ARTS P. 8 Indian, Pakistani comedy duo engages crowd
SPORTS P. 12 The Independent Student Newspaper at Williams College Since 1887 VOL. CXXXIII, NO. 9
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2018
Women's soccer advances to NCAA sweet 16
BSU holds town hall exploring affinity housing You Are Not Alone By KRISTEN BAYRAKDARIAN STAFF WRITER
On Sunday, the Williams College Black Student Union (BSU) organized a town hall in Griffin Hall on affinity housing and Davis Center renovations. As the event flyer read, the gathering was to be “a space for students, particularly Black students, to reflect on recent events and the general student experience here," granting students the opportunity “to voice concerns and work towards solutions.” The meeting was attended by students of varying racial, economic and sexual identities, as well as by a few members of the staff and faculty, including President Maud Mandel. Topics of discussion included affinity housing and the upcoming housing lottery, the existence or nonexistence of Black spaces on campus, the difficulties of the entry system for people of color (POC), experiences with Campus Safety and Security (CSS) and the
potential for the College to adopt “The Chicago Statement on Free Speech.” The Town Hall began with personal anecdotes from current Black first-years, who discussed their feelings of tokenization within entries and the lack of POC Junior Advisors (JAs), particularly Black JAs to whom they felt comfortable turning to. There was discussion of the burden Black first-years, and Black students in general, feel to “educate” their nonBlack peers at a time when they themselves are trying to learn, dissect and understand their own experiences. Current and past Black JAs also spoke on their varying experiences. Alia Richardson ’19, co-chair of BSU and a JA to the class of 2021, described her own first-year experience as a positive one, stating that she “had a really good experience [and] made a lot of close friends,” and that she spent her time as a JA trying to recreate that positive entry expe-
rience for her own first-years. Jazmin Bramble ‘20, current JA to the class of 2022, described her first-year experience as “[neither] positive nor negative.” Bramble discussed how, early on in her first year, one of her JAs, a POC, explained to her that “the [entry] system itself wasn’t going to benefit [her],” so her goal was to simply create a comfortable space within the entry. Discussion of the entry experience interweaved with ideas about what affinity housing could potentially look like at the College. Rocky Douglas ’19, co-chair of BSU, explained how as a first-year she experienced constant microaggressions and felt obligated to educate her peers, ultimately leading to intense feelings of isolation. “Thank God I found Rice House [a Davis Center house autonomously managed by BSU]” Douglas said, describing Rice House as “this space I could go to and connect with upperclassmen,
feel safe and not deal with microaggressions or feelings of alienation. I was in a space that was made with me in mind.” This idea of a space created by and for students of color was described as a central feature of potential affinity housing. Some attendees likened affinity housing to current housing for student-athletes. “Right now, we have a lot of houses on Hoxsey Street or off-campus houses that unofficially serve as affinity spaces for student athletes … whereas there are no other spaces that can be claimed by students of other identities in that same way,” Richardson said. Students also questioned the potential effects of the absence of affinity housing and POC spaces on application and enrollment rates of students of particular identities. Liz Creighton, dean of admission and financial aid, provided data to that end.
SEE TOWN HALL, PAGE 5
PHOTO COURTESY OF ISAIAH BLAKE. On Sunday, the Black Student Union town hall discussed topics including affinity housing, the JA system and relations with Campus Safety and Security.
Panelists discuss Asbestos discovered in field house opioid epidemic in Berkshires By KENIA CRUZ GUARDADO STAFF WRITER
By ROSE HOUGLET STAFF WRITER Last Wednesday, panelists Alex Sabo of Berkshire Medical Center, Wendy Penner of the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition and Kenna Waterman of the nonprofit Josh Bressette Commit to Save a Life addressed the opioid epidemic in northwestern Massachusetts as a part of this year’s Williams Reads initiative. Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward – this year’s Williams Reads book, which all incoming first-years read over the summer and discussed during First Days – deals with issues of racism, addiction and poverty. The program has extended beyond First Days, however, including a campus visit by Ward in October, a campuswide installation titled “Complicated Love” this upcoming February and a panel on the opioid epidemic that was conducted this past week. “It’s a program that invites faculty, students, staff and community members to gather together to have a shared reading experience and to be able to explore diversity and have critical, engaging discussions,” Dean of the College Marlene Sandstrom explained at the panel. Sabo, department chair of behavioral sciences and training director of the adult psychiatry residency program at Berkshire Medical Center, began the panel with a presentation giving context on how the opioid epidemic first came to northwestern Massachusetts and explaining the challenges that lie ahead for the region. “What
happens is, if you’re going to have a good life, you’re going to have some balanced connections ... in your reward system. But, if you get a powerful reinforcer like cocaine or opioid medications, the reward system downregulates the number of receptors to receive the dopamine stimulus,” Sabo said. Because of this shift, things that used to provide joy have the potential to produce less and less pleasure. Economic trauma, inexpensive heroin and adverse childhood experiences are some of the many factors exacerbating the opioid epidemic, Sabo explained. Childhood trauma is part of what he described as transgenerational transmission of stress. This has also caused high suicide rates in Berkshire County over the past 40 years and epigenetic factors like “low expression of glucocorticoid receptors in the hippocampus.” In terms of future challenges, Sabo displayed graphs showing increasing mortality rates for poisoning, suicide and liver disease for white non-Hispanic Americans. “Every single five-year group [is] dying at increased rates for three things tracked together: poisoning by opioids or alcohol, suicide and liver diseases or cirrhosis,” he said. The other panelists’ presentations focused on their attempts to address these challenges. Penner, the director of prevention and wellness at the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition, described her work.
SEE EPIDEMIC, PAGE 4
For the past couple of months, the Towne Field House has been closed for construction to install new track and infield court surfaces over the existing surfaces. The renovations, which were supposed to be completed on Oct. 28, will now go on longer than expected. The delay to the construction was caused by two discoveries: damage to the asphalt substrate underneath tracks, and trace amounts of asbestos in the glue that keeps the asphalt and track together. Executive Director of Design and Construction Rita Coppola-Wallace explained the College's approach to the discovery of the Field House's asbestos. “When it comes to hazardous materials discoveries in a project, it is important to take a cautious and measured approach to identification and remediation to ensure the safety of everyone involved,” she said. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has defined trace amounts of asbestos to be less than one percent of the material. Recognizing asbestos is important because if one comes into contact with or inhales it, asbestos can be dangerous to one’s health. However, the existence of asbestos does not automatically cause damage. “Undamaged as-
bestos that is properly managed in place poses little health risk to students, teachers and other school occupants,” the Environmental Protection Agency says on its website. In fact, the trace amounts of asbestos found in the Field House were only found when the construction crew had penetrated the original track surface. “There are no negative effects on anyone,” CoppolaWallace said. Coppola-Wallace explained what the discovery of asbestos means for the construction crew. “An unexpected delay in a construction project always adds a new degree of difficulty and challenge,” she said. However, safety measures are always taken, and the health risks and solutions are always calculated. Because the Field House is used for a wide variety of purposes by different groups, this delay will impact many students. The Field House is where the track and field team and the rock-climbing club meet to practice. Other sports and clubs including tennis, softball, baseball and frisbee also use the space during their off-seasons. Due to the construction delay, the teams that normally rely on the Field House in the winter are being forced to adapt. The completion date for the Towne Field House project has now been moved to Jan. 2, 2019.
KATIE BRULE/PHOTO EDITOR. Field house construction is expected to end in January, two months late.
changes structure
By RACHEL SCHARF MANAGING EDITOR
This semester, the Mental Health Committee (MHC) has been working to amend the structure of You Are Not Alone (YANA). In the past, YANA occurred once a semester and featured three students who spoke on topics of mental health, followed by an open mic session. Conversations about the scope and intensity of these events has led MHC to change the structure of YANA. This year, the committee is doing away with these semiannual events and replacing them with multiple smaller, more focused events throughout the semester. These events will focus on themes such as academics, relationships and family. According to MHC Co-President Julia Randall ’19, these changes arose from concerns that the old YANA event structure cast too wide of a net for dealing with such a complex problem as mental health. “We were trying to have one event do too many things,” Randall said. “It’s trying to do too much if the scope of the event is just ‘mental health’ because it’s futile to try to solve the entire problem all at once.” MHC member Jessica Muñoz ’19 added that these changes also reflect a growing demand for conversations that address mental health. “There are a lot of people coming to one event per semester, so people want to have these conversations,” Muñoz said. With more frequent events, MHC members hope that thinking about mental health can become an ongoing conversation, rather than a condensed conversation within a single night. These changes are also addressing concerns that many students have brought up expressing feeling overwhelmed by the
size and intensity of YANA. MHC members hope that smaller events will create more intimate spaces in which more students feel comfortable and welcome. MHC is also thinking critically about who is given a voice at YANA events. While in the past speakers have been chosen internally, they are now soliciting requests for speakers through Daily Messages in an effort to improve outreach and inclusion. In addition, recognizing that not all students feel comfortable speaking publically during the open mic session, MHC is adding an option for students to provide written statements for the event coordinators to read aloud. This change is part of a broader effort within MHC to rethink its role and relationship to the College community. MHC serves as the liaison between Integrative Wellbeing Services (IWS) and the student body, and Randall hopes that the committee can continue to do so while remaining studentdriven and student-focused. She also hopes to use this role to access and share information about IWS. “We’re currently working with [IWS] on projects that find and disseminates the statistics about who makes use of these services,” she said. Overall, MHC is excited about the reformed YANA structure and its first event, which will occur tonight at 8 p.m. in Goodrich and will focus on academic stress. However, its members recognize that there is still more work to be done. “This step is solving one piece of YANA, but we certainly haven’t solved problems of representation and the consuming of others’ pain, especially others whose identities you don’t share,” Randall said. “So, in the future, we’re definitely going to be working through those issues.”
CC raises treasury concerns By NICHOLAS GOLDROSEN EXECUTIVE EDITOR Tuesday night’s College Council (CC) meeting ended in a contentious display, with copresidents Lizzy Hibbard ’19 and Moisés Roman Mendoza ’19 calling on CC’s treasurer, Spencer Carrillo ’20, to resign. The meeting began with CC approving, by a 16-3-3 vote, $34,000 for Minority Coalition (MinCo) to support heritage month events at the request of MinCo’s Steering Board, represented by co-chairs Tyler Tsay ’19 and Rodsy Modhurima ’19. Tsay then shifted the topic to Carrillo, whose job performance was not on the meeting’s agenda. “We want to have a very honest discussion about the treasurer right now and whether he should hold this position,” Tsay said. Then, Roman Mendoza and Hibbard shared concerns with Carrillo that they said they had received from administrators. The majority of CC members appeared shocked and dismayed at the format in which Hibbard, Roman Mendoza, Tsay and Modhurima brought up the topic. “I think you guys bringing this up right now, when it wasn’t on the agenda, without anything written up, is really unsavory and really undemocratic,” Vice President for Student Organizations Maria Heredia ’20 said. “What was your goal in the end? To have him resign in front of all of us?” To her second question, Roman Mendoza replied affirmatively. Carrillo responded forcefully, noting the disproportionate workload of the treasurer position compared to the rest of CC, the inherent dissatisfaction students will have with a CC member who denies them funding and the seemingly personal and aggressive nature of the process. Others expressed confusion and frustration at the sudden nature of the process. “Being thrown all of this information is extremely confusing, and I cannot imagine how Spenny feels, or how MinCo feels,” Williams Hall Representative Nathan Medow ’22 said. “In terms of just respect-
ing people, this should’ve been done in a better way.” Tsay reiterated MinCo’s concerns. “My incidents in terms of the communications I’ve had with Spencer, which have been immensely inappropriate, are shared… We do not feel comfortable sending groups into FinCom [Financial Committee] because of the treasurer,” he said. Hibbard and Roman Mendoza were the only members of CC that spoke to explicitly raise concerns about Carrillo. Many members of CC then noted how unproductive the meeting had become. “It’s like something out of The Scarlet Letter; it’s irresponsible to ambush Spenny,” Sophomore Representative Solly Kasab ’21 said. The meeting ended with CC convening a committee, by a vote of 15-0-5, chaired by Heredia and Vice President for Community and Diversity Shane Beard ’20, to investigate Carrillo and report to CC after Thanksgiving break.
WHAT’S INSIDE
3 OPINIONS An argument for affinity housing 5 NEWS Survey reveals election opinions 7 FEATURES Students write to Michael Johnson 8 ARTS Ocean Vuong reads poems 11 SPORTS James Wang ’12 returns stateside USPS 684-6801 | 1ST CLASS MAIL U.S. POSTAGE PAID WILLIAMSTOWN, MA PERMIT NO. 25
2 OPINIONS
Editor-in-Chief Tesnim Zekeria Managing Editors Reed Jenkins and Rachel Scharf Communications Director Brooke Horowitch Executive Editors Shaheen Currimjee, Nicholas Goldrosen, Rachel Levin and Jane Petersen News Editors Rebecca Tauber and Samuel Wolf Opinions Editor Haeon Yoon Features Editors Lydia Duan and Jeongyoon Han
The Williams Record
Sports Editors Cassie Deshong and Charles Xu Photo Editors Katie Brule and Sophia Shin Technology Manager Aki Takigawa Business Managers Rishad Karim and Isabella Wang Financial Analyst Ali Ladha Advertising Manager Nelson Walsh Head of Operations Mehr Sawant
THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE SINCE 1887
On the cancellation of Beast Thing
THE WILLIAMS RECORD BOARD
Arts Editor Kaira Mediratta
Considering representation and affirming our committment to uplifting student voices
Last week, the College’s theatre department cancelled its fall show, Beast Thing, in response to students’ concerns about the play’s potentially traumatizing content and their experiences in the show. Many students involved in the show expressed frustration with their inability to bring their concerns about the show’s content and overall working process to the creative team. The theatre department has a responsibility to treat students with respect and to make sure that their concerns are not being invalidated or de-legitimized. Theatre department plays require students to commit their bodies to their work; these students deserve to be fully involved and represented in the productions. The theatre department attempted to recruit more students of color to act in Beast Thing, which was written by Aleshea Harris, a black playwright, for predominantly black casts. This was well-
Word on the Quad What's the weirdest snack bar order you've heard/can think of? By KATIE BRULE and SOPHIA SHIN PHOTO EDITORS
November 14, 2018
intentioned, and such efforts should be further expanded in the future given that the theatre department, and the College overall, have historically been white spaces. However, several cast members reported feeling taken advantage of, exemplified by the withdrawal of several actors of color due to the rehearsal environment. The theatre department has an obligation to be welcoming of all identities and to represent those identities in ways that are not tokenizing or harmful. The Record also takes issue with the theatre department’s unilateral decision to cancel the show amid requests by the cast that they continue to work out problems that arose during tech week. While we recognize that there are many factors at play, it is apparent that the cast dedicated an incredible amount of time and emotional labor to Beast Thing; to shut down the production without attempting to address the students’ concerns, especially when those students
sacrificed time normally spent on school work, friends and other extracurriculars to participate in the show, demonstrates a significant divide between the theatre department faculty and staff and the students. It is disappointing and counterproductive – for the cast, the creative team and the campus as a whole – that this revolutionary work by a playwright of color did not find an audience here at the College. The College is a predominantly white institution that must grapple with both the space it gives these voices and how it presents them. Simultaneously, the students involved in Beast Thing have a right to express their experiences and concerns regarding the rehearsal process and end product. It is possible to both accept that this show’s cancellation is a loss for the campus and for those involved, and to acknowledge the harms that cast members experienced from what should have been a generative process.
The theatre department is a campus institution that would not be possible without the free expression of ideas. We at the Record reaffirm our commitment to this ideal and commend the theatre department for choosing new, challenging works. We commend the department and director, Misha Chowdhury, for bringing this brave work to campus. We would also like to further encourage the department to consider professors who are willing to bring such works and are committed to these goals of equity and inclusion as they look to hire for a tenure-track position. The College has a responsibility to engage with students involved in the theatre community so that they may explore their interests in collaboration with faculty in a way that is productive rather than harmful. We hope that the department takes this opportunity to re-examine its treatment of students and methods for outreach in its future productions.
CONVENTIONAL WISDOM THANKSGIVING
A much needed break.
PACHEDU
A chance to watch CoDa, Kusika, Sankofa and The Zambezi Marimba Band? Yes, please!
HAILEY HAN ’22
You should balance sweet and salty with hummus and ice cream!
I heard that someone ordered PLAIN pasta at ’82 grill once.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR To the Editor:
GYUNGHYUN JE ’20
Pizza without cheese and with jalapeños and pineapple toppings.
Seven eggs over medium.
Up if you already found your Williams spouse, but don't worry seniors you still have two more chances!
BLASTS IN SCIENCE QUAD
PETER KNOWLTON ’21
ARI BALL-BURACK ’19
FIRST CHANCE
In 2015, many faculty at the University of Chicago agreed with, and signed, a statement advocating that the university not ban speakers. Faculty at other institutions have since voted to adopt similar statements, and one has been circulating among faculty at the College. I am among its signers. To some, signing signals disregard for the harm that hate speech inflicts on vulnerable people. I want here to outline my own reasons for making this commitment. First, to sign on to this statement is not to reject safe spaces. The College should allow for, and even provide, safe spaces. In fact, it does. That provision does not mean that the College itself, in entirety, should be a safe space.
An earthquake or just your usual Williamstown construction? Second, banning speakers is the same as banning books. A speaker is just an essay with a podium. Sawyer library's collection includes eight versions of the reactionary, racist film Birth of a Nation, three versions of Hitler's Mein Kampf and scores of books discussing the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” each of which contains a copy of this manifesto against the Jews. If we choose, we can access more repulsive propaganda via interlibrary loan. The third week of September each year is national Banned Books Week, and several weeks ago the College and the local town libraries participated by defiantly displaying books that have been banned. I appreciate this display, and find it hard to see how a person can support free access to loathsome ideas in print but categorically reject their being spoken aloud. Third, specific people, by definition those in power,
get to decide what is left alone and what is censored. It is naïve to believe that censorship, once allowed, will be wielded by the relatively powerless and vulnerable. That just seems foolish. We should respond to hateful speech and hateful speakers – but with politics rather than with law. Those like me who advocate free expression need to attend arenas in which people express nasty views, engage with them and stand up to them. It is not especially responsible to advocate for free expression of ideas without at least talking back, trying to call out the agendas and interests behind them. I believe that we – faculty and staff and students to whom this matters – should help students learn how to stand up for themselves rather than withdraw the College from the world.
QUINDAR, and more The opinions expressed in signed columns are not necessarily those of the Williams Record editorial board.
Yours truly, Cheryl Shanks, professor of political science
A DAY OF SYMPOSIA, POP-UPS, AND PERFORMANCES
LEWITT×10
with JASON MORAN, SPENCER FINCH, QUINDAR, and more
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.
Saturday, November 17, 11am–9pm PERFORMANCE AND CELEBRATION DETAILS: massmoca.org/lewittx10
TICKETS: massmoca.orgor or 413.622.2111 413.622.2111 | | North Adams, Mass.Mass. TICKETS: massmoca.org North Adams,
Saturday, November 17, 11am–9pm
A case for affinity housing W
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In 1969, members of the Williams Afro-American Society occupied Hopkins Hall, refusing to leave until College president John Edward Sawyer agreed to address their 15 demands. These demands included the creation of a Black studies program, hiring additional Black faculty, recruiting more Black students and creating a Black cultural center in which Black students could live. This last demand, however, was never granted. While the Davis Center (DC) provides valuable programming and support for students of a variety of identities, students of marginalized and underrepresented identities would still benefit from having an affinity housing living option. Affinity housing would grant students who share an aspect of their identity the opportunity to live together in an intentional community with shared values and goals, allowing these students to feel supported and have their identities affirmed by those who live around them. This type of housing serves to enrich the campus life by providing educational, cultural and social programming for not just the residents of the house, but also the wider campus community, thereby promoting a stronger sense of solidarity among students of marginalized identities. It would also allow the DC to have closer ties to students’ residential lives, allowing them to better support students of underrepresented identities. Several of our peer institutions have implemented a residential life system that includes affinity housing. Students at both Amherst and Wesleyan have the option to live in a Black culture house, Latinx culture house or an Asian-American culture house. The common argument against affinity housing at the College is the idea that one can learn from living around people of all different races, interests and cultural backgrounds. This is true, but is already an experience that every student has during their first year here through the entry system. Forcing students to live around people of other backgrounds for the full duration of their time at the College, based on the idea that they are to learn from one another, inherently tokenizes international students, students of color and students of underrepresented
OPINIONS 3
The Williams Record
November 14, 2018
On artistic process and accountability Re ec io s o
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identities. Nevertheless, even with the existence of the neighborhood system, many students rarely interact with their neighbors outside of their pick group. Some may argue that affinity housing would create a divide between students of different interests and backgrounds. This divide, however, already exists through the houses on Hoxsey Street and other off-campus apartments, which are primarily home to athletes. To secure off-campus housing, students need to sign a lease as early as their first year. Athletes are often the only ones who know who they will be living with senior year, because they frequently plan to live with their teammates. The College turns a blind eye to these unofficial “themed houses” without creating communal housing options around the historically marginalized and underrepresented identities for which these options would be most valuable. Further, these houses and apartments often require a hefty down payment, which only increases the divide between those who can afford such options and those who cannot. By giving athletes their own unofficial spaces, without providing an analogous option for other identities, the College seems to expect us students to adhere to a “mythical norm” (a term coined by Audre Lorde that describes the characteristics idealized by society that hold power and bring about oppression) of straightness, whiteness and able-bodiedness. When we deviate from this norm, we are meant to educate others around us about our experiences as “ambassadors” of our identities. As we approach the 50-year anniversary of the Hopkins Hall Occupation, it is valuable to reevaluate how the College can best support the students of various identities that it continues to recruit, and how the College as a whole can work to create safe and supportive living environments that parallel those at our peer institutions. We must rethink our current housing system, and consider creating an affinity housing option.
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Pieces of this appeared quoted in last week’s news article (“Theatre department cancels ‘Beast Thing,’” Nov. 7), but here are my fuller explanations. There is no single narrative of how or why Beast Thing was cancelled, no monolithic experience or conflict with clear sides. It has been messy and muddy the whole time, as theater-making needs to be. Theater is a space of true accountability; it is one of the only things I have never been able to bullshit. It holds me accountable to my own body and the knowledge it holds, and to the people in the room who witness it. For me, theater is fundamentally about creating an erotic embodied experience in a room with people. And I say “erotic” in the Audre Lorde sense: a sense of feeling and intuition lodged deep in the belly. Theater can tap into realms of experience that challenge the structures of knowledge that have been concomitant with the rollout of centuries of colonial violence. It is a space that allows for something more. I deeply respect all the work the designers, the director, the playwright, the crew and the cast have put into Beast Thing. I am grateful and so saddened that it will not materialize. But simultaneously I could not trust that the experience we were working to create would be generative. I could not trust that this audience – a room of my peers, my loved ones, my acquaintances, my community members – was being considered with care for the multiplicity of potential traumas they hold. I want to clarify that what I mean here is not that as a theatermaker one must know exactly the
e ca cella io o Beast Thing
effect that a show will have. Nor do ally disrespected, silenced and maI believe that discomfort is danger- nipulated in the service of an artisous. That would be naïve and anath- tic vision and conversations about ema to the act of setting artistic which we were often not privy to. I work free. But those who witness a firmly believe that theater is politiwork must be able to engage with its cal. And in doing the kind of work content, rather than be so engulfed that Aleshea Harris is making – by re-traumatization that the work one that opens up new possibilities as a whole becomes unintelligible. for writers and artists of color in a It is we, the actors, who would have stifling white world – I think that process has to mirbeen held accountror its product. It is able for the harm not just about what of the show. And Work about violence you make and who there is an inherent it, but how manipulative power must be done, but it must makes it is made. If we are dynamic in that reality. We had little be done as a labor of love, to build new work, we damn well betsay in the decisions, yet we were charged and that is not what hap- ter treat people well along the way. What with carrying them pened in this piece. are we working toout in our bodies. wards if we cannot In my experience, act out our espoused and I speak for no one else, the cancellation of Beast values? There was a culture of siThing was as much about the place lencing that developed in the room, of violence onstage in a small com- in which I did not feel valued as a munity like Williams as is it is about whole person. Work about violence the process. I am both an actor and must be done, but it must be done as an organizer. In my organizing, a a labor of love, and that is not what central tenet of community con- happened with this piece. While I am left feeling guilty, untracts is the notion of trusting intent and owning impact. In order to do satisfied, angry, sad and empty all at the work, you need to trust that ev- once, I am at least heartened by the eryone is there with good intentions, bold act of collective power buildand if people make mistakes, you ing that the students carried out. It hold them accountable for the harm holds promise for large structural they have done and for the impact of changes at the College, which we those intentions. With regard to cer- desperately need. My kind of freetain pieces of violent imagery in the dom does not wield and brandish show, it became clear that there was content in the name of free speech no intention explicit and thoughtful or expression. No, it is rooted in enough to merit this imagery. And deep connection and community acso for me, the question of owning countability. And toward that goal, impact could not even take place work remains. because the intention was not clear. Liliana Bierer ’19 is from CamBut I think the reason it unraveled so quickly is that throughout the bridge, Mass. She is a women’s, process, we as actors were continu- gender and sexuality studies major.
Alia Richardson ’19 is from New York, N.Y. She is a biology major and Africana studies concentrator. She is the co-chair of the Black Student Union at the College.
On political participation a i
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curricular activities. What is troubling about the optionality of participating The midterm elections were some of in politics at the College is that if young the most highly anticipated races in re- people at the College aren’t voting, who cent history. Voters turned out on Nov. will? We pride ourselves on the liberal 6 at higher rates than has been seen in a arts values of a wide-ranging breadth midterm elections in the past 50 years. of knowledge and information, but yet, This election provided the first oppor- there are tons of people on this campus tunity for Democrats to put a check on who don’t feel a need to vote. In order Trump’s power and to gain control of for policy to fundamentally shift, inCongress and state governments. In ad- vigorated young voters need to show dition to deciding who would control up to the polls, in rates we’ve never seen Congress and statehouses, this election before. Despite higher voter turnouts was about defending worldviews and among young voters, the midterm elecvalues. In fact, Trump basically stated tions did not display the blue tsunami that the election was a referendum on that many Democrats were hoping for. him. A blue or red wave in this elec- Democrats won back the House in the tion would send a clear message about midterm elections, which is a huge deal, Trump’s time in office and what type of but it also means that for all intents and country we are becoming. purposes, legislative activity will now be Despite the importance of this elec- at a standstill. tion, I was surprised that many people As a community, we at the College on this campus did not register to vote. need to make our civic engagement a I was at dinner with classmates a week top priority. The College community before the midterm elections and the does a relatively good job of providing topic of the elections emerged. Primed the resources for voters to get regisand eager to discuss the implications of tered and fill out absentee ballots. But the upcoming elections, I was shocked we don’t do a good enough job of prowhen the conversation materialized viding incentives for people who might into a discussion about not voting in not otherwise vote. We also don’t folthe midterm elections. low up with absentee Of the seven people ballot completion. sitting at my dinner Not only should we I urge us to do more table, six casually be assisting people in mentioned that they up for their to foster conversations signing simply had not gotten ballots, we should around to sending in also be sending out about politics, current their absentee ballot. emails about voting events and social change. deadlines and create One was scrambling to send hers in before incentives to encourthe deadline, but the age people to actually others seemed comsend in the ballot itpletely complacent in not engaging in self. Looking ahead to 2020, the contheir civic duty. This was particularly tinued increase of the young voter base alarming to me, because this would is essential for Trump to be defeated. have been the first opportunity to vote As a member of the Williams comin midterm elections for everyone at munity, I urge us to do more to foster that table. They all made the conscious conversations about politics, current decision not to fill out an absentee ballot events and social change. By the time or send it in, deciding that the outcome 2020 rolls around, students should feel of the midterm elections just wasn’t im- as though they are voting for their viportant enough to devote a few minutes sion of America and the future, not that of their time to. it’s just an obligatory process that is opAt the College, it is easy to feel like we tional for them to engage in. live in an idyllic “Purple Bubble” where politics and civic engagement can take Alexandra Pear ’22 is from Philadela backseat to course work and extra- phia, Pa. Her major is undecided.
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DARIN LI ’21
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Reconsidering heavy reading loads The o e ial be e s o assi In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have taken three seminars in my first semester at the College. I got a bit overzealous in planning my classes, and might have taken on more reading than a person would reasonably want to do in a single semester. But in talking with other students, I’ve found that other people (who are better planners than me) are having a similar experience; many students here have trouble understanding all of the reading material that they’re assigned, largely because of its sheer volume. The student body could stand to benefit from reducing these reading lengths. I don’t want this op-ed to come across as a complaint about having to do a lot of work. I knew what I was getting into when I decided to enroll. In fact, my primary motivation for suggesting that reading loads be reduced is not to cut back on the amount of time that we spend completing it; rather, it’s to allow us to dedicate the same amount of time to a smaller amount of material. I’ll admit that my suggestions are based largely on my own personal experiences, but I believe that these experiences are typical enough to make these changes worthwhile. There’s a limited amount of time that I’m willing to spend reading on a daily basis. It’s a pretty large amount of reading since this is a demanding place. There’s so much going on here beyond classes that I’m not willing to spend all day preparing for class discussions. Even if my classes were more diversified, there’s no way I’d be able to read everything thoroughly without significant sacrifices in other areas. I’ve learned to get a solid grasp
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less readi
on most texts by skimming thoroughly and effectively. I understand texts well enough to feel confident contributing to discussions in class, but it’s certainly not the level of comprehension that I’d have if I could read everything at a slower pace. In some of my classes, we almost never have time to discuss every assigned reading. In my sociology class (which has assignments of pretty reasonable length most of the time), there are some days when we’ll have three assigned readings, but only manage to talk about one or two of them in a given class period. If one of these readings were cut, the discussion wouldn’t have been any less productive, as it’s clear that the two other readings provided plenty of material for discussion. Even if we discuss every assigned text, time usually has to be managed carefully to ensure that everything gets attention. In my experience, shorter readings would almost always have been sufficient, and a greater level of depth might have been reached if we didn’t have to move on to another topic (albeit a closely related one in most cases). Oftentimes, however, readings are still useful even if they aren’t discussed thoroughly in class. They might provide historical background to a particular trend, or useful supplemental knowledge that aids in discussing the primary reading. For instance, in my comparative literature class, we’ll read an article on a particular literary trend, and then read a few examples of that style of writing. The “preface” readings are usually helpful, but often take up such a significant amount of time that I’m unable to give as much attention as I’d like to the other content. There are ways around this.
Professors could truncate contextual readings, paring them down to their most essential parts so more time can be devoted to the materials that are focused on in class. Although relevant resources might not be readily available for highly specialized classes, there might even be alternative sources of context, such as educational videos or audio lectures, that perform the same duty as the reading. The use of these resources, when available, could help make assignments more varied and efficient. Some professors already do this, so it wouldn’t be a radical departure from current norms. Long reading assignments are also a significant source of stress. For me, this isn’t because they take up too much time, although I can certainly see this being the case for people, like athletes, with significant time restraints. Rather, the fact that I feel the need to rush through many of my readings leaves me feeling less prepared than I could be. With condensed assignments, I’d still spend a comparable amount of time completing them; but with a higher level of comprehension and the freedom to move at a more methodical pace, daily readings would feel much less like a rush to the finish. Again, I understand that this is a demanding place. Even with condensed readings, there will inevitably be times when some stress and compromises are inevitable. But shortening readings does not have to be an educational sacrifice. It can be done in a way that promotes deeper learning and lifts stress off of our student body. Luke Valadie ’22 is from Bradenton, Fla. His major is undecided.
NEWS 4
November 14, 2018
The Williams Record
Williams Reads hosts Grant bolsters Islandora panel on opioid epidemic By DAVEY MORSE STAFF WRITER
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 “About four years ago, I started working at the coalition,” she said. “It’s a community-based non-profit … with the mission of empowering the Northern Berkshire region to enhance the quality of life through our efforts at connecting, convening and supporting all facets of the community.” The coalition also provides access to treatment, harm reduction and recovery support. “Since 2002, the coalition has been working on issues pertaining to addiction and substance use, and mostly that work has pertained to supporting prevention,” Penner continued. “When we talk about substance use prevention, we talk about how we can keep our young people from experimenting with alcohol because what we know is that one in seven adults in the United States right now suffers from addiction, and we know that early use of alcohol as well as other
drugs doesn’t cause addiction, but it really elevates the risk of developing substance use disorder. Delaying that early use really reduces the likelihood of someone developing an addiction.” Waterman, the founder and president of a nonprofit called Josh Bressette Commit to Save A Life, conveyed the personal side of this epidemic and her organization's fight against it. A mother of four, Waterman saw three of her children go through addiction and raised a grandchild because of the epidemic. She has a son in jail because of his addiction, a daughter she barely sees because coming back to the area would cause a relapse and a son who was murdered by his drug dealer. “The dealer, originally from the Bronx, moved here to set up a business selling drugs and resided right here in Williamstown. This town is where my children and their friends first came to buy heroin,” she explained.
“How did it all start? From what I’ve learned, it all started out the same way, with prescription pain pills, and progressed to heroin,” she said. Being so closely connected to the opioid epidemic, Waterman named her non-profit organization after her son who was murdered and committed her work to raising funds for and assisting people in recovery from opioid use. The panel ended with a question and answer segment, touching on the pros and cons of marijuana legalization in relation to the epidemic and the importance of aiding cocaine misuse, especially within communities of color. Throughout these questions and presentations, parallels were drawn to the experiences of the characters in Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing and of so many people in the Berkshire community. The work of the panelists demonstrated that although difficult challenges remain, the hope for fighting this epidemic remains strong.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ROSE HOUGLET. Continuing with Williams Reads programming, panelists discussed local efforts to combat the opioid epidemic.
Monday 11-5-18 7:30 a.m., Fayerweather Hall: The parent of a student called stating she had been unable to contact the student for about a week. She asked officers to do a welfare check on the student and have them call her. 7:38 a.m., Chandler Pool: A student with an injured foot requested transport to the hospital. Northern Berkshire Emergency Medical Services was dispatched. An athletic staff member transported the student. 8:07 a.m., The Log: An officer responded to an intrusion alarm. Upon arrival the door was ajar. Officers checked the building and no one was inside. Officers rearmed and secured the door. 8:37 a.m., Agard House: Custodial services reported a broken window in the living room. The damage was documented. 10:33 a.m., Gladden House: The Housing Coordinator reported a broken glass door. Upon arrival, a custodian also reported a smashed mirror. Architectural trades was notified about both damaged areas. 5:03 p.m., Paresky Center: A student with an ankle injury was transported to the Health Center. 6:29 p.m., Chandler Gym: A student with an injured chin was transported to Berkshire Medical Center (BMC).
walking his German shepherd on a leash, another German shepherd that was not on a leash bit his dog on the neck. 6:31 p.m., Williams College Museum of Art: Officers responded to an intrusion alarm. There were several midterm exams being held in Lawrence Hall, and students standing on the stairs likely caused the alarm. The alarm was reset, and the building was rearmed upon departure. Wednesday 11-7-18 4:36 p.m., Hopkins Hall: Officers responded to a report of a student on a ledge. Officers found a student sitting on the ledge of the fourth floor west balcony with their feet hanging over the edge. The student was removed from the ledge. Thursday 11-8-18 5:03 a.m., Horn Hall: Officers responded to evaluate a student complaining of a cough and shortness of breath. Transport to BMC North was arranged. Friday 11-9-18 7:48 a.m., Faculty Club: Officers responded to a call for a reported odor of natural gas. Mechanical trades, the Williamstown Fire Department and Berkshire Gas Company were also notified. It was determined that three stove pilots were out and had been relit.
Last Tuesday, the College announced that it received a $153,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in support of the Islandora for All project. Islandora is an open-source software framework meant to consolidate and publicize faculty scholarship. The College has been using Islandora since 2012 and recently helped to develop the software to improve it for all participating institutions. Islandora for All, an offshoot of the Islandora Foundation and the target of the grant, aims to make the Islandora platform more accessible and to enhance its features. David Keiser-Clark, Islandora for All project manager and academic application developer at the College, explained that Islandora for All is adding features to Islandora to make it a competitive alternative to other popular institutional repositories such as Bepress or publishing platforms like Academia.edu. Islandora is distinguished by its open-source software, meaning that there is no upfront cost for acquiring or downloading it. The main cost is implicit, coming from the effort needed to download, maintain and develop the software at each institution that wants to use it. Other competing platforms, Keiser-Clark mentioned, are either not open access or monetize the scholarly research that is contributed to their platforms. The grant will first allow Keiser-Clark and the rest of the College's Islandora for All team to address these challenges and make the software more accessible. This aim is under the purview of Islandora for All’s Islandora Enterprise (ISLE) project. One way ISLE improves Islandora’s accessibility is by reducing the complexity and time necessary to download the Islandora software. Prior to ISLE, Keiser Clark noted, “It was a big chal-
lenge for Williams and other schools to update their Islandora servers,” as the server stack consists of over 80 opensource software applications, each of which requires separate treatment. Keiser-Clark offered an explanatory analogy. “Instead of building a car by purchasing and assembling all the parts from scratch, it would be easier to buy the car already assembled. With ISLE, we have preassembled the Islandora server stack ... to create a more accessible platform for educational institutions.” Moreover, ISLE also aims to make Islandora’s software depend as little as possible on the specific versions of any external software packages it is using. This way, when those packages are updated, the Islandora software continues to function seamlessly. Through this effort toward accessibility, Islandora for All aims to reduce the financial barrier to its product and make it available to institutions everywhere. “We hope that this project will achieve scholarly publishing solutions for a wider variety of institutions, such as historically black colleges and universities, liberal arts colleges, community colleges, tribal colleges and more,” Keiser-Clark said. The second project of Islandora for All that is supported by the grant is the Liberal Arts Sprint for Institutional Repository (LASIR) project, which intends to enhance the features of the Islandora software after it is downloaded. These features include better integrating faculty research with Google Scholar searches and generating analytics for participating faculty members to view how often and where their work is downloaded. Right now, faculty do not have a centralized platform where they can post their publications for free. “Our current collection for faculty publications has rich content but is not connected with other scholarly networks,” Keiser-
Clark said. Developing LASIR further will allow faculty to post their scholarship on Islandora and push it out to other academic networks that faculty members care about. While the College has consistently received one or two Mellon grants per year since 2011, the grant for Islandora is one of only two that has not been directly meant for a project of the faculty or administration. Of the 12 Mellon grants that the College has received in the past seven years, five have been for the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, which aims to to “increase diversity in the faculty ranks of institutions of higher learning”; three for the New Direction Fellowship, which works to “assist faculty members in the humanities and humanistic social sciences who seek to acquire systematic training outside their own areas of special interest”; and one each for promoting the long-term residency of faculty choreographers on campus, strengthening the College’s international academic programs, funding the initiatives of former President of the College Adam Falk; and “strengthen[ing] the development of digital resources and academic uses of the collections of the Williams College Museum of Art.” Though Islandora’s development will benefit the faculty’s sharing of scholarship in the long-run, the project is primarily managed by the College’s staff. In particular, the project is an instance of joint work between the College’s Office of Information and Technology (OIT) and its library staff. “By blending our OIT and library, we are taking part in a trend occurring in institutions of higher education across the country,” Keiser-Clark said. Not only is this setup important for the library’s growth, but it is also a valuable professional experience for the staff involved. “It's been a really wonderful learning experience for staff from different departments to collaborate together.”
Panel addresses recent flooding caused by climate change By SHAHEEN CURRIMJEE EXECUTIVE EDITOR In August 2011, tropical storm Irene struck Williamstown. The Hoosic River overflowed, flooding lower Cole Field. With over eight feet of floodwater, only the backboard used for soccer practice remained above water. Some students decided to bring out their kayaks. According to Bilal Ansari, assistant director of the Davis Center (DC), and Hank Art, director of the Center for Environmental Studies (CES), every home in the Spruces Mobile Home Park was ruled uninhabitable, and 226 residents were forced to find alternative housing. The immense flooding of 2011 was the starting point for a discussion on the intersections between climate change, community resilience and environmental justice at the College and the town. On Nov. 6, the Williams Environmental Council members Amber Lee ’21, Elizabeth Bigham ’21 and Maya SpaldingFecher ’21 co-organized a panel that featured several voices from the local community: Senior Planner for the Berkshire
Regional Planning Commission Lauren Gaherty, Ansari, Art and Jessica Muñoz ’19. Throughout the panel, speakers highlighted their work to address the effects of climate change. At the College, Muñoz has worked with various groups, in particular the Climate Adaptation Committee, to discuss how the College can combat the effects of climate change. Similarly, Ansari has been involved at the intersections of environmental and social justice through the DC. On a larger scale, Art has been working through the Design and Review Committee to enforce architectural standards. “How do we maintain a campus while the environment is changing?” Art asked. In his time at the College, he has seen the 100-year floodplain on Cole Field filled four times. “We need to be cognizant that the 100-year rain events and floods will probably happen in two-year intervals,” he said. With multiple houses located on the low-lying river banks, he added, “We need to plan so that we do not put people’s lives in danger.” Although Williamstown is a designated green community,
with over 65 homes taking advantage of solar panels, there is still work to be done. To this end, the Adaptation Committee of the Zilkha Center and the Campus Environment Advisory Committee are looking into solutions to climate change. “We are here for four years, and it seems as though climate change will not affect us,” Muñoz said. “However, students who live on campus over the summer can speak to rising temperatures, and sport teams are aware of the damage of floods on Cole Field.” As a community, we need to address the fact that our campus is under-resourced and energy inefficient; we need to ensure that in the future the College is more resilient. Through the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, Gaherty collaborates with municipal governments to help mitigate climate change with a focus on promoting public safety and public health. These solutions require funding, which can sometimes be difficult to obtain, since half the budget is allocated towards schools and education planning. “Public safety and
public works are only 18 percent [of the budget], so it is difficult to tackle these problems,” Gaherty explained. Another aspect of the commission is updating the information on floodplains, especially since many buildings are now well within the floodplain area. “[One solution is] to retrofit the buildings or elevate them so that residents can keep their properties.” The focus should be on the future. “This is what colleges and the young generation can work on,” Gaherty said. “We need to do things differently, learn from the past … and adapt.” The town and College are intricately intertwined in climate resilience, and both Ansari and Muñoz stressed the importance of student voices at town meetings. “We need to know who sits on the Williamstown town boards; we need to know who is representing our concerns,” Ansari said. In the upcoming months, Williamstown will be updating its hazard mitigation plan concerning naturals disasters and weather events, and there will be public forums for discussion and debate.
Saturday 11-10-18 6:50 p.m., Doughty House: A fire alarm was reported. The panel reported trouble in the laundry room. Upon opening the door, the room was extremely hot. The dryer was unplugged and a “do not use” sign was placed on the machine. A work order was submitted for the repair.
12:20 a.m., Mission Park: Officers responded to a report of a loud party. Officers found four students having an impromptu dance party. After being advised of the complaint, they apologized and promised to keep quiet. Sunday 11-11-18
Tuesday 11-6-18 8:30 a.m., Cole Field: An officer was approached by a local resident who reported that, while
1:23 a.m., Mission Park: Officers responded to reports of an unidentified stranger in the building.
SHAHEEN CURRIMJEE/EXECUTIVE EDITOR Members of the panel discussed the ways in which recent flooding has revealed the impact of climate change on Williamstown and the Berkshires.
November 14, 2018
NEWS 5
The Williams Record
Survey examines student attitudes toward midterm elections By JEONGYOON HAN FEATURES EDITOR Last Tuesday, 113 million citizens voted in the 2018 midterm elections, setting a record in raw vote total for a non-presidential election. Based on the 134 responses from a survey sent by the Record to 500 random unixes, students at the College have also involved themselves in the midterm elections, including discussing races with friends and professors, following day-by-day developments and voting. The survey shows that a majority of students were self-motivated to vote, voted based on their overwhelming disapproval of President Donald Trump and largely supported Democratic candidates. Within the Record survey sample, 79 percent of students voted. Eleven percent of the respondents were ineligible to vote, but over 60 percent of those who were ineligible cited that they either missed the registration deadline or could not send or receive their absentee ballot on time. For 46 percent of those who did vote, this was the first time they were eligible to do so. The survey shows that 74 percent of the student voters picked Democratic candidates. Twenty-two percent voted for candidates from various parties, and four percent voted for Republican candidates. When all survey respondents, including nonvoters, were asked to rate how closely they followed the midterm election season from “1” (not closely at all) to “5” (very closely), 30 percent responded with “3,” 30 with “4” and 21 with “5.” Students were asked to select sources of election information that they consulted. Fifty-four percent of
students selected “newspapers and magazines,” and 51 said “word of mouth, family, friends and professors.” Forty-eight percent of students turned to social media. CNN and Fox News garnered 34 and seven percent of votes, respectively. Issues that mattered to the greatest number of students were immigration and health care; of various issues listed, 62 students selected at least one of the two topics in their response. Student self-identification based on pronouns seemed to influence the topics that mattered to students. For those who use “she/her/ hers” pronouns, immigration received the most number of votes, while for those who use “he/him/his,” health care received the most votes. Students who use “he/him/ his” pronouns were more likely to say “the economy and jobs” mattered to them, at 40 percent, than those who use “she/her/hers” pronouns, at 28 percent. Additionally, 63 of “she/ her/hers” respondents selected “Sexual harassment / #MeToo movement” as an issue that mattered to them, while only 32 percent of “he/ him/his” selected the same issue. Results based on those who use “they/them/theirs” were not statistically significant due to low response numbers in this category. Additionally, most students had an unfavorable view of Trump’s presidency, which, for those who voted, influenced who they checked off on the ballot. From a scale of “1” (highly unfavorable) to “5” (highly favorable), only three percent of students gave him rating of “5,” while 81 percent of students gave him a rating of “1.” Sixty-nine percent of students also said that their disapproval or approval of
Trump influenced how they voted. Furthermore, the same respondents who gave Trump’s presidency rating a score of “1” also said that they were “very unlikely” to support candidates who were endorsed by Trump. This year's midterm elections was notable in that celebrities such as Taylor Swift promoted a surge of voter registration and turnout. According to The Atlantic, her Instagram post encouraging her followers to vote is believed to have contributed to over 100,000 young adults registering to vote at vote.org. Students at the College were not as encouraged by celebrities to vote, with an overwhelming 94 percent responding that celebrities did not influence their choice to vote. Regarding how satisfied students were by the results of the election from a scale of “1” (very unsatisfied) to “5” (very satisfied), most students responded with “3” (58 percent), followed by “4” (25 percent) and “2” (16 percent). This could reflect the uncertainty in what Democratic control over the House and Republican control over the Senate might mean for the next two years. In a midterm elections panel hosted by the political science department on Thursday, Visiting Professor of American Foreign Policy Chris Gibson said that the House victory for Democrats could compel Trump to “find his inner Democrat” and pursue bipartisan collaboration on infrastructure. Jane Swift, the acting governor of Massachusetts from 2001 to 2003 and a former professor of political science at the College, said that the Republican party will have to consider more seriously how they will reach out to women and young voters in preparation for 2020.
Who did students vote for?
How pleased are students with the results?
SAMUEL WOLF/NEWS EDITOR
MCLA hosts discussion with Ta-Nehisi Coates BSU town hall addresses By RACHEL SCHARF MANAGING EDITOR On Thursday night, acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates spoke at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) in North Adams. Coates, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, is the author of the National Book Award-winning book Between the World and Me. His newest book, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, is a collection of his essays during the course of the Obama presidency. He also writes Marvel’s Black Panther and Captain America graphic novel series. The event, which was part of MCLA’s Michael S. and Kitty Dukakis Public Policy Lecture Series, featured a discussion moderated by MCLA Professor Emerita of History Frances Jones-Sneed, followed by a question and answer session. Coates began by expressing his gratitude for the invite and large turnout. “I never, ever in my wildest dreams expected to come all the way up to the Berkshires,” he joked. “But I certainly never expected to come up here and find an audience like this.”
Jones-Sneed then asked Coates about his reactions to the 2018 midterm elections. Coates responded that he was struck by many of the hardfought races this year, but wanted to highlight two candidates in particular. The first was Lucy McBath, who won a House of Representatives seat in Georgia’s sixth district. McBath became politically active after her teenage son, Jordan Davis, was murdered in 2012, and Coates recalled interviewing her for an Atlantic article and including her story in Between the World and Me. The second candidate he recognized was Heidi Heitkamp, who lost her Senate seat in North Dakota after voting against the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Coates explained that he was struck by her decision to follow her moral compass despite knowing what the political repercussions would be. “Some victories are not worth having,” he said. “So I think that the way that she lost was actually much more important and much more significant than the way that she would have had to win.” Next, Jones-Sneed asked Coates about his many writ-
ings on reparations for slavery, which comes up in his books as well as his acclaimed 2014 Atlantic article “The Case for Reparations.” Jones-Sneed asked specifically about criticisms that he has not presented an action plan for enacting reparations in America. Coates responded that we are unfortunately not there yet, because so many Americans have yet to actually recognize that reparations are even necessary. “The reason we don’t have reparations in this country is not because there are no workable plans,” he said. “It’s because people don’t believe you’re owed.” Coates claimed that awareness of the need for reparations must grow before being translated into action. Coates then talked about the process of writing Between the World and Me. The book’s origins, he explained, go back to 2000, when his friend and classmate at Howard, Prince Jones, was fatally shot by a police officer. Jones’ death, he said, consumed him with anger. “I can’t tell you how fuming I was,” he said. “This was happening all my life. And then it happened in 2000 to a young man who I thought was one of the most beautiful people I’d
PHOTO COURTESY OF MCLA. Ta-Nehisi Coates discussed writing, politics and upcoming projects at MCLA as part of a public policy lecture series.
ever met.” At the time, however, he didn’t know how to express those feelings. It was not until the Black Lives Matter movement began to enter the mainstream, and Coates had developed his skills as a writer, that his long-suppressed anger about Jones’ death finally found a voice in Between the World and Me. “Writing for me is a form of therapy, anger management. I write angry,” he said. “You take all of that and you pull it together. And I felt like it was time to give vent to those feelings.” Perhaps the most powerful moment of the night came during the question and answer session, when an MCLA student asked Coates about his view on hope today. After a long silence, Coates replied, “I don’t need hope – I have beauty.” He explained that for him, literature is a site of inspiration and understanding rather than hope. He went on to say that today’s political moment erases any possibility of hope. “For [Obama] to become president, he had to go to two Ivy League schools, he had to be much smarter than average, he had to be more publicly morally perfect than probably any president ever has been, he could not have a stain on his resume at all – that that was the height that one had to achieve in order to be president,” he said. “And then to know that there are people who can walk through the world like Donald Trump and be president. And that’s the truth of the world. I don’t know how to draw hope out of that.” He continued, however, that one does not need hope to act. He cited the legacy of slavery in this country, and the black community in particular, and the responsibility that legacy thrusts upon him. “Those people got up every morning and they struggled. Where was the hope in that?” Coates asked. “And so for me, the very fact of me being here right now is rooted in the fact that they struggled. That’s enough for me. That’s enough to get me up out of bed.”
campus concerns
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 “Forty-five percent of students admitted to Williams end up enrolling,” she explained. “You’re right that we yield athletes at a higher rate, [meaning] they enroll at a higher rate than non-athletes, [but] beyond that, across the range of other identities on campus, the yield is actually quite similar.” Students brought up that forming communities in college is considered by many high school students when deciding which school to attend. One student pointed out that heterosexual white men are actually a minority on this campus. The student explained that when one takes race, economic class and sexual and gender identities into account, minority groups make up a large percentage of the student body. Official College statistics on class data state that around 40 percent of the school identifies as POC. However, this statistic does not take into account other minority groups such as first-generation, low-income or LGBTQ+ students. The relationship between some students of color and CSS was also a topic of discussion. Isaiah Blake ’21 described the POC community as a “magnet” for CSS, a sentiment echoed by other attendees. Douglas provided context to the group, explaining how “recently there have been multiple run-ins between Black students, Black spaces and CSS or people who are supposed to be policing the space in some way…” Several students expressed how they feel unsafe around CSS officers. Some examples of alarming behavior that attendees gave included POC-organized parties, where room capacity was arbitrarily and significantly lowered on more than one occasion, as well as examples of condescending and rude tones some CSS officers have taken with POC. Also highlighted was the discrepancy between policing of majority POC and non-POC par-
ties. Alexa Walkovitz ‘21, shared her experience of living in Wood house, which has a large student athlete population. “[My roommate and I] walk in a lot of times and their parties are going on in multiple spaces in Wood and I don’t think I’ve once seen a CSS officer shut them down, and they destroy the space,” Walkovitz said. To her, this is a direct contrast to the experiences of many students of color with parties and CSS. One of the final topics addressed was the College’s potential adoption of “The Chicago Statement On Free Speech,” also known as the “Chicago principles.” President Maud Mandel spoke about a petition that has been circulating amongst faculty requesting that Williams sign the Chicago Principles. Though she encouraged students to look up the Chicago principles themselves to get a better understanding of what they are, Mandel described them as “a kind of high-level set of principles encouraging the university to have a stance towards speakers; [that is,] anybody should be allowed to be invited to the campus that anyone in the campus community wants to have come.” According to Forbes, since February 2018, at least 35 universities have adopted the Chicago principles. This brought up questions among attendees about the role of Uncomfortable Learning, a group that frequently brings controversial speakers on campus. Much of the discussion was centered around students’ qualms with the lack of academic value of many of these speakers. Some worried about the effects of people spouting hateful or even false rhetoric and refusing to engage with students or faculty in non-combative ways, in contrast to the legitimacy that an appearance at the College might lend these views. This meeting was recorded and is available for viewing on the “Williams BlackStudents” youtube channel.
FEATURES 6
The Williams Record
November 14, 2018
One in Two Thousand By LYDIA DUAN FEATURES EDITOR I first met Delsa through Exploring the Arts during First Days. Everything about her – from her bold lipstick to her buoyant energy – had me thinking, “This is someone I want to get to know.” I sat down with her to talk about all things spooky, ranging from makeup to taxidermy. Delsa! We have to start with your Halloween makeup. You were just serving up looks left and right. How did this tradition get started? Ninety percent of my personality is Halloween and spooky stuff. I feel like I lack ambition unless it comes to the aesthetic. My dad is the spooky one who got me into goth [stuff] and reading classic literature like Edgar Allan Poe, who’s bae. He used to do my makeup as a witch or clown every year until I was eight years old. Then I was like, “I’m bored, and I can do better than you.” [Laughs.] By the time I was in middle school I had too many ideas … so I decided that starting October 1st, I would just do a different look every day. It started with really small stuff, like drawing a heart on my cheek and being “just cute,” and by the 30th or 31st, it would be like a full-on witch look, with skin peeling off [like] the Wicked Witch of the West getting hit with water in The Wizard of Oz. Is this how you got interested in cosmetic makeup? Once, my dad was like, “Oh, wait, you’re actually pretty good,” and I was like, “Maybe I should do beauty makeup,” because that is the birth child of SFX [special effect makeup] in my opinion. I would just mix colors and be like, “What why does this look so orange?” So I just kind of learned on my own.
I grabbed a couple books, and I learned on YouTube… When I showed interest in makeup, my mom was like, “I’ll teach you everything.” But everything she taught me was dated [laughs]. Because it was very ’90s, like line your lips very dark, and that just ain’t facts anymore, bro.
DELSA LOPEZ ’21
Oh! What's your high school taxidermy story?
Do you have looks that you’re especially proud of? In ninth grade, I was Twisty, the clown from “American Horror Story.” He has this giant mask that makes him look like he’s always smiling, so I built teeth on top of my lips so it looked like my face was always open. I skipped all of my classes just to finish my makeup in time for a costume contest. So, I’m doing this. I have a blow dryer. Everything is happening. I finish at 3 p.m., and I think it looks like shit, but I literally come out the door, and one teacher is like, “WTF?” and I was like, “Aye, okay, so apparently this is good.” I go into the theater, everyone turns around and is like, “What?” and I’m like, “What’s up, my dudes? ... Spooky spooks.” The best part of that day was when I went home because I had to take the train home, so all these random public people just kept looking at me on the train. It was really fun. That’s actually amazing. On the topic of spooky things, don’t you want to be a coroner? Medical examiner. But close enough. Because I’m a spooky boy, it only makes sense. A coroner is just a person that investigates a dead body after it’s been found, and they basically just say, “Yeah, that [body’s] dead.” A medical examiner actually performs autopsies and chemical tests to see what are the residues left in this person’s body to investigate how they died. It came from me just loving the
SOPHIA SHIN/PHOTO EDITOR DELSA'S HOMETOWN NEW YORK, N.Y.
DELSA'S RESIDENCE CARTER
idea of death, honestly. I’m a very goth child. I take comfort in the abyss that is the unknown of death. I really like it because I’ve never been afraid of things I don’t know… Branching off of that, I just want to do something to Sherlock things out. I want to investigate and puzzle things out. Medical examiner made the most sense because it involves forensics, which I love. And I like feeling like I’m doing something because I’m helping the police, and even though I don’t trust the police, I like giving answers, and I like feeling needed. Respect. Can you tell me a bit about where you grew up? I was raised in Washington Heights, N.Y., which is where Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jennifer Lopez are from. It’s a really poor neighborhood with Broadway splitting Dominicans and Mexicans and Hasidic Jews.
Students host Armistice centennial party on Hoxsey to celebrate peace By IRENE LOEWENSON STAFF WRITER This past Saturday night, hundreds of students celebrated the 100-year anniversary of the Armistice for World War One (WWI) the way many celebrated Halloween, Homecoming and Thursdays in October: with a party on Hoxsey Street. The celebration – known as the Peace Party – seemed in many respects like a typical College party. Empty red solo cups and Natural Light beer cans littered the floor. Speakers in the dimlylit basement of the house blasted music as partygoers danced and laughed and tried to talk over the music. But unlike the myriad of parties held at the College, the Peace Party had been almost two years in the making. In February 2017, after attending a cliquey, unpleasant party, Adrian Black ’19, then a sophomore, had an idea. “I remember thinking it would be better to have a party that was about getting to know people you didn’t know, where everybody was friends with everybody,” he said. “It occurred to me that we were coming up on the centennial of the end of WWI – and by coming up on, I mean it was still in a couple of years [away].” Black created a Facebook group for the Peace Party. Over the last 20 months, people in the group have expressed their excitement for the event. In October of 2017, Chris Avila ’21 posted, “Wow, we are really building this up! Can’t wait – just 13 months to go guys!” Others posted to mark 11 months, six months, one month and one week left until the party. “It has sort of built up the hype itself,” Black said. “I want to say that I’ve been clever about this, but I think when you plan a party out a year-anda-half in advance, people get pretty hyped up about it.” Black co-hosted the party with Mack Radin ’19. “I would give Adrian most of the credit, but I definitely supplied my name and moral support to the event,” Radin said. Moral support meant, he said, that “from
it is?” There were a lot of bar and bat mitzvahs and one friend of mine, her mom was the head of Atlantic Records, so at her bat mitzvah were Flo Rida and Bruno Mars. And I was like 12, mind you, so I was like Flo Rida? [Laughs.]
the very beginning, from day that trivial sense, at this colone, I was with [Black] every lege, people being friendly with step of the way, making sure each other – I think that matthat when he made posts [in the ters for something.” Facebook group], I liked them. I Students at the College have liked three-quarters of the posts plenty of opportunities for rehe made on Facebook.” flection and seriousness, Radin Black had planned to host said. “But it’s also important the party in his apartment, but to be able to celebrate the good after over 250 people RVSPed things that we have in life and “yes” to the event on Facebook, the peaceful moments we can his friends who live on Hoxsey find on campus and elsewhere Street offered to hold it there. in the world… Peace hasn’t reWhen Black found out a few ally worked out on a worldwide weeks ago that First Chance, a scale, and there’s a lot of tendance for the sion between senior class, people in a would be the lot of differsame night ent ways. So as the Peace it’s important Party, he was to be able to “a little perfind those turbed.” Bemoments of cause most empathy [for of his friends people] to be are seniors, able to conhe was connect with cerned that those around Adrian Black ’19 the party them. And if would lack we get to proattendees. vide a moBut as Ari ment of emBall-Burack ’19 noted, the party pathy to just one pair of people was lively. “It [was] great,” he through this party, then I feel said. “We [had] people upstairs. like we’ll have succeeded.” The downstairs finally lived up “I think this party definitely to its potential as a dance space. fulfills its goal of trying to enPeople seem[ed] to be having compass a large number of an all-around good time. And students in lots of different we [were] celebrating some- groups,” Georgia Panitz ’22, a thing very honorable and no- partygoer, said. “I feel that this ble: world peace.” is probably the most diverse Usually, of course, armistice group of students that I’ve seen commemorations are more at a party since I’ve been here, somber than a Hoxsey party. in terms of people that aren’t After all, tens of millions of peo- necessarily just athletes or from ple died in WWI. Black said he a certain theater group or musiis aware that the armistice cen- cal group. It’s students from all tennial is not entirely a cause grades, from different groups for celebration. on campus.” “But I think the promise of And some of the partygoers peace matters. And not just were not even students at the in this trivial way, where I’m College. Lucian Black, a student dressed like some hippie, like at Bowdoin and Black’s twin John Lennon or whatever,” brother, was in attendance, Black, who wore blue-tinted along with ten of his friends. round glasses, blue printed They drove four-and-a-half pants and an unbuttoned pink hours from Bowdoin to the Coland green paisley shirt, said. lege for the party. “That hope – that belief in “In 1918, newspapers called thinking that peace is possible this the greatest day in history,” – counts. Even if it just makes he said in reference to the armipeople come to this party and stice. “We’re trying to recreate get to know one another. In the greatest day in history.”
“That hope – that belief in thinking that peace is possible – counts.”
CELEBRITY ENCOUNTER FLO RIDA
So anytime I walked my dog past Broadway, all these white people would just look at me and I’d be like, “Excuse me, I deserve to be here.” [Laughs.] I jumped through different public schools until I got to high school, and then I got into this really good private school because of a scholarship program I went through called Prep for Prep. This school was predominantly white, so I learned to navigate white spaces. A lot of celebrities rolled through because their sons and daughters went [there]. I don’t get starstruck, so like, Hugh Jackman had come over and [so did] Carmelo Anthony, this basketball player – I don’t know sports. I met Matt Damon because his stepdaughter was in our grade and she had a sweet 16. My parents would freak out whenever they pick me up from someone else’s house and be like, “Is that Stanley Tucci?” and I’d be like, “I don’t know, I guess
Yeah, this was in like 10th grade. My school was a progressive white school in Upper West Side called the Calhoun School. [Part of] AP Biology was going to the forest and investigating vertebrate anatomy and finding dead things. One of the things they do is that they’ll find a roadkill of a deer, that you can see all of the bits and stuff. So our bio teacher found a deer. Then I was like, “Wait, I want this… I want to keep this as a memory.” We call teachers by their first names at this school, so I’m like, “Hey Francesco, can I grab this deer?” And he’s like, “Yeah, sure, when we’re done with it.” He didn’t say nothing about my request because he’s low-key crazy, which is why I loved him. So I grab this giant black garbage bag and I’m like, “Lit.” I named the deer Barney Vincent, because, like, venison. When we went back [to school], we went on this yellow school bus and I just held this bag with Barney Vincent in my lap the entire time. [Laughs.] Because I’m weird, my parents also did not ask any questions. They’re like, “Alright. She’ll show us eventually.” What I did is I put Barney Vincent into this giant vat of alcohol, so you can kill every bacterium that was ever in this deer’s body. I did that for like two weeks. Then after you desiccate, you soften the fur. So I did that for like another month. Then I capped the limbs off with hot glue and leather so that it’s tight and nothing can get in there. I made this deer,
and then I showed it to my parents, and they were like, “WTF, wait, you didn’t do his eyes right.” [Beat.] I was like, “You right,” so I got some glass eyes and fixed it. I’m floored, but moving on. Can we talk about your reading habits? I read super avidly. Throughout high school, I would read two to three books a day. Now I’m sad if I don’t read one a day. I need constant stimulus; as an extrovert, this is how I survive. Now that I’m busy, I read like tiny books, but I’ll make sure to read at least one a day. My record in one month was 400 books. I’m just a very fast reader. Like, in Writing Workshop, I have to use that skill when I’m reading a seven-page paper in an hour and have to be able to talk to someone about it, which means I have to internalize what happened in it. Is there anything else you’d add before we wrap up? Let’s get introspective. I’m a very introspective person. I really like self-reflecting all the time, which is also why I like making people uncomfortable, because it forces them to cope with it, and I like observing how people cope with things. Just to be like, “Oh, how are they going to deal with this?” I think that’s the most fun part of a person that I can investigate. When I do that to myself, I’m just more like, “Hoo, I can tell this is a thought I do not want to probe. So let’s probe it.” So for me, I don’t think I’m an ambitious person, which might seem odd. I just feel like I know what I want to do, but I also know that I could be easily swayed in any direction and that scares me. I really love makeup, I really love science and I just think that I try to be open-minded with any opportunity that comes my way.
SIX HOURS IN GREAT BARRINGTON By RACHEL SCHARF, NICHOLAS GOLDROSEN and REBECCA TAUBER MANAGING EDITOR, EXECUTIVE EDITOR and NEWS EDITOR Continuing the Record’s exploration of Berkshire County, we headed down to Great Barrington. While just over an hour drive south of Williamstown, the trek showcased the area’s beautiful fall foliage. The Record's reporting team set out to see all the weird, wonderful and tasty sights of South County. 12:00 p.m. | GB Eats (282 Main St.) We started off the day with brunch at GB Eats, warming up from the fall breeze with good coffee and tea. The toothsome food – polenta topped with pesto and eggs, tomato soup and melty grilled cheese – combined with GB Eats’ lively atmosphere and great service made it a beatific brunch for this merry bunch. 1:30 p.m. | Shopping We then hit the streets to explore Great Barrington’s local businesses. We stopped into Rubiner’s Cheesemongers and Grocers (264 Main St.) cheese shop and learned what the mysteriously labelled “smoked water” was. We also sampled a few cheeses on display, before realizing that perhaps this was
not the place to find a collegiate price point. Next, we explored Yellow House Books (252 Main St.), a small used bookstore located in a building as cute as its name. With its wide variety of genres, the store provides something for everyone, as long as you don’t mind navigating around the cat that roams between the stacks. After the bookstore, we went next door to Boho Exchange, which sold a mix of hidden gems and crazy clothing items. This zany shop offered a great opportunity to find some new attire.
whose products are offered in Goodrich and Spring Street Market. A delicious scoop of black raspberry hit the spot for the perfect afternoon treat. It was also an excellent accompaniment for our walk along Railroad St. and Main St. to window shop. We peered in at cookware, artwork, antiques and toys on display. We were particularly intrigued by the Berkshire tourism-themed underwear on display in one window, though we could not suppress the requisite amount of shame to purchase it.
3:30 p.m. | Housatonic River
5:00 p.m. | W.E.B. Du Bois Boyhood Homesite (612 S Egremont Rd.)
We then headed down to the Housatonic River Walk, the entrance to which is somewhat confusingly tucked behind a Rite Aid (197 Main St.) – a wonderful set-up should you need to fill a prescription or pick up some snacks before heading down to the riverwalk. The riverwalk is a peaceful and gently meandering path next to the flowing Housatonic; the banks were blanketed with beautifully changing and stunningly sun-dappled fall foliage. We wound our way down to the end of the walk, where a new friend graciously offered to take our photo from her patio tucked away along the river. 4:00 p.m. | SoCo Creamery (5 Railroad St.) It was now time to head to the famed SoCo Creamery,
A pivotal figure in the history of American civil rights activism, W.E.B. Du Bois grew up in Great Barrington. At the Du Bois Boyhood Homesite, the foundation of the house remains. The site, maintained by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, features an informative and worthwhile interpretive trail chronicling Du Bois’ life and work. The historic site functions as both a memorial and a marker to Du Bois’ expansive legacy. There are guided walking tours offered on summer Saturdays. We concluded our day by following one of the paths, and indeed, the quietude, late afternoon sunlight and gentle fall breeze immersed the trail with a peaceful character, a great way to conclude an exciting South County escape.
RACHEL SCHARF/MANAGING EDITOR
Great Barrington offers a full day of attractions, from brunch (left) to walks by the Housatonic River (right).
November 14, 2018
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The Williams Record
Ephs make cards for Michael Johnson, discuss criminal justice system By MELVIN LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER This past Thursday, Assistant Professor of English Ianna Hawkins Owen and students in her “Black Writing To, From, and About Prison” class hosted a teach-in and card-making event wishing an early happy birthday to Michael Johnson. This event invited the College community to consider the ways in which literature and writing portray issues of racism in the justice system. A gay, HIV-positive, black man, Johnson was sentenced to 30.5 years in prison in Missouri by a predominantly white and heterosexual jury in 2015 on counts of exposure, attempted exposure and transmission of HIV. This event reflects the general aims of Owen’s course, which seeks to focus on “letter writing instead of traditional term papers, allowing students to develop their capacity to connect with people and their lives over one of the most powerful and normalized institutions today,” she said in an email interview. She hopes students will “read the work of incarcerated organizers, hold what they are asking for in terms of solidarity, think and invest time together” to “chart a path forward and through” the complicated world of the prison industrial complex. Anika Brown ’22 and Emily Marquis ’22 presented on the case in front of a crowd while a photo of Johnson, standing, casual, unsmiling, was projected onto the screen. After Brown and Marquis finished describing his case, other students from the class distributed pens and
SOPHIA SHIN/PHOTO EDITOR
Students wrote cards for Michael Johnson, who was accused of HIV nondisclosure and will be released on parole from prison in 2019. paper to write to Johnson and wish him well for his upcoming birthday in December. They shared with the room some letter writing advice from Black and Pink, an organization that supports incarcerated LGBTQ and HIV-positive individuals. Black and Pink’s website has pen pal guidelines that encourage whoever is writing a letter to not be afraid to open up, to be themselves, to be honest and to talk humanely. Johnson’s case brings to light the unfair treatment of those diagnosed with HIV in certain parts of the country, including Missouri. Individuals with HIV must disclose their status to their sexual partners under Missouri law. According to his accusers, Johnson claimed to
be clean before engaging in unprotected sex. A gay black man, Johnson faced a jury of nine of his “peers” that included eight white people, six of whom believed homosexuality is a sin. His public defender failed to discuss crucial contradictions in the accusers’ stories during crossexaminations and at one point stormed out of the courtroom in tears. The prosecution failed to present medical evidence that Johnson’s strain of HIV was the same as the man he allegedly infected. Additionally, while awaiting sentencing, Johnson was held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, despite the welldocumented psychological harm of this practice. In Missouri, the average sentences for second-degree mur-
der are 25.2 years and 28.2 years for rape with a weapon. In the words of one of Johnson’s sexual partners, “It would have been better for him if he’d killed someone instead.” While disclosure of any sexually transmitted illness (STIs) is vital to obtaining consent, many HIV criminalization laws reflect an outdated understanding of the virus. HIV is no longer the death sentence it was in 1988, when Missouri made it a felony not to inform sexual partners of one’s positive status. Some organizations, including the American Medical Association and HIV Medicine Association, argue against the effectiveness of these laws that specifically target HIV as opposed to other
STIs. These measures may increase fear of medical testing and reinforce the myth that only individuals with the virus are responsible for containing its spread. A 2017 study in the journal AIDs found no correlation between criminal exposure laws and diagnosis rates over time. Additionally, Louisiana and Missouri both criminalize exposing others to HIV through biting and spitting, respectively, even though the virus cannot be transmitted through saliva. Johnson’s conviction was overturned in 2016 because of the prosecution’s failure to share evidence with the defense in a timely fashion. Johnson accepted a ten-year plea deal rather than face another trial.
He will be released on parole on Oct. 9, 2019. The room was quiet as everyone began their letters. Some people wrote continuously while others had to pause and think. Many letters began with “Happy Birthday!” at the top and included colorful drawings, while others were written in plain black ink. A few people left with the intention to spend more time on it and return their letter to someone in the class. Almost everyone folded their paper in half before turning it in – these letters were not for anyone in the room to read. They were for Johnson. “We decided to do letter writing to show him that people on the outside are supporting him and thinking of him,” Marquis said. Brown agreed and pointed to his inhumane treatment in solitary confinement. She hopes the letters will alleviate some of the pain he has endured and provide some measure of comfort. Hallie Della-Volpe ’21, another student in the class, described her desire to do something proactive for Johnson’s case. “We learn a lot of things here – a lot of things that are unfair – and now we have this knowledge but we’re not really doing anything about it,” she said. Informing others about Johnson’s case was one thing, but to write him birthday cards felt like a tangible step in pressing against both the criminalization and marginalization of HIV-positive and LQBTQ+ individuals in a flawed incarceration system. When tabling for the teach-in, DellaVolpe said she would stop people and ask, “‘Hey, what are you doing Thursday from 6 [p.m.] to 7 [p.m.]? I bet nothing more important than this.”
Data scientist Josh McNutt ’99 reflects on path to Showtime Networks By VINCENT JIANG STAFF WRITER Sharply dressed with an intense gaze to match, Vice President of Data Strategy at Showtime Networks Inc. Josh McNutt ’99 spoke during Professor of Mathematics Steven Miller’s “Probability” class this past Friday, detailing his winding path that led him to where he is now. McNutt entered the College in 1995 as a prospective computer science (CS) major. He grew up learning basic programming; by high school, he had built both a simulation game of the Gulf War and a program that tracked the stats of National Football League (NFL) players to determine team strengths and weaknesses. It was only when learning about Java in his first CS class that he started to struggle. It didn’t help that “the computer lab in Bronfman basement was really hot,” he said, somewhat jokingly. It was then that McNutt discovered a passion for economics and decided to major in that instead. A defining moment that shifted his path to data science was his final paper for “Labor Economics,” entitled “AstroTurf Compensation Wage Differentials in the NFL.” He found that because of the greater potential risks of injury when playing on AstroTurf instead of grass, NFL players who played on AstroTurf received higher wages as compensation, something a similar study would find 11 years later. “This was occurring spring of senior year… [so] I didn’t have that much motivation in all of my classes, but for this class I was so into it,” he said. “I was work-
ing so hard and was utilizing all of my intellectual capabilities… It just didn’t feel like work.” McNutt’s classes instilled in him a desire to constantly improve and strive for intellectual growth, something reflected by the repeated changes in his career. McNutt went from being a consultant for a year at Oliver Wyman to studying at Carnegie Mellon for his master’s degree in statistics. From there, he maintained network security for the government at the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute and then landed a position in consumer real estate for Bank of America in Charlotte, N.C. McNutt eventually took a job at a league office for the National Basketball Association (NBA) in New York, N.Y., where he helped manage, among other things, ticket and merchandise sales for eight years. He created the first NBA 360 league customer analytics database from scratch. “You learn by having to work around [the lack of technology] and build up your skill set because of facing that obstacle,” he said. Possibly his biggest accomplishment there was the creation of a fan information consumption ordinal, which predicted the probability that a customer would purchase a ticket over the next year, helping teams improve their marketing efficiency. But as the lone scientist there, he was slowly falling behind in the field. “You have to constantly be on top of it, to keep learning,” he said. So he started learning Python, a programming language, on his own and eventually left to be part of a larger team.
After two years as a data scientist for a hedge fund, where he built models to keep track of “alternative data” such as credit card transactions or satellite photos, McNutt decided that he was ready to build his own team. Luckily, Showtime, the cable network, had been looking for someone to spearhead the creation of a data science team. Hiring was a difficult and intense process, but McNutt felt ready to tackle it. “I went from building software to building a team,” he said. “It was everything I’ve done before, but on steroids.” The team has grown to three members, McNutt included. The team organizes the raw data stored in the Amazon Cloud into a master views table, something McNutt describes as “a time machine of sorts.” It contains billions of data points gathered over the past few years that reflect everything that viewers have done, from what they watch to when they watched it, and allows the team to build models to predict what viewers would likely do, including if they would renew their subscription. His job does not end there, however. “Predicting behavior is the easy part,” he said. To increase revenue, Showtime has to change viewer behavior as well. But with the data gathered by McNutt’s team, it is easier for the network to do so effectively. And the team is constantly learning and improving their code for extracting data. “So much of the value is the ability to take raw data and make it usable,” McNutt said. “You’re getting paid to keep learning.”
VINCENT JIANG/STAFF WRITER
John McNutt ’99 founded the first data science team at the cable network, Showtime Networks Inc.
PHOTO COURTESY OF GLENN GEBHARD.
The Stanley Kaplan Program held a conference at the College for the centennial anniversary of the CPUSA.
College analyzes communism centennial By NIGEL JAFFE STAFF WRITER As a student-organized event, “Peace Party,” celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Armistice of November 11, 1918, a completely different centennial event was also celebrated at the College this weekend: the anniversary of the establishment of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), an important political development of the last century. A conference sponsored by the Stanley Kaplan Program in American Foreign Policy, as well as the political science department, provided the setting for a gathering of several dozen scholars of the history of the CPUSA. The conference was organized by three prominent voices in the field: Katherine Sibley, professor of history and director of American studies at Saint Joseph’s in Philadelphia; James Ryan, professor of history at Texas A&M and Vernon Pedersen, professor of history and head of the department of international studies at the American University in Sharjah. The three are also co-editing a forthcoming volume entitled One Hundred Years of Communism in the USA: the CPUSA at Home and Abroad Since 1919. Chair of the political science department James McAllister said it was important to host the conference. “The rise and fall of the communist party is of central importance to the history of the American left in the 20th century,” he said. “I don't think you could have asked for a better and more diverse group of scholars. Maurice Isserman, Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes are towering figures ... on the subject, along with ... younger scholars, such as Randi Storch and Erik McDuffie.”
Additionally, Ryan characterized the event as “a reinvigoration of the historians in the field,” adding that his hope for the conference was to “bring together everyone significant on the topic.” Meanwhile, Sibley emphasized the event’s focus on historical figures who oversaw the rise and fall of the CPUSA. “It’s a celebration of the 100 years, but it’s also an investigation into the history of the people behind the party,” she said. “They were a really fascinating group, and many of them put forward ideas that were incredibly progressive for the time.” Through five panel sessions, the conference explored various aspects of the party’s evolution, leadership and demise, often taking fresh perspectives on historical events to unveil social and cultural phenomena which might otherwise seem unconnected. One such highlight was presented by John Sbardellati, associate professor of history at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, whose talk focused on the role of communists in Hollywood as well as J. Edgar Hoover and Ayn Rand’s views on both communism and the film industry. His paper, entitled “Ayn Rand and J. Edgar Hoover Go to the Movies: Contested Visions of Anti-Communism in Hollywood’s Early Cold War Films,” explored Rand’s largely failed attempts to find work as a screenwriter in Hollywood (which she blamed on her outspoken anti-communism) before the impact of her novelturned-film The Fountainhead. Meanwhile, Sbardellati argued that Hoover was driven by a spiritual battle between “the American Christians” and “the atheistic, ‘godless’ communists.” Hoover, he explained, was intensely involved with the film industry during the 1940s and ’50s, convinced that Hollywood was attempting
to subvert the “American way.” He pressured producers to put out allegorical pieces, such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which highlighted the purported evils of communism. Panelists at the event took varying approaches to investigating the party’s history. The first session explored the evolution of the party line and the ideas of party leaders as they promoted revolutionary change in America. The second focused on Red Scares in the United States and the McCarthy era, as well as the Rosenberg case. The third looked at the party’s involvement with progressive movements for social justice, including racial equality, women’s rights, labor activism and peace activism. The fourth explored the party’s involvement with espionage and propaganda campaigns in order to spread its messaging in the United States. The panel also considered the impact of those activities on Soviet-U.S. relations. Finally, the fifth session looked at how the Communist Party affected the lives of Americans, from its message to the working class, to its scrutiny by the U.S. government, to any related consequences of the party’s activism. Ryan confessed that “technically, the party was born in 1919, marking the split in the Socialist Party of America. But we got such a good offer this year, we decided to hold the event a year in advance!” On time or not, the conference provided a deep exploration in various aspects of CPUSA history, and fulfilled Ryan’s goal of “reinvigorating” the study of the subject. “I think it’s a wonderful conference,” said Gail Williams O’Brien, professor emerita of history at North Carolina State. “The field deserves more events like this one.”
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The Williams Record
November 14, 2018
“Black to the Future: Afro-futurism” centers black queer joy By NATALIE WILKINSON CONTRIBUTING WRITER “We are going to be making a liberated space,” Kailyn Gibson ’22 announced in Goodrich on Thursday, Nov. 1. Gibson invited audience members to engage in a series of creative writing prompts before opening up the floor to student performances. The open mic event, facilitated by students of Professor Kai M. Green ’07 in collaboration with visiting artist Jonathan Lykes, was a space of collectivity from the outset that held young queer black joy at its center. Gibson, a burgeoning performance poet in her own right and one of the unofficial DJs of the event, held up a list of prompts for people in attendance: “write a haiku about what freedom means to you,” “what is my intelligence demanding of me?” or “write a letter to your chosen family only in questions.” The course, entitled “Freedom Dreams: Afro-Futurism and Visionary Fictions,” challenges elitist conceptions of intelligence and interrogates how academia can intersect with liberation. Green uses creative practices and prompts to help students engage collectively with Afrofuturist theory and attempts to deconstruct classroom hierarchies through alternative forms of class participation. The course reads works by black science fiction writers, but also interrogates the compartmentalization of the science fiction genre, reading enslavement and black survival as its own kind of living, real, science fiction and the black radical tradition as “always already” rooted in projects of future-envisioning. The open mic event was
PHOTO COURTESY OF JAY COREY.
Cleveland Lavalais ‘21 (above) incorporated audience participation and experimental techniques in his performance on Thursday. an iteration of this practice, in which all who came to the space were asked to participate, blurring the line between performer and spectator, between teacher and learner. Lykes, a black queer artist, activist and policy analyst from New York City, N.Y., combines art-making and training workshops to envision and realize spaces of anti-oppression. Lykes is co-chair of the board of directors for BYP100 (Black Youth Project 100), a national member-based organization of youth activists that creates freedom and justice for all black people, and focuses on “transformative leadership development, direct action organizing, advocacy and political education using a black queer feminist lens.” Lykes is also the co-founder of the Keeping Ballroom Community Alive
Network, which encourages trans and queer people of color – emphasizing the long history of radical organizing in the house and ball community – to create new possibilities of self-care and self-determination. Lykes recently released a collaborative album he directed, The Black Joy Experience, made by young black organizers of BYP100. The album weaves together song, Black Lives Matter chants and spoken word that center on and celebrate blackness, femininity, youth and queerness. After the informal workshop session, students began performing their own dance, song and spoken word pieces, experimenting with body movement and sound creation. Merudjina Normil ’19 performed a spoken word and dance piece that wove together the sounds of rain with
body movement, and some in the audience were moved to sing while she flowed across the stage. Quess Green ’20 danced to his own choreography, while the audience hyped him up (and he, with the fresh audacity of his movements, hyped right back). Gibson’s poetry performance bitingly named what it means to be an unapologetic black femme in an anti-black misogynist world, and Isaiah Blake ’21 performed a poem about food and family, followed by a somber and spine-breakingly beautiful rendering of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Other students experimented with sound and words, and it would not be an exaggeration to say I was mesmerized by everyone who got on stage. Somewhere in the middle of the performance, the food –
from La Fogata in Pittsfield – arrived, and everyone huddled around the table filled with platters of empanadas, arroz con pollo, frijoles, chicharrón and bottles of malta. Afterwards, Lykes performed songs and spoken word pieces that centered on Afroheritage, queerness, blackness and healing from historical and familial trauma. While playing guitar, or making percussive sounds with his body, Lykes brought the audience into the singing and chanting with him. His voice was at times indistinguishable from that of the audience as he sang, “I love the color of my skin / ‘cause it’s the skin that I’m in.” At times, the audience and Lykes engaged in a call-and-response refrain, stating, unequivocally: “antiblackness exists,” a reminder
of the gravity – the sheer lifeand-death stakes – of the work being done in the space to make black joy. Lykes then invited students from the WGSS 380 course to help lead the audience in a polyrhythm, where students sang weaving melodies. To imagine and enact spaces of young queer black joy is not only radical but visionary. Given the current national context – where white supremacy is condoned daily and propagated by “elected officials,” and the surge in racist hate crimes is a horrifying embodiment of the national discourse – it seems that survival can only be defined in the negative, by what people are surviving against. At the College, white supremacy, heteronormativity, homophobia and transphobia are more veiled, in that students and faculty bear the consequences of what the College does not provide in terms of support and accountability. But BYP100, among other organizations that center queer black youth in their political action, insists on the importance of joy and healing as gestures of anti-oppression in themselves. Community organizing is about defining and redefining what we want to be for, all while waking up every day and facing the way American institutions continue to challenge people’s right to exist. The morning before the event, Lykes said that “white supremacy has taken something away from all of us.” Thus, imagining and creating spaces for black queer joy is a way of remaking the world we live in, without waiting for institutions to catch up.
Ocean Vuong delivers quiet charisma By LILY GOLDBERG STAFF WRITER
PHOTO COURTESY OF SOPHIA SHIN/PHOTO EDITOR.
Maqbool and Singh (left and right) use comedy in efforts to build solidarity between their cultures.
Indian, Pakistani stand-up comedy duo bring laughs to the College By NANDINI SEETHARAMAN STAFF WRITER This past Friday night was dark and dreary outside, but the inside of Paresky Auditorium was warm with non-stop laughter. Stand-up comedians Akaash Singh and Danish Maqbool graced campus for a couple of hours to perform a stand-up comedy show filled with jokes, jabs and hot takes. Singh and Maqbool are two stand-up comedians of SouthAsian descent; Singh is an Indian-American from Texas, and Maqbool a Pakistani-American from New Jersey. Singh has been featured on MTV, in the show Brown Nation on Netflix and has a podcast called Flagrant 2 with fellow comedians Andrew Schulz and Kazeem Famuyide. Maqbool has toured nationally in both clubs and colleges. Together, Singh and Maqbool are on a “Unity Tour” to, in their own words, “show that two comedians from two different countries who historically haven’t gotten along can come together and put on a great show while uniting people from similar cultures.” The show was presented by the South Asian Student Association (SASA), with help from Williams After Dark, the Political Science Department, the Theater Department, Muslim Student Union, Minority Coalition, International Students Association and the Davis Center. “SASA wanted to bring more artists from a South Asian background [to] campus and create spaces for students from all backgrounds to learn more about the South
Asian experience in the United States,” Moiz Rehan ’19, SASA co-president, said. Maqbool opened the show, climbing on stage with a Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee in one hand. He was a relaxed performer, using childhood anecdotes to not only crack hilarious jokes but also to discuss his experiences growing up in America as a man of Pakistani descent. One striking example was his story of going on an unfortunately-timed paintball excursion with his mosque a couple of weeks after 9/11, because the excursion had been planned in advance. These stories helped him connect to the audience and shed light on the unique hurtful racism that he and many others have had to deal with in America. Halfway through, Maqbool passed the baton to Singh, who took the chance to laugh about Maqbool’s experience being beaten by his father with his favorite Nerf gun. Perhaps there is a moral in that sometimes the things you love the most are the things that hurt you the most. Or perhaps it’s just a very funny story that deserved some more time in the spotlight. Singh was boisterous, never hesitating to call audience members out. The running gag was Singh’s favoritism for Shreyas Rajesh ’22, and his joking dislike for Shreyam Misra ’21. It turned into a fun back-and-forth; surprisingly, watching your classmates get verbally ripped apart was insanely entertaining. Since the show was performed by South Asian comedians for a generally South Asian audience, there were
lots of jokes centered around common cultural experiences. “As a Pakistani, I could definitely relate to the humor and from the laughs, it seemed like other people enjoyed it too,” Rehan said. It was definitely a night that felt very inclusive for “brown” people on campus. Between the jokes, there were also moments for both Maqbool and Singh to give their own hot takes on various topics. These opinions ranged from the idea that couples who fight are truly in love, to white people’s favorite rapper being Eminem. “Some of the humor definitely made certain members of the audience uncomfortable. However, for the most part, it was hilarious,” Rajesh said. “I personally thought the show was great because it pushed the audience out of our comfort zone but not in a disrespectful manner,” Rehan said. At the end of the night, everyone had laughed at least enough to last the rest of the month, so it is safe to say that Maqbool and Singh were adept at maintaining the balance between fun and controversy. Singh repeatedly asked the audience what students do for fun at the College. There was no easy answer, except, “Friday night comedy.” Between all the tough classes, demanding extra-curriculars and impending cold weather, it is very easy to feel down these days. It’s at these moments that a good laugh is all the more meaningful. Singh and Maqbool were really able to liven up the atmosphere of the room, and helped end last week with a comedic bang.
“It’s strange getting used to your own voice,” Ocean Vuong mused, stepping onto the podium and bringing the microphone in closer to his melancholy smile. “You are born with it, after all.” Vuong’s voice, more akin to a kitten’s mewl than human speech, filled the Sawyer Reading Room on Friday evening as part of the Creative Writing Reading Series, co-hosted by the Vietnamese Student Organization and the English department. If the voice wasn’t a tip off that Vuong is a poet, his outfit might have sealed the deal. Dressed in a crisp blue button down with a white rose in the lapel and a pair of dangling earrings, one could easily assume Vuong is the pretentious brand of wunderkind, a talent who swears equally by black coffee and Ezra Pound. While I can’t confirm Vuong’s Starbucks order, I can confirm he is far from pretentious. Born in Vietnam to illiterate rice farmers, Vuong immigrated with his family to America at the age of two. Vuong is a man of many firsts: the first in his family to learn how to read, the first to attend college and the first person under the age of 30 to win the coveted T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry for his 2016 collection Night Sky With Exit Wounds. However, like any person pursuing poetry professionally, Vuong’s story is not without bumps. In his essay “Beginnings: New York,” he details how his lack of housing funds during college forced him to live in Penn Station, writing
poetry alongside New York City’s homeless population. From thanking the “single women” in his life for getting him where he is today, to commenting on his gratitude for the large Asian American presence in the audience, Vuong’s lived experiences made his humility contagious. Vuong’s work, especially Night Sky With Exit Wounds, frequently deals with the trauma and triumph associated with his identity as a queer, VietnameseAmerican immigrant. Vuong began his reading with poems from Night Sky With Exit Wounds: in “Headfirst,” Vuong posits that “only a mother can walk with the weight of a second beating heart”; in “Daily Bread,” a poem claimed his father “fell into,” Vuong writes his reconstructed memory of the Vietnam War: “Listen, / the year is gone. I know / nothing of my country. I write things / down. I build a life & tear it apart / & the sun keeps shining.” While the rain kept its steady pace outside, the room was rapt, transported to rice fields, street corners and motels in Fresno. Though the poems themselves leaned towards the heavier side, Vuong’s quirks and dreamy disposition kept the interludes light and often humorous. “I never thought of a safe space as an architecture,” Vuong mused between poems. “Safety, to me, is the creation of your own pleasure. So in that vein, here’s ‘Ode to Masturbation.’” Even Vuong’s conversational speech is poetic. His prefaces are like poetry themselves; speaking on his grandmother’s immense
memory for folk music and poetry, Vuong said “Science fiction cannot compare to the body as an endless archive.” Vuong’s newer poems, of which he read three, deal more with contemporary issues and fears than personal or historical trauma. In her introduction for Vuong, Suiyi Tang ’20 spoke about the concept of “Breaking News” and how breakage is an apt metaphor for our current news cycle. Vuong’s new work reflected this in structure as well as content – the poems more often rambled, even swerved towards discord. In my favorite poem of the evening, “You Guys,” Vuong pleads to two rabbits he’s rescued, “you guys you guys I’m serious / what are we going to make of this mess” Whether Vuong is talking about our society or the rabbits is unclear – what is clear is his departure from formality, the plaintiveness in his simple language and his desire for someone to talk to. Towards the end of the event, Vuong spoke on his desire to get away from the forward momentum expected of artists at all times. Upon answering a question about his poem “Daily Bread,” Vuong discussed the artistic process and the importance of waiting for things to come. “This poem comes from the idea that you can stay still and still do work. Stasis is not failure.” What a perfect message for the many students who chose to break from their busy Williams schedule for an evening to immerse themselves in language, and what a perfect reminder to us all.
PHOTO COURTESY OF GAZETTENET.COM.
Vuong, a former refugee and prize-winning poet, writes poetry based on his immigrant and queer experiences.
9 ARTS
The Williams Record
November 14, 2018
Hasan Minhaj expands the late-night genre with Patriot Act By YASMINA CABRERA STAFF WRITER “Look, I’m not gonna get my humanity from Bill f*cking Clinton,” Hasan Minhaj said. “He’s just not gonna understand where I’m coming from, my point of view, the things my community has had to go through - we have to claim that shit on our terms.” Minhaj recalled this specific moment at the 2016 Democratic National Convention as being that which inspired the creation of his new weekly Netflix comedy series, Patriot Act. Right before Hillary Clinton officially accepted the presidential nomination, Bill Clinton gave a speech in which he addressed different minority voters across the country, and Minhaj was left in shock as Clinton seemed to call on Muslim Americans to lead the “war on terror.” “I remember standing there like ‘Bill, I hate to tell you this: I don’t know any terrorists.’ He thought our only value was to help find terrorists,” Minhaj said in an episode. The title itself, Patriot Act, is a move to reclaim the 2001 legislative act entitled “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism,” which allowed for greater federal surveillance and marked a painful new era for Muslim Americans after the 9/11 attacks. It is also a play on words, as the show is meant to repudiate the false belief that Americans from different ethnic backgrounds shouldn’t criticize the United States if they want to be seen
PHOTO COURTESY OF SLASHFILM.COM.
Hasan Minhaj, who many know from The Daily Show, makes history as the first Indian-American host of a weekly comedy show with Patriot Act. as patriotic. “I’m gonna show my perspective on what it means to be an American,” Minhaj declared. Most late-night television is known for having the unique ability to inform its audience while providing comfort. From 1954’s The Tonight Show with Steve Allen to today’s The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, comedic hosts have for years provided the American public with entertainment along with a final word on the day’s newsworthy events. Through comedy, these shows have created engaging ways for everyday Americans to become involved in discussions around politics. Especially in today’s climate, comedy has served as a coping mechanism for many Americans who are constantly
drowning in distressing news alerts. Rather than wallowing in the seriousness of the current problems, jokes about the president or others in power can help people remain hopeful. As evident in movements such as Black Lives Matter, the only outlet for Americans of marginalized identities to express political dissatisfaction is oftentimes through harrowing, emotionally exhausting measures. This may also stem from a fear that these issues will not be taken seriously by the larger American public if viewed from only through a comedic lens. The vast majority of weekly comedy television is still hosted almost exclusively by older, white, male comedians despite this not being
reflective of the country’s demographics. Networks have isolated people of color from participating in the national political conversation in comedic spaces, instead choosing to cater to a version of America that no longer exists. Marginalized Americans have not been afforded the luxury of comfort through comedy, and have been forced to be acutely aware of their own social standing at all times. With Patriot Act, Minhaj has become one of the few people of color, and the first Indian-American, to host a show of its kind. Minhaj was given his big break by Jon Stewart as a correspondent on The Daily Show, and was the featured comedian at the first White House Correspondents’
Association dinner during the Trump administration. So when the announcement came that Minhaj would be leaving The Daily Show to work on his own program, fans began to look forward to a comedy show that would be deeply political at its core. Patriot Act has powerfully delivered on this expectation, as it premiered with two episodes that delve into the current legal battle against affirmative action, and the United States’ harmful economic relationship with Saudi Arabia. Until now, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver was the only show giving weekly nuanced takes on problems that are largely overshadowed by the daily boisterous distractions that the White House con-
stantly throws into the news cycle. This has allowed Last Week Tonight to cover events from the recent Brazilian election to corporate taxes and felony disenfranchisement, problems that are likely to remain long after Trump is gone and deserve as much attention. By following this form of detailed reporting seen in Last Week Tonight, and because Patriot Act is informed by his life experiences as a Muslimand Indian-American, Minhaj has poised himself to become one of the most important new voices in American politics going forward, revolutionizing the way in which people of color engage in the national political conversation. Marginalized Americans have long understood that the irony we find in racist episodes or microaggressions could only be laughed about in whispers amongst ourselves in fear that the rest of America would dismiss the gravity of our experiences. Comedy, however, acts as a tool for us to cope with our everyday lives in the United States, which can be filled with fear and uncertainty, but are also filled with laughter and experiences relatable to the rest of the country. Shows like Patriot Act with Minhaj are the first step with which people of color can talk about our political concerns nationally in the same way in which we interact with each other personally: aware of the things that threaten our livelihood, but being allowed to process our emotions in realistic and healthy ways.
First Man depicts an American hero, avoids trapfalls of trite patriotism By LUKE VALADIE STAFF WRITER First Man, playing at Images Cinema through tomorrow, is the first of Damien Chazelle’s major films that isn’t centered around music. La La Land was a musical about performers in Los Angeles, while Whiplash focused on a jazz drummer’s ascent to greatness. Here, however, we are faced with something different – a slower, often quiet character drama about the first man to land on the moon. Despite having stretches of silence, the film still serves as an opportunity for Chazelle to show off film’s second dimension. The quiet is punctuated by mechanical groans and deafening thrusts, humbling reminders that these are just humans hurtling through space in hunks of metal. Songs of protest are played at one point as we watch the astronauts prepare for their mission, leaving the viewer to question whether the dream of sending men into space is worth the sacrifice. Thus, sound is as important as ever in Chazelle’s artistic vision, even as he leaves jazz clubs behind for outer space. Although the film is a significant departure from his previous work, Chazelle handles the new setting beautifully. The spaceflight scenes leave the viewer feeling cloistered and breathless; the sense that the mission is never more than a mistake away from catastrophe is always present. These scenes are particularly effective because of their contrast with the climactic moonwalk scene, an exhibition of vast, open space that serves as a perfect foil to the oppressive confinement leading up to it.
Despite the setting, First Man isn’t really about space. It is more the story of Neil Armstrong (played by Ryan Gosling) than it is the story of the first moon landing. A significant portion of the film’s runtime is spent on Armstrong’s personal life and the tragedies that afflicted him throughout the buildup to his great achievement. Most notably, the death of Armstrong’s daughter at the beginning of the film becomes a fundamental part of his character. But one of the film’s greatest strengths is its success in integrating Armstrong’s personal life with his professional life. It never feels divided between exciting space sections and biographical filler; Armstrong’s dedication to his work is always contextualized by what he has going on at home, and vice versa. The film’s cohesive character arc shows the totality of a man’s experience at a dramatic time, and never settles for leaving his personal matters as a side note. Films about figures as celebrated as Armstrong can easily fall into the trap of hero worship, but Chazelle is careful to avoid this, never depicting Armstrong as more than human. He is portrayed as a highly skilled pilot and astronaut, but his achievements are accompanied by mistakes and occasional recklessness. In fact, the film opens with a scene of Armstrong flying a rocket-powered airplane and accidentally “bouncing off the atmosphere” before narrowly saving himself. The same complexity is on display in his personal life. It is obvious that he loves his family,
but by no means is he depicted as a perfect father or husband. His relationship with his wife is often strained, especially during the film’s latter half. His work frequently affects his relationship with his children, and this tension comes to a head before his mission to the moon. The film isn’t a pure celebration of Armstrong, nor a criticism of him; rather, it is an acknowledgement of his humanity. Despite all of these strengths, it is apparent that the film won’t please everyone. The film omits the planting of the American flag, upsetting some viewers who are looking for a patriotic celebration of a national achievement. However, these people miss the point; the film never seeks to be a simple celebration of American excellence. As Armstrong’s sons note in The Hollywood Reporter, the film “is a story about an ordinary man who makes profound sacrifices and suffers through intense loss in order to achieve the impossible.” There’s no requirement that every film about a national achievement has to place an emphasis on patriotism; the film provides a look into the personal side of a remarkable feat, and in doing so, enables it to be a refreshing, original take on an incredible story. First Man is further proof that Chazelle is among contemporary cinema’s most compelling voices. It is a deeply human film that is simultaneously thrilling and humbling, enormous and personal. For anyone who wants a look into the human side of a historical moment, First Man is unmissable.
PHOTO COURTESY OF DIGITALSPY.COM
Following Whiplash and La La Land, First Man is the latest biopic from director Damien Chazelle.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CLARK.
The works in this show, such as Graham's engraving above, explore the fantastical and unpredictable.
Extreme Nature! considers the Sublime By MAE BURRIS-WELLS STAFF WRITER How exhilarating it would be to stand at the edge of a cliff, wind whistling around you, with the terrifying thought in your mind that the glorious view in front of you could easily be your last. After all, you’d only need to make one tiny movement to plunge to your death. The 19th century Swiss painter Alexandre Calame believed this kind of experience, which engages the individual at once with nature’s beauty and immense danger, can reach a divine pitch. He even named what he saw as the spiritual height of this intersection between reverence for nature and fear of it – calling the sensation “the Sublime.” The subject of the Clark Art Institute’s Extreme Nature!, which opened on Saturday and will run until Feb. 3, 2019, is the 19th century’s large-scale version of the Sublime pursuit – that is, its mass fixation on the mysteries of nature and its simultaneous staggering capacity for destruction. In its own rather sensationalist way, Western popular culture in Calame’s time approximated the idea of the Sublime through channels like mass media, literature and tourism. Oftentimes, incidents stemming from recent industrialization would cause fires and floods in cities across the United States and Europe, and a rapidly growing newspaper industry was ever more equipped to cover these tragedies and any other natural disaster that would horrify and fascinate readers. Science fiction, like Jules Verne’s 1870 novel Twen-
ty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, allowed consumers to experience the drama of nature in their imaginations – and increasingly popular destinations like Niagara Falls enabled them to experience it in person. Scientific journals also became popular during the 19th century and served to bring cutting-edge scientific thought to the public, as well as to artists. “New scientific journals challenged readers to contemplate nature’s shifting boundaries, but they also inspired artists to consider nature’s extremes in their art,” curator Michael Hartman, a Ph.D. student at the University of Delaware, said in a talk at the Clark on Sunday. “The public looked to artists as they sought visual documentation, confirmation or disavowal of the latest scientific theories and discoveries, while also looking for images of nature’s fury unleashed.” In this vein, every image in Extreme Nature! depicts a natural phenomenon, whether it’s a meteor shower, a mythological depiction of the missing link in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution or statuesque angels falling through a canyon with geologically accurate rock striations. And this variety among the artworks is in part what defines the show, as it allows viewers to consider the 19th century’s attitude towards natural catastrophes from different angles. Some of the most powerful of these angles are provided by images published in popular magazines. Particularly notable is Charles Graham’s wood engraving entitled “Fireworks at Manhattan Beach – ‘The Last Days of Pompeii.’” Published in Harper’s Weekly in 1885, it
epitomizes the bizarre stance towards nature in the pop culture of this age. The majority of the image seems to depict the ancient eruption of Italy’s Mount Vesuvius; we see a steep mountain exploding onto Roman-looking buildings below it. But in the foreground, a crowd of spectators decked out with a photographer and a band gives the eruption away as fake. As it turns out, the image that at first seemed to portray a famous natural disaster in fact depicts nothing more than a fireworks show in New York City, N.Y. One could say that a huge party on Manhattan Beach centered around the recreation of a natural disaster conveys the essence of the 19th century’s cultural embrace of the Sublime. By drawing on the beautiful horror of nature to fuel a rollicking social event, the revelers in the image make use of nature’s ability to elevate human experience in the same way that the Sublime does. But advances in both science and journalism since the 19th century have left people today with a very different attitude towards these catastrophes. No longer mystified by their origins and constantly updated on their occurrences, people now tend to feel nothing but sorrow and, increasingly, contrition towards natural disasters. Extreme Nature!, in providing the 19th century contrast to today’s prevailing perspective on nature’s extremes, invites viewers to consider how the two perspectives might relate to each other. We’ll never stop trying to figure out how to exist on this blue ball of Earth, but art can give us the tools to start.
10 SPORTS
The Williams Record
November 14, 2018
Men’s and women’s cross country compete at NCAA New England By LIAM ALBRITTAIN, ELIZABETH BIGHAM,ZEKE COHEN and JULIA GUNTHER TEAM CORRESPONDENTS Last Saturday, men’s cross country placed second and women’s cross country placed third at the NCAA New England Regionals at Bowdoin. On a chilly, windy, November morning, the women took on the spectacular 6k NCAA Div. III New England course. Several of New England’s top teams, including those who the Ephs faced off against at NESCACs, met in Brunswick for fast running and fierce competition. In the end, MIT won the women’s meet with 87 points. They were followed by Middlebury who took second with 108 points. The Ephs finished only seven points behind the Panthers, placing third with a score of 115, a huge improvement from both NESCACs and the season. Head coach Pete Farwell ’73 remarked that both MIT and Middlebury were tough competitors and he was impressed that the Ephs scored so closely to the top teams in the country. Kaitlyn Mooney, from Coast Guard, won the 6k race in a time of 20:43. Emma Herrmann ’20 was the first Eph to finish, taking 13th with a time of 22:20. Co-
captain Emily Harris ’19 placed 19th with a time of 22:28, and Audrey Rustad ’20 followed just behind in 20th with a time of 22:29 to round out the top 20. Sarah Tully ’21 moved up throughout the race to finish 26th, running a time of 22:37. Farwell was particularly impressed with Tully’s finish, remarking that "even after she lost a shoe, she was able to race incredibly well." Grace Dailey ’22 followed behind soon after and ran 22:51 for 37th place, followed by Jaylan Fraser-Mines ’21 eight seconds later for 41st place. Erica Barrett ’21 finished in 92nd, wrapping up the Ephs top seven and running 23:48. The Ephs’ top runners truly showed their depth: they all finished within 90 seconds of one another. "[The team] worked splendidly well together this year,” Farwell remarked. “I’m excited to continue to see this team’s progression.” Despite the stiff competition, the men held their own, finishing second by 21 points to Amherst. Amherst and Williams clinched automatic bids to the NCAA Championship. Middlebury and MIT finished third and fourth with 142 and 145 points, respectively. Going into the meet, the men were ranked second in the region (behind Amherst, and ahead of
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION.
Men’s cross country runners Aidan Ryan ’21 and Ryan Cox ’20 (left to right) placed fifth and sixth, respectively, at NCAA New England. Middlebury and MIT, in that order). Although the New England Region usually receives at least two at-large bids beyond the automatic bids that the top two teams earn, the Ephs wanted to leave nothing to chance and ensure their selection. The race began aggressively and the Ephs ran smart races with only Ryan Cox ’20 and Aidan Ryan ’21 among the top pack in the early miles. Behind those two, William McGovern ’20 continually moved up, keying off of a runner in Amherst’s scoring five. As they ran at NESCACs, the pack of Elias Lindgren ’22, Tristan Colaizzi ’20, Sam
Wischnewsky ’20 and Lucas Estrada ’20 worked well together, moving up throughout the race, each taking the brunt of the work at different times. Ryan and Cox moved in tandem to the lead halfway through the race, surging together to ensure a higher finish for both. The race ended up coming down to a kick with athletes, who are seeking individual bids to NCAAs, battling it out for top honors. Cox and Ryan finished close behind the leaders in fifth and sixth with times of 25:01.8 and 25:05.6, respectively. Behind those two, McGovern finished 20th in 25:43.3, followed in short order by Lind-
gren in 25:48.5 and Colaizzi in 25:51.3. Wischnewsky and Estrada rounded out the top seven for the Ephs, each finishing before the fifth runner from any other team except Amherst. Farwell and assistant coach Jamie Norton were each pleased with how the team performed. “I thought we had a really positive day for our team,” Norton said. “When you look at where our guys finished, we essentially replicated our NESCAC places in a field of 400, not 150. That shows we’ve made great strides from two weekends ago, and we’re still gaining momentum as we head into NCAAs.”
Farwell, meanwhile, touted the individual performances of his athletes. “Aidan had a super day, running with Ryan again and showing himself that a patient approach, both with recovering from mild injuries and to racing, pays dividends,” Farwell said. “Will McGovern is cutting down the gaps to the top two and within the pack of four that showed themselves at NESCACs. We had Elias and Tristan doing great to pick up the slack. Our guys looked happy, healthy and strong, and I’m excited for them to be their best runners at NCAAs next week."
2018-19 Winter Sports Preview MEN’S ICE HOCKEY
WRESTLING
Men’s ice hockey finished 14-11-1 (9-8-1 in the NESCAC) and lost to Trinity in the NESCAC Semifinals, the third trip to the semifinals in the last six seasons. Head Coach Bill Kangas returns after taking a sabbatical last year. “I’m excited to be back,” Kangas said. “We have a good team this year and we are hitting the ground running, polishing our physical, mental and emotional games.” While it will be tough to replace two seniors who scored more than 100 points in their Eph careers, the team welcomes eight first-years, returns goaltender Michael Pinios ’19 and is led by captain Keanu Hilaire ’19. “We are focused on getting better every day,” Kangas said. “We have good determination and energy on the team. We always say that it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon and that speaks to the leaders on our team.”
Wrestling heads into its seventh season with head coach Scott Honecker. Last season the men went 7-10. Despite graduating five seniors, the men hope to improve from the prior season and to simply enjoy wrestling. “This is an exciting time for Williams Wrestling,” Honecker said. “We have a mix of old and new faces but the dedication and effort level have been consistent across the board. We will certainly develop as we go this year, so it will be very interesting to see how far we are able to come through the season. If we do what we are capable of in the practice room, we should be in position to surprise when we approach the postseason.”
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
WOMEN’S ICE HOCKEY
Women’s ice hockey finished 10-8-7 (4-6-6 in the NESCAC) and while graduating five seniors, still return top scorers Meghan Halloran ’21, Abby Brustad ’19, Annie Rush ’19 and Brynn Puppe ’21. Rush, last year’s MVP, and Claire Mancheski ’19 will serve as captains this year with assistant captains Brustad and Eliza Quigley ’19. The women look to make a deeper playoff run after losing to Amherst in the first round of NESCACs last winter. “Our goals are always to be competitive in the NESCAC, finish top four and host a quarterfinal game, but at the same time we’re staying focused on the day-to-day process to make that happen,” head coach Meghan Gillis said.
Women’s basketball is going into their 29th year being coached by Pat Manning, finishing 12-13 (4-6 in the NESCAC) last winter. The team lost three seniors, including its top two leading scorers, and welcomes two first-years, Maddy Mandyck ’22 and Mia Holtze ’22. This year, the Ephs aim to compete against high level opponents every game. “It’s tough to play in our conference because everybody brings it every game,” Manning said. “Those 10 games are incredibly meaningful, so we try to play the toughest non-league schedule we can, so when it comes time for conference play, we’re ready.”
WOMEN’S SQUASH
MEN’S SQUASH
The women’s squash team finished 14-11 last season and fell to Trinity in the NESCAC Championship round. The team lost five seniors but welcomes, Kathryn Wright’22, Alexandra Pear’22 and Cassie Deshong ’21. Last season, the women placed No. 12 in the nation. Despite losing seniors who were in the top half of the ladder, with a strong sophomore class, the team hopes to grow from their prior season. “I am excited about helping our players grow,” head coach Zafi Levy’01 said. “We have a talented team with lots of potential.”
Men’s squash finished 11-17 last season and lost in the NESCAC third-place match. The Ephs graduated four seniors and welcomes two first-years. Last season, the team finished No. 21 in the nation due to losing many players from the top half of their lineup. The men are looking forward to this season and improving from the last. “I am very excited for the upcoming season,” head coach Zafi Levy ’01 said. “We have a lot of talented players and our goal is to fulfill our potential and stay healthy. If we do, we can expect to have an extremely successful season.” If the Ephs do stay healthy, this will be one of their deepest and strongest teams in years.”
WOMEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING
MEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING
Women’s swim and dive, coached by Steve Kuster, lost six seniors and welcomes five first-years. The women come off of their fifth consecutive NESCAC Championship and placed third in the NCAA tournament. The team retains much of the same roster that featured 14 All-NESCAC selections and NESCAC Rookie of the Year Laura Westphal ’21. “The women’s team graduated another deep and impactful class both in the water and out,” Kuster said. “Amherst continues to be a very strong team and Tufts added a monster first year class, so the women will need to be on alert and ready to defend their title with vigor. Staying healthy and putting in consistent training this year will be one of the keys to success for the women’s team this year.”
Men’s swim and dive, coached by Steve Kuster, lost five seniors and welcome 10 first-years. Last year, the men placed second at the NESCAC Championships, winning 32 All-NESCAC Honors. In the NCAA tournament, the men placed tenth.“I expect that the men have a lot to swim for this year coming off of our first NESCAC conference loss in over 15 years last year,” Kuster said. “The departure of our senior class will particularly hurt on the leadership front, but I am excited to see new leaders emerge and step up this year. Tufts and Amherst remain very strong teams, so if the men’s team is able to accomplish its goals this year it will take a very focused team effort from the start to the finish of the season.”
WOMEN’S AND MEN’S SKI
MEN’S BASKETBALL
Women’s ski returns captain Hannah Hunsaker ’19 and Men’s ski returns Nordic Skier Braden Becker ’19, who finished 11th in the NCAA Championship. "We have a really strong group of first-years this year," Anna Bruce ’21 said. "I’m excited to see what we can bring to our races. We have tough compeitition, and I’m hopeful we can improve our results from last season!" The team looks forward to building great team chemistry. "We are expecially excited for our upcoming training camp in Craftsbury, Vt. over Thanksgiving providing the first opportunity to get on snow. We look forward to refining technique, eating delicious food and enjoying each other’s company."
Last winter, men’s basketball won the NESCAC Championship and advanced to the NCAA Round of 32, posting a record of 23-6 (7-3 in the NESCAC). The team graduated four seniors but welcomes three first-years. For this season, the men enter with high expectations and return a healthy Kyle Scadlock ’19 alongside All-American James Heskett ’19 and Bobby Casey ’19. “The expectations are high this year, and the team has embraced them,” head coach Kevin App said about this team’s goals. “The hope is the combination of experience, youth and talent on this team will allow us to be a loose group and enjoy the season.” The Ephs will face tough completion as nine of their 14 non-conference opponents either won their conference or their conference tournament last season.
CAPTAINS’ CORNER: AUSTIN THOMAS ’19 Why the College?
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION.
By TESNIM ZEKERIA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Team: Football Hometown: Anaheim, Calif. Residence: Meadow Major: Economics and English Snack bar order: Chicken patty, buffalo chips and honey bun
I chose Williams because I thought it would give me a great chance to get away from the environment I grew up in. Coming from Southern California to a rural area, I really liked the opportunity to expand my horizons and challenge myself academically, while still being able to play football and have fun with my friends. I also really liked the alumni base and all the connections. When did you first start playing football? I started playing football when I was five years old in kindergarten. So, I’ve played for sixteen years. What was your high school football team like? I went to a football powerhouse in Southern California. It was very competitive. I would play in front of a lot more fans in high school than in college. I played in Angel Stadium in front of 20,000 fans. It was an all-boys school, so that in itself created a certain culture and environment around sports. Sports were definitely the
center with football being the premium sport. We had a lot of reporters at our school. It almost drowned out playing football for the love of it. It was almost like a business or a job. What is your relationship with your head coach Mark Raymond? I think Coach Raymond has done a good job coming in here and turning the program around. His first year here, we went 0-8, but I think that was largely due to the culture change. He did a good job of shifting the culture and bringing the team together. He instilled a winning environment and helped clean up some of the offthe-field issues we had when we first got there. He changed the image of us on campus. What is your favorite thing about football? There is nothing like football, especially the sense of camaraderie and brotherhood you feel with everyone. It is such a grueling sport but the rewards from winning, making a tackle or the time you are out there with your friends is unlike anything [else].
What it's like to be captain of a large group of athletes? I really enjoyed it. Having a cocaptain was great. There are definitely a lot of things that go on behind the scenes that you don’t know until you are captain. When you are an underclassmen, you are taking care of yourself and getting through it. However as a captain, people look to you to set an example and there’s a lot of administrative stuff, like planning practices in the off season. What is your relationship like with co-captain Amyhr Barber ’19? We are super close. We were roommates last year and I consider him one of my closest friends. We are able to lean on each other in football and out of football. What is your favorite part about the football team, specifically at the College? The friendships I made from it. As a unit, I think the football team is very close and definitely forms lifelong friends. The thing I liked about it the
most is that [the friendships] have been steady whether we are losing or winning. [The outcome of the games] haven’t affected the friendships. What are you going to miss most about playing for the College? I think I will miss being with my friends [and] being with all my best friends all the time. That is something I won’t ever have again. I won’t miss the 6 a.m. workouts and all of that. So, [I will miss] all of the shared times with your friends and being on the field together. What is your favorite memory in your football career? Beating Amherst last year at homecoming, doing the walk and storming the field. We haven’t beaten Amherst in seven years. A lot of the older alumni have never beaten Amherst. So, it was a really special experience with them all being there, continuing to do the walk and cutting each others hair. It was a blast. The walk is something the football team does if they beat Amherst or Wesleyan depending on which one is the
homecoming game. After we win, the whole team marches up Spring St. together. There are always a bunch of fans around. Then we go straight to the barber shop and we cut each others hair. It builds camaraderie. Sometimes it is the eighth game. We shave the heads to get us fired up against the last game. It is kind of the finishing touch if we win. Any post collegiate plans? I will be moving to New York and joining Barclays as an investment banking analyst. Any parting words for the first-year class? The first-year class is a great group of guys. I am excited for the future they have in front of themselves. They came at a good time with a good culture. They have the chance to do some special things over their career. Definitely take advantage of all the opportunities given to you. The time goes fast, everyone says that. As I just finished my last season, I can truly say that it does move fast. Try to stay positive even in the downtimes.
November 14, 2018
SPORTS 11
The Williams Record
James Wang ’12 returns stateside after playing overseas By SAM MERMIN STAFF WRITER From 2009 to 2012, James Wang ’12 was an instrumental part of the men’s basketball team’s success, leading the way as a three-time AllAmerican and the fourth leading scorer in Eph history. Six years later, both the sport and the College still remain influential to his life. Wang was born in Taiwan, went to school in Australia and moved to the United States to pursue a basketball career. He attended Montverde Academy in Montverde, Fla., the same school that produced NBA stars Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, as well as current Duke basketball star R.J. Barrett. In college, Wang led the Ephs to a national championship game in 2010 and a final four appearance the following year. Naturally, he had fond memories of the two deep NCAA tournament runs, but he cited the people he met in college as equally memorable. He still sees some of his former teammates multiple times every week. “The things that stand out most are the relationships created,” Wang said. But Wang’s time playing for the Ephs was not even the pinnacle of his athletic success. After graduating, he played professionally for five years in China and Taiwan with three teams: Dongguan New Century Basketball Club, Pu-Yuan Basketball Club, and Guangxi Weizhuang Basketball Club. Initially, this presented inherent challenges, as moving to another country is always difficult. But for Wang, the opportunity to test his skills against elite com-
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE NCAA.
James Wang ’12 was a three-time All American guard who played professionally in Asia and now works as an agent for athletes. petition outweighed any difficulties he faced. “I wanted to test my abilities against better players,” Wang said. “Night in, night out, I was facing a guy who had played in the NBA before.” And no matter what challenges he faced, Wang kept one simple truth in mind: “I was getting paid
ris Endeavor (WME-IMG) in New York City, representing professional athletes. He recruits the athletes and also negotiates endorsement deals for them. “I knew that when I stopped playing I wanted to get back into sports,” Wang said. He had originally assumed he would go back into sports as a
to play basketball. That alone trumps everything.” The five years that Wang spent playing basketball postponed the beginning of his current career, but his late start did not prevent him from achieving immediate success. He currently works for the talent agency Williams Mor-
coach, but agency turned out to be the better fit for him. “I lived in New York and was thinking of sports opportunities in the city,” he explained. “I decided the agency route would be the most interesting.” He cites the opportunity to work with professional athletes as a major positive of his job as an agent.
At WME-IMG, Wang has worked on deals for athletes as famous as tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams and golfer Jordan Spieth. Recently, he closed a deal with NBA star Victor Oladipo. He is not Oladipo’s primary agent, but has met him multiple times and is always on the lookout for new deals for him. “It’s kind of rewarding when the deal’s done and he gets on a campaign and you say 'Oh, that’s because of me,’” Wang mentioned. In the professional world, Wang’s connection to the College is still important to him. “It’s awesome that if there’s ever a Williams connection, they’re always willing to help,” he explained. “If I ever come across a Williams guy, he’s always happy to connect me to the right people.” And his attachment to the College goes beyond the ways it can be useful to him. He loved his time as an Eph. “Williams gets this reputation for being in the middle of nowhere [but you] form tighter bonds because it is a bubble; you have no choice but to form relationships with the people around you.” Wang’s former teammate Mike Mayer ’14 is visiting him this weekend, and his wife, Danielle Rainer ’13, is a former basketball standout who he met when they were both in college. Wang’s life has been characterized by an ever-present desire to get the most out of his talents. That’s what drove him to come to the United States, to move to China and finally to become an agent. And throughout all of his successes and all of his travels, his connections to his college years have remained as strong as ever.
Football trampled by Amherst Mammoths in season finale
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION.
Frank Stola ’21 had 88 receiving yards and two touchdowns as the Ephs fell to the Mammoths 14-45. By JOE LAROCCA STAFF WRITER
17-point halftime lead and never looked back, defeating Williams (5-4, 5-4 in the NESCAC) 14-45. The Ephs and Mammoths played an exciting
In the 133rd annual "Biggest Little Game in America", Amherst opened up a
The Office of Communications recommends ...
The Two Souths of ’68: Remembering Revolution in These Hard Times A talk with Robin D.G. Kelley, a leading scholar of African American history, politics, and culture
Thursday, Nov. 15 4:15 p.m. Griffin Hall, room 3
first quarter in which both offenses were able to move the ball effectively. Within three minutes, Amherst had taken a 7-0 lead on a drive sparked by a 45-yard, tackle-
breaking catch by tight end James O’Regan and a oneyard quarterback sneak by Amherst quarterback Ollie Eberth on third-and-goal. Williams’ next drive ended in a missed field goal, but after forcing an Amherst punt, the Ephs were able to tie the game on a 19-yard touchdown pass from Jackson Bischoping ’22 to wide receiver Frank Stola ’21. On fourth-and-two from the Williams three-yard line, defensive end Jameson DeMarco ’19 batted Eberth’s pass at the line of scrimmage, finishing an impressive goalline stand by the Ephs. But three plays later, Bischoping was intercepted by Amherst’s John Callahan deep in Williams territory. On the very next play, Amherst running back Jack Hickey ran it in from eight yards out to give the Mammoths a 14-7 lead they wouldn’t relinquish. After Bischoping’s interception from deep in his own territory, the Mammoths dominated the quarter. The Williams offense didn’t pick up a single first down for the rest of the half, and Amherst added ten more points on a second quarterback sneak touchdown by Eberth and a 31-yard field goal by kicker Andrew Ferrero. The Mammoths took a 24-7 lead into halftime.
In the third quarter, Bischoping started Williams’ first drive with a 20-yard pass over the middle to tight end Justin Burke ’21. But on the next play, a fumble by Carter Begel ’22 was recovered by Amherst at the 50yard line and returned all the way for a touchdown to put the Mammoths up 31-7. After Bischoping was a sacked on a desperate fourth-and-10 play, Eberth found O’Regan for a 24-yard score to make it 38-7. A fourth-down conversion from Eberth to O’Regan followed by Eberth’s third rushing touchdown of the day increased Amherst’s lead to 45-7 in the fourth quarter. A second touchdown from Bischoping to Stola – the duo’s fourth touchdown connection in two weeks – finished up the scoring with under three minutes to go. Eberth briefly left the game due to an injury in the middle of the second quarter, but returned for the second half. He threw just 15 passes, but those throws went for 218 yards (an impressive 14.6 yards per attempt) and a touchdown. Eberth also added three more scores on the ground. Hickey paced the Amherst offense with 125 yards on 26 carries (4.8 yards-per-carry) and a score. Eight different Mammoths logged a rushing attempt in
an impressive 177-yard effort. The Mammoths’ defense was equally impressive, limiting the Ephs to just 31 rushing yards, forcing two Bischoping interceptions, and holding Williams to two-for-11 (18.2%) on third and fourth down. Playing in place of injured quarterback Bobby Maimaron ’21, Bischoping wasn’t afraid to throw the deep ball and made some pinpoint throws downfield in his second start. He finished 19-of36 passing for 188 yards, two interceptions and two touchdowns, both of which went to Stola. Begel logged 11 rushes and six receptions, but those 17 touches went for just 42 yards as the Amherst defensive line dominated the line of scrimmage. Stola had yet another standout performance with five catches for 88 yards and two touchdowns. "I’m proud of my guys," head coach Mark Raymond said after the game, reflecting on the Ephs’ season. "We came up a little short today, and there are a lot of things to fix. But with their work ethic, they’ll get it fixed." With an 8-1 record, Amherst finished second in the NESCAC to Trinity, as the Bantams hold the head-to-head tiebreaker. Williams, at 5-4, finished tied for fourth with Wesleyan and Middlebury.
ATHLETES OF THE WEEK “We’ve asked [Liz] to be
“Jackson did a great job
more aggressive and defend higher and as a result she is defending as well as I’ve ever seen her defend. She has so many facets to her game, she’s an incredible reader of the game, tremendous organizer, insanely tough, terrific in the air and she can score on set pieces.”
under very tough circumstances. Getting your first start in a game of that magnitude is not easy. Jackson handled himself with poise and made some great plays.”
– Head coach Michelyne Pinard
– Head coach Mark Raymond
LIZ WEBBER ’20
JACKSON BISCHOPING ’22
For more events, visit: events.williams.edu
WOMEN’S SOCCER NATICK, MASS.
FOOTBALL PALO ALTO, CALIF.
Recently named to All-NESCAC team, Webber scored the second goal to seal the Eph’s first round win against the Nor’easters.
Bischoping filled in at the quarterback spot the last two games of the season, throwing four touchdowns and 362 yards.
12 SPORTS
The Williams Record
N0vember 14, 2018
Women’s soccer advances to NCAA Sweet 16 By ALEXANDER CHRIST STAFF WRITER No. 5 women’s soccer (17-12, 9-0-1 in the NESCAC) advanced past the first and second rounds of the NCAA Div. III tournament this weekend, defeating the University of New England 2-0 and mounting a furious comeback to edge Stevens Institute of Technology 2-1. On Saturday, Williams won 2-0 against the University of New England, bouncing back from the women’s first loss of the year against No. 3 Middlebury in the NESCAC finals. Against the Nor’easters, the Ephs dominated the turf, posting 12 shots on goal while allowing zero in return. In the first half, the fresh-faced duo of Liz Girvan ’22 and Brianna Binder ’22 helped to give the Ephs a 1-0 lead. Liz Webber ’20 padded the lead in the 53rd minute, scoring off a corner. Head coach Michelyne Pinard explained some of the obstacles the team overcame. “There’s always a unique challenge when you play the first game of an NCAA Tournament,” she said. “With the wind, a surface we’re not completely comfortable on yet and lots of other challenges, I thought our team handled them all great. I thought we played incredibly well and moved the ball.” In the 29th minute, Girvan sent a pass into the goal box, hoping to find Binder. New England goalie Jenna Pannone sprinted forward to slide on the ball, but the ball came loose, leaving the goal exposed. Binder pounced on the chance, cutting right and scoring through the legs of her defender, putting the Ephs up 1-0 as well as netting her first collegiate goal.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION.
Sydney Jones ’21 scored the game-winning goal against Stevens Institute of Technology in the 83rd minute to advance the Ephs to the Sweet 16. Williams extended their lead in the 53rd minute, with Aspen Pierson ’21 serving the ball into the goal box off a corner. Webber scored after Sarah Scire ’20 deflected the ball back to her. A corner kick in the 78th minute was the extent of the Nor’easters offense against a stellar Eph defense. Centerback Maria Chapman ’22 corralled any ball that happened to wander past midfield. The one bright spot for New England was Pannone, who finished with a career-high 10 saves. Eph goalie and tricaptain Olivia Barnhill ’19, helped by the team defense,
finished with no saves while posting the clean sheet. Sydney Jones ’21 continued to be a spark-plug for the Eph s’ offense, finishing with three shots on goal. Her speed also created space near the goal line, forcing several corner kicks, one of which resulted in Webber’s goal. On Sunday, the Ephs staged a two-goal comeback in the final 18 minutes to eliminate Stevens Institute of Technology in the second round of the tournament. In the 49th minute, the Ducks’ Julia Panko delivered a corner kick into the heart of the
Games this week Friday Nov. 16 Women’s swim and dive vs. Springfield Samuelson-Muir Pool, 6 p.m. Men’s swim and dive vs. Springfield Samuelson-Muir Pool, 6 p.m.
Women’s swim and dive vs. Union
Women’s ice hockey vs. Hamilton
Samuelson-Muir Pool, 1 p.m.
Away, 7 p.m.
Men’s swim and dive vs. Springfield Samuelson-Muir Pool, 1 p.m. Women’s soccer vs. TCNJ Away, 11 a.m.
Women’s basketball vs. Skidmore
Wrestling, Doug Parker Invite
Chandler Gym, 6 p.m.
Away, 10 a.m.
Men’s ice hockey vs. Bowdoin
Women’s squash vs. Cornell and William Smith
Away, 7 p.m.
Saturday Nov. 17 Women’s cross country, NCAA Div. III Championships Away, 12 p.m. Men’s cross country, NCAA Div. III Championships Away, 1:15 p.m.
Away, 11 a.m. Men’s squash vs. Cornell Away, 11 a.m. Women’s basketball vs. Oneonta Chandler Gym, 1 p.m. Men’s ice hockey vs. Colby Away, 7 p.m.
box, where Brynn Budka struck the ball off the cross bar, Misha Brewster shot on goal,and Ally Wanzor finally put the ball in the back of the net. During an injury break, the Ephs, trailing 0-1, regrouped and made adjustments. “We made a slight tweak to our shape and asked them to play our game,” Pinard said. “We hadn’t really played with the intensity and the urgency that we were capable of.” In the final 18 minutes, the Ephs roared to life. Bruising runs from Jones created chances on the flank. Stellar defense in the backfield closed
off any offensive lanes for the Ducks. And in the 73rd minute, the Ephs forced a corner and equalized. Pierson took the corner, curving the ball into the back of the box, where Sarah Kelly ’19 dished it back to the left side. Georgia Lord ’21 blindsided the defense and scored to even the match 1-1. “As soon as we put the ball in the back of the net, we knew that we could win the game,” Barnhill commented. In the 83rd minute, Jones broke the tie in a breakaway to put the women on top for good, 2-1.
For Jones and the Ephs, come-from-behind efforts are free-flowing and, most importantly, natural. “In the moment, I didn’t think about what would happen if I scored or if I didn’t,” Jones said. “I find it really helpful in moments in the game that are extremely important to not think about anything and, rather, try to play in the moment and enjoy the game. It’s the only way to perform well under pressure, and it’s the only way to have fun.” During the comeback, Williams struck five shots on goal and earned three corner kicks. Jones recalled the Ephs’ dominant finish to the game. “During [the injury break], Olivia Barnhill said a few words that I think inspired everyone,” she said. “In summary, she said that if we played our best soccer and walked away losing this game, she would be okay with that. But she felt that there was another level that we [had] yet to reach, and that it was only if we reached that level did we have a chance of winning. We all agreed that we owed it to ourselves to reach that level of soccer, given that it is what we have been working on all year, and how much we believed that it could in fact be reached. After talking, I think I can speak for everyone in saying that there was a shift in energy that allowed us to play some of the most passionate soccer that we have ever seen.” Barnhill finished with six saves and one goal allowed. Duck goalie Izzy DiDario had six saves and two goals allowed. The women continues their defense of the national title in the NCAA sectionals round. They play against The College of New Jersey in Geneva, N.Y. at 11 a.m. on Saturday.
Men’s soccer falls in first round of NCAA Tournament
Men’s basketball vs. Salem State Chandler Gym, 5 p.m.
Sunday Nov. 18 Women’s squash vs. Conn. College and Hamilton Away, 10 a.m Men’s squash vs. Conn. College and Hamilton
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION.
Justin Adams ’22 played aggressively, with two shots in the Ephs 1-2 loss in the NCAA first round.
Away, 10 a.m
By MANDELA NAMASTE STAFF WRITER
Women’s ice hockey vs. Hamilton
Last Saturday, men’s soccer lost to Elizabethtown 1-2 in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Williams opened the scoring in the contest when Andrew Mathew ’20 launched a throw in 30 yards out to the left of Elizabethtown goalie Brian Gately. The first of three consecutive Eph headers off the throw in came from Will Felitto ’22, who sent the ball to Chris Fleischer ’20. Fleischer flicked the ball to the rushing Demian Gass ’20, who then headed the ball into the goal. The Gass tally came at 21:29. The Eph lead held up for 20 minutes, until the Blue Jays’ Gilbert Waso tied the game at 41:29. The ball was sent into the box, bounced off several players and came to Waso about nine yards out to the right of Eph goalie Aaron Schein ’19. Waso one-timed a shot that hit the left post. The ball caromed directly
Away, 3 p.m.
Tuesday Nov. 20 Women’s basketball vs.Springfield Chandler Gym, 5 p.m. Men’s basketball vs. MCLA Chandler Gym, 7 p.m.
back to him, and this time he managed to strike a shot past Schein inside the left post. After the first 45 minutes of play, both teams had recorded three shots on goal, and both Schein and Blue Jay netminder Brian Gately notched two saves. Elizabethtown held a 4-3 advantage in corner kicks. In the 55th minute, Elizabetown broke the tie in dramatic fashion. Jorge Sanchez wove his way past two Eph defenders and slid the ball under Schein at 55:38, putting the Blue Jays up one. Williams threatened in the 61st minute when Justin Adams ’22 got a good look from the top of the box and ripped a shot on goal, but Gately was on it and caught the ball against his chest. Waso nearly brought the score to 3-1 in the 77th minute with a header that was just wide to the right. Moments later, cocaptain Scatt Macdonald ’19 blistered a direct kick on goal from about 33 yards out to the left of Gately, but the shot went just over the crossbar.
In the 79th minute, Gass collected a loose ball in the box, but his shot from six yards away was blocked. In the 88th minute, Bobby Fabricant ’20 tried to redirect a rebound, but his attempt went just wide on the right side Both teams had nine shots in the second half, and the Blue Jays had two corner kicks, while the Ephs had one. Gately made five saves and allowed one goal to secure the win. Schein made four saves and allowed two goals. “We were certainly proud of our ability to get to the finals of the NESCAC Tournament this year and were disappointed to not have given up any goals all tournament and then lose on penalty kicks,” Gass said. “Nonetheless, getting an NCAA bid for the first time in four years was a great honor and, in my view, signified a turning point for the program.” This was the last game in Eph uniform for Schein, Sean Dory ’19, Macdonald, co-capatin Greg Andreou ’19, Eric Hirsch ’19, Ian Kagame ’19 and Paul Griffith ’19.