The Performer
Cluchey is perhaps most visible on campus through his involvement with Mr. Gad’s House of Improv. He auditioned for Gad’s during his first year at the College, and immediately fell in with the group. “I got into doing that as a [first-year] kind of accidentally,” he explained. “A friend of mine who’s a year older convinced me to try out one day on a whim.” Over the years, as Gad’s makeup has changed, Cluchey has grown with the group, becoming its head this year. “They’re really fun to work with,” he said, “[they’re] a lot of really creative people.”
One such creative person is Zach Cherry ’10. “Cluchey and I met a while back while I was auditioning for Mr. Gad’s House of Improv and he was auditioning me,” Cherry said. “Once I got in the group, Dan immediately took me under his wing and taught me many new things.” Although the two got to know each other through comedy, Cherry’s friendship and respect for Cluchey are very serious. “Honestly,” Cherry said, “he is like a brother to me.”
In his junior year, Cluchey auditioned for and joined the a capella group, DQ. Music is his “big passion,” although, he added, “it never really occurred to me to join an a cappella group—it’s not the kind of music I do.” Cluchey described his personal style as “just kinda folk, guy-with-a-guitar sort of stuff.” He took up the guitar in seventh grade, and has been writing guitar music since ninth grade. “I love writing just for myself, not for any other purpose,” he said, “just as a hobby.”
Perhaps owing to his visibility in DQ and Gad’s, as well as his high profile as a scholar, Cluchey was selected as the class of 2008 speaker at the Commencement ceremony. He called the opportunity “wholly humbling” saying, “I make no apologies for how much I love Amherst and the people here—especially the senior class—and being selected to speak at Commencement is just about the nicest thing any group of 400 people has ever done for me. I can’t think of an honor I’d want more than that.”
Cluchey’s time with both Gad’s and DQ ended the last week of classes with the annual showdown between the two groups in Johnson Chapel.
“On the one hand, I’ve had a great experience with both groups and will be sad not to be able to joke around with Gad’s or sing with the DQ as often as I’ve been able in the past,” he said after his last performance. “Performing with Gad’s every week for almost four years has been a big part of my life here and something I’ve enjoyed immensely, and the opportunity to make music with some really talented singers for the past two years in DQ has been rewarding as well. Of course, I never have to go to another rehearsal again, so there is that to consider.”
According to his professors, Cluchey’s visible persona as an entertainer does not carry over into the classroom. Henry Steele Commager Professor of Russian Stanley Rabinowitz, who taught Cluchey in the course Strange Russian Writers—which Cluchey remembers as the best class he has taken at Amherst—recalled that Cluchey, while a perceptive student, was never overbearing in class. “For all of his intensity as a reader, for all of his sophistication as interpreter of the literature we’ve read, and for all of his perceptiveness as a writer, nothing comes across as particularly forced or in an obtrusive manner.” Rabinowitz claimed that “some people are showmen or subconsciously dramatic,” but academically, at least, he did not see this in Cluchey. “He’s a very natural person,” Rabinowitz said. “I think he’s so comfortable with his talent he doesn’t seem to need to make anything of it. We’ve always had a very natural, a very free-flowing kind of relationship,” he said.
Cluchey’s thesis advisor, Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science William Taubman, agreed with Rabinowitz. “In both my courses and in working on his thesis, Cluchey showed himself to be as calm and steady as he is smart and sharp,” he said. “I agree that he is anything but a showman in class, but he is a performer—in the best sense of the word—in print, in that he produces with seeming ease the sort of prose that most people have to labor over. In fact, I’m sure he works as hard as or harder than others, but he shows a stunning ability to keep his cool throughout the process of reading, reflecting, organizing his thoughts and setting them down.”
Both Taubman and Rabinowitz have seen only hints of Dan the performer. “I didn’t know until recently that he sang in DQ,” said Taubman. “That’s a side of him I’m curious to see,” Rabinowitz said. “I know he has a sense of humor, but the side of him—the performer’s side. I look forward to seeing him at graduation.”
The Politico
Cluchey’s senior thesis explored the life of Boris Yeltsin and his role in the fall of the Soviet Union. “It was great to work with [Professor Taubman] on it,” Cluchey said. “He’s a Pulitzer Prize winner—it was great to have him help me through it.”
Cluchey’s senior thesis addressed not only the history of Yeltsin’s life, but also the effects of Yeltsin’s psychological profile on the historical period of the end of the USSR and the early years of the Russian Federation. “The psychobiography is just a component of the thesis,” he said. “It was an effort to gain insight into this political figure—to see what was unique about him that allowed him to exert the influence over history that he did. He was an eccentric in a society that did not reward eccentricity.”
Cluchey described himself as a political junkie since before his Amherst days. “I worked on a lot of campaigns in high school and I watched a lot of ‘The West Wing,’” he said. “I knew before I came here that I wanted to be a political science major. I think I took three [political science] courses the first semester of my freshman year. I was hell-bent on it.”
Cluchey’s political allegiance is anything but a secret on campus. Even before the primary process began in earnest, Cluchey and Jake McGuire ’07 founded a group of Obama supporters at the College. “[Obama] was very much still—not under the radar—but not in the position that he is now,” Cluchey said. “When Obama burst onto the national scene, we had it in place on campus.” Last summer, Cluchey’s work supporting Obama paid off. “I was lucky enough to get an internship after making a connection at a county meeting.” As the process continued, Cluchey managed to stay active in the campaign even after Massachusetts’ Super Tuesday primary. He helped organize a series of phone banks to call voters in key primary states. “We’d get like 60 volunteers, about half Amherst [College] students, the rest from [the town of] Amherst or Belchertown. I’m still rooting for him, though there’s less I can do in Massachusetts now.”
Giving Back
For all his success as an entertainer and a scholar, and his work supporting Obama’s campaign, Cluchey’s proudest memories can be attributed to his membership in Chi Psi. “The people that I’ve gotten to know there and the community service work there has been great,” he said. “It has given me a chance to serve the community in ways I never would have come to on my own. As a rule, we don’t talk specifically about which service projects are fraternity-related, but over the years I’ve been able to help set up Christmas parties for underprivileged children in Holyoke, do some work at a battered women’s shelter in Greenfield and help organize relief efforts in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami a couple years back, among many other efforts. These are things I’m proud of my fraternity for and things I probably would not have been motivated to work on by myself,” he said.
“Of course, while community service is a major emphasis of our organization, it has been only a part of what I love about this group of people,” he said. “All I will say to that end is that my biggest frustration with Amherst—and I have loved just about every moment and every experience I’ve had here—is that I know in my heart of hearts that fraternities would not receive the bad press and incite the negative feelings in some folks that they invariably do if people knew about all the wonderful things that brothers at Amherst do for the school in a variety of capacities. Unfortunately, misunderstandings and speculations will always arise when it comes to fraternities: they are the twin offspring of secrecy and discretion.”
Cluchey’s advice to underclassmen and incoming freshmen illuminates the depth of his character. “Try to meet as many interesting people as you possibly can,” he said. “Step outside the circles you first fall into. Try things that you wouldn’t expect to like. I feel like I really limited myself. I was really close to my friends in Pratt. I spent senior year trying to meet different people because I had spent so much time in my own little block.” Cluchey cited among his few regrets about his time Amherst “that there are a number of people on campus who I am incredibly impressed by, but whom I have not had the chance to meet or get to know well. It’s difficult, in a campus this chock full of talented folks, to make a connection with everyone, but at the very least, I probably could have done a better job of meeting more people in my first couple of years on campus.”
Next fall, Cluchey will attend law school at either Harvard or Columbia. “More realistically,” he pointed out, “it’s a choice between Boston and New York.” Cluchey expects to study environmental law. Cluchey credits his youth as an inspiration to work for the environment. “Growing up in [Cape Elizabeth] Maine, we went hiking a lot. I was living near the ocean, surrounded by a lot of trees.” Cluchey remembers having Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax” read to him a lot as a child. “I have no real interest in corporate law or anything concerning semantics,” he said. “I’m trying to retain some sense of soul. I’m looking to make a difference in that area and I figured I’d go into the legal system and see what I can do from that point of view.”