The Dartmouth 05/01/18

VOL. CLXXV NO.27

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2018

HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE

PAC and Rainbow rooms to leave Robinson Hall

AM RAIN HIGH 68 LOW 48

B y RUBEN GALLARDO The Dartmouth Staff

ARIANNA LABARBIERA/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

OPINION

ELLIS: PRESELECTING PEPPINESS

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ZEHNER: WAR AGAINST CASTER SEMENYA PAGE 4

ARTS

Q&A WITH SETH WOODS AND SPENCER TOPEL: “ICED BODIES” PAGE 7

‘AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR’ IS BLOATED, BOMBASTIC AND BOLD PAGE 8

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By the end of this term, the Pan Asian Community resource room and the Rainbow Room will be moved from their current location on the first floor of Robinson Hall.

The PAC room will be relocated to the Office of Pluralism and Leadership Student Resource Center — formerly known as the Center for Gender and Student Engagement — in the Choates cluster, while the Rainbow Room will be relocated to the Triangle House.

While the decision to relocate these rooms was made in previous years, OPAL and the Office of Student Life

The PAC and Rainbow rooms will be relocated to the Choates and the Triangle House, respectively.

Rauner studies hidden histories B y JENNIE RHODES The Dartmouth

T h i s s u m m e r, t h e Rauner Special Collections Library will pilot a historical accountability project as part of the Inclusive Excellence Initiative. Three students will be chosen as fellows to spend an off-term researching

the historical documents of minority groups whose Dartmouth histories have been never been brought to light. Two or three students will also be hired as interns to conduct archival research for faculty interested in studying specific subjects SEE RAUNER PAGE 2

College reallocates $17 million B y JACOB CHALIF The Dartmouth

The College will follow through on its 2016 pledge to reallocate $17 million from non-academic divisions to academic departments, according to executive vice president Rick Mills. These funds — along with $3 million that College President Phil Hanlon committed to raise through philanthropic efforts — will be reallocated for three

Odette Harris ’91 makes academic history B y SUNNY DRESCHER The Dartmouth

For Odette Harris ’91, neurosurgery regularly fulfills a professional “trifecta.” It is challenging, rewarding and meaningful. Harris, a neurosurgery professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, is the first black female tenured neurosurgery professor in the country.

SEE ROOMS PAGE 5

functions: increasing faculty compensation, general building renewal and the renovation of Dana Hall, Mills said in a joint interview with chief financial officer Mike Wagner. The budget reductions began this fiscal year, and the process is expected to last four years.

The College has a goal for each year of the reallocation process. In the 2018 fiscal year, the College’s goal was to achieve 25 percent of the overall $17 million reduction.

The non-academic divisions of the College were able to achieve about 30 percent of the total goal, according to Wagner.

The goal for FY19 was to achieve 67 percent of the reduction, but budget submissions for FY19 will come in just shy of that target at 62 percent, Wagner said.

Wagner said that nonacademic divisions have not SEE BUDGET PAGE 3

BARKING MY WAY DOWNTOWN

Harris follows in the footsteps of Alexa Canady, who became the first black woman in the U.S. to become a neurosurgeon in 1981, and Frances Conley, who was the first woman to be granted tenure as a professor of neurosurgery in 1982. Harris also joins Lu Chen as the second female professor in the neurosurgery SEE HARRIS PAGE 3

MICHAEL LIN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

As the weather becomes warmer, dogs come out to frolic on the Green.

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THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2018

Ombudsperson position Harris breaks barriers in neurosurgery will remain vacant at Stanford in 1996. She also completed her master’s degree in department at Stanford University. public health from the University Harris said that while she always of California, Berkeley in 2001 had an interest in medicine, coming during her seven-year residency at to Dartmouth helped her discover Stanford.

One of Harris’ mentors her specific interest in neuroscience.

She said she originally came to the at Stanford while she was a College with an idea of becoming medical student was neurosurgery a pediatrician, but after developing professor emeritus John Adler. close relationships with professors Harris described Adler as “the quintessential who encouraged mentor” and her to pur sue “What drove me credited him her interests, she to neuroscience in with helping her found her passion particular was the develop a vision in neuroscience. of the potential “ W h a t challenge of the impact she could drove me to make in the neuroscience in field itself and the world. particular was the promise of impact.”

Adler, who said challenge of the he never had a field itself and mentor himself the promise of -ODETTE HARRIS as an aspiring impact,” Harris ’91, NEUROSURGERY n e u ro s u rg e o n , said. said that his Harris said that PROFESSOR AT mentor-mentee her experience at STANFORD SCHOOL OF relationship with the College was MEDICINE Harris began “unprecedented” when Harris in terms of the sought him out one-on-one attention and support she and her to work on a research project. fellow Dartmouth students received According to Adler, Harris’ initiative from their professors. She said that helped her hone her skills as a peers who went to other Ivy League surgeon and as a communicator, institutions were shocked to hear and helped her chart her path in about the opportunities Harris had the neurosurgery field.

“By virtue of being an excellent to work so closely with professors in classes and through research. This communicator, she’s a growing support and encouragement during leader in neurosurgery,” Adler her undergraduate years inspired said.

Even though she faced gender Harris to continue pursuing her interest in neuroscience in medical and racial disparities at both Dartmouth and Stanford, including school, she said.

After graduating from Dartmouth being one of only two women in with a degree in biology, Harris her residency program at Stanford, completed her medical degree Harris said in an interview at FROM HARRIS PAGE 1

B y SUNNY DRESCHER The Dartmouth

College President Phil Hanlon has decided to leave Dartmouth’s ombudsperson position vacant, following a recommendation from an internal search committee. An ombudsperson serves as a confidential resource for the College’s non-unionized employees to seek help regarding workplace issues or potential rights violations.

The previous ombudsperson, Sean Nolon, left the position vacant in July 2017 when he returned to teaching at Vermont Law School.

Executive vice president and search committee member Rick Mills said that the committee initially came together to find a candidate to fill the position, but noticed that several peer institutions were no longer maintaining their ombudsperson positions. Instead, other offices and services were meeting the demand.

Mills served on the internal search committee alongside chief human resources officer Scot Bemis, vice president for institutional diversity and equity Evelynn Ellis, chief of staff for the Office of the President Laura Hercod, general counsel Sandhya Iyer and executive director of the president’s office Marion Simpson.

Hercod said that the committee struggled to find a candidate who would be a good fit for the College and considered what offices at the College might be equipped to take over some of the duties previously held by the ombudsperson. By the time the committee started thinking about leaving the position vacant, Mills said it had already been unoccupied for months, and the committee had heard no complaints related to the vacancy.

AccordingtoMills,thedisaggregation of resources from one individual to several offices gives faculty and staff a wider range of confidential and private options. These include the Title IX coordinator, the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity, the human resources office and the faculty/ employee assistance program, he said.

Interim Title IX coordinator and Clery Act compliance officer Kristi Clemens said that support services at the College are working towards “building a network” of resources.

She added that she does not anticipate that the role of the Title IX office will change drastically as a result of

the decision to leave the ombudsperson position vacant.

Mills said the increased presence and perceived legitimacy of the Title IX office and other resources — both confidential and private — contributed to the recommendation to leave the position vacant.

“I think that providing as many doors for people who have an issue or a problem to go through, which the spread of offices kind of does, is something that [the College] didn’t have when [the ombudsperson] was just one person,” Mills said. “This new model allows folks to find a forum that works for them, for their problem and for their personality.”

Hercodsaidthata“multidimensional approach” was necessary to tackle issues that arise on campus, adding that this was not specific to the types of issues that an ombudsperson may deal with but was applicable to institutions of higher education more generally.

“You have a bunch of different constituencies, and you have people who have different issues and different needs,” she said. “No one person can possibly solve for all of that.”

Mills said the College’s partnership with ComPsych will also enhance access to behavioral health resources.

ComPsych is a firm the College has contracted to help administer employee assistance programs.

Mills said that by contracting out some of the counseling and other services, these services are now accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week; this contrasts with the old model that only provided services during traditional business hours on weekdays.

Hercod said that there would be some challenges in assessing the effectiveness of diffusing the ombudsperson’s duties into several places because it is difficult to discern “how you know you’re doing a good job, particularly with things that are confidential and things where people have different perspectives.”

Mills added that accessibility and use of confidential resources will be hard to measure specifically but that aggregatelevel data, such as a high frequency of complaints coming out of a particular academic department, can alert the College to larger issues at play.

“Both with the [decision to leave the ombudsperson position vacant] and with ComPsych, we’re trying it, and we’re going to track how things go,” Mills said. “If it turns out not to work the way we intended, then we need to adjust what we’re doing.”

Stanford that she still felt positively about her experiences and the encouragement she received to pursue her career in neurosurgery.

“Far too often people think that your mentor or people who inspire you need to look like you, and I think that that’s not the case,” Harris told The Dartmouth. “I think it’s about inclusion and people respecting that and respecting everybody for all the talents that they bring.”

She added that although Adler is a white man who did not descriptively represent her as her mentor, neither race nor gender inhibited their relationship.

“Regardless of what I look like or what [Adler] looks like, there’s that mutual respect that’s there for what each of us values and for the value that we bring,” Harris said.

Chen, the first female professor i n S t a n f o r d ’s n e u ro s u r g e r y department, agreed that inclusivity a n d s u p p o r t a re i m p o r t a n t for improving diversity in the neuroscience field. Chen said that it was not until she became a faculty member that she recognized that she wanted to be a mentor for women studying neuroscience, particularly in terms of helping women who were dealing with starting families.

Harris said that improving inclusivity is important for improving diversity in STEM fields as well as in other professional environments.

If people assume they need to find mentors in their potential career that look like them, little progress will be made, she said.

“Until we have that basic sense of inclusion as a society, it’s going to be hard to see [increased diversity] in any subspecialty, especially in the neurosciences,” Harris said.

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

Correction appended (Apr. 29, 2018): The article “The Weekend Roundup: Week 5” has been updated to reflect that the women’s tennis team did not win the Ivy title.

COURTESY OF ODETTE HARRIS

Odette Harris ’91 has become the first black female tenured neurosurgery professor in the country.

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2018

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THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

Departments deal with budget cuts Fellows to research marginalized histories departments, among various other University — the Ivy League institution organizations, is responsible for that compensated its faculty most had to lay off any staff yet. reducing its budget by $2 million. The generously — paid its professors an “They’ve all looked at reallocating executive vice president, who oversees average of approximately $221,000 responsibilities across their staff and the budgets of campus services in 2016. trying to close vacant positions rather and Safety and Security, among According to Wagner, $5.5 million than having to other offices, of the reallocated funds will be used terminate people “Yes, there would has been tasked to increase faculty compensation and within divisions,” with reducing $2 million will be used to improve be layoffs. But there he said. his areas’ budgets benefits. The funds will accumulate H o w e v e r , would [also] be new by $7.5 million. gradually over the course of the four Mills noted that positions created The Office of the year period of funding reallocation, he expects layoffs Provost, whose which makes it difficult to approximate and new hires and, in in the future. budget includes how much salaries will rise in each of “Yes, there some cases, people the H o o d the four years. Dean of the faculty would be Museum, the of arts and sciences Elizabeth Smith would move from one Hopkins Center layof fs,” he will be responsible for distributing said. “But there position to another.” for the Arts, the funds among faculty members, would [also] be the College’s according to Mills. new positions libraries, the Chair of the Committee on the c r e a t e d a n d -RICK MILLS, EXECUTIVE O f f i c e f o r Faculty and history professor Udi new hires and, VICE PRESIDENT Student Life Greenberg said that he supports the in some cases, a n d v a r i o u s spirit of the reallocations. people would other offices, “Ultimately, this is an academic move from one i s r e d u c i n g institution and, as such, its highest position to another.” its budget by $7 million. The priority should be the well-being of College spokesperson Diana Advancement Division, which students … and guaranteeing that Lawrence wrote in an email statement oversees alumni relations, is reducing students get the best education they that the reallocation has been going its budget by $500,000. can,” Greenberg said. “In order to well so far.

In an email statement, interim vice achieve that, you have to have faculty “The process has been successful president for campus services Steve that are well-compensated because because of the hard work of managers Moore wrote that campus services they will go elsewhere. That is the and staff as they seek opportunities to has reduced its budget by $4.6 million reality if you want to keep top-notch reduce costs without compromising through FY19. He added that no scholars and top-notch teachers in an priorities,” she wrote. student services or programs were area with a very high cost of living.”

Both Mills and Wagner said that affected by these reductions.

Greenberg said that the goal of they expect that the last two years Representatives for the Center the reallocation is not to increase of budget reductions will be more for Student Life and the Office of Dartmouth’s faculty compensation to difficult and will involve tougher the Provost declined to comment. the level of its peer schools. Rather, choices than the first two years.

Representatives for the College library the College is trying to prevent the Currently, divisions are able to were not available for comment by gaps between it and other schools look at how they can make their press time. from growing, he noted. organization more efficient, Mills said.

Lawrence wrote that the number “What we’re talking about are “[The first two years] were easy of full-time raises that … are cuts [that didn’t change] how you e m p l o y e e s “What we’re talking ultimately an average did your work,” he said. “You might i n the of one percent or redistribute and eliminate a vacant President’s about are raises that so,” Greenberg position, but you’re not rethinking o f f i c e h a s . . . are ultimately said. “These are not how you do your work. Some of the d e c r e a s e d massive. We’re not an average of one later year stuff [will involve] rethinking from 11.5 to talking about people what we’re doing and how do we do it 6.5 in the past percent or so.” getting 20 percent in a way that would be more efficient two years. She raises.” and cost-effective.” added that Other funds According to Wagner, the next the Provost’s -UDI GREENBERG, CHAIR from the reallocation two years of reallocations will division has OF THE COMMITTEE w i l l g o t ow a rd s involve fundamentally reforming the d e c r e a s e d renovating Dana ON THE FACULTY AND College’s administrative structure. from 768 Hall, according to “[The next two years are] going full-time and HISTORY PROFESSOR Wagner. The College to be hard,” he said. “For instance, 112 part-time is currently financing we are looking at using technology in positions in that renovation with some different ways that could allow 2016 to 752 debt, and $3 million us to implement a piece of software full-time and 95 part-time positions from the budget reallocations will that we have to pay for once, but it in 2017. help pay off that debt, he said. could save us a position because we It is not clear if these employee After this budget reallocation, won’t need someone to do what that reductions are a direct result of the Mills said that he hopes the College’s software will do,” Wagner said. “So, budget reallocation. administration will be more efficient. using technology, continuing to look The College’s efforts to increase “As the endowment grows over at reallocations, simplifying business faculty compensation follow the time … I think [new funds] could processes. Those are the themes that emergence of faculty compensation go back into the administrative people are looking at.” gaps between Dartmouth and its departments that were part of this Each non-academic division has peer institutions. In 2016, the College reallocation,” Mills said. “But I don’t been tasked with achieving a certain paid its professors an average of think it would go back in to do what portion of the total $17 million budget approximately $187,000, less than we were doing before and restore it reduction, according to Wagner. every other Ivy League institution just like it used to be. More likely, it The Office of the President, except for Brown University and would accomplish some new objective which oversees the College’s athletic Cor nell University. Harvard through that unit.”

FROM BUDGET PAGE 1

doesn’t get published and using the past to help shape the future.”

According to Hardy, other from Dartmouth’s past.

The historical accountability universities have similar historical project addresses one of the Inclusive accountability projects. However, Excellence Initiative’s six main goals most hire professional historians to — confronting and learning from the conduct the research. Dartmouth is College’s past — according to special unique in hiring student fellows to assistant to the president Christianne delve into the school’s past and for integrating its history into classes, she Hardy.

“This is an organic and dynamic said. “ G o i n g fo r w a rd , we a re project that should open up channels for research and study of marginalized encouraging research of the past, groups within our 250 years of especially for teaching in classes,” Hardy said. “It will be a partnership history,” Hardy said.

Special collections education and between students and faculty. Over outreach librarian Morgan Swan time, the materials in the special said he believes this project will be collection will be integrated into helpful for the College to improve the teaching.”

Fellowship applications are already treatment of all groups on campus.

“No one group should be allowed available on the library website. to control an institution’s past,” Swan According to Swan, a committee of librarians said. “Learning is planning on from our past hiring fellows on is sometimes “Some stories are a rolling basis uncomfortable, well-documented but to begin their but it helps us research as early prepare and do have never been told, as July 1. Swan the right thing because no one has said the College in the future. thought they were is also in the We w a n t t o process of hiring u n d e r s t a n d important before.” an institutional the history of r e s e a r c h this institution. specialist, who There’s a clean -JAY SATTERFIELD, HEAD will then hire the version everyone OF RAUNER SPECIAL archival research likes to tell, but COLLECTIONS interns. we want to look at Faculty shocking history from humanities to be more aware and social science departments of what is happening now.”

Students’ research projects will have already expressed interest in culminate in presentations of their facilitating the project and using findings. According to Swan, there the research in classes, according are no limits to the format student to Satterfield. He added that he is researchers can choose to present their optimistic that faculty from STEM work. Possible outlets could range from departments will also want to take a paper, to a film, to even an opera of part in the research.

“Dartmouth has great liberal arts the stories they uncover, Swan said.

“This information that is compiled where the [faculty of the] STEM is meant to bring stories and histories fields also wants to get into history,” of underrepresented groups to light, Satterfield said.

Swan said he is excited for the but [it will] also help students develop practical skills within the experiential project to highlight the historical role learning vision of [College] President of the African-American community [Phil] Hanlon,” he said. “It would on campus.

“The [College’s] relationship with teach students how to conduct the African American community research with primary sources.”

The presentations and information during the 1800s is a dirty secret,” he gathered by the students will be added said. “Slaves built this campus.”

If the pilot is successful, it to a page on the Dartmouth library website for all students and faculty to will become a long-term project, use for class work, according to head Satterfield said. According to him, of Rauner’s special collections Jay the College could support three new student researchers a year for the next Satterfield.

Dartmouth has always used its five to 10 years and still not run out past to help students understand class of ideas for the fellows to study.

“There are a myriad of stories to topics, Satterfield said.

“Now we are confronting the ugly be told,” Satterfield said. “So much side to our past, acknowledging and has happened over 250 years. Some dealing with it,” he said. “The special stories are well-documented but have collections library has an interest in never been told, because no one has exposing Dartmouth’s history that thought they were important before.”

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THE DARTMOUTH OPINION

CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST SIMON ELLIS ’20

STAFF COLUMNIST CALLUM ZEHNER ’21

Preselecting Peppiness

War Against Caster Semenya

Dartmouth’s predilection for involved students hurts institutional diversity.

It didn’t fully hit me until I was asked by a prospective ’22 about what the day of a “typical Dartmouth student” looks like; a normal and routine question. Following my response about attending classes, going to rehearsal, attending meetings and finally giving this tour, her response changed the way I think about Dartmouth’s student body: “Everybody who makes themselves available to talk is so visible on campus, so busy all the time and involved with so many different activities; it’s really overwhelming.” After all, she was right. Dartmouth cultivates an image of the “typical student” as one who is always involved, always busy and always unpredictable.

This image of Dartmouth students as strong multitaskers with a wide and diverse range of passions is not only largely false, but also creates a self-selecting and problematic precedent for future classes and generations.

I have found myself guilty of perpetuating this stereotype of the typical Dartmouth student.

Rather than replying with a general statement when asked, “How are you?,” I almost always reply with a rundown of my daily itinerary.

When giving my tour guide introduction to interested visitors, I begin with a resume list of extracurriculars and communities I am a part of before I ever mention my classes or how I feel about the College. Many of the most visible people on campus are involved in a myriad of activities. From the ski team to the Sustainable Living Center, from the Dartmouth Outing Club to the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra, it’s not unusual to be involved with many different communities and it’s not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself.

The problem is when Dartmouth students normalize this behavior as typical and something to expect when coming to Dartmouth. Rather than thinking of being busy as productive, outgoing or overachieving, it has become an expectation for Dartmouth students to cram as many activities as possible into their schedule. I often feel like the question “How is your term going?” is a challenge rather than genuine inquiry, the person demanding that I justify my time. By having many visible and outgoing students fitting this archetype, Dartmouth creates the false perception that all students are made in this mold. Furthermore, during admissions cycles and other times critical to the College’s

enrollment, the faces most often amplified are usually the most involved and busiest students on campus. That image may then lead prospective students who are more inclined to feel confident about being busy, outgoing and extroverted to self-select, leaving behind those who might be more introverted or focused on one particular subject.

Don’t get me wrong: there’s nothing wrong with being very involved and liking to be busy.

I am a huge culprit of perpetuating the exact stereotype I believe to be problematic. While being outgoing and extroverted isn’t necessarily a negative thing, it’s important to note that many of the first organizations students see at Dartmouth cater specifically to these personalities. The Dimensions program is bright, loud and in-yourface. The DOC’s First Year Trips pushes you out of your comfort zone, asking you to throw away conventional social interactions and go into the woods with strangers for five days. It is arguable that these programs have huge positive impacts.

However, while these programs can help students grow, many early introductions to the College are undeniably more tailored for extroverted, outgoing and traditionally overrepresented students.

This focus on the social, extroverted and involved student has unavoidable connections to privilege. While some students bounce between two campus jobs to supplement their financial aid and study for a fourth class to complete a double major, others are balancing time between a-capella rehearsal and sports practice. It’s important to note that historically, the former group has been underrepresented in institutions that are most visible to incoming and prospective students, a factor that could make self-selecting for privileged and outgoing students a huge problem.

While there is nothing wrong with being extroverted, highly involved, or busy, it’s important that when Dartmouth puts the best image itself forward, it is representing the voice and image of every student. The impetus for change must not simply be placed on institutions that perpetuate this idea, but on every student as an individual. It’s time to throw away this view of the “typical student” and understand that everyone comes from a broad range of activities, communities and places on campus.

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ISSUE

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2018

LAYOUT: Anthony Robles

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.

Sporting agencies’ attacks on hyperandrogenism are unjust.

Caster Semenya has just come out of another of arbitrary boundaries. Therefore, they should winning streak. She easily captured gold medals in not be attempted. both the women’s 800m and 1500m events at the There even appear to be arbitrary distinctions recent Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast within the realms of excess testosterone. Men in Australia. These successes have been added to who have naturally high levels of testosterone her larger list of achievements, including multiple experience no issues in international sports, Olympic and World Championship medals. Yet they are not thought of as having an unfair leg her running career is now seriously threatened. up. In fact, male athletes who can prove they New regulations issued by the International have naturally low levels of testosterone can Association of Athletics Federations could see take testosterone supplements without it being Semenya, and others like her, unable to compete considered doping by the World Anti-Doping in their respective events in the future. This is Agency. Therefore, with male athletes, it is obvious ludicrous. that there is no controversy surrounding typical Semenya is hyperandrogenous, a condition testosterone levels and issues of fairness. For some wherein the natural level of testosterone in reason, however, these issues do hold weight when her body is unusually high. In essence, she is it comes to hypoandrogenic women. a female who was raised as such but exhibits The new regulations also force women like certain male physiological traits. As a result, Semenya to go through a number of measures if her athletic career, since its inception, has been they wish to continue competing, such as the use marred by controversy. The of hormone-suppressing latest dispute has involved “They foresee an drugs or the removal of the IAAF’s new regulations, internal testes. Putting aside apocalyptic future which state that female the invasive nature of these athletes with naturally high where women’s measures, they are also levels of testosterone will be sports are dominated simply humiliating. For these unable, starting November, hypoandrogenic athletes to compete in races between by women with to subject themselves 400m and a mile. The only a testosterone to procedures to either way for hypoandrogenic confirm their sex or to make athletes to avoid being advantage who go themselves an “acceptable banned under these new on to out-compete level” of female would rules is to undergo treatment their typically-female evidently be uncomfortable. to bring their testosterone One can only imagine how levels down to within an opponents. But, demeaning it has been “acceptable” range. for Semenya to have had again, the insidious This bold new direction to prove her sex to the from the IAAF seems to false supposition athletic community multiple corroborate what detractors here is that the times throughout her have long claimed about career. And, fundamentally, hypoandrogenic Semenya: that she is, for all there is no just reason for intents and purposes, a man. athletes are somehow hypoandrogenic athletes to Her critics, and critics of all not entirely female. go through such measures hypoandrogenic athletes, in order to compete. state that her genetic Yet they indisputably In addition, the science advantageisinsurmountable are.” used to justify the IAAF’s and therefore unfair. new regulations, a study And many of her most published in the British prominent critics, perhaps understandably, are Journal of Sports Medicine, is hotly debated. The her fellow competitors. In an especially notorious correlations drawn between testosterone levels incident, Semenya, having just won gold in the and athletic performance have been strongly 800m at the 2016 Olympics, leaned in to hug two contested, with the links instead being attributed of her fellow racers, who proceeded to ignore her by some to pure chance. This does not appear and continue consoling themselves. The pettiness to be a strong foundation on which to threaten of this display illustrates the degree to which her many people’s careers. competitors simply view her as a cheater.

Ultimately, it seems that some commentators It is hard to disagree that hypoandrogenic view Semenya as a real threat to the traditional athletes have a significant genetic advantage categorization of sport, with women competing –– clearly Semenya has benefitted from her against women and men competing against own. Nonetheless, these ongoing attacks on men. They foresee an apocalyptic future where hypoandrogenic athletes are fundamentally women’s sports are dominated by women with unmerited. An important contributing factor to a testosterone advantage who go on to outany athletic success is genetic advantage. Usain compete their typically-female opponents. But Bolt is the fastest man alive in part due to the length again, the insidious false supposition here is that of his legs and abnormally high percentage of the hypoandrogenic athletes are somehow not fast-twitch fibers; these are traits he was born with, entirely female. Yet they indisputably are. The just like Semenya’s additional testosterone. To put IAAF is not levelling the playing field with its it differently, no one has ever tried to disqualify new regulations, it is hindering a number of an NBA player from competing purely because athletes who have the right to exploit their natural he was too tall. Any attempts to determine when advantages. The playing field is level. All there genetic characteristics become too advantageous is left to do is let Semenya enjoy her success for athletes are invariably going to be the product unhindered.

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2018

THE DARTMOUTH NEWS

Students upset with room relocations

“The lounges are the most what students want.” underutilized spaces of all things Jae Hong ’20 said that he announced the fulfillment of these [OPAL has] a connection to,” Kelly uses both the PAC room and the plans through a joint decision this said. “I think students do use them, Rainbow Room every day to study term, according to senior assistant but very few of them and [during] a with friends, eat meals when Collis dean and OPAL director Reese few hours of the day, which makes is too crowded and attend meetings Kelly. Both rooms at Robinson Hall it really hard for us to say we are held in these rooms. Hong added will undergo renovations and there going to hold on to these [rooms].” that the relocation of the Rainbow are no definitive plans for the future The accommodations offered by Room to the Triangle House — use of these rooms at the moment, other spaces on campus, such as the which has limited access — reduces he said.

OPAL Student Resource Center — community-oriented spaces and is According to current member which has a kitchen, dining table counterintuitive to creating spaces of Asian American Students for and living room — led Spectra, on campus for communities that Action at Dartmouth Jennifer a student organization for queer do not always feel welcome at Zhong ’18, since the announcement students and allies, to hold meetings Dartmouth. of the relocation of the affinity- at the center this past summer According to Kelly, the new PAC based lounges instead of in room will ensure that the pan-Asian earlier in the the Rainbow community, which does not have term, students “To me, it doesn’t R o o m , a stand-alone affinity house, still h ave fo r m e d make sense that if you a c c o r d i n g has access to an affinity lounge a working t o Ke l l y. I n space. He said he hopes that the group of about want students to use addition, the relocation of the Rainbow Room 2 5 p e o p l e these rooms more, you floor plan of will attract more students to the to create a t h e Tr i a n g l e Triangle House. Kelly noted that would move them to concrete action House includes the intended purpose of affinity plan to keep locations that are out mu l t i p u r p o s e houses as community resources these rooms in of the way for most rooms in the and residential spaces creates an Robinson Hall. b a s e m e n t internal tension where residents Zhong added students.” o r i g i n a l l y want their space respected, but also that 4A uses envisioned for know that affinity houses function the PAC room similar purposes as a central hub on campus for -JENNIFER ZHONG for storage and a s t h o s e o f particular communities. meetings, but ’18, ASIAN AMERICAN the Rainbow The decision to relocate both she noted that STUDENTS FOR ACTION AT Room, such as rooms is definitive, and OPAL many students holding classes, hopes to collaborate with the are not aware DARTMOUTH MEMBER w o r k s h o p s student working group on designing of the existence a n d s t u d e n t both of the new rooms to meet their of the PAC and o r g a n i z a t i o n specific needs, Kelly said.

Rainbow rooms. meetings, he said.

Zhong said that the student The demands of the student Currently, the OPAL Student organizations that use the PAC and working group include immediately Resource Center is open from 9 Rainbow rooms will be given one canceling the relocation of the PAC a.m. to 9 p.m., unlike the current week’s notice prior to the relocation and Rainbow rooms, guaranteeing rooms, which are open 24 hours of the rooms this term.

Robinson Hall as the permanent a day. OPAL plans to monitor A c c ordin g to Z h on g, th e location of both rooms, renovating the use of the space with the relocation of both rooms from a both rooms with student input and help of student managers before central part of campus illustrates expanding affinity group spaces in considering establishing new hours, the marginalization of undercentral locations on campus in the according to Kelly. He added that served communities at Dartmouth future, according to a document while the center will not be open and undermines the activist efforts drafted by the group. all 24 hours, OPAL is in the process of students and alumni.

“Both of these spaces would of renovating the center to make “The Triangle House was an be used more often if students certain areas accessible to students initiative put in place by donations were made more aware of their when the rest of the center closes. from LGBTQ alumni, and the existence,” Zhong said. “To me, All students have access to the Asian-American [Living Learning it doesn’t make sense that if you Triangle House during the day, Community] was an initiative want students to use these rooms but it is only open to residents put together by student activists more, you would move them to after certain hours in the night, a couple [of] years ago,” Zhong locations that are out of the way depending on said. “It’s very for most students.” the term, Kelly “The lounges are the disappointing Kelly said that after OPAL was said. that the relocated and consolidated to the “Our hope most underutilized administration second floor of the Collis Center is that opening spaces of all things uses the from the OPAL Student Resource up a student advancements [OPAL has] a Center and their original shared resource center, of student and space with the Undergraduate which is a much connection to.” alumni activists Deans Office in Baker-Berry bigger space, who are trying Library, OPAL had to relinquish will allow for to make more other spaces under its jurisdiction [ s t u d e n t s t o -REESE KELLY, SENIOR spaces for in exchange for the additional office have] meals and ASSISTANT DEAN AND communities space they were provided in Collis. will [provide] to thrive. The Kelly added that despite previous s o m e p l a c e OPAL DIRECTOR way that they efforts to increase foot traffic in the f o r s t o r a g e are using those PAC and Rainbow rooms in 2013 f o r s t u d e n t advancements and 2014, the spaces still remained organizations that don’t have as justification for taking away underutilized by students, which storage space through other spaces that have historically existed prompted the decision to move the means,” Kelly said. “[This] will for [marginalized communities], rooms. hopefully be more responsive to that’s very upsetting to me.”

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DARTMOUTHEVENTS

THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS

BOSTON MARATHON RECAP

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2018

CECILIA MORIN ’21

TODAY

2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Seminar: “Chiral Gravitational Waves and Baryon Superfluid Dark Matter,” with Brown University postdoctoral fellow Evan McDonough, sponsored by the physics and astronomy department, Wilder 202

4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Lecture: “How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything,” with Georgetown University associate dean of graduate programs and law professor Rosa Brooks, sponsored by the Dickey Center for International Understanding, Filene Auditorium, Moore Hall

5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Lecture: “Building the Prison State: The Origins of Mass Incarceration,” with Northwestern University assistant professor Heather Schoenfeld, sponsored by the sociology department,

TOMORROW

12:45 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Workshop: “Hidden Collections of Ancestry –– Library Edition,” sponsored by the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning, 102 Baker Library

3:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

Lecture: “A SWARM OF PEOPLE,” with Dalhousie University associate professor of history Justin Roberts, sponsored by the history department, The Wren Room, Sanborn House

4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Lecture: ”Wounds and Worlds: Spiritual healing as politics otherwise in California,” with University of Virginia postdoctoral fellow Megan Raschig, sponsored by the anthropology and religion departments, Kemeny Hall 008

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TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2018

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THE DARTMOUTH ARTS

Chee’s ‘How to Write an Autobiographical Novel’ impresses

By ISABELLE BLANK The Dartmouth

Dartmouth professor and bestselling novelist Alexander Chee’s new book “How to Write an Autobiographical Novel” is a collection of 16 nonfiction essays.

The language is beautiful, the subject matter variegated and the insight profound. The essays are ordered chronologically, tracing Chee’s life through personally and politically transformative moments. While “How to Write an Autobiographical Novel” follows Chee’s journey as a writer, the book also details Chee’s many roles as student, cater-waiter, activist, gardener, lover, friend and teacher. In writing about his own selfhood, Chee explores large-scale political issues: the AIDS epidemic, the Iraq War, the 2016 presidential election. This book is a deep dive into Chee’s craft, a political thinkpiece, a memoir and a call to action.

The book begins in 1980, with Chee’s description of his time in Mexico as a 15-year-old foreign exchange student. “The Curse” is not only a coming-ofage essay — the piece also offers insightful commentary on belonging, sexuality and wealth disparity. Chee’s other essays address many subjects including personal trauma, family

economic strain and his experiences as an activist in the fight against AIDS with the organization ACT UP. The intimate autobiographical narratives offer a window through which to see larger-scale national and international problems. Chee offers nuanced commentary on pressing political issues of the past and present, dexterously layering micro and macro narratives on top of each other, while obscuring neither.

In the third essay, entitled “The Writing Life,” Chee begins with a cyber-artifact from his past: an email addressed to Annie Dillard asking to join her nonfiction class at Wesleyan University. Chee introduces us to his young writer-self, “an English major who had failed at being a studio art major and thus became an English major by default.” How lucky the reader is for Chee to have failed in one artistic field and to have had so much success in another.

In subsequent essays, Chee talks about his circuitous path to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and his choice to become a professor. He discusses the technical and life lessons he teaches his students, advice he imparts to the reader by default. Near the end of the book, Chee discusses the worth of writing and of teaching writing.

He writes about how strange it is to teach a craft that no state power

wants taught.

Chee wrestles with the systematic forces which seek to silence artists and inhibit his role as a writer. He speaks to the condition of being an artist in America, grappling with a country fraught with systematic wrongdoing.

He speaks about juggling jobs, in one essay detailing his time as a waiter for William and Pat Buckley. Chee’s winding journey is an admirable lesson that endurance in the face of hardship breeds success.

The recurring themes and symbols of a singular life weave through Chee’s separate essays, forming a continuous narrative of memory and reflection. Chee’s exploration of his family history, his activism, his identity as a queer man of color and his rose garden are threaded throughout the collection.

These various subjects conjure a multi-layered world. Chee is a master of his craft. He not only writes beautifully, but parses out the writing process, showing a deep understanding and love of his work.

His two essays “100 Things About Writing a Novel” and “How to Write an Autobiographical Novel” transform the lowly list into a lyrical, sinuous form. Chee is very funny — he writes of a “certain Beat poet,” describes drag in the Castro as a “competitive sport” and calls

himself at one point a “Connecticut Persephone,” traveling frantically between Wesleyan and Manhattan.

Chee’s prose is at once lovely and weighty. If Marianne Moore’s poems are “imaginary gardens with real toads,” then Chee’s language contains these very toads, cloaked in gossamer.

Chee intuitively describes his condition as a writer, where “watching both hid[es] him and g[ives] him power.” In one essay, Chee makes a heartbreaking study of his friend Peter, who dies of AIDS in the 1990s. There are a few of these eulogies, whether they are identified as such or not, scattered between essays of rose gardens and tarot card readings and drag queens and cater-waiter escapades.

In one essay, after 9/11, the ashes of the dead clog Chee’s asthmatic lungs; in many others, he describes friends who die of AIDS. So many deaths exist amidst this story of one man’s life. Chee does not fall into sentimentalism but instead explores each person with complexity. He historicizes his friends’ deaths to great effect, highlighting what each death meant within a greater political context.

“What is the point?” Chee asked in the collection’s final essay, “On Becoming an American Writer.”

He describes how a student asks him this question the day after the 2016 presidential election. Every major news outlet had predicted one outcome, and yet at the uncanny hour of three in the morning on November 9th, newscasters announced that the terrifying alternative had come to pass — a deafening result that continues to silence so many. Why write into the erasing wind? Why write if there is nobody to listen? Sifting through the book, Chee’s answers to this question are easily spotted. Chee instructs the reader, his students and himself to write beyond all perceived failings of craft and self. To imagine is political: to create is to resist; to write is to discover selfhood and solutions. To tell one another our stories is the most human thing we can do. “Write for your dead,” Chee asserts. This is his answer. This is his mission.

It is interesting that Chee ends the book by speaking not about his own writing, but about his role as a teacher. Knowing Professor Chee, this conclusion is characteristically humble, though he has accomplished so much. “It is a strange time to teach someone to write stories,” Chee writes. Yet, in the penultimate essay, he urges the reader forward. “Here is the ax,” he says. Write. This is how you write an autobiographical novel.

‘Avengers: Infinity War’ is bloated, bombastic and bold

By SEBASTIAN WURZRAINER The Dartmouth Staff

What is “Avengers: Infinity War,” exactly? Technically, it is both the 19th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as well as the third film in the Avengers film series. More 19th, it is the first film in a two-part, back-to-back epic conclusion to the Avengers series, which means it is inherently setting up the audience for “Avengers Four.”

Most of all, though, “Infinity War” is meant to make good on the 10-yearold promise that we would one day get to see all the heroes in the MCU battle its greatest villain, Thanos, an ironwilled titan with visions of deathly grandeur. Thanos is in pursuit of six Infinity Stones, which when combined with his magical Infinity Gauntlet will give him the power to eradicate half of all life in the universe (Thanos reasons that resources are limited, so his solution for overpopulation is indiscriminate genocide). Now it’s up to the combined forces of the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy to stop him.

So, does “Infinity War” deliver on its promises? The short answer: Yes. The long answer: A lot depends on how you feel about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, given that this film so often manages to embody both the best and the worst about

the franchise. Personally, my feelings about the MCU have always ebbed and flowed. I was initially excited by the prospect of a film series that could emulate the sprawling, interconnected construction of comic books. Moreover, there was a visceral thrill in seeing half a dozen superheroes coalesce on the big screen in the first “Avengers.” After that, the films became more and more forgettable and fatigue started to set in. That is, until the most recent MCU films, “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Black Panther” — undeniably the best the franchise has ever offered.

Thanks to those two films, my appetite was thoroughly whetted for another “Avengers” adventure.

As much as I enjoyed “Infinity War,” there’s no denying that it’s long and unwieldy. On the one hand, I like the fact that the story manages to live up to its own grandiose aspirations.

Many big budget spectacles have scale but nothing with which to fill it.

“Infinity War” crams in everything but the kitchen sink … and then it tosses in the kitchen sink for good measure.

But this can be a shortcoming.

While the first two “Avengers” films tend to feature the main cast in the same places at the same time, “Infinity War” spreads its ensemble across at least four major plot strands and just as many planets. Of course, this is a

necessity considering that there are, by my count, upward of 20 major heroes at play. Nonetheless, this can lead to tonal whiplash as the story jumps from Wakanda to Thanos’s home on Titan to a dying star and so forth.

Perhaps that’s a small price to pay for getting to see all of these characters in the same film. With sheer numbers, “Infinity War” manages to capture some of the awe of watching six heroes come together in the first “Avengers,” simply because the number of heroes has tripled. Yet such a glut of characters inevitably means that some must be more significant than others. For example, the film provides Tony Stark/Iron Man, Peter Quill/Star-Lord, Thor, Gamora and Thanos with character arcs while essentially relegating everyone else to the status of glorified supporting character. Some fans will certainly be disappointed when their favorite hero doesn’t get the chance to shine.

This can be particularly frustrating when characters like Quill and Scarlet Witch regress because they have to more or less become pawns at the whims of such a mammoth story.

But I sympathize with screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. After all, someone had to take center stage, and making these calls can prove to be a zero-sum game with a cast this big. For the most part,

I just admire Markus and McFeely for emphasizing some surprise choices rather than the most obvious and conventional characters.

In particular, the film makes Gamora the most compelling she’s ever been. Undeniably, the best scene in “Infinity War” is a tragic, in-depth exploration of her relationship with Thanos, her abusive adoptive father.

It’s moving, thoughtful, beautifully crafted and genuinely heartbreaking.

Which brings us to the real key to the film’s success: Thanos himself.

Marvel is notorious for its “villain problem,” but every fan has a different theory explaining why this is. I think the root of the problem has nothing to do with bad actors or poorly written characters, but rather with the inherent lack of stakes. Consider Ultron from “Age of Ultron.” James Spader’s quirky performance makes him the most memorable character in that film, but his plan to cause the extinction of the human race feels weightless amid a sea of other MCU films with similar villain plots.

Some of the more recent films, like “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” (Ego), “Thor: Ragnarok” (Hela) and “Black Panther” (Killmonger) have been improvements. But each of those villains is a familial relative of the protagonist, making the stakes personal.

“Infinity War” combines the best of both worlds. It takes care to explore Thanos’s parental connection to Gamora but also makes clear that the threat is utterly real because Thanos is so motivated. It’s cliché to say that the villain thinks of himself as the hero of his own story. But Thanos takes that notion to the extreme because his concerns about limited resources and overpopulation are so genuine. It’s easy to see how he could view himself as the protagonist of a classic hero’s journey in which he’s trying to save the galaxy from its imminent destruction. To top it all off, Josh Brolin turns in a riveting performance, transforming Thanos into easily the film’s most compelling character.

For months now, fans have speculated about the film’s potential spoilers. Who will live and who will die? Suffice to say, the film makes some bold choices. One in particular left me genuinely rattled. Yet the ending feels less daring than it should because so much of what occurs is probably reversible. Nonetheless, I still admire the filmmakers for going the direction they did, forcing the audience to swallow a devastating, if somewhat impermanent, cliffhanger.

It’s emblematic of the film as a whole — imperfect and daring at the same time.

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TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2018

THE DARTMOUTH ARTS

Q&A with Seth Woods and Spencer Topel: ‘Iced Bodies’

By ELIZABETH GARRISON The Dartmouth Staff

Last Thursday, cellist Seth Parker Woods and Dartmouth music professor Spencer Topel performed their work “Iced Bodies,” a piece about the Black Lives Matter movement that falls between the line of a musical performance and an art installation. In “Iced Bodies,” Woods played a cello made of black-dyed ice, alternating from holding the cello upright to lying it down in front of him, and from caressing the cello with the metal fingertips of his gloves to chipping away at the cello using tools such as a metal bow, a screwdriver and a chisel. With each movement, microphones embedded inside the cello picked up the acoustic sounds that Woods created while Topel processed them at the sound board and diffused them across glass panels suspended around the gallery.

How did you come up with the idea for Iced Bodies? Why were you interested in being involved with the project?

S.W.: When I was doing research at Northwestern, I came across this image of a cellist in the 1970s named Charlotte Moorman, nude, playing a cello-shaped ice sculpture.

She was performing a piece called Ice Music for London by artist Jim McWilliams. I saw this image at a time when I was looking to expand as an artist and come up with my own niche, so I decided that I wanted to make my own contemporary version. The themes of police brutality didn’t come in until later on. I had been living in Europe, and when I moved back to the U.S. I realized there was a lot of heaviness going on in the world.

For the first time, I was seeing all of this really up close and personal ...

I knew that the situation was dire and there was definitely a kind of revolution boiling up. I had to find a way to comment, so I fell back on this piece. I decided that this would be my protest song.

S.T.: One of the things that really made me want to do it was how important it would be to address these issues today. It became a human expression, a human problem, not just some display of technology or of avant-garde art, but rather something that would

intrinsically address the human condition — particularly, the American condition. As someone who is working increasingly in sound installation, I’m interested in fusing the boundaries between visual and sonic expression, how to play between those two spaces and mix them together in ways that makes an audience receptive to new ideas or new experiences. I loved the idea of working with a transition state material like ice that is melting and is different from where it starts to where it ends, and also just the design challenge. How do you go about freezing that much water into a reliable shape? It’s tricky because water doesn’t want to behave when it’s freezing.

How did you incorporate themes of police brutality and the lack of representation of the black community into the piece?

S.W.: I didn’t want it to be a direct association that was programmatic, where you could see the formula.

I represent the ideas of police brutality through these torn, tattered and abused black bodies that are on display in the media. That’s why in the performance there are moments where I’m caressing the body of the ice cello, others in which I’m attacking it and I leave the ice pick in the body, and others in which I’m just observing the body. In social media, we see black bodies have been left out on the street to be gawked at after they’ve been killed, not covered up. It’s almost as if it’s just trash on display, so that’s one of the forms of imagery I’ve chosen to embody within the work.

S.T.: I think we very explicitly invoke the idea of the cello being a symbol of the black body, but we want the audience to come to that conclusion on their own because if it’s too didactic or too insistent, people shut out the opportunity to explore that fragile space. In Seth’s actions, there is both an artistic expression and an effigy of an autopsy. In some sense it’s disturbing. For example, when the cello loses its neck a lot of people said it looks like a torso — often times, I felt the same way. The motivation behind making the cello and the whole scene so beautiful is the idea of the vulnerability of losing something beautiful. I want the audience to feel loss. If

something looks fragile or pristine and someone destroys it, our instinct is, “Oh no, don’t do that.” I remember the first time I saw Seth destroy the cello, it really bothered me because it was something we worked so hard to create. But I think that’s the emotion we’re going for. To me, this is why art still has relevance today: it is addressing things that we’ve run out of words for.

How did you approach building the ice cello? What were some of the technical challenges you faced in constructing the ice cello?

S.T.: The earliest designs were an attempt to understand if we could mold a 3D model of ice and to play with the dyes. Because most dyes aren’t meant to be frozen, it was challenging to find a way to make the ice cello black. It was amusing because I was researching stuff on all these mommy blogs about dyeing ice cubes for your kids. I went through hundreds of these images until I found one that looked right, and it was black cake icing! I would have never thought of that. Early on I was thinking fabric dye, but that’s toxic. Or squid ink, but that was way too expensive. It turned out that the coloring in cake icing was perfect because it has stabilizers in it to undergo different temperature changes, like when you chill a cake. As for the sound element, I learned this from my colleagues at the Thayer School of Engineering: separating the work’s process from its looks is a good first step, that is, starting by coming up with a functional model that may not look anything like the final product but gives you the behavioral mechanics of it. For us, it was the hydrophones and the water speakers. We froze them into tubs and then we experimented, listening to them and hitting them in different spots.

We discovered ice responds very locally with hydrophones, meaning that if I have a pick-up in only one area of the cello, you don’t hear the sounds being made even if the pickup is just a foot and a half away. I realized we needed multiple pickups to make sure we captured all the sound as Seth touched different parts of the instrument.

The duration of the performance was almost

three hours. How did you avoid repetition and keep the audience engaged?

S.T.: In some sense, it’s very much an improvisation. It’s listening, it’s reading the feeling of the room. One general approach I took was to go from these sharp, almost noise-like impulses from the ice — these crackling sounds that don’t sound like instruments — and then gradually transform them into something that sounds like a string instrument, and then vacillate between the two. We used the glass panels as speakers — they actually have their own tones and frequencies, and I’m really trying to work with those. Also, I’m responding to what Seth is doing in the moment, and the kind of articulations that he’s hearing. It’s a combination of us listening together and arriving at different spaces in the experience that are freshsounding and new-sounding, but not changing things so much that he can’t play it. His instrument is sort of chimeric — it’s always changing and becoming a new instrument.

The change is important because it’s subtle, but it’s enough that the audience isn’t sonically fatigued by the performance.

What do you hope audiences took away from the performance? What does this performance mean for a Dartmouth audience in particular?

S.W.: By just showing up to the performance they were being advocates for activism, but it shouldn’t stop there. I hope the piece pushes them to engage more

with these topics that normally are presented in a skewed way or completely neglected in the everyday social environment.

Police corruption and brutality is not an issue that directly affects every socioeconomic group so we need to find a way to move toward everyone engaging with this issue and becoming an advocate in their own way.

S.T.: The process by which I created everything came from working in different parts of campus — in the woodshop, Thayer, my own studio — so it was just natural that I wanted to take it home. At Dartmouth, we are in the middle of some very serious questions about race. How do we reconcile white culture with, in particular African-American culture, and more broadly speaking, Hispanic culture and [other] non-black cultures? To me, it’s really important that we have pieces that address this conversation, like my colleague William Cheng’s talk, “His Music Was not a Weapon.” As far as I’m concerned, I have a biracial family, and I know what it’s like to reconcile race in this area outside of campus.

Dealing with a homogenous society that is predominantly white, there’s a lot of implicit white values that people think are okay. It’s important to keep bringing these conversations to Dartmouth — quite frankly, because Dartmouth is an international place. I feel the students are the leaders, so they have to address these [questions] right now.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

EVAN MORGAN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

Cellist Seth Woods wore a wetsuit to play the black-dyed ice cello as it melted.