Bobby Stratts on Being a Two Season Athlete

Bobby Stratts ‘22 always thought about playing soccer in college, but because he used to live in the United Kingdom, he knew it would be difficult to get attention from coaches. Stratts also started playing basketball at a young age but didn’t expect to play in college. Being a two-season athlete was not something Stratts had in mind. Now a junior on the Skidmore men’s soccer and basketball team, Stratts reflects on his time playing soccer and basketball at Skidmore.

Read more

By Students, For Students: Tang Party set to dazzle on april 30

April 30th, 2021 will mark the launch of this year’s Tang Party, the annual end-of-year ode to Skidmore students’ unabashed funk and creativity. In the past, multi-colored sheets have given marbled walls to the pondside gazebo while, across the green, quasi-Transavantgarde drawings were projected onto the Tang’s exterior walls, breathing life into the once-blank bricks. Though the pandemic curbed the event in 2020, the Tang Party is now set to make a hearty comeback; this year’s event will feature a diverse array of pieces—from sound art, to documentary film, to textile installations—all while adhering to pandemic-prompted safety regulations.

Read more

Lily Feldman on Growing up with Tennis and Her Current Season

Starting tennis at the age of five, Lily Feldman ‘22 has always considered the sport a big part of her life. Although a big part of her life, Feldman didn’t enjoy playing tennis until she was in college. Feldman further explains that she likes college tennis better because it feels like a team sport. Now a junior on the Skidmore’s women’s tennis team, Feldman reflects on her experience with the sport and on playing during a pandemic.

Read more

Op-Ed: What Does it Mean to be Latinx?

As members of the Skidmore community, we need to see and call out white people and whiteness. Doing so forces faculty and staff to be a part of the conversation on racial inequality, rather than allowing them to deflect, take a raincheck, and never address it. Doing the work also entails taking strides to figure out and specifically define your race. Ending racism is a community effort; thus, in addition to professors and staff, students must also reflect and address the questions above. Change cannot occur within our community if we (Skidmore staff, faculty, and students) continue to refuse to racialize white people. Thus, the time for change is now.

Read more

A Review of “The End of Policing” by Alex S. Vitale

Alex S. Vitale, a sociologist from Brooklyn College, delineates in his 2017 book The End of Policing exactly how the country’s policing system has consistently failed to ensure the safety of the American people and has instead focused its efforts on deterring dissenting political movements, criminalizing “those it leaves behind” (227), and protecting the interests of the wealthy. Vitale’s work is poignant and articulate; he has both a strong knowledge of the system’s failures and substantial ideas for the future. I recommend Vitale’s work if you are questioning what alternatives to policing could be, how past reforms have failed, and how deeply intertwined the police are in the framework of our nation.

Read more

Op-Ed: It's Time Universities Implement American Sign Language into their World Languages Curriculums

If the WLL Department took into account the full panoply of deaf culture and its historical progression within this country, they would find ASL to be an appropriate addition to the curriculum. It has the ability to foster effective communication useful in many situations, provides insight into the deaf experience, connects back to fields such as disability studies and social work, and sheds light on the marginalization of deaf individuals within a particular society.

Read more

A Tale of Two Campuses: Pandemic, Privilege, and Platform

We are always going to be around people with more resources, who will be held to lower standards with less accountability. Student-athletes have to recognize their unofficial positions of power on campus and the level of influence these positions have. As we move forward, it is important that we as a community work towards holding our own peers accountable instead of relying on an absent administration to do the work for us. Only then will we be able to move past social hierarchies and reconcile relations between student-athletes and non-student-athletes.

Read more

Saratoga Springs Constitutional Crisis: What the Final City Council Meeting on Police Reform Revealed

Saratoga Springs finds itself in political turmoil as the city council held another open dialogue on police reform on March 31 on zoom. This meeting was the last open dialogue held before the city council voted to adopt the 50-point plan on police reform created by the Saratoga Springs Police Reform Task Force (SSPRTF). The SSPRTF created the 50-point plan to address Saratoga’s reform of the Saratoga Springs Police Department (SSPD). The proposal has been met with reluctance by the Saratoga city council and open hostility from the SSPD. However, the third draft proposed by the city council was passed with only one member in opposition.

Read more

How the Liberty League Unanimously Chose to Promote the Spread of COVID-19

Does Skidmore only care about how outsiders perceive us or about what goes on? Do donations related to current or former athletes matter more than student safety? What drove Skidmore, as well as the other schools, to unanimously accept these objectively unsafe protocols? Although we will likely never find the real answer, these are questions that are important to ask. If you are also concerned about campus athletics, or if you believe that they should continue, feel free to contribute to this conversation.

Read more

Why We Must Settle For The Two-Party System

Proportional representation would undoubtedly make other parties more competitive and gain more representation in Congress. But, altering our electoral method would be nearly impossible to implement into our current system of government. Additionally, it would generate extremist parties that would gain representation in government, as seen in eastern Europe. A two-party system may be inconvenient for distinguishing politicians in the same party, but it keeps extremists in check. There may be intra-party disagreement on issues, but that just means that voters need to understand that every politician is more nuanced than their party label.

Read more

Investigating Identity: Kwame Anthony Appiah Speaks At Skidmore

Appiah’s lecture enlightened me to the intensity of identity and the duty each person has to themself and others to explore their social stance. What does my presentation communicate to others? More importantly, what do I want it to communicate? How do I incorporate intersecting identities? By approaching social groups as tribes, I have gained a renewed sensation of belonging and community. Identity is a shapeshifting force that will likely be in flux for a while, if not permanently. Still, Appiah’s guidance granted me unexpected insight into the empowerment that is intertwined with identity.

Read more

Break Day: A Reminder to Prioritize Self-Care

I realized that break days shouldn’t just be a school-scheduled once-a-semester occurrence. A break day can be your own creation. Think of something you’ve been putting off because you “haven’t had time” or something you love to do that school has eclipsed in importance. Take out the box of paints in the back of your closet, the journal on your nightstand with the wrapping still on it, the book you are “going to find time to read” but never did. Turn off your phone, shut down your computer, and do it! Take a day off, an hour off, or even just twenty minutes off, and do yourself a favor.

Read more