Feb. 14, 2018: Local paratransit bus workers consider strike

ARTS P. 8 Jazz players perform at BrooksRogers Recital Hall

SPORTS P. 12 The Independent Student Newspaper at Williams College Since 1887 VOL. CXXXII, NO. 14

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2018

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Local paratransit bus workers consider strike By SAMUEL WOLF NEWS EDITOR In the next few days, the Berkshire Regional Transit Authority (BRTA) will consider beginning a strike, potentially ceasing to offer its regularly scheduled paratransit transportation services. This protest was announced on Feb. 6 when the 18 members of the Paratransit Management of the Berkshires voted to begin a strike within the following 10 days. The workers, who are unionized through the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 404 and primarily provide services to disabled individuals, ultimately decided to reject the “best and final offer” that was delivered to them on Jan. 26 after a series of extensive negotiations. The exact timing of the potential strike is still uncertain, however. It was originally scheduled to start on Monday, Feb. 19. Union members, however, have agreed to hold a meeting on Feb. 21 and delay any action until then. It remains plausible that a strike could be averted if negotiations are successful, but previous talks over the past month have ended in stalemate. BRTA provides bus services across Berkshire County, including regular service between Williamstown and North Adams. During a strike, however, nearly all transit conducted by BRTA could be impeded, depending on who exactly decides to strike. “If the paratransit work stoppage affects the fixed route bus operators and mechanics, all BRTA services would halt,” BRTA Administrator Robert Malnati said. Considering the strength and

apparent solidarity of the union, this option appears very possible. Furthermore, the 18 members who voted to strike consist not only of vehicle operators, but also of call takers and schedulers, making any level of service increasingly difficult. According to Malnati, these strikes are not unprecedented, but they are relatively rare. “There was a strike by the fixed route operators in July 2003, which lasted 10 days,” he said. He declined to speculate on the duration of the strike but noted that negotiations are ongoing. “Discussions continue between the union representative and paratransit management. There is still time and a willingness to talk,” Malnati said. Outside groups also remain hopeful that an agreement can be reached promptly. “We appreciate the complexities of running multi-dimensional public transportation services in a rural area,” Director of the Center for Learning in Action (CLiA) Paula Consolini said. “We hope that the parties involved can come to a mutually acceptable agreement soon. Public transportation is a critically-needed service in our region.” The consequences of a strike could be severe for students and local residents. “The strike will adversely impact our students, faculty and staff,” Consolini said. “Some of our students use the bus to get to the local grocery stores, the Rite Aid drugstore and volunteer and course fieldwork. Some faculty and staff use the bus to get to and from work. The impact will be much worse for those in the county who

PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID WILSON.

On Monday, the Paratransit Management of the Berkshires will most likely commence a strike that could impede travel for students and locals. count on the bus for all their transportation, especially the disabled. They don't have cost-effective, reliable alternatives to the service.” Consolini emphasized that, for

CLiA in particular, operations could be severely limited. “The strike will compromise our ability to help get students to their volunteer and course fieldwork beyond

walking distance from campus,” she said. However, numerous alternative transportation options still exist for students, according to Consolini. “I

recommend that students use WSO [Williams Students Online], Switchboard and the state-organized Massrides ridesharing app at commute.com,” she said.

Students explore equity in Braggs explores jazz diaspora construction at the College By JANE PETERSEN EXECUTIVE EDITOR

By WILLIAM NEWTON EXECUTIVE EDITOR

bid in each discipline, but we don’t direct our CMs or GCs to hire or not hire particular firms,” Rita Coppola-Wallace, executive director of design and construction, said. “Ultimately, it’s their responsibility to manage their subs.” Coppola-Wallace, however, did note that as an exception to this rule, the College does instruct its CMs and GCs not to hire from a list of firms that have had previous performance issues on campus. In an op-ed published in the Record shortly before the Claiming Williams panel, Olivia Goodheart ’19, Rachel Jones ’18, Emma York ’19 and Eli Cytrynbaum ’20 cited concerns that the low levels of female and minority construction workers on campus were contributing to national levels of underrepresentation. The op-ed noted that, in 2015, “women made up only 2.7

request [that] the CMs track their use of such firms for us,” Coppola-Wallace said. “We don’t track workforce During Claiming Williams hours or vendor percentages day, the Feminist Collective for women or people of color and Converging Worlds oras of now.” ganized a panel to discuss Also discussed in both the the underrepresentation of op-ed and the panel were conwomen and people of color in cerns that the College’s vetting the construction industry and process for employees could how the College could improve make it difficult for formerly on its efforts to increase diverconvicted workers to get jobs sity in its own hiring practices. in an industry typically seen Titled “Breaking Barriers for as a gateway to the middle Women and POC in the White, class. Currently, the College Male World of Construction,” performs Criminal Offender the panel featured tradeswomRecord Information (CORI) en from the New England Rechecks on all vendors who gional Carpenters Union, who do business with the College, are advocating for more diverwhich reveal any felony comsity and equity in the industry. mitted within the past 10 years, "The focus of the panel was any misdemeanor committed first and foremost to highwithin the past five years as light women in the construcwell as any instance of murder, tion industry and their work manslaughter or sex offense. breaking barriers, battling According to Coppolaracism and sexWallace, having a ism and orgapositive CORI renizing for equity sult does not autoin the industry in Western Mas“The focus of the panel was first and matically disqualify someone from sachusetts, in work on a College particular as foremost to highlight women in the project. Results are part of their union," Alexanconstruction industry and their work reviewed on a caseby-case basis with dra Griffin ’19, individual one of the panel breaking barriers, battling racism and each contractor because organizers, said. of the varying levUnder cursexism and organizing for equity” els of complexity rent protocol, and severity that when undertakexist in different Alexandra Griffin ’19 ing a new consituations. “We struction projconsider the severect, the College ity of the charges, hires construction managers (CMs) or percent, African Americans 6.9 background and mitigating general contractors (GCs) to percent and Asian Americans circumstances and the length manage the operation. CMs 1.3 percent of the construction of time since the offense or GCs then hire subcon- industry” (“Diversifying local la- or conviction,” Coppolatractors for the disciplines bor: examining hiring practices Wallace said. “For example, involved in the project, such in construction at the College,” someone who was convicted as electrical or carpentry. Jan. 24, 2018). Currently, the of possessing a small amount While the College is involved College does not track any data of a banned substance 10 in vetting subcontractors, regarding what percentage of its years ago would be eligible it does not tell CMs or GCs workforce is made up of women to work on campus today. On the other hand, a person who which specific firms to hire and people of color. “We encourage CMs to hire was convicted of or not hire. “The College does partici- minority- or woman-owned pate in vetting the subs that business enterprises, and we SEE EQUITY, PAGE 5

On Thursday, the College kicked off its annual Faculty Lecture Series with a talk from Associate Professor of Africana Studies Rashida Braggs in Wege Auditorium. The Faculty Lecture Series was founded in 1911 by Catherine Mariotti Pratt, wife of Professor of Philosophy James Bissett Pratt. Professor of Music W. Anthony Sheppard is this year’s Faculty Lecture Series chair. While the lecturers are different every year, Sheppard said that the goals of the Series have remained constant throughout time. “The Series showcases faculty scholarship and creative work, offering the College and broader community an opportunity to learn about our work outside of the classroom,” he said. “We aim to select two faculty from each academic division, representing the great diversity of topics and scholarly approaches pursued at Williams.” Braggs’ lecture, entitled “Diasporic Research through

Embodied Performance,” focused on the migration of African American musicians in the mid-20th century and, specifically, on the legacy of jazz musician and composer Sidney Bechet. Attendees walked into the auditorium to the sound of one of Bechet’s most famous works, “Summertime.” Braggs discussed the rich musical tradition of African Americans abroad in reference to her recent book, Jazz Diasporas: Race, Music and Migration in Post-World War II Paris. “With this book, I really wanted to look at the migration of African American musicians as they migrated to Paris, mostly in the 1940s – at the end of World War II – until the beginning of the 1960s,” Braggs said. “I wanted to see what kind of survival strategies they had, what kind of collaborations they had. I wanted to ask questions about the ways that jazz music culturally performed. Did it change? Did it morph in terms of its national identity?”

Braggs focused on Bechet’s place in jazz history as one of these performers. “Sydney Bechet was one of the most influential solo improvisers in jazz history,” she said. “In Jazz Diasporas, I argue that Sydney Bechet manipulated and negotiated his Creole, French, American and African descendant subjectivities to more successfully assimilate and rise to fame in his new diasporic home of mid-century France.” In order to further understand the work of Bechet, Braggs transformed into the musician in her short one-woman SEE LECTURE, PAGE 5

WHAT’S INSIDE 3 OPINIONS A discussion on the value of activism 5 NEWS Claiming Williams Day survey released 7 FEATURES Hopkins Observatory planetarium enthralls visitors 8 ARTS Lecture at Clark discusses artistmodel duality 10 SPORTS Matt Levine '74 popularizes lacrosse in New York City

PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE.

Rashida Braggs is an associate professor of Africana studies at the College.

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2 OPINIONS

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THE WILLIAMS RECORD BOARD On Feb. 1, the Williams College Feminist Collective and Converging Worlds hosted a Claiming Williams Day panel on equity in construction, in which members of the local carpenters’ union brought attention to problematic aspects of the College’s hiring policy for construction workers. Specifically, they urged the College to reevaluate its standards for racial and gender diversity in hiring and contracting and questioned the College’s Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) requirement for construction workers. We at the Record believe that these issues are significant and timely and that the College should revise its policies toward construction hiring processes in order to better reflect our community’s commitment to equity in the workplace. Construction projects and construction workers are omnipresent on campus, and workers interact with students on a daily basis as parts of the community. As such, we believe that the same diversity, equity and inclusion priorities that the College values in student admission and faculty hiring should

Word on The Quad What's the worst thing you've ever put in a microwave? By KATIE BRULE PHOTO EDITOR

Febrary 14, 2018

Building on our values A call for equity in construction hiring at the College apply to construction hiring. This is especially pertinent when considering the fact that the construction industry has historically been dominated by white men. In light of this, the College should take an active role in encouraging its contractors to focus on equity in hiring. Furthermore, the College represents a significant share of the construction industry in the Berkshire area, and therefore it has the opportunity to leverage this power by implementing new diversity standards that could have a positive impact on the whole region. The College should strive to meet the governmental targets for equity in construction laid out in 1978. These goals aim for people of color to make up at least 15.3 percent of the construction workforce and for women to make up at least 6.9 percent. Although they are not legally binding for private institutions, these targets offer a bare minimum standard of equity, and we urge the College to codify these requirements in its contracts for all future construction projects. While we recognize that Berkshire County is fairly racially homoge-

neous, complying with the 1978 guidelines is a reasonable goal. Testimonies from panelists repeatedly confirmed that the presence of a potential workforce of people of color and women is not lacking; other institutions undergoing major construction projects in the area, such as Mount Holyoke College and MGM Grand, which is building a new casino in Springfield, have already adopted these guidelines for some or all of their projects. We also believe that the College should carefully consider the role that CORI checks play in construction hiring. As pointed out by the panel, construction is often seen as a “second-chance industry” that allows people with criminal records to build careers and reenter society. The College currently reviews positive results on CORI checks on a case-by-case basis, but we strongly recommend that the College implement a uniform set of guidelines for determining what kinds of criminal offenses constitute grounds for rejection. Specifically, the College should be cautious of rejecting people with nonviolent criminal records, especially nonviolent drug

crimes, as these could serve to exacerbate existing racial discrimination in the industry by propagating the racist underpinnings of the justice system. A published, uniform standard would not only openly recognize and promote the College’s commitment to avoiding discrimination – it would also reassure subcontractors that their employees will not be rejected by the College and thus make them less likely to reject applicants with criminal records outright in their own hiring. Therefore, we encourage the College to incorporate these guidelines as binding clauses in all of its contracts – both with general contractors and subcontractors – for future construction projects. Both inside and outside of the classroom, we discuss and promote equity and social justice. We should uphold these values in all facets of our community – a community that includes our construction workers just as much as it includes students, faculty and staff. We hope that the College will play an active role in ensuring that future construction hirings are made with these values in mind.

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM FOUR-DAY WEEK

An extra day off to go to Winter Carnival!

WINTER OLYMPICS

17-year-olds are winning gold medals ... but you did your laundry! We're proud of you!

VALENTINE'S DAY

Will you get a carnation from your campus crush? Only time will tell.

CC ELECTIONS

Halls are filled with propaganda ... funny or annoying? Up your meme game!

DROP/ADD ENDS

Sorry! You're stuck with your classes now.

CLEVELAND LAVALAIS ’21

Styrofoam.

JOELLE TROIANO ’20

A cup of snow.

LAUREN VOSTAL ’19

A full can of soup.

LYDIA ZALESKI ’18

I used to melt plastic cups.

ON THE RECORD “It is abundantly clear that the government has not decided to fund public health research on this topic.” Emergency physician Christopher E. Barsotti, executive director of AFFIRM, on the public health approach to gun violence prevention, page 4.

ulty lecture on the black musical diaspora, page 5.

“I was trying to get at that double-edged quality of the music... I want to show more of a balance between the joy and the pain” Associate Professor of Africana Studies Rashida Braggs in her fac-

“That was the best part about playing at Williams, to be honest: the guys that you played with and the friendships you made.” Bobby Moss ’20 on his experience playing hockey at the College, page 11.

“It’s a sexy topic, of course.” Shervin Malekzadeh, visiting assistant professor of political science, on his spring semester course “Revolutions,” page 7.

WRITE FOR THE RECORD. MEETINGS: PARESKY 209 | 8 PM WEDNESDAYS OR EMAIL RAS3@ WILLIAMS.EDU

The opinions expressed in signed columns are not necessarily those of the Williams Record editorial board.

Op-Ed and Letter Submission The Record welcomes op-eds and letters from all members of the College community. The Opinions section is designed to reflect the varied views and ideas of the College community, and the publication of any letter or op-ed does not indicate an endorsement of the views contained therein. Submissions should be sent to hy3@williams. edu and snc2@williams.edu by Sunday at 5 p.m. for inclusion in the next Wednesday issue. Opeds range in length from 650-800 words, and letters are 500 words or fewer. The Record will not publish pieces that have appeared in other publications. Pieces submitted to the Record are not guaranteed a spot in the upcoming issue. For Record policy information, please see our website, williamsrecord.com.

ANGELA YU ’20

OPINIONS 3

The Williams Record

February 14, 2018

Monopolizing taste

Advocacy in the Purple Bubble

How Dot Foods governs our lives

What we can learn from action-oriented activism

By CRYSTAL MA Can you imagine 1.48 million square-feet of boxes upon boxes of frozen seafood, cheese, flatbread, candy, energy bars, tomato sauce, pretzels and olive oil? The majority of all food delivered to commercial food operations in the U.S., such as restaurants, grocery stores and even our very own College, goes through one of nine distribution centers located across the nation – all of them are owned by Dot Foods. The toast you ate this morning came from a Dot distribution center. The Honest Tea you purchased at Eco Café did too. Interestingly, even veterans in the food service industry are oftentimes unfamiliar with the name of our nation’s largest food redistributor. The conventional industrial model of food production has increased crop productivity and decreased costs for farming; however, along with these benefits have come many consequences, which include the domination, commodification and monetization of one of the basic necessities of life – eating. Power over the food industry has been concentrated into the hands of select groups, leading to the politicization of the food industry, commercialization of health and nutrition and proliferation of marketing campaigns that reinforce social and economic inequality. The preeminence of Dot Foods distribution centers is yet another example of this concentration of power accompanied by an increasing dependence on processed foods. I was at a problem set help session a couple of days ago with a professor who brought his daughter along. Although she couldn’t read, the child was able to immediately recognize Chester Cheetah on the bag of Cheetos lying on the table. Our cultural desire for branded, processed foods is a habit very carefully crafted by commercial food corporations. In the documentary Serving up Superbrands, a spokesperson from Coca-Cola talks with the director of the film and tells him that the “key to Coke’s success is teen recruitment.” Dr. Gemma Calvert, a British neuroscientist, analyzed fMRI data to discover that a brand image elicits the exact same patterns of activity as a

religious image in the human brain. The indoctrination of America into these brands of nutritionally-poor snacks, cereals, candies and other foods with high fat, sodium or added sugar contents comes from the increasing levels of exposure that adolescents experience in the form of advertising on TV, on the internet and at school. Companies are able to extract surplus value (e.g. money paid and spent on advertising, packaging, transportation, etc.) from these highly processed foods by compromising nutritional content for costs. Lowered production costs not only make these cheap foods more accessible, but also create surplus money that can then be spent through marketing to ensure that those products are accessible and that young people are enticed into becoming lifetime consumers. Monopolization of food redistribution has many other more direct, tangible impacts as well. In the early 2000s, Whole Foods shifted from “backdoor sales” to a regional distribution system which made it much more difficult, if not impossible, for small, local farmers to sell their produce directly to Whole Foods stores. For some farmers who are already ingratiated into the industrial food system, this may offer greater opportunities, but for the many small, local farmers – such as many based in the Berkshires – who may not be able to grow enough to supply a distribution center or are located too far away from the centers, this system will shut them out. Even a chain as notorious as Whole Foods for its declaration of support for local farmers has compromised such values for convenience and lower costs. Many of our individual, natural relationships to food have been stolen and sold back to us in the repackaged form of consumer products so that we are now dependent on strangers and strange places, like 1.48 million square-feet of storage space, for things few humans ever paid for until recently: shelter, clothing, entertainment, child care, cooking — and food. Life itself has become a consumer item.

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schoolers in Pittsfield, promoting dialogues around refugees both on campus and in our broader community. “Activism” is a loaded word. It As it has become clear that refugees brings to mind both selfless advocacy will not be resettling in Pittsfield in the and selfish savior complexes, both near future, our group has broadened unifying commitment and divisive ac- its focus to respond to the community’s tion. The more politically fraught the desire for education surrounding imfocus, the more difficult it becomes to migration. In the fall, we helped lead approach advocacy in a professional developways that build comment day for local teachmunity rather than ers, presented to over 600 Listening is divide it, that respond middle and high school an important to actual needs rather students, hosted events than imagined ones. It on campus and created a but insufficient is a challenge our refudocument outlining ways gee advocacy group to help refugees withstep towards has faced over the out leaving your room. A social action. past year, and by sharprimary goal has been to ing our experiences, form connections with lowe hope to begin a cal community members, dialogue around action-oriented activ- and we particularly appreciate both ism; there are students leading fantas- the Berkshire Immigrant Center and tic social impact initiatives all across the Four Freedoms Coalition for emcampus, and we have much to learn bracing and guiding our efforts. from one another’s insights. Our approach is not perfect, and we Refugee Advocates is our campus have realized that we remain somechapter of the national No Lost Gen- what disconnected from the commueration network. Founded last year nity in which we are situated. Moving by Jonathon Burne ’17 and Bushra Ali forward, we hope to foster more two’17, Refugee Advocates aims to support way conversations with local residents those affected by the global refugee cri- and directly address their concerns sis through education, in-kind support and questions regarding refugees and and fundraising. Last year, with the in- immigrants. We have also realized the valuable help of our advisor at the Cen- importance of engaging with parents ter for Learning in Action (CLiA), Colin because of the influences they exert on Ovitsky, we interviewed local refugees their children. for a “Refugees of the Berkshires” film, Meanwhile, we hope to host events hosted movie screenings and panels on campus that explore career paths and presented to several hundred high related to advocacy and social impact.

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We have noticed a trend in which students engage in social justice clubs or organizations extracurricularly, but few consider careers that continue this important work beyond college campuses. Most on-campus recruiting events fall under the categories of consulting, finance and other private sector work. In the spring semester, we are planning to invite back to campus Burne, our group’s founder, who is currently an Immigrant Justice Corps community fellow at the National Immigrant Justice Center. We are also inviting a local writer, Jana Laiz, who was a caseworker at the International Rescue Committee working in refugee resettlement, to give a lecture on her career. In a TED Talk given by Sisonke Msimang, an activist and writer on issues of human rights and migration, she talks about how stories are limited; “Stories can create an illusion of solidarity,” Msimang said. “There is nothing like that feel-good factor you get from listening to a fantastic story where you feel like you climbed that mountain or that you befriended that death row inmate. But you didn’t. You haven’t done anything. Listening is an important but insufficient step towards social action.” Action-oriented activism fills the gap between the stories that make our hearts wrench and our privileged Purple Bubble in Williamstown. Julie Geng ’19 is an economics and Arabic studies double major from Shanghai, China. Emma Lezberg ’20 is from Pittsfield, Mass.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Crystal Ma ’21 is from Seattle, Wash. Her major is undecided.

Capitalizing on free speech

ANGELA YU ’20

Structuring time and space for creativity y

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complimentary joke in the context of our conversation about the tradiLooking back, one of the things tion of Japanese jousting contests. I remember most fondly about the At any rate, I was not riding high College is that it was a place for after that one, so to speak! artistic exploration. I remember With all this in mind, one thing being able to write poetry, edit I would encourage students to do arts articles for the Record, learn while they are at the College, besides a new instrument with an amaz- using opportunities to explore their ing instructor on campus, travel to own artistic methods, is think of Europe and Asia and take classes in structural improvements that can be fiction and art history with some of built into society for the exercise of the best professors I’ve had before artistic freedom and expression afor since. These were all things I did ter they leave the campus – and for not have the chance to do within those now out in the workplace. the context of a structured curricuFor example, one area that is lum during high school – or gradu- challenging and offers room for ate school, for that matter. expansion is that of language. For It is not always easy to find plac- instance, it can be difficult to reces in society that allow for freedom oncile a truly global world in which of speech and artistic people speak various languages with a exploration amongst open-minded peers. natural appreciThe structural op- deep, ation for a language’s Whatever one’s criticisms of the College portunities for free tongue-in-cheek huare, the structural mor. This kind of expression in the understanding often opportunities for free expression in goes well beyond the post-graduation realm of language the post-graduation world can world can be limited classes – even those even with the advantaught at a first-rate be limited. undergraduate institages of time and resources at one’s distution – and can be extremely challenging posal. Often, the type of work one gets into pick up on if one volved in depends to has not been raised a certain extent on one’s politics to with certain books and television begin with (even though these are shows by one’s side. I sincerely believe that the Colnot usually taken into account explicitly in the hiring process), and lege still has a long way to go in that situation alone can dampen appreciating certain kinds of diversity, such as socioeconomic true artistic self-exploration. Wherever one goes, the job mar- diversity or the diversity of true ket and workplace can be very com- disability – in fact, this may run petitive, and “rough drafts” seldom paradoxically counter to the very go over well in public. In my experi- mission of excellence that the Colence, it often takes far more time to lege maintains. But it certainly oftry to smooth over a misunderstood fers built-in, structural time for the statement than it does to move on expression of creativity. I would and try one’s luck at the next place. encourage all students to use this For instance, I can tell you an- time, and also to think prospececdotally that email is not always tively about ways of incorporating the best place to hone one’s artistic similar opportunities into their job side by practicing satirical humor. searches and post-graduation lives. On one occasion, I told a friend that he was exceedingly good at missing Paul Reyns ’08 was an English the point, which I meant to be a major from Walpole, N.H.

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The pitfalls of pot Reconciling time management with marijuana use y

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I’m from Southern California, where it’s always sunny, grass doesn’t grow and pot is plentiful. I find that it’s often more socially acceptable to smoke a joint than a cigarette, and those who won’t hit the bong are in the minority. This hasn’t always been the case. But in the past few years, as legalization has made its slow progress across the country, weed has gained an ever-increasing presence in popular culture and practice. But how will the proliferation of this drug influence our society? I can’t tell you much about the science or medical effects of the herb, but I can give you my honest opinion on how it affects people on a personal and social basis. Pot makes you stupid. When you get high, you almost slouch into this blissfully subdued state where you accept your ineptitude at all things and embrace the moment, whatever it may be. This is not to knock that feeling, as relaxation and living in the moment are luxuries that many people need desperately in their lives. But it does bring to the surface an important issue in that a high person is an unproductive person. Interacting with stoned people is nothing if not comical; the slothful way they speak and think, their moments of warm joy and the way they love to dance, eat and listen to music are all somewhat reminiscent of a happy child. When you’re floating on that hazy cloud, everything is super nice, and that’s probably why people like it so much. But all this pleasantness comes at an undeniable cost.

The opportunity cost of that sluggish bliss includes not only the sizable wad of cash you have to fork over to actually get the bud, but also the time and productivity sacrificed by indulging in. Malcolm Gladwell tells us in his book Outliers that one has only truly mastered a craft after devoting 10,000 hours to it. So time is the primary contributing factor to improvement; in other words, practice makes perfect. While this is an incredibly well-known phrase, and its truthfulness seems almost trivial, it is a tremendously powerful concept, especially when one understands that it is applicable to basically every aspect of life. Everything is a skill to be improved upon, from brushing your teeth to talking to your friends to doing your homework. By practicing these actions over and over again, and by devoting time to them, you understand them better and gain greater proficiency in them. However, when you’re high, you gain nothing. You can’t learn new skills, and you can’t improve on what you know. You placidly float through the events unfolding around you, benefiting only from your ephemeral enjoyment of them. Essentially, if we consider time a resource that everyone has a limited supply of, spending time high yields little to no return on investment. But I don’t want to give off the impression that marijuana is “bad” for you because from what I’ve read, it isn’t, and despite what I just said, you may actually gain something from getting high. In fact, the only negative health effect I could find of the drug, other than the evident

harm to your lungs in smoking, was that it seems to foster addiction in 10 percent of its users. However, this addiction is not scientifically understood on a chemical level, but is rather defined only by overuse. This overuse could therefore be attributed to factors other than the herb’s chemical properties, like depression. In fact, such mental issues, and many other health issues such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, are often alleviated by marijuana use. Additionally, I would be remiss not to mention that many claim that smoking pot improves their creative processes. Therefore, while weed may have a particularly high opportunity cost, it is not necessarily a complete waste of time, for there are a number of benefits to its use. So, like many other drugs (both legal and illegal), weed has the potential for abuse, it has the ability to do great good and it can be used as a distraction from reality. It is part of our job as educated and productive members of the community to understand that pot will affect the way we think and act and to use it with necessary discretion. So what I’m trying to say is that smoking weed isn’t necessarily wrong or bad for you; in fact, it is often pleasant and relaxing and can definitely help you unwind or be creative. But when you spend your time high, you’re missing out on the opportunity to learn and grow, and you’ll never get that time back. Nevin Bernet ’20 is from Topanga, Calif. He intends to double major in computer science and economics.

February 14, 2018

NEWS 4

The Williams Record

College hosts physician panel on local organization’s new public health approach to gun violence prevention By REBECCA TAUBER NEWS EDITOR On Tuesday, Feb. 6, the College hosted a panel on gun violence prevention. The panel featured Brown emergency care physician Megan Ranney, University of Nevada, Las Vegas trauma surgeon Deborah Kuhls and Southwestern Vermont Medical Center emergency physician Christopher E. Barsotti. The three doctors have all taken part in founding the organization AFFIRM, or the American Foundation for Firearm Injury Reduction in Medicine. Barsotti, who serves as AFFIRM’s executive director, was inspired to help form the organization based on his experience as an emergency physician in the Berkshire area. “I’ve taken care of a number of cases where there have been near misses with firearms, and I’ve also seen missed opportunities,” Barsotti said. When it comes to gun violence, he noted that many people think “that stuff doesn’t happen here.” “They have no idea,” he said of that fallacy. Beyond the mass shootings normally associated with gun violence, Barsotti explained, most of the patients he treats are victims of domestic violence, peer violence or suicide. Although AFFIRM is based in Williamstown, it has a geographically diverse steering committee and national goals. “The way that gun violence has been perceived in this country has been largely political, and as physicians, we recognize that this is primarily a health problem and hope to direct the public's attention to the many opportunities that lie upstream of policy,” Barsotti said. That is

PHOTO COURTESY OF PROFESSOR LEYLA ROUHI.

Dr. Christopher Barsotti spoke about AFFIRM, a new physician-run organization aiming to tackle the issue of gun violence from a public health perspective. why AFFIRM is nonpartisan. The physician-managed organization aims to shift the conversation on gun violence prevention by approaching it as a public health issue rather than as a political debate. Normally, the government tackles public health issues, such as the opioid crisis, by commissioning the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

(CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to decide priorities and give research grants. However, CDC research on gun violence is not allowed due to the Dickey Amendment, which arose from a 1996 omnibus spending bill. “It is abundantly clear that the government has not decided to fund public health research on this topic,” Barsotti said.

This is where AFFIRM comes in. “The problem is we don’t have an organized approach to this condition like we do other health problems,” Barsotti explained. “The primary problem is we don’t have enough research.” AFFIRM seeks to fill this gap by aggregating funds to support gun violence research. The organization will act as a “conduit

between the experts and the private sector,” Barsotti said. The panel raised awareness of the new locally-based organization and introduced the College community to its different approach to the issue of gun violence. “The purpose of the panel was to begin to define the problem in a way that is accessible to everybody,” Barsotti said.

Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature Leyla Rouhi organized the panel with the hopes of engaging the student body with this new approach to the issue of gun violence. She learned of AFFIRM through conversations with Barsotti, who is her neighbor. “I became very interested in bringing it to the attention of public health and experiential education at Williams,” she explained. Rouhi is both a romance languages professor and a member of the College’s public health advisory committee. Although these two fields may seem very different, Rouhi is particularly interested in the crossover between them. “I am looking ahead to the ways in which we can learn from one another across disciplines,” she said. She also highlighted the role that foreign languages play in the field of public health. “It is important to think about the different communities affected by public health issues,” she said. As AFFIRM grows, the organization could provide an opportunity for pre-med and public health-minded students to get involved in the issue. This was part of Rouhi’s motivation for hosting the panel. “I’m sure this generation thinks about this problem, and our students are great problem solvers,” she said. She hopes to help get the College community involved in new ways of thinking about gun violence. Barsotti is also looking forward to “engaging the next generation into a more functional way of thinking about the problem,” he said, especially in the coming months and years as AFFIRM continues to grow.

Panel addresses student concerns about diversity in construction hirings CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Tuesday 2-6-18 7:55 a.m. Brooks parking lot: A student reported slipping and falling on some ice. She said she was not injured, but her biggest concern was that the parking lot gets treated. Dispatch notified Facilities. 8:14 a.m. Stetson/Sawyer basement: A call was placed requesting help for a Facilities employee having chest pains. Dispatch activated 9-1-1 for an ambulance. North Adams Ambulance Service responded, and the employee was taken to Berkshire Medical Center (BMC) South. 1:20 p.m. A Facilities employee reported an accident with a Facilities truck. The employee was attempting to back the truck into one of the bays at the Facilities garage and struck the passenger-side mirror against the garage opening. Wednesday 2-7-18 9:59 p.m. Carter: Officers responded to a report of a student who had broken her tooth. The student was transported to BMC North. Thursday 2-8-18 9:25 a.m. Hopkins Hall: An officer responded to a report of an icicle that had fallen off of Hopkins Hall and hit a pedestrian on the head while they were walking on the sidewalk. The complainant declined any medical treatment. “Danger: Falling Ice” signs were placed on the sidewalk. The complainant completed a statement and a personal accident/ injury form. Friday 2-9-18 11:10 a.m. Paresky: Dispatch received a call from the emergency phone in an elevator with no voice on the other end. An officer went to the elevator and verified that no one was inside and that it was operating properly.

5:36 p.m. Lasell: Officers responded to a report of an injured student. The injured student was found just outside the locker room on the first floor. The student was playing basketball when he rolled his ankle. He was transported to the Health Center to have his ankle checked. Non-Emergency Transport Services then transported him to BMC North. 8:44 p.m. Dodd House: Officers responded to a report of an odor on the second floor. Officers followed the odor of marijuana to a student’s room. The student had been smoking and had lit candle, which was burning on his desk. The student was charged a $500 fine for the two violations. 11:46 p.m. Tyler House: Officers responded to a report of an intoxicated student. Upon arrival, the student was found lying face-down on the floor in the entrance to the kitchen. Due to the student’s condition, Dispatch was asked to activate 9-1-1. North Adams Ambulance arrived and transported the student to BMC North. Saturday 2-10-18 10:45 p.m. Horn Hall: An officer arrived to check a registered event in the kitchen area. They did not find anyone in the kitchen area. However, there was loud music coming from the north end of the building and a strong odor of alcohol in the central lobby area. 11:03 p.m. Fayerweather: Officers responded to a report of a broken window. Campus custodians were called to clean up the glass. On-call architectural trades were called in to board up the window. Sunday 2-11-18 12:01 a.m. Gladden: Officers arrived at the fourth floor to respond to a noise complaint. Officers found eight students talking and listening to loud music. They were advised of

the noise complaint and told to turn the music down. 12:50 a.m. Rice House: Officers responded to a report of a student outside the building on the ground. Two North Adams Ambulances were dispatched after two students were located inside on the second floor passed out. There was a dance party going on. North Adams Ambulance arrived and began to evaluate the students. One student was transported to BMC North.

the sale and distribution of a banned substance within the past year wouldn't be." She noted that for a few specific types of convictions, including sexual predation, positive results do automatically disqualify workers. Still, organizers of the panel feel that the College can do far more to address issues of diversity in its construction hiring practices. "As panel organizers, we think the College should lift CORI restrictions for workers and set hiring requirements

for women and people of color," Griffin said. "However, as of now, we haven't made any formal proposals to the administration, and we look forward to further conversation with them in the future." As a result of the panel, Coppola-Wallace, along with Associate Vice President for Finance Matt Sheehy and Vice President for Finance and Administration and Treasurer Fred Puddester, have made plans to use student ideas as a starting point for further discussions on how the College can improve diversity standards in its

construction hiring practices going into the future. “We got some very thoughtful questions from students around that panel and appreciated the interest,” CoppolaWallace said. “In the wake of Claiming Williams, staff from Planning, Design and Construction are going to meet with the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity to discuss what more the College can do to promote the hiring of women and people of color on campus construction projects. Students should feel proud that they helped encourage that discussion.”

12:54 a.m. Paresky: An officer responded to Lee Snack Bar for a report of a student causing a disturbance. 1:48 a.m. Agard: Officers responded to two tip line submissions stating that there was a party in the building's basement. They found 18 students playing beer pong and listening to loud music. They were advised of the noise complaints. The students were cooperative and complied with no issues. 2:14 a.m. Garfield: Officers responded to a report of a student having an allergic reaction. The student was transported to BMC North by North Adams Ambulance. 2:38 a.m. Morgan: Officers responded to the second floor on a report that a student had woken up in the middle of the night, sweating and having difficulty breathing. Dispatch activated 9-1-1. The student was had abdominal pain and shortness of breath. North Adams Ambulance arrived and transported the student to BMC North. 11:20 a.m. Dodd: While there for another matter, an officer was approached by a student about an odor of marijuana on the second floor. The officer followed the odor to a room, where the resident admitted to smoking inside the building and received a $250 fine.

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February 14, 2018

NEWS 5

The Williams Record

Students respond to Claiming Williams Day survey By REBECCA TAUBER and SAMUEL WOLF NEWS EDITORS This week, the Record sent out a survey to a random sample of 500 students regarding participation in various Claiming Williams Day events. 123 responses were recorded, with the sample of Claiming Williams participants adding up to 88. Overall, 73.9 percent of students who were on campus at the time reported participating at least one event, with a 95 percent confidence interval of approximately 7.9 percent. Therefore, it is extremely likely that between 66 percent and 82 percent of all students at the College participated in at least one event. The median number of events that any one student attended was two, with participating students reporting having attended anywhere between one and six events.

The most popular time slots for events were 10:45 a.m., when the morning keynote speaker Julissa Arce presented, and 2 p.m., when various community forums were held. Approximately 40 percent of participation occurred in each slot. On the other hand, the least popular time slot was at 8 a.m., with only 3.4 percent of respondents reporting attending the yoga workshop held at that time. Of those respondents who attended at least one Claiming Williams event, 39 percent reported attending similar events “once a month,” while 46 percent reported doing so “rarely.” Only 11 percent reported attending such events more than once a month. Although these numbers only reflect the subsection of the student body that participated in Claiming Williams Day, they still speak to the extent to which many students do not engage with these issues outside of Claiming Williams Day.

Fraction of students attending sessions in each time slot

We asked students: Did you attend at least one Claiming Williams Day event?

WILLIAM NEWTON/EXECUTIVE EDITOR.

WILLIAM NEWTON/EXECUTIVE EDITOR.

Braggs opens Faculty Lecture Series with discussion of black diaspora in music CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 performance, “Me and Monsieur Bechet,” of which she showed the audience clips. This fall, she used the piece as a performative text for her course “Black Migrations: African American Performance at Home and Abroad.” “I attempt to test black performance theory with my body by playing diaspora,” Braggs said. “Could I wear Sydney Bechet’s memory of diaspora on my skin, in my gait, in my regard, in my voice? I attempted.” Braggs showed a series of clips from her performance, which combined acting, movement, dance and music. One clip involved Braggs approaching a mirror, sinking to the floor and then rhythmically slapping and sliding on her back across the floor and through the legs of a piano bench, under which was the hat that would ultimately complete her transformation into Bechet. “This slap-slide through the diaspora reflected the

labors of the middle passage, the still-resonant imagined memory of that labor, the pain and discomfort of diasporic migration and the determined force it took to move away from home and toward an uncertain future,” Braggs said. Braggs showed another clip of her performance in which she mimed playing the clarinet and sang the melody to Bechet’s “Summertime,” incorporating what she described as a “kinesthetic stuttering” between words by inserting different sounds she had picked out online into the tune with her voice. “I was trying to get at that double-edged quality of the music,” Braggs said. “I still want to explore that more. I want to show more of a balance between the joy and the pain.” Braggs linked her piece to theories of how diaspora is played in performance, quoting from her students’ many reactions to it. These theories improved her understanding of how to perform diaspora, she explained.

“Creating a performance and trying to articulate Bechet’s diasporic experience allowed me to get past what was documented, to jump right into it rather than continuing to struggle with traditional methods of interpretation,” Braggs said. “It also blurred the lines between problematic and productive methodologies.” To conclude, Braggs described her attempt to translate this interpretation to the students in her class and elaborated on what she had learned from her students’ various comments. “The students taught me about the limits of intention and agency,” Braggs said. “That is, I had one sense in my mind about what I was trying to do, what I was focusing on … and the students sometimes came up with different interpretations. Their comments distinguished learned, remembered and imagined experiences with African diaspora of which I was not even aware.”

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IN OTHER IVORY TOWERS NEWS AROUND ACADEMIA By SHAHEEN CURRIMJEE and REBECCA TAUBER EXECUTIVE EDITOR and NEWS EDITOR

Colleges host students from University of Puerto Rico On Sept. 20, Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 155 miles per hour, made landfall on Puerto Rico. The storm destroyed access to electricity, clean water and communications for the entire island. In addition to the wide-scale destruction of homes, businesses and institutions on the island were also destroyed. Still suffering from both Hurricane Maria and the prior Hurricane Irma, Puerto Rico has been forced to close hundreds of schools and universities, posing major challenges to its education system. The University of Puerto Rico (UPR), the largest public university in Puerto Rico, remains open; however, some services are interrupted, leaving uncertain the educational futures of around 58,000 UPR students. Responding to this disaster, several American and Canadian colleges and universities have offered students from UPR a free semester of study in the spring of 2018. Amherst not only invited UPR students to its campus, but it has also covered all educational costs related to enrollment. Likewise, Wesleyan has covered housing and meals as needed. In Providence, R.I., Brown has accepted 50 UPR students and assisted with travel and housing. Cornell has accepted up to 58 students from UPR and included tuition, room and board. Similarly, New York University has created the Hurricane Maria Assistance Program, which has provided 50 Puerto Rican students with a free spring semester. Other institutions to respond with assistance for Puerto Rican students include New Jersey City University, Tulane, Pomona and Smith. The free semester of study for this spring is meant to enable Puerto Rican students whose lives have been disrupted by

Hurricanes Maria and Irma to continue their educations until they can return to their home institutions. Thus, these programs apply only to the spring semester of 2018. Harvard hires a new president On Sunday, Harvard announced that Lawrence Bacow, former president of Tufts and former chancellor at MIT, will become its 29th president. Bacow will succeed Drew Faust, Harvard’s first female president, who will step down at the conclusion of this academic year after 11 years of service. A Michigan native, Bacow has an undergraduate degree in economics from MIT and three graduate degrees from Harvard. During his tenure, Bacow plans to collaborate with Harvard’s peer institutions and the broader world. Columbia studies sexual assault In 2014, Emma Sulkowicz, a senior at Columbia, carried a 50-pound mattress around campus to protest how the university had dealt with her sexual assault complaint. Around the same time, Columbia launched the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation (SHIFT), a project aimed at gaining a better understanding of students’ social lives in order to help prevent further assaults. The project took a new approach to researching sexual assault by sending sociologists and anthropologists, including Columbia professors, into the field. This involved taking notes at bars, sporting and club events, parties and other student-frequented locations. The project soon became controversial among students, some of whom felt uncomfortable with the intrusion. Due to the sensitivity of the topic, the university took measures to ensure the consent and confi-

dentiality of all who were observed and interviewed. In the fall of 2017, SHIFT reported its findings in 10 papers and a book. While the findings are still slowly being released, Columbia is already trying to adapt based on the results. For example, an effort has been made to increase the availability of late-night public spaces, such as dining halls, in an attempt to prevent students from ending the night intoxicated in dorm rooms. As more information comes out, the study will continue to inform the general public and influence Columbia’s policies surrounding sexual assault. Amherst updates its party policy At the end of January, Amherst released updates to its party policy. The new policy states, “No guest is allowed to serve alcohol to another guest.” Any over-21 guest who wishes to drink must provide their own alcohol, and consumption is limited to six units. A unit is defined as 12 ounces of beer or cider or five ounces of wine. Also, drinking games and hard alcohol are not permitted at registered parties. Some larger-scale policy changes include altering party occupancy limits and allowing only one party per room on a given date. The changes strengthen the requirements of party hosts by increasing the necessary number of party sponsors, requiring sponsors to work with college staff and decreasing the amount of time sponsors are given to clean up after a party. The repercussions for hosts who do not comply with these policies have also become stricter. Students have expressed frustration with the sudden change in policy, but Amherst’s administration has defended the change by citing increased damages due to parties in recent years. Amherst's policy update is reminiscent of changes to party policies put in place by the College this past year.

FEATURES 6

The Williams Record

February 14, 2018

Two in Two Thousand By JANE PETERSEN EXECUTIVE EDITOR In honor of Valentine’s Day, the Record brings you its annual profile of a campus couple. I sat down with Maia Czaikowski ’20 and Sam Wischnewsky ’20, who have been dating for a little over a year, to discuss their unconditional love of Lee Snack Bar, surprise papayas and their favorite band. How did you two meet? MC: Well, we were in the same entry freshman year, and I don’t think we necessarily talked to each other right off the bat. It kind of took a couple of months or so. I don’t know. And then, we were friends, I think? SW: Yeah, I would say we were friends [both laugh]. MC: Yeah, and I remember during the “friend phase,” we once sat in the common room and street view Google-mapped where we both lived, and I feel like that was our first bonding moment. Like, I took him down the one street in my town, and he took me to Chicago itself. Didn’t your parents meet before you started dating? I remember you telling a story about that. MC: Oh my gosh, yeah. During parent’s weekend, they had assigned tables at this big dinner in the fieldhouse. My family went, and it was only Sam’s family and Christian Lockwood [’20]’s family sitting at the table, and our parents met, I guess. SW: Well, I think it was mostly about our moms being, like, exactly the same person. They just hit it off immediately and were talking to each other a lot, and I think our dads just sat there and waited for them to stop.

MC: Which kind of means our dads are similar people as well [both laugh]. What sort of extra-curricular activities are you two involved in?

MAIA CZAIKOWSKI ’20 AND SAM WISCHNEWSKY ’20

Do you guys have any fun plans for Valentine’s Day?

MC: I’m in Ephoria, an all female-voiced a cappella group on campus, and that’s fun. I like to sing in general. I’m a chemistry major, so I do chemistry labs and stuff. I dabbled in theater last semester, which was really cool. SW: I am on the cross country and track teams, so I run every day. I work in the machine shop in Bronfman. We build big assemblies of stainless steel or aluminum parts for professors’ research, and it’s pretty fun. We get to use lots of gigantic machines that I had never seen before I came here.

MC: Well, we actually just took a weekend trip to Northampton, which is a pretty quirky town, and that was fun. We went to a really good restaurant and a concert. Who did you see?

So, what kind of activities do you like to do together? MC: A lot of people make fun of us for them. Well, Ashley [Conroy ’20] makes fun of us. We like to do crossword puzzles. We enjoy some trivia. What do we do? SW: Sometimes we like to work out together and go to art museums. MC: I really loved when we went to the Art Institute of Chicago. It was in a beautiful area, and it was a really nice day in general. The museum was amazing. SW: What did we see in Millennium Park when you visited [Chicago]? We saw a movie right? Oh no, we saw – MC: That’s a good story. SW: Yeah, it was the first night that [Maia] visited this summer. I think I was trying to surprise her, but it was hard to keep secret why we were going downtown. [Maia laughs]. But she really likes [NPR’s] “Wait, Wait,

because we didn’t really understand that it’s supposed to be formal, so we were just kind of dancing. Apparently, we were too close together.

SOPHIA SHIN/PHOTO EDITOR MAIA'S HOMETOWN SIMSBURY, CONN.

SAM'S HOMETOWN CHICAGO, ILL.

Don’t Tell Me,” like a decent amount more than I do, and they were recording it live in the big park downtown. So we took the train down and met up with a bunch of my friends there and got to listen to it live. MC: Yeah, we were just sitting on a – well, we didn’t have any blankets, so we brought a bedsheet and put it on the ground [both laugh]. The celebrity guest was somebody from the Cubs. SW: It was the orange-haired pitcher guy. It was interesting because my elementary school was the closest one to Wrigley Field, so he came every year to give us a big check to pay for things at the school, and his son went to my school, so that was like the fifth or sixth time I had seen

FAVORITE BAND WEAKENED FRIENDS

him speaking. Ryan Dempster, I think. We went skiing a decent amount this winter. Maybe that’s a couple-y activity? MC: Yeah, I did my best attempt at helping Sam learn how to ski better. He’s already pretty good. SW: I was okay. MC: Yeah, he’s okay [both laugh]. Also, Sam bought like a five-pound bag of pancake mix that's just add water, and so it’s really quick, easy snacking. It’s actually pretty good, so we’ve been known to cook late-night pancakes when we’re feeling it. SW: Yeah, it’s a good replacement for Snack Bar. MC: We did the ballroom dancing Winter Study Free University class, and we got yelled at during the first dance on the first day

MC: We saw, what was it, something “Friends”? MC and SW: Weakened Friends! SW: Which is pronounced "Weekend Friends." MC: I think they wanted to be called “Weekend Friends,” but that name was taken, so they’re “Weakened Friends" [both laugh]. SW: It was an interesting vibe. We were the youngest people there by five years, probably. It was pretty intense, hard-core rock, even though everyone was sitting down. You guys are very dedicated to your Lee Snack Bar order. Don’t you get the same thing every time?

they’ll just do it, which is great [both laugh]. Oh my god, I forgot to ask about the papaya story! Tell me what you did last year for Valentines’ Day! MC: It was really quite the romantic gesture. SW: Yeah! [Both laugh]. I don’t even remember the timing – I think in the morning, I gave you chocolate? MC: Roses! SW: Roses, there we go. I hid them in my laundry basket, and I pulled those out in the morning. Then around 2 p.m. or so, sometime midday, I surprised her in her room and gave her chocolate, and then later that night, I replaced her pillow with a papaya – no, I put the papaya under the pillowcase. So, she came back, and she laid down at one point, and she was like, “What? What is under here?” She pulled it out, and I don’t think she could identify it initially. MC: I didn’t know what fruit it was! SW: I probably wouldn’t have been able to identify it immediately, but I was like, “It’s a papaya!” It rhymes with Maia. And then she got it, and she thought it was really funny. Any final thoughts?

MC: Well, we both go to Lee [both laugh]. That’s step one! SW: Step one of ordering Lee is to go to Lee. I realized this just a month ago: I always get the omelet with peppers, onions and cheddar cheese. I think I’ve only ordered something else three times or something, and all those times they ran out of omelet eggs – they have carton eggs for the omelets and real eggs for the other things. MC: And I always get chocolate-chip pancakes with extra chocolate chips, which you can ask for. Sometimes if you ask right after they ring you out, they won’t charge you, and

SW: Um, what’s the word for when people get together in the winter? Cuffing? SW: Yeah, cuffing. Do you think cuffing season is ending now or beginning? Or in the middle? MC: Ending. I would say it’s ending. I think it ends when spring comes. SW: But I think cuffing season is year-round. MC: Always be cuffed. SW: You can get cold during any season [both laugh]. That’s my final musing.

Spotlight on research: Professor explores complex femininity with fiction By KSOOSHA RAMRAS STAFF WRITER

PHOTO COURTESY OF COLLEGE COUNCIL.

Pub Night is a new social event sponsored by College Council where students can eat, drink and be merry.

Bottom’s Up: Pub Night in Dodd By FRANCESCA PARIS AND SKYLAR SMITH SENIOR WRITERS What more do you need to entice college students than free beer? Not much. But Pub Night, College Council (CC)’s latest initiative, is about more than just beer. Armed with a few friends and our over-21 IDs last Thursday, we set out to see exactly what was happening in Dodd during Pub Night. Upon our entrance, a few cheerful Campus Safety and Security officers, who seemed just as pleased as we were to be there, handed us our bright-orange wristbands. A wristband at Pub Night is good for three beers – and the beers aren’t bad. As college students, we may have low standards for beer quality, but we’re pretty sure CC picked a good lager. Scattered around Dodd were pods of our peers and friends – mostly fellow seniors, with a few juniors sprinkled about – playing a variety of games, most noticeably a dramatic round of Jenga and an extended game of Settlers of Catan. In the center of the room, a few people tossed sacks back and forth in a game of Cornhole.

We grabbed some food before it ran out. This time it was chicken wings, although they have served other pubstyle food, such as pizza, in the past. Almost immediately upon entering the fray, we were surrounded by conversation and merriment. Like Paresky on a weekday at noon, people were mingling across groups and throughout the room, meeting friends of friends. For the sake of reporting, we left our own friends and sought out a few strangers. We ended up with a group of juniors who had just reunited after study abroad. With little introduction, we immediately started talking with them about our lives. Though we had not intended to linger, we got swept up in a conversation that ranged from right-wing populism to public radio. After a quick pause to refill our beers, we joined a few of our classmates playing Taboo. Despite how simple this game can be, there was more explaining than playing, and we were quickly diverted by conversation. We watched as a former WOOLF [Williams Outdoor Orientation for Living as First-Years] leader reconnected with his

WOOLFie, now a junior herself, and reminisced, with more nostalgia than bitterness, about how the leader had gotten the group lost in the woods. There was a lively debate about pre- and postgraduation plans amongst the seniors, and a few stories shared about the Red Herring – we mused on whether or not its disappearance was the impetus behind Pub Night – and its rumored reopening. Whether or not Pub Night is a result of Williamstown becoming a zero-bar municipality, the cause is more or less irrelevant to the event’s success. People reported extremely high levels of satisfaction. Between free food, free beer and good company, there was little to complain about. One attendee told us that she believes that Pub Night is about personal development beyond the classroom and even extra-curricular activities. It’s a chance, every week, to just be. Play a board game, drink a beer (or three), chat with friends about non-work related things and breathe. And the event’s somewhat early wrap-up meant that we easily slid into Snack Bar before closing time. What more could you want?

Karen Shepard ’87 has always been enchanted by the world of stories and characters. Growing up as an only child, she became curious about the inner human psyche through quiet observation of those around her – and especially through reading fiction. Attending the College further kindled her interest and honed her skills in writing. Shepard is now a senior lecturer in English at the College. This semester, she’s teaching “Introductory Workshop in Memoir.” Her areas of interest include creative writing, contemporary American literature and historical fiction. Aside from teaching, Shepard is a renowned author of four novels: An Empire of Women, The Bad Boy’s Wife, Don’t I Know You? and The Celestials. Her work has been published in dozens of magazines and newspapers including Self, USA Today and the Boston Globe. Most recently, she published a collection of short stories called Kiss Me Someone that delves into the raw imperfections of womanhood and the relationships between women. Originally building off of an idea to write about specific characters, Kiss Me Someone evolved into a set of stories about female experiences. “I didn’t set out to write a bunch of stories about womanhood; I set out to write stories about individual characters with individual desires,” Shepard said. “I ask myself what my characters want and what they’re willing to do to get it.” The title of this latest collection comes from a scene in a novel by Paula Fox — an author of works for both children and adults — in which one character makes a secret payphone call and sees the graffiti "Kiss Me Someone" written on the phone booth’s

wall. “I loved the way the phrase gets at both the sadness and anger of some of my characters,” Shepard said. “The phrase seems like both demand and plea.” Shepard told me that her short stories explore the “opposite of a happy sisterhood between women,” which she believes is often the closest thing to reality. Her stories reveal the darker side of female dynamics and the ways that women can harm not only others, but also themselves. Unfortunately, realworld relationships between women and girls do not always live up to the warm, positive expectations that girls of all ages can have for them. Her stories, Shephard said, often uses autobiographical fallacy – a reader’s tendency to conflate author and narrator – as a tool. She said that her fiction should not be read as thinly-disguised autobiography; though some of her stories are autobiographical, others are entirely fictional. I admire the way that Shepard can unabashedly write about topics that are so uninhibited and raw, and

even sexual or controversial, without worrying about what her readers will think or how they will react. When asked how she does it, Shepard laughed and said that she was reminded of a question her students often ask in regards to their own stories: What if my mom reads this? It can be paralyzing, she said, to focus too much on how readers may react to one’s work. Shepard tries to quiet those voices when she’s working. Of course, she wants her work to be thought-provoking, enjoyable and even uncomfortable, but when she writes, she just drops into “story world,” as she calls it. Shepard said that her thinking process when writing is much like what author Mary Gaitskill – who has published works for both for children and adults – wrote to a reader who claimed that they didn’t know how to react to one of Gaitskill’s stories. Gaitskill responded, “Why would an adult look to me or any other writer to tell [them] what to feel? You’re not supposed to feel anything. You feel what you feel. Where you go with it is your responsibility.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLIAMS MAGAZINE.

Karen Shepard recently published a story collection, Kiss Me Someone.

February 14, 2018

7 FEATURES

The Williams Record

Hopkins Observatory planetarium showcases night sky wonders By LYDIA DUAN FEATURES EDITOR It is the peculiar-looking building in Currier Quad that students gloss over as they chatter with friends on their way to Driscoll Dining Hall. It is a piece of history introduced to the average student at the College as a trivia question at Previews and never mentioned again, a structure that appears to be always locked but is actually alive and accessible every week. The Hopkins Observatory is reputed to be the oldest observatory of its kind in the United States. Built in 1836 by Astronomy Professor Albert Hopkins, the Observatory originally functioned as a site for collecting both qualitative observations and quantitative data about the night sky. While it has now been replaced by a more modern observation deck on the roof of Thompson Physical Labs, the Observatory is not obsolete. Now, it stands as both a historical edifice and a planetarium that regularly has free shows for students and Williamstown residents. These shows, which take place every Friday at 8 p.m., provide audience members with a guided tour of the night sky – from the stars and planets to the cosmos above them. Informative and entertaining student hosts first highlight astronomical points of interests and then take questions from the audience. Diego Gonzalez ’18 has been hosting planetarium shows since his sophomore year. “[When] we design our shows, we get to focus on whatever aspects are most interesting for us,” Gonzalez said. “While learning highlevel astronomy is all well and good, what’s really going to capture a little kid’s attention [is] to show them things they can see on their own so they

PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE.

Every Friday, the Hopkins Observatory offers free planetarium showings highlighting various astronomical points of interest. can be inspired to do their own stargazing.” Professor of Astronomy and Director of Hopkins Observatory Jay Pasachoff added that the shows are of higher quality than ever before due to recent technological installations. “A dozen years ago, I was finally able to persuade the College administration that a 40-year-old piece of apparatus was no longer current, and so we were able to get an excellent new planetarium under the German optical company Zeiss,” Pasachoff said. “We chose the kind of planetarium that gives the prettiest and sharpest star images.”

During last Friday’s show, Gonzalez operated the Observatory’s Zeiss planetarium projector, affectionately named “Carl,” to navigate through projections of stars and galaxies with the audience. He explained astronomical terms and pointed out examples of constellations, such as the famous “Big Dipper.” From there, the audience learned about the Pleiades, a set of seven stars that was once used as an “eye-test” in hunter-gatherer cultures; Betelgeuse, a red supergiant star slated to explode into a supernova at any moment; and the Magellanic Clouds, smudges

Trackers unveil mystery of animal prints By ALEC WYATT CONTRIBUTING WRITER Imagine that every step you took today left a visible track on the ground. If you could go back and follow each footstep you took, how much could you deduce about your day? You could see where you traveled, but could you tell how fast you were walking? Could you infer from your stride length when you ran to catch up with a friend? Would you know what friends you walked alongside based on the size of their tracks? Could you tell when you hesitated, unsure where to go next? For expert trackers like naturalist Dan Yacobellis, making these sorts of inferences is like reading a book. The pages are the snow on the ground, and the words are the tracks made by the wild denizens of the woods. On Saturday morning, in the Rosenburg Center at Hopkins Memorial Forest, students and community members sipped coffee in front of Yacobellis as he drew the shapes of animal tracks on the chalkboard. Every animal travels through the forest differently, and each leaves behind a distinct print. The tracks of the cat family are rounded; those of the dog family are ovular. Every gait and stride length leaves behind a signature unique to each animal. With careful observation, one can identify the species

that made a set of tracks, but that is only the beginning of the deduction. The real fun lies in extrapolating the whole story from those tracks, and this endeavor is what still has Yacobellis riveted after tracking animals for over 20 years. Having started our trek in search of prints, it did not take long before we could recognize the comings and goings of squirrels, voles, deer and birds around the feeders outside the Rosenburg Center. Beneath one red pine, some tracks led us to the animal itself, and we were treated to an up-close view of a particularly audacious vole voraciously consuming bird food. In an impressive display of speed, Yacobellis snatched the vole up and held it in his gloved hand for us to see. After returning to the ground, the vole rapidly disappeared beneath the snow, only to emerge moments later. We began to uncover the most exciting story of the day when we happened upon some tracks left by small canine paws. Yacobellis had undoubtedly already identified the animal that was still indiscernible to the rest of us. We then found the path of a gray fox skirting around a log where the field met the forest. Yacobellis could tell this fox was a regular here. Stooping to smell the urine left by the fox, the naturalist explained that he had seen fox tracks in this exact place several weeks before. He pushed us to

make inferences about the animal’s behavior. We found some prints that compressed the snow less than the others, as if they had borne a fraction of the fox’s full body weight. Here, the animal had hesitated before proceeding, placing a paw lightly on the snow for balance. Finding a gap in the tracks followed by a cluster of prints, we guessed that the fox had leapt into the air. But why? A student noted that there were bird tracks nearby; perhaps the fox had leapt in opportunistic pursuit of a feathery meal. But it seemed that the fox had left empty-pawed. Our investigation transformed into a murder mystery once the gray fox’s tracks merged with those of a red fox before reaching the site of a deadly act of predation. One of the foxes had pounced onto the snow and caught an unsuspecting vole. But which fox committed the act? The scene was too chaotic to tell. Leaving the fox tracks, we etched our own footsteps into the wet snow on the trail back to the Rosenburg Center. The fox had snagged a meal, and now it was time for us to procure one of our own. Simply by heightening our awareness of the signs around us, we had reconstructed the story of a pair of foxes using only the snow. If we always paid this much attention to the world around us, imagine the things we could learn.

FARIS GULAMALI / ARTS EDITOR.

Naturalist Dan Yacobellis gave students a hands-on experience with animal tracking in Hopkins Forest.

to the naked eye that are the birthplaces of stars. The planetarium’s projections provided powerful visuals that accompanied the presentation. The night sky rotated above the audience, transitioning from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere and bringing with it new arrangements of stars. Gonzalez then moved onto the planets, showcasing each planet’s orbital path through the solar system. The audience saw Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and the other planets whizzing through the sky overhead. “And if you’re

looking for where Earth is, we’re standing on it,” Gonzalez said, laughing. “To run the planetarium is a little bit of theatre, too,” Pasachoff said of hosts like Gonzalez. He emphasized the importance of having image projections in conjunction with charismatic student presenters. “It’s more than just scientific detail,” he said. While the format of the show has stayed consistent over the years, featured topics can change by season or showing, from special discussions about particular comets to astronomical dissections of astrological zodiac signs.

The level of scientific depth varies, but all shows aim to foster genuine interest in astronomy. For Gonzalez, his audiences’ enthusiasm has been the most meaningful part. “The kids are the best,” Gonzalez, who loves presenting to elementary school audiences, said. “They’re the most excited. The initial Space Race inspired a lot of kids to get into science, to get into engineering, which is why we got the big tech boom that we had in the 2000s. If you inspire a kid to be passionate about learning and science, they can do whatever they want.” And for Pasachoff, generating passion for astronomy is more vital than ever. There is no better time to get involved with the field, he said; recent monumental findings in astronomy, such as gravitational waves, have changed the way scientists now view the universe. “They’re probably the biggest development since Galileo’s telescope,” Pasachoff said of gravitational waves. “It turns out that there was a merger of two black holes a billion and a half years ago that sent out waves that reached us in 2015, squeezing the earth in opposite directions… Now there’s a whole different way of looking at the universe.” Be it through revolutionary discoveries or the eyes of a star-struck third grader at an Observatory show, keeping this innate spirit of curiosity alive makes astronomy an exciting discipline. “The things we can learn from space exploration and getting the world to unify as a whole to do this great thing – I think the benefits from that are incredible,” Gonzalez said. “Why should we stay in this small, little place we were born in if there’s an entire universe out there?”

Just Visiting: Shervin Malekzadeh and Heather Love discuss revolts, friendship By SARA HETHERINGTON STAFF WRITER The Record’s newest column, “Just Visiting,” highlights visiting professors’ research and careers. In the column’s first installment, Shervin Malekzadeh and Heather Love share a bit about themselves and what it’s like to be visiting professors at the College. “It’s a sexy topic, of course,” Shervin Malekzadeh, visiting assistant professor of political science, said of his course “Revolutions.” Malekzadeh was a visiting professor at Swarthmore for four years before coming to the College; this spring, he is teaching two political science courses: “Introduction to Comparative Politics: Nationalism, Religion and State Power” and the aforementioned “Revolutions” class. When asked about the inspiration behind the course, Malekzadeh spoke about his family’s immigration to Illinois from Iran when he was 10-months-old. He was in kindergarten during the Iranian Revolution and in first grade during the Iranian hostage crisis. “In a rural setting where there are corn fields all around, it’s hard to conceal the Persian kid in the corner, and I was made pretty aware of the political situation in Iran because of it,” he said. His childhood, in addition to his experience traveling to Tehran during the 2009 Iranian Green Movement, sparked Malekzadeh’s interest in revolutions. “[These experiences] reinforced my interest and desire to understand where revolutions begin, how they end and what constitutes a successful revolution,” he said. Heather Love is a visiting professor of English from the University of Pennsylvania. This spring, she is teaching a course titled “Friendship.” “People are surprised that the philosophy of friendship

has such a long history.” she starting a career as a professaid. Love explained that her sor. “In no other business or class starts with the work industry do you need to keep of Aristotle. “It’s part of his going until you find tenure writing on ethics. What does track,” he said, pointing out it mean to be a good or a bad how, often, non-tenured profriend, [and] how is that re- fessors need to move after lated to questions of justice?” only a few years at a school. Malekzadeh said the Colshe said. “We don’t define ‘friend’ lege’s faculty development from the start,” Love said, programs like First3, which but her class does agree on offers weekly lunches for certain criteria of friendship. new faculty members, help to “It’s not the couple, and it’s smooth the transition. Malekzadeh said that the not the family, but there’re a lot of other forms of intimacy First3 program is particularly that don’t get the same kind “outstanding” for recent addiof recognition that romantic tions to the College who may love and family do,” she said. have questions ranging from what it is like “The class to be a new does have to this sexuality “It’s been impressive, professor how to best emphasis beparticipate in cause the idea just a very vigorous faculty meetof being gay ings. The talks wasn’t legible population of students “really encourto people,” age you not to Love said. “Inand professors.” be shy and tense samegive you guidsex intimacies ance on how to were called Shervin Malekzadeh get involved,” friendships.” he said. This is where Visiting Professor “I’m pretty the course inlucky,” Maletersects most kzadeh said. with her research. “I tend to focus on “In terms of the resources, the how homosexuality was stig- view from my office… I’m a big matized in the 20th century,” Paresky fan,” he said, laughing. “Williams and [Swarthmore] she said. While Love’s research re- are really interesting places belates to the difficulties queer- cause they just tell you to teach identifying people have ex- whatever you want… It’s been perienced, she said, “For impressive, just a very vigorteaching, I like to teach more ous population of students and hopeful stuff – it brings out professors.” He said that he is also happy my more hopeful side.” At the College, Love has with the role he plays within enjoyed the chance to focus the department. “You are treated as a peer, on undergraduate students. At the University of Pennsyl- which is pretty impressive vania, she mentors graduate given that academia is based students, a role she describes on an almost medieval hieras “difficult, high-pressure archy,” he said. “Williams and rewarding.” It can be goes out of its way to make challenging for doctoral stu- me feel welcome and not dents to find jobs once they [like] a fill-in.” Love agreed and said she graduate, but “we try to give them the best shot possible,” feels at home on campus. “I’m a fan of Williams,” she said. Love said. This sentiment echoed “It’s peaceful, it’s beautiful – some of the difficulties Male- it has been a really good place kzadeh mentioned about to work.”

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Lecture probes nuances of artist-model dynamic By LI YU EXECUTIVE EDITOR Beyond what we see depicted in paint, the relationships between artists and their models are often delicate ones. We occasionally hear about an “enlightened” relationship between artist and model, but it is far easier to recall the numerous ones that have been unequal, unevenly gendered and exploitative. Western art theory has also been quick to elevate the artist – typically white and male – as an archetypal genius, excusing his various abuses of his subjects. At a talk in the Clark’s Manton Research Center auditorium on Sunday, Jennifer Tonkovich, curator of drawings at the Morgan Library and Museum, did not address many of these social implications, although she did bring up other problems. Her talk “French Artists and Their Models” addressed various questions. What sorts of people worked as models? What role did models have in artists’ creative processes? How does an individual artist’s approach to the model reflect more broadly on the artist? Focusing in on 18th and early 19th century studies by French artists – including those by Watteau, Fragonard, Prud’hon, Géricault, Ingres and Delacroix – Tonkovich discussed the complications in technique and narrative that emerged from working with models.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CLARK.

Curator Jennifer Tonkovich explored certain subtleties of French modelling in Thursday’s talk at the Clark’s Manton Research Center. At the beginning of her lecture, Tonkovich made the distinction between the academic artist and the artist who was not trained in the formal setting of the academy. JeanAntoine Watteau belonged to the latter. Although he did find ways to work from models, Watteau was unaccustomed to drawing from them and thus struggled with anatomy, a fact manifested in a series of studies he did of female models. In Seated Young Woman, a

red and white chalk drawing on buff paper currently at the Morgan Library and Museum, a model sits, leaning forward, on an undrawn seat. One bare leg is hanging from her chemise, while the other is bent across it, completely obscured by the garment. Where her feet should emerge from the fabric, Watteau leaves the space undrawn. Drawings like Seated Young Woman illustrate the significance of models to artists’ development and to academic

practice; in these studies, the identity of the model is overlooked but known to correspond to a living person. Other times, drawings seem to correspond to specific historical moments and specific figures, but models may not always be identifiable. Rembrandt’s Four Musicians with Wind Instruments, for example, has long been thought to correspond to a specific wedding ceremony witnessed in Amsterdam in 1638. A recent proposal, however, suggests that

he would have had assistants who dressed in costume in his studio, or that the works were drawn from sculptural groups. The other role that models have taken on is that of inventing narratives for works of art. In 1773, JeanHonoré Fragonard traveled to Italy as part of the retinue of Pierre Jacques Onésyme Bergeret de Grancourt. The entire year’s journey paid for, Fragonard was free to focus on his drawings, the

subjects of which included the Italian landscape and various people he encountered. During a two-month stay in Naples, he produced Portrait of a Neapolitan Woman, a frontal portrait of a woman dressed in earrings, necklaces, fine laces and velvet. Popular narrative leads us to believe that she is a street vendor or fisherman’s wife donning her best clothes for the feast of Januarius. While this has tremendous appeal as a narrative, other drawings by Fragonard that feature the same attire on a different model suggest that she was in fact a model from Naples cast in the role of a street vendor, thus complicating our understanding of the drawing as a portrait. There were parts of the talk that Tonkovich did not approach with the same level of care that she gave to Fragonard’s trip – and not for lack of information, either. Gericault’s decision to include a black man as the protagonist of Raft of The Medusa was discussed in conspiratorially vague terms, attributing it to Gericault’s belief in “certain Republican sentiments and his political leanings at the time.” While “French Artists and Their Models” succeeded in providing background information on artists and their involvement with models, it neglected to discuss sociopolitical dynamics and thus did not manage to address the more critical questions behind artistmodel relationships.

Innovative jazz trio captivates audience By JEONGYOON HAN FEATURES EDITOR

PHOTO COURTESY OF WWW.KWELIJOURNAL.ORG.

Rosario has won a Sherwood Anderson Award in Fiction and a Creative Capital Artist Award in Literature.

Nelly Rosario’s speculative fiction brings medical history to life By CECELIA MESSBAUER STAFF WRITER So often, academia draws a hard line neatly separating hard sciences from other disciplines, with pre-med students presumed to operate on different planets from those who pursue the humanities or the arts. In reality, of course, the lines that separate knowledge into distinct categories are more constructed than essential. This was in full display at W. Ford Schumman Visiting Professor in Democratic Studies Nelly Rosario’s reading from her inprogress novel, which blends speculative fiction with medical history while centering on indigenous medical traditions from the Americas. The reading, which took place last Thursday, was titled “How the Medicines Go Down” and supplemented samples of Rosario’s work with her own contextualization of them. She introduced her premise of a multicultural Central American medical establishment set in the near future. She also explained some of her influences, including the Taíno concept of the Caney Circle, a medicine wheel in which the four cardinal directions are associated with a color, a bird, a food and a human virtue. The North (Rakuno) is represented by white, the hummingbird, cavasa bread and wisdom; the South (Achiano) by yellow, the turkey, squash and innocence; the East (Sobaiko) by red, the hawk, maize and illumination; and the West (Koromo) by blue, the owl, black beans and introspection.

While the conventions of modern medicine would tend to dismiss such models, Rosario noted that medical science is constructed in ways that are not culturally neutral and often feature gatekeepers that reinforce biases and limit patients’ abilities to help themselves. The confluence of medical influences is key to Rosario’s work, where indigenous traditions blend with the legacy of the Catholic Church. Historically, the Church was a major healthcare institution throughout the Americas, and this work became foundational for patron saints. The intersection of Christian religiosity and Christian medicine is another demonstration of the blurred lines between spirituality and medical practice, In building a narrative around medicine, Rosario also noted the significance of narrative as medicine, specifically in the realm of doctor-patient communication. With so much of medicine depending on patients being able to narrate their symptoms, and doctors being able to synthesize those symptoms into diagnosis and treatment, developing communication skills on both ends becomes crucial for medical success. Patients who can convey their symptoms clearly are able to accurately paint a comprehensive picture with which to work. Doctors, on the other hand, have a responsibility to ask the right questions, follow up on appropriate threads and resist dismissing patients’ accounts in favor of interpretations fueled by their own biases – which is often a lynchpin of medical racism and other forms of institutional discrimination.

It is crucial that patients have the knowledge to keep themselves healthy on a dayto-day basis – and here is where the boundaries between medicine, culture, spirituality and art can disappear. Healthy engagement with each is potentially vital to a healthy overall lifestyle. Rosario also discussed her own process as a storyteller, showing the audience a large journal filled to the brim with hand-written text, a clear visual representation of a writer letting ideas pour out uninhibited. Her readings flowed easily, with sharp prose and wry dialogue immersing the audience in a world surreal enough for a doctor to turn into a maggot, even as references to Big Pharma and Central and South American geopolitics grounded the narrative in real world medical history. That political perspective serves as the overarching theme of Rosario’s work. She at one point called out the dichotomy between western and eastern medicine: the former is hailed as a legitimate science, while the latter, indigenous medicine, is derided as “magical.” Her response highlighted not only the ways that medically – sound indigenous practices are disregarded by white scientific communities out of racism, but also the ways in which western scientific miracles could be considered their own form of magic. Rather than an immaculate and objective field, medicine is deeply shaped by the history that forms it, and Rosario’s work builds on that history to imagine how it might continue.

The Sullivan Fortner Trio did not prepare a song list for their performance at BrooksRogers Recital Hall on Thursday. “I have no clue what we’ll be playing tonight,” renowned jazz pianist Sullivan Fortner said hours before the concert. “It may be 30 minutes or two hours. Hopefully an hour and 20 minutes.” Perhaps even more surprising was that the Trio, consisting of Fortner, drummer Jeremy Clemons and bassist Ryan Berg, had never performed live together before earlier that day, when they played Charlie Parker’s “Billie’s Bounce” in a master class for students at the College. None of the performers seemed worried, however. Before the master class, the Trio had talked to a group of students in the course “Jazz and African Cultures;” in response to the students’ surprise that the group had never played together before, Clemons nonchalantly said that the performance was going to be like any other performance – just a time for a group of musicians to play some jazz. “Music is the fellowship,” he said. “The beautiful thing about jazz is every time you play a piece, it’s like someone takes a whiteboard and wipes it completely clean,” Fortner said to the jazz class. “You can play the exact same piece five minutes later, and it’ll be completely different. Jazz is all about exploring and being immersed in something, anything… It’s being open and accepting that you might make mistakes. But ultimately, I love

forging connections between people, the potential of a special moment happening.” As the concert began that evening, the Trio did not feel the need for an elaborate or fancy introduction. “I still have Thai food stuck in my throat,” Fortner said, coughing into the microphone as the audience laughed. “Welcome to this evening. We are playing jazz. If you’d like us to play something, let us know. If you don’t like something, let us know.” And with that, Fortner, Clemons and Berg jumped into Phineas Newborn Jr.’s “Theme for Basie,” the first of many jazz hits the Trio would perform during their hour and 30 minute-long concert. The concert was everything that the Trio believes a performance should be. “Play with a certain sense of urgency,” Clemons said to students in the master class. “You better play like you’d die tomorrow,” Fortner added. Indeed, each song was played with vivacity and intentionality, but also with a seemingly effortless flow on the Trio’s part. They shared a unique interpretation of the songs, feeding off the energy in the room and creating a musical dialogue with the 90-person audience. As Berg, Clemons and Fortner played, an intensity swept over the room. The three performers honed in on the rhythms and embellishments that each player added into the piece. They fit into each other’s sounds, with Fortner occasionally offering classical ballade-like melodies on the piano, Berg’s bass providing

a constant hum and buzz and Clemons anchoring the group with the drums. At times the Trio was explosive, jumping into powerful splashes of melodies then fading into soft rumblings, with Berg brewing up menacing and mysterious riffs on the bass. Fortner, at times pouting his lips and adjusting his glasses, looked out into the audience as he seemed to contemplate his next note, resting on certain phrases or wiggling his pinky finger in search of which piano key to hit next, playing whatever felt right at the moment. The players encouraged each other, Fortner sometimes shouting “Oh!” at Berg and Clemons. Reflecting on the spontaneity of their first performance of “Billie’s Bounce” earlier that day, Berg said, “I thought to myself, ‘[Fortner] isn’t even playing the right form.’ He just played around with the tune. And he passed it to me, and I thought, ‘Sweet! This is great. Let’s do it.’” With that same sense of unpremeditated genius, the concert was a time for the Trio to explore the various moods and emotions on their minds. Throughout the performance, the audience was left in a trance, completely drawn into this group’s natural chemistry as the Trio flowed in and out of each song. At the rousing ending, the crowd burst into a standing ovation. Everyone who witnessed the performance left on a high from the immersive concert that the Sullivan Fortner Trio had put on for the College.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SAVANNAH MUSIC FESTIVAL.

Sullivan Fortner expertly tickled the keys as a member of the Trio that visited the College on Thursday.

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The Gaslight Anthem vocalist Brian Fallon releases second solo album By DANNY JIN EXECUTIVE EDITOR The Bruce Springsteen comparisons have followed Brian Fallon’s every step. When Fallon burst out of Asbury Park, N.J. and onto the covers of rock magazines as the lead singer of The Gaslight Anthem, music journalists were quick to note his similarities to Springsteen, New Jersey’s favorite native son. The New York Times Magazine’s Lizzy Goodman subtitled a 2012 profile “Is Gaslight Anthem’s Brian Fallon the True Heir to Springsteen?” Leonie Cooper of New Musical Express wrote an article that same year titled “Why The Gaslight Anthem Are The Saviors Of American Rock ’n Roll.” In 2009, The Boss himself even joined Gaslight on the stage for several performances. Yet the parallels soon began to limit, even haunt, Fallon and the band. Christened as the last hope for classic rock, Gaslight bore the pressure to uphold an entire musical tradition. The band never met critics’ unreasonable expectations, and it was impugned for what many saw as untapped potential. While praising its Springsteen-esque qualities, writers simultaneously criticized the band for bordering on imitation. For sure, Gaslight’s early material made consistent use of stereotypical heartland rock nostalgia. Fallon often sang of radios, classic cars, old movies, blue jeans and white T-shirts – images that perhaps became played out and were at times downright cheesy. Fallon experienced turbulence in his personal life as well; Gaslight’s 2014 album Get Hurt was inspired largely by Fallon’s divorce from his wife of 10 years. The album was heavier than any of Gaslight’s previous material, both musically and lyrically, and

PHOTO COURTESY OF TEAMROCK.COM.

Brian Fallon will embark on a European tour throughout February and March in support of his second solo album, Sleepwalkers. reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200. It was met, however, with some savage reviews. Pitchfork’s Ian Cohen wrote, “The Gaslight Anthem is a band almost exclusively defined by their relationship with Bruce Springsteen.” Slant Magazine’s Jeremy Winograd called the album “shockingly misguided.” The band went on hiatus the following year, and Fallon contemplated quitting music altogether. Fallon eventually chose to proceed as a singer-songwriter, and his solo debut, 2016’s Painkillers, delved deeper into his introspective side. Reviews were generally favorable, and American Songwriter ranked the album the 29th best release of 2016. Released last Friday, Fallon’s second solo album, Sleepwalk-

ers, debuted at No. 6 on the iTunes chart for top U.S. albums. On Sleepwalkers, Fallon does not abandon his Jersey roots, but he does take the necessary risks to produce an absorbing record. While not a reinvention, the album shows Fallon’s progress in crafting a unique musical style. It contains the emotionally honest writing that made Painkillers successful and mixes in the anthemic, energetic melodies that helped Gaslight win over its fans. Fallon’s grizzly vocals may be a bit of an acquired taste, but Sleepwalker’s catchy hooks and wide range of sounds should make it a worthwhile listen for fans of roots music, classic rock or just good songs. The album opens with the groovy, upbeat “If Your Prayers

Don’t Get to Heaven.” The bass line is captivating, and the staccato rhythm of the guitar evokes images of Motown. While not as lyrically strong as other songs on the record, the opener provides the energy off which the rest of the album feeds. The second track and lead single, “Forget Me Not,” is trademark Fallon. Behind a simple guitar lick and a bouncy backbeat, Fallon implores his lover to remember him after he dies, even if she has found someone new. “Would you put your black dress on and visit my bones?” he asks in the chorus. “Would I get any rest from the wreck that I was with the living/ Or would you just go on?” Fallon crescendos into “Etta James,” a passionate ballad that

explores the disparity between the realities of daily life and the fairytales portrayed in fantasy novels and Hollywood movies. The guitar shines, and the song finds a delicate balance between wistfulness and assertion. While not particularly memorable, the jangly, laid-back folk sound of “Her Majesty’s Service” and “Proof of Life” provides necessary contrast. “Little Nightmares” and the saxophoneinfused title track provide nifty, sing-along choruses as well. “My Name Is the Night (Color Me Black)” is a splendid, soulful offering. “The moon is upside down, hanging on a telephone,” Fallon sings about the confusion of his search for identity, both musically and personally.

“Neptune” gets more reflective about Fallon's musical journey, as he wonders in the chorus, “Maybe we believed in very, very foolish things/ Maybe these songs kept us breathing another tomorrow.” Fallon did not set out to save rock music with Gaslight. At the end of the day, he is a hopeless romantic who sings out of a desperate need for selfexpression. He declares in the song’s second verse, “But there’s not one day I regret/ And I would do it all again/ So if I go down, Lily, I’m going down believing.” Fallon bares his soul in the heart-wrenching “Watson.” The speaker is a wounded man in need of comfort. Fallon sings in the bridge, “I remember how we danced through the towns on the Thames/ For one little night, I felt like I could be made new again.” His metaphor of a British detective chasing “the one that got away” is understatedly brilliant. The album closes with the acoustic “See You On the Other Side,” in which Fallon ponders a love that lasts beyond death. Although “Forget Me Not,” “Etta James” and “Watson” are great songs, Sleepwalkers does lack the conviction that was present in Gaslight’s thesis statement albums The ’59 Sound and American Slang. Fallon’s writing, while indisputably earnest, can be jumpy at times. He may simply need more time to settle in as a solo artist. Fallon will never be able to outrun the Springsteen comparisons – the similarities will always persist. However, he can work to construct a unique musical identity in his solo work without rejecting the influence of his idols. Sleepwalkers is a step in the right direction, and it shows flashes of brilliance, hinting that Fallon’s best is yet to come.

Khabeer investigates intersections between Muslim identities and music By MITCHELL MORRIS STAFF WRITER If there’s one thing I can say for certain about students at the College, it’s that they’re busy, especially on weeknights. So, when I walked into Griffin 7 on Thursday night to hear Su’ad Abdul Khabeer speak and saw that the room was packed, I knew I must be in for a treat. Khabeer is a towering character; a renowned academic, activist and artist, she currently serves as an associate professor of American culture and Arab and Muslim American studies at the University of Michigan. Khabeer is also the author of the popular book Muslim Cool: Race, Religion and Hip Hop in the United States, the subject of Thursday’s talk. Khabeer’s book was inspired by her upbringing. She grew up in Brooklyn in the 1990s during what she described as the “golden era” of hip-hop. With Jay Z and The Notorious B.I.G. at their creative peaks, she found

their lyrics personally meaningful as a black woman with Muslim roots. From Tupac Shakur to Kanye West, hip-hop is replete with references to Islam, the Qur’an and Allah, Khabeer explained. Whether artists themselves are Muslim or not, the relationship between black artists and Islam has always been a distinctive feature of the American hip-hop landscape. Muslim Cool is in many ways a celebration of these references and of the symbiotic relationship that hip-hop, blackness and Islam share. But Khabeer doesn’t stop there; her book delves deeper into this complex relationship and asks difficult anthropological questions that challenge popular conceptions of black and Muslim communities. Ultimately, she concludes that what Americans consider to be “cool” is largely constructed by Muslims and artists engaging with Muslim culture. This theory is at the crux of her book and was a central point of her talk. Khabeer’s theory is not

without its detractors. Many see the use of Islamic imagery by non-Muslims like Kanye West as exploitative – an unjust appropriation of Muslim culture. Khabeer, however, sees the situation a bit differently. While there are certainly artists who cross the line, she views references to Islam in the lyrics of many artists as more celebratory than appropriative. In fact, Khabeer views this interaction between black and Muslim cultures as an essential aspect of black identity in the United States. By the conclusion of her hour-long talk, Khabeer had more than lived up to the hype. Her personable nature and active engagement with the audience made for a wonderfully colorful, freeflowing discussion in which members of the student body, faculty and local community could weigh in, crack jokes and ask questions. My friends and I were in agreement; even on a busy Thursday night, we were glad to have made the time for such a unique event.

SOPHIA SHIN/PHOTO EDITOR.

Khabeer's latest book explores the nuances of being Muslim and Black in the racial climate of the U.S.

PHOTO COURTESY OF TIME MAGAZINE.

Phantom Thread is Paul Thomas Anderson’s eighth movie and his second collaboration with Daniel Day-Lewis.

Day-Lewis astounds in final performance By FARIS GULAMALI ARTS EDITOR Phantom Thread, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and nominated for six Academy Awards, , is an enthralling romantic drama detailing the growing relationship between Reynold Woodcock, played by Daniel Day-Lewis in his final performance, and his maid Alma Elson, played by Vicky Krieps. Full of emotion, this dark romance consists of killer orchestral scores, well-placed camera panning and captivating actors. Set in 1950s bourgeoisie London, the film is framed by an interview of Alma, a maid at the Victoria Inn. She ultimately wins the heart of Reynold, a stone-cold, wealthy, honordriven dressmaker. Interrupted by bits of interview, the film progresses chronologically, beginning with Reynold’s personal journey into the “country,” or the Victoria Inn. The film focuses on themes of masculinity, femininity and the ideal body and depicts an entourage of creative costumes detailing 1950s fashion as Reynold sensually dresses his newfound love, Alma. Complacent with being Reynold’s muse, Alma relishes in her newfound "usefulness" and potential romantic partner. With lines like “you have no breasts… My job is to make sure you get them,” the film reveals the historical context of upper society and the objectification of women. From Reynold’s sister and business partner Cyril Woodcock, powerfully played by Lesley Manville, we learn that Reynold believes he has been cursed to never love. In a reflec-

tion of his masculinity, Reynold fears the dark emotions that drive him toward romance. The film also explores the relationship between Reynold and his mother, driving home how the death of his mother emotionally impacted him. This is best shown through an anecdote about how Reynold sewed his mother’s wedding dress for a month, illustrating his potential for attachment as well as his detachment from the people around him; he focuses on his dresses to avoid potential emotional entanglements with his past girlfriends and even his sister In one scene, Alma attempts to plan a surprise dinner and romantic evening with Reynold with the support of Cyril. However, Reynold returns home utterly shocked and disappointed. Confused by Alma’s romantic "ambush," Reynold asks if Alma has a gun, and Alma leaves. After returning, Alma decides that she is tired of waiting for Reynold to fall in love with her. Frustrated by his emotional detachment from her and identifying his toxic masculinity as the root of the problem, Alma poisons Reynold in order to make him weak and vulnerable, both physically and mentally. The shift in power and near-death experience force Reynold to cope with the death of his mother and to romantically engage with Alma, and he asks her to marry him. This transformation from cold-heartnedness to emotional vulnerability is original in terms of Day-Lewis’ emotional depiction of Reynolds’ maturity, but it is also

corny in its implementation and cinematographically. After marrying Alma, Reynold returns to his old routine of working and ignoring his wife. Anderson toys with the concept of Alma cheating, but he quickly shies away in favor of a more Reynold-centered internalized conflict. In one scene, for example, Reynold releases fits of rage at his sister about Alma’s social engagements away from him. Cyril proceeds to ignore these fits and tell him to grow up. I found this particular part of the film to be rather realistic and Cyril’s quips to be a wonderful and highly mesmerizing aspect of the interaction between Reynold and the other characters. The film is cinematographically brilliant; a phantom thread is consistently woven through the various aspects of the film, whether it be the shaking camera, the orchestral scores or the enticing dialogue. In terms of the plot, however, the film remains lacking due to the overwhelming randomness of some aspects of the story in combination with the conflicting ideologies pushed about feminism and the female body. Furthermore, the fact that Alma has to to poison her husband several times in order to confront his toxic masculinity is rather unsettling and not entirely realistic. While Phantom Thread may not have the perfect conclusion, it serves as a picturesque denouement of Daniel DayLewis’ acting career. With acting as precise as his character’s threading, Day-Lewis stuns, amazes, disgusts, fascinates and enthralls in the careerending film.

10 SPORTS

The Williams Record

February 14, 2018

Matty Levine ’74 brings lacrosse opportunities to inner city youth

PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION

Matty Levine ’74 and CityLax run 52 varsity lacrosse teams across all five boroughs of New York City. By CHARLES XU SPORTS EDITOR Dubbed the godfather of New York City lacrosse by The New York Times, Matty Levine ’74 has been a central figure in the sport for the past two decades. After earning All-America honors twice as a goaltender for the Ephs, Levine continued to play lacrosse after graduating from the College. Yet arguably his greatest contribution to the sport has been the opportunities he has provided for students in urban areas to play lacrosse. Levine founded CityLax, a nonprofit organization that engages over 2000 student-athletes in New York and runs 52 varsity teams. CityLax has not only popularized a traditionally suburban sport for boys and girls in the city, but it has also done wonders for academic achievement and students’ futures in higher education. Levine started his lacrosse journey in fourth grade, playing in his hometown of Manhasset, N.Y. With the help of local high school coach Renzie Lamb, Levine’s parents and other local parents helped organize a youth lacrosse program. Levine expressed his gratitude for his early development in lacrosse. “We had great parent-coaches who helped

introduce lacrosse to us in the Manhasset Youth Program I grew up in,” Levine said. “Then I had outstanding coaches for my Manhasset Middle School and High School teams, three who would become future hall of fame college coaches. Incredible! They developed me at the position of goalie and fueled my passion for the game. I guess you could say I was just blessed to be able to grow up and play lacrosse in Manhasset, Long Island.” Levine went on to play for Lamb in high school. When Levine was in 10th grade, Lamb left to become the head coach of men’s lacrosse and assistant coach of football at the College. Lamb had an exceptional 35year career and was inducted into the Intercollegiate Men's Lacrosse Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2016. With his connection to Lamb, Levine began to consider attending the College. “During the recruiting process as a high school student-athlete, my parents impressed upon me how much they thought the Williams academic atmosphere, with small classes taught by an outstanding faculty, combined with the lacrosse opportunity of playing goalie for Coach Lamb was a very special opportunity for continuing my post-high school education and playing

career.” Levine said. "Coach Lamb had been my high school coach ... so reuniting with him was certainly an important factor in my decision. I decided to apply early decision. Fortunately, the admissions office gave me that opportunity.” In addition to the College’s academic excellence and coaching connection, Levine also mentioned that Williams was unique because, unlike Div. I schools, he could play varsity as a first-year at the College. And he did just that, becoming the starting goaltender in all four of his years at the College and earning AllAmerica honors as a junior and senior. Following his graduation, Levine continued his lacrosse career, playing on several high-level clubs. “There was no professional lacrosse in those days,” he said. “Club lacrosse was purely amateur. We all had busy careers, but the teams managed to practice once a week and play on the weekends up and down the East Coast… I played for about 10 years. After I started a family, I stepped away from playing lacrosse for the first time since I was 10-years-old but then came back to it in my mid -40s to play in tournaments in places like Lake Placid. [Now,] at age 66, I recently played in

a tournament in Florida. The guys I play with (and against) have become life-long friends, and some of them are my former Williams teammates. It is still an honor to play lacrosse at my age.” In 1996, after settling down with his family, Levine and his brother-in-law formed New York’s first-ever youth program, Doc’s NYC Lacrosse. Levine recalled the rising popularity of the program. “We grabbed our kids’ friends and invited them to try, and it’s grown to a program of boys and girls, kindergarten through eighth grade,” he said. “We have about 400 to 500 kids playing each year.” From there, Levine saw the opportunity to not only influence more lives but also to expose kids in urban and often underprivileged areas to lacrosse. As Doc’s NYC Lacrosse expanded, Levine noticed kids in the neighborhood watching his practices on a Harlem field and asking to play. “They didn’t know what lacrosse was at all; they had never seen it,” Levine said. “They just knocked on the door and said, ‘What’s that?’ And we said, ‘Well, [we’d] love to have you come in [and] give it a try,’ and many of them did. And so our program took an important step toward diversity as kids from Harlem and the Bronx joined us. This was unique to lacrosse at the time and is part of a continuing trend that our school-based CityLax program has led.” From there, Levine saw the interest of kids from urban backgrounds and asked the New York Department of Education to help incorporate lacrosse into public schools and underserved areas. In 2006, Levine founded CityLax, helping the New York City Public School Athletic League grow lacrosse from six varsity teams to 52 varsity teams across all five boroughs, drawing 2000 students annually. It was not an easy journey. Levine had to generate interest in a sport foreign to city kids at a time when social media and network coverage of lacrosse were nonexistent. Levine commented that “just trying to start a brand-new ‘team sport’ in the inner city with space limitations, getting kids out of the

mindset of traditional sports and convincing kids to try something new was a real challenge in terms of establishing a lacrosse culture in the first high schools we worked in.” In addition to marketing the game, Levine was also able to meet the substantial funding goals to run youth sports programs. Alongside the funding from the Department of Education and the public schools, CityLax hosted fundraising benefits and galas to generate enough resources for a team. Levine made it clear that CityLax’s priority is not only creating lacrosse teams inside city schools, however. It also maintains and provides followup funding for them every year. “We don’t walk away from anything that CityLax has helped to start up,” Levine said. Another challenge Levine encountered was finding enough coaches for a relatively unknown sport in the city. Levine understood the demands of being a teacher in New York City public schools, as well as the additional responsibility of coaches having to learn the sport themselves. “Finding that person in a school, with or without lacrosse experience, who’s got the charisma and the desire to take on the job is definitely a big challenge because you need somebody in the building who wants to own it, who’s really going to talk it up and get kids to buy in and who will manage it by working with CityLax day to day,” Levine explained. Even with all these challenges of popularizing lacrosse in an urban setting, Levine has seen the massive impact that CityLax has had on its participants. Every winter, 60 to 70 former college lacrosse players, including CityLax alums, volunteer in free clinics to polish players’ skills and introduce the sport to new faces. Encouraging kids to think about their educational pathways and having a sense of structure in lacrosse have been major priorities for CityLax, and the results have been outstanding. According to the Department of Education, the graduation rate for New York City public high schools hovers around 70 to 75 percent; in the

last two years, CityLax boasted a 98 percent graduation rate, and 95 percent of its students continued on to college. The social benefits of a team sport cannot be overstated. “After they leave CityLax and go off to college, I’ve had kids call me, ‘Coach, I’m at SUNY Binghamton, and the first people I befriended when I walked on campus were the guys who organize and play on the club lacrosse team; they are all my best friends now,’” Levine shared. “So, think about a kid from the inner city going off to a big state school , looking for some anchors to try to get [their] feet situated. It’s very likely the first time [they have] been out of New York City … and they are looking for a way to connect socially and with their new community; lacrosse has been that connection for a lot of the kids CityLax has helped.” It is tempting to expand this program, which has yielded exceptional academic and athletic results, horizontally, but Levine prefers to develop the program vertically. He wants to create more middle school programs to get kids interested and developing in the sport early on. In fact, CityLax is currently partnering with communities in Brooklyn and Albany to set up elementary and middle school programs. Levine’s efforts to bring lacrosse to the city and set student-athletes on the best possible educational paths have not gone unnoticed. U.S. Lacrosse awarded Levine the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015, the Program Administrator of the Year Award in 2008 and the Man of the Year Award in both 2005 and 2007. He was also inducted into the Manhasset High School Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2008 and the Long Island Metro Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2010. Even with these accolades, Levine remains humble and grateful. “In my life, I was so fortunate to have had coaches and teachers that gave me the gifts of lacrosse and a Williams education,” Levine said. “Everything I do involving lacrosse today is my way of trying to pass along these gifts to young people, so they may hopefully gain similar opportunities in life that I have had.”

CAPTAINS’ CORNER: BRENDON SEYFRIED ’19

PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION

By CASSIE DESHONG SPORTS EDITOR

Team: Wrestling Hometown: Short Hills, N.J. Residence: Wood Major: Economics Snack bar order: Nachos with buffalo chicken and jalapeños Why did you decide to attend the College? It is a pretty funny story. My three requirements were big school, warm weather [and] Div. I sports, and I got all three of the opposite. It really came down to looking at my priorities, and I knew that I wanted to wrestle. It became clear to me that if I went Div. I, I wouldn’t be able to optimize

or build the college experience that I wanted. I visited the College and realized that I could be a wrestler and have all my goals on the mat, and I could also be a student. I can have a social life and friends that are both on the team and outside the team. Williams checked all those boxes. You can’t really beat it with the academics, and the wrestling team here also is a huge component. My coach really showed me how the team was something special. Being part of the wrestling team solidified that not only will I have great academics here, but I am also going to be in a family where we all support each other and have the same goals. When and why did you start wrestling? My father was a wrestler. I started wrestling because of him. We moved back to the United States when I was in first grade, and I started wrestling the following year. That was kind of a once a week, Sunday or Saturday morning thing. I really started competing in fourth grade, and then in seventh grade, it transitioned from just something that I did to something that I loved. It was the year I developed a passion for it and could see that the harder I worked, the more success I had in the sport. Middle school was when it became something that I really loved to do. What is it like to wrestle for this team in comparison to your previous teams? It is like night and day for me. I came from a high school where we had eight kids on the team. There are 14 weight classes, so

we didn’t have a full roster, and we never won the team match. It was a lot more individual. I was off on my own trying to get supplemental practices and workouts. At Williams, the support network, the team structure and the coaches are just completely different from before. It is such a different experience when you are wrestling for a team as opposed to just wrestling for yourself. You can only push yourself so far, and having the support network behind me has really helped me realize that I [am] capable of more than I thought I was. The success that I have been able to have is purely a function of the team and the support network that I have behind me. How have you developed as a wrestler over the past three years? One of the biggest shifts for me has been in mentality going into the match and [during] the match. In high school especially, I was pretty tentative. I would not take risks. I would be scared of giving up points. I wouldn’t shoot because I was scared I would be taken down. Now, it is kind of the opposite. Before I go out on the mat, I tell myself to go have fun because the whole point of it is to have fun. By having that sort of mentality, everything is loose and flows. It doesn’t matter if I take a bad shot because I have confidence in my own abilities to defend and continue attacking. The biggest shift technically for me has been moving my feet and hands together, creating one continuous motion. When I am moving my feet, everything falls into place.

Similarly, when I am out there not tense, having fun and just kind of letting things fly, that’s really when my wrestling has improved dramatically. What would you say are your most memorable moments in wrestling? [Competing as a first-year] in the blood rounds, which is [the regional tournament] to qualify for Nationals. I was wrestling against someone from Ithaca who had beaten me previously in the season, and I had to win that match in order to qualify for Nationals. With 30 seconds left or so, he takes a shot, I defend his shot and end up scoring a takedown and winning the match to qualify for Nationals. As a [first-year], that was my main goal – to make it there. Really seeing my progression throughout the season, building up to where I finally won that match, was huge and overwhelming. I don’t know if it was excitement or relief, but all of those emotions piled together. I can vividly remember the hug I gave to my coach coming off the mat, and that was certainly a very special moment. What has enabled you to be so successful? My coach and my teammates. It’s hard to narrow it down to a single thing or time. So [in high school], the top three wrestlers in the region of New Jersey I was in qualified for States. I took fourth in the region for three years in a row. I didn’t qualify for States. [After] coming to college, those matches where I may have lost 2-1, I am winning them 2-1. I am winning them 5-1. It is not just that I have gotten bet-

ter technically. It is also because I have someone in my corner, my coach and my teammates all behind me who push me to go that extra mile. They help me to realize that I am capable of scoring that extra point and coming out on top of something that I shouldn’t have. Wrestling for my team and my coach and not just for myself has expanded my potential and pushed me further than I could have gone before. What are your goals for the rest of the season? Personally, my goal is to be national champion. We have a little less than three weeks until the regional tournament. I would like to win the regional tournament and win the national tournament two weeks later. For the team, I really hope to have at least two or three other guys traveling out to Nationals with me. I think that would be huge, but also huger would be to have everyone wrestle better than they would be expected to. Going to Regionals, if some of my teammates are unranked, my goal for them is to beat someone they are not supposed to beat. At this point of the season, it is all the crème de la crème. For the team, I want to see people outperform themselves, and that is certainly a goal attainable for everyone. Do you feel pressured to lead the team and to perform well in every match? Yes, but it is not a debilitating pressure. I want to say that I earned the captaincy based off my work ethic. I go in there with a plan. I have my goals all laid out, and I develop a course of action to achieve those goals.

I think that plan of action as well as achieving my goals in the past has been infectious. It spreads to my teammates. They see that when you put in the extra work, you really reap the benefits of that. At the same time, being, on paper, the best wrestler on the team, there is certainly pressure that I should be winning. I hold myself to a standard where, even when I don’t win a match, it is all about how I competed and what kind of message it sent out to my teammates. Certainly there is some sort of pressure, but it isn’t a kind of pressure where if I lose, I am going to be incredibly upset because I let the team down. It is, ‘I lost. Okay, how can I learn from my loss?’ That speaks to a plan in action. A loss in the season doesn’t necessarily mean it is going to reflect at the end of the season. Do you have any advice for younger wrestlers for being successful in this sport? You can’t be deterred by setbacks, whether they are injuries, weight management issues or losses on the mat. I certainly have a long track record of losing matches I shouldn’t, struggling with my weight, battling through injuries and trying to balance academics with wrestling. If I am speaking to younger me, or even someone coming into school, it is important to understand that this is all a process, and we are building up slowly towards the end of the season. The losses in the beginning of the season don’t define how the season is going to be, and you can’t let them define it.

February 14, 2018

SPORTS 11

The Williams Record

Bobby Moss ’01 discusses playing professional ice hockey abroad Recruited by Besançon as what is known as an “import player,” Moss joined the team speaking almost no French, driven solely by a passion for the sport. He acknowledged that his transition to life in France was difficult but was partially helped by his College education; Moss studied political science with a concentration in international relations. The challenges of adapting to a wholly different culture and lifestyle, however, were made worthwhile by his experience playing hockey abroad. “Playing there was awesome for a couple reasons,” Moss said. “One was that we were a really good team – I don’t think we lost a game from October to February. And when you’re winning – it’s funny – it’s amazing how quickly people come together.” That year, Besançon went on to enjoy tremendous success, placing as finalists in the French Cup, a round-robin tournament for teams of all levels in France. Moss finished second in scoring on the team and was among the top 15 scorers in the league. After that season, Moss went back to Deloitte and worked there for several years before going to London Business School to obtain his MBA. He now lives outside of Boston with his wife and two children, and he is still working in consulting. But that does not mean

By TARAN DUGAL COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR As students, we often hear stories from administrators and faculty about the wideranging ways in which our experiences at the College will affect our future lives. Perhaps no one’s journey epitomizes this more than that of Bobby Moss ’01. As a junior at the College, Moss led men’s ice hockey to the final of the NESCAC tournament in 2000, although the team lost in a close game to Middlebury. “That was a great team I played on that season,” Moss recalled. “That was probably the best Williams team I was a part of in my four years, and it was a lot of fun. But you always remember the misses and losses more than the wins.” Moss received an opportunity to continue his hockey career after graduation when Deloitte Consulting, where he had accepted a job, granted him a leave of absence to play with the Besançon hockey club in France. Moss pointed out that this opportunity would not have been possible without the help of his parents. “There’s no way I’d have been in a position to go to Williams or play hockey in Europe if it wasn’t for my parents,” he said. “I can’t begin to express how much I appreciate all the sacrifices they made.”

that he has distanced himself from the sport of hockey or his College teammates. “Last weekend was my son’s fifth birthday, and two of my teammates from Williams were there, and another one lives down the street from me now,” Moss said. “That was the best part about playing at Williams, to be honest: the guys that you played with and the friendships you made.” Although his life has changed considerably since leaving the Purple Bubble, Moss has fond memories of his time at the College, especially of the people he worked with in Williamstown. “My student job for four years was working with the guys who did grounds-keeping,” he said. “I think it’s often overlooked how hard those guys work, and I don’t think they get the credit they deserve. One of them, Jim Menard, was one of my closest friends there, and I still talk to him all the time. It’s funny, the friendships you can make at a small school like Williams.” Moss still tries to pick up the skates every now and then, but he admits that it can be a little hard to find time these days. “Last year was the first season I hadn’t played since I started playing – since I was four- or five-years-old,” he said. “I’m trying to get my son skating, so I’m building a little backyard rink for him this weekend. That’ll be my focus.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BOSTON GLOBE

Bobby Moss helped Besançon hockey club reach the finals of the French Cup during his stint abroad.

Women's basketball enters NESCAC postseason as No. 7 seed

PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION

In the first 20 seconds of Friday's game against Amherst, Maggie Meehan ’21 opened up the scoring. By BEN WIPPER STAFF WRITER

Hamilton scored the game’s first four points, but an Emily Chang ’20 3-pointer with 4:17 left cut the lead to 7-6. With 37 seconds left in the first quarter, the women took a 10-9 lead on a Fechtelkotter layup. A buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Chang made the score 13-9 going into the second quarter. 16 seconds into the second quarter, Chang’s third 3-pointer of the game extended the lead to 16-9. The Ephs continued to grow their lead as the quarter went on; a Gabby Martin ’21 jump shot

Women’s basketball (12– 12, 4–6 in the NESCAC) closed out its regular season at home last weekend, dropping Friday’s contest to No. 1 Amherst before defeating Hamilton on Saturday. On Saturday, the women defeated Hamilton 57-50 in a crucial game for conference standings. The game marked the last home contest for senior tri-captains Kristin Fechtelkotter ’18, Amanni Fernandez ’18 and Lydia Zaleski ’18.

The Office of Communications recommends ...

Annual Faculty Lecture Series: "Carbon Dioxide and Ice Age Cycles" with Mea Cook, associate professor of geosciences Thursday, Feb. 15 4:15 p.m. Wege Auditorium Reception to follow in Schow Atrium

made it 23-12 with 4:34 remaining, and a drive and score by Fernandez put the Ephs up 29-12 with 1:50 left in the first half. After dominating the second quarter, the women led 29-15 going into halftime. Hamilton opened up the second half on a run, and a jump shot by Continental Lauren Getman made the score 31-21 with 8:40 remaining in the third quarter. A shot in the paint by Zaleski with 6:22 remaining re-extended the Eph lead to 37-24, but the Continentals

battled back. Continental Halie Serbent’s layup with 5:29 left made the score 3729, and a 3-pointer by Samantha Srinivasan cut the lead down to just three with 2:01 remaining. Going into the game's final period, the women led 37-36. The two teams traded baskets during the first few minutes of the fourth quarter. With 4:45 remaining in the game, Fernandez found a cutting Emily Peckham ’20, who hit a layup to put the Ephs up 47-42. After a crucial offensive foul by the Continentals, a 3-pointer by Chang extended the Eph lead to 52-44 with just 3:19 remaining. The Continentals did not give up, pulling within two after a three-point play with 1:22 remaining. However, the women scored the game’s final five points, including clutch free throws by Fernandez and Fechtelkotter, to win by seven. Head coach Pat Manning commented on the strong performances of her captains on Senior Day. “I’m just so happy for our seniors,” Manning said. “It’s great to have a strong performance on Senior Day, and I think the three of them led the way.” Fechtelkotter led the Ephs in scoring with 15 points, and Fernandez scored 12. Zaleski scored four points, all in the second half. Manning also praised Chang and Martin for their performances. Chang had 12 points on four 3-pointers, while Mar-

tin was a force on defense with a team-high six steals. The women needed a win to secure a NESCAC tournament berth, and Manning was delighted with the game. “Now we’ll celebrate this win, but then we’ll get focused on next week,” she said. The Ephs fell to the Mammoths 55-44 on Friday in Chandler Gymnasium. Maggie Meehan ’21 opened the scoring with a drive and layup on the Ephs’ first possession. The Mammoths tied the game on a Hannah Hackley 3-pointer with 7:30 remaining in the first quarter. Then, a steal and layup by Hannah Fox put Amherst up 9-5 with 5:18 remaining. The women, however, would not let Amherst pull away; a Lauren Vostal ’19 3-pointer brought the Ephs within one with 3:37 remaining in the quarter. The Mammoths went on a 6-2 run to close the frame, and the first quarter ended 17-12 in the visitors’ favor. The Ephs and Mammoths went back and forth in the opening minutes of the second quarter. Chang scored a 3-pointer with 7:56 remaining, making the score 21-17. The Mammoths then increased their lead, and the first half finished 36-24. After halftime, Amherst continued to score. Madeline Eck made a layup that put the Mammoths up 4324 with 7:38 remaining in the third quarter. After scoring slowed down for a

few minutes, Chang made a step-back 3-pointer with 3:02 remaining, bringing the women within 14. Williams trailed 49-33 entering the fourth quarter. Peckham made a layup, but a pair of Amherst baskets brought the score to 53-35 with 6:14 remaining in the game. The Ephs outscored the Mammoths 11-6 in the final quarter but ultimately lost on a 55-44 score. Friday’s game was the second time this season that the Ephs tested the defending national champions. Manning commented on her team’s improvement this season. “A year ago, we lost by 30,” she said. “This year, we're competing much better, although we still need to get better at certain things.” Manning noted that her team missed a number of chances to score. “We had a lot of opportunities in the paint, and we just didn’t finish,” she said. “The Amherst defense makes it tough to score, so when you have the chance, you need to capitalize.” The Ephs scored just eight points in the paint, while the Mammoths put up 28. Fechtelkotter led the Ephs with 10 points and seven rebounds. Fernandez had nine points, four assists and four steals. Women's basketball looks forward to entering the NESCAC tournament as the No. 7 seed and will visit No. 2 seed Bowdoin in the first round on Saturday at 3 p.m.

ATHLETES OF THE WEEK "Kennedy has worked really hard all season long. She has consistently performed at a high level this season and is looking forward to the challenges and opportunities ahead."

“Colby is a very well-rounded

–Head coach Nate Hoey

-Interim Head coach Mike Monti

player... His leadership is exceptional. From the way he trains off the ice to the way he conducts himself around the locker room, he is exemplary of what Williams hockey stands for.”

KENNEDY GREEN ’19

COLBY CRETELLA ’18

WOMEN'S TRACK AND FIELD LOS ANGELES, CALIF.

MEN'S ICE HOCKEY GUILFORD, CONN.

Green has put together a string of great performances, breaking the 60m dash record at the College with a time of 7.82.

Cretella scored the game-winning goal in overtime to help men's ice hockey sweep Middlebury this week.

12 SPORTS

The Williams Record

February 14, 2018

Men’s ice hockey defeats Middlebury twice consecutively By MADELINE ABRAHAM STAFF WRITERS Men’s ice hockey (12–10– 0, 8–8–0 in the NESCAC) defeated Middlebury twice last weekend, snapping a sixgame losing streak. On Saturday, C.J. Shugart ’18 scored both goals in a 2-1 victory over the Panthers in Middlebury, Vt. The men outshot Middlebury 6-5 in the first period, but no goals were scored. 47 seconds into the second period, Middlebury’s Charlie Parsons was called to the box for a tripping penalty. Shugart scored just six seconds later, with captain Colby Cretella ’18 and Jack McCool ’21 recording assists. At 19:50 of the period, the Ephs doubled their lead. Shugart cashed in his second goal of the night on an assist from Roberto Cellini ’19. The Panthers entered the third period down 2-0, but they cut the deficit in half at 8:15. After Will Somers ’20 was called to the box for hooking, Middlebury’s Alex Heinritz was able to put the Panthers on the scoreboard. The final score was 2-1 in the Ephs’ favor. Goaltender Michael Pinios ’19 made 16 saves, while Stephen Klein made 23 stops for Middlebury.

The Ephs also topped the Panthers 2-1 on Friday in Lansing Chapman Rink. Entering Friday’s contest, the men had lost six straight games and had not recorded a conference victory since Jan. 7’s 3-2 win over Wesleyan. Despite outshooting the Panthers 15-3, the Ephs were unable to put the puck in the net in the first period. However, they continued their aggressive play. Middlebury got on the board first at 11:30 of the second period. After a turnover in the Eph defense, Panther forward Vincent Gisonti fired a wrist shot over Stephen Morrissey ’18’s left shoulder from the left circle, earning a 1-0 Middlebury lead. The Ephs brought the game to a deadlock at 17:37 of the period when Shugart skated to the right circle from behind the net and fired a wrist shot past Klein. Nick VanBelle ’21 assisted on the goal. After the first 40 minutes of play, shots were 26-14 in the Ephs’ favor, but the game was tied 1-1. At 16:16 of the third period, matching roughing penalties were called on Danny Tighe of the Panthers and Max Fuld ’20 of the Ephs. Ultimately, neither team was able to capitalize on the penalties, and the

PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION.

Colby Cretella ’18 scored the game-winning point in the last 10 seconds of overtime in Friday's game against Middlebury. scoreless third period resulted in five minutes of overtime. With just 30 seconds remaining in the game, the Panthers pulled their goalie as a faceoff was taking place in the Panthers’ offensive zone. The Ephs, however,

won the faceoff and raced down the ice to attempt shots on the empty net. While two defenders smothered Tyler Scott ’21, he passed to Cretella, who scored to capture the 2-1 victory. Connor Meike ’19 was

also credited with the secondary assist for Scott's goal. “Tonight was definitely a step forward," head coach Mike Monti said. “We have talked as a group about not playing the scoreboard – that takes care of itself.”

Morrissey made 20 saves for the men. Currently seventh in NESCAC standings, mens' ice hockey is set to host secondplace team and archrival Amherst on Saturday at 3 p.m. in Lansing Chapman Rink.

Men’s basketball finishes regular season Track teams compete at Boston University in five-way tie for top NESCAC spot By CAMERON BROWN STAFF WRITER No. 13 men’s basketball (19– 5, 7–3 in the NESCAC) closed out its regular season last weekend with an 81-67 victory against No. 21 Hamilton and a 72-57 loss to archrival Amherst. On Saturday, the Ephs played their last game of the regular season at the Continentals’ home court. The men came into the game looking to dethrone Hamilton from first place in the NESCAC standings, and they did just that, ending the season in a fiveway tie for first in the conference alongside Amherst, Hamilton, Wesleyan and Middlebury. The Ephs struck first with a layup from James Heskett ’19, but the Continentals battled back with a corner 3-pointer to take the lead. From there, Heskett, Bobby Casey ’19 and Matthew Karpowicz ’20 went on a scoring run to put the men up 18-7 with only 15 minutes left in the half. The Continentals chipped at the lead after a timeout, but the Ephs answered back with a 3-pointer by co-captain Adam Kroot ’18 and an and-one layup from Henry Feinberg ’20. With six minutes left in the half, the Continentals evened the score with a corner 3. From there, the two teams traded buckets and remained deadlocked 41-41 at the end of the half. The Ephs had a stellar shooting half, making 15 of 29 attempts and seven of 15 from deep. Casey headlined the team with a 19-point, four-assist performance at the break. A dunk from Heskett opened the second half, but the Continentals gained their first lead since the first 46 seconds of the game off of a step-back 3-pointer. After several minutes of back-and-forth basket-

ball, Heskett gave the Ephs a one-point lead after hitting an and-one layup. Hesket then extended the Ephs' lead to three with a mid-range jumper. Following a scoring run capped by another and-one layup by Feinberg, the Ephs led by 10 with five minutes left in the contest. The men held their composure the rest of the game and finished with an 81-67 win. Casey totaled 31 points, and Heskett poured in 24 points. Head coach Kevin App commented on the Ephs’ win in a matchup between NESCAC heavyweights. “I thought we played like a poised and tough team,” App said. “It was a great team victory, and we had foul trouble. [Casey] scored some points and made a lot of shots, but over three of the last four games, [Kroot has] come in and absolutely given us tremendous minutes. I was really proud of our upperclassmen for leading this team and not letting the setback [Friday] night affect how we played.” In Friday night's showdown, the men fell 72-57 at Amherst. The Ephs edged the Mammoths 72-69 on Jan. 17 but could not repeat the performance. The Mammoths struck first with a 3-pointer by Johnny McCarthy, but the Ephs responded with a 3 by Casey. Each team continued to score, but the Mammoths built their lead to 10. Casey led the charge after a timeout with a driving layup, a jumper in the lane and, later, a step-back shot, but Amherst answered back with a series of layups and timely shooting. At the end of the half, the Mammoths were up 37-21. The Ephs got off to an unusually slow start offensively, with Casey recording more than half of the points in the half.

In the second half, the Mammoths continued to put themselves on the scoreboard with 3s and layups. Casey showed no signs of slowing down on the offensive side and got his first two buckets of the half to cut the lead down to 14. Moments later, Casey hit a deep 3 for his 18th point. The Ephs focused on feeding the ball in the post and found success on the inside that created an opportunity for Mickey Babek ’20 to sink a 3-pointer. With eight minutes left, Casey’s 3 brought the Mammoth lead down to five, but Amherst responded with a couple of layups. In the end, the Ephs’ comeback came up short, and the Mammoths walked out with a 72-57 victory. App said the team needed more effort early in the game but improved in the second half. “I think we lost our poise during a couple stretches, but we have to give Amherst credit,” he said. “They came out and played hard and made some shots. I thought we fought and made a couple runs in the second half to give ourselves a chance, but we couldn't quite get over that hump." App also commented on the upcoming playoffs. "We love this time of year," App said. “Next week is a unique one where we only prepare for one game. Our constant message is [that] we have to find things to improve [on] and get better at and become a better version of ourselves next week. It's a fun time of year. I think our guys felt that this weekend. Playing important games against talented teams is why you compete in the NESCAC and why this time of year is really fun.” The men, seeded second for the NESCAC tournament, host No. 7 seed Trinity on Saturday at 3 p.m. for a first-round game.

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Bobby Casey ’19 was the leading scorer in games against Hamilton and Amherst with 31 and 22 points, respectively.

By ZEKE COHEN and CAILTIN UBL TEAM CORRESPONDENTS

A small contingent of No. 23 men’s track and field and No. 1 women’s track and field competed last weekend at the David Hemery Valentine Invitational hosted by Boston University. The women’s events took place on Friday. Tyra Wynn ’19 ran a season-best time of 5:23.99 in the mile, battling competitors all the way through the final straight. Davis Collison ’21 took advantage of the facility's banked track to run a stellar season-best of 26.28 in the 200m. The relay team of co-captain Kayley McGonagle '18, Kate Kennedy '18, Megan Powell '20 and Ella Dunn '21 ran a seasonbest time of 3:54.09 in a close and well-fought race. Their time currently ranks No. 3 in Div. III this year. Head coach Nate Hoey commented on the upcoming indoor New England Championships. "We have had our share of adversity, but things are coming together, and we are really looking forward to this weekend," Hoey said. "New England is arguably the strongest region in the country, so it is a very competitive meet across all event areas." On the men’s side, athletes looked to secure qualifying marks against professional, Div. I, Div. II and Div. III competition at a world-famous track.

The distance medley relay team consisting of Tristan Colaizzi '20, co-captain Tobias Muellers '18, Kevin LaFleche '20 and Peter Kirgis '20 competed on Friday evening in one of the few men’s events of the day. Colaizzi led the team off with a strong 3:03 in the 1200-meter leg before handing off to Muellers. Muellers ran a quick 48-second 400-meter leg, while LaFleche brought the baton to Kirgis after running a 1:53 800-meter leg. Kirgis competed with a strong 4:14 1600-meter leg as the Ephs finished ninth in 9:58.71. On Saturday, co-captain Alex Cowen '18, Jackson Ennis '20 and Felix Biwott '21 competed in the 800m. Cowen shook off a month of interrupted training to run a fast 1:55.84, finishing third in his heat. Ennis ran a smooth, even race, finishing with a personal-best of 1:58.76, his first time below two minutes. Biwott kicked hard to finish in 2:00.32. In the 400m, Elliott Fong '19 and Dysron Marshall '20 each had solid performances. Marshall ran a 50.52, while Fong ran a 52.46. In the 1000m, Nick Gannon '20 and Chris Avila '21 sought qualifying times for the Div. III New England Championships. Gannon ran a smart race, closing well to finish in 2:33.82, well under the qualifying standard. Avila, meanwhile, ran aggressively for the qualifying standard. His finishing time of 2:34.87 on

Boston's banked track converts to 2:37.005 on a flat track. Many Ephs competed in the mile. Lucas Estrada '20 took charge of his heat, leading most of the race before finishing a close second in 4:16.27, a personal-best by more than four seconds. In the next heat, Ben Hearon '20 and Jake Lange '21 each had good races, finishing in 4:20.51 and 4:23.14, respectively. Hearon’s performance was a personal-best. Sam Gilman '21 finished second in his heat with a personal-best 4:23.45. Later, Jenks Hehmeyer '20 and Zeke Cohen '19 competed in their own heat. Hehmeyer ran a measured and well-paced race, closing hard to finish in 4:32.98. Cohen, meanwhile, shook off the last vestiges of injury and race-rustiness, finishing in 4:34.96. In the next heat, Matthew Peacock '21 ran a tremendous race, running away from the pack in 4:33.92. Two throwers, Mykel Miller '20 and Magnus Herweyer '20, also competed, with Miller reaching 10.60 meters in the weight throw and Herweyer reaching 14.47 meters in the shot. Both teams will compete at the Div. III indoor New England Championships this weekend. Middlebury will host the men’s meet, while Springfield College will host the women’s meet. Both competitions begin at 2 p.m. on Friday and continue at 11 a.m. on Saturday.

Men’s, women’s squash teams compete against Brown before going to Nationals By WYATT KHOSROWSHAHI and ANNA NICHOLSON TEAM CORRESPONDENTS No. 20 men’s squash (9–16) and No. 12 women’s squash (14–10) visited Brown for a dual match on Thursday. The women prevailed 7-2, but the men fell 9-0. Brown defeated the women last year in a tight 5-4 match, but the Ephs upset the No. 10 Bears in Thursday’s match. Sarah Willwerth ’21, at the No. 6 position, won a game with a score of 20-18. Willwerth lost the match in the fourth game, however, after a scrappy and well-played battle. Caroline Hogan ’18 won in four games at the No. 9 position, using great attacking shots to her advantage. Julia Ward ’21, at the No. 3 position, pulled through to victory in five games. Up next on court, Melissa Swann ’20, at the No. 8 position, won in three games. Abby Leblanc ’21, at the No. 7 position, also played in an inspiring way. Leblanc fought back after being down two games to win in five. Tri-captain Hayley Parsons ’18 won in three games in a fast-paced match. Tri-captain

Nicole Friedman ’18 battled hard at the No. 1 position but fell to a tough opponent. Tri-captain Ananya Mahalingam-Dhingra ’18, at the No. 5 position, played crisply, hitting tight rails and great offensive shots. Mahalingam-Dhingra won in an exciting five-game match. Esther Baek ’19, at the No. 4 position, played hard and won in four, hitting a flick drop nick into the front-right corner to win a crucial point in her match. The 7-2 victory marked the first time the Eph seniors defeated an Ivy League team in their time at the College. “We were determined and poised in critical junctures,” assistant coach Blair Dils said. “Top to bottom on our roster, we played attacking squash. It definitely feels good to finally knock off Brown after coming so close the last seven years.” The men traveled to Providence, R.I. with only two of their standard top six players healthy. Last year, the No. 13 Bears defeated the Ephs 9-0, and they duplicated that result on Thursday. First on court for the Ephs were Anand Butler ’19 (No. 3), Pat Smith ’19 (No. 9) and tri-

captain Jamie Havran ’18 (No. 6). All three players fought hard but were ultimately defeated in three games. Next on were Wyatt Khosrowshahi ’21 (No. 2), Ben Eisenberg ’19 (No. 5) and Will Ruggiero ’19 (No. 8). Khosrowshahi won the first game but was unable to hold on, losing 3-1. Eisenberg and Ruggiero each battled in tight matches but eventually fell in five games to tough opponents. The last wave of play included Carl Shuck ’20 (No. 1), Claude Smith ’20 (No. 4) and tri-captain Andrew Litvin ’18 (No. 7), but the Ephs were unable to mount any wins, with all three players losing 3-2. “What was probably most satisfying [was] how well the seniors played for us in their last match,” volunteer assistant coach Tom Hodgson said. “That was really great for us.” The women will compete at the College Squash Association (CSA) Women’s National Team Championships in Boston this weekend from Friday to Sunday. The following weekend, the men will take part in the CSA Men’s National Team Championships in Hartford, Conn. on Feb. 23.