The Vanderbilt Hustler 02-05-14

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VOL. 126, ISS. 5

‘Outnumbered, but not

COLLEGE HALLS RESULTS

25.5 percent of applicants get College Halls

outmanned.’.’

By HANNAH SILLS News editor --------------------

By the time the balloting process to apply for residence in the new Warren and Moore Colleges closed on Jan. 22, 2,440 students had applied to live in the new buildings, according to data from the Office of Housing and Residential Education (OHARE). Of those who applied, only 25.5 percent were accepted.

Construction of Warren and Moore — known collectively as the College Halls at Kissam — began in the summer of 2012 after the six dormitories located on Kissam Quadrangle had been demolished. The new buildings cost approximately $115 million and will see their first occupants in the fall semester.

While sophomores, juniors and seniors will each represent 33 percent of residents in the new dorms by design, the applicant pool was not evenly distributed among the different classes.

Of the 2,440 total applicants, 42.4 percent were rising juniors, 34.7 percent were rising sophomores, and only 22.9 percent were rising seniors.

“We were a little surprised,” said Jim Kramka, senior director of Housing Operations, regarding the small number of rising senior applicants. The 22.9 percent who applied constituted only twothirds of the volume of applicants that OHARE was anticipating.

— Continued on PAGE 2

The ‘magnificent seven’ of the men’s basketball team have impressed in conference play so far. With their roster worn thin, can they keep it up?

SEE PAGE 18

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CAMPUS

AcFee funding application process changes

The new system is designed to improve efficacy and fairPAGE 3 ness of student activity fee allocation

OPINION

Ode to the English major A columnist details the benefits of one of today’s most derided majors

PAGE 6

LIFE

Rites of Spring predictions VPB has issued cryptic clues in the lead-up to this year’s Rites lineup. Here are the best guesses as to who will be playing

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campus 519

“But we expect retention will be high and that the great majority of the vacancies each year will be for rising second-year students.”

JIM KRAMKA, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF HOUSING OPERATIONS COLLEGE HALLS RESULTS

2,440

500

total applicants to Warren and Moore

Though students whose ballets were rejected expressed disappointment, 100 percent of those accepted received their first choice of room type

400

— Continued from PAGE 1 “I think that a lot of the sophomore and younger classes were (applying to College Halls), but as a junior I did not see many people looking to apply due to the fact that they would be further away, have to have a meal plan, and the (lack of a full) kitchen,” said junior student Mackenzie Lyles. “And the potential to be split up I think was a turn-off for the older classes.”

Residence in Warren and Moore will also be divided evenly among genders, a breakdown that was reflected almost perfectly in the applicant pool.

1,214 women and 1,226 men applied to live in College Halls.

Warren and Moore will feature the largest variety of living arrangements of any dorm on campus, with traditional singles and doubles as well as four,

300

NUMBER OF BALLOTS

QUOTE OF THE DAY

DID YOU GET INTO WARREN & MOORE?

BALLOT BREAKDOWN

We polled from InsideVandy.com

NOTE: Not all six-person ballots were for six-person suites, etc. Each could represent combinations of several room types — for instance, there were several six-person ballots with a first choice of all singles.

200

136

100

36.4 percent

0 percent

Yes, and I got my second choice

49.4 percent

122

113

five and six-person suites. The suites will be unique compared with other dorms because they will consist of individual bedrooms, rather than traditional doubles. The suite singles and the fact that both dorms will be brand new were among the most common reasons for applying to live in College Halls cited by several students interviewed.

“We took a tour, and they’re just enormous,” said junior student Madison Kommor of the new rooms in Warren and Moore. “All singles in a six-person suite, so there goes all the suite drama. It was just perfect.”

Perhaps the most surprising statistic of the balloting process concerns the number of students who received their first choice of living arrangement: 100 percent.

Yes, and I got my first choice

76

people polled

14.3 percent No, and I’m okay with it

No, and I’m not happy about it

NUMBER OF APPLICANTS BY CLASS 48

22.9 percent

34.7 percent

55

Rising sophomores

Rising seniors

42.4 percent

2,440

total applicants 1

2

3

4

5

6

DATA PROVIDED BY OHARE

NUMBER OF PEOPLE ON BALLOT

vanderbilthustler STAFF

ANDRÉ ROUILLARD EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Rising juniors

HANNAH SILLS — NEWS EDITOR KELLY HALOM — LIFE EDITOR ERIC LYONS — OPINION EDITOR ALLISON MAST — SPORTS EDITOR

BOSLEY JARRETT — PHOTO EDITOR

Students also had the opportunity to submit coed ballots for Warren and Moore. 13 such ballots were submitted, according to OHARE, with the majority being for all single rooms, followed by a few for sixperson suites.

Although this balloting cycle was the first for the new dorms, it may also be the last to draw such a large pool from each of the three eligible classes. As the website for College Halls at Kissam explains, the ultimate vision for the residences is that students will enter in their sophomore year and remain through graduation. The ability to elect to remain in the same room for the subsequent year is commonly referred to as “squatters’ rights” on campus.

“Because we don’t have any history to look back on, all we can do is speculate (about how many students will choose to squat),” said Kramka. “But we expect retention will be high and that the great majority of the vacancies each year will be for rising second-year students.”

Regarding the balloting process for Warren and Moore, Kramka noted that he was “extremely pleased” overall.

“The lottery — again a very complex process because of the requirement that men and women be equally represented, the three cohorts be equally represented, and that those quotas be represented equally between the two colleges — worked perfectly the first time through,” he said. “Even those 1,800 students on unsuccessful ballots took the news with great understanding; we received very, very few complaints.”

While OHARE may not have received many complaints, students who had unsuccessful ballots did express disappointment. According to an InsideVandy poll, out of 76 respondents, 37 stated that they did not get into College Halls and were unhappy about it.

“I’m pretty mad about it because I’m a junior, and I was on a ballot of all juniors, and for every other housing option we would have had the strongest ballot and would have almost been guaranteed a spot — but we didn’t get one,” said student Elizabeth Dunlap.

DIANA ZHU — DESIGN DIRECTOR JENNA WENGLER — ASST. DESIGN DIRECTOR SENIOR DESIGNERS DESIGNERS

ZACH BERKOWITZ KAREN CHAN ZOË SHANCER KATHY ZHOU HAN DEWAN HOLLY GLASS

ALEX DAI — CHIEF COPY EDITOR COPY EDITORS ALEXIS BANKS ANDREA BLATT KATY CESAROTTI LAUREN HEYANO

WESLEY LIN ASHLEY SHAN KARA SHERRER SOPHIE TO

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AcFee funding application process new for 2014

By CHELSEA MIHELICH Senior news reporter --------------------

Approaching the end of a yearlong effort, members of the AcFee Reform Committee have announced an overhaul to the application for AcFee funding, a VSG-run initiative that provides financial support for student organizations. The AcFee Committee is responsible for allocating $1.7-1.8 million dollars — which comes from a portion of each student’s activity fee — to Vanderbilt student organizations every year.

According to Joey Starnes, AcFee Chair for both this year and last year, “The (AcFee Reform Committee) was created not because we thought there were huge problems with AcFee, but because we thought it could get better.” The committee was established last year through VSG Senate approval, and began to make changes to the process of AcFee funding allocation this past fall.

Most of the changes concern the application itself; the process undertaken by student organization leaders to receive funding will not change except for the way that information is provided in the application.

The former Microsoft Excel document,

which served as the AcFee application, is now Google Drive based and will function more as a financial tracking tool, according to AcFee Reform Committee Chair Arlyn Goodrich. Since student organizations will be able to view their application throughout the school year, self-accountability for spending will be easier.

In addition, Goodrich says, the new application will ask questions based on the information provided by each organization, and will eliminate unnecessary or irrelevant questions depending on the group. This, he says, will help to maximize the relevance of the information to be reviewed by the AcFee Committee.

“The old application wasn’t very userfriendly, and it wasn’t very intuitive,” Starnes said. “It required long hours trying to figure out what we wanted on the application.”

To further simplify the interview process that follows applying for AcFee, the application now includes new metrics for measuring spending, like tracking spending over time and spending per event attendee.

“A lot of what the allocation committee has to do, in terms of calculations and looking through stuff, will now be done in the application,” Goodrich explained.

In order to better allocate funds, Goodrich says his committee hopes the new application will help determine if each

organization is using its money effectively.

The type of information collected from the application will be largely the same, said both Goodrich and Starnes.

However, according to Starnes, “The application (now) does a lot more. It spits out a lot of graphs and metrics that we didn’t have in the past, which will help us better evaluate groups and more accurately distribute money.”

Starnes says the new application will not take any more effort for student organizations than it has in the past, just a different kind of effort. The AcFee Reform Committee has created video tutorials for student leaders to learn how to navigate the new system.

Goodrich says the ultimate goal for creating the new application was to break down the ongoing trend in AcFee funding of larger, more established organizations receiving more funding regardless of performance.

“We’re trying to make it so that newer organizations can break in and have a greater impact, faster,” Goodrich said.

In the past, new organizations would receive a standard $250 of AcFee funding, and after that, if they performed averagely, they would get a 5 percent increase, as would all organizations after their first year. Starnes says this is an inherent flaw that will hopefully be fixed by the new

system.

“The overall goal is that larger organizations that may not have been performing as well as in the past will not continue to get increases like they have in the past,” he said. “Hopefully by trimming from organizations like that, we’ll be able to give newer organizations a little bit more money.”

Goodrich and Starnes say they don’t know if this kind of change will happen right away, but hope the new application system will be a step in the right direction.

ORGANIZATIONS RECEIVING MOST ACFEE FUNDS IN 2013 Music Group: $538,000 VU Speakers Committee: $241,000 VenUe: $98,000 VPB Exec: $78,000 Homecoming: $56,500

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RVU Records to host songwriting competition

Winner to be selected by online public poll; prize to include cash, in-studio recording time and Mellodi feature

By ALLIE GROSS News reporter --------------------

RVU Records, Vanderbilt’s student-run record label, plans to host an original songwriting competition for students from Feb. 8-21.

Zach Blumenfeld, director of RVU Records, said he hopes to record as many original songs as possible during the competition. The decision to hold the event was based on the success of a “cover competition” RVU Records held in the fall, for which students recorded other artists’ songs.

“We’re hopefully going to attract people by saying that we’re not just going to record single live takes of their songs; we’re going to give them the full recording experience,” Blumenfeld said. “They’re going to get the chance to arrange the song for as many instruments as they’d like, and producers are going to spend a lot of one-on-one time with them crafting the song so that it’s the way that they feel like it should sound, instead of just a bare-bones guitar and vocal or piano and vocal, which is what we generally did in the cover competition.

According to Blumenfeld, the original songs will be posted online and the winner of the competition will be selected by a public poll on the RVU Records website. The prize will include cash, recording time with the studio, and a feature on a new website called Mellodi, a college music hub founded by Vanderbilt alumni.

Blumenfeld said he expects a number of contestants similar to the 15 that participated in the cover song competition, but plans to

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Participants in the RVU Records original songwriting contest will be able to enjoy the full recording experience, according to Director Zach Blumenfeld. spend three to four times as long working on each track, producing higher quality recordings.

Junior Collin Labak participated in the cover competition and plans on recording a “falling-out-of-love” song for the upcoming original song competition.

“I decided to enter the competition because RVU has way better resources in terms of audio equipment and recording software than I have access to anywhere else,” Labak said in an email. “The competition allows me

to record a song for free, and with far superior technology compared to what I’m used to working with.”

Blumenfeld said that the aims of the competition include providing experience for the record label’s audio engineers and stimulating the campus music scene.

“It conforms to our motto, which is to catalyze and unify the Vanderbilt music scene,” Blumenfeld said. “By bringing all these musicians into the studio in a rather concentrated period of time, we’re hoping that they

will be enlivened to do more with their music on campus, perhaps meet other songwriters, which could lead to some cool collaborations.”

The record label also plans to gather the original songs for a compilation album of tracks recorded in the studio, which is currently planned for a mid-April release.

Blumenfeld said he hopes to build on the success of the November cover competition with this new contest.

“One of my favorite memories from the cover competition in November was walking into the studio and just seeing like four or five RVU Records staff members in there, working together to make a recording and becoming friends while doing it,” Blumenfeld said. “I firmly believe that strong social bonds are a necessary characteristic of a good student organization, and scenes like the one I’ve described above contribute to the construction of those bonds.”

RVU Records also collaborates with a variety of other groups on campus, from recording Vanderbilt Spoken Word’s album to producing soundtracks and the “Battle Bands” show for Vanderbilt Television.

“Generally, (RVU Records) serves the student body in their wishes to record audio,” Blumenfeld said. “We serve musicians, we’ve had musicians in any genre — from folk to singer-songwriter to full bands to rappers — come in and record tracks. We produce tracks, we engineer them, we mix and master them, we return them to the clients.”

Students interested in the competition can sign up to compete at http://bit.ly/RVUcontest.

VUPD to have permanent presence in residential areas Community service officers to begin patrolling Commons and Kissam 24/7, Highland during night hours

By TYLER BISHOP

InsideVandy director -------------------This week, the Vanderbilt University Police Department and Vanderbilt Student Government announced an expansion of the presence of Community Service Officers (CSOs) in residential areas.

As of Feb. 4, there will now be a CSO on the Martha Rivers Ingram Commons 24/7 and one specifically assigned to Highland Quadrangle during the night hours. These officers will be an addition to VUPD’s regular campus patrol, which consists of nine police officers and a few additional CSOs. CSOs are able to offer a variety of services — like jumpstart-

ing cars — for students, employees and visitors at Vanderbilt.

“Previously, CSOs would have to patrol multiple residential areas at one time,” said student body president Isaac Escamilla in a statement to The Hustler. “Now, CSOs will be dedicated to maintaining a security presence at only one residential area at a time either on a 24/7 or nightly basis.”

Escamilla said the upgrade is an initiative VSG has been pursuing since the beginning of the school year. Several VSG senators believe that the measure will significantly enhance security for students on campus.

“Having Community Service Officers assigned to only one residential area will allow for these officers to build a relationship with residents and gain a deeper understanding of their assigned residential area and its security nuances,” Escamilla said.

Dean of Students Mark Bandas, Vanderbilt Police Chief August Washington and Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos also had a hand in pushing through the initiative.

“Their willingness to engage with student leaders, listen to their concerns and enact meaningful reforms has allowed for this initiative to become a reality,” Escamilla said.

Starting in May, there will also be a 24/7 CSO presence at the Kissam College Halls.

COURTESY OF VUPD

Community service officers currently patrol campus with VUPD police officers, but will now also be specifically stationed at certain residential areas.

VUPD additionally offers an around-the-clock escort service and emergency blue-light stations positioned everywhere around campus. According to VUPD, at least one of these lights can be seen at all times from anywhere on campus.

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Alumna working to create home for female student sexual violence survivors Dara House, a project of recent VU grad Sarah O’Brien, hopes to open doors in January 2015

By HANNAH SILLS News editor --------------------

Recent Vanderbilt graduate Sarah O’Brien is looking to change the way collegiate women recover from sexual violence, starting right here in the Nashville area.

O’Brien, a survivor of sexual assault, is currently working on bringing to life a project called Dara House, which is designed to provide what she calls a “healing home” for college-aged female survivors of sexual violence.

“The goal of the house is to provide services for college women that usually aren’t provided on their campuses for free,” O’Brien said. These services will include offering different types of nontraditional therapeutic techniques, such as yoga or painting, providing legal and psychiatric counseling, and providing access to a social worker.

The house will provide a full-time residence for the women for a period of three to eight months. O’Brien expects that between five and seven women will live in the house at any given time. The women will be ages 18-25 and must be either enrolled in a college or university or taking a break with the full intention of returning to school. O’Brien envisions living in the house as helping women reacclimate to campus life, especially after a traumatic experience.

The inspiration to create a home for survivors came in part from a desire to provide a community for those women.

“I’ve talked to hundreds of survivors all across the country whose battles and struggles with their healing journey have all been very similar in that they don’t feel a sense of community or support on their college campus,” she said. “(Dara House) in and of itself will be a community.”

The name “Dara” was the “last piece of the puzzle” to come together for the project, O’Brien said. It comes from the Dara Knot, which is a traditional Irish/Celtic knot that symbolizes many of the qualities she wanted Dara’s name to represent, including strength, endurance and community.

O’Brien has been working on the Dara House concept for about six months now.

She has been able to devote more time to working on the project since graduating from Vanderbilt in December. O’Brien was also active in issues concerning sexual violence while on campus, joining five other

‘‘

I’ve talked to hundreds of survivors all across the country whose battles and struggles with their healing journey have all been very similar in that they don’t feel a sense of community or support on their college campus.

’’

students in filing a federal Title IX complaint against Vanderbilt for the alleged “mistreatment of sexual assaults” in November 2013, a filing which remains under evaluation to determine if a federal investigation is necessary.

Recently, the Dara House project marked a milestone by raising more than $3,000, which will go towards filing federal and state applications required of this type of organization. Now, O’Brien hopes to raise $200,000-$500,000 before 2015, which will be used to obtain a house and pay for the services of support staff. The goal is to open Dara House’s doors by January 2015.

The response of the local community to Dara House has been positive so far, according to O’Brien.

“The activist community that I work with and friends and family have been overwhelmingly supportive,” she said. “Even a lot of Vanderbilt students, and mainly Vanderbilt alumni, have reached out to me, asking how they could support or how they could offer their knowledge to help the house really kind of take off and get started.”

O’Brien hopes to eventually expand from the Nashville area and see multiple Dara Houses in regions across the country. She has already been contacted by survivors of sexual violence from other areas who are enthusiastic about the idea of Dara House and would consider starting one locally.

For more information about the Dara House project, visit darahouse.org.

The Vanderbilt Hustler does not typically identify victims of sexual assault, but Sarah O’Brien has given permission to be identified as a rape survivor.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2014

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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2014

opinion

QUOTE OF THE DAY “Kids who are sent to jail think of themselves as criminals. Their social world becomes the criminal justice system, and their ties to their communities are severed.”

MICHAEL ZOOROB

THE

RANT Something got you peeved? Irked? Honked off?

The Rant is your place to anonymously vent your spleen on any issue you want. To get your rant on, visit the InsideVandy.com Opinion page.

Check out this week’s Rant on our Twitter account @InsideVandy.

I fucking hate the Kirkland Bell. Do I really need to be reminded of what time it is every hour? When I’m studying into the night? When I can’t sleep? Kirkland rings once, and I’m still awake. Kirkland rings twice, and I’m still awake. Kirkland Rings three times, and I’m still awake...

Time will always taunt me, but that damned clock doesn’t have to.

ANDRÉ ROUILLARD is a senior in the College of Arts and Science and editor-in-chief of The Hustler. He can be reached at andre.p.rouillard@ vanderbilt.edu.

Hahaha at the freshmen too lazy to go back to Commons thinking that Bamboo Bistro would be open at 6.45 p.m. on a Saturday night. Welcome to the food desert that is main campus on weekends.

If I’d known that I would have to share a jail cell-sized box of cinderblock at the age of 21 at a school that costs $60,000 a year, I would have looked more seriously into other schools. ugGGGHGHHGH can we please get lil b to speak here please we never get anyone good to speak here because this place is a shithole in the middle of nowhere but lil b #basedgod would fix all that PLEASE Does this university cater to anyone who actually wants to study? Apparently Vandy has the money to revamp the Rec Center but can’t afford to replace the earplug dispensers in the libraries.

Stop pretending to like a club you couldn’t care less about. Deactivate and find an organization that you’ll actually enjoy.

vanderbilthustler EDITORIAL BOARD ANDRÉ ROUILLARD, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF editor@insidevandy.com

HANNAH SILLS

KELLY HALOM

NEWS EDITOR news@insidevandy.com

LIFE EDITOR life@insidevandy.com

ERIC LYONS

ALLISON MAST

OPINION EDITOR opinion@insidevandy.com

The world doesn’t need English majors...

SPORTS EDITOR sports@insidevandy.com

... but they make it a better place.

D

eclaring my English major was probably the best thing that has happened to me at Vanderbilt.

While my parents would probably disagree, my experiences over the past four years have taught me that English majors (a nod to Philosophy majors here as well) are some of the most well-adjusted, creative, thoughtful and open-minded individuals at this school. And my English and writing-based classes, regardless of how well or how poorly I did in them, have been consistently the most rewarding classes I’ve taken here. Enough with the “barista” jokes everyone — it’s time to appreciate the widely-unrecognized benefits of spending your four collegiate years with your head in a book and your pen to paper.

This has been a risky column to write.

Penning anything as an English major (or even worse, as an editor) opens one up to digs about minute grammar mistakes and poorly constructed sentences; these

slip-ups will be used as ammunition to invalidate entire arguments and to tear down credibility. Hopefully, I’ll avoid any misplaced commas that might give you cause for doubt.

For the uninitiated, English classes involve more than reading literary classics, understanding references and picking apart pieces of poetry and lines of prose.

My classes have helped me come to better understand the world as it was, is and will be, all through the lens of literature. I’ve had classes that have focused deeply on censorship, race in the South, modern colonialism, Caribbean immigration patterns, feminism, and twentieth century psychology, and that have touched on too many other topics to count. I’m a better person for immersing myself in these ideas, most of which were entirely foreign or unknown to me before. I’m more open-minded, self-aware and worldlier for discussing these subjects with my classmates and for writing and performing research on them. Literature serves a purpose beyond entertainment; it provides the reader with a gateway to new perspectives. As author George .R.R. Martin

The Vanderbilt Hustler Opinion page aims to stimulate discussion in the Vanderbilt community. In that spirit, columnists, guest columnists and authors of letters to the editor are expected to provide logical argument to back their views. Unreasonable arguments, arguments in bad faith or arguments in vain between columnists have no place in The Hustler and will not be published. The Hustler welcomes reader viewpoints and offers three methods of expression: letters to the editor, guest columns and feedback on InsideVandy.com.

The views expressed in lead editorials reflect the majority of opinion among The Hustler’s editorial board and are not necessarily representative of any individual member.

Letters must be submitted either in person by the author to the Hustler office or via email to opinion@insidevandy.com. Letters via email should come from a Vanderbilt email address where the identity of the sender is clear. With rare exception, all letters must be received by 1 p.m. on Tuesday. The editor reserves the right to edit and condense submissions for length as well as clarity.

puts it in “A Dance with Dragons,” the fifth installment of his doorstopper series A Song of Ice and Fire, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”

This column would be remiss to skip over what has been the chief benefit of taking all of these English classes: improving my communication skills. I’ve always been fond of language — maybe a little too fond. Under the generously lenient oversight of Mr. Kelly, my high school English teacher, my idea of eloquence ballooned into cramming as many adjectives, adverbs and clauses into my sentences as grammatically possible, a la William Faulkner. The size of my writer’s ego was directly correlated with the length of my sentences.

My English courses here have sharpened what was a six-foot wooden club (with which I beat my professors and readers over their collective heads) into a leaner, more elegant, more direct implement, helping me find my style without sacrificing my voice.

I can communicate my views more confidently and correctly, and I can argue more effectively and cohesively. All of these things have benefits in professional and academic life, not to mention in communicating my feelings and strengthening my personal relationships to boot.

While this is all well and good, reading and writing about the works of luminaries past and present for four years has made me realize how terrible of a writer I really am in the scheme of things. Still, I’m left with a craft I can hone for the rest of my life and look forward to improving upon. I’ve never had a greater appreciation for the power of editing and self-reflection as when I’m able to look back on something I’ve written a day afterward and realize how unsatisfied I am with it. English classes have taught me patience when I edit and re-edit my pieces, and pore over volumes of reference material searching for the perfect quote.

With these skills, many English majors have taken their degrees to great heights, even in recent years. Hank Paulson, Clarence Thomas, Conan O’Brien, Barbara Walters, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Mitt Romney, Michael Eisner, Sally Ride and Ken Jennings (Ken Jennings!) all have one

Lengthy letters that focus on an issue affecting students may be considered for a guest column at the editor’s discretion.

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The Vanderbilt Hustler (ISSN 0042-2517), the student newspaper of Vanderbilt University, is published every Wednesday during the academic year except during exam periods and vacations. The paper is not printed during summer break.

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The Vanderbilt Hustler is a division of Vanderbilt Student Communications, Inc. Copyright © 2014 Vanderbilt Student Communications.

THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER ◆ WWW.INSIDEVANDY.COM thing in common: they were all English majors. These CEOs, financiers, politicians, millionaires, billionaires, astronauts and captains of industry all benefitted from the critical thinking, attention to detail and ability to hold an entertaining dinner conversation that was drilled into them as English majors. After picking apart sentences, reading between the lines and appreciating nuances in the works they read in college, these people have worked their ways to the tops of their respective fields.

I don’t want this column to devolve into a BuzzFeed-esque “25 People You Didn’t Know Were English Majors” (it could) but I think these few examples serve to illustrate the range of applicability and effectiveness of the training an English major undergoes. Attention to detail, learned from placing commas correctly, matters when constructing models in investment banking. The ability to communicate effectively, learned from years of writing essays, matters when you’re in a debate against fellow presidential candidates. Arguing your point forcefully matters when you’re on the bench with eight other Supreme Court Justices. And an encyclopedic knowledge of 19th century Victorian literature matters when you’ve just stumbled upon the Daily Double in Jeopardy.

The world needs math majors. The world needs chemistry majors. The world needs engineers. And I’ll admit that maybe the world doesn’t really “need” English majors. But I, and many others, I think, are glad that we have them.

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Putting the ‘Super’ in Super Bowl A salute to the NFL for recognizing America’s military during the big game

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J.R. RIDLEY is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Science and the debate coordinator for the Vanderbilt College Republicans. He can be reached at john.r.ridley@ vanderbilt.edu.

_hat exactly makes a superhero? When I was a kid, I thought superheroes were people like Superman and Spider-Man, people with secret identities and masks who could save the world. On Halloween, I thought it was the coolest experience to go trick-ortreating dressed like Batman, complete with a cape, mask and fake muscles. I believed that someday I would see the Batmobile on the freeway, with Bruce Wayne racing off to fight a bad guy and keep me safe. Of course, sooner or later reality was bound to set in. I came to realize that people don’t dress up in Spandex and fight crime (or at least not successfully). Superheroes were comic book legends, nothing more. They don’t exist in real life, and I would have been a fool to keep believing that. Or so I thought.

The truth is that while we don’t have superheroes in the classic sense — nocturnal crime-fighting vigilantes — we do have superheroes today. We have men and women who put their lives, their well-being, and their livelihoods on the lawn so that we can live in freedom and security. The only differences are that we

call them soldiers, and they don’t wear masks. And we don’t thank them nearly as often as we should.

The NFL rectified that this year. Let’s face it, for all intents and purposes, this was a pretty anticlimactic Super Bowl.

The game was a blowout, commercials not starring Stephen Colbert were pretty boring and we didn’t have a Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction at halftime for everyone to talk about. I ended up changing the channel halfway through the fourth quarter, which was still probably later than many of you. The one positive takeaway I have from this game is an important one: It paid homage to our American superheroes.

No, I’m not talking about Spider-Man and the Avengers. Nor am I talking about the players on the field this weekend. I’m talking about our military servicemen and servicewomen. I can honestly say that while I expected fireworks and a crazy light show from Bruno Mars, I did not expect a touching, heartwarming military salute in the middle of his performance. Bruno took attention away from his moment in the sun to recognize our heroes who are all too often forgotten. Beyond that,

though, Bruno’s halftime show was only the tip of the iceberg. Budweiser offered a poignant salute to a soldier returning home from deployment, as did several other companies, and the NFL topped this all off with an inspiring reading of the entire Declaration of Independence by dozens of current and future Hall of Fame players prior to the start of the game.

These moments were the only redeeming elements in what was otherwise a waste of 3 1/2 hours. But I cannot downplay how impactful those messages were. Our military is frequently forgotten, neglected and even outrightly scorned, so for them to be recognized on TV’s biggest stage is a priceless gesture.

With this in mind, I salute the NFL and FOX. They didn’t give us a memorable Super Bowl. Instead, they put the “Super” back in Super Bowl by recognizing the service of men and women far more heroic than any comic book legend ever was. And they reminded us that a little “thank you” can go a long way.

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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2014

OPINION

Great expectations

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How labels create delinquency and acceptance cures it

P

eople tend to conform to what is expected of them, and labels are the language of expectations. Others treat you differently when you bear a certain label.

You treat yourself differently when you internalize that label. And you behave differently around others when you think they label you. Consider, then, the cumulative damage wrought by labels like “criminal,” “addict” and “disordered.”

MICHAEL A famous study of the Ashanti people by Austrian psyZOOROB chologist Gustav Jahoda illustrates the potency of labels, even is a sophomore arbitrary ones, in shaping human behavior. The Ashanti, a in the College of West African ethnic group, believed that the day a boy was Arts and Science born affected his temperament; in particular, boys born on and online editor Mondays were thought to be peaceful and well-tempered, of the Vanderbilt Political Review. He while boys born on Wednesdays were thought to be aggrescan be reached at sive. Moreover, children were given “soul-names” which michael.j.zoorob@ reflected the days on which they were born, broadcasting vanderbilt.edu. their birthday at all times.

This strange tradition had the auspicious side effect of creating a natural experiment, a rarity in psychological research.

Tracking the court records of the Ashanti region for five years, Dr. Jahoda found that, fascinatingly, 22 percent of violent offences were committed by boys born on Wednesday, more than triple the percentage of violent crimes perpetrated by boys born on Monday. Obviously, nothing intrinsic to a Wednesday birth can turn good people into violent ones.

Social expectations, however, do wield such power.

This effect is not anomalous. Studies in the United States and elsewhere have shown that randomly labeling children as “gifted” results in significant academic gains. Similar studies indicate that assigning random labels to employees’ work-

place performances leads to actual changes in employee performance consistent with the randomly assigned labels.

And there are important public policy implications to this idea of a malleable self, especially with regards to minors who get into legal trouble, about 70,000 of whom are currently incarcerated, according to the Justice Department. As it turns out, forcing delinquent teens to spend time with even more delinquent teens in prisons or inpatient rehab centers results in more, rather than less, delinquent behavior (a phenomenon called “peer deviancy training” in criminology circles).

And demeaning kids as “broken,” “criminal” or “alcoholic” in so-called “tough love” therapy makes them worse, not better, writes Maia Szalavitz in Time magazine.

In an interview with Szalavitz, Matt Thomas (a pseudonym) described the pernicious feedback loop of his stint in rehab, where he spent seven weeks as a 13-year-old for selling marijuana: “It was (in rehab) that they told me that I was a drug addict and an alcoholic. There was no turning back. The whole event solidified and created this notion in my own mind and in my social status (that) who I was was an alcoholic and drug addict.”

Indeed, one study in the Journal of Youth and Society found that kids who are sentenced to juvenile detention are more than three times as likely to go to jail as adults compared to kids who commit the same crimes but receive more lenient sentencing.

Why? Kids who are sent to jail think of themselves as criminals. Their social world becomes the criminal justice system, and their ties to their communities are severed. When they get out, they wear the scars of a jail sentence. Employers, landlords and neighbors discriminate against them.

And in important ways, it’s not much different a story from that of the Ashanti boys who happened to be born on Wednesday. A Justice Policy Institute report notes that as many as one-third of teens engage in “delinquent behavior,” and most teens grow out of it as they age. Detention “may actually interrupt and delay the normal pattern of ‘aging out’ since (it) disrupts (teens’) natural engagement with families, school, and work.” The “outcast” label, whatever its form, is a uniquely injurious sanction.

A 2004 National Institute of Health report concluded that programs which “aggregate high-risk youth in ways that facilitate contagion” are ineffective in, if not detrimental to, bettering adolescent behavior. Another finding was that “programs that seek to prevent violence through fear and tough treatment appear ineffective.”

But the same NIH report found that “programs that aim at developing skills and competencies” in troubled teens can work to prevent future violence. Behind all this unnecessary suffering there is a hopeful story to be told about forgiveness and human decency. Therapy which incorporates the families of teens can be very effective in treating drug problems, for example, with more than half of participants significantly decreasing their drug use in a 2003 study at the University of Miami.

In short, when given support, instead of stigma, people get better. The ancient Roman poet Virgil coined the phrase “omnia vincit amor,” or love conquers all. However unexpectedly, contemporary evidence in social science may be proving him right.

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OPINION

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2014

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What’s a bitcoin?

Truths and myths about the biggest buzzword in the digital marketplace

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f you’re like many millennials, you’ve probably heard of bitcoin. But if you haven’t, here’s your chance to finally understand what it is, how it works and why it’s revolutionary.

Bitcoin is neither a company nor a tangible commodity. Bitcoin is a digital currency that is created, transferred and secured using asymmetric cryptography. Skipping the technical jargon, you can think of KENNY TAN bitcoin as an electronic form of cash. Bitcoin enables is a senior in the College of Arts users to send money over the internet in seconds with and Science and transaction fees that are miniscule compared to the founder of the traditional bank wire or money transfer system.

Young Americans The first bitcoins were mined in January 2009 on for Liberty chapter regular computers. Since then, over 12 million have alat Vanderbilt. He can be reached at ready been mined. Due to technological advances, tokenny.tan@vander- day’s miners must use a type of specialized hardware called ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits) bilt.edu. to profit from mining. It is estimated that new bitcoins will cease to be mined around the year 2040, when the total supply nears the built-in limit of 21 million.

Unlike payment networks such as MasterCard and Visa, Bitcoin does not have a central authority that processes all the transactions. When transactions are made, they are broadcast to the peer-to-peer network.

Bitcoin “miners” continuously run mining software which listens to the Bitcoin network and packages recent bitcoin transactions into blocks.

These miners are rewarded with associated transaction fees and new bitcoins for each valid block they

generate. The amount of new bitcoins created per block started at 50 and halves every 210,000 blocks.

The difficulty involved in generating a valid block is adjusted every 2016 blocks such that one block is added approximately every 10 minutes to the block chain — a public ledger of all confirmed bitcoin transactions. Since it is so difficult to mine valid blocks alone, miners often pool their resources into mining pools and share the rewards in proportion to the resources they contribute.

For most people, the most interesting of aspect Bitcoin is how quickly it has grown. The price of a single bitcoin increased from fractions of a penny to over $1,200 USD between April 2010 and November 2013.

Today, the price ranges from $800 to $950 depending on which exchange you use. While the rise in price has been mainly attributed to speculators, there is also growing demand for Bitcoin as a currency. Many brick-and-mortar shops and online retailers now accept Bitcoin as form of payment.

Bitcoin is an exciting new experiment in money.

Unlike the dollar or euro, Bitcoin is not controlled by a physical central bank and its supply cannot be arbitrarily inflated. The U.S. dollar controlled by the Federal Reserve has lost 95 percent of its purchasing power since 1913 because more of it is always being printed. The supply of dollars is unpredictable, whereas the monetary policy that governs Bitcoin is a set of rules established in the open-source software and

is enforced by the decentralized network. The supply of Bitcoin is forever limited which causes its value to increase over time relative to real goods. Arguably, a currency with a predictable supply is more equitable to its users who will not bear the burden of taxation through inflation.

One common myth is that Bitcoin is an anonymous currency. However, there are many ways that bitcoins can be traced back to a person’s identity. The blockchain can be analyzed for links and patterns, IP addresses can be traced and bitcoin exchanges or internet service providers can be served warrants by law enforcement. If you buy an item with Bitcoin and have it delivered to your physical address, you also lose your anonymity. However, bitcoins still offer pseudoanonymity: Bitcoins are sent to and from addresses which do not provide any additional information about the identity of the parties involved in a transaction. If proper precautions are taken, such as using a new address for every transaction and sending them through mixing services, Bitcoin can also offer greater financial privacy.

Bitcoin promises a cheaper, faster and more secure payment system for the future. Bitcoin is decentralized, scarce, durable, fungible, hard to counterfeit, easy to verify and easy to store — many technical properties which make it ideal to become the world’s global currency.

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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2014

AROUND NASHVILLE

President Obama visits McGavock High

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resident Barack Obama visited Nashville’s McGavock Comprehensive High School on Jan. 31, two days after delivering his State of the Union address. Obama covered his plans for the future of American education, highlighting the successes that McGavock has had with its academy-based system.

Left: President Obama receives a standing ovation as he exits the stage.

Top and right: Demonstrators line McGavock Pike, across from the high school, calling for policy changes ranging from immigration reform to the president’s impeachment.

Photos by Bosley Jarrett

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2014

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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2014

life

GO DO

Prism II Concert THIS Choral Featuring Vanderbilt University Concert Choir, Symphonic Choir, Core Choir, the Melodores and Vanderbilt Variations, this night of singing showcases many voices at Vanderbilt. The free concert is Friday at 8 p.m. in Ingram Hall.

GREEK LIFE

Get to know your

NEW SISTERS

Check out these ideas for how to bond with your new pledge class

By Priyanka Aribindi, life reporter ’Tis the season at Vanderbilt — little season, that is. With the addition of countless screams for “new babies” at every pregame for the past two weekends, upperclassmen in sororities are finally starting to actually recognize those new people wearing their letters. So now that we’re friends on every existing form of social media, becoming friends in real life is next on the agenda. Whether you’re in the market for a little or just want to meet some of your sorority’s newest pledge class, there are better ways to get to know them than over an Apple PBG or in a frat bathroom. Here are some things you can do with your new members to switch things up.

If you’re with your little (or a prospective one)

THRIFTING To pull a play from the year’s “best” new artist, take your newest addition to one of the many thrift shops right This-n-that: outside the VandyBubble to gear 5700 Georgia Ave. up for whatever fun Greek Row has 12th Avenue planned for the weekend. Digging Thrift: 1125 12th through the good, the bad, the ugly and just plain bizarre is always fun, Ave. S and with themes like Betarobics and DKE Disco, we could all use some vintage items for our weekend nights.

Check out This-n-That or 12th Ave Thrift for the best finds.

WHERE TO GO

If you’re in a small group

COFFEE SHOP CRAWL It’s like a bar crawl, but legal! Grab a latte to-go at Fido, then venture farther off campus for quiche at Crema Fido: 1812 21st or crepes at Red Bicycle. Hop over Ave. to The Urban Juicer to get your fruit and veggie fix, and then revel in your Crema: 15 shared food coma for the rest of the Hermitage Ave. Red Bicycle: 1200 day. Everyone knows communal gluttony is the first step to lasting friend5th Ave. N ship, so come hungry — maybe even Urban Juicer: the morning after your thrift party.

WHERE TO GO

2206 8th Ave. S

BOSLEY JARRETT / THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER

BREAKING THE CYCLE

Senior Whitley O’Connor founded The Curbside Chronicle, a street paper written and sold by various homeless vendors in Oklahoma City.

Senior Whitley O’Connor starts innovative street paper in Oklahoma City

By EMMETT MCKINNEY Life reporter --------------------

If you’ve ever spent time in a major city, chances are you’ve come face-to-face with someone who is homeless.

Most people might walk straight past these individuals.

Some might give a dollar or two. But for the average pedestrian, anything more than a small handout is too tall an order.

Then there’s senior Whitley O’Connor. Two years ago, O’Connor founded The Curbside Chronicle, a “street magazine” written and sold by homeless vendors in Oklahoma City. Though different publications employ different business models, “street papers” comprise a genre of publications produced and sold by homeless authors. By the most recent count, 125 street papers exist worldwide, and 43 in the United States.

“I have a heart for people,” said O’Connor of his endeavor.

“Regardless of the situation they’re in, whether it’s domestic violence, or education and equity, or homelessness, I’m about implementing effective solutions to those issues.”

And despite a somewhat serendipitous start, The Curbside Chronicle has already proved extremely effective. Throughout high school, O’Connor pursued philanthropic work through the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits and developed an interest in social enterprise. Upon arriving in Nashville as a first-year in the fall of 2010, O’Connor noticed the expansion of The Contributor, the street paper sold in Nashville, right near Vanderbilt. When he off-handedly commented on the expansion of the Nashville street paper to his social enterprise professor, the pair started to develop together a business model, and The Curbside Chronicle was born.

As street papers go, though, The Curbside Chronicle is unique in a few ways. Many street publications, including

THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER u WWW.INSIDEVANDY.COM The Contributor, follow the “domestic model,” which focuses strongly on social issue content, in a newspaper format. The problem with such a model, according to O’Connor, is that it tends towards negativity without empowering authors or readers to improve the system.

“It doesn’t leave you with a, ‘here’s what we do’ mindset,” O’Connor said. In contrast, The Curbside Chronicle employs a magazine format that features pop culture and local restaurant reviews alongside commentary on homelessness in Oklahoma City. Such a model allows the magazine to appeal to all readers, not just those interested in homelessness.

“We knew that we needed a product that would stand alone,” O’Connor said. It’s more empowering that way, we thought.”

The unorthodox business model has proved empowering indeed: Using an average of five vendors on a given day, the street magazine has sold about 5,800 copies since it began publishing in August 2013, reaching an audience of roughly 14,000 readers. Vendors buy the magazine for $0.75 per copy, and the suggested donation is $2.

However, vendors often receive more for their wares, averaging between $3.50 and $4 per sale. Each sale may appear small, but the sum total is huge: By O’Connor’s estimation, vendors have raised between $20,000 and $24,000 selling The Curbside Chronicle.

Despite the magazine’s early successes, O’Connor has encountered unexpected challenges that come with managing a magazine among the homeless population. The challenge, O’Connor said, is not getting people to buy. Often, it’s getting

‘‘

people to sell.

“I went in very naively thinking that these jobs would come flocking to me,” O’Conner explained. “And it’s not a matter of community acceptance — more of getting the vendors out. Homeless people are often promised minimum wage for single-day construction jobs. In reality, according to O’Connor, these workers might receive just $40 for a full day’s work: an average of about $4 per hour.

Even if the construction firms are mistreating them, the certainty of a paycheck at day’s end makes recruiting vendors difficult for O’Connor.

Altogether, though, selling the magazine makes more sense for the homeless: The Curbside Chronicle guarantees no paycheck, but vendors, on average, pocket $75 per day.

Such a substantial profit margin allows O’Connor to make an impressive guarantee to vendors: Sell The Curbside Chronicle consistently for three weeks, and we’ll find you housing. And since vendors began selling, the street magazine has found housing for four vendors and is now in the process of finding housing for two more. By this measurement, The Curbside Chronicle has gone beyond helping the needy to breaking the cycle of homelessness in a realistic way.

Altogether, the accomplishments of the magazine are many and diverse. To O’Connor, though, the most important one is simple: “They feel more human doing this.”

The Curbside Chronicle is currently publishing every other month. The fourth issue will be released on Friday.

Whether it’s domestic violence, or education and equity, or homelessness, I’m about implementing effective solutions to those issues.

’’

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2014

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If you’re in a medium-sized group

NASHVILLE HUMANE ASSOCIATION There are few things in this world a sorority girl likes more than puppies, and at a humane association Nashville puppy love is as much fun for you Humane Association: 213 as it is for the dogs. Grab a group on a Friday afternoon and blow Oceola Ave. off some steam — who knows, you might just come home with a new house dog. Pay the pups a visit at the Nashville Humane Association.

WHERE TO GO

If you’re in a big group

PINEWOOD SOCIAL

Food, drinks, coffee, bowling, bocce ball — Pinewood Social has so PInewood Social: many activities. Bowl for a game, 33 Peabody St. and then take a break to grab some of their delicious “Things on Toast” before hitting the lanes for round two. With its large size, this is the perfect place to hang with a big group, so grab some sisters and make a night of it.

WHERE TO GO

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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2014

LIFE

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Music group announces Steve Aoki to headline Rites of Spring Vanderbilt Music Group announced first headliner Steve Aoki this weekend. Here’s a look at the response, as well as our predictions of what’s to come

By KELLY HALOM Life editor --------------------

This year the Vanderbilt Music Group, by releasing its lineup much earlier than in recent years, has begun to tease out who will be playing at the Rites of Spring Music Festival. The first announcement came this weekend, with Music Group tweeting that DJ Steve Aoki will be one of this year’s headliners.

“We wanted to bring someone that people want to dance to, someone that everyone at college would love as a headliner,” said Ally Warson, this year’s Music Group chair.

Known for his antics during live performances, including various crowd surfing stunts, throwing cake at fans and spraying champagne bottles, Aoki certainly keeps things interesting.

“He’s a lot to handle, but I think in the best way,” Warson said. “That’s really what we wanted, a high-energy headliner, and we really pushed for him.”

Though his live shows have made people take notice, Aoki has also proven himself in the industry as an EDM musician, record producer and the founder of Dim Mak Records.

In 2013, Aoki was ranked the eighth best DJ in the world according to DJ Mag. That same

year, Aoki’s album, “Wonderland,” was nominated for a Grammy Award for best dance/ electronica album.

Warson feels this talent and knack for performance has not been lost on students, as she has felt that the response has been very positive.

“For one person too, when there’s still so much more coming, it’s just exciting to get an initial positive reaction,” Warson said.

Many more of the acts will be announced on Friday, Feb. 7.

“We’ve never released this early before, and it’s because we’ve been so diligent about getting our names locked down and getting our offers nailed down early,” Warson said.

OUR UNOFFICIAL GUESSES: The Hustler breaks down Music Group’s latest TWEETS on who will be coming to Rites of spring this year Clue: This performer travels light and does not check bags when they fly.

Guess: Birdy We think Music Group might be going for some word play here, and we’re hoping it’s to lead us to this artist. Birdy doesn’t seem to have a show on the Friday of Rites, and she will be touring in the U.S. this spring.

Hopefully, she makes a stop at Vandy.

Other potential candidates include Andrew Bird and Robyn.

Clue: Buddy Valastro thinks this artist does not respect his craft.

Guess: Steve Aoki Cake Boss Buddy Valastro might not think it’s so funny that Steve Aoki throws so much cake at the crowd. Come on Steve, that’s a waste.

BOSLEY JARRETT / THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER

Clue: This artist/group opened up one of our 2011 performers this year.

Guess: Daughter Daughter is scheduled to open some shows for The National this year, which is a band that performed at Rites of Spring in 2011.

Daughter doesn’t seem to have any shows scheduled at the same time, though the band is making an appearance at Coachella in the Sunday lineup. Other potential candidates include Big Sean, Tyler, the Creator and Logic, who all opened for Kid Cudi.

Clue: You would see a lot of these at the airport. A very specific amount.

Guess: 21 Pilots We might not be that confident in all of our guesses, but we feel pretty sure about this one.

Clue: Two of the members probably spent some nights in tents on Tobacco Road.

Guess: The Avett Brothers As Tobacco Road is often used to refer to sports played among ACC North Carolina universities, it is possible that members of the band camped out once or twice for a game.

Scott Avett did go to East Carolina University, which is part of the University of North Carolina system. Additionally, cellist Joe Kwon got his degree from UNC Chapel Hill. Plus, the band doesn’t seem to have another concert that date. Though it might just be wishful thinking on our part, we really hope we’re right about this one.

Clue: This group blends in with Adam Sandler.

Guess: Uhhh Alright, Music Group, you’ve stumped us. Is this a band that makes jokes? Do they look like Adam? Do they hang out with him? Are they wedding singers? We don’t know. We just don’t know.

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THIS MONTH IN NASHVILLE

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2014

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Don’t just tell people you live in Nashville, go do it. From concerts to spoken word, this city has a lot going on. This ‘REINVENTING RADIO: AN EVENING WITH month, go and explore your second home By Kelly Halom, life editor SOUTHERN SMASH Sarratt 325/327 Southern Smash and Eating Disorders Coalition of Tennessee are coming to Vanderbilt for an afternoon of empowering young women and men who feel trapped by the numbers they see on the scale. The afternoon will include a photo booth, Let It Go Balloons, scale smashing and various other activities. A SmashTALK featuring body image and eating disorder experts will take place 5:30-7 p.m. in Buttrick 102.

‘MIRROR, MIRROR...OFF THE WALL: AN EVENING WITH KJERSTIN GRUYS’ Sarratt Cinema Go Figure is hosting Kjerstin Gruys, author of “Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall,” who will be discussing her decision to go a full year without mirrors and how the decision impacted her self image. The event will start with refreshments and end with a Q&A along with a book signing. Refreshments will be served starting at 5 p.m. outside of Sarratt Cinema, and the talk will begin at 6 p.m.

SUNDAY

2

FEBRUARY 2014 MONDAY

3

9 AN EVENING WITH KJERSTIN GRUYS’

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TUESDAY

4

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WEDNESDAY THURSDAY

5

6

7

SOUTHERN SMASH

KINGS OF LEON

Sarratt 325/327

Bridgestone Arena

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13

FAREWELL DRIFTERS The High Watt

Saratt Cinema

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19 BERLIN PHILHARMONIC WIND QUARTET

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TONY BENNET

Andrew Jackson Hall

Ingram Hall

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25

FRIDAY

26

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IMAGINE DRAGONS

MUSIC ROW 101

Bridgestone Arena

Bridgestone Arena

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IRA GLASS’ Ryman Auditorium

1

The creator of public radio show “This American Life” will talk about his program and the creative process behind it, from where they find stories to how they understand the program in a greater context of broadcast journalism. Glass often uses moments from the show throughout his talk to demonstrate how the show comes together.

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VANDERBILT SPOKEN WORD SHOWCASE Sarratt Cinema

SATURDAY

LEWIS BLACK Ryman Auditorium

15

NASHVILLE JAZZ ORCHESTRA

AN EVENING WITH IRA GLASS

Ingram Hall

Ryman Auditorium

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SPOKEN WORD SHOWCASE Sarratt Cinema

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ASIAN NEW YEAR FESTIVAL

Langford Auditorium

Vanderbilt Spoken Word will perform its showcase, “Gym Class Weirdos” 7-9 p.m. in Sarratt Cinema. The evening will include spoken word, song, dance and nostalgia, as the group remembers high school and discusses the parallels between it, college and life at large. Tickets are $5. There will also be a performance on Feb. 22.

MUSIC ROW 101 Bridgestone Arena This one-day conference at Bridgestone Arena gives anyone the chance to learn all about how the music business works.

Spend an entire day learning from music industry professionals. The conference costs $98, and admission includes a ticket to the Predators game that night. For more information, visit http://wsix.com.

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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2014

sports

THE BIG STAT Vanderbilt women’s lacrosse team’s shooting percentage during the 2013 season

LACROSSE

DDIE K MA

Kratz served as a backup goalie for the past two seasons. In her career at Vanderbilt, she has posted seven saves and a .636 save percentage.

An ankle injury should keep the junior on the sidelines for the first couple of games, but Duckenfield, who collected 20 ground balls and caused 15 turnovers last season, will be a big contributor when she returns.

NLAP DU POSITION: Defense YEAR: Senior HEIGHT: 5-5 The senior enters the season as an experienced defender after forcing 21 turnovers and collecting 26 ground balls last season.

The sophomore midfielder took just 10 shots last season but capitalized on her opportunities, scoring five goals.

POSITION: Attack YEAR: Junior HEIGHT: 5-5

OWSKY UN POSITION: Midfield YEAR: Sophomore HEIGHT: 5-6 Kunowsky was one of two freshmen to start all 17 games last season. She led the team in draw controls (31) and finished second in shooting percentage (.514).

Ramzy won six draw controls off the bench last season. After appearing in 30 games as a midfielder, she will make the transition to attack this season.

CKWOO LO

SCHONK POSITION: Attack YEAR: Sophomore HEIGHT: 5-6 A returning starter, Schonk finished her freshman season second on the team in points (35), third in goals (25) and fourth in assists (10).

AND AM A

LLO MA RY

GGI ME E R

AMZY

POSITION: Defense YEAR: Senior HEIGHT: 5-7 Byner started in all 17 games last season, during which she forced 21 turnovers.

She picked up 26 ground balls, third most of the Commodores.

NESI LE

R GAB IEL

POSITION: Midfield YEAR: Sophomore HEIGHT: 5-8

EXA K AL

HLIN D AS

N OLA

ANDI BR

ALYSSA

POSITION: Defense YEAR: Junior HEIGHT: 5-8

NER BY

POSITION: Attack YEAR: Sophomore HEIGHT: 5-6 After playing midfield for a season, Lockwood is moving to attack. She scored 13 goals last season, good for sixth most on the team.

POSITION: Defense YEAR: Junior HEIGHT: 5-5 Nesi played in only six games as a sophomore, winning five draw controls. She also picked up five ground balls and caused a turnover.

DLE AN R

LLY KE CH

EX DUC AL

F KEN IEL

D

Feb. 7 Kennesaw State Feb. 9 Massachusetts Feb. 15 Liberty Feb. 22 North Carolina March 2 Stanford March 5 Denver March 15 Penn State March 19 Louisville March 23 Penn March 29 Johns Hopkins April 2 Harvard April 6 Ohio State April 10 Northwestern April 13 Florida April 16 Jacksonville April 19 Michigan May 1-4 American Lacrosse Conference Tournament

ATZ

LACROSSE SCHEDULE

POSITION: Goalkeeper YEAR: Junior HEIGHT: 5-10

D

2014 VANDERBILT

KR

SEASON PREVIEW The lacrosse team returns starters and brings in young talent for a season filled with high expectations and highranked opponents. Read up on the 12 starters who will take the field for the first time against Kennesaw State on Feb. 7

By Allison Mast and Katie Walden, sports editor and sports writer

.805

TZ MADDIE RA

POSITION: Midfield YEAR: Sophomore HEIGHT: 5-8 Despite a freshman season cut short by a back stress fracture, Chandler was fifth on the team in goals (16) and second in draw controls (22), playing in 13 games and starting in 11.

ER EEL

BY WH AB

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POSITION: Attack YEAR: Senior HEIGHT: 5-4 The senior captain is the team’s top returning scorer. She made four of her 28 goals last season against Penn State at the American Lacrosse Conference Tournament on May 2.

*Home games in gold PHOTOS BY BOSLEY JARRETT / THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER

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Northeast-heavy recruiting class brings cohesion to LAX squad

By JOSH HAMBURGER Sports writer --------------------

As Vanderbilt’s athletic recruiting continues on an upward trend, the women’s lacrosse team has pulled in an impressive freshman class. The eighth-ranked recruiting class, according to Inside Lacrosse, features some of the top recruits in the country, whom head coach Cathy Swezey calls “a smart group of players who have picked up on things so quickly.”

Within this group of talented players are four Under Armour All-Americans, in addition to several participants in the Under Armour Underclassmen Games and numerous U.S. Lacrosse and Academic All-Americans. This class consists of five midfielders, one attacker, a defender and a goalie, all hailing from Maryland and Massachusetts.

Although the class shows to be midfieldheavy, each individual at the four core positions provides an important skill to the team, cementing a very competitive present and future for Vanderbilt lacrosse. The five midfielders, Jill Doherty, Caroline Peters, Mackenzie Lange, Shelby Trentzsch and Sydney Trentzsch, create depth at this important position, where both offensive and defensive skills are required.

Both Doherty and Peters, recognized as Top 50 lacrosse recruits by ESPNHS, add a high point-producing threat to an already strong scoring team, after producing 150 combined points last year in high school. Lange brings a strong foundation in transition and teammate communication, complemented by a relentless rush to create her own shooting lanes. Twins Shelby and Sydney Trentzsch create a unique dynamic, highlighted by a commitment to teamwork heightened by their own relationship, allowing for a special type of advantage rarely found in college lacrosse.

At the specialty positions, Vanderbilt brought in players with a commitment to the team and to constant improvement. At attack, Abby Quirk scores points at high levels, providing not only goals but also assists, as highlighted by her triple-digit point total last season. The vocal Eliza Clemens, as described by a former teammate, serves as a shutdown force on defense, stopping defenders with her speed and aggressive strength and creating turnovers to start up an offensive attack. Lastly, the dependable goalie

Callahan Kent, who recorded 158 saves last season, secures a strong future, creating a strong presence in goal. As the midfield strengthens the core of the team, attack, defense and goalie form a strong authority on the opposite ends of the field.

The team, and specifically the freshman class, focus around cohesion, which can be seen in the daily closeness of relationships among these student-athletes. Whether in class or dining at Rand Hall, the players are rarely seen alone, reflecting their commitment to core team values.

“Coming in, it’s been really great just to already have friendships and be able to take that onto the field,” Clemens said.

With many of the players are originally from the same region, several members were part of the same club team or school, while national competitions pitted these now-teammates against one another in the past.

“There is a unique scenario where some of us have played club lacrosse with each other or in high school, and even if we didn’t play with each other, some of us have played against each other,” Lange said.

While teamwork thrives as most important theme, it is also necessary for the players to challenge one another on the field.

“Coach Kathy just really emphasized that the only way to improve is to be competitive,” Lange said.

“I think that we’ve all been competitive, but pushing each other,” Sydney Trentzsch said, paying homage to the need to keep the competitiveness and at the same time make sure that this complements teamwork instead of replacing it.

“It’s so nice being able to come onto the field and going as hard as you can, but then still be off the field and be so supportive and having such a big group of friends who really have your back. Not a lot of teams can go so hard on each other and have the best relationship off the field like we do,” Jill Doherty said in reaction to the importance of the coach’s message.

All of this teamwork has not gone unnoticed, as Swezey has shown public support of and pride in this freshman class. “I think they’re all capable of playing. Every single one of them has had moments of brightness. They’re all doing really well, and we’re pleased with what they brought,” Swezey said.

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Surviving in the SEC How long can the ‘Magnificent Seven’ hold up?

BOSLEY JARRETT /THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER

The Vanderbilt men’s basketball team defeated the Mississippi State Bulldogs 55-49 on Saturday, Feb. 1. Kyle Fuller finished the game 5-of-13 from the field with 14 points, and Rod Odom went 6-of-13 from the field with 18 points. Freshman Damian Jones finished with 13 points.

By BEN WEINRIB Asst. sports editor --------------------

“We’re outnumbered, but we’re not outmanned.”

That’s the mantra Vanderbilt men’s basketball head coach Kevin Stallings has been working with lately, and it seems to be paying off.

“We might not have as many as you have,” Stallings said after practice on Thursday, “but what we have is good enough and good enough to compete.”

Ever since Josh Henderson tore his ACL

and MCL in early December and leading scorer Eric McClellan was dismissed from the program at the start of SEC play, Vanderbilt has been playing with just seven scholarship players. That’s by far the least in the NCAA. All of a sudden, guys who were expected to ride the bench are getting big minutes.

Forward Luke Kornet could really have benefited from a redshirt year to build up muscle mass, but now he’s the first man off the bench. Walk-on guards Carter Josephs and Nathan Watkins played a combined 11 minutes last season and have already tripled that number this year.

In the case of Rob Cross, he wasn’t even expecting to put on a jersey all year. The senior manager was promoted to a walk-on because the team had too few players to run a full practice.

Yet despite its low numbers, Vanderbilt has managed to be competitive in conference play. The Commodores are 4-4 so far in SEC games, much better than their 2-6 start at this time last year.

The main problem that comes with short rosters is that key players have to play extraordinarily high minutes. Dai-Jon Parker, Kyle Fuller and Rod Odom have combined to play all 40 minutes a total of 15 times this

season. Alabama’s Trevor Releford is the only other SEC player to go all 40 minutes, and he’s only done it twice.

Of course, student-athletes come to college wanting to play as much as they can, but 40 minutes per night can quickly take a toll on players.

“Playing in the SEC is a little bit difficult going night in and night out with these guys basically playing SEC football out here, the way the physicality is,” Parker said.

Stallings tries not to tire his players out in practice because he needs to save their legs for game day. Before the Georgia game on Jan. 29, two Commodores were banged up, one with a bruised shin and one with a stiff back, and Stallings had to call off a live practice less than 20 minutes in to prevent injury.

With so few healthy bodies left, just keeping players on the court is of the upmost importance, and Stallings knows that.

“We obviously can’t afford anything to go wrong with these guys,” Stallings said. “Every day when I see our trainer, I just look at him like, ‘You better not be here with bad news.’”

During the games, Stallings has to keep managing his players’ fitness, especially with how dependent he is on his starters. The starting five plays an average of 34 minutes per game, while the two-man bench of Luke Kornet and Shelby Moats averages just a combined 30 minutes per game.

Oftentimes, especially when players get into foul trouble, Stallings switches to a zone defense. Playing the zone means the Commodores don’t have to run around guarding one man all game, which results in fewer fouls but is also a weaker scheme than their man-to-man defense.

“I think at the beginning of the conference season, I probably overreacted and thought that we were going to have to play more zone, and our defense wasn’t as good,” Stallings said.

“We played more zone than we’d like to play and want to play and should play because our best defense is our man-to-man defense. (Against Georgia) we played some zone. It was effective, but our man defense is what won the game for us.”

After Saturday’s 55-49 win against Mississippi State, Stallings said the team played their best zone defense all year, but he also noted at the postgame press conference that the team was more gassed then usual.

And that will be a major concern going forward. It’s likely unsustainable for Vanderbilt to expect so many minutes out of so few players with 10 grueling SEC games left in the regular season.

But Stallings is proud of this team’s resiliency. The Commodores are playing much better than the 2012-13 Mississippi State team that featured eight scholarship players for most of the season and finished 10-22. Stallings sees a winning edge to this team that has made this season far from his toughest as a coach.

“There were years when I first got here that I felt like we were going to have a hard time competing whether it was because of where we were at in our program relative to where other people were in their program or what,” Stallings said. “I think this group is good enough to compete, and they’re proving that.”

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Recruits ready to sign National Letters of Intent will be arriving all day this Wednesday. Here’s how Vanderbilt football’s verbal commits felt leading up to Signing Day

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