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Students must continue to keep their communication status updated

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During my freshman year, I traveled to Alotenango, Guatemala for a service trip through the College of William and Mary. After studying Spanish in high school and given my dash of Mexican heritage, I felt decently confident in my Spanish-speaking abilities. Once I arrived, I was completely floored by how fast and easily Spanish came to all the Guatemalans with whom we interacted.

I found communication to be unexpectedly challenging. When speaking to my host family, I worried whether my accent was up to par. I wondered if my host sister snickered when I spoke up at the dinner table because of my kindergarten-level sentence construction.

I was reminded of these language frustrations when I joined Twitter in the spring. The use of new social media networks mirrors the experience of hopping off a plane in a foreign country.

I can still vividly recall the first few times I clicked the button “Tweet” and the questions that swirled around my brain. Am I clever enough to be posting here? Am I using this right? (Any of my followers who encountered my livetweets of Kanye and Jay-Z’s “Watch the Throne” concert would resoundingly answer, “No.”)

Other paranoid and self-conscious questions plagued me. When will someone respond to me? Am I the butt of the joke for everybody who already knows how to use it?

Certain core concepts remain largely the same for both language and social media. Both have distinct learning curves. Each new social media platform has its own unique vocabulary and word usages that would make Merriam and Webster roll over in their graves. Most importantly, we use both language and our social media platforms to connect with others.

I think that explains the common outrage whenever Mark Zuckerberg and company tinker with Facebook. It is enfeebling to suddenly feel lost when you attempt to use a medium previously both intuitive and intrinsic to the way you connect with people. It’s akin to opening your mouth and finding you must relearn how to speak basic words and sentences.

Despite the fact that the “old” Facebook, whose loss we collectively mourn, was the product of other changes that we previously protested, the frustration of having to relearn something we thought we had mastered is enough to overpower any appreciation of the fact that we know the change was made for our benefit.

By the end of my stay in Guatemala, I had practiced enough to speak confidently. The key to that earned confidence was a willingness to engage and embarrass myself. While advanced language courses may train people to speak with confidence, the only social media course is raw trial and error.

Wren to Richmond

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Congratulations to John Miller (D-1) and Mike Watson (R-93) on their elections to the state Senate and House of Delegates respectively. As a school that has produced three U.S. presidents, the College of William and Mary has a long-standing tradition of participation in politics. After major voting drives at the College as part of the Scott Foster ’10 campaign, more than 2,100 students were registered to vote in Williamsburg. Because College students make up such a large part of Miller’s and Watson’s constituencies, they need to be familiar with the College and what it needs to continue to be one of the top universities in the country.

As students at the College, we are proud of our school — there is a reason “Tribe” is painted on the roads surrounding campus. We are a small, selective state school, and we want it to stay this way. The College is known for its high standards of higher education. Students should not have to become bankrupt in order to attend an institution such as ours, and we want to continue to provide the best education possible without charging exorbitant tuition fees. We have a strong sense of history, exemplified by our proximity to Colonial Williamsburg and our deep love of tradition. Whether we are walking through the Sir Christopher Wren building at Commencement or streaking the Sunken Garden, we know our past makes us unique.

Our values make us who we are, and as your constituents, we want you to respect them. Most importantly, the College cannot afford to lose anymore state funding ­— a fact with which any student who has had class in Morton Hall is all to familiar. We need money so we can make better use of the buildings and resources we already have.

Our faculty, arguably our most important resource, needs to receive competitive salaries. Recently, a few professors have left the College because they have received better offers from other schools. We need to be able to employ the best faculty in order to continue our tradition of academic excellence.

Along those same lines, the College has a long tradition as a liberal arts college. We want to receive funding across the board, not just for science, technology, education and mathematics. Yes, we want to be competitive in all of those areas, but the state simply cannot dismiss the other departments at the College as unworthy of funds when so much of the student body is majoring in the social sciences and humanities.

The College needs the freedom to make whatever decisions will enable the school to best serve students.
This includes leaving the determination of in-state to out-of-state student ratios to the College. The College needs to be able to accept students based on its budget and the quality of the applicants. We cannot allow for state representatives to pander to constituents who are mad that their children were not admitted.

This may seem like a lot to ask for, but it is important for state representatives to realize what makes this school special to its students. The College is one of the top schools in the country, and we want to keep it that way. We need representatives in Richmond who will fight for the College — the decisions our new representatives make will help determine whether or not the College will be able to maintain its prestigious standing in the future.

Poll results in for state elections

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The state election yielded Williamsburg’s representatives for the Virginia General Assembly House of Delegates and Senate Tuesday.

Incumbent Sen. John Miller (D-1) claimed the majority vote while incumbent Del. Robin Abbott (D-93) was unseated by her Republican opponent Michael “Mike” Watson.

After close races, Abbot pushed ahead of Watson early on in the polls, yet was not able to hold onto the lead. Watson finished the race with 51.55 percent of the vote and Abbott with 48.23 percent of the vote. Miller and his Republican opponent, Mickey Chahony, ran an even closer race, with Miller claiming 51.38 percent of the vote and Chahony trailing with 48.41 percent of the vote.

Williamsburg colored blue with all three precincts voting for the Democratic representatives — Miller received 51.93 percent and Abbot received 56.06 percent of Williamsburg’s vote. Yet Watson grabbed up James City County and York County.

Approximately one third of Williamsburg’s active voters voted at the polls for both races. Voter participation for active Williamsburg voters for the Senate race was 31.57 percent and 31.46 percent for the Delegate race.

__Check back with the Flat Hat for full coverage of the 2011 state elections in Williamsburg.__

Students, schools adapt to new version of GRE

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Amidst the flurry of Banner stalking and professor-charming students employ to receive admittance to classes fulfilling General Education Requirements (GERs), many seniors are looking beyond the College of William and Mary by taking the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). A revised version of the GRE was instituted Aug. 1.

The updated computerized test is scored differently than previous versions and allows test takers to return to questions within sections.

Dean of Graduate Studies and Research in Arts and Sciences Laurie Sanderson handles admissions for aspiring graduate students, whose applications require submission of the new GRE scores.

“Fortunately for students, while ETS has changed the type of questions asked in the verbal and the quantitative sections, the way that the test is used should remain fairly stable,” Sanderson said.

To facilitate harmony between the two versions, the score scale now ranges from 130-170 for verbal and quantitative sections instead of the previous 200-800 range. But test takers still receive reports about which percentile they scored in relative to other test takers.

“Students should feel reassured that they can continue using the percentile to compare to their previous scores, and that they are not being disadvantaged in any way,” Sanderson said.

Most revisions of the test occur within the verbal section. Instead of antonyms and analogies, ETS has included more complex reasoning and definition identification questions.

“I believe ETS wanted to write questions in a style more relevant to today’s student, so perhaps they wanted to make it more analytical, and perhaps a bit less [about] memorization of vocabulary,” Sanderson said.

Director of MBA Admissions Amanda Barth attributes this change to the Mason School of Business’s recent inclusion of the GRE in its application process.

“The fact that they are doing more work with the quantitative part of the test heightens the confidence of graduate business schools to consider the exam,” Barth said.

The business school began accepting the GRE in the fall of 2010. Although the business school still recommends the GMAT over the GRE, Barth stated that about two years ago, 300 business schools decided to begin accepting the GRE. Because of the GRE’s recent changes, the business school may be able to attract applicants from more varied backgrounds.

“ETS is constantly evolving and revising the GRE to be more broad-based,” Barth said, “and accepting the GRE encourages diversity among the admitted students.”

Some students adjusted study methods for the exam to better adapt to the changes.

“For me, I focused more on math because they made a lot of changes to that section,” Meghan Brown ’12 and recent GRE taker said. “I also studied a lot more because they added a new type of question where there is not one correct answer, but three.”

College Republicans and Young Democrats face off

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With five days left before the Virginia General Assembly election, College Republicans and Young Democrats of the College of William and Mary drew battle lines during a campus debate Thursday.

The two political organizations engaged in a civil debate on topics ranging from fiscal policy to gun possession rights, moderated by Chancellor Professor of Government Clay Clemens ‘80.
The night began with issues of pension reform.

“There is a distinct difference between a 401k . . . and a pension. It is possible to have a mixture of both worlds,” Republican Alex Kocher ’12 said. “We cannot afford the current pension system, but we can afford to continue to pay our public workers a certain amount under a pension plan while also asking them to also provide a little bit more towards their own retirement.”

Democrats opposed this proposition, arguing that such a position puts a greater burden on the individual.
When the issues turned to higher education, Secretary of Student Rights Zann Isacson ‘13 outlined the Democratic stance.

“When you look at Democrats’ position on higher education, it is focused on making plans that empower those who struggle and cannot pay for higher education,” Isacson said.

Republicans pushed back with the financial burdens of higher education costs.

“[Higher education] costs have been predominantly placed on out-of-state students . . . at some point this is going to be untenable,” Alex Kocher ’12 said.

The issue of gun rights was addressed at both campus and nationwide levels. The College recently revised its gun control policy to patch all existing holes, so that now only authorized personnel can carry guns on campus.

“Our background checks have stopped millions of people with mental issues or other problems from having access to these weapons,” Democrat Elise Orlick ‘15 said. “If we allow more guns on campus, there will be an increase in violence.”

The GOP team countered the notion that guns should be prohibited on campuses by state law, calling instead for weapon possession to remain an “individual institution policy.”

Policy aimed at lowering the 9 percent current national unemployment rate, as well as the 6.5 percent rate in Virginia, provided another source of contention.

The Democrats emphasized the need for greater clean energy in the state as a method of creating jobs.
“It is our responsibility as a great power to protect the environment in any way,” Isacson said.

Republican Andrew Follet ‘13 cited data which compared the higher cost of energy produced from sustainable resources to energy from non-renewable resources. He also detailed the higher cost of building and operating sustainable power generation facilities, as opposed to more traditional methods of energy production.

When Clemens shifted the debate to illegal immigration, Republicans and Democrats spoke about different aspects of the issue.

“I think there is a huge false perception that [illegal immigrants] are criminals within our country, that these are the ones responsible for our drug violence, and for our gang violence. But in reality, a lot of illegal immigrants are those who were taken here as children, who have grown up here, and who you really cannot distinguish from an ‘American,’” Isacson said.

“I think both parties can agree that illegal immigration plays a major part in our economy,” Kocher said. “Our agricultural industry would not survive without the immigrants that come to America on a yearly basis.”

He later went on to advocate for an easier method by which immigrants could work temporarily, before returning home to their families with their earnings.

Burglaries increase campus-wide

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The 2011 campus safety report indicates decreases in some categories of on-campus criminal activity in 2010, while other classes of crime spiked. The report, released annually as mandated by the 1990 Clery Act, provides an overview of the criminal activity on campus in a given year and offers a glimpse at larger trends.

The number of forcible sex offenses and aggravated assaults decreased on campus from 2009 to 2010.
Three forcible sex offenses were reported in 2010, two fewer than the previous year, and one aggravated assault was reported, five fewer than in 2009.

The College of William and Mary Police Chief Don Challis said he hoped the decrease in reported sexual assaults was due to an actual decline in the number of incidents.

“So often it’s how comfortable a survivor feels about contacting us,” he said. “Hopefully they’re going down.”

Some crime rates did escalate. Last year saw the first arrest for illegal weapons possession on campus since 2002. Burglary, defined as unlawful entry into a structure with the intent to commit a crime, increased on campus in 2010. There were 23 incidents reported, up from 17 in 2009. This reflects an upward trend in
burglaries on campus over the past 10 years.

“We’re working hard with faculty, staff and students to encourage people to report those things,” Challis said. “Either our students and community feel better about contacting us, which we hope is the case, or there are more of these things going on. In tough economic times, you’re likely to have a few more things walk away.”

Challis said most on-campus burglaries occur when students enter other students’ rooms.

“Lock your doors,” he said. “The biggest thing that we see is most of these crimes are crimes of convenience.”

Local police recorded 26 liquor law violations on public property last year, which was nine more than recorded in 2009, but nowhere near the 106 noted in 2005.

Williamsburg Police Major Greg Riley said he had not noticed an increase in student liquor law violations, but offered what he called common-sense advice for avoiding legal trouble.

“Don’t commit the crimes,” he said. “Make sure you have a designated driver — that helps you avoid the problem with drunk-driving charges. This applies with using the buddy system when you go out and party. Make sure someone is responsible enough to make sure everyone gets home safe and sound.

A group of friends should be able to trade that off so everyone has a good time throughout the college year.”
Lisa Sthreshley ’12 said she has not noticed much fluctuation in crime during her three and a half years at the College and that she feels safe on campus.

Recent safety notices from College administrators have not fazed her.

“I always feel like all the emails from Ginger Ambler talk about things happening right off campus,” Sthreshley said. “And that doesn’t affect me because I don’t really go off campus.”

For traveling off campus, Riley advised students to be aware of their surroundings, stay out of poorly lit areas, know the serial numbers of their electronic items and report suspicious activity.
Sthreshley said she thinks students at the College could take more precautions to ensure their own safety.

“I’m an orientation aide, and during one training session the assistant dean of students said that William and
Mary students are a little too trusting and don’t report strange behavior they see on campus,” she said. “I think that’s true.”

Riley agreed.

“If something looks suspicious, act accordingly,” he said.

Banner crashes on registration

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The registration system at the College of William and Mary has never been perfect, but last week’s class selection cycle left students more frustrated than ever.

In the midst of freshman registration this year, Banner abruptly shut down. When the class of 2015 logged onto Banner at 3:30 p.m. to register, many students were shut out of the system.

According to Deputy Chief Information Officer Bernadette Kenney, the system crashed due to systematic errors involving the correspondence between MyWM and Banner Self Service. This year a set of annual updates were added to the Banner server by a third party company, but Kenney suspects that these updates had nothing to do with the server crash.

“There was so much demand this year with freshman registration that something caused Banner to freeze and back up,” Kenney said. “We believed we were prepared for the overwhelming number of students registering, but there are many pieces of technology at play, and something happened at that time that we had never seen before.”

Information Technology sent out an email to the campus community at 3:57 p.m. explaining the shutdown.
At 5:34 p.m., IT sent out another email saying Banner services had been restored.

University Registrar Sara Marchello sent an email to the freshman class apologizing for the frustrations the Banner outage caused. Marchello also extended the freshmen registration period an hour and a half and gave the class tips for a successful registration.

“Most students think that if you don’t get your perfect schedule in the first five minutes of registration that it’s an absolute catastrophe, but really, it’s a two month process and so there is still lots of time,” Marchello said.

Marchello and Kenney plan to work together to create a smoother, more successful registration system.

“We know that this is a highly anxious time for students and we want to be able to protect the registration service. That’s what we’re here for,” Kenney said.

Despite administrators’ efforts to fix the system and mollify students, many remain upset.

“I got locked out from 3:30 until 5:15 without getting into any classes,” Mary Walsh ’15 said. “I eventually got some, but definitely missed out on a few I was planning on taking. I heard my hallmates counting down until 3:30, then there was a minute of silence, then just screams of ‘What the hell!’ from down the hall.”

Registration frustration is not a new phenomenon, and some students have used creative outlets to express their exasperation. Last spring Charlie Clark ’14 and Sean Sweeney ’14 created a YouTube video voice-over of a scene from the film “Downfall,” entitled, “Hitler Registering for Classes at William and Mary.” The video portrays Hitler screaming about the difficulty of getting into Adventure Games, and his being enrolled in classes he does not wish to take. The video has received more than 7,800 views.

“It’s a problem that all students identify with at William and Mary,” Sweeney said. “Creating the video was a fun way for us to poke fun at an obvious problem. Everyone has gotten the short end of the stick at one point or another, so hopefully the video adds some comic relief to the situation.”

Men’s basketball: College bested by St. John’s in season-opener, 74-59

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William and Mary opened its 2011-12 season by falling on the road to St. Johns’s, 74-59 Monday in Queens, N.Y.

The College led for the majority of the first half, and carried a 33-26 lead into halftime after a sharp opening performance by senior forward Quinn McDowell and sophomore guard Brandon Britt, among others, who propelled the Tribe to a 11-6 run midway through the first half.

The Red Storm responded in the second half, though, as St. John’s utilized a mix of heavy defensive pressure and offensive efficiency to doom the College. The Red Storm went on a 15-2 run in the second, briefly allowed the Tribe to get within one point, and then embarked on a 16-3 run to seal the victory.

Overall, McDowell led all scorers with 20 points, as the Tribe shot 46 percent from the field, including 11 three pointers. St. John’s, meanwhile, shot 49.2 percent from the field, including 67.9 percent from beyond the arc.

The College will face Hampton Saturday on the road before playing its home opener Monday against Liberty.

Football: Miscues doom Tribe in Rhode Island

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In a season marred by inconsistency in the most important facets of the game — quarterback play, pass protection and tackling — the Tribe’s special teams play has been relatively reliable.

That is, until Saturday, when two blocked punts and a muffed punt return derailed the College at Rhode Island as the Tribe fell to the Rams 24-21, extinguishing any lingering hopes of a 2011 playoff bid.

“You can’t expect to play good teams in this league, especially going on the road, and have two punts blocked and expect to win,” head coach Jimmye Laycock said.

Once again, senior running back Jonathan Grimes — for whom the remaining games on the Tribe’s schedule are a showcase for potential NFL suitors — led the way for the College’s offense, going over 100 yards rushing for the third consecutive game. Grimes carried 25 times, racking up a mammoth 208 yards on the ground and running for two touchdowns, bringing his season total to six on the ground and 10 overall.

But with 2 minutes, 42 seconds left in the game, a blocked punt off sophomore punter Drake Kuhn’s kick helped complete a late-game comeback for the Rams, as Rhode Island kicker Louis Feinstein hit the game-winning field goal from 27 yards out just over a minute later.

The Rams took the early lead, marching 69 yards on the game’s opening drive, ultimately finding the endzone on a 32-yard pass from quarterback Robert Bentsen to tight end Joe Migliarese to put Rhode Island up 7-0. The Tribe (4-5, 2-4 CAA) answered right back though, as Grimes struck for his first of two long touchdown rushes, taking the handoff on the College’s first play from scrimmage and scampering for a 60-yard touchdown run. But Kuhn’s ensuing extra point attempt was no good, leaving the Tribe trailing by one in the early going.

The score remained 7-6 until the third, when Grimes hit big again. After sophomore quarterback Brent Caprio — starting in place of classmate Mike Graham — took a sack on the College’s first possession of the half, Grimes broke off an 87-yard touchdown run to give the Tribe a 13-7 advantage.

The Rams closed the gap in the fourth, however, opening the quarter with the first blocked punt of the day, setting their offense up at the College’s 41. Rhode Island capitalized, taking nine plays to eventually punch it in from two yards out, putting the Rams back on top, 14-13.

But the lead would swing back to the College when Caprio hit junior tight end Nolan Kearney for a 5-yard touchdown pass, capping off a six-play, 64-yard drive. The College then went for the two-point conversion, and Caprio hit senior wideout D.J. Mangas, giving the Tribe a 21-14 lead with 7:45 left.

That would be the last of the College’s offense, though, and the Rams would surge past, tying the game with a 16-yard touchdown pass before the blocked punt and field goal provided the final score.

“They came after us and we didn’t do a good job blocking,” Laycock said of the poor protection on punts. “When you don’t block them, they got a chance.”

With less than a minute to go and the College needing a scoring drive to stave off defeat, Caprio’s pass to Mangas on 4th and 12 on the College’s 44 fell incomplete, and Rhode Island took a knee to secure the win.

Caprio finished the day at 15 of 26 for 143 yards, one touchdown and one interception while the College as an offense outgained the Rams 379 yards to 289.

“Everything considered, he did a good job,” Laycock said. “He was under a lot of pressure and it was hard to see some things.”

Junior linebackers Dante Cook and Jabrel Mines led the way for the College’s defense with 12 tackles each.

Men’s soccer: Tribe enters tournament with clutch win

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William and Mary fought back after twice giving up a lead, and eventually scored an overtime goal Saturday night in Williamsburg for a 3-2 victory over Northeastern. The game was the last one of the College’s regular season, and is the second straight win for the Tribe.

“It was an exciting game that was well-played by both teams,” head coach Chris Norris said. “I’m very pleased, obviously. We dug deep and played hard, came up with some good goals.”

The two teams traded shots back and forth in a high-paced contest, a stark contrast from the Tribe’s more defensive games earlier in the year. Like the College’s previous game, Norris put another player forward, triggering more offense in both ends of the field. Neither team had a dangerous chance until the 43rd minute, when sophomore defenseman Roshan Patel received a throw-in, found space and fired a hard shot past Huskies goalkeeper Oliver Blum to give the Tribe a 1-0 lead.

Though the College was able to go into halftime with a lead, the Huskies were able to answer back quickly to start the second half. In the 47th minute, forward Mike Kennedy took a cross deep inside the box and knocked it past senior goalkeeper Colin Smolinsky to tie up the game.

“It was a little bit fluky. We allowed the cross, which was something that we were trying to make sure we didn’t do,” Norris said.

The Tribe took back the momentum in the 67th minute, when Blum couldn’t contain a shot by sophomore midfielder Ben Coffey. The shot rebounded and the first one there was freshman forward Josh West, who put the ball away to give the Tribe the lead back.

But the Huskies came back and equalized again, this time on a play so fast the benches and many in the stands missed it. Just 27 seconds after the Tribe scored, Huskies forward Don Anding received a good pass in the Tribe’s half on the right side, and smashed one past Smolinsky to equalize the game.

“It’s a psychologically difficult to give the lead away multiple times,” Norris said. “We managed to do it and still stay mentally strong enough to get the winner when we needed it.”

The rest of the second half featured chances and physicality, but neither team had a good opportunity to break the game open in regulation. It was the Tribe who got the chance they needed in the 97th minute, when senior midfielder Nicolas Abrigo sent a pass in from the left side to freshman midfielder Chris Albiston, who controlled the ball and hit it past Blum to give the Tribe the win.

“I was trying to take it off my chest, but I think it hit me in the face,” Albiston said. “It just kind of fell in front of me, and I saw the keeper coming out, and I was just trying to put it behind him any way I could.”

On the game, Athe College outshot Northeastern 17 to 13, and had nine shots on goal as compared to the Huskies’ two (both of which they scored on). It was the second straight game in which the Tribe won a 3-2 game in overtime at home. The Tribe have now scored six goals in the past two games, compared to 12 in the team’s previous 16 games. The win vaulted the Tribe past the Huskies and two other teams to garner third place in the CAA.

“We’re really happy with [the third seed],” Norris said. “If you asked me going into the season with this young a group if I’d be happy to finish in third, I would’ve said absolutely.”

The College will open CAA Tournament play against sixth-ranked Georgia State Thursday in Harrisonburg.

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