Poughkeepsie, NY Six hundred and forty freshmen selected from the largest applicant pool in Vassar College's history will begin classes on September 2. Vassar received 7361 applications for the class of 2012, and 25 percent of the applicants were offered admission, making 2012 Vassar's most selective class ever.

Seventy percent of the class of 2012 with a high school rank graduated in the top 10 percent of their class, and 92 percent were in the top 20 percent. Their average SAT scores were 703 on the critical reading exam, 686 on the mathematics exam, and 697 on the writing exam, with a mean recomputed high school grade point average of A-minus.

Among the outstanding freshmen in the class of 2012 are thirty-one valedictorians, twenty salutatorians, forty-five National Merit Finalists or Semi-Finalists, ninety-three students with perfect scores on one or more standardized tests, fifty winners of major book awards, forty-two first generation college students, four National Achievement Scholars, one National Hispanic Scholar, and thirteen National Honor Society presidents. Thirty-six members were class or student council presidents, along with 108 varsity sports captains, fourteen all-state music/art winners, 169 school club presidents, 59 founders of a high school club, and sixty-four editors-in-chief of a major high school publication.

The class of 2012 comes to Poughkeepsie from 525 high schools in 46 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and 32 foreign countries. Students of color comprise nearly 28% of the class. Seventy-five incoming freshmen, nearly 12% of the class, are international students with either foreign or dual citizenship. Eighty-five members of the class are bilingual or speak English as a second language, and their languages include Amharic, Arabic, Bulgarian, Burmese, Cantonese, Estonian, Finnish, French, Ga, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Marathi, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese.

Members of the class of 2012 include four musicians who have performed at Carnegie Hall (piano, harp, violin, and steel drums), many more who played in statewide, regional, or semi-professional orchestras, and a didgeridoo player. Eleven Eagle Scouts/Girl Scout Golds, several published authors and poets, and a published illustrator are members of the class, as well as several actors who have appeared on and off-Broadway, on television, and in independent films, and two filmmakers whose work has been screened at festivals. Among the accomplished athletes in the class are a three-time Missouri state gymnastics champion, five black belt holders in Tae Kwon Do or Karate, Junior Olympics competitors in fencing, gymnastics, skiing, and cycling, and a master level scuba diver. Four class members have danced with professional ballet companies, one is a national champion Irish Dancer, and another is an expert belly dancer. The class also includes a professional magician, a semi-professional circus performer, and a member of a stilt-walking performance troupe.

In descending order, the top U.S. feeder states for the class of 2012 are New York (164), New Jersey (59), California (56), Massachusetts (41), Connecticut (37), Pennsylvania (33), Maryland (19), Illinois (13), Georgia (9), Texas (9), Florida (8), and Minnesota (8), and Wisconsin (8).

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY—This September Vassar’s English Department will present three lectures of note, that are free and open to the public.

On Tuesday, September 16, at 5:00 pm, in the Blanche Brumback Spitzer Auditorium in Eleanor Butler Sanders Hall, one of the leading literary critics in the world, James Wood, will read from and discuss his new book, How Fiction Works.

Wood, is a staff writer at the New Yorker and professor of the practice of literary criticism at Harvard University. He was former chief literary critic of the Guardian in London and the New Republic.

Wood’s reviews and essays have appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, New York Review of Books, News from the Republic Of Letters, and the London Review of Books.

He is the author of The Broken Estate: Essays on Literature and Belief (Modern Library, 2000), The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004); and the autobiographical novel, The Book Against God (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003).

The annual Elizabeth Bishop Lecture on Tuesday, September 23, at 5:30 pm, in the Blanche Brumback Spitzer Auditorium in Eleanor Butler Sanders Hall, will be delivered by Li-Young Lee, author of four critically-acclaimed books of poetry, including Behind My Eyes, Book of My Nights, Rose, and The City in Which I Love You. Lee’s memoir, The Winged Seed: A Remembrance, received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation.

Lee’s honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lannan Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Novelist Mark Sarvas will read from his recent work on Wednesday, September 24, at 5:30 pm in the Class of ’51 Reading Room in the Thompson Library.

Mark Sarvas's debut novel, Harry, Revised, was recently published by Bloomsbury and will appear in a dozen languages around the world. Los Angeles Magazine wrote of the novel, “Self-loathing was never so funny, and Sarvas’s depiction of his downward spiraling anti-hero is spot-on.”

Sarvas is the host of the acclaimed litblog, The Elegant Variation, which is a Forbes magazine “Best of the Web” pick and Guardian “Top 10 Literary Blog,” and a member of the National Book Critics Circle. His criticism has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Philadelphia Inquirer, Threepenny Review, and elsewhere.

Other presentations this fall by the English Department will include a reading by poet Paige Ackerson-Kiely on Tuesday, October 7, at 5:30 pm, in the library’s Class of '51 Reading Room; and writer George Saunders will deliver the Gifford Lecture on Wednesday, October 29, at 6:00 pm in the Villard Room in Main Building. Details to be announced.

Calendar listings:

Tuesday, September 16, at 5:00 pm
Literary critic James Wood
“How Fiction Works”
Blanche Brumback Spitzer Auditorium, Eleanor Butler Sanders Hall,
Vassar College

Tuesday, September 23, at 5:30 pm
Poet Li-Young Lee
The Elizabeth Bishop Lecture
Blanche Brumback Spitzer Auditorium, Eleanor Butler Sanders Hall,
Vassar College

Wednesday, September 24, at 5:30 pm
Novelist Mark Sarvas
Class of ’51 Reading Room, Thompson Library

Tuesday, October 7, at 5:30 pm
Poet Paige Ackerson-Kiely
Class of ’51 Reading Room, Thompson Library

Wednesday, October 29, at 6:00 pm
Writer George Saunders
The Gifford Lecture
Villard Room, Main Building

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY—“While the latest information technologies made it possible for us to communicate with one another and to gain access to information more quickly than ever before, it is now clear that these powerful capabilities are also contributing to information overload, to extreme busyness, to the fragmentation of attention, and to accelerated and even frantic modes of working and living,” remarked David M. Levy, professor at the University of Washington.

Levy will examine these themes in his lecture “No Time to Think: Reflections on Information Overload and the Loss of Quality Time in Our Lives" on Thursday, September 18, at Vassar College. The program, free and open to the public, begins at 5:30pm in Sanders Auditorium, and is sponsored by the Carolyn Grant '36 Endowment Fund.

David M. Levy earned his doctorate in computer science from Stanford University in 1979 and a diploma in calligraphy and bookbinding from the Roehampton Institute in London in 1982. He is a professor in the Information School at the University of Washington. From 2005–06, he held the Harissios Papamarkou Chair in Education and Technology at the Library of Congress, where he focused on information and the quality of life.

Levy was formerly a member of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), where he examined the nature of documents and the tools used to create them. He is a coauthor of the National Research Council report LC21: A Digital Strategy for the Library of Congress (2000) and Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age (2001).

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY—The theater troupe Actors from the London Stage features five British Shakespearean artists from such companies as the Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal National Theatre of Great Britain, and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, and their weeklong residency at Vassar College will culminate in three free performances of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, on September 18, 19, and 20 at 8:00 pm in the Martel Theater of the Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film.

The five classical actors—Erin Brodie, Matthew Douglas, William Hoyland, Robert Mountford, and Eunice Roberts—will perform all the roles in The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare’s play that explores intrigue at the court of the king of Sicilia. The story follows King Leontes (Robert Mountford), who suspects his boyhood friend Polixenes (Matthew Douglas), king of Bohemia, of adultery with Leontes’s queen, Hermoine (Erin Brodie). Polixenes flees to Bohemia with Camillo (William Hoyland), aide of Polixenes, however the pregnant queen is confined to prison, where she gives birth to a daughter, Perdita (Erin Brodie), and is then put to death, despite the strenuous objections of lady of the court, Paulina (Eunice Roberts).

After Perdita is abandoned on a hillside in Bohemia, she is found and raised by shepherds, and sixteen years later meets Polixenes's son, Florizel (Matthew Douglas), whom she hopes to marry. Polixenes discovers the plan and forbids the match. Camillo, still in exile, persuades the couple to fly to Sicilia. There a repentant King Leontes recognizes Perdita as his daughter, and additional surprises ensue.

The Actors from the London Stage (AFTLS) is an educational program that was developed by Homer Swander at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with Patrick Stewart as one of the founding artists. The company is now based in London, England, and at the University of Notre Dame. This year's residency will be their fifth visit to Vassar College.

In addition to the performance, the actors will lead 26 workshop sessions in various classes of seven different Vassar departments. A new feature of the AFTLS residency will be special sessions with local middle school students, as well as with Vassar alumnae/i.

“Our company’s aim is to make Shakespeare’s words exert their magic and their power in performance, but we do this in a vital, and perhaps unconventional, way,” explained Notre Dame professor Peter Holland, who is director of AFTLS program. “We have no massive sets to tower over the performers and no directorial concept to tower over the text of Shakespeare’s play. In fact, AFTLS does not have a stage director at all; instead, the play has been rehearsed by the actors, working together to create theatre, cooperating with each other in their imaginative engagement with the play’s words.”

The Office of the Dean of Faculty, along with the departments of Drama and English, are co-sponsoring the performance of The Winter’s Tale at Vassar.

For more information and reservations, contact the box office at (845) 437-5584, e-mail boxoffice@vassar.edu, or visit the Box Office in person (located in the Powerhouse Theater) from 1 to 5 pm, Monday through Friday. Reservations are required.

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY—“Regardless of which medium you choose to start with, the most important thing is to buy art that moves you,” stated Jeannie Greenberg Rohatyn (Vassar College class of 1989), a New York City- based independent curator and art adviser, in a recent interview. Rohatyn’s belief in that statement will be demonstrated in a new exhibition, selected from her own extensive contemporary collection.

Rohatyn founded Salon 94 in the first floor of her Manhattan home in 2002, to be an experimental project space for emerging and mid-career contemporary artists. Much of her own collection can be found just upstairs, in her family's living space, and for the first time several of these works will be exhibited publicly as a group.

The exhibition Excerpt: Selections from the Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn Collection, to be seen September 26, 2008 through January 4, 2009, at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, “Reflects a personal connection to the artists she [Rohatyn] supports, and reveals how her passion for art permeates both her private and professional life,” according to Mary-Kay Lombino, the Emily Hargroves Fisher ’57 and Richard B. Fisher curator at the Art Center.

Painting, sculpture, photography, video, installation, and performance art by 18 international artists will be presented in this group show, ranging from figurative sculptures, to large-scale abstract paintings. Works by Barry X Ball, Tamy Ben-Tor, Huma Bhabha, Glenn Brown, Jennifer Cohen, Benjamin Edwards, Katy Grannan, David Hammons, Sarah Lucas, Julie Mehretu, Marilyn Minter, Wangechi Mutu, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Richard Prince, Aïda Ruilova, Rudolf Stingel, and Piotr Uklanski will be included.

The exhibition will also include screenings of the Laurie Simmons film The Music of Regret, a mini-musical in three acts featuring Meryl Streep, Adam Guettel and dancers from the Alvin Ailey II Company. [Screening location and schedule to be determined.]

“While the work shows evidence of a diverse set of social, political, ethnic, and intergenerational interests, it is bound together in Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn's distinguished collection,” noted Lombino. “This exhibition not only illustrates the personal preferences of an experienced collector with a well-trained eye, but also reveals a rare intimacy and deep understanding of the power of the art of our time.”

The artists included in Excerpt are originally from England, Ethiopia, Kenya, Israel, Italy, Pakistan, Panama, Poland, and the United States, and now live and work in Jerusalem, London, New York, Poughkeepsie, San Francisco, Warsaw, and Washington, DC.

A fully-illustrated publication, Excerpt: Selections from the Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn Collection, will accompany the exhibition.

Exhibition reception and lecture (free and open to the public)

Friday, September 26

Lecture: "On Shifting Ground in New York."
Brian Sholis, editor of Artforum.com: 5:00 pm Taylor Hall, Room 203
Exhibition reception: 6:00-7:00pm
Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
124 Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie
(845) 437-5632, http://fllac.vassar.edu

Brian Sholis, editor of Artforum.com is a freelance art critic and book reviewer. His essays and reviews have appeared in Artforum, Bookforum, Parkett, The Village Voice, Print, and other publications, as well as in catalogues accompanying exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the UCLA Hammer Museum, and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. He has taught at New York University, and lectured or served as visiting critic at a dozen universities. Sholis is the editor of an anthology of criticism titled The Uncertain States of America Reader.

About the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center was founded in 1864 as the Vassar College Art Gallery. The current 36,400-square-foot facility, designed by Cesar Pelli and named in honor of the new building's primary donor, opened in 1993. The Lehman Loeb Art Center's collections chart the history of art from antiquity to the present and comprise over 17,000 works, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, and glass and ceramic wares. Notable holdings include the Warburg Collection of Old Master prints, an important group of Hudson River School paintings given by Matthew Vassar at the college's inception, and a wide range of works by major European and American twentieth century painters. Vassar was the first U.S. college founded with a permanent art collection and gallery, and at any given time, the Permanent Collection Galleries of the Art Center feature approximately 350 works from Vassar's extensive collections.

Admission to the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center is free. The art center is open to the public Tuesday–Saturday, 10:00 am–5:00 pm, and Sunday. 1:00–5:00 pm. Located at the entrance to the historic Vassar College campus, the Art Center can be reached within minutes from other Mid-Hudson cultural attractions, such as Dia:Beacon, the Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt national historic sites and homes, and the Vanderbilt mansion. The Art Center is wheelchair accessible. For more information, the public may call (845) 437-5632 or visit fllac.vassar.edu.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.

Eero Saarinen & Associates, 1958
Parlor restoration, Leonard Parker Associates, 2000

This year, Noyes House, the last residential hall to be built on Vassar campus, will celebrate its 50th anniversary. Completed in 1958, Noyes House not only gave vertical dimension to Noyes Circle (dating back to the founding of the college - see more on the Circle below), but also added to the development of contemporary architecture at the college. In 1954, architect Eero Saarinen had developed a master plan for the north end of the campus. As part of this plan, Saarinen had proposed two crescent-shaped residential buildings to be placed around the Circle. Though only one of them was built, the project reinvigorated this historic site at the college.

The building's curved plan and its insertion in the landscape create a unique relationship to the site. Vertical brick piers in between the projecting window bays suggest but do not imitate the traditional Gothic style employed in many other buildings at Vassar. Constructed of poured-in-place concrete, the building houses 156 students, with double rooms on the front, singles along the back, and two house-fellow apartments at the east end of the ground floor. The most memorable interior space of the building is the famous "passion pit," more recently dubbed the "Jetsons' Lounge," located in the ground-floor parlor. This sunken circular seating area is depressed into the floor slab, and is where many poetry readings and small performances have been staged over the years. The surrounding living room includes Saarinen's well-known furniture. He was recalled as saying, "We have four-legged chairs, we have three-legged chairs and I have seen two-legged chairs. So we are going to build a one-legged chair, right?" The freestanding furniture in the living room is known as the Tulip Pedestal Series produced by Knoll Associates in 1956.

Noyes Circle

The Noyes Circle we see today dates back to the founding of the college. One of the earliest maps of the campus indicates that there were originally three circles in this general location; the two smaller ones were labeled "playgrounds." All of the circles were used for the purpose of exercise, which was so important to Matthew Vassar's notion of a complete education. The large circle had a diameter of approximately five hundred feet, the same dimension as the length of Main Building, and was surrounded by a road and planted hedges, presumably to protect the young women from outside onlookers. This circle was used for both walking and riding, which may explain its formal configuration in spite of the prevalent garden vocabulary at Vassar of irregular picturesque shapes. Dr Alida Avery, an early professor of physiology and hygiene, used the circle for her classes and later helped to organize the Floral Society in which students cared for the garden themselves, turning exercise into a useful and aesthetic mission. The Circle was also the site of the first field day for women in America, held on November 9, 1895. Despite "unpropitious weather," it was laid out for track events, and the students competed in the 100-yard dash, the running broad jump, the running jump, and the 220-yard dash.

Excerpted from
The Campus Guide
Vassar College, An Architectural Tour
By Karen Van Lengen and Lisa Reilly
Princeton Architectural Press, 2004

Prison Focus Week, which started on Monday, March 31, 2008, culminates in the Vassar-Green Haven Reunion on Saturday, April 5, 2008 in the AULA building on the Vassar campus. This ninth annual reunion will bring current and former Vassar students involved in the Green Haven Prison Program together to discuss a number of issues regarding prison policy and reform.

Professor Larry Mamiya started the Green Haven Prison Program in 1979 and opened a second program five years ago at the Otisville medium security prison. These programs enable Vassar students to participate in dialogue groups with incarcerated men. Over the years, the groups have discussed a variety of topics including: domestic violence, fatherhood, family, communication skills, victim awareness, current events awareness, housing and jobs in the outside community, and community reentry. One of the main goals of the program is to prepare incarcerated men to reenter the outside community.

Vassar students learn about conditions in prison and the criminal justice system while the incarcerated men learn about changes in the outside world. The men appreciate the knowledge Vassar students have shared with them during their visits. And, for a number of students, the experience has transformed their lives and and altered their career paths.

With a prison population of 2.3 million, the United States has become the “incarceration nation,” leading the world with the highest percentage of its population in prisons.

About Prison Focus Week

Monday, March 31

7:00pm in the AULA

Opening of the Prison Art Exhibit. Calvin Frett, who works on the Peter Black Prison Art Collective, will set up his work in the AULA. Come to our opening, or just stop by the AULA during the week.

Tuesday, April 1

5:30pm in Taylor Hall, Room 203

Mary-Beth Pfeiffer will speak about her book Crazy in America: The hidden tragedy of our criminalized mentally ill. A former editor of The Poughkeepsie Journal, Pfeiffer did a series of investigative articles exposing the treatment and problems of the mentally ill in New York State Prisons.

Thursday, April 3

5:30pm in the ALANA Center

Karla Brundage, an English major at Vassar (class of 1989) will be doing a poetry reading from her first published poetry collection, Swallowing Watermelons. She tracks her life experiences as a biracial young woman, a single mother, and an artist activist. She has participated in Poetic Protests, and teaches poetry to youth in the penal system, as well as men and women in maximum-security prisons.

Saturday, April 5

Begins at 10:00am for program participants in the AULA
Open to the public 1:00pm to 5:00 pm in the AULA

Green Haven Reunion! This annual event brings together formerly incarcerated men from Green Haven and Otisville prisons, formerly incarcerated women, Vassar alums who worked with them, community activists on prison issues, and current students, faculty, and administrators in a day-long focus on prison issues. We will have workshops in the afternoon, which people are more then welcome to participate in. The workshops will be: “College Prison Program at Vassar”, where we will discuss efforts to get Vassar to teach classes in prisons, “Women in Prison”, where we will discuss the experiences of women in the criminal justice system, and a workshop with people from Drop the Rock (the coordinator and other Vassar alums involved in the program are coming to Vassar), who work on repealing the Rockefeller Drug Laws.

The 4th annual Hudson Cup will take place Saturday April 5, 2008 starting at 9 AM with Vassar College and the Poughkeepsie Tennis Club as the main venues. The Hudson Cup is a team event open to teams from Hudson Valley area squash clubs and schools with four graded divisions as follows: A (NRS rating above 4.5); B (4.1-4.5 rating); C (3.6-4.0 rating); and D (3.5 and lower rating). Divisions are open to men, women and juniors and each team may enter one or more divisions.

Individual matches are best of 3 games to 15 points, point-a-rally scoring. Players should expect a minimum of 3 matches in each division and to referee the succeeding matches. Each division winner will receive an award. The team that places highest in the most divisions will receive the Hudson Cup.

For more information, phone or e-mail any of the following:

• Joe McGowan (845) 486-6864 or jmcgowan@mccm.com
• Ralph Bandel (518) 785-5111 or rwb34@aol.com
• Simon Haysom (845) 294-3596 or simonh@haysomattorneys.com
• David Jemiolo (845)743-7432 or better Jemiolo@Vassar.edu

Author Edward J. Renehan, Jr. will deliver a lecture entitled “John Burroughs and Walt Whitman: Their Days Together in the Hudson Valley” on Thursday, March 6, at 5:30pm in Rockefeller Hall, Room 200. His talk corresponds with the current Archives and Special Collections exhibit Walt Whitman and John Burroughs: Literary Comrades on display at Vassar’s Frederick Ferris Thompson Memorial Library through June 2008.

Renehan is the author of John Burroughs: An American Naturalist (1992), as well as several other books, including The Secret Six (1995), The Lion’s Pride (1998), Dark Genius of Wall Street (2005), and Commodore: The Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (2007). Renehan’s writing has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, American Heritage, Veranda, and other publications.

Naturalist John Burroughs enjoyed a longstanding relationship with Vassar College, where he forged lasting bonds with faculty and students. As a result, the college developed a noteworthy collection on Burroughs, including his articles, correspondence, and journals. The Vassar Burroughs Collection documents both the professional work and personal life of Burroughs – and provides a window into his relationship with Walt Whitman. The two literary figures influenced each other’s work, and their connection is captured in letters, articles, books, photos, and various kinds of ephemera in the current exhibit.

For more information on the Walt Whitman and John Burroughs: Literary Comrades exhibit, please visit Vassar’s Archives and Special Collections.

The Community Works Benefit Dinner
at the AULA
Tuesday, November 27
5:30-7:30pm

Entertainment, including a live jazz band

Tickets can be purchased in advance for $5.00 in the College Center during the day and at ACDC in the evenings. $7.00 at the door

The dinner will feature food from the following local restaurants and vendors:

• Aramark - Jesus's Famous Chili, rice, chips
• Delforno's Deli - Macaroni Salad/Potato Salad
• Dubliner Irish Pub - Irish Spring Rolls, Shepard's Pie
• Fresco Tortillas - Tacos
• Kismat - Sabji Bhaji & Chicken Takki
• Main Course Restaurant and Caterer - Individual Bread Puddings
• Marco's Pizzeria - Garlic Knots, Pizza, Calzones
• McAuley's - Pizza
• Mole Mole - Assorted Platter
• My Brother Bobby - Salsa
• Nilda's - Cookies
• Noshi's Coney Island Hot Dogs - Veggie Dogs/Mini Dogs
• Saigon Cafe - Assorted Platter
• Tokyo Express - California Rolls
• Tony's Pizza Pit - Pizza
• Wilklow Orchards - Apple Cider
• Zorona - Hummus/Pita

All proceeds will benefit this year's Community Works recipients.

Update: Click here to see the winners!

Tonight we’ll find out who wins the honor of having Vassar President Catharine “Cappy” Hill greet callers on their answering machine or cell phone voice mail. All entries in Campus Dining’s Pumpkin Carving Contest will be judged tonight at 7:30 pm in front of Main Building. Then, Cappy will record a personal greeting for the grand prizewinner, during which she introduces herself and tells callers the winner is not available.

Students could enter the contest by donating 10 campus dining points to receive a pumpkin, a knife, and a candle.  Carving took place at the All College Dining Center (ACDC) on Tuesday, October 30. For each pumpkin sold, five dollars will be donated to the community organization Dutchess Outreach. This donation will mark the kickoff to Vassar’s Community Works Campaign for 2008, which officially launches Thursday, November 1. Contestants could carve alone or create a team. The competition was limited to one hundred pumpkins total.

The jack-o’-lanterns will be lit in unison tonight in front of Main Building. Judges Cappy Hill, Dean of the College J.J. Jackson, Vassar Student Association (VSA) President Sam Charner, VSA Food Committee Chair Ben Silver, and John Flowers of the grassroots organization Celebrating Community will pick the winner. Three copies of the ultimate pumpkin carving guidebook Extreme Pumpkins, by Tom Nardone, will be awarded to the runners up.

About Dutchess Outreach

Dutchess Outreach is a local organization committed to addressing the problem of hunger in Dutchess County. The not-for-profit operates the Lunch Box, a soup kitchen that serves up to 300 hot meals per day. Dutchess Outreach also provides emergency food and medicine to families and advocacy for people in poverty. It is one of more than two dozen not-for-profit organizations that receive financial assistance through Vassar’s Community Works, an annual campaign that is funded by donations from employees and students at Vassar College.

Hire one or more of the athletes from the Men's & Women's Rowing team to do various jobs around your house.

This is a fundraiser to support the costs of the Rowing Team's spring break training trip to Florida. Each athlete needs to raise ~$650 to pay his or her way. All proceeds will go directly to the team.

Types of work involved: Yard work, windows, cleaning garages, attics, basements, washing cars, pre-holiday decorating, painting, and any other fall clean-up projects.

You supply the tools and/or supplies, guidance, lunch, water, transportation.

We supply the hard-working student-athlete labor!

When: Sat. 11/3, Sun. 11/4, Sat. 11/10, Sun. 11/11 - rain or shine!

Hire one or more rowers for any number of days and specify which time you would like your rower to arrive:

• Half day (8am-12pm OR 1pm-5pm): $65/athlete (OR 2 athletes for $120)
• Full day (8am-4pm): $110/athlete (OR 2 athletes for $190)

To reserve your rower contact:

Rodney Mott - Head Coach romott@vassar.edu or 437-7218
Brie Farley- Asst. Coach brfarley@vassar.edu or 437-7812

Please contact us by Thursday, Nov. 1, 2007

Provide the following:

• Your name,
• phone number,
• address,
• directions to your house,
• e-mail address,
• and a brief job description.

Transportation may be requested in some circumstances - most students do not have cars. (You will receive confirmation of reservations via e-mail/phone on or before Nov. 3rd)

To the Vassar College community,

Vassar has been notified of a public health alert issued by the Dutchess County Department of Health. While there have not been any local cases, incidents of a type of staph infection have been on the rise, and there have been cases reported in schools and colleges nationwide. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) is a type of staph bacteria that is resistant to certain antibiotics, which include methicillin, penicillin and amoxicillin.

This type of staph bacteria is spread through person-to-person contact or contact with a contaminated item such as a towel, razor, clothing/uniforms, and athletic equipment. It often presents as a skin infection such as a boil or abscess with redness, or swelling that is painful with pus or other drainage, frequently recalled by patients as a “spider bite.”

Prevention includes hand washing, use of hand sanitizers and gloves for wound care, as well as laundering personal items (e.g., towels) and cleaning sports equipment frequently, ideally after each use.

If you have a possible infection of this type or any other related concerns, please contact the Health Service office at ext. 5800, as well as your primary physician or health care provider.

More information about this alert can be found on the Dutchess County Department of Health website: http://www.co.dutchess.ny.us/CountyGov/Departments/Health/HDIndex.htm

Coming Out Week
October 8-12, 2007
Library Lawn

In recognition of National Coming Out Week (October 8-12), ACT OUT! and QCVC bring you an embodiment of "the closet." Come explore the closet, where you can read "coming out" stories as well as stories from those individuals who must live in silence.

Tea with Meech
Monday, October 8, 2007
5:00-6:00pm
Blegen House

John Amaechi is a retired NBA star from England, who was the first NBA player to ever come out as gay. As part of Amaechi's visit to campus, he will be at the Blegen House for tea and desserts and a chance to meet and mingle with students. Stop by to meet Amaechi and have a cup of his favorite Earl Gray Tea with him.

John Amaechi Lecture
Monday, October 8, 2007
7:00pm
Main Building, Villard Room

With his February 2007 announcement, Jon Amaechi became the only player in National Basketball Association history to come out as a gay man. Amaechi will speak about his life experiences and new autobiography, Man In The Middle. This event is free and open to the public.
[Full Story]

Coming Out Story Sharing
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
7:00pm
Main Building, Rose Parlor

Faculty, staff and administrators share their coming out stories with the Vassar community. This is part of the ongoing events for Coming Out Week (October 8-12) sponsored by QCVC, Blegen House, and ACT OUT!  Stay for the Coming Out Slam, sponsored by ACT OUT, taking place immediately after the Coming Out Stories.

QTalk
Thursday, October 11, 2007
4:00-5:00pm
Blegen House

A discussion group by queers for the queer and questioning about the coming out experience.

In response to a student-initiated petition, Campus Dining is offering a new kind of coffee in the Kiosk this year. Grown, roasted, and distributed by Just Coffee, the Kiosk's new brew reflects the college's long-standing commitment to social and environmental responsibility.

Just Coffee is a grower-owned coffee cooperative from the Mexican state of Chiapas.  Since its creation five years ago, Just Coffee has been producing a variety of world class, shade grown, great tasting organic coffees.  Not only do the grower/owners cultivate the coffee, they also roast it, package it, and ship it themselves.

By roasting the coffee themselves, the grower/owners of Just Coffee are able to keep all of the profits in Mexico.  That means a better, fresher cup of coffee for customers and a better way of life for the farmers and employees in Mexico.  Not only do Just Coffee farmers receive a fair price for their coffee, they and their families receive health and retirement benefits as well.

And all of this helps Just Coffee to support its founding vision: decreasing undocumented immigration into the U.S., and therefore migrant deaths in the desert, by helping Mexican farmers to stay on their land and earn a decent living for themselves and their families.

Every cup we buy helps support this vision of economic justice, human rights, and cross-border cooperation, so try a cup of Just Coffee next time you're at the Kiosk.  Visit Just Coffee online at JustCoffee.org.

9:00am. "Peace by Piece," a collage about peace, produced by residence/apartment house teams, goes on display today.
North Atrium, College Center.

11:45am. Gathering at the Peace Garden. Please join us for reflection and a few words in advance of the noontime minute of silence.
Peace Garden, located near the north walkway to the Students Building.

12:00pm. Minute of Silence. Join up to a billion people around the world in observing one minute of silence. The chapel bells will mark the beginning of the minute, and will ring again to mark the end of the silence.
Everywhere.

7:00pm. International Trivia Night. A campus wide trivia challenge with an international twist! Teams of four square off against each other for great prizes.
UPCDC.

The International Day of Peace is part of a worldwide movement initiated by the United Nations to create a Global Ceasefire and day of peace and nonviolence. To learn more, please visit http://internationaldayofpeace.org/. Sponsors include the Office of the Dean of the College, the Office of Study Abroad, the Vassar International Student Association, the Office of International Services, and the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life.

2007/5768

ROSH HASHANAH

Wednesday, September 12th

6:00 pm – Evening Service, Aula
7:00 pm – Catered dinner*, CC MPR

Thursday, September 13th

10:00 am – Morning Service, Aula
12:00 pm – Kiddush & Light Snack, Aula
12:30 pm – Tashlich Service, Sunset Lake

6:00 pm – Evening Service, Aula
7:00 pm – Catered dinner*, Aula

Friday, September 14th

10:00 am – Morning Service, Aula
12:00 pm – Kiddush & Light Snack, Aula
6:00 pm – Shabbat Shuva Service, Bayit

YOM KIPPUR

Friday, September 21st

5:00 pm – Pre-fast Dinner*, CC MPR
6:00 pm – Kol Nidre Service, Aula

Saturday, September 22nd

10:00 am – Morning Service, Aula
6:00 pm – Evening Service, Aula
7:30 pm – Break Fast*, CC MPR

EVERYONE IS WELCOME!

Sponsored by the Office of Religious & Spiritual Life and VJU/Hillel, with meals subsidized by Campus Dining

For further information contact Rena (reblumenthal, x3920) or Abby (abzorn)

*Everyone is invited to all meals. Please pay at the door, $8.00/8 points.

On days when the heat and humidity cause the conditions in the Retreat kitchen to become unbearable and unhealthy for the staff, we will offer a special "Heat Wave"menu. Breakfast will be served until 11:00 a.m., after which the grill and fryers will be turned off. The Retreat will be offering specials like Chinese Chicken Salad, Chicken Breast/BLT Club on Ciabatta, Quiche, Pepper Steak, Chili, etc.; items that the staff can prepare in the cooler morning hours and serve at lunch time. Of course, Jesus will soon be making his delicious gazpacho (recipe below.)

We don't expect too many awful days this summer, but for the occasional cases of extreme heat, we will be changing the menu to protect our employees. Otherwise, we will offer our entire regular menu. We hope we will be able to count on everyone's cooperation, and we thank you in advance.

Regards,
The Retreat Staff

The Retreat is located in the College Center and is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. during the summer.

 
The Great Gazpacho Secret Revealed!
Originally published in On Campus, Vol. 24, No. 5, July 15, 2005

Assistant chef Jesus Leyva and cook Danuta Lasota have graciously revealed the heretofore secret recipe for their exquisite Retreat gazpacho (made whenever possible using fresh, local vegetables). To make 10 servings:

• 7 cucumbers peeled, with seeds removed
• 7 whole tomatoes peeled
• 1 can diced tomatoes, unseasoned
• 1 can tomato soup
• 1 onion
• 1 green pepper
• 8 fluid ounces vegetable juice
• 2 tsp. cumin
• 2 tsp. red wine vinegar
• 1 cup water
• 1 tsp. of the following:
  • Tabasco sauce
  • garlic powder
  • fresh cilantro
  • fresh basil
  • dry oregano
  • black pepper
  • vegetable base
  • lime juice
• 2 tsp. chili powder

Combine the first six ingredients in a food processor and mix until smooth. Transfer the mixture to a larger container, add the rest of the ingredients, and mix well with a whisk. Serve chilled.

Ann Cornelisen, Vassar College '47, spent nearly twenty years working in some of the most impoverished regions of Southern Italy. This exhibit, originally shown in 1971, includes Cornelisen's most striking photos, some rarely seen before.

For hours and information: (845) 437-5370

Sunday, July 1, 2007
2:00 p.m.
Skinner Hall of Music
Admission is free.

A concert of opera will be presented on Sunday afternoon, July 1, 2007 at 2:00 p.m. in Skinner Hall of Music. The concert is the culminating event in the 10-day Vassar residency of the New York Opera Studio and features aspiring opera singers and pianists from the United States and Canada. Operatic scenes from a variety of styles and in a variety of languages will be performed, semi-staged with piano.