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North Korean Defector Yeonmi Park gives talk on her experiences
Volume 120, Issue 20
April 27, 2022
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Associate Head Basketball Coach Matt McKillop details offseason updates
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Queer Corner: Chelsea Manning Coming to Campus
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The Yowl Investigates Students’ Many Summer Storage Options
Carol Quillen Gives Closing Remarks
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The President Reflects on Eleven Years of College Leadership SAMANTHA EWING‘23 (SHE/HER) FEATURES EDITOR This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Samantha Ewing (SE): What has been your favorite Davidson memory as President? President Carol Quillen (CQ): That’s a really hard question. I don’t know that I have a favorite Davidson memory. Davidson attracts students and faculty who have all different kinds of interests, so it’s a really broadly diverse group of people. The activities that I’ve been able to participate in have been widely varied, so I can point to many great memories… It’s hard to pick just one thing. When I think about Davidson, I think about the sense of community that this place has… and I know a lot of us feel like “Davidson wasn’t built for me.” Well, Davidson wasn’t built for me either. So when I think about it, I think about the ways in which this community has created options and possibilities for all of us to feel a sense of belonging. And so I guess my archetypical Davidson memories are places where people have done that for me– you know, really tried to say “this is a place for you.” Whether it’s the lacrosse team’s Quillen Day this year, or whether it’s when we have Valentine’s Day or students sending anonymous gifts to me. I’ve gotten a number of really wonderfully kind and generous, often anonymous notes from students just talking about their Davidson experience, which means a lot to me. So I would say it’s probably the things that build community, because I think that’s really what distinguishes Davidson, a broadly diverse place where we really do try to build community recognizing that that’s challenging. It’s not easy to do.
SE: Do you have an accomplishment at Davidson that you are most proud of?
CQ: I don’t think anything that’s happened here during the time that I’ve served as president has been my accomplishment. I think Davidson is a place that attracts and cultivates leaders. Leading or serving in this role often means following. So to me, leadership is a team sport; leadership is working hard in a community to create a context where that community can make the changes that it wants or needs to make. Just like everyone else here, we’re trying to create that context where we can make the changes that we want or need to make: listening to other people’s great ideas, elevating those great ideas, following in the lead of students who have amazing ideas. So when I think about the things that have happened since I’ve been here, whether it’s the construction of the Wall Center, the Hurt Hub, Africana Studies, and other new curricular programs, SIAD [Student Initiative for Academic Diversity], all of these things that have happened while I’ve been here have been led by other people, and have been ideas of other people. I would say maybe over the past decade, we’ve all learned to be a little bit less afraid of what we might lose, and we’re willing to aspire to what we might do together. And that has been a community effort and a group project. SE: What do you hope to see improve at Davidson in the future? CQ: Like the country we inhabit, we have a long way to go to build a genuinely inclusive environment, and I hope that we remain committed to that as a community, and listen to people who have that direct experience that can help us build that environment and understand what that means.
Carol Quillen Headshot in front of Library. Photo by Christopher Record. Second, our community really needs thoughtful leadership. I hope that Davidson continues to cultivate humane instincts, and
discipline and creative minds so that our students can offer their communities the kind of leadership that we really need and that we
Dayglow to Headline First Spring Concert in Three Years KEVIN XAVIER GARCIA-GALINDO ‘24 (HE/HIM) STAFF WRITER
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t’s been two years since Davidson’s last time-honored tradition of the Spring Concert. This year, it promises to be a bit different than most seniors remember. For one, the concert does not coincide with Spring Frolics, but it will be expanded to include activities, gift giveaways, and food trucks for students to enjoy before the event. Union Board is still sorting out the final details, so more information will ensue from their communications team in this upcoming week. They have revealed that the concert will take place outside on the Old Tennis Court Lawn, in a similar format to Fall Fling. The headlining act will be Dayglow, alongside an opener that is yet to be announced. The process for choosing the headline artist began during the fall semester when Union Board’s concert committee created a campus wide survey to gauge which genres and artists
ranked highest among students. Olivia Howard ‘24, chair of the concert committee, said that, from the survey, the committee found that “most of the campus wanted an alternative/ indie artist or an artist under the rap/hip-hop genre.” The committee then went on to look at a variety of artists that ranked favorably based on this genre and reached out for quotes and availability. Because Dayglow ranked high on the student survey and fit nicely into the concert committee’s budget, the committee and Union Board agreed on him. With the help of an agent, Howard was able to negotiate with Dayglow’s team to quickly solidify a contract. Even though the committee had the help of an agent to negotiate potential contracts with artists, one of the main challenges they faced was deciding the proportion of annual budget to spend on the concert. “Since the concert committee budget is split between three different events, Fall Fling, Winterfest, and Spring Concert, we
had to account for the money we spent during Fall Fling. Furthermore, artist and tech costs made the process more expensive than we anticipated,” Howards said. On a positive note, Union Board was able to use money set aside for the canceled Winterfest to expand the Spring Concert experience to include extra activities. For most students, the Spring Concert experience is closely tied to Frolics, but the Spring Concert has actually only coincided with Frolics twice in recent history. This year, the concert committee decided that it would make more sense to divide the events to give the students a last hurrah at the end of the semester before finals. Furthermore, the committee wanted to be certain that COVID would not be an issue for the concert. “We considered COVID throughout the whole process and, before mask mandates were lifted, decided that an outside venue would be the best option,” said Howard. With the event being outside and contained in one area, Howard said that she does not
expect COVID to be a problem at all for this event. The concert will be free for every student, and every student is permitted to bring one guest. The concert will be set up similar to usual outdoor concerts, meaning that there will be a stage, a barricade for safety, and no seating area. The space will be big enough for students to spread out or gather around the stage on a first come basis. “Students should be excited about a chance to de-stress before finals week,” said Howard. “Dayglow and the opener fit into different genres, so I am hoping everyone will be able to enjoy the music and overall experience. There will be a lot of food, glow-in-the-dark items, and more. My committee and I put a lot of effort into ensuring that this day will be one to remember for everyone. I like to pretend that the Spring Concert is going to be a less expensive Coachella in Davidson. I hope everyone on campus comes out to listen to the amazing artists and just vibe as a whole group before ending the 2021-22 school year.”
News
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Davidson Reckons With Its History, One Building at a Time MIA RIFFLE ‘24 (SHE/HERS) NEWS WRITER
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n April 13, the Special Committee on Acknowledgement and Naming consisting of alumni, faculty, and staff announced that the Board of Trustees had approved their new proposed naming policy. It addresses reforms regarding the naming approval process, the duration of naming, removal of names, renaming, other honorific designations, and portraits. The section on name removal is applicable in cases where “a name designation would impair the college’s ability to live out its Statement of Purpose (mission statement) fully and faithfully or would violate the college’s foundational values.” For any campus building to be renamed, the Board of Trustees and the college President must approve the process. The college created the Commission on Race and Slavery in 2017 but waited to release their report in 2020. The report addressed both the students who support changing the name of Chambers and the students who do not want to gloss over the college’s history around slavery and racism. Students fear that removing the name would be to erase the racist past of the college. The Commission supports the changing of the name, but deliberately as part of a broader conversation on campus, with a note that historical markers should be placed around campus so as not to erase its history. “I don’t like the idea of erasing something we are not proud of so we can pretend it did not happen,” said Michaela Gibbons ‘22. “I am open to the idea of changing the name of the building, but with some public acknowledgement, maybe a plaque, for future generations to see the history of the name.” Elias Henderson ‘24 learned more about the renaming controversy in his Humanities class where he read the Commission on Race and Slavery report. He supports the renaming of Chambers but believes there are more important issues on campus. “I think renaming it is a good idea, but it is also distracting from issues that affect black students on campus right now,” Henderson said. “The underfunding of student health centers, removal of Dining Dollars, the underfunding of cultural studies departments, [all of these] are more salient to black and
brown students on campus than the name of a building.” This recent announcement is not the first time Davidson has engaged in conversation about the names of campus buildings. In 2018, Tian Yi ‘18 and Sarah HD Mellin ‘20 created “Davidson Disorientation,” a virtual tour of Davidson College that provides history of sites on campus and their background on slavery and racism. Their project addressed the historical aspects of Davidson that are absent from college tours while attempting to inform prospective and current students on how slavery was an integral fixture of Davidson’s founding. As the college community learned and continues to learn more about Davidson’s history, discussions around renaming campus buildings continue to circulate. Chambers Building has dominated this conversation, being one of the center-points of campus life both geographically and academically. Chambers was constructed in 1858, and was named after Maxwell Chambers. He was born in 1780 in Salisbury, NC. The building was more significant than just a classroom space— it brought Davidson acclaim. Enrollment was in the single digits, but Chambers, a grand building with huge white columns, brought stature to the small college as enrollment doubled shortly after it was built. It was an all-purpose building. Chambers housed dorm rooms, classrooms, laboratories, and commencement hall. It quickly became the center of campus life and the most important building on campus. Chambers owned enslaved people. He prospered because of the slave trade, used enslaved labor in the cotton industry, and likely made most of his money via slave labor. Most sources directly attribute Chambers’ mass of wealth to slavery, describing how he had family in the business of the slave trade and prominent success in the cotton industry. Additionally, it is thought that Chambers used his brother as a front man in the slave trade, in order to preserve his own reputation. Using some of his wealth, Chambers donated for the construction of a new building on campus, which would come to be named after him. Some of the bricks used to build Chambers were made on local plantations, and some speculate that labor to construct
Chambers Building faces possibility of renaming. Photo by Bailey Maierson ‘25 the building may have been performed by enslaved people. While working in the Davidson archives as an intern, Gibbons found that Maxwell Chambers had at least 66 enslaved people in his possession and released 18 of them before his death and the rest after his death. Additionally, she found that Chambers was built “almost entirely [with] slave labor.” The original Chambers building burned in 1921, but most of the bricks and the columns were salvaged. Enoch Donaldson, a “college servant”, carried some of the salvaged bricks to Main Street to build the Zion AME Church and are still there today. Not all of the buildings on campus are named after large donors. The building now housing the Residence Life Office (RLO) and Lula Bells, was originally the laundry room when the College provided an on campus mandatory laundry service. From 1835 to 1920 the College would pay people, mostly Black women living in town, to pick up their laundry, wash it off campus, and then bring it back. Demand for this service grew, so the College created its own laundry service which employed many of the women that had previously done this job off-campus. This service continued and by the 1970s the women were handling around 13,000 to 14,000 pounds of laundry a week. When women were
allowed to enroll at Davidson, the laundry service became optional due to the women’s more “complex” clothing that the laundry service was unable to keep up with. “The practice of enslaved people doing laundry for white families comes from slavery, we haven’t come as far as we think we have,” Gibbons said. Lula Bell Houston was one of the many women who worked in the laundry service. According to Gibbons, “she was a descendent of the enslaved families that were brought to Davidson.” Houston was born in 1923 and worked at Davidson for 57 years. She retired for one day but returned to work the next day at her job as laundry employee and worked there for three more years. Davidson College was founded in 1837 and lived through the Confederacy in North Carolina. As the college comes to terms with its legacy of slavery and slave labor, questions of what to do about it and how to remember it without having glorifying and literally etching it in stone are still being grappled with, and will be for years to come. “It does a huge disservice to the community to rename something to pretend that we didn’t do anything wrong. It is important [not only] to acknowledge and reckon with what has been done but also [to] repair it,” Gibbons said.
President Quillen Renews Commitment to Davidson as Professor CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 don’t see very often in public life right now. If we’re going to sustain these institutions that have helped us continue to work towards the promise of a democratic republic, we’re going to need people to support that. These institutions are fragile. I look to Davidson to provide that kind of leadership as we work to, again, fulfill the promise of a genuinely egalitarian and free society. We have a ways to go in order to continue to build an inclusive environment here, cultivate leadership among our students, and focus our attention somewhat on the institutions that enable democratic life. SE: What are you hoping to do during sabbatical? CQ: I’m going to spend some time in Washington. I’m learning about educational policy and engaging with people who are interested in democratic institutions and then thinking about how we can rebuild the public sphere and foster more substantive and productive collective conversations about our future. And then I hope I can write a couple of things. I mean, I have some things I’d like to write. So those are the tentative plans so far. SE: What are you most looking forward to in your time as a professor in the future?
CQ: I really love being in a classroom. I learned a lot from students and I had such amazing teachers in my life that honestly opened up whole new worlds for me—things I had no idea even existed or ways of thinking that were completely different from what I was familiar with. I learned how to question things that I have taken for granted for a long time, and I find that feeling exhilarating. So learning for me is powerfully liberating. I turn to books when my own experience in the world is puzzling to me and I can’t make sense of it. It’s really important to me that our students and all young people are able to see education in that way—as a liberating thing, as something that is freeing. By studying stuff, you can acquire the tools you need to understand your own experience in the world and acquire the skills and talents that you need to make change when you think change needs to happen. So I look forward to being in a classroom experiencing that myself. Also, I hope to enable other students to experience the sense of liberation that education brought me. SE: Do you have any last thoughts or feelings you want to share with the Davidson community? CQ: My overwhelming feeling is one of enormous gratitude. You know, for a nerdy kid who was an introvert, I never imagined in my life that I would have an opportunity like
Carol Quillen Inauguration in 2011 Photo from Davidson College via Flickr this. And I have learned so much about myself and my shortcomings and about what it means to be in a community. I’ve had opportunities to work with amazingly talented people. I think my overwhelming sentiment is gratitude towards the people that have built Davidson, the people on whose shoulders we all stand and
the students, faculty, staff, alumni, trustees, community members that I’ve gotten to know over the past 10 years. So I guess my last word is just one big, enormous, wholehearted thank you.
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April 27, 2022
Yeonmi Park Shares Her Journey from North Korea to US
Left: Yeonmi Park speaking in the Lilly Gallery. Right: Park’s Memoir. Photos by Bailey Maierson ‘25
ERIN MARTIN ‘23 (SHE/HERS) NEWS WRITER
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eonmi Park, a North Korean defector who fled the country, was chosen to speak at Davidson and share her personal narrative about living in North Korea. She escaped when she was 13 years old in 2007 and is now an activist, advocating for those still under Kim Jong-Un’s dictatorship. Davidson College students heard her speak about her experience on Monday, April 18, 2022 in the Lilly Gallery. Park lived in North Korea until she was a teenager. She escaped to China and eventually South Korea, now sharing her long journey to a free life. After escaping North Korea, she trekked into China where Park was sold as a sex slave to various Chinese men. In 2009, she began her migration to South Korea. “When I was 15, I crossed the Gobi desert from China into Mongolia with only a compass. It was freezing, below -40 degrees,” Park described. After interrogation at different borders, she finally made it to South Korea, at last free. Park spoke to the audience about her life in North Korea before she escaped. From
the age of five, most children are expected to begin providing labor for the regime. “We would eat grasshoppers; I was eating them to survive as a child,” she said, “We were told not eating lunch is healthy.” Without electricity or the internet, there are few ways for people to document these human rights violations. Kelsey Chase ‘24 described her initial reaction to hearing about Park’s life in North Korea. “I was initially just shocked,” she stated. “I was really impacted by the level of resilience she had, it was so important for us to hear something that expanded our world view, most of us will never experience anything close to what she did.” Caree Henry ‘24 shared those sentiments. “I knew the situation in North Korea was bad, but it made me understand it a lot more after hearing it from her. It made me look at things from a different perspective. I can’t even wrap my head around the whole situation,” he stated. Chase concurred. “It was so surprising to hear that they didn’t have a word for friend, and the only thing you’re allowed to love is the government itself.” This surprise came from something in
Crime Log
Time Reported
Description/Location
04/02/2022 at 2032 Vandalism/Larceny Misdemeanor (Letters) hrs Flowe, Inactive
04/09/2022 at 1430 Larceny Felony (Bicycle) Belk, Further Investigation hrs 04/10/2022 at at 1747 Extortion/Blackmail Knox, Inactive hrs 04/11/2022 at 1130 Larceny Misdemeanor (Bicycle) hrs Knox, Inactive
04/20/2022 at 2340 Possession of Alcohol Underage hrs Richardson, Dean Referral
04/24/2022 at 1409 Injury to Real Property Field Hockey Field, Inactive hrs
particular that Park shared with the audience: “In North Korea, love between humans is banned, the regime wanted us to love the dictators more than anything.” When asked about her transition from life in North Korea to a free life, Park explained her new interactions with privilege. “I never understood that having too much could be a problem. All of the dieting and losing weight, I just didn’t understand. My friends pay money to burn calories when under the same sky, there are people dying of starvation,” she said. “It was hard to comprehend such a different reality.” Virginia Heiser ‘24 was responsible for planning the event. She wanted someone with a unique story who was willing to come to the school in person to share their story and connect with the students. Heiser noted that there was a great event turnout of about 120 people in attendance, all eager to hear Park speak. “A lot of people were excited about hearing her story. So many people lined up to ask her personal questions and connect with her after the talk.” Park has now been living in the United States for seven years. The pandemic has forced her
The
to transform her activism and advocate for North Koreans through social media. “I want people to know what’s happening,” she stated. “I eventually learned that life could be living for your own nature.” “The fight isn’t over yet,” Park added. There are currently 300,000 girls right now in China living in slavery, and millions more under the control of the North Korean regime. She shared that most people in North Korea are not aware of alternative ways of life. “If you don’t know you’re a slave, how do you fight to be free?” she asked the audience. Chase stated that “humans have a tendency to be desensitized to this if, it’s not happening right in front of us, but Ms. Park showed us the level of atrocities that North Koreans are facing right now.” Members of the audience were shocked to hear the personal narrative of Park, some of which were being exposed to this information for the first time. “I wasn’t a free person until I was 15,” Park said. “It is our duty to fight for the people who are voiceless, so one day when we don’t have freedom, they will do the same for us.”
Davidsonian Editors-in-Chief News Editors Features Editor Senior Political Correspondent Perspectives Editor Arts and Culture Editor Sports Editor Living Davidson Editor Yowl Editors Photographer Web Editor Cartoonist Multimedia Editor Social Media Manager Business Manager Design Editors
Staff
Brigid McCarthy ‘25, Katie Stewart ‘23 Anika Banerjee ‘24, Georgia Hall ‘25 Samantha Ewing ‘23 Ian Macel ‘24, Bilal Razzak ‘25 David Sowinski ‘22 Campbell Walker ‘25 Andrew ElKadi ‘23, Varun Maheshwari ‘23 Nora Klein ‘24 Emma Begley-Collier ‘25, Josie Hovis ‘23 Bailey Maierson ‘25, Sydney Schertz ‘24 Ben Gordon-Sniffen ‘23 Richard Farrell ‘22 Bailey Maierson ‘25 Sahana Athreya ‘25, Hailey Tsuda ‘24 Landon Schabes ‘22 Isabelle Easter ‘25, Bailey Maierson ‘25
The Davidsonian is currently recruiting new writers to join its staff! Email Brigid McCarthy at brmccarthy@davidson.edu or Katie Stewart at kastewart@davidson.edu for more information on how to put your own pen to paper.
Perspectives
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Sorrow and Opportunity in the Midst of War MEGHAN LAGOUTINE ‘24 (SHE/HER)
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ven before I began attending Davidson, I had known that I would study Russian in college. After all, I had always been proud of my heritage, and I desired to become fluent in the language. While I am half-Korean and half-Russian, I have connected with my Russian heritage most. My mother, though born in South Korea, has little to no knowledge of Korean culture; she was adopted as a baby by a white family. My dad, however, born in St. Petersburg, Russia, came over to the United States when he was 18 in 1993, a few years after the fall of the Soviet Union. He married my mother in 2001 and they created a home for their four children in North Carolina. I grew up there eating borscht, shashlik, kotleti, buckwheat, and other Russian staples. My family and I would say “I love you” and “goodnight” in Russian to each other. I loved watching Russian cartoons and playing with the Russian dolls my father would bring back from his trips to see his mom. He would show us pictures of magnificent palaces and would bring back my favorite Russian chocolate. It wasn’t until I came to Davidson, however, that I realized how “Russian” my home truly was. My love for my family’s heritage developed past a mere pride in my unique childhood. As a Political Science and Russian Studies double major, the classes I have taken are more than for learning language, history, and politics—it is learning about my family’s language, history, and politics. Learning about Stalin’s purges in the late 1930s is learning about my family’s past—my great-great grandfather was arrested and shot by Stalin’s men in 1937. In class, viewing pictures of the Soviet army reminds me of my grandfather who served with the Soviet army. My favorite picture of my grandfather is where he is wearing his army uniform because you can clearly see the side-profile of his nose, which is the same shape as mine. Likewise, analyzing the
fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent economic fallout is more than economic theory in action.They are the stories my dad would share with me about the long lines and the empty stores that caused him to immigrate to America. Learning the language isn’t just a skill to be used in the future; it’s the same language half of my ancestors have spoken, the language of my past. It is my love for my family and my culture that made February 24th of this year even more heartbreaking. On that Thursday, Russia declared the start of a “special operation” in Ukraine, beginning a war in all but name. Since that day, thousands of Ukrainians and Russians have been killed, thousands of homes have been destroyed, and millions of refugees have fled Ukraine. Words cannot easily describe the destruction and sorrow. My fellow students in the Russian department agree that being a student of Russian in the midst of this war has been perplexing and upsetting. How does one reconcile with the experience of learning a language of those who are the aggressors in this current war? Even so, none of us have been dissuaded from continuing to learn the language but rather have found more opportunities and motivations to continue our studies. For example, some have found our knowledge of Russian to be helpful in understanding the current conflict and has given us the ability to share with others different insights. As Adriana Risi ‘25 explains, “Learning Russian at a sensitive time has allowed me to explore the language, culture, and history of Russia and current events. Being able to look at some of the war propaganda and being able to understand some of the language and history makes me feel connected to the war going on in [...] Ukraine now. Having the knowledge and the help from professors to understand the situation is a very interesting place to be, and I’m glad I can share my understanding and exposure to this with my family and friends.” Others have become more
motivated to continue t h e i r studies, knowing that learning Russian is necessary not only for our national security interests now but also for our future and possible careers. Though Russia is the aggressor and Russian is their language, it should be made clear that this war is not for and by Russians; it is for and by Putin. We cannot pretend that Russian soldiers are not complicit in carrying out Putin’s desires and we cannot ignore the war crimes that have taken place; however, it is important to be aware of the intense propaganda that is being used to convince ordinary Russians that it is not a war but rather “a special military operation” to “de-nazify” Ukraine. Russians who dare to protest the war can be sentenced up to fifteen years in prison. Let us not naively blame ordinary Russians for this war. I share with my fellow students and the faculty in the Russian Department the sorrow in watching these events unfold. However, it is more necessary than ever to continue studying Russian, and I urge more students to consider studying the language. I am still proud of my heritage and learning Russian will always connect me to my past. However, my Russian heritage is both my past and my future. And in the midst of war, learning Russian is certainly connected to our future. Whether or not Russian becomes an integral part of my career, what we learn and gain at Davidson informs our future and can be used to influence the present. And though I hold sorrow in the present, I am confident that continuing to study Russian will continue to bring opportunities to use the language for the good of our country and of the world. Meghan Lagoutine ‘24 (she/her) is a political science and Russian Studies double major from Hickory, NC. Meghan can be reached for comment at melagoutine@davidson.edu.
Laughing It All Away Jokes about the Personal, the Political, the Past, and the Future ROSS HICKMAN ‘22 (THEY/THEM) PERSPECTIVES EDITOR EMERITUS
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n 1974, Joni Mitchell recorded the song “People’s Parties,” a classic example of her sometimes jaunty, sometimes moaning repertoire. Some of those lines stick with me even in my most distracted moments of cynicism and righteous anger: “I wish I had more sense of humor / Keeping the sadness at bay / Throwing the lightness on these things / Laughing it all away / Laughing it all away / Laughing it all away.” I, too, wish I had more sense of humor. Lately, though, the ubiquity of jokes about matters of life, death, and love has left me cold. As anyone who knows me can attest, I love few things more than a biting bit of wit that leads to raucous cackling. That’s the stuff of joy. Humor can, however, land with a force more devastating than more straightforward, serious language. I remember the days when we queers and women and dissenters would tell jokes among one other—about our furies, our lusts, our fears. In the most recent years, I’ve noticed a distinct change in how people at Davidson talk about gender, sexuality, and their attendant ethical projects of feminism and queer justice. When I first got to Davidson, I readily perceived the crevices in our social landscape that would prove all too easy to fall into. My friends and I would joke about homophobia and sexism among ourselves, and we had a common enemy: the institutions that harbor predatorial and prejudiced people and the people who perpetuate them. The solution was as patently obvious then as it is now: we must remake our institutional commitments. With
new places to flock to, we thought, we might become new people, together. Now, I realize just how naïve such a hope was. Our principles at this school are just as flimsy as the historical artifice we call our heritage. I’m not as concerned here with principles changing from one thing to another, but, rather, how our social patterns and cultural knowledges can help us turn sincerity of belief into vacuous laughter. Within the last months, the number of jokes I’ve heard about gay people has far outnumbered the sum of spoken references to gay people who exist at this school. Often, these gay jokes contain a sense of a socially viable contract of reassurance that we’re all making fun of homophobia these days. Some straight people even go so far as to assume that talking about their queasiness at experiencing their parents’ homophobia allows them to toss the word “faggot” around as an object of shared disdain. Indeed, the most focused discussion of anything gay at Davidson this year has been the phenomenon of “Fagg Field,” the name announced for the new football field. Only when homosexuality became fit for a quip, a meme, and a halfhearted passing comment did people raise it to the level of serious discourse. The cutting moral scandals of loneliness, violence, and other intimate matters at Davidson manifestly cannot excite our consideration. I myself cash into this humor economy quite often. Recently, I’ve been tossing around the phrase “Fourth-Wave Feminism” to describe the lacksadaisical, libertarian approach we take to matters of safety, belonging, and identity on campus. Fourth-wave feminists, as I say, tell jokes among ourselves that our antagonists hear and recognize not as a threat but as a perennially abandoned figment. We all
laugh together now. When I look around at the social groups and institutions on campus, I see a collection of cowardly, mediocre, and violent people who inebriate each other through the mutual reassurance that this status quo is just “silly,” “normal,” and even “college” itself. Perhaps humanity is just as intellectually nonplussed as these folks. I think, instead, that we have all come to view flippancy as a way to mask or defer our weightier thoughts. We’re all coming off the worst of the pandemic, apparently hurdling into a global war, getting closer to our climate reckoning, and mostly flailing in our powerlessness and helplessness. Such a combination yields an unprecedented nihilism. Never before has the world had as much media as we do, and never before have the world’s people been more mediated with this information. In the face of this night sky of knowledge, we can only muster the strength to guess the jagged shapes of make-believe constellations, resembling our worst fears and deepest desires. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other fears contour these constellations. And so we get the parodic results: the conscious and facetious cosplay of freakishness through sordid jokes about gay sex, mockery of caricatures of Blackness, and the replacement of feminist thoughts with feminist punchlines. The oracles of ridicule are now our high priests. What once might have inspired laughter and joy now provokes ire and nausea. The threads of our empathetic connections to one another have receded into a vague fabric of desperation—for immediate comfort, for assured validation, for ephemeral pleasure. This desperation encourages us to fall back on our traditional, retrogressive, conservative
mores like marriage, gender-segregated institutions, and otherwise unimaginative and exclusive arrangements. At Davidson, I’ve seen this already traditional culture obtain even more entrenched legitimacy in the general chaos of the last years. White supremacist and heterosexist images have long dominated our campus’s ideations of contentment, but now, more than any moment in my time at Davidson, these images are conjoined with institutions that have ever more widespread appeal. I believe our collective humor-laden flippancy has fabricated this veneer of naturalness over the institutions that, in previous years, we have sought to denaturalize. Perhaps our cultural sense of humor will swing in other directions. Until then, we are faced with the reality that many people see questions of intimacy, violence, and belonging primarily as jokes rather than forces for immediate and lasting harm. Making matters of life, death, and love into merely jokes inevitably leaves us all feeling even more disconnected and nihilistic. In the face of nihilism, where our values slip away from their core meanings, we seek to make some light in this darkness. To invoke a perhaps crudely anachronistic religious metaphor, let us consider Thomas More’s keen observation about humor’s power against evil: “The devil… that proud spirit… cannot endure to be mocked.” Things capitulate, however, when the devil starts laughing with us. Ross Hickman ‘22 (they/them) is a history and gender & sexuality studies double major from Winston-Salem, NC. Ross can be reached for comment at rohickman@davidson.edu.
Sports
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Transfer Portal News, Lee’s Military Service Commitment, and More...
A Conversation with Associate Head Coach Matt McKillop
BRYCE KALSU ‘22 (HE/HIM) BASKETBALL CORRESPONDENT BK: Shifting to an already eventful offseason, and [in particular] the transfer portal and everything that comes with it. In this day and age, how important is it for you to continue selling the Davidson basketball brand, to not only recruits, but to players already in the program? MM: Well, this is new territory for everybody but it’s even newer for us. You know, obviously Foster [Loyer ‘24] was a transfer on our team, but for the most part, we’ve built our program on bringing in players like Luka Brajkovic [‘22], who got better and better and end up being [Atlantic 10] Player of the Year. That’s what we hang our hat on, that we can take pride in. The transfer portal is now a piece of the equation. That being said, we will never sacrifice a level of talent or a ranking that would ultimately put somebody on our roster who could disrupt the culture or wouldn’t fit into a role that maybe they may see. BK: Mentioning the developments going on around college basketball, can you speak on the changes within our program? I know that Chris Ford [‘25] has entered the transfer portal, the departure of Mike Jones [‘22] into the transfer portal, understanding he’s also a fifth-year senior. And lastly, the speculation of [Hyungjung] Lee [‘23] and his [future]. MM: I’ll speak candidly about it. But you know, I’d rather leave it to Lee to kind of make the announcement about what his decision is. The unique thing about Lee is that there is an obligation that he has to serve in the South Korean military by the age of 28. I’m not sure if you would have seen this with golfer Sungjae Im for him to get an exemption? For him to have gotten an exemption from the military obligation, he would have to win a major—not get a PGA tour card, not win a pro tournament—he had to win a major. Then there’s the soccer player Son, he won a gold medal through the Asia games, and I don’t know the exact rules. But what he’d done as a soccer player would not have gotten him exemption until he won that gold medal. If they didn’t win that gold medal, he would have lost [millions] because of the military obligation. So that being said, Lee is just wrestling with this because by age 26, he’s got to go into the military, because he has to complete this by age 28. So it’s really unique.
Associated Head Coach Matt McKillop ‘06 (left) chats with Head Coach Bob McKillop. Photo courtesy Tim Cowie, DavidsonPhotos.com I’ll kind of let him be, [because] that’s kind of a unique perspective that not everyone is even aware of […] When you’re weighing something that you can’t not weigh. You have to take advantage of what time you have and his time is going to be cut short. BK: What are the basketball program’s feelings towards players like Nelson BoachieYiadom [‘22] and Mike Jones, these guys who participated in the program for four years, but chose to pursue Graduate Student opportunities elsewhere? MM: If it’s something that can help their life, their future profession, [or even] help them get the most out of what they have left in terms of eligibility. I mean, we are obviously very much in favor and supportive of them. It’s a little stigmatizing in the fact that they’re a transfer, but they’re getting a degree from Davidson … so I know it’s not a result of them not having the experience that they hoped for when they came to Davidson. [And] certainly we will be following them as closely as we did Carter Collins, Kellan Grady, and Bates Jones
this year. BK: Since we talked last, Davidson has added two more prospects to the already upcoming class from the aforementioned transfer portal. One being Connor Kochera, the 2021 CAA Rookie of the Year from William & Mary, and the other a big man shooter from Buffalo, David Skogman. What is the recruiting process like for these guys who enter the transfer portal? MM: As far as the process goes, I would think we’re a lot different than many schools in terms of how we approached the transfer portal, if you will […] We don’t waste our time, looking at every kid that goes through. The ones we feel like make sense for us, are guys that we had identified in high school, or we had a familiarity with their high school program or their high school coach, and they had reached out on the kid’s behalf […] We already have a sense for the fit, you see some natural fits in the portal that got to the portal in one way or another, but they’re there. Then you have the ability to use it at your discretion.
BK: Speaking of the connectivity within the program, an unfortunate coaching development as Kevin Kuwik announced his departure to Butler University, can you speak on what he brought to the staff and how you plan to replace him? MM: Kevin was terrific in so many ways. He cared so much more about people than he did the outcomes of games. Kevin really brought a different voice and some different ideas. I think that in many ways helped us. This might have already been announced, but [10 year head coach at Elon University] Matt Matheny is joining our staff, and Matt is a Davidson guy, somebody who knows our program, knows what works at Davidson College. He’s a Davidson alum who played football and basketball as well as a former assistant. Kevin will obviously be very tough to replace, but I don’t know anybody out there that would replace him better than Matt Matheny.
In A Flash: Photos From This Year’s Track Season
Charlie Siebert ‘25. Photo courtesy of Davidson Athletics. Natalie Abernathy ‘23. Photo courtesy of Davidson Athletics. Aleia Gisolfi-McCready ‘25. Photo courtesy of Davidson Athletics.
Arts and Culture
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2022 Annual Student Art Exhibition A Mosaic of Student Life
ISABEL SMITH ’24 (SHE/HER) STAFF WRITER
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his year will be the first time the Van Every/Smith Galleries of Davidson’s Visual Arts Center will have a fully inperson reception for our Annual Student Art Exhibition since 2019, pre-pandemic. To commemorate, the gallery decided to print posters for the event with the printing press in Dr. Andrew Rippeon’s letterpress lab. Gallery interns Sarah Zhang ’23, Claire Begalla ’24, Molly Smith ’24, and myself worked with Dr. Rippeon, creating the background of the poster by arranging some “cuts” (the blocks with designs on them used in the printing process) that Dr. Rippeon has collected, including animals, plants, and instruments. We did multiple trial runs, and each color of ink required a different round through the press: neon yellow and magenta for the background and black for the text, which spelled out: ANNUAL STUDENT ART EXHIBITION ON VIEW APRIL 13th – MAY 5th AT THE VAC RECEPTION: APRIL 27th, 7 – 8:30 PM AWARDS, MUSIC, DINNER
With three runs through the press, we got acquainted with the methodical feeling of rolling paper through the machinery. The process of creating was almost reverent, and the posters turned out vivid and eye-catching: perfect for our student show. A few days after we printed the posters, we finished installing the show. 63 works created by 57 students adorn the Van Every Gallery, from paintings to books to videos to a sculpture hanging from the ceiling. Each art professor got to select about fifteen pieces from any of their Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 classes to put in the show, resulting in a collection of works from a range of class years: eighteen seniors, five juniors, twenty-eight sophomores, and six freshmen. Studio art majors/minors created twenty of the works in the show, and the rest belong to students from a plethora of departments: fifteen works from biology
students, six from computer science students, and some from math, philosophy, English, economics, and more. The interdisciplinary nature of the exhibition lends itself to a wide variety of methods and subject matter that blend into a refreshing hodgepodge of colors and ideas. Visitors walk into the gallery with awed expressions and ask me, “Did students really make all of this?” With over sixty works crammed into the space, the exhibition is an almost overwhelming frenzy that you can easily get lost in. However, when you step back, the works form an intricate, lively mosaic: a microcosm of the diversity of student life here on campus. One of the pieces in the show is a portrait of students gathered in the atrium of the Visual Arts Center by the Rodin sculpture. This painting by Molly Smith ’24, iconically titled “Roll VAC,” depicts masked figures with arms outstretched, reaching toward one another. Bright, spring colors and strong contrast give the painting a playful and youthful feel, despite COVID masks. To me, “Roll VAC” serves as a shrine to community and to platonic friendship and love between students. They lean on each other. They help each other. The feeling of this work is reflected in student interaction with the exhibition. Students come to show off their work to their friends. They vote for their favorite work for our audience choice award—writing the artist’s name with hearts dotting the i’s, folding up the slip of paper, and kissing it for good luck before placing it into the jar. Amelio Aragona ‘25 has two works in the show, including “Intercostal Adornments,” a sculpture made of steel rod, assorted metals in jewelry, beads, wire, and string. The sculpture is of two metal rib cages, each with a spineesque metal rod welded to a circular base on the ground. The spines are twisting as if in motion, resembling two figures waltzing with one another, eternally dancing. Aragona called it a “vignette of queer intimacy.” Necklaces— gold chains, pearls, and colorful translucent glass beads that shine in the light—decorate the bodies. An abundance of jewelry drapes
2022 Annual Student Art Exhibition in the Van Every Gallery. Photo Credit Claire Begalla across the hollow chest cavities and cascades down the outside of the bones. The figures seem to indulge in accessorizing, and Aragona said he wanted to create “an homage to queer fashion and the culture of embellishment/ ornamentation.” He says he “was reminded of metal/piercings lighting up on an x-ray— as bright white as the bones.” The jewelry is hung across the insides of the rib cages, in their chests. It is an innate part of them, something you see in an x-ray. This idea of identity extends throughout many of the works in the exhibition, including in “Emotion,” a book by Amelia Shields ’24. The piece unfolds like an accordion to reveal psychedelic-feeling multimedia pages of neon color made using paint, marker, and yarn. Shields stitched the yarn into the paper, fashioning outlines of a crying sun, bubbles, wilting flowers, and a winding path that journeys through the different pages. The pages are loosely tied together with hot pink, purple, and black wire strewn through eyelets. Each piece is distinctively its own but comes together to create a lovely constellation of
artworks. The front and back pages of the book reflect these themes of identity, community, and growth back onto the viewer, prompting engagement: “who are you?” and “how do you feel?” they ask. The label says “WRITE IN ME!” and there’s room for people to add in their responses. It becomes an interactive playground, with different handwritings spelling out responses on how they feel, including: “Relieved,” “tired & lonely,” “~like a silly goose~,” “overwhelmed,” “9 weeks pregnant. shhh… don’t tell anyone!,” “At Home,” “feral,” and “getting there.” The work is a scrapbook of anonymous emotions that merges the individual and the collective, just like the show as a whole. The exhibition is a Frankenstein’s monster of Davidson students’ art. It has come to life. The Annual Student Art Exhibition will be on view until May 5th, 2022. Isabel Smith ’24 (she/her) is a gender and sexuality studies major from St. Augustine, Florida. She can be reached for comment at issmith@davidson.edu.
A Review of Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
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OLIVIA NORTEN ‘25 (SHE/HER)
t has become increasingly obvious, especially in a market dominated by large studios and their even larger respective franchises, that the film industry is running out of ideas. Marquees outside of movie theaters now display the same predictable lineup of the newest Marvel installment, a remake of an older film or book, and forgettable fillers playing into the same old action and horror tropes. Don’t get me wrong, most of these movies are fine, some of them are even great, but they all continue to be missing that something that knocks you completely off your feet: a movie that you can’t seem to get out of your head for days after you emerge from the darkness of the theater. I have been waiting for this film to come along, and I believe that I have finally found it within A24’s newest release Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. As a film buff-in-training,
Evelyn Yang (Michelle Yeoh) in Everything, Everywhere All at Once. Photo credit David Bornfriend, A24
I have a great deal of respect for A24’s work in persisting as an independent studio, even though many of their films receive very limited theatrical releases and minimal attention from the influential awards circuit. Many casual media consumers will probably recognize breakthrough successes such as the 2019 horror classic Midsommar and the smash-hit TV show Euphoria, but you will be hard pressed to find someone who has seen, or even heard of, films like C’mon, C’mon, one of the best movies of the 2021 awards season that went completely overlooked. To me, the appeal of the studio comes from their continuous attempts to find niches in the market that have yet to be creatively explored, and Everything, Everywhere, All at Once triumphantly tackles one of the hottest film concepts right now: the multiverse. The film is centered around Michelle Yeoh’s Evelyn Wang, her husband, Waymond, and their daughter, Joy, first-generation Chinese immigrants who cannot seem to finish the taxes of the laundromat they run and live above. That’s the central point of the plot. I’m not even kidding. So how does this barebones concept explode into one of the most bonkers, emotional, and original sci-fi movies I’ve ever seen? With the incorporation of the multiverse. While navigating her soft-spoken husband attempting to serve her divorce papers and her daughter seeking acceptance of her girlfriend and sexuality, high-strung Evelyn gets notified that she is the only one who can save her universe from a supremely powerful multidimensional figure while at a meeting at the IRS. Again, not kidding. The genius of this movie comes from the perfect balance between ridiculous and well-developed action sequences paired with core elements of realism that result in disarmingly emotional family dynamics. As Evelyn embarks on her journey to save her universe from Jobu Tupaki’s swirling omni-universal black hole of despair (that just happens to be
an everything bagel), she is able to connect with other versions of herself from other timelines and harness their skills. This allows for over-the-top, often crude, often unbelievably funny interactions with the same incredible cast of supporting characters that play different roles in Evelyn’s life in every universe. With a standout performance by a hilariously unhinged Jamie Lee Curtis as the IRS employee assigned to audit the laundromat’s taxes, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is a roller-coaster following Evelyn’s journey to save the world and rebuild her family along the way, but it is one that I felt myself never wanting to get off. Due to the immense task of building an entirely new cinematic setting, it is easy to get lost in the maximalism and detail that the film throws at you for almost two and a half hours. However, if you let yourself submit to a ridiculous world of pinky finger karate, a Ratatouille-style sentient racoon, and an ending that will have you sobbing in front of your poor friend who agreed to take you to the theater, you’ll be left with the important existential attitude that even when life feels huge and unmanageable, we still matter. With Michelle Yeoh and A24 at their best, Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is a once in a lifetime film that will blow your mind in the greatest, wackiest way possible. But, most importantly, it will also leave viewers with both hope for a more understanding future as we continue to navigate uncertain global terrains, as well as certainty that the arthouse film industry is uniquely able to connect with audiences in ways that will keep movie theater lights shining for years to come. Olivia Norten ‘25 is an intended psychology major with a gender and sexuality Studies minor from Rochester, NY. Olivia can be reached for comment at olnorten@davidson.edu.
Living Davidson
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How To Keep In Touch With Friends This Summer KAYLA KLURMAN ‘25 (SHE/HER) STAFF WRITER
This school year is flying by, and before we know it, it is going to be summer break! Whether that means you are working at an internship, going abroad, or spending time at home with family, the next few months are going to bring lots of relaxation and memories. You might find yourself feeling a bit anxious or sad to be leaving most of your friends on campus, especially if you’re a graduating senior, but fear not! There are plenty of ways to stay in touch, especially in this digital age. This short rundown will provide you with tips to keep in touch with friends this summer so that it will be like you never left!
#1: Make a plan.
#2: Netflix Party.
Before the semester comes to an end, make sure you know where all your friends are going to be this summer. That way, you will know of anything you’ll need to plan around, such as time zones. This will make it easier to call each other and know that you are not waking them up in the middle of the night on accident. Also, share your schedules with one another. That way, you can fit in times to FaceTime, Zoom, or even just text each other. Maybe you’ll all be free on Saturday mornings or have breaks from your internships on Friday afternoons—that would be a perfect time for a call! Scheduling in some pre-planned time to check in on your friends will make it more likely to actually happen.
Thanks to Netflix’s creation of “Netflix Party,” y’all can choose a convenient time to watch a show or movie together! Just open up the link and it will synchronize the video, while also adding a group chat for you both to talk in. All you need is popcorn or your favorite candy, and this just became the perfect long distance movie night!
#3: Take pictures.
#4: Become pen-pals.
When you are so far from someone, it can be easy to feel disconnected at times because it might be harder for them to relate to whatever it is you are talking about. Pictures can solve this problem! Take lots of photos and share them with one another. Remember, every picture tells a story, so make a series! Having shared albums or even an Instagram account where you all post your photos from the summer will be a great way to see what each other is up to and is also a great way to document your favorite summer moments.
Want to step away from your phone for the summer? Being penpals with your friends is a really cute, low-commitment way to stay in touch. Writing someone a letter to update them on your summer shows a commitment to your friendship, and it will be so fun to get a letter in the mail back! You can also mail a scrapbook back and forth if you’re a more visual person, each of you decorating a few pages with what’s been going on lately.
#5: Be genuine.
#6: Some Other General Tips:
A crucial part of a friendship is being truthful and having good intentions with all of your conversations. Everytime you think of your friend or see something that reminds you of them, do not be afraid to tell them. No matter what, it is thoughtful, and it will create new memories even while being apart! When you do get to have conversations with your friends, make sure you aren’t too distracted to be in the moment with them. Life is too short to not love your friends genuinely!
1. Make group chats so that you can talk to all of your friends at once. 2. Respect each other’s space. Everyone needs it at times. 3. Remember to just make an effort—that is what counts!
It can be super easy to be overwhelmed about staying in touch with your friends over the summer because, hopefully, you will be so entertained by what is right in front of you! This is completely understandable, but this does not make it impossible to stay in touch with the people who mean the most to you from college. Once you find a system that works for both you and your friends, you will realize that distance means so little when someone means so much. Have a blast this summer, and before you know it, you will be right back with your friends at Davidson in the fall or on to have new life adventures! As long as you and your friends make the effort to stay in touch, the friends that really matter will always be there with you, no matter the distance.
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QUEER
Corner
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WIT
DAVID SOWINSKI (HE/HIM) ‘25 & ANAYA PATEL (SHE/THEY) ‘25
Chelsea Manning is an American activist and former Army intelligence analyst known for violating the Espionage Act and serving a shortened sentence of seven years in prison. After discovering more than 15,000 unreported civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Iran, as well as the U.S. military’s failure to investigate detainee torture, she disclosed 750,000 military documents to WikiLeaks. Manning is also known for being a transgender woman. Despite identifying as a woman for many years, her military imprisonment prevented her from undergoing gender-affirming surgery until her release in 2017. After the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense for denying Manning access to “medically necessary treatment for her gender dysphoria,” the Army allowed Manning to receive hormone therapy beginning in February 2015. Having spent time in a men’s prison, and being subjected to treatment deemed excessively harsh, Manning possesses an experience that is critical to examining problems in both the U.S. military and penitentiary systems. Manning herself has made her living by attending speaking engagements in which she talks about some of her experiences with the military and in the political realm. On May 3rd, Manning will be coming to Davidson College to give one such talk sponsored by Queers and Allies (Q&A) and other advocacy-related organizations. Manning will speak on queer and trans aspects of government and offer her own unique lens to questions and issues surrounding the LGBTQ+ community’s relationship with the U.S. government and military. Make sure to be in the Lilly Gallery to hear from Manning, and follow @DavidsonQandA on Instagram for more information. As this is the last edition of the Queer Corner for this semester, we want to say thank you for reading and supporting the Queer Community at Davidson. Have a fruity summer!
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Irreverent student journalism since 2004. Castigat Ridendo Mores.
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The Davidson College Bubble: Smoking Weed is Actually a Federal Offense (@ Turner Formal) Page Don’t 4get the
inals are in ten days.
April 27, 2022
An If/Then Hypothesis: If I Am Listening to Jazz While Doing Work, Then I Won’t Get That Stressed Page Jazz + Jazz =
Davidson Restricts Purchasing Plan-B with Dining Dollars by Ending Non-Food Purchases, Forgets That You Eat Plan-B
A Call to Action
Let me write that one more time for emphasis: FINALS ARE IN TEN DAYS. And I am just not feeling up to them. And what’s been craziest to discover after my first two semesters of college is that neither are most of my professors! They are all tired too. Nothing like my malicious teachers from high school who relished spring exam season when they could kick back and watch their students worry beyond the normal limits of high-school anxiety. No, these college professors are all eager to assign as little work as possible so that they have as little to grade as possible. But here’s the problem: I’m not even up for what little work they don’t cut from the syllabus’ original outline of the final project, presentation, or exam. I’m just too damn tired from all the Wildcat Wednesdays, Live-Thursday postgames, Friday night parties, Saturday darties, Sunday morning hangovers, and whatever the hell Monday and Tuesday end up being. So, I’ve spent all my time thinking about ways to escape finals rather than being responsible and spending that time getting ahead on finals. And Swiftian inspiration struck me this past Sunday: what if, instead of sitting down on March 7—Ranting Digression: why the hell is the Exam Center only administering exams on a Saturday, a Sunday, and a Monday? Seriously, what idiot during his first day on the job had that brilliant idea? But anyways, instead of sitting down
some day between SATURDAY—sorry, I’m still pissed—March 7, and Monday, March 9, to take a three-hour exam, what if we sat down and ate our textbooks? Seems like a good trade off, right? It’s not like you need that textbook on Medieval European History anymore; you already squeaked out a passing grade in the class. There’s no reason to keep it and relive the trauma of staying up until 5 am to write a twelve-page essay from scratch. Plus, I’m sure your favorite campus dining option would be happy to prepare your meal for you. QDOBA would wrap it up in a burrito with beans, tomatoes, and sour cream. Wildcat Den would send you off with a bowl of tomato soup for dipping. And Commons would hand it right back to you as is— undercooked and bland. Oh, and if your textbook is online, teachers would have to provide accommodations for you. Your final exam would be of the same type but a different flavor: have fun eating your computer! But be careful chewing. I hear keyboards are gamey as hell. P.S. Oops, I nearly forgot about all you textbook renters out there. Sorry, you fail. No textbook, no grade.
T
Later Alligator Issue
Lee & Luka Decide to Enter the Draft Together: “We’re a Package Deal Now” Page Bball Not Army
Get Drunk With Your Professors & You Wrote a Thesis! --Every Departmental Banquet Page My Thesis is on
Shout-out to Mrs. Freshley’s
his letter was submitted as part of the Gratitude Project, but was decided that it was not fit to pass along to an actual employee at this school.
Dear [REDACTED], Thank you so much for all that you do as an employee at Commons Market. It’s a hard job with long hours, and we as students appreciate you welcoming us in every day. I personally want to thank you for all of the delicious food that you provide. When I come in to Commons Market at 10:54 on a Friday, high off my ass, there is one particular treat that I can always count on to be just the thing I need: Mrs. Freshley’s mini powdered doughnuts. Wow! They are so moist and powdery and jam-packed with flavor. How do you get them like that? Also, how did you convince Mrs. Freshley to join the Commons Market team? And where does she make the doughnuts? I have been to Commons Market a lot of times trying to pay my compliments directly to the chef, but I have yet to glimpse her. Honestly, this gratitude letter is more for her than anyone else. She is single-handedly what is keeping me here. I had a really hard econ exam last semester, and just about when I thought there was no hope and I might as well give up, I walked to Commons Market and got a bag of Mrs. Freshley’s mini powdered doughnuts and a cup of coffee and that was exactly what I needed to power through to study and take the exam. When I get my diploma this spring, I am going to write on it, “Property of Mrs. Freshley” because she is honestly the person responsible for my success. (Alternate superscript is “Mrs. Freshley whipped these ′nuts.”) I truly don’t know
what kind of man I would be without her. To be honest, I do have a little bit of a bone to pick with Mrs. Freshley. She made her treats so tasty that I literally cannot help but eat the entire bag if not more than that every time I get them. And while some other people with stronger stomachs might be able to handle that many mini doughnuts, my mom has always described my constitution as “delicate.” I can usually keep it together, but one time in the library I just ate so many mini doughnuts and got so sick and I threw up everywhere and I mean everywhere and I was in base libs and it was so loud it was just my guttural gremlin noises as this thick, gloppy white substance shot out of my body and in my mind I thought, “Wow, this would be great for papier mache” and also “owww” and it went on for so long like actual minutes where I sat hunched over in my own doughnut vomit and it got on all of the periodicals in front of me and I got “shhhed” five times. So yeah, I do have that one bad memory, but I can’t really hold it against Mrs. Freshley. Wow, this letter really escaped me, didn’t it! Anyway, I am really grateful for all of the different food and non-food goods you provide us with, and really pretty much everything you sell is delicious–the range alone in what you’re able to make, from gummies to cheetos (which, by the way, tell Chester I am loving what he’s doing, too) has really just blown me away. People complain about Commons food, but all I have to say to that is, have you seen what they’re selling upstairs? All my love to Mrs. Freshley, A superfan
Moving Service This, Moving Service That: But What Are we Moving Towards?
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oming to terms with the fact that not only are you a simple-minded consumer, but the things you have simply-mindedly consumed fill your room from wall to wall, floor to ceiling, and must be completely evacuated during a tumultuous week of finals, is an all too alarming reality – which is why The Yowl recommends paying someone else to do it for you. Everyone knows who this “someone” is: their posters haunt every hallway, their emails are piled up in your inbox, and microaggressions against them can be found in colorful chalk all around campus. Still, deciding between pulling your string-bean sized hamstrings moving boxes or normalizing servant labor can be a difficult task. The Yowl sat down with Dixie Normous, a representative of this unnamed moving company, for a brief
The
Yowl
interview. Yowl: It’s pretty late in the school year. Should students be panicking about hiring movers? Dixie Normous: There’s always a good reason to panic. It seems like something is always on the brink of collapse somewhere. But considering that we’re paying the college to sell students’ emails to us, I would say we’re pretty desperate and willing to accept anyone, no matter how last minute. Y: Why should students hire your moving service, specifically? DN: I’m really out of more ways to incentivize students to hire us. There’s so much market competition, which is fine, but now
WRITERS Earth, Wind, Fire & Sky 9 Timer Max Chobani Jogurt
that I’m thinking about it, we could go out of business. That’s why we’re asking for money from already financially-strained college students. The fact that we’re both beggarly creates an unbreakable bond between us. Y: I’ve heard of horror stories of students not getting their belongings for months, how can students avoid that? DN: Well, I’m not actually involved in the moving process, I just exploit the people who are. So where the boxes go are anyone’s guess. Though, I’ve been told if you tip, the movers skip every other step down the stairs. The speediness of getting your boxes out the door makes up for all the time lost in the abyss.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK “What’s better than one head? Have you ever seen a sardine with two heads? Now you have.” - Peter Rock
Summer is a long time to go without satire, which is why we want to make the production of satire something sustainable that anyone can do. Complete these fill in the blanks this summer to make yourself chuckle: It is a long drive home from Davidson, so I always make sure to bring [noun] with me on the car ride home. One thing I will miss about Davidson is the [adjective] [noun] but I sure won’t miss [verb]ing my way to [noun].
Note: The Yowl is a satirical supplement to The Davidsonian. Hence, nothing in it should be taken as truth.