VOL. CLXXII NO. 26
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2015
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
WISE works to expand its role on campus
PARTLY CLOUDY HIGH 28 LOW 0
By ERIN LEE
The Dartmouth Staff
CATHERINE MOST/THE DARTMOUTH
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WOMEN’S TENNIS WINS ECAC TITLE PAGE 8
OPINION
WOODWARD: SMOKE AND MIRRORS PAGE 4
ARTS
KRONOS QUARTET TO PERFORM PAGE 7
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WISE@Dartmouth is increasing its presence on campus to give students greater access to resources through a new website, support groups and informational posters, co-chair Caeli Cavanagh ’14 said. WISE@Dartmouth coordinates opportunities for students to get involved with WISE of the Upper Valley, an advocacy and crisis center for victims of domestic and sexual violence, WISE training coordinator Chelsea Williams said. She said that WISE gave presentations at her high school
WISE launched a new website and increaesd support groups and informational posters this term.
SEE WISE PAGE 3
Professors submit 51 proposals for seed funding
B y ERICA BUONANNO The Dartmouth Staff
The Office of the Provost received 51 proposals from faculty members seeking seed funding for the 2014-2015 cycle, vice provost for research Martin Wybourne said. The program aims to help tenure-track and research faculty launch new scholarship, research and creativity at Dartmouth. Wybourne launched the seed funding program in the 2013-2014 academic year while serving as interim
provost. Proposals were due on Feb. 2, and recipients are expected to be notified of their proposal status by early spring term. “The idea is to really fund scholarship and research that is on the cutting edge of new scholarly activities, particularly ones with a collaborative nature where faculty are working with other faculty at different schools or disciplines so it’s really trying to ‘seed’ new faculty activities and ideas,” he said. Wybourne said that he thinks the
seed funding initiative will allow faculty members to start new trials of inquiry, build the College’s research reputation in certain areas and provide faculty — who use federal funding for research — the opportunity to attain the data they require to apply for federal grants. Currently, the seed funding is split into three separate funding opportunities. Pilot Funds, one-year grants between $10,000 and $50,000, are aimed at supporting primary steps in potentially high-impact projects. Crossdisciplinary Collaboration Funds,
Solarize Hanover results in 62 installation contracts B y KATIE RAFTER The Dartmouth Staff
Following the Jan. 31 deadline for Solarize Hanover, a program aiming to promote solar energy in the Upper Valley, 273 Hanover residents signed up to have their homes visited and evaluated, resulting in 62 installation contracts, which is a higher amount than any other town in the Upper Valley participating in this program. According to the Hanover press
release, these 273 homes represent around nine percent of Hanover households. The Energy Emporium, a New Hampshire-based solar energy equipment supplier, conducted the site visits to evaluate whether the homes would be suitable for solar panel installations. Sarah Simonds, the energy program manager for Vital Communities, a nonprofit organization based in White SEE SOLARIZE PAGE 5
which are two-year grants between $50,000 and $200,000, are designated for projects that incorporate faculty from two or more different schools at Dartmouth or two traditionally unrelated subject matters and that aim to address larger, complex problems. This year, the Office of the Provost added a new funding category specifically for arts, humanities and social sciences faculty, for whom external funding is traditionally sparse. This category of SEE SEED PAGE 2
D(EXTER’S)-LAB
MAY NGUYEN/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
Freshmen meet for the Dartmouth Leadership Attitudes and Behaviors program.
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
PAGE 2
DAily debriefing A new study by researchers at the College on brain cells’ role in navigating one’s environment was published in the journal Science Express, EurekAlert reported. The study’s findings build on the understanding of neural mechanisms in human navigation of the environment. These findings can contribute to ameliorating brain damage from trauma, stroke or degenerative neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s. The study forms a part of a larger body of research at Dartmouth on human navigation, which has recently discovered the existence of cells that can reveal how far we have traveled along which path based on the way the cells fire. The study’s senior author, Jeffery Taube, is a post-doctoral fellow at Dartmouth. The study was coauthored by Shawn Winter, also a post-doctoral fellow at Dartmouth, and Benjamin Clark, an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico. Researchers at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth have found that the insertion of a specific strain of bacteria into cancerous cells can cause the tumor to attack itself, EurekAlert reported. The results of the study indicate that the bacterial strain can limit the tumor’s ability to create an environment that suppresses and attacks the immune system. The study, authored by Steve Fiering, provides promise for new cancer treatments based on immunotherapy. A study coauthored by Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center’s Alan Hartford finds that radiation therapy in combination with chemotherapy was more effective at preventing the recurrence of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) than previous research indicated. According to a press release by the Norris Cotton Cancer Center, the study was conducted over a period of seven years. Despite the promise of the study’s results, Hartford cautioned that the number of recurrences may be statistically insignificant and that the results presented with a large confidence interval. — Compiled by Annie Ma
Corrections
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2015
Funding will support professor projects FROM SEED PAGE 1
funding gives grants for two years, up to $20,000 total, which can be used to further a faculty member’s scholarly pursuits or artistic projects. Last year the seed funding program received 40 applications, with a majority of the proposals focused on the sciences, leading Wybourne to consider the additional category. “I talked to colleagues, and we decided that it may be a good idea to carve out a separate category to make it very clear that this program is meant to support arts and humanities as well as sciences and social sciences,” Wybourne said. “The program is not limited to scientists, and I see this program as a new outlet for arts and humanity faculty members who want to explore new areas of research.” He said that this year he has seen a significant increase in the number of proposals focused in the arts and humanities. Faculty members in different disciplines are not excluded from applying to particular funding ranges, Wybourne said. If a project is based in the arts and humanities but faculty involved would like to apply to one of the higher-funded categories, it is acceptable, he said. Biological sciences professor Eric Schaller, who received seed funding last year, wrote in an email that the program is a prime example how the College can enable research. His and Geisel professor George O’Toole’s project, titled “Ethylene chemotaxis as a basis for mediating bacterial-plant interactions,” focuses on how certain types of bacteria promote plant growth and how those mechanisms can improve agricultural productivity.
He wrote that there are a lot of great scientific ideas out there that can make a real difference in people’s lives, but that the federal government is limited in the funding it has available. This makes it all the more important for colleges and universities to step up and invest in these ideas, he wrote. Investment in research is a “rising tide that lifts all boats,” Schaller wrote, and the benefits will ripple and affect all aspects of Dartmouth academic life, including undergraduate and graduate studies. The opportunity to engage in important and meaningful research is fundamental to fostering educational experiences, as well as maintaining the College’s reputation at national and international levels, he wrote. He wrote that the seed funding program promotes cross-departmental collaboration. Linguistics professor Christiane Donahue, who received seed funding last year for her project “Effects of Globalization on Scholarly Communication: Mapping the Future of Non-Anglophone Writing Research,” wrote in an email that the initiative allows support for projects that cannot be developed within a regular budget, or those for which regular funding might take so long that the cutting-edge project could lose its cutting edge. She added that the funding allows creativity and some risk — ideas can be tested and made stronger for larger funding proposals, within Dartmouth or beyond, she wrote. The money used for seed funding is being drawn from a pool of former costly inefficiencies within the Provost’s Office, Wybourne said, which have since been redirected to budget
this activity. This year, the Provost’s Office received a large donation from a donor who expressed interest in seeding “high risk, high reward” projects that are highly innovative and have a “real transformable impact,” Wybourne said. “We’re willing to review and accept any proposals that come in and meet the criteria,” Wybourne said. “We know how much funding we’ve got, and we try and fund the most worthy proposals. If there are no proposals that meet funding criteria, we don’t feel obliged to fund programs that aren’t very strong.” Geisel professor Bryan Luikart said that the program allows faculty members to take on projects that any one lab cannot possibly accommodate. “Science is moving more in that direction, in which we have cluster initiatives and labs working together on a common project, because things are less simple and you need to be able to use a lot of different approaches to difficult questions in science,” Luikart said. “Different labs have different specialities, and if we can get groups working together, then that synergy can mean that the project that goes between those projects can be greater than the sum of its parts.” Genetics professor Giovanni Bosco, who partnered with Luikart on a seed-funded project titled “Living to 100: Understanding the molecular underpinnings of agedependent cognitive disorder,” said that the seed funding initiative allows faculty members with creative ideas to get their project jump-started to a certain threshold, at which it may be competitive enough for large federal or private foundation funding.
SWORDS AND STONES
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Reigning USACFC national champions, the fencing team hosted a meet Saturday at the Alumni Gym.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2015
WISE offers more campus-specific resources
most successful for them, on their own terms, on their own time,” Williams in Tunbridge, Vermont, so while said. many people within her area knew In the past month, WISE@ about the organization, she found that Dartmouth also started running Dartmouth students were primarily on-campus support groups for selfidentifying female survivors who want unaware of WISE. “I thought that was an oversight to talk about their experiences, an because there’s a lot of benefits to initiative that the organization wants how WISE does their work — the to continue and expand, co-chair confidentiality, having privileged com- Ruby Hopkins ’17 said. munication, meaning they can’t be WISE@Dartmouth is reaching subpoenaed for anything,” Cavanagh out to Greek houses in particular to raise awareness on campus by giving said. When she became chair of WISE@ introductory presentations to the Dartmouth last year, she wanted the houses. organization to expand its role on cam- “Greek houses have largely been pus and take advantage of opportuni- looked at as part of the problem,” Caties to reach out to the student body vanagh said. “We’re looking at Greek to make sure students know about houses as a social force on campus. We’re thinking the different reabout how we sources available “Students can get can partner with to them. them to make “I think a lot the support and the sure it’s safe for of students are information they worried about want where it’s most everybody.” As part utilizing College of the Greek proservices because successful for them, posal’s recomthey feel there’s on their own terms, mendation that some sort of houses post the conflict of inter- on their own time.” telephone numest,” she said. of various “Whether or - Chelsea williams, wise bers resources on not that’s really the case, if that training coordinator campus, WISE is providing houses causes someone with posters that to not feel comfortable going to College services and have their hotline number on them. they don’t know about any alterna- In the “Moving Dartmouth Fortives, then as a community we’ve failed ward” plan, College President Phil Hanlon mentioned WISE in the to support them.” In addition to outreach, WISE@ campus health and safety portion of Dartmouth aims to recruit students the report, reaffirming its importance to become WISE advocates and acts on campus. as an internal support structure for “The College will continue to enthem, as the work can be “grueling,” hance our partnership with WISE,” Cavanagh said. In fact, WISE@ the plan states. “This partnership will Dartmouth began as a way for Dart- strengthen our existing confidential remouth students gain access to Tucker sources for survivors of sexual assault, Foundation cars, which is necessary to dating violence, domestic violence and become a WISE advocate, she said. stalking.” The organization now has a total of Cavanagh said that she was happy five advocates, a significant accom- to see that WISE was included in the plishment since advocacy training “Moving Dartmouth Forward” plan, requires a 30-hour time commitment, though the organization is not directly she said. She added that four more involved with the plan’s development people are planning on going through and execution. Title IX coordinator Heather training in the spring, WISE launched its new website, Lindkvist wrote in an email that which includes a webpage especially though it is premature to discuss how for Dartmouth students, at the be- WISE will engage in other “Moving ginning of this term, Williams said. Dartmouth Forward” initiatives, the WISE staff considered how students College will continue to seek opporaccess information and opted to give tunities to collaborate with WISE in students the option to find support prevention, education and outreach online as opposed to distributing efforts. brochures, she said. The Dartmouth- WISE@Dartmouth is planning an specific webpage contains information event in April that will allow survivors pertaining to on-campus resources to tell their stories and will invite and general information about sexual various groups on campus to perform dances or songs centered around callassault tailored to students. “Students can get the support and ing attention to sexual assault, stalking the information they want where it’s and domestic violence, Hopkins said. FROM WISE PAGE 1
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
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Fifteenth Annual Stonewall Lecture
Fears, Fallacies, and Failures: How AIDS Became an Epidemic Denise McWilliams is Executive Director of the New England Innocence Project. She was director of the Boston AIDS Consortium and the General Counsel for New England’s largest and oldest AIDS service organization. In 1997, McWilliams oversaw and co-authored “Until There’s A Cure,” the first comprehensive plan for delivering services to people living with HIV in New England.
February 10 • 4:15 PM • Rockefeller 2 Reception Follows • Free and Open to the Public Sponsored by the Women’s and Gender Studies Program
THE DARTMOUTH OPINION
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Staff Columnist AYLIN WOODWARD ’15
CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST Reem Chamseddine ’17
Smoke and Mirrors
The Club Scene
The “Moving Dartmouth Forward” academic proposals are insubstantial. An intense focus on a single issue once again dominates popular discussion on campus — this time “Moving Dartmouth Forward,” arguably the biggest announcement by a College President in recent memory. There are some, however, that question the characterization of College President Phil Hanlon’s new plan as groundbreaking. The proposed changes, hard alcohol ban aside, appear are unlikely to be the biggest changes to hit the College since coeducation. Instead, what I see is a campaign of smoke and mirrors. I have nothing but respect for all those involved in the “Moving Dartmouth Forward” process. This long-term endeavor to address the College’s student life issues, which began with the departure of former College President Jim Kim and stagnated under Interim College President Carol Folt, finally came to fruition with Hanlon’s proposal. Yet I cannot help but caution — progress for the sake of progress is not progress. The College must understand that if the drive for this plan stems from a desire to placate a guilty conscience or to reverse a declining institutional reputation, then it is doomed to fail. “Moving Dartmouth Forward” cannot solely express a desire to do what is right — it needs to enact reforms that are informed by substantiated, citable data. Buy-in for the campaign is a decisive factor, and if student engagement does not reach a critical threshold then administrators will not be able to effectively implement these reforms. Most importantly, a comprehensive reform plan is only as strong as the sum of its parts. One weak component compromises the ability of the plan to succeed as a whole. I am here to contest, quite vehemently, one of Hanlon’s “pillars of change” — what he has termed “academic rigor.” “Strengthen[ing] academic rigor while enhancing learning outside of classroom… earlier start times for classes on Tuesday and Thursdays mornings.” This is what President Hanlon believes can mitigate the supposed correlation between rising GPAs and the number of nights per week students spend partying — a terrible basis for such a mandate. Perhaps it is predicated on the notion that making classes harder and curbing grade inflation, instructing faculty to teach earlier classes
and funneling students into them will somehow temper our peers’ desires to party on weeknights. Much like myself, many undergraduates will likely read that rationale and snort a little. The naivety suggests that ignorance may be the biggest impediment to the successful implementation of some of the “Moving Dartmouth Forward” policies. Moreover, this approach as a preventative measure for “partying hard” is blunt and lacks nuance. It’s like “taking a nuke to a problem that should have been solved with a razor blade,” as one of my friends described it to me this past week. Most egregious of all, painting all Dartmouth students — affiliated and unaffiliated, social science and STEM majors, first-time college students with familial legacies — with the same broad brush institutes a type of regime that I like to call the tyranny of the minority. An atmosphere where the actions of a particular, minority subset — the five night a week partiers, the excessive drinkers — dictate the conditions under which the majority have to live and operate. But policy is policy. “Moving Dartmouth Forward” and the changes it promises are here to stay and largely non-negotiable. Working under that premise, I urge all those involved — especially President Hanlon — to consider the downstream consequences of their proposed change to the College’s academic rigor. Beyond the ambiguity of these proposals, they need to address the elephant in the room — mental health, one of Dartmouth’s biggest problems concerning student wellbeing. While improving academic rigor is all well and good, a campaign to make our College experience even more difficult and stressful needs to be accompanied by a serious effort to improve access to mental health resources and counseling beyond the College’s existing efforts. President Hanlon must consider how these policies connect with one another and recognize the problem of talking about them in isolation, instead of parts of a collective whole. We may want a better atmosphere of academic innovation and entrepreneurship, but ultimately that can’t happen if administrators are out of touch with all the aspects of the environment in which students live and learn.
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The are too many student organizations with too few active members. On my Dartmouth Outing Club First-Year Trip, my Trip leader told us all about the “free food blitz list” — a daily email that listed the extra-curricular events where free food would be served. While the list is now long gone, the strategy of luring students to attend campus events with the offer of a free lunch or catered dinner remains prevalent. This method of boosting attendance is smart, but it is also quite telling of the issue with the extracurricular life on campus. Currently, the College boasts more than 160 clubs and organizations — even if the entire student body were on campus during this term, that would average out to 26 students per organization. That seems like an awfully low number for a college student organization, especially one that is supposed to have a meaningful impact on the community. With the exception of groups that select their members — like a cappella or dance groups — and activities administered by the College — like Global Issues Scholars — I have noticed a lack of member engagement within undergraduate clubs and organizations. In almost every organization that I have been part of or attended an event for, there are often very few or no members in sight. Instead, there is a board of a small group of student leaders who plan events and run the programs associated with the organization. As far as I’m aware, nearly every organization keeps a mailing list but the majority do not have a regular member base. In the rare case that they do, this base would not be substantial. Each of the student leaders that I interviewed voiced a similar concern about the lack of dedicated and recurring members. There are no “member meetings,” but rather an active leadership constantly begging for attendance through colorful campus blitzes, personal invitations and, of course, dinner. In some ways, this absence of members makes sense. For many students, the fast-paced quarter system and academic demands make it far too hectic for one to be invested in clubs in which they are not leaders. In addition, Dartmouth attracts students who generally
had some form of leadership experience in high school. For some, it begs the question — what’s the point in being a member when you can be a “leader?” There are several organizations, and they must select new leaders at some point. As a result, students may feel little incentive to invest their time in any organization that won’t get them some sort of title or leadership role. The problem is only made worse by the D-Plan. With organization leaders coming and going, there is a constant need to fill in the gaps in an organization’s leadership, which often makes sustaining the organization difficult — a rotating board may not be cohesive enough to enact the vision of a group of people. The only solution to the problem of too many leaders and too few members is to cut down the number of clubs available on campus. There are many organizations that focus on identical or similar areas of interest and host the same type of events — do we really need all of them? Once there are fewer clubs around, there will be fewer leadership positions to be filled, incentivizing underclassmen to be active, involved members in causes they feel passion for. It would also create a larger support base for an event. With four global health events taking place on a given day, how do I pick the one to attend? Having fewer clubs would mean having fewer overlapping options, something that also saves resources and increases the value of the event by maximizing student attendance. Of course, there may be students who prefer intimate groups that offer a different atmosphere to its members. This could still be possible when the new, larger clubs create subcommittees that work on different projects under one, cohesive leadership. A large member base, selective leadership positions and fewer competing events would strengthen the operation of our campus organizations. Events would likely be better attended and therefore more likely to impact the community. Students should be able to effectively focus and develop their extra-curricular interests, and reducing redundancies in extra-curricular groups would help us accomplish that goal.
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2015
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Solar panels will reduce Hanover’s carbon emissions by 308 metric tons FROM SOLAR PAGE 1
River Junction working to promote solar energy in the Upper Valley said that Solarize has completed two rounds of household evaluations in the Upper Valley. She said that five towns took part in the first round of Solarize, conducted in March 2014, and 120 homes installed solar panels. In this second round, 10 towns have participated and 178 households have signed contracts to have solar panels installed, although the installation process will not take place until late March or early April, when temperatures begin to increase and the snow begins to melt. In the spring, Energy Empo-
rium plans to complete four installations per week, so all installations in Hanover will be finished in about 15 weeks. Simonds said that the organization has had success making the transition to solar energy a feasible and accessible option for households. “If you asked someone in Hanover, and maybe even the Upper Valley, if they know someone or anyone who’s ever gone solar, most people would probably say yes at this point,” Simonds said. “This wasn’t the case a year and a half ago.” She said that Hanover residents will now have more opportunities to go solar, and in many ways the process will be easier for others now
that 62 households have already made the decision. Hanover town manager Julia Griffin said that the solar panels will produce 357 kilowatts of electricity, which will reduce the town’s carbon dioxide emissions by 308 metric tons, which is the equivalent of taking 65 cars off the road. “This is a wonderful step we can take to try and become a more sustainable community,” Griffin said. Griffin works with the Sustainable Hanover committee alongside director of public works Peter Kulbacki to help implement projects like Solarize. She said that Vital Communities made Solarize an easy program to put into place
KATELYN JONES/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
Sixty-two households in Hanover have signed up to install solar panels as a part of Solarize Hanover.
because of its connection with Solarize Upper Valley. “We were able to copy their tried and true message for getting the word out about solar, and it was a lot of fun to implement this project and minimize the workload,” Griffin said. She said that it was great to have the opportunity to support Vital Communities as a local company in the process. Sustainable Hanover is working with the Dartmouth Consulting Group on a new program that aims to make green power available for Hanover residents to purchase through a local co-op, she said. The Dartmouth Consulting Group is comprised of undergraduate students. “It would allow people who couldn’t go solar to buy green power in another form,” Griffin said. Kulbacki said that he has been doing outreach and communicating with residents of Hanover to answer questions and streamline the permitting process. “We want to see how we can be more sustainable by reducing our impact,” he said. He said that there is a possibility that the New Hampshire state rebate may not be renewed, so this is an ideal time to take advantage of this opportunity. The rebate offers $1,250 per kilowatt up to
$3,750 toward installation costs. Kulbacki said that Sustainable Hanover is taking steps to make sustainable energy more accessible and affordable for Hanover residents. “We are looking at how we can help people that couldn’t afford to go solar do something to offset their carbon impact,” he said. Director of campus planning and Hanover town resident Joanna Whitcomb said that she decided to sign the contract to install solar panels because her home has good solar exposure and she felt that it is the right thing to do for the environment. Sarah Labombard, a Hanover resident who works in procurement services for the College, said that she was motivated by both environmental and financial reasons. She added that the town and Vital Communities have made it an easy process for her so far. Men’s track and field head coach Barry Harwick, a Hanover resident, said he was motivated to sign up for several reasons and said that the process was straightforward. “Renewable energy is a good concept, and financially this is the best time to do it because they have a lot of incentives both at the state level and possible federal income tax deductions which made it very attractive,” he said.
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THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2015
DARTMOUTH TODAY 10:00 a.m. “Landscapes of Decay,” presentation by Bill Morrison, Hood Auditorium
11:00 a.m. Winter blood drive, sponsored by the Dartmouth Red Cross Club, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Alumni Hall
7:00 p.m. Kronos Quartet, “Beyond Zero: 1914-1918 A New Work for Quartet with Film,” Hopkins Center for the Arts, Spaulding Auditorium
TOMORROW 11:00 a.m. Winter blood drive, sponsored by the Dartmouth Red Cross Club, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Alumni Hall
5:00 p.m. Men’s and women’s squash versus Williams College, Berry Squash Courts
6:00 p.m. “Voxmasters: Group Facilitation,” Rockefeller Center, Class of 1930 Room
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THE DARTMOUTH ARTS
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2015
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Kronos Quartet to perform “Beyond Zero: 1914-1918”
B y mac emery
The Dartmouth Staff
The sights and sounds of a globally scarring cataclysm will bombard attendees from the bows of the Kronos Quartet, before a backdrop of absorbing historical footage, during the group’s upcoming performance of “Beyond Zero: 1914-1918” today. The performance is the product of a collaboration between the Kronos Quartet — two violins, a viola and a cello — filmmaker Bill Morrison and contemporary composer Aleksandra Vrebalov as they aim to addressethe harrowing legacy of World War I through a combination of music and film. The Grammy award-winning Kronos Quartet will begin the performance with “Prelude to a Black Hole,” an array of nine musical pieces that relate to the years surrounding World War I. The instrumental selections range from ancient Byzantine chants to a string piece by avant-garde composer Igor Stravinsky. Kronos, which The New York Times called a mentor to several generations of musicians, will then play “Beyond Zero: 1914-1918,” an original work by contemporary composer Vrebalov that will be partnered with war footage arranged by Morrison. Vrebalov said that the idea for a work addressing World War I
sprouted in 2011 as the centennial anniversary of World War I approached and follows a longstanding relationship between her and the Kronos Quartet. One of the quartet’s violinists, David Harrington, said that the group was excited to work with Vrebalov, given their history together. “She’s written incredibly vivid, wonderful music for us in many different forms and we’ve played her music in many circumstances,” he said. Filmmaker Bill Morrison soon joined the project and introduced the element of historical film to the collaboration. The granular, decaying texture of the war footage he unearthed in national archives filtered into the musical composition of “Beyond Zero,” Vrebalov said. While she penned the composition, Morrison organized footage around the resulting score. “There are elements of the texture and the process of decay that I saw in the film that I used as the approach to my own project,” Vrebalov said. “There are places in music where things are happening and then all of a sudden they collapse and then they come back.” During Kronos’ performance of “Beyond Zero,” meticulously arranged footage convulses and unreels across the screen behind them and select audio clips will overlay the group’s performance,
Vrebalov said. These include the disturbing proclamations of a wartime speech, the piercing shrill of air raid sirens and a chillingly placid piano piece recorded during the period as countries devolved
“There is no idealism about the war or anything that war has meant to the people then. But there is idealism about the beauty of people and also a lot of beauty that I saw in the faces of all those young people who just live their lives and who are basically swallowed by the global circumstances.” -Aleksandra Vrebalov, filmmaker into violent chaos. The piece’s focus on the devastation of the war is void of idealism in the traditional sense, though amongst the havoc, integrity and beauty may emerge from other sources, she said.
“There is no idealism about the war or anything that war has meant to the people then,” Vrebalov said. “But there is idealism about the beauty of people and also a lot of beauty that I saw in the faces of all those young people who just live their lives and who are basically just swallowed by the global circumstances. So the beauty is in the people.” The prelude, dubbed with the sinister title “Prelude to a Black Hole,” stages the historical context of the hectic time and bridges those historical sentiments with the modern creation, she said. In culling selections for the prelude from the abundance of notable works composed during that tumultuous period, Harrington said he projected Kronos into the past to decide which pieces most reflected Kronos’ tastes. “Well one thing that I imagined doing, was thinking of, if Kronos were active around 1914, from what I know about music right now, who would some of the composers be who we would have been working with?” Music professor Theodore Levin described the show as stylistically diverse. “Kronos has been at the forefront of contemporary music around the world for 40 years,” Levin said. “They revolutionized the repertoire of the string quartet.”
Both Harrington and Vrebalov said the performance will be an opportunity for the audience to advance its understanding of World War I and its continued relevance, even as its dates recede into the remoteness of history. “I think that for a musical experience to be considering these sorts of things, I think it can be helpful for a college audience,” Harrington said. “The more you learn the more you realize all the wars since then have been influenced by that one.” Vrebalov, who cited her own experiences in modern day Serbia as influential to her perspective on war, said that she hoped to promote awareness of the historical event. “It will be another element of their awareness, especially the waste of human life that happens in all wars, not only World War One,” she said. In addition to Tuesday’s performance, Kornos will speak at a music class and hold a postperformance discussion, Levin said. The Kronos Quartet will perform “Beyond Zero” today at 7 p.m. in Spaulding Auditorium. Harrington said that the quartet may play supplemental period pieces before the performance formally starts. Tickets will cost between $10 and $50 for students and between $17 and $50 for the general audience.
Beyond the Bubble: How can art fight violence?
B y andrea nease The Dartmouth Staff
What is the purpose of visual art? Is art supposed to be an escape or a refuge, a soothing balm for our eyes to peruse? Or is art supposed to be something more? I think most people would agree that visual art is intellectually stimulating and even a powerful tool for social change. Visual art has a way of seeping into our minds and prodding at our understandings of current social conventions. I have read many articles on issues of social injustice and gender equality, but sometimes the articles provide me with nothing more than words on a page — after reading so many accounts of this or that tragedy, a serious disconnect develops. Hearing “one in four women will experience domestic violence during her lifetime” becomes just another statistic, when in all seriousness it is a jaw-dropping reality. How do we reconcile the emotional truth between the world around us with the facts written on a page? Art has
long provided resolution of the dichotomy between experiencing and understanding. Studying Sara Naomi Lewkowicz’s photographs from her piece “Shane and Maggie: An Intimate Look at Domestic Violence,” I find it hard to look away — I find it hard to slow my heartbeat. This visceral and emotional response is something I don’t feel after reading that domestic violence is the third leading cause of homelessness among families. There is a connection that visual art that deals with raw themes can bridge in a way that facts cannot. Jean Fautrier, a French painter, made a series of paintings entitled “Hostage” in 1945 in response to the horrors of Nazi Germany. Fautrier painted these after fleeing “to a sanatorium in the Parisian suburb of Châtenay-Malabry, where he painted within earshot of the woods where German forces conducted massacres at night,” according to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Viewing a painting of an abstract, desecrated and disembodied head
will give you an understanding of Nazi horror that no textbook ever could. Art about sexual assault and domestic violence functions in the same way. We hear, “one in three female homicide victims are murdered by their current or former partner every year,” but do we really think about assault any differently after hearing that statistic? Or do we just give it a moment of silence and move on? Art movements encouraging education about sexual assault and gender-based violence are taking hold all over the world. From “Graffiti to Combat Violence Against Women” in Brazil to Charlotte Farhan’s “Art to End the Silence on Rape” in France and England to Emma Sulkowicz’s “Carry That Weight” project at Columbia University, artists are making their cause known. The sooner we realize the power of art in the social and political realm, the sooner we can reduce sexual assault. If all someone hears are immeasurable statistics they aren’t going to feel connected.
They are going to hear three million children witness domestic violence in their homes each year — according to the organization Safe Horizon — but they are not going to know the real, emotional effect that this experience has on these children and their families. The College is not exempt from this phenomenon of cultural disconnect between the statistics and the reality of sexual assault and gender-based violence. We are very much in the midst of addressing these matters, and have yet to derive a solution. Although many college students like to pride themselves on their social progressiveness and overall understanding of equality, we cannot fully understand the emotional reality of sexual assault and gender-based violence without personal experience. Now this is not to say that someone who has not endured sexual assault or sexual violence cannot understand its terrible implications. It is to say that knowing a handful of statistics and having read about the rape in Steubenville, Ohio or at Vanderbilt University are not enough to claim
a full understanding. Engaging with the issue and its emotional reality is necessary, and art is probably one of the most accessible route for engagement. Attending something like the “Vagina Monologues” can provide students with a much more gripping rendition of sexual assault and the trauma that accompanies it. The “Vagina Monologues” are a form of art, and they are a form of awareness that rarely exist in statistic-heavy texts or straightforward reporting. I encourage everyone to attend the monologues or any V-Day event this term, because they show you what statistics alone cannot. Don’t let the statistics fall flat. Engage with the art that surrounds the movement against sexual assault and domestic violence. Unlike statistics, artistic engagement doesn’t allow for denial of the trauma. The College’s production of “Vagina Monologues” will take place Feb. 17 at 7 p.m. in Spaulding Auditorium. “Voices” will be performed Mar. 3 and 4 at 7 p.m. in the Moore Theater.
THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS
PAGE 8
SPORTS
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2015
TUESDAY LINEUP
No athletic events scheduled
Women’s tennis upsets opponents to win ECAC tournament B y Chanelle qi
The women’s tennis team traveled to Ithaca, New York this past weekend to compete in the three-day ECAC Division I Indoor Championship, bringing home its first ECAC Winter Championship title. Dartmouth entered the tournament seeded fourth, defeating No. 5 seeded Brown University and pulling upset wins over No. 1 seeded Princeton and No. 2 seeded Columbia Universities. The three victories extended the women’s stellar season record to 8-0. The women started off ECAC competition with a strong showing against Brown (3-2) on Friday. The duo of Taylor Ng ’17 and Kristina Mathis ’18 swept Brown in No. 1 doubles with a score of 6-0, while the No. 3 doubles team Akiko Okuda ’15 and Julia Schroeder ’18 clinched the doubles point for the Big Green by defeating Brown 6-4. In singles play, Schroeder brought in Dartmouth’s first point with a 6-3, 6-2 victory at No. 6 singles. Ng continued her singles success for the season, winning at No.1 singles with a score of 6-4, 6-3. Jacqueline Crawford ’17 sealed the win for Dartmouth, completing her match with a score of 7-5, 6-1 at No. 4 singles. Crawford’s singles match was particularly notable, as she was able to fight back from a 2-5 first-set deficit. Crawford cited her fellow teammates as
sources of encouragement throughout the close set. “In my match against Brown, two of my teammates on the courts next to me were dominating their opponents and playing with a lot of drive, and I think I was able to benefit from that energy,” Crawford said. Dartmouth women’s tennis only grew stronger on Saturday during its semifinal against Princeton (1-5). Okuda and Schroeder were the first off the court, winning 6-3 at No. 3 doubles. Ng and Mathis also had a strong performance against Princeton’s No. 1 doubles team, capturing the doubles point after nabbing a 6-3 victory and placing Dartmouth at a 1-0 lead going into singles matches. In singles play, No. 6 player Schroeder defeated Princeton’s Sivan Krems handedly with a score of 6-2, 6-2. No. 2 player Katherine Yau ’16 continued the Big Green’s domination over Princeton with a 6-4, 6-4 victory, and Ng sealed the deal on Dartmouth’s upset with a 6-4, 6-3 win at No. 1 singles. The women’s 4-0 triumph over Princeton demonstrated the great strides that the team has made in the past year. The Princeton women’s team won the Ivy League Championship in 2014, going undefeated in the Ivies throughout the season. In the finals of the ECAC tourna-
ment, Dartmouth faced No. 2 seeded Columbia (2-3). The Big Green women battled hard in doubles play, with Ng and Mathis as the first match off the courts with a 6-4 victory. No. 3 doubles Okuda and Schroeder then fell to Columbia’s Milstein and Viadya 6-3. A tight 7-5 match won by Yau and Alexxis Kiven ’18 , however, gave the Big Green the doubles point and the 1-0 advantage going into singles. Yau and Kiven fell only to the Princeton team in doubles play for the entirety of the ECAC Championship. The junior and freshman duo’s great team dynamic and ability to compete under pressure was evident in their doubles match against Columbia. “Being the deciding point for doubles and down a break, we were definitely nervous,” Yau said. “However, we were able to break back when it mattered the most, and were rewarded for taking risks during big points.” Kiven also commented on the importance of a doubles partner as a source of support during games. “[Yau] hits really solidly, so it’s easy to be at the net,” Kiven said. “She’s also very positive on the court during the doubles. We’re both aggressive players, so when she’s hitting through her shots with confidence that gives me confidence to hit my shots.” The women proceeded to sweep
their singles matches against Columbia. Okuda brought in the first singles point for Dartmouth with a 6-0, 7-5 victory in No. 5 singles, and Schroeder followed the performance with a 6-4, 6-2 win at No. 6 singles. Once again, No. 1 singles Ng took home the remaining win, finishing her match with a score of 6-3, 6-3. Dartmouth only lost one point during the ECAC Championship, a large improvement from its fifth-place finish in 2014. The women’s strong performance cemented its position as one of the dominant teams in the Ivy League. “We wanted to prove our standing to the league, since we knew we had the skill and that it was just a matter of executing during competition,” Crawford said. “We’ve been more cohesive
than ever this season.” After winning the ECACs, the women’s team looks forward to maintaining their performance for the rest of the season. “We’ve never done so well in terms of beating teams so convincingly, so it just gives us more momentum going into future matches,” Yau said. “I think now that we’re one of the teams to beat, other teams will approach us differently. However, I think we’ll be able to build off of that, and keep up the momentum.” Next, the women will travel to Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Feb. 21 to compete against Drake University and the University of Minnesota. Meanwhile, the men will compete in their ECAC Championship this weekend, beginning Feb. 13 at Harvard University.
JEFFREY LEE/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
Women’s tennis captured the ECAC title this past weekend in Ithaca, New York.
Men’s basketball drops two more on road for four straight losses
B y RAY Lu
The Dartmouth Staff
After suffering two defeats last weekend, the men’s basketball continued their streak of losses by falling to both Yale and Brown Universities this past weekend. Despite Miles Wright’s ’18 average of 20.5 points between the two games — 20 against Yale and 21 against Brown — the team now carries a four-game losing streak on the road. Yale (16-7, 5-1 Ivy) had an aggressive start to the matchup, shooting 7-11 on three-pointers in the first half and racing out to a 35-21 lead by halftime. Dartmouth hung tight, keeping the game close. In the final seven minutes of the half, however, Yale went on a 15-1 run, and the Bulldogs finished the game with a strong point difference, defeating Dartmouth 81-66. Wright had 12 points in the first half for the Big Green (8-12, 1-5 Ivy), more than the rest of the team combined. He finished the game with 20 points
on 8-15 shooting, and co-captain Gabas Maldunas ’15 chipped in 13 points and six rebounds. After falling behind by 19 early in the second half, Dartmouth rallied back for a 13-3 run to bring the deficit down to nine. Maldunas and co-captain Alex Mitola ’16 chipped in four points each during the stretch, and a Wright dunk capped the rally. Costly fouls by the Big Green and solid free-throw shooting from Yale brought the Bulldogs’ lead back to 13 before Mitola hit his first and only three of the game. Yale answered back with a pair of triples, effectively putting the game out of reach. The Bulldogs shot just over 51 percent for the game, including 13 threes, compared to the Big Green’s 41.4 percent. Offensive struggles plagued Dartmouth in the first half, hitting just 7-for-24 from the field. Maldunas noted that the offensive side of the game is where the Big Green needs to focus its attention.
“We feel like our effort and defense is there, and we can stop teams but it’s just all about scoring now,” he said. “A bunch of us missed some wide open shots, and it’s just our offense is not really clicking right now. I feel like it started at the [University of Pennsylvania] game, where when we were open the ball just didn’t go in. It kind of got contagious, and we haven’t really gotten able to click on offense as much as we would’ve liked.” The Bulldogs are currently tied for first atop the Ivy League with Harvard University, who won a thrilling 52-50 match against Yale on Saturday. The Big Green then travelled to Providence, Rhode Island to face Brown (10-13, 1-5 Ivy). Before the game, the Bears had yet to defeat an Ivy League team, losing an overtime battle 76-74 to Harvard the previous night. The teams traded baskets throughout the first half until the Bears closed out on a 9-2 run, taking a 33-25 lead heading into the break. Brown held onto their lead for most
of the second half. A three-pointer by Connor Boehm ’16 cut the deficit to one with 34 seconds left. The Big Green intentionally fouled to prolong the game, but the Bears hit all four of their free throws. A layup by Wright in the closing seconds put the final score at 64-67. The basket helped Wright set a new career-high with 21 points after dropping 20 just the night before. Mitola was the only other player in double-digits with 10, while Maldunas, who recorded 15 boards, and Kevin Crescenzi ’16 each scored nine. “If it weren’t for [Wright], it would’ve been a really bad weekend,” Mitola said. “He played well in every aspect of the game. It seemed like a lot of things clicked for him this weekend, and if we can keep getting a boost from him...that would be important and big.” The result gave Brown its first win in Ivy League play this season, and the team is now tied with Dartmouth at the bottom of the Ivy rankings. Moving forward, Mitola noted that the Big Green
needs to improve their all-around play if they hope to ascend in the rankings. “We’re 1-5 in the Ivy, which is not where we want to be, or where we hoped we would be,” he said. “We have a lot to work on...a ton of things we’re trying to improve.” Wright echoed similar points, saying that the weekend has given the team a chance to learn what they should focus on to end the current streak of losses. “We battled [at Yale], and we had some tough stretches where we couldn’t put the ball in the basket,” he said. “At Brown, it was the same thing. It was a close game, back and forth. They hit a couple of extra shots down the stretch that put us away. It was a tough, tough three-point loss. I think we definitely learned from the entire weekend.” The Big Green returns to Leede Arena for a four-game home-stand. Dartmouth will play Cornell University on Friday and Columbia University on Saturday, with both games beginning at 7 p.m.