The Vanderbilt Hustler 4-8-15

vanderbilthustler WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2015

Farewell to

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VOL. 127, ISS. 13

Wcislo

Looking back at the legacy of The Commons’ first dean

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OPINION

Breaking up with science Columnist shares his experience learning about himself through research

CAMPUS

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A new era in addressing rape

Experts and activists say the challenge ahead is shifting from ‘raising awareness’ to ‘changing the culture’

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SPORTS

Philip Pfeifer: Attitude and adrenaline Recent setbacks have given the star pitcher the perspective to help make him even better

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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2015

campus Wcislo, faculty and students reflect on The Commons’ inaugural dean

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I think he is to The Commons what George Washington was to America.”

RYAN MCKENNEY, COMMONS RA

By AADITI NAIK and MADDIE HUGHES News reporter, Features editor --------------------

The inception of The Commons Seven years ago, The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons did not exist. Now, “The Commons” says goodbye to its inaugural dean, opening a new chapter in Vanderbilt history.

“We all have to remember that before Dean Wcislo, no one had an idea what The Commons was, or could be,” said Professor Vanessa Beasley, incoming dean of The Commons.

Frank Wcislo has served as dean since 2006, when The Commons was nothing more than a construction project.

“For all of us that have been here since the beginning, the excitement has been about creating something new,” said Assistant Dean of The Commons Nina Warnke.

Wcislo’s belief in student empowerment set him apart from the other applicants for the position. As an associate professor of history, Wcislo found that courses were improved for students when he was able to convince them that their voices and intellectual contributions mattered.

“You had to empower students so that they felt like they owned the seminar table, or the classroom or more broadly, their education,” Wcislo said.

Being dean of The Commons Through his own ideas and student initiatives, Wcislo has brought first-year students extensive programming and opportunities. Events like dinners at the Dean’s Residence brought guests such as the mayor of Nashville, an astronaut and Mrs. Martha Rivers Ingram herself to The Commons to meet students.

“I’ve had more interesting dinner conversations in that house than I’ve ever had in the rest of my life,” Wcislo said.

“I get this opportunity to create these really interesting and nontraditional learning environments ... and watch the empowerment taking place around those tables.”

For Wcislo, part of the allure of the job was seeing the way students grew and came to recognize their own capacity for excellence.

Students said they recognize how Wcislo’s sincerity contributes to these events.

“Every time there is an event you hear him asking questions and being genuinely interested in what’s going on, and when you speak with him he really values your opinions and your experiences,” said first-year Anya Tarascina.

Wcislo compared bringing together 1,600 individuals with different backgrounds, beliefs and experiences to making a mosaic.

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Dean Wcislo speaks in the fall of 2013 at the annual Founders Walk across campus.

“Each year the mosaic gets put together with 1600-plus shards of colored glass,” Wcislo said. “You don’t really know what the picture’s going to look like but that’s one of the exciting things, to see how it will come out.”

As Wcislo’s last day as dean approaches on June 30, he looks forward to spending the next year on academic sabbatical. Wcislo plans to do research in Russian history and is considering developing a new course for the European studies department.

He is also interested in writing a book about his experience as dean of The Commons, with the working title “A Professor’s Freshman Year.”

Still, leaving his job and home on The Commons will not be easy. “(The Commons) wasn’t created in 2006. It’s recreated constantly, and to be involved in that process of recreation and discovery and learning and frustration, that’s going to really be hard to leave,” Wcislo said.

Remembering Wcislo’s legacy Former VUcept Vice President Natalie Honkala remembers the first time she met Dean Wcislo. As secretary of her house, she was invited to a dinner at the Dean’s Residence, where she told Wcislo about her plans to add photo documentation to her duties as secretary.

“Within minutes, (Wcislo) had arranged a meeting

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between us and the director of Commons technology to see how we could expand this photo and technology capability for all house secretaries and include it in the job portfolio for the coming year,” Honkala added. “I was immediately struck by his unwavering commitment to help students carry out their ideas and reach their full potential.”

As assistant dean of The Ingram Commons, Warnke witnessed Wcislo’s interest in student voices in practice.

“Every other month it would be, ‘I’ve met with a student and can we talk about how we can make that happen, or keep the conversation open to see where this would lead in terms of student initiatives,’” Warnke said of her interactions with Wcislo.

But while implementing student initiatives was part of the job, Wcislo especially values the relationships he was able to form.

“I still have relationships with people who I met in the first weeks of the first semester of the first year (on The Commons),” Wcislo said. “They’ve gone on to do big and successful things. They’ve grown — and all the rest — and to know that you had a role in influencing and shaping their life and pushing them forward — that’s a privilege.”

As a current first-year, Tarascina has built a relationship with Wcislo by frequently attending events at the Dean’s Residence. At the Blair Salon Series she recently attended,

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THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER u WWW.VANDERBILTHUSTLER.COM Tarascina stayed an hour after the event ended, talking with Wcislo.

“That was really great, the fact that he didn’t mind, you know, the official event was the two hours, and he didn’t mind staying another hour just talking to me and hanging out,” Tarascina said. “(He) was genuinely interested in having a conversation with me.”

Senior Ryan McKenney, who has spent all four of his undergraduate years living on The Commons, described the dean as a “father figure.”

“He’s somebody whom I don’t just think of as an authority figure, but he’s somebody who when I have a problem, I talk to,” McKenney said. “And he does that, or at least he’s willing to do that, for all 1,600 kids on The Commons every year.”

Looking forward This spring, Professor Vanessa Beasley was chosen to succeed Wcislo as the next dean of The Commons by a search committee consisting of various faculty, staff and students. After a rigorous interview process, Beasley was appointed by the provost, with the approval of the chancellor.

“The search committee was particularly enthusiastic about her collaborative approach to working relationships, her experiences as the leader of the provost’s Task Force on Sexual Assault, her active work as the leader of the Arts and Science mentoring program, her energy and commitment for the endeavor, and her sincere appreciation of all aspects of diversity and diverse perspectives,” said Provost Susan Wente.

Beasley, associate professor of communication studies and chair of the American Studies department, is known for her work on race, gender and diversity in U.S. political rhetoric.

“Specifically, I hope that she is able to bring her back-

ground in race, gender and diversity and create spaces for conversations about these topics on The Commons,” Honkala said. “I think this campus is in need of a leader who can bring these issues to the forefront of students’ lives.”

Wcislo noted that it is significant that his successor is a woman.

“It’s important to have role models in front of our students,” Wcislo said. “It’s particularly important to have a role model in front of the 50 percent of our students who happen to be female — to have a person of stature and authority who is a woman and an accomplished woman.”

Beasley has been attending some faculty-staff meetings with Wcislo to start getting to know the ins and outs of the job. She has already written for the newsletter that will be sent out to the families of the incoming first-year class.

However, The Commons that Beasley will inherit is very different from the one Wcislo stepped into when he first became dean.

“I’d say the biggest change is the way in which our students have made this their own. They don’t react to it like it’s some kind of institutional project being imposed upon them,” Wcislo said. “Student community has grown here, student empowerment is rooted here, new forms of faculty and student interaction, especially outside the classroom, are taking place here.”

Dr. Frank Dobson, Gillette’s faculty head of house, is one of four original faculty heads who still live on The Commons.

“For many Vanderbilt students The Commons became home and still feels like a place that one can go back to, as a touchstone, and a place of community and indeed a feeling of home,” Dobson said. “And I think that is in large measure due of course to all of the other people on The Commons, but of course the leadership of Dean Wcislo.”

According to McKenney, Wcislo has changed what

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students’ expectations are for a dean. He is not just an administrator who “sits in an office and signs papers.”

“He made the dean somebody who walks around, who has meals with freshmen, who has people to their house, and is somebody who really facilitates dialogue and friendships in a really meaningful way, and I think that every dean of The Commons after him will have to follow that legacy,” McKenney added.

Beasley recognizes the weight of the legacy she is about to carry on. And while The Commons will continue to evolve and grow under her leadership, the foundation Wcislo built will remain.

“The students in The Ingram Commons next year will have the knowledge that they have a dean who cares about them profoundly, the same way that Dean Wcislo cared about the last seven years of first-year students,” Beasley said.

For Wcislo, leaving The Commons is “bittersweet.” But he will be leaving with the knowledge of the impact he had on thousands of students and the role he played in creating an undergraduate experience from what was once just an image on a whiteboard.

“The Senior Class Fund gave me a really nice goingaway present of a picture of each one of the class photos from 2012 to 2018. Seven classes. Sixteen hundred times seven is over 11,000 students,” Wcislo said. “But I guess what I’d say is ‘thank you’ to them — because it’s been incredible.”

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A new era in addressing rape on campus Experts and activists say challenge ahead is moving from ‘raising awareness’ to ‘changing the culture’

By TYLER BISHOP

Reported Sexual Assaults (2011-14)

Editor-in-chief --------------------

The rise Students, faculty and staff members have all acknowledged that efforts to address sexual violence have increased in the last few years.

Kayce Matthews was associate director of the Margaret Cuninggim Women’s Center from 2011 to 2013. She said although conversations about the issue of sexual assault were concentrated within the Women’s Center community, during the last several months — particularly following the rape in Gillette House over the summer in 2013 — the conversation began to broaden to other parts of campus.

“My honest belief is that I feel like in the time that I was there, Vanderbilt came a long way in addressing this issue and I was probably a part of that work,” Matthews said.

“And I feel universities across the country — at least across the state — are trying to figure out how to do better.”

She attributes the recent movement at Vanderbilt to both a reaction to the high-profile rape case as well as increased national campaigns, which Tuttle Bell noted have been better connected as a result of tools, strategies and resources being made available online.

Tuttle Bell attributes intensified attention to student activism.

Jackson Vaught, co-chair of Vanderbilt Student Government’s Task Force on Sexual Assault, agreed. He said that when he was a first-year, efforts to fight sexual assault on campus were perceived by many of his peers as the administration “shoving this down our throat.”

“I think now, we’re trying to take more ownership of it as a student body,” Vaught said. While he emphasized that change moving forward must be student-driven, Vaught also praised the administration for doing everything within its power to address the situation and for supporting student efforts — including Dean of Students Mark Bandas’ decision to fund the “It’s On Us” campaign.

Vice Provost for Learning and Residential Affairs Cynthia Cyrus noted that the rape case has played a significant role in administrative conversations on the topic over

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Number of Assaults

Just over a decade ago, the existence of an official support system for survivors of sexual assault was threatened on campus altogether: Project Safe, then a program hosted in the Women’s Center, lost its funding in 2003, forcing students and staff to fight to maintain its presence. Ten years later, however, Project Safe has not only expanded, but also operates out of its own building on West Side Row. Conversations about sexual violence on college campuses are not new. In the spring of 2004, for instance, dialogue on the issue at Vanderbilt spiked after the number of reported sex crimes increased by five times — from four to 19 — in 2002 and 2003, respectively. In the words of current Project Safe Center Director Cara Tuttle Bell, attention to the issue has historically “ebbed and flowed” as notable events have occurred.

“This feels different than that, though,” Tuttle Bell said, referring to the current moment in addressing rape on campus.

22 *

20

15

17 12

13

10

5

0 2011

2012

2013

2014

Year *Statistics from 2011 to 2013 were taken from VUPD’s Annual Security Report. The 2014 statistic is from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s recent ‘Crime on Campus” report. Both sources, however, include sex offenses defined as rape, sodomy, sexual assault with an object and fondling. the last two years — including the decision to launch a campus-wide climate survey this semester.

Current moment The number of sexual assaults reported on college campuses in Tennessee increased by 77 percent from 2013 to 2014, according to a report published by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation last month. However, Tuttle Bell is confident that a higher number of reported assaults is the product of more people feeling comfortable coming forward.

“At this moment in time, we actually want to see numbers go up. The zero is the red flag for those of us who do this kind of work,” she said, explaining that higher numbers may indicate that the environment for those who have experienced violence is changing. “Hopefully it is less stigma, but also, hopefully, it is because they have seen other survivors come forward and be assisted in ways that are worth it.”

She also noted, however, that resources sometimes fall short: “People continue to face a lot of hostility, speculation, gossip and unfortunately sometimes they’re not assisted the way they should be when they interact with offices and departments that are supposed to be helping them.”

During the 2014-15 school year so far, 21 sexual assaults

have been reported to the Vanderbilt University Police Department (VUPD). Five of those reports were made directly to police, while 16 came from student conversations with other campus authorities — who are required by federal law to notify the Title IX coordinator, who in turn provides information to VUPD to include in crime statistics.

With regard to raising awareness on the issue, increasing organized student action has been critical. In just the past year, the VSG Task Force, Party with Consent and the Gold Standard have emerged as new student groups.

According to Vaught, this week’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month programming represents an example of cohesion and collaboration among different campus organizations that share the same goals.

“The visibility of the student activism and the way they’re sustaining their activism has been really impressive and inspiring to other students,” Tuttle Bell said.

Her office, since it officially opened its doors as an independent campus center last year, has been busy too. Tuttle Bell said that both campus departments and student organizations have invited Project Safe staff members to put on a variety of programs offered by the center.

“We’ve had a very busy and active year, which is great,” she said. “As I’ve mentioned before, it is different than in years past when you’re doing sexual assault preven-

THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER u WWW.VANDERBILTHUSTLER.COM tion and education work on any college campus. It hasn’t always been as in demand as it is now.”

There are a number of current initiatives being pursued on campus by student activists. For instance, some are advocating that every student on campus receive the full six-hour Green Dot training certification. “I think that is an admirable goal,” Tuttle Bell said, but pointed out that limited resources and time would make it a particularly difficult one to achieve.

“There are 20-30 people on campus at any given time that could facilitate (Green Dot training),” she said. “So we will work very hard to train everyone who wants to be trained, but there are other opportunities for education, beginning with VU PETSA.” VU PETSA, an online module about sexual violence prevention that is required of all new students, was the subject of much criticism at a student-only forum hosted

by VSG in December 2014. Most students who were in attendance agreed that the module was not taken seriously.

Tuttle Bell noted that VU PETSA was only intended to be an introduction to the topic for incoming students.

However, it will be replaced this fall with a program called Haven, which was created by EverFi, the same company that facilitates AlcoholEdu. “It will continue to have Vanderbilt-specific information, like the policy and contact information available within the module,” she said. “We’re hoping that students like that better.”

VSG also recently passed a resolution urging the university to classify the Project Safe Center as a confidential resource as opposed to private. As a private resource, information given to Project Safe staff members is required to be shared with some other officials.

When asked whether she supported that cause, Tuttle Bell noted that there are pros and cons to either classifica-

‘‘

It is easier to raise awareness than to do the work of culture change.

’’

tion. Regardless, she said she thinks that the Project Safe Center has been effective thus far as as a private resource.

“Students have been coming in and connecting with us and calling the hotline. There is plenty of reason to believe, though, that other students would feel more comfortable if we were to be a confidential resource,” she said.

Looking ahead Tuttle Bell is confident that the level of heightened activism will continue over the next year, but it may be more challenging in years after that.

“This is heavy subject material,” Tuttle Bell said. “It is not always the most fun or exciting program to attend, and students have certainly been saturated with information about this all year long. So keeping that relevant, keeping students engaged can be a challenge when the content can be, frankly, depressing.”

Kristen Brady, co-founder of Party With Consent, a student organization that aims to address problems with an unsafe party culture, said that while the campus generally recognizes that sexual assault is an issue, the next step is to figure out what actions to take moving forward.

“It’s great that it’s in the open, and people are on board like, ‘Let’s address this,’ but going on forward in the next

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few years the question is going to be, ‘What are we going to do about it?’” Brady said.

Tuttle Bell said she thinks the next step will be shifting efforts toward changing culture. “It is easier to raise awareness than to do the work of culture change.”

Matthews, who now works as a program specialist at the Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence, added that the conversation should focus on prevention.

“In order to make change, we need to address our culture and start changing our culture. I think that’s the most important part of our conversation, is how do we start thinking about the prevention side,” Matthews said.

Vaught said he thinks efforts moving forward must be “personalized” to reach sects of campus that haven’t had as much exposure to the issue. He cited the Greek community as an example of an area of campus that has taken steps toward pushing the message — including the Interfraternity Council (IFC) implementing Green Dot for all new members and the Panhellenic Council co-sponsoring Awareness Week.

“We didn’t have 6,000 students sign the (It’s On Us) pledge, so obviously there’s a gap,” Vaught said. “That’s the question right now — is to try and figure out, who are those sects? We know they exist, it’s just trying to determine who they are and then how do we get to them.”

Vaught said moving forward, a priority should be making sure sexual assault education is built into the entire four-year program — ”continuous education” — rather than just addressing it in students’ first year through VUcept.

—Allie Gross contributed to this report

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opinion

QUOTE OF THE DAY “Student organizations are the beating heart of student life on campus, giving us a voice as strong as our numbers, while hearing our struggles as individuals. “

KAIT SPEAR, JUNIOR

Breaking up with science On the difference between loving an idea and loving a reality

D PAUL SNIDER is a junior in the College of Arts and Science. He can be reached at paul.w.snider@ vanderbilt.edu.

id you know that some species of the mantis shrimp punch their prey to death? Did you know that a sea slug called the blue dragon devours man-of-wars and then uses their stinging cells to form its own, more potent defense? Did you know that there are 10 bacterial cells in your body for every human cell? There are thousands of one-liners like these from the highlight reel of the scientific world. And often people respond with, “I love science!” or “Wow, science is amazing!” or “I had no desire to know that” (regarding to the bacteria fact).

Those facts are amazing, and sometimes terrifying, but the problem is that none of it is actually “science.”

It was discovered by science, studied by scientists.

But by itself it is just really interesting information.

Science is the systematic pursuit of knowledge about the universe. It is observation and experimentation.

It can often be incredibly tedious, and boring to the point of monotony. Science involves strenuous repetition and fastidious records. It’s the process of seeking truth based on observable evidence.

I’ve made the mistake of conflating science and “cool facts” long before coming to college. Growing up, I loved reading National Geographic. I’d ask my Mom to buy the latest issue every time we went to the store. If she said no, I’d detach from her and the shopping cart and stand at the rack as I quickly skimmed the pictures and the infographics before she made it to check-out. If she said yes, I’d take it home and try to keep it from my siblings as long as I could so I could read every article and letter. The nature pieces always held my attention the longest, so in high school it made sense that I enjoyed biology the most.

I was the annoying kid who would take the whole class off-syllabus when I’d keep asking the teacher why something worked the way it did. I wanted to go deeper. I wanted to know more.

When I was picking a university, Vanderbilt stood out because of the high accessibility undergrads have to research. I knew if I wanted to do science for the rest of my life, I should go to school where I could try it out. Classes and tests are not a good indication of how well you’ll do in scientific research. The ability to grasp and retain knowledge really doesn’t say anything about your level of dedication or interest

vanderbilthustler EDITORIAL BOARD TYLER BISHOP, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF editor@vanderbilthustler.com

KELLY HALOM

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NEWS EDITOR news@vanderbilthustler.com

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SPORTS EDITOR sports@vanderbilthustler.com

‘‘

The ability to grasp and retain knowledge really doesn’t say anything about your level of dedication or interest in pursuing research when you are met with failure after failure.

’’

in pursuing research when you are met with failure after failure. And I hoped that my interest in biology would translate into a passion for research. Not quite.

My lab studies a type of bacteria, Wolbachia, that infects around 40 percent of all arthropod species. It manipulates its hosts so that it will be passed on from generation to generation, and is pretty amazing. At least on the highlight reel. The daily grind in lab, however, involves more time spent looking at flies and picking out virgins, or pipetting tiny volumes of liquids from one tube to another, than actually thinking about the bacterium itself.

While nothing is inherently wrong with staring at fly parts for hours, and in all honesty I really do enjoy what my lab studies, I have yet to find inspiration that could keep me going and make me want to study this for the rest of my life. What I have found is that I love writing about it. In an English class last semester I blogged about the world of science and got to develop how I communicate the intricacies of that world with the public. I’ve realized that when I

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read National Geographic all those years, I wasn’t really invested in the science itself. And if you’ve read it yourself, you know I couldn’t have been — they never really go into how things are actually discovered or developed. What I was drawn to was the beauty of the wide world and how it was communicated to me.

I may still end up finding a lab and a program that could inspire me to push the boundaries of knowledge in that area for the rest of my life. But at least now I’m asking some more of the right questions. And one such question can be asked of any area in life: Do I love this thing? Or do I just love the idea of it? It’s the same as the difference between truly loving someone and just loving the idea of being with them. Because one could lead to a happy life together for a very long time, and the other will just lead to unmet expectations and unfulfilled dreams. And for me, I think that means Science and I need to take a break. We need to see other people, keep our options open. Maybe if we don’t get back together, we can still be friends. Trust me, Science, it’s not you.

It’s me.

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Finding intersectionality in student organizations Education on sexual assault must come from all angles.

KAIT SPEAR is a junior in the College of Arts and Science. She can be reached at kaitlin.p.spear@ vanderbilt.edu.

GUEST COLUMN

J

ust last week, at the “Myth of Self-Segregation” event on March 26, Greg Fontus helped us come to the realization that folks join social groups and student orgs full of those who look like them, think like them, act like them or have been through what they have been through, because we’ve all experienced some sort of pain in our lives. We need a group that we can call “family,” where we can go to begin our healing process, a space in which to exist authentically.

My experience with Lambda, the undergraduate gender and sexuality alliance, has certainly been one which exemplifies the ways a student organization can be an important and multifaceted tool for a college student. It was only within Lambda that I found a home where my sexuality didn’t feel like a deception or an inconvenience every day. I found others to share in my struggle, to triumph in our mutual affirmations and to hear my voice as a queer woman where before, it was just the voice of a student.

Not only did this organization address my need for support, but it facilitated my social needs, developed my understanding of leadership and gave me a platform from which to be educated and to educate others. As an organization, we are able

to rally as a community to achieve much-needed goals, despite the larger Vanderbilt community’s affinity for reflecting the narratives of the “many” as opposed to the lived experiences of the “few.”

Student organizations are the beating heart of student life on campus, giving us a voice as strong as our numbers, while hearing our struggles as individuals.

Lambda has been an advocate for our community, supporting initiatives like gender-inclusive restrooms and housing options, which are desperately needed but may have been overlooked without the visibility of an organization. Hidden Dores has tackled such student-based efforts as creating a team of student cultural competency educators, creating cultural dialogue modules for Vanderbilt Visions and calling for chief diversity officer positions in order to prioritize voices that might go unheard. VPAC, for instance, is an advocate for expanded rehearsal spaces.

However, these institutions are built upon the shoulders of students who, while benefiting from the more specific lens of intentional community organizing, are still intersectional and by no means monolithic. No queer student has the exact same needs as any other queer student, nor does every rower live the same life as their fellow rowers. Therefore, when addressing systemic cultural issues such as sexual assault, we find ourselves in

need of student organizations once again. Every instance of sexual assault is highly unique, affecting victims in a multitude of irrevocable and exclusive ways, yet it pervades every community at every level.

Therefore campaigns against it can only be most genuine and effective when we address it from the perspectives of a nation, of a university, of an organization and of an individual all at once. Our sports clubs, career training organizations, Greek houses and multicultural communities must reach out to those who organize around sexual assault, in order to address its instances and roots within each sphere and to provide room for the specific narratives of those community members who experience sexual assault — without asking them to choose between their student organizations and the support of movements against power-based personal violence.

People who experience sexual assault are not just women, but are people of all genders; education is not reserved simply for potential victims, but must be extended to potential perpetrators; accountability cannot simply be demanded from the administration, but must be demanded from ourselves and our peers — and therein lies the student organization as the mediator between communities and individuals, and as the advocate for achieving meaningful change.

From the asylum to jail The criminalization of mental illness

MICHAEL ZOOROB is a junior in the College of Arts and Science. He can be reached at michael.j.zoorob@ vanderbilt.edu.

The largest provider of psychiatric care in the state of Tennessee is the Shelby County Jail, which treats more people with mental illness than all of the state’s psychiatric hospitals combined. Nationwide, more people with severe mental illness are behind bars than in hospitals — about three times as many, according to a 2010 report from the Treatment Advocacy Center.

While there have undeniably been huge advances in how our society treats mental illness, discrimination and stigmatization at all levels continue to cause undue hardship. A vicious cycle of lack of treatment, incarceration and recidivism afflicts people with severe mental illnesses, perhaps 40 percent of whom will pass through the criminal justice system, according to a 2003 National Alliance on Mental Illness survey. All told, NAMI reports that 400,000 people with mental illness are in jail or prison, and more than half of these report three or greater prior offenses. About half of those with mental illness behind bars have committed nonviolent crimes, such as trespassing or disorderly conduct.

Stigma against mental illness appears to manifest in harsher treatment throughout the criminal justice system. A study of several thousand police encounters in Chicago found that people with mental illness were 67 percent more likely to be arrested for exhibiting similar behaviors, such as trespassing, than people without mental illness. And, if convicted, mentally ill people spend triple the time behind bars for the same nonviolent crimes as other offenders.

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Stigma against mental illness appears to manifest in harsher treatment throughout the criminal justice system.

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One explanation for these disparities may be that police encounters with mentally ill people often go awry; indeed, multiple reports state that the majority of people killed by the police in the United States since 2000 had a mental illness. Police officers — who are generally not trained to deal with mental illness — might be more inclined to resort to force when an individual in a psychiatric crisis behaves in erratic or bizarre ways.

Additionally, jails have become the first contact point with psychiatric care for many people with mental illness. One barrier to effective management of mental illness is the lack of resources devoted to prevention before a crime occurs. There are 10 times fewer hospital beds today than in 1960, according to TAC, reducing the availability of treatment. Through a process known as “deinstitutionalization,” psychiatric

hospitals closed down due to the combined pressures of fiscal concerns and well-publicized incidents of abuse at large psychiatric hospitals. The logic behind deinstitutionalization was to treat mental illness in the community, without the degradation of isolation in a hospital. However, the promised community centers never materialized, and mental health care continues to be grossly underfunded.

The result has been a kind of “transinstitutionalization” — movement from the confines of one institution — the psychiatric hospital — to another: the penitentiary. And once a person makes contact with the criminal justice system, his or her chance of re-arrest is very high.

Some cities show that there is a viable alternative.

In Los Angeles, a unit of dozens of mental health clinicians and specially trained detectives intervene in crisis situations and advise street cops in encounters with people showing signs of mental illness. These Systemwide Mental Assessment Response Teams — called the SMART approach — are credited with significantly reducing arrests and directing acutely mentally ill people to hospitals instead of jails.

But this is the exception that proves the rule. By and large, and however unintentionally, we have returned to the old-fashioned brutality of the 19th century, when mentally ill persons were locked up in prisons instead of treated. This reality is inhumane as well as ineffective, since psychiatric treatment is far better than incarceration at reducing recidivism.

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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2015

life

GO DO

THIS

Holi

Saturday, April 11, 1-4 p.m. on Alumni Lawn Celebrate Holi, the annual Indian Festival of Color, on Alumni Lawn with SACE. Come dressed in white and leave doused in color — over 150 pounds of colored powder will be at the event for attendees to spread and cover their friends in celebration.

This event is free for Vanderbilt students.

A basketball bromance BOSLEY JARRETT / THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER

How three friends became the biggest fans of Vanderbilt women’s basketball

By SOPHIE TO

Chief copy editor -------------------At first glance, the bromance among juniors Michael Conley, Sean King and Dillon Koval seems likely enough: The three lived in the same hall their first year, they’re all science majors and they share a sarcastic sense of humor. But you might not guess that Memorial Gym is where they have made some of their best memories together.

The three aren’t student-athletes, cheerleaders or even team managers — according to them, they are simply the women’s basketball team’s biggest fans.

Before they set out to become the superfans they now are, they stumbled upon a women’s game by chance during their sophomore year.

“We were eating, and we were watching a game (on TV) by pure serendipity,” King said. At the time, the team beat Tennessee and as Conley pointed out, Tennessee is a storied program and our archrival, making the win especially exciting. “(Afterward) we were like, ‘Maybe we should go to a women’s basketball game,’” King said.

The first game the trio attended was

against South Carolina, and once again they found themselves impressed by the team’s performance. After five more home games, this excitement hadn’t faded, and according to King, it then became a permanent thing for the group.

Since the first one they attended, the three have not missed a single home game. They sit in the front row every time, and never pass up the opportunity to stand out from the rest of the crowd. At the annual pink-out game, Koval wore just a bedsheet and King sported two pillowcases. And Conley, who traveled to Marquette University over winter break to watch the Commodores take on the team in a Big Ten game, painted up for the occasion.

“It was Milwaukee Public School Day, so there were 3,000 people there, and 2,800 of them were little kids and their teachers.

Then there was Marquette friends and family, then there was Vanderbilt family, then there was me and my two friends, painted,” Conley said.

Besides sporting spirit, one of Conley’s favorite things to do throughout the season is interact with the opposing team’s coach.

“I challenged Mississippi State’s coach to a fight,” he said with a straight face.

The highlight of this season for Conley

and King, though, was when they were the stars of the halftime show at the game against Arkansas. Visible as they were in the front row, the two were picked from the audience to face off in a free-throw contest.

Despite not being used to the contest balls’ smaller size (due to their being women’s basketballs), both managed to make several shots, and ultimately Conley came out victorious.

“There is still some bad blood since he beat me, but hopefully I get another chance to use some Memorial Magic to get him back on the big stage next year,” King joked.

As for the game itself, the trio prefers watching women’s basketball to men’s because the women play “very fundamental basketball” and play with a lot of heart, and because the games are consistently closescoring.

Koval admitted that didn’t even enjoy watching basketball until he started going to the women’s games. “(The Commodores) are actually are some of the best women’s basketball players in the country, and I think that they deserve equal respect as any other Division I sport,” Koval said. Indeed, just last week Vanderbilt was ranked the fifth-best college for women’s basketball in a poll published by USA Today

— and yet turnout at the games is usually low.

The trio’s loyalty to the team has allowed them to witness Memorial Magic, but it has also resulted in an impressive stash of freebies. Most recently, King won a 40-inch TV from an unannounced raffle at a game.

Among the three of them, they have also amassed gift cards, a basketball, several Tshirts and countless pizzas.

Their only complaint?

Said Conley, “The hot dogs are way overpriced. It’s like, $5 for a hot dog.”

As the group prepares to enter their senior year living together again, they plan to continue cheering on the team. Though they are disappointed that some younger talent, including the Caron-Goudreau twins and Paris Kea, are leaving, they have high hopes for next season, expressing confidence in the freshmen and citing encouraging wins such as the upset over previously undefeated, highly ranked Mississippi State as previews of what’s to come.

“We have high hopes for next season …

What if they want to make us proud?” King said.

Koval replied with a laugh, “I think that’s getting greedy.”

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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2015

Vanderbilt life takes center stage

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The Original Cast’s spring revue sets college life to song

By VIRGINIA NORDER Life reporter --------------------

“These four years will be over before you know it.”

If you don’t already hear this enough, you will this weekend, courtesy of the Original Cast — except this time, instead of rolling your eyes at the sentiment, you may want to break out the Kleenex and take it in.

The OC’s “A World That Waits: A Musical About College” follows a group of college students and their history professor from their freshman year until their 10-year reunion, highlighting snapshots of their lives as each student deals with love, loss and all that comes with growing up. The musical promises an examination of youth culture, the college experience and how the impact of relationships can endure over time — themes students here can certainly relate to.

Director and Vanderbilt junior Harrison Kenum is excited to share with audience members what he believes is a fun and unique show.

“For the first time in a while, Original Cast has created their own fully realized characters and narrative. Not that this is any more

special than any of our other shows, but we put a lot of ourselves into the 40-page script we wrote,” he said. “Most of Act One takes place during the characters’ freshman year of college, and Act Two takes place during their senior year. Their 10-year class reunion bookends the show, creating a time-hopping function.”

Like the OC’s other shows, this revue features the groups’ take on hits from wellknown musicals including “Next to Normal,” “Mamma Mia” and “Wicked.” The song “Hills of Tomorrow,” from Stephen Sondheim’s 1981 musical “Merrily We Roll Along,” provided the inspiration to create “A World That Waits.”

According to Kenum, “There’s this line from the song that goes, ‘Fling wide the gates to a world that waits’ — that’s what we are all doing as college students – we are all going toward this world that waits.”

Samantha Purcell, sophomore and producer of the show, added, “Harrison was kinda running with this idea for a very long time, but basically when we pick show tunes we go through and pick lyrics that stand out.

So when we were deciding what to produce this semester, ‘A World That Waits’ stood out the most as what we were trying to convey to

JORDAN SUTTON / THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER

the audience.”

Audience members from Vanderbilt are in for something extra too because a lot of the plot was inspired by events that occurred in some form or another to other students or alumni.

“The college is unnamed, but we wrote the show as Vanderbilt students,” Kenum said. “We won’t explicitly say it, but there are

traits that are specific to Vanderbilt — certain people and certain places — and I think the audience will pick up on it.”

Performances are April 9-11 at 8 p.m. in Langford Auditorium. Tickets are free for students and $5 otherwise, and can be purchased at the door or at Sarratt Box Office.

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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2015

Can a documentary help stop college sexual assault?

Kirby Dick

The Hustler chats with Academy Award-nominated director Kirby Dick about his new film ‘The Hunting Ground’

By KARA SHERRER Web director --------------------

According to the CDC, if there are five female first-years sitting in a room, one of them will experience attempted or completed assault before she graduates. One in five women may seem like a high figure, but rape and sexual assault are indeed a grave, widespread problem on college campuses across the nation. In fact, almost 100 universities — including Vanderbilt — are under Title IX investigation for the handling of sexual misconduct cases on campus.

PHOTO COURTESY OF KIRBY DICK

The endemic nature of college sexual assault inspired Academy Award-nominated director Kirby Dick to make a documentary about the subject. After spending two years talking to survivors, Kirby and his producers compiled their stories and statistics into the 90-minute film “The Hunting Ground.” While the documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this January, it opened at the Belcourt Theater on Friday and will continue playing into this week.

The film’s debut at the Belcourt aligns with Vanderbilt’s Sexual Assault Awareness Week, which began this Monday and is designed to raise awareness in observance of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. While a news clip included in the film does briefly mention the rape case involving four Vanderbilt football players, the documentary dwells on the stories of many other survivors at campuses around the country. The Hustler sat down with Dick to learn about the process of making “The Hunting Ground,” and how viewers

can help turn the tide of sexual assault on college campuses: The Vanderbilt Hustler: How did you originally become interested in sexual assault on college campuses, and what convinced you that you should make a documentary about it?

Kirby Dick: I made this film with my producer Amy Ziering, and we previously made a film called “The Invisible War” about rape in the military, and that film actually had a great impact on national policy and was nominated for an Academy Award.

And so we were taking this film around to college campuses, and the Q&As that followed the film would very quickly change from rape in the military to rape on college campuses. It became very evident that this was something that was an issue on college campuses and it seemed that there was a great deal of fear in talking about it, particularly with administrators, from faculty, and we could just sense that something was kind of bubbling up. Then we start-

THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER u WWW.VANDERBILTHUSTLER.COM ing getting emails and letters from people imploring us to make the film. Sometimes they were survivors talking about their own experience and how the schools had really mishandled their cases. We just knew we had to make a film on the subject.

VH: How did you find people who were willing to share their stories publicly? It sounds like some of them actually reached out to you?

KD: Some reached out to us, yes. We went through all different kinds of sources. We went through journalists, we went through therapists, rape crisis centers, other survivors, activists. We ended up contacting directly more than 150 survivors. Sadly, it wasn’t hard to find survivors … so many schools had issues with this. It was more of a challenge to get as many people to speak on camera, because the last time they’d spoken out oftentimes was to their school, and the school had responded by sometimes blaming them, certainly not in any cases supporting them. Sometimes the hearing process was so skewed, the survivors felt they didn’t receive any kind of justice. They did question whether it was worth it to speak again … they were afraid there might be some kind of retaliation.

VH: How long did it take to make the documentary and what was the process like?

KD: It took about two years to really fully complete it. It’s sort of the way I make my films — when I choose a subject, I not only like to do all of the research I can on it, but

I also like to simultaneously reach out to as many people as possible, whether they’re experts in the field, potential subjects to interview — just having extensive conversations with them, trying to get a sense of what’s been written about it before, and just kind of taking a very broad-based attack on the problem. In terms of production, in this case we interviewed 70 survivors, we interviewed quite a few people who had experience with this. And also at the same time, this whole national kind of student movement was beginning to explode, and we started documenting those at different campuses.

One of the things we really wanted to convey was that this was a national problem. This was not a problem that a few survivors had experienced. It was not even a problem at the few schools that were featured in the film. We wanted audiences walking out of the film thinking, “This is really a problem at nearly every school.” That was one of the challenges, to focus on the power of the individual stories without losing the big picture that this was happening at campuses around the country.

VH: How did your experience with making past documentaries, such as “The Invisible War,” influence how you made “The Hunting Ground”?

KD: Well, obviously it gave Ziering and myself — coming into this film we had a deep understanding of the experience of survivors and also the experience of survivors of betrayal, when they go to an institution they trust and that institution betrays them.

One thing that was different about “The Hunting Ground” was, unlike “The Invisible War,” there wasn’t a protest movement from within and a legal movement from within to try to force the military to change. That was happening and it is happening on college campuses. That gave us a different and somewhat more optimistic spread to follow than we had in “The Invisible War.” VH: Your past work focused a lot on secrecy and sexuality. How do you see “The Hunting Ground” fitting in with those themes, but also departing from them?

KD: Well, it’s not exactly a trilogy, but (“The Invisible War” and “The Hunting Ground”) obviously related closely to making “Twist of Faith,” about clergy sexual abuse and the cover-up of the Catholic Church. I think there are a lot of similarities. One of the similarities is that it doesn’t matter which institution it is or even sometimes how esteemed the institution is, it seems like all institutions — or nearly all institutions — will — their first first impulse when they have a problem is to cover it up. And that’s a recipe for making the problem worse.

VH: What do you hope viewers, especially college students, take away when they leave the theater?

KD: Well, first of all, just awareness that this is a problem, and I think the film very much accomplishes that. But also an outrage. I mean — and this is not just for students, this is really for everyone in this country — that this has gone on for so long and has been

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2015

11

allowed to go on for so long. In many cases, schools have actively covered up assaults so that it doesn’t damage their reputation. And then of course, I would hope — and I think it has — empowered faculty to start to speak up. I know there is a surprising amount of fear among faculty who knew this was a problem and were very fearful of speaking up because they thought, particularly if they were untenured, that they would lose their jobs. I know more and more faculty are now speaking out. And we hope that administrators — we know that there are a lot of administrators at a lot of schools who know this is a problem and have been trying to address it for a long, long time and unfortunately haven’t had the power to make the reforms that need to be made. So we hope that this film empower them. Schools have a long, long way to go … I would really like to see college presidents, for example, really owning up to this, to step forward in front of television cameras and say, “This school has a problem” — their school has a problem, because all schools eventually do — “and that you can hold me accountable as college president in my efforts to solve it.” Then I would like to see them direct finances, direct effort toward solving this issue, because in many ways, there’s nothing more important than the health and the safety of the students.

The film will screen at the Belcourt on April 7 and 8 at 6 p.m.

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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2015

sports

THE BIG STAT Number of strikeouts in 36.1 innings pitched for redshirt junior Philip Pfeifer

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ATTITUDE AND ADRENALINE Since high school, Philip Pfeifer has had both the pitches and personality that make an elite player, but recent setbacks have given him the perspective to help make him even better

BOSLEY JARRETT / THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER

By PATRICK GIVENS Sports reporter --------------------

It’s only 167 miles down Interstate 40 from Vanderbilt to the town of Farragut, Tennessee, but the journey that junior left-hander Philip Pfeifer took between the two must have seemed far longer. The first major stop on this trek was at national baseball power Farragut High School. It was during much of this time that it seemed like Pfeifer might bypass college entirely on the fast track to the big leagues. He certainly had the stuff to do it.

His fastball was solid, often touching 90, but it was the sweeping curveball that had both scouts and college coaches alike drooling.

That two-pitch combo propelled him to an astounding 16-0 record with a miniscule 1.23 ERA and a remarkable 165 strikeouts in only 96.1 innings during his junior season.

But it wasn’t just the pitching repertoire and the numbers. He had the attitude as well.

Pfeifer wanted the ball, no matter the situation. Never was that more clear than at the

2010 Tennessee state tournament.

After throwing the first game of Farragut’s schedule, Pfeifer returned only two nights later to close out the semifinal game. But that’s not the remarkable part: Barely 24 hours after recording the save, Pfeifer started his third straight state championship game for the Farragut Admirals.

“Adrenaline was going again,” Pfeifer said.

“Coach Buckner kept looking down in the dugout and asking, ‘Are you all right?’ I kept saying, ‘Yeah, you’re not taking me out.’”

Bucker didn’t, and it turned out to be the right choice. Pfeifer tossed a complete game shutout on the way to the Admirals’ third straight state title.

But every journey has roadblocks, and Pfeifer’s came in the form of an injury during his senior year. While many young pitchers would have been frustrated with the situation, Pfeifer took it as a learning experience.

“It taught me to be patient,” he said. “I would’ve not grown to this point had it not happened.”

This injury could’ve ended Pfeifer’s high

school career. After all, he had already accomplished more in his four years than just about any pitcher to come through the Tennessee high school ranks. But he had one more goal to accomplish: Pitch in another state championship game.

“I was kind of hurting and it hadn’t bothered me that much in a while, only ‘cause I hadn’t been using it,” Pfeifer said. “I took a lot of ibuprofen and went out there. I felt like I would’ve been letting the team down if I wasn’t at least able to get them an out or two.”

He gave them four, and the Admiral pitching staff returned the favor by winning Pfeifer his fourth straight ring. Most pitchers would be thrilled with the opportunity to start one state championship game. Pfeifer started four. While many thought a professional contract was the next step, Pfeifer knew all along that Vanderbilt was where he needed to be, but not for the reasons many might expect.

“I talked to Coach Corbin and I ended up deciding that he was the guy that I thought would help develop me into the person I

wanted to be and not just the player,” Pfeifer said. “I thought that was going to be critical for me, and it ended up being the right choice.”

At first, things certainly didn’t seem that way. After a rough start to the 2012 season, the Commodores battled back to make a regional, with Pfeifer playing an integral role out of the bullpen. In the deciding game of that regional, with his team in the lead and only a few outs away from a Super Regional, Coach Corbin turned to Pfeifer. Things certainly didn’t go as planned. The first batter he faced deposited a full count pitch over the right field wall for a three-run homer.

“That had me down a little bit, but those experiences pay off, at least for me now,” Pfeifer said. “I’ve given up game-losing home runs. I no longer have that fear just because it’s happened to me before. I don’t want it to happen again, but at the same time, I’ve been in that situation and had a pretty decent pitch turned over the right field fence.”

Pfeifer carried this newfound boldness into the 2013 campaign, where he served mostly

THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER ◆ WWW.VANDERBILTHUSTLER.COM as the Sunday starter on a loaded pitching staff that propelled the Commodores to an SEC record 26 conference wins. But it wasn’t until the Nashville regional that he really had a chance for redemption. In a winner-takeall game against Georgia Tech, Corbin again gave his sophomore southpaw the ball.

“It meant a lot. It was my turn to defend the program, and it felt awesome to have that level of trust from him in the game,” Pfeifer said. “Being able to repay him for the previous year. I thought that it had come full circle.”

And repay him he did by tossing five shutout innings to lead the Commodores to a regional championship. Although the season didn’t end as any around the program would have hoped, Pfeifer appeared poised to be one of the anchors on a loaded 2014 pitching staff. That’s exactly why it came as a shock when Pfeifer was left off the 2014 roster entirely. The junior ultimately took the entire year off, not to focus on baseball, but to improve other aspects of his life.

“I think if last year didn’t happen, I’m in a very different spot,” Pfeifer said. “I probably wouldn’t be here. I probably wouldn’t be as comfortable with myself. I don’t think my baseball would’ve gotten to the point where it has now.”

As the Commodores dog-piled at the pitcher’s mound after winning the 2014 National Championship, Pfeifer watched from afar. His emotions were, predictably, mixed.

After all, this was his dream as much as that of any player on that mound.

“Joy, on the part that we ended up fulfilling the dream that this program has always had,” Pfeifer said. “Also, frustration with myself for taking myself out of being a part of it. Also a little bit of selfishness that they were able to accomplish our dream without me.”

Ultimately, after some time off Pfeifer still had the drive to get back on the mound.

While the 2015 rotation has featured three likely first-round picks, Pfeifer has found his niche in the bullpen, where he leads the team with five saves.

“It’s never the same every time I go in,” Pfeifer said. “I get to come in and pick up the starting pitcher wherever he left us and try and get him out of a situation. I hate giving up my own runs, but I hate giving up other people’s runs more.”

His stuff has been electric, with the fastball consistently humming in at 94 and the curveball continuing to generate swings and misses from some of the best hitters in the SEC. While many expect his success to be a product of mechanical work throughout the past year, Pfeifer has another explanation.

“I didn’t pick up a ball for 12 months last year,” Pfeifer said. “I just kind of did yoga and hung out and worked out. I ultimately think it’s just a product of better living.”

Only time will tell what the next step in Pfeifer’s journey holds. Perhaps he is destined to become one of the next great Commodores in the big leagues. But one thing is for certain: His stop at Vanderbilt has prepared him well for wherever that journey leads.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2015

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BOSLEY JARRETT / THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER

Pfeifer (22) meets at the mound with catcher Jason Delay (5) and shortstop Dansby Swanson (7).

BOSLEY JARRETT / THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER

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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2015

SPORTS

A GOLDEN GOODBYE

THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER ◆ WWW.VANDERBILTHUSTLER.COM

Stellar redshirt sophomore Patton Robinette brought faith to a team — and fans — that needed it

By JOSH HAMBURGER Sports reporter --------------------

Ever since Patton Robinette picked up a football, he knew he also wanted to be a doctor. The dream started when he entered sixth grade, and he has excelled in the former ever since. However, these two paths eventually became combative as he solidified his future in medicine with an acceptance from Vanderbilt’s School of Medicine. He reiterated, “Just two goals, two separate goals. (They) never combated really until now, when I’m actually going to med school.”

Robinette has been regarded as a special player for Vanderbilt in the way he stepped in and effectively filled in when needed. “I don’t know if ‘special’ would be the word,” Robinette said as he laughed at this label. But to the students and fans of the football team, special might not be enough to describe what he meant to everybody.

“I was lucky enough to have the ability to play (for Vanderbilt),” he said, but the fans were more than lucky to have him at the helm. The football team has struggled historically in a loaded SEC, but Robinette played a distinct role in energizing an eager fan base.

When Robinette announced his shocking move via press conference, the news spread nationally, particularly in light of the recent retirements of NFL players Chris Borland and Patrick Willis due to injuries. However, Robinette noted differences in their cases, saying, “If I said it didn’t influence me a little bit, I’d be lying, but those guys seem like they made their decisions based off of the concussions and that wasn’t the case for me at all.”

Instead, he hung up his cleats after wrestling with the decision of whether or not he wanted to postpone his pursuit of medicine until after he finished his football career. Just before spring break Robinette received notice of his acceptance to medical school, which he really had to strongly consider from that time on. So after extensive and emotional talks with his parents, closest teammates and fellow coaches, he knew his decision to step away was what needed to be done. The offer to start medical school this summer weighed upon his shoulders more so than his pads, as the next step into a career as a doctor felt right.

His departure from the team came suddenly due to the School of Medicine’s offer, one he could not refuse. He stated before this exciting news, “Going into spring practice, I was completely focused on the team and getting ready for the season.”

Robinette’s memorable yet short-lived career began with a stunning victory over the No. 15 ranked Georgia Bulldogs, coming in as a replacement to an injured Austyn Carta-Samuels. He then led Vanderbilt to a victory at Florida for the first time since the 1940s. But his most memorable moment to himself and all Commodore fans occurred against in-state rivals Tennessee.

With 21 seconds left, Robinette faked the handoff, jumped and faked a pass, then took off running toward the end zone to seal the win. He smiled and said, “That was really special, for me personally and a big one for our team.”

During the past season, the team struggled, especially with inconsistency at quarterback, due in part to injuries that nagged Robinette all season. “It was difficult,” he said. “It was the first losing season I’ve ever had in my life.” However, he still noted the momentum toward the end of the season and the high hopes and optimism for the upcoming one.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ZACH BERKOWITZ / THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER

THE VANDERBILT HUSTLER ◆ WWW.VANDERBILTHUSTLER.COM Robinette will enroll this summer in the School of Medicine to achieve his lifelong dream of becoming a doctor. He noted the similarities of being a surgeon and a quarterback, citing the “pressure there to perform” and “having a lot on the line.” However, given his experience in high-pressure situations on the field, it would be hard to fathom a situation he would not be prepared for. Though he cannot immediately choose his medical specialty, he currently holds a special interest in orthopedics. Medical school will challenge him with four more intensive years in addition to further training in residency, all of which he looks forward to explore.

The transition will surely be tough and emotional away from the football field for the first time since lower school, and Robinette wholeheartedly recognizes that. “I’m going to miss a lot about Saturdays,” Robinette said. “Just being out there and playing and competing with your best friends and trying to put all the hard work you’ve done to use.” For Robinette, these men were his brothers in all aspects, especially as he grew up with three younger sisters. The team provided him with support as a teammate and as he made this life-changing decision. From coaches to players, everybody backed up his choice, as he asked around for help and guidance in formulating a plan.

For Vanderbilt fans, football this fall will be missing some of the magic the dual-threat quarterback provided during his playing career. Robinette’s definite leadership came through his work on and off the field, and his unwillingness to ever give up, highlighted by his effort in what now became his final game against Tennessee. When asked about next season, Robinette breathed in heavily and said, “It’s going to be hard for me to watch, I think. I’m going to miss being out there so much. I’ll definitely watch every game, but I don’t know if I’ll necessarily be here.”

And with that, Patton Robinette yawned and got right back to working on the paper he had been writing for class in the quiet of the morning in a nearly empty New Rand.

SPORTS

The Dores you know

going pro

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2015

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Looking back at some of the more prominent professional athletes who started their careers in a Vanderbilt uniform

Opening Day: Gray, Price show they mean business

By MATT CITAK Sports reporter --------------------

With MLB Opening Day occurring just a few days ago, this week’s “Dores in the Pros” will feature two of our former star pitchers, both of whom absolutely dominated in their season debuts. David Price and Sonny Gray combined for 16.2 shutout innings and only six hits in their first start of the 2015 MLB season. The Tigers and the Athletics should be extremely excited to see what these two stud pitchers will do this season.

David Price was traded to the Detroit Tigers in the middle of the 2014 season. Any thoughts that the former Commodore was not comfortable with his new team in Detroit can now be thrown out the window. Price almost threw a complete game shutout, pitching 8.2 innings of scoreless baseball. The Minnesota Twins were only able to manage five hits (all singles) off the former Cy Young winner, while tallying five strikeouts as well. It took Price only 101 pitches (75 of which were strikes) to get through those 8.2 innings.

When manager Brad Ausmus decided to pull Price with only one out remaining, the Comerica Park crowd showered

the coach with boos. After such a brilliant game, the fans wanted to see their star pitcher go the distance. However, Ausmus brought in the closer, Joe Nathan, who was able to get the last out and secure the Opening Day win for both Price and the Tigers. After agreeing to a one-year deal worth almost $20 million with the pitcher this past offseason, the Tigers are breathing a sigh of relief. So far, Price looks worth every penny.

While Commodore fans expect this on a regular basis from Price, the same expectations are not set for Sonny Gray. Yet after his Opening Day performance on Monday, that could change very quickly. Gray took a no-hitter into the eighth inning as he attempted to become only the second pitcher to ever throw a no-hitter on Opening Day. A single by Texas Rangers’ Ryan Rua broke Gray’s bid for a no-no, but it did not take away from the brilliant show the former Commodore put on. With the Athletics already up 7-0 and his chance at a no-hitter ruined, Gray was taken out after the eighth inning. He ended the day throwing 98 pitches (66 for strikes) in eight innings, with three strikeouts and only one hit. The Athletics have a lot of question marks surrounding their team. However, at least one thing is certain — Oakland has found a legitimate ace in Sonny Gray.

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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2015

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