9/19

The

Davidsonian

Independent Student Journalism Since 1914

inside

davidsonian.com Langley Hoyt ‘19 reflects on summer as Stapleton Davidson intern

4

Volume 114, Issue 3

September 19, 2018 Davidson Football stuns nation with excessive scoring

5

Arts & Culture Double Feature: Humanities and Darts

6

Student engages class with suprising textbased argument

8

Students Debate the Ethics of Sabra Hummus

O

JAKE CARVER ‘21 STAFF WRITER

n September 5th, AJ Naddaff ‘18 posted a petition, now with 169 signatures, in the Davidson 2018-2019 Facebook group asking the college to replace Sabra food products in Union. The comments section of the post quickly became politically charged, in part because the grievances listed against Sabra were directly tied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Sabra Dipping Company, LLC, a U.S. based company, is equally owned by PepsiCo and the Israeli Strauss Group. According to a page of its website that has since been removed, the Strauss Group provided food aid to the Golani Brigade, a division of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) centered in the Golan Heights that is reputed for human rights abuses.

Screenshots of this webpage can still be found on the Adalah website, a legal and human rights group supportive of Palestinians in Israel. Many of these claims originate from the Golani Brigade’s participation in Operation Cast Lead, in which well over 1,000 Palestinians perished in an attempt by the IDF to halt the illegal flow of weapons into the area.

The ownership of the Golan Heights, located in the north of Israel, is a controversial subject in and of itself ever since Israel took over the area in 1967 after the Six Day War. Although the international community does not recognize the annexation, Israel controls most of the area in practice, with Syria owning the rest. What is designated as Palestine lies to the south, although many Palestinian communities can be found outside Palestinian boundaries.

Layan Anabtawi ‘19, President of Davidson Students in Solidarity for Palestine, helped spread word of the petition early on and is currently discussing the issue with Davidson staff, primarily Union Station Manager Michael Wilson, to try to resolve the issue. A Palestinian herself,

CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

International Office Responds to Criticism

P

CATHY XU ‘21 STAFF WRITER

ost-graduate plans are a stressful matter for seniors, but international students face the added stress of obtaining permission to stay in the United States. Doing so requires either Curricular Practical Training (CPT) like work/study or internships granted by sponsoring employers who cooperate with schools, Optional Practical Training (OPT) which allows students to work for up to one year in their area of study, or a federally granted H-1B Visa for specialty occupations. Students also tackle hurdles like the ever-changing and tightening immigration laws, the lottery system, and employers who are unwilling to take chances by sponsoring them.

Given all the above, it was not easy for Maria Antonia Bravo ’18, a student from Colombia, to acquire her post-graduate

position in Washington, D.C. However, she was ultimately unable to follow through due to legal issues and had to return to Colombia.

Bravo worked three on-campus jobs and exceeded the twenty hour per week work limit that the U.S. Citizenship Immigration and Services (USCIS) imposes on international students.

Bravo first learned about the restriction during her first-year orientation but forgot it by her senior year. She was reminded of the rule three weeks before her graduation after she had unknowingly violated it. Having failed to comply with the requirements necessary for her to maintain her visa status, Bravo became ineligible for her OPT and returned home.

Bravo admitted, “I take every responsibility for not being more educated about the process...but on the other hand, I [had] been to [the former International Student Advisor’s] office many times before, encouraging her to do a mandatory meeting

for all international students. There are things that we should know that we are not doing.”

In the past, international students have raised concerns about a lack of communication from the International Student Office’s administration. “There are a lot of legal procedures here if you’re not an American citizen, and it can get quite confusing,” says Ylin Wang ‘20. “Currently there’s no clear instruction... of legal procedures that international students can follow. ” The lack of communication between administration and students has resulted in many complications similar to Bravo’s situation. During his first year, Zouzou Debbs ’20 obtained a work-study job at the Ada Jenkins Center, only to find out that

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Just Admissions Rethinks College Policy

A

HOPE ANDERSON ‘22 STAFF WRITER

ccording to Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade, being a legacy applicant at an elite college or university is equivalent to adding 160 points to your SAT score.

Some Davidson students want to change that reality.

Legacy preference is the advantage an office of admissions gives applicants who have at least one alumnus parent. Emma Tayloe ‘19 thinks this edge is an “illogical adherence to tradition.”

Tayloe — a legacy student herself — is a leader in Just Admissions, a student movement advocating for a legacy blind admissions policy at Davidson. Just Admissions, as well as similar groups at schools across the country, sees legacy preference as an issue of both fairness and campus diversity.

Since Davidson did not admit students of color until the 1960s, the vast majority of Davidson alumni are white. Thus, the advantages enjoyed by legacies do not apply equally to all groups of applicants.

“By giving an advantage to a population that’s more likely to be white, more likely to be wealthy, and more likely to be otherwise

privileged, it seems like an intuitively and frankly kind of obviously unfair standard,” said Tayloe.

According to Espenshade, top schools admit legacy students at around three times the rate of non-legacies. Christopher Gruber, Dean of Admissions, said in an email last year that for Davidson, that number is around two.

Julia Bainum ‘21, another student involved in Just Admissions, agreed with Tayloe, and she added that prioritizing legacy students is superfluous, since students with college-educated parents already enjoy advantages throughout the college application process.

“It makes me angry that I had all of these

things to make the college process easier, compared to somebody who doesn’t have parents who have gone through it before and was more worried about financial aid, and then on top of that I think it might be easier for me to get into a school that I want to go to,” said Bainum.

One of the most common arguments in favor of legacy preference is that it increases alumni donations, which can then be used to fund things like scholarships for lower income students. However, the link between

CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

News

2

Feature: Tour the Hurt Hub KATHERINE MCGOVERN ‘21 STAFF WRITER

T

he Jay Hurt Hub for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is “another step in Davidson’s reimagining of the liberal arts experience,” according to Davidson College’s website. The Hub is located across from Brickhouse Tavern in a 23,000 square foot, red brick building that was once part of the Davidson Cotton Mill Complex. In 2014, Davidson College purchased the building with no initial vision, according to the Hub’s General Manager Julie Goff ‘05. Today, the Hub exists as an open and collaborative workspace to encourage community and campus interaction.

The complex houses five distinct facilities: two office spaces, the Social Commons, the Van Deman Innovation Lab, and the Coworking Community. The Hub’s “anchor companies” have leased the two private office spaces since November 2017. One of these companies is Rocus Networks, a cyber security company, and the other is Quoin, Inc., a software engineering firm.

The Social Commons, located at the Hub’s entrance, encourages collaboration. Its selfserve, self-pay coffee shop offers an array of coffee and espresso under the banner of Davidson’s honor code system. Anyone interested in espresso must go through “espresso training,” a quick lesson provided by the Hub on how to use the machine. Goff expressed that the Commons “depends upon the community to take

care of itself and police itself.”

Behind the Social Commons lies the Van Deman Innovation Lab. While intended primarily for Davidson students, faculty, and staff, anyone in the Lake Norman area may use it. The Hub’s Faculty Director Dr. Laurie Heyer, a member of the Mathematics & Computer Science Department, explained that the Innovation Lab’s “primary purpose is to create a means by which the faculty and students can collaborate with the outside community.”

The Innovation Lab includes a virtual reality lab, intended for student use for class projects, independent VR education, and experiences of artificial environments. Study groups, classes, and businesses utilize the Lab’s multiple conference rooms and its four smaller student project rooms. The student project rooms are currently first come, first serve, although administrators are in the process of creating a system by which students may apply for work residency in the rooms. Residency, the student equivalent of the business offices at the Hub, will be available for a semester or a full year.

Students and community members may work and collaborate in the Lab’s WiFi accessible, outdoor patio.

Goff analogizes the Hub’s Coworking Community as “a YMCA membership, but for office space.” The Coworking Community consists of fifteen private offices, a line of phone rooms for private calls and meetings, and a large, open space filled with desks.

Members of the Coworking Community pay a

The Jay Hurt Hub houses offices, collaborative study spaces, and a self-pay coffee shop.

Photo by Emma Brentjens ‘21

“We try very hard to make sure that everyone can get involved here...the Hub is unique in that it is placed in a relatively small market and is woven into the fabric of a liberal arts college.”

Julie Goff ‘05 Hurt Hub General Manager

Students will have the opportunity to work directly with real companies in the Hub’s office space. Photo by Emma Brentjens ‘21

monthly membership fee in exchange for desk space, coffee, and printing. Many members of the Coworking Community are solo entrepreneurs or are working on startups from the Lake Norman area.

Tech enabled companies make up the majority of the Coworking Community, exemplified by the Hub’s partnership with LaunchLKN, a non-profit company, that aims to connect new entrepreneurs with seasoned

mentors in the Lake Norman area. LaunchLKN invests in technological education, bringing in speakers for educational events at the Hub. Davidson students have CatCard access to the Hub from 7am to 11pm, seven days a week, although not all students may be fully utilizing this access. Katelyn Bruhjell ’20 expressed, “I’m not interested in pursuing entrepreneurship or business so I don’t know what there would be for me at the Hub. I’d love to get involved if I knew that there was something there for me.”

Goff explained that “we try very hard to make sure that everyone can get involved here;” every student, regardless of his or her field of interest, can equally benefit from the Hub. Although collaborative, coworking communities like the Hub exist throughout the country, Goff remarked that “the Hub is unique in that it is placed in a relatively small market and is woven into the fabric of a liberal arts college.”

Please visit our website, davidsonian.com, for a complete list of sources.

Visas Restrict Student Employment CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 doing so was against the rules of his I-20 visa, despite the position being paid by the college.

Yasemin Tekgurler ‘19 offered that Human Resources “should know that international students have this regulation...and with the time clock system, it’s very easy to follow hours...if [TimeClock Plus] is not allowing me to clock-in without getting my location, then they can also put a system in the app to...prevent us from clocking in [if we are close to reaching our hour limit].”

Students also commented that faculty and staff knew too little about international student circumstances, needs, and immigration laws.

In response, the office is undergoing administrative changes and altering its operations to better support international students. First and foremost, rather than reporting to the Dean Rusk International Students Program, the office now reports directly to Byron McCrae, the Dean of Students.

Bea Cornett, former international student advisor, resigned from her position earlier this year, returning to her own graduate studies.

Susan Hatchett is now serving as an interim advisor and, according to Dean McCrae, “has served as an International Exchange Coordinator with a nonprofit organization that places international high school students with American host families. She has also worked with the Center for International Education at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California.”

According to Carol Sandke, the Administrative Assistant of the International Student Office, staff members are receiving training on the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System. “We know this is a concern of the students, and we are doing our best to keep up with things,” she commented.

Sandke then addressed that “[the] office is fully aware that communication was not ideal, and we are going to great lengths to be sure that we respond to students in a timely man-

ner.” She also stated that immigration attorney Will Hummel ‘06 “will be coming on campus... to have an info session with students on CPT and OPT.”

“One of our priorities for the new director of the international program is for [him/her] to be an expert in [immigration laws]...”

Byron McCrae Dean of Students Additionally, former Davidson parent Carlos Alvarez recently donated $8.4 million to further support international students, on top of the scholarship program that he and his wife

have sponsored since 2010. As McCrae expressed, the grant “will work to directly assist [three categories of international students--] international students with financial needs... students beyond college, [and] part of the grant is for all international students.”

McCrae added that the “Alvarez grant will allow us to hire a full-time position in the career center. The Alvarez grant will help us fill a director position [and] transform [the international student advisor] into an assistant director and have an entirely new position...

One of our priorities for the new director of the international program is for [him/her] to be an expert in [immigration laws]...”

The office is committing itself to various changes with, as McCrae affirmed, “a shared desire to provide international students with more experiences, more opportunities.” Bravo pointed out that here is still much to consider, including international student financial aid “not taking into account exchange rate.”

3

September 19, 2018

Sabra Debate Endures Online CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Anabtawi connected deeply to the goal of the petition.

“As someone from Palestine, when I see Sabra Hummus, I think of the on-going oppression and feel anger and frustration,” says Anabtawi. “I understand that the boycott at Davidson isn’t going to make a large economic impact on Sabra, but it’s important for the college to listen and care for what the students want to rally behind.”

For Anabtawi, the biggest challenge in getting Sabra products off of Davidson shelves may be properly conveying the meaning of the boycott. “This isn’t a petition against Jewish people, this is petition against a product [and] company that’s actively taking part in human rights violation,” asserts Anabtawi. “Hating the Israeli government/illegal occupation does not mean hating all Israelis.”

The Davidson petition was not the first of its kind. Similar Sabra boycotts have occurred at Princeton, Swarthmore, DePaul, and UC Riverside, among others. This wave of boycotts are part of the wider pro-Palestinian BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement.

According to Dr. Jonathan Berkey, who specializes in Middle Eastern history, “BDS is about boycotting Israeli products and institutions and divesting from enterprises associated with the state of Israel.” Despite the seemingly anti-Israeli stance, it is not unheard of for Israelis to participate in BDS activities in the name of human rights.

“There are Jews and Jewish organizations

who consider themselves to be very supportive of Israel, but who oppose particular Israeli policies and who would be willing to participate in certain BDS boycotts,” explained Berkey.

That being said, Hillel, Davidson’s Jewish religious organization, felt challenged enough to email Jewish students on campus to convene and discuss what actions were to be taken.

They decided to draft an officially non-Hillel affiliated letter with signatures from both Jewish and non-Jewish students. Simon Lowen ‘19, Co-president of Hillel, said that “in [his] opinion, the response was a letter, not a petition, as it was simply stating the importance of dialogue and that multiple perspectives exist.

Not a signature war.”

For Lowen, the accusational wording of the Sabra petition could ostracize students who disagree. Lowen clarifies that “[his] issue with the petition was the line ‘do you believe in human rights?’ because there are multiple ways to think about this issue, and not supporting BDS is not necessarily indicative of not believing in human rights nor a lack of care for Palestinians.”

Lowen does not dismiss the petition as a bad idea; it is just something he does not want to sign. “I’m not going to say that people’s feelings don’t matter, and I don’t know the logistics of changing hummus suppliers,” he explained.

“I just don’t feel comfortable participating either way in this particular argument.”

Lowen added, “There is oppression going on, and if the situation in Israel keeps going on, it may very well start looking like apartheid. Just make sure when you sign something,

Students Question Legacy CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 legacy preference and alumni donation is “remarkably thin,” according to Richard D. Kahlenberg in his 2010 book Affirmative Action for the Rich.

A study detailed in the same book found that, controlling for endowment size, schools with legacy preference receive on average no greater amount of alumni donations. The study also noted that schools without legacy preference in recent years have so far seen “no short term measurable reduction in alumni giving.” Of the world’s top ten schools, four — Caltech, UC Berkeley, Cambridge, and Oxford — do not employ legacy preference.

Other arguments in favor of legacy preference cite the intangible ways in which it builds community.

“Family is important at Davidson,” said Gruber in the same email.

Ultimately, Tayloe believes the burden of proof for the merit of legacy preference is on the Office of Admissions and the Board of Trustees. “If they want to keep it, they should have to prove how it helps the school,” said Tayloe.

Maia Harrell ‘20 is one of a handful of African-American legacy students currently at Davidson. She thinks legacy should be considered in a student’s application, but only as a minor factor.

Harrell is in her second year as a hall counselor. She thinks being a legacy can actually improve a student’s first year college experience.

“Those particular students were more prepared for Davidson than their non-legacy counterparts,” said Harrell.

Harrell’s mother, Janet Stovall, graduated

from Davidson in 1985. Stovall understands the ways legacy preference can hurt students of color. However, she also thinks that the practice can help them feel more included in an unfamiliar environment.

“Most traditionally underrepresented groups are just a few generations in on college, with little entrenchment in spaces such as Davidson,” said Stovall in an email. “In light of this, who could be better equipped than a legacy to navigate such spaces? If legacy admissions could evolve from perpetuating exclusion to advancing inclusion, then I can see a place for them.”

Right now, Just Admissions is working on a student petition calling for Davidson to become legacy blind. If the petition and a subsequent referendum get enough support, the Board of Trustees will be required to issue a response.

Tayloe noted that such a major policy change will likely have to be supported by either the Office of Admissions or the college President before being approved by the Board.

Tayloe and Bainum both emphasized that ending legacy preference does not mean legacy students cannot come to Davidson.

“Something I’ve heard as justification for [legacy preference] is that ‘if you’re raised by somebody who went to our school, you were taught these values that are important to our school,’” said Bainum. “A person who is a legacy is going to have these values regardless. That would come through, hopefully, if the application is doing its job.”

Please visit our website, davidsonian.com, for a complete list of sources.

you do your research and know exactly what you are agreeing with. Israel gets a lot of negative press, and some of that is warranted and some of that is not.”

“There are Jews and Jewish organizations who consider themselves to be very supportive of Israel, but who oppose particular Israeli products and who would be willing to participate in certain BDS boycotts.”

Dr. Jonathan Berkey History Department Other students found issue not only with the wording of the petition but also the tenuous connection between Sabra and the Golani Brigade. This includes David Samburg ‘20, who left a sharply written reply on the Facebook post and signed the anti-boycott letter. Unlike Lowen and some of the other contributors to the letter, Samburg took offense to the very idea of the Sabra petition, along with what he saw as poor research and deceptive wording. “[The petition asserts], without any basis

in fact or reason, that the Strauss Group ‘invests in [and] financially supports’ the Golani Brigade,” pointed out Samberg. “The original [Davidson] petition mentioned food ‘aid,’ which turned out to be snacks sent nearly a decade ago.”

There is also debate over whether the Golan Heights are related to Palestinian oppression at all, an issue stemming from the complex history of the area. “The Golani Brigade is currently in the north of Israel, training to protect its northern border with Syria… that unit is stationed more than thirty miles north of the nearest Palestinian land,” said Samburg.

As of now, the official statement from the college regarding the sale of Sabra products on campus is that “Dining Services listens carefully to all student feedback. We work hard to align our offerings with the values of the college and the student body. However, our priority is and will always be delivering safe, nutritious food to our students.” With that in mind, it remains in question whether the proposed Sabra boycott will ever come into effect.

Despite this, Anabtawi is already pleased with what the conversation itself has done.

Anabtawi explained, “Most of my friends don’t buy Sabra products, not because I spend my every waking hour lobbying against it, but because they’ve done their research about the company and its involvement with human rights violations.”

Crime Log Time Reported

Description/Location

09/08/18 at 0324 hrs

Poss. of Fraudulent ID Armfield, Inactive

09/09/18 at 0846 hrs

Injury to Real Property

09/09/18 at 1935 hrs

Larceny Misdemeanor

09/14/18 at 1111 hrs

Injury to Real Property

09/14/18 at 0001 hrs

Underage Consumption

09/14/18 at 2115 hrs

Underage Consumption x37

09/14/18 at 2145 hrs

Underage Consumption

09/15/18 at 0015 hrs

Underage Consumption

SAE, Inactive

Martin Court, Further Investigation

SPE, Further Investigation

Chidsey South, Dean Referral

Chidsey North, Dean Referral

Cannon, Dean Referral

Chidsey North, Dean Referral

Perspectives Sharing Space

LANGLEY HOYT ‘19 The houses that have been in Enderly Park for many years are separated, if at all, by chain-link fences. These fences are good for growing flowers or tomato plants, and they are open in a way that allows neighbors to reach across and speak to each other. The newly flipped houses, though, stick out from the older ones. They are painted bright pastels that don’t fit in with the shady, rolling streets and often-occupied front porches. Typically, these new houses have been bought for less than they’re worth and re-sold at inflated prices.

The newest neighbors are safely hidden away from the rest of the neighborhood with tall, wooden fences that are hard to see over. There will be no tomatoes growing here, just high rent prices.

This summer, I was a Stapleton-Davidson intern. I worked at QC Family Tree, a nonprofit that is run out of a home in Enderly Park.

The Family Tree is many things: a house in a tightly-knit neighborhood in West Charlotte, an urban garden, home to a summer youth program, the location of front-porch community meals, and a nonprofit that owns housing in the neighborhood to maintain affordable rent prices for people who might otherwise be pushed out by gentrification. Throughout the summer, I saw how this neighborhood—under-resourced and predominantly black—was over-policed, and heard about the ways the newer neighbors used concerns about “safety” and “making the neighborhood nicer” to call the police on their neighbors for a slew of unnecessary reasons.

So many people believe they have some sort of ownership over common spaces. If someone different from them invades that space, they justify acts of violence to keep others out of a space that there is no need to be dominating in the first place. This chokes out opportunity for community growth. In Enderly Park, most people value and share common spaces, and can solve problems within themselves without calling the police

and unnecessarily raising the stakes of the situation. If someone does not have enough to pay the rent that month, people pool together their resources as best as they can to keep each other afloat. Though life isn’t easy, as humans walking this earth together, we have what it takes to take care of each other. Taking care of each other involves seeing every person’s value and deservingness (no exceptions), rather than seeing your neighbor as a stranger invading a space you have decided they don’t deserve to inhabit.

Coming back to Davidson, I have been re-evaluating the spaces I place myself in and how I place myself there. How many of us feel like we have ownership over specific places on campus, constructing our cookie-cutter fences that keep others out? Davidson has taught me so well how to own my space, prove that I know what I’m talking about, and get things done, that this summer I had to re-learn how to slow down, get quiet, and just listen. Whose voices am I overshadowing? Whose existence am I policing? And, how can we step outside of our private, fenced-in worlds to take care of each other? These are questions I am asking myself, and I certainly don’t have all the answers.

What I know is that we have what it takes to take care of each other. Every human being has inherent worthiness—of love, of having their voice heard as legitimate, of grace given after making a mistake, of security, of getting the help they need. As the semester gears back up, I hope we can remember the deservingness each of us holds to be here, and that every other person on this campus should feel that same deservingness. By paying attention to the spaces we are taking up, we can avoid taking over. We have what it takes to maintain space for each other to grow, starting as we are, together.

Langley Hoyt ‘19 is a Psychology major from Greenville, South Carolina. Contact her at lahoyt@davidson.edu

The

Davidsonian Staff

Editors in Chief News Editors Perspectives Editor Arts and Culture Editor Sports Editor Photography Editor Yowl Editors Design Editor Web Editor Art Editor Copy Editors

Laura Dunnagan ‘19, Olivia Daniels ‘19 AJ Naddaff ‘19, Emma Pettit ‘20 Kayla Edwards ‘20 Lucas Weals ‘19 Sam Thomas ‘20 Elayna Daniels ‘21 EJ Kelley ‘20, Katie Walsh ‘20 Sebastian Sola-Sole ‘21 Hope Anderson ‘22 Richard Farrell ‘22 Sarah Austin ‘21, Lindy Bustabad ‘21, Susannah Cate ‘20, Yashi Gunawardena ‘19

4

We Create Culture ALYSSA TIRRELL ‘22 The reports of suspected drink tampering escalated on Saturday, September 8th with the closure of Patterson Court. Throughout that evening, sitting in the lounge with my hallmates, the instances were a main point of conversation. As first years, our limited knowledge of the culture of Davidson, combined with the limited amount of official information regarding the incidents, resulted in fairly circular conversation.

People began by trading rumors: things they had heard from friends or upperclassmen about what had happened in the past, what was happening now, and what might happen next.

The biggest concern, the point around which every conversation seemed to circle, was the question of Davidson culture: how would this affect our community and our ability to trust each other?

“I’m concerned,” a friend said, “because I have female friends. I would never want anything like this to happen to them.”

We all agreed. This was a familiar perspective in our conversation, and I was glad to know that someone empathized with the disproportionate risk that the situation posed to women and non-cisgender people. The more I considered his point, however, I wondered if this mindset was indicative of our way of tackling issues which seem to primarily affect a single demographic. I appreciate my friend’s willingness to support and sympathize with something he believes does not personally concern him, but I would argue that it does and should personally concern him. It should concern all of us, in an almost selfish way, not simply as people who have friends at risk.

Sitting in our lounge discussing “the Davidson culture,” I doubt that many of us were picturing the effects of the situation on a culture decades in the future. We were imagining our own friends, our own relationships, and our own ways of interacting socially, which we wanted to protect. Community is personal to each of us and therefore what affects our com-

munity is personal to each of us as well.

Our concern as individuals, for our own sake as much as anyone else’s, makes all the difference in how we approach this difficult situation and the action we take against it. We should not be invested in the issue of drink tampering only for the sake of others; we should be invested because the issues of the community are the concern of every individual regardless of who is seemingly directly affected.

The biggest concern, the point around which every conversation seemed to circle, was the question of Davidson culture: how would this affect our community and our ability to trust each other?

This concept of individual investment goes beyond the single subject of drink tampering which tempts us to divide ourselves by gender.

As the novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie stated in a TedTalk titled “We Should All be Feminists”, “Culture does not create people; people create culture.” Each of us experiences our own challenges, whether they be based in race, class, gender, sexual orientation, or any other kind of inequality, and these struggles are deeply connected to our community’s culture.

However, we don’t just create culture through our struggles, but through our reaction to them. We can begin to create a different culture if we practice changing our sympathy-based conversations into conversations in which we take these issues personally and see them as intersecting. The way we acknowledge the relationship between the struggles of others and our own well-being will create the culture we want to see.

Alyssa Tirrell ‘22 is an undeclared student from Atlanta, Georgia. Contact her at altirrell@davidson.edu

Sports

5

Football Slams Guilford 91-61

D

SAM THOMAS ‘20 SPORTS EDITOR

avidson Football had a field day against Guilford this past Saturday night. After putting up a whopping score of 91-61, the ‘Cats certainly put defenses around the entire nation on notice. A season ago, the men’s basketball team only put up 91 points a total of five times. It was a feat for the ages as the ‘Cats broke just about every offensive record in the program’s and many of the records in the Pioneer League’s history.

After throwing the ball just eight times, all of which were completed, the ‘Cats recorded three touchdowns. Each of these touchdowns went for over seventy yards, with the exclamation point being an eighty-four yard catch-and-run from Tyler Phelps ‘21 to Hunter Louthan ‘20 that stretched the lead to 30 in the

first half.

After that, the ‘Cats had their way on the ground by putting up an FCS record 685 rushing yards on fifty-four carries, which is good for over twelve yards per carry. An astounding six different players recorded rushing touchdowns with Wesley Dugger ‘21 individually putting up 186 yards and three touchdowns on fourteen carries.

To cap it all off, defensive end Corey Coppola ‘19 was awarded with the Pioneer League special teams player of the week for blocking field goal and returning it 78 yards for his first career touchdown in his career as a Wildcat.

The ‘Cats play at Dayton this next week where they look to bring the same intensity that they’ve shown all year and to hopefully rival the already incredible performances that It wasn’t a basketball score! Davidson football received national attention for their offenthey’ve put up this season so far. They return home on October 6th when they play Jackson- sive performance this past weekend when they put up a whopping 91 points in their victory against Guilford. Illustration by Richard Farrell ‘22 ville at Richardson Stadium.

A-10 Awaits Men’s and Women’s Soccer

D

DREW EASTLAND ‘21 SPORTS WRITER

efense has been the focus for the men’s soccer team.

Through five games they have only allowed four goals.

While the team’s back line has been solid, the offensive needs some fine tuning before the final season push in October.

“I would like us to execute better on the offensive side,” Jordan Hill ’19 said. “We’ve had multiple chances.”

The team hopes to have a strong Atlantic 10 showing and carry that momentum into the A-10 tournament. If they can win that tournament, they can qualify for the NCAA tournament.

Last year three A-10 teams qualified for the tournament; making a postseason run is a real possibility for the Wildcats.

The first-year athletes on the men’s soccer team have also shown flashes of potential this season. Mateo Alzate ’22 has played in almost every game and is having a monster season.

First-years Henry Howell ’22 has had strong defensive showings, and Jackson Bracy ’22 scored a game winner. “You just never know who’s going to be ready,” said Head Coach Matt Spear. “The pleasant surprise is the freshman.”

The men’s team also is motivated by former player, Coleman Richards ‘19, who was forced to leave the team after multiple concussions last year. “[It] was always my goal to get back out there,” Richards said. “Once I came back home from the summer and was distanced from the program it’s kind of became clear…I made the decision to stop playing.” He describes staying with the team as extremely difficult, but something he felt obligated to finish out. “It’s been harder honestly, being around especially…our first game this season, just watching the guys lace up their boots, that was the hardest part,” Richards said. “At that moment it was more clear than it’s ever been even since making the decision.”

Davidson soccer prides itself on playing marquee matchups each season. This year they have already faced No. 3 UNC and still have matches with No 1. Wake Forest and Virginia Tech. “I want to continue that tradition of playing a hard schedule with exciting matchups…it’s all about the guys,” Spear commented.

“If we lose those games, fair enough…but if we win, it’s something they can hang their hat on.”

In the A-10, teams play twice a week with a very short turnaround. The x-factor for the men’s team down the stretch will be staying healthy through the grueling A-10 schedule. “Wellness [will be key]. Last year in October we lost some key guys

to injuries,” Hill said. “It’s tough to be at our best when you don’t have…your full arsenal of players.”

On the women’s side of things, the season has been defined by a myriad of injuries. The team has sustained nine in total.

Despite the setbacks, players are adamant that they can bounce back. “Concussions have been a major thing for our team so far,” Alexis Pheng ’20 said. “When the injured players come back, we will have a stronger team.”

On senior night, only two of seven total seniors were able to play due to injuries and concussions. Some of the concussions have led to a few girls stepping away from the game. One such player, Shannon Ballard ’19, talked about stepping away from the game. “The toughest thing was stepping away from the sport,” Ballard said. “It was never in my mind that I would not be on the team in some form or capacity.”

The team is currently on a four-game losing streak, and players are focused on ways to improve second half play. Players highlighted strong starts, but a lack of consistency throughout the game. “Recently we haven’t won as many games as we wanted to,” Katherine Smith ’21 commented. “We’re trying to change our mentality to stay focused the whole game.”

Some of those goals for improving second half play include getting one shot on goal, winning the first tackle, and establishing possession. The team wants to play a possession style of soccer where they can dictate the pace. If the team can execute their game plan more often that should translate to more wins.

“We always talk about trying to play our own brand on soccer,” Pheng remarked. “When we execute that successfully, we should expect to win.” Attention to detail has also been a point of emphasis. The little mistakes that each player makes lead to conceding goals and limited goal scoring opportunities. “We need to learn how to finish our shots,” Smith said. “We make a lot of careless mistakes [we need] to clean up those mistakes and keep everything tight.”

The team will start A-10 play next week. In their first two conference games, the team will face La Salle and St. Louis.

Those teams are regarded as two of the toughest foes in the conference. “If we can handle that challenge, it will prepare us for the rest of the season,” Pheng said. “I think it’s good that we start out against those top two teams.”

Forward Quinn Dudek ‘21 takes on No. 3 UNC on the evening of September 11th; UNC triumphed 0-1.

Photo by Olivia Forrester ‘22

Words of Wisdom

Weekly Sports Update

In what ways do you look to get the most out of yourself as a coach?

“I always ask myself, ‘What can I do to help my athletes perform better?

What do they need from me at this moment? If our team has a poor performance, what areas am I responsible for improving?”

Chris Willis, Head Coach, Volleyball

Wildcat Standings: Soccer (W) Team St. Joseph’s La Salle Saint Louis UMass VCU George Mason Dayton GW Duquesne Fordham Davidson St. Bonaventure Rhode Island Richmond

W 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 3 2 0 0 0

L 2 1 3 2 2 3 3 3 3 5 5 5 8 8

T 2 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 4 0 0

Pct. .667 .786 .611 .714 .714 .625 .563 .563 .571 .374 .286 .222 0 0

Arts and Culture

6

Science in the Soul, Humanities in the Heart EMILY SIROTA ‘20 HUMANITIES CORRESPONDENT Between which of the thee billion base pairs of our DNA can we locate the concept of “race”?

The following is about the necessity of keeping science in the humanities and humanity in the sciences. ast Thursday in the Hance Auditorium in Chambers, Professor Garry Bertholf of the English and Africana Studies departments shared his latest research in a lecture entitled The Biopolitics of Race and the Post-Genomic Turn to Caste.

We learned that in 2005 the FDA released BiDil, the first race-specific drug known to treat heart failure in black patients. Bertholf showed his audience how drug companies often fixate on race-specific treatments, and thereby “incorporate assumptions of racial difference at the genetic level” in order to “reinforce existing medical stereotypes.”

In his lecture Bertholf draws original connections on race-based biotechnology as a biopolitical strategy. We learned how “the federal government has legitimated the use of race as a marker for biological difference.”

Bertholf explained that in approving BiDil as a drug for only black patients, the FDA also presumed that so-called “race”-based biotechnologies worked only for specific races. (BiDil’s clinical trial only involved self-identified black patients; no self-identified white patients were involved.) Meanwhile, most FDA-approved drugs available today have been approved based solely on race-specific clinical trials in white patients. The FDA has tacitly assumed the universality of “whiteness” which, in this context, comes to be seen as an index

L

for what it means, at least biologically, to be “human.”

BiDil is one of many instances of racialized science throughout history. Bertholf mentioned Stephen J. Gould’s work Mismeasure of Man, which outlines a history of horrifying studies once classified as accurate and influential science—after all, what is science but a series of revolutions?

White polygenistic scientists in the 1800s once claimed that persons of color existed as alternate forms of life. One such scientist, Dr. Samuel Morton, turned to the study of skulls, a practice known as craniometry, to classify races based on the average size of their brains.

Bertholf pointed out this theme in pop culture today—tactics of craniometry and phrenology appear prominently in Quentin Tarantino’s film Django Unchained.

Bertholf reminds us of the time doctors examined patients’ lungs using a spirometer device equipped with a “race-correction button” for people of color. In his research Bertholf asks, “What exactly is coded in that button?”

“Those who know me,” said Bertholf, “know that I am a stickler for etymology.”

He pointed out that at first race “appears obvious” and “in need of no special knowledge to analyze.” The idea of race as a biomedical construct is controversial. “Race,” said Bertholf, “shapes our idea of what it means to be human.”

This is a story of a racialized language used to divide humanness at the genetic and linguistic levels. Bertholf prompted us to consider basic definitions of terms such as “race” and “biotechnology.” What is “race” if, biologically, we are not all that different?

Bertholf cited American anthropologist Jonathan Marks, whose What It Means to Be 98% Chimpanzee concludes that genetic data

undermines race. Marks explains how biological difference is measured in the proportion of differences in loci, or positions of genes on the chromosome: by these criteria, it turns out that humans are not that different from each other.

Bertholf next asked us to consider what it means to be black. The Human Genome Project proved that the most genetic diversity was inside of the African continent—there are more genetic similarities between people in a single African country and people in non-African country than there are between two people from different African countries. Is “race” then contingent on “African descent?” Is race defined by differences in skin color?

Some definitions, as Bertholf points out, become a way of paraphrasing much larger and more complex ideas. Bertholf proposed three ways in which biologized race masks the problem of pathologized blackness and medical discrimination. He calls these the language(s) of “unintelligibility,” “particularity” and “ambiguity”; these grammars coalesce into a single, aestheticised language employed to “stupify consumers.”

“Science is fundamental in shaping racial and social theories just as racial theories shape science,” said Bertholf. The problem lies not in your genome, skull size, or lung capacity, but rather in health inequality and one’s socioeconomic status. Biology research heavily outnumbers research on the social determinants of health. Bertholf’s current project incorporates work on health disparities and economic inequality in the United States, India, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates.

Dr. Kevin Smith of the Biology Department attended Bertholf’s lecture. In his course on Biodiversity and Conservation, Smith reminded his own students,“Do not believe the ideal goal that science is objective and bias-free.

Just because it is an ideal does not mean it is true. Pretending that our ideals are truth is where we often get into trouble.”

Aspiring doctors in the audience, such as Jesus Ibarra ‘20 asked what we can do about these apparently intractable issues. Uyen Nguyen ‘20 asked, “Are there any ways that we can incorporate humanities in science? It’s important that our future doctors and scientists recognize the subjectivity of their discipline and the realities of race.” Questions like these highlight the importance of interdisciplinary work, a key focus of Bertholf’s lecture.

We hear a cry for interdisciplinary action —that we possess science in our souls, but embrace the humanities in our hearts. Bertholf encourages us to take courses which highlight outsider perspectives. We might consider his own African American literature course, which voices those expunged from the literary canon and highlights literary voices that respond to historical debates about race science. Consider courses such as Dr. David Wessner’s intro BIO 111, where students read the story of Henrietta Lacks and learn biology alongside an often overlooked sociocultural perspective. Consider Dr. Mark Sample’s Gender and Technology Digital Studies course, where students grapple with the threats of “toxic tech” and biased algorithms from POC, feminist, and queer perspectives.

Ask yourself: what perspectives are included in your course syllabi? “In the humanities,” Bertholf claimed, “we may not know all of the answers, but we ask the right kinds of questions.”

Emily Sirota ‘20 is a Biology major from Mamaroneck, NY. She can be reached for comment at emsirota@davidson.edu.

“Gobsmacked”: A History of Darts, in Miniature THOMAS WADDILL ‘19 SPORTS & LEISURE CORRESPONDENT Ever since Summit Outpost hung a dartboard on their wall, I’ve become completel obsessed with the game of darts. I reached out to Thomas Waddill ‘19, a fellow enthusiast, in the hopes that he could research the history of the game and explain our mutual fascination. The following is, to the best of our knowledge (and despite all evidence to the contrary), completely factual.

—Lucas Weals, Arts and Culture Editor

B

elieve it or not, the game of darts had, at one point, a “voice.” English sports commentator Sid Waddell (19402012)—relation to yr. writer uncertain but hopeful—was dubbed the “Voice of Darts” in his nearly 20-year run at the BBC. He was known for one-liners that are funny, it seems, because of their grandiosity (e.g., “It’s the greatest comeback since Lazarus!” and “When Alexander of Macedonia was 33, he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer… Bristow’s only 27!” [a click on the hyperlinked “Bristow” takes you to the Wikipedia page for the late professional darter Eric John Bristow, nicknamed “The Crafty Cockney,” a five-time World Champion, five-time World Masters Championship, and a four-time World Cup singles champion who dropped out of school at 14 to play darts]).

Waddell’s penchant for myth and history, combined with the ostensible banality of darts, is often what makes his jokes funny—after all, the competitors at, say, the World Darts Championship, who shuffle up to a line on the

ground to fling a 23-gram piece of sharpened brass at a cylinder of segmented cork 68 inches away, tend to look at lot more like Bartolo Colón than Alexander the Great. But, like Colón, they work magic with whatever tendons and ligaments involve the minutely accurate placement of objects at a target at absurd speeds.

So, on the one hand, the central comedy of Waddell’s commentary—the proffering of greatness to something small and ostensibly non-great—wouldn’t work if we didn’t view darts as essentially meaningless and menial.

On the other hand, Waddell, like the competitors whose competition Waddell narrates, basically dedicated his life to the sport, with a zeal as sincere and entertaining as Harry Carrey’s for baseball. Just listen to (or read) Waddell’s on-air reaction to Raymond van Barneveld’s 9-dart finish against Denis Ovens at the 2010 PDC World Darts Championship, where Waddell, voice cracking in ecstasy, screams into his mic, “HE DID IT – HE DID IT – I DO NOT. KNOW. WHAT TO SAY. I’M GOBSMACKED – I’M GOBSMACKED – HE’S DONE IT – I’M GOBSMAAACKED!!” So not for nothing did the PDC decide to rename their World Darts Championship trophy the Sid Waddell trophy in 2013 after his bowel cancer killed him in 2012. Waddell lived in darts and he is remembered in darts.

Waddell’s knowledge of Western history in his commentary came from his degree in Modern History from Cambridge. My knowledge of darts history in this article comes from dartsinfoworld.com, which is full of facts (hopefully) about the frankly surreal history of the sport. For example: one section describes the transition of the game from one of blowing to one of throwing. Apparently, a game called “Puff and Dart” originated in 1844, where

darts would were fired at the board through use of a blowpipe. However, it wasn’t long until a London blower accidentally sucked the dart into his esophagus (bullseye!), which made its way down to his digestive system. He died a couple days later. When the Puff and Dart was banned shortly thereafter, blowpipes were thrown out in favor of the wrist and the game became what it is today.

Or take the section that describes how darts won legitimacy in the eyes of the British legislature after it was briefly banned (again): Talking of public houses. [sic] In the early 1900’s, legislation prohibited “games of chance” in public houses, and the game of darts was considered to fall in this category. In 1908, a pub owner from Leeds, Yorkshire, by the name of Foot Anakin was taken to court for allowing people to play darts in his establishment. He decided to challenge this ruling, and offered to prove that darts was not a “game of chance”, but a “game of skill”. [sic] A dartboard was set up in court and Foot Anakin proved his skill by throwing 3 darts in the number 20. He then challenged any court official to do the same.

One of the court clerks decided to take up the challenge and failed. The judge then ruled that darts was in fact a “game of skill” and dismissed the case.

Just a quick recap in case you skipped that: a defendant named Foot Anakin set up a dart board in an English court of law and nailed the 20 three times to prove a mathematical/athletic/legal point, and the judge dismissed the case. But maybe what’s best about the “History” tab of this website is the fact that there are separate sections for “Interesting Facts,” for which, it seems, the Foot Anakin story doesn’t

qualify. I’ll let you explore those.

I’m only scratching the surface. What is it about this game—ahem, sport—that has given rise to not only a raucous history but also a vibrant and active present culture (tickets for this December’s PDC World Darts Championship at Alexandra Hill in London are nearly sold out), where men and women give their lives to the sport and travel the world to compete? Where an impoverished young ceramic toilet-handle maker could, by sheer fate, get taken under the wing of the greatest dart player in the world, only to eventually eclipse him, apotheosizing himself into myth (which look up Phil “The Power” Taylor)?

I don’t know. What I do know is that the best way I can think of describing the game is that it’s entrancing. Three weeks ago, my housemate’s Dad’s dartboard arrived in the mail. We nailed a 4x4 piece of plywood to our living room wall and hung the board in the center of it, this red and green and black map of the Ptolemaic universe. The thing has taken hours from me—when I’m at home, alone, trying to do homework, I can’t seem to resist getting up every thirty minutes or so and flinging four or five rounds, in vain, at the bullseye.

But more and more often, it’s been hitting that central pinprick of red cork, and I’ll yell out in triumph to an empty house. And then I go again. And again.

Throwing a dart is sort of like praying, and hitting the bullseye is like receiving, against all odds, a response. For a moment, I am Nolan Ryan in miniature; I am The Crafty Cockney. And I sort of get it. I’m sort of, for a moment, gobsmacked.

Thomas Waddill ‘19 is an English major from Beaumont, TX. He can be reached for comment at thwaddill@davidson.edu.

Et Cetera

7

BLOWOUT

The [Sometimes] Weekly Judge

BY VIC FLEMING ‘73 Across 1 Grow dimmer 5 Free pass, informally 9 ___ Coppola (his 3 blocked kicks in a Sept. 13 football game tied a 19-year-old record) 14 “___ U” 15 Not tricked by 16 “You ___ big time!”

17 13 TDs, including 13 conversions 20 Heavy, as fog 21 Like hard bread 22 Nestle ___-Caps 23 Foot with fur 26 Agitated 30 Japanese soybean paste 31 One fifth of MMV 32 ___ Turner Jr. (he, Tyler Phelps, Hunter Louthan, James Story and Kendahl Ross, each scored 1 TD in the game) 33 With 46-Across, team that scored 17-Across in the game, breaking a 97-year-old record 37 The ___ Circle 39 Midterm or final 40 Homer’s outburst 42 City on the Ural 43 Autograph signers, for short 46 See 33-Across 49 The Cavs, on scoreboards 50 Org. that battled the Luftwaffe 52 Scallion cousin 53 Fred of “Top Hat” 55 Online chuckle

56 Pro vote 59 ___ dish (lab container) 61 With 57-Down, 33-Across’s record-breaking 964 in the game 63 Team from Greensboro that yielded 17-Across in the game 68 Make void, as a marriage 69 Notes from the shy?

70 Unisex designer Gernreich 71 Another name for hopscotch 72 ___ gin fizz 73 Cathedral area Down 1 Locates 2 Visitor from afar 3 “I ___!” (“Search me!”)

4 Holiday preceders 5 ___ Williams (he scored 2 TDs in the game) 6 BNL’s “Be My Yoko ___” 7 Asheville’s Smokies (abbr.)

8 Kind of justice 9 Autumn sign, maybe 10 Kiddies’ boo-boos 11 Stimpy’s TV buddy 12 Accident victim helper, for short 13 Pro vote 18 Mild 19 Bearlike bamboo eater 24 Beast of the Bible 25 Lumber 27 Colorful tropical fish 28 Group mailing aid

Maya Tetali ‘21 The most noticeable thing about my style is that I tend to wear leopard print as a neutral. That being said, I wholly ascribe to a maximalist style sense. I often go big and bold. I am unafraid to play with color and prints. I am attracted to fun patterns and dynamic silhouettes.

I like to have fun with my style, and it is often a direct reflection of personality and mood that day. I am not loyal to one specific brand or store. I often shop around and see what pieces catch my eye.

Day 1

Day 4

Day 2

Day 3

Day 5

29 William ___ (he and Wesley Dugger each scored 3 TDs in the game) 30 Marcel Marceau, for one 33 Bing Crosby’s record label 34 Leaps at the rink 35 Parker outside a restaurant, say 36 “Right this instant!”

38 ___ of the walk 41 Harrison ___ (his 8 tackles in the game led 33-Across’s defense) 44 Using few words 45 Italian artist Andrea del ___ 47 Summer sign 48 Silt deposit

51 Kind of wheel 54 Top mark 56 Showed great enthusiasm for 57 See 61-Across 58 Ad bovine 60 Hero 62 Creole vegetable 63 Unbridged area 64 Card game brand 65 Bank acct. earnings 66 Quid pro ___ 67 Waste not

The

Yowl

Irreverent student journalism since 2004. Castigat Ridendo Mores.

inside

davidsunian.com Oboe-Playing Hipsters Respond to “I Love Union” with Acoustic Melody Declaring Their Loyalty to Nummit Page 12

Volume 3, Issue 116

September 19, 2018

Mestizo Employees Also Hate it There, New Study Finds Page 56

Uninformed Parent Still Thinks “Florence + The Machine” Coming to Davidson Page ∞

Students Certain Class Cancellation More Important Than Humanitarian Aid for Decimated Communities Page 2

Intimidated by Onslaught of Farcical Facebook Events, Florence Makes Detour Around Area College Page -12

Breaking: MBTI Matches Reveal Freshmen Don’t Hate Their Roommates, They Just Hate Themselves

McKnight (left) and hipster roommate, Aberden, have bonded, finally, over their love of porn!

Tragic: Abroad Junior Having Time of Life Will Be Living in Akers Maintenance Closet in Four Months LONDON — Having the absolute time of her life while spending a semester abroad in the UK studying the history, art, and culture of the country, Jessica Moore ’20 is reportedly completely unaware of the fact that she will be living in a five cubic-meter maintenance closet in Akers Hall in exactly four months.

According to eyewitnesses who confirmed seeing Moore taking a blissful midday stroll through Hyde Park on Monday, the third-year History and Political Science double major appeared to be in quite a chipper mood, wholly ignorant of the inhumane living quarters she will be forced to occupy once she returns to campus in the spring.

Exponentially increasing class sizes over the past few years have created chaos for the college’s housing system and as a result, RLO resources have been stretched thin, forcing the department to provide less than ideal accommodations to many juniors returning from abroad.

RLO Director Shason Jaffer confirmed in a statement

that many of these accommodations will violate local fire codes, baseline standards of human decency, Davidson’s commitment to student wellbeing, and several United Nations Human Rights Accords.

“As we simply lack the number of beds to house all the students returning from abroad, we are forced to place students in non-traditional living arrangements,” remarked Jaffer. “Some of these alternative housing options will include converted study lounges, Lake Campus lean-tos, the Nomadic Mobike Living Experience, and of course Akers maintenance closets.”

Documents obtained by The Yowl indicate that Moore will be isolated in her 1x2x2.5m Akers closet, while three of her friends will be among the 38 students assigned to the Sparrow’s Nest.

“At least she’ll be close to the bathroom,” commented Shaffer when asked about Moore’s particularly horrid rooming assignment. “Plus she’ll always have the vacuum in her room!”

DAVIDSON COLLEGE — In a school defined by its insecure student body, recent freshman reports have stated that the number one cause for roommate animosity is in fact self-hatred. Stacy Lawson ‘22, Joel McKnight ‘22 and Amber Hurts ‘22 were among the first to come forward to The Yowl to share their courageous journey to self-loathing.

Lawson admits she began the summer with excitement and confidence in the roommate pairing process that Davidson College promises. As a self-identified ENTP, she states her personal survey was filed and finished with ease.

She was “deeply startled” when her roommate “emailed me within minutes of our assignment, I wasn’t given any time to read the original email from RLO. It instantly set up a dynamic that I was not prepared for. I mean who gave her the right to assert dominance over the room? That’s like, my thing.”

Lawson, McKnight, and Hurts all admit that the original set of summer emails revealed the first set of red flags that their roommates would prove to be terrible, terrible, terrible people. Hurts told The Yowl that frustration began to grow as Hurts noticed her roommate would just pile trash on top of the plastic water bottles that Hurts had stacked in there. “I couldn’t understand her inability to take out the trash. Obviously, I didn’t have the time to do it.”

McKnight expressed his concern for the his lanky roommate’s continuous playing of hipster music the likes of Mac Demarco. “It brought on all sorts of nostalgia, I didn’t like the way it made me think deeply about my past.”

All three students admit to The Yowl that they engaged in nights of endless unrest, feeling let down and disappointed in the Davidson roommate pairing.

Was Davidson testing their patience? Were they the odd freshman who didn’t have the one true pairing through the MBTI? But then the moment of enlightenment embraced them. “For me, it was during my philosophy class when I became aware of what was going on,” McKnight reveals. For Lawson and Hurts, it was in the late-night, twilight zone setting of the Union.

“It became crystal clear. I didn’t hate her quirks, her continuous complaints about procrastination, and determination to be the loudest person in the room.

I just hate myself. Davidson College had every right to pair the two of us together, because it would have been truly vile to put us with roommates who actually respect themselves and others.”

Local Scholar Stuns Rest of Class with Textually-Supported Discussion CHAMBERS 5046 — According to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation, a Davidson student has reportedly “wowed” his philosophy class with his stunning use of a textually-supported discussion point.

The astonishing event occurred last Monday in PHI 169 when current freshman Marcus Chimer humbly thrust his hand into the air to enlighten his fellow peers to something that they “might have missed” when doing last night’s reading.

Eyewitnesses say that just when they thought class discussion was reaching an end, they heard a sharp intake of breath from the left side of the discussion circle. Although Chimer

The

Yowl

had already contributed to the conversation several times that day, the students all turned eagerly toward his desk, waiting with bated breath to see what wisdom this boy genius might impart at 11:14am on a Monday.

Chimer leaned back in his chair and began gracing the class with what experts are now calling two and a half minutes of sheer intelligence, supported, of course, by the text provided for last night’s reading.

Professor Clarker, who was teaching at the time, stated: “I didn’t even think that these little sh*ts did the reading, and along comes Chimer actually citing it in class? His well-timed comment even cited some irrelevant yet still intelli-

“I don’t mind spendin’ everyday Out on your corner in the pourin’ rain” - Local Garage Band

gent outside sources! The kid somehow called upon the words of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud all in the same comment about a brief quotation from the 20-page handout I assigned! I’ll have to give him full marks for that 10% participation grade.”

“Although Chimer had already contributed to the conversation several times that day, the students all turned eagerly toward his desk, waiting with bated breath to see what wisdom this boy genius might impart at 11:14am on a Monday.”

Comments from Chimer’s fellow classmates were just as glowing. One first-year noted: “I was very intimidated by the manly way that Marcus just burst into the discussion. I wonder if his body is as strong as his intellect.”A senior remarked, “I’ve been here for four years and I’ve never heard someone use the text of the reading so deftly in a class discussion.”

The illustrious Chimer declined an interview with the YOWL, shoving his hands in his pockets and sauntering away, muttering something about needing time away from these “mere plebs.”

WRITERS

THE BOX

Malorie (of course), Copy Editor Staff Writer Sarah Austin, Max A. Million, Unnamed Area Folks

The box would like to say that just because there is a bigger box over there now doesn’t mean it is the better box. F*ck you, big box.

Note: The Yowl is a satirical supplement to The Davidsonian. Hence, nothing in it should be taken as truth. We don’t make the news, we fake the news™.