The Campus

Sydney Emerson

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor

Sydney Emerson is a member of the class of 2023. She is from Bradford, Pennsylvania and is an English major with a history minor.

All content by Sydney Emerson
The only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom really is the amount of press coverage

‘The only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom really is the amount of press coverage’

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor April 28, 2023
At the end of this article, the end of my reign of terror over page 4 of The Campus, that is how I want to be remembered. Not as a chainsmoker at a typewriter, not as an intrepid girl reporter, not as overworked, but as somebody who did their best. I tried.

Gators broadcaster goes pro for Spring Training in Arizona

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor April 14, 2023

Some sports fans only ever dream of calling a game for their favorite team. For Kyle Chandler, ’24, it became reality in March when he ran the public announcement system for a spring training game in...

Slayer’s scheme or guest’s graffiti?

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor April 14, 2023

“Abe Lincoln departed this life August 13th, 1864 by the effects of poison” — or so a certain Meadville hotel guest may have hoped. The graffiti was found shortly after John Wilkes Booth stayed at...

The end of the English major is just the tip of the iceberg

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor April 7, 2023

A few weeks ago, an article by Nathan Heller in The New Yorker chronicled “the end of the English major,” examining the trend of shrinking English departments nationwide and the cultural factors that...

Declaration Day: faculty weigh in on why their majors matter

Declaration Day: faculty weigh in on why their majors matter

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor March 24, 2023
Declaration Day is Friday, March 24, 12 to 3 p.m. in Pelletier Library.

ASG hosts Dearden for FS updates

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor February 17, 2023

Despite the middle of the semester looming on the horizon, new beginnings dominated the discussion at the general assembly of Allegheny Student Government on Tuesday, Feb. 14. The meeting began with a...

Beware the BuzzFeed quiz-ification of our lives

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor February 17, 2023
Gen Z is credited with busting the binary wide open, shaking up and occasionally eliminating altogether the stiff rules of gendered and sexual expression. But from my view at the eye of the storm, I’m doubtful.

What we will all gain from reading slowly in 2023

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor February 10, 2023
Allegheny prides itself on being a rigorous campus. But we have to think about how we define rigor.
Paying attention

‘Paying’ attention

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor February 3, 2023
Almost everybody today laments the loss of their ability to focus deeply.

Community fundraises for alum’s cancer treatment

Mariia Hlyten and Sydney Emerson January 27, 2023

Allegheny College and Meadville community members banded together for an afternoon of song and dance in the Vukovich Center’s Gladys Mullenix Black Theater on Sunday, Jan. 22 to raise money and show...

Caflisch Hall, erected in 1929 is one of the oldest and most energy consumptive dorms on campus. It, along with Allegheny Hall, will not be open for residents during the 2023-24 academic year.

[Photo] Two dorms offline next academic year

Hassan Javed, News Editor January 27, 2023

Caflisch Hall, erected in 1929 is one of the oldest and most energy consumptive dorms on campus. It, along with Allegheny Hall, will not be open for residents during the 2023-24 academic year.

Condon benefit shows us the real ‘Allegheny advantage’

Sydney Emerson, Senior Opinion Editor January 27, 2023

I have never met Allen Condon. I suspect few current students have, despite sharing many of the same professors, classes and Allegheny experiences as him — after all, he didn’t graduate from here that...

Sarah Santicola, ’26, faces Bethany College’s Sophie Morey in the opening tip-off of Wednesday night hoops.

[Photo] Women’s basketball heats up with playoffs around corner

Kyle Chandler, Sports Editor January 20, 2023

Branygan Bianchin, ’24, dribbles across the timeline looking to set up a play for her teammates.

Nobody is ‘like the other girls’ and that’s okay

Sydney Emerson, Senior Opinion Editor January 20, 2023
I can’t help but feel that my understanding of gender — much like the rest of society's — is deeply, confusingly, irrevocably tangled with the gendered roles dictated by the patriarchy

It IS a phase, Mom!

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor December 9, 2022
What’s so wrong with phases that we can’t look them in the eye?

YA? Why not?

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor November 18, 2022
The more snooty readers among us think that complex ideas can only be presented in complex packages, that anything worth reading must make the reader feel a certain level of page-by-page agony. This, of course, is utter nonsense.

How grading creates an alternate reality

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor November 11, 2022
The American system of education forces students to suspend their disbelief and pretend that what they’re doing day in and day out matters to their futures beyond the GPA that will ostensibly get them into college.
Tightened standards are the antithesis of education

Tightened standards are the antithesis of education

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor November 4, 2022
Our culture, especially our educational culture, engages in an intense cycle of sadism and masochism that rewards burnout and self-punishment. It equates being overworked to genius. This won't do. This center cannot hold.
Athens Democracy Forum: Opinion editor reflects on international conference

Athens Democracy Forum: Opinion editor reflects on international conference

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor October 14, 2022
I do not believe that any single person at the Forum would declare themselves as representative of an entire larger demographic. In the eyes of those who assemble an event like ADF, though, The Youth are an intellectual and cultural monolith with our smartphones and slang.

Scholarships are socialist

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor October 14, 2022
At their core, these opportunities are a pact: you do your part in some way, through work, study or both, and we will make sure that your needs are met. Free from certain burdens of modern adult life — namely financial — you will have the opportunity to grow and explore as a person.
Interim President Ron Cole, 87, speaks with students during a public session in the Campus Center lobby on Thursday, Sept. 22.

With President Cole, we can recover

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor September 23, 2022
This is a plea to my fellow students, disguised as the obligatory “we’ve got a new president” opinion piece. Give President Cole a chance.

A successful summer is more than just internships

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor September 9, 2022
What did I do over the summer? I worked. I don’t know how to tell people this.

Growth mindset is unhealthy

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor September 2, 2022

You can be anything you want to be. Good vibes only. Think lovely thoughts. Fake it ‘til you make it. Radiate positivity. You can always do better. Online platforms abound with catchy mantras designed...

It is a uniquely terrible feeling to watch your own autonomy be taken away by your government

“It is a uniquely terrible feeling to watch your own autonomy be taken away by your government”

Sydney Emerson, Opinion Editor June 25, 2022

I’m going to surgically implant a kangaroo tail onto your lower back. I hear your protests. They are a natural response to this news. You are understandably frightened at the prospect of suddenly having...

Ford Chapel has been the center of religious life on campus for over 100 years.

‘Meeting This Moment’

Sydney Emerson, Features Editor May 12, 2022

For almost 200 years, Allegheny has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Now, with fractures in the church and the Allegheny community’s approach toward religion, the college will play host...

Allegheny is stuck in ‘the Sad Gap’

Sydney Emerson, Features Editor May 9, 2022

Allow me to paint you a picture. Tell me if it sounds familiar. You are reading the news or Twitter or Facebook or this week’s edition of The Campus. Everywhere you look, every new Tweet or article or...

The student attitude toward Meadville represents a larger problem

Sydney Emerson, Features Editor April 29, 2022

For most of my life, my only goal was to get out of rural Pennsylvania. Like most students, I thought that this part of the world was stifling, oppressive and unbelievably small. I am from Bradford, PA,...

Visiting Professor of English Graham Barnhart, ’07, listens as Professor of English Matthew Ferrence discusses his writing process at the Single Voice Reading on April 14 in the Tillotson Room in the Tippie Alumni Center at Cochran Hall.

Single Voice returns with Ferrence and Barnhart, ’07

Sydney Emerson, Features Editor April 21, 2022

Irish author James Joyce once wrote, “Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives.” Previous lives were the specter that haunted the Single Voice...

Mediocre masterpieces

Sydney Emerson, Features Editor April 21, 2022

“National Treasure” is a masterpiece. “Clue” is, too. I love “Night at the Museum” and “The Proposal” just as much as I love “Citizen Kane,” “Goodfellas” and “Dr. Strangelove.” Movies...

On the benefits of writing and running poorly

Sydney Emerson, Features Editor April 15, 2022

In this day and age, hustle culture is the false idol we worship. We pay tribute by working overtime and searching for our next big break, hungry for fame and fortune. We convince ourselves that it is...

When will it end?

Sydney Emerson, Staff Writer April 7, 2022

There’s been another one, and this time, it’s in our own backyard. A shooter opened fire at Erie High School on Tuesday morning, injuring one student before fleeing. Less than an hour later, the...

Cringe culture comes at the cost of our humanity

Sydney Emerson, Staff Writer March 3, 2022

There’s nothing like the internet to bring out the worst in people. I’m pretty oblivious when it comes to online trends, seeing as how I generally try to avoid social media at all costs, but I’m...

“Ban the Bible, too”

Sydney Emerson, Staff Writer February 24, 2022

I am disturbed by the filth that Americans are reading, and you should be, too. Take, for example, a story in which two daughters live alone with their widowed father. They make a pact to get him drunk...

Gen Z’s imitations of life: aesthetics, self and Pinterest

Sydney Emerson, Staff Writer January 27, 2022

The existential despair began when I went down a “dark academia” rabbit hole. For the unenlightened, dark academia is just one of the plentiful strict aesthetics that abound on the Gen Z internet....

The Allegheny Penny Dreadfuls

The Allegheny Penny Dreadfuls

Sydney Emerson, Features Writer October 28, 2021

After being practically shuttered from college activity for almost two years, Oddfellows Hall sits as an enigma at the top of North Main Street. The building, which always had a mysterious and imposing...

Social media is destroying lives

Sydney Emerson, Features writer October 22, 2021

In episode two of The Wall Street Journal’s investigative podcast “The Facebook Files,” it was reported that, written in bold on an internal research report from Facebook, was the phrase “We make...

Photo source: Wikipedia 
Edward Rulloff, also known as James Nelson, is pictured here. Ruloff taught at Allegheny briefly under a psuedonym. Ruloff killed his wife and young daughters in 1844, prior to teaching at Allegheny.

Allegheny’s murderous professor

Sydney Emerson, Features Writer October 14, 2021

In 1858, an English philologist named James Nelson arrived in Meadville with the hopes of earning a professorship at Allegheny College. He was a skilled teacher who knew Latin, Greek, German, French and...

Photo contributed by Merrick Archives.
The Mephistopheles society poses on the Rustic Bridge. This photo was published in the 1911 Kaldron, one year before the club seemingly disappeared from campus.

Mephistopheles Society: a secret society of the early 1900s

Sydney Emerson, Features Writer October 8, 2021

A cloak-and-dagger literary society that congregates over a special symbol on a bridge seems like a story straight out of “Dead Poets Society” — surely not anything that could ever happen on a small,...

Via: Merrick Archives Digital Images Collection
Hulings Hall, as seen here in 1881, was constructed in 1871 as the first residence hall for women on campus.

The Allegheny Penny Dreadfuls

Mo Mansour and Sydney Emerson October 1, 2021

Between the old buildings and even older traditions, Allegheny’s long history has generated its fair share of myths and legends. There are the classics — the likes of William McKinley’s infamous...

Lindsay Henry, owner of Yoga Spot Meadville, leads a class in the newly opened studio at 252 Chestnut Street.

Yoga Spot brings mindfulness to Meadville community

Sydney Emerson, Features Writer September 24, 2021

Opening a boutique yoga studio may seem like a risk in rural Pennsylvania, but to Lindsay Henry, owner of Meadville’s newly-opened Yoga Spot, it was a no-brainer. The tight-knit nature of a small town,...

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