Issue 24

THE AMHERST

THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER OF AMHERST COLLEGE SINCE 1868

STUDENT VOLUME CXLIV, ISSUE 24l WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22, 2015

Baseball Sweeps Middlebury Over the Weekend See Sports Page 9

AMHERSTSTUDENT.AMHERST.EDU

Amherst Website Redesign to Launch This Summer Sophie Chung ’17 Managing News Editor

The college celebrated its annual City Streets festival on Sunday, April 19. The event included foods from a variety of countries, as well as entertainment by stilt-walkers and balloon artists.

Photography Editor: Olivia Tarantino ‘15

Social Club Final Proposal Released Elaine Jeon ’17 Managing News Editor The Social Project Work Group released a final proposal for the implementation of social clubs on Tuesday, April 14. The proposal outlines the potential process for creating social clubs, selecting their members and the objectives and requirements of clubs. The proposal is addressed to the student body, and the administration “will only consider a proposal that has the overwhelming support of the student body,” according to Chief Student Affairs Officer Suzanne Coffey.

Following the board of trustees’ decision last May to ban all fraternity activities on and off campus, current AAS President Tomi Williams ’16 wanted to find a way to address issues of social life at the college. He assembled a group of interested students, and last fall,

the Social Project Work Group began to brainstorm ideas for social clubs on campus.

The group has been soliciting feedback from the student body by offering workshop discussions, setting up an informational table in Valentine Dining Hall and presenting the initial model of social clubs at a meeting at the Powerhouse last November.

The Social Project Work Group wanted to create clubs that did not require a unifying skill or interest, but could still provide social opportunities for different students on campus. The social clubs are designed to offer a more diverse selection of social opportunities to the student body.

“It is a recurring criticism of our community that, although we are uniquely diverse, there are not enough opportunities for students to engage with this diversity beyond one-off events,” Williams said. “These groups also

present an opportunity to establish longlasting traditions in the form of semesterly events that will be open and are meant to attract the entirety of the Amherst community.”

Williams also spoke about the importance of mentorship on campus. Williams said he believes that the social clubs could provide an opportunity for upperclassman mentors to help younger students.

“As it stands now, first-year athletes have the greatest access to upperclassman students as soon as they are on campus — a lot of times even before they arrive,” Williams said.

“These connections with older students are tremendously important and oftentimes ease the anxieties of students who are concerned about their first-year experience. Social clubs give an opportunity for first-years to build

Continued on Page 2

Chief Communications Officer Pete Mackey announced recently that the college will launch a new website this summer with an updated layout and an increased focus on academics.

The goal of the website redesign team was to make the site useful both to off-campus users looking for general information about the college and to students looking to access specific information. For the off-campus audience, the team’s focus was to showcase the college’s merits. For students on campus, the design team sought to create a simpler and less cluttered format.

“We have set out to create a site that uses modern features to bring attention to Amherst’s strong intellectual life, close student-faculty working relationships, compelling curriculum and vibrant cultural and campus life,” Mackey said in an email to the campus community.

“We have been developing the new site since last summer, with the insights of the students, faculty and staff on our redesign team.”

The redesign team collaborated with award-winning design firm Fastspot. Mackey said that many others had contributed to the discussion about the website’s goals as well, including President Biddy Martin and a wide range of students, staff and faculty.

In the email, Mackey provided a link to a prototype of the website for students and staff to preview before the official launch. The prototype did not encompass all the functions that the live site will have, but the general layout has been confirmed.

“The designs and prototype are done in a web platform, not on paper,” Mackey said. “They emerged around a set of creative guidelines our web redesign group — which includes students, faculty and staff — developed. We also want to present a fresh design that seems likely to work for the college throughout its life as our .edu site, which is going to be about five years.”

Continued on Page 2

Alumni Host “Restore Our Democracy” Conference Ryan Cenek ’18 News Section Editor Amherst students and members of the class of ’64 gathered at the Alumni House last Friday and

Saturday for the Restore Our Democracy conference, the first event held by the Amherst StudentAlumni Organization. The conference, which was moderated by Mark Sandler ’64, consisted of conversations, panels and speeches on the theme of democratic reform.

Pierre Joseph ’15, the conference’s lead organizer, said that the class of 1964 experienced a time of pivotal change at Amherst. Members of the class were present at President John F. Kennedy’s speech at the groundbreaking of Frost Library on Oct. 26, 1963.

“The Kennedy speech at the dedication of Frost Library really challenged the meaning of attending elite institutions,” Joseph said. “You have notable alumni like Joe Stiglitz, who’d go on to win

a Nobel Prize in economics, or folks like Charles Stover and Doug Bray, who went into the peace corps. They were part of a generation of doers.”

On Friday, participants took part in a “Jeffersonian Dinner,” in which students and alumni discussed themes related to democracy and the disillusionment of millennials. Afterwards, journalist and 1992 Amherst Honorary Degree recipient Hedrick Smith delivered an address titled “Let’s Reclaim the American Dream,” focusing on the rising power of special interests in politics.

“In the eyes of many alumni, [Smith] presents an assessment [of the] period since the 1950s that explains the extreme concentration of economic and political power, cultural changes during that period and corrective strategies through civic engagement,” said Charles Stover ’64, a conference planner. “His book, ‘Who Stole the American Dream’ is one of the best assessments of the last 50-plus years and is fully relevant to understanding the current dysfunctions in our democracy.”

On Saturday, participants attended addresses by several distinguished speakers and took part in panel discussions on democracy. Speakers included democracy advocate John Bonifaz, nonprofit leader Josh Silver, activist Steven Olikara and former Congressman Mickey Edwards. The panel discussions covered structural changes to the political process, e-voting and women’s issues, the political role of millennials and the future of Student-Alumni Organization.

The inspiration for the conference came from the recent 50th reunion of the class of 1964. “The idea for the conference to promote dialogue between alumni, students and faculty about the state of our democracy came from the sessions at the 50th reunion of the class of 1964 in May 2014,” Stover said. “Since reunion, a group of roughly 40 students and alumni have continued a dialogue on ways to improve our democracy. A alumnistudent program committee prepared the conference with assistance from many college of-

ficials and faculty.”

A common theme discussed in many of the addresses and panels was the frustration with politics that characterizes the American millennial generation, including current Amherst students.

“There’s a generational disconnect between democratic process issues like voting, gerrymandering, sore loser laws and the lived experience of people just trying to get by in an economic situation that doesn’t work for everyone,” Joseph said. “I believe students at Amherst really grapple with the question of how to create impact. We all care about a ton of issues, but don’t necessarily have the infrastructure [or] support in order to scale our own particular change initiatives.”

Joseph said the organizers of the event hope to continue to use the Student-Alumni Organization as a starting point for more dialogue in the future.

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News

College Website Redesigned Apr. 7, 2015 - Apr. 15, 2015

>>April 7, 2015

11:39 a.m., College Hall Parking Lot An officer investigated a

>>April 8, 2015

8:15 a.m., Wieland Dormitory An officer investigated a basement smoke detector sounding and found it was activated by steam from a shower.

>>April 9, 2015

11:12 p.m., Stone Dormitory Officers responded to a complaint of loud music, people screaming, and located a party at a first-floor suite.

Several students were observed dancing on a window sill. The gathering was shut down.

>>April 10, 2015

4:06 p.m., Charles Pratt Dormitory An officer responded to a complaint of the odor of marijuana on the second floor. The responsible person was identified and will be fined $100. The matter was also referred to Student Affairs.

11:37 p.m., Keefe Campus Center An officer observed a male urinating outside of the Campus Center.

He was identified as a visitor and warned about his actions.

>>April 11, 2015

12:38 a.m., Charles Pratt Dormitory A resident reported information on two males seen tearing a poster off of a board on the first floor. The matter was referred to Student Affairs.

8:20 a.m., Campus Grounds A student reported receiving unwanted contact from a man who is not associated with the college. The matter is under investigation.

5:28 p.m., Seeley Mudd Building

An officer met with a student who reported the theft of a skateboard.

The skateboard was found later in the building in the possession of two other students. The matter was referred to Student Affairs, at the request of the owner of the skateboard.

9:46 p.m., Charles Pratt Dormitory While at a second-floor room, an officer discovered drug paraphernalia and several marijuana butts. The items were confiscated and the matter was referred to Student Affairs.

>>April 12, 2015

1:38 a.m., Valentine Quad A caller complained about loud music coming from the Whiteout TAP on the Fayerweather quad. An officer had the volume lowered.

1:47 a.m., Social Quad An officer encountered a student urinating outside of Pond. He was identified and will be fined $100 for the offensive behavior.

2:12 a.m., Hitchcock Dormitory A student reported he was assaulted by another student while attending a party earlier at Pond. The student was not injured and did not want to press charges. A report was taken and forwarded to the Student Affairs office.

7:32 a.m., Social Quad A written no-trespass order was issued to a man who had no association with the college.

7:23 p.m., Porter House An officer investigated a smoke detector sounding on the first floor and discovered it activated when popcorn was burned in a microwave oven.

AAS Candidate Statements Judiciary Council Felix A. Edwards ’18 Hello Amherst! I would be honored to serve you on the Judiciary Council. There is often ambiguity in the constitution and I want to ensure that the senate always works in the best interests of the student body. I want to work to make the complaint process transparent. Finally, I believe that the true importance of the Judiciary Council lies in its mission to approve new clubs. The ability to form meaningful groups is vital to the well-being of every student, and I want to ensure that every worthwhile club has a chance establish itself on campus.

Johsias A. Hussen (Joe) ’18 Hello! My name is Joe Hussen. It would be an honor to serve as a member of the Judiciary Council for this upcoming year. If elected for this position, I will work tirelessly to understand the spirit and commitment of our Constitution and to encourage efficient and ethical procedures in the AAS. I will serve the student body and the JC with reasoned judgment, integrity and enthusiasm. As a Senator this year, I served on the Elections Committee and the Budgetary Committee, both of which have given me great experience with the policies of the AAS. Vote Joe for JC! Joshua M. Ferrer ’17 My name is Joshua Ferrer and I am running for reelection to the Judiciary Council. I have been involved

with increasing voting accessibility and ensuring election fairness. I have also worked to maintain student input in the academic calendar process, add Young Alumni to the Board of Trustees, and change Amherst disability policies to reduce discrimination against students with alternative functionalities. As a member of the JC, I will continue to be a vocal advocate for the student body and will tirelessly support the principles of fairness, transparency, and equality.

Sanyu T. Takirambudde ’18 I’m Sanyu Takirambudde and I am running for Judiciary Council for the next academic year. As an international student from South Africa, the combination of my experience living internationally and domestically and collaborating with individuals from many cultures with varied competencies, communication skills and expectations will make me an asset to the team. I’ve been interested in getting involved in the student government, and the position of Judiciary council member specifically jumped out at me. As part of the Judiciary Council I will work extensively to make sure all student run groups are inclusive, recognized, and safe spaces.

Senators for Class of 2018 Areej Hasan ’18 Hi guys! My name is Areej Hasan, and I’m super

Continued on Page 3

Continued from Page 1 In the prototype design, there are six panels stacked vertically on the homepage to scroll through. The first panel will show quotes, which Mackey said will feature three design styles that change on a timed rotation. The goal of the quotes and facts on the first panel is to emphasize Amherst’s educational values.

The second panel will be a fixed “Welcome to Amherst” page that features facts about the college as well as news about special student and faculty collaborations. The third panel, titled “Recently,” will feature special speakers and events at the college while the fourth panel, “Distinctive Classes,” will showcase unique classes and provide easier access to course description. Mackey described the fifth panel, “Happenings at Amherst,” as one through which students could easily access the event calendar. Finally, the sixth panel, titled “A

Vibrant Community,” will provide direct links to Amherst College’s social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Instagram.

The one familiar feature on the prototype is the drop-down toolbar on the right hand side of the page with categories such as AC Data, Course Scheduler, Moodle and My Amherst arranged as they are in the current website.

In his email, Mackey said that the prototype aimed to show the design of the homepage and site structure, not individual department and office pages.

“We will provide expanded writing and design support to offices and departments to both help them keep their future sites up to date and take advantage of best practices in content and design,” Mackey said.

The final website design will continue to be built out before the website’s official launch in August.

Social Club Proposal Released Continued from Page 1 relationships with upperclassman students, who can help reassure, guide and advise younger students as necessary.”

According to the proposal’s final draft, the social clubs must have at most a 60:40 gender ratio, a requirement also in place for the college’s dormitories. No single class year could make up more than 50 percent of the club’s membership. Members must meet regularly as a group and plan social events for both the club and the entire student body each semester. As long as these rules are met, the social clubs could freely establish their own defining characteristics.

“What would give each club its character is the yearly campus event it organizes, which would ideally develop into a long-standing tradition for the college,” Social Project Work Group member Brian Beaty ’17 said. “As an example, just as the student body comes to expect a fall festival each year, it could also come to expect a social club, say ‘the Dickinson Club,’ to throw a poetry slam event the first day of spring every year on the quad. Students obviously wouldn’t join the Dickinson Club on the basis of that event alone — they would join it because they enjoyed the type of community it offers and wanted to become friends with the current members.”

The clubs could potentially range from anywhere from 30 to 50 members. Williams explained that the size would depend heavily on initial interest from the student body. The size of the clubs would be important because the groups should be big enough to provide a random mixture of students to foster new friendships, but be small enough to create intimate relationships within the clubs.

In order to create a social club, a group of three to five students would submit a brief social club proposal, consisting of the club’s name, a description of a potential campuswide event the club would plan and host, ideas for intra-group events and a mascot.

The Social Project Work Group would then administer a poll in which the student body would vote and the social clubs that received the largest numbers of votes would become the initial social groups on campus.

The selection process of clubs’ members would be based on how students rank the clubs in order of personal preference. Each student would fill out an application with basic information, including their name, class year and extracurricular activities, and attend preselection events, such as a club’s informational meetings.

A student’s admission to a social club would depend on an algorithm that takes into account student preferences and the club founders’ preferences, while evenly

distributing interested students across the available clubs. All students who apply would be guaranteed membership in a social club.

“We recognized apprehension about the amount of subjectivity on behalf of club leaders when matching prospective members to their groups; students are now matched with clubs by an algorithm similar to that used to place first-years in their seminars,” Williams said.

Students would be allowed to join a social club during the spring semester of their first year at Amherst. This is to “ensure students have time to get to know the social clubs, as well as Amherst social life in general,” according to the social club proposal.

A social club oversight committee would provide supervision to the social clubs on campus. The committee would consist of an administrative member and a representative from each club, who would serve a one-year term. The representatives would be required to attend monthly meetings and ensure the clubs are regularly organizing school-wide and intra-club social events. According to the proposal, other duties of the committee include “maintaining their distinctive qualities and [ensuring that] they uphold the mission of the college.”

Furthermore, just like many other clubs and teams on campus, the social clubs would require their members to attend bystander and anti-hazing training. They would also be expected to host intra-group events using resources of the Student Health Educators, Peer Advisors, Queer Resource Center, women and Gender Center and the Multicultural Resource Center. A social club would be disbanded if it fails to host regular social events, does not receive interest from applicants and loses participation from current members.

Coffey said that Williams has regularly checked in with the Office of Student Affairs to inform the administrators of the student feedback and the changes being made to the proposal of social clubs. Members of the Social Project Work Group also presented the process of designing social clubs to the College Council, chaired by Professor of Religion Maria Heim.

If social clubs are implemented, the Social Project Work Group will seek further support from the college administration in order for social clubs to receive funding for their events.

“And if we want this to be success, it is going to need student, administration and board of trustee support alike,” Williams said.

The group plans to put out an AAS poll soon so that students can vote on the proposal.

The poll is tentatively scheduled to be released on May 5, after two more town hall meetings on the topic of social clubs.

The Amherst Student • April 22, 2015

News

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AAS Senate Election Candidate Statements 2015 Continued from Page 2

excited about running for class senator!

Thanks to your voices, I have drafted a plan called AMH-WORKS which aims to install a Momba vending machine in Keefe, renovate unwanted dorms like Val, improve information about clubs online, and most importantly, listen to the student bodies’ concerns. If elected, I will definitely implement real change. I do not make empty promises. A vote for Areej is a vote for AMH-WORKS! Let’s make Amherst work better!

Fawzi K. Itani ’18 Hi! My name is Fawzi Itani, and I’m super excited to be running for re-elections with so many of my amazing friends! It’s now a year later, and I feel like I’ve fully assimilated into Amherst. I’m ready to start impacting Amherst in major ways! I’ve juggled around some ideas, and I want my main focus to revolve around empowering public art, strengthening club relations with various school departments, and creating a “chill” social space other than Keefe. As a senator, this past year has been incredibly fulfilling and I’m really looking forward to serving Amherst’s community for another year!

Natasha Kim (Tasha) ’18 Hi! I’m Tasha and I’m running for reelection to represent our class as a senator for the second year! I am passionate about ensuring that all students receive the best support and resources from the college.

This past year I worked on extending the reading period for students and served on the Title IX Review committee. I want to continue to advocate for student interests and well-being. Next year, I would like to organize events to keep our class as united as possible and to continue working to improve student mental health, academic advising and sexual respect on campus.

Siena Eileen Koh ’18 I look to represent the class of 2018 in the AAS in hopes of bringing more transparency, efficiency and accessibility to the Senate. It should be a given — not a campaign platform — that all Senators be open to constituent ideas; there needs to be more active effort on the Senate’s part to inform the student body of the important decisions being made and the projects at work, and to solicit student opinions on these matters. I would also like to work on restoring a sense of tradition and community at Amherst, and advocate for a greater focus on student satisfaction.

Aditi Krishnamurthy ’18 I’m excited to be running to represent the wonderful class of 2018 in the senate. I have loved getting to know the unique and talented people that make up Amherst, and want to work towards better integration of the different people here. I aim to achieve this through the facilitation of cross-discussion between the passionate but segregated groups on campus. To truly embrace our diverse population, we need a diverse campus culture. I will be an approachable, transparent, and effective intermediary between the student body and the administration, to further achieve practical goals such as printers in dorms.

Thank you!

Hannah C. Lessels ’18 I would be honored to represent my class on the AAS. As a senator I would represent the voices of the students and work to create clear communication between the students and administration. My platforms are extending Val hours, bringing more healthy options to Val and making printing and laundry free. I am approach-

able and interact with people from varied backgrounds and interests so I have a good perspective bridging the gap between athletes and non-athletes. I plan to be accessible, open to new ideas and to help students become more involved in and aware of student government activities.

Scott Nelson ’18 Hello! My name is Scott Nelson and I am running for the position of Senator for the Class of 2018. For the past two semesters, I have had the privilege of representing our class in the AAS, and I couldn’t be more excited about everything that has been accomplished in one short year. If re-elected, I will continue to be an active intermediary between the AAS and the students it represents. I will be approachable, reliable, and attentive, all with the hope of getting your goals accomplished and your voices heard. I appreciate your vote!

Alejandro Nino Quintero ’18 As a senator, I would be eager to continue to work towards making our campus one where all students feel welcome. I hope to introduce programs that create a stronger community across classes, from incoming freshmen to rising seniors. I want to work closely with IT to make sure that the new website’s club pages have accurate and adequate information as well as developing short classes/seminars on useful computer programs like Photoshop and Lightroom.

Most of all, I hope to represent the diverse interests of the class in a transparent, effective manner.

Mohamed A. Ramy (Ramy) ’18 Hello, all! After my first year at Amherst, I truly grasped that differences breed understanding not conflict. With such an eclectic student body, it can often be difficult to incorporate every perspective. Nevertheless, I assure you that your voices will not be ignored; your input is invaluable. Aiming to make the college more sustainable, the community more engaging, and the class more memorable, I find this senate position resonating with my aspirations, for I want to endeavor to be an impactful liaison between the student body and the administration. Indeed, I greatly share Mrs. Katie Fretwell’s sentiment: “You are Amherst!”

Frank Tavares ’18 This year, Amherst has discussed difficult issues, including racism on our campus, our mascot and even the fate of Pete. But these conversations have been mostly facilitated by administrators and staff, or remained online. If elected as a Senator, I would prioritize the reorientation of these conversations into the domain of students.

The AAS should be a forum in which to debate and disagree, translating such discussion into action. We should have open, student-run Town Hall meetings, where we can work within a constitutional framework that allows us to take actions on our own timetable. Vote Frank for AAS Senate!

Phillip Yan ’18 Hi, I’m Phillip Yan, and I would love your support. It’s been a busy year! Over freshman year, I helped students meet the Dalai Lama in Boston, before we knew he’d be coming to Amherst this year! I distributed boxes for students moving during winter break. I’ve also worked on helping people finding shuttles for Thanksgiving and Spring breaks. Throughout the year, I’ve grown to understand just how important it is to reach out to the Amherst faculty, whether it’s to raise funding for boxes, or help coordinate events. Next year, I want set up mechanisms to strengthen that

bond.

Daoping Zhang (Iris) ’18 Hello hello! I’m Iris from sunny Southern California. I would love to represent each one of you as senator and make your concerns and suggestions known. One of my major goals for the upcoming year is to continue building upon our class community by organizing class events, especially because we will no longer be conveniently living in the freshman quad. I hope to improve the Wi-Fi connection and increase the number of fruits in Val, among other things. Feel free to reach out to me anytime about anything you wish! I’d love to hear from all of you!

Senators for Class of 2017 Teresa J. Frenzel (Tess) ’17 Hey guys! I’m Tess Frenzel, a second semester sophomore in the class of 2017. I’ve been a First year resident counselor and SHE over the past year and after having such an incredible experience I’m hoping to continue being involved in building community at Amherst through Senate.

As a member of Cross Country and Track at Amherst I’m hoping on decreasing the student-athlete divide by making sure resources for students and athletes more equal. One of the specific ways I hope to accomplish that is having LEADS speakers open to the whole campus, not just athletes.

Rashid L. Kosber (Chico) ’17 Hello everybody, my name is Chico Kosber. And as a proud member of the Class of 2017, I would love the chance to represent you all again this coming year as an AAS senator. I am an organized, deliberate, and social individual, and above all, I feel that I can effectively represent our class as both your senator and your friend.

Please think of my name when you consider who to vote for in this year’s elections.

Pierre-Alexander D. Low ’17 Hello everyone/people who happen to read this page! I’d like to represent you in the AAS next year. While I’m bad at cover letters (and candidate statements), I’d be an excellent representative of our class and its concerns in student government.Here’s one small example of a project I’ll undertake if elected: On our beautiful nonfrozen quads, the lack of functioning wifi makes working there to take advantage of the sun impossible. While this is but one small issue I see as resolvable, if elected, I’ll doggedly pursue fixing this grave injustice and other significantly more meaningful ones.

Jessica C. Maposa ’17 I am excited to run for the opportunity to represent you as a senator. If elected, I plan to spend my time advancing your interests and making your voice heard. I have served a student community as president of Marsh and I would love to bring my experience to the class of 2017 and AAS senate. Please approach me with any questions, concerns, or comments; I am looking forward to connecting with and serving all of you.

Raymond H. Meijer ’17 I’m excited to run for re-election to represent our class in senate. Though I was only elected a few months ago, I’ve greatly valued the Senate opportunity. I’ve supported student group initiatives such as the “I Support Love” t-shirts, gathered information at a strategic planning meeting in response to questions from classmates, and am helping with the Community Effect: Touching Strangers photo event as a

way to strengthen campus unity. I hope to continue to contribute to a transparent senate and work on projects during a full term, and promise to be a responsive and down-to-earth representative. Thank you!

Andrew D. Orozco ’17 Hey there! My name is Andrew Orozco and I am running for senate! Since my arrival at Amherst, I have been overwhelmed by the presence of so many amazing voices on campus. However, I have also noticed that a fundamental lack of integration and communication has led to bad experiences for many students here. If elected, I pledge to put forth the same amount of devotion and passion I dedicate to my majors of Biology and Environmental Studies and work hard to intensify the presence and diversity of student voice in the Senate.

Thank you and don’t forget to vote!

Evelyn S. Ting ’17 My name is Evelyn Ting, I hail from Ohio, and I am a Computer Science major. I want to represent the class of 2017 because I care about the concerns of my classmates.

I know that I have often wanted to be more involved in making policy rather than just talking about policy. Therefore, I propose that we put up physical boards in public spaces on campus where students can initiate or comment on AAS issues and what they would like to see from us. I am excited to work for you.

George H. Ward ’17 2017s, I’d like to ask for your vote in the upcoming AAS election. I’m a double bassist in the Amherst Symphony Orchestra in the fall, and a student-athlete on the men’s lacrosse team in the spring.

I serve on both the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and the Committee on Education and Athletics. I’m an Athletics Liaison in the CCE, and was an Orientation Leader this past year. At Amherst, I’ve worked with students, student-athletes, faculty, and coaches, and I look forward to working for you in the AAS.” Senators for Class of 2016 Johnathan T. Appel ’16 Hi everyone, I’m Johnathan Appel and I’m running for AAS senate. I’m a junior from NYC who has been involved in clubs and groups all around campus, including RC’s, Student Health Educators and WAMH. This year, as a senate, we have made a lot of progress towards reinvigorating the activist base of the student body and creating real change. As a member of College Council, I’ve helped create gender inclusive bathrooms in all single stall restrooms in public buildings and dorms. I’d like to use that same activist spirit and support from the student body to put pressure on the administration and faculty for free laundry and printing, moving the QRC to the Campus Center as well as a reexamination of student workload in light of the strategic plan.

Shruthi Badri ’16 Hi! I’m Shruthi and I’m running for senate to continue standing up for student interests, which is something I’ve tried to do throughout my time as an Amherst student, on senate and off. In the past, I’ve worked to retain student storage on campus, been a part of strategic planning for diversity and community, worked on bettering sexual assault policies and advocated for more responsive academic accommodations for students. If re-elected, my focus will be on the multiple facets of improving student health on campus and curricular reform. I hope you’ll continue to place your faith in me.

Carlos A. de Bracamonte ’16 Issues I’d like to address include Val’s operating hours and it’s impact on students’ academic work and extracurricular activities, support needed for students to transition from a liberal arts education into a highly competitive work-market place and the role that Amherst College should play in supporting that transition. If elected I would bring to the position a strong work ethic and experience in student government as a two-year member of my high school student council. For the last three years, I’ve been part of the Amherst Leads program, which fosters and promotes leadership and teamwork.

Virginia L. Hassell ‘16 Hi everyone! I’m running for re-election because I love Amherst! I am also continually inspired by YOU—my innovative and insightful peers. If elected, I will remain committed to making the college years at Amherst a more enjoyable student experience. Together, we can use our final year here to leave Amherst an even better place than when we arrived. I would be honored to have your vote this Thursday!

Samuel D. Keaser ‘17E During our freshman and junior years I have had the privilege of serving the class of 2016 as an AAS senator — I would love the opportunity to represent you one final time. If reelected, I will push for an administration that engages with the student body, a curriculum that adequately considers the dynamic nature of what 21st century students need from a liberal arts education, and an AAS that actively seeks student input and critique. I look forward to continuing my work for, and relationship with, our class and hope that I can count on your votes this Thursday.

Manuel Morales Jr. (Manny) ’16 My name is Manuel Morales and I hope you will consider voting for me as a senator for the class of 2016. I have been involved with the AAS Budgetary Committee as an at-large member for two of the last three years. I hope to use my experience with the Budgetary Committee to work with Paul, the AAS treasurer, and other senators to expand the funding guidelines to fulfill future funding requests. Additionally, I want to help tailor college newsletters to fit students’ personal interests and work with student organization leaders to better publicize their meetings and events.

Alexandra B. Rohde (Ali) ’16 Hello! My name is Ali and I would love to spend one final year representing our class. During the past few years, I have been working to make the AAS as inclusive and representative of the student body as possible, primarily through my work with the Elections Committee and the Women of the AAS group. There is still much work to be done in this realm, and I hope to make more progress next year. I have loved serving on the AAS, so please vote for me to allow me to continue serving our class.

Tierney A. Werner ’16 Hello, Amherst community! I am running as a candidate because I wish to serve the student body in the following ways: I will advocate for more picnic tables outside, minors (so that we are not limited to majoring or not majoring), and greater communication from the senate to the student body. My personal emphasis on listening, organization and my passion for making Amherst the best place for all of us makes me a strong candidate to be one of your eight class of 2016 senators.

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STUDENT

Supporting Our Community Editorial

Think of any college movie you’ve ever seen. Buying into the classic collegiate stereotypes, the protagonists probably get drunk at a big football game, cheer for their mascot at the track meet or attend an underground a capella battle. Before stepping on campus, most future Amherst students probably imagined they would frequently support their classmates, neighbors and close friends at events, performances or sports games. They most likely imagined they’d spend their weekends wrapping themselves in purple apparel and screaming “Go Amherst!” until their voices turned hoarse. Yet, the reality has created a much less supportive and more isolated community as the Amherst rallying cheer has quickly become “I can’t today, I’m so busy.”

Amherst student dedication is a double-edged sword: We’re individually dedicated to our own sports, clubs and studies but we lose the ability to support the passions and talents of others on campus. We challenge ourselves academically, taking difficult classes and tackling wide-ranging disciplines outside of our comfort zones. We spend countless hours on our own extracurricular activities, whether by putting together intellectually engaging events or working to improve our athletic abilities.

While juggling all these commitments, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that there’s no time left to support our peers.

But while we invest deeply in all that we care about personally, we miss the games, concerts and club events that generate collective campus spirit. Let’s talk about sports. Regardless of your opinion on the role of athletics vs. academics or the mysterious athlete/non-athlete divide, athletes spend multiple hours a day in practice for their games to represent Amherst on the field. The least that the larger student body can do is represent our school on the stands. Frankly, going to the games is just plain fun and a great way to de-stress with friends. Just the act of showing up means the world to friends who have worked long hours to perform at an exceptional level.

The problem of poor attendance is not exclusive to sports, however. We all live on budgeted time. But choral society, WAMH concerts and various other performance groups on campus deserve our support. The Peer Advocates, SHEs and To Write Love on Her Arms organize incredibly transformative and informative dialogues on student life and campus climate, but these events chronically receive low attendance. Clubs as wide-ranging as the Anime Club to the Juggling Club exist on this campus. Being at Amherst presents students with the unique opportunity to be a part of communities and cultures beyond anything available outside of the campus on the hill. It’s time we took advantage of them.

Mythbusting College Friendships Yelim Youm ’18 Staff Writer Friendship, for most of my life, has been a word packed with conflicting emotions and unwelcome baggage. In second grade, as a quiet, slightly chubby and bookish kid, I didn’t have many friends. But things got much worse when I moved to the city and began elementary school all over again. Making friends admittedly takes time, but months passed and I hadn’t a single friend. I was designated the “uncool” kid of my new second grade class. To get caught talking to me was to also receive that label, and so I sat in silence for all of that year — always without friends, always the last one to be picked as a partner.

After school, while other kids went home or went on playdates with friends, I went to the school library and sat there for hours, escaping into different worlds. Luckily, things changed after I moved for the second time. For some reason, at this new school, a group of “in” kids decided to take me under their wing. The most hellish year of my childhood ended one afternoon, after their leader — a blond boy named Caleb — gave me a nod of approval from the monkey bars.

Thankfully, nothing like that ever happened again. A steady pool of friends stayed with me for the rest of elementary school, for all of middle school and straight through to my high school graduation. The last few years of high school were actually when I made my closest friends. Though these friends were people I hadn’t felt particularly drawn to at first, we bonded startlingly easily once we started talking. I spent the best moments

of high school with them. Still, I felt lonely sometimes and had more than my fair share of socially awkward moments. There were times when I would sit in my room feeling inadequate and unfit for society, overanalyzing every one of the social interactions I had had that day and criticizing myself to no end. Sometimes I even doubted the friendships I had, questioning — even as I struggled to define the term — whether these people were “true friends” or not. I blamed my social hang-ups on both myself and my childhood experiences of being bullied. Of course, these moments of insecurity eventually passed. But the self-doubt was always there, lurking deep within me. On top of this well of insecurity, college sparked even greater worries. It would be a completely different place, and my high school friends would be thousands of miles away.

For all my life I’d learned — and had had it driven into my head again and again — that college was where you made friends for life. Where you’d find your absolute best buddies, bridesmaids, sisters or brothers from another mother, people you’d reminisce with 50 years down the road. But forget all that! Would I be able to make friends at all?

August 24, 2014: the beginning of first-year orientation, along with what was supposed to be the most fun, most productive, and wildest four years of life. The first time I stepped on campus last August, a series of emotions fought for dominance within me. Of them all, fear won out: Fear of failing too-difficult classes, fear of an overwhelming workload, and, most of all, fear of social failure. What if super-amazing lifelong college friends didn’t hap-

pen for me? What if I was doomed to spend the next four years — well, the rest of my life — without them, while everyone else had an amazing time? With that fear looming over me, I started desperately trying to find friends, though at first it wasn’t so much “making friends” as it was “not being left out.” That meant spending a lot of time with people I was kind of familiar with: People who lived on my floor, who were in my orientation squad, who I’d sat with by chance in Val during those first few days. It was easy, and not as scary, to hang out with them. I didn’t mesh with them quite as well as I’d been hoping — sometimes I felt like we were on completely different wavelengths, and, try as I might, I found it hard to view the world like they did. But as the semester went on and the freshmen found their friend groups, everyone became more closed off, less open to making new friends.

And so by the time the fall semester ended, I had convinced myself that the friends I had then would become my lifelong best friends — if I couldn’t see things from their perspectives sometimes, that just meant I had to try harder, right?

Except it didn’t quite work that way. By the middle of second semester, I’d experienced a falling-out with one of my best friends from first semester, and was left feeling betrayed, empty and alone. I wandered about feeling like this for about a week, until it got almost unbearable. That was when I decided to start hanging out more with other friends I’d made in different contexts —I’d instantly clicked with them, but because we were in different classes or dorms I’d never had the chance to get to

know them well. Instead of passively getting sucked into hangout sessions with my dorm or with my old friend group, I began initiating them. Instead of spending time with people simply because they were in the same common room, I started asking myself where I wanted to be. This time around it was much, much easier — instead of forcing myself to mold to personalities that clashed with mine, all I had to do was be myself and let things happen. Things happened much faster, too. A few weeks ago, one of my newer friends told me that friendships like these were what she had always imagined having in college. “Me too,” I told her, struck by the truth of her words.

It took, of all things, a Buzzfeed article (of unusually high quality) for me to realize what had changed.

Number three on the list of “18 Important Things You’ll Wish You’d Known In College” was about being an active friend-maker, versus a passive one. This part of the blurb rang especially true for me: “The best friendships are made intentionally: When you actively seek out people who enjoy the same passions, activities and interests as you.”

I thought about how much happier I had gotten since the friendship fallout, and realized that this was what had changed. Instead of hanging out with the most-accessible or least-threatening people, I was now choosing to spend my time with people I felt to be on the same wavelength, people I clicked with easily, people I genuinely liked. The act of choosing: That was the real difference. It had been, I thought, a choice all along. After all, friends don’t just appear — there’s a reason why it’s called making friends.

E X E C U T I V E B OA R D Editor-in-Chief Sophie Murguia Executive Adviser Brendan Hsu Managing News Dan Ahn, Sophie Chung, Elaine Jeon Managing Opinion Johnathan Appel, Marie Lambert Managing Arts and Living Marquez Cummings, Gabby Edzie, Evan Paul Managing Sports Kiana Herold, Lauren Tuiskula S TA F F Design Editors Gabby Bishop, Megan Do, William Harvey, Sunna Juhn, Chloe Tausk Assistant News Editor Ryan Cenek Assistant Sports Editors Jeremy Kesselhaut, Jason Darell, Jason Stein Publishers Emily Ratte, Tia Robinson Photography Editor Olivia Tarantino

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The Amherst Student • April 22, 2015

Opinion

A Letter from Amherst Hillel

Thinking About Allies During Pride and Allies Week

Amherst Hillel Executive Board Contributing Writers Amherst Hillel serves a number of roles on campus, roles as diverse as our own student body.

We aim to enrich the lives of Jewish students and bolster meaningful, lasting connections with Jewish life and Israel. We work to foster a strong Jewish community on campus, one that welcomes Jews and non-Jews alike. We seek to educate and include the greater Amherst community in our celebrations of Jewish culture, Jewish faith and Jewish life. Above all, we strive to help students get in touch with and develop their Jewish identities, whether through religious services, cultural traditions, Friday night dinners or social events.

Last Saturday night, on the weekend preceding Israel’s Independence Day, Amherst Hillel hosted a party in the Powerhouse.

It was planned to be an innovative program, modeled after Tel Aviv’s annual silent rave, which has grown in popularity across American college campuses. Our goal in hosting this celebration was to provide a fun and educational event so that Amherst students could learn about Israeli culture while unwinding on Saturday night. To that end, we advertised the dance with posters placed in Valentine’s atrium and elsewhere on campus. We were disheartened to discover that these posters were torn down and vandalized.

We understand that members of our campus community have passionate and widely divergent views on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. That said, it is entirely possible to express one’s dissenting opinions in a respectful man-

ner. Hillel strongly supports freedom of speech but also expects student groups to retain control over their events’ purposes, moods and proceedings. While we believe students acted respectfully by silently entering our party on Saturday night, they subverted the event in a number of ways by staging a die-in. Students who were happily dancing quickly vacated as the environment became tense. We at Amherst Hillel advocate engaging in a productive conversation on the issues that surfaced this past weekend, rather than the tearing down of advertisements or the disruption of an event without consulting its organizers. Such a discussion would benefit the very Amherst community Hillel strives to serve and would help members craft their own informed opinions. Our organization is named after the rabbinic sage, Hillel, who was known for his desire for peace, respect for multiple viewpoints and concern for others. Amherst Hillel enjoys being part of a campus mosaic comprised of many cultural and religious groups. We aim to support members of our community during their time here while fostering a healthy learning environment. Our community might not always come to a consensus on the complicated issues at hand, but we should work together to create an environment where we feel equally valued and respected as we learn from one another.

Josh Ferrer ’17 Liam Fine ’17 Isa Goldberg ’17 Destin Groff ’17 Michael Harmon ’16 Nicholas Kafker ’17 Zoe Vayer ’16

An Overabundance of Silence: On Israel and Protest Last Saturday, Amherst Hillel and Amherst Students for Israel cohosted “Lila Levin: A Blue and White Night” in the Powerhouse in honor of Israel’s 67th birthday. Continuing a string of many seemingly benign cultural activities, this event was not neutral, but was instead a wounded space, one created by the blood, tears and bodies of Palestinians. Israel’s Independence Day is not a celebratory occasion in honor of which we should throw parties and socialize. It is etched into the minds of Palestinians as the Nakba, the “Day of Catastrophe.”

It is a day of haunting memories, of the catastrophe that led to the forced expulsion of the Palestinian people and the destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages and towns. Most importantly, it symbolizes a day of injustice and the beginning of the illegal occupation.

We understand that many students involved in Hillel and similar organizations are unaware of and uneducated in the extraordinary atrocities committed by the Israeli state. They neither realize

nor condemn the destruction of human and social life resulting from the horrendous acts of the Israeli Defense Forces as well as the near-bipartisan support from the U.S. for the continued colonialism of the Israeli state. However, for too long at Amherst, we have disregarded Palestinian lives. As the commemoration of American independence includes within it the three-fifths dehumanization of black lives and the homage paid to Lord Jeffery Amherst includes the massacre of Native Americans, the celebration of Israel’s independence includes a celebration of the forced displacement of over 700,000 Palestinians.

With these histories in mind, we want to educate our fellow students, staff, faculty and administrators at Amherst regarding the injustices taking place in Palestine. We want to show that Amherst students, allegedly trained in critical thought, have turned a blind eye to the specific injustices taking place today in Israel. We hope to demonstrate that any continued political, financial

5

Queeriosity

James Hildebrand ’15 Contributing Writer Queeriosity is a biweekly column dedicated to discussing LGBTQ student life at Amherst College. If you are interested in contributing to the Queeriosity column, contact the Amherst College Queer Resource Center at qrc@amherst.edu.

As the Queer Resource Center’s Community Outreach Coordinator, part of my job is getting straight people to care.

The more time I spend working on bringing allies into our space, however, the more I realize that a significant gap in ally-directed education has developed in our community. Put simply, our allies are learning how to respectfully participate in intergroup dialogue about queer people in a low-stakes academic context, but they aren’t developing pragmatic ally skills meant for the real world, where the stakes are so much higher.

Let me be clear — I’m really happy with the progress that so many of my classmates have made in holding effective discussions about identity. When I talk about being a gay man on campus, I can clearly see how my peers have internalized all the theoretical principles of being good allies. They validate my experience of my own identity. They don’t presume an objective perspective on my experiences. They even ask before taking candy from the QRC because they don’t want to drain resources that aren’t meant for them. These things are great, but our allies aren’t learning how to put them to use when it truly matters.

In my four years at Amherst, I’ve only encountered open homophobia a handful of times. In each instance, however, I was confronted with the painful realization that people I assumed were “allies” were too scared to speak up. A roommate, a student group acquaintance and a fellow Val front room sitter — the same people who validated my identity and assured me I was welcome here — sat silently as I defended my community, only to meekly apologize for their silence after the fact. These people were great allies in the safe context of private or group discussion, but they could not put their theoretical principles into practice when I needed them the most.

It was easy to blame this failure to act entirely on the people themselves: “They’re just cowards,” I would think to myself as I lay awake at night, replaying the events in my mind. As I’ve thought more about these incidents, though, I’ve started to wonder if part of the gap in action comes from ally education itself. We spend so much time on theory for low-stakes interactions, which make up the majority of queer identity discussions on this campus. The problem is, those principles don’t translate well to more serious confrontations. If someone has been told to always defer to queer people on queer topics, to not take up space by speaking too much in queer settings and to never act like a savior, isn’t it only natural that they would stand silently and allow queer people to defend themselves alone? Rather than representing some sort of betrayal, doesn’t this passive approach fit those principles perfectly?

This is precisely why we need more bystander intervention training as part of our ally education. It’s true: Straight people shouldn’t walk around acting like saviors, charging into queer spaces and screaming their opinions. At the same time, though, allies should learn that there are instances in which this response is exactly what queer people need. In the few times I’ve been seriously concerned for my safety as a gay guy in the real world, I’ve never worried that a straight ally would use the wrong term or speak too much on my behalf. When the stakes are high, you’ll take whatever support you can get, and there is always time to unpack it later.

Here’s an example: I remember once going to a New Year’s Eve party during winter break and hearing someone launch into a virulently homophobic speech. I felt my stomach drop as I realized that, once again, I’d be all alone in standing up for myself. Before I knew it, though, three of my brothers appeared from the kitchen, pulled the guy aside, yelled at him and made him come up to me (as the token gay, of course) to personally apologize. Was this the best way of handling the situation? Certainly not. Did they miss the mark on some things? Obviously. Was it better than having to publicly defend my community all by myself in a room full of seemingly hostile strangers? Absolutely.

Since that night, we’ve talked about the incident and how they could be more effective allies in the future, but what mattered in the moment was that they, as allies, opened their mouths and stood up for something that they intuitively understood was wrong. Our Amherst allies would do well to learn from their example by putting the desire to do the right thing above the desire to do the thing right.

The missing link, as I mentioned, is more practice at being an active bystander. So, if you hear someone saying something homophobic or transphobic, open your mouth and speak. If you don’t know enough to say something, start educating yourself now. If someone is already defending themselves, let them know that you’re right there beside them. You will undoubtedly mess up along the way, and even queer people make mistakes when talking about other queer people, but that’s the only way we teach each other the skills to actually make a difference when it really matters. If allies can make a stronger commitment to speaking up and speaking out, I know the queer community will meet them halfway.

and military support of Israel is complicit in the colonialization and abuse of freedom and human rights committed by the Israeli state. We claim that Israel’s Independence Day and its accompanying party in the Powerhouse are not and can never be apolitical, but, rather, recapitulate the founding violence of that state.

Towards this end, many of us, a group of students allied in our wish to bring to light the unacknowledged political nature of this school-sanctioned event, staged a die-in to reenact how the Israeli state celebrates dancing atop the graves of Palestinians. Despite our blatantly nonviolent agenda, we were met with considerable barriers. We were informed by an Amherst College police officer that our signs, which were meant to inform onlookers of our cause, were considered weapons and were thus not allowed to be brought into the Powerhouse, despite being made from mere construction paper and markers and despite the presence of other potential

weapons such as our belts, shoes, pens and jewelry. The projector, music and lights were shut down for the duration of the die-in, student security at the scene was intensified and the organizers of the event demonstrated their unwillingness to engage with the irony of celebrating in “silence” a politics which tramples over the voices of an entire people: A “silent” event that attempted to silence the voices of a group of students hoping to raise awareness.

We do not take the infantilization of our actions, the trivialization of our cause, lightly. Silence is always in support of the oppressor. We refuse to support our institution’s decision to invest in a state that systematically engages in an apartheid against the Palestinian people, and thus we refuse to be silent. If anything, the reactions of the organizers of the Israeli Independence Day event signal that there is an even greater effort required to inform the Amherst community of its responsibility to be aware of the issue at hand, implicated as it is in

the conflict. To those who wish to organize more events in support of the current political agenda of the Israeli state: Though we promise action, we threaten nothing, for knowledge and truth cannot threaten justice.

Kari-Elle Brown ’15 Ethan Corey ’15 Marc Daalder ’18 Kyle Ferendo ’17E Alexander Jiron ’15 Caroline Katba ’15 Edward J. Kim ’15 Rashid Kosber ’17 Eunnie Lee ’18 Andrew Lindsay ’16 Laura Merchant ’15 Noor Qasim ’18 Kali Robinson ’17 Samuel Rosenblum ’16 Siraj Sindhu ’17 Savannah Sutherlin ’18 Frank Tavares ’18 Brian Z. Zayatz ’18 John Zayatz

Arts&Living

Photo courtesy of amherst.edu

This past weekend, six Amherst faculty members presented their own creative pieces. The works presented ranged from opera to original choreography.

Amherst Faculty Showcases Wide Range of Original Creative Pieces Darya Bor ’18

Staff Writer

Amherst’s faculty held the Art Faculty Performance on April 19, showcasing the talents and professors in the Departments of Music, Film and Media Studies and Theater and Dance. Oftentimes students forget that professors too are creators so the performance was a welcome reminder that that once faculty members were students, working on their theses, projects, compositions, and today they continue to create new work.

I found the faculty performances interesting, but I felt so out of my depth that I enjoyed them without knowing exactly what I was enjoying.

The first act featured five gold-lit figures on a dark blue stage; the only thing missing from this jazz band was a cityscape in the background. This act showcased the talents of Jason Robinson, assistant professor of music. The smaller quintet format of the nine-piece Janus Ensemble played two pieces, “Facing East” and “Circuitry Unbound.”

Both works seemed like an experiment in dissonance, with the two main voices, played

by Jason Robinson and Marty Ehrlich, arguing at first, then reconciling and constructively playing together to a funky accompaniment by Liberty Ellman, Drew Gress and George Schuller. The second act had all members of the band jamming to the esoteric tune, and after each of their solos, the audience erupted in applause. The performers were having so much fun that it was hard not to enjoy it.

Adam Levine, assistant professor of art and film and media Studies, showed his work “You Got Eyes” next. The program described it as “an experiment in movement and single-frame video.” And so it was — it featured two dancers, Aretha Aoki and the Amherst College’s own Sara Smith, dancing in a warehouse-esque space. The strange thing about this piece was that their movements were fragmented and discontinuous — the singleframe camera captured them once every half second or so, in such a way that they looked like they were images flashing from one to the other without any sort of continuity.

This was one of the odder pieces — it felt hypnotic, with the non-diegetic voiceover talking about America and how we should burn it to the ground, confidence, personal reflections, reaching into unexplained static, the beat of a heart, the sound of cars waiting and driving off at an intersection. The dancers, meanwhile, moved through the warehouse space, and I found myself questioning how we perceive three-dimensional space without constant motion. The sound, utterly three-dimensional in its reach, added into this strange mix. I’m not sure what it made me feel, but it definitely made me think.

Judging from the confused blinking and soft murmurs in the audience afterwards, it seems that everyone had this feeling.

The third act showed scenes four and five from “The Scarlet Professor,” a new opera from Eric Sawyer, professor of music. The story was taken from a 1960s case in which a Smith College professor and his closeted colleagues were arrested for possessing por-

nography by the postmaster general. The audience saw two scenes in which Professor Arvin (Daniel Kamalic) was sitting in a mental hospital and facing his supportive colleagues (Sarah Pelletier) and flashbacks of people who led to his predicament (Paul LaRosa). The subject of the opera might sound strange, but as Sawyer stated in his introduction, “That’s all you need to know, but you might want to know more about what happens afterwards.” Unsurprisingly, I was left yearning for the rest of the story.

To be fair, I’ll admit that this was the first time I had ever seen an opera. I was expecting loud booming voices, garbled beauty instead of words, and some sort of classical music. The lonely piano, played by Sawyer, accompanied the opera singers. The most jarring realization I had while watching was that I understood the words and I understood them well. I could follow the story!

The context-heavy jokes relating to the Five College area and its peculiarities added a nice touch.

The last act was a dance called “Slow Slip Down” choreographed by Paul Matteson, assistant professor of dance, in collaboration with seven dancers. The seven dancers were accompanied by music semi-improvised by Ian Stahl ’14 and Ben Muller ’14. There was a quote at the bottom of the program for this act: “Where others go on ahead, I stay in one place” (Ludwig Wittgenstein). The dancing definitely displayed this idea. The dancers explored the stage from the front to the back curtain first in unison, then branching off and creating their own paths

and movements. The music provided a good backdrop — it focused attention on the sheer power and control of the performers. It felt hypnotic and mesmerizing. I wanted to focus my eyes on one place, yet couldn’t — the performers had once again split into groups of two or three and pedaled, jumped and dragged each other down. While it did not take effort to appreciate the majesty of the performers’ movements, I always had to pay attention because there was no telling where the unpredictable motion would go forth next. When the motion suddenly stopped, the patience and attentiveness that was necessary to watch this act dissipated and left a strange feeling.

There was definitely something that I missed. I am not anywhere near the proficiency of these professors — obviously I cannot understand their art as well as they do. Here they are, experimenting in different media at the top of their game, yet most of the intricacies of their work just flew right over my head. I felt out of my depth, and not in the “I’m learning and that’s OK” way.

At the same time, I was very glad I came. This faculty performance served as a reminder that the students of the fine arts are not the only ones creating new work and pushing the boundaries of art. These new works might be beyond the classroom or an average student’s understanding, but the message was felt all the same. There is a certain legacy these professors are trying to pass on — creative ingenuity, courage and curiosity. And each of them seems to be creating something wholly unprecedented.

Literary Magazine Transports Readers from Vermont to Mumbai Rene Kooiker ’18 Staff Writer The Common, a literary magazine based at Amherst, released its ninth issue this week. The Common is devoted to a “modern sense of place,” a happily broad mission that I suspect all of us can in some sense relate to. As young adults at Amherst, we’re all away from home in an environment that’s devoted to encouraging each of us to find our own sense of place both here and beyond our college years. These early adult years are no more than an eddy in a tide pool, a brief disturbance of the wider waters of life. Yet the time we spend at Amherst

and the knowledge we amass here will inevitably become a key part of our identities, and we desperately cling on to the memories of our short time here.

If you feel this way, then editor-in-chief Jennifer Acker ’00’s introduction to the magazine might resonate with you. Acker writes about her complicated relationship with the Spanish language, and about the experience of learning and forgetting.

“Realizing the scale of what I’ve forgotten is depressing, she writes. “Competency and knowledge are not supposed to abandon you like lovers do.” Acker follows this with a question that most of us will face at some point in the future: “How do we learn when

we’re no longer students and have not chosen paths as scholars?” Acker’s thoughtful essay begins a diverse collection of stories, poem, essays and images that all relate in some way to the magazine’s “sense of place” mission.

Some of the best pieces in this issue were from writer Luis Muñoz. Muñoz’s two pieces in the ninth issue of The Common — “What Always Pulls at Me” and ”Poetry Never Stops Defining and Redefining its Terrain”— are heartfelt, non-fictional and essayistic parables for his poetics. His writing feels urgent and inevitable, both for the reader and for him. “What always pulls at me, like a persistent hand tugging on my

shirt sleeve or at my pant leg, is the poem I haven’t written,” he writes. This “pulling” absorbs the writer’s experiences from daily dramas, television, and common language, only stopping once we find “fresh nuances, shiny threads, newly unsatisfied necessities that it feels are urgent and intimate.”

Between what we know intellectually and emotionally, Muñoz writes that this “zone of intersection” allows the poet to become a “the hunter of symbols” and “of correspondences.”

Another standout in the magazine is Sujata Shekar’s story “Between the Lines.”

Continued on next page

Arts & Living 7

The Amherst Student • April 22, 2015

Issue 09 of The Common Conjures Up a Vivid Sense of Place Continued from previous page The main character, Bo Htet Aung, has worked as the chief of Myanmar’s censorship office for 20 years, but today he has to announce the end of the country’s tradition of censorship, overturning 48 years of routine regulation. At one point in the narrative, Bo parks his Nissan Saloon outside his usual teashop, where he sips his cup of tea while sitting in the driver seat. Bo’s job can be boiled down to reading between the lines, “parsing the words and filtering the intentions of a long line of hacks and journalists.”

Now, this man of careful detail wants to take his skill of dissecting the words of others to the realm of fiction, a space that Bo refers to as a natural next step. One of the strengths of this story is its narrative style. Through free indirect discourse, Shekar shows us how this story is as much about Bo as it is about the narrator. This curious narratorial position, which never completely resembles that of a character or a proper storyteller, creates a space in which the consciousness of narrator and a protagonist seem to blend.

Writers in The Common often present plain speech in a highly charged manner that has the power to draw in the reader.

In “Between the Lines,” we read about “the smells of the teashop landed like slaps to his face.” Peter Jay Shippy’s “The PostGraduates,” is a poem about a world of “foamy moustaches and umlaut eyes.” Edie Meidav’s “The King of Bubbles” is a tragicomic tale of impotency set in a world with a “mildewed dank warren of a health club where one’s point in the family of man shows itself within the locker room’s flapping paps, a hearty male enfolding of good cheer, no bull-whip towelslap.” Throughout the magazine, writers use simple diction to conjure up vivid sensory images.

This kind of vivid imagery is typical of many writers in The Common, who transport their readers everywhere from Vermont to Mumbai. Reading The Common is an enjoyable and immersive sensory experience, and it’s well worth spending an afternoon with this smart and thought-provoking literary magazine.

Photo courtesy of thecommononline.org

Issue 09 of “The Common” will be available to readers to purchase on Thursday, April 23.

“The Hunting Ground” Exposes College Administrative Negligence Claire Jia ’15 Staff Writer Over the last few years, I have been no stranger to the culture of sexual assault on college campuses. But watching “The Hunting Ground,” a new documentary by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering ’84, makers of “The Invisible War,” even I was surprised and sickened by the horrifying assaults suffered by so many students and, perhaps more so, by the way in which survivors were treated by their colleges and by the media.

The film begins with a touching montage of home videos showing students reacting to their acceptances at their dream schools. One can’t help but cringe as the celebrations, collegiate music and bucolic shots of college campuses are juxtaposed against harrowing accounts of rape. A 2013 Harvard promotional video with the song “Anything Could Happen” playing in the background takes on a chilling

double meaning. Evidently, anything can happen, and it’s beyond your wildest dreams — or nightmares.

“The Hunting Ground” focuses on two former students at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Andrea Pino and Annie Clark, and a graduate student at Harvard, Kamilah Willingham. Andrea Pino and Annie Clark were both sexually assaulted during their first years in college and both faced callous administrators who were more interested in protecting their reputation than their students.

“Rape is like a football game. Just look back and think about what you would have done differently,” an administrator told Annie Clark.

Kamila Willingham was asked why she didn’t fight her assailant after she had repeatedly said she was unconscious during the attack.

Students recount how they were asked what they were wearing, whether they said no and how they said no. One student at Swarth-

Photo courtesy of calcasa.org

“The Hunting Ground,” a powerful documentary by Kirby Dick and Amherst Alumni Amy Ziering ’84, covers sexual assault on college campuses.

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more was told that her rapist was “probably going through a hard time.” The film shares story after story of women and men who faced the same cold treatment from institutions that had pledged to protect them, suggesting that there is a much more insidious villain in the fight against sexual violence.

The reaction to Florida State University student Erica Kinsman’s rape is particularly saddening. Her alleged rapist is FSU’s star quarterback Jameis Winston, or “Jameis Christ,” as adoring FSU fans call him. When she attempted to press charges against Winston, she was branded as “a liar” and as “just [wanting] to be a part of the scene.”

“How terribly unfair it is to this young man!” sports commentators lamented. The film’s focus on the relationship between masculinity, the cult of athletics and sexual assault on college campuses is important.

“If you don’t think [college athletes are] part of a culture of entitlement, just look at all the fanfare that goes into college football,” says one interviewee.

The structures in place to protect students are flawed, and survivors of sexual assault find themselves having to battle not only their assailants but also their administrations and their fellow students, who often contribute to a culture of victim-blaming. In the end, it all comes down to the question: what’s in it for me? Fans want to protect their beloved athletic culture, coaches want to ensure their teams make it to the playoffs, fraternity brothers want to safeguard their right to party and university officials just want the donations to keep flowing and the applications to keep coming.

Sexual assault survivors, to these people, are simply nuisances.

I do worry that the documentary’s focus on more identifiable forms of violence, on the crimes committed in shady club hallways and on bathroom floors, by perpetrators inflicting outwardly visible harm, may cause audiences to forget that sexual assault can be — and most often is — committed in familiar environments and by people who at first appear friendly. The fact is, sexual assault is not often

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violent in the ways we recognize but it is always, always wrong.

“It’s really the people you do know that you should be worried about,” one interviewee puts it plainly. Rape and sexual assault exist within a broader environment of sexual disrespect, in which seemingly benign jokes and body policing abound. But when we allow rape jokes to exist, we allow rape to exist, and any piece that seeks to interrogate and challenge rape culture should address the spectrum of sexual disrespect and not just its most blatant manifestations.

Still, even when rape is clear-cut and recognizable, justice is nowhere to be found. The film does a phenomenal job bringing to light the fact that violent rape occurs and administrations are taking all the wrong steps — if they’re taking any steps at all — to address the issue. “The Hunting Ground” is heartbreaking and so, so important to watch, especially for those who do not go to school on a campus where these issues are regularly talked about.

Pino and Clark, however, are a part of a movement against sexual violence that is growing. They successfully filed a Title IX complaint against their school and selflearned the case law necessary to pursue the investigation. They both found strength in helping other survivors tell their stories, and in their — and others’ (including Dana Bolger ’14, who is featured briefly in the film) — persistence, we find a strand of hope. The documentary ends with a call to arms: “Together we can stop this epidemic. Support survivors, help pass legislation, and hold university presidents accountable.”

I scoffed out loud in the theater when a clip from an interview during the 1990s revealed a young man asking, “Just because a woman said no, and you had sex with her, does that make you a rapist?” It’s sad because as laughable as that question is, and despite the fact that 20 years have passed since then, universities still aren’t giving that question the resounding yes it deserves.

“The Hunting Ground” is now playing at Amherst Cinema.

Arts & Living 8

The Amherst Student • April 22, 2015

Smith Department of Theater Presents “Water by the Spoonful” Paola Garcia-Prieto ’18 Staff Writer Now that spring has finally arrived and it’s possible to travel beyond campus bounds without risking frostbite, perhaps a trip to Smith College to see their production of “Water by the Spoonful” could be added to your spring itinerary.

Written by Quiara Alegria Hudes, “Water by the Spoonful” premiered in October of 2011 at the Hartford Stage Company and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2012. Smith College Department of Theater’s adaptation of the play, directed by J. Mehr Kaur, adds an extra dimension to the original version, emphasizing the power of connectivity.

Hudes’ play follows six characters as they unpack their grim pasts and deal with their grim futures, four of them as past crack addicts. Their addictions have cost them dearly, severing relationships with their loved ones and forcing them into a life of isolation.

Hudes’ writing adds a warm and comedic tone to the dark story, exhibiting people’s good nature as they reach out and connect with others through their complicated past.

The story primarily follows Elliot Ortiz (played by Ryan Jucobucci) an ex-marine who was injured in battle and is haunted by a traumatic experience he had in Iraq. He is a Puerto Rican from Philadelphia who works at a Subway shop, taking care of his sick mother.

Elliot is close to his cousin, Yaz (played by Madigan Drummond) who helps him cope with his mother’s passing.

Yaz, the star cousin who had “made it” after becoming a professor at Swarthmore and getting married, is coping with her divorce

and finds herself coming back into her family after her aunt’s death.

The play is part of a trilogy written by Hudes which center around the Ortiz family.

The first, “Elliot, a Soldier’s Fugue,” was a finalist for the Pulitzer, and the final installment, “The Happiest Song Plays Last,” was produced at the Goodman Theater in 2013.

The Ortizes’ story alternates with the story of an online chat room where four of the main characters join to discuss their crack addiction. The actors participate in a dialogue and act as though they are in a room together.

However, their LOLs, emoji references and censorship remind us that this is chat room discussion. The administrator of the site, Odessa, known as Haikumom to the group, tries to keep Orangutan (Madeline, played

by Kitty Lixin Lin) and Chutes&Ladders (Clayton played by Mark Hawkins) peaceful towards their new friend Fountainhead, or John, who refuses to call himself a crackhead due to his identity as an upper class white male.

Odessa, the mother hen of the group chat played by Marleny Heredia, is Elliot’s estranged birth mother. But when her sister, Elliot’s adoptive mother, passes away she is forced to deal with her disappointed family once again. Her relationship to Elliot and the rest of the Ortiz clan is complicated and messy due to her past mistakes.

Hudes manages to make all six character rich and complex without making the play feel like it’s stuffed full of too many storylines. The connection made between characters both online and in real life are genuine and shows that even if these characters have multiple skeletons in their closets,

they are capable of redemption and goodness once more. The only connection that did seem a little forced to me was the one week between Madeline and Clayton, but that’s mostly because it took the typical Hollywood romantic spin that we’ve seen in many other plays and movies.

One of the biggest critiques the play received when it premiered was that the set design was awkward and the difference between the electronic world and the real world were not clearly defined. The actors were supposed to pretend to be doing everyday things on individual chairs as they carried on their “online” conversation. The instructions weren’t very clear and therefore the play has had many different sets throughout its different productions. Smith’s take on the set, however, was phenomenal.

The stage, like the play itself, was unlike any other I’d seen before. There are two levels to the stage. A platform six feet off the stage floor represents the online world, while the stage in front of it depicts the real world.

Behind the stage is a huge projector, which adds to the illusion of their Internet communication by displaying characters’ profile pictures when they come online as well as various other images they talk about. The actors talk face to face and move around each other on the online stage, instead of having to ignore each other as they say their lines, as the original script suggests.

Yaz also mentions the musical concepts of soloing and dissonance in the play — these concepts are also reflected in the characters’ lives. Everyone in that chat room has a different background, but they all unite to help each other out in a fight they are all suffering

Image courtesy of Smith College

Smith’s adaptation of “Water By the Spoonful” is playing this weekend. through, even though they’ve never met in person.

Older generations like to say a lot about our generation being addicted to the Internet and social media. They say we don’t know how to interact face to face and that deep relationships can’t be forged on the Internet or over social media. Hudes and the Smith Department of Theater defy that idea by showing that the internet actually enables our generation to form meaningful relationships that are just as, if not even more, empathetic as theirs.

HBO’s Documentary Miniseries “The Jinx” Captivates Viewers Hanna Krueger ’17 Staff Writer The first episode of the HBO series “The Jinx,” which investigates the unnerving life of multi-murder suspect and New York real estate heir Robert Durst, feels like a cheesy “Law & Order” episode. An innocent civilian embarks on a stroll by the bay and notices many mysterious trash bags floating on top of the water. The police arrive and discover that the bags hold four dismembered limbs and a headless torso.

There is no head to be found. Cue the haunting, catchy music, introducing the show, the producers and a montage of crime scenes, newspaper clips and a potpourri of Durst’s infamous murderous props. It seems unreal, merely a ploy by creative, manipulative Hollywood moguls to make money. And while it may be a ploy to make money, the events it narrates are certainly real. Real enough, at least, to put Durst back in court following the airing of the series’ fifth episode.

Jarecki, the producer of the series, was no stranger to Durst’s life before filming began. In Jarecki’s 2010 thriller, “All Good Things,” Ryan Gosling stars as a violent, controlling, oddball Durst who ultimately murders his wife and possibly a pet husky over the course of the movie.

The film saw little success, floundering in the box office and receiving a 32 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. Yet, Jarecki’s latest Robert Durst focused feature engrosses critics, audiences and FBI officers alike. So what has changed?

After the premiere of “All Good Things,” Jarecki received a call from Durst, who shared his praise for the film and offered Jarecki the opportunity for an in-person interview. Like any sensible producer, Jarecki jumped on the chance to make media history. “The Jinx” pieces together Durst’s convoluted past — but this time Jarecki’s work isn’t fiction. Jarecki intertwines clips from past police interviews and court hearings dating back to 1982 (the year Durst’s first wife disappeared) with recent interviews with victims, relatives and Durst. The series high-

Image courtesy of therealdeal.com

In March 2015, Durst was arrested in New Orleans for first degree murder.

lights the murders of three people, all related to Durst in one way or another. The first, and most infamous case, which inspired Jarecki’s initial film, is that of Durst’s bright and beautiful wife Kathie McCormack, who disappeared without a trace in 1982 after marital difficulty. The second involves Susan Berman, a longtime friend of Durst who facilitated his alibi during the police’s investigation of Kathie’s disappearance.

Days after being interrogated briefly by the Los Angeles police regarding Kathie, Berman’s body lay lifeless in her California home after being shot execution style. After these events, Durst moved to Galveston, Texas and posed as a mute woman. The series’ first episode finds Durst in Texas as he is being arrested for the murder of his neighbor, Morris Black, who was found dismembered, headless and bagged in the Galveston bay.

And yet, despite the interconnectedness of each of these incidences, Durst somehow emerged unscathed, posting thousands of dollars in bail and only spending a handful of days in prison.

At times throughout the series, the gravity of each of these murders is overshadowed by the absurdity of Durst’s actions. After Morris Black’s murder, Durst fled town, and the police issued a warrant for his arrest on a charge of bail jumping. Only days later, surveillance cameras in a grocery store in Pennsylvania caught Durst shoplifting a chicken salad hoagie and BandAids. He had $500 cash in his pocket. When asked if he shaved his eyebrows for disguise while on the run, his lizard-like eyes dart and he unflinchingly responds, “How do you accidently shave your eyebrows?” He justifies dismembering his neighbor with swerving logic: “I had to get this corpse out of my apartment. I thought about putting it in a sleeping bag and dragging it out, but good God, that’s ridiculous!” Every now and then, Jarecki incites a disturbing sense of sympathy for Durst as the camera seems to mock the elderly man as he hobbles throughout the streets of New York City, is rejected by body guards from his family-owned real estate corporation and wades outside the doorstep of his brother’s home.

While viewers might be tempted to giggle at

Durst’s grotesque theatrics and pity his solitary existence, we cannot forget the grave undercurrent that fuels this series. For each of the victims featured in this series — Kathie, Susan, Morris and all those related to them — justice has yet to be served. Each case illuminates the glaring flaws within the United States criminal justice system.

Time and time again, savvy lawyers and loads of money save Durst from jail. Detectives overlook crucial evidence and fail to follow important leads. The judicial system falters and fails. At one point, it is hard to keep watching, as jurors find Durst not guilty of Morris Black’s death, despite his confession of dismemberment. It’s impossible to watch this show without being reminded of the severe flaws within our country’s criminal justice system.

Yet, it is this disarming balance between gravity and theatricality that make the series most fascinating. The series seems almost fictional due to its dry wit, its tragically flawed authority figures and its hoagie-stealing murderer. But the real-life interviews, court cases, evidence and especially the obituaries prove otherwise. Somewhere along the series, the truth of the subject matter catches up to Durst and the stakes become tangible.

On March 14, FBI agents detained the 71-year-old real estate scion in New Orleans after Durst produced a condemning confession.

At the scene of his arrest was more than $44,000 in cash and a tracking number for a UPS parcel containing another $117,000. Near these items lay 5 ounces of marijuana and a neck-to-head latex mask. A week ago, a Louisiana judge ruled that Durst, who is charged with the first-degree murder of Susan Berman, would be held without bail, a decision undoubtedly based on his past record of fleeing. Naturally, Durst’s most recent arrest led authorities to revisit the past cases of Black and McCormack, as well as a handful of other past, unsolved disappearances in other places that Durst resided. It finally seems like the Jinx cannot slither out of this one. However, Durst, who is purportedly worth $100 million, is backed by yet another team of savvy lawyers, so only time will tell.

The Amherst Student • April 22, 2015

Sports 9

Baseball Sweeps Hamilton, Remains Undefeated in NESCAC Play Drew Kiley ’18 Staff Writer The Amherst College baseball team maintained its perfect record in the NESCAC, sweeping Middlebury in a three-game series this weekend in addition to wins over nonconference opponents Framingham State and Castleton. The Jeffs have now won 12 of their last 13 games and their overall record stands at 18-7 (9-0 NESCAC).

For the second time in three weeks, Andrew Vandini ’16 was named NESCAC player of the week. Vandini batted 11 for 26 (.423) on the week, recording two four-RBI games and slugging two home runs. The junior also drove in two game-winning runs against Hamilton, hitting an RBI single in game one to take the lead and a bases-clearing, three-RBI double the following day to win.

“Andrew has really stepped up his game this year, and the offense has filled in nicely around him,” pitcher Riley Streit ’16 said.

“Even when our offense has stumbled a bit, our pitching has responded with some key outings. It’s this back and forth between our offense and pitching, picking each other up when we need it that’s led to our success.”

Amherst started their weekend slate of games against Framingham State last Thursday, April 16, winning 18-9. Highlighting a game in which the Jeffs went 19 for 44 (.432) from the plate were Andrew Vandini ’16 and Yanni Thanopoulos ’17. Vandini batted 4 for 5 with four RBIs and five runs, including a two-run homer in the fifth inning, while Thanopoulos went 5 for 6 with six RBIs and three runs.

John Cook ’15 started the game for the Jeffs, giving up eight runs on 14 hits in 5.1 innings to claim the win.

Mark Mainini led Framington State, going 3 for 5 with two RBIs and three runs while coming a triple short of the cycle. Ivan Colon

and Jordan Pallazola also clubbed home runs in a strong offensive outing for the Rams. On the mound, Christopher Monroe started and took the loss, lasting just two innings while giving up eight runs on six hits.

Amherst took an early 8-3 lead with three runs in the first and eight in the second. Framingham State then threatened in the third with a rally that allowed two runs to cross the plate, but they left three runners stranded to end the threat. Scoring multiple runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth, the Jeffs put the game out of reach and cruised to victory.

On Friday, Amherst traveled to Clinton, New York, for the first game of their threegame series against Hamilton, claiming a 5-3 victory.

Keenan Szulik ’16 led the Jeffs with a strong game on the mound, giving up three runs on six hits through 7.1 innings with 13 strikeouts. Entering the game in the eighth, Mike Castiglie ’17 earned his first save of the season as he pitched 1.2 scoreless innings.

Harry Roberson ’18 went 2 for 4 from the plate with two runs and one RBI, while Vandini, Mike Odenwaelder ’16, Thanopoulos and Conner Gunn ’16 contributed an RBI each.

Amherst took an early 3-0 lead with runs in the top of the first and the second innings, but Hamilton closed the gap with back-toback home runs from Ryan Wolfsberg and Dean Rosenberg in the bottom of the second before a two-out single from Becker tied the game.

Following a scoreless fourth inning, Amherst took the lead in the fifth inning when a Vandini single sent Sam Ellinwood ’18 home.

Odenwaelder added an insurance run immediately thereafter when his single allowed Roberson to score.

Hamilton threatened in the eighth with runners on second and third base and two outs, but Castiglie forced Continental batter Andrew Haser to pop out before pitching a

hitless ninth to secure the win.

In the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader against Hamilton, the Jeffs claimed a 5-2 victory on the back of a 2-for-4, four-RBI performance by Vandini. Roberson scored two runs in a 2 for 3 effort from the plate, while Ariel Kenney ’18 also scored two runs.

Jackson Volle ’17 lasted the entire seveninning game on the mound, allowing just two runs on five hits with 10 strikeouts to claim the win.

Joe Jensen led Hamilton with a 2 for 3 effort from the plate, including two RBIs. Cole Dreyfuss started and took the loss for the Continentals, giving up five runs on six hits with six strikeouts through six innings.

Following a scoreless first and second inning, Amherst took advantage of Hamilton’s fielding miscues in the top of the third to take a 2-0 lead. However, the Continentals knotted the game at 2-2 in the bottom of the inning when a double by Jensen allowed two runs to cross the plate.

Stepping to the plate with the bases loaded in the top of the fourth, Vandini cleared the bases with a two-out double and Amherst took a 5-2 lead.

Hamilton threatened by loading the bases in the fifth and later putting runners on second and third in the seventh, but Volle did not allow a run through the last four innings to secure the victory.

In the second game of Saturday’s doubleheader, Amherst cruised to an 8-2 victory as Vandini, Thanopoulos, Kenney and Eric West ’15 each hit home runs. Starter Riley Streit ’16 threw a gem, lasting seven innings and allowing just one run on six hits with 11 strikeouts.

Wolfsberg led Hamilton with a 2 for 5 performance from the plate while Robert Morris recorded the Continentals’ only RBI. Alex Pachella started the game and took the loss, allowing eight runs on as many hits in 5.2 innings. Finlay O’Hara pitched a strong game in

relief, tossing 3.1 scoreless innings.

Home runs by Vandini in the first inning, West in the second, and Thanopoulos in the third allowed Amherst to take a 5-0 lead. The Continentals scored a run on a Streit wild pitch in the fifth, but a critical Hamilton error in the sixth allowed the Jeffs to score three more runs and extend their lead to 8-1.

Hamilton mounted a rally in the seventh and scored a run in the ninth but never really threatened as Amherst cruised to victory.

The team then traveled to face Castleton State College on Sunday afternoon, where they used a three-run sixth inning to win, 4-3.

A strong performance from Sam Schneider ’18 on the mound propelled the Jeffs to victory. Schneider pitched eight innings, allowing two runs on three hits with six strikeouts. Gunn went 2 for 4 from the plate with a home run for the Jeffs. West added two RBIs in a 1 for 3 effort. Castiglie recorded his second save of the season, not allowing a hit or run while striking out one batter in the bottom of the ninth.

The game started as a pitchers’ battle until Gunn’s solo home run in the fourth inning broke the deadlock. After a scoreless fifth, the Jeffs’ bats awoke in the sixth as a wild pitch and fielding error by Hamilton allowed the Jeffs to score three runs.

Castleton pulled back runs in the sixth and eighth with a Pelz-Walsh sacrifice fly and a Hoare home run in the eighth. The Spartans then threatened with runners on first and third in the top of the ninth. Swim’s sacrifice bunt allowed a run to score, but Castiglie retired the next two batters to end the game.

Amherst returns to action this week with a game at NESCAC opponents Wesleyan on Friday, April 24, at 4 p.m., followed by a doubleheader against Wesleyan at UMass Amherst on Saturday starting at 1 p.m. The Jeffs then play at Dartmouth on Tuesday in a game starting at 3 p.m.

Women’s Track Competes at Swanson Women’s Golf Finishes Sixth Classic, Looks Ahead to NESCACs at Jack Leaman Invitational Raymond Meijer ’17 Staff Writer In their last meet before the championship racing season begins, the Amherst women’s track team capitalized on race day conditions that finally weren’t windy or cold, putting up some good marks across the board in their Saturday meet at the Wesleyan-hosted Swanson Classic.

“Overall, our team had a pretty good day,” cocaptain Kelli Ellingson ’15 said. “There weren’t a lot of other teams, and the weather was conducive to fast times, so we saw a lot of first place finishes and season bests.”

The team got off to a fast start with Tess Frenzel ’17 grabbing the win in the 5K. Though she had the tough task of running on her own in the lead for much of the race, she still managed to run a 19:29.76, with teammate Cat Lowdon ’17 finishing fourth in a 20:03.77 clocking. Inspired by her teammates, Cara Lembo ’17 led the team in the 1,500 with her 5:05.37 runner-up effort, cutting into a large gap to the leader in the final lap that had opened up midway through the race.

The 800 would be the last of the mid-distance and distance action for the day. Ellingson, abandoning her tactic from last weekend’s UMass race, when she waited until 250 meters to go to take the win in her section, took the lead from the gun. She kept the field moving at an honest pace through 600 meters, but then just got out-leaned

by Wesleyan’s Nikita Rajgopal by four-tenths of a second. But she still came away with a collegiate PR and an almost lifetime best 2:19.94 runner-up finish. Keelin Moehl ’16 (2:20.93), Leoni Rauls ’18 (2:21.44), and Hannah Herrera ’17 (2:21.69) all finished in a tight group to place third through fifth.

“Half of the women entered in the 800 were Amherst athletes, which made the race feel a little more comfortable and allowed us to work to-

gether like we would at practice,” Ellingson said.

“It’s always a little bit heartbreaking to get outkicked at the very end of a race, but I’m grateful that Rajgopal was there to really push me because I wouldn’t have run as fast without her.”

The sprinters and jumpers had an exciting day as well, with many team members recording top finishes in both disciplines. Taylor Summers ’16 grabbed the win in the 100 in a wind-aided 12.56, with Gabby Bishop ’18 clocking a 13.32 fifth-place finish. Summers would get her second win of the day in the long jump, pacing her teammates Kiana Herold ’17 and Louise Atadja ’16 to an Amherst sweep in the event. The Jeffs picked up another victory in the triple jump with first-year Abbey Asare-Bediako ’18 soaring to an 11.05-meter jump (36 feet, 3 inches).

In the 200-meter, Karen Blake ’17 continued her wildly successful season. She sprinted to a big win in 24.92, a mark that now moves her up to 11th in the country. Her effort was preceded by a third-place finish in the 400 and the anchor leg on the runner-up 4x100-meter relay team. Herold grabbed fourth in the 200, pacing the group of Victoria Hensley ’16, Bishop and Sarah Whelan ’17, who got fifth through seventh. Both Bishop and Whelan set PRs at the distance.

In other action, Danielle Griffin ’18 competed in her first 400-meter hurdle race, running a very solid 71.89 to place third. The dominating high jumping duo of Herold and Becki Golia ’18 continued their successful seasons at the meet. Herold won in impressive fashion, jumping 5’7.75” to get to rank third in the country while setting a massive career best. Golia jumped to her outdoor best this season with her 5’1.75” effort to get second in the event.

The Jeffs now move into championship season, and they will compete at the NESCAC championships hosted by Williams this coming weekend.

Photo courtesy of Rob Mattson

Senior captain Katherine Britt finished 10th overall this weekend.

Lauren Tuiskula ’17 Managing Sports Editor The Amherst College women’s golf team placed sixth overall in the 10-team field competing at the Jack Leaman Invitational this past weekend. Amherst served as the host team for the contest as play was held at the Hickory Ridge Golf Club.

Ithaca College took first place overall on the weekend finishing with a 324 team score.

NESCAC opponents Middlebury and Williams tied for second place both coming in at 325.

New York University finished in fourth at 330 strokes while Five College foe Mount Holyoke rounded out the top five totaling 332.

Amherst’s team total of 333 earned them the sixth-place spot.

Jamie Gracie ’17 led the team, finishing third overall in the tournament. The California native scored a 77, just 3 over par, to highlight

the tournament for the Jeffs.

Senior captain Katherine Britt and Devyn Gardner ’16 tied for second place for the Jeffs, good for 10th overall at the tournament. They both came in at 8 over par with scores of 82.

Jenny Xu ’16 was Amherst’s fourth finisher scoring an 86 on the course.

First-year Zoe Wong finished off the top five for the jeffs, putting to an 88.

The team will finish up their spring season competing at the Williams spring invitational this coming weekend.

Saturday’s tee time is set for noon while the action on Sunday, April 26 will start off at 9 a.m.

“It was fun to play at home and we had a lot of spectators come out and watch, which was really fun,” Gracie said. “As a team we put up a couple of decent numbers so I think we are all looking forward to taking that momentum to our last tournament this weekend.”

10

Sports

The Amherst Student • April 22, 2015

Softball Drops Contests to Midd and Hamilton Over Weekend Raymond Meijer ’17 Staff Writer Coming off of an exciting series win against Williams last weekend, the Amherst women’s softball team had a busy week of games, playing six in just five days. The Jeffs showed some strong pitching and hitting over the course of the games, although they ultimately lost some very close conference matchups.

On April 15, the team played a doubleheader at home against Smith, splitting the twin bill thanks to a walk-off double by Caroline Sealander ’15 in the second leg. In the first game, the Pioneers tallied two runs in the top of the second off an Amherst error before adding another run in both the fourth and sixth innings to take a 4-0 lead. The Amherst bats came alive in the bottom of the sixth, with Sealander hitting an RBI double to follow consecutive singles by Brianna Cook ’16 and Alyssa Sherwill ’15. Smith would counter with two more runs in the top of the seventh before Kelsey Ayers ’15 belted a triple and then scored on a later Pioneer error. Jackie Buechler ’17 started the game strongly for the Jeffs, pitching four innings and yielding only one earned run (and two unearned) to go with five strikeouts, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Pioneers in check, as the Jeffs would fall 6-2.

In the night game, Smith scored early after a Tori Brown solo shot. But the Jeffs wouldn’t be down for long, thanks to an RBI single from first-year Ally Kido that brought in Ayers. After the score moved to 2-2 thanks to a Sarah Tully RBI double for Smith and an RBI single from Cook to score Ayers, the game heated up going into the sixth. Even though the Pioneers got a three-run RBI triple from Tully as part of her five RBI game in the top of the sixth, the Jeffs would claw back to force extra innings. Sealander continued her great play, doubling to right center to drive in Cook and Kido and close the deficit to one. Alena Marovitz ’17 would add to the mid-range power display, adding a double of her own to drive in Sealander to move the game into extra innings. The game seemed to get out of reach of the Jeffs again after the Pioneers’ Tully added her last RBI of the game. But in the bottom of the frame, with two outs and the doubleheader loss on the line, Sealander would hit the most important double of the game — a line drive to the fence in left that would drive in both Kido and Ayers and clinch the win for the Jeffs.

Lauren Tuiskula ’17 picked up the win in the contest, allowing only one unearned run and three hits over the course of 2.2 relief innings.

Coming off the thrilling win against Smith, the Jeffs traveled up to Middlebury to play a single game on Friday and a doubleheader on Saturday. The Jeffs came away with a crucial NESCAC victory in their Friday matchup, winning a close game by a 3-2 margin. Some of the main leaders during the Smith victory would prove to be key players again, as Sealander, Cook and Kido all had two hits apiece.

Sealander, with a single to right center to drive

in Cook, and Marovitz, with a left field sacrifice fly to drive in Nicolette Miranda ’16, accounted for an RBI each in the top of the second to bring the Jeffs to a 2-0 lead. Though the Panthers cut the deficit to one in the bottom of the third, Amherst struck again with Ayers scoring on an error by the Panthers’ shortstop.

Middlebury would only get one more run in the bottom of the sixth, as Buechler closed out the game retiring three batters in a row in the bottom of the seventh. Her pitching effort played a pivotal role in the 3-2 victory, throwing a complete game while allowing only one earned run and striking out seven.

Unfortunately, the doubleheader the next day did not prove to be as successful for the Jeffs. In the first matchup, Middlebury scored three runs in the first inning, tacking on two more in the bottom of the third to jump to a 5-4 lead. However, the Jeffs would manage a strong offensive response in the top of the sixth thanks to a kick-start from Donna Leet ’15. She reached on a bunt single, stole second, then moved to third on a Cook single. When Cook added another steal to the inning, Leet dashed for home to put the Jeffs on the board.

Sealander then added yet another RBI to her busy week, driving in Cook to cut the deficit to three. With two outs in the bottom of the seventh, the team mustered a final rally, with Cook contributing some more offense with a single to drive in Leet and Ayers and cut the deficit to one. But the Panthers’ pitcher Neve Stearns would force a groundout to end the game, just barely fanning Amherst’s furious rally.

The Jeffs had a tough second game of the doubleheader, getting behind 7-2 after the first three innings and eventually losing 11-3.

Among the game’s highlights were more offense from the trio of Cook (1 for 3 with an RBI), Leet (1 for 3 with a run), and Ayers (1 for 3 with a run). Marovitz added some power hitting with a solo shot in the sixth as part of a 2 for 3 game.

Amherst closed out the weekend with a home matchup against Hamilton on Sunday afternoon. Despite outhitting the Continentals 7-4, the Jeffs would ultimately just come up short in losing the game 3-2, bringing their overall record to 13-11 and their NESCAC record to 3-6.

Sherwill led the Jeffs in the game with three hits, including a double, along with Kido who added a double as part of a 2 for 3 line. The team rallied in the bottom of the sixth behind singles from Ashleigh Rutherford ’16, Sealander, and Kido and a sacrifice fly from Miranda to score Rutherford, but it wasn’t enough.

“This weekend was a testament to our team’s character,” Marovitz said. “While the games were close, we failed to execute clutch plays when necessary. Hopefully we can bounce back and come out strong in our last few games.”

The Jeffs return to action on Wednesday when they host Elms College for a single game with first pitch slated for 4 p.m.

Photo courtesy of Kurt Ayers

Ally Kido ’18 maintains an impressive .304 batting average this year.

ATHLETE SPOTLIGHT

Kane Haffey ’16 Favorite Team Memory: Our win over Tufts last weekend Favorite Pro Athlete: Joshua Hawkins Dream Job: Dad Pet Peeve: Traffic lights Favorite Vacation Spot: The crease Something on Your Bucket List: Beat JT in a staring contest Guilty Pleasure: Sam Lawlor Favorite Food: Grab ‘n’ go signature turkey and cheese on multigrain Favorite Thing About Amherst: The parking How He Earned It: Kane Haffey’s three-goal effort powered Amherst past a formidable Tufts team. Going in as the team’s leading scorer, he fired in one goal in each of the first three quarters in a game that finished 12-6 in favor of the purple and white. This win catapulted Amherst into the sole occupier of first place in the NESCAC. After this threegoal performance, Haffey has brought his goals on the season to a staggering 50.

Jamie Gracie ’17 Favorite Team Memory: Playing the Ocean Course over spring break last year Favorite Pro Athlete: Rory McIlroy Dream Job: Surfer Pet Peeve: Slow golfers Favorite Vacation Spot: San Elijo, Calif.

Something on Your Bucket List: Playing the Old Course at St. Andrews Guilty Pleasure: Rewatching “Parks and Recreation” Favorite Food: Avocados Favorite Thing About Amherst: The mild weather How She Earned It: Gracie continues to shine for the women’s golf team, accumulating numerous first-place team finishes this season. This past weekend Gracie continued her successful ways, taking third place among a field of 65 at the Amherst-hosted Jack Leaman invitational. The sophomore putted to a score of 77 in the one day tournament, just three over par.

Men’s Tennis Continues Undefeated Run in NESCAC Competition Jeremy Kesselhaut ’16 Assistant Sports Editor The Amherst men’s tennis team extended its unbeaten streak to eight matches with two more decisive victories this weekend. With identical 8-1 wins over No. 14 Williams and No. 22 Wesleyan, the Jeffs have secured their title as Little Three champions and now stand 17-4 overall (6-0 NESCAC).

The team hasn’t lost a contest to a Division III opponent since their spring break trip.

Back on March 17, they lost 6-3 to PomonaPitzer. Over the course of their eight-game winning streak, the Jeffs have won by at least a 7-2 score in every match.

On Saturday, April 18, Amherst hosted archrival Williams, who came into the match with an 8-6 record (2-2 NESCAC).

For the fourth consecutive match, Amherst swept doubles play. After constant changes in the doubles lineup for the first half of the season, the Jeffs seem to have their doubles lineup set in stone due to the strong production of all teams.

Juniors Michael Solimano and Aaron Revzin won 8-2 at No. 1, Andrew Yaraghi ’16 and Anton Zykov ’17 triumphed 8-3 at No. 2, and senior co-captain Andrew Scheiner and junior Russell Einbinder secured a 8-6 win at No. 3. Yaraghi (6-1, 6-1), Solimano (6-3, 6-1) and Zykov (6-4, 6-3) won in straight sets on the first three courts, while Revzin dropped the first set on the No. 4 court before earning the come-from-behind victory by a score of 4-6, 6-4, 11-9.

Senior co-captain Sean Rodriguez, who has been a solid staple in the No. 5 spot for Amherst, won convincingly 6-0, 6-0. The lone loss came in the No. 6 spot as Scheiner fell to his Eph opponent in singles competition by a 6-3, 6-2 score.

Building on the success of the victory against Williams, the Jeffs traveled to Mid-

dletown, Connecticut the following day for a matchup against the 3-8 overall (1-5 NESCAC) Wesleyan.

Once again, the Jeffs dominated doubles play, getting the sweep behind victories from the duos of Solimano and Revzin (8-5), Yaraghi and Zykov (8-4) and Scheiner and Einbinder (8-3).

Amherst won five out of six in singles as Yaraghi, Solimano, Zykov, Revzin and Scheiner earned the victories, all of which ended in straight sets. This improved the Jeffs’ NESCAC record to 6-0 with all conference matches ending in at least a 7-2 victory for Amherst.

“It was a huge weekend for us,” Scheiner said. “Williams and Wesleyan are two tough teams, and it was great to come away with two convincing wins.”

With just one weekend to go in the regular season, Amherst sits atop the NESCAC conference standings tied with No. 6 Middlebury College (16-2 overall).

No. 20 Bates College sits directly behind these two teams in third place with a 4-1 NESCAC record (9-3 overall). Bates’ lone conference loss came at home on Sunday, April 19 to Middlebury by a score of 7-2.

The Jeffs will play both of these very competitive teams in a few weekends in what will prove be a challenging set of matches, even for a team that is hitting its stride late in the season. Both matches will be home this weekend with the Bates match starting at 3 p.m. on Friday, April 24 and the Middlebury match starting at 1 p.m. on Saturday, April 25.

With two victories, the Jeffs would clinch the regular season NESCAC title and will sit as the No. 1 seed in the six-team NESCAC Championship draw.

“We have a great opportunity this weekend with matches against Bates and Midd. We’ll work hard this week in practice and make sure we stay hungry for this weekend,” Scheiner said. “Hopefully we can continue to improve throughout the remainder of the season.”

The Amherst Student • April 22, 2015

Sports

Women’s Lacrosse Defeats Mount Holyoke, Falls to Tufts in Overtime

Seven First-Place Finishes for Men’s Track at Wesleyan Invitational Kiana Herold ’17 Managing Sports Editor

Photo courtesy of Peter Connolly ‘18

Claire Cagnasolla ’17 has scored 22 goals so far this season.

Sarah Zuckerman ’17 Staff Writer After beating Mount Holyoke 15-5 on Wednesday, April 15, the women’s lacrosse team could not muster the win on Saturday in Medford. The 12th-ranked Tufts team edged the Jeffs 11-10 in overtime. The loss drops Amherst to 4-5 in conference play, while the Jumbos improve to 6-3.

“OT games are always hard ones to lose, but that’s the story of the NESCAC this year,” said tri-captain Meghan Mill ’15. “We’ve had several one-goal games, which is a testament to the tight competition in the conference.”

The contest started when Priscilla Tyler ’15 put the first goal away at just under the 24:00 mark. Less than two minutes later, Caroline Ross put her first of six goals away for the Jumbos, tying the game. In the next 10 minutes, Mia Haughton ’16 and Claire Cagnassola ’17 would score one apiece while Haughton would assist Tyler’s second. Ross had her second goal of the game for Tufts between the Cagnassola and Tyler goals, followed by two more for Tufts. The teams entered the locker room at halftime tied 4-4.

Just three minutes into the second half, Tufts scored their fifth of the day, giving them their first lead. Fifteen seconds later, Coco Kusiak ’17

scored off a pass from Mills to even the score.

Two minutes later, Mills returned the lead to the Jeffs by scoring off of a free position shot. Down 6-5, the Jumbos rallied to score the next three goals. A spark from Julia Crerend ’18 led the Jeffs on a four-goal run in retaliation. The firstyear scored one unassisted goal and two free position goals, in addition to a goal from Rachel Passarelli ’16 with just over 6:00 remaining.

Ross scored her fifth of the game at 2:40 to bring the Jeffs’ lead to one, and the Jumbos managed to equalize the score with just more than minute on the clock. Ross proved the deciding factor as she put away the final goal in the second minute of extra time to bring the game to its final score of 11-10.

Christy Forrest ’16 had 10 saves on the day, while Hanna Krueger ’17 and Mills each had three groundballs. Tri-captain Heath Cockrell ’15 led the team with three caused turnovers, while Tyler won seven draws.

“Saturday’s game was disappointing to lose, as we had some good opportunities down the stretch to take control of possessions,” said the Amherst head coach, Christine Paradis. “We are still excited about playing Trinity tomorrow and making a run in the NESCAC tournament.”

Amherst hosts Trinity on Wednesday, April 22 at 7 p.m. in their last regular season matchup of the year.

Women’s Tennis Goes 1-1 Over the Weekend, Defeats No. 17 Wesleyan Ashlyn Heller ’17 Staff Writer With beautiful spring weather in New England, it was the ideal weekend for some tennis.

The women’s tennis had two matches under the sun as the team faced off against archrival and No. 1-ranked Williams on Saturday and No. 17-ranked Wesleyan on Sunday. The Jeffs went 1-1 this weekend, losing to Williams but bouncing back the next day to defeat Wesleyan.

On Saturday, the team headed west to the Berkshires for a No. 1/No. 3 showdown. Despite an impressive 8-3 win on the No. 1 doubles court from Amherst’s Sue Gosh ’16 and Vickie Ip ’18, Williams would ultimately defeat the Jeffs 8-1.

“We had a tough loss against Williams, but we’re hoping to see them again in the NESCAC,” senior Safi Aly said. “We want a second shot at them.”

The Jeffs’ resilience showed itself on Sunday when the team rebounded with a 6-3 win over the Cardinals. The win was powered by stellar singles play. The team was victorious on courts two through six with decisive wins from Sue Gosh ’16 (court two), Jackie Calla ’17 (court three), Sarah Monteagudo ’16 (court four), Megan Adamo ’17 (court five) and Claire Carpenter ’16 (court six). In doubles action, the ladies in purple would fall short on courts one and two, but in a back-and-forth match on court three, Safi Aly and Sarah Monteagudo defeated Wesleyan’s Dasha Dubinsky and Aashii Budhiraja 9-7.

After the weekend, the Jeffs stand at 11-2 overall this year and 5-1 in the NESCAC. They play on the road at Middlebury this Saturday at 1 p.m. to finish out league play for the season. Saturday is expected be another NESCAC showdown with Middlebury ranked third in the region behind No. 1 Williams and No. 2 Amherst.

11

The Amherst men’s track and field team traveled to Wesleyan University last Saturday to compete in a small meet of just four teams: Amherst, Wesleyan, Sage and Salve Regina.

For the first time this outdoor season, sun and warmth graced the track, setting up conditions that led to some great performances.

“We finally got the weather we’ve deserved all season,” Khalil Fleming ’16 said. “It’s been tough trying to compete and qualify for the postseason with the weather working against us, and this sunny day was what a lot of us needed to get back in the zone.”

The day opened with long and triple jump, featuring Khalil Fleming ’16 and Steven Hetterich ’15 in the triple jump. Fleming took first place with a mark of 42’ 11.75” improving on his mark from last weekend, while Hetterich came in second with a mark of 40’3.25” In the long jump, Mark Cort ’15 leapt 21’0.75’ to come in second, while Fleming and Hetterich followed with fourth and sixth respectively.

“Personally, I finally started to feel myself connecting the physical training I’ve done with the technical work I’ve been doing for my jumps, which was pretty satisfying and paid off with some better, more consistent performances,” Fleming said.

Amherst’s sprint team outshone the competition in the shorter events, earning firstplace finishes in both the 100 and 200 meters.

Thomas Matthew ’16 won the 100 meters, clocking in a speedy 11.40-second finish, while teammates Dennis Kennelly ’16 and Elijah Langston ’18 followed up with third and fourth place finishes. In the 200 meters, firstyear standout David Ingraham took the gold with a time of 22.89, while Matthew came in a close second at 23.03. First-years Langston, Ramy Mohamed and Jeff Ewing earned more top finishes for the Jeffs, the fourth through sixth place finishes in the event. Ingraham and Ewing also placed second and fourth in the 400 meters.

With a thrilling finish in the 400-meter hurdles, Jamie Sandel ’17 came from behind to edge out his Wesleyan opponent. He clocked in a speedy 56.59 for the event, while Nathan Showalter came close behind finishing third in a time of 59.21. The pair of hurdlers also took second and third in the 110-meter high hurdles.

The purple and white dominated the longer distances, with Sam Wohlforth ’17 placing first in the 5K, followed by Cole Hawkins ’16 and Aaron Zambrano ’18, who placed third and fourth. Amherst similarly had many topplace finishes in the 1,500-meter race, with senior Romey Sklar leading a tight pack of Amherst runners to sweep second through

fourth place. Juniors Dan Crowley and Brent Harrison placed third and fourth in the event, while Amherst also swept places seven through nine, as well as places 11 through 13.

For one of the last events during the hottest portion of the day, first-years Craig and Scott Nelson ran the 3,000-meter steeplechase. The duo’s unique experience of being able to race this event in high school prepared them well for their first collegiate attempt at the race, as they finished first and second with times of 10:21.69 and 10:30.62 respectively.

“Though the meet was small, I thought that all the boys did a great job of competing amongst each other, racing hard and hitting some impressive times,” Craig Nelson ’18 said. “Overall, I thought the meet was a great confidence booster for all the guys, and should definitely help this weekend when we toe the line against some solid competition.”

The men’s team will travel to Williams on Saturday, April 25 for the NESCAC championships, where they hope to continue to hit peak performances as championship season begins.

“It was a small meet against some familiar faces, so the vibes were great and there was a lot of support between teams,” Fleming said.

“Our coaches did a great job of pushing us to use the conditions of the meet to our advantage and that energy carried quite a few of us to better times and distances — ultimately I think this meet provided plenty of muchneeded optimism going into NESCACs and further into the championship meets.”

Photo courtesy of Megan Robertson ‘15

Elijah Langston ’18 raced to a fourth place finish in the 100-meter.

Men’s Golf Competes at Trinity College Invitational, Places Third Lauren Tuiskula ’17 Managing Sports Editor The Amherst men’s golf team competed at the Trinity College invitational this past weekend Saturday, April 18 and 19. The Jeffs placed third among the four teams at the tournament.

Host Trinity’s “A” squad took first place with a combined score of 621 with their “B” team coming in second place with a 641 twoday total. Amherst followed closely behind in third with a 655 score, and Wesleyan finished in last with a 685 total.

James Line ’16 led Amherst scoring a 78 on day one and then following that performance up with a score of 82 on the second day of play.

His two day total of 160 placed him at eighth overall in the tournament.

Senior Jarvis Sill was just three strokes

behind his teammate, earning a 163 two day total with an 81 on the first day of play and 82 on day two.

Line’s classmate Brandon Brown posted an 83 on both days to earn a spot as the Jeffs’ third finisher.

Sophomore Nick Kafker and first-year Dan Langa rounded out the top performers for the Jeffs earning scores of 173 and 175 respectively.

“After the previous week’s tournament experience under our belts, we all went in to this week having a little more confidence,” Langa said. “It is fair to say that we underperformed but all of us had stretches where we played some good golf.”

The team will travel to Wesleyan to compete at the Little Three Championships this Wednesday, April 29.

Sports

Photo courtesy of Rob Mattson

Men’s lacrosse beat Tufts this weekend for the first time in over 10 years, giving the team momentum as they head into postseason.

No. 6 Men’s Lacrosse Downs No. 3-Ranked Tufts, Improves to 13-1 Overall Devin O’Connor ’16 Staff Writer The Amherst men’s lacrosse team improved to 13-1 on the season after a forceful 12-6 win over No. 3 Tufts University on Saturday, April 18.

The victory at Pratt Field secured the Jeffs’ leading position in the NESCAC before their upcoming final game of the season against Trinity on Wednesday, April 22.

The Jeffs took the lead from the start and didn’t look back. Dylan Park ’16 put the first goal away off a feed from Charlie Gill ’16 with 11:18 to play in the first quarter. Eric Grein ’15 and Quinn Moroney ’16 followed with two unassisted goals before Kane Haffey ’16 received a pass from Mike Litner ’16 to give the purple and white a 4-0 lead after the first 15 minutes.

More than eight minutes into the second quarter, Tufts put their first tally on the board.

Amherst responded two minutes later when Gill dished to Litner to bring the lead back to four,

followed shortly by a feed from Litner to Haffey which resulted in a man-up goal. With 2:47 left in the first half, Max Keeley ’18 found the back of the net off a feed from Gill, giving the Jeffs a 7-1 lead heading into halftime.

The third quarter proved to be a back and forth contest. Chris Albanese ’17 fired in the first goal of the third quarter off a pass from Gill, who notched his fourth assist of the game on the play.

Tufts answered with a quick goal, but Park found Haffey soon after who recorded his third goal of the game.

The Jumbos responded with a goal at the 10:07 mark before Gill netted his first of the game on a dish from Moroney on the man-up opportunity. Tufts replied yet again, followed by an unassisted goal by Kevin Curry. With 2:25 left in the third quarter, the Jumbos managed one more goal to make the score 11-5 before entering the fourth quarter.

Tufts couldn’t close the gap in the last 15 minutes of play. Litner tallied the Jeffs’ final goal of

Photo courtesy of Peter Connolly ‘18

GAME SCHE DULE

the game with 8:42 left in the game. The Jumbos put their only score of the quarter on the board with just six seconds left of play, and the game ended at 12-6, Amherst.

An outstanding fourth quarter by Cody Tranbarger ’17 proved crucial in the big win. The goalie stopped seven shots in the last 15 minutes of play, contributing to his total of 21 saves on the day.

Tranbarger earned NESCAC player of the week honors for his impressive performance, after allowing just six goals to one of the most formidable offenses in the country this year. He currently leads the league in saves with 208 on the year, also accounting for a 64.2 save percentage. His goals against average also places him at the top of the NESCAC, sitting at a mere 8.52 goals per game.

The sophomore goaltender also led the team with six groundballs, while Matt Virgilio ’15, Ian Kadish ’18 and Rob Butko ’16 notched four groundballs each. Connor Crump ’16 tallied four

Photo courtesy of Rob Mattson

WEDS FRI

SAT

Softball vs. Elms, 4 p.m.

Men’s Tennis vs. Bates, 3 p.m.

Women’s Golf @ Williams Spring Invitational, 12 p.m.

Men’s Lacrosse @ Trinity, 4:30 p.m.

Baseball @ Wesleyan, 4 p.m.

Women’s Lacrosse vs. Trinity, 7:00 p.m.

Softball @ Wesleyan, 5 p.m.

Men’s & Women’s Track and Field @ NESCAC Championship

Women’s Tennis @ Middlebury, 1 p.m.

Softball vs. Wesleyan, 1 p.m.

Men’s Tennis vs. Middlebury, 1 p.m.

Softball vs. Wesleyan, 3 p.m.

Baseball vs. Wesleyan, 1 p.m.

Baseball vs. Wesleyan, 3:30 p.m.

caused turnovers in the Jeffs’ defensive efforts.

The purple and white outshot the Jumbos 66-40 and allowed only nine turnovers throughout the contest.

“The win last Saturday was huge for us because it showed the kind of results we can get when we play a full 60 minutes of Amherst lacrosse and play with a sense of desperation,” tricaptain Virgilio said.

“Although it was a great win, we still have a lot of work to do to accomplish the goals we set and have to turn our attention to a dangerous Trinity team this week.”

The team’s 8-1 conference record now situates them at the top of the conference, guaranteeing them a strong ranking heading into the NESCAC playoffs, scheduled to begin the weekend of Saturday, April 25 with a start time and opponent to be determined.

The Jeffs face the Bantams in their final game of the regular season on Wednesday with a 4:30 p.m. start time.

Photo courtesy of Peter Connolly ‘18

SUN TUES Women’s Golf @ Williams Spring Invitational, 9 a.m.

Baseball @ Dartmouth, 3 p.m.