After a long and arduous weekend, the Wesleyan women’s swimming and diving team finished sixth out of 11 competitors in the NESCAC Championship, scoring 765 points. Although the team did not win the gold, this was the best that Wesleyan swimming and diving has ever performed.
“This is not wheelchair golf,” said Jonathan Sigworth ’10. “This is very aggressive. This transcends the whole victim mentality.” Since his freshman year at the University, Sigworth has played on the Connecticut Wheelchair Rugby Team. But Sigworth’s passion for the sport isn’t limited to his participation on the court—he has devoted the better part of his last two winter breaks and his summer break to introducing the sport to India.
“Legal age 21 is not effective.” This was one of the opening remarks made by President-Emeritus of Middlebury College John McCardell during a lecture about his new non-profit organization, Choose Responsibility.The lecture was held at the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house on Thursday evening.
Tucked away in the basement of the Usdan University Center, the game room has been one of the building’s best-kept secrets. Though it features table tennis, foosball, billiards tables and two couches, the room has attracted only a few students on a regular basis.
Question: What are the advantages of fair trade coffee? Answer: Coffee is one of the world’s most commonly consumed beverages—roughly 400 billions of cups a day. By one estimate, coffee is the second most important commodity traded on the (legal) global marketplace. But what is fair trade coffee?
This year, the Usdan Campus Center was introduced as a substitute for that venerable old institution known as McConaughey Hall, or MoCon. Those of us who spent our freshman years entwined in MoCon’s chaotic embrace, which forever smelt of mediocre Aramark food and carried the eternal clang of dropped cups, responded with ambivalence. How could this new, shiny, almost clinically clean building, whose atmosphere barely outmatched Pluto’s, hope to compete with darling old MoCon?
Behind the imposing structure of Russell House sits a shorter, flat yellow building on Pearl Avenue, often unnoticed by students. The University’s Center for Humanities—which is open to visiting scholars, faculty and student fellows interested in research and writing projects—is housed inside this ornately decorated building.
In a speech at Beta on Thursday, John M. McCardell Jr., former President of Middlebury College, argued that the U.S. legal drinking age foolishly ignores the reality of alcohol consumption by America’s young people. We couldn’t agree more: the time has come for a serious national discussion about a lowered drinking age and honest alcohol education that teaches young people how to develop a healthy relationship with alcohol, should they choose to drink.
The news that the United States Army is looking into building a training base in Middletown spread quickly last week, sparking opposition from numerous sources, both at the University and in the greater Middletown area. Whether it’s Mayor Sebastian Giuliano, President of the University Michael Roth or the numerous student groups opposing the base location, much of Middletown appears united in its stance: the environmental costs of building a training base on the Freeman Road site are simply not worth whatever benefits the base would bring. And while this type of conservationist sentiment is understandable, I found myself wondering if there isn’t something a little deeper at play.
Students for Ending the War in Iraq (SEWI), wrote a Wespeak against the idea of justifying weapons distribution with moral war (“Wesleyan needs to get out of the carnage market of ‘moral war,’” Feb. 22, vol. CXLIII, no. 31).
Reading this Friday’s Wespeak by Kathy Stavis (“Wesleyan needs to get out of the carnage market of ‘moral war,’” Feb. 22, vol. CXLIII, no. 31), I was reminded of nothing so much as a review of “Atlas Shrugged” by Whittaker Chambers (“Big sister is watching you,” Dec. 28, 1957 issue of National Review), in which the author lamented that, from every page of Ayn Rand’s book, “a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: ‘to a gas chamber—go!’” The painful urgency, Stalinist rhetoric and utter lack of depth exhibited by Stavis’ piece seem to send a similar message to those of us who would dare to question her group’s methods or motives. Stavis might fancy herself capable of shoving all dissent under the showerhead of scorn, but not all of us will inhale her rhetorical Zyklon B without a fight.
After reading Charles Kurose’s Wespeak (“SBC funds not for inappropriate requests,” Feb. 22, vol. CXLII) about the Student Budgetary Committee (SBC)and allocations, I would like to make a clarification about WESU’s budget request. While discussing how WESU received about $11,000 less than it requested and $3,000 less than it received last year, Kurose stated, “the article missed the actual story, which was that $7,000 of the allocation request was meant to finance a weekend trip for a small handful of students to go to New York. It was this segment of the proposal that was denied and accounted for the bulk of their purported underfunding.”
Dots (140 Main St.) Your primary concern at Dots will not be whether or not you’ll find something actually worth buying, but what to choose. You can find a perfect outfit head to toe, and most of it from the sale rack, too. Insider tip: it seems that pretty much everything in the store is on clearance, including those quilted Ugg knock-offs you’ve been eyeing recently.
Getting a good meal can be tough here at Wesleyan: Usdan is crowded and sterile, WesWings is ridiculously overpriced, Red and Black is a long walk away and the epic wait to be seated at the Star and Crescent makes it feel like a trendy New York restaurant—and not in a good way. My solution to this problem? I try as often as I can to cook my own food. I’d much rather spend my points on the ingredients for a simple but satisfying dish than on a Bon Appétit-produced meal that, more often than not, fails to deliver.
As Ben Franklin once said, nothing is certain in life but death, taxes and scores of girls sporting sweats, Uggs and huge bottles of water to their Friday morning classes. Hangovers are a persistent and uncomfortable part of collegiate life. It wouldn’t be a weekend at Wesleyan if you or someone you know weren’t complaining about one. It’s a familiar feeling: the headache, the nausea, the dry mouth and the sensitivity to light and sound.
According to an ongoing Wesleying poll, as of Feb. 21, 85 percent of 255 students wish the University offered the option to be a miner. As major declaration descends upon the Class of 2010, students of all years are voicing concern over the University’s lack of miners.
Thanks a lot for the (insert award name). It’s about time. Do you know how long I have been waiting for this thing? Well, I shouldn’t be too upset. This is going to change my life. I am immediately going to melt this statue down and sell it on e-bay. I am then going to buy the biggest syringe and the smallest amount of heroin possible.
5) The one in Hoboken. Great continental breakfast. I can order my eggs any way I damn well please! Fuck you Stalin. You don’t own me.
With the proposed new Biological Life Science Whatever-the-fuck-says-the-English-major building swooping in as the replacement for the building they tell me is called Shanklin, several members of the community who I’m assuming haven’t gotten laid in a good long while if ever are banding together under the banner of Shanklinistas. Or so I think. The Argus could be making shit up, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt as the legitimate news source they claim to be.
Hey folks! It's me, Joey Stalin! Now, I know two things: 1) Communism, and 2) pancakes. And while you can find Communism in Cuba (for now - fingers crossed) and pancakes in a box, you can only find both of those things in one place: Stalin's House of Pancakes!
Women’s basketball kept rolling this past weekend, inviting Williams back to Middletown for its second beat-down in as many games. Despite the Ephs’ best efforts to fill The Silloway Gymnasium with as many obnoxious purple-clad parents as possible, the Cardinals had no problem dismantling them 68-49.
In the final weeks of the wrestling season, the Cardinal mat men headed into the New England Wrestling Association (NEWA) tournament riding the momentum from knocking off two nationally ranked teams, including Williams, a couple of weeks ago.
The men’s hockey team wrapped up the regular season this past weekend, losing its two final road games of the season. The Cards will still have the opportunity to play in the upcoming NESCAC playoffs.
It was a somewhat fitting end to a difficult year for the women’s ice hockey team this past weekend, as the squad found itself on the wrong side of its final two contests. The first defeat came at the hands of Williams on Friday night, and the second came against Middlebury on Saturday afternoon. The losses set the sun on a disappointing year in which the Cardinals never found their stride.
Wesleyan had a fantastic showing at the NESCAC Championships in Middlebury this past weekend, coming in sixth out of the 11 competing teams and setting two team records in the process. The Cardinals placed nine individuals in top eight finishes, and exceeded its own lofty expectations.