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Head To Head: Is there a feminist issue in college enrollment? Obviously.

Each Wednesday, Taylor Felts and Jacob Broyles will tackle two sides of a contentious issue facing the Transy community. This week, we ask the question “Does the fact that 57% of the student population is female pose a feminist issue for Transy?” Jacob Broyles argues it is a feminist issue, but one that underlines the hypocrisy of modern feminism.

Read Taylor Felts arguing the opposite here.


The gender enrollment gap is not a problem that only faces Transylvania University, but instead, it is a nationwide problem.  Roughly 58% of the students enrolled in college in the United States are female.  Is this an issue that should concern feminists?  A feminist issue is an issue that concerns feminists ideologically; what then is the ideology of feminism?

The most agreed upon definition of feminism is “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.”  Due to the universal and egalitarian nature of feminism’s goals, feminists have often involved themselves in other movements, such as the anti-slavery movement over one hundred years ago and the LGBT rights movement of today.  For the very same reasons that slavery and LGBT rights became feminist issues, the gender gap in college enrollment should be a feminist issue as well.  This is especially true considering this inequality is gendered, and feminists tend to focus on problems concerning the opportunities afforded to men and women.

Given that the seemingly appropriate response from the feminist perspective is to be concerned with the inequality posed by the disproportionate number of women that go to college and receive a higher level education, it is worth noting that this is not a topic feminists discuss often if at all.  This points to a key problem within the modern third-wave feminist movement.  It shows very little concern for true equality and instead picks and chooses what groups they will concern themselves with and the groups that they won’t.

Therefore, I would posit that feminism is no longer a true equality movement, but at the very least, a women’s advocacy movement.  I have no doubt in my mind that if there was a similar gap between men and women enrolled in college going the other way, it would be pointed to as an example of “The Patriarchy” systematically oppressing women.  This should clearly be an issue that would fall within the realm of stated concern that feminists have, but it does not.

But is the gendered enrollment gap really a problem? When dealing with problems like these, it is important not to confuse the concepts of inequality of outcome with inequality of opportunity.  Clearly, we have inequality in the outcome. Considerably more women than men are currently enrolled in college. But this is by no means the result of any sort of systemic discrimination.  There is actually no evidence at all that is the case.  Part of this could be attributed quite simply to the different choices men and women make after high school.  Men are more likely to choose to go into the military, learn a trade, or to just go directly into the workforce full-time after high school.  The case has also been made by some scholars that it is in part due to the value of college increasing for women faster than it did for men after barriers to entering the workforce broke down for women.  It is a complex issue, and the experts are still working to pin down precisely what causes this gap, but none of the reasons it may exist are even truly relevant here.

In the absence of another definite explanation that accounts for the enrollment gap, the default explanation is not—or should not be—discrimination or oppression.  This is another key mistake often made by feminists.  Unless it is determined for a fact that it is systemic discriminatory forces that are keeping men out of higher education, there is nothing to be rectified!

A couple key points in closing— for one, the solution to historical oppression is not to over-correct in the present or future and just accept a rising gap going the other way such as the gender enrollment gap. The fact that it took so long for women to be equally represented in higher education should not be used to justify present inequality. This is a regressive and counterproductive way of looking at things, and it is certainly no legitimate reason this topic should be excluded from those considered to be feminist issues. Second, to say that having an egalitarian environment at Transy is what is important misses the point. To determine if this is a feminist issue, we must examine the process by which feminists determine what they consider feminist issues. Only then can we determine if feminists must consider the enrollment gap a feminist issue in order to remain logically and ideologically consistent.

To do this, let’s take a look at one of the most prominent and widely discussed feminist issues, the wage gap, to try and understand how feminists apply their ideology in a real-world context. The wage gap has many similarities to the enrollment gap, but with one difference: the wage gap advantages men, and the enrollment gap advantages women.  It is a well-known fact that if you average the full-time earnings of all women and then compare them to that of men, women overall make roughly 76 cents for every dollar men make. There is no solid evidence whatsoever that this is the result of discrimination. In fact, the wage gap is the result of a complex combination of differences in the choices men and women make that almost entirely accounts for this disparity.  Despite this, even President Obama implied in his 2014 State of the Union Address that women are not paid equally for the same work on the basis of gender even though there are already laws on the books disallowing this.  The wage gap has very little, if anything, to do with a difference in the rights and opportunities afforded to men and women. But it is certainly a feminist issue.

Feminism mistakenly equates equality in outcome with equality in opportunity when making the assumption that the gender wage gap is the result of systemic discriminatory forces.  Looking at Transylvania University’s enrollment rates through this dogmatic and dishonest lens, women are clearly afforded more opportunities as a result of discrimination against men in academia.  So, by feminist standards, this is clearly a feminist issue.

Head To Head: Is there a feminist issue in college enrollment? Not really.

Each Wednesday, Taylor Felts and Jacob Broyles will tackle two sides of a contentious issue facing the Transy community. This week, we ask the question “Does the fact that 57% of the student population is female pose a feminist issue for Transy?”  Taylor Felts argues that there is not a feminist issue, and that there are more useful measures of feminism on campus.

Read Jacob Broyles arguing the opposite here.


 

Transy’s student ratio undoubtedly boasts more women than men. However, as to whether this is an area requiring rectification, much less a feminist issue, I would have to say no. All that one must do to ascertain that this is true is to take a look at the student body. One definition of feminism is that it is “the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.” Are women at Transy not the equals of their male peers politically and socially? (As for economically— as most here are receiving moderate to considerable stipends from their families, we’ll omit that one from discussion.)

That answer is undoubtedly yes; there is no issue with feminine attendance. If anything, this evidenced reversal of the college gender gap is to be celebrated. In 1960, for every female graduating a four year college there were 1.6 men. However, data from the US Federal Education Department in the fall of 2014 showed that women constituted 55 percent of undergrads at four year colleges. Here at Transy, that is certainly the case, and no doubt this marks a commendable achievement in regard to the representation of women within institutions of furthered learning. Clearly, women in the United States, much less at Transy, are becoming more and more prolific on college campuses. But I suffer confusion in regard to how this becomes a feminist issue.

No doubt, for many women (and men) around the world, going to college is still largely unavailable, but here—at home—at Transy, there are plenty of women receiving degrees. The real issue with the disparity in Transy’s student body ratio is that there are 14 percent less men represented, and this is only a microcosm of what’s happening on a national scale. In the 2009-2010 academic year, women received a staggering 57.4% of all bachelor degrees in the US. Given this, there are clearly fewer men earning degrees from colleges and universities, and this would be a feminist issue, except that current study does not give clear causation for the reversal phenomenon, save our society’s stringent gender assumptions that dictate what men and women do and do not. It could be that these assumptions are what hinder men from applying for traditional “female” occupations, while females are simultaneously so relatively liberated as they are able to enjoy the possibility of engaging in a traditionally “masculine” field.

So should this be a feminist issue? Not yet. Why? We have to consider the history or college enrollment. Women and men only began attending colleges and universities in equal numbers in the 1980’s. This equity was a long time coming—150 years after Oberlin College was chartered in 1833 (Oberlin was the first college in the United States to admit women). Also of note concerning Oberlin: even though women were admitted to the university in 1833, they were not admitted to the standard baccalaureate program until 1837, instead recieving diplomas from the “Ladies Course,” where overwhelming emphasis was upon the arts of domesticity. It should also be considered that the first university in the United States (Harvard) was chartered in 1636; so if women did not begin to catch up to men until the 1980’s, not only were they were laughably outnumbered across campuses for 150 years, they were denied higher education for a period of almost 200 years before that. With this in mind, a small disparity favoring women now looks minuscule in comparison to the historical enrollment gap.

While the aims of feminism are, in fact, to promulgate equality for both sexes, this is not the most pressing issue. After almost 350 years of landmark struggle, first to be allowed within a college, and later to be equally represented alongside men, if a few decades later we’re seeing a five to ten percent disparity between men and women enrolled in US colleges, well, this is certainly to be looked into, but also certainly not as pressing as other ongoing issues of inequity within the United States. There are issues of racial and ethnic inequality and discrimination, violence against the LGBTQ community, etc that require more attention.

As for whether a feminist cry should be sounded about Transy for the lack of men on campus, I think the more important issue is whether both men and women within Transylvania feel that their environment is egalitarian. There is no specifically feminist critique that I would be able to apply to the variation in boy/girl attendance and enrollment, nor to the university as a whole. Keep in mind the goals of feminism: to eradicate inequality between men and women. We recognize the harmful potential in enforcing our society’s imposed gender norms and unfair expectations. We should not be concerned about which gender is more represented on campus. We should instead seek to bolster and respect all members of the student body—for their individualism and for their personal identity, and not the one that is assumed by society.

Bid Day 2016 Photo Gallery

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Transy’s endowment, explained

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If someone says the word “endowment,” many people would probably just scratch their heads in confusion as to what exactly that refers. But the endowment is a crucial element of the university; Transylvania University provides thousands of scholarships to students every year, and this, along with other things, is made possible by the investment of Transy’s endowment into common stocks.

An endowment is basically an investment of money that can never actually be spent — but the earnings made from the investment can be. Vice President for Finance and Business Marc Mathews explained that the endowment is the university’s “largest single asset.” It is comprised of 280 individual, underlying endowment agreements, instead of being just one large clump of money. The endowments are accumulated over the years from “persons, families, and companies” and have compiled a $170 million principle amount.

One thing that makes Transy’s endowment unique when compared to other schools is the fact that it is “managed by the investment committee of the Board of Trustees,” according to Mathews. This committee is constantly evaluating the performance of the endowment and doing its best to keep a low cost by conservatively investing the endowment.

As far as how the money from the endowment is invested, the committee utilizes a “buy and hold strategy,” meaning that it does not trade a lot. Instead, the members of the committee invest in common stocks that are household names; for example, Johnson and Johnson is Transy’s largest investment at this time.

The committee only spends five percent of the value of the endowment in order to ensure that the money that donors have given has the same value years from now as it does currently.

“It’s all about stability,” Mathews said. “We also have good control measures in place to get to the money and lots of supervision.”

That five percent of the earnings that is spent is equal to approximately $9.2 million, and out of that money, about two-thirds went to scholarships for Transy students. Scholarships are easily the biggest asset from the endowment.

“We are really fortunate to put out what we do in merit-based aid, ” said Mathews. “It is a real gift to the students.”

The earnings from the endowment are also used in other places across campus, such as the upkeep of certain buildings, the Bingham Fund, which gives stipends to faculty members, scholarships for various programs across campus, such as the theater program, and to fund different lectures and presenters that come to campus.

Overall, Transy’s endowment is like any other school’s endowment, except for who controls it. The endowment is what allows Transy to take measures to make sure that as many students as possible can receive merit scholarships and to create a campus environment that is enriching and thought-provoking.

I Tried Every Pastry At Jazzman’s So You Don’t Have To

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Now that Jazzman’s is open more often, it’s important to know the dos and don’ts when it comes to snacking there. Here’s a review of all the pastries Jazzman’s has to offer and what students have to say about them.

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Chocolate Chip Cookie – You can never go wrong with the chocolate chip cookie at Jazzman’s. My favorite part about it is that the chocolate chips are tiny as opposed to having chocolate chunks like these cookies typically do. I also recommend splitting it with a friend. It’s a good go-to snack at Jazzman’s and is literally always available.

blueberry-muffin

Blueberry Muffin – This sugary treat is another top choice at Jazzman’s. I personally love this option but think it has too many blueberries. According to Junior Julie Ward, “It’s not the best muffin I’ve ever had, but I really like it.” This muffin is a good choice if you want to play it safe and not try anything new.

Aztec Brownie – This treat is definitely not a favorite at Jazzman’s. Nearly every person I asked said it was the worst thing they had ever tried at Jazzman’s. According to senior Alli Duncan, “the spices weren’t meant to be in a brownie.”

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Plain Bagel – This is a go-to snack for students on the run, but Junior Jordan Long suggests jazzing it up with a strawberry cream cheese; “If you get a plain bagel you have to get flavored cream cheese and if you get a flavored bagel you have to get plain cream cheese.” Another person suggested matching the flavor of your bagel to the flavor of your cream cheese. For example, if you get a blueberry bagel you should also get blueberry cream cheese. Regardless, there are many ways to enhance this typical food.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffin – Although this one isn’t currently being sold at Jazzman’s, Junior Laura Daley said it was her favorite treat last year. She explained, “The lemon poppy seed muffins are what get me on the days that I’m trying to be healthy.”

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Blueberry Scone – I really recommend trying this pastry. It’s less chewy then its muffin counterpart and it also has less blueberries. You might even feel healthier with this option since it doesn’t have the same sugar topping as the muffin.

choc-chip-muffin

Chocolate Chip Muffin – This is definitely the best Jazzman’s has to offer. It was full of chocolate chips and had chocolate drizzled on the top. Although it probably isn’t the healthiest it is absolutely delicious. Senior Alli Duncan said, “Literally, it is the best muffin I’ve ever had. Half of it fell on the concrete in front of DV and I screamed because I was so sad.”

Low Fat Raspberry Muffin – This option also seems to be a favorite for Jazzman’s regulars. Junior Kenzie Hall said, “I love raspberries and there’s a lot of raspberries in it. It’s also low fat so it makes me feel good about myself.” Several others agreed with her. It doesn’t have the sugary top that the blueberry muffin has so you can feel less guilty about it.

cherry-turnover

Cherry Turnover – “After acquiring the turnover, I took it to the microwave – an essential tool for any Jazzmaniac. After waiting 20 seconds for my treat to heat up, I sat down, ready to enjoy the turnover,” said senior Daniel Martin. He explained that the treat is enjoyable if you’re able to eat it without making a mess. He also reports that the cherry filling is delicious.

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Low Fat Banana Muffin – According to junior Ryann Little, this muffin is a good alternative when they’re out of the raspberry version. She likes it because it doesn’t have nuts and she said that the best part is the powdered sugar sprinkled on top.

cherry-scone

Cranberry Scone – Although it seems like it might not be great, Senior Cody Koch says, “But when you first bite into it you get a slight, delightful taste of white chocolate, which is quiet the game-changer.” He says these unexpected white chocolate chips are what make this pastry so delicious. After trying this pastry for myself I had to agree that it is one of the best they have.

apple-turnover-cookie

Caramel Apple Fritter Cookie – This treat at Jazzman’s seemed to get mixed reviews. Junior Nina Shuffett said she liked it because, “it’s like a caramel sugar cookie and the apple isn’t overpowering”. However, junior Kenzie Hall explained, “It was almost too sweet. It could use a sour component. I think they should’ve used a Granny Smith apple”.

Hollywood actress Gwendoline Yeo visits Appalachia, Lexington

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This past week, actress Gwendoline Yeo visited Lexington and other regions of Kentucky. Yeo is known for voice acting several video game characters and for her roles in the television series General Hospital and Desperate Housewives.

There were multiple reasons for Yeo’s visit, one being simply a desire to travel and have a break from life in Hollywood.

“I’ve always had a bit of a restless spirit,” said Yeo. “Whenever I’m feeling a little bit depleted, travel has always been the answer.”

She explained that she has a goal of visiting each state and after her visit to Kentucky, the number visited will be 48. This journey to travel in all the states is also the subject of her book she is working on.

Yeo described the book as being about “basically how traveling through the states has saved my life in a way.”

In regards to coming to Kentucky, and specifically the Appalachian region, Yeo explained feeling a need to come and visit the region as well as the Christian Appalachian Project (CAP). After Yeo first heard of CAP, it has remained on her mind. She was drawn to find out how she could help the project.

“It all comes from the same place of telling my story and expressing pain and joy and all other feelings through art,” said Yeo.

“I’ve always wanted to be attached to an organization at some point in my career,” said Yeo. “I wanted to check it out. For whatever reason, I was just called here. It just felt like I needed to come.”

Another visit on her trip really stood out to her as well: Johnson Central High School.

Yeo moved to the United States from Singapore when she was 11 years old. She described that from then until she was in college was a time of her life where she dealt with a lot.

“I think I felt most pain and insecurity from the age of 11, when I got here, to 19, when I was in college, because I was still finding my way,” said Yeo.

When she visited Johnson Central, she felt a connection to the students because they have gone through struggles that she has and can connect to.

“I always felt like a bit of a freak, which was also my biggest asset,” said Yeo. “So what I saw [at JCHS] were just mirrors of myself, which were people filled with warmth and love and complete strength and unabashedly straight up, and that’s who I am. That was beautiful for me.”

Yeo also had something to say in regards to college students striving for a career in the arts.

“I would say the biggest chip on my shoulder when I first got into acting was that I didn’t go to school for it, that I didn’t have a degree for it,” said Yeo.

She continued to explain that she went to the University of California, Los Angeles and actually studied communications, stating that at the time, “I thought I was going to be a journalist.”

Yeo’s message to aspiring artists is that it’s okay to have not professional schooling or a lot of training. That it can lead to being “over-techniqued” and having too much focus on “putting theory in practice instead of learning on their feet.”

Although Yeo originally planned on a career in journalism, she eventually felt a pull to acting instead. She was drawn to the profession because “it was a place to turn pain into something beautiful, as an art.”

Photo Courtesy of Gwendoline Yeo
Photo Courtesy of Gwendoline Yeo

Yeo still has a passion for writing though, as is apparent in her current work to publish a book. Considering most book sales happen on Amazon these days, I imagine she will be exploring Amazon publishing, although this will all be very new to her. She explained that the continuous desire to learn and try new things is something she thinks all artists feel.

She referenced the American dancer and choreographer, Martha Graham, who said “No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

She continued to explain that for her, it’s all about “leaping into the dark over and over again” and being brave in life choices. Regardless of what art she explores, Yeo always strives to tell her story.

“It all comes from the same place of telling my story and expressing pain and joy and all other feelings through art,” said Yeo.

Interview Podcast: sophomore Isaac Batts on gender

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This week, Rambler Opinion Editor Tristan Reynolds interviews Isaac Batts, Copy Editor for The Rambler and Fine Arts Editor for the Transylvanian. They discuss personal preferred pronouns, growing up trans* in rural Kentucky, and coming out.

Transy used to let students smoke on campus. Here’s why they should again.

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Until last year, Transy provided a space on campus for student to smoke. The smoking circle (or smircle-seriously) was located at the back of Forrer; it was a small space, probably no more than 100 square feet. By the start of this academic year, however, Transy had eliminated the space and declared the entirety of campus smoking-free. This is a poor decision on Transy’s part.

To explain why, it may be helpful to establish a few facts on the ground. The first thing we need to establish is how many people at Transy actually smoke; unfortunately, there is no readily available Transy-specific data to answer that question (at least at this time). However, according to the most recent available Gallup data, Kentucky is the national leader in the number of people who smoke. Nearly a third of Kentuckians smoke. Considering that the population of Transy is predominantly drawn from Kentucky itself, it seems reasonable to say that, in the absence of hard data available to students, there are probably more than a few smokers in the student population. It is almost certainly true that among faculty, administration, and staff, who are by definition part of Kentucky’s population, there are more than a few smokers.

The second thing we need to establish is what exactly Transy wants to accomplish by making the entire campus smoke-free. Absent a definitive statement from the administration (that I’m aware of at this time), it seems fair to say that Transy is seeking to improve the public health of the Transy community. It’s reasonable to assume that this measure is more-or-less targeted most heavily at the student population that lives here. In other words, we can assume with a high degree of confidence that Transy wants to discourage Transy students from smoking, and wants to do so by making it inconvenient to do so while at Transy.

Accomplishing this goal could, I think, take two forms. The first is that, by making the campus smoke-free, Transy wants to discourage prospective students who smoke from coming to campus in the first place, and by discouraging current students who smoke from continuing to do so. And here is where we see how Transy has made a poor decision.

First, the prospective students. As many of you know, the current first-year class numbers under the enrollment targets Transy sought to hit last enrollment season. That is to say, Transy is not in a position to discourage many students from applying. Beggars (or heavily-leveraged universities) cannot be choosers. Transy has, for little gain, handicapped itself in the search for students.

We can say this because we know that it’s very hard to quit smoking. Most smokers want to quit; all smokers, by definition, have not quit. So we know a large percentage wants to quit but doesn’t. There is a massive difference from wanting to quit and actually trying out methods that can make this possible. If you feel that a certain approach will work best for you, why not give it a go. For example, some people who are on this journey have looked into using vaping devices. As there are many to choose from like the Flowermate or the PAX, for a beginner it may be difficult to decide on which one to go for, which is why doing your research is beneficial. It is not impossible to quit. You just need to be motivated enough to do it and once you are, just go for it. It shouldn’t just be cigarette smokers looking to cut down on their tobacco intake. Weed users may want to consider using a vaporizer instead of the traditional methods of inhalation. A popular vape battery is the 510 batteries. This is definitely worth considering for any smokers out there.

From this we can conclude that there is a significant addictive drive for smokers to continue smoking. And on this basis we can further conclude that, given that the Transy campus is fairly small, most current students who smoke will not be too likely to quit smoking over the issue of walking a half-block or so. So simply on the basis that Transy is unlikely to get current students to quit, we can say that Transy is not making a particularly good decision by removing a space on campus for students to smoke. But is it a bad one?

In a word, yes. Because while students are unlikely to be deterred from smoking by walking that half-block, that doesn’t mean that forcing students off-campus to smoke doesn’t have significant effects. By doing so, Transy removes some of the protections it offers to students when they are on-campus. Campus is well-lit, it is patrolled by its own policing force-any point of trouble can be quickly met and resolved. Further, though there are no physical boundaries around campus, it is not for nothing that we call it the “bubble”; the general public does not make a habit of traipsing about the plaza or green space. Consider that many smokers will take their last cigarette shortly before turning in for the night; for many college students that’s quite a late hour. And, of course, the night is generally when most muggings and so forth take place. It’s not ridiculous to say that there exists a lower risk of physical violence occurring on-campus as opposed to off-campus.

Further, by removing any space for students to smoke, Transy is quite literally telling those students that they are not welcome to both smoke and be at Transy. It seems to me that this is very likely to create a stigmatizing effect. And since we’ve established that most smokers are unlikely to quit, this stigmatizing serves no practical purpose. A considerable portion of a liberal arts education is encouraging students to explore and make decisions for themselves; stigmatizing some of those decisions seems, to me at least, to be unfairly nudging the scales, even if the decision you’re nudging against is bad for someone’s health. It’s a needless negative effect of Transy’s decision.

Now, it’s possible to consider another rationale for making the campus smoke-free: Transy may consider the secondhand smoke effect on nonsmoking students a sufficient threat to Transy students that it wants to remove it. However, if that is the case I would remind you that nearly a third of Kentuckians smoke, and they breathe the same air that circulates on Transy’s campus. Further, since Transy’s previous policy placed all smokers outside, it seems a little silly to maintain that the open air would become uniquely deadened and immobile just where the smokers gathered. In short, any secondhand smoke effect is likely to be so negligible as to be nonexistent.

In a bid to make the air clearer, at least on campus (despite the counteractive impact of the hundreds of thousands of people smoking in the Kentucky area), Transy could’ve taken the option of promoting e-cigarettes to their students; a much cleaner and safer option than tobacco. This would have a positive impact on the environment on campus and would also promote a healthier lifestyle for students. Showing them pages from CigBuyer would’ve been a much better approach in their campaign, instead of banning smoking altogether.

So, let’s recap. Transy’ new policy of a smoke-free campus is not likely to cut the number of smoking students down significantly, is more likely to expose students to off-campus dangers, is likely to stigmatize smoking students, and is not likely to affect non-smoking students’ health in a serious way. The new policy, in other words, doesn’t accomplish what it seems designed to, and comes with serious downsides. It is a poor decision, and Transy should thus return to the previous policy allowing a space on campus for students to smoke.

Author’s Note: I do not myself smoke. I understand it’s quite bad for you.

‘Fighting the good fight:’ a profile of Pi Kappa Alpha

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As Pike members Dustin Kiser, William Easley and Ethan Franklin relaxed in their “sanctuary,” Michael Maggard played an acoustic rendition of “Get Low,” which was reminiscent of the group’s humor at dinner as they discussed the potential titles of “Started from the Bottom…We’re Still There” and “I Only Spent 47 Seconds with Pike and It Was Hell” for their Rambler profile. The humor towards their chapter and their representation of the chapter through their kempt appearance and courteous behavior might come across as a contradiction, yet these aspects all come from an awareness of the envisioned future for the chapter.

“One of our big phrases is perception over time equals reality and the way we’ve went about that is, everybody’s gonna view us the same way that they have if we allow that to be the general perception that we give off,” said Kiser. “So we’ve ensured to go above and beyond with the way we dress because our four main principles are scholars, leaders, athletes, and gentlemen.”

“If you feel like you’re putting extra effort into yourself, you’re gonna be more likely to feel that you can put extra effort into everything else and at this point we have ten guys, we have to be putting all of the effort into this that we can,” said Easley.

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As Kiser and Maggard were recruiting potential new members on a previous night, the conversation was “serious,” with Kiser emphasizing what Pike is looking for: tenacity, determination, and willingness to face adversity. The conversation went on until around 1 a.m., when Kiser and Maggard decided to head back to Kiser’s room. Maggard rushed in to wake Tyler Stumbo, with shouts of “Stumbo dude, wake up,” only to tell him that nothing was actually going on. Kiser describes this ability to flip from “100% serious business to 100% causal” as necessary.

“You have to be serious at times and you have to be completely comedic and just unwind and relax because it’s really stressful, what we’re doing,” said Kiser. “Other people on campus have four times, five times our guys, so the tasks that they have ahead of them are significantly smaller, whereas us 10, we’re busting our butts, day-in, day-out, 24/7.”

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To the members, Pike is at times viewed as the “little brother” on campus, but a positive relationship between this label and the campus community wanting Pike to succeed exists.

“Everybody loves a Cinderella story, so every time we come out, every time we get better, it’s like the whole campus can get behind us and rally around us because they know what we’re doing. We’re fighting the good fight and it’s hard not to support that,” said Kiser.

Transy welcomes new professor of mathematics Michael Kelly

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Transylvania is welcoming a multitude of new faculty and staff this year. There are a total of five new professors this semester and over the next month The Rambler will be introducing each of them to the campus. This is a way for the members of Transylvania to become familiar with the new professors as well as to truly welcome them to the Transy community.

With the retirement of Dave Shannon, the math department welcomed Assistant Professor of Mathematics Michael Kelly this year.

Kelly grew up in Philadelphia and attended the liberal arts college Franklin & Marshall College for his undergrad. He studied mathematics during his undergrad and continued to the University of Tennessee to get his Ph.D. in mathematics with a concentration in mathematical ecology.

His liberal arts education was a big part of Kelly wanting to work at Transy.

“When I was thinking about jobs and what I wanted to do, I knew I wanted to be a professor. I knew I wanted a similar experience to my undergrad. I just feel like that was the college experience to me,” said Kelly. “I wanted a school where faculty know students, you can be engaged in student’s academic careers, you can build relationships with them, and it’s much more hands-on teaching.”

Kelly explained that Transy’s reputation of being student-centered was another quality that really appealed to him. He is excited to work and do research with students and teach them about the possibilities of his field.

“I have a big interest and motivation to inform students about my area of interest. I want them to know about mathematical biology and the research potential there and some of the really awesome stuff that students can do in the area, especially in the undergrad level too,” said Kelly.

Kelly is extremely passionate about mathematical biology, which he defines as “using mathematics to model and describe biological systems and phenomena.”

His main interests in the field are infectious disease modeling, natural resource management and invasive species modeling. In terms of infectious disease modeling, Kelly’s interest stems from a desire to want to help.

“Infectious diseases, they’re a scary thing,” said Kelly. “My interest in how I model them is always about the optimal way of controlling disease outbreaks or eradicating diseases. I want to help; I want to do something to inform and provide information and guidance on how to best control outbreaks and get rid of them.”

He further explained that his interest in the work relates to why he loves math in general.

“The reason I like math and why I’ve always liked math has been problem-solving. I like finding an answer,” said Kelly.

In regards to his love for math, the origin of his passion is an interesting one. Kelly describes his relationship with math as always being a “love-hate relationship,” but he remembers the exact instant he decided to major in the field.

“I remember I was struggling in a Calculus course and I remember doing a homework set and I was just mad because I couldn’t get them,” he said. “I eventually got a few answers and eventually figured out what I was doing wrong and was able to finish it. I remember finishing it and thinking I want to be a math major.”

Kelly described the feeling of finally figuring out the answer and knowing there’s a solution to the problem as what really developed his passion for mathematics.

“I haven’t always been a math nerd, but I think I’ve definitely grown into that,” said Kelly. “I really do love it now, I’m kind of obsessed.”

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