The Dartmouth 11/17/14

VOL. CLXXI NO. 157

SNOW

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2014

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Dever examines faculty diversity in first full term

KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL

HIGH 38 LOW 29

By ERICA BUONANNO The Dartmouth Staff

In her first months at Dartmouth, Provost Carolyn Dever has advanced initiatives including faculty diversity and experiential learning.

Dever said the College faculty must hire faculty from underrepresented backgrounds and build relationships with historically black colleges. Although this might involve expanding the size of the faculty, Dever said she is not pursuing expansion for its own sake.

College President Phil Hanlon addressed recruitment

SPORTS WEEKLY

FOOTBALL DEFEATS BROWN 44-21 PAGE SW3

MEN’S HOCKEY SPLITS WEEKEND PAGE SW3

OPINION

HSU: BREAKING THE ‘BAMBOO CEILING’ PAGE 4

ARTS

‘BLUE STOCKINGS’ CHALLENGES GENDER NORMS PAGE 8 READ US ON

DARTBEAT SIX WAYS TO WIN THIS WINTERIM FOLLOW US ON

TWITTER @thedartmouth COPYRIGHT © 2014 THE DARTMOUTH, INC.

KELSEY KITTELSEN/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

A Saturday win will bring the men’s soccer team to the NCAA tournament. See page SW2.

SEE DEVER PAGE 5

Student-athletes talk pressure following clicker incident

B y CHRIS LEECH

The Dartmouth Staff

On Tuesday mornings, applause and cheering punctuated the announcement of Big Green victories as religion professor Randall Balmer read weekend sporting event results to his “Sports, Ethics and Religion” class.

It was a chance for the many athletes in the class to support one another, said Jeffrey Lang ’17, a member of the men’s golf team.

Forty-three students in the course

may be implicated in an academic dishonesty case, after Balmer found a discrepancy between the number of students digitally submitting answers to in-class questions and the number of students present in class on Oct. 30.

Balmer asked these students to stay after class on Nov. 11, and judicial affairs director Leigh Remy informed them of possible disciplinary action.

Provost Carolyn Dever sent a campus-wide email reminding students of the academic honor principle Wednesday morning and confirmed

that “the actions of a group of students for possible violations of the honor code relating to misrepresentation of class attendance and participation are currently under judicial review.”

Varsity athletes comprise just under 70 percent of the 272-person class, including more than half of the football team, or 61 players, more than half of the men’s hockey team, or 16 players, and more than two-thirds of the men’s basketball team, or 12 players. The men’s soccer team has 10 players in the class, and the baseball, women’s soccer

Library task force will look at digital content, collaboration B y lauren budd

A task force is exploring expanding the library’s resources by collaborating with other universities and digitizing selected content. Announced by Provost Carolyn Dever earlier this term, the task force will evaluate institutional needs and aspirations for research and teaching, and optimize library funds to meet students’ needs.

“We must consider, in the context of the next twenty years, what kinds of collections a research library should provide

and women’s lacrosse teams each have nine. Athletes in the class represent 24 of Dartmouth’s 34 varsity teams, and about a quarter of Dartmouth students are varsity athletes.

Varsity athletics communications director Rick Bender declined interview requests for football coach Buddy Teevens and other varsity coaches.

Bender wrote in an email that athletic director Harry Sheehy “is working with the judicial review to help expedite matSEE ATHLETES PAGE 3

NAILED IT

to its institutional stakeholders to adequately support ongoing and emerging programmatic needs,” Dever wrote in an email to faculty and staff.

Associate librarian for information resources Elizabeth Kirk said the task force will explore where the library should spend its money and how best to develop its collections.

Student and faculty requests, both for specific titles and in general topic areas, KANG-CHUN CHENG/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

SEE LIBRARY PAGE 2

Students dismantle the set of “In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play).”

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

PAGE 2

DAily debriefing LOCAL NEWS

On Nov. 3, Mark Ruppel was sentenced for assaulting Hubert Clark III on the Green in July, after pleading guilty to felony charges of second-degree assault and riot in addition to theft by deception in a case unrelated to the assault, the Valley News reported on Thursday. Ruppel will serve three and a half to seven years for the assault concurrently with a one and half to five year sentence for the theft charge. The sentence for the riot was suspended. The two other men, Ian Muzzey and Troy Schwarz, pleaded not guilty to felony riot charges for the incident on the Green.

Schwarz is being held on $20,000 cash bail, while Muzzey was released on $20,000 personal recognizance bail.

Following an anonymous gift of $50,000, WISE will establish a new board-designated endowment, the Valley News reported Sunday. The money will create a long-term revenue stream to support future projects. An investment committee, which includes financial advisors, analysts and strategists, will manage the fund.

In court filings, the Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society has denied wrongdoing associated with a wrongful termination suit from two former employees filed in October, the Valley News reported on Nov. 7. The Co-op requested that the complaint be dismissed because it was filed in Vermont, and the company is located and headquartered in New Hampshire. The complainants, John Boutin and Dan King, allege that their terminations were a result of their criticism of workplace conditions as well as disclosure of their meetings with union representatives.

— COMPILED BY ANNIE MA

CORRECTIONS We welcome corrections. If you believe there is a factual error in a story, please email editor@thedartmouth.com.

GET DRUNKEN and CRAZY (NOODLES, AND MUCH ELSE)

HOURS: MONDAY-SATURDAY 11 AM TO 10 PM SUNDAYS 11 AM TO 9 PM DINE IN, TAKE OUT, OR DELIVERY EAT WELL AND DRINK RESPONSIBLY

44 SOUTH MAIN STREET, HANOVER, NH 603-643-0300

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2014

Digitization among library efforts FROM LIBRARY PAGE 1

largely drive library spending, she said.

The task force will also oversee digitizing some of the library’s collections and explore digital publishing platforms.

English and women’s and gender studies professor Ivy Schweitzer, for instance, was awarded a $250,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant, which will extend through January, in 2010 to digitize letters from Samson Occom. These letters were originally housed in Baker-Berry Library and Rauner Special Collections Library.

The Class of 1946 donated $44,430 in 2011 to digitally preserve delicate films in the library’s collection from the 1920s to the 1950s at Dartmouth.

One challenge with digitizing is long-term preservation of digital collections, associate librarian for information management David Seaman said.

“We know how to preserve physical materials, but once you move into electronic materials, on the one hand they’re much more shareable, but those computer files need a lot of looking after, they go out of date quickly, they need constant restoring and backing up.”

A variety of challenges face the task force as it determines how to allocate funds.

JIN LEE/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Digitizing library materials can be difficult because files quickly go out of date.

“Information is not free, information costs a lot of money. It cost this institution over $10 million last year, and it’s going to cost us over $11 million this year,” Kirk said, adding that even though the Internet has made information more accessible, it is not without cost.

Online journal costs rise every year, Kirk said, disadvantaging the arts and humanities, which generally use more book-based resources. This problem is not exclusive to Dartmouth, she said, noting that as journal rates rise, libraries buy fewer books.

“Funding is always a challenge,” Seaman said. “Our ambitions will always outstrip our resources.”

BorrowDirect, a library resource-

sharing tool among Ivy League institutions and three additional schools that comprises more than 60 million volumes, allows librarians to communicate and determine what resources to purchase, Kirk said.

“We’re all going to have dictionaries, we’re all going to have the core texts, but for the things that have fewer users, and for those fewer users they’re really important, we’re going to make sure we have those,” she said. “It’s easier to work deliberately together to make sure we have them as a group.”

BorrowDirect Plus, an agreement launched last month, offers Dartmouth students, faculty and staff visiting partner libraries free access to its materials and direct borrowing privileges.

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2014

Stereotypes can harm student-athlete experience FROM ATHLETES PAGE 1

ters in any way he can,” and declined to comment further.

Balmer said he developed the course, which looks at the history of athletic competition in America, with athletes in mind.

Dever dismissed the idea that the class was designed for athletes.

She also said she has long admired student-athletes, noting that they are often poster children for balance and integrity.

After news of cheating in the class broke, varsity athletes interviewed said they hoped the incident would not reinforce negative stereotypes about student-athletes.

All students interviewed are members of varsity sports teams, but some requested they not be identified by team for fear of being associated with cheating. All students interviewed said they were not implicated in the case.

A male member of the Class of 2017 said some of his teammates were concerned that bias against student-athletes will affect the sanctions imposed by the Committee on Standards when it adjudicates the case.

“Some students and professors believe that student-athletes don’t belong at this school,” he said. “It’s foolish to not appreciate what studentathletes go through. Try balancing a 40-hour-a-week job with schoolwork.

It’s a challenge.”

Most athletes and non-athletes approach academic dishonesty with the same mentality, he said.

“People will be quick to judge student-athletes differently than other students,” he said. “Of course there will student-athletes who aren’t dedicated to their studies, just like there are non-athletes who aren’t as dedicated to their studies.”

The incident has already impacted his team, he said. While coaches did not identify those who are being investigated, implicated students did not play over the weekend, he said.

A female member of the Class of 2017 said that after playing away games or after practice, athletes may have to exert extra focus to finish their work.

In some cases, the pressure may lead to an increase in honor code violations, she said.

“You get so overloaded that you just want to hibernate for a bit,” she said. “That’s when cheating becomes a problem, because you’re no longer getting your work done.”

She emphasized, however, that this does not mean that athletes are more likely to cheat than other students.

“There’s been a stigma created by athletes and non-athletes towards athletes that suggests we aren’t fully

committed to academics,” she said.

“I’m offended by that — I put in a lot of work.”

Dartmouth had more programs honored by the NCAA for excellent academic performance last year than any other Division I school, with 26 teams recognized, according to the Dartmouth athletics website.

She emphasized that, as a member of a varsity team, she can approach upperclassmen for both class advice and also academic and social support.

While she had heard about Religion 65 from older teammates, she said similar discussions about easier classes happens in her sorority and in other student groups.

Lang said the course may have interested athletes because of its subject matter but was not geared toward them in any other way.

Another male member of the Class of 2017 said he took the class because his teammates recommended it.

“I think it’s good to have a class that is directed towards athletes because they make up a significant portion of the population,” he said. “One thing Balmer does really well is court athletes’ perspectives on class material.”

He added that he had heard the course was a “layup” – a class known to be less rigorous or time-consuming than others at the College. He said the course became more difficult after the midterm, when several students allegedly cheated.

Athletic teams pass around “layup lists,” he said, but he did not believe this practice more common among sports teams than among other student groups.

Sean Oh ’17, a member of the lightweight crew team, said he did not believe athletes were more likely to falsify their attendance than other students in the class. Teams tended to sit in blocks, he said, so he could easily notice if everyone from a team was absent.

After the incident, Oh said, his coach talked to his team about academic dishonesty, even though he said he believes none of his teammates were implicated. The incident might change how coaches involve themselves with the academic lives of their athletes, Oh said, adding that coaches may more closely monitor what classes his team members are taking and whether they need academic tutoring or support.

The female member of the Class of 2017 said the incident made her more conscious of athletes’ role on campus.

“As athletes, we are public figures, whether we like it or not, and certain weight that comes with that,” she said. “You have to realize if we are implicated in anything, you are known as a Dartmouth student-athlete.”

Earth Resources

To learn more: sign up for EARS 9 Winter ‘15

PAGE 3

THE DARTMOUTH OPINION

PAGE 4

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2014

Contributing Columnist Caroline Hsu ’18

The Dartmouth OPINION STAFF

Breaking the ‘Bamboo Ceiling’

Opinion Asks

The Internet has boosted the presence of Asian Americans in the media.

“Fresh off the Boat,” an upcoming ABC comedy series, is a refreshingly genuine, multi-dimensional look at Asian Americans in everyday life. Although this show might be an anomaly amid a sea of stereotypes, it is nonetheless a huge step forward. Asian Americans have long been neglected by mainstream media, and when there is attention, it is normally a stereotype. Hollywood’s “bamboo ceiling” has resulted in characters like the blatantly emasculated Mr. Chow from “The Hangover” (2009) and the oft-ignored, silent Lilly from “Pitch Perfect” (2012). A 2008 report from the Screen Actors Guild revealed that less than 4 percent of Asian Americans were cast in television and theatrical roles in 2007 and 2008.

Given that Asian Americans already have minimal representation in the media, the harm done by negative stereotypes — the nerdy Asian guy, the submissive geisha girl, the model minority — is even more accentuated. In recent years, however, many young Asian Americans have taken the lead by using the Internet to show a long unseen side of themselves. This increase in Asian American presence in online media is a crucial step toward improving this long-entrenched cultural stigma.

From beauty guru Michelle Phan to YouTube comedian Ryan Higa, this recent flood of online media starring and produced by Asian Americans is a response to a severe case of underrepresentation in mainstream media.

Through web series and YouTube videos, the new generation of young Asian Americans, itching to show the world that they are more than just manifestations of stereotypes, can share its voice. Phan started out with beauty tutorial videos and has since founded her own successful company. Wong Fu Productions, initially a group of guys having fun with a camcorder, has since produced independent films and collaborated with well-known actors.

These entrepreneurial artists serve as role models for young Asian Americans hungry for more diverse media representation. AsianAmerican kids are not satisfied with the stereo-

types that Hollywood churns out. Mr. Chong just isn’t going to cut it. New, unconventional forms of media are free from the societal pressures that Hollywood faces, and thus allow Asian Americans to finally take the lead role.

While mainstream media must keep the public’s interests and cultural expectations in mind, online media can make giant strides because of its inherently democratized nature.

After all, everyone and anyone can use the Internet. And according to a 2011 Pew Research Center study, Asian Americans use the Internet more frequently than any other racial group. Nowadays, people can easily record and share a YouTube video, which can reach millions. The documentary “Uploaded: The Asian American Movement” discusses how new forms of media are helping young Asian Americans find their voices.

Hollywood reflects the public’s cultural beliefs and expectations. Its only goal is to make as much money as possible by showing people what they are comfortable with and what they are accustomed to seeing. Having an Asian American play the lead role in a non-Kung Fu movie would be much too revolutionary. American audiences want to see Indiana Jones, not Short Round, fighting off bad guys. However, Asian American presence in online media is starting to pave the way for more meaningful representation in mainstream media. Phan has countless devoted fans, both on and off YouTube, and Wong Fu Productions has more than one million subscribers. By proving to Hollywood that Asian Americans in the media can garner interest and profit, these Internet stars are making a huge statement. Slowly but surely, pop culture is opening its gates to Asian Americans.

Although we have come a long way since “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1961), in which the Caucasian actor Mickey Rooney played a thickly accented Japanese American, a long road still lies ahead. Thanks to the Internet, we now have a shot at shattering the “bamboo ceiling” long perpetuated by Hollywood and the like.

212 Robinson Hall, Hanover N.H. 03755 • (603) 646-2600

Lindsay ellis, Editor-in-Chief stephanie mcfeeters, Executive Editor

carla larin, Publisher Michael riordan, Executive Editor

taylor malmsheimer, Managing Editor madison pauly, Managing Editor PRODUCTION EDITORS EMILY ALBRECHT, Opinion Editor LULU CHANG, Assistant Opinion Editor LORELEI YANG, Assistant Opinion Editor JOE CLYNE, Sports Editor BLAZE JOEL, Sports Editor Caela murphy, Arts & Entertainment Editor ashley ulrich, Arts & Entertainment ERIN LANDAU, Mirror aditi kirtikar, Dartbeat EMMA MOLEY, Dartbeat

Editor Editor Editor Editor

sasha dudding, Managing Editor BUSINESS DIRECTORS piotr dormus, Finance & Strategy Director Ashneil Jain, Finance & Strategy Director erin o’neil, Design Director SEAN CANN, Layout Director Alexander gerstein, Technology Director Dylan zabell, Advertising Director Alana Dickson, Operations & Marketing Director Oliver Schreiner, Operations & Marketing Director

tracy wang, Photography Editor NATALIE CANTAVE, Photography Editor

ISSUE

Alex Becker, Multimedia Editor NEWS EDITOR: Priya Ramaiah, TEMPLATING EDITOR: Elyse Kuo, LAYOUT EDITOR: Erin Lee, COPY EDITOR: Mac Tan.

SUBMISSIONS: We welcome letters and guest columns. All submissions must include the author’s name and affiliation with Dartmouth College, and should not exceed 250 words for letters or 700 words for columns. The Dartmouth reserves the right to edit all material before publication. All material submitted becomes property of The Dartmouth. Please email submissions to editor@thedartmouth.com.

Should class attendance be a part of one’s grade?

What’s in a grade? I take it that the traditional answer to this question happens to be the best one: grades should be pegged to learning. If a student has learned the material, she should do well in the course — period. But it’s possible to learn the material and ace the tests without attending a single class. Likewise, it’s possible to attend every class and fail to learn a thing, as suggested by the hordes of students scrolling through BuzzFeed during every lecture of my CS1 class last spring.

Mandating perfect attendance by professorial fiat guarantees nothing.

We are no longer in high school, and our wrists no longer need to be slapped for missing class, or failing to pay attention, or whatever. Coercing students into good behavior by making their grade depend on it is a vestige of a darker and stricter past. If a course is properly structured and well taught, students who cut class will reap what they sow — and that’s how it should be.

— Jon Vandermause ’16 Certainly it seems reasonable that attendance accounts for some portion of one’s grade. After all, consistent engagement with the professor, one’s classmates and the material necessary for appropriate class participation is essential to the best possible classroom experience, and mandating attendance is a means of ensuring that. However on the opposite side of the same coin, should professors really need to mandate attendance? We’re college undergraduates at an Ivy League institution with a total cost of attendance upwards of $65,000 a year — if we don’t attend class of our own volition, then why are we here?

— Aylin Woodward ’15 Dartmouth students (or their parents or donors) are paying more than $60,000 a year for an incredible education. If students choose not to go to class, then that is their choice. An attendance grade is simply an incentive and not a necessity.

If students can perform up to standard in classes, outside of seminar-sized and discussion-based courses, then I do not see the need for a grade incentive for attendance. In classes where critical

discussion between peers and instructors is heavily involved, an attendance grade is completely appropriate, as it is indicative of the students’ contribution to the course. Outside of that, I think grading for attendance serves as a small giveaway or a means to penalize unnecessarily.

— Billy Peters ’15 Given the wide variation in class structure, we ought to trust professors to decide if mere class attendance garners credit toward a student’s grade. For some classes, lecture and discussion are vitally important for learning. In others, knowledge can be gained and demonstrated simply by reading class material and completing assessments. Professors know best how to ensure their classes are learning.

That being said, professors have a duty to be sure that the methods by which they conduct their classes do not lead to widespread academic dishonesty. At the risk of sounding cynical, I believe professors ought to be vigilant in closing loopholes for potential cheating. Professors ought to consider that some students will take advantage of many, if not most, opportunities for cheating that the class structure presents them with.

— Mike McDavid ’15 During a recent phone call with my father, he complained about how much bad press Dartmouth seems to be getting, but he was in awe when I told him what the “clickergate” case actually was about. The fact that the “academic dishonesty” incident he was hearing about all over the news was just a case of students marking attendance for each other was ridiculous to him.

He told me about how he had friends back in his day who would shout his name out for him when the professor marked attendance, and how it was not a big deal. When academic dishonesty is discovered, repercussions must follow — and false attendance is definitely not part of an educated scholar’s virtues. However, seeing as it was not a case of “academic” dishonesty, per se, it would be unjust to put students on the chopping block just for this.

— Annika Park ’18

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2014

PAGE 5

Faculty clusters will examine 10 academic topics in next decade FROM DEVER PAGE 1

and retention of underrepresented minority faculty at a faculty meeting last month, noting that the College has committed $1 million to this goal. In five years, the College aims to have minority and international professors comprise 25 percent of its faculty, Dever said at the October meeting.

In the Ivy League, Dartmouth has the highest proportion of white faculty, at 84 percent, according to the 2013 College Fact Book.

Columbia University follows, with 82 percent; Yale University 80.1 percent; the University of Pennsylvania 79.5 percent; Cornell University 79 percent; Harvard University 79 percent; Princeton University 79 percent; Brown University 77 percent, according to the most recent data available on each school’s website.

As talented academics from underrepresented backgrounds are in high demand, recruitment can be a challenge, Dever said.

She said, however, that while Hanover is “not particularly diverse,” every location presents its own challenges. When she was at New York University, prospective faculty were concerned with the city’s high cost of living, and at Vanderbilt University some applicants were not interested in living in Nashville, she said.

Vice provost for academic initiatives Denise Anthony said the Provost’s office is focusing on recruitment and retention so the College can create a supportive community in which students, faculty and staff can be mentored throughout their career development.

The provost’s office seeks to

partner with foundations and funding agencies that have innovative programs for developing talent in different academic fields, Anthony said.

Another academic goal is expanding exposure to Thayer Engineering School beyond those pursuing engineering degrees.

Thayer dean Joseph Helble said Thayer has begun searches for new faculty members who will help design new engineering classes for non-majors based on their expertise and interests.

In January, the provost’s office will announce a new central resource for experiential learning, director of action-based learning programs Gail Gentes said. This will fall under the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning.

Gentes, who was appointed to the position last fall, said she spent the year collecting data and cataloging Dartmouth’s experiential learning opportunities. She also studied other institutions’ efforts, noting that schools have different conceptions of experiential learning.

The formal initiative, which has not yet been named, will develop new courses, work with faculty seeking to redesign existing courses and offer programming to students, Gentes said.

She added that she hopes this resource will encourage faculty members to assess the impact of action-based learning on campus.

Gentes said that the implementation — which she hopes will occur in the coming months — depends on hiring a viable candidate to lead the initiative, but she added that she is also interested in finding a “faculty champion” of the initiative.

DCAL interim director Lisa Baldez said that, following a period of broad discussions about the importance of experiential learning, now is the time to talk more specifically about teaching and learning.

This aligns with Dever’s focus on academic excellence, she said.

“She sees and I see teaching and learning at the center of that

“One of the things I’m energized about going forward is getting an even better grasp of the range and scope and interest of the work going on here.”

- carolyn dever, Provost enterprise,” Baldez said, “and so the idea is to think much more intentionally about what it is that good teaching and learning is, how we do it, and propel Dartmouth to a national leadership role in terms of enhancing teaching and learning.”

Faculty clusters, an initiative

announced last fall, unite groups of professors from different fields who are interested in similar topics, such as globalization or “the puzzle of the brain.”

“The whole point of the clusters is to identify significant issues in which Dartmouth can have an impact,” Dever said.

Students will work alongside faculty in researching these disciplines, she said.

She said there will ultimately be 10 clusters, at a cost of around $15 million each. The Neukom cluster, which will focus on computational science, is the first.

A search is underway for the cluster’s chair, and Dever said she hopes to find an external, seniorlevel hire by next year.

Dever said of the 29 first cluster proposals, five will be developed further. Faculty will soon be invited to submit a new round of cluster proposals to the provost’s office, a process that will occur annually until the College launches 10 clusters.

Dever also created a task force of 10 faculty members to explore forming a more unified graduate program at the College.

Task force chair Jon Kull wrote in an email that by the winter in-

terim, the group will have met three times this term. During the winter, the group will meet four times and have a more “fleshed out” report by the end of the term, he said.

“From my perspective this is a bit of a silent period,” said Dever, who will receive the report. “From theirs, it’s the hardest part.”

At the November Board of Trustees meeting, Dever discussed admissions initiatives and the recent boost in early decision applications. Dever cited subject-specific tours and the “alumni ambassador program” as examples of a larger variety of admissions programs.

Dean of admissions and financial aid Maria Laskaris said this program will get alumni involved with the admissions process beyond conducting interviews, like attending college fairs at local high schools.

Reflecting on her first months at Dartmouth, Dever said she is excited to be teaching an English course next winter, which she has provisionally titled “The Victorian Gothic.”

“One of the things I’m energized about going forward is getting an even better grasp of the range and scope and interest of the work going on here,” she said.

THE DARTMOUTH ADVERTISEMENTS

PAGE 6

Your dreams just became more affordable at our

Loose Diamonds, Diamond Rings Earrings & More. . .

FINANCING AVAILABLE

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2014

Hanover Store Closing Sale!

SAVE UP TO

70

%

OFF

53 South Main St. • Hanover, NH 03755 HANOVER LOCATION ONLY! Monday through Friday - 10 to 5:30 • Saturday 10 to 4 AMIDON JEWELERS - AD 2 - 10x6.26-VN.indd 1

11/10/14 12:31 PM

THE DARTMOUTH ARTS

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2014

Hess ’86 sculpts with found materials B y REBECCA ASOULIN The Dartmouth Staff Sculptor David Hess ’86 stopped by the College last Thursday to give an alumni lecture on his work. Hess, who focuses on found materials, has shown his work in collections including the American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore Museum of Industry, John Hopkins Hospital and Sinai Hospital.​ When did you become interested in sculpture?

DH: When I grew up, my mom worked at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and she used to take me to work with her. I grew up with that in our house – not really just looking at art but also making it. My mom didn’t let us use coloring books growing up — just crayons on paper and making things out of stuff we found. My mom also has a very modern version of art that you don’t need to take art lessons, that expressionism is as valid as anything.

Why do you work with found materials?

DH: As someone who makes things, when you examine anything, there’s sort of two levels: one is what it is, how it was made and how it was crafted. What kind of layered craftsmanship went in to it, whether it was beautifully made or just kind of thrown together — which are two valid ways to do it. Secondly, the energy it holds — the history it holds and the time that is embedded in it.

That’s the narrative. The object is what it is and how it’s made and the subject is what it used to do, where it was in time, who owned it, what it was made for. I always like having that embedded sense of both.

Any kind of material that you find, like this cup, has a found quality to it.

It might just be a piece of garbage, but if you cast in bronze then it’s forever — or if you put it next to a bronze version it might be the same thing, but it’s kind of like the ghost of the first one. Everything in our man-made world and the natural world has those qualities. When you pick up an old tennis shoe you look at what it was and what it could be too.

How has Dartmouth influenced your career?

DH: I would say meeting [sculptor] Fumio Yoshimura is probably the most important thing for me because he was one of those people who felt like it was such a privilege to be an artist — an amazing craftsman and yet a really thoughtful person who was delighted by his work. It wasn’t a chore for him. I think meeting him was a pretty amazing moment for me.

I also think going to Florence and seeing a lot of public work there in churches and squares and whatnot, where art is in the culture and it’s really embedded in the culture, was pretty important. I ended up going to Japan to study gardens my junior summer.

How did the gardens in Japan influence you?

DH: Again, they were these really beautiful spaces that were very different from European design. The whole Japanese garden aesthetic is just something I’d never seen before.

I think in the West we tend to go with super rigid, symmetrical, kind of that Roman sense of space where things are [on an] x-y axis. [In Japan,] there are paths that sort of wind through, there’s nothing straight. [It’s] just very nuanced. I think if you look at traditional European design, it has its own geometry and logic to it. I think part of what’s interesting about Japanese design is that they frequently put a twist out there that’s very unexpected.

What has the experience of returning to campus been like?

DH: It’s hard to know when you’re here what a privilege it is to be at a place like this. But when you come back, you see not only how different it is from when I was here, but also just [that] it’s incredible, it’s such a vast opportunity, what goes on here, on so many levels. The art is a small part of it. It’s an amazing facility, it’s an amazing group of people. I think the studio art — what I know, I can say without question — is a much bigger, [more] comprehensive program, facility and faculty and student group than when I was here. That in and of itself will turn out many more thoughtful professionals and even people interested in art. There are lots of people who take classes, and this is their first time trying to draw, and they realize that a big window opens up for them.

What advice would you give to students pursuing a career in the arts?

DH: Follow your heart. I do think finding a community of people that are your friends, your family, the support in your life, is really critical.

Finding those people and cherishing those relationships is the most important thing. And making your work something [with which] you feel like you’re making a contribution. Being able to make money doing that is an incredible thing, and you’re lucky if you can do it. At the end of the day, most people who are good at their work do enjoy it.

This interview was edited and condensed.

PAGE 7

Youthful vibes color classics at Vaughan B y annie smith

The Dartmouth Staff Deep bass tones vibrated through Faulkner Recital Hall, paired with the strum of high guitar notes. This partnership was distinct, as both sounds came from the same instrument: music department senior lecturer David Newsam’s eight-string electric guitar.

The eight-string hybrid guitar, which has three bass strings and five guitar strings, is hooked to two different amps.

Newsam uses one object to play two different instruments.

The guitar anchored a concert that took place Sunday as part of the Vaughan Recital Series. The featured artists were Newsam, Don Davis and Scott Kinnison.

“The whole point of putting this group together is to use this instrument and have a new take on this repertoire,” Newsam said. “I’m still learning how to play, and it’s fairly new. It’s a bit of a challenge, but it’s been fun.”

The artists have performed together in Manchester, where all three are based.

“The jazz community is pretty small there,” Newsam said. “Everybody kind of knows everybody else.”

Newsam, Davis and Kinnison incorporated an array of instruments on Sunday. The selection included songs

by Miles Davis, Bob Marley, Charles

Mingus and other artists.

“It’s definitely based in some jazz standards, but it has much more of a high-energy electric guitar edge to it,” Newsam said of their performance. “It’s not all acoustic instruments.”

One particularly beautiful rendition was of W.C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues,” a song whose history includes performances by America’s top jazz artists, like Louis Armstrong and Wycliffe Gordon.

While the song contains many parts, Davis said, the trio decided to perform only one segment of it.

The song began with the eightstring guitar and a light swoosh in the background from the percussion. Then, Davis entered with the smooth and haunting sound of the woodwinds.

Davis played several wind instruments during the show, occasionally playing multiple instruments in a song.

“The songs we were doing allow flexibility, allowing me to play instruments that I don’t usually play,” Davis said after the show.

The alto saxophone is his instrument of choice, he said.

Davis graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston, where Newsam also studied. Newsam also works as an assistant professor in the guitar department at Berklee, where he has taught since 1989.

Newsam teaches electric guitar and

jazz guitar as an individual instructor at Dartmouth, where he has taught since 1992. He created the jazz guitar program at the University of New Hampshire, where he also teaches.

Davis, Newsam and Kinnison worked together seamlessly, often exchanging jokes between songs. Davis joked that Newsam’s eight-string guitar threw them off sometimes.

“David didn’t mention that his playing that guitar makes us play some things in different keys that were not used to,” he said to the audience.

One of the last songs they played was Don Raye and Gene de Paul’s ballad “You Don’t Know What Love Is.” Davis told the crowd that this was one of his favorite ballads, and encouraged audience members to join in if they wished.

“If you know the words you can sing along to yourself — or out loud,” he said, provoking audience laughter.

Newsam’s powerful sound evoked various moods depending on the song.

“I liked the choice of music, eclectic and interesting, different genres,” audience member Melanie Ditzel said.

The recital ended with “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy,” written in 1966 by Austrian jazz composer Joe Zawinul.

Newsam said that the group sought an interesting mix to complement some standard jazz selections that the members knew.

PAGE 8

ARTS

THE DARTMOUTH ARTS

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2014

Education, gender norms Award-winning short films play at Loew challenged in ‘Stockings’

themes of sexism, oppression, learning, B y KAINA CHEN change and personal choice pertinent For three hours on Friday, Dart- to the time period. mouth became an autumnal scene at There is no easy fix, however.

Girton College in Cambridge, England. Though male characters denounce Bright red and fading brown leaves, both women’s place in academia during real and fake, created the craggy back- scenes of protest as well as in caustic drop to the Girton women, who walked monologues, much of their thinking is on stage wearing just white bloomers. informed by popular but faulty theories They exclaimed about a black bicycle, about women’s roles that were popular a novel invention for 1896. at the time.

Tess Moffat, an astronomy student The play draws to a close as the played by Rachel Decker-Sadowski final results of a vote on women’s right ’14 Th’15, pedaled her way across the to graduate are announced. The vote stage riding the bicycle, while a professor does not pass, and the struggle for a noted the movement of its wheels. The woman’s right to graduate continues scene became a physics lesson about for another 50 years.

Newton’s laws of motion.

The spirit of struggling to break From beginning to end, “Blue Stock- down barriers, in perhaps different ings,” a play by Jessica Swale, reflects the contexts, is important to remember, unconventionality of its opening. Girton Lazar said. was Britain’s first residential college “There’s progress being made, but for women, though I want people to many disputed if “The whole point realize that we’re at they should gradusuch a good place, ate with a university of theater, to me, and we can go so diploma. is that the viewing much further,” she Many men beindvidual will receive said. lieved that women Director Deby who spent their and take their own Guzman-Buchness time studying meaning.” ’15 said audience would have less enmembers could ergy to carry out take various intermore “womanly” - deby guzmanpretations from the duties, like bearing play. buchness ’15, “blue children and raising “The whole point a family, a sentiment stockings” director of theater, to me, voiced by men in is that the viewthe play. Female ing individual will students also risked their reputations as receive and take their own meaning,” marriageable women, forcing them to Guzman-Buchness said. “To me, it’s choose between knowledge and love. about the entanglement of overturning While the direct challenges that and retaining history, institutional pride Girton women faced are seemingly ir- and tradition.” relevant today, cast and crew members The production featured a minimalsaid that there are many parallels to ist stage, and each prop was carefully contemporary Dartmouth. selected to reflect a relationship with “Obviously, we have the right to the overall storyline. The backdrop of graduate — it’s not the same exact is- leaves, for example, reflected the theme sues we’re dealing with,” stage manager of change, set designer Julie Solomon Naomi Lazar ’17 said. “But living in ’17 said. this community has some very intense “There’s a lot of talk of nature, issues. We live in a society where males beauty and art, and I wanted somedominate everything.” thing to allude to that,” Solomon said.

Though “Blue Stockings” focuses “The play is all about change, moving on the broad implications of education forward, being progressive.” reform for social progress, a subset of Several students worked on set dethe story is about Moffat’s personal nar- sign, costume design and production. rative. After falling in love, she struggles The week before the opening show, with the decision to continue pursuing cast members and the production her education. team clocked in more than 20 hours Her personal struggle reflects the of rehearsals, Guzman-Buchness said.

B y OWEN SHEPCARO

Hopkins Center film director Bill Pence founded the Telluride Film Festival in the 1970s as a sort of happy accident — he and his wife arranged for two silent films to be screened at a local theater over Labor Day weekend, and one successful event grew into a robust annual tradition. For nearly 30 years, Pence has organized for Dartmouth to screen selections from the festival, and this fall, he and Hop senior film intern Varun Bhuchar ’15 arranged for several shorts to be screened on campus as well.

Bhuchar, who has interned with Pence since the spring, proposed screening the Telluride shorts at Dartmouth several months ago. Bhuchar curated, edited and compiled 10 shorts from Telluride’s total of 32 for a presentation that screened on Friday evening in Loew Auditorium.

Bhuchar said he considered content and running time when selecting shorts.

“At first we were looking for the films that were artistically striking and that best achieved the goals they set out to achieve,” he said. “We found a diverse group of films that we wanted to screen and then the challenge became organizing them in an interesting and dynamic show.”

The final presentation included comedies, dramas and films with social and political themes, created by directors from several countries. Each was created in the last two years and was between four and eight minutes in length.

The screening began with “Box” (2014), an abstract, avant-garde short that explored the visual power of contrast, shape and perspective in film.

Next was “Aissa” (2014), recipient of a special distinction prize at the Cannes Film Festival this year. The short chronicled a French doctor performing a medical examination on a Congolese immigrant to determine if she is over 18 and can stay in the country. Sobering, the short reveals the detached and unsympathetic attitude sometimes shown toward immigrants.

The third short was “Life’s a Bitch” (2014), which charmed the audience with its humorous portrayal of the protagonist’s painful break-up with his girlfriend, warmly handling his fluctuations between depressed, angry and promiscuous.

The fourth short, “Baths” (2013), was an abstract animated film by Polish filmmaker Tomek Ducki. “Baths” illustrated a race between two elderly swimmers, who realize their fading youth.

Jon Gonzalez ’18 said he considered the film a statement about modern art more than a short with a traditional plot.

“It was hard to follow what [the film] was trying to say, but it created a powerful sensory response,” Gonzalez said. “I thought that the genius of it was in the response it created, not in the plot it showed.”

“Balcony” (2013) told the story of a group of people fretting about the safety of a young boy seated on the ledge of a balcony. The film illustrated the incompetence of the police and fire departments contrasted with the boy’s mother’s ability to convince him to move away from the ledge.

The longest short, “Balcony,” was at times tedious and heavy handed.

The sixth film, “Symphony No. 42” (2014), was an animated film and another highlight at the event. The short illustrated humanity’s relationship to nature in a series of 47 scenes, each expressing a distinct though sometimes illogical rendering of our surroundings through the use of absurd juxtapositions.

The film is short-listed for the 2015 Academy Awards.

The seventh short, “Supervenus” (2014), criticized the superficial and unattainable definition of beauty in Western society, and the eighth short was “Verbatim” (2014), which portrayed a deposition that reaches an impasse when the man being questioned does not understand the term “photocopier.”

“Verbatim” was popular among audience members, who became engrossed in the futile argument and laughed at its absurdity.

Zack Palmer ’18 said he thought “Verbatim” was the program’s best.

“It was really funny but at the same time created a strong frustration in the viewer,” he said. “I hated the guy being questioned for his obliviousness and loved the animation of the lawyer. It really was just hilarious.”

The final two shorts were “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared II: Time” (2013), which chillingly portrayed the inevitable passage of time with singing puppets redolent of Sesame Street, and “Yes, We Love” (2014), which included four scenes of four generations on the Norwegian Independence Day. Bhuchar is a former member of The Dartmouth staff.

LOOK MOM, BOTH HANDS

MAY NGUYEN/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

David Newsam played an eight-string guitar at a Sunday concert. See page 7.