The Gettysburgian - October 31, 2019 Magazine

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The Serving Gettysburg College since 1897

Volume CXXII, Issue No. 2 · October 31, 2019

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Carbon Neutrality: Where Are We?

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A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR Inside the Issue

BY BENJAMIN PONTZ, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF This marks the second edition of The Gettysburgian’s new magazine. I opened the first edition by printing some quotes that appeared in The Gettysburgian’s second-ever print edition (back in 1897) in which readers responded to what they saw in the first. Given that precedent, I thought it appropriate to share a few comments we received on our first magazine here.

“I just read the first edition of The Gettysburgian magazine, and it’s a winner! I thoroughly enjoyed the wide variety of stories, excellent writing, and attractive layout. In particular, I applaud the substantive articles on Low Support Staff Wages, the SCOGL Report, and the Untangling the Liberal Arts Lie – all thoughtful reads,” one reader wrote. “Please pass on my hearty congratulations to the Gettysburgian’s talented staff. You’ve set a high bar of excellence with your first edition, and I look forward to reading what comes next.”

“I am grateful to see this publication,” wrote another.

It has been gratifying that so many readers have seen the value in this project, and that validation has served to enhance the resolve of our team in producing a first-rate publication.

This issue is our next salvo in that endeavor. One of the opportunities this format provides is to take a deep dive into a particular aspect of the college, and this issue explores sustainability at Gettysburg College.

In 2007, then-Gettysburg College President Katherine Haley Will signed the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment, which pledged the college to develop a plan to become carbon neutral, integrate sustainability into the curriculum, and develop a publiclyavailable action plan. That action plan was developed and released in 2009.

Now, ten years later, we are taking the opportunity to assess the progress Gettysburg College has made, point out areas where the college’s actions may not meet the high standard set forth by its words, and, in a staff editorial, advocate for more aggressive and visible action that goes beyond purchasing offsets and ensuring new construction is energy efficient.

This issue features an investigation, an op-ed, and a staff editorial that confront this challenging topic. It also features analysis of data into how much money the college spends on instruction relative to other priorities, a look at how the college prepares students to study abroad, profiles of four student artists (three musicians and a thespian), and an endeavor to answer the age-old question: who is our biggest athletic rival — Dickinson or F&M? As I did in our first edition, I invite you to take some time to sit down with this magazine, read it slowly while thinking deeply about the community in which we each play a role, and ponder how we all might work together to help Gettysburg College reach the full measure of our aspirations.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Pontz ‘20 Editor-in-Chief The Gettysburgian

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Campus Sustainability

A deep dive into the college’s efforts to become carbon neutral by 2032

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Instruction Spending

What does the college spend on instruction relative to other priorities?

We take a look at the data

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Abroad Satisfaction

Some students have complained that the Center for Global Education does not do enough to prepare students going abroad; we explore the issue

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Postcards from Abroad

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Senior Spotlights

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Down on the Farm

Gettysburgians Lindsay Richwine and Hannah Labovitz share stories from their time abroad in Spain

Profiles with the three senior music majors and one theatre major presenting capstone work this semester

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20 Directing Scenes

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A look at some directing projects from the Department of Theatre Arts

Our editorial board suggests that the college needs to do more to promote sustainability

Diplomats or Devils?

Who is Gettysburg College’s biggest athletic rival? We ask some athletes

Anna Cincotta talks about her work with the Center for Public Service at the Painted Turtle Farm

Staff Editorial

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Pictured: Jaeger Center, a LEED certified building on campus

College Shows Progress on Sustainability, Advocates Want More Campus Engagement

BY NICOLE DEJACIMO

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ver the past ten years, Gettysburg College has reduced its net carbon emissions by nearly 50 percent through energy upgrades, energy-efficient new construction, and purchasing carbon offsets.

News of that progress, though, has been slow to diffuse, and student activists bemoan the lack of a more coordinated public commitment to making the campus more sustainable.

History & Current Status of Sustainability at Gettysburg Gettysburg College’s formal commitment towards carbon neutrality began in 2007 when then-Presi-

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dent Katherine Haley Will signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, the (ACUPCC), in which the college agreed to (as quoted from the Commitment’s mission statement): • Complete an emissions inventory • Set a target date and interim milestones for becoming climate neutral • Take immediate steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by choosing from a list of short-term actions •

Integrate sustainability

into the curriculum and make it part of the educational experience • Make the action plan, inventory and progress reports publicly available Two years after the administration signed the 2007 Strategic Directions and the ACUPCC, the college adopted the 2009 Climate Action Plan (CAP): a twenty-three-year strategy that would ultimately result in a carbon-neutral campus.

That plan set a goal to get the college to carbon neutrality by 2032, the year of Gettysburg’s 200th anniversary, and set an

intermediate benchmark to show a 30 percent reduction in emissions by 2025. According to the most recent data available from Second Nature, which tracks and reports on the college’s emissions, as of 2018, the college has achieved a 47.92% decrease in net emissions since 2006.

College spokesperson Jamie Yates points to that decrease as evidence of the college’s success in reducing its ecological footprint.

(Photo Merlyn Maldonado/The Gettysburgian)

“Recognizing our collective responsibility as stewards of the environment, the College has a strong history of implementing innovative approaches to reducing our ecological footprint,” she said in an email. “Due to the College’s commitment and efforts in this area, we have already surpassed that goal and are showing a reduction of around 50 percent.”

She pointed to the installation of LED lights around campus, updates to the College Transportation System and practices, upgrades to dining equipment and processes to eliminate waste and water usage, and ensuring that large construction projects are Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified as specific ways the college has pursued sustainability.

Currently, the renovated part of the College Union Building is under review to determine whether or not it is LEED certified. Yates reported that the administration will hear back later this fall.

Public Commitment Soon after sustainability was launched with much fanfare as a campus priority late in the Will administration, it all but disappeared from the campus consciousness when President Janet Morgan Riggs took office in 2008.

Other than the accomplishment

of completing the construction of the Jaeger Center and “securing $10.3 million in gifts towards this project and achieving Gold LEED certification,” sustainability is not listed among the goals accomplished or still in progress in the 2011 updated strategic plan. The 2016 strategic plan similarly makes no mention of sustainability.

Yates defended the absence of sustainability from the strategic plan, arguing that sustainability efforts are “identified at the office and department level rather than in a high-level document such as the strategic plan: creating a more sustainable campus is a Collegewide goal and the progress we’ve made is evidence of that.”

But to current and former employees of the college and members of the faculty with a role or interest in sustainability, the omission is a microcosm of the college’s systemic failure to engage the campus community in a shared commitment to making Gettysburg more sustainable.

“If there is a new strategic plan it would be great to see sustainability listed as a higher institutional priority,” Environmental Studies Professor Rutherford Platt said.

Recently, President Bob Iuliano met with the environmental studies department and told the department faculty of the college’s nearly 50 percent reduction in carbon emissions, which was news to them.

“After this morning’s meeting with the president,” Platt said, “we see that Iuliano is supportive of sustainability and climate change issues.”

Professor William Lane, who teaches in the English and environmental studies departments, helps organize Green Gettysburg, a task force within Gettysburg Area Democracy for America, which provides a forum in Gettysburg

and the surrounding area to spread of information regarding environmental issues. In his view, those who want to live in a more sustainable world are part of the majority but do not always communicate with one another.

“One of our key tasks is to become more visible,” Lane said.

He is hopeful that increased communication and conversation about sustainability will spark a new set of priorities for the institution and the community at large.

What Gettysburg College Is Doing The Office of Facilities Planning & Management is ultimately responsible for implementing sustainability-related objectives at Gettysburg College, but that office has no full-time staff member in charge of such efforts despite the Climate Action Plan’s suggestion to hire a sustainability coordinator.

Instead, Facilities hires interns each summer who spearhead campus sustainability efforts and help to compile the college’s Greenhouse Gas report.

“The responsibility of sustainability really falls under Facilities, who hires the sustainability intern,” the 2019 sustainability intern Jack Burns ‘20 said. “Since there is no frontman, there’s no one to push new ideas. It’s a last thought for facilities because they have so much else to do.”

“Since there is no frontman, there’s no one to push new ideas. It’s a last thought for facilities because they have so much else to do.”

-Jack Burns, ‘20 Burns worked on campus over the summer to better understand what sustainability at Gettysburg College looked like. One of his primary projects involved THE GETTYSBURGIAN

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expanding composting efforts in the college’s Dining Services.

Burns identified an off-site facility that could take food waste from Servo and the Bullet Hole, but the college has not yet begun to use the service. One building on campus that composts is Farm House, a student-run College House, but this does not have a significant impact on the college when compared to the amount of food waste from the combined dining services.

Without an individual dedicated to coordinating institutional sustainability efforts, the locus of the college’s continuous efforts appears to be the purchase of carbon offsets.

Platt believes that carbon offsets can be part of the solution, but he does not think that they are the complete solution.

“Sometimes they are used to absolve the institutions of doing the harder work,” Platt said. “The other risk is that you don’t always know what you’re buying. So, I think it is important that carbon offsets are verified by a third party.”

“Sometimes [carbon offsets] are used to absolve the institutions of doing the harder work.”

-Rutherford Platt

“The purchasing of offsets to achieve carbon neutrality is a common approach,” said Yates.

“We presently offset all of our campus electricity consumption by purchasing green-certified electric credits, representing little over 1% of our annual budget for electricity.”

The sum of this budget was not reported, but, in 2010, the college reported spending $23,000 to offset about half of the college’s electricity consumption.

“On average, the College spends about 2% of its annual operating budget on electricity and natural gas,” Riggs said in an interview with The Gettysburgian in 2015.

“At our current consumption levels, investing in our own power generation would not be costeffective.”

Riggs did not respond to whether or not this was still her stance, but according to Yates, partnering with an outside firm has reduced what the college spends on traditional energy sources.

“In 2011, the College partnered with a solar company to install a 366-kilowatt solar panel system on the Jaeger Center and Bream Wright House flat roofs,” Yates said.

“The power produced from these panels supports a small percentage of the actual electric consumption of the Athletic complex.”

“In 2008, Gettysburg College began purchasing carbon offsets, namely through purchasing energy from biomass or wind energy sources,” the report says.

“We have counted these in the Third party verified carbon offsets purchased category.”

One area in which the college does not appear to have made significant progress since pledging to integrate sustainability into the curriculum as part of its 2007 agreement is in developing a “program that introduces all students to campus goals and teaches them how to help work towards those goals,” as “a required part of the First-Year Experience program.”

Yates did not address a question

No such program is part of

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Orientation or the Charting Your Course extended orientation program for first-year students.

The college’s 2018 progress evaluation states that “Professors are given the freedom to include sustainability in their curriculum and course work.”

Taylor Brorby, who taught in the English Department during the 2017-18 academic year and who has an MFA in Creative Writing and the Environment, said that Gettysburg College’s lack of coordinated commitment to sustainability is frustrating but that it is “on par” with other institutions at which he has taught and studied. These include a large research institution, Iowa State University, and a smaller liberal arts college, Hobart and William Smith.

“My guess is that these issues might get taken on at the administrative level,” Brorby said, “but the marketing is failing.”

“My guess is that these issues might get taken on at the administrative level, but the marketing is failing.”

-Taylor Brorby Brorby did not see much of an activist culture at Gettysburg that would be necessary to push college administration to make dramatic changes.

Riggs conceced that her administration could have done more.

“This is an area that requires the continued focus of the College community,” she said. “Of course there are many areas and initiatives on which I would have liked to have made more progress during my time as president— and I would suspect any college president would say the same.”

Current Student Efforts One instance of conspicuous

(Photo Sam Hann/The Gettysburgian)

According to the college’s 2016 Greenhouse Gas report, the college has aggressively pursued the purchase of carbon offsets from Carbon Solutions Group.

about the portion of the college’s carbon emissions reduction that can be attributed to the purchased offsets.

STUDENTS GATHER OUTSIDE PENN HALL FOR CLIMATE RALLY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

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campus activism came on Sep. 20 when about 200 Gettysburg students, faculty, and community members stood outside of Pennsylvania Hall as part of the Fridays for Future environmental protests, a global climate walkout.

“Hopefully it will draw attention [from] the faculty and staff that this is something we care about,” said Piper Mettenburg ‘21, one of the protesters.

“Hopefully it will draw attention [from] the faculty and staff that this is something we care about.”

-Piper Mettenburg ‘21 Emma Fee ‘22 concurred.

“I hope that because we’re in front of Penn Hall we’ll show the administration where we stand on certain issues. Also, I think that it’s kind of a community message that this is where Gettysburg College stands along with the other campus communities,” she said.

President Robert Iuliano, Provost Christopher Zappe, and Dean of Students Julie Ramsey were among those who attended the protest and expressed support for the demonstration.

Zappe told The Gettysburgian that there still needs to be more education about climate change.

“I’m not going to prescribe any course of action,” he said. “From my own self-education on this topic I think there’s a lot for people to learn. So I view this again as educational.”

Iuliano, who took over as Gettysburg’s president in July, has yet to make a formal public statement on sustainability, but he has repeatedly encouraged students to voice their opinions about issues facing the world around them.

“I view that event as an example

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of the sort of activities that our students should engage in,” said Iuliano in a short interview following the climate strike. He said that no matter what kind of issues students champion, “the important point is [they’re] advocating for what [they] think is a better world.”

Current and former sustainability interns say that in the absence of coordination from the college administration, student activism cannot be particularly effective.

“Ultimately, there is an information gap between who creates the policies and how they are enforced,” Burns said. “If everyone is [being sustainable] as a mandate from the administration, that’s the only way we’re going to see real change.”

McKenzie Somers ‘20, who was a sustainability intern in the summer of 2018 and currently serves as President of the Gettysburg Environmental Concerns Organization (GECO), expressed little optimism about the potential for student activism to influence college administration to take more aggressive action.

“No matter how much GECO pushes for action or spreads awareness, it tends to fall on deaf ears,” Somers said. “The biggest setback was the fact that there isn’t a sustainability coordinator…

No matter how much people care, if there isn’t a focus on the issue, nothing can get done.”

“No matter how much people care, if there isn’t a focus on the issue, nothing can get done.”

-McKenzie Somers ‘20 Progress from Neighbors to the North Other colleges have taken aggressive action to address climate and sustainability issues.

Dickinson President Margee Ensign said in an interview that her campus will achieve carbon neutrality by the end of this academic year.

Less than 30 miles north of Gettysburg, Dickinson College also adopted a Climate Action Plan in 2009. Dickinson President Margee Ensign said in an interview that her campus will achieve carbon neutrality by the end of this academic year, just eleven years after making a formal public commitment.

Dickinson has established a Center for Sustainability that organizes campus sustainability projects, which have included installing LED lights powered by a 3-megawatt solar field, encouraging students to turn toward plant-based diets, and establishing a bike-sharing program that reduces the need for cars on campus. Dickinson has also made aggressive use of offsets, though its plan emphasizes that they must be “secondary to mitigation projects that directly decrease emissions.”

Offsets were not to exceed 75 percent of campus emissions in 2020 when the college initially is to achieve neutrality and, by 2030, are to account for less than 25 percent of emissions.

Dickinson has also taken a public role in encouraging broader sustainability action by colleges and universities across the country.

“We are sharing our knowledge, experience, and expertise to help other colleges to advance sustainability on their campuses through participation in statewide and national consortia,” Dickinson’s Vice President of Marketing and Communications

“EDIBLE LANDSCAPES” AT DICKINSON Connie McNamara said.

She said that over 420 students and faculty of various colleges (including numerous students from Gettysburg) attended Dickinson’s BE.Hive conference in early October to discuss ways for college campuses to be more sustainable, which included changing individuals’ behaviors, using alternative forms of energy, and buying carbon offsets.

(Photo Nicole DeJacimo/The Gettysburgian)

“Dickinson has trained 200-plus faculty members from over 60 colleges and universities to teach about sustainability and climate change at their institutions,” McNamara said.

Dickinson has invested more than $3 million in sustainability education efforts and claims that more than 140 courses “explore environmental, social, and/or economic dimensions of sustainability.”

The Path Forward Gettysburg College appears to have made more progress in net emissions reduction than many seem to be aware. Coordinating a broader campus effort, then, is the college’s next frontier.

“We need to highlight our existing

and future sustainability policies,” Platt said, adding that all future policies should be “evidencebased.”

Platt believes that the college has the ability to use student research as a way to determine which sustainability plans should be implemented; these studies would continue in order “to see the benefits or lack thereof.”

One public-facing initiative that has come to fruition happened earlier this fall when every Gettysburg student received a reusable bag that they can use at the Bullet Hole. Moving forward, non-reusable shopping bags cost 10 cents. Student Senate Sustainability Committee Chairperson Carolina Fernandes ‘22 reported that Bullet now sells fewer than 100 plastic bags per week, a decrease from around 700-800 single-use bags each week before charging for them.

The college has previously had a Sustainability Advisory Committee involved in campus sustainability efforts. After The Gettysburgian asked about its current membership and status, the college said it would move to reconstitute the group and its

charge.

“Part of the charge will be for this group to educate campus on the everyday things each of us can do to reduce our own carbon footprint – for example, travel, laptops, and cellphones, are all central to the work we do but also add to the College’s overall energy consumption,” Yates said. “The more we can do to make these efforts a shared responsibility, the more progress we’ll be able to make.”

“The more we can do to make these efforts a shared responsibility, the more progress we’ll be able to make.”

-Jamie Yates More broadly, Yates signaled that sustainability will be a central priority at Gettysburg College in the years to come.

“The College will continue to view how it operates with a lens for sustainability as we anticipate ongoing enhancements,” she said, “however, we can always be doing more, as a society, and as a College.”

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Gettysburg College Spends Less on Instruction than Peers

BY CARTER HANSON, KATIE OGLESBY & BENJAMIN PONTZ

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ettysburg College spends less per student on instruction than any of its closest peer institutions, an analysis based on data from The Chronicle of Higher Education conducted by The Gettysburgian shows. Annual tuition (excluding room and board) for the 2016-17 academic year, the year for which The Chronicle compiled a comprehensive data set, was $50,860.

That year, the college spent $18,627 per student on instruction, which represents 37 percent of tuition.

With 2,573 students and a total of $55,183,766 in financial aid awarded by the college that academic year, an average of $21,447 per student (though not all students receive financial aid), instruction and financial aid together account for 79 percent of annual tuition.

While not all colleges publicly release data that would allow for calculating the second figure, Gettysburg ranks third-lowest among its peers in per student spending on instruction and lowest for percentage of tuition spent on instruction.

Instruction spending encompasses “wages and benefits to faculty and staff members who teach students at the institution.” A separate category —academic support—includes “expenses for support services for the college’s primary mission and includes spending on libraries, museums, galleries, audiovisual services, academic development, academic

computing support, course and curriculum development, and academic administration.”

As a gross figure, Gettysburg spends significantly more than its closest peer institutions on academic support, and, on a per student basis, it spends more than all but one of those institutions.

Additionally, the sum of instruction and academic support spending is higher than three of the college’s six peer institutions.

Jamie Yates, Executive Director of Communications and Marketing for Gettysburg College, said that the latter calculation is the best reflection of value to students. Splitting the two, she argued, sets up apples-to-oranges comparisons.

“The designation of academic support versus instruction spending is an accounting differentiation,” Yates said. “In practice, we prefer to look at the overall academic program as a whole rather than letting accounting standards dictate the allocation of resources.”

She did, however, point to a definition from the National Association of

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Development.”

Even so, Gettysburg faculty salaries rank in the bottom half in comparison to the college’s peer institutions according to data from the American Association of University Professors Faculty Compensation Survey. At the full professor level, only Lawrence University ranks lower than Gettysburg, while, at the associate and assistant professor levels, Gettysburg ranks fourth of seven. Given that student to faculty ratios at each institution are similar (between 8:1 and 10:1), Gettysburg still appears to fare poorly relative to peer institutions in terms of spending per student on faculty salaries.

College and University Business financial accounting and reporting manual to differentiate between the two, and she did not explain how Gettysburg’s calculations might differ from how other institutions distinguish between the types of spending. She did note that, together, the two categories of spending comprised 58 percent of the college’s total expenses during fiscal year 2017.

A 2016 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Economic Inquiry, though, found that spending on instruction improves student employment outcomes significantly more than does spending on academic support.

on the Changing Faculty and Student Success at the University of Southern California, said that colleges “have built a gigantic infrastructure of student support outside the classroom without examining what is actually most important,” adding that “student support is best contained in classroom [sic].”

Yates defended academic support spending, noting that it includes such “important areas as Academic Advising, the Library, Academic Computing Services, and Academic Personnel

The college continues to assess how best to deploy financial resources.

In an email to college staff sent at the beginning of the academic year, President Robert Iuliano and Provost Christopher Zappe said that, as the financial landscape continues to evolve, the college will need to work to balance a range of competing priorities. “[W]e asked many across campus to examine their department and divisional budgets and to identify ways to take fullest advantage of their resources,” they said. “This work is difficult, but it is an underlying responsibility we share as stewards of this institution.”

“Students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds appear to gain the most from instructional spending at schools,” the paper added. “Academic support spending benefits those from highincome households.”

Additionally, in terms of helping students to find jobs that match what they studied, academic support was negatively correlated.

“Across almost all groups,” the paper wrote, “graduates from schools who spend more on academic support services are less likely to be in a job that matches their field of study.”

In an interview with Inside Higher Education published while the paper was under peer review, Adrianna Kezar, Director of the Delphi Project

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Center for Global Education and Study Abroad Satisfaction

BY JANE FITZPATRICK

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he Center for Global Education (CGE) at Gettysburg College offers a wide variety of programs and locations in which students can choose to study abroad; the center reports that about 60 percent of students partake in global studies for a minimum of one semester. Students interviewed within that majority, however, indicated varying levels of satisfaction with CGE in preparation for and during their study abroad experience.

CGE Advising One trend among the students interviewed on campus was a love and appreciation for the work of CGE Program Coordinator Kim Longfellow. She is highly recommended by students who have worked with her in previous semesters, including Isaac Briggs ‘20, who studied abroad in Tromso, Norway in fall of 2018 and reflects favorably on his experience both abroad and with Kim in CGE. “Kim was really supportive throughout the application process,” he said.

Other CGE advisor-advisee relationships were less of a fit, according to Kyle McIntyre ‘20, who spent the spring of 2019 in Berlin, Germany. While his trip was enjoyable, he said, his advisor, who no longer works in the CGE office, was not the best match for him.

“He was a little bit patronizing, but he knew his stuff,” McIntryre said.

“CGE doesn’t tell youthenegatives.”

-Mike Welsh ‘20

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While some students noted that advisors maintained very optimistic attitudes throughout the process, in some cases, students wished they had been warned about some of the challenges they would face while living abroad.

“CGE doesn’t tell you the negatives,” said Mike Welsh ‘20, who studied in Australia in the spring of 2019.

When Longfellow was asked to comment on student concerns about the tendency toward optimism among CGE advisors, she commented that she is an optimistic person in general, but understood the concerns of students like Welsh, noting that while advisors must maintain a relatively positive spirit with students, they must also warn about potential challenges.

“We could just talk about maintaining a positive energy while working with students while also helping them be realistic about problems that may come up, whether it be something like culture shock, or homesickness, travel obstacles, or even credit transferring,” she said.

As someone who studied abroad during her time as a Gettysburg student, Longfellow is able to relate closely to her advisees.

One of her techniques for guiding students through the challenges of global study is to carefully monitor her language.

“I know I try to be really cognizant of the language I use. I’ve basically eliminated the word, ‘easy’ from my vocabulary. We don’t promise students that their experience will be ‘magical’ or ‘perfect,’” she said.

“At the same time, I also never want to tell a student they cannot do something or that they will feel

a certain way. There are basically no descriptive absolutes when you talk about people’s experiences.”

“There are basically no descriptive absolutes when you talk about people’s experiences” -Kim Longfellow CGE offers various meetings and orientation programs for students pre-departure, during which they are shown their on-site and online resources in the case of an emergency. Students are also able to check CGE’s website or reach out to the staff with questions or concerns at any point during their time abroad.

“You are never truly alone or unsupported during your global study semester,” Longfellow said.

Tuition Some students expressed concern regarding tuition expenses for the semester. At Gettysburg College, one semester abroad costs the same as one semester on campus.

However, some students looked into the cost of a semester abroad through their specific program, and they found that the price advertised was actually cheaper than the cost of one semester at Gettysburg.

Abby Pope ‘20 spent the spring semester of 2019 in Bath, England, and she feels unsure about the monetary commitment she had to make. To CGE, she suggests, “Be a little more transparent about where the money is going.”

In essence, some students found that if they had paid for their semester abroad directly through

the program rather than through Gettysburg College, the costs would have been significantly lower. Gettysburg does provide stipends for essentials such as food and travel in many cases, but questions have been raised about whether this would account for the rest of the money left over after payment for the individual programs.

From the perspective of CGE, Longfellow said that students studying on any affiliated program pay the same Global Study Comprehensive fee, equivalent to the cost of tuition, room, and board during a regular semester at Gettysburg.

“Any scholarships and/or financial aid students receive normally will continue to apply during the global study semester,” she said. “In addition, each student studying on an affiliated program receives a credit to their Student Account that goes toward the cost of covering a round-trip flight. We also have scholarship funds available that can cover the cost of applying for a passport, or any upfront costs like vaccinations or visas.”

(Photos provided)

CGE, according to Longfellow, aims to provide students with the same financial benefits abroad as they receive on campus, “Ultimately, every student on campus pays a different amount to come to Gettysburg. Our mission is that every student on campus has access to the same opportunities, regardless of what they pay,” she said.

Pictured: Isaac Briggs ‘20, Tromso

Longfellow stressed that tuition covers many costs that students may not necessarily think of initially, such as the use of various equipment for scientific research, watching films in class, or utilizing the resources available for students such as athletic facilities and access to counseling. CGE has a financial model that indicates the amount students can expect to pay when they study abroad, which, according to Longfellow, “is also in line with what are seen as the national best practices for financial accessibility in study abroad.”

Finding the Right Program Emmarie Toppan ‘20 spent the fall 2018 and spring 2019 semesters in Tokyo, Japan, and she loved her time abroad. “Tokyo was such a cool place,” she said. During her application process, however, she said that CGE strongly encouraged her to look at other locations.

Pope also mentioned that she felt slightly pressured to go to Prague instead of Bath, while Toppan’s advisor tried to persuade her to look into the programs in Norway. The CGE staff are trained in whole-world advising, prepared to discuss options based on students’ preferences with language, academics, and program structures, but some students have found the process to be confusing rather than helpful.

On finding the right program for students during CGE advising meetings, Longfellow said, “It is first and foremost the students’ decision where they study globally. It is ultimately their experience and it’s really important that each student understands why they chose their program. At the end of the day, we are advisors—we advise, not decide.”

The advisors take care to get to know the personalities and past experiences of the students they

Pictured: The Circus (Bath, England)

work with by creating surveys for them to fill out prior to meetings.

This information provides the advisors with ideas about what programs and locations could work well for the students, but it is not the deciding factor.

None of the students interviewed

by The Gettysburgian had trouble transferring course credits back to Gettysburg, and they had a generally enthusiastic attitude toward the courses they took while abroad. Welsh said that the classes he took while he was studying in Australia were “not as challenging as a Gettysburg class,” but he was pleased to be able to take courses that are not offered at Gettysburg.

Longfellow expressed positive feelings toward the work that CGE has done: “I feel really great about being rated as 1st in Pennsylvania and 5th nationwide for semester-length global study at liberal arts colleges,” she said.

Students at Gettysburg also have the option to participate in the Global Leaders of Gettysburg College program after their time abroad to further share their experiences.

Alternatively, Longfellow also offered her own suggestion for future improvement within CGE. “Personally, something I’ve been particularly interested in,” she said, “is expanding our opportunities for students who are returning from global study semesters.”

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F E AT U R E S

POSTCARDS FROM ABROAD NOBODY PREPARES YOU FOR HOW EXHAUSTING GOING ABROAD IS

BY LINDSAY RICHWINE I’ve been tired for four weeks straight now. I swear to you, nobody in Spain sleeps. They just down another cafecito and keep on going. They START going out at 2am here. Back at Gettysburg, 2am for me means Pizza House, then sleep.

Speaking of food, dinner here is at 10pm. They don’t really do breakfast and lunch here either. If you want to eat between the hours of 7am and 9pm, you’ve only really got one option—bread. If you’re lucky, they might slap a sliver of meat on the bread and call that a sandwich. I never thought I’d say I’m tired of bread but at this point I am 95% baguette and my body is begging me to stop.

Other than the bread overload and the lack of sleep, things are mostly good. I’m learning lots of Spanish from Maria, my profesora. Among other things, Maria has taught us how to say, “you’re cool but I’m not into you like that,” “I fell in love with Brad Pitt,” “go ahead and die for all I care,” and “that wine made me feel awful.” All relevant phrases. My host sister taught me how to say twerking which leads me to another point—the PDA in Spain.

It’s not subtle. Our program coordinator explained that since most Spanish teenagers live with their parents until they’re around 25 or so, they only have alone time with the person they’re dating when they’re in public. Now, I’m not opposed to PDA. I think holding hands and a quick kiss before you get on the metro is cute.

What’s not super cute is sticking your tongue down someone’s throat on the train, grabbing your girlfriend’s ass on the escalator, or dry-humping in the park. I’ve seen it all. Maybe I’m just being an uptight American, but what can I say? Public dry humping makes me a little uncomfy.

What do I like about Spain? I like tapas, sitting in the park, grocery shopping, eating my host mom Piluca’s paella, learning about architecture and being able to recognize an arco de medio punto when I see one, traveling to other places, tortilla, and tinto de verano. Wandering through old neighborhoods and getting crepes, making friends with Irish tourists, and taking cooking classes break up the days and make these three months worthwhile. I’m still worried about not learning enough Spanish, and there are times when I miss home so much it hurts. But I’m not gonna lie—I’m proud of myself. I’m really growing, and, cliché as it is, I’m figuring out who I am. There’s no better way to find yourself than to leave everything that’s familiar, everything you thought made you who you are. It’s uncomfortable at first. It is. But it’s worth it.

So, as my first month here comes to a close, I’ll be honest: going abroad is not easy. Of course, everyone’s experience is different. For me, it’s been a little bumpy. The low point was probably crying in a Five Guys. The high point? Sitting on a boat in Lyon, watching the sunset between an old friend and a new friend, proud of myself for booking an AirBnB for the first time in my life, and feeling incredibly lucky to be right there, right then. I can’t guarantee it, but I think it’s only going to go up from there. I’ll keep you posted.

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A LOVE LETTER TO TRAVELING ALONE

BY HANNAH LABOVITZ For the longest time, I had convinced myself that being alone would make no difference in my travel experiences. I love the feeling of being somewhere new, so why would being on my own make a difference? While abroad, my friends and I had taken every opportunity possible to explore our new continent. So, a month into my semester, my confidence in my travelling abilities could not have been higher. I was ready to take on a new challenge.

Having found no one willing to shell out any more euros for a flight, I impulsively booked myself a ticket to my dream city, Berlin. I could not stop smiling the next day – I was proud of myself for taking on this adventure. However, as the month leading up to my solo journey turned into weeks and then days, I started to fill with doubt. How would I keep myself entertained all alone? Would museums be as much fun without another person? What about all the pictures I would inevitably want to take?

Two days before my trip, my fears only worsened. My cellphone had been malfunctioning; without WiFi, my phone had no service and was about as useful as a shiny brick. I knew that in Berlin, if I could not access WiFi, then not only would I be without navigational capabilities, but I would also be truly alone, isolated from everyone I knew in a city that was as foreign to me as the language. But, as scared as I was, there was no going back. Early Friday morning, before the crack of dawn, I headed to the airport – my backpack full of clothes and my mind full of nerves.

The trip should have been a failure. I had no phone service, I was completely alone, and the weather was predicted to be cold, dreary, and wet. But, I refused to let any of that keep me from having the travel experience I wanted. So, I prepared the hell out of the trip.

It was no easy task, but I was able to flag every single location I wanted to see and map out the distance from each, even taking into account the German train and metro directions. My itinerary was flawless; with it, I was going into a new city slightly less blind. But, as you may be thinking, it’s rarely fun to follow a strict itinerary. So, I also made sure to allow myself time to get lost in the city every now and then, following a side road I hadn’t prepared for or getting off of the metro one stop earlier. I wanted to visit the must-see tourist spots, but I also wanted to see Berlin.

During the first day, when all the streets are visible and people are far less scary, everything went as planned. And I enjoyed my time. However, I still felt somewhat lonely. It was difficult to adjust to the solitude that inevitably comes with traveling alone. As soon as the sun set, the loneliness worsened and my anxiety got the best of me—everything became ten times more difficult. I was too scared to explore and just wanted to go back to my hostel, which ended up being much more of a challenge than I had anticipated. I got on a bus, and two stops into my trip, I realized it was headed in the wrong direction. To make matters worse, this was the point in my trip when the rain began. Eventually, I decided enough was enough. I was able to steal WiFi from a nearby café and got an Uber back to my hostel—I had given up. I was disappointed in myself and the city I was supposed to love. My dream city had become a nightmare.

Once in the hostel, I had total access to my beloved WiFi, and all I really did was use it to complain. And even though I finally had the capability of communicating with my friends and family, I felt more alone than ever. I felt helpless and figured my whole trip was going to be ruined because of my stupid phone (an exact quote from me to my mom).

The second day, I was less than excited to head out into the city again. My confidence was trashed, and the only thing I had gained from the previous day was an intense fear of the Berlin bus system. After an hour of struggling through the metro and the city streets, I finally found the first location I had chosen for the day: an abandoned watchtower with a view perfect for sunrise. Unfortunately, I missed the sunrise because of my metro challenges, but it didn’t matter – it was still a beautiful view that I was able to find all on my own. I felt my confidence return. The feeling I experienced standing at the top of that tower looking out over the city negated the stress and anxiety that I had felt waking up that morning. My navigational success allowed me to feel ready to tackle the rest of what I had planned for the day.

My successes continued from location to location, and I was able to see everything and more. I found each monument, museum, and café on my list, no matter how obscure. Finally, I was able to enjoy my trip and my time alone. Only my music and my thoughts kept me company, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I also found that the solitude was exactly what I needed when facing the more emotionally draining locations, such as the Holocaust memorial and Bebelplatz, the location of the infamous book burning conducted by the Nazis in the 1930s.

As I became more comfortable with the city, the metro system, and myself, my curiosity was finally able to thrive. Rarely did I feel the urge to message a friend about what I saw, or post about it on social media. I wanted to wholly experience every moment of my solo adventure. I was able to take in all the city has to offer and do everything I wanted without having to negotiate the trip details with anyone. And no matter how clear my photos are or descriptive my explanation of my trip is, no one else in the world will ever be able to understand how truly at peace I felt my second day in Berlin.

Looking back now, the difference between my first day and my second day was my attitude. Not everything had gone perfectly the second day, but the way I responded was much more positive. And I took advantage of my alone time, rather than feeling debilitated by it.

Now, my post-Berlin self can’t imagine experiencing the world any other way. While visiting a new place with friends is extremely enjoyable, traveling alone adds an element of adventure and mindfulness to the experience. I learned so much about a beautiful new city, and about myself as well. This trip helped teach me how to be alone without feeling lonely, and I am going to take every opportunity possible to enjoy my newfound skill.

THE GETTYSBURGIAN

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SPORTS

GETTYSBURG’S BIGGEST FOE: DIPLOMATS OR DEVILS?

BY GARRETT GLAESER

T

hough conference championships and national playoffs are the ultimate goal for every Gettysburg team, a season is not complete without a matchup against its two biggest rivals: Dickinson and Franklin & Marshall.

Often times a win over either or both schools in a season is remembered more than any postseason accomplishments.

Even better is a championship won by beating the Red Devils or Diplomats.

The Orange and Blue has won 104 conference championships since the Centennial Conference expanded to include all sports in 1991, amounting to an average of nearly four titles every year. Four Bullets’ teams have won ten or more – Women’s Golf (10), Men’s Lacrosse (15), Women’s Lacrosse (12), Men’s Swimming (15), and Women’s Swimming (14).

Even before the Centennial Conference’s formal founding in 1981 as a football-only conference, Gettysburg has a long and storied tradition of rivalries with Dickinson and Franklin & Marshall.

Ask anyone on Gettysburg’s campus and they’ll probably say the Bullets’ biggest rival is either Dickson or F&M. Ask anyone on Dickinson or Franklin and Marshall’s campuses and they’ll probably say the same.

The triangular rivalry between the three small private colleges, known as the “Little Three,” resembles the nationally famous rivalry between Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State in that each time the schools face one another it is heated and intense.

From an institutional standpoint, the three colleges largely attract and compete for the same students, and their enrollments are nearly identical. In the Wall

Street Journal’s annual college ranking report, Franklin & Marshall came in a No. 91, while Dickinson and Gettysburg were not far behind at No. 100 and 101, respectively.

In proximity, however, the rivalry lends itself to comparison with the famous Tobacco Road rivalry between four North Carolina universities – Duke, North Carolina, NC State, and Wake Forest. Carlisle is just over 30 miles to the north of Gettysburg and Lancaster is 54 miles east. Despite the relative proximity, each college resides in a different county: Gettysburg in Adams, Dickinson in Cumberland, and Franklin & Marshall in Lancaster.

The rivalry is also unique in that the mascots for each college are incredibly unique. Gettysburg is the only institution of higher learning with the Bullets as their mascot.

The same can be said for the Diplomats of Franklin & Marshall.

Gettysburg’s Biggest Rival According to Athletes

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Toughest Conference Opponent According to Athletes

And Dickinson only shares its Red Devil mascot with the little known Allen Community College in Iola, Kansas.

When it comes to institutional history, Dickinson, founded in 1773, takes the cake by just fourteen years with Franklin & Marshall being established in 1787.

Gettysburg, then Pennsylvania College, wasn’t founded for nearly another half century in 1832.

Though today the Little Three rivalry encompasses all sports, it has its strongest roots in football.

Each game between the colleges has its own history and trophy.

When Gettysburg battles Dickinson early in the season, they fight for the Little Brown Bucket, a part of the rivalry since 1938 when the trophy was created by S. Walter Stauffer and George Hummel, members of the Board of Trustees of their respective institutions.

Gettysburg versus Franklin & Marshall, a game that had been historically played on Thanksgiving Day and now is the last conference game for both schools, is a battle for the Lincoln Trophy. Known as “The Hat” until 2014, the trophy

resembles the famous top hat donned by President Lincoln.

The game between Dickinson and Franklin & Marshall dates back to the 1880s, when the teams would travel by Conestoga Wagons to play each other. Today the victor of the game takes home the Conestoga Wagon trophy.

In recent years, both men’s and women’s lacrosse appear to be the sport that all three schools excel at the most on a national level.

This past year all three reached a national ranking within the top 15 on the men’s side and the top 25 on the women’s. The Centennial Conference is seen as among the best and most competitive top to bottom for lacrosse, viewed as just below the powerhouse NESCAC (Northeastern Small College Athletic Conference).

Roughly 50 Bullets athletes representing all teams were surveyed to see with which of the rivals they felt Gettysburg has the bigger rivalry. In addition, they were asked which Centennial Conference opponent is the toughest for their particular sport.

Half of those surveyed indicated Dickinson to be Gettysburg’s

biggest rival but nearly the same amount indicated Franklin & Marshall to be. Only a few indicated that McDaniel and Washington College are Gettysburg’s biggest rivals.

Though the data proved inconclusive on who truly is Gettysburg’s bigger rival, those surveyed said as long as the Bullets come out on top, such particulars don’t matter.

Not surprising was the data that revealed Hopkins to the toughest conference opponent for most sports. The Blue Jays excel at nearly all sports but have been nearly unbeatable in men’s and women’s tennis as well as track & field. (Hopkins lacrosse is Division I and plays in the Big Ten Conference).

The Centennial Conference is widely recognized in the Division III sports landscape as among the best and most well rounded conferences for its academic and athletic achievements. Now, in the 28th year of conference play, Gettysburg athletes continue to pose a threat to win championships and defeat the Red Devils and Diplomats on every occasion they get.

THE GETTYSBURGIAN

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A&E

SENIOR Tyra Riedemonn

BY JENNIFER CLOGG

Tyra Riedemonn ‘20 is a Theater Arts and Cinema and Media Studies Double Major from Washington Heights, New York who plans on going into theater marketing and management or admissions upon graduation from Gettysburg College. Her favorite show she has ever directed was The Gift by Simon Fill; it is a show about two kids who skip class to talk about deep and existential life questions. Currently, she is directing another show for her senior capstone, called Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire. In Riedemonn’s words, it is about “a married couple who are dealing with the loss of their four-year-old child who was killed in a tragic car accident eight months prior to when the show starts.” The play features Casey Creagh as Becca (the mother), Eric Lippe as Howie (the father), Abigail Richard as Izzy (Becca’s younger sister), Lauren Mitchell as Nat (the mother of Becca and Izzy), and Jennifer Clogg as Jason (the teenage boy who fatally hit and killed the child). “The play is all about how the family is dealing with this loss and with their grief in different ways while still trying to get back to who they used to be and how their lives used to look before the accident,” Riedemonn said.

“It shows raw emotion and a piece of life when you’re confused and don’t know how to go about dealing with things; I think we see that a lot in Becca and in Jason, who both want a type of closure, but they don’t know how to get it.

There’s a scene in act two where we see they sort of get that closure and it’s ironic that they’re getting that closure from each other.”

Riedemonn has a distinct vision for the show and is using it to propel herself forward into the future. She loves plays steeped in real emotion with a specific purpose, that can be appreciated by any viewer. The cast of Rabbit Hole attests that the show is going to be humorous in a dark way, but not so much so that any scene loses its essential meaning. With weeks until showtime, the play is moving forward at lightning speed. Rabbit Hole will go up Friday, Nov. 15 through Sunday, Nov. 17 in Stevens Theater, times TBA.

Brooke Maskin

BY BENJAMIN PONTZ

A recent 45-minute conversation that took place in the first-floor lobby of Schmucker Hall well past 10:00 p.m. was, nonetheless, interspersed with greetings from no fewer than eight members of the Sunderman Conservatory community. Connecting with so many people — students and faculty mentors alike — has been among the most valuable parts of Brooke Maskin’s time at Gettysburg College.

A senior music education major, Maskin says the sense of community the Conservatory cultivates mirrors her broader philosophy of what music education can do.

“The community that we have here is built around supporting each other musically and in a human way,” she said. “We’re really here to strive, to have all of us grow and become our own leaders.”

Music has long been a communal activity for Maskin. She grew up in a family that gathered around the piano to sing, took piano lessons from her grandmother until she was in high school, and now studies in a Conservatory atmosphere that is built on friends motivating and supporting one another. Such experiences imbue Maskin’s drive to share music with others as a teacher. “[My goal is] to bring people closer together in ways that they couldn’t imagine and to give them an experience that is creative, is powerful, is reflective, and makes them more well-rounded,” she said. “In my future classrooms, I hope I can foster that same type of atmosphere and community with my students. The most important thing is to make them feel safe and included … and validated.”

Maskin’s experience in the Conservatory reflects that aspiration towards well-roundedness. In addition to completing the music education major, which loads 32 courses into seven strenuous semesters that she conceded “can be quite overwhelming,” Maskin is a Spanish minor. This semester, she is working through the Center for Public Service on a course cluster project to meet the Gettysburg Curriculum’s interdisciplinary requirement in which she teaches songs and games to children while their parents take English classes in the Casa de la Cultura program. While she regrets not having had the chance to study abroad in a Spanish-speaking country, Maskin said that she hopes the opportunity to work towards her life goal of Spanish fluency while honing skills in cross-cultural education will help her find a job in a school where Spanish is prominent.

In November, Maskin will perform her senior recital, which she said has only one “Spanish flare moment,” on clarinet. The program, entitled “Fall Into Your Senses,” includes works by George Gershwin, whose “Rhapsody in Blue” was among the first orchestral pieces Maskin heard as a child, French composer Paul Jeanjean, German operatist Giacomo Meyerbeer, and Hungarian clarinetist Béla Kovács.

“It’s surreal to be knowing that it’s going to happen,” she said. “I’ve attended so many recitals and just been blown away by the outstanding performances other juniors and seniors have given, and now it’s like, ‘Wait a minute! Now it’s my turn to do that.’ Hopefully, I will muster up everything I’ve got.”

Brooke Maskin’s senior recital is on Sunday, Nov. 24 at 2:30 p.m. in Paul Recital Hall.

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SPOTLIGHTS Aubryanna Tayman

BY ALICIA METHOD

Aubryanna Tayman is a voice performance major whose musical experience began with the theater world. Her experience with musical theater led her to pursue voice lessons during her junior year of high school. She saw her first opera at eighteen, inciting a passion that would follow her through college. Her four years at Gettysburg led her on a journey toward a deeper passion for opera.

Her experience at Gettysburg has been marked by academic rigor as well as meaningful relationships with faculty and fellow students. Speaking about the difficulty of being a music major, she said, “People do not understand how much work it takes, you get out what you put into it.” She practices from four to five hours a day, including both silent study and vocal training. Her dedication and hard work is truly worth it though, she finds: “It’s what keeps me going.”

As a senior, Tayman is looking ahead to employment after graduation, someone anxious at the idea of no longer having the Sunderman Conservatory as a supportive net underneath her. The way she deals with this is through “accepting that I just can’t see myself doing anything else.”

When asked what she loves about singing, Tayman responded that singing is something she is good at, it is her art. She believes that opera is a truly powerful art form which combines the drama of text with musical elements. She notes that poetry is a big factor in choosing repertoire for her, and has a great appreciation of the literary facets of opera. Studying early music has especially informed this interest, due to the fact that the musical composition was formed around the text.

“It’s amazing to think of music as a language itself, and that text can be translated into it,” she said.

At Gettysburg, Tayman has worked with Dr. Susan Hochmiller, Jeffrey Fahnestock, and Scott Crowne, among others.

Tayman’s experience with these faculty members, has been extremely positive. According to Tayman, Dr. Hochmiller pushes her and sees “more potential than I even saw in myself.” And as for the rest of the faculty, “they really take interest and care about your success and well-being, they want to see you achieve your potential,” Tayman said She performed her senior recital on Oct. 19. The program included selections from the Baroque to late Romantic period, with composers such as Carissimi and Richard Strauss.

Benjamin Fruchtl (Photos Mary Frasier and Sam Hann/The Gettysburgian)

BY BEN SIMON

Benjamin Fruchtl ‘20 is a music education major that is already looking past his impending graduation. Between College Choir, Wind Symphony, and Marching Band, among others, Fruchtl is deeply immersed within the musical culture of Gettysburg College, which has helped him develop and further his dream of becoming a music teacher.

Fruchtl came to Gettysburg College upon learning of the Sunderman Conservatory, where he discovered “a combination that’s very rare for other colleges.” He found that Gettysburg offered a rare opportunity to study the sciences and humanities alongside music, thereby “embedding music in a liberal arts curriculum” and avoiding the rigidity that he feels dominates many other music programs at other colleges.

The musical and developmental opportunities offered to Fruchtl while at Gettysburg extend well beyond the classroom.

For Fruchtl, one of his most important memories at college was a spring break trip to Puerto Rico.

Of that trip, he said, “That experience for me was a very strong musical experience, because I got to interact with music in a way that I don’t usually... [I got to try] to engage with music with a population that I don’t typically engage with...

That was an experience that I want to continue.”

Fruchtl finds a fulfillment in teaching others, and notes that he will readily, and somewhat instinctively assist any person that he sees struggling in academics. Even in Puerto Rico, he found the experience to be “educational” and helpful if he is ever in an “environment where I am teaching cultures” different from his own.

Even though he is going to miss the “community that [he resonates] with,” Fruchtl nevertheless looks forward to his future and is excited to see where his dual passions for music and education lead him next.

THE GETTYSBURGIAN

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Directing Scenes Dazzle Audiences like a Professional Production

BY JENNIFER CLOGG

What’s better than seeing one play at a time? Seeing nine mini plays over the course of two days, of course! Earlier in October, the students of Theater 212: Fundamentals of Acting, each put on a scene or short play of their choosing, which they had casted and directed.

Each performance ran around 10-15 minutes, and included full lighting, costumes, and sets selected by the directors.

Albert Wilson, Christian DeMusis, Grace Verbrugge, Britney Brunache, Roselynne Farrell, Rebecca Burak, Taylor Decker, Sasha Samarov, and Lauren Browning each undertook the work of selecting, casting, and directing a scene. When considering each piece, I took into account the actors’ performances, the director’s choice in lighting, set, and costumes.

Tuesday, Oct. 1 First up was an excerpt from All My Sons by Arthur Miller, directed by Albert Wilson. This piece featured Courtney Cholewa as Ann, Adeline Hibshman as Sue, and Eric Lippe as Chris. It is about a fight between a neighbor and a married couple over the behavior of the husband in the married couple. The piece was rather tense, with little humor or lightness.

That being said, Cholewa, Hibshman, and Lippe stepped up to the plate and served up the harsh emotions in a highly believable manner. It was almost hard to remember that Lippe wasn’t an adult married man because he carried himself with such assertiveness and power onstage. The set consisted of a simple table and chairs, leaving the actors plenty of space to work the stage during longer speeches. The lighting stayed the same throughout, illuminating only the specific areas where the scene took place. The costumes were simple period pieces, with long skirts, blouses, and pants and a button up on Lippe, which were era appropriate. For the dense material, these actors took it in full stride and never dropped the ball for even a second.

Next up was a scene from The Country Wife by William Wycherly, directed by

20

Chris DeMusis. It featured Katie Cona as Pinchwife and Elisabeth Welch as Marjorie. In the scene, Pinchwife finds that his wife has been flirting with and kissing another man. He is enraged, and insists that she write a hate letter to her lover. This scene, although written in old English, still came across as hilarious as it was intended. This is a testament to the choices of DeMusis and the acting of Welch and Cona.

Cona was outrageously angry, which was only escalated by the cunning and flirtatious Welch. The set consisted of a table, chair, and pen and paper, which were all that was necessary to make the scene work. I really liked the simplicity of the set; it kept the viewer from focusing on anything other than the acting. The costumes were by far one of the greatest touches of the piece. Marjorie comes in dressed up as a man at the insistence of her husband, so that no other men will notice her on their way home. Welch came on stage in a flannel, ballcap, and pants with a raucous drawn-on mustache. Cona entered in a button up, pants, and a gigantic gray curly wig like men would have worn during the time period that The Country Wife was written. This was by far my favorite scene of all; I was almost in tears at one point because I was laughing so hard. A+ to Cona, Welch, and DeMusis.

Next to take the stage was The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, directed by Grace Verbrugge. This scene featured Emma Lewis as Laura Wingfield and Roisin Daly as Amanda Wingfield. It is the story of a young woman who has told her mother that she has been going to college to learn how to type, but has really been skipping class every day because of an embarrassment she experienced on the first day of class. In the scene, mother, Amanda, has just found out that her daughter Laura has been lying and wasting her money by not going to class. The character of Laura has anxiety, a fear of her mother, and plenty of insecurities. Lewis did an excellent job of playing the high strung woman; Roisin brought the angry and distraught mother figure to life with a grace and exasperation.

Set wise, this was by far the busiest.

It had two arm chairs, a side table, a desk, a desk chair, a coat rack, a small table, and a chair for that table. The desk was full of tchotchkes made of glass, while the side table had books and photographs. It was a lot to take in as an audience member during a very brief scene, but it did make the set feel homey, which I believe was

the intended effect. Both women were wearing dresses that seemed appropriate to their respective characters. The viewer could feel Laura’s anxiety and Amanda’s fears for her daughter’s future. This was a longer scene, but it felt as if it flew by, and I had a great time watching the interactions between Lewis and Daly.

Finally Tuesday closed with a scene from a play called Fences; it was written by August Wilson and directed

by Britney Brunache. It featured Peter Rudenberg as Troy, Tyra Riedemonn as Rose, Ashley Carvajal as Bono and Rashida Mohammed as Lyons. In this scene, an African American family sits outside of their home. The husband (Troy) and his friend (Bono) sit outside, drinking beer and talking and laughing about life while Troy’s wife (Rose) cooks dinner. Their son Lyons comes to the house to ask for money, and this makes the dynamic between father and son highly awkward. To me, this scene was about their real lives and their struggle of trying to get by with what they have. Although throughout the scene, the character of Troy makes some very sexual remarks about what he is going to do to his wife later, the banter between the two was comfortable and not strange as it easily could have come across. Carvajal played an excellently convincing man, from mannerisms and talk to even the way she walked when exiting the stage. The banter between Rudenberg and Mohammed was playful and natural, and it really felt as if the two had gone through the same conversation at least twenty times.

The stage featured two blocks, a table, and food. Tyra had on a beautiful green dress, while the men all wore pants and button ups. I felt that this scene was the most realistic, in terms of actor reactions at content, which made it easy to watch and listen to.

A&E

Thursday, Oct. 3 During the final day of Directing Scenes, the shows opened with a scene from Our Town, which was written

by Thorton Wilder and directed by Roselynne Farrell. The cast was made up of Maxwell McClellan as George, Gwen Golding as Emily, and Stephanie Gudino as the Stage Manager (Ms. Morgan in this particular scene). It is the story of a boy who is planning on going off to agricultural college, but he has just found out that the girl he has feelings for reciprocates his affection, and as such he is no longer too keen on leaving. McClellan and Golding both did an excellent job of playing the young, bashful lovers they were supposed to be. Golding had on a dress, while McClellan had on a white button up shirt and slacks. The set was made up of just a table and two chairs, the only necessary pieces so as not to detract from the acting.

Even before the two find out that they both had feelings for each other, the adolescent tension was palpable on stage. I thought that this performance was exceptionally cute and wholesome, so hats off to the actors (and the character of Stage Manager!) for leaving the sweet feelings of love lingering in the air.

Following this very traditional piece was Stuck by Claire Reeve, a short play about a woman who gets stuck in an elevator before a big interview and is pacified by a security man on a speaker in the elevator. It was directed

by Rebecca Burak, with Garrett Adams as the chivalrous Sal and Emma Lewis as Sara. Interestingly, this set used only three black boxes for the set, and no lighting except for a single circle of light where the elevator is supposed to be. The scene plays a lot into the use of darkness, with Adams fading in and out of the shadows to symbolize that to Sara, he can be heard but not actually seen. He is literally a voice in the darkness. Another element that was actually pivotal for the scene was Lewis’s wardrobe. She came in wearing a full lady’s suit and blouse, and by the

end has stripped to almost nothing due to the heat inside the elevator and her very obvious claustrophobia.

It was absolutely hysterical to watch Lewis strip out of her tights, shoes, and shirt in a heated flurry of emotion and distress. It was a riot from start to finish, with a dash of meet cute in the middle.

Following this comedy was Persephone Underground, written by Carol S. Lashof and directed by Taylor Decker. It featured Olivia Plaushin as Persephone and Raymond Wiseley as the son of Hades. It is the story of when Persephone meets the son of Hades, and he convinces her to explore the underworld with him.

Set wise, it only used one box, and one doorway covered in ivy. Plaushin entered dressed in a toga, while Wiseley wore a beanie, jeans, and a black hoodie. Both made excellent use of space in what could have easily been a very awkward scene with so few props and set pieces.

The lighting stayed extra bright in this scene to mimic what the world looks like above ground. The intrigue and flirtations between the two were palpable and appropriate for two supposed strangers who have just met. The scene was brief, but went just far enough to leave the audience wondering what is going to happen once Persephone goes into the underworld. I thought that this piece was short, sweet, and well executed.

Next in order was a piece very unlike the aforementioned sweet play; it was an excerpt from a play called Wit, which was written by Margaret edson and directed by Sasha Samarov. Tyra Riedemonn played Vivienne, and Gwen Golding played Susie. Wit is the very serious story of an intellectual woman who has advanced stage cancer and has just been told that she will most likely never be cured.

Her nurse Susie asks her if, when her heart stops, she would like the doctors to start it again or let her die. The scene is an extreme moral dilemma, and emotionally heart wrenching.

This story is one of a woman coming to terms with the end of her own life far sooner than she should be, and Riedemonn played that part so well that I actually cried a little bit. Golding did an excellent job of playing the simple, older nurse who is trying to comfort a dying patient, but is only succeeding in making her feel worse about herself and her time left on earth. The set pieces were a hospital bed and chair, much like one would see in an ER. I’m not sure if it was a product of the objects on set, but the lights seemed so much brighter, like the ones found in hospitals that make them painfully hard to stay in for long periods of time. Although Riedemonn and Golding are just actors, it really felt like they were a nurse and patient, a tightly bonded pair where one

had been taking care of the other for months on end. Riedemonn was dressed in a hospital gown, while Golding wore brightly colored scrubs. The color of the scrubs seemed highly ironic for the dark tale, but were somehow still fitting for Golding’s character. I felt that this was an excellent choice for a piece on Samarov’s part, and that she chose actors perfectly for the roles, as well.

I have been left thinking about this scene since I saw it almost a week ago.

Last but certainly not least was an excerpt from Equus, a play written by Peter Shaffer and directed by Lauren Browning. It in were Lolito Lindsey as Alan Strang, Camryn Brakmann as Dr. Martin Dysart, Ethan Kincaid as Frank Strang, Allison Closs as Dora Strang, and Paul Mogianesi as Horseman.

Equus is the story of a patient and doctor in a mental asylum, and the character of Alan is recounting his memories that led him to slaughter horses. The only props used were chairs and wooden blocks. One really cool element of this scene was that part of the “audience” was behind the actors. I say audience in quotes because some of the cast members were stationed in the audience as pretend viewers until their roles came up, at which time they jumped up and joined the rest of the cast. This piece was strange and funny, and used many interesting sound elements, such as a tap shoe for horse hooves. I really enjoyed this piece, and in fact would love to read the full play at some point.

THE GETTYSBURGIAN

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OPINIONS

Growing Plants and People at the Painted Turtle Farm

BY ANNA CINCOTTA

I

couldn’t even keep a succulent alive when I started working for the Center for Public Service on campus. Somehow, though, I found myself drawn to the Painted Turtle Farm. Now I’m one of two students responsible for running it.

There’s something kind of magical about the place. It’s a space for families and students. For dialogue and social justice and community. I wouldn’t call it a part of campus— or a part of town, for that matter.

It’s an in-between space where sunsets last longer. Where there are too many radishes to count.

Right now we have about thirty plots, and they all belong to local immigrant families. They choose which herbs and vegetables they’d like to grow, and the farm provides them with seeds. Sometimes the families grow things that they can’t find in local grocery stores, like pipicha and papalo.

In order to buy seeds and tools for the growing season, we run a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. College faculty who choose to buy into the farm at the start of the season become our CSA members, and they receive either weekly or biweekly bags of fresh produce from our main plot.

We put together about 15 CSA bags every week. On Wednesday mornings, after we’re finished with our early harvest, the entire CPS office smells like vegetables.

We grow squash and tomatoes and lettuce and eggplant. Peppers and parsley and potatoes. Pumpkins and peas and carrots. Green beans and kale. Flowers. Garlic. Onions.

During our weekly community nights, kids and students play soccer, tag, and go through lots of Crayola markers, pipe-cleaners, and construction paper. When you walk through the gate to the farm, you’re greeted with rows of sunflowers and zinnias, a big grassy area for potlucks, and a little community lending library perched in the center of a circle of Adirondack chairs. We have big orange umbrellas to block the sun, and a solar panel on our shed that we use as our power source when we plug in the scale to weigh

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vegetables. There are pastel paint stains on the picnic tables.

I love it there. I loved it when I first started working there, too.

But again: I didn’t consider myself a green thumb. Succulents were more challenging for me than they should’ve been, remember?

During my first few weeks on the job I pulled out seedlings instead of weeds, ripped our hose to shreds with a lawn mower, and was incapable of harvesting a carrot.

I’d never seen—let alone eaten—a purple pepper. Kohlrabi and Swiss Chard sounded made up.

I felt like I couldn’t do it.

But I learned and asked a lot of questions. Spent a lot of time talking to the CPS director and my community partner. The people around me trusted the experiential learning process, and always had an idea of what my learning curve would look like—even when I couldn’t distinguish one radish from another.

I’m not really sure how it happened, but now I feel more comfortable running work shifts and managing volunteers. My voice shakes less when I talk about how the farm started.

During one community night, I had a conversation with a woman who has been a part of the farm for a long time. I asked her about her family, and she asked about mine.

Her son is in his twenties, and lives about an hour away from her.

“I miss my son so much,” she said.

“It must be hard for you to be away from your family.”

It was the first time anyone had ever said something like that to me in Gettysburg. I do miss my family, but being on campus forces students to sidestep conversations like that. College is a selfish time— everything is about you. What do you want to study? What will classes do for you in the long-run?

What career path will you take?

But at what expense? Isn’t that counterproductive, to an extent?

Shouldn’t your preparation for the workforce be grounded in experiences that go beyond the

individual?

The farm sheds light on things that are far more important than test grades and resumes. Bigger things. Community. Food security.

Family. Sustainability. What’s even more crucial about it is that it provides an opportunity to step outside of the campus bubble.

Outside of ourselves.

My job with CPS is also one of the main reasons I feel more prepared for the workforce than I did when I started my first semester. The problem-solving and leadership skills involved in a community development position launch students into real world issues.

Even though class discussions surrounding social change have the potential to inspire and open minds, it’s real-life projects that result in tangible outcomes.

We need a combination of the two. It’s important to learn about and process big societal issues in our classes—the role of international law in promoting peace, for example, or the socioeconomic factors at play when it comes to issues like educational inequity. But tackling community development projects through experiential learning opportunities or on-campus jobs makes students feel like they’re capable of tackling injustice at the local level. It’s a starting point.

And hey, if the girl who destroyed a 50-foot-long hose with a lawnmower can learn how to identify Kohlrabi in a garden, you can, too. Gettysburg students have countless opportunities to turn their passion for social justice into action. And maybe—hopefully— those actions will turn into innovative careers that make longlasting change in communities everywhere.

Changing Campus Culture around Sustainability

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD

G

ettysburg College is on pace to meet its goal of achieving net carbon neutrality by the year 2032.

But when Environmental Studies faculty found out that we have reduced our net carbon emissions by 50 percent, they were apparently surprised. It was news to these professors that we were making substantial progress towards our sustainability goal.

A crucial question remains, though, if our own Environmental Studies department was caught off guard by such exciting news: are we working tangibly on campus towards our sustainability goal?

(Photo Mary Frasier/The Gettysburgian)

Part of the 50 percent reduction in net carbon emissions is attributed to the purchasing of carbon offsets which, according to The New York Times, “compensate[s] for your emissions by canceling out greenhouse gas emissions somewhere else in the world.” It sounds good on paper. Feels good. Is good. And let’s be perfectly clear—we’re not saying that we should stop purchasing carbon offsets. What we are saying is that we need to be doing more here, in Gettysburg.

We’d also like to know just how much of that 50 percent reduction in net carbon emissions is attributed to the purchasing of those carbon offsets. Saying we’re reducing our net carbon emissions is great, but people will become complacent without all of the details about how we’re achieving that goal. The number—50%, that is—makes us feel a little more at ease when we’re living in an era of climate crisis. But buying positive change that we’re not seeing in our daily lives just isn’t enough.

Part of our institutional mission is to prepare students for a changing world—to help us develop critical thinking and problem solving skills.

How can we possibly be preparing students for the real world when we neglect to incorporate sustainability in our curricular goals?

The Dickinson College website highlights this argument, which underscores a connection between climate change and the liberal arts: “To contribute to and help lead a successful transition, our graduates need 21st-century skills that prepare them to integrate knowledge about complex systems, learn from and adapt to changing conditions, and envision and implement sustainable solutions.”

At Dickinson, campus culture has shifted. They’re less than an academic year away from complete and total carbon neutrality. And students know this. We’d venture to say that they’re proud of it, too.

Dickinson’s approach to the climate crisis differs from Gettysburg’s in that it is rooted in behavioral changes. The college invests in carbon offsets, too. But students are also active participants in the institution’s sustainability goals. More than 20 campus buildings are equipped with energy dashboards that help students monitor energy consumption.

There’s an organic farm on campus that contributes to Dickinson dining services. Students partici-

pate in a bike share. Their curriculum is tailored to underscore the importance of sustainability.

We’re not seeing changes like these on our campus, but we could if we demanded them.

We’re not seeing changes like these on our campus, but we could if we demanded them. We could have a course called “Climate Change: What You Need to Know & What You Can Do About It”—it would be wildly popular across campus, not to mention important. Right now, the only sustainability positions we have on campus consist of student internships. Imagine what we could do if we had a full-time position dedicated to making these changes on our campus.

It just takes a collective shift in priorities.

A small campus is the perfect place to tackle climate change, in that mobilizing as a unified group takes far less organization. It just takes a collective shift in priorities.

It takes faculty, staff, and students working together to tackle the same issues. It takes curricular adjustments.

The good news?

We’re capable of doing all of that at Gettysburg College.

More than capable.

Shouldn’t we be making changes we can see on campus? Changes that students and faculty can be inspired by? Isn’t the point of a Climate Action Plan at a liberal arts school like Gettysburg to help students bear witness to collective action towards a goal?

THE GETTYSBURGIAN

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The Gettysburgian Staff: Benjamin Pontz, Editor-in-Chief Maddie Neiman, Managing Editor Lauren Hand, Print Editor Phoebe Doscher, News Editor Nicole DeJacimo, Assistant News Editor Cameron D’Amica, Features Editor Britney Brunache, Arts & Entertainment Editor Anna Cincotta, Opinions Editor Garrett Glaeser, Sports Editor Kailey White, Visual Editor Mary Frasier, Director of Photography Samantha Hann, Public Relations Manager Dr. Scott Boddery, Advisor

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Interested in joining us?

Contact neimma01@gettysburg.edu for more information.