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September 28, 2006
Weekly Calendar 9/29-10/4
The BackPage | Rosh Hashanah Resolutions
Happy New YearRosh Hashanah Resolutions...Excitement builds for women’s volleyball
Acacia O'Connor
Did you know that the Vassar women’s volleyball team has won five consecutive Liberty League Championships? Or that they have won a bid to the National Collegiate Athletic Association Championship Tournament four times in the past five years? If so, it would come as little surprise to hear of the team’s success thus far this season.
Test affords loophole in Title IX
Emma Carmichael
In 1972, the U.S. Congress enacted Title IX of the Educational Amendments in an effort to prohibit sex discrimination in educational programs, with a focus on athletics. Title IX reads, “No person in the U.S. shall, on the basis of sexual be excluded from participation in, or denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal aid.”
Line blurred between sports, life
Lucas Mann
The fervor that college football stirs up can become frightening. This fact became more than evident in the recent controversy involving college football official Gordon Riese. Is a victory for teams that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) hastens to reiterate are amateur worth a school president degrading an official who made a mistake? Is it worth rabid fans responding to this unforgiving sentiment by threatening a man that they have never met, making his return to a job he has performed well for 28 years seem dangerous?
Dar Williams sparks discussion with concert
Mally Anderson
Music and politics united on Wednesday, Sept. 27 when Democracy Matters’ hosted politically active folk musician Dar Williams in hopes of seeing the “fusion of music and voices,” according to Democracy Matters member Amy Dowley ’08. “We want students to feel empowered as a generation of voters that can work to improve our political system to one that represents the greater society, and not just the sector of society with the cash to pay for it,” said Dowley.
Off the Shelf exhibit to debut in FLLAC
Joe Rozek
The Francis Lehman Loeb Art Center (FLLAC) is planning a unique exhibit called Off the Shelf that will debut on Friday, Oct 6. The exhibit is not the museum’s usual fare of photos and paintings, but rather a rare collection of books created by 13 up-and-coming international artists. Director of FLLAC James Mundy said, “This is something new for us. We’ve never done, at least in the time I’ve been here, an exhibition on books.”
Music-sharing on College network will not change
Lauren Tennenbaum
With new changes to the Vassar network and a log-in requirement, students have recently voiced concerns that Computing and Information Services (CIS) will begin monitoring individual student activity on the Vassar network. This would mean that the College would have the ability to scrutinize records of what people do on Vassar’s network for evidence of illegal file sharing. As a result, CIS would likely shut down illegal music sharing programs such as OurTunes and Kazaa. Admittedly a prospect more characteristic of a dystopian novel than of the College’s liberal atmosphere, Vassar downloaders can sleep easy tonight: Vice President of CIS Bret Ingerman assured the student body that no such monitoring is occurring, and there are no current plans to begin this monitoring.
WVKR revamps lineup for year, debuts new talk shows
Lauren Tennenbaum
This year, Vassar’s student-run radio station, 91.3 WVKR, came back from the long summer with energy. Armed with a brand new Web site (wvkr.org) and new merchandise from American Apparel, the station is in the process of training new DJs, adding new shows, and cooking up exciting events, all while pleasing the community with a varied feast of existing radio programs.
ViCE Jazz hosts funk band
Mally Anderson
As part of Tuesday jazz night at Matthew’s Mug, ViCE Jazz will host the dynamic New Orleans funk band Brotherhood of Groove on Tuesday, Oct. 3. The Miscellany News had a chance to talk with the band’s front man, Brandon Tarricone, about the band’s music and its activism.
Arlington Street Fair celebrates Poughkeepsie
Performers will include the barefoot monkeysaavc.vassar.edu...Short school year affords little leniency
Lauren Sutherland
Against the impossible odds of rigorous coursework, research papers of stapler-breaking lengths, and four-hour science labs, Vassar students manage to have active and unique personal lives that often send them outside the campus gates during the school year. On Wednesday, Sept. 20, more than 50 Vassar students traveled to New York City to protest the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy in front of a military recruitment center in Times Square. On Friday, Sept. 22, many Jewish students left campus to celebrate Rosh Hashanah with friends and family. These students, as well as the myriad others who balance personal commitments with the demands of academia, face the dilemma of missing class without suffering the repercussions of “ditching.”
On The Job | Journalist focuses on public health
Lara Harte Weissman
In the few short years since her graduation from Vassar, Veronika Ruff ’01 has seen more of the world than many will see in a lifetime. While concentrating in International Studies at Vassar, Ruff developed an interest in world cultures, and eventually parleyed this passion into a journalism career that brought her to both Japan and Bangkok. She is now the liaison to the Asian titles for Rodale Publishers.
Vassar Technology Today |Do you have a plan to secure sensitive data?
Matthew Leung
Windows and Mac provide quick and easy interfaces for creating data. Hitting the “save” button in an application like Microsoft Word creates digital data that can be manipulated and retrieved later. But neither platform provides ways to manage and organize the data you’ve created. There are many different data types, including user, application, system, and history data, and each type can contain sensitive personal information that should be safeguarded. If the user does not implement a structured method of data management, then data on a computer is scattered haphazardly throughout the hard drive, and private data becomes difficult to contain and protect.
Student workshops reach out to campus activists, create dialogue
Gabriel Meltzer
Last March, as part of All-College Day, the College placed a mural in the College Center and invited students to write freely on it throughout the day. Many of the comments posted indicated a genuine concern about the present state of Vassar’s relationship with the Poughkeepsie community. Recently, four Vassar students looking to channel this sentiment into action gathered their peers to discuss the many dimensions of community service.
This Week at Vassar in 1974
Joshua Goodman
The Miscellany News reported on Sept. 27, 1974 that a Raymond House resident suffered serious injuries that Saturday afternoon. The girl, who wished to remain anonymous, slipped while climbing out a window attempting to join a friend on a balcony situated several feet to the left of the room. The victim fell onto the grass below, which fortunately cushioned her fall. Her injuries included four fractured vertebrae.
Staff Editorial | Unguarded gates may weaken security of campus
The construction that began this summer on Raymond Avenue has caused significant traffic buildup throughout the surrounding area during high-density rush hours. Vassar has done its part to alleviate this problem by complying with state engineers’ recommendations and diverting cars away from the hub of campus traffic activity— Main Gate. Drivers are provided with three alternative options: North Gate (the closest and most heavily trafficked), South Gate, and the lesser-known Manchester Gate (located behind the golf course). These gates must now remain open at all times, whereas in the past they have been closed at night.
Eye On America |Playground lessons on an international scale
Ross Weingarten
From an early age, boys and girls are told by parents and teachers to act with good ethics and good morals. But what does this mean? What are ethics? And why are they so important? To me, ethics are the code of conduct that we use to interact with the world around us. To treat people fairly, with respect, and with dignity is using what we call “good ethical conduct.” We are taught to respect our elders, look people in the eye when we talk to them, and treat others as we would wish to be treated. All of these actions contribute to good ethics. Lying, cheating and derogating are, of course, acting badly.
Views On Vassar | Vassar’s liberal environment is stifling the conservative voice
Tendai Musakwa
The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines the word “liberal” as “respecting and allowing many different types of beliefs or behavior.” Vassar would confidently describe itself as liberal in this respect as it purportedly “honors diversity of perspective…and also has tolerance and respect for diversity” (admissions.vassar.edu/about_coed. html). However, the experiences of students at the College tell a different story altogether. It seems that the overwhelming majority of socio-political liberals at Vassar is impinging on the right of the minority conservatives to freely express their views and ideologies. The College has become a restrictive environment for conservatives to assert themselves and this has started a debate as to whether Vassar is indeed liberal (by the Cambridge definition) or not.
Pro-amity women should abandon maternal-peacemaker role
Carolyn Bradley
For the past couple of years, we’ve all witnessed a revival of maternalist peace politics in America. Naturally, the image of the virtuous mother has long held a head seat in peace movements—where women are projected as voices of compassion, feeling, and nonviolence—but this image has been particularly popularized since the start of the Iraq War.
Trimming unneccesary committees would solve problem of cluttered VSA
Katie Aspell
Like most other Vassar students, I was recently bombarded with e-mails advertising the available Vassar Student Association (VSA) positions in the upcoming elections. The sheer number of offices, including such gems as Bookstore Advisory Committee, Committee on Curricular Policies, and the ambiguous Master Planning Committee, overwhelmed one uninitiated to the workings of the VSA. What are these positions? Are they completely necessary to Vassar students? And who on earth receives fulfillment from having a Russian major representative to Vassar curricular policies (other than Russian majors)?
U.S. security compromised by Iraq goals
Zachary Kaye
On Sept. 21, The New York Times disclosed the severity of the manpower strain under which the United States army is operating. The occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan require a constant rotation of tens of thousands of soldiers, and each unit requires proper rest, re-supply, and rehabilitation between deployments. The military relies on an increasingly large share of National Guard and Reserve units to fulfill commitments. As a result, the United States can now field only 7,000-10,000 soldiers in the event of an emergency.
Mold in TA forces students out, again
Brian Farkas
On Friday, Sept. 22, Buildings and Grounds gave students 36 hours to evacuate Terrace Apartment (TA) 33 after finding extensive mold damage. The four residents had reported that two living room windows and one bedroom window were infested with so much mold that they could not be opened or closed completely.
CIS upgrades technology, security
Nadine Reitman
Computing Information Services (CIS) is implementing new technology and tightening computer security measures throughout campus.
Security emphasizes health, not write-ups for sick students
Nadine Reitman
It is a situation with which many college students are familiar: friends are overly intoxicated and need medical attention. But should one call Emergency Medical Service (EMS) at the risk of prosecution for underage drinking? At the Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council meeting on Sunday, Sept. 17, Davison House President Alberto Apodaca ’08 expressed concern that freshmen seem afraid to call for help despite the College’s Good Samaritan policy.
