Feb. 8, 2017: Report questions upward mobility at the College

FEATURES P. 7

Farewell, Cantor Bob!

SPORTS P. 12

VOL. CXXXI, NO. 12

Ephs eke out win over Cardinals

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2017

Report questions upward mobility at the College

By MICHAEL GREEN MANAGING EDITOR Last month, the Equality of Opportunity Project released a paper, “Mobility Report Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility,” which examined economic diversity and student outcomes at colleges and universities across the country. The report indicates that the average family income for students at the College was at the 78th percentile of all families with children born in the same year, while average individual income later in life for alumni was at the 72nd percentile.

At the College, two-thirds of students are in the top quintile of family income, while 5.3 percent are in the bottom quintile and 13.4 percent are in the fourth. The student body currently draws 18.1 percent of its makeup from the top one percent of families alone. This pattern of student composition, skewed towards the highest levels of family income, was common among the 65 institutions that the study considered “elite,” including the College. The sample of all college-goers additionally had higher family incomes than the sample of all children, but was less skewed towards the top percentiles.

Among all college-goers, 28.4 percent came from the top quintile, 12.4 percent came from the bottom quintile and 1.5 percent came from the top one percent.

Provost David Love offered an explanation for the lower share of students from the lower quintiles.

“The reality is that highachieving [those scoring above 1450 on the verbal and math sections of the SAT] students from the bottom quintile are proportionally represented among Williams students,” Love said. Nationally, about 3 percent of students scoring above 1450 have family incomes of less than $20000 (approximately the upper boundary of the bottom quintile), as estimated from College Board data.

“We, of course, continue to work to identify, recruit and enroll even more talented students from the bottom income quintile, but competition for these students is especially keen,” Love said. “We also face particular challenges related to lack of brand recognition, location and misunderstanding about a liberal arts education and affordability.”

According to Carl McPherson ’14, a pre-doctoral research fellow at the Equality of Opportunity Project, family income distribution was “fairly stable” at the College during the years analyzed in the study. However, Love indicated that the share of students from the bottom three quintiles has increased since 2013, when the study’s data collection ended. For the class of 2020, 26 percent of students came from the bottom three quintiles, compared to 20 percent of students born in

MICHAEL GREEN/MANAGING EDITOR

Attendees of the College born in 1991 are heavily distributed towards the upper percentiles of family income, especially in the top quintile.

1991, most of whom belong to the class of 2013.

According to Love, the College is making an effort to attract lower-income students through programs like Windows on Williams, Previews and Questbridge, along with outreach to

community-based organizations and high-school counselors.

“Our efforts to attract students from lower-income backgrounds stem from the belief that talent and potential are much less likely to be correlated with family income than grades

and test scores [are correlated with income],” Love said. “In the past couple of years, we have become more intentional about using specific information about family income to identify and recruit exceptional students from less advantaged backgrounds,

and that effort has begun to pay off, as seen by our rising share since 2013 [of] students from the bottom three quintiles.”

The average individual income for a student at the SEE MOBILITY, PAGE 5

CSS revises handling of College reflects on Winter Study grading in marijuana usage following light of Law School Admissions Council policy commonwealth referendum

By RACHEL SCHARF EXECUTIVE EDITOR Although some students presumed that the legalization of marijuana in Massachusetts would produce a change in College policy, marijuana usage remains prohibited at the College since the drug’s possession and use are still considered illegal under federal law. On Nov. 8, 2016, voters passed a ballot initiative via referendum to legalize the recreational use of marijuana for anyone over the age of 21. While many students hoped this law would prompt a change in the College’s policy, the administration firmly rejected such a stance.

On Dec. 12, President Adam Falk emailed the College community to clarify the College’s policy in the wake of the drug’s legalization, highlighting the role of federal funding in determining the College’s marijuana policy.

“One might assume that with the new law the [College] would, in its policies and practices, treat marijuana much the same as alcohol,” Falk wrote. “But ... the federal government still considers marijuana to be an illicit drug.

The college must abide by federal laws, including the Drug-Free Workplace Act and the DrugFree Schools and Communities Act. If we fail to comply, the [College] could become ineligible for federal funding and financial aid programs for students.”

The College’s stance on marijuana, then, will remain unchanged, except for that the College will no longer contact the Williamstown Police Department (WPD) for all marijuanarelated incidents, as was necessary when marijuana was illegal in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Campus Safety and Security (CSS) will still respond to reports of marijuana consumption that fall within its purview and the Dean’s Office will still discipline all reported student use of marijuana, regardless of the age of the student.

“It used to be that if you had a bong or a little bit of marijuana or residue, Campus Safety had to call the police every single time, and there would be some type of a fine, and it would be destroyed. But that all got written up and sent to our office for re-

view,” Senior Associate Dean of the College Rachel Bukanc said.

“The same thing’s going to happen; [CSS] is going to do what [it] need[s] to do and write it up and send it to our office for review, but [it] will not often have to call the police … But the marijuana policy hasn’t changed.”

The College will now only contact WPD in certain cases rather than for every marijuana infraction. “We’ve worked out a system with the police where we’ve identified areas where we absolutely have to call them where there are [criminal] violations … when the amounts are great enough or distribution is an issue,” Dave Boyer, director of CSS, said. “Other infractions such as underage possession we can handle [similarly] to the way we do with alcohol; we can confiscate it, we can dispose of it, we can refer the person to the Dean’s Office for the sanction process without having to involve the local police.” WPD Officer Shaun William echoed this sentiment: “The Williamstown Police Department will respond only if there is a violation of Massachusetts law, not a violation of Williams College policy,” William said.

In formulating its response to statewide legalization of marijuana, the College looked to peer institutions. “We talked a lot with schools in Colorado,” Boyer said. “[We] looked at policies, had some direct conversations with colleagues, attended conferences [and] had some training sessions.”

Bukanc noted that schools in Colorado and Washington state have similarly continued to prioritize adherence to federal law. “It looks like regardless of how liberal a school might be in terms of its general policies, I don’t know of any institution that is saying, ‘Well, it’s legal, so fine by us,’ because everyone’s concerned about financial aid and federal programs,” she said. “We don’t want to lose that.

From what we have learned in these other states, all of these schools have clearly followed the federal guidelines.” Boyer added that peer institutions in Massachusetts, such as Amherst, are similarly retaining policies that follow federal guidelines.

By EMILIA MALUF MANAGING EDITOR

This is the first installment in a two-part series on Winter Study grading, which will examine the history of coursework evaluation and how an amended LSAC (Law School Admission Council) policy affects the term.

Due to a recent revision of Law School Admission Council (LSAC) policy, law school applicants from the College will now see their Winter Study grades factored into their grade point averages (GPAs). On Nov. 21, 2016, Michelle Shaw ’95, associate director of the Career Center and pre-law advisor, sent an email to current law school applicants and students on the prelaw listserve informing them of the policy change.

“LSAC has recently indicated that it has been correcting grades for Winter Study that it failed to convert properly,” Shaw wrote in the email. “You may be aware

WHAT’S INSIDE

that since 1995, [Winter Study] grades are issued on a threepass system (i.e. HP/PP/P [high pass, perfunctory pass, pass]). It has been LSAC’s policy to convert those grades to the A/B/C system. This means that [Winter Study] grades are now being numerically converted and may impact your overall GPA when converted by LSAC.” For the purposes of LSAC’s GPA conversion, a high pass is equivalent to an A, a pass to a B and a perfunctory pass to a C. After converting each Winter Study grade, LSAC will recalculate the student’s GPA. Winter Study is about three weeks long, while a regular semester is 12 weeks. LSAC, though, will equate one Winter Study course to one semester-long course in its grade recalculation.

“LSAC is an organization responsible for administering the law school admission test and providing a document service to shepherd your paperwork through to the law school,” Shaw

said. “When LSAC gets information from transcripts, it puts it through its own matrix so the information that results from that looks the same throughout the country. That’s called an LSAC report, and a report is issued for every candidate.”

According to Shaw, one of LSAC’s longstanding rules is that any institution that operates on a three-part grading system must be converted to the alphabetical grading scale. While LSAC’s Winter Study grade conversion policy went into effect this fall for applicants from the College, it is not a new policy.

“This is a policy that’s been in place [with LSAC] since the ’70s,” Registrar Barbara Casey said.

“It’s just because of an audit [it was] doing that [it] caught [that it was failing to enforce it].”

The first Winter Study took place during the 1967-1968 academic year, but its original design did not include the three-pass system. The only grades students could receive were pass and fail.

“We conceived of Winter Study as a pedagogical laboratory that would encourage faculty and students to experiment with new subject matter and novel ways of packaging and delivering courses,” John Chandler, president of the College from 1973-1985 and chair of the committee that originally proposed Winter Study, said in reflecting on the establishment of Winter Study. “We saw the pass-fail grading system as a way of encouraging students and faculty to take risks and be venturesome and creative.”

Winter Study fell under scrutiny at a faculty meeting in 1993. Faculty members debated whether to get rid of the period altogether and make each semester longer, or to find a way to encourage students to take it more seriously. One proposal involved switching to the letter grading system during Winter Study, but SEE GRADING, PAGE 5

AFTER MANY DELAYS, STUDENTS FLOCK TO ICE RINK OPENING WITH BROOMBALL, HOT CHOCOLATE AND MORE

3 OPINIONS

Defending College’s environmental efforts

5 NEWS

Faculty members join to oppose Betsy DeVos' nomination

6 FEATURES

Exploring 'North County Eats' restaurant week

8 ARTS

Talk confronts rape culture in visual work

12 SPORTS

Women’s hockey goes 1-1 with Trinity

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THE WILLIAMS RECORD BOARD According to a recent College Council (CC) poll attached to the weekly “State of CC” email, 30 percent of student responders do not know who to contact for assistance if they experience mental health issues during the semester. This lack of clear policy and direction mandates that the College place physical and mental health on the same footing to support the wellbeing of its students.

To address this apparent incongruity, the College has a responsibility to clarify how to get help when mental health issues impact a student’s ability to fulfill his or her academic obligations. We encourage the Dean’s Office to start by sending out an all-campus email outlining where to go for help and which accommodations are available when a mental health issue arises and impedes academic performance.

In addition, we believe that another way to legitimize mental illness on campus is to explicitly address it in course syllabi. While the majority of syllabi mention some allowance for sick days or accommodations for physical injuries like concussions, few syllabi reference policies for mental health issues. We believe syllabi containing phrases like “no extensions for any reason” provide

Word on The Quad What’s the worst date location in Williamstown?

February 8, 2017

A campus of compassion Addressing mental health concerns in the classroom no space for compassion and understanding while doing little to bolster the College’s academic community.

Furthermore, we are concerned that such syllabi warnings — absent an explicit accommodation for mental illness — can mislead students as to the accommodations they are entitled to under the Americans with Disabilities Act. According to the College’s website, under the Act, the “College is required to provide reasonable accommodations to insure [sic] equal access to our offerings for students with documented disabilities as long as the accommodations do not fundamentally alter the integrity of any course or program of study.” Disabilities are mental, not just physical.

An accommodation for mental illness on course syllabi will work twofold.

First, it will legitimize mental illness in a culture in which it is already stigmatized and second, it will allow for an open dialogue between students and professors and improve the learning environment at the College.

While the College cannot mandate what professors include on their syllabi, the administration can send an all-faculty email at the start of every semester explaining why such a syllabi inclusion would enhance the wellbeing of the student body. Such an email might suggest a template

for what this syllabi inclusion might look like and articulate strong support for the addition of mental health challenges as excused illnesses.

While it is likely that not all professors will feel comfortable including a mental health stipulation in their syllabi, those who do not should think about mentioning the issue on the first day of class each semester when discussing general housekeeping for the course.

In the past, the administration took a similar approach when it implored professors to include a reference to the honor code in their syllabi. Now, mentions of academic honesty are nearly ubiquitous, either on syllabi or verbally during the first class meeting. The administration should act in the interest of all students with mental illnesses and make a case for accommodations on syllabi.

Sending a notice to all students about resources for mental illness and suggesting a mental health statement for professors to include on syllabi are two concrete steps that the administration should take.

However, we hope that professors and the Dean’s Office will consider even more ways to bring mental health challenges out of the shadows and build more functional and empathetic relationships with students.

ON THE RECORD “Nonetheless, the executive order affects everyone around the world, both directly and indirectly.”

- MEKLIT TESFAYE ’20, on Trump’s immigration executive order, page 6 “The Ghana ThinkTank is an ambitious project with lofty goals. ” - LILY GORDON ’20, on the Ghana ThinkTank, page 9 “Knight competed at the 1998, 2002 and 2006 Winter Olympics, finishing 11th at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.”

- NINA MCGOWAN ’20, on career of Chip Knight ’08, page 10

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM THE GRAMMYS

Adele vs. Beyoncé.

I think either the gym, a special archives room, or Paresky during rush hour.

ICE RINK

We can finally enjoy the ice rink in all of our newfound free time...!

CLAIMING WILLIAMS

If only we discussed these issues more than once a year.

EMILY WHITE ’19

THE SUPER BOWL

Election night all over again.

By JANETH RODRIGUEZ PHOTO EDITOR

LEONEL MARTINEZ ’20

Subway, because if you’re going to get a sandwhich shop date, you could at least go to Pappa Charlie’s.

BRIAN BENITEZ ’18

Personally, I would say ice skating because I’m not good at it, but generally, I would say Driscoll.

BRETT BIDSTRUP ’17

FIRST FULL WEEK OF CLASSES

It’s time for a nap.

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Paresky lunch during rush hour.

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Submissions should be sent to mjg6@williams. edu by Saturday at 5 p.m. for inclusion in the next Wednesday issue. Op-eds range in length from 700-900 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.

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JORDAN JONES ’18

Predatory behavior Discussing consent at the College

By EMAN ALI Look at your knuckles. Are they scraped? No? Exactly. You’re not a Neanderthal. Control yourself.

This was a statement about controlling sexual urges and predation that resonated with me. Have we gained more self-control in the 40,000 years since our Neanderthal ancestors wandered the globe? From my observations at the College, it does not seem so.

Sexually predatory behavior is alive and well. Just analyze the layout of Hoxsey parties; often, it’s mainly a group of women dancing in the middle of the room with a circle of men surrounding them. Occasionally, an outsider deems one of the insiders worthy of his touch, and he swoops in to catch his prey.

What’s disturbing is the lack of consent and communication.

This is not just a petty complaint. I can attest from personal experience that this predatory grinding behavior is violating.

Feeling the pressure on my waist and his loins pushing up on my backside alone sent a shock of anger through my body.

I slapped his hand off and glared. How could anybody force such intimacy and assume consent? By the confusion on his face, I could tell this man wasn’t used to rejection. His sense of entitlement disgusted me. Within just a couple of seconds he made me feel uncomfortable and this discomfort flames within me every time I see him – but he continues to live his life normally.

The frequency of such incidents is even scarier. One of my closest friends at the College keeps a tally of how many guys have grabbed and grinded on her without consent. Since the beginning of our freshman year, she has counted over 10. And the number of guys that have actually asked to dance with her? Only two. One time, this guy at a party was so adamant on gluing himself behind my friend that I had to push him off and tell him that she was my date. It was humorously empowering at first, but the more I replayed the incident in my head, it confused me as to why I needed to create an excuse to make this guy keep his hands to himself. A simple touch can scar forever. It’s hard to convey this sense of violation to a person who has never been touched without consent before.

The closest comparison I can concoct to convey this feeling of violation is the following: imagine yourself surrounded by a swarm of mosquitos, biting and gnawing at your skin. They suck the blood out of you for their own selfish motives and without consideration of

OPINIONS 3

The Williams Record

February 8, 2017

your well-being. Your body is swelling and you keep swatting and yelling at them to stop, but they continue. The incessant vibration in your ear and the persistent jabs of their tube-like mouths don’t stop no matter how hard you yell.

What are they doing to your body? It’s YOUR body, yet they seem to engulf it and control it in its entirety. You feel helpless. Your swats injure you even further because the mosquitos just bite back. You need to be strategic about ridding yourself of this swarm, even though you didn’t ask for it. The worst part about this comparison is that the humans that inflict this feeling of violation have a morally driven conscience, unlike mosquitos.

I believe that grinding culture really does have its roots in values specific to our generation, such as instant gratification and the lack of emphasis on faceto-face communication. It’s not surprising that globalization, technological advances and the prominence of social media produce a party culture that allows for unconsented grinding to occur.

Grinding seems to fulfill a tendency for instant gratification. I don’t mean to say that there is anything wrong with grinding, but a problem does arise when we become so addicted to Tinder or hiding our faces behind iMessage that we become disconnected from in-person communication. This may be one of the factors in why it seems hard for people to ask others to dance with them rather than jumping right into it without consent. Not only is consent mandatory, but it seems especially courageous in an age when such direct communication isn’t practiced. In this light, predatory behavior is cowardly and reflects the internal insecurities of the perpetrator.

Don’t get me wrong, I completely condone grinding as long as it involves consent. My point is that forceful grinding without consent is one of the microaggressions which occurs so frequently and casually here and proves the presence of predatory behavior at the College. It’s an occurrence that happens casually in front of our own eyes and to people we interact with daily. Complacency with such behavior normalizes and perpetuates rape culture. Awareness of such micro-aggressions is the first step in changing our complacency with rape culture. Just observe.

The Neanderthal within us hasn’t fully subsided. Our knuckles are still scraped.

Defending the environmental strategy On the effectivness of the College’s renewable energy plan

I have high confidence in the College’s sustainability plans and attempt to corIn September of 2015, President rect some misconceptions I have heard Adam Falk and the Board of Trust- about the ongoing process.

There is no strict definition for the ees announced that the College would achieve carbon neutrality by the end of term “carbon neutral,” but having com2020, first by reducing energy use and mitted to achieving that standard, the investing in renewable energy, and then College needs to adopt a definition that by purchasing offsets to account for reflects the impact we want to have on the remainder of our carbon footprint. the world. Middlebury recently declared Many disagree with the College’s deci- itself carbon neutral after placing a forsion to pursue carbon neutrality and est it owns in a conservation trust. Midnot divestment, and such discussions dlebury still emits greenhouse gases, about institutional priorities are impor- and its forest has existed for hundreds of tant and productive. However, I have years — the earth’s atmospheric makealso heard opinions that the College is up will not change because Middlebury failing to achieve its carbon neutrality signed a contract and placed its forest goals. In actuality, the College is making in conservation. Pursuing this approach strong progress towards achieving its enabled Middlebury to label itself as carbon neutral without aggressive goals. Furactually contributing thermore, the decito the global effort to sions the College has The College is curb climate change. made as it pursues carbon neutrality reIn a recent Zilkha making strong Center newsletter, flect a pragmatic and progress towards Director Amy Johns innovative approach ’98 thoughtfully laid to sustainability and achieving its carbon out the College’s apcarbon accounting that is unique among proach, which priorineturality goals. tizes actually reducour peer institutions. ing emissions, instead As an intern at the of simply finding the Zilkha Center for Enviromental Initiatives, I have learned cheapest way to claim carbon neutrality. from the talented and devoted group To implement the College’s specific of people working behind the scenes understanding of carbon neutrality, we about how to implement sustainability are in the process of designing a renewprojects at the College. I’ve also heard able energy plant that will power 100 many express curiosity, confusion and percent of campus electricity needs. skepticism about the College’s progress. Most buildings on campus with suitable These sentiments are understand- roofs already have solar panels installed, able because much of the work occur- but powering the entire campus will rering involves behind-the-scenes infra- quire a much larger facility. Consultants structural upgrades. In order to make hired by the College are working to identhe switch to renewable energy, the tify a suitable location in the region. The College needs to build a sizable renew- facility may use wind, solar PV or some able energy plant, which is a complex, blend of technologies. The College is multi-year process. I understand the also investigating making upgrades to skepticism surrounding the College’s electrical systems on campus, which will efforts, but I’ve found that many con- enable the campus to participate more cerns don’t represent the reality of sustainably in the electric grid.

Underlying the College’s renewable how the College is addressing climate change. In this op-ed, I will explain why energy procurement process is a desire

By LUCIEN BAUMANN

to maximize the benefits of the facility. The project will offset our carbon footprint, but an ideal project could have a much greater impact than simply making the College’s own electricity carbon-free. A well-planned facility could stimulate the local economy, incorporate new and innovative technologies, interface dynamically with the regional electric grid and encourage nearby businesses to invest in their own renewable energy facilities. Such a project could provide research opportunities for students and serve as a model for other colleges. Not all renewable energy projects are created equal, and the College is seeking to do more than simply generate electricity. Investigation and planning is well underway, with the goal of having an operational facility by 2020.

The College has a responsibility to eliminate our carbon footprint as quickly as possible, and an opportunity to play a leadership role in paving the way for other institutions to make similar reductions. The College’s sustainability program is not perfect, and it’s important that students and faculty continue to push the institution to meaningfully contribute to global efforts to curb climate change. Because most of our energy still comes from carbon-intensive sources, it’s natural that some might feel frustrated or skeptical about the College’s efforts thus far. However, the work that members of staff and administration are doing demonstrates that the College’s decision to become carbon neutral is not simply a publicity stunt. In his Sept. 2015 email, President Falk promised “a plan that addresses climate change in a way that’s worthy of Williams” — the progress the College is making, albeit often behind the scenes, indicates that the College is genuinely committed to delivering that promise.

Lucien Baumann ’19 is from New York, N.Y. He lives in Brooks.

Eman Ali ’20 is from Coral Gables, Fla. She lives in Williams.

Voice in my head

Struggling with mental health at the College ety. Some may feel that this style of therapy is impersonal, or be hesitant to share personal information in a I wake up at 8 a.m., check my weight, group setting. That being said, psyhave breakfast and then go for a morn- chotherapy is key in addressing mening workout. I am feeling well, I have tal illness, so I urge those who cannot lost weight, my back is not bothering attend one-on-one sessions to attend me and the dorm that I am housing these group sessions. coordinator of has not burned down.

At this school, getting an apThings are looking good. Thirty min- pointment to be prescribed mediutes into my workout, the voice comes cation is straightforward. The back: “You’re never going to be able wait time is no more than a few to complete this thesis.” I shut that days and most prescriptions can thought out but it’s quickly replaced be delivered to the Health Center. by another: “You’re probably going to However, medication alone isn’t alend up alone.” That’s one of my biggest ways the best means of addressing fears in life, so this thought stings a bit mental illness. The best results are and is harder to push away. “You’ve generally seen when medication is never been able to keep your promis- combined with psychotherapy. es; you’ve always let people down; you Unfortunately, this is easier said didn’t even help your grandmother than done. There is generally a twowhen she needed you.” That one stops week waiting list for one-on-one therame in my tracks. My grandmother had py sessions. Scheduling becomes more an accident when I was complicated if there 10, which led to her a particular theraThe size of the psych is death. She had asked pist at the Health me for help moving services staff simply Center that you desomething, but I igsire. This isn’t necisn’t large enough to essarily a flaw with nored her. She ended up falling trying to the Health Center accomadate the move it and broke her but rather with the neck. That is when the College’s unwillingdemand. depression started. I ness to pay for more realized later I couldn’t therapists. The Colblame myself for what lege’s mental health happened, but the thought always services are excellent in that you aren’t sneaks back into my head. limited to the number of sessions you I’ve seen a therapist for over half of my can attend, nor are you restricted to a life and have an incredible support group specific therapist. But the size of the of family and friends. I also take medi- staff simply isn’t large enough to accation to manage the depression. I’m commodate the demand. Until this incredibly lucky and privileged to have staff issue is addressed, the best way these resources, but even with these, the to schedule therapy sessions is to call voice comes back – reminding me of my very early in the year, establish a time failures, my flaws and my insecurities. and reserve that weekly slot going forIf you’re like me and you struggle ward, so that you don’t get stuck on a with mental illness, this might sound waiting list. familiar. The reason I‘m sharing this is Finally, if you’re interested in afso that I may provide insight into what fecting the mental health communiliving with mental illness can be like, ed- ty and becoming part of the discusucate students about the help available sion, there are a number of groups to them and describe how I have coped on campus that you can get involved with mental illness during my time here. with, including the Mental Health There are a fair number of resources Committee, Active Minds and the available to students on campus. The Happiness Club.

Health Center and Peer Health do group therapy sessions, which can be effective CJ Levin ’18 is a psychology major for people struggling with chronic anxi- from Teaneck, N.J. He lives in Fitch.

By CJ LEVIN

EMMA ROBINSON ’18

Education and dialogue Lessons in political discourse in the age of Trump

By BUM SHIK KIM We are all guilty of the impulse to accept and argue for the simple answer even if it is wrong, but that is why we are at a place like the College – to learn the various viewpoints in the world, both in and outside the classroom.

The moment we understand different perspectives is when we realize that we are all human beings, whatever our disagreements may be. Each of us has a unique set of experiences that makes us who we are with the opinions we have.

The purpose of an education at the College is to help explore such complexity in arguments. President Adam Falk once said that “the goal of our graduates is to have a comfort with complexity and ambiguity in the world.” It follows that this skill would be useful for navigating the world’s biggest challenges that do not even exist yet (hoorah for the liberal arts!).

Yet on this very campus, I have seen the same people who talk of unity casually laugh down and dismiss blue-collar workers without college degrees, only to be in complete shock when Donald Trump was elected president. I have seen people shift from evidence-based arguments to personal attacks as soon as they feel the other side “just doesn’t get it.” I have seen both sides of the “Uncomfortable Learning” debate denigrate the other. These examples perhaps exemplify the College as the type of college President Barack Obama referred to in fall of 2015: “I don’t agree with that either -- that you when you become students at colleges, you have to be coddled and protected from different points of view. Anybody who comes to speak to you and you dis-

agree with, you should have an argument with them, but you shouldn’t silence them.”

It is important to note most of these personal criticisms or unfair attacks I refer to were all published online, whether they are in the form of passive aggressive Facebook comments or national media outlets. They are published by the same people who proudly post about love for one another on their Facebook feeds, but fail to practice what they preach. Whenever I reached out to individuals who went beyond respectful debate by attacking people’s fundamental beliefs, I asked if we could meet in-person s0 I could hear their elaborations. Their answer was always silence. It is easy for people to say whatever they want behind a screen; rarely do they have the same guts to sit down, look people in the eye and start talking.

Let me qualify my statements before proceeding. By no means do I imply we are obligated to engage with each other in dialogue if the other side makes statements meant to incite violence on groups of any kind or fails to treat others as human beings.

My opinion also does not mean I am against protests. In fact, I am all for them. Every advancement in rights throughout world history would not have occurred without protest. What I am instead trying to get at is that we should take advantage of what the College has to offer, which we may never have again: the chance to get to know people beyond your comfort zone in meaningful ways.

At the end of the day, time is not going to stop for you. Society is going to keep on ticking along. You

can choose to complain about nobody understanding you. Or you can decide to reject the status quo, acknowledge that change does not happen overnight and look for productive conversations sitting faceto-face with people with whom you disagree. The one thing you will have constant around you for the next few years (or months, congratulations to seniors!) is the purple bubble filled with 2200 unique individuals that is as diverse as you can get. You will likely never again have access or reason to engage with such a diverse population of human beings in your life. This message is not limited to just a few students. All of us have the responsibility as Ephs to take advantage of the opportunities afforded to us that most people will never have.

Do not throw away your shot.

So why am I writing this now?

Was it President Trump’s inauguration? A thought in-the-works since the election? Last year’s arguments around Uncomfortable Learning? The fact that conversations around how to disagree and promote diverse perspectives only come in times of crises or major events speaks for itself. There is not enough dialogue. And really, what better time to emphasize learning different perspectives than in a time of unprecedented polarization across the country?

In the spirit of this point, feel free to reach out and talk with me if you think I had a viewpoint I missed – I look forward to chatting.

Bum Shik Kim ’19 is from Palisades Park, N.J. He lives in Thompson.

4 NEWS

February 8, 2017

The Williams Record

Shaun King speaks to overflowing house on new Civil Rights movement

By CARLOS CABRERA-LOMELÍ CONTRIBUTING WRITER More than 30 minutes before his Claiming Williams keynote address began last Thursday, Shaun King had already attracted a crowd large enough that ushers had to begin turning prospective attendees away from the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance. Minutes later, even those attempting to watch the livestream in Paresky auditorium could not find a seat. It was the most wellattended event of Claiming Williams Day. His talk, titled “The New Civil Rights Movement,” concentrated on police brutality and political activism, both of which King has focused on throughout his career. King is best known as a widely published journalist, writer for the New York Daily News, commentator, blogger and head of several organizations specifically focusing on combatting racism and police brutality. His published pieces have been shared on Facebook tens of thousands of times and his message has centered on the necessity of the American public to act on institutionalized discrimination based on race, class and mental health.

During his speech, King used graphs, videos and statistics to show the audience that many legal, economic and political systems deliberately work to do their purpose, which is to disenfranchise minority groups. He argued that history has not progressed in a continuous upward trend but

JUNE HAN/PHOTO EDITOR

Shaun King speaks about political activism and police brutality in modern America during his Claiming Williams Day keynote address. rather in dips and peaks, contrary to many people’s belief that the continuous progression in technology has resulted in the continuous progression of humanity. Labeling the present as a dip, with the potential to dip even further down, he urged the crowd to involve themselves in the larger social movements of today.

King argued that almost every innovation in history, specifically American history, has been directly followed by a dip in humanity. After the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan

and other white supremacy groups rose; after the Civil Rights movement, the prison system began jailing a disproportionally large number of racial minorities; and after the first black president left office, Donald Trump won the presidency. As a result, King believes that fighting for social justice today is just as important, if not more important, than it was after the Civil War and during the Civil Rights movement.

King’s popularity was in large part due to his no-

Pay cap forces students to modify employment

By JACK BRENT GREENBERG EDITOR-IN-CHIEF The first part of this series addressed the College’s claims regarding why it imposes a limit on how much its students may earn each year and how that policy is maintained and enforced. This second and final part considers this policy in the context of how the College’s peer institutions treat student earnings and discusses how some students plan their employment around the pay cap.

The Department of Education mandates that no student can receive a financial aid award that exceeds his or her demonstrated need, as determined by the financial aid office at that student’s institution. Accordingly, in addition to the principled basis for why the College maintains a cap on how much its students may earn, the administration asserts that the cap is a function of federal regulations.

“There is no regulatory federal cap on the number of hours students can work,” Director of Financial Aid Paul Boyer ’77 said. “[Instead,] actual earnings must stay within the over-award regulations set by the Dept. of Education … [and] individual overaward concerns … are handled on a case-by-case basis.” This notion, though, that the federal government is responsible for keeping the College’s “institutional expectation” for earnings at its current level is belied by the student employment earning policies of peer institutions.

Within the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), only the College and Wesleyan set a specific monetary limit on how much their students can earn. Wesleyan’s acrossthe-board earnings limit of $2750 is 10 percent greater than the cap at the College and, unlike the policy at the College, allows for first-years to earn as much as upperclassmen over the course of the academic year.

The College’s other peer institutions rely more on setting high limits on the amount any student can work independent of financial aid status while remaining honest and transparent about the role of Federal Work Study (FWS) funds — money provided by the federal government to subsidize jobs for about 40 percent of the College’s financial aid students — in supporting student employment.

Trinity, for example, generally requires that its students not work more than 15 hours a week and emphasizes that “if a student’s earnings exceed their allotted Work-Study … their employer will now be responsible for 100 [percent] of the wage rate,” according to Trinity’s financial aid office. A student’s employer may reduce a student’s hours or terminate his or her position if the respective office is unwilling to foot the full bill for that student’s labor once the FWS funds are depleted. In effect, an office will keep paying a student beyond how much FWS subsidizes his or her wage if the student is “worth it” and the department has the necessary resources.

Save for the specific hour cap, this policy is effectively the one maintained at Connecticut College and Tufts.

All other schools in the NESCAC enforce some kind of weekly cap on hours without including the specific stipulation on FWS subsidization.

Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin and Middlebury all assert that a student can work no more than 20 hours in any week regardless of his or her financial aid status. Colby sets a lower weekly limit of 12 hours but does, in special circumstances, allow for students to work an additional three hours in any week when their employers require the extra assistance. Given the minimum wage at each school, the “translated” earnings limits for students at these institutions are significantly higher than the cap at the College. To that extent that explicit policy is concerned, the College sets

the strictest limits on how much its students can make from college-sponsored employment during the academic year.

Only a small share of the College’s students will run up against the conflicting nature of the pay cap.

According to Boyer, roughly 12 percent of aided students — about six percent of all students at the College — earned above the pay cap in the 2015-2016 academic year, with no comparable data available for non-aided students. Many of these students are on track to over-earn only slightly and late enough in the year that Financial Aid responds by simply “adjusting their cost of attendance … and subsequently [increasing] their campus employment expectation,” Boyer said.

Yet the pay cap can still have a serious impact on students’ lives at the College. Sam Swire ’17.5, who works as the personnel manager of Goodrich Coffee Bar, has had to underreport his hours at Goodrich considerably to prevent over-earning and Human Resources forcing the coffee bar to fire a consequential employee. “I definitely do not report all of the hours that I work,” Swire said. “If I did, I would have hit the pay cap by the end of [fall] semester.

[Overall,] I’ll report between 65-75 percent of my hours this year.”

To help make up for the earnings managers like Swire may not receive, generations of Goodrich managerial teams have had to resort to taking from Goodrich’s supply as an alternate form of compensation, snagging extra bagels or Odwallas where they can. “That’s a lot of how managers currently and in the past — for about five years or so — have compensated themselves,” Swire said. “It’s still not the same … The College gets a lot of things right in terms of thinking about what its students want. However, telling a student what their work ethic is and how they want to go about their time at Williams doesn’t make any sense because the student is going to do what they want to do if the work is fulfilling for them.” For Swire, free coffee only goes so far as a form of payment.

Other students have lost work opportunities or had to seek them outside of the College’s purview as a result of the pay cap. Chelsea Thomeer ’17, who worked as a full-time teaching assistant (TA) last semester, was prevented from taking on additional work as a notetaker — a position which requires little time beyond attending a class in which she was already enrolled — as a result of the College’s policy.

“When I went to ask about [the notetaking job],” Thomeer said, “Academic Resources said that having both jobs [TA and notetaker] would likely put me over my pay cap for the semester [and] I’d have much rather been a TA than a note taker.” Diego Gonzalez ’18, fearing over-earning through campus employment, opted to pursue a job opportunity in North Adams, Mass., running an after-school program for children interested in computer science. “I’ve had to stop pursuing [getting] multiple jobs on campus because of the pay cap,” Gonzalez said. “Last semester, I decided to get a job in North Adams to get around this. This was a huge hassle; I had to go back and forth between Williamstown and North Adams multiple times a week. I wish I could have just worked on campus at the jobs I could have gotten.”

The College continuously emphasizes principled arguments about the role of students bring primarily academic in the establishment and maintenance of its pay cap. The philosophical merit of those arguments or lack thereof rests beyond the consideration of this series, but their value is contingent on the fair, equitable and compassionate maintenance of the policies the College promotes, an enduring issue for the parties responsible for overseeing student employment and enforcing the pay cap.

table social media presence amongst students at the College. “King has been able to spread his messages and image so widely amongst millennials because he manages his presence online so well,” John Vélez ’20 said. “He understands how to reach so many young people because he is one of us.”

“I knew of Shaun King before as I followed his Facebook account,” Shane Beard ’20 said. “After the various killings by police during the summer, I felt I really needed

to express how I was feeling about these acts and I found that with King.”

Another aspect that attracts students to King is his earnestness and the critical nature of his writing. “His articles are very critical, especially of politicians on both sides and how they’ve failed communities of color,” Nohely Peraza ’20 said. “He provides a voice on issues that are not covered at all by the media, specifically on the intersectionality between the various social justice efforts.”

One of the most compelling messages in King’s talk was the illustration of American history through the constant alternation of highs followed by dips, with these dips describing periods as the Transatlantic slave trade, Jim Crow laws that followed the success of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments and the movement towards mass incarceration that followed the Civil Rights Movement.

“It’s so important to examine these patterns in history, as this is when the saying ‘Those who do not learn history are condemned to repeat it,’ becomes so real,” Peraza said. “We have a duty to ourselves to learn of our past. We have such high expectations of the present which limits what we believe we are responsible and capable of doing.”

King’s talk had particular resonance with the experiences of students of color at the College. “I think that the problems I face here at Williams are parallel to those of other minority students in other universities in the nation,” Yaznairy Cabrera ’20 said. “For many here, it is the first time they are confronted [with] diversity like this. It should not be that way.”

“For me, this all reminds me why I am an activist, especially here at Williams,” Berline Osirus ’20 said. “The trauma experienced by being a racial minority, a woman, queer, in this country cannot be intellectualized or analyzed in an objective sense … I understand what King did by showing graphs but no number can describe these traumas.”

SPRING STREET BLUES Tuesday 1-31-17 9:10 a.m. Towne Field House: An officer found a lost camera and successfully located the owner.

bat inside the building.

9:10 p.m. Chandler Gym: Officers responded to an intrusion alarm.

Saturday 2-4-17

Wednesday 2-1-17

11:37 a.m. Paresky Center: A staff member found a bottle that contained prescription medication. An officer picked up and brought it to the Campus Safety and Security (CSS) office. CSS contacted the student who came by to retrieve his prescription.

1:24 p.m. Park Street: A grounds man who was sanding the sidewalk at the intersection of Lynde Lane reported a car that drove into a telephone support wire. The driver’s rear window shattered, but there was no damage to the telephone pole and no one was injured.

3:07 a.m. Bryant House: Officers responded to a bathroom for a student that had vomited. The caller reported that the student was fine but was looking for a mop to clean up the mess, and CSS called up a custodian to clean it up.

7:30 p.m. Paresky Center: An officer responded to an elevator phone activation. No one was in or around the elevator.

Thursday 2-2-17

8:02 p.m. Sawyer Library: Two students met with officers concerning a suspicious incident that occurred earlier in the Stetson/Sawyer Library around 3 p.m. It involved a male who they had never seen before who made them and several other students uncomfortable and suspicious.

8:05 a.m. Towne Field House: Officers responded to an injured person who fell and hit her head on a bench and landed on her left knee. Village Ambulance responded and transported her to Southwestern Vermont Medical Center.

11:52 a.m. Paresky Center: Officers responded to the mail room after an employee injured her back. The employee did not need medical treatment.

1.20 p.m. CSS Office: An administrative staff member came into the CSS Office looking to fill out an injury accident form, stating that she had fallen. She did not need medical treatment.

5:42 p.m. CSS Office: The Health Center requested that CSS inquire about the whereabouts of a student who they arranged to transport to a medical center in Bennington, Vt., by Village Ambulance. The ambulance driver called the Health Center asking if the student had arrived back on campus because the medical center to which the student had been transported was closed. The driver checked with the adjacent emergency room and the student was not there, and CSS confirmed that student was not in his room.

At approximately 7 p.m., the Health Center found out that the student was still at the hospital and had completed surgery, so the Health Center arranged transportation for the student to return to campus.

Friday 2-3-17 12:38 a.m. Wood House: After receiving a noise complaint in the basement of Wood, officers found a small group of students dancing to loud music with no alcohol present. The students turned down the music and apologized for disturbing other residents.

4:30 p.m. Center for Development Economics Building: Officer responded a report of a

5:00 p.m. Lawrence Hall: Officers responded to the area of Lawrence Hall Drive for a report of two suspicious persons. The Williamstown Police Department (WPD) also received a complaint about this incident.

6:45 p.m. Dennet House: Officers responded to student who injured her toe.

10:03 p.m. Spring Street: An alumnus reported an encounter with some males driving in a pickup truck wearing masks who shouted racial slurs in his direction while he was walking in the Spring Street area. Once in a safe place, he called CSS to report the incident, and CSS reported the incident to the WPD. 10:48 p.m. Prospect House: Offiers responded to a complaint of a strong odor of cigarette smoke. The officers detected the odor, but were unable to determine the room from which it originated because the smoke dissipitated as they were investigating.

10:59 p.m. Morgan Hall: Officers responded to a noise complaint in Morgan basement and found 10-15 students in the basement area.

The officers explained the noise complaint and that there was no need for everyone to leave because the number of students present and the amount of alcohol present were all within the College’s responsible party standards.

Sunday 2-5-17 12:45 a.m. Meacham Street Area: Officers responded to a report by a visiting professor that a suspicious large white truck had slowed down in front of her residence. When the vehicle got closer, it revved its engine. As she ran away, the person rolled the window down and shouted at her but she could not make out what was said. CSS also notified the WPD. 3:08 a.m. East College: Officers responded to a report of an unexpected and unwanted male student entering another student’s room. The resident identified the intruder but after speaking to the parties involved, CSS determined no malicious intent and all parties were satisfied with explanations for the incident.

February 8, 2017

The Williams Record

NEWS 5

LSAC converts Winter Study grades Faculty members compose open letter opposing DeVos’ cabinet appointment CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

ultimately the faculty settled on the three-pass system.

The hope was that the additions of the high pass and perfunctory pass would dissuade students from slacking off during Winter Study.

In the 1995-1996 academic year, the three-pass system was officially introduced.

Before teaching a course during Winter Study, all instructors receive guidelines about the grading system. The guidelines recommend that instructors give a high pass to one out of every 10 students.

The percentage of students that earn a high pass is thus “a smaller percentage than [those who earn] as during the semester,” Casey said. “It doesn’t parallel with our regular semester grading scheme.”

Despite pressure from the College, LSAC has refused to reconsider its policy. “LSAC is an old institution,” Shaw said.

“The likelihood of it changing this policy – I’m not hopeful about that. In my communications with [LSAC], I’ve shared how fundamentally unfair this is, to suddenly be converting these grades. For me, as a prelaw advisor but also as an alum, I’m frustrated on behalf of the students I work with who have done everything they’re sup-

posed to do. In some ways, this is one more thing they have to tackle, and they have no forewarning about it.”

Many view the LSAC grade conversion policy as antithetical to the essence of Winter Study. Some worry that the new policy will change the way students approach Winter Study.

“I view the translation of ‘high pass’ as meaning ‘A’ as likely to induce caution and calculation that are just the opposite of the risk-taking spirit that led to the adoption of Winter Study,” Chandler said.

“I think students roll up their sleeves and really enjoy the term because of the emphasis on learning as opposed to traditional grades,” Shaw said. “That’s what I love about Winter Study: It’s an opportunity to go outside of your comfort zone and really learn something. Candidates explore Winter Study as a way of broadening their education, and it’s a shame that this policy may freeze students’ enthusiasm for that particular process.” “[The policy] is at odds with what Winter Study is about, which is to encourage students to go out of their comfort zone,” Casey said.

“Our grading philosophy for [Winter Study] reflects

our intention that students should feel free to use the winter term to explore new topics, domains and disciplines,” Dean of the College Marlene Sandstrom said.

“We want students to stretch their boundaries without feeling constrained by concerns about grades. Given this, it is really unfortunate that LSAC has decided to use its own formula to translate [Winter Study] grades into letter grades and factor them into students’ GPAs. This practice does not accurately reflect our own philosophy.”

“Students currently in the process of applying are rightly concerned about what this means for them,” Shaw said.

“They’re concerned about whether the conversion is significant enough to make a difference between your top three law schools and your No. 10 law school. Those are the questions that I’m getting, and I expect we’ll be getting more of those questions as students in the future decide to apply for law school.”

Part II of this series will next investigate the Winter Study three-pass grading system in light of the corrected application of the LSAC policy as well as the College’s efforts to mitigate the effects of the policy.

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Over 1000 College community members expressed their opposition to Betsy DeVos’ nomination. policies that would dangerously damage equal access to quality primary and secondary school education.”

Last week, over 1400 memIn addition to outlining bers of the College commutheir shared opposition to nity signed a letter expressmany of DeVos’s policy poing their opposition towards sitions, the faculty involved businesswoman Betsy DeVos’s in composing the letter also appointment as Secretary of hoped that it would set the Education. The letter, which tone for the kind of actions members of the College’s facthe College would take to imulty drafted and began sharing prove education and promote on Jan. 26, received signatures the well-being of its students. from faculty, staff, students, “The letter is important even administrators and alumni. without this state“The Williams ment [of opposiletter explains tion],” Anjuli Raza our commitment Kolb, assistant proto students’ edufessor of English, cational achievesaid. “It provides ment and una record of resisderscores that tance and a startDeVos aims to ing point for thinkharm our future ing about how we students,” Jacas a faculty and a queline Hidalgo, community will be associate profesBernie Rhie, associate professor of English able to support our sor of Latina/o students and their studies and relilearning over the gion at the Colnext years.” lege, said. “She Yesterday, the Senate conis antagonistic to the govern- refusal to commit to upholdmental office for which she ing the 2011 Title IX guid- firmed DeVos by a vote of ance pertaining to the com- 51-50. Vice President Mike has been nominated.”

Numerous faculty mem- bating of sexual assaults on Pence cast the tie-breaking vote, making it the first time bers were particularly pas- college campuses.”

Hidalgo emphasized her a vice president has done so sionate in opposing DeVos because of their backgrounds opposition to DeVos’s his- for a cabinet position confirtory of supporting school mation vote since 2006. Sen. in education.

“I am deeply opposed to choice policies that she be- Susan Collins (R-Maine) and every single one of President lieves are harmful to equal Sen. Lisa Murkowski (RAlaska) joined the Senate’s Trump’s cabinet picks, but access to education.

“Her prior advocacy for 46 Democrats and two indeas a teacher, I was particularly appalled by his choice ‘school choice’ has a proven pendents in deciding to opof Betsy DeVos for Secretary track record of failure,” Hi- pose DeVos’ confirmation as of Education,” Bernie Rhie, dalgo said. “DeVos advocates Secretary of Education.

By WILLIAM NEWTON NEWS EDITOR

associate professor of English at the College, said.

Over 160 faculty members, including Rhie and Hidalgo, signed the letter, citing their primary concerns as opposition to DeVos’s views on Title IX, the Individuals with Disabilities Act and school choice.

“The ignorance she betrayed during those hearings of the Individual with Disabilities Act was particularly shocking,” Rhie said. “I was also deeply alarmed by her

“As a teacher, I was particularly appalled by Trump’s choice of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education.”

College reflects on socioeconomic composition of its student body CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 College from a lowest-quintile family was at the 64th percentile, while the average individual income for a highest-quintile family student was at the 73rd percentile.

“It is important to us that our students experience success, but it is really up to the student to define his or her own success,” Love said. “We want to graduate students who will go out and have a

positive impact on the world and be great citizens. This is as true for our students from low-income families as it is for all of our students.”

The authors of the study obtained their data from federal tax records, meaning that any students without associated tax records, including students originally from foreign countries, do not appear in the final results and data.

All family income data is from children born in 1991,

while student income data is from children born from 1980 to 1982. Individual income was measured in 2014, when the 1980 to 1982 cohorts were between the ages of 32 and 34, approximately when relative income stabilizes. However, according to McPherson, data for students at the College was inadequate in this period, so income for this time period was estimated based on 1983 and 1984 cohort data.

6 FEATURES

The Williams Record

February 8, 2017

Two in Two Thousand

By RACHEL SCHARF EXECUTIVE EDITOR In honor of Valentine’s Day, the Record brings you its annual profile of a campus couple. This year, I sat down with Lili Bierer and Phacelia Cramer, two sophomore activists who have been dating for almost a year, to discuss their relationship’s beginnings, sharing a friend group, being queer at the College and everything in between.

How did you start dating?

LB: Do you want to tell this story? [Both laugh].

PC: Man, I don’t know how much to tell. So, we both were involved in similar groups on campus. We were really good friends for the whole first half of the year. We are both on Divest Williams and do different activist stuff together and both had crushes on each other that were pretty significant for like two months…

LB: Uh … three? Four?

PC: Three or four months before we started dating, and neither of us talked to anyone else on campus about this because we were in the same best friend group. You usually talk to your best friends when you have problems like this, so it was kind of stressful for both of us, because we kind of were falling for each other more and more and knew that the other person was gonna figure it out at some point. [Both laugh].

LB: And like really trying to repress it and let the feelings go away and see if we waited it out.

PC: To the point where we were both pretty uncomfortable being alone in spaces together, even though we were best friends …

So then spring break was just a shit show. I was a mess and just let myself fall in love with

Lili over spring break. And, I think she had a similar experience, but maybe not — I feel like it couldn’t have been as bad as mine because my spring break was just a disaster.

LILI BIERER ’19 & PHACELIA CRAMER ’19

PC: I grew up with my parents constantly saying, “You won’t know who you fall in love with until you fall in love with them,” which I’m everyday so grateful for. I came out to my family just by calling my mom and being like, “I’m in love with a girl, and I don’t know what to do.” [Both laugh]. And they weren’t really surprised. My family’s super open about it, and they know that I’ve dated guys before, and it doesn’t feel like this final thing, like, “Oh my gosh I came out to them, now it changed my identity.”

LB: I feel like yours couldn’t have been as bad as mine.

PC: I literally only thought about Lili for all of spring break, and it was terrible. I really thought that it was never going to happen, and that I couldn’t be part of our friend group if everyone knew I was just in love with one of them!

[Both laugh]. And it was highkey very stressful but also amazing because I had never been in love with anybody before, so that was a really cool feeling. And then on April 8 … [both laugh] … [Right after spring break], we went to the WOC [Williams Outing Club] cabin.

LB: Some of our friends decided to stay over, so there were like seven of us.

PC: Yeah, so that’s a good thing, to have a group of seven friends be there the night that you figure out that you like each other [Lili laughs]. So this part is confusing to tell….

LB: But made a lot of sense.

PC: Yeah, made a lot of sense in the moment. So essentially, we had all hung out late into the night in the WOC cabin, and we were going to sleep, and I was sneaky and made sure that I was sleeping next to Lili. And, we were just kinda like spooning [both laugh], and then we communicated to each other that we liked each other through hand squeezes.

LB: Mmhmm. I don’t really know how it worked out, but it really did. After a certain amount of hand squeezing, I was like, “Wow, I know that she likes me.” And then we kissed

On that topic, have your families been supportive of your relationship?

JANETH RODRIGUEZ/PHOTO EDITOR EDITOR

LILI’S HOMETOWN CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

PHACELIA’S HOMETOWN EUGENE, ORE.

for the first time. And then from there on, we were basically just in a relationship.

You live in the same suite — how does the dynamic work with being in the same group of friends and dating?

LB: I think it’s generally actually really easy, and part of that comes from the fact that our friends are really communicative with each other about our needs and our feelings and the dynamics of our friend group — it’s something that we talk to each other about, which makes it a lot easier.

I think there are moments when it takes added mental energy to be thinking about, “Are people feeling excluded by us right now?” And, it’s also sometimes hard to be in a big group together because there are things that we want to talk to each other about individually. But at the same time it’s

FAVORITE ACTIVITY HAMMOCKING

also really comforting to not have my relationship just be this separate part of my life – to really have it be integrated into everything that I do and care about. All of my friends know Phacelia really well, and vice versa, because they’re the same people. But that’s a really scary thing, and it made us really nervous last year.

PC: Another thing that I think is pretty significant is that both of us weren’t “out” or really thinking about queerness before college, and we definitely have a lot of close friends who are really supportive and helpful in that process and awesome queer role models. So not only is our friend group really communicative, but also they’re really supportive and like talking about queerness openly, which is nice because we can actually really talk about our relationship with them, which is, I think, really healthy.

LB: I think for my family, it was a bigger deal. It wasn’t just like, “Oh, this wasn’t a surprise, and it’s just totally normal and fine and we’ll move on.” It was definitely something. My impression is that for them it altered their sense of my identity, whereas I don’t really see it that way. It was never something that I was repressing and then had to come clean about. Being queer and thinking about my own sexuality was sort of a gradual process and something that developed and was created over time, but I think that my parents and I just think about queerness in a really different way from each other, which can make conversations about it really hard and energy-intensive when you’re just not seeing eye to eye. But I’m also really lucky, and it’s been mostly really easy, and I feel supported.

Other than Divest Williams, what are your favorite things to do together?

PC: We like picnicking together.

LB: Love picnicking.

PC: Hammocking. That’s a huge part of our relationship.

What does consist of?

hammocking

LB: Basically, being in a hammock.

PC: I have a hammock that’s a double, and so we put it up, and then we pretend to do work together, but it’s just distracting. It’s mostly just talking in a hammock. We like playing recreational pickup sports together.

LB: You like that a little bit more than I do.

PC: Yeah, but we still do it.

LB: Okay, yeah. I participate.

PC: We go to a ton of events on campus together, like all of the activist events that happen – everything the Davis Center does.

Is there anything else you guys want to say to readers?

PC: I feel like we should say something about how we wish there were so many more happy queer couples that were out on campus if they wanted to be.

LB: Yeah!

PC: We can give a shout-out to queer frosh who are nervous about their sexuality because we went from having never really thought about queerness to being in the best relationship that I’ve ever been in in my life and very, very in love in like 10 months. So queer frosh readers: just know there are lots of circles of queer people with different interests at Williams. At least something that I’ve learned is that there are so many different queer spaces and friend groups here – there’s no such thing as the “queer community,” instead there are lots of different circles.

So if you think that there’s one queer friend group that you don’t belong in, there are lots of other spaces out there.

Students lament Trump’s Restaurant week delights Berkshires immigration executive order

By MINWEI CAO STAFF WRITER

By MEKLIT TESFAYE STAFF WRITER On Jan. 27, President Trump signed an executive order restricting the entry of people into the U.S. from seven predominantly Muslim countries – Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Somalia and Yemen – for 90 days.

The order also bans Syrian refugee resettlement indefinitely and suspends all other refugee resettlement in the U.S. for 120 days. Although a circuit court is currently debating the constitutionality of the measure, for the time being the order stands.

The discontented reaction to Trump’s action has proven intense. For example, more than 5000 bodega owners went on strike in Brooklyn last Thursday to protest the immigration ban. Bodegas are small grocery or corner stores that are a mainstay of New York City and primarily owned by Yemeni Americans.

Through this strike, bodega owners demonstrated to the world that they were as much American as anyone else.

Trump claims that his executive order, entitled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” is “not about religion, [but] terror and keeping our country safe.” Yet, the issue at hand is the order’s discrimination against Muslims because of their faith, which is being challenged by many federal lawsuits.

Nonetheless, the executive order affects everyone around the world, both directly and indirectly.

When Bushra Ali ’17 first heard about Trump’s immigration ban, she was not surprised. “I wasn’t very shocked because I had seen it coming. Since 9/11, Muslims and citizens of Muslimmajority countries have been discriminated against during the U.S. immigration process ... simply because they

identify as a Muslim or their names sound similar to those blacklisted as terrorists.”

As an international student of Pakistani nationality living in the United Arab Emirates, Ali is not directly affected by the immigration ban. Coming to the U.S., she was surprised by the issues surrounding diversity in this country. “I think that a very rosy picture [about American diversity] is painted to the rest of the world that isn’t necessarily true,” Ali said. Despite these problems, Ali is encouraged by the responses from disadvantaged groups. “I’m deeply inspired by underprivileged communities that have fought over the years and continue to fight for their rights and liberation in the U.S.” O m a r Kawam ’20 was frustrated by the executive order. “I am not directly affected by the ban, but I am disappointed by how some people don’t think that the law, which has separated many families, is legitimate,” Kawam said. “It is relieving to know that some parts of the government are against this order, but the legislation’s reality is very scary.”

Kawam is of mostly Syrian origin. Being born and raised in New Jersey has allowed Kawam to fully understand what it means to be a Muslim-American. “I attended an Islamic school for 14 years,” Kawam said. “My teachers, peers and community taught me to recognize and take advantage of the opportunities [for living a better life] in this country. They also taught me that I must represent what Islam is all about – to love for your brother what you love for yourself.”

Ali and Kawam strongly believe that people within and outside of the College community can do something in response to the ban. “The most important thing that needs to happen now besides mobilizing, which is already happening, is to have a deeper understanding of the immigration issue,” Ali said. “[We need] to look at the history of immigration in America and realize that it’s been discriminatory for a long time. I urge people to examine this matter more critically by looking at recurring trends and not treating this issue as an isolated event.”

In addition to mobilization and selfeducation, Kawam affirms how unity has the capacity to dism a n t l e hatred.

“Regardless of our backgrounds, people must show solidarity against [Trump’s initiatives] by being active in social media, local politics or whatever [venue] you can to make a difference.” Kawam, in addition, believes that this change should happen at a more personal level. “We should learn to seek the humanity in the people being affected and put ourselves in their shoes.”

These contemporary challenges, however, have inspired a degree of hope.

“Muslims are a part of the fabric of American society and will stand up against injustices directed towards any community regardless of its faith, color or gender,” Kawam said. “And we are happy to see many of our fellow Americans doing just that for us in this crisis.”

“We should learn to seek the humanity in the people being affected and put ourselves in their shoes” Omar Kawam ’20

As someone familiar with D.C. and Baltimore restaurant weeks, I was skeptical when I heard that the City of North Adams and Williamstown Chamber of Commerce were hosting a “restaurant week.” However, after exploring “North County Eats” this past week, I was fairly impressed and definitely would recommend going with friends, dates, teammates, entrymates and awkward acquaintances next year!

I went to try three restaurants during North County Eats: an upscale place (Mezze), a lowkey, no-frill place (Water Street Grill) and a Spring Street restaurant (Pera). Here is what I thought of each.

Mezze is probably the most high-end place in the zip code 01267 with a “chill” fine dining ambience. The first course on the menu was the delicata squash salad. The squash in the salad was nicely roasted, but since the salad was named after it, I found the other ingredients overpowering. The arugula’s nuttiness, the hazelnuts’ crunch, the apple’s biting acidity and the crowdie cheese’s creaminess: every ingredient wanted some attention to itself. It did not really come together for me, but still very tasty.

The main course was confit of Long Island duck. Wow, the first bite was beautiful! Crispy, rich, fatty, tender, all in one bite. I was extremely happy. It was a huge piece of duck confit too! Under the duck confit was a circle of perfectly cooked brussel sprouts

in a mustard butter and apple cider sauce. I loved how the mustard cut into the richness of the duck without overpowering the star of the entree.

For dessert, we had maple pot de creme with whipped cream and honey wheat cookie. Pot de creme is a custard-like dessert, frequently made with chocolate.

So the creativity using maple was very exciting for me. The cookie was a little too soft for my liking, and I would have enjoyed a crunch to add texture to the cream, but the pot de creme was very well-executed. The small portion was great after a big duck confit entree.

Eating at Mezze was a delicious experience with lots of flavors and twists on classics. I highly recommend it for restaurant week since Mezze is typically pretty expensive and three courses for $30 is a fantastic deal!

Water Street Grill is a very American comfort food, no frill sort of place. The menus look like they have not changed in 20 years. For $10 though, you get two meals worth of food and that is music to someone who is on the five-meal-plan’s ears.

For the entrée, I chose the angus beef burger and picked BBQ sauce, bacon, sauteed onions and swiss cheese as my four toppings. I asked for the burger medium but got it medium well. Yet overall, still a very satisfying, hearty, juicy burger. The bacon slab was thick cut and delicious.

I could only eat half of the burger and could take the rest home for dinner.

The dessert was okay. The crumble itself was buttery and baked golden, but the lemon curd was very artificial. The raspberry and white chocolate ribbons also tasted pretty artificial. I was not particularly impressed.

Overall, Water Street Grill is a great place to go if you are hungry and need some comfort food.

You get to relax and have some down-to-earth traditional fare, and that is all you need sometimes on a Saturday.

Pera is Spring Street’s nicest dining venue. Its lighting and ambience and music are always pleasant, the waitresses kind and attentive, and much of the food above average.

For restaurant week appetizer, we got both the hummus plate and the chicken chili soup.

The hummus was three hearty spoonfuls and very satisfying with warm pita and crunchy vegetables. The soup: warm but okay. Pera also gave us a three bean salad on the house with a tasty olive oil, herb and citrus vinaigrette. Simple but delicious.

The entree I got was lamb bolognese with pappardelle. The pasta did not have as much chew as I would like, but it was plenty of carbs so I can’t complain. The sauce was delicious! So much lamb and tomato goodness, with fragrant onions and spices to cut the smell and strong aftertaste of lamb. I wish my crostinis were a bit more toasted, but they were a perfect pairing to my leftover bolognese sauce. The mango sorbet I got for dessert proved to be very refreshing after a heavy pasta meal, so I left happy.

MINWEI CAO/STAFF WRITER

Water Street Grill provides an inexpensive and friendly dining experience during “North County Eats.”

February 8, 2017

FEATURES 7

The Williams Record

The College bids shalom to beloved Cantor Bob Scherr

By RACHEL LEVIN EXECUTIVE EDITOR Of the many life lessons Cantor Bob Scherr has instilled in the College community, one in particular describes his time here best: don’t be afraid of getting lost, especially when it leads to a new adventure. This has proven true in his adventures to different countries as well as getting lost on his first campus visit when being interviewed for a job in the Chaplain’s office at the College.

Twelve years ago, Scherr arrived in Williamstown for an on-campus interview. “I did it just because, why not?

If someone offers you an interview and you’re looking for a job, why not?” he said. “I was intrigued by the idea of a Jewish chaplain, although I didn’t know what that would mean.”

Getting turned around at night on Route 2 and not being able to find his way back to the Williams Inn during his first trip to Williamstown did not deter him from connecting with the College.

After meeting with Chaplain to the College Rick Spalding, psychological services, the Health Center, the Davis Center and students of Jewish and non-Jewish faith, Scherr “started to get the picture that this job wasn’t just about the Jewish community; it was about being the Jewish chaplain for the College, and that became really intriguing,” he said.

Thus, a 12-year adventure full of teaching, learning and meaningful relationships with students, faculty and staff was born. In his role as Jewish chaplain, “Cantor Bob” has done more than many people realize. There

PHOTO COURTESY OF MIGUEL SAMAYOA

Throughout his career, Bob Scherr taught students like Abbey Minondo ’19, pictured left, on his Jerusalem Winter Study trip. were many visible aspects of his role, such as being present at and helping with all Jewish services and using his talents in the kitchen to ensure that Shabbat dinner was ready every Friday night. He sat in on board meetings for the Williams College Jewish Association, giving advice and using his connections within and beyond the College to help plan events and celebrate holidays. During services one could always hear his beautiful singing voice holding everything together or teaching new tunes for old songs.

Of the many things Scherr has learned throughout his time at the College, it does not matter how good a leader’s

voice is during prayers was one. “It’s just kind of noise, but it’s such joyful noise that I get a big kick out of it,” he said with a smile. “That’s something that I’ll really miss - is the enthusiasm of people for their participation and finding meaning in prayer in that way. For me, it’s also ceding to someone else’s aesthetic. The students embrace it … and have enthusiasm for it. It’s the enthusiasm of prayer which is more important than the aesthetic of prayer. And I think I learned a lot about that from students.”

In addition to seeing Scherr as a religious leader, students have also gotten to see another side of Scherr, that of a confidante, support system, advisor and friend.

At a dinner celebrating his time at the College on Jan. 8 in the Faculty House, students spoke about how welcome he has made them feel, regardless of their religious background or affiliation, how understanding he is and how he opened his door to anyone who needed to talk.

This door was not only open for students, but faculty and staff as well, and on Jan. 31, his official last day at the College, faculty and staff were given a chance to speak about Scherr’s impact on them during their time working together at the College.

While it is clear that Scherr has left a lasting impression on the College community, the community has also shaped

him. “I will miss the people,” he said. “I will miss the personal growth that I was able to experience because I learned so many things from students.”

One important lesson Scherr learned is that not all programs have to be great. “The best piece of advice I got was to let students make mistakes. You can’t really do that in a congregational setting. Everything [in a congregation] is expected to be wonderful, but students are accustomed to failure,” he said. “It’s such a healthy thing, to know that you can try something and not be really successful, or not be really successful at first.”

Of the many programs he has run, among the most successful have been his Winter Study Jerusalem trip, which

takes 10 students to Israel for 12 days to learn about the city and its various people, and the Chaplains’ interfaith spring Break Out Trip (BOT) to Tuscaloosa, Ala., which pairs Habitat for Humanity work with conversations about religion. The faithbased discussions during the BOT grew out of the interfaith work at the College, of which Scherr was fond.

“Those [interfaith] conversations are sometimes so amazing, as people play off of ideas that they share with one another,” he said. Scherr has particularly enjoyed “finding how much folks have in common for their quest for prayer, for spiritual values, what the connection is of their sacred writings to contemporary life.”

While Scherr will miss the conversations and the people he has met at the College, he feels as though his retirement is a part of the natural flow of people through the Purple Valley. “The college community changes a lot, and I think that as a student, I imagine, you’re so caught up with your own four years of trying to squeeze everything out of the College and then just leave us behind.

That’s the way this institution goes,” he said.

Scherr and his wife, Susie, don’t plan on leaving Williamstown just yet. Ultimately, they will move to Washington, D.C. to be closer to their two daughters, and especially their 1-yearold grandson, Oliver. In the meantime, Scherr will enjoy his time here and embrace whatever new adventure presents itself, taking with him all of the lessons learned and relationships made at the College.

8 ARTS

The Williams Record

February 8, 2017

Clark tour discusses rape culture in permanent collection

By LI YU ARTS EDITOR Last Thursday morning, gallery guides Molly Burroughs ’17 and Alex Mendez ’17 led a discussion at the Clark Art Institute dubbed “Romance and Rape Culture in the Clark Collection” as part of Claiming Williams Day. The discussion examined various depictions of romance and relationships in Western art within the contemporary context of rape culture.

Burroughs and Mendez led two groups through the Clark’s permanent collection.

I followed Burroughs, who first introduced us to Undertow, an oil painting by Winslow Homer. Depicting two men and two women amid the ocean’s waves, Undertow presents an unclear, complex message on gender and power.

The two female subjects, who appear to have been caught by the undertow, occupy the Cassatt’s Offering the Panel to the center of the painting. One of them has her head tilted up- tional mediums. In our contemwards; facing the viewer, and porary understanding, however, the other woman is clinging the sculpture reflects the issues onto her, face obscured. Both of consent within rape culture, a rescuers are situated on either setting or society which normalside of the women, dynamical- izes rape and sexual abuse. The ly posed and muscles glowing, mythological sculpture portrays as they try to carry the women Bacchus holding a sleeping Ariashore. Neither of their ex- adne, and he is about to wake pressions are discernible. In her up with a kiss. However, spite of the apparently patron- because Ariadne is unconscious izing depiction, Homer may and unable to consent, Bacchus have had more complex state- commits a non-consensual act. ments to make about gender, The romanticization of such a Burroughs explained. scene has multiple implications, Next Burroughs used a sculp- most importantly the prioritizature of Bacchus and Ariadne to tion of male desire over female engage in a conversation on con- autonomy and the use of fairy sent. The scene depicted in the tale tropes to normalize sexual sculpture is one that has been assault. Burroughs then directhighly romanticized in addi- ed our attention to the relation-

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CLARK

Bullfighter depicts the gender dynamics in a conversation between a woman and a bullfighter. ship between the work and its contemporary viewer by asking whether this type of conversation around rape culture should always take place when looking at artworks portraying interactions of dubious consent. Most students agreed that it was crucial to broach the topic.

Moving on, Burroughs directed our attention to JeanLéon Gérôme’s Snake Charmer.

Like the previous works, Snake Charmer is painted by a European artist. However, the subject matter is distinctly the result of a fictional, voyeuristic and orientalist construction of the East. Gérôme has imagined a young snake charmer, naked and facing away from the

viewer, a position that reduces his agency. He stands before an audience of fully clothed men, who face the viewer. Their gaze is intently set on the boy before them. Snake Charmer is considered problematic for many reasons, one of which being the sexualization of a child. Another issue is the deferral of artist responsibility — Burroughs informed us that such a scene could never had occurred; the boy would have definitely been clothed. Snake Charmer is thus the fetishistic construction of the western imagination, and it is passed off not as fantasy but as an authentic examination of eastern culture and practices, as re-emphasized by Gérôme’s

point of view. In comparison to the other works discussed, Snake Charmer presented the most unique situation, and Burroughs used this opportunity to talk about how survivors of sexual assault and trauma may not fall within the narrow idea of what the media paints them to look like.

The last work that Burroughs left us with was Mary Cassatt’s Offering the Panal to the Bullfighter. The painting shows the conversation between a woman and a bullfighter, a dynamic that brings to mind an unsuccessful Tinder date. One student used the term “mansplaining” to characterize the nature of their

conversation; the bullfighter faces toward the viewer wearing his confident and slightly disillusioned expression, but the woman’s disposition is less decipherable – her face is obscured in a shadow. Her hand is on her waist, and her posture is slumped, suggesting disinterest. In an interesting reversal, however, Cassatt preserves the woman’s agency by barring the viewer from accessing her thoughts through her facial cues, saving her from scrutiny in a way that Cassatt does not afford the bullfighter. It is a painting that seems to defy the male gaze, where both the bullfighter’s conversational passes as well as the viewers’ attempts to read the woman’s response are both thwarted.

“Romance and Rape Culture in the Clark Collection” was an event organized as part of Claiming Williams Day. Occurring the first Thursday of spring semester, Claiming Williams Day engages the campus community in various events, discussions and presentations to promote greater equality and inclusivity on campus. Ultimately, the event took an active role in promoting “moral courage.” By examining various works from the permanent collection for their relevance to gender and rape culture, the gallery talk encouraged students to challenge the history of inequality surrounding the College community, whether in handling interpersonal relationships or opening dialogues on the more subtle manifestations of rape culture and sexism, like those hiding in museums under layers of oil and varnish.

Rapper sheds light on climate change

By TJ NYKORCHUCK CONTRIBUTING WRITER

PHOTO COURTESY OF TEASER TRAILER

Natalie Portman immerses herself in the role of Jackie Kennedy to deliver an authentic performance.

‘Jackie’ boasts resonant performance

By GREG ZAFFINO STAFF WRITER Jackie, which has been showing at Images for the past week, provides a glimpse into the life of First Lady Jackie Kennedy in the days immediately following the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy. The film employs a non-linear narrative and narrow focus to avoid the pitfall of familiarity often found in biopics. In Pablo Larrain’s Jackie, one can certainly feel the influence of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, which focused only on the final four months of Lincoln’s life rather than attempting to detail his entire life.

There are a few key differences, however; while Jackie primarily focuses on the time between JFK’s assassination and his funeral a few days later, the movie additionally interweaves footage of Jackie Kennedy’s 1961 live tour of the White House, as well as her interview with Life magazine’s Theodore H. White in the days following the funeral.

The footage from the White House tour provides a particularly nice contextual touch and prevents Jackie from veering into formulaic biopic territory. Additionally, the scope of Jackie expands beyond understanding Jackie Kennedy as a singular figure and aims further to capture the historical context of JFK’s assassination and the general feelings associated with the event. The movie

is certainly about Jackie Kennedy, but it is also about seeing a historic moment in American history through her eyes.

Like Lincoln, Larrain’s Jackie is anchored by an absolutely fantastic lead performance.

Natalie Portman stars in the titular role and turns in one of the finest performances of the year, absolutely deserving her Oscar nomination. Portman fully immerses herself in the role and, despite her star power, the audience feels like it is watching Jackie Kennedy rather than a showboating Natalie Portman overacting in search of that Oscar victory. Not to take anything away from Portman, but she is certainly aided by the noticeably excellent costume and makeup design, which was also nominated for an Oscar. Overall, the technical filmmaking is quite strong in Jackie. The movie exhibits some great long-duration shots, particularly on Portman’s character. Jackie also boasts an exceptionally welldone score, with heavy strings adding tension at perfect moments in the film.

Aside from Portman’s standout performance, the most impressive part of Jackie is the surprising amount of character development achieved in the character of Jackie Kennedy. The focus on Jackie’s mindset, personality and character rather than on the events of her life allows the movie to have a bit more life than most biopics. Jackie is not going to go to unex-

pected places or really push the envelope of your movieviewing experience, but it will draw you in and make you care more than you might expect.

Jackie probably is not the type of movie that you are likely to revisit again and again, and it does not have the kind of depth that will necessarily reward multiple viewings. For me, I think one of the most intriguing parts of Jackie is how those from different generations might experience the movie. For some students, Jackie may present relatively new information; after all, we are a generation that has come to know John F. Kennedy through history textbooks. Yet for those Americans who lived through the presidency and assassination of Kennedy, the film must have been an entirely different experience.

Lines from Jackie Kennedy or Attorney General Robert Kennedy were met with cheers from the older members of the crowd at Images. For them, the characters depicted are not names from textbooks brought to life, but rather very real figures from their life, people who were influential politicians and pop culture icons. Jackie seemed, in a word, to prove more personal for those who had experienced these years themselves. The fact that Jackie means different things to different people inherently makes it a more interesting movie. In addition to its solid cinematography and outstanding lead performance, this adds yet another layer of intrigue to the movie.

It is hard to describe Baba Brinkman with any word other than “unique.” His flow, his lyrics and his topics are all extremely rare in the modern-day hip-hop landscape. However, perhaps the most interesting aspect of Brinkman is the sub-genre to which he belongs. His music falls under a category of rap known as “lit-hop,” a style that aims to create educational music.

Brinkman has written on subjects such as religion, evolution and even famous epics such as Beowulf. However, his focus on educating his audience never puts a damper on his product.

Last Friday night’s performance at the ’62 Center for Theater & Dance of Brinkman’s album, “Rap Guide to Climate Chaos,” focused on the controversial issue of climate change. For many, this would be a difficult topic, but Brinkman had no trouble spitting out tongue twister lyrics on subjects such as the International Plant Protection Convention. Additionally, humor is very present in his music. Brinkman opened the show with the line: “I’m straight outta Canada,” and later in the show performed a song entitled “Mo Carbon, Mo Problems.” These two examples showcase both his humor and his knowledge of hip-hop’s roots. Brinkman does not forget the history of his genre, as he is continuously referencing hip-hop’s storied past. His music oozes with 90s nostalgia, from Notorious B.I.G. to De La Soul. It is easy to space out and forget that you are listening to Brinkman’s rap in 2017 because of his masterful references to hip-hop’s roots. His flow, choice of beats, humor and knowledge of hip-hop – which take the form of playful covers – all make Brinkman a performer worth seeing.

One of the highlights of the show was when Brinkman unleashed his anger at the current attitude in the United States on climate change. In that moment, he displayed the most energy, targeting politicians and oil companies for what he views as their hypocrisy and lies. At the heart of his perfor-

mance, Brinkman educated his audience, using words and rhythm to explain that Exxon Mobil moved the height of its offshore oil rigs up to avoid damage from rising sea levels. Brinkman’s strength over other political rappers is that his audience can learn from his anger. While groups like Run the Jewels are amazing in their criticism of corruption in Washington, we do not learn a lot of specifics from them. With Brinkman, we can use his music to become more informed citizens.

His music is not only enjoyable, but it also makes a difference.

Furthermore, his music sheds light on the significance of rap, a genre that is at its best when rappers push their audiences out of their comfort zones. Vince Staples and Danny Brown provided commentary on depression through their releases in 2016. Kendrick Lamar talked about black America in “To Pimp a Butterfly.” Schoolboy Q rapped about urban poverty in “Oxymoron” and Brinkman focuses on climate change in “Rap Guide to Climate Chaos.” These artists force listeners to engage in dialogues on difficult subjects, even though much of the population has no desire to do so. With Donald Trump’s presidency, rap will only assume a more important role, as it will remain an outlet for criticism. In fact, Brinkman took aim at Trump in one of his songs, further proving the utility of rap as a tool to raise awareness.

Although I was skeptical of Brinkman and did not think that he would have the lyricism of Kendrick Lamar or the catchiness of Migos, he took me by surprise. When Brinkman started rapping, I set aside my reservations and ended up really enjoying his performance. In the end, the beauty of rap is that it does not conform to one sound. There are so many sub-genres which produce completely different sounds.

Conscious rap and trap are opposites, yet we still consider them both to be part of the same genre. Baba Brinkman seems to mesh the two to create a powerful sound that has both sonic and political resonance, serving as a testament to the expansive nature of rap music.

PHOTO COURTESY OF WNYC

Baba Brinkman’s rap music reflects a deep knowledge of both rap culture and climate change.

Febuary 8, 2017

ARTS 9

The Williams Record

Ghana ThinkTank exhibition reverses power dynamic

By LILY GORDON CONTRIBUTING WRITER Last Thursday, students, faculty and staff found their way into the Ghana ThinkTank exhibition at Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA). An ornate, metallic column grew up from the floor and expanded upwards, greeting the attendees as they embarked on this experience.

It was part of a Morrocan riad, in which multiple house doors open into a communal courtyard. As soon as I stepped into the room, I was offered a chunk of raw turnip. While munching, I learned that we may soon lose the Florida Mountain turnip from the effects of climate change. Next, Gabriel Wexler ’19 offered me a very different plate.

“Roasted crickets,” he said, grinning. “Just don’t look at it too much before you eat one.” I shut my eyes before tasting what may be the “meal of the future.” To my surprise, the cricket wasn’t bad at all; the salt certainly helped.

What do a Moroccan riad and roasted crickets have in common? They are both solutions to our problems. The Ghana ThinkTank, designed by three artists, aims to tackle a range of problems in the U.S. The theme of the WCMA ThinkTank is climate change, in keeping with the College’s “Confronting Climate Change” initiative. Instead of large-scale problems such as rising sea levels, the project examines the effects of a changing climate in the everyday lives of Berkshire community members.

“What's different about our approach is that we weren't

JANETH RODRIGUEZ/PHOTO EDITOR

At the intersection of art and activism, the Ghana ThinkTank raises important questions about the nature of climate change. looking entirely for problems that had global and seemingly unstoppable effects; we were more interested in finding out how climate change affects people in the smallest and most tangible of ways," CJ Salapare ’20, a member of the Action Team for the Ghana ThinkTank, said.

The novelty of the project, however, lies in how it approaches the process of solution-making. The ThinkTank seeks to challenge cultural assumptions by flipping traditional power dynamics.

Instead of the U.S. model of solving the problems of “developing” countries, the ThinkTank asks those countries to help the U.S. in-

stead. It collects problems from people in the U.S. and sends them to think tanks in countries such as Ghana, El Salvador and Iran. In the case of the WCMA ThinkTank, Morocco and Indonesia provided the solutions.

This was a multistep process.

First, solutions were collected from community members; they responded to the question “how does climate change affect you?” The Action Team sorted through hundreds of these, and they picked a handful. “[They] ultimately chose eight to 10 problems that they thought stuck out and represented the community,” Rachel Heisler, WCMA’s manager of student and visitor

engagement, said. The problems were sent to “ThinkTanks” in Morocco and Indonesia where solutions were brainstormed and sent back to America. Next, students in the Winter Study course “Public Art and Climate Change” proceeded to build the exhibition itself. The final step of the project, which has yet to come to fruition, will be the actual implementation of these solutions.

The team is in the midst of this right now, and soon members of the Moroccan and Indonesian ThinkTanks will visit to help out.

Around the walls, visitors could view the problems and corresponding solutions posted up. The solutions ranged from practical to touching to

humorous.“As the weather gets more unpredictable, I find it harder to find people willing to sit next to me outside. I hate sitting outside by myself,” a 90-year-old woman wrote. Two examples of solutions from Morocco include, “get the 90-year-old on Tinder” and “she can move to Morocco … we take care of our elders here.”

Another problem touched on politics. “In Florida, you aren’t allowed to use ‘climate change’ in any official document.” The Moroccan solution? “Rebrand climate change; find acceptable synonyms.” A simple, almost obvious solution, but one that is easier said than done.

How much will the Ghana ThinkTank accomplish in the

pursuit of its goals? Some have doubts. “The actions they’re having us do – they’re not going to have any effect,” Wexler said. Wexler took “Public Art and Climate Change,” and it was not what he expected.

However, Wexler’s issues with the ThinkTank ran deeper than with the course itself. He argued that while the project attempted to reverse power dynamics, it merely perpetuated these very issues. Instead of feeling empowering,“it felt a lot more like outsourcing,” Wexler said.“Climate change is inherently a global issue,” he said, “[and] our problems with climate change are completely dwarfed by [developing countries’] problems with climate change.”

Furthermore, the project emphasizes that climate change is a universal problem; it’s going to affect everyone no matter which country. This axiom, though, has its limits. “All we can observe is the day-to-day,” Salapare said, expressing how Americans struggle to understand climate change on a personal level. Conceding how this leaves some attendees confused, Salapare did note how “people are just happy that this is another endeavor to bring awareness to climate change.”

The Ghana ThinkTank is an ambitious project with lofty goals. By placing itself at the intersection of art and activism, it raises important questions about the difficult nature of climate change and the relationship between the U.S. and developing countries. So long as the initiative continues implementing solutions, the endeavor continues.

Artists explore various methods of exhibiting moral courage

By OLIVER YANG CONTRIBUTING WRITER

JANETH RODRIGUEZ/PHOTO EDITOR

The Williams Chamber Players performed original and classics on Friday in Chapin Hall.

Musicians reflect on current politics

By ALEX MEDEIROS CONTRIBUTING WRITER The Williams Chamber Players is an ensemble of faculty members founded almost two decades ago in 1999, who endeavor to “present concerts to the college and community” which give “special attention to music of the 20th and 21st centuries and to music by Williams composers,” per the group’s bio.

Assisstant Professor of Music Zachary Wadsworth composed a piano and violin duet titled “In Angustiis (In Troubled Times),” which he performed with Joana Genova, artist associate in violin. The piece was written to be “a kind of prayer or lament” like some 20th century compositions that “lamented steps backwards” especially in regards to the politics of the time, according to Wadsworth. The title comes from Haydn’s “Missa in Angustiis (Mass for Troubled Times)” which “lamented” on the invasions of Napoleon in the late 1780s. Naturally, there are several issues concerning the common citizen in America today on which to “lament.”

Accordingly, the performers dressed in all black, as if in mourning. The haunting combination of the piano and violin captured all the attention and hearts of the audience.

The other three pieces also contributed to this atmosphere of anguish. The first, entitled “Five Love Songs,” challenged the stereotypical romantic melody by juxtaposing jagged acoustic guitar rhythms with an elegant, operatic soprano, achieved by the duo of Robert Phelps and Erin Nafziger. Composer Thea Musgrave combines classical style with contemporary flavor to reflect her more modern experience.

The soprano’s storytelling and audible suffering would confuse anyone expecting to hear a “love song.”

Brahms’ “Sonata in F major” for cello and piano followed next. In contrast to a number of Brahms’ sweet, romantic melodies, this sonata felt troubled at times.

It was riddled, no doubt, with sophisticated and effortless lullabies, achieved by the coordination of the piano by Elizabeth Wright, and the cello by Nathaniel Parke. This piece felt as if it was a roller coaster of emotions that was communicated through beautiful, distinctly Brahms harmonies and rhythmic grace.

The third movement, “Allegro passionato,” truly lives up to its namesake; one cannot help but enjoy the satisfied glances the musicians would give each other after each movement.

The final piece in the concert was a trio in G minor by Clara Schumann, the famous wife of composer Robert Schumann of the Romantic Era. This trio for violin, cello and piano almost stole the show. It was an interlacing of complicated yet overtly romantic melodies that when played together evoked sorrow or torment.

Once again, the music overcame the musicians, who appeared as though they were communicating with each other in a foreign language. The conclusion of the four-movement trio satisfied an audience of Berkshire community members, faculty and students who had been transported into a turbulent time only to return slightly relieved.

During such a complicated time in this country’s history, music can be a bridge to join together the differences among us.

Each of the pieces in Friday’s concert embraced the storminess in the air and on the horizon, a storminess that transcended centuries of history. Times have not changed and neither has the music which seeks to explain, accept or disapprove of its consequences. We may see, feasibly, the events of this semester to reflect the changes in the world around us.

Last Thursday, Maria de Los Angeles and Kameelah Rasheed joined the College in Lawrence Hall for an artist talk titled “Ask an Artist about Moral Courage.” During the talk, the two artists spoke about their lives, their work and the philosophy of their art.

Kameelah Janan Rasheed has many identities: she is an interdisciplinary artist, erstwhile high school public teacher, a writer, photographer, printmaker, publisher and performer. Her art spans many media, from experimental poetry to large prints.

In her talk, she revealed how she has been primarily exploring “selective legibility and opaqueness” as a political strategy. She displayed her artistic engagement with a variety of themes over the years – for example, the “perfect victim” narrative and its problematic role in displacing our attention away from systemic problems and towards the victim. Her most known work is a series of yellow posters with bolded black type in all caps with messages like “How to Suffer Politely” and “Take it like a Man but don’t take it up with the Man,” exploring the policing of charged emotions such as anger and helplessness.

Maria de Los Angeles was born in 1988 in Michoacán, Mexico. In 2000, de Los Angeles and her family immigrated to Santa Rosa, Calif.

She primarily works as an artist and designer. A self-

described shy artist, de Los Angeles has produced hundreds of paintings on both paper and dresses. She has explored ideas of self and identity through her art.

Currently an undocumented immigrant herself, de Los Angeles said she draws from a plethora of personal experiences and emotions for inspiration, and painting is a source of release for times when she is under stress. Her most known work is a series of colorful painted dresses that openly display to the public private characteristics of people, such as their citizenship status, sexual orientation and religious beliefs.

Her dresses directly engage with public activism and protest culture; the people who wear these dresses often show up for political protests, rallies and marches.

During the artist talk, both artists revealed their understandings of moral courage and their methods for expressing moral courage in their work. Rasheed holds the belief that courage can be demonstrated subtly. Her works further demonstrate how language can subtly shape belief in many ways from the posters to the collages that she has made.

During the talk, Rasheed brought up the compelling point that extremely publicized protests are not always as effective as well-coordinated but sudden protests.

On the other hand, de Los Angeles advocated for vehement public protest; accordingly, her art takes the form of unapologetic statements

of identity. De Los Angeles’s dresses openly communicate to other people her undocumented immigrant status. She explained how her art forces herself to be more outgoing and vigilant in confronting issues of social justice. Through unapologetic assertions of her own identity, de Los Angeles empowers others with an undocumented immigration status and inspires more people to be politically active.

By wearing her status on her dress, de Los Angeles explained, the “internalized racism is made visible,” thus raising awareness within the viewers of their own negative judgments they make.

Perhaps the artists’ different backgrounds motivated their development of very different beliefs about moral courage: Rasheed, the elder of the two artists, has been involved in activism for more years than de Los Angeles, and perhaps these extra years have made her more critical of what activist methods achieve the best results. De Los Angeles, in comparison, seems to have lived the more tumultuous life, from living as an undocumented immigrant to trying to integrate into America at the age of 11. While both Rasheed and de Los Angeles propose different ways to tap into and respond to situations of injustice with moral courage, it is impossible to say whether one artist has a better method. In fact, their very different beliefs suggest the broad spectrum of engagement with which we as a community can participate in to facilitate moral courage.

JANETH RODRIGUEZ/PHOTO EDITOR

Kameelah Rasheed expresses her understanding of moral courage on Claiming Williams Day.

10 SPORTS

The Williams Record

February 8, 2017

Former Eph basketball coach Dave Paulsen ’87 finds success in Div. I

By JOELLE TROIANO CONTRIBUTING WRITER

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE U.S. SKI TEAM

Chip Knight ’08 skied in three Winter Olympics and is now alpine development director for the U.S. Team.

Knight ’08 reflects on Olympic career

By NINA McGOWAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER While many know and understand the demands of being a student-athlete at the College, few have experienced the challenges of being both a student and an Olympian.

Chip Knight ’08 serves as an exception. Knight started skiing when he was 3 years old at mountain ski school.

Knight traveled to Vermont from his home in Connecticut nearly every weekend as he began competing in downhill racing. Growing up, Knight was an active athlete, playing soccer, baseball and tennis.

He devoted most of his time to skiing, though, and missed school regularly for races. As a result, he chose to attend Burke Mountain Academy, a school in Vermont that allows its students to pursue skiing and other athletics at the highest level.

As Knight thought about competing at the collegiate level, he narrowed his search down to Williams and Dartmouth. Knight strongly considered Dartmouth, which has a year-round quarter system, because it offered students the opportunity to take time off and focus on other pursuits. However, Knight ultimately picked the College. “Dartmouth was enticing because of the flexibility, but I had family who had come to Williams,” he said. “I wouldn’t trade my time there for anything.”

Upon arriving at the College in 1994, Knight sought to compete at the highest

possible level: the Olympics.

However, to achieve his ambitious goals, Knight realized he needed to devote himself entirely to skiing. He decided to put his academic career at Williams on hold. “It wasn’t productive to do both, and I finally realized I had to focus on my skiing,” he said.

His focus and drive secured his position on the competitive U.S. Olympic Alpine Ski Team. He competed at the 1998, 2002 and 2006 Winter Olympics, finishing 11th at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. He spent 13 years with the team, leaving at the age of 31 after the 2006 Torino Games. His best individual career finish was sixth in the 2003 World Cup slalom race.

Over the course of his long career, Knight noted that one of the biggest changes to the sport was the shortening of the skis.

“In the middle of my career we started using skis that go up to the chin that have a lot of side cut,” he said. “It really changed the sport by changing the movement and technique.”

While training and traveling all over the world, Knight compiled some credits through courses at Dartmouth and Middlebury. Then, after 13 years of skiing, Knight returned to the College in 2006 to complete his undergraduate degree in history. He also served as an assistant coach to the alpine team. After graduating in 2008, Knight became alpine director at Mt. Mansfield Ski Club. In

2010, he headed to Dartmouth, where he served as director of skiing and head coach of the women’s alpine team. When Williams and Dartmouth raced against one another, he said he felt a “funny tug and pull.”

Though no longer competing, Knight has returned to the U.S. Ski Team as alpine development director. Overseeing logistics and programs across the country, Knight grooms the next generation of elite ski racers. He monitors about 30 to 40 athletes who have the potential to compete at the Olympic level.

Although athletes are beginning to specialize earlier on, Knight maintains the belief that kids should be exposed to as many sports as possible. Nevertheless, he said that success ultimately requires devotion, “I believe, based on my own career, that the more commitment and passion you have, the better the athlete you become.”

Having traveled around the world and pursued the sport he’s loved his entire life, Knight now lives in Park City, Utah. He said that he cherished his educational experience at the College. He enjoyed the faculty-to-student ratio, the tutorials and the liberal arts education. However, it is the place and its people that he most appreciates.

“I love Williams and I love its community,” he commented. “I really recognize now the caliber and the quality of the people that come out of this place.”

On Jan. 28, George Mason men’s basketball Head Coach Dave Paulsen ’87 led his team to victory over the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Somewhere in the bleachers was fellow College alumnus Benjamin Coffin ’04, who played under Paulsen at the College. The fact that Coffin was in attendance may have been unusual for other college basketball coaches, but it is typical for Paulsen. According to Coffin’s teammate, Michael Crotty ’04, several former Ephs “have a group chat with Coach P that [they] always text into … and go to games whenever he’s in the area.” This closeness between athlete and coach — relationships that extend beyond college years — is a key feature of the success of Paulsen’s coaching career.

Paulsen said that he knew he wanted to be a basketball coach since he was 10 years old.

“I watched the game on television where Notre Dame broke the UCLA winning streak, and I thought, ‘That’s what I want to do,’” he shared.

At the College, Paulsen played basketball and was a history major. Although his professors tried to persuade him to trade basketball for “more serious academic pursuits,” Paulsen was set on coaching.

“My way of reaching young people is through coaching,” he said.

He focused on his dream in the classroom as well as on the court. He pursued a Winter

Study 99 on the theory of coaching basketball. He worked with then-Head Coach Harry Sheehy ’75, read books, watched videos and even accompanied the coach on recruiting trips.

“I was fortunate to have some unbelievably great professors at Williams, but no one was a better teacher to me than Coach Sheehy,” Paulsen said.

He added that Sheehy taught him “the essential values, the team culture — the toughness, discipline and accountability — really everything that is most important” about basketball.

However, the nuts and bolts of Paulsen’s coaching — things like his defensive style and distinctive offensive strategy, characterized by kinetic motion — are very different from Sheehy’s approach.

According to his players, Paulsen’s combination of Sheehy’s values and his own tactics made for an outstanding coaching style. Crotty described workouts with the team.

“It was focused but energetic,” he said. “We certainly weren’t going easy, but we were able to have a blast while doing it. And Coach P, he’s the leader of the pack. He set the culture and the tone. He took a super group of very talented players and brought them to 100 percent.”

Paulsen made it clear that his biggest objective as a coach has always been “helping young men reach their potential as people, as students, and as athletes.” As a coach, he sees players six days a week, six months a year, for four years — “at their highest highs and lowest lows”— and builds lasting and

meaningful relationships withhis team, the kind of relationships that lead to group chats and cheering.

Crotty is now director of the Middlesex Magic AAU basketball program.

“I learned — and this is from Coach as well as my dad — relationships are everything,” he said. “If you don’t pay attention to and really care about the players, you can’t build the trust to make great things happen on the court, and you can’t have those relationships that extend beyond it.”

Coffin agreed that Paulsen exemplified this lesson. “[Paulsen] cared about each player as a person first and a player second,” he said. “The lessons that he taught us on the floor are very applicable to the real world, and I find myself still using them.”

After his eight years coaching the Ephs, Paulsen moved to Div. I basketball, spending seven years at Bucknell before taking his current position at George Mason.

He said that coaching at Bucknell was “more similar to coaching at the College than it was different.”

“I think the differences [between divisions] are overblown,” he said.

Across all divisions and programs, he insisted that “the goal is the same: to try to reach the individual players and mold an unselfish, disciplined team.”

Much like his unshakable coaching philosophy, “Williams continues to change,” he said, “but the values have always been a bedrock.”

Fellowships for Williams Journalists • Cherie Levien Memorial Journalism Fellowship $5000 for your independent, creative summer journalism project. Sophomores & Juniors are eligible.

Applications due February 15 • Jeffrey O. Jones Memorial Fellowship in Journalism $10,000 for a graduating senior who will pursue journalism.

Applications due April 10 fellowships.williams.edu Application instructions in the Fellowships GLOW page

CAPTAINS’ CORNER: TYLER YOUNG ’17 At what age did you start playing hockey?

I started playing when I was around 4 or 5 years old. My parents had me out on the ice pretty early, so I’ve been playing the game for a long time now.

Did you play juniors before you came to the College?

PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION

By DANNY JIN SPORTS EDITOR

Team: Men’s ice hockey Hometown: Sayville, N.Y. Residence: Spring Street Default snack bar order: Honey bun, pancakes and an omelet with ham

I did. I knew pretty early on that I wanted to play college hockey.

The options were either to go to prep school and repeat a year or to go the juniors route. I decided to stay home my junior and senior years and graduate from my local high school before going to juniors. I ended up taking two years off to play junior hockey for a team called New York Apple Core. My first year was on Long Island, and then my team moved to Brewster, N.Y. I played my second year in Brewster before I enrolled at Williams.

How was your experience playing juniors?

There was a lot of independence, since you’re living on your own.

I didn’t want the brain to completely rot, so I was taking part-

time classes at a local community college. [There was] a lot of focus on developing and getting the attention of college coaches.

Why did you choose to come to the College?

I knew that first and foremost I wanted a strong academic school. I had visited the school, met with the coach, who I really liked, and I actually knew two players on the team at the time: Sean Dougherty ’15, who was the goalie here and was also from Long Island, and Zander Masucci ’16, with whom I had played a year of juniors. They both had nothing but positive things to say about Williams. The unbelievable academic profile of the school, accompanied with the great things I had heard about the program, just made it a really solid fit for me.

What do you like most about the program and playing for Head Coach Bill Kangas?

It’s really like a family. At this point in the year, I think it’d be hard for outsiders to come in and tell the difference between the seniors and freshmen. Every-

one’s kind of one molded group, and Coach Kangas really instills that culture in the team. We’re a really tight-knit group, so you don’t really see the divisions.

How has being a captain changed your experience on the team?

I was an alternate captain last year, and it gave me some good insight and good experience for having the “C” on my jersey this year. Overall, I try not to let it change the way I approach my game at all. However, you do have some added responsibility of looking out for guys, making sure everyone’s on the same page and pushing forward as one solid force. You have to make sure the team is united in its goals and its values.

What was it like to go to the NCAA tournament last year for the first time in school history?

It was an unbelievable experience. We had a great regular season last year, finishing first in the NESCAC. Being upset in the first round of the NESCAC tournament was heartbreaking

for us. We got a second chance in the at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. Having a game on home ice was definitely an experience I will remember. The support that we got from the school and the general community was incredible. It was probably the most people I have ever played in front of. That was a really cool experience and something we’re looking to replicate this year – to make more of those memories.

To come away with a win and almost make it to the final four was awesome. It is something I will cherish and remember for a long time.

You’re currently in first place in the NESCAC. What are your goals for the rest of the season?

Obviously, we want to win the regular season again. That’s always been our goal – to be a perennial force in the NESCAC and to be at the top of the standings.

Looking forward, we want to win the NESCAC tournament. It’s a one-and-done type tournament.

We’re building up to that mindset of playing every game like it’s overtime in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

What has the experience of double majoring been like?

I’m majoring in political science and economics with a concentration in leadership studies. I really enjoyed both the majors together, because there is a decent amount of overlap. The College is structured so that double majoring is not an added burden at all, so it’s been great.

Do you know what you’re doing after you graduate?

I’m going to be working in capital markets at Credit Suisse Bank in New York.

What will you miss the most about playing on this team?

Just the camaraderie. The winter season is a long one, and you get into the dog days of January and February, and there are times when guys are starting to get a little tired and worn-down.

I think those are the days that I’ll probably remember the best, when everyone’s showing up at the rink every day and just grinding it out as a team and as a family.

February 8, 2017

SPORTS 11

The Williams Record

Claiming Williams forum fosters discussion about sports, politics Goodheart said that the film was “an introduction to the idea that sports and politics can’t be separated.” While many sports fans push for a separation of sports and politics, professional sports games are littered with political statements, Kidd-Phillips said. These include patriotic rituals such as the playing of the national anthem and the participation of army veterans in the coin toss.

“Sporting events give the government and the military an opportunity to promote their ideals and their agenda,” he said. “A lot of the times they aren’t talked about, [but] they are political statements.”

However, statements that challenge the status quo are generally not as accepted, according to Williams.

“The dominant ideologies that we have in society are the ones that get reinforced in sports culture,” she said. “It’s only when a group has a nondominant view that we notice there is something [political] going on.”

For centuries, a dominant belief was that women had no place in athletics. Not Just a Game showed a photo from the 1967 Boston Marathon, in which a woman competed for the first time in the history of the race. In the photo, a male race director is shown trying to physically remove the woman, Kathrine Switzer, from the course. However, some male runners pushed him away, allowing Switzer to continue running. Several panelists commented on the photo’s power and symbolism.

“It resonated with me emblematically, because it represented three positions everybody can hold in these situations: vocal proponent, vocal opposition or tacit supporter,” Barron said.

He also spoke about gender norms in sports and their ef-

By BROOKE HOROWITCH AND DANNY JIN SPORTS EDITORS On Thursday, students and coaches attended a forum in Paresky Auditorium to discuss the intersection of politics, culture and sports.

The forum, hosted by Diane Williams ’02, was held in conjunction with Claiming Williams Day. Attendees first watched a documentary, Dave Zirin’s Not Just a Game: Power, Politics and American Sports. Afterward, a panel of student-athletes and coaches engaged the audience in conversation about the film’s themes and the role of sports at the College.

Panelists included Michael Kidd-Phillips ’18, Kevin Walsh ’17, Caitlin Buckley ’17, Olivia Goodheart ’19 and men’s track and field Head Coach Ethan Barron. Kidd-Phillips and Walsh are members of the football team. Buckley plays ice hockey, and Goodheart runs cross country and track and field.

Assistant Director for Student Athlete Services Jennifer Chuks organized the event. She said she chose Not Just a Game because it “touched on a lot of important topics that can be discussed among members of the community.”

“It’s a thought-provoking film that does a really good job at examining the role of politics in sports through looking at the social pressure to keep sports separate from politics,” she said.

Williams, the film’s associate producer, said the documentary “unpacked the social and cultural implications of sports by looking at race, gender and the militarized aspects of football.”

In addition, it addressed sports’ intolerance to queer gender identities and the corporate influence that makes activism difficult for professional athletes.

fects on athletes. “Gender in sport is a big interest of mine,” he said.

“I think it’s harder for women who have to deal with feminine societal norms and the fact that sports are deemed masculine ...

The socially accepted body types differ for men and women.”

This year’s theme for Claiming Williams Day was moral courage, and the panel discussed examples in which high-profile athletes displayed moral courage. These athletes included LeBron James and the members of the U.S. women’s national soccer team.

For Kidd-Phillips, Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest was especially impressive. During the 2016 NFL season, Kaepernick chose to kneel during the national anthem to protest police brutality. Despite backlash from fans and former players, Kaepernick continued his protest, and many other players joined him.

“A lot of people who watch football don’t think much about the Black Lives Matter movement,” Kidd-Phillips said. “[Kaepernick] was showing people that police brutality would not be accepted in the black community and that it is an ongoing issue. It cost him a lot of fans, but it started a fruitful discussion across America.”

Not Just a Game suggested that the corporate structure of sports makes political protest risky for athletes. The business of American sports has become increasingly focused on branding. Professional athletes help teams to sell tickets and sponsors to sell their products.

“Sports produce events that can be easily consumed by fans,” Goodheart said. “They’re meant to discipline bodies into certain behaviors to achieve profits. There are ways to edit out parts of people’s experience and erase gender and racial identity, and people get upset

when athletes bring their political and full selves into sports.”

Some players who followed Kaepernick were dropped by their sponsors.

“When you disrupt the status quo, you’re going to find yourself in some trouble,” KiddPhillips said. “That’s the way democracy works – you have a freedom, but you have to think about people’s responses to your actions.”

During the discussion, panelists also discussed team cultures at the College. Many of them spoke about the divide between athletes and non-athletes on campus.

“The athlete versus nonathlete issue needs to be addressed,” Barron said. “I’ve seen a lot of athletes with identity struggles here, because they were academics in high school and are seen as jocks now, even though everyone here is really an academic.”

Kidd-Phillips said the split was “upsetting,” since the two groups have much in common. He noted that some students have negative perceptions about some teams on campus, including the football team. When Kidd-Phillips was a first-year, an entrymate told him that he had changed their conception of athletes who play football.

“My mission is not to be that stereotypical football player that the media portrays,” he said.

Goodheart, a member of Anything but Straight in Athletics (ABS), said that team cultures at the College make it difficult for queer athletes to come out. She added that the gender binary of men’s and women’s teams can isolate people with non-binary identities: “Sports culture was never designed to include a queer identity. [There are] so many rigid ideas about masculinity, social structure, gender and sexuality, and

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE STARTING FIVE

Forum attendees watched Not Just a Game and discussed its themes. those structures are there to discipline people.”

She also raised concerns over the general lack of diversity in athletics at the College.

“Teams are overwhelmingly upper class and white,” she said. “These environments will ultimately be alienating to people that don’t match those narratives.”

While panelists were glad that the forum began conversations, they said there was further work to be done. In addition, some noted that the film did not represent the voices of women in color. “[The forum] was great, but it was just the start,” Barron said.

“I would love to have a discussion or lunch series related to sports and race, gender, socioeconomic class and sexuality at the College.”

“I hope that the conversation doesn’t end and that it continues to proliferate through sports teams on campus,” Goodheart said.

“We’re political whether we want to be or not,” she said.

“We need to understand ways in which we can be complicit in reproducing cultures that actively harm other people, and we need to get people started on the path of being critical examiners of their own behavior.”

Women’s squash secures silver medal at NESCAC Championship On Sunday, the No. 2 seed Ephs fell to the No. 1 seed Bantams 9-0. The tournament, hosted by Amherst, saw the women finish second for the third consecutive year, as Trinity won its eleventh consecutive title. The Bantams are the only team to have won the tournament in its eleven-year history.

By ANANYA MAHALINGAMDHINGRA TEAM CORRESPONDENT Women’s squash (17—5, 9—1 in the NESCAC) finished second at the NESCAC Championship last weekend, defeating Bowdoin and Middlebury before losing to Trinity in the finals.

Trinity dominated on the day, but some Williams players turned in impressive performances. Melissa Swann ’20 at No. 6 held up in three tight games against a tough opponent. At No. 9, Caroline Hogan ’18 took her opponent to five games, making her the only player in the Ephs’

PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION

Eliza Bower ’20 won exhibition matches against Trinity and Middlebury at the NESCAC Championship.

Annual Faculty Lecture Series:

with Nate Kornell, associate professor of psychology

Thursday, Feb. 9 4:15 p.m.

Wege Auditorium Reception to follow in Schow Atrium

At No. 1, Nicole Friedman ’18 defeated her opponent in four dominant games. At No. 4, Ananya MahalingamDhingra ’18 defeated an opponent she had lost to in the previous meeting, winning 3-1. Hogan at No. 10 and Bower at No. 11 had very tight exhibition matches, with Hogan winning 13-11 in the fifth game and Bower triumphing in a similar fashion. Captain Alyssa Ritchie ’17 also played a memorable five-game match, but she eventually fell to a strong opponent at No. 5.

Against Bowdoin, all players handily won their matches, remaining dominant from start to finish. At No. 3, Bowdoin’s Alexa Horowitz won the first game against Hayley Parsons ’18, but Parsons came back and won the next three to win 3-1. No other Polar Bear won a game, resulting in a 9-0 sweep for the Ephs.

The women, who are ranked No. 10 nationally, play matches against No. 11 Dartmouth and No. 6 Stanford this week but have a twoweek period without matches before the Nationals. Ritchie said that the team is happy about its second-place finish and that it is working to remain focused for the end of the season.

“This is typically the most difficult part of the season to stay motivated, but we hope to keep practices fun and challenging to maintain engagement and continue progressing,” she said.

“We have played well all weekend,” Head Coach Zafi Levy ’01 commented. “We look forward to playing Dartmouth and Stanford this week and continuing to improve before Nationals.”

The Ephs head to Hanover, N.H. today to compete against Dartmouth at 5 p.m.

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starting lineup to win a game off her opponent. In an exhibition match, Eliza Bower ’20 played masterfully at No. 10 and defeated her opponent in three games.

“We played very well Sunday despite the lopsided score,” Assistant Coach Blair Dils said, noting Trinity’s powerhouse status.

On Saturday, the women defeated Bowdoin and Middlebury after receiving a first-round bye. The Ephs vanquished the Polar Bears 9–0 in the quarterfinals and trounced the Panthers 8–1 in the semifinals.

The team faced Middlebury at 3:30 p.m., playing the fivecourt system. The two sides had previously played just a few weeks earlier, with the Ephs prevailing 6-3. This time around, the women tried to improve upon their previous result. They did just that, picking up a convincing 8-1 victory.

PETER HALE ’17 MEN’S TRACK AND FIELD

“Peter has had two impressive performances these past couple of weeks. In the 5k race at Middlebury and the 3k race at Dartmouth, he led wire-to-wire.

Peter has been a great captain this year. He’s been a fantastic role model and also an impressive motivator, helping others attack their own goals.”

– Head Coach Ethan Barron

Hale, a co-captain, won the 3k race at the Dartmouth Invitational on Saturday. His time of 8:18.62 was the second-fastest performance in Div. III this season.

On Jan. 28, he ran the fastest 5k nationally in Div. III at the Middlebury Invitational, finishing in 14:34.27.

DEVON CAVENEY ’17 WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

“Devon has been a tremendous player and competitor for us throughout her four years here.

Her versatility has made her a constant scoring threat both off the dribble and off the pass. We are thrilled that Devon has achieved this milestone and thank her for her leadership, dedication and commitment to our team.”

– Head Coach Pat Manning

Co-captain Caveney scored her 1000th career point against Wesleyan on Saturday. The guard totaled 20 points against the Cardinals and is averaging 12.9 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game this season.

The Williams Record

12 SPORTS

February 8, 2017

Women's basketball falls to Connecticut College, beats Wesleyan

By JAKE FOEHL STAFF WRITER On Sunday, women’s basketball (14-8, 3-5 in the NESCAC) lost to Connecticut College by a score of 68-63 in a crucial league tilt. Camels guard Liz Malman led all scorers with 28 points in all 40 minutes. Kristin Fechtelkotter ’18 led the Ephs with 18 points and added seven rebounds. Another standout performer in the game was co-captain Lauren McCall ’17, who kept the Ephs in contention with four threepointers in the first half. McCall finished with 16 points.

The field house bristled with energy right out of the gate due to the significance of the game to both teams' seasons and the fact that it was senior day. The Camels used that energy to jump out to an 18-11 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Connecticut College forward Mairead Hynes, who sits near the top of the NESCAC in several statistical categories including points per game and field goal percentage, got on the board early with seven points, making her first three shots of the game.

Williams failed to establish a rhythm on offense due to turnovers and too many shots forced in tight areas, although McCall did start strong with five points.

The lead for the Camels hovered around 10 until McCall hit her third three-pointer of the first half to close the gap to two possessions at 27-21 with 4:01 to play in the half. With less than a minute to play in the half, Malman created her own shot late in the shot clock to give the Camels a 31-24 lead. Again Williams went to the deep ball in response, and again it was McCall that provided it, cashing in on her fourth three of the half to bring Williams back within four points. McCall, almost single-handedly keeping the Ephs competitive, led all scorers with 14 points at the break.

Williams came out of the break in a 2-3 zone defensively and quickly erased the halftime deficit, starting with a three from Emily Chang ’20. Fechtelkotter took over the game, scoring the Ephs' next 10 points and helping the women get to a 40-37 lead.

Amanni Fernandez ’18 tacked on two free throws to send Williams into the final quarter with a three-point lead.

To open the fourth quarter, co-captain Devon Caveney ’17 then hit a three pointer to put Williams back up by three, but Malman again found the bottom of the net from well beyond the arc to level the score. From there, the Camels put together a 6-0 run capped off by a three from Kylie Caou-

ette that sent the crowd into a frenzy and forced an Ephs timeout. The women continued to fight, but Connecticut College stayed just out of reach by making seven out of eight free throws in the final 1:30 of the game.

On Jan. 3, the team beat the Wesleyan Cardinals 65-60.

In the playoff atmosphere, it was the upperclassmen that led the way for the Ephs, as Caveney scored her 1000th career point for the team.

Both teams struggled from the field in the first quarter, with the Cardinals shooting 4-15 and the Ephs shooting a dismal 3-21. The collective struggle made for a competitive quarter, with Wesleyan jumping out to a 10-5 lead before Williams used foul shots from Emily Peckham ’20 and Caveney to inch their way to an 11-10 lead at the end of the quarter.

The second quarter was a reflection of the two teams' first meeting on Dec. 10, when Wesleyan took control in the early going. The Cardinals kept finding the basket during a 21-point second quarter explosion, which led to a 31-23 halftime lead.

The women came out of halftime playing with offensive flow and rhythm, and the game immediately swung in their favor. The Ephs went on a 15-1 run and then continued to pile on the baskets while

the Cardinals only made one field goal in the quarter. The Williams lead grew to 46-35 to start the final quarter.

A special moment came with 3:19 to play in the third quarter when Caveney went to the line to take two free throws. She made both, which constituted her 999th and 1000th career points, becoming the 17th woman in program history to accomplish the feat.

Wesleyan mounted a comeback effort late in the game, but Caveney’s surge sealed the 65-60 win for the women.

McCall reflected on the victory and the loss to Connecticut College. “This weekend held two critical games for determining our standings in the NESCAC tournament,” she said. “Unfortunately, we were only able to truly capitalize on one, but there were a lot of positives in the Conn game that we are going to take and continue to build on this week.”

Williams also defeated nonleague foe Westfield State 9070 on Jan. 30.

The Ephs are currently No. 6 in the NESCAC. Seeding is critical, as the top three teams in the NESCAC are all nationally ranked (Bowdoin No. 23, Amherst No. 2 and Tufts No. 1).

The women will look to move up the ladder against Tufts on Friday and Bates on Sunday.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION

Amanni Fernandez ’18 has averaged 9.9 points per game this season.

Women's ice hockey splits games against NESCAC foe Trinity

By HANNAH ATKINSON STAFF WRITER Women's ice hockey (10– 9–2, 7–5–2 in NESCAC) went 1-1 in a weekend series against Trinity.

On Saturday, the Ephs fell 2-1 to the Bantams.

The women took the lead in the first period with an unassisted goal by Sara Lehman ’17 at 9:36. It was her 12th tally to lead all Williams scorers.

The Ephs continued to control play for the rest of the first frame, outshooting the Bantams nine to one.

However, the Bantams responded in the second period.

They immediately pressured goalie Marissa Anderson ’20, placing 15 shots on goal, and held the Ephs to nine with a strong defensive effort.

The Ephs racked up two consecutive penalties at the end of the second period that transferred over to the final frame.

The Bantams began the third with a two-man advantage. However, the Ephs defense held strong. They managed to clear the puck several times to maintain their 1-0 lead.

With 5:46 remaining, the Bantams equalized. They continued to pressure the Ephs after tying up the game.

With just 48 seconds left in the game, Trinity’s Jessica

Stowell scored to make it 2-1 for the Bantams.

The Ephs pulled Anderson to gain a one-skater advantage after the Trinity goal but were unable to tie up the score.

On Friday, the Ephs defeated the Bantams 1–0. Chelsey Stevenson ’17 scored the game-winning goal at 2:40 in the first period.

The Ephs capitalized on a five-on-three power play when Abby Brustad ’19 sent a pass from below the hashmarks over to Stevenson, who onetimed the puck into the net.

At 5:08, both teams received penalties, opening up the ice for four-on-four hockey. Trinity gained the power play advantage soon afterwards but could not get the puck past Anderson. She made three key saves on the penalty kill, falling on the puck twice for the whistle.

Then, with 24 seconds left in the first period, Anderson made an impressive butterfly save off a shot from the short side, maintaining her team's one-goal lead going into the second period.

The Ephs received three penalties in the second period, giving the Bantams scoring opportunities. However, Anderson stayed big in net during the Trinity power plays to keep it 1-0 Williams. At 14:23 in the second, she made back-

to-back stellar saves to maintain the scoreline. She deflected a wrist shot from the point and kicked out her right leg to stop another with her pads.

Trinity continued to apply offensive pressure during the third period, outshooting Williams nine to seven. However, Anderson continued to stay tough between the pipes, earning a shutout and leading her team to victory.

Captain Hanna Beattie ’17 commented on the split series against Trinity.

“We were disappointed,” she admitted. “We narrowly came out with a win on Friday and gave up two third-period goals after being up for most of the game on Saturday.”

On Jan. 28, the women tied Amherst 4-4, overcoming a three-goal deficit behind a hat trick from Lehman.

The two teams also played on Jan. 27, with the contest ending a 1-1 tie. Lehman's performance that week won her the honor of Div. III Women's Ice Hockey Hero of the Week.

“I was really proud of the way we played against Amherst and thought it was one of our best weekends of hockey this season,” Beattie said.

The women will face nonleague opponent Saint Anselm on Friday at 4:30 p.m. in Lansing Chapman Rink.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION

Sara Lehman ’17 scored a goal in Saturday's loss to Trinity and a hat trick in last week's tie at Amherst.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SPORTS INFORMATION

Co-captain Jamie Ruggiero '17 won two matches at last weekend's NESCAC Championship at Amherst.

Men's squash places fourth at NESCACs

By ANDREW PEISCH TEAM CORRESPONDENT Men's squash (11–10, 7–3 in the NESCAC) finished fourth at the NESCAC Championship last weekend, overcoming host Amherst but falling to Bates and Middlebury.

In a closely contested 3/4 playoff match Sunday, the Ephs suffered a 5-4 defeat to the Panthers, despite having won the previous meeting.

The match began with high tensions as both teams bid for third place. Playing the five-court system, No. 2 John Fitzgerald '19, No. 4 Carl Shuck '20, No. 6 Will Ruggiero '19, No. 8 Claude Smith '20 and No. 9 Andrew Litvin '18 were up first.

Off the court first was C. Shuck, who claimed a 3-0 victory to put the match score at 1–0. However, Smith fell shortly after, evening the contest. Following suit, Litvin and W. Ruggiero both fell in four games, though not without a fight. After a victory at the No. 2 position courtesy of Fitzgerald, the Ephs trailed 3-2.

Next on court were cocaptain Jamie Ruggiero '17, Will Means '20, cocaptain John Shuck '17 and Mason Elizondo '18.

Unfortunately, Elizondo was quickly defeated at No. 7. While J. Ruggiero claimed a 3–0 victory at No. 1, J. Shuck eventually fell to his opponent at No. 4, guaranteeing a Middlebury win.

Means, the last player on court, won his match, and the final score stood at 5–4 in favor of Middlebury.

In the semifinal Saturday afternoon, the men lost 7-2 to Bates. No. 2 Fitzgerald, No. 4 C. Shuck, No. 6 W. Ruggiero, No. 8 Smith and No. 9 Ben Eisenberg '19 were up first to step through the doors.

The match got off to a 1-1 start after Smith defeated his opponent in three games and W. Ruggiero fell in three. The next three matches were played on the heartstrings of the coaches and spectators.

Fitzgerald and C. Shuck battled side by side on courts one and two, both of their matches lasting five grueling games. Unfortunately, Fitzgerald fell 13-11 in the fifth, and Shuck lost his deciding game 14-12 . Eisenberg was close behind, succumbing in five games as well.

The Bobcats carried a 4-1 lead, the three dead-even matches having all gone their way. No. 1 J. Ruggiero, No. 3 Means, No. 5 J. Shuck and No. 7 Elizondo were up next, the Ephs needing four victories to win the match.

However, Means’ opponent produced several magical shots to seal the Bates victory.

J. Ruggiero and Elizondo lost as well, but J. Shuck picked up a match for Williams.

J. Ruggiero said the loss to Bates was disheartening.

“We came so far only to miss out on the NESCAC final by a few points,” he said.

Saturday morning, the men vanquished archrival Amherst in the first round.

No. 2 Fitzgerald, No. 4 C. Shuck, No. 6 W. Ruggiero, No. 8 Litvin and No. 9 Anand Butler '19 were up first.

Fitzgerald finished first, dispatching of his opponent in three games. W. Ruggiero and C. Shuck won in three as well. Litvin finished next with a four-game win, while Butler triumphed in five hard games to seal an Eph victory.

No. 1 J. Ruggiero, No. 3 Will Means, No. 5 J. Shuck and No. 7 Elizondo were up next.

Unfortunately, Means fell to his athletic opponent in three, and Elizondo retired.

However, J. Ruggiero and J. Shuck won their matches for a 7-2 final score.

Head Coach Zafi Levy ’01 said the team was slightly disappointed with its fourth-place finish. However, he appreciated the players’ efforts.

“We were in a position to beat both Bates and Middlebury but came short in both matches,” he said.

“We played hard and competed fantastically. We know we can do better and will continue to work in order to improve in the coming weeks.”

“Everyone delivered a solid performance at some point in the tournament, which was great to see,” J. Ruggiero added.

“We have Nationals in a few weeks, and our losses this weekend will certainly motivate us to train harder until then.”

Prior to the tournament, the men lost to Columbia on Jan. 27 and beat Wesleyan and Amherst on Jan. 28.

Ranked No. 17 nationally, they visit No. 8 Dartmouth at 5 p.m. today. before traveling to Harvard on Feb. 17 for the CSA National Team Championship.