The eagerly awaited Powerhouse opened on Friday, Sept. 5, greeting a crowd of students and administrators with steak sandwiches and hors d’oeuvres. Since then, the Powerhouse Committee has demonstrated the versatility of the space, following up their opening event with a feast of wings and pizza for hungry Saturday-night partiers and a screening of the seminal 1980’s classic “Goonies.”
With the frustrated efforts of the infamous 2013 “dry orientation” not far in the rear view window, this fall, all eyes were on Provost Uvin’s reforms. Last semester, controversy abounded over the removal of Queer Queries, the insertion of poorly defined academic TEDx presentations and reports of new, required three-day trips. The issue that remained constantly at the center of the conversation was the status of varsity athletes or our “scholar-athletes.”
We know, we know. Orientation week is long and filled with more information than you’ll ever need to know.
But as the independent student newspaper of the college (since 1868), we are obligated to provide you, class of 2018 — and transfer students, who get way less love than they deserve — with some tricks to the Amherst trade. For both our sanity and yours, we’ve tried to keep these modules of wisdom as practical and far from banal Buzzfeed-esque listicles about College, Trying New Things and Following Your Dreams as possible.
The Trustee’s Office emailed students yesterday informing them of a decision by the Board of Trustees to prohibit participation in fraternities, sororities and “fraternity-like and sorority-like organizations,” including off campus. The decision arrives exactly thirty years after the Trustees in 1984 banned all on-campus fraternities.
Summer is coming. In about two weeks, we will all be celebrating the end of another semester in our own ecstatic ways. This end-of-the-year celebration may be loud, quiet, public, private, creative or even self-destructive depending on the individual, and it will definitely be a well-deserved occasion for all parties involved. After all, it marks the end of something dreadful, or so we feel. But what exactly will have ended then?
Last Monday, the AAS voted on a motion to overturn the April 15 JC ruling regarding campaign expenditures. The motion failed to pass; twenty senators voted yes in favor of the motion, eight senators voted no and three senators abstained, meaning the motion fell just short of the three-fourths majority necessary to overturn a JC ruling.
On April 2, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5-4 ruling on McCutcheon et al. v. Federal Election Commission, striking down the Federal Election Campaign Act’s aggregate limits on the total amount a donor may contribute to all candidates and committees. Perhaps in protest to the Supreme Court’s controversial ruling — or perhaps not — the AAS Judiciary Council seems to be cracking down on campaign finance. Last week, the JC emailed students informing them a complaint expressing concern about excessive campaign expenditures during the run-off AAS Executive Election was filed.
