Myles-Zhang
2018-04-20T21:11:07.642Z
Updated Friday, April 27 at 10:00 a.m.
2016-09-20T13:51:58Z
The Manhattan grid system is many things. It is the cause of dreaded wind tunnels in winter, the impressive result of meticulous urban planning, a godsend for first-time tourists fumbling their way around New York City's hectic streets.
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2015-03-09T17:00:02Z
Columbia football's search for a new defensive coordinator has ended, as the program announced Thursday evening that Chris Rippon will take the job.
Rippon comes to Columbia after three seasons at Marshall University, where he served as defensive coordinator and linebackers coach.
"Chris's background fits well with our team philosophy," head coach Pete Mangurian said in a statement. "He is committed to making this transition easy for our players, which is very easy to say and hard to do."
Though it will be his first stint in the Ivy League, Rippon has a long history of coaching in college football. He started off as a graduate assistant at his alma mater, Western Connecticut State in the early '80s, before being named defensive coordinator in 1984. He was promoted to head coach there in 1987—a job he kept for three years before becoming defensive coordinator at Boston University.
From there, Rippon had a long stint at Syracuse from 1993 to 2005, serving in a variety of roles—linebackers coach, defensive ends coach, special teams coordinator, and defensive coordinator—before moving on to become special teams and defensive backs coach at Ole Miss in 2005. He stayed for three seasons, before moving on to Rutgers to become its special teams coordinator for the 2008 season.
Rippon replaces Kevin Lempa, who accepted the defensive backs coach position at Boston College early this month. During Lempa's one season as coordinator, the defense improved from last to fourth in the Ancient Eight in total defense, surrendering 373.5 yards per game in the 2012 season. The secondary and passing defense, in particular, significantly improved, giving up 221.9 yards through the air after surrendering 249.6 in 2011.
"It was inevitable that he would get a better opportunity. It was just a matter of when," Mangurian wrote of Lempa on his blog Feb. 12. "I wanted two years, but it was Boston College that came looking, a place that Kevin had been twice before, and a place that was closer to his family."
Mangurian also wrote in a post on Thursday that the defensive calls will remain the same under Rippon, so as to keep the players using the same language.
"Chris will not only fit in, but will reinforce our message to the players," Mangurian wrote. "We will accept nothing but our best from each other, and every decision will be based upon what is best for the team."
myles.simmons@columbiaspectator.com | @MSmmns210
... Rippon comes to Columbia after three seasons at Marshall University, where he served as defensive coordinator and linebackers coach.
"Chris's background fits well with our team philosophy," head coach Pete Mangurian said in a statement. "He is committed to making this transition easy for our players, which is very easy to say and hard to do."
Though it will be his first stint in the Ivy League, Rippon has a long history of coaching in college football. He started off as a graduate assistant at his alma mater, Western Connecticut State in the early '80s, before being named defensive coordinator in 1984. He was promoted to head coach there in 1987—a job he kept for three years before becoming defensive coordinator at Boston University.
From there, Rippon had a long stint at Syracuse from 1993 to 2005, serving in a variety of roles—linebackers coach, defensive ends coach, special teams coordinator, and defensive coordinator—before moving on to become special teams and defensive backs coach at Ole Miss in 2005. He stayed for three seasons, before moving on to Rutgers to become its special teams coordinator for the 2008 season.
Rippon replaces Kevin Lempa, who accepted the defensive backs coach position at Boston College early this month. During Lempa's one season as coordinator, the defense improved from last to fourth in the Ancient Eight in total defense, surrendering 373.5 yards per game in the 2012 season. The secondary and passing defense, in particular, significantly improved, giving up 221.9 yards through the air after surrendering 249.6 in 2011.
"It was inevitable that he would get a better opportunity. It was just a matter of when," Mangurian wrote of Lempa on his blog Feb. 12. "I wanted two years, but it was Boston College that came looking, a place that Kevin had been twice before, and a place that was closer to his family."
Mangurian also wrote in a post on Thursday that the defensive calls will remain the same under Rippon, so as to keep the players using the same language.
"Chris will not only fit in, but will reinforce our message to the players," Mangurian wrote. "We will accept nothing but our best from each other, and every decision will be based upon what is best for the team."
myles.simmons@columbiaspectator.com | @MSmmns210
2014-10-20T16:40:02Z
This story is part of our 2013 Baseball Supplement. You can find all of its stories here. It happens every year. The snow melts, the temperatures rise, and the sun starts shining once again. Yes, it's time for baseball. As the 2013 season begins for the Light Blue, the players are confident. They know they have a chance to compete at a high level in the Ivy League. And they can't wait to get going. "I think we're in a great spot this year," senior right fielder Nick Ferraresi said. "I'm looking forward to finally getting on the field. It's been a long February—we're just really excited to get out there." With competition set to begin this weekend against Lamar University in Texas, the Lions are ready to see a different color in the other dugout and continue its run as one of the most successful Columbia teams. Though the Lions finished third in the Lou Gehrig division last season going 12-8 in Ivy play, the team actually owned the fourth-best record and second-most overall wins in the league with 21. But Columbia graduated many key contributors after the 2012 season, including leadoff hitter Jon Eisen and staff ace Pat Lowery. And with the Seattle Mariners drafting left fielder Dario Pizzano in June, the Lions have some significant holes to fill. Head coach Brett Boretti said he thinks this year's team is up to the task. "I think there's a good group of guys leadership-wise," he said. "I think our senior class is a really good senior class, as far as guys who have experience, guys who have very strong leadership qualities and have been there and done that." KEEP ON HITTING Eisen was an offensive catalyst for the Light Blue, often batting at the top of the order, and totaled 198 hits over the course of his Columbia career—third all-time. Pizzano left Columbia tied for the all-time lead in career home runs with 25, as well as second in slugging percentage at .647 and fourth in doubles at 43. "I think that it's really going to be a collective effort, as far as who's improved in order to make up for Dario graduating," Boretti said. "There's no one person that's going to step in and be able to do what maybe he would have done if he was here. But I think it can be made up between maybe three or four guys stepping up and producing." Losing the star has proved to be the catalyst for an important psychological shift for the current players. "I think for some of those guys, it's, Hey, this wasn't just the Dario Pizzano show,' too," Boretti added. "Which is good—they have something to prove." At least two of those players will be Ferraresi and fellow senior Alex Black. Combined last year, the pair had 84 hits, 25 doubles, six home runs, and 50 RBI in 250 at-bats. "I'm not looking for them to do anything more than what they've done," Boretti said. "This will be their fourth year, and they have the experience and you want them to continue to take on the burden." "I think we're ready for it," Black said on being an offensive leader with Ferraresi. "We were the four-five hitters last year, so it's nothing new. We're still playing baseball." CONSISTENT PITCHING One positive note for the Lions is that they will enter the season with three-fourths of last season's starting rotation intact with Tim Giel, David Speer, and Stefan Olson. Still, the subtraction of Lowery is a significant loss. Before being drafted by the Los Angeles Angels in June, Lowery spent multiple seasons as the Lions' ace. He amassed a career record of 10-16 with a 3.56 ERA, and 147 strikeouts in 192.1 innings. And Boretti, now entering his eighth season with the Lions, has been around long enough to have seen transition before. "We've lost our No. 1 to graduation before, but we do have the pieces in place—again, experience-wise—with Giel, Speer, Olson coming back," he said. After a stellar summer in 2012, Giel is already emerging as the staff ace. The senior was named an all-star in the Cape Cod Baseball League and finished the season 1-1 with a 2.79 ERA in 10 relief appearances and one start. He struck out 25 batters in 29 innings. And now, Baseball America has picked Giel for its projected Ivy Pitcher of the Year. The combination of Giel, Speer, and Olson should make for a strong rotation. Last season, the three combined for 10 wins and 112 strikeouts in 151 innings of work. With Olson starting the season on the shelf due to a lingering hamstring injury, Boretti will have more opportunities to see who can fill out that fourth spot. Juniors Joey Gandolfo and Joey Donino will fill out the top four, for now, with sophomore David Spinosa also getting a look as well, Boretti said. He added that freshmen Thomas Crispi and Adam Cline would also get opportunities after impressing in camp. As for the back end of the bullpen, Black will also be taking his talents to the mound in addition to being the starting first baseman. "Al will be our closer," Boretti said. "It's really the first time here that he's been healthy throwing as much as he's been throwing." "I'm very excited to be back on the mound. Threw a couple of innings over the summer and worked out all fall on the mound," Black said. "I'm excited to come off first base or third base and come in and fill in some games." STRONG COMPETITION As the team heads to warmer climates to play for the first few weeks of its season, the Lions will face off against some of the nation's top programs. Lamar has a Hall of Fame coach in Jim Gilligan and had three pitchers throw complete games of 100 pitches last weekend. The Lions will then take on defending national champion University of Arizona next weekend, before facing University of Central Florida and University of Miami during spring break. "We try to play the best schedule in the league that we can," Boretti said. "But we feel we're capable of playing at a high level, and for us it's about challenging ourselves and going and playing the best, and playing in some tough environments. If we play well, you give yourself a shot to win." But when the Lions return and begin Ivy play at the end of March, they'll look to be a confident team heading for success. Though the team had its share of close losses last season, the senior leaders are confident the team can leave the past behind. "Games being decided by a few runs, that's baseball—especially in the Ivy League," Ferraresi said. "So it's just those close games—really bearing down, getting it done when you need to. I think we've got the squad to do it this year." "I think we tried to do too much," Black said of last year's performances. "When we got down, our whole team got down. So I think we have a better attitude this year. And with our leadership, I think we're doing a great job in just keeping everyone up." "I'm more confident in this year's team than any team I've played with," the senior added. "Our practices have never looked better. We look good. We look really good." myles.simmons@columbiaspectator.com | @MSmmns210 This story is part of our 2013 Baseball Supplement. You can find all of its stories here.
... 2014-08-25T13:00:03Z
To the Editor:
Lanbo Zhang's article (West versus west, Feb. 7, 2013), which critiqued the way students encountered and discussed the concept, "the West," was problematic, offensive, and thus begs a response. Throughout his entire article, whether intended or not, Zhang essentially claims that the Global Core and similar spaces where students are asked to deconstruct "the West" are anti-intellectual, uncritical, and unscholarly. He writes that in those spaces, "the Western mentality" is "bastardized and unfairly depicted" and that class conversation "devolves into an indictment of Western civilization's most cherished values." These points are of great concern to me not just because they're ridiculous and extreme, but because they reflect a larger institutional problema reactionary response from students and faculty to academic disciplines and scholars that require students to rethink their most cherished beliefs, including—but not limited to—"the West" and its relationship to the Third World.
This dismissive response has resulted historically in the underfunding or dismantling of academic fields of study, the denial of tenure, or even the denial of Ph.D.s for certain scholars. I suggest Zhang read the work of professor Paul Zeleza for a thorough discussion of how these dismissive responses explain why African studies is not given its due respect. I would also suggest he read about the experiences of Senegalese scholar Cheikh Anta Diop who was actually denied a Ph.D. from a university for his attempts at encouraging a solid deconstruction of "the West." Zhang's response, and others like it, reflect an unwarranted fear and encourage an academic setting in which it is considered wrong to require students to rethink their dearly held beliefs regarding "the West."
Zhang engages in the very same game of caricature he claims he derides. He begins his piece by mentioning the Global Core, then moves on to his experiences from Asian humanities (which is still too general) to make his point—but then indicts Global Core as a whole. This is unfair. It treats his experiences in this narrow subset of classes (within a large field) as exemplary of intellectual practice in the Core more generally.
He doesn't demonstrate even a cursory understanding of the history, function, and content of certain classes considered part of Global Core. His claim that we "desire to compare and contrast the Western with the non-Western" is false and misses the point of classes such as professor Mahmood Mamdani's Major Debates in the Study of Africa. There, the framework of comparison is precisely what is rejected in his class on the grounds that it sets up one society or one way of being as "normal" and another as not. Moreover, the notion that class conversation "devolves into an indictment of ... cherished" values from the West grossly misrepresents the nature of class conversations. In the class, I am specifically asked: If there is solid evidence that science, mathematics, monotheism, philosophy, agriculture, and writing, existed in places like Northeast Africa and Southwest Asia long before they were present in regions we now call "the West," how can they be termed "Western values"? This is a perfectly legitimate question to pose to students in an effort to get them to rethink the concept.
Kambi Gathesha, GS '14
... Lanbo Zhang's article (West versus west, Feb. 7, 2013), which critiqued the way students encountered and discussed the concept, "the West," was problematic, offensive, and thus begs a response. Throughout his entire article, whether intended or not, Zhang essentially claims that the Global Core and similar spaces where students are asked to deconstruct "the West" are anti-intellectual, uncritical, and unscholarly. He writes that in those spaces, "the Western mentality" is "bastardized and unfairly depicted" and that class conversation "devolves into an indictment of Western civilization's most cherished values." These points are of great concern to me not just because they're ridiculous and extreme, but because they reflect a larger institutional problema reactionary response from students and faculty to academic disciplines and scholars that require students to rethink their most cherished beliefs, including—but not limited to—"the West" and its relationship to the Third World.
This dismissive response has resulted historically in the underfunding or dismantling of academic fields of study, the denial of tenure, or even the denial of Ph.D.s for certain scholars. I suggest Zhang read the work of professor Paul Zeleza for a thorough discussion of how these dismissive responses explain why African studies is not given its due respect. I would also suggest he read about the experiences of Senegalese scholar Cheikh Anta Diop who was actually denied a Ph.D. from a university for his attempts at encouraging a solid deconstruction of "the West." Zhang's response, and others like it, reflect an unwarranted fear and encourage an academic setting in which it is considered wrong to require students to rethink their dearly held beliefs regarding "the West."
Zhang engages in the very same game of caricature he claims he derides. He begins his piece by mentioning the Global Core, then moves on to his experiences from Asian humanities (which is still too general) to make his point—but then indicts Global Core as a whole. This is unfair. It treats his experiences in this narrow subset of classes (within a large field) as exemplary of intellectual practice in the Core more generally.
He doesn't demonstrate even a cursory understanding of the history, function, and content of certain classes considered part of Global Core. His claim that we "desire to compare and contrast the Western with the non-Western" is false and misses the point of classes such as professor Mahmood Mamdani's Major Debates in the Study of Africa. There, the framework of comparison is precisely what is rejected in his class on the grounds that it sets up one society or one way of being as "normal" and another as not. Moreover, the notion that class conversation "devolves into an indictment of ... cherished" values from the West grossly misrepresents the nature of class conversations. In the class, I am specifically asked: If there is solid evidence that science, mathematics, monotheism, philosophy, agriculture, and writing, existed in places like Northeast Africa and Southwest Asia long before they were present in regions we now call "the West," how can they be termed "Western values"? This is a perfectly legitimate question to pose to students in an effort to get them to rethink the concept.
Kambi Gathesha, GS '14
2014-08-24T13:34:56Z
Yesterday, I wrote about the international media's interest in Jim Yong Kim, Dartmouth College president and Obama's nominee for World Bank president. Today, I want to comment on Jeffrey Sachs' unconventionally public campaign for the World Bank presidency. Just to recap:
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