Volume XXIX Issue 4 November 14 2019

14 November 2019

scrippsvoice.com

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THE "STAG SURVIVAL GUIDE": Final Straw for Three Swimmers Who Quit Women’s Team

Photo Courtesy of ArchDaily

By Anna Liss-Roy ’20 Co-Editor-in-Chief

T

SV interviewed six current members of the swim and dive teams and the three swimmers who quit in September.

On Sept. 18, three senior women on the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps swim team held individual meetings with Swim and Dive Head Coach Charlie Griffiths to notify him of their respective resignations from the team. Their decision was catalyzed by what they described as Griffiths’ inaction following the discovery of the “Stag Survival Guide,” a 13-page document created by the senior men on the team, whose descriptions include use of the n-word, explicit sexual references to members of the women’s team, and a homophobic description of another teammate.

According to CMS swimmers, the Stag Survival Guide is a longstanding tradition of the men’s swim and dive team, used to introduce first-years joining the team to their new teammates. A new version of the guide, written by the senior men, is disseminated each summer. It contains descriptions of the men’s team’s sophomores, juniors and seniors, all of which are allegedly intended to be humorous.

Some members of the men’s team say they had not seen their descriptions until after the guide had been shared with all members of the team. Furthermore, they had not consented to being included. Both full names and photos of team members accompanied the descriptions.

“I don’t believe I gave direct permission and I was not consulted before it was sent out,” said a sophomore on the men’s team who spoke with TSV on condition of anonymity.

The Stag Survival Guide is intended to remain confidential and is shared only within the men’s team. A disclaimer on the first page warns, “Before progressing please understand this work is by and for stags only, and any copying, sharing, or general spreading of this guide is a crime punishable by disembowelment, dismemberment, death, or in the cases of serious infractions, an awkward, drawnout one-on-one talk.”

The document was brought to the attention of members of the women’s team, however, after a member of the men’s team who was upset about his description shared a screenshot with a female teammate.

“He screenshotted just his section, sent it to me and was like, I’m really upset, this is super [offensive],” said the female teammate, who asked to remain anonymous in this article to avoid retribution from teammates. “I thought that this was like a collaborative thing where everyone was working on it together and like everyone was approving it, and this is what had been written but it hadn’t been sent out yet.”

However, the document had already been sent to the entire men’s team.

As word about the guidebook spread, two of the senior women and rising cap-

tains created a group chat with all of the team’s seven senior men on July 1 to confront them about the description that had been shared.

“Hey Stags, I just saw this screenshot of what someone wrote about [male teammate] in the stag guidebook and you guys need to delete that right now,” said a senior on the women’s team. “I think an apology to [male teammate] from whoever wrote it would be good too … it is the absolute worst message of non-acceptance/intolerance you could send to the incoming first years. If this was spread beyond the team it would be a very poor reflection of us all.”

One of the senior men responsible for writing the guide responded in the group chat. “We are very sorry for including this,” he said. “We wrote this with no intention of malice and now that I reread it I can see how it can be misconstrued.

We will send out a revised copy and reach out to [male teammate].”

According to the female teammate, “they did neither of those things.”

The seven seniors on the men’s team did not respond to two requests for comment.

In mid-July, an electronic version of the document was passed around at a team event. “They’re … joking about the guidebook and I’m like guys this is really fucked up,” said a source close to the team in an interview with TSV. “They’re like laughing about it. I’m getting angry and then someone pulls out the guidebook … and passes it around so then I actually got to see the rest of it.”

The issue was brought to Griffiths’ attention one week later by members of the women’s team.

Griffiths, who declined to comment for this article, did not know about the guidebook at the time, according to members of the women’s team. “It’s been going on since longer than he was around and it’s so secret,” a senior on the women’s team said. “I had never even seen the guidebook.”

Several members of the Swim and Dive teams, as well as sources close to the team, agree that the Stag Survival Guide is emblematic of a team culture dominated by white men and steeped in gender discrimination.

“We’ve been railing against the sexism,” one of the senior women who quit this year said. “We’ve been having meetings with our coach since our freshman year … [and] nothing has changed.”

The sense of powerlessness felt by some senior women on the team was magnified last spring during a series of meetings with their male teammates to discuss what their senior leadership would look like the following year.

“You sit at a table with these guys and we’re already outnumbered because there’s like four of us and seven of them, they interrupt you, when you talk it’s like they’re just waiting for you to be done talking,” said one of the senior women who quit. “And like at the end of the day [two of the senior women] were on the national team last year and none of [the

senior men] were.”

After a series of these meetings, several senior women were left feeling frustrated and with a sense of hopelessness, as they had not resolved how to improve the gender dynamics between themselves and their male teammates.

“That was the first time [we felt that] if this continues we can’t live our senior year like this,” said a senior member of the women’s team. “[Female teammate] and I had been talking probably for an hour like every other week over the summer … We were like something has to change.”

Once back at school in late August, one of senior women met with Griffiths “to see the progress on [his response to the guidebook] and to talk to him about how to go about dealing with Stags in meetings this year.”

“I was just trying to figure out, like, can you help give me support in a meeting setting with these Stags, like it’s terrible to sit in a room with them,” she said. “He basically told me I was just ‘opinionated’ and that’s why they weren’t listening to me. He was like, ‘do you think it’s just because you have a lot of ideas and they just don’t agree with your ideas?’ I said, ‘These are not ideas, I’m being mistreated.”

Another senior woman and rising captain met with Griffiths an hour later. Her teammate warned her about how poorly her meeting with their coach had gone.

In the second meeting, the senior woman informed Griffiths that she and other members of the women’s team expected him to take action both in response to their treatment during meetings and to the guidebook.

“I said, if there are not consequences and this behavior is tolerated, I’m not compromising my values for a team that doesn’t back me and doesn’t care about me,” she said. “I resent the fact that you and the team are putting me in a position where I feel like I’m compromising my values,” she said. “I guess everyone took that as an empty threat that I would leave the team if there were no consequences.”

On Sept. 18, three out of four senior women quit, citing a team culture pervaded by toxic masculinity and the Stag Survival Guide, according to a source close to the team who spoke to TSV on condition of anonymity.

According to members of the men’s and women’s teams, Griffiths held a meeting with all members of the men’s team on Sept. 19, where he announced that some of the male swimmers would be temporarily suspended from practice.

“There was a group chat with the stags and the sophomore group chat was talking about, like, ‘Oh it’s at 7am, there’s never a meeting at 7am, this must be serious,’” said a sophomore on the men’s team who asked to remain anonymous. “No one really knew what was going on. When we got to the meeting, a bunch of chairs were set up and there was Charlie, a couple of assistant coaches, and people in the administra-

tion … there were important people in the room,” he said.

At this meeting, the team split up into their respective classes, according to a member of the women’s team who spoke to TSV on condition of anonymity. “The seniors were all left with [the head coach, Associate Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion and Chief Civil Rights Officer, and Director of Athletics], and one of the guys stands up and has his computer open,” she said.

This teammate, a captain of the men’s team who was allegedly involved with writing the guide, presented a “defensive document” with “pages of any remotely sexual photo or joke that had ever been sent in a team group chat, nicknames, just anything with sexual or inappropriate connotation,” she said.

According to these two members of the women’s team, examples in this “defensive document” included a Valentine’s Day tradition where the women’s team writes inappropriate jokes and a “Rook Video,” which first years make during training camp to make fun of the upperclassmen on their gendered side of the team.

“From my point of view I have understood it as everyone makes inappropriate jokes about swimming or diving that literally aren’t directed at anyone, they just have your name on the card,” said a member of the women’s team. “But that was never like ‘I’m singling out this person to make … a joke that’s directed at them.’”

Three members of the women’s team confirmed that both the men’s and women’s team have participated in these traditions.

Other team traditions of this nature include a “Friskiest Frosh” award (according to a current member of the team, “it’s like an award basically that the senior girls give out to the freshman that is the most promiscuous and sleeps with lots of people … it’s supposed to be a funny thing”) and “Junior Dilemma,” a code word among male team members to describe a Junior male who hasn’t slept with anyone yet that year (according to a current member of the team, “the juniors need someone to help them with the Junior Dilemma – I’ve seen that written [in group chats]”).

The Civil Rights office, in consultation with deans from all three colleges, the director of Athletics and the head coach, decided to investigate the climate on the CMS Swim and Dive team. Marcie Gardner, deputy general counsel of the college, conducted the investigation along with Gray.

In a meeting on Nov. 11 with Gray, CMC Associate Vice President of Media Relations and Communications Peter Hong and CMC Director of News and Media Relations Gilien Silsby, exact dates of the investigation were unable to be disclosed to TSV. “Things required as part of the investigation are confidential to the investigation,” Gray said.

According to Gray, this includes dates

1030 Columbia Avenue | Claremont, CA 91711 | Box 839 | scrippsvoice@gmail.com | Volume XXIX | Issue Four

2 • News of the investigation, its exact procedure, and whether administrators involved with the investigation had met personally with the three women who had quit. However, members of the team say the findings of the investigation were announced to the team on Oct. 14.

“The investigation has concluded,” Silsby said in an email to TSV on Oct. 31. “It was determined members of the men’s and women’s teams engaged in behavior that justified the assignment of mandatory educational programming for the teams. In addition, some members of the men’s team have been given additional educational requirements.”

According to Scripps Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Charlotte Johnson and Associate Dean of Students and Scripps Title IX Coordinator Adriana Di Bartolo, “CMC found that conduct by certain swim team members was inappropriate and inconsistent with CMS athletics expectations.

[We are] not aware of any specific policy violations under CMC’s policies.”

Gray stated she was unable to provide additional information on the mandated educational programming and requirements. According to Johnson and Di Bartolo, “given the nature of the document, it was determined that the Office of Civil Rights at CMC was the more appropriate office to conduct the investigation.”

However, some members of the women’s team felt the language in the stag survival guide should have warranted a Title IX investigation.

“The guidebook is hazing. It’s a Title IX violation ... and nothing’s happening,” said one of the seniors who quit.

Title IX, a federal civil rights law that was passed as part of the Education Amendments of 1972, states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance,” (Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972).

Though there has been no Title IX investigation, in light of the guidebook, members of the men’s and women’s teams agree more Title IX education may be necessary.

“I was incredibly disappointed in myself for not speaking up,” said a member of the men’s team who spoke with TSV on condition of anonymity and stated that he had been aware of the guidebook since before his freshman year. “But being able to go through some education and training really helped.”

“I think more education is always better, especially around sensitive topics like this,” said another member of the men’s team who also spoke with TSV on condition of anonymity.

However, team members and sources close to the team say that additional educational programming represents a surface-level fix for the real problem: a level of Title IX training for CMS athletes that they say is inadequate.

“We’re supposed to have Title IX [training] every year,” said one of the senior women who quit. “The only thing that we’ve ever had was a packet of information sent out in...April that was like ‘sign this by tonight. Otherwise, none of us are clear [to swim].’ … And no one read it,” she said.

In an email to members of the Swim and Dive team on May 5, a captain on the men’s swim team wrote, “Hey team we need to complete this form TUESDAY night at Midnight!! If it is not done there will be sanctions on CMS athletics for next year affecting all sports so please spend the 5 minutes it takes to skim Is [teammate] a Stag or Athena? We’re not quite sure but you can count on him to have more glitter and sparkles on at a party than Elton John in the 70s. Most likely to start at least 3 Athena chants before 10PM

through this and sign your name!”

According to Gray, Title IX training includes an online component for all students, accompanied by an in-person component for first-years. Further, there is a CMS-wide team orientation every year, which includes a section reviewing aspects of Title IX and team expectations.

Coaches have separate Title IX training from athletes. This includes a summer session with the Title IX coordinator and a fall session with Gray, as well as a spring update meeting with an administrator from the Title IX or Civil Rights offices.

Teams can also opt into additional training, such as Teal Dot training — which teaches bystanders how to intervene in cases of various types of assault — masculinity education and self defense classes, at the initiative of the head coach.

However, members of the women’s team report that Griffiths has been largely unresponsive to their requests for additional training.

“In that first meeting with him [over the summer] I said to him, you know, a great option would be to have a series of trainings with the assistant dean and director [of Scripps Communities of Resources and Empowerment],” said one of the senior women who quit. According to this individual, Griffiths allegedly responded, “I just don’t think they would respond well to a woman dean at Scripps.”

“I think [Griffiths] bares a lot of the blame here,” said a family member of one of the women who quit.

The three senior women who quit have, combined, been swimming for a total of 39 years. Two have racked up titles at both the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and the NCAA championships. To sacrifice their senior season was a decision that came as a shock to the rest of the team.

“If our voices weren’t enough to effect any change, maybe your two [nationallyranked] and three out of four seniors quitting would get attention,” said one of the seniors who quit. “We thought that this was going to be the catalyst for change. And it’s not … what will it take if three out of four seniors quitting aren’t going to do it?”

The three swimmers each wrote resignation letters to Griffiths, which they presented to him in their meetings on Sept. 18.

In her letter of resignation, one of the swimmers described a moment of confrontation at a meeting with the senior men as backlash about the guidebook was beginning to unfold. “I’ll be completely candid and say that I have never been to a more painful dinner than this one I am about to tell you about,” she wrote. “The senior boys did not even mention the survival guide. They skipped right over it and just said they had a meeting with you and what came out of it was that we will now have to be more transparent in our activities with you. I interjected, asking them if they cared to share why they had a separate meeting with you that brought about this change.

The response was that ‘an individual’ was offended by some of the material in the survival guide and that this ‘individual’ brought it to your attention. They then changed the topic but I interjected again, this time saying that on top of the many people who were offended, I was personally offended by the things written in that document … Then [another female teammate], bold as ever and seeing that they didn’t understand what they did wrong, said, ‘I think you all owe [teammate] an apology.’ One by one the boys muttered,

Everybody be nice to [teammate], we need him to make sure we meet the minimum diversity requirement on the team.

‘Sorry, [teammate]’ … ‘Sorry, [teammate]’ … ‘Sorry, teammate]’ … while facing down at the table. I had to beg for an apology and that’s what I got. It was like pulling teeth but so much worse because this was coming from a group of people who I thought were my friends. After that ‘apology’ [a senior captain] checked his phone and said he had to leave. Then, in classic CMS fashion, all of the boys followed [his] lead and dispersed. And that was the end of that.”

This culture of marginalization described by the women who quit, along with members who are still on the team, has manifested through a series of incidents during the past four years that some members have found to be sexist.

“One of our huge complaints in the past has been that the Stags like in practice only cheer for themselves,” said one of the women who quit. “At [the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference] ... the girls were closer to winning but [Griffiths] wasn’t like coming out like rallying them up to try to get them to like push. He was ... still focused on the male swimmers and how well they were doing and a lot of them felt that he was … always putting more emphasis on them than on the women.”

After women’s team lost a PomonaPitzer meet in the 2017-2018 season, a member of the men’s team infamously commented that “the Athenas are only good for fucking.”

The response was immediate. According to members of the women’s team, a team meeting was convened where a Zero Tolerance policy was reviewed. “Then we had an Athena team meeting during practice, of course, and people basically related stories of times when they felt like marginalized and oppressed by the Stags. It was super depressing and then we missed practice for it — while the boys were swimming,” a senior who quit said.

Last year, another incident arose when members of the team were having problems with a captain. “This person was really acting inappropriately and setting a terrible example … the senior Athenas were going to Charlie and ... he was like, ‘oh, it’s just drama among you guys,’” said one of the senior women who quit.

“And then right when a [male teammate] got on board and came to the meeting with the Athenas, then Charlie listened.”

Aside from these moments of conflict, some women on the team feel a general sense of inferiority, even in the pool. “[The men] are always leading the lanes, which sort of makes sense in terms of speed, but then they also get a lot of benefits from going first,” said one of the senior women who quit. “If you go last in the lane you don’t get your time. It’s clear we’re second tier to them,” she said.

Instances perceived as discriminatory against women and other marginalized identities on the team are not restricted to the CMS swim and dive team and are recognizable in swim culture more broadly. Three members of Niagara University’s women’s swimming and diving teams, who allege they were sexually harassed and bullied by members of the men’s swim team, sued their school in September, according to the Associated Press. Abrahm DeVine, the Pac-12 swimmer of the year in 2018 and a two-time member of the U.S. national team at the world championships, recently posted in an Instagram post announcing that he had been kicked off the Stanford swim and dive team because he is gay, according to the Washington Post.

According to a 2018 NCAA report, two percent of Division III swimmers are black for both men’s and women’s

Check out “Thick N***** and Anime Tiddies” by Dbangz for a rough understanding of [teammate]’s sex life. **original version was not censored

teams, 78 percent of men’s teams and 80 percent of women’s teams are white, and 20 percent of men’s teams and 18 percent of women’s teams are “other.”

Though the NCAA does not offer statistics for socioeconomic status, 79 percent of children in families with household income less than $50,000 have no/low swimming ability, according to a 2017 report from the USA Swimming Foundation, leading to the conclusion that a majority of swimmers who make it to the college level come from a privileged socioeconomic background.

Beyond the racial and socioeconomic demographics, collegiate swim and dive teams are also unique because it is the only sport where the men and women’s teams have joint practices.

“The unique aspect of swimming at a college level is that it’s the only sport where men and women are side by side training together every day … not to mention in bathing suits,” said a family member of one of the women who quit. “That can make for a fairly oppressive environment if the men are diminishing your accomplishments and making smart remarks about how you look or all that sort of stuff.”

However, some members of swim and dive say they have not observed any problems between members of the men’s and women’s teams. “It’s not Stags and Athenas. It’s Stagthenas,” said a member of the men’s team who spoke to TSV on condition of anonymity.

Furthermore, some members of the men’s team who were included in the guide say they were not offended by their descriptions. “I thought what was written about me was funny, and I didn’t have any problems with it,” said the same member of the men’s team.

“I completely understand why some people thought parts of the document to be inappropriate, but I did not interpret any of the entries as anything other than well-intentioned jokes,” said another member of the men’s team who spoke to TSV on condition of anonymity. “This is not to say that some people’s outrage was unwarranted, only that I did not share the sentiment.”

The seniors responsible for writing the guide sent apologies to members of the men’s team after the team meeting on Sept. 18. However, the most impactful action for the team was the resignation of three out of four of its senior women captains.

“Instead of including more women in the management of the team, as there are now nearly no senior women on the team, they have doubled down on running the team as a senior class alone, meaning the gender balance of people posing as team leadership for swimmers is 6 men:1 woman right now. They have expressed that the role of juniors is to be examples of team spirit, and that is all,” said a current member of the women’s team.

“It hurts to lose the best coach I have ever had, who has been my greatest supporter and mentor in all my time here in California,” wrote one of the seniors in her letter of resignation. “It hurts that I am giving up the sport that I love more than anything, that has been a part of my life since before I can remember.”

“Yet I know that from the ashes, Athenas will still rise,” she wrote. “I will always be there for the team, and I will continue to cheer on the Athenas for the rest of my life. I hope that someday, we all will have learned from this and we will all be better people and we will all be friends again. But so much has to change first.

That change starts now.”

We all know he doesn’t actually have real work to do and is just planning a way to bully on [teammate] and incoming frosh.

ExcerpTs from the Stag Survival Guide Will grab your girl’s ass if you’re not careful.

[Teammate] says he’s here to learn, but after three years it’s clear that this whole “school” thing is just a way to get to know blondes with nice butts.

His toes have single-footedly seduced 104% of the Athenas.

Claims he is a butt guy, but his record will heavily indicate he is lying. You don’t want to know where his thumb has been.

14 November 20`9 • The Scripps Voice • Volume XXIX • Issue Four

Features • 3

Commitment or Complicity: students lead the movement towards a carbon neutral future

Eloise Magoncelli ’22 Staff Writer cripps College is covered with green lawns, twisting vines and a variety of shade and fruit-bearing trees. Both our official mascot, La Semeuse, and our unofficial mascot, the Scripps squirrel, conjure the same idealistic images of nature that Scripps projects from its greenery.

Sustainability at Scripps has been largely concentrated in the Scripps Edibles program, which uses campus-grown resources to make products such as olive oil and to compost food scraps from the dining hall.

However, Scripps’ actions as an institution do not reflect the same assumed priorities of environmentalism and sustainability that one might expect from its visual abundance of green.

Scripps remains one of two Claremont Colleges that have yet to sign a Carbon Commitment agreement, despite ongoing action taken by the Scripps Environmental Education and Development Club (SEED) and the Sustainability Committee to move Scripps in what they say is a more environmentally-friendly direction.

When previous Scripps Sustainability Coordinator Tiffany Ortamond left in Sept. 2018 (a position that still remains empty), she passed on the idea of a carbon commitment to Julia McCartan ’21, who was the sustainability intern to at the time.

Describing this commitment as an important and helpful step to implement at Scripps, the former Sustainability Coordinator also left McCartan with the responsibility of taking action, justifying her decision by saying that this initiative would prove more valuable and powerful coming from Scripps students themselves.

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As of Spring 2018, SEED coordinators decided to advise the Scripps administration to sign Second Nature’s Carbon Commitment. According to their website, Second Nature is “committed to accelerating climate action in, and through, higher education” and has created a network of colleges and universities that are determined to prioritize the principles of sustainability on their campuses. Thus far, Second Nature has engaged with 767 schools and has 486 signatories from schools.

Upon signing Second Nature’s Carbon Commitment, Scripps would gain access to knowledge and resources shared within this network of environmentally motivated schools.

Signing this commitment would require Scripps to develop a Climate Action Plan to achieve carbon neutrality by a set date and to submit annual progress reports. “[By signing the Carbon Commitment, a school is] not penalized if you don’t meet your neutrality date or even if you decrease or increase emissions on the way,” McCartan said. “The commitment is just to keep sustainability and emissions topical and at the forefront of the institution’s decision making.”

Pomona College was the first Claremont College to implement a Carbon Commitment in 2017, spurred to action by student activists and the student organization Divest Pomona. Despite student-led initiatives at the other 5C’s, the SEED organization at Scripps has had to take on an unprecedented workload in order to be recognized by the administration and to make a change.

The frustrations that McCartan and fellow SEED members have encountered when navigating civil meetings about the commitment and the unbalanced relationship between students and admin are extensive.

Scripps administration has maintained that Scripps is in a unique situation, arguing that the geographic location, historical architecture and old design of the campus makes complying with Second Nature’s standards particularly difficult. However, it is important to know that other Claremont Colleges have signed onto this agreement. This suggests that Scripps’ geographic location should not be used as a justification for inaction, but instead a determining factor in making institutional change. For example, the unique geography of the Claremont Colleges is especially important in arguing for a commitment as just one of the many effects of climate change, increased wildfires, is prominent and threatening to our locale.

The fight for a carbon commitment at Scripps continues today. However, the implementation of a carbon commitment is about more than receiving signatures. It is a demand for transparency between the administration and their decisions, and the student body who are impacted by each one. The petition circulating the Claremont student body is a start to a far greater movement, one that is tied to larger themes of climate justice. “[The carbon commitment] is about so much more,” McCartan said. “It is about there not being a way for the administration to listen to its students…

[The administration’s inaction is] a form of climate denial, when they don’t acknowledge the degree of the climate catastrophe and their complicity in it.”

Join the SEED club Friday, Nov. 15, on the Bowling Green outside of Malott from 2-4pm to support the Carbon Commitment initiative at Scripps and protest the ways in which the administration has resisted this change.

The CJLPP hosts Hong Kong Protest Panel Megan Chow ’23 Staff Writer n Wednesday, Oct. 30, the Claremont Journal of Law and Public Policy hosted a panel with professors and students that sought to spark conversation and spread awareness regarding the ongoing Hong Kong Protests. The event boasted a huge turnout as audience members filled all available seats, while others stood in the back of the room. The panel consisted of three 5C professors: Terril Jones, visiting lecturer of government at Claremont McKenna, Tom Le, assistant professor of politics at Pomona and Hanzhang Liu, assistant professor of political studies at Pitzer. Students Agnes Mok PO ’21, Becky Zhang PO ’22 and Anna Choi PO ’23 were also panel members, with all three having experience researching the political climate in Hong Kong.

Ali Kapadia, the CJLPP’s Business Director, expressed the importance of having students on the panel alongside the professors.

“We wanted to highlight both professor and student voices in creating a productive conversation,” Kapadia said. “A joint conversation can often be more revealing and insightful since it gives more perspectives than might be typical.”

During this hour-long event, the professors covered topics ranging from the increase in proindependence sentiment within protesters to the effects of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act on US-China relations.

“It’s a more compelling story if it’s a smaller entity fighting a larger one looking independence—this is a narrative the United States would love,” Le said.

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“But can this one entity have what the entire country doesn’t have?”

At the event, Jones touched upon the issue of increased political tensions in Hong Kong.

“There are people who are dressing up as protestors and students and attacking police to provoke violence from police,” Jones said. “That kind of misinformation is inflammatory and makes the situation worse.”

The event also covered questions regarding the importance of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act and its effect of its passage on HK-China-US relations, “We are at a critical juncture where US-China relations are tenuous,” Liu said. “Caution is always better than overreach. The CCP government hates losing face the most [and] if the United States pushes [against China], it’s not just Hong Kong that will be affected, but US-China relations will be at a stage beyond repair.”

Becky Zhang PO ’22 asked a question that was also shared by most of the audience at the event: “How can students and people of the US engage with and critically analyze the situation of Hong Kong through an appropriate lens?”

Similarly, through the online question submission, many students expressed that they were from mainland China and would like to support Hong Kong protests, but are unsure of how they can bring about the topic to their friends and family in China.

Anna Choi PO ’23 offered a more casual way to not only show support for the protests, but also create conversation about them.

“The great thing about America is that you can

talk about Hong Kong in a less serious way,” Choi said. “For example, one can talk about the ban of NBA in China or how South Park’s 300th episode got banned in China [and how] the people who organized it had a very sarcastic apology. You could share that as a meme.”

However, both Le and Liu agreed that this topic should most definitely not be discussed through WeChat. WeChat, China’s most popular messaging app, is notorious for its lack of user privacy. Not only does the software condone the use of spyware, but users’ metadata can also be shared with Chinese authorities, allowing the government to use private messages as evidence for convictions.

Jones also expressed to the audience the significance of hosting such an event on campus and the large student turnout.

“By bringing together people who have stories to tell and people who want to hear those stories and use that to digest information and understand the situation themselves, [just as this panel is doing,] is a way to certainly spread understanding of the issue [despite] not being in Hong Kong,” Jones said.

Professor Liu urged students to continue to seek out opportunities to share and learn information on this topic.

“The one thing we can do is to have a conversation with whoever we can and just lay the facts on the ground,” Liu said. “It’s very easy to get accusatory in this kind of situation and understandably so. But it’s safe to say that trying to understand each other is very important.”

14 November 2019 • The Scripps Voice • Volume XXIX • Issue Four

4 • Features

Dying Happy and Healing America:

Marianne Williamson at the 5Cs

By Amelie Lee ’23 Staff Writer

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n Wednesday, Nov. 6. the Democrats of the Claremont Colleges hosted presidential candidate Marianne Williamson for a two hourlong town-hall in the Scripps Hampton Room.

This event was followed by a subsequent event at the Pomona Rose Hill theater at 7 P.M. hosted

by The Student Life newspaper and the Pomona College Politics Department.

At both events, Williamson advocated the need for a change in American ideology, particularly in regards to economic anxiety, climate change and national security. In her speeches, the candidate also discussed her plans for environmental mobilization, reparations for slavery and a more humanitarian approach to American’s military department.

“We’re going to remake this society based on the dictates of all that is good and beautiful and true,” Williamson said. “After that, I can die happy, you can party, and America will be healed.”

Williamson claimed her presidency will spur the change that she deems necessary to fix American democracy. “[For president], we need a political visionary more than we need a political mechanic… I believe that what I have been through and experienced for the last 35 years is exactly what makes me qualified,” Williamson said.

The Hampton Room town-hall included a Q&A session where attendees could raise their hand to be handed a microphone. At the Rose-Hill theater, rather than answering audience questions, Williamson partook in a moderated discussion with students and then a meet-and-greet with attendees. Williamson answered questions ranging in topic from pharmaceutical corruption, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and her experience vying for the Democratic nomination.

“We need to display as much conviction behind our love today as some people display

behind their hate,” Williamson said. “When we do that, I don’t care what it is. I don’t care if its a narcissistic shameless president … I don’t care if it’s the Russians. Nothing will be able to stand as long as enough people rise up.”

At the Hampton Room, Williamson addressed questions from students who inquired about the process of dealing with difficulty communicating with college administration.

“I think that finding one’s voice is one of the most significant tasks of anyone’s life,” Williamson said. “Particularly for women, it can be hard. If you feel that you are in an institution that does not listen to you, you’re carrying more than our own trauma. ” Williamson attended Pomona College from 1971-1973 before dropping out and later attending classes at The University of New Mexico and the University of Texas. The candidate’s campaign has garnered attention after her statements during the first Democratic debate, with many characterizing her as a non-traditional candidate.

“There’s a reason why those things were said about me,” Williamson said. “It was not well intentioned, but it was well strategized. It was

intentional to make sure I wasn’t out on that third debate stage. My ideas are very inconvenient and that’s the way the system works.”

Interest in Williamson’s campaign spiked after the first Democratic debate, during which Williamson announced a phone call to the prime minister of New Zealand would be her first action as president. Soon after, Williamson received criticism for past statements regarding informed consent and antidepressants.

“Nobody who knows my works, no one who’s read my works, no one who has heard me speak has ever heard me say anything anti-science, has ever heard me say anything anti-medicine, has ever heard me say anything dangerous,” Williamson said.

According to a recent New York Times poll, Williamson currently has a national polling average of under 1%.

“Do I hope I get back on the debate stage?”

Williamson said, “Yes I do. But I also understand how the game is played and how the game has been played.” My reality is that the crowds are growing. My reality is that people are giving me enough to keep doing what I’m doing.”

Photo courtesy of APB Speakers

Photo by Amelie Lee

Michael Barbaro: The Daily Host Visits Scripps

By Sara Michael ’23 Staff Writer

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here aren’t many journalists who have garnered a cult following quite like Michael Barbaro, host of The New York Times “The Daily” podcast, has. Despite covering serious topics like the peril of vaping, the burning of the Amazon, and the Hong Kong protests that can feel distant and confusing to listen to, there’s something about Barbaro’s interviewing that invites a deep level of human connection and emotion to both the interviewee and the audience.

On Oct. 29, Barbaro spoke to a packed audience in Garrison theatre. Barbaro was interviewed by Alex Cohen, anchor of Spectrum News 1 SoCal’s “The Beat on 1,” and spoke about his long history with the journalism industry.

While working as a paperboy in middle school, Barbaro became consumed by the news: how and where a story began and how it unraveled, the layout of the page, and the font used in the article. According to Barbaro, his love for journalism peaked when his mother subscribed to The New York Times. From then on, he knew he wanted to become a journalist. In essence, Barbaro had a career awakening.

After graduating from Yale in 2002, Barbaro worked at The Washington Post as a financial reporter. Three years later, he joined the Times as a retail reporter, and he later covered Donald Trump and the 2016 election.

Pivoting from newspaper writing to podcasts was“terrifying,” according to Barbaro. It was incredibly challenging to figure out what it should sound like, especially because print and radio journalism require very different skill sets.

In the midst of pre-production, Barbaro and his co-workers tried to whip up the perfect concoction of tone and personality, while interweaving dialogue and narrative as well. The best advice he got? “Laugh.” According to Barbaro, by allowing himself to be himself, it became much easier to engage with the interviewee on a personal level.

The resultant impact of Barbaro’s candidness and warmth during interviews is that there’s a new wave of audience members who listen to

Illustration by Vivian Monteiro

the podcast. According to Cohen, more than half of the people who listen to “The Daily” do not read or subscribe to The New York Times.

Yet, according to a 2018 study by Recode, the podcast’s weekly average number of downloads reached 1.1 million.

During this talk, Barbaro explained that his role as a journalist is never to come into an interview with preconceived judgement or disdain. Rather, he stated that in order for someone to open up and be vulnerable, there needs to be a curious and compassionate approach to interviewing.

Lucia Stein ’23, who attended the event, mentioned the most memorable moment for her during the evening.

“I think it was less something he said than something he did,” Stein said. “He talked about how “The Daily” had interviewed the woman at the center of the current [Supreme Court Case] about discrimination in the work place based on gender identity. He talked a little about her story, and how she had finally transitioned and was going to be able to live the life she had always wanted to live, and then she got fired for it. He told the story and looked up at the ceiling to hold back the tears in both the student session and in the talk in Garrison. I just thought it was remarkable that, as he essentially said to us, even after all his time as a journalist and putting out a different podcast literally daily, there are still stories that after hearing them and repeating them make you cry.”

14 November 2019 • The Scripps Voice • Volume XXIX • Issue Four

Features • 5

Rarity of Recognition: the Relationship between Scripps and its Athenas

By Riley Harmon ’22 Staff Writer

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everal Claremont-Mudd-Scripps women’s athletic teams have achieved impressive victories in their 2019 fall season. The CMS women’s cross country team won their Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) race on Nov. 2. The CMS volleyball team won their SCIAC tournament, sweeping Chapman University 3-0 in the final on Nov. 9.

CMS women’s soccer just missed the SCIAC tournament this year, but still won an at-large bid to qualify for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championship tournament because of their impressive 10 wins this season. A doubles team comprised of Catherine Allen ’20, a captain of the CMS tennis team, and Justine Leong ’23 from the CMS women’s tennis team won the Division III doubles championship in the Oracle Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Cup. Nearly one third of the athletes competing this fall for those CMS women’s teams attend Scripps. However, some Scripps athletes have expressed frustration with what they say is a lack of recognition and support provided by Scripps to its student-athletes.

Allen recalled her excitement when transferring from another college in the SCIAC conference to Scripps. However, after a while, she began to feel a sense of disappointment familiar to Scripps athletes within CMS sports: “it is very CMC [Claremont McKenna College] oriented,” Allen said.

“No one on the [Scripps] campus really knows what’s going on unless they are friends with athletes,” Allen said.

“It’s just not defined in Scripps culture to be an athlete,” said Juliana Clark ’20, a member of the CMS lacrosse team and the number nine rank in CMS history for career caused turnovers.

This sense of CMS being CMC-centric re-

flects the organizational structure of CMS. In a statement to the Scripps Voice, Scripps President Lara Tiedens said, “CMC serv[es] as the permanent lead college for CMS, which means that CMC designs and directs the athletics programming.”

Despite the organization of CMS putting CMC in the lead role, in a statement to the Scripps Voice, CMS Athletic Director Erica Perkins Jasper said, “I see the CMS ‘jersey’ first – we are one team.”

Anastasia Bryan-Ajania ’20, a captain of the CMS tennis team, in recognizing CMC’s lead role in CMS still thinks Scripps can still do more from their backseat position to put more truth behind the oneness of CMS. “A first step would be simply spreading awareness on the Scripps campus of when games are happening,” Bryan-Ajania said. “A weekly email should be sent out. It would give non-athletes an opportunity to get together and explore another campus, meet new people, and proudly represent CMS spirit.”

These athletes believe that creating a more supportive athletic culture would be beneficial to “the overall experience of athletes and nonathletes, and even faculty,” Bryan-Ajania said.

Despite these areas of frustration, students say the administration remains a helpful resource for student-athletes balancing their

Photo Courtesy of Claremont McKenna College

academic and athletic responsibilities. Clark had a positive experience with her Deans when they were quick to notify her professors when she got a concussion her first year.

However, other athletes have expressed academic concerns as a result of their team commitments. Abby Johnson ’21, a member of the CMS cross country and track teams who won the SCIAC 1500m championship in 2019, struggles with class scheduling because of practice times conflicting with class times.

“The issue that I run into is that my major only offers four or five classes a semester and I’ll find that two or three or four of them happen during practice and I just don’t have another option,” said Johnson.

“In the way Scripps schedules class section it feels like they are pretending there are not athletes at Scripps,” said Johnson.

Allen echoed this experience. “When I’ve talked to advisers in the past and talked about scheduling for my courses and said, ‘oh I am on the tennis team’ they kind of disregard focusing on athletics as a priority even though it is important to us,” she said.

Recognition in any form is important to Scripps athletes because playing on a varsity college level represents an achievement in itself.

“I’ve learned so much, from being on a team from playing a sport competitively at the collegiate level, it has definitely taught me life lessons and built me as a person,” Allen said.

“There are skills and experiences that you have from being on a team sport in college that you cannot even compare to what you receive in the classroom,” Bryan-Ajania said.

Athletes at Scripps have clearly made an impact on each other and certainly on CMS. With greater recognition of them at Scripps and by Scripps administration, their positive impact can widen within in the Scripps community.

The passion they have for their sports can be demonstrated on campus to a greater extent.

Redefining Leadership through “Read to Lead”

By Hana Ahmed ’23 Staff Writer

T

he Laspa Center for Leadership’s “Read to Lead” book club provides a literary opportunity for current and aspiring leaders at Scripps.

According to the Laspa Center’s recently hired executive director, Vicki Klopsch, Laspa uses community recommendations and best-seller lists to seek out current authors from underrepresented communities and material about ongoing gender inequality in leadership, with the intention that students will reflect on their own experiences as they read and hear different perspectives in the small group setting of a book club meeting.

Read to Lead, which is open to all Scripps College students, faculty, and staff, was launched at Scripps in Spring 2019. The club’s debut book was Brené Brown’s best-seller “Dare to Lead”.

Read to Lead is in part overseen by the Scholars in Action, who are student employees at the Laspa Center. They host several book club meetings throughout the semester and collaborate with Scripps’s Leadership Living Learning Community in Eleanor Joy Toll Hall to hold at least one student-only session. Dates and locations of the meetings are published in the weekly Laspa Center newsletters. The Scholars also work closely with Laspa staff to compile

discussion questions that stimulate conversation about the author’s writing and ideas.

Current Scholar in Action Julia Brock ’22 has moderated two discussion groups so far.

“I wanted the chance to combine my love of reading with my desire to hear from other Scripps students about their ideas of leadership and what it means to be a courageous leader,” Brock said. “Both book clubs I’ve led were very successful; everyone contributed to the conversations by sharing a combination of personal stories and new thoughts generated by the book.”

The Fall 2019 selection is “Brave, Not Perfect” by Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of the non-profit organization Girls Who Code. In continuing the subject of a TED Talk given in 2016, Saujani emphasizes the need to “Teach girls bravery, not perfection,” Saujani sheds light on a universal practice of conditioning girls to play everything safe so as to avoid making mistakes or receiving negative attention.

Through inspiring stories and sincere advice, she implores that women take risks, embrace failures and discomfort and claim agency over their own lives. “‘Brave, Not Perfect’ discusses how to be brave in everything from motherhood to a career,” Brock said. “I appreciated the author’s emphasis on how asking for help can be brave

and is a way for people to establish healthy boundaries. I also enjoyed the personal anecdotes throughout the book because they made the topics of bravery and perfection seem more humanistic and made reading more fun.”

Copies of both Saujani’s “Brave, Not Perfect” and Brown’s “Dare to Lead” are available at the Laspa Center for borrowing. Now that the last fall book club sessions have come to pass, the Spring 2020 title is soon to be announced. Director Vicki Klopsch welcomes and encourages book recommendations for future semesters.

As we forge our academic and professional paths, it is important to reflect on the mission of Scripps College itself: “to educate women to develop their intellects and talents through active participation in a community of scholars, so that as graduates they may contribute to society through public and private lives of leadership, service, integrity, and creativity.”

The Laspa Center for Leadership is vital to this mission, and its Read to Lead book club plays a key role in empowering Scripps students to participate in today’s social and political discourse. The Laspa Center is dedicated to helping us navigate and close gender disparities in leadership positions, and empowers us to not only pave the way to our own success, but to also open doors for future women leaders.

14 November 2019 • The Scripps Voice • Volume XXIX • Issue Four

8 • @Scripps

Eurobash: A Rave to Remember

By Julia Cox ’23 Staff Writer

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rare instance of a large 5C party on Scripps’ campus, Eurobash is a well-attended and highlyanticipated event. Characterized by neon, Europeaninspired club attire and the unforgettable ambiance created by the Scripps parking garage, Eurobash features hip, danceable music in a monitored environment.

While it may have been tempting to decorate excessively, those in charge of Eurobash chose instead to allocate their resources towards the safety and comfort of the guests, with medical staff and equipment on hand as well as pizza, water, and portable toilets readily available. Consequently, the space was put to good use.

Ella Altamirano-Iniestra ’22, the coordinator of Eurobash, sees Eurobash as a success largely because of the safety of the guests.

“As the organizer, my first priority was ensuring that students are not in unhealthy or risky situations at the

event, so I felt like it was a success because it followed all the health and safety measures the administration sets,” Altamirano-Iniestra said. “Honestly Eurobash is the one night a year Scripps is allowed to get loud and have a huge event that brings the 5C’s together, so I was also just happy to see people having fun.”

For those who attended, fun was indeed prevalent – for the most part. Party-goer Esther Adeniji ’22 reported an overall good time with only one drawback; according to Adenji, “the music was better than last year, but it was hard to hear and there were way too many tall guys yelling and pushing people with no care in the world. Other than that, I had a lot of fun getting ready with friends and dancing with them.”

Thanks to the ability to request specific songs and the meticulously chosen tunes of the DJs, the music of Eurobash received many compliments. One DJ, Rose Gil ’22, carefully curated the music both by researching beforehand and by observing the state of the audience at various times.

“I went through all of my playlists and my friends’ playlists and picked the songs that got a strong

reaction out of me,” Gil said. “Even when the party’s actually happening and I gotta pick a song to play next, I observe people’s faces and the way people are moving (or not moving) and I’ll change the order of the songs to lift or accompany what they’re feeling.”

Though she’s only been DJing since January, Gil relies on her own music taste and on the feedback of others to prepare for a successful gig.

“Literally all I do is listen to music, so I’m really conscious about which songs move my energy and how it makes me react once I recognize the first note,” Gil said. “So, reaction and how people go forward with that charged action is what I think about the most when I’m choosing songs… and I asked around a lot to see what people wanted and almost everyone wanted a rager so for that I gravitated more towards genres with higher BPM’s, so Rap, Trap, Latin Rap, and some Raggaeton.”

Thanks to music appropriate for a European rave and careful planning by Altamirano-Iniestra and her team, Eurobash was a hit. I’m already counting down the days until next year’s party.

Illustration by Gabi Seifert

A Seat at the Table: Exploring Scripps’ Lack of Spatial Inclusivity

By Sara Michael ’23 Staff Writer

F

or individuals at Claremont who are fat, plussized, or large, the standard desk model within Scripps classrooms offers a combination of physical discomfort and humiliation. Many chairs in Scripps classrooms have small tables attached, making them uncomfortable and even painful to sit in. This seating complication is an example of spatial discrimination, which is a form of fat shaming that is often overlooked.

It is academically debilitating to struggle with where one is comfortable, or even able, to sit, and is yet another manifestation of the discrimination and humiliation that our society inflicts upon fat people.

“I’ve noticed students in larger bodies being particularly uncomfortable in classes, and it’s not conducive to learning,” said Marissa Parks ’20, who has volunteered extensively with the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA).

Navigating an inhospitable academic environment whose most basic academic resources aren’t accessible to all students can disintegrate fat people’s sense of self. An environment implicitly catering to thin people creates an inherent judgement about what type of body sizes belong in a space and perpetuates the culture of weight stigma deeply rooted in our society.

“If you’re a fat student and you come here and tour, and you take a class, and you can’t fit in a desk, what does that tell you about whether or not you’re welcome here?” said Rose Gelfand ’21, who has written essays about the weight stigma. “Unfortunately, [Scripps] is giving such a clear indication that this is not a space for you, in a way that nobody even has to say. Just the physical size of the space is enough to tell you that this is not your place.”

This expression of weight bias and fat-shaming not only hinders the inclusivity of our academic environments, but learning abilities and retention as well.

According to Cheryl Pump, Procedure Specialist at Scripps, “the Facilities Department provides furniture categorized as “universal,” which means that it accommodates various body types and is flexible for multiple classroom formats. The Department is also able to accommodate requests as received by the Office of Academic Resources and Services.”

However, not everyone finds that the seating at Scripps is inclusive or able to accommodate diverse bodies.

“A friend told me about someone not fitting in a seat at Scripps, and it really upset me and I was like, ‘oh wait, I don’t think I would fit in all the seats anymore’,” said Parks. “That made me really angry because I wanted to know why aren’t there seats that can

accommodate people with different bodies. When I go into a classroom and the desk feels tight, I feel really bad. It makes me wonder if people are looking, and it definitely distracts me from learning.”

However, the potential harm of our academic furniture extends beyond in-class distraction. An article published by Harvard Public Health, titled, “The Scarlet F: Why Fat Shaming Harms Health, and How We Can Change the Conversation” explained the adverse health effects of the stress that comes from fat shaming.

According to this article, “The body adapts to stressful situations by sending out hormones, including epinephrine and cortisol, and by triggering other stress-mediating changes to the heart, muscles, and gastrointestinal tract—the so-called fight-or-flight response.” Confining seating options can also heighten stress levels, as well as harm learning and retention.

Ongoing stress that can be exacerbated by fatshaming comments or interactions can lead to cellular damage, increased risk of heart disease, and type 2 diabetes.

While replacing some academic furniture would require funding, it is a necessary step in order to counteract the alienation of a considerable section of our student body. We must continually create and fight for the diverse and inclusive environment that Scripps strives to model.

14 November 2019 • The Scripps Voice • Volume XXIX • Issue Four

Opinion • 9

Scripps Isn’t Sexist, You Are

A Response to Rosenblatt’s “Scripps’ Priorities are Sexist”

By Alexandra Rivasplata ’22 Staff Writer

T

hink back to when you were a first-year, exiting yet another CORE lecture at Garrison Theatre.

You walk past Denison Library, the Student Union, the Motley Coffeehouse, Seal Court, Vita Nova, the Margaret Fowler Garden, through your resident hall’s browsing room, recreation room and living room.

Sighing out of frustration, you wonder: why there are no spaces on Scripps to study?!

This is the premise of a scathing op-ed entitled, “Scripps’ Priorities are Sexist,” published by The Student Life (TSL) newspaper on Oct. 30.

The author, Margot Rosenblatt ’23, argues in her piece that: “Beyond just the theoretical, Scripps (literally) structurally does not prioritize academics. Other actions and inactions by the Scripps administration makes me wonder what they think Scrippsies are doing in their time outside of class.

Unlike some of those at the other 5Cs, almost all of Scripps’ classrooms are locked during the night.”

Conflating the prioritization of academics with keeping classrooms open for studying does not make much sense. At Scripps, our less public study spaces are mostly facilitated in our residential halls.

Most of our residential buildings were built with amenities such as Browsing Rooms, Living Rooms and Recreation Rooms. Rather than emphasizing a larger communal space like Kravis Center (the Cube) or classrooms, Scripps places an importance on both studying and on being comfortable while doing it.

Furthermore, having all these spaces in each dorm is unheard of in most other 5Cs residential buildings.

Additionally, asking to keep all Scripps classrooms open for longer hours may make it difficult for our maintenance workers to do their jobs.

Moreover, Scripps is the only college of the 5Cs that has its own library. The Ella Strong Denison Library

(Denison) embodies our prioritization for research, studying, and higher education.

However, I do agree that public studying spaces such as Denison and the Student Union can be better marketed to Scripps students. I also understand the appeal of studying in classrooms; this is why the administration opened up Humanities 201 and 204 for the purpose of providing students with a public classroom space to study.

Rosenblatt begins her article by stating that Scripps prioritizes its campus over its academics.

I disagree. The beauty or layout of a campus does not determine the intelligence of its students. As Rosenblatt states in her piece, it is a sexist mindset to view an attractive person as less intelligent simply because of the way they look. Critiquing Scripps as an institution that does not value learning or studying based on the fact that it is the most beautiful campus of the 5Cs is a sexist, shallow, and poorly founded critique. Furthermore, our ratio of academic buildings to extra resource buildings (residential halls and the field house) does not mean that Scripps does not prioritize academics. Rather, as a residential college, it means that Scripps simply wants students to be able to participate comfortably in residential housing, as opposed to living in off-campus housing. We have not yet experienced a crisis involving academic buildings or the class ratio within them. Moreover, the number of buildings a college has is not indicative of the quality of its classes or the intelligence of its students. To argue that ‘more is better’ is to directly contradict the very reason that many students decide to attend small liberal arts colleges.

Additionally, Rosenblatt argues that Scripps’ very mission statement is sexist. In her piece, Rosenblatt states that: “The term “active participation” caught my eye. It seems to imply the low expectation of showing up to class and talking once in a while.” This is a matter of semantics. Active participation is a goal that all

students across the consortium strive for and quite literally means “active.” For example, students who receive a “participation” grade in their classes are quite literally being judged on how actively they participate in their class. To think otherwise is to disregard the definition of the term “active participation.”

Rosenblatt also states that: “Students from other schools don’t think we’re dumb; they think that we don’t prioritize academics as much as they do and are therefore less of a force to be reckoned with in the classroom.” While I believe that there is a bias against Scripps students, it is not because we don’t value academics as much as the other 5C students.

It is, quite simply, a result of misogynistic beliefs often perpetuated by students at other colleges. When these beliefs are perpetuated by Scripps students, it misdirects the root of the problem to superficially portray Scripps negatively.

Rosenblatt concludes her piece saying that it is essential that “[w]e should build more academic buildings and study centers. We should unlock our classrooms...” Though I agree that many Scripps students would value more study hubs, the fact we lack these is by no means indicative of a sexist administration that doesn’t expect excellence from its students. Scripps students are just as capable as any student at the Claremont Colleges; as part of a consortium, we are expected to share our classes, resources, and viewpoints every day. We are held to the same standards at Scripps as any other 5C student. We are “non-stop” and our school has always supported us in regards to academic capability. If you don’t buy it simply because some non-Scripps students don’t, consider how misogyny works.

Sometimes, it’s not on Scripps. It’s on you.

Relevant Source: Read Margot Rosenblatt’s work https://tsl.news/opinion-scripps-priorities-sexist/

Thinking Ahead to Thanksgiving Break: Some Tips for the Holiday

By Aya Burton ’22 Staff Writer s the leaves change color and carpet Elm Tree Lawn, temperatures begin to drop (albeit marginally), and the days grow ever shorter and darker, Scripps students don their sweaters, sip hot spicy chais, and look forward to Thanksgiving Break as a respite from many sleepless nights spent studying. In an ideal world, Thanksgiving Break is a time to catch up with loved ones, engage in some overdue self-care, devour homemade pumpkin pie, or finish that book you’ve been reading for ages. For too many, however, Thanksgiving can be a contentious, stressful, or even lonely time depending on whether you’re spending it with family, at a friend’s, or on campus. Below are some tips for a smooth, rejuvenating, and generally successful break.

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A Break on Campus: Make the most of fall in Claremont When classes are in session, it can be easy to miss Claremont’s subtle seasonal changes. Now that you aren’t rushing from lab to office hours or a meal, spend an afternoon strolling across the campuses at a more leisurely pace, taking in the fall colors and enjoying the temperate weather. Make a stop for coffee or check out the Village’s farmer’s market. If you’re feeling extra autumnal, bake some pumpkin bread in one of the kitchens on campus or read a book on Pomona’s lawn while wrapped in a cozy scarf.

Get ahead of the game Use the quietness of campus to your benefit and grind out some reading, studying, or outlines over the long weekend. Without the distraction of peers or parties, you’ll be able to get ahead on assignments while still maintaining a healthy sleep schedule. Just think of how grateful your future self will be when finals season rolls around and you’ve already prepped some research or solidified your understanding of core concepts.

Catch up on correspondence Now is the time to make the Facetime call you’ve been intending to make for months, respond to emails piling in your inbox, and write back to your penpal whose letter has been sitting on your desk since September. Just because you’re staying on campus doesn’t mean you can’t reach out and give thanks to those near and far – even a quick text message will let someone know you’re thinking of them.

A Break with Family or Friends: Dodge or redirect unwanted questions If spending the break with relatives or family, you’re bound to be interviewed by your immediate family or your friends’ nosy great-aunt about your relationship status, that calculus exam you really don’t want to think or talk about, and parties you know won’t make for acceptable Thanksgiving table talk. Rather than lashing out or responding passive-aggressively to such inquiries, distract the person by offering them a

dish of cranberry sauce or complimenting their cableknit. Better yet, pass the question along to your cousin at the other end of the table while pretending to chew an especially tough piece of turkey.

Ask questions back Before arriving at wherever you’re spending Thanksgiving, brainstorm some questions of your own. These will not only serve as excellent deflections but will also show you care and make the evening pass smoothly and quickly. Use them whenever conversation at the table gets overly heated, personal, or controversial for your taste. Some may call this back-talk, but it is arguably a strategic way to maintain some privacy and keep the table conversation at a safe equilibrium.

Catch up Catch up with friends, family, on that book or television series you’ve been dying to finish, on laundry – anything you’ve been putting off for too long this semester. Take advantage of the long weekend by rekindling connections with those you see only intermittently.

Show thanks It is, after all, Thanksgiving. Try to be patient with family members and relatives and enjoy whatever moments you can over the break. Spend time with siblings, friends, or pets you haven’t seen in a while; help out with the dishes and cooking. Reach out to those near and far for whom you are grateful to have in your life.

14 November 2019 • The Scripps Voice • Volume XXIX • Issue Four

10 • Opinion

Fueling My Fire: A Flame without Embers I

think relationships are kind of like hurricanes.

There has to be the perfect culmination of timing and attraction and expectations and so the chances that everything aligns as it needs to is slim to none. And maybe I’ve been bruised so many times by small and big flames that turn to embers, but in this moment I can’t seem to fathom a fire that doesn’t run out of fuel.

When I met my ex-boyfriend I knew I was settling. Not because he wasn’t lovely, but because I knew from the beginning, even if I never said it, that he and I did not align. The timing was shit, the attraction was slow to build, and the expectations were hardly discussed. After he graduated we tried long distance for three weeks and a combination of poor compatibility as well as minimal effort on his part resulted in embers. In June he broke up with me over an eight-minute phone call, and even though a part of me didn’t even want him anymore, there was a larger part that wanted him to want me. While I can marinate in the self-pity that comes with being broken up with, I should probably spend more time analyzing why it is I’m

By Mirabella Miller ’23 Music Columnist

I

wanting to be wanted.

I, like many women, tend to undervalue myself.

I rarely discuss my own successes, I hesitate to accept a compliment, and when it comes to relationships I’m uncomfortable asking for more.

At its core this stems from insecurity and low self-worth, and while we all have moments of self-doubt, some of us have more than others.

I am one of those people, and I can say from personal experience that it wreaks havoc on your relationships.

When I started dating and hooking up in college I noticed the men I engaged with were often emotionally unavailable. They had issues with vulnerability, communication, and were often wary of commitment. Hindsight is 20/20, but in the moment their lack of emotional readiness brought out what I call “Middle School Girl Insecurities”.

The type of low self-worth where someone’s poor behavior towards you makes you do anything to receive their kindness, affection, and approval.

So that’s exactly what I did. Throughout all my romantic relationships with men I have become

By Faith McDermott ’20 Staff Writer

a version of myself that suits their fancy. I would go to their improv shows, and sports games, and for god’s sake I literally wrote a cover letter for one of them, and after a quick LinkedIn search it appears he got the job. For years now I have been going above and beyond to be their idea of “perfect”--and for what?

When your goal is to be wanted nothing else matters. You don’t care if they’re interesting, or cute, or funny, or compatible. All you care about is that the human you’re spending time with sees you as harboring value. However, that’s not a relationship, or if it is, it’s not a healthy one.

And so for the foreseeable future the only fire I’ll be fueling is the one for me, myself, and I. No boyfriends, no dates, no hookups, no flings. I’m going completely cold turkey. When you struggle to define your own worth, and you remove the people who you had delegated for that role, it can feel as though you’re floundering. And while that can be positively terrifying, it’s a lot scarier to imagine a future full of my own embers.

“Cheap Queen” Takes King Princess from Internet Star to Full-Fledged Artist

n the era of social media, it is increasingly common for young musicians and singers to subvert the traditional path to stardom, becoming social media stars before their formal recognition as artists. This is because social media offers performers a widely accessible and visible avenue to construct their persona, allowing them to capture listeners with their unique style, look, and/or personality before establishing an actual discography. In the 21st century, just one viral feature or single can lead to a cult following, placing the burden on the performer to keep their audience’s interest piqued as they race to follow up their breakout moment with more content.

Mikaela Strauss, who performs under her stage name King Princess, walked this same path to borderline pop stardom. Her single “1950” in 2018, a slow and aching pop ballad about queer love in an era when it wasn’t safe to express publicly, immediately broke the Billboard Top 30 and was eventually certified gold after reaching 500,000 streams and purchases. But beyond appreciating the song in all its tender emotion, people wanted to know more about its creator. Who was King Princess? Where did this girl come from, and when was she dropping more music?

Four months later, she followed up “1950” with a five-song EP, and quickly announced that she was working on an album. Because Strauss is only 20, she was able to deploy her familiarity with social media to create a specific persona in the musical lull leading up to her album.

The enviable nonchalant swagger with which Strauss carries herself is on full display on social media, particularly Instagram. By sharing things like outtakes from her Playboy photo shoot where she’s dressed in a football uniform and videos of her pole dancing to her own songs, Strauss gives the impression that she’s tough, confident, and won’t be fazed by what anyone else thinks.

Additionally, one of the things that fascinated listeners about Strauss from the beginning was her unapologetic queerness and her androgynous expression. She has centered her queerness in her music from the very beginning, yet never wades into identity politics. The fact that she is lesbian isn’t something highlighted in an attempt to stand out from the crowd, but more of a worldview, a lens through which she

sees everything.

Then, on Oct. 25, she dropped her debut album titled “Cheap Queen.” The title is an homage to drag culture, and Strauss appears in drag makeup on the cover. The album is a chronicle of Strauss’ path towards growing up, and she brings her listeners along. Because her listeners

are generally young as well, there’s a sense of growing up together that enhances Strauss’ relatability, which in turn fuels her persona and starpower, the thing that made her in the first place. By connecting with her fans primarily through social media, she is able to cultivate a seemingly personal and direct bond with them that is proving to be valuable to her sales and reach as an artist.

“Cheap Queen” is a chronological and cohesive story of a relationship’s rise and fall. “Ain’t Together” is a catchy and lighthearted song that comes early on the album, perfectly capturing the relationship between two people who care a lot about each other but don’t know if or how they should put a label on what they have.

Strauss expresses confusion in this situation, singing “Being chill, being chill with you / Oh it kills, I ain’t chill at all, at all / We say I love you but we ain’t together / Do you think labels make it taste much better?”

Some of the most powerful and best songs come toward the end of the album, when Strauss is rapidly approaching and subsequently coming to terms with the breakup she memorializes.

On “Isabel’s Moment”, the opening lines are full of uncertainty and sadness; “Maybe it’s over / Maybe it’s not / But hope is a thing that you find when you’re sober / And your clothes are still in my drawers like you’re haunting my home.” It’s obvious that these people realize that they have grown apart, but still have a little bit of lingering hope for their relationship, despite however misguided that hope may be. “Watching My Phone,” which comes a couple of songs later, is equally somber but contains the clarity and self-awareness that accompanies adjusting to a breakup and getting over it. “I apologize / For holding you so tight you couldn’t breathe / And thinking you’d be fine,” she sings, acknowledging how her behavior might have played a role in the breakup. This is followed by the lines “And I know I / Can’t be the million girls you’re going to meet / And I think that’s alright.” In these lines, she sounds a bit resigned, but gives an unapologetic shrug: Strauss can’t be anything but herself.

While the songs on “Cheap Queen” maintain a cohesive storyline, they are unexpectedly quite varied in pace and genre inspiration. One of Strauss’ strengths is the smokiness and raspiness of her voice, and it works in a variety of contexts to add character to songs ranging from power ballads to melodic whispers to dance tracks. On “Hit the Back,” an upbeat club anthem, she snarls out “Ain’t I the best you had?” repeatedly on the chorus, the texture of her voice making the remark even more impactful on the listener. But on the final track, a beautifully meditative slow song called “If You Think It’s Love,” the unique humming quality of her voice draws out even more emotion from the simple lyrics. “If you think it’s love, it is,” she sings. “And if you think it’s trust, it is.”

These are the final words on the album, and the lessons and themes these lines convey are what Strauss leaves us with. Within these ending lyrics, she reaffirms the importance of trusting your gut through tumultuous experiences, knowing yourself, and not shying away from challenges because they are often opportunities for valuable growth. For a young artist with an equally young fanbase, it’s an impactful message. Strauss’s voice, unique lens, and ability to pack her songs with emotion on “Cheap Queen” solidify her establishment as an artist.

14 November 2019 • The Scripps Voice • Volume XXIX • Issue Four

Photo Courtesy of Pitchfork

Opinion • 11

“BoJack” brings Hollywood culture to audience’s analysis

By Amelie Lee ’23 Copy Editor Intern

“B

oJack Horseman” is a weird show. With a talking horse as our protagonist, various interspecies relationships and ridiculous tongue twisters every episode (get Hippopopalous and topple the acropolis of monstrous hypocrisy that ensconces us), the sheer absurdity of the series implies a slapstick comedy, rife with inside jokes and animal puns. Yet, while the show never fails to deliver with its bizarre humor, the comedic quality isn’t reminiscent of the feel-good nature of “Bob’s Burgers” or the wit of “Rick and Morty.” Instead, “Bojack Horseman” uses its pink cats and cheerful golden retrievers to deliver a brutally honest portrait of mental illness, addiction and the power dynamics ingrained in Hollywood culture.

Since the show first premiered in 2014, its six seasons haven’t shied away from the harsh, depressing reality of present day media. Our protagonist BoJack is no exception to this unsparing portrayal, a washed up T.V. star coping with the loss of his glory days with alcoholism and barely functioning due to depression and self hatred. Throughout the

six seasons of the show, BoJack has done some truly awful things, using his fame to manipulate others and inadvertently hurting those who care about him. Yet watchers identify with him, and understand how his childhood trauma and addiction disempowers him from becoming a better person. While the show never justifies his actions, it paints a picture of a man desperately trying to improve, held back by crippling depression and a lack of personal and social accountability.

This three dimensionality allows the audience to both empathize with BoJack and reconsider how to move past their own worst decisions.

Viewers also see themselves in his best friend Diane Ngyuen, a socially active writer, who embodies the confusing intersection between “woke” social media and a cancel culture that never truly succeeds in sparking personal change or societal improvement. Her commitment to “calling out damaging behavior in Hollywood is clearly in conflict with her friendship with Bojack.

This depicts a problem that many social activists identify with today:

an inability to live up to your own high standards of social justice.

“BoJack Horseman” does an incredible job of portraying mental illness and navigating today’s socially complicated world, and it acknowledges its own faults through the story, with characters constantly questioning whether having toxic characters in successful media glorifies or justifies their behavior. BoJack Horseman, both the character and the show, walk a fine line on the concept of glorification, doing their best to showcase the reality of harmful behavior without showing it in a positive light.

Netflix has split the last season into two halves, with the first half released in October and the second half due January. The first half of season 6 stays true to what “BoJack Horseman” does best: each character is a three-dimensional representation of someone working to maintain their personal values among the corruption of Hollywood and the difficulties of mental illness.

The show doesn’t create its own commentary; instead, it grapples with complex questions without providing a clear answer. How can media accurately portray violent and toxic men without glorifying

them? Should society “cancel” celebrities for their actions or should they be allowed to self improve? Are mental illness and substance abuse ever an excuse for hurtful actions? Is there any way to forgive yourself or other people for causing irreparable trauma?

While the show is easily one of my favorite television series of all time, the story of BoJack isn’t one that is easy to watch. The characters aren’t ones you can glorify or be proud of. With every episode, I continually struggle between wanting BoJack to be punished for his actions and hoping that he will be redeemed into a good person by the end of the series. As the series comes to a close in January, I know that the creators of the show won’t choose either black and white option. If “BoJack Horseman” is to conclude in a continual vein as the first half of the last season, January’s release will only further this nuanced story of personal and social accountability under the scathing spotlight of Hollywood media.

Who Lives Off Whom?

A Review of Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite

By Sara Michael ‘23 Staff Writer

S

ome of my most vivid childhood memories are of me and my cousins playing a Nancy Drew video game in the basement on their 2004 Macintosh. As my cousins clacked on the keyboard, navigating Nancy Drew through winding tunnels and castle staircases, I felt my heart thumping through my itchy pink sweater, my eyes wide in anticipation. I knew peril was lurching, but I didn’t know just how it would make its entrance. Watching South Korean director Bong Joon-Ho’s Palme d’Or winning film “Parasite” conjured up the same sweatypalm, fearful-yet-too-curious-toshut-my-eyes feeling.

The film centers around the Kims and the Parks, two families who lead strikingly different lives.

The Kims — father, Kim Ki-taek (Song Kang-Ho), mother, Chungsook (Jang Hye-Jin), daughter Ki-jeong (Park So-dam), and son Ki-Woo (Choi Woo-shik) live in a grungy, stink-bug infested semibasement on the margins of society. Destitute and desperate, Chung-sook accepts his friend’s job as an English tutor for a highschool girl, while he is studying abroad. The high-school girl,

Park Da-hye (Jung Ji-so), lives with her family— the Parks — in a modernist mansion, which is where these families’ worlds collide and where all the drama disentangles. Her mother, Mrs. Park (Cho Yeo-jeong) hires KiWoo immediately. Then, Ki-Woo recommends his sister, passing her off as a friend of friend, as the Park’s young son’s art teacher.

After Ki-Woo subtly plants evidence that gets the Parks to fire their old chauffeur and housekeeper, they hire Mr. and Mrs. Kim, and, suddenly, both families—one toiling away in labor and the other loafing off of it—wind up under the same roof.

The Kims balance precariously on the threshold of their new careers, recognizing how expendable they are because the Kim’s have the resources to hire and fire without thinking twice.

As the movie hurdles forward, the vibrato of tension and anticipation heightens, and the audience is left wondering what is going to happen next.

The first half of the film, chock full of dark humor, meticulously sets up the shock that comes later, pushing the audience to

consider why we were initially so entertained.The film ends with stabwounds, bloodshed, death from both families, but at the end, the Kims are the ones carrying the heavy burden of loss. Although I anticipated some narrative downfall, I never could’ve predicted whose downfall would play out.

At the core, the movie is about crawling up and down the social staircase. “Parasite” is a metaphorical tightrope walk

between lack and excess, while never explicitly calling attention to its methods of craft. Joon-Ho sets excess and impoverishment at odds with each other, spotlighting the noxious nature of capitalism in everyday life.

It’s a film that documents the underclass bubbling up from where they were hidden deep underground, and it makes you wonder who the true parasite is.

Who is living off of whom?

14 November 2019 • The Scripps Voice • Volume XXIX • Issue Four

Photo Courtesy of ScreenRant

12 • Features

An Abundance of Courtyards

By Theodora Helgason ’22 Staff Writer

C

ourtyards operate in this in-between place between nature and architecture. They are contained by the walls of man, yet inside those walls are contained gardens of green. This multi-faceted meaning of the courtyard turns out to be important to Scripps’ identity as a college.

If there is one thing that Scripps has an abundance of, it is courtyards. So how do they shape Scripps? “[Scripps] is a gem not only because of its fine architecture, but because the campus was planned as an artistic whole,” according to a walking tour pamphlet published in 1982 entitled “Walking Tour: The Claremont Colleges. “The buildings and landscape at Scripps are not separate entities; they are carefully and consistently linked through the use of natural geographic features, walks and visual axes.”

This seamless unity between the outdoor and indoor spaces on campus is also highlighted in the February 1948 edition of “The Scripps College Bulletin”. According to the Bulletin, “the total plan of the campus has always called for artistic connection between buildings and landscape. This has led to fine care in linking walks and vistas to architectural approaches.”

According to “Architectural Planning of the American College,” Scripps was intended to be more like a home in comparison to the architecture of most traditional masculine institutions.

According to the guide, Scripps has so many courtyards because courtyards are apparently considered to be architecturally feminine. Perhaps that can be attributed to the natural sphere being associated with womanhood and “manmade” institutions being rigid and traditionally maledominated spaces.

Scripps’ architecture was meant to depart from the status quo of institutional and masculine architecture and this meant building courtyards and constructing a multitude of outdoor spaces.

Toll Hall’s courtyards are especially notable because the hall was the first building to be constructed on the campus. From the beginning, Scripps has valued the beauty of its courtyards.

Scripps’ courtyards are actually quite diverse in their botanical origins. Browning Hall’s courtyards are named for the foreign fields that inspired these gardens.

Scripps was intended to be more like a home in comparison to the architecture of most traditional masculine institutions “The central court in Ellen Browning Hall was called Mañana Court because the original planting, with the exception of the Eucalyptus tree, was all native to Mexico,” writes Professor Bruce A. Coates in Guide to the Scripps College Campus. “One of the small courts is called Turtle Court, so named because of the turtle fountain in it, and another court on the north side is called the Japanese

Garden since all of the original planting was native to Japan.”

Naming Scripps’ courtyards after the natural beauty that they envelop seems to be a Scripps tradition in its own right. Clark Hall’s Olive Court, for example, was named for an olive tree that shades a corner of the courtyard.

The Scripps gardens have also been involved in protest throughout the history of the college. In 1936, Scripps students protested to get the central quadrangle grassed.

“When the decision was made in 1968 to construct the Humanities Building on this site, many students and alumnae protested the proposed destruction of the gardens, especially the Olive Grove. In May 1968, students occupied the trees, refusing to allow them to be cut down,” wrote Coates.

Like the courtyards, the Margaret Fowler Garden took diverse inspiration from foreign gardens.

According to Coates, the architect’s sketch of the proposed garden was sent to many friends of Mrs. Fowler including to France and Hawaii to ask if they would like to contribute to the planting of the garden. “Responses were generous and worldwide.”

According to the October 1928 edition of The Scripps College Bulletin, “Through the quick responses of the eye the Scripps student is constantly reminded that the loveliness surrounding her is not her private egoistic possession. It is hers as a member of the groups; her so far as she enters into the life of the group; hers only in the spirit of fellowship. The courts of Toll Hall are the parts of it where the architect has given rein to his sense of beauty, and these courts are common property of the fifty young women who temporarily possess this hall.”

The beauty of the Scripps campus is a shared one. Perhaps what we can learn about Scripps from its courtyards is that Scripps takes inspiration for its outdoor spaces from around the world. The history of our land also tells us that Scripps students have always been activists and that activist history is also intertwined with the outdoor spaces of the college.

14 November 2019 • The Scripps Voice • Volume XXIX • Issue Four

SPOTLIGHT

6

7

Selecting the Most Suitable Study Abroad Program

By Crystal Juan ’22 Staff Writer

F

or sophomores looking to study abroad in Fall 2020, the approaching Study Abroad Global Education (SAGE) deadline on Dec. 2 at 5pm is daunting to say the least. While SAGE representatives provide the basic resources to start planning for your time abroad, the lived experience of our fellow 5C students may be the most valuable decision-making tool you come across. Thus, TSV is here to provide you with upperclassmen and alumni accounts of their time abroad.

The Scripps Voice (TSV): Did you ever second guess leaving home and going abroad for an entire semester?

If so, how did you adjust when you got there?

“It was super hard to leave Claremont and be away from my friends. The school I attended [University College London] was the exact opposite of Scripps so I really struggled with that for a while.

But it reminded me of all the things that I took for granted at Scripps and all the things that I loved about the Claremont Colleges that can be easy to forget until you leave them” (Maureen Cowhey ’19).

“I had my doubts about going abroad once I got on the plane and realized that I was going 10 hours away by plane.

But, thankfully once I got there, I met incredible people that were going through the same thing so I felt more at ease that way. There were definitely ups and downs, but FaceTime and phone calls were truly my saving grace” (Nicole Pang ’20).

“I wanted to have a semester that was out of the ordinary. That included being in a country where I didn’t know the language, didn’t like the food, and was obviously a visitor as a white person. It was important for me to connect with the other students in my group to get some English time, but equally important to connect with my host family and teachers, to feel immersed in the language, to learn the geography of every place I went to, etc. so that I could feel like I was becoming closer to Mongolia and feel something like home” (Rein Irving ’20).

“Yes definitely, it was a pretty hard decision and I was constantly doubting if I made the right decision. Honestly, I didn’t have a hard time adjusting as my host family made me feel like part of the family right when I got there. I also tried to establish a daily routine with school, travelling, and other small things to help me adjust with the life there” (Nicole Tan CMC ’20).

“I didn’t second guess studying abroad.

I think it’s really important for your education to go abroad. It’s important to be exposed to a different cultural experience and to live on your own. To have that opportunity as an undergrad is so awesome because you learn so much about yourself, and I think it really benefits you in the long run. Studying abroad makes your last year of college so different because you feel a bit more prepared about what’s to come after graduation” (Ana Bryan-Ajania ’20).

TSV: Did you feel homesick, and how did you cope with it?

“I coped with homesickness by staying busy! It’s easy to sit in your room and watch Netflix and feel sad, but I would go to a museum, explore the city, walk around a park, or anything on my very very long and constantly updated list of things to do in London. I always felt better after I came back from exploring, and I felt less alone being out and about and being a part of the city” (Cowhey ’20).

“Homesickness is so hard to deal with. It hits you in waves when you least expect it, but how I typically coped was by remembering that I didn’t have a lot of time abroad and I’d be home soon” (Pang ’20).

“I called my family around once a week and texted them a little bit every day to help with homesickness. I made an effort to find Asian food and snacks. I also made travelling plans to see my friends from home who were studying in London” (Tan ’20).

“Absolutely. Absolutely felt homesick.

I think, again, everyone feels homesick when they go abroad. I missed home a lot. One thing that’s great is that you have Americans on the program with you so they’re experiencing [homesickness] generally at the same stages so I was able to confide in them, and we were able to

support each other. Also, I think that sitting down and recognizing that I don’t have much time here [in Sweden] helped.

It made more sense to maximize my time here. This is a temporary living situation and a temporary experience. Why not take advantage of it as much as possible?”

(Bryan-Ajania ’20).

TSV: How did you deal with culture shock?

“I didn’t really experience culture shock in London. I absolutely loved London and I always felt safe in the city, and it felt like home by the end of the semester” (Cowhey ’20).

“I got shocked so hard, it was like I hit the reset button. I remember walking around Ulaanbaatar on my first day, looking for somewhere to eat, not knowing how to read Cyrillic—I stepped into many places before finding a restaurant. There, I pointed to a random item on the menu. It was goat. I was a vegetarian for 10 years.

Nothing was the same as home, so it wasn’t hard to adjust, because it was not even comparable. It was only when I started thinking about how different things were in Mongolia that I ever panicked. But if I was just going with the flow, allowing myself to laugh at my mistakes and my confusion, everything was ok” (Irving ’20).

TSV: What are some things that we may take for granted as American students?

“I think I took being a liberal arts student for granted. I was at a giant research university and the professors had no obligations to meet with me or form any type of relationship with me.

Also, the students only studied one thing since the end of high school, and it wasn’t at all interdisciplinary and people didn’t bring in ideas or concepts from other subjects like they do at Scripps” (Cowhey ’19).

“Toilet paper, clean water, vegetables, seatbelts! There was a lot that I have at home

njania ‘20 Ana Bryan-A in Sweden

Maureen Cowhey ‘19 in london, England

that I didn’t have in Mongolia. Conversely, there was a lot in Mongolia that I don’t have here. What was most interesting to me was seeing how Mongolia’s history has shaped its education system—critical thinking is not as emphasized there, so we learned in a way that is very different than at Scripps” (Irving ’20).

throughout the city of Stockholm because it was such a magnificent and safe place, I would’ve been able to do that. I typically don’t go exploring by myself in Claremont just because it’s so hard to get around to places in LA, so I wish that I could’ve taken advantage of that a little more when I was abroad” (Pang ’20).

“We definitely take safety for granted especially coming from Claremont. A lot of students got their laptops and backpacks stolen in school when they left it out in the classrooms or hallways.

I feel like because we come from places where this isn’t as much of an issue, we are definitely less alert and aware of our safety” (Tan ’20).

“I wish I had the confidence to talk to my host family more. It was hard to communicate as I was a beginner in Mongolian language, so I often stayed quiet. But even trying and failing to communicate could have helped us connect more, I was just too nervous to sound silly” (Irving ’20).

TSV: What is the one thing you wish you would’ve done/done more of?

“I probably should have studied throughout the semester rather than cramming everything into the last 3 weeks, but my goal for going abroad wasn’t to focus on school but to experience life in a new place and be independent and explore and travel and be happy… a lot of stuff I didn’t necessarily do while at Scripps” (Cowhey ’19).

“I wish I did more solo exploring

14 November 2019 • The Scripps Voice • Volume XXIX • Issue Four

“I wish I travelled a little more and worried less about my school work” (Tan ’20).

“I wish I was able to travel a bit more. I wish I was more present sometimes and recognized how amazing this opportunity was” (Bryan-Ajania ’20).

TSV: What was the best thing you did/ saw/experienced? What was the most valuable part of your experience?

“My best experience was afternoon tea

Nicole Tan CMC ‘20 in Sweden in London! It was always the best day!”

(Cowhey ’20).

“The best thing I saw was every day at meal time. It was really cool to participate in my host family’s slaughter and meat preparation every day. I got to connect to the whole process of meat eating that I never got to see at home” (Irving ’20).

“I travelled to London to meet two of my high school friends and that was definitely the highlight of my trip because it was really nice just to be with familiar people after a long time of living and studying ‘alone’” (Tan ’20).

“Of course I had my go-to café. I would study there every single day, and I met this really sweet Swedish waitress there.

We hung out a lot and still message today...The most valuable part of my experience was that I learned so much about myself. You learn so much about what’s important to you and what you need in order to have a well-balanced life. Challenge yourself by meeting new people and experiencing new cultures. I know it made me a stronger person for sure ” (Bryan-Ajania ’20).