Volume 152, Issue 17

The social media app Fizz has exploded in popularity on campus, but some students are worried.

Fizz Captures Attention, Draws Criticism

Julia Gentin ’26 Senior Staff Writer

Approximately a thousand students downloaded Fizz, a college-specific social media platform that allows users to post anonymously, last Thursday, Feb. 23, amid a company-sponsored marketing blitz involving bucket hats and donuts on the app’s launch day.

In its brief existence at Amherst, the app has already sparked controversy, with some raising concerns about the prevalence of offensive content, moderation of the posts by students, and the company’s data privacy practices.

A five-minute scroll on Fizz yields posts about laundry room decorum, “Val crushes,” hopes for a snow day, social politics from

FEATURES 9

Speakers, Book Signings, Gallery

Openings: College Celebrates LitFest

Editor-in-Chief, Senior Managing Editor, and Managing Arts & Living Editors

the weekend’s activities, and a vast amount of media regarding time spent in the Science Center bathrooms.

Fizz, formerly called Buzz, was founded by Stanford dropouts

Teddy Solomon and Ashton Cofer in the summer of 2021 in order to foster campus connection during the pandemic. Its goal, Solomon said in an interview with TechCrunch, is to expand to 1,000 campuses by the end of this year.

Fizz has raised $12 million so far from investors, generating $4.5 million through its most recent funding round in June.

The app allows students to post memes, events, polls, and confessions — all anonymously.

Ona Ortiz-Gudeman ’26 said that when she was mentioned on

Anime Club: Fritz Lalley '25 profiles Anime Club, highlighting the way the club's popularity reflects the broader entry of anime into popular culture.

the app, she “thought it was funny. I automatically assumed it was one of my friends making a joke. If someone I didn’t know were to say that to me in person, I would be pretty uncomfortable, though.”

Ortiz-Gudeman added that “the veil provided by anonymity enables people to post really harmful things without fear of repercussions.”

The rise of Fizz generated unease within the Association of Amherst Students (AAS) Senate, wrote Ankit Sayed ’24, vice president, in a statement to The Student.

“Our concerns are that Fizz may be a place for inappropriate, disrespectful, and abhorrent comments about students, staff members, and sensitive topics on campus such as sexual violence,” Sayed wrote. “Anonymity turns what has always

OPINION 10

been possible with campus speech into an inevitability.”

The array of anonymous posts fall into three tabs: New, Fizzin’ (what’s trending), and Top (the most upvoted posts of the day, week and all time). Popular posts from users at the college frequently garner over 600 upvotes.

George Cahill ’26, who served as one of many Fizz ambassadors during launch day, said that he has friendly competitions with friends to see who has the most “karma,” or amount of net upvotes in response to their posts.

“Some people’s goals are to keep racking up upvotes, which feeds into potentially more controversial posts,” Cahill said. “Some people might gain more confidence from

Continued on page 2

Fizz With Caution: The Editorial Board expresses concern about the rise of Fizz, citing worries about privacy, inconsistent moderation, and nasty content.

This weekend, the college hosted LitFest, the annual literary festival featuring award-winning writers and opportunities for students to share and cultivate their writing. This year’s guest speakers included Pulitzer Prize winners Hilton Als and Tyehimba Jess, MacArthur Fellowship winner Valeria Luiselli, National Book Award finalists Ingrid Rojas Contreras and Megan O’Rourke, and Guggenheim Fellowship winner Victoria Chang.

Spoken Word Slam for Amherst

LitFest began with a tworound Spoken Word Slam in the Eighmy Powerhouse on Thursday night. The competition was hosted by Daniel Gallant from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York City and judged by four staff members. The judges rated students’ performances out of 10 points, which they wrote on a whiteboard and held up after each performance. After the two rounds, students each had a total

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ARTS&LIVING 15

White Saviors in Film: Mackenzie Dunson '25 explores the prevalence of the white savior in popular films, such as "Hidden Figures" and "Avatar."

Liam Archacki ’24, Kei Lim ’25, Madeline Lawson ’25, and Noor Rahman ’25

Students

Photo courtesy of Slate Taylor '25

News POLICE LOG

>>Feb. 21, 2023

2:17 p.m. Alumni Lot ACPD took a report of a minor motor vehicle accident.

>>Feb. 22, 2023

2:49 a.m. Charles Drew House

A CSA conducted a well-being

check on an individual sleeping in the basement of a residence hall. They were found to be visiting a resident. The matter was referred to OSA.

4:20 p.m. Clark House ACPD investigated a 911 hang-

up call. The call was confirmed to be accidental by an employee.

>>Feb. 25, 2023

9:23 p.m. Cohan Hall ACPD responded to a pre-fire alarm caused by marijuana smoke.

>>Feb. 26, 2023

12:32 a.m. Seelye Hall

ACPD, Community Safety and ACEMS were dispatched to a report of a fight that resulted in an injury to a bystander.

1:09 a.m. Morris Pratt Hall ACPD took a report of vandalism discovered by Community Safety.

>>Feb. 27, 2023

12:16 p.m. Lee Hall

ACPD responded to a pre-fire alarm. The cause of activation was cooking smoke. The alarm was able to be reset.

3:15 p.m. Off-Campus Location

ACPD dispatch received an emergency 2111 hang-up call. The caller was unable to be reached via their off-campus phone number.

Student Ambassadors Paid To Promote Social Media App

Continued from page 1

[the fame] and become more bold.”

Fizz requires a verified college email address to join, limiting admission to its forum. This is different from its main competitor, YikYak, which draws from a five-mile radius. Fizz also employs 15 student moderators, who have the power to remove posts they deem inappropriate, in order to prevent offensive content from spreading.

“The uniqueness of the platform comes from it being hyperlocal and specific to Amherst, which is a very small school with intricate social dynamics at play,” said a moderator, who elected to remain anonymous.

Moderators were recruited via LinkedIn, and attended training sessions to prepare them for their roles, including as facilitators and content creators — moderators are required to upload 30 to 40 posts a day, with some flexibility. As moderators, they respond to reported posts and take down posts themselves if they violate guidelines. Violations include personally identifiable negative information, personally-targeted posts with substantial downvotes, and any “prejudice based on race, class, age, ethnicity, body type, gender, or sexual orientation,” according to the app.

“We won’t tolerate racist, intolerant, or bigoted content,” the moderator said.

However, students have genera-

ted concern regarding the subjectivity of moderators.

“Because the moderators are other students, there’s definitely a bias with regards to what gets deleted and what is allowed to stay up,” said Ortiz-Gudeman.“Even if something harmful eventually gets deleted, it still gets seen by many people. Screenshots can spread it even further.”

AAS hopes to speak to the app’s executive team to understand how campus moderators are chosen, and what abilities they have, Sayed wrote.

“We want to improve moderation going forward. It is too soon to say exactly what that looks like, whether elected moderators or a larger blanket ban on certain topics or directly naming individuals, but we hope that we as student government and the Fizz team can come to a mutually beneficial solution,” Sayed wrote. “There will always be a place for free, anonymous speech, but it must be balanced by a commitment to preventing harm.”

Beyond the core group of moderators, other students were contacted through LinkedIn and Instagram to join a campus ambassador program, consisting of recruiting peers, attending training, posting about the app, and tabling around campus on launch day.

Cahill learned about Fizz through a teammate, and saw the ambassador role as an opportunity to do something fun and rewarding.

“It’s a fun way to connect with people around campus and the motivation was to give me something to do,” Cahill said. “I didn’t have a ton of homework and I wanted to make a few bucks.”

The moderator said that it “felt like a good financial opportunity to generate some cash flow,” and added that they were set to be paid $500 per month, indefinitely.

Beyond worries regarding the platform’s content, the app has also been the subject of controversy in terms of its privacy protection.

In November 2021, three Stanford students discovered that they could access the app’s database to identify the author of any post, along with personal information like phone numbers and email addresses. The database was also editable, so anyone could change posts or moderator status.

The moderator said that they were briefed on this case, as well as Fizz’s response. Now, users’ personally identifiable information is stored in a separate database, only accessible by Fizz administrators.

“I definitely believe that there should be concerns about data and privacy,” Ortiz-Gudeman said. “I still think that most college students would rather get a cheap laugh from online meme than worry about data.”

Ortiz-Gudeman said she sees the app’s effects as temporary.

“Once the excitement and newness of [Fizz] ends, campus culture will revert to normal,” Ortiz-Gudeman said.

Fizz posts are anonymous and limited to 200 characters.

Photo courtesy of Fizz

College, Town Community Celebrate 8th Annual Litfest

Continued from page 1

possible score of 80 points. Though rules allowed for the audience to “boo” judges for giving low scores, all performers scored highly and the crowd was very energetic and cheerful. Refreshments including pizza, cookies, and apple cider, were provided for attendees.

There were around 15 performers, including two students who were featured but did not compete. The judges each read a quote from a banned book, then Mikayah Parsons ’24, who was not part of the competition, performed to calibrate the judging. Following that, each performer read one original piece of poetry, prose, or monologue, with a three-minute limit. During the intermission, there was impromptu additional competition where haikus were written and performed based off of interesting prompts like “snack stuck in vending machine” and “not letting scores define you.” Afterward, the second round of the spoken word slam began where students read another original piece.

The first place prize for the Spoken Word Slam was a spot as a guest of honor at the Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City with travel expenses covered by the college. The second place prize was an iPad. Tristan Moore ’24 placed first, Max Pasakorn ’24 placed second, and Emily Wykoff ’26 placed third.

“God Made My Face: A Collective Portrait of James Baldwin”

An exhibit in the Mead Art Museum curated by Hilton Als — art curator; University of California, Berkeley professor of English; and staff writer of The New Yorker — called “God Made My Face: A Collective Portrait of James Baldwin” opened on Friday night. The reception featured opening remarks by Siddartha Shah, director of the Mead, Jennifer Acker ’00, founder and editor-in-chief of The Common, and Als himself. The exhibit will remain on display through the summer.

The exhibit combines visual art such as short film, sculpture, painting, and photography. It also includes various eclectic artifacts from Baldwin’s life, such as rocks from his terrace in France and first edition copies of books he wrote. One part of the exhibit features a sculpture of Baldwin’s head, and adjacent to it is a photograph of Baldwin face-to-face with the sculpture.

The exhibit is broken into three rooms, and each one highlights a different aspect of Baldwin’s life. The first room is an exploration of Baldwin’s childhood and early adulthood, including photos and depictions of his parents. It also includes his mentors, painter Beauford Delaney and Orilla “Bill” Miller. The second room explores his connection to New York City and his queer identity. In his opening remarks, Als said, “It was very important to me to give [Baldwin] back his identity as a gay man.” The third section of the exhibit highlights Baldwin’s lifelong unrealized desire to work in the film industry.

Als remarked, “All of these rooms are about possibilities and each room is about my hope or understanding of where Baldwin came from and what he aspired to do.”

Conversation with Meghan O’Rourke and Ingrid Rojas Contreras

Meghan O’Rourke and Ingrid Rojas Contreras, both National Book Award finalists, discussed their views on writing — from the meaning of truth, to the role of mortality, to the possibility of healing, and more — in Johnson Chapel last Friday evening.

The conversation was moderated by Lecturer in English Dennis Sweeney, and it featured opening remarks by President Michael Elliott, The Common Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Acker, and National Book Foundation Executive Director Ruth Dickey.

Both authors began by reading passages from their featured books: Contreras from “The Man Who Could Move Clouds,” a memoir

about her family’s supernatural powers, and O’Rourke from “The Invisible Kingdom,” a personal investigation into the contemporary chronic illness epidemic.

Afterward, Sweeney began to pose questions to the authors, who took turns answering. Despite the superficial differences between their books, the authors’ responses often built on each other.

Both agreed that the act of writing is less about solving problems than it is about finding language to express those problems. “If we try to solve the mystery, … the meaning is lost,” Rojas Contreras said. O’Rourke added that “the work language can do … is in many cases political,” emphasizing that the language used by those who are sick is often discounted by the medical system but is nonetheless an important aspect of their experience.

The authors also talked about the extensive research involved in writing their books. For Rojas Contreras this research was personal, as she was telling a story about her own family. But when she attempted to do archival research she came to a realization: “People

like us are not in the record,” she said. Rather, it is more of a “history of colonization.” So she instead focused on having conversations with her family members about their experiences.

O’Rourke said her research was both personal — based on her own diagnosis with an autoimmune illness — and externally focused, as she also spoke to many other people who suffered from similarly under-described conditions. She began to recognize a similar story emerging over and over. “The thing that connects us all is our mortality and our fragility,” she added.

Addressing the possibility of healing via writing, O’Rourke said that the process can be therapeutic, but that isn’t why she writes. She just wanted to find “a container” for what she had experienced. “We need stories in order to live,” she said, quoting Joan Didion. As Rojas Contreras put it, “Sometimes, healing is living with whatever happened to you.”

"Phosphorescence" with Victoria Chang and Tyehimba Jess

The Friendly Reading Room in Frost hosted a poetry reading with Victoria Chang and Tyehimba Jess

on Saturday. The reading was a special LitFest edition of a monthly poetry event, “Phosphorescence,” typically held at the Emily Dickinson museum.

Chang kicked off the event with selected poems from her books “Obit,” “Dear Memory,” and “The Trees Witness Everything.” Many of Chang’s poems from “Obit” and “Dear Memory” explore her grief following the death of her parents and the many questions she was left to contemplate after their passing. Chang read aloud, “I used to think that a dead person’s words die with them. Now I know that they scatter, looking for meaning to attach to, like a scent.”

Jess read from his book “Olio,” which explores the lives of Black figures from the 19th century whose legacies have been neglected by history. Several poems are written about John William “Blind” Boone, ragtime composer and musician, whose eyes were surgically removed as a cure for encephalitis when he was an infant. One poem, written from the perspective of Boone as a child imagines a conversation

Continued on page 4

Poets Victoria Chang and Tyehimba Jess sign books after an event during LitFest.

Photo courtesy of Noor Rahman '25

College Begins Publishing Trustee Meeting Summaries

Ethan Foster ’25 Managing News Editor

The college on Feb. 23 published the first-ever publicly available summary of a Board of Trustees’ meetings. This will become a regular practice, President Michael Elliott explained in an introduction to the summary.

The summaries, which will be archived on the board’s website moving forward, represent an unexpected move toward transparency for the historically opaque body, though some say it fails to adequately address concerns regarding student engagement and representation.

Tension between the student body and the board has been a longstanding issue on campus, though it has been augmented in recent years as criticism of the board’s lack of accountability to the students on campus has heightened, specifically in relation to recent decisions with outsized impact on daily life at the colle-

ge, such as their decision to keep the ACPD armed in the spring of 2022.

Reflecting on the impetus for the change in policy, Elliott told The Student that the move to provide the summaries is in part a response to feedback he received from the campus community over the course of the Fall 2022 semester. “I heard a desire on the part of many members of the community –– students, staff, faculty –– to learn more about what topics are being discussed in meetings of the Board,” Elliott said. “With the Trustees, we decided to release and archive these summaries as a way of sharing information about these meetings.”

Elliott noted that the decision is not an original one – a variety of peer institutions, including Williams College, archive such summaries. He nonetheless emphasized its utility for keeping campus informed, stressing the board’s interest in improving communication with the college

community.

Yet, some feel that, although the publishing of meeting summaries is a step in the right direction toward transparency and communication, the decision fails to properly address long-standing issues regarding the lack of student representation on the board. Shane Dillon ’26, an Association of Amherst (AAS) Students senator on the Public Relations Committee who has spearheaded the implementation of a separate committee dedicated to student-trustee relations, noted that the decision stems from a compromise between the AAS and the Board of Trustees regarding student representation.

According to Dillon, the possibility of meeting summaries being published had been brought up in communication between the AAS and the board in large part due to the trustees’ resistance to having a representative of the student body fill an official role on the board. Dillon noted

that the college is the only member of the Five College Consortium that is yet to have a student serving on the board in some official capacity. Various universities across the country, including several nearby colleges such as UMass Amherst, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Rhode Island also currently have members of the student body serving as full voting members on their respective boards.

In response to this initial reluctance, Dillon began efforts to formulate a committee that would allow students, senators, and at-large members of the student body to communicate feedback concerning campus life directly to a member of the Board of Trustees after each of their five yearly meetings. Part of the initial conceptualization of the committee’s official duties had been the responsibility to publish updates for the campus community from the Board.

Despite the board having

already begun to publish its own meeting summaries, Dillon added that he would continue to push for the implementation of theStudent-Trustee Committee and ultimately for active student representation, stating that although the decision ultimately represents a praiseworthy move toward transparency, the board continues to lack input from the student body. “They still need to grasp the student experience and they ultimately will not be able to do that without a student representative,” he said. “They need to actively find ways to be more involved with campus life seeing that they only meet a few times a year and the student body rarely ever sees them.”

For his part, Elliott voiced his support for the committee moving forward. “I understand that the AAS is working on a proposal for a committee that would meet with members of the board on a regular basis, and I think that's an excellent idea.”

Authors Offer Students Insight Into Writing Process

Continued from page 3

between him and his mother, addressing the question “Mommy, what happened to my eyes?” as Jess explained.

The readings were followed by a question-and-answer session with the poets. They discussed their inspirations, their methods of conducting research on historical subjects, and their experimentation with using physical space on a page to convey poetry. Chang and Jess share an interest in history and use their work as opportunities to learn about and share stories that have been overlooked.

LifFest Craft Talks

On Saturday and Sunday, several of the guest writers hosted “craft talks.” These events were round-table opportunities for students to get to know the writers more personally, to discuss the creative process, and participate in

informal writing exercises.

As the exhibit curated by Hilton Als had just opened in the Mead the night before, his craft talk was about the relationship between “visual information” and storytelling. Als explained that when he curates an exhibit, he typically has a specific narrative in mind. For instance, he expounded the thought process underlying an exhibit he curated based on a littleknown Toni Morrison work, “The Black Book,” which details the Black experience in America. The exhibit’s works included photos of Morrison, but also paintings and sculptures from contemporary artists that Als thought reflected the writer’s work. The key point of the talk was that visual art, like words, can be used to convey stories in creative ways.

Ingrid Rojas Contreras’s craft talk was focused on both fiction and nonfiction. The theme of the discussion was dreams: how we

can interpret them as another facet of our lives and what place they take in both fiction and nonfiction. She read a dream passage from her new a memoir entitled “The Man Who Could Move Clouds,” and spoke about the effect that they had on her own life. We then did an exercise that entailed us writing down all of our dreams with the statement “I remember,” to try and reframe the way that we perceived them.

Valeria Luiselli’s craft talk took place on Sunday because travel delays prevented her from being on campus on Saturday. After going around the room and introducing themselves, students were asked to write short autobiographies, and then to read them aloud. Some people wrote very formal biographies, while others were more creative and fluid in their approach. Then, Luiselli asked them to write another autobiography — this time,

without using the letter “e.” After reading the new autobiographies out loud, the group discussed the value of putting constraints on writing.

In the craft talk led by Victoria Chang, participants first read an essay about what motivates a person to write before spending some time writing about what motivates them to write. Then, they read two poems, and wrote poetry inspired by the style of what

they had read. Chang explained that when one is a writer at heart, no matter what they do in life or where they go, they will be pulled back to writing.

Meghan O’Rourke focused on the role of the palimpsest voice, which is nonfiction with two layers of narration — one from the past and one from the present. O’Rourke discussed the importance of

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Student interns at The Common literary magazine and alumni authors gathered to read their work.

Photo courtesy of Madeline Lawson '25

Notes From the Newsroom: The Snow Day That Wasn’t

The Editorial Board

Confessions of a Snow Day Cynic

I have a confession to make: As a Midwesterner, I’m a bit of a cynic when it comes to snow days. In Indiana, attending school in negative 30-degree weather accompanied by several feet of snow is the norm, an expectation. Only the fiercest of blizzards can gin up even a shred of hope for a snow day in the heart of any Midwesterner over the age of six, and even then, such hopes are rarely realized.

Being the jaded soul that I am, when I first heard whispers of a potential snow day begin to circle in hushed tones around campus, I checked the weather forecast, rolled my eyes, and continued on with my day. Five or six inches of snow? That’s child’s play. How could anyone really believe that a school in the Northeast would cancel school for a mere dusting?

Yet, try as I might, I couldn’t ignore the choruses around me foretelling a snow day. I knew it wasn’t possible, that snow days in the North were a fantasy devised to give hope to naive school children, and that I would only end up hurt if I fell for the trap. But visions of myself sipping hot cocoa and staring out at the pristine mounds of glistening snow without a care in the world haunted me — maybe it really was possible.

Looking back, it pains me to say that I let my guard down. As I began the trek back to Newport from Nicholls-Biondi Monday evening and felt the fluffy snowflakes stick to my eyelashes, I allowed myself to believe in snow days. I practically floated past Memorial Hill, my body made light by the newfound joy I felt.

My renewed belief in the possibility of snow days lasted approximately three minutes. After a few minutes of frolicking across campus, I met a rude awakening on the ramp by Johnson Chapel as my feet connected awkwardly with the unexpectedly icy pavement and I fell face-first into the ground. Sprawled out on the concrete, reality came flooding back to me.

As I woke up Tuesday morning, I felt no urgent need to check my

phone. I already knew there would be no snow day — not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

—Ethan Foster ’25

Delirious Dream State

Last night, like the rest of campus, I went to bed knowing that class would be canceled — surely. This morning, I woke up to my alarm and eagerly checked my phone for updates about the snow day, and saw an email confirming my suspicions. Gleefully, I returned to my bed and dozed off to the screeching sounds of snow plows, only to be rudely interrupted by my 8 a.m. lab alarm.

—Yasmin Hamilton ’24

A Snow Day Tumble

At 8:25 a.m., I set out from Marsh House, disheartened by the lack of a snow day but ready to begin the 10 minute trek to the Octagon for my 8:30 a.m. class, “Intro to Legal Theory.” I was not looking forward to the terrible trek I knew would await me once I reached the Octagon hill, but thoughts of seeing Professor of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought Adam Sitze, one of my favorite professors on this campus, encouraged me to leave the comfort of my bed.

Alas, I was not to know that the cards were not in my favor. For as I put in my earbuds and began walking down the hill, bopping my head to TXT, I felt my boots begin to slide under me. For a moment, I was in free-fall, grappling uselessly for a hold, watching the Marsh hill go by me in a burst. And then. Thump.

Luckily, as someone with a chronic illness centered all around fainting and falling (shoutout to my fellow POTS besties <3), I knew instinctively how to force myself to fall forward rather than backward. Unluckily, I had caught myself on my palms and elbows and had rapidly started to bleed. I stayed frozen like that for a second, feeling the cold snow dig against my stinging cuts and scrapes. Pain radiating through my body, I thought about the terrible trek that awaited me at the base of the Octagon hill, where, knowing my clumsiness, I would probably suffer another tumble, this time up

the hill.

Then, I stood up, dusted myself off, and walked right back up the hill to Marsh.

Sorry, Professor Sitze.

—Tapti Sen ’25

The Long Road to Amherst

Living off campus has its perks: a well-stocked kitchen and groceries for much cheaper than the meal plan, both a three-legged cat with a hefty primordial pouch and a flat-coated retriever with an especially long snout, a private bathroom in which I could take bubble baths, if I wanted, though the idea of human soup has never really appealed to me. It is seldom that I feel any pain from living off campus.

However, this morning, I woke — earlier than usual, actually, my sleep interrupted by the screams of the two children I live with, who were uncontrollably excited to see the snow that nearly went up to their knees — to an email that so graciously informed me that there would not, in fact, be a snow day. So, I apologized to my cat — as I’d have to forgo our regular 15-minute morning cuddle — trekked outside, and began digging my car out of the snow that had already filled my boots and seeped through my Bob Ross socks.

I live at the top of a long driveway that is steep enough for me to slip down on foot, even when it is completely sunny and dry. I’m sure you can understand why even with all-wheel drive locked and going painfully slowly, driving down the driveway covered in six inches of snow was a very possible ticket to tumbling into the ditch that ran along the asphalt, or smacking right into a tree. So, I spent 40 minutes shoveling a safe path, while more snow fluttered down as if to further aggravate my strife. (I’m proud to say that I managed to slip just a handful of times and slid down the entire length of the driveway on my butt only once.)

I eventually made it down the driveway, to the road that had been cleared earlier in the morning but had since collected at least an inch of snow, with what should have been enough time to make the

second half of my first class. But in the one minute stretch to the main road — that was comparably better salted and cleared — a car nearly slid into me and I was forced to swerve partway into a ditch — the one in which half the snow that had been cleared from the road had been piled. I am lucky to have neighbors with shovels who were willing to lend me a hand, but by the time we dug the car out (which at least managed to avoid any damage) I had entirely missed my first class and was just barely going to make it for my second.

Now the worst part about all of this wasn’t that I drove into a ditch, or that I had to miss a class that genuinely excites me, or that I still can’t feel my toes — it was having to tell the three-year-old and six-yearold who both got a snow day that I could not take them sledding. Instead, I pointed them to the carrots in the fridge for a snowman nose, and promised I would make it up to them with hot cocoa another time.

—Kei Lim ’25

Making the Most of the Snow Day Vision blurry, legs jelly, joints achy, I fumble under my pillow to silence the ringing in my ears.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Then, silence.

Thoughts of class are replaced by visions of sugar plums dancing in my head. Just nine more minutes. Then I'll be well rested.

Beep. Beep. Fine. Time to be productive.

It’s 10:30 a.m., and I have nowhere to be. My first class typically held on Tuesdays, Political Economy of Development, was already canceled because the professor is out of town. I have another Tuesday class, Foundations in Video Production, but that's not a concern. Today's a snow day. News staff writer Peter Finnerty ’25 prophesied it on Sunday. That same night, snowdaycalculator.com had gathered the data and spat the facts: Ninety-nine percent chance of a snow day on Tuesday. The weather app said there was a 100 percent chance of snow. The weather app wouldn't lie to me.

But, alas, none of the predictors could have foreseen a renegade police email. “Amherst College Open

2/28/2023.”

I'm not a physically emotive person, but I am internally grinning ear to ear. I love my video class. Three hours of hanging out with a small group of film nerds, casually learning camera tricks and light techniques. Plus, this means that the semester won't be stretched out another day. I'd much rather have class now than lose a reading period day.

I scroll up a few more emails, and come across an email from my film professor. “Please read: class canceled today.”

This is great news. Between research projects, expansive readings, lengthy papers, news editing duties, and a slew of other pre-Spring Break crunch assignments, I could use the three extra hours of work time. I make a to-do list: shower, lunch, laundry, “Ethical Imagining,” “To the Lighthouse,” edit articles, “Ethical Imagining” Research, Polit Econ, return camera, dinner, publishing.

But it's only 10:40. I can take my time. I leisurely shower, put in a load of laundry, and get lunch. I live in Tyler, so by the time I get back to my room after picking up Grab-nGo and panini-ing a burger melt in Val, my laundry’s done. Wet sheets in the dryer, sammy in my tummy, and phone in my hand, I take a short break. My classes were both canceled, I have time.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Sheets are done. Already?

Warm sheets on the bed, clothes in my dresser, and phone in my hand, I take a short break. My classes were both canceled, I have time.

After a well-earned rest, I open up my “Ethical Imagining” notes and get to work. I start to compile a list of research project ideas, but the ear invaders have returned for another round.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Time to return the camera.

I walk to Fayerweather. Return the camera. Eat french toast in Val. Walk to Tyler. Finish my notes.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Walk to Morrow, The Student’s work room. Start editing.

So much for a work day.

—Michael Mason ’25

Magazine Interns, College Alumni Read Their Work

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metacognition, or using presentday knowledge to help write about the past. The group read passages from O’Rourke’s “The Invisible Kingdom” and works including Joan Didion's “Goodbye to All That” and James Baldwin's “The Fire Next Time.” O’Rourke advised the group to use language economically when writing nonfiction, and to both show and tell a story.

Readings by Amherst Alumni

Authors and The Common Student Interns

On Saturday, The Common hosted an event featuring their student editorial interns reading alongside Amherst alumni authors. Hosted by The Common’s Literary Editorial Fellow Sofia Belimova ’22, the reading began with Thomas E. Wood ’61 Fellow Olive Amdur ’23 reading from her yet-untitled creative thesis. Journalist Ted Conover ’80 followed with an excerpt from his newest book, “Cheap Land Colorado: Off-Gridders at

America’s Edge.”

Intern Sophie Durbin ’25 followed with part of her creative nonfiction piece “Inconvenience Store,” which she wrote over the summer. Author Marti Dumas ’98 then read from the first novel in her middle grade fantasy series, “Wildseed Witch.”

Intern Kei Lim ’25 read two parts of their three-part poem “Evergreen,” and author and Coordinator of the Creative Writing Center Catherine Newman ’90 read from her new novel, “We All Want Impossible Things.” Finally, Intern Sarah Wu ’25 followed with an excerpt from her story “The Tiger,” and author and journalist Mark Vanhoenacker ’96 finished the reading with three passages from “Imagine a City: A Pilot’s Journey Across the Urban World.” A reception and book signing followed.

Valeria Luiselli in Conversation with Jennifer Acker ’00

On Saturday evening, acclaimed author Valeria Luiselli joined Jennifer Acker ’00, founder and editor-in-chief of The

Common, for a conversation in Johnson Chapel. They discussed Luiselli’s writing process, creating a sense of place, and the role of her bilingualism in writing. Luiselli, a MacArthur Fellow, has written both fiction and nonfiction and has written in both English and Spanish.

Luiselli was born in Mexico City and grew up in South Korea, South Africa, and India. “It has always been through the process of writing a place that I am able to make myself at home in it, to some degree,” she explained. She extends this association with place to reading as well, often remembering the places where she read a book better than the plot itself.

She has found inspiration in “the electricity generated by children’s imaginations” — specifically, exploring how a child’s imagination processes reality and affects the adults around them. She was also moved by the refugee crisis in Europe in 2014, and felt that she “could not write about anything else” because the topic had overtaken her thoughts.

Her books are often written

in short fragments, usually with several small sections on a single page. “I have made peace with the fact that I can concentrate very well on short fragments,” she admitted.

Luiselli described her sometimes years-long creative process: She writes countless “notes” in both English and Spanish, “take them apart and put them back together,” until one of these fragments captures her attention and she feels compelled to see it through. Ultimately, though, she said her piece-meal writing process is dictated by “real-life circumstances” and “how many minutes I might get [to write].”

The conversation was followed by a question-and-answer session and a book signing.

President’s Colloquium on Race and Racism

On Sunday, Assistant Professor of English Frank Leon Roberts led the President’s Colloquium on Race and Racism with Pulitzer Prize-winning essayist, curator, and theater critic Hilton Als. He is known for his contributions to The New Yorker, as well as his essay

collections “White Girls” and “My Pinup.” The Mead is also currently showing his exhibition “God Made My Face: A Collective Portrait of James Baldwin.”

President Michael Elliott introduced him and Roberts, who began their discussion by talking about the impact of Baldwin on Als’s life. Als first came into contact with Baldwin through “Notes of a Native Son,” and his conversation with Frank, who teaches a course at Amherst about James Baldwin, was conversational and freeflowing. They discussed Black and queer identities through both the lens of Baldwin and in contemporary America. When asked about the state of Black writing now, and any advice for Black writers, Als simply answered: “Keep working.”

The conversation also had light-hearted moments, such as when Als described his encounters with the singer Prince and his morning routine, faithfully accompanied by The Wendy Williams Show. He discussed where his name came from, as described in “White Girls,” and then opened the floor for questions from the audience.

Mammoth Moments in Miniature: Feb. 22 to Feb. 28

The Editorial Board

Spring Break Shuttles

Shuttles will be provided to and from campus for spring break, sponsored by the Association of Amherst Students’ (AAS) Transportation Committee. Shuttles departing from campus on Friday, March 10 and Saturday, March 11, were announced in an email Sunday. Destinations include Bradley Airport, Boston (Federal Reserve) and New York City (Port Authority). There are 56 spots available on each bus, with a waitlist form for when the capacity is reached.

Amherst Fire’s Student Force

T he Student Force, part of the Amherst Fire Department, operates its own engine company, and is recruiting students from the college for its staff. Stu -

dents will be trained in all basic firefighting skills to respond to fires, medical emergencies, and natural disasters. The program emphasized a preference for students who are first-years and sophomores to apply, with a deadline on March 3.

Breadth Rquirement Exceptions

The registrar’s office established a one-time exception for breadth requirements, wrote Becky Catarelli, interim registrar, in an email to all senior thesis writers, due to the new Latin honors policy being passed following the spring 2023 add/drop deadline. The exception means that cross-listed courses can be counted in any department under which that the course is listed, regardless of what the transcript records

The Amherst Fire Department is recruiting students to become a part of its Student Force, which operates its own fire engine. The application deadline is March 3.

Graphic courtesy of Amherst Fire

Features

Thoughts on Theses

Patrick Spoor ’23

Patrick Spoor ’23 is a music major who recently completed their vocal performance thesis, “Einheitswanderschaft.” Spoor sung a collection of songs in German, French, and Spanish, playing the part of a wandering soul who desires to branch out and engage with people from all manners and places towards a greater purpose of Einheit: unity or oneness.

Q: What is the process of doing a thesis for the Music Department like?

A: Well, for people who focus on voice — people who sing — most of the time they do either composition or conducting theses, which involve performances but don’t necessarily require you to perform yourself. [There is also] a musicology thesis, which is a written thesis but that is very rare. There are [also] performance theses, which for voice is very rare. The last voice performance thesis [at Amherst] hasn’t been for years. But for instruments like piano, it’s a lot more common.

Q: Why did you choose to do a voice performance thesis?

A: I remember watching my friend … [do a performance thesis] and it was super fun. So I just gathered a bunch of songs that I wanted to sing. The last song in my thesis is called “Nachtzauber,” which translates to “Night Magic.” I started learning that in 2020, the spring semester before we all got sent home for Covid-19. And I held onto that song for a very long time. This was at a time when I was deciding that I did want to do the music major. I was originally a math major, but it wasn’t working out for me. The passion just wasn’t there. And that’s when I felt like I needed to shift over to music. I [also] had all these ideas about doing a thesis, and “Nachtzauber” always felt like it was supposed to be included. During that whole year, 2020, I took

time off from school, and so I had a lot of time to think about my thesis — putting together the songs, emailing [Classical Voice Instructor] Tom Oesterling, [Director of the Choral Music Program and Lecturer in Music] Dr. Arianna Abela and also [Visiting Artist in Residence and Director of Choral Activities at Williams College] Dr. Noah Horn.

Q: How did your thesis evolve?

A: At first it was about trying to find the songs, what I want to sing and what sounds good. Dr. Horn was very kind and helpful. He directed me to this book of voice repertoire — I own the book now — and that helped me find a few songs. I picked [two pieces by] Franz Schubert, a Romantic composer, and they became the first two parts of my thesis. One was “Der Wanderer” which means “the wanderer,” and I thought that was a good start. It set the theme, it set the character. [And so the theme became] having this dream of escaping. “Der Wanderer” ends with “there, where you are not, is happiness!” which became the thesis statement of my thesis.

The second piece [in my thesis] is called “Abschied” which means “farewell.” [So at this point] I have a wanderer and the farewell, and I thought, I’ll run with this. “Abschied” is a nice jovial piece of five long stanzas in German.

But it’s basically me saying goodbye to all the things that I care about in my hometown — like the people, nature,

friends, and women, [but also] the sun and the stars and my window, and my house. And so, things get sad. The next few pieces [after those songs] are the part where I begin exploring — meeting new people and experiencing new things. I [do this through] “Don Quichotte à Dulcinée,” it’s in French, which was an ordeal to learn how to pronounce. I’d call this section the debauchery. Playing the part of Don Quichotte was very funny because my thesis title, “Einheitswanderschaft,” is all about unity and Don Quichotte is this very diluted character, not based in reality, who is lovesick to the point that he thinks his prayers will be answered [to break the curse on Dulcinée].

“Don Quichotte” has three movements, there’s a love song, a prayer, and then a drinking song … the drinking song captures how Don Quichotte’s love is a delusion and [Dulcinée] doesn’t care for him. I loved putting this piece here because of the drinking song, “Chanson à boire” is followed by an eleven-minute atonal piece about war.

So I go from [laughing] and drinking and then [immediately after to] “oh life is not so great.”

So the next piece, “Canti da Estravagario di Pablo Neruda,” is all about destruction, and there is a theme about leaving someone behind. This would be the sobering part. It comes from a [Pablo Neruda] poem, a historical autobiography document, about this woman [that Neruda] left behind in his hometown. At

some point, he comes back with his future wife, maybe in his fifties, and the city is destroyed. It is war-torn and the people aren’t there, [the woman he left behind is not there] and it just feels awful. And that’s the sort of thing you’ll see out in the world. It’s not all about drinking, having fun, and fantasizing: [this piece brings in] the real. And lastly, “Nachtzauber,” based on a poem by the German Romantic poet Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, was my destination. The final lines of the song allude to a distant land of memory — “silent,” a place of introspection and reflection. Although the wanderer’s journey is never over, they carry their memories, thoughts, and experiences within. And the song ends with me saying “come, come, I found a place where there is happiness.” And so it all ties together in the end. So, Einheitswanderschaft is a journey through consciousness: broadening one’s imaginative and empathetic sphere through lived experiences to appreciate the beauty of every person’s voice resonating in the valley.

Q: What obstacles did you face in the process of your thesis?

A: None of my pieces are in English. I tried to find a piece in English and I just didn’t like them, so I gave up looking for any songs in English. “Canti da Estravagario di Pablo Neruda,” the title is in Italian but the poem is in Spanish, I know Spanish. Three of the five pieces are in German, and I’m learning German but I don’t know French. “Don Quichotte à Dulcinée” is in French, and it is very obtusely written. It’s not very obvious what the sound [of the words] is based on the orthography but I figured it out … But it did take me a long time to be able to pronounce. I also think the grammar of German is ridiculous at all times. And basically, I have to know what these pieces mean, so I would write notes

of translation above the words. And with the French I could get a gist of the meanings based on my Spanish background. However, memorizing songs in other languages kind of works.

I had some issues with low notes, closer to the performance date of my thesis. My thesis was on Feb. 4, and for some reason my low notes would just give out on me. And that was really scary and I got very anxious about that. But the day of my performance everything turned out okay. My anxiety medication saved the day. Then with “Canti,” it took me so long to learn because it is atonal. I would spend a lot of time on the piano trying to figure out what it sounded like. It was also very inaccessible, meaning, it was not easy to find. But I became particularly fond of this piece. The composer, Armando Gentilucci, had his atonality focused on melody and ignoring keys. So he crafts a sonic landscape that he feels works best for the meaning of the poem — which is great, but really hard to perform. Another brick wall was trying to find accompanists and then organizing the rehearsals. It was countless emails. It took me so long to find a violist and an oboist. Eventually I found my accompanists for piano, oboe, violin, viola, and cello. All wonderful people and it was so fun to work with them. But it was just so many emails.

Q: What was the journey of dealing with anxiety and your love for performing?

A: I started my thesis before I was on anxiety meds. I started taking them maybe a year before my thesis. And just, thank goodness for psychiatry, because I couldn’t do anything about the physical symptoms of my anxiety. My heart rate would just soar, and I couldn’t do anything about that. My stomach would hurt so much, which is really bad

Continued on page 8

Photo courtesy of Andy de la Torre ’24E

Patrick Spoor Looks Back on Performance Thesis

Continued from page 7

for singing. I would be burping a lot and feel air bubbles get stuck in my throat. And so I would get super tense [when I would sing] and be burping and have acid reflux. But the anxiety meds helped my heart rate, and I was so clear of mind and it was so weird. I had never felt so clear on a stage. And I didn’t realize that this was normal for other people.

I’ve never not had stage fright. I am terrified of public speaking, [and have been] ever since I was a kid. And I do not know why I get so nervous, it is super internal, and super physical. With performing I just want

to give music to people and make people happy, and I think to myself “Why should I be worried about it?” And then my body says, “Who cares? I’m going to be worried anyway.” And so, in choir performances — small ensembles, solos — I could barely breathe, making it really, really hard to maintain breath support. Which is dangerous, especially for mying long phrases where I shouldn’t breathe [and not knowing if I can] make it to the places where I’m allowed to breathe. And anxiety meds just helped with that. And I only had access to that here through the school health insurance scholarship. So it’s not like I had access

to this before. I’m from Georgia and the health insurance there is useless. So I did not have general health check-ups for most of my life. But anxiety medication changed my life. I would not be able to perform on stage if I did not have my anxiety meds. And I am so thankful for having them. My stage fright disappeared — which is crazy — and I was able to actually feel immersed as a performer, which I never felt before.

Q: What advice would you give to students considering a thesis in the Music department?

A: First of all, it’s just finding what aspect of music that you’re

passionate about because there is so much you can do with music. It’s a very open-ended major that is about sound and there’s so much you can do with sound. You can talk about it, you can make it, you can direct it, you can perform it. But basically, if you are passionate about music then you should just do it. And make sure you have enough material. I would also recommend going to your voice instructor or professors. I’ve worked most closely with Professor [of Music] Jeffers Engelhardt. I took his class, Anthropology of Music: Voice. I loved getting a lot of feedback from him, he works very well with students.

So I would always heartily recommend that. I worked with Oesterling, my voice instructor, since my second semester at Amherst, and [we built] a pretty tight-knit relationship because we’ve been working together so long and it’s made performance just more fun. I’ve also been in choir since my first semester, so I’ve just been doing a lot of [music]. So I would say just immerse yourself into your instrument or your voice, immerse yourself into what you want to play, and if you end up liking it then maybe you can do a performance thesis out of it.

—Belem Oseguera Duran ’24E

Thriving Anime Club Reflects Nationwide Trend

Fritz Lalley ’25 Contributing Writer

If you venture over to Paino Lecture Hall in Beneski on Friday nights at 7 p.m., you’ll find a meeting of the Amherst College Anime Club. Whether or not you enjoy watching anime as a hobby, you’re almost certainly familiar with it. In fact, you probably consume Japanese media and culture without even knowing it. This is because in today’s American pop culture, Japanese culture is omnipresent. What was considered a niche subculture has emerged on the internet — anime scenes are often used as memes — as a key element of youth dialogue.

As anime has often been stigmatized in Western culture in the 21st century, it is no surprise that it has flourished on anonymous platforms such as Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube. Alden Parker ’26, a member of Anime Club, reflected that “had I not discovered anime by being a complete T.V. Tropes [a popular T.V. wiki forum] junkie, I probably wouldn’t be here.”

Amherst’s anime club is part of a larger effort to remove the anonymity from anime fans on college campuses, bringing the online community into real life.

It is unclear how long Anime Club has existed at the college. In the Frost Library stacks, you can find copies of anime that were gift-

ed to the school by Anime Club as early as 2007, though no one in the club can say for sure when it started. The club currently has 87 members, and meets once a week on Friday nights.

Anime Club provides a centralized anime-viewing experience. There are no strings attached. There is no commitment. There is no entrance fee. No pressure. Anime Club screenings are a fun and inclusive viewing experience for people with any level of experience with the genre. Beyond simply watching anime, the club provides a setting for robust discussion and debate regarding the themes and messages of relevant shows.

If you’ve ever watched anime before, you know how complex the narratives and character arcs are, which prompts lively discussion. The club’s vice president, Jeff Zhang ’25, said that “people stay behind for 20 minutes or so discussing themes from that night’s showing, or really anything at all. The important part is that it all comes about organically.” On top of discussions, the club engages in karaoke, cooking-nights, and various social events throughout the year, including a trip to New York City ComiCon.

Anime Club’s efforts to make their interest mainstream come alongside a broader cultural shift. According to a report by Precedence Research, the global anime

market was valued at $22.6 billion in 2020. By 2030, that number is expected to more than double, growing to about $48.3 million. Much of the growth is taking place in the U.S. and North America in general. Precedence Research theorizes that this is due to an increased presence of anime in American media.

Only a few years ago, I recall that watching anime was heavily stigmatized in American high schools. At least where I come from, popular dialogue among American teens dubbed anime uncool, or for kids, or exclusively for Asian people.

Considering this shift from anime being “uncool” to an acceptable staple of many people’s identity, I was curious to hear the thoughts of those who have experienced it firsthand.

“Before, simply having an interest in this stuff could more easily have gotten you side looks from behind the scenes, or comments such as ‘oh, you’re one of those people,’” Parker said. “This is why I got most of my initial exposure through reading, as even bringing anime up with friends could have been too much of a risk … Whereas now, I can be very open about my interests in anime especially because of the anime club. So the increase in popularity has been overwhelmingly positive in my opinion.”

Zhang, who grew up in Hong Kong, described his experience dif-

ferently. “I started watching [anime] in sixth grade. In contrast to [Parker]’s experience, I started watching anime because it was cool. And, in China and Hong Kong, there’s not much of a stigma,” he said. “That is an English speaking phenomenon in the modern day.”

Anime Club encompasses people of many different racial, ethnic, and national backgrounds, and this diversity can be seen in the larger anime community as well.

Club member Cole Ammons ’23 touched on the influence that other cultures have had on anime’s growing popularity in America. “I would say there’s a pretty heavy influence of Black culture,” he explained, “Especially with shows like Dragon Ball. You’ve got [musical] artists [like] Thundercat who base their identity around anime, leading to songs like Dragon Ball Durag.”

Ammons also commented on the fact that many fictional anime characters have been championed by the Black community, noting “for example, Piccolo was claimed by the Black community. Even though he is a green alien, everyone knows that he’s Black.”

To Ammons’s point, Jordan Calhoun wrote a brilliant piece for The Atlantic titled “Piccolo Is Black” detailing how this came to be. He described how animation had first depicted horribly racist caricatures of people of color, before moving to omit them altogether.

“The result was a generation of kids who learned to “code” characters, assigning them a race, sexuality, or other identities that weren’t specifically prescribed, but that were no less real to those of us who

wanted to see ourselves reflected in a media landscape that wasn’t interested in us.”

Ammons also noted how recent generations of Black youth who grew up watching anime are now adults, and heavily impact the social narrative around these shows that permeates the internet.

“I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that kids who grew up watching Toonami are grown up. That’s that generation that were kids from 1997 to 2008,” he said. “Now those same people are active on Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, etc. … Many of them make popular content and have far more influence than you’d imagine.” Indeed, many popular Black content creators on the internet include anime in their comedy.

To Ammons’s original point, anime’s rise in mainstream popularity has a lot to do with its popularity in the Black community and Black internet subcultures. This, too, is emblematic of the way America’s broader culture often grows out of the trends in Black communities.

As far as how cultural mixing impacts anime culture, for example, there’s so much more at play than what I’ve provided here.

What’s crucial to recognize, though, is the role Anime Club plays in this phenomenon of cultural production: It provides an inclusive environment where like-minded people can come together for screenings, discussions, cooking, singing, and much more. As anime cements itself in mainstream pop culture, student organizations such as Anime Club can give us a window into broader cultural phenomenons.

Photo courtesy of Jeff Zhang ’25

Anime Club meets once a week on Friday nights, to host discussions, sing karaoke, cook together, and much more. There are currently 87 members in their GroupMe.

Piccolo is a fictional character in the popular anime “Dragon Ball Z.” The Black anime community champions him as a Black character.

Photo courtesy of Kami Sama Explorer Museum

Fizz Should Go Flat

Last week, within 48 hours of its launch, a new social media app called Fizz took over the screens of the college’s students. The college-specific app, which was started in 2021 by Stanford drop-outs and requires a phone number and “.edu” email verification, allows users to post anonymously. You may have discovered it when you got a free donut from the paid student ambassadors tabling in Valentine Dining Hall. You might even be a student moderator, paid $500 a month to post upwards of 30 times a day and take down flagged posts. Even if you haven’t downloaded the app, you’ve likely felt the splash it has made on campus — for better or for worse.

Through lighthearted jokes about the inexplicable disappearance of Val’s cherished miso-marinated salmon or the complaints about the recent bouts of heavy snow, the app has created solidarity among our student body. Fizz undeniably does a good job at providing a space for Amherst-specific discourse. However, the ease with which that space has been misused and what it reveals about our community means that the negatives outweigh the positives.

The biggest danger of the app is precisely the reason why it is so popular and why it has been so effective in starting community discourse: its anonymity. Students can say what they want without fear of community retribution, which allows for users to bond over trivial matters without assuming responsibility for their comments, but it also means that students can quickly type offensive and potentially harmful messages and send them off within seconds without a single concern for backlash or consequences. At a small college like Amherst, anonymity is at once appealing and detrimental.

Anonymous platforms are nothing new, even to Amherst. Ranging from international to locallybased, they’re plentiful on the internet, including spaces like Reddit and Fizz’s somewhat disgraced and cyberbullying-ridden predecessor, YikYak. Anonymous intellectual discourse on our own campus was encouraged by the emergence of the controversysparking Contra in 2022, a publication for writers to publish divisive opinions without their names.

The danger of anonymity on Fizz, like these platforms, is the lack of accountability for harmful and misinformed voices. In just its first dozen hours, the app was already flooded with troubling “Fizzes,” including posts calling out students by name, climate change denial, racist remarks, rampant hyper-sexualization of women, and body-shaming, among other harmful

Opinion

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comments. The risk of offensive content like this is exacerbated by Amherst’s comparatively small student body: Everyone knows each other, which makes calling someone out by name all the more harmful.

The harmful potential of Fizz, relative to the aforementioned platforms, is augmented by its lack of a consistent approach to privacy and content monitoring. The process for the deletion of a post usually first involves a report by a user and a review by a student moderator. There are two things which make this system flawed: the bias of the student moderators, who may have their own beliefs and personal ties to the community, and the potential for a post to cause harm before the moderator can respond to a report. The lack of a consistent, full-time, unbiased moderator staff means that harmful racist, sexist, homophobic, threatening, and/or violent posts can slip through the cracks.

Inconsistent moderation is emblematic of the company’s approach to safety concerns and trustworthiness. In 2021, student researchers at Stanford found that personally identifiable user information — names, emails, and more — was easily accessible to hackers. These researchers were later threatened by Fizz’s legal team. Privacy and data concerns are no small issue, and Fizz’s dismissal of this matter says a lot about its company values.

The most alarming aspect of Fizz is not only its potential for serious harm to individuals but also the way it presents a striking reflection of the student body. Aside from the vulgarity and the cyberbullying, many posts also affirm serious, community-wide concerns about racism, sexism, homophobia, the administration, professors, rape culture, mental health, and more. While more community forums about these subjects are necessary, this app is not the right place for intentional and critical community engagement focused on real change. The eagerness with which students criticize campus life on Fizz seems at odds with the widespread lack of involvement the student body has with organizations like the Association of Amherst Students. Energy directed toward Fizz should be redirected toward these campus resources if students want to see change that actually benefits the community.

Fizz, at its best, is a poor attempt to fulfill a social desire for anonymous expression. But at its worst, it capitalizes off students’ instincts for drama and controversy, dividing rather than uniting. It’s better left uninstalled.

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Letters Policy

The opinion pages of The Student are intended as an open forum for the Amherst community. We welcome responses 50-800 words in length to any of our recent articles and aim to publish a diversity of views and voices. If you would like to submit a response for consideration, it must be exclusive to The Student and cannot have been published elsewhere. The Student will print letters if they are submitted to the paper’s email account (astudent@ amherst.edu) or the article response form that can be found on The Student’s website, by 8 p.m. on Saturday, after which they will not be accepted for the week’s issue. Letters must bear the names of all contributors and an email address where the author or authors may be reached. Letters may be edited for clarity and Student style. The editors reserve the right to withhold any letter because of considerations of space or content.

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All rights reserved. The Amherst Student logo is a trademark of The Amherst Student, Inc. Additionally, The Amherst Student does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or age. The views expressed in this publication do not reflect the views of The Amherst Student.

Celebrating Editors on International Writers’ Day

Pho Vu ’23 Staff Writer

At Amherst, we arduously carve out a path that sets us apart — a major, an on-campus job, clubs, the list goes on. All these distinctions on campus are in part possible thanks to the personal statement in our college application. While it is undoubtedly a product of our hard work and determination, it also reflects the effort of the editors — those who restructured our essay to emphasize our potential.

After we got admitted, we continued to write — reading responses, film scripts, essays, and poems for publications like The Indicator and The Lilac. As we do, editors continue to play a consistent role in guiding us through our uncertainties as we try to express ourselves with words. Personally, I made sense of how precious they are through my time at The Student.

I came to Amherst in February of 2022. Here, alongside the cohort

of other students who had just arrived on campus, I spent my time figuring out how to register for classes, making mental notes of my favorite dishes at Val, and exploring the communities I was interested in joining. Given poor weather conditions and a cramped class schedule, the task of searching for a particular place that fit my niche presented a challenge. But as luck would have it, my prayer was finally answered: As March neared, I stumbled upon a post in the Daily Mammoth bulletin from The Amherst Student, which was looking for a news writer.

Having read The Student’s articles, I understood that the actual task required more than what I was capable of. I had never done news reporting before, and I saw The Student as a place where people delved into strenuous work without days off. I got scared and swiped through the post. One week later, I happened to see the post again while browsing my laptop towards the end of my “COSC-111” lecture. This time,

my instincts told me to peruse the content. The moment I saw the line “no experience required,” I gathered up the courage and sent an email to one of the news editors at the time. It was this random attempt at trying new things that led to a new land of self-discovery and new friendships.

During my first drop-in meeting with the news team, I handed in an eight-page report of an “Alumni-in-Residence” event with so much excitement. The editors praised the piece, which made me feel very happy, but I was aghast by the number of edits that they left on the Google document. Reading through the editors’ comments, I quickly learned that an article was not just about the information. Unlike essays, it was more about delivering key events and people within a limited amount of words. But the meticulous feedback on that document set off my motivation, and continuing to write for The Student based solely on that factor turned out to be one of the best decisions I

have ever made.

Fall 2022 quickly approached and the weather became much more pleasant. Like a puzzle with all the edge pieces placed, everything started to settle in for me. Thanks to the endearingly encouraging words from the editors’ weekly emails, I was hurled into a world that fostered new ideas for the stories that I wanted to share. For the first time, I entered the newsroom of The Student, where I saw how they produced impressive articles and made revisions to other writers’ work against the ticking clock every Tuesday night. What took me hours to get done took them half the time, and witnessing this flawless clockwork made me want to be a part of the team.

Talking to the editors about my potential writing topics was similar to sharing an academic plan with a counselor, but what was invigorating about it was that I gained access to their life experiences and their inner souls. They were perfect ex-

amples that demonstrated the possibility of pure joy in any corner of the world, as long as you have the passion and purpose for something you do.

As I was creating my own voice, I found myself not making any progress. The emphasis on style differed as I jumped between sections (from News to Arts and Living to Features to Opinion), and these people were guiding me from day one. They gave me advice that would later feed into my work. No AI writing service would be able to do that properly. Together, we worked out something that both alluringly invited readership and saved for me a core memory about specific parts of my college journey.

By staying open to new suggestions from my editors, I got to savor the merit of collaborative creation in literary works — something that I took away from the first chapter of Jack Stillinger’s “Multiple Authorship and the Myth of Solitary Genius” in ARHA-155 during the

Whether it’s our friends, college counselors, or those at The Student, the editors in our lives are worth celebrating.

Graphic courtesy of Nina Aagaard ’26

Editors Deserve a Day Celebrating Their Work

fall 2022 semester. Readers may see me as the only author of the narrative, but the substance of its finalized version is inseparable from multiple modifications and rewordings. Clearly, even a teeny-weeny change in punctuation has a significant influence on the original text — and this is vital to every well-structured story.

My time spent on campus with the editors was brief, but I finally understood what it meant to be in a tight-knit community. It is a community within a community, and getting to know these people who

have a great sense of humor and exceptional work ethic was a saving grace for the unpredictable weather and notorious high-stress culture at Amherst. I read somewhere that we might not have an innate talent for doing something, but what we all have is the aptitude to learn. During my short time writing for different sections of the newspaper and talking to different editors, they showed me that my opportunities to learn and improve are limitless. For the first time, I found out how much I loved writing, and became serious about embarking on a career that

had writing as a central element. March 3 is International Writers’ Day and is annually observed to appreciate writers of all kinds in the world. On that same note, editors begin as writers. They work their way up through trial and error, and as their writing skill becomes solidified, they take care of other writers’ work. They do not only make edits to our drafts, but they ask questions that challenge writers to rethink sentences and word choices more logically. To me specifically, the task of an Amherst Student editor goes beyond refining words: They

carry on their shoulders the legacies and traditions of one of the oldest college newspapers, reinforce the freedom of the press, and shape the standards for stories worth telling for generations to come. Because of them, fresh incoming writers walk in feeling supported and ready for the mission of keeping the college community well aware of its surroundings. For these (and so many other) reasons, editors deserve a day just for themselves.

As we celebrate all writers from all around the world, I urge us to leave some space to express our

gratitude to the editors — editors from your literary organization, associates from the college’s writing center, and advisors for your thesis, and anyone else that has helped elevate your writing skill to where it is today.

To my editors, thank you for working endlessly, rain or shine, to make sure my work is nothing short of its best version. No matter how much time has flown by, nothing has changed about the fact that you amplified my voice and that you forever changed my life. That effort has never gone unnoticed.

In Defense of the Latin Honors Requirements

Zane Khiry ’25 Contributing Writer

The new amendments to the Latin honors policy have proven to be highly controversial among the student body, with many denouncing it as the end of all the things they love so much about Amherst’s academic culture. It seems to me, however, that the new Latin honors policy is defensible, and I argue that it should be welcomed as a positive change on campus.

But first, let me lay my cards out flat: I’m an Association of Amherst Students (AAS) representative on the Committee on Educational Policy, which was responsible for proposing the change to the faculty. I’ve worked directly on the policy amendments — and I’ve spent a lot of time discussing its merits. I understand that I, maybe more than others, have something at stake in how these changes are received. But still, I find most of the arguments being made against the new policy just don’t hold weight. I’ll be addressing arguments made against the breadth requirement, and then moving to argue for how other changes to the policy promote risk-taking and advance curricular equity.

The Breadth Requirement

The most frequent argument made against the new breadth

requirement is that it will silently kill the open curriculum and destroy our lively classroom culture. Students will be forced to take classes they otherwise wouldn’t have taken. They’ll be less inclined to participate, and classroom discussions will be dull. However, this all stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to pursue Latin honors. In the event that a student should choose to go for Latin honors — the same way they might choose to pursue the pre-med track, for example — they’ve placed upon themselves a number of subjective limitations they then have to fulfill in order to achieve their goal. The same way a student who wishes to become a doctor has to take “Organic Chemistry,” a student who wants to graduate summa will have to take a single course in each of four broad academic categories: humanities, social sciences, STEM, and the arts. If there are restrictions placed on a student’s academic freedom, it’s only because they chose to put them on themselves.

Those who say the new policy destroys our classrooms can be countered in one of two ways. Firstly, going back to the pre-med analogy, is it the case that because pre-med students are forced to take chemistry, for example, that all of Amherst’s chemistry classes are dull and

boring? No, because the students still need to do well. No med school is going to accept a straight-D pre-med student, and no student that has a median grade below A- can qualify for Latin honors. Secondly, I think we can agree that calling our classroom culture lively is a bit of an exaggeration. I’m sure many of us have been in intro classes in which the same four students were the only ones who spoke. At its worst, the new policy couldn't possibly make this worse.

Many who criticize the change also argue that it will reinforce age-old academic divides, and make Amherst students more competitive. To the first point, if it can be said that naming four divisions of academic study implicitly communicates to students that different areas of study don’t influence each other — that, for example, STEM students have nothing to learn from the humanities — then what does that say about the major system as a whole? Is it the case that an economics major has nothing to learn from a Sexuality, Women’s & Gender Studies (SWAGS) class simply because they’ve declared themselves in economics and the SWAGS class doesn’t fulfill a requirement? Naming and differentiating a discipline does not necessitate that it be isolated from the influences of other subjects.

Arguments about how the new policy only makes students more competitive appear to be both inconsistent and lacking a complete understanding of the changes to the Latin honors requirements. Firstly, many argue that having the breadth requirement forces students to have to adjust their course plans early on in order to be able to fulfill each of the four requirements. This, to me, appears to be inconsistent with the supposed value of the open curriculum: New courses are created every year, and amazing new professors are hired all the time. Thus, having a four-year course plan would be completely at odds with what the open curriculum has to offer. In addition, the new policy, by removing the class rank requirement, has actually made things less competitive, as students will no longer have to compete with their classmates for a spot in the top quarter of their class.

Furthermore, the entire premise that we’d be forcing a large number of students into classes they wouldn’t otherwise have taken seems largely false. Data from the new Latin honors proposal shows that over half of Amherst students naturally fulfill the Latin honors requirement. And at most, it would put a typical student in a position where they would only have to take one extra class.

The new breadth requirement stems from the idea that a student graduating with Latin honors should exemplify the highest ideals of a liberal arts education — that they should be academically eclectic. One might argue against this by saying that what’s done for the best of us should apply to the rest of us: that if the best of all Amherst students are required to fulfill the breadth requirement, why aren’t all of us? To that, I’d raise the question of why that has yet to be brought up about the thesis requirement. If the best of us are required to write theses, why aren’t the rest of us? It seems to be the case that one may be able to justifiably wish one thing for the most highly motivated students and a separate thing for the others, without it being something that necessarily denigrates the latter group. After all, isn’t that what all those honors and AP classes we took in high school were about? Not every student needs to — or should — fulfill the requirements for honors.

Promoting Risks

Amherst students are already pretty risk-averse as it is, and the old Latin honors policy, based on class rank, seemed to only make it worse. Being that only the top 25 percent of the class was eligible for honors before, students seeking Latin honors were incen-

The Open Curriculum Is Not Dead

tivized to take the easiest classes they could and use a pass-fail option for anything below an A. The new policy, having removed the class rank requirement, takes away this perverse incentive within our curricular system and allows students to take more risks.

Advancing Equity

The old Latin honors policy made it much harder for students from underrepresented backgrounds to graduate with honors. First-generation and/or low-income students, for example, who come to Amherst having yet to become accustomed to

by Quinn Nelson

the workings of elite institutions, were at a distinct disadvantage. While their peers are more likely to arrive at Amherst with a solid sense of what it takes to succeed, many first-gen students, through no fault of their own, struggle to achieve the sense of ease their privileged peers have

— sometimes resulting in them having worse first-year grades. This, previously, may have been enough to rule them out of gaining honors.

The new policy makes graduating with honors all the more accessible, ensuring students who make mistakes have great-

er legroom to achieve in spite of them. It should be praised not only in this respect, but for all the reasons I’ve given above. It’s time we as students stop lamenting the death of the open curriculum, and welcome this progressive change to our academic structure.

’25

AHA! Why You Should Join the Arts and Humanities

Claire Beougher ’26 Managing Photo Editor

I perched on the edge of my seat, held captive by the opening lines of “Hamilton: The Musical.” Aaron Burr stands before me, so close yet so far away, tied to the present by a melody. This same melody casts a net over the audience, binding me to the past for a few brief moments, before releasing me into the frosty night, the vestiges of song clinging to my mind long after this night has passed.

As I stepped out of the theater that January evening, I thought of the program that was soon to be over but whose lessons now weave around my compatriots and I just like the musical memories we shared. Though it only spanned the last week of January, the Arts and Humanities in Action (AHA) program would continue to follow me through the next several weeks, and I have no doubt that it shall continue to do so for many years to come. The AHA program forever altered my definition of success, as well as my view of the steps necessary to attain it, and that is why I would personally recommend this program to everyone, regardless of definitive plans to major in the arts or humanities.

The AHA program is a brandnew J-term program led by Professor of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought Austin Sarat and Director of the Loeb Center Emily Griffen. As the name might suggest, it is geared towards first-year students interested in majoring in the arts or humanities, a decision that often comes with a barrage of questions, none of which are particularly encouraging. The program intends to help students explore career options, connect with alumni, and plan their next steps in their professional development. It assists in internship searching and in the development of valuable workplace skills, which to first-years is the equivalent of gold.

Heading into the AHA program, I thought that to achieve success, one needed to do the most, to be the most that they possibly could. Signing up for everything regardless of personal interest, pandering to the needs of future employers, thinking

only of programs that would look good on resumés, not ones that I actually wanted to do. These were the steps to success in my mind. Like many first-years, I was stuck in the application mindset. Having worked my entire life to get to a college like Amherst, it’s difficult to slow down when moving at a breakneck speed is what got me here. The AHA program reminded me that it’s okay to take a breath. I’m allowed to take a photography class because it interests me, not because it’s going towards anything in particular. The AHA program reminded me of why I am here, at Amherst College, but it also reminded me that it’s not necessary to continue trying to earn my place at Amherst when I’m already here.

Toward the beginning of the program many students opened up about the negative stereotypes around majoring in the arts or humanities. Needless to say, confusion

and pity are common responses — at least from those who doubt their professional merit — when one announces their plans to be an arts or humanities major. Students often hear that they will end up destitute and depressed should they choose to pursue this foolish path. With this aura of skepticism, it’s no wonder that the arts and humanities majors regret their degrees the most once they graduate. But as we would learn during the AHA program, it isn’t that these degrees don’t prepare you well for a career. It’s that we are trained to believe that an arts or humanities major only prepares you for poverty, so that’s all one expects to achieve. Throughout the course of the AHA program, we met with various Amherst faculty and alumni, all of whom gave presentations on the value of an arts or humanities major. These ranged from Chair of the Music Department and Director of the Center for Humanistic Inquiry

Darryl Harper’s presentation on the myth of the starving artist to a talk with the Amherst Investment Office on the importance of relationship skills in investment banking. The AHA program engaged us in conversations that worked to break the stigma surrounding arts and humanities majors. It aimed to prove that with such a major, we could still go on to be, as Sarat drily described, “rich, greedy, and mean.” Of course, I doubt that these three goals were at the top of any of our to-do lists, but the message was clear. With an arts or humanities major, we could choose to be rich, greedy, and mean. We could also choose to be poor, selfless, and kind, or anything in between. The skills developed through work in the arts and humanities — teamwork, communication, critical thinking, reading and writing, and many more — would allow us to pursue any dream, conquer any obstacle, and shatter any glass ceiling or

brick wall that might be in our way.

On the second to last day of the program, we had the opportunity to visit Boston and speak with various alumni working in the city. We dined, laughed, and learned together, all while eagerly awaiting the reveal of the surprise we had been promised earlier in the day. As a long time “Hamilfan,” I was thrilled to learn that we would get to see a showing of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical masterpiece (as were my compatriots, to varying degrees). But the more I reflect on that week, the more I believe that the true surprise was never really “Hamilton.” Instead, my “AHA!” moment was leaving not with the hope that an arts or humanities degree would help me succeed in life, but with the knowledge that there was no better way to do so. In other, perhaps far greater words, do not throw away your shot, and consider joining us in the glorious future of being an arts and humanities major.

The students who participated in the Arts and Humanities in Action program had the opportunity to visit Boston and even watch a showing of Hamilton.

Photo courtesy of the Loeb Center

Amusements

Thinking Inside the Box | Crossword

Cubic crosswords are like three crosswords in one. The only new feature is that answers can run over the edges of the cube (for example, 4-Across on the A-Side extends to the C-Side). Happy solving!

A-Side Clues

ACROSS

1. Azog the Defiler from “The Hobbit,” e.g.

4. Ranch animals

7. Exclamation of discovery

8. “Fire ___!”

9 . Sleep stage

10. Manufacturer of bug repellent?

11. Forbidden

13. Unflinching

16. Remus or Romulus, e.g.

19. Two - ___ sloth

20. Nefarious

21. Gambas al ajillo, e.g.

DOWN

1. Cosmic “cloud” past Pluto

2. Big bird?

3. Pick

4. Paddle boat

5. Off-roader, for short

6. Language spoken by 58% of Ghanaians

12. Dog park designation

14. It’s got you covered

15. Wandered

16. “Uhhh guys? ___ got company...”

17. Ellipse

18. Mr. Potato Head piece

B-Side Clues

ACROSS

1. Device that needs to be juiced up?

2. Encourage

3. Disney character based on a Hans Christian Anderson novel

4. Aptly named author of “The Cloister and the Hearth”

5. World generation code, in Minecraft

7. “Tik Tok” star

10. Winter coat?

11. Most probable roll in Monopoly

14. Not just “a”

15. Novelist Zola

16. Soak up

17. Mineral deposits

DOWN

6. Artist’s stand

7. Toolboxes

8. Amazon device

9. Leak slowly

12. Punk offshoot

13. YouTube short, for short

C-Side Clues

ACROSS

1. Morse morsel

2. Sick

3. Mixolydian, e.g.

5. Position to strike?

7. Take the L, so to speak

11. One of five in the acronym HOMES

12. Head

DOWN

4. Instrument played by Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Yo-Yo Ma

5. Golden Ball winner for the 1970 World Cup

6. Singles

8. Boat paddle

9. Genre whose name comes from how a scratchy guitar sounds

10. Slippery swimmer

Wednesday, March 1, 2023

Arts&Living

Save Cinema From the White Savior Narrative

Mackenzie Dunson ’25 Staff Writer

Everywhere you turn in film and other types of media, there seems to be a white savior present. Even in films that profess to celebrate the joy and triumph of people of color, a white character is often there to solve, or underplay, the problems of Black and POC characters. The inclusion of a white savior has been used to make a film viewable, and thus marketable, to white audiences. The idea is, if there is no character for white audiences to relate to, they would not view the film, and thus the film would lose profit.

A white savior justifies the idea that white characters are welcome to insert themselves

into and even control stories that center people of color. The purpose of white saviors is particularly ironic and unnecessary when a film claims to be about the joys and successes of people of color. Centering a “heroic” white main character is antithetical and trumps any other sort of meaning, making it all about the white savior. To me, it hints that the film’s purported attention to POC voices is inauthentic, and instead the film’s main goal is to uphold a “white savior complex” narrative.

One of the most notable examples of white saviors in modern cinema is the film “The Help” (2011), which supposedly shares the perspectives of African American housemaids and the white families that they work

for. Though it seems like the story should revolve around the Black women and their stories, the film ultimately focuses on the character Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan (Emma Stone), a white woman who gathers a collection of personal anecdotes from the housemaids to anonymously publish in her own novel. She does so in order to critique these white families and highlight the truths behind the racial injustices they inflict on their own housemaids. I hope it is obvious that this film holds the white savior trope as a major plot point: A white main character blatantly exploits the stories and lives of the Black housemaids, supposedly wanting to “lift up” their voices. In actuality, she uses those voices as tools for her

own success, ironically supporting the very idea that the film wished to critique.

Another film that centers around POC characters but features a white savior nonetheless is “Hidden Figures” (2016), the story of three African-American mathematicians who worked at NASA during the early years of the U.S. Space program. The film follows Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae), and Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) as they help propel America forward in the Space Race through their mathematical savvy. Though the film arguably presents a stronger representation of Black women than “The Help,” “Hidden Figures” hones in on the white character Al Harrison

(Kevin Costner), Katherine’s supervisor. The film boils down a century-long discussion of civil rights into a workplace dispute about signs on a bathroom. In a true act of rebellion, Harrison publicly knocks down the “White Only” sign on the women’s bathroom. The film sets up Harrison to be a leader for Katherine: he is supportive to her when no other white character in the film dares to help her at all. But here’s the kicker: Al Harrison was not a person in real life. He is a fictional composite of three directors of NASA at the time. The film inserts a fictional character into the real stories of Black women in order for a white audience to have a place in a story that otherwise did not include them. Irony and hypocrisy play heavily here, because of course Harrison had to be created for the story. Otherwise, how would white audiences be able to view the story if not for the relevance of a white savior?

Now let’s look at the 2007 film “Hairspray,” a musical that tackles the topic of segregation during the civil rights movement in Baltimore, Maryland. The film highlights disparities between the white and Black communities in Baltimore, as well as the effect that these divisions have on the psyche of the young characters, who dream about singing and dancing on the American Bandstand-eque “Corny Collins Show.” Though the plot revolves around the desegregation of the television show, the film uses the white main character as the device to do so. Instead of centering the Black characters, in another cruel dose of irony, the film allows Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky), a white woman, to use the dance moves that her Black friend Seaweed (Elijah Kelley) taught her to secure a spot on the Corny

Continued on page 17

“The Help” purports to tell the stories of Black women who worked as housekeepers for white families, but it instead revolved around Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan (Emma Stone), a white woman who publishes their stories to critique the families herself.

Photo courtesy of aheporfalarnisso.com

A History of the White Savior Narrative in Film

Continued from page 16

Collins Show. The film seems to make amends by bringing a Black character to the center of the narrative: at the end of the film, Seaweed’s younger sister Lil Inez (Taylor Parks) wins the Miss Hairspray Beauty pageant. Yet, she was only featured in that position because Tracy intervened by breaking into the competition. Tracy dominates the narrative, from using dance moves stolen from Black characters, to violently inserting herself into a peaceful protest march, causing a large number of Black characters to be detained because of her mistake.

Of course there are a number of white savior films that I did not discuss, such as 2009’s “Avatar,” a film where Jake Sully, a white man is the chosen savior for an indigenous race people (the movie recent-

ly received a high-budget sequel that doesn’t fare much better). The enduring question that stems from these films is: why does Hollywood constantly need a white savior to tell the story of characters of color? And why has the film industry decided that people of color are incapable of leading their own stories? This is especially detrimental to the young audiences of color. What Hollywood communicates to them is that in order to have power over their own lives, they need the influence, help, — and perhaps control — of a white person. If a film truly wants to explore and discuss racial injustices and how the characters of color can overcome them, then the presence of a white savior is not needed. In fact, it is a injustice. Without a white savior at the head, these stories can be told more accurately and inclusively.

VALHACKS

Ivy Haight ’25 presents your new favorite breakfast food in this edition of Val Hacks. Follow her simple recipe for a delicious breakfast burrito to make your mornings more savory.

Sometimes breakfast gets a little bland. It’s only so often that I can cycle between the yogurt/ oatmeal bar, bagels, cereal, and the classic hot breakfast before I find myself wanting more. Even under a time constraint, my breakfast burrito recipe is a surprisingly quick and easy way to spruce up your Val breakfast. The topping options are more limited on the weekends (tragically, no spinach or shredded cheese on Saturday mornings), but the basics are all there every mornings.

Directions:

• Put a tortilla (from the container next to where the oatmeal usually is) flat on a plate

• In a line, start with a sausage of your choice (on this particular day I went with the Gardein, but in my

opinion, Morning Star are the best).

• Add eggs of your choosing and potatoes, if you want to give it a little more volume.

• Place spinach on top, if you’re so inclined.

• Finish off with a sprinkling of your favorite cheese to bring it all together.

• Wrap it up, and microwave for 30 seconds!

Potential add-ins:

• Sausage

• Eggs

• Cheese

• Potatoes

• Spinach

• Bacon

• Hot Sauce

• Syrup (maybe you’re going for a sweet/savory type thing)

• French toast sticks (now we’re getting crazy)

This breakfast burrito has eggs and potatoes wrapped in a tortilla, with plenty of options for mix-ins.

“Hidden Figures” tells the true story of three African-American women who worked at NASA in the 1960s. Yet, the movie also features Al Harrison (Kevin Costner), a white supervisor who heroically defies racism — and also didn’t exist.

Photo courtesy of Ivy Haight ’25

Photo courtesy of coyotepr.uk

Ivy Haight ’25 explains how to wrap your breakfast burrito for optimal results.

Graphic courtesy of Ivy Haight ’25

Amherst STEM Network THE STUDENT ×

Nora Lowe ’26 Contributing Writer

Finishing “Wednesday” on Netflix felt kind of like losing a friend. After watching an episode per day for eight days, I had spent almost eight hours with the titular character, getting to know her macabre sense of humor. How is it possible that I can feel so close to someone that I’ve never even met, and in the case of fictional characters like Wednesday, someone I can never hope to meet?

Parasocial relationships (PSRs) are characterized by a one-sided feeling of connection with an individual from the media. In other words, it’s a relationship with someone that’s an important part of your life, and meanwhile they … don’t know you exist. Sounds depressing, right?

Researchers from Appalachian State University and Take This, a Seattle-based research organization that specializes in the mental health of gamers, recently published a literature review in “Computers in Human Behavior Reports,” proposing that the imbalance inherent to PSRs may not be so one-sided. The authors suggest that some modern day PSRs are more like “one-and-a-half sided relationships.” Historically, fans could only interact with media persona through letters or meet-and-greet events. However the development of social media sites, especially those with livestream options like Instagram and TikTok, has brought celebrities closer to the public than ever before. For example, Twitch is another platform whose primary appeal is its livestream capacities, contributing to the proliferation

of internet “microcelebrities,” or people who have accumulated a large online-following by providing specific content. Oftentimes, Twitch streamers centralize their content around a specific video game, for example.

But it’s worth pausing to consider why this genre of internet content garners tens of millions of viewers daily on sites like Twitch. Features such as the chat room allow for back-andforth communication between the streamer and viewer. The streamer might let the viewers choose what game they will play or exchange advice about game content. The streamer usually can’t respond to everyone’s messages, but there is a robust viewer-streamer bond because of the possibility of interacting. Viewers are able to cultivate a community with like-minded individuals, creating attachments across computer screens, time, and space. The literature review notes that this might entail having “co-experiences” with “shared parasocial partners,” such as rooting for a favorite streamer with fellow viewers, or reaping vicarious enjoyment when the streamer wins a game. The interaction can also spill into other social media applications like Instagram, where fans can interact further by “liking” and commenting.

More broadly, fans benefit from being a part of a “fandom.” This sort of virtual social community partakes in escapism together by consuming the same media content. They also view streamers as role models, a pattern that the researchers call “wishful identification,” tied to a psychological state called “pres-

ence” — where the virtual world starts to feel real. This phenomenon is enhanced by an unlimited, on-demand access to pre-recorded streams via sites like YouTube. Circling back to “Wednesday,” the “one-and-a-half sided” interpretation of PSRs on the internet explains the TikTok trend of the show’s iconic dance, as well as the subsequent virtual interactions between star Jenna Ortega and her fans.

At this point, you might be dubious about these one-and-a-half sided PSRs. Is it really healthy to lean into the feelings of a not-quite-unrequited friendship?

Dr. Rachel Kowert, Research Director at Take This and an author of the literature review, said to

me over email, “while parasocial relationships have traditionally been thought of as maladaptive, we now know that these relationships can come with a wealth of mental health benefits.” This is because PSRs are similar to traditional two-sided relationships, conferring some surprising benefits to your well-being. For those with severe depression and anxiety, Twitch can provide an important form of transitional social connection. Watching a livestream can be a healthy way for those prone to self-isolation to engage meaningfully with spaces outside their isolation. Even for those not dealing with these conditions, this type of PSR can provide an opportunity to

work through issues or a chance for temporary respite from nagging problems. For example, some livestreamers discuss personal problems that viewers submit in the chat and try to help resolve them. While PSRs certainly demand more investigation, we shouldn’t overlook their benefits in the meantime.

Studying PSRs can help us uncover the inner workings of human relationships. Returning to “Wednesday” once more, PSRs might be the key to understanding the gloom that comes with wrapping up a new television show. Kowert and her colleague’s research indicates that, surprisingly, watching other people might just help you feel seen.

This article is brought to you as a collaboration between Amherst STEM Network and The Student’s Arts & Living section. Check out Amherst STEM Network’s website (amherststemnetwork.com) for more cool articles about scientific research at Amherst.

In this edition of Amherst STEM Network x The Student, Nora Lowe ’26 breaks down the science of parasocial relationships, one-sided connections with public figures or internet personalities that can be surprisingly beneficial.

Photo courtesy of Nora Lowe ’26

The Indicator ×

THE STUDENT

These pieces were initally published in The Indicator’s 2022 Fall issue “Bridges” and are presented here in collaboration with The Indicator.

“Braid Us”

Awa Diop

Staff Writer

’26

The thick branch of the oak tree leans against the narrow second floor window and blocks streams of sunlight from Adja’s African Braiding Salon. The light that seeps through the panes reaches the back of the shop, casting stark white rays against the pink wall. All the stations are empty this morning except for one. Adja parts the last section of hair with the rattail comb to hook in another box braid. She’s working on the last two braids of Michelle’s hair, a first-time customer. They haven’t talked much past the initial greeting and Michelle explaining her style choice. Adja often prefers silence anyways. Having just come to Harlem from Mali some six months ago, she struggles to communicate comfortably with American clients like Michelle. She feels as though they have little in common. Embarrassed by her limited vocabulary and accented English, she’s much less anxious when Sidiki Diabaté’s “L’Enfant Beni” playing from the TV hooked to the right wall fills up the space.

As Adja separates the Expression braiding hair, she sees her daughter who sits behind her through the mirror. She brought Tima to the salon whenever she wasn’t at Kindergarten. Babysitters were too expensive, and she never really felt safe leaving her baby with anyone but her mom and sisters who were now back home. Tima, who was previously laying on the rug watching some YouTube show on her tablet, was now sitting up with a doll in between her lap teaching Kayla, Michelle’s daughter, how to braid. They both sat concentrated on the mannequin head, the youtube video now playing on the floor as their own background music. They had matching pink and blue bubbles at the end of their plaits. The little name necklace around Kayla’s small neck mirrors the name bracelet on Tima’s wrist.

Kayla intently watches as Tima’s chubby, little fingers part a messy section of the doll’s head. She then separates the section of hair into three parts. Tima holds out for Kayla’s hand to gently place on one of the small sections of hair. As Tima holds her two pieces of hair apart from each other, she instructs Kayla to place the piece of hair she’s holding through them. Tima roped her own two over Kayla’s piece to make the first hetch of the plait.

“That’s it! Now you move that,” Tima instructs as she points. Tima had picked up many words at school, and has been stringing together full sentences for the past couple weeks. The curvature of her tongue as she speaks is slightly laced with that of her mother’s language and her English is quite impressive. Kayla circles around her still holding the piece of hair, moving to the direction she pointed to make another layer of the plait. The two girls keep moving around one another, their arms tangling up as they attempt to finish their first braid together. Once done, the plait hung loose and fuzzy. But it held up nonetheless, refusing to untangle.

“A Sovereign / Two Bodies”

Aidan Cooper ’26 Staff Writer

“He [the king] has, or takes, the land in his natural Body, yet to this natural Body is conjoined his Body politic, which contains his royal Estate and Dignity … and these two Bodies are incorporated in one Person” - Ernst Kantorowicz

She stands before a sculpture named Look Where she unspools twine from the knots She loosened from her wrists the sigils Heaving like words in a throat opened Her Prayer like a touch and boiling Shiver turning the dust-clouds into rain.

He stands before a lectern named Wash Where he uncoils ribbons from the holes

He cut through his fingertips the callouses Spinning like words in a throat opened His Confession like a breath and frothing Sieve turning the faucet-spit into wine. She stands before a cabinet named Him Where she unfastens metal from the wounds He fashioned from his longing the edges Dulling like words in a throat opened Her Mouth like an end and whistling Language turning him and her into them.

He stands before a maelstrom named Her Where he uncovers stardust from the skin She buried in her histories the diamonds Thawing like words in a throat opened His Arms like a wish and rippling Music turning her and him into them. They step into a Body named Them, A sovereign dressed in dashes – in the Oneness — of blood and otherwise. They wash the sheets — in their creases, Hands like residue — they look until They know — all has been taken in. They caress the cracks — of their Body, Rolling – with the force of water — Against a charged calm of white, These puppet strings, these finger blades

You can read the rest of these pieces on our website, www.amherststudent.com

CONTEXT,

CREATION, COME UP

Kobe Thompson ’24 Staff Writer

“I think I’m ready. I say that now, I’ll probably cry later.” Lauren Dinhofer ’23 reflects on some of her firsts and lasts at Amherst in this edition of 3C’s. I got the chance to ask her about the “Context” of her life-long passion for music, the “Creation” of various songs in her classes at Amherst, and what to expect on the “Come Up” as the reality of music graduate school approaches for her.

“No one knows how to pronounce [my last name],” Dinhofer told me, explaining how she settled on her stage name: Lo. “Someone called me it, actually, in college … and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s different. I can’t think of anybody else who has that name.’” But she said that she warns folks to not get too attached to “Lo,” because it’s a name she is looking to change. Preferring her own first and middle names, “Lauren Haley,” Dinhofer admits that her current mononym can be difficult to find on streaming platforms in spite of its uniqueness.

A changing name also comes with her own change as an artist. The expansion from “Lo” to “Lauren Hailey” more closely mirrors her own artistic expansion, as she fills out her musical talent and continues the passion she started when she picked up her first guitar at the age of three. Dinhofer thanks her parents for being able to pursue music. “Growing up, I’m very fortunate that my parents let me do whatever I wanted to do,” she said. Her initial interest was in the guitar, so she took lessons and eventually joined some children’s rock bands. She also involved herself at a young age in musical theater. “Since I was four I’ve been doing musical theater. Which is funny because [for] the musical

group that was running in my town, you needed to be at least five.” Dinhofer’s insistence on defying the age-limit led to her first casting in musical theater. “I was Gretl in the ‘Sound of Music’ … they skipped my line.”

Dinhofer began to teach herself how to play the piano by transcribing what she knew how to play on the guitar into chords on the keys. This self-driven, methodical approach to learning and performing speaks volumes about Dinhofer’s passion for music and creativity. As a one-woman band, Dinhofer named the guitar, her voice, and the piano to be her three best instruments. She feels most comfortable with them and plays them the most often. But Dinhofer is modest when explaining her aptitude with the bass and drums. “I will say that I can hold a beat … also I can play the bass guitar because it’s basically just a guitar,” she said. Her playing is motivated by an intense and personal drive to play for her own sake. “I wanted to do it, so I started doing it. Then I stopped taking guitar lessons because I didn’t want to learn about phrygian modes and blah blah blah … but I don’t want to be a guitar player, I want to do all these other things.”

As she got older, Dinhofer began to delve into songwriting and became more devoted to making music. She cited several influences and artists that she looks up to: “I look towards the Beatles as my number one. I feel like they paved a lot of roads to what music is now. I’d also say, more currently, Lizzy McAlpine. She’s really good, and she’s our age so it’s really inspiring to see someone who’s just like me doing this for real and having it happen. Also, very unironically, I like Taylor Swift.”

Dinhofer’s tastes for these groundbreaking artists hint at a clear trend for respecting determined and tal-

ented musicians with a love, focus, and zeal for their music.

These are traits that showed in Dinhofer over the course of the interview, even at her times of modesty about her own ability. Believing that hard work truly pays off, and that one of the most important resources for a musician is the support of their loved ones, the unbroken willpower to keep making more music. Dinhofer offered me a framework for how to become a better musician, so long as you have the determination and time for it. “[Start] off being able to play and sing at the same time. Just like getting comfortable,” she said, adding that plenty of practice is necessary in order to see results. “I definitely grew up going on ultimateguitar.com and playing every single song under the sun,” she said. Next, she recommended starting to become accustomed to performing for others by playing for trusted friends and family: “I definitely wrote a lot of music before I played it in front of anybody. Being comfortable with yourself, and then being comfortable with your sister, your mother, and then going on from there.” All of this hard work culminates in a song, EP, album — some project which can be gifted to the world. Dinhofer was happy to share how this process turned out for her.

“The first time I ever released a song digitally was on SoundCloud my senior year of high school,” she said. As a project for an English class, Dinhofer was tasked with “learning something new.” Applying her passions, she taught herself music production. She enjoyed being able to

control every aspect of the process, from writing and recording to mixing and distributing. This gave her a valuable first experience of making recorded music.

A couple years later, she found herself recording another song for a project for school. In “Songwriting,” taught by Professor of Music Eric Sawyer, she wrote and recorded her first Spotify released track, “High.” Dinhofer admitted, “Funnily enough, I wrote ‘High’ in 10 minutes before class because we had a song due. Very simple lyrics, I didn’t think much on it. I mean I definitely edited it and worked on the production for hours and hours but I wrote it in 10 minutes.”

Dinhofer is grateful for the opportunities that her classes have offered. A nationally-qualified lacrosse player, and a snowboarder and skier, she often has trouble finding the time to create music. “I think that makes you more rigid, like, ‘OK, during these hours of the day I need to do this. I love Google Calendar, it’s my place.’” While scheduling this interview, I witnessed how extensive and structured Dinhofer’s schedule really is. Her methodology also applies to her music, as she blends the fluidity of artistry with the rigidness of a strict schedule. “I can see it in my workflow when I’m recording,” she said. “You can see I clip all the recordings, I like to see them all neat and nice.” Dinhofer championed voice memos as a way to keep track of her musical ideas, recording notes and other harmonies outside of her self-alotted time for music creation.

In the last few months of her senior year, Dinhofer is preparing for

graduate school. Her most recent release, “Hard Goodbyes,” was a creative outlier for her, as she involved outside input in creating the song. While not originally intended for it, the song ended up in the portfolio that ended up helping her get accepted to the Berklee College of Music. Dinhofer is feeling the effects of ending her time here at Amherst and her promising future on the horizon. “Life has definitely been weird as of late,” she said. “I had a plan, like, ‘OK, if I didn’t get into graduate school, I’m going to apply to music jobs.’” To her, it was a matter of music or bust. Her remaining performances for the Zumbyes and at Coffee Haus are numbered, and she said, “I think I’m ready. I say that now, I’ll probably cry later. I think, honestly, [my time here] has run its course. It’s still running its course. It's not over yet, but I think I’m in a good place and I’m ready to go.”

One obstacle Dinhofer is open about is time. Amid a busy schedule, new EPs and songs can be hard to give the love they deserve. Dinhofer has made it clear that what she has completed has been in great part to the time afforded to her by Amherst’s open curriculum, the classes and professors who have allotted her the opportunities to write and produce and release. Likewise, the support from friends who have helped her creatively, whether it be project covers or even giving her the name “Lo” itself. Dinhofer is a product of her environment, a seed watered by the love of her peers.

Read the full article online at www. amherststudent.com

Lauren Dinhofer ’23 started music production and songwriting here at Amherst, a passion which led her to pursue graduate studies at Berklee College of Music.

Photo courtesy of Lauren Dinhofer

Around the Herd: Feb. 22 to Feb. 28 in Athletics

Hena Ershadi ’26 Contributing Writer

Women’s Hockey

After their loss against Williams College, which ended their regular season with an impressive 21-3-0 record, the women’s hockey team made an incredible comeback in the NESCAC Quarterfinals with a shut-out game against Wesleyan University. Going into the tournament as the top seed, the Mammoths earned a 2-0 victory with goals scored by Rylee Glennon ’24 and Avery Flynn ’23.

The first period ended in a draw as both teams defended the other’s shots on goal. With less than six minutes remaining in the second period, a backhanded shot from Flynn, assisted by Carley Daly ’23, disturbed the even flow of the game, giving Mammoths the lead over the Cardinals. Though the opposing team responded with an increase in pressure, they were unable to penetrate the defense and ultimately their loss was secured with Glennon's goal in the final moments of the match. The game improved the Mammoth’s record to 22-3-0. It also marked Student-Athlete of the Month, Natalie Stott’s 10th shutout game of the season — the highest across Division III schools in the nation.

Now, the women’s hockey team looks on to host the semifinal and championship games at Orr Rink, seeking to earn a victory in the tournament next Saturday and Sunday, March 4 and 5.

Men’s Hockey

Men’s hockey also had an excellent showing in the NESCAC Quarterfinals against Tufts this past weekend. Coming into the tournament from a dominating 5-0 shutout against Middlebury College, the Mammoths secured a thrilling 3-2 victory over the Jumbos.

Mammoths took an early lead

in the game with a shot deflected off of a Tufts defender’s stick and into the goal, concluding the first period with 1-0 in favor of Amherst. Amherst carried their edge into the second quarter as they relentlessly pressured the Jumbos' defense with shots. However, a penalty shot in favor of Tufts tied the match, sending the two teams into the final half of the game with a score of 1-1. The third and fourth periods of the game yielded a point for each team and caused the match to go into overtime. Although the two teams seemed evenly matched, a late penalty during the final moments of the game presented Amherst with a man advantage. The opportunity allowed Zachary Murray ’26 to score his second goal, winning the game with only 32 seconds left in overtime.

Following their exhilarating match, the Mammoths look on to host the semifinals and championship games on Saturday and Sunday, March 4 and 5.

Men’s and Women’s Track and Field

The men’s and women’s track and field teams participated in the New England Division III Indoor Championships which took place on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 24 and 25. The women’s team, sitting in fourth place out of 41 teams, finished their first day of events with four All-New England honors — awarded to the top eight contestants in each event. On the second day of action, the Mammoth’s 4x800 relay team won the championship as the team finished 5th overall with 59 points. They also managed to triple their All-New England marks for a total of 12 in the meet.

The men’s team, which placed fifth out of 34 teams, also earned four All-New England honors on the first day of events. As with the women’s team, the men’s 4x800 team managed to bring home the championship on the final day. They outperformed Tufts by half a

point, claiming third in the championship with a total score of 64 points. Earning nine All-New England marks by the end of the second day, the Mammoths tallied a total of 13 over the course of the meet.

Now, both teams look on to Saturday, March 4, where they will be competing in the Tufts National Qualifying Meet for a final chance to qualify for the NCAA Division III Indoor Championships.

Women’s Swim and Dive

After a stellar performance in the NCAA Northeast/North Regional Championships, Sydney Bluestein ’25 and Donna Zhang ’26 each qualified for the NCAA National Championships. On the first day of events, Bluestein, 2023’s diver of the year, received an 11-dive score of 430.55 on the three-meter board, finishing second out of 24 divers. She then matched her performance on the

one-meter board, placing second with a score of 421.15. Zhang, who was the top finisher amongst the first-years at the regional, finished third with a score of 418.65 on the three-meter board and fourth on the one-meter board.

Both Bluestein and Zhang will be looking to compete in the NCAA Division III National Championships, which will take place from March 15 to 18 in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Men's hockey narrowly secured a win against Tufts 3-2 in overtime this weekend.

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Sydney Bluestein ’25 and Donna Zhang ’26 qualified for NCAA Nationals this season.

Photo courtesy of Slate Taylor ’25

Front and Center: The Havoc in Women’s Soccer

negatively impacted their mental well-being. Players and analysts have criticized French head coach Corrine Diacre since her appointment in 2017. In particular, she has opted to leave star players, including two of the best players in the world, Amandine Henry and Eugénie Le Sommer, off rosters due to supposed disputes. On Monday, Feb. 27, Mohammed TER Paris reported that Diacre will step down as the national team manager, but this has not been confirmed as of now.

Melanie Schwimmer ’23 Columnist

In July 2023, Australia and New Zealand are set to host 32 women’s soccer teams in the largest women’s sporting event in the world — FIFA’s World Cup. In a year that is supposed to celebrate the best of women’s sports, we are instead seeing the unraveling of teams due to abusive coaching and limited economic support from their federations.

In the past year, I have written about the sexual and emotional abuse and overall dangerous working conditions in women’s soccer worldwide, which has already led to 15 Spanish National Team Players refusing call-ups. While some steps have been made, including the equal pay settlement in the United States Federation, it is clear that as a whole women’s soccer has a long way to go toward a safe and equitable environment.

This past week, the Canadian Federation threatened the reigning Olympic Gold Medalists, the Canadian Women’s National Team, with a lawsuit if they did not call off their strike, and three of the best players

on the fifth-ranked French Women’s National team, including their captain, announced they would not play in the World Cup if conditions continued. The players from the Canadian and French national teams join those of Spain, Chile, Colombia, Norway, and The United States in protesting their own federations in the past few years.

On Feb.10, the players of the Canadian Women’s Soccer Team went on strike before the She Believes Tournament and put out a group statement that condemned their federation for budget cuts to their program. The statement declared “the Women’s National Team players are being told to prepare to perform at a world-class level without the same level of support that was received by the Men’s National Team in 2022, and with significant cuts to our program — to simply make do with less.” The Women’s Team players have not been paid for any of their labor in 2022 or 2023, have had to fly coach, and have insufficient coaches and medical staff.

Two days later, the players announced that they were going to play in the tournament as the Canadian federation threatened them

with a multi-million dollar lawsuit that they could not afford to defend. The team wore their training gear inside out to hide the Canadian Flag and dawned purple “Enough is Enough” shirts before their games.

Canadian star and reigning National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) champion with the Portland Thorns, Jeanine Beckie, expressed her frustration exclaiming, “It’s a fight that women all over the world have to partake in every single day, but quite frankly, we’re really sick of it. And it’s something that, now, I don’t even get disappointed by anymore. I just get angry about it because it’s time. It’s 2023. We won the damn Olympic Games. We’re about to go to the World Cup with the team who could win it. So we expect to be prepared in the best way possible.”

For Beckie and countless other Canadians who play their club soccer in the NWSL, they have gone through abuse, harassment, and mistreatment at the club and country levels. The Portland Thorns in particular have had two head coaches and an assistant coach fired for sexual misconduct, the owner of the club forced to sell for covering

up misconduct, and their head athletic trainer facing jail time for giving a player codeine without their consent.

As the Canadian labor and civil rights struggle continues, French Women’s National Team Captain Wendie Renard announced on Friday, Feb. 24 that she would not play in the 2023 World Cup because she “can no longer support the current system.” Two additional players, Marie-Antoinette Katoto and Kadidiatou Diani, followed Renard’s lead and announced they would also not play in the World Cup unless necessary changes were made. Their statements came three days after the French team won the Tournoi De France. Diani and Renard were both ballon d’or nominees this past year.

The French Football Association made a statement that they would meet and take up the issue with the executive committee, but in a clear condemnation of the players stressed that “no individual is above the institution that is the French national team.”

While the players did not specify their demands, they made it clear that the management of the team

In the wake of Renard’s announcement many soccer stars voiced their support for the French captain. Ada Hegerberg tweeted “How long will we have to go through these lengths for us to be respected? I'm with you, Wendie, and with everybody else going through the same processes.” Hegerberg won the ballon d'or in 2018 and decided to not represent the Norwegian national team in the 2019 world cup as a form of protest due to how they treat women's soccer. Yuki Nagasato, 2011 world cup winner with Japan, announced that she stepped away from the Japanese women’s national team in 2016 due to lack of respect from the federation but felt that she could not speak out at the time. Nagasto came forward with her story to support her fellow soccer players.

Nakasato’s message was clear: “Now Time to act, yes and speak louder!” For many people, women’s sports are the place they can point to about the ongoing fight around workplace gender equity and the quest for equal pay. Sport issues are equity issues. The recent brave stances of women athletes around the world calling out their employers and demanding change can inspire all of us to call out continued workplace injustice. As women and nonbinary athletes around the world take the brave stance, speak loudly, and call out their employers, it is imperative that we amplify their voices.

Front and Center would like to conclude by sharing that Brittney Griner is back home with her family and will be playing again in the upcoming WNBA season.

French Women’s National Team Captain Wendie Renard said on Friday that she would not play in the 2023 World Cup.

Photo courtesy of IQRemix

Women’s Hockey Ranked No. 1 in Nation

Kate Becker ’26 and Kate Quigley ’26 Staff Writers

The women’s ice hockey team continued their record-breaking season this past weekend; they hosted eight-seed Wesleyan on Saturday at 1 p.m. in the NESCAC quarterfinals. The Mammoths secured the 2-0 victory with goals from Senior Captain Avery Flynn ’23 and Rylee Glennon ’24, improving their record to 22-3-0 on the season. The number one seed in the tournament, the Mammoths will host the NESCAC semifinal round on Friday, March 3, and the championship on Saturday, March 4. As they prepare for the upcoming clash against No. 4 Middlebury, we take a look back on what they’ve accomplished thus far.

The Mammoths opened up conference play immediately in November, with a tough double header against Hamilton. They split the series 1-1, and then went on a tear, winning their next 18 straight games. These include wins against conference foes: Middlebury 4-2 (two games back

to back), Bowdoin 7-1 on Senior Day, and Wesleyan 6-0.

Headlined by 10 shutouts from first-year keeper Natalie Scott ’26, we checked in with Stott on how she felt the team had progressed this season: “I think our team’s culture has really contributed to our success this season. We always talk about winning the culture battle and showing our heart on the ice, which is easy to do when you have a team that is so close.”

Stott is one of seven freshmen, and we spoke to Captain Leslie Schwartz ’23 on the impact this talented young class has had on the program this season. “Each first year was able to step in and immediately play college level hockey as if they have been for years,” Schwartz said. “Defense is a huge part of the game and with half the D-core as first years, they have stepped up in a huge way by making sound defensive plays in the D-zone and also getting huge game winning goals in the O-zone as well.” Senior Flynn continued the praise of the first-years, describing them as “smart, gritty, and selfless players, who fit perfectly into the AWH family.”

another and lifting each other up.”

The Mammoths are keeping up this momentum and looking to do everything they can this work week before they begin the NESCAC semifinals on Friday. With the top four seeds in the tournament all advancing to the semifinal round, the competition looks stiff. But, it’s nothing the battle-tested Mammoths are not prepared for.

weekend at Orr Rink, the team feels really excited to be hosting the NESCAC championship. Schwartz went on to comment that “winning a championship on home ice would be an incredible feeling with this group.”

James Minor ’23 Staff Writer

With the pre-season testing for the 2023 Formula 1 season now complete, fans and pundits alike now have a clearer understanding of the running order for the beginning of the year. The 10 teams drove a collective 21,637 km (13,445 mi) over three days in preparation for this year's 23-race season, which begins this weekend with the Bahrain Grand Prix. Testing does not give us an accurate picture of the running order via lap times — fuel loads, tire types, and testing programs varied between teams — but there are still some indicators of who is in a good spot and who may be struggling at the start of the year.

The Formula 1 field often finds itself split into three groups: the

front, the midfield, and the backmarkers. Williams (driven by Alex Albon and Logan Sargent) has traversed all three in recent years. In 2015, they were comfortably towards the front. Three years later, they were at the back and have been there ever since. However, the 2020 purchase of the team by Dolitron Capital (an American private investment firm), recent developments to their car, and an upward trend in results have the team optimistic. To further boost their spirits, pundits called this the best test session for Williams in recent years. The team has come a long way from four years ago, when they could not get their car ready in time for testing.

McLaren (Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri) seem to be experiencing the opposite trend. Until last season, McLaren had been

But the young class isn’t the only reason for the Mammoths’ success; the program is loaded with senior leadership, excellent coaching, and dedication to the game. Emily Hohmann ’26 chimed in on the profound impact that the culture has had on the program’s achievements: “Our team culture has led to our success so far. We focus on the little elements within the game — like back-checks — that lead to big opportunities. Each player brings their own skills to the team, and all those individual skills gel together so well with the hard work and the energy everyone brings collectively.” These small details have proved critical, and the team’s commitment to every aspect of the game shines through their impeccable record. With the post-season underway, the team is looking forward to further successes, both on and off the ice. An overarching theme was an emphasis on the team’s culture. Maeve Reynolds ’26 echoed Stott’s earlier sentiment, adding that the “team goal both on and off the ice is to win the culture battle. That means everyone is being a good teammate supporting one finishing at the top of the midfield, with their eyes set on the front. Last year, however, they relinquished that spot to Alpine (Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly). After testing, it doesn’t seem that they’ll reclaim their position. McLaren lost a lot of testing time last year because their brakes were too hot, and they could not find a way to cool them down. This year — with much less testing time — McLaren lost time again as the structures around the front brakes were not as strong as needed. Mechanics were seen using duct tape to ensure the parts held their intended shape.

Though it’s difficult to compare teams based on testing performance, they present the opportunity to “eye test” the cars. That being said, McLaren’s car did not look much better on track: McLaren’s drivers were often seen whip-

As they head into their match against No. 4 Middlebury this ping the wheel around to keep the car under control, and Piastri even spun on the final day. McLaren admitted that they missed their development targets, but they attributed it to the fact that they have another concept in the works, which was not ready in time for testing.

The rest of the field had a rather uneventful test. Only three teams experienced reliability issues: Aston Martin (Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll), Mercedes (Sir Lewis Hamilton and George Russel), and Alfa Romeo (Valterri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu), but the teams do not seem too concerned. That being said, the midfield will be interesting to watch this season. Haas (Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenburg) in particular had a decent test. And while the American outfit had a lineup of two rookies two years ago, it now boasts two

The Mammoths enter this week of play at No. 1 in the NESCAC Rankings and No. 1 in the Women’s Division III PairWise National Rankings. This Friday, the Mammoths take on the Middlebury Panthers at home. proven veterans behind the wheel of its car. A new title sponsor and renewed confidence seem to be propelling them forward. Alpha Tauri (Yuki Tsunoda and Nyck De Vries) have lost a proven driver in Pierre Gasly, but the lineup they have this year has plenty of potential and should set the team up for years to come. The team who signed Gasly, Alpine, seemed to be on the back foot after day one of testing, but addressed the issues and finished in a much better spot. Alfa Romeo — despite their stoppage — are still riding the upward trend from last year, which bodes well for the impending Audi takeover in 2026.

F1 Season Set To Kick Off, Running Order Clearer

Aston Martin was the surprise of the test, advancing to the front of the midfield after a poor performance last year. In addition, driver Stroll was injured in a biking acci-

Women's hockey is led by upper- and underclassmen.

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Testing Timesheets Not Airtight, but Indicative

better part of the past decade have been Mercedes, Ferrari (Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainze), and Red Bull (Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez). Other than Mercedes’ stoppage, the top teams had a pretty standard test. Both Ferrari and Red Bull are in a strong starting spot and look to be in a development race all year. Mercedes is slightly further back, but seem to have a higher ceiling and an aggressive development plan, harboring the potential to come on strong mid-season.

my own post-testing rankings, but this may change as teams bring upgrades this weekend.

dent shortly before testing and did not participate. He is also currently unlikely to race this weekend. A lot of the performance running

was done by two-time champion Fernando Alonso while F2 driver Filipe Drugovich filled in the other sessions (and may make his debut

come Sunday). Some claim that they may even be a top team now, but I personally don’t buy it. The definitive top three for the

TENNIS

Again, the testing timesheets are not representative of the actual order of the field. However, the timesheets in conjunction with the eye test and quotes from the teams do give us enough material for a general ranking. Based on these factors, I have come up with

GAME SCHEDULE

March 4: Men vs. Bowdoin 10 a.m.

March 4: Women vs. Bowdoin 11:30 a.m.

March 5: Men vs. Colby 10 a.m.

March 5: Women vs. Colby 11 a.m.

HOCKEY

March 3: @ Women's NESCAC Semifinals, 7 p.m.

March 4: @ Men's NESCAC Semifinals, 3:30 p.m.

SQUASH

March 3 to Mar 5: @ Men's CSA Individual Championships

March 3 to Mar 5: @ Women's CSA Individual Championships

BASEBALL

Qualifying will determine the starting order of the race and show the true pace of each team. It will air on Saturday at 10 a.m. EST on ESPN2 and the race will be the same time Sunday on ESPN.

March 5: vs. Western New England University

TRACK & FIELD

March 4: @ Tufts National Qualifying Meet 12 p.m.

LACROSSE

March 4: Women vs. Hamilton College 12 p.m.

March 4: Men vs. Hamilton College 1 p.m.

Formula 1 qualifying will take place this Saturday at 10 a.m. EST.

Photo courtesy of F1world.it

1. Red Bull

2. Ferrari

3. Mercedes

4. Aston Martin

5. Alpine

6. Haas

7. Alfa Romeo

8. Alpha Tauri

9. McLaren

10. Williams