The Flat Hat February 4 2020

Vol. 109, Iss. 23 | Tuesday, February 4, 2020

The Flat Hat The Weekly Student Newspaper

of The College of William and Mary

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FINDING PURPOSE WITHIN KING’S MESSAGE

REBECCA KLINGER / THE FLAT HAT

GRAPHIC BY LULU DAWES AND CARMEN HONKER / THE FLAT HAT

Central Park Five speaker Yusef Salaam honors Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy EMMA FORD // FLAT HAT NEWS EDITOR Thursday, Jan. 30, the Center for Student Diversity, the Office of Community Values and Restorative Practices and the College of William and Mary’s Marshall-Wythe School of Law Office of Student Services hosted speaker and activist Yusef Salaam as part of their annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration event.

Three decades ago in 1989, the lives of Salaam and four other boys were changed forever. Salaam and his friend Korey Wise had decided to accompany a large group of young boys going to Central Park in New York City. Unbeknown to them, their decision sparked the beginnings of a national scandal, as well as a decades-long battle with the U.S. justice system and institutionalized racism.

On the same night, Trisha Meili, out on a late-night jog, was raped and left for dead by an attacker. The trial that followed Meili’s assault was one of the most intensely broadcasted and debated cases in New York City history, as the police and detectives falsely convicted four young black boys — one of whom was Salaam — and one Latino boy in the rape and attempted murder of Meili. The boys then spent between seven to 13 years in jail for a crime they did not commit. Salaam’s unjust imprisonment made him conscious of inequality in the United States, especially the inequality decried by King.

“I think the legacy that Dr. King gave us is to continue dreaming,” Salaam said. “Sometimes people get stuck with the idea of what his speech was without really getting into the nuts and bolts of what he was saying. I definitely woke up to the American nightmare, and when I think about my case, one of the most powerful things they were trying to get me to believe was that I shouldn’t dream at all, that I should just accept what it is that they want me to be and never think about what God created for me. Never think that I was born on purpose or with a purpose.

Never think that I had something to contribute. And so, the legacy of Dr. King for me is to know that I can live as full of life as I can so that when death comes for me that I’ll die in peace.”

Associate Director of the Center for Student Diversity Shené Owens opened the program by explaining how and why Salaam was selected as the event’s speaker. Owens told the story of how Alton Coston ’23 asked Salaam to speak, and described how he worked with Dean and Director Kimberly Weatherly to bring Salaam to campus.

“He said, ‘let’s get the exonerated five for MLK,’ and I look at them, because I know what my budget is, and I said, ‘let’s get the exonerated one,’” Owens said. “… Fast-forward a couple months later, press release comes out and Alton gives me a text; he goes,

‘you made it happen.’ … Dr. Weatherly called the law school, she calls CPRP, we got a little community fund put together, and we got one of the five.”

Coston and KeAisha House ’23 introduced Salaam and the event moderator Stephanie Walters, a television host.

“One of those boys, Yusef Salaam was only 15 years old at the time his life was upended and changed forever,” Coston said.

“Since his release, Yusef has committed himself to advocating and educating people on the issues of false confessions, police brutality, misconduct, press ethics and bias, race and disparities and the American justice and the youth system.”

The conversation started by discussing King’s legacy and Salaam’s thoughts on King’s message and activism. Salaam discussed how he looks up to King and how amazed he is by the struggles God places on people.

“I think that struggle is the beautiful thing about life, you know,” Salaam said. “When you are called to before God, that you are going to be able to stand with your head held high having lived a life of significance. The thing is that when we look at Dr. King’s life, he points the way telling us that he may not get to the See SALAAM page 3

CAMPUS

College announces solar power agreement with Dominion Energy Renewable energy sources will supply approximately 50 percent of campus electricity ALEXANDRA BYRNE FLAT HAT STAFF WRITER

The College of William and Mary announced a power purchase agreement last week that aims to source roughly 50 percent of the College’s electricity from renewable sources. The agreement with Dominion Energy positions the College to source the greatest percentage of renewable energy of any public university in the state.

This announcement comes following the College’s commitment to carbon neutrality by 2030, a promise made in conjunction with the

Index Profile News Opinions Variety

Sports

University of Virginia in December 2019.

Strata Solar developed the 20 MWac project and will install the solar facility on a farm in James City County. Strata Solar, a commercial solar company based in Durham, North Carolina, has installed numerous solar projects across Virginia. The facility will be operated

by Dominion Energy and is estimated to begin producing solar energy by 2021 according to the College’s press release.

The agreement is one of the largest steps thus far in implementing the College’s Sustainability Plan for the Fiscal Years 2019-2024. This plan,

which was released in late 2018, identifies a series of commitments the College pledged to fulfill in the categories of Campus Culture and Institutions, Academics and Engagement, Energy and Climate and Operations. This latest announcement seems to target two commitments to explore the “feasibility of sourcing grid-scale renewable energy for the campus by 2020” and “pilot a solar panel installation on the campus by 2020,” according to the plan.

“This agreement is in line with the commitment to explore the feasibility of grid-scale renewables by 2020, it is right on time if not early,” Director of the

Inside Opinions 2 3-4 5-6 7-8 9-10

See SOLAR PANELS page 4

Inside Variety

Jefferson flooding affects student wellness, sparks criticism

Cloudy High 69, Low 53

Office of Sustainability Calandra Waters Lake said.

Waters Lake is optimistic that this agreement will succeed in its long-term objectives.

“More than a step, this is a leap toward carbon neutrality,” Waters Lake said in an email. “Our largest source of carbon emissions is electricity, but this agreement allows us to address half of those emissions in one swoop and holds the potential to reduce the university’s costs.”

Samantha Moore, Dominion Energy’s communications specialist, discussed the

Alyssa Slovin ’22 says that Jefferson Hall’s recent flooding poses health and safety risks to students, and provides insight into the College’s priorities. page 6

Last but not yeast

Professor Helen Murphy discusses her experiments with single-celled yeast. As an assistant professor, she has risen to the occasion of studying how a normally happy microbe can become a pathogen. page 7

The Flat Hat

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newsinsight “

News Editor Charles Coleman News Editor Leslie Davis News Editor Emma Ford fhnews@gmail.com | Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020 | Page 2

THE BUZZ

It means nothing really, but it would be interesting if we could get in contact with the individual so he could tell us what he was doing there, what it was like. He was really on the wall, literally chipping away the thing. That is an experience only a few will have.

— Professor Frederick Corney on the College’s gear seen at the Berlin Wall

NEWS IN BRIEF Kaplan Arena Renovation The College of William and Mary announced renovation plans for campus athletics facilities Sat. Feb 1. The revitalization entails the construction of a new Sports Performance Center, which will include enhanced resources for treating athletic injuries. As part of the plan’s $57 million funding package, Kaplan Arena will also be overhauled to feature a new student section, a new entrance and lobby and improvements to concession stands. Construction is expected to begin in fall 2020 and will conclude by fall 2022.

Jefferson Hall Flooding Jefferson Hall experienced several water valve breaks this past weekend causing the building’s basement and ground floors to flood. Immediately following the incident on Saturday night ServPro was called in to assist in the removal of water, soaked rugs and towels along with the installation of fans. No one was injured as a result of the incident, however certain residents of the rooms directly affected have been asked to temporarily relocate while Residence Life, Facilities Management, and the Environment Health and Safety staff remediate any related damages. Cleanup and repair efforts should take around one week to complete. This includes the removal of impacted rooms and hallways’ base boards so that small weep holes can be drilled into the lower wall to aid in air circulation and drying.

“We are working diligently to ensure everything gets back to normal as quickly as possible,” William and Mary Director of News and Media Suzanne Clavet said.

NEWS IN BRIEF BY ETHAN BROWN AND SARAH GREENBERG / THE FLAT HAT

A THOUSAND WORDS

KARINA VIZZONI / THE FLAT HAT

CORRECTIONS An article in the January 27 issue, “For the Bold Campaign nears goal in final year,” incorrectly stated the campaign was nearly $30,000 under it’s goal. The campaign was actually $30 million under it’s goal.

The Flat Hat wishes to coreect any fact printed incorrectly.

Corrections may be submitted in email to the editor of the section in which the incorrect information was printed. Requests for corrections will be accepted at any time.

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Conducting surgery, crafting policy Tanner Braman ’20 prepares to speak at College’s 327th annual Charter Day PHILLIP SCHUELER FLAT HAT STAFF WRITER

Tanner Braman ’20 will address the College of William and Mary community Friday, Feb. 7, as part of the 2020 Charter Day ceremonies.

Each year, the university selects a student who represents the values of the College to address the student body, faculty, staff and alumni gathered for the annual ceremony.

Charter Day commemorates the royal charter that established the College in 1693 and is considered the College’s birthday. This year’s Charter Day Ceremony will mark 327 years since the College’s founding.

Braman is a double major in chemistry and international relations, and was selected from a competitive pool of applicants to speak at the ceremony. Throughout his time in Williamsburg, Braman has made exceptional contributions to the university’s community. Braman served as a President’s Aide with College’s former Presidents Taylor Reveley III and Katherine Rowe. He has also served in the Queens’ Guard, worked as a resident assitant and conducted research as a research assistant.

After learning that he was to speak at this year’s Charter Day Ceremony, Braman said he was both surprised and elated by the news.

“I was pretty excited,” Braman said. “I may have gone over to an empty stairwell and given a whoop or a holler. It means a lot to me to be able to do this and it was just quite exciting to receive an opportunity and an honor like this that also I didn’t expect to have.”

Braman said the message he wants to convey in his speech is how to translate one’s overarching vision for the future into everyday action.

“I think for me it was that I see a lot of us kind of struggling with what we want to do in life and what we want out of life, and the message that I wanted to put across was that even if we don’t have some grand idea of how we can give back, we can give back in little ways and little instances by our everyday actions and our everyday choices,” Braman said.

Braman is originally from Seattle and came to the College to experience a different part of the country . When asked about his inner motivations and drive to succeed, Braman said he views himself as answering a call.

“I see life as a challenge for us,” Braman said. “When I think about what I want out of life or what I want to accomplish in life, I think that that’s the wrong question actually. I think the more appropriate question is, what does life want out of you. I think we can kind of hint at what the answer might be given our opportunities, and the way that you answer the question is by making something out of those opportunities or by exercising those opportunities, by making all that you can or making something of them. … For me, I want to meet that challenge. I want to give what I have out of respect to the opportunities that I’ve received.”

Braman has had a long-standing interest in emergency medicine.

Braman said one of his dreams has been to become a trauma surgeon, a desire he traces back to watching television with his family.

“It was actually watching ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ with my mom and my sister,” Braman said. “There was a trauma surgeon on there and I didn’t know what a trauma surgeon was. … I asked my mom what is a trauma surgeon … and she told me that a trauma surgeon is kind of like the rocket scientist of the medical field. Whether or not that’s absolutely true, I don’t know, but that intrigued me, initially. I am quite interested in physiology and anatomy. …

I think that the human body is just a miraculous thing.”

Braman said one of his favorite parts of his tenure at the College so far was spending a semester in Washington, D.C. while interning for congressman and fellow Seattle native Rep. Adam Smith.

“One of the big things I took away from that is that on the opposite side of surgery or emergency medicine was that policy is a another really good way to make a difference in someone’s life,” Braman said. “But it is intangible, it’s obscure. You have the opportunity to affect thousands ... federal level, but the policymakers are fairly removed from those individuals and from seeing on a day-to-day basis how that plays out. … I’ve recognized that policy is another very powerful way, in fact, potentially more powerful because you can affect more people, but it’s just less tangible and it’s less certain, the good that you are doing for other people.”

Despite the differences between his two majors, Braman said he views his interest in both disciplines as stemming from his desire to make a positive impact on people’s lives.

“I think chemistry and international relations are quite disparate,” Braman said.

“In fact, that’s something that I’ve enjoyed about them because if I have a class in economics or government at one point in the day and I have a class in chemistry or biology or something else in the latter part of the day, I can think in different ways. In what they would lead to for me, both can end up contributing to making a difference to someone’s life. Both definitely require a systems approach. The systems are less finite, they’re less predictable, far less predictable on the international relations side, but we still develop theories to explain how the world works.”

Braman said that the relationships he has built at the College will be one of the most memorable experiences he will take with him once he graduates.

“It’s been … really just building relationships and having the chance to learn from and be inspired by my peers here,” Braman said. “The day-to-day interactions or the day-to-day conversations over the dinner table or over breakfast, coffee, whatever it is, especially developing these ideas of how best we live our lives, how best do we comport ourselves and seek to make life better, for ourselves and for others.”

When asked to condense the message of his speech to several sentences, Braman said that everyone faces choices in their everyday lives, and the outcome of our largest hopes and dreams depends on our responses to these small choices and opportunities.

“In everything we do, every opportunity that we have, we have a choice,” Braman said. “We can either choose what we want for ourselves, or we can choose something that hopefully will contribute to something greater than ourselves, and that plays out in so many little opportunities throughout the day, throughout the week, and they matter, because it’s those little things that build up to the big things that we always think about, that we always recognize. … It’s through the diligent struggle that we have, choosing the right thing, or exercising to the fullest the little opportunities that we have.”

Page 3

The Flat Hat

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

CAMPUS

Footage shows alumnus present at historic event

Students discover the College's name seen at the fall of the Berlin Wall GRACE OLSEN FLAT HAT STAFF WRITER

Last semester, College of William and Mary history professor Frederick Corney and his students discovered a man clad in a green crewneck sweater in a film showing the 1989 collapse of the Berlin Wall.

The man, whose sweater had “William & Mary” emblazoned on the front in white lettering, became the subject of a coordinated effort to uncover his identity and determine how he came to participate in this historical moment.

From 1945 to 1991, Western Europe and Eastern Europe were separated by the Iron Curtain.

The Iron Curtain represented a theoretical divide between the democratic, capitalist countries and communist regimes, but in some cases, it manifested itself in physical barriers between West and East. Its most well-known embodiment was the Berlin Wall, which split Berlin in two distinct portions for almost three decades.

While standing, the Berlin Wall seemed impregnable.

“Back then, there was no prospect that the wall would ever be gone,” Corney said.

Caroline Prout ’22 was the first student to speak up when she noticed the unknown man in the film.

In one of the upper corners of a specific shot, he can be seen smiling and leaning back against others on top of the wall, which was in the process of being torn down to reunite East and West Germany.

Since noticing the man, Corney and his students connected with the College’s communication team, which publicized their findings and encouraged students or faculty members with potential ties to the man to contribute any pertinent information.

“We got about six or seven responses from alumni absolutely certain that this was the person and that they knew the person,” Corney said. “So the university alumni affairs reached out to see, turns out it was not the individual. Our leads have gone cold.”

Unsuccessful searches aside, the film discovery sparked discussions of counterculture and its relevance among College alumni and current students.

“I know the leads have gone cold, but Corney’s stories and knowledge are still exciting,” Prout said. “He is a really good storyteller. I’ve never been to Berlin, but I have heard him talk about it and seen film from the time.”

Corney, an English native, spent four years in Germany working as a translator in Frankfurt. Through his work and professional obligations, Corney said he found himself often making trips to Berlin to visit friends and facing the wrath of Checkpoint Charlie,

COURTESY PHOTO / WM.EDU

The original image captured by professor Corney's class depicts a young unknown man, sitting on the Berlin Wall, wearing the College's sweatshirt.

the famous sector of the wall between East and West Berlin where individuals could cross.

“We would go in through the East, through Checkpoint Charlie, which is always a very odd experience,” Corney said.

“Back then it was the Cold War border;, you had to go through a barrier. First you would show the guards your passport and papers and then they asked questions, for no reason really, mostly just to harass travelers.”

At the end of World War II, Berlin became an oasis for the young. Striking club culture and extraordinarily vibrant pop culture flocked young people to the city and brought artists to the city’s center, creating an atmosphere of rebelliousness and counterculture that contributed to the jubilatory collapse of the Berlin Wall seen in the film.

Ryan Posthumus ’22 said that Berlin’s young population is visible in Corney’s film and is exemplified in the young, smiling faces of individuals shown tearing down the wall.

“Still remnant of the Cold War, is very much a young city,” Posthumus said.

Posthumus and Corney agreed that Berlin’s counterculture is still present, and Posthumus expressed his interest in continuing to try discovering the man’s unknown identity.

In years past, Corney has brought students to the former site of the wall. The wall’s former standing place is now lined with cobblestone.

“When the wall came down, I of course was in the United States,” Corney said. “So, my experience of the fall of the wall, is really the same as experience of the fall. I show them the same clips I saw when the wall fell.”

Corney and his students believe making contact with the unknown man could give them better insight into the zeitgeist of the time. However, the fact that the current leads ran dry has not deterred them in any way.

“It means nothing really, but it would be interesting if we could get in contact with this individual so he could tell us what he was doing there, what it was like,” Corney said. “He was really on the wall, literally chipping away the thing. That is an experience only a few will ever have.”

CAMPUS

Center for Student Diversity hosts talk for MLK remembrance Central Park Five member falsely accused of assault, encourages students to dream mountain top with us, you know what I’m saying, but letting us know that we are going to get there someday — letting us know that we too can, walking into the future.”

Dialogue then shifted into a discussion around the false arrest and conviction of Salaam and the other four boys, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Wise. Walters referenced the Netflix television show “When They See Us” as a key factor in bringing the case into modern conversations.

Salaam discussed his experience relieving that time period through the series, stating that the experience was traumatic. He said he initially sat down with the show’s writers around breakfast time, and finished eight hours later only to realize that any time had passed.

“It was such a relief to talk this story through from the very beginning to the very end and for it to be captured,” Salaam said.

Salaam explained that the show made him and the other boys, now men, feel proud of sharing their story.

He said he has been amazed by the public’s response and was impressed by how people rallied behind the show when it was released.

“It’s continuing to have this snowball affect where this movement has started,” Salaam said. “And the movement of being able to change the world, and the movement of being able to know that you can live on purpose — that’s what this is. So we needed all of that, we needed to be broken, we needed to be built back up, we needed to be restored, we needed to be able to be seen as having a life of significance. What did it all mean? Did we go through all of that for nothing? And why?”

As the show was being written and produced, Salaam recalled a time when Oprah Winfrey asked him a question he often gets: how did he get through this experience?

Salaam talked of turning to prayer to help him get through his sentence during his time in prison. He also began writing a book of poems titled “Words of a Man: My Right to Be.” Salaam read aloud a piece of his writing to answer Winfrey’s question.

“The Central Park jogger case is actually a love story between God and his people,” Salaam said. “It’s a story of a criminal system of injustice placed on trial and turned on its side in order to produce a miracle in modern time. It’s a story of how a people can be brought low only to rise because the truth can never stay buried.

Of a people buried alive forgotten, the system forgotten recedes. And instead of a social death, we emerge like a phoenix, from the ashes, because as they built the fire to consume us, they forgot the owner of the heat.”

Salaam explained that beyond his friend Wise, he did not know the boys he was locked up in jail with. He mentioned that Wise wouldn’t have been picked up

by the police had he not gone down to the station to protect Salaam.

After learning Wise was 16, officers realized he could be interrogated without an adult present, which Salaam recalled resulted in Wise being beaten by the police into a false confession. He then remembered that the detectives had entered Salaam’s room and threaten him by saying he was next to be beaten.

“Korey then goes to prison, wanting to have my back, and he ends up freeing us all,” Salaam said. “He ends up being strong enough to deny himself to go before a parole board anymore; why go through this.

We already know what the outcome's going to be. … He said, ‘if they don’t want to hear my truth, I don’t want to waste my time.’”

During his time in prison, Wise ran into the real perpetrator of the Central Park jogger case, Matias Reyes, and after that interaction, Reyes decided to confess to the crime. Wise was subsequently released, but it took over a decade for the boys to then receive a $41 million settlement from the state of New York.

Salaam hopes that his story can be an example to all young people. He joked how at the time, if someone had said the word “Miranda” to him, he would think they were talking about a girl in his class, rather than denoting his constitutional right to remain silent.

“I said to Korey, ‘look man, I’m just going to go the cops,’” Salaam said. “I know that I didn’t do anything wrong and you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just going to go to the cops and tell them what I saw. I’ll be home before my mom gets back. I end up coming home almost seven years later. He ends up coming home almost 14 years later.”

He explained that when Reyes confessed, the police and detectives on the case were reluctant to admit to their mistake, instead creating a new hypothesis that Reyes was the sixth perpetrator.

“I want folks to understand two things,” Salaam said. “One, that we were 14, 15, 16-year-old children, that we were still babies. The other is that the real perpetrator, because they got stuck with that mistake, was allowed to commit more crimes. That’s what we have to consider.”

Walters then asked Salaam what his thoughts were on President Donald Trump taking out four full-page ads in different New York City newspapers, calling for the death penalty to be reinstated for the trial of the boys back when they were first accused.

In response to her question, Salaam reached into his briefcase and pulled out Trump’s advertisement. He also read aloud a letter that was sent to him, telling him to watch his back at all times because he would never know when someone would be there ready to get rid of him.

“

We needed all of that, we needed to be broken, we needed to be restored, we needed to be able to be seen as having a life of significance.

“

SALAAM from page 1

— Yusef Salaam

FEELIN’

“We live in two Americas: separate and unequal,” Salaam said. “Somebody didn’t just write to the daily news and times and say ‘hey, can you just put this in the paper?’ This was created; somebody thought about this, somebody sat down and planned this. What you don’t know is that in 1989, there were over 400 articles written about us within the first two weeks. This was a tsunami that we were not supposed to survive. On the heels of that and in conjunction with it, they published our names, photographs and addresses in New York City newspapers. And then you have Donald Trump’s ad. This right here is a whisper into the darkest enclaves of society. That you could do to us that they had done to Emmett Till.”

Salaam ended the discussion by emphasizing that God lets people struggle to build them into the people they need to be in the future, and to be strong enough for what they will need to face one day.

“You will not leave this earth until your mission is finished,” Salaam said. “And that’s the beauty of life."

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Tuesday, Februrary 4, 2020

SPEAKER

Panel talks transatlantic affairs amid Brexit

Political turmoil, ambivalence towards Europe guides discussion ETHAN BROWN FLAT HAT MANAGING EDITOR

Tuesday, Jan. 28, the College of William and Mary hosted a collaborative panel discussion on the future of U.S.-British-European relations. The talk, which was co-sponsored by the Reves Center for International Studies and the Washington D.C.-based U.S.-Europe Alliance, sought to contextualize Brexit by analyzing other trends in European affairs and predict the United States’ role in future conversations regarding the European Union.

After three and a half years of parliamentary negotiations and global press coverage, the United Kingdom formally left the EU Friday, Jan. 31. The UK’s departure marks the beginning of an uncertain future in Europe, which the four panelists analyzed using their unique career backgrounds. Executive director of the U.S.-Europe Alliance Executive Director Scott Cullinane introduced the panelists by warning that decades of cooperation between the United States. and European countries does not guarantee effective collaboration, and he cautioned that issues like Brexit undermine strong transatlantic partnerships.

“Past success is no way a guarantee of future performance,” Cullinane said. “… The success of the transatlantic relationship is not a fluke or an accident. It happened because leaders on both sides of the Atlantic made the right choices, and today our generation is faced with similar choices.

Will we work to continue the transatlantic relationship in this century or let it drift into irrelevance?”

The panel discussion was moderated by president of the U.S.-Europe Alliance and specialist in Balkan and Turkish affairs Richard Kraemer ’94. Senior Fellow of the Transatlantic Democracy Working Group Susan Corke ’96, government professor Clay Clemens ’80 and Executive Editor of The American Interest magazine Damir Marusic joined Kraemer for the talk. All panelists relied on their different professional backgrounds to provide critical reflections on Brexit.

Kraemer began the conversation by giving a brief overview of the UK’s history in the EU. The UK first joined the EU’s predecessor organization,

the European Communities, in 1973. This decision was overwhelmingly approved by the British public in a referendum two years later in June 1975, a result that seemingly foreshadowed a stable future for BritishEuropean relations.

More than a decade later, the 1992 Maastricht Treaty formally established the EU, and members of the European Communities — including the UK — were fast tracked towards membership and the benefits it entailed, including the free movement of labor and capital.

Britain’s government in the early 1990s chose not to hold another public referendum specifically on EU membership, which Kraemer explained as a move that ultimately sowed the seeds of discontent among British citizens who felt jaded by their country’s automatic accession.

“This was such a great idea that no one really felt in the United Kingdom, or at least in the government at the time, which was Labour, that they actually needed to go through the referendum process like they had back in 1973,” Kraemer said. “This opened up the door for a very long period of resentment from a number of Britons that felt that they hadn’t really had an opportunity to participate as an electorate in whether or not the United Kingdom was going to be in the European Union.”

This resentment played an increasingly prominent role in British politics until its apex in June 2016, when the UK narrowly voted to leave the EU in a national referendum. The poll sparked three years of political turmoil, and the country’s exit last week marked another chapter in Britain’s tumultuous relationship with continental Europe. Panelists discussed the historical ambivalence of Britons towards their peers across the English Channel as a key contributing factor towards Brexit’s success, and emphasized it as something that political strategists should have been more cognizant of in the run-up to the 2016 vote.

“Little did anyone know at that time that 40 years later, this would still be an issue for the EU and in and for British politics,” Clemens said.

Britain’s departure comes at an unstable time for the EU, which faces existential concerns over its enlargement and the rise of illiberal regimes in member states Poland and Hungary. While the UK’s exit lowers the number of EU member states from 28 to 27,

numerous states in southeastern Europe are eager to become new members. The potential accession of Albania and North Macedonia into the union was shot down by French President Emmanuel Macron last year, who claimed that the EU must address its internal issues — including ones that drove the UK to leave — before adding additional states.

“Brexit was disillusionment. … Macron, a Europhile, who always talks about a ‘Europe which protects’ … he realizes, in fact, that the institution are getting weaker and his arguments for not expanding Europe have been that we’ve lost one of the biggest creditor nations to the EU, but we’re going to let in a lot of poor countries right now,” Marusic said. “… Is that a smart thing to do?”

While significant for the UK’s relationship with Europe and its ties to the United States, Brexit has had more immediate consequences in the British Isles. Brexit has reignited cries for Scottish independence and intensified concerns over the recreation of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Panelists noted that these developments could disintegrate the UK and undermine its long-term viability as a consolidated state and should be closely watched in the coming months as Brexit unfolds.

Instability aside, panelists offered a glimmer of hope that Brexit may bring the UK closer to the United States, reinvigorating the two countries’ tenuous transatlantic relationship. Facing issues like Brexit, EU dysfunction and American political volatility, panelists agreed that states on both sides of the Atlantic have recently faltered in promoting strong, effective global governance.

However, Corke noted that the United States, Britain and European allies are fully equipped to rededicate themselves to the transatlantic partnership moving forward.

“The alliance needs to rededicate itself to its values,” Corke said. “... The world is safer with the U.S. and Europe working together to defend democracy and our collective security. … It will be hard, but the time is now to build a strong foundation for this rearranged relationship.”

SPEAKER

International Justice Lab launches with roundtable discussion College professors, practitioners explore challenges of international law, human rights LESLIE DAVIS FLAT HAT NEWS EDITOR

To officially launch the International Justice Lab, the College of William and Mary’s Global Research Institute held a roundtable discussion Friday, Jan. 31, entitled, “International Law and Justice: Challenges and Challengers in the 21st Century.”

The panel featured academics and practitioners in the field of international law and human rights, which included professor Wayne Sandholtz from the University of Southern California, University of Minnesota professor Tanisha Fazal and international law student Layla Abi-Falah ’17, J.D ’20.

College Provost Peggy Agouris introduced founder and director of the International Justice Lab Kelebogile Zvobgo, who moderated the roundtable discussion. Agouris described her excitement seeing the lab evolve from an initial idea to a final product.

“This is one of the best parts of my job, being here and events like this which signify the initial stage of something that has resulted from the work of several people and has a bright future ahead,” Agouris said.

Fazal began the discussion about international justice and human rights by focusing on medical humanitarian workers and the challenges they face in conflict zones.

“Increasingly, they see real tension between the work that they want to do and their ability to abide by the founding principles of humanitarianism, which are neutrality, impartiality, independence and humanity,” Fazal said.

Fazal used the Battle of Mosul in 2016 as a case study of this tension. According to Fazal, there was a clear need for medical aid, but a low supply of it. The non-governmental organizations that were expected to deliver aid were reluctant to do so because they worried about the safety of their staff.

According to Fazal, Iraqi military was unwilling or unable to deliver the medical aid they were required to provide, as stated by the Geneva Convention. The World Health Organization contracted other NGOs to offer aid. But given the rising global expectations for healthcare on the front lines of conflict zones, these NGOs embedded with Iraqi security forces to reach those areas.

“This violates the principle of independence,” Fazal said. “You are supposed to be independent

from security forces, and arguably also violates the principle of impartiality. And you certainly saw this in this case where Iraqi security forces were saying you have to prioritize treatment of our military personnel over treatment of enemy combatants, in this case, the Islamic State, or even civilians. And this also obviously has implications for the idea that these humanitarian groups are neutral.”

Fazal also discussed multiple challenges she foresees in conflict zones, including the rise of infrastructural targeting in civil wars which has amplified disease incidences, civil wars increasingly being characterized as guerilla warfare, and the dangers of emerging technologies like drones and artificial intelligence.

Like Fazal, Sandholtz acknowledged that there was a crisis in international law. Instead of focusing on the perspective of medical humanitarianism, however, Sandholtz highlighted the challenges of human rights and international justice stemming from rising authoritarianism throughout the global community.

“China is a rising power with huge ambitions,” Sandholtz said. “It acts quite aggressively in some areas like the South China Sea. ... We could think of Russia as a newly aggressive power with a hot war going on currently in Ukraine and having already annexed Crimea. We could think of the Trump administration and its assault on multilateral institutions that the United States helped create and has benefited from for so many years. I think there’s actually a more, at the moment, severe challenge to international rule of law, human rights and global justice. I see that as the resurgence of authoritarianism in the world.”

Sandholtz explained that creeping authoritarianism globally has manifested in the forms of backlash against and withdrawals from international justice institutions. What’s different about this new wave authoritarianism, according to Sandholtz, is that they are elected authoritarians with popular mandates.

“They are coming to power not through coups and revolutions, but through democratic processes,” Sandholtz said. “And then they use democratic forms to undermine and erode democratic institutions from within. They target, in particular, the courts, the independent courts. They target freedom

“

It’s about empowering local affected populations to seek out the justice that they desire, in their own home space and under their own terms.

“

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— Layla Abi-Falah

of expression and of the press. And they target, therefore, the ability of civil society to organize and participate in public life.”

According to Sandholtz, these three areas are paramount to identifying and criticizing rights violations. With authoritarian powers undermining these institutions, the mechanisms of accountability in the international justice and human rights spaces are weakening.

As a solution, Sandholtz encouraged scholars to refocus their studies away from norm-building and to instead the sustainability and defense of norms. Sandholtz also said that human rights advocacy and litigation may not be enough for practitioners to pursue. He said activists, scholars and advocates may have to focus their efforts on resisting authoritarianism.

After interning at the United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, Abi-Falah identified gridlock, international funding fatigue and critiques of international courts’ effectiveness as the major obstacles facing international tribunals today.

Abi-Falah discussed a new model of international law, where international institutions aid local prosecutors and authorities in fighting for justice through local courts rather than international tribunals.

The Mechanism, for example, has millions of pieces of documents, interviews and other pieces of evidence that can be transferred to local prosecutors and courts in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, along with training and capacity building, to support their pursuits of justice.

“It’s about empowering local affected populations to seek out the justice that they desire in their own language, in their own home space and under their own terms,” Abi-Falah said. “And that’s the future of international criminal prosecution, because the world is actually turning away from international tribunals and is turning towards domestic prosecutions.”

Abi-Falah discussed Syria as an example of a country that one day could be emboldened to take charge of its own justice process, like Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia before it.

“It starts in the process of judicial reform within Syria that engenders national ownership, rather than spending billions of dollars towards the creation of an international ad hoc tribunal,” Abi-Falah said. “It’s about supporting judicial reform within Syria, but it’s also about allowing the international community to support Syria in bringing about a postwar judiciary that’s independent, that’s capable, that’s non-biased, that’s willing and just and therefore able to prosecute all perpetrators of international crimes in Syria.”

Nitya Labh ’22, who is a member of the first cohort of research assistants for the International Justice Lab, said that she was most impacted by AbiFalah’s discussion of the international trials that are still ongoing in the world today.

“I study the trials in Bosnia, post-conflict development and stuff like that,” Labh said. “So, for her to say, well, actually, these trials are ongoing, unbeknownst to most people that they’re trying to make appeals and things like that, it makes it feel like history isn’t over yet. Nuremberg seems very final, but a lot of the trials that did or didn’t happen are still waiting for a final word. And so, it makes me hopeful that I can be a part of it.”

College establishes goal to phase in 50 percent renewable energy by end of 2020 Dominion Energy collaborates with administration to bring solar power to campus, reduce carbon footprint SOLAR PANELS from page 1

agreement’s benefits for advancing solar energy across the region.

“At Dominion Energy, we are working hard to reduce our carbon emissions and help our customers do the same,” Moore said. “We are proud to support William and Mary’s efforts to reduce their carbon footprint by powering their operations with renewable energy. Adding cleaner energy to the grid benefits everyone, and partnerships like this help expand the development of clean energy by driving

the market for renewables here in Virginia.”

Though the solar panels will not be physically on campus because of a lack of space, the College plans to install two demonstration solar panels on campus for educational purposes, as stated in the press release. The connection between tangible improvements to campus sustainability and academic engagement was emphasized in the Sustainability Plan and has been demonstrated throughout the College’s most recent announcements.

This most recent statement comes following a series of developments late

last year that demonstrated the College’s commitment to its Sustainability Plan.

Along with the 2030 Carbon Neutrality Goal, the College announced the creation of an Institute for Integrative Conservation. The Institute — funded by a $19.3 million “For the Bold” donation — will provide a crossdisciplinary space for exploring creative approaches to conservation. It hopes to drive research agendas on campus and provide students with opportunities in the emerging field of conservation.

Student environmental groups on

campus are supportive of the College’s intentions but question its methods.

“We enthusiastically support the college’s efforts to reach their goal of carbon neutrality by 2030,” Williamsburg Sunrise Monument representative Catherine Green ’20 said in a written statement. “It’s frustrating to see the college partnering with Dominion Energy. Sunrise believes in climate justice and wants to combat income and racial inequality in addition to climate change. Dominion, both by its nature as an energy monopoly and by its repeated actions, is antithetical to

this goal. They should not exist, and the College should not work with them.”

The Williamsburg Sunrise Movement has been heavily involved in climate action initiatives on campus, including several recent climate strikes. In its statement, Sunrise indicated a willingness to engage in dialogue with the College.

“We are open to meeting with the administration and would be glad to discuss what we believe they can do to further the cause of climate justice while reaching their 2030 goal,” Green said.

opinions GUEST COLUMN

Elizabeth Warren offers best choice for Democratic presidential nominee Owen Williams FLAT HAT GUEST WRITER

If you had asked me who I supported for the Democratic nomination a year ago, it definitely wasn’t Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Unlike most of her rivals, she had a somewhat rocky entrance into the presidential race and I initially thought that she would be best suited to stay in the Senate. However, over the last year Warren grew on me. I was originally a supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2016 and Sen. Kamala Harris earlier in the election cycle, but Warren steadily drew me into her camp. While solidly in the liberal bloc of the Democratic Party, Warren’s pragmatism and her popularity position her as the candidate best suited to unite the deeply divided Democrats against President Donald Trump.

A big part of what drew me to Sen. Warren was her many complex and detailed plans. She represents bold, progressive ideas unmatched by the rest of the Democratic field, and all containing plans on how to pay for them. Some of her ideas are original, such as her signature Wealth Tax which would only affect fortunes upwards of $50 million, and which according to the campaign would “generate nearly $3.75 trillion [over] the next 10 years — enough to fund universal childcare and prek, a high-quality public education for every kid in America, universal college, cancelling student debt, and Medicare For All.” In addition to her many self-designed plans, Warren has also adopted many outstanding policy points from her former Democratic rivals, such as Gov. Jay Inslee’s climate change policy and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s paid leave program.

Recognizing that the best policies might have been written by others is an important quality and Warren’s willingness to adopt these proposals speaks to her ability to build broad coalitions within the Democratic Party.

It’s worth mentioning that while many other candidates have similar policies to Warren, an important aspect of her campaign is that Warren actually has a plan to get these policies passed.

Under the current rules of the Senate, most major legislation

can be blocked by a legislative filibuster. This means that even if Democrats manage to win 51 Senate seats this November, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell would still be able to block any meaningful legislation from passing. Warren has long recognized this, and she is committed to ending the filibuster under her presidency. Other candidates such as Sanders are not committed to ending the filibuster and would see most if not all of their plans defeated.

A largely underrated part of Warren’s appeal is her background. Warren is from a deep red state, Oklahoma, and grew up living a lower middle class lifestyle that shaped her entire career and her presidential run. Warren didn’t go to an ivy league school or follow the typical path of a politician. Rather, she enrolled in a commuter college and became a mother at the age of 22. As the daughter of a maintenance man, Warren often talks about the big breaks she received — her mom getting a minimum wage job at Sears, being able to attend college for only $50 a semester, and having relatives who were able to watch her children while she couldn’t afford child care. These opportunities that Warren received yet so many Americans fail to afford every day have shaped Senator Warren’s entire life.

She’s spent her life fighting for working people as a bankruptcy lawyer, a financial expert and a bank regulator under President Barack Obama. She created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and has a proven track record of holding the rich and powerful accountable in Washington, D.C. Warren is a winner. She’s spent a career delivering wins for working people. She beat the big banks and special interests that subjugate working people and fuel the rich. She beat a popular incumbent Republican senator, and she’s beaten Trump’s corrupt cronies in the Senate. You’d better believe that she’ll win the Democratic nomination and defeat Donald Trump in November. And she won’t stop there. Once she’s in the Oval Office she’ll continue to deliver for the people of the United States and restore the American dream as she’s done for her entire life.

Email Owen Williams at orwilliams@email.wm.edu.

Opinions Editor Chloe Folmar fhopinions@gmail.com // @theflathat

The Flat Hat | February 4, 2020 | Page 5

GUEST COLUMN

Right to bear arms serves use of personal freedoms Caleb Coffelt

FLAT HAT GUEST WRITER

Down a quiet, dilapidated road in Colonial Williamsburg, there stands a round brick building surrounded by a brick wall with a cone-shaped roof, passed by thousands every year without much more than a second’s glance. Yet embedded in its walls is a truly American story that remains relevant today. This conical piece of architecture is the powder magazine that once housed the gunpowder supply of the colonists in the Williamsburg area. While it is no longer in use today, it serves as a symbol of American resolve in the face of tyranny. It was here, before daybreak April 21, 1775, that the Royal Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, sent a detachment of royal marines to confiscate the powder. At a time of serious tension between Great Britain and its American colonists, this act further enraged the citizens and was seen as yet another breach of their rights as free people. Militias mustered and marched on the city to demand redress. While Dunmore never returned the powder itself, the idea of citizens uniting to stand against the overarching reach of a government that stepped too far is an American virtue that remains strong to this day.

This story gives us an insight into why individual ownership of firearms is vital not only on pragmatic grounds, but also as the foundation for the idea of American individualism. To the Virginians of 1775, Dunmore’s actions were viewed as an attempt to subjugate free citizens. By having their powder extracted, the colonists were unable to defend themselves from any manner of usurpation by the Crown.

History has demonstrated time after time that if individuals surrender their means of defense, they become subject to the whims of those holding the reins of

GRAPHIC BY ANGELA VASISHTA / THE FLAT HAT

INDEPENDENT GRAPHIC

Coronavirus paranoia creates new fashion choices GRAPHIC BY KELLEY WANG / THE FLAT HAT

power.

To find a similar event in our modern age, one need not look further than an hour to the west, this time at the State Capital in Richmond, where after Gov. Ralph Northam expressed his support for incredibly radical gun laws, tens of thousands of Virginians rallied in Richmond outside the capital building. Many came armed, yet contrary to the fearmongering of others, not a single demonstrator was arrested, nor a bullet fired.

Even though technology has changed drastically in the past 250 years, the underlying principles behind the Second Amendment have remained. History has demonstrated time after time that if individuals surrender their means of defense, they become subject to the whims of those holding the reins of power. Whether it be African Americans in the segregated South, Kulaks in the Soviet Union or political dissenters in Hong Kong, governments around the world have never hesitated to use violence against their citizens, especially when they have been disarmed. It is self-evident that governments are set up to provide for the largest swaths of society.

What is to be done to protect those who fall through the cracks of representation? The only reasonable answer is that governments should be designed to protect as many people as possible, and as a failsafe, individuals should accept the responsibility of defending themselves.

Restricting racial minorities from gun ownership has been an enduring theme in the history of firearm legislation across the United States. During the era of Jim Crow, laws were crafted to prevent blacks from defending themselves. Martin Luther King Jr. was denied a permit to carry a firearm on his person. A famous photograph exists of Malcolm X peering around a window curtain with a military-grade weapon perched on his hip due to him and his family receiving death threats. It is arrogance of the highest order to assume that our society will never again use the disarmament of its citizens as a way to persecute minorities, racial or otherwise.

A common refrain in American political thought is that the defense of individual rights rests in four boxes: the soapbox, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box. Without each of these, the citizen cannot truly be assured freedom. History has proven such rhetoric correct and we disregard the lessons of the past at our peril.

Email Caleb Coffelt at mdpratt@email.wm.edu.

The Flat Hat

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Page 6

STAFF COLUMN

STAFF COLUMN

Jefferson f looding affects student wellness, sparks criticism of College priorities

Value complexes permeate cultures, necessitate independent thought

Alyssa Slovin

Chloe Folmar

FLAT HAT OPINIONS ASSOC. EDITOR

Saturday, Feb. 1, the basement and first floor levels of Jefferson Hall flooded. Each floor houses about 40 upperclassmen students, and many of the rooms were damaged by the water.

As you may have seen on Facebook, it seems the flood on the basement level started when a pipe burst in one of the toilets.

Water violently sprayed out of the toilet for almost 20 minutes before Facilities Management was able to turn it off. According to residents from the basement, at its highest, the water was at least a couple of inches high. Also, water was dripping from the ceiling. At the moment, we really don’t know what caused the flood on the first floor, but it was definitely caused by pipes that seem to be faulty all over the building, and it does not appear like this incident came out of nowhere.

It is no longer an issue of aesthetics; it is an issue of health and safety.

I have a friend who lives on the second floor, next to a bathroom on the opposite side of the hall. For the past couple of months, she has had a wet spot on her floor where the pipes from the bathroom are leaking through her floor. It has gotten increasingly worse since the new semester started, and recently, the facilities workers have been trying to figure out a way to solve the problem without taking out the entire wall. Clearly, there has been a problem with leaky pipes for months, and Facilities Management waited too long to do something substantial to fix the problem.

Many students had water enter their rooms and soil possessions, especially those who live in the basement or those who live closest to the bathroom. Some students even had to leave the dorm.

Students are constantly complaining about dorm conditions, and this incident seems to act as proof that these students are neither crazy nor demanding too much. It is no longer an issue of aesthetics; it is an issue of health and safety. First of all, the basement flood came from a toilet, as seen in the video. Although it was clean water in the toilet, how clean really is toilet water?

That water covered the entirety of the hallway, as well as many students’ belongings. Second of all, water sitting is what causes mold, which is a problem with which the College of William and Mary’s dorms already struggle. Employees worked hard to vacuum all of the water up, and there have been fans in the hallways ever since, but is that enough to combat the damage already done?

Overall, this is a complex topic, so I joined into a conversation that a few students were having in the middle of the “Read and Relax” section of Earl Gregg Swem Library about the subject to hear their views.

“It ruined my whole plan to be productive today,” Laura Tutko ‘22 said.

“I know obviously they need time to think about what’s going to happen, but I just want to know if they’re going to move us out, what’s gonna happen. That’s obviously on my mind.”

Tutko lives in Jefferson, right down the hall from me.

Her friends, Charlie Westhoff ’22 and Alli Seifert ’22, also expressed their concerns about where the College could move her, since housing selection last year resulted in some students without places to live.

“You can’t adequately perform in school if you’re trying to keep water out of your room,” Seifert said. “And I feel like they ignore the academic implications of having a crappy place to live.

Laura didn’t sleep at all last night because she was moving her stuff around because there was water in her room.”

The group agreed that they should not have to worry about where they live, but it always has to be the primary concern on our campus.

“I just think it’s ironic because, one, it is where all of the tours go, so that should be a prime example and it is not. And, the flood happened hours after the Kaplan Announcement,” Tutko said.

She referenced the announcement that the College had just announced that they received a donation for a $57 million renovation of Kaplan Arena.

“So, I’d be really interested to see if that would change at all based off of this, but I have a feeling that it won’t,” Tutko said.

“I’m interested to know when they’re going to listen to the complaints from the students and make changes versus just put Band-Aids on situations and act like it’s solving everything,” Westhoff said.

Westhoff has also noticed how the College seems to put off issues until it is too late to solve them without creating an emergency. The group discussed how Tutko is a transfer from Mary Washington University, so she has experience with other school administrations.

“Even though Mary Washington wasn’t where I was supposed to be, their accessibility services were so accommodating and they were so aware of how much someone’s environment can affect their college experience,” Tutko said. “And here, I feel like that’s not the case.”

Email Alyssa Slovin at amslovin@email.wm.edu.

FLAT HAT OPINIONS EDITOR

During my first science class this semester, my professor spent 10 minutes formulating an argument on why science is the most reliable source of information, as opposed to common sense, reasoning and religion. Never mind the fact that she had just reasoned out a whole argument on why science is superior to reasoning, I was intrigued by her idea that science is supreme.

This idea intersected with things I was learning in my other classes, even during the first week of the semester. Looking at early modern European art in my art history class, there was a clear shift from a pre-Renaissance society in which religious tradition, especially in the form of the Catholic Church, was the pinnacle of knowledge to a post-Renaissance society where the individual human intellect was prized above all. These observations were in the back of my mind as I read an article about anthropology for my English class. The writer of the article evaluated the evolution of European civilization.

Initially, anthropology and history revolved around the Catholic Church. It later centered on European civilization, and eventually settled on science as its point of reference after Darwin’s theory of evolution took precedence.

I was struck by the similarity of all three of these guiding forces: religious tradition, human intellect and science. All of them attempted to fit the world into one complete framework. In doing so, they inevitably elevated some aspects of life and society far above where they should be, and as a result stifled others that were essential to human flourishing. This is easy to see in earlier European culture, since we are further removed from it. In elevating the hierarchy of the Catholic Church to constitute the whole structure of early European society, this society essentially worshipped the human beings at the top of the Catholic power structure. Meanwhile, individual rights and beliefs were stifled through a forced commitment to the Church and dutiful obedience to oppressive practices like the

“indulgences” that were used to fund majestic building projects.

The phenomenon of cultural commitment to one overarching idea is something I have seen worldwide, not just in European culture. In the Middle East, where I grew up, the culture revolves completely around the idea of honor, and its converse, shame. This is the standard used to evaluate every word and action.

Obviously, as outsiders to Middle Eastern culture, Americans can acknowledge the peril of holding honor up as the ultimate value, namely the ostracizing, abuse and even “honor killings” that punish an individual’s “shameful” words or actions, although admittedly the cultural punishments are not always this extreme. The practice of elevating an idea to the total framework of society crosses not only historical eras but also cultures and countries.

Here in the United States, the era of autonomy has outstripped the era of science. Now, science is often overlooked for the sake of individual autonomy.

In the political sphere, politicians and voters alike are much more likely to focus on big ideas and causes than concrete facts or plans. In the cultural sphere, one’s personal perception of him or herself is more pertinent to the question of gender than his or her chromosomes.

Ultimately, it is clear that each society develops a unique apparatus through which to evaluate its culture. All of these lenses are fallible.

Using a structure of religious tradition places undue power into the hands of those at the top of the hierarchy.

Prizing and prioritizing the human intellect disregards its imperfections and reinforces a personal and cultural superiority complex that can be detrimental. Looking strictly through the lens of science can ignore the fact that fallible human thought has created imperfect forms of measurement and scientific discovery, often devaluing individual persons and completely eradicating competing worldviews without truly evaluating them first.

And valuing personal autonomy above all else can rob us of compassion for our fellow human beings.

We rarely analyze our own culture deeply enough to critique foundational and unquestioned priorities but doing so is important if we want to avoid the repeated mistakes that have been made throughout history. Not only this, but if we free ourselves from devout frameworks such as these, we open our minds to truly think freely and formulate our beliefs apart from cultural standards.

If we are going to use an overarching principle to guide our culture and our lives, all I can say is that it had better be a perfect one.

Email Chloe Folmar at csfolmar@email.wm.edu.

GRAPHIC BY JORGE CONDA AND HEADSHOTS BY KAYLA PAYNE / THE FLAT HAT

GUEST COLUMN

COLL system fails to provide meaningful learning Matt Lowrie

FLAT HAT GUEST WRITER

The United States is in the midst of an enrollment crisis. Each academic year, fewer and fewer students are applying to colleges and universities. The College of William and Mary is aware of this, having addressed it during the Board of Visitors meeting last November. Additionally, and perhaps in response to this crisis, the College’s acceptance rate has been on the rise, getting precipitously close to spilling over the 40 percent benchmark of “selective institutions.” If you’re one to put any credence in school rankings, the College has recently been slipping in the US News and World Report list. In a time of decreased nationwide enrollment, decreased standards in acceptance and lower nationwide rankings, the College has decided to rest on its laurels and put its faith in a skewed version of liberal education instead of adapting to changing curricula.

In fairness to the College Curriculum, it was only implemented in 2013. Its seven-year existence represents only 0.02 percent of The College’s life span.

However, 0.02 percent amounts to thousands of students entering a system of requirements that don’t necessarily benefit them. I am unequivocally a supporter of the liberal education model; it is one of the reasons I decided to come here. However, I am increasingly unsure of whether this current iteration of that model is the correct path forward for the College. The College Curriculum section of our school’s website states that it provides “a robust liberal arts education through the continual organizing and infusing of content,

integration, creativity, and innovation throughout the undergraduate College Curriculum.” The Undergraduate Catalog says that it is “more than a haphazard accumulation of courses. Its essential purpose is to liberate and broaden the mind, to produce men and women with vision and perspective as well as specific practical skills and knowledge.”

Let’s break those down and try to make it seem less like it comes from a thesaurus. There are two main tenets of the curriculum: cross-subject integration and garnering a better understanding of the world around us.

This is what the curriculum gets right in elaborate wording, but also where it falls short in practice. The American Association of Colleges and Universities, of which the College is a member, has a list of “Essential Learning Outcomes” for a successful liberal education in the twenty-first century. These outcomes are broken into four categories: Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World, Intellectual and Practical Skills, Personal and Social Responsibility and Integrative and Applied Learning.

At this point you may be wondering how exactly I think the College Curriculum has betrayed both the College’s language and the AACU Essential Learning Outcomes.

There is no clear delineation of how COLL 200 classes leave me with a liberated and broadened mind. They are treated exactly how they appear: stepping stones. The classes are not well designed to be in conversation either with one another or the larger world.

Many are steeply rooted in academia and don’t go the extra, and necessary, step of applying those lessons to the bigger picture.

Working on the four AACU Learning Outcomes, we can see that the COLL 200 attributes are clearly meant to fulfill these learning outcomes.

However, the AACU intends for these to be applied not just in specific cases, but rather across all classes and disciplines. I would like to see these outcomes realized fully either through increasing the worldly relevance of courses or by creating a COLL curriculum that remains in dialogue not only with itself but also with students’ majors. Furthermore, I want to see the College integrate the College Curriculum and the major curriculums so as to adhere better to the AACU’s vision of an integrated, well rounded liberal education system. In for a penny, in for a pound.

The College is well situated to establish itself as a bastion of modern liberal education, but it falls short. The College’s COLL curriculum doesn’t live up to its own lofty standards and falls even shorter on those set by the AACU. The College has been sacrificing face and students’ education potentials for both increased enrollment and to maintain its main revenue stream in response to the enrollment crisis.

Instead of doubling down on the currently flawed system, the College should engage in a curriculum reboot to separate itself from the masses and attract even more of the increasingly small pool of college and university applicants. Adapt or fail is the law of the American higher education landscape.

Implementing the College Curriculum was a bold step forward, but now we require adaptation.

Email Matt Lowrie at mhlowrie@email.wm.edu.

variety

Variety Editor Zoe Beardsley Variety Editor Adithi Ramakrishnan flathat.variety@gmail.com

The Flat Hat | Tuesday, February 4, 2020 | Page 7

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Helen Murphy uses experimental evolution to study pathogenic progression in single-celled yeast ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN // FLAT HAT VARIETY EDITOR The number-one cause of fungal infections in humans is related to a single-celled baking ingredient. Helen Murphy, an assistant professor in the biology department that studies how yeast populations evolve over time, is currently using one to study the other.

Leading infection source Candida albicans is a species of yeast and a microbe — microscopic organism — that can have dangerous effects if inserted into the bloodstream. One of the simplest ways it gets there is by attaching itself to medical equipment.

“Candida albicans has been found on pretty much every medical device that has been inserted into the body,” Murphy said. “You can get a systemic infection when you actually have the yeast inside you.”

Candida albicans can’t adhere to plastic equipment by themselves, according to Murphy; yeast cells form groups called biofilms that work together to attach to a surface and survive as a unit.

“The cells excrete something called an extracellular matrix that they can all attach to, and then there’s differentiation within the actual community; some cells are protecting the biofilm from environmental stress, some of them are helping the community be attached to a surface,” Murphy said. “As an evolutionary biologist, I’m really interested in the cooperation and cheating and all the dynamics within these communities.”

Murphy explained that since Candida albicans is challenging to study in a lab setting, she models yeast evolution in a close relative known as Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This single-celled yeast species grows quickly, can be stored easily and serves as a useful model for evolution.

“Most of the things people think about when they think about living organisms are eukaryotes, so those are your animals, your plants, your fungi," Murphy said. “Yeast is a eukaryotic cell, so it’s really representative of the kind of evolution that many of us think about in eukaryotes.”

Murphy stated that yeast cells replicate quickly, resulting in 50 generations over a period of two weeks. Over hundreds of replications, Murphy aims to evolve in the yeast the ability to attach to plastic surfaces. This trait gives virulent strains the ability to stick to medical equipment like catheters or implants and cause infections when the equipment contacts the human body. In clinics and hospitals, this

effect is more pronounced and can lead to diseases that are harder for modern medicines to crack.

“When an organism infects the body or attaches to a surface, it becomes much more resistant to antimicrobials or antifungals, and this is just something it’s evolved to do to sur vive in a harsh world,” Murphy said.

“But when it happens in a medical setting, it becomes much harder to get rid of an infection, in part because the cells are sort of cooperating with each other and they’re protected from the environment in that way.”

“How does a microbe go from being a happy microbe that lives on you or near you to something that’s pathogenic?

We’ve begun to ask: what are the traits that have come along with plastic adherence?”

Murphy evolves plastic attachment in the yeast by growing the cells in glass tubes and placing a plastic bead in the tube. Due to natural variation, some of the yeast cells will have mutations in their genetic material that give them the ability to adhere to the plastic material, and some will not. After two days of growth, Murphy removes the bead and washes it with sterile water to remove any cells that are not strongly attached. The cells remaining on the bead have the ability to stick strongly to plastic and will pass this trait on to future generations when they divide.

The yeast cells attached to the bead are

removed using sound waves and placed in a new glass tube with a new plastic bead, so that they can continue to evolve over subsequent generations. Murphy has repeated this process for somewhere between 500 and 600 generations.

The goal of this repetition is more than creating yeast cells that can attach to plastic surfaces; however, it is about finding out what makes yeast cells go from neutral to virulent, and what evolved traits give them the power to do so.

“How does a microbe go from being a happy microbe that lives on you or near you to something that’s pathogenic?” Murphy said.

“We’ve begun to ask, what are the traits that have come along with plastic adherence?”

Murphy explained that there are very few microbes whose only job is to infect the human body. Several of the most dangerous pathogens are ones that start off with no effect but acquire mutations throughout their life cycles that allow them to adapt to new conditions, group together on biofilms and mount successful attacks on humans.

“Asking the question of what makes something that’s not normally pathogenic, pathogenic, is far more relevant to human health than only studying something that can live in the human body,” Murphy said. “What’s much more dangerous, when you think about it, is all the microbes that could become pathogens when they get the right mutations.”

Murphy has identified certain behaviors that yeast cells have evolved along with the ability to stick to plastic. The next step in her evolution experiment is to see if the evolved yeast cells can be dangerous.

“We’re about to start injecting wax moth larvae with our yeast to see if they’re, sort of, more killer,” Murphy said.

The yeast cells’ virulence is the final piece in Murphy’s years of Saccharomyces cerevisiae study. She wants to compile the research into two papers and submit them for publication in the spring. Murphy hopes that her study of microbial communities via yeast cells will inform the medical field, as well as debunk the theory that microbes exist in isolation.

“People used to think of microbes as these individual cells living in the environment and duking it out with other microbes in the environment, but that’s not true,” Murphy said. “It turns out, there’s a lot of sociality within microbes.”

Page 8

Media in the New Age VICE Associate Producer, alumnus Aaron Barksdale ’13 discusses career path, gives advice to students pursuing career in media during Global Film Festival workshop

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

The Flat Hat

“At the time, those weren’t things that William and Mary offered as potential majors, so for me, finding this industry and finding this work actually was not a linear path, but more of a winding journey.”

-Aaron Barksdale ’13

CLAIRE HOGAN / THE FLAT HAT

CLAIRE HOGAN // FLAT HAT ONLINE EDITOR

“I think it was interesting to have someone from the perspective of this changing environment, and he seemed to have gotten in more recently in the switches between standard media and digital media.”

-Marriya Schwarz ’20

“One thing that I would always recommend is hard work, dedication, perseverance and looking for opportunities where they exist, and connecting with the people who can provide you a chance to get your foot in the door so that you can eventually have a seat at the table.”

-Aaron Barksdale ’13

“I really liked how he gave a specific industry perspective from VICE; I’ve actually talked to someone before that also worked at VICE who went to William and Mary, but he just seemed very open about the specifics in the dayto-day process.”

- Brooke Rees ’20

As part of the the College of William and Mary’s Global Film Festival, Aaron Barksdale ’13, an associate producer at VICE Media, hosted a workshop titled “A Career in Digital Media Production.” Barksdale called in from his apartment in Brooklyn, New York to talk about production tools, pitching video ideas and producing news in the age of social media.

The workshop started with a quick introduction by Barksdale, where he chronicled his life between graduation and his job at VICE. “I majored in English and I minored in art and art history, so my background actually wasn’t in video production, nor was it in journalism,” Barksdale said. “At the time, those weren’t things that William and Mary offered as potential majors, so for me, finding this industry and finding this work actually was not a linear path, but more of a winding journey.”

After graduation, Barksdale worked as a fellow for the Huffington Post before becoming a freelance writer and producer. Eventually, Barksdale joined VICE Media on the recommendation of a friend, working his way up to his current role as an associate producer.

“One thing that I would always recommend is hard work, dedication, perseverance and looking for opportunities where they exist, and connecting with the people who can provide you a chance to get your foot in the door so that you can eventually have a seat at the table,” Barksdale said.

As a primarily digital media company, VICE often publishes unorthodox stories, a trait which Barksdale admired.

“We’re telling stories that push boundaries, defy conventions and break the rules for traditional journalism,” Barksdale said.

“Essentially, the type of stories that you’re going to see at VICE are the stories you won’t see anywhere else.”

Barksdale also talked about the unique qualities of VICE Media’s audience.

“It’s unlike working anywhere else,” Barksdale said. “I would say that what sets VICE apart from other media companies is that we’re specifically a youth media company, so we’re targeting people who are somewhere within the ages of 18 to 24. The idea is always to engage younger audiences, because you want to make sure that your media company is able to sustain an audience that will last over a longer period of time.

You want people to grow with your brand, rather than grow out of it.”

For some students like Marriya Schwarz ’20, Barksdale’s relative youth and work at a youth-focused media company was a plus.

“I think it was interesting to have someone from the perspective of this changing environment, and he seemed to have gotten in more recently in the switches between standard media and digital media,” Schwarz said. “I think it was really important to get more of a current take on how the industry is, rather than traditional cable television and stuff like that.”

In his wide-ranging discussion, Barksdale emphasized the differences between social media platforms, gave advice on pitching ideas and answered student questions about the media industry.

For Brooke Rees ’20, a film and media studies and psychology double major, Barksdale’s presentation followed in a long line of advice about the media industry.

“I’ve been to a lot of these, and I was also in the DC Summer Institute in News and New Media, so I’ve had probably over 50 people in the industry give me great advice,” Rees said.

Rees said that Barksdale’s specificity in detailing his day-today work life made him stand out as a presenter.

“I really liked how he gave a specific industry perspective from VICE; I’ve actually talked to someone before that also worked at VICE who went to William and Mary, but he just seemed very open about the specifics in the day-to-day process, which I feel like is something we don’t always get,” Rees said.

At the end of the workshop, students got to put what they learned into practice, with a series of 90-second pitches for an original video idea. Among them a “Fear Factor”-style show with celebrity contestants, a cooking show for people who don’t cook and a drag queen talk show. Barksdale then offered pieces of advice for the pitches, relying on his years of experience in the digital media world.

In the room full of students, some were film and media studies majors, some had experience with school publications and some were completely new to media and production. They did have one thing in common, though: a love of digital media.

“For me, I really like the idea of digital media because media is constantly changing,” Schwarz said. “I think it’s something that’s very current and it’s also something with a lot of possibilities, like people are writing things for Snapchat and Instagram, which, a few years ago, I would have not believed that at all. Now there are just so many opportunities.”

sportsinside

The Flat Hat

| Tuesday, February 4, 2020 | Page 9

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Hofstra blows out Tribe jAMIE HOLT / THE FLAT HAT

The Pride proved effective at shutting down Tribe’s offense, blocking shots, dominating shooters in the paint and neutralizing the three-point line. Their effort brings them to a tie for first in the CAA with William and Mary with an 8-3 record.

Poor shooting, late turnovers, absent offense leave Tribe in three-way tie for first in CAA LEXIE HIESTAND FLAT HAT STAFF WRITER Saturday’s game between William and Mary and Hofstra was riddled with defensive lapses and missed opportunities, by the College. Unfortunately for the Tribe (16-8, 8-3 CAA), the Pride (17-7, 8-3 CAA) converted on those mistakes. The beginning of the game was a good litmus test for effort throughout the rest of the game. Pride guard Eli Pemberton immediately opened with five quick points, while the Tribe was plagued with ill-advised threes and turnovers.

That disparity foreshadowed the final score: 83-60, Hofstra.

While the Tribe offense settled for long three-pointers early on, the Pride closed passing lanes and took what the Tribe gave them on offense instead. Because of this poor start, the College played from a deficit against a team whose starters average double figures.

About five minutes into the half, sophomore guard Thornton Scott made a three-pointer for the Tribe’s final lead of the entire game. The Tribe was up by one point, 9-8, and it lasted all of 37 seconds. A minute later, three free throws from Pemberton snatched the lead right back, and the Tribe did not recover its momentum.

One player, however, refused to let the game spiral. Senior center Nathan Knight attacked the Pride on the boards, notching 16 rebounds for the night. In one high-energy play seven minutes into

the first half, Knight ran in for a layup and missed. Snatching the ball out of the Pride’s fingers, he got his own rebound, attempted another layup, and missed again.

His teammates began to shuffle to the other side, but Knight grabbed his rebound for the second time and shot his third layup.

This one, however, was successful. Knight ended the period with 11 rebounds and eight total points, but the Tribe still trailed by 10, 43-33.

After the game, Knight reflected on the Tribe’s defensive struggles.

“The first half we just kind of let them get in their comfort zone, and when you do that, with players like that, they’re going to get comfortable, they’re going to start taking and making tough shots,” Knight said. “They definitely came back and played a very good game after the game we gave them up in Hofstra.”

In the second half, the Tribe effectively folded, notching 13 total turnovers to the Pride’s seven. Though both teams attempted 59 field goals throughout the game, the Pride made 10 more baskets and three more three-pointers than the Tribe.

Senior forward Andy Van Vliet ended the night with nine points.

Knight, on the other hand, more than doubled his first-half total, clocking in at 18 points. Knight, individually, added up to almost a third of the Tribe’s points. His four assists put his offensive production at well over 38 percent of the team’s total.

But the Tribe needed more offensive support in the second half to make Knight’s contribution count. After Knight, graduate guard Bryce Barnes notched the most points in the period with five. Van Vliet had just one layup in the second period. Scott and junior guard Luke Loewe combined for just four points after halftime. The Tribe was not providing Knight with any help.

The lack of an offensive presence was particularly troubling because of the output of the Pride’s starting squad. Pemberton recorded 16 points for the night. Pride guard Desure Buie had a team-high 22 points with seven assists; Pride forward Isaac Kante grabbed 11 rebounds and scored 13 points, making every single field goal he attempted. Every single Pride starter recorded doubledigit points.

“All five players can get going, and they all got going at one point in the game,” Knight said. “They’re very hard to guard as a defense.”

The Tribe has dropped only three games in conference play, but it has lost each game by at least 10, averaging a 20-point deficit per loss. Teams who can close passing lanes and force turnovers have been able to shut down the Tribe. Charleston, who the College faces on Thursday, Feb. 2, is tied for first in the CAA with Hofstra and the Tribe. This crucial game will help decide if the College will contend for a regular-season conference championship. The last time they played, the Tribe beat the Cougars 67-56 in Williamsburg.

TRACK AND FIELD

College posts additional 5 IC4A qualifying marks at Penn State Multiple Tribe athletes set school, lifetime records in strong all-around team outing COLLIN ANDERSON FLAT HAT ASSOC. SPORTS EDITOR Friday and Saturday at the Penn State National Open in State College, Pennsylvania, the William and Mary men’s and women’s track and field teams again rose to the challenge away from Williamsburg, racking up numerous top honors including two new school records.

Entering the meet, the Tribe came off of an impressive showing last weekend at the Patriot Games in Fairfax, Virginia. In that meet, the College racked up four event wins and nine postseason qualifying marks. This meet would look a tad different however, with William and Mary sending an abbreviated team of mostly distance runners along with a few field athletes and 400-meter runners. With the indoor season still in its early stages, the William and Mary track and field teams look poised for a breakout year.

There were impressive performances across the board, especially for freshman Carly Swierbut last weekend in the 400-meter dash. Swierbut set a new William and Mary freshman school record of 57.59 seconds in that race, but that record would not stand for long.

Starting things off on Friday evening for the Tribe, the pole-vaulting trio of junior Taylor E. Jones, senior Lauren Graves, and senior Sophie

Caplan finished sixth, seventh and eleventh, with respective heights of 3.52, 3.52 and 3.37 meters. Caplan’s mark of 3.37 meters was a new lifetime best in the event. Also, in the field events, senior Alexis Brender a Brandis continued her impressive season thus far in the triple jump with a leap of 11.59 meters, which is a new indoor lifetime best and a major improvement upon last week’s performance at the Patriot Games.

The hometown senior from Williamsburg also competed in the long jump.

On Saturday, the Tribe women really started to shine, beginning with the 400-meter dash.

Swierbut again impressed, shaving nearly 1.5 seconds off of her freshman school record set last weekend. The rookie won the race in a blazing time of 56.28, improving on her 57.59 clocking last week. Junior Victoria Gersch impressed yet again, placing second just behind Swierbut in 56.42.

Swierbut still sits behind Gersch in the overall school rankings, as Gersch currently holds the indoor school record at 55.95 seconds. Junior Taylor D. Jones shaved two seconds off her lifetime best in the 800-meter run, placing seventh overall in a time of 2:13.35. Also improving on her lifetime best was senior Liv Paxton, who ran 9:49.59 to place fifth in the 3,000-meter run. In the first section of the women’s 4x400 meter relay, the relay team of Swierbut, Susanna Maisto, Gabriel

Runge and Gersch won in a time of 3:47.95.

On the men’s side on Friday, junior allAmerican KJ Cook recorded an impressive heave of 18.73 meters in the men’s weight throw, placing 10th. Cook would also go on to place eighth in the shot put on Saturday, just behind junior Connor Scott. Sophomore Troy Yearwood finished four spots behind Cook in the weight throw in 14th with a brand-new lifetime best of 18.22 meters, improving on his mark last week of 18.05 meters.

He finished just off of his lifetime best in the shot put, with a mark of 15.58 meters. In the Distance Medley Relay, the team of senior Cooper Leslie, junior Colin Grip, senior Chris Short, and junior Evan Goodell placed third overall with a time of 10:02.16, qualifying the College for postseason competition later this winter.

Just like the women’s team, the College gained momentum early on Saturday with top performances in the 400-meter dash. Junior Theo Chambers ran 49.36 to finish fourth overall, placing second in heat two. In the 600-meter run, Grip recorded the performance of the day for the College, with a new school record time of 1:21.41 to place fourth.

The distance runners for the Tribe again impressed in the first section of the mile, where sophomore Patrick Lynch ran 4:16.09 to finish third overall, improving on his time

in the same event last weekend by a tenth of a second. But the top marks did not stop there, Goodell continued his strong showing in the first section of the 3,000-meter run, winning the race in 8:24.69, an improvement of his personal best by over eight seconds.

Sophomore Spencer Tsai also finished in the top ten, placing 10th overall in 8:30.10. In the invitational section, Tribe frontrunner JP Trojan finished sixth overall in 8:17.99, improving his lifetime best drastically as well.

That meant that all three Tribe runners in the event recorded drastic lifetime bests this early in the season. Last year’s Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America champion in the 800-meter run was back in action on Saturday as well.

Senior Chris Short ran 1:51.89 to finish sixth in the invitational section of the race and will look to use this meet as a momentum boost for later competitions.

Both teams will look to continue their respective strong seasons next weekend, again in State College, as Pennsylvania State University hosts the Sykes-Sabock Challenge Cup on Friday and Saturday. After that, love is sure to be in the air in Lexington, Virginia as the Tribe heads to the VMI Indoor Classic for an in-state showdown on Valentine’s Day.

WOMEN’S TENNIS

College falls to Demon Deacons at home, suffers first loss of the season Tribe veterans offer no match for talented, competitive Wake Forest squad, suffer 6-1 defeat ZOE BEARDSLEY FLAT HAT VARIETY EDITOR Sunday, February 2, William and Mary hosted Wake Forest at the McCormack-Nagelsen Tennis Center. The Tribe (3-1) fell to the Demon Deacons 6-1 for their first loss of the season.

William and Mary was outmatched across the board, a fact that was pretty evident from the start of the doubles matches.

In the No. 1 spot, sophomore Mila Saric and junior Vitoria Okuyama were defeated by Wake Forest’s Carolyn Campana and Chandler Carter, 6-2.

In the No. 3 doubles spot, the Tribe didn’t fare much better.

Senior Charlotte Madson and freshman Elisa Van Meeteren lost to Pesavento and Lynch in a more contested match, 6-4. The doubles match in the No. 2 spot didn’t

finish since Wake Forest won 2 out of three doubles matches, also earning them the doubles point.

In the singles matches, the Tribe were matched up against multiple nationally ranked opponents from Wake Forest. In the No. 1 spot, No. 44 ranked Carolyn Campana, handed Saric William and Mary’s first singles loss by a score of 6-2, 6-1. In the No. 2 spot, Okuyama didn’t fare much better against No.

82 Anna Campana, losing 6-1, 6-0.

Freshman Raffaela Alhach suffered a similarly lopsided defeat to Wake Forest’s Saby Nihalan, 6-2, 6-0.

Madson played a slightly closer match in the No. 4 spot against Chandler Carter, losing 6-4, 6-2.

The one bright spot for the Tribe came during the match in the No. 5 spot, where Van Meeteren gave William and Mary its only point of the day. She defeated Alexis Franco

6-4, 6-3 in an exciting, competetive match. Van Meeteren earned her eighth singles victory of the year with the win. Wake Forest won the match in the No. 6 spot by default.

The Demon Deacons would finish the day with 6 points and go on to defeat William and Mary 6-1.

The Tribe will head on the road for the first time this season to face Iowa state on February 14th in Ames, Iowa.

sports

Sports Editor Gavin Aquin-Hernandez Sports Editor Avery Lackner flathatsports@gmail.com @FlatHatSports

The Flat Hat | Tuesday, February 4, 2020 | Page 10

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Hodgson’s 34 propels Tribe over Phoenix College survives late Elon run to achieve winning record in Colonial Athletic Association

ZOE BEARDSLEY FLAT HAT VARIETY EDITOR Friday, Jan. 31, William and Mary (14-6, 5-4 CAA) defeated Elon (9-11, 4-5 CAA) 84-77 behind a record-setting second half from sophomore guard Eva Hodgson. The win moves the Tribe into a tie with Towson for fourth place in the Colonial Athletic Association.

The first quarter saw both teams get off to a hot start. The College went 3-of-4 from the threepoint line, while Elon shot 60 percent from the field. With two minutes left in the first quarter, the Tribe built a 17-10 lead behind back-to-back three pointers by senior forward Victoria Reynolds and Hodgson. Elon would quickly counter, though, making the score 17-16 by the end of the quarter thanks to a quick three and a fast break layup.

In the second quarter, the strong defense of the Tribe held the Phoenix to just 10 points, including shooting just 28 percent from the field. The College, on the other hand saw its offense blossom, shooting an impressive 60 percent from the field.

With five minutes remaining, the Tribe went on a 7-0 run to take a 33-22 lead, capping it off with a layup by junior guard Nyla Pollard. The Tribe went into the half up 33-26, without any players reaching double digits in scoring.

Reynolds led the Tribe with seven points, while Hodgson and redshirt sophomore guard Sydney Wagner contributed six each. In total, eight different players from the College put points on the board in the first half, highlighting the collective team effort displayed through the first two quarters of the game.

The start of the third quarter was a sign what was to come in terms of scoring. Hodgson, who had only scored six in the first half, started off the quarter with a layup. On the next possession, she was fouled while shooting a three-pointer and proceeded to make three free throws, boosting the Tribe’s lead to 38-26.

As the College threatened to pull away, Elon clawed its way back, cutting the Tribe’s lead to four with five minutes, 16 seconds left in the third quarter. Hodgson once again drove to the basket, making a layup. She then hit a jumper, followed up by another three-pointer, making the score 48-38.

After a quick bucket by Elon, Reynolds and Hodgson responded with a layup and a three on back-to-back possessions. Elon scored on the last two possessions of the quarter, but the Tribe still maintained a 58-48 lead at the end of the third.

Hodgson scored 15 points in the third alone, which accounted for more than half of the College’s points scored in the quarter. The Tribe also shot 80 percent from the field.

Elon came out attacking in the fourth quarter, cutting the lead to seven. The Tribe held strong, capitalizing off of an Elon turnover and turning it into points as Hodgson got fouled and made two free throws. These free throws were two of 23 that the College would end up taking in the fourth quarter, making 18 of them.

The Tribe boosted its lead to 13 with four minutes left as Hodgson buried two more free throws.

The College appeared to be on the brink of earning an easy win, but with two minutes and nine seconds remaining in the game Elon woke up, going on a 12-4 run and cutting the score all the way down to 75-70 with 41 seconds left to play. The Tribe kept its cool though and boosted its lead back up to eight thanks to Wagner and Hodgson hitting five more foul shots. The final score was 84-77, with the Tribe securing the victory.

JAMIE HOLT / THE FLAT HAT

Sophomore Eva Hodgson’s 34 points against Elon marked the most in Tribe history since moving to Division 1 in 1984.

Hodgson was the undisputed star of the game, scoring 28 points in the second half and leading all scorers with 34 total points, a career high. She went 8-of-11 from the field, as well as 3-of4 from beyond the arc and 14-of-16 from the free throw line. Her 34 points are the most by a Tribe player since its move to Division I in 1984 and are the seventh-highest point total in Tribe basketball history.

Alongside Hodgson, Reynolds added 19 points and Wagner had 11. The Tribe lost the rebounding battle to Elon but shot 50 percent from the field and 81 percent from the free throw line. The win on Friday is the Tribe’s eighth road win this season, tying a school record.

The College is back in action Friday, Feb. 7, with another away game against Charleston, followed by a matchup with UNCW Feb. 9.

Tribe finishes fourth at GW, sweeps All-Around Strong individual performances provide optimism as team approaches season midpoint NATHAN SEIDEL FLAT HAT SPORTS ASSOC. EDITOR

Tribe women’s gymnastics finished fourth out of four teams at the George Washington Quad Meet Friday, but swept the all-around title led by junior Katie Waldman.

Waldman paced the team in the all-around, posting a 38.450 to go with 38.150 from senior Taylor White and 37.600 from freshman Brianna Greenlow to claim the top three scores in the event.

In addition, the Tribe scored well in other areas, with Waldman and senior Erika Marr earning top-10 scores in vault. Freshman Emma Wiley paced the squad in beam, notching a 9.675, and senior Caroline Caponi added a 9.650. Waldman also led the team in the floor section with a 9.750 and senior Elizabeth Snoddy added a 9.700.

JAMIE HOLT / THE FLAT HAT

Freshman Brianna Greenlow completes a pass on the uneven bars during warm-ups.

JAMIE HOLT / THE FLAT HAT

Senior Erika Marr springs her way to a top-10 score in the vault with a 9.750.

The College’s 48.175 was its highest mark for the bars section on the year and Waldman’s 9.725 was her best score for the season.

The Tribe did record its second-highest team total (191.425) and lost by just four points to the victorious Pittsburgh Panthers (195.700).

The Tribe will take to the gym next in a quad meet at Penn on Feb. 16 as it looks to build momentum toward the second half of the season, which includes NC State, Maryland and Temple.

Greenlow was optimistic for the second two-thirds of the season after the meet, noting improvement after each event thus far.

“We’re continuing to build upon each competition and our team is working so hard to hopefully break some records this season,” Greenlow said. “I’m so blessed to be a part of such an amazing family and community and I’m really looking forward to what the rest of the season has in store for us.”

Waldman noted the positive team mojo that has been cultivated over recent events and expressed optimism toward the remainder of the spring season.

“We have a great dynamic,” she said of the squad. “And we get along really well which helps us succeed in the gym. Our meet at GW was a lot of fun because we had a ton of alums there to support us and we got to start on floor where our energy is always super high. It was amazing to win the all-around at a big meet like that but I know that I have so much room to grow and I’m excited to keep building with my team!”

Greenlow, Waldman and White are honored after sweeping the all-around.

TEAM SCORES

ALL-AROUND SCORES 195.700 195.375 194.850 191.425

JAMIE HOLT / THE FLAT HAT

Freshman Emma Wiley spots the balance beam in midair during her routine.

JAMIE HOLT / THE FLAT HAT

Senior Taylor White celebrates after completing a difficult pass in her floor routine.

JAMIE HOLT / THE FLAT HAT

KATIE WALDMAN 38.450 TAYLOR WHITE 38.150 BRIANNA GREENLOW 37.600