VOL. CLXXII NO. 37
PARTLY CLOUDY HIGH 18 LOW 7
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Panelists talk sustainability jobs Students push for
Asian-American studies program By ANNIE MA
The Dartmouth Staff
Panelist and co-president of SunCommon, a solar energy provider, Duane Peterson ’78 said that he decided to work at the intersection of business and sustainability after discovering the power of money in social ventures. His company, which is almost three years old, is the largest solar business in Vermont and commands 60 percent of the market share, he said.
A student group submitted a faculty cluster hiring proposal calling for the strengthening of existing ethnic studies programs and the reestablishment of a formal Asian-American studies program as a part of College President Phil Hanlon’s faculty cluster initiative. The proposal, submitted to vice provost for academic initiatives Denise Anthony on Feb. 16 by the Asian/American Students for Action, centers around the question of how histories of colonialism and imperialism affect minorities and groups of color today. Six student members of Asian/American Students for Action, a Council on Student Organizations recognized group, wrote the proposal, titled “Race, Colonialism and Diaspora.” At the time of submission, the document had gathered over 60 signatures of support from students and alumni. It also included five faculty supporters and two co-sponsoring faculty, none of whom were directly involved in the drafting process. A decision as to whether the proposal receives College funding and support will be made by late April. Currently, there are interdisciplinary studies programs offered in African and African-American studies, Asian and Middle Eastern studies, Latin American, Latino and Caribbean studies, Native American studies and women’s and gender studies classes. The proposal aims to strengthen ties between the existing programs while adding a formal Asian-American studies program. Moulshri Mohan ’15, a member of Asian/American
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The Office of Sustainability brought four alumni back to talk about their careers in sustainability.
B y ERIN LEE The Dartmouth Staff
The office of sustainability hosted a panel titled “Business and Sustainability” Monday afternoon that featured four alumni working on environmental issues in the private sector. The event was intended to give students a sense of the variety of careers available that are related to social responsibility, director of sustainability Rosi Kerr,
who is a member of the Class of 1997, said. “There are lots of ways to make a living and engage in fun and meaningful work and business in a for-profit space, but also to make a difference in the world,” she said. “We are hoping essentially to make sustainability careers more approachable.” Kerr, who moderated the event, introduced the panel as a “reassuring parallel track to corporate recruiting.”
Ice Drilling Grant awarded to Thayer professor
B y EMILIA BALDWIN The Dartmouth Staff
With the help of a $17.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation, Thayer School of Engineering professor Mary Albert will lead the U.S. Ice Drilling Program for four years to gather data about climate change in Antarctica and Greenland. The NSF gave the grant by means of its Office of Polar Programs.
Ice proxy drilling gathers data about previous environmental conditions that reveal up to thousands of years of evidence of climate change through. Albert, in conjunction with her colleagues, has worked with the University of Wisconsin’s Ice Drilling Design and Operations group to produce drills that are used in Antarctica and Greenland. “We just finished drilling a mile-long sight in Antarctica,” Albert said. “We SEE GRANT PAGE 3
BUENA ONDA
ELIZA MCDONOUGH/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
The Dartmouth Argentine Tango Society offers classes for beginners and intermediates.
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
PAGE 2
DAily debriefing Nicotine and other naturally occurring chemicals found in the flowers of tobacco and other plants could be the right prescription for ailing bees, the College announced. The study included researchers from Dartmouth and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The researchers hypothesized that some nectar compounds could reduce parasite infections in bees, and the team inoculated individual bees with a parasite to test the effect of eight nectar chemicals on parasite population growth. They found that chemicals in floral nectar significantly reduce parasite infection in bees and that growing plants high in these compounds around farm fields could improve survival rates of diseased bees and pollination of crops. A recent finding by vice chair for research of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the Geisel School of Medicine Marlene Goldman and her colleagues gives doctors and couples a new choice in infertility treatments, according to a news release from the Norris Cotton Cancer Center. The study determined that follicle stimulating hormones and estrogen at the upper limits of normal could predict treatment success as measured in live birth rates. FSH levels rise as women approach menopause, and high levels are key indicators that women may not be fertile enough to conceive using normal fertility methods. This could allow women to be “fast-tracked” to in vitro fertilization, bypassing conventional treatments. Thirty-three percent of couples in the study that were previously infertile were able to have babies when they pursued IVF. The next steps for Goldman include probing what makes IVF so successful and how to keep success rates high while reducing costs. Dartmouth researchers found that formula-fed infants had higher arsenic levels than breast-fed infants and that breast milk itself contained very low arsenic concentrations in the first U.S. study of urinary arsenic in babies, the MinnPost reported. The researchers measured arsenic in tap water, urine from 72 six-week-old infants and breast milk from nine women in New Hampshire, and found that urinary arsenic was 7.5 times lower for breast-fed participants than for formula-fed ones. For the majority of participants, both formula powder and water contributed to their exposure. The researchers predict that population-wise arsenic exposure will increase during the second six months of life when formula-feeding prevalence increases. The Environmental Protection Agency has set a maximum contaminant level of arsenic for public drinking water, but private well water is not subject to regulation and is the primary water source in many rural areas in the United States. — Compiled by Kelsey Flower
Corrections We welcome corrections. If you believe there is a factual error in a story, please email editor@thedartmouth.com.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015
Students submit cluster proposal FROM FACULTY PAGE 1
Students for Action, said that one of the organization’s motivations for creating a cluster proposal was to increase the presence of AsianAmerican studies at the College. Mohan emphasized that the proposal drew from many ethnic studies disciplines for a connected approach to studying these experiences. Sera Kwon ’17, another member of Asian/American Students for Action, said that the proposal could be a way to expand institutional support for faculty in ethnic studies programs, which receive less funding because these programs lack departmental status. The proposal would also facilitate the connection between
“Ethnic studies really serves to contextualize a lot of how many of our students experience culture and life and society, even their experience here.” - SHIELLA CERVANTES, ASSISTANT DEAN AND ADVISOR TO PAN-ASIAN STUDENTS faculty and other scholars who share an interest in race, colonialism and diaspora. In order to achieve this, Kwon said, one necessary move is to bring in more Asian-American studies professors, adding that their perspectives are essential to the conversation. The proposal also ties into Hanlon’s “Moving Dartmouth Forward” policy initiative on fostering inclusivity and diversity, Justin Sha ’15 said. He said that this proposal was one of many ways to meet these goals beyond simply recruiting more students and faculty of color. By providing institutional support, Sha said, the College would promote “diversity and inclusivity in actuality for current students.” Although courses in the field of Asian-American studies are offered at the College, there is no formally
recognized program or department. In 2004, the Pan-Asian Council circulated a petition for the creation of an Asian-American studies program at Dartmouth, and the petition gathered over 1,200 signatures. The petition, however, did not result in the establishment of a major or minor program. English professor Aimee Bahng said that low enrollment and subsequent cancellation are often cited as reasons for not offering more Asian-American studies courses at the College. While low enrollment or course cancellations are sometimes interpreted as low student interest, she said, low faculty retention in these fields can contribute to a cyclical problem. “Students choose courses based on the reputation of the professor and of the course itself,” Bahng said. “If you have a new professor launching a new course, of course it’s going to be under-enrolled.” Bahng pointed to her course this term, “Asian-American Literature and Culture,” as an example of a class that has had time to establish itself. The incorporation of AsianAmerican literature into the English department curriculum combined with her years of work experience at the College has led the class to have one of the highest enrollments in the department. Bahng also said that many Asian-American studies courses are born from student activism. “I think the old argument that there is no student interest is clearly proven wrong,” Bahng said. Shiella Cervantes, assistant dean and advisor to Pan-Asian students, pointed to the relationship between academic offerings and the broader student experience. Cervantes and Bahng also highlighted the distinct experience of being Asian in American society, which differentiates Asian-American studies from regional studies like Asian and Middle Eastern studies. “Ethnic studies really serves to contextualize a lot of how many of our students experience culture and life and society, even their experience here,” Cervantes said. “It would be great to support every facet of student life through leadership and social programming. There’s definitely a space for that kind of expansion in academics.”
Across higher education institutions, Asian-American studies is generally a program rather than a department status. At the University of Pennsylvania, the Asian-American studies program consists of four core faculty members from other departments with one staff member, Penn associate director of Asian-American studies Fariha Khan said. The program only offers a minor, Khan said, which has eight declared students in the Class of 2015. The interdisciplinary nature of Asian-American studies often brings in students who did not fully consider the field before, Khan said. She said that students will often take a cross-listed class to fulfill another
“It’s important to really understand the complexity of the AsianAmerican experience. It’s critical in terms of intellectual growth to understand race and model minority politics when we talk about the American experience.” - FARIHA KHAN, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF ASIANAMERICAN STUDIES requirement and continue to take other classes afterwards. This pattern helps the program to recruit more students. The program at Penn was founded 17 years ago as a result of a push from students, Khan said. “Students really want to have courses that talk about their experiences and heritage in the United States,” Khan said. “It’s important to really understand the complexity of the Asian-American experience. It’s critical in terms of intellectual growth to understand race and model minority politics when we talk about the American experience.” Sera Kwon is a former member of The Dartmouth Staff.
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015
Grant will support climate change research FROM GRANT PAGE 1
also have a lot of smaller programs using smaller drills where scientists go out for maybe one season and drill maybe 200 meters to look at recent environmental change.” She was named the first executive director of the U.S. Ice Drilling Program Office when it was founded in 2010 by the NSF. She also said that going to central Greenland or Antarctica to look at ice sheets could produce hundreds of thousands of years of evidence, depending on how far the drilling goes. Ice coring can identify evidence from up to 130,000 years in Greenland and 800,000 years in Antarctica. Since there is no central institution for ice coring in the United States, unlike in other countries such as Germany and Japan, Albert said she is responsible for overseeing all of the work around ice drilling today. “I work with scientists across the nation and to find out where we think the science is coming in the next 10 years,” she said. “What are the important drivers? What do we need to identify? What drills do we need for that science?” Albert said that not all of the money will go to the College and that several partaking institutions, such as the University of Wisconsin and the University of New Hampshire, will receive a portion of the grant money. The University of Wisconsin receives the money for the design and production of drills because of its IDDO program. “Having this grant will ensure
that scientists and engineers will be doing what they need to to get the product, and to do the drilling in Antarctica and Greenland,” she said. She also said that it is a crucial time to be studying the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica because of recent climate change and a surge of concern in the general public about global warming. Earth sciences professor Bob Hawley has worked with Albert since 1997, even before he came to teach at the College. He said that most of the people with whom he works are contractors for the University of Wisconsin’s IDDO program who spend seasons working abroad with the drills on various ice coring projects. Hawley said that such a large grant speaks volumes on the integrity of Dartmouth as an institution. “It really signals investment and confidence in Mary Albert and in Dartmouth, which is really reassuring,” he said. Outreach and education program manager at the NSF Peter West said gases found in some ice cores can reveal the composition of the atmosphere thousands of years ago. He also said that though the grant in question is exponentially larger than the average grant the NSF gives, the large amount of funding reflects the large expense of the ice coring projects. Around 12,000 out of 55,000 applicants receive grants from the NSA on average per year for a 22 percent funding rate, according to West. The average grant size for one year is $160,500.
PAGE 3
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President Phil Hanlon ’77 cordially invites you to the Twenty-seventh Presidential Faculty Lecture given by
Nina Pavcnik
Niehaus Family Professor of International Studies and Professor of Economics
The Tradeoffs of Trade: Lessons from 30 years of policy reforms in developing countries Wednesday, February 25, 2015 • 4-5 pm, Hood Auditorium with reception following in the Kim Gallery
THE DARTMOUTH OPINION
PAGE 4
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015
CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST NICOLE SIMINERI ’17
CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST ZIQIN YUAN ’18
One Shade of Abuse
No Free Lunch
The “Fifty Shades of Grey” craze says a lot about our attitudes toward abuse.
The money that clubs spend on food would be better spent elsewhere.
In her Feb. 19 column, “Never Been Flogged,” Meghan Hassett ’15 did an excellent job of pointing out the sexist and abusive nature of the “relationship” between Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele in “Fifty Shades of Grey” that can mistakenly be seen as women’s sexual liberation. Yet the problems in “Fifty Shades of Grey” lie beyond just sex. Indeed, even if the portrayal of BDSM were completely removed, the plot is still riddled with abuse and triggers for victims of sexual harassment or violence. If fans of the novel and film are idolizing an inconsiderate and aggressive stalker like Christian Grey, then we clearly need to do a better job of ensuring that women have the agency and confidence necessary to identify and say “no” to abuse. Those who read or view “Fifty Shades of Grey” should be more critical of Christian Grey’s stalking. As early as chapter two, Grey just so happens to show up in Steele’s neighborhood, three hours away from where he lives. Such instances of stalking happen not once but multiple times throughout the books. Like most stalkers, Grey is also very possessive of Steele and becomes noticeably displeased whenever she talks to other men. This overprotective and domineering behavior begins when the two are still only acquaintances, and his attempts to control Steele only intensify as time goes on. His behavior is far from romantic or chivalrous, and it’s worrisome that “Fifty Shades of Grey” and its fans celebrate such a predatory relationship. Grey’s interactions with Steele are clearly manipulative. Grey, ever the brooder, warns her to stay away from him. Grey is unable able to follow his own advice, however, and he soon begins showering Steele with expensive gifts, even returning to stalk her yet again. Using these common abuser tactics, Grey coaxes Steele into thinking that any harm that comes from a relationship between the two of them is her fault — after all, she had been warned. He attempts to absolve himself of blame in writing, pressuring Steele to sign a contract stating that anything that happens between the two of them stays between them. With this, Grey isolates Steele in a relationship that she was manipulated
On any given day, the campus Listserv will include several emails advertising free food at various events. There are dinner discussions about international business with food from Thai Orchid and meetings about Senior Fellowships with Lou’s pies. Many of the clubs on campus offer free food to entice students to attend their events. Not only is spending money on food just to give it away to students both wasteful and expensive, but it rarely creates meaningful long-term interest in the club. Clubs use food as an incentive to boost awareness and increase participation, but it often doesn’t achieve these goals — I have seen people who will grab a slice of pie, avoid the discussion and never go to another meeting. Even I have gone to events simply for the food without bothering to try to understand why they were offering it in the first place. I often end up full but completely clueless as to what the discussion included. Regardless of the group, offering free catered events risks dividing attendees into two factions — a solid core of people who contribute to the event and a sizeable group of passive listeners who stay out of the conversation. Unengaged attendees are a particular problem for clubs with discussions that need participants to keep the conversation going. In these situations, the food at meetings likely won’t attract students who genuinely want to contribute to the club. If people are passionate about the meeting’s topic likely would have showed up regardless of whether or not Jewel of India was supplying a free dinner. Even if there is a boost in attendance, food doesn’t necessarily cause a proportional increase in participation. Of course, there is a possible scenario with a positive outcome — someone goes to a meeting because of the free food, ends up really liking the club and goes on to become an active member. The number of times that this may occur, however, does not warrant the cost of catering the event. Indeed, the cost is another big issue with these events. One Lou’s mile-high apple pie costs roughly 19 dollars. Buying two of them
into in the first place. Moreover, he withholds his affection in calculated moves that confuse and sadden Steele, only to ‘reward’ her with his love again at some arbitrary time. The rollercoaster of highs and lows leads Steele — and readers — to look past the lows as mere tiny blunders in an otherwise desirable “relationship.” The series also glorifies an unhealthy degree of co-dependency. Grey consistently justifies his abusive behavior by painting himself as the victim of childhood trauma, but his own abuse is not a defense for inflicting it upon others. This is yet another calculated move by Grey to increase Steele’s interest in him and to keep her in the relationship. Steele feels the false hope that she has the ability to “fix” him, while Grey constantly reiterates how much he needs her. Their relationship fits the model of a damaging co-dependent relationship, where the co-dependent partner — in this case, Steele — is gripped by the need to cure an abusive partner, denying her own personal needs and health. The author, E.L. James, even intertwines the characters with their last names — Grey and Steele — and portrays their co-dependent relationship as sexy. We should reject this type of harmful dynamic as an ideal. Unfortunately, “Fifty Shades of Grey” and the popular obsession with Grey and Steele’s relationship reflect a much broader social tendency to normalize and turn a blind eye to abuse. A society in which the physical and psychological abuse in a relationship can be interpreted as an erotic story of true love portrays a larger disregard for women and victims of abuse in general. Many women who experience abusive relationships are too afraid or otherwise unable to leave a male partner, trapped in a pattern of abuse that may include physical and emotional trauma. Sometimes this can end in death — each day, an average of four women in the United States die as the result of abuse and one-fourth of women have experienced domestic violence. Sadly, we’d rather ignore this reality and indulge in the world of “Fifty Shades of Gray” where abuse is sexy. At the very least, there’s a silver lining for Stephenie Meyer — it seems we have finally found a love story worse than “Twilight.”
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— which may feed approximately 15 people — would set a club back at least 38 dollars. A dinner event can cost hundreds of dollars to host, and some clubs host these events on a fairly regular basis. In the past week, for example, the campus Listserv included at least five blitzes that advertised free food, with choices including free Panera Bread and Ramunto’s pizza — the announcement of free food often makes it way into the subject line of the blitz. Money currently spent on food could clearly go toward more useful purposes that would align with clubs’ missions, such as donating to philanthropic organizations or funding members to attend a conference related to the interests of the club. This isn’t to say clubs shouldn’t give out food. Especially at the beginning of the year, when freshmen have just arrived and are unsure of which organizations they want to join, offering food as an incentive may bring new, curious people who may become active members in the future. Similarly, a free lunch at the start of a new term may convince upperclassmen to attend a meeting for the first time. Cultural events that offer dishes from a certain cuisine make sense too, since they expose people to a certain culture. By offering food constantly, however, clubs often make themselves the targets of students who will only go to meetings because of the promise of a free dinner. In the future, I will probably continue going to events for advertised food. Rather than sitting on the sidelines, though, I will try to join in on the discussion — to learn about what they’re trying to tell me and listen to them. Conversely, clubs need to realize that using food as an incentive might not be as effective or economical as they think. It should be offered less frequently and given out more selectively, which will likely attract people who will be serious about participating in the club. Until clubs make that change, they will ultimately waste hundreds — if not thousands — of dollars of funding each term on people who will literally eat up their money.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015
Sustainability panel promotes private sector
rather than from the government. “Through my whole career, I’ve “Social ventures are about do- known that that’s where the action ing something good with a revenue is,” she said in an interview after stream,” he said. the event. “It’s only now that I’ve Panelist Mebeen able to go gan Rast ’06, ahead and do environmental “The reason I stay it.” s u s t a i n a b i l - in the field is that I Panelity director at ist and head of Sony Pictures love the intersection global compliEntertainment, of sustainability ance for L.L. said that she Bean Ross and convincing we n t o n t h e Nova ’94 said environmental businesspeople that his interest in studies foreign sustainability is the human rights study program and the enviin South Africa right thing to do.” ronment began while she was an as a desire to undergraduate help people and enjoyed the -ROSS NOVA ’94 as a labor and interdisciplin- Head of Global employment ary nature of Compliance for L.L. lawyer. He said the field. his job now is “I liked the Bean making sure idea that susthat people are tainability and being respected the environment bring together all wherever L.L. Bean makes prodthese different disciplines to bring ucts. together all these big problems “The reason I stay in the field to solve things no one alone can is that I love the intersection of solve,” she said. sustainability and convincing Panelist Jennifer Jenkins ’91, businesspeople that sustainability director of science and strategy at is the right thing to do,” he said. Applied GeoSolutions, an environ- Panelists described a typical day mental and geographic consulting at their jobs, discussed their future firm in New Hampshire, said her career goals and gave advice to career evolved from academic students looking for careers related research to applied policy to for- to sustainability. profit consulting. Nova said that having dynamic, After teaching at the University varied experiences in different of Vermont, she joined the Envi- fields and good communication ronmental Protection Agency be- skills are valuable assets for stufore moving to the business arena. dents looking for employment in She said she believes change is go- the business sector. ing to come from the private sector, “The challenge for Dartmouth
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
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DEN DISCUSSIONS
FROM SUSTAINABILITY PAGE 1
MAY NGUYEN/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
The Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network hosted an event in Collis Common Ground.
students is to find opportunities to work on those issues while they’re here,” he said. After the event, panelists said that they were happy with the turnout. Nova said that he wanted to come speak at this event because he did not have access to these kinds of career opportunities when he was an undergraduate. “I think I would have been a little more in control of my career if I had a little bit of advice,” he said. Rast said that she was excited to come back to the College, especially because sustainability was not a topic of interest while she was an undergraduate. “Sustainability’s a new field for everybody, so I’m happy to talk to
everybody that’s interested — a bold, small following,” she said. A desire to help students interested in careers in sustainability is what drew Peterson to the panel. “My friend Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry’s said, ‘If it’s not fun, why do it?’ and there are careers that are fulfilling where you can earn a decent living and feel really good about what you’re doing,” he said. “I love helping young people see that.” Sustainability fellow Denielle Harrison said that the idea for the panel came about over the summer and was conceived as a way to showcase options for careers for environmental studies majors besides the “typical environmental non-governmental organization profession.” Sustainability program man-
ager Jenna Musco said that the event was part of the Class of 1983 Big Green Careers Program, an initiative to expand student access to careers outside of the familiar fields like business, medicine and law. This was the second sustainability in careers panel that the office has hosted. Kerr said that they are hoping to develop the program into an annual alternative to corporate recruiting. Drusilla Falco ’18 said she attended the panel because she has recently become more interested in sustainability but is unsure what her career path could ultimately be. “I came in really nervous, and now I feel better that there are a lot of options out there,” she said. Kelsey Flower and Parker Richards contributed reporting.
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THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015
DARTMOUTH EVENTS TODAY 12:30 p.m. “Smiting the Gods,” lunchtime gallery talk with Steven Kangas, Hood Museum of Art, second-floor galleries
4:00 p.m. “Vocal Master Class” with Cecile McLorin Salvant and student vocalists, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Faulkner Auditorium
4:15 p.m. “Taming the Swarm,” lecture with Michael Rubenstein of Harvard University, Carson L01
TOMORROW 3:00 p.m. “Women’s Lacrosse,” Dartmouth vs. University of New Hampshire, Scully-Fahey Field
6:00 p.m. “Coffee with a Cop” with the Hanover Police Department, Collis Common Ground
7:30 p.m. “Argentine Tango Course and Practica” for beginner and intermediate, Sarner Underground
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THE DARTMOUTH ARTS
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015
PAGE 7
Hood Museum works to attract both locals and students
B y kourtney kawano The Dartmouth Staff
For any art museum associated with an academic institution, it can be a challenge to create a variety of interesting programs that both local residents and students will find appealing. To accomplish this, the Hood Museum of Art works with professors and student interns to offer regular gallery talks, lectures and tours about the exhibitions in order to give audiences a chance to engage with the artwork. Hood programs and events coordinator Sharon Reed said that the Hood Museum directors typically strive to present anywhere from 14 to 20 events per term, ranging from walk-in exhibition tours to opening receptions to student-led discussions. This winter term featured a list of 20 events, including the opening symposium of the exhibition “Poseidon and the Sea: Myth, Cult and Daily Life” on Jan. 30 and 31 and a workshop for the “About Face: Self-Portraiture in Contemporary Art” exhibition on Feb. 4. Both the shows were considered special exhibitions — of which the Hood usually presents 15 annually — because the events associated with the works in their respective collections are given by faculty and students and address a wide range of commentary associated with the art, Reed said. Reed said that planning the schedule of programs usually starts two to three years in advance. She
said the planning can take longer if the exhibition includes loans from other museums and scholarly publications. “Exhibitions are intended to support teaching and learning at Dartmouth,” Reed said. “They also offer insight into the artistic production of many different historical periods and cultures.” To fund its numerous events, the Hood Museum relies on its endowment, grants and cosponsorships with various campus departments, such as the classics and art history departments, which recently collaborated with the museum for the Poseidon Symposium. Admission to the museum and most of its events is free and does not require preregistration. Occasionally, the museum will charge admission for special events, such as the Feb. 9 tour of “About Face” with Hood director Michael Taylor, which cost $30 per person. Despite the price, such events are coveted by Hood Museum members who are able to get in-depth analysis at various exhibitions with curators for a relatively low price, Reed said. Once the calendar of programs is set, the Hood Museum’s public relations staff use various methods to advertise the events through newspapers and social media depending on the audience they want to reach. Some of the tried-and-true methods to reach the general H a n ov e r r e s i d e n t s i n c l u d e
publishing weekly advertisements in the Valley News and the Vermont Standard, Hood Museum public relations assistant Alison Palizzolo said. In these publications, highprofile events may be advertised using effective text-only transaction ads.
“Exhibitions are intended to support teaching and learning at Dartmouth. They also offer insight into the artistic production of many different historical periods and cultures.” -sharon reed, hood museum programs and events coordinator The Hood also creates and displays posters of its events and publishes its own magazine, “Quarterly,” that includes the updated calendar of each term’s events. While printed methods are still useful for the Hood Museum, one of the most successful advertisement tools, Palizzolo said, is Constant
Contact, a bulk email service. “Typically, each event gets an email,” Palizzolo said. “Events are also submitted to Vox Daily to run either the day of or the day before the event.” To target student audiences, the public relations staff members promote upcoming exhibition openings and tours through social media, as well as a collaboration with the Collis Student Center that involves distributing publications about its new programs. “ We c u r re n t l y m a n a g e a Facebook page, a Twitter page and an Instagram account,” Palizzolo said. “We are looking into creating a Snapchat account.” With such a wide breadth of advertisement methods, Reed said that the Hood Museum’s events often bring in large and diverse mixes of 150 to 250 students and residents for its lectures and receptions. The largest event that the Hood Museum has hosted had an audience of 600 visitors for a past exhibition’s opening, she said. For gallery talks and curator-led tours, however, the crowds are usually smaller — and sometimes capped at 12 people — to allow for a more personal experience, Reed said. Regardless of the number of attendees, the events reflect the enormous amount of time and dedication put in by presenters who often find something meaningful in their research. For her lunchtime gallery
talk entitled, “Poseidon and His Attributes, Poseidon and His Women,” held on Feb. 10, art history professor Ada Cohen said that she chose objects from the exhibition to make connections with aspects of modern culture that she thought would interest her audience. “T he process was similar to teaching a class and being flexible enough to change the plan according to audience response,” Cohen said. Ju n i o r r e s e a r c h s c h o l a r Alexandra Berman ’16 gave a gallery talk last Friday on “Tracing Poseidon’s Image: Representations of the Sea on Italian Coins.” Preparing for her first talk, Berman said, involved taking her research on coins from last term and piecing together the story she wanted to share based on her argument. The experience, she said, made her want to work for the museum as a coin intern and continue her research for her senior project. Though the term is winding down, there are still several prog rams that students and residents can attend. Today, art history professor Steven Kangas will give a lunchtime talk entitled “Smiting the Gods” beginning at 12:30 p.m. and on Friday, the Hood Museum will present “National Gallery” (2014), a documentary by filmmaker Frederick Wiseman about London’s National Gallery, at the Loew Auditorium at 7 p.m.
Beyond the Bubble: Looking Outside the Oscars B y andrea nease The Dartmouth Staff
What did tens of millions of people do on Sunday night? According to Vulture, an average of 36.6 million people tuned in to watch the Oscars awards ceremony Sunday. The Oscars successfully capture an audience of millions for nothing more than what I personally deem a glorified popularity contest. Where’s the logic that allows an internationally impactful awards ceremony such as The Nobel Prize to be overshadowed by the banal, superficial Oscars? Why is it easier for me to tell you which film won best picture than for me to tell you who won the Nobel Peace Prize this past year? The realization that I could tell someone more about Neil Patrick Harris’s performance as the Oscars’ host Sunday night than I could ever say about the entire Nobel Prize ceremony this past year was eye opening and a tad disheartening. I am embarrassed by the ease
at which my attention was glued to hearing who won Best Actress when I didn’t even give a thought to who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry or physics or literature or anything for that matter. My heart aches at the thought of tens of millions of Americans spending their Sunday night, eyes glazed and staring at their television screens for what, as Marc Peyser of Newsweek said, is “one pretty awful excuse for A-list entertainment.” There’s a science behind the Oscars’ mass spectatorship — a psychological reasoning for why we’re drawn to celebrity news and more specifically to Hollywood award shows. The simple answer, as I gathered from a Huffington Post article, is that humans are “social animals.” California State University psychology professor Stuart Fischoff, explains that “these are people who we pay attention to because, in one way or another, they influence our lives...How they dress, how they speak, what they like, what roles
they play — they are profoundly influential ... These people are really so much a part of our cultural layers of who is important and who is less important.” Remember how in middle school the “popular” kids dictated social status? How Susie so-andso wore those shoes and she was popular so you went out and bought the same pair? That middle school mentality is the basic reasoning behind our need to watch the Oscars and similar celebrity-centric broadcasts. Awards shows are a way for us to look at the “popular kids,” is it not? We look at their fashion, we listen to their speeches and we have a desire to know who they’re dating. The bottom line is that we want to know it all because, even as adults, we still rely on the idea of popularity to help determine our social structure. It’s an unfortunate reality that the human hunger for social importance and popularity has manifested its achievement in watching our quasi-heroes strut the
red carpet and receive impractical awards that are much less vital to our growth as intelligent life forms than something that does have as large of an impact as the Nobel prizes. I understand why we crave it, but something about watching the Oscars with little intention other than vicariously experiencing an actor’s victory and gossiping about fashion faux pas makes my stomach churn. Even at Dartmouth we feel the urge to watch this popularity contest unfold. Sunday night, our Programming Board hosted an Oscars “gala” in Occom Commons. The event attracted a sizeable group of students, and I know there were many others streaming the annual awards from their bedrooms. Few people are exempt from this social phenomenon, and its existence is only reinforced by our overwhelmingly important American film culture. There is an intimacy that accompanies our celebrity obsession, rooted in the films in which we once saw these Oscar attendees.
We feel like we know these Hollywood favorites because of the movies we watch, but this simply adds fuel to the fire. The human drive to dictate a social hierarchy is universal, but American film culture induces illusions of pseudointimacy with these popular kids, the vast majority of whom none of us will ever have the remotest chance of meeting. As much as I want to step away from the Oscars and, more broadly, celebrity news, reality shows and tabloid magazines, I honestly don’t know the feasibility of this goal. The best we social animals can do is roll with the inevitable popularity construct of the film industry and just try our best to keep our entertainment indulgences in check with actively significant world achievements. So maybe, if you can remember what Khloe Kardashian wore on Sunday but not who Malala Yousafzai or Kailash Satyarthi is, you should evaluate your balance of celebrity spice and the presence of worldly awareness in your life.
THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS
PAGE 8
SPORTS
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015
TUESDAY LINEUP
No athletic events scheduled
Women’s basketball falls to Penn and undefeated Princeton B y ALEXANDER agadjanian The Dartmouth Staff
Seeking to build on a victory that snapped a month-long losing streak one week ago, the Dartmouth women’s basketball team found itself in the toughest portion of its Ivy League schedule — travelling to play the two top-ranked teams in its conference. After losing to the No. 14 Princeton University Tigers by 70-31, and falling to the Pennsylvania University Quakers 63-46, the team will now regroup with an eye on finishing the last four games of the season on a strong note. Much like Princeton’s (25-0, 9-0 Ivy) other opponents this season, the Big Green (11-13, 2-8 Ivy) were simply overwhelmed on Friday night in New Jersey. The result stood in stark contrast to the two teams’ meeting three weeks back, when despite losing by 18, Dartmouth played an impressive game and managed to keep up with the Tigers for most of the contest. This time around, however, the team suffered its worst defeat all year. Yet last Friday’s contest didn’t begin all that badly for the Big Green. Rather, for almost half of the first period, the team was within single digits of Princeton. Lakin Roland ’16 opened the scoring with a three-point dagger and added a layup soon after, as Dartmouth held a lead for nearly four minutes after tipoff. Any initial progress, though, soon disintegrated at the hands of the Tiger’s offense, as well as the team’s own unfortunate shooting. On three separate occasions during the first 20 minutes of play, the Tigers went on runs of nine, seven, and eight points without a scoring response from Dartmouth. Such a severe dearth for offense in the first half could be attributed to several factors, including the fact that Roland’s assertive play quickly trailed off. After her strong start, the junior followed by
going 0-8 from the field and committed two fouls and two turnovers. She would manage just four more points for the night after her early five-point outburst, uncharacteristically struggling from the free throw line — 4-8 for the fifth-best Ivy League free throw shooter — and with shooting, going 2-11 on field goals. As a team, Dartmouth shot a woeful 5-29 — 17.2 percent — and no player apart from Roland made more than two shots in the first half. The team’s leading scorer, Fanni Szabo ’17, struggled finding her touch, posting a 1-8 field goal performance in the first half. While defensive effort appeared resolute at times — holding Princeton scoreless for a stretch of almost five minutes — offensive dysfunction precluded any chances of staying close with one of the best squads in the country. The Big Green fell into a 30-12 hole by the halftime break. If the game wasn’t already decided, the Tigers quickly dispelled any remaining doubt early into the second half, outscoring Dartmouth 12-0 in the first three minutes. The Big Green manufactured opportunities on offense in the second period, but the team — leading the Ivy League in free throw percentage at 78.9 percent — continued its troubles at the charity stripe, converting only 4-9 free throws in the second half and ultimately 5-11 for the game. The one promising sign for Dartmouth on Friday emerged in the latter stages of the game. After head coach Belle Koclanes took out her top two scorers Szabo and Roland with 11 minutes left, freshmen reserves Andi Norman ’18 and Emily Slagle ’18 caught fire. Between 8:42 and 3:56, Norman and Slagle knocked down three and two three-point shots, respectively. Sending their teammates on the bench into a frenzy, the duo keyed a 15-4 run for the Big Green to make the score 62-31. The surges only made a dent in the deficit,
WEIJIA TANG/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
Lakin Roland ’16 posted 10 rebounds and six points against the Quakers.
but revealed potential players who could provide a shooting boost off the bench and help better space the floor in the near future. “[Norman] and Slagle did some nice things,” Koclanes said. “That was a major positive with that stretch in the second half, and it was with our freshmen on the floor. That was also against Princeton’s bench, so that’s something you have to understand. Time will tell [if they gain a larger offensive role]… But, there’s definitely a role for [them], [they’re] part of our vision, that’s why [they’re] here.” The final score line settled at 70-31 in favor of Princeton, who posted a 51.7 field goal percentage and outrebounded Dartmouth 53-21. On the other end of the spectrum, the Big Green shot a lowly 18.9 percent from the field, and none of its players reached double digits. “The future looks bright, and we’re moving in the right direction,” Koclanes said. “Even if you look at the scoreboard and you don’t see that, we see it. This game doesn’t tell the [whole] story for us, it’s part of the story of our building process.” The following day, the team traveled westward to face the Penn Quakers (167, 7-2 Ivy) in Philadelphia. Although a much better performance and closer game, the Big Green left with a loss on its record and enmeshed in yet another losing skid. Similar to the previous night’s contest, Dartmouth started with excellent play and remained tight with its opponent for much of the first half. Tia Dawson ’15 and Toskovic opened the game by connecting on two midrange jumpers, and after Szabo matched a Quaker three-ball with one of her own, the Big Green maintained a 13-12 lead six minutes in. Penn, however, soon found its composure and shooting touch. The Quakers commenced a 14-2 run up until the 6:08 mark to grab a 26-15 lead, aided in large part by Dartmouth’s offensive disarray on the other end. Over an 11-minute span since last possessing a lead, the Big Green committed six turnovers. Most of the mishaps resulted from sloppy ball movement and inbound passes. Not only did the mistakes stall any offensive progress and crucially wasted opportunities to stay closer in the game, but Penn also scored 10 points on possessions immediately following the turnovers. While the Quakers again relied on their strength in the post — netting 14
WEIJIA TANG/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
Tia Dawson ’15 double-doubled for the first time this season on Saturday.
points in the paint — to gain a 35-27 lead at the midway point, three-point shooting proved even more critical. Penn sank five three-pointers in the first half, adding another four in the second. Dartmouth still had a strong showing in the first 20 minutes of play and cut its deficit to single digits late in the half. After the Big Green was overpowered in the paint during the teams’ last meeting, Koclanes elected to start the game with much more size in her lineup. As a result, the defense solidified on both the perimeter and near the basket, paving the way to a plus-five rebounding margin in the first half. “I think it helped a lot,” Dawson said about the change in the starting unit. “We went to a 2-3 zone on defense because we knew their post players were really good scorers. So we wanted to clog the paint, and try to [make them] shoot outside. So it really helped us.” The next half could not have begun any better for the Big Green. Secondchance baskets by Dawson and Szabo helped build on a strong finish to the prior half, in total creating an 11-1 stretch to cut Penn’s lead to 35-31 and forcing a timeout. Within a minute, though, the Quakers fired back with two three-pointers, which jump-started a 15-4 run of their own. Penn would not look back after this, sustaining a double-digit advantage throughout the rest of the game. Any chances at a second-half comeback quickly dwindled for Dartmouth. Following a strong shooting display in the first period, the Big Green lost its touch in the next 20 minutes, its field goal percentage dropping off from 40 percent to 27.6. Excluding the first and last two minutes of the second half, the team could only post nine points, suffering greatly from turnovers and offensive
stagnancy. Top scorer Szabo, while collecting 14 points, shot well below her usual mark for a second consecutive night, with a 6-21 performance from the field. The team still has a few positive takeaways from the defeat. In a consistent effort from start to finish, Dartmouth notably out-rebounded Penn 40-27, 19 of which were offensive boards. The dominant performance marked a vast improvement from the last time the two teams played three weeks ago, when the Quakers had a 44-28 advantage in this area. “We out-rebounded Penn today, that was really big for us,” Koclanes said. “It’s a big deal because they’re a very strong, physical team. They have size, and they’re known for their rebounding and physicality, so we’re happy with that.” Dawson, who has seen a sharp increase in her minutes played over the last few games, played a vital role in this outcome. The senior center notched her first double-double of the season with 12 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks, showing once again how vital her health and presence are to the Big Green’s success on both ends of the floor. “Something we talked about in the locker room was that we battled for 40 minutes, regardless of what the scored was at the end,” Toskovic said. “That’s something we’ve been working on, not getting into these lulls in the game, so I think our team stayed together for the whole 40 minutes, and I’m really proud of that.” The Big Green women will return to Leede Arena next weekend to host Columbia and Cornell Universities on Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 6 p.m., respectively.