Student Centered New ResLife Director Chris Lemasters

By John Ruml ‘17

Published March 2015

Photo Courtesy of Chris Lemasters.

Following the departure of Danielle Weaver and Ben Foster last semester, the college has been seeking out replacements for their positions. As of March 10th, Chris Lemasters has taken over as director of Residence Life. Chris was previously the coordinator of Residence Life at the Pennsylvania College of Technology, where he was also the coach of the men’s basketball team. “I played basketball in college when I was at Alfred University,” said Chris. “It’s always been a big part of my life. I can’t wait until my kids are old enough to start playing. Students can expect me to be out there cheering on our teams at sport events.” 

When asked if he agreed with the in loco parentis approach to student life, Chris shook his head. “Our residents are adults and they should be treated like adults,” he said. “If I have to meet with a student about a violation, I don’t want it to feel like a kid going to the principal’s office. We obviously need to address the issue, but I’m not here to lecture you. Instead, I think what my purpose here is to be a resource for students. They should feel comfortable coming to speak with us. For the most part, I want to emphasize the role of student leaders. RAs should feel like their hall is their hall, and that their residents are their residents. It’s a lot of responsibility, but after receiving so much help from John [Grundy] and Abigail [Smith], I see that this community can rise to the challenge.” 

Having come from a somewhat larger institution, Chris places great value in the small, liberal arts college atmosphere at Randolph. “When I came and visited, students could sense that I was a visitor and they came up to me and offered to show me around. You just don’t get that sense of community at a larger college. The personal relationships and traditions of a place like this are irreplaceable. That sort of personalized approach is what I’m trying to hone in on. That being said, I’m not trying to re-invent the wheel here. We already have a really good framework in place.”

Bateman Opts Out Pres. Takes Stand Against Art Censorship

By Phuong Tran ‘15

Published March 2015

For the past 24 years, Randolph College’s Maier Museum has enjoyed a successful partnership with Lynchburg City Schools (LCS). As part of this partnership, the museum holds several curated tours for second-graders and fifth-graders from the city’s eleven elementary public schools. Initiated and developed as an extension of classroom learning, the Art and SOL Tours program has contributed significantly to public school curricula, as required by the Virginia Department of Education’s standards of learning objectives for visual arts, language, and social studies. Despite the long engagement, LCS decided to cancel the spring SOL tour for second-graders at the very last minute, leaving the museum staff and over 40 docents who had worked diligently to prepare the tours at a loss for words.

The cancellation came about due to a controversy over the John Carroll painting, Summer Afternoon, which displays nudity. The LCS, acting in loco parentis (in place of the parent), decided that the community standards here in Lynchburg do not allow second-graders to view nude paintings, as it is stated in Code of Virginia for Family Life Education that sex education does not start until fourth grade. “We do not feel that there is anything wrong with school children seeing this painting,” said President Bateman, who took a firm decision opposing censorship. “It is not an erotic painting, it’s not sexualized. It’s just a nude painting, but nude doesn’t mean sex.”

"The LCS, acting in loco parentis (in place of the parent), decided that the community standards here in Lynchburg do not allow second-graders to view nude paintings..."

Both President Bateman and Maier Museum Director Martha Johnson were aware that this may raise issue to some parents. They proposed to the LCS an opt-out option which allows parents to decide whether or not it would be appropriate to let their children participate in the SOL tour. “I was under the impression a year ago that parents being provided an ‘opt-out’ solution was satisfactory to all parties and was going to be the model for this kind of situation going forward because it respected the differing opinions of all LCS families,” wrote Johnson to LCS Superintendent Scott Brabrand at the news of the cancellation.

LCS principals were still unhappy with the solution and felt that it was a compromise they reluctantly accepted. Questioning the default position that would support exposure to “children so young,” the principals voted unanimously to cancel the SOL tour this year, a decision that Johnson found disturbing.

“I am offended that in loco parentis trumps actual parents,” she said. “Clearly, what the school system is deciding as appropriate is a position with which I don’t agree, and I have children myself. They are deciding what is inappropriate on my behalf, and I have a problem with that. The opt-out allows parents to have the power to make that decision. It is respectful to a variety of opinions about this issue, so why that option doesn’t work is puzzling to me.”

Communication Professor Jennifer Gauthier, whose son is a second-grader, was disappointed at the news of the cancellation. “Art museums are such a valuable site for learning about other cultures and values; seeing art opens up young peoples’ eyes to forms of creativity they may have never encountered,” she said. “I worry about children who will never get to visit a museum or engage with art in their lives; cancelling this visit for all schoolchildren means that their worlds just got a little smaller.”

Despite the cancellation of the tour for second-graders, the LCS will continue to partner with the Maier Museum for age-appropriate trips. Johnson believes that it’s time the Maier Museum rethink its model for the SOL tours in the past 15 years and focus more on tours for middle and high school students. “Because our exhibitions are thought-provoking, and sometimes challenging, it is probably more appropriate for intellectually sophisticated students than second-graders to come to our museum,” she said. “I do believe that it is appropriate for people of all ages to come to the museum, but maybe we can be more meaningful to middle school or high school students than a second grader.”

Seniors in the Spotlight Dance Majors Showcase Their Moves

By Grace Gardiner ‘15

Published March 2015

Right, clockwise from top right: Sara Reed '15, Amy Gerteisen '17, 
Raven Carrington ‘17, Amanda Fischer '15 & Lindsay Brents ‘16. 

Besides choreographing their own pieces for the Spring Dance Concert, seniors Sara Reed and Amanda Fischer are dancing in six and ten out of the eleven total pieces in the concert, respectively. Left, clockwise: Fischer (standing), Reed (sitting), and Amy Gerteisen ‘17. Right, clockwise from top right: Reed, Gerteisen, Raven Carrington ‘17, Fischer, & Lindsay Brents ‘16.

The Randolph College Spring Dance Concert—to take place on April 9-11 in Smith Hall Theatre at 8 p.m., $4 for students with a PawPass I.D. and $8 for general admission—has served as an opportunity for senior dance majors to showcase the extent of their development and growth as artists through the exhibition of their senior pieces. The 2015 concert features the work of Sara Reed and Amanda Fischer, two driven and determined majors, each choreographing long, comprehensive pieces with large casts.

Reed’s piece, with a length just under eight minutes and a cast of seven dancers, is an unflinching exploration of the loss of a mother through a daughter’s perspective. Reed has wanted to pursue the emotional concerns of her piece, the different iterations of grief in a person’s reaction to loss, for sometime, ever since her grandmother flatlined and then came back in the cardiac ICU two years ago. “I thought of my mother, who had come so close to losing her own mother, and wanted to explore what she was feeling, to put into movement all of the things that she couldn’t verbally express.” The piece is divided into four sections. Each section illustrates a progression of the daughter’s journey through grief, from the literal loss of her mother in the first section, to the last section in which the daughter begins to accept help and support from the people around her. “My intention is to explore how crazy grief really is: in a way, it unites us, but everyone walks through it differently,” Reed said.

Amanda Fischer’s piece differs from Reed’s in that it doesn’t have a strict narrative arc or aim to tell a story. “In the past, I’ve found narrative to be a crutch for myself. It restricts my creative vision,” Fischer said. Instead, her piece focuses on “the concept of weaving,” how the movement themes mirror the layering of the music to which the piece is choreographed. Fischer chose a composition by Philip Glass, a minimalist composer, for its musical repetitions and motifs. The 9-and-a-half minute piece by Glass has given her plenty of space to create her own motifs in movement for her five dancers. She commented further, “I’m interested in the musicality of movement, how I can explore a theme through music and dance working as two cohesive pieces to the performance.”

Besides choreographing their own pieces for the
 Spring Dance Concert, seniors Sara Reed and
 Amanda Fischer are dancing in six and ten out 
of the eleven total pieces in the concert, respectively. 
Left, clockwise: Fischer (standing), Reed (sitting), and Amy Gerteisen ‘17.

Both Reed and Fischer commented on the intense preparation they’ve undertaken in preparing their pieces for the concert. Because of their large casts, scheduling rehearsals has been a tricky obstacle. Moreover, Reed said that “it’s a tough thing to know when to let your work go, to let it stand on its own. It’s hard to know when you’ve reached the natural stopping point, when you need to leave your work alone so it can speak for itself.”

Fischer added that the fact that their pieces “have to stand next to those of professionals is intimidating.” The concert will feature eleven pieces in total, eight of which have been choreographed by different artists who participate in the department’s Helen McGehee Visiting Artist Program in Dance and one choreographed by Kelly Dudley of the department’s part-time faculty. Nonetheless, the two seniors’ pieces seem like they will hold their own just fine.

Nektaria Baker ’15, a dancer in Reed’s piece, commented that “she is in love with Sara’s dance brain. There’s something about Sara’s choreography that, as a dancer, feels so right in the body. There will be moments of vulnerability that are so supple and tender, then in a second she’ll rip it all away from you with something so completely raw it drains you, but in the best possible way!”

And Reed said of Fischer’s piece, “I have really enjoyed being in Amanda’s piece, not only for the artistry but also the process. Amanda has been very honest about the hours of behind-the-scene work and thought that went—and continues to go—into the creation of the piece. I am very excited and honored to be representing Amanda’s work.  She has done a phenomenal job of combining a variety of movement to create an overarching theme.”

Ukraine in Pieces: Concern Behind the Red Brick Wall

By Auden Deng ‘16

Published March 2015

Poliakova, her brother Andrew, and little cousin Natasha wearing traditional costumes at a Ukrainian festival.  Photo courtesy of Tetiana Poliakova ‘18

Tetiana Poliakova ’18 had an unforgettable vacation this winter break.  Like many students, she returned home for break. Her home, however, is not across the country or down the street, but a continent away in a war zone—specifically in Zhytomy, a city in the disputed former Soviet territory of the Ukraine.

“It is very sad to see shells falling at my home,” said Poliakova, referring to artillery fire and other munitions.  Poliakova couldn’t have anticipated this turn of events when she completed her last years of high school in Pennsylvania through an exchange program. However, in February of last year, Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was driven from office by a wave of popular unrest. In the months that followed, violence erupted between Ukrainian nationalists and pro-Russian factions, and Russia eventually annexed the Crimea region in March 2014.

Fighting in the Ukraine continues to this day, and this is the situation Poliakova found herself in when she arrived home in December. “Now everyone saves money for everything they need. Things have become more expensive than before the war happening,” said Poliakova. Food and other basic items of necessity remain scarce throughout the war-torn region. “A well-off woman had to beg for food in front of the gate of the army base,” Poliakova recounted.

According to a BBC News report in February, the price of bread had inflated 27% since the previous month.  Citizens of Ukraine are quick to buy products as soon as they hit shelves and before the prices can skyrocket further.  Such drastic inflation has directly affected Poliakova’s father’s business. “Now fewer people will shop at my father’s electronic shop,” she said.

Though Zhytomyr remains relatively peaceful, Poliakova was not far from danger. In September, the rebels attempted to seize the Donetsk airport when her friend’s boyfriend happened to be on duty in the airport’s warehouse.  He was close enough to hear the blast from the bombs.

Over winter break, Poliakova witnessed her neighbors donating food to the local army base, and she knows many others who have enlisted. “The military needs doctors and nurses now because every day people die,” said Poliakova.

Poliakova has a personal relationship with the Ukrainian military—her father had served in the army while Ukraine remained part of the Soviet Union. She is proud of her father and his service to his country. But the current political situation has made it difficult for her father. “We cannot talk about the war or politics between our countries.” Poliakova senses that many Ukrainians are concerned about surveillance and wire-tapping.

Now back at Randolph, Poliakova remains focused on her studies. But with new news coming from the Ukraine everyday, she is concerned about the safety of her family.

Up & Running: Track and Field Hurdles into Spring Season

By Alex Pinto ‘17

Published March 2015

At the Dr. Jack Toms Invite on March 21, Marisa Quarti ‘18 finished first in the 100m hurdles with a time of 16.84s. Photo courtesy of Wildcat Athletics

The 2014-2015 Men’s and Women’s Track and Field Teams just finished up their winter season and have been preparing and competing in their spring season.

While the Track and Field team existed last year, this is the first year in which they have competed against other colleges. Last year was a test year during which they practiced and tried new events out. The team consists of sixteen women—eight first years, three sophomores, three juniors, and two seniors. The men’s side has eleven members—seven first years, two sophomores, one junior, and one graduate student. Although the team does not have a win-lose record, the members of the team have individual accomplishments.

There have been some significant changes since last year’s practice season that has prepared the team for this season. Some of these changes include increased recruiting. Dani Hill ’17 stated, “We added more specific coaches for the team. We now have a throwing coach, a field event coach, a distance coach, and a sprinting/hurdles coach. There is more equipment and definitely more dedication from the team.” Another big change about Track and Field from other Randolph sports is that, even as a division III school, its members compete against division I and division II teams. This breadth in competition can cause a gap in skill and speed. Hill said, “We take pride in the fact that several of our athletes compete neck-in-neck with athletes who are extremely experienced and qualified. Preparing takes focus, consistent training, and coming to practice with positivity and readiness to work hard.” The team is new, but eager to get better and better to compete in the future.

The indoor winter season was a little different than the spring season. For example, indoor tracks are half the size of outdoor tracks. Furthermore the energy on the track will be different in the spring because of the distribution of people at the outdoor track. Lastly, the temperature will increase due to the change in season. Hill said, “Most of the routines and use of the same facilities will remain the same, but we’re excited to actually break a sweat again.”

Some of the team’s accomplishments in the winter season include Diana Young ‘18 in the 60 with a time of 8.07s, Hill in the 800 with a time of 2:54, and Sophia Dill ’18 in the 5000 with a time of 22:12.

The spring season is currently underway, and the runners are battling and competing for better times than ever before. The spring team still has the same amount of people on both teams and the same relays. Head Coach Bill Cooper says, “The thing I am looking forward to most this season is the process of building a program from scratch.  It’s been an uphill process getting the College’s name out into the running community, but we have some great kids on the team that have bought into what we are trying to become and are invested in helping that process continue to move forward: adding more and more student-athletes; seeing the program grow and become more competitive within the conference over time; and seeing the hard work that our students put in daily at practice and the improvements they make, not just from week to week, but from their first year to their senior year.”

The Involvement Crisis Low Participation in Leadership Roles

By Evan Robert Smith ‘15 & Katya Schwab ‘17

Published March 2015 

 

Part of the hustle and bustle during spring semester includes the opportunity for students to apply for positions within the community for the upcoming year. At Randolph some of these positions include running for Student Government, applying for a position in Residential Life as an RA, or applying to be a Davenport Leader to work with incoming first-years.

In the past, positions of Resident Assistant (RA) or Davenport Leader were both competitive; last year 32 applicants competed for 13 positions as an RA and 59 applicants applied for 16 positions as a Davenport Leader. However, this year both positions had to extend application deadlines in hopes of gaining more applicants.

Amanda Denny, Director of Leadership and Engagement explained that the Davenport deadline was extended because “if there were students on the fence about applying we wanted to give them the opportunity since numbers were lower than what we experienced in the past.” After the extended deadline closed, Davenport applications had increased from 22 to 26. The program still calls for 16 student leaders to be chosen from those who applied.

Student sentiments reflect hesitation to apply for the program since the required workload of Davenport leaders increased without a change in compensation. Each Davenport Leader receives a stipend of $1000 for the year—for the 2015-2016 year that stipend will be split into three payments. Although this stipend has not changed, the time commitment the Davenport program will demand for the next academic year has shifted.

New elements of the program include the Davenport Leaders working as peer mentors for FYS classes that request a mentor, as well as several formal meetings between Davenport Leaders and first-year students to check in on adjustment to college. Denny envisions three or four formal “connection” meetings in the first semester and one meeting in the second semester depending on each first-year’s personal need for support. Denny envisions these formal meetings ranging from social group gatherings to informative meetings about registration or traditions such as Ring Week to help First-Years get involved more with the community at Randolph. “Leaders may also check in with first-years informally through the year because they are going to have a good idea of who is still shaky and needs additional support throughout the year,” said Denny. She also hopes that the program can help get first-years more involved outside of the red brick wall to help “each student feel like Lynchburg…and not just Randolph is home for four years.”

These changes are a result of feedback from both first-years and Davenport Leaders the past years, as well as a pilot program last year when Grace Cummins ‘16 held a year long Davenport Leader position to observe benefits and drawbacks of extending the program. Student feedback of the past Davenport program included concerns that once orientation ended at the beginning of the year, there were no formal connections between first-years and their Davenport Leader. “We hear that Davenport Leaders want a way to keep that connection more formally,” Denny said. “They have a hard time doing that informally because student’s schedules are busy.”

According to Denny, first-years reported that having an extended connection with Davenport leaders was beneficial in both social and academic settings. Denny added, “most orientation leaders do run a year long model, and that is something we have been lacking.”

 So, with the added requirements, why no change to Davenport Leaders’ salary? As explained by Denny, the Davenport program is an endowed fund, limiting the flexibility of the school to the budget provided. Furthermore, any budget changes would have to be approved, and “to change the stipend or funding would require proof the program is working.” In other words, the planned changes to the program must be made first and shown as successful before requesting additional funding. Furthermore, Denny also explained that the stipend each student receives is comparable to similar first-year programs run by other colleges and universities and that “there is research out there that shows we are pretty much along the same base line.”

The Residential Life program at Randolph also seemed to experience a decrease in student interest this past year. There has also been notable turnover in Residential Life this academic year including the hiring of four replacement RAs (Anthony Quinn ’17, Annalise McKenzie ’17, Jenny Sanborn ’17, and Dianna Young ’18) and one new Head Resident (HR), Katya Schwab ‘17. HR, Abigail Smith ’14, graduated in December resulting in the hiring of Schwab as the new HR of West. Since Schwab was an RA, Quinn was hired to move onto her hall. The other three RA’s hired mid-semester were brought on to replace other RA’s who chose to either quit their job with Residential Life or leave the College for personal reasons. Names and details are not printed out of respect for privacy.

This year, 23 students applied for the position of RA to fill 12-16 positions available, depending on where each person is placed. Last year 32 students applied to fill 13 positions.  The increase in positions this year includes several factors: four RAs are graduating in April, four RAs were hired to replace graduating HRs, four RAs are leaving Residential Life to study abroad at some point next year, and four potential new positions have opened up with the planned opening of Wright Hall for the 2015-2016 academic year.

The question now becomes, why the drop in interest for leadership positions among Randolph students?

“I’m concerned about leadership in general, seeing that RA applications are down, seeing that Davenport applications are down, and knowing that it has been hard to recruit and retain students for student government positions over the past few years—makes me wonder what the particular issue is. I don’t know if it’s an issue against a certain program more so than just an issue with leadership at Randolph,” said Denny. Denny has also reached out to other small liberal arts schools, such as Lynchburg College, and has found they have similar trends. Denny plans to reach out to other small colleges as well to see if this is a national trend and investigate how to best respond.

At a conference held by the Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities (APCA), Mike Fritz, a student leadership speaker with a Master’s degree in leadership presented a session on engaging student leaders and commented on the apparent trend of decreasing student involvement.  “I don’t think people don’t want to do things,” Fritz reflected, “—they just want to do what matters to them.”

In addition to the issues that Residence Life and the Davenport Leadership Institute have faced in regards to student involved, it is also important to investigate the numbers of student involvement in other leadership organizations like Student Government, the Judiciary Committee, and Class Board.

There has not been a huge drop-off in student interest regarding Student Government, the Judiciary Committee, or Class Board compared to the initial drops seen in the applications for the Davenport Leadership Institute and Residence Life, though these organizations have struggled at times with engaging students to run for office. 

Class Board in particular shows an appalling level of interest recently (Figure 1).  For two years in a row, the Classes of 2016 and 2017 have had only one person run for office.  Current Senior Class President Sarah Cottone believes that class boards would be empowered if they were better connected to Student Government, and she also believes that a class board’s larger purpose on campus should be better communicated to the rest of the student body.  Senior Class Vice President Sam Fagone shares those sentiments and thinks that the duties of each position on the board should be better defined.  If these changes were made, both women believe that more students would be interested in running for the organization.

Interest in Student Government is slightly down from last year, but is adequate to fill all of the positions except for secretary (Figure 2).  In the past, senators were designated by residence halls, but thanks to last spring’s Student Government President Marielle Rando ‘14, this year was the first ever in which senators have been designated by class year.  As a result, there are now four guaranteed senator positions for each class year.  This guarantees that first-years and sophomores will have the same representation as juniors and seniors.  In addition, this year’s Student Government has designated a senator position for international students as well as for day and primetime students. It will be interesting to see if the loss of student interest in Res Life and Davenport will be the gain of Student Government through these new senator designations.

Looking at the Judiciary Committee, the most noticeable difference from last year is that no one is currently running for the Chair position (Figure 3).  This is a problematic since it is unclear how the Judiciary Committee would run without a Chair.  While Student Government and Class Board are important organizations, the Judiciary Committee is essential to academic integrity and reputation of Randolph, so finding a chair is of the utmost importance.