VOL. CLXXIII NO.17
CLOUDY HIGH 35 LOW 17
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2016
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Panel discusses Black Lives Matter course
Sweet remembered as leader
By SONIA QIN
The Dartmouth Staff
was sick.” During his time as president, Sweet represented more than 500 painters, custodians, maintenance workers and dining employees. The union representative for all negotiations between the College and workers, Sweet was a leader and a mentor to many union officers, SEIU Local 560’s vice president Chris Peck said. “He helped build our union
Yesterday, five faculty members spoke to a full Filene Auditorium about their perspectives on the Black Lives Matter course first offered last spring. The event, part of the ongoing Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations, was sponsored by the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and featured geography professor Richard Wright; lecturer of geography and women, gender and sexuality studies Treva Ellison; English professor Aimee Bahng; geography professor Abigail Neely; and mathematics professor Craig Sutton. The BLM course, introduced last spring, was dedicated to considering race, structural inequality and violence in both a historical and modern context. Over 100 students signed up for the course, which was capped at 30. Twentyone professors taught the course. The panel began with an introduction by Wright, who opened with a presentation detailing neighborhood racial segregation and diversity in the United States, topics he covered in the course. In his slides, he showed data demonstrating the degree of segregation in Northern and Southern cities in the U.S. He showed how black residential segregation leads to isolation from jobs, the creation of a disadvantaged social geography, segregation from the black middle class, “missing males” in the black community and a persistent housing wealth gap. Wright introduced the audience to a website he developed, mixedmetro.us, which displays patterns of racial
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Courtesy of Karen White
Earl Sweet, left, poses for a photo with Chris Peck, SEIU Local 560’s vice president.
By JOYCE LEE The Dartmouth Staff
Earl Sweet was a straightshooter, a union president who demanded fairness and a vibrant personality who tenaciously fought for service employees at Dartmouth, according to the many individuals who worked with him in his 35 years as the leader of the Service Employees International Union Local 560.
Sweet was 70 when he died on Jan. 18 in the comfort of his home in Lebanon, after a lengthy battle with cancer. He had been fighting his illness while still doing his work for the union, his daughter Karen White said. “He was very passionate as the union president,” she said. “He just wanted to make [working conditions] better for the workers and he didn’t realize how liked he was. He just enjoyed it, even when he
Student Wellness Center shifts focus to prevention By Heyi Jiang
The Dartmouth
As winter rolls on in Hanover, the Student Wellness Center remains a place of warmth and welcoming spirits. Renamed in the fall from the Student Health Promotion and Wellness Center to the Student Wellness Center, the wellness center looks forward to further enhancing its existing programs in the winter through creating a focus on preventative care, the director
of the wellness center Caitlin Barthelmes said. While the wellness center used to primarily focus on responding to high-risk behaviors, such as binge drinking and sexual violence, it is now looking to “truly embrace the spirit of prevention,” she said. Barthelmes said that while the wellness center will still address high-risk behaviors, its new focus is to get to the roots of these issues and prevent them from happening in the first place.
She added that one of the new initiatives is the expansion of the network of providers for the BASICS program. BASICS is a confidential oneon-one meeting with a staff member from the wellness center designed to address decisions around drinking. Newly appointed assistant director for health improvement Mary Nyhan said that the wellness center takes a very holistic approach in order to achieve preventive wellness. “My goal for the student
wellness center is that we will create and support the conditions under which students can be well, whatever that means to them,” she said. Since the reorganization, the center has placed emphasis on the “seven roots of wellness,” a concept that encourages students to thrive intellectually, financially, physically, environmentally, socially, emotionally and spiritually. P ro g r a m s t h at h ave emerged include the wellness
breakfast check-in sessions every Saturday. The breakfasts create an environment that allow students to actively reflect on their wellness and connect with other students, Nyhan said. The breakfast sessions are facilitated by wellness peers, who have been trained in “motivational interviewing” skills to engage with the students. She added that similar programs have allowed the wellness center to integrate the spirit of wellness SEE WELLNESS PAGE 2
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
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DAILY DEBRIEFING Yale University recently removed a portrait of John C. Calhoun, an American political theorist known for his defense of slavery from a campus dining hall, the Yale Daily News reported. In light of recent protests and demonstrations on campus, students embraced this removal as a move towards a more sensitive, welcoming campus for all. This year’s PennApps, a student-run University of Pennsylvania hack-a-thon, resulted in the invention of a project which can send code from one computer to another via radiofrequency, the Daily Pennsylvanian reported. This innovation, as developed by Rob Roy Fletcher, London Tom Hartley, Fu Yong Quah and Emrehan Tuzun, eliminates the need for Wi-Fi, Ethernet or Bluetooth. Brown University administrators recently banned the use of hoverboards, the Brown Daily Herald reported. This decision was made in response to the dangers posed by such devices, which still lack the safety certification of Underwriters Laboratory, a global independent safety science company. -COMPILED BY JULIA VALLONE
CORRECTIONS We welcome corrections. If you believe there is a factual error in a story, please email editor@thedartmouth.com.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2016
Peer advisors reach out to campus FROM WELLNESS PAGE 1
into the campus life. The wellness center’s training program for prospective peer advisors will also be updated. In addition to the training on “motivational interviewing” skills, they will also receive training in “mindfulness,” which encompasses reflection, connection and intention. “One of the goals for the peers is to have them model what we hope students to embody,” Nyhan said. “Our goal in having peers trained in their own personal mindfulness [is to] make them stronger resources for their peers.” After examining programs administered in environments similar to the College, the center will begin to incorporate the successful programs on a small scale. Once the programs are in place, the wellness center will evaluate feedback from Dartmouth students. This evaluation will allow the wellness center’s initiatives to be as student-centered and evidencebased as possible, Barthelmes said. The center will also aim to be an “access point” for students to be linked to other wellness services on campus, Barthelmes said. Barthelmes said that the center sees its role as supporting students,
staff and faculty in having a conversation about wellness outside the walls of the wellness center itself. The wellness center will continue to contribute to the development of policies that affect students’ wellbeing through interactions with individual students and student groups, as well as ensuring that the systems with which students interact at Dartmouth will empower students to prioritize their wellbeing, Nyhan said. “My hope for the student wellness center is that we really empower students on an individual level and as a community to truly thrive, and maximize their potential and our potential as a community,” Barthelmes said.
Wellness peer Savannah Moss ’18 said that the wellness center is a very “safe place” where students are able to find a group of people available for them. Moss said that there is a potential for one-on-one sessions in the future upon students’ requests. The adults at the wellness center have been very helpful in actualizing programs deemed valuable by wellness peers, Moss said. She said the wellness center makes a number of resources available for those interested in mental health and mental health awareness. “It is a really welcoming community,” she said.
TIFFANY ZHAI/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
The wellness center is found on the third floor of Robinson Hall.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2016
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
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Sweet leaves a lasting legacy for College union
“He was a straightshooter; he always protected people with what contract, from health benefits, he thought was the fairest, and wages and safety,” Peck said. “He would fight really hard for that,” came in all times of the day, even at Vorachak said. For a duration of his time at the middle of the night. He always took phone calls and he helped Dartmouth, Sweet was also inpeople, not just in union matters volved with student and faculty but personal matters. He was an activists during a period of large scale layoffs. all-around good guy.” Sometimes Sweet did not know Sweet was natural leader who had a great control of situations what to think of the group, which and a way of getting people to included international students, people of color, individuals who listen, Peck said. “He was stern, but there were identified as queer or transfolk, as times when he could be soft-spoken, well as their discussions using terms and he just knew when to use his such as “microaggressions” and personality to put humor into situ- “intersectionality,” former Dartations or when he needed to be mouth professor Russell Rickford serious,” Peck said. “He was very said. “Nevknowledgeable. He taught us all “That was his big thing, ertheless, Earl was an orgaquite a bit.” Safety and protecting his workers. nizer, through Secruity patrol When he believed in and through,” Rickford said. officer Ted Willey said Sweet something, he put his “I imagine that h a d b e e n a whole heart into it. He his many years in the labor mentor for him struggle taught during his time really did.” him that you at Dartmouth. don’t turn away “He was al-KAREN WHITE, SWEET’S allies, no matways a good ter how curious person to learn DAUGHTER or esoteric they from, he was might seem.” always so fair,” Willey said. “He took care of everyone. It didn’t Sweet’s alliance with students matter what your status was or if included one with the Students Stand with Staff founding memyou were important.” Sweet always understood when bers, history professor Annelise something wasn’t fair, and always Orleck said. That community of fought for fairness, Willey said. His students, faculty, union members, emphasis on fairness was why he alumnis and retirees felt like a very was so passionate about his work positive version of the Dartmouth community, she said. with SEIU Local 560. As a figure on campus, Sweet “He talked about how important unions were and giving workers was a large and colorful personalmore rights,” White said. “That ity, according to his colleagues. was his big thing, protecting his With tattooed arms, oversized susworkers. When he believed in penders and generous belly, Sweet something, he put his whole heart evoked an earlier era of organized labor, Rickford said. into it. He really did.” His union hat covered with Sergeant-at-arms for SEIU Local 560 Lesia Vorachak said that pins and his truck covered with Sweet was always making strong labor movement bumper stickdecisions as a leader, regardless of ers, including one that said, “The whether management approved his Labor Movement: The Folks Who decisions, and based his choices on Brought You the Weekend,” acwhat felt right by the members of cording to Orleck, were two of Sweet’s characteristic items. Peck the union. Before being hired as a full time said that he had taken the hat back employee by the College, Vorachak with him from Sweet’s home after had been one of its many long-time he had passed, and planned to put temporary workers. When Sweet the hat in a box to display in the discovered that temporary workers office. The truck went to Sweet’s could be employed for years by the daughter. “Everybody knows that truck — College without given a full-time position, he worked to implement you can’t help it, with that license a new policy where temporary plate and all of those stickers,” workers could only work for certain White said. “He was a big man amounts of time before the Col- around here and I didn’t realize lege had to hire them for a union how big of a man he was until now.” position. FROM SWEET PAGE 1
THE DARTMOUTH OPINION
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STAFF COLUMNIST MICHAEL BEECHERT ’16
GUEST COLUMNIST SAM GOLINI ’15
Time for a Change
Anti-Social Media
A change in production practices can make for a better newspaper. Matthew Goldstein ’18, in an excellent article published on Jan. 19, bemoaned the lack of highquality journalism on this campus. The author correctly identified the twin culprits as The Dartmouth Review and The Dartmouth, the former of which he indicted for being overly reactionary and the latter for shoddy reporting standards. Both of these criticisms have merit — the Review does seem to gain no small amount of pleasure from antagonizing people, and this publication oftentimes leaves much to be desired with regard to the accuracy and depth of its journalism. Unlike Goldstein, I don’t believe that either one of these publications should necessarily strive towards ideological neutrality, and I am cynical about the ability of any campus newspaper to significantly change the world around it. However, there are a handful of simple steps that could be taken to improve the quality of reporting at Dartmouth, and in doing so focus more attention on the problems that actually exist on this campus. I have no problem admitting that I am a fan of the Review, which provides an important and oft-neglected political and social perspective that is sorely needed in the liberal echo chamber known as Dartmouth. Its irreverence and brutal honesty is a refreshing departure from the standard campus discourse, whose reliance on in-vogue buzzwords — think diversity, inclusion, and anything that ends with –ism — threatens to make one’s ears bleed. Sometimes, though, the Review’s desire to inflame overshadows the publication’s true value, which lies with the strength of its investigative reporting. If the Review wants its work to have a real impact, it should ditch the Indian mascot and lose the self-indulgent old-boy attitude that often permeates its pages. Stories such as its exposés on the Black Lives Matter library protest and the disturbing undergraduate advisor training process deserve more attention, and putting a halt to the likely alienation of the paper’s potential audience members would be a step in the right direction. The Dartmouth suffers from the same ill — the lack of impact of its journalism — but for a different reason; namely, the reporting this publication trots out on a daily basis rarely meets the high standards to which an Ivy League newspaper
should hold itself. Friends and acquaintances have complained to me on several occasions that they have been misquoted in pieces run in The Dartmouth, and the topics which the paper normally covers are, quite frankly, uninteresting and/or unimportant. Some recent gems include articles such as the Jan. 14 piece, “Students pursue pre-professional interests on break,” and the Jan. 20 story, “Documentary screening followed by panel discussion.” Seriously? Should readers really be expected to care about the job-shadowing adventures some people experienced over the interim or that the Rockefeller Center showed a film to a crowd that included just five students? The output of the opinion section is hardly more inspiring. Because there are only so many topics to write about on a campus of this size, many articles (this one included!) invariably touch on themes that have already been addressed at some point. Repetition does not make for interesting reading. In order to help alleviate some of the problems that plague our beloved D, I recommend that the paper switch to a thrice-a-week publication schedule. I am well aware that The Dartmouth is proud of its status as a daily publication, but giving up this lofty mantle seems like a small price to pay for the improved journalistic quality such a move might engender. Presently-overwhelmed editors would be subject to less time pressure, allowing them to more carefully select which stories to pursue as well as to more effectively ensure that news reporting, particularly interviews, has been completed with accuracy and discretion. The decreased amount of space available for content would also benefit readers, who would no longer be subject to the filler that so often appears in The Dartmouth. Writers and editors alike would have more time to engage in long-form or serialized investigative journalism on topics that need addressing, such as the disastrous financial practices the College has adopted over the past decade. Quality over quantity should be the new mantra of this paper and scaling back production would go a long way towards improving the readers’ experience without sacrificing the campus’s need to stay informed.
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The more we invest in our online persona, the more we suffer offline. They say a picture is worth a thousand Pre-games you weren’t invited to that look words. Over break, I moved out of my like they were actually fun. Beachside vachildhood home. I sat in my attic sur- cations and concerts with large groups of rounded by boxes, flipping through an old friends. As you consume this straight from photo album. I was consumed as my mind your mobile phone in class, wearing a pair relocated to the ’90s (the best decade ever), of sweats while your professor hands back a simpler time when the key to capturing the quiz you studied hard for but got a C a great photo was to have everyone in on last week, how do you expect to feel? the shot shout “CHEEEESE!” in unison. Let’s get one more thing straight: each Click. There. Everyone’s pearly whites of us is an outstandingly grotesque (think are showing, and if they aren’t you won’t about toes for a minute), privileged and find out until the film is developed. The selfish human being who hasn’t had enough color is raw and unfiltered. There is no time to figure out who we are. I don’t think retouching. Just a moment in history that many of us, put on the spot, would be able was happening when someone pulled out to absolutely declare exactly who we are, their camera and “click” — the moment what our purpose is in life, for what we captured in its essence, we move on and stand or by what we are driven. return to these memories at a later time. Finding answers to these questions is Nowadays, 90 percent of the photos I what motivates us in real life. Social media see posted online say one thing: conveniently allows us to live through an “I am attempting to define myself and online persona. Why do we spend so much am looking for approval.” time composing glamorous selfies to post? Allow me to elaborate. Nowadays, They get more likes. Then, in a few clicks we each have two personas. There is the you can join a group that indicates where persona you adapt when you interact with you stand on some contentious issue and you other people in real life, can share some post which I will call an authat gives you the illuthentic persona. Then “We love the control sion of creating social there is the persona each we have over our change. Your profile of us curates through an indicates where you online presence in posts online personas, but have gone to school, for on Facebook, Instagram in order to be happy whom you have worked and Snapchat. I will call and with whom you are with ourselves, we this an online persona. romantically involved, What I find to be must learn to accept once again creating an difficult is when one and love and value our illusion of a complete constructs an online perpicture. In fact, there sona as a clear attempt authentic personas.” is no way to accurately to remove or cover up convey your complete parts of one’s authentic authentic persona on persona. Creating an online persona that such a platform. differs from one’s authentic persona is This persona, in itself, is not an accominevitable and deconstructive. We love the plishment. We should not feel accomplished control we have over our online personas, by getting hundreds of likes. Sharing a post but in order to be happy with ourselves, we or a status is not social activism. You’ve done must learn to accept and love and value nothing. In fact, we should be aware of the our authentic personas. subconscious effect we have on the person Here’s the cold hard truth: social media who loses self-esteem in comparing their makes us feel bad about ourselves. Mental authentic persona to our highly curated health issues are widespread, evidenced in online personas. On the other side, even if a 2008 Associated Press survey in which 34 we don’t post ourselves but if we are one of percent of college students reported feeling the 300 likes, we are effectively encouraging depressed at some point over the previous someone to maintain their online persona, three months. Earlier this year, I read a one characterized by deception and a mask moving article about a teenage Instagram of self-loathing. It’s a lose-lose situation, yet model who re-posted her Instagram photos we all rely on it. with captions about her personal thoughts Social media forums are platforms of of insecurity, lack of esteem and obscured miscommunication. Each of us is capable body image that were clouding her head at of amazing things in life. We each have the the time she originally posted them. This ability to love, to question, to act and to is not uncommon. People seek approval to build. We’re in a position here at Dartmouth feel good about themselves and Instagram to make great benevolent contributions provides one forum for this search. to the world. In order to do this, we must When I go on Facebook, I see a distinct learn to fully embrace our own authentic difference in the photos posted online and personas and take online personas with old family photo albums. On Facebook, I a grain of salt. Want to feel good about see a highly curated selection of online yourself ? Volunteer. Help others learn. personas. Unsurprisingly, the posts that Make music. Study and work hard. Make seem to get the most attention are the a goal, set limitations and follow through. ones that are most artificial. Glamorous Think about what is important to you, do selfies. Incredible outdoor excursions. it, and don’t share it with anyone. *Like*
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2016
PAGE 5
Teaching grant will fund future iterations of BLM course FROM PANEL PAGE 1
composition in the country over time. “A spatial perspective is integral for understanding this linchpin of black social life,” Wright said. Neely followed Wright’s presentation with an explanation of how the BLM course was developed. She said that the idea for the course came out of one of last year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day events, at which Rev. Starsky Wilson, co-chair of the Ferguson Commission, spoke about how to incorporate questions around black lives mattering into classes at the College. “We wanted to have a sustained conversation and one that had an institutional space,” Neely said. Neely said that no one person and no one discipline could deal with the issue alone, explaining the need for the large number of faculty who taught the course together. “This course gave us an opportunity to enact an alternative organization for learning,” Neely said. “The course was about collective decision-making, forming a course together, recognizing that we wouldn’t agree on every aspect, but that we would come together about this sort of broader picture.” Universities in general are hierarchical, Neely said, and the faculty
teaching BLM wanted to displace that organizational style. Neely said that there were limitations to the class as well, such as not having any one instructor in the class regularly every week. She noted that more time could have been spent on teaching students about public outreach work. “It’s really hard to balance the lessons of a movement that’s unfolding in real time with the larger geographical, historical and political context,” Neely said. Bahng said that an innovative teaching grant will promote the BLM course in future iterations, which will be offered twice over the next four years. She plans on inviting the entire Arts and Sciences faculty to join the teaching collective if they are so inclined. “I really want to see that curricular development not end with just this course,” Bahng said. “I’d like to see it take hold and be taken up among the various departments across campus.” Sutton then took the floor and spoke about how he got involved in teaching the course. He said that he initially wasn’t sure of the relevance of his area of expertise, but felt a calling to get involved in an issue he was interested in. Sutton said that through his work
on the “Moving Dartmouth Forward” policy initiative committee, he realized that working with students often falls disproportionately on women and faculty of color. He said that he felt it was important to get involved and start levelling out the work. “Maybe we don’t teach these topics explicitly, but you have other allies on campus and people who will talk through these issues with you,” he said. Sutton, who is one of the inaugural house professors for the house system that will be implemented in the fall, said he hopes that students who have taken the BLM course and those who will take it in the future will see the MDF initiative as an opportunity to build a new community of intellectuals and scholars. Ellison, who was not involved in teaching the BLM course, said that to teach and to learn about BLM is “to learn queerly, and to retrain our embodied and imaginative reflexes.” “It’s not just about learning a set of facts, but literally about a set of repeated actions producing knowledge that’s stored in the body, because anti-blackness and white supremacy are knowledge that is stored in the body,” Ellison said. She said that the BLM movement has really emphasized embodied knowledge.
A question-and-answer session followed the panelists’ individual presentations. Wright said that the panel is good publicity for Dartmouth, as was the BLM course, which was reported on by CNN and the Huffington Post. He compared the BLM course to the the Great Issues courses from the 1950s. Pioneered by former College President John Sloan Dickey, leading figures of the day lectured to seniors each week on important issues of the time. “For older alums, they would see this as related to the Great Issues courses of the 1950s and 1960s,” Wright said. “This is a great issue.” He said that the course showed the professionalism and collective will of faculty to join. Wright said that many of Dartmouth’s peer institutions face many of the same problems regarding diversity and inclusiveness. The goals of the panel and course are to make a tangible impact on the institution, curriculum and local community, he said. The Rockefeller Center’s program officer for public and special events Joanne Needham said that Rockefeller decided to support Wright’s initiative for the panel because of the need to inform students about important
social issues. She said that she thought the questions asked, especially by students, were very insightful. “It is not that this panel has all the answers,” Needham said. “There are really some hard questions and that’s why we have to keep innovating with our courses.” She said that the panel’s audience included students, faculty, staff and community members, which showed a cross-section of the town and the greater community beyond Dartmouth. Hannah Matheson ’18 enjoyed the discussion that followed the panel, particulary concerns raised about the self-selecting nature of these conversations. “I think the most poignant conversation for me has to do with how if something is self-selective, how do you get information out to people and more of campus involved?” Matheson said. Kevin Bui ’17 said he found the event insightful and it taught him a lot about how activism on campus can be enacted. “It’s really important that we have these conversations and really think about how to fold these conversations into the academic curriculum,” Bui said.
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THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2016
DARTMOUTHEVENTS TODAY 3:45 p.m.
“Migration to Germany: Ist Deutschland ein Einwanderungsland?” Nisha Kommattam, Dartmouth Hall 104A
4:30 p.m.
“The Middle East: A Strategic Perspective,” senior analyst in the CIA’s Directorate of Analysis Andrew Gilmour, Haldeman 41
7:00 p.m.
Charles Loyd and Friends Featuring Bill Frisell, Reuben Rogers and Eric Harland, Spaulding Auditorium, Hopkins Center for the Arts
TOMORROW 4:15 p.m.
“Goddesses, Women and Star Persona in Bollywood Film,” Professor Kathleen Erndl, Florida State University, Rockefeller Center 002
4:30 p.m.
Martin Luther King Jr. Social Justice Awards, a ceremony and panel featuring the 2016 honorees, Filene Auditorium, Moore
4:30 p.m.
“The Meaning of Ice: People & Sea Ice In Arctic Communities,” Dr. Shari Gearheard, University of Colorado Researcher, Haldeman 41
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THE DARTMOUTH ARTS
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2016
PAGE 7
Book Review: ‘Of Gods, Royals and Superman’ (2015)
By MADELINE KILLEN The Dartmouth
Alumnus Tom Maremaa ’67’s most recent novel, “Of Gods, Royals and Superman” (2015), might hit a little close to home for some of his fellow sons and daughters of Dartmouth — it follows Christopher Reed, president of the fictional fraternity Quad Alpha, after his expulsion from the College on account of his brotherhood’s especially creative methods of ensuring their new members’ loyalty, a practice colloquially referred to as “hazing.” The Dean of the College tells Reed that he has six months to “do something great” if he wants to stand a chance of graduating with the rest of his class — so off he goes to “save starving children,” a phrase tossed around by probably every single character to whom he explains his situation. I, for one, immediately thought he should travel across the country; first, with the cast of a Mark Twain drama troupe and later, the film crew for a Superman remake, before settling down and working in a restaurant for a few months to really learn the value of hard work. We can take bets, if you want. Anyway, those of us who spend our Wednesday nights in Berry or in bed
can relate to the second protagonist, Morgan Kinder. She is devoting her senior spring to hunting down an author who went missing decades ago but whose two published books bare an uncanny resemblance to the events unfolding in the modern-day world of Maremaa’s novel. At the same time, poor Morgan is trying to deal with all the boys her promiscuous roommate and sorority sister, Lisa, keeps bringing home. Morgan is working on a thesis. She does not have time to deal with nonsense. Again, I can relate. (Aside: my roommate is fantastic and will kill me when she reads this.) The novel reads a bit like a comic book — the scenes are fast-paced and the dialogue tends toward the robotic catch phrases you would expect from Batman and Robin. Thinking about how quickly the scenes move, I’m astounded that “Of Gods, Royals, and Superman” is as long as it is, a testament to the sheer volume of twists and turns in the plot. According to Maremaa, the book hovers around 100,000 words, which is about one-sixth the size of “War and Peace” (1869), a book which could have five-sixths cut away but still make a formidable paperweight for all of the articles you have to read for class. (But if you do
pick up the massive Russian book you’ll be immediately initiated into the group of Alumni Gym regulars who never leave their dorm without their Blender Bottles and never leave the gym, period, so you’ll soon graduate to massive barbells and never need to pick up measly little “War and Peace” again.) But enough about Tolstoy; sure, Russia still has their hard alcohol, but we have our freedom! Maremaa might be a little optimistic about how much freedom, though, seeing as his characters repeatedly make phone calls during plane rides and our hero Christopher Reed finds a “kilo of weed” that his fraternity brothers hid in his carry-on luggage as a joke once he’s already up in the air. Even if we shift our timeline back a bit and say this is a warm, fuzzy pre-9/11 airport, I’m skeptical about the odds of a kilo of weed making it onto a plane undetected. I’m also skeptical about Reed’s friends’ senses of humor and how much they actually wanted him to come back for graduation. The novel ended with an abrupt twist that actually made me angry — Maremaa jumps forward four years and reveals a future for the characters that first of all, I honestly and naively
did not see coming, and that secondly, I think deserved more of a storyline and explanation. Overall, though, despite demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of both airport security and in-flight cellular device laws, “Of Gods, Royals, and Superman” was a
COURTESY OF TOM MAREMAA ’67
“Of Gods, Royals and Superman” follows a fictional Dartmouth fratboy.
Recent Alumna Q&A: Margot Yecies ’15
By MAC EMERY
The Dartmouth Staff
Margot Yecies ’15 graduated with a double major in theater and music. As of this fall, she is pursuing a theater and singing career in New York. What have you been involved in since transitioning to New York? MY: I guess my first thing after graduation was I started working at the New London Barn Playhouse, which is a summer stock theater in New London, New Hampshire, about half an hour from Dartmouth. I was working there as a stage manager for their intern program, so I stage-managed upwards of 40 middle schoolers and high schoolers, which was a blast. And that program is actually run by a Dartmouth ’08. A lot of Dartmouth alums and professors are involved in the playhouse, so it’s a natural first job after college. [In New York], I’ve been auditioning, sending out resumes, filling out job interviews — all sorts of fun job hunting. This fall I worked on an off-Broadway production of “Once Upon a Mattress” [(1959)]. I was very excited for Transport Group, which is an off-Broadway theater group, and I worked backstage on their production this fall and winter. That’s been my main involvement in New York. Other than that, I’ve been trying to get my foot in the door.
Could you tell me about your first professional experience? MY: It was great. The job fell into my lap in a wonderfully unexpected way. It was a little surreal to show up and realize for the first time in a really long time with me doing theater that I was the youngest person there or one of the youngest people there. Everyone’s really welcoming; it was really nice to finally be in a professional production. Dartmouth does its best to make their productions feel as professional as possible, but at the end of the day they’re not. So it was really nice to experience a professional atmosphere. Everyone, as you could imagine, was very professional and courteous and on top of things. The people who worked on it seemed to treat each other like a family. They really supported each other. Are there any challenges with transitioning from a student to a professional environment? MY: I think there’s a lot, more that I will discover in the months and years to come. I think one of the biggest ones is that you have to create your own learning opportunities, which is true in any field once you leave college or grad school. But at Dartmouth I had the luxury to take voice lessons every week and had access to free practice, well not free, access to practice which was included in my very expensive tuition. So there was a lot of space to
work on my art and create art myself. If you want to you can sit in a practice room in the Hop and nobody will disturb you and you can literally just do art all day. It takes some getting used to knowing that I have to create my own space to be creative and create my own space to keep up with my growth and practicing, because there’s no professor or class that’s telling you [what] to do. And I don’t necessarily have the space and time that I did. I think that’s the main challenge right now. Of course there are other challenges. You have to support yourself, you can’t spend a hundred percent of your time on your art. Now that you’re moved on to the large world of professional acting, how do you think about the experience of your two senior projects? MY: I’m glad I did them. I really got into them because there aren’t so many opportunities to create the art you want to create once you leave a college environment or a conservatory environment. So I’m very happy that I took advantage of those resources, and explored topics that were interesting to me and music that was interesting and important to me. It really forced me to be very diligent about my practicing and the way I prepared for my rehearsals. It was a good challenge to learn that much material in so short a time.
fun read about redemption and the terrifying prospect of the post-Dartmouth leap into reality. And Mr. Maremaa, if you think I didn’t notice that you wrote yourself into the novel as approximately four separate and distinct characters, you are sorely mistaken.
Do you see yourself pursuing opportunities that have those two [music and theater] conjoined? How do you see those two interests aligning in the future? MY: I guess there’s a number of ways it could pan out. I guess one path I’m considering is going to grad school for classical voice and opera. Going to a conservatory for a MS, a masters in music. Acting is an important part of opera, so I think my theater training will serve me well with that, even if its not the focus. I guess another way it could pan out is in a dream world is I become the Audra McDonald or the Kristin Chenoweth who are classically trained musical theater performers. I think that’s sort of its own niche in the musical theater world, and that’s something I’m really interested in. Now that you have a few months of experience under your belt, what advice would you bestow back on Dartmouth students with a passion for theater or music that might be considering a similar path? MY: I guess the first thing is that I feel extremely under-qualified to give advice. I feel like I’m still in the stage where I’m very much learning. But I guess one thing I talk about a lot with my friends who are still at Dartmouth is I think it can be challenging because there are so many things going
on — you’re taking classes, there are extracurriculars, you’re directing a play, you’re acting in a musical, there are a hundred things going on. I think that what I guess I wish I had done is when I’m in rehearsal, or when I’m in acting class, or when I’m in studio, is to really be focused. Don’t let the midterm I have tomorrow or the issue having in some other extracurricular, don’t let that get in the way of my really valuable time in the rehearsal space or in the performance space. It’s just so valuable, that time you get in the rehearsal room, you definitely want to take advantage of it. With all the exposure you have with very experienced professionals, would you say that you find the New York scene and environment very stimulating artistically? MY: Yeah, definitely. Maybe I’m still secretly a little bit of a theater nerd or a tourist, but there’s something magical about walking past ten Broadway theaters on my way to work every day. If that doesn’t inspire you to push yourself I don’t know what will. That in and of itself is inspiring. Even being in the physical environment. So many of the people I interact with are theater people — actors, directors, playwrights — and so I think it’s just nice to be around people who understand and want to help push each other to create good art and new art. Definitely a stimulating environment.
THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS
PAGE 8
SPORTS
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2016
WEDNESDAY LINEUP
No athletic events scheduled
Ski team earns first carnival win in almost four years By MAX KANEFIELD The Dartmouth Staff
The Big Green ski team earned its first carnival win of the season — the first in almost four years — this past weekend in nail-biting fashion, edging out the University of Vermont and the University of New Hampshire to capture the Colby Carnival at Quarry Road Trails in Waterville, Maine. Dartmouth bested Vermont by four points to break the Catamounts streak of 20 straight carnival wins. “Well it felt great,” Nordic captain Oscar Friedman ’16 said. “I’m a senior, but I have never been at a carnival where we’ve won. So that was really surreal and it was truly incredible.” Leading up to one of the closest finishes in recent carnival memory, the team was not sure they would win until they were packing up to head home. Despite a lead after Saturday, the Big Green overcame a strong push by Vermont skiers to hold on for their first win of the season. “I kind of assumed that we might not have pulled it out,” Nordic women’s captain Mary O’Connell ’16 said. “The UVM men’s team did really well [on
Sunday] — they went one and two — and so I didn’t think we had it. We looked it up before we left the venue and saw that we won by four points. We really wanted this going into the weekend and especially going into [Sunday] with the lead. We were psyched to prove that we could do it and we were psyched going into the day, and we were excited that it all fell into place among all four teams.” Dartmouth’s ski team was led by strong results from the women’s Alpine team, whose wins in the slalom and giant slalom events made up the margin of victory for the Big Green. Alexa Dlouhy ’19 led the way with a dominant performance on the event’s first day, posting the fastest competition time on both of her runs in women’s slalom to capture first place overall. Right behind her was Maisie Ide ’16, who took second place in the event to cement Dartmouth’s advantage in Alpine. Foreste Peterson ’18 also earned a first place finish in the giant slalom event on Friday with a total time of 2:04.96. It was a dominant effort from the women’s Alpine team, and the rest of Dartmouth skiing took notice. “I have to say the credit should mostly go to the Alpine teams, especially
the Alpine [women’s] team,” Friedman said. “We’ve got an interesting sport because Alpine and Nordic are very different. But when you have one group that’s really a standout, that brings the level of the whole ski team up, so we’re really grateful to have our women’s Alpine team skiing strongly at this point.” The team built on its opening performance at Bates Carnival from Jan. 15, where a narrow loss to UVM set the stage for this past weekend’s historic victory. In the collegiate season opener, the women’s teams poured in strong showings across the disciplines. The women’s team was bolstered by strong races from two freshmen who managed to score in their first carnival event. Taryn Hunt-Smith ’19 and Emily Hyde ’19 finished sixth and eighth to help the Big Green to 120 points and a first place finish in the women’s classic sprint event at Bates. At the Colby Carnival this past weekend, Hyde took eighth in the 15K classic and fifth in the team sprint with teammate Zoe Snow ’18. Hunt-Smith took fourth in the team sprint with teammate Lydia Blanchet ’19 and eleventh in the 15K classic. “Coming into Dartmouth, everyone
COURTESY OF KALEY SHAGEN
The ski team has begun its season by taking first and second place in two carnivals.
was really excited about the energy and the level of competition the freshmen were bringing, so it was cool to see that pay off,” Hunt-Smith said. “It’s nice to have a position on the race team and be able to score points for my team.” The Big Green ski team is beginning to hit a stride where all four of its groups — the women and men’s team in Alpine and Nordic disciplines — are scoring well in concert, leaving hope that the team will challenge for more carnival wins in the future.
“I feel like over the past two years, lots of different teams were doing well but there’s always been one team that’s a little bit not there — holding us back from that win,” O’Connell said. “So to have all four teams do it, and knowing our Alpine team had done it, we knew that we could do it too.” The Big Green will head to Vermont next weekend for the UVM Carnival at the Mount Mansfield Ski Club in Stowe, Vermont in search of its second victory of the season.
Shoot for It: With Alex Lee ’16 and John Beneville ’16
By ALEX LEE AND JOHN BENEVILLE
The Dartmouth Staff
Last Friday, Jan. 22, Cleveland Cavaliers head coach David Blatt was fired despite holding the best record in the Eastern Conference (30-11). Today, we will discuss whether the firing was justified. John’s Take: Blatt’s firing is another nail in LeBron James’ coffin. Strangely necessary, since the media and misguided fans have continued to give him life over the last few years. My feelings for LeBron haven’t budged since “The Decision,” which he egotistically delivered to the world live from the Greenwich Boys and Girls Club. When he turned down autograph requests from young children, snubbed the Club’s “youth of the year” by refusing to shake his hand and disrespected an important children’s organization that he supposedly “supported,” he permanently lost my respect. For a while, “The Chosen One” was able to dodge criticism for this kind of thing, and for his post-season failures because he was young, inexperienced, immature, etc. Then, in 2012 Dwyane
Wade and Chris Bosh won a championship for LeBron before the latter finally earned a ring in 2013. Along the way, LeBron’s people encouraged him to donate to charities, smile for the camera and be kind to the media. It worked — for the most part, the man had most everyone duped. Fast forward to 2016, and it’s quite obvious that the player we see before us today is the same arrogant, selfish man that spent just enough time in the Boys and Girls Club to deliver his decision and defecate in a bathroom stall. Blatt never had a chance in Cleveland. Not when he was hired before LeBron was signed, thus “excluding” LeBron from the hiring process (as if he should be involved in the first place). Not when LeBron was caught on camera shoving Blatt back to the sidelines as if Blatt was somehow “out of order” for disputing a call. Not when Kevin Love couldn’t get along with Blatt (hint: this is not the first time Love has had a problem getting along with his coach). Not when the Cavaliers lost in the finals last year in a pathetic performance against the Warriors. No, Blatt never had a chance because LeBron had his scapegoat. The Cavaliers suffered a few bad losses directly preceding Blatt’s firing,
games in which it was clear that the Cavaliers were severely outmatched. It was also clear, however, that many Cavaliers players, LeBron especially, decided to boycott their coach. Footage of their game against the Portland Trail Blazers shows LeBron looking uninterested and completely disengaged, especially on the defensive side of the ball. This is unacceptable behavior for “the best in the world” but is also completely unsurprising. Like some of the free agents that Alex and I have discussed in week’s past, LeBron decided that he was going to hold out. He sent a message to the organization that he wouldn’t play for Blatt if they didn’t meet his demands, and they caved. Gone is Blatt, the experienced European coach with a proven offensive system (although it was never given the chance in Cleveland), a winning record and a trip to the Finals in his first year of coaching in the NBA. LeBron held his team hostage, just as he held the nation hostage on national TV as we so anxiously awaited his “decision” back in 2010. My question is: why do we keep holding our breath? Alex’s Take: I find it interesting how John always manages to divert any basketball topic into a hate-mongering for LeBron.
However, I do concede that he deserves much of the blame for Blatt’s firing, albeit not all the blame. The fact is that Blatt has not been a great basketball coach or leader. From his calling timeouts — that the team didn’t have — down the stretch in playoff games to illegally walking on the court and causing a technical to drawing up a final play against the Chicago Bulls where LeBron is the inbounder, Blatt has made numerous mistakes in his tenure as the Cavaliers’ coach. Moreover, he was never able to convince the Cavalier players to buy into his Euroleague system, which has not seemed to translate well to the NBA. In fact, LeBron never seemed to “buy into” Blatt at all. John is right about the many disrespectful acts that he has shown his coach over the past year and a half. But perhaps this lack of “coachability” falls onto LeBron. LeBron has never given any of his coaches much respect. Whether it was Mike Brown or Erik Spoelstra, or Blatt, LeBron shows his coaches as much deference as Donald Trump gives Jeb Bush. Interestingly enough, I think that much of this has to do with the fact that LeBron never played in college. No matter where or for whom he has
played, basketball has always been about LeBron, not about the coach or the system that the team has in place. If, instead of opting for the draft, LeBron had chosen to play a year for Mike Krzyzewski at Duke University, his coachability would be a lot different. In college, players know that they may not be there the next year, but the coach and system will be, thus the coach and system take precedence. Even as an enormous LeBron fanboy, I have been disappointed by this side of him. Even the greatest players need coaches to guide them along the way, and LBJ has not allowed this. David Griffin and the Cavs organization also deserve much of the blame for Blatt’s firing. They reached the finals the previous season, and they have been leading the Eastern Conference at 3011. It is embarrassing that they fired the man slotted to coach the Eastern Conference All-Star team. They are simply looking for a scapegoat. Ultimately, the blame for Blatt’s firing lies upon many people. It remains to be seen how Tyronn Lue will change the system of the Cavaliers and if these changes will allow the Cavaliers to compete with the elite teams in the NBA.