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Diverse backgrounds allowa for a strong at the College’s ROTC program. Diverse backgrounds build strong corecore at the College’s ROTC program
Men’s basketball forefeits a 16-point halftime lead in a road loss to the Blue Hens.
Tribe falls to Delaware
College Spiders ROTC athosts the College
Vol. 104, Iss. 24 | Friday, January 23, 2015
The Flat Hat The Twice-Weekly Student Newspaper
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of The College of William and Mary
Measuring belief
4
percent
13
percent
Majority worldview (Protestant, Orthodox or Roman Catholic Christian)
Other
Nonreligious
student life
Minority worldview
The College of William and Mary, broken down by worldview
Survey compares students’ beliefs about religion and spirituality with campuses across the nation ELLEN WEXLER // flat hat Executive editor
H
iba Vohra ’16 tries to pray five times a day, but she has trouble finding a quiet space where she won’t be interrupted. Sometimes she prays in the meditation room in the Campus Center. But sometimes she is on the other side of campus, studying in the library, and she feels guilty if she doesn’t walk the five minutes it takes to get back to her dorm. Vohra wants to learn more about her faith, but as the vice president of the Muslim Student Association at a college without a strong Muslim community, she is often considered the authority. There is no one to teach her. For students like Vohra, maintaining a religious identity in college comes with a host of unique challenges, and for the first time, the College of William and Mary and the Student Assembly are trying to quantify what that means. The Campus Religious and Spiritual Climate Survey compares students at the College with 13,776
students at 52 campuses across the country. The results, which were shared with The Flat Hat and will be released in full later this year, show a campus made up primarily of Christians (45.1 percent) and nonreligious students (37.7 percent). 12.8 percent of students identify as minority religions, and 4.4 percent identify as another worldview. Based on the results, each participating college received a score in 26 categories. In 18 of those categories, the College’s scores are significantly different from the national sample. Most of those differences are positive. Compared to other campuses, the College is more accepting of almost all religions and worldviews asked about on the survey: Muslims, Jews, Mormons, atheists and non-religious students are all accepted on campus at rates higher than the national average. For instance, 78.2 percent of students at the College report that nonreligious students are accepted on campus, compared See RELIGION page 3
38
percent
34 percent Students at other campuses who report a high level of informal engagement with diverse peers
45
percent
50 percent
Students at the College who report a high level of informal engagement with diverse peers
GRAPHIC BY ELLEN WEXLER / THE FLAT HAT
The visuals above were created using data from the Campus Religious and Spiritual Climate Survey.
student life
Alumni
Reveley, Faculty Assembly, NAACP chapter respond to racist online remarks
base consolidates
College reacts to racial harassment New York alumni Sarah Caspari FLAT HAT chief staff writer
To commemorate the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, students at the College of William and Mary organized a “die-in” last semester in which students lay
down in Earl Gregg Swem Library for four and a half minutes of silence. For many students who participated, those four-and-a-half minutes of solidarity were undermined by racist remarks and hostile actions that followed on several fronts. The comments and events caught
the attention of Vice President of Student Affairs Ginger Ambler ’88 Ph.D. ’06, College President Taylor Reveley and the Faculty Assembly. Faculty Assembly president and associate professor of government David Dessler said individuals leaving the library after the diein were met with hostility, as were students in a residence hall. “Students and faculty leaving that event were confronted with hecklers who shouted racial epithets,” Dessler said in an email. “Following that, some students in at least one residence hall ran through the hallways, banging on the doors of the rooms of black students and shouting, ‘Police!’” Several students also made racist remarks over social media. One Facebook post read, “i tell you one thing if i owned a business down there i would have been in the back room with a clear line of sight with a 12 gauge pump layin them [n***as] out one by one.” In response to the online comments, Ambler sent a campus-wide email denouncing the “incivility,” and the Faculty Assembly released a statement declaring solidarity with students and faculty of
William and Mary Club opens at Princeton Club
See RACE page 4
See NYC page 3
COURTESY PHOTO / WM.EDU
College students in Earl Gregg Swem Library participated in a four-and-a-half minute die-in last semester.
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Inside Opinions
Gilded pineapples are synonymous with Colonial Williamsburg, but many of the College of William and Mary’s alumni prefer the taste of the Big Apple. Following in the footsteps of the Washington, D.C. and Virginia chapters, the College’s New York City alumni base is the most active, with 8,000-9,000 graduates in the area. “To my knowledge, we are one of only two public universities to have a New York City office,” Managing Director of the College’s NYC chapter Renee Davis ’94 said. “We have a lot of alumni working side by side in this city that don’t realize they share a college connection.” The New York City chapter hosted its own Yule Log festivities, an annual event meant to mirror the on-campus tradition. Alumni tossed a sprig of holly into a bowl. The holly was then transported to Williamsburg and thrown into the Great Hall’s fireplace flames at the College’s Dec. 13 festivities. “[The New York location] is a beautiful place, very swanky,” Celeste Hall ’13 said. “I loved the Yule Log ceremony there; it’s a wonderful venue and it was especially meaningful celebrating such a cherished tradition with familiar faces in that setting.” This year, the event coincided with the grand opening of the William and Mary Club located at the Princeton Club of New York. Membership to the Club provides both former and current
Inside SPORTS
Tackling freedom of expression
Mostly cloudy High 48, Low 37
Vayda Parrish FLAT HAT STAFF WRITER
What should we take away from North Korea’s response to “The Interview?” Can offense place limitations on freedom of expression? page 5
Balancing Act
Tribe alum Josh Sundquist ’06 is a former paralympian, a published author, an international soccer player and a legitimate social media celebrity. page 8