The first thing one notices (aside from the familiar faces of Elijah Wood and Peter Jackson telling Air New Zealand passengers to fasten their seat belts) upon arriving in Aotearoa is rugby. The game is everywhere. And it means everything. It seems that on almost every street, whether in Dunedin or Auckland, the striking jet-black jersey of the New Zealand...

The Occidental men’s and women’s swim and dive teams wrapped up a historic season Sunday with the completion of the 2015 SCIAC Swimming and Diving Championships in Whittier, California. Both the men and women placed fifth overall; the women tied their finish from last year and the men moved up two spots from seventh. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps defended their titles, scoring over...

More than midway through her college career, Charlotte Krovoza ’13 learned that her aspirations of becoming a credentialed teacher would not be fulfilled at Occidental. Krovoza once balanced 20 units in a semester in order to pursue a minor in education, in addition to majors in Urban and Environmental Policy and Spanish Literary Studies. But the 2011 probation and eventual...

The Occidental women’s lacrosse team fought to cut into a 9-0 deficit, sinking seven shots during a busy second half, only to fall to Pomona-Pitzer 13-7 Saturday afternoon at Jack Kemp Stadium. The game was the second in the team’s SCIAC season. Co-captain Alida Beck (senior) controlled the first draw of the game, which was quickly followed up by two...

Taylor WaltonCompared to many of his teammates, Taylor Walton (first-year) is relatively new to track and field. The six-foot-five high jumper had been playing just basketball for most of his life until his English teacher and track coach encouraged him to join track his junior year of high school.“I didn’t really know what I was doing the first few meets,...

Emily WatkinsEmily Watkins (senior) finished second overall in a tight race on Saturday at the SCIAC Swimming and Diving Championships, touching only 55 hundredths of a second after Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) sophomore Emily McKinnon, who won the women’s 100-yard breaststroke at 1:05.04. With a time of 1:05.59, Watkins hit the B-cut NCAA qualification time. According to men’s and women’s swim coach...

Despite Americans being bombarded with news of violent conflicts throughout Southern Asia and the Middle East, a wave of new elections and progressive policies have begun to shift the region away from constant violence and corruption and toward a safer and more stable future. A typical American watching the news lately could easily misconstrue the entire Middle East and South...

Occidental is an easy school to fall in love with. With top-notch academics, a sunny Los Angeles location and frequent sightings of movie stars (as pathetic as it may seem, I am convinced that being within twenty feet of Michael Cera on my summer tour helped steer me toward attending this school), Occidental is an attractive place to spend one's...

Last week, South Dakota became the 25th state to pass a resolution calling for a convention to amend the United States Constitution. Led by Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the Balanced Budget Forever movement aims to pass an amendment requiring the federal government to maintain a balanced budget and cease excessive borrowing. Allowing for a deficit only in extreme circumstances such...

As Major League Baseball training camps opened for Spring Training last week, one of the most promising international free agents in recent memory, 19-year-old Cuban shortstop Yoan Moncada, was in the midst of finalizing a deal with the Boston Red Sox. Given the timing of his defection from Cuba and the current thawing of diplomatic and economic relations between Cuba...