Lots of Jud-issues Honor Violations On The Rise

By Evan Robert Smith ‘15

Published March 2015

Here at Randolph College we openly pride ourselves on our illustrious Honor Code.  Gold Key Guides rave about it to prospective students and parents, first years pledge to uphold it during the Honor Dinner over orientation, and students happily partake in un-proctored self-scheduled exams.  In short, the Honor Code is a social contract in which students agree to uphold themselves and one another to a high standard of integrity which applies both on and off campus.  However, it seems that this contract may not be as strong as it once was.  This year the Judiciary Committee is on track to have a record high number of violations.  So we must then ask ourselves what that says about the status of the Honor Code at Randolph.

While this year will be a record setting, Honor Code violations have been steadily increasing for some time now.  Current Judiciary Chair Sally Taylor ‘15 believes that the coed change in 2007 negatively impacted campus wide adherence to the Honor Code, and the Judiciary records show that since 2007 there has been a rise in violations.  She believes that the addition of men drastically changed the culture on campus, and it is that culture change which has led to an increase in violations (see Figure 1).

Former Judiciary Chair and alum Glenna Gray ‘14 shares Taylor’s sentiment that the culture change impacted adherence to the Honor Code.  Gray believes that the campus fractured into distinct groups when the school went coed, and, as a result, these groups did not speak to one another.  Gray thinks that the Honor Code is at its strongest when there is a good dialogue between students, and that dialogue is most necessary for first-years.  She believes that many first-year students are unprepared when they make the transition from high school to college, and it is this unpreparedness that leads to Honor Code violations (see Figure 2).

Dr. Holly Tatum is an Associate Professor of Psychology here at Randolph and has done research with Dr. Beth Schwartz on Honor Codes at different schools.  Dr. Tatum is an ardent supporter of the Honor Code that Randolph has and says she “wouldn’t want to work at a school without an Honor Code like ours.”  Dr. Tatum maintains that the Honor Code here is not necessarily broken just because this year will set a record for violations; this year could just be an anomaly.  However, in order to strengthen the Honor Code Dr. Tatum suggests that the faculty need to do a better job of talking about the Honor Code with students.  Dr. Tatum suggests that first-year seminars would be an ideal place to inform first-years about the importance of the Honor Code.  The evidence clearly shows that first-years are the class that commits the largest amount of violations, so instilling a stronger foundation of the Honor Code in first years would have swift and sustainable results.

No matter what programming results to improve the strength of the Honor Code, it will take a collective effort. Taylor puts it best: in order to create a more honorable community, “[e]very student needs to make the decision to wholeheartedly commit to our honor system.”

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.