In the coming years, the Amherst College board of trustees will be voting on a number of issues at the heart of student life. While the board strives to incorporate the views of the student body into their decisions, this is not always possible when the most recent alumni trustee graduated 20 years ago, in 1996. Even with coordination with the administration and the occasional student meeting, the board of trustees’ understanding of Amherst is not reflective of the full reality of our ever-changing institution.
Why does the integration of academic and social identities in college matter?
Make no mistake — there is a sports information crisis brewing at Amherst College. The numbers tell you as much.
Since 2006, Amherst has employed no fewer than six different sports information directors, commonly known as SIDs. One after the next has left after a year or two for a similar position elsewhere; this includes Amherst’s most recent SID, Mike O’Brien, who departed Amherst for the same position at a peer school, Wesleyan University.
The Amherst men’s basketball team finished up interterm with an impressive 16-3 record (5-1 NESCAC) and ranked 14th in the country. The talented team is currently averaging 83 points per game shooting 46.1 percent from field goal range and 37.1 percent from beyond the arc.
Here’s something hard to argue with: political discussions are a net good. Through debates, people voice their opinions against dissenters, gain new perspectives and even strengthen and clarify their own positions. Especially on a liberal arts college campus like Amherst, where we are taught to challenge our personal convictions and conceptions of the world, debating the most pressing issues of fiscal and social politics is key.
Far before I settled on coming to Amherst, I have been a loyal aficionado of David O. Russell films. Certainly his early niche works are worth watching, but I, like most of the mainstream world, am partial to his more recent Academy-recognized films. “The Fighter” left me feeling raw, and I stayed up all night with the image of an underweight, crack cocaine-addicted Christian Bale emblazoned in my mind. “Silver Linings Playbook” nailed the concept of endearing family dysfunction. Also, I think what he does with mental illness is brilliant.
To find an Iñárritu film during the cinematic famine that comes around every January is to find an oasis in an oft-traversed desert. The Mexican director has efficiently carved a hobbit hole in the mainstream moviegoer’s consciousness, and “The Revenant” is an unabashedly loud stroke of the chisel that reminds everyone that he is here to stay.
