Posted by Erin Dillon
In recent years, the world of fine dining has diverged from its glorification of French technique to embrace ethnic flavors and cultural fusion. Cuisines like Latin, African and Indian are no longer blue-collar food choices, but serve as palettes on which acclaimed chefs craft their inventive, worldly creations. As a result, ethnic restaurants have become mainstream, even in landlocked cities like Saratoga Springs. This town boasts a slew of ethnic restaurants despite its relatively homogenous racial population; from Japanese to Spanish to Belgian to Turkish, Saratoga offers an abundance of dining options.
Sadly, with a growing demand for global food, the term "authentic" tends to mean the opposite. (Why would sushi be "authentic" 6,000 miles from Japan? And can genuine jam??n ib??rico really come from the back of a Sysco truck?)
Thankfully, one establishment still adheres to the Webster definition of "authentic." El Mexicano, although not quite a Michelin-star restaurant, does not lie by claiming to serve "The Best Authentic Mexican Food in New York."
As a vegan from Maine, I might be unqualified to judge the authenticity of Mexican cuisine. However, my palate can discern a foil-wrapped Chipotle burrito from a dish of rice, beans and tortillas that seems to have been cooked over an open fire at a Mexican hacienda. El Mexicano serves the latter, prepared, presumably, the way mom used to make it. The restaurant serves simple, comforting plates generous enough to fuel a ranchero (or a scrawny Skidmore student). Although El Mexicano's dishes may lack in innovation, zest and molecular gastronomy, they also lack frills. You will go home satisfied from an honest meal.
Walking into El Mexicano induces a sort of sensory overload that soon fades into an endearingly festive ambiance. The space is colorful and well-lit,
Posted by Jesse Shayne
The Skidmore News sat down with Anna Graves '14 to talk about tomorrow's Sleep Out event at Congress Park, which she helped organize.
Q: What is the name of the event?
Anna: It's called Saratoga Sleep Out, which is working with Captain Youth and Family Services, Shelters of Saratoga, and Code Blue; it's all of those groups getting together to bring awareness of the homeless population.
The Sleep Out is going to be going from 1 p.m. on Saturday. The sleep out part starts around 8 or 9 p.m. People will get together to hang out and sleep out. The next morning they will be feeding people. It's a big community event.
On April 17 there's a fundraiser for the program. The reason we did the Sleep Out before is to bring homeless people in to talk about their experiences.
Q: What was your involvement with the event?
Anna: So Captain's whole thing is to bring awareness. I was like 'why aren't we sleeping out?' People do it. The National Homeless Coalition in D.C. does it all the time, and they'll sleep out for four days at a time. People come out and freak out because they do it in the middle of winter.
I was like 'well why aren't we just doing this? It's not that hard.' Sadly, because we weren't going to do it in the bitter cold no one is particularly interested because it's such a busy time for Skidmore kids. But community-wise it's a huge deal.
We had to get permits from the City, and the City and the government have been very supportive of this kind of awareness.
Q: So you're trying to promote awareness of the issues around homelessness in Saratoga? Or across the U.S.?
Anna: We're only thinking about Saratoga County. The definition of homelessness isn't just living in the street, but having an unstable home. That's why a lot of these youths are qualified as homeless but they just don't have a supportive home or are being abused or have some issues at home. This is in order to bring awareness to that larger issue. Also, the majority of the backs of hotels in Saratoga are just like homeless shelters. We're not just putting people in Saratoga shelters. They're sleeping in the places that we're sleeping too because we don't have anywhere to house them.
A big piece of it is that Saratoga is a tourist town, and for us to have such a large homeless population is a problem. That's why the event is at Congress Park, because that's where people walk around. That's a big part of our city.
Q: Can you tell me more about the groups that are sponsoring the event?
Anna: Shelters of Saratoga has really strict rules. Captain Youth and Family Services only have like eight beds, and the people who go there have to be under 21. Code Blue only operates when it's 10 degrees or less outside. When they went to the Mayor and City Council, City Council was like 'we don't have enough homeless people to fill Code Blue if we build this.' They have thirty beds and it's been overflowing every night that it's been 10 degrees or less. There's a huge population of people that need them, and people have just been pretending that the problem doesn't exist.
Q: Can you tell me more about the fundraiser?
Anna: It's on April 17 [at Punam Den]. Doors are 7:30 p.m.. North & South Dakotas and Queen Ambrosia are playing. It's just a way to bring money to all three of those groups because they're all really underfunded. Code Blue is running fully on donations. It's kind of been taken over by a church. They're trying to be a separate organization. It's a big event for people to know who's who and talk about the issue.
Posted by Jack Rosen
Skidmore is a place full of ideas. Every day we debate and discuss issues such as poverty, justice, the penal system, opportunity and equality, and we often read books that discuss such issues. We study one author who argues that those who find themselves in prison are fully deserving of their fate; then we read the work of another writer who suggests that the imprisoned are often the victims of circumstance. Yet the perspectives on poverty, prison and justice that we examine are almost always scholarly.
It is rare at Skidmore to hear the perspective of someone who has truly experienced the challenges of America's economic and penal systems. However, the upcoming lecture "From Parole to Prosperity" promises to be a rare exception. In an event co-sponsored by Bene-Faction, Shelters of Saratoga, The Skidmo' Daily and the College's Social Work department, Kelvin Davis will speak about growing up in Bed-Stuy, his twenty four year incarceration, the events leading up to it and his quest to prevent at-risk youth from succumbing to a similar fate. A truly charismatic speaker, Kelvin will offer attendees a perspective that cannot be found in impersonal academic articles.
The lecture will take place at 6 p.m., Monday, April 14in the Emerson Auditorium. After Kelvin speaks, there will be a Q&A followed by food and refreshments, generously donated by Esperanto. Those interested in attending are encouraged to come slightly early, as space will be limited and a high turnout is expected.
Posted by Jesse Shayne
Pooch, a dance-punk group formed at the beginning of this year by seniors Jon Benbeniste (guitar/vocals), Dan Alpher (bass/guitar/vocals), Wyatt Gordon (drums) and Will Kencel (guitar/bass/keyboard/vocals), isn't your average Skidmore band. Their prolific set of original songs is too deep and unique for them to be considered a party band, despite the fact that the majority of their performances this year were at house shows. So, even while they do enjoy playing for a packed off-campus house, they don't write songs for the sole purpose of entertaining an audience.
"I would hear kids talking about the ideal kind of band to play at a party...they're like: 'you play this many covers and this many original songs,'" said Benbeniste, who created Pooch last summer while at home in Los Angeles. "I don't want to say we're less of a college band because that's such a pretentious thing to say when you are a college band. But it was more like I wanted to start a band and I'm in college...I still want to form it to what the audience likes, but that becomes secondary."
Despite Pooch's sound being tagged as "minimalist" on their Bandcamp page, their music is anything but simple. As an avid Radiohead fan, Benbeniste became interested in combining electronic and analog instruments last year after playing a few solo shows using a keyboard, a loop pedal and a guitar, under the moniker "Ben Ben."
"I remember I played a Tom Yorke (of Radiohead) song, and I...noticed how it starts out completely electronic but ends completely analog...That seemed pretty cool...the chords are the same, the melody is the same, but it sounds different because it started with guitars, bass and drums, and ends with keyboards, drum pads and samples," he said.
With his drum pad, synths and guitar, Benbeniste wrote the band's debut single, "Nothin' at all," last summer. The song starts out electronic, with a 4/4 drum-pad backing and some syncopated keyboard chords, but then quickly takes its multi-dimensional form as Benbeniste's voice and bass enter the mix.
In the song Benbeniste triumphantly sings about and captures the sense of ironic apathy harbored by Generation Y, with a chorus that simply repeats: "I don't care bout nothin at all." Contrasting the upbeat tempo and bright, high-end major chords, the song alludes to the dark side effects of self-medication and overstimulation: "Happy Birthday! Dude that was last Thursday, you should ease up on that stuff / I don't blame you in fact I'd do the same if I had it just as rough." In his charmingly indifferent cadence, Benbeniste sings about his experience as part of a generation that, despite it's self-proclaimed importance and uniqueness, really has nothing new to offer: "Every morning feels like I'm conforming to somebody else's plan / Am I too young, too dumb, too high, or too drunk for me to understand?" Ironically, while Benbeniste's song alludes to the lack of originality found in today's youth, his musical sensibilities lie within the echelon of new-age electronic music, a style hasn't been around long enough to lose its novelty.
About two-and-a-half minutes into "Nothin' At All" comes a fiery guitar interlude that breaks up the dominant electronic harmonies. Distorted to sound like an 8-bit videogame melody, Benbeniste's guitar solo wreaks havoc for a solid minute, paying homage to all of the 90's kids who recognize and long for the days when video game music (and life) was that simple. Here the core aspect of Pooch shines through--complication hidden in layers of simplicity.
"I think, or at least hope it seems really simple, but actually a lot thought goes into the music," Benbeniste said.
Pooch's music can't be categorized into any one label, and in simplest terms it still combines at least two genres. Benbeniste refers to Pooch as "dance-punk" and "electronic-rock," which brings to mind some of the great acts that pioneered new-age electronic rock in the late 90's and early 2000's--groups such as LCD Soundsystem that remain timeless and have inspired albums as recent and as acclaimed as Arcade Fire's Reflektor.
Benbeniste said that the most distinctive characteristic of Pooch is the personal nature of the lyrics: "I just feel like after HAP (a group featuring members of Skidmore's class of 2013) left there weren't any other bands singing about themselves... I wanted to start a band and play these songs I write about my life and have a group of people who would be down to play them with me," he said.
Kencel praises Benbeniste for his ability to offer coherent songs to the group, laying out his vision for his bandmates while still granting them freedom to improvise. "I have never worked with someone who has such a full concept of a song before bringing it to the band," he said.
Kencel and Benbeniste are both music majors--although Kencel doesn't consider himself to be a typical music major given his bass performance concentration--and claim that their classroom knowledge of music theory allows them to better communicate parts, which certainly might explain how the band is so prolific despite only existing for a few months.
"My style is better suited for bands than for ensembles," said Kencel. His music resume certainly backs that claim; Kencel has been in six bands at Skidmore and has become somewhat of a campus celebrity as a result.
Gordon is an unselfish and well-composed drummer, but when it's his time for a fill he knows how to lay one down. Given the electronic elements of Pooch, Gordon's kit is not always the only source of percussion; some songs start out with or end with a drum-pad backing, but as in the style that Benbeniste prefers, Gordon carries the bulk of the rhythm.
Alpher's bass is what makes Pooch songs danceable. In most Pooch songs Alpher's parts are solid--nothing too fancy--but at the end of every measure Alpher lets loose a funky fill, on which he self-reportedly thrives.
"His fills are my favorite part of the music," said Kencel.
Pooch has a plethora of shows left over the last month of college following their recent release, the Talk Too Much/Telephone EP that Benbeniste recorded in Los Angeles over spring break. The band wants to stay together after college, and Benbeniste hopes that Pooch will deliver him success in the music world, either as it continues performing or when it ultimately provides a solid addition to his resume. As the band rides the coattails of modern electronic equipment into the next generation of music, they take with them a bit of Punk's past and offer a bit of Pop's future; whether they're playing Pixies covers or synth arpeggiator-backed originals, Pooch is sure to make its audience happy from the main-stage in Zankel to the darkest and grungiest of basements.
You can see Pooch play tonight at Putnam Den, at 8 p.m. along with some other local (non-Skidmore affiliated) bands.
Posted by Jesse Shayne
Not sure if you want to attend Skidmore's annual Earth Day Festival this Saturday? Confused as to what exactly the event entails?
Well, for starters, Earth Day will feature the most popular band to grace Skidmore with its presence this semester (based on Facebook likes)--BadBadNotGood. The experimental jazz trio, based out of Toronto, dabbles in hip hop, and has collaborated with Tyler the Creator and Frank Ocean. Their unique sound, mixing elements of new age jazz with classic hip hop beats and samples, stole the spotlight at South by Southwest Festival earlier this year. Check out this video to get a sense for their style.
Ava Luna, a soul pop quintet based out of New York, will also play on the Case green stage before jetting off on a European tour following the release of their second album, Electric Balloon--which received a 7.7 (a highly respectable score) from Pitchfork.
But that's hardly all. Five more bands, including Skidmore's battle of the bands winner, Queen Ambrosia, are set to play. Slothrust (New York), Endangered Speeches (Boston), The Rooks (New York) and Zula (New York) will round out the exciting lineup.
Earth Day will also feature a number of "Earth-centered" activities, including a petting zoo, tie-dye, silk-screening, gardening, bike repair, a bonfire and s'mores. Oh, not to mention free Chipotle, Ben & Jerry's and Comfort Kitchen burgers, as well as a beer garden for those who have a campus event card in hand.
In the spirit of sustainability, there will also be a clothing swap (from 1:30-4:30) at the event. Wondering what to do with your old clothes? In need of some new summer essentials but too broke to foot the bill? Now is your chance to capitalize on your peers' impressive stylistic tendencies and generosity.
So come celebrate the Earth, good weather and the end of the semester with impressive grooves and free food, Saturday, from 1-9 p.m. on the Case green.
Posted by Amber Charette
You may have seen the many bright red, rectangular shaped stickers placed around campus the past couple of weeks that say, "This is Public Health". And while many of you may be aware of and understand what falls under the realm of public health, others may be unsure.
To begin with, the World Health Organization says that public health "refers to all organized measures (whether public or private) to prevent disease, promote health and prolong life among the population as a whole." But what are "organized measures"? The answer is essentially anything done to help improve the health and wellbeing of people (and animals!). If this definition leaves you still confused, just think of public health as this: it's everything! From the sidewalks you walk on, to the roads you drive on, to the bike paths you cycle on, to the food you eat, the exercise facilities and options in your community, the grocery stores you shop at and the healthcare facilities around you, the list goes on. Stop and think about what things have helped to keep you healthy your entire life and you'll find that there are many factors.
While much has been done to improve the public health of everyone, there is still a lot of room for improvement. For instance, did you know that the current generation is the first to be less healthy than the generation before it? This is startling news for many to find out for the first time-and it should be. Much work needs to be done in areas such as physical education, nutrition, mental health and education in general to help change this fact. It is important that everyone care about public health, as it affects all of us. My personal advice on how you can contribute to improving society's health and wellbeing is to find something that interests you and that you are passionate about. Maybe this involves volunteering at an animal shelter, a soup kitchen, a hospital or a nursing home. With will, there really are no limits.
If this has sparked your interest in learning more about the topic of public health, another a great website to look into is the Public Health awareness page. Earlier this week, a public health fair was organized in the Tang to help celebrate National Public Health Week, which is April 7-13th (this week!). The EX-131: Intro to Public Health class, along with several other on-campus and off-campus clubs and departments, took the time to showcase what public health is all about. Another website that may be interesting and/or useful is: http://www.nphw.org/. It provides information on public health, and how you can become involved in helping out in your own community not only this week, but also every day. And if you need some motivation to care a bit more, just consider what sort of world you want to live in, and the changes you want to see. While spreading awareness is great, it's purposeless unless it aids in getting people to act.
Posted by Julia Leef
Falstaff's Operating Committee
Noah Samors and Kyle Salzman: Co-Chairs of Falstaff's Operating Committee
Could you guys briefly explain, in general, what the Falstaff's Operating Committee is?
Kyle Salzman: So, Falstaff's Operating Committee is the committee that was set up several years ago to operate Falstaff's after the dissolution of the Pavilion corporation, which was a contracted out extra-Skidmore corporation that operated Falstaff's when it was a bar, which dissolved when they changed the drinking age. The FOC ran for a while and then a few years ago, probably five or six, it became defunct. No one was sitting on the committee but it still existed, it still drew money from the student activity fund and accumulated a budget.
The two of us, through our work with Lively Lucy's [Salzman is a member of Lively Lucy's and Samors is the president] spent a lot of time in Falstaff's and wanted improvements for the space for our club's purposes and so we started investigating how to go about that. And through that and in talking with Robin Adams [associate director of Leadership Activities] we found out about the FOC, and we formed the committee and refilled the seats and started having meetings and figuring out what to do with the committee, what direction we wanted to take the space in, because it had been unstructured for such a long time.
So, essentially the committee's purposes as it stands right now, although we're still in the process of reforming how it functions, are to revamp the space physically, just because it has been deteriorating for so long, and a lot of that renovation we've already begun and have completed some of it. And then our second priority is to try and reinvigorate the way the space figures into every day student life. Having more events up there--
Noah Samors: A lot of variety as well.
Salzman: Yeah, and also being able to use it during the day and just have it be a space that's more integrated with campus life.
Samors: Falstaff's is the one student space on campus, because Case Center isn't really a student space. Students hang out here, but it's filled with faculty. Falstaff's is designated for student use, and we want to turn it into a student, not necessarily a bar, but just a student venue, a student club, a student area that people can hang out and do homework and all that, but that is a process that we're trying to figure out how to best move forward. Like we said, we are a newly re-formed club and because it's been so stagnant for so long we need to redefine what we do. And the next step is getting more student involvement in the project.
Looking ahead at your plans for turning Falstaff's into an area more fitting as a student venue, do you see any physical changes to the building as a possibility?
Samors: We've actually painted the interior. We've re-floored, we got new flung, we're getting new carpet and furniture pretty soon and we're getting a new sound system. We have a new countertop in the back to replace the old bar that takes up less space and is more functional as a serving space for the possibility of one day turning into a full bar, but we don't see that happening for a while.
So basically the way we're planning on doing that is working with clubs a lot more and helping them put on events. We're not entirely sure what our role will be with that, but we want to promote events. We're thinking about daytime coffee houses, maybe even an art showcase. We're very much open to suggestions of possibilities.
Salzman: Regarding physical renovations, we've already pretty much gone over what we've done so far. We've looked at a couple of other things for the future, although we've done so much already with the space that more physical renovations would be a long-term thing, but we're looking at doing a little bit of minor modification of the space to maybe shrink the kitchen a little bit and add more storage area for clubs that use the space regularly to keep equipment or supplies or anything like that. But you know, the way we see it, I think, and the place we've arrived at as a committee, too, is that the space didn't need a lot of work to become a more livable space for students. It just needed sort of a facelift, which is what we've gone and done.
Samors: We're hoping in the long-term that the space will continually change in some way, physically. That doesn't necessarily mean repainting it or remodeling the floor, but we're really hopeful that we can find practical art installations that students themselves have created and that can be put into the space to change it just a little bit, because it is a student space. We have Case Gallery, and that's like the one space you can show artwork. We're hoping that we can find a way to showcase student artwork as well in Falstaff's, but again that's a process that we need to further explore.
So who else besides you two is on the committee?
Salzman: It's the class secretaries, the Vice President of Club Affairs, one rep from Lively Lucy's, that's Noah, one rep from SEC, two Willingness-to-Serve people and the VP of Financial Affairs. And Robin Adams sits on the committee as well as an advisor.
Are there positions that you're looking to fill?
Salzman: Both of the Willingness-to-Serve positions are filled. One of them I fill and the other one is filled by Frasier Glenn '15, and the other positions are part of the duties of elected officials for other areas of SGA. And so there aren't really a lot of opportunities to get on the committee, which is something that we have struggled with a lot because a lot of the people who are on the committee don't have a lot of time to give to it because it's an additional duty that's tacked on to their other priorities. And so we'd like to get more people involved who want to be there for FOC, but we just haven't really figured out how to go about that yet, whether we start a subcommittee that draws from the student body on a volunteer or vote basis, or whether we just have more open forums for the student body to come in and discuss what they want with the space. So there aren't a lot of opportunities right now for people who are interested to get involved other than just talking to us.
Samors: Which is a very good way to get involved, I have to say. We love conversation about this space, and it's always good to hear from somebody else what they want. We've been working on this space for so long through Lively Lucy's because that's what we're involved in, so we do honestly have somewhat of a skewed vision for this place. We try to keep that on the back burner because we're very aware that we see it through our eyes and so we want more student involvement. And another good way for students to get involved is joining clubs. We're planning on having a club presidents meeting in Falstaff's in April at some time just to meet with all the clubs and talk about what they want with the space and how to make it work for them.
Can people email you or how would you recommend students get in touch with you?
Samors: We have a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/Falstaffsoperatingcommittee), and that is probably the best way, just because multiple people have access to that as opposed to our personal emails. But for the time being I'm also not opposed to getting personal emails.
Salzman: Yeah I mean personal emails are definitely a good way for people to get in contact with us. I don't think it's feasible for that to be the way for us to connect to the community, just because there are too many people for that to work for us. If everyone is sending us emails that's a problem. But for the moment it's very okay to email either of us with questions or comments.
Do you foresee any challenges that you'll face, whether in the physical renovations themselves or in letting people know your plans for Falstaff's?
Samors: I think the biggest challenge is going to be redefining Falstaff's in the student mind, because whenever I talk to anyone about Falstaff's, all they can think about is that one time they were really drunk freshman year and they went and it was a time. They had a good time, maybe, maybe not, but it's not just that space. Lively Lucy's throws a lot of events, we throw events every Thursday, and so this is part of the struggle being on both clubs.
Just redefining the way people view the space is definitely going to be the hardest challenge because everyone comes in with this notion. But it looks entirely different, and so we're hoping that the remodeling will promote a different view on it. It doesn't look as grungy as it used to.
Do you foresee any difficulties in the location of the building? Buildings like Case Center have a more central location on campus. While Falstaff's isn't too far away, compared to Case Center it is far away from the dorms, for example.
Salzman: I think one of our big goals especially for the sort of daytime use of the space is to make it a very comfortable place to be. The thing about the dorms is that they're very nice, and when I was living in the dorms certainly I didn't have problems with it. But there's no really homey sort of hang out atmosphere in the dorms, and I've always found Case Center to be sort of sterile and not particularly the place I'd like to sit down and relax and spend a Sunday afternoon in. And I think if we achieve that the seven-minute walk is not going to be a big deal. That is another part of the perception of Falstaff's that we're trying to alter. It seems really far away but it's not actually that far away. It takes a few minutes to walk there. If it's worth it, the people will come.
You mentioned the presidents' meeting sometime in April. Are there any other upcoming events for either this semester or next semester?
Samors: Well Falstaff's is entirely booked the rest of the semester. So it's somewhat difficult to get online and find the schedule, but we're probably going to post the schedule on the Facebook page of all the different events that are going on in there. And so that's a good way for people to start seeing what the space can do, because there aren't all those grimy dances that the freshmen go to. There are plays going on there. Rochelle Calhoun [dean of Student Affairs] is directing, or producing, the bias incident report-inspired play. Those are the events that are already scheduled. We've talked about a few possibilities. One thing that we're trying to work for is Fun Day Sunday brunch. The Sunday after Fun Day, maybe one or two o'clock in the afternoon, we could serve food and drinks and have people come and eat and recover from the Fun Day weekend.
Salzman: In the short term we're going to try and have, in addition to the presidents' meeting, a community forum, just where we tell people what we've done so far and what our plans are for the space and try and get some feedback from the student body regarding how they see the space and how they want it to move forward.
And there are numerous concerts. I know it's booked pretty much all Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, but there's nothing really planned, I think, for any daytime slots for the rest of the semester. And the other nights of the week I doubt have many events planned. So we do have room to develop some other things to go on in the space.
Anything else you want to talk about?
Samors: There's a full kitchen. There aren't a lot of kitchen supplies, but there's a full kitchen. And I know there's a co-op, a group of kids who do a potluck, so maybe if they wanted to do a potluck in Falstaff's, they could see if the space was available one night. Students can go on there and reserve the space, I'm pretty sure. We just want students to use the space more. If anyone has any suggestions, please send us a message.
Emily Durante '15 has been named a 2014 Newman Civic Fellow by Campus Compact, a national coalition of colleges and universities dedicated to fostering civic and social responsibility. The award recognizes college students for their efforts to explore social issues and work toward positive change.
As a double major in Environmental Studies and Geosciences, Durante has focused her civic work on environmental issues, particularly those related to transportation networks. She is known both on the Skidmore campus and in the surrounding community for raising awareness and initiating projects related to environmental concerns.
On campus, Durante has led efforts to mobilize and coordinate student environmental organizations and to create a bike-share program, which she currently manages. She is one of three students serving on the Campus Sustainability Subcommittee and is helping to develop a strategic plan for sustainability at Skidmore.
Durante is also active in Saratoga Springs, where she has worked with the local Cool Cities initiative (a nationwide alliance of cities working to reduce global warming), helping to pass an anti-idling ordinance for vehicles. She is currently working with the Saratoga Springs Planning and Economic Development Department on a project to expand trail systems. Employing skills she acquired in the college's GIS Center, she is assisting the city's Complete Streets initiative with a mapping project to improve sustainable transportation.
"I hope to pursue a career in urban planning and continue to create accessible, sustainable mobility in our cities," Durante said.
President Philip A. Glotzbach wrote in nominating Durante for the fellowship: "Emily has gone straight to the root of environmental problems associated with local transportation by pushing for long-term options that reduce environmental degradation and improve public health...we look forward to seeing all that she will accomplish in her remaining semesters at the College."
