The Miscellany News | Oct 29. 2009

The Miscellany News October 29, 2009

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Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY

Volume CXLIII | Issue 6

Group calls for College job security Select number of students, staff and faculty form Campus Solidarity Working Group News Editor

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hroughout the month of October, the Campus Solidarity Working Group, a group of Vassar community members, including mostly students, but also members of the staff and faculty, has mobilized in protest against the the College’s recent decision to eliminate 13 staff positions. Following a series of open meetings, the group’s actions culminated before October Break in a rally held on Oct. 14, which ended in a confrontation between the protestors and several senior administrators, who were midway through a faculty meeting in Rockefeller Hall room 300.

Though some students are more active and vocal than others, all who identify as part of the faction hold equal status, according to members of the Working Group; members declined to give interviews or be quoted for the sake of the collective, claiming that no one member can or should represent the whole.

The Oct. 14 rally was the group’s first large-scale campus event. It consisted of several speakers—students and staff members—addressing a crowd of about 100 gathered outside Main Building. Following opening remarks from All Campus Dining Center Chef’s Helper Cathy Bradford, Anastasia Hardin ’10 and Sarah Muenzinger ’10 and a presentation of the List of Demands, protestors marched to the faculty meeting located in room 300 of Rockefeller Hall. The group demanded permission to present their List of Demands to the administrators; those present included Senior Officers President Catharine Bond Hill, Dean of the College Christopher See GROUP on page 3

Molly Turpin/The Miscellany News

Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News

Jillian Scharr

Members of the Campus Solidarity Working Group gather outside Main Building on Wednesday, Oct. 14,to hold a demonstration advocating for the restoration of 13 eliminated positions. Over 100 students, faculty and staff attended the rally, which lasted for approximately two hours.

Confusion surrounds recent exchange of data: Faculty debate the financial health of the College Sept. 14, it was not until the Sept. 30 announcement of 13 staff position eliminations that the letter suddenly became a campus talking point. That week, paper copies of parts of the letter were placed anonymously in mailboxes, and the electronic version was forwarded like chain mail to and from the inboxes of students, faculty and staff.

Soon after, a response to Foster’s document—written on Sept. 25 by Dean of Planning and Academic Affairs Rachel Kitzinger and Vice President for Finance and Administration Elizabeth Eismeier—was sent to Foster, the Priorities and Planning Committee, the Advisory Group on the Allocation of Faculty Resources and the Vassar Student Association (VSA) Executive Board. In the letter, Kitzinger and Eismeier point out

Ruby Cramer

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Editor in Chief

n the weeks preceding October Break—following a flurry of conflicting economic statistics disseminated from different arenas of the College community—a shared sense of confusion, if not at times hostility, spread across campus. Beginning with “VC Money Facts,” a letter written by Professor of English Donald Foster, select members of the faculty and administration began a somewhat public, back-and-forth debate on the true financial health of the College, leaving many unable to sort the accurate from the misleading and the facts from the falsehoods.

Though “VC Money Facts”— which dealt mainly with issues of Annual Fund giving and senior officer compensation—was written on

areas where, they wrote, “we believe further information is necessary to judge the accuracy of [Foster’s] statements.”

Following this letter, Foster sent out three more of his own—two on Oct. 5 and one on Oct. 7; all three gave similar statistics on giving and compensation, though none addressed the issues raised in the KitzingerEismeier document.

Amidst these conflicting accounts, the sense of confusion began to make its spread across campus. “I’ve been hearing two stories,” said VSA Ferry House Representative Briana Markoff ’11 at an Oct. 8 open meeting in the ALANA Center. Attendees of this meeting would soon after form the Campus Solidarity Working Group, a faction of students, faculty and staff advocating primarily for Vassar job

security. “One,” continued Markoff, “is that the College is in good financial health and that we’re doing just fine. I’ve heard another story that says that’s not true. I need to know.”

Anastasia Hardin ’10 echoed Markoff, saying, “We need transparency and more information. One thing that we all share in common is that we’re getting mixed messages and we don’t have clear information,” she said. “We need more clear information.”

Almost a week later, on Oct. 14, the Working Group held a demonstration outside Main Building to present their List of Demands, which advocates for the suspension of all further position eliminations and for “those who have lost their positions during this academic year [to] be reinstated See DEBATE on page 4

ACT OUT leads over 100 students to National Equality March Kelly Stout

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Kelly Stout/The Miscellany News

One hundred and three members of the Vassar community participate in the National Equality March in Washington D.C. on Sunday, Oct. 11.

Inside this issue

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NEWS

File sharing offenses increase at the College

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Features Editor

or the 103 members of the Vassar community who attended the National Equality March on Sunday, Oct. 11, the day began at 2:45 in the morning. According to Equality Across America, the organization running the event, the march was intended to demand “equal protection for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer people in all matters governed by civil law. Now.” For Vassar students, participation in the March meant a six-hour bus trip to Washington, D.C. and back, all in the span of 22 hours. “It was quite a day,” said Leah Varsano ’10.

The Vassar students and community members who attended the event were among the estimated 200,000 people who showed their support marching for LGBTQ rights, and for many, the experience was deeply personal. “My moms are gay, but I’m more into this than my mothers are,”

FEATURES

Racial, ethnic data standards revised by government

said freshman Amanda Friedrich, “They’re like, ‘go on honey, have fun.’”

Varsano added, “I do feel that this is a defining movement for our time. I want to be able to tell my grandkids that I marched for gay rights.”

The March followed a route that took protestors down Pennsylvania Avenue past the White House to end on the National Mall in front of the Capitol for a rally. There was an air of excitement and camaraderie at the March with participants holding up signs that ranged in tone from serious—“Slavery was tradition, too”— to humorous—“Gay marriage causes global warming because we’re soooo hot.” In homage to Beyonce’s song “Single Ladies,” one sign even read, “We like it, and we wanna put a ring on it.” The March was supposed to kick off at 11 a.m., but ended up running a little behind schedule, adding to the excitement and impatience of the crowd. “I’m ready to do this!” said

20 SPORTS

Michelle Donnelly ’11.

Donnelly is the secretary of ACT OUT, an LGBTQ advocacy organization at Vassar that put the National Equality March at the top of its agenda this year. Donnelly, along with ACT OUT’s executive board and coPresidents Leslie Hamilton ’10 and Casey Katims ’10, helped plan Vassar’s contribution to the March.

“We would have been happy with 30 people,” said Hamilton, who was surprised by the unexpected turnout and enthusiasm from Vassar students and administrators. But the road to Washington, D.C. wasn’t bump free for ACT OUT. When Hamilton and Katims realized turnout would be closer to 100, they realized “we’re going to be working twice as hard,” said Katims.

Hamilton and Katims began planning participation in the March last June when Equality Across America See MARCH on page 8

Men’s soccer to contend in League playoffs

Page 2

The Miscellany News

October 29, 2009

Editor in Chief Ruby Cramer Senior Editor Molly Turpin

Contributing Editors Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News

Photo of the Week: Main House Student Fellow Andrew Gaines, ’12, helps decorate the Main Multi-

Purpose room for Trick-or-Treating on Saturday, one of many events planned for this year’s Halloween.

Staff Editorial | As a symbolic act, if nothing else, senior officers must reconsider taking pay cut L

ast fall, administrators began the difficult work of responding to the economic downturn that uniformly took an unexpected hit on colleges and universities across the country. At Vassar, President of the College Catharine Bond Hill and the other ten senior officers raced throughout last year to develop creative ways to reconfigure budget allocations and cope with considerable endowment losses. Throughout the beginning of this year in particular, students have seen cutbacks made to many, if not nearly all, of the areas of the College—to the curriculum, to hourly staff size, to equipment and physical plant budgets—but we have not seen such a sacrifice made from the senior officers themselves.

While The Miscellany News applauds these senior administrators for their contributions to last year’s Annual Fund—gifts that transferred directly to the College’s operating budget—we strongly urge them to instead consider taking that money away from their salaries, a gesture that would not only alleviate the operating budget, but would also be symbolic and meaningful to community members, many of whom have asked for such a cuts to be made.

Since the Sept. 30 announcement that 13 staff positions would be eliminated this winter, a growing sense of discontent—and at times hostility— has mounted on campus; in the week preceding October Break, members of the Campus Solidarity Working Group—a select division of students, faculty and staff advocating among other things for the preservation of jobs—held a demonstration, at which many chanted, “Cappy needs a pay cut! Cappy needs a pay cut!”

It should be said, however, that President Hill’s salary is in fact not extraordinary in any sense, when compared across peer institutions or across the history of past Vassar presidents. Indeed, Hill’s salary is not problematic expense in the least, and the Miscellany finds no value in pinpointing only her salary and not that of the other officers. As some explain in the article on page one (“Confusion surrounds recent exchange of data: faculty debate the financial health of the College”), administrative expenses are not what’s most hurting the fiscal well being of our institution. Nevertheless, we ask that administrators consider how a voluntary pay cut would help to—through primarily symbolic means—ameliorate the growing hostility between students and officers.

At the Oct. 6 open forum—which was hosted by Hill, Dean of the College Chris Roellke, Dean of Planning and Academic Affairs Rachel Kitzinger, Dean of the Faculty Jonathan Chenette and Vice President for Finance and Administration Betsey Eismeier—several students asked why senior salaries had not been

reduced. Responses discussed the importance of “competitive compensation” as a long-term means for maintaining a highquality faculty, staff and College. “If this were something that we thought was going to last for a year or two,” said Hill in regards to the financial crisis, “then that would be one thing.” She continued to explain that to maintain the long-term health of the institution, the College had the “philosophy” that compensation levels must remain as competitive as possible with those of the College’s peer institutions. “If you underpay your workers across the spectrum, you lose people,” said Hill.

While we too want the College to remain as competitive as possible with its peers, we urge Hill to reconsider. Even if, say, a 10 percent voluntary cut to senior officer salaries would not significantly relieve budgetary pressures—and even if a reduction to a one-dollar salary, like New York University’s President John Sexton has done had no effect on the budget—these actions hold a symbolic value greater than the money they represent.

In another example at our peer colleges, Middlebury College President Ronald D. Liebowitz reduced vice president salaries by five percent and his own by 10 percent. Similarly, Bard College President Leon Botstein ordered a 10 percent across-the-board pay cut on senior administrators’ salaries—his own included. A pay cut of any kind to the senior officers’ salaries would express solidarity with the community’s concerns—sacrifices can be made for Vassar, but will only be successful if all members of the College are involved. More so, such a sacrifice would show many students, faculty and staff that administrators are receptive suggestions from the wider community.

We do not intend assign blame or to accuse our senior officer’s of wrongdoing; we praise and appreciate the genuine and tireless work they do daily to maintain our community whilst preserving the economic health of the College in such difficult times. Our proposal is not a punishment, nor is it an accusation; rather, we endorse such a pay cut for the benefit of the entire community— including senior officers—as we believe it would be extremely meaningful and would do much to restore any goodwill—if any—that has been lost between administrators and other community members. Therefore we at The Miscellany News join with a number of others at the College in urging senior officers to make this specific sacrifice on behalf of the community which we all call home.

Even if a voluntary cut to senior officer salaries would not significantly relieve budgetary pressures, this gesture holds a symbolic value greater than the money it represents.

—The staff editorial reflects the opinio of at least two-thirds of the 19-member Editorial Board.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Chloe McConnell Elizabeth Pacheco

News Matthew Brock Jillian Scharr Opinions Angela Aiuto Kelly Shortridge Features Emma Carmichael Kelly Stout Arts Carrie Hojnicki Erik Lorenzsonn Sports Lillian Reuman Design Eric Estes Online Elizabeth Jordan Copy Lila Teeters Photography Kathleen Mehocic Managing Eliza Hartley Assistant Photo Juliana Halpert Assistant Online Kara Voght Assistant Copy Katharine Austin Katie Cornish Sarah Marco Reporters Esther Clowney Daniel Combs Mitchell Gilburne Wally Fisher Rose Hendricks Andy Marmer Christie Musket Columnists Martin Bergman Photographers Jared Saunders

LETTERS POLICY The Miscellany News is Vassar College’s weekly open forum for discussion of campus, local and national issues, and welcomes letters and opinions submissions from all readers.

Letters to the Editor should not exceed 450 words, and they usually respond to a particular item or debate from the previous week’s issue. Opinions articles are longer pieces, up to 800 words, and take the form of a longer column. No letter or opinions article may be printed anonymously. If you are interested in contributing, e-mail misc@vassar.edu.

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The Editorial Board holds weekly meetings every Sunday at 9 p.m. in the Rose Parlor. All members of the Vassar community interested in joining the newspaper’s staff or joining in a critique of the current issue are welcome.

The Miscellany News is not responsible for the views presented in the Opinions pages. The weekly staff editorial is the only article which reflects the opinion of the Editorial Board.

The Miscellany News is published weekly by the students of Vassar College. The Miscellany News office is located in College Center Room 303, Vassar College.

October 29, 2009

NEWS

Page 3

Campus Solidarity Working Group plans further action

Molly Turpin/The Miscellany News

GROUP continued from page 1 Roellke, Dean of Planning and Academic Affairs Rachel Kitzinger, Vice President for Finance and Administration Elizabeth Eismeier and Dean of the Faculty Jonathan Chenette.

Gathered outside room 300, participants in the rally began clapping, chanting and shouting.

Several accused Hill of ignoring and disrespecting workers’ rights, to which Hill responded, “I have a demand as well, which is I think that, as a community, we should treat each other with respect, and this is not the way we expect to have communication amongst ourselves.”

Bradford responded by saying, “How can they talk to you when you tell them, ‘Oh, I only got two minutes for a conversation’? You’re the President! You’re supposed to build respect and dignity for the workplace. You’re supposed to care. It’s not just about profits!” After further exchange, two students were thereafter invited into room 300 to present their demands, while security officers cleared the rally participants out of the building due to concerns that their numbers constituted a fire hazard in the crowded hall.

On Oct. 27, the Campus Solidarity Working Group met to debrief about the demonstration and to plan future action. Before the meeting began, attendees collectively agreed that the meeting would be “off the record” to The Miscellany News, due to concerns over potential misinterpretation of individuals’ ideas as representative

Cathy Bradford, All Campus Dining Center Chef’s Helper and Steward for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 200 United, reads opening remarks to start the rally. of the group as a whole and the possibility that— should the group’s plans become public before their occurrence—the administration would be able to control or quell the events.

Publicly, the group has discussed a plan for a gathering called “Vassar Works Because We Do,” which will be held in the College Center

on Wednesday, Nov. 4. The presentation will consist of photographs and audio and visual recordings of interviews with staff and faculty discussing the recent firings and their impact on the Vassar community.

The group also plans to begin a more rigorous media campaign to inform students and spread

information. Aside from the existing Facebook group, a blog is set to begin, as well as increased flyering and e-mailing.

Meanwhile, debate has arisen among faculty about the role students should take in the discussion over campus finances. Some feel that students have the greatest potential to inspire change, since the College’s administration is in a large way dependent on students for its perpetuation.

In response to this question, a letter—composed by several Vassar professors and sent to the rest of the faculty—urged Vassar professors to not influence or rabble-rouse among students (see “Confusion surrounds recent exchange of data” on page 1). The letter suggested that, since students spend a briefer amount of time at the College than most staff, their perspectives and understanding of issues are limited. It also expressed skepticism for information spread outside of traditional information sources, and warned faculty against using students to articulate grievances with the administration.

Other members of the Vassar faculty have drafted a response to be sent to the faculty and particularly to the authors of the first letter, criticizing the it for dismissing student roles in the campus debate and its devaluation of alternative news media. The letter encourages Vassar College to reanalyze its conception of community and emphasizes the importance of open and clear debate.

Illegal file sharing escalates, Halloween to show increase CIS proposes harsher penalty in alternative programming Rose Hendricks

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Assistant News Editor

his September, Vassar received 16 notices from companies with copyrighted online material stating that 12 Vassar students were illegally sharing files such as movies, TV shows and music. This figure has steadily increased over the course of the last year; in September 2008, Vassar received only seven notices for seven students.

According to Vice President for Computing and Information Services (CIS) Bret Ingerman, while these statistics are no doubt unfavorable, they leave some room open for interpretation.

“Either more people are [illegally sharing], or more people are getting caught. It’s hard to say,” he explained. Nonetheless, the increase has sparked concern for the College and prompted Ingerman to draft a proposal for regulating harsher punitive action.

When students use peer-to-peer software programs such as Kazaa, BearShare, eDonkey, DirectConnect, BitTorrent, Limewire, WinMX and SoulSeek to illegally download copyrighted files, these materials become available for any other program users from the online network to download as well, Ingerman explained. The companies who own the materials use the sharing sites to access the files for themselves, in order to track who has illegally downloaded their material.

They then trace that user’s computer.

When companies discover that this computer is on a college or university network, they send a notice to the school asking for the files to be removed from the Internet entirely. For a first offense, Vassar students need to take the files offline, meet with a CIS representative and Dean of Students D.B. Brown, and perform five hours of sanctioned service. Ingerman explained that this method has not been entirely ineffective, as few students have committed second offenses and none have committed third offenses.

The policy has not, however, been fully successful in stopping the increase of the number of first-time offenders, so the College is considering implementing harsher penalties. Ingerman proposed at a technology forum at the Oct. 4 Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council Meeting that he would like to at least double the number of sanctioned service hours and add a small monetary penalty that would be charged to the offender’s student account, in hopes of perhaps alerting parents or guardians of the offense. The money generated from the small fee would go back into CIS’s operating budget; Ingerman made it clear that the College would not be making a profit from these penalties.

Ingerman explained that any punitive action issued from the College would ultimately be to

protect students from harsher punishment outside the school; while Vassar does not release the name of the downloader to the companies when sent notices of illegal file sharing, companies do have the right to subpoena students for illegally downloading materials, in which case the student would be at risk of fines up to thousands of dollars per song or movie. Though this has never happened to a Vassar student, it has to undergraduates from schools such as New York University, Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In addition to the legal implications that illegal file sharing creates for the College and its students, Vassar’s motivation for considering harsher policies also has to do with the time and money which this issue consumes. When students share files illegally, someone from CIS must track the student down, meet with the student to discuss the problem and supervise the sanctioned service. Ingerman explained that adding a small fine on top of students’ punishments would demonstrate to the students that illegal downloading has a cost to the College.

VSA Vice President for Operations Brian Farkas ’10 echoed Ingerman’s sentiments, stating, “It seems wholly wasteful that people in CIS are obligated to chase after community members who have decided to steal music. CIS is busy enough maintaining a complex network and integrating technology into the classroom.” At the VSA Council Meeting, there was large support for the increased number of sanction service hours.

Davison House President Louise Conner ’11 said, “I think increasing the amount to 10 or even 15 [hours] would be a much larger deterrent.”

Some students, however, were more hesitant to embrace the proposed fee. “I think a fine that gets billed home would oftentimes be overlooked by parents, and the student would have no problems blindly sending home an extra charge to mommy or daddy,” commented Conner. On the other hand, Farkas pointed out that, “If a student is found to have stolen or broken a piece of College property, they are required to pay.” Therefore, he argued, students should pay a penalty for stealing music, TV shows and movies.

The policy is currently pending consideration from the Committee on College Life, but if passed, Ingerman hopes that these stricter penalties for illegal downloading will send the message that “the vast majority of television shows, movies and music are not free.” They can be viewed or heard for free through sites like Hulu and Pandora Radio, but they are not free for the taking. As VSA President Caitlin Ly ’10 pointed out, “After all, not paying for a $1 song hardly seems worth facing a $100,000 lawsuit.”

Matthew Brock

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News Editor

he typical Vassar Halloween involves costumes, free pizza and more cases of alcohol poisoning than any other night at Vassar. In an effort to combat this particular trend, the Class of 2010 Council and its president, Selina Strasburger ’10, have promised to provide a slew of alternative programming activities that would provide activites where students can have fun without drinking..

The students who are most at risk of overdosing on alcohol are “freshmen who hear about Halloween being a big event, a crazy party. There’s more to it. We want the emphasis to not be on that one aspect,” she said, with regard to drunken parties.

This importance of curbing student drinking through alternative programming was brought to the Class of 2010’s attention by Executive Director of Campus Activities Terry Quinn, Director of Marketing and Sustainability Ken Oldehoff, and Director of Dining Services Maureen King when the Council attended a routine meeting for organizations planning events at which alcohol will be served.

According to Strasburger, many members of the administration are concerned about the liability issues that could arise if someone became overly intoxicated at a party at which the school serves alcohol. For this reason, the College considered canceling the Halloween party all together.

Strasburger, however, stressed that the three representatives of the administration with whom she met supported holding the Halloween party and did not issue any sort of ultimatum ordering the Class of 2010 to hold alternative programming. “It was a strong suggestion,” said Strasburger, “but it’s hard to argue with the logic of the complaint.”

“As the host of the Halloween party, there was a sense of responsibility,” she said with regard to student safety.

Oldehoff, not wishing to get into the legal aspects of the issue, agreed. “Even if its not a legal issue, I would feel a personal liability if someone injured themselves at an event where I was serving alcohol,” he said.

Furthermore, Oldehoff contends that there was never a formal move to cancel the annual Halloween party. “I presented my concerns to the members of the senior class and we all agreed…that it’s time to look at something so everyone could have a good time,” he said.

Although Strasburger worried that she and her class “bit off more than we could chew,”

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

2010 has organized a number of events to keep students busy on the night of Halloween.

Strasburger said that of all of the events, she is most looking forward to the bonfire which will start at 9:30 p.m. on Joss Beach, because “who doesn’t like fire?” The event will be catered by Nilda’s Desserts, which has donated cookies and doughnuts, and Pepsi, which has donated bottled water.

The Class of 2010 also plans to hold what Strasburger described as a “fun run” on Saturday afternoon, where students can race while wearing costumes. There will also be a costume contest at night where students can compete for prizes that will either consist of cash or declining balance points.

The Class of 2010 Council is also working to hold trick or treating in the residence halls, where students can go from dorm to dorm collecting candy. Students who visit every dorm receive an extra prize. However, whether or not this event will occur is uncertain.

Other organizations have also gotten onto the alternative programming bandwagon.

The Vassar Student Association will hold a pumpkin-carving contest to be judged by Dean of the College Christopher Roellke in Main Building on Saturday. All of the pumpkins will be put on display outside of Main Building, but, for first prize, Roellke will leave the greeting on the winner’s voicemail.

Of course, in addition to the alternative programming, the Class of 2010 will be holding the principal party, “Carn-Evil,” on Halloween night at 11p.m. in the Villard Room.

Meanwhile, the Class of 2012 is holding “Strangers With Candy” at Matthew’s Mug on Oct. 30.

“Like trick or treating for adults—it’s a creepy premise, but also exciting, in that it encourages everyone to make new friends without any inhibitions. You just walk up to someone you want to meet and give them some candy. Or ask for it politely. Or you can dance because we have a great DJ with an awesome lineup,” wrote Class of 2012 Vice President Charlie Nicholson ’12 in an emailed statement.

However, the Class of 2010’s goal is to ensure that when students do go to these parties, they do so with a minimal amount of alcohol in their system, and Strasburger said that she hopes that these alternative programming events can get students out of their rooms so that they don’t have time to drink.

NEWS October 29, 2009 Vassar Greens Giving, compensation evaluated in letters Page 4

brings Bioneer ideas to campus Elizabeth Shand Guest Reporter

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ast week, five members of the Vassar Greens attended the 2009 Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, Calif. to better their knowledge of campus sustainability. Chair Vassar Greens Vanessa Raditz ’12 along with Danielle Falzon ’12, Ani Kodzhabasheva ’12, Nadine Souto ’12, and Xiaoyuan Ren ’13 attended the conference.

According to the Conference’s website, the three-day-long Bioneers Conference has been held annually for twenty years, presenting “visionary innovators with breakthrough solutions to restore people and planet.” About 2, 500 people attended Bioneers, and 6,000 more were engaged in the live satellite broadcasted conferences.

The Bioneers organiztion is tentatively hopeful for the prospects of reaching a sustainable way of life. According to their mission statement, “The hour is dangerously late, yet there appears to be a worldwide awakening.”

“The next ten years will be the make-it-orbreak-it period to make a fundamental, largescale shift.”

The conference’s focus this year was to fundamentally change the public’s attitude toward sustainability through a focus on higher education. Conference speakers identified a trend, according to Souto, of college campuses changing their operations, such as greater emphasis on composting and recycling, but ignoring the alteration of the academic curricula to emphasize a greener communal globe.

Souto argued, “Academics should challenge the idea that nature is there to serve us and teach us how to live off nature’s income, not its capital.”

One of the most moving parts of the conference, said Kodzhabasheva, was witnessing that “the green movement is out there; it’s alive and real, and there are literally thousands of engaged and active people who care about something bigger than themselves.”

Besides attending a variety of lectures, the Greens watched performances that reinforced art as a viable means to spread the environmental message. The group also explored vending booths selling goods such as environmental literature and organic clothing.

Souto said that the conference served to prove that solutions for current environmental degredation are present.

“What is missing now is the political will—a movement that is committed to a radical transformation of our industry, agriculture and economy and that is capable of pressuring its government into making those changes,” continued Souto.

The Vassar Greens hope to bring the ideas and insight they gained from Bioneers back to Vassar campus. Although the College has made great strides, campus is not nearly as sustainable as it could be. Ren hopes to see the compost bins added to the Retreat brought to the entire campus. Additional sustainability efforts include geothermal heating in Davison House and photovaltaic panels, which directly convert solar energy into electricity, on the roof of Main Building.

“We like to think we are [sustainable],” Kodzhabasheva said, “…but [changes] don’t go as deep as they should. We will be sustainable when we install solar panels and when we take all food that was not produced in New York State out of the All Campus Dining Center.”

For their part, students can use their personal towel instead of paper towels in the bathroom, turn off lights of academic buildings not used at night, use double-sided printing, and request all class readings to be posted online, Kodzhabasheva suggests. Sustainability, she enforced, is key.

The group stressed that the path toward change lies in community and attitude; scientific advancements alone cannot make the necessary changes.

The five Vassar Bioneers attendees posted a blog about their experience at the conference, which can be read at greensbioneers.blogspot. com.

DEBATE continued from page 1 immediately or be given jobs at the College with equal pay.”

At the start of the demonstration, the confusion expressed a week earlier by Markoff and Hardin escalated to distrust and suspicion when Cathy Bradford—All Campus Dining Center Chef’s Helper and Steward for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 200 United—shouted to a cheering crowd, “Cathy Hill, I would like to say to you, ‘Stop the lying,’” in reference to President of the College Catharine Bond Hill. In a later interview, when asked what was meant by her statement at the rally, Bradford explained that she was referring to “finances, losses and cuts.”

“Everything [Hill] is putting out there is not adding up,” continued Bradford, “and then I’m hearing from the professors that she keeps lying about this and keeps lying about that. I’ve heard from one of the professors, [Donald] Foster, that basically everything she’s putting out there is a lie,” said Bradford, explaining that such was the impression left on her from reading his letters. Though Foster made no such accusation in his letters or e-mails, many in addition to Bradford gathered from his writings that the College was in dire economic straits.

Performance in Giving Though Foster’s first letters touched on a variety of topics—such as endowment growth, financial aid, faculty research and what he called “extraordinary expenses”—his two points of concentration were on giving and senior officer compensation. For both of these issues, Foster gathered his data from the publicly accessible Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 990, “Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax,” a form submitted each year by non-profit organizations, including colleges and universities.

In “VC Money Facts,” to compare giving— or financial donations—across the last two administrations, Foster presented two juxtaposed tables; one is labeled “Fergusson Administration”—in reference to Vassar’s ninth President, Frances D. Fergusson—and the other is labeled “Hill Administration.”

From line 1b of the Form 990, Foster gathers that when comparing 2005-2006—Fergusson’s last year as President—to 2007-2008—Hill’s first—private giving has decreased by 46.6 percent. “Giving has completely collapsed,” said Foster in a later interview.

Though Hill’s first year did show a great loss in giving when compared to Fergusson’s last, some argued that it was unfair to use a president’s final year as a point of comparison, since, as Kitzinger and Eismeier wrote in their letter, “many alumnae/i and others showed their deep appreciation for her long service by extraordinary giving to the College.”

Foster, however, argued that a President’s first year gives even greater grounds for extraordinary giving. “You can go look at other colleges. We’ve had about 17 colleges in our group that have had new presidents, and I only found one other president in that group that had a decline in their first year. That’s what president’s do—they go out and raise money.”

Ultimately, however, when the scale of time is lengthened and when Vassar’s giving is compared to that of its peers, it becomes clear that, as Director of Institutional Research David Davis-Van Atta explained, “our problem doesn’t appear to be in our development area.”

Davis Van-Atta—who grapples with such data and data sources daily—referenced a graph shown at PowerPoint presentation for faculty on Monday, Oct. 12. The figure—shown above—is titled “Total Private Support: Vassar College and Two Reference Group Means” and shows private giving at Vassar from 1983 to 2009, as well as the average private giving of Vassar’s 21 Primary Reference Schools and the Consortium on Financing Higher Education (COFHE) schools, which include peers such as Amherst, Carleton and Williams Colleges.

Davis-Van Atta compiled the Total Private Support graph for the presentation with information provided to him by the Development Office; “These are the best data that we could possibly use to measure our development function,” said Davis-Van Atta, “because they’re accounted according to the way that the development profession has set up na-

In the graph shown above Vassar’s private support—which includes gifts and pledges, but not gifts-in-kind—remains consistent with that of its peers when compared overtime. tional standards for accounting total private support. There’s no double counting from one year to the next and it counts the right stuff,” he said, explaining that the figures included private gifts and pledges, but not gifts-in-kind, which are the donations of objects—like artwork—or services rather than money.

“Another way to think of it,” continued Davis Van-Atta,” is that [Vice President for Development] Cathy Baer would never think of going to the Form 990 to find out how her office is doing. She knows—and she knows how each one of our peer schools is doing—because there’s a very active data exchange among them that’s according to a set of national standards that everybody does and everybody does overtime. That’s why [this graph] is the best data. If you look at that, it’s pretty difficult to come to the conclusion that Vassar has gone to the dogs with giving.”

When giving is graphed overtime—as with the Total Private Support graph—fluctuations across one college’s data set are expected, as often pledges are promised over several years, and major capital campaigns will cause a steep increase in giving. Vassar has been in what is called the preparatory—or “silent”—phase of its upcoming Comprehensive Campaign since 2005; the peak of the campaign will coincide with the sesquicentennial anniversary of the College in 2011.

In their letter, Kitzinger and Eismeier also gave a preliminary figure for 2008-2009 giving of $44.781 million. “The problem is,” said Foster, “this figure includes pledges. It’s a complete lie, and I caught her on it [at the Faculty Meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 14]. Cappy thought she was going to get away with that,

because who’s going to check her on it?” Foster explained that without pledges, the figure for actual giving would lie at $33.7 million.

“They put this out for the entire faculty to see, so they say ‘oh wow, Cappy’s really going to town,’” continued Foster. “We’re not going to town. We’re back down to 1999, and we’re in the fourth year of a capital campaign.

They’re being deceitful. They know that that is not true. I mean, I can pledge $50 million to Vassar—it doesn’t mean they’re going to get it.

I have a very hard time not screaming, saying ‘They’re lying to us.’”

Controller Donald Barton, however, explained that pledges “are always included in our total gift numbers on the financial statements,” Barton said, referencing Part 1, line 1b of the Form 990. Davis-Van Atta, agreed, explaining that pledges are “not vapor money or smoke and mirrors.” “We get our pledges— that’s not an issue,” he said.

Senior Officer Compensation Aside from giving, Foster also researched compensation for the College’s senior officers as they are reported on the Form 990; “Since July 1, 2006, even as giving has declined,” Foster wrote in “VC Money Facts,” “there has been an explosive increase in the budget for compensation paid to Vassar’s senior officers.” Comparing again 2005-2006 to 2007-2008, Foster explains that from line 25 on the Form 990 it is apparent that the senior officer budget has risen by 81.9 percent.

At the open forum hosted by senior officers on Oct. 6—and in the letter by Kitzinger and Eismeier—it was explained that individual colSee LETTERS on page 5

News Briefs Advance in the Retreat In response to numerous complaints, Dining Services has installed new screens on the cash registers so students can see how many declining balance points they have left.

—Matthew Brock, News Editor

Where there’s smoke A Security officer smelled marijuana coming from a room on the second floor of Lathrop House on Oct. 15. The officer knocked on the door and, after hearing students moving around the room for several minutes, the students opened the door. Although the officer saw a haze over the room, the students denied having any marijuana. However, security found the signs of a party, as there were multiple empty beer cans and Solo cups strewn across the floor.

—M.B.

Hanging lamp

A Security officer patrolling Lathrop House on Oct. 20 noticed a light dangling from the ceiling suspended by a single wire. Security reported the situation to

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Buildings and Grounds as a safety hazard, and it was repaired.

—M.B.

Religious extremism

Security received a report of graffiti in the southern stairwell in Lathrop House on Oct. 20; someone had written “God is real” with black magic marker.

—M.B.

Interloper lopped

Security saw a car with no Vassar stickers parked on the lower service road on Oct. 22. One of the two individuals in the car was on Security’s trespass list, and the Town of Poughkeepsie Police arrested him for criminal trespass.

—M.B.

Party Time

Security received a noise complaint on the third floor of Main House on Oct. 26. Security arrived at the hall and heard a large amount of noise coming from a room. Security knocked on the door, and when the students opened it, the officer saw a beer pong table. Many of the students were underage and the party was unauthorized.

—M.B.

October 29, 2009

NEWS

Various faculty engage in and critique recent debate over data LETTERS continued from page 4 leges complete this line on the Form 990 differently, a point that Foster acknowledged in his Oct. 7 letter.

“In some instances at least,” said Professor of Political Science Peter Stillman, who sent a response to Foster’s letters to the faculty on Oct. 19, “I know that they are self-reported data where colleges have some discretion in choosing what they report or in what categories they report it.”

Stillman continued, saying, “Foster accurately copied what Bates College and what Vassar pay their senior officers; but all you need do is to read the fifty or so pages of the Form 990 to discover that Bates included two senior officers, Vassar ten or more. There is variation in self-reporting, and so the numbers that Foster accurately copied are not consistent between Bates and Vassar and, in themselves, say nothing about who pays senior officers in the administration more.”

Foster, however, explained that the 81.9 percent increase in reported figures for Vassar alone still indicated an increase in the overall budget for the College’s senior officers. “This is the budget for our officers. We keep adding positions and things keep adding up,” he said.

Much of the rise in figures reported for the senior officers’ budget from 2005-2006 to 2007-2008 is accounted for by the addition of the Dean of Planning and Academic Affairs, as well as three factors that were merely not reported on the 2005-2006 form: the salary of the Controller, the cost of benefits for the reported group of senior officers and payments made to former senior officers. If one were to compare consistent figures over this two-year period, there would be a 6.3 percent increase in salary for the eight senior officers reported on the 2005-2006 form.

Professor of Economics Paul Ruud explained that upon reading Foster’s letters—and this administrative information in particular—he did some of his own research using another public data set called the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), a system of interrelated surveys conducted annually by the U.S. Department’s National Center for Education Statistics. “[This figure] depends on what you mean by ‘overall budget’—the overall budget is a fungible concept,” said Ruud. “You can go to this IPEDS data set, and they have an ‘administrative category,’ which is wider than just senior officers, and if you look at the behavior of our adminsitrative expenses—as a percentage of overall expenses—Vassar comes in pretty constantly at 19 to 20 percent year after year.”

“It just doesn’t move that much in this IPEDS data set,” continued Ruud. “There’s nothing like an 81.9 percent increase in what would be called ‘administrative expensives.’ You don’t see this kind of jump.”

Faculty Responses Like Ruud, many members of the faculty who have witnessed this recent exchange of e-mails have undertaken their own research or offered their own commentary on the discussion.

Stillman’s letter approaches Foster’s material by posing five main questions in addition to a series of secondary questions in the last few paragraphs of the e-mail.

“I have some ideas about how I, or anyone, can and should be a thoughtful, skeptical and critical reader of the facts and interpretations that Don Foster has presented,” wrote Stillman in his letter. “These ideas are, I think, manifestations, extensions and examples of the kind of critical thinking that we engage in as members of the Vassar faculty and undertake to educate our students to practice.”

In a later interview, Stillman explained that he “was and am pretty certain that Foster’s data did not support his conclusions, and especially do not support what many take to be the implications of his conclusions. I also think that the roots of Vassar’s financial problems lie elsewhere than where he indicates, and so from my point of view he was leading Vassar and the discussion at Vassar down the wrong paths,” Stillman said.

“I wrote the letter as a set of questions,” he

continued, “because I do not claim to know all the answers, or indeed to know all the questions. I am hoping to incite others to ask questions—questions of all the documents that have appeared, including mine—so that we at Vassar can have a discussion where erroneous or misleading information is at a minimum.”

Some of the questions posed in Stillman’s letter include the following: Does Foster present “his data in as much detail and specificity as is known and as is needed, or [are] the data chosen selectively or grouped selectively to serve the purposes of the presenter”?; “What is the motivation and purpose of Don Foster’s rhetoric? Is his rhetoric believable, or doth he protest too much? Why does he utilize (or, perhaps, why does he seem to need) such extensive self-legitimating rhetoric? And, indeed, to what extent are his rhetorical statements true, and to what extent are they the opposite of the truth? To what extent do they enlighten or mislead?”

Above all, Stillman wishes that Foster do “what he has promised, which is to respond to the Kitzinger-Eismeier letter,” said Stillman.

“I would of course like to see him answer the questions that I raise.”

Foster is in the process of drafting a response to the letter from Kitzinger and Eismeier—to date, he has addressed it most thoroughly in his Oct. 10 e-mail to faculty, in which he responds to Kitzinger and Eismeier’s statement, “we encourage members of the Vassar community to ‘go to the source’ and draw their own conclusions.”

“Personally,” said Stillman, “I suspect that Foster does not have compelling and convincing responses to the major points of the Kitzinger-Eismeier letter, but until I see his responses I cannot know.”

Visiting Associate Professor of English Karen Robertson explained that in the last month the College has seen a growing dialogue around issues about which community members were once silent. “We’re finally talking about this,” Robertson said. “I think that the effect of the financial crisis at first was to produce a scared silence, because it all sounded so dire.”

Robertson—a member of the Campus Solidarity Working Group—explained that her concerns are not so much annual giving or senior officer compensation, but rather “academic freedom, how we define the Vassar community and questions of free speech.”

Robertson noted that although at times it seems as if all are engaged in the same debate, many community members share entirely different concerns. “Because there have been so many changes and so many arguments presented that are fractured and scattered, we’re sort of forced to talk about many different areas, and we’re all working in different arenas to bring to light the consequences of massive changes that are happening globally,” said Robertson. “It’s very difficult, but it’s multipronged because the changes have been so multiple. I think that we’ll probably move toward a coherent set of principles eventually.”

More recently, on Oct. 26, four other professors sent a joint e-mail message to the rest of the faculty. The letter—signed by Professor of French Elisabeth Arlyck, Professor of History Rebecca Edwards, Professor of Film Sarah Kozloff and Professor of Biology Kathleen Susman—urges faculty to consider carefully how they involve students in the debate surrounding the financial crisis.

“While students have a clear role to play in this process,” the professors wrote, “we must avoid the temptation to recruit students to serve our own causes. We feel that, regardless of one’s motives, involving students in this manner is a break of our responsibilities to them, and to the spirit of our community.”

In regards to the spread of financial data, the professors ask that “students who do wish to participate in the conversation about budget cuts have access to complete information.

If data are contested, they need to understand the entire dialogue so they can (as Peter Stillman noted in his letter), exercise the skills they came here to learn, evaluate the information they are receiving and judge for themselves.”

See FACULTY on page 9

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October 29, 2009

Vassar College and the Great Depression of 1929 Eighty years later, the Miscellany looks back on the College’s response to the last great economic collapse.

Molly Turpin Senior Editor

Caitlin Halasz Guest Reporter

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Image courtesy of the Vassar Encyclopedia

his week marks the 80th anniversary of the stock market crash of 1929, the event that led to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Today’s financial climate, though a far cry from the severity of the Depression, has actually had a far more negative effect on the Vassar itself and its finances than did the Depression.

It seems that the College, while not existing in a vacuum, was relatively unaffected by the crash. Instead of suffering greatly, the College became a source of support for its students and in some ways for the local community. Students and their families of course experienced the burdens of difficult economic times and the College responded with support in scholarships and student employment.

“When I came to Vassar I was 17, and the year I came to Vassar was the fall of 1937, so we’re right in the thick times of the Depression,” recalled Vassar College Historian Elizabeth Daniels ’41. Though every student at the time would have had a unique experience, Daniels gave some insight as to how students were affected by the Depression. “Money was hard to come by if there were several children in the family and so on. I came to Vassar [in that economic climate], so I recognize a lot of things that are going on right now.”

In the current financial crisis, Vassar’s problems have mainly come from a loss on the endowment, which was heavily invested in the failing U.S. capital markets. In the 1930s, the College endowment relied more on donations from wealthy benefactors and alumnae contributions to the Annual Fund than on investment and capital budgeting, so the Stock Market Crash of 1929 did not affect the college anywhere near as heavily as the current financial crisis has.

The 1930s were also one of the periods in which the most new buildings were constructed on campus, according to the Vassar College Encyclopedia. Kenyon, Blodgett and Skinner Halls and the Wimpfheimer Nursery School were all built during this decade. Wealthy donors supplied both the bulk of the endowment at the time and the funding for these projects.

Despite the largess of the donors, the Crash did affect the College’s finances. The weakened financial states of alumnae and donors meant that less money was coming into the College, and the few investments that the College did have— primarily low-risk, low-return trust funds—did suffer a loss on investment return, according to an April 19, 1933 Miscellany News article.

During the Great Depression, the College reduced some student fees as families lost income after the crash. In April 1932, the Trustees approved an elimination of most fees for student medical care. Prior to this decision, students were required to pay a fee for each visit they made to the infirmary. The Miscellany News

reported on April 22, 1932, that the change was made to convince students with contagious illnesses like influenza to report for medical care without worrying about money.

According to Daniels, a scholarship from the College supported her Vassar education, and many other students received similar aid.

“Personally, it was okay for me,” she said, “and I don’t recall that anyone I knew well enough to know about their financial situation had to leave College, but I’m sure there probably were some people. But Vassar has always, in my estimation, been very generous with scholarships.”

An article in the Jan. 16, 1932, issue of The Miscellany News reported that Vassar provided 300 students with scholarships from a fund of $150,000. At the time, the cost of attending the College, including tuition, room and board, was about $1,200 per student. The College also had loans available to students, though it warned students against accruing too much debt.

Another article from the Miscellany reported an increase in student employment on campus, then called “self-help.” According to the Vocational Bureau, equivalent to today’s Office of Student Employment, the Library, Retreat and post office experienced an increase in the number of applicants and “that paid work is being considered more seriously, and executed in a more purposeful manner.”

Along with the scholarship, Daniels remembered saving money by living in a cooperative living house during her junior year. “It was a great help to move there because we did our own supply-getting and cooking and cleaning up after ourselves and so on to save money.”

President MacCracken took great interest in the possibilities of cooperative living at the College, and the first available cooperative living units were founded in Raymond House and Blodgett Hall in 1933. The initiative was conceived to save students money at a time when the College faced reductions in its scholarship fund. Students’ admission to these houses was partially based on financial need. Though the precise responsibilities of students varied slightly in each house, students were generally responsible for their own cooking, usually eating less expensive food, and cleaning.

According to an article in an April 23, 1933 issue of The Miscellany News, “It will mean a simplified menu; that is when the rest of the college is having steak and a rich cream dessert, Raymond will be dining less expensively but just as nutritiously on pot roast and baked apples.”

Although today the College is experiencing curriculum cuts across all departments, Daniels said that during the Depression, “I don’t have the impression that there were cutbacks, but there were far fewer courses.”

That is not to say that the Depression was left out of the curriculum entirely. The Economics and Sociology Department added an interme-

Students save money during the Great Depression by choosing to live in cooperative housing. Students above are pictured in Palmer House preparing a meal for themselves in 1939. diate-level course called “Corporations” in 1931, which was likely a response to their role in the economic developments of the 1920s and ’30s, and in 1932, the topic for the advanced course, “Industrial Development in the United States,” changed to a “Historical survey of all phases of economic development since the founding of the colonies, as a basis of explanation of our current economic problems.”

Though the Depression had relatively little impact on Vassar itself, students were active in responding to the economic and corresponding social problems in the world around them.

Indeed, in his Commencement Address to the Class of 1932, President MacCracken characterized Vassar as being particularly invested in social engagement. “Partly because it arose as a protest of inequality within the family and within society, the woman’s movement was a class movement and the woman’s college took on the aspect of a class college,” he said. “There was from its inception a social consciousness aroused among its number.”

This social consciousness is apparent in the Miscellany articles of this era. Practically every issue reports on at least one lecture on the impact of the Depression, with speakers ranging from the Lieutenant Governor of New York to

the head of the American Communist Party.

Vassar’s Political Association held a campaign in the summer of 1934 to “gather local and community opinions of New Deal policies,” according to the May 19, 1934 Miscellany. Students were asked to determine the effects of and responses to the New Deal in their hometowns over the summer, and then report it back to Vassar to be compiled.

Students were no less engaged with the effects of the Depression in Poughkeepsie itself.

“Field work was front and center,” said Daniels.

She also said that MacCracken was deeply invested in Vassar’s involvement in the Poughkeepsie community. “He wanted Vassar College to be aware of the needs of the town, and things to do with the town,” she said. “He didn’t want us to be the ‘rich college’ side by side with the ‘poor community.’”

As the College navigates the current recession, comparisons between the present era and the past are inevitable. However, there are fundamental differences between the current response and Vassar’s response to the Depression, in part because the financial foundation of the College during the Great Depression was inherently different from that of the institution today.

A spirited search through Vassar’s haunted hallways Royce Drake

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Guest Reporter

f you’ve never been on campus during October Break, or any other break for that matter, you probably aren’t aware of just how creepy Vassar’s deserted hallways and grounds can become. You know there are other people around, but you rarely see them—at best you can hear faint snatches of voices from just around a corner or from inside a dark building you pass on your way home. This, of course, makes October Break a great time to search for Vassar’s ghosts.

It is no secret that Vassar has traditionally been considered a home for numerous ghouls and spirits. The history of Vassar’s paranormal activity at least goes back to our founder, Matthew Vassar, whose ghost was reportedly seen walking around the Vassar campus as well as local farmhouses and roads. According to a Miscellany News article from 2005 (“Ghost stories from the archives” 10.28.05), legend has it that a room in Main House became haunted after the salutatorian pushed the valedictorian out her window in the late 1800s.

The number of reports I have heard of ghosts

and monsters on campus has decreased every year since I’ve been at Vassar. My freshman year I took for granted that there were potential ghouls in every building. Friends would occasionally mention creepy, unexplained happenings from more than just the list of known haunts. Now, however, the situation has gotten to the point where the only thing people mention anymore is Sunny, the lake monster (read: large turtle) that lives in Sunset Lake. It all begs the question: Have the Vassar ghosts moved on?

This break I took it upon myself to go in search of these increasingly rare Vassar spirits.

I took two friends with me, mostly out of fear of what would happen if I ran into a ghost by myself. The three of us looked through the Vassar Encyclopedia to determine the best places to look for ghosts. According to the Encyclopedia, the places that are “confirmed” as haunted are Main House’s third and fifth floor, Pratt House, the Alumnae House, Davison House’s fifth floor, and the Old Observatory. We weren’t able to go into the Alumnae House or Pratt House, so we decided to focus our search on the other loca-

tions and anywhere else we felt to be particularly ghastly. Before embarking, we each poured a shot of whiskey and raised our glasses, “Spirits for the spirits.”

By the time we arrived at the Old Observatory, it was late at night. I swiped my card and we entered and looked around. Everything was round, and the color scheme looked the same as the paint on newer plastic playground equipment. After a while we decided that none of us were feeling any presence at all. Maybe the ghosts aren’t big fans of the remodeling.

Main House’s fifth floor is fairly creepy. I once heard a first-hand story from a student who was staying at Vassar over the summer. The student was approached by a person he didn’t recognize and was asked “how he was after he had fallen asleep.”

The encounter was surprising because it wasn’t someone who should have been in the dorm: There were only two summer programs at the time, and the person didn’t belong to either. Was it a ghost? Perhaps. That happened only two years ago, but still I did not feel the slightest chill.

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Skinner Hall of Music has the appearance of an old, haunted castle. Floor after floor of shadowy practice rooms certainly gives that impression. How do folks not get lost in here? We were guided by the eerie glow of exit signs as we walked through identical hallways with few windows. The scariest thing we found were a few dust bunnies. The Priscilla Bullitt-Collins ’42 trail proved similarly empty of spirits despite our hopes of running into Bullit-Collins herself.

The ghosts that supposedly haunt around campus are the spirits of deceased members of the community, albeit from different points in time. According to the Vassar Encyclopedia, they include Matthew Vassar, a valedictorian, staff, faculty and community members who worked for most of their lives at Vassar.

Though many doubt that these ghosts ever existed, I like to think that they are only thrown off by the renovations and changes that have come since the times of their deaths. At best, my search for Vassar spirits remains inconclusive.

But I encourage you to raise your glasses and embark on a search of your own. Happy hunting.

October 29, 2009

FEATURES

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Dept. of Education reshapes racial, ethnic data standards Ruby Cramer

his fall, high school students applying to Vassar College and all institutions of higher education will now be able to select as many racial and ethnic categories on the Common Application as they choose, a regulation change which comes as a result of over ten years of revision work from the federal government.

Beginning in 1997, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued the Standards for Maintaining, Collecting and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity—guidelines mandating that people be allowed to mark more than one race on federally required forms. The old standards, in place since 1987, allowed citizens to select only one of five race categories— American Indian, Asian, Black, Pacific Islander and White.

Increased levels of intermarraige and immigration have diversified the way we conceive our racial identities, and with less definitive groupings, the 1987 system quickly became obsolete. “For many people, not having the ability to select more than one category meant choosing between their father and their mother,” said Director of Institutional Research David DavisVan Atta, who was a member of several of the task forces working to re-examine the issue that were convened in the late 1990s by the Department of Education, the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health.

When the OMB released these new standards, the U.S. Department of Education began work on how that data would be collected and reported, specifically by colleges and universities across the country. “The Department took 10 years to try to figure out how to do this,” explained Registrar Daniel Giannini. “There are two issues in the final report: one is how you collect the data, and how you report it. These are reported on official government surveys that schools have to complete on an annual basis. They came out with these guidelines in 2007, and they gave schools until the 2010-2011 academic year to implement the changes.”

In their final report, the Department mandates that racial and ethnic data be collected in two-question format on the Common Application for Undergraduate College Admission or on the college’s or university’s own custom application. The question first asks whether the respondent is Hispanic/Latino. The second question asks, “Regardless of your answer to the prior question, please select one or more of the following ethnicities that best describe you.”

Then the form lists the five main categories of race, with each one having various sub categories listed beneath it. “So if you are black,”

Image courtesy of the Common Application for Undergraduate Admission

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Editor in Chief

This fall, when applying to colleges and universities, high school students will complete racial and ethnic data forms in a revised format, as pictured in the Common Application above. explained Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Davis Borus, “you can say you’re African, Caribbean, African American, etcetera. You can be quite specific, and now you can check all that apply. The students who are applying for admission next year—the ones who are currently high school seniors—will be filling out the Common Application with those new questions.”

Because incoming students will hereafter be questioned in this format, the College—along with other institutions across the country—will have to recollect racial and ethnic data from its current continuing students. “The problem with the change,” said Giannini, “is that we have all the students who are currently here and will be here next year. The Department of Education recommends that schools recollect the information from the current students so that we can report it all in the same format. So, to do this we are going to survey all the current continuing students sometime following October Break.”

“By surveying the people that are already here,” explained Borus, “we will get information that will be in the same format as the information for students who are going to be arriving, and so it allows us to have statistics that mean something.” In the coming weeks, the College will send out an e-mail explaining and including the link for the survey; “In addition to that,” said Giannini, “whenever a student goes to fill out a time sheet for a student employment job, the site will redirect to the survey.”

Though the new data regulations were con-

sidered and revised over the course of 10 years, many in higher education take issue with aspects of the new guidelines. One particular point of contention is that although the new form allows people to select more than one category, much of that nuance and specificity will be lost in the reporting process.

“We’re going to lose some detail in our reporting,” said Giannini. “Right now, the different racial and ethnic classifications are all separate—you check one, and whatever one you check you’re reported as that. Now you’re going to be able to check multiple races, all of a sudden the chart gets huge. So the Department said that when reporting, schools have a separate reporting category for people who chose more than one race, which means you lose the detail of what the two races were.”

As Giannini explained, if a student selects, for example, Asian and White as his or her racial background, that student will only be reported to the federal government as within the “Two or More” category, not in either the Asian or White category. “The problem is,” said DavisVan Atta, “the ‘Two or More’ category is exactly like a suitcase with a false bottom—something’s inside but you don’t know what.” As Davis-Van Atta explained, though the new regulations provide a visibility of a student’s mixed heritage, it renders the specific heritage invisible.

Because of this “Two or More” category, many college guidebooks that acquire their data from federal reports will likely start showing a

decline in the numbers for the specific racial categories, since many who were once reported in one of these groups will now be classified in the “Two or More” category. Borus, however, explained that even though Vassar is mandated to report racial and ethnic data in this format to the federal government, the College can keep its own records however it likes. “Some of the comparability of our data of students’ heritage is going to be lost in the translation of federal reporting standards,” said Borus, “so we have to figure out ways in our own internal reporting to figure out a cogent way to keep all the detail.”

Davis-Van Atta explained that when he sat on one of the federal task forces, he advised against using a “Two or More” category and instead suggested that each data group be reported with a minimum and maximum values—the minimum being the number of people who chose that racial category only, and the maximum being the number of people who chose that racial category and one or more others. Davis Van-Atta explained that this may be how Vassar decides to keep its data internally.

One other significant sticking point with many critics is the rationale behind the first question, which asks “Are you Hispanic/Latino?” Anyone who responds “Yes” to this question will be reported to the federal government solely as Hispanic/Latino, regardless of however they answer the second question. “If you check Hispanic/ Latino in the first question,” noted Davis VanAtta, “none of your other data is reported: you are Hispanic/Latino and nothing else. People should know that. This was designed to boost Hispanic congressional numbers.”

“This is what this task force has worked for 10 years to come up with,” added Borus, “and frankly a lot of us look at it and scratch our heads. I think they felt that the Hispanic population was being underreported. So if you had a student that was, let’s say, Cuban, he may have been classified as Black instead of Latino.”

While in federal reports the numbers for Hispanic/Latino students will likely show a great increase, Vassar can keep its own records so as not to lose the detail of how Hispanic/Latino students answered the second question.

In addition to how the new regulations will skew reporting procedures, schools will also have to reformat much of their internal data systems. “Vassar” explained Giannini, “has been and will be putting in a lot of work to change the reports on Banner, so it’s not something that we necessarily welcome. On the other hand, it’s something that needs to be looked at to make sure that we’re getting the detail that reflects the current realities in the country. I think everybody’s on board with the goal.”

ACDC grill master Latchman reflects on path to Vassar Zachary Wasser Guest Reporter

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was like my homework.”

At age 22, Latchman took a job working in the dish room at the ACDC, but did not stay in there long. “I think I took myself out of the dish room,” he recalled. “There were so [many people] in the dish room, I was like, ‘Okay, they don’t need me here.’ So I just went on the grill, and started helping TC [Weaver].” Ever since then, he and fellow grill master Weaver have been great friends, hanging out, “playing pool, playing hockey and video games. TC is good peoples,” said Latchman.

The pair bonded over their mutual love of the arts. “TC does a lot of art stuff, and I like drawing characters and designing clothes, so he taught me [Adobe] Illustrator. I’m into computer graphics now.” Weaver and Latchman even used these computer skills to design clothing for a famous Kung-Fu action star together. “At one point, me and TC were designing this clothing line for Jackie Chan,” Latchman said nonchalantly. Evidently, a mother of a former Vassar student owned a clothing company that was working with Chan to design his signature line, and the student asked Latchman and Weaver to join the design team, but “I guess it didn’t really pick up like [Chan] wanted it to,” said Latchman.

Latchman learned how to design clothing from his parents. “My mom was a dressmaker, and my dad is a tailor by profession,” he said.

“So I came from a family that designs [and] makes clothes.” He admitted, “I have an eye for designing stuff.”

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Juliana Halpert/The Miscellany News

e all know Percy. He’s the All Campus Dining Center (ACDC) grill master who is always sporting the freshest flat-brim baseball cap, cooking up the freshest “Eggs All Day” and stuffing every omelet with finesse. Maybe you’ve seen him dipping and flipping some cinnamon French toast sticks or cutting up a Cuban sandwich at lunchtime on a Wednesday. Any way you slice it, Percy has been a fixture on the Vassar campus for the last 10 years, constantly flashing a wide smile and giving a hand-pound to anyone passing by.

Percival “Percy” Latchman was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, the middle child of three brothers and three sisters. His father worked in textiles and was often traveling for business while his mother stayed at home and raised the children by herself. In the Latchman household, “there was never a quiet day.” There was “always a brother to mess with or a sister to mess with, or [I would] go out and chill on the road,” said Latchman. A river ran behind Latchman’s house, and he and his siblings “used to go down there and swim, and we used to play dumb games like Marco Polo. But imagine playing that in a flowing river. A couple of times I almost drowned. It was fun though,” he said. Latchman described his backyard as an expansive patch of grass with a collection of fruit trees scattered across it. “We had five different kinds of plum trees in our yard,” Latchman said, “so we’d always be up in the trees, picking plums, falling out, breaking

bones.” He said that he and his brothers and sisters “weren’t bad kids—we would just do stupid stuff. I broke my hand three times.”

Latchman moved by himself to the city of Poughkeepsie in the fall of 1992 when he was 15 years old. He lived with his uncle and graduated from Poughkeepsie High School the following year. According to Latchman, “Poughkeepsie was a culture shock. In Jamaica everybody’s always out. You can always see somebody on the street [because] the weather is always nice. But when I moved here everybody [was] always locked in.”

The term “culture shock” best describes Latchman’s early experiences in America, largely due to the dramatic change in weather climates.

“That was the biggest thing for me,” Latchman recalled. “Everyone was always in [because] it’s always cold. When I came to America, I was like, ‘Oh, damn, I’m indoors all day!’”

Latchman has a thick Jamaican accent. His speech rhythm is unmistakable; it flows out and leaves certain letters on the wayside as it continues forward at a tumbling pace. He drops the h’s at the beginning of words and the g’s at the end, so “hanging” becomes, “angin.’”

After high school, Latchman attended Dutchess Community College, where he received a degree in Electrical Engineering. Asked why he chose such a difficult major, he cited the Christmases of his youth when, “I would get remote control cars, [and] I’d always break them.

I would run them around for a bit, then I’m like, ‘I wonder how this works?’ So I’d pull the plastic off and see how it works. I just liked that stuff. It

Percival “Percy” Latchman has been working behind the grill at ACDC for ten years.

As for his future, Latchman stated, “I want to do my own clothing line—eventually. Hopefully.” But even if he makes it big, Latchman will always come back to the College, “I mean, if at any point this fashion thing takes off, honestly, I would still even like to work part-time here because [the students] are so much fun, so cool.”

He added, “Sometimes I come in and I’m like, ‘Ahh, man.’ Then once I start talking to you guys, I’m like, ‘Yea, alright, I know why I do it.’”

FEATURES October 29, 2009 Equality March raises issues H1N1 panel dispels rumors, confronting LGBTQ citizens explains concerns about flu Page 8

Elizabeth Jordan

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Kelly Stout/The Miscellany News

ACT OUT co-Presidents Leslie Hamilton ’10 and Casey Katims ’10 admire an unexpected rainbow that appeared above the scene of the National Equality March on Sunday, Oct. 14.

MARCH continued from page 1 announced the possibility of a march in October. The two exchanged daily e-mails, realizing that a successful march was going to require lots of planning over the summer. When the school year began, it was time to start fundraising. Despite efforts on their own—including a bake sale offering “gayke”—ACT OUT needed the financial support of the Vassar Student Association (VSA). So the ACT OUT executive board attended a VSA council meeting to make their case. “It’s politically active, and it’s socially conscious. This is exactly the type of event you should be funding,” said Katims. It worked.

Both Hamilton and Katims declared Vassar’s participation in the March a success, and were grateful to the VSA for it’s support. The pair was “amazed” by the amount of work the ACT OUT executive board put into the planning process so Vassar students and community members could attend. ACT OUT was also thankful to VSA organizations and campus houses that contributed funds and provided support.

“Everyone has worked harder than I’ve ever seen them work before. It really was a collective effort. All hands on deck,” said Katims. He added with a tired smile, “It was a beautiful, beautiful effort.”

As with any march, there were risks associated with the National Equality March. March organizers had expected counter-protestors, particularly from the Westboro Baptist Church, a religious group that has now become famous for its conservative anti-gay positions. Yet ACT OUT encountered no counter-protestors during the march, though Katims and Hamilton were unable to pinpoint why exactly. “It’s hard to imagine they just took the day off,” said Katims.

But the march did raise questions about the relationship between religion—particularly some groups within the Christian church—and the LGBTQ rights movement. In addition to the 100-plus Vassar students in attendance, the Reverend Jennifer Barrows, affiliate Advisor to the Episcopal Church of Vassar College (ECVC), joined Vassar’s group. During the March, Barrows carried a sign that read, “End the Harm From Religion-based Bigotry and Prejudice.”

The sign was provided by Faith in America, a multi-denominational Christian organization that rejects faith-based discrimination against LGBTQ individuals.

“I was stopped five times by gay couples to get my picture taken,” said Reverend Barrows, pointing to her clerical collar, “It was wonderful. I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to do this.” Reverend Barrows shed light on some of the tensions gay rights has provoked in religious communities across the United States: “[There’s a] cavern between Christian Faith and what Jesus says.” Barrows had a strong condemnation for the way some practitioners of the Christian faith have created “layers and layers of mistrust, hurt, animosity and—what’s worse—indifference” toward LGBTQ individuals.

But Barrows was quick to point out that there is by no means a unified voice on LGBTQ rights among Christian denominations. “We’re losing whole diocese over this issue” she said, referring to Episcopal parishes that have withdrawn their support for the denomination because of the consecration of gay bishops.

Divides exist within the LGBTQ rights movement as well. Katims is currently writing his senior thesis on “divisions that exist within the LGBTQ movement in the United States” but does feel that “the movement is changing” and becoming more inclusive of LGBTQ people of various races, classes and genders.

Hamilton agreed that the movement is gaining momentum. “There are a lot of reasons it’s taken this long,” she said. “One thing that comes to mind is that you can hide your gender or sexual orientation in a way that is different from hiding your race. People are now saying, ‘I’m done hiding,’ and it took a long time for that to be an option. Some say the movement is finally ‘coming out of the closet,’ and I think I agree with that.”

Katims spent the second semester of his junior year in Washington, D.C. interning at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), an organization that lobbies the federal government for LGBTQ equality. He also spent time over the summer as an intern at the U.S. House of Representatives. He said the two opportunities gave him experience working both within the government and from outside. He couldn’t say which he preferred: “It’s a debate I have with myself,” he said.

But Katims does believe the LGBTQ rights movement needs openly gay men and women to work both outside and within the U.S. lawmaking body. He added, “Progress will never be achieved unless there are also people pushing from the outside.”

Katims’ experience at HRC involved lobbying much more than marching, but Katims and ACT OUT still see a place for direct action— such as marching—in the LGBTQ movement.

“Marches energize people,” said Hamilton. Katims said he does not see marching as an outdated form of activism at all, remarking, “When you have 100,000 bodies in a single location, that’s something that can’t be replicated by Facebook or Twitter, or even a lobby action.”

This spirit of physical action is even present in ACT OUT’s name. Said Hamilton, “An action is something you do one day as part of something within a larger narrative of working toward a goal, which for ACT OUT is gay rights.” Hamilton added, “You protest against something. You act for something.”

“Marches are a form of protest people are used to seeing associated with civil rights,” said Hamilton, drawing a parallel between the LGBTQ rights movement to the American Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Among the differences Katims noted, however, is that “the LGBTQ rights movement is led by organizations instead of people.”

Their nonviolent ties to the movement of the ’60s became evident at the rally when Katims received a text message from the organizers alerting him to the potential for violent antimarch action along the route.

He responded with unwavering stoicism: “We are nonviolent. We don’t fight back.” Despite bumps in the road, the outlooks on the future of the LGBTQ movement were overwhelmingly positive.

Said Varsano, “I think [equality for LGBTQ couples] is inevitable. I really do. It’s a matter of how long and how much hardship. But it will happen.” Hamilton agreed and pushed for more action, stating, “It’s time to be open about the fact that all Americans aren’t equal.”

Online Editor

he H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, has become a common household topic over the past few months. Thanks to a Swine Flu Panel held by ProHealth on Oct. 3, rumors of forced isolation and unexpected hospitalizations can be put to rest. A small group of swine flu experts from the Vassar community all gathered at the panel to share what they know about this new pandemic.

The Biology of H1N1

The panel was intended to help members of the Vassar community learn all they could about the virus. Assistant Professor of Biology David Esteban teaches virology at Vassar and sat on the panel. Esteban explained the causes of the outbreak and the effects of the virus on human bodies at a molecular level.

The virus known to scientists now as H1N1, is a combination of swine influenza, an avian influenza, a human influenza and a Eurasian strand of swine influenza. Its scientific name, H1N1, stems from the two proteins found on the surface of the virus: hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. The forms that these proteins are taking in this particular virus are indicated by the number 1 following the letter, making it hemagglutinin 1 and neuraminidase 1.

According to Esteban, this is not the first appearance of swine flu. Originally stemming from the swine strand of the Spanish Influenza of 1918, H1N1 affected humans in the 1940s, ’50s and ’70s. The most recent outbreak occurred in 1998, when pigs were sick with a strain that was made up of swine, avian and human strains of influenza. The previous outbreaks explain why most adults over the age of 40 have a stronger natural resistance to the current strain than adolescents and young adults do. Adults have developed immunity to a previous, similar strand of the virus. Children, health care workers and young adults in large groups and enclosed spaces are considered most susceptible to the disease.

Societal Effects of H1N1

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the H1N1 virus a pandemic on June 11, 2009. Swine flu has exceeded early expectations, primarily in that it is affecting more people than the WHO initially anticipated and is spreading more quickly.

Professor of Sociology Marque Miringoff explained to students who attended the panel that there are four main issues coming to light with the emergence of swine flu: minority communities are suffering at a higher rate, schools are being closed, immigrants are being identified as scapegoats and there is a widespread fear of immunization.

“For most people,” Miringoff said, “recovery is relatively quick unless you have an underlying condition [such as] asthma, heart disease or high blood pressure.” She pointed out that these conditions are all more prevalent in minority groups and low-income neighborhoods.

Miringoff also argued that because there are still “47 million people in this country without health insurance,” a majority of them being people of color, those individuals will wait even longer to receive medical attention if they have been infected.

Another component to this issue is that it is harder for members of low-income households to take days off of work to care of themselves, or to care for their children if they are sent home sick from school. Low-income jobs, Miringoff stated, do not offer paid sick leave and are less empathetic towards those who may have to take time off due to a sickness in the family.

School closings complicate this matter further. Miringoff noted that at the initial stage of the pandemic, schools were closed quickly.

Recently, however, new policies have “advised against school closings because of the cost to people and communities.”

The strain of swine flu that is currently affecting people across the globe was first identified in Mexico. Miringoff said that because of this initial identification of H1N1 with Mexico, there has been “renewed discrimination [against immigrants] and efforts towards closing borders.”

She also pointed out that immigrants who are living illegally in the United States or who feel ashamed of being immigrants from Mexico or

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

elsewhere in Central or South America are less likely to seek medical attention.

Finally, Miringoff pointed out that the virus has the potential to spread to more people because of a general fear of the vaccine. She referenced statistics that showed that in the United States, only 40 percent of the population would be open to getting immunized and that only 52 percent of parents said they would “definitely” take their children to be immunized.

Miringoff had also heard of stories of “swine flu parties,” in which parents hope to have their children develop a natural immunity to swine flu, or to get swine flu and then recover quickly from it in order to develop immunity.

She stressed the dangers of these practices and encouraged students to trust health care workers and experts when it comes to vaccines.

Dr. Irena Balawajder, M.D., Director of Health Services at Vassar, and Dean of the College Christopher Roellke also sat on the panel and discussed the effects of the swine flu pandemic at Vassar. Balawajder began by acknowledging that health care workers had expected a very different kind of flu. She assured the audience, however, that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and WHO have a grasp on the situation.

While most officials were expecting a severe outbreak, she said that the H1N1 can be considered a one to two on a pandemic severity index of one to six, and that Vassar Health Services thought it would be a six. The virus wasn’t as severe as they had expected, but it did spread much more quickly than officials had anticipated. Vassar and other college campuses are especially vulnerable because of H1N1’s tendency to affect an entirely different demographic than the seasonal flu. According to the CDC, 59 percent of swine flu related hospitalizations have been of individuals from the ages of five to 49. Only 23 percent of those hospitalized with swine flu are over the age of 50, the demographic hit hardest by the seasonal flu.

According to Balawajder, Vassar Health Services follows the guidelines of the American College Health Association, the New York State Board of Health and the CDC when it comes to determining the best methods for prevention and treatment. Balawajder said that they have set up a quarantine area in Cushing meant to provide students who don’t live in singles and who have no way to return home with a space to recover without spreading the disease. “We want to avoid a peak in cases,” Balawajder said, “so [that] workers aren’t overwhelmed.”

At the time of the panel, there had been 35 cases of ‘influenza-like illness’ on Vassar’s campus according to Roellke. Only four individuals had not yet fully recovered. “[Vassar has] asked for 2,600 [vaccines], but we don’t know how many we’ll actually get,” explained Balawajder, “At the moment, local health departments are getting them.” She encouraged students to get the vaccine, but was sure to add that it is entirely voluntary. She also offered comfort, explaining that this outbreak is “very unique because we’ve had time to plan.”

Roellke explained that Vassar has organized an H1N1 task force made up of members of the administration, faculty and student body. Some of the preparations have included the various hand sanitizer dispensers around campus, signs about sneezing and coughing etiquette, stockpiles of supplies and special isolation rooms in Cushing, as well as in the Alumnae House in the case of a serious outbreak.

He tried to quell the fears of community members by pointing out that there have not been more than 10 cases of influenza-like illness per week this semester, while seasonal flu usually causes up to 40 students to go to Baldwin for services in a single week.

Roellke also assured students that they will not be forcibly sent home or sent to an isolation room if they are found to have the symptoms of the H1N1 virus, but most students have found it comforting to have a place to go to rest and recover. Faculty members have been advised to encourage students to stay home from class if they feel sick. He acknowledged the high stress that could potentially cause for students, but Roellke pointed out that the consequences of spreading the virus could be far more serious than missing a day or two of class.

October 29, 2009

FEATURES

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Endowment draw identified as a key financial concern FACULTY continued from page 5

Data Complexity and the Form 990 Much of the confusion over the statistics referred to by Arlyck, Edwards, Kozloff and Susman comes from the complexity of the data iteslf. For Dean of Freshmen and Professor of Mathmatics Benjamin Lotto, “these statistics can’t exist in a vaccuum—they need to be explanatory to be meaningful.” After reading Foster’s findings on comparitive endowment growth in particular, Lotto was inspired to do his own research on the particular subject.

Ultimately, Lotto found that when using only public data, it was difficult to effectively compare schools’ endowments, given that each is a resevoir of funds affected by three separate entities—giving, investment returns and spending. Because public data—taken from the Form 990 or IPEDS data—only gives raw endowment values and does not breakdown into these three functions, it’s difficult to accurately assess why one school’s endowment is, say, higher than another’s. “Straight endowment breaks down into three pieces,” said Lotto. “So, are we spending more? Were our investment returns worse? Was funraising better? There’s no way to tell from [these raw numbers.] Fundraising, for example, is affected by capital campaigns. We don’t know when other schools had their campaigns. You don’t know what you’re comparing.”

Aside from the general complexity of financial statistics like those such as endowment factors, much of the confusion has come from the fact that data have largely been cited from the IRS Form 990. “I don’t know the Form 990,” said Davis-Van Atta, “and there’s a reason I don’t know the Form 990. No one in my profession would ever think of using the 990 as a data source. It is not research-grade data, and it really from changes year to year—the IRS changes the rules on how they want to see things accounted.”

Davis-Van Atta continued, explaining that the form is not meant to be used as a data source for the public or for those in higher education; “The form is made for IRS purposes, chiefly surrounding tax matters—that’s their first and foremost concern. It’s not comparable across schools at all,” he said.

Ruud agreed, saying “The basic source of 990 data is accounting data, and the limitations of accounting data are such that you can’t easily make comparisons across schools. Comparisons won’t be accessible, they won’t be direct and they won’t be as informative as you like.”

Davis-Van Atta cited the uniformly submitted Form 1040 as an example of the nature of accounting forms as data sources. “If you wanted to know me, would you go try to find my 1040?

And what I turned in on my 1040 ten years ago— is that really comparable? Can you really tell?

Can you really look at trends? ‘No’ is the answer to those questions. The Form 990 is not comparable across insitutions, and it’s not comparable across a given institution over time.”

“What’s cool about the 990—and what tends to attract people to the 990—is that individual salaries are reported there,” he continued. “People see that and they think ‘wow’—well, they

should come talk to me first, and I wish that that would happen. If an Office of Institutional Research had been here for some time, I think we’d be in a better situation than we are in,” DavisVan Atta explained.

Role of Institutional Research The Office of Institutional Research has in fact been at Vassar for a very short time—only since Oct. 1, 2007, after Hill hired Davis-Van Atta, who left Carleton College for the position. Since then, Davis-Van Atta has been working to establish a common set of accessible and unbiased data about the College.

“We should, if at all possible, have a common set of facts that we all work from, and that is one of the principle reasons that Institutional Research exists,” noted Davis-Van Atta. “Institutional Research is not here to sing someone else’s song. I’m not here to back up whatever President Hill says or be a mouthpiece for an administrative position. That is not what I’m here for, and it’s not what anyone wants me to do and it’s not what I’m going to do. Institutional Research lives and dies by integrity and by unbiased viewpoints on data.”

One of the first things Davis-Van Atta did when the Office was created was to standardize the group of aforementioned 21 Primary Reference Schools. “The College was rife with different comparison groups that were being used in different offices—there was nothing standardized, so this is one of the things I worked on until last spring,” he said. One change made to the final reference group was that Dartmouth College—which was used in several peer groups—was removed from the final version.

“Dartmouth is not a good peer to Vassar on any number of key statistics, and whose much larger size in students, admissions, budgets, graduate programs, federal grant support would cause severely distorting effects in a variety of essential comparative studies,” wrote Davis-Van Atta in the report that was released upon the change.

Davis-Van Atta explained that he wished more people knew about and used his Office, and he expressed regret that he didn’t play a larger, clarifying role in much of the debate that was occuring between Foster and other faculty.

Just recently, Davis-Van Atta finished compiling the “Vassar Factbook,” which was presented to the Board of Trustees during their visit to campus from Oct. 16 to 18. The Factbook contained tables and graphs and sets of data on all areas of the College from students, to admissions, to giving, to compensation.

When asked what—after essentially inspecting the insides of the entire College—he believed was the main issue at hand with the financial health of the College, Davis Van-Atta responded by saying, “We have an issue with endowment.”

“That’s a really important thing right now,” he continued. “We had an era when we were at least with our peers and a bit above, and then it crossed around 2000, and we have never caught up since. This gap has steadily grown. It’s not a good trend.” Stillman echoed Davis-Van Atta’s sentiments, saying that Vassar’s endowment—

The two graphs above show that while Vassar’s endowment investment returns have remained consistent with those of peer schools, endowment spending‚ has been higher than that of other insitutions. Following the 2009-10 year, however, projected budgets for various scenarios are designed to bring spending rates back to a sustainable 5 to 5.5 percent. and especially its endowment per student— has not been “sufficient for Vassar to do all the things that it wants to do,” said Stillman.

Endowment growth was also a major point in Foster’s “VC Money Facts,” which stated that “thanks to generous giving, government largesse, tax-free earnings and generally competent financial management, Vassar’s endowment has indeed grown—until the 2006-2007 academic year—but it did not grow enough, even before the crash of 2009, to sustain escalating expenses and yet fully remain competitive.”

Davis-Van Atta explained that endowment performance has been a long-term problem and that “whatever happened didn’t happen in the last two or three years. People should know that. It’s not a problem with the new administration or with the old administration. Getting into finger pointing is a really bad idea—but understanding the fact that this exists is a good idea.”

“There are three things that affect an endowment—new money, investment return and

spending the endowment—so if we pick apart the three parts,” said Davis-Van Atta, “we can see it’s not giving and it’s not investment return, it’s spending.” While gifts to the endowment have remained consistent, and while investment returns havefallen in line with our peers—as pictured in the “Endowment Annual Investment Returns History” graph above—the draw from our endowment has for years remained above that of other colleges. While the figure for endowment draw for 2009-10 is not yet confirmed, it will almost surely be above 7.0 percent. That said, after the 2009-10 year, the projected budgets for mulptiple scenarios are designed to bring Vassar’s spending rate back to a sustainable 5 to 5.5 percent.

“For Vassar,” continued Davis-Van Atta, “our chief poblem is that for a long time we’ve gotten used to spending rates on the endowment that are at levels that are so high that we just can’t maintain them. We just have to spend less, and that right there is the real issue.”

Local grape-stomping festival offers chance to get feet wet Daniel Combs

F

Reporter

or those with an interest in wine and vineyards, the Hudson River Valley can provide some surprisingly substantive excursions. Benmarl Winery, located just off of Route 9W in Marlboro, is part of the extensive Shawangunk Wine Trail, which is composed of 10 familyowned wineries stretching from New Paltz to Warwick.

Benmarl Winery’s claim to fame is that it is “America’s oldest continuously producing vineyard,” a fact that its workers proudly—and frequently—remind visitors. Benmarl hosts a variety of festivals throughout the year, including a Harvest Festival, a Sangria Festival and, on the weekend of Oct. 17, the Annual Grape Stomping Festival.

Now, when grape stomping comes to mind, most people instinctively recall the oh-so infamous video of “Grape Lady Falling.” And, I must admit, the fear of falling from the stomping bucket was a fear that I, too, held as I made my way up the hill to the vineyard.

These apprehensions were instantly quelled,

however, when I was greeted with quite possibly the most jaw-droppingly beautiful view of the Hudson River that I have ever seen. “The wine trails around the Hudson are unique,” one of the festival’s vendors told me, “because of the surrounding landscapes. No other vineyards in the world have the inspirational views that we have.”

The vineyard looked out over a stretch of curving river that could easily be from a Hudson River School painting. Acres of grapes stretched out before us, and a few solitary farmhouses dotted the landscape down around the water.

Directly behind this stunning backdrop, however, was quite a bizarre scene.

I finally came upon the essence of the festival: soaked feet and rivers of red liquid, which bore an uncanny appearance to blood and, at first glance, looked like the evidence of a recently committed murder.

Finally, the experiential axis that I had ventured so far to find! Grape stomping is a tradition dating from ancient Egypt that I’m convinced holds the key to all enlightenment regarding wine. If you experience the practice through

which wine was first made, you must surely gain a newfound appreciation for the delicious liquid that you know and love so well—or, at least that’s what I thought was the goal.

The experience of grape stomping however, can, at best, be described as stepping on cold and wet bubble wrap. It was a not altogether unpleasant feeling (although the notion that nobody was asked to wash his feet before stomping was rather unsettling), just a little cold for the weather. Indeed, the water from the hose I used to wash my feet off was substantially warmer than the grapes’ liquid. And, in all honesty, I wasn’t really sure that I wanted my feet to be cleansed of the red elixir of mashed-up grapes. I felt as though 4,000 years of tradition had been absorbed by the pores of my feet.

One of the pourers behind the tasting bar more or less crushed that feeling of antiquity. As it turns out, no one anywhere in the developed world uses grape stomping as an actual winemaking method anymore. When stomped, all the stemmy stuff stays in the must (the crushed grapes and juice), and this leaves an unpleasant vegetable taste that lingers through the fermen-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

tation process.

Instead, wineries now utilize the somewhat forebodingly named Crusher-Destemmer.

This mechanically separates the juice from the grapes and stems from grape and can process three-ton batches at a time. Winemakers can produce exponentially more wine this way, and use a larger variety of grapes, in turn yielding a larger variety of wines.

Benmarl boasts an impressive array of inhouse wines, with 10 distinct varieties to taste that day and more available for purchase. Benmarl’s wines surprised me with their depth and range of flavor. My favorites included a robust Merlot that boasted elements of black cherry and cedar, and whispered hints of plum and tannin to finish.

The house-blended sangria was of course phenomenal—they do, after all, have an entire festival devoted to it. The combination of Spanish summer drink and beautiful vistas put me in an undeniably pleasant state of mind. I more than enjoyed the ride back to Vassar—safe in the passenger seat of my car next to my designated driver—from my very first vineyard tour.

OPINIONS

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Two sides to the discussions of recent layoffs Students must consider Vassar Student Association and senior administrators sources for reliable, trustworthy information.

Aashim Usgaonkar

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Guest Columnist

ayoffs. Pay cuts. Loss of job security.

On that protest day of October 14, it seemed that our school’s senior administrators were committing the most sins this side of Gomorrah. And maybe they are, but can we really be sure? All coins really do have two sides: and we should be open to seeing both of them before committing to either one. Personally, I hate labeling things of this nature as being wholly correct or incorrect. Let’s take a step back and see that there are quite a few people who aren’t quite as radical and don’t think that “Cappy needs a pay cut.” Of course, there are those who do think so, and fair representation of both sides is called for. So before your eyes go over the paragraphs to come, please take a moment to put aside what you personally feel briefly, as I have had to do while writing this piece.

Thirteen staff positions have reportedly been eliminated, making it easier to understand and agree with the Communication Workers of America’s demands for a “good Christmas,” as Science Support Technician Carl Bertsche, a business agent with the CWA, puts it.

This camp’s demands are based on a simple logic: if there’s a shortage of money, let all, not just some feel its brunt. For the CWA, pay cuts should travel all the way up to the President.

Indeed people do have children to take care of, and if they feel that their employer isn’t letting them do so, a protest is legitimate. It’s also totally understandable that those directly affected by this recession have been rendered restless, helpless and angry.

But there has to be some reason, a well thought out one, which is behind these decisions. And this is where we hop over to the other side and intentionally secondguess ourselves to become more informed.

“If you know more about how the college works, you’ll have a better shot at protecting what you believe in,” says Stephanie Damon-Moore, Vassar Student Association (VSA) Vice President for Academics.

An example Damon-Moore cited was the erroneous perception that “40 to 50” faculty positions were going to be eliminated in the coming academic year. Describing such perceptions as being “inflammatory,” Damon-Moore suggests that students who are interested in making a change should “approach the VSA” because it, as a body, has little to gain personally from twisting the truth about lay-offs.

The problem is that despite efforts to disseminate this information, there’s a predominant view that information released by the governing body is twisted. A select few also describe the VSA as a “pawn of the administration,” particularly in reference to its Executive Board. Voila! We have a deadlock.

There is no other way to get information that is wholly valid aside from these two sources, and without information, all protesting loses its importance.

So how do we wiggle out of this one?

Trust. Excuse this edifying ending, because this is important. There needs to be trust on both ends. And although it’s hard to have faith in something when you yourself are angry or restless, it is essential to remember that the purpose of all groups involved in this situation, be it the CWA, the administration or the VSA, is ultimately to benefit the Vassar community as a whole.

October 29, 2009

Eliminating positions affects livelihoods: Jobs not just figures, but homes and families John Joyce

Guest Columnist

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must begin with a disclaimer: I am working with various people and groups on campus to struggle for what we think is just, but I write independently and as an individual, not as any type of spokesperson. And contrary to what some faculty members and administrators think, neither I nor anyone I know of is acting in any way, shape, or form at the instigation of any faculty or staff members.

That being said, it seems to me that for some time people have sensed that all is not right here at Vassar College. The recent layoffs merely provided the impetus for these concerns to begin to be voiced. Campus-wide meetings and the demonstration on Oct. 14 are ways of expressing frustrations, and clearly not everybody will agree with the motivations, sentiments or actions of those involved in what many see as struggles for justice.

When the Oct. 14 demonstration ended outside of the faculty meeting (where administrators were given the List of Demands of those involved in the demonstration), faculty members were told that the intent of the action was not to disrupt their business, but to attract the attention of administrators in a way that conventional avenues of communication have not. Yet the action was disruptive, and a subsequent message sent to faculty members sought to defend it.

The administration’s immediate response was to invite two students to address the Board of Trustees two days later.

The opportunity was inadequate in discussing what has been going on, but is the beginning of a process of deeper engagement. This process has not happened thus far, but when it begins it must allow all members of this community to be heard and listened to, and provide a more transparent and participatory decisionmaking process.

To begin with, I am personally tired of hearing every change here being blamed on “the economic crisis.” Certainly, the College must be careful about spending. But the most recent layoffs represent an annual savings to the College of about one half of one percent of the total operating budget.

Frankly, I find it insulting when administra-

tors tell us that they have examined all areas of the budget, and that the means of survival for those individuals fired are the most necessary cuts for the College to make.

What is worse is that it seems that so many students seem to blindly accept these rationalizations. Are we not here to challenge our assumptions, to be critical of the information we receive? While I personally think we need to stop blaming individual administrators so much for these changes, people are making conscious choices. At the same time, we must understand that we are all (including senior administrators) positioned in social locations which influence our ways of thinking and behavior.

We can expect financial decision-makers to

multiple instances of graffiti and various signs around campus, the creation of (any) list of demands—none of these are signs of a healthy community. Many see that conventional methods of communication have failed, and that individuals are seen not as such but as members of disparate groups. We argue amongst ourselves yet lose sight of the fact that voices are not being heard, listened to, or taken seriously, and those of us not of the privileged few are increasingly closed off from decision-making processes.

At some point, we will have to individually and collectively consider these issues. And we will have choices to make. Do we accept that we are told of decisions only after they have been made, like in administrative town hall “forums?”

Or do we demand more active and participatory roles in the decision-making process?

Will we allow people to be fired, losing the means to support their families, but only fight to protect that which we deem important to ourselves? Or will we see all changes as part of a larger process from which we have been excluded?

Will we continue to see certain members of this community as unnecessary “expenditures,” while they see this community as absolutely necessary to their beings? Or will we begin to see all members of this community as important, and, as some have suggested, begin to seriously ask ourselves what we can sacrifice without sacrificing anybody?

Again, though I do not claim to represent anybody but myself, I have tried to convey sentiments I believe others feel. I have referenced several documents, which, due to inadequate means of distribution, have no doubt not reached many (perhaps most) members of the College community. I am happy to provide them to anybody who is interested. I hope that, through these considerations and out of deep individual and collective love of Vassar College, we can begin to transform this school, home, and workplace into one in which we all have loving, respected, and valuable parts to play.

To begin with, I am personally tired of hearing every change here being blamed on “the economic crisis.” justify their choices as financially necessary.

But let us be clear that for all this talk of cutting “positions,” we are really talking about individuals and their families losing their means of survival. Cleaning shifts begin at 5 a.m., but the days of those cleaning begin considerably earlier. And to think of jobs and salaries as mere “expenditures” of the College ignores the reality that they are compensation and support for those who provide us a home, food and an education.

Many students, faculty, and staff remain apathetic about these issues, or think (maybe hope?) that they don’t affect their lives in any real way. But the most recent layoffs are part of a larger decision-making process of which most students, and faculty and staff have been left out. When faculty cuts are announced, course selections will decrease, as will the immediate academic health of the College.

Which is not to say that we have not already suffered. The demonstration several weeks ago,

—John Joyce ’12 is a member of the Campus Solidarity Working Group; opinions expressed in this column are not are reflective of the Group or of any of its members.

College should re-examine staffing cuts: Changes lack consideration of community Sarah Begley

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Guest Columnist

ast year, when the downturn in the economy affected our endowment, the College decided to make some staffing cuts in the pool of employees who belong to the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a union that protects the support staff and administrative assistants on campus. To make these cuts somewhat easier, they offered retirement packages to the employees with the most seniority. As of now, the union has around 207 members, but about 20 people took the retirement package and will be leaving the campus in December. Though many people expected this to be the end of the cuts, several weeks ago the College laid off thirteen additional employees, several of whom belong to the CWA. Carl Bertsche, the business agent for the CWA and science support technician in the Physics Department, is frustrated with the way the administration is handling this problem; “It’s an item number to them,” he says. “It’s people to us.”

Some of the workers with seniority felt pressured to take the retirement package last year.

One such woman is Judy Cadwallader ’62, an administrative assistant in the Sociology Department. She began working here not long after graduating, and she has accrued 42 years on the job. Had the College not pushed the retirement package, she would not have considered leaving at this point in time. As it is, she is “enraged” by the way Vassar is handling the matter. “They’ve

taken away the gentle and the nice,” she says.

“And they’ve replaced it with the corporate.” I find it particularly disheartening that the present administration has found a way to alienate a Vassar alumna who has dedicated almost half a century to this institution.

On Sept. 2, an e-mail from President of the College Catharine Bond Hill to the students of Vassar commented on the need to eliminate a certain number of staff positions, claiming, “We need to reduce overall employment at the College by 10-15% over the coming years...When we compare our staffing levels to those of other leading liberal arts colleges, it is clear that Vassar’s levels exceed those of other institutions of our size in some areas.” My question is: Should we really compare ourselves to other institutions based on numbers alone? Just because another school functions well on one system doesn’t mean that Vassar will function the same way.

For example, when the employees taking the retirement package leave in December, their jobs will either go unfilled or will be filled by current employees. This means that some of the people who stay will have to absorb more work than they are currently doing. This concerns the members of CWA, who worry that there simply won’t be enough manpower to get every job done. Cadwallader worries that the administration is unaware of exactly how big an impact the cuts will have on the efficiency of the College.

“They assume that we’ll absorb the work, but

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

you can only absorb so much. And they don’t know what we do.” When more than two dozen CWA employees leave campus in December, will the College be able to continue functioning at its current level? Or will the absorption of extra work prove to be overwhelming for the remaining employees?

Consider also the changes in the operation of the cleaning staff, members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Though they used to assign a couple of people to clean each building every day, this year small groups of workers must travel to ten buildings a day and barely have time to clean each of them. Though the goal may be economic efficiency, the system isn’t working. The campus has been filthy, and garbage has been piling up in dormitories and academic buildings alike. I do not blame the cleaning staff for this because the new system makes unfeasible demands of them, but this is not the way I want prospective students to see Vassar.

I don’t believe that staffing cuts should be used as a way to match other academic institutions. We are a school that has always been proud of our individuality and our dedication to social justice, and now is hardly the time to abandon our principles. We must not look at Vassar only as a business, but as a community.

A good community does not simply discard its members when it is convenient to do so. Nor does a good business make so many cuts that it no longer functions efficiently.

OPINIONS

October 29, 2009

Page 11

Shortridge must recognize plight of working people Angela Aiuto

Opinions Editor

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his past Tuesday, Oct. 27, thousands gathered in Chicago at a meeting of the American Bankers Association to protest the banking industry’s resistance to financial regulatory reform. As they marched through the streets, demonstrators carried signs that read, “Put People First,” and “Hold Bankers Accountable!”

Following the logic of my co-editor, Kelly Shortridge, one might find these sentiments odd. Shortridge has identified regulation by the government as a main cause of last year’s financial crisis (“Lack of federal regulation is true cause of banking crisis,” 10.08.08). She argued that the housing crisis was caused by federal regulation that required banks to lend to lower-income individuals who were attempting to purchase homes. Given this, more regulation will just exacerbate the problem, right?

I won’t go into the specifics of why this analysis is flawed, since I already did (“Lack of federal regulation is true cause of economic crisis,” 10.08.08). But I will say that this argument is not a productive contribution to a discussion of the causes of this financial crisis and the prevention

of future ones like it.

Why? This line of reasoning unjustly lays the blame for the crisis on working people and makes the assumption that they do not deserve housing because they can’t afford it. Meanwhile, it frees from responsibility the greedy bankers who were offering bad loans and the lazy, corrupt politicians who failed to regulate such institutions. And it is also this kind of uncompassionate, insensitive logic that frames Shortridge’s response to the problem of “too big to fail” (“Firms must be disciplined, allowed to fail,” 10.07.09).

For example, while Shortridge acknowledged my point that the failure of large financial institutions would wreak havoc on our economy, she did so with the admission that “the road to recovery may involve some bumps.” Personally, I wouldn’t refer to shantytowns in Fresno, Calif. and Columbus, Ohio as “some bumps” in the road to recovery. Nor would I speak of 15.1 million lost jobs and a 9.8 percent unemployment rate as simply minor difficulties. No, these aren’t bumps in the road to prosperity; they are big, gaping potholes—the kind that can give you a flat tire and leave you stranded. And just think:

This is the way our economy looked after bank and auto bailouts and a stimulus package; imagine what would have happened if the government had done nothing.

While Shortridge suggested that the answer to these “bumps” is deregulation—insisting that any restrictions put on financial institutions will only result in “empty pockets” for the rest of us—I remain skeptical. I, unfortunately, need more than one hand to count off the number of people I know who lost much of their retirement savings after the stock market tanked.

Even if the deregulation of financial institutions allows for the efficiency and innovation necessary to be more profitable, what is the purpose of that extra wealth if it will ultimately be lost in our boom-and-bust cycle? Overwhelmingly, the people who have been most likely to hold onto their wealth are the ones who enjoy the privileged positions on Wall Street.

Indeed, this idea that the working and middle classes must defer to Wall Street firms to attain greater prosperity is simply a tired rehashing of the theory of trickle down economics that has failed time and time again. This concept simply distracts from the idea that giving firms the

power to regulate themselves might lead to similar abuses of that power that ultimately prevent working Americans from advancing.

I must disagree with Shortridge: regulation of the financial system is absolutely necessary to ensure the protection of the taxpayer. Working people have little, if anything to gain from deregulated banking—at least nothing that they could hold on to past the next “Great Recession.”

The consequences of leaving large financial institutions to their own ends are too great for too many, as this last crisis has shown us. Maybe tent cities aren’t the norm, but equally painful sacrifices are all too common for our fellow Americans, who are losing their homes, their incomes, and their opportunities. I stand by my original assertion: We must break up the banks and financial institutions like AIG to ensure that regular Americans are no longer vulnerable to the “too big to fail” phenomenon.

—Angela Aiuto ’11 is the Opinions Editor. This year, she and Opinions Editor Kelly Shortridge ’12 are maintaing an alternating column called “Point, Counterpoint,” in which they engage one another in conversation. Aiuto is majoring in political science.

SAT-optional schools risk the loss of Vassar’s campus crucial skills, fair tool for evaluation a safe haven for Yi Tan

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Guest Columnist

ately, a trend of eliminating the SAT requirement during the college admission process has appeared in several peer institutions. Taking the lead are Sacred Heart University and the State University of New York at Potsdam, who announced their decisions in the past year. On the list of SAT-optional colleges are also several highly selective schools, like Bard and Bowdoin Colleges. In contrast, Vassar’s stance towards the issue tends to be conservative (see “Peers assess SAT-optional admission,” 10.08.09 for more details). While these actions have been taken up pretty recently, the efficacy of the SAT score has long dominated debate. How big of a role should SAT scores play in the college admission process? To what extent does it reflect the academic ability of applicants?

Moreover, is it fair? During the past few decades, the two sides have offered radically different interpretations and arguments on the validity, reliability and socioeconomic implications of the SAT test.

Reading these debates has naturally triggered my own memory of taking the test.

In January of 2006 I took the SAT I in Hong Kong as a high school junior. For me, the experience was certainly a thrilling one, if not totally pleasant. Taking the test itself is an odyssey. The idea of sitting in a classroom from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. encouraged me to bring along more than one Red Bull.

Sharing a small room with 50 others while performing nonstop mind-boggling tasks without reasonable access to energy supply was both a physical and psychological challenge. Every minute that you spend in that room of claustrophobia dictates your future, while the periods of respite between each section are notoriously short. I remember that I came back from a restroom break only to discover that I had already been three minutes late for my critical reading section, which at once unleashed a downright feeling of panic and distress.

Truly, many argue that the emotional distress that comes along with taking and preparing for the test is substantial for college applicants. Furthermore, they make the point that such distress is unnecessary since the test itself is a vague measure of academic capacity. For example, social scientist Charles Murray has proposed to replace the SAT

with so-called achievement tests that gauge knowledge in specific disciplines like history or chemistry. He argues his case on the basis that subject tests can lead students to be more focused on specific contents rather than testing-taking strategies, and the specialized knowledge may well ensure academic success in college.

To these viewpoints I would like to offer my own opinions. Although I know little of the emotional state of American high-schoolers (I myself come from another country, thus a radically different educational system), I have certainly found in that little room of claustrophobia in Hong Kong something accurately mirrored by my later experience of college education at Vassar. Unlike loosely organized high school classes, college lectures require far more energy and stamina.

Paying close attention to your professors and your fellow students during seminars is essential to getting any knowledge out of class. Even the fast-pace workload in college resembles that of the daunting SAT test.

There is always a lot to be finished, but time is limited. Managing to accomplish work under pressures of deadlines is a basic quality that a college student should have. Judging from such a perspective, I find the ideal of SAT quite matching to the skills that colleges expect from their students.

Although the SAT score is only one of many academic assessments employed during a normal college admissions process— others being high school transcripts, academic honors, teachers’ recommendations, for example—it is nonetheless a very useful tool. While achievement-tests examine pieces of specific knowledge from each academic field, the SAT inquires the skill and ability that can be generally applied to every field of learning, namely the reasoning, analytical and logical skills.

The writing skill is also represented in the test, in which students are expected to produce a strong, consistent and stylish essay piece within a short time. For the Generation-Y or even Generation-Z college students who are brought up in a media culture where a vast amount of information is exchanged each passing minute, learning how to read, how to reason, how to extract opinions out of a mountain of texts in a short period of time, how to analyze problems with insight and how to form an opinion in a clear way

are crucial for academic success and can’t be more accentuated. No matter how far technology and society advances, and no matter where specific knowledge leads us, these core skills will always be universally applicable. Eliminating the SAT requirement might bring a feeling of relief to the hundreds of thousands of high schoolers in the nation, but it is also worrisome as some required skills will be lost along with the test.

In addition to its function as a tool of academic assessment, the SAT has also served as an efficient mechanism in the nationwide college admission process. SAT scores are used as a yardstick with which colleges can easily compare applicants from different high schools and communities. Among all the different academic requirements the high schoolers have accomplished, one thing most share is the SAT. Moreover, the SAT has initiated a very efficient and automatic self-selection process in college applications. This process happens when high school seniors consider the colleges that match up to their academic abilities and give up the ones that have a too high or too low standard. Instead of sending their applications all over the Ivy Leagues, they will rationally choose the ones that suit them.

Reasonably, if the SAT requirement is lifted, it can be expected that the admissions offices of the top colleges all over the country will be drowned by a large number of applications, in which too many subjective contents, like involvement in extracurricular and community activities, are hard to compare horizontally. Seriously, how do you justify that a pianist is better than a flutist? Furthermore, the ensuing workload of admissions staff will also conceivably strain college resources. Just as how price plays an invisible yet important role in an adjusting market economy, SAT scores quantify some standard hard to be measured in education and thus serve as leverage.

Despite the many unquiet criticisms the SAT has incurred since its birth, the predominance of its use in the present college admission process seems to vindicate its efficacy. In my opinion, the advantages of the test still outweighs its disadvantages. Therefore, colleges should still wait for the results of further empirical studies before they make their decisions. Vassar’s position can be understandable.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

all its residents ­Ian Relihan

Guest Columnist

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he security of Vassar campus has faced its share of breaches over the past two years. The mugging of several students at gunpoint outside of Chicago Hall last fall stands out among incidents of crime at the college, but anyone who checks their e-mail with regularity is aware that violations of security occur somewhat frequently. Since classes began, the Vassar security services have notified the campus community of multiple physical infractions, from an attempted mugging near the Terrace Apartments to the repeated groping attempts of an individual identifiable only by his sweatshirt.

Inevitably, these incidents raise issues about safety at Vassar. Certainly, the campus seems peaceful enough during the daytime, and college review publications like The Princeton Review tend to rate Vassar highly in terms of security. But what happens here after sunset seems to challenge these perceptions. The risk of confrontation hasn’t noticeably diminished the crowds that meander between the Mug and far-flung parties into the early morning every weekend, but does not mean that students are always comfortable moving about campus.

In spite of the apparent risk, most Vassar students go about their business without significantly changing their behavior; some even treat the incidents as jokes, as the presence of the terms “gropist” and “butt-toucher” in the Vassar lexicon demonstrates.

Although superficially reckless, I am not about to condemn this conduct; rather, I think that it represents a degree of perspective in the general college community. After all, uncomfortable as they are, security breaches here are relatively infrequent and rarely result in injury when they do occur. This is a far cry from the violence that occurs on other campuses, like the recent murder of a graduate student at Yale, or crime rates in the “real world” that awaits most of us after school is finally finished. The isolation of the Vassar Bubble does have its benefits.

The recent addition of new blue-light emergency phones across campus and the detailed alerts dispatched by Director of Security Don Marsala are positive indications of Vassar’s continued commitment to this quality of safety. I appreciate the ongoing service of the security staff and the student campus patrollers, and I am rarely unhappy to see one on the prowl at 3:00 AM. Security at Vassar is far from perfect, among its flaws the aforementioned lack of lighting on certain parts of campus; however, the situation could be significantly worse.

OPINIONS

Page 12

October 29, 2009

Critiques of Obama based on race: Arguments not part of constructive dialogue Jaun Thompson

What was your favorite childhood Halloween costume?

“Yellow Power Ranger.”

Patricia Szeto ’13

“Bill Clinton in third grade. I was really cool”

Elias Zwang ’10

“Clifford the Big Red Dog”

“O

Guest Columnist

bama’s plan: white slavery,” “Obamanomics, monkey see, monkey spend,” “The zoo has an African, the White House has a lyin’ African.” Those are just a few examples of the racist lingo found on signs of the self-named teabaggers during their protest march on Washington, D.C. on Sept. 12th. Fox News personality and teabagger-in-chief Glenn Beck labeled President Obama a racist who hates white culture and people. And just recently, after a white student was beaten up by two black students on a school bus outside of Saint Louis, we heard radio host Rush Limbaugh say, “In Obama’s America, the white kids get beat up with the black kids cheering, ‘Yay, right on, right on.’” As Obama’s poll numbers have taken a dive and opposition to his policies has grown stronger, so too has the vehemence of the conservative opposition. Now many are asking, as we approach the ninth month of Obama’s presidency, whether or not such opposition is rooted in the fact that Obama is African American.

Obama is a smart man who, to his credit, never bought into the stupid idea floated around during the campaign that his election would usher in an era of post-racial politics. And I never believed that America’s rotten history with racism would be jettisoned because of one man’s electoral victory. When such an ideology is so deeply rooted in a society’s pysche it will often

J

Haley Tannenbaum ’12

“I was Michael Jackson when he was with the Jackson 5.”

Gary Clause ’13

“I was a gypsy for years because it’s the easiest thing to put together.”

Julia Cheng ’11 — Angela Aiuto and Kelly Shortridge, Opinions Editors

ing desire to escalate the war in Afghanistan, and his lack of substantive action regarding urban America. And there are ways to go about criticizing those policies without bringing race into it. People like columnists George Will and Kathleen Parker along with radio host Michael Smerconish are examples of such constructive critiques.

But then you have the Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs who, showcase their racism and hatred of black people and culture not only for political reasons but for the most American of rationales: to make money. Those radio hosts and their ilk rile up lower middle class and poor white peo-

How much does freedom of speech cost?

Guest Columnist

“One year I was an ice cream sundae, and then I was a housewife”

ple into opposing Obama’s policies, which would actually help many of them, not just because said policies appear to be left of center, but because they know that such opposition fattens their pockets.

Limbaugh and Beck’s racist criticisms are also dangerous in that they perpetuate stereotypes and attitudes and detract from the discussion of the real struggles that black Americans face. The hapless followers believe that in a black president’s America white kids get mauled by black kids on buses, yet no one mentions the group of black kids who were kicked out of a pooling facility in Philadelphia this past summer because the white families did not want them there. The establishment media does not highlight the story of Mitrice Richardson, a black woman who has been missing in Los Angeles for several weeks now, as they did when Annie Le, the murdered Yale student, went missing.

So while the election of Barack Obama was a positive uplifting step for all Americans, the period that has followed has been anything but uplifting. White racists like Limbaugh and Beck still cry victim at the hands of an imaginary black oppressor while black kids and missing black women are still largely ignored. Racism may not be the sole factor behind opposition to Obama, but those who have shown themselves to be racists have only strengthened the belief held by myself and others that nothing has changed.­

When such an ideology is so deeply rooted in a society’s pysche it will rear its head when confronted with change.

David Wojciechowski

Cliff Quin ’12

rear its head when confronted with change.

Obama’s election and his subsequent policy initiatives have fundamentally changed the social and political fabric of the country, causing the conservative opposition to react in such a hateful fashion. There are legitimate concerns that many Americans have about Obama’s policies including his inadequate health care proposal, his seem-

ohn Oliver of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart joked last week, “Will President Obama manage to bring the Olympic games to Chicago, or will he go down in history as the worst president who ever lived?” As humorous as that comment may seem, one cannot help but wonder how many Americans actually lost faith in the President over this incident. Given that the number is clearly higher than it should be, how worried should we be about the common sense of the American people?

As we all know by now, the bid for the 2016 Olympics went to Rio de Janeiro rather than Chicago, prompting many people to question whether or not it was worth it for President Obama to take a trip all the way to Copenhagen in support of his hometown. That discussion is rather irrelevant— the amount of time Obama spent abroad was so short there’s very little Obama could have done to fix health care, win the war in Afghanistan and cool the global climate by two degrees had he stayed in America. What we should be discussing, however, is the reaction of Obama’s detractors to the incident.

In response to the retort that George W. Bush hadn’t brought the Olympics to Chicago either, Oliver stated, “Well, he never tried…That’s the story of his entire presidency: He never tried.”

Popular opinion of the previous President was so dreary by the end of his reign that whoever fell into the role after him was bound to seem like a superhero, both in vision for the future and in that he would have the ability to correctly pronounce the word “nuclear.”

But with so much to accomplish it has become apparent to most logical people that it cannot be up to just one man to solve all of our problems.

Given the contentiousness of the issues facing us and the number of different opinions, it’s important to listen to the thoughts

and comments offered by the citizens of your country, right?

Wrong. Enter Americans For Prosperity (AFP), one of the foremost groups involved in the tea party protests (how to publicly shame whoever came up with that name is another topic entirely). According to their website, they promote limited government, lower taxes and bringing “fairness to our judicial system.” (What does that even mean?)

Like many other groups based on this ideology, AFP has recently increased its involvement in anti-Obama protests and decreased its presence in meaningful discussions about how to solve the problems facing the country.

This included protests that linked the

what’s going on in our country and what we can do to improve it.

We would rather see the politicians we disagree with shamed than offer helpful suggestions on how to fix health care.

Naturally, we saw a great amount of protests to the policies of the Bush administration, and a fair amount of it would fall under the category of unhelpful name-calling and mud-slinging.

The current demonization of Obama, however, has reached a level that is unprecedented, and makes us wonder whether or not some people deserve the right to free speech. Political enigma Lyndon LaRouche asserted that Obama’s plans for our health care system closely resembled Hitler’s Action T4 euthanasia program, prompting many of his supporters to begin calling the President a Nazi, sporting posters of him with a Hitler mustache. Given how inaccurate the analogy is (Action T4 resulted in the outright murder of over 70,000 people—LaRouche asserted that we must do something to stop Obama “for no lesser reason than that your sister might not end up in somebody’s gas oven,”) a comparison to one of the most hated dictators the world has ever seen is callous and quite frankly irresponsible. LaRouche’s disciples are already far on the fringe and some might consider them extremist; it would not be a stretch to think that one might take matters into his or her own hands in a perceived attempt to save lives.

Of course, no one expects a conservative to like a liberal president, or vice versa. Political criticism is healthy for a democracy, and should always be encouraged. But the conservative outbreak of glee over Obama’s recent failure to bring the Olympics to Chicago has shown that Obama’s demonization takes precedence over any attempt at real progress, a trend that may end up costing us in the future.

We would rather see the politicians we disagree with shamed than offer suggestions on how to fix health care.

President to historic figures such as Adolf Hitler and Che Guevara (completely ignoring the fact that those two figures were at the exact opposite ends of the political spectrum from one another). Their antiObama fervor culminated at the end of last week with a cumulative outbreak of applause by members of the organization when the news broke that Chicago—a city in which three million of their fellow Americans live—had lost its bid to host the Olympic games.

What does this indicate for our country?

While AFP represents a very small portion of our population (their website indicates that they have 700,000 members nationwide,) their commitment to supporting the outright failure of a politician might force some to conclude that our political culture has shifted away from actually caring about

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

—David Wojciechowski graduated from Vassar College in 2009.

OPINIONS

October 29, 2009

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Public option will preserve competition of insurance Eric Lind

Guest Columnist

W

e all know that the system is broken.

Health insurance policies can cost ridiculous amounts, and the cost of health care without insurance is astronomical. There have been many attempts and many approaches to fixing this broken system. But the solution that makes the most sense right now is a public option. A public option is a government-run plan that offers comprehensive coverage at competitive prices in the insurance market. Introducing a public option would change the entire dynamic of the health insurance market and force private insurers to offer lower premiums and make health insurance more affordable.

While many would agree with what I’ve said so far, there are just as many who don’t know what a public option is or why it would help. But when approached carefully, the basics aren’t too difficult to grasp.

One of the main reasons that insurance is so expensive is because the market for health insurance isn’t competitive across all sectors.

In many large geographic areas, thousands of people are served by only a few insurance companies. President Obama made this clear in his joint-Congressional address on health care: “[I] n 34 states, 75 percent of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies.” The lack of insurance carriers in an area means that insurers can effectively form oligopolies or duopolies and set prices for policies without having to compete. This is why insurance premiums are so high for so much of the country.

This is possible because the distribution channels for health care (i.e. doctors and hospitals) don’t accept patients from all insurers.

Typically, they only take a few. If there are two hospitals in a town, and two major insurance companies in the area, one insurer will take one hospital and one the other. Hospitals will agree to these kind of arrangements because it guarantees them a large patient volume and hence a higher profit. But more than that, insurers can threaten to take away their patients if a hospital takes on another insurer or accepts lower reimbursement rates from a different insurer.

The same thing happens with doctors. The rea-

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son insurers can keep prices high is because if you don’t want to buy their insurance then you may have to travel two or three hours to get to a doctor who accepts your carrier. Although the subtleties of how insurers establish networks of care providers are more complex than this, the result is still that large areas are dominated by only a few insurers.

If a public option were available, it would introduce some competition into the marketplace and make insurance cheaper. We know that a public option could compete with private insurers by looking to Medicare as an example of how it might function. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the administrative costs for Medicare are less than two percent of total Medicare costs, which is significantly less than private insurance. For example, a 2005 study from Health Affairs found that private insurers in California spent 25 percent of their total expenses on administrative costs. This means that a public option could easily charge less than many private insurers in the market. This has many people crying “foul” and claiming that private insurers would be driven out of business. This argument is absurd, however, since the government has nothing to gain by creating more instability in the health insurance market and more job loss especially in our current economic situation. It is far more likely that rather than allow themselves to go out of business, private insurers will streamline administrative costs and drop the prices for premiums. The government isn’t looking for diabolical ways to take over the health insurance market; it’s trying to make insurance more affordable by letting the free market do its job.

There are many details that would have to be worked out in the implementation of a public option: How would pricing and reimbursement be determined? How would doctors contract with the public option? But right now, those details are secondary to the fact that a public option has the potential to save consumers a lot of money by stemming the rising costs of health care. It is my opinion that a public option is a key element to the solution that best serves the people of this country and which best alleviates the pains plaguing our health care system.

Crossword by Jonathan Garfinkel ACROSS 1. ____ nest 6. Taze or daze 10. Boxes possibly filled with gold 11. Prefix with space 12. Part one of a Winston Churchill quote 18. Major artery 19. Negative, down south?

20. Build up 22. Troy, NY sch.

23. Served raw, as steak 26. ___ Tai 27. ___ Rock

28. Mrs. Peron 30. Dickensian protagonist 31. Munich exclamation 34. Grunts, briefly 35. Implanted contraceptive (abbr.)

37. Part two of the quote 40. Rehearses 46. Actress Hatcher, and others 47. Part three of the quote 48. His dogs don’t bark on good days.

51. Pre-TV era, perhaps

Answers to last week’s puzzle

52. Alternatives to cash or credit (abbr.)

53. Assents, briefly (var.)

55. Great Bruin defender 56. It is, to Cicero 57. Puts in 61. “___ of lies!”

64. Flower parts 67. Consume 68. Contemptuous grin 71. Major Hindu deity 72. Run _____ of (break the rules) 74. End of the quote 78. Cowardly 79. Make eyes at 80. More than enough 81. “Saturn Devouring his Son” painter

DOWN 1. SNL’s Oteri 2. Relax 3. Workplace watchdog grp.

4. Org. with the Doha Round 5. Ex-bloc state (abbr.)

6. Big name in existentialism 7. Musician Leo 8. Bear, in constellations 9. Author Chomsky

10. Lop off 12. ___ and feather 13. Some pastries 14. Partner of pith 15. “I’m ___ boat” 16. Sloped walkway 17. NYPD blue actor Morales 21. Nurse, as a drink 23. With “up”, applies graffiti to 24. Came to rest 25. Increasingly common legal actions lately?

29. Certain pseudonym users, sometimes 31. Storage space 32. Confirm 33. “____ Johnny!”

36. Girl’s name from the Emerald Isle 38. Big name in ballpoints 39. Elite NYPD squad 40. Standard 41. Coding stuff (abbr.)

42. Pile on 43. ___ Valley, Portugal (ancient artwork treasure trove) 44. Earth science’s home?

45. Major New Left

youth movement, briefly 49. Weeks without play?

50. Sunny side in the AM 54. Jeter, A-Rod, and Texeira 57. Not thinking clearly 58. ___ Speedwagon 59. Sigma successor

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

60. Cardinals on scoreboards 61. Opposite of 76-down 62. Son of Cain 63. Number 8 in the Bronx 65. Small rug 66. Punk rock subgenre

69. Dutch cheese 70. Reply, briefly 72. Supporter, friend 73. Spot’s pest 75. ___-Air 76. Pittsburgh-NYC dir.

77. “...___, in a galaxy far, far away...”

HUMOR & SATIRE

Page 14

October 29, 2009

OPINIONS

Costumes that come ‘too soon’ for Halloween 2009 Kelly Stout

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Cartoon by Liza Donnelly, Professor of Women’s Studies

October Break spent in a South Carolina Chik-fil-A Nick Greenberg

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Guest Columnist

spent a weekend of my October Break golfing in South Carolina with my dad. The area we stayed in was an endless stretch of under five dollar beach shops, fireworks stores and strip joints. Initially, this got me pretty excited. The idea of watching a stripper while sitting in a beach chair and setting things on fire sounded pretty good. Unfortunately, I never got the chance. It was the first of two major let downs.

The other came in the form of the southern fast-food enterprise Chik-fil-A. I’d never eaten there before, but had heard from a number of people that their chicken was the tits. These glowing recommendations, combined with the fact that chicken and the South are a winning combo, gave me high hopes.

My dad and I made our first visit to Chikfil-A on a Sunday afternoon. It was closed. I repeat: A fast food restaurant was closed in the afternoon.

Look, I understand that people need to spend part of their Sunday with Jesus, but do they really need to spend the whole day with him? Wouldn’t he be happier if they spent the time they weren’t drinking his blood feeding the hungry? Lousy Christians.

We came back the next day, and were greeted with a bustling, open Chik-fil-A. The first

thing that struck me when I walked in was how many fat people there were. Granted, it’s a fast food restaurant located in America’s fifth fattest state. But literally everyone in the restaurant was overweight: I felt like a Rice Krispee in a box of Corn Pops. After looking at the Chik-fil-A menu, I began to understand why no one around me had ankles. Let me put it this way: over half the breakfast items contained chicken.

Eager to fit in with my chubby compadres, I ordered twelve chicken nuggets, four chicken strips and a large waffle fries. Though I managed to stuff all of it down my gullet, I can’t say that I enjoyed it. The nuggets were mushy, the strips were way too breaded...the only thing even remotely tasty was the waffle fries. I really didn’t think it was possible for a place called Chik-fil-A to mess up chicken so badly.

The only thing that made me feel better about my ruined chicken dreams was the boy at the table next to me. He looked to be about five years old, already plumping up nicely like his mother who sat across from him. No matter what she asked him to do, he always answered with the same high-pitched, southern-accented reply. “Honey, please. Just one more bite of chicken.” “Bitch!” “Honey, don’t say that. Now take another bite of chicken.” “Bitch!” “That’s it, we’re leaving.” “Bitch!”

Come to think of it, maybe it’s best for some people to spend their entire Sunday with JC.

Features Editor

or those who can’t read a calendar, Halloween—my favorite holiday by far—fast approaches. If you’re anything like me, you probably won’t begin planning your costume until three hours before Saturday night’s party. (Although I suppose we all know people who have probably been planning since June.) Of course, we all know that the perfect Halloween costume is one part pun, one part skank, and one part Crystal Palace. For those who like to cause a stir though, there is a whole other category of costume: the outrageously offensive getup.

Those in the costume-know might already have seen some of this season’s most offensive ‘stumes: Wal-Mart’s wildly insensitive “illegal alien” outfit—extraterrestrial head attached to a jailbird suit—being only one among many.

Every year we see good ones, but what makes the “too-soon” costume so tricky is that the humor has to outweigh the offensiveness. Case in point: remember all those Hurricane Katrina victim costumes from Halloween ’05? Yeah, thought not.

For those of you who haven’t been designing your Michael Jackson costumes since 2:27pm on June 25th, but are still daring enough to shock and disgust your friends, I’ve got a few costume ideas that are guaranteed to make them shout “too soon!” This Halloween you can stand out from the probably hundreds of “balloon boy” costumes with these “too-soon” Halloween getups, Vassar style.

Idea #1: Get twelve friends together and dress up as laid-off employees. Trick-or-treat at Cappy’s house. For extra fun: though highly conceptual, get a fourteenth friend who’s up for a challenge to dress up as “Cappy’s pay cut.”

Idea #2: You and a friend go as need-blind and need-sensitive admission. Wear a blindfold with a $ sign around your neck. Get a buddy to wear a $ sign around her neck as well. But, instead of wearing the blindfold, she should just go around crying all night. For added fun: compete to see which one’s more inclusive!

Idea #3: Wear a bikini and go as a “hot victim of global warming.” (Get it? Hot? Global warming?) For added fun: go around correcting the terminology of your ignorant and/or conservative friends all night. (“Actually, it’s global climate change.”)

Idea #4: You and your seven friends go as planets in the solar system. Draft the social outcast in your fellow group to be Pluto.

Idea #5: Throw on some brightly colored spandex, dress up as pseudo-frat boys/beerguzzling hippies, and go as the decertified men’s Frisbee team of the future. For added fun: go off campus and rouse rabble, then complain about the VSA’s new policies.

Idea #6: Get a skinny friend to dress up as Vassar’s endowment.

Weekly Calendar: 10/29 - 11/4

by Kelly Stout, Features Editor

THURSDAY, 10/29

SATURDAY, 10/31

3 p.m. Tea. I was working in the lab late one night…Rose Parlor.

12 p.m. Fencing Referee Seminar. Listen fencing referees, (you know who you are), this is not optional. It’s time to buckle down, Halloween or not. Kenyon Seminar Room.

7 p.m. Juniors at Juliet’s. Come bond and have fun with your classmates while playing pool and eating pizza! Yeah and getting hit on by old dudes with tattoos of motorcycles on their biceps. Off Campus.

FRIDAY, 10/30 3 p.m. Tea. When my eyes beheld an eerie sight…Rose Parlor.

8 p.m. Raymond Haunted House. Come see all the scary people Raymond House has to offer: like that needy guy you hooked up with during orientation who just wanted to cuddle, or that NSO girl who never washes her hair and sits next to you in Art 105. Rocky 300.

Midnight. Strangers with Candy. “Meet strange people and eat strange candy in the Mug whilst dancing to some strange music.” Or, “Regular Night in the Mug.” The Mug.

10 p.m. Halloween Party. Note to freshmen: hospital bills are sent home, and we’re in a recession. Use your head. Villard Room.

SUNDAY, 11/1 7 p.m. “Brides of the Moon.” Woodshed Theater Ensemble presents yet another heartbreaking work of staggering hipster genius. Price of admission: American Spirits, a Dave Eggers Novel, and something plaid. The Mug.

MONDAY, 11/2 3 p.m. Tea. For my monster from his slab began to rise…

Rose Parlor.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

Idea #7: Alter the aforementioned illegal alien costume so it only includes the jailbird suit. You and your best friend go as those two women that tried to blackmail David Letterman and ended up getting charged with extortion.

Oops.

Idea #8: Go as the Backpage of The Miscellany News. Or, for an extra twist: go as the “Backrage.” Dress up as a belligerent alum and yell at Ruby Cramer all night.

Idea #9: For a literal take on the “too-soon” costume, dress up at President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Idea #10: Go as the campus “butt-toucher.”

All you have to do for this one is wear a dark hoodie and lurk by the TH path all night.

Idea #11: Go as the Atrium Café. This one will be labor-intensive, difficult, and pretty lame, but a good backup plan if your cooler friends take all the good ideas. Added bonus: it’s not really offensive, so you’ll have the last laugh when your 13 friends show up at the party and all anyone can say is, “that one’s actually, too soon, guys.”

Idea #12: Get fifty of your friends to dress up as prostitutes with hospital bracelets around your wrists and go as the slew of freshman who will get alcohol poisoning and wake up at Vassar Brothers on Sunday morning—still wearing their fishnet tights.

Idea #13: Go as the late, great Gourmet magazine. Alas, Gourmet, I hardly knew you. And I was just learning how to make really good food—for any season or occasion!

Idea #14: Buy a plastic bird at the dollar store, stick it to your shoulder, borrow an extra hospital bracelet from the alcoholic freshman group, and go as a stolen-Kiwi-bird-radiation-victim.

For added fun: track down the flag of New Zealand, tie it around your neck, and see if any of your moronic friends get the joke.

Idea #15: Wear a poodle skirt, loop a “going out of business” sign around your neck, and go as All Shook Up, our local vegan diner. Yeah, a vegan diner. Good luck, dudes.

Idea #16: Take a dip in Sunset Lake right before the party and go as an undead version of Bernie Madoff’s “friend.”

Idea #17: Get a group together, divide up into two teams, and go as a “town hall meeting with high-level administrators.” One team dresses up like angry Student Activist Union members and the other team wears noise-canceling headphones and beige suits from Anne Taylor.

I think I’m going to stop before I get to 18.

Sorry, everyone. Didn’t mean to cause trouble.

On second thought, maybe it would be better to just throw on a miniskirt and go as a trusty old favorite, like the “sexy pirate,” or the “sexy witch,” or the “sexy vampire.” Critical thinkers like Vassar students know that those costumes—unlike numbers 1-18—are definitely not offensive for any reason.

5:30 p.m. Social Dancing. Hopefully more successful than last year’s World of Warcraft Club-sponsored “independent dancing alone in my TA.” Aula.

TUESDAY, 11/3 3 p.m. Tea. And suddenly, to my surprise…Rose Parlor.

4:45 p.m. Fencing Practice. Just to be clear, this is for people who believe there is a real threat that they will be attacked by swordsmen, and want to be ready. Walker Field House.

WEDNESDAY, 11/4 3 p.m. Tea. He did the mash; he did the monster mash. Rose Parlor.

4 p.m. Employment Workshop. Dear President Obama, It’s now been exactly a year. Should we really be still having these? Just saying. Love, a Jaded Generation. College Center 223.

October 29, 2009

ARTS

Page 15

Professors’ work a little known campus gem, resource Carrie Hojnicki

I

Arts Editor

Image courtesy of Harry Roseman

t’s 4:20 on a sunny Thursday afternoon. I find myself restlessly imagining how to make the next five minutes pass with maximum speed. I try counting the seconds, doodling; I even make a last attempt to document the lecture in which I have completely lost interest.

Moments like these make us completely forget the prowess of those individuals who have devoted their lives to teaching us. Professors, and their incredible skills and qualifications, are all too often overlooked in our overwhelmingly busy academic, extracurricular and social lives.

Art professors, in particular, are a unique brand, as their professional accomplishments often gain significant renown in the public eye.

Take the Chair of the Art Department Harry Roseman. Roseman, who teaches sculpture and computer design, has garnered a resumé of impressive strength, including commissions for large-scale public projects in John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport as well as in the New York City subway system. While his pieces primarily fall into the material categories of sculpture, drawing and photography, it is the intermingling and evolution of each of these disciplines over time that categorizes his body of work.

“My enterprise is elliptical and parallel, with varying episodes of linearity. The ellipses sometimes are slightly offset and sometimes pull taut like a chain. The parallels sometimes converge, and the linear can be as short as dashes and long as distance. I would say that time is the main element of my work,” explains Roseman on his website (faculty.vassar.edu/haroseman).

Time is certainly a point of consideration when viewing Roseman’s large-scale commissions, specifically his sculpture “Curtain Wall,” which hangs in the international terminal in JFK International Airport. The sculpture, a four-year endeavour completed in 2001, is a series of beautifully articulated white gypsum curtains against a blue wall.

Roseman found the process of creating such a large-scale piece of public art as one of intense intellectual and physical exertion.

“Making public art on the scale that I have been involved in is totally and completely overwhelming,” wrote Roseman in an e-mailed statement. “It is to art what extreme sports is to sports—a physical and mental roller coaster.”

Roseman’s ability to manipulate gypsum, a hard, course material similar to drywall, into a series of flowing lines is perhaps the piece’s most remarkable quality. The curtains seem to flow haphazardly with individuals’ movements through the terminal. For those of us who won’t be flying international any time soon, a smaller scale version is on display in the Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film.

Another work of equal public esteem is the

sculptural mural that Roseman created for the 2 and 3 subway train terminal in Wall Street Station in New York City. The work, dubbed “Subway Wall” took three years to complete, from 1987 to 1990. The mural portrays a serene landscape penetrated by a stone staircase. Articulated with a combination of bronze and patina, it includes a three-dimensional relief element, which serves as a powerful juxtaposition to its flat, subterranean, concrete surroundings.

When asked to briefly describe these two monumental works, Roseman provided a response laced with the sort of wit often associated with his outgoing demeanor: “I think it would be too hard to tell you a little bit about these pieces. The only alternative would be to take up the whole issue of The Miscellany News.”

Even with such large-scale works on his resumé, Roseman continuously seeks new sources of creative inspiration. One of his most potent sources lies with his students.

“My work in art is inextricably tied to what I do as a teacher. The work moves on and evolves.

My concerns, concepts and the work itself changes, reforms, spins out and regroups. My teaching moves on and evolves. As the focus in my work changes, I get ideas about teaching,” wrote Roseman. “The work (and myriad other things) begets new work. My teaching, my work, reading, going to exhibitions, discussions with colleagues and other artists, the students’ work and responses all influence my teaching.”

One of Roseman’s current projects draws directly from this correlation between teaching and creating, as several of his students will have a hands-on role in its creative production. The piece, which will be on display in the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center atrium this coming January, is a large installation drawing. Roseman spent his October Break preparing full-scale preparatory drawings with his five student assistants: Elise Silver ’10, Jensen Smith ’11, Sacha Ingber ’09, Golan Moskowitz ’09 and Daniel Feinberg ’09.

Although Roseman has produced a body of work that is truly phenomenal, his eye is always on the future, on the process of creating.

“This is certainly a cliché by now, but my favorite works are the ones I am working on at the moment. The ongoing process of making art is sustaining,” explained Roseman. “When I am working there is only the present, the fraught, frustrating, glorious, euphoric present.”

Let us now consider a form of art best engaged at story time: the children’s book. Nancy Willard, Lecturer in English, has had much experience creating this art to which many of us hold memory-laden connections. Willard, the author of many of these treasured works, as well as of important compositions such as poetry and novels, has spent the last few decades establishing herself as a writer to be reckoned with.

Most notably, her book of poetry entitled

Chair of the Art Department Harry Roseman’s “Curtain Wall” is on display at the John F. Kennedy International Airport. His work is also shown in a New York City subway station.

A Visit to Willam Blake’s Inn, won the highly coveted Newbery Medal in 1982. The medal is awarded each year to the most distinguished contribution to children’s literature. Other notable recipients include authors Madeline L’Engle, Avi and Lois Lowry. Willard’s winning work, a collection of 15 poems, describes a visit to 19th century English poet Willam Blake’s hypothetical inn, stock full of characters from his most memorable poems. Willard was the first recipient to receive the award for a work of poetry, making her win all the more surprising.

“Since no collection of poems had ever won the Newbery, winning it came as a complete surprise,” Willard explained in an e-mailed statement. “The call came during dinner, and when my young son answered the phone, the long distance connection was so awful that he hung up. ‘Who was it?’ I asked. ‘It sounded like Big Bird,’ he said. We had just resumed eating dinner when the phone rang again. I was sure it must be a prankster, and I was on the verge of saying, ‘Tell it to the Marines,’ when the message came through.”

Although Willard’s literary interests extend far beyond the bounds of children’s books, she claims there is something undeniably powerful in the way we experience literature when it is read to us.

“When my sister and I were children, our mother read to us, and I have not forgotten those tales. You remember a story that you’ve heard differently than a story you’ve read,” wrote Willard.

Willard continues her examination of and interest in children’s literature through her teaching within the Education Department, exploring the literary power of a medium typically associated with children in the her course about the fairy tale.

“In Education 262a I teach from the assumption that fairy tales have always had a strong element of realism at the core of them,” wrote Willard. “They are not an escape from real life.

They are real life seen through a different lens, and they appeal to a wide audience because they can be read on so many different levels.”

Willard concluded the interview with a quote attributed to Albert Einstein, although she has never seen the source verified: “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales.

If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” Willard plans to make this epitomic phrase a sticker for her bicycle.

We must not forget about those professors whose work falls into the category of performing arts. This is precisely the field of Professor of Dance and Director of Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre (VRDT) John Meehan.

Meehan, an Australian native, boasts a dance resumé impressive even to those of us not all too familiar with the dance world.

When asked to identify the highlights of his dancing career, Meehan explained that his greatest moments were those that opened doors to other opportunities.

“Well, let me see,” Meehan thoughtfully responded. “I guess in Australia there were two big moments. One was dancing the lead of the ballet ‘Oneigin’ and doing the premiere of that. The other, without a doubt was dancing the role of Count Danilo in the ballet version of ‘The Merry Widow.’ And both of those led to highlights of my career working with American Ballet Theater [ABT], where I joined as a principal.”

Joining the ever-prestigious ABT immediately as a principal dancer is quite the rare occurrence, explained Meehan. Dancers typically join the company in far less significant roles and See PROFESSORS on page 18

Otherworldly comedy to tackle issues close at home Cynthea Ballard Guest Reporter

A

stronauts? Lesbians? Monkeys? Vassar’s theater collective, Woodshed, offers all that and more with its upcoming production of “Brides of the Moon.” To boot, the play is set in the year 2069 and contains a seriou message about female empowerment.

The play was written by the all-female New York theater company Five Lesbian Brothers and was first performed in the early nineties.

Described by The New York Times theater critic Peter Marks as “a sex romp in zero gravity,” the play follows two very different groups. One is a family comprising a mother, daughter and father living in Stinkle, Ohio; the other is a crew of all-female astronauts, plus one monkey, on a copulation-centered mission to a nearby moon populated exclusively with men. The women come into communication with the moon-men when the mother of the family starts receiving communications via microwave (yes, the kitchen appliance) from the astronauts. While the general absurdity of the plot well reflects the comedy’s campy nature, the play also explores more serious topics.

“It’s about lesbians, it’s about space, it’s about mothers, it’s about daughters, it’s about growing up,” says Woodshed member Baize Buzan ’10.

Hannah Gold ’10, who plays both the mother and

the aforementioned monkey, adds, “It’s about finding admiration and love in highly unexpected places. They all sort of end up loving people they never would have thought, having respect for people they never [would have thought they would have].”

The appeal of a play written by Five Lesbian Brothers for a theater group like Woodshed, which in its mission statement describes itself as “non-hierarchical” and striving to “generate thought-provoking full-length productions,” is clear. Five Lesbian Brothers was founded in the late ’80s in New York City, and has produced predominantly satirical plays with a distinct social conscience. Buzan describes the company as “sort of a response to the question of why aren’t there lesbian plays for lesbians, about lesbians, by lesbians.” Woodshed even pays homage to the company’s background with their chosen location for the production, Matthew’s Mug, a reference to the sorts of East Village venues typical of the Five Lesbian Brothers.

“The history of this group, even more so than this play in particular, is really embedded in this underground, almost simultaneously backyard and underground, kind of theater,” said Buzan. “The Mug I think really fosters that kind of creative energy.” When Woodshed, whose membership changes every semester, found itself as a nearly all-female group, “Brides of the

Moon” seemed like a fitting choice. Says Gold, “The theatrical tradition is one that’s been maledominated. It can be hard to evade a male gaze.

There’s a certain amount of ownership as woman in producing a play that’s really for women.”

Gabrielle Gottlieb ’12 elaborates, saying, “[‘Brides of the Moon’] was very enticing for us as a play because of the challenge it presented.

It’s not something Woodshed’s ever done before.

I think the risk of the production really drew us in.” Indeed, this risk came not only in the form of the content of the play, but also in its comedic nature. “A classical play like ‘Twelfth Night’ [a previous Woodshed production] is a different challenge from a play like ‘Brides of the Moon,’” says Gold. “The fact that it was comedic was definitely a challenge.” However, it was a challenge Woodshed was willing to take.

“We were in tears during the reading because we were laughing so hard,” said Gold. Having the all-female group perform a comedic piece spoke to greater concerns of the women involved, again considering women in entertainment fighting male dominance. “One member,” explains Buzan, “is a member of improv. [She has considered] the idea of women in comedy, and the fact that women are frankly perceived as not being as funny as men. She really wants to fight that conception with this play.”

This issue hits home for Vassar after the con-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

troversy ensuing after the defacing of a sign-up sheet belonging to all-female comedy troupe Indecent Exposure this fall. Gold is more than happy to be a part of the ongoing dialogue sparked by this episode. “The comments that Indecent Exposure got were so regressive,” she says. “And I just think that that really speaks to this notion of feeling [that] in theater, at this point, we’re beyond worrying about women in theater. That’s not really true. With this play at Vassar, in a community amongst students who value theater so much, I think that there’s something very unapologetically in your face—‘We are women, right now, right here.’” Gottlieb continues, “As much as we can toot our statistics and our openness, we should never get lax about promoting equality and promoting visibility among the female community and also the LGBTQ community.” “Brides of the Moon” above all else promises a thoroughly entertaining and wholly accessible experience. “It’s really easy to dismiss it as just like a silly, campy romp, but it’s so full of just heart,” says Burzan. “This play has appeal and resonance with people who may not come see our shows generally, and we really want to make this accessible to those groups.”

“Brides of the Moon” will show in Matthew’s Mug Oct. 30 through Nov. 1, with shows at 4 p.m. on Friday, 2 p.m. on Saturday and 7 p.m. on Sunday.

ARTS October 29, 2009 Science fiction pioneer Delany to read from new novel Page 16

Danielle Nedivi Guest Reporter

“A

Image courtesy of poetryproject.org

wizardly beard” and “a gleam in his eyes from another galaxy” are only a few of the creative descriptions The New York Times has used to describe science fiction novelist Samuel R. Delany. The excess of fantastical imagery can be attributed to the popularity of Delany’s mind-bending science fiction novels. His most recognizable work is the million-selling Dhalgren, a novel about a man who must discover his forgotten identity in a city devastated by a rift in space-time.

Delany is considered by many to be the first major black science fiction writer, as well as the first openly gay one. The New York City resident currently teaches creative writing at Temple University in Philadelphia and continues to write his otherworldly books—most recently his 2007 work Dark Reflections. He is the recipient of four Nebula Awards and two Hugo Awards, both for excellence in science fiction and fantasy writing, as well as the William Whitehead Memorial Award for a Lifetime Achievement in Lesbian and Gay Writing. The acclaimed and controversial novelist will visit Vassar on Thursday, Oct. 29 to give a lecture and reading.

Assistant Professor of English Tyrone Simpson—who teaches in the Africana Studies, English and Urban Studies Departments at Vassar— counts himself as a fan.

“Delany is as unapologetic about his identity as he is about his intellectualism,” said Simpson.

“He is unabashedly a scholar of the first order, who approaches his intelligence with a great deal of seriousness and responsibility.”

Michael Bennett, an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in the Science, Technology and Society Department at Vassar, is also an avid reader of Delany’s ludicrously odd work. “His concern for

high, low and subcultures make for a rare mixture—as singular a source of prose and criticism on the American literary scene as any I’ve come across,” said Bennett.

Delany, known as “Chip” to his friends and students, has a rich personal history. He and lesbian poet Marilyn Hacker married in 1961 at the age of 18 and lived together in a commune in the East Village. Delany published his first book, The Jewels of Aptor, when he was 20 years old.

Hacker had submitted the manuscript to the editor of her workplace, Ace Publishing Company.

She told her boss she had found it in a slush pile to veil that it was her husband’s work, ensuring that it would not be treated in a biased way.

Hacker and Delany had an open relationship, and in interviews Delany freely discussed his sexual forays with anonymous men in Manhattan public bathrooms and docks.

“It was very easy to combine a highly satisfactory gay life with married life, since my wife was aware that I was gay,” said Delany in a 2001 interview with the online magazine Nerve. “As long as my gay activity didn’t interfere with our domestic situation, there wasn’t any problem.”

Hacker and Delany had a daughter and divorced after 12 years. Now Delany and his current partner, who was homeless for six years before they met, have been together for 20 years.

For over two decades now, Delany has veered away from science fiction and instead focused on literary fiction, essays and erotica. No matter the topic, Delany’s writing is anything but conventional. Some of his books are described as outright pornographic, a label he himself embraces. The New York Times said, “some of [Delany’s] novels go so deeply into the kinkiest of sex that even his most devoted fans slam them closed.” One such book, 1994’s The M(a)d Man, describes someone who becomes involved

Science fiction author Samuel Delany will visit Vassar on Thursday, Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. in the Villard Room. Delany is the recipient of four Nebula Awards and two Hugo awards. in intense sexual encounters with homeless men despite the rising threat of HIV. Delany also inserts complex social critique into his writing. In Times Square Red, Times Square Blue Delany laments the renovation of the once-seedy Times Square. “Delany deploys his personal experiences as a frequenter of the Times Square pornographic movie houses in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s as a means of analyzing the deleterious effects of the area’s urban renewal,” said Simpson of Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, which he has studied extensively. “In short, Disney-fied spaces separate the population into consumers and undesirables, and seek to make sure that these two groups never engage each

other on a human level,” added Simpson.

Delany’s lecture at Vassar will include a reading of excerpts from his new novel, Through the Valley of the Next of Spiders, as well as a question and answer session. Simpson suggested, “Students interested in finely crafted literature, the necessary encounter between science and the humanities, black gay masculinity, urban and sexuality studies, being exposed to a different type of blackness and intellectualism—these students should sit in the first row of Delany’s lecture fully caffeinated, with pen and notebook handy, ready to learn.”

Delany will give a lecture on Thursday, Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. in the Villard Room.

Idlewild vignettes question ViCE After Hours highlights the meaning of ‘cravings’ student singer-songwriters Esther Clowney

T

Reporter

here are a lot of things easily associated with the word cravings: sex, food and cigarettes, for example. But delve deeper into the psyche and deeper cravings may be uncovered.

“Craves Like Woah” is an Idlewild Theater production comprising 14 student-written pieces that explore cravings—the inimitable intersection of human wants, needs and desires.

“We’ve heard enough about people craving sex and food,” said Dorothy Thomas ’12, president of the all-female, non-hierarchical ensemble. “What about the things we don’t even realize we want?”

The contributors for this year’s production were given the tough task of writing short pieces solely based on the word “cravings.” But for some of the show’s writers, inspiration was close at hand.

“I wrote one of my pieces, ‘Assembly Line,’ after a long weekend of witnessing missed connections on campus. It’s a list of post-hookup confessions and realizations,” said Nijae Draine ’11. “It’s about our need for another person to help fill some sort of void we are convinced we have. Regardless of how genuine the need may be, we try to counteract it with superficial means.”

Draine wrote for last year’s show, and acted in it during her freshman year. But with six of her pieces selected for “Craves Like Woah,” this year stands to be her most involved yet. During the selection process, the pieces are judged with the writers’ names removed, an exercise in objectivity that led to the remarkable inclusion of six works by one individual. Surprisingly, Draine is not a member of Idlewild.

“For our fall production, we invite the participation of the whole [female-identifying] campus,” said Thomas. Of eight writers, only two belong to the drama ensemble: Thomas and Belen Ferrer ’09. The other writers include Leah Varsano ’10, Jessica Colla ’12, Jessica Klein ’12, Danielle Naghi ’13, Draine and an anonymous contributor.

“Most of the actors are freshmen. A lot of them are first-time theater-makers,” said Thomas. She, too, was new to theater when she joined Idlewild last year.

“Women design every aspect of this performance,” she said. “There’s no filter. It creates such a different experience for the participants, and also for the audience. I really wanted to be a part of that.”

Female playwrights see their plays produced at rates far below those of their male counterparts. Male playwrights have a better chance than females of finding an acting company and/or producer who will stage their pieces.

Though many women in the industry have long suspected this, Princeton undergraduate Emily Sands confirmed the bias with her highlypublicized thesis “Opening the Curtain on Playwright Gender.”

“The limitations in the theater world mirror the ones you would find in any other workplace,” said Draine.

“There’s simply not enough female representation. Female playwrights, female lead roles, female directors, you name it—they’re few in number.”

While Idlewild is focused on expanding the role of women in theater, the pieces selected for “Craves Like Woah” are not particularly gender-oriented.

“I think it really depends on who can relate to the piece, all gender aside,” said Draine.

“There is this notion that men write about everything and women write about gender.

This ignores the fact that growing up as a man affects your point of view just as much as growing up as a woman,” Thomas said.

For a writer to hand over the reigns of creative control to an acting company requires a large amount of faith. Upon submitting them to consideration by Idlewild, Draine’s pieces were out of her hands. “I can’t wait to see what Idlewild has done with it,” said Draine.

“They represent a different voice, not just the female voice but the voice of a female student at Vassar, which is a very distinct voice.

That voice is the foundation from which everything else generates. It molds the experience. It molds the relationships built. It molds the project we are working on and the end result of the product.”

“Craves Like Woah” will show on Thursday, Oct. 29 and Friday, Oct. 30 at 6 p.m. in Rockefeller Hall room 200.

Wally Fisher Reporter

M

atthew’s Mug could be called “an intimate setting” due to the kinds of activities that occur within its confines most weekends. The phrase takes on new meaning when the Mug is used as a venue to display Vassar students’ less-carnal talents. Vassar College Entertainment (ViCE) After Hours will try to emphasize the latter of the two meanings when showcasing Vassar’s own singer/songwriters starting Thursday, Oct. 29 at 9 p.m.

After Hours Chair, Johnny Wojcik ’11, likes the Mug’s small space as a concert locale. He also hopes to draw in a number of students comparable to the Mug’s weekend crowds.

“My main goal for the year is to increase the attendance of students who have no connection with the performer,” explained Wojcik. “I’d like to make After Hours inviting enough that other students will come and support student musicians.”

This is where the Mug’s physical and emotional intimacies intertwine. Its diminutive size creates a closeness between the performer and the audience, allowing them to connect more easily. The Mug further simplifies the act of supporting the musicians through its layout.

Attendees of the event can come and go as they please, sit, relax, and even do work if they are so inclined.

After trying out different campus venues, After Hours finally settled into the Mug. “Actually, After Hours hasn’t always used the Mug,” recounted Wojcik. ”Two years ago, they often used the Aula. A space I like, but find too big. The Mug is pretty cozy and has a nice feel.”

The music of Thursday’s After Hours kick off will compliment the coziness of the venue.

Performers Anthony Parks ’10, Medha Sahi ’13, Joey Azofeifa ’12 and Celia McKee ’12 will play their fair share of recognizable covers, but it is required by Wojcik that at least 50 percent of the material be original.

The reason for this is to display the creativity of the singer/songwriters and the personal touches a musician puts on a song he may cover.

“They are all extremely talented individu-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

als,” said Wojcik of this Thursday’s performers. “I do design each showcase to try to make a successful group of musicians that involves similar styles, but with key differences.”

There is no shortage of musical variety for Thursday night’s concert. Anthony Parks may be playing acoustic guitar, but his background is heavily influenced by hardcore music.

“The kinds of songs I write tend to be very riff-based, since my background is in heavy music,” said Parks in an e-mailed statement. “But the songs themselves are way more influenced by psychedelic music, folk, and solo guitar music like Leo Kottke, John Fahey, or Davey Graham, as the guitar parts are always fingerpicked and played in open tunings.”

Celia McKee is a little more hesitant when it comes to describing her music.

“I guess I’d call my songs...Indie Folk?” said McKee in an e-mailed statement. “Does that exist? Wikipedia says yes.” McKee will be performing an eight-piece set on Thursday, and will perform duets with another of the evening’s performers, Joey Azofeifa.

Their membership in ViCE After Hours is not something to be taken lightly.

“The process was competitive this year, in fact very competitive,” said Wojcik. “Almost 30 people auditioned for the fall season, and I only had 12 spots: four showcases featuring two 30-minute acts and one 45-minute act. Instead of cutting almost half of the students, I decided to make sixteen spots so that now showcases contain three 20-minute acts and one 30-minute act.”

Though the increased number of accepted musicians required a diminished performance time, this allowed more Vassar voices to be heard. Wojcik hopes this results in a diverse and talented group, and that the attendance of anyone interested in singer/songwriters helps bolster the musicianship of Vassar students. A good crowd helps support and encourage the efforts of the performers while exposing itself to some culture.

The audience will hear some classic songs and maybe some that will become classics in the future. And for those listeners who really like their musicians, the Mug can be all kinds of intimate.

October 29, 2009

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Mahar a mover and shaker on Vassar’s dance scene David Lopez

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Guest Reporter

Courtesy of Michy Mahar

here’s no denying it, Mickey Mahar ’12 has got his own style. His panache crosses over to his passion here at Vassar: dance. Mahar breaks down gender stereotypes and passé dance forms one step—or leap—at a time.

“A lot of assumptions are made about male dancers,” said Mahar. As a women’s studies major, his appreciation for individuality over gender stereotypes extends to how people approach the concept of dancing. “We as a society need to allow our children to grow up in a place where social norms are not fiercely imposed.

We must not expect them to adhere to certain gender roles,” explained Mahar.

Mahar’s dancing background came not from an American influence, but rather from an Irish one. “I started dancing when I was seven, doing Irish step dancing, and continued that until last year,” said Mahar. At a young age, Mahar knew he wanted to continue dancing and ventured into other specialties during his high school years. “I started doing modern and ballet freshman year of high school. I didn’t have technical training, but they needed guys.”

Since his time at Milwaukee High School of the Arts, Mahar easily navigated the rigorous schedules that many other dancers struggle to balance. “My day consisted of about three to four hours of dance technique classes. I had the opportunity to perform and choreograph during high school,” says Mahar. Like a true performer at heart, Mahar continues to arrange rhythm and movements together—no matter the when or where. “Whenever I hear music I’m constantly choreographing to it in my head. I love unconventional music and how it can be juxtaposed against movement,” said Mahar.

Mahar has found these constant chorographical tendencies a perfect home here at Vassar.

“Since coming to Vassar, I am constantly reminded that this was the best choice for me,” remarked Mahar on his decision to attend the College. “I wanted dance to continue being a part of my life. Vassar offered a good dance program without requiring dance to be a major.”

“I never visited the campus before I came,” he added. “I took a leap of faith—no pun intended.”

During his time at Vassar, Mahar has appeared in numerous dance productions and is part of the Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre (VRDT).

“VRDT is a very well rounded repertory dance theater that can prepare you for dancing after Vassar. I was never really scared to audition, but unsure of what to expect,” he explained. “Last year I enjoyed dancing in ‘Aureole’ by Paul Taylor. I was excited and honored to be able to learn and perform such a seminal work of modern dance.”

Still, a student at Vassar is usually invested in various activities all at once, Mahar included.

“I still try to find time to do other things, such as attending the National Equality March with Vassar’s ACT OUT. I am also a student fellow in Main [House] which carries with it many responsibilities,” said Mahar.

As an advocate for LGBTQ rights, Mahar makes it a priority to challenge social norms, including ones of gender and sexuality. “I try to seize any opportunity to get involved with events dealing with human rights, especially LGBTQ rights,” said Mahar.

Mahar’s dancing also serves as a vehicle for social awareness. “I’m really interested in contemporary and post-modern dance and how dance can be a vehicle for social commentary,” he explained. He takes advantage of the ways in which dance conveys social context to people. “It’s not always recognized as a legitimate means of articulating a social critique the ways in which film and art can examine and question things. I think dance can as well,” said Mahar.

This past summer, Mahar participated in an international dance conference in Vienna, Austria. In an e-mailed statement, Mahar explained that his European trip began as an apprenticeship and turned into a jump-at-the-chance occasion. “Pearson Widrig Dance Company did a workshop at Vassar in the spring of last year, and, following that workshop, they asked me if I would like to apprentice with them as they set a piece on a group of dancers in Bratislava, Slo-

Sophomore Micky Mahar is a member of the Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre. He began his dancing career at age seven and hopes to continue on professionally after graduating. vakia. I was there for two weeks working with them. They paid for my round-trip airfare, food and hotel,” wrote Mahar.

Following the internship, Mahar set up camp in Vienna. “I seized the opportunity of a free trip to Europe and stayed for two more weeks in Vienna, Austria and participated in Impulstanz Dance Festival,” he wrote. “Impulstanz is a contemporary dance festival that draws students and teachers from all over the world.” There, Mahar took classes ranging from classical ballet and Butoh to improvisation and contemporary technique. “I had teachers from Brazil, Germany, France and Korea and fellow students from even more nations,” said Mahar. “The dance confer-

VHP provides dinner, music for a humanitarian mission Rachael Borné

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Guest Reporter

t’s easy to label Haiti as a lost cause. Its gross domestic product is the lowest of any in the Western Hemisphere, hurricanes have systematically destroyed its resources, and its government is ineffective and corrupted even by thirdworld standards. Despite the dire situation, a network of humanitarian organizations across the United States has refused to give up hope.

The Vassar Haiti Project (VHP) is one such organization and has garnered vast support on and off campus since its inception. Director of International Services Andrew Meade and his wife Lila Meade created the project in 2001.

“It basically grew from an idea, which was the idea to support the local artists and greater population of Haiti by selling their art in Dutchess county,” said Elianne Schutze ’12, the co-Chair of the Project’s Events Committee. Funds from these art sales are then sent back to Chermaitre, the village supported by the Project. To raise funds for water purification and reforestation initiatives, the Project will be hosting an OpenMic Night and dinner called “Colors: From Porto-Novo-au-Prince” in the second floor of the Students’ Building on Oct. 29 from 6 to 8 p.m, co-sponsored by the African Students Union.

For the last eight years, the Project has supported a school in Chermaitre, Haiti.

“We managed to expand it from a one-room, bare-earth schoolhouse to a seven-room school,” said Schutze. “We support teacher salaries and buy uniforms and supplies for the school.” The new committees have allowed the Vassar Haiti

Project to set bigger goals. “We’re now spearheading initiatives to get fresh water and health care up in the village.”

The event will showcase music by students from Vassar and the surrounding community.

The lineup will include performances by Tobiah Sola ’13 on guitar and vocals, Samantha Shin ’12 on the harp, Jenel Moliere ’12 on vocals, Tajin Ribe ’12 on guitar and vocals, and Lily Meade from Arlington High School on guitar and vocals. The night will be very musical, but Schutze adds, “We are still trying to get some spoken word in the mix.”

Most of the performers don’t have a connection to VHP or Haiti itself, with the exception of Moliere, who is native to the country.

“I’m an aspiring singer/songwriter, and I love any chance I get to play live,” said Ribe. “I also like that this is for a good cause.”

This isn’t the Project’s first open-mic event.

“We hosted several in the past. This is just a nice, familiar way to remind the students that we’re still going strong,” said Schutze. “Some of our performers are [Project] Open-Mic Night veterans, and some are fresh faces.”

There will also be a dinner to go alongside the Open-Mic Night entertainment. Food from Zorona’s, Twisted Soul, Wrapsody Grill, Bacios, Thai Spice, Kismat and Sushi Village will be featured. Guests should expect a friendly, laid-back and colorful environment. “We just want people to come relax, have fun and hang out with friends all while helping a great cause.” Tickets will be sold Thursday in the College Center for $7 and will be sold for $9 at the door.

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

ence broadened my horizons and made me reexamine what can constitute dance.”

Currently, Mahar is practicing for upcoming dance pieces. “I am excited to do ‘The Shakers,’ a piece by Doris Humphrey from 1931. I’m also looking forward to ‘Sentinel’ by David Berkey and a post-modern dance theater piece choreographed by Dan Ming ’10,” said Mahar.

Mahar now is just trying to absorb as much as he can from Vassar to help him in the future. “I am really excited for my time at Vassar. I hope to continue studying dance after Vassar and eventually start auditioning for companies in either Europe or New York,” said Mahar. “I cannot imagine doing anything else in the future.”

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ARTS

October 29, 2009

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Logos far cry from Deerhunter’s live set Logos Atlas Sound [Kranky] “Minority Report because it is intellectually titillating.”

Tim Aaron ’12

“The World Series!”

Moe Byrne ’11

“Rosenkavalier.

We met Renee Fleming. She’s my idol!”

Allison Goodman ’12

W

hen Deerhunter played at Vassar this past spring, what surprised me most about the performance was how hard they rocked. On record, the band cultivates a damp, atmospheric sound, but live they’re a fullforce, punk-rock band. The transformation was appreciated. Sometimes even the most experimental bands need to get out of the studio and just be a good, old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll band.

Though they were able to get the kids dancing on Noyes circle, Deerhunter derives their real strength from their ability to create the kind of dank, murky, pop music that comes from a studio, not a rehearsal space. Bradford Cox and his band of misfits from Atlanta are at their best when they’re submerging their jangle pop gems in the kind of noise that makes the listener feel like he’s swimming underwater with headphones in his ears.

When Cox’s noise-pop is too “out there” for a standard, four-piece rock band, he takes to his laptop and records under the name Atlas Sound, producing music that’s even darker and more submerged than Deerhunter’s. 2008’s Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See but Cannot Feel was a challenging yet sonically stunning masterpiece—a dangerous, hallucinatory trip into Cox’s own tortured psyche. Stripped of the confines of guitars, basses and drums, Cox was able to really let loose. The result was ambient but listenable pop music that was just as good as anything off a Deerhunter record.

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Matthew Hammel ’13

“Alladin. It was a magic carpet ride”

Elysa Greenberger ’11

ing an obvious cue from Animal Collective, and it’s no surprise that one of those animals shows up on the album’s best track. “Walkabout,” featuring Noah Lennox—better known as Panda Bear—pulls a bunch of disparate noise into one immediately lovable pop song, in which Cox’s and Lennox’s voices meld into a startlingly unified whole. “What did you want to see? / What did you want / To be when you / Grew up?” they ask, in a terse line that’s indicative of the album’s lyrical themes.

“Sheila” is another standout. Due to its interlocking guitar parts, it’s the closest thing to a Deerhunter song on Logos. Other songs fall flat: The opener, “The Light That Failed” is a meandering and unfocused noise track, and the nine minute “Quick Canal” suffers from this same lack of focus, despite vocal additions from Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier. On “Washington School”, Cox’s samples never seem to reach a suitable level of cohesion, and its lack of structure makes it cumbersome. Too often on Logos he’s more interested in making sound collages than in making songs.

There’s enough good material on Logos to redeem Cox’s less successful ideas. Logos is full of noisy yet pretty moments, and Cox’s wafting, entrancing voice is always recorded in interesting ways, making it sound like a ghost that flies by to offer its own commentary. Despite these strengths, the album never seems to lift off and even the best tracks sound sleepy after their first or second listen. Maybe in a live setting, Atlas Sound rocks just as hard as Deerhunter, but on record these songs are just too airy. If you don’t mind this lack of immediacy, give this record a listen. Logos is the rare noise record that also works as a pop record, sustaining Cox’s reputation as one of the best musical provocateurs working today.

21st Century Fit a festival of the senses Erik Lorenzsonn

“Heteronormative porn.””

Cox’s follow up to Let The Blind Lead is called Logos, and like much of Cox’s music, it comes with a back story. An unfinished version of the album leaked last year from Cox’s own account on a file uploading website, prompting him to consider abandoning the record altogether. Lucky for us, he ultimately finished the project, and it does not disappoint. The only thing it lacks, though, is something that Deerhunter was able to capture so well in its live show: energy.

Like any good indie-rock record Logos embodies the eternal struggle between noise and pop, experiment and listenability, form and void. There are tracks that charm and delight, and tracks that frustrate and confuse. There are tracks that seem to float by slowly, building from nothing and fading back to nothing just as quickly. When Cox is on, he’s on, and there are some truly beautiful moments on Logos. It is worth listening to, but too often on this record, Cox’s sound palette is just plain boring. It feels as if every other song is a shimmering, melodic standout, leaving half an album’s worth of filler.

In an unusual move for Cox, some of the record’s best moments are driven by acoustic guitar. “An Orchid” is a song light enough to please the ear, but thanks to Cox’s vocal layering, weird enough to leave its mark.

“Criminals” and “My Halo” lend themselves to folk-rock songs, even though Cox’s lyrics are cyclically hypnotic and deceivingly simplistic.

Aside from acoustic guitar, there are lots of sounds that Cox works with, many of which can’t be easily described. Because Atlas Sound is a bedroom project, Cox uses lots of samples, and pulls off the difficult task of making an electronic record sound organic. Cox is tak-

Arts Editor

he lobby was empty, save for a bag of ear plugs and a box of soggy cheese pizza lying on a table. It was not quite the welcome my friend Emily and I expected in the Shiva on the brisk Thursday evening before October Break. A sheet of paper with grease stains was next to the bag, advising my friend and me to take ear plugs: This show is going to be loud.

We grabbed the cushy plugs, and then entered the stage doors to get our first taste of “21st Century Fit.” What exactly was “21st Century Fit” in the first place? Word on the street was that this was to be an experimental performance of sorts by members of the Vassar Filmmakers.

Experimental theater, eat your heart out— Vassar Filmmakers went eclectic to the max with this one. Gone were the bleachers conventionally used for performances in the Shiva; in their place were fold-out chairs arranged in rows willy-nilly throughout the performance space.

Interspersed amongst audience members were students strumming on electric guitars and rocking out on drum sets. The sign from the lobby wasn’t kidding about the noise. The amps were turned up to eleven, and the ear plugs were a godsend, making the ambient noises tolerable.

Emily and I quickly shuffled to seats near the door and plunked down on some fold-outs directly in front of one of the video screens. The images on screen were bizarre, trippy even. I watched as rosy-cheeked elementary school students talked to each other in class in what appeared to be a clip from a film reel from the ’70s. Then came the clown masks. One by one the kids passed them around and put them on, their own innocent smiles replaced by intensely giddy and disturbing grins.

Okay, what else is on? I turned and strained my neck to see the screen to my left. I could make out a dark room with college-aged students sitting around in fold-out chairs watching some weird movie, an oddly familiar scenario. It was then that I noticed a cameraman strolling around filming the room. I looked at the screen and, sure enough, everything corresponded. No doubt about it—the students in the fold-outs were us. The touch of metaawareness was jarring to say the least.

Suddenly a student dressed in riot gear marched in front of me. He read aloud from a piece of paper in his hand, blaring unintelligible information into a megaphone. By the fifth time he did it his actions had become routine.

I acclimated myself to such abnormal activity at an alarming rate.

The megaphone man added to the already deafening noise of the guitarists and drummer.

Their music was surprisingly dulcet. They were remarkably in sync with each other and did far more than just create empty noise. .

After half an hour or so, I turned to Emily and mouthed the words “are you ready to leave?” She nodded her head absently and continued to stare at the clown children with a complacent look on her face. Someone was certainly enrapt. I turned my attention to the “21st Century Fit” pamphlet. It was as oddball as the “performance” itself. Instead of providing insight, the pamphlet was a rambling absurdist narrative in tiny font. Its irrelevance was appropriate in retrospect.

We finally took our egress ten minutes later and contemplated our experience on the walk back. Was there more to “21st Century Fit” than some film students treating us to some sensory overload? A theory of mine is that there was more substance to it than that. Perhaps it was a commentary on the 21st century itself, an age where we are bombarded with arbitrary noise and images in the media. Maybe it was an Orwellian experiment of sorts; the fact that we were on camera gave the sense that we were being watched by that very media that bombards us with light and noise. Or maybe it was just therapeutic, as Emily told me. She found the combination of music and mindless imagery surprisingly relaxing. To each their own interpretation.

Faculty and students find mutual inspiration

“The Office. Jim Halpert is so dreamy”

Alli Tilden ’12 —Carrie Hojnicki, Arts Editor

PROFESSORS continued from page 15 work their way up to the center-stage stardom that accompanies the principal position.Additional highlights of Meehan’s career include working with the New York City Ballet, partnering with ballerina legends such as Dame Margot Fonteyn and Karen Kain, as well as starring in a Broadway show titled, “Song and Dance.” Although most of these impressive accomplishments are linked to Meehan’s work as a dancer, he has found equal success with

his work in directing and choreographing.

Even in his younger years, Meehan felt that he had the mindset for directing. “Well, I think as a young dancer I was always interested in directing a company. I always had an eye toward what that would be like: managing people, choosing repertoire and programming. So, when it came to direct a company I had given some thought to many of the elements of being a director,” said Meehan.

Despite his intense range of dance experi-

MISCELLANY NEWS | VASSAR COLLEGE

ence, Meehan is continuously challenged as the director of VRDT. “There are so many balls in the air, teaching, choreographing, directing, producing. It’s helping me to be a lesslateral thinker,” said Meehan.

For his students, and to inspiring dancers in general, Meehan shared a piece of advice: “Stay healthy, stay focused. Be patient. Remember that dance is an art form and it springs from a place of joy and passion so don’t forget to go there often.”

October 29, 2009

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Instant replay a must for the Mattelson travels to Mobile for ITAs MLB playoffs Andy Marmer

Mitchell Gilburne

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Reporter

“I

Image courtesy of Sports Information

nusually thick Southern summer heat and damp air set the stage for the commencement of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Small College National Championships on Oct. 16. This was the pinnacle of competition. This was the place where the strongest, fastest and most ruthless players convened to test their abilities against their peers. These racket-wielding warriors moved like ancient heroes stalking the gates of Troy. Michael Mattelson ’10 had earned his place among the greats by winning the New England Regional tournament just two weeks earlier and stood poised to confront his fellow competitors.

October opened with a bang for Vassar men’s tennis team as Mattelson carved his path to the Championships held in Mobile, Ala. Mattelson began the month with local and regional ITA games and an impressive upset victory against New York University’s Patrick Whitner ’12 in Willingsborg, N.J. Whitner, who had bested Mattelson in 2008 at the previous year’s regional tournament, won the first set but was decimated in the two subsequent sets

by Mattelson’s tempestuous fury as he served up a much-needed slice of humble pie. Mattelson’s conquest in Willingsborg earned him the coveted title of ITA Northeast Singles Champion and a place in history as only the third man at Vassar College to win an ITA Championship.

In addition to his personal triumphs during the early rounds of the ITA tournament, Mattelson continued to play a vital role in the Brewer’s exciting sweep of the Wallach Invitational during the weekend of Oct. 10-11. Remarkable victories abounded as the men’s tennis team proved their mettle during the final tournament of the season. Mattelson contributed his aggressive play style to the A flight finals as well as the top doubles spot, and his enormous performance earned him victory on both fronts. Mattelson’s continued domination on the court propelled him towards his final destination in Mobile, where his power and agility would be pushed to their breaking points.

Upon arriving at the championship tournament, Mattelson unfortunately lost all three of

Mattelson ’10 won the ITA New England Regional Championship and earned a bid to the Small College Championships in Mobile, Ala., where he fell in the first round. his matches in Alabama, but that is not to say he didn’t put up one heck of a fight. Mattelson describes his play style as that of the “aggressive baseliner,” meaning that Mattelson is, as he puts it, “most comfortable when controlling the point with ground strokes.” After a shaky beginning against Hayden White ’13 of Washington & Lee University, Mattelson faced his second day in the southern heat with matches against both Emory University and Whitman College’s top players. Despite his great efforts and a mind inclined towards strategy, Mattelson was bested. But, he was bested by the best.

Instead of mourning his losses, Mattelson likes to look at defeat as an opportunity for motivation to work harder. He recalls his first loss in a junior tournament with melancholy-tinged nostalgia. “I cried the whole way home,” he re-

calls, “But it motivated me to achieve.” Driven by a thirst for supremacy, Mattelson turned this early upset into a thriving tennis career.

Mattelson’s gumption does not go unnoticed by his colleagues. Men’s Tennis Coach Ki Kroll explains, “[Mattelson] brings enthusiasm and is continually working to be the best player possible.” Kroll continued to cite Mattelson as reliable and as a true asset to the team.

Born with a silver racket in his mouth, Mattelson’s journey from court to court has afforded him a lifetime of experiences.

Mattelson, who is inspired by his father’s pride in him, loves his sport and his team, and can hardly envision a future without tennis. And with a track record like Mattelson’s, it’s safe to assume that tennis isn’t going anywhere.

NCAA inconsistent with NCAA amateurs Nik Trkulja

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Guest Columnist

t has been described as being guilty by association. Hundreds of NCAA athletes, primarily internationals, have their NCAA eligibility statuses revoked over each year as NCAA officials crack down on what they perceive to be Amateur Eligibility violations.

However, coinciding with extensive media coverage of some revocation injustices, NCAA officials have finally moved to initiate a longoverdue rule change.

Presently the NCAA mandates that all college athletes participating in varsity sports are “amateurs.” In other words they participate in athletics without having ever received compensation that goes beyond covering their immediate and related expenses. To ensure that this holds true for all collegiate athletes, especially international ones, student-athletes are required to read through and sign extensive NCAA documents in which they guarantee that they meet all amateur eligibility requirements including but not limited to never having received pay for competing nor playing with players who received a professional salary. In turn each school’s athletic department is also charged with making sure that they only recruit amateur athletes and that they check and make sure that their athletes really do meet these requirements.

For its part, the NCAA is meant to oversee this process and ensure that no violations occur. To this end, the NCAA has a specific department charged with investigating athlete eligibilities and mediating punishment for vi-

olations accordingly. Last year alone, as ESPN reported, there were 490 incoming college athletes penalized for amateurism violations, of whom 434 were internationals. Their subsequent punishments ranged from sitting out for single games to, more rarely, being made permanently ineligible to take part in NCAA competition. As a consequence, their college athletic career was abruptly cut short.

While in some cases the NCAA’s verdicts and punishments have been justified, recently a number of injustices have been highlighted by the media. One of the more shocking stories is that of Brecht Gijsbertsen, a transfer student from the Netherlands who received a full athletic scholarship to play volleyball at Oregon State University (OSU). As ESPN reported, upon arrival at OSU Gijsbertsen was put under investigation by the NCAA due to suspicions that she did not meet amateur requirements. Despite being allowed to continue practicing with the team, Gijsbertsen was not allowed to compete in any games until a verdict was announced. However, when it was about a month later, Gijsbersten was found guilty of violating eligibility requirements and was ruled permanently ineligible for NCAA competition. Gijsbersten subsequently lost her place on the OSU volleyball team and the athletic scholarship that allowed her to study at the school and remain in the country. What was Gijsbersten’s “crime?” Well, as a teenager she had spent some time playing volleyball for a German team in a lower league where— although she did not receive a professional salary—the team covered her team-related

expenses. The NCAA ruled that two of her ex-teammates had received a salary. Because she was on a team with “professionals,” the NCAA ruled that she, too, was a professional by association and was not allowed to play on a college team.

What makes Gijsbersten’s story even more shocking is that in reporting her story, ESPN decided to do a little investigation of its own.

It found that within OSU’s own conference two other international players, who had been ruled perfectly eligible by the NCAA, played on professional teams in Europe. Although these athletes continue to play due to the NCAA’s ineptitude in equally applying its own rules, Gijsbersten now waits tables in Holland to help her pay for college.

The different NCAA divisions are littered with similar stories about international athletes that are born primarily out of the NCAA’s inability to understand how athletics works outside of the United States. While in the United States athletics are centered on schools and the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) teams, European athletics operate in a very different way. European athletics are rarely seriously pursued during secondary school. In fact, the most important high school teams are all in some way connected to professional teams, such as FMP’s Basketball teams in Serbia and Ajax’s Soccer Academies in the Netherlands.

Thus, any athlete who plays for these teams is indirectly playing for a professional institution that also feeds and houses him in their boarding school.

See NC`AA on page 20

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Guest Columnist

n right field Tarasco, going back to the track, to the wall. And what happens here he contends that a fan reaches up and touches it, but Richie Garcia [Right Field Umpire] says no. It’s a home run. Here comes Davy Johnson out to argue as Jeter comes across to tie the game.” This description, from the legendary Bob Costas’, of the call of Game 1 of the 1996 American League Championship Series (ALCS) has perhaps never been more relevant in a year of poor postseason umpiring.

One controversial call can change the fate of franchises. Garcia’s blown call certainly was a crucial factor in launching the most recent Yankee dynasty. Derek Jeter’s 1996 Game 1 home run sent the contest to extra innings, where the Yankees emerged victorious en route to their first American League pennant since 1981. Who knows what would have happened had Garcia correctly ruled fan interference when the young fan in the stands, Jeffrey Maier, robbed the Orioles of their win. I was five years old at the time, and the name Jeffrey Maier still brings curses to my lips and tears to my eyes.

The 1996 ALCS isn’t the only example of poor postseason umpiring. A man who worked six American League Championship Series, four World Series and three All-Star Games is forever known for one call. That man, of course, is Don Denkinger, who many would argue single-handedly cost the Cardinals the 1985 World Series when he served as an umpire. The point is that botched postseason calls are not new to this year’s playoffs. Major League Baseball Umpire Tim McClelland has blown many obvious, important calls this postseason, but the problem should have been solved long before now, and the solution is clear: The Series needs instant replay.

I have heard a few arguments as to why instant replay shouldn’t be added to baseball, and I want to take this opportunity to address those. First, many people complain that instant replay will make the game longer. This argument is ridiculous. First of all, the game is long and unpredictable in length as it is. A baseball game typically lasts three hours. So, what are a few extra minutes? We’re asking umpires to review one play, not a documentary on the history of America’s pastime.

Other opponents argue that umpire mistakes are a natural part of baseball games. Once again, this is not a valid argument. I am a professional umpire. I have been certified by an association in my home state of Maryland and have worked little league baseball games. I’m not saying that I’m on the level of a major league umpire, but I can say from experience that no umpire will claim to see everything that happens on a baseball field. It’s not the umpire’s fault. You’re not granted super eyes and ears when you become an umpire; baseball is a fast game, and the umpires can’t see everything. Give them some help. Oftentimes plays come down to a split second, and the umpires have to guess on whether a player was safe or out.

Mistakes don’t help a game—they ruin it. Replays are necessary.

Still, since baseball is concerned with the timeliness of games, there is a simple solution: Only implement instant replay in the playoffs. After all, no baseball fan will get as worked up over what occurs in early April games as they will about plays in October during the postseason. It’s not as if rule changes for the playoffs are exceptions.

Umpiring crews expand from four to six members for the playoffs. This is supposed to help accuracy. If baseball officials are truly more concerned about accuracy in October, give the umpires the ultimate helper: instant replay.

If baseball wants to maintain its place among the top tier American sports, it cannot afford to alienate its fans, which will happen if instant replay is not instituted. Mistakes have no place in baseball, and only serve to separate the game from its fans. If the fans cannot relate to baseball, they will stop caring. Nobody wants to lose because of a mistake made by an umpire, nor does a team deserve to. It’s time for baseball to ensure no team meets an undeserved demise, and give the umpires the help they need.

SPORTS

Page 20

October 29, 2009

Men’s soccer to finish as top contender in League playoffs Lillian Reuman

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Sports Editor

Photo courtesy of Sports Information

oasting a winning record of 9-5-1 this fall season, the Vassar men’s soccer team now stands at fourth place in the Liberty League rankings with a chance to enter the Liberty League playoffs after their upcoming game against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).

After two away games last weekend, the team solidified their stellar league performance.

On Oct. 24, after a long ride to Sandy MacAllaster Field in Canton, N.Y., the men’s soccer team conquered St. Lawrence University and posted a 3-0 lead within the first half. Simon Whitelaw ’13 scored the first goal off of a strong free throw from Zander Mrlik ’13 after just three minutes of game play. Halfway through the first half, Mrlik made another strong play and headed the ball past the St. Lawrence goalie for the team’s second goal of the game. Near the end of the first half, Eli London ’12 scored Vassar’s third goal on a breakaway.

The Brewers then faced the challenge of warding off the ever-aggressive Liberty League rivals during the second half of the game. St. Lawrence scored twice during the second half, but the team was unable to surpass Vassar’s strong

first-half offensive performance. Although St. Lawrence outshot Vassar and had more corner kick opportunities, the Saints could not topple the Brewers.

The following day, the Brewers traveled to Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y. where they faced a situation similar to that of the previous day. However, Clarkson claimed the 2-0 lead at halftime.

Partway into the second half, Bryan English ’13 rebounded off of London’s initial attempt to score. Within two minutes, Alex Freund ’10 scored his second goal of the season and tied the game. Afterwards, neither team scored during the remainder of regulation time and two overtime periods.

With a final score of 2-2, the Brewers rose to 3-2-1 in the League as Clarkson fell to 0-4-2 in Liberty League play. After the win, Vassar took fourth place in Liberty League standings. The Brewers remain in playoff contention; however, the final determinations will be made next weekend as each league team plays their final game of the season. Vassar will host RPI on Prentiss Field at 1 p.m. Vassar must either beat RPI or rely on a Union College loss in order to officially claim the last playoff spot.

Sophomore Eli London scored the third goal for Vassar during the first half of a game against Liberty League rival St. Lawrence University on Saturday, Oct. 24. Vassar won 3-2.

European amateurs’ guilt by association unreasonable NCAA continued from page 19 For the average European athlete though, high school is not where one pursues an athletic career. If an athlete is serious about a sport s/he must join a professional club’s junior teams or academies. Once the athlete reaches the Under-16 level of competition, however, all athletes are required to take physicals that are paid for by the team. The league registration process requires that the athlete sign a letter of commitment to that team. These commitments, which bind the player to the team, are typically valid for one year, unless the athlete has actually signed a real professional contract, as they are allowed to do at the age of 16. After signing the commitment, the player is officially part of the professional team, albeit at the junior level. But being part of the team means that on any given day he can be in the weight room with a professional athlete, or even get “called up” to participate in practice with the professional team for

the coaches to scout and track his performance.

Furthermore, as part of the organization, the athlete is also entitled to receive all the regular perks such as gear, discounts at various sponsors’ stores and even season tickets for the team.

In other cases though, a really talented athlete could also be moved by the coaching staff to a professional affiliate team where he would play with professional athletes on the same team despite not being himself on a professional contract. In most places in Europe, this is common practice for young athletes, as teams do everything they can to retain and develop athletes.

At no point, unless specifically stated, are these kids considered anything more than amateurs.

More importantly, many amateurs have no choice but to play with professionals in certain situations if they want to continue playing the sport they love.

The NCAA simply fails to understand these circumstances and all such athletes with any as-

sociation to professionals are deemed ineligible, a situation that desperately needs changing. To this end, however, there does seem to be some hope on the horizon in the form of Michael Rogers. Rogers, the chair of the NCAA Division I Amateurism Cabinet, has proposed an overhaul of the eligibility rules so that in future a studentathlete’s amateur status would only depend on his own situation and not that of any potential former teammates. Essentially, this would mean that coaches would be allowed to recruit players from professional teams given that the young athletes in question are only on amateur contracts. Rogers’ proposal goes a very long way towards improving the situation and reconciling the realities of European athletes to the rules of American collegiate sports.

While Rogers’ proposal is a step in the right direction, it is only one step. There are still a huge number of eligibility rules that need overhauling, and Dez Bryant and John Wall are per-

fect examples of that. Earlier this year, Bryant, a football player at Oklahoma State University was suspended for the rest of the year because he lied about having dinner at NFL player Deion Sanders’ house. In the meantime, Wall, a much-touted freshman on the University of Kentucky’s basketball team, was this week put under investigation by the NCAA because his old AAU coach held a Fédération Internationale de Basketbal (FIBA) Agent’s license for a year.

In both cases the violations are at best trivial, but their ramifications have the potential to be devastating for these athletes.

While amateurism is a noble ideal and one to which the NCAA should continue to adhere, it needs to reform the ways in which it understands and ensures it. Anything less than comprehensive change leaves the NCAA as nothing more than an institution that administers selective punishments that are entirely insensitive to the circumstances of those who are affected.

Sports Briefs Field Hockey falls to 2-17 on the season

Photo courtesy of Sports Information

Sophomore Katy Hwang played a crucial role in the Brewers’ offense throughout the fall. She finished her season with three goals, one of which was a game-winner.

On Oct. 20, the Brewers field hockey team dropped a 3-2 overtime decision to the visiting Drew University Rangers. Vassar sprinted out to an early 1-0 lead when Jennie McAllister ’10 capitalized on a feed from Jessica Lance ’11 to score in the first eight minutes of the game.

The Rangers answered 30 seconds later when Sarah Charles ’13 tied the game. Three minutes after halftime the Brewers retook the lead when Lance knocked home her fourth goal of the season off of a breakaway. The Brewers held the lead for just a minute and a half before the Rangers tied the game again. In overtime, Rangers senior Elizabeth Law ’10 scored the game-winning goal five minutes in, lifting the ball over Brewer goalie Rachel Horwitz ’11.

Hortwitz had four saves in the game.

The loss dropped Vassar to 2-14 for the season, with just three games left in the season, all of which are at home. The contest against the Rangers was the Brewers’ first home game since a Sept. 23 loss to Western Connecticut State University. This overtime defeat was Vassar’s second overtime loss. The first came in the Seven Sisters tournament against Wellesley College. After more recent losses to Hamilton College, St. Lawrence University, and University of Scranton, the Brewers ended their season with a record of 2-17.

—Andy Marmer, Reporter

Volleyball conquers Hudson Valley tri-match On Oct. 17, the Vassar women’s volleyball team improved their season to 16-5 with a pair of wins at the Hudson Valley Tri-Match. In their first match, Vassar defeated Mount St. Mary’s College 3-0 (25-17, 25-21, 25-17). In this match, senior Tess Johnson, who registered

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ten kills and a .304 attack percentage, led the Brewers. Chelsea Mottern ’11 kicked in four service aces for the Brewers, while Hilary Koenigs ’13 contributed 28 assists and 12 digs.

In the second match, Vassar trounced Bard 3-1 (25-8, 25-16, 22-25, 25-14). Sophomore Amy Bavosa led the charge with 19 kills and a .519 attacking percentage in the effort. Koenigs kicked in 17 assists, while Mottern added 16 digs for the Brewers. The Brewers started and finished strong in the match. In the first set, Vassar hit .387, with 16 kills and just four errors. In the final set they hit .308 with 10 kills and only two errors.

—A.M.

Men’s & Women’s XC place fifth, fourth place respectively at Saratoga Invitational With eight runners finishing in under 20 minutes, the Vassar women’s cross country team placed fourth at the Saratoga 5K Invitational in Saratoga Springs on Oct. 24. Johanna Spangler ’12 led the Vassar team with a time of 18:12 and a fourth place individual finish. Zoe Carpenter ’11 came in eleventh followed by teammate Kelly Holmes ’13 in 21st place. Despite the rainy weather, several Vassar runners turned in their best times of the season.

The men’s cross country team finished fifth out of 13 teams for the Saratoga 8K Invitational. Jonathan Erickson ’11 placed tenth overall in the race, marking his fourth top ten finish of the season. Justin Rupert ’12 finished 32nd with a time of 27:22 and played a key role in keeping pace for his teammates. According to Varsity Head Coach James McCowan, the team’s fifth place finish marked the second best cumulative time in 20 years.

—Lillian Reuman, Sports Editor