Rebecca Buckleystein

Division III
''This article is part of a Climax Div III Issue. By Josh Schneider, Arts &amp; Entertainment Editor.''

Rebecca Buckleystein describes her Div III, Embodiment of Story: An Artistic Exploration of Stories of Trauma and Birth Stories as Formative Agents of Identity, Power, and Metamorphosis, as “a project exploring bodies, stories, violence, power, change, voice, silence, motion, stillness, birth, space, memory, kindness, etc. Through the process of Div III I’ve tried to explore the relationships between hardship and re-emergence—what it means to be a site of oppression and how to digest that oppression in a way that creates power.”

A child of Long Island, Buckleystein’s earliest ideas of Hampshire are from a somewhat forgotten and underrated SNL classic sketch, “Jarret’s Room.” The sketch stars Jimmy Fallon as a white dude with dreads hosting a webshow from his dorm room (which, by the way, is about ten times the size of an actual Hampshire dorm). Jarret and his friends played by Horatio Sanz and occasional guest hosts depict a typical yet not un-funny Hampshire cliché of pot-smoking hippies goofing off around the clock. “At the chipper age of 16 I thought to myself, I’ve got to go there!” Says Buckleystein, “little did I know that I actually had to do work?! Talk about false advertising.”

Buckleystein’s favorite memories revolve around her friends and loved ones. “I think my favorite memories are all the dance parties I’ve had with friends…meeting my partner Sasha Bush, and finding a great group of friends who are as viciously satirical as I am.”

“I also really like dorm rooms, I have lots of memories of seven or eight people trying to squeeze together in single dorm rooms to hang out because there was no common space…whoever chose to build dorm rooms the size of a shoe-box was really smart…it provides an immediate feeling of closeness between any two people in one room.”

Buckleystein advises matriculating Hampshire students to chill out. “[Don’t] stress too much, I spent so much time stressing and I regret all that, especially now as I am about to enter into the world during the middle of an economic recession with a circular diploma, a 0.00 gPA, and 0.00 credits…it seems silly to stress for a bunch of zeros and circles.”

Activism
Spring 2007 - signer for Feminist United Collective hampedia.org/wiki/Feminist_United_Collective

student organizer for Civil Liberties and Public Policy's Reproductive Rights Conference clpp.hampshire.edu/

volunteer at Safe Passage Domestic Violence Shelter, Northampton MA safepass.org/

Fall 2007 through Spring 2008

Americorps Member with Appalachian MentorCorps in Athens, Ohio

Based at Sojourners Foster Care Network www.sojournerscare.net/home.htm

Fall 2008 -     signer for Third Wave (formerly Feminist United Collective)

co-organized benefit concert for MANNA soup kitchen

volunteer at Safe Passage Domestic Violence Shelter, Northampton MA

publicity campaign at Hampshire College for Mayor Higgin's Hot Cholocate Benefit Race www.hotchocolaterun.com/

Organized the Hampshire team for Northampton's Shelter Sunday northamptonsheltersunday.org

Spring 2009- signer for The Laughter Club hampedia.org/wiki/The_Laughter_Club

volunteer at Safe Passage Domestic Violence Shelter, Northampton MA