[TANGENT] Issue 5, Spring 2016

ncftangent.org | @ncfcatalyst| a student magazine of New College of Florida

TANGENT APRIL 27, 2016

VOLUME XXXIV ISSUE

V

47th Street H o u sp g e. 8 Heiser Expansion pg. 2

Asian Art at Ringling pg. 7

Thesis Student Art Show pg. 14

TANGENT The Tangent is an academic tutorial sponsored by Professor Maria Vesperi. It is developed in the Newspaper Production Office using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign and printed at Sun Coast Press with funds provided by the New College Student Alliance.

General Editor Kaylie Stokes Managing Editor Pariesa Young Copy Editor Yadira Lopez Online Editor Caitlyn Ralph Layout Editors Haley Jordan Audrey Warne Staff Writers and Photographers Bianca Benedí, Katelyn Grimmett, Giulia Heyward, Sydney Kruljac, Ryan Paice, Charlotte Redman, Jasmine Respess, Magdalene Taylor “They only know how to treat burnt feet anyway.”

Direct submissions, letters, announcements and inquiries to: The Tangent 5800 Bay Shore Road Sarasota, Florida 34243 ncfcatalyst@gmail.com The Tangent reserves the right to edit all submissions for grammar, space and style.

No anonymous submissions will be accepted.

In this issue:

Sexual Assault Awareness Month................. p.5 Ringling Asian Art Exhibit ...................... p.7 Woodstock Wall ..................... p.12 New Songs You Should Hear ..................... p.13 Front page photo: Katelyn Grimmett/Tangent © 2016, the Tangent. All rights reserved.

The Tangent is available online at www.ncftangent.org, facebook.com/NCFcatalyst, @ncfcatalyst

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016 www.ncftangent.org | @ncfcatalyst

NEWS PAGE 2

Heiser expansion raises concerns about Master Plan’s role by sydney kruljac Recently, Florida lawmakers approved a $4.2 million dollar grant from the state budget in order to assist in the $8.9 million expansion of New College’s science facility, known as the Heiser Natural Sciences building. Since the approval, questions were raised about the expansion’s design and how the architects have chosen to stray away from last years’ New College Master Plan.

According to Professor of Sociology David Brain, who is on the Campus Development Committee, the process to push forward with the construction of Heiser’s expansion has moved very quickly and before the Campus Development Committee was even formed. “[The committee] wasn’t formed until the process was pretty far along,” Brain said. “So we didn’t get to review the schematic design for the Heiser addition until it was really too late to make changes. That’s really what the problem has been.”

K ather ine Walstrom, the chair of the Natural Sciences Department, explained that the design for Heiser’s expansion was practically finished in January, acknowledging that the Campus Development Committee had yet to be assembled.

“My understanding is that people that were from Physical Plant working with us on the building felt that it was compatible with the master plan,” Walstrom said. “And you know, we took their word for it.”

The plans taken to the Campus Development Committee were well developed, but many raised concerns about the lack of attention at the Campus Development meeting, where some faculty have tried to address their apprehensions.

Making changes to the already implemented design, would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and would delay the starting date of construction, which currently is set for sometime during the fall of 2016. The longer the construction of Heiser is delayed, the more opportunity there is for construction costs to increase.

“That would put a squeeze on campus budget,” Brain said. “The process of design and acceptance of design is so long that between when

you’ve started and when you’ve finished, what seemed like an adequate construction budget to begin with is no longer adequate. So there’s some concern about that.”

The Master Plan, created by a firm based out of California, was a concrete vision of how New College’s campus would develop. The design includes both principles and rather specific design controls meant to ensure that as buildings are added, the campus vision is completed.

“What was happening before this plan was the old master plan that was done while we were still part of [University of South Florida],” Brain said. “It envisioned the campus as having a perimeter road and buildings and parking lots just sort of strung along the road and the middle of the campus would remain this big open green space.”

Brain explained that the master plan preceding the current one was based around the idea of a very suburban campus, calling it an “office park vision.” The older plan did not create a walkable campus, and instead encouraged students to drive. He further elaborated that the old Master Plan did not necessarily create a sense of place.

“For a small campus, this is a place where its amazing how dispersed we are, and how little sense there is to being in a sort of center,” Brain said.

The current Master Plan intends to concentrate activity in a way that defines space between the buildings to create a sense of place, and activates that space by concentrating on where the students mingle.

According to Brain, the confusion began when the Master Plan indicated only roughly where a building should go. “It seems no one understood that there were several different significant principles about where that building was going to sit and how it relates to other buildings, and what its architecture is supposed to do,” Brain said.

The Master Plan indicated an alignment between the existing Heiser building and its expansion in order to start forming a quadrangle on campus just inside the Ringling Estate gates.

The Californian planners envisioned a campus

in which one could walk on the academic side of campus in the shade if one so wished. As each building is built, it is supposed to define an edge of the quadrangle, offering a covered walkway for people to walk through from the east to the west side of campus.

Initially, the schematic design of the expansion did not quite fit in with the rest of the campus vision, and instead was shifted, articulating its façade as “this sort of big, vertical element on one end sticking out” Brain described.

“I think there were a couple concerns,” Walstrom said. “One was the placement of the building, one was about the shape of the front of the building, and I think one was about the design of the building. And so the question is do these things make it incompatible with the Master Plan?”

Brain explained that the idea for the Master Plan was for each building to behave itself and enter into a conversation in relation to the other buildings and spaces surrounding it.

“I think it boils down to what is the definition of a Master Plan?” Walstrom said. “Is it a guiding document? Or is it a restrictive thing that says ‘this is your new building, right in this spot in this picture!’”

Walstrom went on to express her approval of the Master Plan’s idea of a courtyard, but explained that it does not exist at New College yet. “I want to have a really cool space for students to gather,” she said. “So after the Campus Development Committee, I told Allen Burr we got to make the front of this building ten times better than what it looks like in the Master Plan so it’s like the coolest place and everybody wants to go there!”

The first building to be built under the original Master Plan was the Academic Center (ACE), which was designed by the same architect who led the master planning process. The architect wanted to design ACE in a way that would help it define its own space. Brain explained that architecturally, the Heiser addition will not relate to the original building.

“Not that you’d want a building to look like Heiser because it’s an awful building,” he said with a smirk.

Walstrom disagreed with idea that each building should follow suit and relate to the ACE building. “When I look at the master planning documents I think the courtyard is a nice idea,” She said. “But if we build a science building that looks like these buildings, we’re never going to get another science student to come to New College. Might as well lock the door!”

continued on page 15

TANGENT

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016 www.ncftangent.org | @ncfcatalyst

NEWS PAGE 3

Going Green in Ham

by BIANCA BENEDI New College students want to go green. In the past four years, New College students and the New College Student Alliance (NCSA) have begun a bike-share program to improve green transportation accessibility, started multiple community gardens, begun a school-wide composting program, and started a food forest.

In late 2015, thanks to efforts from members of the Committee for Green Affairs (CGA), the school received a ‘green business’ certification from the county of Sarasota.

But going green takes a coordinated effort.

Ham cafeteria is one of the largest projects, and one of the most important place to start. Food waste and garbage are national problems – according to NPR, in 2012 Americans discarded 35 million tons of food. The Food Recovery Network reports that college campuses alone throw out 22 million pounds of food each year.

Although there is no shortage of programs the CGA and Metz have attempted to install to reduce green waste, many have been met with setbacks.

A 2011 Towne Meeting resolution to ban the sale of water bottles was honored by former food contractor Sodexo. But when Metz moved in, the resolution was not continued. Although CGA members met with Metz to discuss reinstituting the ban, they were unsuccessful – it turns out bottled water sells too well in Ham to pull them from the shelves. “Dasani water bottles are probably our number one bottled product,” Metz Manager Bill Moore said.

Second-year, Vice President of Green Affairs, and chair of the CGA Adilyne McKinlay has had a hand in many of the green initiatives taking place across campus and in Ham. She has also had to send multiple e-mails to the student body, begging for the return of Ham plates and utensils. In mid-February McKinlay announced that over 500 plates, and nearly 700 forks, were missing from Ham. During the 2015-2016 school year, Moore has spent over $3,500 in plates, each ringing up at approximately $7, for a total of over 1,100 plates. Only 37 are left.

Out of over 1000 plastic cups, only 13 are left.

Following several unsuccessful attempts to bring plates back to the cafeteria, McKinlay and Moore announced the beginning of a 50cent charge on paper plates in Ham, in order to recoup the cost of plates being stolen, to avoid bringing in styrofoam plates which, while cheaper, are less biodegradable, and to try to deter students from further stealing plates.

“The real problem comes down to, we talk about how green we are, but it doesn’t show in the actions,” Moore said. Despite the multitude of recycling containers available in

and around Ham, Moore still reports seeing multiple newspapers that end up in garbage cans rather than a recycling container. “It becomes disheartening,” he said. “I’m not thinking about the cost of plates. I’m thinking about the damage we’re doing to our earth, and what we are leaving for future generations.”

Metz has independently put several initiatives in place in order to reduce waste.

“We have asked Metz to see if they can purchase more food from local farmers,” McKinlay said.

“The company tries to get all of their produce from within a 100-mile radius.” Although keeping food local is not always possible – McKinlay acknowledges that some foods still end up coming from as far as the coast of California – Moore attempts to stick to local produce whenever possible. “A lot of the juice products we get, that is sourced right here in Sarasota,” Moore said. “We’re looking at honey that is locally sourced. A lot of our breads are baked right here in Sarasota. Same with the danishes.”

The corporation has independently been pushing for humanely treated beef and pork, and Metz on campus has made the switch to cage-free eggs, which Metz tries “to get as local as possible”, Moore said.

“They’re encouraging people to try different foods and step out of the comfort zone,” McKinlay said. “Which ties back to the fact that they’re trying to make more sustainably-sourced meals.”

Other green initiatives include the selling of reusable containers and water bottles to students who want to carry their food out regularly, saving on paper plates and deterring the theft of ceramic plates. Students who buy the $10 food containers can pay with Ham points, and have the option of returning the containers at the end of the year for a giftcard refund. According to Moore, 47 students have purchased the food containers, and approximately 150 have purchased the cups.

The CGA has been doing its part to attempt to bring green initiatives to Ham as well. An allocation for a plastic bag recycling receptacle has been put forward and is expected to be approved and installed by fall. First-year Allegra Nolan was recently hired to the brand new Zero Waste TA position, which is designed to help coordinate campus-wide efforts to reduce waste, and the CGA is currently attempting to fill another new position that was recently approved, the Residential Gardening TA. Another of Metz’s initiatives have been Meatless Mondays, which “the CGA does wholly

continued on page 15

SUBMITTED BY The ciw Farmworkers and thousands of consumer allies nationwide have united their voices to tell Wendy’s and its recalcitrant leadership that the Fair Food Nation is going to #BoycottWendys until the final fast food holdout signs an agreement with the CIW. An explosive article recently released in Harper’s Magazine, “Trump’s Tomatoes,” has added even more fuel to the fire of the newlydeclared boycott. It critically reveals that the Kaliroy Corporation, the very same Mexican tomato producer that was the subject of a scathing exposé by the LA Times detailing the enslavement of hundreds of Mexican workers in nightmarish working conditions, is in fact one of Wendy’s suppliers. The story confirms that the giant fast food chain refused to join the Fair

Food Program and be part of strengthening and expanding human rights for farmworkers — and is actively creating a market where abuse of farmworkers can flourish.

As a network allying with farmworkers, this news only strengthens our resolve to boycott Wendy’s and call on our communities to do the same. To channel this sentiment and build on the energy of the recently launched boycott, the CIW has declared April the #BoycottWendys Month of Action. To wrap up an incredible month of action around the country, join dozens of farmworkers and their families at a Sarasota Wendy’s (1601 S. Tamiami Trail) on Sunday, May 1 at 2 PM to let Wendy’s know that farmworkers and consumers will not tolerate the fast food chain’s blatant disregard for human rights, and the boycott will only grow stronger the longer they hold out.

TANGENT

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016 www.ncftangent.org | @ncfcatalyst

Pimps and Purple Drank

PAGE 4

By giulia heyward

A History of Racialized Wall and PCP Themes Walls have been a staple of the New College community for decades. They encapsulate the spirit of the student population, but Walls also serve as indicators of racial tension on campus. While it can be hard to imagine dissent on a campus known for its inclusivity, leftist politics and small tight-knit community, several community discussions and the recently thrown Day of Dialogue have suggested otherwise.

In 2006, Pimps and Hoes Wall, a theme that was later thrown out and replaced, generated a strong reaction from the student body and faculty.

In 2013, Twerk Wall was reportedly hosted by two white female students.

Two years later, New College had one of its largest admitted, and least diverse, classes to date. In the Sept. 18, 2015 issue of the Catalyst, the demographics of the first-year class were broken down to 74 percent White, while less than one third of the class consisted of students who identified as minorities, including Hispanic or Latino, black or African American, Asian, Alaskan Native or American Indian and either two or more races, or unknown.

“The Walls that I take issue with the most are when you have white or non-black people of color throwing Walls that are specifically supposed to have a very thinly veiled black theme to them,” thesis student Raina Senae said. “I think sometimes when you have a school that has such a small people of color population, you kind of end up having this weird backwards effect where people try to be careful about not being racist but you end up putting a spotlight on the maybe, 20 black people that are here. And that’s an issue that has come up in my conversation with other students.”

Last year, following a decision by administration to rename the beloved Palm Court Party (PCP), a survey was posted to the student email list. As the deadline for the survey inched nearer and nearer, one particular name was in the lead: The Great Wall.

At an Emergency Towne Meeting held on Sept. 3, 2015, third-year CJ Lee spoke to the community following a forum thread Lee had started expressing concern over the name.

“The Great Wall is punny and clever because it’s related to the Great Wall of China,” Lee said at the Emergency Towne Meeting. “Our fun college party that happens three times a year that we’re known for, other schools ask us all the

Haley Jordan/Tangent Palm Court is the location of both Walls and community discussions which arise after questionable events on campus. time ‘what’s PCP’ and the reason we’re changing it is because of this affiliation, so I wanna ask you guys to keep in mind, especially from other people from other schools, they don’t even know what Walls are. Something to keep in mind, I think it’s tasteless to have a three times a year college party named after the Great Wall of China.”

After the Emergency Towne Meeting, the option was ultimately struck from the list of potential new names.

“It’s kind of weird that we have instances like these pretty often juxtaposed with really excellent celebrations of inclusive sexuality or inclusive gender identities,” Senae said. “We have Kink Ball, or Pride Ball and there are several other

Walls that had that theme to them. But then you have other Walls coming up that are very clearly racist. [...] And that’s what I kind of take issue with, you have these shows of inclusivity in some respects.”

This past Independent Study Project (ISP), a Wall tentatively titled Da Wallk 2 Death Row Vol. 1 was announced on the forum. It was to take place on Saturday, April 16. The Wall was advertised as having “purple drank,” moments when attendees could yell “swag” or “Free Carl”– a reference to a recent student arrest that had occurred months before – and would feature Memphis Psycho, Miami and Houston Rap. Documentaries on the prison industrial complex, the death penalty,

crime in West Memphis and the criminal justice system would be screened several hours before the Wall started.

“It’s hard for me to see this as anything but within the tradition of privileged people putting on the mask of the racial other for their amusement,” thesis student Nasib McIntosh posted on the forum in response. “And yeah, there is definitely an element of carnival to rap culture, but I think you’re interacting with it in a really two-dimensional way.”

The Wall announcement initiated a strong response from the student body, with many calling for it to be cancelled.

“As a white person, it’s hard for me to understand the consequences of cultural appropriation and how it hurts people,” secondyear and Wall host Hunter Osking said about the response Da Walk 2 Death Row Vol.1 received.

“We have a small community so we have a sort of homogenous culture that leans towards social justice ideas. I think at times, the conversation can get too vitriolic. But overall I’d say that the general discourse at New College is really positive.

I got a lot of very constructive explanations of why what I was doing was wrong.”

The Wall’s theme was eventually changed.

Race-related party themes are a common fixture at other universities in the country. In 2012, photos taken at a party at the University of Florida and posted on Instagram depicted two men belonging to the Beta Theta Pi fraternity wearing blackface, gold chains and sagging pants.

The UF party made headlines.

“We aren’t those other schools,” Senae said.

“They don’t necessarily pride themselves on being progressive or incredibly inclusive outside what is the bare minimum. And I think that New College tries to pride itself on and advertise itself as being progressive and innovative and inclusive and just really on the cutting edge in terms of accepting different cultures and marginalized identities. I feel as if we shouldn’t be settling for the very low bar that Florida public schools have set for us.”

Information for this article obtained from the Huffington Post and ncfcatalyst.com.

TANGENT

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016 www.ncftangent.org | @ncfcatalyst

PAGE 5

April marks Sexual Assualt Awareness Month

By HALEY JORDAN “What I want you to know, and on no uncertain terms, is that if you’ve held someone’s hand, or someone has held your’s, it’s absolutely ok not to have the answers,” Becca Tieder told the audience on Z Green during Take Back the Night. Tieder is one of the founders of the One Student organization which provides students and their allies with programs, resources and opportunities to address sexual violence. “I did not plan to do this work, sometimes I like to think that this work chose me.” Take Back the Night was just one of the many events created for the month of April, which is nationally recognized as Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM).

“InterACT works year-round to provide workshops and information on Bystander Intervention, but in April we help coordinate SAAM with a SAAM-planning committee,” second-year Adilyne McKinlay commented via email. McKinlay is a member of InterACT and participated in the second Bystander Intervention ISP. This year’s events consisted of an art based speak-out event, a Zine Launch & Bake Sale, movie screenings, a photography based speak out, a Bystander Intervention Workshop, talks on Race, Ethnicity, and Sexual Violence, Men as Survivors and Sexual Violence in the LGBTQ Community, a Title IX Workshop and international empowerment event Take Back the Night.

“We have more events here than either of the schools I worked at previous, and more support too,” commented Campus health educator Mandy Parente. Although this year was Parente’s first time being involved with SAAM at New College, she has been involved in sexual violence prevention on college campuses since 2011. “I feel that on this campus people are dedicated to it, people are passionate about it, whereas at other schools it’s just another event... so here seeing how much effort goes into it and how the focus on interACT really put forth just so much passion, so much energy, and are so excited to do this and how all the student body responds to it too, has been pleasantly surprising.”

“This year we tried hard to make it a group effort,” co-president Shelby Statham wrote.

“So the entire InterACT and SAAM Planning Committee members all handled organizing different aspects of SAAM.... I think this year went really well, all of our events had great discussion, it was nice to see new people at events.”

Parente, in describing take back the night said “We had take back the night last week and that was super powerful, and just such a great moment for the students who were there and for the survivors who got to have that kind of healing piece of SAAM, and that’s, to me, the whole point behind SAAM, is to encourage survivors to reach out and get the help that they need and to feel that support that most of the year, were not talking about these things and not being as

supportive as we could be. So to see that happen on this campus was really beautiful.”

Statham wrote she has hopes that attendance will improve in the coming years.

“We know that these events are important to this campus, we’ve just got to find the best way to bring everyone together to discuss sexual violence prevention.”

“We had pretty good turnout,” Parente said. “There were a couple of things that only one or two students came to, but sometimes to me that can be a little bit more impact-full for those one or two students who show up.”

“I think that one of the most important aspects of the month is not only providing and showing support for survivors, but also having a dialogue about sexual assault, both on campus and in our society.” McKinlay wrote. “I think it’s important to keep in mind that there’s always more to know and to talk about, and attending events can be a show of support itself.... of course a variety of reasons why someone might not attend these events.”

Parente sent out an email with a survey to collect feedback on SAAM events. “We have heard some negative feedback, some survivors being triggered by our events, so we always want to support survivors who are feeling triggered but we also want to help those survivors who feel the healing piece of it. And so my job as a staff member here is to create students who are resilient, who can cope and who can have these

conversations and get the help that they need and feel supported. So we are going to look at how to balance those things out... We reduced our advertising this year from last year to try and help that because we had some previous feedback about it, we increased our attempt at looking at the different intersections of sexual violence... there various subcultures we are trying to hit to make sure every survivor on campus feels supported. Overall we just want to continue to support our survivors in any way that we can.”

If you have experienced sexual assault, there are steps you can take to feel safer such as making use of on-campus resources, requesting a schedule or housing change, accessing offcampus support services and or seeking a civil protection order (CPO).

“Sometimes it’s that simple,” Tieder told the crowd. “It’s not grand gestures, it’s just paying attention enough, to take the opportunities when they’re presented. Accept the things you cannot change, give your heart some kindness, acknowledge the things that you’ll do differently starting today, and take a moment and admire yourselves, you have so much in this community, admire one another for all that you’re capable of.”

The Statistics of Sexual Assualt Every 107 seconds, another American is sexually assaulted, cumulating in about 293,000 victims each year, 44 percent are under age 18, 80 precent are under age 30.

68 precent of assaults are not reported to the police and 98 precent of rapists will never spend a day in jail or prison.

Approximately 4 out of 5 assaults are committed by someone known to the victim, 47 percent are a friend or acquaintance.

One of every six American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape, 14.8 percent completed, 2.8 percent attempted.

Attempted rape for women by race: • All women: 17.6 percent • White women: 17.7 percent • Black women: 18.8 percent • Asian Pacific Islander women: 6.8 percent • American Indian/Alaskan women: 34.1 percent • Mixed race women: 24.4 percent About 3 percent, or one in 33, of American men have experienced an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. 2.78 million men in the U.S. have been victims of sexual assault or rape. 15 percent of sexual assault victims are under age 12.

• 12-34 are the highest risk years.

Child Protective Service responds to a report of sexual abuse every 8 minutes. 93 percent of juvenile sexual assault victims know their attacker. For 80 percent of juvenile victims, the perpetrator was a parent. 6 percent were other relatives. 4 percent were unmarried partners of a parent. 5 percent were “other” (from siblings to strangers).

Approximately 50 percent of all rape and sexual assault incidents were reported to have occurred within 1 mile of their home or at their home.

• 7 percent take place in a school.

• 13 percent take place at the home of a friend, neighbor, or relative.

• 18 percent take place in a public area, such as a commercial venue, parking lot, or park.

Campus Sexual Violence Male college aged students are 78 percent more likely than non-students to be a victim of rape or sexual assault. Female college aged students are 20 percent less likely than non-students to be a victim of rape or sexual assault. Only 20 percent of female student survivors of college age report to law enforcement while 33 percent of female nonstudent survivors of college age report to law enforcement.

Information for this article taken from https://www.rainn.org/

TANGENT

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016 www.ncftangent.org | @ncfcatalyst

TedxNewCollege:

BY MAGdalene TAYLOR Balloon animals. A smashed lightbulb. Virtual reality. A dozen unique talks on the intersection of art and technology.

TEDxNewCollege was the thesis project of Heath Hawkins, who was interested in exploring the innovative ideas of New College students and our extended community.

Hawkins had been brainstorming an event like this since last May after being disappointed by the lack of innovative opportunities of this nature upon transferring to nEW College in the fall of 2014.

This year, as part of a thesis and specialized AOC in Creative Technologies, TEDx was able to become a reality. Hawkins, along with first-years Ximena Pedroza and Carolyn Beer, did the core of the planning for the event.

“You have to do this insanely long application process, wait eight weeks and if you’re lucky you get a license,” Hawkins explained. “That was one of the harder parts. From there, they give you a guide but it’s very vague… basically I just commissioned the two people who were really committed and we just did everything.”

TEDx received no funding from the school.

Hawkins instead had to seek donations from various people associated with New College.

Though they didn’t apply for Student Allocations Committee funding, Hawkins unsuccessfully sought out financial backing from President Donal O’Shea, Provost Stephen Miles, and other members of administration. One anonymous benefactor covered approximately 5/8ths of the cost, Hawkins estimated. The total amount raised, including ticket sales, was around $8,500.

The event cost around $8000.

TEDx featured 12 talks from students, alums and individuals not affiliated with the school. Some were specifically invited to speak at TEDx, such as Futurist-in-Residence and guest lecturer at Ringling College, David Houle. Others were among the 30 people who applied for the opportunity to speak at the event. About half of those applicants were New College students. “We wanted a lot of Ringling applicants because ‘The Art of Technology’ is like a handout for Ringling students but surprisingly we got zero,” Hawkins said.

The students who spoke at the event included thesis students Shelby Felder, Cash Galko and Wesley Thorpe, second-year Miles Iton, and firstyears Hayley Trejo and Dannie Pritchard.

“It’s hard to say from my perspective because during the event I was a total stressball, but during the rehearsals I was just amazed by what the speakers were bringing, especially the younger speakers. The speakers that were the first-years were literally the ones that impressed me the most. They were the ones who had no ego about it and were looking the most to improve and that’s

NEWS

PAGE 6

Ted Talks come to New College

how they showed up. They did a fantastic job,” Hawkins said. “Dannie is hilarious, and Hayley is probably the smartest person I’ve ever met.”

Despite feeling like a “total stressball,” Hawkins maintained an enthusiastic demeanor throughout the event. When asked during the event how it felt to see TEDx happening, Hawkins responded with a “woo” and a kick in the air.

In a later interview Hawkins continued, “It was pretty amazing being student organized and having that result with the quality. The overall production was just pretty phenomenal.”

The event, which lasted from 6 p.m-10 p.m. on Saturday, April 16th, was a relatively glossy production by typical New College standards.

Sudakoff Center was transformed into a dim but impressive space, featuring numerous professional videographers and people to execute the technological aspect of the event.

There was copious free sushi, laminated nametags for all, and even a few Oculus Rift Virtual Reality headsets. Two of these were hosted by EyeLoveVR, a Tampa-based company. They gave TEDx participants the chance to enter various immersive worlds through VR, with both visual and audio components. The other headset belonged to second-year Hunter Osking, who let participants see the Virtual Reality that he created, the focus of which was a wall of text featuring phrases such as “The Earth is flat.”

“TEDx was exactly what I expected. I thought the food was great, the community involvement was great, and I was really happy with a few of the talks,” first-year Volanta Peng said. “[Thesis student] Shelby Felder, my biological daughter, gave a fantastic talk on how raves are religious.”

Hawkins was able to use some of the funds to purchase a Virtual Reality headset for the school.

With this, Hawkins is going to establish a Virtual Reality Lab on campus. “Virtual reality and augmented reality have one of the main studies for my creative technologies AOC, so it was really cool to have that at TEDx and now to have that legacy left behind with the Virtual Reality Lab and starting getting students developing that and experiencing it.

“We have the HTC Vive and we’re basically just going to need a really high powered computer,” Hawkins added. “They have these things that you can put around the room and it senses you moving throughout the space… so it makes it fully immersive. Nearly no one has experienced it at this point so it’s very cool that we’ll be able to have that and start developing shit. So if anyone wants go to get their mind blown…”.

The current plan is to make TEDx a recurring event at New College. Hawkins hopes that the event will encourage students to do innovative, experimental things for their thesis or ISP during the school year with the opportunity to showcase it at the end of the year. T

Magdalene Taylor/Tangent Heath Hawkins talking at the TedxNewCollege event he organized as part of his thesis.

Magdalene Taylor/Tangent

Students trying out a virtual reality headset.

TANGENT

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016 www.ncftangent.org | @ncfcatalyst

NEWS PAGE 7

The far East comes to Florida’s West coast by audrey warne Asian art is the fastest growing art market in the world, and yet there are few museums in the United States that feature pieces in the eastern artistic tradition let alone dedicate entire wings to the study of such works. The Ringling Museum of Art is hoping to increase the visibility of Asian art in Florida with the opening of a new wing entirely dedicated to the preservation and curation of works from the Far East.

The Center for Asian Arts opened its doors in February, after more than four years of construction and more than $10.2 million in costs. The Center (the hard-to-miss 7,500 square foot green “jade” cube in the southwest corner of the museum) consists of three main galleries: the Dr. Helga Wall-Apelt Gallery, the Pavillion Gallery, and the Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Foundation Gallery.

The first two are currently open to the public; the last will open in May and contains art from Asian antiquity, including the Cypriot and Gandharan pieces the Ringlings purchased in the 1920s. The Ringling’s collection of Cypriot is the third largest in the United States, after the collections of the Met in New York City and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

“The Center for Asian Art is a symbol of The Ringling’s commitment to Asian art and a sign of the importance of Asia in the twentyfirst century,” according to texts in the Pavillion gallery. “The vision for the center is to expose visitors to Asian art and culture, and to explore the impact of Asia on the global community.”

Audrey Warne/Tangent

Dying Slave in Chairman Mao’s Suit (1998) by Sui Jianguo

Ringling’s Asian Arts Center The current collection spans a wide range of Asian cultures, with works from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Korea and Japan. These include stone Buddhist sculptures from Gandhara, Pakistan, ceramics from all of the Chinese dynasties, a selection of pieces from the Cyprus region of Greece, Japanese woodblock prints – both traditional ukiyo-e and contemporary versions – and objects from the Turkomen tribes of India.

John and Mable Ringling acquired the first of the museum’s Asian art collection in 1928, purchasing a selection of pieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, most notably some exceedingly rare Gandharan stone sculptures and more than 2,000 pieces of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriot works. Ringling envisioned the works would promote his vision of opening an art school and museum in Sarasota.

“Cypriot art reflects the role of ancient Cyprus as a melting pot of Egyptian, Greco-Roman, and Persian cultures, resulting from centuries of conquest and maritime trade,” according to text posted in the “Connecting Cultures” exhibit.

The Cesnola Collection is a portion of the collection of Cypriot antiques that once belonged to the U.S. consul to Cyprus, Luigi Palma di Cesnola, 1832-1904. The pieces came primarily from excavations that took place while Cesnola was stationed in Cyprus, and the bulk of the collection was sold to the Met in the early years of its foundation.

“I think the Cypriot stuff is really cool,” said second-year Abigail Youngblood, who researched 11 pieces from the Cesnola collection of Cypriot artifacts as an intern at the Ringling. “It mixes Greek and Roman and Syrian influences. Cypriot history goes back to the Bronze Age, it’s sort of a melting pot of all these different cultures.”

On the second floor, the center features galleries of traditional, modern and contemporary Asian art, representing cultures spanning from the eastern Mediterranean to the western Pacific.

On the third floor is a study room supporting teaching and research by students and scholars, and a lecture hall hosting public programs that place the art on display in historical and cultural context.

“It’s a really beautiful new space,” said thesis student Brittany Murray, an art history AOC who has worked in the museum’s preservation and conservation departments as a current Ringling intern. “I hope that it’s utilized more, especially as New College has such a small art history department. It’s mostly smaller pieces

Audrey Warne/Tangent

Father and Daughter (2010) by Zhang Xiaogang such as figurines and sculptural objects. There’s a good selection of works. ” The Dr. Helga Wall-Apelt Gallery has been the subject of some publicity, with the benefactor suing the Ringling Museum of Art for what her legal team called Ringling’s noncompliance with the original agreement regarding the gallery’s creation. The contract was signed in 2006, when the German-born collector made her original gift of $4.1 million to the museum in order to begin the process of creating a gallery to house her sizeable collection. Wall-Apelt, previously a member of the Ringling Board of Trustees, also recalled her collection of more than 1,700 pieces of Asian art (valued at around $30 million) prior to the gallery’s opening.

Wall-Apelt supplied $2 million to facilitate the hiring of Dr. Fan Jeremy Zhang as associate curator of Asian Art. Zhang was hired in 2013 to develop Ringling’s Asian art department and increase the museum’s connectivity with the Far East, an art market that has seen exponential growth in the last decade, both in artistic production and in the consumption of art objects, specifically multi-million dollar “blue-chip” pieces produced by well known artists such as Picasso and Warhol. Zhang trained as an archeologist in his native China and received his Ph. D. in art history from Brown University. Before coming to the Ringling he worked at the Met, the RISD

Museum of Art and the Smith College Museum of Art. The inaugural exhibition is titled “Connecting Cultures: From Ancient Cyprus to India and China” and features a portion of the Ringling’s Cypriot collection, a selection of Indian stone sculptures and Chinese ceramic sculptures and pottery. All of the pieces are connected “by the common thread of cultural exchange and interaction between civilizations, in which trade and travel were key to bridging traditions, ideas, beliefs and techniques,” according to an overview of the exhibit provided by the Ringling.

Many of the pieces have ties to the Silk Road, either through their origins in one of the many economic hubs located along the route or through their iconography. The Gandharan Buddhas, which fuse together the classical features of Greek and Roman sculpture with the symbols and cultural characteristics of the predominantly Buddhist region of northwest Pakistan to create figures that elegantly reflect the artistically rich and immensely cosmopolitan nature of the communities along the Silk Road.

“The pieces that are showcased currently are some of the best pieces that the Ringling has,” Youngblood said.

Information for this article came from heraldtribune.com, ringling.org, and news.artnet.com.

47th street house a new college legend

BY Katelyn Grimmett

all photos Katelyn Grimmett/Tangent

There exists a house that is near and dear to the hearts of generations of New College graduates. Many current students know of the house and some frequent it still. Those who have heard of it know quirky facts about the place, like about the tree trunk built into the stairwell, the weekly communal dinners and how the structure was built by a New College student in the 90s.

The house – if you haven’t guessed by now – is the 47th Street House.

HISTORY In 1990 (or 1991), a New College student in his 30s by the name of Al Leonard bought a piece of property on the corner of Old Bradenton road and 47th street. Leonard would not finish his degree at New College but he would finish building a two-story house from the ground up.

“He had this vision for a house and he was hoping to get $100,000 in his pocket because he thought if he had $100,000 and he was really smart with it he could retire,” alum and current landlord of 47th street house Casey Schellhorn said. “So Al bought it, Al built it. I think he bought the property for like $10,000. Claims he spent $40,000 in materials. He’s got this perfect photographic memory of every detail- every design.”

The house was built slow and steady, over a decade or so. Leonard added onto the structure here and there until it grew into a seven-bedroom home with a spacious kitchen, an office and a sun-lit living room with a library built in. He immediately rented the place to New College students, as was the plan from the beginning.

“I think he had originally intended on living here too and imagined it as somewhat of a communal house,” Schellhorn said. “He was into communal living.”

The house, with its past and current residents, easily live up to Leonard’s hopes for a communal space and lifestyle. Weekly dinners are still a staple and chores are portioned out.

“Every few months someone will show up at the door and be like hey I used to live in this house!” Schellhorn said. “I’ve gotten stories and met with these different people over the years and got a sense for what it was like. People who’ve lived here always seem welcome, you know, they welcome themselves right on in and I always welcome them in too.”

In 1990, where the 47th street house stands now was an empty lot. Empty, if you didn’t count all the overgrowth that was piling up there. Al Leonard did. It was in his way.

“So what he did was he and his girlfriend and

a bunch of people came over here and acted like they were gonna deep fry a chicken,” Schellhorn said, already laughing. “Meanwhile, he went and poured gasoline over the whole property and pretended that they had accidentally caught the property on fire, in the process of deep frying this chicken. When the firemen came, all the brush he didn’t want had burned.”

Apparently the firemen were suspicious of the ordeal – the smell of gasoline is pretty distinct – but they let them off the hook anyway.

Leonard stuck around as landlord of the house until moving to Punta Gorda at the turn of the century. He remained an absentee landlord until 2006 when he sold the house to a Carmen Palomino for $250,000. Palomino added a whole new level to absentee owner.

“She bought it sight unseen, never came to the place, never helped fix anything,” Schellhorn said. “The tenants at the time paid her rent every month for a couple of years. Then, they started getting letters from the bank and found out that the woman wasn’t paying her mortgage and so the bank had started the process of foreclosure.”

An article written for the Sarasota HeraldTribune in 2008 quoted Palomino explaining that she couldn’t afford to pay the mortgage due to an increase in her homeowners insurance. The case was just one of thousands of foreclosures at the time, when reparations to the Housing Market Crash of 2007 had only just begun.

But this was a special case, a community was being kicked out. By then, the 47th street house had moved into it’s own and become something

of a “little democracy,” April Doner, a tenant at the time and an NCF alum, is quoted saying in the Herald-Tribune article.

The tenants living there then made a concerted effort to buy the house but HSBC bank, the bank which held the unpaid mortgage, refused their offer. At a public auction, HSBC gained rights to the house with a bill of sale for $100. Sounds like a game of Monopoly, right? The bank virtually owned the house as soon as it started paying off Palomino’s defaulted homeowners insurance but, nevertheless, it was a painful sight to see go under the noses of the then current residents, who were present at the auction.

The house’s history gets stranger before it gets safer. With the property in the hands of the bank, a now vacant house stood free of rent.

“The house went through a quick degradation,” Schellhorn said, rather solemnly. “One guy invited a bunch of really tough, out of luck people to live there. I think the original intention of the time was positive, to give people in need a place to stay.

I just think it was poorly managed. During that period, people put like padlocks on their doors and graffitied up the place.” Schellhorn sanded off some tags upon moving in.

“People living here before were worried that the house was going to get destroyed. It was a free for all. Some guy was planning on taking all the cyprus off the outside of the house, which i’m really glad he didn’t.”

The house remained in a state of limbo for several months before the bank put it up for sale.

That’s when things started to turn around. The

people living there were evicted and Schellhorn saw the chance to buy the house cheap, an opportunity he seized with haste.

“It’s hard to imagine now but houses were selling for like 20 grand or 40 grand or, in this case, 50 grand,” Schellhorn said. “To give you perspective, this house sold for $250,000 in 2006. I bought it for 50 grand in 2009. I lucked out.”

STRUCTURE From outside, the 47th Street house looks like an enormous treehouse. In a sense, that is exactly what it is, despite its being on the ground. The house is built with something like a dozen different types of wood: Cyprus, Cedar, Australian Pine and American Walnut to name a few. Every room smells like another variation of woody musk.

“A lot of the ways Al built the house is atypical,” Schellhorn said. “He built with this technique where he built with the framing exposed, showcasing the wood- whereas in other houses it’s hiding behind the drywall. When you look at it you’re seeing the frame and the actual framing of this house is beautiful old growth pine- resin pine is a general classification. It’s this really dense, really heavy heart wood of old pine trees. A two by four of resin pine weighs like 4 or 5 times what a two by four of like the kind of pine you buy at Home Depot.”

I asked where one gets this special pine (because I like to pretend I can build things) and received a dispiriting answer: you gotta have connections.

“In the case of Al, his girlfriend’s father owned a sawmill out in Arcadia,” Schellhorn explained.

“So he had this connection that enabled him to get this beautiful wood. What’s cool is he really showcases the lumber and the framing is done in almost an artful way. There’s parts of the house where you can see these cool triangle, geometric patterns that are all showcased.”

Schellhorn does carpentry work himself, finding renovation jobs around town but also setting up displays for exhibits at Ringling Art museum. During his time at New College, he worked at the sail club fixing up boats. But his true love is the 47th Street house. He’s done everything from completely renovating the kitchen to plumbing and electrical fixtures. “It would’ve been insane to buy this house if you didn’t have an aptitude towards fixing it.”

Interestingly, the house was constructed without a central A/C system. Instead, it is welldesigned for air flow. Vents built into the roof of the house allow heat to escape and cool air to

come in.

“It’s a tall house, the very peak of it is probably 30 feet, and the basic principle is that heat rises and if you create a vent at the very top, you create what’s called a chimney effect whereby it actually creates suction and what it does is it pulls in air,” Schellhorn explained. “Even on a day with no wind, theoretically you’ll have a breeze flowing in.”

Most of the bedrooms in the house are tucked into corners or spaces created out of the larger, common living areas. Surprisingly, none of the bedroom walls are touching so there’s a nice element of privacy. Without a doubt, the house was built to home many.

“It was awesome, I’ve never lived with so many people,” Robert Kelly, a previous tenant of the house, said. “We had chickens, there was a newborn baby, a dog. We made it work. Everyone had different enough schedules so we weren’t clashing. In the summer, I had the whole house to myself. When I had the freedom to choose whatever room to be in I would go through all of them. Sleep in one room, another the next night.”

(left page) (right) “Two weeks after I moved in we built that giant disco ball,” Kelly said. “We had smashed mirrors and Casey brought up the idea and we knew it had to be built. We finished it, it weighs like three or four hundred pounds.” (left) The architecture of houses don’t really lend themselves to group living,” Schellhorn said. “This house is really well designed for it. It’s got seven bedrooms, big kitchen, big yard- I knocked down the fence and that just changed the vibe, made it so much better. [...] I’m really glad he paid extra bucks for the V-groove cypress ceilings.” (right page) (top) Over the years, books piled up on the shelves of the library in the living room. Now, the current residents have a sign-out sheet. (botttom) "I’ve been working on the garden and I’m actually doing that for work-trade for the office so instead of paying for the room I’m doing the garden, which is something that Casey has offered to a number of people," alum and current resident of 47th street house Audra Locicero said. "I did a lot of gardening when I was at New College, I was the TA for a while."

TANGENT

Features

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016 www.ncftangent.org | @ncfcatalyst

PAGE 10

The NCSA Archives:

A Guilty Pleasure for History Buffs

by Charlotte Redman These days, the Old Mail Room in Hamilton “Ham” Center is well-known by students as a communal space, a room that has become a popular shortcut for anyone traveling back and forth between The Nook and central Ham. With large windows and luminescent ceiling fixtures that flood the space with light, one would imagine that students are familiar with the contents of the room in passing. However, the surreptitious storage closets often go unnoticed and what lies behind their doors remains unbeknownst to many students. Fortunately, one of these closets provides a clue to the passerby: a scrap of paper taped to the door stating “NCSA Archives.”

The New College Student Alliance (NCSA) is a prominent part of the New College community, yet the NCSA Archives were essentially unheard of until thesis student Joy Feagan caught onto their existence in the spring of 2015. “I’m a history student and I didn’t even know it existed until my third year. I started [archiving] in my own free time, going through the room and moving things around to organize them better.”

Opening the door to the NCSA Archives, the quantity of storage cabinets that line the right side of the room is immediately noticeable.

“We have a drawer of Towne Meeting items, two drawers of student life items, and a physical spaces drawer,” Feagan said. Examples of physical spaces include Ham Center, the Four Winds and the Bike Shoppe. “Then we have a Student Allocations Committee drawer, two drawers of student publications, New College in the news, student academic life, photos and t-shirts, and also letters and memos.”

With such a large volume of content, the NCSA Archiving Project quickly proved to require more work than one person could handle.

This prompted Feagan to invite another history student, second-year Cole Zelznak, to join her in rummaging through, cleaning and organizing the room.

“There’s so many little things that slip through the cracks as far as what people think about New College’s history and what defines New College’s history,” Zelznak said. “So, it’s really interesting to see the little things that get lost, like people’s notes. We have a sex partner entry pass for a dorm that’s signed by the Resident Advisors (RAs), so you could have free access into your partner’s dorm.”

Apparently, even since New College’s

Charlotte Redman/Tangent Joy Feagan and Cole Zelznak in the Old Mail room. founding, the student body has been battling the issue of noise complaints. “Someone did an empirical test, I think in the 80s, where they sent people around to different locations, at different times, with different wind directions and then got them to record the loudness on a 10-point scale at different times,” Zelznak said. “They played noises at different volumes while putting the speakers in different places, just so they could fight the cops on being noise complainted. New College students have always been silly, but also brilliant.”

It seems that not much has changed when it comes to the student body’s reputation for selfadvocacy. In 1988, there was a huge controversy over the small road that connects the NCF campus to the airport. According to Feagan, the airport “had to cut down a bunch of trees and take over land that used to be a student space called ‘the grove.’” The day that the construction workers came, 43 students were arrested for sitting in front of the bulldozers. “It was a year long process. The students came together to hire a lawyer and took legal action,” Feagan said.

It seems that the truth behind many of New College’s myths, including the one about the “devil-chair” next to the bay, may be right at the community’s fingertips. “I want people to know this exists and I want to encourage people to message us to come here and look through stuff whenever they want,” Feagan said. “I want people to see these things, I want people to know the school’s history.”

Feagan and Zelznak are in the process of scanning the archives to make them easily accessible for the student body. “We’ve been putting everything in a Google Drive folder that’s accessible to anyone with an NCF email,” Feagan said. “We’ve posted it on the Forum a couple of times and we try to bump it whenever we add stuff to it. I’m hoping that if we keep it shared with just NCF emails we won’t run into any legal problems, but obviously if anyone ever wants anything taken down we will do that.”

Since the NCSA Archives has no official budget, Feagan and Zelznak have had to make do with limited resources. “Technically, the archives is under the supervision of the NCSA

secretary and every NCSA cabinet member gets a discretionary fund,” Feagan said. This means that any money the NCSA Archives receives is only a portion of the secretary’s discretionary fund.

One of their expenditures has been a small, inexpensive scanner that they use to make the digital copies of the archives.“Sometimes we do take things to the library because it’s faster and they have such nice scanners over there,” Feagan said.

“We had a meeting with them because they didn’t know that this exists,” Feagan said of the Jane Bancroft library staff. Feagan has since agreed to provide the library with documents related to the school’s history. “It’s cool because they do have a budget, so they can preserve those things better, hopefully,” Feagan added.

“We give them a lot of faculty meeting minutes that we have,” Zelznak said. However, the NCSA Archives will keep the items that the library doesn’t want. “For example, we have a banana that’s allegedly from the 70’s, but we think more like the 90’s,” Feagan said. “They have no interest in that and we think that it’s so cool.”

Sorting through all of the archives is a timeconsuming task, but in the fall of 2015 and with the support of Professor of History Brendan Goff, the NCSA Archiving Project became a tutorial. This means that participating students receive academic credit for it. “I actually wrote a paper based on the stuff in here and presented it at a conference,” Feagan said. “I’m graduating, I’m not doing this next year. So, we have been talking to people about potentially helping Cole out with this.”

Be that as it may, Feagan and Zelznak still intend to keep the tutorial small. “Obviously the more hands on deck, the easier it would be,” Feagan said. “I just don’t think it’s that practical to have more people in here.”

Zelznak agreed, “I feel like when there’s more people there’s more opportunities for things to get shuffled around and because there’s so much material we wouldn’t have a good idea of where things are or where things might have gone.”

Although the tutorial may be limited in terms of size, any students who are interested in exploring or contributing to the NCSA Archives are more than welcome. “If people want to donate stuff to us, if anyone has a cool piece of New College history, give it to us,” Feagan said.

“We’re in the Old Mail Room, we’re getting a real sign soon!” T

TANGENT

Features

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016 www.ncftangent.org | @ncfcatalyst

PAGE 11

The 1970s Feminist sit-in turned sleep-in by caitlyn ralph With only about 50 years and 5,000 alums under our belt, I’m frequently taken aback by the immense, enthralling and unique history our tiny college possesses. While browsing through New College’s digital and physical archives, moments arise when I imagine our campus as a series of snapshots on a timeline, snapshots filled with interesting backstories, rich history and discussion starters that easily connect to current dialogue occurring among our students today. I had this experience recently when NCSA archivist and thesis student Joy Feagan handed me a newspaper article from 1971 titled “‘Feminist’ sit-in turned into sleep-in.” The article chronicled exactly what the title describes: a protest organized by women on campus in the then President’s office that continued overnight because participating students felt their demands were not met.

Let’s step back and look at the logistics of campus gender relations in the the 1970s.

According to College Board, in 1970, 55 percent of male high school graduates and 49 percent of female high school graduates were enrolled in college. Through to 1975, men continued to be more likely enrolled in college close after their high school graduation. This gender gap was reflected at New College. A massive college evaluation document from 1970 emphasized the gap present on campus, noting that not only did the student body contain significantly more men — but so did the faculty population as well.

This information is stated in contrast to today’s numbers, which nationally display women consistently enrolled in higher percentages than men since 1995. US News most recently reported that the gap has completely switched at New College, reflecting this national average, with women as the predominant gender on campus by more than 15 percent.

The feminist sit-in of 1971 is one of many reactions to the stark and obvious gender gap present on New College’s campus in its early years. Referencing the article that Feagan handed me and another article from the Sarasota HeraldTribune, the sit-in seemed to occur over the following concerns: the lack of women faculty in proportion to the number of women on campus, the want for a Women Studies program led by the Women Committee, inadequate security and self-defense classes, nonexistent abortion services, inadequate contraceptives, fuzzy patient-doctor confidentiality, the need for a cooperative child care center, and proper pay for women who worked as maids, maintenance personnel, secretaries, etc.

Above is a petition from women at New College circa 1971.

Reaction to the feminist sit-in was not all positive. In fact, there was a decent amount of documented backlash from students and administration alike. For example, campus physician Dr. Morton Mark resigned.

“The sit-in apparently attracted little attention on campus,” the Herald-Tribune article said. “Said a women not involved in the movement: ‘It’s like being the 37th man on Mount Everest. Nobody knows you’re there or cares.’”

That aforementioned piece by the HeraldTribune was titled “Elmendorf labels demands unfeasible.” John Elmendorf was the second president of New College, and responded to the protest in his Office with a poignant letter.

The letter, dated October 29, 1971, begins by acknowledging the gender gap and the imperfection that existed between genders on campus. However, as soon as the second paragraph hit, the letter took an abrupt change in tone. “In the present instance, a small and clearly non-representative group of women students has bypassed the method of reasoned discourse in favor of a now ‘fashionable’ technique which includes the presentations of obviously unfeasible ‘demands,’ followed by the ‘occupation’ of an apparently strategic area of the campus,” Elmendorf explained. He went on to state that in the women’s defense, they were just firstyears led by an advisor who was a “newcomer” to campus and “quite evidently unfamiliar with the processes of the College which have already made measurable progress in implementing most

Caitlyn Ralph/Tangent

of the ‘demands’ they presented.” Elmendorf’s letter condemned the feminists’ actions because, according to him, they backtracked on progress.

Elmendorf blatantly calls the protest “a mindless act” and “ an immature, planned and manipulated act.”

Many bodies on campus expressed support for the experience of women as an underrepresented community on New College’s campus in the 1970s. As early as 1969, demands were being made to even the gender ratio in enrollment. On March 12, 1969, the Student Executive Committee wrote Dean of Admissions Robert J. Norwine asking the department “to take all steps to commensurate with quality which will will help restore the balance between men and women at New College, and to admit at least as many female as male students in next year’s class if at all possible.” A petition scribbled on notebook paper from 1971 asks “that 40% of the student activity feed now administered by the Bread Board be administered by the women’s committee of the Student Executive Committee in the interest of the women students of New College.” Only 23 students signed the petition.

The evaluation of the College from 1970 cited earlier states that oftentimes women felt objectified on campus and viewed as a “scarce resource.” The document goes as far as to suggest the creation of a Dean of Women position in response to “the fact that the New College faculty and administration are almost exclusively male.”

“There is an obvious disparity in the ratio of

women students to women faculty, as compared to the ratio of men students to men faculty,” the evaluation said. “However, rather than establish a position and then bring a woman to fill it, the Committee believes that extraordinary effort should be made in every division to recruit women faculty members, so that the kinds of relationships that now occur between students (who are male and female) and faculty (predominately male) can occur on a more equitable basis as far as the sexes are concerned.”

Further apparent in the archival pieces are differences in thought toward feminist methodology within the College at the time. A publication titled Alternate Weekly, in its April 26, 1971 issue, published two letters disagreeing with a previous work in an issue of the Cauldron.

“Dear Cauldron,” the letter states. “How are you going to alter men’s minds with the garbage that was floating through your last issue of April 21?”

One point that seemed to be consistent, however, was the male-dominated atmosphere that hailed on campus in the 1970s. In a 2004 issue of the Tangent, staff writer David Higgins wrote an article on the history of Walls. His research contacting alums concerning the campus tradition has been filed away in the archives.

Many of the emails from 1970s alumni mention the gender disparity that was most certainly present during their time at New. “Palm Court Parties, yes male-dominated and controlled…,” alum Ellen Goldin (‘74) said at the beginning of her message.

“Upperclassmen (and I do mean men) put together Palm Court Parties. They collected money for the beer, pulled together the sound, started through the tapes,” alum Ginger Lyon (‘70) said. “(Unlike now, males slightly outnumbered females, and the male archetype was strong.),” she added in the email.

It would be nearly impossible to even touch on gender relations at New College today in one concise article, especially taking into account explanations of gender fluidity and the destruction of the gender binary. However, relating strictly to feminism, there are some visible initiatives currently occurring on campus to mention. The first is Feminist Fridays, which occurs each Friday at lunchtime in ACE Lounge. Faculty, students and staff are all invited to discuss a different topic each week relating to feminism. Another movement is the Feminist Writing Collective, which published its second Zine at the end of ISP. Inside that Zine, the Collective describes itself as “a collaborative tutorial that examines feminist thought, critiques, and artistic production.” T

TANGENT

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016 www.ncftangent.org | @ncfcatalyst

FEATURES

PAGE 12

Woodstock Wall By kaylie stokes Woodstock Wall is an annual event at New College of Florida, but this year it was just as much about the educational opportunities as it was about the music. Organized as a collaboration between the Students Targeting Oppressive Powers (STOP), Students for Sensible Drug Policies (SSDP) and the Council of Green Affairs (CGA) workshops were held throughout the event such as psychedelic care and harm reduction training and an on-campus edible and medicinal plant walk.

There was a line of tables with information about ethical eating practices, practices to limit personal waste, and how to make seed bombs.

There were vegetables, hummus, fruits, and grilled vegetable shish kabobs for students to snack on. The event took place on April 23, and was in celebration of Earth Day which had been

the day before. In order to limit waste, banana leaves were used for plates and students were asked to bring their own cups.

A variety of musicians took the stage throughout the day as nonstop music filled the nook from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Some musicians were students while others had traveled from around Florida to visit New College for the first time.

Bands included the NewCatz, Jackson Davis & the Jackettes, and Pariuh.

“Thanks to STOP, SSDP, API, ReduceYourWaster, MetaphysicalPlant and various dedicated students, we were able to make Woodstock Wall a day of environmental action,” second-year Sadé Holmes said. “Along with dope music, we shared plant-based foods and organized literature tables where students gave workshops and raised awareness on the many cool environmentally friendly resources we have on campus.”

Third-year Christina Harn glues flowers and leaves onto a portrait of Berta Caceres, an environmental activist from Honduras who was assassinated in March for opposing a hydroelectric dam.

all photos Katelyn Grimmett/Tangent

In a project started by Earth Warriors, a group lobbying for environmental protection, invited students to write on ribbons of cloth what they didn’t want to lose due to climate change.

TANGENT

rEVIEWS

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016 www.ncftangent.org | @ncfcatalyst

New Songs you should HEAR BY caitlyn ralph & Jasmine Respess A lot happens in the music world between the Tangent’s bi-weekly production schedule. While Caitlyn and Jasmine would love to cover it all, they can’t. Instead, we had them choose their favorite songs released since our last issue and write up bite-sized blurbs on why they should be added to your Spotify playlists. Check out the results below.

Beartooth – “Aggressive” Feeling angsty going into finals? Need to blow off some steam during BACC season? Turn on Beartooth’s “Aggressive” – the track begins with Caleb Shomo’s haunting vocals before exploding into a metalcore masterpiece, slated to bring out the headbanger in all of us.

Andy Black – “Ribcage” Black Veil Brides frontman Andy Biersack has been operating under a new, solo moniker: Andy Black. Palatable for those who are into Black Veil Brides and equally enjoyable for those who aren’t, the newest single, “Ribcage,” displays Black’s unmistakable vocals amid a backdrop of catchy melodies. Warning: you will be singing the chorus for days after your first listen.

Catfish and the Bottlemen – “7” Armed with an effortless aesthetic and a foul-mouthed, charismatic frontman, Catfish and the Bottlemen are one of the British indie scene’s hottest new acts. Just by listening to Catfish and the Bottlemen, I feel cooler – it’s like the band radiates this desirable aura weaved into carelessly catchy choruses and lazily pristine vocals paired with the perfect instrumentation to back it all up. Their easygoing latest single, “7,” emulates all those qualities, making it the ideal track to add to your post-finals beach playlist.

Moose Blood – “Honey” The new Moose Blood single, “Honey,” doesn’t mess around. Press play, and you’re instantly welcomed to a bout of controlled – yet heavy – instrumentation. After the exciting intro, the track calms, only to fall into the hands of frontman Eddy Brewerton’s vocals. Those vocals never try too hard: they’re naturally strong and unique without any false effort. The chorus – “This feeling will only get better / I’ll just hold it all together” – will inevitably be sung deep in the depths of summer days.

PVRIS – “Empty” I don’t say this often, but, when I do, I mean it – if you’re not listening to PVRIS, you’re doing something wrong. Originally a metalcore band,

PVRIS have evolved into a beautiful, indie rock trio that intermingle strong vocals and dreamy instrumentation. The epitome of this is “Empty,” the second new song from their debut album “White Noise’s” deluxe release. “Empty” is an auditory dreamscape anchored by frontwoman Lynn Gunn’s indescribable vocals. While you’re at it, do yourself a favor and listen to the entirety of “White Noise.” I doubt you’ll be disappointed.

PUP – “Doubts” If PUP’s “Doubts” was personified, it would be an angsty, 13-year-old teen that skipped math class every day last week to listen to Blink-182 under the bleachers. The track highlights stark, punky vocals paired with distinct, heavy instrumentation, molding a seemingly mishmashed listening experience sprinkled with angry sing-alongs and emo punk gold dust.

The Maine – “Love Yourself” (Justin Bieber cover) While I was admittedly skeptical at first, I never fully doubted that The Maine could do something amazing with a Justin Bieber song, and their cover of “Love Yourself” ultimately proves me right. The track finds inspiration in the mellow tempo of the original version – but integrates it with The Maine’s palpable indie sound, marked by frontman John O’Callaghan’s cool vocals and the band’s lovely instrumentation.

Beyoncé –– “Lemonade” Bey just dropped Lemonade on Saturday, so that is honestly the only thing you should be listening to. The album also featured a visual that was more than an hour long. The video included stars such as Serena Williams, Amanda Sternberg and Zendaya Maree Stoermer Coleman. The video was mostly comprised of women of color.

The album itself features popular artists such as Kendrick Lamar, James Blake and The Weeknd.

Lemonade, like “Sasha Fierce,” is a story, and although the content is focused on love, it is also a story of independence. That idea is further solidified, since the album ends with the mega hit “Formation.” Every song is important, but I have most enjoyed “All Night” and “Love Drought.”

PAGE 13

Q&A with Amy Reid: Professor’s translation lands on Oprah’s list

by YADIRA LOPEZ Professor of French Amy Baram Reid’s recent translation “Mount Pleasant” got the seal of approval from Oprah herself; it landed on the business mogul’s list of “21 Books to Read this May.” The novel is a translation of Cameroonian writer Patrice Nganang’s “Mont Plaisant,” originally written in French. This is the fourth novel Reid has translated.

Tell us a little about the book.

It’s a big book so it’s hard to explain it in a short set of words. At the start you have storytelling. So you have an encounter between a CameroonianAmerican woman, a historian who’s gone back to Cameroon, and the conversation she starts with a woman, Sara, who’s about 90 years olds and who has been deemed mute for years. Sara decides to start speaking again because of the questions asked by this historian. The stories that come out are about the crisscrossing of colonial stories at the time when one pre-colonial regime is ending and you have the successive arrival of the Germans, the English and the French. Sara was given as a child bride to the sultan, but before she could become his bride she was raised as a boy by the matron of the sultan’s wives. As a boy, this little girl has access to the world of the court that she would otherwise not have access to, so she becomes the recipient of the stories told by the matron, and all the stories that people tell in the court.

What is your process like when you’re translating?

It’s a long process because of the time it takes to work with editors. What I do is that I read the book a couple of times and then start working through section by section and translating.

When I’m done with a section I’ll read it over, and usually I’ll read it aloud to myself once I’ve worked through the big problems to make sure that the sentences aren’t too clunky, because if you can’t read it aloud, something’s wrong.

And then you have to work with editors and the author who’ve read different parts as well.

Your academic interests are in French literature but you also speak Portuguese and know a lot about Brazil. Where does your

Professor of French Amy Baram Reid’s translation of Cameroonian writer Patrice Nganang’s “Mont Plaisant” was published earlier this month. interest in African literature stem from?

Why I ended up translating African literature really comes down to me trying to teach African literature here, and not being so limited by what was available in translation. Books, even when they’re translated, often go out of print in English, so trying to find good translations was hard. So when the opportunity came up to translate for an anthology, “New African Stories” I was enthusiastic about it because I think it’s important to make literature written in other languages accessible to my students.

How do you choose what books or authors you want to translate?

For both of the authors that I’ve been working with, they take on important political and ethical issues and so that really appeals to me. I think they write beautifully, but more than that it’s about the political and ethical concerns they bring forward and that I think we need to hear.

TANGENT

by JASmine respess As BACC week begins, New College art students also present the projects they have been working on all year. The pieces ranged from digital installations to large scale paintings. Friends, family and professors attended the opening to show support for the art students. While grazing on finger foods, people moved around the main gallery and private studios admiring the work.

“It was a lot of hard work,” thesis student Sara Sarmiento said. “I had been up for 30 hours before, so I went home and slept for a long time after.”

Sarmiento was one of the students presenting work. She used a public coloring station in her studio.

“I had a coloring station to allow for the audience to feel more comfortable in a space dominated by memories that weren’t theirs,” Sarmiento said. “[This allowed] them to not only relieve anxiety, but to add their own interpretation to imagery that was loaded with cultural significance to me. They’re making it their own ethically, because they have permission from the artist.”

A mixture of people visited the gallery. One being thesis student Bailey Peterson.

“I was proud to see what my friends had accomplished,” Peterson said.

Peterson completed her thesis this year, so she was understanding of how stressful presenting work can be.

“Art can be so personal, so I bet showing that to a lot of people could be nerve wracking,” Peterson added.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016 www.ncftangent.org | @ncfcatalyst

NCF thesis art show

FEATURES

PAGE 14

TANGENT

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016 www.ncftangent.org | @ncfcatalyst

Master Plan

continued from pg. 2

Metz

continued from pg. 3 support,” McKinlay noted. Although Meatless Monday is not literal – meat is still available on Mondays in Ham – the program does push and prioritize meat-free meals in an effort to promote sustainable eating initiatives. Moore notes that despite the availability of meat on Mondays, some students had complaints about the initiative. “We’ve had students yelling at us about it,” Moore admits.

Despite opposition to meat-free movements, going vegan does carry many environmental benefits, and at least in that category, New College is doing well. Moore estimates, based on numbers reported by both Metz and Four Winds, that about 10 percent of the student population is vegan. “Our school is very different from other schools,” Moore said. “Other colleges, they have almost no vegan population. I think percentagewise, we have a higher population [of vegans] here than any other college that we serve.”

Metz also makes a point of reducing food waste as much as possible. Ham cafeteria employees use a batch-cooking system, in which food is cooked throughout meals as needed.

“Sometimes you’ll go into the cafeteria and have to wait on something,” Moore said. “It’s because we’re cooking it in batches so not a lot of food gets thrown away. And what we try to do,” Moore added, “is if there is food left over, utilize it into something else.” Metz employees weigh postconsumer waste in order to calculate how much food is moving, and Moore reports that “it is very limited.”

Other, smaller programs are in the works.

Moore wants to begin a regular farmer’s market next semester, as well as bring reusable bags into the C-store to reduce plastic bag usage. Employees have been asked to check with students before offering them a plastic bag, as well, to limit their usage to ‘as-needed’.

Students haven’t always gone along with green initiatives. Bottled water, and bottled drinks in general, still fly off the shelves. Recycling is done haphazardly, or not at all, in many public spaces. But going green is a slow movement, and

Many of the buildings around campus are littered with architectural ideas in a way that a new building could be conceptualized as a unique object, while still following some guidelines to fit in.

“The expansion has not been conceived in that way at all,” Brain said. “Other than the fact that the color palette of beiges and reds that kind of go with the colors they already have. Okay, that’s a start.”

Brain felt that none of the Heiser addition’s design reflected that of the Master Plan except for the fact that it is located in the general area represented in the plan.

When raising his issues with the design, the architects argued that the expansion was in fact in compliance with the Master Plan. Brain maintained his rationale by explaining the principles and vision behind the Master Plan.

“I kind of know what the Master Plan says because I helped write it,” he said.

The plan does not get very specific about architecture because it did not want to create barriers for creativity. But it did create a list of specific principles for future architects to follow.

With the expansion of Heiser comes the hope that New College will in turn attract more science and math students. Walstrom explained the dream for Heiser is to become a showcase space for prospective students.

“We are hoping that we can attract more students and get more students through the natural sciences program so we can keep up our numbers to maintain our score at least in [the science and mathematic] fields,” Walstrom said.

Walstrom argued that many natural sciences buildings on other college campuses tend to follow a fairly modern design. Differing from other campuses, however, is the plan to create congregating spaces for students. These spaces include areas within the expansion, outdoor seating areas and a deck on the second floor.

“We want it to be a really cool gathering place for everybody,” Walstrom said.

The math and sciences departments are going to benefit from the expansion immensely.

The added space will provide larger teaching labs, new research space for faculty, including a condensed space for computer and data sciences faculty, and a conference room.

“A lot of the stuff we don’t have in this building we’ll have in the [expansion],” Walstrom said. “So it should be really cool.”

JUMPS

PAGE 15

Paul and Miles continued from pg. 16

9. How were the Midnight Debates?

M: I mean, you could quote me saying “it was a hot mess,” but I mean, I am pretty sure it is supposed to have some semblance of hot mess every time, but it is what it is.

P: Yeah, it was pretty bad.

M: It didn’t even end, it just kind of disseminated.

10. What do you aim to become in the future?

P: I don’t have any clear goals for the future, but there is a quote from this rap song that I really like that just kind of epitomizes my approach to the future: “Develop yourself and let the universe respond” and I don’t know, but I feel like as long as you put positivity into the universe, then you’ll receive positive things, and I just hope to continue affecting positive change.

M: I can only hope to really be myself wholeheartedly, so I am just going to keep working and making sure that myself is someone who does a whole lot of good for society, and representing people in a way that they previously never had or were able to achieve. When I think about when people say “what do you want to be in the future?” I don’t necessarily think career path, I think – you know, this is the United States, if I really wanted to make money there are a million different ways I could do that – but it is more about who I really want to be and represent, and who do I want to help?

TANGENT

THE BACK PAGE

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016 www.ncftangent.org | @ncfcatalyst

PAGE 16

Co-Presidents

TEN QUESTIONS with Paul and Miles

by RYAN paice

1. Where do you guys come from?

Miles: Miami Paul: Orlando 2. What kind of hobbies do you have?

P: I enjoy listening to music, freestyling, reading books.

M: Freestyling, writing.

P: I guess I also enjoy weightlifting and running.

3. How do you spend your time?

M: Putting in work! I’m an RA, I don’t get to have free time – unlocking y’alls doors – nah. But If I’m not working, I’m doing my hobbies, when I’m not doing my hobbies, I’m either sleeping, thinking about the come up, or planning on the come up. It’s always a forward motion.

P: When I’m not working or studying for class, I’m usually spending leisure time with my friends, or cultivating my hobbies.

4.What do you like/love about NCF? P: I like the happy-go-lucky attitude and I like how everybody can really just chill and be them and not be judged.

M: I like the openness of New College, everybody is totally receptive to lifestyles as long as nobody is hurting anybody.

5. What’s your favorite NCF memory?

P: My favorite memory is probably just like, my friend Antonio, going to his

room in between classes and after classes and blasting music, sitting down at his computer just watching stuff and listening to music.

M: I think freestyle tutorial. I think it was good for me because, you know, it is something that you express as a hobby that New College allows you to be able to expand upon. Have fun with your craft but take it seriously to the point where you can do something without having to worry about all these separate implications.

6. So what would you guys change about NCF? M: I definitely feel like it can be a more accessible culture, just in terms of like opening up and accepting, you know, that New College is what it is, but that there are going to be some people outside of that sphere – and that’s OK. We’re all here for the same reason, which is a dope education.

7. So what do you guys aim to accomplish as Co-Presidents, do you two have a platform or something?

P: I mean, he mentioned accessibility, but you know, we just want to fix a lot of things that are obviously broken. Like ADA accessibility, we want to get up to date with that, and campus climate has been kind of under attack since we got here, and we just want to address that. Our platform is based on, essentially, in my opinion, addressing campus climate through different facets, such as everyone feeling included by having equal access to shared spaces and private spaces, ADA and diversity initiatives, and one thing we explored was outdoor spaces, because they are a great conduit for community.

8. What do you think will be the biggest obstacles you guys will have to face?

M: Red tape, just in general, us trying to do things or get stuff accomplished that, you know, whether something is by law or by policy that’s something we won’t be able to do just for the sake of Rick Scott. But ultimately, I think if we can, you know we ran on theory plus practice, where if we can show our theory, and then institute it at New College, and just show to upper administration that things you want to do are not only beneficial to the institution but also the student body, and that everything’s possible.

P: I would say navigating institutional bureaucracy. You know, we didn’t have a lot of these ideas first, there are a lot of people who have had opinions about this campus – our predecessors – and the thing is, if it was easy, it would have been done already. So yeah, just navigating the bureaucracy, I think.

Questions 9 and 10 cont’d on page 15

Giulia Heyward/Tangent