Dwyer goes back in time to study the fall of the Greek empire

Angus Dwyer is "still a little perplexed as to why [we're] writing about [him]."

"I haven't really done anything all that noteworthy," he said, although others at the College disagree. For his senior thesis, Dwyer covered the abolition of the Greek System at the College, focusing on the period of time between the admission of women to the College in 1975 to the elimination of fraternities and the establishment of the "underground frats" in the late 1980s.

Dwyer wrote that, "The abolition of the fraternities is not the result of a single event or historical 'trend,' but rather the result of a number of small decisions and changes that enabled the faculty, which had been in favor of abolishing fraternities since WWII, to convince the Trustees, who had defended the fraternities in the past, that they had to go."

Working under the guidance of Professor of History and American Studies Kevin Sweeney, Dwyer interviewed a number of former fraternity members, administrators and professors. He credits his father, Robert Dwyer '69, a member of Psi U during his years at the College, with providing him with a "perspective on events from beforehand and an alumni perspective." In addition to this extensive interviewing process, Dwyer also spent a great deal of time researching in the Archives and Special Collections rooms.

While not a fraternity member himself, Dwyer became interested in the subject of fraternities at Amherst because he has many "fraternity connections," including his father, and many friends in various fraternities, DKE in particular. "Especially since coming to Amherst, I've gotten a lot of stories from [my father] about his fraternity days. Things are obviously very different today than they were in the late 1960s, and I wanted to try to figure out why and how. The abolition was obviously the key," Dwyer explained.

Along the way, most of the challenges Angus encountered were related to the unavailability of sources. "Early on I discovered that a lot of the sources I wanted to look into-specifically the minutes of the faculty meetings and Committee of Six meetings-were sealed. I was ultimately able to get permission from [Dean of the Faculty] Lisa Raskin to access those, with certain restrictions-I couldn't photocopy them, or attribute any quotes I took from them." Other sources, including minutes from Trustee meetings, were simply unavailable under any conditions. In addition, Dwyer had a string of bad luck contacting alumni-many of whom died shortly before he was able to get in touch with them. He cited G. Armour Craig '37, the acting president who had presided over the abolition of the fraternities and Tom H. Wyman '51, a Trustee on the ad hoc committee that recommended abolition, as individuals he would have loved to interview, had they still been alive. Ever the optimist, Angus said he "was able, however imperfectly, to work around not having access to these sources, but obviously it would have been better to speak to them."

Besides the countless hours spent researching and writing during his senior year, Dwyer worked for The Amherst Student as a news editor, sports editor and managing graphics editor. Describing the past four years, Dwyer said, "I was a history major, got good grades, had a good time in college. I'm a helluva flip-cup player, let me tell you."

Dwyer plans to matriculate at Yale Law School in the fall.

Appelbaum is passionate about sex and sea urchins

Jacob Appelbaum's thesis is intimidatingly scientific. In explaining his thesis in layperson's terms, he said, "Cells have different parts, exach surrounded by membranes-there is a lysosome which is like a stomach, and a nucleus which is like a brain. Cells traffic stuff between these parts by little lipid vesicles. It would be bad if you dumped a vesicle full of stomach acid into your brain, so cells have developed little addresses that tell each bubble where its supposed to go. It turns out this address is also responsible for the process of fusing the bubble with the membrane once it gets there. So I'm trying to find the proteins that are responsible for targeting vesicles to the nuclear membrane, and the fusion of those vesicles with the nuclear membrane once they get there."

In studying this phenomenon, Appelbaum observed the sexual activity of sea urchins. "Sex is all about nuclear membrane formation-When a sperm fertilizes an egg, the egg takes off the old nuclear envelope and puts on a new one. So, I guess, indirectly, my thesis is also about sex-but then everything in biology is."

Appelbaum worked under Professor of Biology Dominic Poccia. He also noted that Professor of Biology Patrick Williamson was infinitely helpful because he "can often be found after 1 a.m." Appelbaum explained that "sometimes after doing experiments for 10 hours, I got a little delirious, which means I asked him a lot of stupid questions. He definitely saved me more than once." Appelbaum also credited Robin Goldman '03 with helping tremendously in reading drafts of his thesis.

Appelbaum fell into the subject because "in the sciences, you mostly study whatever your thesis advisor studies. Everyone's interested in sex, but I had never thought of nuclear membrane formation before I started working."

Appelbaum ran into problems because sea urchins are out of season between April and November, which hindered his experimenting, but he managed to get all the information that he needed. Although, "one more experiment and an extra day would have been a God-send." Towards the end of the year, "things begin to pile up ... med school essays, job searches, final papers, sleeping, eating, all had to stop at some point."

Professor of Biology Carolyn Goutte helped him get a job in a lab at MIT with Bob Horvitz. "The year after I worked with him, he won the Nobel Prize, it was a brush with fame ... pretty cool."

Next year, Appelbaum will be researching causes and effects of differences in the health of American citizens and people abroad at the National Institute of Health, in Bethesda, Md. with the National Institute of Health Academy.

Smith climbs up and over the top

Over the past semester and a half, many College students have been delighted and bewildered by the tree climbing sculptures around campus. As it turns out, the 11 sculptural works comprise the senior project of fine arts major Todd Smith.

He describes his project as "a series of 11 sculptural works that attempt to give the point of view of someone who climbs (particularly trees) and to create the desire to climb." Todd has always enjoyed climbing tress and wanted to "share this unique aspect about myself with the viewer through art."

Most of Smith's sculptures were installed around campus. His "four main avenues of exploration [were] ... Controlling a point of view through the use of mirrors and periscopes, mapping a climb in a tree with such things as tape and rope, creating works that intended to spark images of general cultural experience relating to trees and childhood and creating the desire to climb by making such things as ropes and ladders unattainable or unusable." His project culminated with the installation of "The Gallery Treetop" in the Eli Marsh Gallery in Fayerweather Hall.

Assistant Professor of Fine Arts DeWitt Godfrey, who specializes in sculpture, advised Smith in his project. "I owe him a lot. He has influenced me immensely," said Smith of Godfrey. He also said that he was indebted to visiting artist Ann Messner, who "really helped to get my thesis started this year." He began some of the pieces that comprised his final project in Messner's Installation and Performance class. Smith credits Richard Scorpio, the art department's studio technician, with helping him "realize and construct [his] works," and his friends for "carr[ying] stuff from place to place or ... installing works around campus."

Smith received the Alpha Delta Phi Fund grant, designed to support independent work. He is greatful for the money and will use it to "pay his parents back."

Smith became interested in the sculptural outlet while in visiting artist Francis Cape's class in the spring of 2002. In discussing Minimalist works of art and people's perceptions of them, Smith came to realize that when he sees big sculptures "I always want to climb them and that when I walk around I'm always trying to figure out how to get on top of things." The class found the comment hysterical, especially because of the potential for sexual innuendo. The climbing element became integral to Todd's work. In the beginning he "strapped a VHS recorder to [his] head and shoulder, walked in a straight line and climbed over anything in my path, i.e. fences, trees, buildings, bleachers ... The point was to give to the viewer [his] point of view when climbing."

Smith encountered "countless problems" including squirrels and drunken students destroying his work. The worst, however, were the numerous time Amherst grounds crews threw away his installations calling them "safety hazards" and an "attractive nuisance." After meeting with Rick Mears, and members of Physical Plant, Smith reached an agreement that allowed him to keep his installations for limited periods of time with safety regulations in effect. Smith laments that "on a final sad note, after all the time coming to an understanding, the grounds crew ended up cutting down all my pieces again in order to get the campus ready for commencement."

As for the future, Smith explains that he "hasn't dealt with the fact that I am not a kid anymore, so [he] didn't do a job search so I am just going back home to Louisville, KY," where he hopes to get a job at a local gallery, and "once I get a paycheck, get the hell out of my parent's house."