The Observer, Volume LIV, Issue 7, 10/7/22

Cleveland residents hold protests against the Iranian Government

CWRU administration has yet to release a statement condemning the Iranian Regime’s brutality

Sara Khorshidi Director of Print

On the afternoon of Saturday Oct. 1, residents of Cleveland joined those around the world protesting the Iranian Regime’s brutality towards women and their subsequent crackdown on those calling for reform. Over 200 people peacefully gathered in Public Square to show their support for the Iranian people, with many holding signs that said “Woman, Life, Freedom” and “No to Islamic Republic.” Protestors par ticipated in shouting many anti-regime chants, and several women publicly cut their hair in demonstration of their soli darity.

Several individuals affiliated with Case Western Reserve University— who wished to be referred to as Alex, Ben and Cameron—were in attendance.

“The main words [being chanted] were ‘death to the dictator,’” said Alex.

“We wanted to show that we are sup porting the people in Iran, as opposed to what the supreme leader mentioned: that we [Iranians internationally] are betrayers to the country, and we are paid to do that,” Ben added. Iran’s su preme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, publicly addressed the protests for the first time at the beginning of the week, blaming the United States, Israel and other foreign powers for inciting the “rioting.”

On Sept. 13, a 22-year-old KurdishIranian woman named Mahsa Amini was arrested and detained by Iran’s mo rality police for not wearing the com pulsory hijab in accordance with gov ernment standards. Two hours after her arrest, her family was informed that she had suffered a heart attack and a seizure and was hospitalized in Tehran, where she later slipped into a coma. A picture of Amini in the hospital, unconscious and intubated, was posted, causing an uproar online. Amini succumbed to her injuries and died on Sept. 16.

According to the government, Ami ni’s cause of death was due to a sudden “heart problem” caused by a history

of heart disease and a previous opera tion on her brain. However, the Amini family states that she had no such prior health conditions. In addition, the gov ernment was caught attempting to forge documents stating that Amini had heart problems prior to her arrest. On Sept.

21, the news outlet Iran International obtained CT scans of Amini’s brain, clearly depicting that she had endured a severe skull fracture, hemorrhages and edema prior to her death.

Just hours after she passed, crowds had already begun to form outside the hospital where she was held, and the slew of protests and demonstrations have only grown from there. At least 80 protests, spread throughout all 31 prov inces of Iran, have erupted as a result of

Amini’s death, along with many more worldwide. Many of these protests in clude anti-regime chants, women pub licly cutting their hair, women burning their hijabs in the street and protestors attacking symbols and structures of the state. With a vast history of violence, the Iranian police have taken to shoot ing automatic rifles to break up protests.

At least 92 protestors have been killed since the beginning of these demonstra tions. Videos have been posted across social media depicting instances of hu man rights violations committed by the Iranian police, with many instances of brutality documented against protes tors. Violent military blowback is es pecially strong in the Kordestan prov ince and the northeast of Iraq—regions

where Amini and many other Iranian Kurds originate—with reports of Irani an drones bombing these regions in the days following the start of these upris ings. Internet and telecommunications services have been severely disrupted all over the country, including a neartotal internet blackout in Kordestan, all in an effort to prevent the spread of fur ther protests.

This is far from the first large-scale protest to come out of Iran, but most of these protests do not have the universal appeal that this one does. This is a rare occasion in which the majority of Irani ans are unanimous in their disdain for the regime.

Continued on pg. 6

The Night Link: CWRU’s new nighttime shuttle

Zachary Tressler Staff Writer

When students returned to Case Western Reserve University and in stalled the new Spartan Ride app, many noticed the “Evening North” shuttle was no longer on the shuttle tracker. It has disappeared, along with the “Evening South,” a shuttle that ran from Fribley Commons into the Cov entry and Cedar Fairmount neighbor hoods. Instead, the “Night Link” route appeared.

Undergraduate Student Government (USG) President Ananya Hari said that the Night Link is part of USG’s plan to “make the shuttles more reliable” with “increased allocations to transportation systems made last year.”

Not a lot was known about the Night Link when it first appeared on the Spar tan Ride app. The bus route follows the path of the daytime GreenLink—affec

tionately known as the Greenie—with stops at Fribley Commons, One to One Fitness Center, the Cleveland Mu seum of Art, Mather House, the North Residential Village Starbucks, Clarke Tower/STJ and the Ugly Statue. These stops occur at the same tall green bus stops of the daytime GreenLink, mak ing them easy to locate.

“The plan was to have one stop in the [Case] Quad and one in the Mather Quad and all the residential stops,” Hari said. This means that the Night Link does not have as many stops in the academic areas as the normal GreenLink, though it has more stops in residential areas.

The need for the Night Link came out of the unreliability of the KSL Express. “The KSL Express [is] inef fective. We wanted an effective way

to transport students at night,” Hari elaborated.

The new Night Link is continu ously running, rather than waiting at each stop for students to board—a problem of the KSL Express. Often, to the chagrin of students waiting at Kelvin Smith Library (KSL), the KSL Express buses will not move from Ju niper or Murray Hill Road until a stu dent boards the bus, leading to a mas sive wait time for students waiting at KSL or at the other end of the line. In contrast, the Night Link is meant to be a reliable alternative for students who live and work across campus. Students do not have to rely on the whims of a peer getting on a bus for their shuttle’s schedule. “This hopefully reduces the load on the Safe Rides and makes them have shorter waits,” Hari explained.

For the time being, members of the CWRU community have two choic es—either the KSL Express or the Night Link—to get them to and from either end of campus. The Night Link has two buses running on it, with one loop taking between 26 to 28 minutes. The KSL Express, in comparison, is scheduled to arrive every 12 to 17 min utes.

The Night Link is one in a bevy of changes made to the shuttle system at CWRU. For example, all shuttles now have QR codes which allow riders to deliver real-time feedback to SP Plus (Standard Parking), the shuttle opera tors on campus. In addition, the capac ity of each bus is noted on the Spartan Ride app. Students can also call or text a new phone number, 216-368-6604, with their complaints about the system.

On Oct. 1, a large crowd holding signs with anti-regime slogans gathered in Public Square to protest the violence of the Iranian government. Courtesy of News 5 Cleveland

Founder’s Note: Celebrating the Class of 1972’s 50th Anniversary and the founding of The Observer

What CWRU meant to me

By PAUL KERSON, FOUNDER

The beyond-extraordinary education I received as an undergraduate at Case Western Reserve University between 1968 to 1972 meant the world to me, and ultimately to the world itself.

I am usually a very modest fellow, un able and unwilling to toot his own horn, but the passage of half a century calls for an explanation, and The Observer is the right place to tell it, as I am a co-founder of it. This newspaper shaped me as much as I shaped it.

The Observer still reflects my person ality, even more than 50 years after my classmates and I founded it with a spe cific purpose in mind in 1969. Reading it today I can see that it is insightful, irrev erent and truthful—just as we started it.

Background

When I left my native New York City for freshman year at CWRU in Septem ber 1968, my late father, Dr. Jerome Kerson, gave me his most prized pos session: his World War II U.S. Army Air Corps flight jacket, military green with a large brown fur collar to keep the body warm in the unheated military airplanes

of the time. (In World War II, the U.S. Air Force had not yet been created, and the Air Corps was part of the Army.)

It had a somewhat faded U.S. Army insignia on the shoulder. I asked him why he wanted me to have it, but he would not say. All during the 17 years I had grown up in his house, my father would never speak of his wartime expe riences, except once, when he told me, “You know, when I was not much older than you, I operated on men who had no faces.”

I knew the basic facts of his U.S. Army Air Corps service. He had not flown at all. He was a student at the New York University College of Dentistry when World War II commenced. The Army drafted the students, the faculty and the building all at once. The Army operated the school on double-time and overtime, as the students were transformed into dental surgeons as fast as they could be sent to military hospitals. My father was assigned to Tinker Field in Oklahoma, treating the severely wounded.

What you need to know about CWRU’s history

A tale of two universities

By SHREYAS BANERJEE, EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Case Western Reserve University is an institution that tends to always look forward toward the future. We are al ways growing and focusing on new endeavors, new research initiatives and new modes of education. This is a good thing—universities should be places of change and be constantly evolving. However, this does not mean that we cannot look back on the history of our institution because much of it informs our present and determines to some ex tent what identity we all have as a uni versity. There is much to learn from the stories of those who came before us and there is also much to be proud of. It also helps that CWRU’s history is endlessly fascinating. Unlike most universities, we are not one thing, but rather a con glomeration of many things and many identities. To celebrate this Homecom ing weekend, we here at The Observer have compiled a brief history of CWRU following much research perusing the archives, reading books and talking to our university archivists and historians. Through this endeavor, we hope that both students and alumni will be able to learn and gain an appreciation for the essentials of their university’s history.

We may have the clunkiest name of any university in the United States, but it’s for a good reason. In 1967 Case

Western Reserve University was formed following the union of Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve Uni versity, and the federation brought to gether both of the universities’ histories and values in an uneasy union. Both institutions had long histories and had been linked together almost since the beginning.

Our university’s story began in 1826 when the Western Reserve College was founded in the village of Hudson, Ohio following the work of the town’s found er, David Hudson, to bring a university to the area. Hudson is 30 miles south east of Cleveland and though looking back you would think that it makes more sense to locate the university in a bigger city from the beginning, it was a pragmatic decision. In the 1820s, Hudson wasn’t too much smaller than Cleveland, with both having popula tions just in the hundreds. It was not certain that Cleveland would become the metropolis it is today. Additionally, with most of Ohio’s population more concentrated in the southern and central areas of the state, Hudson allowed for greater proximity to more potential stu dents. There was also the matter of pro tecting the students of Western Reserve from the unsavory sorts that would fre quent the lake port of Cleveland, such as

foul-mouthed sailors who might corrupt the minds of the youth. Western Reserve was largely modeled on Yale University, from the architecture to the curriculum. The first teacher, Ephraim Sturtevant, was a Yale alumnus and taught all 23 students that made up the first class of Western Reserve.

Hudson, and consequently Western Reserve, was also a hotbed of anti-slav ery sentiments. Hudson was a stop on the Underground Railroad, with many people involved in Western Reserve College being active in the operation of it. This included David Hudson and Owen Brown, who was also the father of John Brown—the leader of the 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry to free slaves by force. There was much debate at the time over whether those in the town and the college should be colonizationists, who advocated for returning emanci pated slaves and free Black Americans in Africa, or abolitionists, who believed in the peaceful coexistence between races post-emancipation. Some of this debate played out between professors and students through letters and edito rials in the 1830s Hudson newspaper, The Observer and Telegraph—the paper that we, The Observer, are named after. Most of Hudson and Western Reserve were originally colonizationists, but

things started to change when Western Reserve’s first president, Rev. Charles Storrs, was converted to abolitionism after a student at the college gave him a copy of William Lloyd Garrison’s influential abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. This conversion led to much controversy and conflict between Storrs and the board of trustees of Western Re serve, and the debate continued for de cades, though the town and college was united in disgust of slavery. Famed abo litionist and former slave Fredrick Dou glass gave the annual commencement address at Western Reserve College in 1854 and spoke on the necessity of considering all races to be truly equal, punctuating just how big of a center of anti-slavery we were at the time. West ern Reserve College graduated John Sykes Fayette, its first Black student, in 1836, far earlier than many other peer institutions. Western Reserve founded its medical school in 1843 in Cleveland, Ohio, foreshadowing the future move of the entire institution. Between 1852 and 1856, the medical school graduated six of the first seven women to ever receive a medical degree from a U.S. institu tion, though soon after women would soon again be banned for a time.

Continued on pg. 4 John Fleshin (1st Observer photographer), Doug Smock and Paul Kerson, two of the five Observer founders (left to right) Courtesy of Paul Kerson

HISTORY continued from 2

When the Civil War finally began in the United States in the 1860s, Western Reserve mobilized, with the college forming a company of students who joined the Union army, led and trained by physics professor Charles A. Young and philosophy instructor Carroll Cut ler, who acted as captain and lieuten ant of the company, respectively. Cut ler would later become the president of Western Reserve in 1871. In his inaugural speech, he announced that Western Reserve would admit female students immediately and treat them equally to the male students, much to the surprise of the college’s faculty and trustees. Under his tenure, Western Reserve College moved to Cleveland thanks to the financial support of Ama sa Stone, a railroad industrialist. The move occurred in 1882, with Stone’s gift happening under the condition that the school is renamed to the Adelbert College of Western Reserve Univer sity. Adelbert was Stone’s son who had tragically died in a drowning accident during his time at Yale at the age of 21. The College for Women at West ern Reserve would later be named after Stone’s daughter, Flora Stone Mather, literally making it brother and sister institutions. Amasa Stone would take his own life in 1883 in his mansion on Euclid Ave.

At the same time, Leonard Case Jr., the son of a local politician and real estate investor, resided in his family property in downtown Cleveland. He and his friends often met there and were avid naturalists. During their meetings they discussed the geology, plant and animal life of northeast Ohio and showed off their respective collec tions of flora and fauna, almost like a geeky club. They named their building the Ark and referred to themselves as Arkites, after Noah’s biblical ark. It was out of this interest in the natural sciences that Case was inspired to cre ate an institution of scientific learning, and he started secretly assembling real estate in downtown Cleveland, along with funds needed to start a new uni versity. Upon his death in 1880, the trust was revealed and the Case School of Applied Science was founded. Soon thereafter, Case moved from down town to the neighborhood that would become University Circle, right next to Western Reserve University, thanks to Amasa Stone’s financial gift. It has been theorized that Stone’s gift of ad ditional land for the Case School to move next to Western Reserve was a move to overshadow Case, as they had both clashed in earlier years. Since then, the two institutions have been ir revocably linked.

Soon after their respective moves, collaboration between the two univer sities in some form or another soon took place. Famously, Western Re serve faculty member Edward W. Mor ley and Case faculty member Albert A. Michelson worked together in 1887 on an experiment to determine the speed of light passing through different me diums. Though it was considered a failure at the time, the data from the experiment was later used to inform Einstein’s theory of relativity in 1905, making it one of the most important physics experiments of all time. The two scientists worked together in Mor ley’s laboratory in Adelbert College. Part of this collaboration may have come about after the Case Main Build ing was destroyed in a fire in 1886,

leading to Michelson coming to Mor ley’s facilities in Adelbert at Western Reserve. Funnily enough, the Adelbert Main Building would be destroyed in a fire a century later in 1991.

Though there was collaboration be tween the two universities, there was also a deep rivalry, as indicated by a lit eral fence that split the campus between Western Reserve on the north side and the Case School on the south side. The two competed in everything from dating, to clubs, to football. Games between the two teams, the Case Pio neers—later the Rough Riders—and the Western Reserve Red Cats would often draw crowds in the thousands, with the teams being forced to use stadiums in downtown Cleveland that were also used by professional sports teams such as the Indians. The two schools called each other “poets,” af ter Western Reserve’s association with the humanities, and “plumbers,” after Case’s predominance of engineering education. Western Reserve beat Case 40 times over the years, compared to Case’s 19 victories.

At the same time, the universities greatly expanded, corresponding with the rise of the city of Cleveland. Un der President Charles Thwing’s ten ure, which stretched 31 years between 1890 and 1921, Western Reserve ex panded greatly, seeing the creation of schools of library science, social work, law, dentistry, pharmacy, education and graduate studies. Thwing was also a founding member of the organiza tion that would become the NAACP, indicating that the progressive streak of the institution still remained. The Case School would make a move to offer doctorate degrees in 1929 under President William Wickenden, who was also extremely influential in re defining engineering education across the U.S. He was also among the first to encourage the two universities to join together someday. The universi ties briefly collaborated in 1925 to form the Cleveland College, a down town center of higher learning which provided part-time education for adult students, akin to a community college. However, Case would drop out of the association in 1926, leading to the Col lege to be solely associated with West ern Reserve University.

Growth across both universities slowed during the Great Depression but rebounded following World War II and the G.I. Bill. In the 1940s, the Cleveland College actually saw higher enrollment than the rest of Western Re serve University, though that changed in the ‘50s, leading to the college being moved to University Circle and even tually reincorporated into Western Re serve. Meanwhile the Case School of Applied Science renamed themselves to the Case Institute of Technology in 1947 and admitted their first under graduate class of women during the war under a temporary policy, though this was reversed once combat ended. Case wouldn’t start admitting women under regular undergraduate admission until 1960, under Kent Hale Smith, the acting president at the time.

It was around this time that the fed eration between the two universities started coming together. Though the two were still strongly competitive between each other, they had started making changes to meld together slowly over time, including sharing a common academic calendar, cross-

registration between the two universi ties, shared facilities and cooperative academic programs. The final push came when the two universities each applied for a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), an agen cy of the U.S. government that sup ports scientific research and educa tion. The NSF was unwilling to give grants to both universities as they were so closely intertwined, thereby en couraging the two to merge. The two presidents at the time, John Millis of Western Reserve and Robert Morse of the Case Institute, pushed for the en deavor, with Millis saying that “We’ve been going together for about 19 years; we’ve been sleeping together for about five years—and it’s about time we got married.”

The federation occurred in 1967 quickly and suddenly, though it would take many more years for the two uni versities to completely become one in stitution, with much controversy. The two continued to play football games against each other until 1970 due to pre-existing agreements with their athletic conference, leading to CWRU students parading the sidelines with signs that read “If We Win We Lose, If We Lose We Win!” Eventually the two football teams merged and the new team selected the “Spartans” as their new team name—jokingly said to be a reference to the university’s “spartan” practice facilities. It was a shock for students, one almost tantamount to if Ohio State University and the Univer sity of Michigan suddenly decided to become one institution. Though The Observer was formed in 1969 with staff from both The Reserve Tribute and The Case Tech newspapers, The Case Tech refused to shut down opera tions for a number of years. Students continued to be divided between Case and Western Reserve for decades—the residence halls did not become fully integrated between the two schools until the 1990s.

The university would face a num ber of financial challenges over the decades, due in part to the decrease in admissions after the Baby Boom of the ‘50s and ‘60s fell off and alumni stopped giving as much financial sup port following the federation. The con flict between the legacies of the two universities would come to a head in 2003 when CWRU famously tried to rebrand to simply “Case,” under the di rection of President Edward Hundert, a newcomer to the university. This move led to massive backlash from West ern Reserve alumni and a steep fall in financial gifts. Hundert also had a controversial and secretive leadership style, along with a “Vision Plan” that seemed unrealistic considering the fi nancial situation of the university. In 2006, the Faculty of Arts and Scienc es held a vote of no confidence in his leadership, leading to his subsequent resignation.

CWRU remained financially weak until the presidency of Barbara Sny der, the first female president of the university. She spearheaded the 2011 “Forward Thinking” campaign, which raised $1.82 billion dollars for the uni versity. Under her tenure, the neigh borhood surrounding CWRU saw im mense change with the development of “Uptown,” which brought new build ings, shops and restaurants to the area. Snyder left the university in 2020, with Eric Kaler now being the president of the university. The university has con tinued to grow and change.

The story of CWRU is still being written. As an institution, we have continued to wrestle over our identity through the years and will probably continue to do so. What aspects we take from Western Reserve and what aspects we take from Case has been a continual debate. As we look forward, we must understand that both institu tions are our legacy. It is up to us to determine what we keep and what we make of our future.

Editorial cartoon in The Plain Dealer on Jan. 6, 1966, anticipating the consolidation of the Case Institute of Technology and the Western Reserve University Courtesy of Edward Kuekes/The Plain Dealer

FOUNDER’S NOTE continued from 2

Draft Cards

At CWRU in 1968, virtually all the first-year students had fathers who were World War II veterans. My father had risen to the rank of Captain—a far higher rank than most—and I was wearing his Captain’s jacket when CWRU decided it was going to require Adelbert College students to have draft cards. (Adelbert College is the prede cessor to today’s College of Arts and Sciences.) In this action, the university was following the law of the federal government of the time. On my 18th birthday, I duly reported to the clerk in charge of draft card applications in the basement of Adelbert Main, and filled out the required form.

When I was in the fourth grade, our teacher at Public School 61 Manhattan, Mrs. Gertrude Weiner, told us that a truly educated person had to read The New York Times or The New York Herald Tribune every day. Soon there after, the Herald Tribune closed, except for its New York Magazine, which still exists but only as a weekly, and rather a weak one at that.

Failure to do so, she taught, doomed one to a life of ignorance. So, when I went into Adelbert Main to register for my draft card in February 1969, I knew exactly what it meant, having been a daily New York Times reader for seven years at that point.

I knew it was a death warrant. It meant the holder could be called upon at any moment to leave CWRU, given a primitive M16 rifle with a bayonet and sent around the world to Vietnam to kill people who were no threat to us by stabbing and/or shooting them in hand-to-hand combat. It also meant that they would be trying to kill you too. And for what?

I told my father about the draft card application. I then saw what I now know to be Post Traumatic Stress Dis order (PTSD), a condition that was not recognized or named in 1969. He be came red in the face, and very angry, shouting, “No son of mine is going to do anything even remotely like that!”

Derivative PTSD

Soon thereafter, the hit movie “M*A*S*H*” came out. I saw it at the Severance Mall with my fellow draftcard holders. The lead character, Cap tain Hawkeye Pierce, was a military surgeon. Every night, he drank a vodka martini with an olive at the bottom of a triangular shaped glass, and he drank to forget all the blood he had seen that day.

All during the time I was growing up in his house, my father drank that exact same vodka martini with that ex act same olive in that exact same glass, despite the fact that his military hospi tal service was 10, 15 and 20 years past. Operating on men who had no faces never leaves you. It just sits there, like a series of rocks holding you down.

And then there was the Holocaust. My father’s parents and my mother’s parents had been immigrants to New York City 20 years before World War II, so my parents were native New Yorkers. But my grandparents left be hind brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, all of whom were executed in the Holocaust together with everyone in their ancestral villages.

I knew my grandparents growing up. I knew their sadness. Without say ing so, my father knew that they could not take the death or wounding of a grandson. They had already experi enced enough death and destruction for several dozen lifetimes.

These facts also explained his PTSD and what I have come to understand as derivative PTSD as I walked around CWRU wearing the jacket he wore when he tried to heal our severely wounded soldiers from World War II.

The Nazis were certainly worth de feating at all costs, but the Vietnam ese?

Surprise, surprise, Washington, the Vietnamese were not Nazis. They could have learned this by taking “Western Civilization” at CWRU, as I was at the time.

Pre-Revolution Discussions

All of this was the subject of discus

sions far into the night with my fellow draft-card holders at Adelbert College of CWRU at Clarke Tower, where many of us resided.

“Is it better to kill or be killed?” we all asked ourselves repeatedly. Could one live with the guilt of killing an “enemy” soldier who was no enemy at all? How would that affect the rest of one’s life?

Would it be better to die, and not live with the guilt of traveling all around the globe to a foreign country to kill people who could never have threat ened the United States, no matter how hard they tried?

And so we met one night in the late Jon Poole’s room in Cutler House in April 1969—Jon, Doug Smock, Blake Lange, Larry Levner and I. We all had draft cards. We had temporary college student deferments, called “2-S” in Pentagon jargon. But we had no idea how long that would last.

Doug was Editor-in-Chief, Jon was Business Manager, Larry was Man aging Editor and I was Sports Editor of The Reserve Tribune, the student newspaper of Western Reserve Uni versity. Blake was Editor-in-Chief of The Case Tech, the student newspaper of the Case Institute of Technology. Case and Western Reserve had feder ated two years before, in 1967, so this was a perfect time to merge the student newspapers.

But we also wanted to merge for a higher purpose: We were going to stop the war. We were going to prevent the drafting, and likely the killing and wounding of our fellow students. We would relegate the antics of fraternities to the back pages, and anti-war activi ties would be our first priority.

So we pledged to each other to do this and keep each other alive. A contest was held to pick the new name. Larry chose the winner, The Observer. Lar ry would be the new Editor-in-Chief, Jon would remain Business Manager, Blake would be Managing Editor and I would be News Editor. Doug was grad uating, but agreed to remain at CWRU

to help us start The Observer and end the war.

I would heal our soldiers before they got wounded in the first place. I would support the work of the Medical Corps of the U.S. Army Air Corps, but before any blood was spilled, not after.

The Observer’s First Year

I attended the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, an anti-war rally masquerad ing as a concert, in August 1969 and wrote the story for Volume I, Issue 1 of The Observer in September 1969.

We piled into Larry’s large Ford se dan in November 1969 and attended the largest demonstration in American history in Washington, D.C. I walked around Washington madly scribbling in my reporter’s notebook. I wrote the story on the long drive back to CWRU. Everyone said it was a far better ac count of what happened than what was printed in The New York Times, The Plain Dealer and Cleveland Press.

Our University Undergraduate Stu dent Government (UUSG), the finan cial support of The Observer, led by our President Sheldon Laube, voted to host the Student Mobilization Commit tee national convention at CWRU in February 1970. Delegations from every major university in the nation came to CWRU to discuss how to end the war.

The plan was this: the First, Sec ond and Third Estates—the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the U.S. government—wanted to use our bodies to wage a mistaken war, but we in the Fourth Estate—the student press—would have none of it.

We would urge the closing of the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC)—military training for officers on every major college campus. Try conducting your mistaken war without officers. Take that, First, Second and Third Estates.

I convinced my 35 Observer report ers to cover each and every convention session at the Adelbert Gym and each and every teach-in around the CWRU campus. I had each name and location on large blackboards at The Observer office in Thwing Hall, the student cen ter of the time.

As I was doing this, in walked, un announced, John Kifner. I was still only 18 years old, but I immediately knew who he was, thanks to my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Weiner. I had read his articles over the past seven years. He was the revolutions reporter for The New York Times.

The Times sent John anywhere in the world where governments were being challenged by their own people. And so he had come all the way from New York City, apparently to see me, although he did not know my name. He was looking for the News Editor at the CWRU college newspaper, and that was me.

And so he asked me, “What is this anti-war movement all about?”

And so I told him, in the fast paced New York speech he was quite used to, exactly what you have just read.

On May 4, 1970, U.S. National Guard soldiers killed four of our fellow students down the road at Kent State University. The reaction at CWRU was immediate. We thought this was delib erate and that we were next. A candle light memorial march from Clarke Tower to the Case Quad appeared out of nowhere with hundreds of students carrying one candle each.

Four of the five founders of The Observer and its first columnist:

Top row, left to right: Doug Smock, Paul Kerson

Second row: Blake Lange, Wayne Gottlieb (aka Lepke’s column) and the late Jon Poole

Missing in action: Larry Levner, the 5th founder

Courtesy of Paul Kerson

People wanted to leave. They thought the campus was unsafe. Many wanted to stay, saying the U.S. Nation al Guard could not close us through fear. I also was the Adelbert College Student Senator on the Faculty Sen ate. I negotiated a deal with Prof. B.S. Chandrasekhar, Chair of the Faculty Senate, so that CWRU would remain open for those who wanted to stay, but that those who wanted to leave could complete their courses on a Pass-Fail basis. It passed.

So who was governing the United States in February 1970? The First, Second and Third Estates in Washing ton, or the Fourth Estate of university student newspapers and governments led by The Observer and CWRU UUSG?

The Life-long Lessons of a CWRU Education

It is 53 years later. The draft is gone, gone, gone. The military has been mechanized to the extent that a volun teer soldier in a Nevada office build ing can kill a true enemy of the United States with an armed drone controlled by his computer thousands of miles away from the target. Hand-to-hand combat with an M-16 and a bayonet is not their favored method of “defense” any more.

The lesson of our college years can be finally summed up: When the fed eral, state or local government is going in the wrong direction, our American civic values call upon us to speak up.

Robert McNamara, the U.S. Secre tary of Defense who designed the Viet nam War, wrote a book, “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam” in 1995. In this book, he admits that the Vietnam War was “wrong, terribly wrong.”

If only he and his successors had read The Observer in 1969 and 1970, he would have understood this fact early enough to save countless lives before the war finally ended in 1975.

58,220 American service people my age died in Vietnam. They did not get to attend their 50th college reunions, nor their 40th, 30th, 20th, 10th or ear lier ones either.

Three million people died in the Vietnam War. This was far worse than the “wrong, terribly wrong” actions that Robert McNamara symbolically wept about in his 1995 book, 20 years later.

The rights to freedom of the press, freedom of speech and participation in the federal and state judicial systems are not just rights—they are profound responsibilities. In our system we have ingrained the concept of judicial review of executive and legislative branch de cisions. The judiciary has the last word.

The way our system of government works is this: judges cannot exercise their judicial review function because they feel like it. Some lawyer must prepare and file the case and present it to them. And some well-motivated citizen, resident or otherwise interested party must hire a lawyer to do this.

The lesson from our college years:

Be that citizen.

Be that lawyer.

And so that is what I did with this beyond-extraordinary college educa tion. I resolved to be “part of the so lution, not part of the problem,” as we always said in those days.

For doing what I did at ages 18 and 19, CWRU gave me every honor it could think of at our graduation 50 years ago in 1972: Outstanding Senior, Phi Beta Kappa, a master’s degree in political science, departmental honors in political science and sufficient let

ters of reference to be admitted to the Columbia University Law School.

When I graduated from law school in 1975, I refused to take any job with any law firm associated with the war effort, or that represented any corpora tion which oppressed ordinary people.

In my mind, I was always compelled to register for the draft against my will on my 18th birthday in Adelbert Main.

If they could take my life, they could take anyone’s life or property. If I could help to stop them at age 18, certainly I could continue to do so.

I spent nearly two years as a New York State Assistant Attorney General prosecuting official corruption cases. I then opened my own law firm with a law school classmate, still going strong 45 years later. We are known as Leavitt, Kerson & Sehati of Forest Hills, NY.

We have had some notable success es in this regard.

In Weiss v. Feigenbaum, 558 F. Supp. 265 (E.D.N.Y. 1982), we estab lished the principle that a city board of elections cannot cancel primary elec tions by allowing government patron age workers to challenge nominating petitions on government time. Since 1982, because of this case, New York City has had far more contested elec tions than it ever had before.

Weiss v. Feigenbaum has become the seminal case in New York City lo cal government and politics. It stands for the proposition that “party bosses” cannot manipulate the electoral system to choose all the candidates for city council, state legislature, U.S. congress member and other elective offices. Af ter this U.S. District Court decision in 1982, the voters now decide the can didates.

The judge who decided this case, the late Charles Sifton, told me many years later that Weiss v. Feigenbaum was the most important decision of his long ju dicial career.

Is this why New York City is far more prosperous than it was before 1982? Do vigorous, highly competitive elections make a better society? These questions are not easily answered, but we suspect that democracy and the economy work best with better and more numerous elections.

Large numbers of competitive elec tions create a dynamism of creativity that feeds economic activity. Politics, government and economics are not entirely separate topics. They are com pletely interrelated.

Certainly this was the teaching of the CWRU Department of Political Science in my college years. Weiss v. Feigenbaum made it so that CWRU was teaching the law of New York.

In Britt v. Garcia, 457 F. 3d 264 (2d Cir. 2006), we achieved a $7.65 million jury verdict against the state correc tions commissioner and deputy super intendent of the Sing Sing Correctional Facility for running an unconstitutional prison.

In that case, a prisoner was nearly stabbed to death because prison offi cials put him in a cell with another pris oner who made a death threat against him. Liability was sustained and a new trial ordered on damages. A reduced settlement was reached on the eve of the second trial to an amount which I cannot disclose.

In Webb v. Goord, 197 F.R.D. 98 (S.D.N.Y. 2000), affd. 340 F. 3d 105 (2d Cir. 2003), we painstakingly col lected similar brutal testimony from 37 prisoners all around the state prison system, and tried to arrange a federal takeover of the thoroughly defective state prisons. The courts would not let us do this, but Britt v. Garcia grew out

of our efforts in Webb v. Goord.

After eight years of being chased by the fellow who explained the anti-war movement to John Kifner at age 18, and suffering the $7.65 million verdict, the New York State Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) decided to change their name to the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS). Their new philosophy was to control the violence they themselves created by releasing as many prisoners as they could as early as they could, thereby reducing the size of the prison popula tion and thus, the violence.

In a state with residents from 180 different countries, why are the vast majority of prisoners African American men? And what does this sorry fact do to African American women and chil dren? The idea that every non-violent prisoner can be released as soon as pos sible is a source of great pride. When the jury came back with the $7.65 mil lion verdict, I understood how Presi dent Lincoln and Dr. King must have felt.

It was the values learned at CWRU that produced this moment. Recall that CWRU’s original incarnation, West ern Reserve College, was a stop on the Underground Railroad at a time when numerous more “prestigious” colleges were profiting from slavery.

In Nacher v. Dresdner Bank, 198 F.R.D. 429 (D.N.J. 2000), 213 F. Supp. 2d 439 (D.N.J. 2002), 236 F.R.D. 231 (D.N.J. 2006), 240 Fed. Appx. 980 (3d Cir. 2007), cert. den. 552 U.S. 1098 (2008), we established the principle that the New York Branch of the Dres dner Bank would be held responsible for financing World War II against the United States, Great Britain, France and Russia and for financing the Ho locaust with the stolen property of the European Jewish community, even 60 years after the fact.

Our legal theories in Nacher v. Dresdner Bank were copied in 56 other cases around the country. All 57 were taken over by the U.S. Treasury Department and settled for $5 billion. Every Holocaust survivor in the world received $7,000, a small fortune in im poverished Romania, Belarus, Latvia and Poland in 2001, when the funds were distributed. We pursued this case for 14 years, from 1994 to 2008.

The other 56 cases targeted all the other German corporations who fi nanced World War II with stolen funds.

There was a day in the year 2000 when the U.S. Treasury Department assem bled 28 of these cases in the U.S. Dis trict Court in Newark, New Jersey for settlement purposes.

“Your honor, this is the accounting for World War II,” I said to a packed courtroom. I spoke first because Nacher v. Dresdner Bank was the first of these cases to be filed, the one that inspired all the others. You could have heard a pin drop. There was silence from all the big firm American lawyers repre senting every large corporation that brought about the 60 million deaths of World War II with the stolen property of the European Jewish community.

This too was a CWRU moment. I only understood the details of the ad ministration of post-war Germany from the lectures of CWRU political science professor Ken Grundy in his course, “Soviet Foreign Policy,” which I took in 1971. In 1994, 23 years later, that course was fundamental to drafting the complaint in Nacher v. Dresdner Bank.

On the strength of repeatedly seek ing judicial review of truly bad execu tive branch misconduct, I was elected to the ultimate establishment position

in 2015 at the age of 64—I served a traditional one year term as president of the Queens County Bar Association, loosely in charge of the state and local judiciary in a very large metropolitan county.

Without CWRU, I don’t think I could have done any of this. Through out these multi-year court battles, the teachings of deans Sam Gorovitz and B.S. Chandrasekhar and professors Marty Plax, Ken Grundy, Jim Ford, Bob Fippinger, John Richardson, Jerry Combee, Anthony DeCrespigny, Mar tin Abravanel and Maurice Klain of the Department of Political Science and professor Charles Rehor of the English Department were always with me.

How to Write and Edit in the Inter net Age

The late professor Rehor was the last faculty adviser of The Reserve Tribune and the first faculty adviser of The Observer. He never told us what to write. He carefully reviewed our arti cles with a red pen only after they were published.

His lessons on writing are with me every day:

1. Short sentences.

2. Short paragraphs.

3. Be aware of how the page appears to the reader.

4. No run-on sentences.

5. Always get the facts straight.

6. Spelling counts.

7. Use boldface subheads to break up the page and enhance the reader’s understanding of the main ideas.

By following these lessons every day in writing pleadings, affidavits and briefs, over the years, I have persuad ed state and federal judges to actually think about what these cases mean to the litigants. My name can be found in law reports 182 times, more than any one else I know. I attribute this to Dr. Rehor and his red pen, and me sitting there in his basement office in Clark Hall with him explaining to me how to be a good newspaper writer and editor.

From the beginning, The Observer was part of the CWRU English Depart ment’s curriculum. We got four inde pendent study credits for learning from Dr. Rehor.

Dr. Rehor taught us the role of an American newspaper editor. He taught us that the First Amendment gave the newspaper editor rights, but also re sponsibilities—to get the facts straight and not to print salacious gossip and private embarrassments that had no newsworthiness.

The internet today makes everyone a publisher without the wisdom he taught us. If only every internet poster could take Dr. Rehor’s course!

I am currently at work trying to estab lish a judicial “right to be forgotten”— a new right of individuals to remove embarrassing material from the inter net. This new right to be forgotten has been recognized by the highest court of the European Union. I am trying to get American courts to adopt it.

This would be a limitation on the First Amendment rights of internet websites and publishers—quite a life journey for a college newspaper editor. But I think Dr. Rehor would be proud that his teachings about the rights and responsibilities of editors were being spread far into the future.

“The pen is mightier than the sword,” said playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839. True then. True in 1969.

True today, rephrased: The internet is mightier than all swords, and thus must be managed intelligently, lest swords replace it.

PROTESTS continued from pg. 1

“[Usually,] some people [think] that there shouldn’t be any change in regime, but a change in president, and some people…want to protest to change the regime,” said Alex. “This time…the majority of people are unit ed…They want a change in regime— not change in the government, not changing the rules of hijab, not free dom in drinking alcohol, they don’t want that. They want a change in ev erything.”

“Unlike previous demonstrations in Iran, the latest protests are led by women, particularly young women. Women’s rights are at the forefront of these protests, as opposed to prior demonstrations that mostly focused on economic or political causes,” said Cameron. “Though women are leading the current protests in Iran, men have also joined them, denouncing the gov ernment’s intrusion into women’s pri vate lives.”

The combination of these two events helped broaden this movement into a country-wide issue against the Islamic government.

“The people were waiting to show their anger, but several times, the gov ernment tried to oppress them. But this

… was just a reason for the people to be united and try to change the regime. They [finally] concluded that there is no way for this regime to be corrected, and the basic rules in Iran are wrong,” said Alex. “It’s as if the people of Iran actually woke up from a sleep after 43 years.”

Along with the greater Iranian com munity around Cleveland, CWRU members have been advocating to bring this historic situation to light. Fourthyear psychology student Ghazal Adibi has been very involved in sharing in formation and helping with student protests.

“[I’m] mostly just posting on Insta gram and other social media, trying to educate my non-Iranian friends about what’s going on,” said Adibi. “I orga nized a protest on campus and drove some students to protest downtown. We have been playing a lot of Persian songs, particularly “Baraye,” which is a song written specifically [for] these protests.”

Despite the gravity of this situation, CWRU president Eric Kaler and the CWRU administration have yet to re lease a statement condemning the hu man rights violations instilled by the

morality police, despite several mem bers of the community sending him emails requesting that he do so. For reference, Kaler and Executive Vice President and Provost Ben Vinson III released a statement condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine less than 24 hours after it occurred.

Several Iranian members of the CWRU community have emailed the administration to bring this situation to their attention.

“I believe most Iranians at [CWRU] emailed [International Student Ser vices] (ISS) and emailed the president himself,” Alex recalled. Kaler has yet to respond to these emails, and ISS has replied to the senders, reassuring them that they had heard about what’s hap pening and providing contact informa tion if counseling is needed. However, that is not the response they wanted.

“Yes, we’re sad, we’re upset, but we’d at least expect the president to send an email and inform [everyone]. It’s the least they could do for us,” Alex continued. “This is something re lated to human rights. If they believe in human rights, and women’s rights, they have to show [who they support].”

“We don’t want the university to

look at this from a political point of view,” Ben said. “If something like this happens in any country, we’d expect that they would put, at least, an an nouncement, and support the students from that region in what they’re going through, and inform other people about this.”

This is not the first instance where CWRU has given little to no attention to certain global crises, particularly to issues concerning the Middle East and Africa. In response, the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) drafted a resolution last semester that aims to es tablish “procedures for how CWRU’s administration can respond to global crises in a student-centric manner.” The resolution—which has yet to be voted on—asks the university to set up sup port groups to allow students a space to process their thoughts and feelings, establish a minimum level of funding for identity-based university offices, ensure that timely and clear commu nications on global crises are released and divest from companies that direct ly benefit from the military-industrial complex. Whether the university will take such action, even if USG passes the resolution, remains to be seen.

A Case professor was responsible for donating the James Madison flute Lizzo played

Shreyas Banerjee Executive Editor

By now you’ve probably heard about this: Lizzo, the superstar mu sician whose song “About Damn Time” hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, played a concert in Washing ton, D.C., on Sept. 28 and surprised audiences by playing a crystal flute owned by the fourth president of the United States, James Madison. What you might not have known is that the flute has a direct link to Case Western Reserve University.

The flute was made in 1813 by a French flute craftsman in honor of Madison’s second inauguration and was among the items that first lady Dolley Madison saved when the Brit ish Army set fire to the White House during the War of 1812, along with George Washington’s famous portrait. Provided by the Library of Congress to Lizzo for the performance, the flute had previously sat mostly untouched. Lizzo contends that she was the only person who had ever played the flute before, making the event even more potentially momentous, beyond hav ing a modern day pop artist play such a historic instrument.

“Bitch, I just twerked and played James Madison’s crystal flute from the 1800s,” she said on stage. “We just made history tonight!”

Naturally, there has been some controversy that has arisen from cer tain segments of the internet. Many right-wing culture warriors have con tended that Lizzo had desecrated the instrument and degraded U.S. history by twerking while playing the flute. Supporters of Lizzo point out that she has played the flute since she was in grade school, and that much of this is just a reaction to an African American woman reclaiming a piece of Ameri can history, especially since Madison was a major slaveholder.

Regardless of the internet debate,

the flute itself has a historical link to CWRU. It was donated in 1941 by Dr. Dayton Miller, a professor at the Case School of Applied Science— one of the universities that merged in 1967 to form CWRU. Miller was an avid collector of flutes, having obtained over 1,700 of them, includ ing 18 glass flutes. The collection is one of the largest of its kind in the world and was donated to the Library of Congress upon Miller’s death. The flutes range in value and region of origin, with Miller’s collecting phi losophy being one of breadth rather than specificity.

Miller taught at Case for over 40 years as a mathematics and phys ics professor. He headed the physics department between 1895 and 1936. He was a pioneer in the use of x-rays, having produced the first full x-ray of the human body using a self-made apparatus. In 1921 he met Albert Ein stein to discuss his recreations of the famous Michelson-Morley experi ments regarding the speed of light and how they impacted Einstein’s theory of relativity. Beyond his hob by of collecting flutes, he studied astronomy, composed music, built instruments and worked on the archi

tectural acoustics of Severance Hall, the home of the Cleveland Orchestra. After his death he was buried in the nearby Lake View Cemetery.

CWRU’s long history of scientific and cultural research is something to be proud of and is personified by the eclectic interests of Dr. Miller. So next time someone mentions this event, make sure to mention how CWRU’s great faculty and our uni versity’s legacy of scholarship is in volved.

As Lizzo said after playing the flute, “History is freaking cool, you guys.”

Lizzo practices on a glass flute once owned by James Madison—which was donated to the Library of Congress by late Case professor Dr. Dayton Miller. Courtesy of Shawn Miller / Library of Congress

Cleveland Institute of Music’s plan to go tuition-free

Darcy Chew Contributing Writer

On Sept. 15, Paul W. Hogle, the president and CEO of the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM) wrote a “Personal View” segment for Crain’s Cleveland Business about his goal to make CIM tuition-free.

Calling it a “moonshot,” Hogle ac knowledges that the goal is ambitious, yet he remains optimistic and firm in this decision.

“At CIM, we think it’s mandatory,” he said.

Hogle explains that this decision is needed as “research suggests that, soon, no student pursuing a highly specialized education will pay for that degree. In CIM’s case, a tuition-based model intensifies the competition over a declining number of students, some of whom are not prepared for conser vatory training and not likely to be come professional musicians.”

He also elaborates that the purpose of making CIM tuition-free is to also ensure that CIM is a place for all and not only children of the wealthy.

“We must beckon the best young musicians in the world, no matter where those musicians happen to fall on the socioeconomic spectrum,” Hogle said. “[W]e want our students focused on music. We feel strongly that to achieve at the highest level, to take their place as the future of clas sical music, our students can’t be dis tracted, working extra jobs to pay off

loans.”

But for CIM to be tuition-free, it requires significant support from the community and Hogle is thus appeal ing to Cleveland and Northern Ohio community members for philanthrop ic support.

CWRU’s hosts event promoting discussions on reproductive justice

Cameron Ward Staff Writer

Reproductive justice is a term that has assumed renewed importance to student lives following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Inter secting social justice and reproductive rights, the term has become especially important as women across the nation have their rights stripped away. Sister Song, a national organization that works improving the systems that impact the reproductive rights of marginalized com munities, defines reproductive justice as the “human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and part the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.”

For students looking to understand this topic and get involved, Case West ern Reserve University is hosting an event next week called “The Essentials of Reproductive Justice: Access, Au tonomy, Action.” The event, happening next Tuesday, Oct. 11 in the Tinkham Veale University Center, is intended for CWRU students to gather a better under standing of reproductive justice and how our own reproductive rights and health care can be impacted.

This event is the result of the collabo ration between Flora Stone Mather Cen ter for Women, the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence and the Baker-Nord Center for the Humani ties. The top priorities for planners of the event were diversity and representation, which allows the event to spotlight ways various factors, including sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, employment, disabili ty, financial status and residence, can im pact reproductive rights and healthcare.

Notably, the impact these categories have in various healthcare fields has been unrecognized for decades.

With CWRU working to gather infor mation and resources for students, this event aims to broaden our understanding of the issues, and to create a network of

support for those who need it. The event will happen in Tink, spanning all three upstairs ballrooms, each with resources that discuss a different facet of reproduc tive justice.

The first ballroom, labeled “Conver sations on Reproductive Justice,” will be used as a conversation space, featuring various speakers throughout the day to discuss many topics relating to reproduc tive justice. Topics will include an over view of reproductive justice, historical context and birth practices, a discussion of ethics and autonomy in reproductive rights and an outline to engaging in re productive justice conversations. Ques tions are welcome and encouraged.

The second ballroom is a learning room about “Reproductive Justice at CWRU,” and will spotlight how students over time at CWRU have come to un derstand social justice and reproductive rights. Be on the look out for their nar rative exhibit containing nearly 100 stu dent-selected articles from The Observer.

The third and final ballroom, titled “Resources for Reproductive Justice,” will be an action room detailing resourc es to support reproductive justice and op portunities for student voices to be heard. There will be stations to write our elected representatives and to register to vote, just in time for Ohio’s voter registration deadline.

Up to date and specific information can be found on the Women’s Center’s CampusGroups page. For those inter ested in volunteering at the event, you can email RJustice@case.edu. The event will be live-streamed as well for those who cannot attend in-person and will be available for later watching.

If this event interests you, be sure to be on the lookout for other events hosted by one of the three centers, including those for Domestic Violence Awareness and Advocacy Month.

“As we seek to attract the world’s most talented classical music students to Cleveland over the next 100 years, we’ll need to invite all of Northeast Ohio to consider playing a part.”

At the moment, there are still uncer tainties about when this change will

take place and how much support is needed, but at least currently, CIM is committed to ensuring its tuition will not increase. The 2022-23 academic year is their fifth year in which tuition has not increased from their base tu ition fee of $40,000 set in 2018-19.

Film Society 2nd Quarter Schedule At-a-Glance

Friday, October 14th, 2022

A Quiet Place 2 (2020)

7:00 p.m., 9:15 p.m., 11:30 p.m.

Saturday, October 15th, 2022

The LEGO Batman Movie (2017)

7:00 p.m., 9:15 p.m.

Friday, October 28th, 2022

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (2000)

7:00 p.m., 9:00 p.m., 11:00 p.m.

Saturday, October 29th, 2022

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

7:00 p.m., 11:59 p.m.

Friday, November 4th, 2022

Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)

7:00 p.m., 9:30 p.m., 11:59 p.m.

Saturday, November 5th, 2022

V For Vendetta (2005)

7:00 p.m., 9:30 p.m.

Friday, November 11th, 2022

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

7:00 p.m., 9:30 p.m., 11:59 p.m.

Saturday, November 12th, 2022

Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

7:00 p.m., 9:00 p.m.

Friday, November 18th, 2022

Making Contact: An Evening of Films by Suneil Sanzgiri*

Starting at 7:00 p.m.

Saturday, November 19th, 2022

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

7:00 p.m., 9:30 p.m.

Friday, December 2nd, 2022

The Grinch (2018)

7:00 p.m., 9:00 p.m., 11:00 p.m.

Saturday, December 3rd, 2022in 70mm

Streets of Fire (1984)

7:00 p.m., 9:00 p.m.

Friday, December 9th, 2022

The VelociPastor (2018)*

7:00 p.m., 9:00 p.m., 11:00 p.m.

Saturday, December 10th, 2022

The Hebrew Hammer (2003)*

7:00 p.m., 9:00 p.m.

*This showing will have FREE ADMISSION

The CWRU Film Society operates out of Strosacker Auditorium Tickets are only $4, and we accept both cash and Case Cash Open to the public; free parking is available Visit films.cwru.edu for more information

Mixon Hall, built as an expansion of CIM’s main building in 2007, seats over 250 audience members and is home to over 100 performances each year. Courtesy of Cleveland Institute of Music

Nintendo reinvigorates “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe” with waves of new race tracks

A review of the 16 tracks released so far

Fans of the Mario Kart franchise have spent years clamoring for Nintendo to re lease “Mario Kart 9” to no avail. In 2014, Nintendo released “Mario Kart 8” for the Wii U, and in 2017 Nintendo made “Ma rio Kart 8 Deluxe” (MK8D), an enhanced version of the same game for the Ninten do Switch. MK8D soon became the bestselling Nintendo Switch game of all time. Nevertheless, it has been eight years since the release of the last unique Mario Kart iteration for a gaming console—though in 2019 Nintendo released a mobile game called “Mario Kart Tour” to mediocre re views.

Nintendo revealed that the company has not given up on improving MK8D when it announced the “Booster Course Pass DLC” on Feb. 9. “DLC” stands for “downloadable content,” referring to extra content that can be downloaded separately from the purchase of the main game—usually at a cost. In the case of MK8D, this means that for $24.99, a player can purchase the Booster Course Pass—a bundle of race tracks “with eight courses to be released at a time over six waves by the end of 2023.” Two waves of the DLC have been released so far, with a third wave coming this holiday season.

Each wave of the DLC is released in two Grand Prix of four tracks each, with 16 DLC tracks currently available.

The Golden Dash Cup—Wave One

This Grand Prix begins with Paris Promenade, a track from “Mario Kart Tour.” It is a scenic track that involves driving past famous landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and Luxor Obelisk. Like all of the tracks based on real cities, Paris Promenade forces players to take differ ent routes depending on the lap; after en tering the third lap, players have to take a U-turn and drive facing the racers who are lagging behind. There is only one short cut, which requires a mushroom to boost under the Arc de Triomphe. Overall, it is a solid track with good music whose sim plicity should present few challenges to new players.

7/10

Next comes Toad Circuit from “Mario Kart 7” for the 3DS. This is the weakest of all the wave one DLC tracks. It is colorful to the point of lacking any appealing tex tures; for example, the grass is a uniform shade of lime green. However, Toad Cir cuit has some nice off-road shortcuts near the finish line, but complexity is sorely lacking from its straightforward layout. It can be a good track for new players who are still learning the basic mechanics of driving. The track does not contain any thing else worth mentioning.

4/10

The third track on this Grand Prix is Choco Mountain from “Mario Kart 64” for the N64. This is the oldest track in the wave one DLC, released in 1996. It is a pretty and nostalgic track with much to enjoy. It contains great music, long round turns, a stunning cave section and falling boulders to crush unsuspecting racers. There are only a few shortcuts through patches of mud, but the track still re quires skill in order to navigate the spiral cliffside turn where boulders fall. Choco Mountain is one of the highlights of the Booster Course Pass and is a great experi ence for novice and veteran players alike.

The Grand Prix ends fittingly with Co conut Mall from “Mario Kart Wii,” one of the most beloved tracks in the whole franchise. The music for the track is ex ceptional and the graphics are gorgeous. However, many fans complained that Nintendo removed the moving cars from the end of the track. The cars were made to move again with the release of wave two, but now they drive in occasional doughnuts instead of constantly back and forth in a straight line. Nevertheless, this DLC version of Coconut Mall retains almost all the charm it possessed in the original Wii version and is a huge boon for anyone looking to buy the Booster Course Pass.

9/10

The Lucky Cat Cup—Wave One

The second Grand Prix of wave one begins with Tokyo Blur from “Mario Kart Tour.” The track is certainly a blur and ends in no time at all. Racers start on the Rainbow Bridge and soon see Mount Fuji in the distance, both famous Tokyo sites. This track has a different route for each lap, but is relatively plain with few shortcuts—though Nintendo includes some Thwomps to crush racers. The mu sic is exciting, but it does not make up for the simplicity and brevity of the track. In the end, Tokyo Blur merits nothing more than an average ranking.

5/10

Nostalgia returns as racers move to Shroom Ridge from “Mario Kart DS.” Its calm music belies the fact that this is one of the craziest DLC tracks to navigate. Players have to drive through a series of extremely tight corners that provide no visibility as cars and trucks try to hit them. Nintendo also spiced up the course by adding a very difficult shortcut near the end that involves jumping over a chasm. Shroom Ridge is a nightmare for new players and a welcome challenge for skilled ones, making this track an exciting experience for any group of players.

8/10

Next comes Sky Garden from “Mario Kart: Super Circuit” for the Game Boy Advance. Strangely, the layout of the

DLC version of Sky Garden bears no re semblance to the original track, and, like Tokyo Blur, this track suffers from be ing too short. The music is mediocre for a Mario Kart game, though the track has a surprising amount of simple shortcuts. Mario Kart veterans who played the orig inal version will be disappointed to see this track has been changed completely, and does not provide anything special or exceptional.

5/10

The last of the wave one tracks is Ninja Hideaway from “Mario Kart Tour,” and it is the only DLC track from that game not based on a real city. This track immedi ately and almost ubiquitously became a fan favorite—the music is thrilling, the visuals are outstanding and the layout is unprecedented. Throughout the race there are multiple drivable routes laid on top of each other. This feature gives players a plethora of options when they race since they can decide where they would like to drive at any moment. Without a doubt, this track is a major selling point for the Booster Course Pass and an incredible experience for all players.

9/10

The Turnip Cup—Wave Two

The first track of wave two is New York Minute from “Mario Kart Tour.” The course is visually stunning and takes racers around landmarks like Central Park and Times Square. New York Min ute changes its layout between laps. The track has few shortcuts, and, unfortunate ly, Nintendo chose to make the course extremely slippery, resulting in players having a very hard time driving precisely. The lack of good traction can make the track miserable for new players and an noying for experienced ones. The visuals and the presence of some obstacles on the road make up for the track’s bad traction and relatively simple layout.

6/10

Next comes Mario Circuit 3, a track from “Super Mario Kart” for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). This track has plain, bright visuals and a huge nostalgia factor since it also ap

peared in “Mario Kart Wii” and “Super Mario Kart,” released in 1992. Mario Cir cuit 3 is full of curvy turns and a monu mental amount of sandy off-road, mak ing it an amazing track for comebacks as players can use items to cut through mas sive portions of the desert. The nostalgic music of this track combined with its simplicity and game-breaking shortcuts make it an enjoyable experience for all levels of play.

7/10

More nostalgia follows with Kalimari Desert from “Mario Kart 64” and later “Mario Kart 7.” Like all desert tracks, this one is full of off-road shortcuts through the sand, but Nintendo decided to change the track drastically by making all three laps different. After a normal first lap out side in the desert, the second lap forces players to go through a tight tunnel as trains barrel toward them, while the third lap resumes outside of the tunnel as play ers dash to the finish line. The sunset des ert aesthetic of the track is beautiful and the music is fitting. This is simply one of the most exciting tracks to come from the Booster Course Pass.

9/10

This Grand Prix ends with Waluigi Pinball from “Mario Kart DS” and later “Mario Kart 7.” This iconic track can only be criticized for its lack of shortcuts, but every other facet of the track is indisput ably extraordinary. The music is invigo rating, the visuals and colors are sublime and the difficulty of the track is high. The many sharp turns bedeviling inexperi enced racers and numerous giant pinballs smashing into players at lightning speed make this track simultaneously grueling and exhilarating.

10/10

The Propeller Cup—Wave Two

The last Grand Prix of the released DLC waves begins with Sydney Sprint from “Mario Kart Tour.” Out of all the city tracks, this one is by far the longest and most complicated. Each lap takes on a life of its own and hardly resembles the one that preceded it, featuring major landmarks such as the Sydney Opera

Nintendo is adding beloved old tracks such as Waluigi Pinball to “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe” with the Booster Course Pass, a move that has been well-received by veteran fans of the series. Courtesy of Nintendo.

House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The track has some nice off-road short cuts and good music, but it completely lacks obstacles. The fact that the laps are so different can make it difficult for new players to learn the track. Though Sydney Sprint has some shortcomings in its long open roads, it makes for an enjoyable race.

7/10

Then comes Snow Land from “Mario Kart: Super Circuit.” Like all icy tracks, the traction on this one is horrible, mak ing the track slippery and precise driving difficult. Snow Land is notable for the massive mushroom shortcut near the start

of the race that almost looks like an un intended feature. The track also has two mushroom shortcuts through the snow before the finish line. Penguins slide through parts of the track as obstacles. Overall, the music and visuals are unex ceptional. Snow Land involves a surpris ing amount of skill for such a seemingly simple track.

6/10

The third track in this Grand Prix is the iconic Mushroom Gorge from “Ma rio Kart Wii.” Nintendo succeeded in re taining all the old charm of this track in its DLC version. Most of the Mushroom Platforms (green) and Trampolines (red)

are in the same spots with the addition of a blue Mushroom Trampoline that acti vates the glider. The mushroom shortcut over the last gap is retained in this ver sion. The music is invigorating and the visuals are beautiful, especially in the cave section illuminated by blue and pink crystals. Nevertheless, hopping over the Trampoline Mushrooms can sometimes lead to players falling off, even when they drive well. Mushroom Gorge on MK8D is still an amazing experience and a great track for Nintendo to include in the Booster Course Pass.

9/10

The last of the current DLC tracks is

Sky-High Sundae, a track first released with the Booster Course Pass but later added to “Mario Kart Tour.” The track is extremely colorful and takes players on a race across ice cream and confection eries. It includes a difficult yet reward ing shortcut that involves drifting off the semicircle of ice cream scoops. The bright visuals are striking and the music is rousing. There are no obstacles on the track, but it is easy to fall off since there are no railings. Sky-High Sundae is fun for anyone to play, and its creation is a hopeful sign that Nintendo may make more tracks from scratch for future DLC waves.

CMA celebrates the Keithley collection with a reflection on community

Elie Stenson Staff Writer

Nancy and Joseph Keithley are Cleveland-based philanthropists who have supported a variety of organiza tions—including Case Western Reserve University, where Mr. Keithley is a trustee emeritus—and have long been involved with the advancement of the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA). In 2020, they announced their intention to donate over 100 pieces, the largest gift to the Museum since 1958. Their gift is commemorated in “Impression ism to Modernism: The Keithley Ex hibit.” Reflecting on their donation, Mrs. Keithley states, “Cleveland is our home and we have enjoyed building our lives here. It is important to us to give back to our community, and we felt that the Cleveland Museum of Art was the perfect home for the works of art that we have assembled, cherished, and now joyfully made available to all.” The exhibit is as much a tribute to the cel ebrated artists of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist era as it is to the do nors whose commitment has bolstered the CMA, shaping it into the archive of great works that it is today.

The majority of the exhibit is a direct reflection of the Keithelys’ interest in Western Impressionist and modern art; however, the collection also includes a number of Japanese and Chinese ceram ics, creating a unique experience rooted in many independent expressions. The exhibit progresses smoothly through rooms of art grouped by shared subject rather than chronological order, unfurl ing into ruminations on themes like “The Natural World Transformed” and “The American Landscape.” Famous names ring from every placard, but the num ber of works speaks louder. The exhibit calls upon viewers to submerge them

selves within the frames and allow the art to tug upon emotions and memories hitherto unacknowledged. These paint ings, prints, ceramics and sketches do not only recount explicit stories: They stage a moment and ask us to populate it with our own details, to willingly be come lost in order to seek out a pinpoint of clarity as to what and who we have become. It is this expert embodiment of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Modernist ideals that makes this collec tion so remarkable, allowing it to serve as a bridge between preceding genera tions and the present day.

These works encapsulate the mid19th century and the turn of the 20th century, an era marked by great suc cesses in industrialisation and global ization, but marred by the effects of social stratification, shifting politics and World War I. Much of “The Keithley Exhibit” considers the active positions of the artists who lived in this period of global change, granting them the space to express their sentiments while ac tively engaging with their viewers, both contemporary and subsequent. The ex hibit plays with parallels, often pairing similar works such as Henri Matisse’s “Tulips’’ from 1914 with Pieter Hol steyn II’s 17th century series “Study of a Tulip.” Matisse’s work contains a heavy sense of trepidation as the bloom ing tulips, and the world, hang on the precipice of WWI, while Holsteyn’s bulbs represent the Dutch tulip mania. Despite these differences, both embody reactions to events beyond personal control, whose all-consuming impact lends a palpable unease, yet simultane ous sense of conjecture, to the works.

“Strandgade, Sunshine,” (1906) by Vil helm Hammershøi, and “Nude Rising

Halloween on a budget

Christie Lanfear Staff Writer

With the arrival of October, Hal loween lovers’ favorite month, costume ideas are plastered all over social media, from Instagram stories to TikTok “For You” pages. It is easy to get excited by all the cute ideas and to immediately start filling your Amazon shopping cart with ready-made costumes. But for us broke college students, that is simply not practical. Dropping money on an overpriced outfit that will be worn once and then be forgotten seems silly when every penny counts. With closets full of components to make fabulous cos tumes, we should be taking advantage of it!

Even once you make the decision to go homemade, arriving at a single idea for a costume can be tricky. Lucky for you, below is the tool kit you need to make a kickass costume this year, straight from your closet, so you can have a night full of compliments and a perfect Instagram-worthy picture. Whether you want to be a TV or movie character, or something more classic,

this guide has the answers.

“Top Gun: Maverick”

Any and all characters from this 2022 hit would be an easy and perfect choice for this Halloween. You just need skinny jeans, a sick pair of aviator sunglasses, a white tee and a leather jacket of some kind. You can even turn this into a group costume!

Maddy and Cassie - “Euphoria”

This classic duo had to be on the list. They are both so extra in styling and as long as there is enough glittery make up and high heels, it is easy to pull off. Simply put on a little black dress and some smoldering makeup for Maddy or a preppy skirt and a cute top for Cassie. You are sure to be remembered.

Dustin, Will and Mike - “Stranger Things”

Even if you just do one of these char acters, the process is easy. For example, Dustin requires khakis, a tucked in graphic tee—preferably a green one—

The vibrant colors of Camille Pissaro’s “Fishmarket” (1902) reflect the style of the Impressionist era. This and other artworks from this movement are featured in the Keithley collection at the CMA. Courtesy of The Cleve land Museum of Art.

from Bed,” (1912) by Pierre Bonnard, both toy with the placement of women within domestic backdrops. Hammer shøi gives his subject a rigid domain of her own while Bonnard reduces his leading lady to one of possessions, equating her nude form to the luxury of the brass bed and the clothes hanging in the closet behind her.

This collection is a fascinating bom bardment of countless lives, all wound together in an intellectual feast that en gages the mind, the eyes and the heart. It is undoubtedly an impressive group

of works, but this does not come solely from the displayed skill.The pieces still hold value in that they allow for con versations and interactions between the people who occupy our ever-changing, yet unchanging world. The Keithleys’ donation reminds us that museums are built by and for communities whose in tertwining histories have a richer com position than could ever be portrayed by paint. “Impressionism to Modernism: The Keithley Exhibit” is on display at the CMA until Jan. 8, 2023 and admis sion is free for all CWRU students.

and a simple baseball hat; the goofier the better.

Emily Cooper - “Emily in Paris”

Emily is definitely on my list of op tions this year. Emily breaks the rules of color and pattern matching, somehow pulling off the wackiest of combos. You almost can’t go wrong with recreating her style.

Vampire This one is arguably the easiest and most effective costume, and has truly stood the test of time. Throw on some dark clothing, borrow some eye shadow from a friend and voila.

The Devil and the Angel

This is a classic duo costume. The only tricky part is the horns for the devil, but honestly it can be pulled off quite successfully without them. As long as one of you wears all the white things that you own, and another does the same with red, you are headed in the

right direction.

Harley Quinn

The makeup is what really brings this costume together. Nailing the pink and blue combo along with the notorious pigtails pulls most of the weight, taking the pressure off everything else. Try to find a pair of fishnet tights to wear with a pair of shorts and you are all set.

The list could go on and on, but this should provide a decent amount of ideas. The core concept here is: all college students should utilize what is in their closets to make their costumes. Think of all the money you will save if you do. Of course, feel free to acces sorize where needed, but I promise you will surprise yourself with what you can come up with just from opening your closet door and rediscovering that cute shirt or sick jacket you forgot about. Halloween is going to be awesome this year, and I am sure the campus will be crawling with memorable costumes.

Farm Harvest Festival: A weekend filled with food, activities, and scenery

On Sept. 24, the Farm Harvest Festi val returned to the Case Western Reserve University Farm. The annual event, which has been held since 2010, is a day filled with games, free food and, most importantly, a welcome change of scen ery. The event is a celebration of the Farm Food Program, which promotes the idea of sustainability across campus and pro vides Bon Appetit with many resources for campus dining. The event itself was organized by the Student Sustainability Council, an ad-hoc of the Undergradu ate Student Government, to emphasize the importance of the University Farm. In past years, the Farm has grown many herbs, vegetables and wild plants, in cluding mint, oregano, asparagus, oyster mushrooms and Swiss chard. In addition to educating the campus about healthy

living, the Farm Food Program has also helped non-profit organizations in their efforts. They donate fresh produce to the Cleveland Food Bank, the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, and have also donated farming space to the Cleveland Botanical Garden and The Refugee Response.

Campus shuttle buses to the event were provided, and upon arrival at the University Farm, CWRU students were welcomed by a small petting zoo and a plethora of free food. The petting zoo in cluded several chickens and goats, which was enough to keep me entertained. Af ter going inside the November Meeting Center, students were welcomed to veg etarian chili and Mitchell’s ice cream— a combination much more satisfying than you might think. After enjoying some Wildberry Crumble ice cream and

a cup of apple cider, I went back out side to view the games they had set up. There were many students playing vol leyball and cornhole. However, what I really came for was waiting for me at a small unassuming table adjacent to the cornhole station: the flower crown sta tion. The ultimate goal for any CWRU student is to get a cute picture of them selves wearing a self-made flower crown at the Farm Harvest Festival. As a current fourth-year student, I hurried over to the table, realizing this was my last chance. Despite my crown being quite sparse on flowers, and the crown itself being made of recycled Starbucks bags, rather than twigs as in years past, I was happy with my makeshift floral coronet.The day also included performances by several clubs, including the Case Men’s Glee Club,

IMPROVment, student bands and many other groups. I would be lying if I said I paid nearly as much attention to any of the performers as I did to the campfire, especially once I realized it was being used to make s’mores. After enjoying a sustainable s’more, I took advantage of the walking trails, which I did not know about until this most recent trip. While walking, I discovered a small lake and numerous signs dedicated to observing the local wildlife and vegetation. It was a very pleasant, and much needed day away from looking at a laptop screen or refreshing Canvas to start a quiz. De spite being a 30-minute drive, I implore any student reading this to take a week end and go to University Farm, because it may be exactly the kind of reset you need.

So you failed your first exam: Now what?

So you failed your first exam. It’s normal; maybe you didn’t study the content well and the best you could do were educated guesses—or maybe you did study enough, but the test ques tions still seemed like they were writ ten in a foreign language. Maybe you were tired, maybe you were stressed, maybe you were sick—there are a va riety of factors that can prevent us from doing our best. Then, when we get our exams back, comes the sinking feel ing in our gut when we don’t get the score we hoped for. In these moments, it’s extremely easy to get discouraged, lose focus and perhaps even call it quits on studying forever—I know we’ve wanted to sometimes. And at a school as academically competitive as Case Western Reserve University, these feel ings can be inflated by the success of our peers.

I’m sure all of us have felt this way at some point; it’s part of the college experience. After finally receiving our exam, we always tend to scan through our mistakes, becoming even more dis couraged the longer we look. While learning from previous errors is good, we cannot allow ourselves to dwell on them. We have to keep moving forward and work to be better. So to help you out, we wanted to share some tips that have helped us cope with bad grades and get in a better mindset for the next exam.

1. Don’t let yourself spiral!

It sounds simple, but thinking about how badly you’ve messed up is a slip pery slope. Try to put things into per spective. Even if it is the worst case sce nario and your GPA will never recover, keep in mind that there are other op tions. For most jobs, GPA doesn’t play a huge role in your future placement— it’s been shown time and time again that characteristics like good social skills and leadership are what really matter. You might be saying, “I’m going into grad school, so I can’t just brush it off.”

In that case, consider reaching out to your professor for extra credit, or take a gap semester to improve your GPA or gain valuable work experience. It may sound naive or optimistic, but there is almost always another option, and you can almost always find somebody in your corner to help you along the way.

2. Learn from mistakes

In order to improve on future exams, it’s often a good idea to rationalize what exactly went wrong. When we’re able to understand the reasons why some thing emotionally significant happened, we don’t feel so strongly about it. So if you can figure out that you didn’t do as well as you wanted on the test because you didn’t study the right material, it helps you establish a solid base for im provement in the future and to be more calm and rational about the situation. It

provides a clear problem—a problem that you can find a solution to.

3. Take a break

If the pressure to fix your mistakes becomes overwhelming, stepping away from your work is a valid option. It is definitely hard to dissociate yourself from a bad grade, but occupying our selves with something else can help.

By engaging our attention elsewhere, anxiety about our recent setback can decrease. If you’re able to, a particu larly helpful option is exercise, even if it’s just a short walk. Along with being a distraction, it can help you get some fresh air, interact with others and im prove your health and self-esteem.

4. What to do next

Now that you’re in a better head space, what can you do to change for the future? If you’re like us and have a bad habit of procrastinating, try to make a plan about it! Having a plan helps you stay aware of how much you’re able to study, but also reduces possible anxiety and stress about failure. Chances are you’ve heard this before, and it hasn’t worked out very well for you. But the key component that many people can gloss over is that the plan has to be com fortable and attainable for you. Some of the specifics can come from previous experiences with making plans, or like me, from things you’ve read online.

Maybe you need every hour of every week before the day of your exam laid out, or maybe a vague agenda is suf ficient. Whatever your planning style, the most important thing is to stick with the plan until it becomes a regular fea ture of your daily routine.

If you still feel like it’s too daunt ing to try and manage everything you need to study for—especially those STEM classes—we have some excel lent academic resources on campus to help you. For difficult classes, office hours can be a great option, as you get direct input and advice from the person most knowledgeable about the course. In addition to office hours, Supple mental Instruction/TA sessions can be a great way to test your knowledge of course content and get advice from stu dents who have likely already taken the course. If you want more one-on-one help, peer tutors are also available for most major courses, and the hours are usually very flexible.

College isn’t a sprint: pacing your self is vital for success. We need to know when to slow down and take breaks, especially when we are faced with unforeseen setbacks. Being able to calm down, make corrections and reach out for help are crucial to performing at our best. We hope that with this list of tips, you’ll be better equipped to face failure, get back up, take a breath and try again.

Shivangi Nanda Copy Editor Noah Henriques Staff Writer

CWRU students flock towards the University Farm for a day of autum-themed activities including hayrides, s’mores and apple bobbing. Courtesy of CWRU.

Weekly

by Mulan

The Moon (Reversed)

Temperance (Reversed)

Seven of Cups (Reversed)

losing

of

short-term

The Hermit (Upright)

real

holding yourself back. It’s time to fly and spread your wings.

Three of Wands (Reversed)

holding yourself back. It’s time to fly and spread your wings.

The World (Upright)

closure so you can move onto the next chapter of your life.

King of Coins (Upright)

your current path, you are on the way to secure your finances and affairs.

Seven of Coins (Upright)

through things, your longterm goals are in development.

Death (Reversed)

It’s time to move on from what is over, you need to live past old memories..

Three of Cups (Upright)

a nice time to celebrate and hang out with your friends.

The High Priestess (Upright)

decisions you will have to make will involve trusting your intuition.

The Empress (Upright)

are in a period of growth, embrace all the new opportunities you have at this moment.

Aquarius

CWRU’s alumni association is lacking

Though we sometimes forget, there are thousands upon thousands of people who graduated from Case Western Re serve University out there. While we prepare for job and graduate school applications, most of us don’t consider what our actual lives will be like after we graduate. When we enter the real world, we’ll have to fend for ourselves, unless people help us along the way. However, when we leave we will also be alumni of this university. That’s precisely why universities across the country, includ ing CWRU, have alumni associations. They keep us connected to our own col lege community post-graduation. How ever, CWRU’s alumni association isn’t the most robust or beneficial for CWRU graduates, especially compared to other networks across the nation.

Let’s be honest, if you run into a CWRU alum it’s likely they won’t be overly excited that you attend CWRU. Don’t get us wrong, there are plenty of alumni who do carry CWRU school spirit after they graduate, especially those who donate to the university later on. However, it’s not typical to have

alumni who go above and beyond for other students and alumni alike. Many universities have extremely supportive associations and networks—such as Amherst, Princeton, Duke and many others—that provide resources and perks for their graduates. CWRU is not among these universities. On the sur face, CWRU does provide some perks for alumni, including chapters across the globe, career services, mentoring opportunities and more.

However, there is much more to be done. There should be more advantages to being an alum—whether that be wel come kits for alumni moving to new areas, set-up travel trips or extensive ca reer coaching. Another important aspect of building a more tight-knit alumni network is building school engage ment and spirit on campus. We should be proud CWRU students, yet, we don’t see much school spirit here. No one pro claims themself to be a “proud Spartan.” Yes, we have good academics in STEM fields, but our student body is pretty disconnected from each other. If there was a better effort on the university’s

part to make collective socializing more exciting, whether it be through more campus traditions, a greater number of on-campus events or a larger emphasis on sports, then perhaps more students would engage with their university be yond academics. Even without added perks, we would be more enthusiastic about meeting other CWRU alumni, and more of us would actively be in volved with alumni associations and the CWRU community.

Despite there being clear room for improvement within the network, the alumni association does try to help out current students—there are many ways to give back to the university, including through funds. However, while there is a general fund you can donate to, or you can choose to donate to a specific cause, there is also the Case Alumni As sociation. The Case Alumni Association is a specific organization dedicated to CWRU’s engineering, math and applied sciences. They organize and host multi ple events and scholarships, and provide various opportunities. In addition, clubs can apply for funds through this specific

the observer

established in 1969 by the undergraduate students of case western reserve university executive editor & publisher SHREYAS BANERJEE director of print SARA KHORSHIDI director of digital media JOCELYN ORTIZ director of design TARUN SEPURI director of business operations KHUSHALI DESAI development editor BEAU BILINOVICH engagement editor MULAN MA news editor GRACE JOHNSON life editor JOEY GONZALEZ opinion editor KARUNA LAKHIANI sports editor PUNEET BANSAL social media editor SOPHIA POPKIN photo editor CLAY PREUSCH web editor COLLIN WONG copy editors SHIVANGI NANDA, LEXY JENSEN, RACHEL ALEXANDER, ELIE AOUN, KATE GORDON layout designers DASHA DEGTEREV, SHIFRA NARASIMHAN business managers MATTHEW CHANG, MOHIT KOSURU, RYAN CHOU

organization if they are STEM related. But there is no humanities equivalent. While there are some funds available for humanities students for specific in dividual projects or internships, includ ing through the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities, it is nothing to the ex tent of the Case Alumni Association’s resources. Sure, alumni donors can give money towards a specific club if they choose to do so, but it’s up to them, whereas this association actively helps STEM students above and beyond. Yes, the distribution of STEM students is more than half of our undergraduates, but that doesn’t mean the other students and departments should be forgotten. While our alumni association is pretty standard, it isn’t something that CWRU and its alumni association should be boasting about. There is clear room for advancement, both in and out side of the university. There should be equal resources and opportunities for all students, not just those going into STEM fields. We should be proud to be CWRU students and alumni, but at the moment, most of us are not.

The Observer is the weekly undergraduate student newspaper of Case Western Reserve University. Established in 1969, The Observer reports news affecting students and provides an editori al forum for the university community. Unsigned editorials are typically written by the opinion editor but reflect the majo rity opinion of the senior editorial staff. Opinion columns are the views of their writers and not necessarily of The Observer staff. For advertising information, contact The Observer at (216) 3024442 or e-mail observer-ads@case.edu.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR should be e-mailed to observer@case.edu or submitted on our website at observer.case.edu. Letters can be mailed to Thwing Center 11111 Euclid Avenue, Suite 01, Cleveland, Ohio 44106. For policy and guidelines related to the submission of Letters to the Editor, refer to observer.case.edu/submit-a-letter.

The Observer is a proud member of CWRU’s University Media Board. Follow The Observer on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @cwruobserver.

My CWRU coffee crisis

As someone who considers herself a coffee enthusiast and obnoxious re viewer, the coffee options on and im mediately near campus have been my biggest gripe over the years. But this year’s coffee circumstances have been brutal, especially from the beginning of this semester to about last week. Having both the Dunkin’ and Euclid Starbucks closed due to relocation and renovation, respectively, was absolutely devastating news for me. Regularly, I’ve had to get coffee from other out-of-the-way stops or smaller providers. And while it’s helpful, it’s still been a struggle. So for this article, I’ve decided to provide my complaints and praises for every cof fee shop I can think of on campus. Al though, please note that while there are more coffee-providing places on cam pus, I’m mentioning the more popular ones.

The first coffee shop that comes to mind is Dunkin’. Last year, my biggest complaint about Dunkin’ was the line that constantly extended out the door, and that the amount of time it took to get food was absurd. With the recent move and downsize to Tinkham Veale

University Center, those concerns have increased twofold. Dunkin’ hasn’t been open too frequently, but when it is, the crowd leaves the middle of Tink pretty tight in space. Students are question ing this downsizing decision, including a friend of mine who publicly posted his concerns on Instagram. While I too thought the decision was questionable, I figured I was just being overly critical, but now I know I was right. However, on the bright side, the staff at Dunkin’ are quite friendly—they gave me a free donut once when I didn’t know they weren’t accepting credit cards yet. Also, the quality of Dunkin’ outweighs that of Cool Beanz, its predecessor at Tink.

Next on the list is the Starbucks in the North Residential Village. During my first year, it was my favorite place to get work done. My only complaint from the past was that occasionally, my orders were slightly incorrect, but never majorly different. However, this year, I was sad to learn that one of my favor ite writing spots is no longer open un til midnight. Grabbing a coffee before pulling an all-nighter was a frequent occurrence in my past. But now I can

no longer get my Starbucks fix after 11 p.m.

The Coffee House at University Cir cle is another classic coffee shop, espe cially for first years. It has a wonderful workspace, with a variety of drink and snack options. The only thing that con tinues to perplex me is why The Cof fee House doesn’t accept CaseCash. As a senior who recently found out I have remaining CaseCash from three years ago, I’m eager to find ways to spend it, yet The Coffee House does not afford me that opportunity, despite being right across from the first-year residence halls.

Next is Blue Sky Brews, the coffee shop closest to the South Residential Village. Blue Sky has a beautiful ap pearance and a wonderful ambiance for doing work. While the coffee isn’t mind-blowingly fantastic, the space’s energy is comfortable. I recommend this coffee shop if you’re looking for a coffee shop on Southside or when you need to get some serious work done.

Last but not least, we have the Euclid Starbucks. When I saw it shut down in the beginning of the semester, I was ter

rified. Now reopen after some tasteful renovations, there is now a severe lack of seating, which is the major drawback. I did write the initial parts of this article in that same Starbucks, and though I could find seating, it’s more difficult to do so now.

So, that’s my basic rundown of the coffee shops on campus. The long and short of it is I’m pretentious about cof fee, but also, our campus community has options—you just have to find what works for you, despite the occasional pains.

The social panopticon: Have we become desensitized to surveilling others?

Sarah Karkoff Staff Writer

In the age of social media, many changes in social norms have seemingly transpired without much critical thought. As most people become more comfort able with having an increasingly personal online presence, they also become de sensitized to scrutinizing the online pres ences of others.

The term “chronically online”— meaning someone who is out of touch with the real world and whose existence is heavily shaped by online culture—has been thrown around with increasing fre quency. Although this is seen as an insult to those that spend too much time on their phones, we can see that the base issue of being chronically online affects more than just this group of people. As people spend more time online, the way people interact with each other has also shifted, whether they are chronically online or not.

As the internet grows, so does the gov ernment’s purview into the private lives of citizens. Through the Patriot Act and the expanded National Security Agency (NSA), it is clear that the government can

monitor citizens to an uncomfortable and unprecedented level. Despite the objec tionable aspects of these agencies, people have become complacent about being monitored, whether it be by the govern ment or social media companies.

The advent of TikTok has brought this issue into greater visibility. The contro versy about TikTok user data brought to light that ByteDance—TikTok’s parent company—was accessing and collecting nonpublic data of their users. Even though this information was widely broadcasted, the app still has over a billion users.

However, government surveillance is old news. As long as governments have existed, they have monitored the citizens under their sovereignty. A newer phe nomenon is the extent to which people find it appropriate to record and post vid eos or photos of strangers without their consent.

Building upon the philosophers Jer emy Bentham and Michel Foucault’s concept of the panopticon, the modern term of social panopticism was formed. The original definition was concerned

with surveilling prisoners. Essentially, it is a circular prison surrounding one large watchtower. This tower is always shin ing lights at all the cells, thus a watchman is able to watch every prisoner. Thomas McMullan of the Guardian explains, “The people in the cells, however, aren’t able to see the watchman, and therefore have to assume that they are always un der observation.” Foucault broadened this idea to represent society and govern ment at large.

As the internet expands its reach into our lives, it is clear that this unique idea of panopticism has morphed. Instead of all citizens being watched, we can all now enjoy the position of both the surveillor and surveilled. Much like in the original prison concept, we are never aware of when people are going to be watching us.

Examples of this populate TikTok. I have seen videos of users recording ran dom people on college campuses and then uploading videos of their unsuspect ing subjects, hypothesizing about their personal lives. Additionally, there are an astonishing amount of TikTok videos

showcasing people minding their busi ness in public who are then shamed on line for self-presentation or behavior out side of specific social norms. While being in public gives us a lesser degree and ex pectation of privacy, when did it become so acceptable to take videos of people without their knowledge and to broadcast strangers to thousands or potentially mil lions of observers? What gives a person the right to forcibly put others under the scrutiny of the internet?

Not only do we surveil others, but this fear of being watched constantly by our peers causes constant self-censorship. On the other hand, the urge to feel relat able and genuine over social media leads many to overshare. As we swing between the fear of others’ scrutiny and the need to put our lives on the internet, we cre ate dangerous polarities. In doing this, we tend to market our relatability in ex change for social currency.

At the end of the day, some things do not need to be posted on social media, es pecially those who have not consented to be viewed.

CWRU should have maintained the COVID-19 dashboard

Caroline Kuntzman Staff Writer

Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Case Western Reserve Univer sity developed a COVID-19 dashboard. It provided students with valuable in formation about COVID-19 on campus, including vaccination rates, the number of people in quarantine and isolation as well as the number of positive cases each week. While it was not without its flaws, the COVID-19 dashboard provided the CWRU community with insight into how great of a risk COVID-19 posed. Since CWRU updated the dashboard every Tuesday, the information was always no more than a week old, which made it a reasonably accurate way for students to evaluate how concerned they should be about COVID-19 when making everyday choices.

In March 2022, CWRU ended the mask mandate in most settings and the testing requirements for most students living on campus. The university further relaxed COVID-19 guidelines for fall 2022, with no further restrictions im posed on gatherings. As CWRU noted in an email to students in August 2022, the campus vaccination rate is high, reducing

the risk presented by COVID-19. With that being said, this does not change the fact that breakthrough cases do occur, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone, regardless of vaccination status, remain mindful of the risks of COVID-19 in their community.

The COVID-19 dashboard provided the type of information individuals could use to assess community risk and make decisions about where they felt com fortable going and if they should wear a mask. With looser guidelines, it is now up to CWRU community members to decide if they want to wear a mask in most set tings. While it is true that there are other resources that students can use to gauge the risk of COVID-19, such as online reports about COVID-19 in Cuyahoga County, the dashboard provided a view of COVID-19 very specific to the university community and was helpful for gauging the risk of contracting the virus on cam pus.

CWRU community members may still choose to wear a mask—and they certainly should not feel pressured to do

otherwise—but ensuring everyone has reasonable access to the information they need is vital to good decision-making. In most situations, people have the right not to wear a mask but also the responsibility to decide whether or not they should wear one. Members of the CWRU commu nity should be supported in responsible decision-making by having access to the information they need.

The dashboard also showed a com mitment to transparency about the state of COVID-19 on campus. Seeing low case levels the previous academic year confirmed to the community that the coronavirus was well-managed on cam pus. While we can reasonably infer that COVID-19 levels will be low this semes ter—given the student vaccination rate and the fact that students were supposed to test themselves shortly before or right after returning to campus—providing data would help build confidence in the university’s COVID-19 management.

Furthermore, providing the CWRU community with pandemic information could prevent a surge in cases. While it is true that CWRU has indicated that mask

ing rules will be revised if needed, if we see that cases are rising before reaching the point for a necessary mask mandate, the campus community might take steps to modify its behavior and reduce posi tive cases by itself. This won’t happen if we don’t have this information.

The pandemic remains a reality for the CWRU community. People are still con tracting COVID-19 and while it is unlike ly to be severe or lethal for most vaccinat ed people, it is a fact that people infected with COVID-19 will have to deal with the consequences of isolation regardless of their symptoms. Having COVID-19 keeps them out of class and from going about everyday life, and for some in the community—especially those with cer tain medical conditions—illness can be severe regardless of their vaccination sta tus. Providing information about COV ID-19 rates on campus acknowledges that it’s still a problem, shows a commitment to honesty and transparency and aids campus community members in making good decisions about COVID-19. The COVID-19 dashboard is a resource that would still be relevant and useful today.

Soccer teams open UAA competition with a bang

Women’s soccer extends win streak to 9

akis about 35 yards from the goal. Larson slipped past his defender with some skill ful dribbling and lasered a shot into the lower right corner for the 2-0 score.

It was much the same in the second half. This time, it was Vatne who made the score. Fourth-year midfielder Sean Atwater sent the ball into the six-yard box. Vatne spun past his defender and quickly launched the ball past a defender and the goalie to make the score 3-0, re cording his fifth goal of the season.

For the final goal, Atwater came from the side of the field and found secondyear forward Brandom Kim in front of the net for the 4-0 score.

CWRU improved to 5-2-2 overall. Fourth-year goalie Jackson Kallen re corded 1 save for his second shutout of the season.

tures broke the ice in the second half. On a corner kick, fourth-year forward Aniya Hartzler sent a cross into the six-yard box. Fourth-year midfielder Merry Mey er headed the ball towards the far post. With the Brandeis goalie drawn out of position, Koutures knocked the ball into the goal, giving the Spartans the 1-0 lead.

The Judges retaliated less than 20 minutes later to even it 1-1. Given the tempo thus far, the game seemed des tined for an overtime finish. But Hartzler had other plans.

In the 83rd minute, Hartzler received a free kick and curled it past the defend ers into the lower left corner for the game-deciding score—her fourth score of the season. CWRU played shutout de fense for the final six minutes to secure the contest.

The Case Western Reserve University soccer teams walked away triumphant from DiSanto Field last Saturday Oct. 1, defeating Brandeis University to begin the UAA portion of their season. The men’s team overpowered Brandeis 4-0 while the women’s team clinched the 2-1 win with a late-game score.

The men’s team started the day off with fourth-year midfielder Adrian Hark ness netting the first of four goals 18:30 into the match. Fourth-year midfielder

Matt Vatne sent a pass from the right side to Harkness in the center of the box, who sent the low kick into the goal’s corner for the 1-0 lead.

CWRU dominated time of posses sion, allowing Brandeis to get only 1 shot off in the first half and just 4 for the game. The Spartans totaled a staggering 18 shots and 6 corner kicks.

Just over 25 minutes in, first-year Camden Larson received a short pass from second-year midfielder Lukas Dal

About 30 minutes later, the women’s team took the field, hoping for a simi lar result. They eventually got there, but faced stiffer competition.

The first half was quite stagnant as neither team could get an advantage over the other. The Judges held a 5-3 shot ad vantage, but the Spartans’ attempts were more accurate. For the game, the Spar tans took 11 shots to Brandeis’ 9 and also had the edge in corner kicks 7-4.

Second-year forward Carolyn Kou

With the win, the Spartans extended their win streak to nine games. Thirdyear goalkeeper Maggie Storti came up with 4 saves to notch her ninth win of the season.

Both teams will embark on a threegame road trip, heading first to New York University on Oct. 8. The teams will then visit Washington University in St. Louis on Oct. 10, and will conclude their trek against the University of Chicago on Oct. 16.

Men’s cross country wins Mike Woods Invitational, women’s finish 3rd

Puneet Bansal Sports Editor Begley, Iagnemma named Spartan Club Athletes of the Week

After strong performances at the AllOhio Twilight Championships and the Spartan Invitational in mid-September, the Case Western Reserve University cross country teams both earned podium finishes at the Mike Woods Invitational on Oct. 1.

On Sept. 16, CWRU divided their rosters for the Spartan Invitational, host ed by Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan and for the All-Ohio Championships in Cedarville, Ohio.

At the Spartan Invitational, the men’s team was led by fourth-year Robert St. Clair who placed 35th out of 246 in the 8K race with a time of 25:32.43. Other notable finishes were fourth-year Jack Begley, who came in 42nd (25:40.64), second-year Aidan Nathan, who finished 57th (25:56.35), third-year Stephen Hen ry, who took 86th (career-best 26:35.12) and fourth-year Liam O’Reilly, who earned 102st place (26:46.20). The Spar tans placed 10th out of 18 teams overall.

At the All-Ohio Championships, graduate student Anthony Hart was the first CWRU runner to cross the finish line with a time of 26:35.5 in the 8K distance, taking 100th out of 436 and 24th out of the 180 Division III runners. Rounding out the top five CWRU finish ers were third-year Arjun Thillairajah in 106th place (26:40.2), second-year Hans Holst in 111th (26:43.1), first-year Ben Smith in 122nd (26:51.1) and first-year Danny Becker in 134th (26:59.8). The Spartans placed 12th out of 29 teams and third out of the 14 DIII teams.

The women’s team at the Spartan Invi tational was led by first-year Ashley No

vak, who took 62nd out of 217 runners in the 6K race with a time of 23:11.57. Fourth-year Julia Kocherzat followed in 105th (24:05.04) alongside third-year Sierra Williams for 111th (24:12.94). Third-year Grace Jackson earned 120th place (career-best 24:25.37) and fourthyear Catherine Phillips came in 126th (24:35.94) to finish off the scoring ath letes. The team posted a 14th place finish out of 19 teams.

CWRU finished 10th out of 33 teams at the All-Ohio Championships, and were third out of 15 DIII teams. Firstyear Lauren Iagnemma finished the 5K distance with a time of 19:05.2, taking 49th out of 334 overall and 11th out of

the 136 DIII competitors. The other top five finishers were first-year Julia Hluck, who followed in 70th (19:29.7), first-year Ayla Grabenbauer, who came in 81st (19:36.9), first-year Anna Avila, who earned 84th (19:36.9) and thirdyear Jessica Kwasny, who came in 145th (20:37.9).

On Saturday, Oct. 1, the men’s team shined at the Mike Woods Invitational and brought home a first place overall finish. Begley led the way with a thirdplace finish overall out of the 365 runners in the 8K (24:49.3). Nathan followed in sixth place with a career-best time of 25:06.1 while St. Clair came just after in seventh (25:08.3). Fourth-year Joe Jaster

and O’Reilly were the other two top five Spartan finishers. Both posted careerbest times, finishing 19th (25:33.4) and 27th (25:47.9), respectively.

CWRU owned three of the top 10 finishes and finished with a score of 62, placing ahead of No. 19 Geneseo (68 points), Middlebury College (95 points), Washington and Lee College (154 points) and Franklin Pierce Uni versity (167 points). Franklin Pierce’s Wondu Summa won the race with a time of 24:40.7.

The women’s team also brought in a strong overall performance led by Iagnemma and Novak. Iagnemma was the first Spartan finisher, placing 11th out of 274 with a time of 22:50.4 for the 6K race—the fastest of any Spartan this season. Novak recorded her season-best mark of 23:11.0, finishing 17th. Jackson came in 29th (career-best 23:33.4), Gra benbauer placed 33rd (23:39.2) and Ko cherzat took 36th (23:41.0).

The Spartans earned 96 points to take third place overall, with No. 1 Geneseo taking the team title with a score of 15 and No. 24 Dickinson College finishing second with 85 points. Middlebury fin ished fourth (109 points) while Allegh eny College took fifth (136 points).

Begley and Iagnemma were named the Spartan Club Athletes of the Week for their top performances.

CWRU will host the Alumni Race at the Squire Valleevue Farm in Hunting Valley, Ohio on Oct. 8. The following weekend, the teams will travel to Ober lin, Ohio for the Oberlin Inter-regional Rumble on Oct. 15.

Fourth-year midfielder Aniya Hartzler capitalized on a free kick to net the game-winning goal against Brandeis. Courtesy of CWRU Athletics

Fourth-year Jack Begley completed the 8K distance in 24:49.3 at the Mike Woods invite, his fastest time of the season and the third best of his career.

Courtesy of CWRU Athletics

Scores and Upcoming Games

Women’s Tennis

Football

Volleyball

Upcoming Games:

CWRU Film Society

Friday, October 7, 2022

p.m., 10:00 p.m., 11:59 p.m.

Lilo & Stitch (2002)

Cosponsored by Case Alumni Association

Rated PG (85 min.)

Directors: Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders

With the voices of Daveigh Chase, Chris Sanders, Tia Carrere A young and parentless girl adopts a ‘dog’ from the local pound, completely unaware that it’s a dangerous scientific experiment that’s taken refuge on Earth and is now hiding from its creator and those who see it as a menace.

Saturday, October 8, 2022

7:00 p.m., 9:30 p.m.

Young Frankenstein (1974)

Rated PG (106 min.)

Director: Mel Brooks

With Whoopi Goldberg, Maggie Smith, Harvey Keitel

The timeless horror spoof! A young neurosurgeon inherits the castle of his grandfather, the famous Dr. Victor von Frankenstein. In the castle he finds a funny hunchback called Igor, a lab assistant named Inga, and the housekeeper, Frau Blücher. Young Frankenstein believes that the work of his grandfather is only “doo-doo”, but when he discovers the book where the mad doctor described his reanimation experiment, he suddenly changes his mind...