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CATALYST
SRQ FILM FEST pg.
MARCH 15, 2017 VOLUME XXXV ISSUE IV
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New College of Florida's student-run newspaper
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Anya María Contreras-García/Catalyst
Faculty passes resolution in support of immigrants BY ANYA MARÍA CONTRERAS-GARCÍA In response to escalations in national anti-immigrant rhetoric, New College faculty unanimously passed a resolution in support of immigrants and diversity at the March 8 faculty meeting. The resolution recommitted faculty to support members of the New College community “regardless of country of origin, religion or immigration status” and recognized diversity as “indispensable” to higher education. It went on to urge the school to “maintain the absolute confidentiality
of…anything that might imply or define immigration status absent a subpoena or other lawful order” and to continue providing “salaries, resources, scholarship and fellowship assistance to non-U.S. citizens…regardless of changes to immigration policy.” This resolution was introduced in response to the failure of a similar proposal at the previous faculty meeting. On Feb. 8, Professor Steven Shipman, associate professor of physical chemistry and program advisor for gender studies, introduced a letter issued by Pomona College in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program
that asked political leaders to continue and expand the program. The letter has been signed by more than 600 college and university presidents, including 10 Florida schools. While President O’Shea hesitated to sign the Pomona College letter because he feared it could have resulted in political retaliation and put students more at risk, he supported the idea of standing in solidarity with affected students. The complication was just figuring out how. “We would do anything that we legally can,” O’Shea said at the March 8 faculty meeting. “If there is something that we legally cannot do, we can’t do
it.” Many members of the New College community expressed concern that publicly urging the school to protect students could lead political leaders to pressure the school to do the opposite. “If we pass a resolution demanding a certain policy […] and as a result these policies are open to scrutiny by some higher power that seeks a ruling on it […] that’s the tactical problem that I see,” Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies David Brain said at the March 8 faculty meeting.
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School Board delivers resolution to transgender bathroom debate BY KELLY WILSON The room was nearly empty by the time that the public hearings began at the School Board Meeting on March 7. After Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) students showed off their robots and the School Board recognized their allstate music students, the Chair of the Sarasota County School Board Caroline Zucker offered an escape to students and parents. Next on the agenda? Transgender bathroom rights. Zucker offered the opportunity for departure for the parents who just wanted to honor their child’s accomplishments, which left the room almost empty except for advocates and supporters of Nate’s List, a campaign working for transgender rights in Sarasota, who planned to use this time to address the issue of bathroom rights in schools in Sarasota County. Among them were many New College students. It quickly became apparent as
WHAT’S INSIDE
Kelly Wilson/Catalyst
The Sarasota County School Board Meeting prior to discussing bathroom policy.
speakers began, that members of the school board had heard many similar speeches in the year since Nate Quinn first spoke on the issue. Yet, the fight for transgender rights is important now more than ever.
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The new administration has, in a twist of events, created a change to the federal Title IX policy which rescinded two important letters put in place during the Obama administration. These letters provided guidance for the
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PEI: PAST & PRESENT
Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Education (DOE) on issues such as gender identity and civil rights protections. For a more detailed explanation of the changes, check out the previous issue of the Catalyst in print or online. In a speech, a New College student - second year Hayley Trejo - pointed out that fighting back at a local level was a stepping stone to getting rid of discriminatory federal policies. “When they go high, we go local,” Trejo said. However, the School Board’s displeasure with the subject became evident when Nate Quinn stepped up to the mic. Quinn went over his three minutes to speak and was interrupted by buzzers. Immediately, when he showed no signs of submitting to the buzzer noises and leaving the podium, Zucker shouted
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12 SHELF INDULGENCE
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NEWS PAGE 2
Students excited for free menstrual and sexual health products BY JASMINE RESPESS Being in college is about learning to be a responsible adult in many different ways, but often times being responsible does not come cheap. Such is the case when it comes to sexual and menstrual health products. So, recently the Council for Green Affairs (CGA) sponsored the purchase of Lena cups, which are reusable menstrual cups. The New College Student Alliance (NCSA) additionally provides PlanB, which is a birth control pill that can be taken after the failure of other birth controls or unprotected sex. Lena Cups “[The Lena cups] were an allocation that was originally put in last spring by the previous co-presidents of Generation Action,” third year copresident of Generation Action Adilyne Mckinlay said. "It was originally Generation Action that put in the allocations,” Adilyne Mckinlay said. “Then when that wasn’t going forward, Allegra [Nolan] the zero waste teaching assistant (TA) went through and was pushing her own allocations.” Mckinlay explained that the process took a while, because when the school orders from a company they have to fill out many forms since the school has tax exempt status. “It took so long to get the cups,” Mckinlay said. “Because we had to find a company that would get back to us and sign the forms.” 140 small size Lena cups were
Jasmine Respess/Catalyst
A sample of the menstrual products provided to students for free by the Council for Green Affairs.
ordered and 30 large size Lena cups. “So far, we have distributed at least 50 small cups and half a dozen of the large,” Mckinlay said. “The worse thing is that I bought a pack of tampons right before I got it,” second-year Kaelyn Hartley said. “It was different to take out at first, but now I love it. [...] I highly recommend it.” One of the plus sides of using a reusable menstrual product is that it creates less waste. “I was happy to support the environment,” Hartley said. Although a lot of students were
glad to try the Lena cups, they were not without their challenges. “I got one and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get it to work,” thesis student Allya Yourish said. “I am gonna keep trying, but damn, it's a confusing menstrual product.” “I enjoy the cup,” second-year Hope Sparks said. “I've never used one before so it was a strange transition, but it's definitely worth it. [...] It takes awhile to get used to but it's easy to forget it's there once you're used to it.” “It changed my life,” second-year Hope Sparks said. The positive reactions to the Lena
cups have been strong. “People are contacting us and saying how appreciative they are that the CGA provided money for it,” Adilyne Mckinlay said. “And grateful that we went to the CGA to push these allocations forward.” There are also allocation request for other alternative menstrual products such as, cotton non-bleached tampons and pads, THINX underwear and luna pads. PlanB Free PlanB has been written into the NCSA budget, so that it is a pretty permanent fixture. “The contraception budget was set by Shelby [Staham] and Paige [Pellaton] during their presidency,” third-year Vice President of Student Life Sophia Doescher said. “So when we ran out of PlanB next semester I had to ask Dawn [Shongood] to order more.” Since the company that the NCSA originally ordered from were no longer selling PlanB, Doescher found a new company at aferpill.com. “I had to find a place that was willing to sell in bulk to a school,” Doescher said. “Our most recent order of PlanB was 600 dollars for 30 packs.” The pills were ordered at the end of last semester. “We were able to order more this time than last time, because the price was even better,” Doescher said. All students have to do is text the anonymous Google number, 941-444-
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Three-alarm fire burns for thirty minutes on Ringling campus construction
and quantity of response from local authorities. It is unclear what exactly started the fire and to what extent the fire will further delay construction of the fourfloor building, which will be part of the Richard and Barbara Basch Visual Arts Center. Construction for the building began about a year ago. Ringling College’s new library, as well as a recently constructed one story building portion of the complex, are directly next to the building that caught fire. A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the one story building are still scheduled for Friday evening.
BY MAGDALENE TAYLOR A fire began on the roof of a building being constructed on the Ringling College of Art and Design on Tuesday, March 7. No one was injured in the fire and no damage was inflicted upon the surrounding buildings. At the time of the fire, Ringling College was on spring break. However, many were concerned as massive clouds of smoke billowed from the building, which at the time of the fire consisted primary of a skeletal structure and flammable roofing materials. It took local firefighters over 30 minutes to extinguish the fire, which was categorized as three-alarm due to the combination of wind and smoke producing materials. Fires are given an alarm categorization based on the level
Pariesa Young/Catalyst
Massive clouds of smoke billowing from the three-alarm fire on the roof of a newly constructed Ringling College of Art and Design building.
"This event exists to curry favor with the press, and I am very curried." © 2016, the Catalyst. All rights reserved. The Catalyst is available online at www.ncfcatalyst.com, facebook.com/NCFcatalyst, @ncfcatalyst The Catalyst is an academic tutorial sponsored by Professor Maria 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.
Pariesa Young General Editor Giulia Heyward Managing Editor Ryan Paice Copy Editor Magdalene Taylor & Jacob Wentz Online Editors Audrey Warne & Layout Editors Anya María Contreras-García Katelyn Grimmett, Staff Writers Jasmine Respess, Dylan Pryor, & Photographers Jordi Gonzalez, Jason D'Amours, Kelly Wilson, Cassandra Manz,
Information for this article was retrieved from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
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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The Activist Newsletter Katelyn Grimmett/Catalyst
This week (3/15 – 3/23), activists have the opportunity to participate in events regarding immigrant rights, LGBTQ+ rights, racial and ethnic equality. Check out ncfcatalyst.com every week for an extended calendar of events!
BY ANYA MARÍA CONTRERAS-GARCÍA Wed, March 15 Vigil for Immigrants Planning Meeting @ 6 – 8 p.m. Quaker Friends, 3139 57th St, Sarasota, Florida 34243 All of Us Sarasota is planning a candlelight vigil in front of House Representative Vern Buchanan’s (R-Sarasota) office to honor the millions of immigrants and their families who have been detained, deported and de-humanized by anti-immigrant policies. To RSVP or for more info, check out the event page on Facebook: h t t p s : / / w w w. f a c e b o o k . c o m / events/1962830810605752/ Sat, March 18 Vern Buchanan Town Hall @ 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. Van Wezel Perfoming Arts Hall, Sarasota, FL 34236 After community pressure, House Representative Vern Buchanan (R-Sarasota) will be hosting a public Town Hall to discuss health care, immigrant rights, environmental issues or any other topics constituents want to discuss. Attendees must RSVP on Buchanan’s website: https:// buchanan.house.gov/mediacenter/press-releases/buchananmoves - tow n-hall- van- wez elperforming-arts-hall Sat, March 18 Manatee Pride Walk @ 12 – 6 p.m. Bradenton Riverwalk, 452 3rd Avenue West, Bradenton, FL 34205 This annual LGBTQ+ pride walk is a fundraiser for Prism Youth Initiative, a group that provides support for LGBTQ+ youth in Manatee County. The event will feature dozens of musicians, artists, local vendors, food and beverages. For more info, check out manateepride.com!
Sun, March 19 Rodney Mitchell Dinner & Documentary @ 5 – 9 p.m. Fogartyville Community Center, 525 Kumquat Ct, Rear, Sarasota, FL 34236 Join the Rodney Mitchell Foundation in remembering Rodney Mitchell, his story and his tragic murder at the hands of Sarasota Sheriff's deputies Troy Sasse and Adam Shaw on June 11, 2012. For more info and to RSVP, check out the event page on Facebook: https://www.facebook. com/events/1302041539873326/ Mon, March 20 Urban Cafes and Modern Jewish Culture @ 7 – 9 p.m. USF St. Pete College of Business, 140 7th Ave S, St. Pete, FL 33701 Dr. Shachar Pinsker, associate professor of Hebrew and Jewish Literature and Culture at the University of Michigan, will explore cafe culture in Odessa, Warsaw, Vienna, Berlin, New York City and Tel Aviv, showing how Jewish migrants moved ideas through global cafe networks in the mid-nineteenth to midtwentieth centuries. For more info or to RSVP, check out the event page on Facebook. Wed, March 22 An Evening with Yaa Gyasi @ 7:30 – 9:30 p.m. Gibbons Alumni Center, 4202 E Fowler Ave, Tampa, Florida 33620 USF College of Arts and Sciences presents Yaa Gyasi, New York Times Best-Selling author of Homegoing, a story that traces the descendants of two sisters torn apart in eighteenth-century Africa across 300 years in Ghana and America. Join for this exciting discussion as Gyasi explores cultural identity and the complex racial landscape of America. There will be a book signing following the lecture. For more info, check out the event page on Facebook.
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New College students travel to ColumBUS, Ohio to fight for farmworker rights BY JORDI GONZALEZ Currently there are ten New College students signed up for a seat on the bus (ColumBUS) that will be leaving to Columbus, Ohio for the national Wendy’s Boycott in order to support the efforts of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). This is the climax of the Return to Human Rights tour that will happen in late March, which is a good time for students in their Spring Break to join. The tour is the CIW’s major spring action, the likes of which is done every year, and similar movements such as this have already caused McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway and more to opt into the Fair Food Program (FFP) in the past. However, the Return to Human Rights tour is the longest of its kind as it treads across 15 state borders and stops at 12 different cities from March 16 to 29. Launching from Gainesville, Florida and ending with a march and vigil in Tampa, Florida. The ColumBUS is a manifestation of the work done by members of Students Targeting Oppressive Powers (STOP) so that there can be transportation from Sarasota to Columbus for the like-minded allies to the cause. Third-year Alex Schelle is one of those members of STOP and assisted in the planning and preparation for the tour bus. “We hope to learn an incredible model for securing workers’ dignity and grassroots movements in general,” Schelle said. “[The CIW] know what they’re doing and I think we can learn a lot by being involved with them.” The driving force of the CIW and this tour is to pressure multi-billion dollar companies like Wendy’s to join in the FFP that requests just one extra penny be paid per pound of produce (tomato most commonly) picked by a farmworker in the supply chain of the specific company. This additional penny would double the wages of struggling workers in the agriculture industry. As it stands now, migrant farm workers that pick the food consumers buy in stores work with no shaded resting areas or water and painstakingly labor for unfair pay; making only around $10,000 to $13,000 a year on average. “People should know about the reality of farmworkers. What their dayto-day life is like and how much they earn because a lot of the time people go to the store and consume without reflecting what workers are going through,” farm worker leader of the CIW Silvia Pérez said as translated from
Spanish to English by Patricia Cipollitti, who is a member of the Alliance for Fair Food (AFF). Wendy’s has evaded responsibility for the issue and has started taking their purchases from Fair Food farms (which are 90 percent of farms) in Florida to Mexico where workers’ rights are not respected. A fundamental aspect of the FFP is that it includes a required human-rights-based Code of Conduct be instilled in the maintenance of farms that grow the tomatoes for the buyers. Once a buyer has committed to the FFP, these farm workers will then enjoy more humane standards of work, but if the buyer chooses to only buy from Mexico for cheaper prices then there’s nothing they can do. “Workers [in Mexico] have faced wage theft, violence on the job, sexual harassment and assault, child labor and modern day slavery,” Pérez said. The CIW’s Campaign for Fair Food has already won over 14 of significant buyers, but Publix Supermarkets has given them the greatest resistance. After pressuring them with a sevenday hunger strike, not one official from Publix spoke with any member of the CIW. “The Publix response specifically has been that this is a labor dispute and that Publix does not get involved in labor disputes between their suppliers and their suppliers’ employees,” Cipollitti said. Still, Publix is the party that profits and benefits the most from the poverty of farm workers. The Return to Human Rights tour is focused on Wendy’s, but at the same time Publix is still on their agenda and will be pressured further again once the spring action tour is over. There are still spots available on the ColumBUS and it is likely for those who are interested and register soon to be granted a free seat. It will be leaving early morning from Sarasota on Friday, March 24 to make it for the boycott the subsequent weekend, then returning at 6 a.m. Monday morning on Mar. 27. “I feel like this is a really good gateway for a lot of people to become involved in activist and political issues that they care about,” second-year Rae Vititoe said. For more information on the ColumBUS, contact Rachel.Vititoe15@ncf.edu or Alexandra.Schelle13@ncf.edu.
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NEWS PAGE 4
Salsa2: Celebrating Latinx culture while at a predominantly white campus BY ANYA MARÍA CONTRERAS-GARCÍA The infectious beats of reggaetón, bachata and cumbia hits had students sweating all night long, middle-schooldance style. Decked with flags from Colombia, Argentina, Peru and the Dominican Republic, the Four Winds was transformed into a showcase of Latinx culture that everyone could appreciate. Since Salsa2 began in fall semester 2016, it has been an outlet for intense dancing, stress relief and cultural appreciation. “Salsa2 takes me home for just a moment,” second-year Camila Vallejo said in an e-mail interview. “It’s really amazing seeing what it’s become and how much people appreciate it. It's become a tradition and I really hope that it continues on.” While Salsa2 is primarily a time for students to dance and have fun, it also serves the important purpose of allowing Latinx student to express themselves and take pride in their culture. “Salsa2 means that I can have a space to appreciate and enjoy Latinx culture at a predominantly white institution that tends to ignore the minority students on campus,” firstyear Cabrini Austin said in an e-mail interview. “It calls for the celebration of a culture that is largely underrepresented at this school.” The event has quickly become a favorite among students for its flavorful food and liberal use of the song ‘Suavemente’ by Elvis Crespo, the unofficial anthem for Latinx parties. “I might be biased, pero nuestras culturas tienen muy buen bailarines y comida riquísima,” second-year Matthew Bocanumeth, one of the organizers of the event, said in an e-mail interview. “Thank you to all who came out!”
Anya Maria Contreras-Garcia/Catalyst Students dance to Caribbean rhythms at the Four Winds. "We get it...Latinx people love 'Suavemente'," first-year Sofia Jimenez said.
Anya Maria Contreras-Garcia/Catalyst The Four Winds was converted into the perfect dance space for Salsa2 complete with flashing lights and loud speakers.
Anya Maria Contreras-Garcia/Catalyst As the name suggests, attendants got to munch on salsa while also dancing to salsa music.
Anya Maria Contreras-Garcia/Catalyst RA Bocanumeth dances with residents and fellow students at the RA program.
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Faculty meeting CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 President O’Shea expressed similar concerns. “I think it would be very harmful for the institution to take a stand like this,” O’Shea said. “I don’t think they’ll pay as much attention to a faculty resolution. But I am worried about doing something that would provoke a ruling that would make them think they need to change policy. I’m cautious about that because that wouldn’t protect our students.” Despite these concerns, New College faculty voted unanimously in favor of the new resolution, a decision that was met with a rumble of applause. “A statement of solidarity from all the faculty – from the people we see every single day, the people who are our mentors, who inspire us – means a lot to the student body, to alums and to incoming students more than anything,” second-year Ximena Pedroza, who was involved in the drafting of the proposal, said. “We just need support.”
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Here's what you need to know about the replacement for Obamacare BY MAGDALENE TAYLOR
The legislature for the Trump administration’s plans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, have been unveiled and has been approved in deliberations by two house committees. As of Monday, March 13, the administration is waiting on considerations from the Congressional Budget Committee. While the ACA replacement, known as the American Health Care Act (AHCA), may not yet be approved or implemented, here’s what you need to know about the changes that could be underway: Individuals will be able to choose whether or not they want to be insured without government penalty. One of the primary issues Republicans wanted to change about the ACA was its requirement that people be insured or otherwise face a government penalty. The ACA had previously made lower-cost private health care plans more available and offered tax credits and other financial benefits as a result. The AHCA will still offer tax credits for people who choose
School board CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 “remove him” and demanded that he be forcibly removed from the podium and from the meeting by security. This is despite the fact that other speakers had also gone over their times and were not met with such hostility. The mother of a transgender student, Allaya Nolan, was in the middle of her speech when the buzzer signaled her time was up. She continued her speech quickly, without being stopped by the board, whereas Quinn continued his speech as he was escorted out by security. The School Board did not laugh, as members of the audience did, when Program Coordinator for Advocacy Leadership Support and Outreach (ALSO) Molly Swift gave out her phone number during her speech, holding up a piece of paper with her phone number on it for the audience to see. Next, Greg Cruz of the Sarasota Manatee Black Lives Matter chapter and Answer Suncoast pointed out the hypocrisy of the School Board in the fact that the School Board hired Todd Bowden - who had sexual assault allegations made against him during the process of selection for the job. Despite this, the School Board continues to deny transgender children the right to use the bathroom of their gender identity, under the nonexisting and discriminatory threat of sexual predators using the rules to their advantage. Cruz began his speech by announcing that the Black Lives Matter movement stands with transgender
students on this issue. Then, he asked that the rest of his time be used as a moment of silence for the seven transgender women of color who have already been murdered in 2017: Jaquarrius Holland, Chyna Gibson, Ciara McElveen Mesha Caldwell, Jamie Lee, Keke Collier and Jojo Striker. As he stepped off of the podium Cruz “dropped the mic.” “Just so you guys know, I know Nate, and he hasn’t been accused of sexual assault unlike some of the members of this board,” Cruz said. This comment comes after multiple attempts to get the board to pay attention and make a move on this issue to no avail. After the speaking of the citizens part of the meeting ended, Bowden discussed the policy of the Broward County School board which was brought up in a speech by QUEERY an LGBT+ advocacy group from New College. Making what was apparently an important distinction between policy and guidelines, he pointed out that other counties had written legislation on this issue into their guidelines and not their policy. Then, board member Eric Robinson discussed the ongoing court cases that have come to light surrounding this issue. “We were hoping to hear from the Supreme Court by the end of the year on this issue,” Robinson said. “But obviously we’re not going to get a ruling by then.”
to be insured, but these tax credits will be based on age and will be lower than before. The overall incentive to be insured has decreased, and many people may determine that it is a cost they can no longer afford. Between 8 and 20 million people may become uninsured. Most estimates suggest that between 8 and 20 million people will become newly uninsured by 2026 because of this Act. Some estimates are much higher, but almost none suggest fewer people would be uninsured as a result. This would be the result of individuals not only having the choice as to whether or not to be insured, but also because health care may become unaffordable. People in their 50s and 60s with prior conditions will be the largest demographic to become uninsured. Additionally, people who become newly insured by Medicaid under the ACA may become uninsured again. Health insurance costs will increase. Health insurances premiums are anticipated to rise about 30% in cost as a result of the AHCA. Not only this, but health insurance companies will be able to sell extremely minimal
plans. One of the mandates of the ACA that required health insurance companies to provide an explanation of the percentage of cost of health care that it covers would be removed by the AHCA. As a result, people may purchase plans that cover very few of their actual healthcare costs and will have to pay more out of pocket. AHCA repeals the Prevention and Public Health Fund. This fund provides 12 percent of funding to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which helps prevent things like bioterrorism, epidemics and major causes of death in the US like cancer and diabetes. People under 26 can remain on their parents healthcare plan. College students and other people under 26 who have been insured by their parents health insurance plans will likely be able to keep their coverage and remain on these plans, so long as their parents are still able to keep their plans under the new mandates. Information from this article was gathered at nytimes.com and salon.com
Sarasota congressional representative Vern Buchanan to hold Town Meeting in Van Wezel, relocated from Sudakoff BY MAGDALENE TAYLOR Republican Congressman Vern Buchanan, representative of the 16th district of Florida, will be holding a town hall meeting in Sarasota at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall. The meeting will be held at 11 a.m. on March 18. The meeting was originally scheduled to be held in the Sudakoff Center on the New College campus. However, according to Buchanan’s website, the location was changed in order to accommodate more people. “We moved the event to a new location to accommodate a larger audience,” said Buchanan spokeswoman Gretchen Andersen in a statement on the website, “We want to make sure everybody gets a chance to attend and is not turned away for lack of seats.” The Van Wezel holds around 1700 people, whereas Sudakoff holds 400. The town meeting is designed for Sarasota locals to voice their concerns about the legislation regarding the American Health Care Act. “With Congress moving quicker than expected on health care I wanted to make sure my constituents had a chance to be heard and voice their
opinion,” Buchanan said on his website. “I’ve held 74 town halls over the years and look forward to hearing what people have to say.” There have been a number of protests and pleas for Vern Buchanan to not only take a stand on issues like immigration, but also to simply hold a town meeting. Earlier this month, protesters stood in Buchanan’s Sarasota office to address his lack of a town meeting, which many felt was a tactic to avoid confronting the public, WWSB ABC 7 reports. "Since I've been serving, I've probably done more town halls than any other member of Congress," Buchanan said to AVC 7. "I was out of town otherwise I probably would have done a town hall by now. We're going to have one in the near future. I know there's a lot of passion, so people have the right to express themselves and I'm going to be there to listen." Information for this article was retrieved from www.buchanan.house.gov and www. mysuncoast.com
The History of Pei: Aging rooms desperate for renovations
BY CASSIE MANZ To put the Pei dorms into historical context, Alan Burr, director of facilities and construction at Physical Plant, explained it to me like this: when the first class of New College enrolled in 1964, College Hall was 38 years old. The Pei dorms, finished in 1965, are now 52 years old, older than College Hall was when the college was formed. With a half a century of use under their belt, the dorms have begun to exhibit signs of old age, most notably in First Court. In 1963, after I.M. Pei was hired to design New College’s campus, he told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that the campus could not be "a stylish piece of work - it must last and be flexible enough to accommodate change." From one perspective, Pei accomplished his goal: in 2015 the dorms housed their fiftieth class of students. For a university as young as New College it was a significant anniversary. However, in recent years many have raised questions about the dorms’ age, sustainability and future. “If these were built by somebody else we probably would have replaced them already,” Burr said. “Because they're very expensive to renovate.” I.M. Pei’s residence halls are considered part of the Sarasota School of Architecture and have a significant place within the architectural community. He’s included in the ranks of other well-known, and beloved, architects in Sarasota including Paul Rudolph and Victor Lundy. The fact that the same person who designed the Louvre Pyramid in Paris also designed
a set of college dorm rooms adds some credibility to Sarasota’s standing in the architectural scene. “Even if it [the Pei dorms] wasn’t officially considered [historical], local architectural culture would want to make sure it got preserved so we have not made any plans to tear them down and we would like to come up with the money to properly renovate them,” Burr said. In 2007 Physical Plant renovated Second Court. They redid the interior finishings, upgraded the air conditioning system from a two-pipe system to a four-pipe system and created showers on the first floor. A four-pipe system is more equipped to deal with humidity, as well as the temperature inside the room; most of the rooms in Third and First Court still have two-pipe systems. When Burr accepted his current job in September of 2013, he conducted a walk-through to evaluate the status of the residence halls and decided that they would focus renovation efforts on Third Court because “believe it or not Pei 3 was way worse than Pei 1.” They didn’t get to install the 4-pipe AC system because of time and financial constraints, but otherwise did almost the same renovations they had done in Second Court. Burr reported they still have issues with expansion cracks in the interior of the buildings and that the envelope of the building is not as watertight as they would like. One of the significant changes of the Third Court renovation was replacing the notoriously slippery red tiles in the courtyard with concrete pavers. Like many things at New College that have stayed the same, the red tiles have always been a liability during a rainstorm.
Cassie Manz/Catalyst "The light over each dorm room door was also a globe, but smaller. A story I heard (and saw some evidence for) was that Pei had visited and seen that those globes had been replaced with conventional lightbulbs, and insisted that they be replaced with the original globes," Lundell said. "They were for a while, I think, but not for long. Again, long gone."
“When it rained, the red tiles became dangerous,” Ron Overving (‘06) commented on Facebook. “I know a few people that needed stitches after slipping on those tiles.” One of the biggest issues Physical Plant is dealing with in each court (but not each room) is a bad detail on the second floor decks and sliding glass doors. “On the second floor there's a construction joint where the deck meets the floor of the building and that doesn't have a water seal in it so when it rains heavy sometimes water comes from the deck and it goes through that or it goes through the sliding glass doors and into the interior and then it goes down to the room below and it rots the ceiling out, right above the skinny window,” Burr said. This issue has been ongoing since the first class moved into the dorms. According to alum Cheryl Soehl (‘65), flooding and mold were a problem from the beginning. “Pei clearly did not understand the Florida climate when he designed the dorms. None of us liked to wear shoes and everyone became very adept at jumping over the large and very hot tiles in the palm court,” Soehl commented on Facebook. “Most of the rooms I lived in would flood underneath the sliding doors to the balconies, and carpet would get moldy and smelly. We still loved our space.” Jonathan Lundell (‘66) agreed. “It's a fair criticism of Pei that he had no idea how to build for a subtropical environment like Sarasota,” Lundell wrote in an email interview. “Even so, I'd say that by and large we rather loved the place.” The renovations in Third Court
cost around $2 million. Adding the 4-pipe system would be another million. To renovate First Court it would take about $4 million, although five rooms in First Court were renovated over the summer. Burr reported that Second Court also needs some updates. “It’s challenging to come up with the resources to do that,” Burr said. “Otherwise they'd be in better condition.” According to Burr, the state of Florida does not financially support Housing like they do the educational aspects of the school because Housing is considered an auxiliary - students pay for housing separate from the amount they pay for tuition. “They've struggled financially to take care of housing and you can see it right there,” Burr said, referring to the details around the First Court bathrooms. Despite cockroaches and a rotting carpet in his room, Steve Barbeaux (‘88) still enjoyed the Pei experience. “We were young, barefoot and really didn’t care so much,” Barbeaux commented on Facebook. “[I have] mostly good memories from those days, but with a backdrop of some pretty funky dorms that simply couldn’t be cleaned.” Hopefully First Court will get the makeover that it’s long been due, but until then it seems New College students will continue to get by, enjoying the Pei rooms, or rather the experience they create, even with their flaws. Information for this article was gathered from questia.com.
Cassie Manz/Catalyst "You know the description of the dorm complex, and in particular the rather regular, rectilinear Palm Court as an "Apollonian island in a Dionysian jungle"," Lundell asked. "That kind of tension seems about right." (Not only is that strip around the top of the building now brown but in recent years they also added the handrails pictured.)
photo courtesy of Jonathan Lundell ('66) (left) "After a year or two, someone must have found a plastic replacement for the glass globes, which had a habit of breaking (well, of being broken)," Lundell said. "Now, of course, they're long gone." (right) "A pretty good look out of first court, 60s. Notice the light-colored parapets, and the lights again," Lundell said.
photo courtesy of Jonathan Lundell ('66) "Pei had put small ponds with fountains spouting upward in each of the courts. There was an immediate problem, that a little wind would make the spouts get passersby rather wet, so the pressure was reduced," Lundell said. "By the fall of '66, when my class arrived, the spouts were maybe 12-18" high at most. But still, water, spouts, nice sound effects. Eventually, though, the fountains were shut down, and the ponds converted to small gardens."
photo courtesy of Jonathan Lundell ('66) In 2001 the area that surrounds the top of the dorms was painted reddish-brown. According to Mark Hengge ('00) there was a Catalyst article in late August or early September that interviewed students for their reactions.
photo courtesy of Jonathan Lundell ('66) "There are early photos, surely, where you can see the lighting in the Palm Court," Jonathan Lundell ('66) said in an email interview. "It was a kind of Pei trademark at the time, a central glass globe surrounded by a horizontal cross with four more globes at the end of each arm."
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Sarasota ballet honors influential choreographer with ‘A Tribute to Ashton’ BY AUDREY WARNE
The Sarasota Ballet honored the influential 20th century choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton with three performances of “Scènes de ballet” and “The Two Pigeons.” The shows took place on March 10 and 11 at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall. Sir Frederick Ashton was an Ecuadorian dancer famous for his development of a uniquely British style of ballet as director of the Royal Ballet in London. According to the show’s program: “If any single artist can be said to have formulated a native English classical ballet style and developed it over a lifetime, it is Sir Frederick Ashton.” The first piece, “Scènes de ballet,” was a one-act ballet created for Igor Stravinsky’s eponymous suite from 1944. First performed by the Sadler’s Wells Ballet at the Royal Opera House in London in 1948, the Sarasota Ballet is the first American company to have permission to dance the ballet. One of Ashton’s most innovative works, the ballet was created using a system of Euclidean geometry that allows the dancers to be seen from any angle. The piece mixes classical ballet technique
Audrey Warne/Catalyst The costumes and lead dancers from "Scènes de ballet," the first ballet in the show, as featured in the show's program.
with the choreography of Ashton’s contemporaries, such as modern dancer José Limón. “The Two Pigeons” is a re-creation of a 19th century French ballet based
on a fable by the same name. The Royal Ballet first performed the two-act ballet in 1961, and the Sarasota Ballet has been performing the piece intermittently since 2007. The piece is a problematic
variation on the classical ballet storyline of a relationship between a Romani woman and a European man – though it does defy convention in that it actually features two live pigeons. “The costumes were really nice, the second ones especially,” second-year Bri Luis said. “The Romani costumes – the fact that they were Romani is obviously problematic because they were appropriative – but the colors, and stuff, the way they were designed was really nice.” The evening showings featured guest principal Marcelo Gomes of the American Ballet Theater as the Young Man in “The Two Pigeons.” Originally from Brazil, Gomes has danced with American Ballet Theater, the Bolshoi Ballet, the Royal Ballet, the Dutch National Ballet, and New York City Ballet. “I know very little of ballet, but very much enjoyed the two pieces that were put on, particularly ‘Scènes de ballet,’” second-year Andy Erickson said. “The second piece had trained pigeons which was interesting and I appreciated that the theater offered free tickets to New College students.”
Songs you should heAR NEW MUSIC EDITION
BY JASMINE RESPESS AND JORDI GONZALEZ “Meditation” - GoldLink ft Jazmine Sullivan, KAYTRANADA I have loved GoldLink for a while now. Every time I hear him I think he is not from the United States, yet he is from the D.C. area. His style reminds me of Theophilus London. This song is a true single, a sign that GoldLink is moving into a more mainstream realm. Still, the song remains unapologetically black just as “Dark Skinned Woman” on And After That We Don’t Talk. -JR “Shether” - Remy Ma I debated going here, but I feel like if I did not I would be remised. The Remy v Nicki beef is the stuff of rap legends. This drag is everything, it is almost too much. Like I won’t list what was said here, but check it out. Be warned, if you have second hand embarrassment like I do, you will be continually cringing for Nicki Minaj. -JR “No Frauds” - Nicki Minaj This is a weak ass response to Shether to be honest. Remy Ma flat raps. Nicki is singing at least half the time. Remy claimed that Nicki does not write her own raps, therefore she is not the best woman rapper. Nicki putting out a song with Drake and Wayne is not a good look. Still, Nicki has the sales, but Remy Ma never claimed to be the best selling, just the best rapper, so I am
going to need more before I revoke this L. -JR “Slide” by Calvin Harris feat. Frank Ocean and Migos This is a worthy collaboration by the three artists all reaching their primes. Harris provides the backing music, Ocean the lyrical hooks with his unique voice and Migos with the everso-demanded rap segments that most pop music is including these days. Still I’ve been digging Migos over most flows these days.-JG “Heartworms” by the Shins This song has a strong raw indie rock feel to it that’s perfect for unwinding, or even for a road trip with friends for positive vibes. It starts off with backup vocals and harmonization that remind me of classic 60’s folk rock even using back and forth conversational vocal styles in the chorus like those times. Most definitely a love inspired song. -JG “3WW” by alt-J The guitar (or whatever string instrument it may be) in the beginning makes me feel like I’m in an old Western movie during an intense dramatic scene. It’s an eerie song that has strange dissonant sounds to the ear, yet it keeps me interested as it draws me in to understand more. Does the title mean “Third World War”? -JG
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'We’ll see you at the movies!' Sarasota Film Festival kicks-off more inclusive and diverse films and audience BY GIULIA HEYWARD
Pint-sized reporters, chicken and waffles and anticipation filled the air at the 2017 Sarasota Film Festival press event. The Sarasota Film Festival (SFF) hosted a press event on March 13 to celebrate the release of the final film program for this year’s events. The event took place from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Selby Gardens where attendants huddled inside from the rain and mingled while enjoying hors d’oeuvres, such as tuna sliders and chicken and waffles, and an open bar. Some of the publications in attendance including Sarasota Magazine, Sarasota HeraldTribune, Beadle Media and the Catalyst. The crowd favorite was a group of child reporters, known as Girl Inc., who eagerly talked to producers and the Directorial Board of SFF for the scoop on this year’s programming. The event featured five-minute speeches from several integral members of the SFF Directorial team: including Marketing Director Ali Vallarta, Director of Outreach, Shakira Refos, and Chairman and President, and New College alum (‘75), Mark P. Famiglio, before the 2017 SFF Film Guide was given to attendants as they left the event. Famiglio discussed this year’s programming, which featured a record amount of women-identified filmmakers. “Everytime I go to work, I am surrounded by people who are in love with the arts,” Refos said during her speech. Refos began to describe the demographic of the SFF team, including a largely women-identified group of first-generation immigrants and over 300 volunteers. Refos described her own experiences, moving to Sarasota and learning English from reading books and publications such as Highlights, which is the focus of its own IndieVision documentary this year. Additionally, 2,000 students from
the Sarasota-Manatee area would be in attendance at the festival due to help from the organization, Embracing Our Differences. “I’m here to say thank you,” Vallarta said when she received the mic, before thanking SFF sponsors as well as the Board of Directors. Vallarta shared that she had been involved with SFF since volunteering while in eighth at Booker Middle School. Vallarta closed her speech by saying thank you in the seven languages that all of the directors were able to speak including: Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Dutch. “Without you, our theatres would be dark,” Vallarta said, addressing the audience. “We’ll see you at the movies!” More information on the Sarasota Film Festival can be found on sarasotafilmfestival.com.
Giulia Heyward/Catalyst Marketing Director Ali Vallarta closed her speech by thanking the audience for attending. "Without you, our theatres would be dark. We'll see you at the movies!"
Giulia Heyward/Catalyst Giulia Heyward/Catalyst Catalyst online editor and third-year, Magdalene Taylor, shows off one of the chicken and waffle hors d'oeuvres passed around to attendants at the press event.
Looking up
Better Food Choices on the Horizon for Astronauts BY KELLY WILSON Freeze dried ice cream and tang don’t exactly make a quality meal, but luckily - or maybe not so luckily - those novelty items aren’t the only things that astronauts eat in space. However, the food that they do eat in space might not be much better. That is, unless Doctor Yajaira Sierra-Sastre has anything to say about it. Sierra-Sastre is a Puerto Rican doctor of nanomaterials at Cornell University, with ten years of experience in teaching and research in the field of material sciences. She was the only Latina chosen by National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) for a space exploration analog project which began in 2013, called the HI-SEAS program. The project simulated what it would be like for astronauts to live on Mars. Sierra-Sastre made sure that during this time there was a daily menu of paella and beans flavored with ingredients like pepper sauce, cilantro and annatto. The program included almost a year of training in the Utah desert for the mission that lasted for approximately four months, from April to August 2013. This experience put her well on her way to being an astronaut, which is a dream that she has held since she was a young girl. She is now a
collaborator of the Puerto Rico Cube Stars program, which congregates engineers, scientists, architects and educators from Washington D.C., Miami and Puerto Rico to train students in fields such as microbiology, astrobiology, nanotechnology and engineering. On top of that, she’s awaiting her chance to bring her culture to space and eagerly hopes for a call back from NASA to take the next step towards her dream of becoming an astronaut. “I have a good feeling I could get in this time,” she told Her Campus, a newspaper at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez. “At least, I hope.”
Shakira Refos, director of outreach for SFF, gave a speech describing the over 300 volunteers and the dedicated Directorial Board behind SFF's production.
Lena cups CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2 9995, with their New College mailbox number. They can also email Doescher if they feel comfortable with that. “[PlanB] is paid for through the NCSA and is provided free through students through me and the CWC when they are open,” Doescher said. “On any hours that the [CWC] is not open, it is still available. [...] It is taken advantage of fairly regularly and I usually get it to the box within an hour.” The CGA and NCSA are working to lower the financial and environmental burdens and are lessening stresses that students may have. Having access to free menstrual and sexual health products is and will continue to be an important aspect of NCF student life.
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Free food, strong talent and good vibes: Talent show recap BYJACOB WENTZ It was a relaxing sight: Z-Green scattered with students on a breezy Sunday afternoon. Bringing entertainment, music and overall good vibes to campus, New College’s talent show, “So You Think You’ve Got Talent?,” showed the positive impact that RA (Resident Advisor) events have on our community. The talent show started around 4 p.m. on a small stage. The event was made possible by RAs, the secondyears Matthew Bocanumenth, Jonathan Goodman, Zach Rahner, Erika Thompson and third-years Sean Bruneggman and Jewel Morrison. To the far right of the stage, a table scattered with Publix fried chicken, Hawaiian rolls, tortilla chips, iced tea and veggies provided both refreshments and motivation to those who woke up just an hour earlier. The smell of free fried chicken also attracted some familiar furry friends, such as campus dog Blueberry. After about three acts, it became evident that most of the performers did not show up. Though only a few
all photos Jacob Wentz/Catalyst (Left) Students enjoyed a lazy Sunday on Z Green. (Right) Catalyst staff member Jordi Gonzalez sings a song while playing guitar.
of the original performers showed up, the show was saved by impromptu performances. “We had 11 people officially sign up, and then we had five or more sign-
ups that just showed up,” Thompson said. Some of the impromptu acts included animal noises by second-year Harrison Reid, a long joke about a snake
named Nate by first-year Rayne Craig and a lipsync performance by thesis student Oliver Goldsmith. Other acts included beautiful music, whether sung or performed on violin, cello or guitar. “It was a nice Sunday afternoon outside, I really enjoyed it, I didn’t even plan on doing this,” second-year RA Paola Baez-Perez said. “Just playing music and food, it brings people outside,” Thompson said. “I think more events should happen on Z-Green.” The top three winners of the talent show will receive Visa gift cards. First place will be given $75, second place $50 and third place $25. These awesome prizes are made possible by funding that RAs receive for campuswide activities. “Each campus-wide event has a budget of $500 and so the only thing that we spent money on was food and the prize money,” Thompson said. So have the winners been decided? “Not yet, but they’ll be announced by the end of this week.” Guess we’ll have to keep a lookout.
OPINION: The problem with “fake news” and Trump's reality BY RYAN PAICE Throughout Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the beginning of his term as president, he has made numerous claims against “the media” for spewing “fake news” in poorly-veiled attempts at supporting his own agenda. His administration has so far mirrored that attitude, with Sean Spicer cutting off direct media access from the White House to multiple news stations, including CNN and the BBC, instead favoring the formerlyled-by-Steve-Bannon media platform Breitbart. The problem with this approach towards media is the ever-increasing division in perceived and accepted realities and how that may affect the nation politically. When our president and his administration claim that stories are “fake news” without evidence supporting their claim – but the claim is still accepted and absorbed by millions of Americans across the nation as the truth – reality itself is being toyed with. One man can decide the accepted realities of a significant portion of Americans without having to provide anything but his own words. Agendas rise to the forefront of the issue: all sides of sociopolitical thought have media platforms that support their side, and most people on any side tend to only consume the media they desire to hear or just simply agree with outright. This has led to the perceived
realities of Americans to be divided along party lines, in that the different groups have radically different sets of facts based on the media they consume – and this has led to any political discourse to be mired in the shortfalls of this division: without the ability to agree upon what is happening in the world, how can any progress be made in addressing what is or might be happening? The answer is none. This is the point we have reached in modern American politics. When a political conversation must first traverse the issue of bringing both sides to simply agreeing upon what they believe is reality, the fight on both sides has been lost. When news is broken that disagrees with the agenda one agrees with or supports, it cannot be simply dismissed without further exploration. Truth is – or should be – the goal of any news story, and for the reader to accept that truth, sufficient evidence must be presented. When it is lacking that evidence, it must be approached with skepticism – at least until further evidence is uncovered. We can also not simply assume that journalists have any legal or reasonable way to discover the whole truth. As a writer, I know I am limited in my ability to fully flesh out any story, but it is my responsibility to present enough evidence – either through my direct experience with the story’s content or another’s – to construct a story without factual pitfalls or misleading direction. Sometimes, I am unable to contact someone who might have a valuable
take on the story, or cannot investigate further due to simply being constrained within the law. It is absolutely unreasonable to expect every writer to have explored each and every facet of a story because they oftentimes just can’t. But lacking every angle of any given story does not mean the story is dismissible as “fake news,” it simply means that more work and exploration must be done into the story. Skepticism is accepted and should be encouraged for even the most well done stories, but evidence must be presented for it to be either credible or disproven. By dismissing stories disagreeing with one’s agenda without any evidence to support the dismissal, all necessary further work on the story is shut down – or disregarded by many despite any further-revealed evidence. This isn’t just a one-sided issue, either. This problem is multifaceted and is intertwined within all aspects of our daily lives, for Republicans and Democrats alike. I hear people say “the media” all the time, despite the fact that “the media” is not one entity, it is hundreds of newspapers and websites and journals and magazines, covering anything and everything on one side or another. And these news platforms are not prospering: the news industry has been on the downfall for several years and has pushed all media to adapt to the modern age – conforming to the different constraints and social circles of social media platforms simply to stay in business.
This must be expected. We live in a free market society, in which news platforms can only exist when it makes the money to. It is a business, just like most everything else in the U.S., and it depends on readership and viewership to sustain itself. That’s an unavoidable fact of American life. In this ever-reshaping environment, it should only be expected for news platforms to rely on sensational headlines and the like; it is simply not perfect. Regardless, the free market is still essential for the truth to be heard: government-sponsored news leads to news being entirely controlled by the government and the established, and individuals writing news have no form of accountability other than other individuals – and then everything becomes personal and small circles and echo chambers become significant political forces (like the Alt Right). There is no convenient, allencompassing solution. There is nothing that can be done immediately to change the system. All that we can do is be accepting of facts from either side and try to find more to fully explore any issue. And we can’t expect each individual journalist to be able to capture every facet of the truth within a 900-word article. Journalism is a collective effort from a thousand different sources in an effort to bring the truth to the people, and that can’t be forgotten. Everyone wants to know the truth. So we have to work together to find it, no matter what the truth may be.
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Newtown Alive comes to New College BY KATELYN GRIMMETT The living history of a community once segregated from Sarasota. That’s what Newtown Alive has preserved - in all its success and struggle - and that’s what the project’s director Vickie Oldham shared with guests from New College and wider Sarasota last week as part of the New Topics series held in the Mildred Sainer Pavilion. “The history was in fragments, it wasn’t backed by primary or secondary sources and it was never all together,” Oldham said. “The story is not so diluted anymore, you can see it.” A major part of the Newtown Conservation Historic District (NCHD) initiative, Newtown Alive is the culmination of a year and a half of vigilant research collecting black history and experience unique to the area. The result of the work: a book composed of 47 oral history interviews with present and former Newtown residents, the establishment of 15 historic landmarks in the area, a timeline, graphic maps, and a website documenting the project as a whole. At the New Talk presentation, Oldham reached out to one of the interviewees who took part in the project’s oral history phase. Sitting in the audience was Sheila Sanders, who Oldham referred to as a pioneer activist. The story goes back to the third grade, when Sanders organized her class at Booker to divest their collective savings from a bank that was not allowing the school’s African American student population to tour the bank vault like other, white-majority schools got to do. “Her name was listed as one of the people that fought in the federal lawsuit against the city of Sarasota to force single member district voting so that blacks could be represented on the city commision,” Oldham said. “So that fact that we have Fredd Atkins, the fact that we have Mayor Shaw, she laid the ground for that.” The idea of formally documenting Newtown’s monumental history was first realized by former Sarasota mayor and Newtown native Fredd Atkins, who saw how gentrification displaced the early black community from former Overtown, now known as the Rosemary District lying just north of downtown. “The community is looking at Overtown, where the first African American community settled in Sarasota,” Oldham said. “Now we see barely a trace of that Overtown community.You wouldn't know that a black community existed there.” A similar fate is encroaching once again. It is estimated that over 60 percent of real estate in Newtown is owned by absentee owners and speculators, waiting for prices to rise alongside the skyscrapers next door. This is one reason why the Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s praise for Newtown Alive as “keeping community alive with history” resonates on a deep level for
Katelyn Grimmett/Catalyst "I spent a lot of time in the store, I was told a lot of stories," Terri Humphrey said. Her grandfather, Neil Humphrey, owned and operated Newtown's first drug store.
Katelyn Grimmett/Catalyst Vickie Oldham, director of Newtown Alive, and Terri Oldham, the granddaughter of Neil Humphrey, chat together after the New Topics presentation.
some folks in Newtown. The work bestowed to Oldham and her taskforce began with a series of five public meetings in Newtown to designate the cornerstones of the community’s history and develop a master list of people and places this past could be rediscovered in. As NewtownAlive.org notes, the chosen 47 interviewees are “a limited sample compared to the total population of Newtown, but with the guidance of the Newtown Citizen Historic Task Force, a variety of people of different ages, social backgrounds and professions provided a broad perspective.” The team unveiled Newtown’s historical markers back in February at the Robert L. Taylor Community Complex, a historical monument itself – honoring its namesake for decades of dedicated service to the Newtown community. Several New College students volunteered to help set up for the event. “New College has a history with Newtown – there’s not an article you can read about the Booker Boycott in which New College is not mentioned working with those freedom schools,” Oldham said, to which I asked how New College students can develop close relationships with the community again. “Programs like this and any opportunities to volunteer with projects,” she replied. “Just be more visible.” Students taking Professor of Archaeology Uzi Baram’s Historical Archaeology course are getting a chance to do just that. A section of class that is novel to this semester is the creation of a community research program. Starting in Mod two, New College students will design an archeology project based on local black history and, if all goes well, the project will collaborate with Booker students to do excavations around Newtown and the Rosemary District. “My approach is – I don’t have the answers,” Baram said. “It’s all out there and I’m going to struggle with them to figure out how to do this. After we come up with a research design and fundamental questions to make it a valid endeavor, then we work with community members and we shift to meet community needs. So it’s going to be very much a process.” One student in the class, thirdyear Hayley Trejo, is focusing their work on filmography and how to apply those skills in the Newtown community. Another student is interested in an architectural study on the plethora of churches in the area. “Archeology is very much in the public eye,” Professor of Archeology Uzi Baram said. “And I always invite the public to come, and they come in numbers! So it becomes this stage to talk about not just what archeology is but why we’re engaging in the work for the meaning and the history.”
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Shelf Indulgence...
all photos Jason D'Amours/Catalyst
A book store, coffee shop and study space
BY JASON D’AMOURS
The spirit of Big E’s lives on. In the same location - just a short bike ride from campus and right next to Growlers - Nikki Snyder and her mother Donna Frey have opened Shelf Indulgence, a bookstore and café. This mother-daughter team has created a comfortable atmosphere with a collection of books, coffee, tea and paninis. Their menu reads, “Happiness is a cup of coffee and a really good book.” Snyder wanted to be a librarian since she was little, but was disappointed when being a librarian turned into working in information technology (IT). However, she was fortunate enough to fulfill her dreams. “I worked at a library when I was younger,” Snyder said. “I ran a program for teens and children and I loved that. I loved the community of a library. But I just don't want to talk to people about technology, so I figured owning a used book store is even better.” Turning the idea of a used bookstore into reality took about a year. But now that it’s up and running, Snyder and Frey are happy with the results. They’ve stocked the bookshelves, which were locally built, with a variety of books to suit anyone’s interest. Collections of fiction, photography, art, music, entertainment, self-help, gardening, travel, language, history, children’s, metaphysical and a disproportionately large selection of science-fiction/ fantasy used books line the walls, creating a cozy and warm environment. “We wanted to have a little something for everyone,” Snyder said. “We don't have a super lot of space so our sections aren't huge, but the most important thing was having books for kids. Because a lot of the other
used bookstores in the area don't have anything for children and I think that's important because reading and learning, and our love of books, starts when we’re children. And as far as the sci-fi fantasy section, that's my favorite so that's why it looks the way it does.” But like the menu said, the coffee pairs well, too. Shopping locally and sustainably was crucial for these coowners. Snyder and Frey happily brew Sarasota’s independent and womenowned Latitude 23.5° fairtrade coffee beans and organic loose leaf tea. Pastries and paninis, made fresh daily, can also be ordered. “The coffee, sandwiches and the pastries just kind of go hand in hand,” Frey said. “We [hope] to create an environment, an atmosphere, and hopefully people will be comfortable and want to come to hang out, have a coffee [and] have a conversation.” Besides efforts to buy products locally, Frey refuses to be environmentally-unconscious. “We refuse to use styrofoam,” she said. “I know they are way cheaper, but it does not matter to me. We can't use something that will still be sitting around here 2000 years from now.” To support a local, motherdaughter owned and environmentally friendly business that supports other local businesses, to grab coffee, tea or a quick bite, or to study in a bright and welcoming atmosphere, be sure to check out Shelf Indulgence at 2805 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Their hours are Tuesdays and Sundays, from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. and Wednesday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.. And don’t forget! This place is B.Y.O.M. Make you sure you Bring Your Own Mug!
Nikki Snyder and Donna Frey have a huge collection that features their favorite books.
The spirit of Big E’s lives on. Nikki's 10-year old son greeted me when I got to the coffee shop.