University of Kentucky’s men’s basketball head coach John Calipari has it easy in recruiting. Occidental’s Brian Newhall? Not so much. Newhall recently shed light on the difficulties and realities of Division-III recruiting and the challenges specific to Occidental. Division-I coaches such as Calipari can sell full academic scholarships, state-of-the-art facilities and a chance to compete at the highest level of...

Four skateboarders repeatedly hop off the stage in Sycamore Glen, guiding their boards into flips and controlled spins with the grace and nonchalance of seasoned experts. The group is made up of Highland Park residents in their late teens and early twenties. The sound is a veritable cacophony. The racket of loose wheels wobbling from impact after impact can be...

Project S. A. F. E. hosted its annual Take Back the Week (TBTW) event last week as part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, with several changes to keep it current. Coordinators renamed the survivor vigil a "speak-out," in order to empower sexual assault survivors and their allies. "[TBTW] is a way for us to, one, inform the students and administrators,...

Adrianne Wadewtiz, the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Digital Learning (CDLR), died on April 8 at the age of 37 from injuries sustained while rock-climbing. Wadewitz helped to form Occidental’s 2012 Digital Scholarship Institute and guide CDLR-sponsored Faculty Learning Communities. In her free time, she volunteered as a Wikipedia campus ambassador and educational consultant with the Wikipedia Foundation,...

Open Source Club held its first meeting for students interested in computer programing on April 9. Dissatisfied with Occidental’s limited computer science department, a group of student computer programmers established the club to strengthen the computer science community on campus. Club co-presidents biochemistry major Myles Groner (junior) and mathematics major Daniel Park (sophomore) introduced the club by reciting its mission...

Faculty in the English and Comparative Literary Studies (ECLS) department are revamping the ECLS major to bring new academic life into a department that both faculty and students feel has declined. The major will be renamed "English" and turn away from its current focus on comparative literature. At an informational meeting last Thursday, professors from the department came together to...

Hats off to Programming Board (PB) for a very successful SpringFest. Apart from a few minor glitches, common at most events, the day ran smoothly. The massive turnout and enjoyment of the events demonstrate a need for more large-scale events, like dances. Pre-gaming for SpringFest happens each year and this year, it resulted in two alcohol poisonings before the concert...

Trees and heritage alike uprooted, water poisoned, people displaced from their homes and animals disappearing from existence; these are the most pressing consequences of modern progress. The Nicaraguan government plans to build a canal bisecting the country starting this year, linking the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea. A maritime shortcut of this magnitude is a frightening idea that would...

Four months ago, economics major Aseem Mangaokar (junior) was simply DJing off-campus house parties at Occidental. He now flies around the country with co-DJ and finance major Chris Gavino (junior) —a student at George Mason University— playing shows in front of hundreds of people as part of the duo Hotel Garuda. Though Mangaokar and Gavino met as classmates in Singapore...

Most students will conduct extensive research and write lengthy papers for their senior comprehensive projects. Media Arts and Culture (MAC) seniors do comps a little differently. Because the major has three emphases — screenwriting, production and critical media studies — MAC comps range from video installation exhibits to feature-length screenplays to short narrative films. Over the course of three nights...