Misc.04.15.21

The Miscellany News April 15, 2021

miscellanynews.org

Volume 155 | Issue 7

VC holds first vaccine clinic, seeks herd immunity Lucille Brewster News Editor

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hen the news broke that all adult New Yorkers would become eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine on April 6, many saw this as the beginning of the end to a difficult year living amid the pandemic. As an increasing number of Vassar students and employees receive the vaccine both off and on campus, the College has signaled they will consider shifting some social distancing policies for students while keeping in mind that herd immunity is likely weeks away.

Scientists and health officials agree that reaching herd immunity through vaccination is key to lifting social distancing measures and returning to work and school life that looks somewhat like pre-COVID times. Students, professors and administrators are hopeful that with the Vassar community receiving their doses, next semester will look more like the fall of 2019 than the fall of 2020. “It is too early to know, but we are hopeful that conditions will allow for us to return to something approaching our pre-pandemic ‘normal,’” commented President Elizabeth

Inside this issue

Bradley.

The results of a survey sent out

by Bradley paint a picture of how close the Vassar community is to herd immunity. Of the 1,222 student responses, 46.7 percent had one dose of a two-dose vaccine, 22.9 percent have an appointment to receive a vaccine, nine percent have received two doses but are not past the two weeks time for the vaccine to reach full efficacy and 5.4 percent have had two doses more than two weeks ago, meaning these students are fully vaccinated. Only 12.9 percent of students reported not having a vaccine appointment.

Employees of the College who work in-person have been qualified to receive the vaccine since March. While the College focused on getting student-facing employees and professors vaccinated, many student employees realized they qualified too. On March 22, Student Employment sent an email to students notifying them they may qualify for the vaccine with their on-campus jobs. Students began making appointments at local vaccine distributors in the area, some driving as far as an hour away to get to their appointments.

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Vassar hosts TEDx conference Annabelle Wang News Editor

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Natalie Bober/The Miscellany News.

Griffin Wells ’22 explained that he and his friends drove to SUNY Orange to receive their doses of the Pfizer vaccine after he qualified as an in-person student employee. He shared that the process of getting vaccinated was straightforward. “It was super quick and easy. I showed them a screenshot from Workday, didn’t even need the letter from my boss,” he commented.

Eligibility opened up to the entire student body on April 6.

While students were making appointments in the Dutchess County area and beyond, the College was waiting to be approved to vaccinate students. On April 7, Dean of the College Carlos Alamo-Pastrana announced via email to students that Vassar had secured 500 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine through New York State, and would be holding a pop-up clinic on Monday, April 12 to distribute the doses to stuSee Vaccine on page 4

n Friday, April 9, TEDxVassar hosted the first ever TEDxVassarCollege Conference.

The event, live streamed via Zoom, presented 10 presentations delivered by Vassar students and faculty. The team of speakers discussed a wide variety of topics ranging from stoic psychotherapy to the power of noise to gender identity, each fitting into the broader theme of the conference: “Breaking Boundaries.”

TEDxVassar is a student-led pre-organization that was launched by Vassar alumnus David Stevenson ’20 in 2018. It was created under the umbrella of the TEDx program, which is a grassroots initiative developed by the acclaimed TED Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to discovering and sharing ideas.

The TEDx program is intended to help local communities research and discover “ideas worth See TEDx on page 3

College announces plans for Fall 2021 semester Lucille Brewster

Arts Editor Nina Ajemian breaks down how T-Swift's "Fearless ARTS (Taylor's Version)" represents a triumph in more ways than one for the iconic singer-songwriter.

Vassar College’s student newspaper of record since 1866

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News Editor

n Wednesday, April 14, President Elizabeth Bradley announced that the College will return to in-person, on-campus learning for the Fall 2021 Semester. Students will be required to

be fully vaccinated by the fall, although the College will allow religious and medical exemptions.

Bradley also explained that the College will help students find vaccines locally if they are not available to them in their areas.

Because the student body will be

vaccinated, students will be able to leave campus freely and have visitors. No remote learning option will be available to students and the College plans to phase out teleworking for employees over the semester while still giving employees flexibility. The

College has not made a decision yet about the implementation of social distancing policies and mask-wearing in the fall. Bradley wrote that these decisions will be made closer to the start of the semester, depending on local and state guidelines.

After 517 days, columnist gets back on track Doug Cobb

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Columnist

17 days. There were 517 days between my two most recent races. All the way back in November 2019, I crossed the finish line at the last cross country race of my freshman year. It was not one to remember; I didn’t run very well and I was ready for a break. Finishing a season on a sour note is never Curious about fun, but I didn’t sweat it too much furry (and feathered) Brewers since I knew I would be able to follow it up with a great track season on campus?

FEATURES Reporter Monika just a couple months later. I was a freshman with my whole college Sweeney has a deep dive into career ahead of me, and I assumed some of Vassar's pandemic pets. that once a year had passed and I was into my second college cross country season, I would have totally forgotten my less-than-stellar performance. But I was wrong. I will never forget that race.

I will never forget pushing my legs to go as fast as they could In this week's around the big field before I made edition of the turn to the finish line, with Word on Coach Ron yelling words of enthe Street, couragement as I inched closer.

Assistant HUMOR I will never forget this race, not Humor Editor because anything particularly exMadi Donat asks students about traordinary happened that day, but their strangest dreams. because I would later worry that it

was my last one ever.

By the time March had rolled around, I wasn’t in Arizona on the team track trip, I wasn’t running personal bests on the track, I wasn’t even running on a track, period. I was locked in my parents’ house, hundreds of miles from Vassar, isolated from my friends

and unable to even access a typical 400-meter loop since every school nearby had locked their gates. At the time, I thought it was just a minor inconvenience that would soon be over, but as we all know, I was dead wrong. My short, planned offseason extended into the spring, then the summer, until

eventually, by the time I finally got to take to the track again on April 9, 2021, 517 days had passed since my last race.

But my first college track meet was nothing like the race that preceded it by 517 days. On April 9, instead of facing off against hunSee Track on page 14

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Sandro Luis Lorenzo/The Miscellany News.

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April 15, 2021

THE MISCELLANY NEWS Ted Chmyz Taylor Stewart Tiana Headley Dean Kopitsky Olivia Watson CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Aena Khan Jessica Moss Holly Schulman Abby Tarwater NEWS EDITORS Lucille Brewster Annabelle Wang ASSISTANT NEWS EDITORS Sara Lawler Alex Wilson FEATURES EDITOR Janet Song OPINIONS EDITOR Sawyer Bush ARTS EDITORS Nina Ajemian Leila Raines HUMOR EDITOR Isabella Migani ASSISTANT HUMOR EDITOR Madi Donat SPORTS EDITOR Alex Eisert ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR Jackie Molloy SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR Natalie Bober ASSISTANT SOCIAL MEDIA Alison Carranza ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITORS Sherry Liao Grace Rousell COPY EDITORS Jacqueline Gill Phoebe Jacoby Caitlin Patterson GRAPHICS EDITOR Juliette Pope AUDIO EDITOR Alex Barnard ASSISTANT AUDIO EDITOR Mrin Somani LIVE EVENTS CHAIRPERSON Ben Scharf BUSINESS MANAGER Emma Tanner ASSISTANT BUSINESS MANAGER Logan Hyde WEBMASTER Chloe Gjoka VIDEO PRODUCTION MANAGER Ian Herz DESIGN EDITOR Grace Willoughby EDITOR-IN-CHIEF MANAGING EDITOR SENIOR EDITORS

REPORTER COLUMNISTS

GRAPHIC DESIGNER COPY STAFF

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Monika Sweeney Francisco Andrade Karina Burnett Madison Caress Doug Cobb Johnathan Dean Rohan Dutta Ben Fikhman Nicholas Gorman Helen Johnson Xin Rui Ong Danielle Recco Massimo Tarridas Sandro Luis Lorenzo Arlene Chen Katie Gebbia Glenna Gomez Jason Han Sophia Jahadhmy Tori Lubin Bryn Marling Claire Miller Sashinka Poor Melissa Roybal Mia Stein Adam Buchmueller Reese Collins

CORRECTION POLICY The Miscellany News will only accept corrections for any misquotes, misrepresentations or factual errors for an article within the semester it is printed.

The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented within its Opinions pages. Staff editorials are the only articles that reflect the opinion of a two-thirds majority of the Editorial Board.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

April 15, 2021

NEWS

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Vassar breaks boundaries during TEDxVassarCollege Conference Continued from TEDx on page 1 spreading.” Under the program, TED grants local organizers a free license so that they can independently host their own live speakers or recorded TEDTalks. As of now, more than 3000 TEDx events are held annually.

In a written correspondence with the Miscellany News, Stevenson explained why he decided to implement TEDx at Vassar. He wrote, “I find innovations, ideas, and philosophies shared to be extremely inspiring and helpful even in some instances. Seeing other colleges and universities with their own TEDx events motivated me to start one at Vassar.”

He continued, “Vassar is the perfect place for such an event with the progressive, diverse, and inspiring ideas held throughout the Vassar family.”

The ultimate goal of TEDxVassar is to give the College’s close-knit liberal arts community an opportunity to come together to explore the variety of different experiences and identities that exist within it and even beyond it.

For its first event, TEDxVassar decided to host its own series of TEDx talks featuring Vassar students and faculty. The TEDxVassarCollege Conference, which had been one year in the making, was spearheaded by TEDxVassar co-presidents Charlotte Rhoads ’22 and Bailey Carrillo ’22.

The overall theme for this year’s conference was “Breaking Boundaries,” which can be defined broadly as the ability to empathetically understand and openly communicate differences in order to create a better Vassar and a better world.

In an interview with the Miscellany News, Rhoads elaborated on the organizing team’s rationale for selecting Breaking Boundaries as the theme. She stated, “Breaking Boundaries encapsulated our intentions as an org on campus but also honored our experience at Vassar as a liberal arts college that encourages multidisciplinary studies and hosts students with many varied experiences and stories.”

She continued, “It felt broad enough so that students and faculty could really speak to what they wanted to.”

Rhoads went on to explain why the TEDxVassar organizing committee decided to feature Vassar faculty and students for this year’s conference. She wrote, “We were very conscious of our choice to have our first conference feature only Vassar students and faculty because, although a broader goal of ours was to make this a community tradition/ event, we wanted to have more experience under our belts before we felt comfortable coordinating a cross- community event.”

The conference, which was emceed by Keming Yan ’22 and Elizabeth ‘Birky’ Cook ’23, commenced with Danielle Ncube’s ’24

Annabelle Wang/The Miscellany News. talk entitled, “Looking to a Radical Unknown.” During her presentation, Ncube candidly detailed how she learned to be fine with being ordinary. She spoke about the unknown power of everyday decisions and “half-ideas” that contribute to the continual process of thinking and learning that leads to radical change.

Ncube’s discussion was followed by Abby Lass ’21. Her TEDx talk, named “Diversifying Our Data: A Call to Expand the Way We Measure Value,” was inspired by an independent research project she conducted at Vassar on the psychological benefits of theatre education for adolescents. She called on the audience to engage in a reconceptualization of what constitutes valuable data, and drew from her own life as a “theatre kid” in order to highlight the significance of lived experiences in data collection.

From Lass’s presentation, the conference transitioned to a discussion by Clara Lerchi ’21, “A Cure to the Stigma Surrounding Mental Illness.” They opened their presentation with a poetic open letter to the word ‘disability’ and transitioned into a discussion on their experiences with being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. They emphasized the importance of understanding mental illnesses as differences instead of disadvantages.

Assistant Professor of Art and Urban Studies Adedoyin Teriba followed Lerchi’s talk.

Teriba’s talk, “Love Breaks,” discussed how love, specifically the love of knowledge, can be used as a force to break boundaries. Teriba opened his presentation by referencing a scene from the British sitcom, “Mind Your Language,” and described how the characters’ mutual love for soccer was able to bring them together despite their differences. As Teriba stated, “The classroom is not just a place of the dissemination of knowledge. It engenders a family that crosses racial, ideological, partisan, name-it divides.”

Milind Joshi ’21’s presentation was then streamed. During his TEDx presentation, “Breaking Boundaries: Contextualizing the International Experience,” Joshi candidly spoke about his experience as an individual of South Asian descent living in America. He detailed the toxicity of the model minority

Courtesy of Charlotte Rhoads ’22.

myth and assimilation in the United States.

He called on the Asian members of the audience to not be afraid to speak up about their own experiences and encouraged his white peers to not be afraid to listen.

A presentation by Anne Marie Abban-Demetrius ’21 came after Joshi’s. Her scientific-based presentation, “Stoic Psychotherapy: Development of a Novel Stoic Change to Therapy to Counter Stress Symptoms,” was inspired by the discovery that Black individuals in particular often had stress-induced preexisting conditions that put them at a higher risk for contracting COVID-19. She explored how a new type of psychotherapy developed from the principles of stoic philosophy could be used to mitigate stress symptoms specific to communities of people of color.

Assistant Professor of Music Justin Patch steered the conversation toward a different direction and discussed the intersection between noise and politics. His TEDx talk, “Noise Can Change Your Mind,” analyzed how crowd noise at political rallies has the power to both limit and change people’s imaginations. Drawing on his own experiences working on the 2008 Obama presidential campaign and attending the 2008 Democratic National Convention, he called on the audience to be conscious of what they make noise for and to “listen deeply and widely.”

Annie Xu’s ’22 “Towards the Great Unknown” came next. Xu’s discussion centered around following one’s own gut and feelings to overcome fears of uncertainty. When engaging in knowledge production, the speaker encouraged viewers to embrace “feelings of compassion” to learn with others.

Miku Migata ’21 presented after Xu’s TEDx talk. Migata’s talk, “What is Home? Navigating the In-Between,” was inspired by her experiences living in Japan, then Boston, then back to Japan and then New York. In her quest to figure out where her home is, Migata concluded that, “Home is not a place to find but the memories that exist in me.”

The livestream concluded with a TEDx talk delivered by Ames Stevens ’22. Their talk, “A Human Gender,” was based on their personal journey discovering their non-binary gender identity. They provided a critique of the societal gender binary which categorizes people as either a man or a woman, and proposed a renewed conception of gender that is more fluid and inspired by each individual’s human experiences and feelings.

After the livestream concluded, virtual viewers were able to join the TEDx speakers for a live Q&A session. In response to the questions posed by the audience, the presenters shared their own unique writing and drafting processes for their talks and provided further insights into how viewers could effectively break boundaries in their own lives.

When asked about their initial reactions to the Breaking Boundaries theme, the panelists collectively emphasized the necessity of building bridges after boundaries are broken.

As proclaimed by Lass, “I think many of us at Vassar think that there’s logic to the idea of ‘Burn it all down,’ ‘Get rid of the systems getting in our way.’ But then I think the question still stands of … How do you then go forward to build something better?”

Stevens echoed similar sentiments. They

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

described the revelations they had as they were planning their TEDTalk about the societal gender binary. They stated, “The more I got into my talk, the more I got into writing it, it’s not as simple as...just like ‘The gender binary is bad’ because...it’s useful.” They went on to say, “I was like well, what do I really want to do? It’s not to destroy the gender binary. It’s to build something that is more human.”

As the Q&A session continued, the speakers took the opportunity to share some advice on how to begin the process of breaking boundaries.

Xu acknowledged how intimidating it may be to start breaking a boundary due to uncertainty.

However, she went on to say, “I think this unknowingness can be a source of motivation, a springboard for knowing more.” She proceeded to say, “When you don’t know how to break a boundary, look at that part. Where does this unknowable feeling come from?”

Teriba added, “We, as a human society more than ever before, should have the courage to love.” He further elaborated, “As much as technology has really benefited us, we need to recover the art of just striking up conversations with people we don’t know.”

During the final portion of the Q&A panel, the speakers were asked what they hoped the audience would take away from the conference.

Many of the panelists emphasized the importance of using your voice. As Lass stated, “All the people up here are your peers and your colleagues. We’re not different from you in any particular way.” She continued, “Make sure that you take advantage of any avenue you can to share your ideas because they’re important and worthwhile.”

Other speakers promoted the idea of listening as an important component of breaking boundaries. Lerchi posited, “One thing I really like to think about is listening to hear rather than just listening to make a response.”

The first TEDxVassarCollege Conference seemed to accomplish its goal of breaking boundaries and building bridges for members of the Vassar community.

In an interview with the Miscellany News, Annika Sethre-Hofstad ’22 expressed her motivations for attending the TEDx event.

She stated, “I wanted to see what Vassar students and faculty had to say so as to better understand my community.” After having viewed the TEDx talks, she found Teriba’s talk to be particularly resonant for her.

She said, “It warmed my heart … As a learner of two foreign languages, I love any time that boundaries of language are broken.”

As for the future of TEDxVassar, its members hope that they continue hosting TEDx conferences in the future, whether they be virtual or in-person.

Members also hope that this student-led effort encourages other Vassar students and faculty in particular to raise their voice.

In a written correspondence, Carrillo proclaimed, “I...hope that the attendees realize that this is just a small fraction of the campus. There are many other identities and experiences that coexist on this campus, and it is necessary to acknowledge and respect those individuals, too.”

NEWS

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April 15, 2021

Vassar student body makes headway on vaccinations Continued from Vaccine on page 1 dents. Alamo -Pastrana explained that students with underlying health conditions and public-facing student workers would be prioritized.

Because of the initiative students had been taking since March to secure off-campus appointments as soon as possible, there was less of a demand for the on-campus vaccines than expected by administration.

Students were told they had to sign up for an on-campus appointment by the end of the day April 8, but the College ended up extending the deadline to sign up until 1 p.m. on April 9. “We did not have a tally of exactly how many students had already attained vaccination appointments in other ways, off campus,” commented Bradley. “It turns out many have, which is very good news,” she added. On Monday, students received an email notifying them that there were surplus vaccines and they could walk into the AULA without making an appointment. Students are now being asked by Health Services to submit their vaccine records.

Bradley emphasized that while many students have received one dose of vaccination, the 12.9 percent of students who reported they did not have an appointment yet would be offered appointments on campus. Beyond the pop-up clinic Monday, the College announced that they would shuttle students to Mid-Hudson Regional Hospital on Friday, April 16 to receive doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Plans to

have another pop-up clinic on campus was complicated by news that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is being suspended by the Centers for Disease Control because of rare cases of blood clots from the vaccine.

The knowledge that all students on campus could soon be partially and fully vaccinated raises questions about what social-distancing protocols will look like in the later weeks of the semester. Bradley gauged student interest in the survey for some potential policy shifts, including allowing two pods to combine into a superpod, allowing students to walk into Arlington without going inside buildings, letting larger groups meet inside and outside, allowing families to visit campus and permitting spectators to sporting events. Bradley explained that she and Alamo -Pastrana decided on these policies based on student feedback. Bradley shared that all of these policies received over 74 percent student support in the survey, with superpods and larger groups both receiving 90 percent or higher.

On Tuesday, April 13, Alamo-Pastrana announced that starting April 16 students will be able to walk into Arlington for outdoor food pickup. In addition, groups up to 25 are allowed to gather outdoors and are masked.

In terms of the widely anticipated “back to normal,” Bradley was hesitant to give a timeline for when academic, extracurricular and social life would drastically change on campus. “We are focusing now

Natalie Bober/The Miscellany News. on getting everyone immune, which can be expected to take at least two weeks after the final dose. So, this is still a while away for us,” she explained. She also emphasized that the College would not adopt any policy that allowed different expectations for vaccinated and unvaccinated students based on the school’s principle of equity.

Looking further ahead, Bradley announced on April 14 that the College will return to in-person, on campus learning.

All students will be required to be vaccinated, although the College will allow excep-

tions for medical and religious reasons. The “bubble model” will effectively end with students being able to go back and forth out of campus and have visitors. No official decisions have been made yet about social distancing expectations or mask-wearing.

While the pandemic is not behind the Vassar community yet, the excitement among students is palpable. For the first time since the pandemic emerged, we may be counting down to herd immunity on campus in terms of weeks instead of months.

Missed symptom report emails alarm student body Sara Lawler

Assistant News Editor

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his year, students have completely shifted their daily campus lives to create a safe environment and avoid the spread of COVID-19 on campus. One expectation in particular has caused some students stress on top of an already difficult year: the Daily Health Screening.

In an attempt to reduce the spread of COVID-19 on campus, as well as to follow New York state guidelines, students this semester are required to fill out a daily symptom report in the CoVerified App, which also tracks student testing and vaccination. If a student forgets to fill out the daily symptom report they will receive an email notification from the Office of Residential Life stating that they’ve failed to complete the form, with a threat of future student conduct procedures. This response is harsher than last semester, when emails were sent without a specific student conduct warning. Each email contains the warning: “Please note that failure to fill out this report more than three times will result in a referral to the student conduct process; continuing to miss reports thereafter may result in a loss of privileges.”

“The email sent when you miss reporting symptoms is really harsh and scary as well as unclear ... They say if you miss more than three there will be consequences, but I've heard of people missing three and nothing happens."

Some students have taken issue with the harsh wording of these notifications. Ella Johnson ’21 reached out to the Office of Residential Life in response to a series of these emails. In her email, Johnson emphasized the stress that students are already experiencing on campus, writing, “The stress of everyday life here is far too much, and now there is an additional threat of being punished for not doing a good enough job managing my time during this.”

“The email sent when you miss reporting symptoms is really harsh and scary as well as unclear,” commented Carolyn Patterson ’22. “They say if you miss more than three there will be consequences, but I’ve heard of people missing three and nothing happens. It is also not stated what exactly the consequences are for missing multiple,” she added.

Jack Golick ’22 concurred. “The College should have provided more information about it. Everyone is going to forget to do it once in a while and the emails are alarming,” he said. The Dean of Student Living and Wellness, Luis Inoa explained the importance of these checks, stating “We just want to know if our students are well and if they aren’t well we want them to seek the support to understand what it is.” “The CoVerified form is a change from last semester, when students filled out a Google Form each day called the “Daily Health Questionnaire.” Inoa explained the change: “CoVerified does hold a lot more. It lets us know the testing cadence for students, it lets us know whether they’ve filled out the questionnaire for the day. Right now it’s also going to be collecting information on our vaccinations so just having one system where particularly as an administrator I can take one look and have an update on a student for me has been helpful as opposed to the various spreadsheets I had to look at.”

Inoa also emphasized the importance of the daily symptom reports in light of the

higher number of COVID-19 cases on campus. “What we’re seeing this semester in terms of COVID feels a little different than it did last semester in that we have students, like last semester, who are testing positive,” he described. “What feels a little bit different is that we’re having more students with symptoms, for sure. And then we’re also seeing students in community together if one student has tested positive another student will test positive in that same pod, so we’re seeing more of that spread.” Therefore, as COVID-19 has become a more serious concern on campus, and cases in Dutchess County have risen, the symptom reports have become even more important, in the eyes of the College, in reducing the spread on campus.

Despite the importance of these reports, Inoa notes that a significant number of students fail to complete the form each day. “More students do it than not, but enough students don’t do it to create some administrative workload,” he noted.

Inoa explained what the conduct process should look like if a student consistently fails to fill out the report. For more benign cases, he explains that “It could be as simple as a notice of regulation violation which is just like, ‘Hey, this is a warning you have to keep doing it, please make sure to do it.’”

However, the consequences will be different if a student is completely unwilling to comply with the symptom reporting process. Inoa explained : “I could imagine ... if a student was really wholly defiant about it... I can convene that group to say, ‘Hey this is important and continued behavior like this could mean that you just need to go home if it’s not something you can comply with.”

Some students have noticed inconsistencies between the email warnings and actual consequences for not submitting the symptom report. A student who chose to remain anonymous told The Miscellany News that they stopped filling out the

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Lucille Brewster/The Miscellany News. symptom reports for multiple weeks, and were never referred to student conduct, as the email from Residential Life states would occur in this scenario.

Inoa believes that the current conduct process in place is effective for students who have not been consistently filling out the symptom reports. However, he did acknowledge that more messaging on why the form is important may be effective in increasing compliance. He notes, “Perhaps doing some proactive work on the messaging up front of why it’s important, so when you get the message [students] understand ‘Yeah this is serious and I need to make sure I get this done.’”

April 15, 2021

ARTS

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‘WandaVision’ paves the way for a new stage of Marvel content Leila Raines Arts Editor

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arvel films have been a big part of my life ever since I was in middle school.

From the first time I saw “The Avengers” in theaters when I was 11 years old, to all of the Marvel-themed movie nights I spent with my family, I have watched the tremendous growth of the cinematic franchise over the past decade, enjoying almost every single movie Marvel has released. Having watched all of the characters I grew up with appear together in “Avengers: Endgame,” an eventful conclusion to three phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, one question lingered with me as I left the theater that night: What would happen next?

Marvel continues to address the fallout from all that happened in “Endgame” in its next movie “Spider-Man: Far From Home.”

The story focuses on Tom Holland’s Peter Parker as he tries to grapple with the loss of his mentor while struggling to fit himself into the huge legacy that Tony Stark left behind. This theme of revisiting the aftermath of “Endgame” reoccurs in one of Marvel’s

newest creations, “WandaVision.”

Announced back in 2018, Disney and Marvel introduced “WandaVision” alongside other shows that would spotlight Marvel characters from the franchise, including “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” and “Loki.” The first two episodes of the nine-episode limited series were released in mid-January on Disney’s streaming service Disney+.

The rest of the season aired on a weekly basis, with each new episode available to stream every Friday.

Elizabeth Olson and Paul Bettany return as title characters Wanda Maximoff and Vision, starring in their own sitcom show.

Each episode takes place in a specific decade, drawing from the structure and style of past television shows like “I Love Lucy” from the ’50s and “The Dick Van Dyke Show” from the ’60s. As the couple progresses through decades of television, navigating suburban life while trying to hide their powers from the people around them, they soon realize that everything isn’t as it seems.

“WandaVision” provides a more in-depth look at Wanda’s character compared to pre-

vious films in the franchise, as she struggles with her grief following the loss of her partner. While her character is no stranger to loss, having lost both of her parents in early childhood as well as her twin brother in “Age of Ultron,” the “Avengers” movies, which tend to look more at the group dynamics of the heroes rather than the development of one single character, didn’t offer much screen time for Wanda and how she coped with her grief. However, in “WandaVision,” the spotlight is on her, and the show even revisits moments in Wanda’s life from both before we first met her, as well as other moments in the cinematic universe that we didn’t get to see. For example, there is a very sentimental scene between Wanda and Vision that takes place after the events of “Age of Ultron,” where Wanda is struggling to cope with the death of her brother. The scene underscores Wanda’s strength and resilience as a character, and fans get a stronger sense of how much Wanda has been through during her life. Wanda and Vision’s emotional conversation even results in what may be one of the strongest lines in the Marvel

Courtesy of Gage Skidmore via Flickr.

Cinematic Universe: “What is grief, if not love persevering?”

“WandaVision” marks the start of a new era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

While it brings back a lot of plot points from previous films, the series also paves the way for a new line of films, introducing new characters and storylines for future Marvel creations to further delve into.

‘Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’ sparks nostalgia: old lyrics, new lens Nina Ajemian

“S

Arts Editor

parks Fly” by Taylor Swift was the first song I learned to play on my own after I quit piano lessons. “You Belong With Me” was the song I chose to learn on guitar in my sixth grade music class. I listened to “Never Grow Up” the last night in my room at home before moving into Vassar. Swift’s album “Lover” reminds me of my first year here and “folklore” of last summer. I know Swift’s songs like the back of my hand (that’s a “Breathe” reference), and as I’ve gotten older, have found deeper meaning in her lyrics.

I don’t actually remember the first time I listened to “Fearless,” Swift’s sophomore album, because I was only seven years old when it was released in 2008. I will, however, always remember the first time I listened to “Fearless (Taylor’s Version).” On April 9, Swift put out a re-recorded version of the Album of the Year award-winning record, giving fans a chance to relive the era and fall in love with her older songs all over again. Swifties (or Taylor Swift

fans for the uninitiated) quickly noticed that the release date of the album is significant— April is the fourth month of the year, and not only does four plus nine equal 13, Swift’s lucky number, but it also marks the day that Swift owns four out of her nine albums.

“Fearless” is the first of six albums that Swift plans to re-record. The road to these re-recordings is long and complicated. Swift’s first record deal was with Big Machine Records when she signed in 2005. Under Big Machine, Swift released her first six albums: “Taylor Swift,” “Fearless,” “Speak Now,” “Red,” “1989” and “reputation.” Swift has since switched labels to Universal’s Republic Records after her contract expired in 2018, but she left her master recordings in Big Machine’s hands.

Swift expressed her frustration in a Tumblr post in June of 2019, writing: “For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work.

Instead I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, one for every new

Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News.

one I turned in. I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta [founder of Big Machine] would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future.”

Swift was correct—Big Machine sold her masters to Scooter Braun, who re-sold them for $300 million to Shamrock Holdings.

Braun is the manager of numerous artists, among them Kanye West, who infamously interrupted Swift at the 2009 MTV Music Video Awards, sparking a years-long feud that deserves an entirely separate article.

Swift described in the same Tumblr post: “Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter. Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them.

In perpetuity. That means forever.”

When not given the opportunity to own their own work, an artist has two choices: to make peace with the situation and turn their focus to making new music or to fight for their music and do everything they can to reclaim their work. Swift chose to do both.

While quarantining, she wrote and released two new albums: “folklore” (which won Album of the Year) and its sister album “evermore.”

Swift also began the process of re-recording her old albums, aiming to closely replicate and essentially replace the original versions.

The Washington Post dove into the legality of Swift’s re-recordings, commenting: “There are two different copyrights in play here: that of the song composition (the musical arrangement and lyrics), and that of the recording itself.” While Swift may not own her songs’ master recordings, she has the rights to the songs themselves, as she is a credited songwriter on all of her tracks.

Swift’s response is very much on brand for her. When dealing with difficulty, she has always turned to music—this moment is no different. “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” includes all 20 songs from the album’s platinum version, as well as six tracks “from the vault.”

These are songs that Swift wrote for “Fearless,” but that didn’t make the original album.

Through these six tracks, Swift continues the Fearless narrative—one of high school romance, epic love, growing up and moving on.

From the opening notes of the titular track “Fearless,” it’s clear that Swift’s attempts to closely replicate her body of work, effectively

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

devaluing the original version, were successful. In an interview with People, Swift noted: “I did go in line by line and listen to every single vocal and think, you know, what are my inflections here. If I can improve upon it, I did. But I really did want this to be very true to what I initially thought of and what I had initially written. But better.”

There are, of course, differences between the two versions, immediately noticeable to someone who has listened to the original album as many times as I have. The first time I listened to “Taylor’s Version,” I was hyper-fixated on these small variances—in instrumentation, production, phrasing, emphasis, pauses for breaths, the laugh in “Hey Stephen” (which is even better in the new version). I’m so used to hearing the original songs that anything slightly different is bound to feel off at first.

After listening to the full album at least six times all the way through, though, my brain has begun to accept these versions as the songs I’ve loved for 13 years (there’s the number again!). These re-recorded tracks still give me hope—hope that the crazy, enthralling love of her youth that Swift sings about on tracks like “Fearless” and “The Way I Loved You” is out there and will always be worth waiting for.

I keep coming back to what it must have been like for Swift to re-record this album, effectively reliving the all-consuming emotions she so meticulously documented through her songs. I imagine it’s bittersweet.

In “Fifteen” Swift sings, with wisdom beyond her (at the time) 18 years, “I’ve found time can heal most anything/ And you just might find who you’re supposed to be/ I didn’t know who I was supposed to be/ At fifteen.” At 31, Swift has lived so much more life than her 18-yearold self could ever imagine. She’s found the love story that she knows she deserves—“I'm gonna find someone someday/ Who might actually treat me well.” Swift’s definition of love has also evolved and matured, as evident on her more recent albums. It’s less public and more personal. Quiet, but meaningful.

The essence of each song remains true to Swift and to the original “Fearless,” just seen through a different lens. Hearing the hopeful lyrics of Swift’s youth sung in her matured voice is powerful and adds depth to her legacy. If “Fearless” was a high school girl writing in her diary, then “Taylor’s Version” is her all grown up, flipping back through the pages, touching each tear-stained word and smiling.

Page 6

FEATURES

April 15, 2021

Spring Break Spectacular Here's what Brewers on and off campus were up to during their Spring Breaks.

Many Brewers attended Quadchella, dancing their cares away in the sunny spring weather.

Courtesy of Igor Martiniouk ’24.

Julia Mastandrea ’21 used the break to assemble her crew and work on her senior film thesis.

Courtesy of Julia Mastandrea ’21.

Andrew Miller ’23 spent the break babysitting his cousins, including Coco, age 6.

Courtesy of Andrew Miller ’23.

Quadchella also offered the opportunity to play socially distanced games.

Courtesy of Igor Martiniouk ’24.

Students lounged in the quad on hammocks, blankets and more.

Courtesy of Igor Martiniouk ’24.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

April 15, 2021

FEATURES

Page 7

Vassar’s plethora of pandemic pets please passersby Monika Sweeney

A

Reporter

s the cold and dreary days of winter melt away, the people and pets of Vassar have started to emerge from hibernation.

Students, cats, dogs and other critters have enjoyed soaking up the sun on Joss Beach, the Quad or any spot with soft grass and a WiFi signal.

Daphne Knoop ’24 adopted her cat, Grendel, at the Iowa City Animal Shelter over winter break. As Grendel is an emotional support animal (ESA), Knoop emphasized how enjoyable it has been to have a companion at college during COVID-19. “With COVID, I wanted someone who I could always be with

Luna, a five month old King Charles Cavalier, agreed that it is difficult taking care of a pet on campus, but worth it. “It has been quite an adjustment but I wouldn’t change anything,” Pierce noted. “It’s definitely interesting to take care of her, but thankfully there is a whole village behind me; I really couldn’t do it on my own,” she added.

When Pierce first laid eyes on Freya in a Mississippi animal shelter this past December, she knew Freya was the puppy for her. “I looked at her and I just knew I couldn’t leave her. Come on, she’s perfect,” she explained.

After a few days of deliberation, Pierce decided to name her companion after Freya, the Norse goddess of love and war. “I wanted her

Grendel the cat, also known as the Princess of Joss.

Courtesy of Daphne Knoop ’24. and not feel separated from,” she admitted. to have a powerful name because I knew we When Grendel and Knoop first met, it was were going to have to grow up together,” Pierce love at first sight (or bite); Grendel bit her fu- stated. ture owner’s face mask until it came down. “It Like most college students, Freya is a busy made me feel loved,” Knoop said of the inter- bee who loves to nap. She starts her day snoozaction. ing through Pierce’s Zoom classes before Since Knoop had decided at the end of the heading out for a day of walks and playdates fall semester that she was ready to adopt a with Cricket, a fellow pup in the THs, and furry friend, she was adamant about finding Maude, one of Lathrop’s most beloved furry a cat suitable for college life, one that was re- friends. Freya’s favorite spots to explore are laxed around other people and pets. Accord- the Residential Quad and the Bridge. “She ing to a worker at the animal shelter, Gren- always stops in front of the Environmental del’s only desire was simple: to be treated as a princess. Grendel, the new reigning princess of Joss, likes to spend her days watching her subjects on Joss Beach, eating high-end duckbased cat food and beseeching members of her kingdom for pats on the head and treats.

For those who did not shudder at the name Grendel, lucky you for not being exposed to the ancient Anglo-Saxon, and in my opinion overrated, heroic poem: “Beowulf.” Knoop, who had been reading multiple translations of “Beowulf” during the process of picking out her pandemic pal, was inspired to name her after one of the monsters in the story. “The line that particularly influenced my decision was ‘God-cursed Grendel came greedily loping.’ To me, this encapsulates my cat’s personality perfectly,” Knoop explained.

Initially, Knoop was worried that Grendel would not adjust to her new Poughkeepsie palace. Luckily, the Joss Princess fit right in alongside her fellow Brewers. While Grendel enjoys a daily dose of downtime in her snug Freya, out on one of her daily campus walks.

Joss single, she also loves to meet new people Courtesy of Sarah Berry Pierce ’22. and pets, all from the safety and comfort of Chemistry lab, which is odd because I am Knoop’s backpack. Unlike the bloodthirsty simply not a STEM person, but oddly enough heathen for which she was named, Grendel I think that’s her calling,” Pierce joked. does not bite or exhibit any sort of aggression While not a single student on this campus towards others. “She might be shy at first, but will defend the watery Deece eggs, rest asshe loves attention and is a total lovebug,” said sured the pets of Vassar will. Both Freya and Knopp.

Grendel will happily scarf down a plate of While it is difficult to take care of a pet at Deece eggs, day or night. Dylan Cawman ’22, college, Knoop noted that it is easier than she the owner of a green-cheeked conure, supexpected it to be. “I just have to be aware of my plies her feathered friend with a more nutricat, like making sure her spaces are clean and tious meals of seeds, fruit pellets and a homethat she gets enough exercise,” she shared. made fresh food mix which includes chia Sarah Berry Pierce ’22, the owner of Freya seeds, ginger, quinoa and kale. Cawman’s

bird, which answers to Tilly, Bird, Beebo Bubs Lady or Ma’am, is especially fond of almonds.

“She goes crazy for them and will fly across the room if she spots one,” Cawman noted.

Where will she be flying from? Most likely from her favorite spot: the top of Cawman’s head. Although she stays in her cage most of the day, Tilly will happily perch on Cawman’s laptop during Zoom classes or make herself comfortable on one of her housemates' shoulders.

Tilly, a spunky seven year old, flew into Cawman’s life a few years ago, but only recently became a Vassar College resident. Cawman bought Tilly from Barbi’s Bird House, professional bird breeders who also breed birds for the Washington State Zoo. “I know I wanted a green cheek or sun conure since they are very cuddly and have big personalities,” Cawman explained. But when it came down to choosing her new pet, Cawman picked Tilly over two sun conures because of her grey coloring, smaller size and calmer demeanor.

Tilly came to live with Cawman once she moved into a TH. “I knew I wanted to have her with me, but I didn’t take her my first year since I was not sure if it would be a safe

Wendell, a guinea pig that resides in Jewett, has also befriended his owner’s roommate and podmates. Hailey Osika ’23, Wendell’s owner, found her fuzzy friend in August when a family in her town was giving him up for adoption. “I have always had guinea pigs so when I saw that Wendell needed a home and knew I had the time and space to care for him, I was in love,” Osika shared.

During the day, Wendell relaxes in his cage, which comes equipped with a tunnel, a hut and a lot of toys. Osika makes sure to feed him plenty of food; Wendell gets a supply of dry food, unlimited hay, fresh vegetables, Timothy hay biscuits and dried papaya daily. “He is very spoiled,” Osika joked. Unlike the cats and dogs of campus, Wendell generally likes to stay in his cage, only accepting one or two visitors at a time—and only if they come bearing treats.

Osika, who had her previous pet guinea pig on campus with her last year, could not be more pleased with her decision to bring Wendell to Vassar. “With a lot of my classes being virtual this semester, it has been really nice to have any animal to watch and interact with throughout the day while I’m in my room,”

Tilly says hello to Luca Barton-Cain ’22—luckily birds don't need to social distance.

Courtesy of Dylan Cawman ’22. environment in the dorms and with a room- she explained. mate,” she asserted. Although traveling with While having a pet on campus is undoubther feathered companion from her home in edly extra work, it has proved beneficial for Washington to a TH at Vassar was stressful, students looking for some extra affection Cawman is thrilled with her decision to bring and companionship in an otherwise isolating

Wendell the guinea pig, out of his cage for a rare adventure.

Courtesy of Hailey Osika ’23. her pet to school. year. If you do not have a pet of your own but While living in the TH, Tilly gets along are craving another peek at Vassar’s pandemic very well with the rest of her housemates. She pets, do not fear! With warmer weather upon also loves meeting new people. However, “She us and classes moving outside, your chances will bite you if you poke at her, so caution is to see the newest residents of campus will warranted,” Cawman admitted. only grow.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

FEATURES

Page 8

April 15, 2021

Swiffers, firebending take stage in “The Ember Island Players” Janet Song

Features Editor

F

ans of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” will remember “The Ember Island Players,” an episode where Aang and his friends are forced to sit through a play reenactment of the series’ main events. The episode is loaded with meta-humor, jabbing references to past episodes, production issues and fan reactions—all with comically horrid acting and character designs that repulse even the Gaang itself. Now enter an upcoming production of “The Ember Island Players,” a tribute to the iconic television series but with a Vassar student twist. In this play, Aang runs around with a Swiffer and benders throw red and blue dodgeballs at each other from across the stage. It’s “gloriously low quality,” as show manager Michelle Kang ’21 explained, but also gives Asian and indigenous students a chance to have a spotlight on campus.

The script of Vassar’s “The Ember Island Players” is the brainchild of director Maddie Louie ’22, who thought of the idea back in her freshman year after getting inspiration from “The Nightman Cometh” from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and the Philaletheis Society’s production of “Wicker,” a parody of the Broadway musical “Wicked.” Louie shared the idea with Kang, and the two of them began brainstorming ideas on a Google Doc. “And then we left it,” Kang said. “For a full year. We didn’t think about actually going through with putting it on, but after the recent resurgence of Avatar during quarantine, one of the other members of the Phil board suggested it, perhaps half-jokingly, and we thought it would be a great idea to finally actualize our plans.”

Writing the script was a multi-week endeavor, according to Louie. “I took what little content of [the Ember Island Players] that was shown, looked at a synopsis of the [episode], decided what I could cut, and went from there,” she explained. “And then [I] built the show to the best of my ability around that play. I didn’t get to keep everything that I wanted to keep, and it’s not going to be nearly as intricate as the original TV series, but I do think it’s going to be a lot of fun, and that was my main goal.”

Once the script was finished, Louie and Kang began looking for actors. Actors with no prior theater experience or who hadn’t seen Avatar were all welcomed to audition, though Louie and Kang specifically requested actors of Asian and/or indigenous descent. During the auditions, they asked a few questions about the actors’ theater background and Avatar familiarity, then read through a few lines with the actors for specific characters. “Going into auditions, we were stressed out of our minds,” Louie recalled. “But after the first audition, we re-

alized we were going to be okay. Especially since we ended most of the auditions with them yelling ‘My cabbages!’”

Jay Chiu ’23, who plays Zuko, auditioned for the play after missing his own experience in high school theater. “I’ve always wanted to be involved in a theater production at Vassar but never really had the time in my schedule. This was the perfect opportunity for me to try theater again in a fun and low-stress environment,” he said. As Chiu hadn’t seen Avatar episodes aside from “The Ember Island Players,” he did not have a specific role he wanted going into auditions. But he described the audition process as very welcoming. “I was very open to trying things out,” Chiu stated. “I read lines for Zuko, Iroh (Zuko’s uncle), and the cabbage man. I would talk with the director and producer of the show before each scene to try to understand each character before reading the lines. Both [Louie and Kang] were very supportive throughout the process.”

Currently, Louie and Kang are running rehearsals with the actors before the play’s one-night performance on April 30. Rather than a typical session [of rehearsal], we have a typical week set up,” Louie explained. “The week starts by blocking an entire book. In the middle of the week, we get the necessary cast members with our fight choreographer, Sam Fujikawa ’22, and teach them all of the fight choreography that we skipped in the previous blocking.

At the end of the week, we bring it all together.”

Although a lot of hard work is put into the rehearsals, Kiran Rudra ’24, who plays Aang, described the atmosphere as fun and light-hearted. In particular, Rudra enjoys learning the fight choreography for each

rehearsal. “I like how into it everyone gets.

Everyone does really well in their roles and we had a lot of fun learning the moves,” they said, adding, “[There is] also a lot of our ad-libbing in rehearsal [that] is always fun.

Sometimes, [Weipeng Xie ’21, who plays Iroh] ad-libs [some] proverbs that are always bound to get the whole room laughing.”

The play will also feature many props, including a three-dimensional rock for actors to hide under, a fire nation ship and a cabbage cart built around one of the shopping carts in the Philaletheis Society’s closet. Almost all the props are made of cardboard, but to keep up with the silliness of the play, certain props are intentionally quite ridiculous, such as the aforementioned Swiffer Aang uses in place of his staff.

As for the costumes, Kang explained that she wanted to take a different approach to the play’s imperfective nature. “We still wanted to honor that the original TV series was heavily influenced by Asian and Indigenous cultures,” Kang emphasized. “[So] we asked our cast members if they were inter-

ested in having their own culture reflected in their characters’ clothing, even if it isn’t accurate to the show.”

For Louie and Kang, producing the play meant tackling certain questions about representation posed by Avatar. Kang said, “As people of Asian descent, we wanted to honor the Asian and Indigenous influences of the original show. With the recent popularity of Avatar, my Asian friends and I have seen it undergo a lot of cultural erasure from its fans, such as fan art of the characters depicting them as non-Asian. This is hurtful, even if they aren’t depicted as white because Asian representation in media is minimal enough as it is … Maddie and I were also cautious about casting this show because theater is very white, especially at Vassar.”

Chiu also made note of the representa-

Indian accent. And he's voiced by someone who isn't even Indian. [The concept of] Avatar comes from Sanskrit, and it's a concept from Hinduism relating to the human incarnations of deities. I feel as though [Avatar] fell short in terms of South Asian representation.”

In regards to representation, Kang expressed: “I will say that given how large Asia is and how many rich Asian cultures exist, it would be difficult for any one show to be perfectly representative. I think this is also a statement of how little Asian representation exists in the media that people of various Asian backgrounds are looking towards this one non-encapsulating show for representation.”

Rudra believes, however, that Vassar’s production of “The Ember Island Players” is heading in the right direction in terms

tion of theater, stating: “Asian and Indigenous actors are heavily underrepresented in theater. There are not many roles that fit us in conventional theater productions and if there are roles written for Asian characters, they are usually presented as sidekicks and used for comedic relief.”

He continued, “[The characters in Avatar] are based on Asian and Indigenous cultures, which makes it even more crucial that we present these characters in an appropriate way.”

Yet Avatar’s representation of Asian and Indigenous characters still carries some flaws. “I think ATLA and LoK succeeded at helping a lot of young kids of color see themselves on screen,” said Rudra. “However, it's frustrating to me that despite the fact that many ideas from Avatar come from Hinduism, there is only one South Asian character, Guru Pathik, who is a stereotype of a Hindu guru and speaks with a comedic

of representation. “I feel like, as a Hindu playing the Avatar, it's a good step,” they remarked. “I also feel [that because I am] frequently around other Asian students, this play has become a safe haven for me. Not only is it a group of people who are fun to be around, but there is a kind of collective effervescence that comes with a group of POC being together at a predominantly white institution. It's just the kind of thing where we all know we're laughing with each other, not at each other.”

“The Ember Island Players” will take the stage April 30 at 6 p.m. Louie and Kang are currently examining if an in-person audience will be possible, but have said that a recording will be available for those interested. “We’ve had people reach out to us expressing their excitement that we’re putting on this show,” both of them said, “so thank you for your support and we hope that you will watch and enjoy it!”

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

All photos courtesy of Michelle Kang ’21.

HUMOR

April 15, 2021

Page 9

Breaking News From the desk of Izzy Migani, Humor Editor

Trees face backlash from people with allergies for daring to flower

HOROSCOPES

Taylor Stewart/The Miscellany News.

Madi Donat

Astral Projector

ARIES

March 21 | April 19

TAURUS

April 20 | May 20

GEMINI

May 21 | June 20

Allergy season approaches! The buds are beautiful even though they give some of us the sniffles. Kind of like life, right? Like, things are so beautiful but they also sometimes make you cry. I dunno. I thought that was cute. It’s been a long day.

Now feels like a good time to get your art out there!

Do any number of things, as long as it makes you feel good and helps you express your emotions! Try watercolors. I feel like they’re the superior art medium, as someone who knows next to nothing about painting.

Appreciate the little things in life. Today I ate some baby carrots. So fantastic! Do you see that tree outside your window? No, the other one. That’s my favorite tree on campus :) “But Madi, how do you know which tree it is?”

Checkmate! ALL trees are my favorite tree.

LIBRA

September 23 | October 22

SCORPIO

October 23 | November 21

There are so many things that I appreciate about others that I don’t end up saying out loud because it’s “weird” or whatever. But honestly? WHO CARES! Be unabashedly obsessed with your friends! Tell them you like their shirt or their attitude or their vibes! Life’s too short!

Routine is good but sometimes it can get you stuck in a rut. How do you feel about ducks? Look up pictures of ducks. Right now, do it. The stars told me to tell you to do it. There. Something different for your day. Feel better? And people say astrology is fake!

The light at the end of the COVID tunnel is oh-so close SAGITTARIUS but remember to still be safe! Socially distant gatherNovember 22 | ings are still IN. Hang outside with your pals and gosDecember 21 sip about the hottest people in all your classes. One of them might walk by and it’ll be really cute. Or really awkward.

I’ve been feeling very nostalgic lately, and maybe you

CANCER have, too. When I think about the past it makes me sad

June 21 | July 22

LEO

July 23 | August 22

VIRGO

August 23 | September 22

and wistful. Are you sad and wistful? Try looking out the window sadly and wistfully. Maybe others will notice and make a remark. Then you might become a famous actor.

Now is not the time to shy away from what you want.

Like, if you want boba, you should say, “Wow. I really want boba.” Nobody will do anything about it (unless you have very kind friends), but it’ll be good that at least other people in your life know about your plight.

Part of me is very tired and wants to sleep forever, but part of me wants to RUN. If you want to run physically, make sure to do it within the allotted area. If you want to run metaphorically (like, away from problems, for instance), don’t do that. Just go on a regular run.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

CAPRICORN Listening to sad music is fine, but listening to happy

December 22 | music is SO FUN. It’s, like, scientifically impossible to be sad when you’re blasting Carly Rae Jepsen. If you January 19

have some good happy songs to listen to when you’re sad, send them to me. I’ll make us a playlist.

AQUARIUS

January 20 | February 18

PISCES

February 19 | March 20

Astrology is funny because it’s kinda fake but also kinda real, which is cool. Like, I probably couldn’t tell you what you had for breakfast but I might be able to tell you something else. I can’t tell you what that thing is, though;not here. Not like this. Text me and maybe then.

You only need like an ounce of orange juice a day to not get scurvy. Pretty cool, right? And did you know that the FDA once had to bust an underground Amish raw milk ring? I know lots of food-related facts. It’s fun, but I don’t know enough to be good at crossword puzzles.

HUMOR

Page 10

April 15, 2021

Antsy student ‘attempts’ to do work 0ut in the sun Carly D'antonio

In Search Of Good WiFi

L

ike most students on campus this semester, cabin fever has been starting to get to me. Now that all of the snow has finally melted and the blossoms are beginning to bloom, nobody wants to be stuck in their room on a Zoom for hours on end.

Spring at Vassar is truly a beautiful thing, so we may as well enjoy it before they kick us out in two months.

Earlier this week, I couldn't bear the thought of having to stay in my room for another minute. So, I grabbed my computer and rushed to find a space on the quad to have class. Once I had all my work laid out, I logged into my first class of the day. However, I learned very quickly that I would not be paying attention. Focusing on Zoom

is hard enough, add in all the distractions of outside and it's damn near impossible.

But at this point in the semester, as long as I'm not laying in bed scrolling through my phone … it can be considered productive.

The quad is great for so many things, right? Playing Frisbee with your friends, having a nice spring picnic or just listening to some music. Heck, even getting a sunburn is enjoyable when you are surrounded by the newfound spring attitude that has spread all around us. Ok, maybe the faulty WiFi and the plethora of distractions are not great for focus. Luckily for me, not focusing on a Zoom lecture seems to be a habit most students have fallen into.

Another great aspect of “doing work” on the quad is watching all of your peers walk to their classes. I have a theory that seeing

others being productive and motivated for class will make you want to do the same.

Of course, this has not worked yet. But who knows, miracles happen every day.

“I have a theory that seeing others being productive and motivated for class will make you want to do the same. Of course, this has not worked yet.”

But, as I was “in class,” I couldn't help but

wonder how students are going to be able to be productive in this weather. I mean, how could a school expect a bunch of students who have been fighting through an agonizing East-Coast winter, to NOT drop everything and run outside when the temperature goes above 40 degrees? Yes, college is for learning and we are paying obscene amounts of money to go to these classes. But … laying on the grass with my camera off and mic muted was one of the most rewarding things I could think of doing, which is kinda depressing in itself considering how minuscule and insignificant that task is.

Overall, taking some time to be distracted is more than okay, and doing it outside is a great way into tricking your mind that you actually are accomplishing something.

Dr G’s Love Advice: Spotting red flags with rose-colored glasses

Juliette Pope/The Miscellany News.

Dear Dr. G, I just got back on the dating scene after a long-term relationship. Even though I totally knew what I was looking for in my last relationship, it still ended up in disaster. Can you tell me what I should be avoiding in my next partner?

-Rose-Colored Glasses Dear Rose, Every three minutes, someone in the United States has sex with someone that they totally should not have because they did not look for the red flags. By the time you have finished reading this article, someone will have done it (if you’re a physics major, it’ll have happened five times), and maybe that someone is right here on this campus!

It’s so easy to hear your friend talk about his date last night and pick out the problems easily, but it can be really tough to be an objective observer when it comes to your own love life. These are the times when you turn to your really bitchy friend to tell you what to hate about your newest fling, but you’re mad at them right now because they were a little too mean about your last haircut, so I’m happy to take up the role.

I would say the first round of red flags are ones that you can tell right off the bat, without even much conversation. For example, let’s start with physical attributes; do they keep their nails trimmed so as to not injure you while fingering you? Is there a bunch of dirt up under those nails? Drop a subtle hint to keep ‘em clean or move on. Do they wear a little red hat that says “Make America Great Again”? Or have a questionable tattoo of their last partner’s name across their forehead? These will naturally lead you to a

few things you need to unpack, but maybe sometimes it’s easier to just burn the whole suitcase and keep swiping on Tinder. If you think a red flag is that they weigh a bit too much, have body hair or that their clothes are kind of old, you are certainly the red flag in this scenario and maybe you should deal with that before trying to put any of your parts inside of another person. You can further consider how they present themselves on social media. If you can scroll through their Twitter and laugh at all the horrible sh*t they say about their exes, remember

more than two words when they text you …

If all someone does for you is fuck you and send you one text every four days, you could probably Venmo your computer science major friend to program a vibrator that does that and more. Assuming that they actually talk to you, you also should be careful of people who communicate very poorly. If your new girlfriend loves to share her feelings with you, but only ever at 2 a.m. when you’re asleep, plus her feelings are that she doesn’t like you, I think it’s probably best for everyone to cut the cord. Also, I don’t know

“Trust me, the red flags are always there, whether they refuse to baby talk their pets or 'just don't really listen to music' (I will never trust someone who is able to be alone with their thoughts at all times, I literally had to listen to HAIM just to write this article).” that that will be you one day, and it’s all fun and games until they post a “haha funny screenshot of my Notes app!” meme and suddenly your full first and last name is on the internet under the heading “let me peg him.”

The next round of red flags are the ones I think people overlook the most, and they fall under the umbrella of “poor communication skills.” Listen, I am not the type of person to micromanage another person’s time, but if it takes six days for you to have a conversation of five text bubble exchanges, something is certainly not right. Also, people who are actually into you tend to send

about y’all, but I definitely don’t love when my casual hookup tells me in detail about the sex that they had last week with someone else (especially during a pandemic???) so if they can’t resist describing the hot f*cking they did with their professor last week maybe you’re better off friends than partners. Finally, if you expect a good morning and good night text every day with no gaps in communication, you are once again the red flag; I know constant contact is nice but we are just beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel of the largest health crisis in the last century. And outside of that, maybe their annoying biology professor

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

just dropped the fourth group presentation assignment in a row. Cut everyone a little slack.

The final, and I’d say most important set of red flags, are the ones that arise when you’re bangin’. If you’re both sliding against each other and your slicked up bodies make a funny farting sound, you can laugh at that; if you get weird looks for laughing during a hookup, then I recommend you start hooking up with other people. Is this new partner open about consent and boundaries? One of the worst times to fly blind is when you could either just be making out or you could be having anal, and it’s simply always best practice to ask what the expectations are before you have sex with (maybe?) a stranger. If you think consent is not very sexy or don’t like talking about it, you already know what I’m gonna say … you are probably the red flag. If you prefer your partners start choking you without even asking, you’re definitely part of the problem. If anything, it’s kind of your civic duty; sure, maybe you like when your partner slaps you during sex unprovoked, BUT I DON’T! We as a campus and society should not reward people who do that in bed, and N*cole W*ng would expect better of us as trauma-informed, respectful and accountable little sluts, God rest her soul (she’s not dead, I just miss her).

Trust me, the red flags are always there, whether they refuse to baby talk their pets or “just don’t really listen to music” (I will never trust someone who is able to be alone with their thoughts at all times, I literally had to listen to HAIM just to write this article). You’re amazing, you deserve the best and you deserve to take off the rose-colored glasses!

April 15, 2021

HUMOR

Page 11

Humor writer (nearly) rides the highway to Heaven Vivian Phillips

Wrong Lane to Hell

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have always been an awful driver. I don’t understand why society expects everyone to innately know how to park ginormous chunks of metal in between each other like some sick game of financially-high-stakes Jenga. Personally, I think cars should only be able to drive 10 miles per hour max so the streets can just be treated like a big bumper car stadium.

Then, rather than being a “concerning display of my lack of awareness” and “massive increase in our insurance bill,” the two fender benders I got into in high school would’ve just been laughed off over a nice lemonade and funnel cake.

Because of my bad track record, I have always thought that any car related neardeath experience I’m involved in would be my fault. My parents are of the same philosophy and consequently forbade me from driving on the highway until I am at least 21. I find this fascinating because there is absolutely nothing about turning 21 that makes a person better at driving.

Honestly, not much changes at all about a person on their 21st birthday besides legally being able to drink. For obvious reasons this is not a pro, so it is perplexing to me that being of legal drinking age is arbitrarily my parent’s criteria for me to be able to make the jump from access roads to freeways.

My lack of highway driving abilities often leaves me immobile when I am home in Texas. San Antonio is a spider web of

freeways, all of which I am banned from until I’m legally allowed to rent a uHaul (I guess I lied, being able to drink isn’t the only perk of turning 21). Access roads are generally my go-to when traveling somewhere that necessitates highway driving.

Unfortunately, my friends don’t have as much patience as I do for dragging out ten-minute trips to the grocery store into hour-long road trips.

When it comes to toting me around, my friend Cayman is usually the one to take the responsibility. Two summers ago, I dragged her along to visit family with me in New Braunfels, Texas. In a historically

We rolled the windows down and put John Mayer’s New Light on the stereo (a light which physically appeared to us moments later when our lives flashed before our eyes). As we approached a stoplight, I felt Cayman’s tires rotate to the right— oddly, I thought—because the freeway perpendicular to us was a one-way street.

However, as the less experienced driver in the vehicle I assumed I must be misunderstanding the rules of the road. Politely, I decided to keep my reservations of potential imminent death to myself.

Suddenly a white Mini Cooper, my dream car from ages 10 to 18, was rushing

“Suddenly a white Mini Cooper, my dream car from ages 10 to 18, was rushing towards us. Before we even saw its headlights there was a symphony of panicked honks. For once in my life I was completely calm.”

German town, it is very difficult to find a place to eat dinner past 8 p.m. that isn’t a pub. At 17 we had never drank, much less attempted to enter an establishment dedicated to alcohol. If we were 21, we could have just eaten at the local pub and walked home (further proof that once you turn 21 the need to drive becomes increasingly irrelevant). Unfortunately for us, though, we were young and starving and had to drive out 30 minutes to find a place to eat that was legally allowed to let us in.

towards us. Before we even saw its headlights there was a symphony of panicked honks. For once in my life I was completely calm. As a gift I think my subconscious was letting me live the last few seconds of my life void of anxiety—a refreshing contrast to the past 19 years. I honestly felt worse for the people witnessing our situation than I felt for us. I can’t imagine how much witnessing a head-on collision on your way home from work would affect the rest of my day.

I turned to Cayman whose eyes were glued to the car quickly approaching us.

“Oh my god” she said. “What do I do?”. You know it’s bad when someone has to ask me for driving advice. God, the ghost of Isaac Newton and Kris Kardashian’s DMs would have all been more credible sources to turn to at the moment. But you know those stories about mothers who momentarily gain superhuman strength to save their babies from danger? Suddenly Cayman was my baby and I had the emotional composure of a retiree living in Florida.

“It’s okay, sweetie, it’s going to be okay,” I cooed “Alright now let’s reverse, good jooob yes that’s it! Now let’s inch a bit—shh shh you’re alright you’re almost there” It probably took two and a half minutes to reverse to the point where we started.

Luckily the car headed towards us had enough time to stop despite how long we were taking. Every car on the freeway stood still as they watched us reverse for a quarter of a mile on the highway. As someone who has dabbled in theatre for most of my life, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the spotlight.

Appetites having been curbed; we drove home. There is something very surreal about escaping a near-death experience completely unscathed. Of course, I am thoroughly grateful we are safe, but I do have to admit I’m a bit butthurt that my two minor fender benders caused infinitely more concrete issues in my life than Cayman and I’s run in with a near head-on collision in her car.

WORD ON THE STREET

What’s the strangest dream you’ve had recently, or ever?

"They’re all senior-year stress dreams.

I had a dream that it was my honors and awards ceremony, but it was all people from my high school. It made me very uncomfortable.”

- Emma Bauchner ’21

“I was in a freaky abandoned asylum that looked like one of the French quarters in Paris. I was running around and there was a crazy guy with a chainsaw following me. I have really vivid recollections of running up the European stairwells trying to get away from the crazy guy covered in blood.

Classic college stress dream, I feel.”

- David Petersen ’22

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

“I had a nightmare [when] I was five… where I was at one of those [places you go in grocery stores to develop disposable camera photos]...and instead of doing anything camera-related, there was a brain. And we poked the brain until the brain became a mummy. And then I was like, ‘we have to flee the grocery store.’”

- Elliot Hoke ’22

“It was a sex dream.” [Points.] “About that Deece worker.”

- Anthony Lanzillo ’22

OPINIONS

Page 12

April 15, 2021

Corporate media bolsters the military-industrial complex Helen Johnson Columnist

This is the first article in a five-part series about the military-industrial-media complex. n January 17, 1961, the 34th President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, delivered the final public speech of his presidency. At that time, only five other presidents had delivered farewell addresses upon leaving office. Emblematic of the many contradictions that characterized his life and presidency, Eisenhower—the only general to be elected president during the 20th century, having served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe during World War II—left a legacy warning the nation about the implications of increasing power of the very establishment in which he served: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.

Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Although the term “military-industrial complex” (MIC) was almost certainly invented by one of his speechwriters, Eisenhower is credited with its coining. The MIC has become a phrase used to describe the complex web of connections tying together the military, the Pentagon, politicians, defense contractors, and other corporations that profit from, have stakes in, or contribute to war, or any combination thereof.

However, most usages include the overlap between private military contractors and the federal government, and highlight colossal military budgets, the influence the defense industry exerts over public policy and the massive profits (for some) that are reaped from war.

The attention given to a possible “military-industrial complex” rose and fell throughout the latter half of the 20th cen-

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tury, declining from the late 1980s through the beginning of the 2000s. However, the War on Terror sparked by the Sept. 11 attacks and the prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have renewed interest in the MIC. New factors, such as the importance of oil for national security and surveillance technology, have dramatically altered the landscape and scope of what may be considered part of the MIC since Eisenhower’s speech.

The MIC intersects with many other systems and structures. In fact, in the drafts of Eisenhower’s speech, both the terms “military-industrial-congressional complex” and “military-industrial-scientific complex” were considered. But in recent decades there has grown another connection, with one of the institutions that we, as a democratic society, hold most dear, and which Eisenhower himself identified as the one most critical to “security and liberty prospering together”: the free media.

The potential for those who hold power within the military-industrial complex to use the media to influence public opinion, either intentionally or indirectly, is extraordinary. I do not wish to paint a conspiracy of top officials and CEOs plotting a complex propaganda scheme. I also do not want to imply that reporters are directed behind closed doors to paint the MIC in a certain light. Rather, I hope to illuminate how the concentration of power within the corporate media and the MIC, along with the intersections of these industries, can influence the messaging we receive on a daily basis. This can have devastating implications for democracy.

The modern day MIC has grown into a monster of vast proportions beyond what even Eisenhower would have envisioned.

Not only does today’s MIC involve the military, weapons makers and the Congress, but it also includes countless government officials, the oil industry, service companies and contractors, surveillance and technology companies and think tanks that have managed to imbed their imperialist agendas into White House administrations (William D. Hartung, “Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex,” 2011). An understanding of the enormous breadth

and reach of today’s MIC is essential for appreciating the countless ways in which it intersects with modern-day corporate media.

There has also been a huge consolidation of power within the media over the last several decades. In 1983 there were 50 dominant media corporations, while today only five conglomerates (AT&T, Comcast, Disney, News Corp and ViacomCBS) own about 90 percent of United States media (Ben Bagdikian, “The New Media Monopoly,” 2004).

Merger after merger has consolidated the media industry into giant corporations that each have the power to reach millions, even billions, of people in the United States and around the world. These media giants have unprecedented monetary and political power, which, compounded with the fact that they control the vast majority of the news and political messaging we receive, gives them the ability to lobby and influence the government to slash regulations, grant antitrust approvals and pass laws that benefit their corporate interests. And, because they intersect with other millionand billion-dollar industries, they have the power to manufacture favorable opinion amongst the public for the mutual benefit of themselves and their partner industries (Martin A. Lee and Norman Solomon, “Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media,” 1990).

With knowledge of the contemporary MIC and corporate media, the connections between the two become hard to ignore.

Through outright corporate ownership, interlocking directorates (when the same individual sits on more than one corporate board), revolving doors (the circulation of the same people working for the government, military contractors, and media corporations), embedded journalism (when reporters live and travel with troops during military conflict) and over-reliance on “official” (i.e. military, government and Pentagon) sources, the corporate media is undeniably linked in complex but powerful ways to the MIC. Beginning with the collaboration between Hollywood and the military made possible by the Committee on Public Information, which was founded

by President Woodrow Wilson in 1917, the links between the media and the MIC have only become stronger, more frequent and

more financially lucrative over time (Haidee Wasson and Lee Grieveson, “Cinema's Military Industrial Complex,” 2018). This has resulted in a mainstream media that does not provide a check on government use of military power, but rather influences our perception of war and manufactures support for the military apparatus that is the MIC. The intersection of the MIC with the media has had disastrous consequences.

Corporate media manufactures pro-military opinion among the public, contributes to climates of mass hysteria in the periods leading up to military involvement, suppresses information relevant to military involvement, provides a sanitized coverage of war, fails to investigate, criticize or thoroughly debate issues of military involvement, too easily bends to pressure from government and military officials and even sometimes spreads outright lies and false information regarding matters of war (Dougles Kellner, “Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy: Terrorism, War and Election Battles,” 2005; Normon Solomon, “War Made Easy,” 2005; Dougles Kellner, “Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy,” 2002). This has resulted in an American citizenry that is ill-informed, uneducated and misled in matters regarding war and military involvement, rendering it incapable of holding its government to account when it comes to matters of military involvement.

In the United States, we consider the free press to be a hallmark of our liberty. However, the massive concentration of media power from hundreds of media firms to the big five today means that just a handful of people have the power to influence the messaging that affects millions of people throughout the nation. Not only have the media conglomerates consolidated, but they are linked in direct and indirect ways to the various arms of the MIC. Thus, they have ceased to be the unbiased news outlets we believe them to be in matters regarding war. Eisenhower’s hope that “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” would be able to check the growing power of the military-industrial complex has not only not been realized, but is in greater danger than ever before.

Juliette Pope/ The Miscellany News.

The opinions expressed above do not represent those of The Miscellany News as a whole.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

April 15, 2021

OPINIONS

Page 13

Admin is responsive when it wants to be, not when it needs to be This article was written by Sophie Schoenbrun and James Grosjean on behalf of Vassar Challah for Hunger. e can all agree that COVID-19 has messed up the college experience we all dreamed of when we were younger, and not just socially. Many of us were stranded at school or at friends’ houses when President Elizabeth Bradley announced that the remainder of the 2020 Spring semester would be virtual, and we had to book expensive plane tickets home. Some of us stayed on campus and quarantined here through the summer. Even now, many of us still can’t find campus jobs due to their scarcity. Wherever we were, problems inevitably arose.

Last fall, we heard from students who stayed on campus during the COVID-19 closure through our second annual Food Security Survey, and we found that after the semester had finished, the college did not provide adequate resources to meet students’ basic dietary needs. Because it was unsafe to leave campus to grocery shop, students had to rely on expensive grocery delivery services to eat. Some reported that the college gave out $100 food stipends near the end of the summer, but by then it was too late. One student told us: “Meal offerings—especially during a pandemic, when leaving campus to buy groceries is dangerous—are not a luxury, and should not be treated as optional. I thought Vassar was better than to treat its most vulnerable students like this, but I suppose I was wrong.”

It is not okay to neglect vulnerable students like this. The summer was hectic, as we all know, but there should have been a plan in place to feed students on campus.

Thinking back, we assume that much of the time between March and July was used to plan for our safe return in the fall, but that should not have eclipsed the needs of the students who were already there.

It is nearly impossible to get even basic necessities from an administration that fails to communicate with students, and it is most definitely impossible for said administration to plan for students’ well-being when students are not present at the

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negotiating table. That’s why students have, historically and currently, taken matters into their own hands, organizing each other and getting loud about their concerns.

Vassar Student Association (VSA) Class of 2023 Senator Joe Mangan has been working on reforming the VSA to make it more representative of the student body and have more power to address issues that students face on campus. Their vision is to increase students’ say in college planning and the implementation of programs, as well as to increase oversight of the administration on behalf of their peers.

“What few people seem to realize is that those in VSA experience the exact same problems with administration as the broader student body,” Mangan explained.

“We have asked nicely for free laundry service numerous times, we have made more than one statement calling for Universal Pass or Double A grading policies, and we have held multiple divestment referendums. All our calls have gone ignored.”

Because the current model of the VSA provides that the administration has the final say on most decisions regarding student well-being, according to Mangan and other VSA members to whom we have talked, the body is prone to being ignored. Thus, a larger-scale student organizing project beyond the scope of the VSA is necessary to bring students’ voices to the table on these issues in a timely manner. This is entirely different from the many forums and town halls put on by various school administrators, most facilitated through webinars where students cannot speak but instead ask questions through a digital Q&A. In these types of meetings, the “resolutions” to problems typically come from the top down, and in turn, they are often poorly communicated, confusing and inefficient.

Growing our collective power won’t come without opposition. “I anticipate that administration won’t be readily willing to work together. This will undoubtedly create tension that I hope to minimize,” Mangan said.

A recent example of mobilizing our

Nina Ajemian/The Miscellany News. collective power arose on the question of food insecurity. A group of 30 student organizations sent a sign-on letter to the administration in early March demanding that the administration involve students in the meal planning process for the break. A small group of students have been meeting with Deans of the college, and we are in the process of creating a joint group of students and administrators to address basic needs insecurity over breaks, but this did not come without a great deal of planning and organizing, as well as a great deal of time.

“Finding the time to consistently organize, even for a cause we deeply support, is always tricky as a college student,” Mangan admitted.

Their comments are painfully relatable.

This year has been difficult to get through academically, let alone in regards to student advocacy.

In addition, some of the proposed administrative attendees of the meeting did not show up, and it made us wonder whether or not this project was actually a priority.

We talked to Capria Berry, the director of the Transitions program, about how students were able to gain an audience with administrators in the past: “In many ways I owe my position to students,” they explained. “Students started the Transitions Program and literally sat with President Bradley to advocate for a full-time professional position. That doesn’t just happen everywhere.”

While this is very true—after the letter, we were able to sit down with administrators in a timely manner—we had a very tough time getting all administrators on board with the meeting in the first place.

While some administrators like Berry focus a great amount of energy on fighting for students’ needs, other administrators are more interested in rebutting our demands than actually listening to what they are. We are frequently referred down the ladder of bureaucracy, to offices where we have been repeatedly dismissed in the past.

It is exhausting.

It is clear that the College will only entertain student-led initiatives that it can co-opt into its own agenda, like adding an administrative position for the Transitions program, which the college leverages to present an inclusive institutional image.

But when it comes to initiatives that hinder the top-down implementation of that agenda, such as increasing student representation in college planning meetings, the College tends to ignore us or push us away.

If we are going to create a truly communicative and productive environment here, the administration needs to defer to students when it comes to making decisions about our own well-being. We have already seen that refusing (or forgetting) to include student input has caused great harm, especially during this pandemic.

All we are asking for is a seat at the table and consistent communication. Is that too much to ask?

The potential merits of a journalism department at Vassar Ben Fikhman Columnist

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anding a summer internship or trying to realize a career path are consistent concerns hanging over the heads of Vassar College students. Hiring managers may be very specific in what they look for. It can be exceptionally difficult to obtain a job or internship offer, particularly from companies or workplaces that are renowned in their field. Many of the qualifications work opportunities call for involve research, communication, interviews and a certain degree of technological expertise. What better way to meet these demands than to introduce a journalism department and major at Vassar?

Job opportunities typically present to the online public the qualifications that they desire or require, and if a student is interested in journalism as a career path, “Journalism Major” may be one of them. Matching that job qualification can be a very important part of increasing the probability of getting interviewed or hired because it shows the hiring manager that a student has taken a curriculum that covers the tenets of that particular field of study. Journalism in the workplace, whether it be covering local sports or interning in a major newsroom, requires a wide set of skills dealing with understanding how to appeal to others, communicating effectively and with integrity

and mastering technological means of completing tasks.

In a school that prides itself on its “increasing emphasis on a multidisciplinary approach to intellectual inquiry,” journalism would be an ideal multidisciplinary

“As part of a major, second major or minor, taking journalism courses can be a healthy skillbuilding complement to a more rigid concentration like Political Science.” major at Vassar. I imagine that the curriculum’s format would be similar to that of International Studies, but journalism would expand to even more branches of Vassar academics. The curriculum would not only include components from different departments, but also different curricular divisions. Theoretically, courses within this kind of a curriculum can include Computer Science, History, Economics, Art, or other relevant courses that are cross-listed with journalism.

When thinking about journalism, one may conjure up images of a pen and notepad, or standing in front of cameras and speaking. But there are more aspects to the practice of journalism than solely reporting, writing, anchoring and broadcasting.

Key components of the journalism field also include methods of distribution and production for which the Computer Science, Mathematics and Art Departments could prove handy alongside departments within the Social Sciences division that promote writing and research skills. Washington and Lee University, an institution with a smaller undergraduate enrollment than Vassar, has a Journalism department that includes options to take courses in Data Science, Politics, and Philosophy. The breadth of a journalism curriculum would allow Vassar students to develop skills they feel are most important to them, even having the opportunity to choose between STEM or humanities in a journalistic respect.

Introducing journalism courses at Vassar would not just be about helping students secure work with CNN or Vox. It’s a field of study that covers many different functions and possibilities. Interested students should have the opportunity to occasionally take one or a few journalism courses pertaining to their STEM or humanities interests without having to commit to a degree. A sociol-

The opinions expressed above do not represent those of The Miscellany News as a whole.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

ogy major can take journalism courses to help develop data gathering and interviewing skills for future research projects, for instance. The existence of a journalism major would actually be helpful for students who are dead set on non-interdisciplinary majors such as Political Science, History, Computer Science or Art, but also want to hammer out some of the eight units required outside of their curricular division of concentration while at the same time benefiting from relevant skills that would directly benefit their careers. As part of a major, second major or minor, taking journalism courses can be a healthy skill-building complement to a more rigid concentration like Political Science.

All around, a journalism department at Vassar has the potential to bring many unique advantages to the student body. It would allow students to build real world skills, dive into different departments and curricular divisions, complement their more specific passions and possibly match the desires of more hiring managers. Such a major, degree, department and curriculum could mark its place as an expansive path for Vassar students. Columbia University offers a dual degree in Journalism and Computer Science, so why can’t we do something similar by introducing a new multidisciplinary powerhouse ourselves?

SPORTS

Page 14

April 15, 2021

Columnist reflects on track debut during COVID-19 Continued from Track on page 1 dreds of other runners with tens of screaming fans (mostly the moms of the competitors) to watch me as I breathed in the cold November air, I was running against eight other people, I had a mask covering my face and the modest fan presence that cross country runners expect was reduced to zero. On top of all that, I ran terribly, certainly my worst college race.

But despite all that, it was a momentous occasion that I couldn’t possibly be more grateful for.

That may seem ridiculous; why would someone be excited about having to run a race in a mask, with 90 percent of the competition absent? Why, after dealing with all those setbacks and having nothing to show for it after running a horrible race, would I be grateful for the experience? The answer: I got to be an athlete again.

I consider athletics a significant part of my identity. For as long as I can remember, I have run nearly every single day of my life.

If I let multiple days pass without going on a run, I feel terrible. My energy goes down, my anxiety goes up and getting through the day just feels harder. I have met some of my closest friends and mentors through running, formed relationships that I will be grateful for until the day I die. Running is the foundation of my social life, it keeps my mental health steady and it is my biggest competitive outlet. I love talking about running, I love reading about running, I love watching others run and most of all, I love running myself. I

don’t just love to run; I love to compete. Running allows me to compete not just against other people, but also—and I know it's cliche—against myself. No matter how many times I get a new personal best, I will always be pushing myself to run even faster the next time. I get great joy out of setting an ambitious goal months ahead of time and putting in the training every single day to achieve it. Don’t get me wrong, some days training is miserable, whether it's 100 degrees and 100 percent humidity, or I have gotten very little sleep the night before or am in a bad mood. But those days are always outweighed by beautiful Sunday morning long runs or the completion of a grueling workout that leaves me not only exhausted, but accomplished and excited for what is to come in future races and practices.

All of this training and goal-setting culminates in a thrilling, nerve-wracking race day.

Sometimes it ends with a massive personal record or a victory over a rival, and other times it ends in complete failure. But it is always worth it. Nothing can compare to the momentary silence when you are at the starting line waiting to hear the gun. Everything around me seems to freeze. I’m so excited and so nervous that I no longer notice the difference between the two. In that fleeting moment, before anyone has moved a muscle, I’m presented with something that is uncommon in daily life: a clear-cut opportunity to be better than I have ever been before. It doesn’t happen often, but just the possibility that I will run like I have never run before—whether it’s

by dropping tens of seconds off my personal best, surging past my competitors at the end of the race or just having a gutsy performance from start to finish as I battle with other runners, the clock and my own limitations—is addictive. It is a rare opportunity to feel true elation at my accomplishments. Everyone loves to ace a test or nail an interview or have a great first date, but for me, none of that compares to the power and strength I feel from having that big performance I have been working towards for months or years with no guarantee that it will ever come.

For a while, I really wasn’t sure I would get the opportunity to feel that again. Maybe it sounds overdramatic for a 20-year-old to be contemplating the end of his athletic career, but the truth is, for most college athletes, this is the final stop. There is no professional league opportunity waiting for us when we graduate (I don’t expect I will qualify for the olympics unless they take a few minutes off the qualifying time), so we have to make the most of our four years before they pass us by.

Sure, I can still race after I am out of college, but it isn’t the same. I’ll never get to be on a team like this again, I’ll never be able to surround myself with great coaches, training facilities and trainers. I will never again run a real cross country race after I graduate from college. Most heartbreaking of all, I won’t get to cross the finish line next to my teammates, celebrate their accomplishments with them and help pull them back up when they get knocked down.

That's why I was excited beyond belief to wake up at 8 a.m. for my pre-competition antigen test, put a piece of cloth over my nose and mouth that makes it harder to breathe when I am trying to breathe like I’ve never breathed before, line up next to a handful of competitors with almost no one watching and run one of my slowest races ever. Because for 517 days, I had to experience what it was like to lose that feeling that I cherished so much. For 517 days, I couldn’t compete, all while the calendar kept changing, graduation inched closer and closer and doubt that I would ever be able to truly get my racing career back increased. I wasn’t ready; I have a lot of unfinished business and a newfound appreciation for the entire process, including the shitty races. I don’t know what the future holds; anything is possible, nothing is guaranteed. There could be injuries, bad luck or even another pandemic (god please no). But 517 days was enough for me—today I have another opportunity.

Even though there are a lot of aspects of competing like this that are frustrating or upsetting, I am grateful for these chances and I plan to make the most of them. Hopefully, if all goes according to plan, I will get to have two more years of racing opportunities at Vassar. I am incredibly lucky to have another chance to compete here. I plan to give it everything I’ve got, and as the pandemic wanes into what is hopefully its last weeks, I urge everyone to take advantage of their opportunities.

After all, you never know when you will have to endure 517 days without them.

The Answer (Part 2)

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nalyzing a psychological process and determining the circumstances under which it impacts behavior is all well and good.

However, I find that the real fun often comes from thinking about how we might alter our behavior to be our best selves. In general, most psychological phenomena are adaptive; that is, while there may be a downside to them, there is likely also an upside. Otherwise, the behavior would have been nixed by evolution long ago. Yet, this may not ring true in the context of sports. While people have played with balls and sticks for at least 3,000 years, that is not nearly enough time for significant evolutionary changes to take place on the biological level. Strategies and rules have evolved in sports, sure, but our basic psychology remains the same. While athletes’ psychological bent may be adaptive in the rest of their lives, that might not be the case in competition, in which case they should modify their strategy and instigate the evolution of their sport in real time.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how the psychological effects of normative and informational influence bias NBA players to

try and “answer” their opponents’ successful shots by taking a similar shot themselves at the other end of the court. In our daily lives, these effects are helpful: when we are faced with an incomplete understanding of the world, we will reasonably look to others to fill in the gaps (informational influence), and even when we do have solid knowledge about our environment, we will justifiably still look to others to make sure that we fit in (normative influence). But are these effects beneficial in an NBA game?

To answer this question, I returned to my dataset from a few weeks ago, which contained play-by-play information from the 2018-2019 (the last full) NBA season. To recap, I found that after giving up a three-pointer, teams shot a three themselves 38.7 percent of the time, compared to 35.6 percent of the time otherwise (a significant difference with p < 1^-15). This is an example of informational influence; when players are not sure which type of shot to take, they look to what worked for their opponents. Did succumbing to the effects of informational influence benefit teams? It actually hurt them, but not signifi-

cantly. Teams shot 35.0 percent from beyond the arc when answering a three and 35.6 percent otherwise (p = 0.32).

Informational influence not only caused teams to shoot more threes, they also shot more two-point jump shots; I consider this to still count as informational influence because threes are jump shots too. After giving up a three, teams went with the two-point J 30.6 percent of the time, significantly more often than they did otherwise (26.4 percent; p < 1^-15). Did these shots fare worse than other two-point jumpers? Nope. Two-point jumpers in response to a made three scored 42.0 percent of the time, while two-point jumpers connected 41.4 percent of the time otherwise, an insignificant difference (p = 0.38).

I also established that, unlike other types of shots, three-pointers exerted normative influence. This can be conceptualized as when a player is shown that a type of shot doesn’t work (i.e., our opponents miss with it) and then goes with it anyways. I found that when a team successfully defended a three, they took an attempt from beyond the arc at the other end of the court 37.6 percent of the time.

Otherwise, they only went with the three-ball 35.6 percent of the time (a significant difference with p < 1^-9). Two-point jumpers were not significantly more likely after missed threes (26.5 to 26.7 percent; p = 0.36).

Answers to last week’s crossword puzzles

“Google Easter Eggs”

By Reese Collins

“Physique Tune-up”

By Greg Calidonna and Ian Rosevear

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Was it beneficial to yield to normative influence? Interestingly, it was slightly helpful, but not significantly: Three attempts after missed threes were successful 36.1 percent of the time, while all other three attempts were successful 35.4 percent of the time (p = 0.19).

Okay, so informational and normative influence affect shot selection but not shot outcomes in response to three-point attempts. Since this is the case, teams can just allow these influences to run their course and keep everything the same, right? Not so fast. While it wouldn’t make sense yet to alter their shot selection on offense, teams can change their defense after they attempt a three-pointer themselves. Typically, it is a good bet to assume your opponents will take a jump shot; overall, they do so 62.6 percent of the time. However, it is an even better bet if you have just made a three. In these situations, as compared to all others, opponents will take a jump shot (be it for two or three points) 7.3 percent more often (69.3 to 62.0 percent). While offering less of an advantage (just a 2.0 percent difference), after missing a three, teams should still be aware that their opponents will be significantly more likely to shoot a three themselves. In conclusion, while social influences do not affect shot outcomes right now, if defenders catch on to their impact, they very well might in the future.

April 15, 2021

CROSSWORD The Miscellany Crosswords “Crossword 1”

ACROSS 1. *Halloween party need, or 8-across in Portuguese 8. *See 1-across 13. She lives in the Louvre 14. By oneself 15. It wanes after the third quarter 16. Car part you take off 18. ____ 130-Archaeology: Lessons From the Past 19. ____ Moines 20. Spanish treasure 21. More recent 23. *Come up with, or 1-down in French 25. One competing in Wii Sports 26. "Gone Girl" star Pike 28. Whirls 30. Off-limits 31. Slower than adagio 32. ____ Laureate (American arts distinction) 36. Ho Chi Minh City, formerly 37. "____ be nice" 38. "The Kiss" painter 41. *Title for DeBlasio or Buttigieg, or 32down in Spanish 42. Did a tour of the Monopoly board 46. Poetic tribute 47. Beer ingredient 48. Sight-singing technique 50. Reason for something to be 22-down 51. "And I ____" (viral phrase) 52. *Knack, or 17-down in German 53. Brief weather phenomenon 55. _____: The Empire Strikes Back 59. African antelope

Page 15

By Adam Buchmueller

60. Sights at rodeos 61. With 62-across, what stumps a second language learner (and a hint to the four starred pairs) 62. See 61-across

DOWN 1. *See 23-across 2. Boxing combo 3. Pageant contestants' attire 4. "My 600lb. Life" channel 5. 180º turn, in slang 6. AOL alternative 7. Consume 8. "The Godfather" consigliere Tom 9. "What a pity" 10. Beantown, on a scoreboard 11. Like the class of 2025 12. Rip open 13. Thom on a shoebox 17. *See 52-across 19. Mythical Queen of Carthage 22. Not suitable for kids 23. Tiny tiger 24. "Cut Piece" artist 27. Yoga equipment 28. Schedules 29. Architect I. M. ____ 32. *See 41-across 33. "50 ____ Chicken" (parody cookbook) 34. What you have to do for guac, maybe 35. Ear-related prefix 36. Texting format 38. BTS genre 39. Place for a small dog 40. Where astronauts and cosmonauts

meet (abbr.)

43. "So sorry I interrupted you" 44. Slid 45. Proposals 47. Friend 49. 4x4s, e.g.

51. The sun, moon and stars 54. Valuable export for some countries

By Reese Collins

“Shots! Shots! Shots!”

ACROSS

58. Prom tuxes or limos, usually

1. Two-faced Roman god 6. Film award 11. They may be secret 14. Words with "happy face" or "pedestal" 15. Paged 16. Goes 17. Head honcho, abbr.

18. "Me ___" 19. Aristotle's word of purpose 21. Teen Mom airer 23. Tubular pasta 25. "Did you get the text _____?"

26. Firefighter Red 27. 2nd most populated city in Finland 28. Sixers coach Rivers 29. 1971 Elton John song 30. Team's pronoun 31. ___-pen 32. Like April weather, sometimes 34. "___ ruled the world" 35. Indian dresses 38. Color lightly 39. What's real 40. Lauder of cosmetics 41. Low/high card 42. "_____ you!"

43. Roker or Gore 44. Sante Fe's state, per the P.O. 45. Little bites 50. What the 22-down is backed by 55. Foggy 56. Not the same 57. 22-across making company

DOWN 1. One might do this with 3-down 2. Immortal 3. Embroidery... or the bottom of this puzzle 4. Like toy boat toy boat toy boat 5. Sault ___ Marie, MI 6. Gone fishing 7. Antony Blinken's workplace 8. See 22-down 9. Banderas of "Tie me up! Tie me down!"

10. Student fellows, at other schools 12. Camera card 13. Level for the Binghamton Rumble Ponies 14. Letter extra 19. NBA impossibility 20. A good liar, perhaps 22. With 8-down, the theme of this puzzle 23. Arafat, for example 24. West end?

32. Hwy., tpk., e.g.

33. "___ for apple" 36. Often contracted word 37. HBO alternative, for short 45. Fig., Dig., etc.

46. Queen of Boeotia, in Greek mythology 47. A follow-up?

48. Suffix for Caesar 49. Mrs., in Mexico

55. 2003 film adapted into a 2010 Broadway musical 56. Golf goal 57. "Woe ____" (grammar book) 58. Poughkeepsie-to-Stamford dir.

50. TV prt. SCR 51. Revolutionary icon 52. DoD's satellite subdivision 53. Animator's creation 54. Actor Helms et al.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE