The Miscellany News | April 8

The Miscellany News Since 1866 | miscellanynews.com

April 8, 2010

Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY

Volume CXLIII | Issue 19

Buildings and Groundstobe re-evaluated Chelsea Peterson-Salahuddin

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Guest Reporter

“When the Internet first came into being, there were no video or audio streams, webcams, or online communities such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. It was all simple text.”

—Bret Ingerman,

Vice President for CIS

Danielle Gensburg

Assistant Features Editor

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his Thursday, April 8, marks the 15th anniversary of the Internet at Vassar. With today’s complex and vast array of networking, it’s difficult for some to believe that the

A student smokes a cigarette outside the front doors of Main Building. The Committee on College Life recently approved certain changes to the College’s smoking policy at the recommendation of the Drug and Alcohol Education Committee, chaired by Head Athletic Trainer Jeffrey Carter.

CCL votes on smoking regs Aashim Usgaonkar

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Assistant News Editor

fter much deliberation, the Committee on College Life (CCL) reached a decision about the proposed changes to the College’s smoking policy: to strengthen the enforcement of current College smoking regulations. The question of

a blanket ban on campus has been deferred until next fall.

This decision comes on the heels of a “three-phased set of recommendations from the Drug and Alcohol Education Committee (DEC),” explained Dean of the College and Chair of CCL Christopher Roellke in an e-mailed statement. CCL

elected to endorse certain portions of DEC’s proposals and defer others for future consideration.

One of the proposed changes was the recommendation by DEC that, after several steps, Vassar could go “smoke-free.”

CCL did not act on this final step and, said Roellke, “does

Kelley Van Dilla/The Miscellany News

Internet evolves over fifteen years at Vassar College

Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News

he Vassar Student Association’s (VSA) Board of House Presidents is currently compiling a list of perceived grievances addressed to the Department of Buildings and Grounds Services regarding the Department’s alleged untimeliness and ineffectiveness. The letter is scheduled to be completed and sent next week.

Over the course of this past year, all of the Vassar campus residence halls have experienced some form of building maintenance problems, and, therefore, students have had to turn to Buildings and Grounds for assistance. Yet,

the house presidents feel that Building and Grounds is not fully meeting their respective houses’ needs in regards to building upkeep.

In the letter, the Board of House Presidents is expected to specifically point out problems that they feel need to be addressed. The various house presidents are working to compile a list of the problems they have encountered with Buildings and Grounds this past year. Though the Board is still working to compile the grievances, which include problems with Buildings and Grounds not responding to damage requests on time, un-emptied rubbish See B&G on page 4

Internet only came to Vassar in 1995. The impact of the Internet on the world of communication has been profound, and at Vassar, it has revolutionized the way we keep track of information, conduct research and See INTERNET on page 6

Jamie Watkins ’10 and William Gaines ’11 rehearse for the upcoming production of William Shakespeare’s First Quarto of “Hamlet.” The play premiered on Wednesday, April 7.

An unfamiliar ‘Hamlet’ Erik Lorenzsonn Arts Editor

R flickr.com/vassarwebdev

Vassar’s January 2010 homepage is one of many iterations the website has had since the Internet was extended to the College.

Inside this issue

5

FEATURES

Students, professors offer comments on academic competition

oyalty, servants, gravediggers, guardsmen, diplomats, thespians and conquerors alike flitted about the aisles of the Martel Theater on early Monday evening. The cast of the spring’s penultimate Drama Department production, William Shakespeare’s First Quarto of “Hamlet,” waited for their first dress rehearsal to begin as lastminute adjustments were made by the crew onstage

14 ARTS

and in the tech booth. One girl, dressed in a purple dress and sitting in a foldout chair, held a nervous looking white puppy. “That dog’s going to have a heart attack during the first show,” joked someone sitting behind her.

Then Stage Manager Marya Bernosky’s ’12 voice floats out from the intercom: “Okay everybody, places for the start of the show!”

Five minutes later, a gentle but ominous prelude echoed out of the pits from the 10-piece musical

Seniors prepare capstone musical performances

ensemble. and the curtain rose on a pitch-black stage.

Smoke wafts from the wings as a silhouetted figure emerges onto the performance space. His flashlight beam flits about the foggy darkness before he gets startled by another guardsmen and utters the first words: “Stand: who is that?”

Those familiar with “Hamlet” would already be surprised; the betterknown First Folio of the play begins with the words See HAMLET on page 15

15 ARTS

not anticipate acting on [it] for some time.”

One of the issues highlighted by Chair of the DEC and Head Athletic Trainer Jeffrey Carter was an incongruity in the advertising of smoking rules by different building on campus: According to SecSee SMOKING on page 4

Davison hosts open meeting about Luau Several students call the event an offensive appropriation of the Hawaiian culture; House Team decides on new name Molly Turpin

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Senior Editor

n March 31, the Davison House Team hosted an open meeting about the House’s spring event, formerly titled the Davison Luau. Seated in a circle of chairs and sofas around the immaculate Davison Multi-Purpose Room, the House Team and a few members of the student community worked out the problematic nature of the event’s title as well as how to move forward with a party that would set an inclusive tone and perhaps begin a new Davison tradition.

The open forum was inspired by comments on the Luau’s Facebook event page that called the event an offensive appropriation of Hawaiian culture. While the forum was open to the whole campus, the Facebook commenters were specifically invited, though none attended.

President of Davison House Louise See LUAU on page 3

FWA to present Broadway’s hit “Spelling Bee”

The Miscellany News

Page 2

April 8, 2010

Editor in Chief Ruby Cramer Senior Editor Molly Turpin

Contributing Editors Caitlin Halasz Chloe McConnell Elizabeth Pacheco

Juliana Halpert/The Miscellany News

Photo of the Week: Students rehearse for the Drama Department’s production of “Hamlet,” performed for the first time on Wednesday, April 7 in the Martel Theater in the Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film. Upcoming performances will be held through April 8-10.

Miscellany News Staff Editorial

Mug event is further proof that students need to confront issues of race on campus C

ontroversy arose on campus last week over the advertising campaign for the March 26 event at Matthew’s Mug, Free Weezy: A Mug Night, which featured the music of Lil Wayne.

Fliers and Facebook advertising for the event have been criticized for the language and imagery used, which, according to some members of the campus community, invoked offensive stereotypes of students of color (see “Mug night sparks debate,” 3.31.10) The Miscellany News Editorial Board believes that the advertising campaign for this event was just one in a long series of racial incidents that has occurred on Vassar’s campus over the course of the past few years. These include the “Language of Ladies” mini course in March 2009, which propagated offensive stereotypes about Asian women; the etching of the word “whites” on the ALANA Center sign in fall 2008; the eruption of racist and classist comments in response to the Kick Coke campaign in fall 2008; and the discovery of a noose in Jewett House and a swastika on a wall of Main House in fall 2007.

With such incidents occurring with such alarming frequency at the College, the Free Weezy Mug night cannot be discussed in isolation, but as part of a larger critique of attitudes about race at Vassar. Many of the comments on The Miscellany News website about the Mug night have claimed that racism does not exist at a place like Vassar. However, when incidents such as the Mug night spark such heated responses and occur with such frequency, the Vassar community must recognize that racism, as well as an overall insensitivity to racial issues, is unfortunately very prevalent on this campus. And furthermore, we must acknowledge that there is a troubling lack of critical thinking about these racial issues.

Other comments on Miscellany’s website suggested that the students who were offended at the advertising for the Mug night were overreacting and taking offense to an advertising campaign intended to be lighthearted. But the intention of the event’s organizers is irrelevant.

A sizeable number of people were offended by

the advertising, so rather than defending the organizers’ intentions, students should consider why some people did in fact find it so offensive in the first place; that the event’s organizers did not intend for the posters to offend does not make their content any less hurtful to members of our campus community.

If it had occurred in isolation, the Mug night would not have been indicative of anything more than a few students who didn’t stop and think about the implications of the language and imagery that they were using. But the fact that this is one in a longer sequence of similar incidents—combined with the defensive reaction of many students who were not personally offended by the posters—indicates that it is part of a larger issue. The discussions occurring about the event—both on the Miscellany website and around campus, have not been characterized by the open-mindedness that Vassar students have been taught to value in the classroom. A number of comments posted were hostile in their approach, using name-calling and generally disrespectful language that negates any attempt at constructive conversation.

We, as Vassar students, need to apply the same critical thinking skills we use in our classes to our campus community: We need to be conscious of the effects our actions could have on others; we need to listen to a wide range of arguments and critiques; and we need to discuss these issues openly and respectfully, without defensiveness or denial.

Race is a difficult and complicated subject, and there are no easy solutions to racism or racial issues, either at Vassar or in the world

at large. The Miscellany News Editorial Board could use this editorial to propose a solution to the issues at Vassar raised by the Free Weezy Mug night controversy, but in the space of this small column, any such solution would amount to nothing more than a platitude. We could propose more dialogue on campus surrounding these issues, but dialogue in and of itself is not necessarily productive; the dialogue that has already occurred surrounding the event has often been hostile and ineffective. Instead, Vassar students need to confront issues of race and racism on our campus head-on, a confrontation that must begin with the admission that these issues exist and may even flourish on Vassar’s campus.

We recommend that Vassar students think carefully about the consequences of their actions. The organizers of the Free Weezy Mug night claim not to have realized beforehand that their posters could be construed as racist; we encourage anyone planning a similar advertising campaign to think carefully about how their work could offend.

This applies more generally than simply campus-wide advertising campaigns, of course, and it applies to other discussions besides those of race. Students need to recognize how their privilege affects their place in both Vassar’s community and society at large, and think about what they say and do beforehand and afterwards, acknowledging when their actions could have a negative effect on our College’s community.

—The Staff Editorial reflects the opinion of at least two-thirds of the 21-member Editorial Board.

CORRECTION The Miscellany News Editorial Board would like to apologize for the original version of its contained a quotation from Anastasia Hardin ‘10 that was taken from her personal facebook page without her permission or consent. The editors of The Miscellany News accidentally and unintentionally mistook this quotation for one posted on a public event page, and would like to offer their sincerest apologies to Hardin and the readers of the Miscellany. The online version of this article does not contain the error.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

News Matthew Brock Jillian Scharr Opinions Angela Aiuto Kelly Shortridge Features Kelly Stout Arts Carrie Hojnicki Erik Lorenzsonn Sports Mitchell Gilburne Andy Marmer Design Eric Estes Online Elizabeth Jordan Copy Katie Cornish Lila Teeters Photography Kathleen Mehocic 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 8, 2010

NEWS

Page 3

VSA completes review of JYA office Guest Reporter

n March 28, the Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council approved an administrative review of the Office of International Programs by the VSA Committee on Student Life.

The Office of International Programs, which currently exists under the Office of the Dean of the College, is responsible for coordinating the study abroad application procedure, which interested students participate in the fall semester of sophomore year.

The Office collects the applications of students petitioning to study abroad and refers them to the Committee on Leaves and Privileges. It also has the role of advising students who are interested in studying abroad.

Some concerns expressed by the Committee on Student Life include: lack of accessibility to the International Programs Office—specifically to Director of International Studies Programs Susan Correll; the lack of connection between the Office and Vassar’s faculty advisors; and the process’ perceived bureaucratic nature.

The review goes on to recommend that: the Office be under the Office of the Dean of the Faculty to “allow [for] better communication with faculty in their capacities as advisers and teachers;” he Office “expand its office hours;” as well as hire more senior interns.

Finally, the review suggested that the Office reconsider the study abroad approval process.

Noting that “for all but two or three students each year, approval is essentially guaranteed” and that the “application is very time consuming,” the VSA suggests the approval be changed to: “All Vassar students are eligible to spend a semester abroad at a foreign institution if a) their GPA exceeds a 3.0, b) their student records are free from any serious breaches of conduct and c) they have had conversations with and acquired signatures from the director of International Programs and their major or pre-major adviser.”

According to VSA Vice President for Student Life Elizabeth Anderson ’11, the VSA’s choice to review the study abroad process was made because “students expressed a lot of concern” about the Office of International Programs and the study abroad approval process. Anderson and the Committee on Student Life began the review by sending e-mails to seniors and students planning to study abroad in the coming fall. “We compiled a huge list of all [their] concerns,” said Anderson. The Committee also met with Correll to receive her input, made direct observations of the Office of International Pro-

­—Caitlin Clevenger, Assistant News Editor

No April showers On April 1, residents of Lathrop House reported that all of the shower curtains in the building had been removed from the bathrooms. The curtains were found in a pile outside.

—C.C.

Buns of bronze On April 1, the Matthew Vassar statue outside of Main Building and the Benjamin Franklin statue on the academic quad were both found wearing undergarments.

—C.C.

Following the fuel rule grams and reviewed its website.

Ease of access to information was “a big concern,” said Anderson, noting that students who wanted a “one-on-one talk with the director” were often unable to schedule a meeting. “If you’re going away for a year, you should have a similar amount of advice to a college application process,” said Anderson.

Of the application process, Anderson said that it was “long and drawn out…it did not seem like a worthwhile use of time” for the Committee on Leaves and Privileges.

Anderson stressed the lack of communication between the Office of International Programs and the faculty advisers. The review states, “Currently, most of these faculty members seem to know very little about study abroad programs.”

“Faculty and their departments aren’t totally up to date” on programs offered for their students, said Farkas. “What happens is some students feel left on their own.”

Correll, said in response to the VSA review that her office has four-and-a-half hours for students to “drop in” Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. She added that she and the Office were typically available during times not designated for that purpose as well. “We never turn anyone away,” Correll said. “We’re very flexible.”

As for the perceived lack of connection to the faculty, Correll said, “We try to get [the faculty] more involved. Some are more involved than others.” She emphasized that the application for permission to study abroad actually helped in the advising process; it “can be a catalyst for a student to start a conversation with a faculty

member” about studying abroad, Correll said.

“If I really thought that all students were having the deep conversation with their advisors, the automatic approval might work, but all advisors are not aware of the criteria for Junior Year Abroad programs,” she added.

Pointing out that she has only one assistant, Correll also emphasized her office’s limitations. “We have sophomores applying, juniors going away and seniors who need their Junior Year Abroad transcripts recorded,” she said. In addition, she stated that her Office had recently had a senior intern cut from its budget, while the VSA asks it to consider hiring more.

Both Correll and the VSA leaders, however, stated that the review had started a conversation in the administration about the study abroad process. Correll said she had shared the review with Dean of the College Christopher Roellke and Dean of the Faculty Jonathan Chenette.

As for the VSA, Farkas said, “How this usually works is that [the VSA review] starts conversations about how to change things.”

Luau theme scrutinized LUAU continued from page 1 Conner ’11 opened the meeting with an apology to community members who had been offended.

“We really didn’t mean to offend anyone with our event,” she said, “and we’re very sorry that some members of our community were hurt.”

“Can something be offensive even if they don’t mean for it to be?” asked Professor of Psychology and Davison House Fellow Randy Cornelius. After a moment of silence as the group mulled the question over, Cornelius continued, “It’s one of those questions that are uncomfortable to talk about. As a professor, I’m really good at creating uncomfortable silences.”

Eventually discussion began to pick up, and House Team members expressed their own views towards offensive language. They focused on how the appropriation of cultural images and stereotypes without an understanding of their background is offensive and how, despite the prevalence of the word luau in American culture, the original title of the party was encouraging a stereotype.

“It’s really hard sometimes to say, ‘That offends me,’” said Cornelius. “It’s also really hard to be the person that hears that.”

The House Team discussed how the idea behind the event was really a celebration of warm weather than a celebration of Hawaiian culture, which made the luau title problematic. “It was the idea first, then the label after,” said Davison Student Fellow Patrick Ellis ’12.

“I think it was more about the feeling of the party that we wanted to have than about the cultural

Garmin gone On March 31, a Garmin GPS was reported stolen from the glove box of a car. The car’s doors were found still locked, with no sign of forced entry.

William Crane

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News Briefs

significance of the name,” said Davison Student Fellow Rebecca Mountain ’12 regarding the title.

The conversation gradually moved away from a general discussion of dealing with offensive language in favor of specifically addressing Davison’s upcoming party, which the House Team insisted should still take place even if they had different ideas about how to move forward with it. The Team debated two different courses of action: making the party more authentically Hawaiian to avoid offensive cultural appropriation in favor of a more educational theme, or dissociating the event from Hawaiian culture altogether. They eventually settled on the latter and opted for a general tropical theme, removing specifically Hawaiian decorations.

This decision was based partly on the insincerity of the effort to make the event authentic in the first place. “We did not set out to celebrate or degrade Hawaiian culture. It was more about the feeling of the party that we wanted to have that led to the name we chose,” wrote Mountain in a later e-mailed statement.

However, changing the name of the event was also debated because some House Team members felt that to rename the event would be to sweep the issue under the rug. “I feel like changing the name or changing the event only puts a band-aid on [the issue],” said Ellis.

The House Team did settle on a new name to reflect their original goal of celebrating the advent of warm weather. Here Comes the Sun, Davison’s spring party, will be held on April 16.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Security discovered a gas can inside a closet in the South Commons on April 1. Any gas can stored inside of a building is a violation of fire code, so the can was removed.

—C.C.

Forbidden fire In the afternoon of April 1, a group of students built a bonfire on the Vassar Farm and Ecological Preserve. —C.C.

Identity theft Matthew’s Mug’s ID checking machine was reported stolen. It was last seen on April 1.

—C.C.

Party pooper On April 5, a student found feces smeared on the floor, heater and wall of the men’s bathroom in the Library.

Security has classified this as criminal mischief and requests any information from students.

—C.C.

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NEWS

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April 8, 2010

Flex meal donation program discontinued Caitlin Clevenger

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Assistant News Editor

Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News

t the end of the 2009-2010 academic year, the Vassar College Food and Dining Implementation Committee (FDIC) will no longer allow Vassar Student Association (VSA) organizations to use flex meals to pay for Campus Dining’s catering services at events.

The program has been used in the past by various campus groups such as the Council of Black Seniors as well as by house teams and class councils to provide snacks at campus-wide parties.

The College has three main reasons for canceling this option, said Senior Associate Dean of the College and Chair of the Food and Dining Implementation Committee Raymon Parker.

In a document distributed at the Committee’s last meeting, Parker wrote that allowing the donation of flex meals “corrupts the universal imperative of the dining program,…is a violation of [New York State] tax law…and it distorts the meal plan usage.” The main impetus behind each of these reasons is that meal ponts are intended to be non-transferable.

The current option only allows VSA organizations to use meals or points for catering. Previously, students could donate points to anything from community service fundraisers to the purchase of new TVs in residence halls. Students could also sell their points to other students. However, the Committee decided that dining points should not be used to purchase non-food items.

The ability of students to trade points like currency also put the Vassar meal plan’s tax-free status at risk. In the document from the Committee’s meeting, Carl Merino, one of Vassar’s tax attorneys, cited a 1984 ruling by the New York State Tax commission.

In this ruling, a university operating on a dining points system had introduced a refund for points left unused at the end of the year,

but the state ruled that the refunds made the with cash. Meal points, when given the versatility of cash, would be subject to state sales taxes, while closed meal point systems, such as Vassar’s, are allowed to remain taxfree. The case set a precedent: Any time a meal plan’s value is transferred, whether for a refund or as a donation, it is being treated like cash and is therefore subject to taxes.

When Vassar started using an all-you-careto-eat plan in 2008, the College also planned to end the transfer of dining points. The option to sell dining points was canceled, but when the VSA argued that it would be too difficult to reorganize its financial structure and pay for food at events without the aid of dining points, the program was extended to 2009 with the limitation that only VSA organizations could use dining points and flex meals to purchase food from Campus Dining. In the 2008-2009 academic year, the VSA successfully lobbied to have the program extended through this year.

Student Chair of the Food Committee Ezra Roth ’10 believes the loss of flex meal catering will not have a negative effect on student organizations. If the VSA budgets money for food, organizations will be able to buy food more cheaply off campus. According to Roth, “One meal is equivalent to about $11…raising all those meals for a catered meal, you could easily buy that catered meal in town for a third or half the cost.”

For example, a full sheet cake from Campus Dining costs 25 meal swipes, $275. A sheet cake from Stop & Shop in Poughkeepsie with custom decoration costs $38.99. Roth believes that raising the budget for food at events will not burden the VSA because “So few students use the catered option already.”

Though the VSA fought to continue the program for another year, Roth said he is “glad that swiping is phasing out” and hopes for improved efficiency and lower overall costs now

A staff member at the All Campus Dining Center swipes students in for a Wednesday morning meal. that the funding for catered events will come from organizations’ budgets.

However, the change may not be smooth; the VSA’s total funding for next year has already been set and does not include an increased Student Activities fee to cover the cost of food.

VSA Vice President for Finance Scott Pascal ’10 said he and others in the VSA are “throwing around ideas so there will be money available for organizations” to host catered events.

Though no solutions have been discovered yet, Pascal thinks that “in years to come, we will incorporate [funds for food] into an organization’s budget” to allow for the efficiency Roth foresees.

Smoking ban vote deferred to next year SMOKING continued from page 1 tion 23 of College Regulations, smoking is not allowed within 50 feet of all building entrances in accordance with New York State law. but currently, some buildings and offices only advertise a 25-feet minimum. “I will be working with Human Resources to make sure that all employee handbooks are consistent with the College Regulations,” wrote Roellke.

In order to firmly enforce the 50-feet smoking ban, CCL will “ask Buildings and Grounds Services move all ‘butt’ containers a minimum of 50-feet away from all building entrances.” CCL will also try to “make Security [officers] more vigilant in enforcing the 50-feet rule,” wrote Roellke.

In addition, Roellke commented that phase one also states that the DEC, in collaboration with the Health Education Office and College Relations, will “develop educational materials that clarifies College policy and educates our community about the risks of smoking, secondhand smoke, etc.” The CCL voted to endorse these further educational efforts.

When reconsidering campus designated smoking areas, the College will look to “local peer institutions,” such as the Culinary Institute of America and Bard College, said Roellke.

As of now, the CCL has restricted its endorsement of the DEC’s recommendations to this level. Further steps, including the issue of whether or not to ban smoking entirely, will be discussed next fall.

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Letter lists B&G grievances B&G continued from page 1 bins and insects, the completed list will be put into the letter that will be sent to the deans of the College and the Board of Trustees. Director of Buildings and Grounds Thomas Allen was unable to be reached for comment.

“It’s a work in progress; we really don’t have anything concrete yet…hopefully by next week,” said Chair of the Board of House Presidents and Raymond House President Samin Shehab ’11.

In addition to the grievances regarding Buildings and Grounds’ handling of dorm maintenance issues, the letter may also assert that miscommunication between Building and Grounds and the Residential Operations Center (ROC) is a possible contributing factor to the inefficiency; students often report maintenance problems to the ROC even though such complaints are actually under the jurisdiction of Buildings and Grounds. In these instances, the ROC is suppose to forward these reports to Buildings and Grounds, yet, due to faulty communication, the problem will often be misreported or reported months after the initial complaint was filed.

However, according to Samin Shehab, “This is not a document attacking [Buildings and Grounds],” said Shehab; because Vassar is restructuring in response to the current economic crisis, the Board is working to help create a more efficient system: “we are putting our concerns under a microscope.”

The letter will also recognize instances where Buildings and Grounds has been very helpful. As Josselyn House President Elianne Schutze ’12 said, many of the problems which Josselyn House had when the board began drafting the letter have since been fixed.

“We have been communicating with [Buildings and Grounds] all year. Yet we haven’t had good communication. The director hasn’t been able to speak with us, and we have seen no immediate progress,” said Shehab. The Board hopes that because of this letter, Allen will increase communication with students as to how Buildings and Grounds operates, so that their procedures

can be adapted to better suit students’ needs.

For instance, by knowing how Buildings and Grounds prioritizes the problems filed by the different houses, it would be easier for students to understand how to communicate with Buildings and Grounds in a way that would be helpful to both parties.

“Clearly a system is in place, and it would be helpful to know what that system is,” said Noyes House President Hannah Groch-Begley ’12.

Under the current system, students file complaints with the ROC, which then passes them on the Buildings and Grounds, who has a system of prioritization by which it responds. According to Samin, an explanation of this system will be one of the key topics in any ensuing dialogue between the groups.

“We want to know more about how [Buildings and Grounds] works as a whole.

A lot of the issues people have with them is because they don’t know what’s going on, so if we had more communication it could allow for us to understand them better,” added Schutze, emphasizing that clearer communication about the Buildings and Grounds system will not only be beneficial to house presidents, but also to students in their communication with Buildings and Grounds.

The Board also recognized that many maintenance problems do not get reported immediately due to student discomfort and misunderstanding with the current system.

Yet the Board acknowledges that the letter is only the initial step in opening dialogue with Buildings and Grounds; more steps towards clearer communication must be taken after the letter is released. Cushing House President Victoria “Rosie” Russo ’12 said, “We could maybe invite the director of [Buildings and Grounds] to a Board of House Presidents meeting.” In addition, Davison House President Louise Conner ’11 stated, “We could also get some form of student input on the system.”

With this letter, the Board of House Presidents hopes to open dialogue with both Buildings and Grounds and students to ensure efficient problem-solving of dorm maintenance issues.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

FEATURES

April 8, 2010

Page 5

Vassar students: How competitive are we?

Elizabeth Jordan

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Online Editor

cademic competition is not something you hear about often at Vassar. As a small liberal arts college with no pre-professional majors, many students feel as though they are studying subjects that they enjoy learning about instead of subjects that will prepare them for a specific career. Rarely do you hear the stories of students ripping pages out of books to prevent others from studying or sabotaging experiments and misleading their peers that circulate around bigger universities where competition among students borders on excessive.

Jessica Jack, a senior biochemistry major, says she’s heard stories of such unfriendly relationships between students at other colleges, and said, “The reason I became a biochemistry major is because it was so collaborative.” She explained that for tests, many of the students—and sometimes entire classes—would organize study sessions and work together on understanding the material.

Associate Professor of Biology and Director of Biochemistry David Jemiolo remarked, “Sometimes the material is complicated enough so that it requires you to get a second point of view.”

Students who major in biochemistry are often working towards eventually attending medical school, but Jemiolo and Jack agree that students in the Biology, Biochemistry and Chemistry Departments engage mainly in competition with themselves. Jemiolo explained, “Since I’ve been here at Vassar, I’ve never thought the pre-med students were cut-throat competitive; they actually work together very well.” One aspect of the program that Jemiolo feels enhances the cooperation between students is the lab component of most difficult science classes. He notes that students are always working with partners in the lab: “In order to get the best work done,

you really have to work cooperatively.”

The same appears to be true in other mathand science-related majors, such as economics. The economics department comes as close as any Vassar major does to what might be considered an undergraduate business degree. Professor of Economics and Chair of the Economics Department Shirley Johnson-Lans remarked that she often sees students studying and working together in the Economics Department lounge in between classes. To Johnson-Lans, it does not appear that students compete against each other, an observation that she says makes sense given that, “you’re not going to do better because somebody else does worse.” Johnson-Lans, like Jemiolo, curves the grades in her classes, but states that it’s purely to gauge how well students understand the material: “Students

are competing against themselves…they are competing to do better.”

Both Jemiolo and Johnson-Lans expressed that since Vassar’s status as a small residential college may contribute to the cooperative academic environment on campus, explaining that because students know they have to see each other often outside of the classroom, they would rather garner a friendly relationship with their peers.

However, cooperation and collaboration are not the norm in all departments. In the Drama and Film Departments, competition is necessary and accepted due to unique academic tracks and a limited amount of physical and financial resources. Professor of Drama and Film and Chair of the Film Department James Steerman described the environment as a competition for “roles and resources,”

adding that for the most part he considers it “healthy competition.”

Steerman explained that from the beginning of their junior year, students try to gain the extra edge over fellow students in order to increase their chances of being chosen to direct an original project during their senior year. The Film Department can afford to fund three to four projects each academic year, which means that not every senior submission gets the go-ahead for production. Those students whose projects are not chosen fill technical supporting roles in the projects of other seniors, being assigned positions as cinematographers or sound editors.

Like the biochemistry majors, Steerman explained that “the vast majority of our majors in both film and drama do have aspirations toward careers.” This is mainly what stirs competition among the film majors, as a successful senior project can open doors into the highly selective field of professional filmmaking or acting.

Competition over resources available to film majors extends off campus as well, particularly in the realm of internships, which are key for aspiring filmmakers. Film major Adrian Olsen ’10 explained, “Film is all about connections, so when people hear about internships…they won’t share [the information] with people because they want to keep it for themselves.”

Olsen and Steerman both commented on the nature of those students who major in film and drama, remarking that in order to be successful in either field, it is necessary for students to prove the quality of their work.

Compared to lore at other, larger universities, Vassar enjoys a mostly cooperative environment. Even in the the most competitive departments on campus, Steerman feels that the tension and competition that does arise, most of the time, is “healthy, because obviously when we feel competitive, what do we do; we work harder.”

For Dow, there’s more to medicine than chemicals “There are contradictions everywhere, and science is no exception.”

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Kelly Stout

Features Editor

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Dow has great respect for traditional practices, but recognizes that “some of these practices can be harmful to the spread of HIV and the attitudes around it.” She describes the unsafe practices of handling blood without gloves, and a surprisingly popular wives’ tale that if a person infected with HIV has sex with a virgin, that person will be cured.

Her work with the sangoma was a challenge.

Dow says, “I felt like I had to respect their mentality, but I also do what I think is the right thing [medically].” She recognizes that in many ways, the traditional sangoma system has worked effectively for many years, and she sees such a system as ultimately very beneficial, especially to a small community with limited resources. “I have to think it’s a little bit offensive to them,” to have nurses and students who don’t necessarily subscribe to the practices of traditional medicine come to the township and act like they know what’s what, says Dow. The experience led Dow to question “the elite—and perhaps hegemonic—science world” and its occasional failure to see medical emergencies in their full contexts. But Dow, a dedicated chemistry major with dreams of medical school, has no plans to abandon the sciences.

Instead, she works with a view that recognizes the contradictions between traditional practices and emerging medical trends.

“I understand science,” she says. “I connect with it. No, I don’t think it’s the be-all, end-all.

But it will be helpful to look at these things [I learned in South Africa] from a scientific perspective.” Her time researching the proteins that cause mad cow disease for her senior project has also yielded complex results, but Dow finds them exciting. “There are contradictions everywhere,” she says, “and science is no exception. Which is why I think there is room for faith in the sciences.”

Dow’s experience in South Africa further alerted her to the complexities of a global

Katie De Heras/The Miscellany News

enior chemistry major Katie Dow grew up in suburban Connecticut, and admits with a sheepish and dimpled laugh, “I’ve been pretty sheltered.” But an interest in medicine that she has fostered since childhood has led her to explore communities’ approaches to medicine across the globe. When she traveled to Switzerland, South Africa, India and China on an International Honor Program semester as a junior, she says, “I opened up completely.”

Dow’s study abroad program allowed her to spend two weeks in Switzerland and five weeks each in South Africa, India and China, where she stayed with local community members. For Dow, these hosts were a highlight of her experience. “I grew attached to complete strangers within a week,” she remembers. “There’s no better way to get to know a place.”

Her class schedule at the Program allowed Dow one week of independent study in each country she visited, and Dow chose to spend her week in South Africa volunteering with a group called the People’s Health Movement that worked to educate South Africans about their medical rights. The experience was monumental for Dow, who saw her work—which included writing and distributing a pamphlet on patients’ rights—as an opportunity to do “something other than only observing.”

Her observations weren’t for naught though, and in South Africa, Dow traveled to a township outside of Capetown where sangomas, practitioners of traditional medicine—sometimes referred to by the derogatory name “witch doctors”—are very much the medical norm.

Dow found some practices of the sangoma, with whom she spent a week, a little jarring.

“There were dead animals everywhere,” says Dow with wide eyes. She gets more serious, though, in her nuanced evaluation of traditional medicines practiced in Capetown townships.

Katie Dow, Senior Chemistry Major

Katie Dow ’10, a chemistry major, works in a lab in Olmsted Hall. After her junior year abroad experiences in South Africa, Dow is planning to pursue a masters in alternative medicine at Georgetown University . system of modern medicine and “how those systems affect people.” Although she enjoyed her time in all four countries she visited while studying abroad, South Africa made a huge impact on Dow, who says her time there complicated “my idea of ‘poverty’ and what it [means] to be living in a slum.”

The summer after her junior year was another study in contrasts that took Dow from “the slums” to “the mansions of Orange County, Calif.,” where Dow worked at Positively Speaking, a Southern California HIV/AIDS advocacy and education organization. Dow is very aware of her privileged background, in terms of the opportunities it has afforded and its limitations, and Dow says confronting that privilege was a challenge upon her return to the United States.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

“I didn’t handle it well. I locked myself in my room and studied for the MCATs,” she remembers with a laugh.

But her work at Positively Speaking reminded her that HIV/AIDS exists everywhere, and educating Orange County students about the crisis was particularly meaningful for Dow. “We have diseases of privilege in the United States,” she says, “but HIV/AIDS can be a part of anyone’s life, anywhere.”

Next year, Dow will attend an 11-month Master of Science program in physiology, biophysics and complementary medicine at Georgetown University where she hopes to study alternative medicine.

The next step? “Finding an apartment and a roommate who is semi-normal,” she says with a laugh. Complexity in all things.

FEATURES

Page 6

April 8, 2010

Lola’s gives Babycakes a run for our parents’ money Daniel Combs

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Assistant Features Editor

’ve been feeling very American lately. I think it probably has to do with the phenomenal weather we have been graced with this past week, as well as the nearly ubiquitous sound of baseball outside my Town House this entire weekend. Keeping this theme alive, I’ve spent way too many of my recent meals trying to find some good contemporary American cuisine in Poughkeepsie, and am happy to report that I’ve finally found the hidden gem, the place that has eluded me for four years. Lola’s Café, on Washington Street, is the business and artistic endeavor of Culinary Institute of America (CIA) graduates Edward Kowalksi and Catherine Williams, and while the café has been open since 2005, it has only recently been garnering a lot of local buzz.

This place is awesome. For breakfast, lunch or early dinner, I’ve eaten an extraordinarily diverse range of the freshest meat, produce and baked goods at prices that miraculously accommodate a budget that, for me at least, has been shrinking as graduation grows ever closer in some sort of perverse inverse relationship.

The best and most efficient way to describe Lola’s is as follows: This is a better version of Collegeview Avenue’s Babycakes Cafe. What!? Blasphemy you say!? How could

I ever disparage the business that so readily allows students to spend their parents’ money on mediocre, wildly-overpriced dishes that, to be fair, do look very pretty. Babycakes’ dessert is another story; put a carrot cake cookie anywhere near me and prepare yourself to be utterly appalled at how fast it disappears. But when it comes to breakfast and lunch, we can all do so much better, and Lola’s is there to fill that niche.

A good breakfast is simple at Lola’s: You can never go wrong with coffee and pastries.

Not that their coffee is any sort of transformative experience, but it just works really well with the baked goods that can only be described as out of this world. It seems that for some reason, CIA-trained chefs really know how to cook pastries well (the owner of Babycakes is also an alum). Maybe if I find $60,000 to spend after graduation, I can finally learn how to make orgasm-inducing croissants and muffins.

The pastries aren’t the only thing here that made me want to leap into bed with the chefs.

No cafe in Poughkeepsie has ever come close to giving me the sort of service that ought to accompany passable dining, but at Lola’s the service is impeccable. The first time I ever walked through the door, not only was I greeted with the good news that free iced cappuccinos were being offered all day, but

was also gladly helped by three—count ’em— three, of the nicest, funniest women ever to serve me food, women who took pity on my inability to figure out what to get for lunch.

I really want to go into diatribe mode and just describe each and every one of the amazing sandwiches I’ve eaten at Lola’s, but will limit myself to a few recommendations. The eggplant panini is an ingenious, playful use of a vegetable that doesn’t lend itself to easy cooking, but it provides the perfect bass line for a perfect Italian chord progression of prosciutto di Parma, arugula and boursin cream cheese dressing. Chicken brushetta on ciabatta turns chicken and mozzarella into a single unfolding story—an all-encompassing theme born from two juxtaposing textures and complimented with perfectly slippery roasted red peppers, pesto and balsamic reduction. It always feels like a gamble, but here it pays off to get the portobello sandwich: simple, earthy and successful, with creamy mozzarella, biting spinach and tempered, grilled tomatoes.

You can never go wrong with anything sounding remotely southwestern: Lola’s offers Tex Mex chicken, chipotle turkey, and then there is the Texas Dip sandwich, which makes you wonder why there aren’t more French-Southern fusion restaurants. A foundation of house-smoked beef swimming in a homemade steak sauce, topped by mountains

of caramelized onion on French bread, the sandwich had me speaking in tongues, with accents from El Paso and from Normandy: a match made in heaven.

Specials change daily and are posted on their website as well as on an enormous chalkboard that takes up most of the rear wall. Sometimes you’ll see Asian-inspired textures, often there will be a decadent salad and not once have I seen a special recycled.

Every sandwich comes with a side (which you can also buy in bulk to take home). The couscous with cranberries and the spicy peanut noodles are especially well done, both of them varied in texture as well as taste.

As with most restaurants in Poughkeepsie, you may want to avoid the fish, but this shouldn’t be too much of a problem, as there are a very limited number of seafood dishes listed on the menu. I did witness a very inspired looking Ahi Tuna Pita go to the table next to me, but sesame seared tuna with wasabi can be found anywhere. Why waste a trip to an artist’s studio just to watch her paint an imitation Rembrandt?

I still have yet to fully explore the offerings at Lola’s. The list is too long, and I’ve found too many comforting favorites to keep going back to. All I know is that I may start making field trips back to Poughkeepsie once I leave, just so I can taste some American music once more.

Remember when it was called the World Wide Web?

Vassar’s website, pictured above in one of its earlieriest versions, has gone through many iterations since the Internet first came to the College. Also pictured is a screenshot of the Miscellany’s website in 1998.

INTERNET continued from page 1 hold class. On a campus full of smart phones and laptops, even a time without wireless Internet can seem like ancient history.

50 years ago, the Internet existed only as an abstraction in the dreams of computer engineers. The Internet’s development began in the 1960s with visionary thinkers such as J.C.R. Licklider of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who proposed a global network of computers in 1962. The first incarnation of the Internet emerged in 1969 through a contract led by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). The first ARPANET (a primary tool that would later become the Internet) link was established between four major computers at the University of California at Los Angeles, the Stanford Research Institute, the University of California at Santa Barbara and the University of Utah. The first users of this rudimentary Internet were computer experts, engineers, librarians and scientists. Over time, additional universities, organizations and, eventually, individuals, gained access.

Vice President of Computing and Information Services Bret Ingerman described the ease with which information can be found online today as well as the variety of formats offered. “When the Internet first came into being, there were no video or audio streams, webcams or online communities such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. It was all simple text,” Ingerman said. Moreover, according to Ingerman, Vassar did not extend wireless Internet access to the entirety of the campus until 2004.

Today, it is difficult for most Vassar students to imagine a campus without ubiquitous computing. Ingerman described the current generation of students, as “a generation free to share information in such a complex and efficient way, empowering them to do more and become better educated consumers of information. The new and constantly advancing technology continually augments information that is available.”

The more information that individuals have access to, the better the information, according to Registrar Dan Giannini, who went into detail regarding Vassar College’s Banner system, an online data center that includes the College’s Banner Online and Ask Banner systems. The Banner system, according to Giannini, is the “main administrative computing

system that stores information on students, faculty and employees. It’s how the administration operates the College.

Initially, it was a system that allowed the administration to process information on students, faculty and employees.

With advancements in Internet access, the Banner system became much more inclusive, allowing students, faculty and employees to access its information.” In fact, today, through Ask Banner, students can access a myriad of tools, including class schedules, student and faculty directories, the course catalog (archived all the way back to 1998) and the academic calendar.

Head of Reader Services Barbara Durniak described how the initial production of library sources went from print-based to text-based, then finally to a web-based interface. When the Internet first came to Vassar’s campus, Durniak remembered that “the Internet as a whole was not very robust, which resulted in connectivity problems. Of course this improved over time. The library did not have adequate bandwith, which was the network’s data transfer capacity. Bandwidth issues could be solved simply by purchasing more bandwidth.

This was an ongoing problem for a few years: The campus would purchase more bandwidth, but more and more information became available online, and more bandwidth was needed.” The changes began with CD-ROMs which arrived at

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

the library quarterly, containing specific information. As the number of resources expanded and things began getting digitized, more individuals had access to the Internet and information, creating an improved and more efficient system.

Students had the ability to search different databases and information could be updated hourly, creating sources that were more accurate and user friendly.

Durniak described these changes as a “migration of format.” In other words, information that began in print migrated to CD-ROMs, which then became digitized to text-based interface and, finally, a web-based interface, which includes an expanded academic index, new databases and an influx of information from different sources. However, Durniak noted, “As the Internet has advanced, the resources the library purchases to support research have become more complicated to use. That’s why research librarians are happy to help and teach students how to use information correctly and efficiently.”

What exactly the future holds for Vassar researchers and their mice remains uncertain. An Amazon Kindle on every desk? An iPod in every backpack? We’ve certainly moved past the days of paying by the minute for AOL time, but as computing systems continue to change, the nature of research, classroom time and administrative systems will undoubtedly change with it.

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April 8, 2010

Page 7

Tilapia springs forth from grocery store palette Nate Silver

Pistachio-crusted tilapia

Columnist

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5 small tilapia fillets 1/2 c. shelled pistachios 1/2 loaf stale bread Salt and pepper 1/2 t. chili powder 2 T olive oil 1/2 onion, chopped 2 T butter Juice of 2 lemons 2 T water

Arugula, fennel and orange salad

Grocery List Tilapia Lemons Baby Arugula Pistachios Oranges Yesterday’s Bread Fennel Total

Products purchased at: $9.25 $0.67 $1.99 $2.64 $0.75 $1.99 $2.49

$19.78

»» 3 c. baby arugula, »» 1 bulb fennel, thinly sliced »» 2 medium navel oranges, peeled and sectioned »» 2 T cider vtinegar »» 3 T olive oil »» 1 T mustard »» 1/2 t. honey »» Salt and pepper to taste Combine the arugula, fennel and orange sections in a bowl. For the dressing, mix the mustard, honey, vinegar, salt and pepper.

While whisking slowly, pour in the olive oil to prevent it from separating.

Follow recipes in photoessays on

Exposure Vassar in pictures

765 Dutchess Turnpike Poughkeepsie, NY 12603 (845) 454-4330

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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.

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Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News

Begin by cutting the bread into large cubes. Toast these in a 300 degree oven for seven to 10 minutes, until they are crispy and dried out. In a blender or food processor, chop the bread cubes into tiny breadcrumbs.

Set aside. In the same food processor chop the pistachios.

Sprinkle a healthy pinch of salt and a grind or two of pepper on each of the filets and then sprinkle on the chili powder. Combine the breadcrumbs and chopped pistachios and firmly press into the flesh of the fish.

In a medium sauté pan over medium-high heat, heat the olive oil. In small batches, sauté the filets (crustier-side down) for two to three minutes until they are golden brown.

Repeat with all of the filets and then place on a baking sheet. Place the baking sheet in a 300 degree oven and bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until just cooked through.

While the fish is baking, add the butter and onion to the sauté pan and turn the heat to medium-low. Sauté five minutes until the onions soften and then add the water and lemon juice. Bring to a boil and reduce by half. Spoon over the tilapia to serve.

Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News

»» »» »» »» »» »» »» »» »» »»

Kelley Van Dilla/The Miscellany News

ish can be difficult to master. Overcook it and it’s tough and dry, undercook it and it’s tough and unsightly. To get that perfect, flaky, melt-in-your-mouth succulence is always a challenge, and perhaps the biggest obstacle to cooking fish for this column is doing it for under $20. But I do what I can, and this recipe is packed with bright flavors and textural contrasts that make it a great dish to welcome springtime on a tight budget.

When I entered Adam’s this week, I didn’t really know what I was going to make. I knew that since the temperatures were going to be in the 70s this week, it was time to move away from root vegetables and hearty flavors and into the green and freshness of the spring. With that in mind, I started with the salad. Baby arugula is one of my favorite greens to use because of its lightly peppery flavor and the aesthetic pleasure of seeing it sitting perkily on a plate; I find it a stunningly beautiful salad green. To contrast with the bite of arugula, I settled on the sweetness of oranges and then decided to add the crunchy, anise flavor of the fennel. Cooking with the illustrious Nicole Wood this week, I charged her with creating a salad dressing and she created a masterpiece that continued to build flavors, incorporating the tanginess of cider vinegar, the creaminess of mustard and the sweetness of honey.

Heading over to the fish cooler at Adams, I stayed away from my more expensive go-tos and settled on tilapia. The beauty of tilapia is its firmness that allows it to hold a crust and its affordability. Crusting fish with any sort of ground nut is a fantastic way to create strong flavors and play against the flaky texture of well-cooked fish. The problem was that the only sort of shelled pistachios Adams had were in packages upwards of $10. A great tip for budget shopping: I approached an employee, explaining I only needed a couple of dollars worth, and he gladly repackaged the nuts and gave me only the amount I needed for this recipe. With nuts, a little goes a long way, so I knew I would have to fill out the crust with breadcrumbs. Another great tip: I went over to the bin of stale bread and found a beautiful rosemary-olive loaf (flavor alert!) which I took home for the breadcrumbs and also doubled as croutons for the salad.

To prepare the fish, once crusted, I seared it in a very hot pan to get the crispiness I desired. But a word of caution: continuing to cook it in the same pan at such a high heat would burn the outside before the inside cooked through, so I employed my favorite kitchen trick—and every restaurant’s secret— finishing in the oven. Taking the seared fillets and placing them in a 300 degree oven allowed the fish to maintain its crisp exterior and gently cook through for the tender, flaky interior. Deciding on a sauce for this fish, I played off of the citrus in the salad and created a simple pan sauce by adding some chopped onion, lemon juice and butter to the pan in which I had seared the fish.

If I may pass on one pinch of wisdom about this week’s dish: It’s not really the recipe itself. Instead, it’s important to keep in mind that spending time in a grocery store is just about the most inspiring thing for anyone who loves to cook. What better way to decide what to make for dinner than by spending some quality time in the place where every option is (literally) on the shelves?

OPINIONS

Page 8

Last week, several events—including Free Weezy: A Mug Night and Davison Luau—shook some members of the Vassar College community. See the columns below to read the continuing commentary on these and other campus issues.

Discussions must be more reasonable, less polarized Crystal Tung

Guest Columnist

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s an annual tradition, it seems, the Vassar campus holds at least one event that, in itself or in its advertising, offends some members of the Vassar community. This semester, we have been lucky enough to experience a trifecta of such events: Free Weezy: A Mug Night, the Davison Luau and Miami ViCE. The Free Weezy Mug night, from my understanding, was offensive in that its white creators used Lil Wayne’s public persona and, as a result, appropriated black vernacular language. But even as members of a nondominant group, students of color have the power to make our own choices. We don’t like being defined by our race, so why do we continually self-define that way, and why do we define these white male students by theirs when calling them out on their insensitivity?

I am personally not a fan of double standards, yet that is a clear example of one. And why have some black students chosen to let Lil Wayne be a representation of them? I don’t see Lucy Liu as a widely recognized version of myself, and if someone told me they did, I would think they’re an idiot, and likely tell them so. Moreover, given the nature of the actual event—a Mug night at which a specific genre of music was featured, albeit by white DJs, because, yes, Vassar could do with more students of color—no appropriation or caricaturing actually occurred.

The Davison Luau was a similar case. Students from Hawaii are small in number and were not involved in the creation of this luau.

They are at a disadvantage for sure. But maybe the concept of the luau is, at this point, as American as pizza, Mardi Gras and St. Patrick’s Day. Yes, people have a narrow conception of what Hawaii is like, and yes, we tend to exoticize the unfamiliar, especially when it

involves people of color. But a party involving blow-up palm trees and a tropical theme hardly immediately points to that. As with Free Weezy Mug night, in jumping to conclusions, we sometimes otherize ourselves.

As for the Miami ViCE poster, given the images of sexualized, objectified, idealized female bodies with which we are inundated daily, I think the poster for this event could have easily avoided offense if the makers had just thought beyond societal norms. That being said, where did the image come from? If it was found on Google and subsequently Photoshopped, it’s understandable that it was chosen; after all, as I just said, we’re overwhelmed with images of sexualized women’s bodies, and there isn’t much to counter that.

The availability of this image over one of, say, sexualized male bodies, is an undeniable reflection of the world in which we currently live. This is a truth, albeit an unpleasant one.

We can’t ignore the unpleasant truths of dominant media and hierarchies dictated by race, gender and class, among other things.

The personal really is political—we each have our interests, borne of our upbringing and exposure to certain things. We have personal experiences that shape us, sometimes mold us into what we individually perceive to be our designated status, and make us aware of some things and oblivious to others.

We have to remember that in situations like these, opinions are opinions: we should respect each others’, but nobody’s is objective.

It’s easier said than done, I know, but the way we Vassar students currently go about conversing with those who don’t agree with us is often overly self-righteous and defensive, with a heavy undercurrent of intellectual one-upmanship. This is not actually open- or equality-minded or productive in the least, and it ultimately just makes for divisiveness and resentment.

April 8, 2010

Solutions to insensitive events require dialogue Louise Conner

Guest Columnist

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would first like to apologize to anyone who was hurt by Davison House’s spring event, formerly called Davison Luau. As has been stated many times, it was never our intent to pass judgment on Hawaiian culture or to implicate Hawaii in any way. I would also like to express some of my own personal opinions about the things that have occurred in response. As the President of Davison House, I do feel responsible for the event, and I’d like to make it clear that the opinions I express here are solely my own and that members of the Davison House Team may feel very differently.

About a week before Winter Break, the Davison House Team came up with the idea of throwing a tropical themed party. We spent a lot of time thinking about all the things we loved about tropical beaches—wearing flip-flops, surfing, laying under palm-trees, fruity drinks, bright colored flowers, Beach Boys’ music and sunshine. We called it a luau. Even though luau is a native Hawaiian term, as is the word lei, we weren’t thinking of any country or region in particular. However, after we published the Davison Luau Facebook event, a few comments began trickling in that our event was offensive to Hawaiian culture. The comments compared Davison’s event to others such as Free Weezy: A Mug Night and the Compton Cookout, and some of the comments’ authors characterized the Davison House Team as a group of ignorant and privileged students.

I was stunned and upset, but I understood that we hadn’t chosen the most suitable name for our event, especially since I’m not Hawaiian, nor do I possess any great knowledge of Hawaiian culture or traditional luaus. We decided to open up part of our house team meeting on Wednesday, March 31 to discuss the luau because we didn’t understand what had happened and wanted to rectify that. We invited the entire campus to attend and specifically asked students who had voiced their complaints online to join us.

At the meeting, we had a constructive conversation with members of the Vassar community, but the people who had been most vocal online chose not to attend. We all learned a lot from that discussion, and in the end, we decided to dissociate the event with anything Hawaiian, in-

cluding dropping the luau from our event name.

I have never been to Hawaii, and I don’t know anything about traditional luaus. But one of my biggest continuing issues is that I still don’t. For all the critiquing that took place, I am still ignorant to the meaning of luaus in the Hawaiian culture. I was very upset that although people could critique our event from their laptops, when I reached out in hopes that I could learn something as well as find some solution to the problem, they decided not to be part of that solution. To me, it felt like people were telling me how wrong I was, without actually contributing anything constructive.

Students should approach organizations and their leaders if they feel offended by the actions of that organization. That was why I thought it was such a wonderful idea to attempt to create some dialogue instead of ignoring those complaints. But I don’t like being told that I don’t understand minorities and that I’m privileged. I am a minority, and the mere fact that we’re at Vassar makes all of us privileged. I’m not debating that some are more privileged than others, but just as I don’t know the circumstances of the people who were offended by our event, they don’t know my circumstances. Attacking people when they make a mistake isn’t going to solve a problem, nor is it going to make people want to help you find a solution. In fact, the very sort of presumptuous generalization that was being criticized was perfectly duplicated in the claims that the event planners were “ignorant” and “privileged.”

In this instance, I put my personal feelings aside, because I 100 percent believe that events at Vassar should be as inclusive as possible, and I feel that it is my role as president to help create that atmosphere. But at the same time I urge members of this community not to be complacent if they are offended, hurt or feel attacked.

Don’t simply be vocal online or talk trash; make active commitments to find solutions. Beyond this campus, everyone is responsible for themselves, and I think it’s important that Vassar students take part in finding solutions when they perceive a potentially hurtful and inaccurate cultural judgment.

—Louise Conner ’11 is the President of Davison House.

VSA needs to approach Events must be placed campus issues directly in historical context Mathew Leonard

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Guest Columnist

t seems to happen like clockwork. Every spring, as the outside temperature rises, so do campus tensions. Each year it follows the same pattern: An event or situation moves too far and offends students on campus. Last year it was the mini-course The Language of Ladies, and this year it was the Free Weezy Mug night. After the initial offense, the pattern continues with the creators of the event and the offended parties sometimes engaging in online verbal sparring that exacerbates the problem. This is followed by the inevitable call for a community forum, followed by an apology, and, ultimately, the campus forgets and moves on—problem solved.

Unfortunately, frequently the problem is not solved at all, and the campus does not forget. Far from it, the tensions remain. Each community forum, each scathing editorial and each public apology only serves to superficially heal the wound. Below the surface, however, the sore festers: Neither group achieved what they wanted, and both felt that they were misunderstood. These tensions remain hidden under the surface until the next event, where they are repeated.

For such a small campus, we as students are incredibly divided. One of the hallmarks of a Vassar education is an independent spirit along with the ability to choose one’s intel-

lectual and intrapersonal path on the journey of our higher education. We come from a variety of backgrounds, genders, races, sexual identities and political ideologies. Vassar students, as a whole, are tolerant. However, we forget that there exists a wide disparity of sensitivities on this campus. This variety of sensitivities is coupled with an almost hubristic sense of tolerance: an idea that we are so tolerant that we no longer have to worry about what we say. The combination of sensitivities and tolerance taken for granted is like a lit match to a powder keg.

Yet, as we divide ourselves over issues, we lose track of the common thread that should unite this campus. It is the community of Vassar that binds us all together, and the group that fosters that connection is the Vassar Student Association (VSA).

As students at this college we are all members of the VSA. In theory, the VSA is the strongest voice of all Vassar students. In practice, however, the VSA consistently falls short of delivering on its purpose. Time and time again, people complain that the VSA is not representing their voice on campus.

These complaints do not arise from one section of the campus or one population; they are as diverse as the campus itself. This raises the question: Whom exactly is the VSA representing? If it does represent everyone, See VSA on page 13

Kevin Guckin

T

Guest Columnist

he entire concept of the Free Weezy Mug night and the subsequent reactions to it have really been weighing on me this past week. I was hurt by this event, and I just don’t want to think about it anymore. I am upset that I have to live in a community where our fellow students are not respected. We have been acting like this event isn’t a big deal, and we’ve even been criticizing each other simply for saying that we were hurt by it. But I really can’t move on until some things are resolved.

The reactions to people who have been upset by this event have allowed those implicated to remain outside of any form of productive discussion. Wrapped up in conversations about intention and wanting to have fun, these students have been ignoring the larger issues.

I do not think that there were any bad intentions behind this event, but regardless, intentions are irrelevant. I hope that through an understanding of why events such as these and the reactions to them contribute to a system of racism and classism that perpetuates inequality, we will be better able to engage and respect each other.

Racist stereotypes, similar to the ones advertised in this event, have existed for hundreds of years. When the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery (except as punishment for crimes), these stereotypes continued to

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

persist as a means of social control. The institution of slavery was quickly replaced by the institution of prison. This transition was facilitated primarily through Black Codes, which virtually criminalized Blackness and were intended to provide a steady supply of cheap (read: free) labor, as well as to maintain the racial dominance of whites. Variations of these Black codes still exist today (difference in sentencing for crack cocaine versus powder cocaine), that primarily target lower classes and result in a prison population of over 70 percent people of color. Lil Wayne, in his song “Misunderstood,” explores some of the issues surrounding race and the prison industrial complex: “I was watching t.v. the other day right / got this white guy up there talking about black guys / talking about how young black guys are targeted / targeted by who? america / you see one in every 100 americans are locked up / one in every 9 black americans are locked up / and see what the white guy was trying to stress was that / the money we spend on sending a mothafucka to jail / a young mothafucka to jail / would be less to send his or her young ass to college.”

How does all of this relate to the Mug night?

First of all, I would like to point out that there was certainly a celebration of Lil Wayne’s incarceration in this event, and that’s messed up. But more importantly, the offensive stereo See CONTEXT on page 13

April 8, 2010

OPINIONS

Page 9

Facebook group meant to foster dialogue Elizabeth Ilechko

O

Guest Columnist

n Monday, April 5, I started a Facebook group called “Offended?” in response to the growing number of Vassar events that had been changed or argued about over the last couple of weeks. Less than 24 hours later I have over 100 members, three discussion boards, one student calling me a “Self-Loathing African American” and another suggesting I run for Vassar Student Association Vice President for Student Life. I knew in creating this group that it would blow up, but the suddenness of it all really surprised me.

Last year in Liza Donnelly’s Issues in Feminism: Bodies and Texts, I came to the conclusion that racial, sexual and other general differences were things that would not disappear; however, I did not think of it as a bad thing. I believe that it is important to recognize differences in people. However, it depends on which direction you take these differences that it can become constructive and beautiful, or nasty and prejudicial. When I see a person, I may see them internally as “Caucasian female” or “Asian male,” but I’m not assigning any other meaning to that. It’s a natural difference, and it can lead you to explore those differences

in a positive way. Color and sex cannot just be swept under the rug. I hope for equality for all, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see what is directly in front of me, and that is where I believe things cannot and will not change.

With regards to the events on campus, I want to reiterate what I said on my group; I believe that the invitations put out by these organizations were meant to be harmless, fun events for the student body to get together and party it up. The Free Weezy Mug night was about Lil Wayne’s music. The Davison Luau was a chance to have a great time in the sun before the real Poughkeepsie weather comes back. By getting upset over these events, the rift is getting wider rather than smaller. Students should not have to walk on eggshells around each other for fear of causing offense. If things were really like that, our events would be bland and lifeless. We go to one of the most liberal liberal arts schools; let’s think of these events as celebrating each other’s differences and where we come from as opposed to intentionally trying to stir up trouble. Once we graduate and enter the real world, finding open-minded people like the ones that exist here will be far more challenging.

In creating my Facebook group, I never in-

tended to discount the feelings of those who were honestly and truly offended. There are some things that just cannot be fixed by dialogue. But seeing as a dialogue was not opened, it seems to me that the students that had problems with these events just got what they wanted. The Davison House Team did create a forum for the discussion, and those who were offended didn’t even show up and still got their way! The point of my group was to give the students who were not offended a place to talk with those that were, and hopefully come to an understanding of each other, whether it was to decide that there are topics that are off limits or to see that some students are taking themselves too seriously. If the current system of “I have a problem with this, therefore it needs to change” continues, everyone will take offense to everything for fun, which will turn to chaos and most definitely leave those people whose feelings are truly hurt without a way to say what they feel. We need to stop nitpicking and look at the bigger picture.

I still believe that we need to accept our differences and live with them. Stereotypes have to come from somewhere, and often times I think that stereotypes can be accurate. But it’s

not necessarily bad. Taking note of these cultural differences in a positive light moves us forward, but thinking of them as malicious creates controversy. There are definitely levels of seriousness with regards to these things. Shortly after the creation of my group, an alumnus approached me online and told me the story of a student who hung a noose outside their own door with no intention of offending anyone. But there is a legitimate history of bigotry and hate behind a noose. It is a symbol of death. Leis and “purple drank” are found at social gatherings— granted, not all social gatherings—in their respective cultures and do not hold negative connotations there. So why take them as students trying to exploit other cultures?

I know that what I’ve done is controversial, and yes, maybe some people will be offended once again. But my intention is to open discussion, not call out those who were offended and say that they are wrong. I am presenting a new way of thinking and one that I personally see as more positive. I hope others who agree with me will be brave enough to step up against the backlash that I have faced less than a day after the group’s creation and further the conversation I have started.

Change will come gradually Emil Ostrovski

Manbox does not think outside the proverbial box Angela Aiuto

Opinions Editor

I

’m sure that by now many of you have seen the “manbox” erected—pun totally intended—by Counseling and Assistance in Response to Rape and Exploitive Sexual Activity (CARES) in the College Center. For those of you who haven’t, I’ll offer a brief description. It is quite literally a box that one can walk into and out of, and it is covered in white paper. Students are encouraged to write their thoughts about masculinity on the box. The inside is meant as a place to write about those qualities that society has defined as masculine, while the outside is a place to discuss characteristics that challenge that perception. Its intention, as described on a flier, is to “facilitate a conversation” about “how and whether these socially defined roles support men who are abusive, and how well-meaning men who are pressured to stay in the manbox can break out of it and speak out against domestic and sexual violence.”

I can’t say that I was particularly surprised by what was written both inside and outside of the box. The stereotyped male has been described as confident, aggressive, chivalric but also macho— one who exercises power and dominance. The traits and behaviors written outside the box, those that are not as widely accepted characterizations of masculinity, include crying, respect, taking responsibility, and asking for help or directions.

It’s an interesting dialogue in that it highlights the ways in which men are victims of patriarchy. Namely, that men who are more understanding of sexism, and who are consequently more mindful of injustices and more willing to treat women as equals, are perceived as unmanly and therefore unworthy.

Nevertheless, I think the exercise ignores the incredible amount of agency that men have, particularly in comparison to women. My own experiences trying to point out instances of sexism to other men have often been futile; perhaps because they have never experienced sexism themselves, men often respond that I am overreacting or reading too much into a situation. Others have suggested to me that women overstate the effects of sexism far too much, and accuse feminists of “playing the victim.”

And a male family member even accused me of being “radical” for condemning the 30 Republican senators who voted against Senator Al Franken’s anti-rape amendment.

Now, imagine a discussion and condemnation of sexism coming from a man. Because men are not very often victimized in a sexist society, their assessment of a statement, an action, an attitude as sexist may seem to be coming from a different

place. Other men will consider their reasonings more detached, logical, rational and will be more likely to accept their conclusions.

But the manbox doesn’t really seem to address this agency that men have to really mold, shape and change the patriarchy. It treats “well-meaning men...who are pressured to stay in the manbox” as if they are just as victimized as women. The language excuses violent behavior, implying that male violence, particularly male violence against women, is a result of the society in which they grew up rather than their own personal agency. It also pats men on the back for being respectful of women, for taking responsibility for their actions and for demonstrating humility—in other words, for being decent human beings.

I don’t really think that’s a healthy or productive way to discuss male violence. I especially don’t think it’s healthy or productive on a campus where white men repeatedly insist they need a “safe space” to objectify women or exoticize and commodify different races, ethnicities and cultures. The fact that this sort of thing even happens at what was once a women’s college, and on a campus that is composed of 60 percent women, demonstrates the amount of power that men have here to define our social space.

The manbox could facilitate an interesting conversation about masculinity and gendered violence on campus, but I doubt that it will. I can’t see many students, male or female, taking the time and effort to write and read comments that rise above already familiar and hackneyed stereotypes about masculinity and unmasculine males. And I don’t think that the manbox is necessarily equipped, simply in terms of available writing space, to facilitate substantive discussions about such complex and nuanced issues, anyway.

Rather, progress is really only going to be made on this campus once men use their power to eradicate sexism. This requires that men not only educate themselves about sexism and how it affects both men and women, but also that they have conversations with other men about sexism.

Now, I’m not suggesting that men should berate any guy they hear making a lewd comment. (I’m not necessarily against that kind of behavior, either, but I can see how it is kind of awkward and potentially dangerous.) Rather, men should recognize and fulfill their important role in deconstructing gender norms and eradicating sexism by discussing and legitimizing these issues with men who are close to them: family, friends, classmates. The resolution of these problems is rooted in the recognition of male agency and privilege, not refutations of it.

Guest Columnist

O

n the second to last day of my servicelearning trip to the Gulf Coast, I stood in a circle with my fellow volunteers and waited my turn as we went round and shared our final reflections. I stood there and tried to find something meaningful to say about all the work that still needed to be done, even five years after Hurricane Katrina. About little Boothville in Southern Louisiana, a town that made Poughkeepsie look like a gleaming metropolis, and that had, thanks to Hurricane Katrina, spent several weeks literally underwater. About the young family whom we’d helped a bit towards creating a viable living space out of a broken and beaten old trailer.

About all the empty lots in Boothville to which families might want to return, though they lacked the means to do so, and about the rows of deserted homes in New Orleans with writing on their walls—writing that had been telling the same story since the first volunteers set it down—what it was that they’d found inside in the initial aftermath of the storm.

Throughout the course of the trip, it was hard not to cast blame around, and surely, there is a lot of blame to be cast. The Army Corps of Engineers said Boothville’s levies were high enough. They were not. New Orleans wasn’t even directly hit by the storm, yet their levies broke. But it was not the whole city that was affected—the poorer, predominantly black regions suffered the most, whereas the more affluent parts of the city, set on higher ground, came away relatively unscathed. In Boothville, we learned that hurricanes had devastated the region twice before, by Hurricane Betsy in 1965 and Hurricane Camille in 1969. After the destruction Hurricane Camille wrought, the government at least provided all homeless residents with trailers as temporary housing. After Hurricane Katrina, there was no such response.

One of the things I found myself struggling with was whether the lack of government assistance should surprise me. Would I expect the government to step in on my behalf if I didn’t have insurance, or if my insurance company found a way to cheat me out of my just compensation, as allegedly happened to a number of Boothville residents? The answer is no. Not because I think it’s right or wrong, but because that’s just not how our political-economic system is designed to work. Granted, the destruction resulting from Hurricane Katrina was on a much grander scale, but the effect, at the individual level, is similar. My point here is that it seems we’re surprised when a political-economic system not equipped to provide these kinds of safety nets to individuals suffering everyday disasters fails to adequately address a disaster of Hurricane Katrina’s scale. The

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

only reason for this I could find is that large scale disasters have a shock and awe factor that puts them at the fore of peoples’ minds, wherever they happen to be in the country. That, it seems, is the only difference.

While it is easy to become fixated on Hurricane Katrina, if we feel there is injustice in the government response to the storm, our problem is actually less with the governmental response and more with the political-economic system that, when put under stress, responded inadequately to people in need.

There are many reasons for why our system is flawed, but the deepest, simplest reason for why our system is imperfect—a reason we can all agree on—is that imperfect, fallible beings can only create imperfect and fallible systems, and implement them in imperfect, fallible ways. Upon realizing this, it is easy to become very angry, very frustrated at the immensity of the problems facing us, at the seeming hopelessness of change. We are faced with problems within problems within problems; the steps we must take to address them are steps within steps within steps. Progress feels a far off, almost impossible, dream, hard to hold onto in the bitter reality of a moment-by-moment existence.

When it came to be my turn to speak, I tried my best to put all the frustration we’d been feeling in context. Our efforts in the Gulf Coast and our lives before and after our trip all figure into the societal evolution of the human race. We often forget this in a world that at times seems harsh and cruel, but the guns, both metaphorical and literal fire, the bombs fall and shrapnel shrieks through the air, not because most people in this world are bad, but because most people in this world are good but also flawed and fallible.

Even though I consider myself something of a cynic, regaining some measure of faith in humanity can be as simple as recalling a conversation with a friend. And even a semi-reclusive, non-partying, introvert such as myself has his friends, and is a friend to some.

We should not expect change to come easily. We should not expect change to come quickly. And we should not expect to ever reach our goal. And this is good. This is good, because change, evolution, should be a struggle. It should be painful and arduous and heartbreaking because we are struggling against our own fallibility, imperfection. And what gives us the heart to struggle against our very natures should not be the mirage of a far off future that we will die before reaching, but rather, the people who work side-byside with us to make this societal evolution happen, one little step a time—through acts of charity, issues education and community organizing, sure, but also through something as seemingly insignificant as sharing a laugh with a friend.

OPINIONS

Page 10

April 8, 2010

We cannot condone discrimination Dr. Hallowell Mitchell Gilburne

A

Sports Editor

man in a dress is not something you see every day. But when you do, you know you’re in for something special. But life cannot always be abundant with fabulosity. As the reigning Queen of Vassar’s own drag extravaganza, aptly named “Flawless,” I too have hit my fair share of bumps in the road. From a last minute rush for false eyelashes to realizing that I had left my strapless denim jumpsuit in my room mere minutes before the competition started, it quickly became apparent that a the life of a diva is not all glitz and glitter. But it’s not so bad. In fact, wardrobe malfunctions, cat calls and last minute scrambling are some of the best parts of doing drag; it’s all about making stories. However, some stories are darker than others. Be warned, the following tale is entirely true, entirely ugly and entirely real.

It was Saturday, March 27. I was strolling through the hallowed halls of Poughkeepsie’s Galleria Mall, the preferred stomping grounds of might-as-well-be-a-drag-queen Snookie of Jersey Shore fame, with a dear friend with thoughts of future fierceness clouding my vision. I was there to prepare for Medea’s second run at the “Flawless” crown. My more fabulous self, Medea, the oh-so-spicy daring debutante who makes her home in the plush pink recesses of cerebellum, is no stranger to the Galleria, and she had only one destination in mind: a store called Seagull. Seagull is a sparsely decorated “boutique”, located on the first floor of the mall. Its bare walls, sloppy organization, cheap prices and heinously tacky clothing make it a veritable playground for a queen like Medea. After traipsing around the store for a few moments unimpeded, and collecting a hefty armful of wee little frocks, faux leather leggings and sequined bustiers, a dazzling red dress with a plunging neckline that would make J.Lo jealous came into my field of vision and sprung in to my heart. The dress, unfortunately, was too high

for me to reach, so I approached a young female employee and asked for her assistance.

She seemed confused as to why a sharply dressed young man such as myself would be interested in a bedazzled red gown, but she dutifully followed me around the store taking down dress after dress as each jewel and bead and brooch called to my inner woman.

When I had finally amassed a collection of pieces to take for a test drive, I sidled up to the flimsy, unkempt dressing room and waited for my attendant to unlock it for me. This is where things get interesting. At this moment an older employee with harsh features and a gaping void in the place that her heart would normally occupy who reeked of tequila and sriracha dove in front of the dressing room door and firmly barked, “No!” Her ocular slits betrayed no warmth or compassion. It was very clear that I was not dealing with an an entity that could fully qualify as a person.

“That’s illegal,” I protested, not at all amused.

This made her smile. My memory may be at fault, but I imagine that a thick purple mucus covered her tongue as she spat out her subsequent words. “This is a woman’s store,” she hissed. I was shocked into inaction. I continued to insist that her behavior was against the law, but some of my usual chutzpah was dampened by my friend, who suggested that it wasn’t worth giving them my money. The employees informed me that they would be calling security to handle this issue, the prospect of which caused my companion to insist more urgently that we abandon the conflict.

I caved. Against my rights as a human being and everything that I believe, I decided to let this one go, and what shocks me the most is that I wasn’t all that broken up over it.

Shaken, but not too stirred, I left the store and proceeded to buy two absolutely fabulous dresses at the uncharacteristically accommodating Forever 21. I continued to buy makeup and jewelry and even inquire about some adhesive cutlets to give me that extra feminine

touch, and then I left the mall and drove off into the sunset ready to claim my title and my prize. Sure, this story had a happy ending, but in hindsight I am furious, enraged, shocked, baffled and fuming that I was told I couldn’t try on a dress. Are gender roles so strict? Are people truly so closed-minded? I can think of a thousand and one retorts from the safety of my computer screen. I could have called my assailant out on the fact that she was wearing pants, an article of clothing that I would claim for my gender if it had to come to that. I could have told her that no biological woman in her right mind would buy the tacky crap that they were peddling. I could have stayed and fought; I probably would have won. My friend was right, I would not be spending my money there, but I could have at least stretched out a couple of cheap hoochie mama dresses and left them in a messy pile on the dressing room floor.

The point is I could have done something more, felt something more, because the issue at hand is something more than just a boy wanting a dress. It’s the age-old issue of equality, discrimination and rigidity of conceptual ability that only serve to ostracize, demoralize and corrupt. The bottom line is that we can only enjoy the rights and priveleges that we fight for, and every time we let an ignorant gesture or outright act of discrimination slip under the radar we are turning our backs on the civil rights leaders, many of whom were indeed fabulous Drag Queen Divas themselves, that allow us to live openly and freely regardless of race, religion or orientation. I’m embarassed and ashamed to say that I did nothing on that day, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be back and you can be sure as shit that I’ll be raising hell.

—Mitchell Gilburne ’12 is the Sports Editor for The Miscellany News. Opinions reflected in this column do not represent those of the paper or other members of the Miscellany editorial board.

Texas textbook revisions partisan, power play Julian Mundy

L

Guest Columnist

et me just preface this article with a word to those among us who hail from Texas: I’m sorry. Whatever else you might read below reflects nothing about my general feeling toward Texas, since it’s kind of unfair to pass judgment on an entire state full of people based on the foibles of a few. That said, I’d just like to make it very clear to each and every one of you how much the Texas Board of Education scares me, and to emphasize that what they have done actually gives me a cold, horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. What I’m here to talk about is the extraordinary controversy surrounding the Texas Board of Education’s recent revisions to the state’s standards of teaching and the material covered in textbooks, which I will elaborate on for those of you who have not yet heard anything about it.

As of about two weeks ago, Don McLeroy, the chairman of the Texas Board of Education, and his supporters on the Board began a campaign for making sweeping changes to the content of textbooks offered to students ranging from elementary to high school level.

I could leave it at that and leave you thinking, “Well, it’s about time someone paid attention to the state of public education in this country!” However, what has been changed in these textbooks is a literal rewriting of history to make the material covered vastly more

friendly to the fundamentalist Christian and right-wing conservative demographics. These rewrites also paint the United States in a light that makes it appear to students as though we have never made a mistake in our entire history as a country. Should we still be relieved?

McLeroy, a dentist who has served in his current position since 1998, is willfully politicizing history, attempting to cover the mistakes that we have made so that the next generation of kids will never learn from them. He has been instrumental in going point-by-point over each textbook standardized by the state to find issues to revise, replacing terms like “American imperialism,” a crime of which we have certainly been guilty, with the more positive term, “expansionism.” Ironically, he also replaced one instance of the use of the term “propaganda” with “public education,” a line which McLeroy himself is hell-bent on blurring. He has been quoted as saying, “I disagree with these experts, somebody’s got to stand up to experts,” and when asked whether he would agree with assertions by colleagues that he is imposing his own religious and political views on schoolchildren, he has shamelessly admitted that, “I told people what I believed in and what motivated me, and my goal as an elected official is to stand up and do that.”

Now, some of you might be saying, “Okay, so? It’s just Texas, right? How does this apply to anyone else?” The answer is that Texas is such

a large state with such a high population that textbook publishers often create their books with Texas schools in mind, as they stand to make the most money working with the majority. In a nutshell, the factually erroneous and implicitly terrifying revisions made to Texas textbooks may spread across the country so that future generations won’t know that we didn’t win the war in Vietnam, or even who critical figures like Thomas Jefferson were.

This may be the dawning of an age that only George Orwell could conceive of in fiction, but which may actually become our reality. The part that staggers and shames me more than anything else is that the people who could’ve made a difference in preventing these changes either let it pass them by or simply allowed it to happen with dumb, silent consent. The median IQ in this country may hover around a measly 100, but I would never in my life have thought something like this possible. “The people in charge are too smart to let that happen;” that was what I thought, but it turns out that McLeroy, the man in charge of the Texas Board of Education, is leading the charge into indoctrinating future generations, backed by a hugely wealthy and powerful group of fellow hardcore conservative Christian fundamentalists. I plan on watching this issue closely in the coming months. Hopefully, the damage done can be corrected by those who understand the implications and can do something about it.

misses crucial point of ADHD Carson Robinson Guest Columnist

O

n Thursday, March 25, the famous psychiatrist Edward Hallowell gave a lecture in the Student Center about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Dr. Hallowell is a practicing clinician who specializes in ADHD. He is also a speaker and the author of the popular book Driven to Distraction. In his talk, his basic thesis was this: We should acknowledge both the positive and negative aspects of ADHD. I have no problem with that, and I would imagine that the Vassar community would find this idea pretty reasonable. But that’s just it: At a place like Vassar, Dr. Hallowell was addressing the wrong misconception, the wrong myth.

To me, there appear to be two contradictory myths about ADHD. The first is a myth of inadequacy, the idea that ADHD precludes success.

Dr. Hallowell (who has ADHD himself) spoke of counselors, teachers and doctors who tell parents to give up their aspirations for their children.

This myth of inadequacy is potentially harmful, very harmful. And it’s probably responsible for much of the stigma that surrounds ADHD. Unfortunately, the most readily available M.D.— WebMD—seems to support this myth, listing nothing but troubling information about ADHD. This is the myth that Dr. Hallowell focused on in his lecture—the inadequacy myth. But the intellectual community is already in agreement with Dr. Hallowell. Some scholars (they seem to come from various fields) seem to question the whole endeavor of diagnosis. For example, psychologist Gary Greenberg wrote a book called Manufacturing Depression, in which he argued that major depressive disorder is more of an invention than a true illness.

During the question and answer period, an attendee asked whether doctors receive money from drug companies to prescribe medication.

Dr. Hallowell got the picture. He stressed that practicing doctors have no personal financial incentives to prescribe these medications. And he stressed that ADHD is a true condition, not a marketing invention. Clearly, Dr. Hallowell found this intellectual skepticism ridiculous, but I don’t think he realizes just how strong these attitudes are. This brief moment in the question and answer session warrants a much more thorough dialogue, not between scholars and intellectuals, but between theorists and doctors.

Correcting both of these myths is a tricky balancing act. We don’t want to exaggerate the seriousness of ADHD, but we shouldn’t deny the seriousness either. To pathologize something is to regard it as unhealthy. The word has negative connotations, and academic critiques of medicine often operate under the assumption that pathologizing is always bad.

But what if something really is pathological?

Dr. Hallowell rejected the narrow perspective view of ADHD as an all-out impediment. But as a physician, Dr. Hallowell surely knows why it is that the mental health community has defined ADHD in terms of negative symptoms. It’s really quite simple: We only want to treat bad things, like all-consuming distractibility or incoherent speech. These symptoms of ADHD can be very troubling, and often easily treatable.

On the other hand, it would probably not be a very productive use of our resources to try and eradicate creativity, an example of a positive aspect of ADHD. Hence, diagnosticians do not use creativity to determine the presence of ADHD. Diagnosticians tend to look for bad things that warrant treatment. If you peruse WebMD, or something more definitive like the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders you will find lots of lists of bad things. And when you see these lists of bad things you should be very pleased! It helps to ensure that doctors only give treatment to people that need it. Superfluous treatment defeats the purpose of health care.

I’m being pretty nitpicky here; I really loved Dr. Hallowell’s lecture. But I think he missed an opportunity to defend his discipline, medicine, which faces heavy criticism from academia.

—Carson Robinson ’12 is the student representative on the Drug and Alcohol Education Committee.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

April 8, 2010

OPINIONS

GOP must tone down rhetoric, theatrics I

want to first apologize for my cousin’s standing in for me last week. It was probably a bad idea. Discourse like that isn’t particularly constructive—but the unfortunate thing is, it’s not particularly uncommon among members of the right-wing following the passage of health care reform.

Let’s look at the reaction coming from the losing side on the health care debate. In just two and a half weeks, it’s been pretty disgusting. Before the GOP actually lost, its supporters were spitting on Democratic congressmen and calling them racial and anti-gay epithets.

After the bill’s passage, images of nooses were faxed to black Congressman and House Majority Whip James Clyburn’s office. Multiple representatives were subjected to threats on their lives or the lives of their families. Security has been increased for supporters of health care reform.

The behavior doesn’t stop there. Federal agents broke up a group of right-wing terrorist who planned to kill a police officer and detonate an improvised explosive device at the officer’s funeral. They wanted to start an uprising against the federal government. Michele Bachmann urged her supporters not to follow the bill. Sean Hannity recently praised his followers for being “Tim McVeigh wannabes.” And she-who-shall-not-be-named-inthis-column urged her supporters to pull people with Obama bumper stickers over to ask them, “How’s that hopey-changey thing workin’ out for you?” Considering the discourse coming from the right-wing and their leaders, do I see the dialogue escalating further than a simple conversation about deficit spending

Kashmir central to resolution

on the side of the highway? You bet’cha!

The right will point to liberal opposition to the Bush administration to say that their reaction to Obamacare has a precedent. Sorry, folks. You don’t see left-wing militias in this country. Sure, in places like Colombia, where left-wing actually does mean violent and authoritarian—not Obama-style centrism—you get left-wing wackos. But the left in this country has things like Barbara Streisand and Code Pink. They’re obnoxious. They’re annoying as hell. They’re counterproductive to the political process and the progressive agenda. But they’re not violent, and they don’t threaten an uprising.

See, there’s a difference between putting fake blood on your hands to harass government officials at a Congressional hearing, and calling for armed insurrection against the federal government. My suspicion is that the conservatives in this country feel marginalized. They feel their voice isn’t being heard.

And they think that the only way to make a statement is to dial the rhetoric way up.

I think I share the opinion of most on the left, which is that we want to have a conversation with conservatives. If the right feels marginalized, it’s because they come to the table without ideas, just opposition. And that opposition, when it doesn’t come in the form of epithets, comes in the form of nonsense. No, Obama can’t be a socialist, a Communist and a Nazi at the same time. No, Obama hasn’t raised taxes for average Americans. He’s cut them.

And no, a health care bill with common sense reforms isn’t a government takeover of the health care industry any more than automo-

bile standards are socialized transportation.

Democrats don’t want to talk to people who insulate themselves in their blogosphere bubbles. We don’t want to deal with obstructionists, and we will ignore you moving forward.

There are reasonable conservatives. But the unfortunate reality is that they’re drowned out by the fringe. Is the media to blame?

Partly. But the sad truth is that nonsense, if it’s loud, gets more airtime than reasoned debate.

You’re not going to get covered on the evening news if you stand on a street corner and shout, “Hey! I’m concerned about the constitutionality of health care mandates, and here is my evidence to prove it!” But if you throw dollar bills on a man with Parkinson’s, telling him to find government handouts elsewhere, you’ll get covered for sure. Some will honor you as a hero, some will vilify you, but you’ll be heard.

Still, while theatrics may have short-term gains, it doesn’t get you a place with people who are serious about politics. The right-wing already lost the debate for health care reform.

But if it wants to be a force in an American democracy going forward, it needs to tone down the rhetoric and stop talking about political apocalypse. I’m not going to give Republicans policy ideas—that’s not my job as a progressive. But the GOP needs to find a voice. I won’t be surprised if the right-wing discourse of terror continues—it’s a natural outgrowth of nobody listening to their shouting. My suggestion? Stop shouting, and you’ll be heard next time.

What do you want to do with your parents for Parents Weekend?

“Have my dad write my thesis”

Daniel Gilberg ’10

“Take them to the Shakespeare garden”

Alejandro Montoya ’12

“Have them take me to a restaurant I usually can’t afford”

—Steve Keller ’11 is a political science major editorializing on American politics this semester.

ADVERTISEMENT

Chelsea Greenwood ’13

“I’d go out to eat with them at Fresca Tortilla”

Juan Dominguez

O

Page 11

Guest Columnist

ur plate’s quite full: The economy is in a near free fall, we’re stuck in two wars with budgets that are more obese than our children, and oh, yeah, there’s a pesky Persian who might nuke us. Quite the fix.

In this column, I’ll be suggesting an idealistic but creative route to solve the latter two problems.

Eight years, seven months and counting in Iraq and Afghanistan, casualties keep racking up, we can’t befriend the villages, and every now and then, that elusive rascal we see as our arch-nemesis will film himself in another hidden location, condescendingly threatening our lives.

The war on terror hasn’t gone our way. It is hard to fathom how the most powerful country in the world (rights not reserved on that title) can’t claim victory. The Taliban in Afghanistan has been identified as one of the core targets in this crusade against Islamic extremists; however, they’re a midget standing next to the giant that is the United States. Let’s do the math: We have the most sophisticated weaponry, while they, for the most part, don’t even have bulletproof vests. We pour billions of dollars into this war and they fuel it through drugs and arms trade. Yes, substantive, but not comparable. We have the help of over 20 countries. They are but a minority of fundamentalists primarily located in the Middle East. So what See KASHMIR on page 13

Sam Thypin-Bermeo ’11

“Take them on the Poughkeepsie wine trail”

Emily Kloppenburg ’11

“I want to go with them to Rhinebeck”

Lizzie Crabb ’12 —Angela Aiuto and Kelly Shortridge, Opinions Editors

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

OPINIONS

Page 13

April 8, 2010

Kashmir is to Kabul Event adds to misconceptions as Kabul is to Tehran KASHMIR continued from page 11 are we doing wrong? Well, I really am not an expert or political analyst, but I believe the quickest way to Kabul is Kashmir.

Solving the six-decade-long conflict between India and Pakistan could be the United States’ key to success in the Middle East. The main point of contention between the two countries is a region called Kashmir. India identifies the region as primordial in their own “war on terror,” having launched multiple offenses against militants. Allegations of human rights violations have followed suit, further straining the Pakistan relations. However, hopes of peace between Pakistan and India were revived a few weeks ago when foreign secretaries of both nations met for the first time since the Mumbai attacks in late November of 2008. The “talks about talks,” as described by India’s Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, have eased concerns over a nuclear standoff and also opened a window of opportunity for Washington.

The United States could potentially be the stepping stone to peace by first advising that Pakistan end their support for anti-Indian terrorism. Then, by assisting India in their obsessive pursuit for a permanent seat on UN Security Council, we could easily convince Rao of the need to demilitarize the Kashmir and possibly cede it to Pakistan. But perhaps this is too radical?

September 26, 1959, we started a war that would end up costing billions and prove to be a massive failure.

Yep, Vietnam. The communist threat was seen as imminent and contagious, when it was really just a nationalist movement against French colonial rule. Ironically enough, our relations with Vietnam ended up being in the pink, while they would spit at the men-

Crossword

by Jonathan Garfinkel ACROSS 1. Academic period, briefly 4. Electric Nikola 9. “Angel dust” 12. Hollywood’s Thurman 13. Harry Potter, for one 14. Corrida cry 15. With 17-across, line one of a campus poster 17. See 15-across 19.

Where one may be stuck 20. “Do You _______?” (hit by poster’s subject) 22. With 65-across, leader of the poster’s

tion of fellow Red nations, like China.

Kashmir is predominantly Muslim anyways, and polls show the majority of people would like to become a part of Pakistan. Let’s not let history repeat itself; India should give it up.

The last ingredient to dealing with the Taliban would be to have Pakistan move their forces from east to west.

Presently, the security on their border with Afghanistan represents a wicket fence, allowing the terrorist group to traffic their illicit trades (drugs, arms and human trafficking) at will. However, if Pakistan replicates our anti-Chicano fortifications, barring the trade that fuels the Gringo-labeled “Jihad” against the West, the Taliban will need to find another route for their cash. Iran could and appears to already be that substitute. Good news for the United States.

The United States has been unlucky with the economic sanctions it wants to impose on Ahmadinejad’s Islamic republic, but unluckiness also runs out. Tehran has been linked to Taliban training camps in both Iran and Afghanistan. U.S. military and intelligence officials also believe arms and munitions have been supplied by the Persian side to the terrorist group. This news comes at a time when emerging powers like China have been edgy on supporting the sanctions. If the connections between Iran and the Taliban are made certain and obvious, even Brazil won’t be able to refute them.

The President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva’s warm embracing of the renegade republic has many on their toes and questioning whether the world can have another Iraq. Let’s hope we channel our strengths and get it done, though, because it’s no longer a question of whether or not there will be another attack against Americans, but when.

CONTEXT continued from page 8 types that were recreated by the advertising of this event reflect the same stereotypes that contribute to stronger policing in the Black community, harsher sentencing in court, and a huge population of incarcerated people of color. While Lil Wayne may present a lot of racist stereotypes in his music, he also actively complicates them. The advertising of the Free Weezy event suggested that we bring our “ghetto hood grammar,” without discussing the history of the use of language to subvert white power (Ebonics). It is this kind of depth that is needed in our discussions about the event. What happens here does not just stay at Vassar. Every event like this contributes to a collective body of knowledge that determines how

many white Americans experience Blackness. See, as a white man, I have the ability to be whoever I want to be, an individual who is not represented by anybody else. The other white dude who put on this event? He doesn’t speak for me, or anybody else for that matter. But the way that many white people and the media portray Blacks imply a level of representation that I will never have to experience.

Because individual Blacks are seen as representatives for their race, those who made this event were able to use the persona of Lil Wayne to justify creating a Mug night that reflected a few aspects of an entire culture that white kids will never fully understand or experience. A culture that has been taken, commodified, and misinterpreted by whites. And this

misinterpretation leads to many of the inequalities that still exist in our society today, including segregated neighborhoods, poor education systems, and the prison industrial complex. In an event that was meant to glorify the music of Lil Wayne (which I support, by the way—he’s a genius), it focused on the wrong parts of him. The advertising of the event undermined the attempted glorification of Lil Wayne’s music (the Mug is about music, right?), and instead honored a lifestyle of drugs, language and incarceration that should never be celebrated by a couple of white boys at Vassar. That’s why this event has been a problem, and why I’ve gotten so upset about it. But keep in mind, I’m just another white dude. The rest of you need to speak up too.

VSA should take part in discussions VSA continued from page 8 what is it that the VSA lacks?

The VSA lacks the ability to create a strong campus community and has consistently failed to foster dialogue and bring divergent student interests together. While the VSA has proven itself to be a voice between the students and the administration, it has not proven itself to be a voice for students, between students. What good are community forums when we have no internal cohesion? What stock does one have in an elected body that cannot engage with its constituents?

The VSA needs to be the flag-bearer of self-governance for all aspects of the student body. While the VSA likes to promote self-governance, it is a shame that time and time again, it cannot offer a timely response to the issues of the day. Invariably, this supposedly self-governing body is forced

to rely on the administration to settle its issues. The VSA should provide a space for constructive dialogue. Individual students, as well as organizations, should feel that their input is desired and that their concerns will be heard and dealt with, quickly and effectively, by the VSA. Imagine if, when these campus issues arose, the VSA stepped in to actually work with the parties involved to reach a solution. What if, rather than allow the groups to post insults online, they were brought in to have a proactive, face-to-face discussion with members of the VSA Council?

What if, rather than let these issues pass by so that the administration can take care of it, the VSA took responsibility to bring parties together for an actual dialogue? Perhaps people would begin to trust the VSA as an advocate with their personal interests

in mind. Perhaps by active listening, actual progress could be made towards healing the deeper concerns.

Perhaps by actively involving themselves with the daily life of students, the VSA would no longer be seen as an inactive distant entity locked up in the College Center, but as a living, breathing viable body that encompasses everyone on this campus.

I am not naïve enough to believe that this will instantly solve all of our problems and reconcile our differences, but I do believe that opening a place for constructive dialogue is a necessary step to making Vassar the open and accepting community we want it to be.

—Mathew Leonard ’11 is this year’s VSA Auditor and served on the VSA Council as Cushing House President last year.

When you figure out all three lines of the poster in the puzzle (15, 17, 44, 45, 46, 68 and 69 across), e-mail the answer to migilburn@e@@vassar.edu.

The first two people to submit the correct answer will win a free ticket to see The Flaming Lips at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center on April 17th!

subject 24. Guadalajara snack 25. Go grey 26. “It’s a simple, _____ no question!”

29. Kathmandu’s turf 32. Morns, briefly 34. Mr. Flanders 36. Seattle outdoor outfitter 38. Omega preceder 39. Lady Antebellum’s, “_______ Now” 43. High school for Prince William 44. With 45 and

Answers to last week’s puzzle

46-across, line two of the poster 45. See 44-across 46. See 44-across 47. Sword’s superior, perhaps 48. Designer Oscar de ______ 49. Obstacle for aspiring J.D.’s 50. Wiretapping org.

52. Watchmaker ___ Heuer 53. “___-la-la” 54. Berliner’s dark hours 57. Played tortoise and hare 60. Italian fashion house 61. Flight datum, briefly 62. “_______ Battles the Pink Robots” (album of 20- across) 65. See 22-across 68. With 69-across, final line of the poster 69. See 68-across 73. Heart jump-starter, briefly 75. Rocky Mountain native tribe 76. Vassar’s favorite daughter, perhaps 77. “Before” (prefix) 78. Cookie container 79. “There was a time...”

80. Popular ISP

DOWN 1. Soccer mom- mobile, briefly 2. Mideast elite 3. Riot squad spray 4. Yoga pose 5. Some albums, briefly 6. Not he 7. Certain nerdy party type 8. Cav’s forward Jamison 9. Smut 10. Colonel Mustard’s game 11. Cat, dog, or boa constrictor 13. Italian rice dishes 16. Devour 17. Old Indian currency 18. Wise guy, perhaps 21. Big name in chips 23. Informal affirmative 27. “_______ as it is in heaven” 28. Beef 30. Entertainer 31. Certain sexy print 32. Wan 33. Demeanors 35. On the way out 37. “Right now” (prefix) 38. Napster’s M.O. 39. Group for the Giants 40. Standardized test-

ing area, briefly 41. Toronto’s prov.

42. NCAA Bulldogs 43. Chicago not-sosubway, say 51. The study of humanity, briefly 55. Entourage’s Gold, and others

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

56. Deep sleeps 57. Go over 58. “That’s not ____!”

59. Islet 60. NYC time Oct-Mar 62. Abominable snowman 63. Some cart pullers 64. “What’s ____ you?”

66. Wine country 67. Architect Saarinen 68. Crazy one 70. Funerary vase 71. Camcorder button, briefly 72. Barely passing, perhaps 74. Ctrl+Alt+___

HUMOR & SATIRE

April 8, 2010

Page 13

OPINIONS

An open letter to Matthew’s Mug Alanna Okun

D

Assistant Opinions Editor

ear The Mug, Why are you the worst? No, for real: You’re by turns totally lame or grossly overcrowded, your music is usually nothing more than DJ Fire Sperm or whoever attempting to look cool and get laid, and you are sticky. I think it’s cute that you’re trying to revamp your image by hosting pleasant events like plays and wan-kid-strumming-an-acoustic-guitarfests, but to me you’ll always resemble a sex dungeon furnished by Ikea.

When I visited you last month, I was just dancing and minding my own business when a gaggle of large boys flailed past me. One of their meaty fists caught me smack-dab across the face, causing my nose to start bleeding. When this Mike Tyson-wannabe noticed what he had done, i.e. that I was standing there trying to keep my bodily fluids from getting all over the couple making out against the nearby wall, he decided that the best course of action would be to start grinding with me. It’s good to know that chivalry is not dead.

That’s maybe an unusual situation (and let’s face it, my nose is not the world’s daintiest target), but it’s pretty indicative of all the Neanderthalism that goes down in the rancid bowels of Main Building. I know what you’re thinking, gentle Miscellany reader: “But Alanna! I love the Mug! I met my soulmate there just last weekend—he danced up on me during ‘Replay’ and told me how hot my Forever 21 tube top was before shoving his tongue down my throat!” To that I say, honey-child, he’ll text you back one week from never.

So basically, The Mug, I don’t think I’ll be returning to you any time soon. I’m tired of waiting in long lines for you. I’m tired of high-heeled biddies stamping on my toes, and most of all, I’m tired of the amnesia I develop roughly once a month where I forget how much you suck and actually fool myself into believing you’ll be rockin’.

With mysterious bruises and not-so-fond memories, Alanna

Controversial Free Willy Mug night sparks campus-wide debate Kelly Stout

Features Editor

“C

ontroversial Free Willy: A Mug Night sparks campus debate,” by Matthew Vassar, Best Founder Ever. 14 Comments anonymous - Monday, April 5, 2010

the responsibility of everyone else to explain to the blue whales why stuff like this is problematic! Why can’t the blue whales make an attempt to think critically? Especially at a place like Sea World that is training us to be critical thinkers!

Those posters of Willy jumping over that rock structure surrounded by hot topless dolphins and Michael Jackson weren’t supposed to be offensive! They were a celebration of whale culture! Those dolphins were meant to represent marine bodies in all their many forms!

your name - Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Joss House - Monday, April 5, 2010

2011 - Tuesday, April 6, 2010

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “WHALE CULTURE!!!”

Dude, who invited me to the “Vermont Has Whales Too” Facebook group?

Hey anonymous, want to try contributing to discussion in a meaningful way? You’re like the kid in my seminar who never does the reading and just tries to connect everything to Radiohead songs. I hate that guy.

An open letter to Vassar’s V-Print

anonymous - Monday, April 5, 2010

sensitive lax bro - Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Yeah, WTF is up with that group?

And who is Ada Graves????

a quick in-and-out in the computer room. Three long minutes after my first caresses, you are still “Initializing.” (Seriously, you should get that checked out.)

Eventually, you spit out a page, and I have to wait through your obscenely long refractory period before you give me the next.

I thought mixing things up might help jolt us out of our rut. Instead of the same-ol’, same-ol’ print-job in Cushing, I suggested we try a change of location for the thrill of it. I’d heard things can get pretty saucy and satisfying with V-Print in Ferry Haus, but our escapades there ended in tears and a “You’re late again” from my professor. That day, you used recycled paper without warning me. You don’t know me at all; I always print double-sided. And with good reason!

I prefer that the even-numbered pages of my essays aren’t covered with someone else’s ill-printed geography charts.

What I’m saying is that I don’t trust you, V-Print.

You make me late for class. You forget we have printjobs scheduled even though I definitely send them to the queue. You blot and streak toner all over my papers. My professors will never give us their blessings on this relationship.

Here’s the thing, though: As much as our rendezvous exhaust and frustrate me, I always come running back to you. You’re sometimes there for me, and we’ve had a few mediocre times. You’re not my Printer Charming by any means, but I still have two years left on this campus, and I’m going to spend them tolerably-ever-after with you.

With a little love and a lot of paper jams, Gwen

I didn’t find the Mug night offensive. We just wanted to hang out, eat herring and listen to some of our favorite sonar tunes from the Arctic. I don’t get why all the killer whales on campus get bent out of shape every time a blue whale wants to pay tribute to an artist like Willy. We didn’t mean to be offensive. Can everyone just chill out?

Don’t people know that blue whales face discrimination too??? For example, we get made fun of if we play with kittens and like to knit, or if we cry sometimes while watching Titanic. Everyone here should go check out the BLUEBOX in the College Center and see the kinds of REAL DISCRIMINATION we face!!!! I just want to read Nicolas Sparks novels!

Gwen Niekamp

D

Guest Columnist

ear V-Print, Call me a hopeless romantic, but I was expecting something special out of our relationship. Sure, I knew you from afar, but we weren’t properly introduced until the end of last year. At that time, I was still clinging to that printer from home who followed me up North. But after a while—admittedly, after I met you—I realized that he was holding me back. So, I ended the long-term relationship with my personal printer—kicked him to the SWAPR curb— and asked the techie down the hall to set me up with you.

I was so lovesick for the first few weeks of our fling.

You were everything a girl could ask for: charming, agreeable, romantic. Plus your services were relatively cheap, if you know what I mean.

It wasn’t long, however, before I started to notice that you were always out of paper and toner when I went to see you. I wanted to believe that you would stop stepping out on me, and that you regretted the anguish you caused me. I hoped you would apologize before I logged out, and say, “Oh Gwen, I swear I will never make you trudge to Noyes to print ever again.”

But the world is cruel, and I walked in on you one too many times with that I-print-everything-even-thoughI-major-in-environmental-studies chick. So you and I settled on an open relationship, and you made it quite clear that now I have to wait behind half a dozen others when I want to give you a print-job.

V-Print, I’ll admit I was frustrated at first, and I tried to distance myself from you, but I sometimes still meet you just 10 minutes before class looking for

2012BAMF - Monday, April 5, 2010

P.S. To the kid who punched me in the face: Call me!

blue whale - Tuesday, April 6, 2010

your name here - Tuesday, April 6, 2010

If “chill out” was a slur meant to evoke the Arctic habitat of the orca whale, I want you to know I did NOT find it funny. Take a fucking marine biology class, you loser.

Andre - Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Why has no one mentioned that the seal voice has been totally excluded from this discussion? “killer”-Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Blue whale, that’s exactly the problem! Blue whales enjoy the luxury of blue whale privilege and assume that if something doesn’t offend them, it shouldn’t offend anyone. Examine your privilege for half a second, and you’ll realize why this kind of event is offensive. What makes this so infuriating is that you don’t—or don’t want to recognize—the implications of this type of event. It shouldn’t be

Weekly Calendar: 4/8 - 4/14 THURSDAY, 4/8 3 p.m. Tea. Activities Vassar students like to do in the

springtime: Get ugly foot-sunburns, either in the shape of Tevas or boat shoes depending on if they’re from New Jersey or Massachusetts, respectively. Rose Parlor.

8 p.m. “Hamlet:” First Quarto. Uno, dos, tres, quarto! Hit it,

Hammie! Martel Theater.

“Killer,” as an orca whale on this campus, I find your use of the term “killer whale,” even in jest, highly offensive. anonymous - Tuesday, April 6, 2010

I heard that Rahm Emanuel might be a woman.

your mom - Tuesday, April 6, 2010

This is just like the “Language of Lobsters” controversy all over again.

I’m so tired of having to explain to entitled blue whales why stuff like this isn’t okay.

Bode Miller - Weds Apr 7 2010

Forget the whales! Save the ski team! libe gurl-Wednesday, April 7, 2010 I’m commenting on this article instead of going to ’80s Night.

2013-Wednesday, April 7, 2010

If blue whales want to change their image as hateful bottom dwellers then they should stop writing opinions pieces like this one: www. miscellanynews.com/opinions/bluewhales-entitled-to-paid-internshipsand-seahorses not a hipster - Thursday, April 8, 2010

This is all just part of my media studies senior project.

MJ fan - Thursday, April 8, 2010

RIP Michael Jackson.

by Kelly Stout, Features Editor

Hebrew. The argument over which text would have been ultimately more intelligible remains roiled in controversy.

Jade Parlor.

10:30 p.m. Trivia Night. Unfair post-grad question from your parents #12: “Why aren’t you going to law school?” The Mug.

7 p.m. Night Owls/Axies Hybrid Concert. Forget those stuckup Priuses. Get your accelerator pedals stuck on the rhythm rug. Rocky 300.

TUESDAY, 4/13

SUNDAY, 4/11

3 p.m. Tea. Try psychedelic drugs in “a safe environment.”

Rose Parlor.

9 p.m. Philaletheis Play: “Good & Plenty.” Just like the men

10 a.m. Breast Cancer Walk. An attempt to make the world

in my life. Rocky 200.

safe for breast cancer jokes. For now, it’s too soon, and we will have to be content with breast jokes. Strong House.

9 p.m. Jazz Night. Not to be confused with this fall’s controversial Yaz Night, which was discontinued after some participants experienced mood swings, weight gain and in rare cases, potentially life-threatening blood clotting and stroke. The Mug.

10 a.m. Irish Step Dancing Class. This activity is for those

WEDNESDAY, 4/14

who want to take steps, but not towards a cure for a lifethreatening illness. Villard Room.

3 p.m. Tea. Listen to Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” at an unbearably loud volume while you’re trying to write a paper on Said’s Orientalism that’s due no later than 5 p.m. Rose Parlor.

FRIDAY, 4/9 3 p.m. Tea. Walk around barefoot drinking gin and tonics out of jars, judging you if you’re not. Rose Parlor.

7 p.m. Man in the Mirror: A Michael Jackson Tribute. Hosted by the Extraterrestrial Students’ Alliance. The Mug. 10 p.m. Roaring Twenties. So we beat on, boats against the

current, borne back ceaselessly into this joke. UpCDC.

MONDAY, 4/12 1 p.m. TH Music Festival. Not that this isn’t a great idea, but

8 p.m. Russian Film Festival. Come for the vodka, stay for

there’s a reason why Bonnaroo doesn’t happen on a Monday right after your Political Modernity in Turkey class. The Town Houses.

the crumbling post-Soviet infrastructure, Rasputin lore and the hipsters that went JYA to Moscow. Rocky 200.

SATURDAY, 4/10 1 p.m. Annual “Beowulf” Reading. It was between this and

3 p.m. Tea. Sign every effing e-mail with “Hope you’re en-

an all-night reading of the Torah in the original ancient

joying the nice weather!” Rose Parlor.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

10 p.m. ’80s Nite. Come celebrate your fave memz of skyscrapers, the Anglo-Egyptian war, the economic boom, the Gilded Age and the Second Industrial Revolution at 1880s Nite! The Mug.

ARTS Senior recital season reaches fever pitch Page 14

April 8, 2010

Danielle Nedivi Reporter

I

Image Courtesy of Lauren Sherman

f you see some senior music majors looking stressed-out and lugging around their instruments this month, you should offer a hand and wish them good luck. The talented musicians are preparing for their senior recitals, which take place throughout the school year, but are most commonly performed in these final weeks of the semester.

“It really is a thesis, just not written down,” explained pianist Jeremy Shiman ’10, a music and mathematics double major. The recitals are a culmination of all the years the students have spent practicing their art.

For a recital that lasts an average of an hour, the student musicians prepare far in advance.

Violinist Laura Sousa ’10 began practicing her program a year ago. She said, “Now is usually crunch time the few weeks before.” Shiman, who will perform April 17 at 4 p.m., practices more than four hours every day. Pianist Brian Kim ’10 is putting serious time into final preparations for his show, also at 4 p.m. on April 24: “Lately, I have been practicing five to six hours a day in order to prepare for my recital. I’m in the music building over 20 hours a week.” Clarinetist Alex Linsalata ’10 and violinist Sarah Goldfeather ’10 even stayed at Vassar over Spring Break to practice for their respective recitals.

Similar to the idea of the senior project in the Drama Department, the recital shows off a student’s accomplishment in his or her art.

“You are playing what you’re best at, at your very best,” summarized Sousa, who majors in both music and psychology. For this reason, the process can be nerve-wracking.

“Often the pressure of performing before a large audience brings out their best work,” said Professor of Music Todd Crow, who will accompany several recitals on piano. “Students performing senior recitals are usually extremely well prepared so that they aren’t so much nervous as they are excited about wanting to do their best.”

Sousa even appreciates the pre-show butterflies. “You always get nervous,” she said. “I think it’s a good thing. I never want to not be nervous or excited. It would lose its importance. It’s just most important to keep it all under control.”

Many of the performers feel more prepared for the recital because they have had previous experience performing with the spotlight focused on them. Sousa and Shiman both had junior recitals last year, which are less common.

Kim even had a sophomore recital. But some musicians with less solo experience are feeling the pressure: “I’ve never done something this intense,” said Linsalata. He explained that even solo pieces in an orchestra can be nervewracking, with unexpected results. “There are times, let’s say, we’re playing a big piece. Then my solo comes, and everyone stops suddenly— you naturally want to play lighter. It shouldn’t surprise you, but it does, every time.” Now that the focus is on them, the Vassar musicians no-

Nyanza Rothman ’11, Professor of Music Todd Crow, Lauren Sherman ’10 and Gail Nakano ’10 rehearse G. F. Handel’s “To Thee, Thou Glorious Son” for Sherman’s senior recital in Skinner Hall of Music.

tice a clear difference. Soprano singer Lauren Sherman ’10 said, “There is definitely a difference performing alone or in group. I used to do a lot of musical theater and choral singing.

In a group you have to be aware of blending, being part of the whole. Alone, you focus only on yourself.”

With so much attention, a lot can go wrong.

Some of the musicians shared their embarrassing performance moments. Shiman said he completely botched the beginning of his recital last year and had to start over. Sousa, who won Vassar’s solo competition last October, described a moment in her packed violin performance—attended by Lisa Kudrow ’85— that gave her “a heart attack and a half.” Her shoulder rest fell to the ground right as she was about to perform, when all of the attention was

focused on her, and she had to fumble quickly to put it back on as everyone watched. Shiman insisted that any musician who claims they never screwed up live is lying.

Those who applied to graduate school for music said the senior recital will be enjoyable, especially when compared with auditions.

“I’ve definitely screwed up before, especially in auditions. I recently did some for graduate school. Those aren’t my best because it’s a lot of pressure,” said Sherman.

Sousa, who just got accepted to Boston University’s graduate music program, agreed.

“Graduate school auditions are a lot more nerve-wracking. Instead of saying ‘Here’s what I can do’ [as in a recital], you’re saying ‘I think I can do this,’” she explained. She emphasized that performing in front of friends and family

will be much more palatable than to the stonyfaced admissions judges.

Several of the students holding senior recitals are not sure they want to pursue music as a career. Sherman applied to both choral music and psychology programs, while fellow psychology major Sousa applied to both music and law school, and has yet to decide her path. She explained that the life of a musician is too unpredictable, but admitted, “It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.” Shiman, Kim and Linsalata are going to pursue different fields for the time being. Kim, who is applying to business school, said the life of a pianist is too busy and uncertain for his liking: “To become a concert pianist, I must constantly be practicing and traveling, which leaves little time for anything else, including my family and hobbies.” All of the musicians claimed that without a doubt they will continue to play in the future, if only for pleasure or in community orchestras.

Whether or not they continue consistently playing their instruments, the Vassar musicians will always have a great personal connection to their instruments of choice. Linsalata started playing the clarinet at age eight when his doctor suggested it would help with his asthma.

Sousa, who started playing the violin at the age of five, said it is “by far one of the most intimate instruments, and one of the easiest to instantly connect to.” Singer Sherman loves “the history, the stories, the theory” of opera and added, “It’s such a rich experience singing with that knowledge.” Shiman, who was encouraged to choose an instrument at age eight by his parents, said it is a great emotional outlet for him. He explained, “Whenever I’m having a bad day, I just sit down and get lost in the music—remove myself enough so I can think everything through.”

The recitals themselves vary widely by student and piece. Sherman sang classical opera as well as a contemporary avant-garde piece by George Crumb. Sousa will perform many different styles, including a modern Romanian folk dance by Bela Bartok and a Spanish composition which, she laughs, “my teacher described as ‘romantic and sensual.’” Shiman will perform mostly Romantic period pieces, while Linsalata will cover everything from the “ethereal” to the “flashy and fun.” “I have ones meant almost especially to be crowd pleasers,” he assured.

The senior music majors explained that their performances will be very important to them.

Shiman said, “It’s a combination of not just four years of practice at Vassar but however long you’ve been playing the instrument.” They also insisted their recitals would not be the same without listeners. Linsalata said, “We are students who are all part of the Vassar community, and it’s important to show support.” Kim added, “It is always exciting to see peers succeed in an environment that is outside of the classroom.” Shiman convincingly concluded, “At a basic level, the more bodies there are in the hall, the more fun it is for the audience and the performer.”

Greek myth provides backdrop for Opera Workshop Connor O’Neill Guest Reporter

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s the Greek myth of Ariadne draws to a close, the titular heroine is abandoned by her lover on the remote island of Naxos. How her story ends depends on who you ask. Some will say that Ariadne dies, others that she commits suicide and some posit the more cheery ending that Bacchus saves Ariadne from the rocky island.

The fragmented nature of the story of Ariadne is perfectly suited for the Department of Music’s Opera Workshop, entitled “Ariadne: Between a Rock and a Hard Place,” which will be performed on April 10 and 11. Taking scenes from a variety of operas focusing on the mythical character, the workshop includes student-performed pieces by composers Claudio Monteverdi, Johann Georg Conradi, Franz Joseph Haydn, Jules Massenet, Darius Milhaud, Bohuslav Martinu and Richard Strauss. The pieces are diverse, spanning the surreal to the classical. According to Opera Workshop Director and Lecturer in Music Drew Minter, “We

are using the story as a template for female abandonment altogether.”

The title, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place,” reflects the conflicted nature of the female character through many different angles. Explains Minter, “She often goes crazy with her grief. She is a person suffering at the hands of someone for whose love she has sacrificed everything.”

Minter, who began preparing the show in December, has directed the workshop for the past six years, working with the Music Director and Adjunct Artist in Music Miriam Charney for the past five. The two directors collaborate on voice and music to create a space for learning the process of producing an opera—hence the name “workshop.” As Minter explains, “What we are really doing is going through the process of learning a show, in this case made up of opera scenes. What the students learn, I hope, is something about the process of what it takes to learn opera.”

The instructional aspect of the workshop is key. “The project contains a high level of preparation, but not necessarily professional

or finished,” says Charney, stressing its “dual educational and pedagogical nature.”

While the event is only one of many opportunities for voice students to perform, it is the only one to deal specifically with opera. One student who has taken advantage of the unique opportunity is Michael Hofmann ’13. “I’d done some musical theater in high school, but opera was sort of an unknown territory for me, and I wanted to know more about it,” explains the freshman baritone. “What’s a better way to get to know something than to do it? So I auditioned and voila!” Hofmann, who also trains in German lieder, art songs and oratorio arias, embodies the goal of the event: to broaden students’ musical horizons.

The exploration of a new realm is by no means effortless. Having spent Winter Break learning and polishing their parts, students are now in the midst of rehearsals as well as private coaching. Emphasizing the hectic nature of rehearsals, Hofmann explains, “If you’re in Opera Workshop rehearsal, you’re either performing or getting ready to perform.” The

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

preparation is demanding for both director and student. Minter and Charney spend hours tweaking singers’ tone and diction, reviewing the various languages used in the pieces, and scrutinize both the lyrics and the music to render the works as emotionally and as faithfully as possible.

Though focused on the rigorous preparation for the event, Hofmann is excitedly looking ahead to next week. When asked about what the audience can anticipate, Hofmann encourages us to “expect the unexpected.” Stressing the differing material they are performing, the freshman explains that the pieces “vary from the somber, traditional interpretation of the story to the humorous and twisted versions.

We have an exceptional cast, with beautiful selections—you’ll be happy you came!”

The final product will be shown at 8 p.m. on Saturday, April 10 in the Skinner Hall of Music’s Martel Recital Hall. The program will also have a live webcast (music.vassar.edu/concerts/webcasts/index.html) as well as an additional showing on Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m.

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April 8, 2010

Page 15

Musical revisits pre-teen years First Quarto tosses

out preconceptions

Thea Ballard Reporter

Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News

O

h, to be 12 again: just hitting puberty, subject to the increasingly unwavering gazes of ones’ judgmental peers and attempting to cling to the talents that might serve as a defense against oncoming adolescent struggles. Future Waitstaff of America’s (FWA) upcoming performance of the Tony-award winning Broadway musical “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” offers a chance for Vassar students to revisit those awkward years. Combining improv comedy and dramatic narrative with song, “Spelling Bee” offers a humorous but sensitive take on the pain of growing up. It will be performed in Sanders Classroom’s Spitzer Auditorium at 8 p.m. on April 8 through 10, with a performance on Saturday, April 10 at 3 p.m.

“The show is about a group of 12-yearolds who are competing in a spelling bee,” said director Molly Shoemaker ’12, whose previous directing credits at Vassar include another spelling beecentered play, “Eleemosynary.” She added, “It’s really about that awkward age that we all go through, like middle school, and just beginning to realize that people have expectations for you…

It’s definitely a coming-of-age play.”

The characters both competing in and moderating the spelling bee share a general quality of eccentricity, indicated in their names—Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre, for example—and their behavior. Their interactions allow both the comedic and dramatic scenarios to unfold in a wholly entertaining fashion. Said Sam Schrader ’10, who plays competitor Chip Tolentino, “It’s just a big mix of kids, and I think that dynamic in itself makes for a lot of funny situations.”

“At the same time,” he continued, “you also get a closer look at some of these kids’ family lives. And even though they’re really accomplished, they don’t always have the support that they should, or they do, but it’s in the wrong form—too much support or too much pressure.”

For the cast, the challenge has been balancing the two different elements.

“We’ve been talking a lot in rehearsal

Jon Fuller ’11 rehearses for the upcoming production of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” in the Spitzer Auditorium of Sanders Classroom this weekend. about not making it all about the dramatic element, while at the same time not letting any of the comedic aspects go too far to the point where we don’t feel like these characters could be real people,” said Shoemaker.

Another challenging aspect of “Spelling Bee” is its integration of improv-style comedy. One part of the show involves five volunteers being called up to the stage to participate in an actual mock spelling bee.

“They’re spelling real words. If they get the words right, then they’re still in the bee. If they get them wrong, then they’re out. It’s really kind of a crazy situation. It’s kind of like ‘choose your own adventure,’ the way we’ve been practicing it,” explained Shoemaker. “We’ve really been trying to get the word out so people are excited and also prepared—maybe they can start studying.”

Compared to standard musical fare, “Spelling Bee,” particularly given its previous Broadway success, is something of an anomaly. “It’s very hard these days to get anything on its feet that isn’t, you know, ‘Shrek! The Musical,’ or something that isn’t a commodity to bring in the tourists from New Jersey,” said Danny Lempert ’13, who plays Vice Principal Douglas Panch.

“This is the atypical thing that really made it even though it’s so well done.

You add in the participation element, so it’s definitely not your old-timey show.”

Added Schrader, “The stigma about

musical theater is that it’s very twodimensional, and I think this show especially breaks out of that two-dimensional mold. It really presents you with somewhat complex characters…

I feel like the show was developed so much more to tell a story and to really send a message, rather than just providing sing and dance entertainment.”

For students, the subject matter, though universally entertaining, may hold a special appeal. “Especially here at Vassar, a lot of us can sympathize with the awkward years and having interests that aren’t necessarily considered ‘cool,’” said Lempert. “It’s a really funny show, but at the same time also sad—everything is sung, and it’s a musical, but a lot of it is really sad. It’s just sort of a heartwarming show.”

The show will be staged again at cosponsor P.E.A.C.E.’s April 30 PEACE Day event for local elementary students.

The day, which will be full of activities and games for the children, will include a surprise outdoor performance of the play during their picnic lunch. The production will be more kid-appropriate and shorter than this weekend’s.

“The idea seemed perfect for both groups,” wrote Kelly Long ’11 in an emailed statement. “PEACE students and mentors will be treated to a fun surprise, while the members of the FWA will be able to perform for a younger audience that will appreciate their work in an entirely different way.”

Lecture connects art and Buddhism Esther Clowney Reporter

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n ultimate Buddhist terms, all representation is illusory. There is no essential difference between the most beautiful rose, for instance, and the compost heap from which it sprang.

Representation is meaningless, which is why the study of Zen Buddhism and its influence on representational art presents difficult theoretical issues.

This will be discussed in a lecture by Yukio Lippit this Thursday on the apparition paintings by 12th- and 13thcentury Chinese monks.

“One of the semantic complexities of Buddhist paintings is that one is studying a representation that has to somehow convey an agenda that discursively negates it,” said Lippit, the Harris K. Weston Associate Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University, who specializes in the influence of Zen Buddhism on pre-modern Japanese paintings. “It sounds like a contradiction, but when you study Buddhism and art, you learn to live with it.”

Apparition paintings depict people of great importance to the Zen pantheon.

The monks who painted these works of art used very low ink saturation, resulting in incredibly faint pictures.

“Apparition painting designates a certain kind of monochrome ink painting associated with Buddhism,” Lippit

explained. “I study how it emerged as a vehicle for Zen Buddhist ideas.”

Lippit’s interest in Zen Buddhism and art didn’t emerge until after he’d completed his undergraduate work at Harvard and went to study at the University of Paris. While he was there, Lippit worked as a staff assistant at Museé Guimet, the museum of Asian art in Paris.

“I realized there were real contributions to be made to the study of Asian art,” said Lippit, who spent the next several years in Asia before beginning his doctorate studies at Princeton University.

“The emergence of ink painting as an art form begins in China,” Lippit said.

Monochrome ink paintings employ a water-based black ink made from pine soot, which is mixed with glue and then reconstituted in water. Materially, they are very different from oil paintings.

“Oil paints are muddy and viscous. You have to push them around. They have resistant forces,” said Lippit. “Watercolors are runny, and they result in a very different set of effects.”

Buddhist painters prioritized skills different than those of Western artists of the same era. Gestural effects were valued more than realistic depictions of light. Scratchiness, bleeding and blotting techniques, which are spontaneous and ineffable, lend themselves to philosophical Buddhist ideas like sympathetic resonance, Chinese Taoism and cos-

mic flux. “I think it would be extreme to say the materiality of ink paintings gave rise to philosophy, but I do give a certain primacy to the way the materiality has driven a tendency to express and form a culture of expression for a particular culture of ideas,” Lippit said.

Zen Buddhists believe that the Buddha’s wisdom has been passed down from the Buddha through one privileged person each generation. “The metaphor used for this transition is the flame, which represents the inexpressible, fragile nature of the religion.

Somehow a spark was started that embodied this wisdom,” said Lippit. “Apparition paintings pictorialize historical members of Zen Buddhist dharma transmissions.”

Buddhist monks say, “Push hard, and you get hardship.” Apparition paintings, which are a small subset of Buddhist art, reflect this dictum literally: The Zen monk artists who created them used incredibly light and spontaneous brush strokes. “The saturation of ink is so faint that it actually compromises its own visibility,” said Lippit. The figures contained in apparition paintings are so illusive they become a sort of visual koan, something to puzzle over and meditate on. The lecture will be this Thursday, April 8 at 6 p.m. in Taylor Hall 203. It is part of the Agnes Rindge Claflin Lecture Series.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

HAMLET continued from page 1 “Who is there?” as uttered by Barnardo. From the get-go, it is evident that the First Quarto is not the “Hamlet” that so many have come to know and love.

“We were forced to go about treating ‘Hamlet’ as an undiscovered play,” said director Nate Silver ’10. “Lots of people know ‘Hamlet.’ This production allows some of the newness to come back to it.”

This version of “Hamlet” was discovered by scholars in 1823, long after what is known as the First Folio had achieved universal popularity. Where the First Quarto comes from is a controversial issue, but popular consensus is that the play is a transcript of a live performance. After learning about the First Quarto in one of his drama classes, Silver was attracted to a version of “Hamlet” that had been derived from the performance of actors: “I thought it was amazing that there was a performance-based interpretation,” said Silver. Silver also liked that the First Quarto would present a “Hamlet” that was unfamiliar to audiences, and that it was about half the length of the extensive First Folio.

“Last spring, Nate and I sat down to talk about project ideas,” said Mark Van Hare ’10, who composed the original score for the performance. “I had a few, but when Nate brought up ‘Hamlet’ I threw all of those out. I instantly knew it was what I wanted to do.”

The play became the Drama Department senior project for both Silver and Van Hare, as well as three members of the cast: Seth Biberstein ’10 as the King, Baize Buzan ’10 as the Queen and Jamie Watkins ’10 as the titular Prince of Denmark. As the ensemble began developing the project, they realized that they would have to let go of their perceptions about “Hamlet.” The play alters the backgrounds of the characters— Hamlet is about 10 years younger in this version—and includes a brand new scene between the Queen and Horatio, but the most salient difference is the dialogue itself.

“For the First Quarto, you have to do a lot of active forgetting,” said Silver. “The first thing people know about ‘Hamlet’ is the line, ‘To be, or not to be: that is the question.’ When that’s gone, they dislike it; they’re losing something they know.” Much of Hamlet’s first soliloquy is altered, other well-known lines such as “Never a lender nor a borrower be,” are missing altogether, and even others, like “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” appear in unexpected scenes.

Back in the dress rehearsal, the supernatural first scene draws to a close and the stage lights reveal the magnificent set designed by Charlie O’Malley ’11. Grandiose portraits of the royal family festoon the wall on top of a landing, which opens up to a grand staircase centered on the stage. The ornate staircase leads down to the stage floor, furnished with red carpeting, a platter with a halfeaten seven-tiered wedding cake and an elegant pushcart laden with liquor bottles.

“The question we asked with set design was: How do you create

something that reads as a castle, royal and opulent, that can also be a watchtower or a graveyard?” said Silver of the magnificent set.

The costumes are as lavish and detailed as the set, and establish both the royalty of Hamlet’s family while also establishing the youth of the prince. “We chose costumes as a way to highlight generations,” said Silver. “What does our generation dress in, and what does their generation dress in?”

The answer is astounding, as is evident when the royal family and court descends the staircase (the Queen with the puppy in tow).

Royalty and noblemen dress in sharp suits and dashing uniforms, while Hamlet’s friends dress in jeans, sweaters and sneakers. The prince himself alternates between the two; in one scene he is in a petticoat garnished with brass buttons and epaulettes, in another he wears a plain button-down shirt and Wittenberg University sweatpants.

Another key element of the performance is the music that plays off of the action onstage.

The music was atmospheric and cinematic at times in the dress rehearsal, complementing the story and dialogue perfectly. For example, the pit ensemble holds a dissonant chord during a climactic fight scene that adds a delicious element of suspense.

“Music for theater shouldn’t stand on its own,” said Van Hare.

“Nate and I agreed on this. It can be played in concert and be enjoyable, but it really shouldn’t be contained.”

Van Hare began formally composing the score to the production over Winter Break and has been working on it throughout this semester. “I do what professional composers do: get up, have some morning coffee and then just write,” said Van Hare.

The ensemble that plays from the pits features woodwind, string and brass instruments.

“I got the best musicians in the school, and I have no hesitation in saying that,” said Van Hare. “It meant that the music developed from the musicians. Since they were the best, they could prepare more quickly and perform more difficult material.”

The project carries heavy significance for the seniors involved, since it not only marks their last full-scale production at Vassar, but also the last time they’ll be able to be involved in a project like it for a while.

“Knowing that this is the last time in a while that I’ll be able to do something on this scale, it’s a privilege,” said Silver, who plans on pursuing a career in direction after graduation. “It’s a great capstone, and it’s something I’ll be able to use in the future.”

As the curtain fell on the final scene of the dress rehearsal, there was applause, followed by giggling: The curtain couldn’t fall all the way because one of the dead bodies was directly under it. The actor was quickly flipped out of the way, and the play officially drew to a close. The rehearsal had seen other similar minor hiccups, but it’s nothing Silver and company are worried about: “It’s going to be a great show, no question,” said Silver.

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Prof. Blanton to deliver lecture on ‘new’ medieval lit Rachael Borné Reporter

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Watkins: an artist with prospects Sydney Hessel Guest Reporter

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ost seniors tremble at the prospect of the job hunt, but Jamie Watkins ’10 cracks jokes about how he knows the life of an artist might be a life of unemployment.

Somehow, I’m not so sure this will be a problem for Jamie: Engaging and intelligent, Watkins is a drama major with a highly impressive Vassar career on the stage.

When Watkins came to Vassar, his theatrical resume only consisted of musicals and a few other high school productions. But the course Introduction to Theater-Making opened his eyes to a host of dramatic opportunities. He met some of his best friends in the course, and he soon joined Woodshed Theater Ensemble, a collaborative theatermaking group.

“Vassar is a fantastic place to be an artist…

I was exposed to tangible aspects of production and entrenched in theory,” Watkins said.

“I consider myself really lucky since I have gotten to play some amazing roles.”

Some of Watkins’ amazing roles have included Officer Lockstock in “Urinetown,” Skinhead Boy in “Polaroid Stories,” Jim in “The Glass Menagerie,” Aaron in “Titus Andronicus,” Orsino in “Twelfth Night,” the policeman in “Copout” and the Student/Playwright in “The Blue Room.” Of course, he couldn’t have done it all on his own; Watkins cited Professor of Drama Chris Grabowski and former Adjunct Instructor in Film Darrell James as two wonderful mentors.

While abroad for a semester, Watkins studied at the prestigious London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Smiling, he reflects on his experience at this classical acting conservatory, learning to act, dance, sing and clown.

Jamie pauses on clown, and he is no longer grinning. He cites one exercise his professor made him and his international classmates do as “the most terrifying experience.” He was not allowed to leave the classroom circle until he made every other class member laugh. Watkins returned triumphant to Vassar from this encounter with a British clown.

Last semester, he played the Circus Master in “Haarlem Berlin,” a play written by Talaya Delaney, the current postdoctoral fellow in the Drama Department.

Sam Wootton/The Miscellany News

n an academic setting, primary documents are cherished as precious gold. They’re irreplaceable windows into the past, containing information with the potential to change the way we think today. Virginia Blanton, professor of English at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, stumbled upon a primary document that had never been seen by modern eyes while researching at Cambridge University. This “new” text includes a legendary, a manuscript that contains a collection of writings about saints’ lives. This particular legendary describes the lives of 19 female saints, and was most likely read by nuns in an English convent.

To celebrate her exciting research, Blanton will give a lecture entitled “Repacking Female Saints’ Lives for the 15th Century English Nun” on April 9 at 4 p.m. in Taylor Hall 203. The lecture will not only address the historical implications of such a document, but will also comment on the value that should be assigned to past texts—especially those chronicling the lives of women.

“When I first read the manuscript, I did not fully realize how important it might be,” said Blanton. “[The legendary] provides some evidence of the text being used in ways we did now know it had been, especially by women,” she added.

The Cambridge University Library hadn’t officially catalogued the document until 2009, meaning that before that date, no one would have known it was there. Blanton’s discovery acts as a testament to the manner in which women’s history is approached. According to Assistant Professor of English Dorothy Kim, “Women’s history and literary production is more easily lost because there isn’t as much value to it. There should be more pressure on critics to make sure documents are preserved.”

Legendaries have traditionally been seen as “second-rate” literature, and have therefore been poorly documented and oftentimes lost. But within the past 25 to 30 years, there has been an increasing amount of interest in saints’ lives. “Feminist scholars have found saints’ lives as a rich repository of material about women, about the ways that women were presented, and how women resisted social expectation, and about how they could be privileged in their communities,” explained Blanton.

Finding the legendary no doubt changes the way historians will view women’s history: “It shifts the questions of the field in terms of women’s interest in literary production,” said Kim. “[Blanton’s] discovery proves that there’s more than one example [of a woman’s legendary]. We’ve just not been good about making sure what’s out there,” she added.

Blanton’s lecture is sponsored by Vassar’s Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program, in addition to the Women’s Studies and Media Studies Programs and the Religion, History and English Departments. Such a case of interdisciplinary convergence directly reflects the scope of the subject matter. “When I first began to study saints’ lives, I realized how my many interests could coalesce,” said Blanton, adding, “A saint’s cult is by its very nature one that requires interdisciplinary study.”

The evidence used to back up information about saints’ lives has been varied, including but not limited to: “historical documents such as charters and wills in which gifts are made to the saint or her community; liturgical texts (music, prayers, masses) in honor of the saint; visual representations such as statues, wall paintings and stained glass,” Blanton said.

Friday’s lecture will explore the saints’ influence, their rituals and devotion. “For many, the study of saints’ lives has broadened the nature of inquiry about the medieval period and shows how much more significant a study of the past can be,” explained Blanton.

The talk will not only give Blanton an opportunity to share information, but it will also put her back in a familiar place. “When I was on the faculty at Marist College, I lived just around the corner from Vassar and spent a great deal of time in the Vassar Library,” she said. Perhaps students will be able to approach Vassar’s archives with the same attitude that Blanton does: “Each time I visit a library or archive, I try to search a little more carefully, go back over material I may have once known and forgotten about, or think more creatively about what I find.”

April 8, 2010

Drama major Jamie Watkins ’10 rehearses for the upcoming production of “Hamlet.” Watkins is working on the play with Nate Silver, Baize Buzan and Mark Van Hare for his senior project.

“It was an amazing experience…seeing something come off the page for the first time,” noted Watkins. “It was wonderful to have a hand in that mess, being on the ‘front lines.’”

Watkins is currently at work on his senior drama project with Seth Biberstein ’10, Nate Silver ’10, Baize Buzan ’10 and Mark Van Hare ’10. The group plans to perform the less wellknown 1603 First Quarto version of “Hamlet” this weekend, a throwback in some ways to the play “HamletMachine” read in Drama 102. Jamie will be playing the role of the titular Prince of Denmark himself.

He says that the group wanted to do something that got under the skin of the meaning of a culminating project, which he philosophizes is never done, and cannot be done perfectly.

“We want to get into the meat of ‘what is this thing as a performance text?’ And that’s been so exciting,” Watkins explained. “The play has a life to it that this production will reframe.”

It is hard for Watkins to imagine spending his life only as an actor, though, when so many different aspects of theater-making excite him, from design work and playwriting to carpentry in the scene shop. He hopes to continue to work with the people who inspire him, many of whom he found at Vassar.

Learning to ride a motorcycle and moving to Chicago are also tentative to-dos.

Watkins certainly has a bright future as an artist ahead of him. Just don’t mention the clown.

Phil farce pokes fun at high school Connor O’Neill Guest Reporter

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andy and drugs don’t usually mix—at least not in a high school classroom.

However, in Jeffrey Hatcher’s satire, “Good & Plenty,” presented by The Philaletheis Society, a teacher uses the unlikely combination as the basis of his lesson plans, setting up a story with a jab at high school madness and an underlying critique of American democracy.

The story, set in 1976, explores the life of Richard Miller, who has just returned to his alma mater, Wintersville High School, to teach social studies. In an effort to seem hip while teaching his students about democracy, Miller organizes a practical game in which Good & Plenty candies become drugs and students in the class become police officers, drug pushers and drug addicts. What starts as a lesson with good intentions turns to madness as students are forced against each other in the drug war.

“I definitely wanted to do a comedy,” said Director Danny Gilberg ’10. “That was one thing I knew going in. I wanted something that kind of explored some form of schooling… It’s supposed to question the actual value of ‘practical education.’ This teacher wants them to have real-world experience,

but the limits of school can’t give it to them.

Since I’m graduating with no marketable skills, I can get that.”

With “Good & Plenty,” Gilberg hopes to bring to the Vassar community a type of performance that has been lacking.

“A lot of shows here in general are very serious and heavy, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I just think it’s good to see different types of theater. Part of the reason I chose this play is that it was nothing like I’ve seen here,” said Gilberg.

One reason that Gilberg chose to direct this show was because of a similar experience he had in school. “When I came across this play, I [remembered] a teacher in sixth grade who tried something very similar to this, and a lot of chaos ensued,” Gilbert said. “I thought it was a sign.”

A cast of eight actors play the parts of 18 characters. Each actor, with the exception of Benny Witkovsky ’12, who plays Richard Miller, is double- or triple-casted. This was a choice made by the author that Gilberg chose to honor in his rendition of the show. ”[The casting structure] gives the show a somewhat ridiculous quality, but as a satire the ridiculous nature is kind of necessary,” said Gilberg. “[The show] is a lot about high school, so it’s kind of entertaining to look back at that

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

time and see it all again from a removed perspective,” Witkovsky said. “Richard Miller is kind of supposed to be like a dirty hippie type, so this was a big stretch.”

“They’re a really great cast,” Gilberg said.

“All of them have very solid comedic timing, which makes my job easier. I couldn’t have asked for a better cast.”

“Good & Plenty” will be performed in Rockefeller Hall, a prime space for a play with a classroom setting.

“I didn’t do much in terms of lighting or set,” Gilberg said. “I have the actors scattered around the classroom a bit. I want the audience to feel like they’re in the classroom, and I think that lighting kind of breaks that. Yay, Rocky, for building my set for me.”

In regards to directing, Gilberg says he didn’t know what to expect.

“It’s a lot more work than I thought,” Gilberg said. “I learned how to bring everything together. I’ve acted a lot here, and I’ve done some technical stuff, but this was the first time where I had to tie everything together.”

“Good & Plenty” will be presented on April 8 and 9 at 8 p.m., and April 10 and 11 at 2 p.m. in Rockefeller Hall 200. Tickets are available at the Information Desk in the College Center.

ARTS

April 8, 2010

Clash of the Titans has clashes, no titans Clash of the Titans Louis Leterrier [Warner Bros.]

“R

elease the Kraken!”

So brays Liam Neeson, spittle flying, in the trailer for Clash of the Titans. You know what I’m talking about: Advertisements for this onscreen brouhaha have been airing on TV for God knows how long, and in almost every single commercial, Neeson shouts those three magical words. They segue into a clip of Sam Worthington flying around on a black Pegasus, dodging the flailing tentacles of the gargantuan computer-generated sea monster in question. The Kraken rears its gnarled crack baby head, gives Worthington and the Pegasus a death glare, then opens its mouth and lets ‘er rip: “rooaaaaaaaaaarrrr!”

Look the word “badass” up in MerriamWebster. There will be a link to the Youtube video of this trailer.

People asked me what movie I was going to see this weekend. I looked them dead in the eye, growled “Release the Kraken!” and then made claws with my hands and roared.

They responded with a knowing smile and a nod, and then they asked me to let them know how the movie is. Well, I’ve done gone and seen the darned thing, and to them I say: It kind of sucks.

Clash of the Titans isn’t worth the price of admission. If you are shallow like me, you’ll eat up every mindless action scene with more relish than a Famous Nathan’s Hot Dog (I’ve been working on my analogies; Can you tell?). But even though the film dishes out the promised Kraken/Pegasus showdown and many other mythic fights with gusto, it doesn’t change the fact that everything is totally half-baked. And I mean everything: From the editing to the narrative, from the premise to the dialogue, any imaginable aspect of Clash of the Titans is handled with a lack of finesse.

The movie’s handling of the Greek mythos is awkward to begin with, which is a shame because the movie makes a serious attempt

to stay true to the legends. There is even a God-awful voiceover to kick the movie off, giving viewers the DL on the gods and goddesses most should already be familiar with from Disney’s Hercules.

Then begins the story of Perseus (Worthington), a fisherman who, through a series of unfortunate events, discovers that he is actually a demigod fathered by Zeus (Liam Neeson). The basic shakedown is that Perseus has to prevent an impending Kraken attack on the city of Argos by wasting Medusa, the infamous snake-haired lady whose gaze can turn men to stone.

The movie’s attempt to stay true to these Greek roots is admirable, sure. Not too many movies delve into the backstory of Medusa, for example. She is not just a monster, as is the popular belief, but a victim of a horrible rape who is cursed by Athena to an undeserved fate. It’s so easy to pass her off as a token villain, so it’s appreciated that the protagonist at least acknowledges that she was never all that bad—right before storming her cave in the underworld and hunting her down like a trophy buck, that is.

But the movie’s treatment of the source material is inconsistent. Hades was no more evil than any other god in the Greek mythos, but in Clash of the Titans he is played by Ralph Fiennes, which should pretty much indicate from the get-go that he will be the antagonist. And some things are just flat-out wrong. Poseidon is the god of the sea, people. Why is Hades delegated responsibility over the sea monster here?

Ahem, now I just sound like a geek. But just because I hem and haw over such “technical” inconsistencies doesn’t mean the film is getting an undeserved panning from this critic. Clash of the Titans boasts a massive array of plot holes. The goings-on in this movie are simply illogical. At one point, Perseus dives into the sea from a collapsing tower with giant chunks of rubble falling around him. He swims after a sinking damsel in distress who had fallen from the tower 30 seconds earlier. The film then cuts to the unconscious hero and heroine washed up on an island’s shore a few days later. Huzzah!

But wait…how did the damsel not die

from falling a quarter mile in first place?

How did neither of them get hit or crushed by the falling rubble? How did Perseus know where the damsel would be underneath the waves despite her 30-second head start? And when they wake up on the beach, how come the two begin conversing in casual tones like nothing extraordinary had just happened? I’m willing to suspend my disbelief for almost all movies, but Clash of the Titans pushes the limit for me.

And talk about cliché. It seems like in every story where a lowly hunter/farmer/fisherman becomes a legendary hero, there is a sword-training scene by a campfire, where the seasoned warrior mercilessly trains the inexperienced hero-to-be in the ways of the blade. In Clash of the Titans, they even incorporate a band of onlookers sniggering as they watch the inexperienced newcomer get schooled, and the line “You must think of the sword as an extension of your body!” Ugh, it’s so been done.

Forget cliché, what about just flat out cheesy? There is a scene where Perseus is play-fighting a different foxy damsel (what a player) which ends with him pinning her down on the floor in a most suggestive way.

The two linger in the awkward position for a few seconds, until she meekly pushes him away and whispers, “Calm your storm.” I.e.: “Please get off of me you hunk of man; I can feel your boner through your codpiece.” My friend with whom I went to see the movie tried so hard to stifle his laughter at that one, but to no avail. I can’t blame him.

Look, maybe none of this sounds outright terrible to you. And you know what, maybe you’re right. Clash of the Titans is not a terrible movie by any means, just an extremely mediocre one. There was just no way it could ever live up to a trailer of such epic quality. Why don’t you go watch that online instead of wasting 10 dollars for the actual film itself? Oh, and while you’re at it, search for “confused lamb.” It is the cutest thing you will ever see in your life.

—Erik Lorenzsonn ’12 is writing a bi-weekly column on movies and their meanings. He is the Arts Editor.

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Andrew Kennedy Bananas Comedy Club Friday, April 9, 9 p.m. $12.

Saturday, April 10, 8 and 10:30 p.m. $15 Looming research papers and final exams are not funny, not at all. To compensate for these depressive academic stresses, why not make the trek to Bananas Comedy Club on route 9 to check out comedian Andrew Kennedy. Bearing the stamp of Comedy Central, Kennedy was recently voted one of the Top Twenty on the network’s Comedy Showdown. An up and rising comedic force, Kennedy has performed at hundreds of colleges and universities nationwide.

—Carrie Hojnicki Arts Editor

Hudson Valley Philharmonic Orchestra Bardavon Opera House Saturday, April 10, 8 p.m. $25 - $47 Looking to immerse your parents in some of Hudson Valley’s finest cultural offerings?

You’re in luck. This weekend, the Hudson Valley Philharmonic Orchestra will perform this coming Saturday at the Bardavon Opera House. Conducted by Randall Craig Fleischer, the orchestra will play Beethoven’s “Pastorale Symphony” as well as Faure’s “Pavane, op. 50” and Saint-Saens’ “Concerto for Piano no.2, op.22, G minor” with awardwinning piano soloist Yeol Eum Son. There will be a pre-concert talk with Flesicher one hour before the performance.

—C.H.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

SPORTS

Page 18

A look back at the NCAA D-1 Championship Kelly Capehart Guest Columnist

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Golf prepares to host Invitational Mitchell Gilburne

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Sports Editor

assar College’s reputation for being one of the prettiest campuses in the country is a well-known and well deserveddistinction. Tour guides will gladly highlight the trees and the squirrels, but one particular amenity may just steal the show.

Vassar’s own fully equipped nine-hole golf course, which is open to both students and the public, is not only a draw for prospective students, but also the arena that Vassar’s women’s golf team calls home. The likes of Caroline Miller ’10, Alex Bello ’12, Nicole Bronson ’13 and Head Coach Rhett Myers prove that the rolling greens and fairways are being put to excellent use. With a middling fall season under their belt, the Brewers are prepared to grit their teeth, swing from the hips, bend at the knees and shoot for victory.

An element of particular excitement comes in the form of a Vassar-hosted tournament at the Dutchess Country Club.

Coach Myers elaborates, “I’m really into the tournament golf. When they hit a birdie, I feel it myself. It’s gratifying.”

And while the Brewers enjoy playing at beautiful courses across the region, including a tough but motivated course at Mount Holyoke College, the golfers recall their favorite golf moments as time spent with their teammates. Bello finds satisfaction in the friendships the sport has fostered for her. “I love the team,” she says. “We get along really well and that’s not always the case with golf teams, but I like how we can have fun together and encourage each other.”

On a slightly less social note, Bronson adds, “My favorite part about being on the team is practicing with a group of girls that are as committed as I am to golf and being able to be a part of a team that’s really hard-working, because I didn’t have that in high school.”

Hard work, will be a defining theme of the season. “We’re in a good position to play well in the spring and maybe go to nationals,” says Bello.

The sentiment was echoed by Myers, who thinks that the experience that his young team gained in the fall will be instrumental towards qualifying for the NCAA tournament. “If four of us can shoot 85 or less,” Bronson explains, “then we’re in the ballpark

Courtesy of Sports Information

utler and Duke Universities in an NCAA Championship Game? Played in Butler’s home town—and mine—the beautiful city of Indianapolis? Hoosiers, basketball and an underdog story, all wrapped up into one. This is only slightly less spectacular than Christmas—though if Bobby Knight makes any kind of appearance, Santa Claus will have a run for his money.

Butler has been an integral part of the Indianapolis landscape for well over one hundred years, and every Indianapolis resident has passed through its campus at least once. The Bulldogs have really taken hold of the city’s consciousness in the past few years; the fact that my uncle has a Butler-themed bathroom can attest to this fact. As Indianapolis residents, we love basketball, and we definitely love Butler basketball.

I made a solemn pledge (and by this I mean I promised my editor) that I would take careful notes throughout the game. Here they appear, in all their unedited, hopeful, irreverent glory.

8:58 a.m.: My game day began early—I sported my Butler Final Four shirt all day long. “So are you pumped for the championship game tonight?” I asked my friend in our 9 a.m. Intellectual Property Law class. “Yeah!” he replied. “Duke and, uh…”

Well, no matter. I’ve got enough Indianapolis pride for the entire Vassar student body. I contemplate watching Hoosiers in preparation.

2:16 p.m.: After 24 hours of cajoling, I finally convince my best friend from home to buy tickets and go to the game, even if he has to forgo food for a couple weeks in order to balance the budget.

He’ll thank me later.

2:17 p.m.: I realize that maybe I shouldn’t have cajoled so hard because I’m going to be jealous for the rest of eternity. Unless Butler loses, in which case I’ll only be jealous for a century or two.

5:25 p.m.: I’ve just been informed that my aunt and cousin are going to the game too. I don’t know whether to call them excitedly or drive my car into a brick wall.

9:12 p.m.: Pre-game interview with Coach K. He sounds—deservedly—unworried. “We just need to be ourselves tonight,” he says. Since Duke, being themselves, got them past West Virginia, I’d say that’s a good plan.

9:14 p.m.: Butler enters Lucas Oil Stadium in front of a rocking home crowd. Sadly, it occurs to me that this could be the high spot in the evening for the Bulldogs. Fun (or, perhaps, depressing) fact: The last time a home team won the championship was when UCLA beat Florida State University in 1972. That’s not exactly inspiring.

9:16 p.m.: Wait…is that the Duke fan section?

Who let those jokers in?

9:19 p.m.: And here’s the Butler starting lineup.

They all appear to be about 12 years old. On the bright side, at least they’re a young team, so they could be back here next year. Maybe.

9:27 p.m.: 6-1 Duke. Well, it’s still early…that’s what I’m telling myself, anyway. At least Butler’s looking alive out there.

9:28 p.m.: Butler’s Shelvin Mack makes that three look like cake.

9:33 p.m.: During the commercial break, someone takes an informal poll of all seven people in the room. No one wants to see Duke win. When asked why, the response is, generally, “Duke sucks.” Well said, my sporty comrades.

9:36 p.m.: Mack AGAIN with a three-pointer! Oh, ye basketball Gods, we fall on our knees before thee.

9:39 p.m.: Butler’s Gordon Hayward works some kind of magic and, defying physics, tips the ball in. Shockingly, he is unhindered by his copious facial hair.

9:40 p.m.: Zach Hahn of Butler, I scarcely know who you are, but I’ll be damned if that three you just hit wasn’t a thing of beauty. Ronald Nored provides the assist; I know entirely too well who he is because I have read the profile on his grandparents that ran in the Indianapolis Star last month.

We are a nosy people, us Hoosiers, and we want to know where our players’ and families’ basketball sympathies lie. Apparently, Nored’s grandmother was the one who convinced him to go to Butler and not Western Kentucky. Thank you, ma’am.

See NCAA on page 19

April 8, 2010

Alex Bello ’12 competes in the golf team’s first match of the spring 2010 season in Myrtle Beach, S.C. The Brewers will next compete in the Vassar Invitational at the Dutchess Country Club. for winning tournaments, so my goal for the team is for all of us to come to together and shoot the scores that we’re capable of.”

Bronson is also confident that her team is gearing up for a successful conclusion to the season, citing a recent trip to Myrtle Beach, S.C. as the perfect “boot camp” to get their heads in the game. “I thought that the Myrtle Beach trip was very important,” she says, “because all of us got to play golf all day for five days in a row. That helped us develop and get back into golf mode for the season, and it helped us bond as a team more.”

Miller allows for this hope to burn brighter after her performance in a recent practice. “I shot my personal best—which is a 78—which is very exciting, so hopefully that defines the season,” she says with a bright sense of accomplishment lingering in the reverberations of her voice.

Coach Myers refers to this score as “blistering,” noting that “Caroline’s really been on fire in practices.” It is this energy that the Brewers look to capitalize on against Division III pseudo-rivals Williams College and St. Lawrence University. While rivalry is less pronounced in the golf world, Myers explains that “it’s always nice to see if you

can beat Williams because they’re so good!”

Bello adds, “We’ve had a lot of tournaments where we’ve been neck and neck with [St. Lawrence], and we’ve beat them and they’ve beat us, so we really want to win.”

Miller explains, “Golf is a very mental game. You have to have a strong mental acuity to be able to play golf, and you have to have the physical part, too. Golf is also an honest game. You have to be honest in what you do.” Bello’s decision to cite Athena as her favorite classical deity supports the notion of synergy between brain and body.

With level heads, positive attitudes and enough talent to make a tiger cower in fear (and none of that nasty infidelity business) the Brewers are more than capable of challenging their foes in every event in which they compete. And while it may prove inconvenient to make the trip to Delphi to consult the oracle, I can save you the trip by simply telling you that behind key contributors, both experienced and new, the future of Vassar’s golf team looks bright. The Brewers will test their mettle this season, hosting the Vassar Invitational before traveling to tournaments at Amherst College and Williams College.

Sexual frustration common for athletes W

ith the Masters’ approaching, Tiger Woods is yet again in the news. Commentators all agree that Woods needs to use the opportunity to keep apologizing for his actions and to try and repair his image after he admitted to multiple extra-marital affairs. The weirdest part of all this hoopla is that everybody seems almost shocked at the sexual scandal involved, almost as if we somehow believe that athletes abstain from sex and so any transgression on their part is seen as shocking. That, however, simply isn’t true: Sports and sex go hand in hand.

The Olympics is a perfect illustration of exactly that point. For the last two Olympics, officials wrongly estimated the sexual prowess of those involved. In both cases, officials anticipated that they would need roughly 100,000 condoms. For the Vancouver games, that number amounted to about 14 condoms for each of the 7,000 athletes, trainers, coaches and support staff according to Today Show estimates. However, in both cases, those numbers didn’t suffice. Vancouver ended up needing an emergency airlift of about 25,500 condoms from California midway through the games, and Beijing health officials ended up distributing 400,000 condoms to the hotels in and around the Olympic village. That’s four times the original estimate. Stories of Olympic athletes’ sexual escapades are also extremely commonplace.

With each Olympics, media reports emerge detailing stories of what happens in the Olympic village and which athletes have been getting together, like in 2000 when reports emerged of tennis-superstar Roger Federer’s relationship with Miroslava Vavrinec . To make matters worse, with each issuance of these reports there also emerges an athlete’s confession in which he or she details exactly what happens amongst athletes. The perfect example comes from The British Times in 2008, which published one such confessional in which the athlete in question described not only how 99 percent of Olympic athletes were sexually active but also proceeded to go into almost unnecessary detail, like, for example, how swimmers at the games were particularly “raunchy.”

Take, for example, recent reports about sex and the upcoming World Cup. In March, the BBC detailed how the British government would give $1.5 million to South Africa to help it secure some of the billion condoms it estimates it will need to meet demand in the country during the World Cup this summer. That news comes on the heels of reports that World Cup organizers expect over 40,000 prostitutes to arrive to take advantage of the World Cup events. With each bit of news, media commentators have acted “shocked,” despite the fact that similar stories have appeared for every single World

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Cup since it has been deemed appropriate to run such pieces in the mainstream media.

I understand that Woods is a superstar and as such the media is obviously more than willing to juice out every last detail of his action, after all “sex sells,” right? What I don’t understand is why the sexual exploits of athletes in general are always so graphically explained. However, average athletes “suffer” the same exploitation. After all, what better example is there of the desire to publish athlete’s sexual activities than the repeated Olympic reports specified earlier.

We as an audience are simply fascinated by sex, especially, it seems, when it concerns athletics. Regardless of how many times we hear the same stories, or are given graphic illustrations of the same actions, we are still first incredibly interested and then incredibly appalled. As if we didn’t already know that athletes, much like the rest of us, have sex. Hence why when Tiger Woods walks out onto Augusta this week we will undoubtedly want to hear about the latest news involving his now incredibly overplayed scandal, while at the same, many will join the commentators in their disapproval.

—Nik Trkulja ’11 is and economics and political science double major. This semester he will be editorializing on social issues surrounding sports outside of the Vassar athletics realm.

April 8, 2010

SPORTS

Page 19

Rumble in the Valley Van Eerde a rookie to be reckoned with aftershock Christine Olson Guest Reporter

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Kelly Capehart Guest Columnist

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Christie Musket/The Miscellany News

n the first meet of the season at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Invitational, and the first meet of her collegiate track and field career, thrower Laura Van Eerde ’13 was immediately named the Liberty League’s Rookie of the Week. Van Eerde earned second place in the javelin with a distance of 31.19m, and also threw the discus a distance of 25.87m, placing no. 7 out of 14.

Still in the early stages of the season and her college career, Van Eerde has ample time to build on her abilities and to develop the technique and strength essential to being a successful thrower. At the Mt. Holyoke Invitational, on Saturday, April 3, Van Eerde showed improvement from the previous week. She won the javelin throw with a new school record and personal best of 32.10m, out-throwing a field of 15. And she set another personal best in the discus, throwing it a distance of 27.46m.

Throwing since high school, Van Eerde gushes with admiration for her sport. “Javelin is by far one of the most awesome and exciting events,” she said, “it requires everything from speed and agility to strength, power, and concentration.”

When asked what she’d like to improve on and what her goals are for the season, Van Eerde replied, “My goal for this season is to get a solid foundation of strength and technique so that in the next three years, I can build on it and keep increasing my distances. Coming in

first place and winning is also an obvious goal, but that’s not what it’s all about. I want to make sure I do the best that I am capable of doing, no matter what place that gets me.” Concerning her role as one among many, Van Eerde added that, “With the support and motivation that the coaches and my teammates give each other, it’s impossible not to feel like you’re part of a family and want to give it all you’ve got for them.

They deserve nothing less.”

And what are her expectations for herself and the team? “I’m super excited for the whole team this year and for the next few years because we’re really expanding and becoming a force to be reckoned with. It’s hard to believe we’re such a young program and have already gotten this far. It amazes me, and I’m truly proud to be a part of it.”

Van Eerde isn’t your typical thrower— in disposition. A mellow individual, she doesn’t possess a gladiatorial attitude of grotesque warrior-passion or conceited pride in her victories. No, there probably won’t be any “booya!”, “what now?!”, or “in your face!” screams after her throws, but there’s an implicit confidence in what she can do: break her own records and contribute to the team’s success by doing what she loves.

Van Eerde says, “there’s nothing like gripping a javelin in your hand, looking at the wide-open space in front of you, and feeling a surge of energy flow from the tips of your toes to the ends of your fingers as you feel it leave your hand and fly away.”

Laura Van Eerde ’13, pictured above, was named the League Rookie of the Week after her first match.

Minute-by-minute thrills in the NCAA game NCAA continued from page 18 9:46 p.m.: Mack defies what seems like 70 gargantuan Duke players to sneak in a shot. He’s a tenacious guy. That’s eight points for him.

Overall, Butler’s looking cohesive, if a little panicky in spots. But who can blame them? 2018, Butler.

9:49 p.m.: Oddly, despite the fact that Butler is winning and playing at home and on an inspiring run and generally morally superior, all the montage footage before the breaks seems to be very Duke-heavy. We discuss the possibility that the producer is a Duke grad. I pledge to make some phone calls.

9:52 p.m.: As I look up some meaningless statistics, I am rudely reminded that Indiana University has the third-most NCAA titles in history. Those were the days.

9:55 p.m.: I text my friend who is at the game, asking him to sum up the atmosphere in five words or fewer. He replies with “80 percent Butler;” I clarify and say that I meant atmosphere in terms of emotion. Or maybe Butler fandom constitutes an emotion.

9:57 p.m.: Some kind of wrestling match breaks out in the middle of the floor as Mack fends off a couple Duke players who are grappling for the same ball. With 5:27 left to go, I come to the realization that I’m ready for this half to be over. I’m surely hypertensive by this point.

9:58 p.m.: My friend texts back, reporting that “everyone is very nervous.” I was hoping for something a little more…uplifting.

10:05 p.m.: Duke center Brian Zoubek’s playing dirty. I think so, anyway. Just when you think you’re going to get a replay, you get another Duke montage instead. This is not an acceptable substitute, CBS producers.

10:09 p.m.: Jon Scheyer of Duke steals the ball. Some Duke player who I can’t identify, but probably hate, nails a three-pointer from about a bazillion feet away.

10:10 p.m.: Ah, it was Nolan Smith with that three. Yep. Hate him.

10:11 p.m.: Halftime. Thank goodness—my heart needs a break. Indiana’s Tom Crean must be hurting right now. He’s making more money than any other state employee, at a real school, in a real conference, and he couldn’t even get IU in the tourney. Fortunately, he’s a really, re-

ally nice guy, as my aunt who accosted him at my cousin’s high school basketball game will attest. He hung up the phone to speak with her.

That’s a good sign. And being nice never hurt when it came to keeping your job.

10:21 p.m.: My mom texts: “GO BUTLER! I may not survive the second half.” You and me both, Mom. 10:22 p.m.: My friend asks me what Butler Head Coach Brad Steven’s specialty is. My response: “Looking about 20 years old.” At home, our usual conversations about Brad Stevens involve the words “nice” and “guy” in the same sentence. Bobby Knight notwithstanding, we like nice guys coaching our basketball teams in Indiana.

10:30 p.m.: There’s a Duke supporter here. I hope he knows how to keep his mouth shut.

10:45 p.m.: Good close-up of Brad Stevens as he wanders around looking barely rattled, despite several missed shots and a turnover in the past few minutes. It must be that youthful confidence. 45-43 Duke with 14 minutes to go.

10:48 p.m.: During the commercial break, I look up some articles about Brad Stevens to see what knowledgeable people have to say about him. A story I find on Syracuse.com says that “Stevens’ strength is his ability to recognize his players’ strengths, plus a poise that belies his youth.”

10:51 p.m.: Butler’s Avery Jukes misses both his free throws, and soon it’s 47-43 Duke. Is it hot in here, or is it just me?

11:00 p.m.: Mack’s up to 12 points now; just two days ago, he was bench-ridden with a leg ailment. One shudders to think. Of course, Duke’s Singler is leading the boards with 17 points and still going strong; perhaps in a fortuitous mishap, he’ll be kidnapped within the next few minutes.

11:01 p.m.: Here’s some nice footage of Hinkle Fieldhouse, home to Butler and also the site of the Hoosiers filming. There’s a lot of Indiana pride in that shot.

11:06 p.m.: With 7:42 left to go, Duke’s up five points; they’ve been up no more than six points so far this evening. This text from my friend at the game: “Are you worried??” Do I have a brain? Of course I’m worried. Any second now, the question will become, “Do I want Butler to start falling apart now, or do I want

to wait to be heartbroken till the last couple of minutes?”

11:10 p.m.: Despite others’ admiring comments about my stoicism, I sense that it may be time for me to take a walk.

11:11 p.m.: Never mind. I can’t move.

11:14 p.m.: Hey, we’re getting a replay for once. We are presented with what looks like Gordon Hayward being thrown into the stands. He makes both his free throws, and it’s 56-55 Duke. And the band’s playing Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love.” I’m not sure how to take this.

11:20 p.m.: My faculties of language are failing me. 58-55 Duke, and I think I’m going to puke. I text my friend to find out how the feeling is in Lucas Oil, and he tells me they feel “like they call too many fouls.” Fair enough.

11:23 p.m.: Mack mauls somebody over the ball. Things are starting to feel desperate.

11:28 p.m.: Butler’s Matt Howard sends in a layup with some help from our old friend Mack, and it’s 60-59 Duke with 59 seconds to go. Friend at the game says, “This is unreal!”

My mom texts and says, “This is awful.” I’m with my mom on this one.

11:34 p.m.: Hayward misses a jump shot and there are three seconds left. Duke’s ball. We’re done here.

11:35 p.m.: It’s been a tough year for Indianapolis: first the Colts’ loss in the Superbowl, now this tragedy. But I exaggerate. It’s not a tragedy, really; it’s been a pleasant surprise all the way. I’m not left as heartbroken as I imagined I would be, probably because I had never really imagined the mere possibility of this heartbreak to begin with. Did any of us see this coming when the basketball season started all those many months ago? Butler’s run has seemed, in many ways, impossible, and at the end of the day, the impossible dream couldn’t be realized. My mother said she wished they’d lost by 10; I wish they hadn’t lost at all. But do I wish they hadn’t gone to the finals? Of course not. I’ve never cried over a game, and I’m not going to cry now. All of us—Butler fans, the city of Indianapolis and basketball people everywhere who love a good underdog—can take the hope inspired by the Butler Bulldogs into the next season.

In the meantime, by way of therapy, we can just watch Hoosiers a few dozen times.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

s you may recall, the aggressive overtones of last week’s Rumble in the Valley, an event that proves the sport boxing is not yet down for the count, at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center left me weak in the knees, but beyond my new-found appreciation for the physical exhibition I was witnessing, it was the crowd at the MidHudson Civic Center on Saturday night that most shattered my expectations and that will stay with me far longer than the impact of the more violent moments of the evening. The line to enter the arena extended out of the entrance, around the corner and over halfway down the block.

Some supporters, rabid fans that they were, proudly sported their T-shirts extolling their preferred fighter (local favorite Detroy “Big Boy” Jones was the name that most frequently appeared on spectators’ backs); however, there were plenty of casual fans, too, people who had come out just to support the event and not necessarily because they could recite stats about any of the fighters.

Most touchingly, the crowd had its fair share of children: There were at least 20 in my section alone, the smallest of which sported their own tiny boxing gloves.

There were packs of teenagers, launching mild insults at each other when someone’s fighter was struggling (“How’s your boy doing NOW, man?”). There were, likewise, cadres of paunchy middle-aged men who exhausted themselves whistling at the ring girls “This…this is very good,” one of the gentlemen in front of me was heard to say when one of the boxing beauties came around the ring with the round card. There were true boxing aficionados, casual sports fans and confused girlfriends all taking up the same space in one breathless arena.

In a testament to the homegrown spirit of the event, the cheering was always loudest for the local guys. Jones solicited some of the greatest volume from the fans, and children who had seen me taking notes earlier begged me for pens to get his autograph as he passed through the arena after his fight. The headliners Jay Krupp and Daniel Sostre provided the most divisive fight as one local fighter defended his championship against the other. (Sostre walked away from the event maintaining possession of his belt, though he did have two injured hands to show for it.) Regardless of what happened in the ring, the over arching theme among the fans was one of camaraderie. Strangers reenacted the highlights while questioning the sanity of the officials as we laughed through the midnight Poughkeepsie air towards the parking garage.

It wasn’t until the following morning as I drove through Poughkeepsie on my way to god-knows-where that I realized the full impact the event had had on me. Driving through Poughkeepsie is often, at least for me, a reminder of all the things I don’t like about the area; there are potholes to avoid, shady corners to be driven past at top speed, decrepit buildings that are a reminder of what Poughkeepsie once was.

But as I maneuvered through the city on Sunday morning, all I could see was what Poughkeepsie already is. Sure, it doesn’t always seem like the prettiest city in the world, but it also has events like the one I saw on Saturday night, events that are defined by the spirit with which local citizens can enjoy something simple—something as universal as boxing—together.

Everyone in the crowd was on their feet at least once in the evening, but it wasn’t because we all entered the Civic Center with a favorite fighter in mind. We all shouted and swore and stomped our feet until we were exhausted because the spirit of the Rumble in the Valley was irresistible.

SPORTS

Page 20

April 8, 2010

Men’s rugby sees first win of spring season Ethan Shanley

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Guest Reporter

Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News

awoke slightly after noon on Saturday morning to beams of warm sunlight dancing across my eyelids, and made my way up to the farm to watch men’s rugby team engage in a battle of epic proportions with Union College. I was not disappointed by what I saw. Through a titan-like clash of brawn, speed and sinewy muscle, the Brewers absolutely demolished the opposition, beating them into submission and walking away from the game with a 51-3 victory.

The game started slowly for the Brewers, who had lost five straight games, with Union controlling the beginning of the match. The Dutchmen struck first earning an early 3-0 lead on a penalty kick following an offside call against Vassar’s Adam Steel ’12. The Brewers, however, would not surrender, and the team fought back with a vengeance, earning a scrum near Union’s goal-line only minutes later. Steel, looking to make up for his previous misstep, grabbed the ball and bounced off would-be tacklers, sprinting towards the goal line and into glory to put the Brewers up 5-3.

Inspired by Steel’s incredible display of raw power and athleticism, as well as the roars of an exceptionally raucous crowd, the Brewers went on an offensive tear. Not long after Steel’s try, senior Jake London seized the ball and ran full speed, throwing tacklers down left and right with a pair of destructive stiff arms. “[Lon-

don] had a couple devastating stiff arms on runs which led to tries,” says first-year rugby player Zach Wasser ’11. Somehow London was dragged down, and though his own attack attempt was thwarted, he managed to pitch the ball to his teammate, Brett Anker ’12. Anker then took the ball 45 yards down the field and scored to make the game 12-3 off of a conversion

by London. Fear only struck once all day for the Brewers when London went down with a nasty ankle injury.

However, Ken Wolkin ‘12 stepped in to replace his fallen brother and performed admirably. The Brewers would not let up for the rest of the half, and Union could do nothing to combat the all-out assault. Showcasing superior passing and teamwork, the squad tallied two more tries before the half. Freshman phenom Nic Placeres added a score off of a nifty assist from Tyler Blake ‘12, and James Purtle ‘12 put up a try for the Brewers as well. The team took a commanding 24-3 lead into halftime.

The second half yielded similar results for Vassar. The Brewers knew that they could not let up if they wanted to keep their lead, so they kept the pressure on. Blake got on the board with a tough run and sophomore C.J. Le Sueur put up some points of his own. Placeres scored a little later off of a high arching, perhaps unintentionally improvisational, pass from Purtle.

At this point, Vassar’s lead was commanding. Substitutes were inserted into the game, and the scoring just would not stop. The Brewers got

Jake London ’10 stiff arms a Union College opponent during the April 3 match held on Vassar Farm. The Brewers won the game 51-3 in their first win of the spring 2010 season. Their next game will be held on April 10 against Western Connecticut State. tries from Kendall Coleman ‘11, a starting wing known for his crafty interceptions, quick feet and clever jukes. Tries also came from Wasser, who was playing in only his second rugby match ever. Late in the game, Wasser took a sublime pass from captain Iain Gordon ’11 to the house, dodging and weaving in and out of defenders, bulldozing potential assailants and ducking under guillotine arms on his way to magnificence. “I already love the sport,” says Wasser. “It’s enlivening to play

Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News

Midfielder Emily Kloppenburg ’11 competes against Hamilton College on April 3. The Brewers lost the Liberty League match 16-5 and will next face Union College on Friday, April 9 in Schenectady, N.Y.

SCOREBOARD MARCH 31 MEN’S VOLLEYBALL VASSAR

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a game where you know the guy chasing after you wants to inflict serious bodily harm.”

Given the team’s recent scoring troubles, the Brewers were thrilled by the win, but it is apparent that Saturday’s victory cured those woes.

Vassar tallied a total of 51 points, their highest output of the season; everybody got a piece of the action, with eight Brewers scoring a total of nine tries.

The win comes on the heels of several close contests against regional

foes. Prior to overcoming the Dutchmen, Vassar had dropped a pair of tight contests hosting the University of Albany and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

The Brewers improve to 3-9-1 overall and look to ride their momentum into their next game on April 10 against Western Connecticut State University at 11 a.m. on the Vassar Farm. Following this the Brewers will host Marist College and Montclair State University, before concluding with their annual alumni game.

Vassar completes tough Liberty League weekend Andy Marmer

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Sports Editor

n all sports, at all times, competing in the challenging Liberty League can be difficult for Vassar’s student-athletes; this weekend was no exception. The men’s tennis team, both men’s and women’s lacrosse, and baseball all had busy weekends, competing in a total of eight matches, with just the tennis team playing a non-conference opponent.

Men’s lacrosse: April 3, Clarkson University 9 Vassar 8, Overtime

Leading 8-6 with 10:24 remaining after a Jack Gross ’12 goal, the Brewer’s surrendered two late goals to Clarkson, sending the game into overtime. In the extra session, Clarkson’s Tyler Long scored 2:51 in, to send the visitors away empty-handed.

Vassar appeared on its way to its first-ever Liberty League win, behind three goals and an assist from both Gross and Nick Cardillo ’10. Defensively, Vassar was led by Zach Beauchamp ’11 with 12 groundballs and Alex Tice ’11 with 13 saves. Saturday April 10, Vassar will continue to seek that elusive first win hosting Hamilton College.

Women’s lacrosse: April 2, William Smith College 15 Vassar 13, no. 3 Hamilton College 16 Vassar 5

The Brewers dropped a pair of league contests against tough foes from William Smith and no. 3 nationally ranked Hamilton College. On Friday, against William Smith, Sarah Warner ‘11 scored six goals, all in the first half, as the teams entered the half knotted at 10. However, in the second half, William Smith College was able to maintain the lion’s share of the possession, outscoring Vassar 5-3, to win 15-13. Moe Byrne ’11 scored all three of Vassar’s second-half goals.

Goalie Nicole Engelhardt ’11 had a strong game with 20 saves on the afternoon.

The following day, Vassar kept the game close, trailing just 4-2 at the half against the no.

3 Continentals. However, a methodical Hamil-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

ton attack took the game out of reach as they cruised to a 15-6 win.

Vassar will travel to Union and Skidmore Colleges this weekend, returning home for their final contest on April 30 against the University of Rochester.

Baseball: April 2, St. Lawrence 17, 11 Vassar 4, 7; April 3, St Lawrence 6, 12 Vassar 1, 4

In back to back doubleheaders, the Brewers played strong offensive baseball, but struggled to plate runs. Despite solid offensive performances, Vassar came up short in each matchup.

For the season, Vassar is led by Mike Perrone ’13 with a .406 batting average, Devon Luongo ’11 (.347), Adam Murphy ’10 (.303) and Joe Coniglio ’12 (.300). Several Brewers are hitting just below the .300 mark, for the slugging squad.

The Brewers fall to 1-7 in the Liberty League and will have back-to-back road weekends, traveling to Clarkson and Rochester, with a mid-week home game on April 14 against State University of New York New Paltz.

Men’s tennis: April 3, Trinity College 5 Vassar 4

The two squads engaged in a back and forth affair as the no. 25 nationally-ranked Brewers dropped a squeaker to the no. 20-ranked Bantams.

Vassar jumped out to a 2-1 lead after doubles, with wins at number one doubles from the Guzick brothers Ben ’12 and Andrew ’13, and at number two doubles from Mike Mattelson ’10 and Max Willner ’11. However, the Bantams earned four of the six single wins, with just Mattelson (first singles) and Greg Katz ’11 (fifth singles) winning for Vassar. With the team match tied at 4, Ben Guzick dropped a three-set match to his counterpart Anson McCook at second singles, giving Trinity the match.

This weekend, Vassar will travel to Williams College for a showdown with the no. 12 team in the country, before returning home the following weekend to host the Liberty League Championships.