When students find problems with dorm buildings or facilities they submit service requests to the Residential Operations Center (ROC) and hope for the best. Students are not given any idea of when their request will be fulfilled, or any means to chart the ROC’s progress. That may soon change, however, as students and administrators are working together to improve service procedures.
Last fall a student review committee conducted a review of the ROC and Buildings and Grounds (B&G) Service Request Process. The committee, chaired by Alexandria Dempsey ’09, surveyed the student body to assess the perceived quality of service request response.

Dempsey reported in a memo that, “The results indicated that while most students were satisfied with the quality of service, over 60% of students indicated that they had to submit multiple requests. 48% of students had to submit three or more requests before their submission was processed. The results of this survey demonstrated that the biggest obstacles facing the service request process were speed and communication.”

Dempsey theorized that the faults in the student request procedure may be inherent to the complicated request system. As it now stands, students submit service requests to the Residential Operations Center (ROC), which is in charge of inputting the request onto a server called Facilities Focus. The Buildings and Grounds Department (B&G) checks the server for service requests and sends a representative to address the issue. If the service request concerns a problem inside a student’s room B&G officials enter the room, fix the problem, and lock the door behind them, leaving a notice indicating that they have stopped by. B&G officials communicate their progress to the RIC via Facilities Focus, but do not give students any updates. This means that students are not given any information between the time they submit a request to the ROC and the time they find a note on their door.
At the May 4 VSA meeting student representatives discussed the drawbacks to this system, noting that service requests can be delayed for a number of reasons. If the ROC has a backlog of requests, for instance, or if B&G officials need to wait for a new can of paint or new tools, it can mean a long and confusing wait for a student.

In order to address this problem Dempsey worked with the ROC and B&G administrators to make the service request process more transparent. They decided that Facilities Focus should be accessible to students, so that service requests can be submitted directly to B&G. Some members of the VSA Council expressed concern at the prospect of the ROC being removed from the service request procedure, indicating that the ROC keeps B&G in touch with students’ needs. There was a consensus however, that the procedure should be streamlined and that giving students access to Facilities Focus was the best way to do that.

These changes are being discussed with newly appointed Manager of Service Response for B&G Henry Williams, while the B&G department works to catch up on backlogged service requests and cover the technical aspects of a student-accessible Facilities Focus site.

The Hispanic Studies Department and the drama department will present the play “La Cabeza del Dragón (The Head of the Dragon)” in the Powerhouse Theater at 5 p.m. on May 7, 5 p.m. on May 9 and 8 p.m. on May 10. The play, which was written by the radical Spanish playwright Ramón Valle-Inclán, will feature students from both departments. It will be performed in Spanish and accompanied by projected English subtitles.

“La Cabeza del Dragón” is a fairy tale on the surface, but it was written as a political satire criticizing the Spanish government in the early 20th century. The story, which follows the classic fairy-tale trope of the prince’s heroic journey, mocks Spain’s role in the world during that era by critiquing the sentimentality of contemporary bourgeois playwrights.

The story begins with the prince departing from his kingdom for an adventure and finding himself on a quest to save a princess from a dragon. Valle-Inclán inverted this myth through visual and aural vulgarity to expose its inherent fairy-tale blandness.

The student performers hoped to use the play’s depictions of travel and resultant cultural exchange to break away from the control of hegemonic discourse. They planned to learn by listening more deeply to one another and to the text itself. They indicated a desire to take risks with the material and their presentation of it.

The group is also aiming to produce more Spanish plays. With campus performances dominated by the drama department and various student groups, there are very few foreign language plays produced at Vassar. The Hispanic Studies Department is enthusiastic about the rich opportunities that Spanish playwrights present for good student theater.

When Laura Sousa ’10 came back to Vassar in Spring 2008, she was in a wheelchair because of a recent leg surgery that had left her in bed for three months. On the first day of classes she called Security at 2:45 p.m. to pick her up for a 3:10 p.m. class in Skinner Hall. She waited for over 20 minutes until the Security van finally came at 3:10.

“He drove me over to Skinner,” Sousa explained. “I get in the building, already worried because I knew the class had already started, and the class was on the fourth floor. The elevator was broken. This was a week after I had stopped using the wheelchair, and my leg was not strong enough to go up stairs.”

Because there was no alternative, Sousa painstakingly worked her way up four flights of stairs with all of her books, only to arrive in a packed classroom where the professor was already lecturing.

“So much for making a subtle entrance,” said Sousa. “Obviously the entire class noticed I was late and there were no seats left, so some really nice person got up to give me her seat.

People had to get up and go and find another seat. I interrupted the entire class, had to stop the professor’s lecture and I was the person who was late on the first day of class,” she said.

Sousa grew even more frustrated when she found that Security was consistently unreliable in getting her to classes and meetings on time. “I understand it’s not Security’s primary job to escort students, but if they tell students that they can provide medical transport, they should be able to within a reasonable amount of time,” she said.

Jennie Msall ’10, who broke her leg last October and was on crutches until January, also had difficulties accessing the buildings on Vassar’s campus.

“They decided to shut down the elevator in Main Building the last month I was on crutches here, which meant I had to go in by the Student Employment Office, just farther to go on crutches,” said Msall. “I had to get classrooms changed from New England Building to be in Rockefeller Hall, where there’s an elevator,” she said.

“The major issue is that there are so many buildings without elevators, like the dorms have no elevators,” explained Jessica Belasco ’10. “That means that someone who can’t climb stairs cannot visit their friends in those dorms at all. There have been times that I’ve had to go to someone’s room on the fourth floor, and I’m huffing and puffing trying to get up there.”

Belasco uses a motorized scooter because walking tires her easily, and she has also found it difficult to get around campus—one time she was stuck in the bookstore after the elevator broke down.

Director of the Office of Disability and Support Services (DSS) Belinda Guthrie explained that even though the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1992 established certain regulations that college campuses must meet, “There’s a huge difference between ADA compliance and accessible design.”

For example, the DSS Web page (disabilityandsupportservices.vassar.edu) says that “The ADA requires all events and programs sponsored by the College and open to the public to be fully accessible.” However, the David Neil lecture last Monday, April 28, was held in New England Building, which is not accessible to physically disabled students, and countless student activities, such as a cappella concerts, plays and meetings, are held in the parlors of the dorms that have no elevators for physically disabled students.

Of the six students with disabilities interviewed for this article, none had complaints about Guthrie, and problems with DSS were minor if they existed at all.

“Guthrie is wonderful,” said Oren Rosenthal ’09, who has learning disabilities.

Rosenthal believes that the lack of dialogue on campus about Vassar’s issues relating to students with physical and other disabilities “is definitely not the fault of DSS, not at all. I think if there was a little more attention brought to the forefront, then it might help accelerate some of the modifications that need to be done.”

Guthrie thinks that Vassar should work toward a system of Universal Design, which is an effort to design buildings that allow accessibility for the widest possible range of people. She cited the Library entrance across from Chicago Hall as an example of how Vassar does not follow the principals of Universal Design.

“A couple of years ago, I was so fed up with the Library that we just modified an entrance on the Raymond House side of the Library, and I’m viewing that now as the accessible entrance.

It’s locked unless a member of our community has card access; they cannot enter that unless they use a buzzer system, and there is a lift that goes up an entire flight of stairs.”

Guthrie explained that, for safety code reasons, the lift can only be fully operational when a person has depressed the lift button completely, and then held it down as the lift rises to the second floor.

When they leave, they must swipe their card, depress the button and exit the lift before the alarm goes off.

“The Library access was out of the way from the main entrance,” said Msall. “It was another situation where I learned to go up and down stairs on crutches because it was easier than finding the handicap-accessible spot.”

Guthrie wants to correct this problem by putting the handicap-accessible entrance near the regular Library entrance, but she has encountered administrative difficulties in carrying out this plan.

“Until we have a campus master plan for ADA improvements, it will be very difficult for us to effect change with respect to budgets, project management and to ensure that if a major building renovation is taking place. There’s no one who is intentionally setting out to create barriers, but I don’t think it has always been at the forefront of the discussion,” said Guthrie, adding that many of the problems are due to DSS not having its own funding for the extremely expensive renovations.

“There are times when [DSS] is engaged at the very front end of discussions about what we need, and then decisions are made down the road and things we thought were on the table get value-engineered out,” Guthrie explained.

“Creating the more Universal Design aspect of renovating a building begins to compete with other interests. That’s where I’ve seen many of the challenges for people on this campus: What meets code may not be as accessible in actual use,” said Guthrie.

Fortunately, Guthrie and the DSS have been making some positive changes. Guthrie said that after years of pushing for the College to purchase a wheelchair-accessible van, a van will finally be purchased by the end of April.

Vassar is indeed making progress with accessibility, as evidenced by changes to the Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film, Kenyon Hall and Jewett House, as well as the new accessible entrance to Olmsted Hall, renovations to bathrooms in Main, upgrades to elevators and accessible bathrooms in Powerhouse Theater and Josselyn House. More accesible features will also be incorporated into the new Terrace Apartments and Town Houses. “The new Town Houses being built this summer will be accessible. Davision House will be fully accessible once completed, as will the Old Observatory,” said Guthrie. There is also a project in the works to show the accessible travel paths within buildings on all fire safety maps.

But in order to continue this trend of improvement, Guthrie believes that the Vassar community needs to come together on this issue and work from a “grassroots level.” Many students agreed.

“My number one frustration here is that there’s no community for disabled students,” Belasco explained. “Imagine being gay at Vassar with no gay community, or black with no black community, or a member of a minority with no way to connect with anyone else. It makes me feel isolated, and it makes me feel unrecognized in a way. I think my issues are in many ways very similar to issues of other minorities, but that isn’t seen by other people,” she said.

“The more voices there are that are arguing the better,” said Guthrie. “If it’s just the few students on campus who use wheelchairs or have mobility impairments, it’s not going to have the same effect as if students are saying, ‘We’re not going to hold an event in Cushing House because there are some members of our community that cannot come. There should be no public lectures in New England Building. We want Blegen House to have a ramp and an accessible bathroom,’” she said.

Felicia Minchin ’09, who had a stroke last summer that caused her left side to “not work properly,” said, “It never even occurred to me how unpleasant it is to be at school and have disabilities until I had to do it myself.”

Christopher Binetti ’09, who has learning disabilities, agreed. “People are ignorant of disability issues. There is no real group for disability issues and the Vassar Student Association has no interest in having any group that looks after the interests of the disabled. Race, gender, sexual orientation, all of that—but not disability,” he said.

“It is something that we do need to discuss, that very question,” said Rosenthal. “What is normal? To me, normal is—I don’t know if oxymoronic is the right word—but it’s basically just loaded in all the wrong ways, because what’s normal to one person is not normal for someone else. What’s normal for each person is different,” he said.

“It’s a problem with society,” said Guthrie. “We have a long way to go, and I think that Vassar needs to put more commitment and resources into addressing disability barriers on its campus,” she said.

The Vassar Student Association (VSA) spring elections began yesterday, April 30. The new VSA Executive Board, class and house officers and student committee members will be announced on Monday, May 4.

Though three positions on next year’s VSA Executive Board are uncontested- Vice President for Student Life, Vice President for Activities and Vice President for Operations-there are three contenders vying for the role of President: rising seniors Summer’s-Grace Green, Jimmy Kelly and Maryrose Myrtetus.

Green and Kelly both serve on the VSA Executive Board as Vice Presidents for Activities and Operations, respectively, and Myrtetus is the current President of the Class of 2009.

Summer’s-Grace Green

Green’s candidate statement describes her experience serving on the VSA Council. As a VSA executive, Green worked to clarify by-laws and increase communication across the campus.

Green pledges to create a community resource audit to improve the College’s relationship with the Poughkeepsie community, create inclusion initiatives to fight intolerance and increase the VSA’s transparency by publishing frequent reports.

“I’ll try to increase a more sustainable outlet for voicing the ways in which student leadership is working for the student body,” she said in an e-mailed statement.

Green feels that through experience she has learned which methods of communication are the most effective. If she is elected President, Green pledges to use online newsletters to keep students up-to-date with the VSA.

Green emphasized the need for student input in the coming years, when new deans will be selected, buildings will be renovated and professors’ course loads will be restructured.

“I’m not complacent, and I realize how far we really need to go, especially in areas dealing with student inclusion and accountability,” Green said. “I also understand the dedication that will be needed to accomplish these initiatives, and I’m ready and willing to commit myself to them.”

Green noted that her time on VSA Council has taught her that perseverance, dedication and attention to students’ needs are the essential qualities of a student leader.

“When it comes down to it,” Green wrote in her candidate statement, “I simply really want to be your Student Body President to represent the students of our College here on campus and outside of it.”

Jimmy Kelly

Kelly’s campaign is centered on community inclusion, access and sustainability.

Kelly pledges to involve students in VSA decisions by hosting forums, sending e-mails, publishing Council reports and updating the VSA Web site. He also wants to give voting power to the student representative on the board of trustees and to make the campus more sustainable.

While Kelly said that he has gained a lot of experience in his three years on VSA council, he sees room for improvement.

“I haven’t necessarily been in harmonious lock-step with every decision that the Council has made,” Kelly said, admitting that the Council often spends more time talking than taking action.

Despite these reservations, Kelly noted the positive contributions that the VSA Council has made to the school in recent years, including the push for gender-neutral housing and the community shuttle.

“The unique thing about our community, though, is that together we are stronger than the sum of the individual parts—we make each other better people every day through our interactions,” wrote Kelly in his candidate statement.

In the spirit of community cooperation Kelly believes that students have more influence on the actions of College. He feels prepared to challenge administrators when necessary in order to ensure that the voice of the students is heard.

“I hate that any decisions are made behind closed doors,” said Kelly, who noted as an example that little student input went into the College’s decision to move the bookstore off campus.

Improving interactions between the College and the Town of Poughkeepsie is one of Kelly’s main goals.

“There’s a great tendency for the College to ask itself, ‘How can we help Poughkeepsie?’” Kelly explained. “I would ask, ‘How can we be Poughkeepsie?’”

Maryrose Myrtetus

Myrtetus’ platform centers on increasing student involvement in the VSA.

“VSA issues and policies need to be vetted by public opinion before implementation,” she wrote in her candidate statement. “For example, while I think the new budgeting process will generally benefit student life, I would not have tried to implement it without significant feedback from a wide range of students first.”

Myrtetus stresses the importance of student input regarding major College decisions, including dorm renovations, changes to the All Campus Dining Center and the appointments of new deans.

“I will work to make the agenda of the College, which is oftentimes unclear and compiled without enough student input, parallel the needs of students,” her statement explained.

“The College exists for students, and we can never let administrators and faculty lose sight of that fact.”

Myrtetus feels that students can not relate to the VSA Council because of its tendency toward bureaucracy. She plans to send out monthly e-mails explaining the VSA’s work and to hold meetings in which Council will explain the issues it is addressing and solicit student opinions.

Myrtetus has spent two semesters working as a Student Activities Recource Center intern for the Campus Activities Office, which, along with her work on the VSA, has led her to feel that the student government should be more accessible to the student body.

“I saw the confusion that student organizations go through while trying to run their organizations, schedule and put on events and find adequate funding,” Myrtetus explained. “That system needs be streamlined and un-bureaucratized so that organizations can access all information in one place.”

In addition to the President, the VSA Executive Board includes five vice presidents who oversee various aspects of student life.

This year, Gil Wasserman ’09 and Camille Friason ’09 are the contenders for Vice President for Academics, while Marcelo Buitron ’09 and Tendai Musakwa ’09 are running for Vice President for Finance. Alexandria Dempsey ’09, Caitlin Ly ’10 and Nate Silver ’10 are running uncontested for Vice President for Activities, Operations and Student Life, respectively.

Camille Friason

Friason has been President of Strong House for two years and was also on the Academic and Student Life Committees this year. According to her candidate statement, she wants to make a course pertaining to social justice a requirement for all students, as well as help to plan the upcoming renovations of academic buildings. Friason pledges to continue Council discussions about major’s committees, professor course loads and students’ evaluations of professors.

Gil Wasserman

Wasserman, according to his candidate statement, believes that his “charisma, wit, patience and verbal ability” will serve him well as a VSA executive. He feels that he is able to communicate with students and faculty members across campus, and said that he will always be willing to listen to students’ ideas. Wasserman was Treasurer of Lathrop House last year and served as Treasurer for the organization Democracy Matters for two years. He has also worked in the VSA office and served as a student representative on a few of its committees.

Marcelo Buitron

Buitron is the former Treasurer and current President of Noyes House. He is also on the VSA Finance Committee, which he feels has prepared him for the position of Vice President for Finance and given him a familiarity with supplemental, capitol and annual budgeting procedures. Buitron explained in his candidate’s statement that he is ready to guide VSA organizations through new budgeting procedures and special purpose funds.

Tendai Musakwa

Musakwa represents Ferry House on the VSA Council and is a member of the Committees on Finance, Activities, Arlington Special Events and Sustainability. His candidate statement declares that, if elected, he will work to dole out money in a transparent and fair way. Musakwa hopes to use the new budgeting process to minimize organizations’ need to charge students to attend events. He also plans to have frequent financial audits and help new organizations understand the process of applying to the VSA for funding.

Vote!

Elections end on Friday, May 2 at 8 p.m. All candidate statements are available on the VSA Web site (vsa.vassar.edu).

The Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Advisory (EOAA) Committee will be disbanded next year while administrators work to revamp its goals. The Vassar Student Association (VSA) Executive Board has decided not to hold elections to fill seats on the Committee.

“Council decided not to send students to EOAA simply because it has not been functioning according to its mission, delineated by the [College] Governance,” said VSA Vice President for Operations Summer’s-Grace Green ’09, noting that the Committee’s erratic meetings over the past year have made it ineffectual.

The Committee is charged with advising the EOAA Office, which is directed by Associate Dean of the College and Director of Disability and Support Services Belinda Guthrie. Guthrie works with Professor of English and Faculty EOAA Officer Patricia Wallace to oversee compliance issues and address complaints regarding discrimination and harassment.

“As it is now constituted, the Committee has been unworkable,” admitted Guthrie.

“For many years, the EOAA’s constituency made it almost impossible to find meeting times, and its vague mission—other than going over statistics—made it frustrating for all who serve on it.”

Because the EOAA Committee is written into the College Governance, any change to its structure must go through the faculty for vote and then be approved by the President.

“Based on these frustrations, I recommended to the Executive Board as well as the Board of Elections that until the Committee has been reformatted with a more accurate mission as to what it can and will accomplish, there is no reason to set students up to suffer through more frustrating years,” Green said. Wallace and Guthrie are exploring options for reshaping the Committee.

“One promising suggestion that came from our meeting with students is that the Committee might be reconceived in a way that would have joint faculty-student chairs,” said Guthrie. She and Wallace plan to meet with Committee on Inclusion and Excellence this month to discuss the two bodies’ role in promoting inclusion.

The current status of the Advisory Committee will not affect the EOAA Office’s ability to address discrimination or harassment concerns.

Chris Roellke will leave his post as the Dean of Studies to serve as acting Dean of the College.

D. Gordon The Miscellany News

Dean of Studies Chris Roellke will become the acting Dean of the College beginning this summer, when current Dean Judy Jackson leaves Vassar to take a position as the University of Kentucky’s Vice President for Institutional Diversity.

A search committee comprised of both students and faculty will set out to find a permanent Dean of the College next fall. The Committee may be formed as early as this week, after this spring’s faculty elections, though the search for a new dean will be put on hold during summer break. Roellke will assume the responsibilities of Dean of the College starting July 1.

Though July is still months away, Roellke has already started adjusting to his new role.

“I have immediately begun to participate in Senior Officer meetings, planning for upcoming Board of Trustee meetings and, of course, Commencement,” he explained in an e-mailed statement.

It is possible that Roellke may be a contender for the permanent position of Dean of the College.

“I really cannot speak to whether or not I could become the permanent Dean of the College,” Roellke said. “I fully respect our Governance and the process the College has outlined for selecting the next Dean.”

Though his term is only temporary, Roellke has embraced his new position and is making plans for the future.

“I can sincerely say that my highest priority is to make sure that the Dean of the College division runs as smoothly as it can in 2008-2009,” said Roellke. “I am both eager and excited about this new challenge and hope that I can serve the College well in this acting capacity.”

Roellke is Associate Professor of Education, and also serves as Director of Academic Facilities Development, Director of the Ford Scholars Program and Founding Director of the Vassar College Urban Education Initiative. Roellke is also the current Dean of Studies, an office that reports to the Dean of the College.

The Dean of Studies works with the Dean of Freshmen and class advisors to oversee students’ academic needs. The Dean of Studies is also in charge of the Committee on Leaves and Privileges, as well as fellowship and exchange programs.

Roellke’s work as a program director and his experience as the Dean of Studies led Vassar President Catharine Bond Hill to appoint him the interim Dean of the College.

“I asked Roellke to be acting Dean of the College after consulting with a variety of people around campus,” explained Hill. “He is an accomplished faculty member who has done a great job as Dean of Studies. I am looking forward to working with him.”

Jackson has been Dean of the College since 2004. She is only the second Dean of the College in Vassar history, as the position was not established until 1994.

The Dean of the College office was created in order to allow the offices of the Dean of Students and the Dean of Studies to work together under a common supervisor, as well as oversee Security and Campus Dining.

In addition to unifying the departments of Deans of Students and Studies, the Dean of the College is responsible for overseeing a variety of committees, including the Committee on Residential Life, the Security Advisory Committee and the Committee on College Life.

When Roellke officially takes on these responsibilities, another faculty member will fill his role as the Dean of Studies. It is not yet clear who will act as interim Dean of Studies when Roellke takes his new post, because, as Roellke put it, “the ripple effects” of his appointment are still being discussed.

Representatives from the Department of Transportaton spoke to about 30 community members.

J. Carlton/ The Miscellany News

Three representatives from the New York State Department of Transportation (DOT) came to campus on Monday, April 28 to discuss the upcoming construction on Raymond Avenue and the installation of a roundabout at the Collegeview Avenue intersection. DOT representatives Charlotte Nesbit, Scott Geiger and Jason Hilton spoke to a group of about 30 members of the Vassar community. Only three students attended.

The DOT representatives began by describing the results of its June 2007 traffic study, performed following the completion of Phase I of the Raymond Avenue reconstruction, which saw the installation of one roundabout on College Avenue and at Main Gate.

“The goal of the project—to reduce speeds and delays while encouraging a safer, more pedestrian-friendly corridor—has been met,” stated the 17-page study, citing reduction in traffic volume.

Nesbit, the project manager, reviewed statistics from the study. “This has really been such a success story,” she said, noting that delays on Raymond Avenue have decreased by 56 percent since last summer. “More importantly, accidents have decreased by 51.4 percent, which is even more than the DOT predicted before undertaking this project.”

After going over statistics, Nesbit and Geiger went through a PowerPoint presentation, in which they showed five different before-and-after renderings of the road.

The crowd’s reaction to the results of Phase I and the plans for Phase II was largely positive.

“I feel so much safer,” said Science Librarian Flora Grabowska. “Raymond is just so much lighter and more open. As a pedestrian, I feel better about walking at night, and as a driver, I feel significantly less likely to get into an accident.”

Grabowska hoped that Phase II would continue to “improve the look, ease and safety of the area” for automobiles.

Still, a few in the crowd expressed concerns about smaller aspects of Phase I, particularly lighting.

“The lights can be so bright that they actually blur my vision,” said one man in the crowd. “You guys should really think about different lighting going up to the westbound arterial.”

Although others in the audience fervently agreed, the DOT representatives explained that the lights had to be kept at a certain level of brightness in order to meet regulations.

Even so, the Arlington Business Improvement District (ABID) will contribute money to special lampposts that will be able to hold flower baskets, Christmas lights and banners. ABID will also install a four-faced clock in the center of the Collegeview roundabout.

Vice President for Finance and Administration Elizabeth Eismeier invited the DOT representatives to campus. “We were really happy they could be here,” she said following the event.

“DOT came a couple years ago before construction began on Phase I of the Raymond Avenue project and were able to clear some things up for members of our community. It’s so important to have open discussion.”

The College’s Middle States Review Steering Committee, which conducted a comprehensive self-study of every academic aspect of the College this year, is currently compiling its findings and will report them next December.

The College must reapply for accreditation from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE). In order to do so, it must collect and organize information for a comprehensive self-report, addressing everything from the faculty to the College’s financial structure, and submit it to the MSCHE for approval.

After receiving and reviewing the report, a representative from the MSCHE will visit the campus in Spring 2009.

In the meantime the College has been pushing forward with its assessment. The full report will be compiled and revised this summer, and a final draft will be submitted to the MSCHE in December.
Nancy J. Vickers, outgoing President of Bryn Mawr College, will lead the visiting assessment team.
According to Committee Chair and Professor of English Robert DeMaria Jr. the Vassar self-study emphasizes strategic planning and assessment.

“We have to look at the mission statement,” DeMaria said, “and tell them how well we’re achieving it and how.”

While it is more or less guaranteed that the College will be reaccredited, many consider this an excellent way for Vassar College to reflect on its own progress throughout the past decade and plan improvements for the future.

“When you start looking at things globally,” said DeMaria, “you realize how difficult it is to keep our beautiful little corner of the world—how expensive it is and how many things are involved running this institution.”

The report will feature seven chapters, each of which will focus on a particular aspect of the College: finance, organization and governance, academic programming, faculty, financial aid, College services and community relations. To expedite the review process, members of the Steering Committee chaired nine sub-review committees, each of which examined a different aspect of the College in closer detail.

The Committee also includes Dean of Planning and Academic Affairs Rachel Kitzinger (who was placed on the Committee as a Professor of Classics), Assistant to the President John Feroe, Associate Dean of the College Raymon Parker and Director of Institutional Research David Davis Van Atta.

Vassar Student Association (VSA) Vice President for Academics Jessica Cho ’08 and VSA President Sam Charner ’08 are the only student representatives serving on the Committee.

DeMaria said that, based on the report, he believes that the faculty committee system may need to be rethought. “It’s great to have so much faculty involvement, but we need to ask if it’s functioning effectively,” he said. He believes that the results produced by so many large committees “may not be worth the hundreds of man hours” put into them.

“The process has been really interesting,” said Charner. “It’s rare that we have an opportunity to look at the College holistically like this.”

DeMaria agreed, saying that he “now has a much fuller, more rounded, more comprehensive view of the College,” given that his colleagues and those on sub-committees sit on several committees of their own and provide a full range of perspectives on the College.

Cho said that this is perhaps the most valuable side effect of the self-study. “It’s good to bring it all in like this…to look at one issue and look at how it trickles down across the College.”

She said that being on the Committee has given her more perspective on the other committees she is a part of and that she is now able to “take on issues more effectively.”

What should student government at Vassar do, what does it do now, and how are the responses to the previous two questions different? Answering these questions are steps toward a fuller understanding of the upsides and downsides of the VSA.

Elected leaders are responsible for ensuring that student voices are heard and incorporated into a variety of major policies, from food service to renovations to the future of the College bookstore.

Particularly with the addition of the Vice President for Student Life last year, the six-member VSA Executive Board for 2007-2008 has taken on a range of issues. Some of the long-term issues on the VSA agenda this year have been gender-neutral housing, 24-hour study space, and the Community Shuttle. The incoming VSA Council should continue the momentum of these concrete matters of campus living. These areas for improvement should be addressed with urgency, since they pose the risk of severing communication wires and trust between students and their elected representatives.

Right now, committees are a problem. Although there have been some improvements in the interactions between students and the VSA bureaucracy, the numbers of committees (formal, ad-hoc and “unofficial advisory groups” concerning the bookstore) are ever increasing as their usefulness continues to spiral downward.

Monthly reports given at VSA Council meetings regularly outline the ineffectiveness of committees, often due to poor student and administrator attendance. Neither the Committee on Disability Issues nor the Bookstore Advisory Committee met last semester due to miscommunication. Outgoing VSA President Sam Charner ’08 has corroborated that there are a fair amount of unproductive committees, explaining that the committees with the most specific jobs tend to be the most successful—for example, the Orientation Committee. The Miscellany News urges new VSA Council members to prune unnecessary committees as its first agenda item.

Recently, there have been rumblings among student clubs about the VSA’s micromanagement of organizations. For example, a new policy urges student organizations to spend their entire annual budget because the money will no longer roll over to the next year. With the late announcement of this new rule in Spring 2008, treasurers are presently scrambling to spend their money by the end of the year, splurging on needless items instead of saving for the future. The new policy about organization spending has its benefits—but throwing away money at the end of this year does not model the kind of fiscal responsibility that should be part of all VSA budget-related rules.

Looking to the future, all of the 2008-2009 VSA presidential candidates have addressed many of these pivotal issues in their candidates’ statements. Whether the concern is gender-neutral housing or the micromanagement of student organizations, each student has given a great deal of thought to the largest issues facing our student government. Candidates’ ideas range from having committees send monthly reports via e-mail to holding Council meetings specifically aimed toward hearing student perspectives.

With every spring election, the College has an opportunity to think critically about the issues facing Vassar in the coming year. The VSA Council should work toward balancing its involvement in student life, organizational control and communication with students. That said, students also need to put forth their ideas and to voice their concerns.

The Miscellany News gives the incoming VSA Council the following charges: Be transparent and facilitate activity in student organizations without enacting unnecessary roadblocks. Autonomy is the mother of creativity, and information is power.

—The staff editorial reflects the opinion of at least two-thirds of the 14-member editorial board.

In recent years, network news shows and newspapers have been replete with frightening accounts of global warming and dwindling energy reserves. The mainstream media, not famous for investigative reporting, have taken an active stance in disseminating information about some of the grave environmental problems threatening society.

When Hollywood released The Day After Tomorrow, a fictionalized account of an Earth ravaged by warming temperatures, it was clear that even popular media sources had begun to address climate change. However, coverage of global warming and similar crises is superficial; the media may report doomsday scenarios, but they often fail to address the structural problems that cause these conditions.

Genetic engineering is one issue on which the mainstream media have failed to realize their objective of providing accurate journalism to the public. Mainstream coverage has hailed bioengineering as a way of increasing both crop yields and the nutritional content of foods, thus helping the world’s undernourished. This perspective parallels the views of major chemical corporations such as Monsanto, who derive enormous profits from genetically engineered products.

Unfortunately, the media miss both the acute dangers and the long-term structural problems surrounding the issue. There was relatively little media coverage of the StarLink controversy, an unprecedented disaster in September 2000 in which Monsanto’s genetically manipulated corn, which is not designed for human consumption, contaminated the food supply. Though more and more of the food stocking our supermarket shelves is genetically modified, the StarLink episode did not rouse the media to call for a moratorium on such products.

Furthermore, the media have failed to investigate how the move toward genetically engineered crops may actually be depriving third-world farmers of the money they need to survive. As seeds patented for genetic modifications are introduced, they blow onto smaller farmers’ land and mix with unmodified seeds. If farmers use these new seeds inadvertently, they may be sued for copyright infringement by corporations such as Monsanto. This ambiguity in intellectual property law has already hurt many subsistence farmers, and it threatens the traditional growing process. Tragically, the media have ignored this pressing problem.

Even The Miscellany News itself occasionally presents such flawed coverage of environmental issues.

The article “College to renew Aramark’s contract” (4.17.08) focuses on Aramark’s increased commitment to fresher foods and more sustainable processes. The writer emphasizes that the College solicited the opinions of informed students and considered each company’s environmental policies.

Sadly, this is a warped view of the actual events. When Dean of the College Judy Jackson spoke to the Food Committee during fall semester, she implied that financial considerations would override student desires in the contract process. This may explain why the three finalists for the contract were large corporations that achieve economic efficiency through unsustainable economies of scale.

Just like the mainstream media, The Miscellany News failed to address the structural problems preventing a large corporation such as Aramark from achieving sustainability. The article applauded Aramark for its recycling, composting and local foods initiatives. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that industrial foods grown thousands of miles away dominate the offerings at the All Campus Dining Center. The truth is that corporate products such as Dannon yogurt and Tropicana orange juice are the main items on display in the dining hall.

This is indicative of a more serious structural problem with corporations such as Aramark: Big companies that rely on large-scale industrial models to turn profits can never realize true sustainability. There’s no way around the conclusion that a conflict exists between the priorities of Aramark and those of environmentalists.

As the environmental crisis deepens, the responsibility will fall on the media to provide citizens with accurate, investigative journalism that documents these issues and offers solutions. At this point, one can only be pessimistic about the media’s commitment to an in-depth, unbiased examination of such problems. However, the rise of Web sites such as alternet.org, a compendium of progressive news articles and blogs, offers hope for the future. If we are to realize the sustainable society that is the dream of all environmentalists today, the media will have to guide us.

—Nathan Zucker ’10, a Latin American Studies major, is writing about environmental issues that affect both the Vassar community and the world at large.

We made every attempt to voice student concerns on the Request for Proposal Committee, and we disagree that this process was too secretive. First, the entire Food Committee, comprised of representatives from each dormitory, had access to the proposals and attended both the initial meeting with potential bidders in December and the meeting with the three finalists in March.

Second, student representatives from the Sustainability Committee, including the Local Foods intern, provided input.

Third, Food Committee representatives and house presidents were asked to solicit input from dormitory residents. All of this was in addition to open focus groups held last May and extensive coverage of this process in The Miscellany News. Direct involvement was as extensive as it could have been given the confidentiality of bidders’ financial information.

We are accused of being “pro-corporate,” but this misses a key fact: There was never a viable option to move away from a corporate provider. To mitigate the feared effects of corporate management, we made sure certain measures were in place, such as keeping food service workers as Vassar employees. The Vassar Department of Human Resources negotiates with the union on contract terms, and we see this as a way of staving off harsh corporate policy.

We also inquired about moving totally in-house, which proved logistically and financially impossible. Vassar simply couldn’t hire all the necessary staff or implement the programs needed, and the financial implications were impractical.

We defend our commitment to “real sustainability and local foods production.” It is true that large corporations can lose sight of the effects of their business, but Vassar’s Aramark managers will continue to facilitate environmentally and socially responsible food service. Vassar has already seen numerous sustainability initiatives, and Aramark’s plans for increased local sourcing far outstrip those of the competition. Aramark has committed to locally sourcing 40 percent of ingredients by 2013, up from the current 30 percent, and their overall plan for sustainability far exceeded that of any other proposal.

Those of us who helped make this decision worked long and hard for our peers, and we are eager to continue this dialogue with anyone who would like to. We acknowledge that it’s probably impossible to satisfy Aramark’s or big business’s most ardent detractors, but attacking us for the decision to retain a corporate vendor is simply unproductive. That was never our choice to make.

—Morgan Warners ’08, VSA Vice President for Student Life, and Nate Silver ’10, Chair of the Food Committee

Many have suggested that Vassar should not outsource its food production. I agree with this position; however, this was not an option that the College was willing to pursue at this time. Therefore, it is important to understand that the only options available to choose from were these three corporate food providers. Campus Dining staff are all employed through the College, and their jobs were never in jeopardy. On the other hand, our managers are all employed through Aramark and would have lost their jobs if we had chosen a different dining provider.

I have had the pleasure of working with Head of Campus Dining Maureen King (an Aramark employee) as well as with the Director of Marketing and Sustainability Ken Oldehoff (a Vassar employee). It is my firm belief that without their support and dedication, we would not be where we are today with respect to local foods and general sustainability. Our local foods program began entirely because of Oldehoff’s and King’s initiative.

Also, our managers have strong relationships with local farmers and the Vassar community. Thanks to their hard work, we currently serve 30 percent local food in our dining facilities. King’s receptiveness and willingness to assist students in their sustainability efforts have made it possible for us to develop a composting program in the All Campus Dining Center as well. Losing integrated members of our community who work hard to make Vassar more environmentally friendly is not sustainable.

In my opinion, Aramark’s proposed changes to Campus Dining will help Vassar along the path to sustainability more than Sodexho’s and Parkhurst’s proposals would have. Aramark’s presentation showed that they know our college and understand what sorts of improvements are needed. For example, they proposed that we start a carbon labeling system in our dining facilities, and set goals for increasing the percentage of local foods we purchase. Having seen prospective menus, I also believe that Aramark will deliver us a higher quality of fresh, local food than Sodexho or Parkhurst.

It would be inaccurate to view this article as an endorsement of Aramark as a corporation. Rather, I believe that out of the three options we had, Aramark was the best. Aramark employees at Vassar have shown themselves to be dedicated to the idea of sustainability and local foods. The loss of King would have been a detriment to green efforts.

I strongly encourage anyone who has concerns about Aramark’s presence at Vassar to speak with King and Oldehoff about the changes to our dining halls. I think that you will find that Vassar dining is moving forward with respect to both sustainability and food quality.

—Jessica Muller-Pearson ’08,
Local Foods Intern

Students have been and will continue to be shut up through a series of closed-door meetings by administrators despite the relevance to the decisions on each of you. Is the solution to really form yet another subcommittee after the deal has been made? Of course not! By the time your non-binding suggestions are made from a subcommittee to another committee and then to the hands of the actual individuals in power, you will have graduated. It happens pretty much every time. Vassar peddles itself on the world as a bastion of progressive ideology, yet the administration fails to integrate student voices in any meaningful way.

As a student, you are the reason Vassar exists. I encourage you to get involved in the dialogue about the bookstore and space on and around campus. The administration needs to be proactive in seeking out student participation when it comes to decisions that impact them on a daily basis. Whether it has been the bookstore or any other important decision for as far back as I can remember, students are always patronized by the administration.

I hope the school’s reprehensible conduct will inspire you all to view the administration more critically and empower yourselves in the decision-making process.

—Pulin Modi ’02

Here’s something to think about: While Vassar students are busy studying, 2.5 billion people, or 40 percent of the world’s population, are trying to survive on less than $2 each day. For 1.2 billion of those individuals, that daily income is less than $1.

Operation Donation (OD) is an anti-poverty group founded by Jimmy Kelly ’09 during his freshman year at Vassar. It works to combat poverty through awareness and action, which Kelly calls a “double-A” program. OD is dedicated to addressing poverty on the local, national and global levels. “Poverty is a real issue. We need to take action,” said Kelly.

On a local level, OD uses funds raised by its members to purchase “basic food and hygiene products in order to enhance the basic quality of life for Dutchess County residents in need,” said Kelly. “Since we’re entering into a recession, food prices are going up exponentially.” OD runs grocery drives at the local Stop and Shop, “getting as much as we can for the least amount of money possible,” said OD President Rachel Glicksman ’09. This semester alone the organization has raised $11,921. Their yearly total was $15,779 as of April 24.

In addition to providing basic food and hygenic items, OD assists Poughkeepsie’s youth at The River Haven, a shelter located on Catherine Street that provides crisis intervention services and emergency shelter to homeless and runaway youth. Glicksman said that OD is currently working to establish an on-call tutoring system in which volunteer members of OD would be ready during certain hours of the week to go to the shelter and assist youth in need. In addition, Glicksman said that during the last Parents Weekend on April 11-13, eight River Haven youths came to campus and attended events, including a Barefoot Monkeys show.

The group has been working on a larger scale as well, having spent one day each semester in Washington, D.C. lobbying for change. Kelly explained that “Charity is a starting point. To really end poverty, you need to interact with those in power.”

And that is exactly what OD did. The first lobbying day addressed the creation of an equitable farm bill to protect small farmers. Students in OD lobbied several senators, stressing that 90 percent of agricultural subsidies are centralized into five key crops (corn, wheat, rice, cotton and soy), but that 72 percent of those subsidies go to the top 10 percent of farmers. This drastically unequal distribution of funds hurts foreign farmers as well as domestic ones, as it results in the overproduction of crops in the United States.

The second lobbying trip centered on climate change. “The developed world has done the most to negatively contribute to climate change, but those in developing countries will be affected most,” Kelly said. Many developing countries rely heavily on the agriculture industry, which will be impacted if major changes are not immediately implemented. The most important of these changes would be a cap on greenhouse gas emissions, which would reduce emissions by two percent each year through 2050.

Next semester, because nearly all legislative attention will be turned toward the 2008 election, OD is planning to “take off from lobbying,” according to Vice President Dorie Obertello ’11. Although the group regarded the days spent in Washington as highly effective, Obertello said that next semester’s resources could be used most efficiently by “channeling energy in a more local way.”

One event already in the works is a fair trade bazaar next semester. This event has taken place in the past, but has always been hosted at an off-campus location.

Obertello is optimistic for the future. “Considering how much money the organization was able to raise for the Poughkeepsie community this year, I think we’ve shown that we can make a big difference locally,” she said. “I think we’ll be able to do a lot more next year, as well.”

As graduation approaches, the Class of 2008 has more to worry about than finishing theses and saying goodbye to friends. The daunting task of finding a job to fill the academic void may be more difficult than usual this year as the economy continues to decline.

But while job searches may yield underwhelming results, the general consensus is that the Class of 2008 will not spend the rest of their lives sleeping on park benches. Chris Jacques ’08, for example, hasn’t nailed down a job for next year, but he doesn’t view the economic decline as a threat to his well-being. “It’s easy to find a job in general. I just hope I can find something that I want to do,” said Jacques.

Ben Demers ’08 is also optimistic. “I’m pretty confident,” he said. “I know that the economy is depressed and that is scaring a lot of people, but I’m not limiting myself to any certain field right away, and I know that eventually the economy will pick up.”

Demers cited his experience marketing for various groups at Vassar as valuable in his search for radio jobs. “Especially with new media, every organization is trying to get digital and up their image and reach out to a new, media-savvy generation.”

On the other hand, seniors like Natalia Luna feel less prepared to enter the professional sphere. “I am kind of nervous about my financial prospects,” Luna said. “I’m an anthropology major—in some ways it’s harder because I don’t have a clear focus.”

Employer Relations Coordinator and Job Coach in the Career Development Office (CDO) Susan Smith has been working with seniors all year, and more come in for assistance every day. “Now I’m starting to hear the outcome of those successful stories where students have landed a job,” Smith said. “Conversely, I’ve been starting to see students who I’ve been working with all year, and who don’t have a job yet. And then there are the seniors who are just beginning the process.”

Smith wouldn’t describe the Class 2008’s outlook as worried, but said that they have seen some frustration building throughout the year. “I think some are discouraged because they’ve interviewed a lot, and they don’t have something yet. A job search really is a long process,” she said. She suggested that students use advantages such as family

connections or Vassar alumnae/i. “Any way possible that you can get a foot in the door.”
She also stressed that it’s not too late for students to come to the CDO for help. “

Don’t think that there aren’t jobs out there because it’s April.” she said, “I get postings everyday. We welcome any senior, no matter where in the process you are.”

The CDO offers a large range of services for students, including help with résumés and cover letters, practice interviews and graduate school applications. The career counselors are available by appointment every weekday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on a walk-in basis every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 1-4 p.m. and Mondays and Wednesdays from 5-8 p.m.

This is Part Four of a four-part series. To see the previous three articles, visit misc.vassar.edu.

One of college students’ greatest concerns is what they will do after graduation. The daunting prospect of applying to a graduate school is enough to make some students take time off to acclimate themselves to the “real” world.

For some science and pre-med students, however, graduate programs and medical schools are the only options for advancement in their respective fields. And no one knows this better than Vassar alumnae/i, who have already traveled a considerable way along the path that many current pre-med and science students will follow.

Coming from a small college where the freedom of study is both a luxury and a curse, moving on to a graduate program can be difficult. According to Emily Whitesel ’04, who is currently in a Ph.D./M.D. program at Harvard University Medical School, “I think it’s difficult to compare the Vassar-style undergraduate education to any medical school. In medical school, there is no flexibility in course work…The focus of knowledge is different as well, as what we are learning now will be directly applicable for us in the future and our ability to care for patients, which makes it exciting, though occasionally frightening as well.”

On the other hand, graduate schools for scientific studies allow students an opportunity for deeper learning in a specific field. “In some ways, classes are more intense because you cover more material,” said Daria Van Tyne ’06, a first-year biochemistry graduate student at Harvard. “You’re expected to think on a deeper level, but at the same time, grades don’t matter nearly as much, so there’s less pressure to get everything perfect,” she added.

“The less one has to worry about grades, the more one can cope with the heightened intensity of the academics in graduate school.” said Van Tyne.

Many alumnae/i reported that the pre-med office’s advising can make applying and adjusting to a new environment feasible. “The pre-med advisors were great,” said Jeff Dan ’96, a graduate of Tulane Medical School who is currently an emergency room physician.

“They helped me to the extent that they could. I was prepared for the MCATs, but it is a difficult test.”

The fact is that even students who have excellent grades and test scores may not be admitted to a medical school immediately. Interviews and essays are also taken into account. According to Dan, however, students without excellent qualifications may still have hope of admission. “When I left Vassar, my GPA and MCATs were both subpar,” he said. “My science GPA was maybe 3.2. I worked for an ophthamologist for two years in Boston. I applied to over 20 schools. I got some interviews, but I was not accepted anywhere. I re-took the MCATs and studied three or four hours a day after work and eight hours on the weekend for maybe three months. It was pretty awful, actually.” Although it goes without saying that one has to be extremely motivated in order to be admitted to a graduate program, it is heartening to know that even a “subpar” candidate was able to gain access to an excellent school.

Having a Vassar background has other benefits. According to Lara Kunschner ’90, a University of Pittburgh Medical School alumna, “I was able to think critically and clearly, yet maintain a healthy perspective because I came out of a solid liberal arts school. I could write and imagine and empathize because I had learned about the world at Vassar. I had the tools to enjoy life outside of medicine because I had had exposure to so much outside of the narrow world of medicine.”

Kunschner advised those considering going to medical school or graduate school to pursue this goal with themselves and their own desires in mind. “Talk to people in the field, do preceptorships or internships in a variety of medical, academic or research settings to get a feel for what medicine or the lab setting is all about,” she said. “The actual job is not always what the romantic perception reflects, and certainly has absolutely nothing to do with the life portrayed on various syndicated television shows.”

According to the Office of Institutional Research, nearly 80 percent of Vassar students applying to medical school were accepted in 2006. Students should take advantage of the pre-med advising to further increase these odds.

Pope Benedict XVI visted Youth Rally in Yonkers, N.Y. on April 19. Some Vassar students who made the trip were able to meet the Pope himself at the stage ceremony.

Photo courtesy of New York Post

Just two days after submitting my senior thesis on the scholarship of Pope Benedict XVI, I had the incredible honor and privilege of meeting the Pope himself onstage at the Youth Rally on the grounds of St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y on April 19. I took part in the beginning of the stage ceremony as a representative of Eastern European peoples during a tribute to the diversity of our country’s ethnic backgrounds.

It was a tremendous opportunity for me as a Catholic, but it was even more meaningful because the Holy Father’s philosophical thought has been integral to my intellectual engagement of my faith. I have spent a great deal of time trying to unpack the Catholic conception of faith and reason in his scholarship. Instead of a denial of reason itself, the Church teaches that both reason and faith interplay in a complementary relationship. This event held tremendous meaning for me as a student of theology and as a member of the Church because the substance of my reflections center around what the Pope says to the modern world.

I was particularly interested to hear what the touchstones of the Pope’s speech would be when he addressed the crowd. His carefully crafted speech dovetailed nicely off the themes he had laid before the United Nations the previous day on April 18, speaking to the consonant relationship of faith and reason. He articulated the nature of freedom and its sinister enemies: racism, poverty and those things that betray the integrity of human life. Without his usual professorial tone, he recounted his own youth under the Nazi regime, the first time he has done so publicly after his election as pontiff. The ideology of Nazism, he said, “banished God and thus became impervious to anything true and good.” He then named a second predator of authentic freedom: a moral relativism that distorts the truth and gives value to everything indiscriminately.

This is his hallmark challenge to modernity. Whereas “traditional” cultures have understood freedom as the active pursuit of goodness, relativistic societies reduce freedom to “license.” This in turn prevents societies from coming to a notion of the common good and leaves them merely struggling to balance individual preferences. To disrupt the cohesion of faith and reason construes freedom as license, pleasure-seeking and an untutored exercise of the will.

Benedict believes that authentic freedom is not self-serving but rather seeks the good above all else. Truth, then, is not an imposition, he says, but rather a privileged path to freedom.

On the whole, that Saturday was particularly moving, not only because I was able to meet Pope Benedict, but also because I was in solidarity with the 25,000 other people present.

Because of his visit to the United States, many have been given the opportunity to encounter the pope in a way they may have not been able to otherwise. His shy and sincere personality revealed a more complex figure than his reputation as a scholastic hard-liner would expose.

I am certain that the Pope’s journey to the United States has given those watching a more concise picture of the man and his message, and perhaps now we will lean in closer to engage the substance of that message. Pope Benedict XVI’s visit was as much an opportunity for him to encounter us as it was an opportunity for us to encounter him.

This Saturday, May 3, students will march in droves to Ballantine Field in eager anticipation of the food, beer, rides, games and jovial atmosphere that characterize Founder’s Day. But the celebration that Vassar students love today has drastically evolved from its 19th-century roots.

Founder’s Day began in 1866 as a campus-wide surprise party for the 74th birthday of College Founder Matthew Vassar. The celebration featured poetry readings, lectures and piano solos in Main Building. After Vassar’s death in 1868, Founder’s Day became a day to memorialize the founder and visit his grave.

But by the early 20th century, Founder’s Day had evolved into a convivial celebration and a reprieve from academics. The 1942 circus-themed Founder’s Day, for example, featured a marching band—and an elephant.

While this year’s Founder’s Day guests will not include an elephant, the celebration will include giant candy bar decorations, a colorful felt walkway leading up to the field and copious amounts of sweet treats. This year’s theme, Candyland, was selected from a wide range of student suggestions.

“This year, I wanted to do as democratic a process as possible,” explained Founder’s Day Committee co-Chair Brian Bacchi ’08. After students wrote in with their suggestions, the Committee narrowed down the results and allowed the student body to vote on the top five themes. Nearly 1,800 votes were cast , and the Candyland theme won by about 300 votes.

Bacchi said that most students seem happy with the theme. “There is just so much you can do with it,” he said.

Megan Habermann, Assistant Director of Campus Activities and Advisor to the Founder’s Day Committee, said that the process that the Committee used to select the theme “worked really well, because even students who…weren’t thrilled about…the theme, felt that they at least got their voice heard.”

“Looking at all the decorations and merchandise, everything looks super cool,” said Kid’s Tent Committee Chair Nathalie Galvez ’08 in an e-mailed statement. “

Overall, people around campus seem to be excited and looking forward to see what Founder’s Day will look like under the Candyland umbrella,” she added.

Two of the most popular aspects of Founder’s Day are the free food and beer. Zorona and Molé Molé have been confirmed as food vendors, and Soul Dog and Amici’s are also being pursued.

A Candyland-themed bouncy castle has been secured, as well as an obstacle course. Bacchi said that the Committee is still working to bring “swings and other carnival-type rides” to the event. Further entertainment will be provided by several bands that will perform throughout the day, including the Born Ruffians, a ’90s cover band called Reality Check, and the Pimps of Joytime. Vassar’s own Enter the Scorpion Pit, winner of the recent battle of the bands contest, will perform in the last slot of the day.

The Committee is also seeking to make Founder’s Day more eco-friendly this year. “We’re really going to be working with the Sustainability Committee,” Habermann said. There will also be water spigots so that students can fill their own water bottles. “We’re really going to promote those throughout the day, and really encourage people to use the recycling bins and things like that,” she said.

Galvez and her committee have worked to revamp the kid’s tent, which will be set up from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. “In my opinion, it’s the most undervalued part of Founder’s Day because it isn’t specific to Vassar students, but is more for the Vassar community and their families,” she said. The kid’s tent will include gingerbread house decorating, face painting, balloon animals and a wall where the kids can write or finger paint.

Founder’s Day will conclude with fireworks over Sunset Lake and a double feature on the Chapel Lawn; the Candyland movie, entitled The Great Lollipop Adventure, will be shown, as well as the 1971 version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Bacchi said that this Founder’s Day will be as successful as it has been in the past, and that the celebration will be in keeping with the traditions that have made it so enjoyable. “It’s going to be fairly consistent,” he said, but he added that “We might have random amounts of candy to give out to people, just because.”

While Founder’s Day has certainly evolved from its formal, solemn beginnings into a day of fun and carefree festivities, Matthew Vassar’s words upon seeing the surprise celebration held in his honor still ring true: “This one event has paid me for every cent I have spent for the College.”

My best friend was afraid that she was pregnant last week after her partner’s condom broke, so she took emergency contraceptive pills. I had never heard of them before. How safe and effective are they?
—Preventing an ejaculate conception

Dear Preventing,

Emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) are a safe and effective way to prevent pregnancy as long as they are taken up to five days after unprotected sex. They have been used worldwide for as long as 30 years and are a viable option if a condom breaks or slips off, if you weren’t using any birth control or if you had unprotected sex.

The development of modern emergency contraception (EC) began in the 1920s when researchers discovered that estrogen extracted from the ovaries interfered with pregnancy in mammals. As early as the 1940s, there were reports of use of postcoital (after-sex) estrogens on women as a method of preventing pregnancy, but there were no published cases until the 1960s, when doctors in the Netherlands tried the method on a young girl who had been raped. Soon after, emergency contraception pills (ECPs) were approved for use in several countries. It was not until the end of the 1990s, however, that ECPs were widely recognized in the United States as a safe and effective method for preventing unplanned pregnancy.

In July 1999, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first ECPs in the United States Before that time, some doctors already practiced “off-label” use of oral contraceptive pills to achieve the same effect. Today, ECPs are also known by the brand name Plan B (the most commonly used kind of ECP in the Unied States). ECPs are sometimes called “morning after pills,” but that name can be misleading because ECPs can be taken up to five days after unprotected sex, not just the morning after. You may also need to take two or more pills, depending on the type of ECP.

ECPs contain a higher level of estrogen and progestin, the same hormones found in hormonal birth control pills. They prevent ovulation and thicken cervical mucus, which blocks sperm from fertilizing an egg. ECPs may also prevent fertilized eggs from attaching to the lining of the uterus, but there is no proof that this happens. Some sources incorrectly claim that ECPs cause abortion, but ECPs are not the same as the abortion pill (called RU-486 or Mifepristone.) ECPs cannot terminate or damage a pregnancy if an embryo has already implanted on the uterine wall.

Plan B is very effective at preventing pregnancy when used properly. Studies show that it reduces the risk of pregnancy by 89 percent when it is taken within 72 hours after unprotected sex. Plan B can be used up to 120 hours after unprotected sex, but it is more effective the sooner it is taken.

ECPs will not prevent pregnancy if you have unprotected sex after taking the pills, so you need to use ECPs to prevent pregnancy after each time you have unprotected sex. Also, as with any method of hormonal birth control, ECPs do not provide protection against sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

If there is any possibility that unprotected sex will put you at risk of contracting an STI, you should consider being tested.

ECPs are safe and have fewer risks and side effects than other hormonal birth control methods because they are not taken continuously and the hormones are not in your body as long as those in ongoing birth control. The most common side effects experienced are nausea and upset stomach.

Rarely, women may experience breast tenderness, irregular bleeding, dizziness and headaches. Side effects typically subside in a day or two, and a doctor can recommend ways to reduce them.

ECPs are an effective form of back-up birth control, but they should not be used as a primary form of birth control. As their name suggests, they should be used only in emergencies when your primary method of birth control fails. Frequent use of ECPs may make your period irregular. Ongoing use of hormonal methods is more effective when they are used correctly. Women concerned with preventing pregnancy should consider using hormonal birth control, which can be purchased at a reduced price the Women’s Health Center or at Planned Parenthood.

Plan B is available at pharmacies and health care centers without a prescription for people 18 and older. For those younger than 18, a prescription from a health center or private doctor is needed.

The cost of Plan B greatly varies from place to place. On average, it costs $10 to $45. Family planning clinics like Planned Parenthood usually charge less than private doctors or pharmacies. Locally, Plan B costs about $40 at nearby pharmacies. $25 at Baldwin’s Women’s Health Center, and it is currently free at Planned Parenthood.

Finally, as to condoms breaking, the primary reason why condoms fail is human error in their use.

There are some ways to help prevent condom breakage. Be careful opening the package so the condom is not torn—try not to get the condom caught in the tear of the package, and never use teeth, scissors or nails. Also, check the expiration date of the condom and store them in a cool (but not cold!) dry place—not in the sun, a car, a pants pocket or anywhere else where they could be damaged. Make sure there are no air bubbles in the condom by smoothing along the shaft and pinching the nipple-like tip to get all of the air out. You should also make sure that the condom is not pulled too tight (make sure you leave room at the tip for ejaculate). Be sure not to “double bag”, using two condoms, whether you’re using two male condoms or a male and a female condom—the friction causes breakage. Also, use plenty of lubricant. If there is not enough lubricant, the friction can cause breakage. With latex condoms you should only use water- or silicone-based lubricants because oil breaks down latex, rendering your condom ineffective.

Furthermore, if pregnancy is a concern when you are having sex, it is best to always use two methods of birth control. In cases of emergency when your primary methods fail, ECPs are a wise choice. Keep a box of Plan B handy, and practice prevention!

The Women’s Health Center is located on the second floor of Baldwin, ext. 5815. Planned Parenthood is located at 17 Noxon Street in Poughkeepsie and can also be accesed by calling 1-800-230-7526 or visiting ppfa.org.

—Jiná Ashline ’08 is a religion major with a women’s studies correlate. She is also president of C.H.O.I.C.E. Each week she will answer a question about sex and sexuality. Send your questions to jiashline@vassar.edu or by dropping a note in Box 2172.

Max Gold ’10 directs actors to prepare for a scene of Changes.

Photo courtesy of Max Gold

Simplicity, variability and persistency: One of the oldest Chinese texts, the I Ching initiated an interest in these three notions of being. The same principles later shaped early Confucian and Taoist thought.

Max Gold ’10 used these ideas to shape his Web series, Classic of Changes, which was filmed at Vassar and stars Vassar students. The title is an English translation of the phrase “I Ching.” Gold posts a new 10-minute episode of the series every Sunday at 6 p.m. on his Web site, blindhummingbird.com.

Gold explained that the I Ching was ripe for a Web series adaptation. “It’s a book of little bite-sized pieces of wisdom, which is a lot like the format of Webisodes, which aren’t pieces of wisdom, but are bite-sized pieces of story,” he said.

“They’re not meant to be giant masterpieces; they’re just fun things that you can snack on,” Gold added.

The Web series allows each of its viewers to transform from a consumer into a producer through its interactive interfaces. Each character has a Facebook profile and a blog, which can be accessed from Gold’s Web site.

The series has a Facebook group with 374 members. Gold encourages viewers to post comments on any of its Web-based forums, and he plans to use those responses to shape the future course of the series. Everything from romantic entanglements to more serious plot twists can hinge upon the resolutions reached through interactive Internet democracy.

Changes details the lives of children of privilege as they attend a selective, coeducational institution in the Hudson River Valley: not Vassar, but rather Pencey Preparatory School, a high school. The episodes have depicted drug deals and sex in showers. It’s The O.C. of the V.C.

In Spring 2007, Gold took a Chinese philosophy course that inspired him to write short scenes that would eventually become the first season of Changes, which premiered in June.

The course, of course, was just a catalyst. Gold had been involved in video production since the beginning of high school and wanted to continue producing in college. He gathered together a group of underutilized actors and let the series unfurl.

The first season consisted of nine episodes. Season Two premiered on April 1, 2008 as a new class of freshmen joined the fictional school’s ranks. The process has proved time-consuming, and the result has been mixed.

“We’re at college, and we don’t have time for really huge, in-depth things,” Gold said. “I think part of the off-the-cuff-ness of it and the shallowness of it really speaks to the college experience.”

Though Changes is released on the Internet, it resembles a television program in that its production and release process unfurls in an episodic order.

To produce his series, Gold needed to step outside of Vassar’s pedagogical parameters and use his prior skill set. Vassar’s curriculum does not cover serial production; Vassar only offers production courses through the film department, which means that the projects undertaken through the courses are non-serial by nature.

Gold decided to produce his series outside of Vassar’s auspices altogether. He did not use the College’s television station, VCTV, and he did not use Vassar funding. As a result, Gold did not need to worry about the bureaucratic red tape that tends to stall filming groups that work within the system.

“I’m not resenting Vassar’s opportunities, because it has amazing opportunities,” said Gold. However, he added, “Like any bureaucracy, you need to work your way up and establish yourself.”

“As a freshman, I was so anxious to make stuff,” Gold continued.

The second season follows brothers and best friends Sean and Chris as they enter their freshman year of high school. Ben Palacios ’11 plays Sean, a fashion model.

The enjoyable bulk of Sean’s scenes exhibit Palacios on various modeling shoots, shirtless of course. Changes targets high-school girls, as Gold admitted, and thus it provokes comparisons to teen soap operas like Gossip Girl.

The characters are more two-dimensional, adolescent archetypes than well-rounded or realistic characters. But this limited dimensionality reflects the series’ source material, the I Ching, which emphasizes traits over people. The true depth comes about via connections between characters rather than within individual characters.

“I feel like I’ve gotten into the groove with the show now, with Season Two, and it’s the first episode that I’m deeply satisfied with,” said Gold of the series’ recent episode. Gold indicated that this Sunday’s episode would continue along that depth-invoking trajectory via a bacchanal of sorts. Changes promises depth through surface.

Michael Hirsch ’11 directs “Godot” cast into the woods.

J. Carlton The Miscellany

A boy rushes into the scene and timidly utters the words, “Mr. Godot told me to tell you he won’t come this evening but surely tomorrow.”

To Vladimir’s mental anguish and Estragon’s despair, Mr. Godot never arrives on the stage, but his mere nominality has brought incredible fame to the Irish writer, poet and winner of the 1969 Nobel Prize for Literature Samuel Beckett, whose works incorporate universal themes in a peculiar, minimalist style.

Sixty years after the play’s premiere in a tiny theater in Paris, Unbound is presenting “Waiting for Godot” on Friday, May 2, Sunday, May 4, and Monday, May 5, at 7 p.m. in the Outdoor Amphitheater, located in the field behind Sanders Classroom. The play is Unbound’s final production of the year. Famously summarized as “a play in which nothing happens twice” by the Irish literary critic Vivien Mercier, “Waiting for Godot” deals with issues such as death, the meaning of human existence and God’s possible place within it. The play centers around two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, as they wait on a country road by a tree for two days and anticipate Godot’s arrival.

Directed by Michael Hirsch ’11 and Andréa Banks ’11, Unbound’s production of the play will present an incomprehensible world through black humor that touches upon delicate religious, philosophical, classical, psychoanalytical and wartime allusions.

Since the play consists mostly of dialogue, the cast worked on character building before they started studying the text. Jesse Levistky ’10, whose character stays mute for most of the play, said he particularly liked these improvisational character building exercises because they taught him to stay silent on stage for long periods of time.

“Godot” was the first time that either Hirsch or Banks directed a play. Hirsch, who has been involved in theater all his life, admitted that he was initially intimidated by the directing process.

“Luckily, I have had excellent superiors, and I quickly learned so many things from them,” he said.

Hirsch and Banks had difficulties when the two actors originally cast in the lead roles left. It was hard for the directors and the cast to keep up with production until new actors were found. Banks, who thinks the new actors fit their characters perfectly, said, “It was a time of panic, but I think it’s fine now.”

Hirsch agreed with Banks. “The dynamic of the group is a lot better with this new cast,” he said. “They have a great chemistry between each other.”
The cast was also surprised by how quickly the show came together. “Starting from scratch at a much later date, the rate we progressed is incredibly high even if we’re not as complete as other shows would be,” said Levitsky.

In a departure from the original play, Hirsch and Banks’ production includes female actresses, including Allison Douglass ’11, who portrays Estragon. Douglass said that it wasn’t especially hard for her to get into a male persona, since each of the actors have had to work hard to portray their respective characters. Hirsch thinks that making Estragon female puts a twist on the play’s most challenging character. But “Beckett would not be happy with it,” he said.

Hirsch hopes that the audience will find something in the play that affects them and makes them think more about their actions. He also promises to stage a show that will entertain everyone. “You have ‘Waiting for Godot’ moments every day in your life; you just don’t know it,” he said. Who knows, maybe you’ll have your own Godot epiphany as you breathe in the open air and figure out what you’re waiting for, as you watch Vladimir and Estragon wait for their Godot under a silent tree.

The most famous stage direction of all of the Bard of Avon’s tragedies, comedies, romances and histories appears in “The Winter’s Tale.” It is a jarringly explicit description: “Exit, pursued by a bear.” Shakespeare Troupe will perform the source of the carnivorous command at 8 p.m. on Thursday, May 8, Friday, May 9 and Saturday, May 10 in the Orchard above Sunset Lake.

The play’s plot is like a hybrid fairy tale. It starts off with a Shakespearean tragic flaw and ends peacefully with the typical reconciliation of a Shakespearean comedy. A king mistakenly thinks his pregnant wife has cheated on him with a visiting king and that her unborn baby is not his. His wife goes into hiding, and their newborn daughter is sent away. The rest of the play deals with the characters coming to terms with this misunderstanding and repairing the damage.

“The play is about the power of forgiveness and redemption,” said Troupe performer Elizabeth Wachtel ’09. The play literally comes full circle—after going through a series of events in the land of Bohemia, the characters end up in the land of Sicilia, where the story started in the first place. This full circle is also reflected in the seasons—the story begins in winter and ends in springtime. “It ends where it started,” said Troupe performer Nate Silver ’10.

Shakespeare Troupe always performs their plays outdoors. Each year the group unanimously decides a new location, which is also how they choose directors, cast and crew members.

Performing outdoors creates challenges because of the unpredictable weather and less-than-ideal acoustics. Still, there are many benefits to outdoor performances. “Theaters have limits,” said Wachtel. “Outdoors, there’s no need to reserve tickets. Anyone can come.”
Director Kate Abbruzzese ’08 described the experience of performing outdoors as evoking “old magic.”

“It’s human magic,” said Troupe performer Poornima Kirby ’08, contrasting “The Winter’s Tale” with some of Shakespeare’s other mythical plays. The magic of “The Winter’s Tale” is largely accounted for by the everyday miracles of life, said Kirby.

“Flowers bloom. People die, but children are born,” she said. Most importantly, forgiveness and hope are possible. But the production is not trying to embellish Shakespeare.

“We don’t take an overly academic approach,” said stage manager Jeanne Allen ’08. “We explore the text by getting up on our feet and speaking the words.” The cast has done research on the play, but even the research has not been particularly academic.

Abbruzzese asked Troupe members to bring in objects and music that had to do with time and seasons, such as bright flowers and songs that have earth-related lyrics. Troupe members also did their own visual, critical and physical research to prepare for the production.

Both Abbruzzese and Allen spoke enthusiastically about their dedicated and creative cast. “From a foundation of love and respect we built this play, but we all understand our roles,” said Allen. Actors often come to design meetings, but they contribute solely as actors, rather than upstaging the designers.

Shakespeare Troupe is also hoping to build relationships beyond their ensemble. “We are hoping to start communication with a school in Poughkeepsie,” said Abbruzzese. “It’s incredibly healing to make art,” she continued. “There’s something life-affirming about it. Any art form is about communication.”

There has been a lot of hype and secrecy about how Shakespeare Troupe will carry out the “pursued by a bear” stage direction, but Abbruzzese gave some hints. “It might be scary; it might be funny,” she said.

“We’re hoping, whatever it be, it might be memorable.” Abbruzzese paused and then continued, “It’s funny: In a play about all this amazing stuff, it’s the bear that gets remembered.”

Cursed with a hopelessly pedestrian moniker and a laughable album title (“Contemplating jazz”? Seriously?), Hanna (a.k.a. Warren Harris from Cleveland, Ohio, of all places) nevertheless hit a high point in his career and created one of the canonical jazz-house albums with this, his fourth LP. Or rather, it would have been canonical if anyone but the staunchest of beat-heads and crate-diggers had bothered to check it out. It’s not Hanna’s fault; he’s released dozens of recordings on dozens of labels, and all of them are at least good. Warm, inviting, soulful, as sturdy as a bank vault and landing smack in the middle of acid jazz’s heyday, Hanna’s best music is a clear example of how you can do everything right as an electronic musician and still get robbed.

Contemplating Jazz takes the ultra-smooth, ultra-tasteful house aesthetic of the Naked Music catalogue to a higher artistic plane, where both clubbers and cognoscenti could ostensibly find a lot to like. It helps that Hanna is a multi-instrumentalist (check the wicked slap-bass anchoring “My Own”) with a jazz musician’s ear for pleasant chord changes. On previous records—Severance (1999) in particular—Hanna had a rocky relationship with his sequencer, his beats fumbled over themselves as though they weren’t even chained to a metronomic grid, but here they’re solid and savvy, impressing without showboating. Like its constituent parts, Contemplating Jazzsplits the difference between workmanlike and low-maintenance to form something that’s surprisingly rare in electronica: highbrow dance music that you actually want to dance to.

Hanna may be as accomplished a techno artist as Theo Parrish and Glenn Underground (if not Kenny Dixon Jr.), but the most remarkable thing about him is that he’s consistent, almost terrifyingly so. That consistency applies to the quality of his vast catalogue, whether he’s dealing in house, drum ’n bass or hip-hop, as well as to the quality of individual songs; it’s pointless to mention standout tracks on Contemplating Jazz by name because they’re all so strong, without a single dud in the bunch. He’s even consistent in his song structures: Nearly all of them follow a pattern in which he lays down a theme at the start of the track, and every 16 bars or so a different instrument—be it a pad, a clipped diva vocal, a live vibraphone or upright bass—takes the stage and does its thing. It’s a modus operandi that looks dreadfully dull on paper, but Hanna milks the formula for all it’s worth and turns it into a signal attribute.

Nowadays it may seem as though Hanna fell off the face of the Earth, since Contemplating Jazz was his last LP in wide release, but he’s still keeping the torch aflame with seven-inch singles, digital-only albums and CD imports. I picked up a couple of his newest offerings, 2007’s Beautiful Mystery and 2008’s Portrait of Warren, and while each was solid in its own right, when comparing them to Contemplating Jazz I noticed a saddening droop in craftsmanship. The ear-pleasing samples and jazz fixations were still in place, but the beats didn’t always hit the target and the overall feeling was of an imitation of Hanna, rather than the real thing. It was probably the fecundity that did it; expecting Hanna to keep reaching his plateau with that kind of release schedule is cruel. I’m (reluctantly) inclined to say that jazz-house is one of the easier musical genres to pull off, but even in a dulcet, groovy and overcrowded arena, Contemplating Jazz was something special.

How is Bonnaroo fitting for a Vassaroo? Many students plan to make the pilgramage to the festival this year to revel in the communal aspect of festivals.

But it is too simple to call Bonnaroo just a “Music and Arts Festival.” To do so would ignore the countless attractions: a silent disco where live music channels through dancers’ headphones, batting cages sponsored by Major League Baseball, a village devoted to domestic and international beer, interactive art “pods” and a full market located next to the 24-hour lighted fountain. As Bobby Goodrich ’10 put it, “It’s going to be like Founder’s Day on crack.”

Bonnaroo is a four-day festival held in Manchester, Tenn. from June 12-15. Since its inception in 2002, Bonnaroo has hosted artists of all musical origins, from Neil Young to Jurassic 5. There are over 130 artists playing this year, including Kanye West, Metallica, Pearl Jam, Broken Social Scene, Willie Nelson and Talib Kweli.

But Bonnaroo is not limited to music; comedy is a vital part of the festival’s atmosphere. There will be a comedy tent where many artists will perform throughout the week, including Chris Rock, Janeane Garofalo and David Cross.

Jim Norton, Ben Folds and Patrick Hallahan from the band My Morning Jacket are a few of the artists who will play at Bonnaroo this summer. They spoke to a group of about a dozen journalists in an interview over the phone on April 23.

Hallahan described the seasonal atmosphere at Bonnaroo as promoting “a feeling of togetherness” and “a very comfortable, laid-back vibe.” This will be My Morning Jacket’s fifth Bonnaroo appearance. Their last Bonnaroo appearance, in 2006, began at midnight and lasted three hours.

“That was one of the most electrifying experiences of my life,” said Hallahan. “It was something out of the heavens, that’s for sure.”
The festivities appeal to the Vassar student as well.

Peter Canino ’10 summarized his reason to go to Bonnaroo this year with a terse exclamation: “Just to have some fun!”

“I’m looking forward to seeing My Morning Jacket, MGMT, Pearl Jam and M.I.A., especially because I couldn’t get a ticket when she played here,” Canino said. While he has never been to Bonnaroo before, Canino said that he “has been looking forward to it for a few years.”

Folds admitted that he did not truly enjoy festivals before he played Bonnaroo for the first time in 2006.

“I was sort of a born-again festival player after that,” said Folds. “I don’t take [festivals] as lightly now when I go because it’s possible that it might not suck when you show up.”

Julie Carlsen ’11 is going to Bonnaroo for the first time this summer. “I’ve been meaning to go to a festival for a few years, and I figured, ‘You might as well go big or go home,’” she said.

Tickets are still available online, at various discount Web sites and at the festival’s official Web site, bonnaroo.com. The price ranges from $209-$244 for general tickets, which include a parking pass and camping site.

Our worst enemies are sometimes the people we respect the most. Consider the most bitter feud between rappers: Tupac and Biggie, who targeted each other in their lyrics in apparent attempts to degrade the other’s credibility or question their sexuality. But through the insults, they were also inherently showing the utmost respect for one another. They actually wrote entire songs about each other, and while the messages may not have been respectful, their very existence signifies the rappers’ profound esteem for each other. The ostensible adversary poses some kind of threat to the other, and by responding on such a public level, we demonstrate recognition and respect for each others’ abilities.

I started thinking about this paradox last week, when I heard that the very public quarrel blowing smoke from the Volunteer State to the Constitution State and disappointing fans of women’s basketball nationwide had intensified.

This past season, Pat Summitt, Head Coach of the University of Tennessee women’s basketball team, refused to reschedule the annual game between her top-ranked team and the University of Connecticut Huskies, coached by Summitt’s favorite enemy, constant trader of spat Geno Auriemma. The match-up dated back to 1995 and was consistently one of the top-billed and most-viewed games on the entire women’s schedule.

Summitt and Auriemma are, by all accounts, the most dominant coaches to ever patrol the sidelines in NCAA Division I women’s basketball, and Summitt is the most successful coach in all divisions of NCAA basketball, men’s or women’s. Her career record is 983-182, and the last time one of her teams lost more than five games was the 1996-97 season, when her 29-10 squad still took home the National Championship—one of the eight she has collected in her 34 years at Tennessee. There have only been 27 NCAA Championships in the history of women’s collegiate basketball. That means Summitt has won almost a third of them.

Auriemma’s career record is 655-122, which currently matches Summitt’s overall winning percentage, 84 percent. Auriema has successfully hung five Championship banners from the rafters in UConn’s Gampel Pavilion, but he hasn’t quite managed to get the hardwood renamed after him, even after winning an NCAA-record 69 consecutive home games from 2000 to 2003. The court in Knoxville is called—you guessed it—“The Summitt.”

So shouldn’t these two be united by their success and the excitement they have brought to women’s basketball? Shouldn’t they have some kind of illegitimate hoops mastermind lovechild to break all of the records they set themselves?

Okay, maybe they shouldn’t have a kid. It would be genetically predisposed to really, really bad hair and a penchant for unsightly pantsuits.

The fact is that the two basketball geniuses have simply never gotten along, and the conflict escalated this season, with Auriemma and some sportswriters going so far as to refer to the less-than-cordial relationship as a “cold war.”

Summitt skirts around press conference questions regarding the source of the dispute with quips like, “Ask Geno.” And then the reporters ask Geno, and he responds “Ask Pat,” with all the maturity of a third grader.

Last week, though, the source of the childish behavior finally became clear.

Apparently, Summitt and the University of Tennessee had submitted a 30-page complaint to the Southeastern Conference of the NCAA. The report detailed the alleged recruiting violations Auriemma commited during his time at UConn.

The document claims that “multiple NCAA by-laws pertaining to boosters’ involvement, permissible recruiters and offers and incentives might have been violated,” according to an article in The New York Times last Sunday, April 27.

The tipping point for Summitt may have come back in 2005, when the two coaches were engaged in a recruiting battle for the nation’s then-top high school recruit, Maya Moore.

At the time, Connecticut self-reported a minor NCAA rule infringement, admitting that they had arranged a private tour of the ESPN studios for Moore, who ended up signing with Connecticut. She was an All-American this past season as a freshman and is widely considered the greatest player at the collegiate level, especially after Summitt lost her star Candace Parker to the Women’s National Basketball Association.

The ESPN violation was all Summitt could take, and she canceled the annual meeting of the masterminds after the story became public.

And now the audience for women’s basketball is missing out on its greatest potential team rivalry. Hundreds of thousands of young female players across the country don’t define Tennessee-Connecticut as a contest of incredible athletic and coaching prowess, but simply as Auriemma-Summitt and all of the infantile quarrels that come out of it.

I hesitate to say that the coaches’ vocal contempt for one another signifies the kind of respect and resigned admiration that Biggie and Tupac held onto throughout their recordings, as odd as that comparison may be, because a coach’s art is not critique, but coaching.

Making their personal issues public is the most selfish act they can commit, as both are taking away from the experience for their players as a result. To show true respect would be for Summitt to set aside her differences and acknowledge Auriemma as what he is: a talented and incredibly successful hard-nosed coach, just like herself.

And luckily for us, neither has to rap to prove it.

—Emma Carmichael ‘10 is an urban studies major and a member of the Vassar women’s basetball team. This semester she is editorializing on issues in all divisions of college-level athletics

“We really wanted to sound like ourselves but not sound like ourselves. It was always going to be difficult,” said Geoff Barrow of Portishead at a Pitchfork Media interview on April 7.

Barrow and the rest of Portishead had every reason in the world to feel this way. When Dummy debuted in 1994, it didn’t sound like anything else and wasn’t even expected to sell 50,000 copies. It’s hard to believe it in this day and age, but Dummy’s dark, torchy pop, punctuated with hip-hop beats and swimming in a sea of bass, had never before been co-opted by anyone—not even Massive Attack, who had approached trip-hop from more of a dance perspective. It blew up, sparking a trip-hop genesis in alt-rock circles looking for a viable (and similarly angst-ridden) alternative to grunge, especially in the United States. Now, of course, Dummy’s sound is everywhere, from the umpteen upstart trip-hop bands that subsequently appeared to spy films, cocktail parties and massage therapy commercials. So we would be forgiven for not being bowled over by Dummy today, and Portishead would be forgiven for wanting to distance themselves from it.

When last we heard from Portishead, it seemed as though they were packing it in for good, leaving us with a slightly less fresh self-titled album in 1997 and a live recording at Manhattan’s Roseland Ballroom in 1998 before retreating into the shadows. Always something of an enigma and quite shy of the press, it was left to us to assume that Portishead was frustrated with how their crown jewel had been assimilated and watered-down, and that they were too daunted by the challenge that Barrow mentioned above to record a third album: How do you sound like yourself and not sound like yourself?

All of which makes Third—a record that wasn’t even supposed to exist—such a cryptically dazzling triumph. Third is no Dummy : It’s much bleaker, makes precious few references to pop, and attains a level of creepiness that Dummy’s strangest song, “Wandering Star,” only suggested. Yet one listen to Third is all it takes to realize that nobody else is making music quite like this, and this is how Portishead still sound like themselves. In fact, hearing Thirdin 2008 may clue us into what it was like to hear Dummy in 1994.

Counterintuitive as it may seem, the first thing to do when approaching Third is to forget about trip-hop and all the associations it carries. Barrow’s drums stay far, far away from a hip-hop swagger; rather than providing a backbone, these diverse rhythms teeter on edge with the rest of the music and add another ominous layer to the mix. “Plastic” uses amped, clipped drum rolls that send the song screeching to a halt about a dozen times, and “We Carry On” is driven by a scary timpani-led tribal stomp (Morcheeba this isn’t). Barrow doesn’t cop out by adding bassy undercurrents for cheap mystery; instead, he punches up the compression and keeps the sound trebly and brittle, giving the impression that everything is flying right at you right between the eyes. Third may be stubbornly unsexy, but that doesn’t mean it’s not alluring. Indeed, it wields an odd magnetic power that draws the listener ever further into its disorienting abyss, even when all of the elements jump bluntly out of the speakers.

By the same token, Third’s allure doesn’t make it an easy listen, and it can be particularly heady when experienced in one straight pass. The sequencing feels all wrong, moving up and down and up again in the most unsettling of ways. After the distorted anti-song “Silence” kicks the record off, Portishead dips into the heavily narcotized haunted house of “Hunter,” where Beth Gibbons’ vocals drift sleepily and hypnotically through the arrangement. “We Carry On” is followed by the 90-second respite “Deep Water,” which sounds like Gibbons fronting the Ink Spots over a ukulele melody, before being gunned down by the incessant staccato rapid-firing of “Machine Gun.” Through it all, Gibbons sings like an innocent bystander; divorced from and frightened by the music around her, she becomes our stand-in for its unfamiliar territory. She contributes little to the record compositionally and melodically, but remove her and obliterate a sizable chunk of Third’s emotional punch.

The members of Portishead are noted experimentalists, but they don’t just make cool sounds for fun. The backward-looped guitar on “Nylon Smile,” the warped ascending scales on “Hunter,” and the many other weird noises that crop up on Thirdcontain an element of caution like aural barbed wire: As unpleasant as they may be, they’re there to keep us from venturing somewhere truly dangerous. The creepy Portuguese television program that begins “Silence” seems appropriate, since listening to Thirdcan feel as though we’re tuning into a channel that we’re not meant to know about or watch. I speculate that trip-hop in its nascent form—Massive Attack’s Mezzanine, Tricky’s Maxinquaye, and yes, Portishead’sDummy —was originally meant to invoke a sort of forbidden underworld, but that somewhere down the road the plot got lost, and its darkness and foreboding turned into something more manageable, fashionable and marketable. By rescuing trip-hop from a fate of Banana Republic soundtracks and putting their extremely personal stamp on a tired genre, Portishead have re-established themselves not simply as masters of their craft, but as reinventors of it.

The Minstrels also created a video, entitled “Behind the Minstrels,” to explain the group’s evolution and the role the group played in implementing the desegregation of the sexes. Parts of the video will be played at the beginning and middle of the concert, and it will feature special guests from Vassar administration and faculty.

—Gülfem Demiray, Assistant Arts Editor

Equal parts Six Feet Under and Desperate Housewives, the play reveals more of the dead war bride’s depressing backstory as it progresses—from her arrival at a small farming town to her unsatisfying marriage.

Idlewild, which formed in Fall 2007, sets out to give women and women’s perspectives a designated outlet.

—Jackson Reeves, Arts Editor

In addition, 18 team members were part of the NFHCA National Academic Squad, which honors student athletes with a GPA of 3.30 or better in the first semester of the academic year. This is the fifth consecutive year in which the team has been recognized by the NFHCA for excellence in academics.

—Kelly Capehart

Though Smith also played squash at Vassar, he was most talented on the tennis court: He was a team captain and a four-year No. 1 player. The gazebo dedication will honor a great athlete and inspiring Vassar alumnus.

All students are invited to attend the ceremony on Saturday, May 3 at 11 a.m. at the Josselyn tennis courts. The ceremony will be followed by a varsity vs. alumnae/i tennis match.

—Kelly Capehart, Sports Editor

I stole a full keg of beer from the Mug, got caught by Security and told them that I found the keg under a tree behind Jewett.

I told my boyfriend that my friend visiting was gay so it wouldn't be a big deal if we shared my single room for a couple of nights. But the truth was that my “gay friend” was my other boyfriend.

After viewing much of your not-so-secret dong-dingling, I spit in your most treasured headdress. —mike lieberthal

When the highway kid punched a window and cut an artery in his wrist, I cauterized the wound with a cake knife and a lighter and stopped the bleeding. I did a better job than Dr. Crawfish would have done.

I only hooked up with you because I was too lazy to walk home.

I am on a year-long quest to unite the campus by hooking up with both jocks and hipsters.

Dear Hannah, Sometimes, when I know you’ll be at the library all day, and I’m home alone, I go into your underwear drawer and wear your bra as a hat. It is my magical thinking cap. I’ve never studied better than in those moments.

I still have a crush on my freshman student fellow!

Sophomore year, my 19th birthday...you rode the ambulance with me to the hospital because I couldn’t hold down a half-liter of gin. The nurse said she couldn’t get my temperature under the tongue. A quick “you know what that means” was all I needed to hear to roll to my side and pull up the back of my hospital gown. As I reached out for your hand and looked into your eyes (preparing to receive the steel temperature probe in my lower orifice), I swear I would have switched teams for you, Sean Leahy.

I had sex in my friend’s room and her friend said to her in class, “Someone had sex in your room last night and we know it wasn’t you because we know what you sound like.”

You don’t know me that well, but I read your livejournal.

I have $200+ in library fines that I need to pay in order to graduate.

We stole the fifth floor couch from Main, and it was only found because one of us got caught breaking into our own suite over Spring Break. —Fratcave

I’m secretly straight but too scared to tell anyone!

Dear Molly, The condom you found in your bed freshman year, that we said “Barrett put there as a joke”? yeah, about that...Don’t you miss AJ Tindall?

When you stood me up to go to a Frisbee party, I gave your toothbrush a toilet bath. —applesauce

My friend once ghost-rid a pink bike into the TH-path stream. Then he felt guilty, jumped in, and fished it out.

I had sex in a janitor’s closet in Cushing and busted in the mop bucket.

For most of this year I’ve wished Luis Trujillo was straight so I could bone him.

Even though you’re a Republican, I still think you’re cute.

My friend had sex in the CHOICE office. She’s not a CHOICE member.

I lost my virginity on JYA.

The keg at my last party was non-alcoholic.

I made out with Molly Finkelstein in the Passion Pit.

During freshman week, a certain runner told me he liked the v in my v-neck and then I made out with him.

I tried to hit on Dave Mann once.

My freshman year I got so drunk and went to the deli at the end of the night. I convinced Tony I was Italian and waited tables with a shitty Italian (think Mario Brothers) accent and went to the back and washed dishes with his sister. I think he gave me some beer for my troubles.

“Instead of one of us making a move, my teammate and I flipped a coin to see who would have to commit the first strike. I won. He struck. I forgot to say ‘call it, friend-o.’” —anton sigur

Fall semester of junior year, I went to the Library of Congress over October break to do research for a political science paper. After being there for a considerable amount of time, I went to the bathroom and jerked off while two elderly academics discussed their differing opinions of post-colonial hegemony in the third world. —Banned from D.C.

I was having sex with someone and thought he was Marc Gottlieb and I made a weird comment about what he wrote on my livejournal.

Freshman year I did, and still do, feel ashamed that I’m not a lesbian.

I’m relying on Alanis Morissette, hard drugs and the word “awesome” for the bulk of my commencement speech. —[Isn’t It] IronicPrez08

I threw up on my friend’s puppy at a party.

I couldn’t bring a boy back to my double as a freshman, so we decided to hang (make) out in the parlor instead. My belt buckle was digging into my tummy so I took off my pants. DON’T WORRY, I was wearing great Superman underwear from Target! Totally PG-13! Anyway, we were making out and then Security came into the parlor and shone a flashlight on my butt. I don't remember much, except that the Security dude asked, “Um...is this consensual?” and then left.

On spring break on a Greek isle, I jokingly challenged Martha Knauf to split a handle of whiskey with me, figuring she couldn't do it. Later that night, while Martha found her way home, relatively clear-headed, I took off my jacket and leapt, from the balcony of a bar, into the very cold Mediterranean sea, landing on jagged rocks. I woke up soaking wet and naked and confused as to what country I was in, in a hotel room with my girlfriend’s best friend. Martha Knauf outdrank me and had a comfortable night, while I lay shivering, nude and shamed.

After a night at the Mug, my friends and I broke a lot of shit on the way back home, including a lamppost, several plant-holders and some lights outside the Old Observatory. A person was later seen humping one of these lights, and because he was with the baseball team they were all blamed. —foxyboxing

Lilly Jacobson ’10 goes to bat against St. Lawrence during the weekend of April 25-26. The team emerged with three losses and one win against St. Lawrence last week.

J. Carlton/The Miscellany News

Millions of girls play competitive team softball in America today; very few play baseball. In fact, there are no collegiate women’s baseball teams.

Not long ago, however, it was less unusual for women to play baseball. In 1866 students formed the first-ever women’s baseball team—the Vassar Resolutes.

The Resolutes are now little more than a sepia-colored photograph in the Vassar Encyclopedia. But there is still one female athlete on campus swinging a bat, and that is Lilly Jacobson ’10.

While Vassar women in baseball history makes for an interesting backdrop to her story, for Jacobson it’s about being a ball player and loving the game.

“I started in little league, and there were a couple of girls then, but I didn’t want to switch to softball when we were 12, so I kept playing,” Jacobson said. But playing as a female hasn’t been easy for her.

Though Title IX—the amendment requiring that men’s and women’s athletic receive equal funding—is now 25 years old, men’s and women’s sports are still largely segregated realms. A woman playing baseball, like a man playing field hockey or a woman playing football, is still an anomaly.

Freshman year of high school in Reno, Nev., Jacobson was cut from the junior varsity team by a coach who told her she wasn’t good enough to play for him. Jacobson transferred to Earl Wooster High School, where she pitched about 15 innings and had a 3.60 Earned Run Average.

Her teammates had mixed feelings about her playing on the team. “It took awhile for the guys to warm up to me,” she recalled. “It took me showing them that I was just any other ball player and prove that I could play with them.” But for Jacobson, the extra work was worth it.

“It’s been kind of a battle, but I just never wanted to switch to softball,” she said.

Jacobson came to Vassar to play golf, but returned to baseball this year. The Vassar baseball team was more open-minded about playing with a girl than her high school teammates were, Jacobson said.

“The guys on the team have been really supportive. Like immediately when I came out in the fall they accepted and welcomed me,” she said. This contrasted with teams she played with in high school in Nevada.

While there are no known NCAA women’s baseball teams, several countries boast national teams, including the United States. When Jacobson was selected to play on the USA Women’s National Team in 2006, it was the first time she had played on a team comprised solely of women.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” Jacobson said of the team. “I wasn’t sure if they’d be softball players who decided to play baseball or what, but they weren’t; they were just baseball players. It was really good baseball.”

The Women’s National team, for which Jacobson pitched and played third base, won its second consecutive gold medal at the 2006 Women’s World Cup in Taipei, Taiwan.

“It was fun to see the different countries’ style of baseball,” she said.
Jacobson plans to try out for the national team again this summer. In August, the team will travel to the 2008 Women’s World Cup location in August in Matsuyama, Japan.

Johnny Kessenich ’09 was implemental in the volleyball team’s incredibly successful 26-7 season.

J. Carlton/The Miscellany News

Brian Butterworth ’09 takes a shot. The Vassar men’s basketball team finished 18-8 this year.

Men’s tennis also had a stellar record this year with a 13-4 record this spring. Ashish Patil ’08 and Michael Mattelson ’10 both had strong performances this year.

J. Carlton/The Miscellany News

Vassar’s 2007-2008 academic year has been about a lot more than academics. It has featured stellar athletic performances by many teams, particularly the men’s basketball, men’s volleyball and men’s and women’s rugby teams. All teams set new records, boasted high winning percentages and produced athletes who went on to win league and national titles.

The men’s basketball season ended with a 18-8 winning record, the best winning percentage in Vassar College history. They qualified for Liberty League championships, where they placed second in the regular season, as well as qualified for the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) championships. “From an individual, career and team standpoint,” Head Coach Mike Dutton noted, “the past season was an extremely successful season.”

Over the course of the season, five players from the men’s basketball team were recognized as Liberty League performers of the week: Lawrence Avitabile ’08, Tyson Brazell ’08, Brian Butterworth ’09, Joey Davis ’09 and Matt Nunn ’09. Avitabile and Brazell were both 1,000-point scorers and were named to the Liberty League All-Conference team. Coaches also voted Avitabile as the Liberty League Player of the Year.

Athletes from the senior class, including Avitabile, Brazell, Daniel Forcella, Kyle Magnus and Jon Swartz, are graduating with 60 career wins, the most in Vassar history. Despite losing these players, Dutton remains positive. “With hard work, I’m confident that next year’s team has the potential to experience similar success,” he said.

The men’s volleyball team ended the season 26-7, also winning many championship titles, impressive rankings and individual recognition. The team had more wins this season than they had in the previous four seasons combined. One of 47 teams in Division III Men’s Volleyball, Vassar belongs to the North East Collegiate Volleyball Association (NECVA) conference, comprised of 39 schools. The Molten Invitational serves as the Division III Men’s Volleyball championship.

The Brewers won the Metro Division Championship of the NECVA conference, and then went on to capture the Conference Championship as well. They beat first-seeded University of California at Santa Cruz to advance to the final round against Springfield College at the Molten Invitational. “It was an amazing experience, and it could not have happened without all 13 guys working together,” said captain Scott Leserman ’09.

“We played a lot of teams that were individually more talented than us, but we played as a team,” commented Head Coach Jonathan Penn. “To play our best match of the year when we need it to make the final was almost unbelievable, especially in the environment of the Final Four.” They finished the season ranked second in the country, according to the CBS College Sports Network and the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Division III Men’s Volleyball Coaches poll.

Many individual players received recognition. Phil Tully ’10, the NECVA Conference Player of the Year, was named to the All-American First team. Johnny Kessinich ’09 was named a First Team All American, while Kyle Giunta ’08 was named to the All-America Second Team. Both Kessinich and Giunta received First Team All-NECVA honors. Steve Micucci ’09 was named to the Second Team All-NECVA. Additionally, Penn was named NECVA Coach of the Year. “Despite the individual achievements from this season, it really was about the team,” Penn commented.

“The trust, respect and love that permeated this team was what made it great.”

The team will return to the 2008-2009 season with five of their current seven starters. “We’re bringing in a solid recruiting class,” Leserman noted. “It looks to be another great season for us.”

The men’s rugby team, currently 12-3, also had an exciting run this year. The team was unable to advance to Nationals in the Fall 2007 season due to a disappointing loss to Middlebury College, the defending Division III champions. But the Brewers have rebounded and placed second in the Metropolitan New York Conference this past fall.

Powerhouse seniors, as well as incoming freshmen, have boosted success. Captain Garrett King ’08 scored 12 tries this season, the most for any forward on the team. “He has had a phenomenal season,” Head Coach Tony Brown noted. “We’ve also had an exciting freshman class.” Most players come with no experience, so the team relies on pure athleticism.

“A young lad, Garrett Montgomery ’11, tackles well and is a good athlete and evasive runner,” said Brown. “He’s expected to start as scrumhalf next season.” In addition, Iain Gordon ’11 “has really come on and leaped some bounds. He’s a great physical presence.”

“Next season should be great,” Omar Fayyaz ’09 predicted. “We’re losing a lot of big-time seniors, but our freshman class is filled with guys who are both eager to and capable of stepping into their shoes.”

The men’s team spent a portion of the season preparing the women’s team for their run at Nationals. “Our coach taught us Navy’s style of play so that the women would know what to expect” at Nationals, Fayyaz said.

The women’s rugby team currently boasts a record of 13-4. They have been in the Top 20 National Collegiate Rankings all season, and at one point they were ranked as high as seventh place.

The team beat Air Force and Army in the fall and went on to qualify for Nationals this spring. Though they lost to Navy in the first round of 16, Brown called the team “the best of the rest.”
“I could mention every single member of the squad,” said Brown. “Everyone improved enormously.” Captain Elise Okusami ’08, who has played flyhalf for two years, really stands out in Brown’s mind. “She has been superb,” said Brown. “

She has the best hands of both [the men’s and women’s] teams. She has worked so hard on her own to become a tower of strength.”

Four individual players were nominated for All-American: Okusami, Danielle Goodman-Levy ’09, Marlo Messer ’08 and Keri Peacock, ’11.

This year has seen multiple teams advance to National Championships, and many athletes have been recognized on a national level. The soaring team support and spirit can only pave the way for more success in the future.

3 p.m. Tea. Yeah, yeah, I’m totally sad to be graduating. Rose Parlor

3 p.m. CHOICE Open House. Stock up for summer and seniors stock up for life after graduation. Come on, haven’t you seen the NYC free condom program? They’re at Steve Madden in SoHo. Jewett, Basement

p.m. Lecture. Kenji Yoshino will speak about “covering.” A cappella, make up your own damn songs. Rocky, 200

5 p.m. Goodbye Davison Dinner. One last dorm dinner for Davison residents before parting ways for a year! Hey prospies, Davison isn’t closing, it’s just going to live on your grandparents’ farm. Field, Joss Beach

7 p.m. “Waiting For Godot.” I once hid drugs in this event’s locale when running away from Security. Ah, the collegiate stories we’ll tell our grandchildren…Stone wall between Sanders Classroom and Sanders Physics (not a joke)

8 p.m. “Tea.” Idlewild Theatre Ensemble presents “Tea” by Velina Hasu Houston. You know, same as at 3 p.m., but “ironic.” Susan Finkelstein Shiva Theater

Midnight. Carifest Mug Night. This party will have you thinking you’re in the Caribbean during Carnival. Hot like the Caribbean, sweaty like the Mug. The Mug

SATURDAY, 5/3

8 a.m. Rent-a-Soccer Player Fundraiser. Hire one or more athletes from the Women’s Soccer Team to do various jobs around your house. Oh, but I wanted Ben Fox to fold my laundry…wearing a sexy maid outfit.

9 a.m. Founder's Day! You’re only allowed to cry once in life, and I’ve been saving mine for this day. Ballantine Field

SUNDAY, 5/4

2 p.m. Real ID Act Forum. Organizers from the New York Civil Liberties Union will discuss the Real ID act. And, you know, how to not get caught with a fake. Rocky 200

MONDAY, 5/5

3 p.m. Tea. I’ll miss all the times I’ve had here. Rose Parlor

TUESDAY, 5/6

3 p.m. Tea. The Backpage, tea jokes, mocking my peers, hatin’ on everyone. Rose Parlor

5 p.m. Davison vs. Joss: Freshman Water Balloon Fight. Ew, gross. Don’t exploit CHOICE’s free condom generosity like that! Joss Beach

5 p.m. ViCE Cream Social. Double scoop of Sam Bloch’s balls with Evan Altshuler sprinkles, please! Chapel Lawn

6 p.m. Contrast Release Party. Freshman wannabe Dov Charneys: Please supply your own lube. Sock required. Faculty Commons

9 p.m. Narrative Writing Reading. Ooh, I’d love some “fiction” about someone kicking her ex in the balls. CDF, 106

WEDNESDAY, 5/7

3 p.m. Tea. But I just wanna say, I’m really sorry for any pain I’ve caused or feelings I’ve hurt. Rose Parlor

5 p.m. Helicon English Department Faculty Reading. Featuring M. Mark and Michael Joyce. Note: 3D glasses and an Apple computer from circa 1988 will be provided for this hypertext fiesta. Class of ’51 Reading Room

6 p.m. Club Sports Banquet. I hope there’s a “Mildly Annoying, Lying Homogenous Blob” award. Ballantine Field

8 p.m. Soiree ’68. Celebrate the 40th anniversary of the May 1968 uprisings in Paris with a talk from David Schalk and Barbarella projected onto Ferry House. Jane Fonda as she spent her time here, plastered up against a wall. FDF Quad

THURSDAY, 5/8

3 p.m. Tea. Psych! P.S. Everything I’ve ever written on this page is true. Bye! Rose Parlor

5 p.m. Annual Senior Composition Reading. Have you ever wanted to read the theses of your peers? Have you ever wanted to hear them read aloud from their theses? Join me, as I laugh at Molly and mock her academic “achievements.” Sanders Hall, 212

7 p.m. 2010 Showcase.A gathering of the sophomore class, featuring student reflections on the achievements and challenges of our year. Congratulations, you kind of kicked your drug habit and made some friends! FDF Quad

9 p.m. Night Owls Final Concert. Okay, fine, senior confession: I secretly love a cappella. Specifically, the Penn Six a cappella version of Gangsta’s Paradise. I’m sorry. I’ve been living a lie. Aula

MN: What other experiences have you had where your education at Vassar has served you well in the theater world?
EA: Well, I also did another Molière play. In English, it’s called “The Bungler,” and it’s not terribly well known. But the way the director worked, he really just expected you to know the genre and know what you needed to do and just sort of try things out. And because of the fact that I did know what was sort of expected, we were able to do a lot of really creative things, staging-wise: jumping on each others’ backs and doing all kinds of crazy things that perhaps I would not have had the wherewithal to try if I didn’t know that was acceptable in commedia dell’arte.

MN: How did Vassar produce a Molière performance in Avery Hall, Vassar’s former theater facility, when you were here?
EA: It was my senior year, and, it was in Avery, and they did it in an incredibly, absolutely traditional way. William Rothwell was the director, now deceased, and everything was absolutely historically accurate right down the boning in your corsets. At the time, we were not doing anything experimental. It was definitely: this is how you’re going to do a Molière play if it’s going to be done, you know, contemporaneously to when it was written, which was actually very exciting, you know, feeling like you were really getting into the nuts and bolts of how it would have been done at the time, and I think it’s great to know that because then if you do choose to, in the future, take liberties, hten you know where the source material is really coming from and then I think you have more of a right to take liberties if you actually know how it was meant to be done originally. It’s like what they say about majors: you have to know how to paint realistically before you’re allowed to go off and paint abstract.

MN: One of the characters in “Triumph of Love” needs to infiltrate a “men-only” zone in the musical. How does that compare to Vassar, since Vassar was breaking into a “men-only” zone, academia, when it was founded?
EA: Quite honestly, in this musical, it really plays so much like a broad farce. And the reason that she’s infiltrating this “men-only” zone is really just to get beyond the garden wall so she can get the guy that she’s fallen in love with. I don’t think it really explores those issues, although that’s a great issue. Also, it’s a little bit of a misnomer because my character Hesione is already in the garden, and she’s a woman, but she’s the only one who’s allowed in because she’s so stern and she’s a philosopher, but it’s not really a men-only zone because I’m already there…In drama, in acting, in theater, it’s really not a men only zone, so I really haven’t had any of those issues in my adult life, like having to break into a men-only zone. You know, what I correct myself because I also was the lead singer of a band for a while, and I have to say: rock-and-roll is very much a men-only zone, and sometimes it was a bit difficult to have people take you seriously and have people listen to you as a woman, and that can be a bit frustrating, so I guess I do relate to that whole experience, and I’m very grateful to all the women’s studies classes that were available at Vassar. So you can have that sense of presence. And say, “Get out of my way; I’m a girl, listen to me.”

MN: I’d like to speak about Velvet Chain. I know that your band performed the song “Strong” on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Could you talk about that experience? Why did you create a band?
EA: I graduated from Vassar and ended up moving to Los Angeles, pretty much immediately after graduation. Even though I was trained in theater and everyone said I should probably go to New York to pursue theater, I think because I grew up on the east coast and I’ve just been here all my life. So I went over there, and I was pursuing television and film. But I really missed the outlet of singing, because I’ve been a singer my whole life. Quite honestly, I didn’t found the band as much as I started singing in an existing band that then dissolved and re-founded with me as lead singer. It was just the ideal outlet for me. I have to say that out of all the experiences with Velvet Chain, we were signed for a while with an indie label and we did the college tour circuit across the country, it did more my ability on stage just owning your own body and owning your own presence then quite honestly anything I did in theater in school. Even though Vassar gave me an incomparable education in the drama department, there’s something about having to basically carry an entire hour of a rock-and-roll show by yourself as a lead singer that’s basically an experience like trial by fire. It’s stuff that you just can’t learn in class. But back to Buffy, that was just a serendipitous situation where we had been playing in town for a while in L.A., and the music supervisor just happened to be a fan of our band and had seen us a few times and had our demo CD at the time. And asked us if I wanted to do it, and since it was the very first season they had a lot more liberty to use unknown, unsigned, up-and-coming indie bands…That was fantastic. We sang two songs on the show, “Strong” and Treason,” and “Song” was the one that ended up on the soundtrack album a few years later. It was really a fantastic thing for us.

MN: Has the band since dissolved, or is it still active?
EA: It’s still active in writing and recording. We haven’t put out a full-length album in about four years now, but we’re still working on stuff. Jeff, who is the base-player and also my husband, is the primary sort of guru behind the band…We definitely do want to put out another album. But we don’t play live as much especially since I got back into doing theater.

MN: You also wrote the music for those songs. You’ve been singing your entire life, but where did you get the training to write music? Was that at Vassar, or did you gain that skill earlier?
EA: I was the kind of kid that used to sit down by the piano in my parents’ house and play by ear when I was about three or four years old and just sort of clank out melodies and stuff. So my parents put me into piano lessons around age five, maybe six. I was lucky enough to go to an all girls private school in New Jersey that was really liberal-minded about arts education, and by the time you were in high school your junior and senior year you could do independent studies in things that you were interested in, so I actually took music theory. But I did not do much in the music department at Vassar. I was actually part of Madrigals my freshman year, which is part of the music department. Other than that, I didn’t take any courses in the music department. You just get real world experience. You hear things in your head and know how to put them on paper or tell people how to play them.

MN: How would you describe your character in “Triumph of Love,” Hesione? She’s a philosopher; she’s the aunt of the protagonist’s love interest—she’s very traditional, conservative and almost strident. What is it like playing a character like that? Is it similar to your personality or different?
EA: It’s actually not at all similar to my personality, but I get cast as that role all the time because of my look: I stand, and I’m angular, people say that I look like a younger version of Angelica Houston. I just have that very severe look about me. So I’ve gotten quite good at playing that part because it’s what people seem to want me to do. My own personality is a little bit goofier than that, but I’ve had a lot of experience playing roles like that even at Vassar. I played in Blithe Spirit, and I played Ruth, who of the two wives is the very uptight, proper English lady…It’s so much fun though to play those roles because they’re so specific and you can just have so much fun with them because you can’t really be too over-the-top with them because the more ridiculously severe they are, the funnier they are. It’s a joy to play those kinds of parts. Ingénues are fun, but think character roles are just, you can’t really beat them for having a good time as an actor.

MN: How would you compare your singing style that you cultivated through Velvet Chain with the singing style that you’re going to use for this musical?
EA: With Velvet Chain, depending on the style of the song, whether it was more of a ballad or a rock kind of thing, I would sing in an almost unsupported style where you’re pushing a lot of air through so you kind of have that sort of whispy sound, and then the belty stuff. It’s really funny with rock-and-roll, there’s like a rock-and-roll pronunciation. If you over-enunciate, you don’t sound rock-and-roll; you have to sound cool. There’s just a way to sing rock-and-roll where yeah you want people to understand the words, but you cannot sing it the way you sing musical theater or jazz or anything classical. Particularly with this show, it’s much more of a traditional Broadway sound, where it’s very far forward, I don’t want to say nasal, and definitely enunciating to the moon. We’re doing it in a small space where no one is wearing mics, so you definitely need to be projecting and enunciating if anyone is going to understand anything that you’re singing. So yeah, they’re incredibly different…Going back to Vassar, that’s something that gave me incredible training; I don’t know if it’s the same situation there, but when we used to do those shows in Avery, like a 400-seat house with no amplification whatsoever, so you really had to learn how to fill a large space without amplification, and a lot of people don’t know how to do that anymore. So it’s great when I do these smaller shows where there’s no micing whatsoever to know that I do have the background and the training to know how to do it without hurting yourself.

MN: What is your appraisal of Vassar and the drama department? I know that you graduated with both departmental and general honors, so it seems like you really threw yourself into your studies while you were an undergraduate.
EA: Well, yes and no. I definitely did, but I definitely had a lot of fun because I was quite the Mug rat. I was one of those people who worked hard and played hard. I adored the drama department there. I thought it was beyond excellent…I really wanted to go somewhere where the focus was slightly more on dramaturgy and history and really understanding the full scope of what you were studying rather than just the mechanics of it. I think it served me incredibly well to have gone to a school where they cared as much about whether you could write a cogent paper about what Strindberg was trying to say and being able to make pretty sounds on stage. There are two completely different schools of thought on that: there are people who went to conservatory schools and said they served them incredibly well and they were really happy with what they got out of it; I just think Vassar does an excellent job of balancing the two. You get a lot of stage experience, but in addition to that you get to really concentrate on the academic side…It has served me incredibly well. When I’m working on a new piece, I tend to get along very well with the playwright and the director because I’m coming at things from a slightly different angle than perhaps other actors that they’ve worked with in the past may because I do come at it sometimes from an intellectual angle. It’s just a lot of fun being able to see all the aspects of it and to know where you’re coming from, historically. Like just showing up for “Triumph of Love” and knowing where it comes from in the long his story of theater, rather than just looking at it as a musical. It’s actually such an interesting piece in that way because it’s a musical that’s based on a French farce from the 18th century but is telling a story from ancient Greece.

MN: You clearly understand each of these temporal periods. How would you say that they’re interacting in “Triumph of Love”? How does this interaction complicate the play?
EA: I think for the audience it may a little bit confusing to see characters in full 18th-century costuming with tricorner hats and the whole thing, but they’re talking about Sparta and everyone’s name is Hermocrates and Hesione and then the lead character’s name is Leonide and her friend is named Corine, which are French names. It’s definitely complicated. We need to focus on just telling the story so that all of the other elements are like frosting on the cake, so that if some people get it, great, and if they don’t then it won’t take away from the experience of the show…The supporting characters they call the botanicals, which is very much like the botanicals in Shakespeare; they actually speak quite often in anachronistic, modern day English, which is kind of fun. So Hermocrates and my character, Hesione, and Agis, who is the love interest, he is the male protagonist, speak 99 percent of the time in very sort of traditional, classic language, and then everyone around them is speaking in this sort of anachronistic jargon, saying things like, “Yeah that sucks, but you go on,” which I think will help the audience to understand that we’re not just playing with class but we’re also playing with all these different time periods…I think if you just don’t get it, you don’t get it. It’s not “Anything Goes.” It’s asking the audience to pay a little bit more attention.

MN: How did you find your way back to theater after moving to L.A. and pursuing film and television?
EA: I had done a couple, I want to say three or four, very small sort of pieces while I was still pursuing television and film. I never completely left theater…Honestly, when you’re trying to pursue TV and film, unless you really hit it well, you always need a survival job. So I had my survival job, and there I was: out in L.A. working at Bloomingdales and waiting for the phone to ring for my next commercial audition or whatever it was going to be and doing Velvet Chain, which was all great. What happened was, when Sept. 11 happened, my dad happened to work down in that area, he worked at 1 Liberty Plaza, and he would take the Path train in every morning. So it was just a really hard day where we weren’t sure if he was alive or dead for a couple of hours before we were finally able to get through, and it was just a really cathartic day, and that day made me sort of take a look at what I was doing with my life, and I thought, “You know what, life is really short, I don’t know that I want to have working in retail be my survival job right now.” And really I didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere with the TV and film thing, and I knew I was a singer and I knew I had always done the musical theater thing. I had done “theater” theater forever, and that was what my degree was in. I just quit and auditioned for a show and got it, and just went from there…And I’ve been very fortunate to have been working on stage ever since. It’s just something where I felt like I came home where I knew that was where everyone had always told me I should be, and I’d sort of been resisting it, and I decided to finally go with the flow. And it looks like that’s probably what I should have been doing, but I’m glad that I took the path that I took. Because like I said before, if I hadn’t decided to do the film and TV thing, I never would have done Velvet Chain because I wouldn’t have been in L.A. in the first place. I’m so happy to have done that; I met so many people doing that. I learned an entirely different way of singing, which has helped me a lot even in musical theater because there are so many pop rock musicals now, and I get called in a lot for those.

Fresh from the Native American and Indigenous Studies Conference at the University of Georgia, faculty from Vassar’s American Culture Program are currently developing a Native American Studies correlate.

Consideration of the correlate was initiated three years ago by former Director of the American Culture Program Eileen Leonard. Historically focused on issues of individualism and community, the program began to reconsider what it meant to study American culture and how the field reflected the nation in the global context.

“As part of that rethinking about what constitutes American culture, we began to question how we could talk about American culture and not have part of the curriculum focused on Native American studies,” explained Professor of English Patricia Wallace.

Students ran with the idea. “There was also a lot of interest from students in the program, people who had spent time on reservations as part of a Junior Year Abroad or summer program, some who had written a thesis on native issues and did not have anywhere to continue their studies,” said Wallace.

In September 2006, faculty of the American Culture Program hired Molly McGlennen to help develop the Native American Studies Program. McGlennen has since been made an Assistant Professor of English.

Since McGlennen’s arrival, the American Culture Program has offered an introductory course on Native American Studies. McGlennen and Wallace plan to expand and formalize the program in the coming year by incorporating the disciplines of history and literature.

The response from faculty in a variety of disciplines has been overwhelmingly positive. A faculty seminar on the topic in Fall 2006 included faculty from the Biology, Sociology, Political Science, Art, English and Dance Departments, among others.

Next year, a host of 200-level courses in women’s studies, anthropology and history will focus on Native American issues.

McGlennen has also worked to bring a number of major names from the field of Native American Studies to campus, including participants in last year’s poetry roundtable “Earthworks: A Night of Native American Poetry,” which featured renowned contemporary Native American poets Janet McAdams, Kim Blaeser and Gordon Henry.

Following the positive feedback that they received during a roundtable discussion hosted by the Vassar representatives at the recent conference, Wallace and McGlennen were both encouraged that the program is on track.

McGlennen explained that “We are pinpointing the courses we already have on campus, and looking at what courses we want to develop.”

The program is also aimed at exploring the issues beyond the classroom.

“We are even playing with the idea of bringing in an elder-in-residence,” said McGlennen. “We are trying to find creative ways of bringing native people to campus.”
Wallace echoed that the goal of the program is to address local relevance as well as general issues.

“We really want to work on building an experiential component to the correlate, a connection with local Native America communities and a way for the program to contribute in some way to these local communities,” she said.

Potential connections with native communities in the region and in New York City are in the works, which will offer greater possibility for collaboration across disciplines.

“We actually imagine some courses that can be cross-listed,” said Wallace. “There are a number of multidisciplinary programs on campus that are wonderful and we see a future collaboration with urban studies, women’s studies and maybe even international studies or environmental studies.”

The correlate program is scheduled for review by the faculty and administration in Spring 2009. If approved, the correlate will be offered starting in Fall 2009. Students are already eager to participate.

“I have been getting a lot of students e-mails and people coming up to me asking, ‘When is this correlate going to start?’ and ‘What classes are you teaching?’” said McGlennen. “There is a lot of interest in the correlate and I have been encouraging those who have contacted me to start taking the courses being offered next year.”

Both Wallace and McGlennen hope that the program will open up the Vassar community to Native American history and culture. “The name ‘Poughkeepsie’ is a Native American name,” said Wallace. According to the Town of Poughkeepsie Web site, the name means ‘the reed-covered lodge by the little water place.’

“I think most students at Vassar do not think about how we are on native ground or that there is a strong native presence in New York state,” said Wallace.

While it may be too early for students to declare the correlate, the community is already anticipating the new program.

“The ALANA Center has already sent us an e-mail asking us to celebrate the new correlate,” said McGlennen, “and while we are not quite there, it is great to see that people are excited about it.”

Shvarts reviews footage for her art project, for which she allegedly inseminated herself and induced miscarriages.

Photo courtesy of The Yale Daily News

Yale University senior Aliza Shvarts has garnered national media attention with her latest art project. Shvarts claims to have spent the past year repeatedly becoming pregnant and subsequently using natural herbs to induce miscarriages. Though Yale officials argue that Shvarts’s project is a fictional piece of performance art, Shvarts herself maintains that her claims are true.

Shvarts wrote an opinion piece in the Yale Daily News stating that anonymous men, whom she refers to as “fabricators,” donated sperm for the project after being tested for sexually transmitted infections. Though Shvarts wrote that she would not disclose the “frequency and accuracy” of insemination, she went on to state that she injected the donated sperm each month using a needle-less syringe.

Shvarts claims that she took legal herbal medicines to induce miscarriages each month on the day she expected to start menstruating. Nobody knows if the blood she collected is the result of a miscarriage or if it is merely menstrual fluid.

Shvarts wrote in the Yale Daily News that the ambiguity of the project is what makes it true art.

“This ambivalence makes obvious how the act of identification or naming, the act of ascribing a word to something physical—is at its heart an ideological act, an act that literally has the power to construct bodies,” she wrote. “In a sense, the act of conception occurs when the viewer assigns the term ‘miscarriage’ or ‘period’ to that blood,” she wrote.

Yale Spokesperson Helaine Klasky issued a statement claiming that Shvarts herself has admitted that the project is fictional. “She stated in front of the Dean of Yale College, the Dean of Students, and the Master of her Residential College that she did not impregnate herself and did not induce miscarriages,” said Klasky.

Shvarts herself denies that she ever made such an admission, though Klasky insists that the denial is part of a performance and that Shvarts herself warned the deans that she would stick to her fake story.

In light of this disagreement Shvarts’ controversial exhibit did not go on display as planned. Yale administrators refused to allow Shvarts’ display to go up on Tuesday. The exhibit will be presented in the future only if Shvarts submits a

written statement admitting that her project was performance art. In a further act of censure, Yale disciplined two of the faculty members who have known about the project since it began.

The Yale Daily News reports that in her exhibit, Shvarts planned to show video footage of herself bleeding into a cup. In some of the clips, Shvarts is said to be naked. She also planned to display the blood she collected and kept refrigerated throughout her project. She planned to hang a plastic sheeting-covered cube from the ceiling and line the sheeting with her own blood.

The graphic nature of the planned exhibition and the sensitive subject matter that it addresses have led to a great deal of national criticism and prompted Yale administrators to denounce the project.

“If I had known about this, I would not have permitted it to go forward,” Dean of Yale School of Art Robert Storr said in a statement on Yale’ Web site. “This is not an acceptable project in a community where the consequences go beyond the individual who initiates the project and may even endanger that individual.”

Stoor also criticized Shvarts for not taking accountability for her project by addressing the controversy that it has raised.

Shvarts’s project has caused national controversy and angered both pro-life and pro-choice advocates. President of the National Right to Life Committee Wanda Franz told Fox News that Shvarts is a “serial killer,” and the Communication Director of the pro-choice organization NARAL called Shvarts’ actions “offensive and insensitive to the women who have suffered the heartbreak of miscarriage.”

Vassar Assistant Professor of Art Laura Newman agreed that artists must be sensitive to their subjct matter. “Anything can be art, can be a legitimate form of expression, but it’s hard to make good art, and even harder to give difficult subjects, like abortion and miscarriage, the serious attention they deserve,” she said. “Most of the art we deal with in the studio department at Vassar is visual art, so I don’t think it would come up here.”

“I personally resent feeling like my buttons are being pushed to get attention, but there are some really good artists who made very sensationalist [art],” said Newman in an e-mailed statement, citing such controversial artists as Orlan, who expressed herself via plastic surgery and Yale alumnus Chris Burden who once nailed himself to a car and, on another occasion, had himself shot in the arm.

Time for step two. The Urban Studies Majors Committee is going forward with its plan to include more community voices in the College’s decision to move the bookstore into the space currently occupied by Juliet Café.

Over 100 members of the Poughkeepsie, Arlington and Vassar communities attended a forum hosted by the Committee on April 2, after which the group promised to hold a follow-up forum. The purpose of the second forum, held on April 23, was to produce a “collective document”regarding the bookstore move and future development in the Arlington District. “We hope to generate concerns, demands, policy changes and ideas for immediate action,” read the group’s campus-wide e-mail.

Although the Committee always intended to produce this document, they had not originally planned to host a second meeting. “It wasn’t until the forum, that [the College] said that the bookstore is definitely moving, and that’s set in stone,” said Committee member Chloe Gutelle ’08. Gutelle hopes that they will be able to “inform how we can shape the space.”

But first, they hit the Web. On April 10, the Committee created a blog at urbsmajors.blogspot.com, where they posted documents relating to the bookstore, helping Vassar students and the greater Poughkeepsie community understand the history and impetus behind the move.

The documents include the College’s original analysis of the Juliet Café building, the development plan for the Arlington Business District, the results of the 2007 student survey that the College conducted to gauge student and faculty interest in moving the bookstore, the 2002 Bookstore Research Report and documents describing student opposition to Barnes and Nobles’ management of the bookstore.

The reports on the Arlington Business District and the Juliet building found that because Arlington is not an “economically vibrant” community, a major retail operation was preferable to a movie theater.

According to the survey, 51 percent of faculty, staff and administration respondents and 37.4 percent of student respondents approved of the move. Twenty-one percent of faculty, staff and administration and 18 percent of students participated in the survey.

Approximately one-fourth of faculty, administrators and staff and one-third of students surveyed opposed the move. The remainder of those surveyed responded that they were “not sure.”

The College also appears to have conducted a survey of local business owners, but that data was not available at the time the report was published.

Gutelle said that the Committeee obtained the documents from Vice President for Finance and Administration Elizabeth Eismeier.

Wednesday’s meeting was to be conducted differently than the first forum. The Committee decided to use a town-hall style, utilizing small groups who were to answer two or three questions about their vision for the bookstore. They then wrote suggestions on index cards.

The cards were to be grouped by topic and affixed to a “sticky wall” that allowed everyone at the meeting to see which issues most concerned the attendees.

The Committee hoped that the meeting generated ideas and allowed people to share their visions for the future policy and function of the bookstore.

The document, said Gutelle, will not be a list of demands but rather an expression of the concerns of the entire community.

“It’s important to consider how we’re impacting the community. Even if we’re only here for four years, we are always connected to Vassar and the community as alumnae/i,” said Gutelle.

After compiling the document, the Committee will post it on its blog and personally deliver it to members of the College’s senior administration, including President Catharine Bond Hill, Dean of the College Judy Jackson and Eismeier. The group also plans to send a copy of the document to the Board of Trustees.

The point of the document, the Committee reiterated, is not to take a side on whether the move is good or bad, but to ensure that Vassar and its community are well aware of the College’s plans. “It’s always been my goal to get people informed,” said Gutelle. “We’re trying to continue the precedent in Vassar’s history of standing up and making change.”

Economist and United Nations advisor Jeffrey Sachs speaking in Uganda in 2007 as part of a Millenium Villages Project, which works with poor African villagers and governments.

colorcubic.com

Renowned international economist and advisor to the United Nation Jeffrey Sachs will speak to the Vassar community on April 24 in the Chapel at 6 p.m.

Sachs is the author of the 2005 New York Times bestseller The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, as well as the recently released Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet. Time Magazine has twice recognized Sachs as one of the world’s 100 most influential leaders.

His visit is sponsored by Operation Donation, a Vassar student organization that is concerned with poverty on local, national and global levels. Since it was founded three years ago, the group has donated over $50,000 worth of groceries and money to Poughkeepsie-area non-profit organizations.

Founder of Operation Donation Jimmy Kelly ’09 and President Rachel Glicksman ’09 found Sachs’ e-mail address on the Columbia University Web site, where Sachs is a professor, and invited him to Vassar. Neither expected a response.

“We feel quite honored,” said Kelly after Sachs accepted. “He receives many similar requests.” The publication of his new book, Common Wealth, as well as Vassar’s proximity to Columbia, were factors in his decision to speak, according to Kelly. Though Sach’s usually charges over $30,000 for his appearances he will be speaking at Vassar free of charge.

“Sachs is arguably the foremost development economist in the world,” said Kelly.

“I think his lecture has the potential to inform students on the scale of global poverty and will give them hope that our generation is capable of significantly reducing that poverty.”

Sachs is best known for his work on the as a Special Advisor to the United Nations, working with Secretary General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals from 2002-2006.

Sachs has also helped to devise a plan of coalition building to eliminate extreme poverty by 2015.

Sachs has come up in Vassar classes as well. Students read Sachs’ articles in Assistant Professor of Economics Patricia Jones’ developmental economics class. “[His] goals are a set of measurable targets for combating poverty and raising the living standards of the world’s most extreme poor,” said Jones.

“In addition, Sachs has been a strong advocate for increasing the level of foreign aid to poor countries,” Jones said.

Aside from being a leading voice in economic development, Sachs has also advocated environmental sustainability as Director of the Earth Institute, where he leads large-scale efforts to promote the mitigation of human-induced climate change. Common Wealth, released earlier this year, tackles issues that Sachs considers the greatest challenges facing our planet, including poverty, population growth, climate change, and environmental destruction.

Kelly hopes that Sachs will stir up support for anti-poverty efforts on campus. “We hope that his lecture will provide motivation to students and the broader community that they can make an impact on issues of poverty. As Sachs said, we are the first generation that can end extreme poverty. That’s our good fortune, our challenge and our responsibility.”

“His real importance, to me at least, and I think to this group, is that he provides a clear solution to how to end global poverty.,” said Glicksman. “So often while reading about the problems in other countries there doesn’t seem to be any clear answer to resolve them.”

Glicksman said that while she was abroad in Ecuador this past fall, poverty-related problems seemed insurmountable to her, but Sachs provides a clear plan to eradicate such issues.

She said that he “provides a way to cut through the confusion and create hope. It’s not that his solutions are simple; it’s that he simply provides a solution to such complex and often overwhelming problems.” Glicksman added that she hoped that his lecture would “inspire students that it’s worth it to get involved and that we actually can effect change within our lifetime.”

The movement for gender-neutral housing options continues as Vassar Student Association (VSA) Vice President for Student Life Morgan Warners ’08 prepares to present recommendations to the Senior Officers in the coming weeks.

Heeding President Catharine Bond Hill’s request that the Committee on Campus Life (CCL) return the issue to the VSA Council for further discussion, Warners is leading a final effort to ensure that the issue is not lost during the final weeks of the term.

By compiling a list of recommendations advocating the adoption of gender-neutral housing policies, Warners hopes that his proposals will be fully and thoughtfully considered before time and momentum are lost with the induction of the new executive board following spring elections.

While Warners has the unanimous support of the CCL, he insists that this final push is driven by a personal commitment to the issue, which was part of his campaign last spring.

“I can only hope that my successor or the incoming VSA president believes in this initiative.

Having a fully inclusive housing policy is important in so many ways,” said Warners. “It speaks to Vassar’s own commitment to the ideal of respect for each other’s differences that is at the heart of the College’s mission.”

Vassar is not the first college to consider a gender-neutral housing policy. Brown University, the California Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University all offer gender-neutral housing to all students. Other schools, such as Bennington, Oberlin and Dartmouth Colleges, as well as the University of Pennsylvania, provide a gender-neutral option only to upperclassmen. A handful of others, including Harvard University, the State University of New York and the University of Chicago are currently in the process of considering or implementing gender-neutral housing policies.

According to Warners, these recent shifts to gender-neutral housing policies prove that Vassar should make the transition. The heart of the issue, according to Warners and other advocates of the policy, is creating inclusive spaces for those who do not identify as heterosexual.

“Current practice implicitly assumes that male and female are the only two genders and that everyone is heterosexual,” Warners explained. “This is something we can do to make Vassar a more inclusive place, and we deserve to be at the front of the pack on these issues.”

He pointed out that hesitations over potential difficulties arising from heterosexual couples living together are short- sighted, given that homosexual couples can live together under Vassar’s current policy. Warners questioned why the prospect of couples living together is suddenly a problem.

“It’s only now that we’ve realized that heterosexuals are put at risk by cohabitation that it has become an issue.”

He pointed to the example set by Wesleyan College, where a change to gender-neutral policies has not resulted in a slew of broken room situations or radical percentages of mixed-gender room pairings. “I think their example shows that it’s possible to do this here at Vassar, in a way that makes policy recognize and affirm all identities by making gender just one more relevant characteristic to base a roommate choice on,” he said.

Warners believes that it comes down to a matter of allowing students to choose who they want to live with. “It should be just like study habits or musical taste. If that matters to you in a roommate, great. If your best friend is of a different gender, that’s great too. You should be able to live with that person,” said Warners.

Director of Residential Life Luis Inoa expressed a similar sentiment in the 2.07.08 issue of The Miscellany News. Inoa had hoped that gender-neutral housing would be in place by this spring.

Hill, however, told The Miscellany News that gender-neutral housing was put off this spring because room draw will be especially complicated with the approaching renovations of Davison House that will close the dorm next year. “We’ll be tighter on housing than we’ve been in awhile,” said Hill. “It seemed like a bad time to change a policy that might change the need for flexibility in our housing.”

The College released idyllic sketches of possible changes to the interior of the building, but offered few specifics about how or when ACDC’s transformation would take place. The promise of sweeping interior renovations gives The Miscellany News pause because the College is already overloaded with construction projects. Excessive delays on past construction, such as the Quad-side steps, leaves one skeptical as to whether ACDC’s renovations will be completed and ready for student use by the start of the 2008-2009 academic year.

Construction projects during Summer 2008 are popping up like weeds. With the Maria Mitchell Observatory renovation underway, Davison House set to close, and eight delayed Town Houses still in the works, is this really the right time to renovate the dining hall? The College should take notice of the severe delays that plague nearly every construction project that it has undertaken and should make contingency plans with the expectation that delays on the ACDC renovations are likely to occur.

This is especially important because Vassar’s only dining hall is a heavily-trafficked and integral part of campus.

Although the Town of Poughkeepsie lifted its moratorium on building to allow the College to build overflow housing in the Town Houses (THs), the process of acquiring permits has slowed the College’s ostensibly speedy plans for renovations and construction. Nearly semester-long delays for projects as simple as the Quad-side steps of Strong, Lathrop, Davison, and Raymond Houses were an inconvenience, and such long delays for minor projects make students uneasy about the prospect of a much larger renovation to a much more essential building.

Administrators seem convinced that the project will be completed as planned. Vice President for Finance and Administration Betsy Eismeier said in an e-mailed statement, “There was always a plan to work on changes to ACDC in phases. We don’t have architectural drawings from Aramark for the limited amount they’d like to do this summer…Other work will proceed during breaks or next summer.” Director of Campus Dining Maureen King, employed by Aramark, added, “ACDC will definitely be open in the fall.”

Even with a graduated plan, however, the College should consider the fact that construction and renovation is going to be disruptive. Aside from unavoidable noise, sections of buildings and paths will be blocked off by construction and will affect students’ use of these facilities.

The list keeps growing: the Art Library, Davison, the THs, Prentiss Field, Raymond Avenue, the Old Observatory and ACDC will all be undergoing a phase of construction at the same time. The student body at Vassar is ever-growing, and a crowded ACDC will become more stifling if students do not have space to sit due to construction.

With these projects, the College is clearly making an investment in the future. But as the Class of 2012 sends their letters and deposits, the College should not put the needs of its future students ahead of its current students. Sacrificing the experience of the incoming freshman class, returning sophomores or juniors, or the outgoing senior class would harm Vassar’s reputation as an institution that values meeting student needs. If the College reneges on that commitment, its investment could come to naught.

—The staff editorial reflects the opinion of at least two-thirds of the 16-member editorial board.

Extreme poverty and devastating hunger hardly come as a surprise to the Haitian people, who have long been one of the world’s most resource-deficient nations. Conditions have become particularly intolerable this year, and Haitians are now consuming a daily average of 460 calories less than the healthy minimum set by the United Nations.

Such a sudden crisis has ignited riots throughout the country, shutting down Haitian schools, businesses and government offices. Although this horrendous situation might seem temporary, it is actually a manifestation of long-term problems with the world’s energy policy and food distribution systems.

In just one year, the cost of wheat has increased 130 percent, and rice has seen a price increase of 74 percent. Unfortunately, there seems to be little relief in sight. Demand for food will reach new heights as the world’s population grows, and the cost of transporting such goods can only go up as energy reserves gradually dwindle.

Poor policy decisions are to blame for the sudden increase in food prices. As part of a renewable energy program endorsed by President George W. Bush, American farmers have begun converting their corn into ethanol, a fuel that can partially replace gasoline in most automobiles. Twenty-seven percent of last year’s corn harvest went into this program, producing 9.3 billion gallons of ethanol. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), stockpiles of corn are now running low because of this situation, leading to increased prices.

Using corn as an energy source is one of the most disastrous policies endorsed by the U.S. government. According to Princeton University researchers, converting corn into ethanol is extremely inefficient, contributing to global warming about twice as much as regular gasoline.

Furthermore, there is simply not enough land on which to grow this extra corn. According to U.N. estimates, the world’s population will grow to nine billion people by 2050; such a dramatic increase will require an unprecedented amount of food.

The jump in food prices is largely due to the expense of long-distance transportation. Just a few days ago, the cost of a barrel of oil hit a record-high $117. However, it is entirely our society’s own fault that food must be shipped such long distances. During the 1960s and 1970s, the USDA under Secretary Earl Butz enacted short-sighted policies that forced small farmers out of business, replacing them with corporate mega-farms that transported food across the nation to consumers. However, such a system comes with a gross ecological cost: For every calorie of food we eat, 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy are consumed, mostly by transportation.

Global warming itself is also a leading cause of the food shortage. Australia is experiencing its worst period of drought in recorded history, and many believe that carbon emissions are to blame. As reported in a New York Times article on April 17, some farmers have simply switched from growing basic foodstuffs such as rice to producing wine grapes, which are more resistant to the hotter, more arid climate. Although wealthy western consumers may be happy to see an influx of affordable Australian wines, such a transformation in production is devastating to the world’s poor and hungry.

Unfortunately, the problems we face today are simply the tip of a frighteningly large iceberg. Clearly, unpredictable and changing weather patterns could reduce agricultural yields even further while the world’s population is rapidly expands and demands more food. Furthermore, the deepening energy crisis may tempt us to rely on biofuels such as corn, reducing the land that is available to feed humans.

Although this situation may seem hopeless, a sensible energy and agricultural policy could resolve many of these issues. Our first priority must be to reduce carbon emissions, since there is no way farmers can maintain adequate food supplies if the Earth’s temperature rises 10 degrees in a single century. To this end, the government must encourage small-scale, local agriculture, which is much less energy-intensive than the large, industrial farms that dominate food production today.

Finally, society must develop true alternatives to fossil fuels such as wind and solar emergy, eschewing the false promise of biofuels that are neither sustainable nor practical. The unraveling situation in Haiti, as well as the recent increases in energy prices, demonstrate that the time to begin is now.

—Nathan Zucker ’10, a Latin American Studies major, is writing about environmental issues that affect both the Vassar community and the world at large.

This is the 12th article that I’ve written for The Voting Booth, and I have yet to mention the most influential character in the 2008 race. You may know him: He loves eagles, pokes fun at Democrats and was a one-time presidential candidate. To him, Bill O'Reilly is “Papa Bear,” and he insults Washington like nobody’s business.

He targets anyone and everyone, but his one-raised-eyebrow facial expression never fails to entertain. I’m talking about our favorite conservative pundit Stephen T. Colbert (silent “t” on the Colbert). Whether you like it or not, he has a profound effect on the election. He has done everything from attempting to run in the South Carolina primary to hosting presidental candidates on his late-night “news” show, The Colbert Report.

Of course, Colbert’s failed South Carolina run was an outrageous and very Colbert-esque gimmick. Anyone can file for the Democratic or Republican ticket in any state, but fees run in the thousands. Although Colbert paid the $2,500 fee to file for the Democratic ballot, the party’s executives voted against allowing him on the ballot for the Jan. 26 primary. Colbert, who only wanted to run for President, and not actually be President, also intended to run on the Republican ballot for the party’s Jan. 19 primary.

Colbert is a comedian who genuinely loves to entertain. He never seems to step out of character, even when he appears at benefits or on other late night television shows. The cult of the “Colbert Nation” has enveloped America and “Stewart/Colbert 2008” merchandise has made its way into the mainstream market.

But Colbert himself is not just a gimmick. By drawing attention to his character on a regular basis, even for comments that some find appalling, he has created a niche for himself that encourages a certain hype about the candidates and the election itself. Colbert’s dealings in South Carolina even resulted in a Facebook group entitled “1,000,000 Strong for Stephen T. Colbert.”
A true pop culture icon, Colbert hosts important celebrity guests on each show. Sometimes, he uses sarcasm and irony to induce a response that shows his support, as he did with Michelle Obama.

“Everyone knows you and your husband are elitists. Tell me about your elite upbringing on the South Side of Chicago. How many silver spoons in your mouth?” Colbert asked. Michelle answered, “We had four spoons...and then my father got a raise at the plant and we had five spoons.”

Even though Comedy Central is a comedy network, this interview is a serious political commentary on name-calling in elections, and Michelle's naturally sarcastic tone was perfect for Colbert’s question. Colbert also gave Obama a platform to talk about political analysts’ mistaken assumption that independent women are supporting Hillary Clinton. Then, political commentary aside, Colbert later serenaded his guest with Nat King Cole’s “L-O-V-E.”

For those tired of watching CNN or other major news networks, Colbert’s show is perfect. It certainly requires some knowledge of current events, and Colbert may not appeal to every viewer.

But the fed-up, liberal/moderate demographic sees something in Colbert. His ratings, as well as the ear-splitting screams of his live studio audience, prove that viewers are thoroughly entertained.

Combining smarts with humor and blatant criticism, Colbert has profoundly affected this election.

Young viewers of high school and college ages, including myself, look to Colbert for a certain type of commentary that newspapers and news broadcasts are missing. By solidifying his character, Colbert ensures that his name is on the tip of everyone’s tongue and that he receives press coverage for his antics. Recently, CNN has written several articles about his week-long broadcast from Philadelphia that coincides with the Pennsylvania primary.

The niche that Colbert has carved for himself in the political sphere is unique; never before has a comedian been at the forefront of a presidential election. Maybe someday Colbert really will run for president—something that I am certainly not opposed to. But in the meantime he is entertaining Americans and, more importantly, educating them.

—Allison Good ’11 is writing a weekly column about American politics, focusing on the 2008 presidential election and the primary process.

Without proper disclosure to the public of the proceedings, the administration and the VSA essentially worked in the shadows to O.K. a company most students oppose vehemently. Where was the student voice pushing against the administration and calling for greater scrutiny of Aramark?

Well, it was certainly not VSA Vice President for Student Life Morgan Warners ’08, who was one of only two students to sit on the committee that approved Aramark’s new contract. Warners was quoted in the article “College to Renew Aramark’s Contract” (4.17.08) as saying, “I really wanted to find which [companies] were speaking to Vassar’s culture.” With all due respect to Warners, “Vassar’s culture” is one of liberalism as well as pro-worker and anti-corporate sentiment. “Vassar’s culture” is about the union of all members of the community against a pro-corporate administration and a corporation with a bad history of abusing workers, both here and on other campuses.

“Vassar’s culture” is about questioning authority and having a high-level public discourse that looks at all angles of an issue and allows the public to express its views in the sunlight, not in a smoke-filled room in the back of the All Campus Dining Center (ACDC). “

Vassar’s culture” rejects gimmick events held by Aramark at ACDC to win student support and instead encourages real sustainability and local food production. At least that is the Vassar culture I believe in. Apparently it is not Warners’.

Neither, sadly, does it appear to be Nate Silver ’10’s view of what Vassar should look like. He is the Chair of the Food Committee and the other student representative on the committee that gave Aramark its new contract. Silver, as quoted by the same Miscellany News article, is shown to be extremely positive about the management of campus dining services. Director of Campus Dining Maureen King is presented, both by Silver and The Miscellany News, as a hero. She is seen as an efficient manager. Warners supported this view as well, calling her “fantastic.” Silver reinforced this by saying that King and her managers understand the community better than most faculty members.

I hope not, Silver, because this community’s values differ quite significantly from Aramark’s corporate vision. King is truly efficient, if you care for her type of efficiency. I do not.

I, unlike Warners or Silver, am in ACDC every day, fighting alongside workers against bigoted, abusive, “efficient” managers who fundamentally do not understand the Vassar community.

Workers constantly complain to me that their managers are getting away with more than is legally or ethically appropriate.

Silver seems not to understand the Vassar community very well, for Aramark is an evil corporation that has no stake in the community, unlike the workers it oppresses. The administration is in bed with Aramark. So, it might appear, is the VSA, when the only two representatives of the student body in this matter are obviously pro-corporate. So too does The Miscellany News seem to be in bed with the administration and Aramark, as it only has glowing things to say about the company. Apparently like the VSA, the paper cares nothing at all about Aramark’s corporate abuses off campus, or for that matter, the ones that take place daily on the Vassar campus.

—Christopher Binetti ’08

Many students I’ve talked to appreciate both of these, so hats off to Security and the administration for providing these services. I would, however, like to suggest an addition. I think it would be a great idea to offer an additional shuttle to off-campus housing at night. This would provide safety and convenience to students who live off campus. I know many students are uncomfortable walking the Poughkeepsie streets at night, especially with the reports of burglaries and muggings along College Avenue and beyond.

Even though many off-campus students have cars, they often don’t drive to campus. If they do, they might sometimes be too intoxicated to drive back, forcing them to walk, which is even less pleasant during the Poughkeepsie winters. Although I’ve been told Security escorts are available, I feel that a regular running shuttle at night would be more convenient, even if it only ran within a mile of campus.

I recognize that this would require a considerable investment of time and money, but the campus and community shuttles already in place require a similar investment. Why not take this extra step to provide a safe and convenient form of transportation to off-campus students? Considering the small percentage of students who do not reside on campus, this could probably be a low-scale operation.

If other students feel this way, I would encourage them to let the administration know. Thanks again to the Security department, and I hope that they will consider the possibility of an off-campus housing shuttle.

—Andrew Dueñas ’08

For those who forget or didn’t see, the front cover was blanketed by what looked like Soviet propaganda—four burly, male, mostly white workers holding books (presumably Marx) in the air triumphantly. This is problematic because the image underrepresents working women as well as working people of color. The image also pigeon-holes our group’s ideology.

The Class Issues Alliance organizes around issues, not ideology. Our membership includes anarchists, communists, progressives, liberals, moderates, in-betweens and un-classifiable students.

The Miscellany News image also implies that our group is heading to the barricades against President Catharine Bond Hill and the College’s administration when in reality we have received their earnest and useful support and anticipate their future assistance.

We realize that deadlines can promote carelessness, but at the very least we hope this can be an educative moment. Thanks for your time.

—Thomas Facchine ’11, on behalf of the Class Issues Alliance

This is part three of a four-part series. To see the previous two articles, visit misc.vassar.edu. The fourth part, which explores science students’ preparation for graduate school, will appear in next week’s issue.

In 1848, the Academy of Arts and Science accepted its first female member, a woman who had recently discovered the comet that now bears her name. She was also the first woman elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as the American Philosophical Society. Vassar students, however, may know her better as the namesake of the Maria Mitchell Observatory, also known as the Old Observatory.

The tenure of Maria Mitchell, the first faculty member hired at Vassar, the discoverer of a comet, the namesake of a crater on the moon and generally one of the most distinguished female scientists of all time, was only the beginning of Vassar’s strong science programs. In the 142 years since Mitchell was first hired, Vassar has continued to produce distinguished scientists, thanks to a curriculum that has emphasized science since its inception.

At the time of the College’s founding, the Observatory was the only building on campus besides Main Building, but even then, Vassar was committed to science programs other than astronomy. According to Vassar College Historian Elizabeth Daniels ’41, “Matthew Vassar wanted science for women equal to science for men,” and so he set up a demanding program with many resources.

Housed in Main were chemistry and geology labs, “cabinets of natural history” with specimens relevant to all courses of study, and even a museum of natural history, perfect for “natural philosophy” classes. While arithmetic was the only math or science class required for this first group of women, students could elect to take any of the 10 other science classes that Vassar offered.

By 1890, just 25 years later, the science program at Vassar had greatly expanded along with the general curriculum. All the original labs and museums remained, but physics and chemistry were given their own building, and students could stay at the College for graduate programs in natural history, chemistry, physics, math and astronomy. Ignoring the stereotype that women were weak and too sensitive to be rational, Vassar even put together an anatomy lab for its students, complete with skeletons, a dissectible mannequin and hundreds of specimens that they could study.

The growth of science at Vassar didn’t stop in the 19th century. By 1920, the College had built Sanders Laboratory for chemistry and the New England Building to house biology, physiology and geology. The Vassar Brothers Laboratory provided space for the other sciences. The natural sciences department split into zoology and botany (with a few general biology classes), a change that persisted until the College built Olmsted Hall in 1973. The 1920s also saw the beginning of the psychology department, which is one of Vassar’s most popular majors today.

Urged on by Minnie Cumnok Blodgett, an alumna and the namesake of Blodgett Hall, Vassar established a euthenics department in 1924 to study how external factors such as education and environment can improve the human condition. Euthenics became such a popular major that Blodgett Hall was built to house it. Interest eventually waned, but the child study department continued to be a separate major until 1965, when it was integrated into the psychology department.

By the time the United States entered World War II in 1941, the science program at Vassar included a summer study program at Wood’s Hole, field work at the Dutchess County Outdoor Ecological Lab and a physiology lab that stored a preserved fetus and organs to students to study, a very progressive concept at the time. The entire curriculum was revised for the 1942-43 school year to accommodate the United States’ involvement in Europe and the Pacific. For example, students had the option of graduating in fewer than four years if they planned to go on to help the war effort. While many course lists were changed, a survey by the College found that the natural sciences, then the largest division, were more than adequate to prepare Vassar women to aid their country.

According to the 1950 course catalogue, “In general, the introductory science courses are planned to meet the needs of both students whose gifts lie in other fields and yet who should have these new insights, and of students who will make science the focus of their programs.” In order to reach both of these groups, the College required all students to take one course in biological science (such as zoology and botany) and one course in physical science (such as astronomy and chemistry). It also added pre-engineering and pre-medical programs, which joined pre-teaching as Vassar’s only pre-professional programs.

After Olmsted was completed in 1973, biology was a cohesive, independent major, and each science had its own building and library, greatly strengthening the science program at Vassar. Though the social sciences had the largest numbers of majors and continue to be the largest to this day, the natural science division has continued to expand through multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary programs such as biochemistry and neuroscience and behavior (formerly known as biopsychology). Vassar was also the first institution to offer an undergraduate degree in the multidisciplinary program of cognitive science, founded in 1982.

“It has been really gratifying to see that pay-off in the growth of programs at other institutions,” said founding member of the cognitive science program Professor of Psychology Ken Livingston in the Feb. 7 issue of The Miscellany News. “We were the only place doing this in 1982, and now we have lots of company. I like to think that our success here had at least a little bit to do with that.”

Even if Vassar is better known for the liberal arts than the sciences, a Vassar education has given rise to many prominent scientists, such as Vera Cooper Rubin ’48, the astronomer who discovered the most substantial evidence of the existence of dark matter. In other fields, Vassar boasts Bernadine Healy ’65, former head of both the National Institutes of Health and the American Red Cross, and Ellen Swallow Richards from the Class of 1870, coiner of the word “ecology,” environmental chemist and first woman admitted to any science or technology school in the United States. Eben Ostby ’77 co-created the animation system used in Toy Story.

These and countless other Vassar alumnae/i have made significant contributions to various scientific fields. They have benefited from Vassar’s longstanding commitment to science education, and as more and more students graduate, it is likely that many new names will be added to this list of illustrious Vassar science alumnae/i.

On Tuesday, April 22, students wearing bright yellow “1 in 4” t-shirts dotted Vassar’s campus, prompting many a bewildered stare. The “1 in 4” t-shirts represent the one in four college women who report being victims of rape or attempted rape. Students wore them as a part of Sexual Assault Awareness (SAA) Week, a week of events that highlights sexual and emotional abuse that is co-sponsored by Counseling and Assistance in Response to Rape and Exploitive Sexual Activity (CARES) and Sexual Assault Violence Prevention (SAVP). The week began April 20 and will end April 25.

CARES is an on-campus, student-run, peer-listening service for anyone in need of confidential conversation or resource assistance. SAVP is a program run out of Metcalf that, according to its Web site, “coordinates student and faculty interests around issues of sexual assault, stalking and violence in order to increase awareness of issues of violence against women, establish new campus-wide policies, protocols around these issues and work with campus and community resources to prevent further incidences of violence.”

These two organizations also have other events planned for SAA Week. Two males-only discussions will also be held this week to discuss ways in which men can get involved in domestic violence and rape prevention. “This year is our first year with the men’s discussion groups,” said CARES member Sarah Bane ’10. It’s a common misconception that men are not raped, yet three percent of college men report being victims.

“There’s also a film screening of Boys Don’t Cry that CARES is co-sponsoring with the Queer Coalition of Vassar College (QCVC) and the Women’s Center. Plus CARES study breaks,” explained Katherine Fussner ’09.

According to the non-profit “1-4”’s Sexual Assault Statistics, up to 84 percent of rape survivors knew their attacker prior to the incident. One in five high school students had experienced forced sex, and 20 percent of men admit that they have been so sexually aroused that even if a woman did not consent to sex, they would go through with the act regardless.

CARES aspires to change these statistics and provide a means through which people can feel comfortable talking about their experiences. In addition to SAA Week, CARES is currently running a flier program entitled “Is This Okay?” The fliers portray people being touched against their will and, according to Fussner, are meant to convey the message that “Your body is your own; you should always have the right to say what kind of contact is O.K. and what is not.” The fliers aim to make people aware of the boundaries of comfort between acceptable touching and unacceptable touching.

CARES runs workshops at Arlington High School on dating violence. The group is also hoping to incorporate permanent pink folders in random bathroom stalls to consistently fill with CARES handouts and information.

“We’re always evolving and working on ways to gain awareness. We just want people to constantly see the name,” said Abby Alexanian ’11.

She went on to explain, “A lot of people know of [CARES] but do not feel comfortable calling. People shouldn’t hesitate to call if they’re in an uncomfortable situation. If it feels like a big deal, then it is a big deal.”

In the past 10 years, the National Crime Victimization Survey reported that only around 30 percent of rape survivors tell the police. Other organizations estimate that the percentage could be as low as five percent.

CARES members urged anyone concerned for themselves or friends to pick up the phone. The 18-person group covers all issues from dating violence to emotional abuse, and runs 24 hours a day seven days a week. Members are all trained by the same process and are responsible for taking the calls on a rotating basis.

In such an emotionally charged atmosphere, group members often offer support not only to callers, but also to each other. CARES is non-hierarchical, so every member has an equal say in making decisions and determining policies. The group also often discusses personal issues of all natures and is constantly available to the community and to one another.

“We ‘CARES’ each other!” said Alexanian. The group uses the verb “to CARES” as a way of describing non-judgmental, sincere listening. “Everyone is really there for each other because it’s also hard to be on the listening end. It’s great to have such a genuinely concerned group of people,” she said.

To contact the service, Vassar students need only dial extension 7333 and ask for a CARES counselor. The counselor on-call will be paged and return the call as soon as possible.

Seth Tannenbaum ’08 looks out from a crowd of seniors in cap and gown during Fall Convocation 2007.

M. Finkelstein/The Miscellany News

In keeping with the long tradition of calling together the College community, Spring Convocation will mark the impending close of another year at Vassar. Faculty and members of the senior class will wear their academic dress at this final convocation for the Class of 2008.

Just as Fall Convocation is the official beginning of Vassar’s academic year, Spring Convocation is the official end. It is also the point at which each class rises, so that juniors officially become seniors, and seniors become alumnae/i.

Presiding over Convocation, the President typically gives a few brief welcoming words. According to Assistant to the President John Feroe, President Catharine Bond Hill will “wish the graduating class well as the end of their time at Vassar approaches, and welcome the rising seniors to their new status.”

Director of Campus Events Karen Minturn called Convocation a time for certain members of the faculty to “talk about issues in the world that concern the academic life.” This semester’s speaker will be Dean of the Faculty Ronald Sharp, whose speech is entitled “Sitting on a Bench.” Sharp is retiring from his position in July and will become a professor in the English Department after taking a year’s sabbatical.

Executive Director of Campus Activities Teresa Quinn said that members of the Daisy Chain and the African Violets will lead the processional and recessional at Spring Convocation. The Daisy Chain, one of Vassar’s oldest traditions, is a group of sophomores who assist the senior class throughout the year and lead the Convocation processional carrying a long chain of flowers. The African Violets, a group of freshmen and sophomores who work with the Council of Black Seniors, will lead the recessional. The Violets have been marching in end-of-the-year ceremonies since Spring 2006.

Another long tradition of Spring Convocation is the passing of the gavel from the current Vassar Student Association (VSA) President to the incoming President. When members of the Class of 2008 were freshmen, then-president Joe Wildfire even presented a pink headband with fuzzy pom-poms along with the gavel (the next president did not bequeath the pink headband to his successor).

This year, however, elections will not have occurred by the time of Convocation. Therefore, the new VSA president will not be announced, and the gavel will not be passed.

The last and most symbolic tradition of Convocation is the ringing of the bell on top of Main Building. Immediately following the close of the ceremony, members of the Class of 2009 will ring the bell to recognize the moment they become seniors. This transitional experience marks a turning point in the academic career of a Vassar student.

Spring Convocation is an opportunity for all members of the Vassar community to gather in a formal academic setting to celebrate the close of one year and the accomplishments of the rising senior class. Convocation will take place on Wednesday, April 30 at 3:30 p.m. in the Chapel. All students are encouraged to attend this momentous and symbolic College event.

At a United Kingdom government forum last week, AT&T Vice President of Legislative Affairs Jim Cicconi warned that unless private companies and corporations round up 130 billion dollars to upgrade the public infrastructure of the Internet by 2010, the Internet will not be able to handle the impending traffic explosion in that year.

Since private organizations such as Internet Service Providers (ISPs) built the public digital highways to make broadband traffic possible, they are the ones with the capacities to maintain and expand them.

Cicconi pointed out that the emergence of high definition (HD) video on the Web will strain bandwidth, since it uses 10 times more bandwidth than regular video. There will be additional strain if YouTube adopts HD, as eight hours of videos are uploaded to YouTube each minute. Cicconi and AT&T predicted that three years from now, 20 households will generate more than all of the traffic on the Internet today.

This warning is nothing unfamiliar. Many others, such as Bret Swanson, a technology researcher at Seattle’s Discovery Institute, predict a kind of Internet apocalypse in 2010 when the Web can no longer handle the overwhelming traffic. As a result, the Internet would become partially or fully unavailable to users. Swanson coined the term “exaflood” to describe this eventual disaster.

In fact, 2010 is not the first prediction of an Internet apocalypse. In 1995, Robert Metcalfe, co-inventor of the Ethernet connection, prophesied that the Internet would collapse in 1996 due to increasing users and demands. But the Internet kept running, and Metcalfe owned up to his words by eating a piece of paper printed with his warning in front of an audience at a conference in 1997.

Statistically, it is true that the Internet’s current ability to handle traffic will not be adequate for the potentially exponential growth of traffic in the next few years. What is not sensible, is to draw the connection that the Internet will have a blackout or collapse as a result.

Such a catastrophe could happen only if that exponential increase in online data were to happen today. Just as data is constantly increasing on the Internet, so too are the innovative protocols that manage how online data make their way across the Internet. Merely looking at the number of available highways is not enough; you have to take into account how the cars move through them.

One threat that ISPs see to the Internet bandwidth is peer-to-peer (P2P) networks such as BitTorrent and Gnutella. But while P2P currently increases traffic on the Internet, efforts are underway to make P2P bandwidth-friendly. In July 2007, P2P providers such as BitTorrent and LimeWire joined with major ISPs such as Verizon and AT&T to form the P4P Working Group to make P2P traffic more efficient and productive.

Some experts even claim that P2P networks can serve as a way to alleviate traffic strain on the Internet. Paul Francis, a computer scientist at Cornell University, devised a system called Chunkyspread, which streams broadband content through P2P networks instead of central servers such as YouTube. That way videos travel less distance to reach your computer because the peers on the P2P network who stream the video to you are closer than the YouTube servers.

It is also worth noting that the majority of the broadband content that we consume is popular content consumed by millions of other people, such as YouTube videos that made it to fame or commercial content. Rather than the present situation of replicating the same traffic millions of times on the Internet, methods for consolidating the traffic and streamlining delivery through technologies such as P2P are likely to be developed in the future.

As for making data travel more efficiently, John Papandriopoulos, a researcher at the University of Melbourne, devised an algorithm in 2006 that allows 100 times more traffic to move through the present DSL connections.

As the Internet is a dynamic environment with an economy of rapid sharing and a proliferation of innovations, it has a resilient nature and maintains equilibrium when one component of it, such as traffic, starts to hamper the Web.

This propaganda from broadband ISPs is merely hype to increase public consumption of broadband.

Only a few years after broadband was first made available in America in 2001, ISPs constructed enough connections to cover 80 percent of the country. Disappointingly, only 10 percent of the country signed up. Even today, only 50 percent of the country is willing to pay for broadband. The rest of the available connections are sitting in dust. By making bandwidth sound like a scarce resource everyone is fighting over, ISPs are simply trying to get more people to sign up for broadband.

Fifteen members of the Class of 2011 will perform pieces conveying their experiences of their first year at Vassar.

Courtesy of the class of 2011

As the Class of 2011 prepare for their sophomore year, 15 student performances will give the freshmen a final opportunity to reflect on their first year at Vassar. The Freshmen 15, sponsored by the Freshman Class Council and the Vassar First Year program, will take place at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 30 on the second floor of the Students’ Building.

The event will feature 15 three-minute reflections by members of the freshman class. The performances may take the form of songs, poetry readings, student-made videos or even comedy routines. Freshmen can draw on an achievement, a challenge or simply a shared experience from this past year.

“What is going to be unique and what I think is starting to surface is that we’ve all had very distinct experiences this year,” said Freshman Class President Joseph Martinez, who is organizing and hosting the event. “For some people, it has been incredibly important, and they have grown a lot. For other people, it’s been a very challenging year, a very difficult year,” he continued.

Nina Vyedin ’11 will perform an original song for the event. “The song started off as a verse in another song about going to the Poughkeepsie Galleria with my roommate and not being able to find a hat that I liked,” she said. “It evolved into something else, a reflection on my experience here, something I’m really excited about.”

Martinez hopes that his classmates will express diverse and distinct experiences. “I want it to be extremely open,” he said. Director of the First Year Program and Associate Dean of the College for Campus Life Edward Pittman ’82 added that “A lot of it’s funny, and a lot of it is reflective...so it’s very open to what the class wants to present. It’s really for students to talk about what they experienced in their first year.”

“I think the event will be really interesting, and I it’s exciting because it gives freshmen a voice,” said Vyedin. “I don’t think a lot of freshman get to be heard, so it’s nice that we get a chance to stand up and say, ‘Hey, this is what my experience has been.’”

The event is the final piece of the Vassar First Year, a series of events and discussions designed to introduce new students to Vassar and to expose them to some of the academic, cultural and social issues on campus. Pittman said that the program is “a way of providing some channels for first-year students to experience the academic and the campus community life from many perspectives.”

The First Year program, currently in its third year, begins with new student orientation and includes the William Starr lecture, among other events.

“It was something that I had always thought Vassar should have,” Pittman said. “We spend a lot of time during the first week talking about critical issues, and…First Year tends to build upon some of those discussions,” he noted. In addition to the Campus Life Office, the program coordinates with the Dean of Freshmen, the Dean of Students, the Office of Residential Life, the Library and the freshman writing seminar to incorporate a wide array of first-year experiences into the program.

The Freshmen 15 was established last year as a capstone to the Vassar First Year, and it proved to be one of the program’s more successful events. “Student-driven activities always generate a response,” Pittman noted, adding that “performance-based events that carry a message and engage the students” are typically the most effective.

While the Campus Life Office has given students autonomy to produce the program, Martinez suggested that it may still be difficult to pique student interest in the event. “It’s difficult because we didn’t come up with this event, it was just given to us,” he said. “This is a class tradition that was created by administrators,” he added.

However, Martinez was very positive about his goals and hopes for the upcoming event. “We definitely see a use for it,” he said. “It’ll be nice to see a lot of freshmen in one place again…and to hear 15 people reflect on some shared experience that we’ve now had,” he added. Martinez said that a number of freshmen have expressed interest in attending the event, and noted that “I think people are curious about other people’s experiences at Vassar.”

What is the difference between HIV and AIDS? I’m embarrassed to ask because I feel like everyone knows this but me. With all the new drugs available now, do I even have to worry about getting them?

—Uncertain

Dear Uncertain,

Don’t be embarrassed; many people don’t fully understand the difference or the associated issues.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a virus that breaks down a person’s immune system over many years and eventually causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). A syndrome is a collection of symptoms and susceptibilities to other diseases. AIDS patients are particularly prone to rare diseases such as Karposi’s Sarcoma and rare forms of pneumonia. Before drug treatments became available, HIV developed into AIDS within about 10 years, but powerful anti-retroviral therapies developed in the last 15 years can slow HIV’s progress by changing the way that he body recognizes and attacks the virus. These therapies can prevent or cure some illnesses associated with AIDS, but neither HIV nor AIDS has a cure or a vaccine.

HIV is transmitted through bodily fluids such as blood, sexual fluids (semen, pre-ejaculate and vaginal fluid) and breast milk. Transmission can occur if these fluids enter the bloodstream. The disease can be passed during unprotected vaginal, anal or oral sex with an infected person; through sharing a needle during intravenous drug use with an infected person; or from an infected mother to her fetus during pregnancy, delivery or breastfeeding.

There are few symptoms that accompany HIV before it causes AIDS, so if you don’t get tested regularly, you could be infected with HIV for years without knowing, putting both yourself and partners at risk. If symptoms appear at all, they usually take several years to manifest. Even without symptoms, however, the virus causes serious damage to the immune system.

When the AIDS epidemic began in the United States in the early 1980s, the virus was not well understood. There was no effective treatment, and it primarily affected gay men. Today, many mistakenly believe that HIV/AIDS is no longer a major concern. I once encountered a doctor who said that AIDS is not a concern because it is “a chronic and manageable disease like diabetes.” I later came across the same statement in a human sexuality textbook. I cannot overemphasize how dangerous such false assurances can be.

First, claiming that AIDS is a manageable disease encourages an apathetic view toward HIV/AIDS education and information about prevention. People lower their guard and fail to use protection to prevent infection. An HIV-positive status no longer results in an immediate death sentence like it did in the 1980s, but there still is no cure for AIDS.

Secondly, HIV is only manageable if you have enough money for a decent doctor and extremely expensive drugs. If you can access treatment, several drugs are needed, depending on the strain of the virus and what stage it has reached. Drug therapies often combine four or more HIV medications, and each drug can cost anywhere between $300 and $1000, or more, per month. The drugs must be taken for the rest of your life, and may need to be switched if your strain of the virus develops resistance to them; you may also have to increase dosages as the disease progresses. Even if you’re wealthy and lucky enough to find the right doctor and the right combination of drugs, the treatment can only delay the onset of AIDS. It cannot prevent it.

Numerous factors determine how “manageable” the infection is, and getting access to drugs for treatment is only one factor among many. Each HIV/AIDS drug causes different side effects and has different levels of efficacy for different people. Once you find the appropriate “drug cocktail,” you must schedule your life around it. HIV/AIDS patients take dozens of pills every day, some of which must be taken in the morning, some at night, some on a full stomach, some on an empty one and some spaced hours apart. You also must deal with the social reaction to your infection because of the stigma and shame that still surrounds this disease.

According to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), an estimated 33.2 million people were living with HIV in 2007. Two-and-a-half million were newly infected, and 2.1 million died of AIDS. Each day worldwide, there is an average of 6,800 new infections. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) an estimated 850,000-950,000 people were living with HIV in 2000 in the United States, and about one-fourth didn’t know they were infected. That’s a quarter of a million people unknowingly walking around with HIV.

According to CDC analysis of HIV diagnosis in the United States, 49 percent of people diagnosed in 2006 were black, 30 percent were white and 18 percent were Latino. People aged 25-44 constituted 57 percent of new diagnoses. Fifty percent of the total number of transmissions came from men who have sex with men, and 46 percent came from exposure through heterosexual sex or injection drug use. Males accounted for 73 percent of all new HIV diagnoses, while 80 percent of females were infected through heterosexual sex.

HIV does not discriminate. Anyone can become infected. You cannot tell if a person has the virus simply by looking at him or her, but there are certain behaviors that increase risk. Unprotected sex and sharing needles are both high-risk activities. It is never a good idea to combine drugs and alcohol with sex because you may do something you’ll regret later, like not using protection—a mistake that could have lifelong consequences. Staying uninfected requires understanding the risks and learning how to reduce them. Make personal decisions about what you are willing to do during sex and communicate them clearly to your partner before you take your clothes off.

The best ways to stay protected are abstinence or exclusively having protected sex with a long-term mutually monogamous partner who is not infected with HIV or other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). As with any STI, birth control pills do not protect against HIV. Latex condoms and dental dams are the only effective barriers against infection. A study of HIV-negative individuals in sexual relationships with HIV-positive partners concluded that latex condoms used correctly with every sex act were 98-100 percent effective at preventing the HIV negative partner from contracting the virus.

If you are sexually active, you should be tested regularly for STIs. Insist that each new partner be tested. If he or she is unwilling, you should consider whether sex with him or her is worth the risk.

Standard tests look for HIV antibodies that the immune system produces to fight HIV. It can take up to three months for the body to make enough antibodies to show up on a test. So if an infected person tests too soon after exposure, the test may not detect the virus, but the person can still infect others.

Today, there are several types of HIV tests that can be taken at home or in a doctor’s office, testing urine, blood or saliva. In many places, confidential and anonymous HIV counseling and testing are available, including the Dutchess County Department of Health walk-in clinic on Mondays from 1-4:30 p.m., Thursdays from 3-4 p.m. and Thursday evenings by appointment. Call (845) 486-3401 or visit 387 Main Street in Poughkeepsie for more information or to schedule an appointment.

There is more information on HIV/AIDS than I can cover here, and new information is always coming out. I urge you to become informed so you can make healthy choices. Accurate information is available on the Web sites of the Center for Disease Control (cdc.gov), the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (gmhc.org), the American Social Health Association (ashastd.org), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (aidsinfo.nih.gov) and UNAIDS (unaids.org).

—Jiná Ashline ’08 is a religion major with a women’s studies correlate. She is also president of C.H.O.I.C.E. Each week she will answer a question about sex and sexuality. Send your questions to jiashline@vassar.edu or by dropping a note in Box 2172.

Students can submit two- to five-minute videos that represent their personal responses to the Vassar experience.

J. Carlton/The Miscellany News

Whether providing informational videos in class, aiding procrastination in the Library or simply curing late-night boredom, YouTube has become an integral part of the Vassar community. Now College Relations is taking advantage of the two-way medium with a YouTube Contest and an enhanced Vassar YouTube channel.

Sponsored by Computing and Information Services, the Media Cloisters and College Relations, the contest asks students to produce a two- to five-minute YouTube video that best represents the spirit and quality of life on the Vassar campus. The videos, due May 6, must use soundtracks of non-copyrighted or open-source music and should be submitted on a CD or DVD to the Media Cloisters. All current Vassar students may participate.

Editorial Director Julia Van Develder explained that the contest is seeking to reveal Vassar’s quirky, hip and intriguing qualities to both prospective students and the general public. “We’ve seen some very good work from student videographers and filmmakers, and we’re hoping that this will inspire them to turn their lens on Vassar,” Van Develder said.

Media Cloisters Manager Baynard Bailey ’91 developed the contest to share students’ creative experiences with the general public. Bailey explained that student filmmakers already upload YouTube videos of Vassar, so College Relations is simply promoting their material.

“Students have their own way of expressing things—it’s stylish, it’s useful, it’s fashionable,” Bailey said. “We have a tradition of incredible aesthetic skills in filmmaking.”

Van Develder explained that Vassar’s enhanced YouTube channel sparked student interest in the contest. Originally, Van Develder posted promotional videos on a traditional YouTube site entitled “Matthew Vassar.” When Vassar’s Alumnae/i Quarterly published an article on the new site, it caught the attention of Hunter Walk ’95, who works for YouTube’s development team. Hunter helped establish the connection between College Relations and the enhanced nonprofit YouTube channel.

The new channel provides more bandwidth than a traditional YouTube account, so higher quality and longer videos can be stored online. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California at Berkeley, among others, also have YouTube channels, but Vassar is the first of its peer institutions to establish an enhanced Web site.

Bailey, who has taught both drama and information technology since he graduated from Vassar, supports the emerging YouTube and podcast culture on college campuses. He promotes the idea that content created by students and faculty should contribute to how the campus is perceived by outsiders.

“Students and alumnae/i are best able to articulate what Vassar is to whomever is interested,” he said. Bailey foresees faculty uploading their course information online to both entice prospective students and inform current students. “Video is big—we are going to see a lot more professors using video, not only to look at, but to make themselves,” Bailey said.

Since today’s media-savvy high school students are some of the heaviest contributors to the YouTube culture, Bailey believes that more user-generated video materials will interest them in coming to Vassar. Prospective students will be able to access the enhanced channel through the Vassar Web site.

“This contest would be most useful if a lot of people participated,” said film major Dan Savage ’10. “That is the only way it would show all the sides of Vassar—students should portray Vassar thoughtfully and accurately.”

The judges of the contest came from diverse sections of the Vassar community: Professor of Film Kathleen Man, President of the Vassar Filmmakers and a winner of the 2007 Insomnia Film Festival Brian Paccione ’09 and Vice President of College Relations Susan DeKrey. The videos will be judged and compiled independently by College Relations, and the results will be announced by May 16. The grand prize winner will receive a $600 gift certificate to the Vassar Computer Store, and four honorable mentions will win $50 gift certificates to the Computer Store.

The five prize-winning films will be showcased on the YouTube channel and screened at an event next fall. If the contest is successful, Bailey plans to expand the structure next year with different categories concerning specific topics.

So, stop gazing at “Charlie Bit Me” and “Panda Sneeze” and start creating your own YouTube production that depicts your personal Vassar experience.

“Merrily We Roll Along,” the drama department’s spring musical, takes place from the 1970s to the 1950s. That’s right, the show goes backward in time. Written by renowned composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, the show depicts a series of scenes that are told in reverse chronological order and span 20 years.

“Merrily” is a character study of a group of friends inspired by theater. Their friendships disintegrate over time as artistic values clash with commercial success. Because the show unfolds in reverse order, the audience first encounters the characters as jaded, bitter adults. Their ultimate accomplishments and failures are therefore no surprise. But the show focuses more on the characters than the plot, highlighting pivotal moments in the characters’ lives in an exploration of how they became the way they are.

“Sondheim is a genius,” said Director of Theater and “Merrily We Roll Along” Director Christopher Grabowski, who directed another Sondheim show, “Into the Woods,” last year. “Sondheim saved the musical from being obsolete,” Grabowski continued. “He reinvented it.”

Sondheim’s plays tend to carry more depth than a stereotypical musical. Initially, “Merrily We Roll Along” was not well received on Broadway. Due to the characters’ misery in the opening scenes, the show was often misinterpreted as more negative than intended. Grabowski enjoyed the challenge of presenting a play sometimes considered flawed.

Assistant Director Amanda Culp ’09 worked closely with Grabowski, whom she calls “an incredible mentor.” “He has been fully supportive of my ideas and thoughts throughout the entire process,” said Culp.

“There is a line in the second act that I think really sums up this play and why we are doing it: ‘Someday just began,’” said Culp. “As college students, it is easy to project ‘someday’ into the future. It is important to remember that right now, you and I and everyone else in our shoes, are actively living, and that mythical ‘someday’ is going to grow out of the choices we make today.”

Ultimately, the play is about the choices that help the characters to “get to be here,” as they sing in the opening number. The actors placed a lot of thought into the effect that their characters’ choices have in the show.

“All these characters have enormous professional success,” said cast member Aly French ’08. “What this play makes you realize is on what terms you’re willing to have that. It makes you think about the endless possibilities there area.”

Nick Trotta ’11 plays Charlie, a playwright who, as Trotta said, “just wants to be heard.” Trotta has found working on a Sondheim musical fascinating.

“What I’ve discovered is that a musical doesn’t communicate principally through dialogue like a straight play,” said Trotta. “Sondheim has perfected communication through songs. He can write music and lyrics as one would say them, intonation, speech speed, etc. It helps the actor a lot.”

Unlike the original production, the Vassar production of the play opens with a dance sequence.
“To clarify [the reverse chronological order], we have staged an opening sequence in which dancers briefly tell the story of the show in chronological order,” said Charlie O’Malley ’11, a dancer in the sequence. “We hope that this will help to clear up some of the inevitable confusion in the audience.” The dance also introduces physical motifs that occur throughout the show.

Lidiya Yankovskaya ’08 is the musical director for the show. “My responsibility is to oversee everything musical happening in this show, from teaching the songs to preparing and directing the orchestra,” said Yankovskaya. “It’s amazing that, as a student, I have had the opportunity to work on a production of this magnitude. The most interesting thing has been to work with the fantastic team that is putting this show together—bouncing ideas, listening, respecting one another’s work and now finally putting all of the pieces together.”

The students are thrilled to work on such a rich and powerful piece, and had nothing but praise for their cast and crew. “To watch the whole thing come together has been like magic,” said cast member Gwen Ellis ’08.

Grabowski is already thinking of more musicals to put on at Vassar in the next few years. Upcoming possibilities include Bertolt Brecht’s “Threepenny Opera” and Adam Guettel’s “Floyd Collins,” as well as the smash Broadway hit “Rent.”

Amato takes the Broadway stage after dancing in the Mug and singing in L.A.

Courtesy of Katie Rosin

During her time at Vassar, drama major Erika Amato ’91 studied the Swedish playwright Strindberg, dabbled in the improvisational style of commedia dell’arte, danced in Matthew’s Mug and performed Molière. After graduating, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue film and television, headlined the indie band Velvet Chain and now works in New York on Broadway. The Miscellany News caught up with her on April 17 while the actress and singer took a break from rehearsals for the upcoming musical farce “Triumph of Love,” in which she stars as the aunt of the protagonists love interest, Hesione. It will run at the Astoria Performing Arts Center from April 25 through May 11.