1922-1945
1945-1950
1950-1960
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1965-1982
1982-1999
2000-2011
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Masthead Editor-in-Chief Sammi Fisher Creative Director Nico Chilla Standards Editor Ryanne Salzano Art Director Olivia Heller News Editor Mikey Izquierdo Arts & Culture Editors Kurt Burger Marissa Matozzo Social Media Editors Jihan Basyah Rebekah Stewartson Photo Editor Lauren Hoffman Opinions Editor Martin Kaff Faculty Advisors Irwin Chen Allison Lichter Joseph Vivyan Tran
Contents Reporters Kleigh Balugo Haley Bartel Claire Boudour Gabriella De Garcia Georgia Dodd Mia Fonte Sam Ford Allison Foster Daniela Garcie-Arce Mila Greenberg Sadie Hechkoff Maya Kass Nitya Kumar Sophie Lee Kevin Martinez Hannah Miller Gio Osterman Emily Pavis India Roby Ella Snyder Michaela Zee
News
Follow us online: newschoolfreepress.com @nsfreepress
Y2K Fashion
New University President Urban Heat
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Arts & Culture Where Does “Latinx” Fit? On My Period Panel
5-6 6
100 Years First Generation Students History Through Catalogs
7-8 9-10
Opinion Adderall Abuse and ADHD Unpaid Internships Ranked Choice Voting
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Fashion 14
Letter from the Editor
Magazine!
It’s here! Our first print issue of the semester and my first issue as editor-in-chief of the New School Free Press. As you can see, we’re trying a new format. Nico, our creative director, will tell you more about that in his letter. The Free Press operates as a class, in Lang’s Journalism + Design program. The class format presents lots of positives and negatives for a newsroom to work under. Collaboration is key, in order for our newspaper to function. One thing is for sure — it’s student-run. This is my fourth semester on the Free Press. I joined as a freshman. I’m glad I did. Students love to say the New School has no community. Maybe in their experiences, this is true. But for me, our modest school newspaper is the strongest community I’ve found. We love the work, we love working towards this shared goal. It brings us closer together. Whether it’s long hours spent in the newsroom, reporters pitching stories during class or the design team creating a physical copy as proof of our hard work, I have found some of my closest friends on this paper. I genuinely have fun working with these people that I love, even if it’s not always rainbows and unicorns. The Free Press
is so much more than a newspaper to me. It’s something that I look forward to every week. I’m proud of the range of pieces in this issue. The New School has been around now for 100 years. We look at our history through course catalogs. We also have a story about the university’s new president, Dr. Dwight A. McBride, who starts Spring 2020. Along with an exploration of the term “Latinx” and a look at the Y2K fashion trend, you’ll also find some hot takes in our opinion section. I open up about my experience with ADHD and we get candid about working for free at internships. I hope you enjoy what we put together. If not, let us know!
“Where’s my usual newspaper, and what’s this thing?” some of our loyal longtime readers may be wondering, and the answer starts with a different question we were asking ourselves in the newsroom: what is the relationship between our online and print publications? On a daily basis, newschoolfreepress.com publishes breaking news about the happenings on campus, allowing us to relay information to you within hours of an event. If you’re getting your New School news fix through our monthly paper, you’re behind. Thus, the version of print that will best serve our school has to be one with different objectives: spotlighting members of the community, sparking conversation on complex issues and encouraging a deeper, more thoughtful reading experience. That is the guiding light behind the piece of printed matter you now hold in your hand. It is a pilot run at creating a more visually engaging and exciting product for you, our readers.
SAMMI FISHER Editor-in-Chief
NICO CHILLA Creative Director
1 / Editorial
Introducing The New School’s New President: Dr. Dwight A. McBride by SAM FORD After months of searching and multiple emails keeping the university updated, the New School has found a new president. Dr. Dwight A. McBride will be the ninth president of the New School starting Spring 2020, following David Van Zandt’s ten year presidency. Through 100 years and eight university presidents, Dr. Dwight McBride is the first person of color to lead the New School.
Through 100 years and eight university presidents, Dr. Dwight McBride is the first person of color to lead the New School. McBride is an academic of race and literary studies with award winning authorship. He is currently provost and executive vice president of academic affairs at Emory University. McBride is also an Asa Griggs Candler professor of African American studies and an affiliated professor of English. He began teaching at the University of Pennsylvania until he became the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. McBride then went on to teach African American studies, English and Performance Studies as a Daniel Hale Williams Professor at Northwestern University while also being the dean of the Graduate School and an associate provost. Van Zandt was also a dean at Northwestern, at the Pritzker School of Law. His published work includes Why I Hate Abercrombie & Fitch: Essays on Race and Sexuality, which was nominated for the Lambda Literary Award and the HurstonWright Legacy Award. McBride “offers the evolving insights of one black gay male scholar” in the collection, according to the New York University Press. McBride’s book Impossible Witnesses: Truth, Abolitionism and Slave Testimony was also nominated for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award, with his co-authored fiction anthology Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual African American Fiction winning the Lambda Literary Award.
Dr. McBride with Toni Morrison (right) Photo courtesy of Dr. McBride
Photo courtesy of the New School McBride is already connected to the New School’s history, as he is the co-founder and coeditor of the James Baldwin Review. Baldwin took classes at the New School, and is often included in promotional materials. Dr. McBride was the Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison’s research assistant, according to an interview with Chicago Magazine. In the same interview, he also told a story of singing in front of the renowned singer Ella Fitzgerald. The search for a new president began earlier this year when David Van Zandt announced his departure in January. Since then, the Presidential Search Committee, consisting of thirteen members who are involved in multiple areas throughout the university, have been reviewing candidates based on whether their
experience, background and values run parallel to the New School’s. The New School community was informed of McBride’s presidency in an email from the President Search Committee on Friday morning. “In every conversation with the Search Committee and its members, he evidenced his understanding of our university’s unique strengths and qualities and his ability and enthusiasm to elevate and advance them,” the email said. “He is an accomplished scholar, an experienced academic administrator, and an engaged, curious, and exuberant leader. He brings deeply-held values for inclusion, equity, diversity and social justice in higher education,” according to the universitywide email.
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The City’s Silent Killer:
Urban Heat
and Environmental Justice by SAM FORD
Photo by Nico Chilla
The Tishman Environment and Design Center office has overwhelmingly white walls with large glass windows looking out to New York’s Fifth Avenue. The first room to the right of the entrance belongs to Assistant Director Mike Harrington, whose walls are heavily decorated with environmental activism and awareness posters. Harrington has spent the majority of this year representing the university in the Urban Design Forum Forefront Fellowship. The fellowship’s mission for 2019 was environmental justice, and Harrington and his team of 24 other fellows focused on the urban heat island effect in New York City. “Urban heat, in terms of natural climate disasters, is the number one killer in this country. It’s not tornadoes, it’s not floods, it’s urban heat,” Harrington said. “You can pretty much predict how many people are going to die from this and the number one predictor, especially in New York City and some other cities, is being black.”
“Urban heat, in terms of natural climate disasters, is the number one killer in this country. It’s not tornadoes, it’s not floods, it’s urban heat,” Harrington said. “The other predictor is your income. It’s an environmental justice thing, because mostly black people are affected by this and this is going to happen to them, but when we looked into it there was not a lot of investment in stopping this,” he said. Urban heat island effect accounts for cities being 1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer year round than nearby rural areas, according to the Envrionmental Protection Agency. This occurs as a result of cities having more cars emitting greenhouse gases, a higher density of people and the darkness of rooftops and streets that absorb and trap heat. For decades now, this phenomenon has been taking a toll. About 100 deaths per year
3 / News
are associated with urban heat in New York City, predominantly in communities of color or low income communities due to factors including lack of shade or no air conditioning, according to the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. But as the planet’s temperature continues to increase in the face of climate change, New York City is slowly starting to address environmental injustices like urban heat. A portion of the Forefront Fellowship was to cultivate policy and design recommendations for the city that could be implemented in one to two years. One recommendation Harrington and his team provided was getting the effects of urban heat out of the shadows in media. “It’s not talked about because it’s not very visible. You can see floods and earthquakes but you can’t really see heat,” Harrington said. “So one of our recommendations was to work on media perceptions of heat.” “It’s very low cost to hire a photographer and take photos during a heat wave of dangerous conditions or people that are vulnerable and the environments of people that are vulnerable to dying from heat,” he said. In a city like New York—where millions of people need electricity, are producing waste and use transportation—environmental justice communities surrounding the city bear the front of it’s consumption. Dr. Ana Baptista, Chair of Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management Program at the Milano School, spoke about what affected communities face. “New York City in particular is tied to the rest of the region, relying on communities outside the city to dispose of their waste, to provide energy, to even treat their sewage and deliver their goods. Without this regional infrastructure the city would not function,” Baptista said. “Environmental justice communities are often referred to as ‘sacrifice zones’ where society’s polluting infrastructure and practices of environmental racism have segregated residents and industry into concentrated pockets,” she said. “These places exist so that the rest of society can live a comfortable
distance from the consequences of their consumptive lifestyles.” Shedding more light on environmental injustice through media and policy could be a step in the right direction to end it. According to Baptista, society cannot achieve sustainability and equality without correcting injustices, like urban heat, that inhibit communities from flourishing.
“Awareness not just of environmental justice communities but the solutions that these communities are proposing is critical to achieving a more just and sustainable world,” Baptista said.
“Awareness not just of environmental justice communities but the solutions that these communities are proposing is critical to achieving a more just and sustainable world,” she said. The way Baptista sees it, New York City could be much more aggressive when it comes to laws that mandate pollution and waste. NYC has the potential to be a model for the world when rebuilding environmental justice communities and mitigating climate change. “Environmental justice communities have the lived experience of tackling multiple layers of inequality and implementing possible alternatives. The innovation and resilience of environmental justice communities provides useful insights to the rest of society about how to tackle the climate crisis,” Baptista said.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the U.S. Representative for New York’s 14th congressional district, which includes eastern parts of the Bronx and north-central Queens, two areas in New York City that notoriously experience environmental injustices. Along with Senator Kamala Harris (D-California), Ocasio-Cortez drafted the Climate Equity Act in June of this year. The act is the third proponent of the Green New Deal, a resolution proposal to phase out fossil fuels and create new jobs in the country’s transition to clean energy, ultimately decreasing the US’s hand in climate change. If brought into fruition, the Climate Equity Act will help rebuild communities affected by environmental injustice, ensuring they receive adequate attention from Congress looking forward.
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Does Latinx Mark the Spot for a Gender-neutral Spanish Language? by MIA FONTE and DANIELA GARCIA-ARCE Spanish is a gendered language. “The” is either masculine as “el,” or feminine as “la,” depending on the gender of the subject it precedes. When referring to a group of men and women, they are referred to as “ellos,” a masculine pronoun. The feminine pronoun “ellas” is used when referring to groups consisting only of women. There isn’t a gender neutral way to refer to food at the market or furniture at home, but the conversation surrounding people has started to open up. Used as a gender neutral way to describe non-binary people who are of Latin American descent, Latinx has grown popular in the Latin American LGBTQ+ community, amongst liberal youth and has even been used by advertisers. Despite growing support, debates linger as to whether or not the term can even function within traditionally gendered Spanish. Yara Simon, the managing editor at Remezcla, reported in 2018 that Latinx appeared on the internet in 2004. Since its debut, Latinx has been labeled as controversial for its lack of functionality. Pronounced as “lateen-ex,” the word is an English invention with no translation for it in Spanish— the language of the people it’s meant to identify. Simon reported that the need for a gender-neutral term has been disputed, “Some believe that Latino already effectively groups a large number of men and women with Latin American origins and that substituting the ‘o’ for the ‘x’ unnecessarily complicates the language.” Gender-neutral Spanish is a frequent topic of discussion amongst Latin American students within the New School community.
Illustration by Kurt Burger
5 / Arts & Culture
This in part to the large population of Latin American students, and the fact that the New School and its students advocate for a gender inclusive space.
I think that when people of older generations say ‘Latino’ or ‘Latina’ they don’t mean to be exclusive or hurtful, that’s just the way they speak.” Genesis Escoto, a third-year psychology major at Eugene Lang and first generation Salvadoran-American said, “I definitely think that the term Latinx is mainly used by younger generations and I think that when people of older generations say ‘Latino’ or ‘Latina’ they don’t mean to be exclusive or hurtful, that’s just the way they speak.” The flow of the word as part of the language is important to words being accepted and used, if not, the language alienates the people who are supposed to be represented. “In Spanish if you say Latinx, it’s not going to stick. People will ask what you mean, especially older people,” said Nicole Collazo, a third-year Journalism + Design student at Lang. Collazo is also a member of La Xente, the Latinx club at the New School. Being from Puerto Rico, Collazo defines Latinx as “a term of the diaspora.” Collazo said that back home people don’t use gender neutral terms, but in her circle of friends in New York, they use the term Latine to signify gender neutrality. Collazo said that five
years ago, people would write Latin@ as an alternative. Rather than x or @, the change of the ending to an e has grown in popularity. Escoto described a friend of hers whose preference changed from Latinx to Latine. “He feels like the x is very negative,” said Escoto. This was done not only to make it easier for his Spanish-speaking family, but also because Escoto’s friend feels that an x is “inclusive but exclusive.” Collazo said that this is commonly thought of as a first or second generation Latino American way of speaking. “Older people say that it hasn’t been accepted by RAE, the Spanish dictionary, so we can’t use it.” Royal Spanish Academy, or RAE, is Spain’s official royal institution whose main mission is to “ensure that the changes experienced by the Spanish language in its constant adaptation to the needs of its speakers do not break the essential unity that it maintains throughout the Hispanic sphere,” according to the RAE website. Tatiana Llaguno Nieves, a PhD student at the New School for Social Research, teaches the impact of Western culture on gender issues around the world. She is a professor of “Gender Beyond the West,” in the Global Studies program at Eugene Lang.
“Social change is not something that can be imposed. If ‘Latinx’ is a word that doesn’t resonate in all contexts, then some attention must be paid to why not.” “Social change is not something that can be imposed,” said Llaguno Nieves via email, “If ‘Latinx’ is a word that doesn’t resonate in all contexts, then some attention must be paid to why not.” With awareness of the controversy surrounding gender neutral terms, Llaguno Nieves said, “There are many examples around the world of how bringing certain (for us progressive) conceptual frameworks to contexts that do not share them is ultimately counterproductive.” Despite its aim of creating a more inclusive Spanish language, the use of x has been considered as exclusive by some speakers. “Recently, there has been a lot of talk about it being non-inclusive right now because the x ending is not inclusive to Indigenous Latine languages.” said Frank Martinez, a fourth-year dance major and first generation MexicanAmerican. In creating a word that claims to be innovative and new, it also disregards a form of language that exists in Indigenous communities and contributes to the exclusivity. “I know that in some parts of Peru, their Spanish includes x at the end for some words, so Latinx is not
including and representative as a form of identity to these people and regions,” said Martinez. “Social change, if it wants to be successful, must be always envisioned from within the practices of a specific context,” said Llaguno Nieves. Llaguno Nieves cited Joseph Massad’s book “Desiring Arabs.” Massad, an academic focused on modern Arab politics, published the book in 2007. “Desiring Arabs” covers in part how campaigns for LGBTQ rights in Egypt were received negatively by Egyptians. According to Llaguno Nieves, the campaigns were received negatively because they “presented sexuality in terms of identity and not in terms of practices.” “One has to be careful at those moments, understand the complexities of each context, and avoid a mere transference from the West to the rest.” said Llaguno Nieves Whether the Latin American community agrees on “Latinx” or not, the discussion it raises leads those with cisgender privilege to question their understanding of gender and language. Regarding the changing of language to fit society’s needs, Llaguno Nieves cited Ludwig Wittgenstein, an Austrian philosopher, who said that “the limits of my language are the limits of my world.”
Periods, Panels, and Poetry: Debunking Menstruation Myths at NSSR by GEORGIA DODD and SOPHIE LEE Elena Petrovska, an NSSR Psychology grad student, aimed to destigmatize menstruation by writing poems about periods within her 2018 book, On My Period: Poems. Petrovska explored the contents of her book along with her collaborators on Sept. 28 with the event, “Periods, Panels & Poetry.” It featured several panels, poetry readings, an open mic, and debunked many menstrual myths from 1 to 8 p.m in the Wolf Conference Room in the Albert and Vera Academic Center on E. 16th St. “I decided to write poetry on my period for nine months. So instead of having a baby, I made a book all by myself,” Petrovska said to the audience. At approximately 1:30 p.m., Loryn Hatch, one of the panelists, introduced herself with an ironic remark. “I was hoping I’d be on my period, but I’m about five months late,” said Hatch, as she jokingly referred to her pregnancy. During her segment, Hatch
Poster illustration courtesy of Erin Lee Carmen discussed the historical opinions of periods and menstruation through a psychoanalytic lens. Another panelist, Rose Rejouis, professor of Literary Studies at Lang, was intrigued by the idea of creation myths, menstruation and giving birth within literature. Rejouis noticed a correlation between different mythologies and religions. Masculine figures were considered the creators of the world, despite the feminine association with birth. When asked what impact this event might have on people, Rejouis said, “I think it’s radical and a very thoughtful feminist project.” Erin Carman, who is finishing her BFA in Integrated Design and beginning her MA in Strategic Design at Parsons, was the main designer of Petrovska’s book and the program cover. She also designed the buttons and keychains for attendees and earrings for the panelists. The design depicts the profile of a person that doubles as a drop of blood.
“I think there’s still such a taboo around the world. You’re not even allowed to openly talk about it. It’s very talked around,” said Carman. “It’s like those commercials on TV for pads where you’re pouring blue clear liquid onto it to insinuate. It’s just very strange.” “I think there’s still such a taboo around the world. You’re not even allowed to openly talk about it. It’s very talked around,” said Carman about menstruation in the media. “It’s like those commercials on T.V. for pads where you’re pouring blue, clear liquid onto it to insinuate. It’s just very strange.” Carman spoke about the importance of an event like this. “I like that it’s being talked about very openly and directly from a number
of different perspectives and I hope that happens more.” At around 3 p.m., there was a panel discussion featuring Jamieson Webster, a faculty member of the Schools of Public Engagement, Patricia Gherovici, psychoanalyst and a speaker for NSSR Psychology, and Emma Lieber, a faculty member at Lang. The panelists were once Petrovska’s professors during her time at Lang and NSSR. The final panelists, Vanessa Place, criminal appellate attorney and writer, and Chiara Bottici, associate professor of philosophy at NSSR, performed the “Menstrual Rosary,” referencing the Virgin Mary. The performance paid homage to Petrovka’s book and critiqued ads for menstruation products. Petrovska concluded the event by reciting several period-themed poems from her book. Petrovska talked about how periods are used to disregard people’s feelings, how people who get a period are overly emotional. “It invalidates people’s opinions of menstruators,” Petrovska said. As the evening ended and the reception began, more people arrived. The table served white wine and red velvet cake. Petrovska pointed out that although her book is about menstruation and her own experiences, she was not writing to a specific audience. “I wrote it for people who have had similar experiences — and even those who haven’t,” Petrovska said. “People who don’t have their period read the book– it’s an educating thing,” she said. “I was hoping to spark conversation, like what we had at the end, and I was hoping to have a place where people can openly and liberally say, ‘I’m on my period,’” Petrovska said.
Arts & Culture / 6
Work to be Done: Four First-Gen Student’s Responses to 100 Year-Old Values
by LAUREN HOFFMAN The New School Centennial has been promoted throughout campus and New York City since January: from marketing in the Union Square subway station to the week-long Festival of New. A focus of the Centennial is the New School’s adherence to its core values, set during the first decades of its founding. These values include academic freedom, tolerance, and experimentation, as stated in the current New School mission statement. But there are some students who do not feel these values are being thoroughly upheld. In June 2019, the university surveyed its student body, faculty and staff with the University Climate Assessment to get a sense of the campus climate. It found
that “while the demographic diversity of The New School, primarily in its student profile, is a source of pride, promotion, and learning, too many students feel unattended to, marginalized, and emotionally exhausted by the struggle to make The New School more equitable and inclusive. This was especially expressed by those from underrepresented US racial groups and lower income students.” The following four students identify as first-generation, low-income, and believe the New School could do a better job at upholding these values. Interviews have been condensed and edited.
Photo by Lauren Hoffman
Emerald Dorcelly, 18 Emerald Dorcelly is a freshman, new to Eugene Lang. She’s interested in fashion journalism, and wants to explore religion more. Right now she’s an agnostic, but she’s leaning towards Judaism. She works at Joe and the Juice on Spring Street, and wears a necklace from a K-Pop band. Emerald is also a member of the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP). She moved here from Haiti when she was 10.
“I don’t know what schools could do, but doing something to say ‘Hey, we know you go to our school and we care about you.’ That’s really not that much to ask.”
Photo courtesy of Emerald Dorcelly
7 / 100 Years
Dorcelly: In my two months of being here I haven’t really found a community or felt a community, other than maybe the people in the POC room. But if you want a community, you really have to just do it yourself, they don’t really try to do anything for you. HEOP has
helped me in a lot of ways, such as they gave me a MetroCard to be able to travel, money to eat, they help with dorming, but not this year so much. We even had to do like a summer program where we got familiar with the classes and how things work and so we got regular assignments and stuff just to see how the classroom would be, and I was a little bit more prepared. And even with that month of training, I’m still not fully incorporated into the New School. I’m disappointed, but I’ve met a couple cool people. I honestly think a lot of their marketing is really just to get attention, to get people to come to the school, because once you’re at the school you’re already paying tuition. I really don’t think they’re what they put themselves out to be. Honestly, I really feel like they fooled me. Alexander Wang is one of my favorite designers and one of the reasons I was pulled into the New School in the first place was like, just because of him [Here, she’s referring to the promotion of alumni that didn’t necessarily graduate from the New School.]. I have to be like, ‘Props to you guys’, though, because even if sometimes I do feel uncomfortable, no one ever says anything that I feel like I have to speak up for [in the classroom].
Yailenne Escobar, 19 Yailenne Escobar wants to start a nonprofit. She has a five year plan and a blog in the works, and she plans to start a podcast as well. She wears at least eight pieces of jewelry that have a story or meaning behind them. She is a sophomore at Lang and wants to declare her major in either Urban Studies or Sociology, with a minor in either Gender or Race and Ethnicity Studies. Her parents are from Colombia.
“That’s just the way it goes though. If you want to be heard, sometimes you have to go out of your character. And that sucks.” Escobar: I was very intrigued to see how much they showed that they had a lot of connections [for the Centennial]. [The Festival] was cool because you could attend these things and probably make connections. But really, what
Andrew Orellana, 19 Andrew Orellana is a second-year Journalism and Design student. He wants to focus his studies on documentary journalism, and film. He is a Gural Scholar. Andrew is Salvadorian-American. Orellana: I feel like a lot of the time they promote isolation. I think that that’s seen in the students as well, like they go to school and then they just go home. I think in some instances their community isn’t grown out of the institution. These spaces weren’t being promoted as much, like the students of color space, I didn’t know about that until my second semester of being a freshman. I just feel like it’s a little bit difficult that you have to find these spaces where there’s a community. And if we’re going into classrooms, a lot of the classrooms are predominantly white students, and its
predominantly white female students. And at times it’s really hard adjusting as a person of color, because most of us aren’t used to these environments. I’ve definitely had to find these roads to resources, definitely. I really wish the New School did promote more about these things. Okay, the New School’s 100 years old, great. But I mean there’s still a lot of work to be done. It’s so funny that the New School is 100 years old, but the students of color lounge is barely like two, three years old. I do agree with the academic freedom: I really appreciate that our school doesn’t have gen-eds. We can take classes that are geared towards our major from the get-go.
“It’s really sad that the student has to take the responsibility on themselves to find a community they can fit in.”
Kevin Alatorre, 20 Kevin Alatorre works two jobs. He’s a Communication Design major at Parsons and an RA at 92Y. He and his friends created a New School astrology chart in their free time; he says he is a Parsons Sun but a Lang Moon. He is Mexican-American.
“Students try to be who they want them to be. They try to be the best and the boldest.”
Photo courtesy of Kevin Alatorre
were the opportunities that they’ve offered me? There really hasn’t been any. It’s me who goes out of my way to find opportunities. There are definitely people within the school that care about us, I know that’s very true. Honestly most of the professors I’ve had are very informed about how this institution works, and it’s even against them in some ways right? [Here, she’s referring to the ways in which these institutional issues can also affect faculty of color, or first-gen faculty.] So there are those people, but those people are a small number of the entire New School. For example, the Latinx group La Xente only two or three years ago got approved as a club. And you think that that’s all supposed to be thought of, if you’re wanting a diverse student body you should already implement that in your institution. Why is it that the students have to do that for themselves? Like yes, okay, we’re here, but you’re not going to do anything for us. There’s not really any sort of hope. You have to create your own shit so that you can be a part of something.
Alatorre: I came with only my sister, she drove me all the way here. I went in and knew nothing. The whole orientation week was anxiety-driven. But the first-gen meeting was so welcoming. The groups help more [than TNS] and I think that’s a reaction to the New School.
Photo by Lauren Hoffman I think there’s a halfway point [for change]. If it were halfway, TNS and the students would have conversations of how to strengthen community and administrators would have to understand the students. It would validate the students that are here if we had what I like to call ‘organic diversity.’ They’re not reaching out to students to promote their work, they’re just flashing alumni at us. They’re trying to market it as the ‘new’ way to do things. Does it reflect the students? No. But it didn’t feel like they just had to check a box off. I’m taking the opportunities [TNS gives] for anyone, but there are microaggressions that I’ve felt. There was a girl in one of my classes who we were working together on a class project. She was at the printers and had to leave, and I remember her asking me to leave work early. I just remember crying in the office. I don’t think she realized that that was $30 I needed for the week.
100 Years / 8
100 Years on Paper A look at the New School’s history through course catalogs 1
1: (1919) The oldest catalog on record, from the year of The New School’s founding. 2: (1959) A Mannes catalog from 30 years before it joined The New School. 3: (1967) Old catalogs often paid homage to 66 W 12th Street’s iconic architecture. 4: (1999) Eugene Lang catalog from a period when The New School called itself “New School University”
2
by CLAIRE BOUDOUR All images courtesy of the New School Archives When our classes take place in a comfortably air-conditioned, LEED-certified building that’s only been around a few years, it can be difficult to feel connected to school history. What could we, AirPods-wearing, tech-savvy college students, possibly have in common with a stuffy group of academics from a century ago? Over the past one hundred years, students have come to the New School for countless reasons and from countless places. As our curriculum has shifted, changed, and grown throughout the decades, so too have campus diversity, community, and environment. Across decades and continents, however, the New School has kept one thing consistent. Whether by forming the University in Exile in 1933, offering the first college-level women’s history course in 1962, or this year having more international students than any other national university (accordinng to US News), our school has been on the forefront of modernity and innovation since its founding.
“We realized how incredibly valuable they were as a historical document, not only of the curriculum, but also because they provide a window into how the school wanted to talk about itself at any given time,” said Scheir. We are lucky enough to have access to this fascinating history, thanks to the New School Archives Digital Collections. The archives were established under the leadership of Wendy Scheir in 2012, then-director of Parsons’ Kellen Design Archives. In the years since, Scheir has worked tirelessly to document the history of the institution. One recent project of the archives has been to create a database
9 / 100 Years
the
i ï l annes College of ITI u s ¡c 1959 -1960 Preparatory and Intermediate Departments
3
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of vintage course catalogs, which the provost’s office has helped fund. “That project was one of the very first projects that we did as The New School Archives because we realized how incredibly valuable they were as a historical document, not only of the curriculum, but also because they provide a window into how the school wanted to talk about itself at any given time,” Scheir said. From the very first course catalog published in 1919, featuring only eight lecturers and seven courses, course catalogs offer us windows into different points in school history. Unlike the website we know and hate today, course catalogs were widely circulated and, surprisingly, widely read. “It was like the New York Review of Books. It was a thing that many, many, many people got, and people actually read through,” said Mark Larrimore, associate professor of Lang’s Religious Studies department and unofficial New School historian. Course catalogs were hundreds of pages long. Each college had their own, published at the beginning of either each year or each semester. This meant that the archival staff had to track down, organize, and scan thousands of sheets of paper.
“We didn’t have all of these catalogs in the archives. We had to go around tracking them down, asking different offices to donate or if we could borrow their copies of different catalogs,” said Scheir. “That took us maybe a couple of months, just to gather them together.” When these catalogs were still distributed around the city, nearly a third of their courses were never taught due to insufficient enrollment. This was intentional. Faculty whose classes didn’t run weren’t compensated, so the school could afford to offer as many classes as they wanted. In the early 1960s, this is exactly what happened to Gerda Lerner. In the fall of 1962, she offered a course titled “Great women in American history”. This was the first class of its kind at an American university, and Lerner has been celebrated in academic circles for its design since. However, not enough people were willing to pay $35, to take two hours out of their Friday evenings and learn about “the history of the women’s rights movement through a study of its remarkable women leaders.” Although Lerner was unsuccessful on her first attempt, she tried again, and the course successfully ran in 1963.
1989 Parsons catalog set on a circular “wheel” layout, mirrored with a mango cover for the catalog of the former Los Angeles satellite campus at Otis Art Institute.
“Another place wouldn’t have taken a chance on her in the first place, and after it was under-enrolled, they would’ve just given up,” said Larrimore. “Since it didn’t cost them anything, by virtue of the totally exploitative system they used, [the catalog] served as sort of an incubator.” All good things must come to an end, however, and the school eventually stopped mailing out course catalogs by the thousands. With a steep rise in technology making it possible, course selection and advertisement took on a new medium: the internet. “When we switched over from paper to online catalogs, the best argument was the ecological one. It was the right argument,” said Larrimore. A school so committed to sustainability simply couldn’t justify wasting so much paper when a computer can do the same job. Sadly, Larrimore says, the physical object wasn’t the only thing lost when this transition was made. “It’s sort of like how people never go to libraries anymore. All of those great books you find that were right next to the one you were looking for, you’re never going to find again,” he said. “I think the old catalogs worked that way a little bit, where you’d just stumble across something perfect.” Ten years ago it would’ve been almost impossible to find these hidden gems in old course catalogs, because they were stuffed on various bookshelves around campus collecting dust. After the New School Archives did the hard work of compiling and digitizing the hundreds of catalogs, they were suddenly accessible for anybody to learn from. “The amazing part about digitizing them is that it really changed the kind of research people could do, said Scheir. “Not only did it provide this access, provide this information, but because you can now search across hundreds of catalogs in seconds, you can do a kind of research that wasn’t even possible before.” The average class schedule this semester might not look much like that of a student 100 years ago, but while looking through all these course catalogs, no matter what it is you’re looking for, it becomes clear that our fundamental belief in a well-rounded education has not changed. It can be difficult to branch out, to consider taking a risk and signing up for something entirely unrelated to your major, but just remember that our school has a deep, rich history of students taking classes just a little bit outside the box. And not so long ago, classes that we take for granted now, like women’s and gender studies, might not have existed in the first place if people weren’t willing to step outside of their comfort zones and sign up for Gerda Lerner’s class. “If [your major] is something you’re really interested in, you’re going to have the rest of your life to work on it. And frankly, even if you take every single course in that field here, you’ll have to keep educating yourself after you leave,” said Larrimore. “There are some things you can’t learn elsewhere. Part of a wellrounded education is finding out what you can only learn, can only feel safe exploring, at college.”
100 Years / 10
Your Adderall Addiction is Making My Doctors Skeptical by SAMMI FISHER I was officially diagnosed with Inattentive Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder the summer after my freshman year of college. Although I was expecting the diagnosis, it felt good to have some answers for my troubles. I had just started therapy sessions over the phone with a counselor back home in Florida. I loved all my classes but it was so hard for me to focus. Short simple tasks didn’t get finished, emails were never sent, and I’d forget things easily. Completing homework took hours and hours was really hard, even if it wasn’t a long assignment. Many college students have started taking Adderall and other study drugs like Concerta to stay focused and efficient in schoolwork, but many of these students have no medical problem focusing in the first place. They just want liquid speed. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) estimates that nearly 6.5 million Americans over the age of 12 have used methylphenidate, the medication commonly used to treat ADHD, for nonmedical uses in their lifetime. Another national study of 10,000 students found that approximately 7% had abused “study drugs,” although the percentage varied at different colleges. That’s an alarming amount of students. During my time in college, I’ve seen friends -- who definitely don’t need it -- purchase ADHD medication at a premium price. I’ve seen people crush the little blue pills and snort them so that they “get in your system faster.”
They’re skeptical that I’m just another student looking to abuse the drug. It feels horrible trying to convince doctors that your medical needs are real. The problem with students buying Adderall for $5 a pill from a friend or a dealer is that it changes the perception of those who struggle with ADHD, especially from doctors and other medical professionals. If I go to a doctor regarding my ADHD, they are instantly skeptical. They’re skeptical that I’m just another student looking to abuse the drug. It feels horrible trying to convince doctors that your medical needs are real. I didn’t see a psychiatrist until I went back home to Florida for the summer. To officially diagnose someone with ADHD, they ask if certain symptoms have been there since childhood and boy, they absolutely have been. I always just thought it was just how I was. My mom would find six year old me staring at myself in the mirror 20 minutes after she told me to get dressed to get ready to go. I would
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Illustration by Olivia Heller leave cabinets open, and I had zero directional skills, just to name a few. I left that doctor’s appointment with a prescription for Concerta, but I quickly found that the side effects weren’t worth the increased focus. I couldn’t sleep, I was never hungry and I was experiencing the worst anxiety I had ever felt. It was the type of anxiety that makes it hard to cross the street. I stopped taking the drug, but soon learned that it wasn’t even possible for me to get new medications while I was attending college in Manhattan. Stimulants like Concerta and Adderall can’t be filled or prescribed by doctors across state lines. If I wanted to try a different medication I would have to go through the whole process of finding a psychiatrist in New York City. I just don’t have the time or the money for that process. So I went to Student Health Services at the New School. They were supposed to get back to me quickly with a recommendation for a psychiatrist that could help me, but months passed and I never heard from them. They were skeptical of my eligibility for “study drugs.” I tried finding other psychiatrists but the ones I talked to were booked months in advance. The ones who had openings charged hundreds of dollars for the first consultation.
This skepticism from doctors and these long procedures to get medication I need comes back to the sheer amount of people using them for a boost, not to simply even the playing field. College students pop one Adderall thinking that the pill will help them do better on their test, and they might not even have intentions to take another. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, that dopamine rush has them coming back for more. “No one means to get addicted. But there’s such a casual use of something like Adderall nowadays — because it’s seen as benign, or a help to becoming more productive. And in our culture, to be productive is kind of everything. There’s a tremendous pressure not just to do well but to excel,” said Jeanette Friedman, a social worker with a specialty in addiction, in a 2016 NY Times article. This pressure, clearly, has extended to valuing success over health and well being on college campuses. It’s hard enough to figure out the right medication for those of us who need it just to be functional. It’s even more frustrating when there are extra roadblocks because everyone wants those drugs, whether they need them or not. I hope that going forward, people will think twice about how their recreational drug use affects those who really need it.
The Problem With Unpaid Internships by SADIE ROSE My heart sank and my throat caught — I had just found out that the unpaid internship I did this summer was illegal. 27 long hours a week (which I actually negotiated down about a month in) doing social media marketing and writing articles to benefit a for-profit publication in New York City, and, monetarily speaking, I got zilch in return. In fact, I actually ended up losing money on this internship, due to my daily commute and other expenses that would not have existed had I not participated in this “experiential learning opportunity.” Though I am not critiquing the publication that I interned for, where I learned a lot, I couldn’t help but feel angry at the fact that it seemed I had been taken advantage of. This sort of experience is not uncommon amongst college students, but that does not make it okay. A practice that does not pay people for their time is completely unethical, illegal, inaccessible, and a clear-cut means of exploitation.
Gone are the days of the quintessential, wide-eyed trainee running around grabbing coffee. Interns nowadays do real work. The formal “internship” has been around since the late 1960s, but gone are the days of the quintessential, wide-eyed trainee running around grabbing coffee. Interns nowadays do real work. After all, paid or unpaid, the purpose of an internship is to give students industry experience. 58 percent of graduating
Illustration by Nico Chilla students reported having had one internship throughout their time in college, according to a 2017 fact sheet from Career Service. 43 percent of these internships were unpaid. Marisa Lo Bianco, Senior Director of Career Development and Experience, confirms that the New School is firmly against unpaid internships and believes that they are unethical. Lo Bianco heavily referenced Fact Sheet #71 by the U.S. Department of Labor, which states that if a student is actually an employee (based on certain criteria, which my situation happened to fall under), then it is against the law to not offer some sort of compensation. An unpaid internship is, for the most part, closed off to anyone who needs to actually be making money. This means that most students doing unpaid internships are well-off enough to afford them, canceling out a whole section of people that fall below a certain socioeconomic status, and contribute to the systematic discrimination of minorities, making unpaid internships an inequitable practice. And let’s not forget- college is expensive and, naturally, many students are in debt. More than half of college students in the US took on debt in 2018, according to the Federal Reserve. That’s a whole lot of college students. So what can we, as students, teachers, and employers do to make a change within this dysfunctional system? For students, I would like to stress the importance of doing your own research (as I did not) about what you are entitled to and making your decisions based on that knowledge. As teachers, I would like to emphasize the importance of teaching salary negotiation skills to students, especially students of color,
women, and other minority groups, so that the practice of the unpaid internship will slowly dissipate. The American Association of University Women, a non-profit organization that leads salary negotiation workshops for women and girls, will be coming to the New School three times this semester. (All further details can be found on HireNew.com).
I would like to stress the importance of doing your own research about what you are entitled to and making your decisions based on that knowledge. For employers, I would urge you to remember the reason that you are doing this. You want to train and inspire a young new workforce — dewy and full of bright ideas, remember? Is offering unpaid internships really the way to achieve this? In a few weeks, millions of laptops will get fired up, resumes will get edited, and notifications will be set for job alerts from indeed.com and others like it. Spring internship season will be upon us, college students. Please be conscientious about what you, as an undergraduate, chose to put your effort toward. Do not overlook the fact that you are the future — soon, it will be up to you to pump new life, substantiated by unique ideas and pointed insight, into the veins of whatever field you choose to pursue. I encourage you to ask questions and reach out for help about how to get the most for your work.
Opinion / 12
Make your Ballot Count: Vote Yes for Ranked Choice Voting this November by CAROLINE CAO Say you voted for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson,in the 2016 presidential election. Maybe you really liked them best for their ideas and their platform, or maybe you just couldn’t stand Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Say you lived in Florida, or Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin, where your vote has mattered much more than in other states in recent years. Voting for your favorite candidate in a democratic election is one of our fundamental rights as Americans, but a vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson in Florida in 2016 was essentially a wasted vote, because neither of them was ever in contention to win the electoral votes of any state. But what if there was a way to change that? What if there was a different system of counting ballots, that allowed voters to list their favorite candidates in order of preference, so a vote for a third-party candidate can be recycled and can actually count. Here’s how.
Ranked-choice voting, also known as Instant Runoff Voting, is the process where voters can rank their preferences rather than vote for their firstchoice candidate only. Ranked-choice voting, also known as Instant Runoff Voting, is the process where voters can rank their preferences rather than vote for their first-choice candidate only. I have fought and will continue to fight for ranked-choice voting in NYC for two reasons: agency and variety. Ranked-choice increases the chances of your vote counting toward the winner, even if the candidate isn’t your first choice. How does the ranked-choice tallying work?
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Illustration by Sophie Lee Once the initial first-choices are counted, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Any votes cast for the eliminated candidate would be re-allocated to a voter’s second choice candidate, then third, then fourth, and so on. If there isn’t a majority, votes will be allocated to candidates until one reaches a majority threshold and declared the winner. If your first choice doesn’t win, your second or third choice could be counted and have a shot. I am disgruntled by attacks on voting rights, from the voter purges in Ohio, Florida poll taxing ex-felons, Texas’s closure of polling sites and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocking the For the People Act of 2019 election reform bill. When I moved to New York City to study for my Creative Writing MFA at the New School, I involved myself in voting rights movements, such as the nonpartisan League of Women Voters - NYC Chapter and Common Cause New York. I sought to improve the election system and voting literacy for a more satisfactory democracy. If New Yorkers vote “Yes” on Question 1 this year, ranked-choice voting will be implemented in 2021 for primary and special elections in NYC for Mayor, Comptroller, Public Advocate, Borough President and City Council. Voters would be able to rank up to five candidates. Ranked-choice is already used in the state of Maine, as well as in municipalities like Berkeley, CA, Minneapolis, MN and Santa Fe, NM. The ranked choice movement has seen milestones recently. Maine, in particular, is set to become the first state to use it in a presidential primary. Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland recently sponsored the Ranked Choice Voting Act (HR 4464), which
would require states to adopt ranked choice to pick Congress members beginning in 2022. With its instant runoff feature, ranked choice avoids the expense of runoff elections. For example, Alabama had a $3 million 2014 statewide runoff election with low voter turnout. Had Alabama used ranked choice voting, it would have saved those millions and spared its citizens from disrupting their work schedule and traveling to the polls. America runs on a two-party “Democrat vs Republican” system where it is difficult for a third-party candidate to win the office. If I end up preferring a third-party candidate, rankedchoice could increase my confidence in voting for a third-party candidate as my first choice —while I also select backup candidates down the rankings.
Ranked choice means a democracy with more choice and better outcomes for a majority of voters. And if you’re still attached to the pickone system, ranked choice still allows you to pick only your number one. But if you’re not evaluating and choosing your backup candidate on a ranked choice ballot, you might miss out on allowing another potential top choice a win. You may not see your first choice win the office but you might take consolidation with your backup choices. That’s better than taking the risk that your least favorite candidate wins your state. Overall, ranked choice means a democracy with more choice and better outcomes for a majority of voters.
Hit Me Baby One More Time: The Return of Y2K Fashion by INDIA ROBY and GIO OSTERMAN Illustrations by Olivia Heller Hilary Duff did something that didn’t even exist when she first butterfly-clipped her way into our lives—she broke the internet. On Aug. 23, the now-31-year old actress announced via Instagram that Lizzie Mcguire, the cult classic show that ran from 2001-2004 on Disney Channel, is returning to screens. Lizzie’s outfit repeating isn’t the only 2000s relic getting a reboot. Bedazzled tops, candycolored barrettes, and increasingly chunky sneakers are making their way through Instagram feeds and New School classrooms alike. Even the seemingly eternal mom jean is being ditched, inch by inch, in favor of vintage hip-huggers. We got New School students’ take on every element of the growing Y2K trend, from go-to shopping spots to style inspiration. Taira Rice, an illustration major at Parsons, didn’t hesitate to name eBay as the fuel behind her Y2K wardrobe. Her effortlessly cool, quintessentially 2000s outfit combined a transparent PVC tote bag, orange halter polo top, and low-rise jeans flared over vintage Air Force Ones. Rice cites her New York City upbringing as a source of inspiration. “I’m from Harlem and to be honest, people sleep on Harlem all the time,” she said. “I’m heavily inspired by rappers and artists from that area.” As a 2000s baby and seasoned New York native, Rice has the right idea. Many of the 2000s’ biggest hip hop stars hailed from the Big Apple and brought their era-defining style with them. Artists like Jay-Z, 50 Cent, and Cam’ron popularized the velour suits, oversized tees, and classic sneakers that are still heavily worn today. For Sharnice Knox, a first-year student at Parsons, the best Y2K inspiration can be found within her iPhone. “I derive my inspiration from lots of streetwear,” she said. “My go-to
places are definitely thrift stores like L Train Vintage, Goodwill, and Beacon’s Closet.” Knox named streetwear stylist Ian Connor and influencers Aleali May (@alealimay) and Alani Figueroa (@wuzg00d) as her style icons. As Y2K motifs trickle into streetwear, and onto the digital heavyweights that represent it, it’s increasingly easy for followers like Knox to draw inspiration and emulate modern twists on anything from trucker hats to tracksuits. Karissa Rowe, a third-year Culture and Media student at Lang, blends the media of today and yesteryear to curate her wardrobe. “I get my inspiration from street style,” she said. “I go on Tumblr so much, and I archive a lot of pictures from the past. I also use Instagram and magazines.” While decade-centric trends come and go as fashion fluctuates, the iconic silhouettes of the early aughts resonate differently with students who lived through them in the first place. For the first time, gen-Z students are witnessing the recurrence of trends that they helped establish. The college students of today were the catalogflipping, Limited Too-shopping, Lizzie McGuire-watching, unintentional trendsetters of the 2000s. “We grew up in the 2000s era and looked up to people who dressed like this, and probably dressed like this ourselves and didn’t even notice,” Rice said. “Since we weren’t old enough to fully immerse ourselves in that world, we’re doing it now in our own way.”
Fashion / 14
Presidents (left to right, top to bottom): Alvin Johnson 1922-1945 Bryn Hovde 1945-1950 Hans Simons 1950-1960 Henry David 1961-1963 John Everett 1965-1982 Jonathan Fanton 1982-1999 Bob Kerrey 2000-2011 David Van Zandt 2011-2019 Dwight McBride 2020-
Cover by Nico Chilla