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Crochet, Chumashvili, and Athey awarded $10,000 Avinger microgrants
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Volume 120, Issue 7
November 10, 2021
Ross Hickman ‘22 condemns exclusionary social scene
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Jazz Vocalist Carmen Bradford enchanted audience and coperformers
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Whappa Happened? Semi-formal fiasco leaves Weebs hungry. The Yowl reports.
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Students Take Initiative to Make Nightlife Safer BRIGID MCCARTHY ‘25 (SHE/HER) STAFF WRITER
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t any college campus, women know to party with hands over the tops of their cups and utilize the buddy system. BIPOC students at predominantly white institutions (PWI’s) know to not walk home alone at night. At Davidson, it’s no different: When Armfield Courtyard (F) reopened post-COVID earlier this semester, the re-opening of an ongoing conversation about safety in the party scene was bound to follow. On Wednesday, October 27th, Alice Garner ‘24 took to Instagram to restart this conversation with her narrative, sparking familiar backlash, defensiveness, support, anger, and—from all sides—frustration. As female and BIPOC students continually struggle to feel welcomed in spaces not built for them, some students and groups on campus are leading moves toward social and legal change in lieu of overt administrative support. Garner’s exposition, titled “Why we must dissociate from Patterson Court Circle,” recounts her experience as an Asian American woman in Davidson’s predominantly white-populated Greek social space, and advocates for a more inclusive and safe environment for students to party. “F [Armfield], and all places on campus, should be a place where all people, no matter their gender, sexual identity, or race should be accepted, validated, and feel authentically themselves,” she wrote in a Google Doc linked in the bio of her personal Instagram account, an account which has since been deactivated. Michaela Gibbons ‘22 was in Connecticut when the infographic went live. As murmurs began to pop up around campus, she spurred into action from outside of the Davidson bubble, coordinating personal invitations and talking points for an emergency student body meeting. “My freshman, sophomore year, when there was public outcry around something that was happening socially on campus, students with somewhat of a social capital, or even organizations with a little bit of knowledge on this topic, would organize an open student body meeting in Hance… I see a lot of disconnect. And if we all could just get in the same room, then maybe we can actually come up with something, which is what happened,” Gibbons said. Among the ideas that came out of that meeting was a “safe space” at Armfield apartments, an apartment solely dedicated to taking a pause. Second floor F residents Sophie Danish ‘22 and Sydney Finkelstein ‘22 volunteered to host the space over the coming weekend, October 29 and 30, along with their other roommates Aislinn Whalen ‘22, Eliza Patterson ‘22, and Aria Een ‘22. Following the meeting, Gibbons also coordinated signs to hang up on lamp posts over the weekend showcasing names and numbers of safe, sober Martin Court residents to call if needed. These practices, of quiet rooms and upperclassman connections, are based on Gibbons’ experiences as a freshman. The pandemic, she says, exacerbated the divide between Arm-
Students’ thoughts on PCC organizations, sexual assault, and racism on campus, gathered via YikYak and Instagram. Collage by Brigid McCarthy ‘25. Photos by Sydney Schertz ‘24, Bailey Maierson ‘25, and Hannah Dugan ‘21. field residents and weekend visitors, and also retired what were once normal safeguards on the weekends. “A lot of these practices were lost because of COVID,” Gibbons said. Garner’s exposé follows years of discomfort from marginalized groups on campus; it’s a publication that falls in line with other awareness campaigns related to inclusion on the Davidson party scene. The “Beyond the Frats” initiative, first called “Burn Down the Frats,” was a 2019 initiative that studied the implications of a Greek-centered social scene through a viral website, spearheaded by four students in Dr. Katie Horowitz’s Gender and Sexuality Studies “Sex Radicals” course. Alexander Suarez ‘21 founded the Monuments Initiative in 2020, an exploration into the power of physical space on campus and its disproportionate allocation to predominantly-white groups. The project sparked ideas about developing Patterson Court’s accessibility to minority groups. Sound familiar? Watching the years pass, current seniors are left unsurprised at the reactivated discourse and frustrated at the lack of real progress.
“It is not a new debate that’s happening on this campus,” Patterson said. “There have very consistently been groups of people who have brought up the fact that space is allocated really disproportionately here and that there are not a lot of spaces for people of color or other marginalized folks on this campus to gather and socialize.” Although recent re-implementation and re-prioritization of safety practices remain at the forefront of the social scene, students are also critical of these present initiatives which aim to mitigate harm rather than uproot the source of danger and address “structural issues downstairs,” as Finkelstein said. The initiatives also raise potential concerns about continued student safety, with Gibbons herself admitting the simultaneous lack of and need for a vetting process, both for apartment hosts and for people on the list. Valeria Donoso ‘22, president of Students Against Sexual Violence (SASV), is trained in restorative justice; she hosted a restorative justice circle on October 28th with the Sigma Psi
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Administration Approves New Climate Action Plan GEORGIA HALL ‘25 (SHE/HER) STAFF WRITER
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ith the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) concluding in Glasgow this weekend, a reevaluation of Davidson College’s rhetoric on climate change is in order. Though Davidson College continues to pursue macro, long-term institutional change, the Climate Action Plan, approved in Summer 2021, is working on the college’s new short term goals. According to a New York Times article, in 2014, the world
was on track to warm by four degrees Celsius by 2100. Due to new green energy policies, by the same estimate the planet will warm by just under three degrees Celsius by 2100. At COP26, countries are reaffirming on paper their pledge to enact policies that will limit emissions to between two and two-point four degrees celsius by 2100 to achieve carbon neutrality. However, according to the latest IPCC report from October 8, 2021, the world would need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 49% of 2017 levels by 2030 to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Despite these statistics, China, Russia, and India, some of the world’s largest polluters, are not attending COP26 in person. India even recently stated that they are pledging to reach
net-zero emissions by 2070, 20 years later than the majority of countries taking part. In light of the current climate emergency, Davidson’s Sustainability Office is working hard to make changes. In August 2021, the new Climate Action Plan for Davidson was approved by the administration. Yancey Fouché, Director of Sustainability at Davidson, said “In the original plan, the institution committed to being carbon neutral by 2050...we’ve [since] updated it.”
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