The Dartmouth Mirror 5/11/16

MIR ROR 5.11.2016

MAKERS OF DARTMOUTH | 4-5

MAKING THINGS UP | 3

BUILD YOUR OWN MAJOR | 7

DESIGNING DESSERTS | 8

SCULPTURE BY LUKAS ZIRNGBEL, LAYA INDUKURI/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

2// MIRROR

Joe Kind: A Guy

Editors’ Note

Happy week seven, Mirror readers. We hope you’ve recovered from your weekends dressing up in pastels, eating pig and frolicking in the mud.

Perhaps the mother who Caroline heard exclaim to her son, “Honey, no offense, but Dartmouth students are SO weird!” was right after all.

Caroline and Hayley, unfortunately, did not run into each other at any of the weekend’s social events. Instead, as is the norm this term, they bumped into one another in the library. Although this time, Caroline wasn’t double fisting coffee, but was holding half a hot dog from Pigstick in one hand and a broken flower crown in the other.

This weekend the editors also had the dramatic realization that their time together is dwindling.

Hayley will be off this summer, and Caroline will be abroad in the fall and off in the winter, so the two editors will not be on campus together again until next spring. “Such is the D-Plan,” Hayley sighed. The editors vowed to make many more trips to Swirl and Pearl before their impending separation.

It was actually Swirl and Pearl that inspired this week’s theme. As Hayley was putting toppings on her birthday cake-flavored froyo, she commented that she strongly preferred serveyourself froyo places to ones where employees do it for you. Caroline, who was in one of her philosophical moods, remarked that it feels good to have autonomy over making something for yourself. It can be therapeutic, gratifying or simply enjoyable.

After Hayley dissuaded Caroline from trying to theme a Mirror around froyo — “What if I extend it to froyo AND ice cream, though?”

Caroline persisted, engendering a firm headshake from Hayley — the two editors decided to theme the issue around “making things.” Enjoy the issue!

follow @thedmirror 04.06.16 VOL. CLXXIII NO. 79 MIRROR EDITORS HAYLEY HOVERTER & CAROLINE BERENS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF REBECCA ASOULIN PUBLISHER RACHEL DECHIARA EXECUTIVE EDITORS MAYA PODDAR

COLUMN

By Joe Kind

Two years ago today, I was on my 20-hour return busride to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I had just spent the long weekend in Bariloche, Argentina’s equivalent of Vail or Vancouver. This trip occurred a little past the halfway point of my Spanish LSA, during the dead quiet of Bariloche’s fall season. The town was pretty sleepy, waiting patiently and eagerly for snow — unlike Hanover during any of my four fall quarters at Dartmouth.

Not that I minded wandering through empty museums or winding roads on those cloudy, aimless days.

There was the time I tried a McDonald’s Big Mac for the first time in Argentina.

I had never seen a McDonald’s franchise so well-furnished and posh, yet still so comfortably full of the same familiar clusters of people I see in fast food restaurants at home.

Beef is a major export of Argentina, and fast food restaurants across the country offer a decidedly premium experience.

I took my combo meal and eagerly shuffled through the scenes of random old people, awkward teenage couples and families with young children, looking for my own table. I eventually sat down at a table upstairs just above the front entrance, next to a large window. I sipped my soda, finished my burger and dipped my French Fries — still signature — in my little ketchup cups, as the time passed.

Back on the 20-hour bus ride, driving from the west to the east, I sat in a plush, fully retractable armchair. I nibbled on my crackers and apricot jam, courtesy of the bus company. It was well into the night, and our third or fourth movie of the trip was playing. I could only understand bits and pieces of the scenes with lots of dialogue.

Being away from my host family and my

’18: “I have booty shorts with my name on them but it’s misspelled.”

classes, all taught in Spanish, probably didn’t help. And my social interactions with my friends on the program in Bariloche definitely didn’t help.

Coincidentally, I would go on to rewatch one of the movies from that bus ride in one of my classes.

I remember thinking how weird it was for me to be speaking Spanish with a whole new set of locals in Bariloche. In a tourist destination, the people I met were used to all kinds of language barriers. They didn’t mind my hesitations at all. They put up with my improper r’s, which I could only sometimes roll successfully. And they embraced and validated my excitement about exploring. To be fair, the interactions locals — used to expats and English — have with tourists in bustling Buenes Aires do not figure as prominently in their incomes. The incentives are simply different for people in Buenes Aires than for locals in Bariloche.

I spent one of my days kayaking on a beautiful lake not far from where I was staying. I had opened a brochure in my hostel and called up two guys, in their late-20s, to pick me up and take me out on the water.

Neither of them were originally from the area, from what I remember. And they lamented my poor timing during this dead time of the year. It was the one week, they said. The one week where nothing is really happening.

Yet throughout that week I could not help but think of everything that was happening. Laying back on my sofa-chair, still 12 hours or so away, I open up my laptop and begin writing. Eventually I type: “I am going through an evolution, not a change.”

Two years later, I still think about my time abroad quite a lot. The people and the

Freshman Dad: “You still want to go to the florist, right, honey?”

Freshman Mom: “Yeah, King Arthur Flour.”

’16 #1: “I forgot to pay for my roll at Novack because I put it in my pocket.” ’16 #2: “Okay, Aladdin.”

places. Really whatever I can remember.

I wonder if I will look back at my time here in the same nostalgic ways, if college is its own kind of four-year study abroad program. In Argentina, most young students live at home with their families while attending college. My parents at home would joke about that outcome if all else failed during my senior year of high school.

Part of me thinks I will remember things fondly, though I know I will also never forget a lot of my challenges here. Does the “bad” outweigh all of the good? Maybe on some days, but not others.

One of the hardest things for me to do while abroad was to test the waters of Tinder, a mobile app hailed as a dating service.

I was initially concerned for my safety and my privacy, but I ultimately gave in after two of my friends on the program found success on the app. My friends and I shared stories from our conversations with locals, translation errors and all. We somehow made enough of an impression to meet people in person, at a café or for “mate,” the go-to social beverage in Argentina.

Like everything else, Tinder became another way to pass the time. And to think, I almost chose to keep my iPhone at home.

And there I was, practicing my Spanish with the luxury of time to look up words I didn’t know. I learned some useful slang.

I saw photos of how young locals lived their lives in one of the largest cities in the world. I connected with people over shared interests and gained confidence in my own independence and freedom.

I returned to Buenos Aires late in evening, eager to head straight home to my host family. I curled up in my bed and checked my Tinder before getting some real sleep. I had a full day of school the next day.

’18: “Maybe one day we’ll have gif composites.”

German Professor: “You flipped two letters — instead of writing ‘a cheap watch,’ you wrote ‘a cheap whore.’”

MIRROR //3

Making Things Up COLUMN

By Mary Liza Hartong and Andrew Kingsley

Young Wes isn’t too fond of his classes. For example, he despises his 6D, which runs from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Friday nights with xhours scheduled exclusively over Green Key weekend. That’s right — 72 straight x-hours.

“Moving Dartmouth Forward,” people. While he hasn’t yet honed his skills in “Primate Endocrinology,” he has developed quite the arsenal of excuses to get out of class. And it’s not your typical, “Oh, I overslept,” or “My throat hurts,” or the classic, “My family was slaughtered in a tragic boating accident in the Bermuda Triangle.” No, Wes has his professors wrapped around his little finger with some of the most creative whoppers out there. Let’s take a look at some highlights.

Dec. 15, 2014, 4:24 a.m.

Hey there Professor

Harrington, I hope you are currently sleeping well.

That would make one of us. You see, I’ve spent the last three nights in search of my cat, Smittens. Clever, I know.

What else would you expect from your star pupil? Anyway, Smittens was abducted a few evenings ago by what was either a puffed-up SNS officer or three horny raccoons in a single trench coat. What’s the difference, right?

Just more of my top notch humor, professor.

Teehee!

Needless to say, I will not be able to make it to class tomorrow morning, as Mondays are Smittens’s manipedi mornings, and I just know he’ll find his way back to my boudoir before Gretchen arrives to perfect his cuticles.

Meow for now.

March 3, 2015, 11:16 p.m.

G’day Professor Gombins, So sorry I haven’t been in class lately. My oxygen tank needed refilling and I can only get refills from my primary care physician in Oklahoma. “Oxygen tank?” you may be asking as you scribble F’s onto the grimy papers of privileged New Englandborn freshmen.

Allow me to explain. You see, I’ve been anxiously awaiting the results from my lung biopsy. As a cancer survivor and avid smoker yourself, I’m sure you understand just how taxing the waiting process can be. Send your prayers and an extension on my essay, and maybe a carton of Camels.

Sweet, silky Camels. I’ll be smoking to take the edge off until I hear back from you and my doctor, which I’m sure you understand. Goodbye cruel world, or at least cruel 10A.

Oct. 30, 2015, 10:41 p.m.

Hallow Dr. Prolix, The moon is full tonight, yet my stomach is empty. Like many of my classmates in your “Introduction to Russian Lit” course, I had to make the tough choice between a love of KAF and a reverence for Kafka. Tonight I chose Kafka. For my project on his famed “Metamorphosis” I will transform into a werewolf, just like I did for my final on animal psychology. I was such a beast, forgive me.

Soon, the children of Hanover will fill the streets and my belly with their candied flesh. I will gorge on their succulent, Twizzler-like sinews.

The sinews at the Hop are so overpriced. $3.50 a bag? Are you kidding me?! This is all, of course, a metaphor, just like Kafka’s. All this to say, I’ll be terribly occupied tomorrow. Perhaps keep your scrumptious

TRENDING sons indoors.

@ Dartmouth

Feb. 14, 2016, 6:06 p.m.

Evening Professor Madison, To be quite honest, I’m not feeling too hot.

My Valentine’s Day orgy — you know, the one co-sponsored by Collis After Dark and the history department?

— just isn’t cutting it. I thought the whip dungeon and electric clamps would raise my spirits, but alas. The other 72 students and satyrs seemed into it.

I don’t know what’s wrong. Was it all the queso dip? Or maybe the loose alligators?

Then again the sword swallowing and chocolate icing always get me, not to mention the baby cribs. Maybe I’ve become immune to all the flogging and burning effigies. To sum up my pain, I just don’t know if I’ll make it to class tomorrow. Your lecture on dot matrices might prove too stirring for me.

This has nothing to do with my shattered pelvis or missing lips. I just need a day to myself and maybe a few satyrs.

May 11, 2016, 9:59 a.m.

Professor Garcia, girl, you don’t even know. Girl. Like, for real. Listen up. So, Jessica burst into my room this morning and filled me in on the whole Kesha situation — omg, horrible, right?! — and I had no choice but to spend my first waking hours watching YouTube videos campaigning for justice on behalf of the wordsmith of our generation. To state that I “can’t even” would be such an understatement that I’m not even going to say it. Okay, let me say it: I can’t even. And I mean it.

You heard right. I can’t make it to your class. Not today and not until Kesha is free. As a woman, I expect you’ll understand completely.

TTYL.

PIGSTICK/MUD PIT/ WOODSTOCK PICTURES We get it already, social media.

THE SKINNY PANCAKE GRAND OPENING

A new Hanover restaurant that isn’t Thai food? What is this??? Where are we????

PINK EYE

See also: sunglasses, complaints about Dick’s House and the statement, “No guys, I’m not high...”

MOTHER’S DAY

If you didn’t post a picture on social media with your mom, do you really even love her?

FREE F O OD GROUPME

Very handy for those of us who are already negative in DBA.

4// MIRROR

Makers of Dartmouth STORY

By Lucy Li

Making things might be actually be the oldest profession. Humans have been makings things ­— tools, weapons, pottery, art, fire ­— since our the beginning of our species.

We have come a long way since fashioning objects with stone tools. Here at Dartmouth, up-and-coming artists, music producers and engineers make the world a better and more beautiful place one creation at a time.

Meet the makers of Dartmouth.

For artist Luisa Vasquez ’18 , making art is a creative outlet. Growing up, her mentors taught her to use artistic pursuits as a means of finding balance in a world that is so dominantly organized by scientific and mathematical laws. She said her mother especially emphasized this belief.

“My mom has always taught me growing up that art and music are fundamental balancers in your life,” she said. “You want to have something that’s natural and an expression of emotion.”

Artistic expression helps you organize the world in your own terms, and the best kind of art is a translation of oneself, Vasquez believes.

“My jazz teacher says that when you’re improvising, put part of yourself into it so that other people can feel that you’re really investing yourself in it,” Vasquez said. “It’s the same thing with art.”

One of her most successful creations, she said, was her final project in “Drawing I” last year. By combining her own unique artistic voice, her strongest techniques and personal passions, she feels she made a piece that was both an expression of emotion and a celebration of her artistry.

Vasquez explained that she likes to draw hands and feet, so she drew a combination of a hand and foot melded together.

An adult’s hand and foot were held onto those of a baby, and beside this image was a quote by Gabriel García Márquez that expressed the idea that parents love their children because of the friendships formed while raising them, not simply because they’re their children.

The personal component of this project, inspired by her close relationship with her own mother, contributed to its success, Vasquez said.

While artists have varied motivations and inspirations some artists make art simply out of pure enjoyment. Artist Dorothy Qu ’19 feels that if you really enjoy doing something, you should make time for it. So even when she’s not taking an art class here at Dartmouth, she’s constantly making art in her own free time. This year, she made the design for the Winter Carnival t-shirts, which featured a snowflake with Baker

Tower and the lone pine. She noted that the design began with a quick doodle on paper, and that she didn’t even have a tablet or Photoshop before entering the competition.

Purchasing a tablet and Photoshop for the competition was one of the best decisions she made last term, Qu said, because they allow her to make the “random art” that she loves to make. Much of her inspiration arises from a curiosity for the world around her and random thought processes that spur her creativity. She said these spontaneous inspirations produce the most true

forms of art.

“I just draw stuff that I hear people say Like if someone mentions bread, I’ll think, ‘Wow, bread looks pretty cool.’ Then I’d start drawing bread and then I’d think, ‘Oh, those stripes look like cats,’” she said. “It’s just weird trains of thought, and I think that’s the most genuine form of art because it’s random stuff that you just authentically think of.”

It’s the urge to create that gives the maker authenticity, and it’s how Tomas La Porta ’18 started producing music. After

stopping piano lessons at the end of high school, he realized he wanted to be more than a listener as music was such an integral part of his life. So he downloaded the starter version of Ableton, a software music sequencer, and began creating music.

His influences include artists like The Chainsmokers, Flume and Louis The Child, he said. He said he likes producing music that can serve versatile purposes — something that people could enjoy listening to in a variety of settings.

“I like to make laid back electronic

MIRROR //5

music,” La Porta said. “I go for listenable stuff; stuff that you can play at a festival and people could dance to, but also something that you could listen to on the way to class.”

La Porta explained that he’s learned that everyone has their own way making music.

When he’s making an original song, his piano background plays fundamental role in his creative process.

“If it’s an original song, then you just kind of start randomly,” he said. “Personally, I would say I start with just laying out the outline for the song in piano because

that’s where I started with music, by playing piano growing up and then just build from there.”

La Porta noted that he appreciates the immersive quality of making music.

“It’s really the only thing, I think, in my life where I just lose track of time,” La Porta said.

Being able to lose yourself in creation is, I believe, the maker’s livelihood. Being a maker is about producing a creation that has a place in this world. For engineer Emily Rogers ’17 , her role as a maker is to

create with a purpose and solve problems.

“I love the hands-on aspect of [engineering],” Rogers said. “Like you see a problem in the world and you say, ‘What can I do to fix it?’ And then you actually go fix it.”

Rogers, currently in Engineering 44 “Sustainable Design,” in which she is working with a group to create a device to address the issue of energy efficiency.

She explained that this device would allow people to more easily monitor their home electricity usage on per-room basis and would present this information in a user-

friendly way. The goal is for people to make real-time changes in the electricity they’re consuming.

Ostensibly, engineering differs from some other forms of creating like music or art, in that it’s very serviceable in the professional world. However, engineering is not the only marketable form of creation.

Vasquez, for example, draws her artistic inspiration partially from her goal to build a career in product design, and therefore for her, art is both a form of personal expression and an employable skill.

“I like art as an expression and just as art, but also as one of many tools that I’m going to have to use in the workplace,” she said. “So being able to effectively transmit an idea to a team and having drawing skills can help a lot.”

However, practical creation can also be done for enjoyment in one’s free time.

For instance, last year Rogers made a table held together without any nails or screws purely for fun. She showed me a photo and explained that it’s called a tensegrity structure, which is structure that only works from tension and compression.

Makers make things for many reasons — for fun, to solve a problem, to serve a purpose. And each have different beliefs on the role their work serves.

Vasquez believes that making things is about leaving a positive impact.

“If I can make a product that could improve people’s lives in some way, then I feel like I would have made a good impact, and it would have been worthwhile being here,” she said.

Rogers sees the maker’s role as two-sided: making what people want and making what people didn’t know they needed.

“So I think the job of the maker is often to take something you know needs to be made and make it something that people actually want, too,” she said.

For Qu, making things is a matter of putting yourself out there, whether in the form of papers, ideas, silly doodles or kind words to friends. She said that creation is a part of human nature.

“I think any of those things counts as making something. I think that’s just what makes us human,” Qu said. “We recognize that people make things, and then we appreciate each other for it.”

Maybe we’re all makers, La Porta suggested.

“I think everyone sort of finds ways of creating their own things, whether it’s art or a product,” he said. “So I think everyone is a maker in this world.”

Dorothy Qu ’19 is a member of The Dartmouth opinion staff.

NORA MASLER/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

6// MIRROR

Sam’s Little Larks

COLUMN

By Sam Van Wetter

CAMPUS SAM: Where have you been?

GALLIVANT SAM: One of my favorite places was Edinburgh but I remember having just a magical time in Tikal. I experienced the strangest vision of being a Mayan child, and I convinced myself that Quetzalcoatl — CAMPUS: Wait, when was this?

GALLIVANT: Well in my imagination it was around 250 A.D., of course, around the time that — CAMPUS: This weekend?

GALLIVANT: Not unless it was a very long weekend, no, as — CAMPUS: Where have you been!

This weekend!

GALLIVANT: Oh! My goodness, without a specified timeframe I just assumed you were curious about — CAMPUS: Sam! I haven’t seen you in like four days!

GALLIVANT: I was only gone for two.

CAMPUS: Where??

GALLIVANT: I went to New York.

CAMPUS: Where were you before that?

GALLIVANT: I suppose I started in — CAMPUS: The two days before that, dude. Where were you this weekend?

GALLIVANT: Physically?

CAMPUS: Unless you were elsewhere metaphysically?

GALLIVANT: It was Derby. I mean WoodstocKDE — CAMPUS: You went to Derby?

GALLIVANT: Duh. When else do you get to see a bunch of frat bros acting like swine?

CAMPUS: Pretty much any day of the week…

GALLIVANT: But with mud it’s such a more realistic rendition. It’s theatrical.

CAMPUS: When did you go to New York?

GALLIVANT: Sunday.

CAMPUS: Rogue.

GALLIVANT: I suppose I did feel a twinge of rebellion driving away from campus. I jumped in the Connecticut on my way out of town. River water was still wet on my skin as I merged onto the I-91, everything behind me and everything before me, all at once, like when a mirror faces a mirror and

reflects back on itself recursively, interminably.

CAMPUS: Did you have an interview?

GALLIVANT: Nope.

CAMPUS: Are you from there?

GALLIVANT: Oh, no.

CAMPUS: Just like the city?

GALLIVANT: Not particularly.

CAMPUS: Why’d you leave, then?

GALLIVANT: Because I get to come back.

CAMPUS: What were you doing there?

GALLIVANT: Friends from high school had convened. Some live there, and some were visiting. It used to be we would see each other at home in Denver on breaks and over summers. But schedules vary and people graduate and become employed and start answering to other priorities. Home becomes a tenuous concept seeped in nostalgia. So when I heard some were gathering, I made the pilgrimage.

I had to. The only way to keep the past alive is to make sure it has a future. So I drove to the city.

CAMPUS: That sounds fun.

GALLIVANT: It was. It always is.

CAMPUS: Short trip, though.

GALLIVANT: Yeah, too short.

But as I said, coming back isn’t so bad, either.

CAMPUS: Driving helps.

GALLIVANT: Oh, certainly. I’m not a coach kind of girl. I love free pretzels as much as the next six people but there’s nothing like the autonomy of your hands on the wheel. There’s nothing so satisfying as driving. Driving is freedom. It’s my 16th birthday and the volume a just right, too-loud. It’s the air conditioner like your hair conditioner, clean breeze and exactly like you want it. It’s stopping to pee or to eat or to see, to cartwheel in rest stops, to crack cricks in your knees.

I love road trips. I love highways.

I love billboards. I love trucks. I don’t love police, but I understand that most of them mean to keep us from bad stuff. I love hillsides and valleys and rivers and farms, and I love windows open and hair dance on my arms. I love driving so much I can’t even tell you. I love to get away. I love to come back. And I love all the miles in between.

CAMPUS: You’re lucky to have

a car.

SAM’S RED PRIUS: I’m lucky to have him.

GALLIVANT: Oh, stop.

SAM’S RED PRIUS: You stop.

GALLIVANT: Let’s stop together.

SAM’S RED PRIUS: Let’s do everything together.

GALLIVANT: Okay.

SAM’S RED PRIUS: I’ll take you anywhere.

GALLIVANT: I’ll lead the way.

SAM’S RED PRIUS: I’ll carry your heart in mine.

GALLIVANT: I’ll give you gas.

SAM’S RED PRIUS: I won’t ask for too much.

GALLIVANT: I love that about you.

CAMPUS: Wow, you really —

GALLIVANT: WE WERE HAVING A MOMENT! SAM’S RED PRIUS: It’s okay, Sam. I have room for more than just you.

GALLIVANT: But I will drive.

SAM’S RED PRIUS: You’ll always drive me… wild.

CAMPUS: Okay then guys.

SAM’S RED PRIUS: Prii.

CAMPUS: What?

SAM’S RED PRIUS: We are not “guys.” We’re Prii.

CAMPUS: Prii? Is that the plural of Prius?

GALLIVANT: I’m not a Prius, though.

SAM’S RED PRIUS: You are.

You are an honorary Prius.

GALLIVANT: That must be the nicest thing anyone has ever told me!

SAM’S RED PRIUS: You’re the best thing to ever happen to me.

GALLIVANT: I couldn’t go anywhere without you.

SAM’S RED PRIUS: So don’t even try.

CAMPUS: Okay, okay. Did you, uh, Prii enjoy the city?

SAM’S RED PRIUS: I love cities. Great for my gas mileage.

And a little bit thrilling.

CAMPUS: Thrilling?

SAM’S RED PRIUS: I think it’s just culture shock. Like, a bunch of my siblings and cousins work in the City but they’re, you know, City Prii. Honk-happy, quiet but in that suspicious way. And yellow.

So many yellow Prii. And I’m, you know, red. And my plates stand out. Sam says it’s not true, but I swear every time we’ve been pulled over it’s only because we have Colorado plates on the East coast.

GALLIVANT: Well, once was because I was speeding.

SAM’S RED PRIUS: You are a perfect driver! Don’t ever think otherwise! The license plates just rustle their jimmies. They feel the need to check on us. But in the city, it’s kind of nice. It’s a beacon of foreignness. It tells everyone “I’m not from around here! We are just visiting! Please play nice!”

And somehow we survive!

GALLIVANT: I’m also a really good driver.

SAM’S RED PRIUS: Of course you are, babe.

CAMPUS: You guys have a really wonderful relationship.

GALLIVANT & SAM’S RED PRIUS: We sure do.

CAMPUS: I would love to, you know, get to experience some of it.

SAM’S RED PRIUS: Experience?

CAMPUS: I think I could add some real spice to your drive time.

GALLIVANT: Spice?

CAMPUS: Would you, could you take me in the backseat?

SAM’S RED PRIUS: There’s always room.

Build Your Own Major

MIRROR //7

Students who created their own majors discuss their academic trajectories.

STORY

By Abbey Cahill

Noelle Anderson ’18 has an enrapturing sense of authenticity. She paints whale sharks. She dances on tables.

She has stayed overnight in the Black Family Visual Arts Center. She modifies all the items on the menu when she goes out to eat, and she unapologetically wears crocs in the studio.

I tried to write a story about people who use Dartmouth courses to invent their own majors (i.e. “social entrepreneurship”) but I quickly found that special majors are like unicorns: famous and intriguing, but elusive. Maybe even mythical. In my limited experience, these people are nowhere to be found. In a bout of frustration, I reached out to Lynn Higgins, associate dean for interdisciplinary programs, who assured me that special majors do exist — it just takes a lot to get them approved.

She explained that students propose special majors when they have an interest that doesn’t fit into existing majors.

Higgins noted that proposals that get approved are typi-

cally in very specific fields that tend to be up-and-coming.

“Most special major proposals that gain approval are in fields we might call ‘emerging,’ like digital arts,” Higgins explained. “They’re out there, and although we have faculty specialists in the fields, we don’t yet have a major.”

Anderson originally considered creating an “art advocacy” major but realized that her needs could be fulfilled by combining classes from the geography and studio art departments. In high school, she spent a semester abroad at the Island School in the Bahamas and became fascinated by issues of sustainability. She was particularly inspired by a class in which students explored the relationship between art and the environment, constructing projects from recycled or biodegradeable materials or making art to capture an experience in nature. She explained that making something both aesthetically pleasing and practically useful can be demanding.

“That’s when I started to

really think about making art Earth.” Women and the earth that mattered,” Anderson told are both expected to be endme. “When a piece of art has lessly fruitful and productive to be more for men, Anthan interestderson said. If “Most special major ing, has to be the land is less proposals that gain more than beautiful, it is beautiful, less natural. approval are in fields that’s when If the woman we might call the chalis less beautilenge really ‘emerging,’ like digital ful, she is less increases.”

She arts. They’re out there, feminine.

So, Anderdefied these and although we have notions in a son returned home to series of nude faculty specialists in Massachuphotographs the fields, we don’t yet taken in natusetts and challenged ral settings. have a major.” herself. She Eighteen - LYNN HIGGINS, finished her hundred miles ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR senior year of away in Dalhigh school las, Kendall INTERDISCIPLINARY with a colErnst ’18 was PROGRAMS lection of also having photographs an unusual for a project senior year of titled “Ecohigh school. feminism.” Eco-feminism She had somehow evaded her to Anderson is the idea that language and science requiremale-dominated societies opments in order to double up on press women and the environmath and start taking computment in very similar ways. We er science. She said this is typispeak about conquering the cal of her atypical academic land and exploring “Mother trajectory.

“I’ve never really taken a conventional path with my academics,” Ernst told me.

She said she remembers the moment she first thought of merging computer science and economics. In Ernst’s high school computer science class, one of the first coding assignments was to prove the Monty Hall paradox, a famous problem she’d discussed in economics classes but had never quite understood. Modeling the problem with code helped her understand how the paradox worked. She was hooked on the interaction between the two fields. When she got to Dartmouth, she loaded up on computer science and economics classes, ending up with a modified major that combined the two fields.

Anderson arrived at Dartmouth at the same time as Ernst and started looking for classes that would allow her to explore the intersection of sustainability, social justice and art. She decided to declare a major in geography modified with studio art. Geography would give her knowledge about problems in our world, and art would allow her to give shape to those problems and call viewers to take action against them. She calls it “artivism,” a term she picked up from her work with street

artists in New Zealand.

A few months ago, an organization called PangeaSeed reached out to Anderson, asking her to paint a wall mural in Napier, New Zealand for its most recent project, “Sea Walls: Murals for Oceans.”

The “Seed” in PangeaSeed stands for “Sustainability, Education, Ecology, Design” and the foundation is interested in using art to raise awareness and inspire positive change around important ocean environmental issues. As the one emerging artist amongst 30 professional street artists, Anderson found the experience both nerve-wracking and exciting. She spent days covered in blue paint, creating a large-scale image that she hopes will change mindsets — specifically, widespread indifference — towards whale sharks.

“Our earth is precious, beautiful, resilient, astounding, yet under anthropogenic stressors like never before,” Anderson urged. “The removal of these apex predators would lead to total marine ecosystem collapse.”

Combining two fields to create a major is empowering because it allows students to pursue very specific interests.

Ernst said the ability to choose her own academic path is essential. She explained that her interest in economics was confined to specific disciplines; she loved studying composition, strategy and game theory, but she wasn’t as excited about other classes in the major. By combining it with computer science, she ensured that she was invested in all of her classes at all times, which is how it should be.

“I never want to feel like I’m taking a class at Dartmouth solely because I have to,” Ernst said. “So combining the two subject areas has really helped me focus on what I loved.”

People are inherently multidimensional. We have multiple interests, skills, hobbies and ways of connecting with others. We like painting and strategic thinking, coding and protesting, traveling and writing. Modified majors give people the opportunity to pursue their interests more holistically.

“In the real world, nothing exists in isolation,” Ernst said.

“For me, it doesn’t make sense to me to learn any other way.”

8// MIRROR

Designing Desserts at Dartmouth

How does Foco create the sweets and treats that nourish students at the College?

PROFILE

By Nelly Mendoza-Mendoza

The Class of 1953 Commons is known on campus for a variety of things — ramen week, the annual Mardi Gras spread, the kosher dining section — but perhaps its most popular section is the bakery area. Filled with desserts ranging from danishes to pies to the ever-tempting Foco cookies, the Foco dessert section is a campus fixture.

Yes, there are other dessert dispensaries on campus. KAF has a range of arguably more upscale pastries, and Collis Cafe has a range of homemade baked goods, but Foco’s dessert area stands apart, primarily due to the ever-present chocolate cookies that are the downfall of many a diet.

Justin Chan ’16’s favorite place to eat dessert on campus is Foco because of its wide variety.

“You can get if they have brownies or something, you can get ice cream on top with hot fudge. And there are so many things that you can add. It’s all you can eat as well. The Foco cookies are an everyday thing. It’s a very reliable source if you are looking for desserts,” Chan said.

Jeffrey Smith, head chef at Foco and in his fifth year at the College, noted that the cookies and brownies are the dessert section’s most popular items. Foco bakes approximately 500 cookies a day.

Julietta Gervase ’16 also expressed her enjoyment of the classic Foco cookie.

“Its nice that they are usually warm.

They are gooey enough to where they are delicious, but they don’t fall apart,” Gervase said.

Gervase added that the environment at Foco replicates a home atmosphere.

You can sit down and have a dessert after dinner like when you are at home, while when you get food elsewhere the meal can seem a bit more rushed.

However, not everyone enjoys these Foco cookies.

Laura Calderon ‘19 said that she finds the cookies have too much chocolate. On the other hand, she appreciates Foco because she can grab several type of desserts at the same time for one set price.

“I really like the pie, and they have this strawberry mousse thing with whip cream on top, which they don’t have often anymore. But it’s my favorite thing! But when they do have it I get at least five of them,” Calderon said.

The staff prepares the cookie dough overnight and the cookies are baked on an as-needed basis. But, do students eat all 500 cookies daily?

“Oh sure! We occasionally run of cookies, and we back them up with doodle cookies. But, not very often,”

“We take notes every night on [the chalkboard at Foco] and email everybody.

We have different managers, but we look for student feedback and for suggestions.

For what they like and for what they don’t like.”

-JEFFREY SMITH, HEAD CHEF OF FOCO

Smith said.

Though demand for cookies varies from day to day, the bakers try to ensure that cookies are always available. When they run out, people notice and will often ask for them.

Several other popular desserts come from student suggestions. Students keep a dessert alive or cause its disappearance, Smith said. He noted that many desserts have come and gone during his time at the College. Desserts are pulled from the rotation if they are unpopular with students. The most popular vary day to day, Smith said.

KATE HERRINGTON/ THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Foco’s chocolate chip cookies are perhaps the dining establishment’s most popular item.

“Cherry pie is not as popular as apple pie. Every day I am sure is different,” he said.

Some sports teams, including the women’s hockey team, often make requests for a type of dessert, Smith noted.

“We try to be responsive to student suggestions. They are able to write on the board, or they do emails sometimes. But, whatever they suggest I try to accommodate and look into the menu somehow,” Smith said.

Students leave notes to the staff on the board, located inside Foco near the rotating disk rack. Smith said that these do not go unnoticed.

“We take notes every night on it and email everybody,” he said. “We have different managers, but we look for student feedback and for suggestions. For what they like and for what they don’t like.”

Gervase noted that a few changes in the dessert section since her freshman

KATE HERRINGTON/ THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

The dessert section at Foco, one of the dining establishment’s most popular stops, tries to be innovative and accomodating with the desserts it offers.

year.

Gervase added that a few items, such as the ice creams that contain allergens, have been moved to separate areas, thus minimizing cross-contamination.

Chan added that he has noticed that through his time here, Foco desserts have either stayed the same or improved.

Smith noted that which desserts go out on which day depends on Foco’s four-week rotational calendar. Sometimes for special events too, Foco serves items like brownies or apple pie.

Ryan Arkie ’19 goes to Foco almost every day for dinner but does not have dessert everyday. When he does, he has two or three cookies.

“I like to try the occasional different cakes,” Arkie added.

Arkie also commented on the freshness of Foco desserts.

“They are made right there,” Arkie added.

In fact, although staff make most desserts in house, some are bought.

As for leftover desserts, Smith said that some are given to the food bank or stored for next day.

“If they have been in the window we can’t save them for tomorrow,” Smith added. “We give it to the food bank.”

During midterms, Smith said that they try to give students even a wider selection of desserts. Normally there are three or four dessert options, but selection is expanded during midterms because students are more stressed and need a little more sweetness at their fingertips, Smith said. He added that students do eat significantly more desserts during examination periods.

Smith noted that some desserts serve as healthier alternatives. Not all desserts are calorically equal, and the in-house nutritionist helps make healthier dessert options possible.

Chan added how he will miss the convenience of Foco when he graduates.

“As soon as you graduate and you have to make your own food or something or buy things with real money because you don’t have your ID that’s when you’ll miss it. It’s so nice that you don’t have to cook your own food, you don’t have to worry about that. You don’t have to worry bringing your food to work or classes. It’s a nice environment. It’s not real life,” he said.