After being denied access to the Voices of the Class show due to space constraints, I happened upon a copy of the script for the show that a Gads member had somehow forgotten. It’s a good read. I am just curious as to whether reading is anywhere near as entertaining as seeing it performed.

I probably shouldn’t post any excerpts, but rest assured that it is quite good.

The large numbers of children make being on campus during the summer a particularly surreal experience for Amherst students. Walking though the freshman quad today, it suddenly dawned on me that I was the tallest person in the area, which became even more strange when, for an instant, it seemed as if every Amherst student had been swiftly replaced with a younger version of his or herself. Children with backpacks walked together in pairs and in groups. They were loud, they were oftentimes obnoxious.

“I have a terrible backhand,” one child said. “But if you catch me serving, you’d better watch out!”

But they are still children. This becomes evident in Valentine hall, an environment not adapted for people of such small stature. For them, receiving dishes from the servers requires an unavoidable reaching up, and the trays are oftentimes wider than the children themselves. Their small hands clutch the silver tongs with difficulty as they reach for bunches of grapes. They stand on the tips of their toes as they press their glasses to the soda dispenser. Walking among them, it becomes quite apparent that the world is a difficult place for people of their size. They seem to wander around aimlessly at times and, to experienced Amherst students, quickly become tiresome.

The lower level of Valentine is reserved for the children, with the upper level being dedicated to “quiet adult groups.” The noise does not restrict itself to the lower floor, however, and one often becomes subject to the various highbrow conversations of the children.

” Ha! Look at his face,” one child exclaimed with an air of discovery. “He does look like pikachu.”

“He looks more like cow poop to me,” said another, scoffing.

That is not to say that all of the children are less than nine years out of their mothers’ wombs. The assortment of camps ensures that that there are children of all ages on campus during the summer. One program in particular, Excel, consists of class components where older students tackle the tough questions, including, but not limited to, whether or not “Chuck Klosterman is a pretentious jerk.”

One can’t complain, though. The dining hall would be completely empty if the children were not around. The campus itself would be deserted. Thus it is not a stretch to say that it is preferable to have hundreds of hyperactive children screaming around you then to have no one at all.

In 1857, Massachusetts Governor Joel Hayden of Haydenville donated funds to Amherst College for the building of a state of the goddess Sabrina. The statue was built that very same year, and weighing at a bit over three hundred pounds and standing at a height of four-and-a-half feet, it quietly sat in the flowerbed between North Dormitory and the Octagon.

The statue remained peacefully until 1860, when an Amherst student adorned the statue in clothing, which would later become a trend for students looking for a quick laugh. That same student, after being harshly reprimanded by College authorities for his offense, later struck the statue with an axe, causing that was later repaired.

The abuse of the statue continued. In 1870, after the expulsion of one of their numbers, the class of 1870 had the entire statue whitewashed. By 1884, the statue had found itself dumped on the roof of the octagon, placed on the chapel tower, and thrown into the college well.

By this time, the President Seeyle of the college had already considering seeking an end to the exploits of his students. He assigned the college janitor ‘Professor Charlie’ a task – to destroy the statue. Professor Charlie, however, fell for the beauty of the statue and, instead of destroying it, hid it under a pile of hay in his barn, where it remained for two years.

Then, in an event that is as surprising as it is unlikely, the goddess Sabrina is said to have appeared to two members of the class of 1890. It was then that the goddess announced itself to the two men and effectively began a feud that would last for a long while.

What began as a relatively simple purloin quickly developed into a conflict among classes as the class of 1889 stole the statue from the class of 1890. 1889 soon passed the statue on to the class of 1891, which resisted 1890′s repeated attempts to steal the statue back.

The tradition continued, with Sabrina being hidden in all sorts of places, including coal mines, bank vaults, and the bottom of the Connecticut River. Protected by ‘Sabrina Men’ who were also assigned to present the statue to fellow members of their class each year, the statue has been held primarily by members of even-numbered years

Sabrina made an appearance in 2005 at the class of 1980′s 25th reunion. Not in the best shape due, the statue was once again hidden away by the class.

 Sources:

Shoop, Max. Sabrina: The Goddess of Amherst College. 1910.

Every four to five years, Amherst College IT makes big changes in its various facilities. Due to the fact that computers become outdated almost immediately after they enter homes and offices, IT attempts to stay on the cutting-edge of technology by making sure that Amherst’s computers can run the newest software.

Today, I had the chance to take part in the revamping of the A-Level’s computer systems. Fancying the old, clunky Dell monitors unfortunate eyesores, IT decided to replace the unsightly equipment with the wide screen loveliness posted above.

IT also brought in new mice, keyboard, headphones, and Dell Optiplexes – but Amherst students wont be staring at those come next semester, obviously.

Click the jump for more details.

Even while off, the new monitors are visually stunning. Indeed, they are so attractive to viewers that our usually trustworthy custodians were stricken with the sudden urge to embrace and attempt to steal them. This, of course, was all in jest, but it does give you a sense for the first thought that crosses one’s mind as one sees the new monitors.

The monitors also feature the rather uncelebrated feature of being able to be turned vertically. If IT implements the software properly, I see this as becoming a very popular feature among students. Though initially questionable in its utility, the ability to turn the computer monitors sideways enables students to have their Word documents take up a full vertical screen. This, in turn, should make paper-writing somewhat easier, if not more enjoyable.

The computers themselves will – thankfully – not feature Windows Vista. IT is not ready for it, nor are most students in particular need of its various wonderful features. On the bright side, however, Firefox 2 will be (finally) installed by IT on Amherst computers.

A-Level should be back up and running by Monday. Students should look forward to using the new monitors come next semester.

Scrutiny, Amherst’s student-run, student-written course evaluation site, has been all dolled up, decked out in a pretty coat of purple paint. James Buchanan ’09 is at the helm of the revamped project and encourages Amherst students to inform him of any bugs and pass him along any suggestions concerning how make Scrutiny that much more awesome.

Incoming freshman should take note: Don’t make the same mistakes as your predecessors. Research the course professors as well as the classes themselves. Also, Freshman Drop is your very, very best friend.

In a move that is certain to make other colleges rethink their own practices, the trustees of Amherst College voted to eliminate loans from student financial aid packages.

The policy, which will be implemented during the 2008-2009 school year, will replace student loans like the Perkins and Stafford loans, with scholarship money. It will affect new as well as returning students.

A third of Amherst students receiving financial aid are forced to take out loans to attend Amherst. This policy change is believed to be a godsend to the middle-class students whose families earn too much for the students eligible for full Amherst scholarships but earn too little for them to be able to afford to go to Amherst without the aid of loans.

Typically a source for vaguely important campus-centered news, the Amherst College Intranet announcement page gave word today of the death of one of Amherst’s professors.

Mirjana Lausevic, or Minja as she was affectionately called , died on Sunday, 15 July of undisclosed causes. She came to Amherst in 2006 as a Valentine Professor, teaching Music 11 during Fall 2006 semester and Music 6 – Music in American Life in Spring 2007. I took both classes with her, both of which were dual-taught with her husband, Tim Eriksen.

Minja and her husband were both extremely influential people for me during my freshman year. Taking Music 11 helped to eliminate my distaste for singing in front – or with – others and inspired a what I hope to be life-long love of Sacred Harp singing. I am extremely grateful for these things.

Minja was a brilliant ethnomusicologist. One of the greatest lessons I learned from her and Tim came from her revelations on music and culture. On a few occasions, the two of them sang a Baltic love song together in front of their classes. To the students’ ears, the song held an air of melancholy and distress. But Minja revealed something to us: Though the song was indeed in a minor key and sounded quite unsettling to our ears, the fact that she and Tim were singing it together, their voices supporting each other, made the song less sorrowful and more uplifting. The fact that the students interpreted the song as an unhappy one was attributed solely to the minor key’s role in Western culture. The song did not have the same interpretation where it was originally sung.

So I suppose that there is a message here. If Minja’s death is a minor key, something sad and unfortunate, Minja’s life – a life spent on learning and teaching the joys of music – is the uplifting, misunderstood component of it all.

(Thanks to http://www.sheldonfinlay.com/dynamic/php/zphoto/wmshc-2007/page/3/ for the picture)

UPDATE: David Schneider, head of the Music department at Amherst, sent out an email to all music majors and former students of Minja:

Dear Music Majors and Former Students of Professor Lausevic,

It is my sad duty to report that Mirjana (Minja) Lausevic, Valentine
Professor of Music 2006-’07, passed away on Sunday July 15th. Her death
was due to what I understand was a rather sudden return and quick
progression of an illness (cancer, I believe) that she had battled in
past years. She is survived by her husband Tim Eriksen (Amherst Class of
’89) and her two children, Anja (3) and Luka (5). At this point it looks
as if Tim and the children will remain in the Northampton/Hadley area
where they have a number of close friends.

As of now there is no date set for a memorial service, but we willdo our best to let you know if one is scheduled. This is also information that is likely to appear on the College Intranet Announcements.

In sorrow–

Sincerely yours,
David Schneider

 

UPDATE 25 July: A memorial service for Professor Lausevic will be held on Saturday 28 July in Greenfield. There, in addition to sacred harp singing as well as a potluck dinner, donations will be accepted for the Luka and Anja Eriksen Education Fund. Details here.

I am nearly certain they are there to allow this camera to record your eating habits that much easier. That’s all kinds of creepy.

Yay for Big Brother.

Amherst College itself has a few webcams – affectionately titled “AmhCam.” – on campus,. Live feeds can be seen of the Charles Pratt Construction and the Freshman quad.

Five dollars to anyone that can actually spot where those cameras are located. I have failed at that task multiple times.

During its latest iteration, FastWeb’s “Scholarship Detective” contest – which I have unabashedly participated in – presented potential Scholarship Sherlock Holmes’ with four ostensibly unlikely options. Among the improbable possibilities, one in particular stood out – The Amherst Shuffleboard Scholarship, which, according to FastWeb, makes any member of the new Amherst Shuffleboard team eligible for free cash.

Now, I was quick to assume that this dubious Amherst scholarship was the fraud by because, to my knowledge, Amherst doesn’t even have a shuffleboard team.  A few Google searches confirmed my suspicions. Yet I was still left with a lingering suspicion that there was a joke that I wasn’t getting. I gave FastWeb a call, but their customer service failed to answer the phone.

Would anyone actually be interested in joining a shuffleboard team if Amherst created one?

Food Management Magazine, a mainstay of any college, business, or hospital looking to improve its dining services, recently wrote a feature on UMass Amherst Dining Services’s complete amazingness.

The June article details the various improvements the folks over at UMass have made during the fast few years, including (but certainly not limited to) its Breakfast on the Run program and the renovation of UMass’s Berkshire Commons.

One of the more interesting factoids featured in the article concerned itself with the actual number of people that utilize the Dining Services facilities:

The proof of its popularity lies in the numbers: the meal plan base currently stands at 13,000 despite the fact that there are only 11,000 resident students, and only the 7,700 resident freshmen and sophomores are required to purchase meal plans.

These numbers are staggering if you compare them to the situation at Amherst, where, though just about all Amherst students eat at Valentine Hall each day, most students wish they didn’t have to.

My question is this: How can a huge school like UMass administer the “Boutique Philosophy” better than a small school like Amherst? Is it simply a result of a difference in vision? Funds?

Mark this news as at least one reason why going to UMass is more wonderful than going to Amherst. You can read the whole Food Management article here.