It’s no secret that the destruction of the socials has had a big impact on the social scene at Amherst. If a group of students want to have a party, then they have to reserve a dorm’s public common room, or a venue like the Powerhouse, unless they live in one of the five suites in Jenkins. That has made it a lot harder to organize parties, according to Beau Santero ’18, a member of the football team.
Last year, around this time, I remember my roommate excitedly telling me that he was able to select a suite in a Greenway dormitory. He was excited because, as a rising sophomore, he thought his chances of getting a suite in the brand new dorms would be difficult. Even with the “33/33/33” policy, in which a third of the new dorms would be reserved for each of the eligible class years, he assumed that the rising seniors and rising juniors would take the suites.
Over the weekend, a swarm of prospective students surrounded our campus, full of questions and expectations. They struggled to differentiate the yellow Keefe Campus Center from the yellow Loeb Center. They paused by the dozens of identical brick buildings, trying to assess the merits and disadvantages of this school while cautiously walking around campus, unable to know where their path might take them. The new adventure of college awaits them, as well as all the mysteries surrounding it.
If you are a student, you probably read the title and thought, “Obviously — what else is new?” This might stem from month-long unanswered emails from staff (my personal streak is 7 months), lack of housing accommodations for students, or recent controversies.
What’s new is an opportunity to change Residential Life from a program that enforces arbitrary and harmful policies into a department that actually serves its students.
Walking through the stacks of Frost Library reminds us of the overwhelming volume of published material in the world. No matter how many classes we take, there are always more books we could read, more textbooks from which we can learn and more people to whom we can listen. There is so much we will not know simply because of limited time. However, the feeling of not knowing enough should not become a state of hopeless stagnation.
On Monday, Amherst College officially (and finally) announced its first-ever official mascot: the Mammoths. This change comes on the heels of the student body’s majority decision to reject the college’s long-time unofficial mascot, the Lord Jeff, because of Lord Jeffrey Amherst’s terrible and inhumane treatment of Native Americans. However, in terms of national attention, the controversy over the Lord Jeff is small potatoes compared to the argument over the Washington D.C. football team’s name.
Watching porn at college always reminded me a little bit of Facebook stalking. Lots of people do it, many find it entertaining, and almost everyone would be embarrassed if someone caught them watching it. What’s different about porn is the way we talk about it — or maybe more importantly, the way we don’t. The porn industry is like the mafia boss of entertainment. It’s the most powerful player by far, but we feel afraid or ashamed to address it directly.
