Three stories about sports, broadly defined.

Kulia Wooddell, whose beat is about “green” practices, writes about students who dumpster dive for food on the Main Line.

Jordan Schilit, who beat is alt sports, writes about the storied tradition of cricket at Haverford College and the more recent — and less storied — games of  Quidditch at Bryn Mawr College.

A crew of Haverford students dumpster dive for food

By Kulia Wooddell

It’s 1 a.m. and Jaime’s Haverford College backpack lies partially unzipped on the ground, already full of dozens of day-old bagels.
“I think the rest is just trash,” she said from within the dumpster, her voice muffled by mounds of black garbage bags.
“Let’s get out of here before anyone gets curious,” Jamie added. “The last thing I want to do is explain that, ‘no, we’re not vagrants, we’re not penniless hobos, we’re students at Haverford College..”
The practice of sorting through discarded items that are intended for the landfill is called ‘dumpster diving’. A select number of Haverford students do it, but with a twist. They aren’t looking for old lamps or useable junk. They are hunting for food.
“Lots of people think it’s gross,” said Josh, a Haverford senior. “It’s the way I get all my bread-type food, though, like rolls, bagels, doughnuts.”
Jaime, a junior, estimates that she and her seven apartment-mates get 60 bagels from this dumpster per visit, and they stop by two or three times a month. (Her name and the other names reported here have been changed at the students’ request to assure their privacy.).
Jaime says that there are five or six dumpsters along Haverford’s Main Line that she frequents every few weeks, though not every late-night run is successful.
“That’s all part of the excitement-you never know if you’re going to go home empty-handed or if you’re going to score,” said Katie, Jamie’s roommate.

While there are dangers associated with dumpster diving — questionable legality and food safety being two of them — a number of Haverford students remain undaunted.
“You get free stuff, it’s environmentally responsible, and it’s fun-these things definitely outweigh the hazards,” Katie added.
While the majority of students will not go dumpster diving during their time at Haverford, the number that does participate is increasing. Interestingly, so is the number of Main Line stores taking measures to prevent diving.
“I think there are more Haverford students dumpster diving now, but only within select groups,” Katie said. “When I moved into the Haverford College Apartments last year everyone went diving, so I just went along with it. It’s funny because now I’m the one instigating these missions.” Continue reading →

Haverford College carries on the collegiate cricket tradition

By Jordan Schilit

Philadelphia is the capital for cricket in the United States. And Haverford College is the home of that tradition.
“Cricket is included in every bit of admissions literature,” said junior cricketer James Merriam. “It’s one of Haverford’s most unique traditions.”
The school is cricket’s American headquarters. The C. Christopher Morris Cricket Library, located in Magill Library, is the largest collection of cricket literature and memorabilia in the Western Hemisphere.
Haverford has maintained Cope Field’s picturesque home pitch for over 170 years. The “pitch” is a clay strip with wickets on the ends, located on a massive field of grass.
Cope Field is named after Henry Cope, who graduated from Haverford in 1869. He was one of the earliest varsity players for the school.
William Carvill, the landscaper for Haverford College, introduced the game to the school originally. Thirty years later, the first intercollegiate cricket match, between Haverford and the University of Pennsylvania, was played in 1864.
Haverford’s defeat over the University of Pennsylvania in 1864 started the third-oldest rivalry in intercollegiate sports, only behind Williams/Amherst baseball and Princeton/Rutgers soccer. That Haverford squad was the first cricket club made up entirely of American-born youth.
Cricket was a distinctive element in the social life of the Philadelphia area in the 19th century, since crowds of up to 20,000 would attend matches played at Haverford. At the time, attendance and media coverage were on par with baseball games. Continue reading →

The High Table Club carries on the Quidditch tradition

By Jordan Schilit

It started as an April Fools Day joke, but the Bryn Mawr College muggles just couldn’t stop playing.
For the past decade, Quidditch has soared across Bryn Mawr’s campus. “Doublestar,” the Science Fiction and Fantasy club, started its presence in the late 1990’s. “High Table” has continued the tradition.
High Table, led by junior Rebecca Rubin-Glanz and senior Beth Curtiss, now organizes Quidditch games for both the Fall and Spring Semesters. The club promotes a carefree, stress-relieving environment, known for using distinct table linens and table decorations for Sunday brunch.
The Quidditch games definitely don’t lack silliness. It’s hard to miss a group of students, with brooms between their legs and capes on their backs, running around on Merrian Green tossing Nerf balls towards golden hula-hoops. One team wears magenta for Gryffindor, and the other green for Slytherin.
The most recent match on Oct. 25 saw eight people. Meanwhile in Vermont, Middlebury College was hosting the annual Intercollegiate Quidditch Association (IQA) World Cup.
“We had no idea that they were playing today,” Curtiss said. “We typically don’t keep track of the other teams around the country.”
Quidditch squads from colleges and universities across the country have caught on to the game’s competitiveness, and many aspire to compete in the IQA World Cup – only 24 qualify. A total of 226 schools are part of the IQA.

Muggles welcome
YouTube videos and advertisements for muggle Quidditch depicts the sport as a competitive activity, best suited for varsity collegiate athletes. Even in Harry Potter the game is described as violent and dangerous. But that isn’t Bryn Mawr’s style. Continue reading →

Rachel Park, whose beat is fashion, discovers that cheap is the new chic in this recession.  She profiles two stores favored by those looking for bargains and fashion.

Clare Mullaney, whose beat is food, chronicles the success of Hope’s Cookies, a beloved Bryn Mawr institition.

Thrift stores are chic in this recession

By Rachel Park

Amid the plethora of flannel and faux fur coats, Emily McDowall found a black military jacket for $25.50. “It seems like a lot of money for this jacket,” she said, but upon further examination, she decided to buy it.
It was Saturday night, and McDowall, 20, was one of many young customers perusing through the second-hand clothing at Buffalo Exchange in Center City. Although many businesses are experiencing difficulty in the economic recession, thrift stores seem to be doing just fine.
In fact, Buffalo Exchange has witnessed a “bigger boom in sales,” said manager Matthew Williams, 25. Through this nation-wide company – 34 stores in 14 states, according to its Website – customers can exchange their clothing for credit. “A larger amount of people are shopping here in general, and a lot more people are trying to sell their clothing,” Williams said.
Valerie Lowry, sales associate at the store, said that she has noticed more college students in particular shopping at thrift stores. It could be because of the recession or the simple thrill of finding a bargain.
“This place is mostly for kids who can’t afford expensive clothes but want to look amazing,” said Lowry, 20.

The ‘cheap chic’ aesthetic

Bought at Buffalo Exchange

Mainstream fashion corporations have picked up on this aesthetic and have even spelled it out for consumers. For example, “Broke is the new black” was printed on an Urban Outfitters tank top. Black clothing has always been fashionable, as exhibited by the “little black dress” a.k.a. “LBD,” but one of the latest trends is distressed jeans.
“Broke is the new black” is a provocative phrase because it implies the irony of the recession: financial turmoil has provided creative fodder for fashion designers. In other words, looking “cheap chic” seems to be desirable. Continue reading →

How Hope’s Cookies captivates Bryn Mawr College

By Clare Mullaney

A sophomore at Bryn Mawr College confidently asserts that if a man were to show up at her dorm room with a box of Hope’s Cookies she would marry him.
That’s saying a lot for a Bryn Mawr woman.
Hope’s Cookies on the 1000 block on West Lancaster Avenue is a hot spot for college students. For Bryn Mawr, Hope’s has become an integral part of campus culture.
Not only do Bryn Mawr students make weekend trips to the small shop in Rosemont, but Hope’s Cookies are served and sold in various places on campus.
Tired of processed cookie dough like Toll House and Mrs. Fields, Hope Spivak of Bryn Mawr’s class of 1983 came up with the idea of Hope’s Cookies-a business that would make all natural, high quality cookie dough-during her senior year at Bryn Mawr while having lunch with a friend from Haverford College.

Hope's M&M Special

By 1986, Spivak said goodbye to her initial plans for medical school and opened up Hope’s Cookies in Wayne, which a year and a half later would move to Lancaster Avenue.
Hope’s 23 year-old business is still going strong.
According to a SurveyMonkey survey of Bryn Mawr students done for this story, Bryn Mawr students eat an average of two Hope’s Cookies each week.
Apply that to the entire student body and it means that they’re consuming 104,700 cookies every year and taking in over 3.5 million calories.

Packing on the pounds

This means that each Bryn Mawr student can gain six pounds every year from Hope’s Cookie’s alone.
For most Bryn Mawr students, the extra weight is worth it for that special taste of Hope’s.
Maybe it’s Hope’s Cookies’s use of 100 percent natural ingredients and no added artificial flavors or preservatives.
Or maybe it’s that Hope’s is 35 percent chocolate, unlike most cookie dough whose primary ingredient is flour or sugar.
For Sarah Nelson, a sophomore at Bryn Mawr, chocolate is definitely one of Hope’s Cookies’s distinguishing qualities. Continue reading →

Mara Miller, whose beat is the arts, writes about a new media installation at Haverford College.

Heather Taddonio, who is writing about science, reports on a new exhibition at Bryn Mawr about Charles Darwin.

A new exhibit offers a visual challenge

By Mara Miller

When you walk into the gallery, the first thing you notice is a loud grinding noise, like gears or heavy cogs. The room is dark, but a rotating projector flashes alternating images at four large screens. On one, a child’s birthday party, then more scenes from everyday life. On another, animated lines of text. Turn around, and you see what that sound is-no gears, but an image of a giant manual stamp, like they use at a library checkout, angrily punching out dates.

This sound and video installation, called Guarded, is the first in John Muse and Jeanne C. Finley’s three-part exhibition Imaginative Feats Literally Presented: Three Fables for Video Projection, which opened Friday at Haverford’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery. Muse, now an Associate Professor of Fine Arts,was Haverford’s Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow last year. Finley has collaborated with Muse since 1988.

The pieces have each been shown at festivals and galleries across the country since 2003, but this marks the first time they’ve been assembled together.

The new exhibition has already generated chatter around campus for its portrayal of the ways in which Americans participate in and deal with the war on terror and our presence in Iraq through picture, sound, and text. Haverford, with its politically engaged population and pacifist Quaker roots, proves a rich launching point for Muse and Finley’s work.

Stunning…and confusing

At the gallery’s opening, the room and surrounding halls overflowed with people eager to see what the much anticipated exhibit, advertised mysteriously with camouflage-themed posters, was all about. On the next day, about 30 curious viewers returned for a more intimate talk with the artists, moderated by Andrew Suggs, Executive Director of Philadelphia’s Vox Populi art gallery.

This was a valuable chance to make some sense of the stunning, but undoubtedly confusing, set of images and sounds on display.

The text from Guarded was culled from Red Cross pamphlets discussing what citizens should do in a disaster. Muse explained that one of the driving themes of the piece was political manipulation in times of vulnerability. “We look at how people’s ability to be caring can be exploited for political purposes,” he said.

He also pointed out the simple scenes being projected intermittently, like people going to work or getting married, and their relationship to the dates and words. He said, “It’s about the very idea that a calendar can make intelligible the things we’re sensitive to.” Continue reading →

The scholars who were Darwin’s ancestors

By Heather Taddonio

It’s the age-old story of a true adventurer: a man enraptured by the world around him who disobeyed his father’s wishes when he accepted an offer to sail around the world pursuing his hobby in the name of science. His name was Charles Darwin.
Darwin is one of the most famed names in the sciences, but what about the evolution of the theory of evolution? Bryn Mawr College’s Special Collections Department’s exhibit titled Darwin’s Ancestors: Tracing the Origins of the “Origin of Species” profiles some of Darwin’s most influential but often unsung predecessors of natural history.
Housed in Canaday Library’s elegant Rare Book Room, the exhibition features artwork, books, and text incorporating specimens from notable – but unknown — scientists including Joannes Jonstronus, Thomas Burnett, John Gould, Erasmus Darwin, and Charles Lyell. These predecessors “laid the groundwork for our modern understanding of the nature of life on earth,” according to the exhibit.

Charles Darwin

The exhibit, which opened on Oct. 22 and will run through Feb. 2010, was opened with a lecture titled “Disagreements Among Friends: How T.H. Morgan and E. B. Wilson’s Agreeing to Disagree Helped Establish Genetics and the Modern Synthesis” by Swarthmore biology professor Scott Gilbert.
Lost in the science-speak? Gilbert’s lecture hits close to home: Wilson and Morgan were Bryn Mawr’s two first biology professors and were prominent players in the 20th century evolution debates.

Darwin’s ancestors

Darwin’s Ancestors is curated by Director of Library Collections Eric Pumroy, art history graduate student Angelique Wille, and undergraduate medieval studies major Marybeth Matlack. The exhibit coincides with the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of his celebrated book On the Origin of Species. Continue reading →