ARTS P. 8
SPORTS P. 12
'Underground Railroad Game' provokes audience
The Independent Student Newspaper at Williams College Since 1887 VOL. CXXXII, NO. 17
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2018
No. 5 men's basketball wraps up season
JAAB announces significant alterations to JA system Low number of JA applications necessitates larger entries composed of three or four JAs By SAMUEL WOLF NEWS EDITOR Yesterday, the Junior Advisor Advisory Board (JAAB) sent out a statement informing the student body that there will be fewer than 52 Junior Advisors (JAs) to the class of 2022. This is a major change from recent years and means that the entry system will undergo significant revamping. This announcement followed a meeting on Monday night between the incoming JAs and the six members of JAAB, including current JAAB co-presidents Jad Hamdan ’19 and Jesse Facey ’19. The meeting clarified that low JA application rates and high rejections of JA offers would necessitate significant changes to the system. Instead of having 26 entries with two JAs each, three or four JAs will jointly oversee larger clusters of approximately 40 first years. Hamdan characterized this year’s changes as the culmination of a long-term shift in perceptions of the JA system. “I feel like there’s a misconception that something different changed this year,” he said. “There have been a lot of misconceptions on campus about the ways in which the JA system has itself been marginalizing, has been challenging… That has continually shown itself in the number of people applying.” According to JAAB’s statement, this year’s number of applications was a record low. The announcement attributed this to a number of factors. “Over the past few
PHOTO COURTESY OF EMMY MALUF.
Last year's JAAB, pictured above, was instrumental in altering the JA system. This year's JAAB will continue that work as the entry system evolves. years, we’ve heard many valid criticisms of the JA system. Examples include [how] JAs taking on undue emotional labor, the unfair burden placed on JAs of
color and the financial stress experienced by low-income JAs, among others,” JAAB wrote in the statement. Ultimately, this year, the drop in applications was so
Professors and students hold panel on studying abroad By REBECCA TAUBER NEWS EDITOR While the discussion of the study abroad experience traditionally only encompasses time spent away from campus, students and faculty have recently made efforts to extend the conversation to students’ returns to Williamstown. On Feb. 26, Professor of Romance Languages Soledad Fox held the second panel on studying abroad entitled “Round Trip: Reflections on Life Before, During and After Going Abroad.” “The goal of these panels is to create a conversation that helps integrate students’ experiences abroad with their lives here on campus,” Fox said. The panel consisted of Betty Annan-Nonood ’18, Samuel Grunenbaum ’19, Reed Jenkins ’19 and Deepak Indrakanti ’19, who studied in Mendoza, Buenos Aires, Prague and Barcelona, respectively. Fox was motivated to help lead this discussion due to her international upbringing and scholarly work, including teaching a literature course called “Americans Abroad.” She recognized that the study abroad experience is not self-encompassing; rather, there are valuable crossovers between time spent in classrooms overseas and at the College. “They bring so much back and have so much to share with each other and with their professors,” Fox said. “There are so many rich points of contact between studying away and
our curriculum… These students are a great resource for all of us to continue exploring the great value of international education.” The panel, which was attended by approximately 25 students, served as both a space for students returning from abroad to discuss their travels and for students planning to go abroad to learn about various experiences. The vignettes told varied from learning to embrace loneliness and dislocation, to educating others about U.S.
ment is a big and exciting decision, and though it's a normal part of undergraduate life for many, we shouldn't treat study away with undue nonchalance,” Fox said. Fox explained that the panel raised broad questions. "What are students’ expectations before they go abroad? How are they going to adjust to an entirely new environment when, for many, adjusting to the College has already been a challenge? What kinds of dialogues can we keep fostering on campus that can be helpful to students who are departing [from] or returning to campus?" Fox said. Panelists also addressed more practical topics, including how to practice foreign languages when people insist on speaking in English and how to manage exchange rates and cost-ofliving expenses. Going forward, Fox plans to continue engaging students with the study abroad experience through similar events. She also aims to invite alumni who have used knowledge of languages and drawn on experiences abroad in their careers to speak about the long-term influences of studying abroad. “None of us should assume we know what it is like for someone else to adjust to living in a new environment, and everyone who has undergone the experience has something to teach us,” Fox said. “If I just ask, ‘How was Spain?’ and they say, ‘Great’ or ‘Pretty good,’ that should be a conversation opener, not a dead end.”
dramatic that it made the previous system untenable. “If you have a consistent number of people who say no to the role, and it keeps dropping by 15 or 20 people every
single year, there comes a point where there is no longer as substantial of a buffer,” Hamdan said. Still, many people who applied to be JAs were rejected,
SEE JA SYSTEM, PAGE 5
College to welcome students from the University of Puerto Rico for summer research By TESNIM ZEKERIA MANAGING EDITOR In response to the devastating effects of Hurricane Maria, the College will be hosting five students and a faculty member from the University of Puerto Rico for a summer research program that will run parallel to the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship and Allison Davis
Research Fellowship Summer Research Colloquium this summer. This is not the first time the College has hosted students in the wake of a natural disaster. In the fall of 2005, the College, in conjunction with Amherst, hosted nearly two dozen pre-medicine students from Xavier University of Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“This historically black institution has a phenomenal record of placing students in medical school, and it was painful to think that such an important pipeline might be broken for a while,” thenPresident Morton Schapiro and Amherst President Anthony Marx wrote in an email at the time. SEE PUERTO RICO, PAGE 4
WHAT’S INSIDE
“The goal of these panels is to create a conversation that helps integrate students’ experiences abroad with their lives here on campus.”
3 OPINIONS On the merits of preserving historic monuments 4 NEWS Popularity of computer science major grows sharply
Soledad Fox Professor of Romance Languages politics, to getting lost in big cities, to witnessing political turmoil, to learning about history at the sites at which events actually occurred. “I talked a lot about my challenges and some of the things that I found most rewarding about being abroad, particularly being in Barcelona during the conflict between Catalonia and Spain and being in an impartial position,” Indrakanti said. For students who plan to study abroad, the panelists offered multiple perspectives on experiences abroad and sought to help them prepare for their travels. “Going to live and study somewhere else in an immersive environ-
and the co-presidents do not regret that decision. “There were a good number of people we said no to,” Hamdan said. “Part of that decision was choosing to have a really awesome JA class, just configured in a little bit of a different way.” Facey emphasized that this shift is not necessarily a radical departure from the traditional roles of JAs. “52 JAs in 26 entries – the way that they have been set up this year – is not something that has always been here,” she said. “JAs and entries have existed in various buildings on campus and in various integrations, in groups of up to four [JAs]. While this may seem like a huge change, it’s not unprecedented.” Facey added that the student-to-JA ratio will only be rising from 10.5 to 1 to 12.5 to 1, still giving each student plenty of exposure to their JAs. Still, the shifts will be noticeable. “The physical layout of the entries is going to change a little bit… Frosh Quad, for instance, will have a larger Sage A/B entry that has four JAs in it,” Hamdan said. He stressed, however, that these changes could end up being positive for the entry experience. “We are instituting these changes to tackle some of the bigger issues in terms of how JAs think of the responsibilities of the role,” Hamdan said. “You are far less likely to feel compelled to help every single frosh when somebody has an issue that CSS [Campus Safety
7 FEATURES 40 students attend "Menstruation Celebration" 8 ARTS Visiting lecturer discusses Roman poet Catullus 12 SPORTS Women's lacrosse falls to Wesleyan USPS 684-6801 | 1ST CLASS MAIL U.S. POSTAGE PAID WILLIAMSTOWN, MA PERMIT NO. 25
PHOTO COURTESY OF PRIMERAHORA.
Hurricane Maria severely damaged the University of Puerto Rico last fall.