vanderbilthustler WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014
VOL. 126, ISS. 30
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Vanderbilt MDs A new reality show seeks to depict the unique lives of Vanderbilt medical residents — but does its presentation detract from its goal? SEE PAGE 10
CAMPUS
Progress on power plant conversion Vanderbilt’s power plant is on its way to being fueled completely by natural gas
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OPINION
Voter ID laws A columnist weighs in on the importance of understanding the impact of problematic Voter ID laws
SPORTS
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Women’s basketball preview
The Commodores take the court with a talented freshman class to support a strong crop of returning players
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QUOTE OF THE DAY When you see a cartoon, you are drawn to it as if you are a child because most people like cartoons. You draw the reader in, and then you can actually talk about a serious subject with humor and catch them off guard. LIZA DONNELLY, CARTOONIST AND ACTIVIST
CAMPUS UPDATE
VUIT warns students of phishing threat By KELLY HALOM News editor --------------------
The Vanderbilt community was notified last weekend of another phishing attack on Vanderbilt’s campus. Phishing is the practice of using email to lure unsuspecting Internet users to illegitimate websites. These messages are designed to entice users to divulge passwords and financial or other personal information, or to introduce a virus into a computer or network. At 4:53 a.m. on Nov. 8, a phishing e-mail was sent from an internal Vanderbilt email account to approximately 16,000 Vanderbilt users, according to a university press release. The sender claimed that the email was a “Vanderbilt ITS Important Notification.” The phishing email requested that recipients click on two links in sequence and provide email addresses, usernames and passwords. Later that night, Vanderbilt University Information Technology (VUIT) sent out an e-mail to the campus community alerting users to the attack. According to Salvador Ortega, Director of Security Operations for VUIT, the investigation into the weekend attack is currently ongoing. Ortega said that the phishing attack was primarily focused on the medical center. This campus-wide e-mail was not the first notification of phishing attacks this year, as earlier in the year VUIT began adding an [External] tag in the subject line of emails originating from outside of the central Vanderbilt email system in order to combat phishing attacks. Despite heightened attention to attacks this year, Ortega said that phishing is nothing new to the university. “This is not the first time we are seeing it happen. Phishing attacks happen at Vanderbilt daily. It’s just this one had a large scope,” Ortega said in reference to the Nov. 8 attack. But even large attacks happen with some regularity on Vanderbilt’s campus. Ortega said that the week preceding this weekend’s attack also had two other large ones. Beyond that, large scale phishing attacks also took place this summer. According to Ortega, VUIT is consistently adjusting their defenses for the new type of attacks and adapting to the new methods that attackers have. He said that the user remains the first line of defense against such tactics. “The number one [safety] measure is for people to be educated on what a phishing attack looks like. If they see it, they can report it or just delete it. It’s the user who they are after,” said Ortega. Ortega said the most recent phishing attacks have been seasonal in nature. People are more at risk closer to the holidays, as well as at the beginnings and ends of months. For more information on phishing, or if you suspect that your identity has been compromised, you can visit http:// it.vanderbilt.edu/ or call the Vanderbilt IT Help Desk.
BOSLEY JARRETT / THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER
Construction and maintenance workers walk past the two new gas boilers (left) in the Vanderbilt power plant on Nov. 10.
Plant conversion ‘40% complete’ The Vanderbilt power plant is undergoing a project to convert from coal to all natural gas-fueled boilers by next year. The conversion is part of a greater initiative to reduce the university’s environmental footprint By AADITI NAIK News reporter --------------------
Almost 100 years after being built in 1928, the Vanderbilt power plant is working toward another milestone: By next year, it will be coal-free. As the power plant undergoes a conversion to all natural gas-fueled boilers, the plant’s improved efficiency will result in environmental and other benefits to the Vanderbilt community. The conversion is one of many initiatives that has led to reduced greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Vanderbilt
University Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions 2013 report, released on Oct. 22, 2014. “We’ve been burning coal on this campus for well over a hundred years, and for the first time in those hundred years, we are about to stop,” Assistant Vice Chancellor of Plant Operations Mark Petty said. Petty added that the reduction of harmful greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on fossil fuels will “align with who we want to be as a university.” The power plant has historically burned coal and natural gas to create steam and chilled water for heating and cooling. This process resulted in the pro-
duction of electricity as a waste product, supplying the university with about 1820 percent of its power needs, according to Sustainability and Environmental Management Office Director Andrea George. The remaining 80 percent of the university’s electricity has been bought from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and Nashville Electric Service. The transportation of electricity from outside sources, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority to campus, results in wasted electricity through line losses because of resistance in the wires. In order to account for line losses, the TVA must send more electricity than Vanderbilt — continued on PAGE 6
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Liza Donnelly Q & A
Political cartoonist Liza Donnelly sat down with The Hustler to discuss her artistic process, her work at The New Yorker and her views on feminism By ZOE SHANCER News reporter --------------------
Vanderbilt Hustler: How did you get your start as a cartoonist? Liza Donnelly: I was always drawing when I was a kid and liked comics and cartoons, so I was tracing other people’s work, when I was like seven years old, and found that since I was really shy, it was a way to communicate and make people happy. So that’s how I really started. I went to a liberal arts college, ultimately, drawing cartoons and just started submitting [my work] to The New Yorker after college. VH: What is your cartoon-drawing process like? LD: I read a lot of media and watch media, news and pop culture, so during the week I keep a notebook with ideas, words, buzzwords, trends, and just sit down at my table with a blank piece of paper and try to come up with something using, or sometimes not using, those words. It’s really kind of an unknowable process. I’ll plug in trending words or ideas that are in the culture if I’m doing a political or a cultural cartoon. Other times it’s just drawing what you want to draw, whether it’s a cartoon about a doctor’s office, you can make fun of that, or raising children. I do all kinds (of cartoons), and it’s kind of a mysterious process. VH: What cultural and political issues do you cartoon most about? LD: If I’m going to do a political cartoon it’s usually about women’s
rights around the world, but I do like to make fun of politicians and to make fun of the television media and how they distort things. VH: Why do your cartoons focus on these particular issues? LD: I know women’s rights is important to me, and I think drawing cartoons about stupid things that are done and that we do, men and women, if you do a cartoon about it maybe people will see how silly things are, or just as another way to talk about important issues like rape or abortion, or those serious things. It’s a combination of interpersonal gender relations and political issues for women’s rights around the world. So that’s just important to me, and I’m a woman, so I know about things like that. And media, I’m always reading the media and I’m always seeing the media, how distorted it can be, so it’s fun to poke fun at the media and politicians as well. VH: Why do you think cartoons are an important medium of communication? LD: Everybody loves cartoons, right? So when you see a cartoon, you are drawn to it as if you are a child because most people like cartoons. You draw the reader in, and then you can actually talk about a serious subject with humor and catch them off guard. So you can talk about serious subjects with humor and it’s a great way to open up a dialogue. The other thing about cartoons is nonverbal cartoons. Non-written cartoons without words can cross borders, so you can communicate.
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Liza Donnelly, writer and cartoonist for The New Yorker, spoke about cartoons,feminism and politics in the SLC on Nov. 10. VH: Can you talk about your involvement in the project “Cartooning for Peace”? LD: Cartooning for Peace is an organization started by a French cartoonist. His name is Jean Plantu, very famous in France, and he brought a bunch of us together. This followed the Danish cartoon controversy, where cartoons were used in a negative way and there was some violence because the cartoonists drew Muhammad. Plantu wanted to show how cartoons can be used for good purposes and for dialogue, not just peace, but for communication. Cartoons can and should be used at times for good reasons. So I’ve traveled for them and spoken some places and been at exhibits.
For the full interview, visit www.vanderbilthustler.com
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Graduate student researches Ebola treatment By ANNA BUTRICO News editor --------------------
Vanderbilt graduate student Andrew Flyak is working toward developing drugs to treat the Ebola virus. Flyak, who works in the Crowe Lab of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center, is focusing his thesis on generating human antibodies to combat Ebola by studying blood samples from people who have survived the infection. Recently, Flyak’s lab received samples from Emory University from patients who have survived Ebola. “(The lab has) received a block from the people who survived the infection. We try to generate human antibodies using the block. We characterize them, we try to understand which antibodies kill the virus, and the final goal is to develop those antibodies into drugs that can be used to treat people with this infection,” Flyak said. Viruses like Ebola can only replicate and multiply within the human cell. Antibodies like the ones Flyak is studying bind to the weakest spot of the virus to then inhibit and kill it. According to Flyak, once these antibodies are identified, they could be used to create drugs that would prohibit the virus
ANNE RAYNER / VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
Vanderbilt graduate student Andrew Flyak (left) is working to produce anti-Ebola antibodies in the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center. from spreading within human cells. While Flyak’s lab is working with these antibodies, the team does not have the actual Ebola virus on campus. “We generate our antibodies here at Vanderbilt, but then we ship those antibodies to our collaborators,” Flyak said. “For the Ebola project we collaborate with
people from the University of Texas Medical Branch, and they have a high containment of facilities on campus. We send them our antibodies and they use the full-body suit, and they go into high-security labs and test our antibodies.” Although creating a new drug is a lengthy process, Flyak explains that a swifter turn-
around rate is possible for the Ebola medication. “Usually it takes seven to 10 years to develop a new drug, because we want to be sure that it is safe. But because of the Ebola epidemic, there are multiple efforts to shorten this time frame,” Flyak said. Flyak said that the lab is very optimistic about the progress they have already made. “We are thinking approximately a year from now we’ll have some terrific options available,” Flyak said. Flyak recently spoke to a group of ambassadors from over 20 nations about his findings. Flyak said that ambassadors from Central Africa, where the Ebola virus is more prevalent, were particularly interested in the work. “(The Ambassadors from Central Africa) expressed interest to help us find samples from people who survived, so we can use those samples to generate antibodies,” Flyak explained. Even with this cutting-edge research, American Ebola hysteria still persists. “There is more an epidemic of fear at this moment than Ebola in the United States,” Flyak observed. “I think it is a very deep threat to the western part of Africa, where we have more than 10,000 cases, more than 5,000 people die because of infection.”
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— continued from PAGE 2 needs, increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. Despite burning coal and natural gas, when compared to electricity purchased from the TVA, the power plant provided environmental benefits by producing electricity close to the site of use and reducing line losses, George said. “The closer you can produce your energy to the point of its consumption, that’s the most efficient and clean (way) other than not using the energy at all,” Petty said. Owned by Vanderbilt, the power plant can also be controlled more closely by the university. According to George, this allowed the plant to be as environmentally friendly as possible, evidenced by its choice to burn high-quality coal that is low in sulfur. The Vanderbilt Board of Trust decided to replace the coal-burning capabilities of the plant with all-natural gas-fueled equipment in April 2013. Because some of the machinery dated back to the 1960s, a replacement had already been planned. Longterm environmental considerations caused the board to decide to use the renovation as an opportunity to implement a full conversion to natural gas, according to Petty. “Part of the investment was already needed and going to have to happen just because the plant was older and needed to be modernized,” George said. George added that the management was “forward thinking” in also anticipating changes in federal regulations for greenhouse gas emissions and considering these changes while discussing plant renovations. With the replacement of coal-fire boilers with gas-fire boilers, the power plant will not contain any machinery that is more than 10-12 years old after the conversion, making it more modern and efficient. The electrical and steam production capacity of the plant has been reduced during the conversion process, but Petty expects that the plant will be back to full capacity by this time next year. “The biggest challenge that we have with this plant is keeping up our ability to produce steam while we’re doing the construction on the plant,” Petty said. “So you have this very difficult dance of making the plant run, building a plant inside a plant and then turning equipment off and on so that there’s no interruption in service.” Petty currently estimates the conversion to be 40 percent completed, although the next 60 percent will occur in a more compressed time frame. With structures already built, the remaining work involves setting up the new equipment and testing it. The coal deliveries to Vanderbilt have been stopped for the last month as the power plant burns off the last of its coal reserves. After the coal runs out completely, the coal ash and noise pollution produced by burning coal will also be eradicated. “I think that’s one of the things I look forward to most is reduction of noise and the look of the plant,” Petty said. The renovations will also reduce certain hazardous air pollutants called pollution-control criteria gases.
17% overall greenhouse gas emissions reduction since 2008
The most hazardous kind, mercury and hydrogen chloride, are expected to be completely eliminated. Sulfur dioxide will be 99.8 percent eliminated and nitrogen dioxide 75.4 percent eliminated. George also expects an almost 50-percent reduction in release of particulate matter, with coal ash being completely eliminated. All this goes hand-in-hand with the operating permit from the Title V program of the 1990 Clean Air Act, which required air pollution sources, including power plants, to meet legal regulations in order to obtain an operating permit. The regulations affect which pollution-control criteria gases can be released into the atmosphere and in what quantities. “Personally, I believe that the conversion is probably the most significant investment to improve Vanderbilt’s environmental footprint that could be made on campus,” George said. The power plant also releases greenhouse gases. While calculating the reduction in greenhouse gases is more complex than with pollution-control criteria gases, George estimates there will be between 20 and 40 percent less greenhouse gas emissions by the converted power plant. “(It) will depend a lot on the final structure of the plant and how efficient certain components are, but we feel pretty confident in believing it will be at least 20 percent. But we think it’ll probably be significantly more than that,” George said. George said that because natural gas is still a fossil fuel, burning it still emits greenhouse gases, just less than when burning coal. Although Vanderbilt’s power needs cause the majority of its greenhouse gas emissions, there are also other contributors to the emissions. They include waste management, commuting of faculty and staff and procurement of items needed by the university on a daily basis. Vanderbilt has been working to curb greenhouse gas emissions from these contributors. In waste management, Vanderbilt has doubled its recycling in just two years, with 6 million pounds of recycling in 2013 as compared to 3 million in 2011. Energy conservation projects such as lighting retrofits across campus and installation of newer, more efficient heating and cooling systems have also reduced the amount of electricity needed by the university. “The university’s goal is not to spend money on utility bills. Our mission is education, teaching, research, patient care,” George said. “So every dollar we don’t spend on a utility bill is another dollar on a scholarship, and so that’s why we work so hard and we pay so much attention to those energy improvements.” “When Plant Ops changes out a chiller, the students are not going to see or know,” George continued. “When they change a lighting system, nobody’s going to notice, but all of those things are really important because we want to reduce that overhead cost as much as possible so as much money as possible goes to our core mission here at Vanderbilt.”
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reduction in greenhouse gas reduction in greenhouse emissions per $1000 regas emissions per person on search dollars, 2005-2013 campus, 2005-2103
AFTER PHOTOS COURTESY OF VANDERBILT PLANT OPERATIONS
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opinion YIK YAK
ROUNDUP: VUPD ALERT
QUOTE OF THE DAY “If an individual goes to cast a fraudulent vote, he/she risks incurring a prison sentence of up to 5 years, along with a fine of $10,000 — a lot of trouble to go cast an extra vote.”
ASAD PABANI
Against impersonation or for suppression?
I’m shocked the thieves knew their way around Stevenson. I don’t even know my way around Stevenson.
Understanding the implications of voter ID laws
When I heard a professor in Stevenson got assaulted I assumed some pre-med kids finally snapped
is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Science. He can be reached at asad. pabani@vanderbilt. edu.
Instead of worrying about how you’re all offended by VUPD, maybe think about the female professor that got assaulted.... and then get over yourself.
ASAD PABANI
Punching a professor is no bueno Personally, I would have opted for some sort of mask when stealing in front of cameras.... If they had punched Buckles, then they’d have have a war Why do people steal laptops when they can just pants someone. It’s not really illegal and it’s more fun A Venn diagram of racist stereotypes and objective statistics is a larger overlap than society wants to accept. Today on Yik Yak: is it wrong to not like some people? Is it racist to describe someone’s physical appearance? Stay tuned to find out! VUPD’s goal is not always to be politically correct. All they need to do is give us straight forward details about crimes which they succeeded in today. You know what would have been more fucked up? If they robbed chipotle, causing chipotle to shut down. I hate criminals. And don’t even get me started on white people
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any Republican-controlled states claim to be fighting voter impersonation by implementing voter ID laws. For instance, both Kansas and Tennessee implemented restrictive photo ID laws before the 2012 election, and ever since the Supreme Court gutted a key component of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, dozens of southern and midwestern states have implemented similar measures. Although they claim to be addressing voter fraud, the data seems to suggest that the real reason they are being implemented is far more troublin g. The biggest argument made for voter ID laws is that they stop cases of in-person voter impersonation. That would be an honourable cause — except that voter fraud is barely a problem in the United States. Research carried out by Justin Levitt, a professor at the Loyola University Law School, found that there have only been 31 credible cases of voter impersonation in the United States since 2000. For a scale of reference, in that time period U.S. citizens have cast over 1 billion votes. There is a reason why large-scale voter impersonation does not occur in the United States. If an individual goes to cast a fraudulent vote, he or she risks incurring a prison sentence of up to 5 years, along with a fine of $10,000 — a lot of trouble to go cast an extra vote. If that scenario seems unlikely, consider this: In order to get a real swing in results in even the closest of races, one would have to get thousands of people to come out and cast an extra fraudulent vote, and then hope that none of them get caught doing so. Quite simply, it does not happen because it is just not worth the risk. The costs of such a law, however, are quite prohibitive. According to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, around 11 percent of the voting eligible population in the U.S. — or about 21 million people — do not possess a state-issued photo ID, the key requirement in the new laws. A disproportionate percentage of these people are minorities, young people and poor people — all voting blocs that heavily lean toward the Democrats. The study found that 25 percent of African-Americans of voting age did not possess valid photo ID, and that citizens earning
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 vanderbilthustler.com. The views expressed in lead editorials reflect the majority of opinion among The Hustler’s editorial board and may be supposed to represent the opinion of The Vanderbilt Hustler at the time of publication. They 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@vanderbilthustler.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 2 p.m. on the Sunday prior to publication. The editor
less than $35,000 annually are more than twice as likely to not have a photo ID compared to those earning more than that. Additionally, around 18 percent of citizens aged 18-24 have a photo ID that does not state their current name or address, in effect prohibiting them from voting. Supporters of the law say that the states implementing strict voter ID laws have offered free photo IDs to all voters, but there are various problems even with this measure. Most Department of Motor Vehicles offices do not operate on weekends or after 6 p.m. on weekdays, meaning that for somebody earning an hourly wage would have to compromise their wages in order to get an ID. Additionally, the Brennan Center for Justice found that in the 10 states with the harshest voter ID laws, more than one million eligible voters were below the poverty line and at least 10 miles away from the nearest ID-issuing office — a significant hurdle for any individual. The same study also found that while the ID may be free, the documents required to obtain it are not. Birth certificates can cost between 8 and 25 dollars. Marriage licenses, required for women with a legal name different from their maiden name, cost between 8 and 20 dollars. As a comparison, the infamous poll tax, now outlawed for its racist nature, would be $10.64 in current dollar terms. Furthermore, if an individual’s name does not correspond with their birth certificate, he or she would have to hire a lawyer to go to court to change the name on their birth certificate — costs enough to turn away many poor people from voting. The math for voter ID laws is already coming in. The Government Accountability Office, an independent agency, suggests that turnout amongst young people and black people in Kansas and Tennessee dropped after new voter ID laws went into effect in 2012. In Tennessee alone, that adds up to around 88,000 lost votes. The heavily partisan nature of these laws in response to a nonexistent problem merely demonstrates what many already suspected; voter ID laws are more about voter suppression than they are about protecting the sanctity of the ballot box.
reserves the right to edit and condense submissions for length as well as clarity. Lengthy letters that focus on an issue affecting students may be considered for a guest column at the editor’s discretion. All submissions become the property of The Hustler and must conform to the legal standards of Vanderbilt Student Communications, of which The Hustler is a division. The Vanderbilt Hustler (ISSN 0042-2517), the official 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. The Vanderbilt Hustler allocates one issue of the newspaper to each student and is available at various points on campus for free. Additional copies are $.50 each. The Vanderbilt Hustler is a division of Vanderbilt Student Communications, Inc. Copyright © 2014 Vanderbilt Student Communications.
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Horrific humor
Halloween costumes reveal social and cultural insensitivity PAXTON GAMMIE is a first-year in the College of Arts and Science. She can be reached at paxton.a.gammie@ vanderbilt.edu.
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alloween simply has a knack for bringing out the shameless in people. I’m not sure when it became a tradition to make Halloween the one night on which no one cares how dumb everyone looks, or when putting “slutty” in front of anything that someone can think of is deemed an acceptable “costume,” but somehow, these things have become commonplace. And in all honesty, I don’t really mind the modern-day Halloween culture. Sure, I cringe a little bit when I see a “slutty Strawberry Shortcake doll” stumbling around the Munchie Mart at 1:30 a.m., but I’m not going to get excited about it because in all actuality, who am I to judge? It’s fun to dress up, dance and revel in the fact that it does not matter how strange your costume is, because everyone looks ridiculous. However, as insensitive and offensive costumes become increasingly commonplace, it is clear that a dialogue about the sometimes crass nature of Halloween costumes — ones that are either incredibly politically incorrect or that attempt to make light of a recent tragic event — is necessary. I’m not usually one to call people out or get upset about a casual slip-up in political correctness in everyday conversation. For one, I understand that people, including myself, sometimes make mistakes when referring to a certain group of people or culture, and, even more than that, I understand that sometimes it is unclear as to what the correct term is for a group of people or culture. However, Halloween costumes are a different case, because people are deliberately using incorrect stereotypes about a particular culture to create harmful, incorrect interpretations of certain groups. Let’s take the example of the “slutty ‘Indian’,” a
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It’s fun to dress up, dance and revel in the fact that it does not matter how strange your costume is, because everyone looks ridiculous.
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costume that many seem to love. At the surface, people typically don’t see much wrong with this getup. Girls get to wear a bead-covered, super-short dress with a feather in their hair and maybe some paint on their face, and no one really bats an eye at it. However, when people dress up as “Indians,” they are blatantly ignoring the fact that Native American populations are still undergoing struggles in regards to their rights in practicing their spirituality as well as their place in this country. The misrepresentations of Native Americans on Halloween is a symptom of greater issues their population faces. When people dress up as Native Americans using incorrect and harmful stereotypes, they are perpetuating the already-existent lack of under-
standing of Native American populations. And it’s not just the “slutty Indian” costume that is an issue; there are tons of them, all depicting cultures, people or recent events (“sexy Ebola nurse???”) in offensive ways. For instance, in 2010, two weeks after 33 Chilean miners had been trapped 2,300 feet underground for nearly 70 days, people across the nation dressed up in neon construction vests, with black chalk smeared across their faces and headlamps on their foreheads. Although these people weren’t trying to intentionally offend the individuals and families involved, dressing up in jest as people who had just suffered for more than two months in conditions the average human couldn’t even imagine is making light of a situation that cannot be considered anything but horrifying. It’s hard to talk about political correctness without sounding completely pretentious, but trust me, I don’t think I am more informed or socially aware than people who have dressed up in these types of costumes. In fact, it wasn’t until my friend with Native American heritage expressed her sentiments about politically incorrect Halloween costumes that I even considered it an issue that needed to be addressed. I completely understand the fact that people who dress up in these sorts of ways see these costumes as harmless, and they have no ill will. All I’m saying is that when dressing up, know the implications of what you’re doing, because regardless of your intentions (or in this case, lack thereof ), there are consequences to your costume.
Sitting where the professors sit Overcommitment hinders student attendance at campus lectures RYAN KENIGSBERG is a first-year in the School of Engineering. He can be reached at ryan.g.kenigsberg@ vanderbilt.edu.
As I quickened my pace, I noted with some concern the patches of people moving toward Ingram Hall. Audience capacity, I worried, might shut me out from another great Vanderbilt lecture. To my satisfaction I easily got in, without even a wait. The event had not garnered the impressive student turnout of other events. Surprising, I thought, for an event featuring someone as nationally recognized as Jeb Bush. But then I had another surprise. As I entered the auditorium I couldn’t help but notice the age of the audience. Over half bore the distinctive marks of gray or white hair. Impressive for an on-campus lecture. And yet, in other lectures I have attended, that trend continues. At each prestigious lecture, the age of my peers suddenly jumps by a couple decades. For my part, I find it special to sit among professors. But there are other reasons to be spending time with the elderly than for novelty. Professors go to the best places. Professors have the most responsibilities. I wouldn’t be surprised if the first objection to lecture attendance is time. Nobody can disregard the ceaseless struggle of managing the typical demands of student life. But that’s why I find it so curious that
professors have time for lectures. After all, don’t they have more on their checklists than the best of us? After all, they’re responsible for all of us. More responsibility, more tasks, more travel, more decisions, more business than I can reckon. Yet at my most recent engineering lecture, most of the audience had passed graduation. How is it possible for two department heads and the dean of the engineering school to make it to an event that most engineers can’t make? Professors are the wisest. I’m always surprised how even the most unassuming adult has more wisdom than I. Part of it, perhaps, is that they listen to the right crowd. They go to high-quality lectures and study excellent journals. They have experienced life more fully and can attest to it with stories and quips. When I ask them about my crazy class load, they tell me that GPAs aren’t actually so important and that taking control of what is controllable — character — is more important than the endless array of tasks. They intentionally take time to stop their schedules, take a break, slow down, and hear what matters. For all my fighting to get a better grade, there’s always a professor who stops to show me how. For all the
competition and focus on moving upward, there’s always someone looking back to pull us up. Apparently there are benefits to slowing down. Professors are the most successful. This is so obvious, and yet I wonder if I’ve ever noticed. It amazes me how little I can accomplish by rushing around ceaselessly tagging my homework load. I can spend three hours working on an assignment, worrying about my grade on something I will never need to know. Then there are the professors. They stick around to say hello to students. They sit and listen to lectures. And it’s these same people who make breakthroughs in research, solve global issues, and create renowned masterpieces. They walk slower, but with each step they go farther. More of us should take turns sitting where the professors sit. We should be clamoring for those lecture seats. For some reason, the way this world works is that when you pause, you go farther. It’s those who are wise enough to stop and listen that see the greatest success. So as the lights over the audience fade and another brilliant mind gets up to speak, maybe you will find yourself in the audience.
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014
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life
REVIEW
The new reality show seeks to cash in on Vanderbilt’s prestige but overcompensates and veers away from its potential value By Saara Asikainen, Managing editor
The most memorable image of surgery in the premiere of “Vanderbilt MDs” is that of a woman with a stomach bloated with blood, surrounded by doctors clustered around a surgery table. She is only one of the accident victims being treated by the residents in the new reality television show. In the show’s premiere, seven medical residents move into a house which they are supposed to share over the course of the show’s six episodes. The majority of the hour-long episode features them socializing awkwardly and getting to know each other, though they manage to squeeze in a few meaningful cases — a motorcycle accident and a cardiac arrest. Every surgery call is accompanied by intense cursing and shots of bloodied gauze on the linoleum floor. Though these scenes are few and far between, when they come, they arrive as welcome reminders of the high stakes in the show. Medicine is inherently dramatic, but watching “Vanderbilt MDs,” you wouldn’t know it. The producers know what else we’ve been watching — “House MD,” “ER,” “Grey’s Anatomy” — and they want to give us that kind of drama alongside the inner workings of the hospital, but jumping between the two results in rather jarring effects. In the beginning of the episode, repurposed from the sneak peek, an off-duty resident complains that, “One of the challenges of being a physician is that there is nowhere to tuck your erection.” A cut from this shot melts seamlessly to a wimpier resident’s teary-eyed confession: “It’s so hard watching people, knowing that they’re going to die.” In this instance and throughout the show, the reality television framework takes away from the seriousness of the subject. The show has the potential to be a sort of
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Despite its prestigious setting, t trashy, delicious connotations, and ser are the one-dimensional depictions of “ER Unplugged” — a peek inside a real emergency room in the only level-one trauma center in Middle Tennessee. Instead, it ignores the inherent tension in medicine and settles for pandering to our tastes for conventional reality television. Despite its prestigious setting, the show exhibits many of the genre’s trashy, delicious connotations, and serving as the unlikely fuel to this fire are the one-dimensional depictions of the residents themselves. The characters — and that’s what the residents become — are reduced to two-pronged depictions — the personal and the professional. First-year resident Erin, for instance, lost 60 pounds in high school and now deals with the strain residency puts on her relationship. Whitney is prepared to date “in the hospital,” but is unsure about her specialty in internal medicine. Jeremy, a second-year in emergency medicine, lacks issues reducible to a sound bite and is hyped up instead: “The second I enter the ER I’m in beast mode; I’m firing on all cylinders” — whatever that means. While cringe-inducing and extended — the B-plot in the episode are his dating efforts — Jeremy’s hyperbole isn’t as awkward as the main relationship of the episode: the brewing bromance between Mike and Tyson, two self-identified “tall, white goofy kids.” Their contribu-
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What is ‘Vanderbilt MDs’? Filmed like a documentary, airs like a reality show: The Hustler sits down with two stars of Vanderbilt MDs By Saara Asikainen, Managing editor and Priyanka Aribindi, Life editor
PHOTO COURTESY OF HULU
the show exhibits many of the genre’s rving as the unlikely fuel to this fire the residents themselves.
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tion to the dramatic tension consists of a bet over a game of cornhole; the loser has to wear a neon-colored fanny pack to the hospital. Innocuous, uninteresting and interchangeable, even other doctors confuse them for one another: “I thought Mike was Tyson until last night. They look the same,” says Dr. William Train, a trauma surgeon fellow, stuck in the mix with the residents. How far we have come from “Grey’s Anatomy.” “Grey’s” has always lived and died by its group dynamics, and “MDs” tries to foster something similar among its residents by putting them into one house a la “The Real World,” but the effort falls flat. The move is supposedly motivated by the young doctors’ cash flow problem, but it’s really meant to squeeze something out of a lukewarm group dynamic. The problem is emblematic of the of the show’s insistence on presenting the residents’ personal lives in equal measure to their professional lives. But unlike doctors would lead us to believe, balance is not always good for you. The cast has spent their twenties in med schools and hospitals — they won’t turn into Patrick Dempseys just because the cameras are now on them. Kind, compassionate and awkward, but also at times douchey, an Emmy-worthy medical drama cast these residents do not make.
As a result, the overblown characterizations lead to such a pompous presentation that you’d think even admissions couldn’t stand it. “It’s a real challenge being the only thing standing between life and death for a total stranger,” Train intones in a voiceover that is more measured than anything else that he will say in the rest of the episode (he’s the grumpy one). At the helipad, he strides purposefully away from the helicopter and toward the camera. Medics trail behind with the stretcher, and we don’t know whether to wish the scene was staged or not. Surely more goes on than we see here. Vanderbilt University School of Medicine ranks fifteenth out of all accredited medical schools in the U.S. VUMC is the no. 1 hospital in Tennessee, and four of its specialties ranked in the national top 10. The residents’ lives inside the hospitals are not the only thing to them, but their experiences in the Medical Center make for more compelling material than their fumbling relationships. At the beginning of the episode, Chairman of Emergency Medicine Corey Slovis tells the interns with touching earnestness, “You are some of the best and you got to act that way.” Dr. John McPherson, director of the internal medicine residency program, continues: “Vanderbilt is one of the elite medical centers in the entire world. We have the luxury of picking the cream of the crop every year.” Exactly. In a school that is determinedly climbing up the rankings, elbowing peer institutions out of the way, the question becomes why the university greenlighted the making of “Vanderbilt MDs.” Why are we depicted in a — let’s face it — insubstantial way in a genre that easily cheapens everything it portrays?
When “Vanderbilt MDs” premiered on USA Network on Nov. 6, the medical residents filmed for the show were expecting the documentary style typical of the BBC. However, with interspersed scenes of residents’ personal lives and interactions in the house they shared throughout the filming process, the final product is more of a reality show than a documentary — let alone one chronicling residency at a medical school recognized as no. 15 in the country according to U.S. News & World Report. According to John Howser, the medical center news and communications’ assistant vice chancellor, the show, which is a six-part TV series the BBC Worldwide Productions filmed over the course of 10 weeks in 2013, was modeled after “a similar and very popular TV series that airs in the UK.” “VUMC has a long history of participating in TV series projects in addition to the work we do with traditional news media. We opted to participate in the U.S. adaptation of this popular BBC series so that a younger audience who does not typically watch local or network TV news programming and may not be aware of VUMC’s presence in this forum or on the national stage within health care, could see aspects of the Medical Center in a way that might better engage them,” said Howser. He added that no financial transaction between Vanderbilt and the BBC took place with the show’s production. Whitney Endsley, the now-second-year internal medicine resident, who is painted as “the undecided one” on “MDs,” said that the show had been in the works for three years before she was even contacted as an incoming intern about joining the cast. Endsley speculated that the prestigious production company was the reason the hospital felt comfortable in granting producers access and added that it was one of the reasons she signed on. “We had a lot of concerns about how it would affect our careers,” she said. “It’s a big risk because it’s not just ‘The Real World’ where you have people that aren’t employed. We’ve done a lot and worked hard to get here. I think that the [higher-ups] at Vanderbilt ... felt, for the most part, pretty protected that they weren’t going to … manipulate things to embarrass us.” Both Endsley and Erin McGuinn, a second-year resident who is also featured on the show, feel that the cast’s personal lives were added to humanize them. “When you see such a stark contrast — like us joking and laughing at home and just being silly — that’s a way to blow off stress, and that’s a way to leave work at work,” McGuinn said. “You want to feel compassion, and I have compassion for people, and I hurt right with my patients when they’re sick. But it’s also healthy to try to have some separation and leave work at work and try not to dwell on things too much when you get home.” Through the depiction of the cast’s personal lives, the show typifies them in various positions — undecided, self-doubting, overly-confident, among others. Although Endsley was happy and even amused by her characterization, she said that the show was originally pitched to her as more documentary in style. Giving up control over her public image was a daunting prospect mediated by her trust in the hospital. “It’s obviously a risk to participate in something when people are going to be editing you ... But at the same time, it’s not like people are hooking up left and right or getting drunk. I think it was really trying to delve into what it’s like to be a resident, and people are interested in it. I can’t speak to Vanderbilt’s motivations,” Endsley said. In the first episode, she is made to seem to have romantic tension with Dr. William Train, a trauma surgeon and fellow cast member, a budding storyline that she completely discredits. Despite this, she thinks her personality was accurately depicted. “I felt okay having a ‘character’ because it’s true, it’s me. ... I never did anything that wasn’t truly who I was,” Endsley said. “I curse a lot, and I’m very blunt and no nonsense, and I think that if that comes across, then that’s who I am and that’s fine.” McGuinn feels that the show accurately depicts the stressful blur of the first year of residency. “Obviously the show is only going to be able to show a part of who we are, and editing is also a huge component of how people end up being portrayed,” McGuinn said. “I think that struggling with the personal — juggling a relationship, staying physically healthy, mentally healthy, keeping in touch with your family and friends — that is hard.” “You don’t see too many reality shows that are focused on the formative time in a professional career,” McGuinn added. “We have our whole careers in front of us, and this is something that will be associated with us.” —Sophie To, Chief copy editor, contributed to this report
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014
Munchie tales
LIFE
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Munchie’s most-loved personalities share their favorite stories about students By Shreya Shanker, Life reporter
Will After working at Vanderbilt for ten years, Will has decided that one trait applies to all students here: “They’re all crazy,” he said. Will has had a glimpse of student life from nearly every Munchie Mart on campus, and at the end of the day, it seems that no matter where they live, Vanderbilt students from all over campus are prone to party hard. But to Will, that’s the great part of the job — “meeting all kinds of different people” while he’s on his shifts. Branscomb is definitely the place where the most messing around occurs, and during his shifts there, Will’s seen drunk people do “pretty much everything.” In his time at the register, students have stolen, broken things, and launched into fist fights right in the middle of the market. It doesn’t seem to faze him in the slightest, though — when pressed about the incidents, he waves them off, saying, “it isn’t that bad, it’s just the college atmosphere.” “Kids have gotten much smarter,” Will says of the changes at Vanderbilt over his
10-year tenure. His late night shifts have also calmed down a bit, but only a little. During his most recent shifts at Common Grounds, he’s found that students aren’t as disorderly as they are in other places on campus. However, when it hits midnight on the weekends, he says that the Commons becomes “party central.” Will is a people’s person at heart, and for him it’s easy to build relationships with the students who visit the Munchie Marts. Anyone who takes the time to talk to him can become one of his friends. He is well-known for giving advice to students at odd hours of the night, and his go-to tip for all students is “don’t party all the time, but enjoy yourself — it’s college life, after all.”
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Munchie
Stacia From peeing in front of the register to sleeping in the middle of the mart, drunk students have made Stacia’s job as a Munchie Mart employee a lot weirder than one might expect. Stacia has been working at Vanderbilt Munchie Marts for three years, and in this time she’s come to the conclusion that “Vanderbilt students are some characters,” especially those who visit the marts from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. Her first two years were spent at Branscomb where she was popular among students. This year she finds herself at Kissam Munchie, but she says there’s not much of a difference in how crazy people can get when midnight comes around. Of all the drunken antics that she has to deal with, the funniest part of her job is the weird drunk conversations she has with people — especially when students don’t remember anything about their conversations when they come back for breakfast. Of course, working with college-aged students comes with its fair share of frustrations. Stacia’s biggest pet peeve is having repeat whether or not something is a side or an entree, especially when there’s a clear sign that lists the distinctions right in front of the items. She has also found that students are quick to jump on the Munchie Mart employees when they’re dissatisfied with something. “It’s not us,” she said. “We work for Vander-
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014
hacks
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With a couple of essential additions, you can bring bold flavors to even the most standard Munchie staples By Molly Corn, Opinion editor
Staple: Easy Mac What to add: Sriracha, garlic powder, red pepper flakes and parmesan Sriracha adds just the right spicy kick to the already cheesy (but kind of dull) goodness. For even more flavor, you can break out the entire spice cabinet and add garlic powder, red pepper flakes and parmesan for a spicy mac and cheese that rivals anything served on campus. It won’t quite beat CT West’s version (RIP), but since that’s been gone for three years now, it might be time to at least try to move on. KA TH
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bilt. Ask us how [you] can get your voice heard, instead of just getting mad at us.” That being said, Stacia definitely has favorite students — people who care about how she feels, try to brighten her up on bad days, and don’t get on her nerves. And after three years of interacting with Vanderbilt students, she has advice that can apply to Munchie Mart behavior or life in general: “just go with the flow, be easygoing,” especially when it comes to sides and entrees. “Don’t get so caught up on the little things.”
Staple: oatmeal What to add: Peanut butter, honey and cinnamon It’s widely recognized that oatmeal is a healthy breakfast choice — it’s high in protein and fiber and pretty simple to make — but oatmeal on its own can get old quickly. This easy breakfast is made more nutritious and delicious with a spoonful of peanut butter, honey and cinnamon. The peanut butter will dissolve and add a nutty flavor (and even more protein) to the otherwise bland hot cereal, and the honey and cinnamon will sweeten it up.
Staple: banana What to add: Nutella on toast It’s been said that it’s possible for humans to survive on bananas alone, but there are no studies to confirm or deny this rumor. However, as great as these potassium-rich fruits are for breakfast or a post-workout snack, they can definitely be improved with Nutella. Grins has been doing the Nutella panini thing forever, but when you don’t want to wait in outrageous lines or have to put on real clothes, you can easily make do by spreading some Nutella on a piece of toast and slicing a banana to put on top.
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014
sports
THE BIG STAT Margin of victory in the women’s basketball team’s rout of Coker last Saturday
Rachel Bell (G)
SEC POWER RANKINGS: WEEK 11 Each week, I rank the teams in the SEC 1-14. This week, Alabama is still Alabama, Kyle Allen is the David to Auburn’s Goliath and we now have a real slim chance of a four-way SEC West tie at the end of the regular season.
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Local product Bell begins her Vanderbilt career with plenty of postseason experience. The freshman took the Creek Wood High School RedHawks to state semifinals last year with a 34-4 record. In state quarterfinals, Bell scored 38 points and collected 10 rebounds. Prospects Nation’s No. 59 overall recruit, the young guard led all scorers in the Commodores’ exhibition game against Coker College with 19 points. She added two rebounds, three assists and two steals in 30 minutes of play. With the graduation of Jasmine Lister, Christina Foggie and Kady Schrann and the transfer of Kylee Smith to Belmont, the Commodores lost around 60% of their scoring. They’ll look to Bell to help offset this loss and put up points consistently throughout the season. —Allison Mast, Sports editor
By ANTHONY TRIPODORO Sports reporter --------------------
1. No. 1 Mississippi State Another week, another win for the Bulldogs. Dak Prescott and Josh Robinson didn’t need much to get past UT Martin, but they’ll need to bring their A-game if they hope to stay undefeated next week against Alabama.
2. No. 4 Alabama If the Crimson Tide run the table the rest of the way, we’ll look back at the fourth quarter of this week’s game against LSU as the moment when Alabama became the team we thought they could be. Tied at 10 points apiece, LSU took the lead with under a minute left on a field goal. After a defensive struggle for 59 minutes, it appeared to be over. Then, Blake Sims calmly marched the Tide into LSU territory for a game-tying field goal before outdueling Anthony Jennings in overtime for the win. Time to get scared of Nick Saban again.
3. No. 9 Auburn It would appear that Auburn’s two-year run of late-game luck ended on Saturday, as the Tigers coughed up two fourth-quarter fumbles that cost them the contest against Texas A&M. In a bizarre turn of events, the Tigers now have to root for archrival Alabama to beat Mississippi State in order to have any glimmer of hope for a berth in the College Football Playoff.
4. No. 10 Ole Miss
3 RACHEL BELL Freshman Hometown: Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee Height: 5-10 Position: Guard BOSLEY JARRETT / THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER
1 REBEKAH DAHLMAN RS Freshman Hometown: Braham, Minnesota Height: 5-9 Position: Guard
Rebekah Dahlman (G)
Heather Bowe (F)
Rebekah Dahlman proved more in a redshirt season than any other redshirted college athlete across the nation last year. She proved that her status as one of the top recruits in program history was welldeserved. Dahlman started the first nine games, averaging double-digit scoring and playing a major role in the team’s 7-2 start. She also proved her off-the-court desire and mental toughness. Days after that seventh win, Dahlman was rushed from practice to the emergency room with a severe blood clot in her dominant right arm. A long series of treatments ultimately led to recovery, though the freshman did not play in another game. She did not lose a year of eligibility, as she appeared in less than one-third of the team’s games. Dahlman returns to the hardwood as a pre-season second team All-SEC player, ready to take on a bigger role. She may appear as a freshman on your scorecard, but she’s far from that both on and off the court. —Max Herz, Sports reporter
After leaving the women’s basketball team in the middle of last season due to an academic violation, Heather Bowe will return to Vanderbilt in January and will try to help the Commodores build upon last year’s 18-13 finish. A former member of the SEC All-Freshman team, Bowe averaged 5.1 points and 4.3 rebounds in 27 games last season before her departure. The 6-foot junior and Wisconsin native is an important part of head coach Melanie Balcomb’s squad, as she provides versatility that few other players on the roster can match. Since Bowe is one of only four juniors on a team with no seniors, she will be counted upon to provide leadership and use her experience to help this young team grow up quickly. —Daniel Gerber, Sports reporter
3 HEATHER BOWE Junior Hometown: Eau Claire, Wisconsin Height: 6-0 Position: Forward
The Rebels showed no hangover from their two recent heartbreaking losses in their 48-0 rout of Presbyterian. With Auburn’s loss, Ole Miss now has a remote chance at the College Football Playoff again. If Alabama beats Mississippi State and loses to Auburn (or Western Carolina, but let’s be real here), and Mississippi State additionally loses to Ole Miss (or Vanderbilt, I remembered to include as I burst out laughing at the absurdity of this parenthetical), then all four of the top teams in the SEC West could finish with the same overall and conference records. In a previous Power Rankings column, I discussed the possibility of the threeway tie scenario and how it would be decided by a simultaneous three-way coin flip per SEC rules. As for a four-way tie? I have no clue how that would work, but I know that it would end in three schools burning their surrounding areas to the ground.
5. No. 20 LSU The Tigers showed a lot of heart before Alabama snatched a victory from the jaws of defeat at the very end. LSU can compete with anybody and is probably the best three-loss team in the nation. BOSLEY JARRETT / THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL PREVIEW
SEC POWER RANKINGS: WEEK 11 CONTINUED 6. Texas A&M Looks like Kenny Trill won’t be needing the trademark he filed for his nickname because he is never getting his starting job back now. Kyle Allen looked fantastic as he carried his team to victory over Auburn with four passing touchdowns. Now, please refrain from giving him a premature nickname and saying he’s the next Johnny Manziel because we all saw how that turned out last time.
Jasmine Jenkins (G) Since arriving on campus two years ago, Jenkins has seen an increase in playing time with positive results which should result in an even greater role on this year’s team for the junior from Georgia. After averaging 5.3 points per game, 2.3 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game over the course of 31 games, she looks to take on a starting role with the team. Her high basketball IQ and vocal leadership have been greatly touted as important aspects of her skill set. With the graduation of the team’s two leading scorers, guards Christina Foggie and Jasmine Lister, Jenkins looks to fill a large void on offense. As a result, she should see a great increase in production given the trajectory of her career and the openings within the team. Consequently, Jenkins will serve as an integral part in the success of the Commodores’ season. —Josh Hamburger, Sports reporter
7. No. 16 Georgia The Bulldogs piled it on against Kentucky on Saturday as Hutson Mason tossed four touchdown passes en route to 63 points for Georgia. After his career day, it seems as good a time as any for me to ask the question everybody has been wondering all season: What kind of freaking name is Hutson? When you Google “Hutson” it asks, “Did you mean Hutson Mason?” because that’s the only Hutson — person, place, thing or idea — that has ever been relevant in any sense. This is all I can think about when I watch him, and it bothers me an unhealthy amount.
Kendall Shaw (C) Marqu’es Webb (F) After starting in 18 of 31 games her freshman year, Marqu’es Webb could be in line for a bigger role this year with the Commodores. Webb’s best effort of last season came during the NCAA Tournament, when she put up career highs of 18 points and 8 rebounds in a loss to Arizona State. Webb adds an element of toughness to the team, with strong post-up offense and a knack for finding rebounds. If Webb can avoid foul trouble, she can also be a pain on defense to opposing forwards. Look for Webb to see an increase from the 15.8 minutes per game she averaged during her freshman campaign, and in the process, look for her to have a big role down low on both ends. —Matt Lieberson, Sports reporter
An injury forced Shaw to sit out last season, but she averaged 3.5 points and 2.0 rebounds during the 2012-2013 season. The center had an outstanding collegiate debut against McNeese State, scoring six points, grabbing seven rebounds and blocking four shots. Despite her inexperience, Shaw performed well against ranked opponents, pulling down four boards while adding four points against No. 10 Kentucky. She also grabbed two rebounds at No. 16 Texas A&M, her first action since the SEC-opener. She scored five points in the first-round win over Saint Joseph’s in the NCAA tournament and went on to post a career-high 12 points in Vanderbilt’s second-round loss to Connecticut. The only true center on the roster, Shaw will give the Commodores a strong presence inside if she can remain healthy. —Virginia Norder, Sports reporter
MARQU’ES WEBB Sophomore Hometown: Hoover, Alabama Height: 6-1 Position: Forward
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8. Mizzou Maty Mauk spent his bye week playing “eeny, meany, miny, mo” with his remaining schedule as he tried to decide which of his three remaining games against Texas A&M, Tennessee and Arkansas he was going to play like crap for in order to lose the SEC East title to Georgia. “Hmmm… A&M just beat Auburn so… I’ll beat them then throw a bunch of picks against the Volunteers. LOL, everybody in this state is going to hate my guts before this season is over.”
9. Florida
15 JASMINE JENKINS Junior Hometown: Gainesville, Georgia Height: 5-8 Position: Guard BLAKE DOVER / THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER
35 KENDALL SHAW RS Sophomore Hometown: Belvieu, Texas Height: 6-4 Position: Center
The Gators went on the road to Vanderbilt and fell behind 7-0 early before stepping on the gas and going on to win 34-10. Treon Harris passed for over 200 yards to complement the Florida running game, and the Gators are all of a sudden looking as good as they have all season. Good enough to save Will Muschamp’s job? We shall see.
10. Arkansas Arkansas had a bye this week, so Bret Bielema made sure his Razorbacks were taking good notes while watching LSU-Alabama in preparation for their own matchup with the Tigers next week. In a surprising move, he changed the channel to Ohio State-Michigan State midway through the fourth quarter. “The game’s not over, coach! Why did you do that?” quarterback Brandon Allen asked. “Don’t worry, kid,” replied Bielema. “We got enough to keep it close going into the fourth quarter. We’re not actually trying to win any big games this season.”
11. Kentucky Kentucky gave up 63 points in its loss to Georgia, which presented a really awkward situation for the student scorekeeper who didn’t know how to count that high.
12. Tennessee The only reason Tennessee (on a bye this week) didn’t jump Kentucky in these rankings is because the two face-off against each other next week anyway, and I don’t feel like ranking the Volunteers any higher than I have to.
13. South Carolina Sucks to (still) suck. Happy bye week, Gamecocks.
14. Vanderbilt
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BOSLEY JARRETT / THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER
The Gators didn’t just take over the field on Saturday at Vanderbilt — they took over the whole school. Their fans were everywhere. Did you catch the scene outside of ATO during the tailgates? A sea of orange and blue. The Florida football team was similarly too much for the Commodores to handle. Ralph Webb, a Gainesville native, was, despite a solid rushing performance, denied revenge against his hometown rival. To add insult to injury, Vanderbilt couldn’t even muster 21 points, so students had no free queso in which to drown their misery.
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SPORTS
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014
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Twins take the court Khaleann and AudreyAnn Caron-Goudreau join one of the best women’s basketball recruiting classes Vanderbilt has seen in a long time PHOTO COURTESY OF VANDERBILT ATHLETICS
Khaleann Caron-Goudreau (10) and her twin Audrey-Ann (13).
By BEN WEINRIB Asst. sports editor --------------------
Khaleann Caron-Goudreau was two days away from making a trip to Taiwan. After countless hours of training and competition, she was chosen to play alongside her twin sister, Audrey-Ann, for Team Canada in the William Jones Cup International Tournament held in Taipei this past August. But after all that hard work, she went up for a rebound in practice and came down on a teammate’s foot, suffering a high ankle sprain and tearing two ligaments. “The first thing she said was ‘No, I’m going to Taiwan. I’m going to play,’” Audrey-Ann clearly remembers. “That was the first thing. She was screaming, she was in pain and she was like, ‘I’m going to Taiwan.’” Unfortunately, that type of injury usually takes three to five months to heal, so there was no chance of Khaleann being able to play. Still, the team flew her out to Taiwan – the first time Team Canada has ever taken an injured player on a trip – where they won the gold medal. That’s the type of players the CaronGoudreau twins are: hard-working, ultracompetitive and self-claimed perfectionists. For them, their basketball career has been a trip that’s taken them away from home at 15 to go from outside of Ottawa to Quebec City to Bradenton, Fla., to Nashville, Tenn. Although they’re now two of the three tallest players on Vanderbilt’s roster at 6-foot-3, the Caron-Goudreau twins didn’t always play basketball. It wasn’t until they turned 10 years old that Audrey-Ann and Khaleann picked up the sport; before, they played soccer and did
jazz, hip-hop and ballet dance. In large part, that was probably because for most of their lives, they were average in height. Audrey-Ann and Khaleann have always been within an inch of each other in height, but they were only around 5-foot-10 in eighth grade before growing four inches by junior year. Basketball was big in the Caron-Goudreau family, with both older brothers playing so well that they inspired their sisters to play. But unfortunately, basketball in Gatineau, Quebec is not very competitive. Once the twins figured out that basketball was a big passion of theirs, they realized they couldn’t stay at home if they wanted to succeed at the highest level. Audrey-Ann had long wanted to leave home to play higher levels of basketball, but Khaleann was initially reluctant to go. But when their father convinced Khaleann that this was too big of an opportunity to pass up, the twins made a last-minute decision to spend their sophomore year five hours away from home in Quebec City, where they stayed in their coach’s basement. “It was a pretty tough year because first my family wasn’t there, and we’re 15, so it’s kind of young to leave home,” Khaleann said. “Just the fact that we were together, I could talk to someone, and I knew my sister would always be there for me. It was probably the most difficult year, but I grew so much during that year.” The very next year, the twins made an even bigger leap, going down to Bradenton, Fla., to play for IMG Basketball Academy. It was at this point they realized how big a deal basketball was about to be in their lives. “In Canada, you don’t get recruited as
much,” Khaleann said. “When we went to Florida, I was actually so surprised because September 1 is when coaches can start talking to you, and just the packet of letters and phone calls… We had 20 coaches in practice just watching us.” Moving to America was a transition not only because of the new intensity of basketball but also because of the huge culture shock. Outside of a few rudimentary classes, the twins knew almost no English. However, because IMG Academy has an international program, their transition was eased. There were only two Americans on the basketball team with players from countries like India, Japan and Denmark. IMG Academy also helped the twins ease into college because they spent two years on a rigorous schedule that forced them to manage their time well. Treatment at 6:30 am. Weight room training from 7 to 9. Training on the court from 9 to 12. School from 1 to 6. “I think the IMG experience was really good for them to be in the United States and be in a boarding school where they were away from home,” said Vanderbilt women’s basketball coach Melanie Balcomb. “A lot of kids have that tough transition leaving home when they first get to college, and they already had that experience.” Audrey-Ann and Khaleann ended up both coming to Vanderbilt because they’re practically attached at the hip. But although they’re identical twins, they’re very different personality-wise. Born seven minutes earlier than her sister, Audrey-Ann clearly takes on the older sister role, almost a motherly role, being very direct and ready to calm down her younger sister,
who is more outgoing and wild. And similarly, their games are different. Neither plays center despite their tall frames, because they have shooting range and are comfortable handling the ball, but AudreyAnn likes to post up, while Khaleann likes to play more along the perimeter. “They’re extremely versatile,” Balcomb said. “In watching them before we got them, they have perimeter skills, inside skills, they can score with their back to the basket, they can score face up and they can handle the ball. They’re very skilled. What I like is they’re 6-3 and I love their work ethic. They work extremely hard.” In the past, Balcomb has shown no hesitation to play freshmen, having started freshmen in each of her 13 seasons at Vanderbilt. That, combined with the absence of seniors on the team, could spell plenty of playing time for the twins. While Khaleann is still recovering from her ankle injury, Audrey-Ann saw plenty of action in the team’s first exhibition game against Coker. The older Caron-Goudreau was the first player off the bench and led the Commodores with 10 rebounds, adding 8 points, 3 assists and 2 blocks in 27 minutes. Although they haven’t gotten to play together yet in a Commodore uniform, the Caron-Goudreau twins couldn’t be happier to be at each other’s side. “It was a package deal the whole time,” Audrey-Ann said. “We knew coming to the US, if we would get recruited, each team would say ‘Oh we only have one scholarship,’ we would say bye. We’ll tell you (playing together) was an advantage we had to take, and we took it.”
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SPORTS
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A tangled Webb Ralph Webb broke the freshman rushing record — providing an opportunity to reflect on the former record-holder, whose Vanderbilt career was tragically cut short By ALLISON MAST Sports editor --------------------
Saturday’s matchup against Florida was a game of highs and lows for the Commodores, particularly for Gainesville native Ralph Webb. Although he is reluctant to speak about his recruiting process, he has suggested that he expected a scholarship offer from Florida when he was a standout running back at Gainesville High School, but the Gators never called. With that in the back of his mind, Webb took the field eager to show his hometown team what they might be missing. The freshman running back was quick to make a statement, rushing for 33 yards on the first scoring drive of the game. Later in the half, however, with the game tied 7-7, Webb fumbled at Vanderbilt’s 5-yardline, setting the Gators up for an easy touchdown. He fumbled again on the next play of the game. Florida once again took advantage of Webb’s crucial mistake, taking the ball down the field for a field goal. Quarterback Johnny McCrary, who also turned the ball over twice, sympathized with Webb: "He's like me. He's hard on himself but I looked in his eyes and knew he just wanted to get the ball again and be what he was in the past few
ALEC MYSZKA / THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER
Ralph Webb (26) carries the ball in a 34-10 loss to Florida. games.” The Gators entered halftime with a 17-7 lead and never looked back. Despite his fumbles, Saturday night was still a big night for Webb. He collected 83 yards, bumping up his season total to 843 — breaking the Vanderbilt freshman rushing record.
Webb will not take time to celebrate, however, according to Head Coach Derek Mason: "He doesn't care about records. If you told him we'd have a win and he'd get 12 yards, he'd take it. We don't want to be about records. We want to be about playing winning football." But Webb’s record-breaking night might be bittersweet for another reason. The previous record holder, Kwane Doster, was shot and killed before his senior season, just two years after his breakout freshman campaign. Police never determined whether the 21 year-old running back was the intended target of the bullet that took his life two days after Christmas. Regardless of the circumstances, the record — set in 2002 — stood as a symbol of Doster’s legacy. Though his name will no longer stand next to that record, his legacy will live on. During his freshman season, he became the first Vanderbilt player to be selected as SEC freshman of the year. His performance that season also landed him the No. 5 spot in single-season all-purpose yardage with 1,523 (798 rushing, 109 receiving, 616 KOR). As the team’s leading rusher that year, Doster remains No. 11 in single-season rushing yards. He also ranks among Commodores with longest kickoff returns — 95 yards against Ole Miss in 2002. He is tied for second in single-season kickoff return average thanks to that breakout freshman season when he averaged 25.7 yards per kickoff return. Although it was cut tragically short, Doster had one of the most memorable careers in Vanderbilt history. Over his three years as a Commodore, he had five career games with more than 100 rushing yards. His dominance on special teams made him the yearly kickoff return leader in all three seasons. Webb may have replaced Doster as the single-season freshman rushing record, but his historic night gave the Vanderbilt community an opportunity to remember a former Commodore whose career was cut short. Doster’s name may have been bumped down in one of the all-time rankings, but his legacy is far from forgotten.
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Tennis team closes out fall season strong
AJ Austin makes historic run to National Indoor Intercollegiate Championship finals By ALLISON MAST Sports editor --------------------
The fall portion of the men’s tennis season came to a close last weekend, with 906 miles separating the members of the team. While AJ Austin, Rhys Johnson and head coach Ian Duvenhage travelled to Flushing, New York for the National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships, the rest of the team hosted the Commodore Scramble at the Currey Tennis Center. The Commodores defended their home courts on Friday against Alabama, Belmont, Memphis, MTSU, Ole Miss and Tennessee Tech, finishing 7-0 in the first round of singles matches. Later in the afternoon, the first round of doubles included a comparable level of success, with only one Vanderbilt team losing. After another round of singles, Daniel Valent, Baker Newman and Suresh Eswaran ended their days undefeated. Kris Yee took over the tournament on Saturday, defeating Belmont’s Mauricio Antun 6-0, 6-1. The next day, the junior took down Eduardo Meno from Tennessee Tech in two sets 6-2, 6-1. Yee captured the singles title with decisive victories over some of the toughest competitors in attendance. Valent also went undefeated in singles play. The home team earned the doubles title to complete the tournament sweep. Eswaran and Newman, who joined forces for the first time this weekend, forced a tiebreaker on Saturday against a Memphis team, eventually winning 8-7(4). They cruised past a Tennessee Tech doubles team on Sunday 8-3 to win first place.
Meanwhile, Austin and Johnson took on the No. 1 doubles seed, USC’s Hanfmann and Quiroz, at the the Billie Jean King National Championship Tennis Center in doubles semifinals. The Commodores kept the Trojans close in the first set, losing in a tiebreaker 7-6. The second set didn’t go as smoothly for Austin and Johnson as they lost 6-3 and were eliminated from the tournament. After surviving the first two rounds, Austin continued his run at the singles title as an at-large selection with a match against Virginia’s Richie Schneider in the semifinals. The Vanderbilt senior battled to a 7-5 victory in the first set and won the second set when his opponent was forced to forfeit. Schneider suffered a nosebleed and, after using his medical timeout, had to withdraw from the competition. This sent Austin to the singles final, and he became the first Commodore to advance this far in the tournament. UNC’s Brayden Schnur prevented Vanderbilt from earning its first NIIC singles title, defeating Austin 6-5, 7-6(3). Schnur finishes the fall season undefeated in singles. “It would have been really special to see AJ (Austin) win the tournament, but it was not to be,” said Duvenhage. “I thought he played really well, maybe a few loose points here and there. His opponent (Schnur) played and served extremely well. This is unfortunately one of those things that happens sometimes. If the guy on the other side of the net just plays a little bit better than you at critical times then these types of things can happen, but I am really proud.”
ALLISON MAST / THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER
AJ Austin serves the ball during a match against Butler’s Tommy Marx. Austin won in straight sets, 6-2, 6-2.
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