The Virtual Writing Room is a minimally structured, bi-weekly service for faculty and academic staff at UHM. The purpose of the Writing Room is to provide regularly scheduled time to work on your writing project in the quiet company of others.
By branching out to different venues, the DJ collective has grown tremendously, providing a space for artists to explore music and intersecting styles.
Booth, Dartmouth’s DJ collective founded in 2016, is a social and art group that provides DJ services to Greek houses and other functions on campus. The collective is currently expanding their services by branching out to cover more events to fit a growing campus demand for DJs.
“Our main purpose is to provide DJ services … but more than that, we think of ourselves as an art collective on campus,” Booth’s founding member Juhnwi Kim ’22 said. “There’s a very strong DJ culture at Dartmouth [and] we provide high quality service.”
Booth performs primarily at fraternities and sororities, where it is hired for on-nights, semis and formals. It also puts on Booth raves, which are shows typically hosted at Chi Gamma Epsilon and Scarlett Hall.
In addition, Booth performs at campus events, ranging from shows at the Hopkins Center for the Arts and the Thayer School of Engineering to the Friday Night Rock performances at Collis Commonground. A couple weeks ago, the Programming Board hired Booth to play during intermissions at Battle of the Bands, according to Booth’s director, Luis Verdi ’22.
“We’re trying to expand beyond Greek houses. Something that we really value is a relationship with the school,” Verdi said.
The members of Booth all have their own distinct styles, which means that every show is unique and has a different aesthetic. For example, Verdi specializes in dance, pop and electronic dance music, while new member Raegan Padula ’24 said she prefers house and techno.
“We all have different niches that we love to explore in music, and that combined with our ability to get a crowd going is so important to bring new sonic spaces to campus,” Padula said.
Booth also encourages its current members to incorporate new styles. Padula is excited to experiment in her Booth performances over sophomore summer when she returns from London, where she is currently studying electronic music.
“Getting to go around the city and take some of the experimental stuff done here and grunge and grime and bringing those back to campus is going to be really exciting,” Padula said. “[Booth’s] function is to introduce students to new flavors and new styles.”
Despite each member’s niches, Kim said that Booth has a “commercial front,” in which they still play pop music that people recognize and enjoy.
“My favorite thing is just seeing a crowd of people singing the words. To me, there’s nothing cooler as a performer than seeing everyone excited about what you’re putting on,” Verdi said. “Having that liberty to say ‘I’m in control, but I want to make sure that you’re all having fun with me.’ Because it’s about having fun but also making sure everyone else is having fun.”
Booth members meet once a week to discuss upcoming shows and contribute to external projects, such as their SoundCloud account. Padula said that at these weekly meetings, people will bring their boards and mix songs back and forth between each other.
“[This] is a real challenge, especially since some of us have quite different tastes,” Padula said. “To go from hip hop to experimental funk is a really fun switch.”
New members typically join Booth during their freshman year, with a variety of experience levels. Some are experienced DJs, while others simply show interest in getting started. According to Verdi, Booth’s expanding popularity on campus makes it easier to recruit.
“Over the years we’ve gotten a lot more interest over time,” Verdi said. “It feels cool to have that presence on campus.”
Verdi said he first experimented with DJing in high school, when he taught himself how to play using a friend’s equipment and performed at his school’s dance. He discovered the opportunity to continue his passion for DJing in college through Booth.
“Once I got [to Dartmouth], I felt like [DJing] was something I wanted to get back into and keep working on,” Verdi said. “Once I found out about Booth, met people in Booth, I was completely sold.”
After joining, new members are trained in the winter quarter. According to Kim, winter training consists of mastering techniques and learning how to navigate the Dartmouth music scene.
“We make sure that they are technically proficient enough to perform at a high level that people require and want,” Kim said. “Our members are not only DJs, but they produce and are in bands, so we like to think we are one of the leading musical voices on campus.”
Kim helped start Booth in 2016 when he and a group of ’20s identified the need for a DJ group at Dartmouth. He said they were inspired by the Boiler Room group, which Kim said had a “more varied music scene.”
In the beginning, Booth started performing at BarHop, an event held every Thursday at the Hopkins Center for the Arts. Booth then transitioned into DJing fraternity and sorority formals through personal connections. Now, Kim said that Greek houses ask Booth to perform at their events.
In addition to providing DJ services, Booth provides a sense of community for its members. Verdi commented on how the social aspect is his favorite part, and how he still keeps in touch with Booth alumni.
“I have met some of my biggest mentors through Booth,” Verdi said. “Those are really solid relationships we got to build through this shared interest, and I don’t think I would have met them otherwise.”
A University of Guelph student association is apologizing after basins used by Muslim students to cleanse themselves before prayer were allegedly urinated in during an event on campus.
The Guelph Engineering Society said the incident happened on March 31 during its annual Engineering Banquet at Peter Clark Hall. A wudu room, reserved for Muslim students to wash in preparation for prayer, was nearby.
During the banquet, several male attendees allegedly entered the wudu room and urinated in wash basins. Students enroute from the wudu room to the prayer room could hear the banquet guests “speaking of their offensive intentions towards the space,” president of the Guelph Engineering Society Grace Ly said in a statement issued April 13.
“When I was informed of what occurred during the event I was shocked, appalled and later ashamed to represent students of this behaviour,” Ly said.
Fauzia Mazhar with the Coalition of Muslim Women K-W calls the alleged incident “very very disturbing.”
In Islam, urine is seen as unclean and those who go to the bathroom during prayer have to cleanse again before returning, said Mazhar.
“When it comes to a Muslim prayer space, there’s double the problem,” Mazhar said. “First it’s desecrated, then it’s by urine.”
Mazhar wants to know whether the incident was targeted.
“Was it intentional in its nature to disrespect a place that is a Muslim prayer space,” she questioned. “Because that’s what we call Islamophobia.”
The University of Guelph said it is aware of “troubling reports” that a wudu facility was desecrated during a campus event and an investigation is underway.
“As U of G leaders, we are angry, upset, and disappointed to hear of this disturbing situation… we remind all students, faculty and staff to treat each other with kindness and respect,” the statement from the university said in part.
The Muslim Students’ Association at the University of Guelph said it would not comment as the investigation is ongoing, but said in an email, “Muslims should not feel targeted nor unsafe on the University of Guelph campus following this incident.”
The campus sustainability group announced a number of debt to celebrate Earth Week 2022. All events are free and open to the public. Registration will for events is requested by April 15th. More details about these events, and Earth Day events around the community can be found on the sustainability website. Those with question or interested in volunteering at either Carbon Summit Series event should email sustainability@boisestate.edu.
Campus Sustainability Tour 2-3:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 20 Kick off Earth Day by joining Campus Sustainability for a walking tour to check out sustainable features located on Boise State’s campus.
Celebrate a Sustainable Future: An Evening on Climate Solutions 5:30-8:30 p.m. Thursday, April 21 Doors open at 5 p.m. for dinner and seating Join us for an evening focused on building a sustainable future from rural to urban areas and everything in between. This Carbon Summit Series will feature Gabe Brown and David Montgomery on regenerative agriculture as climate solutions. Next, a panel of local leaders in sustainability will share their work in moving the region forward. Featuring empowering conversations over a free dinner in the Lookout Ballroom (Student Union Building), this event is open to the greater Treasure Valley community.
Students Are The Future: Connecting Students With Climate Education & Action 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Friday, April 22 Doors open at 9:30 a.m. for coffee and seating This Carbon Summit Series event features industry leaders connecting academics and research to climate action and student change-makers. It is open to Boise State students and faculty, and will be held in the Imagination Lab in the Micron Business and Economics Building. If you are a student and would like a chance to share your passion, or a project you have been working on, fill out the student speaker form.
Arbor Day Celebration 2-4 p.m. Friday, April 29 Come enjoy an afternoon of tree planting and a campus trash pick-up to celebrate Arbor Day 2022 with Campus Sustainability, the City of Boise, and other campus organizations. Lead Arborist at the City of Boise, Mike Andrews will be providing three trees for the Boise State Community to plant. Coffee and donuts will be provided.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years you may have noticed the overt sexualization of campus activities. From seminars like Kink 101 to school-sanctioned extracurriculars like the recent drag shows, it seems like everything has been sexualized at Syracuse University. While at first glance these eccentricities of college life may seem harmless, the truth is that they are anything but.
Students on campus have noticed. Sophomore Ralph Graham, an attendee of SU’s most recent drag show, said that he was speechless while watching the show.
“The drag show finals were definitely over-sexualized for the most part, and (it) was not what I was picturing in the first place,” he said. “No wonder why many friends of mine decided not to attend anymore at the last minute.” No wonder indeed.
Graham said the show involved nudity, routines, music and dialogue that wouldn’t be out of place at a strip club. But because many people think condemning lewd drag is a criticism of the LGBTQ community overall, which of course is political and social suicide, they avoid judging such activities at all. While the show may have felt empowering for individuals on stage, it plays into various stereotypes and can further alienate the LGBTQ community.
One would think that a university intent on escaping its party school reputation would seek to limit this outward appearance of raunchiness. And it has to an extent, promoting safer sex and therapy opportunities. But incomprehensibly, it then turns around and creates seminars like Kink 101 which, as columnist Augustus LeRoux writes, is “aimed at teaching students how to tie-up, whip and burn their sexual partners.”
Political science major Anthony Draghi reacted to Kink 101 by saying that “offering these sorts of courses and openly talking about these activities can create a social stigma that undermines the most intimate aspect of a relationship and can help create an environment of social gratification that pushes people to revert to obscure measures for pleasure, ones they may feel unsure of later on.”
Apologists for this trend of oversexualization typically fall back on the idea that it is consensual and therefore is both harmless and not anyone else’s business. But the same people who would make the case that these matters are private affairs that don’t concern anyone else turn around and advocate for the normalization, public acceptance and even celebration of those same behaviors.
In The Daily Orange’s coverage of this most recent drag show, Ilsa Dohner, who goes by Dilf Dangerbottom, echoed the sentiment of flouting social norms. “I can be sexual, I can be funny, I can be goofy, and I don’t feel embarrassed about it,” Dohner said. “It’s like putting on a persona but also, Dilf Dangerbottom lets me be who I really want to be without thinking about what people think about it.”
The explicit goal, or at least the result, of this lewd behavior being accepted on masse is the dissolution of social standards, the annihilation of shame, and the normalization of all sexual activities as equally wonderful and productive. That may sound nice on paper but it’s simply not true and pretending like it is has dangerous ramifications. Overexposure to sex, in the form of pornography or hypersexual activity in general, has been correlated with the shrinkage of parts of the brain as well as decreasing decision-making skills and general restraint.
When it comes to BDSM, what qualifies as true consent isn’t all that obvious and the activity can often bond more aggressive brain functions to sexual ones. Psychiatrist Norman Doidge writes in his book “The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science” that the brain is subject to changes.
“The human libido is not a hardwired, invariable biological urge but can be curiously fickle, easily altered by our psychology and the history of our sexual encounters,” he wrote.
This is the real danger. These hypersexual and deviant behaviors do not only affect those involved with the behaviors because exposure alone can literally alter minds without consent. And the campus is becoming increasingly saturated with this activity. If this trend continues, no one should be surprised if SU never shakes off its status as both a party school and a hotspot for sexual misconduct.
At the moment, this is not the end of the world. There’s still time to avoid these consequences. There’s a way to deal with sex without making its very mention taboo, but this current trend is reactionary overkill. The fix is not to demonize sex, but it’s not to worship it either. The solution is really quite simple: to make intimacy intimate again.
John Parker is a freshman Writing and Rhetoric major. His column appears biweekly. He can be reached at [email protected].
Black History Month is celebrated annually throughout the month of February — and the campus community has a series of events, lectures and activities planned.
“These events provide an opportunity for the Carolina community to recognize the many contributions, the leadership and the advocacy, both past and present, of our Black students, faculty and staff,” Vice Provost for Equity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer Leah Cox said in a statement.
Here are some events happening around campus throughout February that are open to students and staff:
2022 Black History Month Lecture
On Feb. 9, Marcia Chatelain, a professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown University and author of “South Side Girls: Growing up in the Great Migration,” will give the University’s 2022 African American History Month Lecture. Chatelain’s work focuses on women’s and girls’ history and Black capitalism.
She is a 2021Pulitzer-Prize recipient in History, as well as a recipient of the Hagley Prize in Business History and the Organization of American Historians Lawrence W. Levine Award for Franchise.
Her lecture will be held via Zoom at 6:30 p.m. Access and registration information are available online.
Race and Memory at UNC with William Sturkey and Danita Mason-Hogans
On Feb. 18, UNC Associate History Professor in the Department of History William Sturkey and Civil Rights Historian Danita Mason-Hogans will discuss the history of race and memory at UNC from the founding days of the University to now.
The discussion will be held in the University Room of Hyde Hall at 2 p.m.
‘Blood Done Sign My Name’ live performance by Mike Wiley
On Feb. 27, the Friday Center for Continuing Education is welcoming actor and playwright Mike Wiley. He will perform from Timothy Tyson’s book, “Blood Done Sign My Name.”
“Blood Done Sign My Name” tells the story of the brutal 1970 murder of Henry “Dickie” Marrow, a Black man in Oxford, North Carolina who was chased from a local store by three white men and beaten and shot. Despite the eyewitness reports, an all-white jury acquitted the men.
Wiley’s performance is accompanied by Gospel Scholar and Singer Mary D. Williams.
The performance will take place from 3 p.m., followed by a thirty-minute Q&A session. Registration is requested prior to the event.
Black Student Movement’s collection of events
UNC’s BSM is hosting a collection of interactive Black History Month events throughout the month of February with different topics for each event. The events and resources range from a BSM-curated music playlist to conversations on radical Black love and dating at a primarily-white institution.
More details of each event can be found on BSM’s Twitter.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Day events that were canceled last month due to weather and COVID-19 have since been rescheduled. The MLK Memorial Banquet will take place on Feb. 20 at 6 p.m. via Zoom. The MLK Lecture and Awards Ceremony will take place on Feb. 22 at 6:30 p.m. in the Carolina Union Great Hall.
If your organization is hosting an event for Black History Month, please email university@dailytarheel.comto have information added to this article.
