2017 vol 133 issue 22

BURLINGTON, VT

VTCYNIC.COM

VOL. 133

ISSUE 22

MARCH 8, 2017

sports pgs. 13 & 15: women and men’s hockey square off in the gut

Basketball wins ... again Matt Chimenti-Carmen Staff Writer The No. 1 seeded Catamounts made their way into the America East final with two resounding wins in front of sold out crowds at Patrick Gym. Vermont kicked off their America East Playoffs with a convincing win against the No. 8 seeded University of Maine March 1.

The Cats put on an excellent performance on Wednesday night, defeating the Blackbears 86-41.

Four Vermont players reached double digits in points, with Rookie of the Year forward Anthony Lamb leading the way with 23 points.

Lamb was perfect from the floor, shooting 10-10 on two point field goals, and 2-2 from three.

Other notable performances came from recently-named Player of the Year, junior guard Trae Bell-Haynes, Sixth Man of the Year, redshirt senior forward Darren Payen, and Defensive Player of the Year, senior guard Dre Wills.

Coming into the matchup, the Cats were fully aware

of the Blackbears’ depleted roster.

“Obviously the Maine team that came in today was a little depleted recently,” head coach John Becker said, “but we knew they would fight hard and give us a battle, and they certainly did that.”

Solid play on both ends of the floor lead the Catamounts to a 29-point halftime lead.

Defensively, the Cats forced a total of 16 turnovers and held Maine to 32 percent shooting.

“We have been playing really good defense all year, and that is kind of what we are about, and what we really work mostly everyday,” Becker said. “We have a lot of pride on that end of the court. We have a system, and guys are really bought into it.”

Team chemistry was another highlight of the game for the Catamounts. They were able to distribute the ball really well, totaling 20 assists for the night.

“We shared the ball, shared it really well tonight, and didn’t turn it over,” Becker said.

As a defensive catalyst and a force driving to the basket, Dre Wills stuffed the stat sheet,

John Riedel Senior Staff Writer

OLIVER POMAZI/The Vermont Cynic First-year forward Anthony Lamb pulls up for a 3-pointer against the University of New Hampshire March 6. The Catamounts would go on to win 74-41 and advance to the America East Championship.

SGA reopens discussion of reading days Jacob Ide Cynic Correspondent Readings days are back on the table.

SGA requests to reopen conversations around reading days reinstatement led to a discussion with campus-wide representation on March 6.

“The conversation was productive,” said SGA President Jason Maulucci.

But, he said the Faculty Senate had not fully consulted the SGA before finalizing the schedule.

In November 2015, Faculty Senate voted to remove reading days from the academic calendar, according to a Dec. 13, 2015 Cynic article.

“Any claim that the current calendar was made with consultation with the SGA is untrue,” Maulucci said. “And you can quote me on that.”

Faculty Senate President Cathy Paris stated in an email obtained by the Cynic that the current schedule was created after the Faculty Senate had worked with SGA. “The calendar followed

facebook.com/ thevermontcynic

PHIL CARRUTHERS/The Vermont Cynic Students study in the Bailey/Howe Library ahead of midterms.

SGA has pushed back against the Faculty Senate to reinstate reading days during the finals schedule. from a lot of thoughtful discussion between, among others, the Faculty Senate Student Affairs Committee and the SGA,” Paris stated. “Everyone worked together towards a mutually agreeable solution to the age-old calendar problem.”

Maulucci said students reacted negatively to the schedule change this fall, and that he had received hundreds of complaints.

“So many students reached

@vermontcynic

SGA to minimize emissions

out and said they had anxiety, too much much stress and not enough time,” Maulucci said.

“Obviously our first priority was the mental health and well-being of students.”

Reading days are days set aside for studying between exam days during final exam periods. In the past, UVM has placed two reading days in the exam schedule for this purpose.

The exam period this fall included one reading day Dec.

instagram.com/ vermontcynic

14 and condensed the the two-week exam schedule from previous years into the week of Dec. 12.

Sophomore Kyle Morand said that the one-week exam schedule didn’t provide him with enough time to study.

“With all the tests in a week you’re bound to have to cram several together, and you’re more likely to lose sleep studying,” Morand said. “Two weeks would allow a much more relaxed testing period.”

UVM needs to make changes in order to fix these problems, Maulucci said.

“We need to overhaul the current calendar,” he said. “There’s way too much emphasis on finals grades for there not to be enough time to prepare for the tests.”

First-year Erin Guilmet said she wasn’t concerned by the new one-week schedule.

“I don’t mind only having one reading day because it means exams are done in one week instead of being dragged

Reading Continues on pg. 3 youtube.com/ cynicvideo

SGA is looking to greatly minimize UVM’s impact on the environment by 2025.

In 2010, UVM committed to being carbon neutral by 2025 as part of a nationwide effort by universities across the country.

“I decided because of that to launch a study to look into how SGA could be carbon neutral by 2025,” SGA President Jason Maulucci said.

The SGA committee on the environment is currently tracking the carbon footprints of clubs on campus and looking at ways to bring their impact down to zero, Maulucci said.

The committee on the environment represents student interest in the environment and works with the Office of Sustainability to reduce environmental impact on campus, according to SGA’s website.

“I think it has been going well, and the committee is well on its way,” Maulucci said. “I think it’s an important goal for the student body.”

Based on what the committee has found so far, being carbon neutral will not raise costs for student organizations or the student body, he said.

SGA is looking into several options on how to decrease its carbon footprint, he said.

Sophomore Will Corcoran, chair of the committee, is leading the effort with several other SGA officers.

They are working with Native Energy, a Vermont business that helps individuals and businesses reduce or offset their carbon footprints, Corcoran said.

“Club sports has actually been travel carbon neutral for the past year,” he said. “So we’re trying to build off of that and take it to all of SGA.” The committee has been meeting regularly with an agent from Native Energy to figure out how SGA can cut emissions, he said.

“They are being extremely helpful in guiding us along this whole path,” Corcoran said.

“There are four areas that we are focusing on: travel, heating, waste and shipping.”

Carbon Continues on pg. 2 vtcynic.com

NEWS

2

Medical lecturer discusses in-class death Colin Bushweller Senior Staff Writer In the Spring of 2013, while giving a presentation on infant CPR, lecturer Pat Malone collapsed and fell to the ground.

Malone was having a heart attack and was pronounced medically dead.

The students in the CPR training session thought it was a test. However, after noticing Malone had no pulse they realized just how real it was.

Malone lived, all thanks to the students who began CPR on him as soon as they recognized the problem. He was rushed in an ambulance with the three students who had checked his pulse.

“The students in the ambulance were students of mine — students I had trained.

I went from teacher to patient,” he said.

Nearly three years later, Malone sat in Given Cafe, a common study spot for many medical students.

A group of Malone’s students said hello at a distance with a wave and smile in the cafe. He paused, returned the gesture and resumed the conversation.

“Working with students is the most rewarding part of my job,” he said as the students walked away.

It was, in fact, his current students and former students that saved his life.

One of these former students was, Ryan Wiklund, was one of the EMTs on the scene the day of Malone’s cardiac arrest.

“You can be the most confident and skilled provider, but when you know the patient on a personal level, it affects you,” he said.

He was shocked when he saw the patient was his former professor, he said.

Another one of Malone’s former students, Dr. Steve Leffler ‘90, was working in the emergency department the day

UVM brings community together Kassondra Little Senior Staff Writer

of Malone’s heart attack. He deemed Malone’s chances of survival at about 5%.

“We were hopeful that he would survive but were all very concerned,” he said. “That exact training Malone taught his students is what saved his life.”

These former students that helped save his life were a few of the many students Malone trained in his 32 years of lecturing at UVM, Malone said.

Malone is currently an emergency medical services senior lecturer in the UVM College of Nursing and Health Sciences.

Had someone told him as a teenager he would be teaching emergency and wilderness medicine today, he would not have believed them, he said.

“I did earn the first-aid merit badge in Boy Scouts as a kid, so maybe that was some foreshadowing,” Malone said.

When he started out in

EMS, Malone enjoyed the training aspect of the work, which eventually evolved into a love for the educational focus of EMS, he said.

And now, with nearly two decades at UVM, Malone is proud to say that his passion is his profession, he said.

“I love the position I’m in, and I love this place,” Malone said.

Previous students of Malone commended him for his teaching and devotion to his students.

“Pat Malone has by far been my greatest mentor here at UVM,” junior John Levkulic said.

Levkulic’s respect for his teacher rests on Malone’s ability to teach real-world skills.

Students under Malone’s instruction go past the textbook.

They apply their knowledge to future scenarios that students will encounter, he said.

Carbon Continued from pg. 1

PHIL CARRUTHERS/The Vermont Cynic SGA President Jason Maulucci addresses the attendees of an SGA meeting April 5, 2016. SGA is planning to be carbon neutral by 2025.

Travel produces the most carbon emissions so the committee is tackling it first, he said. They have already tracked all car travel for all clubs and are looking into air travel.

“The difficulty is that it’s hard to track all of our clubs and organizations,” Corcoran said. “For example, the Beekeeping Club meets in different locations around campus.

We are focusing on clubs that have a designated spot, like Ski and Snowboard.”

Once the committee has this data, they will pick a project from Native Energy that offsets the amount of carbon they find, such as a reforestation project, he said.

“It’s crazy complicated and it’s a huge task, but my committee is working really hard.

I have four people that are all working diligently,” Corcoran said.

The team is looking at

HENRY ROOD/ The Vermont Cynic Top: UVM Medical Center pictured. Lecturer Patrick Malone is pictured. Bottom: After suffering a heart attack in the middle of class in 2013, Malone is back in the classroom teaching.

“Malone is one of few professors who will always give you the utmost respect and appreciation the very first day he meets you,” Levkulic said. “He will treat you as an adult.” data from fiscal year 2016 and should know how much carbon they need to offset by the end of April, he said.

Professor Jon Erickson of the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources said he supports this effort

by SGA. “SGA’s initiative really plays into a larger goal by the University’s initiative,” Erickson said. “Our Office of Sustainability currently oversees our climate action plan which is one of the most aggressive plans in the country.”

Right now UVM works with Burlington Electric to make sure its electricity emissions are net zero, he said. That means the carbon generated from electricity used is mitigated to equal zero.

SGA has the opportunity to lead this effort and focus on how students and clubs travel, Erickson said.

In February, UVM brought together an FBI agent, doctors and community service workers to address human trafficking in Vermont.

The Department of Family Medicine and the Larner College of Medicine hosts the annual Cultural Awareness Conference. This year’s conference focused on how medical professionals can combat human trafficking.

This year’s keynote speaker, Dr. Rachel DiSanto ‘04 has fought human trafficking in Vermont by educating community members and working with patients.

“We want to address a cultural issue that impacts people who may not be seen as quickly,” said Martha Seagrave, a physician assistant who has been the director of the conference for six years.

Since she started running it, the conference has educated attendees on everything from nutrition to refugees in American communities.

“That’s our whole goal,” Seagrave said. “Whether it’s food, or whether it’s human trafficking, it’s trying to recognize these populations and the diversity of Vermont, and how it will impact their health.”

The conference introduced students to the tools needed for patient-centered care. Seagrave said this included asking patients the right questions, looking for signs, and working with a team said Seagrave.

Lori Durieux, the Office and Program Support Generalist for the Department of Family Medicine has coordinated the conference for two years.

She pointed out how appearances can be misleading.

Even Vermont has felt the realities of human trafficking, Durieux said.

“It’s something that you don’t think about being prevalent in our everyday life and something that we’d see in the clinic but it is,” first-year medical student Alexa Arvidson said. “Distinguishing it from something like an abusive partner was beneficial.”

The conferences showed students that trafficking can come in many forms.

Victims can have differing experiences. Some are forced to do unpaid work, verbally or physically abused or trafficked for sex, Seagrave said.

From legislation and law enforcement to patient-doctor interactions, the conference advocated for tackling the issue with experts in many areas.

“We really want to get an interprofessional group together, so it’s not just medical students learning with medical students,” she said.

DiSanto and other panel speakers advocated for a phone line run by United Way of Vermont as a safe way for victims to get in touch with resources.

NEWS

3

Protest at Middlebury turns violent Olivia Bowman News Editor Over 400 students at Middlebury College protested against a political scientist and sociologist, Charles Murray March 2 during his talk at McCullough Student Center.

Murray is known for his 1994 book “The Bell Curve,” which claims black people are intellectually inferior to white people due to their genetic makeup, according to a March 3 New York Times article.

Students congregated in Wilson Hall with signs of protest; turning their backs to Murray, whom they called a “white nationalist,” chanting, “Racist, sexist, anti-gay, Charles Murray go away,” the article stated.

Murray was invited to Middlebury by the American Enterprise Institute Club to speak, the article stated.

After about 20 minutes, it became clear Murray would not be able to give his speech, according to the article.

He was moved to a different facility along with moderator Allison Stranger, a Middlebury professor of international politics and economics, to continue the talk over a live stream, the article stated.

After Murray was brought to the other location, protesters swarmed into the hallway, chanting and pulling fire alarms, according to the article.

There were also masked protesters, who were assumed to be from outside the college, who began to physically push Stranger and Murray as they entered their car after the talk, according to the NYT article.

Stranger’s hair was pulled and her neck was twisted, the article stated.

After getting into the car, protestors rocked it back and forth and jumped on the hood before it drove away. Stranger

Photo courtesy of Lisa Rathke of the Associated Press Middlebury College students turn their backs on Charles Murray during his lecture at the college March 2. was later brought to the hospital and put in a neck brace, according to the article.

The following day, Middlebury President Laurie Patton sent a letter to the Middlebury College community outlining the events and her reaction, according to the New York Times article.

Patton acknowledged and apologized to those students, faculty and staff that were disappointed they were not able to engage with Murray or attend the event, the article stated.

“Last night we failed to live up to our core values. But I re-

main hopeful,” she stated.“Last evening, several students, faculty and staff representing a large spectrum of political perspectives remained in Wilson Hall to discuss the events and to talk about building bridges.”

The community must find a path to open discourse, and continue to recognize critical matters of race inclusion, class, sexual and gender identity and other factors that often divide us, Patton stated.

There was a large response from the right after the protest, with postings on social media saying the protesters engaged

in mob mentality and were quashing free speech, according to the NYT. These comments contrasted those from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which stated Murray uses “racist pseudoscience and misleading statistics to argue that social inequality is caused by the genetic inferiority of the black and Latino communities, women and the poor.”

Social media comments turned into a discussion over freedom of speech.

An open letter sent by over 450 alumni stated the issue was

UVM awarded for human rights efforts

Lucy Bisselle Cynic Correspondent

An initiative launched at UVM received an award for its work with torture victims.

On Feb. 15, the 2017 Human Rights Award was presented by the American Psychiatric Association to the National Consortium of Torture Treatment Programs which includes UVM’s organization, the New England Survivors of Torture and Trauma.

“We’ve always served the underserved,” said Karen Fondacaro, director of UVM’s Vermont Psychological Services Clinic.

The goal of these programs is to expand the resources devoted to the care of torture survivors and prevent torture worldwide, according to the NESTT website.

The Human Rights Award acknowledges the efforts made by groups focused on supporting the human rights of populations with mental health needs, according to the American Psychiatric Association’s website.

“It’s an award that recognizes an organization that is working on behalf of individuals that are having their human rights abused,” Fondacaro said.

UVM’s work with torture survivors began in 2007 with the establishment of Connecting Cultures.

The program’s goal is to make mental health treatment available and accessible to refugees who have experienced torture, according to UVM’s press release.

Patrick Giantonio, executive director of Vermont Refugee Assistance, said Connecting Cultures is incredibly useful for torture victims in recounting the trauma of their experiences.

It is not possible to evade the worst moments of torture when going deeper into someone’s life. It is very useful to have them receiving treatment while going through these difficult times, Giantonio states on the UVM website.

Fondacaro and her team provide one-on-one counseling with the use of an interpreter to give the patients control over their stories, according to

UVM’s website.

“We provide treatment and we work with many refugees in Vermont who are torture survivors,” Fondacaro said.

Connecting Cultures promotes outreach efforts to refugees who experienced trauma in their home countries, she said.

In 2009, Fondacaro continued her efforts in torture treatment and assistance to refugees through the program NESTT, according to UVM’s website.

NESTT is a direct partnership between Connecting Cultures and Vermont Law School, linking psychological and legal services to provide holistic and effective assistance, stated UVM’s website.

The NESTT program has provided services to torture survivors from 29 different countries, according to UVM’s press release.

“We had an opportunity to work with refugees,” Fondacaro said, “we went out into the different communities and really got to know them, and I think that’s why it worked.”

UVM clinical psychology

students are very involved in the NESTT and Connecting Cultures programs.

Giantonio recognized the courage it takes to share these difficult stories.

The group of people is incredible, he stated on the website.

Jamie Herold, a 2016 UVM graduate, said the research being done at UVM is extremely important especially in regards to trauma patients.

“Clinical psychologists can help survivors of trauma process their traumatic experiences and integrate it into their stories, as well as learn skills to cope with their trauma symptoms,” Herold said.

Fondacaro said NESTT and Connecting Cultures serve to raise awareness of human rights abuses while providing support to the victims.

“We’re very proud to be part of a group that has received such a prestigious and important award,” Fondacaro said.

not about free speech, but the idea that Murray misinterprets selective, uncorrected data to argue for the genetic inferiority of people of color, women, low-income people and those with disabilities.

“This is the same thinking that motivates eugenics and the genocidal white supremacist ideologies which are enjoying a popular resurgence under the new presidential administration,” the letter stated.

The video of the discussion can be found on the Middlebury College newsroom website.

Reading Continued from pg. 1 out over two weeks,” Guilmet said. “At least this way we get them over with quickly.”

Paris stated that the Senate would wait before switching the schedule again.

“We agreed to evaluate the impact of the changes over time and then revisit the calendar after a few semesters,” she wrote.

Maulucci said the Faculty Senate members could make the change in a timely manner if they wanted to.

“There are plenty of examples when they’ve set the academic calendar from one year to the next in the blink of an eye, but they feel like they need to stand their ground,” he said. “There are a lot of people in the ivory tower who are afraid to admit that they’re wrong.”

Though he disagrees with them when it comes to reading days, Maulucci often works well with the Faculty Senate, he said.

“I try to separate it from all the good work we’ve done with them,” he said. “With this issue, they’re just dead wrong.”

4

OPINION

Reading days must be reinstated EXECUTIVE Editor-in-Chief Kelsey Neubauer editorinchief@vtcynic.com Managing Editor Bryan O’Keefe newsroom@vtcynic.com Assistant Managing Editor Mariel Wamsley newsroomassistant@ vtcynic.com OPERATIONS Operations Mangager Ryan Thornton operations@vtcynic.com Advertising Manager Cole Wangsness ads@vtcynic.com EDITORIAL Arts Benjamin Elfland arts@vtcynic.com B-Side Margaret Richardson bside@vtcynic.com Copy Chief Lindsay Freed copy@vtcynic.com Layout Kira Bellis layout@vtcynic.com Life Greta Bjornson life@vtcynic.com Multimedia William Dean Wertz media@vtcynic.com News Olivia Bowman news@vtcynic.com Opinion Sydney Liss-Abraham opinion@vtcynic.com Photo Phillip Carruthers photo@vtcynic.com Social Media Liv Jensen socialmedia@vtcynic.com Sports Eribert Volaj sports@vtcynic.com Video Molly O’Shea video@vtcynic.com Web Connor Allan web@vtcynic.com Assistant Editors Ariana Arden (Opinion), Bridget Higdon (Arts), Locria Courtright (Sports), Erika B. Lewy (News), Lily Keats (Layout), Karolyn Moore (Copy), Izzy Siedman (Life) Page Designers Tiana Crispino, Ed Taylor Copy Editors Brandon Arcari, Hunter Colvin, Michelle Derse Lowry, Rae Gould, Adrianna Grinder, Linnea Johnson, Kira Nemeth, George Seibold, Meline Thebarge ADVISING Faculty Adviser Chris Evans crevans@uvm.edu

Staff Editorial

W

hen reading days were removed at the end of the fall 2015 semester, they were done so without consultation from students and student leaders on this campus.

These student leaders are the same leaders who work tirelessly and often without pay with solely the best interests of the campus student body in mind.

Reading days are essential to the mental well-being of UVM students, despite how they choose to spend their day.

As a day without scheduled exams or classes, reading days give students the opportunity to sleep, study, ski and, yes, even drink.

Students at this public ivy are drilled all semester long by professors who expect them to uphold rigorous academic standards, as they should.

Students are given no control over when and where their

final exams will take place; reading days are, essentially, the only day during exam periods where all students have the agency to choose how they want to spend their entire day during this stressful week.

Removing reading days without consulting the student body was nothing more than a slap in the face for the academic process throughout this entire campus.

Now, SGA is calling on the Faculty Senate to reconsider adding reading days to the academic calendar. This move is imperative, and the motives of SGA should be taken very seriously by members of the faculty.

Of course, professors at this University work tirelessly as well, and their efforts during exam periods are stressful in their own ways.

But members of the Faculty Senate are not the ones taking exams. They are not the ones tasked with writing multiple

LILY KEATS term papers to be due in a single week. Their most important job is to advocate for the wellbeing of students.

The best way for the Faculty Senate to prove they have the best interests of the student body in mind would be to work with the SGA to reinstate reading days in a timely fashion.

Staff editorials officially reflect the views of the Vermont

Netflix: is it watching you instead?

Alexander Collingsworth

I

have previously suggested that Netflix is watching you.

Each time you watch a movie, you are producing data about your preferences that Netflix can use to recommend movies you might like. But what else could they use this information for?

If you use Siri all the time, Apple knows more about you than you would be comfortable with.

When you use Siri, Apple receives that information; your inquiries into restaurants, your request that Siri talk dirty to you, all that is sent to Apple, according to the user agreement and privacy policy.

More than just knowing what your voice sounds like, Apple has insight into your life based on what you ask Siri.

I have an iPhone and a laptop. I wrote this article using Google Docs. I don’t hate technology outright, but I think we ought to take a hard look at what tech companies are doing with the information they collect.

Case in point: the game we all played and have since abandoned, Pokemon Go. It wasn’t just a game. It was a whaling expedition.

Niantic, the company behind the app, was created as an in-house startup at Google by a team led by John Hanke.

Hanke had earlier run a Geospatial tech firm eerily named Keyhole.

He applied Keyhole’s technology at Google in the making of Google Earth and Street-View, according to Wikipedia. Niantic later split off from Google.

The “Niantic” was a famous whaling ship in the 1800’s. Did John Hanke name the company after this ship? If so, who is the whale?

You are. The user agree-

Cynic. Signed opinion pieces and columns do not necessarily do so.

The Cynic accepts letters in response to anything you see printed as well as any issues of interest in the community.

Please limit letters to 350 words. The Cynic reserves the right to edit letters for length and grammar. Please send letters to opinion@vtcynic.com.

Eco-Reps promote green UVM Letter to the Editor

D

MIKE TRIPP ment that you had to sign (You know, that one you didn’t read) to play Pokemon-Go gave Niantic broad access to your data.

It stands to reason that the real purpose of Pokemon-Go went deeper than the pursuit of catching them all.

The huge amounts of data that Niantic collected, especially location data, could be used to study people’s habits, and this information could be applied to advertising products to people.

At a recent UVM forum, Craig Atkinson, the director of “Do Not Resist,” a film about police militarization, suggested Pokemon-Go was essentially a Google Earth for inside the house.

It was designed to get kids to turn on their camer-

as inside their homes. With Google Street-View you can see the outside of pretty much anyone’s house. Now, they could see the inside. Perhaps a little far-fetched, but not off the money.

Big data’s dream is to come up with ads catered to you specifically.

If they were able to see the inside of your home, they would have a lot of insight into your life, your income, into the products that you are interested in. The words “if it’s free then you are the product” ring true here.

But hey, maybe I’m just paranoid.

Alexander Collingsworth is a senior English and history double major. He has been writing for the Cynic since 2016.

ear Editor, The cover article titled “How Green is UVM?” published Feb. 22, has deeply resonated with me.

While I agree that 20 percent Real Food is not where we should stop, the transition cannot happen overnight and exceeding 19% last year was a significant accomplishment.

However, I think sustainability at UVM goes beyond our food system.

The Eco-Rep program’s mission is to “promote sustainable practices and encourage environmentally responsible behaviors among peers.”

In regards to needing more education about sustainable living, we dedicate a lot of our time to helping students understand how they can personally reduce their impact on the environment during their time on campus and beyond.

For example, this semester we have gone door-to-door in residence halls doing mini energy and recycling audits where we were able to answer students’ questions and give tips.

We coordinate numerous events on campus each semester, ranging from sustainability trivia to environmental film screenings, and the Davis Center Eco-Reps coordinate dozens of events each Earth Week.

Plus, there are a multitude of other environmentally related student organizations on campus that work on similar issues, such as AERO, UVM Bikes, Real Food Revolution and Vermont Students for Environmental Protection).

Sustainably, Matt Gelman UVM Eco-Reps

OPINION

Burlington schools should increase budget

I

Gabriella Marchesi

t is an ongoing debate in communities nationwide: increase school budgets — and therefore the quality of education — or lower taxes?

This debate has caused a lot of friction in the Burlington School District.

For example, in 2014, the budget failed because taxpayers were unwilling to accept higher taxes for the proposed increases in spending. This lead to many cuts in school funding and programming and jeopardized the jobs of many teachers and administrators within the district.

Councilor Sharon Bushor said to Seven Days Vermont in January that she will support budget increases, but does not know whether taxpayers will also support the increased taxes that comes along with it. It always comes down to if taxpayers feel that they can afford to pay.

An increased school budget is important because it contributes to pay raises for teachers and administrators, better transportation and safety and the facilitation of programs, courses, activities and supplies.

These improvements have a direct impact on enhancing the quality of education for students and raising the standard of living for teachers and administrators.

Translation: an increased school budget leads to a better school district all around.

According to The National Education Association, education can be seen as a unique economic industry: schools use resources to produce an output. Therefore, the more you put in, the more you get out. If more money is given

to a school district, then they can attain a higher quantity and quality of resources, and therefore will produce a better output.

What sort of outputs do schools produce?

First and foremost, the goal of schools is to give its students a quality education.

If a school district has more resources, it can provide a better education for its students.

Secondly, school districts are a vital component of local economies, and therefore, if they have better resources, they can help produce a better output for the local economy.

For example, people will move to good school districts because those areas are ideal for raising a family. This influx expands the labor force with higher skilled people, who participate in the local economy as business owners and consumers.

Therefore, an increased school budget not only improves the quality of education but also the local economy.

However, as many economists say, “there’s no free lunch.” More funds for schools have to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is taxes.

No one likes taxes.

But there is an important reason why we are taxed: so government can provide society with the services it needs yet can’t attain through the market. Public education is one such service.

Education is vital to providing the generation of tomorrow with the tools it needs to make this world a better place, and sometimes increased taxes are necessary to give public schools the funds they need to accomplish this goal.

This leads to a catch-22:

aside from providing a higher quality of education for children, an increased school budget can also sometimes lead to an improved local economy.

However, the increase in taxes necessary to make that sort of school budget possible can also work against improving the local economy.

When households are taxed more, they have less disposable income and therefore can consume less in the local economy.

Hence, the tough decision between more funding for schools or lower taxes.

Voters in the Burlington School District will have to make this decision March 7.

The board has proposed a budget of over $85 million for the 2018 fiscal year, which is almost 7 percent higher than what they are currently spending.

These budget increases reflect a need for more teachers and amenities due to higher enrollment in the Burlington public schools, multilingual classes for the large refugee population and preschool expansion in response to Act 166.

The act was passed by the Vermont Agency of Education in 2014 to expand publicly funded preschool programs.

To accomplish this, however, the board proposes a 5.25 percent increase on property taxes.

Despite this, hopefully the budget passes.

Although the increase in taxes has the potential to decrease the purchasing power of an individual household and therefore decrease some consumer activity in the local economy.

In the long run, the benefits that would be reaped

5

SEBASTIAO HUNGEBUHLER from the additional school programs would far outweigh the costs.

Look at it this way: it is an investment in the future.

Investing in education, as aforementioned, can improve school districts and draw more families to the community, which has the potential to improve the economy.

More importantly, however, better schools improve

the lives of children; children today are the doctors, lawyers, environmentalists, and business leaders of tomorrow — it is vital that we invest in their future and give them the education that they need to succeed.

Gabriella Marchesi is a sophomore economics major. She has been writing for the Cynic since Spring 2017.

Positive thinking promotes health and wellness Lily Spechler

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ccording to Buddha, “all that we are is a result of what we have thought.”

When we experience negative emotions over and over again, we are affected on a physical level.

Anxious thoughts are rooted in fear, whether it be fear of the future of fear of the past.

When we feel fear, our brain is alerted and stress hormones like cortisol and glucocorticoids are released, while happy hormones like oxytocin are blocked.

News flash: your body is not separate from your mind.

Consider any action you take: going to the bathroom. Lifting your arm. Using your fingers to send a text message.

Every single action taken in a day is a result of a chemical reaction in your brain. Your brain is your master; when negative emotions become the master of your brain, your brain will respond negatively in your body.

Chronically elevated cortisol levels are linked to lower

immune functions, obesity, high blood pressure, insomnia and heart disease.

This condition also negatively affects every single cognitive ability that you have.

According to Livestrong, chronic stress can also lead to lasting damage in your hippocampus, which is the part of your brain responsible for emotion and memory. Literally, you are stimulating your brain to death.

Think about any injury you have ever had from a repetitive activity, such as a swollen ankle from long distance jogging, a loose rotator cuff from pitching or back pain from sitting at a computer all day long.

The cure is not continuing the repetitive activity - the cure is addressing the problem and reversing the cycle. Your brain is no different.

Realizing that certain negative thought patterns trigger certain chemical responses can help one reverse the negative feedback cycle.

I challenge you to think back to when you were a young child. Children have an

unparalleled ability to think creatively, and they instinctively seek activities that make them feel good.

They are generally unashamed, not yet afraid of rejection and fearlessly genuine. According to Psychology Today, many psychologists believe that the root of all suffering is fear and shame.

We are programmed to fear rejection and being alone.

We feel shame because we want to feel accepted, and we want to be perceived as successful by those around us.

Next time you realize you feel anxious, try pausing and asking why; break down the thought pattern to its root cause. Ask yourself why you might be experiencing a negative emotion. Perhaps you are feeling attached to past and fearful of the unknown future. Perhaps you are feeling ashamed and insecure of yourself, and are seeking acceptance and validation.

When negative emotions rise to the surface, don’t passively allow the negative hormone-release cycle of the

brain to occur.

Because just as our negative thought patterns breed negative chemical responses, positive thoughts cultivate the release of positive hormones, such as serotonin, the key happiness hormone, or dopamine, which is the pleasure hormone that is released when you are trying to reach a goal.

Set a new goal for yourself: the cultivation of peace from within.

The moment a negative thought enters your brain, become aware of the way you physically feel. Release your jaw. Relax your face.

And say to yourself: I am in control of my body. Within myself, I have all the tools I need to obtain happiness.

When asked what surprised him the most about humanity, the Dalai Lama responded, “Man…he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

Don’t suffer injury from repetitive behavior. Take control of your mind, reverse your thinking cycle and take control

GENEVIEVE WINN

of your entire life.

Lily Spechler is a senior natural resources major. She has been writing for the Cynic since 2016.

LIFE

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Film highlights body image issues Izzy Siedman Assistant Life Editor All over campus, plates, calorie listings and scents of fresh crepes remind students of the constant presence of food in their daily lives.

Throughout National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, Living Well hosted a number of food-informative and body positivity events, including a screening of the documentary “All of Me.” The film, directed by local resident Bess O’Brien, was shown at 6 p.m. Feb. 28 in the Silver Maple Ballroom in the Davis Center.

Its cast of characters featured people from within the UVM community and the surrounding Vermont area, including students, staff and alumni.

This diverse cast shared their unique stories about facing the challenges and triumphs related to eating disorders with the camera.

“During the film, I ask you to question some assumptions and be open to the voices that are willing to be vulnerable with you,” said Annie Valentine, host and health educator for Living Well.

It opened with clips from old home movies, depicting families laughing and dancing, then hit the audience with some hard facts.

Thirty million Americans struggle with an eating disorder at one point in their lives,the film stated.

UVM students featured in the film attested to how deeply

PHIL CARRUTHERS/ The Vermont Cynic

Harvest Café has best food Chris’ Critique Chris Leow

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ALYSSA HANDELMAN ingrained body image, dieting culture and fitness fanaticism is on campus.

Dieting, body dissatisfaction and wanting to be thin are all factors that increase risk for the onset of eating disorders, according to mental health resource ULifeline.

Although O’Brien could not be there herself, some of the cast members were present after the showing to hold a question and answer session

with the audience.

Audience members asked the panelists questions about methods of recovery, how to help people recover and how the film played a role in these.

“Perhaps someone else can feel a thread of their story in mine, and I think we need that to heal,” panelist Sienna Fontaine said.

It is difficult to establish a clear way to support friends or family members with an eating disorder, but the most

surefire way to help is by encouraging people to ask questions, create respectful boundaries and listen, Fontaine said.

The film emphasized that though the road to recovery is never truly over, learning to live is perhaps the most important part of rising above one’s eating disorder.

“Let’s be real people. We’re alive,” one cast member said.

Destigmatizing sex by riding the ‘red tide’ The Dapper Vagina Sarah Heft

J

ust because you are hanging out with Aunt Flow — your period — doesn’t mean you have to stop having sex.

My whole life, I was taught periods had to be hidden; I would sneak tampons to the bathroom whenever I needed to check on the condition of my underwear.

The menstrual cycle, the biological process that controls fertility, has a long history of being taboo.

Many religions have traditional laws that require menstruating women to be secluded from the main house in a separate hut, according to an article by Mark A. Guterman, Payal Mehta and Margaret S. Gibbs of Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Traditional Russian Orthodox law considers menstruating women to be impure, and prohibits any contact between the woman and men during this period, with contact ranging from touching fresh produce to having intercourse, according to the article.

Contrary to these beliefs, having sex during menstruation actually has many benefits.

Having sex on your period

can shorten your period and help with cramps, according to “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” a women’s health manual.

Oxytocin and dopamine, two hormones associated with happiness, are released after orgasm creating a natural painkiller to ease cramps.

When women are menstruating, things are a lot more sensitive down there due to increased blood flow, according to doctor and sex therapist Madeleine Catellan’s website.

That, along with the added lubrication, can lead to some pretty mind-blowing sensations, the website states.

In addition, the contractions felt during orgasm can help release the uterine lining faster, thus potentially shortening your period.

Jump to my junior year of college and I was about to be naked and intimate with someone while I was on my period.

I was at his place expecting him to have Saran-wrapped his entire bed in preparation, but o my surprise, his bed was as it always is.

Maybe I was the one who was more freaked out by this than he was.

Though it was terrifying, I also found it liberating; I was saying no to the shame we put on ourselves every month for something natural.

GRETA BJORNSON

KIRA NEMETH Having period sex seemed to be a political statement to me.

I was actually pretty terrified to ride the red tide even though I am usually at my horniest during my period.

The sex was not only great, I was finally able to let go and relax.

I wasn’t the scared sixteen

year-old who hid tampons in her bra. I was a woman who was putting my needs first, no matter what. And that is pretty empowering.

Sarah Heft is a junior gender, sexuality and women’s studies major. She has been writing for the Cynic since spring 2016.

s a college student, finding a good deal is my idea of thriving, especially when it comes to food.

So, I usually avoid buying any meals on campus because of how expensive all of the options are. But fortunately, there is another way to dine at the University without spending every cent you have.

The dining options at the UVM Medical Center offer some of the least expensive food around, and their impressive health and quality goals create some deliciously nutritious food.

“Our priorities include offering meat that is raised without the use of non-therapeutic antibiotics, increasing the amount of organic food that we offer and decreasing food waste whenever possible,” said Diane Imrie, director of Nutrition Services at the UVM Medical Center.

Harvest Cafe is located in the McClure Lobby and is the location most accessible to UVM students.

“It’s really cheap and has lots of options, especially for vegetarians,” junior Marley Zollman said.

The cafe offers various soups, salads, a yogurt bar, grill options and a main dish of the day.

With most items coming in under $5 and operating hours from 5 a.m. to 3 a.m., food is readily available to students and perfect for fueling late night study sessions.

My favorites are their salmon-mango-soba noodle dish and their well-stocked salad bar options.

The beautiful restaurant-style Garden Atrium is located in the East Pavilion, and serves up breakfast and seasonal plates.

Food and drinks are ordered at the main counter and delivered to the table.

Their breakfast options are fantastic, with dishes like poached organic eggs and braised pork shoulder, pickled tomatillos and cornbread.

“We welcome not only students from UVM, but staff as well, to dine with us whenever they like,” Imrie said.

If you’re hungry on campus and looking for quality food, it’s hard to beat the offerings at the Medical Center, in taste and in price.

Chris Leow is a junior medical laboratory science major. He has been writing for the Cynic since fall 2015.

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Dance marathon raises money for a cause Anna Power Staff Writer Each year during the spring semester, students, community members, and children all come together to raise money for a cause—but instead of traditional methods like a bake sale, they dance for twelve hours.

UVM hosted RALLYTHON on March 4, where participating students danced between 4 p.m. and 4 a.m.

RALLYTHON is a 12-hour dance marathon held as a way to provide extra funds to the UVM Children’s Hospital through the Children’s Miracle network, said junior Meghan Morrison, president of RALLYTHON. Many different students participate in RALLYTHON, including students in fraternity and sorority life at UVM like junior Chelsea Abraham, a member of Pi Beta Phi. “I am participating in the event because it coincides with Pi Phi’s core values as a chapter, and supports the basis of our philanthropy,” she said.

Juniors Christopher Bratkovics, a member of Pike, and Micaela O’Connell, who is part of Delta Delta Delta, also participated.

“I am hoping to raise as much money for the kids as possible,” Bratkovics said.

“I think the importance of the event is the cause that it

SABRINA HOOD/The Vermont Cynic Members of UVM Fraternity and Sorority life take part in RALLYTHON, the annual 12-hour dance marathon that supports UVM Children’s Hospital. supports.”

The proceeds will go toward new equipment, creating a more comfortable environment and making it easier for low-income families to afford care, Abraham said.

“All these kids want to do is go outside and play and go to school, and instead, they’re in the hospital,” Morrison said.

“So that’s kind of a lot of why RALLYTHON exists.”

Senior Jennifer Stein said she participates in the event because of her own experience

with childhood hospital visits.

“RALLYTHON has a special place in my heart because I was one of those kids in the hospital all the time,” Stein said. “[I remember] all the things that were provided for me: games and other really cool things I could do while waiting [for the doctor].”

This year’s goal was to surpass last year’s fundraising of $58,960.19, when 632 students danced for the cause, according to the event’s website. The event raised a total of $70,820

this year, according to the RALLYTHON website.

Students participating in the event not only support a great cause, but have fun while doing so. And the event included more than only dancing—there was a photo booth, a game room set up by IRA, and limbo, freeze dancing and zumba.

“I am looking forward to dancing all night to support the children that are suffering from sickness,” Abraham said.

“The amount of satisfaction

I have received from RALLYTHON is insurmountable.”

Fundraising events are a great way to meet new people that support the same thing that you do, Cherico stated.

“On one night we all come together and we support the families and we cheer on the kids,” Morrison said. “We hear them speak and the kids just hang out with us, we dance around and they get to be kids.”

Trump fuels U.S. anti-vaccination ideas, movement The Health Corner

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Michaela Paul

s far back as I can remember, I have always left the doctor’s office with Band-Aids on my arm and stickers in hand.

Well, until I got older and thought I was too cool for the stickers.

I never enjoyed getting a needle prick, but I knew the vaccines were going to protect me and help keep me healthy, as the nurse and my mom would always reassure me.

However, some people think differently.

According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, vaccines allow for immunity against diseases.

Vaccination is the injection of a killed or weakened organism that produces an immunity against future infection.

Senior Ragnar Clarke, a biology student, said that after gaining a thorough understanding of biology during his studies, he thinks vaccines should be mandated.

“No scientific studies, with the exception of having an extremely rare allergic reaction to them, have shown detriments to being vaccinated,” Clarke said.

Sophomore Sarah Lubic disagreed with Clarke, saying that the choice to be vaccinated is a personal one.

“No matter how much research goes into it or how

JACOB STEINBERG many benefits there might be,” she said, “there’ll always be people who refuse them and it would be a dangerous precedent to set if they were made mandatory.”

According to the CDC, vaccines do carry a rare risk of anaphylaxis when administered.

However, they have also proven to be safe and effective, helping protect both individuals and the community from

diseases like measles, whooping cough, polio and cervical cancer, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

In order to ensure that members of the community are protected from preventable diseases, state laws establish vaccination requirements for schoolchildren, according to the CDC. All states provide medical exemptions, while some state

laws also offer exemptions for religious and philosophical reasons.

In the 2012-2013 school year, two to three percent of kindergartners had non-medical exemptions in Vermont, according to the CDC. In 2012, individuals in most New England states had only some difficulty obtaining a vaccine exemption, requiring only a healthcare professional’s signature, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.

Although these numbers may seem small, for every individual not vaccinated, there is a potential risk for an outbreak.

One of the major reasons people choose not to vaccinate themselves or their children is because they think the vaccines could potentially have the opposite effect, causing harm, according to the CDC. A major concern for many is the idea that vaccines were thought to be linked to autism, which has proven to be false in many studies.

Despite these scientific findings, an increasing amount of people are still adamant about going vaccine-free, according to BBC’s Anti-Vax Health article in 2012.

Many of these people hesitant about getting vaccinated, are a part of the “anti-vax” movement. One individual who has shown support to the anti-vax movement and has

chosen to disregard the science behind vaccines is President Donald Trump, according to a Feb. 2017 article from the New York Times.

According to the New York Time article, many individuals fear that his new administration could potentially provide official recognition to this particular movement.

This support would potentially cause more individuals to doubt the science and side with our nation’s leader.

But members of Congress, including Senator Lamar Alexander and Senator Patty Murray, are resisting this support to the “Anti-Vax” movement, since they personally value the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, according to the article.

I am personally going to side with my biology textbooks and the monumental amount of scientific research available.

I thank the members of Congress for beginning to resist Trump’s potential support of the “anti-vax” movement, I thank the scientists for their tireless dedication and research and I thank my mom for getting me vaccinated as a kid.

They are all helping to protect this community against diseases that can be effectively and safely prevented.

Michaela Paul is a senior biology major. She has been writing for the cynic since spring 2016.

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B-SIDE

Technology Opens the Door to Musical Creation Max McCurdy It is genuinely hard to find someone who doesn’t enjoy listening to music. It’s quite a bit easier to find someone who doesn’t play music.

While factors such as lack of interest or time might play a part in this gap, this disconnect between listening and playing music is surely due to the difference in difficulty between engaging in listening versus engaging in learning and playing music.

Playing a guitar is hard, and there are infinitely wrong ways to do it. Listening to music is easy as can be as there’s no “wrong” way to hear an album. While the difficulty of learning to play an instrument, such as guitar, discourages a lot of people from trying to learn, others choose to embrace the challenge.

With new technology, though, has made creating music more accessible.

Holden Jaffe, a NYC-based singer-songwriter and frontman for the indie band Del Water Gap is one of these people.

He started his musical journey by learning how to play drums at age 12. His focus eventually shifted to guitar while spending his junior year of high school abroad in Zaragoza, Spain.

Upon moving to a big city for the first time, he knew he would have to part ways with his beloved space-robbing drums.

“I had brought my guitar, and I spent a lot of time that year sitting in my room, getting better at playing and writing songs.” Jaffe said; “then I kinda caught that bug and continued through my senior year of high school.”

While playing the guitar had logistical beginnings, as Jaffe became more interested in writing, it made more sense for him to play a melodic instrument, rather than the drums, he said.

Up until the early ‘70s, the only music making method was Jaffe’s instrument-based method. Anyone unwilling to put in the time and effort to buy and learn an instrument was relegated to simply listening to music rather than playing it.

That was until one album—Sly and the Family Stone’s 1971 masterpiece There’s a Riot Goin On—exposed the world to the then-primitive technology of drum machines. Interestingly enough, Sly’s motive for using a drum machine for the first time was not some genius attempt to re-invent the music industry; it was simply a logistical reaction to his drummer quitting the group due to a souring relationship.

Digital music technology has come a long way since the first drum machine, the Chamberlin Rhythmate, was released in 1957. Drum machines, synths and MIDI controllers are now becoming commonplace in most college dorms and apartments.

Be honest -- everybody knows someone who “makes sick beats.” While over-confident, under-talented people such as these may contribute to the impression that increased accessibility of music-making is an awful thing, real musicians tend to disagree.

That change in accessibility is the biggest change to music—both the industry and the art form—in the history of recorded music, Jaffe said.

“I think it’s great; I’ve gotten so many opportunities to create content and meet new people, and to have a career I wouldn’t have otherwise,” he said.

Jaffe also shrugged off the common misconception that making music digitally is “easy as pie.”

“People treat these Digital Audio Workstations like instruments –they have to practice them and get to know them like instruments,” he said. “There’s no difference there.”

Jaffe has also noticed this increase in the accessibility of making music digitally. “A lot of friends are now moving in that direction,” he said, “and a couple of my most consistent collab-

orators are now in that world.”

Things are no different in Burlington, as every year there are more and more people digitally producing music.

One of those people is junior Mike Garrett (aka Mike G), who takes a more old-school approach to production.

Mike G’s main instrument is an MPC-2000 XL, a storied drum machine and sampler that’s been the tool of choice for countless hip-hop legends over the years, like J Dilla, Nujabes, DJ Premier and many more.

“This machine is indirectly responsible for hip-hop, so I felt I had to get one at some point,” he said, “and I’m using the same thing my favorite producers did, so I can sort of put myself in their shoes and think, ‘this is what it’s like when Pete Rock makes music.’”

Garrett also took the oldschool route of buying an MPC made in 2000 due to his self-proclaimed affection for old machinery.

“I love old electronics; they have cool little quirks to them that new things don’t,” Garrett said, “and the quirks are your friends.”

Even as someone who is passionate about producing the hard way on now-defunct technology, Garrett shares Jaffe’s opinion that the increased accessibility and ease of making music is a great thing.

“If you make music, I don’t think you can actually have a problem with more people making music, “or that you can think of making music as an exclusive thing,” he said.

Garrett also commented on how advancements in production technology are beneficial even to old souls such as himself.

“In my research of trying to make a full analog studio setup, I’ve found it’s ridiculously expensive and requires a truly amazing amount of hardware,” he said, “but now your computer can do the same things all that hardware would do, so now it’s just so much less expensive to make music.”

A love for hip-hop, though, doesn’t attract everyone to the expensive and sometimes-frustrating world of dealing with decades-old analog electronics, and that there are t paths to digitally producing music.

UVM junior N’Kosi Edwards has taken one of these alternative paths, choosing to produce with a modern MIDI controller - the AKAI MPK Mini 2 - and a Digital Audio Workstation, Logic Pro. “[Producing] is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while,” Edwards said, “and once I saw young producers like Young Chop getting big I thought, ‘maybe I should start making beats, that looks kinda fun.’”

For Edwards, the desire to produce came hand-in-hand with his love of rapping. “I’ve always been infatuated with how people could twist words in hip-hop,” he said, “which is why artists like BIG Krit were always an inspiration, because he made his own music and rapped over it.”

The increased accessibility and popularity of making music has not gone unnoticed for Edwards. “I know a lot of people that rap and make music,” he said, “like my friend Louis that got signed to a record label. I get a lot of inspiration from people like him, that are just doing their own thing.”

Edwards also shares the opinion that the more accessible music is, the better.

“If it wasn’t for that I probably wouldn’t be making beats, so I have to give thanks that it’s so much more accessible now,” he said.

Edwards’s use of only one MIDI controller is something he surely couldn’t JACOB STEINBERG imagine before he got started producing. “Back in the day, when I didn’t know much about it, I thought I would need a whole bunch of equipment,” he said.

The only downside that Edwards could see with increased

accessibility is that “it has definitely given people the ability to mass produce a lot of crappy music, but who’s to even say that?

People might say my music is crappy,” he said.

Digital music production has come an unspeakably long way since that first Chamberlin Rhythmate went on sale in 1957, and there’s certainly no end in sight. Digital music tech has gone from that ancient Rhythmate with only 14 drum patterns, to Digital Audio Workstations with thousands of samples built in, with the ability to download an almost infinite number of additional sounds.

It’s gone from the first digital sampler—the Linn LM-1 Drum Computer—costing $5,000 upon its release in 1980, to MIDI controllers like N’Kosi Edwards’s AKAI MPK Mini 2, which costs as little as $100 on eBay. It’s gone from expensive analog tape recorders that added unwanted white noise with every recording, to programs like GarageBand, offering a far superior recording experience for free on any Mac computer.

In short, it’s easy to see why digital music production has become so much more common and accessible in the last few years: it’s more intuitive, cheap and advanced than it has ever been before.

And with that, there’s more music available now than there has ever been. And even if that means there’s now more crappy music out there than ever before, statistically there has to also be more great music out there than ever before, right?

In order to enrich your life by checking out the amazing music these great artists make, I strongly encourage you to check out their respective online libraries. For some soul-touching, emotionally-rich indie grooves, listen to Holden Jaffe’s super-group Del Water Gap on Spotify, iTunes, or Bandcamp (https://delwatergap.bandcamp.com/). For some futuristic yet old-school raps and instrumentals, check out N’Kosi Edwards on Soundcloud at https://soundcloud.com/nkosi11. Unfortunately, Mike G’s music is yet to be published online, but be on the lookout for his gritty, 90s hip-hop greatness hitting the internet’s airwaves in the near future.

Left: Photo courtesy of Facebook Right: MAX MCCURDY/The Vermont Cynic

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GENEVIEVE WINN

Horror movie examines race in U.S. Staff Report The most thrilling cinematic experience to hit American theaters in recent years is out now, and everyone should go see it.

No, this experience did not come from a recent Oscar-winning flick; it was delivered in the form of a horror film directed by none other than comedian Jordan Peele.

“Get Out” is a scary movie like no other. Peele masterfully weaves together, in a mere 104 minutes, a film dressed in

discomfort as much as it is in comedy, and in social allegory as much as pure terror.

The movie follows Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and Rose (Allison Williams), an interracial couple going to visit the grandiose estate owned by Rose’s parents.

Chris has not met his girlfriend’s parents yet, and expresses concern because they are unaware he is black. Rose assures him that her family is not racist, and they set off for the weekend.

The consequent events of their weekend excursion are downright sinister, but the story Peele constructs is much more than just a scary movie.

Racial undertones are prevalent throughout the entire film. There is a questionable sense of danger from the beginning, and Peele impressively plays on this danger to form a palpable anxiety that filled the theater like a thick fog.

What is most impressive about Peele’s narrative is how effectively he illustrates the

‘Moonlight’ in wrong spotlight

realities of modern-day American racism in a hyper-fictionalized movie.

Many of the horrific events that transpire in “Get Out” could never happen in real life, yet there is something vividly authentic about the entire film.

Through covert and overt symbolism, Peele presents the very real terrors of American suburbia, and commentates on the anxiety felt by black folks all over the country.

As one New York Times

reviewer states, the true monsters are sometimes those closest to us. “Get Out” portrays this neighborly fear with poignancy.

Peele’s movie is violent, but so is America.

Released at arguably the most appropriate time in this nation’s history, his movie fastens itself securely at the crossroads of horror and race.

Peele executes it damn near perfectly.

Five stars.

WRUV music of the week

Kim Henry Staff Writer

H

ere is my official Top Four Favorite Things About “Moonlight” list.

One: The opening scene, in which a suave Mahershala Ali playing the drug dealer, Juan, cruises through his poor, black Miami neighborhood, with a crown dashboard ornament, while “Every N----- Is a Star”

by Boris Johnson slips like velvet through his speakers.

Two: The ending scene of the film’s first act; feeling the tension build up until the moment that Chiron asks Juan “What’s a f-----?” and then waiting for Juan’s response so that I could breath again.

Three: Witnessing the same head-tilt, slumped shoulders, and timid eye-contact transform Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders and Trevante Rhodes — three incredibly distinct actors — into one withdrawn boy as he grows into a man.

Not only was “Moonlight” an achievement in film and storytelling, but it made history this year at the Oscars.

“Moonlight” was the first film with a gay main character to win the award for Best Picture.

Mahershala Ali was the

ELISE MITCHELL first Muslim actor to ever win an Academy Award.

Though “Moonlight” was not the first film with a predominantly black cast to win the award for best picture, it is the first that depicts black life in the modern era, focusing on contemporary issues of class, drug abuse and sexuality.

This is all to say that, in the aftermath of an admittedly confusing award ceremony, to focus on anything but the excellency Jenkins’s film would be to miss the point.

When I googled “‘Moonlight’ Best Picture” to do a little research for this article, however, a solid 50 percent of

the headlines included “La La Land” or some reference to the award mix-up.

Yes, The Rock made a hilarious face when the cast and crew of “La La Land” were told they did not win Best Picture, and that makes for great clickbait.

Now that the dust has settled, can we please take a moment to appreciate “Moonlight” and a truly historical moment in filmmaking?

Kim Henry is a sophomore English major. She has been writing for the Cynic since fall 2016.

Photo courtesy of Bandcamp Every week the DJs of WRUV, UVM’s student radio station pick an album or song that has caught their attention. This week’s DJ pick is Bonobo’s “Migration,” reccomended by Serial Chiller.

“Migration” is the latest project from Simon Green, AKA Bonobo, and his first since 2013’s “The North Borders.” The album is a solo work but features several guests such as Nick Murphy, formerly known as Chet Faker.

The album takes a more dance-inspired approach than the artist’s past efforts, reminicent of Burial or Four Tet according to a Pitchfork review of the album.

The artist himself descibes the album as, “The study of people and spaces. It’s interesting how one person will take an influence from one part of the world and move with that influence and affect another part of the world. Over time, the identities of places evolve,” according to his Bandcamp page.

ARTS

ISABELLA ALESSANDRINI

South African chorus set to have Burlington show Anna Gibson Staff Writer It is difficult to ignore any art, born out of humble beginnings, that has received widespread and international admiration.

While its presence on the international stage did not appear until the release of Paul Simon’s seminal album, “Graceland,” in 1986, Ladysmith Black Mambazo was created about 20 years prior.

At the time, a young Joseph Shabalala of Ladysmith, South Africa listened to the messages in several of his dreams to assemble the singers of this world-treasured a cappella group, he said.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo will perform March 10 on the Flynn MainStage.

“Music talks to the heart.

It makes people sit down and think and try to see things in a different way... the songs we sing are encouraging people to come together to solve their problems in peace,” said Albert Mazibuko, one of the two original members remaining in the group.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo has received four Grammys, and fifteen Grammy nominations for their music.

The group draws from iscathamiya, a traditional musical form that developed as a means of sustaining hope and unity among struggling mine workers in South Africa, according to Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s website.

Shabalala heard the soft sounds of iscathamiya singing in his dreams, which is what prompted him to recreate them through Ladysmith Black Mambazo, according to a 1987 Los Angeles Times article.

“When we collaborated with Paul Simon, it was the highest point of the group, because people would not know us as they do now if it wasn’t for Paul Simon and ‘Graceland,’ so we were very fortunate and we were always grateful for that,” Mazibuko said.

Sophomore Harrison Myers is one of those people who was first exposed to the group through ‘Graceland.’ “I really like Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s percussion and harmonies and I feel like they would be super fun to see live,” he said.

Mazibuko also spoke of the new generation bringing the group “a lot of new energy and new knowledge,” he said.

Many of the new, younger members are the sons of deceased or retired original members.

In addition to Simon, the group has collaborated with a number of American musicians, including Stevie Wonder and Dolly Parton.

Their music has also been featured on many movie soundtracks including Disney’s “The Lion King Part II,” Sean Connery’s “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” and Clint Eastwood’s “Invictus.”

“To collaborate with other musicians proves that unity is power. When people come together to do something, you come with your energy, I come with mine...and the outcome is amazing,” Mazibuko said.

Mazibuko said he hopes it will not be too cold in Vermont, but the group is very excited to perform here.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo performs at 8 p.m. March 10 on the Flynn MainStage.

11

ARTS

12

Future delivers same sound on new project Nieva Schemm Staff Writer

L

istening to Future is like taking a dose of the drugs he draws inspiration from.

The experience it promises is dark and extravagant, one to be endured with dignity and stamina.

The appeal of the perpetually intoxicated Atlanta artist is the addictingly melodic, emotive and almost cripplingly human qualities preserved both in boastful beats and the bleakest and most embattled bars.

To earn trap rap’s throne, Future has employed what The New York Times called on Wednesday “the art of flooding the market,” dropping three or more projects per year.

The first of the artist’s 2017 releases, “FUTURE” dropped unexpectedly a week before the companion “HNNDRX.” The self-titled set offers a completed caricature of the artist’s previous work.

Future’s baseline influences are the music of the city of Atlanta, its pillars Gucci Mane and Outkast and its history of auto-tuned gangster rap.

Future’s signature style went on to spawn “mumble rap” as a genre and usher in SoundCloud crossover sensations like Lil Uzi Vert and Fetty Wap. Future was placed on a pedestal in the rap game after the 2015 release of “Dirty

Sprite 2,” in which the artist’s ice-cold anguish and marriage to vice reflects on each track in vivid, nightmarish repetition.

The bender seems to be a continuation of the reactive rampages of late 2014’s “Monster,” where Future’s famous split with ex-fiance Ciara is first chronicled, highlighted in the emotional break of the song “Throw Away.”

His following project “Beast Mode” maintains the same focus and veracity. Future’s vivid and destructive coping spawns some of his best work such as “Just Like Bruddas” and “Peacoat.”

The recent albums contrast with earlier projects’ tunnel vision, providing instead more dynamic offerings that attempt a fully completed self-portrait.

In “FUTURE,” the first of the set, the artist flexes his hit making capacity and his characteristic compulsive habits.

“Draco,” a rolling, threatening giant of a hit is characteristic of Future’s boastful control.

“HNNDRX” is more characteristic of Future’s earlier period of R&B stylings. The love songs he wrote during relationship with Ciara made him famous with his “Honest” and Pluto” mixtapes.

In “HNNDRX” Future bears his other nature, fleshing out a sensitive side still raw and romantic. Too many specific bars suggest he’s never really gotten over his ex.

The album’s opening line

CHELSEA DARWIN

addresses her: “If we never speak again, I’m just glad I got to tell the truth.”

In these songs, Future processes the conflict that he incessantly numbs with women, wealth and drugs in the first album.

The themes are hardly an expansion on prior work, but there is something to be said

for receiving the same consistent quality from Future.

The looped feel of his catalog is aided by his reliance on trap heavyweights Zaytoven, Metro Boomin and Southside.

Even when Future tracks are indistinguishable, the smoky haze of empty excess is a device he has perfected.

Despite the clutter in his

collection, countless exceptional tracks and unrelenting efforts justify his unrivaled stake in the scene.

Bridget Dorsey is a sophomore environmental studies major.

She has been writing for the Cynic since spring 2016.

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Are you psyched about sports?

Do you have a knack for news?

Are you amazed by art? then join the

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13

SPORTS

End of the road for women’s hockey

Locria Courtright Assistant Sports Editor

The University of Vermont women’s ice hockey team continues to build toward success as another season concludes, providing much optimism for the future.

The Catamounts finished the regular season as the fifth seed in Hockey East, and were sent on the road for the Hockey East quarterfinals against Providence College.

The Cats had a heartbreaking loss in game one, where they rallied from a two-goal deficit only to see Providence score the winning goal with 8.1 seconds left.

Vermont flexed its offensive muscles by outscoring the Friars 10-3 in games two and three, advancing the Cats to the Hockey East semifinals for the second time in program history.

First-year forward Ève-Audrey Picard and sophomore forward Alyssa Gorecki led the way with six points each on the series, including a penalty shot goal by Picard.

In the semis at Walter Brown Arena in Boston, the Catamounts were up against Boston College, a team that had defeated the Cats 7-1 in their last meeting.

The Cats pushed Boston to the limit, twice erasing twogoal deficits to tie the game in the third period and taking the game to double overtime.

However, they were unable to reach the final, as BC forward Andie Anastos beat senior goaltender Madison Litchfield with a backhander

PHIL CARRUTHERS/The Vermont Cynic Sophomore defender Sammy Kolowrat skates away from a Boston College player Jan. 20. Kolowrat is a member of the Czech Republic national team as they try to attempt to qualify for the 2018 Winter Olympics. three minutes and 3 seconds into the extra frame to give the Eagles a 4-3 win and a spot in the Hockey East final.

“I want to say how proud I am of this team,” head coach Jim Plumer said. “To come back twice from two-goal deficits in this game, and to really fight tooth and nail for 85 minutes.”

Vermont finished the season with 15-14-9 record, their third 15-win season in

four years, according to UVM athletics.

Prior to Plumer’s 2012 hiring, the Catamounts had never had a season with that many wins.

This season was a historic one, with a number of program records breaking.

Picard set program records first-year player with 16 goals and 31 points, leading the team in both categories.

Both records were previ-

OLIVER POMAZI/The Vermont Cynic Redshirt junior Payton Henson defends the ball against a University of New Hampshire player March 6. The Catamount victory increases their win streak to 20 straight games.

ously held by senior forward Victoria Andreakos, who had 11 goals and 27 points in the 2013-14 season, according to UVM athletics.

For her efforts, Picard earned a spot on the Hockey East All-Rookie Team.

Litchfield set a new program record for career wins, earning 32 during her fouryear career.

Litchfield took a huge step this season, posting a .928 save

percentage — up from .901 as a junior — and was named to the Hockey East Second AllStar Team, along with junior defender Taylor Willard.

“I’m so incredibly proud of this group,” Plumer said.

“It was a heartbreaking way to end the season but we can hold our heads high knowing we left it all out there on the ice.”

Basketball Continued from pg. 1

Vermont were also impressive defensively, limiting junior forward Tanner Leissner to only four points. His average this season was 17.5 points per game.

“From the get-go, our defense was absolutely tremendous,” Henson said. “It was just a really great effort in the defensive end.”

Becker was impressed with his team, and even a little surprised at the dominant performance.

“I never think you’d expect this type of victory in a semifinal game against a good team,” Becker said. “But I expected us to play well tonight, and I expect us to play well Saturday.”

The No. 3 seeded University of Albany defeated the No. 2 seeded Stony Brook 63-56 to advance to the America East final.

The Catamounts will host the Albany for the America East title March 11 at 11a.m. at Patrick Gym.

adding 13 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists.

“We have got to move on to our next opponent, whoever that is and we got 40 minutes to play hard that game,” he said.

Becker was able to play almost everyone on the roster, and relied on the bench players to finish off the game in the last seven minutes. The starters were able to rest and cheer their teammates on from the sidelines.

“As a team we are getting closer and we are playing together and better defensively each and every game,” Lamb said. “Every time we step on the court we are working on it and we are trying to push ourselves each practice so we can get to that next level.”

The Catamounts were on top of their game once again March 6, as they defeated the University of New Hampshire 74-41.

This win extended Vermont’s winning streak to 20 games - the best winning streak in the country.

Lamb lead the game with 24 points, including six three-pointers. Redshirt junior forward Payton Henson and senior guard Dre Wills reached double digits too, scoring 14 and 12 points respectively.

14

SPORTS

Major league soccer kicks off an exciting new season The Soccer Report Locria Courtright

A

s Major League Soccer begins its 22nd season of operation, the dawn of a new era looms.

The 2017 season sees the ever-growing league add another two teams, Minnesota United and Atlanta United.

Atlanta immediately made it known that they wanted to be taken seriously, hiring former Barcelona manager Gerardo “Tata” Martino as head coach and signing talented young players such as winger Héctor Villalba and Paraguayan international midfielder Miguel Almirón.

Minnesota, though less flashy than Atlanta, also made headlines quickly.

The Loons, as Minnesota fans affectionately call their team, broke an MLS record for a transfer between teams by paying Orlando $650,000 for the services of midfielder Kevin Molino, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

Last year’s trophy winners have remained relatively quiet.

Toronto, holders of the Canadian Championship and MLS Cup runner-up, have mostly shuffled around depth players, while MLS Cup winners Seattle welcome back star forward Clint Dempsey from a heart issue that kept him out of the end of last season.

They’ll also welcome back fan favorite and former MLS All-Star Fredy Montero this

season; however, it won’t be in Seattle’s rave green.

The Colombian forward, who played for Seattle from 2009 to 2012, was recently acquired by their Cascadian rivals, the Vancouver Whitecaps.

Dallas, which won the Supporters’ Shield for best regular-season record as well as the U.S. Open Cup, made the most noise, picking up Paraguayan youngster Cristian Colmán to lead their attack.

A consistent goal scorer has been the Hoops’ Achilles heel in recent years, and they hope Colmán can deliver.

This season also sees the addition of a UVM Catamount to the league, as forward Brian Wright was drafted in January

by New England Revolution.

Wright has impressed Revs head coach Jay Heaps from the get-go, drawing a penalty less than 15 minutes into his first preseason game.

The biggest turnover this summer has been in Harrison, New Jersey, with the New York Red Bulls.

Sporting director Ali Curtis left the club after a power struggle, which many attributed to the decision to trade captain Dax McCarty to Chicago Fire. Curtis was rumored to be against the trade, while head coach Jesse Marsch supported it.

The biggest change in MLS this season, however, will likely be perception. Since David Beckham first joined Los Angeles Galaxy in 2007, many

ELISE MITCHELL have considered MLS to be a “retirement league,” where old soccer stars would come to get one last paycheck.

However, that perception is slowly dying. The average age of an MLS signing this winter was 25.7, according to Philly Voice. Many of these old soccer stars, such as Andrea Pirlo, Didier Drogba and Frank

Lampard, have either retired or are in the last season of their contract.

Even Beckham’s old Galaxy side have largely abandoned the “retirement signing.” LA’s marquee signing this winter, Romain Alessandrini, is a 27 year old winger who played for French powerhouses Olympique de Marseille last season.

The MLS season kicked off March 3, when Portland Timbers defeated Minnesota United 5-1 at Providence Park in Portland, Ore. Locria Courtright is a sophomore English major who has been writing for the Cynic since Fall 2015.

15

SPORTS

Men’s hockey sweep Maine in quarterfinals Locria Courtright Assistant Sports Editor How sweep it is.

Men’s ice hockey earned a spot in the Hockey East quarterfinals for the fifth consecutive season after sweeping University of Maine in two games.

The Catamounts started quickly on the weekend, scoring within the first four minutes of the first period March 3.

Sophomore forward Liam Coughlin tipped a shot by senior defenseman Ori Abramson past Maine goaltender Rob McGovern to put UVM up 1-0.

Coughlin would add a second about six minutes later; Maine defender Greg Cochrane lost a pass in his skates, allowing Coughlin to break in alone and beat McGovern to double the Vermont lead.

UVM added a third goal before the period ended, as sophomore forward Craig Puffer beat McGovern with a high wrist shot to extend the lead to 3-0.

The Cats would strike again midway through the second.

First-year defender Jake Massie’s initial shot was stopped by McGovern, but senior forward Brendan Bradley scored on the rebound for a 4-0 Catamount lead.

The final goal of the game came early in the third, as se-

Photo courtesy of UVM Athletics Sophomore forward Saana Valkama takes a shot on goal against Boston College Jan. 20. nior forward Mario Puskarich took advantage of another McGovern rebound to put UVM up 5-0.

First-year goaltender Stefanos Lekkas stopped all 31 shots he faced, becoming the first goaltender ever to shut out Maine in the Hockey East Tournament.

Lekkas was later named the Hockey East Defenseman of the Week, his seventh weekly award of the season, according to UVM athletics.

“I thought we played great,” head coach Kevin Sneddon said.“But I don’t think the score was indicative of how the game really played

out.”

It didn’t get much better for the visiting Black Bears on Saturday.

The Catamounts scored less than seven minutes after tipoff, as Bradley took advantage of a Maine defensive zone turnover to beat Maine goaltender Matt Morris and open the scoring.

Bradley was later named the TD Bank Student-Athlete of the week, according to UVM athletics.

A similar turnover would lead to UVM’s second goal eleven minutes later, as senior defender Rob Hamilton beat Morris from close range to

NCAA should suspend Baylor Views from the Fairway John Suozzo

T

he NCAA should punish Baylor University’s football program by suspending the team for multiple seasons.

Baylor’s football team has been under a prolonged investigation over Title IX violations, where numerous members of the team were cited as aggressors in sexual assault.

The coaching staff and administration have also come under fire; there are allegations they knew about these abuses, and chose to look the other way in order to not have their best players face discipline or suspension for their actions.

A Dallas Morning News report stated that members within the Baylor administration were upset with how these incidents were handled

by University President Ken Starr, who they claimed had more interest in the football team’s success than the victims of the crimes committed by the team.

Starr has since resigned as president.

According to a lawsuit filed in January by a former student at the university, there were 52 rapes committed by 31 different members of the Baylor football team between 2011 and 2014.

After the release of an independent report of the

52 rapes

committed by 32 students incidents at the university, head coach Art Briles was fired for failing to discipline players when they knew about the crimes.

Briles denied implications that he helped cover up these crimes in order to keep his best football players on the field.

In Nov. 2016, Baylor University officials admitted that one of the accusers spoke to Briles about a gang-rape that involved members of the football team, and that Briles spoke with Starr and athletic director Ian McCaw, yet chose not to do anything about it, according to the Associated Press.

Briles, Starr and McCaw have all been fired or resigned.

The main question that needs to be asked is: where are the penalties for this corrupt program? Many teams have been penalized for far less serious and dangerous offenses.

The “death penalty” is most severe punishment the NCAA can levy on a program for negligent actions. If given the death penalty, the NCAA would force the university

to give up all football related actions for a period of time.

Coaches would not be able to recruit, there would be no games and players in the program would be allowed to transfer out of the school with no penalty, essentially killing all signs of life for a football team.

The death penalty has only been given out once in NCAA history. Southern Methodist University received it in 1986, and had their entire 1987 season cancelled for recruiting violations.

The NCAA may fear giving out too strong of a penalty after they received backlash for their handling of the Penn State scandal, which included a 4 year postseason ban and a $60 million fine for covering up former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky’s child sex abuse.

Baylor University, however, is fully deserving of having their football team taken away from them.

John Suozzo is a junior history and political science major who has been writing for the Cynic since Fall 2015.

double the lead to 2-0.

Maine would get their first goal of the series early in the second, as defenseman Rob Michel’s one-timer beat Lekkas high to cut the lead in half.

Vermont would respond about two minutes later, as Puskarich and Puffer scored just twelve seconds apart to extend the lead to 3-1 and then 4-1.

First-year forward Matt Alvaro would grab an empty-net goal with 22 seconds to go to seal UVM’s 5-1 victory and a series sweep.

This was the 18th win of the season for Lekkas, the most by a Catamount goalie

since Tim Thomas 20 years ago, according to UVM athletics.

“After they scored we didn’t get too flustered and focused on getting the next one,” Puskarich said. “Any time you score on back-to-back shifts, it takes quite a bit of momentum from the other team and we took it to them at that point.”

Vermont now travels to Chestnut Hill, Mass. to take on Boston College in the Hockey East Quarterfinals.

The two teams battled in the quarterfinals in each of the last two seasons. The best-ofthree series begins March 10.

UVM Scoreboard

Visit vtcynic.com for more coverage and uvmathletics.com for schedules, tickets, score updates and additional information

LAST WEEK

W

86-41

Men’s basketball vs Maine Home March 1

L

3-4

Women’s ice hockey vs Boston College Boston, MA March 4

W

5-0

Men’s ice hockey vs Maine Home March 3

L

45-65

Women’s basketball vs Albany Portland, ME March 4

THIS WEEK

• Men’s ice hockey at Boston College

Chestnut Hill, MA March 10 - March 12 (Quarterfinal)

• Men’s lacrosse at Sacred Heart Fairfield, CT March 11 at 3p.m.

• Men’s basketball vs Albany

Home March 11 at 11a.m. (Championship Game)

• Women’s lacrosse at Denver Denver, CO March 12 at 5p.m.

RECORDS

Men’s Basketball 28-5 Men’s Hockey 20-11-5 Men’s Lacrosse 3-3

Women’s Basketball 9-20 Women’s Hockey 15-14-9 Women’s Lacrosse 0-6

16

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