Year In Review 2013-14

YEAR IN REVIEW A special publication of The Ithacan

2013 - 2014

YEAR IN

REVIEW Ithaca College 2013-14

Year in Review Taylor Palmer, Editor Chelsea Russo, Design Editor Durst Breneiser, Photo Editor Kira Maddox, Proofreader

The Ithacan Megan Devlin, Editor-in-Chief Allie Healy, Managing Editor Anjali Patel, Opinion Editor Patrick Feeney, Opinion Editor Sabrina Knight, News Editor Noreyana Fernando, News Editor Michael Tkaczevski, Assistant News Editor Kayla Dwyer, Assistant News Editor Jack Curran, Online News Editor Sage Daugherty, Online News Editor Jackie Eisenberg, Accent Editor Evin Billington, Accent Editor Steven Pirani, Assistant Accent Editor Emily Hull, Sports Editor Steve Derderian, Sports Editor Miles Surrey, Assistant Sports Editor Durst Breneiser, Photo Editor Tucker Mitchell, Photo Editor Jennifer Williams, Assistant Photo Editor Amanda Den Hartog, Assistant Photo Editor Corey Hess, Assistant Photo Editor Jaclyn Cataldi, Multimedia Editor Deanna Romanoff, Multimedia Editor Stephen Adams, Assistant Multimedia Editor Emma McQuade, Assistant Multimedia Editor Kira Maddox, Proofreader Vicky Wolak, Chief Copy Editor Emily Fuller, Design Editor Marianna Dunbrook, Design Editor Alexandra Alteio, Assistant Design Editor Evan Sobkowicz, Webmaster Jessica Corbett, Social Media Manager Jillian Baker, Interactive Designer Kristina King, Sales Manager Stephen Shuler, Classifieds Manager Max Gillilan, Classifieds Manager Michael Serino, Student Media Adviser

YEAR IN REVIEW

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NEWS Timeline >> 12 A month-by-month look at look news for the college, city and nation at-large

Diversity >> 28 Students raise questions about diversity on campus and fight for inclusion

TC Lounge >> 35 The administration says the TC Lounge will close and students are speaking up

Financial Follies >> 38 Financial moves are raising more than a few eyebrows on campus this year

SGA >> 44 The Student Government Association is putting forth policies to bring about change

Business Is Good >>52 The campus and surrounding area are seeing an economic and intellectual boom

Academia changing >> 61 Advances in structures like paperless override forms are cause for celebration

TEDx >> 68 At TED-inspired conference, students and alumni present and spark intellectual discourse

Going, Going, Green >> 70 Students and administration make efforts to promote eco-friendly actions

Putting Health First >> 74 Efforts are being made this year to promote positive mental and physical health

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PROFILES

Grab and Give >> 80 Sophomore Shawn Davis collects food from campus and gives to the homeless

Disney Magic >> 81 Senior Josh Condon creates a Disney-themed concert for large audience

Hop to It >> 82 Senior Josh Grazul makes a name for himself as a burgeoning hops farmer

Broad Strokes >> 83 Senior Genevieve Cohn uses her world experiences to make creative paintings

Adopted Ally >> 84 Sophomore Emily Quinn runs a club to give community to adopted children

Staging Success >> 85 Junior Julie Sullivan channels her passion for performing into a musical TV show

Painting the Past >> 86 Senior Stephanie Lee uses paintings to shed light on social injustice

Taste of Passion >> 87 Ithaca Native Chris Kirby starts up Ithaca’s first local hummus company

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CULTURE Seth Meyers >> 92 Seth Meyers is set to be the Athletics and Events Center’s first big performer

Textor Ball >> 93 Original sculptor reveals the inspiration behind the iconic Textor statue

Mr. and Ms. Ithaca >> 96 Fourteen seniors battle it out this year for the honor of being named king and queen

Just Do It >> 100 Handwerker Gallery art exhibit urges students to become active viewers.

Theatre Review >> 103 The campus puts on performances that receive much critical acclaim

Music Roundtable >> 108 WICB’s Jon Samuels and Lucas Knapp talk about this year in music

Movie Roundtable >> 110 The hosts of ICTV’s “The Screening Room” chat about themes in film for 2013–14

Books Abound >> 113 Professors make strides in publishing and old favorites release new classics

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A month-by-month breakdown of this year in sports from editor Taylor Palmer.

September >> 118 - Roundups - Bomber goes pro - Vision for the future

October >> 122 - Roundups - College drug testing - Connecting with nature

November >> 126 - Roundups - Cortaca spread

December >> 132 - Roundups - Second chance - Weighing in on weight loss

SPORTS January >> 136 - Roundups - Welch wins recognition - Rise of Sam Klie

February >> 140 - Roundups - For the love of dance - Mental matchup

March >> 144 - Roundups

Looking Ahead >> 146 Dominick Recckio and Cedrick-Michael Simmons look forward to 2014–15

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Taylor Palmer

Editor-in-Chief, Year In Review Webster’s dictionary defines “action” as the bringing about of — just goofing around.

Wouldn’t that introduction be the absolute worst? It definitely would. Action is the theme of this year’s publication by the way. Well, I kind of showed my hand a bit early there, so let’s back up.

It’s perfectly natural to be jaded by your senior year at Ithaca College.

Bright eyed, bushy-tailed and fueled by a cocktail that’s equal parts enthusiasm, hormones and naivety, many enter as a first-year student ready to experience all of the wonders of adult life at such a liberal institution.

At first, the freedom is intoxicating and the lack of a bed time is stellar. But after a few years of exposure to college life, grumbling about exhausting workloads and uninformed musing about empty counter-cultural cliches like the bureaucracy and the administration become as loud as long-since-gone shouts of excitement about hitting up a Kendall Street party. It’s all too easy to get caught up in this cynicism and become inactive.

About eight months ago, that was me. I was disaffected and sarcastic, scoffing at Facebook updates from high school acquaintances’ excited statuses about their freshman year at X College, Y University or Z Community College, complaining about how unfair life at college actually is and doing nothing to change it.

That was before I began editing this magazine and before I really saw some of the amazing things being done by incredible people on our campus, people we may know personally or who just sit next to us in class.

These people and their stories reminded me that no matter how much life seems to disagree with the idea of evenhandedness, it’s never better to take injustice sitting down — always stand up and take action. That’s what this year was about, those who took action, no matter how insurmountable an obstacle.

Take the Student Government Association, guided by its president, Cedrick-Michael Simmons, which stood up against inequality and discrimination this year, not only taking aim at the lack of structural support for students of color but also working to educate students and faculty alike on microaggressions. A group of people looked at what many view as invincable injustice and decided to take action, because even if they helped create a sense of community and a safe space for one person, they were successful.

Members of the African Students Association draped themselves in the colors of their heritage and said, “I am proud to be what I am,” sending a message to those who try to put them down based on crude and unfair stereotypes about Africa. IC Active Minds is reaching out to tech giant Google to fight for the mental health and safety of all those who may be stumbling down a self-destructive rabbit hole. Hell, even the Handwerker Gallery told us to stop being a passive viewer and just “do it.” Because of these actions, discourse surrounding the respective subjects have become part of the current campus zeitgeist and have planted the seeds for grassroot movements to positively affect change.

This magazine is my attempt to continue on their hard work and take action, hopefully inspiring others to do so, or at least to harbor less cynicism. So, I urge you to think about this ideal when you’re flipping through this magazine. Read beyond the words and into their context, their origin. Think about the actions that took place and what they did or what they started. Think about the actions you could take and the ripple effects they could have.

Megan Devlin

Editor-in-Chief, The Ithacan

Chelsea Russo

Durst Breneiser

I was absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to design Year In Review this year. I really wanted to escalate the look and feel of this publication and make it a glossy wonder that’s unique to the 2013-14 school year and the editors who helped make it possible. Working with the theme of “Action,” readers will find stylized arrows within every spread. Whether in the background or foreground, I hope the arrows scattered throughout these pages encourage students to not only read on but to keep taking action in whatever they do.

Photography to me is one of the nectars of life; one of those actions that feels right to my core. As photography editor of the Year In Review I selected the photographs that best reflect that feeling in all photographers.

Photographers are not simply there to document an event, but document the experience of that event.

Those experiences have and will continue to shape my life and hopefully others lives. I and all the photographers took “Action” to document others doing the same.

Design Editor,Year In Review

MEET THE EDITORS

During my four years at Ithaca College, I have wrestled with what it has meant for me to act as a change agent on campus. This year in particular, I did not initially see my position as editor in chief of The Ithacan as an opportunity to spark action, both within myself and others. But I was soon reminded of what attracted me to journalism to begin with.

The media play an incredibly powerful role in society. At its core, news can inform, yes, but it can also influence, manipulate and distort, all actions that affect the conscience and willpower of media consumers. My values as an editor align with the deontological ethics that favor the rights and duties of agents. They have enabled me to view myself as such an agent, someone who can deliver and inspire action through the student media. The challenge, however, is striking a balance on the spectrum of action, which for me encompasses everything from being an actor role playing in a fantasy world to an activist fighting for change.

As a campus media leader, I believe it is my journalistic duty to advocate on behalf of my fellow community members in Ithaca. To fulfill this responsibility, I have strived to align the newspaper with the goals and priorities of this year’s action-oriented student body and share them with our readers.

The media report the truth with integrity, but we are also subject to our individual biases. Taking action has meant sticking to my principles of transparency, justice, truth and compassion as I set the news agenda for Ithaca College. The power we journalists have to choose, and the responsibility that comes with it, make our contributions active ones.

In recognizing this privilege, I have strived for a human-centered approach to our news coverage. This year, The Ithacan has not necessarily had a defining story of the year — and I don’t think we have to. As journalists, we did our jobs to inform the campus about the issues and news that needed to be told, hopefully inspiring action along the way.

Photo Editor,Year In Review

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NEWS

August

Obama visits Binghamton

Professor recognized for research

college & city

Athletics and Events Center hosts convocation

Wegmans Explosion causes scare

TIMELINE Riots break out in Egypt when President Morsi’s supporters are fired upon

Snowden takes asylum in Moscow

Miley twerks at MTV’s VMAs

NATIONAL

Chelsea Manning sentenced to 35 years 13

September Burst pipe brings heat wave

sga plans for the year ahead

Chemung Canal buys local Bank of America

college & city

City studies sidewalks

TIMELINE

CITIZENS PROTEST AMERICAN INTERVENTION IN SYRIA

TERRORISTS OPEN FIRE IN KENYAN MALL

BREAKING BAD ENDS ITS FIVE-YEAR RUN

NAVY YARD SHOOTER KILLS 13 IN D.C.

NATIONAL 15

October

College announces Shanghai center

College liberalizes animal policies

Habitat for humanity raises awareness for the homeless

Community questions noise ordinance

college & city

TIMELINE

CONGRESS NARROWLY AGREES ON DEBT CEILING SOLUTION

Government flubs Health care rollout

Failure to pass budget causes government to shut down

LOU REED DIES AT 61

NATIONAL 17

November

County announces jail expansion

Ithaca celebrates co-ops

college announces tc lounge shutdown Campus celebrates native heritage

college & city

TIMELINE

TYPHOON IN PHILLIPINES CLAIMS MORE THAN 6,000 LIVES

NEw York City elects Bill De Blasio Mayor SHOOTER OPENS FIRE AT LAX

NATIONAL 19

December

Students and faculty mourn death of junior Michael Clark

College suspends environmental minor

college & city

Comedy writer to speak at graduation

Middle States re-affirms IC

TIMELINE Thousands gather to memorialize Nelson Mandela

Winter storm ravages northeast

Lawrence of Arabia actor Peter O’Toole passes away

NATIONAL 21

January Noted activist speaks on human rights

ASA photo campaign gains international media attention

campus releases faculty salary report IC reveals business collaboration

college & city

TIMELINE

Washington bridge scandal embarasses Gov. Chris Christie’s Regime in New Jersey

First recreational marijuana shops open in Colorado

Polar Vortex dumps snow nationwide

Federal Reserve names janet yellen new chair

NATIONAL 23

February

Campus hosts Israeli boycott debate

SGA launches inclusion task force

college & city

Classrooms receive 20 iPads

Senator speaks about workers’ rights

TIMELINE

PHILLIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN PASSES AWAY

SEAHAWKS STEAMROLL BRONCOS IN SUPER BOWL ATHLETES ARRIVE IN SOCHI FOR OLYMPICS

NATIONAL

SHIRLEY TEMPLE passes away at age 85 25

March

Campus hosts TEDx event Singers host Tunes 4 Tay

College books seth meyers for ithaca today

college & city

Res Life creates RA council

TIMELINE

Russia annexes crimea

March marks first month without U.S. soldiers death in Iraq in 11 years

Malaysian airlines flight goes missing

NATIONAL 27

College Diversity behind the numbers According to the stats, we’re doing great...

to remove that kind of barrier and open up greater access.”

This year, there was a record-breaking 21.7 percent African, Latino, Though the college Asian and Native American representation among Ithaca College’s claims to be racefirst-year students — up from 19.4 percent last year — according to neutral in its admissions process, it does consider race in some of its the finalized enrollment data from the Office of Admission. recruitment efforts.

This growth brought the college a step closer to achieving its Gerard Turbide, director of admission, said the college works with diversity goals that are part of IC 20/20, the college’s 10-year community-based organizations that provide admissions support strategic plan. Eric Maguire, vice president of enrollment and and resources to historically underrepresented students. communication, said the college is currently looking to exceed a 20 “We make decisions about where we travel, for example, based percent ALANA college-wide representation. on a variety of things: diversity, strength of schools, past applicant Last year, the college had a 16.1 percent representation, and this history from different schools,” he said. year, ALANA students embodied 17.7 percent of the 6,723 students To help reach the currently enrolled. college’s diversity goals, Maguire said the Maguire said, the college does not use college offers a $2,500 an affirmative-action merit scholarship for policy in the student all students who selfapplication review identify as ALANA. process to increase One possible concern diversity. The process of the scholarships is race-neutral, and all is how the college selected students are quantifies diversity equally qualified, he and identifies ALANA said. students.

David Maley, Data is taken from associate director of students’ college media relations, said the While Ithaca College’s 10-year strategic plan is being implemented, President Tom Rochon applications, where college does not label its released diversity goals for 2014 –15 in November 2013. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/DURST BRENEISER students check a box recruitment techniques with the race they as affirmative action. identify with most from a range of given races.

According to the 1978 Regents of the University of California v.

Theoretically, if a student who is not ALANA identifies as Bakke court decision, a quota system is illegal, yet some still believe ALANA, then the college could assume he or she is ALANA. That that is how affirmative action operates. student could possibly receive the merit-based ALANA scholarship.

Laura Stoker, professor of political science at the University of Malinda Smith, director of multicultural affairs for the Office California, Berkeley, said affirmative action can occur during the of Student Engagement and Multicultural Affairs, said the recruitment process.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholar Program was created in 2002 to “All of those kinds of programs have been considered by the recruit talented, high-performing ALANA students from various government to be affirmative-action programs,” she said. “But backgrounds and majors who are concerned with social justice. the bottom line is … [if ordinary people] use the phrase, they are There are currently two open-house programs in the spring. One thinking someone is sitting in a college admissions committee is “Ithaca Today,” which is an open house for all accepted students. saying, ‘This person is a black person, let’s let them in because we The other, “An Inside Look,” was created in 1994 specifically to give haven’t met our quota.’”

ALANA students a glimpse of what it would be like to be an ALANA The 2.3 percentage jump in ALANA representation at the college student on campus. could be the result of policies and efforts the college implemented When the program was originally created, Turbide said 7 to 8 this year, Maguire said.

One such policy is the standardized test–optional policy, which no percent of the student body was ALANA. The ALANA community makes sure ALANA students know they longer requires students to submit SAT or ACT test scores with their are not alone on this campus, he said. application. Maguire said research has shown requiring test scores “The reality at this institution is that students of color have limits the applicant pool. unique experiences, [and] because we are at a predominantly white “There are correlations with socioeconomic status and institution, different initiatives and outreach efforts are used to reach standardized test scores, and there’s also correlations with out to those self-identified students of color,” Turbide said. socioeconomic status and ALANA population,” he said. “We wanted

BY ELMA GONZALEZ

PART 1

But ALANA students feel they need more support,

PART 2

NEWS

The President’s Advisory Committee on Diversity, which suggests ways to address diversity at the college, monitors When senior Cedrick-Michael Simmons, these objectives. The goals focus on the president of the Student Government retention and increase in representation Association, was a freshman, he almost of faculty, staff and students of historically transferred from Ithaca College. marginalized groups.

As one of the only students of color in Paula Ioanide, assistant professor in each of his courses, Simmons was often seen the Center for the Study of Culture, Race as the spokesperson for his race. People and Ethnicity and member of the college’s asked him questions to which he did not Diversity Awareness Committee, which have answers. provides diversity education and training Fed up and almost ready to leave the on campus, said the college benchmarks college, Simmons stayed because faculty and diversity progress by measuring ALANA staff mentors, the Martin Luther King, Jr. student population, but doesn’t measure the Scholars Program and student organizations quality of students’ experiences. like Brothers 4 Brothers helped him cope “The fact that you have gotten them here, that they are here, doesn’t mean that they are having a good experience of racial equity,” she said.

Ioanide said several ALANA students have come to her with grievances of their experience at the college. In many cases, she said, students have raised concerns about white ignorance, the tokenization Step Afrika! performs at Emerson Suites on Feb. 18. COURTESY OF NICOLE GOUDREAU of ALANA students in the classroom, perceived low expectations from with adversity. professors and the colorblind approach of “[They] ultimately provided enough the college’s curriculum. empowerment to deal with those issues,” Junior Shaniece Williams said she Simmons said. once dropped a course because she felt Some African, Latino, Asian and Native uncomfortable after a professor had said American students have also faced this what she understood as a possibly racist reality at the college. comment. She said the college’s new Yet the college is taking steps toward requirement for students to take diversity improving diversity and the experience courses as part of IC 20/20 shows progress, of ALANA students. It has prioritized the but it should be extended to faculty as well. growth of diversity on campus as part of the “The hardest thing is to wake up and to IC 20/20 strategic vision. Most recently, this think, ‘Oh my God, I could be discriminated growth has materialized with an increase against, somebody could say something in ALANA representation. In the last nine racist, a professor might not like me because years, the number of ALANA students has I’m black,’” she said. “The next step [in IC increased from 8 percent to 17.7 percent.

20/20] would be some required diversity College President Tom Rochon published training for these professors at this school.” an Intercom announcement Oct. 3 about the Last year, ALANA faculty encompassed college’s diversity objectives for the current only 10 percent of the overall faculty. academic year.

BY ELMA GONZALEZ

With diversity in the spotlight at the college, some ALANA faculty are hesitant to share their stories, and many of those approached by The Ithacan preferred not to openly discuss their experiences at the college.

Institutionally, there have been attempts to uncover the concerns of marginalized groups on campus. Last fall, the college designed a Campus Diversity and Inclusion Climate Survey as part of the IC 20/20’s Diversity Strategic Plan to evaluate the social climate at the college and use the information from the survey to evaluate how the college addresses its demographics and environment.

Last year, Mark Coldren, associate vice president for human resources, told The Ithacan the survey results would be available last spring.

One year later, results from this survey are still not available to the public. The PAC-D, the Diversity Awareness Committee and some administrators have access to the survey’s raw data, but the analysis has not been completed, Coldren said.

Simmons said he has been asking for this data, hoping it will help figure out how the SGA and the college can address concerns from groups like the ALANA community. “[The SGA is] concerned that the campus-climate survey results haven’t come out,” he said. “The reasoning that we’ve perceived is that it’s because Ithaca College hasn’t figured out how to analyze the data appropriately, and so I don’t see how you can put out a survey and not know how to analyze it after.”

Though certain programs and organizations on campus support the ALANA community, for some students they aren’t enough.

Senior Kathy Perez, member of PODER: Latino Student Association, said she found more support in a citybased sorority originally founded at Cornell University, Señoritas Latinas Unidas Inc., Sigma Lambda Upsilon.

“Ithaca College doesn’t give to students,” Perez said. “We have one room for us — it’s the ALS room. [My CU sorority sisters] don’t understand how we only have one room, while Cornell has buildings, and rooms, and majors and programs.”

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which diversity goals don’t quite provide.

BY ELMA GONZALEZ President Tom Rochon outlined the seven diversity objectives for 2013–14 in an Intercom announcement in October. The objectives, which are part of the larger 11 diversity goals, include continuing the implementation of the IC Mentoring Network and making sure the new Integrative Core Curriculum implementation is attentive to its impact on all students. Both the mentoring network and the ICC are not exclusive to ALANA students.

Another objective is to regularly conduct a campus-climate survey to assess the campus environment.

The first survey was sent out last fall, and its results are currently being analyzed.

Marisa Kelly, provost and vice president for educational affairs, said though the analysis is taking longer than the institution would have preferred, an analysis is needed to make further decisions on the regularity and effectiveness of a climate survey.

“We would have to look at the analysis first to get a sense of what we would want to say our goals should be going forward, not just in terms of substantive responses, but often also what is appropriate in terms of ongoing survey assessments,” she said.

To ensure student learning outcomes focused on diversity are incorporated to the curriculum, the college is also requiring students take a course about diversity — two diversity courses for Humanities and Sciences students — as part of the new ICC. The Class of 2017 is the first group of students required to take these courses.

Paula Ioanide, assistant professor in the Center for the Study of Race, Culture and Ethnicity, said the college’s Committee for College-wide Requirements has included the issue of power relations in its diversity course requirement because it is important to understand the historical structure of disadvantage and exclusion for people who are perceived as different.

“Now the question is: Can the faculty of Ithaca College devise enough courses that fit this more rigorous standard for what counts as diversity designated courses?” Ioanide said.

Fourteen courses have already been approved by the CCR. Ronald Trunzo, associate director of residential life and judicial affairs, said his department has placed more emphasis in training staff on diversity since the validation of IC 20/20. The department is trying to improve the residence hall experience of ALANA and LGBT students, which is another goal listed in the strategic vision. Last year, the Office of Residential Life asked Ioanide to conduct workshops to train the staff on diversity.

There are many other programs and departments currently taking action to address the college’s diversity goals. Roger Richardson, vice president and dean of student affairs and campus life, said everyone at the college shares responsibility in working toward its success, and the deadline for achieving these goals is 2020.

“Everyone is responsible, everyone is accountable,” he said.

“These are the college-wide diversity goals and objectives, and so each individual division [and] department has to take a look at these goals and objectives in any given academic year and think in terms of the work that they are doing for the year, and how they can move these objectives and these goals along toward making progress.”

PART 3

Provost Marisa Kelly sits in her office for a portrait. ELMA GONZALEZ/THE ITHACAN

Guest Commentary >> What does “ready” really mean?

BY TARIQ MEYERS The “Academy” is viewed as the locus for social mobility, a meeting place for intellectual curiosity and creative expression. Our universities have produced scholars who have produced new knowledge that has shaped the way we view the world. These same institutions, however, have restricted access. They have created paradigms in which university credos that once read “a commitment to excellence,” now come with the stipulation “for some.” Increased tuition, a competitive job market, colorblind admission policies and blanket diversity statements create the concoction to deny students access to a quality education.

Despite these restrictions, in 2011 Ithaca College began a marketing campaign to complement its new brand identity. “Ready” is an effort to distinguish the college from peer institutions as one that prepares alumni for the world, but what does it mean to be “ready?”

I imagine how the sojourners who fought for equity, beyond empty promises of equality, responded when it was time to be ready. What went through the mind of the young black girl, whose mother asked if she was ready to walk to the jails of Birmingham, Ala., during the 1969 Children’s Crusade? Or the Freedom Riders, who in 1961 told their parents they were leaving their education to bring racial justice?

In a society where families struggle to feed children, community policing has turned into racially disproportionate frisking, unemployment has replaced job creation and the living wage of yesterday is unlivable by tomorrow. The “ready” that once challenged the status quo has forced families to invoke the “ready” that maintains it.

There is no room for empty promises in a world that equates career success with upward mobility. At the highest levels, our institutions focus more on surviving and molding alumni who can attain jobs in the present than creating students who challenge the existence of our social condiand endless student loans.

Though simultaneously disillusioned and tempted by what it means to be “ready,” I look at our community and I’m reminded that there is hope. When students at the college in the ’70s stormed an Ithaca College Board of Trustees meeting demanding the creation of an Ethnic Studies program, when Divest IC fearlessly demanded divestment, when a community campaigned for the creation of an Asian American Studies program, I know they too asked, “Are you ready?”

Our community has made tears in the fabric of injustice, and as the system pushes onward, we must push back, and we must not stand alone. As we leave South Hill, we too will eventually face the choice of

Students protest expansion of Tompkins County jail

NEWS

professor for the Center for the Study of Culture, Race and Ethnicity and a leader in the coalition, said.

The coalition aims to end the perpetuation of the “New Jim Crow,” or the systematic oppression of poor people and people of color through mass incarceration.

According to 2013 county jail statistics,

white non-Hispanics make up 68 percent of the inmate population, blacks make up 22 percent, Latino/as make up 5 percent, On Feb. 18, about 70 students and other Asians make up 0.5 percent, Native and community members crammed into the Alaskan people make up 10 percent and Legislature Chambers.

3.4 percent identified as other.

Last fall, the Tompkins County Legislature When the data was proportionately unanimously approved a more than $900,000 compared to the Tompkins County census county jail expansion project that includes data, it showed that less than 1 the addition of seven beds and percent of white people were other renovations. The jail currently inmates in 2013, whereas 5 percent accommodates more than 90 inmates, of black people, 1 percent of Latino/ exceeding the 75 inmate capacity. as, 0.05 percent Asians, 2 percent Since the expansion approval last of Natives or Alaskans and about 1 fall, local groups began to challenge percent other were inmates. the legislature’s decision. Junior Kayla Ioanide said the significance of Young is one of about 10 students student involvement cannot be from Ithaca College who are part of underestimated in civic action. the Stop the Tompkins County Jail “It’s where everything that people Expansion Coalition, a diverse group learn in the classroom abstractly of Ithaca residents that stemmed becomes real,” she said. “[Students] from the Shawn Greenwood Working Senior Dubian Ade addresses the Tompkins County Legislature find themselves, and they find an Group last fall, Paula Ioanide, assistant on Feb. 18. AMANDA DEN HARTOG/THE ITHACAN enormous level of empowerment.”

BY ELMA GONZALEZ

Students work toward equality

BY FAITH MECKLEY This February, the Student Government Association launched a campaign against inequalities and microaggressions on campus. “[Microaggressions are] subtle yet consistent indignities that come in the form of comments and behaviors that perpetuate oppressive ideology and oppressive behavior,” Senior Cedrick-Michael Simmons, president of the SGA, said.

“These are intentional or not intentional — it doesn’t matter.”

Microaggressions can occur against any minority or marginalized group. They can come in the form of insensitive jokes, phrases and assumptions — such as washing dishes being “women’s work,” the phrase “that’s so gay” or saying “I’m not racist; I have black friends,” to

downplay a personal bias.

Simmons said while Ithaca College doesn’t have a specific problem with inequalities and injustices, he believes the issues still need to be brought to light, and that the college as a community can do better to be more open-minded and considerate of differences.

Linda Uhll, manager of the Office of Student Disability Services, said she believes the college environment has improved over time with its understanding toward diversity.

“I feel like the college is actually very good in providing resources for students who receive services from our office,” she said. “In the 14 years I’ve been here, I think that definitely has improved, and people are more understanding about both the physical restrictions … as well as the invisible disabilities.”

The SGA senators and board that the delay may be a result of members include students the college not knowing how to of different races, ethnicities, interpret the data properly. sexual orientations, ages and Simmons said the results of educational pursuits. the 2012 campus-climate survey In 2012, the college will be helpful to the campaign, administration conducted a and that continued pressure on campus-climate survey, which the administration to publish studied the campus community’sthe results is needed in order to overall sense of fairness and get the full picture. inclusion, and the results were Simmons said the SGA will expected to be released in build on last semester’s diversity Spring 2013, but have yet to be initiatives, like sophomore seen. Simmons said he has been senator-at-large Kyle James’ asking for the results since he push for an LGBTQ studies was voted into office but has not minor, to also make this had success acquiring them. semester’s campaign successful According to Mark Coldren, on a broader level. associate vice president for He said James’ initiative is human resources, the college an example of what the SGA is has not yet released the data trying to accomplish in because the analysis was this campaign. never completed. However, no “It’s a perfect example of explanation has been offered a policy issue that is also for the delay. Simmons has connected to social justice,” already expressed his concern Simmons said.

31

COURTESY OF MARIAH BOUCHER

pictured had the opportunity to brainstorm. Bunatal said many of the members chose to refute ideas that they find most offensive as Africans. “Africans do not all look alike,” “Africa existed before Ithaca College’s African Students Association gained international colonialism” and “Africa is not defined by poverty” are examples of attention through a photo campaign it released in January to break the responses to the stereotypes the ASA are striving to break through down stereotypes commonly associated with Africa and Africans. in its campaign.

The campaign follows the group’s theme for this year: “Celebrating “The simplicity of the text and complexity of the quotes are perfect our ancestor.” together,” Bunatal said. “It’s powerful because it’s like I’m shouting at Since the campaign’s release, tens of thousands people have you, but in nice way. It’s a way of saying, ‘I’m proud of my country viewed the photos, which were featured on CNN’s iReport.com after and continent.’” the ASA sent a tweet about its project to iReport’s Twitter account.

Bunatal said the ASA is continuing to use social networking to The campaign has gained traction worldwide as people continue spread its campaign further, and the group is finding that many to share the campaign through social media and websites like people worldwide are interested in the project.

BuzzFeed. More than 40 thousand people have viewed the story and “We have gotten a lot of amazing feedback on Twitter from campaign on BuzzFeed alone.

Africans and nonThe ASA devotes itself Africans alike, proud to creating awareness that finally someone about Africa and is correcting the educating students with misinformation about the campaigns and events, continent and peoples of sophomore Rita Bunatal, Africa,” Bunatal said. public relations chair of The group has also the ASA, said. worked to include non“We see so many Africans in the ASA and times that students go hopes that students can all to Africa, and it’s great,” come together to support Bunatal said. “But the movement. The [you need to] have the purpose is to both discuss education behind it, many of the members’ know the history of the African heritage and continent before you go involve all students with and ‘help the children.’ educated discussions People need to be aware about Africa. Freshman of the deep history in Mariah Boucher said even some of these countries.”

Photographs of Members of the African Students Association recreate a portion of their viral photo campaign. with this, getting nonAfricans to meetings and members wrapped in PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY COREY HESS AND MARIANNA DUNBROOK events has been difficult. vibrantly colored flags “You do not have to be African to attend any of our events, and if you from different African countries saturate this campaign. Bunatal have an opinion, African or not, we want you to share it,” Boucher said. said the ASA came up with the idea of a photo campaign to engage Junior Kobby Lartey, vice president of the ASA, said in the future, the campus in a way that is simple and visual. Bunatal also said the the group wants to take this message further by finding different students chose this idea because they felt this was a main reason for ways to show its culture and educate others. The group plans to use them being in the group. feedback from this campaign to create new projects next year.

“We decided to go with the flag concept because it is a common “This campaign is not an isolated campaign, it is part of the vision misconception that ‘Africa is a country,’ and people often wonder of our association that is grounded in the hope to see the continent if ‘Africa has a flag,’ so we decided to break that stereotype without take its place in the world, for we have been ready to do so for too having to say much,” Bunatal said. “It was almost like a hidden long,” Lartey said. “We hope to continue to create awareness, and concept. We also wanted to highlight the beauty and color of each continue on our Pan-African agenda. ASA is just beginning its work, country’s flag.” and we are so happy with how far we have come.”

In addition to the photographs are quotes that each club member

BY EDEN CAMPBELL

President leads SGA toward more campus equity As senior Cedrick-Michael Simmons assumed his new role as president of the Ithaca College Student Government Association at the beginning of the year, he laid out his goals for 2013–14.

Simmons said helping students feel more comfortable on campus and creating open dialogue with students, staff, faculty and other administrators were on his to-do list.

He also said he aimed to establish institutional guidelines that address intricate situations, such as issues in the classroom that are specifically targeted toward minority students.

Simmons said he sought to shift the culture of the SGA to focus less on the government procedures associated with the group’s title and more on the student community and personally affecting the lives of his campus constituents.

“We can do more when it comes to being engaged in the community,” Simmons said.

“We can do more with being present at events and meetings that we allocate funds to. We

need a culture of service to the students.”

Discussing other influences in his life, Simmons said growing up as a minority in the suburbs of Rochester, N.Y., played a crucial part in his decision to advocate for equality for minorities.

As the only AfricanAmerican family with less financial stability than the Caucasian community he was surrounded by in his Senior Cedrick-Michael Simmons is the Student Government Association’s neighborhood, Simmons was student body president for the 2013–14 academic year. aware that in his high school AMANDA DEN HARTOG/THE ITHACAN he was not always afforded the “He’s a natural-born leader, “It’s about trying to have that same level of opportunities as and he’s hardworking and confidence and trying to be the white students. persistent in making sure that critical, but also keeping that “I had to come to terms with the goals and tasks at hand get faith in the reality that systems the explicit and implicit racism started and finished,” Breton said. do change, things do get better, that was occurring,” he said.

Simmons said his persistence and so it’s not a matter of if, it’s The SGA president said he and perseverance are thanks a matter of when, and for us it hoped to use these experiences to his mentors: Christopher needs to be now,” Simmons said. to increase equality at the House, assistant professor of “So, having that faith that all college, and to make sure that communication studies; Belisa that we’re doing is not in vain. It the individuals who are part of Gonzales, associate professor of keeps you positive.” minority groups do not feel like sociology; and Rebecca Plante, they are forgotten. associate professor of sociology.

Elijah Breton, senate chair of He said these professors and the SGA, described Simmons the qualities he has obtained as as a role model for minorities, a Martin Luther King, Jr. scholar a leader and someone who the gave him encouragement when people can go to when they he needed it most. have a problem.

NEWS

BY ARIANA SHIKONGO

Editorial >> Allies are still needed In the wake of racially charged issues, such as the killing of Trayvon Martin and the Supreme Court’s invalidation of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, it is disheartening that so few white people attended the 50th Anniversary March on Washington. Though these blatantly racial issues were main themes of the march, there was still a small presence of white allies.

The sea of faces in the anniversary march on Aug. 28 was almost entirely composed of people demographics 50 years ago at the original 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where whites made up one-third of the marchers. This is just one instance of a commemorative event that is indicative of diminishing support

from white allies.

How do students internalize this on a predominantly white campus? Ithaca College’s campus is segregated, yet many believe that the campus climate is inclusive of students of color. A student of color can go all four years without a white student. When so much of racism consists of microaggressions, it’s hard to get white allies to feel as if they are needed.

Racial solidarity is still necessary.

Students, faculty and administration need to be conscious of this need happens in civil rights movements with cross-racial support, and if we want to move forward, white people need to understand the importance of being an ally.

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overnight visits

BY MALLERY ROCKWELL Beginning this year, the program An Inside Look, which offers African, Latino, Asian and Native American students a chance to visit Ithaca College, will no longer invite prospective students to stay overnight with current students in residence halls during their visits, according to an email from Gerard Turbide, director of the Office of Admission.

The program An Inside Look allows accepted ALANA students to visit the campus and spend time learning about ALANA resources and meeting students in the community.

The program was created in 1994, originally permitting participants to stay overnight, attend classes and experience the college for three days.

An Inside Look is scheduled during the same weekend as Ithaca Today, which is a program in late spring designed for all accepted students. The program includes small group discussions; tours; research; demonstrations; lunch with faculty, staff and students; and more. Though Ithaca Today is a multiple-day event, it does not include an overnight element.

Freshman Emily Abreu took part in An Inside Look last year. Abreu said she thinks the program is beneficial for incoming students because it gives them a chance to experience campus life.

“I was upset because I feel like the overnight visits gave students the opportunity to see how the college would really be,” Abreu said. “I think for a lot of families, especially students of color, their parents are very reluctant for their kids to go far, so I think that it also gives the parents a chance to see, ‘Oh wow, my kid is really happy.’”

Eric Maguire, vice president of the Division of Enrollment and Communication, said the office has been moving away from keeping prospective students overnight. An Inside

Look is being removed within the Office of Admission because high school students may not be prepared for college life, having not been through an orientation process yet, he said.

“I think that what we do in those situations is we expose high school students to choices that they’re not necessarily prepared to make,” Maguire said. “We’re putting them in an environment that they can potentially make choices, and they may or may not have the perspective to make good ones.”

Abreu said she thinks the overnight portion of An Inside Look was removed the because the college doesn’t want to risk the safety of prospective students who have not yet lived in a college environment, but it will put ALANA students at an experiental disadvantage.

“It’s not fair because athletics and the music program still offer sleepovers, but they won’t for ALANA students,” Abreu said. “They won’t put in the risk factor for ALANA students.”

Freshman Lisa Zheng also participated in the program.

Zheng said she learned more about the college from talking more in depth with her host after her parents had left.

“Students, during the day, when they’re with their families, usually don’t open up to the host until later on when they’re away from their family,” Zheng said. “Then they can actually start asking questions that they want to ask.”

Turbide said the Office of Admission is continually looking to evolve its programming to incorporate more aspects of what An Inside Look fostered for prospective and accepted students, along with their families.

“I think what’s most important is that prospective students, and particularly admitted students, have the opportunity to be on campus and experience the academic and co-curricular life that’s available to them here at Ithaca College,” Turbide said.

From left, junior Asha Laguna-Merced stands by as freshman Hakeem Hopper-Collins signs up to volunteer for An Inside Look on April 12. JENNIFER WILLIAMS/THE ITHACAN

Editorial >> “An Inside Look” gets hazy The An Inside Look program for accepted students who identify as African, Latino, Asian or Native American will no longer include overnight stays in the residence halls with current students. The removal of the overnight portion, which has been held between the Saturday and Sunday of Ithaca Today admissions events, provides an incomplete picture of campus life at Ithaca College for ALANA students.

Certain aspects of life at the college are not apparent in a single day, like the 69 percent majority of Caucasian students and the presence of microaggressions. Meanwhile, college marketing for the ALANA programs features an abundance of ALANA students, which may deceive prospective students about the diversity of identities on campus.

Both the overnight portion and the dining hall meals through “An Inside Look” provided accepted ALANA students a chance to interact with the college community in more intimate settings. The new program eliminates the residential life aspect, reducing the program to a social event and a dinner in Emerson Suites.

The dinner denies prospective ALANA students the chance to interact in a typical college social environment, which the residential and dining halls provide. Cutting these experiences prevents accepted students from seeing how the entire campus community handles identity issues, microaggressions and inclusivity outside of the classroom environment.

The college must reinstate the overnight portion of An Inside Look. In the long term, it must create a positive but realistic presentation of the campus.

NEWS

TC LOUNGE Above: Rebecca Angel sings a tune at Jazz Night on Feb. 20.

Right: Students enjoy music while studying in the TC Lounge on Feb. 19.

DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

Students upset by administrative plans to close Tower Club Lounge

BY SABRINA KNIGHT & NOREYANA FERNANDO On Nov. 6, the administration announced that the Towers Club Lounge will be closed to accommodate offices beginning in the 2014–15 academic year.

The decision to close down the lounge is a part of the college’s efforts to find a new home on campus for the Physical Therapy Center, which will move from Rochester, N.Y., to Ithaca College over the summer. The TC Lounge, formerly known as the Tower Club, opened in Fall 2010 and currently serves as a study lounge, cafe and a space used by students for weekly open mic nights.

In a Nov. 5 Intercom announcement, Marisa Kelly, provost and vice president for educational affairs, said the Information Technology Services offices, which are on the second floor of Job Hall, will move to the TC Lounge next year. The Office of International Programs and the Gerontology Institute, which are in the Center for Health Sciences, will move into the vacant spot in Job Hall.

The vacant spaces in the CHS will then be used as additional classrooms and offices for physical therapy beginning next year. The cadaver and movement analysis laboratories of the PT Center will be housed in the recently renovated Hill Center. These new facilities are scheduled to open for the 2014–15 academic year.

A survey was sent out by the Student Government Association on Nov. 6, and 756 members of the college responded. Of them, 96 percent said the TC Lounge is an important part of campus culture, and 97 percent said they wished they were allowed to participate in the decision-making process.

Junior Sam Gibble, a President’s Host tour guide, said she tells prospective students about the TC Lounge’s Open Mic Night while on tours, and they grow excited at the opportunity to share their music publicly on campus, even without being a music student.

“This reminds me of the media policy last year,” Gibble said. “It was like the same thing, but students put so much into it that [the college] was like, ‘All right, we’ll consider it.’”

Senior Cedrick-Michael Simmons, president of the SGA, said he will work with the Residence Hall Association to create more avenues for students’ voices.

“This is, quite frankly, an opportunity for students to realize that we need to start being clearer about the fact that we want to be a part of the discussions, in reaction and [being] proactive, in relation to different changes that are happening on this campus,” he said.

Junior Tom Smith, president of the IC Jazz Club, said his group of about 30 students hosts Jazz Night from 8:30 p.m. to midnight every Thursday in the lounge. He said the event is a place for students to go to a communal area, relax and enjoy jazz music, whether they are playing or listening.

“This is a place we learned to play in front of people that was a safe environment,” he said.

Kelly said this arrangement is the only option the college has, given the square footage requirements for the office space.

“We really believed that the quality of the PT program would be enhanced by having all of our PT faculty housed in the Center for Health Sciences and Smiddy Hall, [which make up] the general [Health Sciences and Human Performance] space,” Kelly said. “That’s actually one of the things that’s an enhancement over the current split between this campus and the Rochester campus.”

Junior Jennifer Burgess, director of promotion and public affairs for the Open Mic Nights, said she received an email from her club adviser on Nov. 5 informing her about the change and was shocked.

Since learning about the closing of the TC Lounge, many people have used Facebook and Twitter to share heartwarming comments about Open Mic Night being an outlet for students to perform.

Senior K.C. Weston, member of the band Second Dam, said she gained inspiration and the confidence to perform at Open Mic Night.

“There is no other space on campus,” Weston said. “TC Lounge creates a space in which people are there to enjoy themselves and listen. It’s different from every other venue on campus, and that’s why we were comfortable playing there first … It just can’t be replaced.”

35

Editorial >> Students won’t lounge around policy to the integration of the Integrative Core Curriculum program, of the Ithaca College administration’s failure to engage the student body when making decisions that impact the students.

The most iconic aspect of the TC Lounge may be music events, such as the weekly Open Mic Nights. Many musithe close-knit, comfortable atmosphere.

It is also a popular alternative study location. The TC Information Technology Services employees instead of the number of students that spend time in it every week.

The college does require the extra space to relocate the Physical Therapy Center to Ithaca, but students were given neither the opportunity nor the space to voice their concerns about the decision to close the TC Lounge.

Even if there were chances for students to speak up, there are no guarantees that their comments would have been heeded. Graduate physical therapy students drove from Rochester, N.Y., to Ithaca last February to voice their concerns about the consolidation of the PT Center, yet the center was still relocated.

Students fought back through a Support the TC Lounge event and a petition that circulated around campus. The Student Government Association even distributed a survey that found 97 percent of the 756 respondents wished they were a part of the decision-making process.

Administration needs to know that students will not stand idly by while decisions continue to be made without any of their concerns being addressed.

Sophomore Jordan Friend performs a song on the acoustic guitar Feb. 19 at Open Mic Night in the TC Lounge. DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

SGA approves bill against TC Lounge closing

BY FAITH MECKLEY

NEWS

The Student Government Association took a stand for Ithaca College students who voiced concern over the November decision to close the Tower Club Lounge, a study space, music venue and cafe on the 14th floor of East Tower residence hall.

Junior Joshua Couce, senator for the Class of 2015, drafted and presented a bill titled “Save the TC Lounge,” which passed at the SGA meeting Nov. 11.

The bill cited reasons why the TC Lounge should remain open, such as its importance as a space for students and faculty alike, the job opportunities created for students and Sodexo employees and its historical value as the location of a 1972 interview with Jean Kennedy Smith, sister of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

The bill recommended the lounge remain open and resolved that the SGA will work to address the space constraints that led to the decision to close it to accommodate the Physical Therapy program and shift Information Technology Services and the Office of International Programs to new locations.

Couce said he is losing faith in the administration.

“The administration does not have the best interest of the students at hand, but only the best interests of what they think, and that is to create a cost effective, efficient college,” Couce said.

Senior Isuru PereraSomasinghe, the SGA’s vice president of academic affairs, said while he understands the importance of the lounge to students and hopes an alternative can be found for office space, in the end the college needs to prioritize its academics first.

“Our efforts here should not undermine our programs … we are a college, and our focus is academia,” he said.

Sophomore Dominick Recckio, vice president of communications for the SGA, developed and released an electronic survey Nov. 7 to gauge student opinions on the decision.

The survey returned strong

results showing opposition to the decision. By noon that day, it had about 500 responses, and by the following day it had more than 1,000. Ninety-six percent of those 1,000 respondents reported they believe the TC Lounge is an important part of the college’s social culture.

Furthermore, 97 percent also reported that they wish they had been allowed to participate in the decision-making process.

Recckio said one memorable survey response came from a senior who decided to donate to the college, but in light of these events, changed his mind.

Sophomore Kyle James, student-at-large senator, said the administration needs to reveal its decision-making process to the student body.

When the bill was tabled, an amendment was added and passed, resolving that if administration went ahead with these plans, the SGA would work to find another space on campus for a new student lounge.

James said he worried that this amendment weakened the bill, allowing the administration to be less accountable for explaining their decision to students. “[It’s] called the ‘Save the TC Lounge’ bill,” he said. “With that amendment, I feel like it potentially gave the administration an out.”

Recckio said this situation is very similar to last year’s media policy debacle.

“Administration decided without student input, and the students gathering around that was so similar to this,” Recckio said. “It was awesome to see the students stand up for something they believe in.”

Like Recckio, sophomore Laura Schiller said the college needs to focus on students during its decision-making process.

“I understand that college these days, it’s a business,” Schiller said. “But, we’re not numbers that you can crunch. We’re people. We’re people with feelings and attachments to places, and you can’t just take away those places … to make room for your business.”

TOP: One of the specialty desserts served at the TC Lounge sits on a table before consumption.

BOTTOM: Sophomore Dan Felix plays saxophone during Jazz Night Feb. 20.

DURST BRENEISER/ THE ITHACAN

Guest Commentary >> Closing the TC Lounge makes sense

BY BEN RATNER I’m OK with the TC Lounge closing. There, I said it. And I can guess what the response to this commentary will be.

Many students say, “It’s our right to have the TC Lounge” and that major decisions should have student input. But Ithaca College would not be where it is today if every decision was put to a student vote. Administration and faculty have far more information and analyses at their disposal to make necessary plans to run the college.

Students and staff should work to modify an existing space to replace the TC Lounge, which currently serves as an area to hang out, study and attend Open Mic Nights. serve as a new home. IC Square is event-ready for Open Mic Nights that would become more accessible to more people on campus, as it is more centrally located.

In reality, there are very few other existing spaces large enough to hold an entire department. The administration has made it clear that departments housed in one area rather than spread across campus is vital for communication. The TC Lounge, while a great facility, was not an essential space, and it happens to be the only place large After the decision was made to close the TC Lounge, to the college community. The fact that it was hidden in an Intercom article was foolish. I appreciate that we have passionate students who care about the college’s choice to close the lounge. I hope we as students can step back and

37

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION / DURST BRENEISER

Rochon’s compensation outpaces faculty salaries

NEWS

BY ELMA GONZALEZ Ithaca College President Tom Rochon’s salary ranks among the highest when compared to those of presidents at similar colleges, while faculty salaries trail behind.

In a study by The Chronicle of Higher Education in 2013, Rochon ranked third in total compensation in a peer group of the presidents of 12 comparable colleges such as Bradley University and Drake University. Using the same peer group, Ithaca College full professors ranked sixth, associate professors ranked fifth, assistant professors ranked ninth and instructors ranked fifth in salary.

In 2010, Rochon ranked 242 on total compensation against 519 other private college presidents, according to The Chronicle’s annual report of executive compensation. He ascended to 145 out of 517 private colleges after receiving a 12.2 percent raise in 2011.

The college’s 990 form submitted to the Internal Revenue Service indicates Rochon’s 12.2 percent raise resulted in a total compensation of $557,053 that year.

Faculty and staff received a 2.5 percent general merit increase in 2012–13, and two consecutive years prior to that, they received a 3 percent general merit salary increase.

Last August, Rochon presented an initiative called “Under 3 Over 3,” which is intended to keep the annual cost increase for students at less than 3 percent, while maintaining salary increases at a 3 percent or higher rate.

Rochon began his term as president in June 2008 and did not receive a full-year’s salary that year, but, since 2009, his salary increased by $149,463. The average full professor salary has increased by $5,300, the average associate professor salary has increased by $3,200, the average assistant professor salary increased by $3,000 and the average instructor salary has decreased by $600 during the same period.

Thomas Grape, chair of the Ithaca College Board of Trustees, said some ranking reports can be misleading because they typically use tax numbers as opposed to actual income received.

“Sometimes there are big bumps from one year to the next, and there might be a decline in the following year,” he said. “So I take any one year with a grain of salt. It really is important to look at a longerterm picture, which is what the trustees [do].”

Nancy Pringle, vice president and general counsel of the Office of Legal Affairs, said in setting the president’s compensation, the board of trustees examines data from comparable institutions. It also evaluates the increment in salary given to employees for the year, and it assesses general merit, she said. However, Pringle said the peer groups used by the board are not public.

The Chronicle reported full professors, associate professors and instructors at the college placed above the median salary among 1,251 institutions in 2011–12. Assistant professors fell in the 48th percentile, below the median, according to the report. Average salary for assistant professors at the college is $59,700, which is $6,800 more than the average instructor salary of $52,900. The piece indicates, on average, full professors at the college make $21,100 more than associate professors. The Chronicle used data provided by the American Association of University Professors.

The Ithacan created an alternative peer group using institutions from the New American Colleges and Universities group to address these issues. Though the college ended its membership last year, it has often used NACU members in the past for institutional comparisons.

The NACU-based peer group takes into account factors such as size, selectivity and programs offered. The new list of similar institutions only includes those that were NACU members when the college actively used the group for comparison.

In the new peer group, Rochon placed third out of 10 in total compensation compared to presidents of similar private colleges, falling under Quinnipiac University and Drake University. Rochon’s salary is $47,489 above the peer group’s median. The average salary of full professors ranks fifth, associate professors ranks third, assistant professors ranks seventh and instructors ranks fourth when compared to faculty salaries in the same peer group.

Asma Barlas, professor and program director of the Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity, said since she first arrived to the college in 1991 there have been attempts to make things more equitable, but several public rankings, in addition to The Chronicle’s and The Ithacan’s, don’t show much progress.

“I am not sure that IC’s version of equity has worked well,” she said. “The president of the college is making an outrageous amount, even as he is leaning on the rest of the college to cut costs.”

39

Financial woes Hit the college Financial problems have raised concerns on campus all year.

BY JACK CURRAN

and scholarship programs require the CSS Profile.

Students who choose not to submit the CSS Profile can still receive federal financial aid. Hoskey said the college cannot deny federal aid to students who do not submit the profile. She also said most students who apply for federal aid also apply for institutional aid, so only a small number of students choose not to submit the CSS Profile.

“As a practice, we do not deny students federal aid if they don’t file the profile,” Hoskey said.

Cornell University was also included on the list of violators. The Cornell Office of Financial Aid and Student Employment lists the CSS Profile as a requirement on its website.

John Carberry, director of press relations at Cornell, said in an email that students are not required to submit the CSS Profile to receive federal aid.

“Students are treated in accordance with federal law as we help them navigate the process of securing financial aid,” Carberry said.

“While the CSS/Financial Profile is not required to secure federal aid, it’s especially useful in helping our financial aid office build packages that meet the full financial needs of our families.”

The Ithaca College Office of Financial Services has made a change to its website after it was accused in November of violating the Higher Education Act of 1965 by not clearly stating what forms are and are not required for students to receive federal financial aid. In an attempt to clarify its financial aid requirements, the college has added one word to the website: “institutional.”

U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on Feb. 3, citing 111 colleges and universities in violation of the Higher Education Act. Ithaca College was one of those colleges.

According to the letter, the democratic staff of the committee found these schools in violation of the act after evaluating the financial aid requirements of more than 200 colleges and universities.

In 1992, the Higher Education Act was amended to state that students only needed to submit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form in order to receive federal student aid.

The letter said the schools would be violating the law by either requiring the College Scholarship Service Profile for federal aid or not explicitly stating that FAFSA is the only form students need to submit to receive federal aid.

The college currently requires new students to submit the CSS Profile in order to receive institutional aid, which is financial assistance that comes directly from the college, not the government. The CSS Profile, which is put out by the College Board, is an online aid application that includes personal financial information, the type of tax returns that a family files and a family’s housing status.

To submit the CSS Profile, students must pay $25 for the first school and $16 for each additional school to which the applicant sends the profile. Lisa Hoskey, director of student financial services, said the College Board receives these funds, not the college itself.

Before Cummings identified the schools in violation of the law, the college’s financial services website stated, “All new students must submit the College Scholarship Service Profile to be considered for financial aid.”

The college added the word “institutional” to the website to emphasize that the CSS Profile is not needed for federal student aid.

Many colleges and universities use the CSS Profile as a Gerald Hector, vice president of finance and administration, began working for Ithaca supplement to the FAFSA. College in July to prepare for the retirement of Carl Sgrecci ‘69. SABRINA KNIGHT/ THE ITHACAN According to College Board, more than 400 colleges

Tuition freeze trend will not affect college

BY SABRINA KNIGHT

“Primarily what happens a lot is you can’t make it up, but your college or institution continually has to run, so you’re not covering the inflation aspects of it, and you’re going to try to cover the cost that the vendors’ inflation is going to push on you,” Hector said.

Elia Kacapyr ’78, professor of economics, said costs for all institutions are determined by a national inflation rate, which is calculated using the consumer price index based on what products consumers buy. As inflation for products increases, tuition grows at a similar rate because the college and its constituents are also consumers.

Kacapyr said it makes sense that the college’s costs are increasing because the quality of education has increased.

Since Kacapyr attended the college in the late 1970s, students have many more opportunities available to them now, mostly extracurricular activities.

These additional programs parallel the increased costs of attending the college.

“Prices can rise is because the quality of the product has increased, and I think that explains a big part of the tuition rise across the country today,” Kacapyr said. “I graduated in 1978, and the product that I had is not even comparable to the product that today’s college students have access to.”

NEWS

This academic year, 52 institutions of higher education in the U.S. froze or cut their tuitions. Elmira College, located about 30 miles from Ithaca, froze its tuition for the 2013–14 year. In October, Elmira announced it will freeze tuition again in 2014–15.

Freezing tuition means that an institution of higher education chooses to keep its costs at the current rate rather than increasing it by a small percentage to adjust for the recent inflation rates.

Gerald Hector, vice president for finance and administration at Ithaca College, said the college will not freeze its tuition, but rather it will continue trying to decrease operational costs in order to avoid tuition spikes for students.

In general, tuition costs are increasing in line with inflation rates to maintain the quality of the education the college provides. Hector said the college is working on finding ways to reduce costs based on recommendations from the Huron Reviews last year.

Mike Rogers, vice president of government relations and chief of staff at Elmira College, said the stagnating cost of tuition based on the freeze is one of the primary

reasons for families to keep investing in education at Elmira.

“We are keeping more students because we are not increasing the charge,” Rogers said. “From a business standpoint and a budgeting standpoint, if we can count on having more students that are here and that can be successful, that’s how we pay for it.”

For nearby Ithaca College, Hector said, the college has considered freezing its tuition before, but it is unreasonable for the college to implement a freeze for several reasons, mainly that it is not in the longterm interest of the students.

“The approach taken at IC of consistent reductions in the rate of tuition increase enables us to focus on affordability while continuing to grow our commitment to scholarship and investment in educational quality,” Hector said.

Attracting prospective students is the most significant reason for why the college will not freeze tuition, Hector said. He also said increasing tuition slowly each year is better in the long run than freezing tuition in the short term.

Hector said institutions that freeze tuition for two or three years experience a shortterm gain, however, they need to increase tuition by a greater margin to maintain the same education quality in the long term.

Editorial >> Freezing is bad news When students hear of institutions choosing to freeze their tuition, which keeps costs at the current rate instead tion, they may assume that the freeze

losing money that could be used to improve facilities and curricula.

Though tuition freezes could be costly in this regard, they do have president of government and chief of staff at Elmira College, an institution located about 30 miles from Ithaca, said the tuition freeze improves Elmira’s retention rate because students are willing to stay for the full four academic years. there will have to be an increase in

KEY

6

5.9 Percent increase in all college costs

5

Percent (%)

save cash in the short term.

However, tuition freezes could lead to long-term costs negatively impacting educational quality. If colleges and universities do not increase

and rate of increase in Ithaca College costs for an academic year.

4.8

4.8

4.8

4.7

4

3.8

3

3.0

2.7

2

1.7

1.5

1.0

1 0.1 0

2008-09

2009-10

SOURCES: INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH AND U.S. INFLATION

2010-11

2011-12

2012-13

2013-14

Academic Year

DESIGN BY CHELSEA RUSSO AND MARIANNA DUNBROOK

41

Tuition on the Rise

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/CHELSEA RUSSO

College to increase tuition and total cost of attending by 2.99 percent for 2014–15

BY NOREYANA FERNANDO Ithaca College announced the cost of attendance in 2014–15 will increase by 2.99 percent, putting next year’s total cost of attendance at $53,864, an increase of $1,564 from this year. Total cost of attendance includes tuition, room and board. “[We recognize] the need to do more than we have done in the past to keep Ithaca College affordable and see a lower tuition increase,” Ithaca College President Tom Rochon said.

For 2014–15, tuition will be $39,532, an increase of 2.95 percent from last year, which

Rochon said is the lowest percent increase since 1965–66.

For 2013–14, there was a tuition increase of 3.8 percent from the previous year. Room and board for next year will cost $14,332, a 3.1 percent increase and up $432 from last year.

The operational budget of $232.7 million for the 2014–15 fiscal year was approved at a meeting of the Ithaca College Board of Trustees in Los Angeles on Feb. 20. Of this total budget, $100.1 million has been allocated to financial aid. This is an increase of $11 million from last year. It translates to $16,729 per student next year, compared to $15,548 per

student this year.

The budget also designates $5 million for IC 20/20 initiatives, such as the First-Year Residential Experience and the Integrative Core Curriculum.

Rochon said projected savings from the college’s strategic-sourcing plan were included in the budget. The plan is a centrally coordinated approach to purchasing goods, such as office and cleaning supplies, and services that are not construction-related.

“A number of announcements that we have already made about strategic sourcing, for example, are assumed to yield some significant benefits, beginning

next year,” he said. “We haven’t necessarily realized those benefits, but we fully expect to.”

Rochon said in regard to the college’s plan to keep tuition increases close to inflation rates, there is still more work to do.

“The rate of inflation right now is running a little bit under 2 percent,” he said. “So we recognize that we still want to shrink that rate of tuition increase in future years. We project that we will be able to do so.”

Gerald Hector, vice president of finance and administration, said one of the primary goals while defining the budget was to

THIS YEAR

NEWS

slow the rate of tuition growth without sacrificing any instructional or academic capabilities and student life activities.

“We are moving toward a more structured approach,” he said. “Hopefully over the next several years, that will continue this trend.” Hector said the budget was designed to ensure faculty and staff salaries remain competitive. “[One objective is] to attract and retain the best talent for our faculty and staff, and that means making sure that our salaries and benefits remain market-competitive, which this budget also does,” he said.

The board approved a salary pool, the funds designated for performance-based pay to employees, of 2.75 percent, or $2.6 million for next year. This is up 0.25 percent from last year.

Included in this 2.75 percent is 1.75 percent that will be allocated for full general merit, which is the percentage increase given to employees whose on-the-job performance has been effective throughout the year. This is a decrease from last year’s 2 percent for general merit.

Employees who have performed at an exceptional level will be eligible for a 0.75 percent additional merit for next year. Rochon said this percentage can further increase based on performance.

“A lot of times, people think, ‘If I am really an outstanding performer, the best I can get is 2.5 percent, whereas if I am just a fully acceptable or capable performer, I get 1.75 — that’s not a very big difference,’” he said. “But the difference can actually be large, because that 0.75 is not spread among everybody. It’s spread among those people who are exceptional performers.”

Both these merits depend on the employees’ annual performance reviews conducted by their supervisors.

This year’s budget for the first time also sets aside 0.25 percent to provide an additional increment for employees who earn less than $45,000.

A total of $259,000 was allocated to be divided across employees who fall into this salary bracket; each will receive a $500 increase to their base pay, according to an email sent out to staff and faculty the evening of Feb. 26. The email was sent to The Ithacan by an employee who did not wish to be identified. Calculations based on this email imply 518 employees will receive this extra payment.

Peter Rothbart, chairman of the Faculty Council and professor of music theory, history and composition, declined to comment on the reduced full general merit increase. However, he said he commends next year’s budget allocation for low-earning employees.

“I think this is a clear case of the administration responding constructively to faculty and staff concerns,” he said.

NEXT YEAR

$52,300

Total cost of attendance

$53,864

$38,400

Tuition

$39,532

$89.1 MILLION

General merit salary increase

$100.1 MILLION

2.0%

Financial aid budget

1.75%

GRAPHIC BY MARIANNA DUNBROOK, SABRINA KNIGHT & CHELSEA RUSSO

43

SGA Seeks A Change Dean’s List adjustment considered

Researching fossil fuels

BY FAITH MECKLEY

BY FAITH MECKLEY

The Student Government Association unanimously passed a bill that recommends changing the Dean’s List requirements for the School of Health Sciences and Human Performance on Jan. 27 Dean’s List recognizes students each semester who achieve high grades, and each school has its own set of requirements for Dean’s List. The Roy H. Park School of Communications, the School of Humanities and Sciences and the School of Music require a minimum GPA of 3.7 to qualify. HSHP and the School of Business require a minimum GPA of 3.5.

The bill that the SGA passed focuses on one HSHP Dean’s List stipulation that no other school has: Students who take more than four credits of student teaching, internship, fieldwork or clinical education in a semester cannot qualify for Dean’s List.

This restriction is in place despite the fact that some programs within HSHP require students to take at least six of these types of credits over their four years. This would force some HSHP students who want to remain on Dean’s List to have more than one internship, which takes longer to complete, or to do one over the summer, which costs students additional money if they want at least one credit after completing it.

Senior Greg Addicott, HSHP senator, created the bill and presented it to the SGA. “We shouldn’t be penalized for going above and beyond the four credit maximum,” Addicott said.

Senior Jessica Caracciolo is a speech pathology major, which places heavy emphasis on clinical education credits during students’ junior and senior years.

“It’s not fair to these students who are still achieving wonderful grades in their classrooms, and then they’re not going to be recognized for that,” Caracciolo said.

The Student Government Association passed a bill at its Dec. 9 meeting to recommend research into removing Ithaca College’s investments from the fossil fuel industry. Based on the results of its research, the SGA will decide whether or not to formally recommend divestment to the college.

Senior Katelyn Madison, Class of 2014 senator, presented the divestment bill to the SGA with help from Divest IC, a student organization working to push the college’s administration toward divestment. After much debate, it passed 14–9 with the added stipulation that the SGA would first thoroughly research divestment before making a recommendation to administration.

Divestment is a national environmental movement that helps private organizations remove their investments from fossil fuels and reinvest them in socially and environmentally responsible sources.

Madison’s bill cited several reasons why divestment should be investigated, including the college’s commitment to becoming more sustainable and the expectations of students and faculty to be responsible global citizens.

“Efforts to make Ithaca students, faculty and alumni responsible global citizens are devalued when our institution’s money is supporting and fueling dirty energy companies,” one of the provisions in the bill said. “The commitment to lessen the impact on climate change as a campus is being cancelled by these investments.”

Joshua Couce, Class of 2015 senator, said this bill is one of the more important put on the table this year.

“If we’re not conscious of the decisions that we’re making and the impact that those decisions make on the world, we’re going to be live in a society that is going to negatively affect generations to come,” Couce said.

The Student Government Association unanimously voted to approve a task force to increase awareness of microaggressions.

COREY HESS/THE ITHACAN

Researching E-cigarettes Researching electronic cigarettes to create a sensible e-cigarette policy for Ithaca College is an initiative that the Student Government Association is leading.

Drew Olkowski, former Class of 2017 senator, presented his “e-cigarette policy proposal” bill at the Feb. 3 meeting, and it passed unanimously. The bill proposes that the administration and SGA research the health risks of e-cigarettes.

E-cigarettes differ from conventional cigarettes in that they give users a parceled out dose of nicotine without carcinogenic additives, and they also emit water vapor rather than harmful tobacco smoke.

The college currently does not

NEWS

BY LEWIS KENDALL

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/DURST BRENEISER

have a policy for e-cigarettes, so users can smoke them indoors.

Olkowski said many people have asked him about e-cigarettes after witnessing students using them in public places such as the library.

Some SGA senators said seeing e-cigarettes used indoors makes some students uncomfortable, and there is currently a concern that using them in classrooms is distracting to classmates.

Olkowski said developing an

SGA adds varsity sports senator

the A&E Center,” Recckio said.

“So, we decided that there was a significant enough fraction [of athletes] on campus that both club and varsity sports should be represented.”

Junior cheerleader Angela Miranda said she fully supports the SGA’s decision because the student-athletes around campus need more adequate representation to push their ideas through with the college and its administration.

“It is a great idea to have our voices be heard, because I feel like there is definitely not a lot of say for club sports at Ithaca College,” Miranda said.

e-cigarette policy will help put the college ahead of most other institutions of higher education right now.

“It’s important to address it now because they’re so new,” Olkowski said.

Shephard said he was extremely enthusiastic to be the Varsity Sports senator. representation, but has never

BY HALEY COSTELLO “I was really excited, because found it to be pertinent enough I thought it was a position that to make a change.

With a new year came new was needed and should have Sophomore Dominick opportunity for positions in been implemented earlier,” Recckio, vice president of the Ithaca College Student Shephard said. “It is crucial that communications for the SGA, Government Association. every group is represented in said the board decided the need However, this year’s lack of student government, because for student athlete involvement response to the new positions it is easy to ignore their issues was large enough to create two created for athletes raised when they are not there.” positions: Varsity Sports senator concern if club and varsity Shephard’s platform included and Club Sports senator. sports would be properly creating an environment for “It came to our attention represented during the 2013–14 student athletes that can help throughout the year that the academic year. them excel on the practice field voice from athletes really was not There was little participation and in the classroom. heard for things like the Fitness by the Bombers athletes, with Simmons said while the SGA Center or the money spent on Zane Shephard, sophomore has not found an applicant for track team member, the only the club sports position, applicant for the position of he has seen lone senators varsity sports senator. make a big difference in the Senior Cedrick-Michael campus community before.

Simmons, president of “We typically only the SGA, said the one have one international application the organization student senator, and the received could be related to one we had last year did athletes’ inability to commit an amazing job advocating to the SGA. the voices of students of a “We are going to work small minority,” Simmons with the one student said. “The two studentathlete to broadcast more,” athletes, once we recruit SGA Varsity Sports senator, sophomore Zane Shephard, addresses attendees of the SGA Simmons said. another one candidate, platform presentations Sept. 1 in IC Square.

Throughout 2012–13, will do an amazing job DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN the SGA’s executive board speaking on the behalf of discussed potential athletics their entire constituency.”

45

Class of 2016 senator Sean Themea discusses the implementation of a diversity task force. AMANDA DEN HARTOG/THE ITHACAN

Potential SGA candidates listen to an informational meeting before elections in September. AMANDA DEN HARTOG/THE ITHACAN

SGA Launches Equality Task Force

BY FAITH MECKLEY The Student Government Association has launched a task force to combat the marginalization of minority groups on campus and to create a more inclusive environment at Ithaca College.

The task force intends to increase pressure on the administration to release the results of the Campus Acceptance, Inclusion and Fairness Survey administered in 2012.

The task force will raise awareness about microaggressions — subtle behaviors that stimulate exclusion and oppression.

Microaggressions are insensitive jokes, phrases and assumptions that can be intentional or unintentional. An example would be saying that cooking is “women’s work.”

Senior Cedrick-Michael Simmons, president of the SGA, created and presented the task force bill to the senate, which passed unanimously Feb. 3.

Senior Willa Erickson, vice president of campus affairs; junior Isuru Perera-Somasinghe, vice president of academic affairs; and senior Tariq Meyers, student trustee, all cosigned Simmons’ bill.

The executive board members said they have planned on addressing microaggressions since they were elected, but they stalled the launch of the task force while waiting for the results of the Campus Acceptance, Inclusion and Fairness Survey.

The Survey _______________________ Students, faculty and staff were invited in 2012 to take a campusclimate survey, as it is more commonly known. The goal of the survey was to “determine the quality of community with respect to acceptance, inclusion and fairness for all members of the community,” according to a document regarding the survey’s goals provided

by Mark Coldren, associate vice president of human resources.

Coldren said the survey would help the administration better understand the campus climate and move toward improvement.

Erickson said the survey results will provide important statistical backing to the SGA’s campaign.

The survey asked 28 questions, beginning with personal identification questions regarding sexuality, ethnicity and disability, among others. On a scale of “strongly agree” to “disagree,” participants

evaluated statements, such as “I feel isolated and marginalized.”

Martha Gray, director of institutional research, said the number of college community members who completed the survey is not available at this time.

At the time of the survey’s distribution, Coldren told The Ithacan that the results had been expected to be released by Spring 2013.

However, it is now two months into Spring 2014, and Coldren said data analysis still remains incomplete.

Sophomore Dominick Recckio, vice president of communications for the SGA, said the administration violated a basic principle of communications by missing its own deadline.

“You can’t communicate something to so many people expecting [the results] and then not give it to them,” Recckio said.

Senior Gillian DeRario, former senator-at-large of the SGA, called the missed deadline a “public relations crisis” and said the college should have been more proactive about informing the campus.

President Tom Rochon declined to comment on the state of the campus-climate survey.

Regardless of the statistical numbers, Simmons said, he has heard many student testimonies about experiencing microaggressions on campus, indicating that the college’s environment is not inclusive.

Senior Arit Ntekim, president of the African Students Association, said she has experienced severe stereotyping and microagressions that have caused her to downplay her personality in an attempt to stop being judged by faculty and peers.

“I wouldn’t try and be the stereotypical aggressive black woman, so I’d be super quiet; I wouldn’t voice my opinion,” Ntekim said. “I was afraid that people would perceive me as that.”

New Plan of Attack _______________________ After spending Fall 2013 having conversations with the administration about the survey, Simmons said it was time to change.

The SGA approached the issue of the unreleased survey with an activism-oriented strategy. Simmons launched an email campaign in which participants emailed Rochon and other administrators at least

An Intense Focus _______________________ The executive board, which is made up of predominantly African, Latino, Asian and Native American students, decided after elections that addressing diversity and inclusiveness would be a primary focus.

Erickson said at the outset, the executive board members all had different goals, but the issue of inclusiveness at the college held them together. She said she could sense the problems with inclusiveness from the first time she came to campus.

“I can’t deny the certain level of discomfort, and I was immediately aware of it the second I stood on campus,” Erickson said.

“It’s like this unshakable feeling that something is just not quite right.”

Of the goals the executive board set, Recckio said, the most important one to him was outreach — ensuring that students know the SGA is a resource available to them. He said though he supports the campaign, he is concerned the focus on inclusion will allow other important issues to be overlooked.

“If we’re representing the entire campus community, we should be putting equal [effort] into everything that people care about,” Recckio said.

With each passed bill and subsequent committee, Recckio said the SGA becomes more internally divided and bureaucratic.

Meyers said he is also concerned that focusing on a single issue would undermine a holistic approach to addressing all issues

that need addressing on campus.

“We also have to make sure senators are in a place where they’re balancing that with still addressing the day-to-day things they addressed last semester.”

Rather than trying to approach everything at once, DeRario said she believes addressing one issue at a time is more efficient because more resources are available to put into it.

Simmons said via email that if this initiative fails, he believes he will have failed as the SGA president.

NEWS

twice a day on the topic. Simmons opened up the email campaign to all interested community members.

Not long after the email campaign began, participants received a uniform response from Bailey Reagan ’12, assistant to the president.

“The survey is currently being analyzed

by Institutional Research,” the email said.

“Until the analysis is complete, the president and I ask that you continue to … do all you can to make Ithaca College an inclusive environment for all.”

DeRario said the automated response made her angry.

“The response was to quell and pacify people,” DeRario said. “It didn’t offer any sort of solution.”

Rochon also declined to comment on the SGA’s new approach to obtaining the campus-climate survey results.

Along with increasing pressure on the administration, Simmons’ bill called for the SGA to administer its own annual campusclimate survey, as well as an alternative to the college’s antidiscrimination resource called “Eliminate Bias: Create a Community of Respect.”

Simmons said he felt both the college’s survey and bias resource were flawed, and the SGA could improve them. He expected the SGA’s alternative campus-climate survey to be administered in March.

Lastly, the bill resolved that the SGA give special thanks to staff and faculty who have been helpful resources to students struggling with marginalization.

Moving Forward _______________________ The SGA took more direct actions to pressure the administration, including hanging posters, using social media and other methods he prefers not to make public yet.

To help spread awareness of the issue, Recckio said the SGA launched a video series that features students’ experiences with microaggressions at the college and educates students on how to recognize the behavior and try to faze it out.

DeRario said she hopes this campaign will motivate the current administration to take the student voice more seriously in the future.

“We do have a culture here of challenging authority and always fighting for what we believe is right, and I think that’s an important community aspect of this college,” DeRario said. “I encourage everyone to … never stop questioning.”

Prospective SGA candidates listen to an informational meeting before SGA elections in September. AMANDA DEN HARTOG/THE ITHACAN

47

College’s donations outpace national average

BY KAYLA DWYER Total charitable donations to Ithaca College have outpaced the national average for the year 2013, which saw a 9 percent growth in total giving to institutions across the country, according to a report by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The college received an increase of 20.4 percent in total giving — including alumni, foundations and corporations — which is more than double the national average, Ann Kaplan, director of the Voluntary Support of Education survey, said.

The survey, administered by the Council for Aid to Education, evaluated the total and alumni gifts donated to 1,048 institutions, including the college, and released the results Feb. 12. Kaplan said the college saw a 93.4

In 2013 institutions received

percent increase in exclusively alumni giving for the calendar year 2013.

Stephen Savage, vice president in the Office of Institutional Advancement, said the college’s total alumni giving increased from $2,263,169 in 2012 to $4,376,870 in 2013, which accounts for the high percentage.

Kaplan said the near doubling could be explained by two large personal gifts, $1.72 million and $1.13 million, that were donated anonymously in 2013.

The latter gift was designated to the investment curriculum in the School of Business, Rob de la Fuente, director of the Ithaca College Annual Fund, said.

De la Fuente said the annual fund staff had been working closely with these donors to determine how their contributions would align with their interests. Savage said the

college has become more sophisticated with its soliciting techniques. In terms of overall gifts, the college received $10.1 million in the fiscal year June 2012 to May 2013. Of this amount, he said, $1.16 million was donated to the annual fund, which is a senior class record.

De la Fuente said alumni made most of the donor pool for the $1.16 million. He said 38.8 percent of the 2013 Senior Class donated to the fund, a record for any class.

The 2014 Senior Class Gift Campaign has set its goal for participation rate at 40 percent of the senior class, which is 640 seniors, cochair senior Zachary Woelfel said. He said the monetary goal is to raise $12,150 by May 1 to go toward various designations by school or program, depending on the seniors’ choice.

“Seniors have the option of giving where they really enjoyed their experience,” he said.

SOURCE COUNCIL FOR AID TO EDUCATION AND THE OFFICE OF INSTITUTIONAL ADVANCEMENT

$33.8 billion

- a record high since 2008

In 2013 Ithaca College received

and up 9% since 2012

$10,152,873 In 2013, IC alumni donated

$4,376,870

DESIGN BY KAYLA DWYER, MARIANNA DUNBROOK & CHELSEA RUSSO

}

up 20.4% from 2012

a 93.4% Increase from

$2,236,169 in 2012

Audacious capital campaign ready to launch

BY KIRA MADDOX A proposed fundraising campaign by the Division of Institutional Advancement aims to raise $150–200 million by 2020 to go toward the priorities of Ithaca College’s strategic plan, IC 20/20.

Christopher Biehn, vice president of Institutional Advancement, said these priorities center around increasing the money available for student scholarships, the Office of Civic Engagement, the creation of endowed distinguished professorships and fellowships to promote a stronger academic campus, first-year housing and to build a new Academic Center to encourage and boost more cross-school collaboration.

He said the Ithaca College Board of Trustees will take a vote on the exact financial goal and launch date of the campaign at its May 16 meeting.

Biehn said if the college reaches its goal, the money will allow

for a $40 million increase in the funds available for endowed scholarships, resulting in the college having about $3.2 million to spend on endowed scholarships per year in 2020, about double the amount the college is currently handing out.

Marisa Kelly, provost and vice president for educational affairs, said this increase should help the college attract more students.

“What we want to do is to continue to ensure that students have access to Ithaca College,” she said. “That is, that we have enough financial aid available to support students being able to come here, and I think that will continue to help Ithaca College to be a strong place.”

Biehn said the campaign is a way for the college to engage with its alumni while also creating new experiences for the students.

“Having great speakers in your classes … it’s another meaningful way to help the college,” he said. “Financial support is important.

I’m not going to say that it’s not a key piece, but there are other meaningful things. It’s more than just financial.”

NEWS

BEST WORST

ITH

S ’ A AC

This was a big year for Ithaca in terms of ratings.

Each year, the college and city receive all sorts of acclaim, but 2013–14 seemed to have more than others.

Best College Town Source: Business Insider Slow Wireless Internet

Smartest City Source: Lumosity

No. 1 for College Radio Source: Princeton Review

Fourth Best Farmers Market Source: Huffington Post

Top Ten Most Livable Cities Health Code Violations

Source: MSN

No. 7 for College Theater Source: Ithaca.edu

Top 25 American Small Towns Source: Ithaca Times

No. 4 in Late Night Food Ordering Source: Grubhub

No. 3 City for Wine Lovers Source: money.com

49

Towers Dining Hall cited for health violations

BY NOREYANA FERNANDO The Tompkins County Health Department has cited two Ithaca College dining establishments for critical violations involving factors that could lead to food-related illness. Last month, the Towers Dining Hall and the IC Square Food Court were found to have potentially hazardous foods that were stored at above 45 degrees, the required maximum cold-storage temperature.

According to the Food Service Establishment Reports released to The Ithacan by the county health department, one quart of tomatoes, half a pound of feta cheese and one cup of blue cheese were found at temperatures between 48 degrees and 54 degrees in the Food Court. At the Towers Dining Hall, two pounds of grain salad were found at 51 degrees. The Food Court and the Towers Dining Hall passed the reinspections, which were conducted Oct. 4 and Oct. 10, respectively.

Kristee Morgan, public health sanitarian for the health department, said these inspections happen twice each year.

“We don’t have a persistent history of critical violations for any of the Ithaca College dining facilities,” she said. “But we have on occasion found critical violations at the dining halls.”

Ithaca Dining Services, which is operated by the French corporation Sodexo, provides an estimated 10,000 meals to students,

faculty, staff and guests of the college daily. Jeffery Scott, general manager of dining services, said dining services officials respond immediately after violations are cited.

Before last month’s inspection, the Towers Dining Hall was cited three times in the past three years. All three citations were for not maintaining foods at correct temperatures while serving hot or cold.

The Food Court was cited once in the past three years.

Scott said dining services rarely receives reports of illness after eating from dining halls. “When you are feeding hundreds of people a certain dish, or thousands, and if one person claims they are ill, you can’t necessarily assume that it is the food,” he said. “Maybe they already had a virus or an illness.”

Sophomore Erica Moriarty said she has fallen ill and experienced nausea several times after eating meat-based items from the dining halls. She said her decision to move off campus next semester was influenced significantly by her experience with the dining services.

Meanwhile, Scott said the staff at the dining halls are trained in hygiene and safe food-handling practices. Sophomore Erin Jolley works at Sub Connection, which shares a kitchen with the Towers Dining Hall.

Scott said these health inspections provide staff with a learning experience and are a reminder of the room for improvement.

“These inspections are designed to be educational,” he said.

College considers new Internet provider

BY GILLIAN NIGRO As Ithaca College struggled with complaints of poor Wi-Fi connectivity across campus since Spring 2012, officials said the college’s six-year contract with Apogee, its Internet provider for students in residence halls, is set to expire at the end of August 2014.

Officials have yet to make an official decision about a possible contract renewal.

According to rankings of best campus wireless availability, updated weekly by alternative online university guide CollegeProwler.com, the college comes in at No. 1317 with an average student rating of 7 out of 10. Cornell University, whose wireless provider is Verizon FiOS, was significantly higher up the list at No. 20 with a rating of 9.46 out of 10.

In a survey conducted this year by the educationtechnology organization Educause, 76 percent of undergraduates at U.S. based institutions reported owning

a smartphone, compared with 62 percent in 2012. Fifty-eight percent said they owned at least three wireless devices.

Ed Fuller, former associate vice president of Information Technology Services, said his department was not equipped to handle the recent proliferation of Internet-capable wireless devices that began to affect the college last semester.

“For whatever reason, it took us by surprise,” Fuller said. “It’s what it is, but we’re making it a top priority in ITS to get [Wi-Fi incompatibility] remediated.”

However, Jack Powers, associate professor of media arts, sciences and studies, said there have been problems with the Wi-Fi for the past couple of years. But they became significant for him in Spring 2012 when he could no longer get Wi-Fi in several classrooms in the Roy H. Park School of Communications. He said Internet access is vital because he gives online exams in class and his Introduction to Media Industries class builds apps

using an online application.

To combat these problems, Powers asked about 100 of his current students to send him their concerns about wireless connectivity, which he then forwarded to the Park School dean’s office, ITS and Gerald Hector, vice president of finance and administration, as anecdotal evidence.

Colleges across the country have struggled to satisfy their students’ seemingly insatiable hunger for bandwidth, though poor connectivity results when this demand outpaces capacity, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

ITS conducted a comprehensive survey of its wireless network activity in early October to address these concerns and also provided additional access points to students. As part of this survey, ITS hired Apogee consultants to go from room to room in every building on campus to analyze its current access point placement, room design, set-up, capacity, building materials and

other critical actors that affect wireless performance.

“ITS and Apogee are the ones that are going to be doing the work,” he said. “They’re going to be the ones analyzing, but at the end of the day the decision rests with me and the President’s Council in terms of where we’re going to go.”

Apogee launched a revamp of its wireless network, ResNet, last spring. While the residential network company provides the equipment for the Wi-Fi on the central campus, it is not responsible for the actual Internet connection. Charles Brady, the president and CEO of Apogee, said this renovation was not related to the looming expiration date of his company’s contract with the college.

Hector, who joined the college July 1, said he considered several options to best meet the needs of the campus community, including the possibility of hiring a new wireless provider.

“My goal is to find the best solution,” Hector said.

NEWS

College ranks fourth in late-night food ordering

BY FAITH MECKLEY A recent study found that Ithaca College students are among top colleges in the nation with a hunger for late-night food. Out of 350 colleges, the college ranks fourth for late-night food ordering. The same study found that college students are 87 percent more likely to order late-night food than any other consumer.

GrubHub, the No. 1 online ordering service in the U.S., conducted this study. Allie Mack, a public relations associate at GrubHub, reported that the college’s students are 29 percent more likely to order between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. than Cornell University students. Your Online Restaurant, a local online ordering service also known as 247YOR, reported similar results.

As this data suggests, online ordering has a large presence in Ithaca. Services that offer online ordering, which also includes Ithaca To Go, attract two types of patrons: There are customers, the restaurants that sign on with these online services, and consumers, the individual people who order the food.

Mike Evans and Matt Maloney founded GrubHub, which now functions across more than 500 cities, in 2004. GrubHub arrived in Ithaca after it bought out Campusfood in 2011. Ithaca To Go, founded in 2011, doubles as online ordering and a delivery service to the 14850 zip code, which helps restaurants that can’t provide their own delivery.

Insomnia Cookies, a food company that offers online ordering and late-night delivery, launched in 2003 with Seth Berkowitz, a University of Pennsylvania student who began delivering freshbaked cookies to his peers late at night. Today, there are more than 30 Insomnia Cookies stores across the northeast.

Mack said college students are a huge part of GrubHub’s market, and the company has a team of people devoted to this one demographic of consumers. She said college students are probably

one of the groups of people who need the convenience of online ordering the most.

Sophomores Megan Archino and Erika Bucior said while they have used Ithaca To Go and Insomnia Cookies, they prefer GrubHub over any other ordering service. Bucior said Ithaca To Go’s website is less user-friendly than GrubHub’s, and GrubHub has the benefit of a national status. Archino said Ithaca To Go is limited in that it has fewer restaurants than GrubHub. Junior Marissa Fortman recently used online ordering services for the first time. She ordered Purity Ice Cream from Ithaca To Go and Chinese food from GrubHub for the same meal.

Some businesses do not share Bucior and Archino’s praise for the nationally acclaimed corporation. On its website, Sammy’s Pizzeria specifically discourages customers from using services like GrubHub, urging them instead to use 247YOR. The pizzeria also puts cardstock with the same advertisement in take-out orders.

Jasmine Tourance, a manager at Sammy’s Pizzeria, said GrubHub’s prices are too high.

“They charge an outrageous commission,” she said. “However, Sammy’s hasn’t ended their registration with GrubHub because they now receive about half of their orders from the Internet.”

Mack and fellow public relations associate, Abby Hunt, said GrubHub’s commission rate starts at 10 percent, and a restaurant can choose to give GrubHub a higher commission for greater visibility on the website; for example, showing up at the top of searches.

“We do have a great relationship with Sammy’s,” Hunt said. “I think the size of our restaurant network speaks to our popularity with restaurants.”

Fortman said because of the convenience of online ordering, her first time using the services probably wouldn’t be her last time.

“It is really easy,” Fortman said. “You just throw your information in [and] check off what you want.”

Ithaca ranked “Smartest City”

BY NOREYANA FERNANDO Over the years, national polls have dubbed Ithaca the best college town, the most enlightened city and, more recently, the smartest city in the U.S., making way for yet another “Ithaca is Gorges” variation.

Lumosity, an online brain-training platform designed by neuroscientists, named Ithaca the “Smartest City in the United States” in June after analyzing the results of online cognitive exercises taken by more than 1,500 respondents with IP addresses in Ithaca.

Daniel Sternberg, data scientist on

the research and development team at Lumosity, said the term “smartest” was defined by cognitive performance in five areas: speed, memory, attention, flexibility and problem-solving.

“What makes these rankings different from other rankings of smartest cities … is that [while other groups] might look at things like employment rate, proportion of people working in technological sectors, the number of libraries per capita … we are actually looking at tasks that can measure cognitive performance,” he said.

Sternberg said college towns generally performed better than others, so Ithaca’s

location may have given it distinct advantage in scoring.

“Ithaca is actually its own metropolitan area, whereas Cambridge, Massachusetts, for example, is part of the Boston metropolitan area,” Sternberg said. “So Ithaca also pops up a little higher in part because it is this geographically isolated area with lots of education to support [it].”

Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick said these rankings did not surprise him.

“I thought it was funny, but not surprising,” Myrick said. “Knowing Ithaca now as well as I do, I know there are some incredibly brilliant people here.”

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booming

business This year, Ithaca College and the City of Ithaca bucked the national trends and became an epicenter for booming businesses.

In the past months, professors petitioned for equipment to charge into the next generation of manufacturing, students came up with entrepreneurial ideas, the college teamed up with the community and the local economy thrived. Here are some of the biggest stories from this year in business.

The original telegraph machine is seen beneath a 3-D printed copy made at Cornell University. TUCKER MITCHELL/THE ITHACAN

Ithaca becomes a hub for 3-D printing technology

BY JACK CURRAN As science advances, the gap between reality and fiction continues to shrink.

Though the idea of printing objects like food and toys may seem futuristic, 3-D printing is changing that perception — and it may be coming to Ithaca College next year.

The college’s natural science departments, including physics, biology, chemistry and environmental sciences and studies, are in the process of submitting a proposal to the School of Humanities and Sciences for purchasing equipment to create a 3-D printing facility.

Luke Keller, associate professor and chair of the physics and astronomy department, said the departments hope to purchase a 3-D printer for printing models for both faculty and students to use in research.

“We’re going to propose to get a medium quality 3-D printer … and a scanner so we could scan objects and print them,” Keller said. “I can imagine it being used for classes, but also for different research projects with students involved with those.”

3-D printing is a process by which threedimensional objects of all kinds, such as robots, ears and pastries, are produced based on a computer code. Typical 3-D printers place individual, small, three-dimensional pixels, known as voxels, of a given material on a tray, one at a time, based on the design

Though these desktop printers are sigprogrammed by the user. nificantly smaller than commercial printers, 3-D printing can greatly reduce the number of steps involved in manufacturing. they can cost between $2,000 and $5,000, and replacement parts typically cost several Apoorva Kiran, Ph.D. student in the Cornell hundred dollars each.

Creative Machines Lab, said machines that While some people want 3-D printers in normally have long assembly processes can their homes, Lipson said home printing is be printed in a matter of minutes.

“If you do 3-D printing, the machine no longer the focus of the industry because limited resources and high costs make home remains the same … [and] you don’t need ownership impractical. assembly,” Kiran said. “You can make this “[3-D printers] are going to be common, thing from scratch on a single platform but they’re not going to be in everyone’s within 15 minutes, and that’s the power of 3-D printing.” home for making cellphones and toys and everything,” Lipson said. “The original idea 3-D printing has only recently gained was that they could do that, but as we work attention and is still a developing field. Hod on it, we’ve realized that’s not how it’s going Lipson, director of the Cornell Creative to work out.”

Machines Lab, said the lab is already exploring the future of 3-D printing.

“We’re trying to stay ahead of the curve and look at future directions of 3-D printing,” Lipson said. “We’re trying to look at things like food printing, we’re trying to look at bioprinting, and we’re trying to look at integrating electronics into printing.”

While the prospect of 3-D printing organs would be monumental to the medical field, many people may wonder when they’ll be able to use 3-D printers in their homes as they would use a traditional printer. 3-D printers, such as Hod Lipson, director of the Cornell Creative the Makerbot and the Fab@Home, can Machines lab, printed a replica of the first already be purchased for personal use. telegraph. TUCKER MITCHELL/ THE ITHACAN

Editorial >> Students need 3-D printers for modern learning

and potentially save many lives if people did not have to wait for donated organs.

Though it sounds like something out of “Star Trek,” some have predicted that 3-D printing will Goldman Sachs Group lists 3-D printing as one of the eight markets that will have a major impact on manufacturing over the next eight years because it is cheaper and offers more customization than the majority of manufacturing machines currently being used. manufacturing process by offering fewer steps and eliminating the assembly process completely.

However, 3-D printers could put many people working in the manufacturing sector out of work.

This means fewer job prospects for blue-collar workers struggling for employment in the modern, serviceheavy U.S. economy.

It also leaves questions of how prices will be regulated if, by using a 3-D printer, robots and pastries take the same amount of labor to make.

The 3-D printer is an innovative invention that could do an incredible amount of good, especially if bioengineers can create living tissue that doctors could use in transplants.

Though 3-D printing may offer great improvements to the ease and quality of life, it could dramatically reshape the economy in ways we are not necessarily prepared to manage.

NEWS

The natural science departments at Ithaca College are in the process of submitting a proposal to the School of Humanities and Sciences to create a 3-D printing facility.

3-D printers can produce threedimensional objects, ranging from toy parts to food and even human cartilage, by using a series of computer codes. 3-D printers may even be able to print organs in the

Junior Zach Briggs displays a check from the Business Idea Competition. COURTESY OF ZACH BRIGGS

Student entrepreneurs pitch ideas

BY STEVEN PIRANI Ithaca College’s Third Annual Business Idea Competition concluded Nov. 14, with the final results designating that three concepts won a first-place prize of $1,000. Ideas were submitted in three categories: Lifestyle, Health & Safety and Services. Each category received an array of innovative business concepts.

For junior Zach Briggs, award-winning ideas were found at the bottom of his clogged sink. He realized that a jammed-up sink was an issue for which few had a simple solution.

Briggs decided that if few were thinking about a clogged drain, then he would do the thinking for them. He conceived “Drain Flower,” a clean hands drain-clearing device that attaches to a standard drain catcher and hangs down into the pipe. Using a series of silicone blades, or “petals,” the device acts as a no-power garbage disposal, effectively keeping pipes clear. He entered Drain Flower into the competition and took first place in the Lifestyle category.

With plans to use his prize money to develop a prototype, Briggs said he sees the invention succeeding in the future.

“I could absolutely see this type of product being standard,” he said. “You have a fork, you have spoon, you have a drain catcher and now you’re going to have a Drain Flower.”

Antoine Connors and James Newton’s “SnoBall” intends to follow more therapeutic pursuits. They took first prize in Health & Safety with their design of a new spherical take on the ice-pack that is rollable, splits into two hemispheres and numbs whatever hurts.

The pair agreed that fashioning their prize-winning design was the greatest challenge.

“We wanted something that was highly functional, cheap to make and to sell and would work very well,” Connors said. “When you combine that trifecta, it’s a nightmare.”

With the intent to have a working prototype by 2014, Newton and Connors are on the fast track to seeing SnoBall realized. Newton said once the competition ended, the outpouring of excitement from the audience solidified the product’s potential.

While others strive to devise future household staples, contestants like winner of the Service’s first prize, senior Luca Pandolfi, prefer to brainstorm on a much larger scale.

Pandolfi’s “Eterna,” a proposed self-sustainable mass production farm, would aid production of basic human needs in less arable regions of Africa. Pandolfi said in his presentation that his years of study on the topic inspired the project.

“The problem that kept arising throughout my studies is hunger in Africa, which seems to be a dominant problem throughout the last few decades, and there still hasn’t been any major steps toward resolving it,” Pandolfi said.

Looking toward the future, Pandolfi said he ultimately wants to turn “Eterna” into a leader in researching sustainable enterprise.

Be it drain cleaners, ice-packs or mass-producing farms, each of the concepts seeks to serve its own purpose. Despite their differences, the proposals all find one common ground: a passion to see their visions become reality.

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The layout for the new 9,000-square-foot Downtown Ithaca Incubator.

COURTESY OF ITHACA COLLEGE

College collaborates with TC3 and Cornell on downtown business incubator

Editorial >>Incubator would bring students new opportunities Downtown Ithaca Incubator, where students from Ithaca College, Cornell University and Tompkins Cortland Community College can work on business projects.

The incubator could provide the to the upstate New York technology sector, as well as some other neighboring campuses.

More than $1 billion of investment money was provided to student entrepreneurs across upstate last year Cornell’s eLab and the Syracuse Student Sandbox have launched dozens of student companies since 2008. The incubator is the college’s initial entrance into this exciting and burgeoning industry.

It also allows the college to connect with Cornell and TC3 like never before. Besides the Cornell University-Ithaca College exchange program and the Washington Semester program, the college’s programmatic ties with its neighbors have been negligible.

The collaborative effort of the incubator may improve the academic relationship among the three colleges and provide a delayed but necessary breakthrough into the local tech start-up community.

BY SABRINA KNIGHT A new 9,000-square-foot Downtown Ithaca Incubator will provide a location for Ithaca College students to collaborate with students from Cornell University and Tompkins County Community College, as well as with professionals, while working to create start-up businesses.

Officials announced the development of the Downtown Ithaca Incubator at a press conference Jan. 16. Local government officials, as well as representatives from Ithaca College, Cornell and TC3, were in attendance at the event.

The Downtown Ithaca Incubator will be a shared space, located in the Carey Building at 314 E. State St., about three blocks from the Boardman House in DeWitt Park, where Ithaca College was originally founded. The newly designed area will be a hub for rising young entrepreneurs to collaborate on projects. This two-floor space will encourage the flow of ideas for start-up businesses specifically within the Ithaca area.

Ithaca College President Tom Rochon said he received a call from Cornell President David Skorton and within the first five minutes of describing the collaborative project, Rochon agreed to partner.

Initially, Rochon said he thought students who are directly studying entrepreneurship could use the incubator, but after more thought, he said students throughout the college could propose ideas for development at the facility.

“It was easy for me to see that there would be educational benefits for students from every school within the college,” Rochon said.

Through the Empire State Development Corporation, the city will receive $1 million to renovate and build the current layout of the space in the Carey Building to be more open and updated.

Rochon said this project is a natural

complement to the growing undergraduate programs in entrepreneurship.

“This is going to be an enormous benefit to our students, who will get to see the entrepreneurial spirit in action, who will lend their own advice and their own support and work,” Rochon said.

Mary Ellen Zuckerman, dean of the business school, said there will be a selection process for students who will be able to go to the incubator to work. Since the space is so limited, students who will benefit most from the collaboration will be selected to work there.

As a student who participated in the college’s annual Business Idea Competition in the fall, junior Andrew Sowers said he would have used the space to collaborate with like-minded people to discuss the validity of his team’s ideas. He also said his team would have practiced its pitch to professionals that could give them feedback prior to the competition.

“In an incubator space, it’s about rapid growth, it’s about failing fast,” Sowers said.

“If you get an idea, you don’t want to drag it out if it might fail, you want it to fail immediately so you can learn from that mistake and move on to the next one.”

Projects that begin in the incubator will have tremendous tax benefits for up to 10 years through Governor Andrew Cuomo’s new Start-Up New York Plan, Skorton said.

This, he said, will encourage businesses to stay in the Tompkins County area and keep the economic growth local.

As a great college town, Rochon said, Ithaca should be much more than great restaurants and beauty. It should be more about making an effort to connect with the community too.

“Partnerships between campuses and community,” Rochon said. “Partnerships with learning and doing. That’s what the Ithaca Incubator epitomizes.”

Ithaca’s job market booms

BY SABRINA KNIGHT

City of Ithaca has contributed immensely to the rising and stable economy by creating jobs in higher education.

Myrick said technology enables a sector of job growth in the city that would otherwise be nearly impossible.

“If you’re selling ideas, software, a website, a network, those things can be shipped all over the world, no matter where you are, including Ithaca,” Myrick said.

NEWS

The City of Ithaca recorded the highest job-growth rate in New York between 2002 and 2012, according to a recent report released by the New York state comptroller. Ithaca outdid New York City, the most populated area in the state, by 4.17 percent.

The “Employment Trends in New York State” report published in August 2013 states that total employment in Ithaca rose 12.14 percent.

Private employment grew by 11.96 percent, and government employment grew by 15.12 percent during the study’s 10-year span.

The State of New York’s total increase in jobs during the decade was 3.99 percent, and its government employment declined by 2.12 percent, according to the report.

Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick said he was pleased, but there is more to achieve.

“I’m proud that we are the leading area for job growth in New York, but I’m not yet satisfied that we’ve created as many jobs as we need to for people who live here,” Myrick said.

Myrick said the presence of Ithaca College and Cornell University have played the most significant role in this local job growth.

“The primary sector of job growth is education,” Myrick said. “We think the future will likely be a continued reliance on the education industry to push our economy and an expansion of service related jobs, an expansion in innovation related jobs.”

Elia Kacapyr, professor of economics at the college, said he has noticed this trend.

Kacapyr said he is confident in his prediction that there will be 400 jobs created in 2014. He said this growth is attributed largely to the city’s multiple educational institutions.

Myrick said the appeal of

the educational institutes in the region help boost the economy.

“Every year, Cornell University, Ithaca College and [Tompkins County Community College] attract some of the best and the brightest minds in the country to Ithaca, and taking advantage of them while they’re here is going to help our economy,” he said.

“We want to convince them to stay and start a business.”

Kacapyr also said the intelligence of the people in the

Student composers create online musical database

BY STEVEN PIRANI For the amateur musician, the Internet is the premier venue to distribute tracks, make connections and gain publicity.

Seniors Ben Van De Water and Josh Condon want to tap into a particular group of song makers — classically trained composers.

The pair has created Composer HQ, a national network limited to amateur composers at colleges and universities, with the hopes of creating a community of collegiate songsmiths.

The site, which will be exclusively available to college students when it launches later this year, will allow members to upload their compositions to the website. Unlike sites such as SoundCloud, the users will upload actual scores rather than audio files. Then,

through forums and commenting on the website, members will be able to critique and discuss submitted works with other talents all over the globe.

Condon said the site was a product of their desire as composers.

Van De Water and Condon have been proactive in turning their desire into a reality, nurturing the venture with a series of monetary awards. Their project placed fourth for their category in the Ithaca College Business Idea Competition in 2012, where it won $400. Subsequently, Van De Water and Condon were awarded an additional $5,000 after winning the Creative Core Business Competition in March 2012 in Syracuse, N.Y. Van De Water said the competition was pivotal in bringing the project into reality.

“Having somewhere to really flesh out the ideas and work on them in an environment where we have people who are able to advise us and guide our decision-making process [solidified it],” he said. “For me, that was where it started to become real.”

As of now, Composer HQ is not accessible to the public. A quick search online will bring users to a welcome page. Though this is temporary, Condon and Van De Water said they are in beta testing and hope to launch in full before their From left, seniors graduation in May. While the pair continues Josh Condon and working, project mentor Thomas Schryver Ben Van De Water said he is excited about the launch. practice in the “They may find after they launch that James J. Whalen Center for Music on there are other opportunities to serve this Sept. 23. market that they haven’t thought about yet,” JENNIFER WILLIAMS Schryver said. /THE ITHACAN

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Melissa Richmond, an Elect Her facilitator from Washington, D.C., and outreach manager at Running Start, speaks to students at Elect Her “Ithaca Women Win,” a professional development program held Feb. 22 in Clark Lounge.

AMANDA DEN HARTOG/THE ITHACAN

Women’s Issues

“The context is so crucial,” Hellmann said. “You could be responding to a peer or a supervisor. It’s always important to remain calm and open.”

To kick off National Women’s History Month, the college hosted Sophomore Heather Crespin, who attended Keenan’s event, said the first-ever Women Leader Series, which included professional one of the key issues that resonated with her was the need for women development programs for enhancing the college’s female student to have confidence in knowing what their qualifications are and what leadership skills. pay they deserve.

The series, run out of the Office of Student Engagement and “It’s interesting how women are socialized to not be confident, to Multicultural Affairs, began Feb. 22 with the Elect Her workshop not go for it, and if we want to change things, it needs to start on a “Ithaca Women Win,” and it concluded March 22 with a trip to personal level,” she said.

Seneca Falls, N.Y., where the women’s rights movement has its roots.

Lenhart presented a workshop Feb. 26 called “I Hate Networking,” Last year, the college was one of 10 institutions in the country which offered alternative perspectives to the typical images of to receive a grant from the American Association of University traditional networking.

Women to fund a series of workshops about the gender pay gap, “What makes you memorable is sharing your story Michele Lenhart, director of student leadership and _______________ and listening to someone else’s story,” she said. involvement, said.

The emphasis on meaningful human connections Senior Courtney Brown first brought the Elect “It’s interesting was expounded upon in area coordinator Tiffani Her: Campus Women Win workshop to the college how women are Ziemann’s talk, “Social Excellence: We Dare You, last year. Brown, who is now the student liaison for socialized to not Women,” which took place 5:30–6:30 p.m. March 4 in the college, worked with the national organizers to the Taughannock Falls Room in the Campus Center. plan this year’s professional development program. said she first encountered the philosophy At the workshop, Melissa Richmond, an Elect Her - Heather Crespin of Ziemann “social excellence” at a conference sponsored in facilitator from Washington, D.C., directed most _______________ part by Phired Up, a company focused on personal of the learning exercises. Brown also coordinated a and group development in social settings. The philosophy, she said, panel of representatives from the Student Government Association. encourages people to be intentional about their interactions.

“I think that this year we had some amazing speakers that really “One thing I have really pushed myself to do is admit when I make engaged the participants,” Brown said. “We also had many people mistakes and I don’t know the answer to something,” she said. “I have interested in working to continue the program.” noticed that once I started making a conscious effort to do that with The first mini-session of the Women Leader Series, which was my staff members, they were more likely to have open and frank held Feb. 24, began with a talk called “Can I be a Feminist at Work?” conversations with me about their own struggles and concerns.”

Residence directors Maggie Wetter and Katie Hellmann discussed Lenhart said registration for this year’s conference filled up in eight microaggressions that target women in the workplace and how to days. She said she hopes to continue the series into the future. respond in a productive way. This was also a main idea presented by “We’ve had such a great response to this that I think that it is an Caryanne Keenan, assistant director for career development, the next easy thing to make it a tradition,” she said. day in “Women and Work: Taking Charge of Your Career Success.”

BY KAYLA DWYER

Senator speaks on economic and social reform Equal pay across genders, a federal minimum wage increase and higher education accessibility were on the agenda when Kirsten Gillibrand, Democratic U.S. Senator from New York, visited Ithaca College on Feb. 3. Gillibrand’s visit was part of her American Opportunity Agenda tour.

Gillibrand is the first sitting U.S. senator to come to campus since Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who served four terms as U.S. Senator from New York between 1977 and 2001, spoke at Commencement in 1978.

Nearly 250 people attended the event, including President Tom Rochon; Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick; Kara Grippen, the Southern Tier regional director for Governor Andrew Cuomo; and members of the college and local community.

Addressing a question from the audience about her plans related to higher education, Gillibrand said education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields and college accessibility are among her top concerns.

“One legislative idea I have is simply to let people refinance their debt, in the same way we refinance our mortgages, loans,” she said. “But for some reason, student debt is not allowed to be refinanced.”

She also said the composition of the American workplace has changed to

include more women, who are now primary income earners in a growing number of families. However, she said, the country’s policies on women in the workplace have remained stagnant.

For every dollar a man earns, a woman earns 77 cents, resulting in a gender wage gap of 23 percent, according to 2012 data from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

“They are very much stuck in the past, in the ‘Mad Men’ era, just as President Obama mentioned in his State of the Union address,” she said. “Without a doubt, if given a fair chance, women will be the ones who ignite this economy and lead America’s middle class survival.”

Speaking at the event, Rochon said women make up a majority of Ithaca College, and events such as the Teach, Initiate, Advocate talks, which are a series of presentations on the gender pay gap, and the Elect Her women’s empowerment conference promote women’s leadership at the college.

“But we also know that we can learn more and do more,” he said.

“So Senator Gillibrand, I am grateful that you are here today to focus our attention and stimulate our attention on that important topic.”

Gillibrand has also proposed a revision of the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act, which provides unpaid leave for serious health related events. However, only half of the workforce currently qualifies for it,

while many others cannot afford to take unpaid leave. Gillibrand’s new proposal would make family and medical leave available to every individual through the creation of an independent trust fund within the Social Security Administration. The fund would collect fees from every worker and employer based on their respective weekly wages. “[The payment] is about the cost of a cup of coffee,” she said. “Because it’s an earned benefit, it would travel with you, whether you are working for a big company or for a small company; whether you are working full time or part time. This benefit will be there when you need it most, when it’s time to care for a newborn child or whether it is time to care for an ailing or dying parent — every worker would have that ability.”

After Gillibrand’s speech, a student member of the audience asked her about how people who are unaware of or do not take courses about issues, such as those relating to women, can be persuaded to rally around an idea.

Gillibrand responded by saying this is a challenge she faces regularly.

“I have to [rally people] in Washington every single day,” she said. “So the best way to do that is to tell someone a story that they will begin to understand how horrible these circumstances are or how unfair something is, when they actually meet someone who has lived through it.”

NEWS

BY NOREYANA FERNANDO

Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democratic U.S. Senator from New York, spoke at the college about her view on workers’ rights Feb. 3 in Emerson Suites.

SABRINA KNIGHT/THE ITHACAN

57

COURTESY OF PAULA TWOMEY

Guest Commentary >> Senator’s plan is a step in the right direction

BY PAULA TWOMEY The excitement was palpable as 1 p.m. approached Feb. 3 for those of us waiting to hear U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand speak on campus.

Thirty minutes of well-articulated points to improve the in the U.S. I admire Gillibrand because she understands that women in particular are impacted by aging or sick family members, day care needs, availability of Pre-K programs and equal pay for equal work.

We are typically the caregivers, and Gillibrand has a vision to improve social issues for women. Without the women will continue to be disadvantaged and compromised, socially as well as economically. male teachers were paid at a higher rate than I was because “they needed to support a family.” That was more than 35 years ago.

Now, who can argue that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 wouldn’t help families?

I was proud to have heard Gillibrand speak at our college to our students. I hope that young women in the

College sexual assault record matches national trends

BY ELMA GONZALEZ

Activity Log. The reports with sexual overtones are those that have any mention of “sex” in their description. In 2010, three cases were reported, but, in 2013, the number of reports spiked to 18.

Stewart said an increase in community awareness and knowledge of available resources could’ve affected the rise in reports.

“When you start educating people, and they know what their resources are, and they understand it better, then the number of incidents reported should go up,” Stewart said. “That’s good.”

18

Number of Assaults

With a sexual assault reported in Ithaca College’s East Tower on Feb. 3 and sexual offenses in the national spotlight, the college is working to educate the campus community on these issues.

Data from the Office of Public Safety and Emergency Management at the college shows consistently low numbers in reported sexual offenses, while national statistics present higher numbers, with one in five women having been sexually assaulted in college, according to the White House Council on Women and Girls.

From 2007 to 2012, there have been an average of 2.5 reports of sexual offenses per year, according to the college’s Public Safety’s Activity Log 20 Annual Security and Fire Safety Report.

In 2010, there was only one report at the college, and 2011 saw the highest number of reports with four listed.

Only cases that fit the Clery Act are listed in the report.

15 This list of offenses includes forcible rape, forcible sodomy, sexual assault with an object, forcible fondling, incest and statutory rape.

10 Terri Stewart, director of Public Safety, said the low 8 numbers could signify these offenses often go unreported. She said this is a national problem, not one specific to the college.

6 Senior Lucia Brown, president of Feminists United, said 5 3 the data is likely not an accurate reflection of sex offenses that occur in the community.

“It’s challenging for victims to report what’s happened,” she 0 said. “They are not always aware of the resources available.”

2010 2012 2011 Since 2010, the number of reported cases with sexual DESIGN BY MARIANNA DUNBROOK AND Year CHELSEA RUSSO overtones has consistently increased on the Public Safety

2013

Student-athlete ally group created

BY JOHN VOGAN

This fall, students at both Ithaca College and Cornell University founded chapters of the organization Athlete Ally, a group dedicated to ending homophobia and transphobia in sports.

In its latest national index, Campus Pride ranked the college among the top 25 campuses friendly to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. This is the fourth consecutive year the college has earned a fivestar rating. Previously, it has also recognized the college for having one of the top 10 LGBT-friendly collegiate sports programs in the country.

Even in tolerant campuses, however, students who identify as LGBTQ find it difficult to be open about their sexuality.

Sophomore Kyle James, the founder of the college’s Athlete Ally chapter, said he was motivated to create the group Members of the Athlete Ally group meet in Friends Hall. at the college because of his AMANDA DEN HARTOG/THE ITHACAN past experiences on teams.

college’s chapter, rows for the men’s crew team and identifies as gay. He was outed by the team last November.

“Surprisingly, the men’s crew team wasn’t very tolerant to begin with,” Kelley said. “Instead of caving and quitting, I stayed on the team and made the first novice boat. Now the men’s team has shifted to a more tolerant and more accepting environment.”

Before coming out, one of the people Cornell athlete Brian DeProspo confided in was Brian Healey, who serves as coordinator for the national Athlete Ally organization.

For Healey, beginning discourse around this issue is the first step to creating the most inclusive environment for the LGBTQ community.

“Intolerance … has many root causes,” Healey said. “We work so hard to educate as many people as possible about how damaging and lasting this can be.”

NEWS

“After seeing the extremely homophobic and transphobic culture in the sports teams at my high school, I wanted to be sure that every LGBTQ student at IC felt safe being who they are on their athletic team,” James said. “Athletics are a place to build friendships and camaraderie, and no student should be an exception to that because of sexual orientation.”

Sophomore Chris Kelley, secretary of the

Guest Commentary >> Sochi Olympics highlight LGBT repression

BY KYLE JAMES In the months leading up to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, much of the talk surrounded Russia’s anti-gay policies. However, now that the games have been going on for almost two weeks, there haven’t really been giant outbursts of anti-LGBTQ acts that have surrounded the Olympic Games. Or have there?

At least 19 people across Russia were arrested for protesting the treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens Feb. 7, the day of the opening ceremonies. To make matters worse, the International Olympic Committee actually defended these arrests.

Other minor issues have been popping up around the country as well. Hunters, a Russian gay dating mobile application similar to Grindr, was shut down. Anyone trying to log on to the app was met with the message, “You will be arrested and jailed for gay propaganda in Sochi according to Russian Federal Law 135 Section 6.”

Russia also blocked the website of Justin Kripps, a Canadian bobsledder, after he posted a picture of his team being weighed in their sled in their underwear. Several others have reported that some of the Russian people have expressed extreme hatred toward LGBTQ people.

This sentiment was seen at a protest held by one American man and two Russian men. The trio held up signs with the phrases “GOD BLESS PUTIN BECAUSE HE IS AGAINST THE SIN OF SODOMY AND GOD BELIEVES IT IS DISGUSTING” and “HOMO SEX IS SIN.” Others, however, have shown massive support and want to get the message out that not all of Russia shares anti-

out of Sochi. In the opening ceremonies, the German bearers were required to wear rainbow gloves, and the volunteers were given a rainbow-colored uniform.

During the games, Cheryl Maas, a gay snowboarder from the Netherlands, held up a glove to the camera with unicorns and rainbows on it. While this may not be overly televised by mainstream news media.

Most notably, an LGBTQ athlete from the Netherlands, Ireen Wust, was “cuddled” by Russian President Vladimir Putin after winning a gold medal in speedskating. Wust and her teammates were out at a Russian nightclub celebrating her victory when Putin showed up. After talking with Wust, he congratulated her with a hug. Wust had been publicly gold medal immediately after her victory, so there was little chance Putin didn’t know she was bisexual.

The Human Rights Campaign has a counter online to see how much airtime NBC is giving LGBTQ issues. As of Feb. 18, the counter sat at 1 hour, 37 minutes and two seconds. Coupled with recent pro-LGBTQ ads from the Canadian Institute of Diversity and Inclusion, Athlete Ally and XXL, a Norwegian sports brand, the issue of LGBTQ rights is getting decent media coverage. One can wonder how much more coverage the issue would be getting if the media were not repressed by the Russian government.

All in all, the Sochi Olympic Games are still not a safe place for LGBTQ athletes and others to openly express themselves, but it could be much worse.

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SGA calls for the creation of an LGBTQ studies minor

BY FAITH MECKLEY The Ithaca College Student Government Association unanimously passed a bill Nov. 11 calling for the creation of an LGBTQ studies minor.

Sophomore Kyle James, studentat-large senator, created the bill, which was cosponsored by senior Cedrick-Michael Simmons, president of the SGA. James and Luca Maurer, director of the college’s Center for LGBT Education, Outreach and Services, said many students have expressed interest in a program.

James also said there are several classes being offered on campus, such as Sex, Gender and Desire; Sociology of Sexualities; Human Sexuality; and Gender Issues in Sport, that he thinks could fall under this minor.

Maurer said resources for an LGBT program already exist.

“There are plenty of sources from which to draw,” Maurer said. “There are plenty of textbooks that talk about this

stuff. We have professors that have been teaching the topics for years. They just haven’t been housed under one minor program. We have, and have had, the courses that would inform such a minor.”

In 2013, the Campus Pride Index ranked the college among its list of top 25 LGBT-friendly colleges and universities in the U.S. Yet, unlike other schools on this list, such as Rutgers University, Princeton University and The Ohio State University, Ithaca College has no academic program in this subject area.

James said creating an LGBTQ studies minor is important for the college to achieve diversity goals.

“The college really wants to promote a diverse campus,” James said. “This bill fits in with that because it’s educating students about these different gender identities, orientations, the history of that, where they came from. It makes Ithaca College a school that has more of an accepting light.”

The Student Sophomore Kyle James votes Government at an SGA meeting at their Association meeting November 18. unanimously voted AMANDA DEN HARTOG/THE ITHACAN to approve a task force to increase awareness of microaggressions on campus.

COREY HESS/THE ITHACAN

Editorial >> LGBTQ studies minor would bring diversity Ithaca College strives to portray itself as an LGBTQ-friendly campus. Yet despite being ranked among the top 25 LGBT-friendly colleges by the Campus Pride Index, it does not offer an LGBTQoriented academic studies program.

The power of student activism was proven when students pushed for the Asian American studies minor. As it was last year with the implementation of the Asian American studies minor, the adminof academic studies geared toward educating students on the politics, history and identities of underrepresented demographics. the minor. However, there are several courses that the college already has to work with, such as Sex, Gender and Desire and Gender Issues in Sport.

It would be hypocritical for the college to present itself as being accepting to people in the LGBTQ community but not have a program allowing them to study the history and politics revolving gap in many students’ educations when it comes to LGBTQ studies, it is in the administration’s best interest to work with students in devising and launching a minor program that aligns with its image of being an LGBTQ-friendly campus.

NEWS

Changing times in academia

Director discusses new academic advising center

BY NOREYANA FERNANDO Sally Neal, director of Ithaca College’s new Academic Advising Center, began working at the college Feb. 4.

A graduate of the University of Connecticut, Neal also oversees Academic Enrichment Services, Student Disability Services and the Office of State Grants.

The Academic Advising Center was created as part of the college’s IC 20/20 strategic plan and functions alongside faculty advisers to give students of wider breadth of advising options. It is open to all students. News Editor Noreyana Fernando spoke to Neal about student responses to the center.

Noreyana Fernando: Describe the Academic Advising Center and its services.

Sally Neal: There are five professional academic advisers in this office. Each one is a liaison with a particular school on campus, so they are charged

with being both a specialist and a generalist. For instance, Kerry Spitze is our liaison with the [Roy H.] Park School of Communications, so she works directly with the associate and assistant deans of the Park School … But her job, and all of [the advisers’] jobs, is also to know and understand the degree and graduation requirements for every major in every school in all catalog years, so any student that walks into this office can find help from any one of the advisers. We have a drop-in policy as well as scheduled appointments.

This really comes into play as a benefit for the student when a student is thinking about double majoring.

NF: How has the response been during the first week?

SN: Between Aug. 26 and Aug. 30, we had 171 students come to see us — 67 were scheduled, 97 were drop-ins. During the Aug. 26 and Aug. 27 open house in

itself, there were 104 students.

NF: How do you feel about these numbers?

SN: I think that the advisers have done a very good job of not only being available for students, but students are again finding us, and that is a good thing. That is our whole purpose, to be here and meet with students, so I am very happy with our first week.

NF: How much preparation does an advisee need before visiting the center?

SN: There doesn’t need to be a whole lot of preparation to come in to see us. We will see any student about anything, even if it’s just like, ‘I don’t know where to go or who to ask’ about any particular thing on campus. We will try to connect them with the right people …

There are so many resources. IC is so good with student support.

But if you don’t know that

support exists, then it is hard for you to find it. We can help you navigate the campus in that way.

NF: What obstacles do you see in the future?

SN: The primary obstacle right now is that we are new, and we hope to get the word out and let all students of all years know that we are available for them.

We are a student-centered office. The decisions that we make in here for how we do things are based on what is going to be best for students to be successful NF: Do you have any upcoming projects?

SN: We will be part of launching a 20-second, four-question check-in survey. It will go out via email to all first-year students and new transfers. It’s basically to say, ‘How are you doing, and is there anything we can help you with?’ just to let them know that we are here.

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Admissions implements paperless system

BY BRANDON ADELBOCK Ithaca College’s Information Technology Services is currently implementing a new, paperless system in the Office of Admission. College administrators said this initiative will significantly reduce paper consumption in the office.

This system is a sub-project of the larger Enterprise Content Management initiative, a college-wide program designed to streamline the documentsharing process. The online course override form, which was implemented this fall, is another sub-project of the program.

Director of Admission Gerard Turbide said his office is one of the paper users on campus.

“This is the biggest win for

admissions, with an obvious gain in cutting down paperwork,” Turbide said. “If we are not the biggest paper user on campus, we are one of the biggest.”

According to data from the Office of Civic Engagement’s sustainability program, the college purchased more than 10 million sheets of office paper in the 2011–12 academic year.

With the implementation of a paperless admission system, that number will be reduced, and paper applications will only be used in select cases. The implementation of the system will last through 2017.

David Weil, director of enterprise application services, said after the implementation process is complete, the college will no longer hand-review admission applications.

Turbide said the biggest advantage of the system will be the fast document movement.

He said with the large number of applications to the college last year, the Office of Admission decided that there was a need to handle documents differently for undergraduate admissions.

A year before this decision was made, the office was testing the system. Turbide said the office used graduate student applications as a pilot test in the Fall 2012 semester so the office could see if the system would have a positive response.

The college hired a consultant in Fall 2011 to identify which departments across campus should implement this program.

The consultant found 60 core areas to address in departments like the Office of Admission,

Student Financial Services and the Office of the Registrar. These recommendations were based on data from 2009, in which Student Financial Services used 30,000 pages and the Registrar used 29,000 paper invoices.

“Workflow focuses on processes primarily related to an academic process for a student, such as course registration override,” Weil said.

Marian Brown, special assistant for campus and community sustainability, said any online functions have positive environmental impact.

Turbide said he expects the effects of this system to be campus-wide.

“At the end of this project, it will probably touch every single office or department on campus,” Turbide said.

Editorial >> Forms override frustration As Ithaca College shifted to a system of online course override forms, it joined schools such as Michigan State University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst in digitizing higher education’s occasionally pesky registration process.

Few other institutions have taken the initiative to eliminate their paper process, a decision that will be immensely faculty. This technological switch is paving the way for the college to begin moving all its forms to an online system like the override forms.

The new online course override forms will save time, as it will no longer require students to rush from building to building to collect signatures.

Additionally, professors will now not need to spend time setting up appointments to sign the forms for students who

need them. There is less room for error, lost forms and missed deadlines, and efforts to become more sustainable by reducing costs and wasted paper products.

Despite the apparent ease of these online systems, the college still needs to ensure

that all of its information is backed-up in case the online system was to fail.

If the college is not cautious about archiving all of this crucial information, it could quickly turn a seemingly wonderful time and resource saving initiative into a disaster.

The college is taking the right step by being proactive versus reactive with this technological move.

It will serve students and faculty well in the future by eliminating hassle and frusexchange and establishing a

NEWS Senior Danny Gessner believes the Office of Career Services’ move to the Division of Enrollment and Communication deemphasizes individual needs.

COREY HESS/THE ITHACAN

Career Services to move under different domain

BY SABRINA KNIGHT The Office of Career Services moved to the Division of Enrollment and Communication from the Division of Student Affairs and Campus Life on March 1.

An Intercom announcement posted

by David Maley, associate director of media relations, on Feb. 10 stated that the move was made in order to help students find their path into future careers and advanced-degree education.

Maley also said Career Services’ new affiliation hopes to create greater access to students from the day they enter the college. This is an effort to dispel the myth that Career Services is only for upperclassmen as they approach graduation day.

Eric Maguire, vice president of enrollment and communication, said in an email that President Tom Rochon approached him with the idea for the transition, and he welcomed the idea because he saw a number of opportunities from the change.

“A better bridge between Career Services and recruitment will enable us

to increasingly speak to the outcomes of our graduates in our conversations with prospective students, ensuring that they are making the most informed college selection possible,” Maguire said.

John Bradac, director of the Career Services, said this transition aligns with many of the goals of IC 20/20 and the college’s alumni-student engagement efforts, such as the IC Mentoring Network, which is an initiative to connect more current students with alumni through LinkedIn. One of the main goals stemming from this change, Bradac said, is the idea that the Career Services can be used from a student’s first day at the college, which is when they can begin developing their career path.

This is an idea that Career Services is trying to promote, especially with efforts to work much more closely with the Division of Enrollment and Communication, Bradac said.

“We can incorporate the whole concept of career exploration and development as part of the early phases of coming to college,” Bradac said.

Though the transition will mean more

work for Maguire’s office, Maguire said he is confident that the expertise among the offices affected will help make the transition smooth.

Bradac said developing networks and connections for students and alumni is the biggest idea the offices will be working to improve.

Being able to work more with enrollment and the Office of Marketing Communications, Maguire said, career development will be a topic the college can now use to market to prospective students more thoroughly.

“It will certainly require greater collaboration with the campus community to strengthen our network of services and better serve our students,” Maguire said.

By putting more emphasis on the post-graduate advancement of students, Bradac said Career Services hopes to be at the forefront of this effort and work in tandem with the college’s academic goals for future students.

“I think this helps to strengthen the messages that we are here from early in your college career throughout the rest of your professional career moving beyond college,” Bradac said.

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Housing issues cause student concern

BY SABRINA KNIGHT The Office of Residential Life announced Aug. 2 that it will no longer need to house students in the Country Inn & Suites because of a miscalculation in the number of upperclassmen students requesting on-campus housing.

Bonnie Prunty, director of residential life and judicial affairs, sent an email to students who were assigned to live in the Country Inn & Suites explaining the change.

“We have been able to accomplish this without adding more temporary housing space on campus than we originally anticipated,” Prunty said.

With the number of incoming and transfer students exceeding the target that Ithaca College estimated last fall, Residential Life offered alternative housing options for these students. They included the use of extended occupancy triples, temporary living in residence hall lounges and four-person rooms in Emerson Hall. Prunty said the college is expecting about 1,820 incoming first-year students and 130 transfers seeking on-campus housing for the fall 2013 semester.

In an email sent to first-year students and their parents on July 18, 2013 — the night before the first round of housing selection for students in the First-Year Residential Experience program — Prunty announced that about 100 first-year students would have to live at the Country Inn & Suites.

She explained in the email that the unexpected housing problem was a result of many intersecting factors: a larger-than-anticipated incoming freshman class applied for the college, a higher number of returning upperclassmen who are already occupying on-campus housing, a higher retention rate among upperclassmen and a larger number of incoming transfer students who selected on-campus housing this year.

In the email, Prunty explained that all roommate pairings would be honored when moving students from the hotel to on-campus housing. Students in doubles were placed into doubles on-campus and students in triples were placed into a double or a renovated four-person room in Emerson Hall.

In an interview in May, Eric Maguire, vice president of enrollment and communication, said the college’s target for the incoming Class of 2017 was about 1,700.

He said the goal was to have about 1,800 students send in deposits by the May 1 deadline because it accounts for a “melt” of 100 students who will decide over the summer and at the beginning of the fall semester not to enroll at the college.

By the May 1 deposit deadline, Maguire said, the college received about 1,900 deposits from prospective students who decided to enroll in Fall 2013 and 1,818 choosing on-campus housing, exceeding the original targets.

This year, the college had a 13 percent increase in applications — about 15,641 applicants — and accepted 10,437, yielding a 66.7 percent acceptance rate. Enrollment in the Park School increased by 121 students — 28.2 percent — which was the largest growth in enrollment for the Class of 2017.

Bonnie Prunty, director of residential life and judicial affairs, sits in her office. DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

Editorial >> Res life repeats housing mistakes

initially planned use a hotel to lodge the students for whom it could not provide on-campus housing, but it rescinded that offer after realizing it miscalculated the number of upperclassmen requesting on-campus housing.

Residential Life failed to grant enough upperclassmen permission to live off campus, resulting

NEWS

Ithaca College has suffered a housing mishap because it over-enrolled the number of incoming

larger than expected, it granted some upperclassmen permission to move off campus for Fall 2013, but they were no longer interested. Most students sign leases for off-campus housing at least a year in advance, and four months is not a feasible amount of time for students to secure housing for the upcoming semester.

Residential Life addresses housing shortage Terrace 5 and Terrace 8 staff apartments to student housing and transform the remaining hallway lounges in Emerson Hall to five additional quad rooms, which will combine a lounge and an The Office of Residential Life announced measures in December to account for the projected housing shortage for returning students adjacent room to accommodate four students.

Junior Hannah Oppenheim, president of the Residence Hall in Fall 2014.

Association, said Residential Life consulted with the RHA at a Linda Koenig, assistant director for housing services meeting Dec. 3 to gather student feedback on which upper or lower and communications, said the Office of Enrollment and Communication gathered in October to project and plan for at least quad building the college could convert back to upperclassmen housing, as well as which Circle Apartments to choose to 500 non-senior students to live off campus in Fall 2014, but the accommodate for increased occupancy. number of students approved for off-campus housing remains at The original plan was to convert Boothroyd Hall to around 430. upperclassman housing, but those members who attended the The college guarantees all undergraduates on-campus housing.

As long as the approval number is short of the projection, there will meeting decided against it because the hall is the only first-year disability-accessible building, Koenig said. be more students wishing to remain on campus than the college’s She said Clarke was a good option because of its proximity to housing can accommodate. the Roy H. Park School of Communications, which many students Next fall, the First-Year Residential Experience will be expanded seem to prefer. to reserve all of the upper and lower quads, except a part of Clarke Bonnie Prunty, director of residential life and judicial affairs and Hall, and the Towers specifically for freshman housing. assistant dean for To create First-Year Experiences, additional space said the student voice on campus for better informed returning students, their administrative Residential Life decisions on these plans to convert 60 details. The RHA serves Circle Apartments as that link between from 4-person the student voice and to 5-person and Residential Life’s ear, 3-person to Oppenheim said.

4-person capacity “Residential Life and to create is working towards awareness about creating a positive the availability of residential experience the second floor of for students, which Terrace 13. obviously they’ve The college will been succeeding at also make 68 FYRE it, as there are more rooms in Clarke students wanting to Hall an option for Students in the Class of 2017 participate in a balloon challenge during a social event at Orientation stay on campus,” rising sophomores, on June 19. SABRINA KNIGHT/THE ITHACAN she said. convert the vacant

BY KAYLA DWYER

65

Excerpts from the Public Safety Log Feb. 10 EXPOSURE OF PERSON LOCATION: Terraces SUMMARY: Caller reported third-hand information that an unknown person entered room and urinated on Steve Rounds.

Feb. 10 CRIMINAL MISCHIEF LOCATION: D-Lot SUMMARY: Caller reported unknown person smashed glass bottles in parking lot. Master Patrol

Jan. 25 SUSPICIOUS MAIL LOCATION: Terraces SUMMARY: Caller reported person sent questionable email with unknown intent.

Nov. 20 SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE LOCATION: Terraces SUMMARY: Caller reported third-hand information that a person asked another to read comments from a card.

If the person didn’t, the person would push items off table. Investigator Thomas Dunn.

Jan. 17 ACCIDENTAL FIRE ALARM LOCATION: Circles SUMMARY: Simplex reported steam from shower. System Jeremiah McMurray.

Nov. 19 ACCIDENTAL FIRE ALARM LOCATION: Circles SUMMARY: Simplex reported alarm activation caused by burnt popcorn.

System was reset. Patrol

Rounds.

Jan. 16 ADVERTISEMENT LOCATION: Circles SUMMARY: reported two people posting

February 16 TRESPASS LOCATION: Whalen Center for Music SUMMARY: reported a person inside the closed building. One person judicially referred for failure to comply and

Warning was issued.

Sergeant Ron Hart.

Steve Rounds.

Feb. 14 CRIMINAL TAMPERING LOCATION: All Other SUMMARY: Caller reported unknown person buried car in Bruce Thomas.

Nov. 18 SUSPICIOUS CORRESPONDENCE LOCATION: Muller SUMMARY: Caller reported unknown person sent unusual email.

Sergeant Ron Hart.

Feb. 16 EXPOSURE OF PERSON LOCATION: Z-Lot SUMMARY: two people without clothing in a vehicle. Two people judicially referred for exposure of a person. Patrol

Feb. 17 SUSPICIOUS PERSON LOCATION: Gannett SUMMARY: Person reported unknown person seen sleeping in different areas on multiple dates and times. Lieutenant Bill Kerry.

NEWS

BY SAGE DAUGHERTY Early in her career, Laura Durling, assistant director for administrative services for the Office of Public Safety and Emergency Management, faced obstacles working in law enforcement because she was a female. Durling announced after 36 years of service on Sept. 25.

Durling began working for Public Safety in 1977 as Ithaca College’s first female patrol officer. In the 3 1/2 decades she has been at the college, Durling said, there have been numerous changes, including renaming Safety and Security to what is now Public Safety and an increase in public safety officers to keep up with the growth of enrollment and the campus population.

She also said very few women were involved in law enforcement during the ’70s, so being the first female patrol officer came with certain challenges.

She said it was a different experience for her as well as for her male colleagues, who initially didn’t know what to make of her. When Durling went to the New York state basic municipal training school, she and another female officer, who was employed at Cornell University, were the only two women in a class of 14.

Crystal Young, coordinator for administrative and operational support services at Public Safety and Durling’s close colleague for the past 25 years, said Durling had to combat gender discrimination at a time when women were a minority in the maledominated field.

“She had her struggles and had to overcome the stigmatism of being in a [primarily] male profession in the ’70s,” Young said. “The college has meant a lot to Laura, obviously she wouldn’t have been here all these years had she not just absolutely loved Ithaca.”

Durling rose through the ranks as a patrol sergeant in 1983 and was promoted to investigator in 1988 and later senior investigator. She began leading and supervising major investigations as assistant director in 2004. By 2009, Durling was promoted to her current position of assistant director of administrative services.

When she was 15 years old, Durling took a highschool class on juvenile delinquency and knew thereafter she wanted to go into law enforcement.

Durling went to community college and received a two-year criminal justice degree. After college, she worked in the New York State Division of Juvenile Justice and Opportunities for Youth. She said that experience pushed her toward the police science and investigative work rather than corrections work in a state prison.

“I really enjoyed that, and that’s why I decided to look more toward the law enforcement part and not corrections,” Durling said. “Those were kind of the divisions back then in the mid ’70s — you could take criminal justice corrections, or you could take criminal justice police science.”

Durling said she was hired by the college to conduct sexual assault investigations and create

prevention programming.

“I was the first female they hired, and it seemed reasonable to put me in a position where I would be doing rape prevention and things that may involve female victims,” Durling said. “The mentality 30 years ago was that female victims should only talk to a female officer. There was kind of a trend back then to assign [female officers] to sex crimes or crimes dealing with children because of the ability to maybe relate to a female or a female to relate to a child.”

She said the mentality in the ’70s was that public safety officials believed Durling could communicate more effectively with sexual assault survivors.

“Even though I was the first female and all the responsibilities were the same as everyone else’s, there was a focus on using me for the ability to do some of these new programs on rape prevention and crime prevention,” Durling said.

Durling said she does not agree with that mentality anymore because all police officers go through intensive training and preparation, and she said it is important for people to trust any police officer, regardless of his or her gender.

After her experience early in her career working with youth at a corrections facility, she said, she was drawn to investigations because she didn’t just want to file a report and be done with the case, she wanted to find out everything about it.

“I wanted to know why it had happened and who was responsible, so I think that that is what really piqued my interest in investigations,” Durling said.

From left, David Muir ‘95 and Laura Durling, assistant director for administration services in the Office of Public Safety and Emergency Management, pose for a photo after Muir spoke at Commencement in 2011.

COURTESY OF CRYSTAL YOUNG

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Mary Bowers speaks during TEDxIthaca College in Hockett Family Recital Hall in Whalen Center of Music on March 22 BRIAN PULLING/ THE ITHACAN

BY KAYLA DWYER Four hours into his double marathon run on the Big Island in Hawaii, Adam Peruta, assistant professor of strategic communication at Ithaca College, was cursing the burning asphalt beneath him as he lay debilitated after his left knee gave out.

“Searing pain shooting up and down my left side, and I could barely put any weight on it,” he said in the talk he gave at TEDxIthaca College. “I’ve been doing it long enough to know when something is wrong … and something was definitely very wrong.”

The 52.4-mile run was part of the 2012 Ultraman Triathlon, a 320mile race equivalent to the distance from Ithaca to Washington, D.C. It was his second Ultraman, and despite his injury, he finished it.

“I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I gave up,” he said.

He was one of 16 speakers selected from the Ithaca community to present a TED-style talk at the first ever TEDxIthaca College held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. March 22 in the Hockett Family Recital Hall in the Whalen Center for Music, funded by the Student Activities Board through a grant from the Office of Student Engagement and Multicultural Affairs.

Where “x” stands for “independently organized TED event,” TEDxIthaca College is a product of the TEDx initiative to grant free licenses for people anywhere to organize local events resembling TED Talks conferences. TEDx events are localized versions of global TED conferences, where speakers from around the world share their ideas

in 18 minutes or less.

Bringing a TEDx event to the college was the work of seniors Michela Moe and Ilana Miller and sophomore Lulu Helliwell, who have been planning its execution since last spring when they applied for the license. Helliwell, the SAB liaison for the planning group, said SAB has never coordinated an event of this caliber.

“Bringing TEDx to the Ithaca community was such a huge opportunity, and SAB has never done anything like this, so we just went with it,” Helliwell said.

The license agreement, approved last July under Moe’s name, deemed the conference room could contain no more than 100 bodies, including the speakers, media crew and audience. Miller said a simulcast room was set up in Iger Lecture Hall for about 75 extra people, including the guests of the speakers, to view the conference through a live stream. Attendee registration occurred between Jan. 1 and Jan. 31.

Miller, the speaker chair for TEDxIthaca College, said online speaker applications asked those interested in presenting to explain how their topic would impact the Ithaca community. After receiving about 70 applications, she said, they narrowed the list to the 16 people who they interviewed over a span of three weeks.

Though Helliwell said they decided not to designate a theme to the series of presentations, many of the talks centered on disabilities.

Amelia Habicht, higher education student services professional, story continues on next page

has worked in student services at both the college and Cornell University. She is also a stroke survivor who spoke at TEDxIthaca College.

Habicht said she was in excellent health in 2009. But on the morning of June 11, she was making coffee when she noticed something was very wrong.

“It just happened,” she said. “It was just my turn.”

That summer day, she had a major stroke. Facing the audience with tears in her eyes, she relayed how she began walking again in 2010 because of her older sister’s support and said that determination is a fight to never give up.

Freshman Kim Nicolas, one of the student attendees, said she related to the theme of disabilities because her sister is paraplegic, or physically handicapped from the waist down.

“Trying to dismantle this idea that you have this undesirable trait with a disability is really interesting,” Nicolas said.

Moe, Miller and Helliwell anonymously chose students based on their essay responses about what they would gain from TEDxIthaca College. Senior Hannah Sands, who was also an attendee, said in light of her

NEWS

Adam Peruta, assistant professor of strategic communication, speaks about UltraMan racing.

COURTESY OF ERIC YECKLEY

the other stigmas people have around mental illness.”

Mary Bowers ’13 called disabilities an “uncelebrated human variation” in her talk focused on redefining students’ perceptions of disabilities.

The other student speaker from the college was junior Rachel Gray, who partnered with Rachel Wagner, associate professor of philosophy and religion, to present “Xbox Apocalypse,” an analysis of how the line between the realms of video games and real life have greatly dissolved over time.

Other speakers included Michael Koplinka-Loehr from the Rescue Mission and Jennifer Johnson, burial coordinator at the Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve. Scott Morris, who founded the AmeriQoin Cooperative in Ithaca, spoke about prioritizing people over paper wealth and was followed

by Michelle Courtney Berry, who concluded the conference.

Berry is a nationally accredited stress management trainer and entrepreneur who has taught at the college and appeared on Good Morning America. Her

impending graduation, this event and others who participated helps her cherish inspiration for because it provides an growth she can find. opportunity for articulating one’s “What better way to launch ideas and experiences,” he said. myself into the ‘real world’ The application and the than through hearing stories of impact of these messages was motivation and determination not limited to students at the and perseverance,” she said. college. Diana Viglucci, a senior Moe said the funding, Michael Lam speaks about celestial clocks and ripples in spacetime at which came entirely from TEDxIthaca College on March 22. COURTESY OF ERIC YECKLEY SAB, allowed students to attend at no cost.

“My goal was to make sure that this was a free event for as many people as we could offer it to,” Moe said.

Her inspiration to bring TEDx to the college came from her attendance at TEDxMaui in 2013, where the theme of “The Dream is Real” asked audience members what they want to make a reality after that event.

Helliwell said while each of the three planners had specific titles, the entire process was a group effort. message was catered to her President Tom Rochon said majoring in interdisciplinary largely college-age audience, to he appreciates how TED Talkstudies at Cornell, said the topic which she gave advice on how to related events bring together of disabilities and mental illness take care of their bodies now in ideas from people everywhere, particularly resonated with her order to mitigate the inevitable and he is proud of the work because she also has an illness. health effects later. the three students have done in “Your physical limitations “Don’t wait another day to live executing the event. aren’t who you are as a person,” from your heart,” she said. “[TEDx] benefits our students she said. “That reminds me of

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Producing new plots: Farmer’s Market expands to multiple locations in Ithaca growing environments.

As the Farmer’s Market expands, it continues to provide patrons with opportunities It’s 8:45 a.m. on a crisp, cool Tuesday to develop relationships with their local morning. Local farmers gather at Dewitt Park, one of the new locations for the Ithaca neighborhood farmers, which produce the local harvest they love so much — and posFarmer’s Market. There, they pitch tents sibly even inspire some of them to become and arrange pumpkins to catch the eyes of farmers themselves. passersby. The midweek market will not Aaron Munzer ’08, assistant market manopen for another hour, but the vendors are ager of the Farmer’s Market, said he loves hard at work, organizing displays. seeing the students come out to the markets From April to December, students and because it allows them to take a break from families can join community members at dining hall food, fast-food and processed three different locations in Ithaca for fresh, _______________ food, and incorporate fresh locally grown harvest. The fruits and vegetables into Farmer’s Market’s priIt’s the kind of their diets. mary location at Steamboat “It’s the kind of place Landing attracts the largest place where you where you leave with food, crowds on Saturdays and leave with food, and you really feel good Sundays. To meet the comand you really feel about it,” Munzer said. munity’s growing interest in “This food is coming to you buying healthy and sustaingood about it from five to 20 miles away, able foods, the market has - Aaron Munzer opposed to thousands of expanded to two additional _______________ as miles away.” midweek locations in In addition to managing Dewitt Park and East Hill the Farmer’s Market, Munzer owns PlowPlaza. break Farm, which is one of 51 total farms Established in 1973, the Farmer’s Market that participate in this Community Supporthas never failed to provide local vendors ed Agriculture program, an initiative that with dependable consumers searching for also connects students and Ithaca residents delicious, seasonal products.

Originally located on South Fulton Street, with locally grown produce. CSA is a model in which farms offer fresh, local produce to the market had five different homes before community members at an affordable price. permanently settling at the Steamboat Consumers pay upfront and receive a weekly Landing in 1990. Though it has changed supply of locally grown fruits and vegetables. locations, the Farmer’s Market’s mission Sophomore Vanessa Dunn is an active remains the same: to allow Ithaca’s residents to maintain healthy lifestyles while support- participant in Early Morning Farm’s CSA. Each Thursday for eight weeks during the ing local farms.

The farms at the market are family owned fall, she and her housemates headed over and operated, so vendors often take pride in to the Ithaca Coffee Company to pick up their bushel of local fruits and veggies. CSA their products, Dennis Hartley, co-owner of members choose which local farm they Littletree Orchards, said. want to support.

The vendors are also all within a 30-mile “It’s personal,” Dunn said. “They really radius of the city of Ithaca, ensuring the care about making sure that the participants produce remains local. All of their food in the CSA know what they’re getting.” must be grown in sustainable, low-spray

BY KELLI KYLE

Patrons stop by Courtney Sullivan’s farm booth Sept. 22 at the Ithaca Farmer’s Market at Steamboat Landing.

TUCKER MITCHELL/THE ITHACAN

NEWS

County tests out curbside compost collection

BY JACK CURRAN & NATE KING On Nov. 15, Tompkins County instituted a curbside compost collection pilot program in which 400 West Hill households were given the opportunity to put their food scraps at the curb for pick up.

Casella Waste Systems is responsible for collection, while Cayuga Compost processes the compost.

Geoff Dunn, the communication and administrative coordinator at the Tompkins County Solid Waste Division, said the division planned the 25-month pilot program in a continued effort to reduce waste.

“We want to be producing less waste,” he said. “Whether that be recycling products or turning them into compost, it’s sort of a no-brainer.”

The county has a goal of diverting 75 percent of waste away from the landfill by 2016.

Currently, 60 percent of waste is diverted from the landfill, and Dunn said this food

scrap–collection program could bring the county 10 to 12 percent closer to its goal.

Compost is created when tiny organisms break down organic trash, typically food scraps, leaving behind nutrient-rich compost. Adam Michaelides, master of Cornell Cooperative Extension’s compost education program, said many materials and much of what ends up in the landfill can be composted.

Personal composting is already a common practice among Tompkins County residents. In 2012, Michaelides and the Cornell Cooperative Extension surveyed 360 people at area grocery stores and found that 57 percent of them composted at home.

The curbside compost collection program aims to enhance this already strong trend by allowing a wider range of compostable products. Household compost cannot include certain food scraps — such as meat, bones and dairy — because they take too long to decompose. But Cayuga Compost has the

ability to handle these products, so residents will be able to compost more materials.

Mark Darling, Ithaca College’s sustainability programs coordinator, said the college has been running a composting program since 1993. The college began its compost program as an effort to reduce its waste.

“We were doing it when no one else was doing it, which was kind of the reason we did it on campus,” Darling said. “It’s not part of our core mission to be composters, so this was kind of a service. What the county is doing serves the same purpose, which is to keep organics out of the landfill.”

Dunn said the pilot program will give the county a chance to determine the most effective ways of collecting compostables and getting residents to properly dispose of food scraps.

If all goes as expected with the pilot program, the Solid Waste Division plans to have curbside food–scrap collection countywide within three years.

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can make a large impact on the way the fossil-fuel industry operates simply by taking investments out of those companies.

“If all the colleges in the nation take their money out of fossilfuel industries, it would depress the shareholder value of companies like Exxon and Shell, who are creating huge problems around the world,” Betterley said.

“That would spark a lot of positive change to Envionmentally active students protest the college’s investments in fossil fuels on Oct. 23 in Emerson Suites. the environment.”

SABRINA KNIGHT/THE ITHACAN John Sadwith ’72, who was attending the Board of Trustees dinner, joined in with the students for a opinions on the possibility of the college few minutes and held the banner. divesting from the fossil-fuel industry.

Sophomore Erika Bucior said the feedback The divestment campaign requests money from the college’s endowment, which was significantly different from the stories she heard about last year’s protest. includes some donations and investments Previously, she said, the board of trustees that are currently invested in unsustainable

BY SABRINA KNIGHT energy corporations. The profit made on the did not respond or actively listen to the About a dozen student representatives students’ requests. investments is returned to the college and from the Environmental Leadership Action This year, however, some dinner attendees then used for reducing tuition and funding Network, Ithaca College Environmental encouraged the students to continue the scholarships, among other financial supSociety and Divest IC stood silently outside battle for divestment and were willing to port. The student organizations’ campaign the entrance to Emerson Suites on Oct. 23, have open conversations with the students. joins in solidarity with other colleges in the holding signs and banners. As members of “It was, overall, a positive experience — national divestment campaign. the Ithaca College Board of Trustees arrived better than a lot of us expected,” Bucior said.

Senior Jeremy Betterley, co-president of for a dinner in Emerson Suites, the protest“It’s a step in the right direction.”

ICES, said he thinks a national campaign ers stood outside hoping to voice their

Divest IC protests Board of Trustees

TCAT given government grant for hydrogen-powered bus

BY ZACH ILNITZKI The Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit bus company has received funding from the Federal Transit Administration’s National Fuel Cell Bus Program to pilot a hydrogen-powered bus in 2014.

The program works with manufacturers to advance the commercialization of fuel cell technology in U.S. transit buses. More than $60 million have been granted to projects nationally.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is allocating $13.6 million for cleaner forms of energy, according to the Federal Transit Administration. TCAT is one of three organizations to receive a bus.

Doug Swarts, service development manager at TCAT, said the FTA will provide the bus at no expense to his company.

“Hydrogen fuel cells are a maturing technology that is more or less ready to go out to the market,” he said. “Even private passenger cars will be sold by auto manufacturers starting next year or 2015.”

Chris Sinton, assistant professor of environmental studies and science at Ithaca College, said these water vapor emissions would be beneficial in urban environments.

“For an urban environment it is very helpful, because you don’t have any pollutants such as nitrogen oxide or particulates associated with diesel fuel that pose a direct health hazard,” Sinton said.

Paul Mutolo, the director of external partnerships at Cornell University’s Energy Materials Center, said hydrogen fuel cells are more environmentally friendly than gas power or even electric power.

The average mileage per charge for electric cars is 92. Meanwhile, hydrogen-based cars are expected to travel around 300 miles on a single tank of hydrogen, Mutolo said.

Mutolo, who was also in charge of the grant awarded to TCAT, Cornell and several other companies, said hydrogen cells are efficient.

While not many people are considering hydrogen as energy alternative now, Mutolo said fuel cells will become more prominent.

“There is a large misconception with the public that fuel cells are off in the future,” he said. “They’re here.”

Students board the TCAT bus on Jan. 24 on campus.

DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

Tompkins County looks to ban plastic bags Tompkins County is considering a proposal to ban plastic bags. Ithaca College said it will not be affected by this ban should it be implemented. If the ban is put into effect, Tompkins County would be the first county in New York state to impose such legislature.

The Environmental Management Council of the county, a citizen advisory board on local environmental issues, is developing the proposal that, if passed, will ban the distribution of single-use plastic bags at retail locations in the county.

Dave Maley, associate director of media relations, said the college would be exempt from this ban, along with other nonprofit organizations in the county. On-campus stores, like the Bookstore and Mac’s General Store, would be exempt.

The proposed ban focuses on what is known as the “T-shirt bag,” or the checkout bag commonly used at a grocery store. The law will not affect other uses of plastic at retail locations, such as wrapping bulk goods and produce. Other exceptions can be found on the FAQ posted on the council’s website.

Brian Eden, member of the executive committee of the county EMC,

said the council is expected to make a decision some time in the spring.

Eden said the feedback from the community has been mostly positive so far, but there have been concerns about the sanitation of recycled bags.

The council has been gathering feedback through public meetings, meetings with local businesses, cold-calling businesses and meetings with the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce. Spring Buck, at-large member of the Plastic Bag Ban Committee at the EMC, said feedback thus far has been in favor of the ban.

Jeremy Betterley, a senior environmental studies major involved with the college’s Resource and Environmental Management Program, said he supports the ban. He said it is a shame there is a need to create laws to get people to protect the environment.

“We haven’t been very effective in getting people to not use disposable plastic bags, and maybe this is the best way to do it,” Betterley said. “We need to get away from the mindset that anything can really be disposable. We have an environmental impact in terms of every commodity that we use and consume, and I think that plastic bags in particular are one that we need to target.”

Editorial >> Fight the Plastics Plastic bags are often portrayed as the poster-child culprit of litter.

To combat this issue, Tompkins County is proposing a plastic-bag ban. Though this is a step in the right direction toward sustainability, innovative ways for the community to reuse and recycle would be a more effective solution.

Wegmans has a recycling program that allows customers to return plastic bags to collection bins in the grocery store’s lobby. In 2012, the program had collected 3.4 million pounds of plastic. Terracycle, a company that collects hard-to-recycle products, such as juice boxes and candy wrappers, has bins located around Ithaca College’s campus.

Though the college would be exempt from this ban if it were implemented, it could create a plastic-bag program like Wegmans’ in locations such as Sub Connection and Mac’s General Store. It could also promote Terracycle to be more prominent on campus, such as in residence halls. promote sustainability, but programs that teach people to reuse and recycle are much more effective as they instill habits that individuals could take outside of Tompkins County.

BY FAITH MECKLEY This fall, I happened to come across Sierra Club’s 2013 Coolest Schools rankings, which judges colleges on their sustainability.

I clicked my way through the top-10 list, dying to know what place Ithaca College received.

After reading the results, I found that of 164 schools on that list, the college came in 69th place.

Out of 1,000 possible points, we received a total of just 597.35.

As a prospective student, one thing that made the college stand out to me above my other choices was its dedication to sustainability. On my campus tour, it seemed like the guide brought up sustainability in every building we walked through.

Not long after moving in, I noticed shortcomings in the college’s apparent greenness. The Integrative Core Curriculum theme, “Quest for a Sustainable Future,” has the second least amount of themed classes.

After joining Stop Wasting Ithaca’s Food Today, I realized that food waste is a major problem on campus, despite the existence of SWIFT and Weigh the Waste.

NEWS

BY LISA FAMULARO

Guest Commentary >> Ithaca falls short in sustainability

to make composting a part of my life. I was confused when I discovered composting isn’t offered in any of the residence halls.

As an environmental activist and nature enthusiast, I feel disenchanted. But the college can learn from the other schools that made Sierra Club’s top-10. American University hosts could plant more trees like Georgia Institute of Technology’s with its 25 percent arboreal cover.

Despite these environmental shortcomings, I know that Ithaca is taking steps in the right direction. The college has a goal to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2050. However, it has a long way to go before it can claim sustainability as an attribute.

DESIGN BY MARIANNA DUNBROOK

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Putting Health First

College liberalizes animal policy

BY JAMES WHITLOW Junior Meredith Knowles sits on her bed in her Garden apartment, nestled against a heap of blankets and a sleeping cat. Books and clothes lay strewn across the room, mingling happily with cat toys and treats.

Knowles has been diagnosed with anxiety, and her roommate is Arya, a 1 1/2-year-old black-and-white cat given to her for therapeutic purposes.

After notes from three separate doctors and many emails, Knowles received approval from the Ithaca College Office of Residential Life for a therapy animal.

Knowles said she experienced stomach problems before she adopted Arya last month. She said her cat helped her manage the pain and anxiety brought on by stresses such as homework and pressure from her parents.

“Animals can pick up on your feelings,” she said. “They can sense your emotions. It’s having a physical being there that cares about you.”

Jean Astorina, disability specialist at the college’s Office of Student Disability Services, said special allowances for disabilities require thorough documentation from the student.

According to Residential Life guidelines, no animals except for Guiding Eye puppies and tropical fish are permitted in residence halls.

Linda Koenig, assistant director for housing services and communications at Residential Life, said support-animal cases are dealt with on a case-by-case basis and are not governed by any set of rules.

Knowles said she is happy to see the college considering alternative forms of therapy for students with conditions like her own.

She said proving her disability to the college was challenging.

“Some people with disabilities …

everybody looks at them, and their disability is so visible,” she said. “But if your disability isn’t visible, you have to prove it to them.”

Knowles said her persistence and the college’s open attitude toward alternative therapies will help make her time as a college student easier.

“It’s definitely something I believe very strongly in — recognizing how tough of a time college is for people, and some people get through it easier than others,” she said.

Junior Meredith Knowles plays with her cat, Arya. Residential Life allows Knowles to keep Arya in her room to help relieve her anxiety. SABRINA KNIGHT/THE ITHACAN

BY MEGAN DEVLIN

it, and we’ve gotten friends,” she said. “I’m also hoping to send it to other clubs, professors, departments on campus, and having them share it and hoping this thing kind of spreads like wildfire.”

Wolf plans to bring the college chapter’s petition to the national level while interning with the Chapters Team of Active Minds in

This semester, Walters plans to resume meeting with the Googlepetition committee and develop a strategy to collect signatures from people around the world in order to estimate how long it may take to reach the goal of 10,000.

“We’ve gotten different resources in the Ithaca community to share

Washington, D.C., this semester.

He said he will be in communication with all 445 chapters around the country.

“I will have an opportunity to find out what other chapters think about the idea, if it’s something that they want to team up with us on,” Wolf said.

NEWS

With one in four college students in the U.S. experiencing mental illness, Ithaca College students are asking the world’s most-used search engine to promote mental health advocacy by flagging searches for self-harm information on the Internet.

The college’s Active Minds chapter, a national nonprofit that raises mental health awareness among college students, is spearheading a national effort to have more prominent inclusion of mental health resources in Google searches for potentially harmful terms, like anorexia, cutting and suicide, by creating a petition on Change. org. The goal is to collect 10,000 signatures before Active Minds presents the petition calling for a pop-up window that provides a link to resources for those who may be in need of help.

Junior Jared Wolf, former copresident of Active Minds, said the idea for the petition came during the Active Minds National Conference in November, where he attended a workshop about how the media affects people’s perception of mental health. There, they discussed how social media websites, like Tumblr.com and Facebook, have created safe spaces for users, he said.

Bringing this conversation back to campus, Wolf said, sophomores Cassie Walters, advertising chair, and co-event chair Joey Heiland created a Google-petition committee. They proposed a mental health resource page that would protect Google’s billions of users and demonstrate that the world’s largest search engine is responsible for what information is available.

“With Google’s mission being to make the information of the world accessible and useful to the people of the world, as mental health advocates, we strongly feel this is a way they can do that in a really meaningful way,” Wolf said.

Walters said Active Minds’ petition is loosely based on a policy the microblogging website Tumblr created in 2012. An opaque dialogue window appears over searches associated with self-injury, and it includes language that encourages users to view Tumblr’s

list of mental health resources or to dismiss the message all together.

“I want the page you click on for more information to be in-depth with different resources for different problems, because for someone who may Google something about an eating disorder, it’s not going to help them to have a suicide hotline,” Walters said.

Members of IC Active Minds pose outside the organization’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.

COURTESY OF CASSIE WALTERS

Editorial >> Google petition creates lifeline Ithaca College Active Minds has launched a petition to increase mental health resource visibility on Google. It proposed a style similar to Tumblr, in which a window listing resources pops up when a user enters a self-harm or its petition. Though some express concerns of censorship, this setup could help countless people with mental illnesses.

Google has been criticized in the past for its PageRank algorithm. PageRank measures and lists links in order of relevance. As a result, certain links are relegated to distant exiled in searches. Filtering self-harm websites or adding a pop-up window may replicate the problems that led to these lawsuits.

The Active Minds list also needs different levels of distinction for different terms. Someone who searches for “abuse,” for example,

may be trying to report abuse or research it access to vital information. By contrast, a search for “I want to die” clearly indicates the person’s intent to end his or her life.

However, the interruption of a pop-up window may cause second thoughts. Suicides mental illness is long-term, a moment of anguish could lead a person to suicide. An interruption can help the impulse pass forever.

A study conducted in the 1970s found that of 515 who were talked out of suicide in San Francisco, only 6 percent ever tried again.

If Google accepts the petition, it should consider both the intents of users and the dangers of censorship.

The chance that the pop-up window may far outweigh the costs.

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Students meet in the library to discuss a petition to move Student Disability Services. SABRINA KNIGHT/THE ITHACAN

Students petition for disability services to change locations

BY TAYLOR ZAMBRANO The current location of the Office of Student Disability Services in the Towers Concourse is not equally accessible to all the 682 students currently registered, according to a group of students who have petitioned to move the office to a more central location.

As part of a group project for the class The Culture of Disability, junior Sarah Frizzell, sophomores Emily Kovach and Susie Brancaccio created a petition last semester asking Ithaca College to move SDS to a more accessible location for students with disabilities.

Frizzell said the petition was circulated through social media sites like Facebook and received more than 300 signitures.

One of the main concerns with the office’s current location is students do not know where to find services available to them, Brancaccio said. Linda Uhll, manager of SDS, said if the office was relocated to a more student-populated area, students who were originally unaware of the services may be more likely to stop by to inquire about them.

Brancaccio said the petition may also help inform students who could utilize SDS of where to find it.

“A lot of people don’t go

up to the Towers if they don’t live there, so it’s just raising awareness of where the SDS office is located for people who don’t know,” Brancaccio said.

Frizzell said she has spoken to students with physical disabilities who believe the office’s current location is also inconvenient for students who already know about it. She said she spoke with a peer who found the trip exhausting and time-consuming.

“It’s just far away,” Frizzell said. “It’s not practical, and you don’t go up there anyways, so if you know you may need help and accommodation with SDS, you might not go because it’s

not convenient.”

Sophomore Johannah Litwin, who learned about the focus group through an email sent to students registered with SDS, said she is not happy with the lack of accessibility found on campus, especially when compared to other college campuses. She also said the physical constraints disadvantage anyone with a physical disability.

“The school considers themselves to be so open, accepting of all sorts of differences,” Litwin said.

“Disabilities are the greatest minority … and yet it’s often the one that people forget about.”

New club aims to spread happiness with good deeds

BY ALYVIA COVERT As Pharrell Williams’ song “Happy” blares from the doors, two smiling faces stand at the entrance of room 323 in Williams Hall, passing out handwritten compliments on sticky notes and welcoming people into their first meeting.

IC Pay It Forward, a new club at Ithaca College founded this February, has a mission to promote random acts of kindness around campus and within the Ithaca community.

Founded by freshman Francesca Esce, the group was inspired by the nonprofit organization Random Acts, founded in 2009, which has since inspired people to make a positive impact by spreading spontaneous acts of kindness.

Esce said she decided to build on this idea by bringing Pay It Forward to the college and constructing it around the basic premises of Random Acts. Esce recruited freshmen Vice President Elena Deluccia, Secretary Meghan Maier and co-Treasurers Hannah

Wheater and Jessica Takatch to build her executive board.

Sophomore Natalie Dionne said one part of the club’s mission is to realize and pay forward good aspects of each member’s life.

“The whole concept of paying it forward links back to the recognition aspect of the really wonderful things going on in your life and recognizing that and doing something about it,” Dionne said.

Deluccia said she was excited that the club wants to team up with other organizations to spread random acts of kindness beyond the college’s campus. Pay It Forward is hoping to include organizations in Ithaca like the Red Cross and the local community kitchen, Loaves & Fishes, into its sphere of connections, Esce said.

“We are absolutely interested in working with organizations outside of [the college],” Esce said. “We aren’t quite sure where yet, but our goal is to make the largest domino effect we can on the world. Spreading kindness is our goal, and we are willing to reach out to any organization that has similar ideas on helping the greater good.”

The Hammond Health Center confirmed an outbreak of pH1N1, commonly referred to as swine flu, on the Ithaca College campus Feb. 3.

By Jan. 27, the Health Center had treated more than 91 students and staff members with influenza-like symptoms, according to Vivian Lorenzo, physician and assistant director at the Health Center.

As of Feb. 3, 82 patients were given rapid tests, where saliva swabs are taken as a preliminary check for the influenza virus. Of those tested, 38 samples were positive for the influenza virus, of which pH1N1 is a strain, Lorenzo said.

“Testing assists us to determine what strain is circulating and the effectiveness of the vaccine,” she said.

Rapid tests are given only on a case-by-case basis according to the doctor’s medical judgement, Lorenzo said, and not everyone with symptoms is given rapid testing.

The samples collected were then sent to the New York State Department of Health’s Wadsworth Center in Albany, N.Y., according to the Health Center’s reports.

The lab returned 10 of the 35 samples to the Health Center on Feb. 3. All 10 were positive for pH1N1, Lorenzo said.

The Health Center sent an email to students and staff Jan. 29, notifying them of a surge in influenza cases since Jan. 27.

Lorenzo said 95 percent of the influenza A circulating this year is the pH1N1 strain.

“It’s essentially the same strain that started circulating in 2009, but has been circulating ever since,” Lorenzo said.

While most people who have caught pH1N1 experienced typical flu-related symptoms, the virus has become much more severe in some cases and led to pneumonia and even death. The CDC estimates that more than 8,800 died because of pH1N1 between April 2009 and April 2010.

Sigrid Connors, director of patient services at the Tompkins County Health Department, said the severity of the current outbreak can be explained by the time of year and lack of suitable vaccine options.

“It hit the young adult population much harder,” Connors said. “And we saw a higher number of fatalities.”

Because similar viruses spread during the mid-1900s,

many older adults have antibodies and are better protected against the pH1N1 virus than younger people who have not been exposed to similar flu strains before. Since 2009, the pH1N1 strain has been included in all flu shots. Doctors now have a better handle on what to expect from the virus, Lorenzo said.

People with respiratory issues can be affected more strongly by influenza because it is a respiratory illness. The Health Center warned that people with asthma, heart disease, diabetes, sickle cell disease or immunosuppression should contact a doctor.

“Anyone with underlying conditions who has flu-like symptoms should be coming in to be seen,” Lorenzo said.

Sophomore Taylor Smith, who suffers from asthma, said she began to feel drowsy Jan. 29, but nausea kept her awake for most of the night.

“I was extremely tired and sort of nauseous at dinner, but when I went to bed I couldn’t sleep,” Smith said. “I woke up every hour until 2 a.m. when I knew I was going to vomit. And then I was up four more times to vomit.”

Smith said her roommate

drove her to the Health Center the next morning.

“They had me wear a mask, and they asked for all of my symptoms,” Smith said. “Then they diagnosed me with the flu.”

The timing and duration of the flu season varies, according to the CDC, but it typically peaks in January. There is no accurate count of the number of influenza cases in Tompkins County, Connors said.

Flu symptoms often include abrupt fever, body aches, sore throat, coughing, headaches or decreased appetite.

If a student contracts the influenza virus, the Health Center recommended staying out of class or work until the fever has been gone for at least 24 hours.

“There are a lot of students and people in the community who never go to the doctor,” Connors said. “There are a lot of students who may have had mild cases of the flu, but they didn’t go down to the Hammond Health Center. They’re not even counted in the numbers that the Health Center has seen.”

Smith said she got her flu shot this year. Though vaccines do not prevent influenza in all cases, Connors highly recommends getting vaccinated.

NEWS

BY STEPHEN ADAMS

DESIGN BY MARIANNA DUNBROOK

77

PROFILES

Grab and Give

BY KAYLA DWYER

Sophomore Shawn Davis was seated at a table next to the Towers Dining Hall “In the Bag” station, when a friend of his walked up and gave him a low five and an extra paper-bag lunch.

“How’re you doing, man?” the friend said. “I got this for you.”

With this, Davis now had a total of seven In the Bag food bags from the first hour he was sitting there on the morning of Nov. 13, about two weeks before Thanksgiving.

Each weekday morning since Nov. 4, Davis has been sitting by In the Bag — one of the college’s services that provides cold lunch items to go, similar to the Campus Center “Grab and Go” station — with an empty box, encouraging students waiting in line to donate a meal swipe to the Salvation Army in an effort he calls “Grab and Give.”

One card swipe at the Towers station allots a student one bag to fill with a cold sandwich or salad, fruit, cup of soup, drink, bag of chips and two cookies. Each day, a volunteer driver has accompanied Davis to deliver his collection of bags, filled with only pre-wrapped items, to the Salvation Army Worship and Service Center in the City of Ithaca.

The Salvation Army, located on North Albany Street, has a fooddistribution program that runs from 1:30–3 p.m. Monday through Friday. It accepts food donations, including the In the Bag and Grab and Go bags, anytime during the week for the volunteers to sort through and distribute.

During the first week of the initiative, Davis received a total of about 60 bagged lunches in donations, averaging about 10 to 15 bags per day.

During the month of November, he donated more than 120 lunch bags.

The Sunday before the beginning of Grab and Give, Davis said, he volunteered to cook and serve at the Salvation Army’s Our Brothers and Sisters Table, a weekend community-feeding program.

“I have seen the demand for these meals,” he said. “There is a place for this food to be going. It’s not some mystery box.”

Major Barbara Carvill, an administrator at the Salvation Army, said

the bags are a helpful addition to their food pantry, especially around holiday seasons, which brings in about 350 families each week.

People from different socioeconomic backgrounds — homelessness, residence at the American Red Cross, those who make the minimum wage, etc. — come alone or with families in need of meals daily, she said.

The idea of Grab and Give came to Davis during an ongoing conversation about privilege in the weekly meetings of Brothers 4 Brothers, a club for men to meet and discuss political, social, communal and academic concerns that affect them.

While the Grab and Give movement is not sponsored by or run through the club, the members have supported the cause, Davis said.

Davis said he sees the movement as a way to take advantage of what students are paying for by sharing their privileges, guaranteed meals, with those in the community who are less fortunate, especially with the holiday season approaching.

Ithaca College requires that all students living on campus, except for those in Garden and Circle apartments, purchase a meal plan.

Davis said part of his inspiration for Grab and Give was out of frustration from not being able to drop his meal plan, which he discovered during a conversation with Jeff Scott, general manager of Dining Services.

“When I hear someone tell me not to question something, it just sets off something in the back of my head where it’s like, ‘All right, well that needs to change,’” Davis said.

Davis said he thinks students should have the option to apply that money toward buying and preparing their own meals, rather than buying a meal plan.

In South Africa, where Davis lived until he was seven years old, his family struggled with not knowing where their next meal might come from, he said. This instability, Davis said, has affected and continues to affect his grandmother and extended family who still live there.

“Even when you have privilege in South Africa, you can’t hope that it’ll be there tomorrow,” Davis said.

“Privilege is more fluid than any of us would like to think.”

Sophomore Shawn Davis carries a box of “Grab and Go” lunches to his car. TUCKER MITCHELL/THE ITHACAN

Davis drops off In-the-Bag donations at the Salvation Army Worship and Service Center in downtwon Ithaca.

TUCKER MITCHELL/THE ITHACAN

PROFILES

BY VICKY WOLAK Late October 2012, senior Joshua Condon was driving from Boston to Ithaca, with friends, when one of them popped in a CD of Disney music. As Condon listened, he imagined the Ithaca College Symphony Orchestra performing the songs.

“Students here really love Disney music,” Condon said.

“A lot of people had gotten into music or the desire to study music and got excited about music through listening to a lot of Disney as a child.”

More than a year after that car ride, Condon is the artistic director of “Disney in Concert: Tale as Old as Time,” a onenight-only concert that opened 8 p.m. Feb. 15 in Ford Hall in the James J. Whalen Center for Music. The concert featured a full orchestra and choir of students and faculty, as well as the VoICes Multicultural Chorus.

Condon said he wanted to do

a final project for his senior year, and he thought a Disney concert would be a fun change of pace from the classical repertoire he and his fellow music students are used to performing.

“I knew that, for a senior project, I wanted to do something kind of big,” Condon said.

“Hearing that CD on the car ride back, I thought, ‘What’s stopping us from doing something like this?’”

Condon said he took a cue from Walt Disney himself, who said, “The way to get started is to quit talking and start doing.”

He researched Disney shows and came across “Tale as Old as Time,” a 90-minute concert the Disney Concert Library rents to symphony orchestras.

To help make the production happen, Condon said, he launched an Indiegogo.com campaign last summer, which raised $3,000 toward the down payment for the performance rights and a base marketing

budget. He was also able to save money by giving only one performance, which sold out Feb. 6.

The production also featured a special video message from Bob Iger ’73, CEO of the Walt Disney Company.

During the show, Condon played multiple roles: director, conductor, pianist, synthesizer player and soloist. For some pieces, he passed off the conductor’s baton to seniors Michael Samson, conductor of the Ithaca College Gamer Symphony Orchestra, and Ben Van de Water, conductor of Ithacapella.

Van de Water said “Fantasmic,” a suite based on the popular live show at Walt Disney World and Disneyland, was his favorite piece to conduct.

“It’s simple in such a way that it just allows you to kind of flow with it and feel the music,” Van de Water said.

The two-act concert was divided up into medleys. Some are suites from specific films,

such as “Mulan” and “Pirates of the Caribbean,” while others are classified by theme, such as “True Love Conquers All,” which includes Disney love songs “Bella Notte” and “Beauty and the Beast.” The medleys feature both student and faculty.

Susan Avery, associate professor of music education, said she had not seen Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” before Condon and Van de Water asked her to sing “Poor Unfortunate Souls” in the villains’ medley. Avery said much of her inspiration for Ursula came from Pat Carroll, the original voice actress, and she added her own observations as a first-time viewer of the film.

Condon said the timelessness and popularity of Disney films goes beyond the stereotypical themes of true love and magic.

“The journey [of fulfillment is] always represented in every Disney movie, so much so that it captures a basic human experience and need,” Condon said.

TOP: Original sheet music from “Tale as Old as Time” was used in the concert.

BOTTOM: From left, Seniors Josh Condon and Ben Van De Water conduct the orchestra.

DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

81

HOP TO IT

BY TAYLOR PALMER A long, green vinyl banner hangs on a red barn in Freeville, N.Y. “No Farms, No Beer.”

The banner is the only separation between this barn and a dozen other barns in the town located 12 miles outside Ithaca. But this particular farm is nothing like the others.

On a sunny, fall afternoon, senior Josh Grazul pulls a 70-year-old, red Ford tractor in between two of the rows of crops planted behind the barn. Grazul, tall and broad shouldered, bends down and grabs one of the flowering plants on the vine. He plucks a soft, green pinecone-shaped bud from the plant. Squeezing the bud gently, he sniffs it and smiles.

“There’s nothing like the smell of fresh-picked hops,” he said.

He smirked.

“Except maybe the taste of a fresh-brewed beer.”

This farm is home to the Rhizome Republic, the hops farm and distribution company of which Grazul is the owner and creator.

Since he began growing hops just two years ago, Grazul has become a preeminent hops provider in the area.

Through shrewd carpentry and farming, tireless hours and unbridled devotion for the hops, Grazul has transformed a dingy attic into a hops dryer, a rake and handmade pulleys into a vine processor, a pond into a personal irrigation system and a two-plant operation into more than 2,000 plants, worth more than $270,000.

Grazul was raised in Freeville, N.Y., and attended Tompkins Cortland Community College after high school, earning an associate degree in sciences before enrolling at Ithaca College.

After a couple months as a business major, Grazul’s father urged him to put his knowledge into action and start a business.

“I told him to start his own business,” his father said. “I wanted him to get going on something and put his classes to use.”

It didn’t take Grazul long to think of something that would fit the bill — beer.

Grazul had always been a beer lover and cherished his German heritage — one heavily entrenched in brewing history — so he decided to open up a hops farm. He immersed himself in the biology, maintenance, culture and history of the plant and got in touch with other growers in the area to learn as much as he could.

Once he entered the hops business, Grazul began his run of trial and error. From stringing up his vines with rope instead of twine to using sheep instead of hands to clear weeds, Grazul has found ways

to make his business more efficient.

He has used this technique and money from sales to grow his crop immensely. Even though his business is expanding, Grazul said the stress of the business end of hops growing doesn’t compare to the joy of getting down and dirty, working with his hands and raising the plants from the ground up.

“I have a bunch of them, but every time one of them falls, it still feels sad,” he said jokingly. “It feels like they’re all my little babies.”

A beer featuring Grazul’s hops debuted in September at the Bandwagon pub. That beer, the Harvest Ale, was one of the most popular items on the menu. Senior Reeve Moir, who tried the beer for the first time at Bandwagon, said he could taste the freshness in the drink.

“It’s a great beer, plain and simple,” Moir said. “It’s really fresh.

They must be some damn good hops.”

TOP: Senior Josh Grazul uses a hook on a long pole to get hops off his growing lines.

BOTTOM: Grazul loads a bine of hops onto a tractor bed.

TUCKER MITHCELL/THE ITHACAN

BY VICKY WOLAK Senior Genevieve Cohn sits on the beige couch in her off-campus apartment, her hands covered in charcoal. Rather than turning into a messy disaster, her afternoon’s work is concentrated on a portrait of a friend. Her skilled fingers add the finishing touch to a wisp of hair on the shoulder and coppery accents to an otherwise black-andwhite portrait.

People predominate in the canvases in Cohn’s collection of work. Her models are her friends and family, and sometimes herself. Some pieces zoom in on singular parts of the body, such as a shoulder and turned head or a hand poised on piano keys. All are defined by their deep shadows and minute details, which stem from Cohn’s fascination with the human figure.

“It’s great with figures and with portraits because you can either look at them just aesthetically and be like, ‘That’s a beautiful body,’ or it’s really easy to manipulate the body in order to create a deeper meaning, which can be really powerful,” Cohn said.

Cohn was drawn to Ithaca because she wanted a different environment than her hometown of Ferrisburgh, Vt. Cohn came to Ithaca College as an exploratory major. During registration, she saw

that there was a space open in a printmaking course. Cohn said though she was intimidated at first, it was the best decision she could have made because it encouraged her to take more art courses and eventually to declare a major.

“I don’t know if I would have been brave enough to take an art class after [missing the opportunity],” Cohn said.

Along with her art classes, Cohn took several anthropology and sociology courses, but she said it was her Introduction to Culture and Communications class that inspired her to declare her double-major at the end of her sophomore year.

“The culture and communications major is great because it’s so interdisciplinary, and you can really follow what you’re interested in,” Cohn said.

Cohn said she is most interested in cultural diffusion, and her study abroad destinations reflect her interests. She has studied abroad twice — once in the Himalayan Mountains of India during the summer of 2012, and once in Granada, Spain, during the Spring 2013 semester.

“It blew my mind, every new place that I went to, the way that so many different facets of humanity can exist, and yet we all have this common thread,” Cohn said.

Though her artistic focus is still on

drawing and painting, Cohn said her travel experiences have seeped into her artwork and have inspired her to try new forms of art, such as silk-screening.

“I did a silk screen where I kind of combined images from home and from Spain, and then with written letters, to express the pull between being abroad and the connection you have with home and the people at home and how you always take a part of where you travel with you,” Cohn said.

Cohn continued her study of art while abroad. While taking a six-week-long course titled Himalayan Buddhist Art and Architecture during her experience in India.

The India trip was Cohn’s first time abroad, and she said it sparked her interest in globalization and Americanization — the ways in which cultures coexist and interact.

As part of her coursework, she traveled to many Buddhist villages and studied the art in the monasteries, which is closely tied to the region’s religious and cultural traditions.

Cohn said her travels in India gave her a newfound appreciation for art history.

“I’d never really been interested in art history before,” Cohn said. “To actually be there and speak with monks and see the practice and how it influences the practice was huge.”

This semester, Cohn is back at the college and has turned her apartment into her own personal art studio. Senior Liz Levine, who was Cohn’s roommate in Ithaca this past summer, said Cohn’s canvases were scattered all over the walls of their apartment and Cohn is always working at them.

“She would nail the canvases up on the wall and stand there for 10 hours working on the painting,” Levine said.

PROFILES

Broad Strokes

TOP: Senior Genevieve Cohn is seen drawing in charcoal. LEFT: Cohn works on a charcoal drawing on Dec. 10. RIGHT: Cohn displays one of her finished works.

TUCKER MITCHELL/THE ITHACAN

83

Ally for adoptees

BY SARA KIM

Sophomore Emily Quinn, president and founder of the Adoption Support and Awareness Alliance, was adopted from China at three months old and is now using the club to create a community for adoptees.

SABRINA KNIGHT/THE ITHACAN

At just three months old, sophomore Emily Quinn was adopted from China. As she grew up with her adopted family in the United States, she learned about her ethnicity and Chinese culture alongside American customs.

Last semester, Quinn founded the Adoption Support and Awareness Alliance club at Ithaca College to share her adoption story with the college community. She said many of the adoptees she has met on campus did not have the same cultural upbringing as her.

“I was so fortunate to have this upbringing with learning about my culture and adoption my entire life,” Quinn said. “I knew I had … enough skills to start a club where I could help other people with adoption issues that come up, or make a safe place for them on campus.”

Quinn said she attended camps for adopted children, hosted by Heritage Camps for Adoptive Families, for 14 years.

Each of the organization’s 11 camps is three-to-four days long, and adopted children learn about different heritages from their counselors. At these heritage camps, Quinn said, she learned about her heritage and adopted life.

Quinn said many students who are adoptees do not have a safe place on campus to express themselves and learn from one another. The Center for Counseling and Psychological Services at the college does not currently provide specific support for adoptees.

Quinn said learning about her adoption inspired her to become an advocate, which was an important factor in the creation of the ASAA. Ari Kissiloff, assistant professor in the Department of Strategic Communications and adviser to the ASAA, said he hopes the club will raise funds to help finance families of adopted children in the Ithaca community. Kissiloff, an adoptee born in New York City, is married to an adoptee from Korea.

Vivian Lin, an ASAA member and president of the Asian American Alliance, said she hopes her club will work with the ASAA to create a safe environment in which everyone can open up and learn from one another.

“It’s important to really form that united community, especially with adoptees, [because] it’s hard to find a place to fit in sometimes,” Lin said.

Lin said through the combined efforts of the AAA and the ASAA, both clubs will promote each other, garnering more attention and developing a group of attendees each meeting.

Quinn said her goals for the club include celebrating National Adoption Month in November. During the month-long celebration, she said, she wants to hold campus-wide events like inviting a guest speaker.

Discussing her long-term plans for the club, Quinn said she hopes that the ASAA will help adoptees on campus appreciate their experiences.

“Family can’t be defined just by genetics,” Quinn said.

“Adoption is a result of love, and it gives potential for a family to form with unconditional love.”

PROFILES

STAGING SUCCESS

BY ERICA PALUMBO Junior Julie Sullivan clutches her pink binder close to her chest and breathes in deeply. The word “Staged,” typed in boldface cursive on the cover, appears beneath her slender forearm as she adjusts the binder to free up her hands and motions stage directions to her performers.

Sophomore Hailee Murphy, who is slowly unbuttoning the shirt of her seated co-star, sophomore Andrew Wyman, pauses her dance.

She looks up from her mock striptease as Sullivan’s ringing voice cuts through the smooth music.

“You need to be all over him when we go through this,” Sullivan says. “But not too much; remember, it’s for ICTV.” “So no lap dances?” Murphy asks.

Straight brunette strands brush the top of Sullivan’s shoulder as she cocks her head to the left.

“For you,” Sullivan says with a sly smile, “that’s OK.” After several minutes of explosive, adolescent laughter, Sullivan calls upon her directorial spirit and snaps her wayward cast back to focus.

“All right guys, let’s get back to work.”

Sullivan and her crew are in the throes of rehearsal for an original, three-episode Ithaca College Television show, which she co-created in Spring 2013 with junior Andrew Ronald.

“Staged” follows the story of college senior Bridget Morgan, played by senior Jessica Caracciolo. Bridget is facing expulsion from her school’s theater program and is forced to create a musical in order to maintain her status in the department. It will be a first for ICTV, which has never aired a show with a musical format.

Ronald said the show officially got its wings when he had lunch with Sullivan in the Terrace Dining Hall during the spring semester of their sophomore year. He pitched his idea for a musical to Sullivan.

“Knowing she was coming from a theater background, I thought she’d really be on board for a musical,” he said. “Plus, other people would be like, ‘Um, a musical? What?’”

Sullivan, who has been a fan of musical theater all her life, said signing up to help create a musical show felt natural. However, since switching majors to television-radio her freshman year, finding her niche in television production did not come easy.

After being rejected in the winter of her senior year of high school from the college’s B.F.A. Acting major — which requires a competitive auditioning process prior to acceptance — Sullivan resolved to continue her involvement in theater by majoring in theater studies.

She soon found, however, that there were few opportunities for non-performance majors to get involved with productions within the walls of Dillingham Center. Determined to find an outlet where she could perform, Sullivan said she began to explore the television studios in the Roy H. Park School of Communications.

Sullivan said she was so enthralled with her first scriptwriting assignment from the Developing Story Narratives class with Julie Blumberg, assistant professor of media arts, sciences and studies, that she called her mother to tell her she was changing her major.

“My mom said she had never heard me so excited about school before,” she said. “So I switched my focus to TV and scriptwriting, and theater would be my minor. That class totally changed my idea of what I wanted to do.”

Junior Julie Sullivan takes a breath during rehearsal of her ICTV show “Staged” in Whalen.

COREY HESS/THE ITHACAN

Sullivan’s passion for her three academic pursuits, television-radio, scriptwriting and theater studies, were discovered at different times during her youth. Sullivan said she was the “fine-arts girl.”

Despite her early determination to become an actress, Sullivan said she has never looked back since switching her major.

“I never once regretted the decision,” she said. “I’m also the most indecisive person ever, so when I make a decision on my own, it’s pretty big stuff. I love being able to say, ‘I’m good with this!’”

“What it comes down to is what do you do when people make you hate something you love so much?” she said.

It is a question Sullivan has grappled with since deciding to forgo her pursuit of a career as a performer in exchange for a work as a scriptwriter. But it is a question she said has helped her lay the foundation for a future on the opposite side of the camera.

“It’s about the friends you make in college and figuring out what really makes you happy,” she said.

85

Senior Stephanie Lee poses with her painting Jan. 27 in a studio in Ceracche Center.

COREY HESS/THE ITHACAN

PAINTING THE PAST

BY TAYLOR COLBY When most people think of Jamaica, beaches, reggae music and delicious food typically come to mind. But alongside the tourist attractions and beautiful scenery exists another reality, one that isn’t always so pleasant: the growing socioeconomic crisis facing the country. Most Americans don’t see the despair and complacency in the stolid eyes of those less fortunate.

Senior Stephanie Lee, an art major with a minor in still photography and a Jamaican native, is trying to bring these issues to light through her year-long senior project, which takes a different spin on photojournalism by blending photography, newspaper articles and painting into cohesive and striking portraits of poor Jamaicans.

At home, Lee said, she grew up seeing both sides of her environment. On the one hand, she always enjoyed the cuisine and tropical weather. On the other hand, she often felt struck by the misfortune of those who had not come from as privileged a background as she. Lee is passionate about presenting the story of those who can’t afford the cost of living, let alone the education that she said she was lucky to have in Jamaica. Her goal is to create more awareness about the social and political issues that result in the rampant poverty.

Her paintings are essentially portraits of men and women in Jamaica who struggle to make ends meet, who have lost their homes and have often reverted to begging as a means of survival. The colors are muted,

all blacks and gray and sometimes brown, with heavy brush strokes and minimal detail.

The imagery focuses almost solely on the subjects’ faces, whose features are shaded with black tar, used like paint, to show their elongated and sorrowful expressions.

Lee’s project began as a photojournalism exposition, but soon evolved to incorporate painting as the primary art form. She uses a combination of tar, oil paints and newspaper

Senior Stephanie Lee’s inspiration for her art was conditions in native Jamacia. COREY HESS/ THE ITHACAN

prints to make a layered landscape for the subjects she paints.

First, she takes 4-by-5-foot panels and covers them with excerpts from the Jamaican newspaper The Gleaner, using an oil-based medium.

Lee chooses the articles based on their direct relevance to the subjects she photographs and then transforms them into oil paintings. Finally, she uses paint brushes

to apply tar, shading the images she has already outlined. This results in a layered effect, which Lee said reflects the complicated socioeconomic difficulties for many Jamaicans. In one portrait she created about a river raft captain, she used articles relating to the Rio Grande, such as one about the river flooding.

Lee said she is inspired by painters like David Salle, William Kentridge and JeanMichel Basquiat. The influence is present in her paintings, which share the same dark, often politically charged, overtones for which the aforementioned artists are known.

Before beginning their projects, every senior in the Department of Art must submit a proposal to a professor of their choosing so that the professor can guide the student.

Lee said she chose Dara Engler, assistant professor of art, because of her insight and dedication. The project receives weekly critique and assessment from up to 10 faculty members, but Engler serves as the chief mentor throughout Lee’s work.

Engler said she is quite proud of Lee’s decision to depict such a complicated issue through an equally challenging medium.

Lee said while her project began strictly as a statement on conditions in Jamaica, it has shifted into a broader commentary about cultures all over the world, particularly those of island countries.

“This project, however, has many more underlying issues and has changed from being just about Jamaica to representing many other Third World countries and how stereotypes are misleading,” she said.

Stacks of Ithaca Hummus are prepared to be delivered to patrons.

SABRINA KNIGHT/THE ITHACAN

PROFILES

Taste of Passion

BY SAMANTHA CETRULO The sharp scent of lemon wafts from the open plastic package of hummus from Ithaca Hummus Company. Once the hummus is sampled, however, the lemon — one of the key ingredients to achieving the tangy flavor of the creamy, beigecolored dip — blends perfectly with the other ingredients. It helps create a rich spread that melts in the taster’s mouth.

Here is where, Chris Kirby, 27, owner and creator of the Ithaca Hummus Company, spends most of his time. He began selling his tubs of hummus to Collegetown Bagels, GreenStar, Ithaca Bakery, Brookton’s Market and several other local business and eateries in September 2013.

Kirby said his dedication to creating a healthy snacking alternative is what drove him to construct his company.

“Most places won’t buy a product if it doesn’t have a 45-day shelf life,” Kirby said.

“I chose hummus because the

base of the product is beans and garlic, they can stay ultra-fresh for long periods of time.”

Kirby discovered his passion for culinary arts while working part-time in kitchens as a high school student in his hometown

at Cornell University, while single-handedly running his business. He said despite the success of his burgeoning small business, he wants to get his bachelor’s degree because he is interested in the business aspect

Chris Kirby weighs a container full of hummus. SABRINA KNIGHT/THE ITHACAN

of Baltimore. He then earned a culinary degree at Johnson and Wales University, propelling himself into the industry, fashioning dish after dish of delicious cuisine across the country.

Despite where his talent in the kitchen has taken him, Kirby currently resides in Ithaca, earning his bachelor’s degree in Hotel Administration

of the culinary industry and has aspirations to launch hummus companies in other towns.

Standing in front of a 5-gallon plastic container, Kirby meticulously scoops 7-ounce portions of his homemade hummus into their packaging with an ice cream scooper, making sure there is no excess on the sides, and carefully tops off each one

with a drizzle of paprika oil.

“I touch every single one of these … these are my babies,” Kirby said.

Kirby said he enjoys being embedded in Ithaca’s community and prides himself in maintaining relationships with businesses.

“I’m in the stores three to four times a week,” Kirby said. “I get to go and actually meet the people that I’m selling to daily.

I’ve developed relationships with my customers.”

However, creating a local product comes with its challenges. Kirby currently outsources his beans from California because farmers in the area are hesitant to grow large quantities of garbanzo beans, making it tough to in-source all the ingredients, he said. Despite this, Ithaca Hummus is locally made and preservative and geneticmodification free.

“From a farmer’s perspective, they’re not going to go out on a limb and be the first ones to start growing garbanzo beans if they don’t know that they’re going to have it sold,” he said.

87

IN MEMORIUM

BY NOAH ORENT & NOREYANA FERNANDO The Ithaca College community is saddened by the loss of Shirley Hockett, retired professor emerita of mathematics and computer science and one of the college’s most well-known supporters. She passed away at the age of 93 on Sept. 29 at Bridges Cornell Heights, a senior assisted-living facility, where she had resided since 2008.

Hockett joined the college’s mathematics department in 1966. She was named a full professor in 1973 and retired in 1991.

Thereafter, she was honored by the Board of Trustees with the prestigious title of professor emerita.

Hockett was born Sept. 5, 1920, in Bronx, N.Y. She attended Hunter High School and Hunter College in New York city, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1941. She was awarded a master’s degree in applied mathematics from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich., in 1942.

Stephen Hilbert, a professor of mathematics who worked with Hockett, said Hockett always kept in mind the students’ point-of-view when teaching. He said her approach to teaching was distinct.

“She looked for different ways to teach,” Hilbert said. “I remember, about 30 years ago, she tried to use what they call a ‘goals approach.’

Instead of having a big test every five or six weeks, you had a test on one particular topic. You had to master that, and then you had to go through all the topics to complete the course.”

Hadley Smith, an assistant professor of writing at the college, was one of Hockett’s students from 1966 to 1968 when she taught at Ithaca High School. He said Hockett was a lively teacher.

“She would sometimes be writing with the chalk and get to the end of the board … and she just kept writing along on the wall,” Smith said. “She would do a lot of things like that to keep us engaged.

She was a very animated, really good teacher in a tough area to keep 16-or 17-year-olds engaged.”

Hockett was a supporter in the campaign to build the James J. Whalen Center for Music.

The Hockett Family Recital Hall in the music school was named after Hockett and her husband Chas, who passed away in 2000.

She then established the Charles F. Hockett Music Scholarship in memory of her husband.

Hockett was also a textbook author and a mother of five children.

Rachel, one of Hockett’s daughters, said music played an important part in her mother’s life.

“There was a lot of music in our household,” Rachel said. “My dad was a very avid musician and composer. He always composed songs and chamber music. But my mother was not raised with music in

her household.”

Rachel said her mother took up playing the clarinet at the age of 57 and continued playing for about 30 years. She said Hockett’s contributions to the music school stemmed from passions for students and music.

“Once she made some money from the books that she wrote, she wanted to give back,” Rachel said. “The fact that my parents were so generous to the music school was their way of saying thank you for acknowledging how important music has become in my mother’s life as she got older.”

Rachel said she remembered her mother as warm and witty.

“You couldn’t meet her without loving her,” Rachel said. “The cards and notes we are getting since she died are just unbelievable.

She was so beloved, and she loved people.”

Marty Sternstein, a professor in the mathematics department who coauthored two books with Hockett, said she was an insightful author and a welcoming person. Sternstein met his then wife-to-be Faith while teaching in Liberia. After they were married, Sternstein said, Hockett, who was both a colleague and friend, welcomed his wife to the U.S and helped ease her transition to a new culture and living space.

“I got married in 1980, and when we came back to Ithaca, Shirley really took my wife Faith under her wing,” he said. “She was so nice to her and showed her around. My wife had never been to the states.”

After her retirement, Hockett also donated to the college and would regularly attend events and concerts. Shelley Semmler, retired vice president of institutional advancement, said while Hockett’s relationship with the college changed after retiring, her passion further developed.

“But the intensity of her relationship with IC actually grew stronger and stronger over the years,” Semmler said.

SHIRLEY HOCKETT

mICHAEL CLARK WILL LEAVE A LASTING LEGACY AT ITHACA COLLEGE

BY MICHAEL TWOMNEY Since coming to Ithaca College, I’ve lost three students. Michael Clark is the only one who was taking a class with me at the time of his death. Experience has not made grieving any less painful, but I’ve learned that sharing it makes grief bearable. By writing this tribute to Michael, I hope to contribute to the process through which we who knew Michael can transform our grief into memory, and transform memory into an enduring part of ourselves.

From the first time Michael spoke in my Medieval Literature class this semester, I knew I was on alert. Very quickly, I learned the signs of an impending intervention by Michael. First, he would raise his hand, always by planting his elbow on the desk first.

Then, when he had my attention, he would turn his head to the side, regarding me from the corner of his eye, and he would audibly inhale — collecting his breath for the paragraph to come. Whatever he said, I always knew that he was listening, he was thinking, and he was encouraging both of us to operate at the highest level we could manage. Later in the semester, I noticed that sometimes when he spoke in class, other students were taking notes.

Professors know that the dynamic of a class can be ruined by one egocentric student. But Michael didn’t inspire jealousy or impatience. A student at the memorial service Dec. 3 put it beautifully when she said that when Michael spoke, he “made you like him.” Instead of grabbing the spotlight, he encouraged community. In class, there was never simply a dialogue between me and Michael. He usually took the comments of other students into account, and often he addressed other students

directly instead of going through me.

Michael was well-read, curious, philosophical, welcoming to new ideas and unafraid to be original in speaking or in writing. Because he was not worried about grades, he took chances in his papers. In Medieval Literature, I had him rewrite his first essay, which he wrote on a tale in Boccaccio’s “Decameron,” because he was so persuaded of his own thesis that he ignored several key aspects of the tale that contradicted it. The revised paper was a gem.

Michael liked testing himself against difficult canonical authors. He already knew that his career ambition was to teach Shakespeare at the college level, and he was anticipating studying Shakespeare at the London Center, then writing an honors thesis about Shakespeare under Professor Chris Matusiak.

He had memorized passages from Shakespeare’s plays, as well as poems by many other authors. He would have been a wonderful teacher and scholar.

His last paper in my course would have discussed Dante’s “Inferno,” which Michael — whose values guided his reading of literature as much as they guided his relationships with people — approached with a refreshing lack of awe. He didn’t have to be reminded that Dante saw himself in many of the people he placed in his personal, fictional realm of punishment.

I’ll never know what Michael would have said about the second half of “Inferno,” but what I do know is that his classmates have been raising tough questions and proposing sophisticated readings, as if he were still with us.

MICHAEL CLARK

CULTURE

Seth Meyers Comes to A&E Center COURTESY OF CREATIVE ARTS AGENCY

BY JACK CURRAN Ithaca College announced March 5 that “Late Night” host and comedian Seth Meyers had been booked to perform at 8 p.m. April 12 in the Athletics and Events Center.

In addition to his performance, Meyers will also speak to students to kick off the mini-course Weekend Update: Intersections of Politics and Comedy. Eric Maguire, vice president of enrollment and communication, said the college reached out to Meyers because he would do more than just perform and leave. “ We wanted to bring in someone who would not just come to campus and put on a show,” Maguire said. “We wanted there to be a little further engagement, and for there to be an academic element.”

Bob Regan, director of Keshishoglou Center for Global Communications Innovation in the Roy H. Park School of Communications, will teach the mini-course, which will be open to students from all

majors. The class will explore political satire and how it is used in TV. Regan said along with a Q&A session with Meyers, the weeklong course will also include presentations by guest speakers, who will be announced over the next few weeks.

He said students must have tickets for the show to register for the class. The class will be offered from April 12–19. Two hundred students will be able to register for the class.

Meyers is known for being the head writer of “Saturday Night Live” and the sole host of the segment “Weekend Update.”

In addition to writing for “Saturday Night Live,” Meyers began hosting NBC’s “Late Night” on Feb. 24.

Junior Phil Durnford said he is excited to see the college hosting a big-name performer.

“I think it’s great that they’re bringing someone like Seth Meyers here,” Durnford said. “I’d love to see him and hear what he has to say.”

Snap Judgement >> What do you think about Seth Meyers coming to campus during a major accepted students event?

“It’s going to make accepted students think Ithaca is a fun place to be.”

“I think it would be a good thing for the whole college community to have.”

“It adds to the excitement and image of the school.”

“It shows that Ithaca is trying to give back to the students.”

“I’m concerned with how they are going to deal with this big of a space.”

From left to right: Junior Hannah Corbett, Freshmen Rebecca Kane and Mackenzie Gannon, Juniors Zachary Mysza and Ritza Francois

CULTURE

The Textor Ball in the afternoon sun as seen on April 1.

DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

Textor Ball explained...

BY NOREYANA FERNANDO It’s an object known by many names: the Textor Ball, the Textor Fish, the golf ball from the gods or, more sensationally, as the structure that will roll off the hill if a virgin graduates from Ithaca College. While the campus continues to wonder about the structure’s backstory, the one Ithaca resident who knows its truth is its creator.

Jack Squier, a Master of Fine Arts ’52 graduate of Cornell University, designed and built the Textor Disc, which today is iconic at the college. Squier, who taught sculpture at Cornell for 45 years before retiring in 2011, lives in Ithaca during the summer and fall, spending the rest of his time in Florida.

Squier met President Tom Rochon in July 2013 to celebrate the Textor Disc’s renovation. Rochon said Squier was pleased with the condition of the sculpture.

“It was like seeing a legend come to life,” Rochon said via email. “Mr. Squier had not seen his sculpture for a number of years. He noted with approval that it has been well cared for, adding ruefully that it is holding up better than he is.”

Nearly 50 years ago, a tractor-trailer pulled up outside Textor Hall carrying a giant object covered in black tarpaulin. Several students gathered on the stone patio, postulating, whispering and watching the object’s installation in preparation for Ithaca College’s 75th Anniversary celebrations.

The beginnings of the Disc go back to the late ’60s, after then-college President Howard Dillingham saw a seven-inch model of the sculpture at one of Squier’s exhibitions in New York City.

The model was one in a series of abstract heads that Squier had designed.

Squier said Dillingham had asked him if he could make a bigger version of the Disc for the college to fill a central location on campus. David Mandeville, a former trustee and attorney in Elmira, N.Y., paid to have it built and dedicated the Textor Disc to his grandfather, Hubert Mandeville.

So Squier began work on the sculpture at the Cornell Foundry. With the help of an assistant, he finished it

during the summer of 1967, working six days a week before it was installed on campus in the fall.

The sculpture, which is 10 feet in diameter and 6 feet through the center, is made largely of steel and fiberglass, Squier said.

“We made a steel frame, which was embedded in Styrofoam,” he said. “The piece was carved in foam and then laminated over the foam core with polyester resin and fiberglass. Finally, that was all smoothed out and covered in aluminum leaf.”

Squier said there was a heavy machine operators’ strike two or three days before the Disc was to be installed. Therefore, they had to use a come-along tool, which is a chain fastened to a tree, in order to bring the Disc across the lawn and up the Textor Hall stairs, he said.

Carl Sgrecci, former vice president of finance and administration at the college, was a first-semester transfer student in October 1967 and was one of the students to watch the sculpture arrive on campus.

“We had just stepped out [of class], and a bunch of us were standing around talking there on that stone patio outside of Friends Hall,” he said.

Sgrecci said he and his friends had different predictions about the unveiled structure.

“Students can always be smart alecks; no offense, I was one too,” Sgrecci said. “So we were just all speculating what it might be. I remember one of the students saying, ‘Maybe it’s a big bust of Mrs. Dillingham’ … She was recognized on campus by the students.”

The Textor Disc is not the only one in the series of “Heads” sculptures still standing. Another larger version of the Disc is in front of the Castellani Museum at Niagara University.

Squier said the hypotheses and folklore surrounding the sculpture on Ithaca’s campus have amused him.

Dispelling some of the lingering myths, he said the sculpture is an abstract piece.

“It’s an abstraction based on a series I did called ‘Heads,’” he said. “This was a big version of one of them.

[Dillingham and I] decided to call it a Disc to keep it from sprouting mustaches.”

9393

SWUG LIFE

BY ALLIE HEALY “This is really happening,” I thought to myself as I stood in a bar bathroom on day three of Halloweekend, surrounded by women in barely-there spandex shorts and sports jerseys with neon bras peeking out from under the loose mesh. I, however, was dressed as a rooster with a red feather boa, red baseball cap, foam beak and zero sex appeal. And I didn’t give a damn.

I stood up against the mirrored wall waiting for my roommate, senior Erica Palumbo, who was inside a stall.

One woman came strutting in with a corset made solely of playing cards. Another shrilled when she realized she was standing next to the woman whose old ID she was using to get in. They gushed, and I needed another drink.

To my relief, Erica exited the stall, and four women piled in behind her. While Erica washed her hands, I gave her a nudge.

“Watch this,” I said to her with a smirk. “Hey guys, can I ask you a quick question?”

The hair-fixing and paper-towel dabbing stopped, and their makeup-smudged eyes were on me.

“Can you humor me, and tell me what year you all are?”

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/ TUCKER MITCHELL

A unanimous “freshman!” rang out. I turned to Erica and gave her an I-told-you-so look before one brave freshman spoke up.

“Why do you ask?” she said.

“Oh, I’m writing about SWUGs…” Cue simultaneous eye rolls and face-scrunching. SWUGs are Senior Washed Up Girls. In this moment, I was proving to Erica that we were just that.

In my last months of college, the local bars — or at least the weekend-night circuit bars — are not as exciting anymore. The forbidden fruit has been digested. It has come to the point that my roommates have befriended the bartenders and some bouncers.

We’ll stay at the bar at least 30 minutes after the lights come on and proceed to “Club Sammy’s” afterward or hike up Hudson Street only to go home and demolish two boxes of mac ’n’ cheese. We’ll wear the coveted hoodieand-leggings combination to classes the next day — like most days — and our major conflict later that night will be who has to get up from their spot in the living room to put the DVD in the player.

But, my love for the party hasn’t died. The fact of the matter is I’m not trying to impress anyone anymore. I’m not going to wear high heels to make myself even taller than most guys.

I’m not going to pretend that wearing tank tops at night in 40-degree weather is a good look. I refuse to wake up an hour before class for the sake of putting on eyeliner and blush. I’m over that life.

Enter the SWUG life.

Lingering around college campuses for a few years now, SWUG was made famous by Raisa Bruner, a now-Yale University alumna, last March — among other writers for the Yale Daily News.

I read Bruner’s lengthy ode to the SWUG, and it dawned on me — the woman she described was me. My “decline,” as Bruner calls it, is more beer-soaked than her “wine-soaked” senior year, and she spoke volumes to my undeclared disposition and unexplained motives in my social life.

Washed up or not, SWUGs just know how to have a seriously good time. And if that means not looking like we did freshman year, then so be it.

So don’t let our appearance in class drive you away — we are just evolving into what we were meant to be, for the meantime anyway.

Once I graduate, move on from college and enter real adulthood, this lifestyle will surely fade. For now, the SWUG club is here to stay.

CULTURE

Caffie-Nation

BY EVIN BILLINGTON It’s 9 a.m. and the line for La Vincita, one of the few places at Ithaca College that sells a bevy of caffeinated products, is almost out the door. While some students may be buying breakfast food, the crowd around the beverage counter suggests that many are getting their caffeine fix.

As midterms and finals approach, students load up on a combination of caffeine products to keep going all day and into the night. In a survey conducted by The Ithacan, 74 percent of student respondents said they have between one and three cups of a caffeinated beverage a day, and 65 percent said coffee was their preferred caffeinated drink, while only 16 percent said they regularly drink energy drinks.

A recent study at Newcastle University, which researched the effects of caffeine in honeybees, suggests that caffeine may actually improve memory.

This bodes well for students who load up on caffeine during midterms and finals, but increased use of caffeine also poses some serious side effects for consumers.

Freshman Gabriela Parada began drinking coffee when she came to college in order to remain alert during her classes. She drinks one or two cups a day, but she said she is already hooked and is experiencing some unsavory side effects.

“I hate it because now I’m addicted to it,

and I get really tense or nervous when I don’t drink it,” Parada said. “I can’t write, and it makes me really jittery. ” Parada said her go-to drink is Starbucks’ Blonde Roast coffee, which, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, has 330 milligrams of caffeine in a 16-ounce, or mediumsized, cup. The Mayo Clinic projects that for most healthy adults, 200–300 milligrams, which equates to about two to four cups of brewed coffee, isn’t harmful. But more than 500 milligrams of caffeine a day can have negative health effects, such as insomnia and nervousness. Parada’s double dose of coffee gives her more than 600 milligrams of caffeine a day.

Nancy Reynolds, the college’s health promotion center program director, said many students may not realize exactly how much caffeine they are ingesting throughout the day.

Edible caffeine, like the AWAKE chocolate bars sold in coffee shops around campus, have also gained popularity at the college. AWAKE has about 101 milligrams of caffeine per serving, which is about the same as a cup of brewed coffee. Sophomore Elise Edmonds said she has tried the chocolate, but is not convinced it is much better than a cup of coffee.

“When I first tried the chocolate, I was like, ‘I don’t feel like having coffee, but the chocolate sounds good,” she said.

“But it didn’t really get me far.”

There are also organic methods for getting a dose of caffeine. One is Guayaki’s Yerba Mate drinks, which are available locally at places like GreenStar Cooperative Market.

Yerba Mate is a plant that has about the same amount of caffeine as coffee.

Mateo Sluder, Northern California cebador, a traditional server of mate who ensures the quality of the beverage and shares it in social circles, is the area sales manager for Guayaki.

He said mate tastes a bit like grass, but most of Guayaki’s drinks are fruit-

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/ DURST BRENEISER AND EMILY FULLER

flavored. Guayaki makes energy drinks with Yerba Mate, including energy shots, which contain 40 milligrams of caffeine, and canned mate, which has about 70 milligrams of caffeine per serving.

Though not on Ithaca’s campus, Guayaki’s Yerba Mate is available in the dining halls and campus food stores of about 50 other universities across the country, catering to who Sluder said are their top customers — college students.

“It very often becomes one-third of the caffeinated liquid coming out of a dining establishment, because students really quickly figure out, ‘Oh, this gives me all the stimulation and focus that I want, I don’t shoot to the moon and crash and burn,’” Sluder said.

According to Reynolds, other ways to stay energized and focused do not have to involve caffeine at all, like taking a brisk walk for a study break.

“Studies have shown that eating a piece of fruit can improve concentration even better than caffeine,” she said.

Despite health risks, Reynolds said the effects of caffeine can be different for everyone. During stressful times, like midterms, she recommends that students stick to the energizing methods they are already used to.

“Take some time to think about what your experiences have been,” she said.

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. s M r. &

M

a c a h t I

Every year, a group of seniors battles for the crown and the eternal glory of being named Mr. or Ms. Ithaca. This year’s contest was memorable, but it wasn’t much of a close race. One strong competitor took home the crown. Here’s how it went down Oct. 8 in Emerson Suites.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Senior Liana Cascini performs a saxophone solo.

Senior Dylan Van Arsdale struts down the runway with a horse-head mask.

Senior Jon Schuta proposes to senior Sarah Glancey on stage for his talent while junior Jake Winslow officiates the fake wedding.

Senior Maris Jones plays a DJ mix she created.

Senior Nelissa Tavares performs a dance.

ALL PHOTOS CONTRIBUTED BY DURST BRENEISER

BY KAMARA WILLIAMS

CULTURE

Senior John Horan sported only nude underwear, while senior Meredith Jones wore a blue basketball T-shirt and matching rhinestone-studded pumps on the stage in Emerson Suites while accepting their Mr. and Ms. Ithaca crowns.

The annual Mr. and Ms. Ithaca competition held Oct. 8 not only captivated the excitement of the students, but the judges as well. All 14 contestants, seniors Jones, Horan, Liana Casciani, Courtney Brown, Meg Ciminera, Nelissa Taveras, Taylor Palmer, Amanda Frey, Jon Schuta, Maris Jones, Kanoa Ishihara, James Walsh, Dylan Van Arsdale and Tom Scanlon, made the night entertaining through the annual competition’s three events.

First was spirit wear, a portion where contestants modeled Ithaca College’s colors. Casciani batted baseballs that exploded with confetti upon hitting them, while Brown used an IC Spirit Week banner as a cape.

Second was the formal wear section, where the contestants wore gowns and tuxedos and answered questions, such as, “What do you want to do before graduation?” to which Schuta answered, “I’d like to get an A in a class.” Another question was, “What would you tell your freshman self?” to which Frey answered, “I would tell myself to shut up because I talk too much.”

A major change to this year’s competition was the absence of the swimwear portion, and all contestants performed their talents.

Judge Leila James said she liked that everyone was able to do something they were good at instead of having to model a swimsuit, unlike last year.

The talent section had attendees and judges in stitches from laughing. Short skits, dances, jalapeño pepper eating and comedy acts were seen throughout the night.

Horan danced to a mash-up of Miley Cyrus hits, portraying her evolution from “Hannah Montana” to her wildness today. His performance began with songs like “Best Of Both Worlds” and “Party in the U.S.A.” As he stripped off his costume, revealing more and more skin, Horan then twerked and lipsynced to “We Can’t Stop” and “Wrecking Ball.”

During the Ms. Ithaca contestants’

talent portion, Jones performed the traditional “Evolution of Dance” sequence of YouTube fame.

She also put a spin on Mike Jones’ song, “Mr. Jones,” as she had the entire crowd yelling, “Who? Mer Jones!” during the song’s chorus.

But there could only be two winners.

For the very first time, the judges were not the only ones who would decide the champions.

Voting was conducted via text messages as audience members were given numbers they could text to vote that corresponded to each one of the 12 seniors.

Horan, still clad in his nude, spandex underwear, said he was honored and very grateful that the audience thought he was the best performer — even though he was not sure that he would win.

“I’m so stoked,” Horan said. “I was nervous that I wasn’t going to pull it off, but just feeding off the energy of the crowd made it work.

I had so much fun.”

TOP:John Horan and Meredith Jones receive their crowns.

BOTTOM: Horan and Jones perform their winning routines.

DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

97 97

THE COMMONS:

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

BY KELLY CUCOLO The construction of The Commons remains on track and on budget to meeting its Thanksgiving 2014 completion deadline.

Project Manager Michael Kuo said he and his team have made consistent progress on the project, but are aware that there may be delays as they install new water mains, power lines and sidewalks.

“We planned the project in a deliberate way, but we also have to be ready to react to situations as they surprise us,” Kuo said.

Kuo said the utility lines on State Street, a 150-year-old road, were due for an upgrade. New phone, power and water lines replaced the old lines, which were last repaired in 1975. He said the brick’s unpredictability, however, could have delayed the deadline.

“It’s always a surprise every time you dig,” Kuo said.

Kuo also said the sidewalks would be repaired with new concrete, and trees and lamps would be repositioned to make the streets less crowded in the summer of 2014.

“By livening the street, we’ll make the businesses more valuable,” Kuo said. “It will be much more open. … You will be able to see clear through The Commons.”

Construction has forced a relocation of annual events like Apple Fest, which will be held between West State Street and Cayuga Street this year, Kuo said.

“Since construction is a two-year project with a break during the winter due to the cold weather, the events will go on as planned and on schedule,” he said.

Downtown business owners and the construction company worried that construction may temporarily slow business, but Kuo said the purpose of the reconstruction is to improve future mobility for pedestrians and increase traffic on The Commons.

Kuo said most businesses on The Commons have been understanding of the inconveniences caused by the construction.

Joanne Lamoureux, the owner of the Pack ‘N Ship Store on The

Commons, said the construction has not negatively impacted her business, but her neighbors have lost customer traffic.

“My business has been spared to some degree,” Lamoureux said. “People come here specifically for us, because they know we are here and provide a service they need. Stores that are more general retail that rely on foot traffic I think are being impacted.

There are just fewer people walking around on The Commons.”

Joe Wetmore, the owner of Autumn Leaves Used Books, said the reconstruction is a good investment for The Commons and, as with any maintenance project, decreased foot traffic is expected.

“In the short term, most businesses have seen a reduction in foot traffic, but I’m also predicting that after The Commons is rebuilt, we’ll see an increase in foot traffic from everybody who’s really excited … to see the brand new pedestrian mall,” he said.

Wetmore said there have been small maintenance projects on The Commons since it was built in 1974, but the current project is mostly extensive reconstruction. He said construction updates are a natural part of the business cycle.

He also said the Downtown Ithaca Alliance and the City of Ithaca have kept merchants fully informed about and involved with the construction project since the planning stage.

“The communication during this project has been outstanding,” Wetmore said. “There’s been a lot of discussion both at the planning stage and as the implementation starts moving forward.

We’ve been kept very much abreast of what’s been going on.”

Tammy Baker, outreach coordinator for the construction project, said she thinks the reconstruction of the utilities and surfaces on The Commons and the increased open space will make it a more friendly place to dine and shop.

“There will be more outdoor dining of current restaurants,” Baker said. “A few of them already have outdoor dining, and it would be more inviting.”

Construction remains on track to be completed by the Thanksgiving 2014 deadline.

The Commons seen under construction Sep. 25 TUCKER MITCHELL/THE ITHACAN

BY MARISA FRAMARINI In the crisp bloom of apple season, Amara Steinkraus, assistant orchard manager of Littletree Orchards, walks up the hill to her farm as the September mist rolls through the seemingly endless rows of apples.

In addition to preparing for the Ithaca Farmer’s Market and U-pick, when locals and tourists are invited to pick apples along with other fruits and vegetables, Steinkraus gets ready for the busy apple season, including the 31st Annual Downtown Ithaca Apple Harvest Festival.

Once a small street fair on The Commons, Apple Fest has grown to become a three-day festival that attracts more than 30,000 people each year. Littletree Orchards has been involved in the festival since its opening year in 1982.

It returned Oct. 4–6 for this year’s celebration, selling apple-cider doughnuts and apple butter in addition to its apple cider. But the change in location for this year’s festivities required Apple Fest vendors to plan ahead.

Traditionally, Apple Fest has been held on The Commons. However, the downtown area’s currently disheveled condition as a result of the construction forced the Downtown Ithaca Alliance, the organization that plans the festival, to run it differently this year.

Apple Fest was still be near The Commons on State Street, South Cayuga Street and North Aurora Street but not in the same layout as years past.

The dramatic changes to The Commons have required significant planning on the Downtown Ithaca Alliance’s part. The events manager, Patricia Clark, said she wants to avoid complications similar to those while planning this summer’s Ithaca Festival, which lost the organization significant revenue.

Clark said aspects of Apple Fest change each year, so the construction didn’t prevent anyone from fully participating in the weekend event, even with The Commons in its unrefined state.

“Every year is different,” Clark said. “The fun of planning an event is trying to make a puzzle work the best you can; you want each piece to

fit together. Things change, and it is really important to try and accommodate it and make it work the best it can in that time of change.”

The layout of the festival was like a linchpin, allowing people to interact with The Commons, even though the vendors were not in the same place, Clark said. There were two main areas of the festival. On the west side of The Commons there was food and craft vendors, including Six Mile Creek winery, Little Grey Bakery, Bellwether Hard Cider and Twisted Tree Farm, and music performers, including Ithacappella and Premium Blend, as it has traditionally been in past years. On the east end of The Commons, next to the Community School of Music and Arts, there was a large farmers’ market, more food vendors and games surrounding a big stage.

To prepare for Apple Fest, Steinkraus spent her days in a barn either pressing cider, grading or picking apples. Her main focus was prepping the cider from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. During that time, Steinkraus can complete about five presses a day, which collectively yields about 500 gallons of cider. Each press requires 25 bushels of apples, so the entire process averages out to about 125 bushels a day.

Steinkraus said apple-harvest season begins in September and ends in early October. Generally, the apples used to make these products bloom in May and gradually ripen as September draws near. Ithaca’s inconsistent weather in the past year, however, has presented unpredictable yields for farmers.

The changing of the seasons, however, can be a much easier transition than changing the layout for an annual event like Apple Fest.

Even though vendors are unsure of what the new location will bring, Clark said the Downtown Ithaca Alliance has adapted the layout for the best possible outcome.

Gary Ferguson, Downtown Ithaca Alliance executive director, said he values the spirit Ithaca residents share during the festival.

“It is important for communities to celebrate, and to celebrate collectively,” he said. “This is one of the few times we get to do that. It really is an opportunity to showcase the community and downtown to the region, the students and to people who are new to the area.”

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APPLEFEST

Jon Bennett at Littletree Orchards in Newfield, N.Y., grades apples to turn into cider for the upcoming 31st Annual Apple Harvest Festival. Littletree Orchards has been around for 40 years.

SABRINA KNIGHT/ THE ITHACAN

9999

JUST DO IT

BY STEVEN PIRANI

Many types of art have passed through the doors of the Handwerker Gallery, including sculptures, paintings and photographs. But things changed for Just Do It, when gallery viewers had the chance over the creative reins.

This is “do it,” the newest exhibit to visit Ithaca College. It not only occupies the Handwerker, but also outdoor locations across campus. Curated by distinguished art critic and historian Hans Ulrich Obrist, “do it” is a collaborative effort among artists from all over the world, with the goal of delivering an interactive art-viewing experience.

Obrist first devised the concept of “do it” in 1993 while experimenting with ideas for how exhibits could become more flexible. He contacted 12 artists to contribute “instructions” to different pieces of art.

The prototypical version of “do it” featured instructions from 12 artists, which were circulated in nine languages. Twenty years have passed, and now the exhibit’s repertoire boasts more than 90 names, including David Lynch and Yoko Ono, though the Handwerker has only selected roughly 40 to “do.” These artists have provided “instructions” for their respective pieces, all of which are compiled into the

LEFT: A student writes out text from “The Catcher in the Rye” in the Handwerker Gallery TUCKER MITCHELL/THE ITHACAN RIGHT: Sophomore Megan Wirth draws in Sol LeWitt’s “a black not straight line...” at the Handwerker Gallery. JENNIFER WILLIAMS/THE ITHACAN

group, “do it: The Compendium.”

Following these instructions is where the true venture begins. “Do it” is less of a title and more of a command, the first step of the exhibit being the construction of the works. In what is dubbed the “laboratory phase,” visitors will be given creative license to execute the directions the featured artists left for them. Both students and community members can interact with any of the pieces and contribute to them, turning the patrons’ roles from onlookers into creators. Their finished products are then displayed for all to see. Consequently, this “do it” exhibit will be different from any other.

Senior Adrian Anderson, who interns at the Handwerker and helped prepare for the exhibit, said “do it” is not only an enriching experience, but also a socially stimulating one.

She said the joint effort among visitors to create art may nurture an atmosphere different from most galleries and museums.

“It’s definitely more social than a typical gallery or museum experience,” she said.

One notable piece is “Sculpture for Strolling” which asks viewers to soak newspapers and mold them all together to form a meterwide sphere that will be rolled — or “strolled”

— around once finished.

Alternately, patrons can take a marker and follow Sol LeWitt’s instructions for drawing “A black not straight line…” where visitors will trace in bright colors the contour of a black snaking line that meanders about one of the Handwerker’s walls, eventually producing a cascading rainbow effect.

With pieces set to appear and evolve not only within the gallery, but also around campus, “do it” has the potential to reach the entire student body. Mara Baldwin, director of the Handwerker, said she wanted to bring “do it” to campus because of its interactivity.

She hopes the pieces that venture out of the display space will tempt people to visit the gallery for the full show.

“It will be nice to see pieces sprouting up around campus, not inside of the gallery itself,” Baldwin said. “We’re hoping that sort of seduces people into the space.”

Regardless of who finds their way into the exhibit, the takeaway from it is a particular sentiment that Baldwin said has survived through this exhibit since its conception.

“Art isn’t something that happens in life,” she said. “Life can be art, and life can be thought about artfully.”

BY STEVEN PIRANI Stone-faced pharaoh Amenemhat III gazes outward into the Handwerker Gallery and directly into the eyes of a middle-aged woman drawn on canvas. Through the frames of her glasses, she gazes back, staring at a 4,000-year-old piece of Egyptian royalty. This old-meets-new experience isn’t the result of a rip in time, it’s the work of artist Benjamin Entner, whose exhibition “Sumus: Figurative Sculpture Through the Ages” was featured in the gallery from Nov. 13 through Dec. 15.

The inspiration for “Sumus” came to Entner’s mind while in Florence, Italy. The sculptor, struck by a lapse of artist’s block, found inspiration for the exhibit in local sculptures around Florence.

“I was living specifically in Florence, and Top: A piece at the entrance to the Handwerker Gallery.

Middle: Artist Benjamin Entner stands by pieces in “Sumus: Figurative Sculpture Through the Ages,” during the exhibit’s opening Nov. 14 in the Handwerker Gallery Bottom: Artist Benjamin Entner’s piece “Anima Damnata” Jennifer Williams/The Ithacan and Courtesy Erica Moriarty (Middle)

CULTURE

BLOW UP ART I didn’t have many ideas on what I wanted to make or what I wanted to do,” Entner said. “You walk around Florence, and there’s just statues of naked men everywhere.”

This injection of the modern human into the classical realm is a theme that carries throughout “Sumus.” Entner, utilizing his knowledge of classical sculpture and the gallery’s collection of classic casts, provides artistic juxtaposition as he crafts each piece’s contemporary equivalent. Slabs of marble have been replaced by balloons of canvas, which Entner draws on and then inflates, bringing his illustrations into the realm of sculpture.

With the artistry of Italy fresh in his mind, Entner crafted his first work, an inflatable, 42-foot-tall adaptation of the statue Colossus of Constantine. Despite their differences in execution, these contemporary recreations keep the name of each classic piece they are based upon. Entner said while he is celebrating the art, he set out with the objective of parodying the pieces.

“I am definitely celebrating [classic sculpture] and trying to

contemporize it,” Entner said. “All of the pieces are a parody of a classical sculpture.”

One of the exhibit’s best examples of this is the recreation of the classical Greek piece, “Discobolus.” Originally a bronze sculpture, “Discobolus” depicts a nude male figure in the midst of throwing a disc.

It’s an image of athleticism and the masculine figure, but Entner turns it on its head by ditching sculpture for illustration and swapping out the original subject for an elderly one. This “Discobolus” is wearing a checkered shirt, is painfully hunched and seems comically out of place.

Along with this friendly mocking, Entner said he also aimed to ask questions about the art on display. He said he enjoys the idea of making his audience rethink concepts of beauty and human perfection. “[Discobolus] is the ideal man, and I like that idea of, ‘Well, here’s this old man,’” Entner said.

“You can kind of question, what is beautiful?

What is the perfect body?

And how is that defined?

Not only is it celebrating the things in the past, but it also challenges it.”

101101

ABOVE: Cast members of “Into The Woods” perform scenes Nov. 7 in the Hoerner Theatre in Dillingham Center.

DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

INTO THE WOODS

but perhaps their life has changed subtly or overtly since they told it last,” Berryman said.

Sondheim and librettist James Lapine infused a darkness to the The Hoerner Theatre in Dillingham Center has seen many intristory that is akin to the original tales. Many of the somber thematic cate and detailed sets grace its stage. On Nov. 7, an eerie forest and hanging light bulbs decorated the space, a simple setting for the clas- elements of the show stemmed from the inclusion of adult plot points, such as betrayal, adultery and death. The inclusion of these sic tales that made up the theater’s production, Stephen Sondheim’s themes creates a juxtaposition of the classic fairy tales against a new, “Into The Woods,” that debuted on the stage the same day. grim world.

The show followed several of the Brothers Grimm’s most famous Though the music in “Into the Woods” posed vocal challenges, fables, but centered on the tales of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Little Red Ridinghood,” “Cinderella” and “The Baker and the Baker’s Wife.” the show’s music director, Brian DeMaris ’02, said the cast worked to overcome them.

The play opened with Cinderella (senior Katie Drinkard) wishing Drinkard was no exception to experiencing the musical challenges to go to a ball, Jack (senior Avery Sobczak) being forced to sell his of the show, cow named describing them Milky White, as especially Little Red elaborate and Ridinghood laborious. She (sophomore said for CinderRebecca Skowella, especially, ron) visiting her the vocal jumps grandmother up and down (freshman were difficult to Caelan Creaser) perform — the and the Baker most complex (senior Nick music she has Carroll) and the performed at Baker’s Wife Ithaca College. (senior Grace As part of the Stockdale) journey “Into wanting to have The cast performs a song from Stephen Sondheim’s “Into The Woods” on Nov. 7. DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN The Woods,” a child.

Berryman These stories added a group of characters, known as Tree Spirits, bringing a new progressed and ultimately converged as the characters venture into creative element to the production. Throughout the show, the six Tree the woods, initially to complete separate tasks but eventually aiding Spirits, junior Tony Canaty; sophomores Daniel Ghezzi, Kyra Leeds, one another.

Miller Brackett and Alexa Cepeda; and freshman Celena Morgan, But as the play unfolded, the audience learned the stories are not took the form of different creatures, including Cinderella’s birds and as innocent as the versions they grew up with.

Director Susannah Berryman, who made her first foray into Sond- Jack’s cow. Drinkard said she feels that audiences were be able to connect with the production on a deeper level than basic entertainment. heim’s work with this production, said each production of the show “‘Into The Woods’ is big and presents so many life challenges and was different because of the creative team. is such a journey that it really resembles the journey that we take “I believe every time a story is told live, it is at least slightly new through life,” she said. because a new person is telling it, or the same person is telling it,

BY JOSH GREENFIELD

Fires in the Mirror

BY AAMA HARWOOD Staged in a very intimate theater, warm, orange lighting illuminated the cement floor. Only a few grungy city accessories dotted the stage, including a trash can, a wooden police barrier, a graffitied mailbox, some plastic crates and a memorial under a lamp post. This was the set for Ithaca College’s Main Stage Theater production of “Fires in the Mirror,” written by Anna Deavere Smith, that premiered Oct. 3.

“Fires in the Mirror,” directed by Cynthia Henderson, was set in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1991 during the heartbreaking riots and racial disputes between the Orthodox Jews and the Afro-Caribbean community members. The play was composed entirely of monologues, told by Jewish and African-American members of the community: a rabbi, wife, husband and brother. They discussed topics and opinions around racial genocide,

L’etoile

BY ALYVIA COVET Ithaca College Main Stage Theater’s production of, “L’etoile”, which opened Feb. 20, was conducted by Brian DeMaris, assistant professor of music performance and director of opera, and is directed by Jeanne Slater, a guest from the Juilliard School.

The play followed the story of King Ouf (senior Eric Flyte), whose 40th birthday is just around the corner. Every year on his birthday, tradition calls for the execution of a prisoner by the king.

Unfortunately for King Ouf, the jail was empty as his birthday approached. In his plot to find a person to execute on his birthday, the king looked to trick someone into publicly defying the government.

DeMaris said the plot was driven by an outrageous selection of comedic encounters and situations, juxtaposing traditional views of opera.

“There’s a tendency to approach opera as high art, and then there’s a moment when you have to acknowledge that this opera is not high art,” DeMaris said. “But that’s the point: This opera is silliness.”

The kingdom’s constitution also required that the King provide an heir to the throne upon his 40th birthday. Herisson de PorcEpic (senior Chris D’Amico), an ambassador from the neighboring kingdom, and his wife Aloes (sophomore Ariana Warren) decided to bring Princess Laoula (senior Shelley Attadgie), daughter of the king in this neighboring kingdom, to King Ouf and marry them to provide an heir.

Because the show has been translated entirely into English, Attadgie said, the message of the show has become much easier for the audience to understand and follow along without having to read what is happening off an accompanying booklet, as

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From left, seniors Jordan Schultz, Kathryn Allison, sophomore Jelani Pitcher and junior Olivia Donalson play lead roles in “Fires in the Mirror.”

COURTESY OF MAIN STAGE THEATER

suffering and community hardships. It wasn’t entirely clear until the end that each scene and character was talking about a car accident where a 7-year-old African-American boy was killed by a drunk Jewish driver, which later led to the assault and death of another young Jewish man.

What’s interesting about “Fires in the Mirror” was its absence of the fourth wall. The small space made for a very personalized setting where the actors walked near, sat next to or, in the case of sophomore Jelani Pitcher’s portrayal of Rev. Al Sharpton, shook hands with people in the audience. The absence of this commonly administered barrier between the actors and audience allowed for a deeper degree of empathy to emerge.

Senior Xavier Reyes, who plays Henry Rice, stood out among the generally strong cast, especially in a scene staged in a diner. There, he discussed some of the less commonly communicated graphic horrors of slavery as he stewed over his steaming cup of coffee.

“Fires in the Mirror” had a favorable and appropriate soundtrack that accommodates not only the characters, but the emotions of each scene craftily. Most of the music is hip-hop played in between the end of one monologue and beginning of another. Sound designer, senior Alexander Dietz-Kest, took great care to ensure each sound byte fit the character who walked on stage.

“Fires in the Mirror” successfully engaged the audience and made it look at the effects of racism and the struggles of miscommunication from a variety of backgrounds. This production encouraged the audience to look at the world through different perspectives, with each monologue providing an authentic take and revealing that even if a situation appears to be one way, it often has many sides to the story.

often happens in a traditional foreign-language opera. He also said that this aspect made the show more enjoyable for casual opera fans.

“It’s really relatable,” Attadgie said. “You don’t find yourself wondering what they’re saying or what’s actually going on.”

A fairy tale–love story may be common, but “L’etoile” incorporates opera, dialogue, humor, a strong ensemble and a colorful set to tell the story about the strength of love in the face of adversity.

“It really is about the power of love and how it can prevail and how we can’t take ourselves so seriously all the time,” D’Amico said.

Seniors Eric Flyte and Shelley Attadgie and junior Rachel Ozols play King Ouf, Laoula and Lazuli, in the Main Stage Theater production of “L’etoile.” COURTESY OF MAIN STAGE THEATER

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Ke$ha performs on Sept. 29 at Cornell University’s Barton Hall.

DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

BY ASHLEY WOLF Ke$ha put on one crazy, beautiful show Sept. 28 at Cornell’s Barton Hall. The 2 1/2 hour performance was spectacular, featuring the pop star’s eccentric outfits, wild dance moves and powerful voice. The audience was a packed mosh pit, and Ke$ha’s vocals were breathtaking. Her emotions were raw, and the amount of energy she and her crew had on stage was contagious.

Some people had on eye-catching outfits, like one attendee who was wearing a purple cape, a blinking, gold, dollar-sign necklace, a winter hat with cat ears and a cheetah scarf.

After the opener, rapper T. Mills, it took about 20 minutes for Ke$ha to finally come on stage. Fog machines turned on, a guitarist and keyboardist began to play and the outline of Ke$ha became visible through the thick haze. Everyone began jumping up and down as the tune of “We R Who We R” played.

Ke$ha’s full and energetic voice was compelling in this song, putting to rest any rumors that she is terrible live.

Of course, because it’s Ke$ha, her wardrobe was fun and exotic. Though she stayed in the same pair of knee-high, black, leather boots for the entirety of the concert, she changed her outfit four times.

The costumes were fierce, skimpy, bedazzled onesies that were definitely flattering and outrageous.

Ke$ha also tossed money at her male dancers, who were in women’s strip clothes promiscuously dancing on stripper poles,

KE$HA

adding to the show’s raunchy feel.

The performance of “Tik Tok,” one of Ke$ha’s classics, was fantastic vocally; it was also clever and comical, with four dancers dressed in tiger, chicken, rabbit and beaver costumes that played off of her endearing pet name for her fans — “animals.”

The best song performed was “The Harold Song.” Techno beats and a jumpy keyboard played repetitively throughout the song, with

the guitar and drums staying quiet to make room for Ke$ha’s emotional, vulnerable vocals. It was obvious that even though she had performed this ballad multiple times, it is still one of her most impassioned songs.

With Ke$ha’s hot costumes, 12-song tracklist, energetic stage presence, vocal talent and outrageous choreography, those who attended this sold-out performance were certainly lucky.

From left, guitarist Adam Gardner and singer Ryan Miller perform during Guster’s concert Nov. 3 at Ithaca College’s Emerson Suites. TUCKER MITCHELL/THE ITHACAN

AARON CARTER ...came to Ithaca

BY MARISA FRAMARINI

BY FAITH MACIOLEK

Immersed in a stream of blue and green lights, sweat dripping from his brow, Ryan Miller, lead singer and guitarist for Guster, took a quick breather Nov. 3 as he looked out into the screaming crowd.

“It’s a dream fulfilled playing here at Emerson Suites tonight,” Miller said, a coy smile spreading across his face. “How many bands have stopped here on their way to the top?

At least one tonight, motherf-----.”

Miller playfully interacted with his bandmates and the audience, frequently exchanging goofy glances and lackadaisically dancing, bringing out the band’s animated spirit.

Senior Lucas Knapp, the Ithaca College Bureau of Concerts co-president, said Guster drew in a crowd of nearly 450 students.

Guster’s set followed a 45-minute warm-up from local band Second Dam, which brought a respectable crowd of early comers, ranging from college students to middleaged men, and ended its set with a dancing frenzy.

Kick-starting the 90-minute show was “The Captain” from 2006’s “Ganging Up on the Sun,” Guster’s most successful record to date, reaching No. 25 on the Billboard 200 album chart. The up-tempo tune paved the way for an energetic evening. Crowd-pleasers and old favorites, from the bass drum–heavy “Satellite” to “Manifest Destiny,” filled up the majority of the set list, allowing concertgoers to get in their groove.

Even during the layovers between songs, the band did not lose its liveliness. Playful and filled with charisma on stage, Guster displayed a captivating camaraderie. Puttering through a 19-song set list, the group members would exchange instruments with one another, switching from guitar to keyboard.

The set list peaked toward the end of the night with an extended disco dance groove of the “Airport Song.” During a guitar build-up, the stage lights went from steady streams to wildly flashing at full blast to match the tumultuous waves of noises, reminiscent of the club funk that spiraled out of the dance clubs of the late ’70s. The band continued to build up a crescendo of noise, but when the music faded, all that could be heard was the waves of cheers from the excited audience.

Finally, Miller took to the microphone to mock the common encore tactics of bands.

“Thanks, everyone! This is the last song that’s in our set list before we go out and do an encore,” he said. “So, we’ll play this song and walk over there, and you will clap for 10 to 15 seconds, and we’ll come back up to play more.”

Guster left concertgoers reeling from the passion of the performance. Junior Emma Lazzari said she enjoyed the show — even if it meant having to give up studying.

“I had a test the next day, and [the concert] definitely made me not do so well on it, but I think it was worth it,” she said.

“I will remember going to the concert more than I ever will failing that test yesterday.”

It was his party indeed as pop singer Aaron Carter took the stage Sept. 21 at The Haunt in Ithaca. Following the chants of “We want Aaron,” his energetic stage presence had the sold-out crowd dancing along to every lyric.

After an eight-year break from touring, Carter showed his fans he’s still got it.

Carter opened his first set with “I Want Candy,” bouncing around the small stage and smiling non-stop. Joined by his four band members, the triple-platinum artist performed with enough energy to fill an arena. But this venue was much smaller, and Carter utilized every inch of it. The simple setup ensured he was the center of attention.

His band began to play the familiar beat of Robin Thicke’s smash hit, “Blurred Lines,” where he showed his growth from teen heartthrob to modern pop star. Carter sang in a falsetto to rival Thicke’s and showcased his dance moves, never missing a beat. He did some break dancing, showing off his Michael Jackson–like footwork, and even a backflip.

“Blurred Lines” morphed seamlessly into Bruno Mars’ “Treasure,” a song where Carter really shined.

Carter then returned to his own songs.

Crooning with boyish charm, even though he’s now a young man, the lyrics of “Not Too Young, Not Too Old” were a bit outdated — “Switch it off, yo/ Hit me on the pager.” But Carter performed with the same vigor as he did when he was 13. He strived for the highest notes even if he didn’t always hit them.

Carter slipped on a Shaquille O’Neal Lakers jersey to raucous applause, an indication he was about to sing his platinum-selling single, “That’s How I Beat Shaq.”

This quirky, up-tempo song about a teenage Carter beating NBA star O’Neal was definitely the climax of the show.

While the song didn’t do much to display his vocal range, it was evident that he enjoyed performing it the most.

Carter dubbed Ithaca the “best crowd on tour” and “couldn’t wait to come back.”

From Carter’s backflips to falsetto riffs, his return to the spotlight seems long overdue. As fantastic a time as the crowd might have had, it seemed like no one had more fun than Carter.

It’s safe to say this could be the beginning of Carter’s comeback.

Ryan Miller performs during Guster’s concert in Emerson Suites on Nov. 3.

TUCKER MITCHELL/ THE ITHACAN

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GUSTER& The year that...

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The Danbees release first album

Seniors Mark Slotoroff, Wade McManus and Will Shuttleworth rehearse in their house on East State Street. The band released its first album Feb. 18.

TUCKER MITCHELL/THE ITHACAN

BY ASHLEY WOLF

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As freshmen walking onto the Ithaca College campus for the first time, four men could only dream of touring, performing and making music their career. Four years later, The Danbees — now best friends and current seniors Mark Slotoroff, Will Shuttleworth, Wade McManus and Jake Alvarez — have taken their talents and created a popular Ithaca band with a strong fan base and a debut album.

The Danbees released their first album, “I’m in Control,” on Feb. 18. Mike Parker and Alex Perialas of Pyramid Sound Studios in Ithaca mixed and mastered the all-original release, which was recorded over eight days in January.

In order to produce the album, the band raised about $10,000 through a Kickstarter campaign, an audience-funded platform that helps make creative projects a reality. Within 32 days, they had raised the money.

Every day, the band members came into the studio at 3 p.m. and worked on recording their material until 3 a.m. First, they laid down the bass and percussion tracks, and then Shuttleworth and Slotoroff recorded their guitar and vocal tracks.

“Come in, three o’clock, everything’s set up, ‘All right, what song do we want to try first?’ We’ll be sitting there as a band, do it all,” Slotoroff said.

“Jake and Wade were done by the third day, and then it just came down to Will and me … It was a long process, but as soon as it was over, I immediately missed it.”

The Danbees have released “I’m in Control” to the public for free at their shows and as a free download on their website.

They decided to release the album free of charge because Slotoroff said he thinks complete albums are rarely ever listened to, and no one, aside from family members, would buy it. The band wants people to listen to the album so it can build a bigger audience.

“We figure, if you’re going to have our album, we’re not going to make you pay for it because

you’re just not going to do it,” Slotoroff said. “We just want you to have it.”

Junior Joey Gallagher, a fan of the band, liked the album because he had already heard and enjoyed many of the songs.

“I loved the group of songs they put together for the album because they were the songs that I loved hearing the most at the shows,” Gallagher said. “It’s tough for me to pick a favorite because they are all great.”

Slotoroff and Shuttleworth met freshman year because of their shared interest in playing guitar and music. They soon became friends and began jamming together. The two met Alvarez at parties that year, and after forming a friendship, they invited Alvarez to play drums with them sophomore year.

The three became more serious about their playing and invited McManus to join them on the bass junior year.

McManus had never picked up the bass before, but he was a talented guitarist, so he decided to try it out. With the addition of McManus, they officially became a band.

“Second semester of junior year, I was waiting outside one of my classes,” McManus said.

“Mark was walking by, he knew I was into music, and he asked me if I wanted to come over and jam because they were looking for a new bass player. I was like, ‘Well, I’ve never played bass before, but I’ll give it a shot,’ and [we’ve] been together ever since.”

Eventually, their casual jam sessions turned into practicing five days a week and headlining at shows in Ithaca as The Danbees. Their first show was March 1, 2013, at The Nines.

After graduation, the band plans to tour as many states as it can before it move to New York City and try to network, book gigs and get signed to a record label.

“We’ll live together for a month or two [on tour], whether it be in a van or in somebody’s garage, depending on where we are … we’re pretty confident that if people hear us, they’ll like us, so we just have to play in front of as many people as we can,” McManus said.

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Talk Music To Me

Taylor Palmer: No, he’s not.

Jon Samuels: Yes. Yes he is.

[Furiously Google searching] TP: Colin Hanks is definitely Tom Hanks’s son, you’re right.

But he definitely has a rapper son too. His name is Chet Haze.

Lucas Knapp: Someone tweeted at him saying that Tom Hank’s frat-boy rapper son was doing spoken word, and Chet was mad because someone dissed him by labeling him Tom Hank’s kid. I think Chet missed the insult.

TP: So that brings me to my first question. Was 2014 the year of Chet Haze?

Durst Breneiser: I don’t know him.

JS: He’s in Dift Punk.

TP: Can I ask real questions?

LK: Are we actually going to do a real interview?

TP: Just a chit-chat of sorts.

What do you think this year will be remembered for in music?

The landscape of modern music is changing more rapidly now than ever before. Advances in production and distribution technology have created a sprawling range of sounds that are being released daily. With seminal artists making returns and exciting, genre-bending groups popping up left and right, it can be hard to recollect what happened in a single year in tunes. So I enlisted people who know more about it than me to sum up the past 12 months in music. I sat down with WICB’s music director, senior Jon Samuels, and production director, senior Lucas Knapp, at Bandwagon Brew Pub to talk music. Oh, and junior Photo Editor Durst Breneiser got in on the action too.

-Taylor Palmer From left, seniors Lucas Knapp, Taylor Palmer and Jon Samuels hang out at Bandwagon Brew Pub. DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

JS: I think it really is going to be Daft Punk. Dift Punk? We’ll settle on Daft. There’s something about how they rolled out the album, with the production value and all the money behind it from Columbia Records, that’s become an industry staple, and I think it kicked off this year with Daft Punk’s “Random Access Memories.” I think they laid serious groundwork for other bands to do it. The short releases before the release and the video too. The buildup was crazy. That’s definitely the biggest change that happened to music this year.

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LK: Yeah. I don’t know if Arcade Fire brings as much clout as Daft Punk, but they definitely did something similar.

JS: They created such a big background for the album, with the trips to Haiti and the 9/9/9 messages that, when it dropped, people stopped what they were doing and listened.

TP: We had a lot of buildup.

Kanye West and the music video projections and [Saturday Night Live] performance too.

LK: This year, either you had to do a big rollout with a bunch of mystery or drop it with no leadin. Like Beyonce.

JS: Yeah. Bonnie Prince Billy put out an album with no press and just put it out. Four Tet put one out without any notice. Very different than the usual order.

LK: You either have to do it big or nothing. Anything else isn’t very interesting, and you have to be interesting now.

JS: It was almost a year ago since Daft Punk put up their first posters at South By Southwest for R.A.M and did the Coachella video with Niles Rodgers, and we’re still talking about it.

LK: It’s so hard to be mysterious that when something is we latch.

TP: It seems like most of the talk about Beyonce’s album was how nobody knew it was happening.

JS: I thought it was just going to be B-sides.

LK: This kind of release creates a moment, an event, which you can look back on. When Beyonce drops an album like this, people scramble to listen that day. It takes precedence.

can do to express your ideas to an audience, and the artists are pushing the industry to adapt.

JS: People are looking for something that becomes viral, something that gets traffic.

TP: Even Pharrell got into that.

That 24-hour “happy” video brought him closer to the public eye than the song originally did.

JS: This year it was a lot less about content than interaction online. It’s more about getting hits. They have to do it that way.

TP: So, what genres do you think made strides this year?

DB: Hers was a visual album. Do you think there is a shift in what people want toward multimedia?

LK: Pop music. I’m thinking about Skye Ferreria and Haim and about the critical community’s acceptance of good pop music. [Haim’s] “Days are Gone” is unabashedly poppy.

LK: I don’t know if it’s the fan base as much as producers realizing the potential of different media and seeing how much you

JS: [The album] is major label too. Joe Steinhardt runs Don Giovanni Records, and he wrote a great piece about how people

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: TOP: Seniors Jon Samuels, Lucas Knapp and Taylor Palmer discuss musical trends.

LEFT: Senior Taylor Palmer ponders.

MIDDLE: Senior Lucas Knapp takes a break from the music debate.

RIGHT: Jon Samuels listens intently.

DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

are losing sight about what independent ethos means. Major labels are putting out a lot that could be categorized aesthetically as indie.

LK: This year, more than any, we could also ask what does indie actually mean now?

JS: Nothing. Or close to nothing.

DB: What will Americans remember this age of music as?

LK: I can’t speak for Americans, or music fans, but I can speak for me. We want to put a narrative over a year. We want to historicize and generalize.

JS: But everything we can say is bullshit.

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This year in cinema, we saw actor Chiwetel Ejiofor chronicle the struggles of 19th century plantation life in “12 Years a Slave,” Elsa and Anna shake the conventions of Disney princesses in “Frozen” and Leonardo DiCaprio snort cocaine out of someone’s butt in “The Wolf of Wall Street.” It was a jam-packed year, so I sat down with the hosts of ICTV’s “The Screening Room,” senior Chloe Wilson and freshman Greg Markert, -Taylor Palmer

Let’s go to the movies

From left, senior Chloe Wilson and freshman Greg Markert chat about movies on the set of “The Screening Room,” which they host on ICTV. DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

Taylor Palmer: I hate to steer the conversation away from chocolate, but I’m going to open the floor. What did you think about this year in movies?

Greg Markert: The range of movies was incredible this year. Just look at the best picture nominations. There was a black-and-white movie [“Nebraska”], one that took a serious look at slavery [“12 Years a Slave”], one that gave weight to the realities of AIDs [“Dallas Buyers Club”] and one about corruption in banking [“The Wolf of Wall Street”]. All quality movies.

TP: What’s that say about the state of film, that more quality movies are being made?

GM: We now have the filmmaking technology and techniques to encapsulate an artist’s vision exactly how they envisioned it. I think it leads to better movies, and it’s the reason I think movies are hitting almost a new golden era in film.

Chloe Wilson: I don’t know if I’d say this is a golden age.

All the Oscar films were great. I loved “Nebraska.” “12 Years a Slave” was amazing. “Gravity” showed a level of technical achievement in movies that we have never seen before. “American Hustle,” specifically Christian Bale and Jennifer Lawrence’s performances, showed how great subtle acting can be. But I think if you’re looking at this the year, for each “Gravity,” there are three “Escape Plans.”

TP: Was there any trend you saw this year that impacted you in particular?

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CW: I think in “Saving Mr. Banks,” Emma Thompson’s character introduced a concept in movies that I can’t think of having seen but maybe once or twice. She had a character that you could sympathize with, but you didn’t have to like. With female leads like this, Hollywood oftentimes makes them snarky but still likeable. They made her mean, and it was really difficult to actually like her. If I had to spend 10 minutes in a room with her character, I’d go insane. But she was a really sympathetic character when her story unfolded. It created a more threedimensional female lead character, and I think we’ll see more of that to come.

TP: Who else do you think made the biggest strides in terms of breakout performances this year?

GM: I think Matthew McConuaghey is the obvious choice.

CW: Yeah. Chiwetel Ejiofor too. He’s always been talented, but now the general public has started to notice. Lupita Nyong’o is definitely on there. And I’d say Chris Pratt too. “Guardians of the Galaxy” is coming out, and he was in “The Lego Movie,” which was awesome. Get it?

Senior Chloe Wilson, host of the ICTV’s award-winning film review show, hangs out on set. DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

GM: Great point.

CW: Sad point. But looking at the whole of the year, I think every year, studios are getting closer to realizing that people like good movies. “Gravity” could have flopped, but it was more than just a big budget movie with special effects. “Gravity” did very well this year, especially in IMAX, which is the point of that movie, taking an advancement in screening technology and merging it with advancements in film.

But, “Need For Speed” happened.

It flopped at the box office. It’s only so far that stunts and cars and women, and even a rising star with Aaron Paul, can get you.

GM: The experience of seeing a big action movie in the theaters motivated people to go, but people are behaving knowing that those elements don’t really make a good movie. People are taking the themes of those movies and making art out of them.

people make movies and options are limited, people go to see both.

But now we have technology and distribution methods that enable millions of people to make movies, and the good ones stand out more.

GM: I do. Like the song.

CW: [singing] Everything is awesome.

TP: I just talked to a guy who said he was really disappointed with “The Lego Movie.”

CW: Well, he is wrong.

GM: He definitely is.

TP: What do you think movies have to do to be successful and stand out?

CW: They have to bring something new to the table.

TP: What do you mean?

CW: Well, did you see the newest “300” movie?

TP: No. CW: Exactly. It’s the same as the old one. The first one had an interesting style, the visual imagery and the fight scenes were cool because we hadn’t seen it yet. It was new.

People have so many options that if you recycle old stuff, people will avoid it.

TP: But why?

CW: It’s about fragmentation.

If you have a system where two

Freshman Greg Markert eats stale popcorn on set.

DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

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The best in video games

Pokemon X and Y

Bravely Default Rob Mayo

Rob Mayo

COURTESY OF SQUARE ENIX AND SILICON STUDIO

“Bravely Default,” developed by Square Enix and Silicon Studio and made for the Nintendo 2DS and 3DS, draws upon many of the conventions established by the “Final Fantasy” series, a staple in the Japanese role-playing game genre. Working off traditional JRPG tropes, “Bravely Default” keeps the genre fresh through its new combat mechanics, breathtaking visuals and clever dialogue.

Riding on the coattails of the “Final Fantasy” series, the game features many of the established mechanics and rules of the games. Players assign orders to their four heroes against enemies in turn-based combat.

While the game succeeds at times to break outside convention, it ultimately doesn’t cross many boundaries of the genre as some hoped it would. Though it takes cues from the “Final Fantasy” series, it is an exemplar JRPG title, regardless. “Bravely Default” breathes life into the genre with its powerful narrative, energetic characters and new mechanics.

Saint’s Row IV Steve Shuler

COURTESY OF VOLITION

Imagine making a gravity-defying jump 50 to 100 feet in the air and striking down on bad guys, all while wearing a goofy costume and a cowboy hat. This chaotic scene is typical of the tongue-incheek, action-packed new video game “Saints Row IV.” “Saints Row IV” is the follow-up game to “Saints Row: The Third.”

The Saints used to be a smaller gang doing little jobs to control territories of a midwestern, urban city called Stilwater. But now the gang has risen to power and become one of the biggest corporations in the U.S. and set its sights on taking over the country.

The dialogue of the game is not the best, but it is enough to make people laugh at the references to pop culture, movies and other video games. The characters have their own strengths and weaknesses, but their interactions aren’t enough to build their identities in the game.

While “Saints Row IV” is surely no challenge, the game provides endless hours of fun.

COURTESY OF NINTENDO

Now on the sixth generation of Pokémon games, “Pokémon X” and “Pokémon Y,” a special release, unveil a new cast of Pokémon in a new setting, the franchise’s first release to the Nintendo 3DS and the series’ transition to 3-D, breathing life into the franchise.

The player is tasked with performing the usual routine in Pokémon games: beating the eight Gym Leaders, stopping the enemy’s villainous plots and, most importantly, catching all the Pokémon.

The game play formula has hardly changed. Pokémon battles are largely one-versus-one fights. The player and the enemy choose their Pokémon’s attack at the same time. Taking advantage of enemy types to exploit their weaknesses and making a well-structured Pokémon team form the base of the strategy elements.

GTA Five Rob Mayo

COURTESY OF ROCKSTAR GAMES

Since its debut to 3-D with “Grand Theft Auto 3,” Rockstar Games’ “Grand Theft Auto” series has routinely been the subject of critical acclaim and controversy. The series boasts open environments for players to explore at their own leisure. Each subsequent title has been lauded for giving players unparalleled freedom and criticized for its glorification of sex, drugs and violence.

The latest entry to the series, “Grand Theft Auto V,” is the most ambitious of the saga. While some critics will pan the game for its liberal use of violence and sex, they will herald its open world gameplay, wonderful storytelling and its interpretation on American society.

This game gives an experience that veteran players will enjoy for the improvements to the series’ mechanics, and new players will walk into the most refined open-environment game of all time.

Catching up on some light reading Most people know of the story of Elizabeth Smart, a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes who, at 14 years old, was taken from her Salt Lake City bedroom in the middle of the night. However, no one really knows the story except for three people: Smart’s two kidnappers, Brian David Mitchell and his wife Wanda Barzee, and Smart herself. “My Story,” by the now 25-year-old Smart and Utah Congressman Chris Stewart, gives a chilling yet inspiring look at Smart’s courage and how she overcame the odds of surviving the kidnapping.

By sharing the pure emotions behind her story, like her constant fear, Smart made readers think about the person behind the story instead of just the story itself. She didn’t need to include every miniscule detail of her daily rapings or similar traumas. Her emotions regarding those painful moments told the story better than any play-by-play reenactment ever could. The power behind Smart’s story entrances readers and makes them feel like they were by Smart’s side for it all, from beginning to end.

Throughout the book, Smart emphasizes the importance of her faith and her survival. Shortly before she was kidnapped, her grandfather passed away.

During the nine months of her captivity, she felt his presence there, like a guardian angel, and that helped her persevere. She makes it clear that though this experience turned her world upside down in many different ways, it never completely broke her. In most, if not all, of the chapters of the book, Smart makes references to her faith, adding more depth and a personal narrative to the media’s coverage of the kidnapping.

Smart does a beautiful job at describing her worst moments and showing how she used them to move on and create a better life for herself. In 2002, Smart was shown to the public as a fragile 14-year-old girl. Now in 2013, she’s back, and with “My Story” she proves that she is stronger than ever.

CULTURE

reviews by Emily Fedor

Mitch Albom, the bestselling author of “Tuesdays with Morrie,” is back in the spotlight with a quizzical tale that may make minds wonder if “the end is not the end.” “The First Phone Call from Heaven” has a different taste to it than is expected after reading Albom’s other works about life and death, such as “The Five People You Meet in Heaven.” But at the same time, it is clear he stays true to himself and his touching, creative writing style in his latest spiritual tale.

After citizens in the small town of Coldwater, Mich., known as “the chosen ones,” claim they are receiving mysterious phone calls from their deceased acquaintances, love and faith are put to the ultimate test. The story begins with day care owner Tess Rafferty listening to a message on her answering machine. In her mind, “a mother’s voice is like no other,” and that is how she knows the familiar voice she hears playing on her machine is indeed her mother, Ruth. Police Chief Jack Sellers receives calls from his son Robbie, a soldier who was killed in Afghanistan. Sellers says it can’t be his son, but the voice he hears on the telephone makes him believe it could be.

The so-called “Coldwater Miracle” receives international attention and causes many believers to flock to the small town in the hopes of getting in contact with their deceased loved ones.

Albom weaves this fictional tale with remarkable precision that adds a twist to a typical Albom novel. The plot structure of the story has a style more commonly seen in theatrical productions, such as Stephen Schwartz’s “Pippin,” because Albom intertwines two storylines.

The author also includes pieces of historical information by taking readers on a time-traveling journey from present day to the middle of the 19th century, when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. Albom braids pieces of history perfectly with the events happening in Coldwater satisfying readers with a history lesson in addition to a compelling story.

By creating a mind-blowing storyline and intertwining a history lesson with a faith-filled story, Albom makes readers question what exactly they believe in. Though Albom’s style is slightly different than usual in this book, he’s true to himself by delivering another touching, one-of-a-kind story.

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Eleanor Henderson, assistant professor of writing, signs first-edition copies of her book “Ten Thousand Saints” in June 2011 at the Harvard Book Store’s Signed First Edition Club. COURTESY OF ELEANOR HENDERSON

Professor’s debut novel converted into motion picture Eleanor Henderson, assistant professor of writing, published her novel “Ten Thousand Saints” in 2011. After receiving universal acclaim, it has been adapted into a movie starring Academy Award nominees Ethan Hawke as Les, main character Johnny’s deadbeat dad, and Hailee Steinfeld as Eliza, Johnny’s privileged and mysterious love interest.

Academy-Award nominated duo Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini wrote and direct the film. Shooting for the film began at the end of January.

Staff Writer Austin Gold sat down with Henderson to discuss adapting her book to film, character casting and being approached by producers.

Austin Gold: When were you first approached about adapting your book for a film?

Eleanor Henderson: I was approached a couple of times shortly after the book was published by a couple of different producers, and those opportunities didn’t pan out. And then in 2012 I was approached again by a producer [and] Shari Springer

Berman and Robert Pulcini, who are a director/screenwriter couple. So they approached me, sent me an email, and I said, “Sounds great.” I didn’t get my hopes up yet because I knew that these other options didn’t pan out, and in Hollywood, things can take a long time. So I met with those folks in November of 2012 in New York [City] and had a really nice lunch, and we daydreamed about actors and that kind of thing.

AG: You have said in interviews that when you are developing the characters you would draw what they looked like out on paper. Do you think that the actors cast match what you imagined?

EH: Yeah, in many ways they really do adhere to the vision I had for them. Just getting to look at the pictures that have come out of the actors on set, there are definitely things that a reader would point out and say, “Well, Jude doesn’t have red hair in the movie and he has red hair in the book,” or “Liza has long hair instead of short hair.” So there are certainly things that are a

little bit different in terms of the look of the actor. I’ve had to let go of my vision of the character’s physicality a little bit.

AG: Were any of the actors you daydreamed about eventually cast in it?

EH: They really were. Ethan Hawke was one of the actors that we sort of jokingly referred to as being a really appropriate actor for the role of Les, who’s this pot-selling, sort of deadbeat dad in New York, and we sort of laughed thinking he would be a great, sort of scruffy-faced version of that character. And he happened to be an acquaintance of my agent who was there with us at the time, and so we thought that would be really cool.

AG: Adapting a book into a movie is often tricky. How close were you to the writing process?

EH: I wasn’t close at all. I happen to teach here at Ithaca a course on adaptation. I think that actually teaching that class gave me some perspective, and I’ve come to appreciate the distinction

between the genre of film and the novel, and so I was kind of prepared to let go. But I really did need to let go and had almost no contact with the producer, writer-director group. So I knew that Bob and Shari were writing the script, and I had to sort of not think about it. Then after I found out that all of this was going to happen, I asked the producers if I could finally read the script. They emailed it to me, and I read it all in one sitting and sort of prepared myself to be disappointed even though I really liked and trusted their work.

AG: Were you ever approached to write the screenplay?

EH: I wasn’t. There was another screenwriter who was involved in an earlier project who wanted to write the screenplay when another producer was interested early on. But no one ever asked me to. Even though I kind of conceived the book as a script, I actually started writing it as a script early on in the process.

And while I’m really interested in scriptwriting, I couldn’t have done what they did.

Professor pens historical novel around the agricultural and mercantile history of those living in Sicily in the 18th and 19th centuries amid the cultural and urban revolution in Italy.

Staff Writer Samantha Guter sat down with DiRenzo to talk about the novel and his process of writing new material.

revolution, and not everybody wants to talk about what happened, too. So much of it is speculation. I do take imaginative leaps, but they’re always guided by the facts, which are fantastic enough. You don’t have to make anything up when it comes to Sicily.

Samantha Guter: What was your research process like?

SG: Where did the original idea for “Trinacria” come from?

Anthony DiRenzo: The cluster of it is family history. A lot of that stuff is family legend, but all you get are these flashes of characters without any sense of context or explanation, so they seem strange. But it’s a period of history I’ve been fascinated by since I was a child.

AD: It came from a short story that I wrote about a son fighting for his birthright for a citrus orchard in Sicily, and in order to allot himself against his tyrannical father, he goes down to the Catacombs of the Capuchin and makes an offering to his great-grandmother and places an orange in her mummified hand. The character that I created, Zita Valanguerra Spinelli, Marchesa of Scalea, is very much inspired by [Alessandra Spadafora, duchess of Santa Rosalia] and other figures from that time, so she’s a kind of compendium of those people and my own ancestors.

SG: Did you get to discover your genealogy through that research?

AD: Yes, but mostly through inference, through educated guesses, which are confirmed by occasionally discovering a source or document or hearing about an anecdote. You must understand, so many records were destroyed during the

CULTURE

Anthony DiRenzo, associate professor of writing, recently published a historical novel called “Trinacria: A Tale of Bourbon Sicily,” which focuses on the character Zita Valanguerra Spinelli, Marchesa of Scalea, a businesswoman in 18th- and 19th-century Italy.

He read excerpts from the novel Feb. 11 in Klingenstein Lounge.

The novel draws on themes relevant to DiRenzo’s own family history and legends. His family is descended from Spaniards and Italians who emigrated to Palermo, Italy. DiRenzo said he has been working for more than 12 years on this project, organized by Guernica Editions and sponsored by the Italian Cultural Foundation at Casa Belvedere.

DiRenzo has delved into research

SG: What is important about telling this story in 2014?

AD: Italy has only been a modern country, a united country, since 1870, and until 1922, a constitutional monarchy and then a fascism. Just after the regime, it was a modern democracy. That kind of fractured history makes it very impossible for Italians to come together.

So that’s one thing that makes it timely, so the other is nation building in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, the same mistakes that northern Italians made in Sicily, Americans are making now over there. The last, of course, is just the financial meltdown that occurred that is global and still ongoing.

Anothony DiRenzo, associate professor of writing, reads excerpts from his novel at 7 p.m. Feb 11 in Klingenstein Lounge in the Campus Center.

ERICA DISCHINO/THE ITHACAN

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SPORTS

SEPTEMBER The Ithaca College men’s cross-country team opened collegiate competition Sept. 7 at the Oswego Invitational. The Bombers, who were resting their top six runners, placed fifth out of 13 teams. Ithaca’s four returners all clocked personal-best times on the 8-kilometer course.

The Bombers also had strong showings in the Rochester Invitational, finishing second, and the RPI Saratoga Invitational, finishing third.

From left, sophomore Sawyer Hitchcock leads a pack of runners at the Memorial Alumni Run on Aug. 31. RENE MATTICON/THE ITHACAN

The Ithaca College football team began its 2013 season with a 31–7 victory over Moravian College on Sept. 9 at Butterfield Stadium. The Bombers built a 19–0 lead in the game, possessed the ball for approximately 40 minutes and improved their record in season-openers to 33–4 over the last 37 years.

The Blue and Gold continued their dominance in the following three weeks by taking down talented Utica College and Buffalo State teams, by scores of 17–3 and 24–20, respectively.

Defense was the hallmark of the Bombers’ victories in September as the team, led by senior linebacker Will Carter, gave up just 10 points per game in the first three games.

Senior Jared Prugar finished 13th in the nation in receiving yards in the month of September with 126.5 per game.

From left, sophomores Carley Rosenburg and Sydney Glenn approach the finish line at the Memorial Alumni Run on Sept. 1. SELENA SANCHEZ/THE ITHACAN

The women’s cross-country team got off to an extremely hot start this month, winning not only the season’s first race, the Oswego Invitational Sept.

7, but also trouncing the competition in the Rochester Yellowjacket Invitational Sept. 14.

At the end of September, the Bombers were ranked 21st nationally after sitting 17th in the week one poll. They dropped from third to fourth in the Atlantic Region rankings after a second-place showing at the RPI Saratoga Invitational on Sept.

20 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. The Blue and Gold began to hit their stride toward the end of the month. Even though they had won previous events, six of seven top finishers at their final meet of the month at Robert Wesleyan University finished with their career personal records. Though the team finished 10 out of 18, the squad began to truly show its depth.

From left, senior running back Rakim Jones finds a hole in the defense as senior tight end Jared Prugar holds off Morvian College junior linebacker Richard Kugel in the Bombers’ 31–7 season opener at Butterfield Stadium. JILLIAN FLINT/THE ITHACAN

Junior Allison Vizgaitis volleys during a doubles competition against Hartwick College on Oct. 8 on the Wheeler Tennis Courts.

DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

SPORTS

The Ithaca College men’s soccer team defeated St. John Fisher on Sept. 21, dropping the Cardinals by a score of 4–0 at Carp Wood Field.

Freshman Sean Forward scored twice in the victory, with additional goals coming from junior A.J.Wolfanger and freshman Scott Halpern. The defense’s brilliant performance held the Cardinals scoreless.

Overall, the team finished a disappointing 1–6 in play the first month of the season, with tough losses coming from a double overtime game against Muhlenberg College on Sept. 7 and a winnable game against Scranton College on Sept. 26 in Scranton, Pa.

The women’s tennis team was nearly perfect for the first month of play. With a 5–0 record in play and three strong tournament performances in Geneva N.Y., and Rochester N.Y., the team looked to have hit midseason form early in the year. September was a month dominated by senior Christina Nunez, who won every match in the month of September and swept her singles bracket in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s Northeastern Regionals Sept 28.

Ithaca College freshman forward Sean Forward moves the ball upfield in the men’s soccer team’s game against St. John Fisher on Sept. 21. The Bombers shut out the Cardinals 4–0.

COREY HESS/THE ITHACAN

The ninth-ranked Ithaca College women’s soccer team defeated No. 2 Emory University Sept. 8, shutting out the Eagles 2–0 at Carp Wood Field. Sophomore Kelsey King and freshman Jess Demczar scored for the Bombers, while sophomore goalkeeper Beth Coppolecchia stopped two shots to earn her second shutout of the young season.

Both teams opened with tight defensive play in the first half, as neither side was able to record a shot on goal in the opening 10 minutes. The Bombers broke the scoring drought in the 14th minute to take a 1–0 lead. Senior Meredith Jones passed the ball in the middle of the box, finding King in a crowd of defenders. King collected the pass and beat the Eagle goalkeeper for her team-leading third goal of the season, giving the Bombers the 2–0 victory.

The team finished the month with a record of 6–1, its only loss coming to No. 9 William Smith College. The team finished the month ranked No. 8 in the nation.

Ithaca senior Meredith Jones moves the ball downfield during Ithaca’s game against Emory September 9 on Carp Wood Field. The bombers beat the Eagles 2-0.

AMANDA DEN HARTOG/THE ITHACAN

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Bomber goes Pro

BY STEVE DERDERIAN After every home baseball game last summer at Bowen Field in Bluefield, W.Va., infielder Tim Locastro walked around the field, while children and their parents approached him and his teammates asking for an autograph.

With each baseball, hat or glove he signs, Locastro thinks back to his youth in Auburn, N.Y., when he was the one asking for autographs from the Auburn Doubledays, the minor league baseball team based in his hometown.

After being drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays and playing a summer of minor league baseball, Locastro returned to Ithaca College for his final semester.

In Spring 2013, Locastro was a junior at the college, and helped lead the baseball team to the Division III College World Series. Locastro set program single-season records with 71 runs scored and 40 stolen bases, and batted .436 with 13 doubles, six triples and four home runs.

The Toronto Blue Jays drafted Locastro in the 13th round of the Major League Baseball entry draft 11 days after the season ended May 28.

In June, Locastro decided to forgo his senior season of baseball and accept the offer to play for the Toronto organization. Though he gave up his final year of his college playing eligibility, he finished his degree in business administration at the college this fall.

In 43 games for the Blue Jays, Locastro hit for a .283 batting average and had the second-most steals for Bluefield with 12 total. Despite his regular season numbers, Locastro struggled in the opening month of playing. He had to make TOP: Senior Tim Locastro makes a play at shortstop in his Bluefield Blue Jays rookie card.

BOTTOM: Senior Tim Locastro stands at home plate of Freeman Field.

JENNIFER WILLIAMS/THE ITHACAN

the adjustment from shortstop, where he played for the Bombers, to second base, and he hit for a .235 batting average.

Locastro said he consulted with his former head coach George Valesente for advice during the summer. Valesente, who also played professional baseball in the minor leagues and has coached more than 30 professional players, said he kept telling Locastro to be patient throughout the summer.

“I told him too many guys work themselves too hard,” he said. “I always said things will work out if you play within yourself.”

Locastro’s numbers began to rise July and August of 2013, and he began to hit leadoff and second in the batting order for the Blue Jays. In July alone, he hit for a .360 batting average, and he said he was beginning to feel more comfortable at second base.

The team was also in first place in the Appalachian League East division until the final week of the regular season.

Of all the experiences in his first year, Locastro said his favorite was playing in the Mercer Cup series against the team’s in-state and county rival, the Princeton Rays.

As Locastro walked off the baseball field at Calfee Park in Pulaski, Va., for the final game of his rookie season, he wasn’t given much time to reflect on the end of the first season. When he entered the locker room, he was given a bus ticket and a 40-minute warning for him to collect everything.

Locastro said he is looking forward to the next season for the Blue Jays, being excited about the future, but making sure to take it day by day in practices and games.

athletics at Carnegie Mellon University and former assistant to Bassett, said her passion for athletes earned respect during her time there as athletic director.

“Our goal is, and should be, to be the “I’ve never come across anybody pre-eminent intercollegiate athletics who is as passionate and supportive of and recreational sports program, pethe student experience as Susan,” riod. Not in division one, two, or three.

Centor said.

Period,” Susan Bassett ’79, director of Integrating the athletics intercollegiate athletics and recprogram with IC 20/20 is an reational sports, said from the important priority for BasAthletics and Events Center. sett, and she plans to use it Under the leadership of as a platform to enhance the former athletic director Ken student-athlete experience in Kutler, Ithaca College’s sports a number of ways, including program experienced success strengthening student-alumni from 2002 to 2012. The prorelations, expanding opportunigram took home the Empire 8 ties for international travel and Commissioner’s Cup, an award incorporating more intramural recognizing the most accomathletics in the First-Year Resiplished athletic department Athletic Director Susan Bassett talks with members and dential Experience. in the conference, in each of coaches of the women’s soccer team. JENNIFER WILLIAMS/THE ITHACAN Bassett plans to connect Kutler’s 10 years. When Kutler current student-athletes to their retired last spring, the college Women Athletics Administrators predecessors to create professional was faced with a personnel decision named her the 2013 Division III connections and potential job opporthat would determine the direction of Administrator of the Year. Bassett is a tunities. By introducing alumni guest its athletic programs. past president for the NACWAA and speakers and pairing current students Enter Bassett. was given the award based on previous with former athletes from both their The newly minted athletic director accolades, including a 2010 Under professional interests and their sport, plans to cultivate growth in Bomber Armor AD of the Year Award. she hopes to give Bomber athletes an sports by utilizing her expertise in athJosh Centor, interim director of opportunity to extend their network. letic programs and leadership with IC

BY TAYLOR PALMER & KRISTEN GOWDY

20/20 to enhance the student experience on all levels of athletics. IC 20/20 is the college’s strategic plan to develop the undergraduate learning experience beyond the classroom.

Her success in previous jobs led to a number of awards. Recently, the National Association of Collegiate

SPORTS

Vision for the future

Bassett poses in the Athletics and Events Center.

JENNIFER WILLIAMS/ THE ITHACAN

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OCTOBER

Two members of the football team, sophomore wide receiver Josh Oliver and senior cornerback Mike Vulcano, took home national honors for their performance against SUNY Alfred on Oct. 2. Oliver brought a punt home 63 yards for a touchdown and Vulcano registered his first career interception en route to being named National Team of the Week Members.

The South Hill squad lost its first game to an upstart Hartwick College team 21–9 on Oct. 7. Senior leader quarterback Phil Neumann went down during the game, bruising the Bombers’ morale and an offense that only mustered nine points throughout the game.

Junior Tom Dempsey came in to fill Neumann’s shoes for the next game against Utica College and tossed a touchdown late in the game to seal the Bombers’ victory.

Dempsey also led the team to a surprising victory over No. 25–ranked St. John Fisher College, as the team exploded for 25 points against the vaunted Cardinals defense.

A 9–0 blanking of St. John Fisher ended the regular season for the women’s tennis team this year, finishing out the regular season undefeated for the second year in a row.

The Blue and Gold took home the Empire 8 conference title for the ninth straight time with a 5–0 win over Nazareth College on Oct. 20.

Senior Christina Nunez competes in a match against Nazareth College on Sep. 13.

MICHAEL TAMBURI/ THE ITHACAN

From left, sophomore defender Cody Kiss is pursued by Elmira College senior attacker Jared Cipriano at Carp Wood Field on Oct. 2. The soaring Eagles beat the Bombers 1–0. DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

An up and down month for the Bombers’ men’s soccer team came as the result of mixed offensive production in October. On the first, the team lost a 1–0 battle against Hobart College and two weeks later, the Bombers put up 4 goals on Utica College.

Sophomore Sean Forward tallied three goals in the game, recording his first ever hat trick and receiving all Empire 8 honors for the week.

Overall, the squad finished the month at 3–5 and found itself near the bottom of the Empire 8 standings.

From left, Ithaca junior wide receiver Brendan Wojtowicz dives for the end zone with Alfred University senior defensive back Michael Perkins defending. RENE MATTCON/THE ITHACAN

Ithaca graduate student Jenn Randall runs toward the finish line during the Jannette Bonrouhi-Zakiam Memorial Alumni Run on Sept. 1.

RENE MATTCON/THE ITHACAN

The Ithaca College men’s cross-country team placed ninth out of 20 teams Oct. 5 at the 33rd-Annual Geneseo Invitational hosted at Letchworth State Park in Rochester, N.Y. Freshman Sean Phillips paced the Bombers with a personal-best 8-kilometer time of 26:12.40 to place 22nd out of 255 runners. He bested his previous best 8K by 20 seconds.

standings, but the team began to really hit its stride and show its depth in October.

The team secured its record ninth consecutive runner-up finish at the New York State Collegiate Track Conference Cross Country Championship on Oct. 12 at the tricky Hamilton College Golf Course in Hamilton, N.Y.

SPORTS

Six of Ithaca College’s top seven runners clocked seasonbest performances to lead the Bomber women’s crosscountry team to an impressive ninth-place finish out of 34 teams Oct. 19 at the Oberlin’s Inter-Regional Rumble.

The Bombers may have dropped from seventh to ninth in the NCAA’s eastern regional

From left, Ithaca junior captain Dennis Ryan follows sophomore Sawyer Hitchcock to the finish at the Jannette Bonrouhi-Zakiam Memorial Alumni Run on Sept. 1. SELENA SANCHEZ/THE ITHACAN

A strong September put the Bomber volleyball team at 8–12 heading into an October schedule full of talented opponents.

The team showed a strong offense and defense in its home tournament in Ben Light Gymnasium on Oct. 11 and 12. The Blue and Gold eventually fell to Messiah College 3–1 in the final round of the tournament, but not after scorching opponents in three straight opening wins. The team defeated Wells College in straight sets Oct. 12 on the strength of junior outside hitter Rylie Bean’s 14 kills on 30 swings.

The team ended the month at 11–17 and took a third place spot in the Empire 8 standings into the E8 playoffs Oct. 26.

Ithaca captain Carly Gore sets the ball up for her teammates.

AMANDA DEN HARTOG/ THE ITHACAN

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COLLEGE DRUG TESTING PRACTICES QUESTIONED

BY KRISTEN GOWDY

As performance enhancing drug use gains more media attention in professional sport, many NCAA Division III institutions are supplementing the association’s standard for drug testing among their student-athletes.

As of June 5, 2013, just 21 percent of Division III schools had instituted additional drug testing programs in addition to the NCAA’s policy on illegal-substance abuse. In comparison, 90 percent of Division I schools and 65 percent of Division II schools choose to conduct institutionalized drug testing. Ithaca College is among the 79 percent of Division III schools that do not require its athletes to undergo institutional drug testing.

At the beginning of each season, the college’s student-athletes meet with Mike Lindberg, associate athletic director, to review the NCAA’s policy on Division III athletics. In the sessions, Lindberg informs the athletes about the repercussions of testing positive for substances such as performance-enhancing drugs, marijuana and certain chemicals found in dietary supplements, to name a few. This is the only form of drug education the college offers student-athletes.

Even though the NCAA tests Division I and II schools year-round, a high percentage still choose to institutionalize drug testing in addition to the NCAA’s tests. Mary Wilfert, the associate director of the NCAA Sport Science Institute, said institutionalized drug testing occurs because many Division I and II programs believe more testing will lead to better choices by their athletes off of the field.

“The more you experience testing, the more deterrent effect there is,” she said.

Though the majority of Division I and II schools choose to conduct individualized drug testing, most Division III schools choose not to.

According to Lindberg, the college does not test its athletes for two reasons. First, as with many Division III schools, the budget does not allow for a testing program.

Hartwick College has roughly half the amount of student-athletes that Ithaca College does and Lindberg said it spends $3,000–5,000 each year on its testing program.

“Drug testing is an expensive proposition,” Lindberg said. “You take a look at the 900 studentathletes that we have, and that equates to a large amount of money.”

The second reason, however, is much more complicated, as it discusses the treatment of athletes on campus. The Division III mission statement features the idea that student-athletes “are integrated on campus and treated like all other members of the general student-body.” Lindberg said this has influenced the college’s decision not to implement its own testing program.

“Is drug use just an issue for student-athletes,

or is drug use an issue for the rest of the students, too?” Lindberg said. “Should [drug testing] go to club sports, should it go to the student government, should it go to the music school, the theater department?”

Lindberg said even if the college had the budget to incorporate a testing policy, it would focus its resources on a preventative program, which would include more meetings with students and seminars about healthy choices, rather than doing random drug testing.

In addition to the preseason meetings, the college reviews the NCAA’s drug-testing policies with its coaches. When teams make the NCAA playoffs, Lindberg continues to prepare the athletes for the random drug testing during the events by reviewing banned substances with them once again.

Additionally, Wilfert said the NCAA doesn’t necessarily encourage Division III institutions to conduct their own testing.

However, she said the more a school promotes healthy choices and emphasizes staying away from banned substances, the more effective its program will be.

“We support them in that effort if they feel that it’s going to meet the need,” Wilfert said. “If they have good resources and good strategies in place, the more comprehensive they’re going to be.”

For Lindberg and the rest of the athletic administration staff, these factors have all been taken into consideration.

But for now, the preseason educational meetings will remain the cornerstone in the college’s program.

“An individual’s choice may or may not be deterred by whether we have a drug testing policy,” Lindberg said. “We would prefer to spend our time in the education process, talking about the NCAA’s policies and the consequences and ramifications of drug use. That’s why we do the programs that we do, and we try to catch everyone that we can.”

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY FULLER AND JENNIFER WILLIAMS

CONNECTING WITH NATURE On a cool, fall morning, senior Hank Jefferson steps out of his blue minivan into the mud and onto the rocks of the Wildflower Preserve parking lot. He grabs one of his four fishing rods out of the back of his car.

Small cases are filled with fuzzy, feathered lures called flies, which resemble small bugs with hooks no bigger than a dime. Another small, clear box is filled with larger lures, some that are just as fuzzy and shiny as their smaller counterparts, and others that mimic small fish. Jefferson even has one that resembles a small, gray mouse.

Jefferson fishes four to five days a week in Ithaca during the fall, spring and summer, whether it be with a friend or on his own. As an outdoor adventure leadership major, Jefferson feels the most comfortable outdoors.

His boots hit the gravel as the sound of rushing water from Six Mile Creek gets louder.

Jefferson walks up to Giles Street and crosses the bridge over the dam, stopping to inspect the water above the falls, which is brown and murky from days of rain.

After finding clearer water below the falls, he travels down a rocky path just beyond the end of the bridge. The path has been carved out by the footprints of the many travelers who have visited

the dam throughout the years.

The trees stop and open at the base of the falls. Stones of all sizes lay on the banks of the water. Directly across the creek is a giant wall of rock carved out from millions of years of water erosion.

Turning to the left, an old brick building with boarded-up windows juts out.

The water cascades down layers upon layers of rock. Even though the bottom quarter of his pants are wet, the water doesn’t stop Jefferson. As soon as he reaches the water’s edge, he climbs out into the base of the falls.

“When I am fishing, my mind is practically blank,” Jefferson says. “My internal dialogue shuts off.”

Jefferson says he enjoys experimenting with the flies he uses — something not often done in other types of fishing.

“With [fly-fishing], there’s a lot more involved, and I’m casting over and over again,” he says. “I can see the fish and what they do if I do something wrong. You’re not just sitting there waiting for something to happen.”

Jefferson decides on the lures that resemble minnows, knowing that the rain may have injured them, and larger fish would be looking for minnows.

With that, he strings his lure on, ties a knot using his hands and pulls it tight with his teeth.

With his right hand on the rod and his left controlling the excess line, he lifts the rod to shoulder height. He then begins to wave the rod back just behind

his ear and then forward past his head.

The fly line sails through the air, looping as Jefferson makes his quick change in direction. He lets out the line in his left hand little by little and slowly increases the distance he will cast.

Jackson said fishermen from the Ithaca area fish mostly in the Cayuga Lake tributaries, and residents also have an opportunity to fish locally.

Fall Creek, Salmon Creek, the Cayuga Inlet, Six Mile Creek, Enfield Creek, Buttermilk Falls and Jennings Pond in the town of Danby, N.Y., are all popular fishing spots in the area.

Jefferson says his connection to nature has changed him as a person.

“I feel the most comfortable outdoors,” Jefferson says. “When I spend too much time inside, I feel anxious and nervous. Through nature, I have seen the purest form of beauty and the rawest form of death and a little bit of everything in between.”

After two hours of fishing, Jefferson releases his sixth catch back into the shallow creek.

Reflecting on the challenge flyfishing presents him, he explains that if it were easy, he would get bored with the sport and not want to continue it.

“If I caught fish every time I went fishing it would be boring, and I would probably stop,” Jefferson says. “I would say I am good enough at fishing that I can catch enough fish to stay interested and have fun.”

SPORTS

BY KARLY REDPATH

Senior Hank Jefferson fly fishes near First Dam along Six Mile Creek in Ithaca on Oct. 9.

TUCKER MITCHELL/THE ITHACAN

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NOVEMBER

Coming off a series of strong performances in October, the men’s crew team carried their momentum into November and finished the season strong. On Oct. 26, the men’s varsity 8 took third in the Head of the Fish in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., with a time of 11’57.73”. The Bombers parlayed this momentum into another third place finish to end their season at the Braxton Memorial Regatta.

The women’s team didn’t fare quite as well at this juncture in the year, registering a fourth place finish at Head of the Fish but showcased a deep talent pool in the race.

From left, seniors Steph Zang and Anna Schenk compete in sculling regatta on the Cayuga Inlet.

DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

The golf team wrapped up a stellar fall season in November when junior Kelsey Baker was selected among the Bombers to represent the team at the annual NCAA StudentAthlete Leadership Forum on Nov. 7.

The forum is the largest non-competitive gathering of NCAA student-athletes representing their colleges and universities.

Baker was selected as an all-conference player for the third consecutive time this season after registering her best statistical season yet.

The Bombers trounced their Empire 8 opponents, never finishing less than third in a major tournament.

The team also secured yet another Empire 8 championship, this time outscoring opponents by at least 188 strokes. This was the fourth straight conference championship for the team.

Ithaca senior Sharon Li tees off the fifth hole at the Country Club of Ithaca.

DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

SPORTS

In November, the women’s soccer team easily won its first two games and took on the Nazareth College Golden Flyers in the finals, defeating them out 3–1 in a lopsided win. The Bombers outshot Nazareth 11–3 in the final frame, and the dominant performance well encapsulated the entire tournament for the team. Four players, freshman Aimee Chimer and seniors Anna Gray, Ellen KeaneGrant and Amanda Callanan made the all-tournament team, two more than any other Empire 8 squad competing in the tournament.

With an automatic bid in the NCAA tournament, the Blue and Gold faced a number of ranked teams and took them all down into the third round of the tournament where the team edged out Messiah College 1–0 in overtime. A 1–0 loss to William Smith College in the Sweet 16 ended a great Bombers year.

From left, Nazareth sophomore back Dana Donnelly fights for the ball with Ithaca freshman forward Holly Niemiec. The Bombers won over the Golden Flyers 1–0 at Butterfield stadium on November 12. AMANDA DEN HARTOG/THE ITHACAN

The field hockey team’s season ended Nov. 9 in an Empire 8 Conference Tournament game against Utica College. The Bombers fought hard but were edged out by the Pioneers 1–0. Freshman goalkeeper Katie Lass held down the fort for the Blue and Gold, making 17 saves to keep the team close throughout.

While the South Hill squad’s season ended earlier than it would have liked, it was a year of unprecedented success for the team. With a 10–5 record and a high-powered offense led by senior Katie Kennedy, who scored 10 goals with a shot percentage of .370, the Bombers made the Empire 8 Conference Tournament for the first time since 2009, giving this year’s seniors their first shot at a postseason win.

Individual successes were also recognized in November, as four Bombers were given all conference honors. Junior Danielle Coiro made first team while seniors Katie Kennedy and Andrea Pace and freshman Katie Lass made second team.

From left, senior Lindsay Flanagan defends Hartwick sophomore midfielder Kelly Kramer in Ithaca’s 3–1 win at Glazer Arena on Oct. 2.

AMANDA DEN HARTOG/ THE ITHACAN

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A C A T R CO jug 2013 Cortaca is Ithaca’s biggest sporting event every year. Eight of our other sports teams could make it to national championship games, and Cortaca would still be the game students cared about most. This Cortaca didn’t disappoint. Records were set, hearts were broken, some guy jumped off of a house and, for just a moment, it looked like the game might have been cancelled next year. Here are the highlights from before, during and after the game.

THE GAME

SUNY Cortland sophomore Ke’shaun Stallworth reaches out to cover junior receivers Joel Lynch and Vito Boffoli in the end zone at the end of the second quarter.

Amanda Den Hartog/The Ithacan

College increases security for Cortaca

BY CHRISTIAN ARAOS

SPORTS

The 55th annual Cortaca Jug game took place Nov. 17 at Butterfield Stadium, where the football team attempted to avoid being the first squad to lose four consecutive Cortaca Jugs to SUNY Cortland.

While the players and fans focused their preparation efforts on the field, Ithaca College’s Office of Public Safety was focused on the safety of attendees. This year, the college used a third-party security firm for the first time in the game’s history.

Cayuga Security and Investigation was contracted to keep Butterfield Stadium secure before, during and after this year’s game. Security used metal-detecting wands to check spectators upon entrance and turned away anyone who brought a bag into the stadium.

Terri Stewart, director of public safety and emergency management, said the college worked with Cayuga Security last year.

“They’ve been on campus, and they’ve worked with our security,” Stewart said.

“They worked with us for the 2012 Commencement, were present for the Commencement Eve Concert and were present for Commencement day, so this is not the first time for us to work with them.”

Stewart also said the college worked along with the Cornell University Police Department to have bomb-sniffing dogs sweep the stadium. The college also collaborated with the New York State Police and the Ithaca Police Department for the event.

“We plan for the worst-case scenario — take the bomb dogs for example,” Stewart said. “A lot of these are best practices, and there are safety and security measures that are standardized to take precautionary measures to make sure that visitors, students, faculty and staff that are attending the game are safe.”

Top three storylines headed into Cortaca

BY TAYLOR PALMER 1. No class has ever gone 0–4 in Cortaca The Class of 2014 had never seen a victory on the gridiron against SUNY Cortland. Last year, the Bombers were just a yard away from a win, but were stopped short on a goal line stand. This year’s game is the last chance for the seniors on the team to get a win before becoming the first class in the game’s history to never have possession of the Jug. 2. Winning would secure a home playoff game at Butterfield Stadium Heading into the game, the Bombers sat at second place in the NCAA Division-III’s East Region. An Ithaca victory against Cortland would definitively sealed the possibility of hosting a playoff game at Butterfield Stadium in its first postseason appearance since 2008.

A loss would not eliminate the possibility, but a win would make it certain.

3. Tom Dempsey takes over the reins Senior quarterback Phil Neumann went down Oct. 5 with an elbow injury, and junior Tom Dempsey took over for the Bombers.

Dempsey led the team to five straight wins and remains the starter even after Neumann became eligible for play against Cortland.

What’s so important about winning Cortaca?

BY MATT KELLY The Bombers football team had clinched the Empire 8 Conference title, and then it was time for the only game on the schedule that the general student body actually cares about: the Cortaca Jug. The Bombers were 8–1 this fall, but unfortunately that accomplishment wouldn’t matter to many students unless the team beat our hated SUNY school rivals.

My peers and I in the Class of 2014 have seen the Blue and Gold go 0-for-3 against SUNY Cortland in both nail-biters and blowouts. Everyone is aware of the hype that comes with the Cortaca game, and it would be sad to have never seen our Bombers bring home the Jug. But is this recent drought a real threat to our school’s morale?

Senior class president Erin Smith admitted that she had high hopes for the game when she was a freshman and said she doesn’t want that optimism for the game to wane with future students at the college.

“I don’t want it to start becoming an expectation that we lose Cortaca,” she said.

While I agree that a prolonged losing streak would tarnish one of the biggest days of our school year, it’s also important to remember that we don’t go to a Division I football school. For example, I’ve never been to Ohio State University or the University of Alabama, but I imagine the students there have much more noticeable celebrations when their football teams win conference titles than the muted reaction I saw across

our campus this past weekend.

Smith agreed and added that our support is spread in a healthy way to all of our college’s sports teams.

“The good news is that our morale isn’t solely based on the football team,” she said. “We could absolutely have more school spirit, but I think the way our spirit is scattered throughout our student body.”

A victory would have been nice for our senior scrapbooks, but it’s important to remember that our college experience goes way beyond the gridiron.

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How the 54th annual Cortaca Jug game went down

BY CHRISTIAN ARAOS For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every heart-stopping win, there is an equally heartbreaking loss.

The team’s 28–24 Cortaca Jug loss to SUNY Cortland on Nov. 16 serves as proof.

After a back and forth game that lasted for 46 minutes, the Red Dragons’ offense struck a crushing blow to a Bombers squad that looked like it would take victory for the first time in three years.

Cortland junior wide receiver John Babin caught a 41-yard pass from junior quarterback Tyler Hughes with 1:08 remaining in the fourth quarter to silence the raucous crowd at Butterfield Stadium.

Babin was the Red Dragons’ main threat on offense, entering the game with more than 1,000 receiving yards. He finished the game with eight receptions for 174 yards and two touchdowns.

Bomber senior safety Tom Scanlon said the team was aware of Babin’s threat to the secondary.

“We had some stuff installed that was designed to keep him on lockdown,” Scanlon said. “As you guys just saw, the kid’s an A-plus receiver, an A-plus football player. He’s the best receiver we could potentially see all year.”

The Bombers attempted to respond, but junior wide receiver Vito Boffoli fumbled at the Red Dragons’ 41-yard line, and the Red Dragons fell on it to seal the game.

Boffoli’s fumble was the final nail in a coffin that the Bombers could have easily escaped had they not left points on the scoreboard time and time again.

After driving 81 yards in the third quarter, junior quarterback Tom Dempsey tried to force a pass through coverage to senior tight end Jared Prugar in the back of the end zone, but it was intercepted by junior safety Andrew Tolosi — their second of three turnovers.

For the second straight Cortaca Jug, the Blue and Gold had a golden opportunity to score a fourth-quarter touchdown. When

senior running back Justin Autera dropped a punt, the Bombers recovered at the Cortland 20-yard line.

After two runs, the Bombers had third and five at the Red Dragons’ 15-yard line when junior wide receiver Joel Lynch dropped a screen pass, forcing the Bombers to settle for a 32-yard field goal from junior kicker Garrett Nicholson.

Lynch was at the center of another pivotal play set up by a Cortland fumble. After freshman tight end Josh Riley fumbled with three seconds left in the first half, the Bombers had an opportunity to take a 21–14 lead into the locker room.

Dempsey was able to avoid the Red Dragon pass rush and launch a pass toward the right corner of the end zone. Lynch leaped and caught the ball, but the referees ruled that Lynch lost possession of the football upon hitting the ground.

Lynch lost possession after his arms tangled with a defender.

“My arm was around his arm, and as I fell to the ground, his body popped up and the ball came out,” Lynch said. “I didn’t have possession, so I guess that’s why they didn’t call it a touchdown.”

Bomber head coach Mike Welch also added that the team’s three turnovers were costly in a close game against one of the top opponents on its schedule.

Welch downplayed the fact that the Bombers’ seniors will be known as the first group of seniors to have lost four straight Cortaca Jug games.

“I don’t deal in the negatives,” Welch said. “These guys played hard, and they earned an opportunity to play college football and earned an opportunity to be in the playoffs this year, and that’s what we’re focusing on.”

Scanlon, one of the 21 seniors to have gone winless in the Cortaca Jug competition, paused when asked about how that felt.

“It feels horrible,” he said. “I really wish for this group of guys that we could’ve got one. We worked too hard not to win those things.”

LEFT: Junior wide receiver Chris Bauer runs the ball downfield. TOP: Junior wide receiver Joel Lynch is defended by Cortland junior defensive back Ke’shaun Stallworth. BOTTOM: Senior defensive back Malik Morris recovers a fumble.

RIGHT: Freshman runningback Evan Skea runs downfiled as junior wide receiver Joel Lynch block Cortland junior defensive back Ke’shaun Stallworth DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

BY CHRISTIAN ARAOS The Cortaca Jug isn’t going anywhere. Ithaca College confirmed Nov. 19 that it is not considering canceling the game, one day after a report indicated that SUNY Cortland president Erik Bitterbaum and Ithaca College President Tom Rochon discussed cancelling next year’s game.

The reports came after postgame celebrations in Cortland led to the arrest of 19 Cortland students after the Red Dragons’ 28–24 victory Nov. 16.

The discussion about the future of the Cortaca Jug game began after the Cortland Police Department requested assistance from the New York State Police and three other nearby police departments to control the situation.

After the rowdy celebrations, Kathryn Silliman, Cortland city council alderwoman, presented a proposal for a oneyear ban on the game at a common council meeting Nov. 19, but it was defeated 6–2.

Dave Maley, associate director of media relations at the college, said Bitterbaum called Rochon on Nov. 18 to briefly discuss the college’s response to the events that took place in Cortland during the afternoon of Nov. 16.

The rumors that the game could be canceled spread after Syracuse.com quoted Cortland mayor Brian Tobin saying the presidents of the two colleges were discussing canceling next year’s game.

In an email to The Ithacan on Nov. 18, Bitterbaum said the report was incorrect.

SPORTS

The other side of Cortaca

COURTESY OF INSTAGRAM USER @SMK21377

Susan Bassett, director of intercollegiate athletics and recreational sports at the college, said the future of the game did not come up during the post-Cortaca debriefings conducted by college officials.

“There’s nothing from athletics,” Bassett said. “Other than our debriefing after the normal managing of an event, there’s been no discussion of Cortaca.”

Bitterbaum issued an apology Nov. 17 on behalf of SUNY Cortland after police struggled to control rowdy behavior from football fans after the Red Dragons defeated the Ithaca Bombers.

“Please be assured that the college will work closely with city officials to implement measures intended to prevent this type of activity from occurring again,” he said in a statement. “Unfortunately, as we all saw Saturday, the athletic contest has become secondary to the celebration for some students, guests and visitors to the community. As an institution dedicated to academic and athletic excellence, we are determined to turn this destructive culture around.”

Urtz also said the majority of the events in Cortland occurred during the game and immediately after, and the situation calmed down later that afternoon.

The game’s official attendance was 6,500, almost half the Ithaca College Butterfield Stadium record of 12,620 from 2001.

Urtz said the low attendance is a sign that Cortaca is no longer just about the game.

“The focus of the game has been deflected, and that saddens all of us within athletics,” Urtz said. “It should be about a great game and a great rivalry between two very strong, very traditional schools that are 25 minutes apart. It would be nice if both campuses and both communities got back to the center of attention: the football game.”

Cortaca Riot:

BY THE NUMBERS 131

DECEMBER

With the New York State Championships behind them, the wrestling team looked ahead toward the rest of the season and the NCAA tournament in December.

Placing eighth at the NYS Championships put the Bombers at No. 7 in the national rankings, with junior Alex Gomez beginning the month as the top-ranked wrestler in the 133-pound weight class and senior Dominick Giacolone ranked No. 7 nationally in the 141-pound weight class.

Throughout the month, the team remained perfect in dual matches with three straight wins including a 26–9 rout of the Rochester Institute of Technology Tigers.

Dominick Giacolone competes against an Oswego opponent on his way to winning the 141-weight class during the Ithaca Invitational on Nov. 9 in Glazer Arena.

COREY HESS/THE ITHACAN

The then 4–1 women’s basketball team entered into December as the No. 17 team in the country coming off a 22-point blowout loss against Amherst College.

The loss sparked a fire in the South Hill squad, which ripped off a three- game winning streak, pulling off victories, by an average of 9.3 points. Wins came against rival SUNY Cortland, St. Lawrence University and Hanover College before losing to No. 1 Depauw College in Greencastle, Ind. In the loss against Depauw, senior Kathryn Campbell became the 11th player in program history to amass 1,000 points. She did so at the 13 minute mark of the first half, draining a three to break quadruple digits. She concluded the game with 1,005 points.

After the loss, the Blue and Gold were ranked No. 16 in the nation.

December was a strong month for the Bombers offensively and defensively, as the team topping 70 points in all games but one and only letting Hanover break 70 on defense.

Senior Mary Kate Tierney takes a shot as St. Lawrence junior Kara McDuffee defends. The Bombers defeated the Saints 77–66 in Ben Light Gymnasium on Dec. 7.

COREY HESS/THE ITHACAN

SPORTS

The indoor track and field season began in December at the Cornell Relays at Cornell University. Junior Rashaad Barrett was named Empire 8 men’s track and field athlete of the week after breaking a college record in the 60-meter dash at the relays. Barrett clocked in at 6.95 seconds, breaking a three-year-old record and qualified for the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference.

Senior Captain Brendan Wilkins also met the ECAC qualifying mark in the high jump by clearing 1.94 meters and finishing in 10th place.

The Blue and Gold registered two other top-10 finishes at the meet. Sophomore Ndue Palushi scored 3,785 points in the heptathalon and then-sophomore Stephen Gomez, in his first race with the team, finished 10th in the 3,000-meter run.

The women’s team started hot with six Bombers qualifying for the ECACs. While the sprinters were competitive in every category, The Blue and Gold shined in the field events.

Junior Harmony Graves clocked in at 8.07 seconds in the 60-meter dash and sophomore Sarah Werner came right behind here with a time of 8.08 seconds.

With a fifth-place finish in the triple jump with 11.71 meters and a long jump of 5.31 meters, Junior Emilia Scheemaker hit two marks for ECAC qualifiers.

Along with another four top-10 finishers in the throws, the team showcased its strength in the field events.

TOP: Freshman Natalie Meyer completes an attempt at the high jump during the Greg Page Cornell Relays on Dec. 7.

DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

The men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams brought the action to Ithaca for the first home meet of the year, the Bomber Invitational at the Glazer Arena on Dec. 8. Both teams took momentum from November into the meet, the men’s team ripping off three straight victories, including a 209–89 rout of Hamilton

College, and the women were winners of five straight meets and undefeated In the season.

Both teams had a strong showing. The men’s team finished second out of 11 teams at the Invitational.

Senior Zach Kundel led the way for the team with a thirdplace finish out of 92 in the 50-yard freestyle. The women’s

squad started slow, but a strong fourth-place finish by senior Elizabeth Gawrys in the 1650yard freestyle and a fifth place finish in the 4x100-yard freestyle relay gave the team a fourth place finish overall.

In their most competitive meet in the early season, both groups showed strength in every category of competition.

Ithaca senior Shelby Pascoe competes in the 1650-meter freestyle race. AMANDA DEN HARTOG/THE ITHACAN

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Freshman Leonard Davis handles the ball at the top of the key while St. Lawrence University freshman guard David Hampton guards him.

JENNIFER WILLIAMS/ THE ITHACAN

Second Chance

BY MICHAEL SADWITH Freshman Leonard Davis is a Division III coach’s dream with top-tier talent and a humility rarely seen in a college freshman. As a first-year starter on the men’s basketball team, the 6’9” forward has always had the height and the playing skills, though his life at home hasn’t always been stable.

Davis, a Denver native, began playing basketball in fourth grade.

His younger cousin, Jaycee Floyd, was playing on an Amateur Athletic Union basketball team — one of the largest sports organizations that is dedicated to promoting and developing amateur sports — and wanted Davis to play. From that day, basketball was one of the most important aspects of Davis’ life.

Raised by his grandparents until he was 12 years old, Davis said being brought up by someone other than his mother positively shaped his life and has encouraged him to make smart decisions when it came to illegal substances.

“I didn’t have the rules of today’s society, so I was kind of raised in an old-fashioned way,” Davis said. “I knew coming into college I would be around drugs and alcohol, but because I was raised by elders, along with my past experiences with [my mom’s] substance abuse, I knew that those things could hurt me if I wasn’t careful.”

He channeled his energies into basketball instead. Though he only had limited minutes playing Varsity his freshman year, he received national recruiting attention when he was invited to attend the Double Pump basketball camp in Southern California, which is one of the top camps for basketball players seeking exposure to Division I college coaches. Davis said he played well at the camp, and his coaches liked his size as a bigger guard player.

By the end of the camp, Division I schools such as the University of Arizona, Stanford University and the University of Colorado were sending the sophomore recruitment letters. Davis, who was a starter that year, was also the only sophomore in the state of Colorado to be featured in ESPN Rise Magazine as a top-50 player in the state.

Though his recruitment drew hype from multiple Division I programs, Davis had a major obstacle in his way. He wasn’t performing well in school. Then he found Project Greer Street.

Ronald Sally and his wife Yvette, graduates of Duke University and parents of an East High School graduate, founded Project Greer

Street in 2009. The program — named after the street that Sally lived on in the northside neighborhood of St. Louis — helps AfricanAmerican males in the East High School community focus on academics and create options for future success.

In a student’s freshman or sophomore year at East High School, the faculty at the school identifies students whom they think would benefit from the program. Project Greer Street students meet about every 10–14 days at the high school throughout the year to discuss topics that focus on academic success and life skills development.

With the guidance and inspiration the program provided, Davis said he became more dedicated to raising his grades. By his senior year, Davis was the recipient of the Mayor’s Youth Award, which is given out to students who exhibited leadership and success.

While Davis grew as a student during the next two years of his high school career, a sophomore class of skilled shooters pushed the former starter to the bench during his junior season.

His playing situation only got worse when Davis tore his meniscus in a game against Minnetonka High School halfway into his senior year. With his chances of recruitment dwindling, Davis sat down with Sally and sent letters and highlight tapes to Division III schools to expand his opportunity to play college basketball. One of which was Ithaca College, a school recommended by Yvette because of the notoriety of its communications program.

When Davis chose the college, head coach Jim Mullins said he wasn’t only happy to have a player from an elite basketball high school as a part of the college’s basketball program, but he was eager to have Davis because of the player he is.

“The perfect storm in recruiting is when you get a kid who is not only a great player, but you just love him so much and want him to come to school because you think he is going to make your program better just for being in it,” Mullins said.

Mullins said Davis’ greatest strengths on the court are his hustle, energy and athleticism, which make him a versatile player. “[Davis] is somebody who defends and rebounds, and I really think he could be a stud in those areas,” Mullins said.

As for Davis, he said he looks forward to helping the basketball program thrive and return to the national stage.

“I want to win a national title,” he said. “I am here to be a part of an elite program and help mold a program.”

Weighing In on Weight Loss Alex Gomez wakes up on Tuesday morning with his muscles aching. He lifts himself from his bed and walks to the scale, his quads throbbing with each step. It reads 138 pounds. He is 5 pounds overweight.

Gomez wrestles in the Division III 133-pound weight class he needs to reach that exact mark at his weigh-ins to be eligible to compete in tournaments.

Weight management for collegiate wrestlers requires constant effort, Gomez said.

For weekly weigh-ins, wrestlers have to drink gallons of water each day, exercise constantly and watch the scale, all while preparing for upcoming opponents. The wrestling lifestyle is taxing on the human body because of constant weight fluctuations.

Gomez said Division III athletes are required to take care of their bodies on their own. As a result, trainers and coaches do not provide personal workout schedules or diet plans for players during the season.

Gomez said his brother Ricardo taught him the importance of keeping a strong mindset in a sport that puts considerable stress on an athlete’s body. Ricardo, who is three years older than Alex, represented the Bombers as the Division III wrestling champion last March before he graduated.

“It’s a long season, so it’s going to be draining once and a while,” Gomez said. “I don’t think any sport does that — constantly losing weight — dropping, gaining, losing.”

At the beginning of the season, Gomez was assigned to a weight class that he must maintain throughout the season to be eligible for matches. Gomez said the current NCAA regulations prohibit athletes from rapidly losing large amounts of weight that could put them in danger. The regulations also do not permit athletes to go below 5 percent body fat, and they are only allowed to lose 1.5 percent of their

total weight per week to remain eligible to compete in matches.

Gomez said the hardest stretch of the season, which began in November and ended in March, is during winter break because wrestlers tend to gain weight while at home over the holidays. Last year, he and Ricardo

to 150 pounds, and he wrestles at 125 — so that’s a 25-pound difference.”

When wrestlers are above their weight limit before a match, they need to lose weight rapidly — commonly referred to as cutting.

The more they have to cut, the more the body is strained. There are many ways to cut weight, including excessive sweating, starvation and increased workout durations. Extreme cutting is a taboo practice in the wrestling world because of the stress it puts on the human body. Gomez said it is not uncommon for wrestlers to be between 5 and 10 pounds overweight the week before they weigh-in.

The horror stories of wrestlers going to extremes at the collegiate level are mostly a thing of the past, Gomez and Nichols said. Wrestlers no longer starve themselves or work out to the point of dehydration. In fact, Nichols asks his team to carry gallons of water with them during the day to stay hydrated. Gomez said old ways of cutting weight is outdated and dangerous.

“Nowadays, we have a new system where we have certifications where they pinch your body fat to see how low you go,” he said. “It’s not like back in the day. They used to do crazy stuff like go in a sauna.

It’s not as big now.”

Nichols defended his approach of letting players take the initiative when it comes to supplemental training and nutrition. He said wrestlers need to commit Alex Gomez poses in the lighting studio in the Park to an entire lifestyle change to succeed in School of Communications. JENNIFER WILLIAMS/THE ITHACAN collegiate wrestling.

“You have to educate everybody, obviboth struggled maintaining their weight ously,” he said. “We talk to players about during that time because they couldn’t resist nutrition, and we do all different kinds of their mom’s home cooking. workouts — crossfit training, running, wres“Over Christmas break last year, I got to 17, tling, weightlifting — all kinds of things, just 18 pounds over,” he said. “It was bad. I blew so they have a good idea of different workup, and my brother blew up, too. He got up outs and how to stay in shape.”

SPORTS

BY MARK WARREN

LEFT: Alex Gomez wrestles against an opponent in the Ithaca Invitational on Nov. 3, 2012 in Glazer Arena.

FILE PHOTO/THE ITHACAN RIGHT: Junior wrestler Alex Gomez weighs himself Dec. 3 in the Fitness Center. DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

135

JANUARY

ITHACA, N.Y. --WOMEN’S TENNIS WOMEN’S TENNIS

After taking fourth in the prestigious Whitehill National Duals, the wrestling team looked ahead to the Eastern Collegiate Wrestling Conference Championships on Jan. 18 in Williamsport, Pa. The Bombers took momentum from the Whitehill duals and transferred it into the conference tournament, taking opponents by storm and overpowering other conference powerhouses like SUNY Cortland and SUNY Brockport and defeating secondplace Cortland by 18.5 points.

Ithaca scored 142.5 team points and earned its eighth team championship in the ECWC tournament’s 21-year history. Juniors Alex Gomez and Kristopher Schimek won their weight classes, 133 and 165 points, respectively, while sophomore Eamonn Gaffney took home the top prize in the 149-weight class.

Just one week after the tournament in Williamsport Pa., on Jan. 10, the Bombers took on fifth-ranked Wabash College in Glazer Arena. The 13th-ranked Blue and Gold finished the dual tied with the Little Giants but lost on the tiebreaker, giving the team a tough loss to end a successful month.

Sophomore Eamonn Gaffney grapples his SUNY Cortland opponent during the wrestling team’s meet with the Red Dragons and Wabash College on Jan. 25 in Glazera Arena. BRIAN PULLING/THE ITHACAN

Above, women’s tennis caption caption blah blah CREDIT: Rene Mattecon/ The Ithacan

January proved a tough month for the men’s basketball team. After a 3–5 start, the Bombers hit a skid, losing nine of their 11 games in the new year. One win came against Houghton College, which didn’t register a single win, and the second was a one-point squeaker against Elmira College.

The Bombers long-range shots were not landing, hitting the 30 percent mark just three times during games played this month.

Overall, the team struggled, but senior forward Frank Mitchell shined throughout January. Mitchell stuffed the stat sheet in the victory over Elmira, scoring 25 points to lead all scorers and adding nine rebounds, two assists, three blocks and three steals and hit his career high with 30 points against Alfred University.

From left, Junior center Keefe Gitto drives for the net as Cortland senior center Kevin McMahon defends.

MICHAEL TAMBURRI/THE ITHACAN

The men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams took care of business January, winning every meet they attended and competed in.

The women’s team started the month at the Fredonia Tri-meet,

in Buffalo, N.Y., finishing first in 11 of the 16 events at the meet.

Then, the team cruised to easy victories over SUNY Alfred and University of Rochester by a combined total of 166 points, before sweeping every event

in the Dick Comanzo Memorial tournament on Jan. 26.

The men’s team took first place at the Kumpf Invitational on Jan. 11 in Troy, N.Y., before taking down Alfred and Rochester by a total margin of 255

SPORTS

Sophomore Megan Harrington does her floor routine while competing against Ursinus College Jan. 25 in Ben Light Gymnasium. MATT COLGAN/ THE ITHACAN

Hampered by unfortunate injuries, gymnastics team got off to a slow start in January, losing their home opener in Ben Light Gymnasium on Jan. 11 to a nationally ranked SUNY Brockport squad.

During the meet, sophomore Megan Harrington was the team’s only all-around competitor, scoring 35.375 points.

The top finisher for the Bombers’ squad was senior Shilanna Gallo who took home a fourthplace finish in the uneven bars, tallying a 9.025 score. Sophomore Lara Haberle and freshman Alexis Mena both made strong showings in their competitive varsity debuts finishing fifth in the balance beam and floor exercise, respectively.

The Bombers finished the rest of the month with three more loses. Two came against Ursinus College and one against Springfield College. The second battle against Ursinus College in Ben Light Gymnasium on Jan. 25 was tight, with the Bears edging out the Blue and Gold by fewer than five points.

While it didn’t register any wins in the month, the recovering team showed promise.

points. The Bombers also swept the events of the Dick Comanzo tournament. This level of dominance earned the men’s team a spot on the national college swimming top-25 polls, coming in at 23 overall.

The Ithaca College women’s soccer team moved up in the National Soccer Coaches Association of America National Poll that was released on Sept 24.

The Bombers moved up to No. 8 in the country after a 1-0 win over Hartwick on Sept. 21.

Ithaca junior Clement Towner competes in the 200-meter butterfly at the Aquatic Pavilion. PRAIRWA LEERASANTHANAH/ THE ITHACAN

137

WELCH WINS NATIONAL RECOGNITION

BY CHRISTIAN ARAOS For Mike Welch, the past year has been a roller coaster. The Bomber football head coach underwent heart bypass surgery in October 2012 that forced him to miss the last four games of the 2012 season. Welch returned soon after that season ended and successfully guided the Bombers to a 9–3 record, capturing the Empire 8 championship and earning himself and his staff Empire 8 Coach of the Year honors. He was also named president of the American Football Coaches Association for next year.

Staff Writer Christian Araos sat down with Welch to discuss his emotional year, his new position as president of the AFCA and his future as head coach.

Christian Araos: This calendar year has been up and down for you.

How have you changed as a person through both the heart troubles and this season?

Mike Welch: You rethink what your priorities are. I had that opportunity to do it, and one of the things was that you just need to appreciate what you have a lot more than before the surgery. I gained a stronger appreciation for all the things in life, and most of it is just people. I’ve been fortunate to be around some great teams, coaches, and you have your family — [that] certainly is the first priority.

CA: What was your initial thought when you returned to the office for the first time after the surgery?

MW: I was happy to be back. You feel out of it when you can’t do anything. I wasn’t able to do much at all. It was just being able to be active as a coach rather than sitting on the sidelines. That time will come when I no longer coach, and I think it comes to everybody.

Right now, I’m still coaching, and I missed it, so I was really excited about being back coaching.

CA: How much have you thought about “sitting on the sidelines” for good?

MW: Not much. That’ll come. I don’t dwell on the future too much.

CA: What does it mean for you and the staff to win both the league and Empire 8 Coach of the Year?

MW: I think it’s an honor. It’s a team award. Players play the game.

We didn’t make a tackle or throw a block, so it’s all on the players and their ability to perform.

CA: You’ve been named AFCA president for the [2014] and have been a board member in years past. What will change for you serving as both coach and president?

MW: We’re very fortunate to have a great executive director in Grant Teaff — the man who runs our operation and provides us with leadership. Board members contribute, and we do. Fortunately, it’s not a tremendous amount of time consumption. It does increase when you become president, but I’ve been a member of the board. Overall, Grant Teaff, being a former AFCA Coach of the Year, he understands what we go through, and he tries to make the time commitment of being a board member as minimal as possible yet trying to be effective.

CA: Having the added work as AFCA president to your headcoaching duties can bring some extra stress. Do you think you can handle it after all you’ve been through?

MW: I’m 100 percent back to health. It’s just a matter of making sure I exercise and eat right. The job hasn’t changed much, and there has to be a balance, and I think I’ve done that.

LEFT: Mike Welch addresses the audience at the pre-Cortaca press conference.

RIGHT: Welch addresses the team after its victory over Framingham College.

DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

SPORTS

Junior Rises through the ranks

BY MiLES SURREY

As junior guard Samantha Klie continues her playing days on the women’s basketball team, she has finally claimed a spot in the starting lineup. And after a rocky start, her journey has culminated into a childhood dream of competing in an NCAA tournament.

For the Klie family, basketball is a staple, but Sam said she felt obligated to play “I would go to my older sister’s games, and I’d pray that they wouldn’t have enough kids, and I’d have to play,” she said.

Robert Klie, Sam’s father, said he believes Sam benefitted from having a four-year gap in age with her sister Elissa. They could practice with, but not play competitively against, each other.

“Sam always wanted to be like Elissa, and she was four years older, which is perfect spacing in that it was a large enough gap where they didn’t compete with each other,” he said.

After a successful four years on Ramapo High School’s varsity women’s basketball team. Klie received offers from Skidmore College and Emory University but chose to follow after her sister Elissa, who was an All-Empire 8 selection as a senior for the Bombers.

“I wanted to go to a college where [competing for a national championship] would be possible,” she said.

When Klie began her collegiate career in 2011, 10 freshmen were competing for four varsity roster spots, so the odds were already stacked against her and she didn’t make the squad “Not being on the varsity team was

Junior Sam Klie dribbles the ball down the court during Ithaca’s game against Elmira College on Feb. 14. in Ben Light Gymnasium DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

honestly the most painful thing I’ve ever had to go through,” Klie said.

Robert Klie said he believes that week was especially tough for his daughter because her sister was being memorialized in the Athletics and Events Center.

In the end, however, injuries on the varsity roster gave Klie her chance. She ultimately ended up playing the most minutes of any freshman off the bench.

Following an ankle injury to thenjunior starter Elisabeth Wentlent in the 2012–13 season, Klie received her first chance to start a game against St. John Fisher College after Wenlent went down.

Just one practice later though, Klie broke her hand and didn’t tell coaches.

“I was going to start the next game, and in my eyes it was my chance, and I was pumped,” Klie said. “So I told myself not to think about my hand.”

Klie started four games with her broken hand, and the results were mixed.

The Bombers won three of those four games, but Klie had 19 turnovers and only 12 assists in that span. At that point, the coaches took her in for an X-ray and discovered the broken hand.

Last season, Klie ranked third on the team with 60 assists.

For the first five games of the season, Klie helped the Blue and Gold earn four wins and only one loss off the bench.

Following a win against SUNY Cortland on Dec. 3 in Ben Light Gymnasium, Klie was inserted into the starting lineup.

Senior guard Mary Kate Tierney said she thinks Klie is a crucial to success.

TOP: From left junior Sam Klie goes for a layup while junior Elmira “Sam’s positive attitude and work ethic... will be huge in getting us all the College guard Alex Balara defends.

BOTTOM: From left. junior Sam Klie drives down the courtwhile way to the National Championship,” junior Elmira College guard Alex Balara defends. The Bombers Tierney said. beat the Golden Flyers 63–57. DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

139

FEBRUARY

Senior Rani Jacobson does a beam routine during a meet against SUNY Brockport on Feb. 2 in Ben Light Gymnasium.

JUSTIN MABER /THE ITHACAN

After two poor performances by the gymnastics team in January, the squad put up its best score of the season at the Harriet Marranca Memorial Invitational on Feb. 15 in Ben Light Gymnasium. The Bombers also picked up their first win of the season against Rhode Island College. Sophomore Lara Haberle led the way for the Bombers with a 9.55 on the balance beam, tying Brockport’s Jennifer Sklenar for first place in the match.

Junior Christine Zulkosky competes in the 200 breast stroke during Ithaca’s meet against SUNY Alfred on Jan. 25. TUCKER MITCHELL/THE ITHACAN

Strong showings at the Ithaca Invitiational at the beginning of February set up momentum for the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams heading into the New York State and Empire 8 championship tournaments.

The women’s team captured its fifth Upper New York State Collegiate Swimming Association championship in six seasons, and its 14th Empire 8 championship. The men’s team finished in second place in both standings.

Junior Peter Knight finished in second place in the 100-meter freestyle while his teammate, sophomore Adam Zelehowsky finished fifth. The women swept the awards at the tournament, as freshman Grace Ayer was named Swimmer of the Meet and classmate Nickie Griesemer was named Diver of the Meet.

Junior Rashaad Barret competes in the long jump during the Empire 8 Championships on Feb. 2. JILLIAN FLINT/THE ITHACAN

The 17th-ranked women’s track and field team tallied a runner-up finish at the 2014 New York State Collegiate Track Conference Indoor Championships hosted by St. Lawrence College on Feb. 28. The Bombers have won the title 13 times, but finished in second place this year. The Blue and Gold scored 157.5 points in 21 events and had nine events where multiple Bombers finished in the top eight.

The team finished in the top three for the 22nd time.

The Ithaca College men’s track and field team, which has won two titles in program history, scored 87.5 points over the course of 21 events, just five points from third place.

Freshman Sean Phillips finished third in the 3000-meter race while Junior Dennis Ryan finished fourth in the 1000-meter for the men’s team. Junior Emilia Scheemaker finished second in the long jump for the women.

SPORTS

February proved a busy month for the women’s basketball team. On the strength of a balanced attack, with an offense averaging over 70 points per game and giving up fewer than 50, the Blue and Gold dominated opponents down the stretch of the regular season, going 6–0 to close out their schedule.

Seeded first in the Empire 8 tournament, the Bombers hosted the affair, with an automatic bid in the NCAA tournament on the line. Ranked second in the NCAA’s Eastern Region Poll, the Bombers were a heavy favorite to win the tournament.

Against a talented 16–10 St. John Fisher team in first round, the South Hill squad took care of business, shooting 52 percent in the second half and defeating the Cardinals by four.

In the championship game, senior guard Mary Kate Tierney pulled down a double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds to help the Bombers take home the championship, securing their NCAA tournament bid.

The men’s basketball team finished out its season in February with a 2–4 record in the final stretch of its season. The Bombers’ most impressive win over an Empire 8 opponent came against Utica College on Feb. 15 in Ben Light Gymnasium, providing the season’s highlight with a nailbiting 86–84 win. Overall the Blue and Gold finished 7–18 on the year and senior forward Frank Mitchell was named second team all-conference.

From Left, Nazareth senior forward guards Ithaca senior forward Frank Mitchell.

JILLIAN FLINT/ THE ITHACAN

Junior forward Geena Brady attempts to convert a lay up against an opponent during the Bomber’s game versus Nazareth College on Feb. 7.

JILLIAN FLINT/ THE ITHACAN

Three times this season the wrestling team dropped a dual match on a tiebreaker, falling 19-18 to Delaware Valley College on Feb. 1 at Ben Light Gymnasium.

The Bombers held an 18–9 advantage, but the Aggies won the last three matches to tie the score at 18–8. The tiebreaker criteria was based on most sixpoint victories, and that distinction went to Delaware Valley with a pin in the 125-pound weight class in the meet’s final match.

The team bounced back Feb. 8 in a triple dual when it defeated all three opponents by staggering margins, taking down Wesleyan University 41–6, Williams College 29–6 and SUNY Oneonta 42–3.

Junior Alex Gomez’s performances in the triple dual boosted his national credentials.

After the duals, he returned to the top spot in the national rankings for the 133-pound class.

In the final bout of the season, the team took on fifth-ranked SUNY Cortland on Feb. 19 in Ben Light Gymnasium and defeated the national powerhouse 20–12 and ending the season with four ranked wrestlers and a 12th-ranked team.

Freshman Carlos Toribio takes down his Delaware Valley College opponent Feb. 1 in Ben Light Gymnasium.

JENNIFER WILLIAMS/ THE ITHACAN

141

FOR THE LOVE OF DANCE

BY VINICA WEISS In dance, every second counts. It’s no surprise that this type of structure is what makes senior Jess Caracciolo who she is.

With the quick movement of her body, Caracciolo glides from one dance move to the next. Her schedule is no different. As the president of both the Ithaca College Dance Team and IC Unbound, Caracciolo is the leader of the two most established dance groups on campus. On top of this, she is involved in nine organizations and society memberships — excelling at them all. “[My schedule] can definitely be stressful, and it gets intense,” Caracciolo said. “My little green agenda is my world. Everything is written in it.”

Caracciolo balances being president of the dance teams as well as being student vice president of Phi Kappa Phi Honors Society, event coordinator of Student Volunteers for Special Olympics, member of the Senior Class Cabinet “Give Back” Committee, sport club office assistant at the Sports Club office, student worker at the Health Sciences and Human Performance Dean’s Office, a building assistant at the Fitness Center and a leading part in ICTV’s new series, “Staged.”

Since the age of three, Caracciolo

has been passionate about dance.

Nineteen years later, she still finds the same fulfillment in it. What she loves most about it is performing, she said.

“I like to be on stage, I like to have an audience, and dance gives you a really good feeling knowing you can make people happy with your talent,” Caracciolo said.

When she came to the college, she wanted to keep up with dance, so she joined the ICDT and Unbound. As a sophomore, Caracciolo was elected president of the ICDT. When Caracciolo was appointed to be president of Unbound, she was studying abroad in Australia. At the time she found out, she was at a hostel in New Zealand and got an email saying she had to book the dates for a performance. From that moment on, she would be the leader of the group.

“It pretty much started then,” Caracciolo said. “To come back from being abroad and have to be in charge of a 50-person dance group was definitely intimidating.”

Unlike Unbound, the ICDT is a smaller group made up of 14 dancers.

In this group, Caracciolo is more in the background, involved in the operation of the organization. Her role is not so much to run the practices and make up the choreography, but to handle the financial aspects and scheduling of the events. The team

Senior Jess Caracciolo leads a routine during the Ithaca College Dance Team’s practice Feb. 24 in the Fitness Center excercise room.

COREY HESS/THE ITHACAN

Senior Jess Caracciolo leads a routine during the Ithaca College Dance Team’s practice Feb. 24 in the Fitness Center excercise room. COREY HESS/THE ITHACAN

performances include halftime shows at football and basketball games as well as regional and national competitions. Caracciolo said her job is to coordinate them all.

Despite how strict the team is, she always provides for a positive environment. Senior Sarah Hassett said Caracciolo is uplifting and is always there for anyone in the group.

“I always tell her she’s my motivational speaker,” Hassett said. “You can come to her with anything, and she always has great insight.”

Graduating in May will be an interesting change of pace for Caracciolo. She said it will take some time to adjust from participating in nine extracurricular activities to beginning to focus on her job.

“I’m definitely going to miss being a part of things, but I think for the next chapter of my life I need to say, ‘You don’t have to do it all,” Caracciolo said. “It’s OK just to focus on one thing.’”

MEntal MAtchup It’s 8 a.m. on Saturday morning, and sophomore wrestler Henry Beaman is already counting down the minutes to his first match of the day. To ease his nervousness, he begins the routine he has followed all season: First, he syncs his six favorite songs on his iPod. Next, he packs a peanut-butter, jelly and banana sandwich on a cinnamon raisin bagel for after the weigh in. Finally, but most importantly, he grabs his Rubik’s Cube, the 3-D puzzle that helps Beaman get his head in the game before every match.

Pregame rituals are commonplace in both professional and collegiate-level athletics. A routine will help some athletes in preparing themselves mentally for their performance. Some athletes like to listen to music or picture themselves as the winner of their upcoming game.

A Rubik’s Cube is not a typical pregame workout. Minutes before his match, Beaman is getting focused while listening to his music. Rubik’s Cube in hand, he is twisting and turning the cube in movements so quick that anyone watching cannot keep up.

“I listen to a set of motivational speeches, and then I have a set playlist of six songs that I listen to right before my match,” he said. “Once those six songs go on, I’m in the zone; Then probably five or 10 minutes before the match, I’ll solve my Rubik’s Cube to get my mind going.”

Beaman has had a similar routine since he began wrestling at Niagara Falls High School. As a senior in 2012, he was named most valuable player of the team.

Using the Rubik’s Cube during this time, Beaman was focused before every match. He decided to bring that routine with him into college. As a freshman last season, he said he wasn’t performing as well as he wanted.

“Last year, I had a 3–9 record on the season,” he said. “When I first got here, I thought I was going to be the man. The first

two weeks, I was wrestling with Alex Gomez and [assistant coach] Ricardo Gomez, and they used to beat on me every single day. I came in thinking that I was great. I was doing absolutely nothing.”

However, Beaman said the process of solving the cube has helped him come into a positive mental state right before a match.

“I have a cube that can be twisted and turned into millions of different combinations, and I can solve that between a minute and two minutes,” he said. “I have all the tools to solve this cube just like I have all the tools I need to go out there and win.”

As head coach of the wrestling Sophomore wrestler Henry Beaman practices technique in team for 17 years, Marty Nichols a wrestling practice Feb. 10. is no stranger to pregame rituals. TUCKER MITCHELL/THE ITHACAN Though he doesn’t recall any as specific as Beaman’s, he said he applauds the sophomore for having a routine and continuously performing it before a match.

“He’s got something there,” Nichols said. “We’ve never had anybody do a Rubik’s Cube. It makes it easier for him to go into the match with an open mind. If that works for him, it’s great.”

Nichols said having a ritual alleviates the pressure to win a match.

He sometimes sits wrestlers down if they do not have a routine and stresses its importance. Nichols used a metaphor to explain how a wrestler’s mentality can mess up his focus before a match.

“When you’re going out to perform, there’s always the devil and the angel on your shoulders,” he said. “One is telling you that you’re not good, not ready and that you haven’t worked or trained hard enough. But the other is the one you have to listen to, the one that is telling you how good you are and that you have worked hard to get on the mat,” Beaman said The struggle to stay motivated can be overwhelming at times, but he credits his love for the game as the reason why he has continued to compete.

“It teaches you respect, discipline and that you have to sacrifice things in order to get to your goals, whether it is just one match or a national championship,” he said.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY TUCKER MITCHELL

SPORTS

BY MEAGAN GRAHAM

143

MARCH

Senior pitcher Sam Bender pitches against a Cortland batter during a doubleheader at Kostrinksy Field April 2. BEN BISHOP/THE ITHACAN

The softball team won seven of its first eight games of the season and ended March with an overall record of 9–3 and sitting at No. 22 in the national polls.

With a team batting average of .306, the Bombers have been hitting the stitching off of the ball early in their 2014 campaign.

Senior first baseman Sydney Folk led the team during the month with 16 rbis and four home runs.

Ithaca senior attacker Pat Slawa makes a move around Cortland senior defender J.T. Foltz April 2 at Higgins Stadium. DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

Freshman Wes Davis competes in a match during Ithaca’s match against Stevens at Cornell March 29. DURST BRENEISER/THE ITHACAN

After a 1–8 loss to the University of Rochester to begin the spring season, the men’s tennis team pulled off an impressive 2–1 record in Hilton Head S.C., March 9 through 14.

Sophomore Chris Hayes won two of his three singles matches and all three of his doubles matches during the team’s stint down south. Freshman Wes Davis also swept all three of his opponents during the three-match stretch

The men’s lacrosse team suffered an 11–15 defeat at the hands of the Rochester Institute of Technology, the No. 1 team in national polls, on March 1 before ripping offsix straight victories by an average of almost five goals per game.

The winning streak was cut short when the South Hill squad faced off against No. 3 Cabrini College in Radnor Pa, losing by nine goals in a lopsided defeat. The team finished the month sitting at No. 11 in the national rankings.

The Bombers were second in the Empire 8 in goals per game during the month of March with 12.78 and also tallied the second-best goals against per game average in the E8 during the same time.

Freshman midfielder John Januszkiewicz showed promise early in the season, earning Empire 8 player of the week March 24 after netting four goals during two separate games the week before.

SPORTS

Two consecutive losses to ranked opponents, No. 10 SUNY Geneseo and No. 9 York College, mired a strong offensive start for the women’s lacrosse team. The Bombers’ early season schedule was grueling, as the team played five nationally ranked teams in four weeks, twice being asked to play consecutive ranked opponents with only three days rest.

While their start may have been sluggish, the Blue and Gold righted the ship with a March 22 win over Empire 8 rival St. John Fisher College.

The Cardinals jumped out to an early 5–1 lead against the Bombers, but the team showed resilience, scoring eight of the game’s next 10 goals.

Fisher outshot the Bombers 27–17, won the draw count 11–7 and held a 13-10 edge in ground balls, while the Blue and Gold committed 15 turnovers, but scrappy play and opportunistic goal scoring earned them the much-needed win.

The team ended the month of March jumping all the way up to No. 15 in the national standings, a six spot jump from February.

Senior first baseman Colby Gee tosses the ball to sophomore pitcher Ryan Contegni to get an out against Oneonta April 2. DURST BRENEISER/ THE ITHACAN

Senior coxswain Darvin Perez steers and motivates the varsity eight man boat during a practice on the Cayuga Inlet April 2.

DURST BRENEISER/ THE ITHACAN

Due to inclement weather, neither the men’s nor the women’s crew team was able to take the water during the March 29 Cayuga Duals. The Duals are a highly anticipated event that bring some of the best rowing talent in the area to Ithaca. While the haven’t hit the inlet in competition, both are looking forward to the continuing their successful seasons into the spring.

Poor weather delayed the beginning of the baseball season for the Bombers. Four of the first five games of the season were cancelled for snow in a tournament down in Yaphank, N.Y. The team was only able to play two games in the tournament, both on March 7 against Old Westbury College. The Blue and Gold swept both games, posting shutout victories during the doubleheader.

Senior pitcher David Jasukonis pitched five innings and only surrendered one hit in the first game and senior pitcher John Prendergast threw a complete game two-hitter in the second.

After the New York tournament, the team traveled out west to California, playing six games in five days starting March 9 and posting a record of 2–4 during that stretch. This losing effort in California sparked a fire in the Bombers, who finished off the rest of the month with five straight victories.

The Blue and Gold’s bats started the season off hot, posting a team batting average of .333 through March. Trailing only, St. John Fisher College in the Empire 8 standings, the team has followed up on its 2013 success.

145

Cedrick-Michael Simmons “There were so many different things that happened this year that I’d like to see continued. The major reason I got involved with the SGA is that I saw, in my three years here, that the discussion about inclusion and campus climate, in regards to how students feel in the classroom or outside the classroom, was not happening. What are their experiences like? How does their identity interact with these experiences? I saw that past SGAs did very little to represent those who tend to be underrepresented. That was this E-board’s top priority, and I think whoever comes in after us will pick up that mantle.”

“The senate interacted a lot with students. I mainly work with administration. That said, the issues of diversity and inclusion were two of the few things related to policies that seemed as though students and faculty overwhelmingly felt their voices weren’t being heard. We tried to get the dialogue regarding inclusion started, and I hope to see it continued next year. We need to continue to make progress, or the progress we made may not see fruition.”

Looking Ahead

“I hope conversation continues not just on who comes to the college, but who stays.

Retention rates for students of color or lower socioeconomic status is lower than the larger student body. ALANA faculty retention rates are lower than average. OSEMA, which gears toward being a part of a diverse campus, has less resources, ALANA Inside Look having overnights cut, we could go down the line here about how groups that work on supporting students and making them feel involved on campus is gone, and we need to further that conversation next year.”

“We wanted to bring microaggressions to the forefront and give students a means to talk about what they’re experiencing. This year, there was a created, shared sense of language about what students experience on campus — like the term microaggressions. Last year, that word was not being heard. Just like intersectionality two years ago. Now, both are being heard. This coming group needs to find what it is they are looking to impart and go for it.” story continues on next page

“I think that we will continue to learn from the Asian American studies minor dialogue. The reverberations from that dialogue were not contained to a closed community, it happened campus wide.

There were people in every school saying, ‘Why don’t we have that?’ When you have people from different aspects of a community asking the same questions, that’s when people are held accountable.

People need to continue to unite under these issues.”

“The new goal for next year has to be to continue humanizing these experiences.

It is language driven right now. The term diversity has lost its humanity. Its numbers based now. We need to humanize diversity, inclusion and microaggressions.”

LOOKING

“The next step is to create a place where people can have these conversations, the specific examples of what students are experiencing. It’s not being done on the administrative level. We, as students, need to create this space for conversation, to use information about these things to create a handbook for students that come in and know they’re not alone in this marginalization. What type of advice have they gotten that’s affective, what isn’t?

With students and faculty, I’d like to see a creation of community and resources.”

Dominick Recckio “SGA as a whole has tackled things this year — from the dining hall food to more important stuff. But it’s really the senators that have brought in most of the stuff.

The E-Board brought up things like the microagression initiative. The discussions have really transitioned from being a group that changes small things on campus to being a group that helps make systematic change. That’s something I would love to see more of next year. Guys like Kyle James and his bill for the LGBTQ minor, which is really exciting stuff, are going to be big moving forward. The way that the SGA is this year and hopefully next year, those type of things, the systematic changes, are more likely to happen. It sets a precedent.”

“Policy stuff we changed this year, but we changed outreach a lot. When I came in as communications [guy] for the SGA, I decided we’re not going to focus on posters and billboards. It doesn’t work here. That’s not how people communicate here. We decided to stick to interpersonal communication. It takes a lot of time and effort to put yourself out there like that, it’s going to take a while to really create a systematic shift, but some people are really getting on it now and will take that attitude into next year. For instance, Julia Castle is out there doing meetings and polls up and down this campus for different things.

She’s been eating about disability awareness and breakfast bags. They’re going to make changes.”

“This sort of thinking and getting the students involved in these big decisions through the committees is critical to making sure our needs are met. Faculty and administrative members on these committees are always asking, what do students think about this, or that. When we tell them, they know, can take our opinions into consideration and be held accountable.

Whatever happens moving into the future, we need to embrace and expand this role and keep on getting our voices heard.”

PHOTO ILLUSTRATIONS/DURST BRENEISER

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YEAR IN

REVIEW Ithaca College 2013-14

YEAR IN REVIEW 2013-2014

The Ithacan

The Ithacan