Hoffberger renovations benefit music department

Brandon Orr
Copy Editor

Arriving on campus, students may have noticed that the Hoffberger Science building has fully reopened this

New entrance to Hoffberger Science Building (Photo: Nora Morgan)

semester without fanfare. The building now has a handicap accessible ramp, new carpeting, and a lounge area near the main entrance. While campus-wide reaction to the change has been minimal, the music department is excited about the renovation and their new location inside the building.
“We’re all ecstatic,” said Kitty Gratz, the program coordinator for the music department. “We’re getting equipment that we need, the software that we need, the space.”

Ungar works with White House to increase aid

Jaclyn Peiser
Editor-in-Chief

President Barack Obama briefly discussed his plan to make higher education more accessible to low income

President Obama delivers his 2014 State of the Union address (Photo: Google Images)

families in his Jan. 28 State of the Union address. Twelve days prior, the president and first lady hosted a College Opportunity Summit, in which Goucher President Sanford Ungar and over 100 other college and university presidents were celebrated for solidifying their commitment to the cause.
“The White House just organized a College Opportunity Summit where already, 150 universities, businesses, and nonprofits have made concrete commitments to reduce inequality in access to higher education –and help every hardworking kid go to college and succeed when they get to campus,” President Obama said in the State of the Union address.

Administration rejects boycott of Israeli institutions

Megan Meluskey
Staff Writer

Goucher College announced its decision to reject the academic boycott of Israeli universities and colleges in a letter to the Goucher college community on Dec. 27.
As 2013 came to a conclusion, the American Studies Association (ASA) endorsed an academic boycott of all Israeli universities and
colleges. The ASA, one of largest and oldest academic associations in the country, works to promote and encourage the study of learning and education across the country.

Club Profile: Reverend’s Rebels

Rachel Brustein
Co-Features Editor

Back in the days of the 1950s, when Goucher was a women’s college, there were singing groups on campus that

Reverend’s Rebels at their spring 2013 concert (Photo: Courtesy of Zack Kohn)

sang only religious music. A group of students came together to rebel against this idea, and formed an a cappella group that sang secular music. Thus the Reverend’s Rebels , or simply, Rebs, were born.
Emily Clarin ’16, has been in the group since the beginning of her freshman year, which is a change from the madrigal (a classical singing group) she was in in high school. Clarin said that being in Reverend’s Rebels has “made me have to arrange music for the first time … in a different way,” putting the music arranging skills she previously had “to practical use.” Erin Manuel ’16, who is also entering her fourth semester with the group, said that arranging music is a “new experience” for her, and she uses Garage Band to record her voice.  Inga Schmidt, who graduated last spring and is a former president of ‘Rebs,’ said “everyone is encouraged to try arranging songs … as a freshman I took a shot at it” and by her senior year was arranging most of the music. For Schmidt, this opportunity “gave me so much confidence.”

Healthy Living: Welcome to your new life!

Dani Meir-Levi
Staff Writer

By now, everyone is getting the winter break blues. A new semester has started, which can be a challenge for any returning Goucher Gopher. Another challenge that sneaks into the life of a college student is eating healthy. When I started my freshman year at Goucher, my diet was extremely disorganized. However, after traveling through the Middle East over the summer, I have realized the importance of maintaining a healthy diet.
During my time overseas, I decided to become a strict vegan. This diet eliminates all animal byproducts – meat, eggs, dairy, you name it. Of course, you don’t need to be a vegan to be healthy. Putting on that college weight can easily be avoided, as long as you make the right choices. Sometimes these choices are easier said than done, but they’re not impossible.

Goucher Eats: The time capsule of a 12 year-old

Kathryn Walker
Co-Features Editor

I had quite a fair share of freaking out moments while home for Winter Break: freaking out about school, freaking out about life after school, freaking out about split ends in my hair, freaking out about finding those split ends while at school, and even occasionally, freaking out about freaking out.  Maybe it’s because I’m graduating from college in less than five months.  Or maybe because Winter Break was the most time I’ve spent at home in a long, long time.  Or maybe because access to Nutella and peanut butter was at an all-time low.  But in any case, right in the middle of this, my mom presented me with an ultimatum: “Clean your room or you can’t use the car.”  And because you can’t live in suburbia without a car, and because you can’t go calm your nerves at happy hour in suburbia without a car, I responded with a growl and stomped up to my room.

For the next three hours, I sorted through the heaps of clothes on the floor that had become my temporary laundry basket, the drawers full of “treasures” that consisted of ticket stubs and empty wine bottles, the half-finished art projects that lay scattered across my desk.  Left and right, I was tossing and stuffing tchotchkes into trashbags and liquor boxes.  With Beyonce blasting through my laptop speakers, I worked my way through years and years of accumulated junk without a pause until I came across a time capsule of sorts: an essay titled “My Future: Dreams, Wishes, and Goals By Kathryn Walker.” May 25, 2004.

10 years ago.

An artifact from my brace-face years.

Here are some of the highlights of the Dreams, Wishes, and Goals of my 12 year-old self:

1. The one that made me actually laugh-out-loud: Triple major in English, Asian studies, and Forensic Science.

2. The ones that have actually come true: To travel the world and go to France and the United Kingdom; get a tan without burning myself.

3. The one that made me roll my eyes back into my head: Maybe be valedictorian??????????

4. The one that is too strange to comprehend: Develop a Bostonian accent.

5. The one that made me feel like I was having a conversation with my 12-year old self: Retire to a tropical place that has really good food (beach included).

6. The ones that are ironic and comical and have very slim odds of ever happening: That all the Philadelphia sports teams win national championships and that I go to all the parades. 

7. The ones that made me fairly impressed with my past aspirations: Create a way to help people NOT pollute the environment.

8. The ones that are basically impossible now: Get an endorsement deal with Nike as a star of the US Women’s National Soccer team. 

9. The ones that I’m still chasing after: To travel the world – All of Asia, Russia, Spain, South Africa; learn how to surf.

10. The one that only my 12 year-old self would have ever thought possible: Eat all the good food in the world while being a world renowned author, first Lady President, and a resident of Maine.

And then the conclusion: What will happen if they don’t come true?

Well Future Self, if they’re not coming true, you better get a move on.  

It’s funny to see how all along food, travel, and adventure have fascinated me.  A sign perhaps, for future Post-Goucher Endeavors? Maybe, who knows.  But in any case, here’s to not freaking out anymore, baking roughly five million cookies, graduating college with pizazz and gusto, and then taking some advice from my 12 year-old self: learn how to surf (and maybe learn a lot more along the way).

From country to country, from app to app: students connect from abroad

Jessica Hallstrom
Co-Global Editor

There will soon be a new interactive component to the Goucher College study abroad requirement designed to help students benefit even more from their time abroad.  This semester, a handful of students studying abroad are participating in a pilot program – The Pocket Anthropologist – an app designed by Dr. Robert Blikoff of Goucher College’s anthropology department.
The app functions almost as a communal blog, where students write (for credit) about their adventures studying abroad.  Students are given assignments, which help them structure their posts and divide them into three categories.  The first category is related to everyday life in their host country – students post about the new culture they encounter while abroad. The second category is to document when the students experience a “blow your mind” moment – one where they notice something very different about their host culture that gives them an insight into the country’s culture or makes them question their identity as a citizen of the United States. The third category is comprised of “Culture Treks,” where students explore their host countries’ culture as it relates to specific topics assigned by Blinkoff.