Opinion / Editorial
2 The Deerfield Scroll
May 26, 2010
Letter to the Editor VOL. LXXXV, NO. 2 Editor-in-Chief ELISABETH STRAYER
MAY 26, 2010
Front Page YUJIN NAM
Layout Editor SARAH KIM
Opinion/Editorial AUDREY CHO
Photo Editor ALEX BERNER
Arts & Entertainment GRACE MURPHY
Photo Associate MALOU FLATO
Features FREDDY ROCKWOOD
Business Manager CASEY BUTLER
Sports EMMETT KNOWLTON
Editorial Associates DANIELLE DALTON ANNA GONZALES THEO LIPSKY ANDREW SLADE LIBBY WHITTON SARAH WOOLF
Online Editor JAKE BARNWELL Online Associate MARLY MORGUS
Advisors SUZANNE HANNAY & JOHN PALMER STAFF REPORTERS: Nastassia Adkins, Lizz Banalagay, Delaney Berman, Casey Butler, Jacqueline Colt, Lizzy Gregory, Miles Griffis, Philip Heller, Sonja Holmberg, Ritchey Howe, Claire Hutchins, Jade Kasoff, Stefani Kuo, Eunice Lee, Daniel Litke, Dylan McDermott, Courtney Murray, Hadley Newton, Zoe Perot, Nina Shevzov-Zebrun, Eliot Taft, Elisabeth Yancey, Michael Yang STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS: Megan Cai, Sarah Cox, Claire Fair, Will Fox, Daniel Han, Veronica Houk, Nina Kempner, Susanna Kvam, Louisa Schieffelin, Blair Scott The Deerfield Scroll, established in 1925, is the official student newspaper of Deerfield Academy. The Scroll encourages informed discussion of pertinent issues that concern the Academy and the world. Signed letters to the editor that express legitimate opinions are welcomed. We hold the right to edit for brevity. The Scroll, published nine times yearly, is entered as third class bulk rate at the U.S. Post Office at Deerfield, Mass. 01342. Advertising rates provided upon request. Opinion articles with contributors’ names attached solely represent the views of the respective writers. Opinion articles without names represent the consensus views of the editorial staff unless otherwise specified.
Fresh Plans for Fridges
The ban on refrigerators in student rooms has prompted a flurry of debate. Although the economic and environmental justifications of the ban are reasonable, the prevailing sentiment that the student body was cut out of the decision-making process, as well as the significantly late timing of the announcement, has upset many. Still, it seems unlikely that the ban will be reversed. Luckily, Student Council has proposed a plan
that would allow fridges through next year for current owners. Instead of an abrupt change, this strategy phases out fridge use over the next school year. New students will be subject to a more stringent medical excuse evaluation in order to receive fridge-privileges. The Scroll applauds SC for incorporating student input into its new plan, and hopes that this policy will be approved by the deans.
Arizona vs. Immigrants
Arizona’s recently-enacted immigration policy does not address the cause of illegal immigration problems. The racial profiling encouraged by the new bill will not improve working conditions in Mexico or end the drug-related warfare ravaging the country, which are two of the biggest issues Mexicans hope to escape by coming to America. The new law only treats the consequences by subjecting the 460,000 illegal immigrants estimated to be in Arizona to in-
dignity, discrimination, and violations of their human rights. The right, of course, has encouraged laws like Arizona’s, which do not investigate the exploitation of illegal immigrant workers by American employers. It is both clear and despicable that this extortion is financed in part by conservative corporate interests. “It’s time for Americans across this great country to stand up and say, ‘We’re all Arizonans now,’” said Sarah Palin. Really? We thought we were Americans.
The Junior Agitation: Part Deux This spring’s decision that junior and senior girls will be housed together was met with confusion and anger by many rising seniors. One concern is that some current sophomores were given priority over current juniors. The only primarily senior girls’ dorm this year, Rosenwald/Shumway, is centrally located on campus, making it especially attractive to the majority of junior girls who have spent the past year living in distant John Louis, Bewkes, or Ashley. In addition, only a quarter of JL’s residents next year will be seniors. With some current junior girls poised to be junior proc-
tors next year, it seems strange that their classmates who are not proctors will have essentially the same living situation. In addition, juniors and seniors follow almost completely opposite schedules. Seniors stress through college apps in the fall; juniors face massive pressure in the spring. Students are disappointed with the lack of effective communication. Last year, students living in doubles were promised first priority in choosing rooms, but some still did not get the halls of their choice. And despite the attempts to have discussions about this problem, the deans have declared the decision final.
To the Deerfield Scroll: I am writing this letter to ask that Deerfield’s Dining Hall take part in Meatless Monday. This is surely a natural part of the campaign to be green. The effects of serving no meat on Mondays would prevent approximately 80 meals from including meat. This could save the school a lot of money and stop a significant amount of damage done to the environment. Thank you very much and I look forward to hearing how this progresses. Lucy Drummond ’08
Shady Elections? By BRANDON CHANG Contributing Writer
I want to say first that I bear no ill will towards Charles Giannini. I wish him all the best in leading Student Council forward over the course of the next year. Student Council needs an intelligent, capable leader, and I strongly believe that Giannini can be that leader. However, I was asked to tell my side of the events of the election, and that is exactly what I plan to do. There isn’t much to say about the run-up to Tuesday’s sit-down on election day. Most people seemed to be aware of the looming elections, but there didn’t seem to be much (if any) prespeech campaigning. One thing I was aware of was the talk of vote-fixing before the election. In my experience, there have been people who have turned in more than their share of votes for Deerfield’s elections, and I was under no illusion that this one would be any different. In the run-up to this election, I had heard promises of votes in exchange for a candidate’s producing specific Deerfield apparel if elected. Mr. Morsman’s announcement regarding the large number
of votes he had received before a single candidate had said a word was quite depressing. I had admittedly hoped that the ballots would be distributed in a different way than simply liberally sprinkling the Dining Hall tables with them. Though I guess the adage that “history repeats itself ” wasn’t created without good reason. The speeches themselves highlighted the expected topics: the individuals’ personal experience, intentions, and philosophy. They were interesting and entertaining if not brief. We all received the e-mail later that night that Giannini was the winner, and I know that in the aftermath, another candidate asked for the vote count and was refused. Lizzie Nelson’s announcement at the following lunch was quite interesting. According to her, the voting irregularities were pretty bad. A PG boy received more votes than some of the candidates according to both her announcement and the rumors floating around campus. (Thanks, Period 2, The Search for Meaning.) That drove me to see whether I could get any figures on the vote count, but I was refused as a “matter of respect and confidentiality for the candidates” as well as the effects of “certain circum-
stances, (write-ins, non-serious collaborative table submissions for one candidate)” on the votes. I genuinely was hoping for a different response. While I know Student Council is trustworthy, I just feel as if something is being ignored. If we can’t be transparent, or at least assured of accuracy in these elections, then what’s the point? Results were released less than two hours after voting was closed. At minimum, 450 votes needed to be counted. And that’s assuming all non-seniors voted only once. Which, according to Nelson, didn’t happen. On top of that two-hour time constraint was the challenge of sorting out all of the false ballots from all of the real ones. I know there needs to be a certain degree of “respect and confidentiality” for the candidates, but there also need to be assurances of accuracy. Why are students who left home as high-schoolers thought to be too emotionally fragile to handle the numbers of losing an election? Also, why do we distribute so many more ballots than we have students who vote? The election is over, period. But there will be other ones, and what are we going to do in order to prevent the same things from happening next year?
Please Master the Formula of Fleeting Greetings By TAO TAO HOLMES Former Arts & Entertainment Editor
We’ve all experienced it: the awkward antics of passing by a pseudo-student-acquaintance on a walkway, quad, or hall. It’s a daily occurrence—leaving your dorm for sixth period and shuffling down the brick by that freshman boy you think is named Ted, but maybe it’s Tim?; crossing senior grass from the opposite direction of that girl who was on your third’s lacrosse team freshman year but to whom you haven’t spoken since; walking past *insert name here* about whom you’ve heard so many rumors. It seems that students display a respectful ease at greeting Deerfield faculty and staff when cursory encounters occur, yet when it comes to acknowledging their fellow students’ performance can be, sadly and surprisingly, subpar. It was sophomore spring, when the sun was out longer. I began to notice trees which had never existed before, and as that infectious spring fever took hold, I decided with a certain stubborn conviction that, from then on, I was going to say hi to every single person I passed by on campus. Easy, right? Well, not so much. For the most part, Deerfield students have mastered the subtle formula of fleeting greetings. Timing is essential: making eye contact too early or too late results in immediate abortion of any greeting procedure and po-
tential awkwardness. Most people implement the ground-stare or sky-stare until the consistentlyshrinking distance between them and oncoming traffic is ten feet or less. At this point, both parties punctually raise or lower their heads from imaginary cogitations, assume an approximately one-and-a-half-second mutual regard, after which they proceed to return to the pensive preoccupation of ensuring that each foot falls in correct placement in front of the other. Speaking too early results in discomfited silence and a hasty jab at a follow-up comment, the subject of which 90 percent of the time is the weather. However, in my quest to greet everybody, I failed to factor in the extenuating circumstances that too often arise. This refers to all of those— and there are a considerable number—who are utterly incompetent at greeting those they pass. People seldom say hello even on the emptiest of city streets, to unknown peers in much larger schools, or basically, in most places in general, so I guess it’s a practice many might not be used to. Maybe that’s a reason students so ardently prefer walking in groups even the shortest of distances; it eliminates the obligation of implementing the formula of fleeting greetings in the likelihood of a solo pedestrian approaching from the other way. There are always those cringingly awkward people who spend more effort laboring over how
to avoid eye contact and verbal exchange than it would take to say hi and get it over with. Yes, exactly—those people who upon entering a ten-foot zone suddenly spot a pterodactyl, become engrossed in whether their shoes are Nike or Adidas, or use a copout by sending a redundant text on their BlackBerry or iPhone. If you know that you fall under one of these categories, please review the Fleeting Greeting Formula, described earlier. So, that’s sort of bad, but these passers-by at least feign preoccupation. The worst are the people who don’t avoid, but flatout ignore the attempts of others to exchange a pleasantry. Perhaps that’s another reason students sometimes don’t even bother to try saying hello—they’ve mustered previous attempts and garnered no responses. Fortunately, this behavior is rare, though it is still out there, awaiting elimination. When it reaches that point when I feel I might as well be walking past a brick wall, there remains no other solution but to impose a salutation by verbally accosting him or her. I prefer to avoid this scenario, as it puts the other party in creeped-out discomfort. In the end, all of that was a verbose way of reminding everyone to say hi to one another. Our campus bubble is small and we’re only here for so long; why don’t we all follow the simple formula and acknowledge with whom we’re sharing Deerfield?