“The Internet is F***** Up”: A Conversation with Skidmore Alumna Grace Kuhlenschmidt

Earlier in November, I sat down with Grace Kuhlenschmidt, a 2017 graduate of Skidmore with a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology and one of the TikTok creators at the front of this phenomenon. Kuhlenschmidt, who is currently living in Brooklyn, New York, has accrued 338,000 followers on TikTok and nearly 170,000 on Twitter.

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The Dreaded Debate Over Exams Versus Papers

Much debate exists as to what form of assessment is “better” or “more productive.” At first, the question really becomes what would you rather do: take exams or write essays. However, one could argue that it is important to consider which method is least stressful for students and the most fair assessment of the knowledge students have retained in their classes. Additionally, is it fair for students that assessments are often seen as the sole evaluators of our understanding of class material?

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Revamped Skidmania Takes the Stage and Community by Storm

When eight p.m. rolled around on November 18 and 19, the house lights dimmed in the Arthur Zankel Music Center’s Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall. The chattery hum of the audience fizzled to a pregnant near-silence of anticipation. Written in this silence was a mutual understanding: this moment was special. And throughout the next two hours, the audience was musically transported fifty years into the past.

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Investigating Allegations of Drink Druggings in Downtown Saratoga

At the beginning of every new school year, Skidmore College students relish in the last of Saratoga’s summer warmth. Returning students reunite with friends and spend their Saturday nights at well-loved local venues. Many first-years attend college parties for the first time. This fall, however, those blissful weekends were interrupted on September 25, when Skidmore students awoke — many of them after a night out — to an alarming message in their inbox. The email, sent by the College’s Office of Campus Safety, reported a suspected drink drugging at a downtown establishment.

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The Case for Art Spaces

This June, after over a year of research and development, Skidmore released their Campus Master Plan, an assessment of current facilities and a guide to the next decade of campus development. It’s ambitious and accessible, full of great ideas and long overdue admissions of substandard facilities. However, one thing that was conspicuously absent was any meaningful mention of Skidmore’s art department. All that it said on this topic was that, in 10+ years, there would be some sort of “condition focused renovation.” In speaking with other students, though, it’s been hard to ignore the general sentiment that changes in the art department are long overdue.

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Midnights: Swiftly Taking Over the World

Midnights tells "the stories of 13 sleepless nights" that occurred throughout Swift's life. The album was released at midnight on October 21. Midnights gracefully speaks on themes of love, loss, anxiety and self-image, taking the listener through nights of insomnia-fueled anxieties that keep Swift awake. These themes are evident on tracks such as “Labyrinth” where Swift sings, “It only feels this raw right now / Lost in the labyrinth of my mind” and “Anti-Hero,” with the line, “I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror.”

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2022 World Cup - A Look into the History and Current Controversies of the Stadiums

The long awaited 2022 FIFA World Cup is now here and being hosted in Qatar from November 20th to December 18th. Games will be played across eight stadiums, all within a 22 mile radius of Doha, the capital city. Qatar won the right to host after a controversial bidding process in which several FIFA members were accused of bribery, amongst other corrupt practices. Not only was the bidding process problematic, but Qatar's suitability to host has repeatedly been called into question for a number of reasons, including the hot climate and more concerningly, their human rights record.

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The Solidarity Project: the Story of my Art Installation in Case Gallery

A few months ago, Akhil Reed Omar, a professor at Yale University, came to Skidmore. He was giving a talk about the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the future of the Supreme Court - both topics I am interested in. But that is not why I attended this lecture. I attended this lecture because I wanted to ask him a specific question.

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Silent Sky Review

Dim lights rise in the Black Box Theater, furnished with two wooden platforms, an upright piano, and a short, circular stage painted with a map of the night sky. The audience surrounds the thrust stage on three sides. A woman in Edwardian clothing with an old-fashioned hearing aid around her neck enters the stage and stands on the star chart, gazing upwards.

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Brazil Presidential Election: Lula Defeats Incumbent Bolsonaro

On October 30th, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil's presidential election. The election was very close, with Lula winning by only 1.8 percent of votes. Lula is a leftist politician who previously served as Brazil’s President from 2003-2010, leaving office with an 87 percent approval rating. Lula will fight for liberal values, but, like in the U.S., Brazil's economy is suffering from inflation. Before he can jump into his liberal agenda, Lula must rebuild a struggling country with many people in poverty and going hungry. As Lula pointed out during his campaign, Bolsonaro was pro-torture and pro-dictatorship. Lula’s goal is to return Brazil to a stable democracy. Along with his promises to enforce laws preventing deforestation, Lula also pledged to increase the minimum wage and social welfare, and support civil rights.

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Tua Tagovailoa's Head Injuries Raise Questions about the Ethics of the NFL

Tua Tagovailoa rejoined the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, 10/23, following a two-week absence due to multiple head injuries. The quarterback was brutally sacked in a game during Week 3 of the National Football League (NFL) season against the Buffalo Bills, where his head was hit with immense force on the turf and he struggled to walk after. The team’s medical staff, however, cleared Tagovailoa to play for the rest of the game. The next week, the 24-year-old suffered a concussion in Cincinnati during a game, this time with much more serious consequences. After an intense hit, he was seen lying on the field unmoving with his fingers clenched in stiff, unnatural positions.

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A Student's Guide to the 2022 New York General Election

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.

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Why 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.

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President 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.

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There’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.

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SGA 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.

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