron Brinks, pictured above, will be opening for The Flaming Lips at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center on April 17. The pair, who just finished a post-South by Southwest tour with the band Tobacco, will start performing at 7:30 p.m. They are currently working on a new record. they remember. Hearing something in a different context perks your ears up, and our songs reference two or three songs at once. They are an ADD mess,” said Reidell.

Reidell is hesitant to give himself too much credit for the success of The Hood Internet. “It’s not a super involved process,” he said. “In ways, mashups are like ice cream cake or cake batter ice cream. The credit for deliciousness must be given to the independent brilliance of the two ingredients, but you can’t forget about the genius who thought to combine them.”

“So far, The Hood Internet hasn’t built anything from the ground up,”

he said. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a difference between a good mashup and a bad one. “It’s argued that anyone can make a mashup.

That’s kind of true, but to be good at it there are certain things you have to have in place.

We don’t carelessly slap track A on top of track B. We cut up the songs to make them fit the same verse-chorus-verse structure. We make sure the keys match. The rapper’s flow has to have a cadence that complements the beat,” said Reidell.

Mashups can reveal hidden qualities in their source material. “I did a mix of Spank Rock and Burial that

really works, even though the lyrics are very playful and the song quite dark,” Reidell said. In selecting song pairings, the duo seems to value the combative over the compatible.

Reidell and Brinks set up their song names (and accompanying photoshopped images) as battles between opposing forces, as if to ask, “Who do you think would win in a fight: Snoop Dogg or Architecture in Helsinki?”

Pop songs can become engrained in the brain to the extent that their existence begins to feel like an inevitability. By decomposing and reconstructing popular music, mashup artists illuminate the count-

less choices that go into writing and producing a song. They can make you re-evaluate the inevitability of a song and think about where else the track could have gone.

Reidell and Brinks just finished a post-South by Southwest tour with the synth-heavy psychedelic band Tobacco. They are currently working on a mashup-free Hood Internet record. “It’s like the origin story of the Postal Service, except online,” Reidell said. “We write part of a song, then send it to other people who contribute parts. We’re still doing what we do, combining disparate elements, but this one we’re really producing.”

Production designer a creator of bizarre, beautiful worlds Danielle Nedivi Reporter

W

life.com

hen you think of memorable production design in films, some images come to mind most vividly. There’s the washed-out four-story ship in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, complete with a sauna and flashlightequipped dolphins. There’s nearly every scene in Across the Universe—from the dreary gray Liverpool streets to the art studio with “bleeding” pinned strawberries. There’s the cramped turquoise interior of the Darjeeling Limited Indian Railways train, and there’s the pristine, muted ’50s décor of Far From Heaven. All of these have one major commonality: They were dreamed up by Mark Friedberg.

Friedberg is a movie production designer who will soon be visiting Vassar for an imagefilled lecture and discussion of his craft. The event, sponsored by the Film Department and Vassar Filmmakers, will take place at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 21 in Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film 109 and will follow a screening of another of his visually creative films, Synecdoche, New York.

The production designer is in charge of the look of the film and collaborates with everyone from the director to costume designer to create an overall aesthetic. “I try to be organized, well-researched and open to randomness all at the same time,” said Friedberg of his work.

“Often the inspiration comes from unexpected places. I prefer to take chances, and when they work then the sets really sing.” “Often the inspiration comes from unexpected places. I prefer to take chances, and when they work then the sets really sing.” The busy filmmaker says the process can get intense, explaining, “I worked 10 months without a day off on Life Aquatic.

Not sleeping too much now.”

Friedberg, who was a United States history and sculpture double major at Brown Univer-

sity, said his favorite part of production design is the intensive historical research he does beforehand. “I’ve always loved history and like to pretend that I live in past cultures. I am more curious about what is the same rather than what is different,” Friedberg said.

The research that goes into creating movie settings can vary widely: “Ours is an intensive course on whichever world we are inhabiting for that story. What I love about our business is the randomness of the worlds I get to make.

One day it’s Pollack in the 1940 and ’50s; the next it’s third century India,” said Friedberg.

One frontier Friedberg has yet to interpret: “I’d love to do the future. Haven’t gotten there yet.”

There is a reason his impressive résumé is made up of films that are visually stunning as well as critically acclaimed. “I am more interested in working on a good movie than a good design opportunity,” said Friedberg. He usually chooses his films based on the director, explaining, “The sets are only one part of a film.

Good sets on a bad film means nothing. Good directors make good films.”

He has worked with his fair share of such directors, from Charlie Kaufman to Wes Anderson. Of the latter he says, “He is the most particular director but is one of the most fun. He loves to make things that are central to his storytelling—a half ship, a train, a submarine…”

For those who hope to break into the film industry advises, “Start working on any film you think could be good. Work out the money part later.” To all students, he adds that the journey is what matters: “Study hard, graduate, then get in a car and drive. Figure out where you are going once you get there. These are your exploring years.” Lastly, he stresses, “Don’t compromise yourself.”

Assistant Professor of Film Kathleen Man, with the help of Vassar Filmmakers and a

Movie production designer Mark Friedberg, pictured above, will speak on April 21 at 7 p.m. in the Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film. Friedberg has worked on films such as Across the Universe. grant from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, has organized a yearlong film lecturer series. The lectures have brought the likes of Oscar-winning actor Keith Carradine and rising independent director Kelly Reichardt. Man is grateful for all of the big names who have taken the time to discuss their careers with students. “It is an amazing opportunity to meet top film professionals in such an intimate setting, and to learn from this really high caliber group of people,” said Man. “It really wouldn’t be possible if all of them weren’t so kind to give some of their time.”

Man emphasized that hearing from successful filmmakers is an invaluable experience. “All that goes into the making of a film goes way

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

beyond what film school can teach. So in our case, we’re bringing the professionals here.”

Of Friedberg, she says she has seen most of his films and has long admired his diverse work.

“He’s done it all,” she marveled.

Grace Statwick ’12, who will soon replace current Vassar Filmmakers president Kyle Porter ’10, is planning on becoming a production designer and is excited to learn more about Friedberg’s experience. “I feel like every film student here wants to direct,” said Statwick.

“But production design is, to me, the coolest way I know how to tell a story. It is essential for film: It’s the overall concept, the feel of the life we live for the two hours we’re watching. And it’s the magic—the tricks employed through which we believe a film is real life.”

April 15, 2010

ARTS

Page 15

Griot Dance a celebration of African storytelling David Lopez

P

Reporter

L

VRDT dancers have been working on the project throughout the year and have performed specific dances from it for their spring showings. Dana Cass ’11 is one of the dancers involved in the project; she recalls being especially moved by a dance inspired by a story Rooks heard about the Rwandan genocide. A captured girl was about to be executed, but when it was discovered that she was a dancer, her captors let her live in exchange for a dance.

“A lot of the show is based on a lot of emotionally resonant material,” said Cass.

Rooks’s favorite part of putting together this caliber of dance pieces has been working many great artists. Rooks has little fear because the audience appreciates artists who can capture precisely the intent of the work. “We admire dances, I think because we admire dancers,” wrote Rooks.

Dance and art forms such as “The Griot Dance” continue to inspire people today because their ability to communicate with people from all different walks of life. Dance does not have to be all about fancy footwork, but being able to transcend human emotional responses common to all of us. “Dance is a ‘total’ art form that speaks to so many people in every world culture,” wrote Rooks. “Hopefully [‘The Griot Dance’] takes people to a place of the extraordinary, because it happens even in the most abstract dance works, and dancers are divinely created individuals.”

“The Griot Dance” will be performed on April 16 at 8 p.m. in The Frances Daly Fergusson Dance Theater in Kenyon Hall. Reservations for general seating are upon request by e-mailing dancetix@vassar.edu.

flickr.com/vassarcollegemedia

rofessor of Dance Steve Rooks kept a journal as he traveled through Lusaka, Zambia.

Everything he wrote down and saw would one day be an influence for a dance piece. As he began to think of creating a program, he drew on his own exploration of Africa and even a student’s gripping experience with Rwandan captors. The dancer’s work became a reality as dancers and musicians from all over the nation became involved in Rook’s vision of telling a story about African cultures and music. ike many forms of art, dance is a universal language spoken through the human body: Africa may seem foreign, but one can understand the emotional message through Rook’s choreography in “The Griot Dance.” In an emailed statement Rooks wrote, “‘The Griot Dance’ is a collage of works that I have been in some way informed by music, culture or events that have occurred on the African continent.”

From sheer personal inspiration came dance works that celebrate the unique place that is Africa.

“The Griot Dance” gets its name from the West African term for storyteller, and was chosen to define the performance as a set of narratives about the choreographer’s experiences of Africa. The program is divided into two parts: The first contains shorter pieces, while the second half is centered on Rooks’ recent trip to Zambia. This second half includes a multi-media piece called “Notes from Zambia,” inspired by excerpts from his journal.

“The last half of the work was inspired by my 2008 mission trip to Lusaka, Zambia,” wrote Rooks. “I worked on a residential farm for about

a week, and also traveled on a safari. Each piece of music has some personal connection. I was inspired by photo journals, images from news reports, first hand accounts and a story from one of my students.”

Rooks has been preparing for this dance production for over a year. Coordinating rehearsal schedules with people from different locations around the country has been a hurdle Rooks has had to overcome. “I had to spend part of Spring Break in Houston, and the New York dancers have had to travel to Poughkeepsie on some weekends,” wrote Rooks.

“The Griot Dance” will include dancers and musicians from different parts of the country as well as Vassar’s finest student performers. The dance pieces will feature Lecturer in Dance and Assistant Director of Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre (VRDT) Kathy Wildberger, members of VRDT, dancers from the Alvin Ailey School in New York and members of the Ad Deum Dance Company of Houston, Texas. The music they will dance to includes selections by contemporary African singersongwriters, a composition by Adjunct Artist in Dance Howard Kilik and works by former Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart.

The dances themselves are meant to be commemorative and exciting, rather than forcing the audience to think, ponder and evaluate what they just saw. “There are some challenges, but the pieces by design are not an attempt to be ‘cutting edge.’ The dances are a bit more programmatic and accessible,” wrote Rooks.

“I think the dances are ‘more celebratory than cerebral.’ I am hoping people will have a good time. There are some incredible dancers, and some great music and media.”

Joey Army ’10 of the Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre performs Steve Rooks’s “The Griot Dance.”

Do you realize The Flaming Lips are coming?? Yeah, yeah yeah.

flickr.com

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Lead singer for the Flaming Lips, Wayne Coyne, crowd surfs in a clear, giant ball. The Flaming Lips have a reputation for over-the-top performances filled with special effects and wild set pieces. nulla facip el ullam ver augue te tetum vel ut lore facilla ndignibh estrud tinim eraesse modoluptat, vel dolor si.

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MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

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ARTS

Page 16

Philaletheis to stage Woody Allen comedy Sydney Hessel Guest Reporter

P

Schaeffer stanza-bove the rest Rachael Borné Reporter

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Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News

op words on campus these days include “po-mo,” “obvs” and “totes,” but the star of the bunch would have to be “meta.” Not sure what it means exactly? Neither are most, but Emmaline Keddy-Hector ’11 and the Philaletheis show “God,” a Woody Allen play written in the ’70s, should help to clarify: “Meta-theater” is a production that creates a commentary about its own existence. “God,” which is only 50 minutes long, is self-aware and then some, making it a perfect example. It will be staged in Rockefeller Hall 200 Thursday, April 15 at 9 p.m., and April 16 at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.

“God” is Keddy-Hector’s first time directing a full-length theatrical piece, but she doesn’t plan on playing it safe. From the start, she wanted to do something short and comedic. The script caught her eye particularly because of its deviance. “I really appreciated how it poked fun at theater conventions and beliefs,” she explained. “Drama students get so caught up in theater with a capital T and art with a capital A. ‘God’ looks at things people assume and says that’s silly.”

The meta-theatricality of the work is where the humor nests, alongside a sprinkle of puns and slapstick jests, but it is the changing locations, historical settings and characters that propel the comedy forward. As Keddy-Hector explains, the show “plays with the genre and frame of Greek theater…applied to the modern for a comic effect.”

“God” opens in ancient Greece with an actor and writer discussing how to end the play they are working on. This play within a play scenario leads to a variety of experiences: The audience is addressed, locations shift from Athens to Rockefeller Hall 200 itself, Woody Allen is put on the phone, and we see such diverse characters as Blanche Dubois and Groucho Marx.

The play is also very New York City-centric, with references to the city and a few to Vassar.

“When people ask about plot, I’m not sure what to say,” said Keddy-Hector. “Part of the point is that it evolves and devolves and breaks apart and comes back together.”

Meta-theater is surprisingly not as new as the “that’s so meta!” you might overhear while crossing the Retreat with an unassuming cheeseburger in hand. The term typically denotes a theatrical piece which draws attention to the literal circumstances of its own production, often by breaking the fourth wall or by staging “a play within a play.” Such self-referential tactics have been a ploy of dramatists since the time of Shakespeare; “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “The Tempest” both, in fact, utilize “meta” scenarios. In the last century, Tennessee Williams employed the use of meta-theater with “The Two-Character Play,” which also uses the same “play within a play” mechanism that “God” does.

Being an actor playing an actor—the job of Dylan Evans ’12—epitomizes the joy, difficulty and comedy inherent of the blurry, inside out, Tim O’Brien-type play world. “It has been a process figuring out how to negotiate the role of an actor…with an actual actor,” Keddy-Hector said. Evans will be playing Diabetes alongside the other main characters, Doris and the writer Hepatitis, respectively played by Emily Ludolph ’12 and Kartik Naram ’10.

“One of the recurring themes of the play is this kind of absurd existentialism, so being an actor playing an actor really fits well into the play. Diabetes is a typical actor, and being at Vassar, where art and especially theater is so prominent, it is kind of fun to poke fun at the stereotypical ‘actor,’” Dylan adds.

While creating a comedy may be particularly exciting, Keddy-Hector also reflected with a smile that, “Sometimes directing something funny is harder than directing something serious.” Her grin is slightly enigmatic; maybe Keddy-Hector is more meta than most can manage. Either way, “God” will certainly provide an excellent comedic outlet for those suffering under the bipolarity of the weather, or at least another reason to bust out our favorite chirpy two-syllable prefix.

April 15, 2010

Emily Schaeffer ’12, pictured above, has been writing poetry since elementary school. Schaeffer helps run Word Smiths, Vassar’s poetry club. utpat veriusc ilissed tie tin ea at. Duipis dit, sum quat. Ut nit utpatie tem ing exero core molore tat. Tat laor ad mincin eu feu facilit lum zzrit laorper iniatum sandrem dignis nonsectet iriuscilit nim delit, senim acidui te vulla aci blaoreet praessit utem augiam quis alisl ip exero con-

Campus Canvas A bi-weekly space highlighting the creative pursuits of student-artists

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we also build icicles it is a difficult process, somewhere between threading needles and balancing pennies. they must be layered like candles but without the warm envelope of wax, chiseled and dimpled, but without the use of hammers or anvils. and they must always be rooted in the upside down, instilled with the conviction that sky is ground.

—Zan Schmidt ‘12, religion major currently enrolled in Darkroom Photography

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

—Emma Schaeffer ’12

April 15, 2010

ARTS

Page 17

Quarantine the past: The Best of Pavement Quarantine the Past: The Best of Pavement Pavement [Matador]

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ast year, Pavement announced a reunion of sorts, and I have to admit that it didn’t sit well with me. Not that I don’t like Pavement or anything. Like any self-important asshole who writes about music for fun, I love Pavement. The problem is that Pavement’s reunion threatens one of the things that I love most about Pavement: the simplicity and definitiveness of their catalogue. Pavement was only around for 10 years, they only released five records, and not one of those records was bad. Pavement exited the world with a succinct, nearly perfect body of work, leaving the fanboys and Internet scribes forever drooling, doomed for eternity to make overblown (if not somewhat salient) proclamations about the band’s greatness. And after all, Pavement made the right move by breaking up in 1999. Most of the time, it’s better to quit when you’re ahead. The Velvet Underground only released four records with their core lineup. Arrested Development only lasted three seasons. The Beatles barely survived a full decade. I rest my case.

And so here comes the best band of the ’90s, all members well into middle age, planning a veritable world tour with a fresh slate of summer festival dates. Though they haven’t yet made any plans for going into the studio, the writing is on the wall. And even if Pavement did record another record, it could very well be brilliant. But in my mind at least, their legacy will be forever tainted.

So instead of worrying myself silly about Pavement’s hypothetical new record, I’ve been listening to the classics, the songs that

made me and countless others like me fall in love with these guys in the first place. And fortunately for me, Matador Records has released an excellent—yet often predictable— best of record to capitalize on the reunion. If by some inconceivable circumstance you’ve forgotten what makes this band so special, Quarantine The Past: The Best of Pavement will do a damn good job of reminding you.

The only negative to Quarantine The Past: The Best of Pavement is that it actually is a best-of record. Practically every album and EP is represented, and the compilers of this album have done a superb job of getting all the band’s standouts in one place. Though a best-of record isn’t supposed to unearth the deep cuts and unheard b-sides, Quarantine The Past: The Best of Pavement essentially leaves the hardcore fans with a mixtape that they could have made themselves on iTunes.

So while the record doesn’t disappoint, it definitely doesn’t surprise either. These songs didn’t really need to be repackaged, but doing so hasn’t diminished their value at all.

Case in point: “Gold Soundz” has been taken from its place mid-way through Pavement’s classic 1994 record, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, and plunked right at the start of Quarantine The Past. (Side note for the astute listeners out there, “quarantine the past” is a lyric from “Gold Soundz.”) For some reason, “Gold Soundz” just doesn’t feel like the kind of song that would open an album; it’s one of those tracks that grows on you.

Regardless, it still shines with all its glory: the sloppily-interlocking guitar arpeggios, Stephen Malkmus’ poetically nonsensical talk-sung vocals, the part where everything drops out and the bass waits for the guitars to noodle their way back into the song. I hate to say it, but they really don’t make ’em like they used to.

I have to give the compilers of Quaran-

tine The Past credit for not relying too heavily on Pavement’s early twin masterpieces, Slanted and Enchanted and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. They’ve scooped up the obvious tracks from these records like “Summer Babe (Winter Version)” and “Cut Your Hair,” but they’ve also paid homage to Pavement’s later records, especially 1997’s Brighten The Corners. From that record comes the punky energy of “Embassy Row” and the poppy simplicity of “Stereo.” They’ve even managed to pull a few tracks off of the early EP Watery, Domestic, including “Debris Slide,” a short and bittersweet knockout that seems to summarize and foreshadow the band’s entire career, from devilishly noisy dissonance to a sing-along “bah bah bah bah bah” chorus.

While these are songs that most fans have heard before, it’s nice to see them getting the attention they deserve.

When all is said and done, Quarantine The Past is basically a money-grabbing ploy and a relatively useless exercise for a band whose entire catalogue plays like a best of record.

But these songs still kill, and the record could inspire the uninitiated to follow suit and discover Pavement. And yes, despite my neurotic tendencies, Quarantine The Past does assuage my fears about the Pavement reunion, if only momentarily. Pavement could announce tomorrow that they’re working on a prog-rock concept record about the construction of the Eerie Canal, but at least I know that I still have “Gold Soundz” and “Range Life” and “Spit On A Stranger” and every other magnificent song on Quarantine The Past. Who knows, maybe I’ll attend the second Pavement reunion tour 20 years from now. Just as long as they don’t release any new records.

—Martin Bergman ’12 is a Jewish studies major writing a bi-weekly column on recently released albums.

Hip Hop 101 Jam bridges communities HIP HOP continued from page 1 Hop 101 member Jay Leff ’10, “What’s really exciting about this event for us is Throwback Jam usually brings a more old-school vibe.”

This “vibe” is well-represented in this year’s line-up. In addition to the Dynamic Rockers, a b-boy crew from New York City that was founded in 1979 and has been credited with bringing break dancing to the mainstream, rapper Big Daddy Kane will perform, bringing with him a legacy dating back to the ’80s.

“He brought the internal rhyme scheme to hip-hop,” said Leff. “So essentially, like, one break from his verses will have four rhymes within it. Eminem, Jay-Z and Snoop all consider him their biggest influence. He’s old, but he can still rock.”

For Big Daddy Kane, this will be a somewhat atypical performance, but an exciting one nonetheless. “I’m just a person that loves hip hop music,” said Kane in a phone interview, “and I appreciate those that appreciate it. I don’t really know what to expect, but I’m looking forward to it.”

But this year’s Throwback Jam doesn’t just celebrate hip-hop’s origins; it looks to its future, as well. Performers like J.Cole and Ra the MC, though not yet mainstream stalwarts, could be the next big thing. Carmichael described Cole as “this young guy who’s being heralded as kind of the future of hip-hop,” noting his recent press exposure in hip hop magazines like XXL and The Source. “Jay-Z signed him,” she continued. “Jay-Z kind of brought him out on his new album, The Blueprint 3, which is pretty significant and telling of how dope this guy is.”

“What’s pretty cool about J.Cole,” added Leff, “is that he’s under the radar right now, but I’m pretty sure every person on this campus will know who he is in the next year or

two.”

Ironically, Kane’s relationship with Jay-Z before he rose to fame is comparable to the one Jay-Z has with Cole, bringing a sense of continuity to the varied line-up. Of Jay-Z, said Kane, “He’s just someone that used to come on the road with us in the ’90s.”

Ra the MC, a DC-based rapper, will be the first woman to perform at Throwback since Carmichael and Leff became involved. For Carmichael, this is an especially important performance. “I’m writing my thesis on female rappers,” she explained, “and she was someone I interviewed as part of the project. And I really wanted before I left to have a woman on that stage because it’s been very male dominated… It’s just exciting to see a woman kind of rock the mic like we’re used to seeing men do.”

Though it’s exciting for Hip Hop 101 to feature these artists, the organization has an issue with name recognition of the performers it brings. Unlike other groups such as NoViCE, Hip Hop 101 doesn’t try to make a point of featuring obscure artists. Said Leff, “One thing we’ve struggled with is having name recognition,” said Leff. “If you’re someone who doesn’t necessarily involve yourself in the hip-hop culture, then it’s hard to know these names because they’re older or under the mainstream radar.”

The live experience provides an opportunity for this to reach beyond the usual audience; said Kane, “If you enjoy the stage show, even if you may be unfamiliar with the music, I think you can still have a good time and enjoy yourself.”

Throwback Jam stresses universality, allowing music to connect seemingly disparate communities, whether or not the artists are well-known in either. “The other big component of this event is that it’s free and explicitly

open to the public,” said Leff. “The attendance is generally 50-50 Vassar and Poughkeepsie community. It’s a wonderful way to get those two communities in the same space.”

In Kane’s own experience, looking back to the early history of hip-hop, an intermingling of different groups has always been an essential part of the culture.

“You look back to the beginning of hip-hop in the ’70s,” he said, “We’re talking about rapping, talking about DJing, talking about break dancing. We’re talking about doing the human beat box, we’re talking about fashion, that time period, you know. You had a lot of black cats that were rapping. But you also had some white guys that were DJing. You had… all the disco fever that made it possible for hip-hop fans to have a place to party so it wouldn’t have to be in an abandoned building.”

“It’s always been a multicultural thing,” he added.

Specifically referencing recent events such as the Free Weezy: A Mug Night fiasco, Carmichael pointed to Throwback Jam as an opportunity to deal with and move past acknowledged issues within the Vassar community.

“Recent events on campus make it clear that we’re still not sure how to talk about those kinds of tensions, like a white person appropriating hip-hop culture,” Carmichael continued. “I would encourage people who are still like weary about those tensions or upset about those tensions to get a chance to engage in a way that isn’t on the Internet or isn’t necessarily antagonistic. Because I think there are productive forms of hip-hop on this campus and we could learn from them.”

At the end of the day, an event like Throwback Jam is an opportunity to loosen up, eat some barbecue and have fun; said Kane, “I’m looking forward to coming out to Poughkeepsie and having a good time.”

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

“Strauss’ ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’”

Andrew Gaines ’12 “This song called ‘You’ve Got Me Wrapped Around Your Little Finger’ by Beth Rowley. All day. Everyday.”

Julia Sohn ‘12 and Lizzie Crabb ‘12

“‘Home’ by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros”

Amelia Maxfield ’10 and Kaleigh Behe ’11

“Röyksopp, Moby and Calvin Harris”

Chiara Kuryan ’11

“Ray LaMontagne”

Christian Nadell ’13

“Outkast, LaRoux and the Knife”

Ricky Goldman ’12 —Carrie Hojnicki Arts Editor

SPORTS

Page 18

April 15, 2010

LeBron, the Vassar rowers contemplate future Knicks and A free agency Kyle Chea and Christina Peltier Guest Columnists

Andy Sussman

Image courtesy of Kamie Caschette

T

Guest Columnist

he NBA’s 2010 free agency officially begins on July 1, but that hasn’t stopped basketball fans from theorizing, conversing and generally obsessing about the most heralded free agency class of any sport in history. So significant is this year’s group of NBA free agents that teams such as the New York Knicks, Washington Wizards and Chicago Bulls have essentially thrown away several seasons just to have enough cap-space to sign one or two elite players this summer.

If you follow the NBA even casually, you know a good number of names that can change destinations this summer. Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Amar’e Stoudemire, Joe Johnson and Carlos Boozer have all been all-stars for several years and all are under 30 years of age. However, one name towers above the others in importance: Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James. Since coming out of high school in 2003 as one of the best prospects in the past 30 years, James has become the best player in the NBA, winning the Most Valuable Player award last year and considered a lock to repeat this year.

However, it’s not just James’s talent on the court; he is extremely popular, marketable, and at the young age of 25 has a long future ahead of him.

So where will everybody wind up? Only one thing is certain: No team in the NBA will make any free agency moves of consequence until James decides his future. The favorite to land James has to be his current team, the Cavaliers, who ended the regular season with the best record in the NBA. The entire Cleveland organization has worked itself around giving LeBron as talented of a supporting cast as possible so he will have less motivation to leave, bringing in forward Antawn Jamison during the season.

After losing to the Orlando Magic in the playoffs last season, the Cavaliers are the favorites to win the NBA title, and if they do, I think it is a near guarantee that James returns. Furthermore, since James currently plays for Cleveland, they have an advantage in that they can offer an extra year of a maximum deal, which would give him a higher total salary by a rather significant margin. If Cleveland does not win the title this year, James, an Ohio native, seems unlikely to leave a city that so reveres him.

However, there are definite advantages that other teams have that Cleveland does not.

Take the New York Knicks, a team that has cleared enough salary next year to sign two star players. With only four players currently under contract for next year, the Knicks can allow James to choose which players he wants to play with that are available. New York is also the biggest and most marketable city, and James has always expressed a love for playing at Madison Square Garden, the Knicks’ home arena. However, he was not even in the league the last time the Knicks were a title contender, and they would not have the same talent James has in Cleveland even if they bring in someone like Wade or Bosh as well.

The Knicks, along with their competitors, are in the difficult position of not knowing whether they will be able to sign a premiere free agent, but what if James stays in Cleveland?

Wade appears likely to stay in Miami, where they look to sign a big man, with Stoudemire as the prohibitive favorite. Bosh is probably leaving the Toronto Raptors, but he appears likely to sign on with more of a contender, such as Chicago or Dallas, his hometown. So a team like the Knicks would be left with the option of either signing guys like Johnson and Boozer and making themselves a definite playoff team but not among the elite, or waiting yet another year to spend their money on the 2011 free agent class. While it might be wiser to save the salary cap space if they cannot get elite talent, tremendous pressure is on these poorly performing franchises to improve their team, and in a hurry. And with there being more teams in need of a marquee free agent than there are available, July 2010 is looking to be a highstakes poker match. Your move, LeBron.

lmost five months after the rowing team was informed of its impending change of status, we are stronger than ever. The announcement, although disheartening, has brought the team together and has only increased our drive to succeed. In light of the decision by the Athletics and Physical Education Department, we, along with fellow senior Captains Caroline Jolley and Nicholas Perry, have participated in frequent discussions with the team and administration to determine the next move.

These conversations have resulted in the formation of a club resembling that of a traditional boat club, with a hierarchy descending from the club president on the administrative side and from one male and one female captain on the athletic side. The talks have also helped develop a greater understanding of the direction that the program will pursue and how current rowers will take an active role in determining this direction. We are graduating two senior men and four senior women at the end of this year, so leadership on the team has increased considerably as everyone is stepping up to help shape the program for years to come. Coaching, competition and financial decisions will fall to the responsibility of the rowers themselves, giving a greater sense of ownership and responsibility to Vassar’s program. The current aim is to maintain the current competitive level of the team despite the shift away from varsity status while continuing to work with the administration and operating with limited funding from the College. Luckily, backing the team is a strong and passionate group of alumnae/i and parents of past and current rowers. The alumnae/i will form a similar board structure to mirror the one on campus, and together the boards will coordinate efforts to cut costs and continue fostering rower-alumnae/i relationships.

The men’s varsity squad currently stands

The women’s varsity 8+ races in the Knecht Cup, hosted by Villanova University on the Cooper River Race Course, on April 11. The Brewers will next race at Worcester Polytechnic Institute on April 17. at 10 members who will compete in a lightweight 4+ and a heavyweight 4+, coming together for a varsity 8+ in some of our larger competitions. The team also saw the last-minute formation of a novice four boat, which progressed steadily throughout our Spring Break training trip in DeLand, Fla. The novices, along with the underclassmen on the team, will form the foundation from which the crew team can grow and bring new excitement to the club program. Coming off of a third place finish at last weekend’s season opener at the Knecht Cup in Camden, N.J., the lightweight men are hoping to use this momentum to repeat successes from last year, including a bronze medal at the New York State Championships and a semifinal finish at the prestigious Dad Vail Regatta. The novice men’s 4+ and heavyweight 4+ unfortunately did not advance to finals, and the varsity 8+ finished just off the medal stand in fourth place.

The women’s team had a solid weekend

at Knecht Cup, and every rower returned to campus with a medal. The varsity women’s 8+ clinched bronze medals, coming from behind to edge out Washington College in a fierce battle to the finish line. For everyone in the boat, it was the first sprint medal won in an 8+, which is a great sign for upcoming competitions. Four of the women from the 8+ also raced in the varsity 4+, winning the event by a 15-second margin. The second varsity 8+, comprised of three returning varsity rowers and five novice women, stepped up to the challenge of their first race together and came away with a third place finish. Additionally boated was a novice women’s 4+, but they did not advance out of heats against stiff competition from Division I, II and III programs. Both of Vassar’s novice 4+s had a great first race of their rowing careers and can only expect to get stronger as the season progresses.

Next up for the Brewers is a race against New England opponents in Worcester, Mass.

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MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

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SPORTS

April 15, 2010

Page 19

Balatbat swings towards excellence

Three elite look to compete in 2010 A.L. East

Mitchell Gilburne

Adam P. Newman

espite the constant inquiry from your friends and family, Vassar College did indeed go coeducational in 1969; however, the Brewers are only represented by women on the golf course. In short, some things never change. What can be expected to evolve is the roster of any varsity sport. As seniors continue into the real world, eager freshmen enter Vassar’s. Celynne Balatbat ’13 is one such freshman who charged onto the course and took the whole of Division III golf by storm. On Sunday, April 11, Balatbat and her arsenal of golf clubs decimated the competition at the Vassar Invitational, held at the Dutchess Golf and Country Club, with a dazzling 78 on Saturday and an impressive 82 on Sunday for a combined score of 160.

Balatbat’s 78, a truly amazing feat, was the lowest, score of the day on Saturday, and Sunday’s 82 is nothing to scoff at either.

When asked about how she approached the tournament, Balatbat responded, “I’m one of those people who likes to stay focused on my game, so I’m usually thinking of how I am playing and thinking of my next shot. During the tournament, I was just focusing on how I was playing, it was almost a surprise to win!”

The modest golfer kept a calm even tone— an impressive feat considering the weight of her victory.

Balatbat has been a fixture on the green since the spunky age of 11. However, she initially resisted the sport, showing no interest in chasing after birdies, let alone eagles. Eventually, the athletic history of her family caught up to her. “My mom and dad had played and they always wanted me to play, and I finally gave in,” explains Balatbat matter-of-factly.

She then shipped herself off to a golf clinic in Monterey, CA, and never looked back.

Now, golf has become such a dominant factor in Balatbat’s life that she even wrote about her defining golfing moment as a part of her quest to gain admission to Vassar College. When pressed about a significant moment in her career, Balatbat amusedly answered, “I actually wrote my application essay about this moment. Junior year in high school I played in the first tournament coming out of the winter. I had had a pretty good fall. But I played my worst game of golf ever.

ith the Super Bowl settled, the NCAA tournament in the books and the NBA season winding down, all eyes in sports now turn to baseball. And with the steroids controversies that have plagued Major League Baseball for the last few years seemingly quieted down, this coming season looks to be a little less about the story and a little more about the game. Now here’s a preview of what the American League East looks like, at least in this early moment in the season.

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Guest Columnist

Sports Editor

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New York Yankees Image courtesy of Celynne Balatbat

Celynne Balatbat ’13, pictured above, was the individual winner of the Vassar Invitational on Sunday. The women’s golf team will next compete in the Jack Leaman Tournament at Amherst.

I finished dead last. I kept on shanking it. It was so embarrassing, I didn’t know if I wanted to keep going, and the officials kept making fun of me about it. Now it’s kind of funny, but I’m glad I pushed through it.”

The Brewers should be equally glad for Balatbat’s resilience, as muscling through this moment of darkness has allowed her to burst into a blaze of golfing brilliance.

In fact, it is this unsavory instance that has influenced the way in which Balatbat approaches the game. “I like seeing how I react when I’m playing badly,” says Balatbat, “and I like seeing how I react to my bad strokes, especially under pressure. The pressure of being in head-to-head competition makes me concentrate and focus more, although casual practice is still fun!”

Don’t let Balatbat’s light-hearted words fool you. The girl is all strategy, focus and drive to succeed. Balatbat describes her play style as conservative. To clarify, a conservative golfer will opt to avoid hazards with a more cautious stroke, while an aggressive golfer will attempt long reaching riskier

shots in hopes of dramatically improving their score at the cost of potentially landing in a sand trap, the water, or the rough. “If I know I’m in a position to win or if I need to catch up I’ll be more aggressive, but having a conservative strategy helps me feel confident,” Balatbat comments on her strategy.

And if the results are allowed to speak for themselves, there is no doubt that Celynne Balatbat’s confidence is well founded indeed.

In her freshman year, Balatbat has already distinguished herself as a player to be watched. A supportive teammate and passionate golfer Balatbat is a welcome addition to the Brewers’ roster. With her entire Vassar career stretching ahead of her like a great fairway into the distance, we can expect Celynne to make like an eagle and continue to soar to new heights of athletic supremacy.

Balatbat will continue to lead the Brewers as they travel to Amherst College this weekend to contend in the Jack Leaman Tournament before concluding their season at Williams College the following weekend.

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After a bit of a championship drought, the Yankees won it all yet again last year. But don’t pencil them in to win the division again just yet. The Yankees do have more than enough hitting to repeat their championship, having upgraded and grown younger with Curtis Granderson replacing Melky Cabrera, Nick Johnson replacing Hideki Matsui and Brett Gardner replacing Johnny Damon. But, personally, I am incredibly wary of the back end of their rotation. Having seen Vasquez pitch in both leagues now, I’m not sure that a return to the American League will bode well for him or the Yankees. And with the young and still largely unproven Phil Hughes in the no. 5 spot and Joba Chamberlain as the eighth-inning man, I have a feeling that if the Yankees are going to win this division, their offense is going to have to be firing on all cylinders all season long.

Boston Red Sox

While the Yankees have improved their already fearsome offense, the Red Sox have gone in a slightly different direction. Rather than looking to crush their opponents and draw crowds with the home run ball, it seems that the Red Sox have decided to go a bit more old-school and see if that old adage that pitching and defense win championships still holds water. In that vein, they have vastly improved their defense, adding Mike Cameron in the outfield and Adrian Beltre at third base. Further, they’ve added John Lackey to their surplus of starting pitchers, and with Tim Wakefield returning from injury, it seems to me that the Red Sox will certainly have the rotation and defense to win the division. The only real question for me is whether they will score enough runs to go all the way.

Toronto Blue Jays

The Toronto Blue Jays might tantalize their fans with another torrid run mid-season, as they have in the past, but there is just no way that this team will keep it together all season. The last Canadian team left in the majors will likely suffer from even worse fan attendance this season without the big name draw of Roy Halladay or Alex Rios. Further, without Halladay, any little stability their rotation had is gone with the wind, and the biggest name left on the team might just be the overpaid and underperforming fallen star Vernon Wells. At least Aaron Hill and Adam Lind may give fans a little something to compensate for all the losses with their burgeoning power.

Baltimore Orioles

While the Orioles have made some key improvements this past offseason, acquiring Miguel Tejada and Garrett Atkins, it would be quite a long-shot for them to find themselves in contention this year, let alone breaking .500. The rotation is incredibly young and unproven, except of course for imported veteran Kevin Millwood, who is far from a Cy Young-caliber star himself. But with a core of players beginning to hit their stride, such as Adam Jones and Nick Markakis, and some veterans like Brian Roberts around, in a few years this might just be a team to watch.

Tampa Bay Rays

The biggest question mark in the American League East this season is the Tampa Bay Rays. After an exciting World Series trip in 2008, the Rays horribly underperformed last year, with some big acquisitions having lackluster years and injuries abounding among regulars. But if Pat Burrell and Dioner Navarro can put up some big offensive numbers and their new closer Rafael Soriano can hold down the back end, this club might just stay in it long enough to give the Red Sox and Yankees a run for their money and keep Carl Crawford around for September. But I think we’ll just have to wait and see on that one.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

SPORTS

Page 20

April 15, 2010

Vassar prepares to host League Championship Kristine Olson Guest Reporter

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Image courtesy of Sports Information

unning until your lungs and legs burn.

Throwing with such force that your arms nearly rip off. Sprinting only to throw yourself into a pit of sand. Performing these things may seem torturous, but watching them is certainly not. Track and field is a glorious amalgamation of victory, failure, heart, lungs, legs, sweat, maybe blood, possibly tears, and definitely cheers. The Liberty League’s Track and Field Championships will be held for the first time in Vassar’s history at our very own Weinberg Field Sports Pavilion next weekend, Saturday, April 17 (near the THs).

The team is looking to score some major points and to move up in the League, and it should be an overall fun and exciting day.

“There will be something for everyone,” assured Elizabeth Forbes ’12.

There are only a few teams in track and field in the Liberty League, Saint Lawrence University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Union College and Vassar,“but it is incredibly competitive for both the men and the women,” said Head Coach James McCowan. “RPI and St. Lawrence both sent teams to nationals in cross country and have great depth in the distance events, and both St. Lawrence and RPI men were nationally ranked indoors, with St. Lawrence finishing no. 11.” McCowan noted “Union has a long history with track and field, and their numbers definitely give them an advantage in the field events.”

Vassar’s team is a young program in comparison, as track has only been a varsity sport at the College since 2008; and it’s the only Liberty League team without an indoor track season. At the 2009 Liberty League Championship meet, Vassar’s men finished no. 4, and the women came in no. 3. This season McCowan would like to see improvements in the total point scores and to gain on the League rivals.

“We are poised to do this!” he affirmed.

Zach Williams ’12 finishes ninth at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Early Outdoor Invitational on March 27. The track and field team will next compete in the Liberty League Championships on April 17.

McCowan points out that injuries will prevent 2009 stars Jon Erickson ’11 (800m Champion, 4x400) and Jenica Law ’11 (triple jump, long jump, 4x100 and 4x400) from competing this season; “However, there are some new rising stars, such as Laura Van Eerde [’13], an outstanding addition to the throwing events; and Kate Warrick [’13] and Tiffany Marchell [’13] will make a notable impact in the jumping events, along with Captain Katy Hwang [’12].”

Throwing and Jumping Coach Brian Lundy

added that Captain Zach Ward ’11 could place in the top six in the javelin on Saturday “if [he] focuses on his technique and throws correctly.”

“Philip [McDermott ‘12] has recorded a [personal record] in the javelin every meet this season, and we hope for him to place, as well,” said Lundy.

Distance runners Johanna Spangler ’12 (2009, second in the 5K and third in the 1500m) and Brittany Davis ’11 (2009, second place steeplechase) “will lead a very deep and strong contin-

gent of distance runners,” noted McCowan.

For the men, Mathue Duhaney ’13 will be a power house in the sprints, along with Ward (2009, third, 100m). Zach Williams ’12 (2009, second, 800m) and Sam Wagner ’13 will be strong contenders in the middle distances, while Will Healy ’12 and Roni Teich ’13 should aid in the distance events.

All of these expectations were supported by Saturday’s results at the College of New Jersey Invitational. Notable performances included knock-out, first-place finishes in their heats of the men’s and women’s 800m by Ges Adams ’10 and Dierdre May ’12, respectively; a second place finish in the 1500m by Wagner; and, coming from behind, an amazing last leg of the 4x400 by Williams that placed him just shy of first place. Also, Duhaney and Ward qualified for finals in the 100m; Hwang and Warrick ’13 both qualified for finals in the 100m hurdles; and Van Eerde, “ripped stuff up again,” said McCowan. Yet another successful day for Vassar College Track and Field.

After a smartly raced 3K by Spangler that put her in second place, she expressed excitement to race her first 5K on Vassar’s track next weekend. It will be a first for pole-vaulting and high jumping, as well—a novel event for Vassar as the College does not have any competitors in either event. In general, the Liberty League Championship meet will be a day of firsts, a day of excitement and a day with abundant potential for success. Spangler added that she’s excited for friends and family to watch because, “We feed off of people who support us and cheer us on.”

So, if your Saturday to do list is 1) blank, or 2) includes the following: sleep, eat, watch YouTube, play video games, sleep, sit on Facebook, procrastinate on homework and/or thesis, then take a break and wander over to Weinberg and watch Vassar compete in the Liberty League Track and Field Championships at home for the first time.

Volleyball completes season Andy Marmer Image courtesy of Sports Information

Phil Tully ’10 strikes the ball during the April 1 match against Baruch College. It was announced on April 12 that Tully earned All-America honors for the third time in his undergraduate career.

SCOREBOARD APRIL 10 MEN’S RUGBY VASSAR

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Sports Editor

espite entering the North East Collegiate Volleyball Association (NECVA) tournament as the no. 3 seed, the Vassar College men’s volleyball team was upset by no. 14 seed D’Youville College in the first round, 3-1 (19-30, 30-28, 30-26, 30-28).

For the Brewers, the loss is a disappointing end to a successful season. Vassar entered the tournament having beaten the last 12 NECVA foes they faced, with just two losses during that span both to Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (EIVA) teams: Springfield College and New York University. Among the 12 straight victories were wins over no. 2 seed Baruch College, no. 4 seed Philadelphia Biblical University and no. 15 seed and eventual champion Nazareth College.

While Vassar suffered a discouraging end to their season, the future is bright for the squad.

The Brewers will graduate just three players; however, included in that group is three-time AllAmerican Phil Tully ’10, who was recently named to the All-American Second Team, as well as being selected as the NECVA Metro Division Player of the Year. Even without Tully, next year’s squad will be one of Vassar’s most talented. NECVA Metro Division Rookie of the Year John Konow ’13 was ranked no. 5 nationally in Division III with 12.37 assists per game. He will be joined by Matt Elgin ’13, who was named to the NECVA Metro Division First Team. Elgin finished no. 16 in Division III with a .342 hitting percentage. Junior Evan Fredericksen and freshman Christian La Du were both named to the NECVA Metro Division Second Team. Fredericksen was no. 18 in Division III with 3.95 kills per game. La Du led Vassar, and was third in Division III with 3.48 digs per game.

Still, despite the early end, the season was no doubt successful. “We did some phenomenal work this year. After losing the class that we lost and bringing in so many new guys, having us be a cohesive unit was quite an achievement, and they’re [the team] to be applauded,” mused Head Coach Antonia Sweet. The season just ended, but Sweet is already thinking some about next season, “[I expect] more good stuff. I expect them to start

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

from the jump as a team. I expect the returners to initiate the newcomers immediately in what it’s like to be a Vassar College volleyball player.”

Meanwhile, while the volleyball team was in Cape Cod competing in the NECVA tournament, other Vassar teams were scattered around that New York state competing in both Liberty League and non-conference matchups. The baseball team pulled out a close-fought contest 9-6 against Clarkson University, to conclude a fourgame series. Vassar dropped games by the scores of 11-2, 5-3 and 6-2 earlier in the weekend before edging out the victory. In the win, the Brewers boasted a balanced attack that saw Ari Glantz ’10, Mike Plude ’11, David Ringold ’11, Joe Castilla ’11 and David Keith ’13 all record multiple hits. Additionally, Glantz stole three bases in the game. The baseball team will remain on the road with a series at the University of Rochester this weekend.

While the baseball team had to make the lengthy trip to Potsdam, N.Y., the women’s lacrosse team had a shorter drive, spending the weekend visiting the Albany area for matchups against Union College and Skidmore College. After being trounced by no. 13 Union College, in a game which saw Vassar score a season-low three goals, ultimately losing 16-3, the Brewers faced Skidmore the next day. After trailing 11-8 with 15:23 remaining, Vassar netted four of the next five goals, with two by Libby Feltch ’12 and the final one coming off the stick of Allie Morgan ’11, to tie the game at 12. However, Skidmore ultimately prevailed, when Kimberly Segalas scored off a free position shot with one minute and 22 seconds remaining. The women’s lacrosse team will travel this weekend to St. Lawrence and Clarkson Universities.

While many of Vassar’s teams were on the road this weekend, the men’s rugby team maintained their post at the Vassar Farm, and thrill the hometown crowd they did. The squad snuck by Western Connecticut State University 27-24, behind two tries from James Purtle ’12 and one, with time running down, by Zach Wasser ’11. Wasser received the pass near the goal line and was able to outrun the Western Connecticut players to the outside for the winning try.