ARTS P. 9 New WCFM program spotlights campus artists
SPORTS P. 12 The Independent Student Newspaper at Williams College Since 1887 VOL. CXXXII, NO. 21
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 2018
Softball extends win streak to five games
Students advocate for Asian American Studies Program at Jamboree By DANNY JIN EXECUTIVE EDITOR On Monday night, students protested the College’s lack of an Asian American Studies Program at Jamboree, a Previews event in Chapin Hall for accepted students to the class of 2022. Eight members of the student movement for Asian American Studies criticized the College’s failure to “prioritize the needs of all its students, specifically students of color,” urging prospective students of marginalized identities to “reconsider if this is the place for you.” Each student organization performing at Jamboree read a statement in support of the Asian American Studies Movement, and SpeakFree, a spoken word group, dedicated its allotted 10 minutes of performance time to allowing members of the movement to address the audience on stage. Tyler Tsay ’19, Kathy Bi ’18, Phuong Vo ’18, Jason Liu ’20, Grace Fan ’19, Amber Lee ’21, Anna Kim ’19 and Audrey Koh ’21 evoked the 27-year history of the student movement for Asian American Studies at the College and lamented the lack of action taken by the institution during that time. “We know you have worked incredibly hard to get to this point,” demonstrators said to the audience. “And because of that, you deserve to know this: Williams College has not earned the right to call itself the best liberal arts education because it still lags far behind our peer institutions who offer Asian American Studies. “If you are a prefrosh of a marginalized identity … know that here at Williams, you will have to fight for your visibility, well-being and access to resources. These institutions were not created for people like us, and we will always have to fight to be a part of them.”
Prospective students said that the majority of reactions to the demonstration were positive, although some were taken aback by its abruptness. “Pretty much everyone loved the solidarity between the students, but a bunch of people – especially the Early Decision kids – didn’t like the part that we should reconsider coming here,” Gigi Gamez ’22 said. “It probably wouldn’t get me to reconsider coming here, but it definitely caught me a little off guard,” Ava Otoadese, a prospective student, said. “On the other hand, it was really cool to see students engaged with the issue.” Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Liz Creighton ’01 said that the Office of Admission, which plans Jamboree, was unaware of planned changes to the program. “A handful of admitted students were curious to learn more about the issues discussed by current students,” Creighton said. “Those conversations have been productive.” Tsay, one of the principal organizers, said that the demonstration was motivated by the administration’s lack of meaningful action in response to a list of student demands delineated in an April 5 email sent to Interim President Tiku Majumder, Provost David Love and Interim Dean of the Faculty Lee Park. The email called for “a written and public commitment by the administration for the confirmation of at least two tenured Asian American professors within the next three years, the confirmation of an additional two/three Asian American professors within the next five years as well as the establishment of a major towards Asian American Studies at the end of this five-year period.” “We want a concrete declaration, a written commitment, a public announcement … something we can hold in our hands as proof that we matter to this school,” Tsay wrote in the email.
SOPHIA SHIN/PHOTO EDITOR
Students read a statement in support of an Asian American Studies Program during Jamboree on Monday while prospective students looked on. “Unless we receive a firm answer from the administration by the time of Previews (April 23 and 24) on these demands, we will act swiftly, drastically and publicly to demonstrate our dedication to this cause.” While administors met with students after Tsay’s email, members of the movement said that they did not receive the commitment they sought. They said that they demonstrated out of a need to ensure that their voices were heard. “We felt that we gave [the] administration adequate warning, and when it did not comply with our request for a written commitment, we needed to take radical action,” Tsay said. “We’re tired of hearing the rhetoric of ‘support’ from [the] administration without concrete evidence that it is going to move forward.” “We wanted to demonstrate at Previews to hold [the] administration accountable,” Vo added. “For many years, Asian Ameri-
can students have been politely asking the administration for this program. However, that polite action has gotten us nowhere.” At the College, student demonstrations have preceded the establishment of programs in Africana Studies and Latina/o Studies. Student activists occupied Hopkins Hall to demand an Africana Studies Program, and the program was created that year. In 1991 and 1993, students conducted hunger strikes in support of a Latina/o Studies department, which began in 2004. The student movement for Asian American Studies has been active for much of the past three decades and has seen a resurgence in recent months. In January, the creation of the I Am Asian American (IAmAsAm) committee, which aims to amplify Asian American students’ voices, stimulated a revival of activism for Asian American Studies. Throughout last week, students
from the movement distributed fliers outlining the movement’s history and current goals, and a photo campaign entitled “Williams Doesn't Teach Me,” led by Fan, was launched on Friday. A petition for an Asian American Studies concentration that began circling in 2016 has collected over 650 signatures from students and allies at other institutions. Movements at several other schools have also recently intensified. According to the College Board, at least 26 colleges and universities in the U.S. offer formal programs in Asian American Studies. This year has also seen the first instance of a staffing request submitted by faculty for an Asian Americanist professor. On March 1, a group of 26 faculty members across 16 departments signed a memorandum with the subject line “Proposal to found an Asian American Studies Program,” addressed to the Committee on
Curricular Planning (CPC) and the Committee on Appointment and Promotion (CAP). The proposal requested that “the College hire one new faculty member who specializes in Asian American Studies to start in 2019-20.” “I hope [what] we have done so far is pushing the student movement one step forward,” Professor and Chair of Asian Studies Li Yu, one of the memorandum’s main writers, said. “At the College, you have to follow certain bureaucratic procedures. To create a new position, it needs to see a staffing request.” “Asian American Studies is an area around which there has been strong student interest over the years, but until more recently, we haven't had a group of faculty who were able to come together to shape a curriculum to bring the program into being,” Park said. “Now we have faculty who SEE PROTEST, PAGE 4
College partners with other schools College releases survey results to construct solar power facility assessing campus culture By CRYSTAL MA STAFF WRITER The College has partnered with Amherst, Bowdoin, Hampshire and Smith to construct a solar power facility in Farmington, Maine that will create 46,000 megawatt hours per year of electricity. By signing this 20-year commitment to financially supporting a solar farm, the College is working to meet the emissions goal set by the Board of Trustees in the fall of 2015. Construction of this solar power plant is projected to end in 2019. The College will be receiving 18,000 megawatt hours of the electricity annually from this project, which will meet around 80 to 90 percent of its electricity needs. The rest will come from the National Grid. According to the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA), fossil fuels, specifically natural gas, account for over two thirds of electricity generation in Massachusetts. Renewable resources, including wind and solar power, fuel under one 10th of utility-scale net electricity generation. Electric energy accounts for around 30 percent of the total emissions of the College. This collaborative project targets this sector
of emissions and will hopefully reduce total emissions by 30 percent by 2019. Amy Johns, director of the Zilkha Center for Environmental Initiatives, wrote in the "Director’s Corner" of the Zilkha Center newsletter, “One question I’ve already received multiple times is ‘Why Maine? Why not here?’ and the answer is almost entirely based on the grid infrastructure. We looked hard at local options and options further afield but still in Massachusetts. All renewable electricity projects – large and small – require permission from the electrical utility to connect to the grid, and, for a multitude of reasons, it’s been really hard to get that permission in Massachusetts, which led us to a project in a different regulatory environment.” About a year ago, the College sent in an application for an interconnect agreement, a contract between an entity trying to install solar panels and the local utility that owns and operates electricity infrastructure. In this case, the goal was to try to install solar panels in Hollander Hall, Shapiro Hall, the Bookstore, the Science Center and Horn Hall. However, the College has yet to receive approval for the connection or get a timeline for that ap-
proval. This may be because the National Grid seeks to maintain its position as the primary energy provider rather than invest resources in alternative energy and self-sufficient projects. The National Grid may also be struggling to match the exponential growth witnessed in alternative energy industries. Johns emphasized the importance of reform to the system. “One of the things that we’ve all learned through this process is that, for our society to shift in a major way to renewable sources of electricity, there will need to be significant regulatory reform that provides more oversight of utilities and more incentives for participation in the renewable energy revolution,” she said. This new partnership contributes to an ongoing effort to decentralize energy systems, strengthen local energy ownership and increase the use of renewable energies. A transfer of resources, capital and infrastructure to democratically controlled communities will need to occur in order to work towards a truly sustainable energy system. This collaboration also allows the College, which has previous experience with power purchase agreements, to help its peers navigate the legal and financial complications of such a project.
PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE.
The College will partner with Amherst, Bowdoin, Hampshire and Smith to expand its use of solar energy.
surrounding sexual assault
By REBECCA TAUBER NEWS EDITOR Last fall, the College’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response department conducted a survey, titled the EPH Community Attitudes on Sexual Assault (EPHCASA) Campus Climate Survey, to assess the experiences and culture regarding sexual assault on campus. Director of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Meg Bossong ’05 explained the purpose of gathering this information. “The reason that we survey is that there are lots of different ways of knowing what’s going on on campus,” she said. “Anonymous surveying about not just prevalence, but about people’s experiences with culture on campus or their attitudes or beliefs about things are important snapshots.” This year’s survey built upon previously collected data. In 2011, the College completed the National College Health Assessment and subsequently decided that it needed to add to that information through its own survey. The College conducted the EPHCASA survey for the first time in 2014-2015 and for the second time this academic year. The College plans to continue running the study every three years, leaving enough time between surveys to evaluate change and keep response rates high. “We right now have very, very high participation rates, unheard of nationally: 62 to 64 percent,” Bossong said. “Most other schools are hovering in the 20 to 35 percent range, so the quality of our data is quite high.” In analyzing the information, Bossong emphasized the
importance of showing the entire picture. “Williams has made a commitment to being really transparent about our data,” she said. “It is what it is. Pretending that it’s not or pretending that it’s better than what it says doesn’t serve us in any way.” The results have shown both positive change and room for improvement. On one hand, the survey points to a healthier campus culture. “You can see that in the general climate measures about the kind of comments people hear, you can see that in people’s beliefs about consent, you can see it in people’s perceptions of their friends’ support of various bystander behaviors,” Bossong explained. “That indicates that we’re making some modest improvements in our campus climate, and that’s really important.” On the other hand, the campus incident rates point to the necessary work still to be done regarding sexual assault. “Obviously, what I would like to see is our incidents dropping to zero, and we don’t see that,” Bossong said. While there has been an increase in students responding that they have not experienced sexual assault, the College still has a prevalence rate of around 12 percent. The average prevalence rate for female students ranges between 20 and 25 percent, putting the College below the national trend. However, Bossong explained that this is still far from ideal. “On one hand, for the people who would be between the 12 and 25 percent, that makes a big difference – between people who might have had this experience but didn’t,” she said. “It doesn’t make any
difference for the people that are in the zero to 12 percent because they still did.” Bossong acknowledged her disappointment in these rates and the challenge of decreasing the percentage. “Obviously, I would like to see that improving dramatically, but at the same time, this is a complex and nuanced social problem, and it’s going to take us more than two and a SEE SURVEY, PAGE 5
WHAT’S INSIDE 3 OPINIONS Students advocate for Asian American Studies Program 4 NEWS Howard Dean to join College faculty 7 FEATURES A psychology professor's look into emotion and action 8 ARTS Alum directs documentary on Andre the Giant 11 SPORTS Peter Clements '08 continues vibrant rowing career USPS 684-6801 | 1ST CLASS MAIL U.S. POSTAGE PAID WILLIAMSTOWN, MA PERMIT NO. 25
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THE WILLIAMS RECORD BOARD Almost 50 years ago, the College’s Afro-American Society occupied Hopkins Hall calling for, among other things, an AfroAmerican Studies department. In 1991 and 1993, student hunger strikes led to the creation of a Latina/o Studies Program. Today, student activism continues for the establishment of a Program in Asian American Studies. We at the Record commend the tireless activism and work of students, as well as the recent efforts of faculty and staff, toward the establishment of a Program in Asian American Studies and support their call for a timely and comprehensive allocation of resources toward the creation of this Program. The College’s educational mission is deeply enriched by the offering of coursework in Asian American Studies; institutionalizing this in the form of an academic unit with tenure-track faculty would provide the legitimacy and stability to align this Program with similar cultural studies units at the College. The absence of Asian American Studies particularly signals to Asian American students and faculty that their cultural and intellectual history is not deserving of formal representation in the Col-
Prefrosh on The Quad What's one thing you're glad the Office of Admission didn't know about you? By KATIE BRULE and SOPHIA SHIN PHOTO EDITORS
CAMERON WHITE
I only knew about Williams through Amherst.
April 25, 2018
Enough is enough Calling for an Asian American Studies Program after 27 years of activism lege’s curriculum. According to the latest Common Data Set, Asian American students make up almost 13 percent of undergraduates at the College, yet they do not have the formal curricular representation that departments and programs such as Africana studies, Latina/o studies and Jewish studies provide. While the College does have a department of Asian Studies, this department focuses on the study of Asian languages and culture – not the experiences, histories and representations of Asian Americans in the United States. Many other institutions of higher education, including Cornell, NYU, the University of the Pennsylvania and the Claremont Colleges offer Asian American Studies Programs. Failing to offer such a program harms the College academically because it neglects to provide all of its students the full, broad academic experience of a liberal arts education. Asian American Studies courses, when offered, have often met or exceeded enrollment limits, and coursework in Asian American Studies would enrich students’ learning in numerous other programs of study at the College. The structure and stability provided by an academic unit would
be critical for any Asian American Studies offerings at the College. While some faculty at the College already offer courses cross-listed under Asian American Studies, these faculty have teaching responsibilities to their home departments and programs. Furthermore, offering these course without any sort of crosslisting or academic marker sends the message that Asian American Studies courses are only a subset of or an elective within other disciplines. The establishment of such an academic unit would rely on a critical mass of faculty to sustain it. The models of previous programs and departments offer examples for how the efforts of existing faculty members who teach courses in and adjacent to Asian American Studies can be simultaneously combined with a robust hiring effort to work towards an academic unit; new faculty and the Program’s organizational infrastructure do not pose a chicken-and-egg scenario. Fulltime, tenure-track faculty in Asian American Studies would ensure a continuity and reliability in Asian American Studies course offerings across semesters and make a unified course of study culminating in an academic credential possible. A sensible plan put forward by student
activists for Asian American Studies calls for the hiring of four fulltime, tenure-track faculty in Asian American Studies over the next five years. We support this plan and furthermore suggest that the unit overseeing this hiring process would be wise to seek student input in its search. In its explanation of the new Difference, Power and Equity (DPE) requirement, the College states that “in a diverse and globalized world, the critical examination of difference, power and equity is an essential part of a liberal arts education.” The formal curricular inclusion of Asian American Studies and devotion of appropriate faculty resources to the discipline is crucial to furthering this worthwhile goal. For both the representation it provides to Asian American students and the educational worth it provides to all students, Asian American Studies belongs at Williams. We implore the College, especially the Curricular Planning Committee, the Committee on Appointments and Promotions and the faculty as a whole, to heed the voices of over 27 years of student activism and to work, without further delay, towards the establishment of an Asian American Studies Program.
CONVENTIONAL WISDOM AFRICAN HERITAGE WEEK PREVIEWS
Join the Williams College African Student Organization in celebrating African heritage week. Are they first-years or prefrosh? Only their drawstring bags will tell!
HOUSING LOTTERY It's difficult to choose your favorite five friends to pick with... May the best pick number win! CHARLIE ZONG
That I got into Windows on Williams but went to Amherst DIVOH [Diversity Open House] instead. OLUSEYI OLAOSE
I applied because I thought there were no supplements.
GRAYSON CHESBROUGH
I didn’t know about Williams until the application process. (Glad I found it, though.)
ON THE RECORD “One thing we have learned from bitter experience is that even the ideas that we hold to be certain might, in fact, turn out to be wrong.” Geoffrey Stone, professor of law at University of Chicago Law School, page 5. “Never have they given us anything close to an Asian American Studies program. Most egregiously, they have told us to have “faith” in them, and we have waited for 27 years. And where are we now?” Members of the Asian American Studies Movement in their op-ed, page 3. “I’m very passionate about food. I love trying new things, creating new flavors and experimenting with new ideas.” Charlotte Clark, Mission Dining
Hall's unit manager, on Mission's recent initiatives, page 6. “There is no reason why Japanese voice actors could not have been cast to play the dogs, which would have done a great deal to make Anderson’s film more of a respectful tribute to Japanese culture than an act of appropriation that treats a Japanese setting as a prop for Anderson’s directorial quirks.” Cecelia Messbauer ’21 in her review of Wes Anderson's movie Isle of Dogs, page 8.
WRITE FOR THE RECORD. MEETINGS: PARESKY 209 | 8 PM WEDNESDAYS
“The sense of relief I felt in that moment, and the love that I had for that kid in that moment, I still struggle to put into words.” Former Princeton football player Mason Darrow on coming out to a teammate, page 10.
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 by Sunday at 5 p.m. for inclusion in the next Wednesday issue. Op-eds 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.
JESSICA CHEN ’18.5
OPINIONS 3
The Williams Record
April 25, 2018
On campus paths
Demanding Asian American Studies
Why Sewall House needs a walkway By MICHAEL GREEN
tripped while leaving and involuntarily created a snow angel. I have Coming into my senior year at the nearly done the same. College, I was disappointed when So, after walking through the my friends and I were unable to mud, what happens when one obtain housing in the co-op lottery. enters the house? The mud gets We had better luck, however, in tracked through Sewall (and probthe general upperclass housing lot- ably one’s destination when one tery and picked into Sewall House. leaves). Not only is this unpleasant Overall, living here has been a great for the residents, but it makes more experience. I appreciate the atmo- work for our custodian, Tammy. sphere of a smaller house, similar This is on top of the extra work that to that of a co-op, with the added custodians have during the winter bonus of being in a more central when they must shovel snow. location than several of the co-ops. The simple solution would be to I have also gotten used to the idio- build a short path connecting the syncrasies of living in the building, stairs in the front of the house to the most notably that the washing ma- path in between Sewall and Sawyer chine and dryer are located within a Library. A path would be significantbathroom. However, one issue still ly less muddy than grass, avoiding bothers me: the lack of a path to the the above problems. I estimate it will front of the house. take somewhere between five and 10 Sewall’s front door faces east concrete slabs to cover this distance. onto a porch. At the north side of One may find it odd for a student to the porch, there is a path that leads be advocating for more construction, to Dodd Circle. But at the front of but I think it is for a worthy cause the house, the stairand will likely be of case, facing east, leads significantly lower cost to a large patch of than many of the Colgrass. This means that One may find it odd lege’s other projects. if one wishes to access Since there is a path for a student to be the path to the south at the side of the buildthat leads to Sawyer advocating for more ing, an alternative Quad, one must walk solution could be to construction, but I across this grass. exclusively use it durWhen I realized ing muddy conditions, think it is for a there was no path to which would require the front of the house, walking around the worthy cause. I was a bit confused. house when approachI could not recall a ing from the south. I single other building will admit that I am caon campus where one must walk pable of doing so. But for somebody across grass to reach an entrance. with a leg injury or similar issue, or This seems odd from a design per- for a visitor, it would be best if they spective, but I am more concerned had to do the least walking possible with the safety and cleanliness is- to enter or exit the building. And sues stemming from the lack of a again, students in no other dorm path to walk on. must face this issue, as far as I know. Ordinarily, walking across the If there are similar instances of a lack grass is no problem. When it rains of paths to other dorm entrances, I or snows, however, the grass, as would encourage paths to be built in one might expect, becomes muddy. these locations as well. Since the snow in Williamstown I will be graduating in a few weeks, may not melt from November to so I will not be able to see any future March, the grass may be muddy improvements, but I wish for the for several months at a time. In best for future residents of the house. these conditions, it is easy for one to slip and slide, especially considMichael Green ’18 is a biology ering that the land to the south of major and biochemistry and mothe building is on an incline. In one lecular biology concentrator from incident, a resident of the house Woodmere, N.Y.
A
ear lo
By TYLER TSAY, AUDREY , A and AYAMI HATAKANA It is Previews weekend, and the College will repeatedly call itself the number one liberal arts college in the nation to prospective students and families. Make no mistake, Williams College has not yet earned that title: we lag far behind our peer institutions, such as UCLA, Columbia, Pomona, Stanford, USC, Wellesley and many others in that we have no Asian American Studies program. As long as we lack an Asian American Studies program, the College has failed to offer a complete education to its students. While Asian Studies focuses on the history and culture of Asian people living in Asia, Asian American Studies is concerned with the experiences of Asian citizens and immigrants living in the United States, the Americas and areas of the Pacific. Asian American Studies is a multidisciplinary area of study that spans (but is not limited to) English, art, sociology, history, legal studies, political science and women’s, gender and sexuality studies. This array of subjects empowers and enlightens both Asian American and non-Asian American students. Furthermore, Asian American Studies would inherently promote diversification of our faculty through the hiring of Asian Americanist professors into an established program. A well-rounded curriculum and a diverse faculty will benefit the entire student body, not merely a choice few. Ultimately, no curriculum in American Studies is complete without the inclusion of all Americans’ histories. In Williams’ own self-study from 2017, the authors wrote 1) that “diversifying the faculty is not just a matter of broadening perspectives for students; the benefits extend to the entire College community,” and 2) that “it’s important that faculty diversity keep pace with student diversity.” (Williams Self-Study, Office of the Provost, pages 68-69, 2017) While the school champions the di-
sr
le or c rric lar e
versity of its faculty to potential donors and prospective students, only two tenured Asian Americanists remain on campus, compared to the 17 percent of the student body that identifies as Asian/Asian American. One, Professor Scott Wong, is retiring in four years; the other, Professor Dorothy Wang, is on sabbatical until 2019. Furthermore, professors outside our institution have readily critiqued our American Studies department as incomplete due to the absence of an Asian American Studies program. From the University of Washington: “A hire [in Asian American Studies] is crucial for Williams, particularly in the context of the call from undergraduates for Asian American Studies.” (External Review of American Studies, Professor Chandan Reddy, 2012) From Amherst: “The absence of an Asian American Studies program [is] particularly glaring and problematic.” (External Review of American Studies, Professor Karen Sanchez-Eppler, 2012) From the University of Massachusetts Amherst: “It seems to me untenable to continue to have programs in Africana and Latina Studies and not organize one in Asian American Studies.” (External Review of American Studies, Professor Laura Briggs, 2012) Over a 27-year period, students have asked for Asian American Studies; the administration has failed to meet our requests. They have utilized the rhetoric of “support;” they have said they will form working groups and committees, and they have said they will bring visiting professors – but they have not hired anyone permanently to establish an Asian American Studies program. Never have they given us anything close to an Asian American Studies program. Most egregiously, they have told us to have “faith” in them, and we have waited for 27 years. And where are we now? We have met with the administration and delivered the following
i
demands: that the administration publicly commit, in writing, to the hiring of four Full-Time Employee (FTE) lines for Asian American(ist) professors in the social sciences and humanities over the next five years and to the establishment of an Asian American Studies program at the end of this time period. The administration has, in response, stubbornly pointed to low existing numbers of permanent Asian Americanists as a reason not to hire more Asian Americanists: “I’m sorry, but there are not enough Asian Americanists to create a program, and without a program, we cannot hire or support incoming Asian Americanists.” Thus they protect themselves from spending on further hires, and so the cycle continues. Though we critique the administration and its failures, we deeply care about the College and its future. We know what it has the potential to be. The administration has not upheld its responsibility to its students, the alumni and the faculty; therefore, we resist, we demand and we fight on behalf of our entire student community. We hope our actions will persuade this administration to take concrete, tangible actions towards bettering our community. We hope they will prove, not just say, that they care about the marginalized student body as much as we do and that the voices of students on this campus matter. We matter. Join the movement by emailing asamcommittee@gmail.com. Please see our flyer for a quick list of questions and answers, answering inquiries such as “who are we?”; “what is the difference between Asian and Asian American Studies?”; and more: https://bit.ly/2vKtifo. This op-ed was also written by members of the Asian American Studies Movement under Asian American Students in Action (AASiA): Amber Lee ’21, Rhea Jiang ’20, William Chen ’19, Grace Fan ’19, Devin Helle ’19, Kristina Hwang ’19, Anna Kim ’19, Suiyi Tang ’19, Kathy Bi ’18, Candy Lu ’18 and Phuong Vo ’18.
Choreographing silence Encouraging audience engagement R
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I grew up in a strictly classical dance environment. The small studio I trained at offered classes in tap, jazz, modern and ballet, with the first three heavily influenced by the last. We were all guilty of tapping with the most graceful épaulement, of struggling not to turn out our jazz pirouettes, of finding it difficult to flex our feet during modern class — teachers included. We wore black leotards and pink tights every day and perfected the slicked-back ballet bun. When we performed, we knew what to do and what to expect. We knew the audience would be silent throughout, until they erupted into an organized applause at either the end of the piece or one of three events: a lift, a kick line or more than five fouetté turns. These responses were choreographed almost as well as our dancing. When I was first admitted to the College and attended the Jamboree with my fellow prospective students, I was introduced to forms of dance that engaged the audience differently. NBC took the stage, and cheers came from around the room. People were yelling their friends’ names and calling things in support of the performers. Sankofa appeared and made their own noise, shouting for the crowd and for themselves, daring us to shout back. The experience was alien, uncomfortable and completely invigorating. I came to Williams the following fall and joined Contemporary Dance Ensemble (CoDa), and in a lot of ways things were different from what I was used to. I experienced real modern dance technique for the first time and discovered what it meant for ballet to take a contemporary twist. And, to my great surprise, we learned pieces that attempted to engage the audience at a level deeper than the “clap here, clap now” I knew best. Over the past two years, I have performed with a tricycle, a necktie, a set of poster-board signs and 11 plastic apples — all with the intention of engaging viewers in the
comical elements of our classical dancing. As much as such intentions have been a part of my dancing at Williams, however, their successes have been less tangible. This past weekend, CoDa had our end-of-the-year performance. Friday night, I found myself on the MainStage of the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance with eight other dancers, standing in a line and jokingly “boogey-ing” for 16 counts. As we ran off into the wings, someone commented, “No one laughed.” They hadn’t. The room had been silent except for the sound of our breathing and the music of the piano. But, after the show that night, I was told by those who were watching that the moment was hysterical. I didn’t really know what to make of this. If it was funny after all, why hadn’t they made a sound? Many see classical dance forms as inaccessible; they say they “just don’t get it,” and maybe that’s because they don’t feel they are allowed to engage in it. If you had to watch a comedy film without giggling or a sports game without cheering, it might not be so fun. The need for silence during performances of ballet and modern dance has been deeply ingrained in performers and audiences alike. It is the same type of silence that can characterize fine art galleries or the screenings of foreign films, the type of silence that implies a public response that has long been pre-determined. It is hard to escape such comfortably thoughtless habits, but it can be done. Modern art in many mediums has challenged viewers to challenge themselves through what they see rather than passively regarding it. There is no reason this same shift cannot occur in audiences of classical dance. I believe that if we let this silence be broken, we would get a lot more from these and other technical art forms that should be truly enjoyed rather than mechanically applauded. Joelle Troiano ’20 is a biology and English double major from Pawling, N.Y.
DARIN LI ’21
Winter at Williams Longing for sunshine and battling seasonal depression When the first snow began to fall, I was excited. Back home, snow is very rare, so seeing it was a fun A memory from the beginning of surprise. That small-town lifestyle the year has always stuck with me. was still alive but had a palette A friend warned me about “sea- change. Instead of a beautiful, sunsonal depression.” As a New Eng- filled landscape, Williamstown reland local, he informed me about sembled a winter wonderland. My how harsh the winters here would friends and I would have snowball fights, and the snow be. He warned me that, as the temcovering the ground still had that bright perature dropped, white sheen. so too would our I felt like one of As time wore on, the spirits. This was snow’s bright white when Williamstown Thor's nameless side- color slowly was still warm. The transkicks getting beaten formed into a muddy sun was still a relibrown. No viable presence, and up in the frost giant yellowy sual metaphor could walks down Spring Street had that realm, except there be more apt than this discoloration of WilHollywood-esque, was no Thor to liamstown’s snow. I happy, small-town found myself less willlife feel. I didn’t help me out. ing to leave the warm believe him. How confines of my room. could our picturNo amount of clothing esque summer/ could shield my face fall days end so abruptly? I gave him the obligatory, from the stinging cold of the Wil“Haha, yeah. I’m sure…” But deep liamstown wind. One thing that no down, I thought he was being a tad one properly accounts for or is apdramatic. Besides, I had survived parent when one looks up the temLondon weather for 18 years, and perature is the wind chill factor. I it couldn't be that much worse than swear, seeing the wind whip up the having random rain showers every snow into a semi-snow tornado that looks like it belongs in a Pokémon two minutes. I was wrong.
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game as one of the five power point moves made me feel like I was living in a fictional, extreme winter landscape. I honestly felt like I was one of Thor’s nameless sidekicks getting beaten up in the frost giant realm, except there was no Thor to come and help me out. My Mjolnir was staying in bed watching Vine compilations on YouTube. Not very heroic. I didn’t realize my mood could be so influenced by the seasons until the recent improvement in weather. With the recent sunshine, my happiness levels have skyrocketed. There’s just something about lying down with a Tunnel City iced coffee in hand and sunlight kissing your skin that waddling around in an oversized winter coat, getting flicked by snow and constantly sniffling because of your runny nose can’t capture. I will say, though, that the winter was very character building. I do feel that I enjoy spring/summer life more now after having experienced a Williamstown winter. If there is warmth there must be coldness, with strength must come weakness and with light, shadow. Ahad Qureshi ’21 is from London, United Kingdom. His major is currently undecided.
April 25, 2018
NEWS 4
The Williams Record
Politician Howard Dean to teach at College next spring By NICHOLAS GOLDROSEN EXECUTIVE EDITOR Next spring, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean will teach in the College’s leadership studies program through the Bennett Boskey Distinguished Visiting Professorship. Dean served as governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2003 and as chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 2005 to 2009 and ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. He will teach a course entitled “Leadership in a Global World,” cross-listed in the leadership studies program and political science department. Last Winter Study, Dean visited to teach a session of a leadership studies course as well as give a public lecture at the College. After this visit, Dean was intrigued by the possibility of teaching a semester course at the College. “Over the last couple of years, I’ve taught a single class for one of the [Winter Study] courses, and I liked it a lot, and I was asked by the people who were doing the leadership studies program if I was interested in doing a full course,” Dean said. “I was interested in it – the students were very bright, and it’s very different than Yale, which is where I teach routinely, so I gave it a shot.” Justin Crowe ’03, associate professor of political science and chair of leadership studies, recounted how Dean’s public appearance catalyzed his interest in teaching at the College. “In January 2017, Howard came to campus as a guest in the Winter Study course Bill Simon teaches on effective leadership,” Crowe said. “Bill was kind enough to arrange – and Howard to engage in – some meetings and meals with faculty and students in addition to a public talk. Right before the talk, Howard asked, ‘How
does someone go about getting to teach at Williams?’” The tradition of having notable practitioners in leadership teach in the College’s program is a long-standing one; former Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift and U.S. Representative Chris Gibson have taught or are currently teaching at the College. The experiences offered by these visitors are essential, as both Dean and Crowe noted. “I think the whole point of this program, in having people like me teaching – and of course I’m not the only outside practitioner doing it – is that there’s an enormous difference between the academic and research aspects of leadership and the practical problems with it, and both are necessary to learn,” Dean said. “I really like the idea that Williams brings people who don’t necessarily have an academic background into this program… It also helps to hear from practitioners about everyday dilemmas.” Crowe echoed this sentiment, believing that Dean’s deep and varied experience will make him an excellent addition to the program. “Given his assorted leadership roles in politics (governor of Vermont, presidential candidate, chair of the DNC, founder of Democracy for America) and his extremely diverse substantive interests (healthcare, media and globalization), I thought Howard could offer our students practical, experiential insight into core questions that animate leadership studies: How do you get people to join together in common pursuit? How do you organize complex organizations in ways that will help to foster change? What kinds of attributes or strategies are important for leaders in times of crisis?” Crowe said. Dean’s course will cover leadership in the political, business and social realms.
The course catalog describes three questions guiding the class: “How, in our economically interdependent world, are we to push forward growth that is robust but sustainable? How, in our technologically obsessed world, are we to harness tools whose consequences are difficult to foresee? How, in our politically volatile world, are we to figure out how to persuade without alienating?” Dean noted that several aspects of his course may differ
are working to do that, so I think this is a promising moment, and one that's substantially different than where we've been before. As a result, my sense is that there's significant institutional support for thinking about how we might move forward on this.” Park, who chairs the CAP and is a member of the CPC, said that the CAP is responsible for allocating faculty lines. Requests are submitted annually to the CPC and CAP, and the CAP consults the CPC before adjudicating requests. “It's always a difficult set of decisions, as there are often more requests for positions than can be allocated, given all the constraints, and there are tradeoffs that have to be considered,” Park said. “But new requests – that is, requests for positions that haven't previously existed – that can meet institutional objectives, help foster synergies and address real curricular needs have in a number of cases received approval in recent years.” The CPC met with students this month and has committed to forming a working group in 2018-19 for the consideration of an Asian American Studies concentration. Chair of the CPC and Professor of Economics Jon Bakija said that the working group would invite any tenured or tenure-track faculty to serve as members of the group. In addition, Bakija emphasized that students and non-tenure-track faculty would be given many opportunities to provide input and to participate in group meetings throughout the process. The working group would evaluate the establishment of the concentration while exploring the procedural steps needed to make it succeed. At the end of the year, it would present a report to faculty with its recommendations. Bakija said that the CPC wanted to form a group for 2017-18 but chose to postpone
the process because Professor of American Studies Dorothy Wang, a key proponent of Asian American Studies and a principal writer of the staffing request, was on sabbatical this year. Wang’s sabbatical extends through part of next year, but she plans to collaborate with the CPC working group next year. “Any time there is a question of creating a new program, major or concentration, the CPC is required to form a working group that evaluates the idea of creating such a unit,” Bakija said. “The working group releases a report discussing all the issues involved, presenting the best possible case for having the program, the resources it would need and some alternative models for how it could work.” Nevertheless, the CPC does not have the ability to approve a new concentration on its own; Such a proposal would need to be approved by a faculty vote. Chair of the Committee on Educational Affairs (CEA) Lara Shore-Sheppard said that for a new program to be formed, interested faculty must submit a proposal to the CEA. A proposal with curricular and faculty hiring implications is examined by the CAP and CPC, and after review from the CAP, CEA and CPC, the proposal would be brought before a faculty meeting for a vote. Shore-Sheppard said that while an Asian American Studies cluster was approved in 2012-13, it did not show up in the 201617 course catalog. A cluster is an academic unit organized around a common theme that does not have a concentration or major. Shore-Sheppard said that the CEA has yet to receive a proposal for an Asian American Studies Program this year. Yu said that the request’s writers aimed to first recruit sufficient faculty to sustain a concentration before concerning themselves with proposing the creation of such a concentration. “Right now, our priority is to first have
which is the classic way to do it. It’s going to be a little bit [of a] different course than any other course – otherwise, what’s the point of my doing it?” Dean also stressed that the course will emphasize team projects, oral presentation skills and clear and concise writing in the form of short memos. In addition to his classroom teaching, a series of public appearances and larger events will introduce
Dean to the greater College community. “I know Howard is really looking forward to joining us – not just in the classroom, but on campus more broadly,” Crowe said. “Even though he'll only be teaching the one class and thus engaging a relatively small group of students directly, we hope to organize some public events so that more of the community can benefit from his semester with us.”
PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS.
Howard Dean, who served as chair of the Democratic National Committee and governor of Vermont, will teach at the College next spring.
During Jamboree, students protest lack of Asian American Studies Program CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
from the average course in leadership studies. “It’s going to be a little untraditional in that it’s going to be a leadership course, but we’re also going to look at followership – of course, without followers, you’d have no leaders,” Dean said. “So it’ll delve into the more psychological aspects of leadership, followership and failure, which most leadership courses never address. It’s going to be more than learning from failure,
enough staffing and courses,” she said. “The next step would be to create a concentration.” Bakija and Yu both said that the staffing request submitted by faculty was a key step toward creating an Asian American Studies Program. Both acknowledged, however, that additional steps must be taken for the Program to come into being. Yu said that the faculty members who signed the request would continue to collaborate in pursuit of the Program. “There’s still more work to do,” she said. Bakija added that the main obstacle for Asian American Studies has not been a lack of administrative support, but rather uncertainty over logistical questions, especially concerning leadership. “I think the administration supports this,” Bakija said. “It’s trying to figure out how to make it work, particularly getting people to step up into leadership positions… If you’re going to have a program, you need a tenured faculty member to chair the program, mentor faculty and do the administrative work. ” Bakija added that the CPC’s working group may help find solutions to procedural questions that have yet to be answered. He said that designing a leadership arrangement would be crucial in allowing hiring requests to be evaluated. “If you’re going to hire faculty into a program, you need that structure set up first.” “The CPC's work will help illuminate a number of critical issues, including what kinds of disciplinary areas should be represented in Asian American Studies and where faculty hired to contribute might be housed,” Park added. Tsay said that the movement will not back down until its demands are answered. “We’ll continue our demonstrations throughout the coming weeks, as well as next year, to hold the administration accountable to [its] inaction over Asian American Studies,” he said.
Monday 4-16-18
Thursday 4-19-18
Friday 4-20-18
formed officers that they took a 9-1-1 call from a Lawrence Hall employee who was reporting a traffic concern they observed while on their way to work, but that the person was no longer at that phone.
11:27 a.m. Mount Hope: An alarm was activated showing motion detected. Several officers were contacted.
9:16 a.m. Williams Hall E Entry: A report of the odor of marijuana was made.
6:09 a.m. Oakley Center: An officer responded to the circle in front of the Oakley Center for a report of a stuck bus. The officer found a King Ward bus stuck in the grass in the circle. The bus had to be pulled out by a tow truck. Damages were documented.
10:42 a.m. Front Street: A town resident asked Campus Safety and Security to respond to Cole Field to turn down music playing at the baseball field while the baseball team was warming up before its game. The team was advised of the complaint and asked to lower the music.
11:20 a.m. Garfield House: A report was made of a broken storm window. The window was actually broken in two separate panes. The inner window, however, was still intact. A work order was filled out for repair.
5:10 p.m. Lasell: Officers were called to assist the gym monitor in identifying a few high school students who did not swipe into Lasell and were holding the door open for others to enter.
Tuesday 4-17-18 7:00 a.m. Meacham Street: A report was made of a fallen tree on a student’s vehicle that was parked at 100 Meacham St. Williamstown Police Department and the owner were called. 8:40 p.m. A welfare check on a student was requested by one of the deans. The student was offered assistance and transported to the hospital by ambulance. Wednesday 4-18-18 12:41 a.m. President’s House: An intrusion alarm was sounded. Officers found a student exiting out of a firstfloor window. This student was detained and identified. College authorities were notified of the break-in. The student was referred to the Dean’s Office. 3:34 p.m. Hopkins Hall: An officer took a statement concerning an incident that occurred early Saturday morning on April 14. The student reported that around 1:45 a.m., she had walked her friend home to East College and was on her way to Morgan when she heard two males at the corner of Lab Campus Drive and Main Street yelling inappropriate language directed at her. The student felt threatened and ran into her dorm. A Bias Incident Report was taken and College authorities were notified. 7:54 p.m. Jesup Hall: An intrusion alarm was sounded on the third floor. No one was found on site. The alarm system was reset.
12:11 p.m. Health Center: staff asked that 9-1-1 be activated for North Adams Ambulance to respond to the Health Center for transport to Berkshire Medical Center North for a possible concussion. The Health Center called back and asked that the ambulance be cancelled because alternate transportation had been arranged. 12:53 p.m. A parent asked for a welfare check on a student. 7:21 p.m. Cole Field: An officer was dispatched for a car accident. Williamstown Police Department also responded and took the accident report. 9:04 p.m. A student was transported to Berkshire Medical Center in North Adams for a possible concussion. Saturday 4-21-18 10:10 a.m. Williams College Museum of Art: Officers responded to a 9-1-1 activation. Officers found no one on site and activated 9-1-1. Williamstown Police Department in-
9:20 p.m. Brooks House: An officer reported that he observed a large group of students enter Brooks House from the front and rear of the building carrying 30 packs of beer. Officers arrived and found an unregistered party just getting underway. The alcohol present was still mostly in the packs. 11:48 p.m. Mission Park: Officers responded to a noise complaint and possible unregistered party. The unregistered party was in the fourth floor common room of Pratt with about 30 students. There was underage drinking present. One student took responsibility for the event and cleaned up the mess. Sunday 4-22-18 4:13 p.m. Southworth Street: An officer observed a truck suddenly stop in the middle of the street just north of the Mission Park intersection. The passenger side door suddenly flung open, and a woman got out of the truck and began a verbal altercation with the driver. The officer was asked to dispatch the Williamstown Police Department.
April 25, 2018
NEWS 5
The Williams Record
Survey sheds light on sexual assault on campus CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 half years to really get down to eliminating it,” she said. Given the intricacy of the issue and the long-term path toward fixing it, the survey data will serve as a useful tool for decreasing incident rates and improving campus culture. Bossong plans to use the results to learn about the information that is currently available to students, increase resource accessibility and improve workshops. “We need to do a better job communicating what kinds of help and support are available,” Bossong said. “Another way that we’ve used the data is to customize as much as possible our education program. We can tailor education more effectively to campus groups.” Beyond using the survey results on the administrative side, Bossong hopes the information will be useful to students as well. On Tuesday, April 17, Bossong and Dean of the College Marlene Sandstrom hosted an open forum to begin sharing the data with the campus community. The two plan to hold additional forums as more data comes out, and they intend to ultimately post infographics online. Additionally, Sandstrom sent an annual email to the College community yesterday providing a summary of last year’s incidents. The message detailed the various resources and processes available to victims of gender-based violence, from the College’s disciplinary process to alternative groups and services. Additionally, the email provided figures regarding the number of formal reports of misconduct made in 20162017. Of the 16 reports, six were for sexual misconduct, three for relationship abuse, four for stalking and three for
sexual harassment. The email also provided details on the outcomes of the reports. Sandstrom emphasized the importance of working on this issue and supporting students. “Williams is deeply committed to the goal of fostering and sustaining a safe community for all of our members,” she wrote. “When members of our community are harmed, we seek to provide the resources they need in order to achieve accountability, healing and support.” Bossong views all the data as only the first step in working to end sexual assault. “In terms of how students utilize this, I think one thing that I would say is that sometimes at Williams, we believe that more knowledge will automatically lead to behavior change,” Bossong said. “That doesn’t typically prove true in many cases. Just knowing this data or looking at it probably won’t substantively change most people’s behavior on campus. And that’s okay.” This is where Bossong sees the role of student groups and the imagination of the student body fitting in. “We just need to put in a middle step, which is our creativity and our ingenuity,” she explained. “There are so many groups that are doing really interesting design thinking or system work on campus, and that’s one of the major shifts I’ve seen, especially since I was a student, but certainly over the last four or five years. There are just a lot more students interested in working on this issue.” Although the EPHCASA survey yielded both positive and negative results, Bossong has chosen to take the data as a source of hope and motivation. “It’s important to look at [the data] and remember that we did make change and we can make change,” she said.
GRAPHICS COURTESY OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE.
Manigault-Bryant receives Mellon Geoffrey Stone advocates for free speech Fellowship to pursue filmmaking By SAMUEL WOLF NEWS EDITOR
By TESNIM ZEKERIA MANAGING EDITOR LeRhonda (Rhon) ManigaultBryant, associate dean of the faculty and associate professor of Africana Studies, has been awarded a $300,000 New Directions Fellowship from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to pursue training in filmmaking at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. ManigaultBryant is one of 12 recipients nationwide this year and is the fourth faculty member from the College in eight years to receive this prestigious fellowship. Designed to promote research in the humanities and humanistic social sciences, the New Directions Fellowship offers midcareer faculty the opportunity to pursue systematic training in subjects outside of their specializations. The fellowship covers the equivalent of one academic year’s salary, two summers of support and tuition or course fees associated with the fellow’s training program. An interdisciplinary scholar, Manigault-Bryant’s expertise lies in African American religions, black cultural production and womanist/black feminist thought. She holds a doctorate in religion from Duke and is particularly interested in popular cultural representations of the black female religious body. She co-edited the book Womanist and Black Feminist Responses to Tyler Perry’s Productions, which is the first scholarly text to comprehensively analyze religion in Tyler Perry’s body of work. Despite having a sophisticated understanding of media studies, Manigault-Bryant found that she had hit a limit in her scholarly explorations. This ultimately sparked her interest in the New Directions Fellowship because it would grant her the opportunity to complement her intimate knowledge of media studies with technical filmmaking knowledge. “What drew to me to the fellowship was that I realized I
had reached a kind of limit in my own professional knowledge. I realized it’s one thing to ask what the content of the film is —it’s another thing to know structurally how images work in the way that they do,” Manigault-Bryant said. “I recognized that the questions I had been asking are technical questions about the filmmaking process.” Her proposal, titled “Filmic Future and the Black Female Body,” builds on her previous work and proposes a multidisciplinary monograph that critically interrogates the use of fat drag performances and tropes by black male entertainers such as Tyler Perry, Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy. She finds that, though their films capture certain black realities, their problematic use of black female religious bodies is indicative of a disturbing trend in popular culture. In addition to this yearlong training in filmmaking, Manigault-Bryant is also eager to bookend the year with two summers of documentary filmmaking. Trained as an ethnographer, ManigaultBryant hopes to counter fictitious narratives of black women with real stories told by black women.
In fact, Manigault-Bryant’s appointment by the Mellon Foundation highlights the importance of centering the voices of black women, who are often relegated to the peripheries of society. In this highly political moment, Manigault-Bryant’s documentaries will allow black women to be at the center of power and give them the agency to rewrite many of the narratives that society has often wrongly pinned on them. Manigault-Bryant also plans to complete her book Pushing Weight: Religion, Popular Culture and the Implications of Image. Eventually, she hopes to return to the College to teach film and media-related courses. For now, however, she is most looking forward to returning to the classroom. “As much as I am excited about the outcome – about being able to finish my book, being able to come back and teach classes that are going to be really great for students – I am most excited about having the unfettered time to just dig in,” Manigault-Bryant said. “Although [the College] has a generous sabbatical program, it’s nice to know that I’ll have a year where I can just dig in without the interruptions of teaching, conferences – it’s a hiatus [from] all of that. I can’t wait to be a student again – that’s what I’m most excited about.”
PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE.
Manigault-Bryant will pursue filmmaking at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.
On Thursday, Geoffrey Stone, a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School, spoke at Griffin Hall. The local chapter of the Phi Betta Kappa Society invited him to discuss the issue of free speech on college campuses, a topic that has ignited controversy at institutions across the country in recent years. Stone, a strong proponent of free speech, has a lengthy legal history. He worked as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., helped represent President Bill Clinton in Clinton v. Jones and served as dean of the law school at the University of Chicago. He was also the chair of the university’s Committee on Freedom of Expression, which was responsible for the release of the so-called “Chicago Statement,” an announcement reaffirming the university’s commitment to free speech. Stone began his presentation by reviewing the history of freedom of speech on college campuses. “Academic freedom is not a law of nature. It does not exist of its own force,” he said multiple times throughout the talk. Stone argued that speech has to be continually safeguarded and protected. “Until well into the 19th century, real freedom of thought was neither practiced nor professed in American colleges,” Stone explained. Citing the example of slavery, he elaborated that “any professor or student in the north who defended slavery or any professor or student in the south who challenged slavery could readily be dismissed, disciplined or expelled.” Stone also cited the silencing of anti-war organizers during World War I and of communists during the Cold War. In Stone’s opinion, student activists who refuse to allow certain speakers a platform are continuing the trend of limiting speech. “Today, the principal challenge to academic freedom comes not from outside the academy, but from within it,” he said. “From students themselves, some of whom demand censorship of ideas that they find distasteful
and offensive, and from faculty members who, afraid to disappoint those students, too often surrender academic freedom.” As evidence, Stone cited numerous cases in which speakers, often conservative, were shouted down by students or disinvited by a college’s administration. Stone called attention to what he sees as a worrying trend with free speech. “A recent survey showed that 72 percent of college students support disciplinary actions against any student, faculty member or speaker who expresses any view that is deemed by them to be racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise offensive,” he said. “It is not so long ago that students demanded the right to free speech. Now, students demand the right to be free from speech that could potentially be upsetting or emotionally disturbing.” Stone provided three theories as to why students have, in his mind, become less accepting of free speech. First, he blamed so-called “helicopter parents” for raising students unable to deal with alternative viewpoints. “These students, unlike their predecessors, have never learned to deal effectively with challenge, uncertainty, insult or fear,” Stone said. Second, he explained that students in the modern era are more attuned to issues of inequality, leading them to more forcefully oppose those who perpetuate injustice. Lastly, he recognized that some students have always felt uncomfortable with such rhetoric on campus but are only now choosing to fight back vigorously against it. In his attempt to convince campuses to welcome alternative viewpoints, Stone argued that people should be less confident that their own ideas are correct. “One thing we have learned from bitter experience is that even the ideas that we hold to be certain might, in fact, turn out to be wrong,” he said. “Those who believed with absolute certainty that the earth was the center of the universe were wrong. Those who believed with absolute certainty in creationism were wrong. Those who believed that slavery was natu-
ral and right were wrong... Why should we have the right to think that we are unquestionably right about our own beliefs today?” Stone also attempted to reach out to minority groups in his appeal. “In the long run, it is likely to be minorities, whether religious minorities, racial minorities or political minorities, who are most likely to be silenced when censorship is deemed acceptable,” he explained. “Without a vibrant commitment to freedom of speech, our nation never would have seen the civil rights movement.” Ultimately, Stone had three recommendations for colleges that wish to promote an atmosphere of free speech, which he views as essential to higher education. First, “a college or university should educate its students and faculty on the values of civility and mutual respect,” he said. Second, colleges and universities should encourage the clashing of ideas. “It must be a safe space for even the most loathsome arguments,” he said. Stone cited the words of President Barack Obama: “No matter how much you might disagree with certain speakers, don’t try to shut them down. Let them talk, but have the confidence to challenge them… Beat them on the battlefield of ideas.” Lastly, Stone emphasized that “a university must recognize that, our society being flawed as it is, the cost of free speech will often fall most heavily on those groups and individuals who feel the most marginalized, unwelcome and disrespected.” Stone concluded his talk with a plea for students to allow all voices on campus and avoid disrupting aversive speakers. He argued that such tactics are both anti-speech and ultimately counterproductive. “What [shouting down a speaker] does is give the speaker and her ideas greater visibility, turn her into a martyr and enable her to sell books and promote her views more effectively than ever before,” he said. Stone suggested that students hold alternative events instead or engage with speakers intellectually. “Deny them what they most want – a spectacle,” he said.
FEATURES 6
The Williams Record
April 25, 2018
One in Two Thousand By NICHOLAS GOLDROSEN EXECUTIVE EDITOR
of something, and I was prepping my salad around lunchtime. I was cutting the avocado, and as I was trying to take the pit out, the knife slipped. I very, very calmly walked to the bathroom as my hand was bleeding profusely, and then I very, very calmly called my boss and said, “Yeah, so the thing I had to take care of this morning was fine, but also, by the way, just so you know, I’m bleeding a lot in my bathroom now, and I’m not sure what to do…” I guess I was just acting like, “This has to happen to someone, so it might as well happen to me.” I never told anyone it was an avocado, though, because every morning I ate half of an avocado for breakfast, and I didn’t want the shame of getting hurt by the thing you love most.
CAROL ALMONTE ’19
Carol and I first met through Cap and Bells and bonded over our shared love of theater and Latin. We sat down to chat about topics as varied and whimsical as Julius Caesar, natal charts, avocado hands and the moon! When we first met, I remember we talked about the fact that we’d both taken Latin. I’d love if you could start by telling me a little bit about your experience with Latin. I took Latin in high school because I wanted to be edgy. Then my Latin teacher was the nicest old British woman I had ever met in my life, and I just got hooked. And once you really commit to that, you have to keep going with it… I eventually came away with this special appreciation for the death of Julius Caesar. Now this is multilayered. Of course I took Latin, but I also had read Julius Caesar at some point in my life, and I was like, “This [idiot] is going to die in the most extra way.” He was warned about the Ides of March, and I just thought that was so cool for whatever reason. I thought it was really funny that there was a holiday commemorating the death of an important Roman figure, so now it’s become one of my favorite days of the year. Last year, it came to a crescendo, since Rob Hefferon [’18] did a reading of Julius Kaiser Roll [a bread-themed version of Julius Caesar], where I had the unfortunate role of Julius Kaiser, and I was unceremoniously stabbed with a baguette by John Rodríguez [’18]. So the Ides of March has always been a good day of the year for some strange reason that I have no concrete explanation for. Speaking of seasonal changes, one of your other big in-
Finally, could you talk about your meme war with our theatre professor this semester?
JULIA CASSELL/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER CAROL'S HOMETOWN QUEENS, N.Y.
CAROL'S RESIDENCE MORGAN
STRANGEST THEATER MOMENT STABBED BY A BAGUETTE
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN TAURUS
terests is astrology. What drew you to that?
your posts reminding us to go look at the moon when she’s especially beautiful. Do you have any favorite moon moments?
Street to Route 2 and then back to Currier Quad. Then I sat on the bench outside WCMA [the Williams College Museum of Art] for a while and walked to the Zilkha Center, which is a very good moon-gazing spot. But don’t steal it! No one was walking by, and I just sat there for an hour looking at the moon. There’s this strange hum that comes from Sawyer at night sometimes, and it was a nice, warm night where I [could] just look at the moon. A good moon night!
I imagine you must have some fun stories from that. WTF was that like?
It’s one of those things that just came into my life, and I grasped it. The real reason I do that is because I love the stars and the moon so much, and it’s a good way to give meaning to my life. I feel some sort of connection to it. But it also just explains so much – it makes the boring “hum-druminess” of life a little bit more exciting. You definitely do have a deep love of the moon – I’ve often seen, on various forms of social media,
There was this one night last summer, when I was working the [Williamstown] Theatre Festival, and I was on my way back to Prospect after tech at the Log. It was about 12:30 [a.m.] There was a full moon, and it was amazing – the night was so clear, and I had to go in the next morning at like 9 a.m., but it was such a nice and temperate night that I took the long way back, going up Spring
So about the Williamstown Theatre Festival –
I hate that pun so much, and I hate you for it. I feel like the most interesting week was the week I gave myself avocado hand. For those of you who don’t know, avocado hand is the specific term for when people literally hurt themselves from taking the pit out of an avocado. This one week, I had tech for both a main-season show and tech for the late-night cabarets at the Log, the side projects I worked on. One day, I had the morning off to take care
For the lovely readers, Nicholas Goldrosen and I are the only two people in this class, Theatre 285, more lovingly known as “Scenic and Lighting Design for Performance,” taught by a visiting professor, Jason Simms. We have a team Google Drive for the class, and we all have these separate folders. One night, I found this meme, “Staten Island is not a Real Borough, Change my Mind.” All three of us are from New York City, and it was midnight, and I was tired out of my mind, so I just decided to make a separate folder in our team Drive, “Memes that Carol Found on the Internet.” I uploaded it there, and I waited to see if Jason saw it. A couple of days later, I saw another folder had been placed there, labelled “Star Wars Memes Jason Found on the Internet,” or something akin to that, and that was when I knew that I had started a meme war with my professor.
Manager revamps Mission Dining Hall By KSOOSHA RAMRAS STAFF WRITER
PHOTO COURTESY OF HEALTHLINE.COM.
Five students are proposing a prescription exchange program to address Berkshire County's opioid crisis.
Kinetic group targets Berkshire opioid crisis with buyback program By JOEY FOX CONTRIBUTING WRITER On Oct. 26, 2017, President Donald Trump declared America’s opioid crisis a public health emergency, making official what most had already known for a long time: the rise of drug overdoses related to opioids is an urgent issue in need of attention. Though it can be difficult to remember while enveloped in the Purple Bubble, the Berkshire area is hardly immune to the opioid crisis. Like many other counties in the United States, Berkshire County has seen a steady rise in deaths related to drug use over the past decade, and so far, there have been few signs that the problem is slowing down. But a group within Kinetic, the College’s social entrepreneurship think tank, has come up with a new plan to reduce opioid abuse in Williamstown and North Adams. After consulting with health care organizations, police chiefs and other prominent members of the community, a team of five students is starting an opioid buyback initiative, wherein people can return unused opioid prescriptions in exchange for gift vouchers to Wal-Mart and other local businesses. The program, which will begin its pilot stage this Saturday, is meant to make sure that opioids don’t make it into the hands of a particularly at-risk but often overlooked de-
mographic: teenagers who find old opioid prescriptions in their parents’ medicine cabinets. Studies show that around 62 percent of teens who are addicted to opioids are introduced to the drugs in this manner, many later moving on to more potent drugs like heroin and fentanyl. “Typical programs address the problem in a more reactive way,” Zachary Brand ’19, a member of the five-person initiative, said, referring to programs such as safe needle clinics and opioid collection days. “We were hoping we could address it a little more proactively to eliminate even the potential for the problem to happen.” While there is definite merit in such programs, by buying back the prescriptions before anyone who might be at risk of drug abuse can get their hands on them, Brand and his teammates hope to block one major road to opioid addiction before it can begin. Part of the reason that the team's work is so exciting, according to project leader John Marando ’19, is that a program like it has never been attempted before. “This is the first of its kind, so it’s pretty exciting that we’re doing it here at Williams,” he said. While gun buyback programs – which this project is partially based on – are quite prevalent throughout the country, a similar program for opioids is entirely novel.
Brand, for one, is approaching the issue of opioid addiction from a personal place. “I come from a part of the country that has very similar problems; the same study that found that Pittsfield was the fifth worst in the country found that my hometown is the first,” he said. After Marando and fellow Kinetic member Nikhil Palanki ’20 thought of the idea for an opioid buyback program, Brand immediately latched onto the idea as something worth doing. Though the group only currently has plans for a pilot program on Saturday, if it works, Brand and Marando hope to extend it far beyond that. “It’s entirely possible that it’s not effective, and we’ll have to reshape the focus of the team,” Marando said. “Ideally, after we’ve had a couple of successes, we can get support from business leaders and other community organizations and make this an annual or recurring program.” Though its scope is small for now, the group is optimistic that its project could launch a new way to combat the opioid epidemic in communities all around the country. For anyone who may have leftover opioid prescriptions and would like to participate in the pilot program, it will take place at the Adams Police Station from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday.
Word has quickly spread around campus about Mission Dining Hall’s recent improvements. After overhearing my peers say things such as “first iced coffee, and now a pasta bar! Bless!” and “Mission is killing it,” I was excited to have the opportunity to interview Mission Dining’s new unit manager, Charlotte Clark. Clark worked in the College’s Catering Department for almost seven years, which she described as a “crazy world.” Even though the jobww was hectic, she “thrive[s] on chaos" and is "always looking for new challenges." When she saw the opening for a new unit manager position at Mission Park, she jumped at the opportunity and has been working there since February. For Clark, working for Dining Services is the ideal way to channel her interest in cuisine. “I’m very passionate about food,” she said. “I love trying new things, creating new flavors and experimenting with new ideas.” Therefore, Clark enjoys working at Mission because she gets to be involved with Dining Services, but she can also engage with students to improve food service here at the College. “I had never worked directly in student dining before, and I really wanted to be a part of it,” Clark said. “I’ve found it to be an amazing experience so far. Having a chance to work with the staff and students to grow our food service program is a great thing.” One of the first things that Clark implemented was the iced coffee bar, which includes various flavors. A coffee lover herself, Clark knew that this was exactly what students needed. In addition, every Friday night is now ramen bowl night, and every Saturday night is “Mission Impastabowl” night, featuring customizable pasta bowls using the local brand Vermont Fresh Pasta. These new initiatives are just some of the ways in which Clark is working to make Mission Din-
ing Hall a comfortable place for all students to come and relax. “I want people to walk into our dining hall and enjoy a meal, no matter what type of food they are looking for,” she said. Clark wants the dining hall to be like “a home away from home.” One way in which she hopes to achieve this goal is through the newly established Mission Lounge, where students can comfortably sit to eat or do homework. Clark and her staff are expanding the vegan and glutenfree programs as well as focusing more on fresh, local produce and reducing the amount of processed foods. This is part of Dining Services’ greater aim to have 20 percent of food purchases be local by 2020 (local purchases are currently at 18 percent). Clark and the rest of Dining Services are striving to create unique food options from local produce in collaboration with students. This fall, Dining Services worked with students to process 1700 pounds of such locally-purchased produce into “pickles, fresh pesto, jams, apple sauce and a few other things,” Clark said. This year, Clark hopes to continue the program with more produce and “even more student involvement.”
Other dining reforms that Clark is spearheading include implementing environmentally friendlier practices. Specifically, Clark is currently working on raising awareness about the importance of composting and making it easier to keep the compost separate from the trash at Mission. Something that surprised me to hear was that all of the disposable products, such as utensils and napkins, are Vegware, which are “made from plant- or corn-based products” and are therefore both biodegradable and compostable. Another major change Clark and her staff have been planning is reducing food waste by planning menus that utilize food better and continuing to set goals for the Lean Path system, which tracks preconsumer and post-consumer food waste. Clark is always open to new ideas and warmly encourages all students to stop by and give suggestions or feedback. “The students I’ve met so far have such great enthusiasm for food,” she said. “It makes me want to work even harder to help implement all the amazing new ideas they have shared.”
KATIE BRULE/PHOTO EDITOR
Charlotte Clark is re-shaping how Dining Services impact student life.
April 25, 2018
7 FEATURES
The Williams Record
Spotlight on research: Kornell examines metacognition By SHAHEEN CURRIMJEE EXECUTIVE EDITOR Humans know the difference between feeling completely certain or totally unsure of something, but it turns out that we are not the only animals who grasp the concept of uncertainty. Several years ago, Professor of Psychology Nate Kornell delved into monkey metacognition – in other words, monkey feelings. Interested in cognitive processes, Kornell had worked primarily with human subjects in graduate school. Coming from an operant conditioning world, however, prompted Kornell to explore the animal field as well. This year, he, along with several collaborators, published a paper on whether “monkeys have a feeling of certainty or uncertainty that guides their behavior.” In his study, he gave monkeys a memory task and assessed the type of bets they made on whether they thought their answers were right or wrong. “A high-risk bet … can gain them tokens or lose them tokens, and those tokens can be exchanged for food,” he explained. “If it’s a low-risk bet, they [get] just one token no matter what. If the monkey is unsure about its answer, it should choose the low-risk bet, and if they are confident about their answer, they should choose the high-risk bet.” In order to test the hypothesis, Kornell showed the monkeys photographs of guitars or beach balls that were either stark images or degraded – the latter images served as the disfluent stimulus “because it’s harder to visually process the information.” If given a disfluent stimulus, humans will remember it just as well as the fluent stimulus, however, because the stimulus is harder to process if they are unsure of their answer. This type of behavior is exactly what the monkeys showed! In other words, they did equally well in
PHOTO COURTESY OF NATE KORNELL.
Professor of Psychology Nate Kornell’s research in metacognition looks into the influence of emotion on test subjects’ behaviors. terms of their memories, but they were less likely to make a high-risk bet if the stimulus was disfluent. “It’s like they show this illusion that’s brought on by disfluency, which is the same illusion humans show, and in fact that illusion did not mean they got more food, so you can’t explain this behavior as principles of conditioning,” Kornell said. “Based on the principles of conditioning, animals do things that get them more food, but this didn’t – they made low-risk bets because they have the same cognitive bias we do.” This type of behavior is not limited to just monkeys. In fact, dogs have this gut feeling too, Kornell explained. “When a dog is young, it’ll jump up on something, but when it gets older, it hesitates, almost asking, ‘Can I make it?’ Easy things they do,
hard things they don’t do, but medium things they consider. That itself resembles an uncertainty response,” he said. Kornell stopped working with monkeys after his daughter was born because he did not want to risk spreading germs to his child as a result of being in contact with the animals. “I haven’t been in the same room as a monkey that we do research with since 2005,” he said, laughing. Now, Kornell conducts his research on human metacognition, specifically on students. His research on students looks into college students’ study habits, showing that their perfected study habits are not serving them as well as they think. “When you study flashcards, many people drop flashcards out of the stack once they feel like they know them and study what they don’t
know,” he said. “But that’s a metacognition decision, [saying,] ‘Okay, I know this well enough. I don’t need to study it anymore,’” Kornell explained. These “common sense” study techniques — such as studying what you do not know very well and what you do know very little — do not actually promote long-term learning. “People are pretty bad at making those decisions and actually learn the same or less if [they drop those flashcards]. If you force them to just study everything equally, there’s some inefficiency, but because they aren’t allowed to make bad decision for themselves, they do better,” he said. Some of these concepts are touched upon in his psychology of education course “Cognition and Education.” Kornell focuses on psychological and education-
al issues such as “international differences [in] how education works and how segregation in schools is one of the biggest problems in terms of learning,” he explained. He is concerned about this issue because schools are the biggest influence governments have on their society, and while “societies shape the government by voting, schools shape the next generation.” In his lab, one group of students decided to study judging a job candidate based on Skype conversation quality. Their research found that a wide variety of factors in the quality of a Skype interview can influence an employer’s approval of the candidate, from bad Internet connection to pauses to weird dinging sounds. These results, Kornell said, pose “a serious problem for equity and job interviews. Not to
mention that wealthier people tend to have better Internet connection, so this could potentially disadvantage who are coming from a disadvantaged background in the first place,” he said. Kornell said that employers can gather certain impressions from external stimuli. These findings are consistent with conclusions he made through researching monkeys and perpetual fluency. “Perceptual fluency influences people’s judgments in all sorts of ways and makes people dislike things that are disfluent, even if those things are randomly assigned,” he said. In addition to metacognition, Kornell has also dabbled in the implications of psychology in law. In collaboration with his thesis student Griffin Colaizzi ’18, Kornell is examining how societies judge a justice system, specifically the moral judgments associated with such judgments. Kornell and Colaizzi asked, “How bad is it to arrest someone who is innocent but then let them go free, or arrest someone who is guilty but then let them go free?” As most would assume, participants tended to judge the former situation as much better than the latter. Once hearing, however, that in both situations the criminal is out on the streets, participants displayed significantly reversed opinions. “So just informing people can have a major influence over how someone views the justice system because when people are making these judgments, they’re just not thinking about multiple viewpoints or people,” Kornell said. “People tend to focus on the person in question, so if it’s an innocent person, they won’t take into consideration the guilty person still on the streets.” For those who are interested, Kornell also has a blog, “Everybody is Stupid Except You” on Psychologytoday.com where he writes about other topics within the field of psychology.
A definitive Record ranking of late night Whitmans’ By NICHOLAS GOLDROSEN EXECUTIVE EDITOR Between Monday night editorial meetings, late-night layout sessions and the rest of our busy lives, we at the Record take the options for latenight nourishment at the College quite seriously. As part of our commitment to deep investigative journalism, the Record staff endeavored to purchase every single item offered at Whitmans’ Snack Bar, sample them and rate them in order to put together a comprehensive guide to all the culinary delicacies available for purchase there. Our methodology was nothing less than rigorous: At least three editors sampled and rated each item on a numerical scale, and the average rankings are reflected here. Whether for a weekday study session or a weekend nightcap, here is our definitive ranking of Whitmans’ Snack Bar offerings.
THE BEST
1
Mac and Cheese
Rating 9.75, Cost $2.50
Ah, mac and cheese, comfort food and dorm room microwave staple. Whitmans’ variety seemed just the perfect balance: not too heavy, like some Snack Bar offerings, but also not so light as to leave you wanting more. At $2.50, it can be doubled up for a more substantial mac-themed meal or serve as a side for something else. Heck, if you have a spare 50 cents on Eph Points, you can go triple mac and triple your pleasure.
2
Mozzarella Sticks Rating 9, Cost $3.25
We at the Record are of the opinion that cheese is good. In fact, it’s quite good. We like it with mac, and we also like it in stick form. The chewy, stringy goodness of
mozzarella sticks never fails to bring a smile to our faces and pep to our steps. The marinara sauce, plus the plethora of dipping options at the silverware counter, make mozzarella sticks a flavorful and filling option. Their higher price makes them a bit less versatile than mac and cheese, but they’d pair well as a side with a burger.
3
Chicken Tenders Rating 9, Cost $4.99
Chicken tenders were also a crowd-pleaser; the decreased breading on the latest version served at Whitmans’ has certainly increased their appeal. The top-ranked meat product on our list, the chicken tenders bring about a certain childhood nostalgia. The price of $4.99, though, means that they’ll be the main attraction for your Snack Bar order; suggested pairings include French fries, onion rings or a small gelato.
4
Fried Green Beans Rating 8.7, Cost $2.50
Because nutrition and health are important, we at the Record believe that sometimes you should have some vegetables with your fried foods – the two main food groups. Fried green beans hit the sweet spot, with their fried and crunchy exterior satisfyingly yielding to a nutritious and warm veggie center. Add in a rad dipping sauce, and these bad boys mean business.
5
Chicken Shawarma Rating 8.5, Cost $4.99
There’s something about chicken shawarma from Whitmans’ that always makes us feel
slightly healthier. We think it’s because it has all those chopped -up cucumbers and tomatoes in it. When unrolled slightly and spritzed with some lemon juice, the chicken shawarma can feel downright gourmet. Offering a nice break from the cheesy and fried, it’s a filling and toothsome choice for a Snack Bar order. Try something different; take a ride on the shawarma side.
THE WORST Hot Dog
Rating 4.7, Cost $1.70 Given its low price, one could theoretically could use a whole Snack Bar swipe to purchase four hot dogs. However, sometimes quantity just can’t make up for quality, and that was the case for the hot dog we tried. A good hot dog will remind you of a summer day and backyard patio grills: nice char marks, a crispy exterior and good crunch as you bite in, paired with a toasty, thick bun. This hot dog lacked char marks, was limp to the bite and sat upon a cold, thin bun.
polarizing ingredients. The Rueben is an ambitious culinary endeavor, and we didn’t feel that this one properly blended all the individual flavors to produce a robust and unified gustatory experience.
Salad Options
Rating 4.3, Cost $3.25 Ordering salad at Snack Bar: the ultimate sign of you either being super committed to your healthy eating or of your remorse at having eaten seven scoops of ice cream at Mission earlier that day. In short, a salad at Snack Bar is what you make of it. You have so much range to customize and plan – perhaps for you, your special salad would be a perfect 10. For us, though, we felt that the salad offering simply was not on the level of Snack Bar’s other dishes. Snack Bar offers something different from the usual three square meals a day – it’s the triangle meal, if you will. The same exact type of salad is available at lunch or dinner; you owe it to yourself to mix it up at Snack Bar.
Grilled Cheese Rating 4, Cost $2.10
Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave, you ask us. Does grilled cheese not fulfill all your desires for fried, greasy, cheesy unctuousness? This grilled cheese offered too much bread for too little cheese, though, and we found the American cheese to be a bit, well, blasé. Though grilled cheese is undoubtedly a childhood classic, we would look elsewhere on the menu for our dairy delights (see mac and cheese and mozzarella sticks).
Pastrami Reuben Rating 4, Cost $4.99
NICHOLAS GOLDROSEN/EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Members of the Record’s Editorial Board gathered to sample every offering at Whitmans’ Snack Bar and compile a definitive ranking.
The Rueben is like the socks and Birkenstocks of the sandwich world: If you’re going to do it, you had better rock it. Sauerkraut, pastrami, Swiss, rye and Russian dressing are all strong flavors and can be
Veggie Pocket
Rating 3, Cost $2.25 A plain pita folded around lettuce, tomato and cucumber, with a slice of cheese: This, my friends, is the veggie pocket. It offers nothing that some other dish at Snack Bar can’t provide. Want a pita? Get a pita and hummus. Want vegetables? Get them on top of a burger or chicken patty. Want cheese? Get mac and cheese or mozz sticks. Want a fun and flirty veggie option? Treat yourself to the garden burger. Unless you want to pretend that you’re eating a lunch from the last day or WOOLF when you ran out of instant hummus and most of the cheese – then get the veggie pocket.
8 ARTS
The Williams Record
April 25, 2018
Caitlin Canty ’04 releases new album, stirs up Americana scene By DANNY JIN EXECUTIVE EDITOR The album cover of Motel Bouquet, the March 30 release from singer-songwriter Caitlin Canty ’04, shows a bunch of yellow roses in a plastic water bottle sitting inside a cupholder as a car zooms down the highway. While on tour with Darlingside, Canty received the flowers as an anonymous gift at her merchandise table. She began taking them with her wherever she went to serve as a lighthearted reminder of the joy in making music amidst the daily grind of a touring artist. “What a beautiful way to make out this ridiculous traveling life we live,” she said. “It felt like such a sweet, happy way to keep that spark – the reason we get out there, that grind.” After graduating from the College, Canty spent five years working office jobs in New York – playing music on the side – before trading her cubicle for the stage in 2009. She has since fully embraced the traveling musician’s lifestyle. In 2015, Canty moved to Nashville, Tenn., where she took advantage of Music City’s plethora of accomplished performers. In the past three years, she has toured extensively alongside the likes of Peter Bradley Adams, the Milk Carton Kids and Jeffrey Foucault, who produced Canty’s critically-acclaimed 2015 album Reckless Skyline. Canty’s first release since moving to Nashville, Motel Bouquet sits at the intersection of devastation and hope – in her own words, “the storm that had come before and the light that comes after.” Nashville resident
PHOTO COURTESY OF DIGITAL.VPR.NET.
Caitlin Canty ’04, who is currently on tour, was recently featured in Rolling Stones’ “10 New Country Artists You Need to Know.” and Punch Brothers banjoist Noam Pikelny produced the album, which was recorded with a live band over the course of just three days. While featuring the intelligent and considerate introspection that has always characterized her songwriting, Motel Bouquet sees Canty’s voice soar higher than ever before. “Everything kind of felt natural with this record,” Canty said. “It all made sense and fell into place.” As a self-described musical minimalist, Canty brings in a full band for the sinister “Scattershot.” Somber fiddle licks blend beautifully with Canty’s tender alto, which The San Francisco Chronicle called “casually devastating.” On “Motel,” Canty mixes in a pedal steel guitar to achieve a freer sound than she has pre-
viously offered. She sings in the refrain, “Yellow sun beat on the window/ Light cut straight through the blinds/ It was love that broke my sorrow/ Like the day breaks the night.” “Motel” may well be Canty’s best effort since 2015’s haunting masterpiece “Get Up,” which was nominated for Song of the Year at the Folk Alliance International Music Awards. Years before Canty began recording in studios, she got her start in songwriting at the College. A heptathlete for women’s track and field, Canty studied under the tutelage of Bernice Lewis, artist associate in songwriting. “She sort of came to me a lot more fully-formed than most kids do,” Lewis said of Canty. “She already had her skill set and
a style of writing and great vocals and even a lot of self-confidence.” Canty took a Winter Study course on beginner’s songwriting one year, and she took another on advanced songwriting the next year. “I had an acoustic guitar that I got right before I left for college,” she said. “I loved singing and was obsessed with songs – everything from Tom Petty to Led Zeppelin to Johnny Cash.” She said that Lewis’ courses allowed her to begin investigating how songs moved her – and how to move others through her own music. While writing was difficult at first, Canty attributes much of her success to hard work and a refusal to give up. “It took me a while to be able to build up the songs that were good enough to play every night
and start to fill that suitcase with those experiences and songs that I felt I wanted to sing every night,” she said. Canty emphasized the importance of using personal experience and reflection as fuel for songwriting. “We aren’t just robots putting words on paper,” she said. “We’re trying to live the life that fills us with empathy and things we want to share. We all have to find our voices, find our paths.” Canty has a close relationship with Darlingside, an indie folk band of Williams alumni. She overlapped with some of the band’s members at the College, and Darlingside’s youngest members graduated the same year that Canty quit her day job to pursue music.
Don Mitchell ’06, a guitar and banjo player for Darlingside, encouraged the two acts to collaborate when they were both getting started. Darlingside moved into a house in Hadley, Mass., and Canty would often take the bus from New York to play with the band. Later on, Darlingside began performing as a wedding band to make ends meet, and Canty joined on several occasions. “When you’re the dance band for a wedding, your job is to get the party started,” Canty said. “It’s a good workout.” Currently on tour with Pikelny, Canty will be playing in Cambridge tonight and in Northampton on Friday. “Noam’s going to play guitar and some oddball instruments,” Canty said. “It’s one microphone – probably one of my favorite ways I’ve ever toured. I’ve played with a lot of people, but it’s really special to take your producer out and play a duo show. The plan right now is to tour behind the album and start going through songs for the new one.” While Rolling Stone named her as one of the “10 New Country Artists You Need to Know” in January, Canty said that she sees herself as part of the Americana genre – a catch-all term for roots-based music containing elements of folk, blues, rock and bluegrass. Regardless of categorization, she said that she will continue to focus on what she does best: writing songs. “I don’t know what sort of witchcraft is responsible for my or anyone’s ability to stay on this career path – if you can call it that – except writing good songs and not giving up,” she said.
OFF THE RECORD.
Want to open a new chapter of your life? Looking to fall in love with some enthralling titles? Look below for our picks of captivating reads that’ll have you hooked until the last page!
‘READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN’ AZAR NAFISI
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE-POOL.COM.
Although it offers a certain stop-motion whimsy, ‘Isle of Dogs’ falls flat in its depiction of Japanese culture.
‘Isle of Dogs’ tiptoes line between homage and cultural appropriation By CECELIA MESSBAUER STAFF WRITER Isle of Dogs, playing at Images through tomorrow, is a film that rises and falls on its weirdness. This is the second foray into stop-motion animation by director Wes Anderson, who broke into the medium in 2009 with an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. The film’s premise is fun to explore and pays off with many a heartfelt character moment amidst a surprisingly dark story. In the process, though, Anderson seems to get too clever in executing his ambition, and the result is a film that is uncomfortably close to cultural appropriation. Set in a dystopian future Japan, Isle of Dogs tells the story of a world where a dog flu epidemic has spurred Mayor Kobayashi of fictional Megasaki City to banish all dogs to Trash Island, which is exactly what it sounds like. The first dog banished is Spots, the personal bodyguard dog for the mayor’s young ward Atari, who defiantly hijacks a small plane and flies to Trash Island to recover his best friend. In the process, he meets a gang of dogs, including the cynical stray Chief, who helps him in his quest and eventually leads him to discover a much darker conspiracy that will spur him to challenge the mayor’s regime itself. The animation is intricately realized but also deliberately artificial, and Anderson’s signature wide-angle shots give the proceedings a distinctly storybook feel. This intentional ar-
tifice also allows for some unsettling scenes of violence that are unusually graphic for an animated feature, and the ways in which the human characters are drawn somewhat unrealistically further cements the sense that the film takes place from a dog’s perspective. This gimmick, however, is where problems start to arise. The dogs all speak English and are voiced by big name white celebrities, with Bryan Cranston as Chief and Edward Norton, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson and Tilda Swinton all featured in the dog ensemble. The humans, meanwhile, led by Koyu Rankin as Atari, all speak un-subtitled Japanese that is only occasionally translated. While the intent seems to place an English-speaking audience even more firmly with the perspective of the dogs, the reality is that the Japanese characters seem foreign in their own country. Logistical problems also arise from this mechanism; there are numerous points in the story where the audience needs to understand the human dialogue in order for the plot to advance, making the insertion of translators seem arbitrary and forced, less the result of natural storytelling decisions than of the film writing itself into a corner. Worst of all, the need for an English speaker to drive the plot on the human side leads to the unnecessary insertion of Greta Gerwig’s foreign exchange student Tracy Walker, a text-
book white savior who rallies her student newspaper and the otherwise passive Japanese populace to oppose the mayor’s anti-dog administration. In addition to being an exhausting reiteration of a tired and offensive trope, Walker’s character is even more frustrating because it is solely the product of the haphazard language barrier conceit. There is no reason why the Japanese dialogue could not be subtitled; the dogs could still be shown to not understand Japanese any more than they understand human English, and the human characters could have been more consistently fleshed out instead of unnecessarily othered. For that matter, there is no reason why Japanese voice actors could not have been cast to play the dogs, which would have done a great deal to make Anderson’s film more of a respectful tribute to Japanese culture than an act of appropriation that treats a Japanese setting as a prop for Anderson’s directorial quirks. Isle of Dogs is undoubtedly fun to watch for its creativity and deft emotional payoffs, but the experience is significantly marred by the consistent sense of watching a filmmaker outsmart himself and play into harmful tropes in the process. Your mileage may vary depending on how much cultural appropriation is a deal breaker for you, but no matter where you draw the line, Isle of Dogs is a film whose considerable strengths are undercut by very questionable choices.
This gripping memoir describes the author’s experience teaching Western literature in post-revolution Iran.
‘THE UNSEEN WORLD’ LIZ MOORE This mind-bending novel takes us back to 1980s Boston where we follow the narrative of a young girl and her Alzheimers-stricken father.
‘THE GIRLS’ EMMA CLINE Inspired by the infamous case of the Manson Family, ‘The Girls’ explores the joys and confusions of adolescence through the lens of 1960s hippie culture.
‘LAB GIRL’ HOPE JAHREN This memoir chronicles the journey of a female geo-chemist and geo-biologist as she faces the triumphs and challenges of her earnest pursuit of scientific discovery.
9 ARTS
The Williams Record
April 25, 2018
Jason Hehir ’98 tackles legacy of WWE legend Andre the Giant By CHARLES XU SPORTS EDITOR Andre the Giant. The name conjures up images of the seven-foot, 500-pound Frenchman stepping over the ropes into the ring and enrapturing Americans as the face of wrestling. “I was with him one night when he drank 106 beers. 106,” wrestler Ric Flair said of Andre the Giant’s drinking ability. “It sounded like a deep roar. It would rumble,” WWE [World Wrestling Entertainment] CEO Vince K. McMahon commented on his flatulence. “He gets up, and he grabs me out of the chair and holds me up and then puts me on a piece of furniture. And he just set me up there like a little doll,” Arnold Schwarzenegger revealed of Andre the Giant’s strength. More of a character than a man, Andre Roussimoff lived a life steeped in tales and mythology, unavoidable in the public and undeniable in his popularity. So when Jason Hehir ’98 took the job of directing the HBO documentary Andre the Giant alongside executive producer Bill Simmons, he knew that he was covering not only an extremely large man, but also extremely exaggerated tales and anecdotes of the wrestler. Hehir remembers seeing Andre the Giant as a kid. “He was a ubiquitous pop cultural icon,” he explained. Hehir knew of the culture of wrestling and its reliance on tall tales and captivating backstories of the wrestlers themselves. “This entire culture was steeped in mythology and
PHOTO COURTESY OF MENTALFLOSS.
Jason Hehir ’98, an Emmy Award-winning director and producer, sought to demythologize and rehumanize the larger-than-life Andre Roussimoff. embellishment and exaggeration and sometimes blatant fabrication,” he said. “Finding out basic facts is usually pretty easy, but there isn’t a lot of journalism on wrestling, [and] there isn’t a lot of definitive fact-finding because people want to believe the unbelievable so much.” Hehir’s first challenge, in fact, was finding Roussi-
moff’s hometown in France. Though Andre the Giant was commonly introduced as hailing from Grenoble, France, he was actually from Molien, a small village east of Paris. To track down his early life, Hehir and his crew took to social media, messaging and calling his distant cousins, nieces and nephews to ultimately discover Mo-
lien. They even resorted to asking people on the streets to find potential leads on Roussimoff’s hometown. The myths of Roussimoff’s background and childhood were another source of mystery. Hehir recalled being surprised that the wrestler himself was complicit in complicating the puzzle. “Andre would say that he had
an eight-foot grandfather,” Hehir said. “He’s the one who would say Samuel Beckett drove him to school. None of those things were true, but he was happy to perpetuate myths about himself.” Yet despite the exaggerations and hyperboles, one common truth runs throughout the documentary: Andre the Giant’s role as a gentle,
kind figure outside of the ring. He played the rhymeloving Fezzik in The Princess Bride, and Hehir had the chance to hear opinions of Roussimoff from both the film and wrestling industries. “It was refreshing to see that people who were on the payroll had the exact same opinion [of Roussimoff] as people who were outside the WWE sphere,” Hehir said. “Everyone agreed [that] Andre was a peaceful, gentle, kind guy, so it was nice to see that.” In addition to outlining Andre the Giant’s rise to fame, Hehir’s documentary also features the realities of life as a performer, as Roussimoff tried to reconcile the demands of the business with his failing health. Notably, Hehir caught WWE CEO Vince McMahon shedding tears on camera as he reminisced about how Roussimoff’s life ended, riddled with back pain and immobility. The film also underscores his commitment to performance, as Hall of Fame wrestler Hulk Hogan recalls Roussimoff asking him to perform a body slam even as he struggled to walk. Hehir remembered how Hogan reminisced about their friendship, with a half-hour interview turning into three hours. “It was really special for us to catch,” he said. Hehir’s Andre the Giant, thus, is a thoughtful and emotional tribute to the man inside and outside the ring. From the mythology surrounding him to his imposing figure, Andre the Giant was truly an “eighth wonder of the world.”
New WCFM initiative highlights rising musicians on campus By HANNAH TAGER STAFF WRITER On Thursday night, running straight from the bus after crew practice, Piper Higgins ’21 took to the tiny stage of Sawyer Library 275 to play her guitar and sing to a crowd of eight people. Higgins played as part of “Sawyer Sessions,” a live music initiative from the Williamstown radio station, WCFM 91.9. Sawyer Sessions was inspired by NPR’s video series “Tiny Desk,” which spotlights new and upcoming music artists in an intimate setting. Mano Sundaresan ’19, the general manager at WCFM 91.9, came up with the idea for the session. “I’m trying to spotlight artists who really deserve it and aren’t in an organized group on campus, like Homebrew or The Hit Clips,” he explained. In place of a tiny desk, Sawyer 275 serves as the stage for artists featured in Sawyer Sessions. The room is a professional recording studio with eight seats for students and fans to listen to the live session. Sawyer Sessions will happen every other Thursday night in the studio, and the radio station welcomes any and all to come watch the recording.
For the second episode of Sawyer Sessions, Higgins played on her guitar and sang original songs of a genre that could loosely be described as indie folk. She first played “Better Cure” from her first album Time Machine then “Hallucinations” and “Port Elizabeth” from her newest EP Hallucinations. Her last song was “Pecan Pie,” also from Time Machine. All of Higgins’ original albums and covers can be found on her Soundcloud page. She spoke to the audience throughout her performance, laughing and saying “this was fun” as she closed her set. While the live performances of Sawyer Sessions are a treat for the few who can squeeze into Sawyer 275, the sessions are largely an opportunity to record and promote the music of campus musicians. Referring to the music scene on campus, Sundaresan said that “the main problem is not that there aren’t artists, but they just don’t have outlets. We’re just trying to maximize the outlets they do have on campus.” After a recording session in the studio, Events, Classroom and Studio Support Specialist Patrick Gary and his team at Sawyer Library edit the video and audio recordings before
sending them to WCFM. From there, Internal Music Director of WCFM Ariella Markowitz ’19 creates a short promo clip of the session, and Sundaresan uploads the recording in full to the radio station’s YouTube page. The radio station then promotes the recording on Facebook, Instagram and its email newsletter. The Sawyer Sessions also function as a way to keep the radio station relevant. “With the whole notion of radio dying, it’s good to see stations branching out and trying to get views and listens in other ways,” Sundaresan explained, referencing the efforts of NPR’s “Tiny Desk” series. By promoting musicians and their work through platforms other than radio, WCFM is looking to broaden its audience and become more of a far-reaching musical hub on campus. In the future, WCFM is hoping to host a myriad of genres, whether they be classical, jazz or rap. For the next Sawyer Session on May 3 at 7 p.m., Leonard Bopp ’19 and others will be performing some of Bopp’s original contemporary classical compositions. If interested, Sundaresan encourages any artists or groups on campus to reach out to him about recording a Sawyer Session.
PHOTO COURTESY OF WCFM.
Piper Higgins ’21 played an intimate set of original songs in Sawyer 275 on Thursday night.
PHOTO COURTESY OF FESTIVAL.VCONLINE.
A new documentary film explores the unlikely union of urban street art and ancient Hawaiian culture.
‘Mele Murals’ explores modern Hawaii By KARMEN LIANG CONTRIBUTING WRITER Set against the backdrop of a small rural town on the Island of Hawaii, Mele Murals chronicles how modern graffiti and ancient Hawaiian culture have come to find common ground in a movement that is vastly greater than the sum of its parts. An Asian-American Heritage Month Initiative, the film was screened on March 12 in the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance. The documentary follows Estria Miyashiro and John Hina (aka Prime), two iconic street artists who found themselves drawn to the potential of visual storytelling. They formed Mele Murals, an ambitious project that allowed Hawaii’s youth to confront the effects of modernization and environmental change on their native culture and land. Through the language of public art, a group of students from Waimea found themselves in conversation with their Hawaiian identities and left a lasting and tangible impact not only on their community, but also on Prime and Estria themselves. During the early days of Hawaii’s emerging local hiphop culture, Prime made a name for himself as one of the dominating forces of the Honolulu graffiti scene. As Prime grew in fame, Estria was also breaking out onto the scene, establishing a street reputation while studying art at the University of San Francisco. Following different paths, both discovered that graffiti
could be the answer to questions they had been grappling with – questions about their history, identity and responsibilities as Hawaiian people. The pair unexpectedly found themselves working together when their personal journeys led them to a native Hawaiian charter school in Waimea. Mele Murals is an art project born of necessity and curiosity – a longing to understand the modern Hawaiian identity by looking at native lands and mele, Hawaiian songs and lyrics. In collaboration with the Kanu o ka ʻĀina New Century Public Charter School, the project culminated in students and community members creating three murals. Students worked on conceptualizing their compositions with various community members, focusing all the while on understanding the spirituality and history of the stories they would be telling on the walls. With the spiritual guidance of Auntie Pua Case, the artistic mentorship of Prime and Estria and the immense dedication of each student, the murals brought to life the stories of the Waimea community. To give more insight into the process of filming the documentary, a question-andanswer session with director Tad Nakamura followed the screening of Mele Murals at the College. The event was hosted by Visiting Assistant Professor of American Studies Anthony Kim and Postdoctoral Fellow in Art History Kailani Polzak. After brief introductions, Nakamura ex-
plained his involvement with Mele Murals. The documentary was co-produced with ‘Ōiwi TV, a Hawaiian-run production company. As this was his first time working in an indigenous community, Nakamura recalled that his role as an outsider made him attentive of accurately presenting a story that was not his. When asked about what was left unsaid in the film, Nakamura spoke about the conscious effort to present a view of modern Hawaii and depict a lifestyle that is alive and evolving. To avoid falling into the trope of “museumization,” decisions were made to leave out subtitles and certain context about Hawaiian culture. In Nakamura’s words, “If you don’t know, you don’t know.” Structuring the narrative around Prime and Estria was another important directorial decision. The hope was that introducing a diversity of experiences in a modern context would counter the usual one-dimensional representation of native Hawaiians in films. The modern Hawaiian identity, in all of its layered complexity, is explored through Prime, Estria and the Waimea community. Their story is one with intergenerational and intercultural resonance. It acknowledges the perpetual waves of consequence from colonial exploitation but firmly reasserts what it means to be native Hawaiian. As Nakamura put it, Mele Murals offers a window into modern Hawaii that allows “stories [to] be told from within.”
10 SPORTS
The Williams Record
April 25, 2018
Mason Darrow describes coming out process at Anything But Straight event By DANNY JIN EXECUTIVE EDITOR Mason Darrow had initially planned to keep his sexual orientation a secret. He kept himself busy with football throughout high school, making an effort to fulfill jock stereotypes so that he could avoid confronting his sexuality. In 2013, however, as a first-year offensive lineman at Princeton, Darrow realized that the façade he had been maintaining was unsustainable. Thought to be the first openly gay player in Div. I football history, Darrow shared his experience on Friday in an event organized by Anything But Straight (ABS) in Athletics. Addressing a Paresky Auditorium audience of 50, he reassured student-athletes that coming out was “not as scary as it all seems.” Darrow said that he knew he was gay in high school but chose to conceal his sexuality by dating women. Going into college, he had no plans of coming out. “I’m just going to play football,” he thought. “This other thing will hopefully work itself out, and we won’t have to deal with it.” But once he arrived on campus, Darrow realized that he was tired of trying to keep up the “hyper jock” masquerade. Furthermore, Princeton offered an opportunity for a fresh start, and the school’s liberal environment led him to believe that it was no longer necessary to hide his sexuality. Yet the prospect of coming out was intimidating. “Is this going to work?” he asked. “Am I going to have to stop playing football?” His fear got the best of him, and he held off on making a decision. The predicament continued to nag Darrow, and his athletic and
academic performances began to suffer. Everywhere he went, the agony followed. Celebrating a Week 5 victory over Cornell, Darrow spent the night partying with teammates but chose to stand and observe from a distance. The next day, he came out to a few friends from his ’zee group – a small group of first-year Princeton students living together with a residential college adviser. The conversation went well, and Darrow was encouraged. A weight had been lifted from his shoulders – at least temporarily. When football practice resumed the following Tuesday, the torment returned. “I thought, ‘Okay, these people know, and I kind of want these [other] people to know, but I don’t know how they are going to take it,’” he said. He had trouble focusing, and his performance in workouts and practices continued to waver. Others took notice. “My o-line coach was on my ass all week,” Darrow said. By Thursday, a fellow lineman, Caleb Slate, approached him to ask what was wrong. Despite Darrow’s insistence that there was “no need to talk about it,” Slate urged Darrow to discuss what had been troubling him. They planned to meet in Slate’s room that night. Darrow considered inventing an excuse to skip the meeting, but he eventually capitulated. The cloud had been hanging over his head for too long, and it was time to put it to rest. Besides, he felt a responsibility to his teammate. “He put his neck out to make sure I was okay, so I wasn’t going to blow him off,” Darrow said. “He was like, ‘All right, if this is about a girl, I’m going to be pissed,’” Darrow remembered.
“I just looked at him and said, ‘Well, it’s kind of the opposite… Caleb, I’m gay.’” Slate reassured Darrow that his sexuality would not cause him to be viewed any differently. “You’re great in meetings, lifts and practices,” Slate told him. “This doesn’t change anything from my perspective.” They capped the night off by ordering mozzarella sticks and playing video games – back to normal. “The sense of relief I felt in that moment, and the love that I had for that kid in that moment, I still struggle to put into words,” Darrow said. From there, Darrow continued coming out to friends and teammates. Princeton went on to win the 2013 Ivy League championship, and Darrow came out to his family after that game. Two weeks later, he was about to come out to a friend, but the friend had already heard from someone else. “That was the moment I knew everything was going to be fine,” Darrow said. “Everybody knows – job’s done.” While Darrow said that he did not face many negative reactions to his coming out, he feared being left out of typical locker room banter. “Guys were trying to figure out where the line was, what could be said and what jokes were appropriate,” he explained. “It took a couple days to figure out... I’m still the same Mason.” After Darrow’s sophomore year, former Missouri defensive end Michael Sam came out before entering the NFL Draft, a landmark moment for gay athletes. Darrow realized that he, too, had an opportunity to become a role model to young players. Going public would allow Darrow to inspire others facing issues similar to the ones
PHOTO COURTESY OF OUT.COM.
On Friday, Mason Darrow shared his experience as an openly gay player in Div. I football. he once had. He wanted to be someone they could identify with – a figure he had lacked in high school. He chose to share his story with Outsports.com, and the response was tremendous. “I get out of class, and I have 400 friend requests and a couple hundred Facebook messages,” Darrow said. “Responses ranged from ‘Princeton class of ’79, way to represent the university,’ to ‘I didn’t play sports, but your story really resonated with me – thanks for sharing,’ to ‘I’m a
sophomore on the basketball team – can you give me some advice on coming out to my team?’” After graduating in 2017, Darrow began working in business development for the Cleveland Indians franchise. He has joined the Cleveland chapter of Stonewall Sports, an LGBTQ+ community-based sports organization. Darrow added that one of the best way teams can make all players feel welcome is to remain conscious of the language used in locker rooms. “You have to make sure you’re embracing
everybody and not necessarily assuming that all the ears in the room are straight,” he said. He has few regrets about coming out. “I had such an idea of all the negative reactions,” Darrow said. “My biggest regret is not trusting the guys in that locker room earlier on. “Everything that has to do with being a good teammate has nothing to do with sexuality. If you show up, do the work and have a good attitude, people aren’t going to care what goes on outside of the locker room.”
CAPTAINS’ CORNER: JAKE FOEHL '19
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION.
By CASSIE DESHONG SPORTS EDITOR
Team: Men's golf Hometown: Williamstown, Mass. Residence: Hubbell Major: Statistics Snack bar order: Nachos with buffalo sauce, chicken and onions
What’s your background in sports? I went to a very small high school, so it was really easy to do pretty much whatever sport you wanted to do. I was a soccer player, on the Nordic ski team in the winter and, during the spring, I was a member of the tennis team. I played everything for all four years of high school. I didn’t play competitive golf until I got to college. Golf was always something I considered to be my summer sport. It was a hobby, but I was pretty good at it and thought I could play in college even when I was a young high school student. I loved soccer. Soccer was probably my favorite sport all through high school. I had great teammates. A lot of them ended up being my best friends, but in the back of mind, I always thought I was going to be a college golfer someday. It kind of
worked out that I am from Williamstown. I had a relationship with [head coach Josh] Hillman, and so I felt that if there was any place I could walk onto the golf team, it would probably be my hometown college. I have been playing golf since I was 4- or 5-years-old. I always loved the sport. Even when I was younger, I would get super frustrated by it. I was one of those angry little kids that was wondering why he can’t get the ball off the ground. I think as I matured, I have gotten a lot calmer and enjoy the sport for what it is. Why did you decide to come to Williams? This is not the only reason, but I come from a very Williams family. I am fourth generation on my dad’s side and third generation on my mom’s side. Plus, throw in my older brother who went to Williams, my younger brother is going to be a freshman next year and there are some sporadic aunts and uncles in there. Since I grew up in Williamstown, I basically grew up worshipping the College. Going to all the sporting events, it was basically ingrained in my mind that Williams is the best school on the planet, and Amherst is the worst school on the planet. So when it got time to pick colleges, I think a lot of people were expecting me to go to Williams. I didn’t want to give off the air that Williams was the only place for me. I applied regular decision and got in, thankfully, but I think in the back of my mind, it was always my number one choice. It was hard for me to picture going anywhere else, especially growing up the way I did. What is the dynamic of the golf team? It is a very small team. It has changed since I’ve gotten here. My freshman year, we had a huge team. There were about 16 of us. It was a ton of fun, but it was difficult to manage a golf team in that way. We have trimmed the team down, and we are down to eight. I like it a lot. It is a small team. Everyone is fun to be around, and they all work hard and are
really dedicated and love the sport. It is nice when you have a group of people that are all passionate about something and share that passion with you. I think it is really important that that [passion] shines through on a team as small as golf. As mentally intense as it is, it is really important that we all love the sport and have a good time when we are together. We don't necessarily take ourselves too seriously. We enjoy the times we get to play golf with each other. What is it like working with your co-captains, Grant Raffel ’17.5 and Sam Goldenring ’20? It has been great. In the fall, we had a super senior, Grant Raffel, on the team. He had already been captain for a year and exhibited all the qualities you would want in a captain. He, plus the other seniors that were here last year, were role models for me. I was watching them a lot, knowing that I was going to step into an upperclassman role this year. I tried to follow their lead and lead by example. Having Grant here in the fall, it made that transition for me, only as a junior, easier. Having somebody above me who I could look up to and defer to on some things was really helpful. Now that he is gone, I have been able to step up into the role of the older captain. My co-captain Sam is a sophomore and is very easy to work with. We pretty much see eye to eye on most things. It is important to have a good relationship on your team, especially between the captains, because when it comes down to decide who gets to start and who is not starting, we need to be able to talk openly with the coach. What has it been like working with head coach Josh Hillman? That has been great. The golf coaching world is an interesting scene. There are not a lot of actual golf coaches that coach golf in the NESCAC. For example, the Middlebury team is coached by its former hockey coach. The Bowdoin team has a squash coach as its golf coach,
and the Trinity team also has a hockey coach as its golf coach. I think our coach is the only PGA-certified golf professional that coaches in the NESCAC. And, he is the only one that played big time college golf, too. He understands exactly what it is like to be on a college golf team. He knows we need to balance golf with school, especially at a place like Williams. He is always stressing that we need to get academics out of the way. Once we get our work done, then we can really focus on golf. He has been great. Other coaches in the NESCAC don’t have the same technical understanding as he does. We can work on something specific in our swing, course management and course strategy. He is really knowledgeable about those things.
gotiated on a golf course. I am not necessarily excited for that side of things – I am just excited to play a game that I love for the rest of my life.
How do you mentally prepare for a tournament?
Our team goal is always to win NESCACs and go to Nationals. Individually, we all want to put ourselves in positions to play well. Even if you o everything right, there is no guarantee that you will play well in the end. Through hard work and dedication, we all try to put ourselves in good positions to do well. Golf is one of those things where sometimes it is not going to be there and some days it is. The season has been going all right. We have been putting in a lot of time, and we definitely have put ourselves in good positions to do well.
Golf tournaments are really fun. It kind of consumes you for the week leading up to tournament. I [think] constantly about the shots I want to make. I have been thinking about how I want to play the course, how I want to swing and how I want the club to feel in my hands. Golf is all visualization. You can prepare yourself by practicing as much as you can, but in the end, if you don’t prepare yourself mentally, you are not going to play well. You have to mix the actual practicing with visualization of how you want to play. What makes you want to continue playing golf? It is such a great sport. It is by far my favorite sport. It is one of the most interesting sports I have ever been exposed to. People are bad at it, but for some reason, it is so addicting that no one can stop playing it. Everyone that plays it once wants to play again, even if they are terrible. The sense of accomplishment that you get when you perform the way you want has a high that brings people back. I am excited that it is a sport I can play for the rest of my life. People say that now I have a huge step up in the business world because everyone knows that most business deals are ne-
What is the worst thing about playing golf? It can beat you up. The most difficult part of golf is the way it can treat you mentally sometimes. It is a very mental game. If you start losing your head on the course, things can get out of control very quickly. It is easy to do that when you start doubting yourself or you get super frustrated. Those things aren’t helpful on the golf course. You have to be tough mentally and play each shot as it is. What are your team and personal goals?
What is your opinion on golf being referred to as the “lazy man’s sport?” It is. It is for people that want to make it a lazy man’s sport. If you want, you can show up to a golf course, pay the extra $20 for a cart and drive around with your friends all day. That is great, but it is not a sport then. It is more of a recreational activity. For everyone that says golf is a lazy man’s sport, I point them in the direction of all the professional golfers that play the game at the top level. They are all incredibly fit and strong. Some of them, especially Tiger Woods, Rory McIlory and Dustin Johnson, are incredible athletes. Do you feel pressure to lead the team?
Not really. I think once you get to college, maybe apart from freshman year, everyone on the sport plays a leadership role, some more than others. Freshman year, there is an adjustment period. You are getting used to the academics of Williams and getting used to playing a sport on a college level. Once you get to sophomore year, you naturally become more of a leader. You understand that there are people below you that view you as a role model. For me, the leadership comes naturally. I try to be as good of an example for my younger teammates. I try to be there for them personally, too. It is important to establish a personal connection with your teammates. I am trying to create an environment where everyone can succeed academically, athletically and as a social member of the golf team. What has been your most memorable experience? There have been memorable good times and memorable bad times. I think my most memorable moment was my freshman year. My first weekend at Williams, we had our first home tournament. I was coming in as a walk-on who had played a couple junior tournaments, but other than that, I had never played a competitive round of golf. Then, all of a sudden, I was thrown into my first college tournament in the first weekend of school. I was super nervous. I felt a lot of pressure to prove myself and prove that I could actually do this. I knew I had put in the time in the summer and over the years to play well when it came time. I had been in enough situations, whether it was playing soccer, Nordic skiing or tennis, where my best game is expected and required of me. I knew what it felt like in that situation. I ended up going out and playing really well. I kind of stumbled for the last few holes, buts I broke 80 [strokes], which is generally good on the golf course. I will remember that round as proving to myself that I belong here. It validated all the work I put in that summer and made me believe in myself.
April 25, 2018
SPORTS 11
The Williams Record
Peter Clements ’08 aims high in his final years of competitive rowing By CASSIE DESHONG SPORTS EDITOR
back basically as a lightweight.” Clements returned from Egypt ready to pick up right where he left off. Selected as a co-captain for his senior year, Clements led the 1v to the grand finals of the ECAC [Eastern College Athletic Conference] and a successful run at Henley. When Clements got to the College in 2004, however, men’s crew was a small and less successful team. He and three other experienced first-years were immediately brought up to varsity due to the team’s lack of personnel. “There was only an eight and a four for varsity and a freshman/novice eight,” Clements said. “It wasn’t necessarily that the results were bad. They just lost a lot of seniors. As first-years, we had really good opportunities for coming in when we did. We did win Little Threes and the grand final in New Englands, but I don’t think we did much else. “Toward the end, we were winning. We beat MIT one year and swept Little Threes. We went from having one eight and a four to three varsity 8+s and a first-year eight. The team grew quite a bit.” Clements believes that the best thing about rowing is the unforgiving nature of it. “No one's going to lie to you except yourself,” Clements said. “The time standards are what they are. The boat moves as fast as it moves, and everyone knows how fast everyone else is. There
A four-year student-athlete at the College, Peter Clements ’08 majored in political science and rowed in the Varsity 8+. Attending high school at the Peddie School, Clements began rowing in the spring of his eighth grade year. Knowing that he wanted to continue rowing in college, he applied only to schools with strong rowing and academic programs. “My goal was to row somewhere in college, and Williams was a good fit,” Clements said. His high school coach had encouraged him to consider the College, and after being accepted, he took a year off before arriving on campus in 2004. Clements rowed throughout his four years, with the exception of his junior fall, when he studied abroad in Cairo, Egypt. He joined an Egyptian rowing club so that he could continue rowing daily, but he found a different dynamic there. “I was basically training on my own,” Clements recalled. “[It was] very different from a standard team environment. The boathouse was closer to my apartment than Onota [Lake] is to campus. The water there is also really good. You row on the Nile, but sort of on a channel off to the side. And because it was the Middle East and you are on the Mediterranean diet and not drinking alcohol, I think I lost about 30 pounds. I came
is no room for excuses. You either win or you don’t.” “There is zero ambiguity,” he added. “When you’re having a great season, you don’t worry about those questions. When you are having a bad season, you try to make excuses. But at the end of the day, if your boat is not doing well and you get pushed out of it and it starts doing well, that is on you.” After graduating, Clements took a year off from rowing. He resumed training at a less competitive level, but his times improved significantly in his postgraduate years. Clements reached new lifting benchmarks and distances. In addition, he began training for marathons and started building up his stamina for long distances. Clements has fulfilled his goal of setting an age-group record. In 2017, he set the American record in the half marathon for 30-39 heavyweight men at 1:12:55.1 on the erg. It took Clements two tries to set the record. “The first year, I came close, but when it came time to execute, I blew up,” he said. “I failed. It was the second year [when I set the record]. I was a little more conservative and a little more cautious. I had help from teammates to pace me through it.” Clements chose the half marathon because he figured setting a record in a longer distance erg event would be more manageable and longlasting than setting a record in
PHOTO COURTESY OF ROW2K.COM.
Peter Clements ’08 won the full marathon event at the 2018 Erg Sprints in Alexandria, Va. a 2k or 6k event. “For 2k and 6k [events], national team guys are going to be breaking those every week,” Clements said. “Some of the longer stuff, that’s a little more self-selecting. There are only a couple guys trying to do the marathon or half marathon or the hour record… Those are guys who put a lot of miles in – aren’t necessarily national team guys, but they work hard. I figured I could get one of those.” In February, at the 2018 Erg Sprints World Rowing Indoor
Championship in Alexandria, Va., Clements won the marathon event in 2:35:52.2, holding an average split of 1:50.8. Clements wants to beat the clock. “I only get so many opportunities to go at this level in my life,” he said. “I have a baby now. We are starting a family. I don’t get to do two-a-day [practices] anymore. I [have] other priorities eating at my time, which is a good thing. You’ve got to take these opportunities when you can. That is sort of the rea-
son why I have been rowing as hard as I can for the past couple years. I am not always going to be able to.” Clements has been part of the Potomac Boat Club since 2011, and he has been on the board of the club for the past three years as its vice president. Clements has also served as a regatta director and plans to start a women’s team. Aside from rowing, he works as a managing consultant and sees himself transitioning to running in the future.
Men’s lacrosse extends win streak Crew takes on Little Three rivals to four in victory over Bowdoin
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION.
John Hincks ’20 re-established the Ephs' five score lead after halftime. By WILL GENTILELLO STAFF WRITER
tered, tying up the score 1-1 with a goal by Matthew Crowell. The Ephs soon answered back with three straight goals, two more by Stump and one from Jared Strauss ’21. With one second left in the first quarter, Brett Kujala, assisted by Henry Savage, scored for Bowdoin, leaving Williams up 4-2. Bowdoin carried this momentum into the second quarter and, at 12:23, closed the gap to one on a goal by Jimmy Young, assisted by Kujala. The Williams offense took control of the ball for the rest of the quarter, with Stump scoring two unanswered
On Saturday, men’s lacrosse (8-6, 6-3 in the NESCAC) defeated Bowdoin 11-8 on the road, as Kevin Stump ’20 tallied a game-high six goals to lead the Ephs to their fourth consecutive win. The Ephs took control of the first quarter early on, winning the opening face-off and maintaining possession. That translated into the first Eph goal of the day by Stump at 12:02. Nearly three minutes later, the Polar Bears coun-
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goals, leaving the Ephs up 6-3 going into halftime. Rock Stewart ’20 netted a goal for the Ephs early on in the second half at 14:05, and, two minutes later, the Polar Bears countered with a goal by Kujala, assisted by Jimmy Young. Soon, Cory Lund ’21 netted back-to-back goals to give the Ephs a 9-4 lead. Less than one minute later, Bowdoin’s Reed Baker scored for the Polar Bears off of a quick feed by Zach Chandler. With 2:30 left in the third quarter, John Hincks ’20 netted a goal to bring the score to 10-5 in the Ephs’ favor heading into the fourth quarter. The Polar Bears attempted to mount a comeback during the first few minutes of the fourth quarter, with Sam Carlin and Kujala each scoring, assisted by Sam Langan. After a lull in the scoring, Stump brought the score to 11-7 with a goal in the last 45 seconds of the game. In the last 17 seconds, Jeff Powers, assisted by James Strabley, netted the final point of the game for Bowdoin, leaving the score 11-8 for the Williams win. The Ephs used one goalie, George Peele '20, who finished with 12 saves in 60 minutes of play. Eph head coach George McCormack commented on the victory. "Very good win on the road,” he said. “Bowdoin is always a tough team, and we feel fortunate to be on the winning side today coming into our final regular-season game." The Ephs return to action today for a NESCAC match-up against Middlebury at 5 p.m.
By CHARLIE IDE and GRACE CHAMBERLIN TEAM CORRESPONDENTS
On Saturday, on their home course at Onota Lake in Pittsfield, the men’s and women’s crew teams raced in the 50th annual Little Three Regatta. The men's 1V boat won its race and took home the Saratoga Oar, while the men's 2V and 3V boats placed second in their races. The women’s 1V boat placed second, behind Wesleyan. The women’s 2V and 3V boats both took first, beating out Wesleyan and Amherst. The men’s 1V opened up the action for the day. Williams had a solid start, keeping even with Wesleyan and pulling away from Amherst through the high strokes and first 500 meters. Through the middle 1000 meters of the race, the Ephs’ boat made its move on the Cardinals and began steadily pulling away. Coming into the final 500 meters, the men had a one-length lead that they maintained, beating Wesleyan by three seconds. The Ephs finished in 6:16, the Cardinals in 6:19 and the Mammoths in 6:48. Captain Karl Bocker ’18 felt that tactical decisions were the key to victory. "We had really solid moves on our opponents,” he said. In the men’s 2V race, the Williams boat had some baubles off the start but was able to come through the 500-meter mark dead even with Wesleyan and ahead of Amherst. The Ephs tried to catch their opponents during their move at the 500-meter mark but failed
to capitalize. Through the second 500 meters, the Ephs suffered some off strokes and lost ground to the Cardinals. They eventually found a solid rhythm and were more consistent in the second half of the race, but they were never able to make a decisive move to pull back over Wesleyan. In the end, Wesleyan finished in 6:29, Williams in 6:32 and Amherst in 7:08. In the 3V, the men had their best start of the year. Once again, the Ephs and Cardinals pulled away from the Mammoths and traded leads in a tightly contested race through the first 1000 meters. Then the race took a bad turn for the Ephs, and they were unable to execute their decisive move. They fell behind and lost to Wesleyan by a margin of three seconds. Wesleyan finished in 6:51, Williams in 6:54 and Amherst in 7:40. "We had a great start and got the rate as high as we've ever had it," coxswain Piper Higgins ’21 said. “We were trading the lead all the way down the course and couldn't execute the third 500. Wesleyan had a great piece, so kudos to them." The women’s 1V finished in second place with a time of 6:54.84, just one second behind Wesleyan. The 2V finished in first place with a time of 7:11.11, 10 seconds ahead of Wesleyan. “It's exciting to race on our home course, and we channeled that excitement really effectively and let it carry us through the finish line,” Kate Latimore ’19 said. “It was great to have both Amherst and Wesleyan there for competition. Racing against them, we found a new level of speed and unity, and we're excited for the rest of the season.”
Bow seat Maria Hanson ’18 of the 3V credited the team’s good start and strong finish in its success. “After a quick start, we were able to find a really strong rhythm, taking advantage of the calmer water in the first 1000 meters and gaining open water over Wesleyan,” she said. “The wind picked up in the third 500, and Wesleyan put up a good fight, but ultimately, we were able to execute a successful sprint, carrying our bow ball through the finish line with a solid lead.” Taking on the worst conditions of the day, the women’s 4V8 went up against the Williams men’s freshmen four. The men, in a smaller boat, struggled to handle the stiff crosswind. Nevertheless, the men’s lead was insurmountable as they crossed the finish several seconds ahead. “We made a lot of improvements from our last race and our practice pieces this week, putting together a strong race from start to finish,” Grace McCabe ’18 of the women’s 4V8 said. “We had an awesome sprint and found a lot of speed towards the end, so I'm excited to work on bringing that energy earlier in the race next time.” The final times were M4V4+ 7:46, W4V8 7:50. The men will take on Bates, Holy Cross, Saint Joseph’s and Tufts on Lake Quinsigamond next weekend. The women will focus on preparing for the New England Rowing Championships on May 5, where they will face off against Wesleyan, Bates, Wellesley and other rival New England crews.
ATHLETES OF THE WEEK “Rebecca is a great team player and strong performer both on defense and offense. She is versatile and works hard to prepare to be her best for the team whenever she's needed. This weekend , her two walk-off at-bats and great pitching performance demonstrated that. ”
“Kevin has contributed to our team ever since he got on campus last year. He is a very talented lacrosse player who has started at attack since his freshmen year. He is currently leading our team in scoring, but more importantly, he is running our Team Impact program and always leading by example in everything he does.”
–Head coach Kris Herman
–Head coach George McCormack
REBECCA DUNCAN '20
KEVIN STUMP '20
SOFTBALL SIMI VALLEY, CALIF.
MEN'S LACROSSE ALLENTOWN, PA.
Duncan capped off a late rally with a walk-off single in the bottom of the seventh in Saturday's 3-2 win against Middlebury.
Stump is a constant scorer for the team and led the men with six goals in their most recent game against Bowdoin.
12 SPORTS
The Williams Record
April 25, 2018
Softball wins five straight games against Middlebury, defeats MCLA By KRIS DUFOUR STAFF WRITER Softball (26-6, 9-3 in the NESCAC) won five straight games during the week, sweeping its last conference series against Middlebury and defeating MCLA. On Friday, Middlebury took a 3-0 lead in the second inning off starter Mackenzie Murphy ’19. Melanie Mandell led off with a single and was sacrificed to second. Kaylee Gumm drew a walk before Taylor Gardner got all of an offering and drove it over the left-field fence for a three-run homer. The Panthers added two in the fourth when Ali Della Volpe and Olivia Bravo connected for perfectly placed two-out RBI singles to center. The Williams squad found itself down 5-0 heading into the bottom of the fourth inning but scored four runs — on the strength of a Casey Pelz ’19 grand slam — in its half and added two in the bottom of the fifth to take a 6-5 lead. Middlebury rallied for a single run in the top of the sixth when Della Volpe stroked a triple to right field and scored when Emily Moore grounded a two-out, two-strike seeingeye single to right field to tie the game at 6-6. Co-captain Lexi Curt ’18 started the Ephs’ winning rally in the seventh by stroking a one-out double down the left-field line off Middlebury pitcher Emily Morris. Murphy’s liner to right was caught for the second out, but Rebecca Duncan ’20 battled Morris for seven pitches before blooping a ball into shallow center that found grass just in
front of a hard-charging Della Volple, and Jenny Hickey ’21 raced home in a walk-off game one. In game two of the conference series, the women dispatched Middlebury 9-0. The Ephs knocked Middlebury starter Allison Quigley out in the second inning. After Duncan smacked a three-run double in the first, the Ephs added three more quickly in the second inning off reliever Irene Margiotta. Riley Salvo ’20 reached on an error, Jessica Kim ’19 beat out a bunt for a single and Curt followed with a home run, a three-run blast to right center, for a 6-0 lead. After an out, Kirstin Mapes ’20 drew a walk, and co-captain Margo Beck ’18 singled. Duncan then hit a grounder to short that resulted in a throwing error at third base, allowing another run. Martinez followed with an RBI single for an 8-0 lead. Duncan took care of the rest, allowing just a single hit over her five innings of work. She walked one and struck out six while improving to 10-3. She was 2 for 3 with four RBIs at the plate. In game three of the series, Williams trailed 2-0 entering the bottom of the sixth inning of Saturday’s second game thanks to back-to-back home runs by Quigley and Mandell in the top of the fourth inning. Duncan halved the Ephs’ deficit when she led off the bottom of the sixth inning with a solo home run to center. Morris retired the first batter of the bottom of the seventh before Pelz won a lengthy battle with a line drive single to center. Then, Salvo was hit by a Morris of-
fering, and Kim hit a highbounding single back up the middle that scored pinchrunner Cris McElhinney ’21 to tie the game. On the play, an errant throw allowed pinchrunner Kristina Alvarado ’19 and Kim to move up to third and second, respectively. The Panthers elected to pitch around Curt, walking her to load the bases for Duncan, who lined the first pitch she saw from Morris into left field to drive home the game-winning run and slam the doors on the Ephs’ sweep. On Wednesday, Curt went 6 for 7 with six RBI and six runs scored to help lead the Ephs to a 19-0, 9-1 sweep of crosstown rival MCLA, coached by All-American Erica Li ’16. Williams scored 12 runs in the top of the first inning of the opener and never looked back. Kim led off with a solo home run and had a three-run, bases-clearing double to center in the frame. Curt doubled to left center and homered to right center later in the inning. Beck had a three-run homer to left in the same frame. The Ephs would go on to score four times in the third and three more in the fourth. Curt hit a solo homer to left in the third, her 10th of the season. With two outs in the inning, Beck walked, and Mapes lined a two-run homer to left center, her seventh of the season. Martinez followed with a home run to straightaway center. She added a two-run single to center in the bottom of the fourth. In all, the Ephs had 13 hits in the 19-0 win. In the nightcap, the Ephs broke open a scoreless tie
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION.
Jenny Hickey ’21 raced to home plate in a walk-off victory against Middlebury on Saturday. with a four-run bottom of the second. McElhinney led off with a single to center and scored when Martinez followed with a double to center. With two outs and runners on the corners, Curt singled for a 2-0 lead. Murphy fol-
lowed with a line-drive single that scored another run, and Salvo picked up an RBI by drawing a bases-loaded walk. In the bottom of the third, Curt ripped a two-run double to left. Up 6-1 in the bottom of the fifth, Alvarado smoked
a double to center and scored on a Mapes single. Backto-back sacrifice flies from Salvo and McElhinney ended the contest. The women next play a doubleheader at Skidmore at 4 p.m. today.
Baseball takes two of three in crucial conference series against Hamilton By ALEX OKINAKA STAFF WRITER Baseball (8-15, 4-5 in the NESCAC) took two out of three in a key conference series against Hamilton last weekend, losing the first game 6-5 and winning the last two contests 2-1 and 4-1. Left hander George Carroll ’21 began the game on the mound for the Ephs. Hamilton and Williams each recorded a single hit in the first two innings. Hamilton's Matt Zaffino and catcher Adam Dulsky ’18 both connected for singles, but solid defensive efforts on both sides kept the game scoreless moving into the third. Play picked up in the third inning, as three consecutive walks put Zaffino and his teammates Dean Rosenburg and Matt Cappelletti on first, second and third with two outs. A fourth walk of catcher Craig Sandford brought Zaffino in to put Hamilton up 1-0. Unwilling to be kept down for long, the Ephs came in firing at their next at-bat. The first three batters managed to connect on their appearances at the plate. Unfortunately, Adam Regensburg ’21’s single up the middle was the only hit. Jack Roberts ’18 then stepped up with Mike Stamas ’20 at second base. He knocked a deep double to center field, which brought
him home. Dulsky followed suit with a single to left field, which allowed Roberts to score and gave the Ephs the lead at 2-1. Hamilton would take the lead in the fourth and not relinquish it until the game's finish. The Ephs instituted a pitching change after letting a few runners on base, bringing in Brian Wooley ’21. His first batter, James Nish, sent a double down the right-field line to bring in both Wallis and Goodman. Wooley's strike out on the next batter also involved a wild pitch, which pushed Nish to third base. Rosenburg's final single to right center field brought Nish home to finish the inning at 4-2 in Hamilton’s favor. A walk in the top of the fifth put Sandford on base again. A fielding error by the third baseman allowed sophomore Graham McOsker to reach first and pushed Sandford to second. Wallis earned his second single of the game on the following at-bat, which brought Sandford in for Hamilton's only run of the inning. Moving into the sixth, Hamilton maintained its run of strong innings. Zaffino's single to center field put a man on first. Rosenburg's bunt pushed him to second and put two runners on for Cappelleti's at-bat. Cappalleti conceded an out but allowed Zaffino and Rosenburg to
advance a base. Sanford followed suit with a sacrifice fly out to right field, giving Zaffino the chance to score Hamilton's final run and put the Continentals up 6-2. The Ephs came into the bottom of the sixth down four but posted a convincing rallying effort. Dulsky's walk got him to first base. He was replaced by pinch runner Frank Stola ’21, who subsequently moved to second when Kellen Hatheway ’19 was hit by a pitch on the following atbat. With two men in good scoring positions, Erik Mini ’21 knocked a key double to right center, bringing Hatheway and Stola home. The score change to 6-4 sparked a Hamilton pitching change to Gavin Schaefer-Hood. David Kwan ’19 kept the momentum going with a single up the middle, which cut the deficit to one at 6-5. Ultimately, two outs on the following two plays cut the effort short. The game moved through the final inning with the score unchanged, and Hamilton moved into the second portion of the double header with a win under its belt. The second game began similarly to the first. With the exception of a handful of walks, neither Hamilton nor Williams reached base in the first two innings. Hamilton continued its hitless streak moving into
the top of the third, but Williams managed to turn things around and open up scoring. Regensburg was hit by a pitch as the second batter of the inning. He advanced to second base on Stamas' ground out to the short stop. Tom Benz ’19 recorded his first hit of the day with a single to the short stop. Roberts stepped to the plate with Regensburg on third and Benz on second and knocked a deep single to left center, which batted in Regensburg and gave the Ephs their first lead of the game. Moving into the fourth, Williams was up 1-0. Again, Hamilton was unable to break out of its slump, and Williams came back up to bat with its lead intact. After recording a quick two outs, Stola managed to reach first on a fielding error by the third baseman. Kwan delivered a double to center field at a key time to bring Stola home and give the Ephs a 2-0 lead. Unfortunately, a foul out on the following at-bat ended the accumulated momentum. In the top of the fifth, Hamilton managed to snap its streak. McOsker was hit by a pitch in Hamilton's first at-bat. He advanced to second when Goodman was beat to first base by a throw from the pitcher. Wallis delivered yet another single to bring McOsker in and cut the deficit to one run.
The brief opening in action was followed by another period of scoring calm, which extended through the end of the game. The Ephs finished with a 2-1 win. On Sunday, five Eph pitchers joined together to hold Hamilton to three hits, helping Williams to a key 4-1 win. "We had two must-win games this weekend, and we won them both," head coach Bill Barrale said. "We've been playing much better as of late. This is a good group, a resilient group. We're getting better as the season goes on, and it's nice to still be alive heading into next weekend." Both teams ended up with three hits in Sunday's nineinning contest. The Ephs walked a tightrope much of the game, as they issued 11 walks to Continental batters. Hamilton left 15 runners on base in the game. Williams’ hurlers combined to strike out 15 batters. The Continentals took a 1-0 lead in the third on Matt Cappelletti's bad-hop single over Benz's head. After being no-hit through four innings by Hamilton starter Tom Riley, the Ephs scratched out two runs in the fifth, using just one hit. Kwan got things started with a one-out double to center. Riley then walked Stola and Regensburg to load the bases. Stamas' grounder to short resulted in a force
out and a run as Kwan scored. A wild pitch allowed Stola to score the go-ahead run. The Ephs added two big insurance runs in the seventh. With two outs, Stola walked and stole second. Regensburg followed with an RBI-double to center, and Stamas then roped a double to left that scored Regensburg to make it 4-1. Hamilton left two runners on base in the third, fourth and fifth and the bases loaded in the sixth. In the fourth, Will O'Brien replaced Stamas and struck out the first batter he faced to end the threat. After a walk in the fifth, Charlie Carpenter ’20 replaced O'Brien on the hill with two outs. He walked the first batter he faced before striking out the next batter to end the frame. In the sixth, Carpenter walked the first batter before striking out the next two. He then hit a batter and was replaced by Nehemiah Wilson ’21, who walked the first batter he faced to load the bases. But Wilson struck out the next batter to wiggle out of the jam. Wilson pitched 2 1/3 innings, allowing two hits and two walks while striking out four. Philip Barnett ’21 came on to pitch a scoreless ninth for the save. Carpenter (3-3) was the winner, going one hitless inning while walking two and striking out two. The men face Union on the road today at 4 p.m.
Women’s tennis defeats Colby, Bowdoin, extending winning streak to 15 By JOHN TOOMEY SPORTS INFORMATION
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION.
Mia Gancayo ’18 won her singles and doubles matches against Bowdoin and Colby last weekend.
Women’s tennis (15-0, 6-0 in the NESCAC) took on Colby on Sunday, defeating the Mules 9-0 after an 8-1 win over Bowdoin; their winning streak now stands at 15 straight matches. The Ephs started off Sunday by sweeping the doubles matches, as eighth-ranked duo Juli Raventos ’18 and Julia Cancio ’18 cruised to an 8-1 victory, while the pairs of Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio '18 and Korina Neveux '19 and Chloe Henderson '20 and Mia Gancayco '18 earned victories 8-2 and 8-1, respectively. In singles, No. 15 Raventos defeated Lydia Venditti in straight sets 6-2, 6-0. No. 23 Leah Bush '19 battled back from a loss in her first set for a 4-6, 6-1, 10-4 victory over Colby's
Gabby Venditti. No. 44 Henderson followed with a victory in straight sets, as did No. 50 Gancayco. Neveux and McDonnell Nieto del Rio rounded out the sweep with 6-1, 6-1 wins. On Saturday, the Ephs swept doubles and won five of six singles en route to an 8-1 win against the Polar Bears. Raventos and Cancio paired up for an 8-3 victory over Tess Trinka and Izzy Essi. McDonnel Nieto del Rio partnered with Neveux to battle Bowdoin’s Rachel Bercovitch and Viv Daniel to an 8-5 victory, while Gancayo and Henderson swept their opponents 8-0. Play then shifted to singles matches, with the Ephs needing just two victories to clinch the victory. Henderson, Gancayco, Cancio and Neveux all earned their second wins of the day in straight sets. McDonnel Nieto del Rio battled
through a tie-break set after losing her second for a 6-2, 4-6, 10-8 win. Head coach Anik Cepeda commented on the hard-fought match. "Ups and downs are part of tennis," she said. "We found ways to come out on top regardless of whether our games were there or not." "Shout-out to Giulia for coming back in her third set tie-break and staying calm throughout her match," Cepeda added. "Another shout-out to Mia and Chloe, who played inspired and composed tennis from start to finish." The undefeated Ephs will travel to Tufts on Saturday at 9 a.m. After the match with Tufts, Williams will return home on Sunday to face off against Hamilton. "[I'm] looking forward to a rejuvenating week of practice heading into our final two conference matches," Cepeda said.