Counseling Center donation: A necessary gift
October 1, 2015The editorial board of The Spectator proudly applauds the Class of 2016’s selection of a donation to the Counseling Center as their official Senior Gift. More ...
Editorial
A correction
September 25, 2015Last week’s paper incorrectly noted that the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation recently awarded an $800,000 grant to the Digital Humanities Initiative (DHi) at Hamilton, and that the endowment was among the largest humanities grants to be received by the College. The correct statement is that Angel David Nieves, associate professor of Africana studies and co-director of the Digital Humanities Initiative (DHi) was awarded an NEH Office of Digital Humanities Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities Summer Institutes Grant of $245,299 for “Space and Place in Africana/Black Studies: An Institute on Spatial Humanities Theories, Methods and Practice.” More ...
A note from the editor
September 18, 2015As you’ll see from our front cover, this week I reviewed Michael “Doc” Woods’ concert, “Ion Eyes.” I didn’t get involved with the Spectator until the spring of my first year, but I’ve been reviewing Doc’s concerts since my first month at Hamilton. Rarely in the newspaper or in our academic papers do we ever get to write about the same thing twice. So, as I was writing the review, I realized the special opportunity I’ve had to think about Woods’ evolution as a composer and my own evolution as a reviewer, as a writer and as a music listener in these short few years. More ...
Picking a president
September 10, 2015How do you pick a leader for a school that prides itself on leadership within the academic community and boasts of sending leaders into all different facets of the world? As our cover story notes, the 18 member Presidential Search Committee is well under way in their quest to name Joan Hinde Stewart’s successor. The committee is made up of 10 trustees, 3 professors, 3 administrators and 2 students. While students are understandably the least represented group on the committee, none of the administrators come from student life, signaling the strong emphasis the trustees place on this decision as an academic and business one. More ...
Universal orientation: A net positive
September 3, 2015August 18 was a crazy day on the Hill. For the first time in over thirty years the entire first year class moved in on one day. These students, greeted by more than 100 student leaders and countless other community members represented the culmination of a multi-year project to standardize the orientation experience. This change was the result of the (probably correct) belief that pre-orientation, once a niche experience for some first-years, was becoming exclusionary, and students who were not participating were being left with an on-campus orientation experience that was generally seen as lackluster. While this was a serious undertaking that was never going to be seamless in the first iteration, the team that worked together to plan and execute these trips did a phenomenal job. More ...
Reflecting on our year
May 7, 2015The Spectator has never been as active in The Spectator as it was this year. While our dedicated staff and generous writers provide news, opinion, reviews and results, as an institution we tend to stay out of the fold. However, this year we found ourselves in the middle of several conversations on campus and had to explain and protect our work and beliefs. Sometimes we threw the first punch; sometimes we bowed out. Media big and small typically struggle to figure out if they are a medium for others or a player in their own right, and after this year it may be time to more closely consider the latter argument. More ...
Hamilton comes together
May 1, 2015Tough times make close friends; at least they did this week at Hamilton. Anyone who visited Commons in the last twenty years was greeted by the warm, motherly embrace of Marge Petteys. If you wanted to sum up the brightest part of someone’s time at Hamilton, we bet Marge would come in pretty high on everyone’s list. When it is raining Marge tells you to wear a jacket, when you are stressed Marge tells you to take it easy on yourself. She cares about every kid she sees, and she never lets a day go by without being one of the warmest members of campus. So when Amit Taneja started a fundraiser for Marge last weekend, it did not take long for the campus to reciprocate Marge’s love many times over. More ...
SA meetings need purpose
April 24, 2015Student Assembly has a lot to do. It funds campus organizations, makes student life active and interesting for all, and helps connect the student body to the administration. The group has a lot to do and needs to use its time and resources wisely. While serving as a representative body specifically, members of the Assembly should not use the forum to complain about trivial issues or rehash old questions and policy changes that were long ago decided. Student Assembly has and can be a great resource and platform to improve student life, but recently its meetings have been hijacked by unnecessary campaigns and personal gripes with the administrations. More ...
Students need training, responsibility
April 17, 2015For the Hamilton Emergency Response Team, Monday’s events must have passed in the blink of an eye. For the rest of the community, though, Monday seemed to never end. Members of The Spectator spent the lockdown in a Minor bedroom, the Field House and even the Print Shop. Whether you were a student, faculty member or staff member, the day was long, stressful, and uncertain to varying degrees. Our only instructions and information came from e-mails and press conferences, and most of our decisions became matters of personal discretion. While some professors stopped lecturing, locked their doors and secured their students to the best of their ability, other professors continued lecturing, abandoned students once they were finished and then tested them on that day’s material the very next day. As some students huddled without food in the Library’s generator rooms, others posted on WiGo about beautiful weather and playing Frisbee on the quad just outside. These latter choices were dangerous, inconsiderate and demonstrate that the community needs as much emergency training as HERT. More ...
Editorial Responsiblity
April 10, 2015Student publications exist for a variety of reasons. Some believe they are a catch all for public opinion. Others think they are meant to articulate one voice. Newspapers struggle with questions of objectivity, opinion and how to provide information fairly yet purposefully. They are meant to inform, but to what end? And this self-determination is only heightened by the collaborative nature of any newspaper. Writers create; editors shape; senior staff envision. Even if they share a common goal, their execution can still be confused. The Spectator is not immune to these problems. Last week we encountered them and handled them poorly. More ...