VOL. CLXXI NO. 01
MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 2015
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
College admits 483 students Early Decision
SUNNY HIGH 86 LOW 58
By Kelsey flower The Dartmouth Staff
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The College admitted 483 students to the Class of 2019 through the early decision process, the College announced on December 12. The students were selected from a pool of 1,859 — the largest in Dartmouth history — for an acceptance rate of 26 percent. This represents the lowest early decision admittance rate since 2011, when Dartmouth accepted 25.8 percent of early decision applicants for the Class of 2016. Last year, Dartmouth accepted 27.9 percent of early applicants from a smaller pool of 1,678.
Dartmouth had the highest Early Decision acceptance rate among peer institutions.
SEE EARLY DECISION PAGE 3
Three Dartmouth students named Rhodes Scholars
B y THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
Miriam Kilimo ’14, Ridwan Hassen ’15 and Colin Walmsley ’15 have been named Rhodes Scholars, and will follow Jonathan Pedde ’14 and Joseph Singh ’14, who won Rhodes Scholarships last year, to Oxford University. The three bring Dartmouth’s total Rhodes Scholars count to 78. This year the most-represented American school is Yale University, with five winners. Brown University, Princeton University and the Mas-
sachusetts Institute of Technology also had three winners, Stanford University and Harvard University each had two winners and the Univerisity of Pennsylvania and Cornell University each had one winner. No students were selected from Columbia University. Harvard leads the overall total with 350. Kilimo, Hassen and Walmsley will join a class of over 80 students next October, where they plan to continue their studies in women’s studies, public policy, neuroscience
and computational biology and anthropology, respectively. At Dartmouth, Kilimo majored in anthropology, which she said has informed her research on female circumcision in Kenya and how the practice relates to women’s identity and sexuality. She spent the fall doing research and on-the-ground work in her hometown of Nairobi, Kenya. She hopes to pursue a Ph.D. after obtaining her master’s, ultimately joining academia in Kenya as an anthropologist.
$250k awarded to Geisel professor for cancer research B y laura weiss
The Dartmouth Senior Staff
Geisel School of Medicine pharmacology and toxicology professor Michael Spinella is being awarded a $250,000 twoyear grant by the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation to support his research, which could lead to a treatment for testicular cancer that is more effective and less toxic than current treatment options. Spinella is among five researchers across the country receiving a 2014 Reach Grant from the
Kilimo’s most influential academic experience at Dartmouth was studying nationalism and ethnicity during her senior fellowship, pursuing a yearlong research project in lieu of taking classes, she said. Kilimo said that her involvement in Rockefeller Leadership Fellows, a yearlong program that brings a group of seniors together for weekly meetings with various guest speakers, prepared her for the Rhodes SEE RHODES PAGE 2
STAIRWELL TO HEAVEN
foundation, which gives the grants to move childhood cancer research from the lab to the clinic. Spinella’s work in testicular germ cell tumors suggests that because of a unique feature of testicular cancer, the cancer could be killed with a certain drug class, DNA methylation inhibitors. Lab results show that doses 1,000 times lower than those needed to treat lung or breast cancers will kill testicular cancer cells. Testicular cancer cells resistant JIN LEE/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
SEE RESEARCH PAGE 3
Students move into Mid Massachusetts Hall for the winter term.
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
PAGE 2
DAily debriefing On Nov. 11, 22 students from the Class of 2015 were elected to Dartmouth’s chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society, according to Dartmouth Now. The students were inducted during the chapter’s 227th annual meeting, which included remarks from chapter president Jay Hull, chapter vice president Colin Calloway and chapter secretary-treasurer Kate Soule. To be considered for induction, undergraduates must hold one of the top 20 cumulative grade point averages in their class and complete eight terms within three years of matriculation. During the Nov. 11 meeting, the chapter also awarded the Phi Beta Kappa Sophomore Prize to the 11 students from the Class of 2016 who have earned the highest cumulative grade point averages. Harvard University settled its Title IX case with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on Dec. 30 and pledged to revise the university’s sexual assault procedures, according to the Washington Post. The Department of Education has been investigating possible Title IX violations, which involve gender-based discrimination at federally funded schools, at 92 colleges and universities, including Dartmouth. The Department determined that Harvard’s sexual harassment and assault policies did not properly review allegations, citing a student-written article in The Harvard Crimson that described how the university failed to transfer a student from a residential dormitory after he allegedly sexually harassed another resident. In a statement issued following the settlement, Harvard representatives said the university and its law school recognize that they “could and should do more” to combat sexual harassment. During the first 30 days of the second wave of Affordable Care Act health insurance enrollment that began Nov. 15, a total of 23,210 New Hampshire residents signed up for coverage, according to the Valley News. In Vermont, 21,709 individuals enrolled during the first 28 days. The deadline to sign up was Dec. 15, and tax penalties for individuals without coverage are set to increase in 2015. In the most recent sign-up period, over 4 million people — half of whom are first-time customers — enrolled for health insurance nationwide. The program aims to register 9.1 million subscribers by 2015.
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Rhodes Scholars hope to enact change FROM RHODES PAGE 1
application process. By teaching her how to interact well in a formal environment, she said, the program “normalized” the Rhodes application process. “I remember going into my interview saying, ‘This is normal. I’ve done this before. This is just an extension of things that I’ve done at Dartmouth,’” she said. Kilimo said she also sought advice from Singh to help with the process. Anthropology professor Sergei Kan, who served as Kilimo’s advisor during the fellowship, said he expects Kilimo to become one of the country’s and the region’s most prominent anthropologists. He added that Kilimo’s senior thesis was both an exercise in academic work and also a personal journey, including narrative and autobiographical elements. “She wasn’t just writing about some country — it was her country that she cares about very deeply,” Kan said. Rockefeller Center deputy director Sadhana Hall said the fellowship program benefited from Kilimo’s presence, and added that it was “a blessing” to know her. Kilimo, whom Hall called a “Rocky baby,” participated in six of the center’s programs over her four years at Dartmouth. Kilimo applied for the scholarship through the Kenyan application process, which has a different schedule from that of the U.S. or Canada, assistant dean of scholarship advising Jessica Smolin wrote in an email. In her time at Dartmouth, she was also a salutatorian, a tutor at the center for Research, Writing and Information Technology, an undergraduate advisor and a member of the Dartmouth African Students Association, Christian Union, Casque and Gauntlet senior society and Jabulani African Chorus. An anthropology and government double major at Dartmouth, Walmsley, of Ford MacLeod, Canada is currently writing a thesis in both departments. His anthropology thesis looks at how LGBTQ homeless youth create community, while his government thesis analyzes state responses to secessionist movements. At Dartmouth, Walmsley also plays for the rugby team, hosts a weekly radio show on 99 Rock and sings with the Brovertones a capella group. Walmsley was one of six Dartmouth rugby players to be named an Academic All-American by USA Rugby for the 2013-14 season, an honor requiring an athlete to be a consistent starter and hold a cumula-
tive GPA of 3.7 or higher. Craig Patton, athletic director at F.P. Walshe High School, in MacLeod, and Walmsley’s longtime rugby coach and mentor, said everyone in Walmsley’s hometown reacted to the senior’s accomplishment with pride. Receiving an award with the level of international prestige that accompanies the Rhodes, he said, is uncommon in rural Alberta. “He’s the kind of person that everybody rallied around because of the example that he was setting,” he said. “Everybody worked that much harder because Colin was working harder than everybody else.” A trip to Indonesia during his gap year sparked an interest in anthropology, Walmsley said. “Coming from a small town and not having that diversity really made me interested in other cultures and other ways of seeing the world,” Walmsley said. To research his anthropology thesis, Walmsley traveled to New York City last summer to speak with young, homeless LGBTQ people. “I want to be able to bridge this gap between marginalized groups in society and general society,” he said, “because I feel that a lot of the time we don’t really understand marginalized groups, and this leads to discrimination.” Anthropology professor and Walmsley’s thesis advisor Sienna Craig said Walmsley exemplifies the Rhodes Scholar while representing how the people and projects supported by the foundation have changed over time. As a gay man and rugby player from a rural Canadian town, Walmsley defies stereotypes, Craig said. Oxford’s strong visual anthropology program drew him to apply for the scholarship, Walmsley said. At the university, he plans to continue his anthropology research and incorporate documentary filmmaking. Walmsley said he hopes to use film to help educate people about marginalized groups. “They have goals, they have history, and they’re people just like everybody else,” he said. Hassen, of Marietta, Georgia, is Dartmouth’s first American to win since Gabrielle Emanuel ’10. One of five children of refugees from Somalia and Ethiopia, he once considered dropping out of high school so he could work full-time to support his family. But he stayed in school, Hassen said, crediting encouragement from an influential statistics teacher. Hassen studies computer science and neuroscience at Dartmouth and plans to study public policy at Oxford University, he said, noting interests in health and education.
“For me it doesn’t seem like a switch,” he said of his academic plans, noting his consistent involvement in mentorship and interest in education policy. He would also like to continue his studies in neuroscience and computational biology at Oxford, he said. Hassen has long been involved with his community, but since coming to Dartmouth he said he has mentored a growing number of students from minority groups in Georgia who are interested in STEM subjects and has given speeches at his high school. “One of the main reasons I applied is that a lot of people who come from similar backgrounds as mine think they can’t get it,” Hassen said. Hassen started college at Emory University, where he founded an AIDS activist organization and was involved with the NAACP When his sister Halimo Hassen ’17 was applying to Dartmouth, he began to think about transferring. He felt he would be “overlooked” for the Rhodes scholarship at Emory, and transferred to Dartmouth in fall 2013. Hassen credited assistant dean of scholarship advising Jessica Smolin with helping him prepare, organizing practice interviews that were harder than the real ones and providing useful feedback, he said. “I don’t think I would have gotten that at any other institution,” he said. Fellow Rhodes Scholar Kilimo also helped him prepare. After Hassen learned Kilimo had won the scholarship, he reached out to her asking for advice, Kilimo wrote in an email. At Dartmouth, Hassen is an undergraduate advisor in the Choates residence hall, has researched autism at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, is involved with the First-Year Student Enrichment Program, is a member of the Dartmouth Endurance Racing Team, and is a Collis Center manager. His brother Hassan Hassen ‘18 recently matriculated. Graduate student Heidi Hough, another Collis manager who has worked with Hassen, praised his intellectualism. “Ridwan is able to hold really big ideas in his mind about everything from spirituality to neuroscience, and he has a very strong understanding of the entire interdisciplinary consciousness,” she said. “He is so humble and so gracious and so thoughtful, he makes everyone feel as if they’re the most special person on earth.” Sasha Dudding, Sara McGahan, Erin Lee and and Parker Richards contributed reporting.
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MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 2015
PAGE 3
Grant will move cancer College picks from largest applicant pool research from lab to clinic FROM EARLY DECISION PAGE 1
FROM RESEARCH PAGE 1
to other drugs are responding to the treatment, Spinella said. Testicular cancer is the most common carcinoma, a category of cancers that also includes breast and lung cancer for men ages 15 to 35. Testicular cancer is “relatively curable,” Spinella said, but it’s often treated with chemotherapy, a nonspecific treatment with a slew of side effects such as infection, hair loss, pain, nausea and fatigue. With current treatments, a teenage patient may be cured but suffer lifelong side effects like infertility, Spinella said. His findings show, however, that this may not need to be the case. The new treatment could also cure patients whose cancer is untreatable with other drugs. “Patients who are resistant to existent therapies for testicular cancer will die of their disease,” he said. “This can be a therapy to treat those patients successfully.” Dr. Costantine Albany, an oncologist at the Indiana University Health Simon Cancer Center, who is collaborating with Spinella on the research, said Indiana University and the College have had “great collaboration” on the work. In the coming weeks, Albany will begin a clinical trial to treat teenage men with testicular cancer who have failed all other treatments. The patients will be treated with a DNA methylation inhibitor, in the hopes that the drug will make the cancer susceptible to chemotherapy. “It hopefully will cure the rest of the
people who are not cured,” Albany said. “It will offer them a chance of a cure.” Spinella has studied testicular cancer for years, and has worked at Geisel since 1999. Testicular cancer “is a rare disease, but it always sort of fascinated me,” Spinella said. He said he finds it interesting that the cancer is highly aggressive yet many patients can still be cured, as well as the general curability of the disease. The tumors he studies also represent a good model of the cancer stem cell, he said, meaning that knowledge gained from studying these cells may be able to be applied to other cancers similar to testicular cancer. Spinella’s work was selected for a grant because it received a high score following review by a team of researchers, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation co-executive director Jay Scott said. He said the foundation hopes the grant will bring Spinella’s research a step closer to a clinical trial. “The treatments haven’t changed in many, many years,” he said. “Sometimes treatments are very toxic to the kids, so this is looking at something that could be more effective.” The foundation awards between five and 10 grants annually. Researchers at the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the National Cancer Institute and the University of California at San Francisco also received grants. Geisel professors Carmen Marsit and Brock Christensen also contributed to the awarded work, Spinella said.
COURTESY OF MICHAEL SPINELLA
Professor Michael Spinella will use the grant money to research testicular cancer.
Five hundred and seventy-eight students were denied admission and 787 were deferred. Eleven students submitted incomplete applications. This year, early decision applications increased by 10.7 percent, and the admitted group of students will represent approximately 41 percent of Dartmouth’s Class of 2019, dean of admissions and financial aid Maria Laskaris wrote in an email. Of the 1,210 students who initially accepted offers to join the Class of 2018, 38.8 percent were admitted early decision. A decade ago, this figure was 35 percent, but it has steadied at around 40 percent over the past five years. Nearly 90 percent of admitted students who attend schools that report rank were in the top 10 percent of their high school class. The mean SAT score of accepted students was 2145, and the mean ACT score was 32. Laskaris said that this year’s pool was the most diverse early decision class the College has seen. Nine percent of admitted students are the first generation in their family to attend college, and 19 percent are legacies. Students of color make up 26 percent of the admitted group and international students compose eight percent. Fifty percent applied for financial aid. The class also includes 148 varsity
athletes. Varsity athletes always comprise a large percentage of the early pool, and approximately 50 athletes will be accepted regular decision, Laskaris said. Margaret Jones, a senior at Myers Park High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, said she applied early because she knew she wanted to attend Dartmouth after a campus tour during her junior year. “I got the best feeling from it, something I didn’t get from any of the other schools I had toured,” Jones said. Alex Waterhouse, a senior at Devonport High School for Boys in Plymouth, said he was not considering college in the United States until he participated in the Sutton Trust U.S. program — in partnership with the U.S.-U.K. Fulbright Commission — which allowed him to visit colleges around the East Coast. Although Waterhouse did not visit Dartmouth on the trip, he became interested after seeing photos of the College online. Waterhouse said he liked the College’s focus on studying abroad and its new entrepreneurial center. Since he knew Dartmouth was his first choice, he decided to apply early in hopes of getting a head start on the visa process. Waterhouse acknowledged that Dartmouth has recently received some negative attention in the national media, but said he knew the College had a
number of initiatives in place to address issues such as Greek life. Nick Turk, a senior at the O’Fallon Township High School in Illinois, said he looked at schools with top economics programs, which attracted him to Dartmouth. He also said the College’s emphasis on the outdoors and study abroad drew him to Hanover, and he was impressed with current Dartmouth students and graduates who have used their education globally. “Everything I see coming out of Dartmouth are those types of people and those types of stories, going out all over the world and making an impact on people’s lives,” he said. About 16 percent of Harvard University non-binding early action applicants — or 977 students — were offered places in the Class of 2019. Yale and Princeton, who also offer non-binding early action programs, admitted 16 and 19.9 percent of applicants, respectively. Brown University accepted 617 students, or just over 20 percent of early decision applicants, while the University of Pennsylvania admitted 24.3 percent. Like Dartmouth, peer institutions Harvard and Penn and saw their early acceptance rate decrease slightly while Yale and Princeton saw a marginal increase in early acceptance rates. Cornell University and Columbia University have not disclosed their early decision numbers.
THE DARTMOUTH OPINION
PAGE 4
Staff Columnist ANDRES SMITH ’17
GUEST COLUMNIST JANOS MARTON ’04
The Perils of Leniency
Co-Ed Without Coercion
Obama’s deal with Cuba gives too much in exchange for too little. In late December, President Obama announced that the United States would be normalizing relations with the Cuban government. In a prisoner exchange, three Cuban spies were released from U.S. custody, and the Cuban government released an American citizen incarcerated in Cuba as well as 53 political prisoners. This is the first significant shift in relations with the Castro-led Cuban government since the Eisenhower administration began the embargo in 1960. Although travel limitations have been eased in recent years, this move signals a potentially unprecedented loosening of both economic and travel restrictions. Political commentators foresee a new era in relations between Havana and Washington. The problem is, however, that very little has changed as far as Havana is concerned. Like many people my age in Miami, my grandparents fled to the United States after the Castro regime took power. There is a very large and tight-knit Cuban community in South Florida. Although neither my parents nor I have ever been to Cuba, Cuban affairs have had an undeniable and significant influence on our lives, as well as the lives of almost everyone around us. It’s rare for the Cuban community in Miami to agree on much — besides the fact that churrasco is amazing — but it seems nearly everyone is up in arms about this new agreement. A large group of Cuban-Americans, especially the older generation that fled Cuba, tends to oppose ending the embargo for anything short of complete democratization and the ousting of the Castro regime. This has created tension between younger Cuban-Americans, who have historically been more open to compromise and negotiation, and their parents and grandparents, who experienced firsthand the horrors perpetrated by the Castro regime. I am not here to say which of these sides I believe to be correct — I do not wish to make enemies of one side of the table at every Christmas dinner. However, most of the Cuban-American community can agree that the deal between the Obama and Castro administrations was a mistake and does not do enough to help the Cuban people. First and foremost, I take issue with the exchange of prisoners as a part of the deal. Any
decision regarding the freedom or incarceration of people is a difficult one to make, but the fact that three people convicted of treason, one of whom was directly linked to the bombing of planes on a humanitarian mission, are now free to return to their country as heroes is not something that should be easily ignored or forgotten. Progress often requires compromise and reconciliation, but these people committed some of the highest federal crimes possible and should have to deal with the consequences. This exchange could signal to foreign governments that taking hostages is an effective means of ensuring the freedom of their convicted spies. The larger issue, however, is the lack of any concessions being required of the Cuban government. This new arrangement undoubtedly helps the Cuban regime much more than the United States. It is an isolated authoritarian government that has survived mostly on subsidies from the USSR and later Venezuela, and still struggles with its own economic autonomy. Yet this opening of trade may breathe new life into the dying system without a single promise from the Cuban government to curb their violations of basic human rights. In the current system, all incoming capital goes through the Cuban government before reaching the citizens, and this new arrangement will only serve to help refill the government’s emptying coffers. It would be unrealistic to ask the fifty-year-old Castro regime to suddenly or drastically change its nature, but the fact that this deal comes without the smallest promise of change from the Cuban government sets a disturbing precedent. The United States is essentially rewarding an authoritarian government for five decades of successfully resisting change. The U.S. cannot economically assist an authoritarian nation in the hope that this aid will cause it to change its policies — it should be the other way around. Economic assistance should be conditional to Cuba changing the way it treats its citizens. With the current deal in place, however, we can only sit back and hope that economic benefits slip through the cracks of the Castro regime and actually reach the Cuban citizens.
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Fraternities should choose to admit women.
Current discussions over the Greek system are fixating on the wrong campus problem. Rather than quibbling over alcohol policy, Dartmouth fraternities should enter the 21st century by admitting women. This will preserve the best parts of Dartmouth’s culture, such as its remarkable ability to generate lasting friendships among large groups of people, while ending the anachronistic male domination of campus social spaces. I served as Dartmouth’s student body president from 2002 to 2004, when tensions were high between the administration and the Greek system due to the Student Life Initiative’s changes and proposed changes to the Greek system. I was also involved in Chi Gamma Epsilon Fraternity, the liberal Free Press, the Dartmouth Greens and Panarchy, a non-Greek, co-ed house, exposing me to both the traditional defense of the Greek system and its critiques. It was obvious that fraternities could be uncomfortable places for women, particularly first-year women. Every passing year it becomes clearer that one can praise the merits of the Greek System while admitting the inherent sexism of the most popular social spaces on campus being controlled entirely by men. Despite recent distorted, negative media attention on Dartmouth, the loyalty of its alumni to the College and to each other is a source of jealous derision in professional circles — and that loyalty extends across gender lines. I am now engaged to a Dartmouth woman who I first met in Chi Gam’s basement. Wedding invitees from Dartmouth easily outstrip those from other walks of life. My story is not unique, and any major city in the United States has a vibrant community of young Dartmouth alumni. Dartmouth is clearly doing something right. The Greek system is an important part of the unparalleled closeness the College creates, and student ownership of Greek buildings, budgets, social events and internal adjudication policies as 20 year-olds is remarkable. Of course, not all is well. Controversy erupts every few years over alcohol abuse, sexual assault and hazing. The current proposals regarding alcohol policy are fine, but alcohol abuse is a ongoing national problem that does not get to the root of Dartmouth’s specific issues. As stu-
dent body president, I painstakingly crafted that generation’s alcohol reforms with administrators. Changing from taps to kegs to cans to bartenders did not and will not change the imbalanced power dynamic when young men continue to control social spaces. Women are simply safer in spaces where they share in the power. The move to a truly co-ed Greek System cannot be mandated, and any such attempt will likely be met with a counterproductive backlash, especially among alumni. Instead, fraternities should take the lead and admit women as new members beginning in the Fall of 2015. It will be challenging for the first wave of women who participate, but in time fraternity members will recognize the value of sharing their experience with the impressive women of Dartmouth, just as the men of Dartmouth gradually embraced women as their classmates following co-education. There is a place at Dartmouth for single-sex social organizations beyond just athletic teams and a cappella groups. Certain Greek houses may choose to continue as all-male. Such houses, however, should exist as one of many campus social options, not the primary ones. I envision a future in which all first-year students will be seen as potential recruits. Developing meaningful social and intellectual relationships across gender lines is an essential part of college. Even now, more than ten years after graduation, I observe many male friends who struggle to develop meaningful platonic friendships with women. Though their struggle may not be entirely due to fraternity membership, isolating residential and social life by gender is outdated and at odds with the lifestyles that Dartmouth graduates will experience socially and professionally after college. President Hanlon should encourage and incentivize, not mandate, fraternities to admit women to their new member classes beginning next fall. Likewise, fraternity leaders should act on their own initiative. This will be a reminder of how uniquely Dartmouth fosters relationships between incredible people. Janos Marton ’04 served as Student Body President from 2002 to 2004.
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THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS
MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 2015
DARTMOUTH EVENTS TODAY All day “The Design Work of Alvin Eisenman ’43,” exhibit, Baker Library Main Hall
10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. “Toys: The Inside Story,” exhibit, Montshire Museum of Science in Norwich, VT
3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. “The 3D Genome: Folding, Misfolding and Unfolding” with Rachel McCord, PhD of UMass-Medical School, 201 Life Sciences Center
TOMORROW 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. “Cosmology, B2P and Quantum Fluctuations,” cosmology seminar with Emilio Elizalde of Univ. Autonoma de Barcelona, Wilder 202
4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. “Alvin Eisenman ’43 and post-WWII graphic design,” lecture with Douglass Scott, Baker Library Current Periodicals Room
5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. “Classical South Indian Dance Master Class” with Shantala Shivalingappa, Hopkins Center Room 131
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THE DARTMOUTH ARTS
MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 2015
PAGE 7
A cappella groups see success on winter interim tours
B y Amelia Rosch
The Dartmouth Senior Staff
From visiting the world’s largest pecan in Seguin, Texas to singing at Google to driving for nine hours with 17 other singers, Dartmouth College a cappella groups took advantage of the six-week winter interim period to travel the country and introduce people to a cappella. College a cappella groups traveled to California, around New England and across Texas this year. Alyssa Gonzalez ’17, one of the Dartmouth Dodecaphonics’ tour managers, said that she had known that she wanted the group to go to Texas because the majority had not been before. Max Gottschall ’15, the Dartmouth Aires’s musical director, said in an email that the group’s decision to go to California instead of their traditional East Coast tour was an anomaly. “We love the tradition, but we were approached with this opportunity and wanted to take advantage of it,” he said. In contrast, the Dartmouth Decibelles chose to stay on the East Coast, since they had gone to San Francisco and Los Angeles the
year before, their business manager, Latika Sridhar ’16, said. She said that non-New England tours tend to make less money for the groups, since they have fewer shows and higher travel expenses. “Those trips end up making a little less money, since we do try to reimburse for flights and things like that,” she said. “When we go along the Northeast, we have a lot more shows, usually, at least when I’ve been here.” For most groups, going on tour has financial benefits. Gottschall said that the financial aspects of the tour, such as travel costs, were less of a challenge for the Aires, thanks in part to exposure from their time on NBC’s “The Sing-Off.” Sridhar said that their tours and the resulting CD sales make the group a lot of money. “We produce every couple years and that funds the tour, and the tour funds the CD production,” she said. “It’s a cyclical thing we have going.” All a cappella members interviewed emphasized that going on tour helps groups become closer and create a family-like atmosphere that can be hard to find at the Col-
lege. Dodecaphonics president Katelyn Onufrey ’15 said that tours give new members an opportunity to bond with older members that they might not have during the fall term. “It’s the first term that the freshmen are in, and it’s so busy that it’s hard to get to know them well,” she said. “It’s so hectic with getting ready and doing introductions, that tour is really the first place you get to hang out with them 24/7.” She said that something as simple as car rides helps members to bond, since they have nothing to do but talk with each other. She said that the Dodecaphonics’ relatively large size helps the group socially, since members have more opportunities for connection. Gottschall said that he enjoys being able to spend time with the other members while doing something about which he is passionate. He said that some of his favorite moments were the “weird” ones, such as playing video games at three in the morning or starting impromptu soccer games on the beach. Gonzalez said that the Dodecaphonics’ show at the Crespo Elementary School in Houston was one of her favorite parts of
the tour. She said that it was the students’ first time seeing an a cappella performance in real life and she enjoyed bringing something to them that they had only seen in moves like “Pitch Perfect” (2012). Co-tour manager Alisa White ’17 agreed, saying that being able to see the impact that their performance had on the children and their teachers was incredibly rewarding. “After our performance, one woman who works at the school came up to us in tears and said she had been waiting thirty years for a day like this,” White said. “That was one of those days that makes the hours of work put into planning tour, rehearsals and music so worth it.” While tours provide fundraising opportunities and the chance to travel the country, they have their own challenges and require months of planning. Gonzalez said that she and White began planning the Dodecaphonics’ tour in the summer and that finding housing for all 18 members was one of the biggest challenges they faced. She said the group ultimately stayed with alums along their route. “Since we couldn’t just stay at
members’ houses, it was a little bit difficult to reach out to an alum that we had never met before,” she said. White said that one of the most difficult parts of their tour was the logistics of traveling, from flights to navigation. She said that though in the past group members drove their own cars, she and Gonzalez needed to rent cars to transport the group. She said it was also difficult to figure out how to fairly reimburse members for their flights. Gonzalez said that while the College does not subsidize the tours, they did put them in contact with a car rental agency. Onufrey said that the group’s relatively large size can present logistical challenges for travel. For the Aires, Gottschall said that even small details, like figuring the best route to events, can be difficult. “GPS is great but sometimes doesn’t help once you get close,” he said. “And there are other challenges: making sure you leave enough time for things to go wrong is huge.” The Dartmouth Cords and the Rockapellas also toured during the winter interim period. Representatives from the groups were unable to be reached by press time.
Staveley ’98 to publish second book in fantasy trilogy B y Amelia Rosch
The Dartmouth Senior Staff
When he is not blogging about epic fantasy or spending time outside in Vermont, author and blogger Brian Staveley ’98 works on his trilogy “Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne.” The second book in the series, “The Providence of Fire” comes out Jan. 13. How were you involved in writing at Dartmouth? BS: I spent most of my time divided between doing a lot of writing and doing a lot of rock climbing. Those were kind of the two main, main foci of my time there, and it was great. I mostly wrote and studied poetry, and, obviously, I’m now writing epic fantasy, which is kind of a different end of the literary spectrum. I went through pretty much the full slate of creative writing courses. Even the poetry classes were really good training for the kind of work that I’m doing now, not because I learned how to write fantasy or how to create epic plots and authentic worlds, but because I got really comfortable handling language. I spent a long time writing poetry before I shifted over into writing genre fiction. Poetry and epic fantasy are pretty different.
What caused the shift? BS: It’s impossible or almost impossible to make a living just writing poetry. Even very wellrespected, well-regarded poets teach at the same time, which is great. I taught high school for over ten years. I really enjoyed that job, but I wanted to try to make a career out of writing, and I thought I’m probably not going to do that publishing small books of poetry. So I went back to fantasy, which was a love of mine when I was a kid. I thought that’s a genre with more commercial possibility but it’s also one that I’m excited about and that I know really how, where I can contribute a little something and sort of take part in this long big tradition of fantasy and English. Your new book “The Providence of Fire” is the second in a trilogy. Can you describe what it specifically and the trilog y more generally is about? BS: “The Emperor’s Blades” is about three adult children of a murdered emperor. One is a monk, one is a special forces soldier and one is a politician. They’re trying to figure out who killed their father and why and, in time, try to stay alive themselves. The second book,
they’re really off to the races. The relationship between those three characters becomes much tougher and more tangled. And so, as they say, the plot thickens. That’s in the second book. I’ve just finished the first draft of the third book now, and I can see where it’s all headed. I had a pretty detailed outline, not just of three books but seven. When my agent sold my book to Tor, which is my publisher, my editor there said “Well, there’s no way we’re going to sign you on to write seven books. You’re an unknown author with no history of publishing. You can have three books and you can like it.” I said “Yes, absolutely. Three books sounds great, and I will like it.” I’m incredibly grateful for that in retrospect because just writing a trilogy proved a really interesting challenge. I had plans within plans and all of them have changed over the course of working on this. I’m a compulsive outliner who ignores his own outlines.
What has been the biggest challenge of writing the trilogy? BS: One thing about writing a trilogy that is really tough is that once the book one has gone to press, you can’t change anything in it. You have to put a book to print without having the whole [trilogy] finished,
which creates an interesting challenge. That said, that can be a fun puzzle. That’s been tricky, writing a series like that. The other thing that I didn’t anticipate is just how much of the job is not actually writing. If you want to actually sell books, you have to go to readings, you need to have a social media presence on Twitter and Facebook, you need to do interviews, you need to do radio shows. That’s really fun, but it’s also incredibly time-consuming. There are days where I sit down to work at 8 in the morning and then I look at the clock and realize it’s three and I haven’t actually written any of my book. I’ve just been writing blog posts or doing interviews or setting up some kind of promotional thing. That’s been a steep learning curve, a really interesting one, but something I didn’t really anticipate. Why did you start blogging? How has it informed your work? BS: The blog was a direct offshoot of wanting to try to make a career of this. What I wanted was just to start to get my name out there in some way. It’s a very difficult balance when you’re trying to promote your work in your writing because that gets irritating really fast to people. The goal is to find a way to get your name out there
that is also interesting and entertaining to other people. I thought I’d try to write a blog about the writing process. If you skim through the blog posts, you won’t see any mentions of the fact I’m working on my own book. Maybe there are a couple mentions, but they are very sparse. It really helped me in my own writing because it’s forced me to take questions that I’ve only thought about vaguely and put my thoughts down. It really put a finer point on some of my thoughts. It’s been useful. It’s been fun. Sometimes, when I can’t write another word of the book, I can get out a whole other blog post. It’s a different muscle. What advice would you give Dartmouth students who want to go into writing? BS: Thinking about writing, talking about writing, hoping to write, planning to write — none of that is writing. Only writing is writing. If you want to make a living at it, you probably want to be aware of and curious about the market. This isn’t to say you should write for the market, but it’s well worth being aware of how that market works. This interview has been edited and condensed.
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Fishing for Oscars, ‘The Imitation Game’ follows formula
B y Andrew Kingsley The Dartmouth Staff
There’s an unfortunate irony in Morten Tyldum’s choosing “The Imitation Game” (2014) as the title for his most recent movie, since he has recycled aspects of “The King’s Speech” (2010) in pursuit of claiming some of those shiny golden statues. Then again, Tom Hooper’s masterpiece is not the worst movie to emulate. Just replace the stuttering King George VI with the stuttering mathematician Alan Turing and use the same composer (Alexandre Desplat) and you should have Best Picture. Despite Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance, “The Imitation Game” is not on par with the former Oscarwinner, and I hope the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has the sense not to bite again. Benedict Cumberbatch takes off his Sherlock peacoat to star as the cunning, possibly autistic Alan Turing,
the famed British mathematician who with a team of cryptographers broke the Nazi’s Enigma code. In only three years, Turing created the Bombe, one of the world’s first computers. The Bombe deciphered all Nazi messages for the Allies and ultimately shortened the war. One needs a machine to beat a machine, and Cumberbatch plays Turing as if he were filled with wires and circuit breakers. With little affect he goes about his work, tinkering, scribbling, only emoting through the rise and fall of his lips’ doughy corners — reminiscent of Dustin Hoffman’s portrayal of Raymond Babbitt in “Rain Man” (1988). Turing alienates his coworkers and attracts suspicion from detectives. But like WALL-E (2008), his incapacity for human understanding is often funny, and Turing’s battle with us mere mortals creates some of the best scenes. An inept team of decoders plodding away at their human decryption meth-
ods surrounds Turing and their presence only amplifies his genius. Besides the help of chess champion Hugh Alexander, Tyldum’s Turing seems to breaks the Enigma code single-handedly. Monomaniacal in his pursuit of constructing the Bombe, Turing disregards and fires his coworkers. If he were “the Prof ” as his colleagues called him, then Turing would be that professor who forgets your name, fails you and ignores your pleas for an extension, but somehow manages to make you like him. Surprisingly the most mundane and generic scenes are the ones focusing on the code breaking and war-embattled London. Shots mirroring those from “The King’s Speech” of sandbag walls and scrambling citizens seem tastelessly garnished throughout the film. In his attempts to replicate its successful Oscar formula, Tyldum’s recreation of 1940s England feels two-dimensional, like a Western set with nothing behind the storefronts.
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What rescues the film is not the machines but the people behind them. As a gay man, Turing was in constant danger of being discovered and convicted (homosexuality was still a crime in WWII England). He names the Bombe “Christopher” after his love interest as a schoolboy and treats it as his child, protecting and nurturing it. Christopher could have been Turing’s offspring, with the same robotic, calculating genes as its father, guaranteed to continue Turing’s legacy, and what a legacy — I’m typing this article on a modern-day Christopher. My own children won’t be anywhere near as influential. Yet the Allies could only use Christopher sparingly. The Allies could never let on that they knew Enigma, otherwise the Nazis would create a new code. The most shocking revelation of the film is that the war was won, in essence, through statistics. Knowing the Nazis’ tactics in advance, the government strategically selected the battles to fight
or forfeit and end the war efficiently. When one of the cryptographers’ brothers is about to die on a ship headed for an ambush, they can only sit and wait for destruction. Escape would be too suspicious. Turing knew the numbers all too well, and surrendered the few to help save the whole. Rarely has sacrifice been captured so painfully yet aptly. Although the film follows the recent Best Picture Oscar-bait formula for thrilling historical war dramas, it succeeds in capturing the character, or lack of character, of an enigmatic, tortured genius. It’s frightening to think that a man Winston Churchill believed to have had the single greatest impact on the British war efforts was prosecuted for being homosexual. We are all in debt to Turing, and the film serves as an homage to his sacrifices. Rating: 8.2/10 “The Imitation Game” is playing at 4:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. at The Nugget.