VOL. CLXXV NO. 86
SUNNY HIGH 57 LOW 31
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2018
Chabad opens house worth $3.2 million
B y MARIA HARRAST The Dartmouth Staff
OPINION
ZAMAN: HANOVER-THIS? PAGE 4
VERBUM ULTIMUM: DARTMOUTH’S DIGITAL DILEMMA PAGE 4
ARTS
REVIEW: ‘EATING ANIMALS’ IS A CRUCIAL LOOK AT AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRY PAGE 7
SPORTS
GRIFFITH’S GOT STATS PAGE 8 FOLLOW US ON
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Chabad at Dartmouth now has a new place in Hanover to call home. On Oct. 14, the Hilary Chana Chabad House — located two blocks from the Green at 19 Allen Street — opened the doors of its new 9,000-square-foot building with a weekend of festivities that culminated in a dedication ceremony on Sunday. The grand opening included remarks by Chabad Rabbi Moshe Gray and other prominent figures in the College’s Jewish community, student speeches, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony, as well as presentations to George
and Pamela Rohr, Sue Ann Arnall and Robert and Debbie Ezrapour, who helped fund the $3.2 million purchase and renovation of the new house. The latter three are parents of Dartmouth graduates. Katie Goldstein ’20 spoke during the event, discussing how she found her home in Chabad at Dartmouth. “During my speech, I gravitated towards my own experience with Chabad,” Goldstein said. “I spoke towards how grateful I was towards [Gray] for creating such a great atmosphere that I really felt SEE CHABAD HOUSE PAGE 3
Town hall draws over 150 attendees B y SAVANNAH ELLER The Dartmouth
Over 150 Dartmouth students, faculty and community members gathered at a town hall on Wednesday afternoon to hear from outgoing interim provost David Kotz ’86 and Thayer School of Engineering Dean Joseph Helble, the new provost of the College. Presenters also addressed the College’s reaccreditation process
and the upcoming expansion of the Thayer School. Executive vice president Rick Mills introduced Helble, who is set to take over from Kotz at the end of this month. During the town hall, Kotz reflected on his 11 months as acting provost. “I have deep feelings for this institution and want to make it SEE TOWN HALL PAGE 5
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Phi Beta Kappa inducts 21 members
SONIA QIN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
The Phi Beta Kappa induction ceremony was held Thursday night in Occom Commons.
B y THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF O n T h u r s d ay, 2 1 members of the Class of 2019 were inducted into Dartmouth’s Alpha of New Hampshire chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. Six members of the Class of 2020 received the Phi Beta Kappa Sophomore Prize. The induction ceremony was held at Occom Commons. Founded in 1776 at the College of William & Mary, Phi Beta Kappa is the first college society with a Greekletter name. Dartmouth’s chapter was established in 1787 and is the fourth oldest
in the country. The senior Phi Beta Kappa inductees are Olivia Bewley ’19, Connor Bondarchuk ’19, Emily Chao ’19, Nicole Chen ’19, John Davidson ’19, Christine Dong ’19, James Herman ’19, Meredith Holmes ’19, Young Jang ’19, Josephina Lin ’19, Andrew Liu ’19, Anant Mishra ’19, Colleen O’Connor ’19, Sonia Qin ’19, Sonia Rowley ’19, Samantha Ster n ’19, Alexander Sullivan ’19, Arvind Suresh ’19, Elizabeth Terman ’19, Ruoni Wang ’19 and David Wong ’19. Criteria for election to the society requires that
students hold one of the top 20 cumulative grade point averages in their class after completing eight academic terms within three years of matriculating. The Sophomore Prize is awarded to students who have the highest cumulative grade point averages in their class after five terms of enrollment. The juniors who received the Sophomore Prize are Emma Esterman ’20, Brandon Nye ’20, Scott Okuno ’20, Joshua Perlmutter ’20, Armin Tavakkoli ’20 and Sebastian Wurzrainer ’20. A full story will be published in the future.
Fall foliage draws tourists to Hanover B y Emily sun The Dartmouth
Cindy Yuan ’22 was on a road trip for a sports competition when she spotted something rather different in the landscape from what she was used to back home in California. “When we drove past
all the yellow and orange mountains, I was awed,” Yuan said. “I couldn’t believe the mountains were yellow because of turning leaves and not because of dead grass.” “Leaf peeping” is the act of admiring the changing of leaves during the autumn season. Luckily for Yuan, she
caught the foliage at its peak. By next week, however, this peak foliage is expected to pass, according to Visit New Hampshire’s foliage tracker. The New Hampshire Division of Travel and To u r i s m D e v e l o p m e n t expects roughly 3 million o u t - o f - s t a t e ov e r n i g h t visitors, who are projected
to spend 1.4 billion dollars this fall season. This reflects an upwards trend, with the number of tourists increasing by 4.5 percent and spending by 5 percent compared to last year, according to Kris Neilsen, communications manager for New Hampshire Travel and Tourism Development.
“[Leaf peeping] definitely plays a critical economic role in many aspects of our tourism industry,” Neilsen said. “There’s a lot of people and business that count on people visiting during the fall season.” Lou’s Restaurant and SEE FOLIAGE PAGE 2
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FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2018
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
Q&A with professor Melissa Zeiger overlap, if any, have you found in the English, Jewish studies, and The Dartmouth women’s, gender and sexuality English professor Melissa Zeiger studies departments? arrived at the College just after MZ: I teach Jewish women’s finishing graduate school. Thirty- literature, and I think an interesting four years later, she continues to teach thing about poetry is that subEnglish and has also moved into the groups, instead of having less Jewish studies and women’s, gender access to tradition, actually have and sexuality studies departments. more tradition. If you’re a female, Rather than teaching classes this Jewish poet writing in English, for quarter, Zeiger is researching and example, you have access to the writing her book on garden poetry whole anglophone tradition of and has been traveling in Europe literature, but you also have access to this fall speaking on the topic. a tradition of women’s literature and a tradition of Jewish literature. I’m What brought you to teaching, really interested in the persistence of and specifically teaching in the an invisible past in writing. And for departments you are in? poets who are in MZ: English some way outside was always my “I’ve come to enjoy the mainstream, passion. I read teaching college that past c an obsessively as a feel prohibitive, kid, and I went students more over but on the other to g raduate time. Sometimes hand, it can act school and I as a resource. w a s n’t s u re they would seem For instance, I’m about it right like annoying junior really interested in away. I wasn’t siblings, but now I just the way Africansure I liked it, American writers but then I had love the energy.” take up the sonnet, my first chance which is perhaps to teach, and I the most deadenjoyed it so -MELISSA ZEIGER, white-male of all much and it ENGLISH PROFESSOR literary traditions, seemed like and remake it a worthwhile for their own thing to do. purposes. I’ve come to enjoy teaching Have your focus college students more over time. or areas of interests shifted over Sometimes they would seem like time? annoying junior siblings, but now I MZ: Yes and no. My first book was on just love the energy. the poems that lament an individual’s death elegy. I decided I wanted to get What do you focus on within each away from death and illness, so my discipline? current project is about the politics of MZ: Poetry. I also teach a course on gardens and the way that they express immigrant literature, but I usually the ideology of a specific moment include poetry in every class that and specific person. I thought I I teach. I just did a course in the was getting completely away from spring on my new project, which is death, but, of course, I wasn’t. In a gardens and garden literature, which way, gardens are sedimented death. was really delightful. I’ve learned If it weren’t for things dying, there something about Dartmouth, which would be no soil. is that it’s good idea to make up courses that seem a little weird, Have you found yourself needing because you get such offbeat to adjust your teaching methods or interesting students that way. I also focus over time based on student really enjoy teaching the surveys of need or interest? modern poetry and 20th century MZ: I’ll tell you, it’s been really great. literature. I love teaching in women When I first got here, Dartmouth and gender studies — it’s been a was more of a party school. In the kind of second home for me from mid-’90s, we got a new admissions the beginning, and I like the sense director who changed the school that the WGSS faculty share values in four years by getting more and we work on common projects. intellectually serious students, and it’s been much more fun teaching Through your research and ever since then. I’ve found that I’ve teaching experiences, what had to do less persuading students to
B y BLAKE MCGILL
be interested and more developing their own interests. You have conducted some research in the role of female characters and experiences in literature — for example, your work on the presence of breast cancer in romance novels. In your view, how has the #MeToo and other such female-dominated movements left an impact in literature? MZ: It turns out once you start studying romance, romance is about everything. What I’m interested in is partly the way that those romances — that are still pretty conventional socially — have taken on board changes in feminism, changes in the culture. I’m happy to say rape is no longer a form of foreplay in romance novels. Your hair would stand on end reading some of the early ones. Now some of the women articulate feminist ideas, though they may not call them that. It’s a bit middle of the road, but it’s definitely changed. How do you see this continuing or shifting in the coming months and years? MZ: I’m worried. We’ve seen such a violent backlash to the #MeToo movement on the national stage. I know that a lot of us are going to keep working to make things more just. I don’t know how it will affect the publishing world or universities. Universities are very much affected by what goes on that the national level. I have my shoulder to the wheel, but I can’t really predict. What direction do you foresee your research or teaching taking on in the future? MZ: I think I’m going to keep thinking about gardens, because there is so much material on them. I went to a couple of conferences this fall, and the range of topics within it is so interesting, and I want to keep learning more and more about it. It’s come into new focus and prominence since the development of eco-critical approaches to literature. I’m very concerned with those issues and the garden work fits into that. The final poet in my book will be W.S. Merwin, and part of his work once he moved to Hawaii is reclaiming the native patch of Hawaiian forest around him because it was overgrown with imports. His poems are about the decline of the planet, the decline of his own aging body. That kind of work is very interesting to me.
Leaf peepers bring business to Main Street
European tourists coming through, especially British and French and Bakery is one of those businesses Italian who want to see some fall effected. Jarett Berke, owner of foliage,” he said. One reason why many Lou’s, thinks that fall tourism accounts for about 25 percent of international visitors come to the restaurant’s sales during the New Hampshire for leaf peeping is because of the lack of maple season. trees in Europe. “ I wo u l d Biological say it has a “When we drove past sciences professor pretty sizable all the yellow and Matthew Ayres impact,” noted that the B e rk e s a i d . orange mountains, I presence of the “ We g e t a was awed. I couldn’t maple trees is the lot of people reason why New c o m i n g believe the mountains Hampshire has a through the were yellow because very rich palette area to look of turning leaves and of spectacular at leaves and fall colors. Maple m a k e t h e i r not because of dead t r e e s p ro d u c e way through grass.” anthocyanin, the Northeast. which is a T h e r e ’ s pigment that s p i l l o v e r -CINDY YUAN ’22 gives leaves their to local red and purple businesses.” hues, he added. B e r k e “At this time of said that the year, the plants, beauty of the in response to leaves is one changes in day of the main length, change things that in biology,” Ayres said. “It’s a very attracts people to the area. “There’s something about it orchestrated physiological change.” N e i l s e n a d d e d t h at N e w that’s pure and rich and natural Hampshire’s diverse landscapes and healthy,” Berke said. As for IDVD and Poster, provide visitors with a unique Hanover’s specialty DVDs vinyl experience. “We promote New Hampshire as records and posters store, owner Bryan Smith said he enjoys meeting variety within proximity,” Neilsen tourists who visit his store in the said. “You can see and experience a lot of different things in a fairly fall. “I tend to get a lot more compact space.” FROM FOLIAGE PAGE 1
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
CORRECTIONS We welcome corrections. If you believe there is a factual error in a story, please email editor@thedartmouth.com
LISON ZENG/THE DARTMOUTH
New Hampshire expects over 3 million out-of-state leaf peepers this season.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2018
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
Ceremony held for new Chabad house FROM CHABAD HOUSE PAGE 1
welcomed in. It’s really just another place for me to feel at home.” Prior to the culminating dedication ceremony, Chabad hosted a Shabbat dinner and festivities on Oct. 12 with a prayer service led by Max Goldman ’20. The service was held in the house’s new sanctuary, a space dedicated to prayer and the study of Jewish material. “In addition to the size of the new house, there are also accommodations that enable it to host different events in a more vibrant way,” Goldman said. “At the prayer service, they had way more guests than they possibly could have at the old house. The new house at Chabad contributes to the growth and flourishing of Jewish life at Dartmouth, but it’s also an indication that Jewish life is beginning to grow at Dartmouth.” The decision to buy and renovate the building largely stemmed from the need to better accommodate an expanding Jewish community at the College, Gray said. Since 2003, Chabad at Dartmouth has outgrown two houses on School Street, and Gray said he hopes that the new house will be a more permanent home for the organization. “We wanted to do one major move,” Gray said. “We renovated the house in a way to create spaces for students to really be able to
come and [use these spaces] in whatever capacity they wanted. It was extensive, it was lengthy, but I think well worth it, and I think students for generations are going to take advantage of the space we’ve created.” The house’s student facilities include a 1,400-square-foot dining room, a 3,000-book library, a large kitchen, a student lounge and a garden on its two-acre plot. Additionally, the building has a twobedroom guest suite and serves as the residence of Gray and his wife, Chani Gray, — the co-directors of Chabad at Dartmouth — as well as their five children. Ultimately, the Chabad House will act as a hub where students can come together for meals, prayer services, social activities, intellectual events and studying, Goldman said. Every week, Chabad hosts Shabbat dinners, as well holiday dinners and lunches, Gray said. Of the activities that the organization will continue to host at the new facility, Goldstein said that her favorite events are these communal meals. “The fastest way to a student’s heart is through their stomach,” Gray said. “[Students] can come together, they can see friends, they can talk, relax and enjoy each other’s company and delve into their Judaism and Jewish thought. Whether they come every week, or they come once
a term, it’s about those connection points that they have.” The strong community fostered in Chabad at Dartmouth is tangible even after students graduate, Gray said. Young alumni contributed over $200,000 for the purchase and renovation of the new Chabad House, and Goldman noted that Chabad at Dartmouth provides a unique environment where Jewish students can thrive. “We’re in kind of a unique place in the middle of nowhere here, so at Dartmouth, students are definitely forced to make our own city here and create our own aspects of life, whether that’s religious, or social, or cultural,” Goldman said. “I think that Chabad is one way for students to create Jewish life here in the same way that students are responsible for creating other aspects of life [at Dartmouth].” With the opening of the new house and its student facilities, Goldstein said he believes that Chabad at Dartmouth is even better equipped to continue providing a welcoming atmosphere for Jewish students at the College. “[The Chabad House] is really just to create an open environment to students, and I think that was a main goal of the new space,” Goldstein said. “I think the new house is going to create a new era of students in the space of Chabad.”
COURTESY OF RABBI MOSHE GRAY
Chabad at Dartmouth recently unveiled a new 9,000-square-foot house on Allen Street that cost $3.2 million.
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THE DARTMOUTH OPINION
CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST RANIYAN ZAMAN ‘22
VERBUM ULTIMUM THE DARTMOUTH EDITORIAL BOARD
Han-Over This?
Dartmouth’s Digital Dilemma
Did you see any #StopKavanaugh rallies in Hanover? Me neither. A few weeks ago, in the midst of the outrage surrounding alleged rapist turned Supreme Court Justice (yes, in that order) Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process, people across the country took to the streets to protest, pressure their senators to vote against him and support sexual assault survivors. Wait, scratch that. People across the country travelled to New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and a few other select metropolises, only then taking the streets to protest Kavanaugh’s confirmation. There’s no doubt that Dartmouth students were among those who boarded buses to urban hubs along the East Coast to participate in sit-ins and marches. And by now, it’s second nature to scroll through Facebook or Instagram looking at crowds holding posters on Fifth Avenue, or with the Capitol in the backdrop. But one has to wonder why all these people are buying plane tickets to preach to the choir — particularly when an on-the-fence audience might already be waiting in their home states, ready to be persuaded. As a native New Yorker, I get the appeal of an urban protest — the energy, the unity, the breathtaking fervor and almost-palpable electricity. But beneath it all lies an underlying current of frustration that often comes in knowing that we operate in a broken political system, one that effectively assigns more political power to citizens based on where they live. The vote of a resident of New York, California or Massachusetts holds much less weight than one in Florida, or Iowa, or even New Hampshire. The inequality in the significance of these votes is exacerbated when keeping in mind that voters in small states elect politicians who make decisions not just for that state, but for the entire nation. This builds up until the rest of the country has to live with the consequences of the decisions of a Supreme Court Justice whose confirmation was contingent upon the elected officials of Alaska, Arizona, Maine and West Virginia. The combined population of these states is less than that of New York alone. Rectifying America’s political system so that every vote holds equal weight is a top priority, but to my knowledge there’s no way for ordinary citizens to accomplish this in time for the midterms on Nov 6. Not all hope is lost, though; Dartmouth students can instead capitalize upon this uneven power distribution by fully exercising their political
agency right outside of their residence halls. Dartmouth is a college in the middle of the woods. On Friday nights, this is merely annoying. But it also uniquely positions students, and all college students who go to school in rural areas, for opportunities to make a bigger political impact than most would have had a chance to in their home states. This isn’t just limited to having the chance to vote in a swing state (which everyone should take advantage of, by the way). This extends to all forms of political activism: phone-banking, canvassing, campaigning and yes, protesting. It’s true that in the specific case of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, demonstrations would have had little effect since both New Hampshire senators opposed his confirmation as expected. But the mere fact of New Hampshire’s swing-statehood suggests that one can’t ever count on blue or red to be the norm here, and efforts to minimize college students’ voting rights are already under way. Consider Republican Governor Chris Sununu, who just recently signed into law a voter residency requirement that will make it more difficult for out-of-state college students to vote, essentially translating into disenfranchisement and the silencing of a younger and more diverse demographic for political gain. As Neil Levesque, executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College notes, Hanover is probably already the most liberal town in New Hampshire. I have no illusions of a blue wave in a place that is already as blue as it gets. But this isn’t just about the isolated efforts of Dartmouth students. This is about the combined efforts of the often-overlooked demographics of college students in rural regions and small towns, bringing a wave of activism ripple outward instead of letting it carry us into metropolitan areas where these political efforts wouldn’t reverberate. I want to see posters on the Green, crowds on North Main Street, rallies in the Upper Valley, buses that transport throngs of demonstrators into Lebanon, Lyme and Canaan. Demonstrations over local and national issues in rural areas might not be as glamorous as the Women’s March in Washington D.C., and a voice crying out in the wilderness is lonelier than many voices crying out in Washington Square Park. But that’s exactly what students come here to do.
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ZACHARY BENJAMIN, Editor-in-Chief IOANA SOLOMON, Executive Editor ALEXA GREEN, Managing Editor PRODUCTION EDITORS MATTHEW BROWN & LUCY LI, Opinion Editors MARIE-CAPUCINE PINEAU-VALENCIENNE & CAROLYN ZHOU Mirror Editors NATHAN ALBRINCK, MARK CUI & SAMANTHA HUSSEY, Sports Editors JOYCE LEE, Arts Editor LILY JOHNSON & CAROLYN SILVERSTEIN, Dartbeat Editors DIVYA KOPALLE & MICHAEL LIN, Photo Editors
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ISSUE
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2018
Arielle Beak, Savannah Eller, Hannah Jinks
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.
Online degrees are an important advent, but not for Dartmouth’s model.
The landscape of American higher not count itself among this group. education is changing. Amidst already The College is fully cognizant that it offers daunting challenges in the form of rapidly more than just the facts students may retain rising tuitions, decreased funding and a from the classroom. It is likely unfeasible student debt crisis reaching its zenith, the and possibly undesirable for Dartmouth to march of technological progress is also exchange qualities integral to its educational reshaping higher education. model pursuing goals best provided by other In the past several years, online degree institutions. Where the College may engage in acquisition has expanded significantly in the the digital space, like expanding the College’s United States. Though first exclusively offered massive open online course offerings, efforts by for-profit, online-only institutions, then should be amplified. Such opportunities for community colleges, in recent years major expansion, however, are not as ample or clear non-profit colleges and universities have also at the College as they are elsewhere. expanded education into cyberspace. The The digitization of American higher for-profit University of Phoenix-Arizona now education is a rapidly increasing trend, one enrolls more than 320,000 online students, that will change how students learn and while the non-profit Liberty University and study, as well as what prospective applicants Miami Dade College enroll come to expect from their over 100,000 and 90,000 u n i ve r s i t y ex p e r i e n c e. online students respectively. “If established Dartmouth does not need Even elite universities universities are to to accommodate all of h av e b e g u n t o o f f e r experiment or adopt these shifting expectations, m o r e o n l i n e d e g r e e s. fully online degrees but it must develop cogent Columbia, Johns Hopkins, and coursework, rejoinders to justify its model Northwestern and Stanford they must be of education for those who Universities, as well as the honest about the will question the utility of University of Chicago, offer the liberal arts model in an value offered by complete online certificates age of virtual degrees. that academic and master’s degrees in T h e a bu n d a n c e o f many professional and experience.” re s o u rc e s, eve n t s a n d post-graduate fields. Yale opportunities found on University conducts online campus, the College’s touted undergraduate coursework over its summer teacher-scholar model and the opportunity to term that the university considers comparably travel the world and experience a tight-knit rigorous to the in-class experience. community of future leaders at Dartmouth Dartmouth has also waded into the field of would all be lost if students never had to online degrees. In similar fashion to Harvard’s step foot in Hanover to obtain their degree. “blended degrees,” whereby students earn Dartmouth, and any school that can offer credit in both virtual and physical courses, the its students more than just a certificate of College provides “hybrid learning” programs competency in a skill, shouldn’t sacrifice the through the Tuck School of Business and intangible and important qualities that make Institute for Health Policy and Clinical their education opportunities so valuable. Practice. If established universities are to experiment While established brick-and-mortar or adopt fully online degrees and coursework, campuses have been more reticent to offer they must be honest about the value offered by fully accredited undergraduate degrees that academic experience. Though in many online, that reality is also shifting. In cases, the education provided by an online September, the University of Pennsylvania degree is comparable to what one would learn announced it would begin offering bachelor’s in a physical setting, this would likely not be degrees through its College of Liberal and the case for any institution operating on the Professional Studies. liberal arts model. It would be a shame to The rise of online degrees is understandable. watch any respected university leverage its Online degrees and coursework are especially reputation to market an overpriced online popular in more professional and vocational degree separate from its true value. fields of study, where concrete skills or Though the landscape of American knowledge are prized most from the collegiate higher education is shifting again, recent experience. Online degrees are also much educational advents likely won’t threaten more widely available than brick-and-mortar Dartmouth’s fundamental commitments to classrooms, garnering a high rate of adoption the liberal arts. Virtual degrees are likely to among public community colleges and become an important addition to the higher universities interested in increasing access education landscape, but educators should to education. remain conscious of the limits and benefits The College and many of its peers are this new model provides. Dartmouth will far more insulated from the ramifications likewise need to further question the value of the rising digital classroom than other of the education it offers. Resting on one’s institutions. The online classroom is laurels in an era of unlimited knowledge is disrupting higher education insofar as it to be anything but informed. makes access to basic facts and teaching ubiquitous. Institutions that do not offer much The editorial board consists of opinion staff beyond rote learning will struggle in the new columnists, the opinion editors, both executive editors environment. Thankfully, Dartmouth does and the editor-in-chief.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2018
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
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Town hall discusses Thayer expansion
based on eight performance criteria. The report will become available to the public for feedback in early spring, better,” he said. He noted that, as an avid hiker, he according to Kull. The report will be due on Aug. subscribed to the “leave no trace” ethic and wanted to leave the provostship 1. During October of next year, an outside review board will visit the in a better state than he entered it. Helble then spoke about his plans campus to conduct an evaluation, as provost, saying his role will be to and Kull said he expects the results remove barriers for those seeking to be released by early 2020. Mills also commented on the resources and opportunities at the College and said he will focus on the reaccreditation process during the ways the College will use the funds meeting, noting that the chance of denial was very low. from its recent capital campaign. “We don’t think that’s a big risk, “We need to look at what the best use of the resources will be 10 to but we take this seriously and we’re working through it,” 25 years down the Mills added. road,” he said. The town H e l b l e a l s o “I have deep hall also featured fielded questions feelings for this a presentation from attendees. One by associate vice audience member institution and president for w a s c o n c e r n e d want to make it planning, design a b o u t H e l b l e ’s better.” and construction transition from his John Scherding role overseeing the on the upcoming mainly graduate- - DAVID KOTZ ’86, expansion project level Thayer School on the west side to being provost OUTGOING INTERIM of campus. Set to over a majority PROVOST start this winter, the of undergraduate project will include students. Helble new building responded by saying that over 50 percent of construction, an expansion of the undergraduates took an engineering riverside rowing complex and the class during their time at Dartmouth, restructuring of access roads to and and that engineering is often the third through the area. The Town Hall also provided an most popular undergraduate major on campus. Even so, he said he welcomed overview of two new buildings set to be completed on the west side the new challenge. “I’m in a mode of learning,” he of campus by 2021. The plan calls said. “I would characterize it as an for the construction of a computer science building, set to replace the opportunity.” Jon Kull, dean of graduate 150-car Cummings Parking lot. The and advanced studies, then gave lot spaces will be replaced by a 340a presentation on the College’s car underground parking lot included efforts to prepare for an upcoming in the building’s plan. Another new institutional review by the New building, the planned home for the England Commission of Higher Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy Education. Conducted every 10 years, and Society, will be located at the east with an interim report submitted every end of Tuck Drive. Other features of the project five years, the NECHE accreditation process is a self-regulatory, peer- include temporarily closing Thayer reviewed evaluation based on Drive for improvements and opening standards created by the New England Old Tuck drive as a one-way, eastAssociation of Schools and Colleges. bound access road. “That will be a new traffic cut While a voluntary and nongovernment evaluation process, through, if you will, and a new way NECHE accreditation can mean to avoid traffic in town,” Scherding the approval or denial of annual said. The project will also necessitate the applications for federal funds, according to Kull, who heads the closing of several parking lots on the steering committee responsible for west side for construction. Temporary lots with shuttle service will receive compiling a report for review. “It’s kind of like a driver’s license overflow. “We recognize this is an is voluntary, unless you get pulled over by the police,” he said during inconvenience, but it really is necessary for this construction,” he said. the presentation. According to Scherding, the Dartmouth’s last interim report was submitted to the NECHE in 2015. project’s main goal is to make the area To prepare for the reaccreditation more walkable. “The longterm intention for the process in the fall of next year, the steering committee is compiling a West community is for it to be a self evaluation report on the College pedestrian campus,” he said. FROM TOWN HALL PAGE 1
MARISA STANCROFF/THE DARTMOUTH
Interim provost David Kotz ’86 spoke at Wednesday’s town hall to an audience of over 150 community members.
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THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2018
DARTMOUTHEVENTS TODAY
3:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
Lecture: “Brazil’s Sisyphean Election,” with Brown University professor Andre Pagliarini, Rockefeller 002
8:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.
Film: “Dawnland,” directed by Adam Mazo, sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts, Loew Auditorium, Black Family Visual Arts Center
8:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Public astronomical observing, sponsored by the physics and astronomy department, Shattuck Observatory
TOMORROW
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Hanover HopStop: “Jeh Kulu African Drum and Dance Theater,” sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts, Alumni Hall
1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Opera: “Samson et Dalila,” sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts, Loew Auditorium, Black Family Visual Arts Center
7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Film: “Searching,” directed by Aneesh Shaganty, sponsored by Hopkins Center for the Arts, Loew Auditorium, Black Family Visual Arts Center
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THE DARTMOUTH ARTS
Review: ‘Eating Animals’ is a crucial look at agricultural industry By COURTNEY MCKEE The Dartmouth
“Eating Animals” is an important film. Based on the 2009 book of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer, the documentary explores the subject of the American agricultural industry, a topic that’s often neglected in public discussions, and focuses on the highly troubling issue of the factory farming of poultry and livestock. It is a system whose bread and butter, so to speak, is the brutal and barbaric abuse of animals. However, it is one thing to know this as a fact, but it is an entirely different thing to see it happen. The film starts out at a small-scale, independent poultry farm in Linsborg, Kansas, run by a passionate, godfearing man named Frank Reese who has loved chickens all his life. He runs his farm according to the traditional methods of poultry raising laid out in a myriad of dusty, leather-bound books he keeps in his house. His hens move freely in their large pen, pecking amiably at the hand-thrown seeds, laying variegated eggs and growing proud, full plumes of feathers. This is farming as it was, and, as the film ultimately argues, as it should be. It is not, however, how it is. In an attempt to answer the pertinent question of how we got to where we are,
the film launches into an educational history of the development of factory farming, as narrated in the sedative voice of Natalie Portman who is one of the film’s producers. These elegiac interludes occur periodically throughout the film, and while they do not take away from the overall narrative, their persuasive strength fluctuates from heartrending to somewhat hackneyed. Whether these interludes are absolutely necessary to the film are for the viewers to decide. The film revolves around human stories, from farmers to activist groups to whistleblowers, that have all been impacted by the industry in some way. These carefully selected stories from diverse perspectives provide viewers with multiple narratives that do not emphasize a single solution, such as vegetarianism, but instead forces people to examine the choices they make in their everyday lives. The film ultimately has the most impact when the viewer is given the specifics of the various characters and their struggle, rather than vague insight into unexplained family drama, as with the case of Dr. Jim Keen, a whistleblower who broke a story on inhumane experiments done on animals in U.S. government labs. The documentary uses powerful juxtaposition to structure its discussion, moving fluidly from Reese’s healthy,
clucking chickens to the deformed and ragged flock of Craig Watts, a farmer who was tricked into a contract with Perdue Farms to produce what would have been an impossibly high quantity of chickens if not for the growth hormones packed into the corporation-approved feed. These animals are made to grow so fast and gain so much fat that they would, in human terms, amount to a two-month old baby weighing 600 pounds. The chickens can hardly stand on their two, sometimes three or four, feet. They are in constant pain and have no space to move their barely functional appendages, being tightly stuffed into Watts’ four chicken houses. Such images are where the documentary does its most effective and persuasive work. The clips of diseased cows lying on their flanks on a slimy factory floor, howling to communicate a suffering they cannot verbalize, do not need narration, nor music, nor explanation. They stand on their own, a testament to the atrocities most of us are complicit in every day. While the documentary is thoroughly researched, well-organized and decidedly informative, it is almost as though it only needs to show these videos in order to prove its case. Still, the film tackles logos just as forcefully as pathos. Rick Dove’s story is introduced for just that purpose. In
1993, he sought to uncover the source of the pollution of his local river in North Carolina. He found it in the “hog lagoons” of nearby factory farms, or dirt-lined pools filled to the brim with pig excrement that leaks up tree roots, down into the soil and finally into waterways. Factory farms are merciless, not just to the well-being of animals, but to the robustness of the environment. Likewise, the filthy and crowded conditions of the farms create the perfect breeding ground for fresh strains of bacteria and viruses, which become ever more resistant because of the antibiotics constantly injected into the animals against all scientific advice. And in turn, these animals serve as vectors for these new diseases in humans when they are consumed as meat. The film warns that a pandemic akin to 1918’s Spanish Influenza is coming our way due to the reckless practices of factory farms. Unlike the moral concerns of animal welfare, which some people might brush away with an argument about food security or the inherent soullessness of such lowly beasts, practical concerns of poisoned waterways and modern-day plagues are not so easily dismissed. This speaks to the breadth and depth of the evidence provided by the documentary in support of its argument. The film ends, as many issue-
based documentaries do, on a more positive note, about the resolve of independent farmers to preserve traditional agricultural practices as well as the promising growth of the plant-based food industry. However, this final message of optimism was not intended to make viewers believe all will be alright, as the issue is multi-faceted, complex and reaches the highest levels of government. “Eating Animals” is an important film simply because of the problem it undertakes, one so germane and omnipresent that it cannot possibly be overstated. There will never be too many documentaries made or books written or campaigns publicized until our modern agricultural system is uprooted and reformed. In the darkness perpetuated by agribusinesses that lobby the U.S. government, films like this documentary become a lighthouse. Agricultural-Gag laws affirm that anyone who documents what goes on inside a protected factory farm is liable to be sued by the corporation. As such, this issue goes to the core of the question of freedom, whose bedrock is knowledge and choice. I sincerely hope that anyone who gets the chance to watch this film takes it. And I believe that to take what it says to heart and home is on the shortlist of the best, small things you can do for this world.
Review: ‘Sharp Objects’ revives the Midwestern Gothic tradition By JORDAN MCDONALD The Dartmouth Staff
Airing in July this past summer, HBO’s “Sharp Objects,” an adaption of “Gone Girl” author Gillian Flynn’s book of the same name, sets out to remind its audience of what is unique to the identity of the Midwestern United States and what is possible within the supposedly limited format of the miniseries. Following the story of St. Louis Chronicle journalist Camille Preaker, played by Amy Adams, “Sharp Objects” takes its audience on the journey of an investigative reporter who must vanquish her own demons while hunting down others. Assigned to report on a murder and a series of child disappearances in rural Missouri, Camille is forced to return to the fictional town of Wind Gap, Missouri, the hometown she had long left behind. A small town a few miles north of Tennessee, Wind Gap is divided between the haves and the have-nots, or as Camille puts it, “your trash and your old money.” Previously known for its hog farming and butchery industry, Wind Gap has been devastated by major economic shifts and its growing morbid reputation. With her own history and baggage, Camille returns to Wind Gap with palpable apprehension. Wind Gap authorities and old-money elites like Camille’s mother, Adora Crellin (Patricia Clarkson), are openly hostile
to the investigation of their beloved community. Camille’s presence brings backs old memories and threatens the world sustained in her absence Injecting the show with a sense of urgency and tension, the turbulent and disturbing relationship between Camille and her mother acts as an allegory for the kind of rejection and consumption that informed Camille’s life as a young girl. As a teenager, Camille witnessed the slow death of her younger sister who was overtaken by a chronic illness. The trauma of losing her sibling is only exacerbated by the strain it put on her already troublesome relationship with her mother. Adora, who has since remarried and had Camille’s half-sister Amma (Eliza Scanlen), still struggles to incorporate Camille in her life. A powerful matriarch who exercises absolute control over her daughters, Adora is most fond of those who submit to her authority. For her routine failure to do so, Camille is often on the receiving end of her mother’s frustration and ire. Unflappable and independent, Camille has grown into a young woman with an iron resolve but deep physical and emotional wounds. Struggling with self-harm, attempted suicide and substance abuse, Camille has spent her time away in St. Louis fighting to keep her ghosts at bay. Her return to the town that haunts her forces her to dance with relapse as she tries to find out who killed one young girl before the second missing
girl turns up dead. Throughout the show, Camille’s family home rests at the center of her personal history, but as the narrative unravels it begins to seem as though all roads in Wind Gap lead back to Adora’s mansion. In the episode “Closer,” Adora hosts the inaugural Calhoun Day celebration in the midst of Camille’s investigation. A town holiday that honors the sacrifices of fictional Confederate soldier, Zeke Calhoun, and his young bride, Millie, who endured rape by Union troops to protect the soldiers of Wind Gap, Calhoun Day reveals the racial and patriarchal roots of the town’s own folklore, and explain why it proves to be inhospitable to the full humanity of young girls even centuries later. Interested in questions of gender performance, vulnerability and power, “Sharp Objects” makes a point of centering the realities of Wind Gap womanhood. For young girls, the show asserts that Wind Gap can be a stifling place for self-expression. Steeped in respectability and small-town decorum, each generation of young women learns to resist in their own particular way. For most of the women in Wind Gap, secrets and sweetness are the weapons of choice. With sharp tongues and complex social networks, their dark side to feminine pleasantries give the show a distinct sugar coating. In the end, some female characters even rise as primary
suspects in the ever-intensifying murder mystery. Over the course of eight episodes, “Sharp Objects” constructs an elaborate world and textured characters in order to bear witness to their de-evolution. Despite the dynamic performances of its cast, Adam’s performance as Camille is upstaged only by the massive character presence of the show’s geography. The Midwest and the state of Missouri itself emerges as a character, running parallel to the psychological drama of Wind Gap. Providing added texture to the show, geography and regional specificity assist in arguing on behalf of the story and its character’s positions in the world. Since the Missouri Compromise in 1820, Missouri has long occupied a liminal status in the nation’s history. A state with a history of slavery and Confederate secession, Missouri sits at an intersection of ideas regarding the “progress” of western expansion and the spirit of the South’s plantation-based economies. This intermediary history informs the show’s Midwestern imagery. In Wind Gap, industrial production has slowed and 19th century gendered and racialized hierarchies are intact and face little opposition. Articulating the essence of a national interlocutor, “Sharp Objects” imagines Wind Gap as a place that time forgot. This Midwest is distinctive in its angst and gothic narratives of isolation. Here, the region is one made by conflicts
between rich whites and poor whites, the North and the South, economic devastation, social depression and rural austerity. When Camille describes her family as “trash from old money,” she situates herself within this context explicitly, but the plot devices, props and set design arguably do more to paint a picture of exactly where Wind Gap is geographically, socially and culturally located than Camille ever could. The large plantation home passed down to Adora is perhaps the show’s most effective geographical prop. A true home body, Adora asserts her family’s relation to Wind Gap by comporting herself as a woman of high tastes and class, and her home is her prized testament. Adora gushes over her DeGournay wallpaper, lavish landscape paintings and ivory finishings. She does not live alone, but the house is undeniably hers, and everything in it is an artifact of lost status. Resisting association with the immaculate house’s furnishings, Adora’s black housekeeper Gayla (Emily Yancy) appears in seven of the show’s eight episodes and is the only black character in Wind Gap. Though she has few lines, her presence is blaring, effective and haunting. As she takes orders for family meals and glides through the house with familiarity, she calls us to remember where the show is and whose story is being told. “Sharp Objects” is not Gayla’s story. There are no black girls in Wind Gap.
TODAY’S TODAY’S LINEUP LINEUP
SPORTS Griffith’s Got Stats with Evan Griffith ’18
Grif fith’s Got Stats: The (Hopeful) Future Rise of the Oakland Raiders I admittedly am a bit angry writing this column. I was planning on writing an NFL column for this upcoming Sunday and throwing in some information on the matchups I thought were interesting, with possibly a bit of fantasy advice. However, I’ll be writing something that hits closer to home than in the past, more so than Syracuse losing to Clemson a few Saturdays ago. The Oakland Raiders are a bad football team this year, but not for the reasons fans and the media are telling you. I, as one of the approximately two Raiders fans who hail from upstate New York, feel compelled to spread some truth about this team for which I have a love-hate relationship; some truth that the media feels compelled to avoid for the sake of narrative. There’s always been some anti-Raider bias in the sports media. The great teams from the 1970s were filled with hard hitters and castoffs from other teams, and Al Davis was an owner who didn’t come from money. He worked his way up from head coach to general manager to principal owner, all while breaking through diversity barriers. In 1963, in protest of Alabama’s segregation laws, Davis refused to allow a preseason game to be played in Alabama and demanded the game be moved to Oakland, while refusing to allow his players to travel to other cities for games where black and white players were required to stay in separate hotels. Davis also was the first NFL owner to hire an African American head coach and a female chief executive, and the second to hire a Latino head coach. The Raiders were different,
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and that’s what drew me to them. Fast forward to 2018 and things are looking bleak. Mark Davis, Al’s son, has hired former Raiders coach and longtime Monday Night Football color commentator Jon Gruden to revitalize the team after a 6-10 2017 season with a 10-year contract. What was Gruden’s first major move to provide some energy? Trading two-time All-Pro and former Defensive Player of the Year Khalil Mack to the Chicago Bears for two first-round draft picks. Wait, what? Fans were upset. I was confused. The media was all over the story. Chicago signed Mack to a six-year, $141 million contract, making him the highest-paid defensive player in NFL history. People didn’t know what to think. Now, with the Raiders at 1-5 (!) and the team losing their last two games by a combined score of 13-53, things are already starting to look dire. The team made the playoffs two years ago — how could they fall so far so quickly? It’s easier to explain than it seems, and it offers some hope for the future. After Al Davis died in 2011, former Green Bay Packers director of football operations Reggie McKenzie was hired as the Raiders’ first General Manager since Al, who held the position at the same time as he was the owner. The Raiders were in cap hell at the time and were paying too much money to older players. McKenzie’s strength with the Raiders was fixing this cap trouble. He promptly cut or traded the players whose performance didn’t match the contract they were given and began building through the draft and through free agents on one-year “prove it” deals. After some disappointing seasons, by 2015 the team started to show improvement. Draftees Mack, quarterback Derek Carr and receiver Amari Cooper all showed improvement, and with fantastic free agent signings like offensive lineman Rodney Hudson and receiver Michael Crabtree, Oakland went 7-9 in 2015 and made the playoffs in 2016, losing in the first round after Carr broke his leg in Week 16 of that season. In 2017, expectations were higher than ever for the Raiders. However, this is where things started to go downhill. The team would finish 6-10 and people started to question head coach Jack Del Rio’s ability to coach. He was fired after the last game of the season. So why has Gruden’s tenure been so poor so far? It’s not because
of the coaching, as some media personalities want you to think, and trading Mack may have been a good move looking forward. First, Oakland’s roster going into 2018 stunk. Even in 2016, when the team had Mack and Irvin on the edge, the defense had a noticeable lack of talent. Even with Mack, the Raiders defense ranked 32nd, 22nd, 20th and 20th in points allowed the seasons Mack was with the team. (This year they rank 28th.) And on the offensive line, the team’s tackles were miles behind the interior. Going into 2018, left tackle Donald Penn was hurt, going on 35 years old and never quite as good as he was made out to be. Because of this deficiency in the line, Carr’s offensive scheme over the past few years was designed to throw quick strikes from spread sets to get the ball out before the tackles could get beat. This was a good strategy by offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave, which led the team to the playoffs and obviously led to him getting fired at the end of 2016. It’s just as confusing to read as it is to comprehend.
M TENNIS INVITATIONAL 1:00 P.M.
Gruden, unlike Del Rio, knew that being sent to IR and the team lacks Carr needed a competent offensive a competent backup. line to play as well as he did in 2018, So, with Gruden “taking control” so he spent his first and third-round of the team’s personnel decisions draft pick on offensive linemen. from McKenzie by drafting who he Part of the team’s struggles can thinks will help the team — another be attributed to media narrative these two picks “With four first round — how will this playing earlier picks in the next two affect the team than they should going forward? be and forcing years, a coaching staff Another case Carr under too with some continuity where this much pressure. happened When Carr gets for the next 10 years was with Bill uncomfortable, and a fresh start in Las Belichick. he tends to get Vegas coming up soon, Robert Kraft jittery in the essentially gave p o c k e t a n d I’ll be looking to the him control h a s t y i n h i s future.” of per sonnel progression decisions when reads, which he was named makes sense head coach. He because of his leg injury. First-round went 5-11 his first season and we pick Kolton Miller shut down Von all know what happened next. With Miller and the Denver Broncos’ pass four first round picks in the next two rush in Week 2, but his play has years, a coaching staff with some suffered as he’s been playing through continuity for the next 10 years and a knee injury. Third-rounder a fresh start in Las Vegas coming up Brandon Parker wasn’t supposed soon, I’ll be looking to the future. to start, but he is with Donald Penn Just win baby.
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football ranking in the Football Championship Subdivision Coaches’ Poll
points over Army West Point by women’s rugby in its 26-20 win to remain undefeated on the season
women’s basketball ranking in the Ivy League preseason poll
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sailors have been named to the NEISA Coed Sailors of the Week
saves by men’s soccer goalkeeper Alex Budnik ’22 in his first career start and shutout
shots on goal by women’s soccer in the 3-1 win over Marist College