Phoenix September 28, 2017

Today in OPINIONS: Laura Wagner on problems with classism in hootenanny A6, Sydney Covitz on Why study English? A5, Brittni Teresi for Swat Global A6

PHOENIX

THE

Athlete of the Week: Michael Brown

VOL. 144, NO. 3

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Chris Thile comes to Swarthmore

September 28, 2017

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The independent campus newspaper of Swarthmore College since 1881

College Title IX policy to remain in effect

by Evangela Shread News Editor In an email sent on Sept. 22, President Valerie Smith assured students, faculty and staff that college IX policy would remain in effect despite the rescission of Obama-era guidelines for college investigations of sexual misconduct, which was announced earlier that day by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. New interim guidelines will let colleges and universities set the standard of evidence in student sexual assault investigations, according to U.S. News. Smith

The week ahead

emphasized that while the 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter and 2014 Q&A will be nullified — policies that require colleges to use the lowest standard of proof when adjudicating sexual assault cases — Title IX itself will remain in full effect. She affirmed that Swarthmore policies will continue to demonstrate the principles of the college and will not be altered to match the shift in national policy.

“Swarthmore College remains wholly committed to upholding equality and freedom from all forms of discrimination and harassment. Our college policies … are based on our own values and

reflective of law, guidance, and best practice,” Smith wrote.

Violence Prevention Educator and Survivor Advocate Nina Harris echoed Smith’s statement, asserting that Swarthmore would not change its standard of evidence required to find an accused student guilty of sexual assault and that the college makes policy decisions according to its own values.

“What you may see change is the level of commitment and investment at some institutions [that] were only acting under government pressure. This has never been the impetus nor basis

for our work here at Swarthmore,” said Harris.

According to Title IX coordinator Kaaren Williamsen, the Title IX office reviews its policies routinely every summer. The Sexual Harassment/Assault Resources and Education (SHARE) website, on which the Sexual Assault and Harassment Policy is outlined, states that over 30 adjustments have been made since 2013.

“Swarthmore is committed to providing a fair investigation and adjudication process and our annual reviews provide an opportunity to assure that we are staying current with any new laws, De-

partment of Education guidance, best practice, and community feedback,” Williamsen said.

One 2013 adjustment Williamsen highlighted was a shift in the college’s model for adjudicating student-student sexual assault cases to one that is overseen by an external adjudicator. According to the SHARE site, one adjudicator is a former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice who has experience in cases involving sexual violence.

“The external adjudicators are well trained and experienced, and continued on page A4

Latinx Heritage Month kicks off with a Parrish Beach celebration

Thursday Frank 5 Career Panel Meet the 2017-18 Aydelotte Foundation Fellows and learn about the challenges and rewards of their professional journeys since graduation.

Fellows were selected to represent different work sectors and come from the worlds of business, engineering, education and the arts. They reveal a wide range of career paths available to liberal arts grads.

Friday WordPress Part 2: Building Your Professional Online Identity Organize and design your content to create your digital CV or professional portfolio.

Saturday Foundations of Chinese Opera: A Lecture and Workshop with Professor Peng Xu at Swarthmore College Professor Peng Xu shares her joy in learning Chinese opera as a form of theater and that of music. An award-winning singer and a disciple of masters of Chinese opera, Professor Xu will fill the lecture with her own singing with the assistance of Swarthmore’s student musician and guest artists from China and America.

There will be a light reception following the performance.

Sunday Mid-Atlantic Peony Society Annual “Dig and Divide” Mid-Atlantic Peony Society members to learn how to site, plant, dig, and divide peonies at this time of year for best results. Tree peonies, herbaceous, and Itoh hybrids will be discussed. Stay for a reception, rare peony auction, and peony sale.

Monday Papermaking Demonstration & Bookmobile Book Artists Peter and Donna Thomas arrive in their artists’ book-mobile, modeled after a wagon made for Romany travelers in England during the late-nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries. Join us for a papermaking demonstration and a tour of the book-mobile, in celebration of the exhibition in McCabe of their work.

Refreshments will be served.

Shelby Dolch / The Phoenix

Latinx Heritage Committee kicked off a month long celebration of awareness and understanding of the contributions, histories, and experiences of Latinx members while celebrating the beauty and complexities of Latinx culture and identity with a celebration over the weekend.

by George Rubin News Writer Delays in the payroll process this past week left many students without their paychecks. Students who have worked since the beginning of the semester must now submit their timesheets late.

The lack of spending money during the first part of the year puts a burden on students adjusting to college life, leaving them with no income and unsure of when they will receive funds.

“It’s kind of tough; you can’t spend money for a while, and you have to think about how you’re

going to ration it out,” said Izzy McClean ’20, who has held six jobs on campus during her freshman year, including manager of the Men’s Soccer Team, a position she still holds.

The delay in receiving timesheets happens at the beginning of each semester when employers fill positions. McClean often experienced delays in accessing her timesheet when she started a new job but afterwards received paychecks on time. McClean was unable to access the timesheet for one of her jobs for two months at the beginning of spring semester last year.

During this year’s first party weekend, known as “Disorientation,” five college students were hospitalized due to intoxication and cited for underage drinking.

In addition, according to Public Safety director Mike Hill, four other alcohol-related incidents occurred on the night of, Sept. 3.

The number of alcohol-related incidents during the annual Disorientation weekend has risen from four in 2012 to nine in 2017, an increase of five over five years.

The college has a medical amnesty policy in place that states that “neither the student in need nor the student or student organization requesting assistance will ordinarily be subject to disciplinary action” for a violation of the Alcohol and Other Drugs (AOD) policy.

“This policy is specifically intended to support getting students to call for help,” Hill said in an email.

However, under Pennsylvania state law, any student transported to the hospital in an ambulance will automatically be cited for underage drinking, a charge that typically requires completing 30 hours of community service, paying a fine of $150 to $750, taking alcohol education classes, and complying with a 60-day driver’s license suspension. The charge will remain visible on a background check and cannot be expunged without going before a judge.

Many students have related recent increases in alcohol-related incidents to policy banning hard liquor from registered parties, which was enacted in 2014.

Tyrone Clay ’18, who attended an 80-person pregame on Sept. continued on page A3

“It is annoying that you work all this time and you don’t get the benefits soon enough,” she said.

Many students were not added to the payroll for their department and so were unable to access their timesheets during the first work cycle. When students submit timesheets late, there is a process which may involve hours transferred to the next pay cycle two weeks later. McClean said Thursday she wasn’t able to access her timesheets for any of her jobs and that they hadn’t been updated since last semester.

Olivia Robbins ’21 still couldn’t access her timesheet two days

after the end of the pay cycle.

“The Payroll Office emailed me saying I didn’t hand in all of my paperwork but I’m sure I did,” said Robbins. “Everyone is having trouble with the timesheets, so much so that our manager is manually inputting them for each student.”

For students involved in the work-study program, the delay is an added constraint on their budget. Wages earned by workstudy participants form part of their financial aid, creating an additional frustration.

“You need [paychecks] as part of your tuition … If you’re

not getting payed for your own expenses then your parents are paying that part of your tuition which they shouldn’t be,” McClean said.

The process of getting timesheets out to students involves managers filling out paperwork and submitting it to the payroll office for approval. The payroll office then approves the positions and gives students the ability to access timesheets which they must fill out and submit before the end of the pay cycle, according to director of payroll Karen Phillips. Delays in this process can occur on the manage-

College conservatives and Democrats emphasize activism and collaboration

by Abby Young News Writer

CONTENTS Campus news A1-A2 Arts news A3-A4 Opinions A5-A6 Sports A7-A8

Copyright © 2017 The Phoenix

by Bayliss Wagner News Writer

Delays in payroll cause student dissatisfaction

Weather It’s way too damn hot in the Phoenix office.

Read more at swarthmorephoenix.com

Events at Disorientation spur reflection on drinking culture

Shelby Dolch / The Phoenix

Amidst the first year of a controversial presidency with near-constant political turmoil, campus political groups such as the Swarthmore Conservatives and the Swarthmore Democrats are looking for ways to expand their outreach and build upon the progress they made last year.

The values of each club, while rooted at different points on the political spectrum, are currently leading to increased activism, and both clubs look forward to joining together for projects.

Swat Conservatives aims to promote free speech on college campuses. According to president Gilbert Guerra ’19, the club is a place where Trump supporters can share their ideas without feeling personally attacked but where they will still be chal-

lenged.

“It would be a challenge of their ideas, not their own personal merits,” he added.

Guerra explained that in past years, the goal of the club was to build a core base of about thirty participating members.

The group was previously called the Swarthmore Republicans, with a base mostly consisting of moderate Republicans, but then it shifted to a general conservative society mostly comprised of socially conservative Catholic students and focused on socially supporting students with conservative ideologies. After that, more libertarian students joined, and now there are wide range of conservative-minded students, including an executive board whose members voted for Clinton, Trump, Gary Johnson, or write-in candidates. Some chose to protest by not voting at all.

“There’s certainly a lot of debate within the group,” Guerra said, but the group is still unified in terms of how [they] act and treat each other.

Now, Guerra and other members of the club say they are looking toward more activism on campus, which includes bringing in non-controversial speakers who will bring intellectual, not inflammatory, discussion.

The club also has partnerships with organizations such as the Leadership Institute, a political nonprofit with conservative leanings. As stated by the organization’s website, its goal is to train conservative activists and students to “fight the left and win.” Other partnerships include the American Enterprise Institute, which Guerra hopes will continued on Swarthmorephoenix.com

THE PHOENIX NEWS

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September 28, 2017

Students showcase summer research Tai Thongthai News Writer This past week the Swarthmore national scientific research organization, Sigma Xi, showcased student summer research in the Science Center Commons Lounge. Each student researcher had a chance to exhibit their research to interested passersby.

For many of the student researchers, getting involved in research was just a matter of reaching out and talking to professors. In some cases, a student can inadvertently get introduced to research, through just a casual conversation with their professor.

Such was the case for Miranda Amilcar ’20, who did research with the biology department.

“I developed a pretty close relationship with Mrs. Val, first semester, because she was my lab instructor for Bio 1. And just in a really general conversation, she

was asking me what I was going to do over the summer and I told her that I didn’t really have any idea yet. So she basically hurries me to look into research, and potentially [do] research with her. And once I looked into what she was doing, I saw that I was interested in it. And I … wrote a proposal, got the acceptance, and that’s how I got into it,” said Amilcar.

It is not uncommon for students to be more direct with their professors when talking about research opportunities.

“The professors are pretty friendly, so it makes it fairly easy to go up and talk to them.

Not all of them can do research with each person, but it’s not too hard to find someone,” said Sam Sokota ’18.

According to the students interviewed, professors are welcoming and deeply interested in their field of academia.

“You can just go talk to the professors. Obviously they love talking about their own research.

They will be very happy to talk to you about anything, so just be proactive on that,” said Bill Huang ’19.

One salient concern for students navigating research opportunities is finding a professor with matching interests. According to Huang, a good place to start is the departmental panels, where professors showcase their ongoing research or research interests.

“Each department has these set dates [for] panels, where they have professors and people who have done research to talk about their experience … you can attend one of those panels, and then email or go talk to the professor afterward, and then see if you are actually interested in the research and what kind of requirements you might want to

have,” said Huang, “Essentially, the application process is pretty straightforward — it’s just go talk to the professors. Usually it’s very personalized. Usually a professor will say, ‘Okay, write me a paragraph or two about why you want to attend.’”

Student research is also available from other organizations; it does not necessarily have to be conducted at or sponsored

by Swarthmore. Jennifer Lin ’18 pursued this method.

“The way I got into it was not very traditional. I pretty much got into the medical school at the University of Rochester on their early program, and they were like, ‘If you are interested in doing this research internship this summer, just let us know,’” Lin said.

The student researchers at the showcase were enthusiastic about the expertise and guidance of the professors. Sokota spoke about his research experience under

the guidance of computer science professor Bryce Wiedenbeck.

“His primary field is computational game theory, which is very much related to deviation payoff, which is a term he actually coined … it is definitely something he has got a lot of experience,” Sokota said.

The sentiment is shared by Huang, who was doing research in neural networks.

“Our professor was super helpful. This is his field: theoretical neuroscience. We had countless difficulties along the way when we were modeling this, when we were doing simulations and all that. And he basically knows everything… It’s not like he solved [our problem], obviously he doesn’t know the answer before we do things, but he can kind of foresee where things might go wrong,” said Huang.

Having a professor’s help, however, does not mean research is

an easy task. According to Huang, some students will often have to do background research before starting their project. For others, a degree of motivation is needed to push through the work.

“I think you definitely … have to be self motivated … to just kind of push yourself. [Because] a lot of days are just you alone in a room, trying to build some stuff.

So sometimes it can be rough when things aren’t going well. It is really rewarding when they do,” said engineering student Kira Emmons ’20.

Research is hard work and a relatively big time commitment.

The experience is, however, accessible for students who want to take up the task.

Student Government increases engagement with campus Kat Caposella News Writer Many students have questions about what the Student Government Organization does, and this year the organization hopes to better define their role on campus. To do so, the student group plans to invite the community into their meetings, revamp their constitution, and use their budget more efficiently.

Led by co-presidents Josie Hung ’18 and David Pipkin ’18, SGO consists of two branches according to their website: the Executive Board, which makes choices regarding student initiatives and campus policy; and Student Senate, which reviews such decisions and offers support and ideas for other SGO initiatives.

This fall, the group has dedicated their meetings to identifying how they can be the best voice between students and administration — a mission that hasn’t always been solidified in the past. Roman Shemakov ’20, Chair of Student Budgeting Committee, believes the group has the potential to improve its efficiency.

“We are trying to figure out what SGO has been doing, is doing, and should be doing,” Shemakov said. “We imagine [taking]

a more concrete and collaborative route where student government does not just exist but is genuinely a body that can hear concerns, respond to those concerns, and make an institutional impact.”

One method, according to Hung, is to make SGO more accessible to the student body. She believes that if SGO becomes a more transparent body, students will feel more comfortable voicing their thoughts and, in turn, will allow the organization to better represent them.

One idea involves opening select SGO meetings up to the public and locating them in a convenient place like Sharples.

Another includes planning regular town hall style meetings to give community members a platform to voice their thoughts.

In the past, SGO held numerous study breaks that several members of SGO agree weren’t as effective as they could have been.

As of now, many underclassmen are unsure of SGO’s presence on campus.

“A lot of freshman don’t even know we have a student government,” Vinay Keefe ’21 said.

Alec White ’21 knew of SGO’s existence, but not of its impact.

“I knew we had a student government but I hadn’t heard how to get involved with it or what

they have been doing this year so far,” White said.

Pipkin also looks to reevalute SGO’s usage of its funds. According to him, the group used up almost half of their $18,000 to $24,000 annual budget on food during the numerous study breaks in the past years that he’s been involved with SGO. “Money isn’t just for cupcakes,” he said. “We don’t want to buy more than what we need or just burn out our budget at the end of the year; we want to use our money to provide services and amenities that are not yet available on campus.”

To make better use of their budget, the group is discussing a variety of options ranging from funding student initiatives to donating the remaining funds to the Dean’s Discretionary Fund, Pipkin said. The goal, according to Pipkin, is to fill in the gap when things start lagging behind on campus.

Some of their most recent initiatives included prompting the administration to provide free SEPTA passes into Philidelphia for students; establishing the Health and Wellness Committee; and funding Free Pads for Undergrads, which provides free sanitary products in all bathrooms.

But even some of those initiatives aren’t complete yet, Pipkin said. Not all the bathrooms have sanitary napkin baskets, and there is a limit to how many SEPTA passes are distributed every semester. Part of this year’s mission will be to expand both of those initiatives by turning to the budget for help.

“We should walk before we should run,” Pipkin said. “Part of progress is ensuring what you already have is sufficient and functioning, so we will build on what is already here first.”

In addition to new projects, SGO is hoping to clear up organizational details. Both presidents and Shemakov added that many parts of the current constitution aren’t fleshed out. There are gaps in information and not enough detail, so the group is tweaking the document to be clearer and more concise.

To do so, Shemakov explained, the group plans to split the constitution into three different documents: bylaws — easily amendable policies such as how to file a motion and where and when the

group convenes; rules of conduct — rules regarding budgeting, committees, and vacancies, which are amendable with two-thirds of entire SGO approval; and the constitution — more permanent rules that include how to hold an election and what it takes to pass a referendum. The constitution used to be amendable with two-thirds of Executive Board approval and soon will require the majority of the entire student body to change. The details of the new vote have yet to be decided.

However, SGO’s capacity for change is limited by the fact that it is run by students who are only around for four years.

“It’s important to remember that we are here for a very short time, and there are a very limited amount of things we can do,” Shemakov said. “Our goal has been establishing precedents, rules, and institutional barriers that make the process of student government more efficient.”

Jason Jin ’19, chair of student outreach, is most excited to bring new features to the SGO website, such as a Facebook feed that

updates the happenings of the administration and SGO, and an interactive calendar that includes upcoming SGO events.

Hung looks forward to collaboration across different committees and hopes to address the lack of diversity in the arts department by beginning a dialogue between the chairs of the Visual and Performing Arts Committee and Diversity Committees.

Pipkin added that fostering collaboration now is going to make SGO as an organization more functional in the future.

“From time to time, the right hand [of the organization] doesn’t know what the left is doing,” he said. “By building cross-collaboration, you’re building institutional memory; being able to know not just your interest level but someone else’s can make you a better leader.”

According to Pipkin, some of these discussions will come to fruition in late October, when the new round of senators have settled into their roles.

Payroll, continued from A1 ment end, when managers wait until the very end of the first pay cycle to fill out paperwork and officially “hire” their students.

The payroll office has had a large number of student employment forms and not enough time to process all of them. As a result, students haven’t been able to get their timesheets in time.

Phillips acknowledged that

although they hired three new student employees this year, the office is still backed up. Students complained that the office wasn’t responding to emails and phone calls.

Phillips mentioned that the college will roll out a new system next fall to streamline the process. This new framework called JobX will be connected to

students’ MySwat portal and will allow managers to instantly hire students and give them access to timesheets, removing the middleman. The system also will offer a common application for all jobs on campus and make sure financial aid students receive priority in the hiring process.

Leren Gao News Writer

mitment to giving priority to students who have work as part of their financial aid package, but we haven’t been consistent in making sure that that happens,” said Brown.

For work-study students especially, this priority is not carried out well in specific practices in the employment process.

“Despite the fact that I am a work-study student, there was no information given to me about how to find jobs on campus.

Additionally, during the application process last year, I was told to just add in my application that I am on work-study and that would give me preference for a limited period of time, but there did not appear to be any sort of system to regulate this process, ” said Hanna Gutow ’20, who has worked as a desk attendant in the Field House and Matchbox since her freshman fall.

Meanwhile, Charles Cole ’21, who has been working at Sharples Dining Hall since the second week of this semester, did not experience much difficulty in finding a job on campus.

“I knew I was going to get a job before I came to campus, so I knew to always be aware of where I needed to go to get that job.

When the job fair I signed up for a few things, and dining was the

first to respond so I just said yes,” said Cole.

The job-seeking process itself also seems disorganized to many students. Right now, students learn about general information of job positions either through the job fair at the beginning of the semester or simply through word of mouth.

“I went to the job fair last year during orientation to look for some jobs, but I actually heard about this job during the meeting all athletes do at the beginning of the year to sign our paperwork for eligibility,” said Gutow.

Sophie Song ’20, an international student, is currently working at McCabe Library. She also heard about this job by word of mouth. She recognized the difficulty of getting general information, but overall the current system is working well enough for her.

“I think it’s convenient. But I only work at McCabe, so I can only speak on behalf of one institution,” said Song.

The current system is working well for some, but it is not wellorganized for others.

“I was a little disappointed by the job fair last year. I didn’t think it was organized very well, and I found it a bit overwhelming to keep track of the different jobs,

Kat Caposella/The Phoenix

College develops a new platform to facilitate student employment process

The college administration has been developing a new platform to make student employment on campus more accessible, especially for first-year and work-study students. Called JobX, this new platform will be fully available in fall 2018. Once it is available, all student employees and job-seekers will be able to find and apply for jobs through this universal system.

“The system will streamline your understanding of where to go to find a job, how to apply for a job, and where you stand in the process, which has been a huge question for students. Not getting a response from an employer when they’ve not been hired and waiting a week or two is a huge detriment,” said the director of services and the financial aid director, Kristin Moore.

Vice President for Finance and Administration Gregory Brown explained during the press conference last week that the driving forces behind this new initiative were to truly prioritize work-study students and to make the process of job application easier for incoming students and international students.

“The college has a com-

hours, requirements, and application processes,” said Gutow.

Cole, however, has a different perspective on this issue. For him, the job fair was accessible and organized enough for him to get the information he needed.

With JobX, job fairs will become a place where students can actually meet the employer, instead of getting general information.

“This is really an important priority for us, because students are expected to work [and] we want to make sure we’re facilitating that,” said Brown.

For some students, the administration is already providing enough resources to help first year students get employed.

“All of the people I work with are super nice and helpful. I haven’t had to miss a shift yet or anything, but they seem very flexible and understanding too.

Not too complicated at all,” said Cole.

The college is working to make the job-seeking process easier for freshmen by posting jobs on JobX before their arrival on campus.

However, it seems that returning students are also having problems getting employed.

Both Gutow and Song got rehired easily, but they admitted that things could have been dif-

ficult if they were looking for new positions.

“Employment this year was actually easier than last year because the Athletic Department rehired everyone who was still interested in the position …

However, I think if this rehiring process had not taken place, finding a different job could have been challenging because many positions are already occupied, and the job fair seemed to be aimed more toward freshmen,” said Gutow.

“I know of friends who are sophomores looking for jobs … It is not as easy to be newlyemployed as a returning student because a lot of the opportunities are offered to freshmen,” said Song.

JobX will simplify the process of finding a new job because the application process will be made universal.

“Every time you apply for a new job, you’re not starting all over again, and I think that will be a huge change,” said Brown.

The new system will not only make the rehiring process easier, but it can potentially connect students better to their future jobs after graduation.

“The universal job description will force supervisors to choose things about their job that will

be applicable to terminology and career development terms that you will be able to then to apply to a resume. You will be able to connect your student work job to future jobs,” said Moore.

Students responded hopefully to this new platform.

“Currently, I think most workstudy students end up finding a job, but the process is more complicated than it needs to be, and I think the new streamlined process will be a huge help, ” said Gutow.

Other than simplification, organization is another appealing advantage for students.

“I think it will make it more convenient and centralized.

Instead of having students find individual institutions, everything will be more organized,” said Song.

The college plans to test JobX for the first time in spring 2018 for hiring Residential Assistants, Green Advisors, Diversity Peer Advisors.

“The big test once we go live this spring is going to be is it as easy as we thought it was, and what changes might we have to make it better?” said Brown.

If JobX works out well for the RAs, GAs, and DPAs in the spring, it will be fully enacted next fall.

ARTS

September 28, 2017 PAGE A3

Invent, Reinvent: An Evening with Chris Thile Jessica Yang Arts Writer Multiple Grammy-winner and current host of “A Prairie Home Companion”, Chris Thile, performed in Lang Concert Hall this Saturday in front of a full house. In addition to performing with the bands Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers, Thile has also collaborated with renowned artists in various musical fields.

And as a virtuoso mandolinist, singer, and songwriter, Thile has a career path as broad-ranging as his musical outlook.

Thile opened the concert with a blend of the first movement of Bach’s Partita in D minor and “Here and Heaven” from the Grammy-winning folk album “The Goat Rodeo Sessions”.

Notwithstanding the wide span of his music, Thile shared at the earlier demonstration that “Genre is meaningless for a great song”. As he transplanted a song originally played on a different instrument to the mandolin, he challenged the division of genre, and in the act transcended the instrument’s and the genre’s limitation. Andrew Hauze, a lecturer in the Swarthmore Department of Music, observed that Thile played to the mandolin’s strength in rhythm, and moreover, accomplished a feat by creating a sustained tone with the mandolin.

“He worked with the mandolin’s vibrancy–the impact from the initial moment of a note. But to create melody, artists must be even more creative,” commented Hauze.

Although the mandolin’s resonance does not sustain for very long, Thile found a way to create an illusion of “smooth melody” and rendered his unique take on classical, jazz, rock and bluegrass.

Thile’s virtuosity is surely

Grace Zhang / The Phoenix

among the first things that rivet the audience’s attention. Yet his artistic merits far exceed his skills, as curiosity and humor also play essential roles in his performance.

Bingxin Tu ’21 was surprised

by Thile’s comportment on stage. “I have never seen a mandolinist before, but this is different from what I expected!

He was so energetic on stage, and was being very much in the moment,” said Tu. In fact, a part of Thile’s appeal arises from the playfulness he brings to music. Not only did his body sway and twirl in accompaniment to the crescendo of a

song, but also he burst out lyrics at the exact instant when the tremolo was the most intense. In his rendering of Punch Brothers’s original “My Oh My” and Radiohead’s “True Love Waits”, his buoyant energy collided with his humorous inventiveness and provided great satisfaction to first-time listeners and megafans alike.

While his virtuosity, creativity, and humor already elevate him to be an icon, Thile’s brilliance is still enhanced by his dauntless subversion of expectations.

Rather than meeting the supposed expectations to a dime, he strives to exceed them and, in

the process, creates music that braces his audience for a “leap of faith” into his new inventions.

“A piece of work should speak for itself. But as creator, one should provide the necessary context and references”, answered Thile to a question regarding his creative process.

Indeed, Thile turns every note he plays into creativity, in his work as a soloist and in his collaboration with other esteemed musicians. Throughout his career, Thile has partnered and composed songs with artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Stuart Duncan, and Brad Mehldau– all of whom share

with him the unconventional senses of how they as musicians can fit into the musical landscape. And this is what makes Thile “refreshing”, commented Hauze, as “he endeavors to create musical expression without worrying about fitting into a specific silo of a genre.”

The last song of the evening, “Familiarity”, was released in the Punch Brothers 2015 album “The Phosphorescent Blues”. One can only imagine the challenge Thile took on when he decided to deliver the quintet song on his own.

“It is like playing all the parts of an orchestra with only one

students are like, ‘Here’s the policy, but this is how we really do it.’ It can really divide people and take us away from the community feel that we want to have.”

Willets residence hall is one of the most popular spots on campus for pregames. Seven of the nine total alcohol-related incidents and four out of five hospitalizations to which PubSafe responded on Sept. 9 occurred there. Large pregames also often occur in Worth hall, but many more underage students tend to live in Willets than in Worth because Worth is an upperclassman-only residence hall. Because of the amount of underage drinking incidents that have occurred there, PubSafe has been monitoring parties and hangouts at Willets closely this year.

“It might have been last weekend or two weekends ago when I was just walking through Willets and people were literally playing water pong, like they didn’t have any alcohol or anything at all.

They were just hanging out in one room, didn’t even have 10 people and PubSafe came and shut that down, which was really weird,” Pietrantonio said.

Ellow believes that the the social dynamic behind alcohol consumption, rather than pregaming in and of itself, can explain the amount of incidents at Willets that night.

“It’s not so much peer pressure, but it’s just people thinking, ‘This is what everybody does,’” Ellow said. “There’s also this weird self-fulfilling prophecy; it’s weird how expectations work with alcohol. You know, if people expect Willets to be this place where they can just do whatever and get crazy, the alcohol’s going to be symbolic for that.”

Pietrantonio shared a similar sentiment about the overconsumption of alcohol at Willets on Sept. 9.

“I don’t know if it’s necessarily people trying to live up to the reputation of Willets almost or if it’s kind of like a herd mentality type thing in Willets.”

However, Pietrantonio couldn’t pin the cause of the hospitalizations to pregaming at Willets.

“The people that I was with, which was a good chunk of people at Willets, weren’t pregaming by any means,” Pietrantonio said. “[The hospitalizations] kind of seemed a little atypical and just a little weird given that it was just people hanging out, casually drinking. People weren’t really taking tons of shots.”

Instead, Pietrantonio feels that the incidents stemmed from hype around Disorientation and the scale of events that night.

“I think part of it had to do, definitely, with it being the first weekend,” he said. “And from what I understand from some of the upperclassmen, there are certain weekends throughout the year that are like this, like they were saying Halloween, Worthstock, all that kind of stuff.”

A Swassip Girl article in a 2015 issue of the Phoenix also addressed the tradition of students expecting to party heavily at Disorientation.

“Disorientation represents one of the few endeavors by Swatties to map our perceptions of Real College Parties onto our quaint, nerdy, liberal arts surroundings,” Samantha Herron ’18 wrote. “It’s an attempt made in order to prove that Swarthmore goes as hard as you convinced yourself it would when you decided to go here.”

According to Pietrantonio, the party culture at Swarthmore was more active than he had expected.

“Going into Swarthmore … obviously I’d heard the reputation that it’s not a big party campus [but] with stuff like Disorientation, that has shifted my view a little bit,” Pietrantonio said.

Some feel that students should take it upon themselves to fix safety issues and other issues inherent in Swarthmore party culture through community discourse.

“Safety is a shared responsibility and we have to work together

to make sure we all stay safe,” Hill wrote in an email. “There needs to be a conversation around personal responsibility, both for the individuals consuming and for those providing alcoholic beverages.”

As part of this conversation, the Delta Upsilon fraternity jointly held an event called ‘So you think you can party like a Swattie’ with Ellow, OSE director Andrew Barclay, Title IX director Nina Harris, interim Title IX fellow Raven Bennett and Pubnite officers to educate students about resources and solutions for AOD and consent issues, from Swat Team (formerly known as Quaker Bouncers) to the 4 D’s of intervention, as well as some of the unspoken conventions of Swat party culture.

“We as upperclassmen definitely have a culture of feeling okay with using our resources and we want to extend that, make it [known] at Swat,” PubNite officer and OSE intern Shivani Chinnapan ’18 said. “We want to talk about the problem before it becomes one.”

Both the PubNite officers and the DU representatives wanted to convey the message that the most important consideration when having a party is safety and that they have multiple options for reporting safety issues and using AOD resources at the College.

“Amongst younger students, there’s this fear of authority … when it comes to alcohol. No one is trying to get you in trouble, because the only real trouble is you being unsafe,” Chinnapan said.

DU risk manager Charles Kuchenbrod mentioned that fraternity brothers move their kegs downstairs at 11:30 p.m. so that people dancing have to consider walking downstairs to get more drinks, which typically discourages them from overconsuming.

“I am invested to make sure [the DU house] stays a good space,” Kuchenbrod said. “Saturday nights, we have a group of brothers walking around with glowsticks. By talking to us

instrument. Besides, ‘Familiarity’ is the first song that Punch Brothers really collaborated on, and so everyone’s role is integral to its rendition. However, he succeeded, because he trusted his audience to fill in the blanks,” explained Asher Wolf ’18, whose musical career has been ignited

by Thile.

It worked just like that at the performance. During the first section of the ten-minute long song, the house listened quietly as Thile sang in his clear tenor voice: “It’s on/ Pretend you love it because you love them/ As you explode out of your phones, amen/ to make some music of your own, amen/ You can hate it softly to yourself alone/ A man among amens.”

Soon after, there were voices joining in the singing– audience who knew the song began to harmonize with the melody.

When the first section ended, Thile thumped both feet on the floor to mimic the transitional bass in the original song, and the audience joined him. In that moment, the house, packed and present, became part of Thile’s artistic creation.

“Chris Thile has done something for everyone in what he does, He is a musician of such high caliber and has an allembracing approach to style, ” remarked Hauze.

Certainly, a lot can be taken away from Thile’s concert by musicians and non-musicians alike. Virtuosity aside, Thile pushes the limit of genres and reinvent the capacity of instruments through his work, and all the while, make his music accessible. As for the audience, once can listen to his music, without worrying about knowing anything, and simply sit back and enjoy.

Pubsafe continued from A1 9, feels that the rule has caused drinking at the college has become more dangerous.

“The heavy pregame culture is directly related to hard liquor rule,” Clay said. “You can overdo it and end up too drunk.”

Clay feels that AOD policies and recent incidents reflect a “crisis of culture” in the college community.

“It’s very difficult to be both intellectually driven yet expected not to have fun in a traditional way,” he said.

According to Josh Ellow, the college’s AOD counselor, the ban of hard liquor at parties exists to slow down consumption of alcohol, because the act of drinking beer takes longer than downing a shot or sucking down a sugary mixed drink.

“I think the thought [concerning the policy] was, ‘hard alcohol is more risky because of its strength.’ The majority of the time that somebody goes to the hospital, when I talk with them and ask them, ‘What did you drink,’ usually shots are involved in the night,” Ellow said.

According to Willets resident Luke Pietrantonio ’21, because consumption of hard liquor does not occur at parties, students tend to consume it beforehand instead.

“Not having liquor at frats and at public, open parties is smart, but I think it also encourages pregaming and stuff like that,” Pietrantonio said.

According to the College’s AOD policy, any event with over 10 people, even in a dorm room, needs a permit as a registered event. Many pregames on campus, such as the one that Clay attended, involve as many people as frat parties. Despite this, because hard liquor cannot be present at registered events, hosts of pregames often do not obtain permits. Clay, who felt that he was able to regulate the amount of alcohol consumed by underclassmen attending his pregame, wants PubSafe to give out

permits for pregames that involve hard alcohol.

“They should encourage pregames hosted by upperclassmen [and] have event registration for pregames. PubSafe would be there to regulate,” Clay said.

Ellow also feels that more registered pregames could facilitate safer drinking practices.

“I think if you required people to register pregames, I would think it would make people hopefully be more aware of what they’re doing, because they know that the school would be monitoring in some way,” Ellow said. “That’s the whole point of a registered party: they want to allocate resources like Swat Team.”

However, according to Ellow, it may be difficult to get students to register pregames with the current AOD policy.

“I wonder if that registered pregame would require no [hard] alcohol like we require at parties, if people wouldn’t register anyway,” Ellow said.

While Ellow also acknowledged that the hard liquor policy encourages pregaming in dorms, he feels that students are as safe drinking hard liquor at a pregame as they are at a party as long as they’re together.

“In my eyes, anytime people are around people that could potentially respond to an emergency, it’s a good thing, and I think most of the time, that happens,” Ellow said.

Though administrative policies are sometimes viewed as causing issues in the college’s drinking culture, Ellow feels that the issue is more about a lack of communication about student expectations of drinking culture.

“People know [policy] is there, but it’s not always enough to be the driving force,” Ellow said.

“But I do think policy is important. I think that, you know, why have it if we’re not gonna follow it? It’s a challenge though, because I think we hear ‘no hard alcohol at parties,’ but it’s still so prevalent elsewhere. But I know sometimes it is like that, when

[before Swat Team or PubSafe], you’re giving us the ability to take a more measured approach [to safety].”

Next year, the OSE, PubNite, DU, and Ellow plan to hold a student panel similar to the one of the “So you think you can party like a Swattie” event during orientation instead of in September. While Pietrantonio feels that orientation information sessions can sometimes risk being overlooked because of how overwhelmed first-years are during those times, he supports the idea of upperclassmen addressing party culture issues that go outside of AOD policy.

“Maybe having upperclassmen on campus during orientation just to kind of help kids not like learn how to party but [learn] how to just be safe and know what their limits are, obviously if you’re at a pregame and you don’t know what is the right level for you, it’s easy to go over and then you have a problem on your hands,” Pietrantonio said.

“In some different setting, kind of looking at what a productive party culture is, or a safe party culture, rather than just being like ‘don’t drink.’”

Though students have voiced complaints about the college’s AOD policy, Ellow asserts that their policy leaves room for students to safely enjoy parties by, for example, only banning hard alcohol at registered parties and not prohibiting it completely.

“The college recognizes that alcohol in and of itself shouldn’t be demonized,” Ellow said.

As long as Swarthmore remains a college, students will continue to throw parties, and student and faculty discourse will continue to flow around how best to facilitate a healthy and safe party culture.

“Throw a party with the intention of it to be a good time,” Ellow said. “And a good time should always be about more than just a drink.”

THE PHOENIX ARTS

PAGE A4

September 28, 2017

Strolling through the Ville: The Fifteenth Annual Fine Arts and Crafts Festival Cristopher Alvarado Arts Writer The Swarthmore Community Arts Center hosted The Fifteenth Annual Fine Arts and Crafts Festival in the Ville this past Saturday.

Focusing on the handiwork of dozens of artists from Delaware County, the festival exhibited the mesmerizing savvy of their work for the greater Swarthmore community to see. Including a variety of artistic styles ranging from woodwork to photography, there was no shortage of craftsmanship in this small, family-friendly gathering. With plenty of handson demonstrations, activities for children, and, of course, musical performances, the town center was the scene of an exuberant, warm crowd gathered to celebrate the artistic work of others.

Sprawled throughout the heart of the town, exhibitions of careful design and intimate creation attracted people of all ages.

Sweltering underneath the beaming sun, local residents sought refuge underneath the expanse of white tents covering Park Avenue.

Not a single cloud in the cerulean sky above, children and adults strolled through and enjoyed the blessings of a beautiful day, taking their time soaking in the street life.

In each tent, throngs of residents gathered around each individual artist, sometimes inquiring about their work, other times simply admiring from a distance. In one of these tents, passerby witnessed the incredible pumpkin carving of monster faces. A howling guitar with its tongue sticking out grabbed my attention, growling for life as the autumnal terror of Halloween approaches. Elsewhere, children knelt above a table full of clay and enjoyed themselves squeezing the soft, rich clay and shaping in their hands. Just in front of the Swarthmore Public Library, an entire installation had been set up for the creative pleasures of the children, offering such activities as making tie dye t-shirts, button bracelets, zany hats, and pumpkin

wind catchers. In the very center of the Ville, musical demonstrations took place, and while I observed, a girl in her early teenage years was quietly playing her guitar, humming a serene tune to the crowd. Beyond the center, there were even more showcases of art, including jewelry, quilt, and ceramic stands attended by several women. Absorbed by such exquisite work, I was tempted to capture them with my camera until an old man displaying his own photography reprimanded me for it.

I spoke to one of the artists demonstrating their work at one of the tents. Marie Simons, a Swarthmore resident of 16 years, was one of the artists featured at the festival. Working as a mindfulness meditation teacher, she was searching for a new form of meditation when she came across a technique known as Zentangle.

After taking a class in Providence, R.I., she was instantly hooked.

“I do this for fun. I adore this, and it’s just taken off. People keep asking me to do it,” said Simons.

After other members of the community saw her dedication to this form of meditation, they invited her to hold her own classes at the Community Arts Center.

Now, she has ultimately fallen in love with the work that she and her students create.

“Everybody that’s done my classes are local people that are in the neighborhood that never drew before,” said Simons.

The key is the simplicity and ease with which these artistic expressions are made. According to her, all that is ultimately required is the ability to draw a straight line and a curly line – nothing more. Many of the pieces on display were abstract black and white tiles with curvy lines, but other designs were as unique and creative as a 3D checkered landscape magnified underneath a stenciled frame. However, when Marie works with others on their art, her focus is the relaxation process.

“Nobody’s Picasso when they walk into my class, nobody. And

Shelby Dolch / The Phoenix

you’re leaving with proof that you meditated, not artwork,” said Simons.

Other artists at the festival offered more traditional forms of drawing that demonstrated the rich development of their talents.

Rinal Parikh’s husband was attending to her exquisite watercolor paintings, adorned with immaculate detail that must have taken at least several months to finish. A few sporting four-figure price tags, they depicted abstract scenes in nature, such as lily pads and blooming flowers. Her open art studio will be held in a couple

of weeks.

In addition, several craftsmen at the festival had purposes that went beyond the scope of their art itself. Karen Heenan, owner of a business called Useful & Beautiful, was selling oddly patched stuffed animals, such as bears and dolphins, made entirely out of recycled fabric. When asked about how these were made, she said that most of the animals were sewn out of wool taken from old sweaters. These would be placed in the dryer, shrinking and compressing so that when they were cut, they would not unravel.

Although her prices, ranging from $20 to $45 per doll, were exorbitant, Ms. Heenan’s dolls were almost worth purchasing, given the clear passion behind them and the fascination little kids had with them.

It is an impossible task to spotlight each and every artist’s work in a single article. Nonetheless, those pieces of art that I had the opportunity to see for myself demonstrated the astonishing capacity that the local Swarthmore community holds. After an hour or two of inquiries and curious observation, I realized that the

liberal arts creativity Swarthmore is famous for leaks far beyond the college. The Fine Arts and Crafts Festival delivered a relaxing atmosphere and coupled it with stimulating exhibitions. It is this collaborative effort between all members of the community that made the event such a joy to experience.

Poetry Chris Thile on the artistic process Contest Winner Abraham Lyon Arts Writer

The First Bi-Weekly Phoenix Poetry Contest has a winner! Enjoy the odic musings of Reuben Gelley Newman ‘21 .

On the Morning of the Lunar Eclipse your mother hears thrashing and when she wakes up looks downstairs, outside: a rabbit whose feet were snapped in rat traps clattering across grey concrete.

Before you call Animal Rescue, the rabbit slips into green: the beast is unseen, soft, brown, fleeing into the garden.

Soon you capture it––snap–– in the black hole of your phone, curled like a fetus in a black net, newly freed and cradled in the mesh.

The rescuers let it hop into a cage in their truck, and they drive off as the sky begins to darken, and then you can only see black, and then, the sun, it comes back.

Before the main event on Saturday evening, Chris Thile spent an hour with a smaller audience answering questions on the artistic process and the state of music in the modern day. Thile is a virtuoso mandolinist, singer, and songwriter, best known as a co-founder of Grammy awardwinning Nickel Creek. A leading figure in modern bluegrass, Thile fit the image of the artist. He was dressed in worn jeans and a blue striped oxford, three buttons undone. His receding brown hair was tousled, and he spoke with a certain thoughtfulness, pausing to consider before answering questions.

He began by playing a cut from “Daughter of Eve.” Originally a nine-minute song, the sample

was both funky and bluesy, shifting between highly technical plucking and impassioned strumming as the song progressed.

After the initial riff, Thile began to sing “The Cherubim will name me / The most beautiful daughter of eve / But they will more kiss my cheek / Before Eden is open again.” The song is both simple and complex, hymn in form but poem in function. It asks us to consider the beauty we see around us, to question it. While the mandolin often produces a folksy tune, Thile somehow sounded modern, new and exciting.

As the song faded, Thile paused, then began to speak.

“What I want to talk about,” he said, “is the importance of constructing the lightning rod instead of waiting for lightning to strike. There’s a famous Faulkner

quote that goes like this: ‘I can only write when I am inspired.

Thankfully, I am inspired every day at 9 a.m.’” It’s not about waiting for artistic revelation; the revelation is found through long hours of hard work. He described the process of writing as “hammering indiscriminately away at a block of marble… until some shape emerges.”

Hearing Thile describe his rigorous and thoroughly artistic writing method was refreshing compared to a music industry that sometimes seems to have lost the art of songwriting. Thile defined the “genre of pop” solely as music written with the purpose of entertaining the masses. This purpose is what often dissuades artists from experimenting. Cultural and financial pressure often forces them to continue to work within the boundaries instead of

taking risks.

In an age of limitless music streaming, Thile believes that there is a “potential loss of whatever the musical equivalent of dialect is and the beauty of an accent.” As an example, Thile covered the beginning of the fifth song on Nirvana’s second studio release “Nevermind,” “Lithium.”

Played on the mandolin, the chords sounded sharp, short, and a bit folksy. Thile would say that was his dialect or his accent. He layers into the established song his own nuances, as the best covers do, and in doing so, he was able to both honor the song while making it his own.

Thile ended his discussion with three music suggestions. The first is a called “My Bubba,” a duet of two women, one Swedish and the other Icelandic. Their intimate harmonies blend beautifully over

soft acoustic guitar. The second is the latest Tame Impala record, “Currents,” a mix of synthetic and pysch pop that is new and riveting. Finally, Thile suggests we all give Carolina Shaw’s Pulitzer Prize-winning a cappella project “Partita for 8 Voices” a listen.

“New is easy, and good is easy, and new and good is really hard,” Thile said as he tuned his mandolin.

A lot of music ends up sounding either too repetitive or too “out there.” The intersection of new and good is where the best music comes from. There, one can find the artists who take risks and experiment. Sometimes they are successful and break into the mainstream, but still often they are not, only there for those willing to search hard for the remarkable.

Title IX, continued from A1 the college felt that the use of an external adjudicator … provided more privacy for the parties since the case would not be heard by a panel c​ omprised o ​ f campus community members,” Williamsen said.

Janice Luo ’19 suggested that the Title IX office respond to the changes to national guidance by being more transparent and visible.

“I think that a lot of students aren’t actually informed on how Title IX works or how it is utilized at colleges … maybe the first step of the office is to clarify to the students what their role has been and what their values are,” she said.

Luo, who is a member of the recently appointed Ad Hoc Committee on Wellbeing, Belonging, and Social Life, described the committee as one of several spaces on campus that seeks to

ensure the safety and wellbeing of students despite potential threats incurred by changes to national policies.

“I think it’s fitting … that we’re creating this extra measure for students and faculty to make our space safe, sort of like a countermeasure to the Trump administration and things like Title IX [changes],” Luo said.

Interim Title IX Fellow Raven Bennett works closely with Harris to organize workshops, events, and training sessions on topics such as bystander intervention and supporting survivors. She said that the Title IX staff will continue to plan and host these events in spite of changes to national policy.

“We are always organizing these events with the aim to prevent sexual violence or support survivors. Regardless of any changes in Title IX, we will

continue to provide programming with that aim,” Bennett said.

She urged members of the community to attend a new training series centered on sexual health and violence prevention topics called Training Tuesdays.

“I highly recommend that community members attend these trainings because it is on all of us to strive to make this community a safer, more inclusive place,” Bennett said.

In her email, Smith summarized the college’s commitment to violence prevention, safety, and inclusion.

“The college recognizes that all who live, work, and learn on our campus are responsible for ensuring that the community is free from discrimination based on sex or gender, including sexual harassment, sexual assault, and other forms of sexual misconduct.

These behaviors threaten our

Grace Zhang/ The Phoenix

learning, living, and work environments; we are actively working towards fostering a violencefree community,” she wrote.

The Title IX office will inform community members of any additional changes to national Title IX guidance or policy.

While the future of Title IX on

college campuses is uncertain, Swarthmore says it will continue to enact policies that reflect principles such as equality and fairness.

OPINIONS

September 28, 2017 PAGE A5

Why study English?

When I tell people outside of Swat’s intellectual community that I want to be a Computer Science and English Literature double major, the response is

SYDNEY COVITZ COLUMNIST usually something along the lines of, “Why study English?”

The first time this happened, I was slightly taken aback. Why did I have to justify a passion for literature when one for coding is lauded as smart, practical, and even exemplary?

When people hear “Computer Science major” attached to my name, they are sometimes shocked, as I don’t exactly fit the stereotypical, general perception of a CS major: some guy who spends all his time in a basement gaming and playing Dota.

Still, they are usually impressed, often commenting that I will have an easy time getting a job or that they think I will be really successful.

With English, this is not the case. When people hear the words “English major,” their minds jump to a picture of an idealistic idiot who, twenty years later, will be living under a rock writing poetry, attempting in vain to find a publisher interest-

ed in their 1,000 plus-page novel on 18th-century Russian idealism; or a picture of a professor in a lecture hall at a school in the middle of a cornfield wearing a tweed jacket and preaching about the importance of Medieval Literature to a group of half-asleep freshmen who could not care less.

Although these stereotypes do not cover the breadth of options English majors have after college, it is true that such majors have an average starting salary far lower than that of most other disciplines. This is a fact that turns many away from the department, even if they are one of the dwindling few who may have a passion for literature. As someone who is also studying Computer Science, arguing that starting salaries don’t matter would be hypocritical. So why study English when sticking solely to Computer Science would be the more practical choice?

English as a discipline is far more valuable than most believe. People who have never taken a college English class often assume that the department concerns itself solely with the contents of novels when, in fact, English classes — at least the ones I have taken so far at Swat — employ novels as portals

through which we engage in sociological and political analyses of the time periods in which they were written and read. For example, in Professor Patnaik’s first-year seminar Literature and Law, we discussed the various ways in which Wilkie Collins’ “The Woman in White” helped spur the 19th-century English Property Law reform movement that eventually granted women the right to own land.

The ways in which fictional works influence the way we live our lives are infinite. So many societal trends and behaviors evolve from characters and themes formulated inside authors’ imaginations. The cultural influence locked inside novels affects the way we behave and interact with each other, especially across social and political differences.

In her critically influential text “From Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel,” Nancy Armstrong states, “Fiction alone enables very different individuals to sit down to dinner in entirely unfamiliar places without finding them particularly strange, to shuffle into classrooms with people they have never met and with whom they might have little else in common … In this respect,

w

PHOENIX

THE the most powerful household is the one we carry around in our heads.”

Widely circulated works of fiction, and the themes that emerged from such stories, have molded behaviors throughout history and continue to touch the present, tying together people across large swaths of distance and time. Throughout her piece, Armstrong emphasizes not only the supreme power of reading fiction but the necessity for writers to keep creating it.

“In suppressing the fact and agency of writing, we also suppress the historical process by which these spheres of self, society, and culture were created and held in equilibrium … and thus the political power exerted by fiction — beyond our power to question.”

We have the privilege of attending one of the best liberal arts colleges in the nation, and our English department is fantastic. The professors are renowned in their respective fields, brilliant in lecture, and constantly pushing their students to achieve a greater level of understanding of the text and of the world.

Further, there aren’t a lot of places where you can take both English Literature and Computer

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BUSINESS Ryan Kennedy Manager DIGITAL OPERATIONS Ellen Liu Editor Matt Parker Editor

OPINIONS Ryan Stanton Editor

Science every semester, and the fact that Swarthmore permits its students to open their minds to new disciplines, and diversify the range of subjects explored is an opportunity of which I think more of us should take advantage.

So when you’re signing up for classes come December and you scroll past the English Literature section, give it a second glance

before moving on. Even if you’re a STEM major who took Modern Algebra to fill a writing credit, you may actually enjoy learning through novels. The classes are pretty incredible; I recommend giving one a chance.

tion has the luxury of taking its time in forming various ad hoc committees and selectively incorporating student input only when it sees fit. When taking steps to improve student life on campus, the administration must realize that students only spend a short time here. It’s possible to enact policies that will at least marginally improve the lives of students currently on campus, while still remaining thoughtful of the implications of policies long after the current student body is gone.

Acknowledging the extent of our institutional memory as a community is key to recognizing what policies can reasonably be enacted at a fast pace and what policies will take years or decades to achieve. Regardless, the administration should still recognize the fact that incremental

change benefits them more than it benefits current students.

Of course, there are complex problems that need to be addressed on campus that will require thoughtful dialogue between students and administration. That takes time. What we shouldn’t forget, however, is that students have a much smaller institutional memory than the administration. There is an incentive for the administration to keep the status quo or change policies while ruffling the least amount of feathers possible at the expense of current students’ satisfaction with the campus life. Bringing about widespread, beneficial change is slow. Let’s not make it slower than it needs to be.

Institutional memory, or a lack thereof Remember when the first floor of Cornell didn’t look a think tank, or when points only worked on campus? Remember waiting outside of your friend’s dorm before and after 2 a.m. on party nights? What about the

EDITORIAL “DJ fund?” First-years won’t remember any of the above, and as time passes, fewer and fewer of the future students will hear about any of these once-common occurrences. These are just a few examples of how a lack of institutional memory can allow campus life to slowly change at the Swarthmore students have come to know. If students want to effect widespread and lasting change on campus, one obstacle that we must face is our very limited institutional memory.

Let’s take as a case study the 2013 Spring of Discontent. This semester marks the fourth year since then, and few students remember the entire story.

What’s more, none of the current student body was here when it happened. During the Spring of Discontent, students protested Swarthmore’s inadequate response to sexual assault, a lack of institutional support for marginalized students, a series of urinations on the Intercultural Center door, and the college’s continued investments in fossil fuels among many other issues.

It was a time when students of various identities and campus groups came together to hold the college, as an institution, accountable. Yet, it’s quite difficult to know how to bring about better college policies if we don’t remember what circumstances

were like before.

Students here only really have an institutional memory of four years, and only four years (give or take a few) to make an impact on campus. Of course, a lot can be done in four years, but many things can’t. We must come to terms with that. If students, for example, want to change the fact that there are so few Writing courses in the social sciences or natural sciences compared to the humanities, tackling that issue must go through multiple committees, faculty members, and administrators. The same can be said for recent efforts to enact some sort of diversity or social justice requirement for incoming students. The same can still be said for striking the right balance of how much trust the administration gives students through its party policies. While

a bureaucracy can be beneficial in preventing too much change from happening too fast, students still must bear the consequences of the issue to begin with. Our short institutional memory is a major roadblock that we frankly cannot overcome but must deal with and recognize when students want to make a change on campus.

However, the same cannot be said for an administration that has an institutional memory much greater than our own. In just four years, the administration has the power to incrementally enact widespread change without incoming students noticing the difference. At the risk of sounding too conspiratorial, we must be cognizant of the power administration has to change student culture. When put into policy, the administra-

Weekly Crossword Created by Alex Robey Solve online: http://www.cruciverbalex.com/36/

ACROSS 1.

8.

15.

16.

17.

18.

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speaker 19.

20.

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22.

25.

27.

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28.

29.

31.

33.

37.

38.

39.

“In ____ of flowers…”

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Robbed of Capital of Sweden?

40.

43.

45.

46.

49.

50.

51.

53.

54.

55.

57.

61.

62.

63.

64.

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6.

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9.

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20.

22.

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First name in super

hero lore 23. One using a scope 24. Deal with 25. Breath-taking snake?

26. Discourage 29. Old-time letters?

30. Bargain hunter’s desti nation 32. “Argo” extra 34. Article of belief 35. In hot pursuit of 36. Add fuel to the fire?

38. Canopy, e.g.

40. Vinland explorer circa

1000 A.D. 41. Member of the plum

family

Toy one plays with, e.g.?

44. At a fairly slow tempo 46. Putin ally 47.

Final Olds 48. Certain comedic tribute 50. Car brands 52. Fox’s drama club hit show 54. Soccer stadium shouts 56. It might be bitter 57.

Japanese PM Shinzo 58. “Hamilton” creator

____-Manuel Miranda 59. Business add-on?

60. Poker decision

42.

Answer to last week’s puzzle

THE PHOENIX OPINIONS

September 28, 2017

PAGE A6

From Hanoi to Crum Creek Squatting on a little wooden stool on the sidewalk, I am captivated by the story of a smallframed 60-year-old woman who has lived in the Dong Da District of Hanoi for over 50 years. She sits across from me on the other side of a small wooden coffee

BRITTNI TERESI SWAT GLOBAL table, also known as the entirety of her family’s small business.

While hopefully awaiting her next customer, she tells me the tale of the Tu Loc River and how a natural feature that was once an amenity has become her greatest source of suffering.

The woman speaks slowly but deliberately and with obvious pain in her eyes. She begins her story by describing the beauty of the river 20 years ago, when the water was blue and people took for granted their ability to swim and fish. She then guides me to the critical point, when too many residents and community members began dumping their trash in the river, thinking nothing of the plastic wrappers, oil, and household cleaners carried away by the river and into the great unknown. As years passed, human waste built up in the river, swimming became unsafe, and fish started to disappear.

As she reached the climax, it was clear this story had no happy ending. Despite government initiatives to clean the

river, they couldn’t keep up with the amount of waste people had added to the water. Now, 20 years later, the river is an ominous pool of toxins smelling of sewage, or “rotten eggs” as the woman described it. The woman walked me across the street to the river, showing me the translucent film covering the water supposedly treated by the government. It was clear that swimming, fishing, or even admiring the beauty of the river was no longer a realistic activity for the residents of the com-

country. The United States takes better care of its water system.

Especially locally at Swarthmore, we would never pollute the Crum Creek in the same way as the residents of Hanoi.

Except our optimism bias couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, Swarthmore students and community members are already severely polluting Crum Creek. Last year at the Little Crum Creek Clean Up, 40 Scott Arboretum volunteers removed tires and plastic bags from the creek only to find

Photo credit to Swarthmore High School

munity.

In the United States, and particularly in our Swat bubble, we Swarthmore students like to believe such a scene could never happen to us. Surely, the idea of needing to both boil and filter water before we can safely drink it, is one of a third world

more bags of trash floating in the river the next day. After 19 clean-ups last year to protect the Ridley Crum Watershed, 620,000 pounds of trash was removed from the river. Still, students and community members are tossing beer cans or snack wrappers into the creek to be carried onto the

great unknown.

Yet, particularly with Crum Creek, the final location of our pollutants aren’t so unknown, and the pollutants are already negatively impacting people’s lives. The Crum Creek is part of a watershed that flows into Springton Lake Reservoir and the Delaware River, providing at least 19 million gallons of water per day for over 200,000 Delaware County residents. According to the Chester Ridley Crum Watershed Association, the Crum Creek is a special protection stream, home to the largest cold water fishery and native trout population in the area.

Yet, fish populations and other wildlife have been substantially decreasing. Breeding populations of native brook trout and American Shad have disappeared from the creek altogether, indicating a decline in water quality and serving as a warning that the water source many of us depend on is facing the threat of an ending not much different from the Tu Loc River in Hanoi.

The good news is that for the outside community and us Swatties, actions can be taken to protect our water source for recreational and necessary uses before the fish completely disappear or Swarthmore begins to smell as rancid as the Tu Loc River. While environmental issues like climate change or the fossil fuel industry can seem daunting, there is a simple yet

Photo credit to Swarthmore College

powerful solution to protect our water source. Our smallest responsibility as Swatties can be to not leave trash in the Crum Woods and to bring a trash bag to remove other garbage from the creek and woods. While it may be another person’s trash, it will affect the whole population. As Swatties, perhaps we can even expand our responsibility to join with the outside community and attend Crum Creek Clean Up days because, while their efforts may seem small, any less trash in the river can make a huge difference.

After concluding my interview with the woman, she locked eyes with me and pleaded, “I just need someone to clean up the Tu Loc River because I don’t want to suffer anymore.” Other residents have begun to give up on the river, stating they’d rather build a road over the water since the

water serves “no purpose and causes only harm.”

While I cannot yet create a solution to solve the issues of the Tu Loc River in Hanoi, we Swatties can learn from the experiences of these residents and play an active role in protecting our own water source before future generations are forced to suffer from our mistakes. In Hanoi, the residents 20 years ago did not realize the beauty of their river and all the joy it brought to the community through giving them a place to swim, fish, and drink water. At Swarthmore, it is our duty to recognize these amenities and privileges now, and play a small yet active role in protecting one of nature’s gifts and necessities.

I don’t give a hoot(enanny) Last week, someone put up a sign on DU’s advertisement for their Hootenanny party that said, “Hootenanny stereotypes rural Americans — no classism.”

I have a lot of criticisms of fraternity culture, that could fill up several more weeks of this column, but the Hootenanny is not one of them. My issue with the classism sign is that it in itself

LAURA WAGNER WORDS BY WAGNER propagates the same stereotypes of rural Americans that the sign is trying to fight and ultimately is counterintuitive to solving the urban-rural divide. I’m from an area that I often describe as farmy. My immediate family isn’t involved in agriculture, but my parents’ best friends own a large farm where I spent a lot of time from my childhood into young adulthood. I’ve seen how hard it is to run a farm, and I’ve also had the privilege of eating corn that was picked off the stalk the same day. I don’t know the exact qualifications for being a rural American, but I’ve spent enough time stuck driving behind tractors on a two-lane road to know that I probably meet most of them.

The argument that the Hoo-

tenanny party is classist rests on some assumptions that are nearly as problematic as the creator of the sign thinks that the Hootenanny party is. Classism is commonly considered to be prejudice and discrimination based on economic class, specifically against the poor. For the Hootenanny party to be classist against rural Americans, rural Americans at large must be poor and unhappy, and agriculture must be a dead-end vocation.

This criticism of the party literally requires the false stereotype that farmers are poor and uneducated, which is largely false.

According to the United States Census Bureau, rural areas have lower rates of poverty than urban areas. Farming as a vocation requires a high level of business acumen and specialized training and skills in the agricultural sciences. I’m probably correct that most Swarthmore students aren’t planning on farming after they graduate, and farming isn’t often on “best jobs” listicles, but rural America is not a wasteland.

It’s not perfect and has many pressing issues, but college students dressing up as farmers is not making light of agriculture in the same way that dressing up as a sexy firefighter for Halloween isn’t widely considered to be

Photo credit to TCM

offensive to firefighters.

The problems faced by rural America include declining social and political capital, the opioid epidemic, and the growth of large commercial agriculture companies. Yet, rural America is not desolate or out of options.

I’m from southern Delaware, which is much more rural than the northern half of the state.

Southern Delaware is nicknamed “lower-slower Delaware,” which reflects the more relaxed pace of life that many rural and quasirural Delawareans are proud of. To imply that social groups shouldn’t host Hootenannies implies that any imitation of rural culture must mock rural culture, which requires rural culture to be marginalized and for farmers to give a hoot about who wears flannel and cowboy boots in a frat house on a Saturday night.

Trump’s election illustrated clearly that many rural Americans felt largely left out of political discourse, and that conclusion certainly isn’t wrong. The result of the election showed that rural Americans tend to be conservative (just as Americans living in cities tend to be more liberal) and indicated that rural Americans were frustrated with identity politics. Many rural Americans would probably think that the attempts to enforce social and cultural boundaries onto a country-themed party is just what is wrong with kids these days. We can’t make the urbanrural divide any better if we try to use methods that are largely rejected by the people who actually are rural Americans.

Even worse, if DU avoids having Hootenannies in the future, current and prospective rural students may perceive the cancellation as a rejection of rural culture on a campus already considered to be a part of the “liberal elite.” If a party host can’t play country music

Jack Corkery / The Phoenix

and encourage wearing cowboy hats, then we’ve lost an opportunity for people who like country music and identify as being a rural American to espouse those preferences during at least one party a year. A frat hosting a Hootenanny is clearly differ-

ent from frats hosting parties that stereotype based on race or ethnicity. Unlike race or ethnicity, an urban person can move to a rural area, take up farming, and become a rural American, and vice versa. The mutability of ruralness is what makes this type

of party fundamentally different than parties based on race or ethnicity. Social groups can host Hootenannies and cannot host parties that appropriate other cultures because farmers are not marginalized, and anyone could decide to take up agriculture in rural area if they choose; conversely, there are marginalized cultures, and a person cannot move into or out of a racial or ethnic group.

There are a lot of legitimately offensive party themes in the world, but I’m fairly confident that the Hootenanny is not high on the list of worst things fraternities have done. Swarthmore’s frats exist in the Swarthmore bubble, and we as Swatties often forget that students at many other schools deal with a lot worse from Greek life. We should never stop working to make the frats less problematic, but we also need to see the forest through the trees and focus on the causes of the issues, like the amount of social capital given to the frats as single-gender institutions and their near-monopoly on parties, rather than whether or not a country-themed party stereotypes rural Americans, or even if the stereotype that farmers wear cowboy boots and listen to country music is harmful or marginalizing to people who are from rural areas.

If the frats were to host a party that was racist or culturally insensitive, the campus would react with appropriate outrage and would likely prompt a response from the Bias Response Team.

The Hootenanny just isn’t that.

Everyone is entitled to their own feelings and reactions to the party, but dressing up in country gear isn’t going to inflame the rural-urban divide.

HAVE SOMETHING ON YOUR MIND?

The Phoenix is always accepting Op-Ed submissions.

Send your 800-1200 word piece to: editor@swarthmorephoenix.com

SPORTS

September 28, 2017 PAGE A7

Is fantasy football ruining fandom?

Tommy Bothwell Sports Writer Let me paint a scenario for you. On Monday, Sept. 25, 2017, Laurington is watching Monday Night Football where the Dallas Cowboys are facing the Arizona Cardinals. In Laurington’s living room, New York Giants posters are hanging all over his walls, and a massive Giants flag is stationed right next to his rather small TV. Now the time is approximately 10:17 p.m., and Laurington is noticeably nervous at this point. In all honesty, who can blame him? The Giants have just suffered a demoralizing loss on Sunday where virtually all their playoff hopes were completely shattered. On top of that, Washington looked like vintage Jackie Chiles from Seinfeld (aka dominant). Oh, and did I mention that the Gi-

ants lost to Philadelphia, and Carson Wentz may or may not have looked like a reincarnated Poseidon? So yeah, I can see why Laurington would be nervous at around 10:17 when the Cowboys are losing 7-0. Laurington really needs them to lose in order to salvage any hope of the Giants making the postseason. I feel for you, Laurington, I really do.

Now what if I told you that Laurington is nervous for another reason. Sure, he’s a Giants fan and wants them to make the playoffs. Of course there’s a lot riding on this Week 3 Monday Night matchup for the Giants.

Those reasons are definitely making him nervous, but they’re not the main culprits of his rather excessive perspiration and high blood pressure.

Plot twist: Laurington wants the Cowboys to score. As a matter of fact, Laurington wants the

Cowboys to light up the scoreboard. Essentially, Laurington wants the Cowboys to succeed big time, which could very well mean the Giants’ season is pretty much over. That’s right, Laurington is in the middle of an Apollo Creed versus Rocky Balboa-type battle in fantasy football, and Laurington has Dak Prescott - Dakington for short - going for him. Laurington is nervous because he needs 21 points to win, and Dakington had produced approximately one point up to that point, and the game is about two minutes away from halftime. Now I’m no math major, but assuming Dakington performs at a similar level during the second half as he did in the first half, Dakington will only produce two points on the night.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but two points won’t be enough for Laurington to win if he needs 21

points to achieve victory. I feel for you, Laurington, I really do.

Laurington is now facing the dilemma of fantasy versus reality. Undoubtedly, Laurington wants the Giants to make the playoffs. The man has Odell Beckham Jr.’s face tattooed on his left thigh for Christ’s sake.

However, Laurington also wants the Cowboys and Dakington to do well, which would probably entail them winning. This situation demonstrates the biggest issue that I’ve experienced and noticed in playing fantasy football: does fantasy football ruin fandom?

Sooner or later Laurington’s allegiance to the Giants will be tested directly. Hypothetically speaking, if Tom Brady played the Giants this year and Laurington had Tom on his fantasy team, Laurington would be going through two thought processes.

One would entail Tom Brady going off for about 400 yards and four touchdowns, which would most likely beat the Giants in real life but also give Laurington a better chance of winning his fantasy matchup. The second scenario would be that Laurington roots for Tom Brady to have a bad day against the Giants, in which case he wouldn’t produce many fantasy points and would give Laurington a higher likelihood of losing his fantasy matchup for the week. The Giants would win, though.

Is Laurington choosing the first scenario a problem? I can certainly see how Giants fans would think that he has no right to claim allegiance to the G-Men if he adopts this mentality of wanting Tom Brady to go off, causing the Giants to lose. I can also see other fantasy owners saying that his allegiance to

the Giants still exists; it just comes out in different ways. The question really becomes how we define fandom.

If fandom is wanting your team to win all the time than Laurington technically can’t be considered a fan of the Giants in this hypothetical scenario.

Again, if the definition of fandom entails wanting your team to win all the time, how does one explain Browns fans wanting their team to lose every game so that they can get the first overall pick in the draft? Technically they couldn’t be considered Browns fans if they adopt this mentality, could they? I guess fantasy football is another added challenge of being a team fan in the 21st century.

Trump rescinds White House invitation to Warriors Arjun Madan Sports Writer

President Trump and Stephen Curry don’t have much in common, but if there is one thing they agree on, it’s that the Golden State Warriors won’t be visiting the White House anytime soon.

As of last week, Trump controversially withdrew his White House invitation to the N.B.A. championship-winning Golden State Warriors. He did so after two-time MVP and Golden State star Stephen Curry’s public statement of his intent to avoid visiting Trump at the White House.

Visiting the White House has become a ritual for N.B.A. championship-winning teams over the years, and even though Trump had not yet written a formal invitation to the Warriors, it was understood that one would be given to the team if the members expressed even the slightest interest in attending.

The Warriors general manager Bob Meyers said that he had been in communication with the White House and had left the door open for a possible visit.

However, the plans Steph Curry had in mind were a bit different. Last Friday, Curry stated during a media event, “I don’t want to go…[But] it’s not just me going to the White House.

If it was, this would be a pretty short conversation.” When asked to elaborate on what his intended message was, Curry continued, “That we don’t stand for basically what our president has – the things he’s said and the things he hasn’t said in the right times, that we won’t stand for it.”

Keep in mind, Curry’s statements were made with Trump’s

Photo credit to Keith Allison Flicker

poor handling of the riots in Charlottesville still fresh in the minds of his entire team. Additionally, Warriors coach Steve Kerr said that he would prefer not to participate in the longstanding tradition.

Even though the team had not yet made a collective decision on whether to visit the White House, the day after the team’s media event, Trump impulsively rescinded his informal offer via Twitter. He enthusiastically tweeted, “Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team.

Stephen Curry is hesitating, therefore invitation is withdrawn!”

In response, the Warriors published a statement in which the team collectively expressed disappointment with Trump’s premature withdrawal of the invitation.

“We’re disappointed that we did not have the opportunity during this process to share our views or have open dialogue on issues impacting our communities,” the statement read.

In support of Steph Curry, LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers tweeted on Saturday, directed towards Trump, “U bum, @StephenCurry30 already said he ain’t going! So therefore ain’t no invite. Going to the White House was a great honor until you showed up!”

Curry appreciated James’ encouragement. He applauded it, saying, “I think it’s bold, it’s courageous for any guy to speak up, let alone a guy that has as much to lose as LeBron does.”

Curry elaborated on his original message later that day, criticizing Trump once again by calling his comments “beneath the leader of a country.”

Furthermore, the active pro-

tests against Trump and some of his controversial ideals have manifested themselves in other American sports leagues as well.

Several N.F.L. players, starting last season with then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, have knelt or sat during the national anthem to protest police brutality and institutional racism. On the opening weekend of the N.F.L. two weeks ago, more players refused to stand during the anthem.

Trump responded during his recent Senatorial campaign speech for Luther Strange by exclaiming, “That’s a total disrespect of everything that we stand for.”

He encouraged team owners to act, adding, “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, you’d say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now.

Out! He’s fired!’”

This past Saturday, President Trump continued his fixation with the issue on his Twitter feed.

“If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL, or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect our Great American Flag and should stand for the National Anthem,” Trump wrote in a pair of tweets. “If not, YOU’RE FIRED. Find something else to do!” He then added, “They’re ruining the game,” attributing the recent drop in NFL ratings to the players’ refusal not to stand during the national anthem. This past Saturday, many players kneeled for the anthem, along with some entire teams deciding not to come out during the patriotic moment.

This Monday’s New York Times published an article in which football fan Laurie Flynn, 28, spoke about the bigger issues

than football that Trump has on his plate. She asked, “Why is the president commenting on the NFL? Doesn’t he have bigger things to think about? This is unfair to the fans. I didn’t come here to deal with this.”

Returning to the original actions of Steph Curry, I asked Eudy Lopez ’21, a fellow sports fan, about Curry’s intent to decline Trump’s invitation to the White House.

“Well, I think he should be able to express his opinions, regardless of what they are. So, I think it’s fine to say what he thinks. As far as if I agree, I definitely think that he has a valid point by acknowledging that he doesn’t stand with several of Trump’s beliefs.” Regarding Curry’s decision to end the long-standing tradition, Lopez argued, “He has the right to do so. I also believe that it’s a necessary step in protesting. He doesn’t give in, he doesn’t play both sides. He makes his decisions and stands by them, showing commitment to social justice.

Steph Curry has the platform and outreach to help influence change in a turbulent time in our country. His actions and those of similarly minded NFL players are going to help give voice to those who have historically been silence.”

It’s still not fully clear whether the Warriors and Trump will make amends and continue the long-standing tradition, but from the actions of both parties, it seems as though neither Curry and the Warriors nor Trump and his ego are going to apologize anytime soon.

The rise of the NBA super team: Carmelo Anthony Matt Becker Sports Writer This past week, former third overall pick and New York Knicks star Carmelo Anthony was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

This blockbuster trade included Enes Kanter, Doug McDermott, and the 2018 Bulls second-round draft pick in exchange for 10-time all star Carmelo Anthony. This trade has major implications for not just the teams involved, but the NBA as a whole. Last year, the NBA season concluded with the Warriors easily handling the Cavs in the Finals. Since then, the NBA has seen many blockbuster trades that have completely changed the landscape of the league.

The Thunder, now with Carmelo Anthony, Russell Westbrook, Paul George, and Steven Adams, join the Warriors and Cavs as the three modern day “super teams” in the NBA. Recently, it seems practically normal for super teams to be assembled, but when did all this start? Was it in 2010 when Lebron “took his talents to South Beach” and won two championships with the trio of himself, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh?

What about in 1982 when Moses Malone teamed up with Julius Erving and the 76ers? I would argue that you have to travel all the way back to 1968 when Wilt Chamberlain joined the Los Angeles Lakers to answer this question. A team is typically dubbed “super” when they have 3 or more superstars. Some would think that these teams would be so dominant that no one could compete, and in the Warriors’ case, they have been so far. But over the years there have been countless super teams that have turned out as complete busts. We can look at the ‘09 Lakers with all-stars Steve Nash, Pau Gasol, Dwight Howard, Ron Artest, and Kobe Bryant. Going into the season the Lakers were a shoo-in to compete for the title, if not win it all.

The team had three future hall of famers in Steve Nash, Dwight Howard, and the legendary Kobe Bryant, but struggled throughout the year and eventually fell short of the elusive title. The problem they experienced and what other super teams have experienced in the past is that superstars often have conflicting personalities and team chemistry doesn’t always come together. This can result in

a few skilled players not meshing well together, and actually detracting from the overall team play.

Why do super teams only seem to form in the NBA and not the NFL? Apart from the obvious difference in roster size and people playing at a time, there are a few key reasons why you will never see a an NBA-like team in the National Football League. First, when building their teams, NFL general managers side with the belief that roster depth is more important than having a few superstars. Think of the “Big Three” in Miami. With Bosh, Wade, and Lebron in the starting line-up surrounded by nine role players, the Heat were all but dominant until Lebron left.

In the NFL every single position is one-dimensional. Receivers catch passes, lineman block other linemen, running backs run the ball, etc. All 11 players are doing 11 different things that all contribute to a successful play.

For example, since 2012, Texans defensive lineman J.J. Watt has been the NFL’s best defender.

That being said, in the last 5 years, with Watt on the roster, the Texans’ defense has finished

Photo credit to Keith Allison Flicker

in the top half of the league only once. This shows how little of an impact a star player has in the NFL compared to the NBA. In the NBA, one-on-ones happen all the time, but there is no one-onone equivalent in football, which

makes every position extremely important.

With the recent signings of Carmelo Anthony to the Thunder and Dwyane Wade to the Cavs this NBA offseason was definitely one for books. The new salary cap

in the NBA has changed the landscape immeasurably, as it is much easier for general managers to attract multiple superstars to one team. With 3 super teams now in the league, it will no doubt be a season to remember.

THE PHOENIX SPORTS

September 28, 2017

PAGE A8

Garnet Sports update As we wrap up our first month back on campus, our fall Garnet athletes are right in the thick of their competition schedules. A number of teams have events this weekend.

Men’s and Women’s Cross Country Our cross-country teams travel to Bethlehem, Pa., this weekend to compete in Lehigh University’s 44th Annual Paul Short Run. They will be among the 6,000 athletes and 450 colleges and high schools competing in the the nation’s largest intercollegiate cross country meet.

Men’s Golf Our Men’s Golf team travels to The Bridges Golf Club to compete in McDaniel College’s Mason-Dixon Collegiate Classic this Saturday and Sunday.

Women’s Field Hockey Our Field Hockey team hosts Franklin and Marshall College at home Saturday at noon. The Garnet will try to keep their momentum from last week’s Penalty Shootout win against McDaniel and hope to improve to .500 in Centennial Conference play.

Women’s Soccer Our 10th-ranked Women’s Soccer team hosts Franklin and Marshall College at 1 p.m. on Saturday. The Garnet will try to rebound from their first loss of the season last Saturday at McDaniel and hope to continue their undefeated record at home this season.

Men’s Soccer Our Men’s Soccer team hosts Johns Hopkins at 7 p.m. on Saturday. The Garnet hope to remain undefeated in Centennial Conference play as they face the undefeated and 11th-ranked Hopkins team.

Men’s Tennis Our Men’s Tennis team travels to Fredericksburg, Va., to compete in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association regionals this Friday to Sunday. Our Women’s team competed in their ITA regionals last weekend.

Women’s Volleyball Our Women’s Volleyball team hosts the Swarthmore Quad tournament this Friday through Saturday in our very own Tarble Pavilion. The Garnet will compete Friday at 7 p.m. against Oneonta, Saturday at 10 a.m. against Widener, and Saturday at 4 p.m. against Cabrini. Oneonta, Widener, and Cabrini will also compete against one another in neutral site games at Tarble Pavilion.

Women’s sports: A triple threat on Wednesday Women’s Volleyball In the Women’s Volleyball sweep against the Franklin and Marshall Diplomats, Sarah Wallace ’18 had nine kills, securing her the program record and surpassing Genny Pezzola’s ’12 record of 1,374. Mehra den Braven ’20 led the team in both kills and aces with nine and four respectively.

Lauren Knudson/The Phoenix

Lauren Knudson/The Phoenix

Women’s Field Hockey Women’s Field Hockey dominated play against Bryn Athyn, winning 9-0 with six different players scoring. Sierra Spencer ’18, Claire Perez ’18, Kathleen Carmichael ’18 all scored two goals while Riya Garg ’19, Sophie Peipher ’20 and Lizzy Stant ’19 each scored one. Zelda Bank ’19 and Ellory Laning ’18 helped the team secure the shut out from the goal.

Women’s Soccer The Women’s Soccer team lost 3-2 in a tight battle with the Arcadia Knights. The Garnet led 2-1, with both goals coming from standout junior Marin McCoy ’19, before the Knights scored consecutive goals to steal the game in the 88th minute.

Lauren Knudson/The Phoenix

Athlete of the Week: Michael Brown ‘21 Ping Promrat: How has the adjustment to college been for you, both academically and athletically?

Michael Brown: In terms of academics, Swarthmore is definitely a step up for me, as there is a lot more time management involved in balancing aspects of college life. I think I’ve adjusted well athletically, and it is a lot of what I expected coming in. The tournament atmosphere is very similar to what I had in high school and the tournaments I played in over the summer.

PP: What is your intended major, and what interests you about it?

MB: I’m currently undecided. That being said, I’m much more of a natural sciences kind of person, so I’m thinking about a potential environmental studies major. I also really like my Introduction to Economics class, too, so I’ll see where my interests take me.

Golfer and first-year phenom Michael Brown ’21 has

PP: What has been your favorite part about collegiate athletics so far?

made a historic impact on the Garnet in his debut season so far. Hailing from Reading, Conn., Brown finished

MB: I’d say bonding with the guys on the team. We’ve travelled together for multiple tournaments so far on the weekends,

first overall Sept. 10 at the Swarthmore-Neumann Invi-

and I’ve had a great time with them so far. Also, it’s been great to see where my game stacks up on the collegiate level, as

tational in a field of 82 competitors, shooting a 68 over-

the field of competitors is much stronger than in high school.

all, one stroke off the Swarthmore program record. He was named Centennial Conference Golfer of the Week

PP: What are your athletic goals for the fall season?

for his performance in the tournament and has continued to impress in both the Harrisburg Invitational and

MB: Hopefully to win as many tournaments as possible as a team. Personally, I want to stick to my routine of practicing

the Montgomery Cup in the weeks following. The Gar-

with the team along with working out on my own. We have a great hitting net right by Mertz Field, so I plan to keep working

net return to action on Sept. 30 at the McDaniel Mason-

on my swing daily, and making sure that every piece of my game is at its best for the upcoming tournaments.

Dixon Invitational.