Re-LAX, just do it!: Men and Women’s Teams Prepare for 2015 Season

By Alex Pinto ‘17

Published February 2015

The women’s Lacrosse team practices in anticipation for its first game of the season. Photo courtesy of Stephanie Perlitz ‘16

It’s a new year and new season here for both of our men’s and women’s Wildcat Lacrosse teams and they are both looking to go nowhere but up. Both teams have been through a number of different changes in their line-ups, and have made additions to their roster in in the hopes of a successful 2015 season.

While the Wildcat men’s Lacrosse team lost nine players to graduation and four underclassmen to transfers, the team has a twenty-four player roster: two seniors, six juniors, ten sophomores, and seven first-years. The first-years are meshing well with the team, according to Ryan Mahon '15, and have looked good thus far. The team may have lost some of its more experienced players, but head coach Andrew Sinclair notes that a majority of the younger talent from last year’s team are returning. In addition to the young talent, the team has brought on a new member of the coaching staff, former Randolph Lacrosse player John Grundy '14.

Coming off of last year’s 5-11 record, the boys have targeted several team goals they are aiming to accomplish this year. Coach Sinclair emphasized that he wants to see the team live and play for each other, execute fundamentals at a high level consistently, and achieve a team GPA of 3.0 or higher. Last year, the team’s GPA was 2.9. All of these goals are achievable if the team comes together as one and meshes well together.

“Success for our team is giving 100% to the process of the season,” Sinclair explained. “It’s a long and intense three-and-a-half months, mentally and physically. And, it’s all about the process of reaching our goals — the smaller goals that need to be met to give us a chance to reach our main goals. Study habits, conditioning habits, how we conduct ourselves in the community. Each day we’re living the process and ultimately that’s what we’ll look back on, more so than the wins and losses.”

A few people to look for on the field are sophomore attack Graham Southwick, who’s worked extremely hard this off season and it’s starting to translate onto the field. Also, look for  Mahon and Baden James '16, who will both bring leadership, talent, and experience to the defense. The team is expecting an exciting season. As Mahon stated, “I am looking forward to being out on the field, especially our home turf with my teammates, my brothers, and fight hard through every game.”

The women’s Lacrosse team is also looking forward to a great season. With two seniors, four juniors, seven sophomores, and two first years, the girls are poised to work hard and come together and to improve as a team overall. The coaching staff will be a big part of this process. Samantha Fagone '15 stated, “Our coaches pinpoint each player’s strengths and weaknesses, pairing them up accordingly, so we can build up one another in drills, stickwork, etc…”

The women’s team has been preparing for the season in a variety of ways. They trained over winter break, kept their hands on their sticks, and worked with personal trainers. As the team’s co-captains Fagone and Taylor Klevenz '15 emphasized, way team’s ultimate goals are to work hard and always give 100%, compete in the ODAC, surpass their overall wins in a season, and build the team’s chemistry.

Although the women’s team will approach all of their games as big ones, their two biggest games of the season will be against Virginia Wesleyan and Guilford.  They are preparing for the games now. They are working hard, brushing up on stick skills, footwork, and speed. Coming off of a record of 5-12, the girls have worked and will continue to work hard to achieve their team goals and success. According to senior captain Fagone, success means “Looking back at the practice or game and saying ‘You know what, I left everything out on that field,’ no matter what the score is. I need to have a positive mentality everyday personally, as well as with my team.”

With a three and a half month season left in their college careers for the two seniors,  Klevenz states, “I am most looking forward to ending my four years with one of the best seasons yet to come. I am also looking forward to working with all my teammates, who have already been working so hard to achieve our team goals.”

                          

In Theatrical Hell with No Exit

By Phuong Tran ‘15

Published February 2015

From left to right: Marianne Virnelson ‘17 as Inez, Quan (Samuel) Sun ‘17 as Boy, Bentley Kennedy-Stone ‘16 as Cradeau, and Olivia Wray ‘16 as Estelle discover that “Hell is other people!” in Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit. 

Photo courtesy of OCR

“You have to be more disgusted by her,” said Director-in-Residence JD Glickman to Olivia Wray ‘16 in their rehearsal for the upcoming Wildcat Theatre spring production, No Exit. “There is no politeness here. These characters are here to torture each other.” An hour had passed, yet Wray (Estelle)  and Marianne Vimelson ‘17 (Ines) kept playing the same scene over and over again, until Wray completely transformed into Estelle, burst out in torrential anger, and spit with immense disgust to Ines’ face.

That is one of the major scenes in No Exit, a 1944 existential play written by French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre. The play tells an after-life story of three deceased characters, Vincent Cradeau, Ines Serranos, and Estelle Rigault, who are locked up together in a room for eternity. These damned souls expect to be tortured in Hell for past sins, but come to realize that they were put in the same room to torture each other ad infinitum. No Exit is the artistic manifestation of Sartre’s idea about the look of the “Other” that causes one to see and shape oneself through the “Other”’s eyes. According to Glickman, a professional actor and director who came to Randolph this semester all the way from Sweden to direct No Exit, while the play is small with only four characters, it is extremely challenging, both to himself and to the cast.

No Exit will be played in two weeks, Feb. 21-22 and Feb. 27-28, at 7:30 in the Lab Theatre, Legget Building. The cast is a diversity of actors with varying acting levels, including Bentley Kennedy Stone ‘16 (Vincent Cradeau), Olivia Wray ‘16 (Estelle), Marianne Vimelson ‘17 (Inez Serrano), and Quan (Samuel) Sun ‘17 (Boy). Director Glickman designed the model for the set himself, featuring a white and bright glass-walled room with minimal decoration and furniture. He wanted to recreate a cramped, lonely, and suspending place from which the audience can view the actors and feel their inescapable desperation. “I want to wrap them (the audience) around and keep it really tight. They are there, in the room, but at the same time, they are not there.”

Assistant Professor of performance and directing, Brooke Edwards believed that it’s time the theatre department takes on an experimental and demanding play such as No Exit. “When you pick show for academic theatre, you always have to think about the student body that you have and find a genre or area of theatre that they haven’t been introduced to,” said Edwards. “No Exit requires a different style of acting to create a sense of heightened reality. The actors really have to break down and think about the movements, the dialogues, and use all that to help them reach that state of heightened drama.”

Having the student actors understand the inner working of the characters and grow into them is what both Edwards and director Glickman hoped to achieve. “I use the Chekhov method in my acting and teaching, and this method requires the actors to rely a lot on their imagination,” shared Glickman. “I want them to be truthful in the play and respond truthfully. Even though rehearsals can be heated at times, I am thrilled to be here, directing this play and watching all of them coming closer and closer to getting the essence of the characters. The characters may not know themselves, but the actors have to know how a person who doesn’t know themselves behave.”

Glickman also thinks that No Exit is a challenge to the cast because it is centered around pain. “The characters are only acting out their own pain: They push the others away or pull them in when they have pain,” said Glickman. He also told The Sundial that sometimes the actors even shared with him their experiences with pain; and he tried to help them channel those experiences into their understanding and playing of the characters. 

Sartre’s main characters serve as each other’s tortue in Hell.
Photo courtesy of OCR

As the characters wrestled with the pain of narcissism, the actors themselves were also struggling with another kind of pain, necessary to their artistic growth. “Playing Estelle has been a huge struggle for me, and it still is,” shared Wray. She was pained by several desperate attempts at getting to the core of her character as well as all the emotional rollercoasters inevitable to rehearsal. “He (Glickman) tends to yell a lot, which can be intimidating at times,” she said. “But he doesn’t do it to make us feel as though we have no talent. He does it to get us to fully explore the world in which we have to live in on stage, to explore our characters, to explore the wants and needs of our characters.”

“He is brutally honest, but without his honesty, we wouldn’t get anywhere,” Wray said after a long pause. “While the process was tough, it was well worth it.”

It was, indeed, worth it. In their last rehearsal, Wray took the stage on the second run-through after an unsuccessful and emotionally exhaustive performance. Something clicked and all of a sudden, she was Estelle, in hell and truly trapped. “Nothing was forced and the moments flowed. I was a vain, self-righteous bitch who wants to have sex with the only man in the room, despite him being a completely unappealing person.” 

Wray’s transformation made watching No Exit a whole new experience. It was clear that director Glickman was greatly moved. “I would pay to watch this,” he exclaimed. “It was so good I didn’t want it to end.”

In Tune with History: Two Gospel Concerts Celebrate Black History Month

By Cale Holmes ‘16

Published February 2015

Local artists preform “Wading in the Water”
 with choreography six months in the making.
Photo courtesy of Cale Holmes ‘16

To make up for the Black Leadership Association’s current inactivity at Randolph College, the Multi-ethnic and Multicultural Leaders  Club, whose mission is to bridge the gap between progressive cultural endeavor and extracurricular activities, has gone full blown steam ahead with the Gospel Extravaganza for Black History Month.  

The hopes of recreating the event were a drive for students and staff who have all cooperatively coordinated it in past years.  However, due to scheduling difficulties, the 2015 Gospel Extravaganza was separated into two parts.  Part I was coordinated by Hermina Hendricks, Director of Multicultural Student Services, who earnestly wanted to guarantee choir groups and artists scheduled to perform on Valentine’s Day their original performance date.  Students Vanessa McBean ‘16 and Shay Nelson ‘15, the Multiethnic and Multicultural Leaders Club’s leaders, have planned for Gospel Extravangza Part II to feature a wide range of artists on February 21. 

Part I was presented as planned by Hendricks on Valentine’s Day.  The show saw a combination of art and lyrical expressions with a unique perspective that the college hasn’t seen for several years now.  Though sparsely attended, Hendricks shed tears of joy due to the close relationships between all the attending community members. 

Leslie King, a Lynchburg local, thought the event was successful in its essence of “highlighting the musical tradition of the Black community.”  The event entailed several acts of song and dance with a spiritual purpose.  Famous songs like “Wading in the Water” were accompanied with songs composed by local artists and choirs, accompanied with innovative choreography.  Julius Thomas ‘12 read the opening scripture and led the opening prayer.

Many students who attended these events, especially the students who have organized the Gospel Extravaganza Part II, wished to gain cultural insight from all other Black History Month events. Members of the greater Lynchburg area, on the other hand, came with the hope of reliving the strong engagement that artists of color have had with Randolph College in the past. The Multi-ethnic and Multicultural Leaders Club hopes that similar events, such as Part II, will be held in the future with greater attendance.

Auburnlea Corners the Market on Organic Eating

By Donald Saltmash ‘16

Published February 2015

 Welcome to Cornerstone, Lynchburg’s newest large community development. Located just down the road from Lynchburg Regional Airport and Liberty University, it is a sprawling community offering various amenities residents of Lynchburg, the fastest growing city in the Central Virginia region. While Cornerstone has plenty of housing options and close proximity to the bustling Wards Road, the true treasure of the community just opened a month ago.  Auburnlea Farms Corner Market is a combination of grocery store, butcher, café, and soda shoppe, and, somehow, each aspect manages to successfully co-exist. 

Auburnlea’s exterior borrows architectural details from traditional southern barns, and upon entry many rustic details emerge in the small grocery, a sharp contrast to the stark white floors and long aisles of traditional stores. The small-world feel makes for a pleasurable shopping experience away from the tedious bustle of the grocery experience that large corporations have established as today’s norm. It does not have the selection of Kroger, or the breadth of goods and supplies of other supermarkets, but then again, that is not the goal of Auburnlea. Instead, it emphasizes quality over quantity, with a selection of high-quality locally sourced organic foods and a butcher section comparable to nearby Bedford Avenue Meat Shop. Auburnlea’s soda shoppe has a truly unique character as well, featuring house-made sodas and syrups made with organic fruits, as well as ice cream from Trickling Springs, which is sourced from  “Beyond Organic” small farms providing milk from grass-fed cows. 

Turkish Fig & Blue Cheese saladsAll photo's courtesy of Donald Saltmarsh '16

While the market and soda shoppe are wonderful, the highlight of a trip to the Corner Market is its small café that could easily be pictured in the streets of San Francisco or Portland. The cafe’s booths and tables nestle into a small walled-off strip of the store; however, even though the space is small, it does not feel crowded or cramped. Small touches such as Edison light bulbs and table legs made from spinning wheel bases give the café soft lighting and provide continuity of the farm-to-table themes of the menu, with a section that changes daily. 

On the day that I dined at Cornerstone, the menu featured four unique salads, a variety of soups and sandwiches, and an exceptional burger menu. Beverages included organic coffee drinks, and of course, the draft pulled sodas from the soda shoppe. In Lynchburg I rarely see truly unique ingredient pairings, but this restaurant differs, offering a fresh take on classics and commitment to quality. My dining companion and I started the meal with two Turkish Fig & Blue Cheese salads ($7 each), which along with the obvious ingredients also included mixed greens, granola, and apple slices, topped off with a pear vinaigrette dressing.The fresh salads had just the right amount of crunch and sweetness that balanced well with the tangy blue cheese. We followed the salads with a Steak Sandwich ($10) and a Bison Burger ($10)—a tough decision when the burger menu also boasted chorizo, ahi tuna, and turkey burgers. 

The bison burger topped with
 local goat pimento cheese and hot pepper jelly

The steak sandwich was cooked to preference (I went medium-rare) on a hoagie loaf with dark honey and mustard, Swiss chard, Havarti cheese, and onion gravy. The bison burger was topped with local goat pimento cheese and hot pepper jelly. The steak sandwich came with a side of your choice; I went with the barley & quinoa salad over the other options including red potato salad, house made potato wedges, or homemade potato chips. The bison burger came with a choice of the aforementioned potato wedges, potato chips, or an additional choice of sweet potato fries, and my companion went with the sweet potato option. The farm-to-table feel of the dining experience made it seem a gourmet experience with affordable prices; all of the ingredients were extremely fresh, and the meat was tender and juicy. The pimento cheese and hot pepper jelly on the burger distinguished itself from standard American-fare in a very good way, and the medium-cut sweet potato fries avoided the grease over-load of most fries without sacrificing the crunch of the outer potato. The steak sandwich emphasized the excellent steak cut, and the salad offered a refreshing and healthy option reminiscent of summer day barbecues. 

Barley & quinoa salad came as an
optional side with the steak sandwich.

The many vegetarian-friendly options including salads, veggie burgers, pimento cheese, and a veggie sandwich, a small rotating dessert menu, combined with the reasonable meal prices (entrées range from $8-14) make the café element of Auburnlea Farms truly a stand-out in Lynchburg, a worthwhile one-stop shop for dinner and groceries. Whether you are looking for high-quality products or simply a delicious meal, this market will not leave you disappointed. We left with nothing to complain of other than full bellies, full grocery baskets, and a strong feeling that Dr. John Abell would approve.

Swinging Back into Season: A Tennis Player’s Story

By Alex Pinto ‘17

Published February 2015

The Wildcats men’s and women’s Tennis teams kick off a three-month, 18-match schedule on February 21, with an away match at Ferrum. That includes nine matches on their home court. We spoke to junior Dina Velazco, who says the team is aiming to win 80 percent of their doubles matches, and ending in the top five of ODAC. Accomplish this has meant a good deal of off-season condition and strength training. Here’s some of what Velazco had to say about her pre-season training regimen. 

“Each break our coach gives us an off-season workout meant for us to be physically really for each season,” Velazco said. The team is to condition and get into the weight room as an individual and as a team. Besides, as many know, injuries are a part of a sport. There are many ways to prevent and take care of these injuries. Stretching, drinking water, eating correctly, and sleep can not only affect the performance of an athlete, but also plays a huge role on injury prevention and healing.

Velazco is one of the many players here at Randolph who has experienced injuries. “Since my first year, the injuries that I have had are a sprained ankle, a back injury, and had bursitis and tendonitis on my right shoulder. For each injury, I have had to rest, ice and then do physical therapy as instructed by the trainers, they have been really helpful with every injury,” shared Velazco.

Velazco, a business and economics major, has been playing tennis for years. “Tennis runs in my family, and my parents have bought my siblings and I rackets before we were even born,” she said. Tennis is a huge part of her life and she was eager to be able to continue playing after her injury. “This season I am really looking forward to being with my team and finally playing since I was not able to play at all last semester due to my shoulder injury.”

The Randolph Tennis team has 17 players all-together, ten men’s players and seven women’s players. They are eager to go out and show everyone what they have been preparing for this season. “With fifteen hard matches and a tournament coming up this spring, the team is looking to improve from last year and achieve their team goals,” said Velazco. So, bundle up and make sure you get out and support both men’s and women’s Tennis this spring!

Lynchburg’s Reading Roots

Written By Grace Gardiner ‘15

Published February 2015

Ever since he was offered a position in the spring of 2013 to teach Creative Writing as a full-time member of Randolph College’s English Department, Gary Dop has been putting down roots. One of his latest endeavors, the Taproot Reading Series, reaches beyond the confines of the Red Brick Wall, aiming to spread and share the talents of Lynchburg’s local writers with the greater community.

Dop’s idea for the series germinated from the lack of any consistent event in town that highlights the gems that make up Lynchburg’s own resident writers. “The Visiting Writers Series at Randolph is phenomenal for the work it does in bringing in writers from various places across the country and from all walks of the writing life, but because of this very nature, writers that are local to Lynchburg and the areas surrounding don’t end up in the ring,” he said. “The Taproot Reading Series allows us to showcase the spectacular writers in our community and create a venue for connection among these writers and the residents of Lynchburg.” 

Besides emphasizing the breadth of exceptional writers in Lynchburg’s own backyard, the series seeks to illuminate the concept of connection in another sense—in the “beautiful connection of influence” present between the writers invited to read, their current students, and their former mentors. Each writer invited to read for the series will open his or her reading with a current student reading a piece authored by that writer’s mentor at one stage of his or her writing career. Dop commented further that the name “Taproot” is not unique to Lynchburg’s series: “I’ve used the name [Taproot] before in other series I’ve helped to initiate because it calls to mind the long chain of roots and root systems and serves to illustrate the significance of the interweaving of past and present influences for a writer.”

The Taproot Reading Series kicks off on February 26th at 7:30 p.m. at Phantastic Books downtown with readings from Randolph Professor Laura-Gray Street, Sweet Briar Professor John Casteen, and Lynchburg College Professor Allison Wilkins. As mentioned earlier, each writer will begin with a current student reading a piece from one of his or her former mentors. As an added plus, Phantastic Books will provide a limited amount of books, free of charge, by the writers scheduled to read. The next reading has already been scheduled for March 18th and will feature Randolph Professor Emeritus Dr. Jim Peterson, former Director of the Creative Writing Program; Ellen Meeropol, a friend and colleague of Randolph English Professor Bunny Goodjohn; and Vic Sizemore, an adjunct professor in the RC English Department.

Collective Curating: Maier Musem Uses the Crowd as its Source

By Isabella Farias ‘18

Published February 2015

Thea Ezinga ‘15 (right) and Lindsay Brents ‘16 (left) 
discussed Burning Off, a 20th-century watercolor 
painting by Andrew Newell Wyeth,
 on the opening day of the exhibition.
 Photo courtesy of Phuong Tran ‘15

“Crowdsourced from the Permanent Collection: Randolph Curates” is the name of the new exhibition at the Maier Museum of Art, which premiered on Jan. 22 and scheduled to be on display up until April 22. The title is a good description of how the exhibit came together.

Crowdsourcing is the open call to a diverse group to apply their individual experiences, knowledge and preferences to the process of choosing which pieces will be put on display. Earlier last semester, an email was sent to the whole Randolph community, including faculty, students, and alumni that maintained their randolphcollege.edu email, to survey past and present community members’ preferences within the collection. Using an online catalog, about twenty people responded with their favorites and contributed to the College’s first crowdsourced exhibit.

Martha Johnson, director of the Maier Museum, holds dear to her the opportunity to have the community be involved.  “I intentionally plan exhibits and programs that connect with the curriculum at Randolph College. I know people in the local community that have strong feelings for pieces in the collection,” she said.

Members from the community peruse the
 “Crowdsourced” Exhibition during its
opening reception on Jan. 22, 2015.
Photo courtesy of OCR

The community within the Red Brick Wall is thrilled by the exhibit and by the pieces on display.  “I think it’s a fantastic idea. I love that the exhibit seems so varied, yet it all comes together seamlessly—just like a personal box of treasures,” said Callan Frye ’17, a Studio Art and Biology double major who has attended every exhibition at the Maier Museum since he started at Randolph College.

Dr. Mara Amster, Department Chair and Associate Professor of English, chose Red Umbrella (1972) by Colleen Browning (1929-2003). “I love it for the bright red, for mystery in her eyes, for the evocative mood. I love it because it makes me want to write the story of the woman, the day, the umbrella,” she shared.

Johnson also contributed to the exhibit and chose Pulse (1972) by Robert Remsen Vickrey. This is a piece of the artist’s son, who discovered his pulse for the first time; and Johnson chose it because of her “preference for figurative work.”

Johnson is proud of the museum and every collection that she has curated. “[The Maier] is an incredibly unique resource, especially for a school this size, and more students should take advantage of such an opportunity. We have [nearly] the whole history of American art,” said Johnson. Megan Einhorn ’15 would agree with Johnson. “We have more art than most people think, and it’s fun to dig through and expose yourself to the art that is close at hand,” she said.

Pleased with the response that the exhibit has gotten, Johnson plans to do another crowdsourced exhibition in the future, possibly one exclusive for alumni. Johnson is very passionate about the exhibit, and she enjoys learning why people like the pieces that they do. “The Maier offers a comfortable environment where artistic development and conversation can blossom. And students more than enjoy our little, yet big, museum within the red brick walls,” said Johnson.

Such a statement rings true to Katy Boyer ’16. Everytime she goes to the Maier, she is awestruck by the pieces in the collection and even “went weak at the knees when [she] saw an Andrew Wyeth piece in the new exhibit.”

The next exhibits to be put on display will be the Senior Studio Art Majors’ Exhibition on April 28 and the 104th Annual Exhibit of Contemporary Art in the fall of 2015.

Visual Artist Workshop at the Maier Museum

Written By Phuong Tran ‘15

Published February 2015

On Friday, Feb. 27, at 12:30 p.m.  the Maier Museum is hosting the Professional Practices for the Visual Artist Workshop. Participants will learn from professional photographer and experienced educator Jeffrey Allison from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA)  about building a career as a professional artist.

The workshop will be adapted to the needs of the individual artists and provide useful insight into topics such as photographing artwork, funding opportunities, networking with galleries and publications, and online marketing.

“Jeffrey is an excellent speaker and offered wonderful advice to the local artists and art students that attended,” said Danni Schreffler, Office Manager & Public Engagement Coordinator for the Maier Museum of Art. “I sat in for most of the workshop and found it really enlightening; he has a great perspective as an artist himself, on working with galleries and exhibiting work.”

Comings and Goings in Dean of Students Office

Written By Phuong Tran ‘15

Published February 2015

Last semester witnessed a major loss for the Dean of Students Office, with the leaving of Danielle Weaver, Associate Director of Residence Life, in November, and of Ben Foster, Assistant Dean and Director of Residence Life, in December. Since then, Resident Directors John Grundy ’14 and Abigail Smith ’14 have been responsible for housing and resident life, while a committee consisting of six staff members handle all issues related to student conduct. This arrangement is only temporary, as the College is seeking for two candidates to replace Weaver and Foster. 

Chris Lemasters, who used to work at Pennsylvania College of Technology as the Men’s Basketball Coach and Coordinator of Residence Life, has recently been hired to become the director of Residence Life. He is to start his job in March while the College continues to look for another assistant dean in the spring and summer.

Getting it Wright: Dorm Construction Continues

By Katya Schwab ‘17

Published February 2015

Cautionary orange construction fencing now encircles Wright Hall, providing the ever-reliable Randolph rumor mill delicious gossip about the anticipated renovations. The construction of Wright has been on the College community’s radar for over a year, inciting speculation about the plans for the dorm, which students it will house, what the interior will feature, and whether or not construction would ever be underway.

Spoiler Alert: one large flat screen TV, a gas fireplace, an elevator, and two laundry-rooms.

The construction of Wright Hall has included two phases. The first phase encompassed the beginning of the work for the new elevator and began after graduation in May of 2014. Phase two took longer to implement, but once plans were completed in October of 2014, construction began in December 2014. This second phase includes the completion of the elevator and renovations of the dorm itself.

Wright earned a sort of mythical reputation as a favorite dorm among the student body who valued Wright’s unique character as a dorm due to features such as the hardwood flooring.

According to Director of Buildings and Grounds John W. Wood, renovations include a refinishing of the flooring to a “like-new appearance,” making Wright hall the only dorm on campus with hardwood floors. Other original features, including the wood panel dorm and trim will remain, and any new work will be chosen to match the current features.

Features of Wright will include Wi-Fi, multiple electrical outlets in each space, and (drum-roll please) state-of-the-art heating and cooling systems with individual controls for each room, replacing the steam radiators.

“New furniture will be added to all rooms and spaces including the expanded lounge on the first floor,” commented Wood, adding that the first floor lounge “will feature wood floors, new sofas, chairs and tables, a large flat screen TV, and gas logs added to the fireplace.” The lounge will be extended due to new columns that lengthen the room to the adjacent entry hallway. In total, Wright will feature an elevator from Cheatham dinning hall to the fifth floor, five lounges, a kitchen, and two laundry rooms.

Upon the intended completion date, the rooms will be furnished before students arrive for the 2015-2016 school year. Wood stated, “It is hoped that pictures of the interior will be available,” so students may preview what the renovations look like before returning to campus.

Bracing for Change: Randolph Rolls Out New Course Schedule

Written By John Ruml ‘17

Published February 2015

The new schedule aims to set specific
periods to reduce conflicts and
alleviate difficulties during course scheduling.
Photo courtesy of Randolph College

Beginning with Fall semester 2015, the College will be implementing a new system that restructures the way it handles course scheduling. This new system, devised by Dean of the College Carl Girelli, intends to alleviate the stress that is faced by students and advisors during course scheduling.

“Because our current system causes a certain amount of overlaps and embedding,” explained Girelli, “a lot of students run into scheduling conflicts. It places an unnecessary limit on the kind of courses that those students are allowed to take.”

One common scheduling conflict arises when a student needs to schedule classes across multiple departments. One of these students is Will Webb ’16, a math major and a classics minor. “I had Calc III, Greek, and Physics all scheduled all at the same time. While I was able to work with my professors to reschedule those classes, there still remained a conflict on Mondays, so now I’m double booked.”

The new system seeks to eliminate this problem by establishing rigid, on-the-hour blocks for 3-credit courses. MWF classes will meet for three blocks a week of exactly 50 minutes per day and TTh classes will meet for two blocks a week of exactly 75 minutes per day. “This will allow us to use our time here more efficiently,” said Girelli, “not only to use more hours of the week, but also to use more days of the week.”

However, several faculty members feel as though the new system cheats their students out of valuable class time. “I understand that we need to alleviate concerns about scheduling,” says History Professor Marjorie Wheeler-Barclay, “but my concern is that this seems to have a particularly high cost for a not particularly high reward.”

The new schedule forces teachers that have been utilizing three 60-minute blocks per week to trim 30 minutes of class time each week from their 14-week course each semester. If you do the math, that adds up to 7 fewer hours of each class per semester—the equivalent of cutting two whole weeks from a course. “With tuition prices rising,” says Bentley Kennedy-Stone ’16, “It doesn’t make sense for students to be paying more, and getting less.”

“It is an unfortunate thing from several points of view,” lamented History Professor Brad Geisert. “Students are going to be receiving a watered-down version—well, perhaps it’s even fair to call it a ‘dumbed-down’ version—of the course. The courses will suffer in both breadth and depth.” Geisert is worried that by cutting time for class discussions about current controversies, students will lose a sense of the complexity of the material. “The one thing that I always loved about the College is that faculty had the freedom to teach the way they wanted to, but now it’s not going to be like that anymore.”

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools-Commission on Colleges (SACS-COC), our accrediting agency, defines a credit hour in its regulations as: “Not less than one hour of classroom or direct faculty instruction and a minimum of two hours out of class student work each week for approximately fifteen weeks for one semester…or the equivalent amount of work over a different amount of time.” For example, SACS-COC lets Randolph treat a 50-minute “Carnegie unit” as a full contact hour. Under the new schedule, 3-credit courses will still count for same amount of credits, even if they meet for 150 minutes instead of 180 minutes.

Math Professor Paul Irwin had the new schedule and the old schedule sitting side-by-side on his chalkboard. Arrows and question marks littered the board. “This edict from the Dean’s office came to us with very bad timing,” said Irwin, “but what really upsets me about this decision is the fact that neither faculty nor students were involved.” While Girelli’s new schedule was modeled on an earlier concept that faculty were involved in, this new schedule was not voted on by faculty.

Some professors, however, are cautiously optimistic about the change. English Professor Mara Amster hopes that it will give students more opportunities to take classes they’re interested in, while Adjunct Theatre Professor Patti Rapiejko hopes that the new schedule will address some of Randolph’s “woeful waiting list problems.”

“What this means for Introductory Physics,” says Professor Peter Sheldon, “is that I’ll have to restructure it into a 4-credit course instead of a 3-credit one. I probably should have done that already. Honestly, I don’t know if this new schedule is going to be a problem or not; there’s too many variables. It’s a test. It’s an experiment—let’s try it out and see.”

In the Wake of UVA: Re-examining Randolph’s Policies

Written By: Evan Robert Smith ‘17

Published February 2015

It is a new semester for us here at Randolph, which means a fresh start behind the Red Brick Wall.  No school, though, needs a fresh start quite like our central Virginia neighbors at the University of Virginia.  Last fall’s Rolling Stone article “A Rape on Campus,” about a female student’s gang rape at an UVA frat party, made headline news across the country.  Just two days after the article’s publication, UVA’s president suspended all Greek activities for the rest of the fall semester.  Though Rolling Stone retracted the article due to questionable journalism, UVA is still dealing with the aftermath of the accusations made since the article still exposes much of the potential dangers for sexual assault and rape in UVA’s Greek life.

Randolph College senior Philosophy major Christina Crouch attended UVA in the fall of 2012, when the alleged gang rape occurred, but she transferred to Randolph in the fall of 2013.  When the Rolling Stone article was published, Christina saw on Facebook that some of her UVA friends were victim blaming and defending UVA.  The article and people’s reactions to it has since prompted her to write on sexual assault and victim blaming for her spring senior paper. 

Thankfully, UVA has tried to improve fraternities through a new Fraternal Organization Agreement Addendum.  Effective this semester the addendum now requires at least three sober fraternity members to be at any event with one sober member located anywhere alcohol is distributed and at any staircase that leads to bedrooms.  In addition, punch and other pre-mixed drinks are now strictly prohibited. 

While Randolph has no Greek life, since we do not have any officially recognized fraternities or sororities, the College still has restrictions when it comes to functions that include alcohol.

Macon Community After Hour’s, a Randolph club that organizes monthly gatherings that serve alcoholic beverages to students, faculty, and staff, follows similar alcohol restrictions. 

President Sarah Terlizzi says that shots are never served during events “because it takes away from the goal of Macon Community After Hours.  It is a club that promotes the building of community between faculty, staff, and students in a welcoming environment.” 

In addition Macon Community After Hour’s has rules in place to ensure safe and legal drinking.  Anyone under 21 has an “X” placed on their hands, mixed drinks are served with more mixer than alcohol, bartenders must be TIPS certified, and the event must be located in an enclosed area.

Though Randolph institutionally handles alcohol well in some areas, we still have had our own problems with alcohol and, even worse, sexual assault.  The largest controversy pertaining to sexual assault occurred in the spring of 2014 when an anonymous blog claimed that Randolph had under-reported sexual assaults.  In response President Bateman convened a sexual assault assembly for students to discuss the matter.  Then this past fall yet another controversial anonymous blog was created that wished to open a dialogue about feminism and sexual assaults on campus.  So sexual assault has been just as much a problem here as it has been anywhere else, but thankfully some things are being done to ensure a safer environment for all.

Dr. Sara Hirst, who is Assistant Director of the Counseling Center and Coordinator of Sexual Misconduct Education and Advocacy, believes that Randolph is, “dedicated to raising awareness, educating the community, supporting survivors, implementing our grievance procedures, and creating a healthier and safer environment for everyone.” The evidence certainly backs that statement up.

Since the spring of 2014 all of the sexual misconduct policies have been reformed, the Sexual Misconduct Education and Advocacy position was created (now Dr. Hirst), a sexual misconduct website was created (www.randolphcollege.edu/sexualmisconduct), a Clery Compliance Committee was formed, and a Harassment Policy and Advisory Committee was formed.  In addition, all new enrollees at Randolph must complete an online program called “Think About It,” which deals with sexual violence, relationships, and alcohol.  This year’s first year class also received programing from Dr. Hirst specifically on sexual misconduct, consent, Randolph’s grievance procedures, support resources/reporting options, and bystander intervention.

Thankfully there have been increased initiatives to address sexual assault. Nonetheless, these administration led initiatives are only the beginning. Furthermore, Dr. Hirst believes that “students play a tremendously important role in shaping the campus culture and atmosphere around sexual violence.”

While any college administration plays a huge role in sexual assault on campus, students must strive themselves to create the community that they wish to inhabit.  In order for UVA, Randolph College, or any other college community, to fruitfully address sexual assault, it must be a joint effort of all parties involved.

If you have experienced sexual assault or know of someone has, consider contacting Dr. Hirst at 434-947-8119 or email her at shirst@randolphcollege.edu.

You could also call the Sexual Assault Response Program’s (SARP) 24 Hour confidential hotline at 888-947-7273.