The Flat Hat January 22, 2019

Vol. 108, Iss. 23 | Tuesday, January 22, 2019

The Flat Hat The Weekly Student Newspaper

of The College of William and Mary

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College in housing squeeze

Balancing ADA housing requests with structural concerns, Residence Life switches Lemon Hall’s class designation, takes One Tribe Place offline for 2019-2020 year SARAH SMITH // FLAT HAT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ONE TRIBE PLACE

LANDRUM HALL

After an engineering study found evidence of structural deterioration, ResLife decided to pull One Tribe Place offline for the 2019-20 academic year.

After complete renovations to Landrum Hall took one semester longer than anticipated, students moved in for the start of the spring 2019 semester.

Last week, students braved cold winds and the threat of an oncoming storm while moving from across campus into newly renovated Landrum Hall, reopened after a year and a half of construction — half a year longer than expected. At the same time, email notifications popped up, first about changes to Lemon Hall and Jefferson Hall, and then about One Tribe Place.

Lemon Hall, Jefferson Hall For those planning to live on campus during the 2019-20 academic year, changes are underway.

The College of William and Mary’s Residence Life announced that Lemon Hall and Jefferson Hall would be switching class designations. In the fall, Lemon Hall will become a freshman dorm in order to accommodate more students who require air-conditioned rooms for accessibility reasons. Jefferson Hall will take its place as an upperclassman dorm.

According to Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and Director of Residence Life Maggie Evans, ResLife, Student Accessibility Services and the College’s Office of Compliance and Equity began discussing challenges regarding meeting requested accommodations in October 2018. Of the current dorms available for incoming freshmen, none have updated heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, elevators and exterior access for mobilityimpaired students. Additionally, there are very few single rooms available in these halls.

Incoming freshmen must provide medical documentation to be placed in a room that is air conditioned. Evans said that up until now, SAS and ResLife had to install window AC units in dorms such as Yates Hall and Jefferson Hall for those with approved documentation. However, these residence halls are on a common system that does not allow students to control the climate in their rooms.

“This means a student with an accommodation is unable to control their climate if we have a warm and humid day in December, when the system is on heat,” Evans said in an email. “Placing window units in cooled buildings is inefficient and can compromise the whole HVAC system as the number of window units increase.

We were getting to the tipping point with maintaining the performance of building systems.”

ResLife and SAS had identified that Jefferson Hall and Lemon Hall had almost the exact same number of beds.

“Changing the [class] designation of residence halls from year to year or time to time is common practice in university housing operations,” Evans said in an email.

“As the needs and demographics of our student body change over time, our housing programs must be aware of such changes and trends, and prepare to respond to them appropriately.”

Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Student Accessibility Services Lesley Henderson said that it’s important to note that neither Jefferson Hall nor Lemon Hall has been designated as an “Americans with Disabilities Act” hall, and both will house students with and without accommodation needs.

“The staff within Residence Life determine what residence or residences most closely match the ADA accommodation needs of students,” Henderson said in an email. “No one building is designated as ‘an ADA accommodation building’ nor is SAS in the practice of designating buildings as such. Actually all campus residences house students with ADA accommodations.

As new buildings are established and as old buildings are renovated, it is a goal of the university to provide greater accessibility for all students, including those disabilities.”

ResLife will also place window units in all rooms of Hunt and Taliaferro Halls to provide more airconditioned spaces for freshmen.

One Tribe Place The second change to on-campus housing concerns One Tribe Place. OTP has long been under construction.

When the Hospitality House hotel was purchased in 2013, it was segmented into three pieces: the original hotel, the 1984 wing and the rooms under the hotel, such as the ballroom and the restaurant. In May 2013, the College purchased the hotel and made minor renovations; a full inspection was not done prior to purchase.

LEMON HALL ResLife made the decision to switch the class designations of Lemon Hall and Jefferson Hall so that they will house freshmen, upperclassmen, respectively.

After students moved into the original hotel, the College found that water infiltration had made the rooms in the 1984 wing, as well as those under the hotel, unusable. The College has been unable to pursue initial plans for renovations that included remodeling the ballroom, meeting rooms and restaurant spaces to bring them up to building code and make those spaces accessible for student organizations to use.

Current residents of OTP learned Jan. 15 via an email that the building would be going “offline” for the 2019-20 academic year. Evans said that an engineering study of the building made it necessary to close it to inhabitants.

“A routine inspection found early signs of structural deterioration due to age,” Evans said in an email. “The engineering study was completed to assess those issues.

While the property is offline, work will be done to make structural improvements, address some water intrusion issues and make electrical and fire alarm system upgrades. The building is safe for current occupancy.

Having the building vacant for the 2019-20 academic year simply gives us the opportunity to take care of the projects and upgrades all at once.”

According to Evans, the necessary repairs would be too disruptive to undertake while the building is occupied and too large to complete over a summer break. These repairs will only address the new issues such as the structural deterioration found in the original hotel building and a portion of the parking deck.

OTP currently includes several single rooms for students with and without ADA accommodations.

Evans said that ResLife will work with SAS to find other residence halls for students who need accommodations.

She also said that not all accessibility accommodations require a single room.

“Often, students who have an ADA accommodation for housing may participate in a one-on-one housing selection process with Residence Life,” Henderson said in an email. “This process was created in effort to ensure that ADA-accommodate[d] student needs are being met as they select their housing for the upcoming school year. This ADA housing selection process will

continue as it always has, given whatever residences are available.”

Evans said that even with OTP offline, she still believes that the College will be able to meet the demand for on-campus housing, although the procedures are in place to work with waiting lists if necessary. The housing contract for returning students is due Feb. 20.

With all the recent changes to on-campus upperclassman housing, some students are worried about the possibility of being placed on waiting lists or not being able to acquire on-campus housing at all. Max Fritts ’20, who lives in Lemon Hall, said that coming from a low-income background, he is worried about whether or not he will be able to afford off-campus housing if there is not enough space for all returning students while OTP is offline.

“The timing of the announcements for Lemon and OTP heavily places lower-income students at a disadvantage because of how close the announcements were to the due date for the housing contract,” Fritts said in an email. “Because of this, lower-income students (and most students in general) were unable to make alternative housing plans before the housing contract due date.”

Evans said that just like changing designations yearto-year is common university housing practice, taking a building temporarily offline is also common and often necessary.

“We realize the change in designation of Lemon Hall and the temporary closure of One Tribe Place is upsetting to many students,” Evans said in an email. “I know the reasons for the changes are solid ones, but I also know this disappoints a number of returning students, and I am genuinely sorry for this. We strive to make the residential experience as positive as we can, and realize that unexpected modifications to housing options can be disheartening. I am confident that our returning students will be able to have a great on-campus experience in the wide variety of residence halls set aside for them next year.”

— Flat Hat News Editor Madeline Monroe ’19 also contributed to this article.

POLITICS

Virginia State Senate passes resolution to ratify Equal Rights Amendment Bill awaits judgement in House of Delegates committee; Mason fears ERA may not have fair chance in VA CLAIRE HOGAN FLAT HAT ONLINE ASSOC. EDITOR

Tuesday, Jan. 15, the Virginia State Senate passed a resolution to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment by a vote of 26-14. If a similar resolution passes in the House of Delegates, Virginia could make history by becoming the 38th and final state needed to ratify the ERA before it becomes law.

The ERA is a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would explicitly forbid sex-based discrimination. It was originally approved by Congress in 1972, but it was only ratified by 35 states, just shy of the 38 needed to become law. After a recent surge in popularity, Illinois and Nevada became the 36th and 37th states to ratify the ERA, leaving only one more state to go.

Virginia has tried to ratify the ERA before. In fact, between 2011 and 2016, the Virginia General Assembly tried to ratify the ERA five times. Each time, the House of Delegates blocked the proposal. However, with the increased role of women in Virginia politics, some individuals, like Virginia Del. Mike Mullin, are optimistic about the ERA’s chances.

“I think that we have a greater likelihood of success than at any other time in the last 40 years,” Mullin said. “We have the votes, we just need to get it to the floor of the House. So, our goal is to be able to make sure that it gets out of subcommittee and onto the floor, where people can stand up and in one voice say that we will be the 38th state to ratify the ERA.” However, getting a resolution out of committee can be an arduous process. The ERA has ardent critics, many of whom belong to the Republican party. Those against the ERA argue that it would create a double standard for women, that it would enshrine abortion rights in the Constitution, or that it

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would be simply unnecessary.

Nonetheless, on the senate side, the ERA had bipartisan support, with seven Republicans joining all 19 Democrats to vote for the resolution. On the House side, it still has not come to a vote, meaning the proposal is still in a Republican-controlled committee.

According to Virginia State Sen. Monty Mason ’89, the ERA proposal was assigned to the privileges and elections committee, and it may or may not make it to the House floor.

“Being assigned to the privileges and elections committee in the House may not give it a fair shake; it is a very difficult committee for a number of issues,” Mason said. “Looking at past history, its opportunity in committee or subcommittee on the House side doesn’t look that good, but I was pleased that we picked up several folks from the other side.”

Even if Virginia were to ratify the ERA, the bill still has an uphill battle due to legal complications.

Because it was not ratified within the time frame specified in the original bill, some argue that the ERA has expired and therefore is no longer eligible to become an amendment. Mullin said he disagrees with this idea.

“Even if that were the case, Congress could always go back and re-up the authorization and extend it, retroactively allowing the 38th state that approved it to handle it,” Mullin said. “Even, by the way, if that were the case, why not still take a stand and say that we’re for equality?”

Mullin said that this is what the ERA is all about: taking a practical and symbolic stand for gender equality.

“We will finally codify gender equality in the Constitution for the first time. It’s a real opportunity to make sure that all men and women are treated

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equally,” Mullin said. “There’s no mention of women in the Constitution. It’s always men. This short phrase will finally be able to fix that after the entire history of our country.”

The senate’s ERA resolution generated much buzz in Virginia politics.

Students and political groups on campus attended the Williamsburg Women’s March Saturday, Jan. 19, where the ERA was a large topic of discussion.

Some students, like Colin Cochran ’21, who is a member of the William and Mary Young Democratic Socialists, argue strongly for the ratification of the Equal Rights AmendmentERA. “The ERA is important because it would enshrine the abolition of sex and gender-based discrimination in the Constitution,” Cochran said in an email.

“It would be an important step to affirm the commitment of the country to gender equality. I also think the fight for equality shouldn’t just take place in the legislative sphere, and we shouldn’t believe the ERA to be a panacea.

Other forms of organization and activism towards social, economic, and political equality can be as valuable as legislation in terms of delivering material benefits to women.”

Whether or not the ERA passes in the House of Delegates, the potential for a constitutional amendment forbidding sex-based discrimination has garnered much enthusiasm.

“How exciting, how apropos would it be that in the 100th year of women at the College of William and Mary, and with our first, spectacular female president in our history, that Virginia becomes the 38th state to ratify,” Mason said. “So, I think that for our story at William and Mary, it would be pretty neat.”

Mason Davenport ’19 says that despite the festive spirit it brings, the Christmas season also highlights the country’s sharp class divides. page 6

Basketball’s centennial game In 1918, Tribe women’s basketball began with a game against Richmond. 100 years later, it was celebrated the same way. page 10

newsinsight “

News Editor Leonor Grave News Editor Madeline Monroe fhnews@gmail.com

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The Flat Hat | Tuesday, January 22, 2019 | Page 2

THE BUZZ

When I interviewed for my position I was told there was only one building on campus named after a woman. It’s just really wonderful to be able to say that’s not the case and that women are leading philanthropists on our campus and that’s recognized in the naming of symbolic buildings.

— Senior Director of Alumni Engagement and Inclusion Initiatives Valerie Cushman on the College of William and Mary’s recent decision to add new signs to residence halls and academic buildings named after influential women .

POLICE BEAT

Jan. 15 - Jan. 20

Writing code, breaking barriers Jennifer Kyriakakis ’96 talks IT major, marketing at Silicon Valley company SARAH SMITH // FLAT HAT EDITOR–IN–CHIEF

1

Tuesday, Jan. 16 — Unlicensed driving: Police arrested Tyvez Tolliver on charges of driving with a suspended or revoked license on Richmond Road. They listed society as the victim in this charge.

2

Wednesday, Jan. 16 — Juvenile on Jamestown: Police report a juvenile victom of a hit and run was found at the intersection of Jamestown Road and South Boundary Street.

3

Wednesday, Jan. 16 — Scottish swearing: Police arrested Carlton Wendell Duncan on charges of public intoxication and swearing at the intersection of Scotland Street and North Boundary Street.

4

Sunday, Jan. 20 — Shot to the stomach: Police charged Nicholas Goff with attempted malicious wounding and unlawful use of a firearm after he allegedly shot the victim in the stomach on Priorslee Lane.

POLICE BEAT BY SARAH SMITH / THE FLAT HAT

A THOUSAND WORDS COURTESY PHOTO / JENNIFER KYRIAKAKIS

Jennifer Kyriakakis ‘96 was one of seven students, six of whom were women, majoring in information technology at the Raymond A. Mason School of Business.

When Jennifer Kyriakakis ’96 left the College of William and Mary, she was one of only seven students in her major. Entering her career, she was a woman in a male-dominated information technology field. Now, she is the vice president of marketing for MATRIXX Software, a company she co-founded.

Kyriakakis majored in information technology and operations management, a program that was part of the Raymond A. Mason School of Business. For current students, information technology is not an option. She also had a minor in philosophy, which she said helped her learn how to build arguments and prove theorems, complementing her technical skills to strengthen her career.

“I knew I wanted to go into IT when I was a senior in high school, and when I took my first IT class at William and Mary, I loved it and knew it was a growing field,” Kyriakakis said. “I wasn’t the hardcore software engineer type, so the mix of technical and business is what appealed to me.”

CORRECTIONS The Flat Hat wishes to correct 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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“

I think women are still perceived as being ‘overemotional’ and men worry about ‘hurting our feelings’ in a workplace environment. It’s good to be passionate and emotional ­­— in a way that is positive and perceived as positive.

— Jennifer Kyriakakis ’ 96

“

SEAN WILLNER / THE FLAT HAT

During her time at the College, Kyriakakis said that the majority of business students were accounting majors, leaving a group of seven students in her major. For her, what was the most exciting was the fact that six out of seven students were women.

“I loved that we had a small, tight knit group in our core classes,” Kyriakakis said. “I remember on one exam, all seven of us got a question wrong, and our professor said, ‘Well I must have taught it wrong since you all missed it.’ It was a wonderful group to go through my major with and taught me the value of teamwork for problem-solving and support.”

Outside of the classroom, Kyriakakis built her resume and her job skills as a student by working off campus at The Green Leafe Café and College Delly. She said these jobs were a great way to meet people, earn money and gain experience.

When she wasn’t at work or in the classroom, Kyriakakis said that one of her favorite memories of the College came from long walks across the campus — which she finds particularly beautiful.

She said she also loved getting to see the blending of modern students and faculty with colonial reenactors all across campus.

After graduating, Kyriakakis started her career in the field she majored in, unlike many of her peers. She began working at the Washington, D.C. office of Andersen Consulting, which is now known as Accenture. There, she worked on larger information technology system implementation projects, writing and developing SQL reports.

She worked at Andersen Consulting for a few years and eventually moved up into a project management position. Moving from D.C. to Mexico City, she started running a project for a mobile operator. Working with Logica, now part of CGI Federal, she was part of the boom of mobile phones.

She said that in this position, she learned how the mobile and telecommunications business worked.

“After a few years, I moved from sales into marketing which was my first non-technical role,” Kyriakakis said. “I enjoyed the storytelling aspect of it, as well as using my technical background to build positioning and help drive the company strategy. That software vendor was acquired in 2006, so in 2009 I co-founded MATRIXX Software together with the CTO/CEO of the previous company and a small group of engineers. Since then we’ve been growing the company to where it is today, around 200 people across 13 countries.”

Silicon Valley-based MATRIXX Software is a company committed to helping telecommunication companies reinvent themselves in a digital economy. They offer a Digital Commerce platform designed to help companies with customer engagement along with other business solutions.

According to Kyriakakis, her organization spans content development, creative and brand, demand generation programs, events, digital marketing, public relations, analyst relations and market development.

“Any given day is a mix of strategy, review, execution and measurement across these functions,” Kyriakakis said. “I’m also part of the leadership team in which I help drive the overall strategy of the company. I work remotely with a highly distributed team, so I spend lots of time doing online meetings and traveling to our various offices and customer sites.”

While Kyriakakis was surrounded by women in her undergraduate experience, that has not been the case for her throughout her STEM career. She’s dedicated a part of her professional life to advocating on behalf of other women in the technology sector.

She said that as a woman in her career she has faced two main challenges: standing her ground when she’s the only woman in the room and expressing a differing opinion.

“I think women are still perceived as being ‘overemotional’ and men worry about ‘hurting our feelings’ in a workplace environment,” Kyriakakis said. “It’s good to be passionate and emotional — in a way that is positive and is perceived as positive. Often, I think women don’t get coached enough or don’t get the same professional feedback a man is given, because a male manager feels they need to be ‘gentler’ in the delivery of constructive or even negative feedback. I always encourage those around me professionally to be direct and honest, as doing the right thing for the team, project or company is the ultimate goal.”

Kyriakakis also said that she faces bias as a woman with a marketing title; people assume she doesn’t understand the technical aspects of her company’s products.

She said that she overcomes this by building rapport and asking lots of questions. “[My favorite part of working in a computer science field] is the speed at which advances are made and the fact that you are ahead of the curve in understanding the cultural impacts of technology,” Kyriakakis said. “For years, my parents didn’t understand what I did.

When I got my mom her first iPhone, she finally said, ‘Oh I get it now!’”

The Flat Hat

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Page 3

WILLIAMSBURG

New options for campus coffee lovers Daily Grind contracts new management, Column 15 set to open SARAH SMITH FLAT HAT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

For coffee lovers, change is brewing in Williamsburg. Eric Christenson, owner of Lokal Café, a primarily plantbased restaurant and yoga lounge on Prince George Street, now runs The Daily Grind as of Jan. 1.

While the menu won’t be seeing major changes, patrons of The Daily Grind will soon see the coffeehouse open for longer hours and taking community feedback into consideration. Across town, two alumni of the College of William and Mary are working to open a fair trade coffee house: Column 15.

No grounds for concern After 18 years, former owner Todd Arnette and general manager Scott Owens have turned over the business.

For Christenson, who lives just an eight-minute walk away, there were many reasons he was interested in The Daily Grind.

“It’s a natural extension for us at Lokal,” Christenson said. “It gives us a chance to be connected to the university community — a lot of customers here go to Lokal. There’s some synergies between the two places that you wouldn’t have if I was going to do a café someplace else.”

Christenson’s contract will run through this semester and then for an additional two years. He moved to Williamsburg approximately three years ago, taking over the BerryBody yogurt shop and turning it into the more health-focused Lokal. Following his training in bread and gelato making in Parma, Italy, he serves house-made, organic bread at Lokal. Now, this bread and Christenson’s other restaurateur skills, such as process management, can be found at The Daily Grind.

“One of the changes that people will see is that we will have a smoother work flow, we’re moving the counter around so there’s not so much of a line out the front door,” Christenson said. “We are reaching out to the community.

We want to use this as an opportunity to throw the idea to the university community that we would like more feedback.”

While Christenson and The Daily Grind team are still determining how exactly they will solicit community feedback, he’s already made the decision to hire more employees and adjust the schedule.

While the kitchen will still close

at 5:30 p.m., Christenson said The Daily Grind will now be open until 11 p.m.These schedule changes should be in effect in approximately two or three weeks.

Christenson said that he plans on expanding locally sourced products, including produce from KelRae Farm.

He said he’s also hoping to expand vegan options at The Daily Grind as well as general bakery items, through access to a commercial bakery.

“Our goal for this semester is to make sure The Grind works as efficiently as possible so people are waiting less,” Christenson said. “I have reviewed about five years of feedback and [one of the recurring concerns] was about speed that things came out, and we need to address that.”

Daily Grind employees Mads Emmett ’21 and Michael Hernandez Euseda ’19 said that they appreciated how understanding and flexible The Daily Grind has always been about their student schedules.

“I was looking for a coffee shop to work at,” Emmett said. “It’s a lot more relaxed. They really understand the importance of our school lives being first.”

Hernandez Euseda said that he appreciates the new management ideas that Christenson is bringing to The Daily Grind and thinks that since training began this semester, things have felt more polished.

“It seems like Eric has a lot of new ideas to implement the community a bit more,” Hernandez Euseda said. “I am excited for how people are going to find this more of a space.”

Partners in grind Across town, James Kroll ’12 and Victoria Goldsby ’17 are preparing to open up their own coffee house. In midOctober, the pair launched Column 15, a company specializing in certified fair trade coffee and nitro cold brew.

Kroll took a weeklong intensive course with Arnette and learned all about roasting coffee beans and developing flavor profiles. Now, Column 15 shares roasting facilities with him.

Column 15, named after the nitrogen column in the Periodic Table, works with coffee importers that are certified in fair trade, and Kroll sources wholesale quantities of coffee from Guatemala and Colombia through these importers.

For a product to be certified as fair trade, everyone who interacts with

COLLIN GINSBURG / THE FLAT HAT

A barista and a patron lean on the newly-arranged counter space, which manager Eric Christenson said he reorganized to avoid long lines.

the product along the way must be certified. This a process that makes the imported coffee cost more, which Kroll said can drive away larger coffee companies. Kroll then roasts the coffee himself.

“One of the big reasons for fair trade being significant when it comes to coffee is that coffee is a commodity,” Kroll said. “It is publicly traded and as such, its price is not necessarily set by the farmers with the people they are selling it too. … With supply and demand, the price of coffee can go very low unexpectedly. The farmers don’t have a lot of control with that.

Oftentimes, because of a drop in the market, they can’t get the same price for coffee, they have to lay off workers and it causes a lot of instability in local communities.”

Bags of their coffee, which are hand-designed, will soon be available for purchase at Earth Fare, Great Wolf Lodge and through the student CSU system. They are currently available online. In addition to roasted coffee, Column 15 also sells nitro cold brew, a craft coffee beverage produced by charging cold brew coffee with nitrogen.

“Nitro cold brew is probably the

closest you can get to getting to taste what coffee smells like,” Goldsby said.

“It’s a smooth, creamy beverage without using creamer. Nitrogen is the creamer so it’s just straight black coffee, water and nitrogen, poured like Guinness.”

In April, Column 15 will open shop in the James-York Plaza, right behind Shorty’s Diner and across the street from Virginia Beer Company. The front half will have a coffee bar, where Column 15 will serve the nitro cold brew and roasted coffee, as well as a social lounge. In the back, a window will give customers a view of the roasting equipment, inspired by craft breweries.

In addition to coffee, Kroll and Goldsby are working on branded merchandise like pint glasses and French press coffee makers to sell at their coffee shop. They are also working with local vendors to develop coffee soap, candles and body scrubs.

Additionally, they are hoping to partner with Kroll’s father, a local woodworker, to design furniture for use and sale at the shop.

Between now and April, the company will be setting up stands at the Williamsburg Premium Outlets and farmers markets in Yorktown and

Portsmouth, as well as hosting an event, Fair Trade Friday, Feb. 1 at Lokal.

At this event, it will be serving coffee and talking about the importance of fair trade and knowing where coffee comes from.

“We are looking to potentially distribute and be a part of community events from Richmond to Virginia Beach,” Kroll said. “Williamsburg is nicely positioned for that. … This is a great place, I hope, to be a base of operations. Especially with the community we have here. Everyone we’ve talked to has been very supportive and willing to try [our coffee] out. That’s going to be our big way into the local community because there are so many local businesses here.”

While neither have a formal business background, Kroll and Goldsby are both passionate about coffee and are excited about their venture.

“Even before college, I knew I wanted to at some point start a business and build it from the ground up,” Kroll said.

“With a combination of experience in marketing and business development and always being interested in coffee, I knew some people who were in the coffee industry and learned a lot from them. It all just fell into place.”

STUDENT LIFE

Lemon Project seeks applicants for volunteer society

Students will serve as ambassadors to organization that researches African-American history AVERILL MEININGER FLAT HAT NEWS ASSOC. EDITOR

This year, 10 years after the Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation was established, the Project is entering a new chapter as it opens up its newest initiative — the Lemon Project Society — which will function as a student volunteer organization.

The team behind the Lemon Project, which was created to address the legacy of wrongs committed against African Americans by the College of William and Mary, including the College’s use of slave labor, is looking forward to continuing this work with increased

involvement of undergraduate students through the Society.

Those selected for the Society will contribute to the multifaceted Lemon Project as ambassadors focused on advertising, spreading awareness, supporting Lemon Project events, like Porch Talks, the Donning of the Kente and the Lemon Project Symposium, and committing to 10 hours of volunteer work each semester. Students will be selected via an online application, which will be accepted up until Feb. 9 at 5 p.m.

Lemon Project Administrative and Archival Assistant Sarah Thomas ’08 Ph.D.’18 said that the project will help students cultivate skills in

COURTESY PHOTO / RAVYNN STRINGFIELD

Students gathered in James Blair Hall for the Lemon Project Alternative Break trip during their 2019 winter breaks.

public speaking and digital curation.

“We also hope to provide students with tangible skills that they can use in their future,” Thomas said.

Lemon Project American Studies Graduate Assistant Ravynn Stringfield M.A.’18 Ph.D.’21 said she hopes that the Society will provide students with a framework for sharing information.

“I think one of our goals is to have something structured that students can participate in so that they can go back to their communities and spread the word about the Lemon Project,” Stringfield said.

Stringfield herself has worked closely with the Branch Out Alternative Break Program for the Lemon Project that is held each year during the weekend before classes begin in the spring.

She often felt like students left the Branch Out trip lacking another outlet to engage with the Lemon Project, and she identifies this as a clear reason for the creation of the Society.

“I do a lot of work with the Branch Out Alternative Break students, and the first thing they ask me after the weekend is over is, ‘How can we get more involved with the Lemon Project? What can we do now that the weekend is over?’ Stringfield said. “And to be honest, we kind of fumbled with that question because we didn’t have anything structured for them to participate in.”

Angela Rose West ’20, a student site leader for the Lemon Project Branch Out trip, shared Stringfield’s sentiments.

“I think it’s great the Lemon Project is expanding student involvement — I have gone on the Branch Out trip with the Lemon Project twice now, and both times students wanted to stay connected and involved,” West said in

a written statement. “This offers an excellent opportunity for the student body to contend with William and Mary’s fraught history with slavery and race.”

Another important aspect of the Society is the opportunity it will give its members to take initiative and begin their own projects. Beyond being a part of Lemon Project events like their Annual Symposium, students should be able to bring their own ideas to the table.

“I’m sure that students will have their own projects that they want to pursue that bring them to the Lemon Project Society in general,” Stringfield said.

As both Thomas and Stringfield acknowledge, creating the Society will be a learning process that will evolve as members bring new ideas for how it should function. According to Thomas, the whole team at the Lemon Project is excited for the possibilities of the Society.

“We wanted to have something that was a real organization where we can be a group together,” Thomas said. “We want to create a sense of community — that’s part of our goal at the Lemon Project.”

Stringfield said that the Society recognizes the strength of the work already being done by the Lemon Project while creating a way to engage students and give them a voice.

“I think the Lemon Project is doing a good job of communicating our goals and our research to faculty members, graduate students and community members, but I sometimes feel like undergraduates may not know the entirety of what we do,” Stringfield said. “And I think the best way to rectify that is to make sure that they’re involved in our research, in our events, in the planning. I think that first-hand experience is really important.”

The Flat Hat

Page 4

Tuesday, january 22, 2019

CAMPUS

College unveils new signs to recognize women Building markers redone to display full names, raise awareness CHARLES COLEMAN FLAT HAT NEWS ASSOC. EDITOR

During winter break, the College of William and Mary placed new signs for five campus buildings and one athletic field as part of an effort to recognize the full names of the women they were named after. The new signs’ installation was led by Senior Director of Alumni Engagement and Inclusion Initiatives Valerie Cushman and James Cutler Professor of Law Emerita Jayne Barnard, and they now recognize Althea Hunt Hall, Carroll F.S. Hardy Hall, Cornella Storrs Adair Hall, Kate Waller Barrett Hall and the Martha Barksdale Athletic Fields.

The idea for the new signs came when Cushman went on a tour of campus designed to highlight buildings named after women, and those on the tour questioned why the buildings didn’t display the women’s full names.

Six months later, Barnard asked Cushman the same question, which led them to push for the change.

Cushman and Barnard reached out to Board of Visitors Secretary Sue Gerdelman ’76 for the plan’s approval. The three then worked with Emma Heinze ’20 to research the names behind the buildings. Heinze said she studied past minutes from the BOV meetings when these buildings were first completed and named.

Heinze spent her summer working under Cushman at the Alumni Association. Heinze studied past minutes from the BOV meetings in search of the original names bestowed upon the buildings and which of those names belonged to women.

“I had to do research in the old Board of Visitor minutes to essentially figure out what these buildings were originally named,” Heinze said. “My job was to go through all of the minutes and see which buildings we know are named after women, whether they were actually named K.S. Hardy hall, or just Hardy hall.”

While this project was a responsibility of Heinze’s job with the Alumni Association, Heinze said she believes it to have an important impact on the College’s community.

Heinze stated how she believes women should continue to be represented on this campus.

“I think it’s really cool to see women honored in this way,” Heinze said. “Continuing to identify those people and the role they played on campus and the role they’re still playing on this campus … it’s a really great step, and there’s more to be done.”

Cushman further described the beginning steps of the project, and the role Heinze had in research.

“It ended up that all three of us met in the summer, then stumbled on what were the original names of the

buildings intended to be,” Cushman said. “Our student intern picked up the research of the original Board of Visitors meetings and determined what the original names were intended to be when the buildings were officially named.”

Cushman said she finds it important to recognize the true role of women in the development of the College, and that she is excited about the strides being made to do this.

“When I interviewed for my position I was told there was only one building on campus named after a woman,” Cushman said. “It’s just really wonderful to be able to say that’s not the case and that women are leading philanthropists on our campus, and that’s recognized through the naming of symbolic buildings.”

To ensure the project’s completion, Barnard worked to confirm what buildings on campus were named after women, and how much the new signs would cost. She then continued to support the idea as it went before the BOV and faced its decision.

“This summer I started thinking about the re-signing question. … I got some information about how much it would cost to re-sign the buildings,” Barnard said. “Sue Gerdelman put it on the agenda for the October Board of Visitor meetings … [the approval of] this one seemed,

and I think, like a no-brainer.”

Gerdelman explained the process of installing the new signs from the perspective of her role as a member of the BOV, and the consensus on moving this project forward.

“Once the information was known, I took it to the Board of Visitors executive committee and the administration, and the Buildings and Grounds committee to talk about the re-signing,” Gerdelman said in an email. “Everyone was supportive because the buildings were not being re-named, simply re-signed. It was able to be handled administratively.”

Gerdelman shared her excitement for the new signs and what they symbolize for the College.

“The new signs are a visible reminder of the women who have influenced William and Mary. I think it’s possible that people assumed the buildings were named for men, and the new signs bring awareness,” Gerdelman said in an email. “The response has been very positive. I was pleased to be a part of the process.”

While there are no other specific buildings with plans of being re-signed in the near future, the school now has a push to begin installing more new signs for old buildings and signing new buildings with the full names of their namesakes.

ACADEMICS

Professors lead new programs in Bhutan, Guatemala Students learn about culture, policy while engaging in community outreach FERNANDO CASTRO FLAT HAT NEWS ASSOC. EDITOR

This past summer, the College of William and Mary sponsored two study abroad programs to Bhutan and Guatemala. Religious Studies Chair Kevin Vose led seven students around religious sites in Bhutan with the intent of learning more about Buddhist culture, while Global Research Institute Director of Programs and Outreach David Trichler led another group of students to research development policy in Guatemala.

Vose’s group took four classes at the Royal University of Bhutan, where one of the professors served as a host for students. According to Vose, the classes were Himalayan Buddhism, Bhutanese History, Gross National Happiness, and Spirituality and Personal Transformation, the latter of which was taught by the president of the university.

Vose talked about the group’s experience at the College of Language and Culture Studies, which served as both a host to the students and a place of learning.

“The education we were getting was a traditional Bhutanese understanding of what Buddhism is and how it relates to daily life,” Vose said. “It was both excellent and could sometimes be a little bit of a challenge as far as teaching style. It wasn’t always a Western-style lecture presentation.”

Student Lauren Croissant ’20 described her experience with Bhutanese education as enriching and highly individual.

“Learning from monks deepened my understanding of course material because they were able to convey the information in a much more personal way,” Croissant said in email. “We got to learn about their experiences and learn about Buddhism from a different lens.”

The traditional Bhutanese education differs in a fundamental way from the western-style education, Vose said. “[At] William and Mary, we take very much a historical, critical approach to religion, whereas with two of our faculty there being monks themselves, they present Buddhism from the inside, as they see it, as they live it,” Vose said. “It’s very much presented as a more traditional, monastic-style education. They’re presenting basics of Buddhism as a Buddhist sees it, not as a historian sees it, or somebody from a disparate culture who’s grown up not believing Buddhism as true would present it. It’s very much done from the inside.”

The group formed strong connections with its Bhutanese hosts. According to Croissant, this helped enrichen their education.

“Not that I was expecting them to be unfriendly, but everyone I met seemed genuinely excited to talk to us about their history and culture over tea, offer us a meal, tell us about their experiences living in Bhutan, or ask us about

life in the United States,” Croissant said in an email. “Not only were we able to see and learn about Buddhist culture, but we were able to connect on a more personal level because of our connection to our professor.”

Vose gave more specifics about the religious temples the members of his group visited during their time in Bhutan, which began out west at the Bhutanese capital, Thimphu, to the former capital, Punakha Dzong.

“Dzong means fort, and Dzongs were sites of the religious and political authority ... the most significant place we went in those first few days was Punakha Dzong, the first capital of Bhutan,” Vose said. “[Punakha Dzong] was built in the 17th century. It’s a massive fort, both in the sense of a defensive structure that housed the seat of government for the country and one of the most important monasteries of the country.”

Vose also expanded on the concept of Gross National Happiness, which is a development metric used in Bhutan. According to Vose, Bhutan sees western nations as ones that prioritize material development. “[Bhutan’s] critique is that maybe material development in it of itself doesn’t provide human happiness,” Vose said. “They acknowledge that material development is important, and so it is one of what’s called the four pillars of Gross National Happiness. ... The others tend to emphasize preservation of what’s unique to Bhutan, mainly Buddhism and Bhutanese culture.

The fear they have is that material development in addition to not providing happiness might tend to compete with more traditional Bhutanese values.”

On the other side of the globe, Trichler described how he taught developmental policy to his students while in Guatemala.

“We’re thinking about development, but what we’re really thinking about is how does a country and its community and its citizens move to have better options, more economic power, better quality of life,” Trichler said. “... [I] n general, if we think about development as having opportunities, and the ability to have better lives for ourselves, then the policies that we use to pursue that are really important, because it leads to different outcomes, and that’s where we place the emphasis.”

Trichler talked about the effects the trips had on the students that were impossible to achieve in a typical classroom setting.

“When I was talking with Jorge, [native] or when I was in Maria’s home [native] learning about how they manage their household finances, or how they think about crop developments, or how they manage uncertainty and risk, you know it’s those conversations that they’re having in those homes, or in the farmlands,” Trichler said. “... Those are the conversations and experiences that stick.”

Noah Scruggs ’19 said that Trichler’s program helped him understand the role of resource access and its impact on development policy.

“While in the communities, I learned that development policy is all about ensuring access to essential resources, education and the application of those resources and education to create sustainable communities backed by strong economic fundamentals,” Scruggs said in an email.

Trichler stressed the diversity of students on the trip in terms of major, field of study and background, and how it enriched their experiences.

“It was great to have such a differing background of people. Typically, I have a few people from government or econ, or international relations, but here we had people from finance, or from biology, or from mathematics, and they brought such an interesting and different perspective to the class,” Trichler said. “Being together in a different environment brings you closer together as a group and makes the sharing of unique experiences and background easier in a way. One of the international students said they had never felt more part of America than they did in Guatemala.”

As a finance major, Scruggs also said that it was valuable to have students of different fields of study on the trip, especially when working alongside an organization like CHOICE Humanitarian, which focuses on creating sustainable communities.

“Working on the ground in Guatemala with the CHOICE Humanitarian program, I learned that my understanding of Finance is essential in development policy, just as my classmates studying International Relations and Biology and Marine Science provided essential perspectives necessary for understanding development policy,” Scruggs said in an email. “The variety of students on my trip provided me and the rest of my classmates with a multidimensional perspective that can only be achieved when tapping into the resources of people from all walks of life.”

Trichler reflected on the quick pace at which students developed connections on their trip, particularly with the local team of the nonprofit that they worked alongside.

“One thing that surprised me and the students, because two weeks is not a long time, but how strongly and quickly they developed friendships,” Trichler said. “... Cross-cultural ties came out really strongly, in a way that I’m hoping will be universal for future groups as well.”

Scruggs talked about the strong relationships he solidified while in Guatemala, and how it changed him as a person.

“I developed such a strong love for the people in the communities that we visited, and I found a close group of friends in the classmates who went with me,” Scruggs said. “I would have never expected it to teach me the value of keeping a positive attitude, depending on others when you need support and the value of giving up control and being patient enough to wait for things to work out.”

WILLIAMSBURG

Local organization launches kindness campaign to help community LEAD Greater Williamsburg's WMBGkind initiative to rely on social media to spread message, partner with state officials SARAH SMITH FLAT HAT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

This February, the current class of LEAD Greater Williamsburg is kicking off its newest campaign, WMBGkind. From a Feb. 1 kickoff event to a community race in May, LEAD will use social media platforms to draw attention to acts of kindness in the Greater Williamsburg area with the hopes of improving schools, businesses, neighborhoods and the local government.

LEAD, a leadership immersion program sponsored by the Greater Williamsburg Chamber and Tourism Alliance, consists of 29 leaders from a variety of backgrounds. Members of the 2018-19 class include pastors, educators, lawyers and architects. Each class is charged with choosing a project that will have a positive impact on the community. In past years, LEAD has installed benches at Williamsburg’s bus stops and run indoor plumbing through homes that needed it.

Following a two-day retreat in September 2018, the current class of LEAD settled on WMBGkind, using kindness as its project to create change in Williamsburg.

“Each class has to find what’s passion for them,” 2019 LEAD Class President Matthew Williams said. “Our class had two different sessions at the retreat … let me tell you, it was very difficult. People had hundreds of ideas.

It wasn’t something that was fleshed out overnight. It took about three or four weeks to come up with a general

idea, and something that came out of the retreat was that everything led back to helping people and being a good steward to the community and being kind.”

When researching kindness campaigns, members of the 2019 LEAD class found Tom Tait, who ran on a platform of kindness for his two terms as Anaheim, California’s mayor. While in office, Tait led a challenge within the city’s elementary schools to perform “A Million Acts of Kindness,” and is credited with decreasing disciplinary actions within the schools by almost 50 percent.

Because each LEAD project must be measurable, WMBGkind will be evaluated using social media metrics. Already, the class has taken to social media pages to highlight community members committing acts of kindness in their daily lives.

“We’ve already highlighted quite a few,” 2019 LEAD Ambassador for Community Engagement Heather Hall said. “One particular post that got a lot of likes and shares was a gentleman that made the decision to help pick up trash in the community. As a result of the government furlough, trash pickup has been really sparse. We always, as people, by nature, are doing things to better ourselves, to better our community, to better our neighbors, and those are things we are trying to highlight. We are taking the time to look around and see who might be in need.”

Like Tait, LEAD will be working with schools and other community organizations that already focus on

service. Hall said that the kindness campaign was chosen in part because of how much community actors already do to help those in need. Because the 2018-19 LEAD class comes from a diverse background of occupations, each member will be responsible for working with their employers to spread the message.

“Well, all in all, we are trying to spread kindness and bring the community together,” Hall said. “There is a lot of division, not necessarily just in our community, but everywhere. Regardless of your political opinions, how conservative you are, what your priorities may be, kindness can really make a difference in people’s lives. It creates a ripple effect across the board, and it makes you, the person acting in a way of kindness, feel better about yourself and is incredibly impactful on other people and those who witness it.”

Beyond using social media, LEAD also worked to gain statewide support. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam issued a proclamation establishing the week of Feb. 10-16 as Random Acts of Kindness Week to promote positivity and encourage random acts of kindness.

Northam’s proclamation cites studies that say kindness is a contagious action that decreases stress, boosts happiness, lowers blood pressure and releases serotonin and oxytocin in the brain.

“We feel like it’s a continuation of support for our campaign for him to identify the week of kindness, it’s pretty remarkable,” Williams said. “It speaks a lot to the

feeling and the sentiment of what’s important to the governor that he’s making that known. He’s putting it out there for us, which is huge. It’s a better way to connect the state and start with Williamsburg.”

The official kickoff event for WMBGkind is Feb. 1 at Legacy Hall. Tait will be a guest speaker along with United Way CEO and President Steven Kast, who oversees United Way’s mission as an organization that works to improve health, education and financial stability within the Virginia Peninsula. WHRO Executive Producer Barbara Hamm Lee will be the event’s mistress of ceremonies. According to Hall and Williams, the kickoff event will be a chance to introduce the campaign to different groups within the community and to introduce later initiatives.

In May, the 2018-19 LEAD class will graduate and formally hand the project off to United Way. United Way volunteered to indefinitely continue the campaign.

Prior to the LEAD class’s graduation, there will be a race, unofficially titled Miles of Kindness. “[The campaign] has made me slow down in the day-to-day, pay a compliment to someone, pay closer attention to someone who may not seem in the best mood,” Hall said. “I have two children of my own, I have a busy, demanding job and this LEAD program, but the importance of slowing down to realize that the impact that you make on the people that you are surrounded by, has changed my outlook.”

opinions

Opinions Editor Ethan Brown Opinions Editor Katherine Yenzer fhopinions@gmail.com

The Flat Hat

| Tuesday, January 22, 2019 | Page 5

STAFF COLUMN

GRAPHIC BY SARAH BRADY / THE FLAT HAT

Insect infestations in freshman dorms must be addressed immediately

“

Alyssa Slovin FLAT HAT OPINIONS ASSOC. EDITOR

College dorms are known for their less-than-perfect living conditions. Bugs in the halls are nothing unheard of, but that does not mean that it should be acceptable.

At the College of William and Mary, certain dorms have better reputations than others when it comes to bugs. Students typically hear horror stories from students in Green and Gold Village involving ants in their beds and cockroaches in their halls.

This year, however, countless additional dorms have had problems with bugs. Dorms on old campus have ants on the lower floors. Students in various dorms have found cockroaches. Even the newly renovated Landrum Hall has baby cockroaches.

I live in Jefferson Hall, and we have struggled with ant infestations for months. The ants first entered the building when the weather changed in order to escape the cold and find food. Some dorm rooms had long trails of ants across the floor from the exterior walls to their trash cans.

Soon after, as more and more of the residents became aware of the issue and sprayed Raid around their windows, it became all too apparent that the building was already infested with ants.

The biggest and most consistent issue has been the firstfloor bathrooms. There are constantly ants on the walls, floors and worst of all, the toilets. At one point, ants were all over the

Ants — or any bug, for that matter — may be more difficult to prevent in college dorms. There are so many students living so close together, and many of them fail to clean up after themselves as they should. But the College should be taking the necessary measures to exterminate and make sure these issues are under control.

walls in the kitchen due to the smelly trash. Most recently, ants seem to have found their way through the interior walls and have been entering the dorm rooms through the cracks between the floors and walls, and the walls and closets.

Ants — or any bug, for that matter — may be more difficult to prevent in college dorms. There are so many students living so close together, and many of them fail to clean up after themselves as they should. But the College should be taking the necessary measures to exterminate and make sure these issues are under control.

I have heard some students excuse the issue by explaining that the College has very old buildings, including the dorms.

They claim that this should be expected and simply tolerated.

I understand that the College’s campus is known for being historic, but old buildings are not an excuse for poor living conditions. All of the dorms should be treated much more regularly to prevent these outbreaks of extreme insect infestations.

It is not fair to the students to make them live among a constant stream of bugs, but it also is not fair to the staff at the College. Janitors clean the bathrooms and hallways as well as take out the trash in the kitchens and bathrooms. It is not fair to them that they have to deal with these conditions, too. They are not equipped to kill that many bugs, nor is it their job to do so.

Instead of leaving the work to students and janitors, the College needs to employ the help of professional exterminators much more consistently.

I have heard that there have been a couple of calls made, but it has not been often enough, and it has not been very successful. The College needs to understand that they cannot continue to ignore this issue and simply hope that the bugs will disappear with minimal effort. A full exterminating maintenance plan should be in effect for all of the dorms at all times.

Everyone’s health and well-being are at stake.

Email Alyssa Slovin at amslovin@email.wm.edu

GUEST COLUMN

Changes to U.S. News & World Report ranking not indicative of the College’s standing

David Dessler FLAT HAT GUEST WRITER

Five months ago, the 2019 undergraduate rankings by U.S. News & World Report were released, and extensive news coverage documented significant changes in the rankings of many schools. Media coverage of the changes stressed that a shift in the U.S. News’s “methodology” away from that used in 2018 as the cause of these ranking changes. In articles from The Flat Hat to the Daily Press to WM News, the College of William and Mary was strongly affected by these changes, with a reported “drop” from 32nd to 38th in the overall rankings.

A petition harshly criticizing the Board of Visitors for the drop. I believe these articles were misguided in their analytical assumptions and general conclusions. In this brief response, I wish to explain that if you wish to take the U.S. News rankings seriously, then the Board of Visitors, if anything, deserves applause, and they deserve great credit in particular for their appointment of College President Katherine Rowe.

All signs from the information provided by the U.S. News rankings indicate that, because of Board action, the College is in increasingly strong

shape. News coverage last fall made the mistake of accepting at face value the claim by U.S. News & World Report that their new 2019 ranking reflected a “change in methodology.”

The talk about the resulting “shifts” and “drops” of various colleges in the rankings was, to be frank, just U.S. News manipulating perceptions in a way that helps them sell magazines. What they did to change the rankings of universities is important, but it’s not quite what they present it as, and the resulting confusion created a good deal of needless angst, not least at the College.

To be clear, what changed in the new rankings was the list of criteria used to rank universities.

Very roughly, U.S. News introduced a new element into the mix of considerations that, in their view, should determine how we judge the excellence of a university: the number of Pell Grant recipients it graduates.

To make room for this new element, the criteria of retention and graduation rates were given a smaller percentage of a university’s overall score (again, the reality was a bit more complicated, but that’s close enough).

What did not change was the methodology.

It remained the same. The methodology is arithmetic. The 2019 report is a new ranking.

Nothing fell. The College was 32nd in the old ranking. It is 38th in the new ranking — different criteria, different rankings and no travel between them. What are the implications of this different ranking for how we evaluate the Board? Let’s examine more closely the two rankings.

Recall that the second includes the number of Pell Grant recipients. The first doesn’t. If you go back to 2005, former College President Gene Nichol said, “We’ve got to increase the number

of Pell Grant recipients.” He established the Gateway Program. The number of Pell Grant recipients increased 20% in two years. Then Nichol was forced out, in part for introducing the Gateway Program. Former College President Taylor Reveley gutted that program after Nichol’s tenure, and Pell Grant numbers collapsed. They have increased in recent years but remain low.

How would the College rank if Nichol had continued his Gateway program uninterrupted?

I have looked at the numbers going back in time, and because of some missing data, I had to borrow a few from The New York Times College Index that reports a Pell share. Thus, the extrapolation I am about to report, which stretches forward a decade, must be considered only approximate. But it shows that the estimate of where the College would be in the new rankings looks to be right around 32nd. We can say at the very least that the College would be a few steps above 38th; there is no doubt about that.

These results suggest that, if Nichol had been allowed to continue in office with his Gateway program, the College might well have made the transition from the old rankings to the new ones without fanfare.

Thus, in a sense, there was a ranking drop, but not the one reported in the press. It was the one the College suffered in the counterfactual rankings we could construct for our own purposes if we took the new U.S. News & World Report criteria with us back to 2005 for a journey through our history.

The drop we have experienced is the lower trajectory the College took after 2008, when Reveley took over, in comparison to the prestige

the university would have maintained had Nichol and his policies been adequately defended that year.

If there has been a drop in quality, it is the one we suffered from having Reveley’s policies replace Nichol’s over a 10-year period. Our counterfactual comparison reminds us to look for the causes of the College’s problems in its people and its policies, past and present. It was Reveley’s decision to gut the Gateway Program after 2008, as a matter of policy, that has put the College in a place where we now find ourselves, wishing perhaps that we had not departed so sharply from the path Nichol put us on.

If the concern is that we are 38th in the new ranking because of a Pell Grant deficit and that we would like to get back to 32nd by making up that deficit, we might look at what the Board is planning to do to boost Pell Grant recipients at the College. It turns out they have already acted and in a decisive way.

The selection of Rowe by the Board of Visitors last February suggests that the Board of Visitors understands that people and policies matter to the College’s future, especially when it comes to the office of the president.

Thus, if an observer’s concern is narrowly with U.S. News rankings, and the issue is that the College has a lower standing in the new rankings relative to the old one, let it be known that the Board ran and completed a presidential search to address the “rankings drop” seven months before it even appeared in U.S. News & World Report.

Which, it appears, the Board does not even need to read.

Email David Dessler at dadessler@gmail.com.

The Flat Hat

Tuesday, January 22. 2019

GUEST COLUMN

Page 6

STAFF COLUMN

Holiday spirit complicated by deep socioeconomic divisions

Mason Davenport FLAT HAT GUEST WRITER

Christmas is a wonderfully tragic yet beautiful time of the year for me, laden with equal parts nostalgia and regret. My most vivid memory as a child during the season is from when I was 10. I tore the wrapping off a box from Santa Claus to reveal a Gameboy SP and Pokémon FireRed — the first ever video game either my brother or I had ever owned. I remember playing for hours, even skipping showers to play, much to the bemusement and chagrin of my parents. I showed it off to all of my mom’s family who came to visit that day, and then again to my dad’s when we traveled to his parents’ house. In that moment, I remember joy in a way that only Christmas can bring out in a young child.

But, in all honesty, that’s not the Christmas memory that hits me hardest. When I was 12, my dad lost his job during the 2008 recession. We had grown up modestly, partly by necessity from my mom’s medical bills, but mostly because she was determined to never spoil us. However, that Christmas was especially tight. I remember feeling disappointed at how crummy Christmas was, in how few presents I got to open up.

Even though my mom had worked hard rewrapping previous gifts from the year before and had filled Christmas bags with our favorite candy and foods, the moment still felt empty and hollow — like my forced smile as I opened yet another box of year-old socks. And I remember my dad’s face as I stared dejectedly at the shredded pile of wrapping paper on my grandma’s floor, his expression a mixture of embarrassment, pain and remorse. I remember that face to this day; I can only imagine how it might feel from the other side as a parent.

Fast forward 10 years. Things have gotten plenty tighter, and not all my family has chosen to stay a part of my life, but my mom still makes Christmas special for my brother and me.

She still wraps new gifts, rewraps old ones and puts food in Christmas bags — it’s tradition now. She mailed my brother, currently deployed in Afghanistan, his presents before he’d even left the country. She set up the same artificial tree with the same collection of ornaments bearing memories of her 58 years in the corner of her apartment nestled on the 11th floor of a senior living facility. We still use the same “12 Days of Christmas” glasses and sing the same verses at every meal.

And, though our family has changed in some painful ways, my mom continues to bring back the memory of home every year.

However, I can’t help but feel frustrated. I finished exams this past December only to work as seasonal help at Barnes & Noble to be able to afford Christmas presents and my next car insurance payment. I felt envious because while I was working, most of my friends were resting during break. I felt sad because I couldn’t make Christmas parties or catch-up dinners or post photos in front of tacky lights on Instagram. I felt self-righteous because I still work three jobs when most of my classmates don’t work any. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of my work.

I’m proud to be self-sufficient and buy presents for loved-ones, but I can’t help but feel alone.

However, the thing is — I’m not. 40 percent of college students work at least 30 hours a week. A quarter of Americans work during the holidays. Nearly 44 million Americans are an unpaid caregiver to someone in need, and plenty of families struggle to make the season magical. One of the most gutwrenching parts about working in retail during Christmas is watching parents make the difficult choice of which presents to take out of the cart because there isn’t enough money left in their bank envelope. On Christmas Eve, a woman came in with various gift cards she’d saved up over the whole year to buy each of her kids something special. The hardest part of my night was taking off the stuffed bear and chapter book from the receipt because she didn’t have the extra $30 to cover the difference.

My experience is that of the typical American, even though it’s rarely seen or heard at the high-level academic institutions or upper-middle-class neighborhoods I grew up around. It’s a set of trade-offs between health care and Christmas, insurance and eating out, new shoes and used textbooks — how to stretch that bank envelope to make ends meet. While I am so fortunate to have grown up with access to many of the same opportunities as my wealthier classmates, too few have that same privilege. Class mobility is the lowest it has ever been since the Great Depression. Middle America is increasingly priced out of attending college. Those who do manage to attend report lower grades and graduation rates than their wealthier classmates, whether from the stress of working, serving as a caregiver or the failure of the public school system to adequately prepare them for collegiate-level work. We face a growing divide in opportunity, in inter-socioeconomic association, in institutional access.

I don’t have a silver bullet for our woes but let me offer the beginning step to a solution — look for ways to cross the social divides between us. Work at the local YMCA, Habitat for Humanity or a religious organization, places where we serve alongside one another regardless of background, and bond as equals. It is in those places where we feel most comfortable to share our stories and empathize with one another. Look out for the boy with twice-gifted socks and the mother who can’t afford a teddy bear for her child. Look for the student working three jobs to make ends meet and the family supporting an ailing loved one. Only through truly understanding the lives of those different from us can we begin to create the change necessary to mend our divided nation. Because, for all the things which divide and differentiate us, we are all Americans.

And only by realizing that are we able to move forward and make the American Dream, whatever that may be, a reality for the forgotten majority.

Email Mason Davenport at madavenport01@email.wm.edu.

GRAPHIC BY KAYLA PAYNE / THE FLAT HAT

Repainted wall at Caf: Gross affront to senses

Christian Borio FLAT HAT COPY EDITOR

Previously, I have sung the praises of Sodexo and its stellar employees. However, as I strode into the Caf a few days ago, I was greeted with two surprises, only one of which was pleasant. I have always sat in the area overlooking the ice cream machine and the cereal section. (Funny enough, there’s a microwave over there just in case you want to heat up your milk before you pour in your cereal).

The usual high-top seating has been replaced by the low orange chairs usually found by the windows in Sadler. I was glad to see that the tables were lower than they had been in Sadler, as in Sadler they are much too high.

I sat down with my soup into the loving embrace of these orange arms, delighted by the change in height. Now the tables had no illusions as to their purpose as a coffee table. In Sadler they’d been living in a constant identity crisis, and I was happy to see that they were now mentally stable.

This was the only pleasant surprise. I took a loud slurp of my scrumptious soup, relishing in the sweet burns it gave my mouth and tongue.

As I placed my bowl down, I looked away from the table just before pulling out my phone to enter a virtual world of seclusion. If you really must know, I planned to peruse the wonderful cesspool of intelligence called Reddit, but I also expected to explore the wholesomeness of my Instagram feed dominated by Old Row and Barstool. In this brief hiatus between looking at my food and looking at my phone, my eyes struck the wall behind the cereal and

the ice cream machine, only to find that, in my absence, it had been painted purple. It looked hideous. It was an affront to any good taste that has ever existed in this world. To think that they would have the gall to paint this wall purple bewilders me.

There is nothing in the entire cafeteria that vaguely resembles the color purple. Everything is red, brown, orange or even green.

How dare you.

This wall offended my very soul. In this moment of existential crisis, I did the only thing one can do when faced with imminent self-destruction. I texted my mother. My mother also happens to be an interior designer. I told her about my predicament and that I’d sooner walk into oncoming traffic than paint the wall that atrocious color. She suggested that, as a form of donation to the school, she should consult with them on their decorating advice, and that the College of William and Mary’s interior designers had been on thin ice trying to squeeze in even a shade of green amongst all the red earthy tones, let alone any purple.

She also corrected my ignorance and said that the color was not purple, but lavender.

I know paint is cheap. I know that it takes relatively little time and resources to paint a wall like the one in the Commons. I also don’t know if the paint on that wall needed a new coat, but to quote an old proverb from my grandpapa “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

But what I do know is that looking at that purple wall is like looking at the demon creatures in “Bird Box.” It’s a slap in the face to my very character, a violation of the Geneva Convention and basic human rights.

Why, cruel world, did it have to be that color? You could’ve just painted the wall the same color, or maybe any neutral tone that doesn’t fight the rest of the room. Now it shouts at me every time I walk past. Every time I get ice cream or microwave some milk I get berrated by this belligerent wall, a crude and callous representation of Man’s fall from grace.

To the individuals responsible for the purple wall: You better get your ducks in a row right now or else I may not even regret going to St Andrews next year.

Email Christian Borio at cmborio@email.wm.edu.

“

I don’t know if the paint on that wall needed a new coat. But what I do know is that looking at that purple wall is like looking at the demon creatures in “Bird Box.” It’s a slap in the face to my very character, a violation of the Geneva Convention and basic human rights.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY SUFFERS FROM A CRISIS OF IDENTITY

Here is the big problem for Democrats: The Republicans are correct when they say that we have not had a new idea for the past 50 years. They are also right when they say that we have had no real national platform/agenda that we stand for. I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but at least I have a platform/agenda that I stand for. I want the federal government to do more and spend more to help our citizens who are poor, nearpoor, lower-middle-class, and middle-class who are struggling to survive and to pay their bills.

I want the national Democratic Party to be the way that it was in the 1960s when we cared more about all of these people and fought harder to make life better for

all of them.

The problem with the national Democrats is that they have offered no way to pay for anything that would help to make life better for us. So, we are stuck, and have been spinning our wheels for the past 50 years doing virtually nothing to help anyone.

It’s no wonder why people are sick and tired of us. We haven’t offered anything new or different. I’m a Democrat, and I am also sick and tired of us. The only way to get the revenue to actually do something big to help Americans is something that the national Democrats seem to lack the courage and bravery to advocate for. So I will.

Donald Trump proposed it in 1999. Look it up. The only

way to get the revenue to fund my platform/agenda is to pass a National Wealth Tax. If you want to play “Robin Hood” (as I do) you have to tax WEALTH because that’s where the big bucks are.

So, I advocate for the passage of a National Wealth Tax of 10 percent on all individuals with a net-wealth and net-worth of 10 million dollars and higher.

This will affect less than 1 percent of our population.

If we want to have a Canadian-style national health insurance program which will cover and help 99 percent of all Americans, this is the only way to come up with the money to pay for it.

Sincerely, Stewart B. Epstein phenom51@mail.com

variety

Variety Editor Heather Baier flathat.variety@gmail.com

The Flat Hat | Tuesday, January 22, 2019 | Page 7

Tribe Guard spins onto campus Campus group features dance, flag spinning, student-driven choreography hoeless and with a background track of “A Million Dreams” from “The Greatest Showman,” the Tribe Guard members know how to put on a show.

Tribe Guard’s winter showcase in December featured two routines, each one choreographed by one of the two captains. Marisa Lemma ’20 and Nico Druck ’20 lead their color guard every Tuesday and Thursday in their rehearsals in Trinkle Hall, carefully choreographing every movement and flag toss.

“Nico mostly writes the work, but I occasionally do a lot of the more ‘dance-y’ stuff,” Lemma said.

“We work together on the drill. Because we’re student-run, it falls on the captains to plan the show. I’ll hear a song, and I’ll be like, ‘Wow, that would make a really good guard show.’”

Druck finds inspiration not only from music but from his previous experiences.

“My high school is a big inspiration,” Druck said.

“My high school did take it very seriously, oddly enough, so I take a lot of inspiration from there.

Sometimes, in all honesty, I just kind of make stuff up on the spot.”

The group’s formation in 2016 originated with a surprise message in Lemma’s inbox before either Druck or Lemma arrived on campus.

“After I got accepted, I went on the Class of 2020 Facebook page and saw that there were a good number of people who also had guard in their high school experience,” Druck said. “After realizing that it wasn’t a thing here, I thought it’d be a cool idea to start one — or better said, restart, because there used to be one here in 2011. It started from me messaging Marisa. We didn’t even meet each other until Orientation.”

Lemma and Druck w e r e

required to meet with the Office of Student Leadership Development and had to ensure no similar color guard groups existed on campus.

Then they had to present at least five signatures to demonstrate that interest in the group existed.

“Our first year, we pretty much only recruited people we knew that did color guard in high school,” Lemma said. “Through Facebook we were

“

I found myself. I learned to feel more confident about myself. I love guard. It’s been a big part of my life.

– Emily Salmon ’21

“

S

MATTHEW WRIGHT // FLAT HAT COPY EDITOR

like, ‘Hey, we started this, if anybody wants to join.’”

Following the group’s first ever performance at the Day for Admitted Students in 2017, the Tribe Guard has steadily grown in size. The group consisted of six members its first year and has more than doubled in size since.

“We welcome anybody,” Lemma said. “At the beginning, news spread by word of mouth. Last year, we made sure to do the activities fair. Our performance at Day for Admitted Students helped to recruit people.”

As the numbers increase, so does the ambition.

In years past, the Tribe Guard only performed at DFAS in the spring with a showcase for current students occurring in the days preceding DFAS. Within the past semester, the Tribe Guard performed a halftime performance to “Proud Mary” at a the Homecoming game for the first time, accompanied by the Pep Band. The group hopes to continue performing at new events and in new venues, though finding the time to do so is challenging.

“This year, we are still wobbling back and forth [on performing] for basketball games, because planning DFAS does take the entire semester,” Druck said. “It would be really hard to plan for basketball games and then stop and start planning for DFAS in the middle. DFAS takes every practice the entire semester to really go through, so spring semester is always a little bit more constricted.

But definitely more football games, aside from just the homecoming game, and definitely the homecoming parade as well.”

The group does not perform in competitive events, though they once considered it. Lemma said they decided aginst it because competitions are exepesive and complicated to organize.

Without competions, Tribe Guard is more a casual commitment that more students desire.

“Tribe Guard has been better because it’s more casual than what I’m used to, which I think is really nice for the college setting,” assistant captain Emily Salmon ’21 said. “This is my seventh year – I started in eighth grade.”

Performing means something different to everyone. For Druck, the enjoyment comes from the satisfaction of leading a group through an intimidating task. For Salmon, performing in color guard boosts her personal growth.

“I found myself,” Salmon said. “I learned to feel more confident about myself. I love guard.

It’s been a big part of my life.”

The Tribe Guard is always open to new members, regardless of experience.

“If you’re even interested in it at all, you should definitely come try it,” Salmon said. “We have people who have been doing it for seven years, and we have people who just started this s emester. We’re happy to teach new p e ople n e w things.”

The Flat Hat

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Page 8

Enjoying the Aroma

HEATHER BAIER / THE FLAT HAT

On campus coffee shop Aromas in Earl Gregg Swem Library offers students a place to relax and refuel throughout the day. The employees who make the drinks bond behind the counter during rushes between classes.

Employees share behind the counter view of popular campus coffee shop The College of William and Mary is often stereotyped to be the home of many dedicated students who seemingly love to study. While this is a bit of an exaggeration, Earl Gregg Swem Library is still a major campus hotspot. The fuel that keeps it all running is the coffee shop in Swem: Swemromas.

“I really enjoy working Saturday mornings,” Swemromas barista Jenna Chapa ’20 said in an email. “The faces of tired students walking in excited to get coffee makes my day.”

Swemromas barista Malik Obeidallah ’21 enjoys working behind the counter becuase it gives him the opportunity to keep students fueled throughout the day.

“I think that you really begin to enjoy it,” Obeidallah said. “Because you have a sense of purpose and you keep the college going in a way — or caffeinated — and it makes you feel a little better. It can get really intense, but I still love it a lot.”

Swemromas experiences several rushes throughout the day when an onslaught of students who are tired, bored and hungry alike all enter the café at once.

“There are a couple different rushes throughout the day,” Swemromas barista Calvin Kolbe ’20 said. “Pretty much at the end of any class period you’ll get students coming in, especially the most popular ones are right

around noon or one, and then the three o’clock rush is the really big one, because that’s right around when students are done with classes for the day, and they’re heading to Swem to start the rest of their day.”

All three baristas described the detailed system that they have had to learn in order to stay organized and on top of orders during these rushes.

“There is someone on ‘back bar’ that makes smoothies, teas, ice coffee and ice tea,” Chapa said in an email. “This person can also prep drinks to help the person on bar. There is someone on ‘bar’ which makes all the espresso drinks and drinks that requires steamed milk.

By preparing the drinks a bit early we are able to just pour the shots in the drink, add the steamed milk and stir – it helps move things a little faster. Rushes can get a little hectic, but the students are usually very understanding.”

Teamwork is unavoidable in these situations.

“So, everything has to be in sync to get the drinks going,” Obeidallah said. “Because if one person isn’t doing their job, you can really get backed up.”

However, the baristas don’t regard their dependence on one another as a negative.

“I like working with my coworkers,” Kolbe said. “The experience of having to deal with so many people and always having to be constantly doing something, you solidify bonds pretty quickly. You have to be able to trust that what needs to get done is getting done.”

In fact, the baristas all value the relationships they have formed with their coworkers.

“

I find that everybody that works there is a family; we all help each other out, we all care for each other and so the people there are definitely the best part of the job.

“

ALYSSA SLOVIN FLAT HAT OPINIONS ASSOC. EDITOR

– Malik Obeidallah ’21

“My favorite part about my job has to be my coworkers,” Chapa said in an email. “They are always so positive and love to make this job not really feel like a job. It’s more about us just hanging out and making coffee.”

Obeidallah said that he and his coworkers take care of each other and bond behind the counter.

“Just how a professor can make you either hate or love the course, I feel like the people

you work with, in the same way, can either make you love or hate the job,” Obeidallah said.

“And I find that everybody that works there is a family; we all help each other out, we all care for each other and so the people there are definitely the best part of the job.”

Obeidallah has only worked at Swemromas for about one month, but he feels passionately about his work.

“I really enjoy college culture and the culture that builds around coffee and sitting in a coffee shop and doing work,” Obeidallah said.

“Personally, in high school, the only place I liked doing my work was in a café. I love coffee, I learned how to appreciate the different blends and the different types of espresso drinks that there are, and I was like ‘Ya know what? If there’s any time that I can be a barista, it’s right now.’

So, I decided to pursue it, and here we are.”

However, the baristas also elaborated on their grueling schedules due to the late hours of Swemromas.

“The one tough thing is that Swemromas — compared to the Grind, which closes like a normal coffee shop, so 5 p.m. — Swemromas being open until midnight can be really hard on employees,” Kolbe said. “We’re able to cover for each other and help each other out when there is a lot of stuff going on, but a midnight shift a couple times a week is tough because we close at 12 [a.m.] and then we are there until 12:30 [a.m.] cleaning up. During finals, we’ll be open until 2 a.m. and it gets kind of hard.”

Come for tunes, stay for community

Meridian Coffeehouse seeks to provide welcoming space for students

With sketches of pentagrams on walls, and a mannequin named Jane to welcome guests in the bathroom, the Meridian Coffeehouse can seem like an intimidating place. The Meridian first opened in 1995 under the name of Zarathustras, in reference to Friedrich Nietzsche’s novel about the prophet and the Zoroastrian religion. It was opened as a coffeehouse and an alternative weekend hangout from Fraternity and Sorority Life.

“In the past it was a very insulated group of people that were running this thing that was really close to their heart, and they weren’t necessarily like, ‘I want to invite other people into this,’” Stacia Phalen ’19, one of the Meridian’s general managers, said.

“We definitely have been working hard to get more fun people in.”

The Meridian’s past reputation had created a stigma that made people believe the Meridian is an unwelcoming place, coining the term “Meridian Intimidation.” The term is still used today.

ISABELLA MIRANDA / THE FLAT HAT

A musical group prepares for a perfromance at the Meridian Coffeehouse

“It is at its heart a DIY art space and music venue, and I feel like it’s not an environment most people on the William and Mary campus are familiar with,” Phalen said.

As the years have gone by, the Meridian has moved away from its isolated image, becoming predominantly a music venue and a more familiar and inclusive space near campus.

The Meridian coffeehouse is only a coffeehouse by name, as it only sells coffee during shows as a nod to its roots, Phalen said. The main attractions are its shows and daily events. Every day of the week there are events such as “Truth nights” where people join to talk about conspiracy theories, Zombie Zenzdays, Arts and Witchcrafts, Self-care hours, an Arthouse Film Club and other activities.

“There’s a lot of variety,” Emily Morrow ’21 said. “There’s always something going on every week that would interest someone.”

Along with the daily events, the Meridian hosts shows, including student bands. It also acts as a touring stop for bands from around the country. Visiting bands either message the Meridian asking to play, or staff may know student bands who could perform. Stage manager Ben Fox ’19 said sometimes the process for finding a band to play involves looking deep into the internet for a band.

Occasionally there are special themed-music events, called cover shows, which tend to showcase student bands only. These shows act as a fundraising event for organizations such as the Transgender Assistance Project.

An important feature of the Meridian is that the building and events are entirely student-run. The staff schedules events and searches for the entertainment by themselves, and donations serve as the main revenue for the Meridian while students work there for free. Although students don’t pay touring bands, there is a donation jar at every show that funds costs such as their gas money. Students self-fund in some capacities while the College of William and Mary provides funds to keep the lights on and maintain the building.

“We are able to donate to places like TAP, we’ve held other shows for things like the Richmond Community Bail Fund, we collaborated with the American Indian Student Association to raise money for preventing the Dakota access pipeline,” Fox said.

Being solely student run is an aspect of the Meridian the staff takes pride in.

“Similar to a fraternity or sorority, we have our own dedicated space,” Fox said. “… The energy and ideas behind the Meridian are really attached to this one building, which is not something that a lot of other student groups can say.”

The Meridian is not currently funded by the Student Assembly, which gives more autonomy to the Meridian on which bands are booked for shows.

“

It’s a really incredible space that does foster a community within it, even if that community is smaller compared to other things on cam pus.

– Stacia Phalen ’19

“

ISABELLA MIRANDA FLAT HAT VARIETY ASSOC. EDITOR

“We don’t have to go through Media Council to get money and get approval from the school and sign contracts,” Phalen said.

“Whatever the people on the staff want it to be that year, is what it’s going to be.”

Along with upkeep of the building, the Meridian’s main mission is to provide and uphold a safe space on campus.

“There is a sign in the Meridian that says, ‘No racism, homophobia, sexism, ableism, or hate of any kind, or get the heck out,’ and I think that’s the big thing, we want to provide a place for people from all walks of life” Fox said.

The Meridian serves as a substance-free and hate-free space on campus. Its policies of no moshing or jumping, and respecting other’s space while dancing, are repeated before and after groups play at shows, while guests are encouraged to report any activity they are uncomfortable with to staff. This year the Meridian is updating its safe space policies by adding a protocol for genderbased violence, spreading the range of protection for students and fortifying its role as a safe space. Staff members are also creating a more inviting attitude by hiring a diverse set of bands to perform at shows.

“I am really passionate about socially-conscious booking, and booking femme artists, and queer artists, and artists of color, and the Meridian gives a platform for that,” Phalen said.

The Meridian community works hard to uphold policies that keep the community safe.

“It’s a really incredible space that does foster a community within it, even if that community is smaller compared to other things on campus,” Phalen said.

With a smaller community comes a sense of family and fundamental respect amongst members that is present when going to Meridian activities or shows.

“The Meridian really does feel like this gem on campus,” Phalen said. “I never thought I was going to find anything like it.”

sportsinside

The Flat Hat

| Tuesday, January 22, 2019 | Page 9

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Tribe tops reigning CAA champion Elon

After grabbing early lead, College battles for crucial conference win over Phoenix KEVIN RICHESON FLAT HAT SPORTS ASSOC. EDITOR William and Mary suffered a home loss to the College of Charleston last Sunday to drop the Tribe’s Colonial Athletic Association record back to .500. With only one game this week, the College was looking to rebound from the loss to the Cougars and move its conference record to 3-2. Elon entered Sunday’s game against the Tribe also with a .500 mark in conference after losing to North Carolina-Wilmington last Sunday. The Phoenix won the CAA tournament last season, eliminating the College in the CAA quarterfinals, but the Tribe won last year’s matchup at Kaplan Arena. Sunday, the College (10-6, 3-2 CAA) overcame a deficit at the start of the fourth quarter to win a close game, 6560, over the defending CAA Champion Phoenix (7-9, 2-3 CAA).

“We’re a confident group,” head coach Ed Swanson said. “We know what we have to do — play well — and we need to continue to work. ... They need to do the hard stuff in practice, the hard stuff in games. Today we did that, and if we do that again we’ll be successful again.”

The College got off to a slow start offensively, going scoreless for nearly three minutes. However, the Phoenix had multiple turnovers in the opening three minutes, allowing the Tribe to take the lead with its first field goal.

Senior guard Bianca Boggs hit a three pointer to give the College its first lead of the afternoon, 3-2. Boggs had five of the Tribe’s first six points before assisting on a layup by freshman guard Eva Hodgson. Hodgson’s bucket put the College up 8-4, as the Phoenix had more turnovers than points before the media timeout at the five-minute mark. The Tribe ultimately finished its 8-0 scoring run on a three-pointer by senior guard Misha Jones, before the Phoenix stopped the bleeding and cut their deficit to five, 11-6. Nevertheless, the College continued to stretch its

JAMIE HOLT / THE FLAT HAT

Freshman guard Eva Hodgson helped spur the Tribe to a 65-60 win over the Elon Phoenix. Hodgson tallied six assists in 37 minutes on the game.

advantage, taking a double-digit lead with two minutes remaining in the opening quarter. The Phoenix were able to get within six points by the end of the quarter, but the Tribe still held an 18-12 edge after 10 minutes.

At the start of the second quarter, the College was able to re-establish a doubledigit lead in the first two minutes by scoring the first four points of the quarter.

Redshirt sophomore guard Harper Birdsong provided a spark for the Tribe off the bench with five quick points in the second quarter, giving her eight points in her first seven minutes of action. The College’s lead ballooned to as much as 13, but the Phoenix reeled off seven straight points to get within six, 27-21, at the

midway point of the quarter. The Tribe also suffered from foul trouble late in the first half, with seven fouls in just over seven minutes and Boggs and Birdsong on the bench with two fouls apiece.

Freshman forward Emma Krause helped the College to weather the storm with two three-pointers late in the first half, giving the Tribe a 36-31 lead at the break.

The College scored the first two points of the second half, but the Phoenix responded with a 9-0 run to take their first lead since the opening minutes of the first quarter. Guard Ariel Colon made a driving layup to put the Phoenix up 4039 with 5 minutes, 40 seconds to play in the third quarter. Birdsong responded with a three to put the Tribe back on

top, but the Phoenix answered with five consecutive points. The Phoenix benefitted from eight offensive rebounds in the first six minutes of the quarter.

The Tribe only managed to score eight points in the first eight minutes of the third quarter, but baskets by Boggs and Hodgson down the stretch kept the College within striking distance with one quarter remaining. The Tribe trailed 5150 at the end of the third quarter.

“We’re really resilient,” Swanson said.

“When things got tough, we made some plays that we needed to make.”

Jones took a charge for the Tribe at the start of the fourth quarter, and Boggs took advantage of it at the other end, making a layup to put the

College back on top, 52-51. However, with 7:57 remaining, Boggs picked up her fourth foul and went to the bench for a couple of minutes. Nevertheless, the Tribe managed to stretch its lead to seven points with Boggs out of the game. Jones hit her second three of the game with just over six minutes left to put the College up 61-54. The Tribe still led 62-57 at the 3:33 mark when Boggs returned to the game. On that possession, Boggs made one free throw to stretch the lead to six after sophomore center Gabby Rogers came up with a tough offensive rebound to extend the possession.

“We knew this game would be a 5050-type game, so I just knew that we had to play every possession like it would be the game changer,” Rogers said. “That was what was going through my mind, and I just made the play.”

However, Boggs fouled out of the game with just over a minute left, and the Phoenix got within three points, 63-60.

They had the ball, trailing by three points with 30 seconds to play, and missed two three-pointers before Jones grabbed a rebound and was fouled with a chance to seal the win for the Tribe. Jones hit both free throws to clinch the 65-60 victory over the Phoenix.

“I just try to do simple things,” Jones said. “I don’t try to do anything too crazy.”

In the loss, the Phoenix were led by forward Jaylin Powell’s doubledouble on 13 points and 11 boards. The Tribe was led by Boggs and Birdsong, who each had 13 points. The College returns to action next Friday night on the road against James Madison. The Tribe lost both of its regular season games against the Dukes last year but will look to build on the momentum from its victory over Elon and beat another top team in the CAA. “We anticipate or expect a game just like today,” Swanson said. “We have the utmost respect for James Madison. …

We’ve got to be hungry for that, and I think we will be.”

MEN’S BASKETBALL

BASKETBALL

Eberhardt go-ahead three sends Tribe to fourth loss in five games

Women continue strong start while men struggle

BRENDAN DOYLE FLAT HAT SPORTS EDITOR

BRENDAN DOYLE FLAT HAT SPORTS EDITOR

Clutch shot sinks College Hoops over holidays A strong defensive effort, aided by a clutch three by guard Sheldon Eberhardt, led Elon to claim a victory over William and Mary in a 76-71 Colonial Athletic Association battle.

Junior guard Matt Milon tallied 22 points and junior forward Nathan Knight added 18 and 14 rebounds for the Tribe (712, 3-4 CAA). But junior forward Justin Pierce did not make a field goal as the Phoenix (6-14, 2-5 CAA) scored the last nine points in the game to steal a win in Williamsburg.

“We’ve got to have all three of [Milon, Knight and Pierce] play well,” head coach Tony Shaver said. “They don’t have to be sensational, they just have to play. They have to give us good, quality play on both sides of the ball, and it wasn’t there for Justin tonight. He’s been really good all year, but to be good, all three guys have to play at a high level for us.”

The Phoenix, having won just two of their last 12 games, came into the contest in last place in the CAA. Without the services of redshirt senior forward Paul Rowley, and having lost freshman guard Thornton Scott to an injury in the first half, Elon wore down the Tribe. Eberhardt put the Phoenix ahead for good with one minute and nine seconds left to play.

“The little things in the game win and lose ball games, and I could point to a half-dozen things immediately,” Shaver said.

The Tribe got off to a hot start offensively. Freshman guard Chase Audige started the game with five quick points before the Phoenix answered with two straight triples. Knight then took over, scoring the next six for the College to enter the first media timeout tied at 11.

Three-point shooting for the Phoenix again pulled them into the lead, as treys by guard Kris Wooten and forward Tyler Seibring made it 17-11. Two free throws by freshman guard LJ Owens stemmed the tide, and a three by freshman forward Quinn Blair with 11 minutes and two seconds left in the first half knotted the game at 21.

Elon’s bruising defensive style began to take its toll on the Tribe as the half wound down. A streak of nine consecutive missed field goals for the College was broken by a leaning jumper by Milon with a little more than a minute to play.

Just seconds later, Blair nailed one from downtown to give the Tribe the lead, 36-34. Seibring would hit two from the charity stripe, and the game would go into the half in a 36all stalemate.

The second half continued the plodding pace that characterized much of the first until, with 13:57 left in the game, Audige took three dribbles from the left wing, cocked the ball back and flushed it, kicking off a personal 8-2 run to give the College some breathing room. The spurt was highlighted by Audige elevating on the fast break to finish an alley-oop from Loewe.

The Tribe would build its lead, as four Knight points as well as a pair of foul shots by Pierce gave the Tribe its largest advantage of the day at 55-47. Seibring and the Phoenix did not go away, however, answering with a 10-2 stretch to tie the game at 57. With 8:20 to play, guard Steven Santa Ana finished a driving layup at the rim, giving Elon its first lead of the half.

Milon would hit a three following a timeout to stop the run, but Elon scored the next six points, gaining a 65-60 lead. The Tribe jumped right back into it, as Milon sunk an awkward fade-away from the free throw line before Knight made two free throws. Milon then gave the Tribe the lead back on a feed from Knight, powering to the rim off a backdoor cut. Elon took the advantage back on a goaltend by Knight, but Loewe completed a tough three-point play, making it 69-67 Tribe with a little more than a minute left.

Following a timeout, Milon’s three-pointer rimmed out, but Knight got the offensive rebound and finished to push the lead to four. Eberhardt quickly responded for Elon with a layup, and when the Tribe couldn’t convert on the next possession, Eberhardt hit a dagger of a three, giving the Phoenix a 72-71 lead with 1:09 to play. “[Eberhardt] was the difference in the ball game,” Shaver said. “I thought we defended Santa Ana well, Seibring played well, made some tough shots at times, but Eberhardt was the key to the ball game.”

Pierce, who finished the game with just two points, missed a three off the back rim moments later. The Tribe elected to play defense instead of fouling with 38 seconds left down by one and forced Eberhardt to miss a long jumper, but Santa Ana secured the rebound for Elon. The Tribe, now forced to foul, sent Santa Ana to the free throw line, who sunk both with nine seconds to go. Milon missed a desperate three on the Tribe’s last second attempt to tie, and the Phoenix would add two more free throws in a 76-71 victory over the College.

The Tribe will look to bounce back on the road at North Carolina-Wilmington Thursday, before traveling to College of Charleston Saturday.

While most students were at home celebrating the holidays, the William and Mary men’s and women’s teams were hard at work in Williamsburg. Both squads finished their non-conference schedules before moving to Colonial Athletic Association play. While the women extended a successful run into the start of their conference season, the men battled inconsistency during a mediocre stretch.

Women’s The Tribe continued its strong start to the season over winter break. After a break for finals, the College beat non-conference opponents Norfolk State and George Washington to enter the CAA season on a tear. That winning streak continued, as the Tribe beat Hofstra, 60-55, before it lost on the road to Northeastern, 88-74.

The College bounced back with a victory over North Carolina-Wilmington, 70-64, before falling to Charleston by 12. After a victory over defending CAA champion Elon, the Tribe moved to 10-6 overall and

3-2 in the conference.

Senior guard Bianca Boggs leads the Tribe and ranks fifth in the league with 17.3 points per game. Boggs also leads the College in rebounding, steals, blocked shots, assists and field goal percentage.

Men’s Over the break, the Tribe finished up its non-conference schedule and entered CAA play. After a break for finals, the College fell 72-40 to Atlantic Coast Conference foe Virginia Dec. 22. The next week, conference action began as the Tribe beat James Madison, 79-74, and Towson, 71-61.

Unfortunately for the College, it dropped four of the next five games to fall to 7-12 and 3-4 in the conference, beating Drexel on the road in its only victory during the stretch.

As of Jan. 20, junior forward Nathan Knight leads the Tribe with 19.6 points per game, good for third in the conference.

Knight also leads the Tribe and the CAA with 1.8 blocks per contest. Junior forward Justin Pierce leads the Tribe in rebounding and is third in the conference, averaging 9.5 per game. The College leads the league with 17.3 assists per game.

JAMIE HOLT / THE FLAT HAT

Matt Milon and the Tribe won their first two CAA games, but have gone 1-4 since to fall below .500.

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Sports Editor Brendan Doyle Sports Editor Julia Stumbaugh flathatsports@gmail.com @FlatHatSports

The Flat Hat

| January 22, 2019 | Page 10

Tribe celebrates 100 years of women’s basketball with halftime reenactment Team recreates innaugural 1918 match in Dec. 5 game versus Richmond AVERY LACKNER // FLAT HAT SPORTS ASSOC. EDITOR

COURTESY PHOTOS / TRIBE ATHLETICS

The Tribe claimed a 65-55 victory over the Richmond Spiders Dec. 5, buoyed by double-digit point nights from freshman guard Eva Hodgson and junior forward Victoria Reynolds. At halftime, the team reenacted a 1918 women’s basketball game.

William and Mary’s graduating seniors bemoaned in their 1918 yearbook that they would be “the last class to graduate from the old college before it is defiled by coeducation.” Despite the protests of their male peers, two dozen women enrolled in the class of 1922, and almost immediately formed a basketball team. Dec. 5, 2018, the women’s team celebrated the centennial anniversary of women’s basketball on campus with a historically accurate reenactment of an early basketball game.

In this 2018 game, the Tribe beat Richmond, 65-55. It was the Spiders that competed against the Tribe in the very first intercollegiate basketball game held in 1920. However, the journal of Martha Barksdale, a member of the College’s first female class, indicates that female students organized intramural games as early as the 1918-1919 academic year.

For the 24 women in the College’s first coeducation class, participating in college life meant taking part in the basketball mania that was sweeping the nation. “[Basketball] really spread like wildfire across the country,” Senior Director of Alumni Engagement and Inclusion Initiatives Valerie Cushman said. “Women’s colleges and the few co-ed institutions at that time all started playing this game of basketball.”

Female athletes were expected to comport themselves in a ladylike manner at all times, even while on the court, which required modifications to be made to the rowdier men’s game. For example, women were prohibited from grabbing the ball out of an opponent’s hands, as doing so was considered impolite and aggressive; falling down was a foul.

In addition to the behavioral concerns polite society had about these female athletes, many physicians at the time had reservations about the physical effects such intense exercise would have on women. Female basketball players were allowed to dribble the ball no more than three

times, which was a ploy to restrict their movement up and down the court, as it was thought that too much running was bad for the reproductive organs and would affect one’s childbearing ability later in life.

While their male peers used either the underhanded shot or the twohanded set shot, female players were the first to employ the one-handed set shot that is widely used by both genders today. The one-handed set shot originated in the women’s game because doctors were worried that other methods of shooting would flatten a woman’s breasts. It would take 30 years for the men to adopt the more accurate one-handed set shot.

Despite these restrictive rules, women flocked to the game as players, coaches and spectators.

“There are pictures of women college basketball players playing in front of thousands of fans,” Cushman said. “Men were not allowed to watch. They would bar the doors.”

There were plenty of men in the audience to watch the reenactment of the first women’s basketball game played at the College. Female athletes from the College’s volleyball and field hockey teams, among others, participated in the reenactment. By and large, they considered it an opportunity to pay homage to the pioneering women who made their own teams possible.

“I think it’s interesting to see in this short time how far women in athletics have come,” freshman volleyball outside hitter Anne Louise Seekford said.

While the female participants of the reenactment feel that they are treated equally in relation to their male counterparts, that wasn’t always the case at the College.

“We didn’t have the same facilities,” former point guard Nancy Scott ’81 said. “We traveled in vans, and the coaches had to drive them. The men traveled in buses. … It was not equal.”

Scott credits Millie West, the athletic director during her time at the College, with leading the charge for the equal treatment of female athletes. West used her role as athletic director to help raise funds for the female sports teams at the College.

“She was so thoughtful and relentless in her pursuit for women,” Scott said. “What you see today at William and Mary has really been on people like Millie and others who really fought hard to get the things that men had for the women.”

The significance of women’s participation in athletics goes beyond the rights outlined in Title IX. The women in the class of 1922 were ridiculed by their peers and excluded from nearly every on-campus organization. Forming a basketball team gave Barksdale and her fellow female students a way to show their detractors that women were here to stay. Sports provided a community for the women on campus rather than letting them suffer in isolation; the basketball team was a built-in support system.

The women of the College have come a long way since 1918. The members of the first intramural basketball team didn’t even have the right to vote. Their participation on campus was scorned, but they refused to be deterred. Their persistence made it possible for generations of women that would come after them to continue to strike blows against gender inequality.

Current players on the women’s basketball team are grateful for the legacy of perseverance left behind by the members of the College’s inaugural team.

“There’s not a lot of teams out there that can say they’ve existed for one hundred years, especially not women’s teams,” senior guard Misha Collins said. “I’m proud to know that there are women who came before me who did the exact same thing.”