2/27/2019

The

Davidsonian

Independent Student Journalism Since 1914

inside

davidsonian.com

New spaces on campus: Lavender Lounge, the Nest, and Union game room

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Volume 114, Issue 16

February 27, 2019

Marc Todd ‘20 questions the merits of eliminating early decision program

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Inside the President’s House: Lucas Weals ‘19 offers an art tour

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The Microbial Empire threatens war against campus community

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Students Question Campus Accessibility Accommodations JACK DOWELL ‘21 STAFF WRITER

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Last week, the Urban Bush Women dance company performed in the Duke Family Performance Hall, and members engaged with the Davidson community throughout their time on campus. Photos by John Crawford ‘20

n the leadup to the recent SGA presidential election, Elif Kaya ‘19 made a post to the unofficial Davidson Facebook group saying that “as a voter, I am looking for a specific initiative on working to accept more students with physical disabilities to Davidson.” Though accessibility has been an ongoing discussion on campus, after the election of Emmitt Sklar ‘21 as SGA president, whose platform included making Davidson “accessible, affordable, and accepting,” the conversation about Davidson’s accessibility has moved further into the spotlight.

Kaya’s post to the Facebook group was inspired by a recent visit to MIT’s campus, where she found that “it’s obvious that there’s a greater ratio of people with disability participating in daily life … It was obvious that there’s something we’re not doing well enough based on the daily participation you can observe just walking around on campus.” She emphasizes that while she wants to bring focus to the issue, she does not have all the answers: “that’s why I put it on the group: to find out what’s going on, is anyone paying attention to this?”

Representatives from both SGA presidential tickets reached out to her, and both of the winners acknowledge the presence of a problem. Sklar, after his election, told The Davidsonian that “how we make sure this campus is accessible to everyone is something we don’t focus on enough.” He emphasized the importance of going beyond the bare minimum and also making social

spaces more accessible, saying “it doesn’t mean anything unless we’re one community that’s both working and having fun together.”

Gina Martinez ‘20, SGA’s vice president, cited Kaya’s Facebook post, saying “I think it’s important to look at what our peer institutions are doing … when the school, the actual layout of the school is not accessible for students, you’re putting up an obstacle.

Students will not come here even if they want to because they cannot live here.”

One concrete proposal was expanding the Safe Rides program, which currently provides free rides around campus and the surrounding area to students on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Sklar wants to expand those hours “to focus on times when professors have office hours at the Hub ... and make sure those are accessible,” as well as establishing a shuttle between Davidson and the Hub. Kenzie Bell ‘20, a hard of hearing student, thinks that Davidson has a long way to go. “I think Davidson is generally set up to regress to the mean in terms of serving students.”

Bell believes the issues are deep set and is skeptical of SGA’s ability to correct them.

“I don’t really think that SGA is a solution to a lot of problems at Davidson; I think it’s more an institutional level [change], a change in culture and in students. Because Davidson is also a place where, when students come to visit, it’s very clear the ways in which you might not fit in.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Commission on Race and Slavery Progresses

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BETSY SUGAR ‘21 STAFF WRITER

n February 15th, President Carol Quillen sent the Davidson faculty, staff, and student community an email addressing racist material in the college’s old yearbooks. Quillen explained that “Davidson College is committed to a full understanding of the college’s history with respect to slavery and race. The Commission on Race and Slavery is building a framework for such research and for conversations that will enable us to develop and share this understanding.”

This is one of the few official statements about the Commission on Race and Slavery from the college since the Commission’s formation last year. On its webpage, the Commission states it intends to “guide the development and launch of research projects and additional teaching and learning initiatives [to] investigate and acknowledge the college’s history with slavery and race.”

When the Commission was formed last year in 2018, the President’s Office pledged $25,000 for two years to support the Commission in their research and eventual suggestions to the President’s Office. The Commission only has this year left with pre-approved financial support from the institution. The student body has not been able to see the behind-the-scenes work the Commission has taken this past year.

Commission member and Dean of Students Byron McCrae explained that over the past year the Commission has been answering three questions: “What are the principles that guide this work? What do we feel we owe to the community? And how do we do this?”

“The idea of having a Commission on Race and Slavery is so broad, and we’ve been grappling with what exactly we want to be doing with it,” Commission member Saidah Rahman ‘20 added. “So the past year we’ve been trying to hone in on where even to start. So it has limited how far we’ve moved forward in terms of action because we have taken so much time figuring out what to do, but I think it’s an important step nonetheless.”

As for concrete action taken by the Commission, Rahman described the Commission’s support of programs and events already happening on campus, such as their sponsorship of the Africana Studies department presentation of Slavery, Violence, and the Archive, a recent conference hosted at Davidson. The Commission and McCrae’s office also facilitated the “Slavery and Class in the American South,” a lecture presented by commission member and UNC Chapel Hill professor Dr. William Andrews ‘68.

The Commission on Race and Slavery also hopes to send an interim report and survey out to the student body to update and obtain feedback on what the general student body wants to see from the initiative. However, besides the intended interim

report and aforementioned events on campus, the commission has not taken other direct action on campus. However, it should be noted that the Commission’s current trajectory is thus far congruent with similar committees at other colleges, such as Georgetown and Furman, which took about a year before either school took concrete action.

The Commission does have lofty goals for the future. McCrae expanded upon the Commission’s overall aspirations.

“This group’s purpose is really to consider how to be accountable in the present, and recommend to the president best practices and the best way to acknowledge our past in thinking about our future in light of what we’ve learned.”

While an admirable, and necessary, objective, each Commission member has a different idea on how to go about it.

Jan Blodgett, author of One Town, Many Voices: A History of Davidson, North Carolina, wants to see conversations about race at Davidson spread out through all four years. “I think too much has been put on the freshmen, that you’re supposed to absorb it then,” Blodgett explained. “I think moving it up through upper classes and finding opportunities and ways that it can be integrated into the classes and the cultural life on campus.”

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News

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New Spaces Promote Inclusion, Relaxation JONATHAN LEE ‘20 SENIOR STAFF WRITER

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his semester, students have made themselves at home in several new spaces around campus, benefitting from the joint efforts of peers, faculty, and administration. These additions include the Lavender Lounge, the Belk Quiet Study Space, the Nest, and Union Station.

Other areas have been recently revamped, including the first floor of the library, and more new and renovated spaces are planned. In all of these projects, students played a central role through advocacy, focus groups, and dialogue with the administration.

The new Lavender Lounge, located next to the quiet study space in the basement of Belk instead of tucked behind the Residence Life Office (RLO), represents a milestone for Davidson’s queer community.

“We have a more central location, and that somehow indicates a different kind of standing and representation and visibility within the [Davidson] community,” commented Associate Dean of Students and Director of Residence Life Jason Shaffer. “There is a lot of symbolic power, but there’s also the general sense that ‘I really just want to go into this room and hang out and feel comfortable here.’ The new Lavender Lounge offers 24/7 access by students and is located in a place that students can come and go from without being outed.”

Taylor Drake ‘21, Co-President of YANASH (You Are Not A Stranger Here), a group for queer and questioning students, remarked that “the old Lavender Lounge felt like a closet— which is not quite the vibe you want for a designated queer space.”

Following improvements, “The Lavender Lounge gives us a special physical space to foster our strong and diverse community,” Drake said. “YANASH, Q&A, and the Center for Diversity and Inclusion plans to use the space for dinner, movie nights, and general talks.”

Next door to the Lavender Lounge is the Belk Quiet Study Space (formerly Belk Computer Lab), which features three quiet study rooms, carrels, and other private work spaces.

The room is light, fresh, and quiet.

“There are a lot of places on this campus where you can be sort of studying and sort of social.... everything in there really lends itself to not working with somebody else, and to make it to where people are not chatting with

each other and disrupting everybody else,” Shaffer noted.

The space was completely stripped of the desktop computers, making it “as minimalist and as simple as possible,” Shaffer said. “Student reactions have been very positive.”

To address student wellbeing in Davidson’s stressful environment, Reverend Grace Burford, Associate Chaplain for Buddhist Programs and Director of the Davidson Meditation Initiative, and Health Education Fellow Morgan McGrath ‘17 helped to create a ‘wellness space’ in the E.H. Little Library called the Nest.

Located on the second floor of the library, the Nest includes “yoga mats, meditation cushions, coloring books, and a big bean bag chair so big you could lie down on it or sleep or meditate or just relax,” Burford detailed.

“We tried to put some inspirational messages around, too.”

McGrath said that the space is there to “ground yourself; it’s kind of like a pep talk as a room.”

The creation of the Nest coincides with another change to the library: the renovation of the first floor. New furniture, fewer desktop computers, and the relocation of the DVD collection opened up the space.

“The old Lavender Lounge felt like a closet — which is not quite the vibe you want for a designated queer space. ” Taylor Drake ‘21 “We’re moving away from desktops as much as possible… and the rocking chairs have had their day.” Library Director Lisa Forrest commented. Future projects include updating the Maker Space Outpost with a 3D printer, button maker, and vinyl cutter.

After the controversial departure of the Union Station convenience store last year, a committee of students and administrators convened to determine the best new use for the space. They decided on a “transformable space,” including video game stations, movable furniture, and a poster-making station,

Top: Belk Hall’s new Lavender Lounge. Bottom: Turner Wood ‘22 enjoys new Union Station gaming space. Photos by Sarah Woods ‘21 said Mike Goode, President Director of College Union and Student Activities.

“There is definitely a need for [the video game stations] on campus” and “bringing that to the Union, having a place where people can gather” works as “community building,” said Union Board President Anna Ferdinand ‘19.

Even with all of these new additions, more projects are proposed or underway. To increase housing options for students coming back from abroad, the college plans to add more rooms in Belk, “so the entire RLO/Cat

Accessibility Efforts CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Emmie Lo ‘22 reports a more positive experience with the administration, saying: “I’ve overall had a really positive experience, especially with academic access and disability resources. They don’t do the bare minimum; they make sure I really have what I need.”

However, the campus itself poses issues for her as a blind student. “It’s a little bit confusing because there are so many pathways and many of them are curvy, and they’re all brick … I can get lost pretty close to my destination … but I can always find someone who can help me get to my destination. I think that’s probably part of the Davidson culture.”

Dr. Ann Fox, a professor in the English department with an extensive background in disability studies, also spoke about the physical accessibility of campus, saying, “I think with physical accomodation we say things are up to code. But are they truly accessible?” She sees this as a result of a history of discrimination where “academic buildings sort of [mirror] the assumptions about the sort of bodies that belong in them.”

Despite the imperfections of the campus itself, Fox made a point of emphasizing that Davidson historically had prioritized disability studies, to the extent that “Davidson was one of the first liberal arts colleges in the country to offer disability studies courses.” She adds that “curricularly, I think Davidson has tried; I’ve gotten nothing but full support [academically].”

Student-led and Union Board activities are a com-

mon source of accessibility complaints. Bell says that she does not attend them, especially citing movies where, as a hard of hearing student, the experience becomes “frustrating and exhausting to try and follow along” due to the lack of closed captions.

Deciding how to best accommodate disabled students can often be challenging. Lo points out that “even if [people] want to help, they don’t really know what they need to do.” She explained that she believed that SGA was going to “reach out to the communities who actually know what needs to be done.”

Olivia Liccione ‘19, who heads LEAD, campus’s only disability advocacy group, explains how SGA reaches out to affinity groups on campus, and how that process has evolved. “It’s impressive how much the administration really does listen to the SGA members ... I think they actually do a fair amount.”

One effort LEAD, which stands for Leadership, Empowerment and Advocacy for Diverse abilities, is making is to increase the understanding of diversity as an identity. Liccione said, “Often disability is seen as a medical impairment, not a cultural identity, and so we’re really pushing to change that.”

Fox also said that one of the primary ways she’d like to see the college change is in ”thinking of [disability] more purposefully as an identity. So often when we think about inclusion we think about race, gender, sexuality, all super important. But we don’t talk about disability.”

Card Services area will become 12 double rooms,” Shaffer mentioned.

He continued: “That renovation will happen next fall… and we’ll have 24 new beds in the spring. Residence Life will move into the old laundry facility.”

Shaffer also outlined plans for a proposed renovation of Richardson Hall this summer, which includes an elevator to increase accessibility, single-occupant rooms, and non-gender designated bathrooms.

Commission Updates CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Rahman would like to see Davidson be more open and honest on its website about its past. Currently, the only official online acknowledgment of Davidson’s history with race is the “Always Part of the Fabric” documentary on the library website. However, the videos are in the Archives section of the website and difficult to access if casually perusing the current site.

Rahman explained she wants information like “Always Part of the Fabric” to be easily accessible. “What I would like to see from this commission is that kind of information to be digitally visual so that we become more transparent.” She believes that “everything needs to be public and it needs to be visual” for people to actually engage with and absorb Davidson’s history.

She also expressed hope that the institution will continue to fully back the Commission in the future. “The institution is behind us and our type of work, but they also have their economic interests at hand, which don’t

necessarily align with our interests; it can be complicated. That’s why it’s been hard to put forward action steps that can have full backing by the administration.”

Reckoning with one’s past and the lasting effects is a necessary step colleges have been taking, but it does not always paint the college in the best light. This influences how much an administration will be willing to support these types of actions because they have to consider the ramifications on the school’s image. As of now, the commission has not bumped up against institutional pushback, but Rahman would not be surprised if that were to happen.

This year, the Commission will continue to move forward and hopes to achieve some of its loftier goals.

“As a responsible institution about human instincts and changing the world, we have to face what we’ve done,” Blodgett expanded on why Davidson needs the Commission.

“We’re not innocent. There’s culpability, and there are lasting effects that Davidson has been living in the 21st century.”

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February 27, 2019

Journalist Julia Ioffe Discusses Modern Russia

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ARIANA HOWARD ‘20 STAFF WRITER

he annual Hansford M. Epes Distinguished Lecture Series honors individuals from a range of professions within the humanities field. The Series was established in 2012 in honor of Hansford Epes ‘61, who served in the Humanities program as a professor, specializing in German Studies, until his retirement the same year. This year, Julia Ioffe, a political journalist for The Atlantic, was selected to speak on Thursday, February 21st.

Ioffe spent her early childhood in Moscow in a Jewish family. Her family chose to leave Russia for the United States when she was only seven years old because of the overwhelming presence of antisemitism throughout the country. Upon leaving the country, the family members lost their Russian citizenship.

Ioffe still travels back to Russia quite frequently, however, due to her career as a political journalist.

Dr. Amanda Ewington, Bacca Professor in the Humanities and Chair of the Russian Studies Department, explained that Davidson chose Ioffe as a guest speaker because she provides a unique narrative as a Russian-American Jewish public intellectual. Introducing narratives that contrast the conventional Western civilization perspective is a major goal of the Bacca Foundation for the Humanities program at Davidson.

The Bacca Foundation is a program created by an anonymous donor in order to promote the humanities and push back against the purely Western civilization lens that the humanities is typically taught through. Ewington explained, “We wanted to bring someone in for the Epes Lectureship that can add value to what the Bacca program is doing. Julia Ioffe

Julia Ioffe gives the Epes lecture in Hance Auditorium. Photo by Max Dominguez ‘22 was selected because she’s more than just a journalist; she’s an important voice for understanding Russia.”

Ioffe’s lecture titled “What Does Russia Want?” explored the dynamics of Putin’s Russia. In front of a packed crowd in Hance Auditorium, Ioffe explained at the beginning of her lecture that her main goal was to “demystify Russia.” She hoped that by giving her audience a better understanding of the dynamics in contemporary Russia, they would be able to have a more nuanced perspective on the nation. For example, the traditional Western narrative of Vladimir Putin is that he is an oppressive leader who is promoting immoral values.

Ioffe hoped that her lecture could demonstrate that “Putin is not a Bond villain.”

Although Ioffe has major issues with how the government is run in Russia, particularly how Putin became President amidst highly suspect and contested elections, she still want-

ed her audience to understand that Putin is one of Russia’s tamer leaders. Ioffe stated, “In the scheme of Russian leaders, Putin isn’t all that bloodthirsty or bloody.”

In fact, she even went as far as to describe Putin as somewhat of a mediator. Though her views countered widely held beliefs surrounding Russia, Ioffe’s main goal was not to push a single view of the country. Rather, she added to the conversation by giving a perspective on Russia that is not typically part of the Western narrative.

Ewington stated after the lecture: “[Ioffe] is very sympathetic to Russia in the sense that she loves it in the way that only someone who really knows it would love it. She doesn’t demonize it, and she doesn’t romanticize it. Her background is able to provide nuanced understanding of Russia that doesn’t have a political agenda.”

Ioffe is nevertheless still a vocal critic of

Russia. She does not worry about her safety, however, because the Russian government wants to avoid conflict with other countries, particularly the United States. She stated, “Nothing is going to happen to me. It’s my Russian colleagues who are in danger.”

However, Ioffe cannot say the same in the United States. She asserted, “I definitely feel a lot less safe here than I used to, which is crazy.

I mean, for the child of family who [left] the Soviet Union to escape persecution in order to feel safe...it’s incredibly disheartening.”

Ioffe has been the victim of antisemitic hate speech and has even received several death threats, especially in the wake of a 2016 Atlantic piece in which she profiled Melania Trump.

Ioffe received a phone call where the person on the other end of the line played a Hitler speech for her. Others have directly threatened Ioffe and made it clear that they knew where she lived.

Ioffe has received intense harassment because she is a fervent critic of President Donald Trump. She worries that the violence against journalists will worsen with Trump’s efforts to discredit the media. Ioffe fears that this harassment will only intensify. She believes that Trump’s election has empowered citizens to act on their hateful ideologies. Ioffe explained, “He sets a really hateful tone. Not just about Jews. Not just about journalists. It’s about this embattled white male minority.”

Ioffe also asserts that American Jews need to be more cognizant of the hostility that still exists towards them. She stated: “You may think you’re white and some people might think you’re white, but the people who are now in charge do not. You’re not in the group you think you’re in. In general, you should be more aware and sympathetic to other groups as well. We are in the trenches together.”

Crime Log CATEGORY III ELECTION RESULTS FIRST YEAR SGA SENATE: Brandon Harris (Classs President), John Billups, Oğuzhan Colkesen, Heidi Meyer, and Nick Nguyen

Time Reported

Description/Location

2/08/19 at 0100 hrs

Underage Consumption

2/10/19 at 0139 hrs

Simple Assault on Female

Belk, Dean Referral

SOPHOMORE SGA SENATE: David Choi (Class President), Alex Aiello, Nilay Ghatlia, and Chloe deBeus

JUNIOR SGA SENATE:

Armfield, Further Investigation

Caroline Roddey (Class President), Caroline Black, Andrew Coyner, Tiffany Pauls, and Uyen Nguyen

SOPHOMORE HONOR COUNCIL: Deen Haleem II, Emily Juel, and Ellie Mackintosh

COMMITTEE ON CAMPUS AND RELIGIOUS LIFE:

2/10/19 at 0228 hrs

Underage Consumption Watts, Dean Referral/ Transport

Liam Barr and Zach Miller

2/12/19 at 0508 hrs

Breaking and/or Entering

2/12/19 at 0905 hrs

Larceny (sign)

2/18/19

Rape

2/20/19 at 1104 hrs

Poss. Controlled Substance

Chambers, Further Investigation

Union PVA, Further Investigation

Residence Hall, Prosecution Declined

Armfield, Dean Referral

Perspectives

4 Lucy Hammet ’19

Abroad Experience Shows Need for Jewish Studies

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n the first day of history class at my study abroad program in Copenhagen, Denmark, my professor asked the class to introduce ourselves and explain what we brought to the class. I found myself stumped. What did I bring to this class? What could I contribute?

Before going abroad last fall, I’d taken six history classes at Davidson and was looking forward to declaring my history double major when I returned in the spring. Even so, I felt unprepared to answer the question.

The class was called “Betrayal of Civilization: Jewish History from the Enlightenment to the Shoah” and was taught by Dr. Thorsten Wagner, a Jewish historian and professor of ethics at a fellowship program at the concentration camp Auschwitz.

Though I pieced together an answer to his questions, any confidence that I had in my ability to hold my own in a Jewish history class was put to the test from that very first day.

Both my experience in this class in Copenhagen and the distressing stories coming from my classmates still at Davidson have since hardened my belief that Davidson students, especially non-Jewish ones like myself, are in desperate need of a Jewish Studies program.

It wasn’t until that first day of class abroad that I fully understood that almost everything I brought to the table about Jewish history, the Jewish religion, current issues in Jewish identity, etc. was distorted by a Christian lens.

While I found that I was highly capable of recalling facts about the Old Testament from years of religion classes at a Catholic high school or contributing to discussions about Jewish persecution at the hands of Crusaders, I was unprepared for the emotional impact that is intrinsic to navigating Jewish history.

Emotion is difficult to quantify and even more difficult to study objectively. After a semester investigating Europe’s Jewish history, I now know that emotion is an intrinsic part of evaluating this type of history.

Since Jewish history is fraught with controversy, my class would spend entire meetings analyzing the idea of Jewish spaces throughout history or struggling to determine when (if

ever) Jews attained an emancipated status in the early European nations that exist today, most often not coming to a clear consensus.

The most jarring class involved looking back to antiquity and collectively establishing a chronology titled “A Timeline of the Hatred of the Jews.” Objectivity was almost impossible when discussing these issues, especially as they related to ambiguous concepts like hate or acceptance.

These classroom experiences reminded me that even though I had been taught to be objective, emotion is often inevitable.

I now believe that valuing the emotional impact of Jewish history is the only way to begin to comprehend the subject. In this class, I came to understand, like I never had before, that these emotionally-packed issues were not matters of opinion but matters of fact.

From that first day, my time traveling in Europe was framed by the knowledge I gained in this class, highlighted by a few distinct opportunities I had with “Europe as my classroom” (the tagline of my study abroad program).

Most important was an independent trip to the former concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau for a long weekend. My trip to Auschwitz was the most influential experience of my life to date.

However, I believe that my experience and the impact that it had on me would not have been the same without a knowledge of its roots, of the experiences that European Jews have had for hundreds of years.

I spent my time there struggling to comprehend the enormity of the evils that took place there and to reconcile my experience at Auschwitz-Birkenau with my understanding of Jewish spaces that we explored in class. I ended up taking a single photo there, a picture of a quote: “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.”

A month later, the entire Davidson community was slapped with the fact that not only did we have classmates, peers, and students who “forget the past,” but that these members of our community did so in a calculated way and with a twisted vengeance.

Not only did these individuals morph the they used these distorconstruct a narrative of the with the power to do deplor-

past, tions to present able harm.

Our educational privilege at Davidson makes “forgetting” the past highly improbable. However, without a proper understanding of the past, we are at risk of allowing these distortions to negate it.

Fortunately, these misrepresentations do harm only if we let them. Since the incidents of the fall, a vocal part of the student body has expressed an interest in bringing necessary improvements to Davidson’s curriculum, specifically in establishing an Interdisciplinary Jewish Studies program.

So far, these students have held the attention of the administration and will hopefully see a much-needed curriculum change.

However, the interest shown by a large part of the non-Jewish student body, I argue, is not enough.

Despite widespread student support of a petition to establish a Jewish Studies program, it is no longer acceptable for our Jewish peers to carry the burden of filling a knowledge gap for the entire student body.

It is not the Jewish population of Davidson that desperately needs exposure to Jewish Studies. It is students like me, those pursuing an excellent academic experience without the smallest inkling that a looming gap in their education exists.

While the establishment of a Jewish Studies program at Davidson cannot repair the harm done by the events of the fall, it is a necessary step to confirm that the college not only rejects the anti-Semitism present on our campus but that it will take distinguishable steps to create an inclusive understanding of Jewish history, space, and identity.

Lucy Hammet ’19 is an Economics and History double major from New Orleans, Louisana. Contact her at luhammet@davidson.edu.

Marc Todd ’20

Early Decision Does Not Disadvantage Low-Income Students

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ccording to The Atlantic, the origin of early decision dates back to the late 1950s with smaller New England colleges enticing students with better admission rates in return for binding decisions to attend.

The process of applying to college has drastically evolved over the past half-century, and early decision is no exception. Top-tier colleges and universities are currently experiencing a nationwide increase in early decision applications as potential students perceive early decision as an “easier” admissions pathway to their dream college or university.

The Washington Post published an article in 2015 titled “College admissions: The Early Decision advantage” where they analyzed the early decision acceptance rates of 64 prominent colleges and universities.

Interestingly, Davidson College was cited as having the highest share of early decision admits—approximately 60 percent—amongst all the colleges and universities analyzed.

Furthermore, Davidson has seen a 13.6 percent increase in early decision applications since the class of 2019 (638 applications) to our most recent class of 2022 (725 applications).

Considering Davidson’s unique position regarding the high number of early decision admits, as well as our increasing number of early decision applicants alongside that of other elite liberal arts colleges and universities, I believe constructive dialogues about the benefits and harms of Davidson’s early decision process are warranted.

In the petition circulating Davidson’s campus, the Students for Just Admissions addressed a broad range of issues under the umbrella of “early decision.”

The organization noted that students applying early decision to Davidson have a higher acceptance rate than that of regular decision students, but “the binding Early Decision contract denies applicants the opportunity to compare financial aid offers from other schools.”

This quote implies that because of the higher

acceptance rate for early decision applicants, lower-income applicants are at a disadvantage because they are unable to benefit from this acceptance rate due to an inability to compare financial aid packages.

Davidson’s Admissions and Financial Aid Office admits there is a selectivity advantage to applying early decision, and justifies this on their website saying, “statistically speaking, a higher percentage of our applicants are admitted under an early decision plan than under regular decision.”

Davidson’s use of “statistically speaking” is intentional because the admissions processes for early and regular decision are both needblind (for domestic students and permanent residents) as well as highly-selective and holistic.

The Students for Just Admissions incorrectly understand the balanced admission processes between regular and early decision applicants, and compound upon this error by wrongfully asserting that early decision excludes lower-income applicants.

If the Students for Just Admissions had questioned the disadvantages of early decision for lower-income applicants 10 years ago, I would be writing in support of their critique of an unfair admission process.

However, as I mentioned previously, early decision has drastically evolved, with the majority of these changes occurring within the last decade.

In 2011, federal law required every college and university in the United States to have a net price calculator, which is calculated according to federal law. The net price calculator allows applicants to determine their expected family contribution (EFC).

Financial need of an applicant is determined by taking the cost of attendance (COA) minus EFC. Davidson College is committed to meeting 100 percent of a family’s calculated financial need, and that demonstrated need is met by the Davidson Trust.

Following the 2011 federal law, critics of early decision pointed to the inability of

schools to offer firm aid packages to early decision applicants.

According to the Wall Street Journal article “The Decision That Hurts Your Chances of Getting Into Harvard” published in 2018, this critique was reconciled by a 2016 federal policy change that allowed students to submit financial aid paperwork early enough to receive firm financial aid packages with their early decision acceptance.

With these federal policy changes, an applicant’s early decision financial aid package is equally concrete to that of a regular decision applicant.

Following these two major changes in 2011 and 2016, critics have turned to arguing that early decision as a whole is inherently disadvantaging lower-income applicants by denying the applicant the chance to compare all financial aid packages received.

First and foremost, early decision is not binding when the financial aid package provided to the applicant is too low for attendance. Because of the net price calculator and Davidson’s commitment to meeting 100 percent of calculated financial need, no applicant applying to Davidson should be unaware of the expected family contribution.

plicants: “Today, we have the same percentage of those qualified for financial decision as we do in regular

aid in early decision.”

These words are identical to the ones Gruber provided to the 2015 Washington Post article. The applicant pools for early decision and regular decision have the same demonstrated financial need, so how can the Students for Just Admissions present early decision as being unfair to lower-income applicants?

Lastly, in a 2018 article titled “Early Admission’s Effect on Financial Aid,” The Wall Street Journal explains how students accepted early decision can possibly benefit from more generous financial aid packages and merit scholarships.

This is exceptionally relevant considering Davidson’s merit scholarships are evaluated equally amongst early and regular decision applicants.

Thus, an early decision applicant is provided the same opportunity, if not more, for merit scholarships. Simply put, early decision is a “no-lose” proposition for both low- and high-income applicants.

If the Students for Just Admissions want

With these federal policy changes, an applicant’s early decision financial aid package is equally concrete to that of a regular decision applicant.

If both early and regular decision applicants undergo the same holistic and need-blind admission process, and applicants’ expected family contributions are provided beforehand by the net price calculator, the only substantiated criticism of early decision is that an applicant cannot compare merit scholarships.

I want to emphasize what Christopher Gruber, the Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Davidson, said regarding early decision ap-

to provide equal opportunities in admissions, perhaps eliminating Davison’s application fee or incorporating early action alongside early decision would be more beneficial avenues of discussion.

Marc Todd is a Chemistry and Biology double major from Cary, North Carolina. Contact him at matodd@davidson.edu.

Sports

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Wildcats Make Splash at Conference Meet SAM THOMAS ‘20 SENIOR SPORTS WRITER

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avidson’s Swimming & Diving teams competed at the Atlantic 10 Championships this past weekend at the SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio. The men finished fourth out of eight teams and the women finished eighth out of eleven teams.

Both team performances were highlighted by a myriad of strong individual performances and multiple school records set by Sarah Helen Shepherd ‘21 across the four day competition.

Records set by Shepherd included the women’s 400 Individual Medley, which she set both in the preliminary and final rounds.

Her times were 4:22 and 4:17 respectively which put her eight seconds clear of the second best performance in school history. The performance earned her third place overall.

Shepherd also set the school record in the 200 IM with a time of 2:01 in both the preliminary and final rounds. That performance was good for fourth in the competition. Beyond the Individual Medley, Shepherd also tied Kate Morton’s ‘16 school record in the 200 backstroke with a time of 2:01.

Other strong performances included sophomore Mitchell Stanek’s 2:00 mark in the 200 breaststroke. The mark was good for second best in program history and was part of a two second and six place improvement from a season ago. Alex Strasser ‘20 also moved up to second in program history with his performance in the 100 butterfly in a time of 48.59 seconds. The mark tied Will Fox ‘14’s best mark and placed him eighth in the competition. Furthermore, Thatcher Scannell ‘22 placed fourth in the 1650 freestyle in 15:42. The mark comes on the heels of his

school record performance in that event at US Junior Nationals last fall in a time of 15:36.

On the women’s side, the 400 freestyle relay placed fifth with a time of 3:25. The team, made up of Frances Resweber ‘20, Maggie Farrell ‘19, Siena Senn ‘22, and Shepherd, averaged a 100 time of 51.3. That average time would be good for eighth in the program’s history, showing the excellence of that mark.

Resweber, Farrell, and Senn also moved up on the program’s performance lists in their individual freestyle performances. Resweber moved to fifth in program history in the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:51, Farrell moved to sixth in the 100 freestyle with a performance of 51.22, and Senn moved to second in the 500 freestyle with a time of 4:55.

George Washington won the Men’s swim meet, and Duquesne took home first place in the women’s meet. George Washington, like the Davidson men from a season ago, rely on their senior class for a large bulk of their points.

Both Duquesne and George Washington won the meet a season ago as well.

Both of the programs put together very solid performances. They both graduated strong senior classes last year and have maintained pace with their performances at previous conference championships. Both the men and women return a strong core next season and look to keep making a splash in the A-10 and beyond.

Next season, the Women’s team will return 20 out of 24 team members, and the Men’s team will return 24 out of 27 team members.

Hopefully, the small loss of only seven seniors between the two team will culminate in an even more successful season than this historic one.

Top: Sarah Helen Shepard ‘21 takes a breath on her way to a school record in the Individual Medley. Bottom: Thatcher Scanell ‘22 competes in the 1650 Freestyle, on his way to a fourth place performance. Photo by: Justin Parker.

Davidson Icon Returns Home for Annual Visit DEEN HALEEM ‘21 MEN’S BASKETBALL CORRESPONDENT

T

Weekly Sports Update

he story is a cliché: local kid grows up, becomes a superstar, and forgets where he came from. In the NBA, this narrative has become so common that rare players like LeBron James and DeMar DeRozan are idolized for “staying loyal” to their homes in Akron, OH and Compton, CA. On the surface, it seems natural that players like DeRozan and James should be exceptions. After all, making it to the NBA is a one in a million achievement, and therefore requires that NBA hopefuls believe that among countless millions, they’re the one.

Davidson’s own Steph Curry poses an even greater exception as the average sized guy in a giant’s league. Unlike DeRozan and James, Curry isn’t 6’7”, wasn’t a top-tier high school recruit, and didn’t have colleges clamoring for him to wear their colors. His belief in himself wasn’t buoyed by the high expectations of the basketball world; it was cultivated when everything in his life told him to give up, finish your degree, and get a real job. For years of his life, Curry grinded in relative obscurity, putting up shots when everyone else was asleep and believing that he was more than what the world said he was. Given this mindset, it seems natural that Curry would be situated in the camp of NBA players that move on with their life once they make it to the league; especially after getting

two MVPs, three championship rings, and binder’s worth of records. However, as we all know, this couldn’t be further from the truth. In his NBA career, Curry has gone out of his way to help Davidson. He has contributed financially to the school’s facilities and mission, stayed after each Davidson game he attends to sign everything from napkins to $110 jerseys, and even checked in on the basketball team to offer them some of his wisdom after the game.

The team wore limited addition black jersey’s with neon trim inspired by Curry’s new “Ruin the Game” Under Armor line. Curry’s commitment to the college made those jerseys a reality.

At Davidson’s home game on February 15th against St. Joe’s, Curry brought his old warm up jersey to compare with the team’s new gear. He showed them the difference and told them to remember how far the program has come, and to remember that every game they put on the jersey they have a chance to advance it further. According to Team Manager Albert Zhu ’21,

Triple Double Milestone This weekend Davidson shooting guard Jon Axel Gudmundsson ‘20 recorded a triple double against Rhode Island with 20 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists. The performance was Davidson’s first triple double since John Falconi ‘74 in 1973 against Loyala Chicago. It was also one of only 25 recorded triple doubles in NCAA Men’s division one basketball in the 2018-19 season. Only one player, Ethan Happ ‘19 of UW-Madison, has recorded more than one. Gudmundsson’s stellar play has earned him A-10 player of the week honors.

Hopefully Gudmundson can keep up the good work and rally the ‘Cats to a second consecutive NCAA tournament berth.

“He brings an energy and passion unlike any superstar...There’s nothing fake about his actions.”

At that same game, the team wore limited addition black jersey’s with neon trim inspired by Curry’s new “Ruin the Game” Under Armor line. Curry’s commitment to the college made those jerseys a reality.

In a world saturated by images and filled with celebrities who say one thing and do another, a genuine star like Curry is rare. Even as a fan at the Davidson-St. Joe’s game, Curry wasn’t too cool to cheer loudly with the crowd. He wasn’t scared to jump in the air as Jon Axel Gudmundsson ‘20 and KiShawn Pritchett ‘20 rained in 3s and set up shots for their teammates. And most of all, he was all smiles as he jumped into the crowd after the game to celebrate the win with Section 30.

Instead of sticking to his brand or trying to be the coolest guy in the room, he had fun and stayed true to him; a rare accomplishment in a world where it’s all too easy to seem like anyone. I think, above all else, this is the coolest thing about Curry coming back every year. He’s not stuck in the past, trying to relive his glory days like some forlorn high school class president. He comes back because he, “love[s] Davidson with all [his] heart,” and that love has endured through all the money, fame, and success. As grind weeks approach, Curry reminds us that there is something really special about this place. Something that makes it worth coming back.

Wildcat Standings Swimming Men’s Standings

Women’s Standings

1. George Washington Dusquesne 2.

George Mason George Washington 3.

St.Bonaventure Fordham 4.

Davidson Richmond 5.

La Salle Massachusetts 6.

Massachusetts George Mason 7.

Saint Louis LaSalle 8.

Fordham Davidson

Arts and Culture

6

Urban Bush Women LORENA JAMES ’21 STAFF WRITER

I

n late February, Davidson had the great pleasure of hosting Urban Bush Women (UBW), a Brooklyn-based dance company founded in 1984. Their mission is to spread the undertold and underrepresented stories in American society.

UBW focuses on the stories of African-American women; as an African-American woman myself, I felt personally connected to the events that took place at Davidson though UBW. From a masterclass in Baker to a lecture in Union and an interactive performance in the Duke Family Performance Hall, the artistic community engagement that took place here on campus left a lasting effect on all participants and observers.

The first event UBW held was their masterclass. Approximately twenty students attended this vibing celebration of movement and diversity. While many attendees were members of Gamut or Dance Ensemble, some were also curious members of the student community with open minds and bodies.

With only an hour and a half to spend, we quickly worked through a warm-up exercise—which seemed like a piece of choreography itself—and an exploratory group improvisation piece involving hopscotch and other childlike “anti-gravity” movements.

While all of the movements held the title of “abstract,” a term often associated with modern dance, there was a technique to everything that UBW members presented to us. The technique was a mixture of hip-hop, jazz, and funk. Their bodies moved with rhythm and ease and we were encouraged to follow suit.

This masterclass carried a theme of “hiking the horizontal,” a phrase introduced to us by the members of UBW. The act of “hiking the horizontal” involves questioning what is “technique.” Technique in dance is traditionally understood as ballet, as being “neat” and “pretty” and “graceful.” UBW works to emphasize that there is a technique to all genres of dance from

Urban Bush Women is a dance company, but they are also a company of social change and community engagements. jazz to Irish step; no genre is any better than another.

Instead of viewing different dance genres in a hierarchical format, UBW believes that they should be viewed equally on a “horizontal” plane. The act of “hiking” this plane as a dancer alludes to the difficulties UBW members face in telling their stories as dancers and as minorities.

Members of Urban Bush Women perform in Duke Family Performance Hall. Photo by John Crawford ’20.

A lecture in the 900 Room addressed these difficulties directly. While one can call the presentation—from Chanon Judson, the Associate Artistic Director of Urban Bush Women—a “lecture,” it was dynamic and interactive in nature. Through strong, swift movements of her body and words, she told us the story of UBW: how Jawole Willa Jo Zollar founded the company in 1984 as a method of telling untold and undertold stories and how UBW is a method of community engagement and a way to connect with those in minority communities through something we all share: the human body.

Even allies to those in these underserved and underrepresented communities are meant to share in the artistic experience that UBW creates. To be the minority, one hikes the vertical; but to be an ally, one “hikes the horizontal.”

An ally must come face to face with the hardships the minority experiences. An ally must come to see how they may be a contributing factor in such hardships and realize that, by merely recognizing these factors, they have made immense progress in supporting the minorities in their community.

Such concepts came to a cathartic head at UBW’s interac-

tive performance in the Duke Family Performance Hall. With a diverse audience of students and faculty, townspeople, and city dwellers, everyone was able to share in the mourning and celebration of UBW stories. A mixture of dance, film, and call and response, this performance left the audience contemplating stories of hair, colorism, sexism, ageism, and racism.

As an institution of the south, such stories sat heavy on the shoulders of all audience members, no matter their outward appearance. UBW is a dance company, but they are also a company of social change and community engagements.

Such innovation in art found applause from the Davidson community in the week UBW was on campus. Similar discussion must continue on this campus, and I look forward to seeing how the Davidson and Davidson Arts Community will continue to support such conversations.

Lorena James ’21 is an Environmental Studies major from Buffalo, NY. She can be reached for comment at lojames@davidson.edu.

The President’s House A Look Inside LUCAS WEALS ’19 SENIOR ART CRITIC

E

arlier this month, on an unseasonably warm Thursday, Olivia Forrester ’22 and I walked the sunny path to the President’s House on Main Street. (It’s the old pretty white one across from the Cunningham Theater building, with the big white columns in front of the door.) We’d been sent to shoot photos of the art inside the historic home; President Quillen was kind enough to show us around and answer our questions, both about the work itself and about the chances and choices behind the impressive collection.

Some of the work belongs to the first family themselves—President Quillen’s husband, the medical research executive George McLendon, dabbles in discount art collection. (The trick, apparently, is to comb through estate sales that are hawking furniture: you can find plenty of fine art, generally undervalued by the Chippendale enthusiasts.) The rest of the art belongs to the college, on steady rotation from the VAC’s reserves with help from gallery director Lia Newman.

From the outset, Quillen stresses that the display should be fluid. With the exception of a beautiful piece by North Carolina artist

Romare Bearden, which remains above the mantle in the study, these pieces—ranging from large, finished prints by Andy Warhol to sketches and studies by Kehinde Wiley, most famous for his official portrait of President Obama—are constantly on the move: one day reposed behind a piano in the sitting room, the next front and center in a large reception hall used for dinners and other functions.

Three ideas seem central to the President’s curatorial philosophy. The first is movement: “this is not a museum,” she says of her living room. When pieces stay in one place, you can forget they’re even there; “I want people to see them anew every time,” she says.

Next is process: since the President’s House “is a space for students too,” Quillen believes the works on display should show all stages of the artist’s process. Sketches, figure drawings, and the generally unfinished appear just as frequently as “finalized” works.

This dovetails nicely with the third (and maybe most important) principle: learning.

Time and again President Quillen describes her home as “a learning collection,” meant to show depth and variety of medium, technique, geography and history. She hopes and plans to leave some of hers and George’s collection to the school—when the time comes.

Lucas Weals ‘19 is an English major from Bethesda, MD, and a former Arts and Culture Editor for The Davidsonian.

Art and decor from the President’s House. Photos by Olivia Forrester ‘22.

Et Cetera

7

The Linden Affair: Revisiting Antisemitism on Campus April 1977

SEVERINE STIER ‘19 AND DAHLIA KRUTKOVICH ‘21 CONTRIBUTORS

I

n the spring of 1977, Davidson College made national news. As readers skimmed The Washington Post on the morning of April 25th, they came upon what was perhaps their initial encounter with our pious, regional school. The Post detailed neither Davidson’s honor code nor its latest basketball victory, but in an 800-word article entitled “Christian N.C. College Rebuffs Jew,” the paper expounded on the College’s discriminatory hiring practices.

Two months earlier, then-president of the College, Samuel R. Spencer Jr., offered a faculty position to Dr. Ronald Linden, a political scientist who also happened to be Jewish. As the Post article explained, Dr. Linden was a strong candidate for professorship. With a PhD from Princeton and teaching experience at a small liberal arts school, of 130 applicants, Dr. Linden was the only person to receive unanimous approval from the departmental hiring committee. The hiring committee, though, had not considered how Dr. Linden’s religion comported with the policy of “Christian Tenure,” a section in Davidson’s by-laws that directed the president to hire “Christian men and women as members of the faculty, remembering at the same time that the Christian community has always had a place for the reverent seeker who respects the Christian tradition,” and further stipulated that tenured faculty must be able to “conscientiously uphold and seek to increase the College’s effectiveness as a church-related College.” While it was technically possible for Dr. Linden to have joined the faculty under this policy, bureaucratic and cultural reality made it so that no matter how he taught, what he published, or what he contributed to the community he would only be able to receive

tenure if he rejected his own religious identity.

Dr. Linden was not aware of Davidson’s Christian Tenure policy until he arrived for his campus visit. Speaking with a group of Davidson students via Skype earlier this month, he explained that even after he first read the College’s By-Laws–alone in his room at the Carnegie Guest House the night before his interview–he couldn’t help but wonder why the College had bothered to bring him in for the final stage of the hiring process. Perhaps, he thought, the policy was a sort of vestigial structure, a testament to the College’s past more so than to its present. During the interview the following day, Dr. Spencer asked Dr. Linden which church he attended. Dr. Linden replied that he was Jewish. According to Dr. Linden, “the temperature in the room dropped 20 degrees.”

Dr. Spencer still offered Dr. Linden the job, but in his letter of offer, expressed hesitancy as to whether Dr. Linden would be willing to teach at a school with a “strong devotion to the Christian tradition.” Six weeks later, Dr. Linden sent a letter to the College accepting the position but cited a strong opposition to the school’s tenure policy, describing religious discrimination as “morally repugnant, socially anachronistic, and scholastically unwise.”

He added that during his time at Davidson, he would “strongly support any movement to eliminate such laws and practices [as Christian Tenure].”

After discussing Dr. Linden’s response with College trustee and lawyer Larry Dagenhart,

President Spencer rescinded the job offer, claiming that Dr. Linden’s letter of acceptance did not qualify as an agreement to Davidson’s standard terms of employment. Regardless of whether Dr. Linden had legally agreed to the terms or not, as he stated in an interview with The Davidsonian, he felt as though “[his] religion would be an overriding concern” if he were to come to Davidson and he would be unable to advance in his career.

As news of the “Linden Affair” spread, the student body took action to hold the College accountable, organizing a boycott of Spring Convocation, writing letters to alumni and donors, and forcing the administration to form a committee to review criteria surrounding religious tenure. The Linden Affair, as well as the campus’s actions and reactions plastered The Davidsonian from March until May of 1977. with articles reporting on trustee updates that spilled into the following academic year. Faculty, too, pushed to change the Christian tenure requirements. In meetings in March and April of 1977, groups of faculty members, including many from the Department of Religion, proposed removing any religious test for faculty. As Dr. Linden noted during the recent Skype call, “at some point, the story moved on from me. It was now Davidson’s story.” The Linden Affair served as an inflection point, one that forced students to challenge the College and question its commitment to academic and moral integrity.

The administration eventually conceded to student action and behind-the-scenes faculty

Day 1

pressure. In a statement issued in May 1977, the Board of Trustees wrote that, “as an act both of faith and of freedom, [the BoT] hereby declare[s] our intention to remove the religious requirements for tenure from the By-Laws and to instruct the administration and officers of the College in appointing and promoting Faculty members to seek out those best qualified to further the goals of the College as defined in its Statements of Purpose.”

While we must still push Davidson to be a more equitable, empathic version of itself, the College’s move to abolish Christian Tenure, and later, the religious requirement of trustees, has allowed a greater number of people to more fully participate in college life. Looking simply at the history of Jews at the College, Davidson tenured its first Jewish professor, Dr. Ruth Ault, in 1982, five years after the Linden Affair; Davidson’s first Jewish trustee, Carole Weinstein, joined the board in 2011, six years after trustees were no longer mandated to be Presbyterian; and two Jewish alumni, Cintra Pollack ‘99 and Steve Shames ‘96 have joined following her departure. And just last week, Davidson began a search for its first Jewish Studies-specific faculty member, a visiting professor in the Department of History.

As students in the course “The History of Jews and Jewish Identity at Davidson,” we hope to illuminate stories like Dr. Linden’s as well as other untold narratives about Jewish identity at Davidson. This undertaking builds on decades of student work to excavate the stories of marginalized voices, including the recent Revive Project ‘87 movement.

If you would like to hear more about Dr. Linden’s experiences, please join us for a panel discussion on Thursday, March 14 at 4:30 pm in the Lilly Family Gallery in Chambers with Dr. Linden, who will be visiting Davidson for the first time since 1977.

Day 5

Day 3

Ellie Kincaid ‘20 I just wanna go back to 1999. I really like to thrift, and I get most of my clothes used because I’m trying to be more sustainable in my clothing choices and because it’s fun trying to find hidden gems, those clothes that a lot of people may have overlooked. Throwback clothing is fun and lets me try to be more confident because fashion is really about having fun.

The

Davidsonian Staff Editors in Chief News Editors Perspectives Editors Arts and Culture Editors Sports Editors Photography Editor Yowl Editors Design Editor Web Editor Art Editor Features Editor Copy Editors

Olivia Daniels ‘19, Laura Dunnagan ‘19 Hope Anderson ‘22, Emma Pettit ‘20 Raven Hudson ‘21, Lizzie Kane ‘22 Alyssa Tirrell ‘22, Lucas Weals ‘19 Drew Eastland ‘21, Max Pearson ‘22 Elayna Daniels ‘21 Malorie Hudson ‘22, EJ Kelley ‘20 Sebastian Sola-Sole ‘21 Jake Carver ‘21 Richard Farrell ‘22 Caroline Roy ‘20 Sarah Austin ‘21, Lindy Bustabad ‘21, Susannah Cate ‘20, Adam Ferraz ‘20, Yashi Gunawardena ‘19

Day 2

Day 4

in de qu an

The

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Irreverent student journalism since 2004. Castigat Ridendo Mores.

inside

davidsoniån.com

Yowl Editors, Devoid of Any Integrity, Seen Taking Bribe to Feature Banana Account on Page Page $43

February 27, 2019

Tie-less Chiller at Semi Formal Would Like to Inform You That This Not His First Rodeo Page Business Casual

All Pages of Base Libs Books Blank, Reports Guy Who Looked Through Them For Some Reason Page 0

Spring Breaking News Issue

Spring Break Travelers Desperately Wait to See if New SGA Administration will Provide Shuttle Plane Service to Bahamas Page 25

Carrel-ing Craze: A Look at the New Trend Struggling A Capella Groups are Using to Harass Silent Studiers Page 38

Local Unwashed Swell Water Bottle Named New Capital of Microbial Empire

Above: Microbe Empire, courtesy of Biology Department.

Area Man Discovers Sum Total of Lost Human Knowledge in Base Libs

Sitting on a bed in the Health Center there is a shell that used to be a man. His name is Mike Calverton ‘20 and he has been here for four days. With special permission, The Yowl has been allowed to hear his story.

“I’d never been to base libs before. I’d heard the stories of course: dead faces that peek at you from around corners, endless shelves where the unwary get lost for days, corners so devoid of natural light that they host creatures usually only seen around oceanic vents. I thought those were just the delusions of sleep deprived, Ritalin-addled sophomores.”

Calverton’s face contorts with fear, as though the memory itself is clawing at his skull. “I’d just sat down and got my laptop out. I looked up and… the book was there. I thought I misread it at first, it couldn’t say what I thought it said. When I looked closer it was unmistakable, Social Relations and the Role of Women in the Late Dynasty of Atlantis.”

“I didn’t understand, that couldn’t be real right?”

Calverton picked the book off the shelf and opened it

up. Inside was a comprehensive study of gender relations that, while well sourced, somewhat sacrificed readability to get across its more cerebral arguments.

Calverton stated that among the shelves of lost knowledge sat The Complete Works of Socrates, The Wacky Misadventures of Genghis Khan: An Autobiography, and his lost eighth-grade science report.

Endless shelves of knowledge, each book more enigmatic than the last. “I stumbled down the halls, and every time I leaned on a shelf for the support I saw something new. Eventually, the titles didn’t make sense anymore, Heuristics of Conservation in Dying Nashings, Blood Walls and Blood Doors: Gardeners Tips for Cool Moms.

The titles started to amount to nothing more than guttural screams, faithfully transliterated into hardback.”

When asked why they never revealed the existence of the existential library where even a fraction of the knowledge contained would tear the soul from the body like pulling the legs of a fly, a librarian told The Yowl, “no one ever asked.”

DAVIDSON – Originally thought to be little more than a colony comprised of a few errant microscopic organisms, the newly established capital of the Microbial Empire is flourishing in a local unwashed Swell water bottle. The bottle’s owner, at first planning to just “rinse it out till it doesn’t look like a petri dish anymore,” is now considering a more severe course of cleansing in order to return the bottle to its intended function.

In an exclusive interview with The Yowl, leaders of the Microbe Empire responded to these threats, declaring that “any attempt to wash away our great people will be seen as an act of genocide and leave us with no further course of action outside of total war.” This would not be the first time the microbial community has taken action against the college; the leader reminded us of the Great Freshman Plague of 2018 and the 2017 Flu Season as the most recent examples of the power these microscopic marauders wield.

Though satellite images show bacterial and viral troop movements on the border, Davidson College Security Forces could not be reached for comment at this time. The Yowl has, however, received unconfirmed reports of Physical Plant Black Ops teams armed with bleach paradropping deep into the neutral zone.

The Political Science and Biology departments have brought up the possibility of offering a joint “History of Microbe-Human Relations Seminar” as an attempt to both defuse hostilities and to lay groundwork for the improvement of future on-campus relations between these historic enemies.

It is unclear at this time whether or not actions taken to clean the water bottle would be considered a violation of the Honor Code, as there are no precedents set for dealing with non-human societies on campus.

Under these unusual circumstances, the Philosophy department has already planned a guest lecture series focused on redefining the concept of humanity. Professors were reportedly giddy over the fresh angle these newly encountered intelligent strains of Microbes bring to the debate over what constitutes humanity.

A joint RLO-UN task force has called for the immediate deployment of UN peacekeepers supplemented by RLO staff members. Said a group spokesperson, “We just want to facilitate productive and meaningful discussion to ensure lasting stability on campus.” With the Freshman Plague and Flu season now behind us, these talks give hope to the possibility of a continuing peace.

College Facing Banana Shortage Following Success of Davidson Banana Cam Account KNOBLOCH CAMPUS CENTER –– ”It’s frickin’ anarchy, man,” exclaimed Davis Cafe employee Don McAvoy. “I’ve never seen such a spike in demand like this, not once in all my years here.”

McAvoy, who has worked in the Davis Cafe for over a decade, has been busier than usual over the past couple weeks, in large part due to the constant shipment requests he has been forced to make to Chiquita Banana Company.

As McAvoy alluded to, there has been a 500% increase in banana sales in the Davis Cafe since the birth of Davidson College Banana Cam (@ davidsoncollegebanana), a new Instagram account that has garnered nearly 300 followers in just two weeks.

The account, which features Davidson students eating, holding, and interacting with the de-

The

Yowl

lectable yellow fruit first domesticated by farmers in Papa New Guinea, is the latest online platform to provide students with the opportunity to gain campus-wide fame and comedic clout.

As a result of the account’s sudden surge in popularity, students across campus have been desperate to get their hands on the coveted fruit.

With some students beginning to resort to extreme methods to procure the peel™, the Davis Cafe has succumbed to extreme banana scarcity, according to McAvoy. This shortage has had a ripple effect across campus.

The Health Center told The Yowl that the limited supply of campus bananas has impacted their Sexual Health lectures. “The loss of our main prop has been a big blow to our programming,” admitted Health Educator Brianna McFruttington ‘19.

WRITERS Matty Singles LEO Sammy D Banana Bribers

QUOTE OF THE WEEK “In a middle school full of bullies, INSANE teachers, and GROSS school lunches.”

-Ned Bibgby IV

The fruit, which is a part of the Musaceae family of herbaceous flowering plants native to the tropics of Africa and Asia, and its newfound popularity have led to some unwanted side effects.

Overwhelmed by the allure of the golden delicacy several students have engaged in overconsumption, leading to multiple hospital transports due to potassium poisoning.

Despite the apparent risks associated with the rise in fruit-based self-expression, the majority of students remain undeterred, eager to make their mark on the Davidson community.

“This account has given every student an equal chance to rise from campus commoner to campus celebrity,” remarked Anna Ban ‘20, “You’d have to be a fool not to capitalize on this opportunity.”

Ban was later seen in Akers taking several mirror selfies with a banana.

Spring Break: A Short Story

At press time, an account called Davidson College Dumps (@dsonpoopoo), which appears to feature (and rate) student-submitted shits from bathrooms around campus, had gained over 200 followers in under an hour, threatening Davidson College Banana Cam’s Instagram supremacy.

Once upon a time, way back in the early times of January, you planned a “kickass” spring break that would take place on the shores of Hilton Head Island. You and your 13 closest friends were going save all of your money for a bitchin’ time and all the alcohol that your work study paycheck could buy. Too bad you spent all of your money on boxed wine at Harris Teeter, your best friend Bethany is going to meet her boyfriend parents in Connecticut, and Tyler’s grandparents sold their beach house two years ago.

Have fun telling your friends you wanted the mental break anyways while watching The Real Housewives of Cleveland with your mom.

Note: The Yowl is a satirical supplement to The Davidsonian. Hence, nothing in it should be taken as truth. We don’t make the news, we fake the news™.