As October winds down, Americans begin to anticipate Election Day. Every year on the second Tuesday of November, American citizens show up to vote, an act long perceived as their civic duty. This year’s election is slated to be particularly contentious, with many vital policies on the ballot, including abortion rights. The overturning of Roe V. Wade in June 2022 left access to abortion care in the hands of state governments. Furthermore, against the backdrop of a mostly conservative Supreme Court, the longevity of various civil rights acts are at risk. For example, hearings regarding the Indian Child Welfare Act approach in early November. Regardless of a person’s stance on these issues, voting is an American hallmark of making one’s voice heard. Though 2022 is not a Presidential election year, it is still crucial to vote at the local level. Whether you plan on voting via mail-in ballot or in person, here is everything you need to know to be voter-ready for Tuesday, November 8.
Read moreWhy the #MahsaAmini Protests are Unprecedented and Why We Should Pay Attention
There is a temptation in the U.S. to compare international events to current events domestically, and the recent Iranian protests are no exception. Protests against the oppressive laws that women have endured for over forty years in Iran have happened only months after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, throwing many U.S. states back into 20th-century policies. The comparisons are easy to make, but before we compare, it is important to better understand the context behind Iran and why these protests are unprecedented.
Read morePresident Biden Tackles Student Loan Debt Relief
Over the past few decades, student loan debt has been rising at an alarming rate. Today, the average college student has $25,000 in student loan debt. Since the 1980s, tuition at four-year colleges has skyrocketed, while Pell Grant relief from the federal government remains stagnant. It is rare that student debt borrowers graduate college with the ability to pay off that debt, and as many as one third of student borrowers fail to even graduate due to the financial burden of college tuition. On August 24th, President Biden followed through on his 2020 campaign promise to release a comprehensive plan to relieve student loan borrowers of some or all of their debt. The plan will strengthen and support the middle class.
Read moreFireflies
They walk together hand-in-hand. He savors what they have. His best friend. Her pale skin glows in the moonlight.
She’s so striking.
Shaking the thought out of his mind, he turns to her,
“Tell me something.”
“I love you,” she lilts.
Read moreDisney Plus’s New Releases: What to Watch This Fall
It’s fall, which means it’s time to bundle up in your sweater, drink some warm apple cider and put a movie on while the wind swirls leaves outside your window. But what to watch? Not to worry - these new releases are the perfect way to enhance your lazy fall day.
Read moreThere’s No Place Like Student Housing: A Crisis on Campus
This summer, the unprecedented size of Skidmore College’s current first-year class caused challenges for college systems which were not designed to support such a volume of students. Issues associated with high enrollment numbers were amplified by the fact that during the summer of 2022, the College opted for a new system for housing management. The first sign that something was awry appeared — or rather, didn’t appear — in late April when the College was expected to open apartment applications as they had in past years.
Read moreSGA Update: Introducing Free Period Products to Skidmore College
At Skidmore, students may be coming to a campus with fewer period product services than their high schools had. The College must not only catch up to our public peer institutions in terms of menstrual product accessibility, but also be a leader in combatting the infrastructural inequities and gendered language that alienate transgender and non-binary people in similar programs at other schools.
Read moreCelebrated Writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Delivers 2022 Steloff Lecture
On Monday, October 3, Skidmore awarded Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters and invited her to give the annual Steloff Lecture, which has brought the Skidmore community together to celebrate the world’s best literary and artistic talent since 1967.
Read moreShades of Blue
I was blue before you
And I was blue after you
I thought that if I gathered you in my hands,
I would find a way to piece you together
Read moreRebirth
I’ve been breathing for a while. I can feel the wood against my back, and taste the air. But my heart hasn’t started beating. It’s an odd feeling. I can tell that time has passed, and I can tell that my consciousness has returned, but my internal clock is still broken and my life hasn’t come back.
Read moreYik Yak: Liberation in Anonymity
“I’ll be in the library today if anyone wants to hit on me.”
“College is a game show called Am I Not Hungover or Just Still Drunk?”
“these tours really making me feel like a zoo animal today.”
These are just a few of the most popular “yaks” one finds on their Yik Yak feed upon opening the app on a Sunday morning. Yik Yak has grown in popularity among college students, Skidmore being no exception. Yik Yak launched in 2013 only to close in 2017, then relaunched in 2021. Its appeal to Skidmore and similar liberal arts institutions is that it enables anyone to post anonymous 200 character “yaks” viewable within a five-mile radius. With 87% of students living on campus, the app has arguably become a part of campus culture, bringing together students who don’t even know each other.
Students utilize the app for a variety of reasons: to find out what's happening on or off campus, to air out their grievances with administration, or even to use it as an online diary. With the added anonymity, people can post unfiltered yaks with the comfort of knowing that no one will be able to identify the poster. This, of course, comes with its drawbacks; the initial reason for the app's 2017 ban was due to cyberbullying and hate speech. People felt empowered to “name-drop” professors or fellow students without consequences. Additionally, students could violate academic integrity, or harass one another. This issue has become less prevalent since the relaunch, but still occurs.
With Yik Yak's relaunch, there are optimistic sentiments regarding its potential for good within the campus community. Furthermore, for investigative purposes, the app’s new privacy policy allows posts to be traced to the cellphone number used to create the account, hopefully holding those who take advantage of the app’s obscurity accountable.
Contrastingly, students have come to appreciate the app for its ability to cultivate a community. Who needs Google Maps when I can just ask people on Yik Yak where the best thrift shops are in the area? (The answer is Treasures Boutique and Noah’s Attic, apparently). Students can exchange complaints about workload, dining hall food, lack of sleep, etc. More than this, people can discuss insecurities unfiltered. The anonymity that comes with Yik Yak makes students entitled to be more authentic with their thoughts and feelings compared to other social media apps. This sense of authenticity and relatability can empower students to increase self-esteem and establish a more open community in the real world, something other apps such as BeReal or Snapchat aspire to emulate.
Yik Yak enables us to not only connect with Skidmore, but the students who attend it. As the new academic semester ramps up, and Skidmore students become more and more consumed in their studies, by simply opening Yik Yak, students can engage with hundreds of others in our community through just one post.
Activists Protest for Women’s Rights in Iran
On Friday, September 16, the morality police in Iran arrested and killed 22-year-old Mahsa Amini for incorrectly wearing her head scarf. Amini’s death was met with outrage and the first protests occurred outside Kasra Hospital, where Amini had been hospitalized and died. Thousands of people attended her funeral on September 17, and many women took off their headscarves in a show of their opposition to the mandatory hijab law.
Read moreFall 2022 Skidmore Sports Midseason Update
Skidmore 2022 Fall Sports are off to an incredible start, with many teams exceeding expectations and thriving as the midway point of the season approaches. On behalf of Skidmore News, we wanted to give an update on the fall sports teams, as well as sharing an interview with an athlete from each team to give some insight into how our student athletes are approaching the season. We hope you enjoy it!
Read moreTides Turning In Ukraine-Russia Conflict as Ukraine Counteroffensive Continues
In the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the tide appears to be turning in favor of Ukrainian military forces, as their counteroffensive continues to regain lost territory in the northeast. Russian forces are on the run in parts of Ukraine that they had seized early in the conflict. Most recently, Russian troops have retreated from the Balakliya and Izyum area in the Kharkiv region and lost nearly all of the northern region of Kharkiv.
Read moreQueen Elizabeth: What Her Death Means for the U.K. and the World
Queen Elizabeth’s uncontested reign of seventy years and two hundred and fourteen days came to an end when the ninety-six-year old monarch died on September 8th at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Queen Elizabeth II held a long and complicated reign, being loved and hated in equal measure. When she passed, her life was celebrated, ridiculed, criticized and analyzed. Tears of joy and tears of sadness have been shed.
Read moreFollowing Faculty Unionization Efforts: Administrator and Organizer Perspectives
The process of non-tenure track faculty unionization reaches its final stages with an election that will conclude on the 26th of September. Junior Jacob Smith speaks with Ruth McAdams, Teaching Professor of English and vocal advocate, as well Michael Orr, Dean of Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs, about ongoing unionization efforts and the current election.
Read moreInside Skidmore’s Black Box Double Feature: An Interview with Tatsu Rivera and Gemma Siegler
Earlier this semester, Skidmore’s Theater Department presented a unique double-feature of two student shows: The Chaparral written and directed by Tatsu Rivera (‘22), as well as Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel’s And Baby Makes Seven directed by Gemma Siegler (‘22). The shows were performed in Skidmore’s Blackbox theater, which is a small, versatile performance space that can be easily transformed into different sets. After attending the shows on the opening night, March 4th, 2022, I had the privilege of interviewing both Rivera and Siegler to gain insight into the creative processes behind the productions.
Read moreFilm Review: "The Batman" Is In the Eye of the Beholder
At the center of any superhero story is the tension between good and evil. The latest Batman film, inexplicably qualified as The Batman, strategically blurs those concepts, guiding audiences to consider the possibility that our hero and his enemy may not be so different after all. The Batman itself is about sight — what one can or cannot see, what one chooses to see or not see. Viewing the film follows a similar line of logic: either you choose to overlook its flaws, or they are glaringly obvious.
Read moreΑθηνα, μου (My Athens)
I reach into the depths of my backpack and become engulfed by a sense of relief when I feel the sharp metal object. I begin to pull it out, or at least try to. The key gets tangled in the pages and pages of Greek grammar notes shoved into my backpack. It’s been two months and I still don’t know how to conjugate the verb “ειμαι.” The key finally makes its way up into the fresh air of Pangrati. As the cool key hits my sweaty hand, I realize that I cut my index finger…
Read moreLittle Baby
She doesn’t give the baby another look and leaves the room on swift feet, passing the maternity ward and not stopping till she exits the swiveling doors and collapses in the spiky grass outside the horrid walls that reek of death, even around life. There are light pink peonies, like the baby's hat, growing out of a small patch near a hospital garden sign. A monarch butterfly flaps its wings and floats in front of her and a gentle breeze wipes the tears from her face with a soothing whisper. It’s cruel how beautiful it is. As if nature itself refused to give her another look, to even regard her pain with a gray cloud or drop of rain. The flowers would keep growing; the flowers would keep living.
Read more