Issue 21 - Volume 135

THE VERMONT

CYNIC Feb. 19, 2019

vtcynic.com

Dining halls lose staff

Basketball player ranked No. 21 in U.S.

A change in dining hall hours reflects a push from employees for less strenuous hours.

Men’s basketball foward Anthony Lamb, a junior, has recieved national attention.

PAGE 3

PAGE 7

Faculty union holds teach-in 2 / The Oscars 6

The Changing Face of UVM LINDSAY FREED/The Vermont Cynic

A portrait of UVM graduate John Dewey, a philosopher and proponent of an education as a means of social reform, overlooks the John Dewey Lounge as sophomore Charlotte Looby delivers an impassioned speech Feb. 5 at a United Academics meeting.

Students and faculty take a stand against budget cuts At a glance: Lee Hughes ehughes7@uvm.edu

Lindsay Freed lafreed@uvm.edu

Faculty and student outcry has followed cuts in certain College of Arts and Sciences’ programs due to declining enrollment.

The faculty union, United Academics, held a teachin Feb. 14 in front of Howe Library, while students participated with UA in letter-writing campaigns and distribution of posters critical of the administration.

The classics department is no longer able to teach ancient history because of recent faculty cuts, department chair John Franklin said.

Two classics professors who taught ancient history courses have retired in the past four years and weren’t replaced, and now senior lecturer Brian Walsh has not been rehired for next year, Franklin said.

These changes are part of “right-sizing” efforts to resolve a $1.3 million 2018-19 school year deficit caused by shrinking

facebook.com/ thevermontcynic

student enrollment, CAS Dean Bill Falls said.

The changes come as humanities majors have seen a 44 percent decline in enrollment since 2009, according to a Feb. 9 email from Falls and Provost David Rosowsky.

There are few places where Falls can afford to make cuts, but major traditional curricula are being lost, Franklin said.

“Do we want to be a university where students can’t study the history of Greece and Rome, two cultures that provided templates for American government?” he said.

Other areas of classics are also feeling squeezed.

Following two 100-level Latin courses being cut, students who finished the zero-level courses went into a mixed-level fall 2018 course with 200 and 300 level students, senior classics major Allison Jodoin said.

“It was kind of chaos,” Jodoin said. “We spent a lot of time focusing on concepts the 200 and 300 students didn’t need.”

In addition to two lecturers not getting rehired, humanities and biology lecturers’ hours

@vermontcynic

were cut, according to a December 2018 memo from Falls.

Nine additional lecturer positions will likely be cut in the next five years, according to the memo.

The declining enrollment reflects a demographic shift in the Northeast.

There are increasingly fewer college-bound students, which is causing more competition between institutions, Falls said.

The impact of this is especially felt by liberal arts programs, he said, citing Green Mountain College’s recent closure announcement.

Outside of Vermont, Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, may not admit new students in the fall and announced a desire to merge with another academic institution, according to a Jan. 15 Boston Global article.

Former student trustee Caitlin McHugh, a senior, said after the 2008 recession, students feel pressured by their parents and the job market to pursue STEM careers, leading to lower humanities enrollment.

“On the flipside of that, to

@vermontcynic

be considered a good candidate to go out and get a job you need to have those humanities bases to be able to problem solve and communicate with people,” McHugh said.

In the face of massive college debt, many students are turning to majors with more concrete job outcomes, associate geography professor Pablo Bose said.

“I have students coming in to talk to me every single week about whether or not they should shift to nursing or some applied field,” Bose said.

Linda Schadler, dean of the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, said there is a impression among students that they can only get jobs with a STEM degree.

“There’s some validity to that impression, but it’s not true that they can’t get a job with a political science degree,” Schadler said. “So I think some of it is perception as opposed to reality.”

Between the 2010 and 2018 academic years, UVM saw a:

44% decline in humanities major enrollment

28%

decrease in credit hours enrolled in the humanities

16%

decline in undergraduate majors in CAS

17%

decrease in student credit hours enrolled in CAS

Humanities continued on page 4

youtube.com/ cynicvideo

Source: UVM Office of Instiutional Research

www.

vtcynic.com

NEWS

2

The Vermont Cynic

Feb. 19, 2019

Faculty union holds public protest Cullen Paradis csparadi@uvm.edu

Get the full story at vtcynic.com Video

Asian Student Union celebrates new year

UVM’s Asian Student Union celebrated the Chinese New Year with food, music and speakers Feb. 5 in the Davis Center. Experience the night through video online.

Culture

Sri Lankan tea picking plantations Between fall and spring semester, 12 students enrolled in the course Travel Writing in Sri Lanka. Their trip lasted from Dec. 26 to Jan. 12.

Culture

Students and faculty gathered at noon Feb. 14 outside the Howe Library, holding posters and giving speeches to protest the administration’s decisions to lay off humanities professors and increase course sizes.

The Valentine’s Day teachin was organized by United Academics, the faculty union, with the Coalition for Student and Faculty Rights, a student group focused on protesting budget cuts made by the administration.

The demonstration began with speeches from students and faculty and ended with chants.

UA President Sarah Alexander, associate professor of English, said that one of the goals of the demonstration was to bring attention to cuts made to faculty in the liberal arts.

“From the Union’s perspective, we want the administration to reinstate the two faculty members that have been laid off,” Alexander said. “We also want them to restore the fulltime equivalencies of 10 faculty members who had their fulltime jobs cut to less than fulltime jobs.”

She said the faculty also wanted to protest changes made to course sizes, which would make the minimum number of students enrolled in certain intro-level courses 60, and the lack of transparency in the presidential search process.

“We want to demand a transparent presidential search process. That means bringing

STEPHAN TOLJAN/The Vermont Cynic

John Forbes, theatre professor and lighting designer, reaches for a sign at the Valentines Day teachin Feb. 14 in front of Howe Library. UA President Sarah Alexander, associate professor of English, said that one of the goals was to bring attention to cuts made to faculty in the liberal arts. more than one finalist to campus,” she said.

Sophomore Cobalt Tolbert, a member of the Coalition and the International Socialist Organization, attended the rally.

He said that the Coalition intended to continue and possibly escalate demonstrations in support of UA until their concerns were addressed.

“I think that the student coalition is more than willing to put themselves on the line for their own education,” Tolbert said. “It depends on the administration and how much they’re willing to take us seriously.”

Tolbert also accused the administration of failing to ac-

knowledge their demands and possibly intentionally misleading faculty in emails.

“The administration has been alleging that there is misinformation going around, and that they themselves give a lot out,” Tolbert said. “I know they’ve been contacting UA faculty very condescendingly, with messages that don’t attack the brunt of what we’re trying to do here.”

Senior Tim Quesnell, a member of the Coalition, expressed confidence in the effectiveness of the demonstration.

“We’re getting the message across that we want to make the University a better place for ev-

eryone going there, and we will take the steps forward to make that happen,” he said. “There are a lot of people upset with the changes that are happening, and I think that if everyone comes together then we can make change.”

Junior Alexander Smith, another member of the Coalition, agrees that the demonstration was a success and has his sights set on the future.

“I thought the rally was a success,” Smith said. “We are hopefully reaching more and more students every day so that we can build a fighting movement, not just now but in the future.”

Sole finalist approved as new University president Lee Hughes ehughes7@uvm.edu

Julianne Lesch jlesch@uvm.edu

Student meditation on campus

“I love to stop at the Interfaith Center and walk the labyrinth as a meditation if I have time on my walk to class,” first-year Sienna DeVoe-Talluto said.

Sports

Women’s basketball in quarterfinals

After a loss in a home game against the Hartford Hawks this weekend, the women’s basketball team will still automatically make the quarterfinals in early March.

The board of trustees has voted to appoint Suresh Garimella as the next president of the University.

Garimella was the only finalist produced by the presidential search committee, which first met Sept. 11 of last year.

The lack of transparency in the search process drew criticism from some students and faculty who felt their input was not valued.

A newly formed student group, the Coalition for Student and Faculty Rights, hung posters around campus leading up to Garimella’s visit, encouraging students to join them in protesting him based on his professional background and the reduced student involvement in the presidential search process.

The candidate visited campus Feb. 14 to meet with and answer questions from the UVM community. The visit fell on the same day as protests from the faculty union over cuts

to the humanities.

The process for presidential searches recently began utilizing a hybrid process that begins with a private initial phase before moving into a public phase with finalist candidates, according to a Feb. 5 Cynic article.

Unlike past presidential searches, Garimella was the only finalist announced.

Junior Haley Sommer, a member of the Coalition, attended the Q&A with other Coalition members. They held signs supporting the humanities, hoping to show Garimella the need for the next president‘s support, she said. The members did not disrupt the Q&A. Recently, two lecturers from the College of Arts and Sciences did not have their contracts renewed and 10 lecturers had their hours reduced, according to a December 2018 memo from CAS Dean Bill Falls.

The Coalition was there to learn about Garimella and make informed decisions about whether they support him, Sommer said.

“I just really hope that it’s an emphasis about how much we care about our education and

ALEK FLEURY/The Vermont Cynic

President Tom Sullivan’s successor, Suresh Garimella, greets future colleagues after his Q&A Feb. 14. Leading up to visit, students hung posters around campus critical of the search process. how much we hope that the faculty also cares about it,” Sommer said.

Sophomore Aidan Doherty, chair of the SGA student action committee, said after meeting with Garimella, he feels the candidate is open-minded, relaxed and a good fit for the job.

However, he may have a bit of a learning curve, he said.

“I have full faith, especially with what just happened over the past hour [at the Q&A],

he’ll very rapidly realize that the UVM community isn’t the community that will be going through all the proper channels, and that sometimes direct communication has to happen,” Doherty said, referring to UVM’s history of student protests.

“Invite me, and I’ll come meet the students,” Garimella said. “Come talk to me first before you start protesting.”

NEWS

3

The Vermont Cynic

Feb. 19, 2019

Dining staff cuts lead to lengthy lines Julianne Lesch rmhalper@uvm.edu

Long lines outside of Brennan’s and a change in Central Dining Hall hours comes as a result of staffing issues.

The change in hours was a result of Central Dining Hall not having enough staff, as workers were quitting after not getting breaks, Brennan’s employee Angel Parent said.

“They lost a lot of people.

They were fully staffed and then people weren’t getting their breaks, so they’re quitting,” Parent said.

UVM Dining Director Melissa Zelazny said that the change in hours came as a result of a drop in staff morale since staff was starting to burn out by December.

“People were leaving because they were like, ‘this is too busy’ or ‘this is too much for us,’ so now it allows two different shifts and for people to have a more normal pace from start to finish,” Zelazny said.

With the new decrease in hours at Central, workers have a more normalized pace during their shifts, she said.

Another reason for the change in hours was because chefs needed more time to prep for dinner because Central is hit with a large lunch crowd, Zela-

Humanities continued from page 1 Chief Financial Officer Richard Cate said since UVM’s funding model directs money based on where students enroll, if there was an increase in humanities’ enrollment, there would be an increase in humanities’ funding.

Incentive-based budgeting, the model that determines college funding, allocates money based on the number of credit hours enrolled in by students in a college, Cate said.

IBB has advantages, like decentralizing the control of money, but it systematically disadvantages CAS by weighing other college’s credits monetary worth higher, said Ellen Andersen, associate professor of political science.

“IBB structurally puts CAS at a disadvantage in a way the dean can’t fix. The provost fixes that,” Andersen said.

The credit hour weightings are being eliminated in IBB 2.0, which is slated for implementation this summer, Cate stated.

“I think that the transparency that IBB has provided has given more people insight as to how things actually work,” Cate said. “There was just a small core of people in a central administration that were really involved [before IBB].”

The impact of this is being felt especially by liberal arts programs, he said, citing the recent closure announcement by

zny said.

Hilary Mahony, Simple Servings cook at Central Dining Hall, said that the demand and expectations were a lot for some workers to handle.

“I think that there is a lot of pressure on us certainly to perform day after day and to hopefully keep everyone happy,” Mahoney said. “People were definitely feeling a little bit of strain to meet the timelines.”

Increased volume from the previous year had also pressed the staff, Mahoney said.

“I personally feel it has been busier this year than last year in this dining hall. I think the numbers would reflect that across the board,” Mahony said.

“It’s the same number of people trying to do it, there are just more people to serve.”

As of Jan 28., Central Dining Hall closes from 2:45 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday, according to a Jan 17. Residential Life email.

Students are allowed to use meals swipes at Brennan’s, the Marketplace and the Green Roof Deli, according to the email.

Each meal swipe is worth up to $10 at the three retail locations and be can used between 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Marketplace and the Green Roof Deli, and between 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Brennan’s, according to

Green Mountain College.

Outside of Vermont, Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, is debating whether to admit new students in the fall, according to the Boston Globe.

UA President Sarah Alexander, associate professor of English, said UVM and other universities need to have Greek, Latin and classics, even if they are less popular or less profitable than other disciplines.

“I don’t see our mission as making money,” Alexander said. “A university is not a corporation. It does not run on what’s most profitable. It’s about the production of knowledge.”

At a Feb. 5 UA meeting, assistant French professor Charles-Louis Morand Metivier criticized the University’s priorities, citing the $95 million Multipurpose center project being worked on while lecturers are being cut.

Money raised in the Move Mountains fundraising campaign have gone toward scholarships and professorships in CAS, but a significant number of donors are excited about the Multipurpose center, said Shane Jacobson, president and CEO of the UVM Foundation.

Donated money must go to the area designated by the donor, Jacobson said.

ALEK FLEURY/The Vermont Cynic

Long lines outside of Brennan’s Pub from 2:45 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday are a result of staffing changes at Central Dining Hall. Central Dining is now closed at those times, but students can use meals swipes at Brennan’s, the Marketplace and the Green Roof Deli. the email.

Sophomore Caroline Noonan said with Central closing she must have to be more strategic with when she eats as a result of the long lines in the Davis Center.

“It can get kind of messy and complicated, but at least the food is better,” Noonan said.

First-year Kevin Veronneau said that the changes don’t really affect him, though it is nice to be able to utilize the Marketplace and Brennan’s more often.

“It doesn’t really affect me that much because I almost never eat during that time anyway. I do think it’s nice to be

able to go over to Brennan’s or the Marketplace and get something,” Veronneau said.

Since the change in hours, places in the Davis Center like Brennan’s have seen a major increase in students during the time in which swipes are valid, Parent said.

VERMO

TH

NT

E

13

a st

bli

sh ed

1883

2 Issue 1 - Vol.

5

C

Y NIC

E

EXECUTIVE Editor-in-Chief Greta Bjornson editorinchief@vtcynic.com Managing Editor Ben Elfland newsroom@vtcynic.com

OPERATIONS Operations Manager Sorrel Galantowicz operations@vtcynic.com Marketing Daniel Felde dfelde@uvm.edu

EDITORIAL Copy Chief Sophia Knappertz copy@vtcynic.com Culture Bridget Higdon cynicculture@gmail.com Features Kian Deshler cynicfeatures@gmail.com News George Seibold news@vtcynic.com Opinion Mills Sparkman opinion@vtcynic.com Podcasts Chloe Chaobal vtcynicpodcasts@gmail.com Sports Sabrina Hood sports@vtcynic.com

Staff Editorial

I

ncentive-based budgeting, or IBB, poses a threat to humanities and other programs and drives infighting instead of looking for other spending choices.

IBB, as used by UVM, is similar to running a business.

It prioritizes funding to the most popular programs, encouraging competition between programs.

Enrollment in the College of Arts and Sciences has been declining since 2008, according to a Feb. 9 email from the UVM administration. The funds it gets have followed suit.

One reason enrollment in CAS has decreased is because UVM became more selective over the years, accepting 66 percent of all applicants last year as opposed to 77.6 percent in 2013 according to U.S. News and World Report.

In addition, several programs with small enrollments, such as Arabic, have lost funding or been cut altogether, decreasing the enrollment of students interested in such programs and bringing down overall numbers.

Beyond the areas where we’re spending less, we must look carefully at where we spend more.

An assistant professor in the Grossman School of Business makes nearly $20,000 more per year than a tenured

Social Media Peter Hibbeler socialcyniceditor@gmail.com Illustrations Holly Coughlan illustrations@vtcynic.com Layout Kyra Chevalier layout@vtcynic.com Photo Alek Fleury photo@vtcynic.com Assistant Editors Henry Mitchell (Opinion), Allie O’Connor (Culture), David Cabrera (Podcasts), Nickie Morris (Sports), Lee Hughes (News), Sam Litra (Photo), Liv Marshall (Copy), Caroline McCune (Layout), Sophie Spencer (Illustrations) Copy Editors Lindsay Freed, Isabel Coppola, Allyson Cook, Hadley Rawlins, Luke Zarzecki, Kelly Turner

ADVISING Faculty Adviser Chris Evans crevans@uvm.edu

EMMA PINEZICH professor in CAS, according to UVM’s Average Faculty Salary ranking.

We don’t need an expensive retention specialist or unnecessary branding consultant to tell us why students aren’t returning to UVM — if programs they are interested in get cut or are reduced, they will leave.

Furthermore, UVM is shooting itself in the foot by reducing the budget for CAS and hurting students in the process.

Its reputation as a “public Ivy” rests on its appreciation of the liberal arts as well as its cut-

ting-edge research.

Because CAS is UVM’s largest school that houses a wide variety of disciplines, no one is exempt from the consequences. Many misunderstand the debate as being humanities vs.

STEM, but that is misguided.

CAS is not the College of Arts and Humanities.

If we pit majors against each other we continue the harmful trend of IBB. Students should not be sharing paints in Studio Art or packed into lecture halls when they’re promised small class-

es. It’s not just wrong — it is a poor business model to promise students services and fail to provide them.

Staff editorials officially reflect the views of the Vermont Cynic.

Signed opinion pieces and columns do not necessarily do so.

The Cynic accepts letters in response to anything you see printed as well as any issues of interest in the community. Please limit letters to 350 words. The Cynic reserves the right to edit letters for length and grammar.

Please send letters to opinion@ vtcynic.com.

We have to act if we want to protect quality teaching Seth Wade scwade@uvm.edu

L

ast week, I distributed memes across campus, critiquing Provost David Rosowsky and the rollout of major cuts to the College of Arts and Sciences.

Though merely memes, they used facts from UVM’s 2017 Annual Finance Report and American Association of University Professors Financial Analysis to raise a serious question.

Students and faculty must decide if education is a public good or a commodity. Diversity, faculty, the liberal arts — this distinction impacts everything.

Consider incentive-based budget modeling. Each college is assigned a specific multiplier which determines how much money they get per student.

The College of Arts and Sciences is assigned a multiplier of 1.0. Others colleges get a higher multiplier, meaning CAS receives less money per student. The College of Medicine, for example, has a multiplier of 1.3.

The dean of CAS, Williams Falls, proposed a five-year bud-

MEREDITH RATHBURN

Web Connor Allan web@vtcynic.com

4

CAS needs to be funded differently

Video Jordan Mitchell video@vtcynic.com

Page Designers Lindsay Freed

OPINION

Feb. 19, 2019

The Vermont Cynic

get scenario for dealing with the roughly $2 million deficit imposed by IBB. It details removing 26 full-time instructors and a 40 percent decrease in part-time instructors over the next five years.

We are in year two. And I think we all can agree that the belief that something’s not worth teaching if it’s not profitable exists in the minds of investors, not academics.

Furthermore, administrators are misleading us.

Consider enrollment. According to The Cynic, Rosowsky cites a 16 percent decrease in enrollment since 2015 as justification for recent cuts.

At the same time, administrators want to decrease enrollment, with a goal for accept-

ing 2 percent less students next year, to increase the “quality” of the applicant pool.

I think we all see the misleading nature of this. The administration can’t blame low enrollment while actively implement policies to maintain low enrollment.

I’m also genuinely disturbed by emails in response to my memes and other points raised by students and professors. They don’t rebut anything specific, just declare we’re fake news and go on to regurgitate the same talking points.

This is bad. We can’t agree on basic facts. And I don’t trust our administration to communicate to the student body in good faith.

Add to this fact that our

board of trustees chose a “sole finalist,” depriving students and faculty of our ability to meet and question multiple candidates, as has been UVM tradition. The “open forum” held Feb. 14 was a gussied-up meet and greet, with most of our questions unanswered.

The rally held Feb. 14 is only the beginning. The Coalition for Student and Faculty Rights — a collective working with various groups making many bold demands — fought back to what many see as the final nail in our school’s corporate coffin.

I fear bolder actions will be required. Strikes. Walk-outs.

Admitted Student Visit Days disruptions. Our provost and board members will be targeted.

Let’s avoid this. Let’s host an open forum, in public, where we can agree on basic facts. Let the public decide who’s misleading who.

We must come together or else our school will continue on its current plan. UVM will become academic hospice, a place for the liberal arts to expire because — hey: it’s just business.

Seth Wade is a senior English and philosophy major.

He has been writing for the Cynic since spring 2019.

OPINION

5

The Vermont Cynic

Feb. 19, 2019

ROTC shouldn’t serve as scholarship money Chris Harrell crharrel@uvm.edu

I

t’s impossible to walk around campus and not notice the partnership between the University and the U.S. Army.

They have their own building in the middle of campus, and their posters and logos dot the University.

However, these two institutions are much more connected than they should be.

For many students, ROTC presents an opportunity to go to a school they may not be able to otherwise.

They offer scholarships to those who participate which can amount to a full ride for up to four years.

You are free to be in the program for two years before making any commitment to the Army, according to the U.S. Army’s official website.

After two years though, if you wish to continue earning the scholarship, you must make an official commitment.

This generally includes eight years in either the National Guard, the Army Reserve or a combination of the two.

However unlikely it may be, you have given the United States Army the ability to send you overseas to fight in active combat.

ROTC is one of the most comprehensive scholarship programs available to students.

Half of all prospective students must sign up for the U.S. military draft if they wish to have access to federal student aid through FAFSA. Both of these combine to

create a large portion of the student body that has given the final ownership and autonomy of their body to the military in return for the ability to go school.

Systems like this target the most vulnerable groups in society.

The army admits that they saw a drastic increase in applications for scholarships during the recession, in a August 2013 USA Today article on the rising cost of college.

The last time that people in the United States were forced to enlist was during the Vietnam War. According the Vietnam War Statistics provided by the National Archives, 76 percent of the soldiers that our government sent overseas came from working class families.

The vast majority of these had at most a high school degree.

Men who could afford to go to college were often allowed to avoid enlisting.

Those who couldn’t either fled the country or agreed to serve.

In preparation for an increase in draft calls during the Vietnam War, thenSecretary of Defense Robert McNamara was quoted during a 1964 cabinet meetings saying that the draft should focus specifically on the poor.

This was because it would be an opportunity to “salvage” and “rehabilitate” them from “squalid ghettos of their external environment.”

The upper-middle class expected deferments for much of the war and saw those who got drafted as “suckers” who “made poor choices,” according to an October 2017 New York Times article commemorating

VALENTINA CZOCHANSKI

50 years since the 1967 Vietnam campaign.

The financial opportunities ROTC and FAFSA provide are indispensable to some students’ ability to get their education.

However, the work that these students have put in to deserve these opportunities is immense.

Those who choose to participate and serve in the armed forces by their own choice deserve all the praise that can be given for their personal sacrifices.

Despite this, unfair systems breed classist and unfair results.

Moving away from this distribution of federal funding to fairer strategies would help students go to school without

being forced to give up their bodily autonomy.

It would also allow them to live without the fear of being pushed into involuntary service.

In this country, we value education as one of the primary ways to improve one’s conditions.

There are also better, more efficient and more equitable options that we can take.

Countries like Germany and Sweden have public universities that are practically free to attend and rank among the world’s best.

There is no reason a country as rich as the United States can’t do the same.

If not free tuition, we could try redistributing the money we already spend on scholarships

from programs like these.

Instead, we could give the funds to need-based aid and increased generosity in workstudy programs.

Paying for college has never been harder.

We should have a system that rewards the students that need these funds.

Many are willing to put in work to get it without placing an unnecessary burden on the working class in the case of a major conflict.

Chris Harrell is a junior political science major. He has been writing for the Cynic since spring 2019.

Black History Month means calling out people who just don’t get it Kim Henry kchenry@uvm.edu

B

SOPHIE SPENCER

lack History Month is meant to highlight the accomplishments of black people throughout history, but this February’s news has revolved around white public figures’ history of racism.

The democratic governor and attorney general of Virginia admitted to wearing blackface this month, and Liam Neeson said in a Feb. 4 interview with The Independent that he had prowled the streets, looking for “some black bastard” to kill after his friend said she was raped by a black man.

Liberals have expressed shock and anxiety at these revelations of racism perpetrated by those who are clever enough to publicly denounce the practice and avoid red baseball caps in polite company.

I am not surprised though, because I have taken several D1

courses at UVM and am well aware of white liberals’ ability to speak ignorance in the same sentence that denounces racism.

But I believe I have done my small part to stem the tide of racists, who are ever surprised at being called out for their own racist behavior.

I made a white girl cry in

class last week, and it is a practice I think we should all take up a bit more often. I only saw the girl’s tears as I was leaving, though I didn’t stop.

I wanted to get out of there before my emotions got too complicated.

I’d talked to the girl in the past and she seemed nice enough. She also seemed to

truly care about African American Art, the subject of our class.

But she’d also said the n-word three times throughout her presentation that morning.

I felt bad. But why should I? No, she didn’t fling the word at me. She used the word in a paraphrased quote.

Her whole presentation was supposed to be about the positive revolutionary aspects of a black artist.

But her presentation was also not good enough, and she should know that.

It ignored the nuance of the guidelines for using the n-word in class and of the black life and art she had researched, and it perpetuated tired stereotypes in a class setting where her presentation would be given the authority of fact.

I have watched the same pattern in nearly every D1 I have taken, where white students’ meager attempts at understanding black art and culture are met with necessary applause.

Then that student is able to continue what is at best the spreading of misinformation on the subject of race, bolstered by the misconception that they know anything at all about what it means to be anti-racist.

While I believe people are capable of change, nothing Northam or Neeson have said indicates they understand their actions were racist, and without acknowledging the racism in the behaviour, I don’t see how I can believe either could avoid being similarly racist in the future.

And I wish somebody had called them out on it before.

If the result of letting people know they are being racist is white tears, then I say let it rain.

Kim Henry is a senior English and critical race and ethnics studies major. She has been writing for the Cynic since spring 2017.

The Vermont Cynic

Feb. 26, 2019

CULTURE

6

Literary journal receives an overhaul Addie Beach cbeach@uvm.edu

Amid recent controversies over budget cuts to the humanities, it can seem like the arts community at UVM is more fractured than ever.

The Gist, UVM’s student-run literary and visual arts journal, aims to change this.

Formerly known as Vantage Point, The Gist publishes once a semester, with weekly meetings to review and vote on student submissions.

Co-editor of The Gist, Seth Wade, a senior, said the journal aims to foster a stronger arts community at UVM. “We want to provide a space for artists and writers to grow,” Wade said.

At the same time, the organization wants to unite other clubs around campus.

Wade and fellow co-editor Chris Soychak, a junior, are in the process of putting together UVM’s first Arts and Writing Council.

The council is a collective of student-run arts and writing organizations at UVM, and currently includes The Gist, UVM Rap & Spoken Word, Crossroads magazine, Headwaters magazine, the UVM Creative Writers’ Guild and the UVM Film Club, Wade said.

The goal of the council is to encourage communication between the clubs, with the hope that they can help build awareness of each other, he said.

Right now, the council is focused on organizing UVM’s In-

augural Creative Arts Expo, which will take place 6 p.m.

March 29 in the Trinity Great Room on Trinity Campus, Wade said.

The expo will focus on displaying student art and promoting creative organizations on campus, Wade said.

“It’s a place for the arts community across campus to connect with each other and celebrate art,” he said, noting that it’s the first time a cross-club event of this sort has been hosted at the University.

Upon coming to UVM, Wade was shocked by how frayed the arts scene was, despite a thriving community in downtown Burlington.

Few creative organizations on campus seemed to communicate, he said, and they were often unaware of each other’s existence, adding that this still tends to be the case.

As a result, students remain oblivious to the different resources available, and arts clubs are left struggling for membership and funding, he said.

“There’s no reason why every club can’t thrive,” Wade said. “We all benefit from working together.”

Soychak echoed this, emphasizing the importance of connecting UVM’s creative groups.

Wade and Soychak hope both the council and and The Gist will help people develop their own voice and help the community grow.

Wade added that The Gist it-

SAM LITRA/The Vermont Cynic

Formerly known as Vantage Point, The Gist publishes once a semester. They hold weekly meetings to review and vote on student submissions. self has had trouble with awareness in the past.

He hopes recent overhauls to the journal will help fix this.

This year, The Gist celebrates its 21-year anniversary, he said.

In light of this, the organization is going through some much-needed updates – including a name change.

The decision to rename the journal to The Gist was unanimous, Wade said. Members felt the old name was outdated and didn’t reflect the journal’s goals. “[The Gist] emphasizes consequence, meaning and pur-

pose over perspective,” Wade said.

Though the journal’s meetings are mainly focused on selecting pieces to print, members also provide in-depth, anonymous feedback to artists who submit, Wade said.

“Through honest, critical thinking and collaboration, we all can really grow,” Wade said.

Sophomore Alessia Potovsky, a member of The Gist, believes this feedback process is a valuable experience. The latest issue will include a piece of her work: pictures of visual etchings on plexiglass.

“If you want to put your art out there, you have to be ready for people to question it,” Potovsky said.

Potovsky said she thinks the council will be a good way to draw awareness to UVM’s creative culture.

“I am a firm believer in collaboration in the arts community to get more recognition for everyone,” Potovsky said.

Wade added that he hopes this awareness will make it easier for artists to gain exposure.

The Gist meets every Wednesday at 8 p.m. in Old Mill Annex A200.

The Oscars: more diverse, but lacks serious intention Kim Henry kchenry@uvm.edu

The Oscars has been in hot water for years.

The awards show was surrounded by controversies like #OscarsSoWhite and their record low ratings last year, according to a March 2018 Vanity Fair article.

This year’s Oscars is without a host for the first time, and many catagories will be cut from the broadcast.

Despite this chaos, at least viewers won’t be able to accuse the awards show of being too white, straight or male.

The field of nominees for the night’s biggest category, Best Picture, is flooded with the “diverse” stories that the Oscars have historically failed to highlight.

But while movies like “The Favourite,” “BlacKkKlansman” and “Roma” creatively tell often overlooked stories, some of the other nominees like “Green Book” and yes, even “Black

Panther,” make the Academy’s foray into identity politics seem both obvious and not well thought through.

“Green Book” tells the story of black pianist Dr. Donald Shirley and his white driver, Tony Vallelonga, and appears on its surface to be an average

HOLLY COUGHLAN

feel-good historical biopic about friendship overpowering racism.

Yet the film has been judged by many black critics and Shirley’s family as largely inaccurate.

Among the complaints was the representation of Shirley,

an active participant in the Civil Rights Movement, as disconnected from the black community, and so uppity that the white Vallelonga had to introduce him to fried chicken.

Adding insult to injury, the script was co-written by Vallelonga’s son, making it clear that “Green Book” is only interested in telling the white version of events.

“Black Panther” has the opposite problem. The movie was a cultural event, widely praised by critics, and most importantly extremely profitable. But, at the risk of crucifixion, does it deserve an Oscar?

“Black Panther” is a great film that tackles important cultural issues and stars a majority black cast.

It is also a mess structurally speaking, with a chaotic final act and computer-generated imagery inexplicably bad for a movie with such a large budget.

“Black Panther” is a triumphant success of a superhero film, but that does not make it Oscar-worthy.

Much of its significance comes from the fact that it is

the first superhero film with a majority black cast, but even among black films it falls short.

Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman,” which also received an Oscar nod, tackles race and contemporary politics in an artful original way. “If Beale Street Could Talk,” directed by Academy Award winner Barry Jenkins was snubbed in the Best Picture category.

And don’t even get me started on “Sorry to Bother You.” There is more diversity in this year’s Oscars, and that is nothing to turn one’s nose up at.

While the Academy chose to honor black stories and filmmakers this year, its choices show that it misunderstands the potential of black storytelling to go beyond furthering ideological narratives around race and pulling in higher ratings.

Kim Henry is a senior English major. She has been writing for the Cynic since spring 2017.

The Vermont Cynic

SPORTS

Feb. 19, 2019

Anthony Lamb: Stephan Toljan stoljan@uvm.edu

An outlier is any point that falls outside of the mean.

In UVM men’s basketball, forward Anthony Lamb, a junior, is an example of an outlier, averaging 21.3 points a game, according to UVM athletics.

For the second time this year, Lamb has been chosen as the TD Bank Student-Athlete of the Week, according to UVM athletics.

Lamb won the award last November and again Feb. 12.

Head coach John Becker spoke after a game against the University at Albany Feb. 9 about Lamb’s presence on the court.

“As a coach, it’s always a good thing when your best player is your hardest worker and he’s been that,” he said.

“He leads by example and he isn’t afraid to hold his peers accountable.”

Just this season, Lamb has averaged 21.3 points per game, 7.7 rebounds per game and 2 assists per game, according to UVM athletics.

Off the court, Becker said that Lamb has a very vocal presence.

“He trusts what we’re doing here so now he’s a voice in the locker room to tell guys what they need to be doing,” he said. “He’s got a really good feel for people and he really cares.”

Lamb said he first started playing basketball in the third grade because it was something fun to do.

“My mom tried to get me and my brother into some sports when I was younger,” he said. “I really liked basketball, so I stuck with it.”

Out of all of the people who have helped him to get where he is today, Lamb said that his idol off the court is his mom.

“She was a single parent who worked 70 hour weeks just so my brother and I could play basketball, get to college and do what we want to do,” he said.

Lamb said that even though he started playing in the third grade, he only started to get better once he got to middle school and then later in high school.

He said that he played a key role on his high school team.

“At first I was a supporting player, but I started to develop going into my later years in high school,” Lamb said.

“My last two years I was captain of the team.”

When he isn’t playing basketball, Lamb said he likes to watch anime.

“First thing I do is watch anime, it’s literally all I do,” he said. “I play basketball a lot, so there isn’t a lot of free time. I just try to be chill and relax.”

Although Lamb said he had numerous offers from other schools, he chose UVM because of its atmosphere.

“I really enjoyed the people here and it is a really beautiful place at its base,” he said. “Everything felt right when I came here.”

Lamb said UVM was the only school he visited when touring.

“After I came here, I didn’t even need to see anywhere else,” he said.

In his time here at UVM, Lamb has scored a total of nearly 1,200 points, made 250 out of 320 free throws and has played for roughly 1,900 minutes, according to UVM athletics.

On the court, Lamb is very in-tune to the game, senior guard Ernie Duncan said.

“I know what spots he likes to be in and he knows where I like the ball,” he said. “He makes my life easier and hopefully I make his life easier, so it’s

7

A natural leader shines on the court

Image source: UVM

Men’s basketball forward Anthony Lamb, a junior, has scored nearly 1,200 points in his college career. “My dream is to play in the NBA,” he said. “[College hoops] is a stepping stone to reach that dream.” really fun to play with him.”

Out of 25 total games this season, Lamb has been the high-scorer in 14 of them and the high-blocker in 18 of them, according to UVM athletics.

Off the court, Duncan said that Lamb is a natural leader.

“He’s commanding and really fun to be around,” he said. “He’s a really cool dude and a really good dude.”

Even with all his success, Lamb has not been without injury this season.

Lamb had to sit out for two games, against University of Maryland Baltimore County and Stony Brook University, because of a concussion, Becker said.

“It’s great to have him back,” he said. “We’re a different team without him.”

Lamb got the concussion in the Jan. 19 game against Binghamton Universi-

ty when he was hit by another player.

Regardless, Lamb has come back strong after this injury, scoring 29 points in his first game back against University of Massachusetts Lowell Feb. 2, according to UVM athletics.

After college, Lamb said he hopes to play in the NBA. “My dream is to play in the NBA,” he said. “[College basketball] is a stepping stone to reach that dream.”

Lamb said that if he could tell his younger self anything, he would say to focus on the mental side of the game.

“Focus on the mental side of the game because there are a lot of things you can learn by just watching the game,” he said. “Don’t stress yourself out because it all comes to you eventually.”

SPORTS

8

The Vermont Cynic

Feb. 19, 2019

Hockey secures two consecutive wins Nickie Morris nrmorris@uvm.edu

The UVM women’s hockey team won Feb. 15 and Feb. 16 home games against College of the Holy Cross.

UVM entered these games with a 8-18-5 record.

The Feb. 15 game was military appreciation night and the Feb. 16 game was senior night.

Vermont won both games scoring, 3-0 Feb. 15 and 4-1 Feb. 16.

Saturday’s senior day celebrations honored seniors Melissa Black, Saana Valkama, Taylor Flaherty, Sammy Kolowrat and Alyssa Gorecki in an annual pregame ceremony.

The five seniors have played a combined 510 games and scored 73 goals, according to UVM athletics.

The Feb. 15 game began with the first goal one minute into the game by first-year forward Theresa Schafzahl, who came to UVM this year from the Austrian national team.

UVM rarely gave up the puck and then, with just over 10 minutes left in the first period, another goal came by sophomore forward Kristina Shanahan.

Schafzahl scored again from an assist by junior forward Eve-Audrey Picard.

Head coach Jim Plumer said the first period set the game’s tone.

STEPHAN TOLJAN/The Vermont Cynic

Senior College of the Holy Cross athlete Tori Messina defends a shot in the Feb. 16 hockey game at UVM. UVM won 4-1.

“It’s not something that happens a lot, getting three goals in the first period, but it showed that we came out and meant business with a lot at stake in this game,” he said.

The second period brought the only goal of the game and the weekend for Holy Cross.

A minute later, senior defender Sammy Kolowrat scored

the final goal of the day.

Kolowrat, a co-captain and two time Hockey East All-Academic team member, was pleased with the Cats’ performance.

“We’re feeling pretty good.

I’m hoping coming off the good sweep this weekend we’ll take that momentum to next week,” Kolowrat said.

Throughout the game, UVM had 40 overall shots on goal compared to 23 by the Crusaders.

Senior co-captain Alyssa Gorecki said she was optimistic about the one regular season game Vermont has left before playoffs.

“It’s all super exciting, especially at this time of the year and

as a senior, to see us play this well as a team,” Gorecki said.

UVM will play their next game Feb. 23 at the University of Maine in their final Hockey East game before the postseason begins.