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CATALYST
SNOOTY MEMORIAL NCF BILL BREAKDOWN
SEPTEMBER 18, 2017 VOLUME XXXV ISSUE I
New College of Florida's student-run newspaper
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Awaiting Irma
How New College's president and administration responded to the hurricane BY GIULIA HEYWARD
Hurricane Irma was projected to hit the Tampa Bay area on the evening of Sunday, Sept. 9 before heading north Monday morning. Florida governor Rick Scott told Floridians to evacuate the state at a news conference on Sept. 9. Among congested traffic and skyrocketing plane tickets, over 200 students were left on New College’s campus, awaiting Irma. “Scary,” New College President Donal O’Shea said when asked to recount his experience with Hurricane Irma in a phone interview. “I don’t want another one.” An emergency response team comprised of the New College Police Department (NCPD), Student
photos courtesy of Mark Stier
New College President Donal O' Shea was on campus during Hurricane Irma.
Affairs and Physical Plant staff was formed and hurricane shelters at the Harry Sudakoff and Academic Center of Excellence (ACE) buildings were opened. "It starts with looking at the forecast,” O’Shea, who slept in Physical Plant during the hurricane,
along with Provost Barbara Feldman, said. “We didn’t want to send out an evacuation too soon because it was looking for a while like it was going up the east coast.” O’Shea moved into Physical Plant on Saturday because it was near the Dort and Goldstein dorms.
He recounts that it was eerie listening to the wind. “ACE is more sound proof than Physical Plant and there was some water leaking [into the building].” Residence Hall Director (RHD) and New College alum Kaylie Stokes (‘12) mentioned the emotionally intense experience for administration during the hurricane. “As a side note, our staff are also people and were feeling fear and concern about this storm as well, while being separated from their families so that they could be here to support students during the storm and assist with preparation,” Stokes said. continued on p. 9
Building Heiser: cost, collaboration and community spaces BY JACOB WENTZ It’s hard to miss; the large white geometric structure lines the top of Dort Promenade, sporting various light blue rectangles around its exterior. Some say that it’s an eyesore, others say that it’s a massive improvement to the campus. Construction on the 22,000 square foot building began in Oct. 2016 and is nearing its completion after just one year. The official grand opening is scheduled for Oct. 12, though students and professors alike are already using the new features that the space offers. Each year, more than one-quarter of students declare an area of concentration in mathematics or sciences, making New College the second highest natural sciences provider in the state of Florida, behind the University of Florida (UF). As the college intends to increase its student body, an updated, larger science building fits in well. Numbers, costs and data Funded by the state, the 9.7 million dollar project increased the size of the natural sciences building by more
WHAT’S INSIDE
Jacob Wentz/Catalyst
The new addition not only creates new collaborative, open spaces, but also attempts to bring the outdated building up to the standards of 21st-century science.
than 50 percent. According to Milton, the breakdown of expenses are as followed: around $750,000 dollars was spent on design, over one million dollars was spent on furniture, fittings and equipment and the rest—around $7.5 million—was spent on construction. “The way that the finances work, there is a formula from the state that
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FOOD FOREST
gives you the amount of money based on square footage,” Milton said. Based on the money that was received, the building should have been around 20,000 square feet. “We managed to push the envelope to 22,000 square feet,” Milton said. This addition, combined with the 34,000 square feet of the original
9 INTERNET ARTISTS
wings, creates a total 56,000 square foot complex that the natural sciences department desperately needed. “It’s long overdue,” New College of Florida President Donal O’Shea said. “When we originally built the building, it was supposed to have three wings. For some reason it got delayed, and then there was a time of inflation in building prices and the last wing got value engineered out, so they built a smaller building than they’d intended.” A collaborative procedure A building committee of professors from each of the different Natural Science disciplines created lists of requirements for the new wing and reviewed all of the possible layouts and designs. “Katie Walstrom really shepherded the whole thing,” O’Shea said. “Don’t let her tell you it was an easy job; everyone always has different ideas of what to do and she was really masterful at making sure that everybody was heard.” Among the list of requirements
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12 BASH AND BENEFIT
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New year, new NCSA BY JASON D’AMOURS A new year welcomes a new class president and cabinet to represent the interests of students. On Apr. 14, Leo Jobsis, the supervisor of elections, announced the results of the 2017 New College Student Alliance (NCSA) elections. Third-year Ximena Pedroza and her previous running mate Kayla Kisseadoo were elected to be class presidents. Pedroza, the now solo class president, decided to run because of her love for the students and uniqueness of the community. “I wanted to be student body president because I wanted more student voices to be heard, not just by our administration but by the state of Florida,” Pedroza said in an email interview. “We have an amazing body of students that are doing incredible things [...] so I wanted to be of best help to get more institutional support for students.” Once the student body president is elected, they send out applications for their cabinet. Any student interested in running for a position submits an application and goes through an interview process. Pedroza is proud and confident in her cabinet choices. “I believe that this cabinet brings passion and love to the
student body,” Pedroza said. “This years cabinet is also bringing a sense of unity--we are steering away from working individually to working together to get larger goals accomplished. All of the cabinet is extremely passionate about their positions and I have 100 percent trust in each and every one of them. There was a reason why Kayla and I picked the individuals that we did.” To stay informed with the NCSA’s many initiatives, be sure to attend their weekly cabinet meetings on Mondays from 6-7 p.m. in ACE Lounge.
MEET YOUR NCSA! President: Ximena Pedroza Executive Secretary: John Lake Chief of Staff: Katie Thurson VP of Relations and Financial Affairs: Riley Lewis VP of Green Affairs: Iyanu Corniel VP of Student Life: Tim Manning VP of Diversity and Inclusion: Andreina Carrasquero VP of Academics Affairs: Araya Barnes Chair of Outreach Committee: Elizabeth Ramsamooj Speaker of the Towne Meeting: Emily Via
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California wildfires threaten more than just communities BY JASON D’AMOURS
California has always been prone to natural wildfires, but the 2017 fire season is shaping up to potentially break records. While firefighters are placed under increased pressure to contain fires and protect communities, some are questioning the utility of such processes. From the first of the year to July, California has already seen double the acreage burned compared to the same time last year. Heather Williams, the spokesperson for California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said in an interview with sfgate that the fires this year have “... to do with all the rain we had over the winter. With increased rain comes increased growth in vegetation.” Once temperatures rise, the new vegetation becomes dry and turns into nature's perfect kindling. September in California is nicknamed the “heat wave month.” On Aug. 31, temperatures soared into the triple digits, causing nearly 11,000 residents to lose power due to overloaded power grids. In the late afternoon, thunderstorms moved through Southern California, bringing thousands of lightning strikes and occasional brush fires. The La Tuna fire combusted on
Sept. 1, amid a sweltering heat wave and quickly became the largest fire by acreage in the city of Los Angeles. Among the 1,400 homes in immediate danger and the 700 families ordered to evacuate, only five homes were destroyed and by Sept. 5, 80 percent of the fire was contained. The Los Angeles Fire Department assisted in containing the La Tuna fire, but according to The New York Times, anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of the fire personnel at any fire in the state are incarcerated women who fight fires for pay. During World War II, California invested in conservation camp programs. Inmates were sent to live and work there and participate in public work-relief programs. In 1946, the state opened Camp Rainbow to specifically house inmates to fight fires. Although underpaid -- inmate firefighters earn a maximum of $2.56 a day when in camp and $1 an hour when fighting fires -- inmates voluntarily join the conservation camps and feel pride in the work they do. Some Californians and scholars across the country, though, think the practice of suppressing wildfires may not be worth it. Jennifer Marlon, a geographer at Yale University, said in an interview with The New York Times
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Snooty, the world’s oldest manatee, dead, and not from old age BY JASON D’AMOURS
July was a tumultuous month for both Sarasota-Bradenton locals and Manatee lovers, alike. Just two days after Snooty the Manatee’s 69th birthday, he was found dead in what South Florida Museum officials called “a heartbreaking accident,” according to a press release. After a month of investigation with the help of James Gesualdi -an attorney and well-known animal welfare advocate -- the South Florida Museum released a announcement in which Gesualdi confirmed that, “Snooty’s death was the result of a preventable accident and several factors contributed to this tragedy,” including lax record keeping, insufficient department communications, and the need for improved staff training. “Snooty died when an access
panel blocking an underwater plumbing area in his habitat came off at some point on the night of July 22 or the morning of July 23 and that Snooty swam into the opening, was unable to get out and drowned,” the press release said. After reviewing records, security footage and interviewing anyone involved in Snooty’s life, including his veterinarian for more than 20 years, Gesualdi learned that the staff were at least aware of the loose panel one week before Snooty’s death. The museum pledges to make staffing changes, retrain Aquarium staff and crosstrain facility staff on how to best inspect the habitat, develop new dive checklists, improve record keeping and communication protocols and to replace the work order maintenance request system to avoid accidents in the
"Irma? I don't know her." © 2017 the Catalyst. All rights reserved. The Catalyst is available online at www.ncfcatalyst.com, facebook.com/NCFcatalyst instagram.com/NCFcatalyst twitter.com/ncfcatalyst The Catalyst is an academic tutorial sponsored by Professor Maria D. Vesperi. It is developed in the New College Publications Lab using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign and printed at Sun Coast Press with funds provided by the New College Student Alliance.
future. Snooty’s death was a surprise to many. Just hours before, on Saturday, July 22, hundreds gathered for his annual birthday bash only to receive news that Snooty’s personality and curiosity got the best of him. He was the oldest known manatee and the official mascot of Manatee County, and will forever be remembered for his old age and personality. Spoiled Snooty was hand fed 8590 pounds of food a day by staff at the South Florida Museum’s Parker Manatee Aquarium. His diet regularly consisted of romaine lettuce, kale and broccoli -- well, at least it should have. Snooty was sensitive to certain textures, like those of kale and broccoli. Aquarium staff would wrap his least favorite vegetables inside romaine
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lettuce in attempts to sneak him his nutrients, but his prehensile lips allowed him to move the sides of his mouth independently and spit out the food he did not like. His picky eating habits, however, did not stop the hundreds of fans who gathered at his birthday bash from presenting him with a rainbowlayered cake consisting of pineapple, watermelon, strawberries, apples, blueberries and even broccoli. Snooty’s last memories were filled with friends who visited and loved him for years. To remember Snooty, join the South Florida Museum for his memorial service on Sept. 24. For more information, visit southfloridamuseum. org/events. Information for this article was gathered from bradenton.com and southfloridamuseum.org. Direct submissions, letters, announcements and inquiries to: The Catalyst 5800 Bay Shore Road Sarasota, Florida 34243 ncfcatalyst@gmail.com The Catalyst reserves the right to edit all submissions for grammar, space and style. No anonymous submissions will be accepted. Submissions must be received by 12:00 p.m. Friday for consideration in the next issue.
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Immokalee in urgent need of donations post-hurricane BY ANYA MARÍA CONTRERAS-GARCÍA
Hurricane Irma left the already impoverished farmworker communities of Immokalee, Florida without water and electricity after the eye wall of the storm made landfall on Sunday. Despite the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ (CIW) best efforts at evacuating and preparing residents, many of the wooden shacks and trailers in the community were completely destroyed. Many of the farmworkers in Immokalee have been left homeless and without work until farms re-open. According to the CIW’s website, “Most of the inland communities affected by Irma remain without power, with many areas still dealing with localized flooding, and with shortages of food and essential supplies quickly becoming an urgent predicament, as any perishable stores that people might have stocked for the aftermath have been lost due to the lack of refrigeration.” As a result, the CIW is asking for monetary and supply donations, 100% of which will go straight to the farmworkers and their families who need it. “The need for essential supplies — from food and diapers to clothing, especially undergarments and socks — is growing by the day,” the CIW’s website says. Most needed items include: Water Fruit (fresh and dried) Canned beans Canned tuna or sardines Nut butter Jam/jelly Bread Bleach Disinfecting wipes Toilet paper Menstruation products Diapers Baby food and powdered milk Children’s clothes Underwear Socks Large tarps Insect repellent Gasoline Chainsaws
NEWS PAGE 3
Climate change calls for environmental activism BY TIM MANNING
These last few weeks, marked by record breaking hurricanes in the Gulf, forest fires across the United States, and deadly floods in Nepal, Malaysia, and India, have demonstrated global warming to be a humanitarian crisis. In Florida, the devastation wrought by Hurricane Irma showed that the dangers of climate change are no longer years out but that they threaten communities in Florida. In places as close and connected to New as Immokalee, Irma has left people and families houseless and without food. After Irma hit, a number of public figures have spoken out in an effort to convince world leaders to more aggressively confront climate issues. Activist Bill McKibben wrote an op-ed for the Guardian in which he reiterated the dangers of climate change and called for action. On campus, environmentalism continues to be a relevant issue. The New College Student Alliance’s (NCSA) Council of Green Affairs (CGA) aims to create a more sustainable and environmentally friendly campus. Third-year Iyanu Corniel is the current Vice President of Green Affairs (VPGA) and hopes to, during her tenure as VPGA, address issues of integration and inclusivity in the CGA. “When I talk about integration, I mean that the environmental movement seems to be a bunch of people trying to solve different problems [...] and in terms of inclusivity, we just need to run far away from the stereotype of environmentalists being long-haired, plant
loving, white hippies,” Corniel said. “[Climate change] affects everyone, so all types of people should have a say in how it’s solved. Not to mention, most of the adverse effects of human development were caused by rich colonizing nations, and those that feel the burn afterwards are poorer Black and brown nations.” With environmental action, though, there is always a risk of taking misdirected action. “When we are taking environmental action, we have to say to ourselves, ‘who are we doing this for?’” NCSA President and third-year Ximena Pedroza said. “It’s great that we have sustainable initiatives on campus, but we could always incorporate more with the community to stop things like environmental racism.” Thesis student and student activist Alex Schelle hopes to see New College strive to develop environmental actions that not only help boost campus image and affect students but also connect New College to the surrounding community and confront inequality and environmental racism. Schelle cites the recently created Food Forest from former VPGA Orion Morton (‘13) and Jay McWilliams (‘14). The creation of the Food Forest was seen as a major accomplishment for sustainability on campus. “[We need to be careful that] our actions do not come from a place of ego or selfishness,” Pedroza said. “They are acts of love and of resilience, and if we don’t get our act together now, there won’t be another seven generations to protect.”
Supplies can be dropped off in the donation bin outside of the New College Student Alliance (NCSA) Office until Friday, Sept. 22 or mailed to 110 South 2nd Street Immokalee, FL. Monetary donations can be made through secure.actblue.com/donate/immokalee. If you are interested in lending support to farmworkers in Immokalee and other surrounding communities, contact Julia Perkins of the CIW at julia@ciw-online.org.
Azia Keever/Catalyst
(top) Hurricane Irma left trees scattered across residential buildings such as Pei. (bottom) B Dorm was one of the residential buidlings without power due to Irma,
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PAGE 4
Federal Reserve pushes to protect big banks
BY NOAH BASLAW
America’s indifference towards financial corruption was why 2011’s Occupy Wall Street protests appeared ten years too late relative to the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). The Occupy movement came once the crisis was felt by Americans, but the reasons for the crash happened years earlier while everyone thought the economy was good. Proper insight into the financial sector was a necessary hedge against the crisis, but popular understanding was too little too late. Other than Occupy Wall Street, most people remember the government’s $475 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout bill that helped to stabilize the economy. Tax payer money bailed out large companies. Unfortunately for the common American today, too big to fail and jail banks appear to be more insured against risk than before the GFC. Despite popular press celebrating current economic growth, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors meeting on Friday, Sept. 1, ruled unanimously, finalizing “a new rule that should make it easier to wind down systemically important U.S. banks by creating a safe harbor for financial contracts after a firm defaults.” “A memorandum accompanying the final rule said that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Office of
the Comptroller of the Currency would be adopting "substantively identical final rules [...] in the near future that would apply to financial institutions under their purview.” Provisions under Title II of the Dodd-Frank Act, passed in 2010, similarly act as hedges against financial risk in secondary markets. This general push to stabilize global financial entities and products came from the financial crash of 2008; the goal to back big banks from realizing insolvency, the inability to pay one’s debts, came from a “proposal sprang from a 2011 plan by the Financial Stability Board (FSB), an international standards-setting organization affiliated with the Group of 20 industrialized nations,” American Banker detailed. As the Fed finalizes these protections against big bank default, it is simultaneously deciding when it’s going to start to sell off its massive GFC lifeboat called Quantitative Easing. A large sum of this life boat is composed of U.S. Treasury bonds that will be maturing (paid out to bondholders from the U.S. government) in 2018 and 2019. The FSB’s telos is to stabilize global markets, which means avoiding contagion in those markets. In 2011, the FSB warned the United States Department of Justice to not criminally indict British bank HSBC on the basis of avoiding global financial contagion.
The OMR will receive a fresh coat of blue paint as well as chairs and tables in the same style as the new Heiser Natural Sciences Complex furniture. HSBC was already caught funding billions of dollars to the Sinaloa and Norte del Valle drug cartels in Mexico and Colombia, respectively. The bank was fined 1.3 billion dollars but not criminally indicted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Could this inaction be at least partially explained by corporate lobbying? Yes. Opensecrets.org, a
project by The Center for Responsive Politics, notes “despite the mortgage and banking crises of 2008, the financial sector still managed to donate $468.8 million to federal campaigns and candidates during the 2008 election cycle”. They preface their page on the finance sector with “the financial
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Making cents of New College’s tuition fees BY AZIA KEEVER On New College’s website, ncf. edu, the 2017-2018 estimated total cost of tuition and fees is $6,916. This is not including room & board which is estimated at $9,264. Every student can find the breakdown of their cost of attendance in NewCleis, the college’s online information system for student profiles. However, this breakdown does not include any sort of description of what these fees are or what they are for. Some of them are selfexplanatory like the meal plan and parking pass. Others can be more misleading like the “student fin aid fee”. Is it a fee for receiving financial aid or a fee that collects money to allocate as financial aid? Or both? Second-year Grace Harrison who is a receiver of financial aid said in an online interview, “Why is there a financial aid charge? That is so counterproductive. And where does it go? It should just be staying with me.” This information is not as easily accessible to students as one might wish. Brief descriptions of each fee can be found separately from a student’s bill on the public website of the college as a downloadable pdf from a page titled “Tuition & Fee Schedule”, but this is not common knowledge.
Azia Keever/Catalyst The majority of students polled did not know what the tuition differential charge is.
“Honestly, I thought the only descriptions we had of them were on NewCleis where we have the list of our charges overall,” Harrison said. In regards to the student financial aid fee, the section states at least 75 percent “of the revenue generated by these fees must be used to support need based student financial aid.” Where the other 25 percent goes, it does not say. The question of whether this fee is applied to all students or just to those with financial aid is also not addressed. Other fee titles in NewCleis are just not useful for students trying to understand what they are paying for. The tuition differential is the second most expensive fee, beat only by the matriculation--enrollment--fee, yet
many students pay it without knowing what it is for or where the money goes. In a poll that asked students about their knowledge of the tuition differential charge posted to the Forum--the school’s student listserv--Sept. 5, three days before this fall’s tuition payment deadline, only 25.4 percent knew what it was and less than 13 percent knew what it was for. The description of the tuition differential fee on the “Tuition & Fee Schedule” downloadable PDF states “at least 30 percent of revenue generated by tuition differential must be used for need based student financial aid.” It is only made clear where the other 70 percent of the revenue goes on the Florida Senate website, flsenate.gov. To get to
this information, one must navigate through five pages to find a useful-though still vague--description of this fee in Section 24 of Chapter 1009 of Title XLVIII, a description which states, “Seventy percent of the revenues from the tuition differential shall be expended for purposes of undergraduate education. Such expenditures may include, but are not limited to, increasing course offerings, improving graduation rates, increasing the percentage of undergraduate students who are taught by faculty, decreasing student-faculty ratios, providing salary increases for faculty who have a history of excellent teaching in undergraduate courses, improving the efficiency of the delivery of undergraduate education through academic advisement and counseling, and reducing the percentage of students who graduate with excess hours.” The green fee, a NCF-specific fee, is “a small fee paid by each student, providing about $28,000 each year for sustainable projects on campus,” according to the college’s website. “It has funded projects like the composting program, the food forest, and the solar panels on the new Heiser building. The Green Fee allocation money is given out
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NEWS PAGE 5
Capital Improvements: campus hangouts get a makeover BY COLE ZELZNAK Whether it be the sulphurous smell or the questionably arranged— and sometimes sticky—furniture, one might think that Hamilton “Ham” Center is not living up to its full potential as a place for club meetings, hanging out with friends or catching up on readings during lunch. Fortunately, major steps have been taken to update two popular student spaces in Ham. New College Student Alliance (NCSA) President and thirdyear Ximena Pedroza led an effort over the summer to appropriate money from New College’s Capital Improvements Trust Fund (CITF) for the renovation of the Old Mail Room (OMR). The CITF is a fund maintained by the capital improvements fee students pay each semester, and $100,000 of the fund was approved by the Board of Trustees for renovations to various areas of the campus in 2016-17. Co-teaching assistants (co-TAs) of the Gender and Diversity Center (GDC), third-years Wolly Mason and Bryce Gall, have been working to update and reorganize the GDC, which is an important sanctuary and resource for students. The last major renovation to Ham took place under the direction of 2014-15 NCSA President Cassandra Corrado, during which the “silo” structure was succeeded by an open
Cole Zelznak/Catalyst The OMR will receive a fresh coat of blue paint as well as chairs and tables in the same style as the new Heiser Natural Sciences Complex furniture. lounge area and new modular couches. “A lot of people wanted the GDC to get remodeled and redone, but a lot of people felt that we also had to revamp the Old Mail Room because we saw that not a lot of clubs used it, and that most clubs used the GDC as a meeting space,” Pedroza said. Pedroza chose to consult the student body for the design direction
of the OMR. She sent an online survey to students in late July and its results were used to select the colors and types of furniture for the new OMR. Over the next two months, the OMR will receive a fresh coat of blue paint as well as chairs and tables in the same style as the new Heiser Natural Sciences Complex furniture. Additionally, students can expect a few
lush indoor plants and a whiteboard for notes and illustrations. The new furniture is easily moveable to make space for Walls and other community events, but can be reconfigured to make the OMR the perfect location for conversation and relaxation away from the main dining area. “I have a lot of memories, big and small, in the OMR, and to me that’s a part of what college is supposed to be,” third-year Grace Harrison said. “You’re supposed to be able to recall spaces and times that defined things for you, and it’s important that we keep making the OMR a place that can host NCF memories. Space matters.” Mason and Gall have been working diligently over the summer and into the fall semester to remake the GDC and reemphasize the space as a sanctuary for all people with marginalized identities. Mason and Gall have paid for improvements, such as new paint and rugs, largely out of pocket and without the aid of CITF money. They have encouraged and received donations of decorations, books and other resources. Mason and Gall also set their sights on multiple problems with the GDC’s setup, such as clutter, its use as a hallway, sterile fluorescent lighting and general lack of privacy. “It should feel like a truly inclusive and welcoming space for a body of students with multiple, interlocking
August Recap: From riots to natural disasters BY SAMANTHA RAMIREZ August was a chaotic month in both the political and social spheres, with the death of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, to Hurricane Harvey wreaking havoc in Texas. Charlottesville White nationalists and supremacists who were planning to gather for a Unite the Right rally on Saturday, Aug. 12, made a Friday night surprise when they gathered a night early with torches around 8 p.m. and marched along the University of Virginia. At around 1:15 p.m. a medical response was ushered after a three-vehicle crash occurred. However, witnesses of the accident knew it was no accident. Rally goer James Alex Fields plowed his vehicle into a crowd of counter protesters. Heather Heyer, 32, of Charlottesville was killed in the accident and 19 others were injured. “Our country should be a place where many different cultures can come together and be celebrated, we should find strength in our differences” firstyear Megan Ballard comments. Total Solar Eclipse The total solar eclipse that occurred on August 21, 2017 was the first total solar eclipse to cross the United States from coast to coast in 99 years. “Witnessing the eclipse made me not only appreciate the natural
photo courtesy of WikimediaCommons President Donald Trump released several statements, his final being a condemnation on violence "on both sides" during the Charlottesville violence.
wonders of the world but also made me think about how the wonders of the world won't stop for humans” first-year Olivia DelGandio said. “We must take care of our planet in order to continue to be able to witness these magnificent events.” The eclipse began in Oregon, with complete totality just after 1 p.m., and had its end in South Carolina at about 3 p.m. For many a partial solar eclipse
was visible until just after 4 p.m. in the Southeast United States. According to NASA, on Apr. 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will stretch diagonally across the U.S., and many students are looking forward to it already. Hurricane Harvey The month of August also presented a great force of nature that caused much loss and devastation in the state of Texas. Hurricane Harvey made
landfall in Texas on Aug. 25 as a category four hurricane. Harvey wreaked havoc in Texas for six days as the rains created widespread and destructive flooding. Harvey left catastrophic record flooding in most of southeast Texas, and state recovery efforts are still underway. Harvey dumped 27 trillion gallons of water on Texas in the course of six days, resulted in 72,000 rescues, and the damage is estimated to cost around $75 billion dollars. “What happened with Harvey is very saddening, and I hope that our government and our officials can learn from Harvey and Irma,” firstyear LilyAnne Rodriguez said. “Climate change was the main contributing factor in each of these natural disasters, and it can no longer be ignored.” Trump The month of August was brutal for Trump, with a dramatic dip in polling numbers. Throughout August, strife among top cabinet members and the pressures of producing major legislation on tax reform became a great concern. Issues with North Korea and immigration still lay ahead. Information for this article was gathered from nytimes.com, cnn.com
NEW COLLEGE OF FLORIDA'S
FOOD FOREST
BY MIRANDA GALE Leafy and lush, with long pathways and dozens of trees, the New College food forest has grown dramatically since the beginning of the summer. Planted about a year and a half ago and funded by the Council of Green Affairs (CGA), most of these trees started out only a few feet high. Now, several of them, including the moringa and Jamaican cherry trees, tower at least ten feet tall. Located near old Caples and the carriage house on the bay side of campus, the food forest is one of New College’s hidden gems. The project was inspired in part by Florida Gulf Coast University’s food forest, a student run botanical garden initiated in 2011. Like the FGCU food forest, New College’s own food forest is a collection of native and non-native tropical and subtropical edible species. The food forest includes species familiar to most people, such as avocados, mangos, papayas and starfruit but also includes less familiar species such as Jamaican cherries, soursop, canistel and ice cream beans. The current food forest teach-
ing assistant, third-year Evan Teal, is in charge of taking care of this diverse group of plants and educating students about them. Currently, the Jamaican Cherry tree is fruiting, producing small red berries with a shiny skin and mellow taste. Comfrey, a close-to-the-ground European plant with fuzzy leaves, grows on the west end of the forest and is useful as a poultice for burns and scrapes. Cranberry hibiscus--good for tea, with red leaves and a tart taste--grows here too. Also close to fruiting are Seminole pumpkins, a vine plant brought to the New College academic gardens by Teal. “Seminole” pumpkin is a misnomer, as the plant was actually bred by the Calusa and Miccosukee. Although edible plants comprise most of the food forest, amature foragers should be aware of what they might encounter. Two plants found in the food forest, castor beans and chaya, are poisonous to humans. Castor beans contain ricin, a toxin that when ingested can be fatal to humans and animals, while chaya - also known as Mexican tree spinach
- has a cyanide compound that breaks down only after thorough cooking. “After moringa, [chaya is] probably the most nutritious plant in the food forest,” Teal said. “So what you do with chaya is you boil it for 20 minutes and then it turns to the consistency of spinach. I eat it a lot, actually.” However, the food forest isn’t just about food. It’s also a carbon sequestration project, designed to hold carbon in the ground and prevent it from returning to the atmosphere. While the food forest holds carbon in its trees and plant matter, it also holds carbon in the soil. The soil of the food forest was enriched with both compost and biochar, a form of pure, inert carbon produced from burnt plant matter, before the trees were planted. Besides storing carbon, biochar is fantastic for promoting healthy microorganisms in the soil. In addition to his caretaking duties as the food forest TA, Teal wants to make the food forest into a community space. Because of its location on the Caples campus, the food forest isn’t easily accessible to
all students. Reaching it means a long walk or bike ride over the overpass from the residential side of campus, past ACE, and down the long drive that leads to old Caples and the sail club. Teal plans to hold weekly work parties to get more people down to this side of campus and involved in agricultural pursuits. In addition to community outreach, Teal and other students plan to improve the pathways through the food forest to make them more accessible to students with physical disabilities. While some trees will fruit this year or are beginning to fruit already, the food forest is a long term campus project and it will likely be ten or 15 years before everything in the food forest fruits. “A lot of plants won’t fruit til long after I’m gone,” Teal said. Get involved with the food forest via its Facebook page (@ NCFFoodForest) or by reaching out to TA Evan Teal. Information for this article was gathered from poisonousplants.ansci.cornell.edu, fgcufoodforest.weebly.com, and fs.fed.us.
(left)Besides storing carbon, biochar is fantastic for promoting healthy microorganisms in the soil. (right) “A lot of plants won’t fruit til long after I’m gone,” Evan Teal said.
all photos by Miranda Gale/Catalyst
Located near old Caples and the carriage house on the bay side of campus, the food forest is one of New College’s hidden gems.
The soil of the food forest was enriched with both compost and biochar, a form of pure, inert carbon produced from burnt plant matter, before the trees were planted.
The Food Forest was inspired in part by Florida Gulf Coast University’s food forest, a student run botanical garden initiated in 2011.
Because of its location on the Caples campus, the food forest isn’t easily accessible to all students.
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Double Knit: The Stories of Diana Hayes BY MICHALA HEAD During my recent trip to Hendersonville, North Carolina, I had a chance to sit down with Double Knit author Diana Jane Hayes, and her partner and caregiver, Chuck Hayes. The Double Knit books are autobiographies that chronicle Diana’s life and how she has faced and made the best of challenges such as being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). MS has rendered Diana quadriplegic, so to write the Double Knit books, Diana talked into her computer for about tenand-a-half hours a day for several years. Although, much like my conversation with the Hayes, the books were not centered around the life changing diagnosis, but rather her reflections on life from childhood to present day. Following is their direct perspectives on the questions I raised about their experiences. Why North Carolina? What brought you to Hendersonville? D: “I was actually born in Pennsylvania, and then moved to New York five days later, and was there for 17 years. Then I went to college in Boston, we married after that, and then lived in Connecticut when we had our son, Lee. Chuck and I divorced in 1980, he moved to Minnesota with his second wife, and I lived in New Hampshire with our son. After he divorced again, Chuck moved out to Asheville because he told his dad he wanted to move south but likes the four seasons and his dad suggested it. He stayed with some friends while trying to decide whether he wanted to live here.
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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4 sector is far and away the largest source of campaign contributions to federal candidates and parties”. Surprise? Big finance does primarily work in money itself. Regardless of the government and its central bank’s recent liberal behavior towards bailouts, this policy finalization by the Fed’s Board of Governors is a far move from the Federal Reserve’s central bank duty as the lender of last resort. The Fed is now some eternal brace, consistently supporting the primary dealers or largest banks from disappearing through the traditional default. This new policy “forms part of global post-crisis efforts to end ‘too big to fail’ institutions that are so large and complex they could endanger the entire financial system if they fall into bankruptcy” Reuters said. However, is the Federal Reserve’s decision meant to end ‘too big to fail’ institutions or to perpetually solidify their existence with public funds? Nonetheless, this trending bailout behavior now seeks legitimization through augmentation of the Federal Reserve’s institutional duties, while essentially foreshadowing volatile conditions in future financial markets and markets in general by extension. Before the GFC, money was made
Michala Head/Catalyst Catalyst staff member Michala Head met with Diana Hayes, author of the Double Knit series which chronicles her life living with Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
Then Lee got us back together by giving me airline tickets and keeping it a secret that we were going to Asheville to see Chuck. Shortly after I found out I had MS, Chuck said that he wanted to stay with me, I said I wanted to travel while I still can. We got a mobile home and took our grandchildren, when they were eight and ten years old to study several different national park services across the country. They swam in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, saw snow in July at Blackview Mountain in Oregon, and worked with park rangers and were tested on what they learned. After the trip, I did a photo album for it and a scrap album for the awards they got from the studying the parks.” cheap to lend America out of the lull caused by the dot com bubble burst of 2000. It was that cheap money which showed its real cost later when “The Federal Reserve helped pull the U.S. economy from the brink of disaster [of the GFC] by purchasing vast quantities of government bonds and mortgage-backed securities” according to Bloomberg. This policy, Quantitative Easing (QE), kept the long term interest rates low for primary dealer banks to lend cheap money to Americans. The cost of cheap money policy preGFC was a post-GFC Federal Reserve Balance sheet of an unprecedented $4.5 trillion, the essence of the Quantitative Easing policy by the Federal Reserve. Low growth from the GFC and QE, the policy aimed at economic recovery, has kept rates near zero. By raising the cost of the U.S. Treasury market, the Federal Reserve’s $4.5 trillion balance sheet funneled money into the markets to re-stimulate economic growth. Growth is nice, just not at the cost of long term stability and opportunity. In these conditions the means to stimulate growth nurtures bust and recession -- this method of mixing moral hazard with the world’s finances is not sustainable. Nor is it sustainable to continue to ignore these coincidentally boring matters. Information for this article was gathered from reuters.com, americanbanker. com, bloomberg.com, propublica.org, opensecrets.org, theguardian.com, fsb.org
In your book, you brought up your father’s passing when you were in high school, how do you believe that impacted you? D: “My father passed two years before I graduated, and after graduation I took a trip around the world. He had worked for an air conditioning company called Carrier Corporation, he was the Comptroller and had five offices around the world, he was always travelling and was this big, 6’4” guy that stuck out, especially when he went to Japan. So when my mom and I went on this trip we got the red carpet treatment from the people that knew him. From travelling after high school I gained perspective on how fortunate I was.” What role does your community
and friendships play in your life? C: “Diana was always shy, even as a little girl. She opened up more after we got back together and travelled around in the motor home. Now we keep a sign at the end of the driveway that says “Private Drive, Please Come Up to Enjoy the View” and when people come up I will greet them, and bring them in to meet Diana. Sometimes we will sit out on the porch and chat for a bit. One time this couple actually sat down with their kids at our picnic table out there and when we told them that they were the first to ever do that, they told us that they were there to show their kids the spot where they got engaged. It is a neat way to meet people, and sometimes we will get things like thank you notes and gifts in the mail.” What was your main purpose for writing the Double Knit books? D: “My granddaughter, Lynnze, said both to me and her other grandmother that we had so many stories that we should write a book. Her other grandmother started it, sending pages and saying I should add on, so I added on and sent it back, and she did not add to it again. I decided to continue writing because I wanted my grandchildren to know that I was not always in a wheelchair. I want them to know some of the people they have not known… Like leaving a legacy behind for future great grandchildren, great great grandchildren, and so on.” Is there anything you were hoping that I would convey in this article? D: “It’s the places and people you
GLOSSARY
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO BE IN THE KNOW Great Financial Crisis: Started in 2007 by a historically gargantuan bubble in risky house mortgages and insurance, ultimately negatively affecting global markets. Big Banks: The banks which are included in The Financial Stability Board’s list of systemically important financial institutions (ie. Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Barclays, Bank of America ect). Secondary Markets: The secondary market comes from the buying and selling of those products initially introduced directly from the borrowing institutions on the primary market; the Primary Market comes from institutions that want to obtain loaned money by selling bonds or stocks (governments and corporations). There are many kinds of secondary markets. TARP: Troubled Asset Relief Program. A combination of programs to buy out all the defaulted home mortgages and corporate liabilities that went bad during The Great Financial Crisis. Federal Reserve Board (FRB) of Governors: There are currently four
members; Janet Yellen, Chairwoman, Stanley Fischer, Vice Chairman, Jerome H. Powell and Lael Brainard. The FRB decides the cost of US dollars relative to the health of the economy (monetary policy). Moral Hazard: Increasing the risk of borrower default by lending more risky money to make more profit with the knowledge of risk protection against large scale borrower default and lending institution insolvency. Information for this article was gathered from reuters.com, americanbanker. com, bloomberg.com, propublica.org, opensecrets.org, theguardian.com, fsb.org
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NBA Off Season Recap: new stars renovate the league BY RYAN PAICE After the shocking trade that saw Boston Celtics’ star Isaiah Thomas and Cleveland Cavaliers’ star Kyrie Irving swap teams, the NBA offseason has finally come to a reluctant standstill. No summer in recent sports history has seen such an array of noteworthy talent change hands, with the likes of Paul George, Chris Paul, Paul Millsap, Jimmy Butler, Gordon Hayward and Ricky Rubio—along with Thomas and Irving—finding new teams. Perhaps last season’s disappointing predictability is the cause for such a stir. After signing Kevin Durant last summer, the Golden State Warriors tore through the league almost unopposed. Lebron James’ Cavaliers were only able to win a single game against the juggernaut after defeating the Durantless Warriors only a year before. With such an intimidating opponent blocking the path for championship hopefuls, this summer’s offseason saw many teams make significant moves to combat the seemingly unstoppable Warriors. Before the draft could even be held, Dwight Howard was traded from the presumably tanking Atlanta Hawks to the Charlotte Hornets for a measly package of Miles Plumlee, Marco Belinelli and a second-round draft pick. Then another notable center was traded, as the Brooklyn Nets traded their franchise’s all-time leading scorer in Brook Lopez to the Los Angeles Lakers for Timofey Mozgov and his re-
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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The Ringling College of Art and Design (RCAD), only two miles away from New College, cancelled classes on Wednesday and closed the entire campus by Thursday, additionally releasing an announcement to students and faculty regarding the hurricane. “Residence halls will be holding meetings tonight to answer questions and help prepare resident students as they form a plan for the storm,” the Ringling announcement reads. “Further, all students, faculty and staff need to check your emails for updates throughout the week and weekend. You will receive an email and an RCAD alert letting you know when campus is scheduled to reopen and when classes are expected to resume.” Prior to arriving to Sarasota, Hurricane Irma passed through Miami.
Domantas Sabonis. Regardless of whether it was a good trade for the Pacers—it wasn’t—George will now be joining last season’s MVP Russell Westbrook on the Thunder, setting up an incredibly talented duo just as Houston did by pairing Harden with Paul. George and Westbrook might present a less redundant fit, however, as George can be played off-ball while still maintaining his efficacy, whereas it is questionable whether Paul or Harden need the ball to remain a force. Following the first two major trades of the summer, free agents Paul Millsap and Gordon Hayward made their decisions to sign with Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons new teams. On July 2, Millsap left After signing Kevin Durant last summer, the Golden State Warriors tore through the Atlanta Hawks to join the Denthe league almost unopposed. ver Nuggets, forming what looks to be one of the strongest frontcourts maining three years and $48 million long-term potential. in basketball with Millsap slotting Then, on June 28, Chris Paul’s owed—clearing salary cap space for in next to star center Nikola Jokić. the Lakers—and the second overall six-season tenure as a Los Angeles Only two days later, Hayward left Clipper was brought to a sudden selection in the 2015 NBA Draft, the Utah Jazz to sign with an Eastend, as he requested to be traded to D’Angelo Russell, who finally gives ern Conference Finalist, the Boston the Houston Rockets to play alongthe Nets a young talent to attempt Celtics, rejoining his college basketto build around. side 2016-2017 MVP runner-up ball coach from Butler, Brad Stevens. James Harden. The Rockets paid a Draft night saw the first major Regardless of the end results of move of this offseason, with the hefty price for Paul, sending seven the offseason commotion—as the players—including starter Patrick Chicago Bulls trading their superWarriors still present an unfathomstar Jimmy Butler to the Minnesota Beverly and Sixth Man of the Year ably difficult obstacle to overcome candidate Lou Williams—along with for any team—the league will look Timberwolves for Kris Dunn, Zach LaVine and the seventh overall pick a protected first round draft pick vastly different from how it did last in the draft. With Butler reuniting and cash considerations, but the season come the season opener on trade solidified an immensely talwith his former coach, Tom ThiboOct. 17. deau, and joining young stars Karl ented duo in Harden and Paul that has a chance to make some noise. Anthony Towns and Andrew WigInformation gathered from basketballOnly two days later, on June gins, along with the newly-signed reference.com. 30, the Indiana Pacers traded their former All Star Jeff Teague, the superstar, Paul George, to the OklaTimberwolves are no longer simply a collection of young talent, but a homa City Thunder for an oft-criticized package of Victor Oladipo and team with serious immediate and “I had the plywood up on my windows so I couldn’t see inside, we couldn’t open the doors because we were scared the winds would be too strong and we wouldn’t be able to close it,” Mia Rathjens, who was in Miami when Hurricane Irma hit the area, said. “It was definitely scary for the two days where we didn’t have electricity.” Rathjens studied Business and Psychology at Florida International University (FIU), located in Miami, Florida, for three years, starting in 2014. Despite having left in spring 2017, she still receives emails from the university--including the email on Sept. 8 from FIU President Mark B. Rosenberg to the FIU community 72 hours before Irma hit Miami. “It’s insane how the communication with [FIU] works, they’re super on top of everything,” Rathjens said. “That’s what I appreciated while going there. [...] I definitely think that schools need to be more considerate of students in general.” Screenshots of the email were released and have been shared to
Facebook. “The next 72 hours likely will be very challenging,” the email reads. “Hurricane Irma has shown it has no mercy: the wind will be loud and nerve-wracking, the pounding winddriven rain will seem unending, and storm-related noise will be annoying, to say the least.” In the email, Rosenberg warned students of losing electricity, air conditioning, cell coverage, phone connectivity as well as the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning, electrocution and fire. “At this point we are closed through Monday evening,” Rosenberg concluded. “But we expect to be closed for more days after that. Our first objective will be to ensure that the FIU family is intact. [...] Then and only then will be determine a timetable to first reopen the university, and then resume classroom instruction.” President Donal O’Shea sent an email regarding Hurricane Irma to the New College community on Sept. 6, 72 hours before the
Irma was projected to arrive in the Sarasota area, similar to Rosenberg. However, the email was not completely dedicated to Irma and was instead the July-August 2017 President’s Report. The first five sentences of O’Shea’s email discussed Irma before directing attention to campus wide initiatives, events and campus achievements of faculty and staff unrelated to the hurricane. The following day, the Business Office at the New College of Florida sent an email reminding students that the tuition and fee payment deadline would be Friday, Sept. 8, one day before Irma was scheduled to arrive. In addition to not extending the payment deadline in acknowledgement of the oncoming hurricane, the email did not mention nor address Irma except for a “BE SAFE!!!” at the end of the email. “New College did nothing but enforce more stress,” third-year Brianna Luis said. “It really just didn’t help at all, there was no compascontinued on p. 11
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Which Up and Coming Artist May Be In Your Class? BY JORDI F. GONZALEZ In the days of The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and Madonna, music may have been far more difficult to distribute and make accessible to the masses. With the myriad of online platforms, including SoundCloud -- which is now nearing 300 million users -- platforms have been bridging the divide between wealthy record labels and the average Joe. A few of these cost-effective and passionate internet artists can be found on our very own New College campus. “It’s the democratization of music,” second-year transfer Kingsley Reeves said. It’s easier now than ever for them to write, record, produce and upload to a reputable site, as the platforms are used by professional musicians and record labels alike. There’s more of an accessibility to their listeners. “Without them [online platforms] I feel like people wouldn’t be as willing to listen to my music,” Reeves said. “It really takes the power of the music out of the hands of record labels and puts it in the hands of the individuals,” third-year Music AOC Zachary Schoenblatt said. Advice From the Artists All musicians tackle the production process of a song in different ways, some by doing field recordings (using their mobile phones to record their music, regardless of quality), sampling beats from online, working together with friends in a sort of creative jam session and any other way one may think of. It seems to be about having the will and finding the way to make things happen. “Shows have helped me get a solid fan base,” second-year transfer Myles Rodriguez said, stressing the importance of live performances. “Everyone on this campus is a creative and infinite being. The interesting part is that some people don’t choose to express it regularly. [...] Everyone has that talent, but hasn’t realized that yet,” Rodriguez continued. Since others are truly going to listen to the tracks, once uploaded, and a song needs to be uploaded as one solid unit, novice artists have been appreciative of the way platforms have productively pushed them to do more. “SoundCloud really helped motivate me to make full songs,” third-year Elijah Weiss said, encouraging new artists to turn to online platforms as a way of getting the initiative necessary to complete projects. An important note that the
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Songs you should heAR POST APOCALYPTIC BY JORDI GONZALEZ
Anya Contreras-Garcia/Catalyst “Without them [online platforms] I feel like people wouldn’t be as willing to listen to my music,” second-year transfer Kingsley Reeves said. Novo Collegian internet artists made was not to confine oneself to just one platform. The idea is to get the work out there with whatever means necessary. Alternative platforms, other than SoundCloud include: BandCamp, Audiomack, hearthis.at, distrokid, Spotify and so forth. New College Artists The Catalyst was able to hunt down a few of the hard working musicians at our school in order to gain insight on what makes it all possible for them. Here they are: Myles Optimystic The fire: https://soundcloud. com/mylesoptimystic Essential songs: “I Could Die Tomorrow” and “Limbo” Preferred program(s): Logic Pro, Garage Band The “current phase” Psychedelic Hip/Pop musician, Myles Optimystic, also experiments with a metal garage band named Infinite Wasteland that includes third-year Kevin Howlett and second-year Trent Hanson as well. Their performances have been real crowd pleasers at past school events and they are now streamlining for a Performance Arts AOC. ^SHB^G (ASHBAG) The fire: https://soundcloud. com/vshbvg Essential songs: “Sapsucker” and “3:6 (tone 3)” Preferred program(s): free demo for REAPER Third-year Elijah Weiss creates minimalist, lo-fi, synthesizer-heavy music made to intrigue the ear and get one to feel different sonic textures. Mainly digital, electronic, ambient, but melodic styles. Some projects have been produced for their ISPs -- in which one can hear volunteering listeners describe their
thought processes as they listen -and others for self interest. KingsleyIII The fire: https://soundcloud. com/kingsley-reeves Essential songs: “Alive” and “Colorado 2015” Preferred program(s): FL Studio, Garage Band A rapper hailing from Tampa, FL, Reeves’ tracks include poppy rap beats mixed with thought provoking lyrics that make for a great time. He’s recently released his first full-length mixtape ROAD RUNNER KINGZ as of last spring, but has also featured on a number of other songs since then with friends. skrrp skrrp dirt universe The fire: https://soundcloud. com/prettyboyaloe Essential songs: “cover me in pink forever” and “snakes” Preferred program(s): Audacity Schoenblatt likes to call it “noise music” in which they normally take somewhat randomized, regularly dissonant, sounds and raps over them in the attempt to make it pleasing to the ear in the end. Experimental music that breaks the conventional boundaries of music, which could mean purposefully breaking time signature or losing rhythm, but with some focus to the overall experience of the song. Being a user of SoundCloud since the age of 13 has allowed cassettes of their music to be purchased by listeners in France as Schoenblatt recalls a time a French girl messaged them about how much she liked their music.
With Hurricane Irma striking its wrath recently and the entire media world pouring its never ending flow of frightening information, we thought it necessary to focus on similar post-apocalyptic vibes. “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones This old school rock classic says it all within the title. In times of desperation, fear, anxiety, what many of us wish for is shelter and the certainty for safety. With lyrics like “Oh, a storm is threatening/ My very life today” and the intensity of the guitars and drums in unison, make this song a good fit for the recent Hurricane Irma events. “It’s the End of the World” by R.E.M. With lyrics explicitly stating “Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn” and “It’s the end of the world as we know and I feel fine” is surprisingly fitting, as New College was hit by a hurricane (luckily not the eye though) and we are just fine afterwards; with fortunately many dorms completely unaffected. “Ascension” by Gorillaz A single off their latest album “Humanz” with rapper Vince Staples spitting “Heard the world is ending soon I assumed that they told ya”. Everyone told us because Irma was the only thing showing up on news outlets and on the lips of every frantic Floridian around. The album itself is was purposefully made to be a sort of post-apocalyptic dance playlist.
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Diana Hayes
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remember.” C: “No matter what your condition is, or your health is, your ability or disability, don’t let it bar you from enjoying life.” From talking to the Hayes, one gets a real sense of love, for one another, for their community and for sharing with people. They were very welcoming, and forthcoming with their stories. Chuck and Diana simply demonstrate the human experience as told by two who have been presented with a difficult situation, yet make the most of everything in their lives, and are openhearted to others. Both of the Double Knit books can be purchased on Amazon.
that “from an ecological standpoint, everything I’ve learned teaches me this is a good idea: Stop putting out fires.” Not only do fires take the lives of those trying to contain them, but many animal species prefer the charred forest habitats. Fire-chaser beetles, for instance, sense infrared radiation from fires from miles away and travel that far to find them. Wildfires are an important part of the beetle's life cycle because they can only lay their eggs in the freshly scorched trees. California residents, firefighters and other species threatened by wildfires, whether directly or by containment practices, are reaching the peak of a record breaking fire season.
sionate email, there was no reassuring email. [...] It’s unrealistic and I thought that it was rude and unacceptable. It absolutely to me implies that our money is more important than our safety to them, first and foremost.” Three days later, O’Shea sent an email to the college community with the subject line “Irma report.” In the email, O’Shea recounts his tour of ACE, the long night that the community had ahead for them, listed the members of administration present before ending his email with a discussion of the New College community. “We often use the phrase ‘the New College community’ and with good reason,” O’Shea wrote. “We are a true community, as close-knit a one as I know, and that is what will help us through tonight and the days ahead.” Although not specified in O’Shea’s emails, Counseling and Wellness Center (CWC) Assistant Program Director Duane Khan was the counselor on-call during the storm. Rosenberg provided the contact information for FIU’s counseling center in his email. In a Catalyst survey, 100 current students were polled on Sept. 12 about New College administration’s response to Hurricane Irma. Of those polled, 44 percent were either on New College’s campus or in the Sarasota area when Irma hit. When asked whether or not they were satisfied with New College’s response to Irma, 23 percent were. This amount is almost equal to the
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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4 by the CGA in monthly meetings where students can present ideas for projects and get funding through the school,” Steven Monroe (‘15), last year’s compost T.A. and a previous member of the CGA, said. The green fee description on the downloadable pdf states it was put into effect "with the 2012 fall semester.” “Last year the green fee had backlogged to roughly $100,000” Monroe continued. According to Adilyne McKinlay, 2014’s Vice President of Green Affairs (VPGA), one of the reasons there was such a buildup of allocation money was “students didn't know that they could request money from the Green Fee or what they could request money for.”
Information for this article was gathered from sfgate.com, nytimes.com, latimes. com and nationalgeographic.com.
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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5 identities whose complex lived experience sometimes weigh on them,” Mason said. “It should feel meaningful to and maybe possibly make someone feel a tiny bit lighter than usual.” Students and community members can look forward to a grand reopening of the GDC in early October, as well as a crowdfunding campaign so that the co-TAs can be properly compensated for their time and effort. Information on CITF allocations is available here: https://www.ncf.edu/ about/departments-and-offices/facilitiesplanning-and-construction/
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23 percent who stated that they had mixed feelings. The remaining 37 percent of those polled said they were not. When asked how students felt specifically about President Donal O’Shea’s response, 30 percent were satisfied, 29 percent said they had mixed feelings and 25 percent said that they were not satisfied. Overall, 58 percent of students said that the entire New College administration provided a safe environment for students during the hurricane. 7 percent of those polled disagreed. “I think we did pretty well, but I also think that we were very lucky,” O’Shea said. “What if we had gotten a Category 4 or something like that? I think ACE would have been okay, I don’t think the Power Plant would have been okay. The letter dorms are rated up to a Category 3 too and people would have been okay into the bathrooms. [...] The other thing you sort of wonder about is, once you open a place like ACE, you worry about who else could come in so you want to keep it safe. Then you’ve got to let others in and when you don’t know the others, you worry about the safety. I was sort of wondering whether it would have been better to have people move to shelters, and I still don’t know the answer to that.” Information for this article was taken from the National Hurricane Center, CNN and the Sarasota HeraldTribune.
Heiser
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 were three teaching labs that could each hold 24 students, a hallway specifically for data science and computer science professors and research labs outfitted with updated equipment. “The architects would design possible layouts, and then we would meet and evaluate them,” Natural Sciences Division Chair and the Professor of Biochemistry Katherine Walstrom said. The layouts were also occasionally shown to the entire natural science division—beyond just the building committee—in order to receive feedback from all of the professors who would be using the space. “At one point we had two different designs, we showed them to the division, the division prefered one, and then we worked on refining that one,” Walstrom said. The chosen design needed to be edited, as the original plan was too ambitious to fit the budget. “We wanted six research labs, we got three,” Walstrom said. As a compromise, a large
conference room and a double room that is currently serving as a classroom have been designed so that, when funding becomes available in the future, they will be able to be converted into the research labs that were cut out of the plan. Choosing the furniture and interior design was also a collaborative effort: demos provided by two different furniture manufacturers were set up in the library, where people were able to vote on which they preferred. “The architect had two or three color schemes, and the building committee chose one,” Walstrom said. The idea to have large graphics was proposed and elaborated. “I had always thought we would put some oversized graphics in there just to liven the spaces up,” Project Manager John Milton said. “Again, we asked the users who they would recommend, and we were careful to be diverse in the selection, both on speciality, gender and race--so we brought a good blend; a good mix.” Like any building project, this one
experienced a few bumps on the path to completion. “At one point we had one head on the graphic that was four or five feet high. I don’t think that anyone needs Neil deGrasse Tyson five feet high, so we made it similar in size to the other graphics,” Walstrom said with a laugh. “It all worked out.” Shared results Since the original stages of planning, collaboration has been a main focus for the new space. The hallways in the old wings are uninviting and divided, whereas the new space is more open and designed for student and professor interaction. “It’ll be a place on campus that will draw students,” O’Shea said. “It’s designed for communication and collaboration, with wide corridors so that students can meet and work together” There are multiple lounge areas where students can study and discuss their coursework. Several of these areas have matte whiteboards mounted on the wall, perfect for working out long
equations or leaving nerdy messages. On the first floor of the new wing, there are eight faculty offices that face the new labs, the division and chair’s offices, a computer sciences reading room, a physics teaching lab with support spaces, a conference room and a large classroom. On the second floor, there are an extra six faculty offices, a biology teaching lab, a chemistry teaching lab, and three biology research labs. In addition to being Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified under its silver status, the building features Photovoltaic (PV) panels on the roof, which convert light to energy. “This building is about science in the 21st century; the old Heiser was built twenty years ago, which was practically the last century. It’s the modern interpretation of what science should look like in 2017,” Milton said. Information retrieved from ncfcatalyst. com and ncf.edu
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BASH AND BENEFIT by n.e.Bodied Entertainment and the Million Hoodies West Florida chapter BY ANYA MARÍA CONTRERAS-GARCÍA On Aug. 25, local artistic talents merged with wholesome Caribbean cooking at the Jamerican Restaurant and Lounge for a night of music and activism. The event, called Bash and Benefit, was hosted by n.e.Bodied Entertainment and the Million Hoodies West Florida chapter to spread awareness of Million Hoodies’ mission for racial equality and justice. “The Bash and Benefit was a really good way to build community during this difficult time in our lives,” secondyear and Executive Co-Chair of the Million Hoodies West Florida chapter, Cabrini Austin said. “It was a way to keep us grounded and to let us know that there is love in this world and people who care about each other in the midst of all of this hate.” Million Hoodies is a grassroots organization that empowers youth to end anti-Black racism and systemic violence. Their national network includes various chapters at college campuses where Black and Brown young people are empowered to build local activist communities, launch direct action campaigns and host outreach events such as the Bash and Benefit. n.e.Bodied Entertainment is a community music imprint founded by thesis students Miles Iton and Nathan
all photos by Anya María Contreras-García/Catalyst
Burnaman that develops hip-hop artists through the Freestyle & Floetry course taught at New College of Florida. The event featured several New College of Florida students past and present, including thesis student Miles Iton as Irie Givens, thesis student Paul Loriston as The First Prince of Haiti and Snousha Glaude (‘12) as Flower Child. Other local musicians performed including DJ MXKO, Swerve the Hooligan and headliner Kingsleyiii. “We hope to do more to support Jamerican [Restaurant and Lounge] in the future,” thesis student and founder of n.e.bodied Entertainment Miles Iton said. “They sold out all their food and we helped these local artists get their name out. It was a fun event to celebrate music and eat good food, but it was also about community building. That’s a success.” Follow Million Hoodies: Instagram: @millionhoodies4justice Facebook: Million Hoodies Facebook Group: Million Hoodies West Florida
Knowledge Austin performing at the Bash and Benefit,
Follow n.e.Bodied Entertainment: Instagram: @nebodied_ent Facebook: Freestyle + Floetry SRQ
New College of Florida alum Snousha Glaude ('12) reads her poetry outloud for the more than 50 attendees at Bash and Benefit.
Local rapper Swerv the Hooligan gives a high-energy performance of an original song.
Second-year Kingsley Reeves III headlined the event as Kingsleyiii.