Trinitonian Michael Sam lecture
Prowlers funding needed Student dance group has new financial needs as membership grows.
Openly gay athlete comes to campus to discuss LGBTQ issues in sports.
PAGE 4 NEWS
Volume 114 Issue 10
Bob Dylan wins Nobel Prize
PAGE 8 PULSE
Serving Trinity University Since 1902
First American to win for literature in 25 years met with postive and negative reactions. PAGE 16 A&E
October 28, 2016
TUPS get creative with 24-Hour Play Festival
Students write and produce shows in one-day period BY MIRIAM CONE
PULSE INTERN
On Oct. 22, the Trinity University Players (TUPS) presented the 24-Hour Play Festival. The name of the festival comes from the fact that the short plays performed were all written, produced and performed over the course of 24 hours and focused on the theme of distance. Holly Gabelmann, a sophomore theater major, was the producer of the festival and was drawn to its uniqueness. “What I really like about it artistically is that it is a very raw artform and it’s very challenging. Sometimes, in doing something this quickly, you find things you normally wouldn’t find because you are looking for quick solutions, and are forced to be more creative than you are usually,” Gabelmann said. While almost all of the work occurs within the 24-hour time period, there was some preparation before the show. Students applied and were chosen by Gabelmann to be a part of the production. She also organized the system for the randomization of the plays. Gabelmann put slips of paper with the different factors of the plays such as the overall theme, number of actors, director and a mystery prop in hats that the cast drew from. She also created the hats from which many of the parts of the play originated from. Luke Jandrain, a sophomore English and history major, was one of the performers chosen for the festival. “I’m feeling more excited than nervous. As an actor, I’m not the type to chew on a role for a long time. I like to find what I feel this character’s about immediately, and practice and perfect it until it’s go time. The short timeframe is a great distillation of that,”
Trinity rank moves up BY AUBREY PARKE
NEWS INTERN
College rankings are trending. Recently, the Wall Street Journal jumped on the bandwagon with an ordered list of 500 U.S. institutions for higher education. While these rankings can be flawed, they still impact Trinity University’s funding and applicant pool, and therefore the opportunities available to current students.
Jandrain said before the 24 hours began. Before Jandrain and the other actors could memorize their lines, the writers had to write the scripts. The cast met as a group at 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 21 to draw the different elements. Mary Jo Grey, a senior theater major, was one of the writers. Grey drew four actors and the mystery prop of skulls. With them, and the theme of distance, she wrote her play, “The Madness of One Manlet.” Her play was a snapshot of the difficulties of a crew trying to produce Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” with only one actor for the entire play. “It’s fun and very empowering to see something in production that you helped make that wasn’t even a thought 24 hours before, like there was no trace of it on this planet until we began. It’s very ELIZABETH METZGER and KERRY MADDEN perform in “Moments” by NICO CHAMPION during the 24-Hour Play Festival. refreshing. Maybe the photos by CLAUDIA GARCIA lines weren’t completely memorized, but the “We just kept running the plays over and “I think the 24-Hour Play Festival is a gist is there,” Grey said. over. The plays are all pretty short, so it’s not a really cool concept. I am impressed with The writers had until 6:30 a.m. to write massive challenge,” Jandrain said. how everyone was able to come together in their scripts, and from there it was the The hard work of all of the staff was evident such a short amount of time to put on this directors’ job to read and cast their shows. when the festival began at the end of the 24 production. Taking into consideration the The actors then arrived at 8 a.m. and began hours. The Attic Theater was completely filled. time constraint, many things could have gone rehearsals, which did not end until the dress One attendee was Mykaela Cali, a sophomore awry, but the performances were seemingly rehearsal at 6 p.m. psychology major. effortless,” Cali said. For the past 25 years, Trinity has been named “Best in the West” among universities of its size by U.S. News and World Report. This year, the same report also ranked Trinity No.1 in the category of “Undergraduate Teaching Programs.” Recently, Trinity students received an email from President Danny Anderson titled: “Trinity Faculty Place No. 6 in WSJ Ranking.” The Wall Street Journal ranked Trinity as No. 73. “When you look at rankings done by different groups, each has a different set of criteria,” Anderson said. “It’s really important to think about the categories used in the rankings — what are the characteristics?” For example, the Wall Street Journal emphasizes student evaluations in their
college rankings, while Forbes weighs rankings based on salary outcomes. While U.S. News and World Report evaluates schools by size and region, the Wall Street Journal groups all universities together in a mass 500-item list, lumping smaller schools like Trinity with large public universities that are often not comparable. “Realize the data can be wrong and can distort things in certain ways,” Anderson said. “The way you need to read it is comparatively: are we ahead or behind of the universities that are like us?” Williams College, Amherst College and Pomona College are schools comparable to Trinity that ranked significantly higher in the Wall Street Journal.
“They have 10 to 15 times more funding than we have,” Anderson said. “It takes additional funds to create opportunities that change the experience for students.” Rankings can attract additional donations from alumni. “We have a low giving rate of our alumni who support us,” Anderson said. “Right now it’s about 15 percent. If you look at many of the schools we want to be like, they have twice that percentage of alumni who give every year. That’s support for scholarships, for faculty research.”
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