The Dartmouth 04/13/18

VOL. CLXXV NO.15 CLOUDY HIGH 39 LOW 30

FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018

Sexual violence prevention efforts recognized

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Eric Thorpe ’18 to compete on College Jeopardy!

By SUNNY DRESCHER The Dartmouth

OPINION

GHRAVI: CAFFEINE STATIONS PAGE 4

VERBUM ULTIMUM: LESSONS FROM MINDY KALING

Dartmouth has been ranked in the top 6 percent of institutions nationally for best practices for sexual violence prevention based on an assessment by educational technology company EVERFI. Representatives from EVERFI came to Hanover on Apr. 4 to report the assessment and present the Campus Prevention Network’s Prevention Excellence Award, which was awarded to the College in July 2017.

The award and ranking were based on a Sexual Assault Diagnostic Inventory conducted by EVERFI at nearly institutions around the country, according to Student Wellness Center associate director and Sexual Violence Prevention Project director Amanda Childress. Dartmouth completed the inventory in 2016 and was one of five institutions to receive the award in 2017.

“It was really validating to hear some of the prevention experts from EVERFI highlighting the good work that’s being done here around preventing sexual assault,” Wellness Center director Caitlin Barthelmes said. “It led into a conversation about what’s next for us and how we can continue to improve.”

The diagnostic survey focused on three primary categories: institutionalization, which considers how involved SEE BENCHMARKS PAGE 5

COURTESY OF ERIC THORPE

Tonight, Eric Thorpe ’18 will compete against other college students on the Jeopardy! College Championship.

By GABRIEL ONATE

The Dartmouth Staff

When Eric Thorpe ’18 first started watching Jeopardy! with his roommates Jacob Cutler ’18 and Andrew Boules ’18, he never imagined himself representing

the College for the Jeopardy!

College Championship.

An economics modified with history major, member of the Hill Winds Society, co-captain of the men’s club water polo team and brother of Psi Upsilon fraternity, Thorpe did not seem

to have the time to dedicate to a trivia competition. However, an online test and audition later, Thorpe found himself flying out to Los Angeles to join the show.

Tonight he will advance to the SEE JEOPARDY! PAGE 2

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Leya’s Island Grill opens

By JACOB CHALIF The Dartmouth

Jamaican-Thai curries, jerk chicken, live music, 15 percent discount for Dartmouth s t u d e n t s — L ey a ’s Island Grill offers many attractions for the Hanover community.

The town already boasts an extensive selection of international cuisine, ranging from Nepali dishes to Spanish tapas.

Since Leya’s opening on March 6, Jamaican food can now also be added to that list.

Leya’s is located at 6 Allen Street, the former location of Kata Thai.

Leya’s owner Gayann Letman had previously worked with the owner of Kata Thai, and when the opportunity arose to purchase the space, she said she could not resist. “[The Kata Thai owner] decided she wanted to sell, so I said ‘I’ll buy it,’” Letman said. “It was a great opportunity. It’s a nice location.”

She said she named the restaurant after her daughter, Cataleya.

Letman said that she has wanted to own a restaurant since she was a 16-year-old in Jamaica, adding that her family was active

in the restaurant business there. A few years later, she moved with her father to New Hampshire, where she went to Newport High School for a year.

L e t m a n’s f at h e r Er rol Letman owns a restaurant in Claremont called S u n s h i n e Ja m a i c a n Style Cook Shop. In addition to helping him run the restaurant t h e r e, L e t m a n h a s also worked in several other restaurants in the region, she said.

Hanover town manager Julia Griffin SEE RESTAURANT PAGE 2

Smartphone photos may impair memory

By LILY JOHNSON The Dartmouth

Withtheadventof thesmartphone, many people now turn to their phone cameras to record anything and everything they experience. However, new research suggests this may impair their memories of these experiences.

According to a recent study led

by Dartmouth psychology Ph.D. student Emma Templeton, published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, using smartphone cameras to document an experience weakens the memory of that experience. According to the study, this camera use leads individuals to remember fewer facts about what they experienced, compared to

people who did not use their phone camera. However, smartphone use did not affect their engagement with or enjoyment of the experience.

In their study, Princeton University psychology professor Diana Tamir, Templeton, University of Texas at Austin marketing professor Adrian Ward and Stanford University psychology professor Jamil Zaki tested whether giving participants in the study a smartphone camera affected their memory of a self-guided tour of Stanford’s Memorial Church.

The 129 participants were randomly assigned to take the tour in one of three conditions: without any digital media; using a camera but without access to SEE SMARTPHONES PAGE 5

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FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

Jeopardy hosts student

New restaurant features fusion food

quarterfinals to compete against other college students for a grand prize of $100,000.

According to Cutler, both he and Thorpe’s passion for trivia led the roommates to start watching Jeopardy! each night during their sophomore summer to “unwind.” Thorpe added that the idea of him competing in Jeopardy! was a recurring joke amongst his roommates.

Then in the fall, Thorpe saw an ad inviting people to take a test to audition for the show, which prompted both him and Cutler to try out. In the test, they were only given eight seconds to answer each question, Thorpe said. He was later called for an in-person audition, for which he had to travel to Boston.

Cutler was not called back — a clear indication that Thorpe had done much better than him on the first test, Cutler said.

When Thorpe moved on to the audition round in Boston, he said he had to take another exam, participate in an interview and practice onstage with actual buzzers in front of show producers.

“I walked out of the audition thinking that there was no way I was going to end up on the show,” he said.

“The odds are pretty small.”

In December, however, Thorpe was told that he had made it onto the show.

Jeopardy! films its episodes in Los Angeles, so Thorpe flew out for two days of filming, which happened to take place during finals week of this past winter term. Fortunately, his professors were lenient and allowed him to take his finals early, he said.

Although Thorpe already knows who won and how the competition went, he said he cannot disclose any information before the episode airs as per his contract.

Cutler said that the nondisclosure agreement has made watching the week-long competition and anticipating Thorpe’s participation much more fun.

“He promised us it’ll be a good episode,” he said. “It’s a thrilling game to watch when [Thorpe] … really plays.”

For Thorpe, the experience of competing in Jeopardy! was as much an “honor” as it was an “overwhelming” event because he was the sole student representing the College. He remembers feeling a little nervous, especially before going onstage to compete. Since his episode was filmed last, he had to wait while other competitors were able to compete before him. To add to his nervousness, each of the game

said that the town is enjoying working with Letman.

“Our planning and zoning staff has worked with her,” Griffin said. “She’s very responsible, very clean.”

Griffin added that the town had “a number of issues” with the Kata Thai owners, ranging from cleanliness to ensuring that a proper supervisory operator was present in the restaurant at all times. “[Letman] has done a really nice job of stepping in and upgrading the level of service in the restaurant and the cleanliness level,” Griffin said. “I also hear people are appreciating the quality of her cooking.”

However, Letman did not do away with the location’s Thai history altogether. Leya’s has kept Kata Thai’s curries and some of its dishes even incorporate elements of both Jamaican and Thai cuisines.

“Our Thai curries are not soups; they’re like a sauce,” Letman said.

“There’s more chicken, and [in the curry there] is rice and beans and plantains. The flavor is amazing and you get a taste of Thai and a taste of the Caribbean all fused

FROM JEOPARDY! PAGE 1

topics were not disclosed to any of the competitors prior to the competition, which made preparation more difficult.

He added that the game is about reflex and the mind, as players always have to be ready to buzz the instant host Alex Trebek finishes reading the clue.

Stanford University sophomore Josie Bianchi has tried out for Jeopardy! twice, but this was her first time making it onto the show.

Bianchi’s passion for trivia developed in her childhood, where she would play games like Brain Quest and Trivial Pursuit, which dealt with memorization, trivia and facts. In high school, she started watching Jeopardy! more often with her mother, who later motivated her to try out for the game show, she said.

Bianchi’s first attempt to join the show was unsuccessful, but her mother pushed her to try again once she began college.

The best preparation for the game was to just watch past episodes and try to pick up on patterns, she said.

“I started using a pen to ring in and practice answering in the form of a question,” Bianchi said. “I wanted to get the timing right, although I really think it’s something you get lucky with because you can’t really know what it’s going to be like.”

Georgia Institute of Technology freshman Rishab Jain, who will compete in the show’s semifinals, was one of three freshmen to participate in the competition. He said the experience initially felt “intimidating” because he did not think he would be placed in the same competition as upperclassmen, but that feeling went away as he got to know the other competitors better and became more comfortable with them.

Jain said he felt more comfortable being onstage competing than waiting for his turn in the waiting room with the other competitors.

“I kind of struggled a little bit early on in the game, but I felt like I kind of got into the groove of things pretty easily,” he said. “Then I just started having fun with it, because you know, if you’re up there, and you only get so much time up there, you might as well make the most of it.”

Boules said the roommates’ Jeopardy! tradition continues to this day, especially this week when the competition’s episodes air on TV. “I think the best part is hearing all his comments about the other competitors,” he said. “It makes [watching the competition] more real when talking to someone who’s been there … It’s super exciting.”

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

Correction Appended (April 12, 2018): The article “Shah: The New Generation” has been updated to clarify that Shah is no longer affiliated with the Dartmouth Animal Rights Troupe.

FROM RESTAURANT PAGE 1

together.”

Letman said the two most p o p u l a r d i s h e s at h e r n e w restaurant are the house specials: BBQ chicken pineapple fried rice and jerk chicken. The fried rice, which is served in a pineapple, is another melange between Jamaican and Thai flavors.

Griffin said that Hanover’s array of international dining options reflects the makeup of the community.

“We have a lot of international diversity on the campus and we also have a fairly sophisticated dining population in terms of their willingness to try all sorts of cuisine,” Griffin said. “It doesn’t surprise me that we see that sort of international diversity in the community. People in the region are excited to try new food options.”

Next week, Letman will expand her menu to include more Jamaican options. Over time, she said she plans to continue adding more dishes to the menu.

Nicole Sellew ’21 said she has gotten a “yummy” coconut soup both times that she has eaten at Leya’s.

“It was way better than the soup on campus,” Sellew said.

O n Fr i d a y n i g h t s , l o c a l

photographic artist and musician Davey Davis provides Leya’s with live music. His photos — nature portraits which are for sale at the restaurant — adorn Leya’s walls.

Letman said she has tried to make the restaurant’s atmosphere like “a little sunshine on a winter day.”

“I like the different colors; I like the paintings on the walls; I like the lights,” Sellew said. “It’s a nice place to hang out.”

Gigi Gunderson ’21, who has eaten once at the new restaurant, said she likes Leya’s because it is a new type of food in town and it is not too expensive.

“I think it’s nice to have any kind of more affordable dining options off campus,” Gunderson said. “I think it’ll have a hard time because it’s really tucked into the town. You have to go find it, and it’s in a basement. But once you go there it’s nice because we don’t really have Caribbean food in town.”

Hoping to attract more students to her restaurant, Letman offers Dartmouth students 15 percent off their entire order if they identify themselves as students at the cash register.

“Come get a taste of the island,” Letman said.

FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

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STAFF COLUMNIST ANMOL GHAVRI ‘18

THE DARTMOUTH EDITORIAL BOARD VERBUM ULTIMUM

Caffeine Stations

Lessons from Mindy Kaling

Dartmouth should make good coffee much more easily available.

Yes, this is actually a super big deal for me.

It’s 9:50 a.m. You’re heading to your 10A and walk into Baker Lobby. Maybe you’re running behind schedule because you stayed up late working on an assignment, so you haven’t eaten or drunk anything and are low on time to get to your morning class. You’re speed walking and climbing stairs with headphones in, avoiding saying “Hi” to people you walk by.

Finally, you’ve gotten to Baker-Berry Library and are close to class. You need some kind of caffeinated beverage to shake off the morning fog. But you see a line of students extending out of King Arthur Flour ridiculously far into the corridor connecting Baker and Berry. You decide to delay your caffeine intake until later, when you have time to stand in line or when the line is shorter. But the alternative caffeine options at other Dartmouth Dining Services (DDS) locations are certainly not as good as those at KAF. Those other venues might have long lines before classes, like Novack Café, or are on the periphery of campus from the point of view of Baker-Berry, like the Courtyard Café.

It’s time to suffer for two hours — unless your 10A professor is kind enough to have a break during their class.

Not only have I suffered on countless occasions during my early morning classes, but anyone who has had to interact with me, my professors included, have had to put up with my foggy self and my diminished cognitive ability. Clearly, the inaccessibility of caffeine for students is a major travesty and is affecting student performance and scholarly output.

Maintaining the status-quo is unjustifiable, and students should organize to make good coffee more easily accessible to all students.

Significant scholarly literature has been produced on the culture, history and cognitive effects of caffeine. Some scholars have linked the rise of coffeehouses and the preference for and availability of coffee over beer as playing a significant role in fueling the American and French Revolutions and the industrial revolution in Britain. During World War II, coffee was rationed by the U.S. as integral to the national defense and war effort. Caffeine is present in many beverage choices, not just coffee and tea.

However, no rational student would stand in a KAF line stretching into Berry, and Novack’s

coffee is just not nearly as good, nor are the lines there significantly shorter. What can Dartmouth do about this central issue for so many students?

How can the College make sure it doesn’t deprive hardworking students from their morning buzz?

Dartmouth should recognize the fast-paced and short-on-time nature of student life during rush hours like mornings and afternoons between classes, and provide locations around campus for students in a rush to seamlessly grab their pick-me-ups.

The Courtyard Café and Collis already have self-serve options for coffee, tea and other beverages. But I don’t think that it’s a controversial statement to say that KAF has much better-quality options. Perhaps KAF could do something similar and provide self-serve stations for students looking for simple caffeinated beverages like coffee and tea. Yet students would still need to pay, so a separate line would have to exist for these self-serve customers to ensure that lines and wait times are actually shorter. Or, if you’ll entertain my imagination, students could pay by themselves by swiping their card to get a cup or a certain amount of liquid to pour out of a self-serve dispenser — removing the need for lines entirely and better fitting the fast pace of student life. Clearly, this sort of highly advanced technology would require major collaboration between DDS, KAF and the Thayer School of Engineering and is certainly worth major research funding from the U.S. government, given how important this problem is. “DDS caffeine stations” or, better yet, “KAFfeine stations,” can be put around Baker-Berry and other major centers of student traffic.

In all seriousness, I hope Dartmouth is open to innovating some of the ways they make high-demand products like good-quality coffee available and accessible to students. I think DDS has done a great job with developing and maintaining various snack bars in various dorms and house centers. While older students like myself were upset about some of the changes at the Courtyard Café, certain additions like the self-serve bar and new salad bar have been well-received. Maybe in upcoming terms they can think about whether caffeine stations are feasible and what they would look like. Then future generations will never have to know the tragedy of missing their morning coffee.

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ZACHARY BENJAMIN, Editor-in-Chief IOANA SOLOMON, Executive Editor ALEXA GREEN, Managing Editor PRODUCTION EDITORS MATT BROWN & LUCY LI, Opinion Editors MARIE-CAPUCINE PINEAU-VALENCIENNE & CAROLYN ZHOU Mirror Editors MARK CUI & SAMANTHA HUSSEY, Sports Editors BETTY KIM & EVAN MORGAN, Arts Editors MARGUERITE IREFIN & ALEXA TUCKER, Dartbeat Editors DIVYA KOPALLE & MICHAEL LIN, Photo Editors

HANTING GUO, Publisher AMANDA ZHOU, Executive Editor SONIA QIN, Managing Editor BUSINESS DIRECTORS BRIAN SCHOENFELD & HEEJU KIM, Advertising Directors SARAH KOVAN, Marketing & Communications Director CHRISTINA WULFF, Marketing & Communications Director VINAY REDDY, Assistant Marketing & Communications Director BRIAN CHEKAL & CAYLA PLOTCH, Product Development Directors BHARATH KATRAGADDA, Strate gy Director YEONJAE PARK, Technology Director

JESSICA CAMPANILE, Multimedia Editor SAMANTHA BURACK, Design Editors JACLYN EAGLE, Templating Editor

ISSUE

FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018

THE DARTMOUTH OPINION

LAYOUT: Emma Demers

SUBMISSIONS: We welcome letters and guest columns. All submissions must include the author’s name and affiliation with Dartmouth

College, and should not exceed 250 words for letters or 700 words for columns. The Dartmouth reserves the right to edit all material before publication. All material submitted becomes property of The Dartmouth. Please email submissions to editor@thedartmouth.com.

Dartmouth must better support students who are pursuing alternative careers.

Mindy Kaling ’01 is a Dartmouth legend — not because she is a two-time New York Times best-selling author; not because she was the first woman of color nominated for an Emmy in writing for her work on “The Office”; not because she produced, directed, wrote and starred in her own comedy series “The Mindy Project”; and not because she made it on to TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People List in 2013, to name just a few of her accomplishments. She is a legend because she grew a successful career in entertainment out of a Dartmouth degree.

From theater major, Dog Day Players performer and mastermind of the comic strip Badly Drawn Girl to Dartmouth’s Class of 2018 Commencement speaker, Kaling certainly did not take the traditional path that so many Dartmouth graduates follow. Rather than leaving the College with a corporate job that would provide financial and professional security, she ventured forth to find work in show business. Success eventually came in the form of a chair in the writers’ room for “The Office,” but that wasn’t until after many unrewarding auditions and less-than-ideal jobs as a nanny and a production assistant on the cable show “Crossing Over with John Edward.”

Dartmouth has invited a number of brilliantly successful alumni to deliver the commencement address, including other prominent figures such as television producer and writer Shonda Rhimes ’91 in 2014 and CNN news anchor Jake Tapper ’91 in 2017. What Kaling, Tapper and Rhimes have in common is that they all found themselves pursuing alternative career paths post-Dartmouth, rather than the traditional Dartmouth feeder-industries — finance and consulting — in which 47 percent of the College’s most recent graduates ended up.

By inviting these figures to deliver the commencement address, Dartmouth is promoting the idea that its students can take an unconventional route in pursuing their careers and still achieve great success. The College has always encouraged students to pave their own unique Dartmouth experience, promoting the notion that no Dartmouth experience is the same.

While this holds true, the resources available on campus and the present emphasis on preparing students for select industries limits students’ options.

Resources on campus must expand in order to match the diverse interests of the student body.

While almost half of Dartmouth students end up in finance and consulting jobs post-graduation, that still means that more than half of students are pursuing careers in other industries. This half of the student body faces the challenge of having far more limited resources to turn to when seeking help for academic and professional planning.

For example, jobs available on DartBoard do not cater to the majority of the student body, offering minimal options for students pursuing careers outside of finance and consulting. The majority of companies that partake in corporate recruiting are also in these industries. In addition, Dartmouth advertises the option to create special majors for students whose interests lie outside of the scope of established majors, yet the highly bureaucratic nature of this process translates to

minimal guidance, incredibly low approval rates and, worst of all, discouraged students.

It seems less likely that Dartmouth intentionally pushes students toward finance and consulting, and more likely that it has become complacent with the current narrative. The College should instead demonstrate its support for students who are paving their own path by providing them with sufficient resources to achieve their goals. The College has the responsibility to uphold the liberal arts model by balancing and diversifying available resources so that its liberal arts education will equally prepare students to do whatever they choose. For example, while finance and consulting companies invest heavily in the corporate recruiting process, Dartmouth should be investing heavily into attracting companies in industries that have not traditionally partaken in the recruiting process in order to balance the opportunities that are available to students.

There should be more effort on the part of the Center for Professional Development to make a wider variety of employment options accessible on DartBoard. Deans, advisors and faculty must become more knowledgeable about nontraditional Dartmouth career paths and interests in order to better advise students for academic and major planning. There have certainly been areas where Dartmouth has been successfully proactive in catering to student needs, such as through the founding of the DALI Lab and the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network, which offer experiential learning opportunities to students interested in technology, innovation and entrepreneurship. These kinds of efforts must be doubled and translated into the professional realm as well.

It is in the College’s favor to vehemently pursue a solution to this inequality of resources. Dartmouth cannot continue to showcase successful alumni who have followed nontraditional career paths if the infrastructure of professional guidance and opportunity on campus does not equally meet the needs of half of the student body. Without reform, the current infrastructure may discourage students from maintaining their authenticity and pursuing what they love. Advertising to prospective students that they may follow any path they choose will only lead them to become disenchanted and discouraged when they face real limitations upon arrival. Dartmouth must become the college that it promotes not only for its current community, but also for its prospective students.

It is unlikely that nearly half of incoming students arrive at Dartmouth with the intention of growing careers in finance and consulting.

More likely, the College’s emphasis on these career paths unintentionally pushes students in these directions. The rise to success of Dartmouth alumni who follow nontraditional career paths is more of a testament to the grit and talent of students than to the ability of the institution to support these paths. Mindy Kaling offers many students what their College has not readily provided: a role model for the kind of success they can achieve if they remain dedicated to their passions.

The editorial board consists of opinion staff columnists, the opinion editors, both executive editors and the editor-in-chief.

FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018

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THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

Taking phone photos affects memory EVERFI ranks College’s programs FROM SMARTPHONES PAGE 1

social media; or taking photos with the intention of posting them on Facebook.

Immediately after the tour, participants reported on their engagement with and enjoyment of the tour. Between seven and 14 days after the tour, participants were asked to complete a 10-question survey comprised of multiple choice questions about the tour’s objective details.

The researchers found that participants with a camera answered six out of 10 questions about their tour correctly on average, while those without a camera answered seven correctly. However, while memory was impaired, the study found no conclusive effects of media use on people’s engagement with or enjoyment of their tour.

“It’s hard to know [who was right] because you have to compare people in different conditions to find a conclusive answer,” Templeton said.

She does, however, recommend not using a phone camera if an individual wants to remember the details of the experience.

According to Templeton, the idea for the study came from a difference in opinion between her colleagues and herself about the effects of smartphones and social media on people’s experiences.

Alixandra Barasch, a marketing professor at New York University, said Templeton’s study aligns with her own conclusions about auditory cues.

According to Barasch, taking photos “guides attention in unique ways” that have both positive and negative effects on memory. The positive effect is that taking photos makes photographers actively search their visual field to decide what to capture. The negative effect is that other senses — like hearing — are overlooked, which causes the loss of factual information, Barasch said.

“Thebiggestchallengeof conducting this [type of] research is that you can’t do it in a lab, so it’s hard to get much control,” Barasch said.

She added that when choosing whether or not to use a camera to document an experience, people should think about how they want to benefit from the experience. If the goal is to merely post photos to social media, then the effects of camera use may not be as important, but if an individual is trying to remember the details of an experience, Barasch recommended that cameras not be used.

Linda Henkel, a psychology professor at Fairfield University, agreed with Templeton and Barasch that camera usage impairs memory.

In one of her studies, Henkel found that zooming the camera in on specific details of an object can help people

bypass the photo-taking-impairment effect on their memory of the object, even for the parts that were not zoomed in on.

According to Henkel, using photography to document an experience may positively impact memory if people are more selective with what to photograph and take the time to actually look at their photos as memory cues.

“Photos ... are only good if you look at them,” she said.

However, Henkel noted that many people take photos solely to communicate their experiences to other people — like taking “selfies” on Snapchat — in which case, memory of the experience may not be as important.

In the future, Templeton said she hopes to research cameras’ effects on experience enjoyment and engagement and how using media affects human interactions. She said that other researchers have already been doing work to further society’s understanding of these topics and have also conducted studies that corroborate her research team’s findings.

Henkel emphasized that people can make a conscious choice to change their smartphone and media usage habits by being more mindful of when they are using their cameras.

“Little changes go a long way,” she said.

FROM BENCHMARKS PAGE 1

the institution is in implementing practices and what its priorities are; programming, which examines the reach of programs and whether they are founded in best practices; and process, which identifies what policies are being implemented and if they are effective.

EVERFI’s assessment looked at how different institutions used and implemented best practices of prevention.

There is a limited body of research on effective sexual violence prevention practices, so the criteria for best practices are based on general prevention theory, Childress said. She added that these practices include developing a comprehensive strategy, educating and training staff and students involved in prevention, tailoring programming to the particular needs of a community, providing consistent “dosages” of programming and “working on changing behaviors and not just increasing knowledge gains.”

Both Barthelmes and Childress emphasized that there is still work to be done regarding sexual violence prevention, citing persistently high rates of sexual violence on campus.

In 2015, a study on sexual violence commissioned by the American Association of Universities reported that one in four undergraduate women at Dartmouth had experienced sexual violence while at the College. Two years later, Dartmouth conducted another survey on sexual assault and misconduct, which found that rates of sexual violence were similar to or higher than in 2015. This could be due to a number of factors, including heightened awareness of what is defined as sexual violence, more trust in available resources for victim reporting or an actual increase in prevalence rates, according to the Office of Institutional Research.

Although these numbers indicate more work needs to be done, collecting this initial data was a necessary step towards determining how to measure the success of the best practices being implemented, according to Barthelmes.

Established as part of Moving Dartmouth Forward, the Sexual Violence Prevention Project, which aims to reduce sexual violence at the College through a four-year prevention and education experience, will use this research to create an initial baseline, because there has been no “consistent or comprehensive way of tracking incidents of sexual violence,” Childress said.

Barthelmes said that this part of the process is important in the SVPP’s development so that staff and students can discern if sexual violence rates are truly increasing or if the data is merely a result of increased reporting. Before the SVPP is able to assess the outcomes

of their prevention practices, those involved must learn what practices are most effective.

Senior associate dean of student affairs and advisor to the Student Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault Liz Agosto said it is “counterintuitive” that increased reporting numbers is a sign of success.

“I think for people that doesn’t always feel good, but I hope that it means students feel more comfortable,” Agosto said.

Agosto, Barthelmes and Childress all emphasized the increasingly important role of the greater Dartmouth community in combating issues of sexual violence on campus.

Student groups have increased their presence on campus by facilitating discussions about sexual violence and serving as peer advocates, Childress said. To improve reporting, faculty and staff are also being trained on how to respond to disclosures from students.

Director of Prevention Education for Movement Against Violence Michael Harteveldt ’19 said he is currently designing a curriculum that will address specific needs of groups with whom MAV works, which will echo the best practice of avoiding a “one-size-fits-all” model.

“It often comes down to survivors, mainly women, to shoulder a lot of the burden, and I think it’s very important for other demographics to get involved,” Harteveldt said.

Sexual assault peer ally Mae Hardebeck ’18 also expressed a desire to further integrate existing sexual violence prevention groups within the Dartmouth community and to improve connections with other students.

“A lot of times people who get involved in sexual violence work and gender-based violence work are selfselecting, and of course we want to expand that circle out because these groups should be representative of all students,” she said.

To h i g h l i g h t c o m mu n i t y contributions thus far in Dartmouth’s efforts towards sexual violence prevention, students and staff involved in SVPP were invited to attend EVERFI’s presentation to learn about how their work contributed to Dartmouth’s efforts and where Dartmouth stood compared to other institutions in terms of best practices, Childress said. Members from various groups including MAV, SPCSA and SVPP’s Student Advisory Board were in attendance.

“One of the strengths of the SVPP and the work being done on this around campus is that it is giving us an opportunity to connect the dots,” Barthelmes said. “Much of this stuff was happening, but the best practice in part is in the connection, the comprehensive, the collaboration across campus of different stakeholders.”

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THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS

FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018

DARTMOUTHEVENTS TODAY

8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Exhibit: “Pilgrims, Parades, and Politics,” sponsored by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Dartmouth, 7 Lebanon Street, Suite 107

5:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Annual Engineering Open House, MacLean Engineering Sciences Center, Thayer School of Engineering

7:00 p.m. - 9:15 p.m.

Film: “Black Panther,” directed by Ryan Coogler, Spaulding Auditorium, Hopkins Center for the Arts

TOMORROW

8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

32nd Annual Neuroscience Day at Dartmouth, Oopik Auditorium, Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center

9:00 a.m. - 1:00 a.m.

HackDartmouth IV, Thayer School of Engineering

4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Department of Music Senior Recital: Andrew Sun on piano, Faulkner Recital Hall, Hopkins Center for the Arts

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FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018

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THE DARTMOUTH ARTS

The cardinal rule of improv comedy: Say yes to anything

By ELIZABETH GARRISON The Dartmouth Staff

While improvisational comedy has different variants — Dartmouth’s Dog Day Players do long-form improv with lengthy scenes and a returning cast of characters, while Casual Thursday favors short-form improv — the basic principles are the same. A great improv scene requires listening to one’s partners, following one’s instincts and being up for anything.

I visited an evening rehearsal and found the members of Dog Day playing the same games they do in shows. One had the players invent a scene and then replay it in a different genre, so that a rom-com could quickly turn into an ’80s science fiction movie. I saw an Amish recruit who desperately wanted to

churn butter before witnessing a soccer mom force-feed her kids Gatorade and orange slices. By varying the scene’s characters, relationship, objective and location, the possibilities become endless.

“Playing an improv game illuminates all this vitality and cleverness that you originally didn’t think you had,” C.C. Lucas ’21 said. “No matter who you are, or what you’re interested in, or what you study, or what you want to do, we all have this untapped part of ourselves, and you shouldn’t let fear get in the way of expressing that.”

Not everyone in an improv troupe was their high school’s class clown.

Many develop their confidence while performing in college.

“Joining Dog Day has been like night and day for me,” Dog Day’s business

COURTESY OF CASUAL THURSDAY

Improv games use word association to build a scene from audience suggestions.

manager Corinne Vietorisz ’19 said.

“Having that opportunity to express myself and having older women telling me, ‘Hey, you’re funny, you can actually be who you’ve always wanted to be,’ really transformed my confidence.”

Improv is all about putting together ideas that initially seem unrelated.

Scene ideas begin with an audience prompt, and troupe members use word association to quickly build a scene from the prompt. An A-to-B association connects two related words like dog and doghouse, making a scene about building a doghouse. An A-to-C association moves a step further by connecting doghouse to dollhouse, and voilà – a scene about playing with dolls.

Either way, improv forces students to put ideas together that normally don’t seem related.

“In improv, you have to justify, ‘Why am I here, what’s the next step?’ and always try to connect things,” Dog Days’ president Walker Schneider ’19 said. “I’m a history major, so when given this accepted truth in history, I think, ‘What’s next?’ and ‘How does this impact other events that normally you wouldn’t think are related?’ Improv forces you to push the boundaries of how you connect ideas.”

Absolute faith in one’s partner is key to a successful scene. When partners engage with each other, it adds vitality to the scene. And it can help with everyday conversations, said Kojo Edzie ’20, who joined Casual Thursday this year.

COURTESY OF DOG DAY PLAYERS

The Dog Day Players’ long-form scenes return to the same situations and characters.

“We all have autopilot conversations every day, but these aren’t real conversations,” Edzie said. “Stepping back and deciding to actively listen and actually take in what the other person is saying is one of the things I’ve learned from improv that really improves my daily interactions. Living in the moment and reacting to what’s in front of us is something that we do so rarely in our everyday lives, and improv reminds you to break that cycle.”

The risks performers take in their scenes can come through off the stage, as Christina Schoeller ’21, a new

member of Casual Thursday, has found.

“A big part of improv for me is to find my own voice,” Schoeller said. “In high school, I was very much swayed by other people’s opinions, and I think that learning to make bold decisions on stage has taught me to make bold decisions in real life. Channeling that confidence and finding a defined voice is really something that improv really forces you to do.”

When in doubt, many of us could stand to remember the cardinal rule of improv: be willing to say yes to anything.

Weekend Picks

Three things you should watch and listen to this weekend +film “Black Panther” Friday and Saturday at the Hopkins Center for the Arts In light of the failure of “A Wrinkle in Time,” the cultural importance of “Black Panther” has become all the more evident. Both films were monumental for black representation in front of and behind the camera, yet the latter succeeded where the former failed by engaging an eager audience with the most thoughtful story and well-developed characters yet seen in a Marvel film. After a second viewing, I reveled in the maturity and boldness of director Ryan Coogler’s work. Is the commentary in “Black Panther” about racism, slavery and colonialism revolutionary? Perhaps not. But for a populist piece of superhero entertainment to make over a billion dollars while still incorporating these themes exemplifies the genuinely positive impact cinema can have in our society. If nothing else, it should hopefully force both Marvel and its fans to reconsider what kinds of stories can be told in their shared Cinematic Universe.

-Sebastian Wurzrainer

+music “Chun-Li” and “Barbie Tingz”

+music “Invasion of Privacy” Cardi B

Nicki Minaj Rap music has missed Nicki Minaj. It’s been four years since the world’s most successful female rapper dropped her 2014 album, “The Pinkprint,” and while Minaj’s features have been sprinkled throughout the music charts, her voice has been largely absent in recent months as she took a hiatus from social media. On April 12, the Queens rapper broke her silence on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 radio show, where she released two new singles, “ChunLi” and “Barbie Tingz.” Each track feels like a battle cry, the roar of a warrior. “Chun-Li,” a track alluding to the Street Fighter character of the same name, emerges as a song for the disgraced “bad guy.” Invoking the video game character, Minaj rejects the villainy she argues has been imposed upon her. On “Barbie Tingz,” Minaj embraces her character of choice, calling on the Barbie motif she’d abandoned in recent features. Pristine and braggadocious, Minaj is at her best in “Barbie Tingz.” The Queen has returned.

-Jordan McDonald

The rise of Bronx-born star Cardi B has been astounding. Emerging as a figure of Instagram fame, Cardi’s infectious personality, comedic energy and hip-hop ambitions propelled her into the spotlight.

With two mixtapes, a stint on VH1’s “Love and Hip Hop: New York,” hit single “Bodak Yellow” and the April 6 release of her highly-anticipated debut album, “Invasion of Privacy,” Cardi has made it clear that she is here to stay. Going gold in a matter of days, the album has been well-received by many and is thoroughly unimpressed with Cardi’s haters. Her independence anthem “I Do,” which features singer SZA, Cardi addresses non-believers flippantly: “My little 15 minutes lasted long as hell, huh?”

Balancing emotional tracks like “Be Careful” and “Thru Your Phone” with club-ready hits like “Bickenhead,” “Money Bag” and “I Like It,” the album offers some of Cardi’s best and most creative work thus far.

-Jordan McDonald

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THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS

FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018

SPORTS

TODAY’S LINEUP

M/W TRACK & FIELD V.S. VERMONT, HARTFORD, UMASS LOWELL 1 P.M.

Dartmouth fencing takes home eight titles in championship

By SAM HUSSEY

The Dartmouth Senior Staff

This past weekend, the U n i t e d S t at e s A s s o c i at e o f Collegiate Fencing Clubs hosted the 2018 USACFC National Championships, in which the Dartmouth College Fencing Club took home a total of eight titles from the team and individual events, earning the overall combined championship title. Unlike most sports which require teams to earn bids for Nationals through regionals or other qualifying tournaments, all collegiate club fencing teams are automatically eligible to compete in Nationals.

According to James Wen ’19, a member of the men’s foil team, while any collegiate club team can go to nationals, clubs are usually selective and only send their best athletes, and high costs often prevent teams from traveling and competing in Nationals. For Dartmouth, 24 total athletes travelled to Knoxville, Tennessee to compete.

“Once you’re at Nationals, each team ranks their fencers A, B and C, so A being the top fencer and C being the third best fencer,” Wen said. “[At Nationals], all of the As fence each other, all of the Bs fence each other and all the Cs fence each other. Based off of that, a certain number of As, Bs and Cs then qualify for the individual rounds.”

The women’s team dominated the competition by taking first in women’s sabre ahead of the United States Naval Academy, second in the women’s foil after rival University of Michigan and fifth in women’s epee. The women ultimately finished first overall, besting next competitor, Michigan, by 160 points over three forms.

T he men’s team, equally matched, finished first in men’s epee, beating Cornell University out by 15 points. They also came in 10th in men’s foil and 11th in men’s sabre. Consistency was key for the men as they were able to edge out the competition for a spot in third place overall behind the men of Cornell and Michigan.

Through the combined efforts of both teams, the Big Green, for the first time since 2014, took home the overall combined championship over defending champion Michigan by a mere 15

points. For most team members, this win was monumental as the Big Green has come in second place to Michigan every time since it last won the overall title in 2014. “[The win was] absolutely awesome,” co-captain Raphael Hviding ’18 said. “Along with my squad, we got to beat Cornell for first place in men’s epee, I got to help coach women’s epee to fifth place and we took home the most important trophy right from under [Michigan]’s nose. It felt great.”

In addition to such team success, the Big Green added two individual titles to its arsenal. Cindy Shen ’21, in her first collegiate season, walked away with first in the women’s foil individual competition. For her, the individual title served as the culmination of her entire year.

“The team works really hard and we always put in a lot of effort to do well, but you don’t really see how much time you’re spending doing something and what it is producing until you really go to Nationals,” Shen said. “There are other competitions, but they are not of the same sheer number of people and caliber. The feeling of winning really felt that everything I had done throughout the entire year had actually paid off.”

Co-captain Kaleigh Mentzer ’18 also capped her collegiate fencing career with a first place finish in the women’s sabre individual championship, defending her fouryear hold on the title.

“This weekend was the perfect ending to a Dartmouth fencing career,” Mentzer said. “This is actually my fourth consecutive individual win, so I really wanted to win all four years since I won freshman year. It was really excited to see that come to fruition.”

Mentzer, who started fencing in high school, had an interesting beginning to the sport when she found she had been cut from the varsity hockey team. “[My high school] had a sports requirement so I had to pick up another sport,” Mentzer said.

“A few of my friends were doing fencing so I thought I’d try it for a year and then go back to hockey the year after that. That year I finished sixth in the state and I was like, ‘Hey, I’m pretty good at this,’ and ended up continuing fencing.”

While plans to compete in fencing at the varsity level pre-Dartmouth did not pan out, Mentzer added

COURTESY OF KALEIGH MENTZER

Dartmouth fencing took home a total of eight titles at the 2018 USACFC National Championships.

that after graduation she plans to attend graduate school at Stanford University, and is hoping to fence on the varsity team there since she has not used up her NCAA eligibility.

Dartmouth Fencing Club’s history goes as far back as the 1920s. Practices for the squad run five days a week for two hours each day and involve warm-ups, conditioning, stretching, footwork and scrimmaging one another.

While the club is officially under Coach Scott Brookes ’14, who is a graduate student at the Thayer School of Engineering, much of the logistical planning and small tasks are student-run, usually spearheaded by the two cocaptains. “[Brookes’] involvement [is] usually dedicated almost entirely to improving the fencing of our members, rather than handling logistics,” Hviding said. “It’s definitely a ton of work. I worked more on fencing than one of my classes this past winter in our main competition season; it really is like taking a fourth class.”

Mentzer agreed, noting that serving as a captain for the team has been one of the most educational experiences for her at Dartmouth and taught her what it meant to

take on a leadership role. “[Captains] are responsible for everything from running practice to dealing with personal conflicts within the team to organizing transportation to tournaments to making sure we pay dues for all of the weeks we are involved in, so it has been a lot of responsibility,” she said. “I think with that comes great reward in the sense that this [success] is something that we [as captains] made possible.”

Shen also notes that heavy involvement by captains and other team members contributes to the dynamic team chemistry and gives even freshmen and individuals with no experience various opportunities to provide input into how things are done.

“I think a [traditional] coach would detract from the sentiment that the team has: that we’re like a unit and we have to rely on each other to make each other better and hold each other accountable,” Shen said.

For many team members, the club has provided a sense of community on campus in addition to high-level competition.

“I think what’s nice is that throughout my time here at Dartmouth the team has maintained

a strong competitive program, and that’s definitely one of the reasons why I stayed,” Wen said. “I think what is also nice about the team is that [even with] people graduating and people coming in, we have always been able to maintain a nice environment [in] which people with experience or without experience really come and work together.”

Shen notes that the team has helped her transition to life at Dartmouth and is something she is excited to pass along to the freshmen and new members next year.

“It is a really stressful time to come into a new school and not know anybody,” Shen said. “To have this solid group of people to really turn back to and rely on, not just for fencing, but for life advice, choosing classes, facing Dartmouth and navigating what this place is [has been really helpful].”

Overall, the past few years of remarkable sweeps and national recognitions point to a promising future for the Dartmouth Fencing Club.

“I hope it doesn’t alienate people who are new to fencing, but rather encourages them to be a part of a team that can make them National Champion material,” Hviding said.