New Loeb Exhibit In Today's Times

The New York Times had this to say about the new exhibit at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center.

"If you asked a group of artists and curators to think of a New York cultural institution with the oldest, most comprehensive collection of watercolors and drawings focused on the New York region, there are many, no doubt, who would say the Metropolitan Museum of Art or even the New York Public Library. But the correct answer is the New-York Historical Society, whose remarkable holdings of more than 8,500 watercolors and drawings has been tapped for a show at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center to celebrate the quadricentennial of the discovery of the Hudson River.

"In conjunction with the New-York Historical Society, the Lehman Loeb has done an excellent job with the educational material, producing detailed wall labels for every work and a printed guide to the artworks in each room. For art scholars, there is also a 500-page catalog documenting a portion of the society’s vast collection."

Click here for the full article.

Tonight...

9pm in the Residential Quad.

In other ViCE news, their new website is up and running. Check out viceisnice.org.

In Case You Missed It

Welcome back, upperclassmen! In case you didn't get on Mads very much this summer, here are some of the bigger posts that you may have missed...

Vassar Creates Robot To Take Over World
Mads Goes To Bonnaroo
Professors Write About Michael Jackson's Influence
Local Man Protests Our School
Naps Returns, But With New Name And Taste
Vassar Apparel Featured In GQ
It's Official: Baldwin No Longer 24 Hours
Obama Nominates Grad For Finance Position
New '50s Themed Cafe Near Campus
Your First Look Inside The New Davison
Atrium Will Not Be Open This Year
ViCE Presents Clipse And Yes Giantess

And finally, on Thursday afternoon we broke the story that the main library will be reducing its hours of operation. At first the VSA said this wasn't true, but we received confirmation from Dean Kitzinger that it was. The VSA has since acknowledged that the library will indeed close at midnight, and the library has updated its website with the new hours listed.

Dean Kitzinger Confirms Library Hours

It's official - as we first posted yesterday, the library will be closing at midnight. This was first confirmed exclusively to Mads by the library staff and Dean Kitzinger, and now has further been confirmed by VSA insiders.

The new hours are also now listed on the library website.

Rachel Kitzinger, the Dean of Planning and Academic Affairs who oversees the library, confirmed that both the circulation desk and most of the library will be closing at midnight Monday-Thursday.

The reduced hours may only be temporary. "We will try it out for a semester, with extended hours in certain crunch times, and then we will revisit the decision," Dean Kitzinger tells Mads.

Although representatives from the VSA at first said that the library would remain open past midnight, they now have acknowledged that they were previously misinformed and this will no longer be the case. Meanwhile, the VSA is working to set up a 24-hour study space outside of the library.

Main Library Is Reducing Hours

We've just received confirmation that the Main Library will be closing at midnight Sunday-Thursday this semester instead of 1:30am.

The official announcement has yet to come and the library website has has not yet been updated.

This is one in a series of reductions being made on campus. It was previously announced that Baldwin will be cutting its hours and the Atrium will not open this school year at all.

Update: Click here or see the above post for an update on the library situation.

ViCE Film Presents "Jaws" Outdoors

ViCE Film League has just announced their first screening of the year, which will be an outdoor screening of Jaws on a huge screen in the residential quad on Monday.

This Monday, 9pm in the quad.

First Look At New Art Library

Here is an exclusive first look at the renovated Art Library, which will be officially opening on Monday.

More ViCE News From After Hours

While Clipse and Yes Giantess will be concluding ViCE's Back to School Week, ViCE After Hours will be kicking things off on Sunday with a concert featuring Kristen Tivey '12, The Myra Flynn Band, and Matt Santry.

This Sunday, 2-5pm in the Aula (no longer the quad).

Sponsored by ViCE After-Hours, ViCE Special Events, Lathrop, Joss, Strong, Noyes, Jewett, and Raymond.

Quote Of The Day

“He was a legislative giant, in a different league than his brothers were... [It's] not just because of the Kennedy name; it's where he stands out.”

-Political Science professor Richard Born on the death of Ted Kennedy in today's Poughkeepsie Journal.

ViCE Presents Clipse And Yes Giantess

ViCE has confirmed exclusively to MadsVassar that hip hop duo Clipse will be headlining ViCE's Back to School Week Show on September 4th. Neon Gold Records' Yes Giantess will be opening.

This concert is taking the place of ViCE's annual Serenading show, as Serenading is the following day. The Clipse/Yes Giantess show will culminate a week of ViCE events, including After Hours and NoViCE shows, as well as an outdoor Film League screening of Jaws on Monday.

Clipse formed in 1992 and has been working with Pharrell and the Neptunes ever since. Their latest album, Till the Casket Drops, comes out in October, which features production by Timbaland, Sean "Diddy" Combs, Kanye West, Rick Rubin, and others.

Check back for more details and coverage as the event gets closer.

Welcome Class Of 2013

The Class of 2013 moved in today! Welcome!

Click here for the full list of Orientation events.

Shiva Rave Fall '09 Announced

@ShivaRave confirmed on Twitter that this fall's annual Shiva Rave will be on September 5th. Check back for more details!

Photo via VT.

Atrium Will Not Be Open This Year

In an all-campus email sent earlier today about dining changes, Maureen King of Campus Dining announced that the Atrium will not be open this school year. The Atrium is located in Walker Field House.

"Due to low participation and high cost, the Atrium will not operate in 2009-10. Alternative uses for the Atrium space will be under consideration," she writes.

The other noteworthy change to campus dining announced in the email is that guest meals for ACDC will increase from 10 to 25 and will now be called "flex meals."

Photo via Vassar Admissions.

Vassar Employee Wins Fulbright Grant

Congratulations to Meg Stewart from CIS on receiving a Fulbright scholar grant a few days ago. She will be going to teach and do research at the University of the West Indies in Barbados this school year. According to the Poughkeepsie Journal, Meg will be "looking at sustainable use of marine resources and making this geospatial information available online in Google Earth and a Web map. She will also teach a geographic information system class."

Click here to see what the Poughkeepsie Journal had to say about Meg's achievement.

What We're Loving In Summer '09

As summer winds down, we're taking a look back at all the songs, clips, and places we've loved this season. We've combined our usual "What We're Listening To" and "What We're Watching" into one comprehensive list of everything that made Summer '09 so fine.

What We're Listening To
Passion Pit. When we first heard the former Neon Gold Records band open for Broken Social Scene almost a year ago, we weren't blown away. But once we saw them at Bonnaroo back in June, we realized that their album Manners is the perfect summer soundtrack. Listen to: "Moth Swings," "Little Secrets," "Sleepyhead."

Passion Pit is playing shows with Phoenix (another summer favorite) in Central Park on September 25th and 26th. Unfortunately the $35 tickets are sold out and now are only available through scalpers for much more money.

What We're Watching
Jackson 5ive. We can't get enough of this cartoon from the '70s featuring the voices and music of Michael and his brothers. Although some might think the show is too dated, we see it as a perfect relic from Michael's early career.


Where We're Going
Dumpster pools. Mads was lucky enough to get an invitation to the exclusive "dumpster pools" in Brooklyn that have been getting hype on countless design blogs and even The New York Times. The location is a secret, but we can tell you that it consists of three industrial-size dumpsters with a deck built around them, a bocce ball court, and about a dozen reclining beach chairs. Don't worry - the dumpsters were sanded down and lined with tarp and are completely fine to swim in.

Alyssa Returns To Project Runway!

Alyssa Aparicio '11 returned to the catwalk on tonight's special Project Runway: All Stars. The episode aired directly before the premiere of Season 6 on Lifetime.

Alyssa previously modeled for Wesley Nault in Season 5. She modeled for Season 3's Uli Herzner in tonight's special episode.

Photo via Lifetime.

U.S. News & World Report Rankings Are In...

For the third year in a row, the U.S. News & World Report ranks Vassar at #11 on its list of top liberal arts colleges.

Click here to check out the full list.

“Such lists mislead the public into thinking that the complexities of American higher education can be reduced to one number,” Cappy and several other top liberal arts school presidents declared back in September 2007. Cappy also wrote this article for The Christian Science Monitor in July 2007 on the subject.

Your First Look... Inside The New Davison!

Last October we brought you an exclusive look inside the Davison construction project. Now as summer residents begin to move in, we've got your first look at the finished dorm. Here are the photos...
Each room is a little different and range from smaller to quite large (both doubles and singles). Rooms either have a closet or a long rack inset to the wall. All rooms come with a really comfy chair, overhead light, door holder to prop it open, wall-length heater, and door number w/ whiteboard. The room also get a whole lot of natural light.

Every floor has a study that is equipped with sink, counter, and sunken windows. No couches or tables yet.

Lots of natural light and similar in style to the remodeled Joss bathrooms. Green-handled dual-function flushes on the toilets, giant handicapped shower, slick gray and black surfaces.


A big thanks to Paul Noonan '10 for the photos and descriptions. Check back for updates!

The Latest On Davison's Opening

With only eight days until students begin moving in, it is unclear whether Davison is completely ready. The construction fence surrounding the building was removed a few days ago and now landscaping is being done, according to various students who are on campus this summer.


Some, however, still doubt that the dorm will be ready to accept freshmen next week. One anonymous reader who got a glimpse of the inside of the dorm tells us it looks "really unfinished." A representative for Res Life, on the other hand, tells Mads that the dorm will "definitely be open this semester."

The west side of Joss is also still under construction and remains surrounded by fences and scaffolding. It is unknown if this project will be completed before next week's move-in.

Update: We're told that summer residents did in fact move into Davison, although some of the building remains under construction. Continue to check back for details.

Update 2: We've got photos and descriptions of the inside! Check them out here.

ViCE Jazz Launches New Website

ViCE Jazz has been hard at work over the summer on a new website that has information about upcoming shows, a blog run by the committee chair, photos, videos, publicity posters, and more.

This makes Jazz the second ViCE committee to have its own individual site, along with NoViCE.

Click here to check it out.

Mads Goes Global '09 Edition

It's always fun for us to see where in the world Mads is being read during the summer. According to SiteMeter, Mads is currently read in 46 different countries, which is 4 more than last summer's list. Thanks for reading!

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, India, Italy, Ireland, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Mexico, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam.

Pete Seeger To Perform On Campus

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center just announced that legendary folk singer Pete Seeger will be performing at Vassar on October 10th. The performance will accompany the Drawn by New York: Six Centuries of Watercolors and Drawings at the New-York Historical Society exhibit on display at the gallery.

Seeger has been involved in many big events lately, including performing at the Presidential Inauguration celebration in January. He was then honored with an all-star 90th birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden in March.

Seeger was last spotted on the Vassar campus in February 2008 at an event for fellow singer/activist Theodore Bikel.

Vassar Moves Up On Forbes List

Forbes Magazine has just released its annual list of top colleges and universities. Vassar came in at #19. We are one of only three New York schools in the top 25, along with West Point (#1) and Columbia University (#13).

Forbes' list is different because it takes into account things like average student debt upon graduation, post-graduation success and ratemyprofessors.com evaluations.

We moved up twelve spots from our #31 position last year.

New '50s-Themed Cafe Near Campus

A reader just let us know about All Shook Up, a new smoothie bar/cafe that opened on Monday on the corner of Raymond and Lagrange. In addition to smoothies, the menu will soon include salads, sandwiches, paninis, and more. The inside is '50s-themed and has a vintage diner feel.

We haven't heard a review of the food yet, but it looks great from the pictures!

By Word Of Mouth

We hear that seniors can only use water this year at Serenading instead of the usual ketchup, chocolate sauce, marshmallows, hot sauce, etc. This is unconfirmed, although a representative for Campus Activities tells Mads that the office "is weighing all of the concerns regarding Serenading brought to us by faculty, staff, and students about all facets of the program in order to make it a safe and fun event."

This decision probably came after concerns over wasting food, as well as creating too much of a mess inside and outside of the dorms for the cleaning staff.

Serenading is scheduled for Saturday, September 5th.

NY Post Sings Vassar Band's Praises

A writer for the New York Post might be one of Escort's biggest fans, calling them "the city's best live band." Escort formed after Dan Balis and Eugene Cho '98 met at Vassar. "[A]n Escort show isn't hot only because it's rare," says the article. "It's hot because the band is the most exciting dance machine New York's produced in a while."


Balis, Cho and their bandmates (including Jon Natchez of Beirut) will be playing the Prospect Park Band Shell on Thursday in Brooklyn.

Click here for the article and here to hear Escort's music.